question against science, reason and logic!

[_Z_]

question against science reason and logic!

if science thinks it knows everything or indeed can know everything, then explain what everything is... that is to say; what is the ‘it’ that is both you and me and either separately, then what is the ‘it’ that is us, inanimate objects, the universe and that which lies beyond?

the answer; there is no definable ‘it’*, this is because the answer is infinitely metaphoric and tangential, as soon as you answer one thing then the next question arises so as to fully define what you have found. in the end there truly is no entity, aspect nor nature by which we can define the entire or everything!

this means that we can only define aspects of reality in its parts but never the whole. so at the very least science can never answer the question of ‘what is everything’.

equally so it can never answer the unobservable or the non physical e.g. infinity.

*'it' here is used as a universal integer of philosophy, [in terms of meaning meaning and entity].

[omner]

i have to object that you group science and reason and logic all together... and maybe only out of personal interest, since my education is in these areas, esp. mathematics

logicians admit they cannot know everything, and only examine what can or cannot be known given certain rules -- including the rules of a logic itself (there is more than one species of logic). since at least since the late 1800s - early 1900s mathematicians have taken a look at the assumptions they make and try to force the whole to be derived from those. there's a good amount of proofs of unprovability based on this sort of work, ie proof using the assumptions and rules that something cannot be known based upon them. supposedly these are among the most difficult proofs.

what people call reason generally seems to be an imprecise form of logic based on a human language rather than mathematical / logical language. i don't subscribe to reason as it's generally applied because it's usually much closer to debate. people using human language can bend ideas and make chains of deduction which when examined carefully are internally inconsistent, but usually nobody notices until much later because the examination of a chain of reason for consistency is much more difficult than its creation and assertion in the first place.

good experimental scientists realize the limitations inherent in scientific method and don't claim to be able to explain everything. this is more a creation of the media (hollywood, etc) i think, which scientists don't do that much to try to dispel, because the more the public believes it, the more money they get.

to defend scientists, make the comparison with yourself in your body. do you understand your body in its entirety? know your genetic code or all the mechanisms by which the body operates? yet still you can walk it around and do stuff and in this same manner scientists have used their method to obtain useful results, without a framework of understanding which is present in mathematics and especially logic.

anyway,

i'm quibbling but basically i agree with you. i think there is much that science will not and cannot ever discover, in particular that 'it', either because perhaps, it is not, or is in such a way as to be beyond any limitation or classification. i think 'it' lives in a realm which is fundamentally philosophical, where the classifications between things are based upon assumptions made or required for the existence of each, the qualities which divide this from that. i call this realm the 'might be' as in it contains all that might ever be, but still 'it' is not a thing itself which might be but that by which all that might be becomes.

when 'it' makes an assumption it might become you, or it might become me, or it might become the universe. i think the name universe was well chosen, for why would there only be able to be one? there might be infinite verses!

from the Hua Hu Ching, which I'm almost done reading,

(39) If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come back empty-handed. The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.

Lao Tzu describes 'it' and also says 'it' cannot be described. Maybe 'it' is a paradox...

A friend of mind came to what she described as a moment of enlightenment some time ago and she said the ability of mind to understand 'it' (I don't remember the exact language she used) was developed by the practicing of understanding and accepting paradoxes. I never quite got what she was talking about until recently.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by omner

from the Hua Hu Ching, which I'm almost done reading,

(39) If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come back empty-handed. The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.

Lao Tzu describes 'it' and also says 'it' cannot be described. Maybe 'it' is a paradox...

A friend of mind came to what she described as a moment of enlightenment some time ago and she said the ability of mind to understand 'it' (I don't remember the exact language she used) was developed by the practicing of understanding and accepting paradoxes. I never quite got what she was talking about until recently.

Wrestling with paradoxes gives you strength and 'enlivens' your mind. It's a living thing.

[Thomas]

"The unexamined life is not worth living." (Socrates Apology 38a)

Thomas

[_Z_]

omner, hi and great post!

good experimental scientists realize the limitations inherent in scientific method and don’t claim to be able to explain everything.

sure i agree with this position. the point i would then make is, that this unexplainable nature of existence is its centre - so to say. it is the most fundamental nature of existence and non-existence, so i am saying that the fact there is an essential unknowable nature, shows that reason and certain kinds of logic have a limit and that limit is a nature of existence.
i think you probably explained that better , i expect you can see that this thread idea originated as an argument with they of the dawkins faith.

i’m quibbling but basically i agree with you. i think there is much that science will not and cannot ever discover, in particular that ‘it’, either because perhaps, it is not, or is in such a way as to be beyond any limitation or classification. i think ‘it’ lives in a realm which is fundamentally philosophical, where the classifications between things are based upon assumptions made or required for the existence of each, the qualities which divide this from that. i call this realm the ‘might be’ as in it contains all that might ever be, but still ‘it’ is not a thing itself which might be but that by which all that might be becomes.
when ‘it’ makes an assumption it might become you, or it might become me, or it might become the universe. i think the name universe was well chosen, for why would there only be able to be one? there might be infinite verses!

nice to meet someone else who understands the mighty ‘it’! this goes along with the above in that, it is like a boiling pot full of things to come [potentials and their essences] from the unknown. what wonderful freedom there is in that, you have order and chaos yet it is all continually filled from the pot.
what do you think of this: from that primordial soup, there is a pattern from which all evolutions arise? thence as time progresses all evolutions occur respective to one another - as we see in the evolution of species and geography etc. it seams there are a lot of evolutions along with a general condensing of events! i wonder if it is reaching some kind of pinnacle?

Lao Tzu describes ‘it’ and also says ‘it’ cannot be described. Maybe ‘it’ is a paradox...

yes, we could replace ‘it’ with ‘x’ or any such self non-describing integer, but ‘it’ does it nicely!

the ability of mind to understand ‘it’ was developed by the practicing of understanding and accepting paradoxes.
on that tone i would add that breaking the paradox is what takes you to your centre. from there on one sees the outside by looking inside - such is the nature of points and perspectives.

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good quotes people!

[Tao_Equus]

Imagine the "it" as a transdimentional piece of origami of which we are as an important a part as any other. The folds allow the illusion to each and every one of us that we are at the centre of it all because in a sense we are! We cannot separate the it from us, they are one and the same, and we each know the entirety of the "it" but not all at once, that would just blow our minds. This of course means that individuality is also an illusion and that we are all essentially the same "it", living out the myriad expressions of "itness" in every tiny particle in the itiverse.

Tao

[_Z_]

tao, hi
groovy piece of linguistic origami there . like a kind of ‘everything is in everything’ ‘it’.

we are all essentially the same "it",

a double meaning in there may be; we all belong to the everythingness of ‘it’, yet ‘it’ is also not ‘it’ thence we are both individual and universal ‘it-s’.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by _Z_

tao, hi
groovy piece of linguistic origami there . like a kind of ‘everything is in everything’ ‘it’.



a double meaning in there may be; we all belong to the everythingness of ‘it’, yet ‘it’ is also not ‘it’ thence we are both individual and universal ‘it-s’.

You got "it"

[Eudaimonist]

Originally Posted by _Z_

if science thinks it knows everything

It doesn't.

or indeed can know everything, then explain what everything is...

That's a bizzare request, since "everything" keeps on changing. What science can do is provide models for how things change in relation to other things. That seems to be quite enough for a theory of "everything".


eudaimonia,

Mark

[_Z_]

eudaimonist, hi

That’s a bizarre request, since "everything" keeps on changing.

indeed, what i am saying is that everything has more than one meaning, where science thinks of it as an amalgamation of parts, i am thinking of it as an ‘entire entity’ the whole encompassing and yet part of the ‘all’ [like a bag full of stuff]. the parts and aspects within may change as much as they wish, whilst still belonging to the same entirety. our human form can be counted by its parts and holistic entity, yet belongs to the entire that is ‘you’.

That seems to be quite enough for a theory of "everything".

> it can only explain the things within and the aspects of the whole. it cannot say what the whole is because it is not a physical object as we understand them yet it is reality itself. by observation alone we can say that our vision is of a whole with lots of transforming parts [scenery, winds, the sun etc], we can find out by science what it all is, yet cannot say what the entirety is. this in my mind is due to a lack of and complete disregard for fixed structure, when you think of it reality and its universal entity have to encompass transience and thus be formless.
thank you for post.



_Z_