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I'm jumping off the deep end here, but it's funny that Hinduistic mysticism has come to the same conclusion (the universe iterates through cycles). It says that
by dmos62 6y ago
I'm jumping off the deep end here, but it's funny that Hinduistic mysticism has come to the same conclusion (the universe iterates through cycles). It says that we're currently in the 84th iteration (if I'm recalling correctly).
- abc_lisper 6y agoSpeculation. You could say the same thing about a point on a wheel too.
- dmos62 6y agoIt might be bad form to nitpick a nitpick, but whether a statement is a speculation depends on how much information it is based on. We don't know how they came up with the number, so we don't know if it's speculation. We can't say it's not speculation for the same reason. Now, if I were to say that this anecdotal data-point is scientifically significant, that would be speculation.
- abc_lisper 6y agoProof matters. It’s not on the reader to work it out. Everything else is an opinion or speculation
- mike741 6y agoProof doesn't really matter. Most theories you have in your life are unproven. Scientific hypotheses should be falsifiable which means unproven. There are dozens of comments in this section making unproven claims that you don't seem to have taken issue with. You just don't like this one in particular because its associated with a religion.
- abc_lisper 6y agoThey should be falsifiable and they should make predictions under various conditions and be right about them for the hypothesis to be considered a theory. Does this have them? Usually successful hypotheses have a body of work behind them, say like Newton’s principia or Darwin’s origin of species. They usually have corollaries and extensions which extol the same truth in various ways. Rest is opinion/speculation - just because it is religion I won’t give it a free pass.
- rbanffy 6y agoWith the important difference you can actually demonstrate it for the point on a wheel.
- abc_lisper 6y agoAgreed
- gnulinux 6y agoIf you make thousands of random claims, it's only natural some of them will end up being true. It doesn't mean Hinduism has any predictive power. I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm just saying we cannot determine that from this one data point.
- dmos62 6y agoI think it's best to take this stuff as stories, as in something that invites you to suspend disbelief and takes you places. There isn't a need to feel reserved about believing it, because you just explore it and then put it down. I find that mythology stimulates the naive aspect of my mind, which feels good and nourishes creativity.
- Lammy 6y agoI’ve also found it very useful to be able to explore the various mysticisms with an open mind of disbelief, because I find useful patterns that lead me to new ways of thinking about the world I do believe.
- dmos62 6y agoOne of the things I like about metaphysical myths is that when you learn about more of them you realise that you had unconsciously come to believe myths that you got from your environment when growing up. It can be a big deal to, for example, realise that you've been thinking about the universe as something that has a beginning and an end, because then you can consciously evaluate whether you want that belief. What story you tell yourself about existence is a big deal.
- rbanffy 6y agoUntil any of those can present any math we can check against observations it's off the deep end.
- vbezhenar 6y ago84 = 42 << 1. Sounds legitimate.
- crispyporkbites 6y agoEven a stopped clock is right twice a day