Lawrence Krauss makes an interesting point during this video about how we construct the reality around us. Consider the epistemological advantages of finding ideas and theories that fit the reality of the situation, as opposed to trying to shoehorn reality into our limited perception. Having all the answers is a dangerous condition because your actions, most likely, are not based on the truth but rather dogmatic belief. Religion makes life a little to easy, a little too cut and dried and honestly, a little too intellectually stultifying for my tastes.
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2 comments
January 30, 2013 at 6:14 am
writerdood
“We “have to” force our idea to conform to the evidence of reality, not the other way around.”
I disagree. We don’t “have to” do anything, and we can ignore reality any time we want to. Plenty of humans ignore reality on a daily basis. Reality can really suck, and illusions are better or we wouldn’t have them. And we all have them. What’s far more interesting to me is that even if we choose to ignore reality, it doesn’t ignore us, and we still end up sharing it with everyone else. I observe this on a daily basis, working with people who believe vastly different things – their own superiority for example, or their religion, or their concepts of organization, or their approach to communication. Yet, despite these differences, we’re all still standing on the ground. Gravity doesn’t ignore us. The sun still shines on each of us. That’s shared reality. Our illusions can’t crack it.
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January 31, 2013 at 12:41 am
Mystro
@writerdood
I don’t think it was a ‘we have no choice but to’ kind of ‘have to’. If it was, there would be no point in mentioning it, just like we don’t have to tell people to succumb to gravity.
Rather, ignoring reality will, at best, blind us to magnificent truths, at worst, bring harm to ourselves and others. Thus, it was more of a ‘we really REALLY ought to’ kind of ‘have to’.
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