Chumly wrote:I understand that I asked you to substantiate your position as it relates to fresco's position you being the skeptic of fresco's position. But I cannot see why I cannot correctly contradict fresco in the sense that fresco does not have the properties of glass, even given the (not necessary all encompassing all embracing one might suppose?) premise that truth is subject to negotiation; because how do you negotiate optical permeability?
First of all, you have to abandon the notion that the statement "I am made of glass" is a
fact claim. Given that
fresco denies the objectivity of reality (well, he
claims to deny it -- in practice he reaffirms it constantly), it follows that there can be no such thing as a "fact claim," or at least there can be no such thing as a fact claim that is valid for anyone other than the person asserting the claim.
Thus, the statement "I am made of glass" is, despite its appearance,
not a claim by the speaker that he is actually made of glass. Rather, it is an invitation by the speaker to others (or a command, as Maturana would put it) to agree with his statement "I am made of glass." Others may dispute the speaker's claim, but to do so would be to assert an
objective fact -- i.e. that the speaker is not made of glass -- and, as we've seen,
nobody can make such fact claims. At most, others can express their disagreement with the speaker. Indeed, if
everybody disagrees with the speaker, then they might also label him as "delusional" or "crazy," but calling the speaker "delusional" is simply the equivalent of saying "the large majority of people disagree with the speaker."*
Moreover, it is of no avail that one can point out that the speaker does not exhibit the attributes of an object made of glass. Science, after all, is nothing but a collection of fact claims, including the claim that objects made of glass exhibit certain attributes. Those fact claims are as inapplicable to the speaker as are the claims of the casual observer who asserts that the speaker is "nuts." In other words, if a scientist were to say to the speaker "you cannot be made of glass, since you exhibit none of the attributes of glass," the speaker can reply "that's
your claim about glass," and neither would have any basis to validly contradict the other.
*
fresco would go farther, and allow that society can, in certain circumstances,
take action against anyone who expresses such "delusional" claims. That, by the way, is a rather risky path for
fresco to take, since he has also stated that "it is neither 'true' nor 'false' that the earth orbits the sun," a statement with which the large majority of people would also disagree.
....not quite on the "taking action" ! This is not "such" a claim. I implied that "society" might take action on a "pernicious" claim. Galileo's claim for heliocenticity was considered "pernicious" at the time by the "leaders" of the then "society". Harris and Dawkins are trying to sway "society" against "a belief in an afterlife" post 9/11...