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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 3051013, member: 84744&quot;]For every piece of knowledge that has stood up to rigorous inquiry (so far, at least), there are hundreds of failed hypotheses that have been shown to be false, and thousands of untested (often evidence-free) theories that haven&#039;t been scrutinized.&nbsp; I was just trying to figure out which category the ideas you presented fell into.&nbsp; The only reasonable way to do this is to find out if the ideas are ones that experts countenance.&nbsp; If experts have rejected the ideas or if they haven&#039;t scrutinized them, the only reasonable thing for the non-expert to do is to take them with a huge grain of salt.&nbsp; (Is that a lack of respect? I don&#039;t think so.) Experts = those who specialize in applying good reasoning methods (deductive and inductive logic, broadly construed) to the topic, and who open up their reasoning for other experts to scrutinize.&nbsp; (Knowledge acquisition is a collective enterprise.)&nbsp; If you think there are other ways of getting knowledge, e.g. sacred geometry (as opposed to <i>geometry</i>), then I would have to disagree in the strongest terms!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s quite a radical skepticism, [USER=74968]@Orfew[/USER]!&nbsp; But supposing we don&#039;t know anything for sure (maybe knowledge requires a higher level of certainty than we&#039;re capable of achieving), aren&#039;t there still better vs. worse ways of placing our bets?&nbsp; (I&#039;ve described how I would place my bets in my answer to [USER=88401]@Mike Margolis[/USER] above.)&nbsp; And in general, isn&#039;t it reasonable to say that for a factual topic capable of being treated scientifically (broadly speaking; I include history here), we&#039;ve probably got a lot more right than the ancients did?&nbsp; For matters of wisdom (how to lead one&#039;s life, that sort of thing) it may be we&#039;re no better off.&nbsp; We&#039;re certainly not more intelligent, I would never suggest such a thing.&nbsp; But more knowledgeable?&nbsp; That seems indisputable!&nbsp; Not to deny that some knowledge has been lost, of course.&nbsp; I&#039;m constantly rueing the loss of the library of Alexandria, for instance. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ll check out the Capra book, and/or maybe another one by him, <i>The Systems View of Life</i>.&nbsp; Published by a reputable academic publisher (Cambridge University Press), author with good credentials (though mostly in physics, not philosophy I might add), etc... a great example of something worth reading.&nbsp; Thanks for the suggestion![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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