[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

starship-design: Re: book review



In a message dated 8/9/00 8:01:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
clmanges@worldnet.att.net writes:

> Tom,
>  
>  This may interest you. I've been getting into philosophy a lot lately,
>  and this is a reference taken from  www.philosophynews.com
>  
>   http://www.sciam.com/2000/0900issue/0900reviews1.html

Curtis,
Good reference, For hundreds maybe thousands of years, mainstream scientists, 
have always resisted new knowledge for it is clear that until the majority of 
scientist agree on something it is not deemed "credible". I call this Lemming 
philosophy, that causes all to run over the cliff to escape an imaginary 
danger.

Philosophies like ideas are a dime a dozen and most worth less. Playboy has a 
valid philosophy an in some respect so does Charles Manson. I do not 
subscribe to any "valid" philosophy preferring to think independently my own 
thought and maintain my own world view based on my personal experience and 
book learning. This is not to say that I do not share my view of the world 
with many others.

I recall that Einstein believed in God and his close friend was the Atheist 
Mathematician Bertrand Russel .  I spend many enjoyable hours as a youth 
reading their correspondence letters discussing both Science and Religion at 
the philosophical level. It was published in one book that I do not recall 
the name of. I would not mind rereading it.

In a college course book on communications and technology the authors stated 
the scientific method they were using in the book and it is the same used by 
most science fair projects at the state level and beyond. The method is also 
used to award most grants especially NASA grants as it is written in their 
evaluation of proposal data quide lines so other methods used are not funded 
not meeting automatically the steps of the scientific method used for 
evaluating them. 

My college text for physical science explained their are many equally valid 
scientific methods for investigating the unknown as this is the main job of 
research and development scientists. The majority of scientists are very 
uncomfortable with unknowns preferring to remain in the known world.  As a 
youth it was clear to me that Einstein was not using the common scientific 
method in his work. His results predicting time dilation have been proven to 
my satisfaction. I use many of his same methods to examine unknowns 
(questions) not answered as yet by the standard scientific method. 

Stepping out on this limb (my favorite position), I consider questions 
unanswered by science to be available answered by religion and questions not 
answered by religion to be in the domain of science to try and answer. 
Researching in the Dewey decimal system, I would read in the science section 
until I found an unanswered question, and then go to the religion section 
until I found their answer. In this manner, I used the natural system 
organization of the Dewey decimal system to provide me with a definite 
analysis of the subject, realizing both sections have common unanswered 
questions that are most interesting to me to try and solve.

As most libraries by now use the Library of Congress system of organization, 
it is as if they shuffled all the books together and still have not reached 
the organization level of the Dewey decimal system so it is very difficult 
for me to do another definitive analysis work.  Instead, I use the 
alternative scientific methods taught by Einstein to attack unknowns with 
some satisfaction as the answers are at least aesthetically pleasing to my 
eye and food for the soul, or at most correct. My enjoyment of physics is 
from deciding which scientific method to use to best attack an unanswered 
question. Arriving at a correct solution is bliss,

Good luck hunting for answers as you get into philosophy hopefully to develop 
your own independent one. I have enjoyed very much your on target links 
provided. Keep them coming.
 
>  Come to think of it, I believe that the link to Wallace's book also came
>  from Philosophy News. I have not read Kuhn's book, btw.

Nor have I read Kuhn's Book. I plan on doing more reading soon and will check 
out your recommendations. Can you reprovide the Philosophy News Link I must 
have missed?

Please, excuse my reflective rambling, but I have the day off and am bored 
with nothing better to do but keep looking up ;-)

Best regards   
Tom Jackson
>  
>  Enjoy,
>  
>  Curtis