boneyard bill

Ender writes:

I don't think so. Of course, mysticism itself isn't very clearly defined. People use it in many different ways. When I think about it, I think I would have define a mystic as one who maintains that knowledge of self reveals knowledge of the world. In other words, a mystic regards mysticism as an epistemology. And on those grounds I'm inclined to deny that Nietzsche was a mystic. You could probably answer that better than I could.

You've got a point there. Nietzsche did propose an alternative. I just don't find the alternative to be convincing or attractive. Nagarjuna was Buddhist philosopher associated with the Madyamika school of Buddhism. Among other things, he taught his students a system for logically refuting logical arguments. Pretty much what Nietzsche did in the Will to Power.

Hindus and Buddhists alike hold that our understanding of the world in maya, illusion. But I don't think they claim that true reality is chaotic.

But your last point is the crucial one. Since there is no other language to serve as a vantage point, any new discovery becomes part of the text. That doesn't mean it isn't new. If the world is a constant flux, then the fundamental features of that world are relationships within the flux. If an abstraction or a concept uncovers a new relationship, then we have learned something new about the world. But the discovery will never involve anything "outside" the text because the text is necessarily involved in the process of discovery.

I'm afraid I don't get much out of this except the claim that language is metaphorical, and we knew that long before post-modernism.

As I understand it, Kant did not absolutely deny the validity of logic but tied it to a synthetic a priori and neither Kant nor anyone since him has been able to find a sythetic a priori. So while Kant left the door open, no one has been able to pass through it.

You seem to be claiming that my critique of Post-Modernism IS post-modernism. But I'm claiming that post-modernism is a circular argument. There is nothing outside the text. There is no meta-language from which to judge our linguistic forms. But suppose there WAS a metalanguage. How would we recognize it? It would simply be new text, and there would still be nothing outside the text.

But I am also saying that someone who relates to "humanity" has an understanding that is different from what existed before the word was invented. And yet the word "humanity" does express a true and real relationship.

So also, the term "citizenship" expresses a true and real relationship of a person to the nation that goes beyond the mere right to vote.

So abstractions and concepts express real and true relationships and in a world of flux, it is the relationships and not the observations, that are fundamental.

Of course, I'm not saying that ALL abstractions and concepts are necessarily valid. But as I see it, post-modernism seems to deny that they expresss anything knew, and that is where I am disagreeing. I am asking, what is the value of PM claim that there is nothing outside the text when the text itself is expanding and constantly revealing new relationships?

My primary source for PM is Christopher Norris' intellectual biography of Derrida. I've also read Foucaults' The Order of Things, but don't think very highly of it. And I've read some Lyotard but don't remember much about it.

boneyard bill

Intensity writes:

Why do you conclude that the experiment must be flawed? You still seem to miss my point. Could it not be that identical conditions do, in fact, lead to widely divergent results? My point is that scientists, including chaos researchers, assume that there really are "immeasurable" differences. But we don't know. Maybe, at bottom, chaos is all there is.

Ted Hoffman

BoneyardBill
It could be, but it is known. What is known though is that infinitesimally small differences in the initial conditions result in huge differences in the results.
The experiment has no control over what its measuring - because of its dynamism and its varied nature.
Its like trying to measure the size of the shadow of a bird that is flying.
Maybe.
I think thats what they should say. Maybe. But they state the chaotic nature of the universe as a fact.

Ender

Yes, when it is bereft of empirical worth. This is what the analytic thinker Strawson dubbed the "principle of significance," whenever a concept is applied outside the empirical realm. The underpinning of all traditional metaphysics before Kant is the assumption that the mind had direct access or insight into reality/objects/external world sans sensory data. This is where I agree with Kant, that there is no such "existing object" that are directly given to human beings as "they are." Everything "given" to the senses are already modified by the form it is received.

Reason, by itself, as a fabrication of the intellect, endlessly searches for the answer to the "why" of anything. It is the driving force of human rationality, to get at the ultimate "unconditioned condition" that no longer has any actual or possible "intuitions." (By 'intuition,' Kant meant in the sense of spatial and temporal attributes) Concepts of pure reason take us beyond the limits of experience, and do not have any corresponding intuitions.
Not at all. I am not saying pragmatism should be curbed. Rather I am arguing that we should instead be more rigorous in our analysis of our attitude in science and in philosophy. The thinkers I am talking about were deluded by their assumption of a possible "intellectual intuition" that bypassed the empirical means information is gained. The entire tradition of metaphysics has been dependent upon the belief that there is a reality independent of our senses (Thales, Plato's World of Being, Descartes' dualism, Spinoza's substance, etcetera).
On the contrary: you don't like the answers I gave you. Which amounts to what you pegged as "many stories."

I smell a lot of straw in this line of thinking. Where are you going with this?

I am saying there is no "real world" in the sense that there is no "knowing without a knower." Yes, it is a conceptualization- based on a conclusion reached by a skeptical analysis of our natural presuppositions in the empirical world.

Unnecessary only for the scientist. Yes, I've already noted your fealty to pragmatism. The explanation of any state of affairs are capable of being challenged, and a new explanation may be adduced to account for the first explanation. But in order to avoid any charges of "begging the question" the 2nd explanation requires new terms. Then the new terms necessitate a third explanation. This opens the door to an infinite regress- unless the satisfaction of the inquirer is reached. This "satisfaction" renders the explanation incomplete. At one point, the explanations stop with "explanatory terms" that themselves are not explained. This is the nature of explanation- the explanation of anything and everything is necessarily and unalterably incomplete. You have only the biological answer "in practice we are satisfied" to fall back on, but in theory, not quite. The ultimate explanations in science employ concepts such as "matter," "natural forces" and "scientific laws." We can analyze matter in chemical formulas, the table of elements, fundamental particles, etc. Words like "gravitation," "energy," "magnetism," or "electricity" riddle the natural forces which are statements of regularities of matter in motion under the impulse of these "linguistic inventions." At this point one may ask the scientist simple questions such as "what is matter" "What is energy" "what is a scientific law?" The scientist can only point to the philosopher and bow out of the discussion- since the reduction to these level concepts is already science. This line of questioning has reached the ground floor of the building. The scientist pulls up short, goes no farther. At most he can state the relationships of these "ground floor" concepts to each other. He will show how "energy' is contained in matter with a constant equation the product of the matter's mass with the square of the velocity of the light. As you see, these "occult" terms explains everything else w/o themselves being explained. This is the "bifurcation" you so eloquently refuse to credit!

By analyzing our presuppositions we enrich the understanding of our human nature as well. After all, nearly all of science today is predicated by philosophy in the past.
Not everybody has a sense of humor.

I am pointing out that knowledge in different times were gained through different methodologies. Whether they produce positive results is a whole another matter.

False. Knowledge when it benefits us is pursued to a greater deal than the inconsequential kind. Why do you think billions of dollars pumps the cpu technology as opposed to an aids virus research? Whatever benefit us will earn the greater attention. Ergo there is "valuation" in the scientist's drive to discover new knowledge. it is never an "impartial" survey. Science as a "noble pursuit" is entirely an anthropocentric enterprise and is predicated by our ends. To butcher Machiavelli, science is a means to our own ends.

There's so much straw everywhere I don't even know where to begin! Everything is predicated on valuation. In matters of astronomy the Christian doctor already has made a judgment on what counts as immediate knowledge of science. The same person has reached a personal evaluation on what are "politically informed" sources before he proceeds to check for information. Hume was correct in his formulation of reason as a tool, a henchman of the passions.

I hope to be able to explain to you why our supposedly "objective" knowledge comes from an irrational basis and consequently isn't so "objective" in any sense.
Well, pardon my French! I didn't know your ears were genteel and tetchy!
For example, theoretical and spiritual pluralism.

You miss the point completely. As usual, you are confusing with the "descriptions of the things" with the things they represent. HRG said it so much better in<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000260" target="_blank"> another thread</a> towards a theist who mistakes order in the theories of science for an implicit purpose or design, "what is ordered, symmetric, parsimonious etc. are our theories, which are models of the universe, not the universe itself." He goes on further and says theoretical physics "believe that this "simple" behavior of the universe is by the low-energy limit of a 'chaotic' behavior at high energies"
Then you consent to the contrary of my statement?
I very much doubt it.
Feyerabend's one of my idols.

My view of physics as a mythology has more of a linguistic attack than anything else. I said this elsewhere: 'Language is a metaphor for reality- ergo the Cartesian Self, as well as the "subject" are constructs of language and little else. That goes for God as well, by inference. The ego does not exist- it is a fable, a fiction, a play on words, nothing more than a conceptual synthesis. So, Christians as well as metaphysicians of the self hold a crude fetishism in the belief in the self and that it has the character of "being." '

Correct. On the other hand, the fact that we are capable of extreme self-deception should mean we should not take our cognitive and deductive abilities for granted.

Reason as a creation of the intellect leads man to metaphysical nonsense.
"What are man's truth? Merely his irrefutable errors."
Trivially correct, and concedes my point.
Of course we do superimpose our understanding of reality, which is inseparable from our perspective to phenomena. Existence is nonsensical without interpretation. Science is an interpretative affair, a scheme for constructing concepts, much like the function of language. By anthropomorphism I am directing my focus on language, which is a human invention. The manifestation of language and what it refers to is a matter of inspecting the "mirror theory" in realism, not science. In order to determine what is real and what isn’t, we have to know what being is, and without the knowledge of what an accurate representation should be, we are unable to say that [language, science, knowledge] is an accurate representation, and this is not something we can learn. We lack an organ for knowing, for "truth."
Truth as a divine holy grail has cursed philosophy for thousands of years, and will bewitch science for thousands more.
If there are no "non-living creatures" to be had, then that concept has no empirical basis and no currency in this discussion. Since the middle ground between antithesis and thesis is conceivable, this results in a synthesis, which becomes a brand new thesis all over again. Dialectics is also a questionable concept of Hegel's I am reading about.

Yes, but the concept "non-living" creatures is an oxymoron.

For the anally retentive: God as a concept no longer has the dogmatic currency it used to have in the medieval age. I shortened this to the Nietzschean cliché.
No you interpreted it as an objective view. Own up to your pet strawmen!
Actually I disagree- god's view wouldn't be subjective because His attributes such as omnipresence and omniscience would render the subjectivity in His perspective quite "objective!" The consequences of the death of belief in God leads to the decline of absolutism or dogmatism. The death of god opens the gate of epistemological anarchy.
It is most certainly futile for us to try comprehend the world in itself, that is.

You tried the old "relativism is self-refuting" adage in your attempt to deny perspectivism.

Ergo, the "underlying substrata" Locke invented in order to account for the "entity" that holds all the properties of the external object.

Which is why I am arguing that our filters (senses) guarantees that what we perceive is not vis a vis reality in itself.

Watch it! Amos might snap up that bait and post here. And doesn't that statement dangerously dance closer to my view of the universe as "chaos?"

Couldn't agree more. The foundations of any "human objectivity" is grounded in subjectivity.

Berkeley would be proud! By denying that matter exists independently of perception, you deny materialism.
No argument here.

Better stated by myself elsewhere: Just how many other ideologies have you been intimate with?
The ultimate reason why the universe does not appear chaotic is due to our biological basis. We gravitate towards what is orderly and what is pertinent to our survival.

There is no scientific evidence at the human level for chaos- except for the implications of quantum mechanics at the subatomic world. It also lies in our presuppositions about reality, and presuppositions are not empirically testable.

I wouldn't pound that gavel so quickly! Man created the values of the world, and in doing so man gave it his own interpretation. We created the world in our own image. These lies have been invented to seal the truth of existence, which is chaos.
Again by asking me for empirical proof of chaos you miss the point, and have been ignoring my answers. Can you give me empirical proof for your presuppositions of spatiality and temporality? The self? If not why not? At once you will realize the limitations of science. The ideology of science assumes a lot of things in order to function.

Here you mishandle the term "phenomenological experience."

There is far more to be had from theology than what amounts to a figment of the imagination. The overwhelming presence of a deity in so many cultures bespeaks to much more than the popular "god is santa for adults" view so often espoused on this forum. I find Epicurus, Kant, Feuerbach and Sartre's account for God much more fruitful and compelling than the positivistic "figment of imagination" position.

Good question, and of course there is a ready-made answer, but you're not going to like it. Save this for a theist who has a hard-on for Leibniz theocracy.

Because it's a popular one cited by believers when confronted with the quality of creation. (the question of evil) It's another means of deconstructing the prevailing belief in God. One could always demonstrate the attributes of God in a simple syllogism to show how they are inconsistent.
Not necessarily. I do not limit anthropomorphism to motives, characteristics or behavior, but to human language and its inherent metaphysical structure.

We? Are you now a scientist?

*sniffs* is that straw again?

Is a barn nearby?

Not in the least. That there is order in our models of reality is about as far as I am willing to go.

There is plenty of mileage left in that moniker!

[edited to add]
“we impose upon ‘becoming’ the character of Being.” Will to Power 617
The primacy of "becoming" or what Deleuze terms as chaosmos is validated with empirical and phenomenological claims. Becoming is no metaphysical or noumenal world. In agreement with Nietzsche and Heraclitus, "becoming" is consistent with naturalism. The world of becoming as the only reality is the very physical or natural world we inhabit and in which we are familiar of. "becoming" is not found in some abstract realm of concepts or names or mathematical or logical formulae. It is right in front of our noses. The changing fluctuation. Becoming is sensibility, impressions, stream of sensory data. An empirical examination of the world of becoming demonstrates that change is a matter of degree relative to the observer. Where common sense locates permanence in objects, physicists describes the "more or less" stable object as a swarm of molecules. There are pragmatic uses for common sense to treat this "swarm" as a single enduring object. But this is an oversimplification.
W. K. C. Guthrie lends a hand on Heraclitus' one-liners: The object is a tension of forces that eventually becomes another. All natural things expand, contract, grow, decay, fuse, divide, solidify, melt, evaporate, etcetera. Change never ceases. The evident ubiquity of change in universe without issuing from or to some being. A thoroughgoing empiricism concludes in "becoming" as in there is only the world of nature, life, history, becoming, and appearance. Anything constant or invariable such as mental entities of Parmenides, Plato, Christianity, Kant, Schopenhauer are of secondary concern. In fact they are derived from the world of nature, experience and becoming!

~Theothanatologist~

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Ender

It is my understanding that Nietzsche's view of knowledge is that it is merely a knowledge of appearances, the reality of our thoughts, language- where we project upon the realm of actions, willing, experiences. He would have taken a Wittgensteinan stance that we think only according to our language, that our consciousness is nothing more than language. We may be able to share our experiences with others with words, we are fooling ourselves in the belief that words, as a social convention, can really award individuals private expression or allow self-understanding. In the gay science, he wrote: Thought or consciousness are not private, given there is no such thing as a private language. OTOH, one could argue that Nietzsche was a mystic with his will-to-power explanation of the driving force of existence, and pull out an interpretation of a Buddhist flavor, but that person would have to be very creative.
Why don't you find the positive programme attractive or convincing? What's lacking? Do you have any books on the subject of Nagarjuna I can look up in my leisure time?

Please pardon my ignorance in asking, but What do they say true reality is really?
There are two kinds of poststructuralism- Discursive Reductionism and Worldly Poststructuralism.
Discursive Reductionism, or textualism is a variant of what Callinicos calls linguistic idealism that argues nothing outside of text or discursive formations. Worldly Poststructuralism includes or articulates both the said and unsaid or the discursive and non-discursive.

We? You mean Buddhists?
Well, Kant left an inconsistent program, a series of three critiques that were mostly incompatible with one another. His successors (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer) sought to "complete" Kant by patching up his work with their versions of idealism.
Transferring the crown of philosophy from epistemology to sociology is what postmodernists have succeeded in the 20th century.
I agree partially. Not all of postmodernism is essentially linguistic idealism, nor is Derrida the authority of Postmodernism.
Yes, his language is enriched via a new conceptualization of a generic form of existence- himself. I apologize I cannot answer the rest of your post, because I have only cracked open my two new books and am rustling about in the first chapters. Perhaps someone else better suited on postmodernism?
~WiggiN~

Ted Hoffman

Ender
You sure are stretching out this topic of discussion. Is it that you keep moving goalposts by design or is it just a coincidence? Man! talk about transmogrification!

The way you have broadened the base of this discussion, is really awesome and its not in itself a bad thing. Actually I have anjoyed our discussion so far. But I think you are sterching it a tad too far. You are drawing me into the murky depths of philosophical waters and I am not sure I want to duel with you in those depths. I can feel the brackish taste as we speak.

I also believe its the nature of light to march boldly into the darkness and your red herrings really look luscious, but then...

You see, I am not even a good swimmer.

So I will stop right here at the shore.
And it boils down to this:

See? No evidence, 'xcept for what you vaguely refer to as imlications of QM, which you fail to specify.

It therefore stands that there is no basis for claiming the universe is chaotic. Unless one is so taken by the habit of harping the tunes of old thinkers.

You said u were going to provide a philosophical defence. And you did, so I am not accusing you of being disingenuous, I just think, that from where I stand, you have opened too many avenues for discussion. I would however be glad if you picked one and we tackle it rigorously, but as far as the "chaos theory" is concerned, it is baseless.

It was a pleasure and a honour discussing this with you. I can still respond to your previous post, so long as we agree that the nature of the universe (whether chaotic or otherwise) is a side issue from now on. I can see you are pulling me into epistemology and other philosophical subjects - unfamiliar territory.
But I can be a sport. So don't hesitate.

snatchbalance

Ender,

What you seem to be saying is something like:

1. Because of the type of animal that we are, we are only capable of seeing things from our own pespective. Like a good hunter/gatherer, we pick out aspects of the universe for analysis, as they fit our precieved needs.

2. There are things going on that are either outside of our interests, sensory capacities, and/or analysis capabilities.

3. Because we cannot surpase our own limitations, base physical concepts(energy, gravity, matter, etc.) cannot be described. Like colors in general, they can only be pointed at.

4. Every physical observation is subject to an infinite regression(Atomic "strings" break, energy is released; well we still don't "know" what stings are or what energy is. They are just abstractions used to to pass on observations).

5. In summary, we can describe certain of the phenomenon that we are able to observe, others can just be pointed at, others we are not aware of.

Even if a theroy of everything is developed, it will only serve to mathematically describe observable relationships between "things". We will be no closer to knowing what those "things" may actually be.

Please let me know if I have captured the "essence" of your argument.

SB

snatchbalance

Intensity,

Just from from stand point of empirical analysis,I have to say that like chaos.

I like to think of an airfoil. On an aggregate basis, air molecules pass faster over the top of the airfoil.(Of course, those air molecules outside of the influence of the wing are already behaveing chaotically, rising, falling, bumping into each other, etc.) However, those close to the surface, within the band of chaos, so to speak, they could behave in a number of ways. Some may acutally become trapped within the molecular structure of the wing, and travel along with it. There may be a way to predict the number that will behave in a certain manner on a probalistic basis, but not on an individual basis.

I think, even within the controled and sterile environment the computer manufacturing industry, there is an acceptable standard for random computational errors. Why? I guess because electrons don't always follow the predicted path.

SB

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: snatchbalance ]

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: snatchbalance ]

[ May 07, 2002: Message edited by: snatchbalance ]</p>

Ender

Pretty much. Our understanding of the universe is largely predicated by our habits and customs (belief in causality, substance, matter, and other metaphysical gremlins). I wanted to illustrate how perspectivism was an impediment to "objective knowledge."
I had hoped to avoid such Kantian "ding-an-sich" problems here- since such "metaphysical truths" would be the most useless kind of information or knowledge of all.
This is the moment where the scientist gives way to the philosopher in terms of explanation or description.
Not necessarily infinite but rather, circular.
Pretty much- that our biological limitations in accessing information does not necessarily entail true knowledge in the absolute sense of the word.
The theory of everything will be totally theory-laden, a figurative of rationalism, and a sterling example of the mythopoetic effects of language.
You captured the scientific slice of the argument
~WiGGiN~

snatchbalance

Ender,

Ok, so I guess that from a pragmatic perspective, making sence of what we can detect in the universe is not hopeless. We observe relationships and phenomenon, describe them within the limits of our language and utilize them.

We have a standpoint, have staked a claim, and we use what we can get out of it.

Also, it may be the case that we have gotten some things right. We may not need to have an outside perspective in all cases. It may be that "large" bodies of matter behave as they do because of distotions in space/time; there may be no other explation; and not just because we are incapable of seeing another explanantion.(I could still agree the arrangement is chaotic.)

I would also agree that refering to such obeservations as "laws", is somewhat misleading. But, what else do we have. With out language and mathematical descriptions, all we could do is say "look".(Actually, we'd only be able to point.)

SB

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