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From: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Impossibilities (...and Recommended Reading)
Message-ID: <10223@cca.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Sep-86 00:50:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.10223
Posted: Wed Sep 24 00:50:58 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Sep-86 21:56:13 EDT
References: <3279@caip.RUTGERS.EDU> <15634@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <346@unc.unc.UUCP>
Reply-To: g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Organization: Computer Corp. of America, Cambridge
Lines: 41
Summary: Please respond to the quoted text.
Xref: mnetor net.sf-lovers:8676 talk.philosophy.misc:72

All too often people (and Rich Rosen) quote material from other people
and then comment on the quoted material in a way that does address what
was actually said.  Our example for today is:

In article <> desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins) writes:
>In article <346@unc.unc.UUCP> gallmeis@unc.UUCP (Bill Gallmeister) writes:
>>
>>2. Man has rules and the universe -- just kind of works.  In reality, there
>>	is no E, or M, or C, and certainly no "squaring".  These are
>>	labels man uses to define our universe.  They are only true so
>>	far as we can see today.
>
>   There is a name for the opposite belief -- that the behavior of the
>universe can be understood.  It is called 'science.'  Understandably,
>therefore, those of us who consider ourselves 'scientists' don't go
>along with your opinion as expressed above.
>
>>3. The universe is uncharacterizable in its entirety by Man, because
>>	we are only Man, and when we characterize a thing, we
>>	bring our own bias into the matter.
>
>   There is no evidence to support your statement (that the universe is
>uncharacterizable), and there is substantial evidence to the contrary
>(every successful prediction of science provides such evidence).
>

Number 3 is quite blatant -- Gallmeister says "uncharacterizable in its
entirety by Man" and David renders it as "uncharacterizable".
Gallmeister asserts a certain type of limitation on knowledge and
David translates this into an assertion that no knowledge at all is
possible.

David's response in #2 is also unresponsive.  Gallmeister makes
the legitimate observation that our descriptions of the universe
are different in character from the universe itself, and David reads
him as saying that it is impossible to understand the universe.

-- 

Richard Harter, SMDS Inc. [Disclaimers not permitted by company policy.]
	For Cheryl :-)