Would the imaginary realities all please sit down?!

Today Emily responded:

Phil, that is a wonderful way to describe the difference. How perfect! (It should be taught in certain science and philosophy courses.)

Yesterday she had said:
It’s amazing, Phil, that so many people can bypass empirical considerations in favor of comforting beliefs and abstracted versions of happenings. Then again, interpretation of “reality” is never straightforward. There always are difficulties like Rashomon effect, platform problem, other impediments with relativity, no fixed identity, flaws in classification systems that are not absolute, the circular nature of definitions with each set of characteristics connected to others to delineate their qualities and quantities, etc., etc. :-) , Emily

And I replied:

Right,  All those, and others prevent people from agreeing on what “reality” is. Most of all I think it’s our habit of thinking reality is the sense we make of our own information.  That’s something we invent, rather than being the things we don’t invent that our information is *about*.

I think it’s our habit of thinking reality is the sense we make,
of our own information Continue reading Would the imaginary realities all please sit down?!

DotEarth – to be more inventive, but not have to…

This comment of mine on on “Fueling the Energy Quest”got an Editor’s Selection


It’s wonderful to be inventive, but that is clearly not our problem. I don’t know why that is so hard for people to see.

Our problem is needing to be ever more grandly inventive forever

Our problem is needing to be ever more grandly inventive forever, even as the environment puts up ever more daunting complications for our continuing to do so. The plan we are caught trying to follow, a real fool’s choice had it been someone’s choice and not just a leftover of history, is to continually double our productivity in converting the planet into economic wealth every 20 years or so, and every 30 years or so for the resources needed to do that, forever. Continue reading DotEarth – to be more inventive, but not have to…

Climate Concern – do facts show the bias?

On: ClimateConcern@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 4:30 PM

Subject: Re: [CCG] Sources: what are the most unbiased sources for climate info??

Richard Foy had replied to my comment saying:
In my opinion this is the best post I have seen in a long time.
Richard

Thank’s Richard!


I had written 6/29/2009:

I think asking for facts to answer whether the facts we’re getting are reliable is sort of an unreliable approach.    It’s better to ask what can we know for sure when we don’t know much and our facts seem unreliable. Continue reading Climate Concern – do facts show the bias?