virus: anon's post

Ken Pantheists (kenpan@axionet.com)
Sun, 05 Jan 1997 04:16:38 +0000

>
> Anon wrote:
>
> > ~If~ the above statement is wrong, it is naively so. Big if, however,
> > since
> > I'm not convinced by your argument. Why are you so confident about it?
>
> Williams replied:
>
> Because that's what four of the physics textbooks I've checked say on
> the subject?
>
> Anon: Would you quote (and list) your sources please?
>
> Williams:
>
> Yes, appeal to authority argument, but in this case I
> pretty secure in doing so.
>
> Anon: Yes, let's appeal to objective criteria. Simply calling someone
> "naive," "wrong" or "buffoon" on the list doesn't seem very scientific. (Or
> metaphysical.) Strongly suggest keeping our heads cool. We raise the level
> of discourse that way. I wonder why the word "metaphysics" has become such
> a hot button. The Copenhagen interpretation (Neils Bohr's) is a mysterious
> one, and is favored today over Einstein's. Williams uses the word
> "counter-intuitive" to describe such interpretations of quantum mechanics.
> Yet intuition is arguably how these interpretations arose.
>
> Without some "sense of metaphysics" (please pardon the phrase if it excites
> you) I don't know where physics would be today.
>
> Williams adds:
>
> Multidiciplinarians are /single people/, not multidiciplinary groups that
> hash things until everyone's competent. That competency must be brought to
> the table or the spectre of fallacy
> grows flesh on its nasty old bones.
>
> Anon replies: Correct, "multidisciplinarians" are single people.
> "Multidisciplinary groups" are groups of people. And the more cooperative
> we are, the less error-prone and more competent we become. We agree. So
> why the argumentative tone?
>
> Why couldn't we call the Many World's Hypothesis "metaphysical" if we were
> so inclined? I think we owe this philosophy to Giordano Bruno, a 16th
> century poet, and yet it is used by respectable theoretical physicists today.
>
> The point I was making about the ancestors of Aristotle had nothing to do
> with whether they had BMWs or horse-driven chariots. Intuition, imagination
> and storytelling have always played a role in human development and
> discovery. It is part of human nature. Thus, perhaps it is genetic.
>
> My assertion is that an approach of 100'% Logica can also be contrived, that
> we have been playing some kind of Freudian game of denial to pretend
> otherwise rather than taking a more holistic (but still highly rational,
> intellectual and objective) view. Paradoxically, when we stigmatize,
> isolate or marginalize the "intuitive" aspects of the natural world, we tend
> to encourage pseudo-scientific crazes such as UFO-hunts and X-Files
> nonsense. The scientific world is interesting enough. And yet we don't
> allow people a natural outlet by following Francis Bacon's legacy so
> strictly. We have to concede that the 100% Logica approach delivers a
> description of the world that is at best incomplete.
>
> Do you see what I mean?

-- 
Regards
+--------------------------------------------------------+
  Ken Pantheists         http://www.lucifer.com/~kenpan
+--------------------------------------------------------+