KK> But science is based on the philosophical assumption that there is a
 KK> reality external to ourselves, and that it can be known in at least a
 KK> relative way.  This conclusion seems to be well- supported.
   With all due respect, Keith, I do not believe this is the basis for 
cience
at all.  When you think about it deeply, does it appear reasonable that there
could be a reality "external to ourselves?"  Why would this be a requirement
for doing science?   A case, in fact, could easily be made that science 
egins
when those early Ionian philosophers "explored into themselves" as perhaps 
id
sages in other parts of the world (Jaspers' "axis time").  I find it 
ifficult
to see how, if the reality to be explored is split into a reality "internal 
o
ourselves" and one "external to ourselves" there could EVER have been a
connection that would, for example, permit a Hippocrates to examine the 
auses
of disease in the human body while Thucydides was examining the etiology of
"action" leading him to survey a group of disputes and battles among some
Greek states and give it the name of "The Peloponnesian War" as an 
xploration
of a "kinesis" (not history as a grinding out of "facts).  Both philosophy 
ND
science can degenerate into religion whether it's called that or not (and 
his
had happened by the time of Cicero in the ancient world) but then others come
along and theorizing regains its position as the seeming destiny of this
two-legged, upright creature with a large brain.  The separation of reality
into "two realities" is precisely the enemy of science for when it begins 
hen
science is in danger of being dogmatized and where it is so dogmatized it is
no longer science as openness toward the future and full ALL of reality.
 KK> The meaning of life (if it has one) is traditionally a very basic part
 KK> of philosophy.
 CB> I'm doin' TAFE studying computers and i'm blundering me way through
 KK> this CB>existance (sometimes alone and sometimes feeling its all pretty
 KK> pointless as CB>we all have on occasion),
 KK> As a character in one of my unpublished short stories once said, if life
 KK> is meaningless, then there's no point getting all worked up about it.
 KK>   This seems to be the Buddhist view -- life just is.
   There is a fundamental flaw in this reasoning, Keith, which you may not
have noticed.  Whether or not life has ONE MEANING that we can some day know
or agree upon, life can still have meanings and man is so constituted that
she/he/it is going to search for such whether you and I approve or not.  It 
s
doubtful that anybody is going to convince us for very long that because we 
o
not KNOW the one origin and destiny of man (if there IS one) we therefore 
ind
the search for such "meaningless."  
   For myself, I cannot see further than that we are a species with a mandate
to reproduce in kind and auxilary to that mandate we must do what it takes to
ingest nutrition and excrete waste but I do not delude myself into making it
dogmatic that this behavior HAS no overall meaning or no "pointers" to such
meaning.   "Faith" is really NOT what the Fundamentalists pronounce it to be
(and the unthinking athiests following the religionists) but IS rather what
St. Paul (if he wrote Hebrews) carefully defined it to be - the SUBSTANCE and
the EVIDENCE of things truly unseen but just as truly hoped for in the 
onesty
within ourselves.  "Faith," in other words, is the antithesis of "assurance"
no matter how many "preachers" and "theologians" wish it to be otherwise. The
assumption that the movement in the intellect of man that in the prophetic
context of Hebrew differentiation is symbolized as "revelation" is
fundamentally different from the "revelation of reason" for the ancient Greek
contemporaries is a theoretical mistake.  
 KK> George Carlin are among the important philosophers of our time. What is
 KK> great comedy but wisdom?
   Hearty agreement regarding George Carlin.  I saw him the other night as a
young comedian on an old variety show and while I could do with a bit less of
the scatological in his dialogue as he delivers it today, his grasp of man's
HUBRIS is impeccable and I never knowingly miss one of his shows today.  His
quip that the earth may have produced man simply because it had a temporary
shortage of plastic and needed some more is precious.  He knows "where the
bodies are buried" in human foibles and overweening pride as well as deep
hypocrisy!
 KK> i recall once reading about an American who wandered to India and ended
 KK> up being the film projectionist to a bunch of Tibetan refugee monks.
 KK> (This was before VHS.)  The monks loved to watch movies, but they had no
 KK> interest in dramas; rather, what they liked was Laurel and Hardy, and
 KK> the Marx Brothers, and the sillier the better.  There's a lesson in
 KK> there somewhere.
   Keith, I would almost swear that you have had the experience of suffering
through spectatorship at some New Orleans Carnival Krewe ball in which old
socialites (especially men in those ridiculous tight pants) parade around
pantomining nobility and shaming everything that could be noble (in the
Nietzscheian sense) in man while resisting REAL nobility to a large degree in
"real" life.  My wife trapped me into attending one of these things as a
spectator years ago and I disappointed her by groaning audibly through the
entire affair.  I'm not really a misanthrope.  Just can stand only so much.  
 CB> Because, as far as I can see, *No one* will ever be able to know
 KK> *for sure* CB>until they die as to wether there's an afterlife or
 KK> anything...
 KK> STUDENT: What happens after we die? ZEN MASTER: I don't know. STUDENT:
 KK> But, but, you're a Zen master! ZEN MASTER: But I'm not a _dead_ Zen
 KK> master.
   We can't even experience our own death.  ONLY the death of others. 
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
---------------