[MD] Science and the MOQ

[David M]

Krim:> I am not saying that we can avoid making assumptions. I'm saying we 
should
> avoid making stupid assumptions.

DM: Great, except how do we really spot these?

When we ask others to make assumptions with
> us we should be prepared to explain why.

DM: Exactly what I am asking you to do.

The conscious germ and electron
> assumptions offer nothing in the way of explanatory power. All I can see
> that they do is offer a bogus sense of identity. Rather like, "If I were 
> an
> electron I know that I would prefer this state to that state and I would
> want to do thus and so." Now if there is some serious advantage to this 
> line
> of thinking, great. But Platt has certainly not been forthcoming with it. 
> I
> can tell you are sympathetic but really have not shown me much either.
> The question is not whether we make assumptions, it is about what kind of
> assumption we make and why.

DM: Sure, I agree. I really get this from Whitehead where he suggest
that dropping the assumptions of an inanimate realm helps us to
see the non-dualistic nature of life and its development of inorganic
capacities that eventually gives us consciousness as incremental
and as likely to have some lower level aspect in inorganic processes.