08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Belief in Matter is Like Belief in God
As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries-not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scient...Folksonomies: empiricism
Folksonomies: empiricism
Except the belief in matter has proved much more reliable and useful.