Epistemology
Mistakes are ubiquitous. Error is always with us. The whole purpose of creating new knowledge is to correct errors. We cannot have certainty - about anything, ever. But at the same time this does not mean that all claims to truth are on equal footing. Relativism - the idea that all claims to truth are equal (that everyone's opinion has equal value) is false. Science, mathematics, philosophy and morality uncover objective truth about reality. It's just that objective truth does not mean what most people think it means.
If something is objectively true, this does not mean it is certainly true. Pause for a moment. What does "certain" mean? If I'm "certain" - what does that mean? It just means I feel some way. I feel certain. Certainty is an emotion! It's a feeling you get (or at least a feeling some people seem to want to have). But a feeling - the feeling that you are definitely, without a doubt correct is no guarantee that you are. You should have doubts. Doubt is good. Someone without doubt is dogmatic. And dogmatism only ever leads to evil.
Do you remember the time when you were certain that through any two points a only a single line can be drawn? Perhaps you still are, depending on how much maths you remember. So try it now: draw two random points anywhere on a piece of paper and draw a straight line through those two points. Can you draw more than one line through those two points? Have you tried? Well think a bit. It's said only one line can be drawn through those two points. Indeed Euclid who first laid down our mathematical foundations of geometry provided a rock solid mathematical proof of this. And this is what you are taught in school geometry class.
So there's a proof. But are you certain of so simple a truth? Most people are certain at least for some time that only one such straight line can be drawn.
Now bend the piece of paper. Or wrap the paper around a ball. Suddenly infinitely more straight lines can be drawn. Your prior certainty is undermined by a simple change of perspective.
But maybe you have objections now. You still refuse to accept this. "That's cheating" or some such. "The line is bent". The point here is: do you doubt it? Should you doubt it? Did you misunderstand the instruction as I first posed it to "draw a straight line through those two points"? Could I have phrased it in such a way as not to be misunderstood by you?
Karl Popper once said "It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood".
So it is with all knowledge. We always have doubts. We can always misunderstand. We can never be certain.
The purpose of science is to correct our knowledge about physical reality. Here we see improvements most obviously perhaps - objective progress seems to be made all the time. New medical discoveries improve our health and lengthen our lives and cure disease previously a death sentence. Each new iPhone is better than the one which went before and each new car engine is more efficient than previous models. One great theory is overturned by another even better theory. New explanations replace old ones. The news ones are not certainly true - but just closer to the "ontological" truth than its rival(s). Karl Popper called this verisimilitude. This means "closeness to truth" - where by "truth" we mean the ontological truth. What does that mean?
Ontological truth is a description of what is really there. We do not have a method for finding a final, once and for all description of what is really there but this is a wonderful thing. It means that the quest for knowledge is infinite. We make progress: forever. We don't find a final fact about reality and just stop and say "well that's it. No more needs to be known about this. We now know everything there is to know about this." That day, happily, will never come - we can always improve things.
This means we must try to show which of our ideas are wrong and how. And so this is the best thing you can do to help progress along. You don't need to be a great philosopher, a quick thinking mathematician or a creative scientist - you just need to be a critic. Critics have a bad reputation. And they don't deserve it. There are two, equally important ways to be in the world when it comes to progress; you can be a creator and you can be a critic. We are all both of these at various times and both are absolutely essential to creating knowledge.
Creation can result in improvements - and that's great. Producing something new can be exhilarating. But that again is just a feeling. Just because you're excited about a new creation doesn't mean you've actually produced something of value. You can be wrong, remember? You might very well be right about your new creation - you'll earn fame or money or social cache - your new idea will spread: some new art more beautiful or incisive might make you rich or famous. Some new scientific theory to overturn an old theory could solve a problem previously a stumbling block to progress might improve the world. But sometimes new creations lead to dead ends. That's just part of the creative process - creating stuff that just doesn't do what you want it to: art that's just not that good - music no one will listen to, a painting everyone says is derivative. A scientific theory quickly slain by an experiment that shows it to be wrong. A computer game no one wants to play. Criticism is how we sift the good, the beautiful, the true, the useful - from the bad, the ugly, the false, the damaging.
And this is true for ideas generally and your own ideas personally. Criticise your own ideas and don't be upset when others criticise your ideas. They are not criticising you personally. You are not your ideas. You merely have ideas. You can discard ideas. And you can criticise criticisms. You can defend your ideas. That's good too. If you want to get better, as fast as possible - create, criticise and repeat. It's the way to make progress.
Mistakes are ubiquitous. Error is always with us. The whole purpose of creating new knowledge is to correct errors. We cannot have certainty - about anything, ever. But at the same time this does not mean that all claims to truth are on equal footing. Relativism - the idea that all claims to truth are equal (that everyone's opinion has equal value) is false. Science, mathematics, philosophy and morality uncover objective truth about reality. It's just that objective truth does not mean what most people think it means.
If something is objectively true, this does not mean it is certainly true. Pause for a moment. What does "certain" mean? If I'm "certain" - what does that mean? It just means I feel some way. I feel certain. Certainty is an emotion! It's a feeling you get (or at least a feeling some people seem to want to have). But a feeling - the feeling that you are definitely, without a doubt correct is no guarantee that you are. You should have doubts. Doubt is good. Someone without doubt is dogmatic. And dogmatism only ever leads to evil.
Do you remember the time when you were certain that through any two points a only a single line can be drawn? Perhaps you still are, depending on how much maths you remember. So try it now: draw two random points anywhere on a piece of paper and draw a straight line through those two points. Can you draw more than one line through those two points? Have you tried? Well think a bit. It's said only one line can be drawn through those two points. Indeed Euclid who first laid down our mathematical foundations of geometry provided a rock solid mathematical proof of this. And this is what you are taught in school geometry class.
So there's a proof. But are you certain of so simple a truth? Most people are certain at least for some time that only one such straight line can be drawn.
Now bend the piece of paper. Or wrap the paper around a ball. Suddenly infinitely more straight lines can be drawn. Your prior certainty is undermined by a simple change of perspective.
But maybe you have objections now. You still refuse to accept this. "That's cheating" or some such. "The line is bent". The point here is: do you doubt it? Should you doubt it? Did you misunderstand the instruction as I first posed it to "draw a straight line through those two points"? Could I have phrased it in such a way as not to be misunderstood by you?
Karl Popper once said "It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood".
So it is with all knowledge. We always have doubts. We can always misunderstand. We can never be certain.
The purpose of science is to correct our knowledge about physical reality. Here we see improvements most obviously perhaps - objective progress seems to be made all the time. New medical discoveries improve our health and lengthen our lives and cure disease previously a death sentence. Each new iPhone is better than the one which went before and each new car engine is more efficient than previous models. One great theory is overturned by another even better theory. New explanations replace old ones. The news ones are not certainly true - but just closer to the "ontological" truth than its rival(s). Karl Popper called this verisimilitude. This means "closeness to truth" - where by "truth" we mean the ontological truth. What does that mean?
Ontological truth is a description of what is really there. We do not have a method for finding a final, once and for all description of what is really there but this is a wonderful thing. It means that the quest for knowledge is infinite. We make progress: forever. We don't find a final fact about reality and just stop and say "well that's it. No more needs to be known about this. We now know everything there is to know about this." That day, happily, will never come - we can always improve things.
This means we must try to show which of our ideas are wrong and how. And so this is the best thing you can do to help progress along. You don't need to be a great philosopher, a quick thinking mathematician or a creative scientist - you just need to be a critic. Critics have a bad reputation. And they don't deserve it. There are two, equally important ways to be in the world when it comes to progress; you can be a creator and you can be a critic. We are all both of these at various times and both are absolutely essential to creating knowledge.
Creation can result in improvements - and that's great. Producing something new can be exhilarating. But that again is just a feeling. Just because you're excited about a new creation doesn't mean you've actually produced something of value. You can be wrong, remember? You might very well be right about your new creation - you'll earn fame or money or social cache - your new idea will spread: some new art more beautiful or incisive might make you rich or famous. Some new scientific theory to overturn an old theory could solve a problem previously a stumbling block to progress might improve the world. But sometimes new creations lead to dead ends. That's just part of the creative process - creating stuff that just doesn't do what you want it to: art that's just not that good - music no one will listen to, a painting everyone says is derivative. A scientific theory quickly slain by an experiment that shows it to be wrong. A computer game no one wants to play. Criticism is how we sift the good, the beautiful, the true, the useful - from the bad, the ugly, the false, the damaging.
And this is true for ideas generally and your own ideas personally. Criticise your own ideas and don't be upset when others criticise your ideas. They are not criticising you personally. You are not your ideas. You merely have ideas. You can discard ideas. And you can criticise criticisms. You can defend your ideas. That's good too. If you want to get better, as fast as possible - create, criticise and repeat. It's the way to make progress.
