Re: Extension
Science invented honesty, wrote David Brin. Beautiful. Very true. That doesn’t mean that there is such a thing as science. Neither does it mean that there is such a thing as honesty.
Be careful now. I’m am trying to be careful. Stay close and try to see what it is that I’m being careful about. I am not denying science; I am affirming it, I am applauding it. I am trying, once again, to ally myself with it. But it isn’t a thing. Science is not an entity (any more than god is an entity, or government is an entity). Science is a condition. a direction along a spectrum. Science is not a thing.
And there’s no such thing as honesty. Honesty is not an entity: like pure gold. (Indeed: is there an entity “pure gold”?)
I am an organism. I am real. Up to a point it’s clear enough where I begin, where I leave off. Oh, not absolutely: is breath “me” after I’ve exhaled it? If what I am isn’t 100% clear, it is “99%” clear. Right now, I’m 5’8″, sort of, weight 158 or so, am in Sebring; not LA. In Sebring I am at this moment on the west side of the lake, not the east. …
Science isn’t like that. And neither is honesty. There is no absolute Science. There is no absolute Honesty. We should have no theology claiming the science is absolute, eternal, infinite, perfect … Neither can honesty make those claims. They’re not that sort of thing. (What is?)
@ K. 2006 07 28
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