RE: virus: Re: Social Metaphysics

Robin Faichney (r.j.faichney@stir.ac.uk)
Thu, 25 Sep 1997 09:43:13 +0100


> From: David McFadzean[SMTP:david@lucifer.com]
>
> At 11:43 AM 9/24/97 +0100, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> >I'd certainly agree with that. The problem is in what you
> >deleted, which I don't have time to dig out, but which as
> >I recall seemed to imply that more than one person has
> >to have access to any part of objective reality. I think
> >we're talking about verifiability here.
>
> I didn't mean to imply that. I believe that some parts of
> objective reality lie entirely outside of anyone's (or any
> observer's) perceptions, e.g. I think some stars probably
> exist outside the lightcone of any and all conscious observers.
>
Sorry for the delay. I had to think about this.

I guess the difference between our positions is that
when we talk about "objective reality", you're focussing
mainly on "reality" and I'm focussing mainly on
"objective". Because vague talk about what may exist,
though noone is aware of it, seems totally irrelevant to
me, while "objectivity" is one of the most fundamental
concepts we have, and in order to determine what
actual things do objectively exist, we have the concepts
of replicability of experiments, and verifiability in
general. I don't say thoughts are unreal -- on the
contrary, I think they're as real as anything else you
might mention. But they are different, nevertheless,
from all the phenomena that constitute "objective
reality" for me, because they are not openly and
publically verifiable.

BTW, I have to say, at the risk of reopening old
wounds, that you seem to be generalising
"objective" in exactly the way you generalise
"rational", to the point where, it seems to me,
these words lose their usefulness. I.e., in this
case, "objectively real" in your mouth seems to
mean no more than "real" in anyone else's.

Robin