Hi GodfreyOn Oct 30, 2009, at 13:52 , Godfrey Rust wrote: Even Einstein said everything is an approximation, though the maths may still get a NASA spaceship accurately to Mars. Betting our life on something is faith, not absolute knowledge, even if its a really good bet; and not every airplane lands safely.
Correct. All I was objecting to was the usual move I perceived (the other) Bill of making, which is to toss out some kind of Kantian argument against the possibility of ontology. This seems counterproductive. And I definitely am not confusing agreement in some community on the use of terms with truth. What I said, albeit not as explicitly as I might have, was that in certain domains (such as science) this is the kind of "reality" we get pretty reliable access to. You called it "agreement". I call it regularity in the world. I'd suspect most scientists would agree it's not simply a matter of agreement on the use of terms.
bill
Bill Andersen 3600 O'Donnell Street, Suite 600 Baltimore, MD 21224 Office: +1.410.675.1201 Cell: +1.443.858.6444 Fax: +1.410.675.1204
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