No problem, seydlitz. Found your question not offensive in any way, shape, or form.
c.i.
To anyone trained in the sciences the question as originally posed is meaningless. The reality of the laws of nature cannot be in doubt; what can be doubted are specific theories about the nature of that reality, not whether it exists!
To take one example: a professor in whose class I sat long ago (who had a Nobel prize in physics) supported an approach to a "grand unified theory" including gravity (defined as curvature of space-time) but gravity "quantized", exactly like all the other forces (electromagnetism, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear).
Students daring to question this quantization of space-time were told that anyone doubting the existence of gravitons was welcome to jump out the window; the class was invariably held on the 26th floor of the physics building <G>
Excellent advice, HofT. Did anyone try it?
An apple would work just fine. c.i.
Laws of Nature are not commands but statements of face. The use of the same word is unfortunate. It would be better to speak of uniformities of Nature. This would do away with the elementary fallacy that a law implies a law-giver. Incidentally, it might just as well imply a parliament or soviet of atoms. But the difference between the two uses of the word is fundamental. If a piece of matter does not obey a law of Nature it is not punished. On the contrary, we say that the law has been incorrectly stated. It is quite probable that every law of Nature so far stated has been stated incorrectly. Certainly many of them have. Nevertheless, these inaccurately stated laws are of immense practical and theoretical value
Until proven otherwise. c.i.
HofT
You miss the point when you say " the laws of nature cannot be in doubt". If we "socially agree" that there are "laws of nature" then your statement is a tautology. The point is that scope of such "laws" concerns our common perceptual attributes as human beings and/or the extension of such perception through transducers. At the most fundamental level different beings would perceive different reality, but beyond such fundamentality we are social beings guided by "working hypotheses". What matters to us is prediction and control, and this is predicated on a concept of linear time in which "we" and "the world" have "continuity". Thus "meaning" IS prediction (or retrodiction) within this continuity.
Now given that "time" itself is now considered to be a psychological construct, and that "probability" has become ascendent over "causality" in physics, we should perhaps be questioning the obserever-observed relationship in epistemology and the social forces which influence it.
HofT- Nice story about your professor. Would we describe this unifying theory as Consilience?
dyslexia- Are you referring to Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm shifts in the "hard" sciences?
fresco- Interesting comment. I'll try to digest it along with the various implications. I was impressed by some of your earlier comments as well which is why I posted here. My specific interest is Max Weber and his social action theory, among other other concepts. Any comments on Weber?
I do think, without a whole lot of reflection, that social action ties in well with the type of "reality" you describe.
Seydlitz: as have no idea what any of Fresco's statements mean cannot contribute to this discussion further, other than volunteer to stand by while he jumps off a 26th-floor window to provide experimental proof of his proposition that gravity is a function of whatever we "socially agree".
Suspect this thread to be an updated version of the 1996 article by Prof. Alan D. Sokal "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" published in the journal "Social Text", whose editors didn't realize it was a hoax <G>
My introduction to 'Sokal's Hoax' was in a NY Review of Books essay which I was reading while sitting at an outdoor restaurant near my place. I was laughing so hard I feared they might ask me to leave. Two friends passing were hailed over and forced to hear a few passages. One friend of Sokal's had confessed that a real positive for life termination would be that he'd never again have to look up 'hermeneutics'.
Hermeneutics
That word has always caused my Quantum Gravity, social construct, epistimological something or another to go haywire! Please never say that word again!
i am assuming that it means the gospels according to herman.
And Herman was such a crazy guy. I'd hate to hang my hat on his gospels!
I go for the practical value. It is interesting, Fresco about probability and causality. I have a great quote from Richard Feynman, whom everyone knows I love to quote. I'll find it when I get home and post it.
Lola;
is your last statement " I'll find it when I get home and post it." your effort to "construct a reality", depending upon where you put the comma;
I'll find it when I get home and post it. (open to interpretation)
I'll find it when I get home, and post it. (possible, even likely)
I'll find it, when I get home and post it. (temporal rift in reality)
Sorry, I can't help myself!
HofT
The key issue is that perception is active not passive. Once you appreciate that it shifts the focus from an "external reality" to an "interactive reality".
My views are influenced primarily (a) Piagets genetic Epistemology (b) by the Whorf Sapir Hypothesis (language) influences/shapes thought and (c) Thomas Khun. I was not aware of any spoof on "Reality as a Social Construct.
Seydlitz
Thanks for the Weber lead. I shall look into it. (and is Goffman worth looking at ?)
Seydlitz
From a quick dip into Weber via Google it seems that he does not question external reality per se, but draws our attention to the social forces which direct our selection of particular aspects of it.
HofT-
Nice one. Point taken.
fresco-
Weber's not a philosopher, but more a sociologist/historian who attempted to answer some of the questions that Nietzsche brought up. Your mention of Whorf Sapir set me thinking, plus there are clear elements of Nietzsche. And language, especially the use of metaphors a la Lakoff, how we construct our existence with a limited number of metaphors which are of course non-linear, mutate over time, are culturally based, as is existance in general?
I'm not a philosopher, so we may be talking past one another. . .
".... the problem is not what is possible. That's not the problem. The problem is what is probable, what is happening. It does no good to demonstrate again and again that you can't disprove that this could be a flying saucer. We have to guess ahead of time whether we have to worry about the Martian invasion. We have to make a judgment about whether it is a flying saucer, whether it's reasonable, whether it's likely. And we do that on the basis of a lot more experience than whether it's just possible, because the number of things that are possible is not fully appreciated by the average individual. And it is also not clear, then to them how many things that are possible must not be happening. That it's impossible that everything that is possible is happening. And there is too much variety, so most likely anything that you think of that is possible isn't true. In fact that's a general principle in physics theories: no matter what a guy thinks of, it's almost always false. So there have been five or ten theories that have been right in the history of physics, and those are the ones we want. But that doesn't mean that everything's false. We'll find out." (Richard Feynman, The Meaning of It All, p. 77.)
"We'll find out," but in the constraint of our language, culture, and environment.
Right, c.i., who else's? Constraints happen. :wink:
