Grretings Economists, On Jul 15, 2006, at 10:24 AM, Shane Mage wrote:
Yes, and the existence of God is well supported by observation of the pile of crutches at Lourdes.
Doyle; One can be skeptical of anything. And that can be fruitful. However, a great deal of money is spent on astrophysics. Are you saying we can spend that on something else that would give us better understanding? When I look at say a rock I don't know it's chemical composition. I have to take a hammer to it to shape it or do something with it besides throw it or use it as a hammer. In essence see a model of what I want in the stone. Is seeing that model the same thing as seeing the crutches at Lourdes? Remembering the definition of God as outside of material reality. This has been a central question human societies have grappled with for thousands of years. I would myself say there is 'nothing' outside of material reality. But my understanding of material reality depends upon my 'seeing' in a rock things that a mere surface examination with vision would not tell me. Inobservables as it were. The same with economics. The fruit of skepticism is to demonstrate that black holes don't exist in a decisive manner. I can with crutches at Lourdes simply say something outside material reality is unknowable. I can say about anything in material reality I can 'know' that. I would presume the ontology of 'knowing' is at stake here. Are we discussing knowables? If we are then I could bring up the economic aspects of that and possibly be of interest here. If it is just ordinary metaphysics of ontology well what is interesting to say then? Doyle
