[Hans Blom, 970916b]
(i.kurtzer (970915))
Thank you for sharing your internal world-model with me.
glad to be supporting your beliefs by whatever i say; i suppose that
must be one very resilient world-model of yours.
Yes, it seems so. It is a property of a good model that it has high
explanatory power, i.e. that few observations are surprising.
Remains the question whether "crap" has a "real existence". Would,
say, dogs -- or bacteria -- be able to perceive crap qua crap as
well? Or are only we humans -- or maybe only some selected subset
of them -- able to perceive it? You pose a very interesting
question! Or do you pose a question? I doubt it..
your doubt is irrevelant as you believe it is all ultimately
arbitrary.
That is an incorrect deduction (induction?). Since I am a controller
(our common basic belief structure here ;-), it is important for me
that my goals are realized. What _you_ may find arbitrary is that _I_
have the goals that I have. But that to you my goals seem arbitrary
(I prefer to call them idiosyncratic) does not imply that "all is
ultimately arbitrary" to me.
That is, it would be rather naive of me to suppose that there might
be something truthful;
Ah, the search for truth! No, you misunderstand me: I'm very much in
favor of it. But maybe I'm more in favor of the search than of the
truth; the truth seems such a remote and ever receeding ideal. I
deeply mistrust people who think they have found it, but I sympathize
deeply with people searching for it.
at best one explanatory set is more sucessful than others; but again
that is arbitrary.
Success is always relative to a particular goal. If you achieve your
particular, idiosyncratic goals, then you are successful. I wish you
all the success that you deserve.
But I doubt the sincerity of that line of TALKING.
Don't, I'm sincere. I may be -- no, I am, at least partly -- in
error, but sincere I am.
The truth of something and its apprehension are distinct.
Ah, is that the truth? Or a belief? If the truth, can you demonstrate
it objectively? I doubt it: a truth can only be proven on the basis
of/relative to even deeper truths. The millenia-long search of
philosophers and their ilk of all sorts for undubitable truths has
thus far been without success. My major conclusion is that all truths
are contingent/relative and that a solid fundament is missing. The
search, however, has generated a lot of knowledge (and even wisdom).
People make mistakes, persons guess, and the value of their guesses
are NOT arbitrary.
You know, sometimes I _do_ agree with you!
Or should we give Nobels to pandas, pigs, and baboons in the style
of a modern Protagoras?
I doubt whether we would do pandas, pigs and baboons a favor by
giving them Nobel prizes; sometimes our views seem so humanocentric.
But then, maybe pandas, pigs and baboons have their own equivalents
of Nobel prizes. But then again, if so, would we be able to recognize
them as such?
Greetings,
Hans