[MD] Realism and anti-realism

[MarshaV]

Hi Mark, 


Try this:

rel·a·tiv·ism 
noun Philosophy .
any theory holding that criteria of judgment are relative,  varying with individuals and their environments.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/relativism 



Marsha 



On Dec 13, 2011, at 1:32 PM, 118 wrote:

> Hi Ham,
> As always, we differ slightly in our philosophies, and I do not want
> to belabor that difference.  I present some reply below simply as my
> opinion on the subject.
> 
> I appreciate your well thought out replies, and they force me to find
> better ways to express my philosophy which in turn takes me to new
> levels.  For this I thank you.
> 
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> [Mark had said in jest:]
>>> Hmmm the use of a double negative sounds familiar from somewhere...
>> 
>> 
>> You're alluding, of course, to my 'negated nothingness' theory of Difference
>> creation.  But that's a cosmology, not a doubly-negated attitude or
>> persuasion.  If one is opposed to opposition, does that make him an
>> "anti-anti oppositionist"?  If a politican is an anti-anti-conservative,
>> does that mean he is a "moderate"?  You see the problem, Mark?
> 
> Mark:
> Quite honestly I do not see much difference.  Your double negation
> seems to me to be no different from our "pulling out" from essence
> that which delivers value.  Excluding an exclusion (double negate)
> takes us right back to "realizing" value from the all inclusive
> Essence of potentiality.  In common parlance this is called
> "Creation".
> 
> If a politician is an anti-anti-conservative it means he does not
> associate himself with the anti-conservative movement.  It does not
> necessarily mean that he is a moderate.  It just means that he is
> against the stand of the anti-conservatives.  If one is opposed to
> opposition, it means that he does not believe that opposition is the
> correct way to deal with things.  Of course this is illogical semantic
> nonsense, like "understanding our understanding".  What does that
> second phrase mean?  Is it a squared function of some kind, or is it a
> set of all sets kind of thing?  Besides fear not, for everything I
> tell you is wrong.  Yes, even that.  Don't get too caught up in the
> logic behind rhetoric, it is meant to give you a picture, not an
> equation.
>> 
> [Mark before on Objective Reality]
>>> This dictum of "objective reality as existence" is precisely what we
>>> are questioning in order to formulate a more revealing picture.
> 
> [Mark on the sense of Control]>>
>>> A philosophical endeavor is to question this "control in our world".
>>> I would submit that we "deal" with this world, but are far from
>>> controlling it, and it is this sense of control which has led to our
>>> current predicament (if such a thing exists).  When we sail and use
>>> the wind to propel us along, we are far from controlling the wind.
>>> We are simply dealing with the wind as it presents itself, in the same
>>> way that a river deals with the landscape it is flowing through.  The
>>> river cannot be said to "control" the terrain it is flowing through;
>>> it cannot control those illusive forces which guide it from higher to
>>> lower.
>>> 
>> 
>> [Ham]
>> Mark, I have said before that man's freedom is limited to the physical
>> parameters of existence.  By investigating and defining these parameters,
>> however, we can predict tsunamis and hurricanes, identify dangerous or
>> injurious environments, and thereby avoid situations that might otherwise
>> harm us.  Is this not a measure of control?
> 
> I prefer the term adaptation, since it provides a more realistic
> picture in my view.  I can ask you, do we have control of our destiny?
> If so, how?  Do we have control over how our brain works?  If so,
> what part of the brain controls the rest of the brain?  If our brain
> is in control, then what controls it?  I am not pointing to a world we
> can only experience like a movie, I am questioning your sense of
> control.  From where does this control emanate?  If it is spiritual,
> where is the connection between the spiritual and the material?  That
> is, how does the spiritual become material?
>> 
> 
> [Ham on the Proprietary Self and its relative existence]
>>>> Secondly, when you say we "can't make any sense of the notion of
>>>> descriptions of reality that are objective in the sense of being true
>>>> without regard to human practice," aren't you comfirming the fact that
>>>> existence is relative? And if human understanding is based on our
>>>> experience of existence, the truths we derive from this experience must
>>>> be relative as well.  (One of them is that we live in a relational world,
>>>> which neither proves nor disproves an ultimate, non-relational Reality.)
>>> 
>>> 
> [Mark previously questioning the term relative as it pertains to
> relativism of existence]
>>> As I have questioned Marsha, I will ask you: Relative to what?  What
>>> is existence related to?  What tool of comparison do we use to
>>> juxtapose existence?
>>> 
>>> A relational world is opposed to a relative world (how's that for a
>>> dictum?).
>> 
>> 
>> I don't see why you and Marsha have so much trouble with the relativity
>> concept.  The fact that experience is proprietary to each self means that
>> knowledge is relative to the knower. Thus, if I am unable to swim, I have a
>> different conception of the ocean than the swimmer does.  Again, if you are
>> allergic to peanuts, you will experience peanut brittle in a different way
>> than I do.  All events and objects are differentiated by the way we
>> experience them, and that experience is relative and unique for each
>> individual.  So our knowledge of what is "good" or "bad", desirable or
>> repulsive, is really subjective in essence.  In other words, because Value
>> is relative to the sensibility of the observer, very litle of what we know
>> can be considered "universal truth".
> 
> Mark
> OK, I was caught up in Relativism.  I did a google search on relative
> and copied the first hit that came up and pasted the first three
> definitions:
> 
> rel·a·tive, adj.
> 1. Having pertinence or relevance; connected or related.
> 2. Considered in comparison with something else: the relative quiet of
> the suburbs.
> 3. Dependent on or interconnected with something else; not absolute.
> 
> I was using the second definition, which is what I believe Relativism
> uses, that is, your existence is compared to somebody elses existence.
> 
> If we simplify this as you did, focusing on knowledge, I would say:
> saying that knowledge is connected to the knower seems a bit
> redundant.  To say it is relative implies that personal knowledge and
> the knower are two different things.  Can there be a knower without
> knowledge?  Can there be knowledge without a knower?  Your inability
> to swim emanates from you, it is not connected to you, it IS you.
> Perhaps a better term would be "emanate".  Experience emanates from
> each self, since we cannot distinguish the self and what it
> experiences.
> 
> emanate [ˈɛməˌneɪt]
> vb
> 1. (intr; often foll by from) to issue or proceed from or as from a source
> 2. (tr) to send forth; emit
> 
> Above you stated "very little is universal truth" which we can deal
> with that at a later date since this has an impact on Essentialism.  I
> am curious on your use of the word "little".  This word is a can of
> worms, let's go fishing some time!
>> 
> [Mark on the vagaries of Proof]
>>> A proof is a structure which gives an axiom substance.  However
>>> such a proof is based on assumptions.  The assumptions cannot be
>>> proven although often the derived proof is then reversed to prove the
>>> assumptions.  We see accepted proofs fall apart with non-Euclidean
>>> geometry, for example, simply because such "non" geometry does not
>>> accept the Euclidean assumptions.  When we do not accept that
>>> objective reality is the ground from which to work from, your original
>>> statement concerning such reality also falls apart.
>> 
>> [Ham on the direct correlation between our assumptions and living experience]
>> We get our "assumptions" from living experience.  Even the laws of math and
>> logic are derived experientially.  The only "proof" we can ascertain is from
>> those axioms that work.  It's the scientific approach to knowledge that we
>> call objective pragmatism.  I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to prove
>> here, but existentiality does provide a reliable and consistent "ground to
>> work from", despite the relational differences in human perception.
> 
> Ham, do you really think you get your assumptions from living
> "experience"?  What "experience" do you have that the existential
> philosophers, that you like to bring in, "existed"?  You assume that
> this is the case (of course this is quite healthy for such structure
> you emanate).  What "experience" do you have that the earth travels
> around the sun?  I would claim that most of your assumptions have been
> handed down to you through the written word, or some elderly tale.
> Living experience has provided very little to you in the academic
> setting except for faith in what you read.  Again, I am not saying
> that you are incorrect to place much value on these things that are
> "passed along to you".  But, most of it is in your head.
> 
> The laws of math are NOT derived experientially.  Perhaps you are
> thinking of counting bushels of hay or something.  I am speaking of
> math, not its application.  The math of physics is very different from
> pure math.  In set theory, what is the experience of "the set of all
> sets?"  Please point to that for me.  What is the experience of
> infinity?  I have yet to bump into it in a dark alleyway.  I have yet
> to see 1+1=2 on my hikes through the mountains, and I have looked
> under every rock.  How is it that I can pragmatically experience that?
> It does not exist outside of our heads.
> 
> The scientific approach is putting one's hand in the shower to see if
> it is hot, and then moving on to the enthalpy of vaporization from
> there.  It is collecting data, predicting a theory and then fitting
> the data to that theory.  Then using the theory to predict data to be
> generated.  Of course if the data is used to generate the theory, then
> the theory will generate the data.  Trouble is, out at the edges it
> becomes difficult to fit the data back in, so the theory is expanded
> to account for it.  Sooner or later a better theory comes in for
> fitting and generating data, and so it goes on an on ad infinitum.
> It's like building a house and having to keep adding rooms for the new
> children.  Sooner or later it becomes more practical to just buy a new
> house.  These days we are trying to build a house that will house all
> of our data.  But there will still always be those edges requiring a
> new room and eventually a new house.  Of course I am not touching on
> the "House of our Lord" (heh, heh).
> 
> This is the process of creating a reality.  What works today may not
> work tomorrow.  It is our subjective interpretation of what works that
> belies the objectivity of science.
> 
> If peasants put garlic on their doors, the vampires do not attack.
> Therefore this idea "works" and proves the existence of vampires.
> Much of science works through this "absence" methodology even thought
> scientist do not realize they are creating a vampire.  There is
> nothing objective to it, we are connecting the stars in the sky as we
> subjectively see fit.  Newtonian mechanics is a constellation.
> 
> 
>> You claim to be a scientist; yet a scientist would never form a conclusion
>> from a flip of a coin or mere intuition.  Instead he would examine the
>> object, determine its composition and physical properties, and categorize it
>> in relation to other objects of its type.  The truth he arrives at is
>> objective, and it's enough to satisfy our need for relational (i.e.,
>> empirical) knowledge.  Metaphysical Truth is a different matter altogether,
>> as it can only be "intuited", never experienced.  Which is why I maintain
>> that the simplest way to understand Reality is to acknowledge its two forms
>> or modes: Essence and Existence.
> 
> Yes, I claim to be a scientist only because I make a living at it.  I
> also claim to be many other things.  I claim to be what I express or
> emanate.  For that is my Quality.  All of what you present above is a
> subjective interpretation of that which is "relative" to you.  How do
> you separate yourself from what you determine?  How is it that what
> you experience with your mind in your "physical properties evaluation"
> is different from what you experience with your mind in terms of
> metaphysics?  You yourself said that knowledge is particular to the
> knower.  Does some knowledge somehow become unparticular?
>> 
>> 
>> Do you really believe I'm caught up in the "dogmatic structure of the 21st
>> century", Mark?
> 
> Yup!  All this talk of pragmatic knowledge and how science is devoid
> of subjectivity.  It seems to me that you are.  You are happy with
> making objects out of everything and labeling them all with words as
> if that is what knowledge is all about.  I see a cluttered mind (mine
> is cluttered too, and I am currently using the maid service provided
> by MoQ).
> 
>> Perhaps it's because, unlike some cultists, I refuse to pretend that
>> objective existence is an illusion, a myth or "pattern" of no significance.
>> This is the reality you and I participate in, and the fact that it is
>> impermanent sheds 'intuitive light' on the probability that there is a
>> permanent reality underlying all existence.
> 
> Perhaps you refuse to pretend that you are pretending.  In this case
> you could be an anti-anti-pretender.
>> 
>> Peace, and a joyous holiday season to you and yours,
>> Ham
> 
> And you!
> Mark
>> 
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