Well put, Bob W. I personally believe there is an ultimate truth, an ultimate reality.
Do I claim to know it? No. Will I or other humans ever fully understand it? Likely not. But it doesn't keep me from believing that one exists.
Age old questions. Did the universe (our physical universe) have a beginning or was it always here? Was life created or did it evolve? Just two of the many questions we can ask. There must be a real answer to those questions. If there is a real answer, there is a reality. Ultimately things are one way and not another.
Rhetorical... Isn't getting a glimpse of reality, albeit a partial one, what many scientists, philosophers and theologians, as well as the ordinary comman man have been trying to achieve since the beginning of time as we know it?
Tom C.
From: Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: pentax-discuss@pdml.net To: pentax-discuss@pdml.net Subject: Re: Dogmatism: what is allowed? Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:54:19 +0000
Hi,
> That's what happens when you try to argue the solipsistic position.
> It's incoherent. There's a lesson to be learned there!
> ===============
> We have to agree to disagree. I think the nature of reality remains, as yet,
> undiscovered.
> The observer affects the observed.
Your position is inconsistent. One the one hand you claim to believe that there is no external reality. On the other you claim that the observer affects the observed. These positions are incompatible. If there is no external reality then there is no observed.
Many people claim that there is no external reality - everything is a product of their mind. However, they all act consistently with the belief that there is an external reality. For example, by emailing people to claim that there is no external reality, you act as though you believe there is at least one mind out there who can read your email. In making your claim you refute it.
Similarly, when you leave your flat to go outside, you demonstrate that you believe there is a flat to be inside, and there is an outside to go to. When you hesitate before crossing the road you show that you believe there is a road to cross, that cars and trucks go very fast on it, and that they have the power to crush you.
Somebody who truly believed that there was no external reality would be unable to do any of these things. That's why I said earlier that their behaviour would be indistinguishable from insanity.
During the Red Terror in Ethiopia, the killers in Mengistu's death squads took a dislike to 'pointy-headed intellectuals'. Just before they shot them, they would say 'and this, my friend, is the objective reality'.
The idea that the observer affects the observed is a piece of folk-philosophy nonsense from quantum theory which is meaningless at the level we live at.
-- Cheers, Bob
