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From: hadeishi@husc4.harvard.edu (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Characterization
Message-ID: <388@husc6.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 11:56:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.388
Posted: Mon Oct 13 11:56:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 07:46:46 EDT
References: <3279@caip.RUTGERS.EDU> <15634@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.HARVARD.EDU
Reply-To: hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Organization: Harvard Science Center
Lines: 37
Summary: Mitsu and David desJardins are at it again

In article<16099@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins):
>>	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.

	Yes, of course it is "valid" in a strictly logical sense.  However,
what I meant by this is that since the question is not settled, it might
be desirable to consider what kinds of viewpoints of reality might be
generated if we did *not* assume the universe was completely characterizable
by Man.  Or to put it more weakly, it might be desirable to consider what
kinds of viewpoints might be generated if we simply assumed that it was
not possible in practice to do so.  Entertaining either possibility
(the latter I'm sure would be more palatable for you) suggests a whole
different class of possible stances toward reality.  This is what I mean
by "implications"; not logically certain consequences but consequences
in terms of the types of theories about reality that you might consider.
In this case both "stances" are valuable; when I am doing physics, for
example, I implicity assume the plausibility of the first case, when
living life, I implicity assume the second, not in a strict sense but
simply as a working rule (i.e., not in terms of being able to characterize
"in principle" but simply "in practice.")  Again, I refer to Feynman
and his wonderful discussion of the relationship between the form
in which we choose to describe a theory and the extensions or new
theories which this form tends to suggest (_The Character of Physical Law_
I believe is the title.)

				-Mitsu

P.S.  Since this was the main point of your posting, I thought I'd
respond to only this.  I do have responses to your other comments,
however, which I would be happy to email to you privately.