SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema :> Abstract & Physical
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LIS. Discussion Note 90
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa
JS: I agree with the first part of your paragraph,
and totally disagree with your conclusion:
JS abstracts JA, in effect, if scarcely in essence, to write:
| What you are doing here is telling a story about
| certain imaginary beasts called "atoms", "photons",
| and "other subatomic particles" ...
|
| This is the phenomenon that is due to be explained here.
JS: Of course, all of science is imaginary. As Peirce said,
it is the product of abduction, which pulls hypotheses
out of thin air. But what keeps science "grounded" is
the requirement of continual testing against observation
and the ever-present danger of being proven false by the
very next experiment. Peirce explained all of that very
well, as you very well know.
JS: But if by "here", you mean the SUO group, then I think that
you are totally off base. There is not a prayer of a hope
of a chance that any acceptable explanation will come out
of these email notes.
JS: Compared to anything that is likely to come out of this group
(or any other ontology group in the world, for that matter),
quarks are on a rock solid foundation.
JS: Bottom line: If you can't accept quarks,
forget about ever getting anything useful
out of any ontology group in the world.
John,
That is not the point.
Once again I must explain that I have not said anything "bad"
about the motely crue of theoretical constructs that I cited,
here or elsewhere, as if I had somehow, merely by making the
"painfully obvious observation" that they live out the cycles
of their lives as theoretical constructs, condemned them to
some intellectual Inferno of irredeemable tokens of syntax.
When I said "this is the phenomenon that is due to be explained here",
my comment, in its context, was pointing to the phenomenon of success
in the ways of inquiry that scientific method frequently provides us
with adaptable models of, for all its rife pretending of hypothetical
entities and for all its rampant use of abstract objects, mathematical
and otherwise. What I am saying is, not that it's our job to supplant
all that -- it ain't me who imagines that such a thing would be feasible --
but merely that what we do here must be in accord with the best current
accounts of "what is, out there", and so our work should be sensitive to
the best thinking that has come down the intellectual history pike as to
"how indeed scientific knowledge is possible", inasmuch as it seems to be.
And we both know where to look for samples of that kind of thinking, but it
just seems that it will take a bit more work for us to abstract its essence.
Jon Awbrey
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