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From: pnorton@beaux.atwc.teradyne.com (Peter Norton)
Subject: Re: Roger Penrose's New Book (in HTML) 1.0
Message-ID: <Czw48s.655@beaux.atwc.teradyne.com>
Organization: Rene Daumal Institute for Pataphysical Mountaineering
References: <785119642snz@chch.demon.co.uk> <Czn85F.3oI@beaux.atwc.teradyne.com> <785722200snz@chch.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 1994 19:46:03 GMT
Lines: 77
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:101555 sci.skeptic:96382 sci.psychology:30416 comp.ai.philosophy:22672 sci.bio:23384 sci.philosophy.meta:15044

ch@chch.demon.co.uk writes:
>> > pnorton@beaux.atwc.teradyne.com writes:
>> >
>> >> Haven't we learned yet that not all of Nature's phenomena don't fit the
>> >> neat little prescription of being 'quantifiable, repeatable, 
>> >> and independent of observer'?
>> >
>> >It is futile to even attempt to discuss phenomena which are not
>> >'independent of the observer'. If a phenomenon is dependent on the
>> >observer then each person must investigate it for themselves and
>> 
>> Exactly so.
>> 
>> >discussion of it is pointless. Discussion of phenomena, unless for
>> >aesthetic reasons or to satisfy curiosity, is only useful to the
>> >extent that there is common ground.
>> 
>> non sequitur.  It is useful to at least admit the possibility of such
>> phenomena, which, to date, scientistic dogma has refused to do.  
>
>You seem to be confusing the discussion of the existence of such
>phenomena with the discussion of the phenomena themselves.

Ok.

I will agree with you that 'discussion of phenomena is only useful to the
extent that there is common ground'.

The question then is, 'what is the common ground of discussion' for those
phenomena (eg synchronicity) that are 
observer-independent/nonrepeatable/nonquantifiable?

If I understand you, you are saying in effect:
  'whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent'?  

Aside from the fact that there is always poetry and paradox, there are many
long-standing traditions that accept and even insist that the subject is
unspeakable, yet they are quite verbose in their poetic evocations of the 
subject.

I propose that the common ground for discussion could include such subjects as:

  - is it valid to conclude that such phenomena do not even exist?
  - what experimental procedures could I, as an individual investigator,
    undertake to investigate such phenomena for myself?
  - how have these procedures been developed, and why should I think that
    they are worth investigating? 


>> Science is not immune from the human foible of repressing the unknown.
>> It is useful for science to admit this to the general public who treat 
>> science as omniscient and infallible. 
>
>This seems to have drifted away from the original inspiration, which
>was that science cannot study psychic phenomena. It is important that
>people don't think that science is supposed to have an answer for
>everything. 

Granted, but they do.

>The whole purpose of science is to investigate the unknown.

This is, in fact, the ideal.  But in practice, the repression of the unknown
is not unknown to science.  Any undergraduate science student has experienced 
this.

How is science to investigate the unknown, though, when we have established 
that their methods do not apply to at least some known realms of the unknown 
(if you will pardon the contradiction and the presumed conclusion)?


Cheers
----
"Meditation is freedom from the known." - Krishnamurti

"I'm not from here, I just live here."  - McMurtry, CD 'Wasteland'

