Ontology vs. Epistemology

Ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist. What do we know? What are we certain of? What can we prove? What is the nature of existence? Epistemology is the study of knowledge. How do we know what we know? How can we establish truth and certainty? Are their limits to what we can know based on how we come to know it? These epistemological questions when combined with ontological questions have philosophers pondering what exists and how we know it exists. In A Certain Ambiguity, by Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal, there was a constant question of proof. How do you go about proving something? Well the book suggests that it is only possible to prove something if you have a set of accepted axioms. An example that was often used to illustrate this was Euclidean geometry. When you have the five axioms defined and the postulates formed from the axioms you have basic geometry that you learned in high school (Euclidean). However you learn later on in the book, that if you ignore the 5th axiom than you have a whole new kind of geometry, called non-Euclidean geometry. What everyone thought they knew about geometry and axioms was completely changed by altering the original axiom. That is deep. The fact that one alteration could have that much of an effect on what mathematicians “knew” is mind blowing. Most people trust math and believe that it is flawless but if you think about it, isn’t math just created by humans. Since we, as humans, are incapable of knowing everything it would be illogical to say that we know everything about math or that what we know is one hundred percent true now and forever. Yet people continue to trust it; similar to what was discussed in my first essay about people and their belief in religion. People that believe in God “know” He exists with every ounce of their being simply based on the idea (axiom) that all this complexity we are surrounded by had to be created by someone or something. They choose to