Challenge the Philosophy - Comments 22-

22. Comment:

“I sincerely wish to thank you for your open-minded approach and thoughtful response. While all theories and propositions are useful they can be valid only in a limited sense, owing to the inherent limitations of perceptions, words, etc... Though everything and anything goes, in a fundamental sense nothing goes! Probably, the following two fables which we all learn in our kindergarten are very significant, indeed. 1.The tale of the five blind men coming across a huge elephant for the first time, each trying to describe the animal in his own way depending upon which part of its body he happens to touch and feel. So it is with all our individual perceptions, be it religion, dogma, belief or theory.. However, this reveals a profound understanding that whatever may be lying as the endpoint or starting point or at the other end into the unknown, must be a dynamic principle. 2. The Pied Piper of Hamelin story reveals the importance of innocence of the children which keeps humanity going. It is not worth living without the presence of children around us as it is their successful methodology of dealing with things unknown through fearless notionless spontaneity which gives us hope and continuity in our seemingly futile efforts in every sphere of life. Our own existence while we dream or sleep or existence of children or a very very few wise men who seem to have captured or glimpsed the dynamic state of the underlying unifying truth cannot be denied though one may not be able to put within the limitations of our thoughts or words. Far Eastern thought seem to deal with very many approaches while the Western thought takes a scientific standpoint. Full appreciation and grateful acknowledgment are due to you for your splendid efforts and logical analysis thus keeping such philosophical inquiry interesting.”

R. Rangan July 17 2004

Response:

Regarding your assertion “though everything and anything goes, in a fundamental sense nothing goes”, we say to be consistent with the principle of uncertainty that everything and anything goes, and in a fundamental sense everything and/or anything may go without us knowing that it does.

Your correlation of the fable of the five blind men to what we know and the possible endpoint (i.e. complete knowledge), is premised on that we know parts of the whole, which is not necessarily the case (and less reasonably the case), and therefore, your conclusion that the endpoint must be a “dynamic principle” does not necessarily follow. The endpoint may not be a principle at all, or even exist. The important consideration in our view is that we cannot more reasonably know the unknown and know that we do, so that anything we define it as may be it. We are left with an assumption about something apparently beyond what we know. Is there any point in assuming, when we can only support the assumption through the assertion of the assumption?!

Comments 17-21

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