Ohm-Kirchhoff / Epistemology / Teachers

I don't know if I believe that JL. I know you can delve through those to something else. Do the learned cultural-linguistic dispositions still define your world then? :wink:

Cryacuz, I put my "world" in quotes to indicate a pattern of (inter)subjective MEANINGS. The ontological reality beyond or behind my experience is, like Kant's Noumena, something I cannot address. As soon as I CAN address it, as soon as I have an "understanding" of its nature, I am then addressing symbolic, cultural, linguistic (even mathematical) understandings. I agree that IN REALITY the world is larger than my worldview, but the latter is where I live.

I understand.

But if we cannot address reality directly, then who's to say such a thing is even possible?
How could any consciousness do so, if consciousness requires presence and sentience.

Also, if there is no true self, there can be no unifying concept to house the representations of reality that make my "world". These representations would be attributes of the things themselves, because there isn't truly anything else they can be attributes of...

Hmm.. my brain starts itching... :wink:

We shall see!If as you assert "you understand", then you should be able to use empiricism to demonstrate that Kirchhoff's circuit laws and/or Ohm's Law is only applicable within the context of one's individual subjective perceptions, and not within the context of the understood physical world.

From the systems perspective, socio-linguistics "norms" are subservient to both "sociological process"and "life processes". Such dynamic processes are ALL that constitues "reality". There is no a priori "noumena" as such. The fact that we think of a biological membrane separating "inner" and "outer" worlds is a pragmatic convention associated with the concept of an "individual". it has no more status that the membrane seen as enclosing an internal organ.The functioning of such an organ cannot be understood without reference to "the body". Similarly biological descriptions of the "individual" are insufficient to "explain" its status. Thus "reality" consists of nested systems of different levels of dynamic exhange.

Later Edit:

The "understood physical world" referred to by Chumly involves the predicted outcomes of dynamic relationships with undisputed "physical descriptions". Such a world-view assumes that "observer variables" are irrelevant and that all control factors are operative sufficient to give confident prediction. A "physical world" necessarily involves a subset of all dynamic exchanges many of which have no predictable outcomes, despite misguided attempts by reductionists to extend their universe of discourse.

fresco,

Do you consider Popper's three worlds of knowledge to be a good model?



[My own, more simplistic explanation:
-World 1 would be the physical universe. We do not always perceive the physical universe correctly.
-World 2 would be our personal perceptions.
-World 3 would be the theories generated through worlds 1 and 2 which have been accepted by most people as objectively valid.]

Popper seems to assume "exstence/reality" resides in a "physical world". This is disputed by Maturana (et al) who imply that those ontological terms belong to the pragmatic realm of "observer descriptions". They are linguistic "snapshots" which imply a functional permanence (hence predictive value) within the flux of interaction. To take a crude analogy, consider say "an electron" to be "a football" in a football game. The status (reality) of depends on our ability or otherwise to control "it" within context. Out of context a football may simply become "junk in the basement like other junk...i.e. there is no need to separately identify "it" ...it ceases "to exist" qua "football"....i.e. there are no "electrons" except where they are evoked within a "need to control" scenario. The fallacy is to assume "things" have existence "in "their own right" rather than only in contextual relationship.

I tend to think that the "physical world" resides (a synonym for "exists" within) Reality. And I quickly acknowledge that this is merely my "orientation" rather than a technically defensible ontological proposition.

I have also recently taken a Nietzschean perspective on the notion of "thing-ness". "Things" have no existence in their own right if only because I cannot grasp what a "thing" can be.
Abstract the roundness, redness, tastiness, weight--even the nutritional value--and all other "properties" from an apple and try to find what is left. Could it possiblly be some sort of "thingness"? Absurd.

I tend to think that the "physical world" resides (a synonym for "exists" within) Reality. And I quickly acknowledge that this is merely my "orientation" rather than a technically defensible ontological proposition.

I have also recently taken a Nietzschean perspective on the notion of "thing-ness". "Things" have no existence in their own right if only because I cannot grasp what a "thing" can be.
Abstract the roundness, redness, tastiness, weight--even the nutritional value--and all other "properties" from an apple and try to find what is left. Could it possiblly be some sort of "thingness"? Absurd.

JLN,

Yes..."properties" are descriptions of projected inter-relationships "in the minds eye". What we do not describe remains "unthinged". E.g. we do not (normally) describe our feet or the floor as we walk. Such an inter-relationship requires no "conscious" (=verbal) control. I think it was Heideggar who said something like "things only come into existence when control issues arise."

Sounds reasonable. To us nothing exists if it has no purpose. We give names to things according to what they do. Seems to me that when we're explaining what something is, we usually do so in terms of what the thing does. (I am also thinking of it's apearance as a function at the moment).

...forgive me for annotating your post in order to stress a point. Thus even when we are in "spectator mode" watching say "a lion" "stalk" "its prey" we are already predicting our potential visual experiences by using such terms in an utterance...some are even moved to "participation mode" by gambling on possible outcomes.

That's quite all right fresco

Your modifications do not alter the intended meaning of the post.

It seems that we are (1) pragmatists--stressing the function of interaction ("participation mode") in our definitions of the world, and (2) artists--stressing the function of experience ("spectator mode") for its own sake. I even think of (1) when I talk--"mystically"--about the fundamentally delusional nature of THOUGHT and I think of (2) when I think of the Cosmos as fundamentally a matter of "pure" EXPERIENCE.
What I think we are not is metaphysical with a view of "knowledge" as descriptions of what happens in some kind of other worldly (non-interactional and extra-experiential) realm(s).