"Edgar Svendsen" <solon013@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:odA2b.12949$8i2.1367@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

"Immortalist" <Reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:vkla3ccuqg07c4@corp.supernews.com...

[1] - Postmodern scholars reject the very idea of a fixed and knowable
reality. [2] - New theories about matter and energy did still more

damage to

the Enlightenment metanarrative. [3] - By the early years of the

twentieth

century, however, the orthodox view of physical phenomena was giving way

to

an entirely new conception. [4] - The atom is not a thing, in the
conventional material sense, but rather a set of forces operating in
relationship to one another. [5] - Gone forever is the quantitative

notion

of hard substances existing within a "static framework of spatial
relations." [6] - What then of property and [subjects and objects]?

[7] -

The world, according to the postmodernists, is a human construct. We

create

it, say the semioticians, by the -stories- we concoct to explain it and

by

the way we choose to live in it. [8] - "I am I and my circumstances."

there

are as many realities as there are points of view. [9] - Performances

become

as important as, or even more important than, facts and figures. [10] -
History is less a reference for understanding the past and projecting
ourselves into the future and more loose story fragments that can be
recycled and made part of contemporary social scripts. [11] - Postmodern
culture shortens the individual and collective temporal horizon to the
immediate moment. Traditions and legacies become fading interests. What
counts is "now," [12] - Playfulness and pleasure seeking are everywhere.
[13] - Postmodern sociology stresses pluralism and ambivalence and

preaches

toleration for the many different stories that make up the human

experience.

[14] - Performance reigns and commercial access to [sold] cultural
experiences becomes the goal of human activity, the postmodern era is
softer, lighter, and bound up with feelings and attitudes. [15] - Jean
Baudrillard, "TV is the world."

What makes the Postmodern Age so very different from the Modern Age? The
simple but complex answer is to be found in the fact that the Postmodern

Age

is bound up in a new stage of capitalism based on [commodifing] time,
culture, and lived experience, whereas the former age represents an

earlier

stage of capitalism grounded in commodifying land and resources,

contracting

human labor, manufacturing goods, and producing basic services.

[1] - Postmodern scholars reject the very idea of a fixed and knowable
reality.

The first chink in the Enlightenment armor occurred in the twentieth
century, when German scientist Werner Heisenberg introduced the idea of
indeterminacy into the scientific debate.

According to Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, the notion of a

detached,

impartial observer-the core assumption of Bacon's scientific
method-recording nature's secrets in an objective fashion is an
impossibility. The sheer act of making observations brings the observer

into

direct participation with the object of his or her Inquiry, therefore
biasing the results. Heisenberg demonstrated that everything we do-even

our

observations-effects outcomes. Far from being detached, every human

being is

both player and participant, always affecting and being affected, by the
world we attempt to manipulate and influence. After Heisenberg, it was
difficult to continue to hold to the Baconian idea that the world is

made up

solely of knowing subjects acting on passive objects. Newton's notion of
autonomous agents careening through the universe became equally suspect.

If

even the act of observation brings the observer into participation with

the

things he or she observes, then autonomy is more fiction than reality.

[2] - New theories about matter and energy did still more damage to the
Enlightenment metanarrative.

Recall, classical physics defines matter as impenetrable physical
substances. Newton's laws are based on the proposition that two

particles

can't possibly occupy the same place at the same time because each is a
discrete physical entity that takes up a certain amount of space.

[3] - By the early years of the twentieth century, however, the orthodox
view of physical phenomena was giving way to an entirely new conception.

As the physicists began to probe deeper into the world of atoms, they

began

to realize that their earlier ideas about solid matter existing in a

fixed

space were naive. What we call hard physical objects, said the

physicists,

are really just patterns of energy. The seeming physicality of

things-their

fixity and beingness-is merely an approximate notion.

[4] - the atom is not a thing, in the conventional material sense, but
rather a set of forces operating in relationship to one another.

Much to their surprise, physicists found that an atom is anything but

still.

In fact, it became apparent that the atom is not a thing, in the
conventional material sense, but rather a set of forces operating in
relationship to one another. Relationships, however, cannot exist
independent of time. As the late historian and philosopher Robin G.
Collingwood of Oxford University has pointed out, relationships can

exist

only in "a tract of time long enough for the rhythm of the movement to
establish itself." The Nobel Laureate philosopher Henri Bergson once
remarked, "A note of music is nothing at an instant." It requires notes
preceding and following it in time. If each atom, then, is a set of
relationships operating over time, then "at a certain instant of time

the

atom does not possess these qualities at all."

Thus the old idea of structure, independent of process, is abandoned.

The

new physics contends that it is impossible to separate what something is
from what it does. Nothing is static. Therefore, things no longer exist
independent of time but rather through time.

[5] - Gone forever is the quantitative notion of hard substances

existing

within a "static framework of spatial relations."

According to the new physics, matter is a form of energy, and energy is

pure

activity. Gone forever is the quantitative notion of hard substances
existing within a "static framework of spatial relations." Scientist and
philosopher Alfred North Whitehead delivered a devastating blow to the

idea

of space as the dominant feature of nature: "The notion of space with

its

passive, systematic, geometric relationship is entirely inappropriate

...

there is no nature apart from transition, and there is no transition

apart

from temporal duration."

[6] - What then of property and [subjects and objects]?

The physicists were beginning to deconstruct the hard physical reality

of

the modern world. How does one own a force, a pattern of activity, a
relationship over time? How does one distinguish between what is mine

and

thine in a world in which boundaries are a mere social fiction? It's
interesting to note that in cases where persons have lost their eyesight

in

early infancy and regained it later in life, the experience can be
traumatic. Because their minds never were fully trained to distinguish
individual objects in isolation, they see the world as a blur of colors

and

shades and a kaleidoscope of ever changing patterns. All is process and
movement. Discrete forms with boundaries are not easily distinguishable,

all

of which suggests that even our commonsense perception of bounded

objects

existing in isolation is a learned experience and part of our cognitive
development.

While most human beings continued to act as if the world was made up of
subjects and objects and solid expropriatable things, the physical

sciences

quietly but inexorably established a new philosophical framework for the
rethinking of reality. Today, chaos theory, catastrophe theory,

complexity

theory, and the theory of dissipative structures all reflect the new
scientific emphasis on contingency, indeterminacy, embeddedness, and
diversity in the natural world. Where modern science looked for ultimate
truths and fundamental particles, the new science looks for unexpected
possibilities and emerging patterns. Nature is seen more as a series of
continuously creative acts than an unfolding of reality based on

unalterable

laws. Nature is full of surprises at every juncture and creates its own
reality as it goes.

[7] - The world, according to the postmodernists, is a human construct.

We

create it, say the semioticians, by the stories we concoct to explain it

and

by the way we choose to live in it.

Nowhere have the new ideas in physics, chemistry, and mathematics been

more

deeply felt than in the humanities. If there is no fixed and knowable
reality but only the individual realities we create by the way each of

us

participates in and experiences the world around us, then the idea of an
overarching metanarrative-an all-encompassing view of reality- must not
exist. The world, according to the postmodernists, is a human construct.

We

create it, say the semioticians, by the stories we concoct to explain it

and

by the way we choose to live in it. This new world is not objective but
rather contingent, not made up of truths but rather of options and
scenarios. It is a world created by language and held together by

metaphors

and agreed-upon shared meanings, all of which can and do change with the
passage of time. Reality, it seems, is not something bequeathed to us

but

rather something we create, whole cloth, by communicating it into

existence.

[8] - "I am I and my circumstances." there are as many realities as

there

are points of view.

The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once remarked that there

are as

many realities as there are points of view. His theory of per-spectivism
challenged the modern notion of a simple, knowable, objective reality

with

the idea of multiple realities, each representing the unique life story

of

every human being that lives on earth. He summed up the new postmodern

way

of thinking about reality by positing the dictum "I am I and my
circumstances." Even science, argue the postmodernists, is an

elaborately

constructed set of texts or stories whose authority rests ultimately on
their ability to sway and convince their readers of their validity.
Heisenberg observed that when it comes to the exploration of science,

"what

we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of
questioning. Our scientific work in physics consists in asking questions
about nature in the language we possess." Reality, then, is a function

of

the language we use to explain, describe, and interact with it, or, to
paraphrase Hamlet, reality is "words, words, words."

[9] - performances become as important as, or even more important than,
facts and figures

In the postmodern world, stories and performances become as important

as, or

even more important than, facts and figures. The new era revels in
semiotics-the study of signs and signifiers-and is as concerned with the
laws of grammar and semantics as the modern era was with the laws of
physics. The scientific preoccupation with truth becomes less

interesting to

scholars than the personal and collective quest to find meaning.

Language is

the key to exploring meaning because it is the vehicle we use to

communicate

our thoughts and feelings to one another. Language, then, says

psychologist

William Bergquist, "is itself the primary reality in our daily life
experiences" in a postmodern world.

[10] - History is less a reference for understanding the past and

projecting

ourselves into the future and more loose story fragments that can be
recycled and made part of contemporary social scripts.

If people of the modern world searched for purpose, those of the

postmodern

world seek playfulness. Order of any kind is considered restraining,

even

stifling. Creative anarchy, on the other hand, is tolerated, even

pursued.

Spontaneity is the only real order of the day. Everything is less

serious in

the postmodern environment. Irony, paradox, and skepticism are rampant.
There is no great concern with making history but only making up

interesting

stories to live by. Because there is no overarching historical frame
governing either nature or society, interest in history, per se, wanes.
History is less a reference for understanding the past and projecting
ourselves into the future and more loose story fragments that can be
recycled and made part of contemporary social scripts.

[11] - Postmodern culture shortens the individual and collective

temporal

horizon to the immediate moment. Traditions and legacies become fading
interests. What counts is "now,"

The fast pace of a hyper-real, nanosecond culture shortens the

individual

and collective temporal horizon to the immediate moment. Traditions and
legacies become fading interests. What counts is "now," and what's

important

is being able to feel and experience the moment. Climax and catharsis
subsume efficiency and productivity in both personal and social life. It

is

a world full of spectacles and entertainments and highly sophisticated
performances acted out on elaborate stages. In this new era, the

"reality

principle," which governed human conduct from the Protestant Reformation
through the industrial revolution, has been dethroned, or, more
appropriately, abandoned. The "pleasure principle" reigns.

[12] - Playfulness and pleasure seeking are everywhere.

Take, for example, architecture. In contrast to the seriousness of

modern

architecture, with its emphasis on regularity and functionality,

postmodern

architects stress irony and amusement. Postmodern buildings are often
collages of historic styles drawn together to shock, titillate, and
entertain. Classic Greco-Roman columns and cornices might be juxtaposed

with

neo-Baroque bric-a-brac. The facade of an old nineteenth-century

brownstone

building might be saved and used for a space-age-looking structure. A

Rube

Goldberg-type contraption might adorn an atrium, while trompe l'oeil art

on

a nearby lobby wall creates a three-dimensional representation of a

French

village. Architectural orthodoxy has given way to iconoclasm and an
anything-goes attitude as long as the result is likely to capture

attention

and be the subject of conversation and debate.

[13] - Postmodern sociology stresses pluralism and ambivalence and

preaches

toleration for the many different stories that make up the human

experience.

In the social sciences, postmodern scholars say that the modern effort

to

create a unified vision of human behavior has led only to ideologies of
classism, racism, and colonialism. Postmodern sociology stresses

pluralism

and ambivalence and preaches toleration for the many different stories

that

make up the human experience. There is no one ideal social regime to

which

to aspire but rather a multitude of cultural experiments, each equally
valid. The idea of inescapable linear progress toward an agreed-upon

future

Utopian ideal is eschewed. The postmodernists celebrate the diversity of
local experiences that together make up an ecology of human existence.

The new era is ambiguous and diverse, entertaining and humorous,

tolerant

and chaotic. It is eclectic and highly irreverent. Ideology, unalterable
truths, and ironclad laws are cast aside to make room for performances

of

all kinds.

[14] - performance reigns and commercial access to [sold] cultural
experiences becomes the goal of human activity, the postmodern era is
softer, lighter, and bound up with feelings and attitudes.

The Postmodern Age, then, is punctuated by playfulness, while the Modern

Age

was characterized by industriousness. In a regime built around work,
production is the operational paradigm and property represents the

fruits of

human labor. In a world orchestrated around play, performance reigns and
commercial access to cultural experiences becomes the goal of human
activity. Making things and exchanging and accumulating property become
ancillary in the Age of Access to scripting scenarios, telling stories,

and

acting out fantasies.

Gone are the hard edges of an age dedicated to harnessing and

transforming

physical resources. The postmodern era is softer, lighter, and bound up

with

feelings and attitudes. It is a world turned upside down. The conscious

mind

of rational and analytical thought becomes suspect, while the

unconscious

mind of erotic desires, illusions, and dream-states comes to the fore

and

becomes, in effect, reality, or, more appropriate, hyper-reality. The
underworld of fantasy is glorified and made manifest.

[15] - Jean Baudrillard, "TV is the world."

Jean Baudrillard, Frederic Jameson, and other postmodern scholars credit
this historic turnaround-this triumph of the unconscious-to the vast

changes

in communications technologies and commerce that have made the whole

world a

stage and all experience a simulation. A French postmodernist once

remarked

that if a child grows up spending most of his or her waking hours in

front

of a screen, peering deep inside a virtual reality, after a while it is

no

longer virtual. It is their reality. Baudrillard says that TV, for

example,

is no longer a surrogate for reality. TV no longer interprets or

dramatizes

the world. "TV is the world."

ADAPTED FROM: The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism,

Where

all of Life is a Paid-For Experience: by Jeremy Rifkin

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585420824/
http://www.foet.org/JeremyRifkin.htm

Uncle Al has a point. In my experience very few engineers are

post-modernists; their stuff has to work. So they believe that the

world IS knowable, and lo and behold their bridges support believers and

skeptics alike. They even support people who speak

different languages.

I think that Rifkin was talking about some of the influence physics had upon
social trends. I don't think he was talking about personal philosophies of
physicists.

I also believe that the world is knowable but don't believe that we have
discovered any belief about the world that is completely justified, cannot
be mistaken and has no chance for error. Our knowledge, seems up to now, to
be an approximation and a probability.

Epistemologists find a number of problems with finding an meta-justification
standard for justifying emperical beliefs.

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoHowa.htm

1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose justification
does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.

2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
reason
why it is likely to be true.

3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive possession
of such a reason.

4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he believes
with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
likely to be true.

5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
empirical premise.

6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on the
justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.

7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
justified sceptical beliefs.

The 7 propositions seem to eliminate the possibility of emperical
justification of any and all emperical beliefs. But it can lead to this
untruthfullness of human beliefs in three ways which deal with the apparent
"regress" of one belief depending upon another which depends upon another
and so on:

If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
emperical beliefs, then it must either:

(1) terminate in unjustified beleifs

(2) go on infinitely (without circularity)

(3) circle back upon itself in some way. (begging the question on steroids)

Ed