After having studied the Bible, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the Enlightenment, Existential Philosophy, Post Modern Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology, Linguistics, Film, Philosophical Linguistics (my fav) and after having traveled to a number of relevant countries and cultures, I've concluded that all human knowledge is arbitrary. Before we start talking about Truth, truths, or truthiness, understand two things. We, corporately and as individuals, don't know everything and we've been wrong before. It is this way because we are finite beings. Our brains, at least for the next few millennia, will be 3 pounds of imperfect, yet miraculous connectivity. This consistently imperfect connectivity means that human description is always incomplete, exact prescription impossible.
So what's the point of knowing anything if we can't know everything, or at least, one thing absolutely? Well, there's no answer to that, a similar trait most questions have. But, looking back, both theologians and scientists have proposed 'complete' descriptions, and then from here make prescriptions on how reality is, and how we must act. Yet, because we can't know absolutely, all of our human subjectivity comes out in any and every way throughout our thought processes and conclusions. Asians will think like Asians, Africans like Africans, Americans like Americans, and these categories are both broad and way too simplistic. But there are societal patterns. We call them cultures, and unfortunately they often get implemented as stereo types. This is not my intention.
As I've traveled I've seen both the familiar and the very different. Yet, they were so integrated I couldn't really call anything truly different. Papua New Guineans eat greens, sweet potato, and occasionally, meat. That's pretty much our diet too. But, they prepare it over wood fires, and sometimes the meat is spider (which actually does taste like chicken, well the part that I ate did anyway. Others weren't so fortunate.). In PNG they worry about witch doctors that can cast crop killing spells, while we worry about the witch doctors of wall street, increasingly dependent on things like artificial intelligence and psychologically attuned algorithms, available only .to the most powerful.
So what's the point of knowing anything if we can't know everything, or at least, one thing absolutely? Well, there's no answer to that, a similar trait most questions have. But, looking back, both theologians and scientists have proposed 'complete' descriptions, and then from here make prescriptions on how reality is, and how we must act. Yet, because we can't know absolutely, all of our human subjectivity comes out in any and every way throughout our thought processes and conclusions. Asians will think like Asians, Africans like Africans, Americans like Americans, and these categories are both broad and way too simplistic. But there are societal patterns. We call them cultures, and unfortunately they often get implemented as stereo types. This is not my intention.
As I've traveled I've seen both the familiar and the very different. Yet, they were so integrated I couldn't really call anything truly different. Papua New Guineans eat greens, sweet potato, and occasionally, meat. That's pretty much our diet too. But, they prepare it over wood fires, and sometimes the meat is spider (which actually does taste like chicken, well the part that I ate did anyway. Others weren't so fortunate.). In PNG they worry about witch doctors that can cast crop killing spells, while we worry about the witch doctors of wall street, increasingly dependent on things like artificial intelligence and psychologically attuned algorithms, available only .to the most powerful.
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