the search for truth . . .

The search for truth is NEVER conclusive. It is only expressed as a probability.

The search for truth is always at least a little uncomfortable. If you are comfortable with your beliefs you [if you care about truth] need to challenge those beliefs with alternate ideas and see if they hold up.

When science becomes too dogmatic and comfortable with itself it starts to become a religion and not the open ended search for truth. [def: Religion = blind acceptance of belief system] Religion says 'I know', Science says 'I believe'. Religion can more easily be wielded as a blunt instrument, but it is always an instrument of ignorance. Faith by its very definition is ignorant of incoming/existing information.

Publicly exposed Science has a very tough balancing act to perform. To be honest it must always be couched in terms of belief. Religion can act like a bull in a china shop, destroying in its ignorance a panaply of beautiful and useful things.

In short knowlege is ignorance.

Knowlege is conclusion. The termination of the search for truth. It is terminal. It is dead.
Religion is conclusive.

Knowlege is the shutting down of the mechanism of discovery. It ignores that new data and possibilities are/maybe forthcomming. The Universe in time is a never-ending unfolding of events. It can be torturous. If you are going to live forever, though, it will probably become a love-hate relationship.

I believe in the search for truth. I believe that religiously. I will do so as long as science is NOT a religion. It sounds counter intuative, but truth that is pure has no real structure. We taint it with our categorization and loading it up with meaning. It is based on pure observation. No emotional biases. Cause and effect itself may be too much of an assumption to load it up with.

Science is the good-heart that takes on that impossible burden of seeking truth out. The seeking of truth is the never ending job of sorting, re-shuffling, resorting, adding new cards, and on and on, to organise one's thinking. Science has the best and quite possibly the only hope of seeking out truth.

I accept some amount of necessary dogmatism in science because it is the only counter to the completely ignorant dogmatism of Religion. I accept this as long as i still believe the heart of science is good and open.

What we perceive and see of things is often ambigious. In fact the truth itself as an interpretation of reality may be ambiguous.

Truth as a single entity may not exist.

The search for truth may be tilting at windmills. Religion claims to have slain the windmill/dragon. Science believes in the on-going of tilting with windmills and in that effort understanding the windmill. We may perceive it as a dragon, but with time may understand it as a windmill. The destroyed windmill has much less value grinding grain, pumping water than one that operates by the design of its builders.

Intelligent people accept the fact that their original actions may seem foolish. Starting from a total lack of understanding we are always running the fool's errand. So accepting some amount of foolishness is ok. Today's fool may be tommorrow's genius.

One of the real potential successes of science is the understanding of ourselves so our instincts & emotions don't get between us and the clearest viewpoint of reality. Like a calm pool of water unsullied by waves of distortion. Each aspect examined clearly and concisely in isolation.

If one is seeking comfort, one is not seeking truth.

Sometimes the search for truth can be VERY uncomfortable. Examining one's own heart and mind and accepting the potential for horrible evil nastiness that being alive always holds can put one's self in a very harsh light indeed.

All searches for truth need not be exposed to all people or things. The search for truth can be very private.

Private truths can be used to manipulate the ignorant.

If you believe that Aliens and UFOs do many of the things that are perported of flying around, leaving no evidence, doing anatomical disections of cattle and people, playing with the governmental controls of stategic military sites it makes a kind of sense, if you see the Aliens as intelligent monkey children.

One should not take the inferrence that being a monkey or a child as being derogatory but actually being the maximum height of intelligence any organism can be. Accepting your place in the Universe as being someone/thing that is here to learn by poking and proding and testing things to learn about them is simply intelligent.

Being stupid enough to think you 'know' anything is a sure sign of ignorance. The Aliens by the above reconning are testing, poking and proding around on our planet/Universe. Like monkey/children, pressing buttons to see what happens. They are curious and realize that understanding of how things seem to operate is very often useful to survival.

For a species to propagate it may be necessary for individuals to believe [i think falsely] that they are adults and for some silly mystical reason superior to children. It takes a lot of time and patience to raise the next generation in an optimal way so they can be intelligent and perceptive. Children [as well as adults] are quite fragile and need some shelter to grow up whole and intact. As Michael J. Fox says the first 3 years is a suicide watch. In reality children manage to grow up in very harsh environments. As a species raising the next generation is a necessary thing. As an individual this is almost completely irrelevant to one's own existence.

This is only one person's current perspective on truth.

Lest it be a total diatribe, what are yours?
.

Though a little bit abrasive, your overall opinion is yours. I'll respect it.
I do have one contention with it:

as posted by slank
Religion says 'I know', Science says 'I believe'.

Should not or would not that saying be the other way around:
Religion says 'I believe" and Science says "I know"?




seekerof

[edit on 12-3-2005 by Seekerof]

.
Good, live, open-ended science should say "I believe" and maybe should assign some level of probability/certainty to it.

You are correct in that people either in short hand speech or ignorance about science say "I know".

They act as though they believe what they say.

They, if the evidence is convincing, change their beliefs.

Many religious people say they know because the bible says so.

Some religious people say "I believe" but act as if they know.

Don't actions speak louder than words?

[edit on 12-3-2005 by slank]

I have always had my own strange beliefs, beliefs that at times seem insane. They seem insane to people I share them with and at times seem insane even to me. I can not explain why these beliefs come into my mind but they do. They often even seem made-up in my mind like delusions.

My beliefs are not just thoughts but often images in my mind. I sometimes wish I could draw or paint to express the details of these images.

I have no way to explain the beliefs I have. But, somehow they appear to change slowly a bit.

Agreed, what people say might be not what they believe. My beliefs are my beliefs. I believe that we are free, individual beings. I believe that 1+1=2. But the true seeker knows nothing and believes everything. A while back, scientists thought, knew it impossible to pass through solid objects. But now, we have opened our eyes and realized that it is possible to do this, but only after pressing against said object for almost an eternity. The real world is like quantum physics.

knowledge has very little to do with truth, the overall state of human understanding has lots to do with it. what happens when einstien knows so much but fails to relate his findings to the people of the world. it would still be great knowledge that has the ability to alter human beliefe but would never make a dent in the world. now lets say that einstien proposed these thoerys to a fanatical religious society and they thought of it to be some sort of witch craft not accepting it as truth then that would show the true ignorance of mankind and our limited ability to accept certain truths. the manifestation of truth is the act of rebelion!

"Then we understand that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. Those who find no rest in God or in history are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live: in fact, the humiliated. The most pure form of the movement of rebellion is thus crowned with the heart-rending cry of Karamazov: if all are not saved, what good is the salvation of one only?"

take heart, the battle has just begun.





[edit on 17-3-2005 by sturod84]

I know that people, scientists, kings and Presidents are equal.
I know that we invest time and money in surrounding ouselves with like-minded people who accept a general idea of a social structure.
I know scientists are learning something everyday and the majority aim at bringing benefits to the masses.
But more than all of this, I know everyone is alone.
We form gangs, families and societies. We worship similiar gods, but it is all the same.

You are born alone and it will be you only who take that last step... think about that.
Truth and morality are small shields that we hope will protect us from the darkness around us and wisdom and kindness are roughly hewn idols that we place in secret places, hoping that know one will see through the facade that build up around everyday.

Ufo's, monsters, secret meetings and ghosts... we've merely scratched the suface.