Thank you. I always get heavily downvoted as I don't think others are as open minded to hearing a different viewpoint as you.
I agree too. But, I see science as an individual's pursuit. I really mean it when I say that science is something one should verify personally. Whenever you don't do that, you are accepting a story - without testing you cannot know anything, it is all in the realm of belief.
And you are right that most belief whether it is science/magic/religion its all the same thing. They want to naively trust and have faith. It would be endearing if it wasn't also susceptible to meaning that they can be lead as a herd. As an individual, it is very hard to stand against the herd. Whether that is avoiding being drowned as a witch, or being forced to vaccinate oneself for the good of the herd.
Be careful in bringing up "open mindedness". If the most compelling thing you can say about your position is that "it is so weird and obtuse that only true open minds will not reject it", I'm not sure you're making a point here...
> But, I see science as an individual's pursuit. I really mean it when I say that science is something one should verify personally.
Sure. But you can't. You literally can't. And since you can't, it means, given this sentence, that you consider all science to be in the realm of belief. This is really sad.
> Whenever you don't do that, you are accepting a story - without testing you cannot know anything, it is all in the realm of belief.
Surely it is possible, and costs nothing, to listen to another point of view. Surely testing what you know against a contrary opinion can only be a positive experience.
> > But, I see science as an individual's pursuit. I really mean it when I say that science is something one should verify personally.
> Sure. But you can't. You literally can't. And since you can't, it means, given this sentence, that you consider all science to be in the realm of belief. This is really sad.
Yes, but when you haven't verified, you can't say you know. You literally can't. You believe.
> Surely testing what you know against a contrary opinion can only be a positive experience.
Trivial counterexample: if I repeat "you are an [insert your favorite insult here], what you say is false" again and again, which can be considered a "contrary opinion", you will not have a positive experience.
> Yes, but when you haven't verified, you can't say you know. You literally can't. You believe.
How are you sure that your senses provide you with an accurate representation of the world? You can't. So you believe they do. And you thus know nothing at all. See how easy it is to come up with these broad judgments which, while interesting from a philosophical point of view, are totally useless in practice?
That's my point: I have no issue discussing cartesian doubt, for example. But this does not imply at all the science to be invalid, wrong, or the same as a religion: that's the pitfall you're in.
> How are you sure that your senses provide you with an accurate representation of the world?
I agree - you don't even know that your senses are providing you with an accurate representation of the world. But, if I say 'this is a table' you can come and check the truth of it. In the objective world, I can confirm a thing and say 'I know'. I can tell you how I found out, and you can check the veracity of my statement.
If, say, I have a box, and I say 'inside the box is a potato', in the context of what we are talking about you have a couple of options. You can check (verify) whether that's true. Or you can accept it as true without checking.
I'm saying, everyone - EVERYONE - is accepting claims all day long, without any proof. No one is checking.
And this has become the basis of people's reality. A consensus group think determined by what is presented on a screen.
> I'm saying, everyone - EVERYONE - is accepting claims all day long, without any proof.
You included. But saying "no one is checking" is false. For every claim, there are people who do, actually, check. But you ask for _everyone_ to check _every claim_, which, I repeat myself, is, plainly put, impossible. So either you still do not accept that this is impossible, and going further in the discussion without this axiom is just useless, or you accept that this is impossible yet you still hypocritically ask for it. In either case, I do not have much to add.
I'm saying people are relaying information as if it was true and that they had verified it, when they haven't. Its hearsay, gossip. Or even, lying.
I don't say check every case. That's impossible.
I'm saying be a bit clearer about what you know and what you believe. Don't say 'I know' when you haven't verified whatever it is. To say you do, is in fact, a type of lie. You are simply re-stating what you have been told was true. The effect is that you may deceive others. Why should they be deceived because your threshold is to trust whatever is being presented to you as true? You don't know, but you say you do.
If you like, I can deconstruct this a little more. It hinges on the verb 'to be', 'is'.
Contrast these statements:
"The earth is a sphere".
"The evidence that I have seen indicates that the earth is a sphere".
The first statement is not verifiable personally. It is parroting a line, and is a very common linguistic shortcut. The effect is a form of lie, where you are overstating the case of what you know.
The second statement far more accurately reflects what I at least know.
Sure, prepend all your sentences by "The evidence that I have seen indicates" if it makes you happy. It changes nothing about the fact that knowledge exists even if you can personally experience it using solely your senses. I know that we've been to the Moon (do you?) although I wasn't even born when this happened.
Knowledge is certain. If there is a possibility that some claim could be wrong, it is only a hypothesis. And that's perfectly fine. Call that knowledge if you like, but you are over-stating your case. Lying in fact.
The reality is that we have far less knowledge than we think. We may be aware of lots of hypotheses, we can have knowledge of hypotheses. But this is not knowledge of the thing being hypothesised about.
You think you have knowledge when you don't. And I say, if you are unaware of your ignorance, and in fact erroneously believe yourself to be knowledgeable, you are in a state worse than ignorance. You only have beliefs, but you think they are knowledge. This is to say, you are guilty of magical thinking. And that is the essence of religion.
Hence why I say, religion and science are the same thing at core - its all belief. Adherents to each believe they have knowledge, but this belief is without proof. In a way scientists are worse as they are convinced they do have the truth, and are determined to righteously inflict their truths on everyone else! They are far from humble. Its pretty irritating!
I agree too. But, I see science as an individual's pursuit. I really mean it when I say that science is something one should verify personally. Whenever you don't do that, you are accepting a story - without testing you cannot know anything, it is all in the realm of belief.
And you are right that most belief whether it is science/magic/religion its all the same thing. They want to naively trust and have faith. It would be endearing if it wasn't also susceptible to meaning that they can be lead as a herd. As an individual, it is very hard to stand against the herd. Whether that is avoiding being drowned as a witch, or being forced to vaccinate oneself for the good of the herd.