Theme 1: Theory of Science - Reflection

This week’s readings and assignment, I think, was a pretty important one in my opinions since it reminds us to put our “knowledge” in a greater perspective. To be reminded – not only that everything isn’t black or white – but also that we actually (more times than not) do not actually know what we think that we do.

I liked that it brought to light the correlation and differences between science and philosophy, and just the subject of philosophy itself since I’ve never had any classes in it. Although, I think that a lot of these thoughts and theories about what is “real” for example, have been utilized in some way in other media – such as movies or crossing over into other subjects – since I recognize many of the thoughts very well (although some of it was new as well). For example the scenario with the table and cloth, and if sense-data was enough to know something to be an actual physical object. If a person on a hallucinogen drug would see tables flying in the air it is pretty self evident that the table does not have the quality of flight, but is rather a part of his – very distorted – perception of it. The movie The Matrix also has a kind of questioning of reality, though taking a pill to escape the fake reality.

I found it interesting that we this week brought to light how little of our knowledge that we actually can know to be an absolute truth – or at least very close to it – since most of what we know are more of probable opinions than facts. And most of the bloggers seemed to agree on this point since I found no one criticizing it, which if happened that person would probably lack a bit of self-distance claiming that everything that they “know” is true. Another important thing that this week’s theme brought to light is the difference between actual facts and how we often make up our own versions of the truth depending on how we interpret them, especially when it comes to translating between languages since one word may have several meanings in one language. I think it would have been a rewarding discussion to have in a seminar, to bad it was cancelled.