Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,talk.religion.newage,alt.atheism,alt.pagan,alt.consciousness
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!ub!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!prodigal.psych.rochester.edu!stevens
From: stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Greg Stevens)
Subject: Re: Reality, the Purpose of Life and Morality
Message-ID: <1994Dec29.155841.24793@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
Sender: news@galileo.cc.rochester.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: prodigal.psych.rochester.edu
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York
References: <3crovi$12e@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <blaine-2812942227200001@prevost.islandnet.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 94 15:58:41 GMT
Lines: 42

In <blaine-2812942227200001@prevost.islandnet.com> blaine@IslandNet.com (F. Blaine Dickson) writes:
>In article <3crovi$12e@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>, roose@ix.netcom.com
>(Richard Roose) wrote:

>> Reality, the Purpose of Life and Morality
>> 
>> With Reality and the Purpose of Life defined, we humans alive here in 
>> the last decade of the 20th century, have something no previous humans 
>> have ever had.  We have an "ABSOLUTE" yardstick by which we can 
>> "measure" Truth and falsehood and right and wrong and good and evil.  
>> With this absolute yardstick, we can for the first time in human history 
>> judge human actions as Truth or false or right or wrong or good or evil, 
>> and do it without ambiguity.  For the first time in human history, we 
>> can take the blindfold off of "Justice" and let her see clearly. 
> 
>What makes you so sure that "we" have a yardstick to measure reality, and
>reality IS defined. Defined according to what? To whom? You also speak in
>many dichotomies, but I do not agree that reality exists in such a simple
>state: left/right, wrong/correct, true/false. 

This is standard in the tyrrany of western science/philosophy.  There are
branches of science and epistemology who are trying to move towards 
Eastern philosophy, denying the "actuality" of such dualisms and seeing
the perceived world as brought forth by our personal distinctions.

>By implying that you have a yardstick, you also imply that reality is
>defineable to that yardstick. However, that depends upon what type of
>yardstick you are using. What may measure long on an Imperial yardstick
>will measure short on a Metric yardstick. What is the "right" measurement,
>then?

There are views of "reality" out there based EXACTLY on this concept -- that
although the existence of the universe may be objective, its characteristics
are subjective by necessity, because they are measured by a perceiving
organism, and the perceptions of an organism are intrinsically dependant
upon the structure of that individual organism -- not only its genetics,
but its PERSONAL history as well.

Greg Stevens

stevens@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu

