Thursday, March 26, 2009

What's your orientation?

I just used part of this answer for another question, but it seems to apply here as well so:





We experience emotional life, embodied life, and psychological life--in their aesthetic immediacy, within which determinate differentiations come and go. In this way, change, and understanding change, is pervasive. Theories follow from questions, and correct theories follow from confirmation of experimental results. In other words, the scientific method is one way to expand our horizons, but that method works best when dealing with physical phenomena. The scientific method is less effective when it comes to expanding our psychological and emotional horizons and these horizons are immediately sensed.











I will give Arthur Eddington the last words here. He was possibly the first person to fully comprehend Einstein’s relativity theory. He also headed up the famous expedition that photographed the solar eclipse which offered proof of relativity theory.





Eddington believed that if you want to fill a vessel you must first make it hollow (the emptiness that vexes). He also said, “our present conception of the physical world is hollow enough to hold almost anything,” hollow enough to hold “that which asks the question,” hollow enough to hold “the scheme of symbols connected by mathematical equations that describes the basis of all phenomena.” He also said, however, “If ever the physicist solves the problem of the living body, he should no longer be tempted to point to his result and say ‘That’s you.’ He should say rather ‘That is the aggregation of symbols which stands for you in my description and explanation of those of your properties which I can observe and measure. If you claim a deeper insight into your own nature by which you can interpret these symbols—a more intimate knowledge of the reality which I can only deal with by symbolism—you can rest assured that I have no rival interpretation to propose. The skeleton is the contribution of physics to the solution of the Problem of Experience; from the clothing of the skeleton it (physics) stands aloof.” (Wilber, 2001, p. 194)
What%26#039;s your orientation?
Simple question deserves simple answer:


Objectivity.

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