[MD] Realism and anti-realism

[118]

Hi Marsha,
Thanks

Sent laboriously from an iPhone,
Mark

On Dec 13, 2011, at 11:05 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

> 
> 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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