Benefit and belief

[rusi]

On Sep 30, 8:58 pm, Neil Cerutti <ne... at norwich.edu> wrote:
> On 2011-09-30, DevPlayer <devpla... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I still assert that contradiction is caused by narrow perspective.
>
> > By that I mean: just because an objects scope may not see a certain
> > condition, doesn't mean that condition is non-existant.
>
> > I also propose that just because something seems to contradict doesn't
> > mean it is false. Take for instance:
>
> > Look out your window. Is it daylight or night time? You may say
> > it is daylight or you may say it is night time. I would
> > disagree that only one of those conditions are true. Both
> > conditions are true. Always. It is only day (or night) for YOU.
> > But the opposite DOES in fact exist on the other side of the
> > world at the same time.
>
> > I call this Duality of Nature (and I believe there was some
> > religion somewhere in some time that has the same notion,
> > Budism I think but I could be mistaken). I see such
> > "contradictions" in what appears to be most truths.
>
> You are not alone. Many ancient philosophers, fathers of
> religious and scientific thought, thought the same.
>
> They thought that contradictory qualities could exist in objects
> simultaneously. For example, they thought that a cat was both big
> and small, because it was big compared to a mouse and small
> compared to a house. They didn't notice that big and small were
> not poperties of the cat, at all but were instead statements
> about how a cat relates to another object.
>
> When you say, "It is night," you are making an assertion about a
> position on the surface of the earth and its relationship to the
> sun.
>
> If you are not discussing a specific a position on the Earth,
> then you cannot make a meaningful assertion about night or day at
> all. Night and Day are not qualities of the entire Earth, but
> only of positions on the Earth.

But just imagine that we were all pre-galiliean savages -- knowing
nothing about the roundness of the earth, the earth going round and so
on and somehow you and I get on the phone and we start arguing:
Rusi: Its 9:30 pm
Neil: No its 12 noon

How many cases are there?
We both may be right, I may be wrong (my watch may have stopped) or we
both etc

ie conflicting data may get resolved within a larger world view (which
is what devplayer is probably saying).

Until then it is wiser to assume that that larger world view exists
(and I dont yet know it)
than to assume that since I dont know it it does not exist.

For me (admittedly an oriental) such agnosticism (literally "I-do-not-
know-ness") is as much a foundation for true religiosity as effective
science.