[Sca-cooks] Questions on theory and proof

Ian Kusz sprucebranch at gmail.com
Mon Feb 8 06:44:39 PST 2010


Well, I think what he meant, was that if there's an outstanding, glaring
lack of data, that can sometimes be indicative.

Like, someone making a study of incidents of some activity, say, notices
that they are getting no reports of that activity from a specific area.
This could lead them to find out why.  Perhaps in that area, talking about
that activity is taboo.  Or the activity itself could be something that is
avoided.  Or something else is substituted.

Like there was that one religious sect that abstained from all sex; no
reports of sex would have come out of that community, but then, no report of
sex might have come out of a community where talking about it was taboo, as
well.  So you'd have to research.

But the lack of reports would tell you WHERE to research.

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:37 PM, Celia des Archier
<CeliadesArchier at cox.net>wrote:

> I said:
> > I'd enjoy hearing you expand on the last, however... In what
> > way does absence of proof suggest where to look for proof?
>
> And Daniel replied
> > In determining the limits of what we don't know we can on
> > occasion deduce where we need to look or, more to the point,
> > how to go about looking.  The problem with the results of
> > looking lies in both our pre-conceptions and incomplete data
> > obtained.  The blind men and the elephant is a cautionary tale.
>
> I guess that's where you lose me ... From my perspective, there *are* no
> limits on what we *don't* know, that realm is pragmatically infinite. What
> we
> *do* know, however, is very, very finite. ;-)  But I think I grasp your
> point
> a little better, and appreciate you taking the time to clarify for me.  And
> I
> certainly accept the last two sentances, that the problem lies in boht our
> pre-conceptions *and* incomplete data.
>
> In service,
> Celia
>
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-- 
Ian of Oertha


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