source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 05:52:20 -0800 Subject: RE: "wuzzat?" From: Gary Morrison > Well no, mysticism can very well be the subject of scientific research. > ... > He argues this on the basis of the following two recommendations: > 1. Determine if everything that appears to be meaningful, is meaningful. > 2. Analyse not only what is meaningful, but also what is not meaningful, > therefore everything. Hmmm... Well, if you're investigating the meaningfulness of a scientific conclusion, you would use scientific rather than mystical means. If you're investigating the meaningfulness of a mystical conclusion, then you would have to investigate them through mystical means rather than scientific. In that latter scenario, neither the premise nor the conclusion, both mystical, would be measurable (if they were then the question would be a scientific one rather than a mystical one). So scientific principles would be of no value, because they only operate on measurable quantities. Now I suppose one could investigate a scientific question through mystical means if they feel so inclined, but from a scientific perspective it would be pointless, because the only a subsequent proof would carry any scientific interest. And the mystical evaluation of what is well-understood scientifically is of marginal interest mystically speaking. As an example of that, one might ask about the mystical meaning of why a basketball's speed increases 9.8 meter per second per second when you drop it. That's a boring question mystically speaking, because the answer is completely unmysterious: That's how fast objects fall when attracted by an object the size and mass of the Earth. Now on the other hand, I can see plenty of mystical value in posing the question of why the Universe should have a force of gravity at all, or why it should behave such that objects fall at that rate. That's a perfectly good mystery. One could pose all kinds of suggestions for that. Perhaps one my propose, for example, that it is a means of testing the human will to build tall buildings or to fly. Or perhaps, from a very different perspective, one might propose that it is impossible for a universe to even exist without a force with the qualities gravity has. That latter one could possibly even blossom into a scientific theory, but for now it's intriguing mysticism. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:49 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA18401; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 17:49:02 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA18413 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id IAA03574; Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:47:31 -0800 Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:47:31 -0800 Message-Id: <009B1D95D4143F6F.5402@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu