ONT Re: Inquiry Into Inquiry
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Howard Pattee wrote (HP):
Jon Awbrey wrote (JA):
JA: We seem to be about the business of marking explicitly what's given implicitly.
But is it a mark against our ephemeris that celestial bodies do not consult it
for their itineraries nor have the eyes in their orbs to read our fine prints,
that the planets are enlightened by the sun on their courses and their destiny
by some adumbration other than differential equations in plain black and white?
HP: To a pragmatist it is "true" that celestial bodies are not affected by our ephemerides,
but in principle every experimental inquiry not only disturbs our brain but disturbs
the universe. That is why physicists are not pragmatists. Whether it is a "mark
against the measuring device that the electron consults" the slits and detectors
is only a matter of how far you care to push the metaphor.
I do not know if it's fitting to make the poet serve as the exegete of his own poem,
but I know that it's a role that I enjoy on the order of having my proverbial teeth
pulled, and I always feel like it's doomed to be almost as successful as explaining
a joke, but then again, did I ever let the sheerest obstruction of futility stop me?
The point that I am trying to make is one about the status of our graven models.
All I am saying is that the world of signs is here to stay, at least so long as
we are storing our mind by means of our accounts and our keeping book on nature.
There is indeed a metaphor that prevails on this scene that I am trying to sketch,
but it's not the simile that appears to be presently preveiling on your view, and
perhaps because the one I mean is far more literal in one dimension and away more
fingoral in other dimensions than any you would hypothesize me willing to pretend.
So it scarcely disturbs my image of the scene if there be a residual perturbation
twixt the writing of what we wot to write and the writhing of what we know wot of.
Indeed, I quite literarily thrive on it. No, I mean quite literally, if only for
the nonce and the novelty of it, that the stars do not need to read the mail that
star fanatics write to each other just to know how to act like the stars they are.
HP: As I emphasize in my view of inquiry, when you get to the "fine print" and
equations-of-motion stage not much of importance (for a theory of inquiry)
is going on (only storage, communication, and maybe prediction).
I am going to let you pause and reflect on that one.
HP: It's what's happening implicitly in our brain when we are imagining
how we want to interact with the universe (i.e., make measurements),
and what's happening implicitly in the measurement process itself
that we can't clearly articulate.
Many Regards,
Jon Awbrey
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