Friday, January 8, 2010
Empericicsm
I seriously philosophucked myself today when I realized that the Truth,"something must be experimentally verifiable to be True", is not experimentally verifiable. My initial reaction to this realization is the thought that science can no longer be held as a metaphysically viable way of deriving Truth(in the big T sense of the word). Just wanted to see any one had any other relevent thoughts...
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Yeah I knew a guy once ... his name was Descartes.
ReplyDeleteAs much as a bitch as he is generally considered to be, the guy had some courage. Descartes tried to separate questions or inquiries into two categories.
1) Inquiries that need to be pursued further because an adequate experiment isn't currently possible. EX. Not enough money, not enough people to help out, not a definative experiment
2) Inquiries that come from unsound understanding or anything other then a logical source. EX: experiments to verify the Christian god
His theory was that as scientific knowledge was expanding in his time period, that there was no reason that it would not continue to do so indefinatly and that therefore, all type 1 questions will eventually be answered.
If you can stomach a big pile of shit,then I would recommend reading Discourse on Method by Descartes. It's painful and nasty but it is the foundation of the argument that you are dealing with above. He has such a venerated place in the 'philosophical canon' because he began the argument that caused the split between the British Empiricists, whom emphasized experience vs. the Rationalists who tried to prove the mind as the only source of knowledge.
As I read over what I have written, I realize that this windy explanation is a total waste of fucking time. Truth can't be verified because its an opinion. Thats the better answer.
Also those of us who have read Zen have insight into the hypothesis aspect in the scientific method, which also aids you.
Give in Nathan and just read that book.