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Article 3654 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: wsun@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Fiberman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: MUST Philosopy be a Waste of Time?
Message-ID: <28576@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>
Date: 11 Feb 92 21:20:18 GMT
References: <1992Feb04.060419.21963@convex.com> <1992Feb05.011716.8427@norton.com> <403@tdatirv.UUCP>
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In article <403@tdatirv.UUCP> sarima@tdatirv.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>Not only did more than 51% of philosphers believe there were only four
>elements, but they seemed quite willing to go right on believing that.
>[After all they had accepted it for thousands of years].
>
>It took the experimental results of a group of 'natural philosophers', or
>as we would call them today, scientists, to change that belief.  And even

I like to follow up on this.  Apparently, what once was a
philosophical question now has become a scientific one.  Thus, I
disagree with people who thinks that philosophical questions
cannot be answered by science.  Perhaps our scientific knowledge
of the universe is not great enough to answer such questions as
"is there god, what is the meaning of life, etc".  But
eventually, I think we will get closer and closer to the answers
to these "philosophical" questions.

And as an aside, please think about the meaning of life.  Forget
about other "philosophical" questions for awhile, and ask some
basic questions:  why am I alive?  How did my consciousness come
about?  Often, "meaning" of life has been dictated by society.
For example, be happy with your family, make lots of money, help
people, serve God, etc.  Forget about all those for a moment.
You are a free thinker!  You can do whatever you want.  Exercise
your free will!  Assume modern civilization does not exist.
Then what would you do now?

-fm


