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Note To Harv On The Above

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Posted by Aurino Souza on September 12, 2002 14:59:34 UTC

Harv,

I've been taking a look at the philosophers you mentioned, but at this point I can tell you they're not dealing with the issue Luis and I are talking about. I did go back to Wittgenstein though, and I can see now that he in fact understood it. However, in trying to present a solution to the problem, he only made it worse, and apparently he himself was aware of that. I'm becoming skeptical of the idea that philosophers know how to think...

That said, the problem is abstract in nature and can only possibly have an abstract solution, Luis' enthusiastic hallelujahs notwithstanding. Dick says he has solved the problem and that physics is part of the solution. I think the idea that physics is part of the solution makes a lot of sense, regardless of the dubious methods Dick uses to arrive at it.

Let me try to express this in your language. Let me for a moment redefine the word "truth" so that it means "a theory of reality which works", or something like that. For instance, if physics says "momentum conserves", and we accept the physics definition of "momentum" and "conserves", we will verify through experiments that "momentum conserves" is "true". The key point here is to forget metaphysics and concentrate on pragmatism, on getting things done.

So if you accept my way of saying it, would you agree that physics is as close to "truth" as it gets? If you agree, then the next question is, what next?

Does that make sense?

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