Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA09801 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 28 Mar 2001 05:10:03 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 22:12:49 -0600 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Bi-and Tri- and Quatr- and Quintifurcation Message-ID: <3AC11061.13624.14CB77@localhost> In-reply-to: <20010328003148.AAA4220@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.12]> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 27 Mar 2001, at 19:31, Wade T.Smith wrote:
> Hi Joe E. Dees -
>
> >Now we have:
> >
> >1) Provisional truths
> >2) Apodictically certain (self-evident) truths
> >2) Falsehoods
> >4) Untestable assertions (beliefs)
> >5) Meaningless assertions (pseudoassertions)
> >
> >Any others?
>
> _If_ "Every fact is backed up by the entire universe" is a definition,
> if you will, of a scientific fact (merely 'fact' in my bifurcation),
> _then_ all of your list above is fiction, (or 'false' in my
> bifurcation), with the proviso that, hmmm, it may be not altogether
> prudent to put your #2 among the fictions, because, nothing can be in
> the entire universe at once to back them all up- the entire universe,
> by virtue of space and time, is unknowable at any one moment.
>
First, it is difficult to see how a meaningless assertion could even
qualify as a fiction. Second, provisional truths, following Popperian
methodology, include all scientific ones; I'm not willing to label
them fictions, as the available evidence corroborates them. They
stand on the shoulders of the apodictic truths; if our own
perceptions of the universe are not to be trusted, then neither are
generalizations drawn from a multiplicity of related perceptions.
Untestable assertions MAY be backed up by the entire universe; it
is just impossible to check the entire universe to see. Falsehoods
are, of course, fictions.
>
> But every act of language produces fiction unless it's analogous to a
> self-evident truth, such as mathematics possesses.
>
What about the spoken statement "I am speaking", which,
although indubitably true, is nevertheless nonmathematical? Also,
remember that there are Euclidean, Riemannian and
Lobatchevskeyan geometry, only one of which (Riemannian, as it
turns out) can be true (although Euclidean is a simple and
pragmatically useful approximation in most macro - neither micro
nor cosmic - instances). For further reference, I recommend
MATHEMATICS - THE LOSS OF CERTAINTY by Kline. Also,
mathematics rests upon the structural foundation provided by logic,
which is itself derived from the rules of perception.
>
> And, yes, what about nothing?
>
> The entirely unsensible is also backed up by the entire universe.
>
Nothing is not. Nothing is also unstable. Plus, the absence of the
insensible is as difficult to detect as is its presence.
>
> - Wade
>
>
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>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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