From: David G. McDivitt (dmcdivitt@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 21:07:16 MDT
The ideas - the arbitrary decision to call them mountains and stars, and
establish what is represented by those terms, was created by people.
Which is it. Do we use language, or does language use us as it develops?
That is a question hard to ascertain. If we did not have language we
would not have the level of intellectualism we have. Not only does
language facilitate expression of our thoughts, but language gives us
our thoughts, too. When we think we think in terms of language, putting
together whatever objectifications and concepts available.
So yes, the manner in which we define things does establish the shape of
the world and what it contains. This effectively supersedes the religion
of science.
>From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
>Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 00:07:58 -0700
>
>David McDivitt writes
>
>> [Physical laws] are created by people. We make them up as
>> we go along. Who else do you think, God?
>
>First, coming from a nominalist :-) this is hardly an indictment!
>You think that everything, including mountains and stars, were
>created by people.
>
>Second, there is widespread misunderstanding about what we mean
>by "physical law". Do we mean the concepts and terminology that
>literally make up a physical law as described in the texts? Or
>do we mean the behaviors of nature that we try to discover and
>investigate? Generally, people of my ilk mean the latter.
-- http://www.geocities.com/dmcdivitt _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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