The Last Word

[L. Marcus]

He's Mister Exposition. Anyone else could have done that, so why not he?

[Cancer]

OTOH, the Cold War is impossible to understand except in the context of post-WW2 and the changes wrought by Nazi Germany, so it makes very good sense to have the character, and have him in the title role.

[Bazza]

For me the best way to understand the Cold War is to look at Wall Street.

[Bazza]

because they were involved in financing the three sides of it.

[Bazza]

i could always give you a book on metaphysics' date=' instead. you could read that. [/quote']

I read enough fantasy as it is. ^^

After thinking about your answer, it seems pretty clear you don't understand the disciplines, ontology particularly and also cosmology.

[Bazza]

From the two kinds of axioms which have been spoken of arises a just division of philosophy and the sciences, taking the received terms (which come nearest to express the thing) in a sense agreeable to my own views. Thus, let the investigation of forms, which are (in the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law) eternal and immutable, constitute Metaphysics; and let the investigation of the efficient cause, and of matter, and of the latent process, and the latent configuration (all of which have reference to the common and ordinary course of nature, not to her eternal and fundamental laws) constitute Physics. And to these let there be subordinate two practical divisions: to Physics, Mechanics; to Metaphysics, what (in a purer sense of the word) I call Magic, on account of the broadness of the ways it moves in, and its greater command over nature. Francis Bacon The New Organon, Book II, Aphorism 9, 1620

That sums up the perspective of the science community fairly well, I think. What about you LM, and Cancer, you agree with this view?

[Cancer]

I have ... reservations, I would say.

[L. Marcus]

After thinking about your answer' date=' it seems pretty clear you don't understand the disciplines, ontology particularly and also cosmology. [/quote']

I like to think I'm pretty on-board with cosmology, as a non-professional, pretty erudite person. Ontology, on the other hand, strikes me as navel-gazing of the highest order, and a well-nigh complete waste of brainpower.

[Bazza]

I have ... reservations' date=' I would say.[/quote'] Understandable.

 

[Bazza]

I like to think I'm pretty on-board with cosmology, as a non-professional, pretty erudite person. Ontology, on the other hand, strikes me as navel-gazing of the highest order, and a well-nigh complete waste of brainpower.

if ontology is navel-gaazing of the highest order, how do you explain being, becoming, existence or reality? the key area for be are existence and reality, as in how does science explain existence? Can it?

 

eg: you can conduct experiments proving the effects of gravity, however how then can you explain the existence/reality of the phenomenon? (earnest question)

 

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basiccategories of being and their relations

 

[L. Marcus]

Ontology can't explain those things, Bazz. If it could, there would be no debate.

[Bazza]

that is why it is an investigation/enquiry into those things.

[L. Marcus]

In what way is it an investigation? It's like a person, blind from birth, describing the color puce to me. Thought alone isn't good enough -- remember Aristotle and his notion that a ten-pound weight falls ten times faster than a one-pound weight.

[Cancer]

Yeah, it seems more like an early version of most social media: make up stuff so your peers and you can feel good about something you don't know anything about. Sort of a Wide Area Native Knowledge sort of thing.

[L. Marcus]

... At 8-.

[Bazza]

In what way is it an investigation?

In this way, investigation: "carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts of (an incident, allegation, etc.) so as to establish the truth". Science uses the scientific method to gather evidence. Another methodology is to use logic to start with a premise and work through it to arrive at a proof. Eg a mathematical proof. The ontology of Aristotle-Aquinas (i'm lead to believe) uses the proof methodology rather than the later developed scientific method.

 

On the other hand, what are the basic axioms grounding scientific knowledge? This book: Inventing The Universe, published by SUNY, looks at this issue, the underlying axioms of scientific knowledge that ground science, using three models for comparison: Plato's account in Timaeus (the classical account), The Big Bang model (modern physics account) and Algorithmic Theory of Information.

[Bazza]

Yeah' date=' it seems more like an early version of most social media: make up stuff so your peers and you can feel good about something you don't know anything about. Sort of a Wide Area Native Knowledge sort of thing.[/quote']

Also described the prevalent view of secularism/humanism ignorance and hubris to the intellectual classical tradition of what Aristotle referred to as first philosophy.

 

edit: clarification: not directed at you specifically.

[Cancer]

Looks like both of you missed my acronym.

[Bazza]

oh...now i see it. kudos.

[L. Marcus]

I don't do acronyms. Unless it's for a mnemonic aid.

[Cancer]

It could be argued that holds in this case.

[Bazza]

schoolkids used to remember the seven hills of rome by use of mnemonic aid. what happened....

[L. Marcus]

We decided we didn't need to know the difference between the Capitoline and the Aventine on a daily basis.

[Bazza]

We decided we didn't need to know the difference between the Capitoline and the Aventine on a daily basis.

*big chuckle*

 

[Cancer]

I have never insisted my students learn the orderes-by-temperature sequence of spectral types for similar reasons.