Dear Ken,
Douglas Green offers sage advice but I am a little troubled by the model of maps that he critiques. In the hard sciences, the agony might well form around the failure to understand "the nature of the reality that exists independently of ourselves". But, in the case of the making sciences, our interest is also in things that arise because they are dependent on us. As every child knows, making maps is its own reality. Making maps of things that exist is another problem just as making designs for things that might exist is another kind of problem. The design of the house is not the reality of the house but the design never set out to be a reality beyond that of its intentions. That is, ideas work fine as ideas and they get us somewhere but they aren't much use as motor cars.
Cheers
Keith
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
By Douglas R. Green
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57903/
[Published 4th January 2011 01:12 PM GMT]
Science, this very creative human endeavor to understand the nature of the reality that exists independently of ourselves, is impossible. By "impossible," I am not saying "very, very difficult," although it is that, as well. We use our senses and instruments to extend them to try to map reality (at least those bits we care about) onto our consciousness and perceive that the map we collectively share is the reality. I know I am being very Cartesian here, but hopefully you can see what the problem is: the "map" is not the reality. So the endeavor is, therefore, impossible.
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