3 ms·

My first reaction was: "all of it, if one doesn't care if the model be accurate", and then I realised that for many thousands of years the most popular models n

My first reaction was: "all of it, if one doesn't care if the model be accurate", and then I realised that for many thousands of years the most popular models not only purported to explain all of the world but even many worlds beyond it: realms of the gods, various afterlives, etc.

Koshkin 3y ago
True. There’s another aspect to this, though: for example, quantum theory lies at the foundation of everything that we can experience, so, in principle, as far as we humans are concerned, and beyond, it should, in theory, be able to explain (to “model”) as much; yet, in practice, it cannot. On a large scale, reductionism does not work, while any theory that aims to explain “everything” is necessarily reductionist in one way or another, and as such it becomes so “inaccurate” as to be useless (despite being universal and true).
- Frost1x 3y ago
  It’s actually one of the biggest lies we teach children through education. We put this little carrot of reductionist science in front of them that says we can explain reality and go from incredibly reductionist ideas to increasingly less abstraction as their ability to compute and reason with these models inconsistency with reality begins to become more obvious. Just ignore friction, pretend it’s in a vacuum, etc. They’re not bold faced lies because it’s really the best we have about consistently explaining reality but I think we should let kids understand that even the latest and greatest reduction theories of reality won’t unlock truth everywhere, just allows you to peek in at some places and perform some degree of interpretation and prediction. It’s still quite valuable but we need to stop telling everyone we have the answers because we don’t. We almost masquerade around like a religion to some degree and people use that in the same way, “well science says” or “according to this data and paper” —- well yea, maybe, but also probably not.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    What is up with people throwing out science these days? How did we go from: Our simplified model Ignored friction. to We have no idea what is real, throw away all technology and lets live in the trees.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      How many people actually do this though, as opposed to how many people's models contain other people doing this?
      - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        Was going to add some citations, but really there are too many. Just search 'anti-science' in the US. There are literally hundreds of articles, and studies slicing the data by any metric you desire. How can you have missed the US turning against science. It pre-dates Covid by a few years, and Covid just ramped it up. We are having measles outbreaks. Polio is coming back. The US is turning more towards a religious Fundamentalism, and science just doesn't fit their world view. (of course, i'm assuming you were making a comment about my internal model being that the US is turning anti-science, and based on models being imperfect, maybe i'm over-stating it.)
        mistermann 3y ago
        > Just search 'anti-science' in the US. And marvel at the pseudoscientific claims, that purely coincidentally get a free pass from science. Don't forget though: the claim is "We have no idea what is real, throw away all technology and lets live in the trees". I am anti-science, but I am not the strawman described above - I wonder how many others are like me, and I also wonder how many in the pro-science camp actually care about such details, despite how important interpersonal relations are when it comes to people's beliefs (something fairly well studied by science, ironically). > It pre-dates Covid by a few years, and Covid just ramped it up. Was it the virus itself, or might it have been the mass psychological phenomenon surrounding covid that got people all worked up? > We are having measles outbreaks. Polio is coming back. The US is turning more towards a religious Fundamentalism, and science just doesn't fit their world view. That's right! I recommend scientists take off their fundamentalist hats and put their science hats back on, lest even more misfortune befall them, and us. > (of course, i'm assuming you were making a comment about my internal model being that the US is turning anti-science, and based on models being imperfect, maybe i'm over-stating it.) "I have a bee in my bonnet" is probably a decent description of my ire lol. Joking aside though: I am literally serious about what I say, and I propose it is very far from guaranteed that I do not have a valid and causally important point.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Careful though: this too is a model. Worse: sometimes models are not just useless, but have negative utility.
tnecniv 3y ago
Actually religions, or at least the ones I know about in some detail, don’t model that much. For example, Christianity doesn’t really model the afterlife beyond being Heaven being in the presence of the Lord. I think Eastern religions are similar in that you reach enlightenment after many lifetimes and ascend to rejoin some greater plane / consciousness instead of being reborn again. Catholicism even celebrates various “mysteries,” which are things like the trinity which they do not think can be understood fully by mortals.
- gryn 3y ago
  I agree, but a vague abstract model is still a model. the model is a model for what happen while you're alive, why you are alive, and what happen after you're alive. this vagueness is a feature of surviving religions the more details you add the more your predictions become falsifiable. this leave room to theologians to speculate and when they are wrong it's not the religions that false it's the person who made that specific inference and when it's right, well it was already written. this is not an /r/atheism checkmate post just pointing out the evolutionary dynamics, since even if there was a religion that described things in great details and all of it were true the people at its inception would just violently reject it without expanding efforts to verify the claims, since they don't have the means. for example image you go thousand(s) years in the past and preach the standard model (lets ignore all the pesky details about how you'll probably die or become a slave regardless of ethnicity since you have no social backing in the era).
- Frost1x 3y ago
  >Actually religions, or at least the ones I know about in some detail, don’t model that much. For example, Christianity doesn’t really model the afterlife beyond being Heaven being in the presence of the Lord. Gates, perfection, eternal peace and happiness, etc. but the catch-all for modeling reality or beyond reality in most religions tends to be that the supreme deity fixes or resolves any inconsistency or unknown. So, the afterlife is whatever your supreme deity decides and makes it, you just don’t know about it. It’s modeled (which is partly why it’s so successful) it’s just that you may not know the details explicitly, a sort of black box model you don’t get to peek inside of.

Koshkin 3y ago

True. There’s another aspect to this, though: for example, quantum theory lies at the foundation of everything that we can experience, so, in principle, as far as we humans are concerned, and beyond, it should, in theory, be able to explain (to “model”) as much; yet, in practice, it cannot. On a large scale, reductionism does not work, while any theory that aims to explain “everything” is necessarily reductionist in one way or another, and as such it becomes so “inaccurate” as to be useless (despite being universal and true).

Frost1x 3y ago
It’s actually one of the biggest lies we teach children through education. We put this little carrot of reductionist science in front of them that says we can explain reality and go from incredibly reductionist ideas to increasingly less abstraction as their ability to compute and reason with these models inconsistency with reality begins to become more obvious. Just ignore friction, pretend it’s in a vacuum, etc. They’re not bold faced lies because it’s really the best we have about consistently explaining reality but I think we should let kids understand that even the latest and greatest reduction theories of reality won’t unlock truth everywhere, just allows you to peek in at some places and perform some degree of interpretation and prediction. It’s still quite valuable but we need to stop telling everyone we have the answers because we don’t. We almost masquerade around like a religion to some degree and people use that in the same way, “well science says” or “according to this data and paper” —- well yea, maybe, but also probably not.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  What is up with people throwing out science these days? How did we go from: Our simplified model Ignored friction. to We have no idea what is real, throw away all technology and lets live in the trees.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    How many people actually do this though, as opposed to how many people's models contain other people doing this?
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      Was going to add some citations, but really there are too many. Just search 'anti-science' in the US. There are literally hundreds of articles, and studies slicing the data by any metric you desire. How can you have missed the US turning against science. It pre-dates Covid by a few years, and Covid just ramped it up. We are having measles outbreaks. Polio is coming back. The US is turning more towards a religious Fundamentalism, and science just doesn't fit their world view. (of course, i'm assuming you were making a comment about my internal model being that the US is turning anti-science, and based on models being imperfect, maybe i'm over-stating it.)
      - mistermann 3y ago
        > Just search 'anti-science' in the US. And marvel at the pseudoscientific claims, that purely coincidentally get a free pass from science. Don't forget though: the claim is "We have no idea what is real, throw away all technology and lets live in the trees". I am anti-science, but I am not the strawman described above - I wonder how many others are like me, and I also wonder how many in the pro-science camp actually care about such details, despite how important interpersonal relations are when it comes to people's beliefs (something fairly well studied by science, ironically). > It pre-dates Covid by a few years, and Covid just ramped it up. Was it the virus itself, or might it have been the mass psychological phenomenon surrounding covid that got people all worked up? > We are having measles outbreaks. Polio is coming back. The US is turning more towards a religious Fundamentalism, and science just doesn't fit their world view. That's right! I recommend scientists take off their fundamentalist hats and put their science hats back on, lest even more misfortune befall them, and us. > (of course, i'm assuming you were making a comment about my internal model being that the US is turning anti-science, and based on models being imperfect, maybe i'm over-stating it.) "I have a bee in my bonnet" is probably a decent description of my ire lol. Joking aside though: I am literally serious about what I say, and I propose it is very far from guaranteed that I do not have a valid and causally important point.
mistermann 3y ago
Careful though: this too is a model. Worse: sometimes models are not just useless, but have negative utility.

tnecniv 3y ago

Actually religions, or at least the ones I know about in some detail, don’t model that much. For example, Christianity doesn’t really model the afterlife beyond being Heaven being in the presence of the Lord. I think Eastern religions are similar in that you reach enlightenment after many lifetimes and ascend to rejoin some greater plane / consciousness instead of being reborn again. Catholicism even celebrates various “mysteries,” which are things like the trinity which they do not think can be understood fully by mortals.

gryn 3y ago
I agree, but a vague abstract model is still a model. the model is a model for what happen while you're alive, why you are alive, and what happen after you're alive. this vagueness is a feature of surviving religions the more details you add the more your predictions become falsifiable. this leave room to theologians to speculate and when they are wrong it's not the religions that false it's the person who made that specific inference and when it's right, well it was already written. this is not an /r/atheism checkmate post just pointing out the evolutionary dynamics, since even if there was a religion that described things in great details and all of it were true the people at its inception would just violently reject it without expanding efforts to verify the claims, since they don't have the means. for example image you go thousand(s) years in the past and preach the standard model (lets ignore all the pesky details about how you'll probably die or become a slave regardless of ethnicity since you have no social backing in the era).
Frost1x 3y ago
>Actually religions, or at least the ones I know about in some detail, don’t model that much. For example, Christianity doesn’t really model the afterlife beyond being Heaven being in the presence of the Lord. Gates, perfection, eternal peace and happiness, etc. but the catch-all for modeling reality or beyond reality in most religions tends to be that the supreme deity fixes or resolves any inconsistency or unknown. So, the afterlife is whatever your supreme deity decides and makes it, you just don’t know about it. It’s modeled (which is partly why it’s so successful) it’s just that you may not know the details explicitly, a sort of black box model you don’t get to peek inside of.