'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Monday, August 23, 2010

on certainty 605


605. But what if a physicist’s statement were superstition and it were just as absurd to go by it in receiving a verdict as to rely on an ordeal of fire?



whether the physicist’s statement –

is regarded as superstition – or science –

relying on it –

in the sense of regarding it as certain –

is what is absurd


© greg t. charlton. 2010.