Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!husc6!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!qantel!hplabs!ucbvax!brahms!gsmith
From: gsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Now wait a minute... (was Re: Who can know?)
Message-ID: <15733@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 20-Sep-86 18:48:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.15733
Posted: Sat Sep 20 18:48:16 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 02:33:24 EDT
References: <15222@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <988@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: gsmith@brahms.UUCP (Gene Ward Smith)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 24
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:172 talk.origins:78

In article <7657@tekecs.UUCP> mikes@tekecs.UUCP (Michael Sellers) writes:

>>You mistake what recent expirements have shown.  They have shown that,
>>not only can *we* never know, but *noone* can ever know, because the
>>information *ISN'T* *THERE* *TO* *BE* *KNOWN* [Wayne Throop].

>I'd really like to see a cogent defense of this last statement (I don't think 
>it can be done).  How can we say that certain information about quantum
>mechanical systems, for a given observer with perceptual abilities far 
>different (better) than our own, is simply unknowable.

    Mike, it seems to me you did not read what Wayne said carefully enough.
What he said was that (according to our current understanding) the infor-
mation cannot be measured because it doesn't exist. Even God cannot "see"
what path an electron takes if it doesn't in fact take a path, nor know
simultaneously its position and momentum if these do not simultaneously
exist. If you are asking "How do we *know* this picture of reality is the
correct one?", then this is a general problem in epistemology and the 
philosophy of science with no more particular reference to this problem
than to evolution (which I find you defending in the next article).

ucbvax!brahms!gsmith    Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
        Fifty flippant frogs / Walked by on flippered feet
    And with their slime they made the time / Unnaturally fleet.