Dictionary by Dmitrii Kouznetsov. Conditions of use of this document

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Philisophy

Philosophy is kind of human activity, related with the analysis of motivation and classification of the human knowledge. The classification is based on the structure of knowledge. The important components of the knowledge are the art (includes the belletristic literature), religion and science.

Sciences

Science is kind of human knowledge, human achievements, and human activity related to elaboration of the specific language, id est, system of concepts and notations for usable description of reproducible phenomena of any origin, characterized in the following:
Each scientific concept has limited range of applicability.
Each concept allows the verification: Within the terms of already accepted language, some experiment with some specific result, that confirms the concept, can be described).
Each concept allows the negation: Within terms of this concept, some experiment with some specific result, that negates the concept, can be described.
No internal contradictions for the concept are known.
New concepts follow the principle of Correspondence: new theories explain the success of already established theories.
Co-existence of mutually-contradictive concepts is allowed; if the different concepts provide the same result, the simplest is considered as main; other, more complicated, are considered as alternatives.

No absolute true can be elaborated in any of sciences, because every scientific concept (even established one) can be negated, rejected due to the contradiction to some observations or experiments, or due to discovery of the internal contradictions. This can be illustrated with the verse
Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
It did not last: the Devil howling "Ho!
Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.
One by one, several scientific concepts happened to be not so true: the Ptolemaic Geocentric model, the Copernican model with circular orbits, then the Newtonian mechanics, then the Einstein's Special theory of Relativity, and so on. One may expect, the same to happen (soon or late) with the Quantum Gravity. Not only physics is organized in such a way, but also other sciences. For example, the concept of gradual conversion of pre-historic monkey into the humankind happens at least doubtful after discovery of chromosomes and genetics; this made doubtful also the scientific honesty of those paleontologists, who had reported the recovery of the remains of the gradual stages of the smooth transition from the species with 48 chromosomes in genotype to that with 46 chromosomes.

In science, one usually has no need to claim any specific statement as "absolute true"; so the term "true" can be used as one of two possible values (true or false) of a logical variable. However some identities may be considered as an absolute true, at least while no mistake is revealed in the deduction and no internal contradiction is reported for the system of axioms, used. For example the identity 2+2=4 can be considered as absolute true, while no no mutual contradiction among the axioms of arithmetics are reported; one may believe, that during his/her life, no such contradiction will be found.

Relligions

The religions are not required to be non-contradictive or to allow the negation. Therefore any religion may use the concept of "absolute true" without any limits, for example, The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true , or The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. , or If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (i.e. submission to God) never will it be accepted of Him.

Usually, at least one God is postulated in a religion. God is subject that in some way, unavailable for a human, has abilities much greater than the human abilities. Usually, the Immortality and ability to predict Future is attributed to gods, for example, Lenin lives, lived and will live, or The magnificent contributions Chairman Mao made in revolutionary theory and practice are immortal, Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there".

Gods can be like humankind, like (Jesus from Nazareth, Buddha, Lenin) as (the Worldwide Communist Revolution, or the Holy Spirit). In any of these cases, God may like or dislike some actions of humans. The preferences of gods are formulated in the canonic texts; they determine that is good and what is evil This gives the motivation to the believers; they live ant act not for themselves, but for the God.

Some religions justify the cruelty and raising of wars, if they are are desirable to God: Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac, or the Crusades, the murder of the Czar and his family. The God converts the crime into the honest action: he saves the Isaac, excuses the Soviet-Finish war by the strategic needs of the Soviet Union (and, therefore, needs of the Worldwide Communist Revolution), and so on.

Many religions avoid refutable concepts. The concept is refutable (negable), if some observation or experiment, that negates the concept, can be described in terms of terms of this concept. For example, the statement The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism is refutable; based of such a declaration, the next generation may shame the soviet veterans as impostors. Examples of the irrefutable statements are: God gives immortal Soul to every human , or righteous will be accepted at the heaven.

Other philosophic concepts

The philosophical branch that consider typically religious concepts (God, good, evil) but do not postulate any certain properties of God is somewhere between science and religion. An example of such a concept is the positivistic plirallism. This concept suggest that every individual builds-up his own moral norm, that fit him/her best; in particular, the Bible but not only the Bible, but books of other religions too, can be used as sources of wisdom.

The religions play the important place in the Human knowledge and the Human history. Those religions, that are enough tolerant with respect to all other kinds of human knowledge, foment the stable development of the society. However, the religions cannot substitute the science as the sciences cannot substitute the religions. Since the past century, the positivistic pluralism did not get much spreading nor significant development. Therefore, we may expect that it also can substitute neither sciences not religions.

Art

The art (including written works) and folklor are much less restricted that sciences and the religions, but still should be considered as important knowledge. For example, the statement the honest and humanistic goal cannot be achieved by the cruel, evil methods, repeated many times by the scientists specialized in the literature, is result of the belletristic literature rather than that of the science, although it can be attributed also to the science "history of literature" as a scientific concept, and also used in the tolerant religions as a prime (and irrefutable) concept.

Conclusion

The important part of the knowledge is stored in the language of communication and customs; they determines many specific features of every nation. Some the knowledge can be qualified as art, which pretends to be absolutely free from any restrictions. More structured and restricted are religions, they assume some set of irrefutable concepts, specific for each religion. The religions give the motivation for the human life; in particular, the motivation to get knowledge. Even more structured are the sciences, that hard restrictions on the concepts used to build it. The knowledge may have any form; after to get some piece of it and to analyze it, one may qualify it as an art, a religion or a science. The philosophy gives the motivation for such classification.

Related articles:

http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/D/Science.htm Science, special set of refutable concepts
http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/D/mathematics.htm Mathematics, The most formalized science.
http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/D/physics.htm Physics, general science about Our Universe.
http://www.ils.uec.ac.jp/~dima/D/religion.htm Religion, knowledge based on irrefutable concepts.
Related non-encyclopedic texts:
http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/absolutemoral.shtml About the Absolute moral. (Manifest of the pluralistic practicizm)
http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kuznecow_d_j/forgiveness.shtml Forgiveness (Drama)
External links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ISicKNkOs Why Islam is the only true religion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2hN8w26SVU Why Islam is the only true religion (parody)
http://www.archive.org/details/ProgramOfTheCommunistPartyOfTheSovietUnion_150 Program Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union (example of a refutable concept)

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