February 22, 2025

The default mind-frame of humans is religion. That means there is no absence of religion in human thought patterns. But there is a concept of non-religion. What non-religion means is the general purpose of removing most of the elements of religion from a thought process. Not all elements of religion can be removed from human thought patterns; so the attempt to remove religion can only be partial.

The most common element of religion to be considered is belief. Belief cannot be removed from normal thought processes, though aberrant mental activity could be said to be devoid of belief.

Humans find a need to align upon the objective realities of the universe that define life and solutions to problems, which is rationality. There is an attempt to remove religious concerns from rationality as objectivity. Even though a total removal of belief is not possible through thought patterns, there is an attempt to remove religious concerns from rationality due to the large amount of aberrant thought that occurs apart from rationality.

That means the objective realities of the universe create ordered realities and humans need to align upon them to solve problems. Then the need for ordered reality extends beyond the observable laws of the universe, which is philosophy. Beyond does not mean conflict with but extension from.

Extension from the observable laws of the universe is creation of abstract reality. Abstract means nonperceivable. Knowledge is a synthesis of abstract reality for the purpose of simplifying complexities.

There is a need for a method of determining correctness as consistency including proper relationships to the objective realities of the universe in creating abstract reality as knowledge. The test of correctness is consistent relationships between realities.

Both science and philosophy are based on abstract knowledge, the only difference being experimental evidence in science vs social evidence for philosophy. Early science consisted of observations, which transformed into experimentation.

Philosophy can be more exact and reliable than science due to the difficulties in designing and interpreting experiments. The test of truth is the same for philosophy and science, which is the correctness of relationships between realities.

In science, five hundred years of evolved knowledge creates the basis for evaluation. That source of knowledge can be continuously questioned in science while evaluating correct relationships within it.

That means the closest thing to proof is correctness of relationships between realities. A lot of persons will disagree on relationships between realities even when correct. So there is no absolute proof of anything. Supposed proof is accepting the obvious as fact. Since a lot of persons don't know what obvious and fact are, correctness is more of a process of determining relationships between realities than looking for some unquestionable fact.

That means explanations are needed to determine correctness, not fact checking; and know-nothings are not capable of properly representing a subject.