What are the questions science cannot answer?

I think some questions which lie in the realm of philosophy and religion can't be answered by science. I would list these questions as ones like the following:

1. Does God exist (or not exist?)

2. What is the right way to live your life?

3. What moral rules should we live by?

4. What is the meaning of life?

5. What is justice?

Science of course, can shed light on these questions. Science for example, certainly rules out some theories about how God is supposed to act in the universe (creationism for example does not work). Any respectable philosopher considering these questions has to factor science into any philosophical question, as would a jurist dealing with (5). A theologian also can't afford to ignore science either. But I don't think science is so omnicompetent it can give us the final answer to every question posed by disciplines non-scientific in nature, like philosophy or art.
 
If a question can't be answered, chances are it's because the question assumes an absurdity.

Example: What is the meaning of life? This question ASSUMES that there is one.

My own answer is that there is no meaning.

Philosophers are folks that have nothing better to do than to pontificate rudely.
 
It's not about a question that can't be answered, can there even be a question that can't be answered? It's not about absurdities, the topic is about questions that science can't answer hard science that is.
 
Reanimation said:
Is there such a thing as an absolute truth?
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There is.

First point.
Truth is conformity of mental images and ideas with what is "out there." If two people see a dog, one might say, "That is a dog," while the other says, “That is a cat.” The first statement is true because it conforms to reality; the other is false because it does not. Such realism is the normal human reaction to reality, the natural position of the human mind and indispensable for avoiding skepticism.

How could saying "there is no such thing as absolute truth" be absolutely true? It is a contradiction in terms.


Second point.
Does 2+2=5 for you? of course not, what you mean is that what you believe may be different than what you do, but that doesnt change what the truth actually is.
 
Last edited:
What are the questions science cannot answer?

How an irreducible and indivisible single entity [e.g. the big bang] could have performed an action without another entity to interact with in a finite realm.

That is the mother of all questions, and once this is sunk in, all science and religious questions will be satisfied. :)
 
Mind Over Matter said:
There is/are.

First point.
Truth is conformity of mental images and ideas with what is "out there." If two people see a dog, one might say, "That is a dog," while the other says, “That is a cat.” The first statement is true because it conforms to reality; the other is false because it does not. Such realism is the normal human reaction to reality, the natural position of the human mind and indispensable for avoiding skepticism.


How could saying "there is no such thing as absolute truth" be absolutely true? It is a contradiction in terms.


Second point.
Does 2+2=5 for you? of course not, what you mean is that what you believe may be different than what you do, but that doesnt change what the truth actually is.
Click to expand...

That is also the reason we have no history per se before humanity existed. It is also the reason the Hebrew calendar starts 5770 years ago - with the advent of speech endowed humans able to witness and record history. There is no witness of history before the 5770 date - a co-incidence or an exacting mark to the day and year? Before 5770 it all becomes superfluos.

2+2 = 5 pre-5770. 2+2 = 4 in 5770 and onwards. :cool:
 
Are you mad?
what about proto writing? pictorial script that writing actually evolved from.
i swear you are no better than a 2012 basher.
 
cruiser

Don't worry. Joseph is religiously superstitious. Do not expect rational science from that source.

Something science cannot answer?
What is the last digit of the value of pi?
 
Skeptical said:
cruiser

Don't worry. Joseph is religiously superstitious. Do not expect rational science from that source.

Something science cannot answer?
What is the last digit of the value of pi?
Click to expand...

The Q has nothing whatsoever to do with religion:

How an irreducible and indivisible single entity [e.g. the big bang] could have performed an action without another entity to interact with in a finite realm.

I'm listening. :rolleyes:
 
Joseph said

"How an irreducible and indivisible single entity [e.g. the big bang] could have performed an action without another entity to interact with in a finite realm"

That is a religious question. Joseph, we have seen this before with you putting this idea in other parts of the forum. Bringing religion into a purely scientific question is, well ... questionable.
 
Skeptical said:
Joseph said

"How an irreducible and indivisible single entity [e.g. the big bang] could have performed an action without another entity to interact with in a finite realm"

That is a religious question. Joseph, we have seen this before with you putting this idea in other parts of the forum. Bringing religion into a purely scientific question is, well ... questionable.
Click to expand...

I know of no religious texts that poses such a question. It is asked scientifically based. Please answer the question instead of your gibberish.

Science has been seeking its GUT [Grant Unified Theory] for a particle which cannot be further reduced or devided, and if this is found - how is it possible that such a single particle can cause an action - when there is nothing else to interact with, externally or internally?
 
cruiser said:
um im not allowed to post links but try jiahu symbols.
Click to expand...

This is unacceptable by its own scholars and has no proof whatsoever. China, FYI, is old, but not that old. The Middle-east is an older civilization.

Jiahu symbols
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

Example of the Jiahu symbolsJiahu symbols (贾湖契刻符号) refer to the 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang culture site found in Henan, China. Dated to 6600 BC, some archaeologists believe the markings to be similar (although without necessarily having the same meaning) to some characters used in a much later writing system related to the oracle bone script (e.g. similar markings of 目 “eye”, 日 “sun; day”), but there is currently no consensus. Some doubt that they represent systematic writing at all, and believe they were simply used as pictures, or at best are a form of proto-writing that conveyed a message without encoding language. The earliest evidence for a corpus of writing in the oracle bone script dates much later to the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – 1046 BC).
 
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