I looked up the definition of skepticism and it said- "The philosophical doctrined that absolute knowledge is impossible and that inquiry must be a process of doubting in order to acquire approximate or relative certainty." If someone actually does something and gets a result, they don't have approximate certainty- they know. They are not skeptical either. That's all I'm saying.

[Being critical and skeptical is not being negative. It is not dismissing things out of hand. It is, rather, being open to doubt, being open to inquiry, and being willing to test your hypotheses rather than simply believing in them.]

If that's your definition of skepticism, I think it falls right in the middle of what I call skepticism and belief. What I was talking about are these people that say something isn't a possibility without even trying to find out whether it is true or not.

I would have to say that I'm very biased toward this whole topic anyway. When I think of a skeptical person I also think of a miserable person who doesn't do anything with his life because "it won't work anyway." I don't think of someone in a lab doing experiments applying the scientific method who is properly applying skepticism to achieve a measureable result.

Edison wasn't skeptical. He believed he would eventually find the right combination of materials put together in the right way to create a light that would burn without burning up. Why did he believe? No logical reason at all. No scientific evidence at all. In fact, all the scientific evidence clearly proved it couldn't be done so why didn't he just say heck with it? But you could also say he WAS skeptical. He was skeptical about the "fact" that he was going to have to sit around in the dark all the time So I guess you're right too! Doesn't the very meaning of the word depend on your point of view? We can make Edison into a believer or make him into a skeptic.

I'm glad you brought this topic up. When I'm openening up to the possibility of a new reality, I guess I'm also being skeptical at the same time that what I know is "all there is" and I never really looked at it that way before.

[This message has been edited by Coldrayne (edited March 05, 2006).]