there is a fundamental reality

That was a very interesting read, another example of the difficulty of arguing across paradigms. The disagreement between Setanta and Fresco is a real time expression of this difficulty. They are both intelligent individuals committed to perspectives that reflect their contrasting personalities. Cognitive style is among the many traits comprising personality structures. Obvioiusly, I am in this respect more like Fresco than I am like Setanta. Wittgenstein's stated philosophical goal was, metaphorically, to show the fly how to escape the fly bottle. For him philosophy is a form of therapy, an effort to enable us to avoid self-destructive linguistic misbehavior. I see his task as similar to that of the Buddha who sought to liberate the individual from delusion-generating mental misbehavior.

That was a very interesting read, another example of the difficulty of arguing across paradigms. The disagreement between Setanta and Fresco is a real time expression of this difficulty. They are both intelligent individuals committed to perspectives that reflect their contrasting personalities. Cognitive style is among the many traits comprising personality structures. Obvioiusly, I am in this respect more like Fresco than I am like Setanta. Wittgenstein's stated philosophical goal was, metaphorically, to show the fly how to escape the fly bottle. For him philosophy is a form of therapy, an effort to enable us to avoid self-destructive linguistic misbehavior. I see his task as similar to that of the Buddha who sought to liberate the individual
from delusion-generating mental misbehavior.
Ideally, I try to see the value of both perspectives: idealists and materialists, absolutists and relativists are not without some truth on their "side". Clearly that contributes to their tenacity. Frankly, I think we benefit from their agonies. Their intelligent agonies help us to refine the terms of our chosen positions. Both Fresco and Setanta improve my understanding of relativism and idealism. The middle way is the most profitable perspective.

I actually believe that Popper did walk a middle road between idealism and realism. He defined how science is done but he also affirmed the importance of metaphysics.

O.K., it's a matter of degree, isn't it?

O.K., it's a matter of degree, isn't it?

— James Clerk Maxwell
Letter to Michael Faraday (19 Oct 1861). In P. M. Harman (ed.), The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (1990), Vol. 1, 1846-1862, 684-6

You have a problem at the very outset. In Imperial measurement, the speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. That would be slightly fewer U. S. Standard miles. So one, or both, of the calculations is flawed. Quite apart from that, reading the text, he is making a host of suppositions, not the least of which is that there is a luminiferous aether. Later, he assumes that the the luminiferous and electromagnetic media are one and the same, without having adduced any proofs for the exitstence of a luminiferous aether.

It is a mystery to me what point you think that makes.

Wrong.

This is only true if you are within it.

The point is that Maxwell was tied into the concept of a "fundamental reality" just like Newton since each required a form of observer independent substrate. ( for Newton it was a fixed reference frame, and for Maxwell the aether). That quasi-religious paradigm held sway even after Michelson-Morley until Einstein came along with his observer specific reference frames which allowed him to apply Lorentz transformations to Maxwell's equations thereby eliminating "media parameters". He could of course only do that with his assumption of the constancy of the speed of light. He essentially replaced one major axiom with another. (We might note that even that axiom has been subject to question recently).

These points are not obvious from the starting point of the lay assumption of a "fundamental reality". Mathematical "elegance" has become the arbiter of scientific paradigms and the generator of data collection., i.e the generator of facts. "IS-ness" has become a function of "goodness of fit" of mathematics. In Einstein's case that was non-Euclidean geometry, and modern physics is reliant on the symmetries implied by group theory.

In Lakoff's advocation of embodied cognition, he makes the claim in common with Nunez and Piaget that "mathematics" (including "logic") is ultimately a function of human bodily/cognitive functioning...an interesting conjecture to say the least !

(If you are interested, there is a good webcast from Berkeley giving an excellent course of lectures on the history and philosophy of modern physics)

Setanta....I did not spell out the point in my first paragraph above that without the axiom of an elastic medium/aether, Maxwell could not have developed his equations, which are still used to this day. I hope you can understand that this point is self evident to any student of the history and philosophy of science. Note also that the analysis of the macro issue of "fundamental reality" hinges on the details of such seemingly minor sequences of events.

Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing.

It seems to me that some people have a greater need for absolutes than others. They require some fixed starting point for their thinking, and without it, nothing makes sense. I am the other way around, but that doesn't mean that my thinking is any more precise or successful than that of those who need their absolutes.
While it certainly seems more successful to me, I don't think that any of us are actually right about much beyond the contents of our actual experience, and even then "being right" means making progress towards a goal we ourselves defined.

Excellent. Our agreement suggests that not only do we think (more or less) alike but that we are (more or less) alike--compared to those who are (more or less) absolutist in cognitive style.
But this must not taken absolutely. I may be more similar to Setanta than I am to you in some other respects. (Sorry Set)

Fresco: "In Lakoff's advocation of embodied cognition, he makes the claim in common with Nunez and Piaget that "mathematics" (including "logic") is ultimately a function of human bodily/cognitive functioning...an interesting conjecture to say the least !"
And this is consistent with the notion that our species' physiology has much to do with our perception and understanding of the World. A strong support for some kind of epistemological relativism.

Your "point" is flawed, because Clerk-Maxwell could have developed those equations without what you disingenuously call an axiom. It was an assumption, and an unfounded assumption at that. Those equations could as well have been developed based on an assumption that light has both wave and particle characteristics.

Cyracuz earlier offered Ptolemaic astronomy as an example of a flawed system which nevertheless offered a functional system for navigation. He's wrong about that because astronomy only offers a system for navigational computation based on plantetary or satellite transits, which cannot be detected with the naked eye. However, Kopernican astronomy did offer a system which could be crudely used for navigational computations. However, it was also flawed, and the imprecision of the navigational system of computation which can be derived from it lead to the refinement of his system (principally in the matter of eliptical rather than circular orbits). Nevertheless, his assumption of a heliocentric universe was almost completely functional.

Clerk-Maxwell can with justice be considered to have been one of the three greatest physicists in history, along with Newton and Einstein. But that doesn't mean that he couldn't get some things wrong, which he did, and we know he did--it was demonstrated within a generation. None of this serves to support your contention that reality is only the product of our culturally and linguistically motivated perceptions.

That does justice neither to my contentions nor that of any of the authors I have cited. But since you might have realized by now that you know as little about perception and linguistics as you do about physics, you can be forgiven for that petulant little riposte.

Stick to history...it's much easier and you occasionally have something interesting to say !

Spot on ! The mathematics conjecture is of course contended by the "purist mathematicians", but there is certainly a case to be made for " set membership" which is fundamental to "logic" to be based on the bodily experience of being "inside an enclosure".

No petulance there, Bubba, unless it's your petulance at having your silly position rejected. I see no evidence that you know more about physics than i do, and in fact, it seems that you probably know less than you claim. Bascially, you're speaking about descritptions of reality--it is simply your intellectual prejudice which leads you to ignore the valid distinction between a description of reality and reality itself. Essentially, you have staked out a position and are attempting desparately to shoehorn evidence into that position. You consistently fail. So you resort to sneers at my intelligence. You're a sad case.

Go on then....show us how !

Einstein has already done that. You need to do more reading, Mr. Profound Knowledge of Physics.