Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA20443 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:41:12 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BFB@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: ....and the beat goes on and on and on... Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:39:58 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<All I am doing is bringing semiotics out of the 19th century and
into the
> 21st. It is Joe who refuses to move (and obviously you to).>
>
No, you're misunderstanding the absolute basic point of semiotics, but you
either won't admit it, or can't see it.
<friction. Electrons. Resistance. :-) The light is a PRODUCT of this
and when
> you try to analyse the PRODUCT you find that its characteristics varies
> depending on context. A light bulb is just filiment and glass and a power
> source.>
>
But in your system such things as electrons are intepretations, not entities
existing independent of us.
> >> If the characteristics of light were entirely interpretation, lighbulbs
> >> should have stopped working as soon as the particle/wave problem was
> >> identified.
>
>
<What the F*** are you on about? Boy you do have an interpretation
problem...>
If it's just intepretation, then when theories change, observations should
change in your model.
Whilst we may struggle to define the characteristics of light, there is no
doubt it has characteristics independent of us, and the closer we get to
understanding those characteristics, the more we are able to harness it to
our own ends. That's precisely what we've done with lightbulbs, even the
though the conception of light that existed at the time of their invention
has been superseded, they still work.
Interpretation is not the key to everything, Chris. Let me quote you, Kip
Thorne, to try and get it across to you:
'One might object that each set of laws in the sequence "looks" very
different from the preceding set. (For example, the absolute time of
Newtonian physics looks very different from the many different time flows of
special relativity.) In the "looks" of the laws, there is no sign
whatsoever of convergence. Why, then, should we expect convergence? The
answer is that one must distinguish sharply between the predictions made by
a set of laws and the mental images they convey (what the laws "look like").
I expect convergence only in terms of predictions, but that is all that
ultimately counts. The mental images (one absolute time in Newtonian
physics versus many time flows in relativistic physics) are not important to
the ultimate nature of reality.
Why do I expect convergence in terms of predictions? Because all the
evidence we have points to it. Each set of laws has a larger domain of
validity than the sets that preceded it: Newton's laws work throughout the
domain of everyday life, but not in physicists' particle accelerators and
not in exotic parts of the distant universe, such as pulsars, quasars, and
black holes; Einstein's general relativity laws work everywhere in our
laboratories, and everywhere in the distant Universe, except deep inside
black holes and in the big bang where the Universe was born; the laws of
quantum gravity (which we do not yet understand at all well) may turn out to
work out absolutely everywhere.'
(from 'Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy', 1994,
London: Papermac, pp: 85-6).
<Everything we CAN know is already known, pre-coded as a feeling
(which we
> may never experience). The interest is in all the expressions that elicit
> those feelings.>
>
I thought so. You're nothing more than a true believer, Chris, and
all the more pitiful for it, given what you believe.
<You fail to see that this is BASE level stuff, there is no BEHIND
here, this
> is the bedrock level. The distinction of objects and relationships and the
> patterns of dynamics is bedrock level.>
>
Let me try, again. Where, oh where is your_evidence_for this kind
of statement, that your intepretation is the root truth, and everything else
is wrong? Oh, and by the way, you contradict yourself here. Do a lexical
analysis of your own posts to this group and see how many times you use the
word 'behind' (including the one I'm replying to).
Vincent
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