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From: mike@hpfclp.UUCP (mike)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <4500005@hpfclp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 14:57:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfclp.4500005
Posted: Fri May 10 14:57:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 20-May-85 08:36:19 EDT
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Nf-From: hpfclp!mike    May 15 10:57:00 1985

I'm sure there are many persons who will enjoy SUPERFORCE and find it to
be exactly what they want to hear.  That reality is not  objective--that
"Modern  Science" has shown things to be different  depending on how you
look at them--that there are no absolutes and there is no truth that can
be claimed with  absolute  certainty--that  any ideas about  reality are
merely loose  approximations or incomplete  models--that  existence is a
function of your mind where  anything  goes--that  the concepts of cause
and effect are  atavistic  notions that will only confuse you if you try
to  understand  Davies'  modern  physics--that  reality is replete  with
contradictions--that  A is not A.  These  are the  modern  20th  century
"scientific" ideas I found in Davies' book.

Ken Arndt writes:
                                                              
>            **** 'NON-OBJECTIVE REALITY'?????  What is that?
> What is OBJECTIVE reality?  We don't speak any more of objective
> or non-objective reality in modern science.  It appears that ALL 'reality'
> is subjective and from our point of view.  By the way, that happened in
> philosophy around 1700.  A.D.  I realize that it is still bandied about
> that 'science' is somehow 'hard' and deals with 'facts' while the rest
> is just toothpaste.  

Non-objective  reality is exactly  what Davies is  preaching.  He states
that the observer and the observed are  intimately  tied  together--that
the phenomenon one is observing  would be different if one was not there
to observe it.  By merely  examining  reality,  you change  what you are
examining--thus  your mind can only perceive  distortions of reality and
that these distortions will be different each time you look.  Let anyone
who believes  this theory prove it to me by means of data not derived by
his five  senses--senses  that  "science"  has  shown  can't be  trusted
because they give us only approximate, subjective perceptions of reality
and that they are  powerless to find any absolute  truth or certainty in
the "Modern Physics'" reality.

Objective  reality rests on the axiom that existence exists.  Axioms are
arbitrary  you say?  Let anyone who does not  believe  this axiom try to
prove a theory  without  using  it--that is, by means of  non-existence.
The axiom implies two  corollaries:  That something  exists that one can
perceive.  And  that  a  consciousness   exists  capable  of  perceiving
something.  Existence is  identity.  A is A.  Yes, there are still a few
of us who speak of  objective  reality,  and who are  living in the 20th
century, although  unfortunately, we are a vanishing breed.  One thing I
can tell you is that it is  damned-near-impossible  to communicate  with
anyone who has never tried to grasp the full meaning of this fundamental
axiom.  Those who have  acquiesced  to the point that they are no longer
believe that it is possible to know something with certainty have become
the  destroyers  of  science,  and  the  haters  of any  other  rational
endeavor.   It is my  opinion  that  SUPERFORCE  ignores  the  axiom  of
existence and proceeds to mutilate the concepts by which we interpret an
objective   reality.  By  mutilating   these  concepts,  the  author  is
mutilating man's mind.

Michael Bishop
hplabs!hpfcla!mike-b