Sunny With a High of 75

There are times when, despite my personal efficacy and self-confidence, I feel like a total flake. It is usually a fleeting feeling, but I think that it really does help in a way. Perhaps it is a sort of conviction. It reminds me of Plato's writing on Socrates. Socrates is quoted as saying something to the effect of, "I am the wisest man alive, because I know that which I do not know." My father has quoted this line a few times and asked the siblings and me if we understood what it meant. In a basic way perhaps, you know your limits. You admit that you do not know everything. If I remember, Socrates took it so far as to say that he knew nothing, or very, very little. Some other philosophers of the skeptical variety postulate that we cannot know anything with certainty.

These kinds of arguments are fun to take on because when attempting to refute the skeptic, you really end up going in circles. "How do you know that we can't know anything with certainty?" one might ask. The skeptic might answer, "We don't even know that." It's similar to playing a game of "Why?" with a young child. You end up going in frustrating circles (I personally often find it amusing. It's fun to watch Little Sister find out that she won't be able to bother the stuffing out of me just by asking me a monosyllabic question repeatedly for five minutes).

Here is a link to the most recent news that I have been able to find about the battle to keep Terri Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-03172005-464611.html. Her feeding tube is currently set to be removed as scheduled, tomorrow afternoon. There are some lawmakers still attempting to prevent this from happening, but there is a good deal of opposition. Removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube will not result in immediate death, but rather starvation, which is not definite in the amount of time that it will take. Lots of praying to be done!