4 ms·

You're right that what I'm saying about our level of expertise says nothing about the validity of Mayer's assertion, but what you can't seem to grasp is that ev

You're right that what I'm saying about our level of expertise says nothing about the validity of Mayer's assertion, but what you can't seem to grasp is that even if I did watch the video, and even if I did understand everything it was saying and that made total sense to me, that doesn't mean that his assertion is valid because I'm not qualified in the appropriate domain. When you're not actually well versed in a domain, all sorts of completely simple, elegant, compelling, and utterly wrong ideas make sense. I couldn't find any fault with The Many Directions of Time, but that doesn't mean it is a good model of cosmology[0], it's just the result of me not really understanding the domain sufficiently. It is completely rational to doubt my judgement under these circumstances. Therefore, knowing that I lack the ability to judge the work's validity, I employ a heuristic: do people who are qualified to judge it say it is valid? And the answer appears to be "they don't even consider it worth their time to look at", which I find to be particularly strong evidence that I shouldn't take it seriously either. The alternative is employing my own flawed understanding to judge validity, which is of course going to produce garbage results. As a proponent of this idea, you have asserted that you think it is valid, and despite not disagreeing with the assertion that you yourself are not a domain expert, continue to assert that because you understand it, it is valid. You are free to believe that all you wish, of course, but it isn't going to sway any of us. Especially when, heuristically, the things you're saying are a close match the language employed by conspiracy theorists, flat earthers, and the like. If your goal is not to convince us... then what is the point of this discussion? If your goal is to convince us, I'm telling you that you're doing a particularly unimpressive job of making your case by refusing to engage with the heuristic reasoning in any way, or even offering an alternative other than "watch the video and it will convince you". I will note that watching a video of a conman or magician can be pretty convincing too, so that's not exactly good evidence either. If what you're trying to say is to trust in scientific method, then we still can't trust our own reasoning with the argument and need to rely on the objective analysis of others including testing of hypothesis... none of which has happened. If it had, I'm sure you'd have brought it up by now. So, again, this all heuristically looks like bullshit. We have a supposed "one neat trick solves one of the most mysterious things in modern physics" that, unsurprisingly, "physicists don't want you to know about" or whatever, and the resident proponent of the concept refuses to do anything but point people at the source video they aren't qualified to objectively analyze, and said proponent refuses to explain why it all looks like bullshit even if it supposedly isn't. Since we seem to be miscommunication to a significant degree, I will try and summarize this: -Mayer has an idea that looks compelling to laymen -The experts in cosmology have apparently not even bothered to engage with it -While this does not mean Mayer is wrong, for those of us who are not experts in cosmology it certainly looks like we shouldn't take it seriously -You're asking us to ignore that and pretend that our layperson judgement is somehow good enough [0] It might be, but again the heuristics are against it for the same reasons.

Maursault 3y ago
> that doesn't mean that his assertion is valid because I'm not qualified in the appropriate domain. You are very eloquently and thoroughly attempting to justify your ad hominem argument, and to be more specific, you are presenting a credentials fallacy. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am an expert, and more so, that I am more qualified to evaluate the lecture than any scientist that ever lived or ever will live, and I tell you, it is correct, and I know, because I'm an expert, then regardless whether I or the presentation is correct or not, I'd be committing an appeal to authority and a fallacious argument. Regardless of whether you are an expert in physics or not has no bearing on the validity of the theory, nor whether you are capable of deciding whether the theory is valid or not. You've speculated whether I was arguing in good faith, and now I must do the same. You're obviously intelligent and capable of deep consideration. Either you watch the video and draw your own conclusions, or you can not speak to it. It is that simple. Do or do not, those are your only choices. There is no valid argument that you can make to weasel out of them.

Maursault 3y ago

> that doesn't mean that his assertion is valid because I'm not qualified in the appropriate domain. You are very eloquently and thoroughly attempting to justify your ad hominem argument, and to be more specific, you are presenting a credentials fallacy. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am an expert, and more so, that I am more qualified to evaluate the lecture than any scientist that ever lived or ever will live, and I tell you, it is correct, and I know, because I'm an expert, then regardless whether I or the presentation is correct or not, I'd be committing an appeal to authority and a fallacious argument. Regardless of whether you are an expert in physics or not has no bearing on the validity of the theory, nor whether you are capable of deciding whether the theory is valid or not. You've speculated whether I was arguing in good faith, and now I must do the same. You're obviously intelligent and capable of deep consideration. Either you watch the video and draw your own conclusions, or you can not speak to it. It is that simple. Do or do not, those are your only choices. There is no valid argument that you can make to weasel out of them.