What is in a word? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary,
the most search word is “Science” this month. With an increase of over 175%
from last year, people are interested in pondering its meaning and definition. Science is defined as “knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned
through experiments and observation."
Science and life go hand in hand. Famous figures like
Spinoza, Einstein, Immanuel Kant, Ibn Sina and many others developed the
concept of science over thousands of years. Through the generations, it moved from
philosophy into the more concrete concepts offered by the scientific method. Generally,
it is seen as a process of observation and manipulation that attempts to draw
facts from the environment.
The second most exciting word is “cognitive”. They seem to have something to do with each
other. Cognitive can be defined as, “based on or capable of being reduced to empirical factual knowledge.”
Science requires the cognitive abilities to pull facts out of the environment. You cannot have science without a level of
cognition.
Of course, science and cognition are
philosophical terms. Philosophy helps us understand the different states of
existence within the world. Where Freud delved into our suppressed facts
Immanuel Kant looked more at how we receive those facts. If that is not
exciting enough, we could bounce all the way over to untying the world knot or
Jung’s shadow personality.
There may be some good reasons why these
words are so popular. Educational
reports, Kepler Space station discoveries of new worlds, global climate change,
brain injury in athletes and even politics. People are interested in the new discoveries
that science is increasingly offering at unprecedented rates. The information
is there but the definitions are missing.
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