Hi Dick,

I am of the opinion that, when one goes to think something out, the moment they take a step which they cannot defend well, anything concluded down the line is suspect.

I think this goes at the essence of why we share similar views on science. I would even go beyond that and say that what's concluded down the line is entirely meaningless. And I can hardly believe how many meaningless ideas pass for serious knowledge simply because people are not strict enough with the requirement that every single step in a line of thought must be well defended. As far as I can tell most of what we call science amounts to little more than wishful thinking.

Now what really upsets me is that the same people who dismiss the problematic details in their philosophies do not hesitate when it comes to busting others who do exactly the same but happen to reach different conclusions. I think the best example of this kind of warped thinking in our society is a publication called the Skeptical Inquirer, and the organization which supports it. I've read a few issues of their magazine and could not help thinking why is it that they don't apply those stringent criteria to their own philosophies? I can only think of an asnwer, hipocrisy, together with an irrational need to defend a particular worldview. Exactly the same thing we associate with the worst in religious feeling.

The sad thing is that, as you often mention, the world is full of absolute truths. Any foundation to knowledge must necessarily rest on those truths, and absolutely nothing else. If that severely limits what we can know so be it, at least we know we are not deceiving ourselves. That is what I take as the most important point of your message, and as I said before I don't think you need to understand the math to see that. I think the math is just the working out of the essential concept as applied to physics.

But don't expect to have much of an audience in this world of control freaks. I think you make an excellent point that "developed" societies will always be obsessed with the acquisition of knowledge no matter what the cost, that's what makes them developed in the first place. I suppose your ideas would find a much better reception in India or China, places where the powerlessness of man have been acknowledged and understood quite a long time ago. Here in the land where a lonely man has the power to change the course of the universe by simply dying on a cross, we'll probably still have to wait a few more millennia to be enlightened.

Ironic that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. I always thought God was above all a joker.

Have fun,

Aurino