RE: Get Offended

["Alan D. Miller" <"Alan D. Miller"@educate.com>]

Phila:

You wondered:

<<And if, as quantum physicists posit, matter is energy and can be altered
simply by our perceiving it, who's to say that truth isn't objectively
subjective?

Shamans have worked from this perspective for millenia.>>

Indeed. One of the consequences of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is that
until an event is measured, it exists in all its possible outcomes (velocity,
position, state, etc.). As soon as a single measurement is made (or we perceive
the event, if you will), the measured property becomes fixed. Unfortunately, the
other properties then become more uncertain. If, as Jo Francis Byrd wondered,
the only measurements are the subjective perceptions of ten different observers,
each of whom perceives the event differently (the Blind Men and the Elephant),
what is the truth? If Heisenberg is correct, all of them are true. If Parmenedes
is correct, none of them are true, because none of the observers actually
perceived the true event. Are these two outcomes contradictory? I think not.
Parmenedes said that we cannot perceive the truth. Heisenberg said we cannot
measure all the parameters of an event without changing them. In effect both are
saying the same thing: truth cannot be acquired through our senses. Parmenedes
went one step further and said we can conceive of the truth, if we can put aside
our perceptions.

Oh, what fun! Here we are participating in a dialog between minds separated by
2500 years. At least that's my perception ...

BTW, my personal favorite is _A Brief History of Time_, by Stephen W. Hawking.

Al Miller
alan -dot- miller -at- educate -dot- com