virus: Truth (was Virus Invades Cybernetics Conference)

Robin Faichney (robin@faichney.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 07:57:54 +0100


In message <36097A2C.C02C5D64@qlink.queensu.ca>, Eric Boyd
<6ceb3@qlink.queensu.ca> writes
>Both science and math tend to be procedural in nature -- they are about
>problem solving, about how to do x, y and z. Religions, at least in the
>west in the last 400 years, have been profoundly declaritive -- which is
>why religion has such an emphasis on (capital T) "Truth" and the creeds
>(dogma).

Some say that it's only relatively recently that Western
religions have put such emphasis on Truth, that this is
a modernist stance that infected the wider culture within
the last few hundred years. And science has to take much
of the credit. OK, so all we sophisticated philosophers of
science know that every scientific principle is always open
to being disproved, but certainly the ordinary layman's
impression of science, and also I think that of many
scientists, is that science is *all* about discovering the
Truth, as nothing else is.

And BTW, if you listen carefully enough, you'll often hear
Buddhist teachers say something like, "Truth in Buddhism is
whatever brings the hearer closer to Enlightenment". In
other words, it's not "out there", but is whatever does for
you what you need doing. Which is, of course, the absolute
essence of practicality.

-- 
Robin Faichney