Hello Bobby and Jaap. I'm new here. My name is Dan Dunn (I hope this appears
on my e-mail, if not I'll have to fix it). I hope you won't mind an observation
or two.
> > I'm afraid, thats not what i ment at all. Rather than defend a relativistic
> > point of view, i have been trying to defend the only worthwhile
> > non-relativistic point of view, in post after post, and that is the Reality
> of that which is
> > COMMON (or non-relativistic) to us.
>
> I'm sorry I got you wrong -
I'm not certain what is meant by "non-relativistic" but COMMON experience. All
experience is relativistic, of course-- the General Theory of Relativity isn't
being questioned here, is it? This may sound like I'm missing the point but
consider this-- it is precisely because of Relativity of the Physical kind that
we must take relativity of all kinds seriously. We are all separated from each
other by space, at least. Niels Bohr made a decision that impacted metaphysics
when he built upon relativity to create a new scientific ontology. He
stipulated that in order to be a part of science, a thing must be observable in
a scientific way. Particles that have "no location" must be experienced in
order to acquire being, but they existed prior to that experience-- as nothing.
Einstein once asked Bohr if he thought that the moon disappeared when he stopped
looking at it. To be honest, Bohr would have had to reply that it did, but that
this was not a relevant fact to scientific endeavor. It's unimportant to
science what happens to the moon when it is not being observed. It's important
to philosophers. The philosopher that came along and added clarity to this new
ontology was Jean Paul Satre. Objects are what they are, scientifically, but
they are also what they are not. Particles included, of course. The idea that
existence precedes essence fits in very well with Pirsig's metaphysics, I
believe. Existence, Quality-- the same? It's funny Pirsig never mentions
Sartre...
------- End of forwarded message -------
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:30 BST