Re: [asa] Leibnitz' objection to atomism

Merv:

agreed :-)

bill

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009, mrb22667@kansas.net wrote:

> I think it may be a given in some broader "Goedelian" sense that there will
> always be the unknown 'x' beyond the edge whether it be concerning atomism,
> mathematics, or philosophy, let alone metaphysics. So I certainly wasn't
> meaning to suggest that I/we/anybody should be able to give an ultimate final
> explanation to anything. It's just a posture we choose to take when we want to
> dwell on or celebrate mystery in our existence.
>
> Meanwhile, though, all of us live life on the practical level. If a solar
> system model of an atom does a better job explaining both old and current
> observations, we run with it. When something better comes along, we run with
> that.
>
> While none of us advocates despair just because perfection will never be
> achieved, it is a posture we occasionally choose to dwell on temporarily so it
> might nudge us back towards humility and realistic self-appraisal. I took your
> conversation to be along that kind of existential mood. It can be a good
> counter-point towards an enthusiastic Scientism that looks at our cup of
> knowledge that will probably be a mere tenth full in perpetuity and tirelessly
> trumpets triumphalism about that. But dwell on or celebrate the unknown too
> long, and people suspect you of outmoded gappish thought --maybe rightly so.
>
> --Merv
>
> Quoting wjp <wjp@swcp.com>:
>
>> There is a sense in which we could always say there are no
>> electrons or there is no God because our conceptions of all
>> of these are inadequate and will always remain so.
>> Hence, the extension of our connotations is empty.
>> In this sense, reality approaches some form of idealism,
>> in which reality is ideas.
>> I am reminded of Hilary Putnam's comment regarding any form
>> of metaphysical realism, wherein we could know no such
>> reality since we are only familiar with our ideas.
>>
>> On the other hand, we must all find this position, not only
>> disturbing, but somehow fundamentally wrong. Nonetheless,
>> it opens up the Pandora's box of asking who discovered the
>> electron, or whether it was ever discovered.
>>
>> Somehow ontology must precede comprehension. The particular
>> and unfamiliar must come first, or at least be first. This
>> must be true whether we speak of God or electrons. That He is
>> precedes in importance and knowledge our conceptions and
>> understanding.
>>
>> Such a notion may run up against any Heideggerian notion of
>> a world, wherein we dwell in and are only in the familiar,
>> what is already there. And yet he argues for a place where
>> the individual (in angst and dread) finds something of himself
>> that is outside the already existent and familiar. In this
>> sense the particular, the truly individual and unique is empty
>> and terrifying (consider for example Sartre's nausea).
>> Nonetheless, it is a place where "we" can be. Indeed, it is
>> likely close to the terrifying place that Kierkegaard approaches
>> in the absurd: a God beyond our reason and ken, no more, destroying
>> reason and sense.
>>
>> Such is "reality," a reality that we cannot hold or conceive, but only
>> stand in silent awe and fear in, chaos. A world perhaps not much
>> different from that which Bohr believed confronted us in the world
>> of quantums. Still a world that, nonetheless, we do not deny because
>> we cannot hold.
>>
>> Your suggestion that ultimate "matter" is energy solves fewer problems
>> for me than it presents. I cannot conceive of an unsubstantial
>> energy. In another era we would have called this immaterial and not
>> been embarrassed about it. In any case, we are told that there is a
>> quantum of energy, and equally inconceivable entity, as a quantum of
>> matter.
>>
>> Finally, your suggestion that certain mathematical limits might be
>> finite although prima facie infinite or undefined does not help,
>> since in such cases I can understand why the limit is finite in
>> some instances and infinite in others. We can even produce pictures
>> to understand it.
>>
>> No, the great mystery to me is that we can believe anything is true,
>> and we do, and are persuaded that we do. The mystery lies naked in
>> the particular, not in the universal, despite the gallons of ink
>> spent on the latter.
>>
>> bill
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 00:46:32 -0500, mrb22667@kansas.net wrote:
>>> Quoting Bill Powers <wjp@swcp.com>:
>>>
>>>
>>>> One last question. It has often been argued that X cannot exist because
>>> its
>>>> very existence is incoherent. Such arguments are employed against God's
>>>> existence from the problem of evil or omnipotence. The presumption is
>>> that
>>>> anything logically contradictory is not possible. We must either
>>> conclude,
>>>> we
>>>> are told, that X does not exist or that our conceptions of X are
>>> seriously
>>>> flawed.
>>>>
>>>> If our notions of atoms are incoherent, does that mean they don't exist?
>>>>
>>>> bill
>>>>
>>>
>>> It could well mean that the thing we imagine or visualize as our model for
>>> the
>>> atom does not exist. I recently discovered a children's book about Mars
>>> that
>>> had been written in the fifties. One could say that "technically" the
>>> Mars
>>> described in the book didn't exist since their conception didn't yet have
>>> information such as actual pictures and data from the surface. Yet even
>>> now,
>>> the Mars we imagine is still not the "real" Mars though we would hope it
>>> is
>>> quite a bit closer.
>>>
>>> Bohr's solar system atom may have been closer to the truth than the "plum
>>> pudding" model that preceded it, but it is probably not as close as the
>>> quantum
>>> model now taught. And our visualization of protons may now have to
>>> include the
>>> two up-quarks and one down-quark. Who knows how a quark may be visualized
>>> if we
>>> could really examine one. Maybe your particle X isn't matter, but is just
>>> pure
>>> energy? That would be one solution to the otherwise proposed infinite
>>> regression.
>>>
>>> B.T.W. in mathematics, infinity times zero is one of those
>>> context-sensitive
>>> quantities that in general is undefined, but in certain problems can have
>>> finite
>>> and computable answers. So an infinite number of infinitesimals could
>>> give you
>>> zero, or infinity, or and answer like 2.6 depending on which got smaller
>>> or
>>> bigger faster.
>>>
>>> --Merv
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>

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Received on Tue Jul 7 16:14:04 2009