Comments on: The pleasure of finding things out… https://habitablezone.com/2012/08/07/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:41:18 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2012/08/07/the-pleasure-of-finding-things-out/#comment-17133 ER Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:29:05 +0000 http://habitablezone.com/?p=19676#comment-17133 you really don't know anything about it. That's a topic we often discuss here. Definitions are only useful if you recognize they are merely a way of ensuring you are talking about the same bird. In themselves, they mean nothing. Another thing I really like was his allusion to the CP Snow/"two cultures" aspect of the flower. That somehow, the scientist has no appreciation of the beauty of the flower, or conversely, that the humanities can tell us nothing of value about the flower. Both of those viewpoints are wrong. The scientific flower and the esthetic flower are the same object, but two separate perceptions of it. There are an infinite number of flowers, depending on how we decide to perceive it. None is right or wrong, valid or invalid. Think of it this way, a botanist can tell you a lot about the flower, but a skilled florist, who has no training in any biology, still knows a lot about that flowere, in another context. The botanist may be totally inept at running a flower shop and selling bouquets. And his knowledge of photosynthesis or angiosperm evolution is useless if he goes into the business. I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this lately, that knowledge is subjective. There is no such thing as objective reality. No, this is not to mean that "nothing is real", or "there is no real world". Those statements are a childish oversimplification of what I'm trying to say, or a cowardly attempt to avoid its implications. The human mind creates its own consciousness-centered universe and develops information about objective external reality necessary to satisfy the requirements of that subjective universe. A baseball pitcher does not need to know Newton's Laws of Motion or aerodynamics to throw a curve ball. And a physicist who can't pitch will either walk his batter or have his strikes pounded out of the ball park. Both those universes have their own subjective characteristics and both have have their own totally objective criteria of validity and success. They are different aspects of the same underlying reality. Depending on what you are trying to do, one is useful, the other is irrelevant. Truth has nothing to do with it. They can both be true, but you may only need to know about one. I'm a big fan of Feynman's. I have a copy of his 3-volume " The Feynman Lectures on Physics" I've been meaning to re-read before I die. I doubt if I'll ever get around to it. Not only was he a talented sketch artist, he was also a talented percussionist (he played bongos). I didn't bother watching the whole video, (I've seen it before). Do you know who the babe he was sketching was? you really don’t know anything about it. That’s a topic we often discuss here. Definitions are only useful if you recognize they are merely a way of ensuring you are talking about the same bird. In themselves, they mean nothing.

Another thing I really like was his allusion to the CP Snow/”two cultures” aspect of the flower. That somehow, the scientist has no appreciation of the beauty of the flower, or conversely, that the humanities can tell us nothing of value about the flower. Both of those viewpoints are wrong.

The scientific flower and the esthetic flower are the same object, but two separate perceptions of it. There are an infinite number of flowers, depending on how we decide to perceive it. None is right or wrong, valid or invalid. Think of it this way, a botanist can tell you a lot about the flower, but a skilled florist, who has no training in any biology, still knows a lot about that flowere, in another context. The botanist may be totally inept at running a flower shop and selling bouquets. And his knowledge of photosynthesis or angiosperm evolution is useless if he goes into the business.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this lately, that knowledge is subjective. There is no such thing as objective reality. No, this is not to mean that “nothing is real”, or “there is no real world”. Those statements are a childish oversimplification of what I’m trying to say, or a cowardly attempt to avoid its implications.

The human mind creates its own consciousness-centered universe and develops information about objective external reality necessary to satisfy the requirements of that subjective universe. A baseball pitcher does not need to know Newton’s Laws of Motion or aerodynamics to throw a curve ball. And a physicist who can’t pitch will either walk his batter or have his strikes pounded out of the ball park. Both those universes have their own subjective characteristics and both have have their own totally objective criteria of validity and success. They are different aspects of the same underlying reality. Depending on what you are trying to do, one is useful, the other is irrelevant. Truth has nothing to do with it. They can both be true, but you may only need to know about one.

I’m a big fan of Feynman’s. I have a copy of his 3-volume ” The Feynman Lectures on Physics” I’ve been meaning to re-read before I die. I doubt if I’ll ever get around to it. Not only was he a talented sketch artist, he was also a talented percussionist (he played bongos).

I didn’t bother watching the whole video, (I’ve seen it before). Do you know who the babe he was sketching was?

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