And that’s the first, possibly the sole thing ‘we’ can be sure of. So what is it?
late 14c., “observation as the source of knowledge”
from Old French esperience “experiment, proof, experience” (13c.)
from Latin experientia “experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials”
from PIE *per-yo-, suffixed form of root *per- (3) “to try, risk.”
“The words experiment and experience have the same Latin root: they both come from the word experior, which means to gain knowledge through repeated trials. Let us think about the word trial for a minute, because for most of us, this word represents the difficult, even horrendous, experiences we have in life.
But in the scientific world, the word trial has positive connotations. It refers to experiments repeated in order to learn something valuable.”
Ergo, experimental observation … occurs.
From the start of words, ‘we’ knew it was a risky business.
The experimental observer I tentatively call my self has faith in that much.
Is there anything else to be even modestly certain about?
Can careful repeated experiments in observation teach us any other truths or better still sooths? Lead us to knowing … anything, beyond this?
My experimental intuition is that observation leads not to truths, but to theories.
(Well, let’s look that one up.)
My experimental intuition is that observation leads to
-conceptions
-mental schemas
-speculations, and,
tracing the looping spiral back as far as we can see into the past of language …
-‘perceptions’.
To ‘knowledge’? Well … that’s a stretch. In ‘my’ experience. Which exists.
Beyond the self-evidence that the experiential Is, we know little. Perhaps … no thing.
Which … will never get in the way of a good speculation.
Darwin’s speculations on evolution are pretty good ones, IMHO. Imperfect, but good.
As for the rest of the crop of the 19th century; materialism and physicalism, capitalism and communism, deism and atheism
Meh.
In the 20th it got worse. Among other unfortunate events, Nietzche’s ubermensch got adopted and twisted by nasty little not-actual-ubermenschen (Bavarians, Missourians), and the rest is bloody history. And then of course the hegemon crowed over and over of victory while their poor conscripts got their asses handed to them by assorted peasants.
Now in the subjective hallucination of the time we call the 21st, all speculative bets are off. It seems we try, too hard, and risk, too much, compulsively, obsessively yeah.
(This I speculate. And … )
before all of this
ever went down
in another place
another town
you were just
a face in the crowd
out of a dream
out of the sky
into my heart
into my life
you were just
a face in the crowd