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Now that I think about it, even this viewpoint is invalid. Perhaps we simply have an insufficient understanding of the universe. In 5000 years, they might rid

by rhino42 15y ago

Now that I think about it, even this viewpoint is invalid. Perhaps we simply have an insufficient understanding of the universe. In 5000 years, they might ridicule the people of their past (us) for ever thinking that the end of the universe is inevitable. Just because we can't conceive a workaround yet does not mean that there isn't one. "travelling faster than 40 miles an hour is impossible" "communicate with someone on the other side of the world instantly? Impossible!" "fly to the moon?" "end death?" I'm sure that if we sat down, we could come up with thirty things that we have daily today, but were 'impossible' a hundred years ago.

Locke1689 15y ago
This isn't correct. You're falling victim to a fallacy sometimes known as privileging the hypothesis. When you look back and say, "Look at all the things people thought were impossible but are now possible!" you're ignoring all things that people thought were impossible and are still impossible. Moreover, you're looking over all the things people thought were possible but are actually impossible. The entire frame of your questions shows the fallacy because you explicitly abandon all other notions to just come up with things that were thought impossible but are now mundane. It's true that we don't know everything, but implying that because we don't know everything we know nothing is absolutely ridiculous. All current knowledge of physics points towards entropy, and moreover the second law of thermodynamics, as being one of the most important and consistent laws of physics. It's so important that one of the most well-known physicists in the world is so well-known because he created a theory of black holes that meshes with our existing theory of entropy, proving that the second law still holds. The idea that we should abandon this knowledge because, well, it's inconvenient strikes me as being disingenuous in the highest order. Anyone can say, "Well, you don't know everything, so you may be wrong." That doesn't make it an informed or useful comment.
- rhino42 15y ago
  Haha, I guess I wasn't clear enough there; my bad. In my defense, I was not saying "since we achieved all these awesome things, we'll surely eventually avoid the heat death of the universe". Instead, I was claiming that right now, we're probably still to ignorant to know that with confidence. Perhaps we will find a way to escape into a different universe. Thanks for the reminder (and good username!)
- jimrandomh 15y ago
  I can't find any examples of privileging a hypothesis in the grandparent comment. Could you clarify that?

by rhino42 15y ago

Locke1689 15y ago

This isn't correct. You're falling victim to a fallacy sometimes known as privileging the hypothesis. When you look back and say, "Look at all the things people thought were impossible but are now possible!" you're ignoring all things that people thought were impossible and are still impossible. Moreover, you're looking over all the things people thought were possible but are actually impossible. The entire frame of your questions shows the fallacy because you explicitly abandon all other notions to just come up with things that were thought impossible but are now mundane. It's true that we don't know everything, but implying that because we don't know everything we know nothing is absolutely ridiculous. All current knowledge of physics points towards entropy, and moreover the second law of thermodynamics, as being one of the most important and consistent laws of physics. It's so important that one of the most well-known physicists in the world is so well-known because he created a theory of black holes that meshes with our existing theory of entropy, proving that the second law still holds. The idea that we should abandon this knowledge because, well, it's inconvenient strikes me as being disingenuous in the highest order. Anyone can say, "Well, you don't know everything, so you may be wrong." That doesn't make it an informed or useful comment.

rhino42 15y ago
Haha, I guess I wasn't clear enough there; my bad. In my defense, I was not saying "since we achieved all these awesome things, we'll surely eventually avoid the heat death of the universe". Instead, I was claiming that right now, we're probably still to ignorant to know that with confidence. Perhaps we will find a way to escape into a different universe. Thanks for the reminder (and good username!)
jimrandomh 15y ago
I can't find any examples of privileging a hypothesis in the grandparent comment. Could you clarify that?