[ehsanu1]

What you wish to discuss is philosophical, rather than scientific in nature (for the time being), and there is nothing that can be said in the span of an HN comment that can substantially change anybody's mind, one way or the other.

[yc-kjh]

The Ph.D. degree is all about philosophy, no matter what field it is in.

There is nothing which is scientific (dealing with knowledge in general, according to the Latin roots of the word), which is not also philosophical (dealing with the love of wisdom, according to the Greek roots of the word).

You are correct that I cannot change anybody's mind, one way or the other. I was only hoping to plant seeds.

[ehsanu1]

But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific, which was what I was alluding to. My experience is that these purely philosophical discussions tend to churn over the same issues repetitively without any resolution - because there is no clear way to reach one, unlike there is with science.

In fact, philosophers write whole books addressing each others arguments without much in the way of changing each others' minds. This highly disincentivizes me from attempting to discuss them, at least in a forum like this one.

[yc-kjh]

> But there are some things which are philosophical, yet not scientific

I think you are wrong here as well.

There is an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of what we (can) know, and how we know it: epistemology.

Some philosophers get things wrong, just like some people get their mathematical sums wrong, and some scientists follow incorrect hypotheses for many years. But that is not a valid excuse for neglecting to search for the Truth, or failing to arrive at Truth.

Indeed, the entire aim of all of science is to arrive at Truth.

> because there is no clear way to reach one

The laws of logic are very clear, even though most people do not follow them most of the time. You cannot even think properly without obeying the laws of logic. http://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_thought (And sadly, indeed, many people do not think properly.)

[ehsanu1]

Epistemology itself is an example of a branch of philosophy that is basically unscientific. That doesn't mean it's of no worth, or anything of the sort. It just means that it makes no falsifiable predictions. This is typical of philosophy - things that are scientific end up outside the purview of philosophical argument, as a scientist can just test it at that point. All that remains in philosophy are thus the unanswered, and possibly unanswerable questions.

> The laws of logic are very clear

Clear logical laws do not imply that truth can always be reached by application of it. Differing (and untestable) premises are also problematic: see all the opposing schools of thought in various branches of philosophy.

[SimHacker]

"Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know." -Donald Rumsfeld

Some philosophers of epistemology get things so terribly wrong that they follow incorrect hypotheses for so many years and actually take the country to war based on fabricated intelligence that they knew was in fact provably wrong, which they manufactured for purely political reasons to justify their hidden agenda, yet they still won't admit that they were wrong.

[pirateking]

The Truth you aim to arrive at, is the Truth you started from on your quest for the Truth. There is no escaping the Strange Loop.

Philosophy, Arts and Science create Truths to ride on to new places, like Silver Surfer on his surfboard. Finding the Ultimate Truth itself, I imagine, would be what some call Enlightenment.

The paradoxical wisdom taught in many of the ancient classics leads me to wonder if submission to the nature of Paradox really is at odds with the scientific method and desire for Truth, or if they are just two forms (passive and active) of reaching the same understanding.

[gnaritas]

> I was only hoping to plant seeds.

Considering you come off sounding like a quack, you're not the type to do any seed planting. You argue fallaciously with argument from authority, and then reference authorities that most here clearly consider laughable and debunked, and you want us to take you seriously. Really?