crm@duke.UUCP (11/01/83)
For Monty Estis and Tom Craver: A lot of the arguments both ways about an "objective" or "operational" philo- sophy / metaphysic rely on the existance of a "real" universe to have the model relate to (so it's a dangling participle, it's been a hard day!). Current physical evidence seems to suggest that the observer directly effects the reality being observed (that's not a typo, I don't mean "affects") -- Cf. the notion of Schroedinger and others that the state vector doen't really collapse without an observer, and therefore that (John Wheeler now) the universeITSELF would not exist without us being here to observe it. (Aside: I personally find this rather appealing, as I see little reason for a universe without people (sentient beings) in it. This of course reveals me as a closet Deist, but what-the-hell... edisA) Anyway, how does the idea of this sort of universe affect the idea of a rational/Objectivist or operational epistomology? What meaning does the idea of a rational world view have when there is only a sort of agreed-upon set of observations which produce the universe? Charlie Martin ...!duke!crm (*chortle* I haven't gotten to use words like "epistomology" since I was a Philosophy major!)