Questions go on forever

We are all on a journey, seeking answers,
connecting the dots,  chasing the stroke of insight,
but do we realize, what the baton tries to say,
generations missed the baton, the secret,

That every question only leads to two more,
that, you can’t find all the answers,
that the answers may have to find you,
and so, we continue the journey, the inquiry

For, answers may come, answers may go,
For, Einstein may come, Newton may go,
But questions go on forever,
questions keep us going.

There are many more questions to ask before we sleep!
There are many more questions to ask before we sleep!

- Inspired by Robert Frost

Kids and Philosophy

Sujata School team's question - Should we believe in God or medicine? This question was coupled with another - do we believe in what we didn't experience so far? The student was strong in her stance on what appears to be a combination of empiricism(experiments) and intuitionism(experience). The discussion got interesting when she employed rhetoric by asking if the audience experienced it, Einstein chose to reply with a "Yes", for the sake of argument. This brought up two more questions- do we trust the experience of others? More importantly, what do we do if the society holds a view which is perpendicular to our view? Sister Niveditha school's criticism of empiricism is quite profound- "would you believe in America, as you've not experienced it"? What made this argument interesting is that they seem to have connected it to the previous argument around "Model Thinking"- how do we know the time in America right now? This was in response to the judge Ms. Shikha's question regarding digestion- how do you know that digestion takes place when you can't see that? The students seem to have connected the dots between both the situations- both talk about limitations of empiricism and the need for models and the need to trust theories or experiences of others.

A student asked a beautiful question- "What are the benefits of not engaging in Philosophy"? One interesting question to ask is - can Philosophy answer that question? Is it related to the question- what is outside consciousness/experience? If science can't answer this question, can Philosophy answer the previous question? These questions are probably related to Dr. Ritesh's question- "Can you think of one non-philosophical question"?

Are Science and Philosophy the same? Why? When a student replied with a yes, Einstein asked if Science questions Language and Literature, he received a no, he then counters the primary argument by asking that if Science and Philosophy are the same and if Philosophy critiques language, shouldn't science do it as well? Though students were not aware of the conceptual foundations of Science and Philosophy, they seem to be very interested in understanding the gray areas and where to draw the boundaries. Interestingly, science does ask questions about Language, so how do they both differ?

Center for Exact Humanities at IIIT Hyderabad talks of nurturing the trans-disciplinary confluence between Computer Science and Humanities. But what does the "exact" in Exact Humanities mean? The students seem to have arrived at that through a series of questions. They were asked- several theories in science were proved wrong, but why is it not a single theorem in Mathematics was proven wrong? Why is it that you have a proof in Mathematics and not Science? If everything is bound by individual perception, why do we have quizzes or the notion of one correct answer? Do we have a concept of absolute truth? The students seemed to agree that in a world created and controlled by us, like Mathematics, that's plausible, while that's not possible in empirical science like Sciences which concern about real-world problems which are beyond human control. The discussion also seemed to suggest why one would be interested in extracting models of formal/exact sciences (where truths exist) to model real-world phenomenon. This was quite a deep discussion on "Truth" and the process of finding it out.

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Comments on the Socratic Dialogue on "History and Philosophy of Science, Mathematics and Language", at IIIT Hyderabad- the 7th annual edition of Sciensation inter-school inter-disciplinary (un)quiz