Hi Glenn,
I'll take your advise to re-read the passage about gravitation in ZAMM (although it
seems to have some problem of its own, as exposed in Rick's
post). I nevertheless wish to add a quick reply to two of your points.
> ANDREA:
> With that, I also think that Pirsig rejects, or is not interested in, the idea
>that the "real" world is something that exists apart of the
> "world we see"... and that our perception of the world, that is all we can actually
>call world at all, is necessarily a function of the
> maps we have... so "inventing" the law of gravity changed the world for all of us
>(who studied Newton's law at school).
>
> Rick:
> I think he is dubious of the reality we even see with our eyes and all our
> other senses. To him this is all a static universe, real in the sense that
> it seems real but secondary to the only true reality which creates it.
This is true, but I'm not sure if it's meant as a correction or rejection of what I
wrote. Newton didn't change the "true reality" you mention,
of course, just the "static universe" we perceive. And I also think one of the points
in Pirsig's position is that "senses" never provide
perception/experience all by themselves: perception is always implicitly filtered and
modified and adapted by the observer's intellectual
patterns (such as, the idea of gravitation).
> ANDREA:
> As a side note, IMHO, it makes no sense at all to say that gravitation existed
>before Newton. Gravitation isn't even an empirically
> observable something. Forces (such as gravitation "is") are an abstraction used to
>formulate shorter sentences about the (empirically
> observable) behavior of "things".
>
> Hmmm. It sounds like you not only believe gravity didn't exist before Newton, but
>after as well. Forces like gravity are not generally
> believed to be solely an abstraction. It is assumed that something is responsible
>for causing apples to fall to the ground. Also denying the
> reality of things we cannot perceive with our own senses is not always a wise thing.
>Dogs can hear and smell things we cannot, afterall, and
> we cannot perceive radio waves or carbon monoxide, for example.
> Glenn
This point of yours is the main reason I felt compelled to add a reply. I never argued
that we should deny the reality of things we cannot
perceive with our sense, in general (I would rather defend the opposite position). My
position is different.
When you say "it is assumed that something is responsible for causing apples to fall
on the ground" - assumed by whom? I may try to collect
some evidence that it is *not* every scientist's position. (And it is actually a
philosophical, not scientifical, position; and one that,
generally speaking, has some flaws - what causes gravitation to cause apples to
fall?). Some scientific nouns correspond to measurable things,
some are shorthand for terms in equations. You may argue that if you take a term in a
physical equation and give it a name (eg, "jabberwocky"),
and begin to use this word in reasoning/talking, this makes a real thing of the
jabberwocky (I would think this is, with all caveats, RMP's
position). I could agree on that, but a quick prior talk about what we agree the word
"exist" to mean should be needed.
The overall concept of "force" has similarities with that of (physical) "law". The
concept of law is a convenience, an antropomorphic way of
describing the way things behave. Apples do not "observe" physical laws when they fall
(like men do when they pay taxes). Apples behave like
apples, and their behavior can be expressed formally by mathematical formulas that we
call "laws". But assuming that there *is* a law, with the
same ontological status of an apple, so to speak, is just taking the analogy too far
(again, unless we agree that the jabberwocky exists). At
the very least, no one ever experienced an illegal apple breaking the law of
gravitation.
Andrea
--
Andrea Sosio
RIM/PSPM/PPITMN
Tel. (8)9006
mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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