5 ms·

Go on, then, I'll bite - how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical spac

by scubbo 2y ago

Go on, then, I'll bite - how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe? > religion is technically also "obviously" true, though what is "true" is a function of one's frame of reference. I'm not even gonna touch that one :P

mistermann 2y ago
>>> I like this visualization, but it got me thinking about how we often portray the universe in media. It seems like we always end up with the same message: 'Look how small and insignificant we are.' It's like we're drawn to the idea that our existence is just a tiny blip on the universe's radar.I think this perspective is a bit one-dimensional. It seems almost nihilistic. >> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. Except it has the benefit of being obviously true. vs >> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe For starters, look at the various differences in how you're reframed the question, which gives some additional insight into the nature of the problem. But getting back to the original comment, we have two claims: > It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. The "a" saves the day here (yielding my "Technically true" comment), but this implies that the speaker happens to have some objective insight into the need for people to be "comforted" by simplified stories (surely true in some way, and to some degree), but as I said, it is non-comprehensive / reductionist, and arguably misinformative - this style of thinking can easily cause someone to believe that they understand what is going on, when they actually don't - what is actually going on is much more complicated than the enjoyable memes we share with each other on the internet. The second one (to which your normative (self-perpetuating) reaction is "I'm not even gonna touch that one"): > Except it has the benefit of being obviously true. Where do you even start with this? What claim is even being made? "Religion" "is not true"? And that this visualization "is true"? For each claim, what are the particulars? If you were asked to implement these functions, what would you have in your implementation? And: would it be an accurate representation of the reality it implies it is evaluating correctly (in a non-misinformative, non-reductive way)? And then there's the "obviously" true. Heuristics is what both religious and non-religious people lean on constantly to implement "is true". When someone says "science is true/false" or "religion is true/false", do you think they're running a comprehensive, fine-grained, bug-free analysis of all the attributes and characteristics of each, in subseconds? Or, might it perhaps be something more like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology... "In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased." I'd maybe also link an article on epistemology, but I'm like....whats the point? (In turn, demonstrating the pervasiveness of my point? lol) PS: > though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been Hubris like this is like syrup on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae. There are few things I enjoy more than watching humans making errors, and then watching them patting themselves on the back for it. No wonder you people can't even consider thinking of trying to get yourselves out of the mess you've gotten yourselves into, so thick is the delusion and how high the self-regard.
sans_souse 2y ago
I think a simple touché would've been enough, you both made valid points.
- mistermann 2y ago
  What if your guess is wrong though? What if running a planet where even the smart people are this bad at thinking is actually a gigantic risk? Take climate change for example: have you seen any signs in these forum discussions of anyone with any novel thinking or even curiosity substantially beyond some variation of "trust the science/experts + democracy" on the matter? What if simplistic, faith based thinking like that is 50% underpowered, or even more? And climate change is just one problem.
- scubbo 2y ago
  > you both made valid points I'm not one of the two people who had previously made points (though HN's interface does not make it easy to notice that). Regardless - prompting someone to support or extrapolate on an otherwise-unsubstantiated claim is perfectly reasonable (though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been).
roenxi 2y ago
Because statements about how things are always boil back to a faith-based statement at some point. Eg, all the evidence we see is completely consistent with an infinitely creative human-shaped god sitting in a 2m-by-2m universe who has turned themselves into a brain-in-a-jar and purposefully limited their consciousness to entertain themselves. With that interpretation "we" are not only the most important thing in the universe but also could reasonably argue that in reality we occupy a significant fraction of it. Now I personally agree with the Occam's razor view that what we see is what we get, but every interpretation has to admit there are gaping holes at the foundation of any belief where the answer is "we don't know, we're just making assumptions that seem obviously true". Just because something is held to be most consistent with the currently available evidence isn't really enough to claim it is true, because it isn't obviously true to me that our evidence-gathering is uncovering important aspects about the nature of the universe. We're just doing our best - that might not be good enough. Evolution certainly isn't optimised to work out the truth, otherwise intelligence would be more usual instead of crab-shaped things.
- TimTheTinker 2y ago
  Right, any system of belief (yours included) boils down to axioms that have to be either accepted or rejected without evidence. I've thought many times in the past that we'd all do best if we could choose our system of belief based on how well seeing "through" it makes sense of things. But too often that sense of "how well" is subjective and so prone to being misguided based on things as small as what we had for breakfast. And it's exceedingly hard to see through the eyes of a true believer in another "faith" in the first place. Even so, a deep-seated personal commitment to discover and submit oneself to truth in good faith, no matter where honest inquiry leads, can go a very long way.
- haskman 2y ago
  What's true is determined by the scientific method. You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions, and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out, all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target. Yes, but that information is nearly useless, and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
jstanley 2y ago
> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe? Physical space is only one way to measure things. Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.
- SiempreViernes 2y ago
  As anyone who has had to fly economy knows, physical space is very important to our lived experience. Besides, "other things are also important" is not an argument for why "universe much bigger than you" is misinformation.
- scubbo 2y ago
  > Physical space is only one way to measure things. > Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known. These are both true statements, that do not answer my question. For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. You might claim that it's misleading to _focus on_ "proportion of physical space" instead of "proportion of conscious experience" - but it's not _misinformative_ to accurately describe the proportion of physical space we occupy.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. Can you prove this to be true? If you cannot, then how do you know it is? If you cannot prove this to be true, does it mean that it is necessarily false? Are all true statements non-misinformative?

by scubbo 2y ago

mistermann 2y ago

>>> I like this visualization, but it got me thinking about how we often portray the universe in media. It seems like we always end up with the same message: 'Look how small and insignificant we are.' It's like we're drawn to the idea that our existence is just a tiny blip on the universe's radar.I think this perspective is a bit one-dimensional. It seems almost nihilistic. >> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. Except it has the benefit of being obviously true. vs >> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe For starters, look at the various differences in how you're reframed the question, which gives some additional insight into the nature of the problem. But getting back to the original comment, we have two claims: > It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. The "a" saves the day here (yielding my "Technically true" comment), but this implies that the speaker happens to have some objective insight into the need for people to be "comforted" by simplified stories (surely true in some way, and to some degree), but as I said, it is non-comprehensive / reductionist, and arguably misinformative - this style of thinking can easily cause someone to believe that they understand what is going on, when they actually don't - what is actually going on is much more complicated than the enjoyable memes we share with each other on the internet. The second one (to which your normative (self-perpetuating) reaction is "I'm not even gonna touch that one"): > Except it has the benefit of being obviously true. Where do you even start with this? What claim is even being made? "Religion" "is not true"? And that this visualization "is true"? For each claim, what are the particulars? If you were asked to implement these functions, what would you have in your implementation? And: would it be an accurate representation of the reality it implies it is evaluating correctly (in a non-misinformative, non-reductive way)? And then there's the "obviously" true. Heuristics is what both religious and non-religious people lean on constantly to implement "is true". When someone says "science is true/false" or "religion is true/false", do you think they're running a comprehensive, fine-grained, bug-free analysis of all the attributes and characteristics of each, in subseconds? Or, might it perhaps be something more like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology... "In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased." I'd maybe also link an article on epistemology, but I'm like....whats the point? (In turn, demonstrating the pervasiveness of my point? lol) PS: > though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been Hubris like this is like syrup on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae. There are few things I enjoy more than watching humans making errors, and then watching them patting themselves on the back for it. No wonder you people can't even consider thinking of trying to get yourselves out of the mess you've gotten yourselves into, so thick is the delusion and how high the self-regard.

sans_souse 2y ago

I think a simple touché would've been enough, you both made valid points.

mistermann 2y ago
What if your guess is wrong though? What if running a planet where even the smart people are this bad at thinking is actually a gigantic risk? Take climate change for example: have you seen any signs in these forum discussions of anyone with any novel thinking or even curiosity substantially beyond some variation of "trust the science/experts + democracy" on the matter? What if simplistic, faith based thinking like that is 50% underpowered, or even more? And climate change is just one problem.
scubbo 2y ago
> you both made valid points I'm not one of the two people who had previously made points (though HN's interface does not make it easy to notice that). Regardless - prompting someone to support or extrapolate on an otherwise-unsubstantiated claim is perfectly reasonable (though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been).

roenxi 2y ago

Because statements about how things are always boil back to a faith-based statement at some point. Eg, all the evidence we see is completely consistent with an infinitely creative human-shaped god sitting in a 2m-by-2m universe who has turned themselves into a brain-in-a-jar and purposefully limited their consciousness to entertain themselves. With that interpretation "we" are not only the most important thing in the universe but also could reasonably argue that in reality we occupy a significant fraction of it. Now I personally agree with the Occam's razor view that what we see is what we get, but every interpretation has to admit there are gaping holes at the foundation of any belief where the answer is "we don't know, we're just making assumptions that seem obviously true". Just because something is held to be most consistent with the currently available evidence isn't really enough to claim it is true, because it isn't obviously true to me that our evidence-gathering is uncovering important aspects about the nature of the universe. We're just doing our best - that might not be good enough. Evolution certainly isn't optimised to work out the truth, otherwise intelligence would be more usual instead of crab-shaped things.

TimTheTinker 2y ago
Right, any system of belief (yours included) boils down to axioms that have to be either accepted or rejected without evidence. I've thought many times in the past that we'd all do best if we could choose our system of belief based on how well seeing "through" it makes sense of things. But too often that sense of "how well" is subjective and so prone to being misguided based on things as small as what we had for breakfast. And it's exceedingly hard to see through the eyes of a true believer in another "faith" in the first place. Even so, a deep-seated personal commitment to discover and submit oneself to truth in good faith, no matter where honest inquiry leads, can go a very long way.
haskman 2y ago
What's true is determined by the scientific method. You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions, and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out, all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target. Yes, but that information is nearly useless, and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.

jstanley 2y ago

> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe? Physical space is only one way to measure things. Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.

SiempreViernes 2y ago
As anyone who has had to fly economy knows, physical space is very important to our lived experience. Besides, "other things are also important" is not an argument for why "universe much bigger than you" is misinformation.
scubbo 2y ago
> Physical space is only one way to measure things. > Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known. These are both true statements, that do not answer my question. For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. You might claim that it's misleading to _focus on_ "proportion of physical space" instead of "proportion of conscious experience" - but it's not _misinformative_ to accurately describe the proportion of physical space we occupy.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. Can you prove this to be true? If you cannot, then how do you know it is? If you cannot prove this to be true, does it mean that it is necessarily false? Are all true statements non-misinformative?