Clark (clark@netsites.net)
Wed, 25 Feb 1998 05:00:52 +0100
----------
> From: Platt Holden <pholden@worldnet.att.net>
> To: Multiple recipients of <lilasqd@mail.hkg.com>
> Subject: LS Re: Conceptions of Dynamic Quality
> Date: Tuesday, February 24, 1998 6:33 PM
>
> Ken Clark wrote:
>
> > I am not sure that all of this talk about not being able to understand
> > reality because we are a part of it is right. I would be interested to
> > hear
> > your explanation of why that is so. Just saying it doesn't make it so.
>
> To explain, allow me to turn to Robert Burns, the 16th century Scottish
> poet who you should like for he wrote:
>
> "I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
> Has broken Nature's social union."
>
> Here's the relevant quote:
>
> "Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
> To see ourselves as others see us."
>
> Just as you cannot step outside yourself to see yourself as others see
> you,
> we cannot step outside our reality to see it as someone outside our
> reality
> would see it.
>
> We tried. Lord knows we tried. Science took us all the way down to the
> reality of the subatomic world, and there we lost it. We found we could
> not
> observe reality at that level without disturbing it. There we discovered
> that the object could never be completely separated from the subject,
> and
> suddenly the whole world of subjects and objects, the world of me in
> here
> and you out there, came tumbling down. The assumption that reality (or
> information) exists independently of us blew up in our faces, leaving
> our
> entire subject-object world view in shambles.
>
> Few have come to terms with reality as discovered by quantum mechanics
> except for physicists like Eddington:
>
> "Something unknown is doing we don't know what--that is what our theory
> amounts to."
>
> Or Heisenberg:
>
> "The common division of the world into subject and object, inner world
> and
> outer world, body and soul, is no longer adequate and leads us into
> difficulties."
>
> Or Schroedinger:
>
> "Subject and object are only one."
>
> Or the philosopher Pirsig:
>
> "(Subjects and objects) can be used as long as it is remembered they're
> terms for patterns (of values) and not some independent reality of their
> own."
>
> The assumption that there exists an objective reality independent of
> subjects is no longer tenable. We have met Quality, the fundamental
> ground-stuff of the world, and it is us.
>
> Platt
>
> Catch 42. No one can be certain of anything.
>
Platt,
I just came in from pumping the bilges on my sailboat and found your
message.
As the current status of our information stands now I agree with you.
We
cannot understand reality.
My point is that it is just too early in our development to make such
a
statement with certainty. If we wish to stifle our curiosity and rest on
our laurels where we are now your position would be correct, and it may
turn out that it will ultimately be correct for all I know. However,
your
quotes from Eddington and Heisenberg are no longer completely valid
because
Feynman has cleared up many of the conundrums. Read his series of four
lectures in a book entitled QED. The results of the two pinhole
experiments
is fascinating and leave many questions un answered among them the
problem
you mentioned about the act of measurement altering the results of the
experiment. Our difference lies in whether we look upon these results as
the final answer or just as something we don't yet understand. We didn't
know why electrons were confined to discrete shells until Feynman
explained
it to us. I just prefer, at the moment, to think that further knowledge
will clear up the mysteries. None of us know now. I can understand
Einstein's frustration when he said, "God does not play dice with the
universe,"
As far as not being able to see ourselves as others see us, if we
wanted
to go to the trouble we could monitor ourselves with camera equipment
long
enough and in enough situations to get as good an idea as anyone else
has.
No two people see us identically.
I realize that my interpretation of the MOQ is developing at variance
with other people on the squad, however, I think this is where the "many
truths" idea becomes valid. Every person who ever lived is under the
influence of Dynamic Quality, Even Eddington and Bonnie and Clyde and
Ken
and Platt. Knowing about it just gives us a method of satisfying our
personal anxieties as well as being able to deliberately make conforming
choices.
I am not saying you are wrong, just that it is too early to tell. I am
standing by for another broadside. Ken
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