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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: epicure who wrote (45768)3/26/2002 5:22:01 PM
From: Yogizuna  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 82486
 
The only constant is change. Anyone know who said that?



To: epicure who wrote (45768)3/27/2002 3:52:35 PM
From: The Philosopher  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 82486
 
The interesting question, IMO, is whether there is anything unchanging, whether or not we have discovered it. Is, for example, there an absolute value for pi, even if we haven't calculated it, or does pi change so that we will never, even in theory, be able to say "this is it."

I assume, as a working hypothesis, that there are some things that are absolute truths that at least in theory could be discovered once for all and nailed down and not change ever again. That doesn't mean that we have found any of them, but it means that the changes we discover are moving toward (we hope) the absolute truth, and that we're not trying to hit an ever changing target.

To take a very basic example, is there a given fixed temperature at which pure, distilled water, under specifc conditions of pressure, ambient temperature, and all other relevant variables, will boil, or is it possible that under absolutely identical circumstances it will one day boil at temperature A and another day at temperature B?