What are the chances our collective knowledge is incorrect? Some advanced race or totally sentient intelligence contacts us and shows us our knowledge is still basically in the dark ages. Would you be surprised we are wrong?
What are the chances our collective knowledge is incorrect? Some advanced race or totally sentient intelligence contacts us and shows us our knowledge is still basically in the dark ages. Would you be surprised we are wrong?
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I was going to post something a little more succinct, but with the same idea.
Have you heard about the Simulation Hypothesis?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
Personally, I see a lot of truth in Descartes’ response to it. Cogito ergo sum.
It's interesting to think about. All of science is really a model to try to explain everything that we observe happening around us. So if something happens that the model can't explain we have to make a new one, happens all the time. I'm sure that there is some kind of model out there that can explain everything around us but is nothing like the current one that we use (with atoms, gravity, etc). So I wouldn't be surprised, just fascinated by how and why they came up with their model.
I have to do a lot of soul searching each time someone is diagnosed with dyslexia and told they ought to be reading L to R and that they need to accomodate to "our" language system and orientation of letters because of "their" intellectual error.
I feel like these dyslexic people, beyond the words of this post, are inherently smarter and more lexical than we are. And yet we are telling them theyre wrong because we are opinionated and dont know any better ourselves.
I don't think that we currently know anything nor will we ever know anything.
Interesting concept, do they really see the same thing everytime? For example if I write out a sentence today and then the same sentence tomorrow, do they see it as the same sentence? If so, I am inclined to agree with you.
When it comes to science, most of it is. Science has a bad habit of progressing by making new theories with old concepts to the bitter end, before discarding old concepts for better ones. It resists revolutionary ideas and treats them as a last resort. There is no reason for that kind of bias other than economics and training.
When it comes to math, it's generally all true, except it's just an idea and doesn't necessarily reflect anything in reality. Thus a very weak form of knowledge, depending on one's standards.
Another question is which is increasing faster, what we know or what we don't know? For everything known, an infinite number of unknowns exist. For example an astronomer discovers a new comet, and figures out its orbit, composition, color, and temperature. Great, but which objects has it bumped into in the past, has it ever been affected by Jupiter's gravity, did the Eskimos see it in ancient times, precisely how many rocks of diameter less than 10mm are on it, etc etc?
Is it wrong to be right or right to be wrong?
Is it wrong to be right or right to be wrong?
Someone once said that 50% of what we know about nutrition is wrong, we just do not know which 50%.
So, no---everything is not wrong.
Bad Wigins wrote:
Science has a bad habit of progressing by making new theories with old concepts to the bitter end, before discarding old concepts for better ones. It resists revolutionary ideas and treats them as a last resort. There is no reason for that kind of bias other than economics and training.
Do you work in science? I'm curious, not being snarky. I do and have had conversations with my peers about what I think is a misunderstanding of the general public.
First, you're talking about paradigm shifts -- moments of upheaval in a discipline that sort of turn everything on its head and change the way we train the next generation of scientists. We look back on those shifts fondly, if that word applies, because they are the moments of reckoning when we feel like we came into a new and better theory of whatever-it-is-we're-working-on.
But, what you're characterizing as bitter reluctance to accept new concepts I would call useful inertia. We have to exhaust ideas to find out if they hold up, and this is a REALLY long and meandering process. We're not so much reluctant to accept new ideas as suspicious of anything that doesn't have a TON of supporting evidence. And I think the lay-public underestimates or misunderstands what a major deal it would be to actually change the thinking in a discipline -- this is what the best scientists are always striving for, and it would be a total life/career-making breakthrough, but very few people achieve this because we set the bar for evidence extremely high.
So for instance, when 99 out of 100 scientists say they're convinced by evidence of human-caused climate change, it took DECADES of work and internal argument to get to that point. The fact that 1 out of 100 thinks they have an alternative explanation is well and good, and if they believe that they should keep working on the chance that they're right. We're just not rushing to accept or give "equal time" to every alternative interpretation, because the bar for support is extremely high and has already been cleared by the prevailing theory.
You must be new here. Never, NEVER take anything BW posts seriously. He's not a scientist or intellectual, he's a troll who thinks he's smart.
lrcosophy wrote:
What are the chances our collective knowledge is incorrect? Some advanced race or totally sentient intelligence contacts us and shows us our knowledge is still basically in the dark ages. Would you be surprised we are wrong?
By "collective" do you mean contributions made by oh, let's say, Einstein?
If they were so intelligent, wouldn't they have already contacted us? I mean, if you're comparing our knowledge to that of the dark ages.
Helpin U wrote:
You must be new here. Never, NEVER take anything BW posts seriously. He's not a scientist or intellectual, he's a troll who thinks he's smart.
Noted.
Haha, pathetic humans.... Intelligent species disregard your ego-centric views for what you really are: ANTS!
We have nothing to gain from communication with your puny planet. Your planet is merely a consolation prize for a lucky finisher of our customary inter-galactic ship race.
oke wrote:
So for instance, when 99 out of 100 scientists say they're convinced by evidence of human-caused climate change, it took DECADES of work and internal argument to get to that point. The fact that 1 out of 100 thinks they have an alternative explanation is well and good, and if they believe that they should keep working on the chance that they're right. We're just not rushing to accept or give "equal time" to every alternative interpretation, because the bar for support is extremely high and has already been cleared by the prevailing theory.
1) 99 of 100 scientists did not say that
2) there are more than 100 scientists in the world
3) not giving other theories acceptqnce or equal time makes you a bigot (provided the theories do not have any obvious failings)
The already happened
The Media told us that Hillary was ok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZGdPtkschM
Hillary, strangely alone and lacking her handlers.
Come on get real.
We dodged a bullet.
Dear Elon Musk,
Yes, we are in the Matrix and Jesus Christ (Trinity) is in charge.
I’ve seen too many things unexplained to say differet. Were these things I’ve seen weird?
Yes but they were and very accurate but not freightening. Perplexing, yes.
John 3:16
Romans 10:9