Re: Our finite realities

[Roger Key <roger.key@onet.co.uk>]

Hi All,
In responce to Jim, David wrote the following.

>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.

I would like to suggest that there is no reality, well there is but it is
just too big for one mind to grasp.  The realities that 'science' shows us
are the current explanations, yet to be disproved.  Befor it could be shown
that the world was not flat, IT WAS FLAT.  We may now know that this 'fact'
was a 'myth' but at the time it was a 'fact'.  In just the same way as our
'facts' are just perceptions waiting to become myths.

The reality we have is immersed in our language.  Lewis on P110 of Mind and
the World Order writes:  "We have a common reality because we can each
identify in experiance systems of orderly relations indicated by behaviour,
particulaly that which servs co-operation.  This requires us to be able to
discriminate and relate as others do when confronted by the same
situation".   The reality we hold - Lewis calls it a 'social reality',
consists of the 'facts' that make up our (current) philosophic underpinning
of reality.

The whole of Dr Deming's work is wrong, it is based on 'facts' not
'truths'.  However until we change reality by discovering new facts, Dr
Deming's work remains useful.

David wrote that if he cannot understand the evidence that the world is
round then that is blindness.  However I would guess that David has a road
map - which uses as an assumption that the world is flat.  He will work
from the 'flat' world map and be as happy as any with its short comings.
Incidentally the world is not round - round is a two dimentional figure,
the world is (supposedly) a three dimentional object that is roughly
spherical.

To get back to Jims note.  We need to meet people where they are.  To go
back to Lewis again, "Cooperation and agreement on what is real is a social
phenomina in which the only given is...'it is only the possibility of
agreement which must be antecedently presumed.' This is developed through
critical discussion" (P21)  Meeting the people where they are means we must
take on the role of accepting their reality as the only reality and then
seeking to understand their reality, make it real for us.  We can then
stand in their reality and look to our reality and possibly see a route by
which we may get there, with our new friend by our side.  This means we
MUST accept that all other realities are valid and, well, real.  We cannot
stand on a metaphorical, higher plane and point out how stupid others are
for holding realities that do not match ours and our scientific facts (not
truths - fact and truth are very different)
Those of you who know me may know that I have a growing interest in
language and how this language may hold us back from seeing new
possibilities and realities.  I have just found a book in a junk shop (Best
place for books...) Covering the work of Benjimin Lee Whorf.  I Have not
read it yet - so I do not know if it is useful or not.  But on a brief scan
I came across a section contrasting Shawnee Indian with English - or more
correctly Indo-European as Whorf was contrasting the basis of language.
The subject was cleaning a gun.  The English breaks down to "clean",
"with", "ramrod" the Shawnee  "Nipekwalakha"  which means the same thing
breaks down to the concepts "dry space", "interior of hole", "by motion of
tool or instrument".  The two philosophies dissect nature differently.  and
thus produce different realities - the solid entity that is the cleaned gun
barrel or the dry space in the interior of a hole.  The realities are
different although the concretes are the same.  The inability to see the
others point of view is not stupidity, it is a lack of understanding, which
can be developed by critical dialogue.
The inability to see that other realities are just as real as your own, and
are just as valid, but maybe not as useful can also be due to a lack of
understanding.  However I think in the Deming community that we have a
serious problem with arrogance - we are right they are wrong so they must
change - which does not help 'them' change and does not help our
credibility.

In conclusion I concur with Jim.  To lead someone on a journy, you must go
to meet them where they are and lead them from their reality into a new.
This is a journy of philosophy not of science.  It is a journy of concepts
and realities within the same concretes.  Scientific Method is a tool,
understanding is a philosophy.  There are an infinite number of valid
realities in philosophy, some are more useful than other at this time.  We
need to understand the philosophy and make the philosophic journy not
address tools if we wish to aid others in their understanding of the
realities that are expressed through the SoPK.

Roger C. Key
Prescient - The Whole as One
roger.key@onet.co.uk
(44) 01639 871062

[Moderator's $0.02 USD - Heard on a Native American meditation CD tonite:
Do not walk ahead of me as I may not follow.
Do not walk behind me as I may not lead.
But walk beside me and we may be friends.

It would seem they were thinking the same thots as Roger.
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