an attempt at understanding...

[Peter Kropotkin]

what is science, ART, philosophy, political science,
theology, social sciences, biology.... what do these
disciplines have in common?

They are attempts to explain what we are, what biological animals.
are, what people, events, places and actions are... the disciplines
of science and ART and philosophy for example, are attempts
to understand the world around us...to make sense of the universe...

let us take an example... I see a dog take a shit... happens all the time...
no big deal and yet, we can, if we work for it, we can make some
sense of the universe through this dog crapping...

a dog crapping is a biological event... dogs as all biological beings,
including us, have certain biological functions that they must have to
be biological beings... .a dog's waste is a sign of efficiency within a biological
being... as biological beings, we are, by evolution, created to have certain
functions... we eat, in which we gain energy, we have muscles which can
only work if they have energy, the dog takes in matter which it converts
into energy... and then takes what is left over and turns that into waste...
no different than a car or a person or another animal or tree....
that process of taking in matter and converting it into energy is a
process that is evident worldwide within all biological beings...

now this description I have created, it brings us some understanding
of how the world works.. it explains how the world works... it gives
order and meaning to an otherwise random universe...

explanations such as done within philosophy, science, theology
create a sense of order within the universe.. we have taken a random
event and put it into context of how our world works..
we have turned random events into order....

and this is true of all events or actions, tree's falling down, growing old,
sun light, rocks... everything that we can see, touch, taste, smell and
hear can be understood as part of a wider explanation of things...

and we can do the same thing within theology.. god created everything...
thus, god caused, in some fashion, dogs to crap...
the problem lies within the notion that all explanations exists
within the concept of god...god did this, god caused that,
god created this.... all explanations are theological and do not
lay within the nature we see everyday.... the explanations of
god means explanations are out there, not down here with us.....

within science, and philosophy and sociology, those explanations
lay down here with us.. all we have to do is figure those out....

let us look at evolution... evolution says that all biological beings
are created over time, with rational explanations, and are
a product of certain laws, such as gravity or evolution or
thermodynamics....and with these laws, we create more
order within the universe...

gravity is the apple falling down and the earth revolving around the sun,
and why matter acts in a certain way, and not in another way...
thus we don't see rocks just floating into space... gravity dictates
that mass must act in a certain way given how gravity works...
we have created order from an chaotic/random universe...

if we take an event and not work it out, that event is random..
so, a dog crapping without an explanation, is a random/chaotic
event... and by an explanation of science, we turn that random
event into a biological explanation of why dogs crap....
it now has an order and a logic and meaning behind it....
and it has a certain place within the universe as a biological
event... in which we can use to understand other biological events...
it now has a place in our understanding of the universe...

So, what about philosophy?

what role does philosophy play in our understanding of our world?

there are 6 words that all explanations must abide by to have
an explanation make sense.... they are WHO, WHAT, WHEN,
WHERE, HOW AND WHY.... every single explanation of the universe
must answer one or more of those 6 words...

and philosophy engages in the WHY word... why is there existence
and why does the explanation within the principle of sufficient reason,
seem to make sense...and how does the beauty work and what
is beauty? Philosophy attempts to explain the world in terms
of epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political science, metaphysics,
and logic... whereas science attempts to explain the world in
other terms... scientific terms like energy, mass, speed,
force.....
and theology attempts to explain the world by terms like
god, angels, sin, evil, Satan....

now we can think about a term like sin within a philosophical
concept, within an ethics/moral question of good and evil,
but how would we think about sin within a scientific concept?
that doesn't make sense....how would the concept of sin,
work within a scientific construct? for to understand
the concept of sin, requires a moral/ethical construct
of the universe, and science does not provide us within
its concepts, any moral or ethical notions....
how do we find a moral/ethical answer within a question
such as how/why dogs crap or within an understanding of how
the world revolves around the sun...or how evolution
works? there is no moral/ethical aspect within the concept
of science, there is no moral/ethical aspect of gravity or
biology or evolution...

so what does all this tell us? that any attempt to turn
philosophy into a science, is doomed to failure...they operate
on different grounds with different principles...science operates
on the question of how and when and where.... whereas
philosophy operates on the question of why... why are we born?
that isn't a scientific question but a philosophical question...
what is the point, the meaning of our existence? is that science?
or is that philosophy?

and we try to answer philosophical questions with scientific answers
and scientific questions with philosophical answers.. and then we
wonder why that attempt failed? it is not enough to ask or
answer questions, we have to put those questions and answers
into context for them to make sense....

so to say, for example, that Kropotkin is wrong because he misused
the word "whom" isn't about philosophy, that is about grammar...
and that doesn't negate whatever point Kropotkin was trying to make...
a philosophical point can really only be negated by a philosophical
answer... philosophy must be answered with philosophy and science
can only be answered with science... but a question about theology
can be answered by either/or science/philosophy...
god created the earth in 7 days.... but science tells
us that the earth was created 4.5 billion years ago....
and that the entire universe was created roughly 13 billion years ago...
and how does the notion that god created the world in 7 days fit
into this understanding of the age of the earth/universe?

and therein lies much of the value of philosophy, science, sociology,
history, economics.... we spend a great deal of time connecting ideas
and facts with other idea's and facts... how does the concept
of evil, fit into our notion of ethics/morals? or is this question
of evil, really a question of science? I don't see how, but we should
at least acknowledge that question....is there a part of evil,
that is scientific? science tends not to make moral or ethical
conclusions... I don't see how science like evolution is moral/ethical
or how gravity affects the concept of evil?
but we should at least acknowledge that question is possible.....
not likely, but possible....

so to recap, much of what we do, in terms of science, education,
philosophy, economics is to put things, people, actions, events
into some sort of context in which we can then understand
the relationship that people, objects, events, actions have
to each other....a tree growing has what relationship to my
existence as a biological being? we can then compare and contrast
trees to human beings and make sense of where they individually
and collectively stand to/with each other....

this ordering of the universe is really all that science, philosophy,
theology, economics does... it puts in some order matter and existence
and movement of things into some context, that we can then make
sense of...

now some around here will say, but Kropotkin, what you say is
really not needed.... but making sense of the universe is
really what a human being does... and I am making sense
of how we make sense.... we use concepts, idea's, theories
to make our place in the universe known and we can also
make sense of matter, events, people, places and idea's
by the use of concepts like philosophy, economics, history
or science...

Kropotkin

[Agent Smith]

Kropotkin allows a brief glimpse of his extraordinary life. We're indeed blessed.

1. Theology
2. Social studies
3. Biology

An intriguing trio of meaningful stuff out there, for us ta play with. At some point in time, it must sink in that we're all wasted/sloshed and a cop has pulled us over. What would ya do? Your lischense pleash. Waaait a minute!!!

[alan1000]

let us take an example... I see a dog take a shit... happens all the time...
no big deal and yet, we can, if we work for it, we can make some
sense of the universe through this dog crapping...

When I was doing Honours year, I had to take a module in Modern French Feminism (yes, I know, but it was the only one available at the time to complete my pattern). In one of the seminars, I unintentionally caused a sensation when said that the human animal, Homo Sapiens - the part of us which shits and pisses - is capable of reproducing roughly 20 times in a lifetime. I think they thought I was actually advocating it as a lifestyle.