[Avodah] reality

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 09:59:16AM -0800, Saul.Z.Newman at kp.org wrote:
: http://www.jewswithquestions.com/index.php?/topic/115-scales-fins-and-the-suns-orbit/page__p__290#entry290 

: in general, whenever Chazal make a scientific statement, they are not 
: talking about the observable universe but rather the "real" universe. What 
: we - and the scientists - see is only a graphic user interface, so to 
: speak. The real world - the real sun, real moon, real earth - is not 
: observable by current scientific means. Chazal were talking about the real 
: world when they spoke. I'd recommend this Shiur    [  link  available 
: there]  for a full treatment.

I don't go for this approach, but in some sense it overlaps with my own.
As I recently suggested for the n-th time, Chazal don't speak of reality
as it is, but reality as we are able to experience it directly. Since
souls and that which impact them are more important than physical
objects, I guess you can consider "reality as we are able to experience
it directly" to be parallel to their "'real' universe".

But I wouldn't turn that into an ontological ranking...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Like a bird, man can reach undreamed-of
micha at aishdas.org        heights as long as he works his wings.
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Fax: (270) 514-1507      he plummets downward.   - Rav Yisrael Salanter