From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The Two Faces of Ayn Rand
Date: 16 Dec 92 20:59:03 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <Bz95zB.DsJ@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter
Nelson) writes:
|> In article <184619@pyramid.pyramid.com>
pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
|> >In article <Bz01nC.8ys@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter
|> >Nelson) writes: 
|> >|> 
|> >|>    Are you saying that "mass", "force",  "acceleration",
"speed-of-light-
|> >|>    in-a-vacuum", etc, are "arbitrary and subjective"?    Randianism
|> >|>    would do very well indeed to be so "arbitrary and subjective".
|> >|> 
|> >
|> >Completely subjective.
|> >
|> >As you well know Peter, the "thing-in-itself" science breaks down
|> >completely with quantum mechanics, where, not only are things not what
|> >they used to be -- photons have momenta but no mass -- but they
|> >deteriorate totally into
|> >meaningless equations which accurately predict how certain observations
|> >will be recorded in an observation space looking with a particular device.
|> >
|> >How you look determines what you see.  You can't get any more subjective
|> >than that. 
|> 
|>   I disagree.  "Look", above is defined objectively.  Six physicists
|>   "looking" at the same dual-slit experiment will "see" the same thing.
|>   Six clergymen praying will not necessarily get the same answer; six
|>   theologians reading the same sacred text will not produce the same
|>   interpretation.  Six economists reading the same economic data will 
|>   not reach the same conclusion either.
|>

Six economists counting the number of units sold by GM will arrive at the
same answer, and six priests chanting Om-mani-padmi-Om will have the same
experience -- namely their experience of chanting Om-mani-padmi-Om.

On the other hand, six scientists looking at the universe will produce 
six completely different world views.  In fact six scientists looking 
at a dual-slit experiment will 'see" different things.  One might see
the dual particle-wave nature of light; another might see a reading
of 16 on his meter.  Ask Einstein and Bohr what *they* saw.  Same data,
huge difference.  

You and I both just narrowed or expanded the scope of view to produce whatever
answer we wanted to produce.  That is completely subjective. What we choose
to measure is subjective.  The meaning we assign to it is subjective.  The
act of measuring is objective to the extent that it can be replicated.
But the act of measuring itself is utterly meaningless, or, it has no
fixed meaning.

|> 
|> >Now defend your system.  Show us that science has brought about some 
|> >"true" kind of progress.
|> 
|>   I'm not going to even try to defend that idea of progress because it's
|>   too subjective and it's off the subject.  Not is it my personal opinion
|>   that there's any clear sense that science *has* produced that benefit.
|>   It's not clear to me that the modern human is any "happier" than the 
|>   the hunter-gatherer, but I can't defend that opinion.
|> 

I mistakenly thought you were of that mind.  I agree. I think, on balance
its SSDM -- same shit, different milenium.  I often wish I was hunting and
gathering rathing than looking at a computer screen.

|>   I'm merely using science as an instance of what I regard to be 
|>   a good system for defining "true"; a good system of applied
|>   epistemology.   I've said repeatedly that anyone here is free
|>   to propose some other system.   The Tim Starr, for instance,
|>   is apparently satisfied that a system which produces some
|>   unspecified number of correct predictions in some larger but
|>   unspecified number of tries is also "true".   But this "evidence"
|>   would work just as well to prove that Jean Dixon is correct as
|>   to prove that "Austrian" economics is.
|>                           
|> 
|> ---peter

Science is good at quantifying observation.  Anything beyond that is 
a subjective stretch.

Paul Collacchi

Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism