Eagam Khaling
It was a couple of years ago; I was informally talking to the senior students of a high school. There was a chalkboard on the backside wall. I was sitting on a cozy chair. I had a wooden table in front of me, and on it, there were two pieces of white chalk, a duster, and a glass of water. Except for the glass of water, others were the teaching aids.
When I was interacting with the students, one of the students asked me, “What is that in the glass?” I instantly replied to him, “Obviously, drinking water!” Again, I tried to satisfy him by saying that it was not other than drinking water. He questioned me again, “Sir, how do I know that is water?”
At that time, I tried to give him some scientific explanation to prove what I had in the glass. After that, I gave the glass to him and asked him to drink the water. He agreed with me that the liquid was drinking water. But I was not satisfied with my answer because the question asked was more than he had thought.
Any things are empirical objects when given to us (to our sensibility and understanding), and we have matters when the objects are defined. The defined substances are matter. That is why the question “What is an object?” is studied and explained by science, but the question “How can we have knowledge of an object?” by philosophy. The former is a scientific question, and the latter is a philosophical question and has an epistemological implication in the sense it connects with the questions of the nature and possibility of human knowledge.
I cannot show the exact color and shape of the water. If I pour the water from the glass into a box, it will take the structure of the box, and from the box to a bottle, it will take the shape of the bottle. Science teaches us that water is liquid and has no definite shape or color. It forms the shape and size of the container, and it has volume and always flows downwards. It is also a good mixture (universal solvent).
Now if we go to chemistry, we find the chemical structure of water. The chemical formula of water is H2O. It means that the molecular composition of water is two atoms of Hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. It has three stages: liquid, solids, and gases. Again, Hydrogen and oxygen are atoms of gases. Hydrogen is combustible, and oxygen helps combustion. At the general level, we have properties of water, but at the sub-atomic level, they differ.
In a common-sense view, water is a liquid and an independent existence. What we know about it is known through our sense organs. Water itself is not dependent upon the thinking minds of the world. But the scientific view of the water is a refined (organized or systematized) view.
The above properties of water are from our experience with water. The properties of water are generalized from experience. Therefore, the properties of water can be proved by an experiment and empirically verified.
Approximately sixty percent of our body and seventy-one percent of our earth’s surface is water. Water is everything to us. The atmosphere, climate, and weather are due to water. Life without water is impossible. If we study evolution theory, we find that life started in water. Philosophers like Thales (in about 585 B. C.) thought water to be fundamental substance. History tells us that real science began with analyzing natural phenomena. To him, water was the indispensible and unifying stuff of our universe. He thought that without water, we human beings die. Every living thing requires water, and every seed of life and embryo it produces depends on a kind of water. Thus, it was Thales who first began and increased the pace of the search for a fundamental substance.
We know the chemical formation of water, but not exactly why the two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen of water make it water. We are observing reality on different levels and scales, but that does not mean we have been able to know the nature of reality. Quantum physics satisfyingly explains certain phenomena of nature. But it also fails to give completely satisfying answers to some questions. The nature of the knowledge of objects and phenomena of reality is approximate. A piece of absolute knowledge is not possible. We cannot observe everything of a thing or event exclusively at a single point; in time.
Water is in my body and memory, but I do not know whether I am there in the water. What can I say to the soul of Henry Cavendish more than I am still waiting for more Masaru Emotos because there is no finality in empirical sciences?
[Eagam Khaling hails from Darjeeling. He has published an anthology of poems in 2001. Since then he has been publishing his poems in local, national and international journals (and e-sites). He is a teacher and also a research scholar at the Department of Philosophy of North Bengal University.]