Charles,
This passage was a response to several comrades who held the views I
criticise, and it seemed to me it dealt with more general ideas that others
held. So it was a targeted passage.
You will note, however, the hypothetical form and subjunctive mood of the
arguments.
I do not therefore assert the things I am criticising.
As I am sure you are aware, that is the point of using those linguistic
forms. I am surprise you then read what I had to say assertorically.
1) "Does what you say logically follow from your premise statement ?"
This is a very interesting use of 'logically follow', more of that another
time perhaps.
However, you will note the wording I use which cannot be forced in the
direction you want it to go.
I say:
"However, and this is the problem, in order to do
this such a theory must contain contradictions itself or it would not be an
accurate reflection of nature."
I do not pass an opinion about accurate or inaccurate contradictions (and
not just because the phrase "accurate contradiction" -- to which you help
yourself -- is bizarre in itself), but because the nature of the
contradictions themselves is an irrelevance. I am asking about the theories
that contain the contradictions (whatever the status of the latter), so my
point stands.
As far as your substantive claims go, I can see no way round this comment of
mine:
"Dialecticians have thus so far failed to distinguish contradictions that
are
the mere artefacts of a defective theory from those that supposedly reflect
'objective' features of the world."
How could you possibly distinguish these?
Much of the rest of what you say founders on this point.
2) CB: "Then there's the problem that reality does contain contradictions.
So,
science ought to reflect this fact."
Now that is an a priori assumption you do not justify.
And no matter how well-attested the theory, or how well-confirmed it seems,
you could not tell whether the theory that 'accurately' reflected
contradictions in reality was defective or not. Which is another way of
saying, once again:
"Dialecticians have thus so far failed to distinguish contradictions that
are
the mere artefacts of a defective theory from those that supposedly reflect
'objective' features of the world."
This is of course, quite apart from the odd idea that nature contains
something linguistic.
You might as well have said:
"Then there's the problem that reality does contain questions. So,
science ought to reflect this fact." Or:
"Then there's the problem that reality does contain fairy tales. So,
science ought to reflect this fact."
You seem to have swallowed Hegel's Hermetic fantasies whole. How you can
criticise me for presenting arguments you allege do not follow is a little
rich.
3) "Where do you get that DM holds that science should remove all
contradictions from scientific theories?"
Well, since I do not say this I do not suppose I will be able to tell you
the answer to your invention.
In fact, I say:
"scientists will have removed every (or nearly every) contradiction
in order to have reached that point, if DM were correct."
Note the use of the bracketed expression. Note also the use of hypotheticals
and subjunctives:
"However, according to DM, scientific theories should rightly be replaced by
ones that depict reality as fundamentally contradictory, this despite the
fact that scientists will have removed every (or nearly every) contradiction
in order to have reached that point, if DM were correct."
I am trying out every conceivable possibility. Now I may have missed some
out, but it does not help if you misread what I have said.
[I was actually responding to an article by Phil Gasper, whom I am sure you
have heard of, and another by Paul McGarr, where they implied as much.]
You will note in my introductory essay that I point out that DM-fans cannot
read.
And this has been my experience 'debating' this topic with you Hereditists
for over 20 year (as I told you the other day): none of you can read.
At least you lot are consistent (but shouldn't you be inconsistent??).
4) "Why does the contradictoriness of practice prevent it from being a test
of the correspondence of a theory with reality?"
Once again, I deal with this at my site.
It is very tedious having to field aimless questions I have already
answered.
Let's walk you through it one more time:
I have posted these Essays on the Internet to prevent my having to do what
you are now demanding of me.
I do not really care if you totally ignore what I have to say, totally
disagree with it, or something in between.
But I do mind half-baked questions when I keep telling you to read what I
have to say before your trigger-finger twitches into life again.
Of course, if you don't want to read my Essays, fine. But no more if these
random questions, please.
You are like the critics of Marx, who read one sentence and pull it apart
without looking at anything else he says.
5) "When you ask "how it could be true that matter is fundamentally
particulate and fundamentally non-particulate all at once ?" you are
assuming your position on the basic issue in support."
No; one can ask a question to force an opponent to explain herself.
Since I do not happen to think this can be explained (but not based on any
assumptions I have, but based on my understanding of the use of the negative
particle in English), I am attempting to force to the surface the nonsense
implicit in the belief that this could be the case.
It strikes me that you have a limited grasp of philosophical rhetoric; or
you are feigning such.
"basically
saying, it is not possible for anything to be self-contradictory ( the
question in dispute here) and therefore the dialecticians can't say or show
that matter is self-contradictory. You are begging the question."
Well, I merely wish to know what could possibly make educated adults believe
nature argues with itself.
So, there is no question here that is being begged; it does not make it that
far.
When pots and pans start to speak and to argue (nay, to contradict one
another) in fairy tales, and I ask of an adult why they take that literally
(assuming they do), it will not do for that person to accuse me of begging
the question.
They need treatment.
Now, I would not be so unkind to say this of you; but you invite it from one
less polite, as do your Hermetic chums, when you and they keep saying such
odd things.
You might as well say you can hear the music of the spheres...
So, I'd stop saying it if I were you.
As to the actual alleged contradiction, in a later essay I reference several
scientific realists who claim they can solve this 'paradox' and remove the
alleged contradiction.
David Bohm for one....
6) "It's a posteriori , not a priori. This approach arises after centuries
of experience."
Well, that is because those caught up in traditional forms of thought have
got so used to confusing the derivation of supertruths from a quirky use of
language (like 'Being') that you cannot even spot it when it is pointed out
to you.
Which is why I claim that ruling-class ideas rule our movement (in this
case, you and other dialecticians): they rule your thought because of the
Hermetic tradition from which you derived these odd ideas -- but, not from
experience.
Just as I do not think you can experience questions in nature, I do not
think you can experience contradictions. And this is not an existential
claim, it is based on the fact that I do not think the claim makes sense.
[Standard Wittgensteinian move, I think you will agree.]
7) "Don't you find by your experience that reality is contradictory?"
What an odd question?
Answer: No more than it is tautologious.
Nature contains contradictions only if you are prepared to personify it.
Count me out.
RL
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