Struan, long time no see.
Just had to make a small point about your extension of the branch analogy.
You wrote:
> I will pick up the analogy of branches on a tree where you claim that the
MoQ has nothing to say to
> either materialism or idealism. This is the heart of your problem. The
branches of the tree, upon
> spotting the trunk, can see themselves as extending downwards and actually
being the trunk without
> any radical change in their outlook. They look at the trunk and conclude
that the whole tree is made
> of wood. This doesn't change how they see themselves, it merely shows them
that two different
> branches can emerge from the same place. A coherent materialist realises
this and he knows that
> science can easily view fundamentals as particles. . . or waves . . . .or
energy . . . .or (gasp)
> Quality. The terminology you are so caught up in is not important, rather,
the importance lies in
> the concepts behind it. Coherent materialism can and must talk to the MoQ
as much as possible and
> the MoQ can and must talk back.
"the MoQ can and must talk back."? I'm not sure. I agree that
it would be most helpful if the MoQ could talk back, but I'm not
sure it can. What (I think) the materialist "realises" is that science
can view fundamentals as:
objective particles or...
objective waves or...
objective energy or...
(objective???) Quality.
My point being that Quality is not objective, neither subjective,
but I bet most materialists think it is either objective or
subjective. The words particles, waves, energy and Quality are not
just different terms. There are no water-tight transformations
enabling us to use the term Quality instead of one of the other
terms, or vice versa.
As you say, the importance lies in the concepts behind the terms.
I think the concepts behind the three terms particles, waves and
energy are identical, but the concepts behind the term Quality is
very different from the rest.
Magnus
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