Subject: logic and Fishers
erespess@nji.com
Date: Sun Jan 09 2000 - 15:30:59 EST
>You're playing a sort of semantic 3-Card Monty with the '+' operator,
>Steven, but your hand was not quite fast enough. With apples, your '+' means
>addition. With raindrops, it seems to mean 'mixed with'. One of the rules is
>that you have to pick a meaning and stick with it, I'm afraid. Otherwise,
>the debate degenerates into a trivial dispute over definition of terms.
The way I read it, Steven was merely pointing out that all things do
not fall under that set of rules. The rules work when the rules
apply. They don't always apply. Given the two definitions (added to
vs. mixed with) apples cannot be mixed with each other, or if they
are, they do not maintain the properties of an apple. 1 apple+1
apple=applesauce.
My point, which may or may not have been Steven's, is that the
universe is a pretty complicated place, and has many elements which
do not always follow the same rules as other elements. I think most
people would argue that everything follows some fundamental rule,
what is funny to me is that rule ends up being either 1) nature, 2)
science, or 3) God's law.
I know of one person who considers himself not an atheist or a
theist, but a nontheist, and I am very curious about how he would see
this. His beliefs curiously delight me, regardless of how different
they may be from mine.
Personally, I come from a spiritual tradition which asserts as one of
it's main tenets, that science and religion agree, and if they do not
seem to in any given area it is because we do not fully understand
one or the other, or both.
I'm glad that people on this list find it a place to discuss matters
so intelligently, and are able to do so with some amount of respect
for the people involved. It is very heartrending to me.
This is one reason I remain a Fisher.
Elizabeth
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