The discussion 'Brent vs Colin' is exciting. I am still confused about the ">" and ">>" lines, I assume the latter is Colin's saying while both the ">" and the unmarked text (*** - *** below) comes from Brent. My apologies, if I missed the boat. I want to reply to issues anyway, not persons. Will quote only the sentences to which I try to add my tuppence. And here come the unnamed quotes and my remarks to them (first the initial pattern): * --- Brent Meeker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Colin Hales wrote: > >>So when I said ...SNIP ------------------ * > > This is an unfounded ascription: That the physics > - the mathematical > > description is somehow directly invoked. This > ascription maps a description > > (in the form of a mathematical generalisation) > onto an explanation. Without > > justification. The universe behaving 'as if' the > law is driving causality > > does not justify any position that it is doing so. [JM]: Amen. (Not in a theological sense, I must add). "WE" deduct that it looks like being 'causally driven' in "our" interpretation which does not cover the totality. Math IMO covers even part of what we could cover, restricting it into the math ways of thinking, disallowing the "NONmath ways" from the model. > > > > There is NOTHING WRONG with the mathematical law! > I am not proposing to > > throw out anything. It works. Read the quote at > the bottom of the last > > email. I am saying that 50% of scientific > characterisations of the natural > > world is simply missing. [JM]: I smile at the optimism of ">" assuming that we 'know' 50%. Denigrating our ignorance? > > > > > >>Do you propose to provide "real causal > necessities"? > > > > > > YES. Well I don't. Others do, though. Jobs already > started. A small group of > > scientists around the world are already doing it. > The problem is a) They > > don't realise they are working on explanatory > models, not descriptive models [JM]: Amen, again. > > > > > >>I didn't say reality was accessed. I said we > create models of reality. > >>We only have access to the model. We're never sure > about the "reality". > > > > > > Not so. An assumption. The underlying reality is > accessible. Very difficult, > > very different but doable. You just haven't seen > how its done. When you > > understand what causally necessitates > phenomenality then phenomenality acts > > as evidence for explanatory models (phenomenality > itself) and descriptive > > models (appearance provided by phenomenality). [JM]: I feel some circularity here: WE construct the model and the "model" shows the reality behind it. The reality is beyond the impact upon our interpretation and we have no ways to access it. Whatever we deduce is based on the limited model we created. Read on: * > >>When you say "I think there are objective models > of reality" you are > >>making a very big assumption: > > > >>That's not an assumption. It's just an > observation. SNIP > >>I'm not *assuming* these models describe reality. > I only observe that they work and that's the best evidence we can hope for. > I don't pretend that we can access what's "really real". But the fact that our models make > >>successful predictions beyond what was used to > construct them makes > >>them more than tautologies. [JM]: strictly WITHIN our model-based image. Reductionism (drawing universal and final conclusions from our model-based thinking upon the mode-based world - as ongoing science does) is VERY successful in having developed our technology (in a braoder sense) - and with proper calcaulations "completed" the missing links caused by the excluded un-model parts of the similarly interacting (causalian?) "rest of the world". And of course the (model based) conclusions, predictions, are consistent with the model. Calculation based deductions do not include the infinite veriables of the totality and the infinite and unaccountable influences from them in tortuous undefinable ways. Our model thinking is not omniscient
The BIG question comes below: SNIP > > ... Of course all experience is by > subjects. All models > >>must be built form what we have. Do you propose > some mystical > >>access independent of subjective experience? > > > > > > NO. Read what I have said above. Nothing mystical > at all. Very real. Any > > model for causal necessity must a) predict > phenomenality and b) the natural > > world's appearance appearance within it using a > brain that results in us > > concluding F = MA for example. It's all quite > consistent. You just have to > > get over all the prejudicial training. [JM]: isn't this postulate exactly the essence of the prejudical training? Our thinking follows the so called scientific brainwashing we all got in college. More than a decade ago I had a hard discussion (and succeeded) with psych-minded academics that "objective reality" is indeed "subjective virtuality" because we know not better than interpret subjectively (1st pers) whatever impact we get as our virtual response to "WHOKNOWSWHAT". > > > > > > > >>Does that help? > > > > > > No. > > > > Oh well.... :-) > > > > > > > >>These issues only arise when you try and apply > scientific method to the > >>phenomenality responsible for observation. You > find you have to modify > >>science, not modify/create theorems within > science. Science is behaving > >>pathologically at this boundary condition and I'm > not going to stop until > >>someone else gets it. Once you have worked out > what the revised model for > >>science actually is then it all falls into place. > It's a seamless upgrade, > >>by the way. [JM]: Amen the 3rd time, except for the 'seemless': it is a qualitative change, you can never arrive from a reductionist (scientific as we still speak about it) belief system into a wholism of the infinite and noncomputably interwoven totality. > > === message truncated === *** I'm not up tight - but I'm a little irritated that you keep asserting that you've seen the whole picture and the rest of us only see half and that you've worked out the true way - BUT you don't say what it is and you don't offer any evidence beyond mere assertion. Brent Meeker *** [JM]: Don't be uptight because a new idea is not momentarily adequately formulateable. I expect the grandkids of my grandkids to know more about it. Regards John Mikes ([JM])