From: Camp, Christopher (CCamp@omm.com)
Date: Tue Feb 04 2003 - 10:38:28 MST
Max,
I don't know how big an archive you have or if you can go back and
reread what has been said for the past two or three months. But, my
impression is that you (plural) are not complaining about there being
political expression on the Extropy list, you are complaining that when you
express yourself politically there are those that refute
_------_------
Refute is such a strong word: To prove to be false or erroneous; overthrow
by argument or proof.
Most of what I see on this list I consider to be dogmatic posturing which is
in my opinion a far way off from the strength of logical proof or otherwise
unassailable truth (to the extent there is such a thing).
So many apply the term reasonable to themselves but how many remember what
reasonable actually means? Let's get back to the skeptical traditions of
Hume and make sure we are applying our reasonableness to ourselves. Given
Hume, Wittgenstein, Quine, Godel and so many others how can we say that the
ephemera of our minds is necessarily truth? I would at least hope that we
would describe our beliefs as hypothesis instead of truth - I think it would
bring the tone of debate to a more rational/sustainable place as well as
being in greater agreement with what appear to be the philosophical and
physical realities of our existence.
I would like to see these debates take a more subtle, more academic format.
How is this achievable? I have a couple of suggestions.
Most arguments have identifiable points of dispute. These points should be
identified and polls should be taken. Polls can be easily made via yahoo or
other sources. As the debate continues evidence will be gathered and given
for all sides of argument. The evidence should have it's own polling system
so that as the debate evolves each bit of evidence will either be accepted
by the community or rejected and from here an overall consensus can be
built. A new format of discourse may be useful - could the wiki idea come
into play here - a web forum place where the polling results would be
associated and accessible from the individual forum threads.
The current process just seems like wheel spinning at a point in time when
there is so much important work to be done. We need points of action not
just points of debate.
Chris Camp
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