Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!ibm.COM!CHESS
From: CHESS@ibm.COM (David Chess)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Metaepistemology & Phil. of Science
Message-ID: <19880718040708.8.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 18 Jul 88 04:07:00 GMT
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Date: Thu, 14 Jul 88 09:55 EDT
From: David Chess <CHESS@ibm.com>
To: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Metaepistemology & Phil. of Science

>In this sense the reality is unknowable.  We only have
>descriptions of the actual world.

This "only" seems to be the key to the force of the argument.  If
it were "we have descriptions of the actual world", it would sound
considerably tamer.   The "only" suggests that there is something
else (besides "descriptions") that we *might* have, but that we
do not.   What might this something else be?   What, besides
"descriptions", could we have of the actual world?   I certainly
wouldn't want the actual world *itself* in my brain (wouldn't fit).

Can anyone complete the sentence "The actual world is unknowable to
us, because we have only descriptions/representations of it, and not..."?

(I would tend to claim that "knowing" is just (roughly) "having
 the right kind of descriptions/representations of", and that
 there's no genuine "unknowability" here; but that's another
 debate...)

Dave Chess
Watson Research

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