the real world

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

It's really ("really"? "'really'"!) an old old debate ("and coxcombs 
vanquish Berkeley with a grin", etc.). Interestingly, GR and V both 
deal with the shift from _a view of_ science as dealing with 
certainties, to one of (statistical) probabilities (Roger Mexico, the 
parable of the sieve, the Monte Carlo fallacy, etc etc). Ultimately, it 
doesn't matter at all whether we are materialists or idealists or some 
cunning variation - it's what we do _with_ science that matters, rather 
than esoteric early modernist squabbles about some ultimate (non)reality.

hg
hag at iafrica.com