Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!yale!husc6!think!rutgers!caip!clyde!cbatt!cbosgd!ucbvax!brahms!desj From: desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Characterization Message-ID: <16099@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Sat, 11-Oct-86 03:46:46 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.16099 Posted: Sat Oct 11 03:46:46 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 06:26:05 EDT References: <3279@caip.RUTGERS.EDU> <15634@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 92 In article <337@husc6.HARVARD.EDU> hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi) writes: > David, I get the impression from you that because this question is >open, you feel free to assume (for the sake of philosophizing) that it >is true (that the Universe is completely characterizable by Man.) This >implications of this implicit assumption, however, are vast. Suppose this assumption were to have untenable consequences. Then we could reject the assumption, and thus the question would no longer be open. So it seems that if you agree that the question is open, then you must agree that it is valid to assume either of the two possibilities. (There is nothing particularly deep here; we are simply reasoning by contradiction. Fermat's Last Theorem is open, and so we are free to assume either that it is true or that it is false. If either of these assumptions led us to a contradiction, then we would of course consider the opposite assumption to be proven.) > I am speaking purely analogically here. You wish to leave the >question (of the characterizability of the Universe) open, and would >leave the job of the actual characterizing to the physicists. However, >it is clear to me (from the tenor of your responses) that you have not >considered the full ramifications of this view. I have read your entire article many many times and I do not see a single thing in it which even attempts to explain what these supposed ramifications might be, or why they are good or bad. In lieu of such arguments, how can I respond except by saying that I have considered the logical consequences of my statements very carefully and they all seem to me perfectly desirable. > Whether or not the Universe is completely characterizable by >Man, it is very likely that the everyday world that we see is NOT >characterizable in this sense. [...] it is not possible to derive >chemistry from physics, and it does not look likely that this gap >will ever be completely breached. Even if the universe is UNcharacterizable in its entirety by Man, I expect that the derivation of chemistry from physics will be possible in a very short period of time, on the order of 100-200 years. This just seems a simple question of amassing sufficient computational power. > (Also there is an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that >our current physical theories will always remain an approximation: >this is due to the existence of effects at higher levels of structural >complexity which are not reducible to lower-level effects. Such "evidence" will always exist, until such time as a final under- standing has been reached. Thus, since it would exist whether or not a complete understanding is possible, it is not evidence in any real sense. > I take the activity of philosophy to be the ultimate >science; i.e., the inquiry into the nature of Reality itself. Now >the claim of characterizability has an associated (not logically >derivable but politically related) stance: > > (Loose) definition: A rational framework is a set of > propositions and rational principles which can be > easily articulated using language. > > 1. Assumption: It is possible to organize our experience into a > rational framework. > > The problem with this is that Reality as we experience it >and live it is essentially a continuous phenomenon. What we consider >to be "objects" in our rational framework are never Wittgensteinian >objects; i.e., objects we typically talk about (whether they be >physical objects or ideas) are never "colourless." We are always >leaving something out when we speak of any thing. Our language >is necessarily discrete but our experience is continuous. This seems false on its face. Our physical interaction with reality *is* discrete, not continuous. The fact that it takes place on a smaller scale than we can readily perceive is not particularly relevant. > Of course it is necessary to abstract reality into these >discrete meaning-bundles we use to construct language. However it is >clear that certain experiences cannot be transmitted in this fashion. ^^^^^ (A rhetorical question:) Why do you keep using words such as "clear" when making statements with which I have made it clear I disagree? >My hypothesis is that language games are not sufficiently powerful to >characterize our universe, and therefore they should be viewed with >extreme caution. And my hypothesis is that language is sufficiently powerful. Note I have made no attempt to deny your hypothesis (such hypotheses can in fact never be disproven). The only claim that I have made is that my hypothesis is equally valid. Above you said you were going to explain why this assumption is bad -- I haven't seen this yet. -- David desJardins