People want to believe in something, even if it is false. No one knows enough to be completely right (or wrong) about anything. But, how do we judge? If we think of truth as a continuum, where answers are more right and less right, or more wrong or less wrong, compared to other answers. Then, … Continue reading One Question, Forty Answers
Tag: knowledge
Mary’s Room
"The questions raised by ‘Mary’s Room’ – including whether anything about experience transcends physical facts – remain some of the most perennial and unsettled in philosophy, even if Jackson himself actually reversed his position, concluding that the experience of colour vision does indeed correspond to a brain state, albeit one we don’t yet fully understand."—TED-Ed, … Continue reading Mary’s Room
…In Witness of the Dawn
Abdiel’s Party
"In my case, I found that my interest was most vividly caught by the meaning of the temptation-and-fall theme. Suppose that the prohibition on the knowledge of good and evil were an expression of jealous cruelty, and the gaining of such knowledge an act of virtue? Suppose the Fall should be celebrated and not deplored? … Continue reading Abdiel’s Party
Open Questions – Gwern.net
"Why do humans, pets, and even lab animals of many species kept in controlled lab conditions on standardized diets appear to be increasingly obese over the 20th century? What could possibly explain all of them simultaneously becoming obese?" "Why does writing in the morning (anecdotally so far) seem to be so effective for writers, even … Continue reading Open Questions – Gwern.net
Echo Chamber Test
"[D]oes a community’s belief system actively undermine the trustworthiness of any outsiders who don’t subscribe to its central dogmas? Then it’s probably an echo chamber... ...An echo chamber doesn’t destroy their members’ interest in the truth; it merely manipulates whom they trust and changes whom they accept as trustworthy sources and institutions. And, in many … Continue reading Echo Chamber Test
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