Subj : EUROPE                                                   [1]
To   : Todd Henson
From : Bob Eyer
Date : Wed Oct 25 2000 03:55 am

FM:
-According to the above, then, Bob, I believe that essentially I
-DID represent your position as you have re-stated it.  The
-catastrophes, while bad, regrettable, etc., take place in a
-setting in which a thing named "Progress" has assumed control
-since the referees declared Modernity to be the correct direction
-of the eschaton in "history" and insured the UNMIXED blessings of
-rapid population growth and increase and longer life spans.  Since
-QUALITY is not mentioned here I assume you believe there to be no
-reasonable debate as to its presence both in population growth and
-longer life spans.

BE:
-I avoid the "quality" issue primarily because it involves appeal
-to subjective value judgments and also because it can't be put
-on a numerical scale and measured objectively.  All the various

>Your error is in assuming that everything that is truly important
>to man MUST be something that can be measured by a number.  It

No I'm not assuming that at all.  We may, and commonly do,
appreciate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of reality.

But to make comparative judgments of greater than or less than, it
is necessary to use numerical variables, as there is no coherent
way of describing a thing of one quality as greater than a thing
of another quality.  It is obviously nonsense to describe an
apple as being greater than an orange.   But it is not nonsense
to describe the MASS of an apple as being greater than the MASS
of an orange.

If you're going to make greater than comparative judgments you are
logically required to make sure you use the SAME variable for
making the comparison.  And the reason for this is that the
greater than relation is a relation between two numbers.

The estimation of progress by definition involves making just such
comparative judgments.

Bob

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3 (OS/2) 5
 * Origin: FidoNet: CAP/CANADA Support BBS : 416 287-0234 (1:250/710)

.