Well I for one have no idea who that is or what the meaning of what has been attributed to him may be. I don’t recognize how it relates to postmodernism but I then I don’t think of PoMo as monolithic. Neither do I have any inclination to rush to its defense. I would only defend it against people who disparage a distorted representation of it. It shows up in so many contexts and is used for so many purposes that it is more important to discover if there is any important truth in it worth claiming rather than either dismissing or defending it all.
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Join the club. The more you learn the more you realize the futility of trying to encompass it all. That might actually be a PoMo sentiment.
If you really believe that, then you will neither agree or disagree with the claim that there is an infinite being, and not an infinite number of things.
True but mostly that expression elicits no interest for me so I just don’t care. Unless you can unpack what it means to you I may never know. But as things stand that’s fine with me.
I have often found that the problem isn’t subjectivity but dogma. If some of our opinions, ideas, and beliefs are subjective this isn’t really a problem as long as we can discuss, debate, and use what reason we can muster to try and find the best answer we can. What is frustrating is when subjectivity is treated as unassailable truth that can’t be questioned or challenged.
One place that we can find the most agreement is in objective facts which is why they are such a useful tool, but they certainly aren’t the only tools. As one example, there is no objective reason why we should favor our close family members over strangers, but we all understand how our subjective nature is causing this behavior.
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- Regarding the first claim: In order for a being to be infinite, i.e. literally boundless, wouldn’t space itself have to also be infinite, i.e. boundless?
- Regarding the second claim: In order for there to be an infinite, i.e. literally boundless, number of things, somebody’s going to have to “bite the bullet” and decide whether “things” are abstract or concrete.
- If the “things” are abstract, such as the set of points in space or the the set of real numbers or the set of instants in time, then those “things” are Infinite, i.e. boundless.
- On the other hand, if the “things” are concrete, such as the set of dimensionless points of mass or the set of dimensionless points of “energy”, then those things cannot be infinite, i.e. boundless; and anyone who says otherwise would, IMO, be obliged to provide or point to evidence for their claim.
Agreed and it poses problems for those who wind up behaving badly out of righteous indignation too. I’m okay with recognizing private truths about what we think we are in a non empirical sense or what we find meaningful or even what we think we’re here to do. But it seems many who grow up in or come to a highly articulated belief system which they are expected to agree to as a shared creed wind up with a balky, non responsive burden that is hard to square with personal experience, let alone modify. In my opinion Christianity would be better off to expect more personal input and accommodate varieties of expression rather that focusing on what it looks like from the outside. But hey, it’s a tradition and you know how song goes. It must be hard to know what is bedrock and what is bendable.
Put another way, maybe it is more important that people sing in the same key than that they sing the same lyrics.
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It almost seems as inconsequential as saying an infinite number of things exist. Be that as it may, I think it is a substantial conclusion to know there is an infinite being, and that there cannot be an infinite number of things.
Certainly people, including sociologists of science, have attempted to apply postmodernist approaches to physics. Within physics, however – not so much. Physicists mostly ignore them.
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- Given my own deficiencies in mathematics and the sciences, I can accept that I have minimum to no credibility among those trained and employed in the sciences. But my sympathy lies with the educated few who are not employed in the empirical sciences who argue for discarded pre-modern concepts–such as Absolute Space and Absolute Time–on purely rational grounds but are ignored.
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My life has taken place entirely within premodern space time and I’ve always been disinterested in QM. But it’s good to know that the only way to completely expose your ignorance on that account would be to claim you understand it. Frankly I think the same judgement should apply to those who claim to entirely understand God. I’m keeping my ignorance under wraps by steadfastly insisting I do not know what that is even though I’m sure it is very important.
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Funny that’s probably how you see Christians, and yet, based on my experience they are usually quite frank about their inability to entirely understand God. But they do know him enough, if they do know him. Just the tiniest drop sometimes is enough. The briefest encounter with the Holy Spirit has turned worlds upside down.
Dogma can be true, and taught graciously. (In high school, I had an ungracious Driver’s Ed teacher1 for the actual driving portion of the course. There are definitely dogmatic rules of the road that are true, and that’s a very good thing!)
1 He insisted that he feel the little final inertial whiplash when you stop as certification that it was indeed a complete stop. He would punch kids hard in the shoulder if he didn’t (that wouldn’t fly today!). And you can come to a complete stop without it if you’re thinking about it. 
Jay313, MarkD the OP seemed like a wonderful gift. And @mitchellmckain , @christy, @T_aquaticus, @Randy , @rsewell, @glipsnort and @Vanengelen, maybe also @Paulm12:
It can’t really be over yet, can it? I’ve been at work and running a kid to tumbling, and this discussion is over before it really began?
Riffing on Jay’s OP and comments from mitchellmekain, Markd, Glipsnort, rsewell, t_aquaticus, and Vanengelen, I think, I hoped to hear more from scientists here about their understanding of postmodern critiques (not stereotyped but the real critiques of real PoMo) of science, scientific practice, etc, etc. I’m aware the critiques exist, but haven’t got a firm grip on them.
What are they?
Do they have any affect on your practices, thinking, etc? If so, how; if not why?
As scientists, what are YOUR critiques of a postmodern understanding of science, at least your area of practice?
jay313, and MarkD, maybe there’s hope for this thread?
P.S. @jammycakes I forgot to tag you here, too.
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Going forward, please stick to the topic, posters. And if someone is out of line, please feel free to flag them, as often topics may not be followed closely by the moderators.
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Why we can’t have nice things.
There are a lot of things to understand about quantum physics including why Feynman said “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.” Clearly it does not mean nobody can understand ANYTHING about quantum physics. BUT the claim that you understand EVERYTHING on a subject is really rather foolish no matter what the subject is. So, frankly, I think the vast majority of people who quote or refer to this statement of Feynman don’t really understand the statement at all.
The reason Feynman says this is because of a very real cognitive dissonance the greatest physicists experience when confronted with the findings of quantum physics because it seems contradict some of the basic premises of inquiry in the science of physics. The more someone is immersed in a physics worldview the more disturbing these findings are going to be to them. But frankly those with a broader spectrum understanding of reality are not as likely to experience this. Most people will find it only natural to discover that physics cannot explain everything. And those in philosophy (and mathematics) have already encountered something similar in the discoveries of Kurt Gödel. The real foolishness here is not thinking you understand a subject but rather thinking that the narrow approach to reality in your field of study is a greater grasp on the whole of reality than it really is.
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Absolutely. People who do understand it well enough to solve real world problems at least. Whether that translates as understanding the fabric of reality, I don’t think anyone can say. It seems we corporately keep understanding more and more.
Yes.
Very well said. How post modern of you. 
Or maybe it is a matter of the manner in which you hold your religious faith. Both promote humility - when done correctly.
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Just to jump in here with the friendly neighbourhood mod hat on. Please don’t forget the flag function has an ‘Off-Topic’ option. If you feel a post is significantly off-topic based on the OP or the Froum Guidelines please feel free to flag it and we (the Mods) will review, respond to offenders, and delete posts where appropriate.
Some neutral drift in a forum conversation is to be expected, but folks pushing a conversation towards personal hobby-horses topics is not OK. So please make use of the flagging system, it is designed to do the heavy lifting in situations just like this. But only works if people use it.
Here’s a reminder of how to flag something for those who’d like a refresher:
Step 1
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Then hit flag post.
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