Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00394)

Eldon: "Taughy" and "todday?" I detect a subtle
allusion to recent comments on the list regarding the
humor found in misspellings by people whose first
language is not English.

What you detect is my failure to run spell checker,
with the result that I did not catch all my own typos.

Eldon: "Science used to be Natural Philosophy, until
it dropped
metaphysics and philosophy and became physical
empiricism. Over time, it's been broadening its scope.

Natural philosophy predates modern science and is
something quite different, inasmuch as the latter is
empirical.

Eldon: "It still may have trouble with things that are
real
but at the same time are unprovable and
non?reproducible.

If it is unprovable it is by definition outside the
purview of empirical science. That does not mean it
is not valid. If it is irreproducible, it belongs in
THE JOURNAL OF IRREPRODUCIBLE RESULTS, which is a
satirical periodical. It does not belong in
scientific textbooks.

Eldon: "A system in a chaotic state, under the
influence of
a strange attractor, may be deterministic, but not
predictable.

Unless something has changed, non deterministic means
unpredictable and deterministic means predictable.

Eldon: "All possible states may be known and could
be graphed. But given a particular state, it may not
be possible to say which one would come next. This
may frustrate traditional experimenters

Not necessarily. Statistical mechanics is based on
the idea that the motion of molecules in a gas is
probabilistic, meaning the movement of a particular
molecule cannot be predicted, but that the behavior of
the population of molecules can. The same is true
(albeit less precisely) of the behavior of millions of
humans as distinguished from the behavior of a single
human. The current economic recession was entirely
predictable.

Eldon: "They may struggle with the idea that there
could be
a deterministic system that does not yield predictable
results.

If the system is deterministic and unpredictable I
would struggle with that as well.

Eldon: "Different religions and philosophies try to
describe the details of what happens in this world,
each drawing upon analogies from life and society and
extrapolating them. We have a father and mother, so
the ruler and parent of the universe must be "God
the Father" in patriarchal societies.

If someone who was orphaned and who never knew for
sure who his real father was anyway (i.e., Jesus)
defined the object of his devotion as a "heavenly"
father, that has more to do with psychology than
metaphysics. Most of us do this, combining
speculation with unconscious yearnings. Maybe even
all of us.

Eldon: "We are born into the world, so when we
get initiated into the spiritual path, we are "born
again."

When anyone claims to have been "born again" it is my
time to duck out of the discussion.

Thanks for your comments.

--- Eldon B Tucker <eldon@theosophy.com> wrote:
> Steve [writing to Leon]:
> 
> >Actually, what is being taughy in universities
> todday
> >is that not everything can be demonstrated and
> tested
> >using empirical methods and that some objects of
> >intellectual interest are therefore outside the
> domain
> >of science. Science has therefore usurped some,
> but
> >not all, of the obsessions of the philosopher. 
> That
> >is a bit different from what you said. It is a
> fact
> >and not a prejudice.
> 
> "Taughy" and "todday?" I detect a subtle allusion to
> recent comments on the list regarding the humor
> found
> in misspellings by people whose first language is
> not
> English.
> 
> Science used to be Natural Philosophy, until it
> dropped
> metaphysics and philosophy and became physical
> empiricism. Over time, it's been broadening its
> scope.
> 
> It still may have trouble with things that are real
> but at the same time are unprovable and
> non-reproducible.
> With such, it may turn a blind eye or limit itself
> to
> after-the-fact observations.
> 
> A system in a chaotic state, under the influence of
> a strange attractor, may be deterministic, but not
> predictable. All possible states may be known and
> could
> be graphed. But given a particular state, it may not
> be possible to say which one would come next. This
> may frustrate traditional experimenters if they
> expect
> for a given input that they'll get a predictable
> output.
> They may struggle with the idea that there could be
> a deterministic system that does not yield
> predictable
> results.
> 
> Metaphysics deals with issues of life, spirit, soul,
> the intangible something that is behind outward
> appearances and can only be known by its effects.
> These subtle causes of outward things are, I'd say,
> immaterial, and originate from some higher form of
> existence.
> 
> Different religions and philosophies try to
> describe the details of what happens in this world,
> each drawing upon analogies from life and society
> and
> extrapolating them. We have a father and mother, so
> the ruler and parent of the universe must be "God
> the Father" in patriarchal societies. We have a code
> of justice in society, so we have karma as justice
> in
> the universe. We are born into the world, so when we
> get initiated into the spiritual path, we are "born
> again."
> 
> Care must be taken when using analogies from
> everyday life to describe the cosmic order of
> things.
> A closer approximation may be reached by using
> several analogies that apparently contradict each
> other. Then we can point at something otherwise
> intangible and not take any one description too
> literally.
> 
> -- Eldon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
> 


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