From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Mon Mar 16 1998 - 21:47:29 MST
> >In almost everything you write. You spend pages and pages
> >on defining "Identity" and claim that this is an exercise
> >of reason in itself. You can have your definition if you
> >like--it's no skin off my nose. But the old definition--
> >even if it's "wrong" in some sense--manages to feed me,
> >build houses, move me around, and generally make my life
> >interesting. If you want us to accept your definition,
> >show us how using your definition /accomplishes/ something
> >tangible and real in my life.
>
> WARNING: Someone could perfectly have told the same things to Einstein,
> when he was talking about relativity X newtonian... (but it is not the case
> in this particular discussion...: Even Einstein used the same
> "Identity"definition...)
Exactly; people did say that, and they were entirely correct. So
Al used his theory to make specific, measurable predictions about
real things--and those predictions came true, and the rest is
history. He didn't just say "Newton is wrong" and expect people
to buy his flawless logic--even though it was flawless. He said
"look, if I'm right, you'll see these stars out of place when they
go near the sun by this amount..." and they were. He predicted
that matter would form dense super-atoms at a certain pressure,
and now, decades after his death, we've done exactly that. Even
if Einstein had been "right" in some philosophical sense, if he
had never made measurable predictions about the physical world,
all his brilliant logic would be no more than masturbation.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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