David McDivitt writes another rejoinder without addressing
*any* of the questions that I asked, exactly as he did the
time before. Well... that's one form
of dialog: we just make short speeches to each other. But
I don't like it so much.
Lee
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of David G. McDivitt
> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 10:50 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: Nominalism
>
>
> You seem to be making solipsistic arguments. But I like solipsism.
>
> I see each person as having individual discreet realities, rather than
> there being one external reality. Community happens when individual
> people choose to place their separate realities in sync. If a fireball
> crosses the sky it is not one head which turns but many heads. Each
> person sees, but there are as many fireballs as there are people, with
> each representing an entire process going from stimulus to recognition.
>
> With all the protocols existent in science today regarding publishing
> and duplication of results, I fail to see why people cannot acknowledge
> authority and societal factors in truth and knowledge.
>
> I've changed, actually. There was a time when I sought to reduce as much
> as possible, and I still pride myself on that ability. I used to always
> break things down to the smallest possible terms, but realized one day
> the cognition required to facilitate so much detail at once is immense,
> and I conceded to not keep up. It was a good lesson for me. There is so
> much more power in abstraction.
>
> >From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> >Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 21:45:16 -0700
> >
> >Why are you more certain that you live in a world of language,
> >objectification, and mental abstractions, than you live in a
> >world of earth, air, fire, and water? Such things as language
> >could not exist were they not evolved in matter creatures, nor
> >could mental abstractions. You are choosing to build up your
> >model of what the world is on top of very shaky ideas that you
> >can't even know that other people possess, because you can't
> >even know that there are other people.
>
> <snip>
>
> >How do you know that there is a "we"? I suggest that your inference
> >that there are other people is much weaker than your inference that
> >there is a 3-D world outside your skin.
>
> --
> http://www.geocities.com/dmcdivitt
>
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