Q&A: “CURT, WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM?” —“How far can empiricism go? C

Q&A: “CURT, WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF EMPIRICISM?”

—“How far can empiricism go? Can it only go so far, telling us how we can construct our government so that it will work? Can it only be mostly right at best?”—

You’re thinking like a justificationist. Empiricism is a method of testing the survival of an idea. Same with identity, logic, and operational description. It’s not that empiricism or logic is superior, its that if anything survives all those tests of identity, logical consistency, empirical consistency, operational possibility, it just has a pretty good chance of being true. Conversely, if it doesn’t survive all those tests, it’s got a good chance of being error or deception.

We can construct government with the people we have, and eliminate the people that harm our ability form a government that allows us to successfully compete against alternative tribes and governments.

But we cannot construct a government that consists of (a) people we do not have, and (b) assumptions of what men can know that they demonstrably cant, and (c) assumptions of shared interest, and (b) assumptions of beliefs counter to the evidence produced by our investigations.

In this sense TRUTH can take us a very great distance. If we understand science is merely the craft of discovering truthfulness, by the process of eliminating falseness, then science can take us a very great distance. As for empiricism, it has been more successful than reason and rationalism in assisting us in practicing the craft of science in the pursuit of truth.

Why? Because the universe does not err or lie. We are part of it and must act within it. We can change it by bending it to our will. But to do so we must understand it. And to eliminate error and deceit, we must understand man. For error and deceit are properties of man not the universe.

And it is these properties of man we must eradicate if we wish to transform into the gods we seek.