On Sep 16, 2009, at 1:35 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
It's funny, I have the general notion that "scientists" shouldn't know better. I don't mean that based on their intelligence, but I think it is much easier for scientists to go about doing the stuff they do, and they do it better, if they think they are REALLY doing it. Albeit, it may be fun to predict where a cannon ball is going to land, or what the orbit of the planets will be, but if people didn't think they were finding out something "real" about "gravity" I doubt the activity would have been as engaging.
I think that's a really neat way to think about it. I'm sure that it is helpful to a lot of people, and in fact as the reference I sent makes clear, it would actually be impossible to accomplish anything without some ability to conceptualize things as if they were real, or certainly to communicate them. On the other hand, the belief that such things are real has lead to all sorts of mischief -- including scientific materialism itself, but also see say classical economics.
When people on this list talk about emergence, complexity, intrinsic organization, rule governed behavior, consciousness, software usability, threshold phenomenon, keyboard preferences, etc., don't most of them think they are talking about something real?
Put me into the "No" category.Except that I will say that emergence and complexity might be the closest thing to something that is "real", i.e. pervasive and permanent. But I better leave it at that.
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