From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 31 2002 - 22:16:03 MDT
Damien writes
> At 11:36 PM 8/30/02 -0700, Lee wrote:
>
> >The reason that Calvin's or Damien's quote should be criticized
> >is that there *really is a real world out there*, just as the
> >quote admitted. Okay, so when we talk, we *talk* about what is
> >out there.
>
> No, we talk about our collective construction or mapping of what we take
> (via evolved templates, limited experience and superstition) to be salient
> extracts from the buzzing blooming confusion. All that cultural constructs
> require in order to remain in place is bare adequacy, enough not to kill
> you before you get your replacement offspring outsprungen.
:-) Let's *not* talk about our "collective construction or mapping...
blah, blah, blah...
I have a couple of simple questions for you.
1. Do you believe that there is a big hot ball of gas
about 8 light minutes from the Earth that we call
"the sun"?
(And I dearly pray that this can be answered with a simple
"yes" or "no" and not four paragraphs of academic, uh, er,
something.)
2. If the answer to the first question is "yes", then I
announce to the world that from now on my statements
about the sun are to be *taken* as referring to that
ball of gas, and *not* any possibly weird thing going
on in people's brains.
Lee
P.S. Not only that, but you must be aware that 99.99%
of everyone else's statements are *also* about
that thing out there, and *not* about culturally
derived constructs of one damn sort or another. Jeez.
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