From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Wed Jan 23 2002 - 11:30:25 MST
The notion of a priori is quite strong medicine.
Take the statement "nobody lives forever". There is no possible way of
verifying this by experience but we are as certain of this fact as makes no
difference. How can we be so certain? Well, absolutely nothing in our
experience of the world allows us to falsify this claim. We know the
statement to be true, a priori.
"Space is infinite". We can, by definition, never travel or see far enough
to be able to verify this by observation. But for us, there is no possible
way the universe could make sense if it were not so. We know it is true, a
priori.
There is also the interesting case of numbers in general and mathematics in
particular. Some experts in the field assert that all mathematical proofs
are a priori because they are not verifiable in experience.
In a poetic sense you have the "absolute" proof you seek - pure
unadulterated knowing; that knowing without which the world would simply not
make sense.
Regards
Blunderov
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:41 MDT