Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 21:26:18 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Actually it's potential


Thanks for your helpful explanation.  Let me see if I have understood
Bhaskar's position on this. It seems that we can distinguish between
several realms now.  1. The realm of experience, 2. the realm of
actualization of laws as events and 3. the realm of  laws.  Could one
say that we experience laws indirectly through the events in which they
are actualized?  Here the idea of experience is key.  If one says that
experience is merely sensual, than this is impossible, but a richer
conception of experience may allow this possibility.  

Let us now consider laws and their actualization.  A law can exist in a
thing without it creating an event, perhaps because of some
interference.  However, a law cannot exist without something.  If the law
is inherent in the thing, then is it in the realm of possible
(indirect) experience?

Also could one say that laws are always actualizing themselves even if we
do not always have the means to experience them?  The scientist isolates
phenomena in order to be clear about the effects of a particular substance
or law.  If this is the case, how should we understand the difference
between a law and its actualization?



On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Greg Hall wrote:

> Viren asks:
> 
> >Would Bhaskar say that we experience laws? Does the scientist >experience a 
> >law when he is doing an experiment?
> 
> I would say no we do not experience laws directly.  Bhaskar argues that laws 
> are the tendencies that reside in objects.  They are mere potentialities.  
> We only experience events that are the actualizations of these tendencies.  
> It is the inability to observe the laws directly that forces the scientist 
> to construct the experiment to try to get the laws to actualize in a way 
> that the scientist can understand and then use them.  Hence, during the 
> experiment the scientist is not experiencing the law itself.  Rather, the 
> scientist is experiencing the actaulization of the laws in a controlled and 
> artificial environment that makes the functions of the laws more apparent.
> 
> If this is true, as long as something exists even if humans do not exist, 
> then there would still be scientific laws.  These laws would reside in 
> whatever exists and govern its behavior.
> 
> P.S. Why is there something rather than nothing?
> 
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