Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA25023 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 24 Jan 2001 11:26:24 GMT Message-ID: <005f01c085f7$ab04aac0$5eaefea9@cable.rcn.com> From: "Aaron Agassi" <agassi@erols.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BFE@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Re: ....and the beat goes on and on and on... Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 06:20:33 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vincent Campbell" <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 5:51 AM
Subject: RE: ....and the beat goes on and on and on...
> <Surely, electron microscopy is a Socratic shadow in the cave. Are
> electrons
> > *really* particles, clouds or shells? Fuck if I know! These are models,
> > quite likely metaphoric.>
> >
> Metaphoric perhaps, but not without predictive or explanatory power.
Quite.
As I said, let's give Chris Lofting his point, his premise, but yet deny him
his Post Modern conclusions.
> QM regards electrons as quanta that have a particle function and a wave
> function.
>
> Chandresakar (I think I've spelt that correctly), utilised QM,
> particularly the idea of electron degeneracy, in explaining (to an
> unreceptive audience at the time) the nature of white dwarf stars, his
> approach laying the groundwork for the existence of black holes, something
> Einstein's theories predicted but which he himself rejected. There's a
> major section on this in Thorne's book that I quoted a couple of posts
back.
>
> Of course, current thinking is that super massive black holes exist
> in the middle of galaxies, but whether the term 'electron' is entirely
> metaphoric or not, doesn't matter as it is useful in helping us to achieve
a
> degree of predicitive and explanatory power in regard to the universe.
But Chris lofting dismisses explanation and description as a manifestation
of self reinforcing bias.
How, then, if at all, does he explain successful prediction? After all, he
dismisses truth defined as correspondence to reality, however metaphorical;
and, instead, defines truth as an event in the brain, which seems to be
Methodological.But that does not differentiate truth from unsuspected error.
And he categorizes Science as just another arbitrary cultural activity.
>
> Otherwise I wouldn't disagree with your other comments (nice turn of
> phrase too:-)).
Honestly, verbal ability must be only another application of all those
Logical NeuroStructural patterns of recursion, where of Chris Lofting is so
enamored. That being the case, why can't he learn how to write??
I submit that it is because Chris Lofting denies the true nature of those
very NeuroStructural patterns of recursion, where of he is enamored. I
submit that the NeuroStructural patterns of recursion as manifest in
linguistic grammar are Dialectic, conjectural, and essentially oriented by
Natural Selection and cultural Progress towards investigation and
description of reality.
The brain even investigating and describing itself, is still only
investigating reality, in which the brain is substantial, subject to
physical laws, and apprehended only by observation, much as anything else.
Muddled logic and tortured prose are all that can accrue from Chris
Lofting's rejection of Ontology (the question of objective reality).
The brain is more than the sum of it's recursion. Thanks to sensory input,
the brain is an engine of conjecture. Excepting, of course, the brain of
Chris Lofting, which _is_ entirely recursive!
>
> Vincent
>
>
>
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