Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: notesfiles
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfclp!mike
From: mike@hpfclp.UUCP (mike)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Re: Orphaned Response (SUPERFORCE, N
Message-ID: <4500016@hpfclp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Jun-85 18:25:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfclp.4500016
Posted: Fri Jun 14 18:25:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 21:57:59 EDT
References: <995@ames.UUCP>
Lines: 65
Nf-ID: #R:ames:-99500:hpfclp:4500016:37777777600:3958
Nf-From: hpfclp!mike    Jun  5 14:25:00 1985

Kenn Barry writes:

> It  [physics]  has been  forced to take into  account  the fact that the
> observer  is  always a part of the  observation,  and that  objectivity,
> though  it's  a  convenient  fiction,  and a  powerful  abstraction  for
> analytical  purposes, is still ultimately a fiction.  No description can
> be complete that does not include the observer, but no description  that
> includes the observer is "objective".

In one  sense I agree  with  you  here.  Descriptions  are  metaphysical
models  and that are built out of  abstractions.  Although  abstractions
have there roots in reality,  they are not concrete  reality,  and hence
any  desciption  can not be precisely  true when measured by the concept
"complete".  To be complete, a  description  would need to turn into the
thing being described, and thus the concept of a model is violated.  The
main point is that any  description  can be tested  against an objective
reality;  a  reality  that  functions  independent  of your  mind.  If a
contradiction  is found, it is the  description  that is in  error,  not
reality.  The  description  will never be perfect, by the  definition of
our concepts, but you know that there is always an objective way to test
it.  How good a  description  is can be measured  by how  accurately  it
describes reality.

Our senses did not evolve so that they could destort reality for us, nor
were our  forms of logic  and  reasoning  invented  so that  they  could
generate   falsehoods.  Science  is  a  form  of   reasoning   based  on
non-contradictory  identification,  and the creation of concepts  out of
percepts.  Concepts  are  the   metaphysical   building  blocks  of  ALL
knowledge.  Science would not work if things are not what they are, if a
thing exists and doesn't  exist at the same time, if a thing could exist
with no properties, if A is not A.  Yet,  SUPERFORCE,  and several books
like it, say that these ideas are the  foundation of Quantum  Mechanics.
I say that  these  ideas are  manifestations  of a mind in chaos; a mind
that  refuses to recognize  glaring  conceptual  contradictions.  If you
think you have found a  contradiction,  check your premises, one of them
will be wrong.

My biggest  complaint  about  SUPERFORCE  is that the  author  runs amok
destroying  concepts.  How does one destroy concepts?  -- Anti-concepts.
An  anti-concept  is the negation of a concept and has no connection  to
reality.  The word "nothingness" is an anti-concept.  It is the negation
of  concept  "existence".  Nothingness  does  not  exist,  and yet  this
anti-concept is spread  throughout  SUPERFORCE  like a black plague.  An
anti-concept  can also be formed by merely  putting two or more concepts
into a  contradictory  statement;  such a statement is  meaningless  and
confusing.  Anti-concepts can and are used to stifle the mind by paradox
and contradiction  which ultimately arrests any logical train of thought
yeilding  a  rational  understanding.  In  my  opinion,   anti-concepts,
promulgated by "scientists" like Davies, are the greatest single barrier
one faces when trying to understand  how reality  actually  works.  Paul
Davies tells us that "nothing is real", a  contradiction  in terms; that
"it is possible to have  effects  without  causes", a  contradiction  in
terms;  "that  nothing  can  be  known  with   absolute   certainty",  a
contradiction in terms.  I feel NOTHING but contempt for the author when
I read a book like this because the author has only contempt for reality
and for man's  ability  to  understand  it, and he  chooses to share his
anti-concepts with a largely uncritical audience.

By the way, I'm  currently  reading IN SEARCH OF  SCHRODINGER'S  CAT, by
John  Gribbon,  yet  another  bag of  anti-concepts  to  sort  out.  The
prologue  is  titled  "NOTHING  IS  REAL".  I'm  sure  I'll get a lot of
mileage out of that lucid observation.

Michael Bishop
hplabs!hpfcla!mike-b