Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Wed, 8 Jul 1998 19:20:04 +0100
Since this subject has come up again and been hotly debated (at
leat Anthony got steamed-up) I thought I'd re-post my take on it. This was
a responce I gave to a chalange simmiler to the recent speed of light and
weight of a proton challange that was made.
On Wed, 1 Apr 1998, Donald T Palmgren wrote:
>
> On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Mary Wittler wrote:
>
> > Hi one and all!
>
> Hello,
>
> >
> > I've been lurking for a while now and have finally decided to plunge in.
> > Please forgive my ignorance, but I would like to hear the MOQ response to
> > the following questions:
> >
> > 1) If F=ma is not an 'absolute' truth, yet we all still experience gravity,
> > then what is true? Is it that F=ma is a shorthand acknowledgement of the
> > high probability of its occurrence?
>
> I'll add my two cents on this one.
> "Absolut truth" means true always-everywher. The problem is that
> always-everywhere dosn't exist. We (imaginativly) project
> always-everywhere, and always-everywhere laws to go along w/ it -- this is
> what I tend to call "the correct picture of the world", or you could call
> it logocentracism.
> But what really exests is the present. always-everywher is
> projected from here and now. So truth resides in the present situation.
> Second, in logocentracism, you take the view that: there are
> timeless, absolute truths. ...but true for whome? God? Something is true
> or not true *for us*. Truth value is something *we* assign to this or that
> proposition. A universe w/o us little humans in it has no more need of a
> T-F distinction that it has for abstract laws or propositions like F=ma.
> In such a place (which I hope you see is also an imaginative projection)
> Truth wouldn't exist at all... or proof.
> You might groov on this thought in relation to that question: The
> past exists only in memory and recapitulation. The future exists only in
> hopes, dreams and predictions. The only time that really exists is the
> present.
> What do you think?
>
If something was "Absolutly true," like the speed of light in a
vacume being = to whatever, that means it's true regardless of whatever we
say or think about it. But to say that -- that "X is true regardless of
what we say or think" -- is SOMETHING WE SAY. It's not a REPORT (about
some "fact of the world") it's a (moral/social) RESOLVE (to believe in X
[say, science] as the best and truest system of proof; the best way to
build a picture of the world).
The speed of light and the mass of a proton are scientific facts,
yes. But they are not absolute facts because you can not come up w/ those
facts through any and every system of proof (standerd of truth) you might
employ, only through science. Now we all agree that science is the best
system of proof, sure... but is that proven? If so, what system of proof
did you employ?
Actually it's only "proven" in so far as it is most moral in our
society to hold that posiotion. At bottom, the world is actually just
composed of moral values. (freaky, huh?)
O-kay, Anthony, feel free to go off on me. I mean, if I believe
the universe is composed of moral values... jeeze! I probly also believe
in aliens and that Elvis is still alive and....
;-)
TTFN(ta-ta for now)
Donny
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