Rick_Brown
Second Unit
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2001
- Messages
- 449
I've read many threads on this website, especially in the Audio/Video Sources page, where debates get into objective vs. subjective points of view. The most common debate centers around golden-ear subjectivists who hear things that scientific objectivists can't measure.
I think many of you would find the following quote interesting. In a book written by Leonard Peikoff, "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" the following passage is taken from a chapter titled "Sense, Perception and Volition":
"The function of the senses, Ayn Rand holds, is to sum up a vast range of facts, to condense a complex body of information - which reaches our conciousness in the form of a relatively few sensations. We percieve a bunch of roses, for example, as red, cool, fragrant, and yielding to the touch. Such sensations are not causeless. They are produced by a complex body of physico-chemical facts, including the lengths of the light waves the roses relect and absorb, the thermal conductivity of the petals, and the chemical makeup of their molecules, and the type of bonding between them; these facts in turn reflect the underlying atomic structures, their electronic and nuclear features, and many other aspects. Our sensations, of course, do not identify any of these facts, but they do constitute our first form of grasping them and our first lead to their later scientific discovery. Science, indeed, is nothing more than the conceptual unravelling of sensory data; it has no other primary evidence from which to proceed." (bolding is mine)
To me, this means that science should be able to explain the things that we hear when listening. If scientific measurements do not explain satisfactorily, then the science needs more work.
I think many of you would find the following quote interesting. In a book written by Leonard Peikoff, "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" the following passage is taken from a chapter titled "Sense, Perception and Volition":
"The function of the senses, Ayn Rand holds, is to sum up a vast range of facts, to condense a complex body of information - which reaches our conciousness in the form of a relatively few sensations. We percieve a bunch of roses, for example, as red, cool, fragrant, and yielding to the touch. Such sensations are not causeless. They are produced by a complex body of physico-chemical facts, including the lengths of the light waves the roses relect and absorb, the thermal conductivity of the petals, and the chemical makeup of their molecules, and the type of bonding between them; these facts in turn reflect the underlying atomic structures, their electronic and nuclear features, and many other aspects. Our sensations, of course, do not identify any of these facts, but they do constitute our first form of grasping them and our first lead to their later scientific discovery. Science, indeed, is nothing more than the conceptual unravelling of sensory data; it has no other primary evidence from which to proceed." (bolding is mine)
To me, this means that science should be able to explain the things that we hear when listening. If scientific measurements do not explain satisfactorily, then the science needs more work.