Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Where might we be going wrong?

The "ancients" took it as obvious that the following question must have an answer: What is the earth sitting on for support? Water? Some other land? Or what? Of course, the question is misdirected or to an extent senseless, since it is only within a gravitational field that something needs support to keep from falling "into the field," so to speak.

In the same way, I wonder what questions we ask and take to be completely baffling are actually just like the question of what supports the earth. Not only questions about physics, but questions about God, the self, relationships, anything of import.

It's important to recognize that those questions that most baffle us may be so baffling because the questions themselves are somehow misconceived. The problem is trying to figure out which ones are misconceived. Regarding the question about what the earth rests on, it took further observations and thought about the nature of space and gravity, etc. I doubt that there are any set of criteria to be had to determine which of our most baffling questions call for a reconceptualization. As with everything else here, I would love to hear what others think.