JL (quoting Anaxagoras):
'Snow is frozen water,
and water is black;
therefore snow also is black"
Water is black? OOOOK, excuse me while I scratch Greece from my itinerary.
RP:
>>If I have a father, I'm pretty sure I had a grandfather. I know this....I
>>know that if trout are deprived of oxygen they will die; that square pegs
>>don't fit into round holes; and that no human being can lift a five-ton
>>tonne?) weight unaided....It is conjectural that if I touch the tip of my
>>nose with my forefinger my elbow will be bent? Interesting. <<
I'll grant you there are knowable things such as you cite, but what's knowable
hardly seems worth knowing compared to what I want to know which seems entirely
impossible to know. As the dean of the medical school told the graduating
class: "We know this,that half of everything you've learned about medicine is
wrong. But unfortunately, we don't know which half." Rumsfeld had it mostly
right: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There
are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't
know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we
don't know." I would add: There are known unknowables. These include just
about everything meaningful to you. And there are unknown knowables, these are
the very raison d'etre of the sciences.
Mike Geary
over my head again
but at least I know it.