Saturday, August 13, 2011

Smart People

Some smart people thought that they can know the truth/reality just by thinking about it. Or by reasoning about it. Or by discussing about it. Or debating about it.
Some smart people, at this moment, are calling it the rational approach.
See here and here.
And when we say smart people you have to take your poor Alig's word. These guys are as smart as Nobel Laureates. Some of them will eventually end up being that or like that, for example, Fields Medalists.
But one thing is plain curious in this.
All of these people are aware of Godel's theorem.
It says that no logical system can be both self-consistent as well as complete.
What the rational approach amounts to is to look for a logical system that is self-consistent.
And when they find it then they will see for themselves that it is not complete.
That much follows from Godel's theorem.
And hence the rational approach is not going to lead them to the truth in its completeness.
That is why empirical approach gate crashed the avenue where they are trying to find the truth or reality.
It has been a success story par excellence to gather knowledge by empirical method.
Why do they still argue whether rational method is sufficient or not?
From Godel's theorem it is not sufficient.
From empirical evidence it is not complete.
One of them says that:
However, I also think that we’re not smart enough—hence the need for observation and experiment.
Shouldn't he say that we are smart enough to realize that rational approach itself is not enough and hence we require empirical method?

For Muslims this is something of deja vu. Because this is what happened when kalam scholars took on the mutazila.

And that brings us to the point that your poor Alig would like to make-even empiricism is not enough to get the full knowledge of the world. You need the Divine Inspiration (The Wahi as well as Ilham) to complete your knowledge.