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What if I’m wrong? (2023)

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Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#151

Post by selecsosi »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #92

So, everyone in the world knows what a circle is, or has a basic idea of a circle: you won't find a person who doesn't recognize one, right? But, there are no circles in the world, empirically--every circle you've ever thought you've seen is actually an ellipse, even the earth itself is oblong, just like all the stars and planetary bodies. Well, would we call it a mistake if someone described what, empirically, was a…

I would argue we utilize symmetry of rotation and balance along with holding a blade at a fixed point (laythe) or rolling hot metal between two bodies (ball bearings), the avantage / creation of that was one of the crucial advances of humanity (being able to make actual circles / cylinders / spheres, since most objects you mentioned are also 3d)

What makes the circle unique (or a copy / scaling of the unit circle) is that it exists defined by a relationship that is true on the euclidean plane, something itself which is ideal, and only exists in our imaginations.

With mater being quantized at some level, we are always approximating, and for my car's sake, things rolling at several thousand rpms, we have some pretty circular things.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#152

Post by calf »

a_square_peg wrote: post #86

I never got to ask this as an interview question, but I always thought it would be interesting to ask - 'if you were wrong, would you want to know?' Not on any particular topic but in general. When I asked this in casual settings, I thought it was illuminating that no one gave a simple 'yes' as an answer.

That's so alien to me, because my answer to your question is an enthusiastic "Yes!!".

On further thought, I think the only humane objection is whether truth can ever really be separated from judgment. People don't like being judged and especially not judged unfairly, and true propositions can nevertheless connote judgment by contextual salience of the particular thing we tell someone that they're wrong about and why they're wrong, etc.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#153

Post by Capricorn2481 »

Jensson wrote: post #132
wayeq wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you sure that's us? :)

Yes, you have a combination of people who learn and people who know here. That is what he described, and environment where you are allowed to be wrong and where people will correct you when you are. You don't get banned from HN for being wrong, so you are allowed to be wrong here, unlike many other forums like most of reddit.

What is being described is that people will know what they're talking about, which is debatable. You might be corrected on here, but I've seen more cases of people being loudly wrong but having enough general knowledge on a subject that they sound correct, and lucky enough that no one with specific knowledge stumbled on their posts to correct them.

Frankly, I don't think hackernews is all that different in terms of community from Reddit. People are just better at hiding it. Many are regurgitating rhetoric they've heard in other posts without having experience with a subject. Even in the realms of programming, it's not hard to see how little experience people have with the things they demonize or evangelize.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#154

Post by Capricorn2481 »

knightoffaith wrote: post #145
Ensorceled wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I…

>This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? I don't think this is really the right way to think about Christianity for many believers. C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." It's not so much that Christianity is just another fact lying out there that…

I don't have evidence someone is a psychic, but I have common sense that if they're predictions could apply to anyone, they are probably scamming me.

Just like if someone chalks up inconsistencies in the Bible to "God testing us" or the fact that the Bible has been edited repeatedly, picking whatever parts supported their authority at the time, that I'm probably being scammed.

Now Christianity is so fragmented and personal in it's belief system that to say "what evidence do you have that it's not real" does feel backwards. I have equal evidence in any religion as I do in Christianity.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#155

Post by helloplanets »

paganel wrote: post #37
delichon wrote: post #2

Ptolemy was wrong. But he was wrong with a large pile of actual measurements of celestial bodies, and a falsifiable theory. That made him wrong in the positive sense of wrong in the phrase "not even wrong", where wrong is just the first step of the ladder. I wish I could say the same about Freud, but that ladder is distressingly horizontal.

Trying to apply falsifiable theory to Freud (or to psychoanalysis) is wrong in itself, as a matter of fact thinking about Freud and psychoanalysis in the realm of scientifically right or wrong is, well, scientifically wrong.

In that case, how should we think about it? Genuinely curious.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#156

Post by tsunamifury »

randomdata wrote: post #137
tsunamifury wrote: post #49

I applaud the author and thinker for taking on this timely and hard topic. I struggle with this question in the same way I think as the author, but in technology we are afforded less time to ponder if we are wrong and more time to test if we are wrong. However the author points out, even in testing as he does with his students, we can be wrong in a fundamental way that all the branches of my iterations stem from the…

> I wish more people would help me be “constructively wrong” What's the value proposition? As you noted, not even your own wife will help you until she sees some kind of return for herself (abating her tiredness). Online actors pointing out irrelevant wrongness get to laugh at the meltdown of the maladjusted "intellectual" that usually follows. This is what consultancy is for. You pay someone to look at what you are…

I get your point, but to be genuine with you I have paid.

Very very few people you are paying with genuinely critique or disagree with you for very obvious reasons.

However I can’t help but point out that you’re being exactly as I’ve described redditors…argue an adjacent point to just say the original point is ‘stupid’. It’s a waste of good brain cells.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#158

Post by a_wild_dandan »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #120
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mathematical proofs need no physical evidence. They're saying something similar is accepted by some Christians. That's an internally consistent viewpoint. Us skeptics simply misunderstand their irrefutable logical proof.

Math is a tool used to describe the universe, not the universe itself. The map is not the territory.

You appear to be shadowboxing an argument where no arguments were made. If anything in my observational comment strikes you as remotely controversial or contradictory to yours, something has gone awry.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#159

Post by jibalt »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #20

> if this novelty is worth understanding, somebody I trust will soon explain it to me in terms I can readily digest That's unsound. It prevents learning anything which is not widely known and simply explained. I don't know the author. All the context I have is the article up to that point where I lost interest. However yes, if all you try to learn are the trivial things everyone agrees on, for some circular definitio…

Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong? Dan Dennett is one of the world's most renowned thinkers, and you would do well to take the broader lesson of his article to heart. Also look into Dunning and Kruger.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#160

Post by jibalt »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #14

I actually got a little suckered in, and thought this might be Dennett opening up to being wrong and giving some new account of what he might now think is correct. Especially after all the debates on free will with Sapolsky. Instead it ended up being backhanded self complement, more like, "a lot of other great people agree with me, so maybe I'm wrong, but probably not". "Descartes’s theory of everything is, even in h…

Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong? Because I for one think you're seriously misreading and mischaracterizing his piece, and failing to extract from it some valuable advice.
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