Re: Operational Closure

[Howard Pattee <***>]

Tim wrote:
Certainly I agree with you that if congruence in our modelling relations
between formal and natural systems means anything, then our formal models
are congruent with counterparts in the external world. My concern is with
how much we can say about those counterparts. Rosen was quite cautious,
though, even in his assertion of there being an external world.
[snip]
Because all of this rests on so much indirect and unprovable evidence, along with an 
inability to pierce the noumenal veil, then I feel that ontological questions such as 
whether form or matter are more fundamental ontologically cannot be answered within this 
kind of epistemology - they are nonsensical questions in my view.

HP: I agree we can?t say much about what really exists. But if as you say some aspects of 
reality are congruent with our models can?t we infer that those aspects that are more 
important in our models correspond to what is more important in reality? For example, is 
it entirely nonsensical to believe that in the universe acceleration is more important 
than velocity, as is clear from our models?

Howard