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The waters can be muddied when it comes to perception of reality. This is particularly true when it comes to reading about areas we are not experts in. Take y

by syki 5y ago

The waters can be muddied when it comes to perception of reality. This is particularly true when it comes to reading about areas we are not experts in. Take your last example that sqrt(9) = 3. If one takes a different branch of “square root” then sqrt(9) would be -3. This is assuming we are working in the field of real numbers. If we instead consider finite fields then things quickly get more interesting. Some finite fields contain square roots of 2 for instance. A person not sufficiently well versed in mathematics might not have the insight or knowledge to say, “well, when talking about sqrt as a function from the reals to the reals that symbol always refers to the nonnegative root.” It’s easy to confuse people and it’s easy to do it at scale these days. Civilization is not prepared for this era of cheap, easy disinformation at scale.

usrbinbash 5y ago
> Civilization is not prepared for this era of cheap, easy disinformation at scale. Yep, but that's the beauty of reality: It doesn't matter if we accept it or not. It doesn't matter if it's difficult or not. It doesn't matter if we are prepared to handle it. Reality remains inviolate regardless of what we think, want or like. We, as a civilization, can either accept that as a fact, and increase our chances of making it to a level of evolution and capability where maybe one day we can build Dyson Spheres and travel to other Galaxies, or we can pretend that our opinion matters alot. The universe and reality won't care.
- syki 5y ago
  Yes reality won’t care but some of the people who live with the fact that we aren’t ready to live in an era of cheap, easy disinformation do care. Saying “reality is what it is” doesn’t help.
  - usrbinbash 5y ago
    I believe it does, because "reality is what it is and doesn't care about opinions" has an interesting implication: It means, the more we rely on factual evidence and the more we act based on knowledge based on it, the better we can cope with the universe. To my perception, a central problem of civilization is how much we value opinion, and how much we base our actions on it rather than on hard fact. If humanity acknowledges that its opinions don't matter, and reality is indeed what it is, then our way forward as a species will become a lot easier.

by syki 5y ago

usrbinbash 5y ago

> Civilization is not prepared for this era of cheap, easy disinformation at scale. Yep, but that's the beauty of reality: It doesn't matter if we accept it or not. It doesn't matter if it's difficult or not. It doesn't matter if we are prepared to handle it. Reality remains inviolate regardless of what we think, want or like. We, as a civilization, can either accept that as a fact, and increase our chances of making it to a level of evolution and capability where maybe one day we can build Dyson Spheres and travel to other Galaxies, or we can pretend that our opinion matters alot. The universe and reality won't care.

syki 5y ago
Yes reality won’t care but some of the people who live with the fact that we aren’t ready to live in an era of cheap, easy disinformation do care. Saying “reality is what it is” doesn’t help.
- usrbinbash 5y ago
  I believe it does, because "reality is what it is and doesn't care about opinions" has an interesting implication: It means, the more we rely on factual evidence and the more we act based on knowledge based on it, the better we can cope with the universe. To my perception, a central problem of civilization is how much we value opinion, and how much we base our actions on it rather than on hard fact. If humanity acknowledges that its opinions don't matter, and reality is indeed what it is, then our way forward as a species will become a lot easier.