Most of the scientists I’ve spoken with have been impatient with questions about ontology, even if they’re familiar with the weirdness out at the edges in physics, cosmology and cognition.  The things they deal with are ‘real enough’.  However, it is my understanding that the same ontological questions that occur to (some) mathematicians are beginning to arise in science, because some of the theories, although they explain and order phenomena, can’t be conclusively tested (so far), such as the many-worlds versus the probability-wave interpretations of Quantum Mechanics.

As for Rove, I have no idea what he thinks about science.  I’m reminded of the Tom Lehrer song about Werner von Braun.  ‘That’s not my department….’

Anarcissie and tolstoy, I like your comments quite a lot, the way they build on each other.  It’s important to keep in mind Karl Rove is relatively uneducated.  That’s not say he not brilliant; he’s brilliant. Not to say he’s ignorant; he’s a history buff. Not to say he’s an idiot; he’s an intelligent man.  But one would suspect his knowledge of science is a little weak.

It’s odd, you know, because if you speak to scientists about reality, they are pretty certain of it. They do experiments that prove the universe is real whether we, as human beings, exist or not.  That’s not to say they know everything; they don’t. Not to say they are not wrong at times; they are.  But they do believe in reality.

A modern group of intellectuals that will sometimes spout the “all is illusion” and “you create your own reality” nonsense is, in my experience, psychologists and psychiatrists—my experience with a psychiatrist was personal, not professional, thank you.

They love that crap, because they’re all about mental illness and mind altering drugs, so from their perspective, it’s true: It’s all in our heads; reality does not exist, only perceptions of reality. And of course this is absolutely true when speaking of psychotics.  Where it falls apart is with healthy individuals who have acute perceptions of reality and are capable of astounding intellectual self-discipline and therefore capable of conducting systematic tests to confirm their versions of reality.  Witness the explosion of a nuclear bomb and tell me that doesn’t involve an acute understanding of the nature of our universe. Or, see Sir Isaac Newton and the Law of Gravity for a guy who was troubled personally but had an astounding grasp of reality. 

My point:  Psychiatry and psychology are dangerous disciplines. Many of the modern torture techniques we deplore were researched by psychiatrists in the 1950s (source: Naomi Klein. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism). And if you’re a sociopath or simply a coward afraid to speak your mind, there is no better tool than psychology for learning how to be a lying chickenshit bastard without seeming like a lying a chickenshit bastard.  Unfortunately, the news media has embraced psychiatry and psychology and far from recognizing them as potentially tortuous and dangerous disciplines, the news media embrace the nihilism. 

It’s why the corporate news media are so dangerous. They have bought into the bullshit that all is illusion, that there is no truth, that no person can be more objective than the next. Forget history, forget science—any opinion that is supported by a moneyed democrat or republican must be covered and broadcast.

It’s a dangerous situation we’re in, in a world where Karl Rove and his ilk are given international platforms to speak their minds – and their minds are steeped in dangerous voodoo.  I agree with both of you in other words. I’m just adding that there is some truth in Karl Rove’s words, dark, cynical, dangerous truth. 

In, closing two things:
* Anarcissie:  I love this quote, “...one can choose to either know reality or create reality, but can’t have both.”
* Want to hear an interesting statement:  Ask a psychiatrist what his or her definition of normal is.  They usually quibble around to saying it is someone who is not mentally ill, and, of course, we’re all mentally ill.  Neuroscience is where it’s at. Psychiatry is just modern witchcraft birthed by a jerkoff crackhead.

Do you think it was Rove that said that about ‘We’re an empire now’?  To me it seems Nietzschean rather than Machiavellian.  Machiavelli is always rational and always advocates knowledge and calculation.  Nietzsche, on the other hand, wrote ‘It is not enough that you understand in what ignorance man and beast live; you must also have and acquire the will to ignorance. You need to grasp that without this kind of ignorance life itself would be impossible, that it is a condition under which alone the living thing can preserve itself and prosper: a great, firm dome of ignorance must encompass you.’  In short, one can choose to either know reality or create reality, but can’t have both.  It seems rather sophisticatedly romantic; not that Rove is a dummy, but he does not seem like much of a romantic.

The article and comments suggest Rove is strongly aware of how vulnerable Obama is to losing the election—but it won’t be to a yayhoo Tea Party type like Perry. Meaning a more sophisticated candidate is needed, maybe not Romney but somebody not within the current clown circle representing the GOP. We also need to remember this famous comment from Rove a few years ago. The Machiavelli-type assesses quickly and capitalizes on mood to create “reality”:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

In this source plus interesting commentary:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-thill/karl-rove-master-hyperrea_b_74538.html

Mr. Reeves,

I hope to God you’re right.  Rick Perry is a thoroughly dangerous man. 

We can only hope that he does not one day reside in The White House. He and Sarah Palin echo the worst tyrants in history, self-pitying, dim, ignorant, superstitious, thin-skinned megalomaniacs who could justify any type of tyranny once they reside in the corridors of power. 

The sad part about this story, Mr. Reeves, is that your industry, the news media, will cover these
dangerous candidates-non-candidates no matter how dangerous they are to our country. And don’t back peddle here. Your industry regularly excludes progressives from news coverage. Consider the coverage Nader got in the 60s and 70s and how now he is an outcast.  Chomsky.  Chris Hedges. Zinn (before he died of course). Many, many, many more, you’re industry regularly excludes their input, a holdover from the McCarthy era
that scared the pants off your generation.

The dangerous conservatives, however, they were frequently your parents, your grandparents, your
employers, your wealthy benefactors, your acquantices who could give you the coveted access and
further your career. You never learned to fear them. We have. You’re excluding the wrong people. 

Progressives were right and continue to be right and yet they are excluded from the public debate, denied news coverage.

I say this with respect. I’ve read your columns for decades and enjoy them quite a lot. I wish you would get more comments here at TruthDig.  You are a progressive and you have made that clear. 

What you don’t do is attack your own industry, the news media. And you need to. They are endagering
our democracy, giving news coverage to presidential candidates based on money instead of ideas.
It’s how we could wind up with a sociopathic tyrant—a tyrant for life—in The White House. You
should be raising hell. I know the press has done many good things. I’ve read your defense of the
media in the past. I understand where you’re coming from. 

Things have changed.  Each time a news media corporation allows Rick Perry on a stage and
broadcasts, it is threatening the future of our country; it is abdicating it’s responsibility to be
the final check on the checks and balances system; it is threatening the free speech of every one
by broadcasting the views of delusional, dangerous man. 

Speak up.  You have a podium.  Turns your insight at your industry and express your concern in the
light of day.  Your industry is endangering this country and, far from being an objective observer, is an active player in making the country ungovernable and irreconcilably divisive.

@PatrickHenry: Why stop with Rove and Cheney?  The worst of the war criminals lives in an exclusive, high security enclave in North Dallas: G. W. Bush.

Karl Rove and Frank Luntz and Ed Rollins et al can be easily lumped along with all the candidates into some amorphous glob labeled “Who Cares?”. 

The dearth of legitimate IDEAS being presented by the candidates and their backers is overwhelming - like the impact of some giant bag of Mr. Sta-Puff marshmallows.  To use the Texas vernacular, they are “All hat and no cattle”. 

2012 will be characterized by the election of one figure among a whole carload of empty suits with even emptier heads. 

“Yankee Ingenuity” sadly has become a historical anachronism - an ancient artifact left behind in our dust which is examined with interest and very little understanding.

Maybe the candidates’ “debate” could be recorded and played backwards.  That way the best part would come out last and provide a positive outcome:  the feeling of some anticipation rather than the actual result of “So What?”.

If Rove wants to ‘destroy’ the Democratic Party he must return the Republican Party to its former status as the conservative party, instead of the rat-bag of schemers and fanatics it has become.  Then, the Democrats could not continue saying, ‘We may not look like much, but we’re the ones who aren’t crazy.’  This unassuming principle won for them in 2006 and 2008, and it may well win again in 2012.  I don’t know how you can change a major party’s base overnight, though.

Right on, Inherit.  Rove, a devotee of Machiavelli (he
‘re-reads’ him every year) has made no secret of the
fact that his life-long ambition is to ‘destroy’ the
Democratic Party - in other words to wipe it out of
existence.

He has not been side-lined. He is merely occupying a
different position on the playing field of Republican
politics.

I suppose the number one problem for the Republicans is to get rid of the religious-fanatic candidates without getting rid of the religious-fanatic base.  Most Americans have no use for religious fanaticism and candidates associated with it are unlikely to win any national elections.

Don’t be fooled by Karl Rove. He STILL represents what used to be called the Neocons (what happened to that word).  He also used to be a king-maker and he wants to be one again.

But first he has to be a wannabe-king (and queen) UNmaker.  That means the only real challengers to the neocon candidate, Romney, have to be DESTROYED first, and that means Perry, Bachmann, and, just in case, Sarah Palin.

Perry, of course, is the challenger to the Bushes, Rove’s meal-ticket. Bachmann and Palin are uncontrollable.  Rove is a sick sociopath, who doesn’t give a shit who he hurts, but he doesn’t live in an alternate reality and knows Bachmann, Palin and Perry all do.

Rove ought to be waterboarded after Cheney and Rumsfeld on what he knew of the 9/11 attacks.

It would give these lizards a chance to see first hand the effectiveness of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.