Basic cognitive psychology with a bit of mysticism, i saw it.

Your observations are laughable, society is founded on supersition, misinformation, and the pursuit of power. Aside from the 4-5 people here questioining freewill vs. determanism. Hey paris is in trouble gotta go watch TV.

Well the distinguising feature would seem to be method and the limits placed on science with defintions that cant be measured(as of yet) like concepts of justice, fairness, these things being internalized and highly subjective and different for evryone. Science deals with truths ro laws that can be demonstarted and repeated until proven otherwise, by way of mathmatics or measurement, so the main difference is in what we can and can not quantify. Perhaps the awnser is philosophy deals with why we investigate and foir what ends and science is the how, yet still by defintion they would tend to overlap. Both rely on logic and reason and an assumption of a higher truth. I would like to see science remain a method as scietists have a poor grasp of ethics, yes im talking about you oppenhiemer.

Perhaps if you could define philosopy I could better awnser your question.

Yes of course it is a useful concept in dealing with other defintions that are subjective as there are gradiants of subjectivity. Justice, fairness although completely subjective are neessesary for society and communication, not however useful as to what ultimate or a unified reality is. As for if theres anything "real" the concept is subjective and if an ultimate reality can not be demonstrated than "real" becomes what is useful or likely to be free of contradiction.(short form awnser)

I'd have to agree with smile and politely tell them youre not intersted. As a child I used the term agnostic as a self defintion and was intent on feeling supieror when the oppurtunity arose like the example provided. Now Ive grown some and and to me it feels like arguing with someone about the existance of santa claus. If it works for you I'm happy, if you want a discussion I love all aspects of human study and philosophy, usually though intersting discussions about the social implications of religion are only had by other agnostics, there is no debate as to the existance, example.- Two agnostics discussing the existance of whether or not god exists "You think theres a god" "nah really doubt it" " me too" end of discussion.

Your sister has symtoms and is not defined by that label of bi-polar. If you could explain that disorder to me id appreciate it, its chemical nature, onset, mechanism of neroulogical action, and treatment I'd appreciate it. DOnt take these convienant terms and interpret anyone with something you know little about. The consequences are you become what those around you see you as, its called a self fulfilling phophecy. So you say peopel are slowly getting educated kindly educate me. As to the best of my knowledge the theroys regarding illness are far from complete or may be faulty all toghether, any doctor will tell you this and misdiagnosis or different diagnosis is quite common amoung doctors. Based on this is it really healthly to take a course of action regarding a problem that is so poorly understood or seek to educate on what you dont know? Support empathy and understanding are valid in helping anyone ill, or anyone who is not ill. However the education recived today about illness will be tommorrows stigma/falacy.

Yes unfortunaley once labeled one is seen differently, this produces the effect of feeling differently about oneself. The inabilty of others to undrstand illness is offen shown in the form of critisms based on what work for them, as in "you just have to get your act togher" or "you stopped trying" Rarely do one recieve understanding and sincerce attempts to relate and help with becoming functional again.

The social consequences of mental illness can sometimes afflict a person more greatly than the illness itself. Coming to see oneself as ill is the surest route to depression if there is any value judgement attached to that self-perception. The world is generally uncaring and umempathetic however this is especailly appearent to one who has become ill or lost coping skills or has hindered interpreation of social situations. The best thing you can do for yourself is self-educate, not define yourself with a defintion that was created for convience and out of societys norms which are far from enlightened to say the lest. As well doctors disagree as to diagnosis on a regular basis, it is a completely subjective diagosis, and the experience of the persaon who has become ill is also subjective, as always there are no such things as professionals and self care and learning should be priority when possible. There is currently no theroy on how most medications work nor does the fda require so. SSRI's are also questiontionable as to effectiveness when treating dpression vs. theropy more specifically cognitive theropy but are usaully used as a first line of treatment. I can go on and on as to the shortfalls of our medical system in treating the ill. One can even question whether the illness is in part created by society, medical industry, and learned unconcious patterns of behavior. Example, many people thought out histroy could diverge into alternate realitys, they were know as shamans or holy men. Subscribing to societys norms and values today is lunacy in itself.

Haha thats great.

Maybe this world is another worlds hell - A. Huxley.

Ignorance is the first penalty of pride - W. Bertrant

When you assume you make an ass of yourself - me

The predominat emotion of human existance seems to be suffering - Schopenhuar

Fear leads to anger, anger to hate and hate to the darkside- yoda

The pusiut of understanding requires you unlearn evrything you know- descrate'

Sorry if some of these are incorrectly worded.

I would agree however its beginings do not define its ends, but very early on it was used as a tool to control the conduct of human beings living in socially stratafied societies. Hunter gather stylehuman existance also has religion, however after social starification the rules and codes of governing human conduct are les abstract and more concerned with the ooutcome of making the masses comply. I can demonstrate this.

Science is nothing more than the study of forces and matter and what we can observe and measure, it is a system designed to be objective and build upon confirmed therorys or laws until they are demonstarted not be. Nothing more nothing less, religion implies or is defined by a set of morals or beliefs which seems to be concerned with governing the conduct of human beings, science has no such set of rules and anyone can be one, beliefs and requirements which demand obediance to ideas that are unprovable or can not be demonstarted is what science is not. Religion seeks to preserve its ideas at all cost where as science will readily give up an idea proven faulty or unprovable. This is why some scientists are agnostic, this make religious people think that science is anti religion. So they "meaning some religious people" have tried to argue that nothing is provable and therefore science is a belief or religion. Howevr the characteristics of the two are remarkably differant.

I think for the most part its an analogy to understand the incomprehensible. Its obvious that space is indeed bent by gravity as astronomy has shown as well as the effects on time which have to be accouted for the differnces of a satelite orbiting the earth to have them work correctly. It has been demonstrated that a cloak on top of a water tower and one at ground level disagree.

Assuming einstien is correct, which he seems to be batting 1000, it is useful to think of it as a tear in time space yes they can very in size, whether or not a singularity is possible is beyond human comprehension and also beyond that of mathmatics. Blackholes in therory do not contradict the law of entropy due to hawking radiation, and seem an inevitable product with the current understanding of the laws governing the forces of the universe. Thik of your bath tub anaolgy, if there is more water in the tub aka matter to fall into the black hole than you could say the black hole is larger just as the drain will extend a larger votex, as to what happens on the other side is not known.

Freewill is an ill constructed concept, either there are immutable laws governing the universe, meaning everything is predetermined, or there is an element of chance as displayed in quantum physics. Either way there is no room for freewill. An interesting experiment done ny a neuro-scientist demonstarted that you dont feel or think or register anything in your concious untill after .5 seconds after the neuron has fired. Meaning conciousness is passive and does not iniate anything especially thought. This is simple and makes sence and I really dont think it can be any other way as our conciousness is estimated to be able to process about 10-100 bits of informatin a second, our total brain proceses are estimated to process 11 millions bits of information a second. ANother interesting view is that if the universe is a closed system than it is predictatable if there are immutable laws, if it is infinite an infinite amount of forces would be acting upon one other and therefore completely hindering any predictability as a whole. Again either way no room for freewill as an absolute.

Basically you stated that no one can definte or interpret reality, so how do you know it exists as an absolute or not?

The scientific concept of one reality is that things dont exist as discrete components isolated from the universe, rather it is a whole, we catergorize and classify for convenience. Our systems and understanding of reality is based on adaptation relevatant to the therory of evolution, which indicates that our percieved reality is probably not relevant to reality as it is. As far as the word reality goes, out of several billion people on the palanet no two realitiies are indentitical, so as humans we live in a inescapable subjective reality confined by our tools which have developed through evolution. The problam lies in, could you make a blind man understand the color blue? Absolutly not, it is an experience completely subjective and to experience it objectively is immposssible, therefore we can never know the true nature of the universe. A good example is the double slit experiment if youre farmiliar. So reality in an absolute defintion would be the state of the universe without subjectivety, meaning without observation, observation being limited to defintion and components which are not nessary for the existance of the universe. It seems like a catch 22. Its an unawnserable question. Start by defining reality, which is also a theroretical immpossibility and subjective.