Science has been dragged kicking and screaming, much to the
consternation of many scientists, and despite strenuous efforts to
find alternatives, into acknowledging the indispensability of
probability to successful realization of any attempt at #3. (01)
Kathy (02)
At 3:59 PM -0400 6/8/07, John F. Sowa wrote:
>Azamat,
>
>Those three statements are completely consistent:
>
> 1. ...there must be a complete and consistent description of the
> entire universe for all time.
>
> 2. Instead of striving for a global consistency of everything, it
> might be better to adopt methods that don't require global
> consistency.
>
> 3. The kind of higher level of abstraction I would recommend would
> be a metalevel ontology that can relate different ontologies
> and generate new categories to extend an ontology as needed.
>
>Point #1 is a statement that omniscience is possible for an infinite
>mind, such as God's. It is a paraphrase of a similar point by Leibniz.
>
>Point #2 is a recognition that none of us are God. Therefore, we must
>make do with less ambitious methods that do not require omniscience.
>In a similar vein, Leibniz said that no finite mind (such as the mind
>of any human) can ever fully explore all the aspects of any empirical
>study.
>
>Point #3 is a recommended strategy for making incremental improvements
>to our limited methods. It won't let us achieve #1 in any finite time,
>but it might help us extend and relate our limited views.
>
>John
>
>
>
>
>
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