... but is the desire that 'we should know the truth' an evolutionary imperative, something that has survival value like any other adaptation? ...

No. Being able to make decisions is necessary for survival. If one could only act on 'the truth', one could not act. Absolute Truth is a mental construction that we have arrived at incidentally; it is the practical ability to define and categorize taken to the most extreme, most evolutionarily useless abstraction. As Nietzsche said, "our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not adjusted for knowledge." Note how unproductive philosophers are...:bigsmile:

... so then, the fact that the European re-interpretation of Christianity as the attempt to understand God which resulted in the rise of the culture of science and technology wasn't an evolution of a culture that ended up being so fit for its own survival that it came to dominate the planet? (just doing my unproductive part ) ...

Every cause has an effect, and every effect has a cause. In fact the two terms are interchangeable. One could just as easily call a cause an effect, or an effect a cause : that is why there can be no such a thing as a first cause, because it would lack an effect. The first cause/effect must have been the synthesis of both : but we cannot ever know what it is. If, in fact, the first cause/effect existed, well then it must be AT REST, but the question arises as to how something AT REST would or could give rise to MOTION. the answer must be that it cannot, that we are looking at some kind of illusory division of the cause/effect that gives rise to the ILLUSION of MOTION. The [AT REST] resides to the heart of them BOTH but we cannot ever perceive it, though we can deduce it: [WE ARE AND WE ARE NOT, WE DO AND DO NOT STEP INTO THE SAME RIVER TWICE]

Some might argue that the European re-interpretation of Christianity had very little to to with an attempt to understand God, and in fact had more to do with control and domination.

... logical truth being one of those perspectives ... any logical system begins with axioms - the so-called "undefined" terms ... time and space - we can take these as axioms in a logical system of truth, given that these two elements are fundamental to our experience of the world ... what truths can be built up from these axioms? ... are we building these truths upon a house of cards? ... or does the fact that we can at best define these axioms circularly - the one in terms of the other - indicate that we have hit upon irreducible ground truths?

Nature is the axiom of truth.
Science has proven time or measure only probable or uncertain at best.

... so then, the fact that the European re-interpretation of Christianity as the attempt to understand God which resulted in the rise of the culture of science and technology wasn't an evolution of a culture that ended up being so fit for its own survival that it came to dominate the planet? (just doing my unproductive part ) ...

... if that's the case, then Nature is a "probable or uncertain at best" axiom, seeing as how time and space are its very foundation ...

:bigsmile: Quite right MJA. Time and space are constructions and the foundation of a particular word-view, nothing more.

And one more thing; that scientific spirit, of christian origin, has seen its best days and is rapidly becoming senile. It will soon be in the grave of its own making; i.e. it cannot reach the objective it sets for itself. In the words of Oswald Spengler, "it has exhausted all the possibilities of its form." Really, the continuum of scienific progress was broken by Einstein, Freud and Nietzshe a century ago; it has taken a while for everyone to realize this. Reason must succumb to unreason, because reason has shown itself to be unreasonable...:bigsmile:

" ... so what's a worthy complement to scientific reason? - is religion all there is, or is there something else that would be better able to keep pace with the advance of science?"

Science is merely theory and religion only faith, but truth stands absolutely separate from them both and certainly and most sublimely alone.
It is time for philosophy to rule again; the age of Truth, of Absolute Certainty has come at last!


=
MJA

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
--John Lennon (1940-1980)

"Guys like that just get in the way when there's serious work to be done."

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
--William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Truth

knowledge is thought

education increases thought

wisdom is truth

enlightenment reduces thought

to a single simple truth

oneness or equality

the single simple

wisdom or

Truth

=

MJA (?-?)

I've also found bits of truth in rock climbing, in riding my motorcycle in heavy traffic, in listening to music, in reading, in watching a brushfire, in the sound of wind, in watching helplessly as friends self-destruct, in movies, in lightning, in a weed growing in a parking lot, in road-kill, in falling snow . . . in short, everywhere, if your eyes are open and your mind is not just open, but empty as well.
--TickTockMan (1962-?)

Everyone who has ever posted on this forum
(?-?)

But whose truth?


.

My point is that, very shortly, I can't imagine that there will exist any people who really believe in the truth.

When I say that the age of reason is ending or ended, I mean in elite, frivolous circles such as ours here; I don't expect science to suddenly commit suicide or civilization to fall for a lack of self-confidence. My point is that, very shortly, I can't imagine that there will exist any people who really believe in the truth. The rationalist/empiricist perspective has dug its own grave; now it can only be practical; It can no longer seek the truth in good faith, unless it be dumb.