wonderboy416
Active Member
So if the thread got "hijacked", you are at least partly responsible. For the record, I think that the deviation of this thread was both useful and interesting.
Fair enough, I'll agree to that.
This search for an objective truth cannot be fulfilled by science. That's the critical thing you have to understand: that we know something works doesn't mean we understand why it works, and to say that science provides "the answer" is false.
It is not a silly exercise. If you are engaged in the act of discovery, you should be as inquisitive as possible and keep on asking "why?" and "how?" as far as you possibly can. I have done this; gristle has done this. Like you, I once thought that science was an objective search for the universe's truth, but the nagging question of "how do we know for sure?" kept prodding me to dig a little deeper. When I thought about how every human endeavour is naturally a human construct subject to the filter of cognition, it became pretty apparent to me that scientific answers could not possibly be a terminal endpoint.
I fail to see how philosophy has provides much insight into the true nature of our environment. Merely thinking about something, anything, leads to a an idea that is just speculation. While I would agree that no scientist can ever explain the world by judging things based on direct sensory experiences, nor can they truly escape themselves from their own philosophies, they certainly can, and do function in an objective and transparent manner. We know that the science practiced during the war you mentioned today would be classified as pseudo-science and nothing more, there for I think it's not applicable.
Perhaps what I have learned from this discussion is that while science produces facts, whether or not humans can correctly interpret that can never be truly known.
I feel our track record in this brief period of scientific enlightenment speaks for itself and will continue to unlock mysteries in a manner that is meaningful to all known living and non-living objects.
I also feel that we certainly can and do grasp how life has evolved from simple to complex structures on this planet in a manner that is most certainly reproducible in other environments. However we may never know that one event or process that triggered life itself. The only thing I can be certain of is that no matter how wild our imaginations run, god in the Judeo-Christain (or any other modern or now defunct religion) most certainly cannot be the in light of everything we know.
If you have reached a point where you don't want to go any further; if you don't have the stomach to open that next Russian doll; if you'd rather just stand on the sidelines and cheer for science regardless of its flaws like it was some kind of sports team, then you, my friend, are an intellectual coward.
There is perhaps more to it, but I highly doubt that anyone sitting high and mighty in their ivory chairs, speculating about why things are the way they are will help us any...