Measurement takes time; measurement is a process. So the measurement of time immediately yields this theoretical issue: Since measurement takes time, our ability to break time into ever smaller pieces will always be proportional to the method of measurement used. The faster our measurement device that measures time, the more divisible time will be. Insofar as there are limits to how fast a measurement process can occur (relativistic or other), there will be limits on […]
Category: ontology
Deriving Philosophy of Science
Two posts ago I claimed that The goal of science is, therefore, to separate the settled from the anomalous. So what is the settled? What is the anomalous? How are they separated? If we take these concepts to be fundamental then we are unable to analyze the concepts of settled, anomalous and separation scientifically: if they are at the bottom of all science, then everything within science depends upon them. How then to understand? At […]
Counter Structural Realism
I’m starting to think that ‘structural’ in ‘structural realism‘ is vacuous. Before getting to the meaning of structural we have to know what we mean by real. In this instance we are specifically concerned with science so what we are looking for is the goal of science, i.e. what is scientifically real. This is a meta-scientific question, and the best I can do here is to quote what Darwin quoted at the start of the […]
Truth is… and other short thoughts
Truth is whatever you are willing to wager your sanity on. This works because sanity is relative to people, so if you are willing to wager your sanity on something, so should other people. Deontology has a problem because no one can definitively tell you what it is to follow a rule. So deontologists can’t fault others for appealing to unexplained concepts without undermining their own argument. Whereas the meanings of particular words may be […]
Demise, the Fallen and Annihilation
In Being and Time Heidegger makes a distinction between death and demise: death is the ending of Da-sein, or Being, and demise is physical perishing. I think this is a good distinction and since I break up ontology into 3 sorts of things – commitments, objects & descriptions – I will have three ways to die: Fallen: the perishing of all commitments of a living person. Demise: the perishing of physical attributes of a living […]
What is philosophy?
The question of what philosophy is always made me squirm. People would ask me what I do, I’d tell them, and then they would ask me what it exactly was that I do. But now I have a answer. A while back I heard a quote attributed to Russell that went roughly: Philosophy starts out with propositions that everyone would accept as true, and then ends up with propositions that no one would accept as […]
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a Gift of an Ontological Razor from Me to You!
There is no preferential ontological perspective. I hope your new year is awesome.