tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post113103176759238677..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Some dialogue with Ed BabinskiVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1131473831293699432005-11-08T11:17:00.000-07:002005-11-08T11:17:00.000-07:00Vic,If I am a "fundamentalist" then everyone on ea...Vic,<BR/><BR/>If I am a "fundamentalist" then everyone on earth is too by definition, because my views are among the least fundamentalistic when it comes to acknowledging the inherent limitations of human knowledge. <BR/><BR/>Have you never considered that words like "theism, naturalism, idealism, pantheism, panentheism," may not explain all that you think they do, and relying on such words to explain and counter explanation the endless circling sharks of philosophy amounts to saying that: <BR/><BR/>"Everything is ONE thing but we don't know how it became (nor how it appears to be) TWO things."<BR/><BR/>OR, <BR/><BR/>"Everything is TWO things to start with but we don't know how one becomes (or appears to become fully entwined and interact with) the other since we began by defining them as being so entirely unlike at the start." <BR/><BR/>Some essays are to the point here, such as those by the philosopher Raymond Smullyan (from his books "The Tao is Silent," and, "This Book Needs No Title")<BR/>http://www.rdegraaf.nl/index.asp?sND_ID=114133<BR/><BR/>"Is God a Taoist?" <BR/>http://www.rdegraaf.nl/index.asp?sND_ID=617666<BR/><BR/>"Planet Without Laughter"<BR/>http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html<BR/> <BR/>You mentioned "idealism." Bishop Berkeley was an "idealist" who argued that everything was "mind." Berkeley (so the story I'd read), fell off his horse, hitting his head on a stone, and Samuel Johnson said, "At last Berkeley's mind has hit upon the existence of matter." But in fact, if Berkeley were alive he would never make such an admission. For him everything was a creation of some absolute Mind, including his head and the stone, and the action of those two things coming into contact, etc. <BR/><BR/>So how can you prove or disprove anything via such broad concepts?Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1131340467677397892005-11-06T22:14:00.000-07:002005-11-06T22:14:00.000-07:00Ray: Nice to hear from you. I remember you from th...Ray: Nice to hear from you. I remember you from the late lamented MereLewis.Victor Repperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1131313959472956412005-11-06T14:52:00.000-07:002005-11-06T14:52:00.000-07:00I suppose that my big complaint would be about peo...I suppose that my big complaint would be about people who talk so loosely about QM. Lewis didn't really know anything about it and neither do most philosophers. In any case it is a very complex theory about things that happen at very low energies to things that are mostly invisible such as electrons and other subatomic particles.<BR/><BR/>Physicists are still arguing about exactly what it means -- and whether the conceptual elements of it such as the Schroedinger waves are real or simply mathematical.<BR/><BR/>Lewis had a mind of chiseled logic and was usually quite precise in his formulations, something obscured by the fact that he delivered them in such a homespun way that hey were accessible to even the uneducated.<BR/><BR/>G.E. Anscombe popped his bubble a little at the Socratic, but probably not foundationally since he rewrote the offending chapter in Miracles to meet her objections without really changing the logic or the argument too much. The fact that he bothered showed that he cared about precision.<BR/><BR/>I think Naturalists are in a rather difficult box -- if it is all molecules then strict determinism destroys their thought, but then strict determinism destroys all thought of any kind. What possible construction does "making up my mind" have if I'm totally determined?<BR/><BR/>Anyway I was put onto this discussion by a member of <B>SpareOom</B>, a C.S. Lewis listserv at Yahoo and thought I'd come over and see what the smoke was all about.<BR/><BR/>I have your book VR -- and its sitting next to my bed with a bookmark in it at the place I'd gotten to when other books and duties caught up with me.<BR/><BR/>Cheers, Ray Schneider<BR/>--<BR/>Ray Schneider,PE, Ph.D<BR/>Math and Computer Science<BR/>Bridgewater College<BR/>http://www.bridgewater.edu/~rschneid/<BR/>On the search for the PERFECT tomato.<BR/>http://users.adelphia.net/~schneirj/hydro.htmAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com