From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Wed Nov 20 2002 - 00:50:44 MST
"Chris Hibbert" <chris@pancrit.org>
> The sound of the power coming on always precedes my monitor
> displaying pixels. I deny that they have any causative relationship.
Always? To find out things you need to do experiments and I think I could
devise one that killed the sound of your monitor coming on and I have a
hunch it will still display pixels.
But I must admit the instrumentalism I touted some years ago has faded a
little for me, it's not that it's untrue but it's just not how the human
mind works, it's not how we discover causes. When I ask "Did A cause B?" I
mean "Can you explain B by using A?" and that means "Can you tell me an
interesting and believable story about A and B where A make the first
appearance?" I realize that's not very precise but it works anyway, it's how
we discover new causes in the real world so there must be some truth to it.
And it's compatible with the title of this thread.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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