Re: Our finite realities(*)

[David Kerridge <dfk@rsc.co.uk>]

This is a very important topic, but the language in which
it is expressed concerns me. If I think the moon is made
of green cheese, that is not a reality, but a delusion. If
I can't understand the evidence that shows that the earth
is round, that is blindness.

I remember being involved in discussions in which
evidence and logic were brushed aside with the remark
"The perception is the reality." On this basis some
"philosophers" have, I understand, tried to make out
that the folk-lore of primitive peoples is as valid as
the findings of scientific method.

Of course, we must understand that all of us have our
blind spots, and that the "objective reality" of science is
something unattainable. Yet some models of reality
predict the future well, and others don't.

Not all folk-lore is wrong: some embodies great wisdom.
But the islanders who follow the Cargo Cult do not get
the results they predict. The problem - the whole problem
of the theory of knowledge - is to distinguish between
what works, and what does not, regardless of its origin.
Cargo cults are comforting, but they prevent progress.

We are trying to understand management, which is at
present governed, as medicine used to be, by folk-lore.
Some of that folk-lore will turn out to be sound, or
perhaps sound under some circumstances. Some will
turn out to be nonsense - or perhaps right in a world that
no longer exists.

I believe we must study, not just to find out what does
work - the objective reality - but why we all have such
difficulty in seeing it. Then we can really help each other.

We must not dismiss those who cannot see as fools. We
none of us see much, and we must never forget our own
struggles in finding such clarity as we now have. I tried
to describe this in the "Eyes to See" series.


But to return to my worry about describing this in terms
of "realities", even though finite. Could we perhaps call it
"Limited Perceptions"?


Note: In an earlier post, Doug Does gave the internet reference
to the following paper which is well worth reading and rereading:

"Cargo Cult Science" by Richard Feynman
(Adapted from a Caltech commencement address given in 1974;
 from the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!")

http://pc65.frontier.osrhe.edu/hs/science/feynman.htm

Best wishes

David

dfk@rsc.co.uk
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