Ockham's razor: says that we do not need a complex understanding of something if a less complex understanding exists. In Art and Philosophy we talked about never fully understanding everything because humans do not have the capacity for infinite knowledge. There is a point where you should stop trying to learn about a particular object. If you examine a poem, for example, you can start by interpreting the meaning. You can also analyze the author that wrote it and what time period it was from to see what kind of background it had. If you research what computer the author wrote it on, or what ink he used to write it, and then researched who made the computers or ink, your getting away from the subject matter. The subject matter then starts to lose substance because it looks minuscule in comparison to everything else. The string theory states that everything is somehow connected, which i believe is true. You could go on forever researching things related to that poem, but even though the things are connected to it, they aren't very useful to know if you just wanted to find the meaning of the poem. I guess my point is that there will always be knowledge out there to learn. It is up to the person seeking the knowledge to decide where to draw the line.
Question: what do you think about the string theory?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Can there be too much knowledge?
Posted by Misty Elliott at 3:23 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Color
This is in response to Andrew's post. I am in complete agreement that even if the effects of light have been taken away from an object, that said object will still posses it's other defining properties. If you paint a picture and leave it in a dark room, chances are the colors will remain the same. The only difference is that our eyes will have a more difficult time seeing the color. The coherence theory of truth basically allows for people to designate something as true. As long as other people or documentations agree with that statement, it becomes true. As far as the name goes, Society has labeled a color red, and although there are various shades of red, those shades will always be known as the color red because society has designated them as such. The light reflecting off the surface of the object is not going to change the fact that the object is red. Just like the fact that if you are in a room with air, the air is obviously there even though you cant perceive it with your eyes.
Posted by Misty Elliott at 8:45 AM 1 comments
