Posted by Sulpicia on April 3, 2001, at 4:29:54
In reply to Re: Truth? » Cam W., posted by Todd on April 2, 2001, at 23:33:33
>Todd--
while very much like your position and wholeheartedly agree with self-knowledge as
valuable goal, the end result of your reasoning will quickly yield 5 billion totally
unique organisms [us] each with their own point of view. At this point culture disappears
and everything else with it.Yes science is imperfect but one of it's first and most important impulses is taxonomy.
It groups things together on the basis of similarities. It's of some use to think of
animals as vertebrates, or perhaps look at humans as a species.
Psychiatric diagnosis runs along similar lines. Bipolar shares enough characteristics
to be separated from schizophrenia for instance. Of course there is overlap in symptoms
like depression and psychosis but there is enough of a similarity to apply the label
bipolar. I've always thought psychiatric definitions are complicated and messy because
they describe complex behavior -- like friendship for example. Ever tried to define that?
It's a bear because it resists definition precisely because, like other complex behaviors,
it shares the characteristics of the behaviors with which it merges, like love etc.Is there such a thing as truth? Even Plato admitted there was -- though it took him enough
pages. There is certainly common agreement on analogous grouping. Perhaps this is truth?
Suggested reading [and guaranteed headache] Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientic Revolution.
poster:Sulpicia
thread:966
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20010315/msgs/972.html