That which is wrong has to be proven wrong in but a single way

And that which is right — has to NOT be proven wrong…. and hopefully after being subjected to a lot of testing

So is there more WRONGS or RIGHTS, in this world?

Ultimately, there’s just extremely lot of very improbable, and a little of extremely highly probable. And then a lot of probable

 

Now,

even taking a bunch of extremely highly probable and stitching it together logically,

e.g. if A than B. if B than C. A, therefore C

even that eventually leads to massive uncertainty, as that unlikely wrong adds up

Our best hope is to take a relatively small number of highly probable — just to figure out WHAT TO LOOK AT next,

and THEN actually get evidence, which increases our confidence in that being right

Hopefully making it “extremely highly probable”

 

THIS is how knowledge is produced,

And the devil’s in the details

Common sense is made of the “very highly probable”, but unlike science, rarely “extremely highly probable”,

So common sense is decent for the common challenges of life — but pretty unavailing if we hope to push the envelope,

 

Serious man are interested in those very highly probable truths, as well as (only) highly probable

They are less interested in the improbable… unless it could deliver them, every now and then, discovery of the extremely highly probable

 

And what do stupid man do?

They are interested in whatever-probable,

They like the improbable too,

They can’t tell apart the extremely highly probable from improbable, actually

They are half-decent in highly-probable realm of the common sense, in their own lives and there where they have skin in the game,

buy a car, do the laundry, order mcdonalds

But they rarely deal with advanced tech, science, complex business decisions, deep philosophical and spiritual questions,

There where profound INSIGHT matters,

AS WELL as where DELUSION is utterly poisonous,

And they can’t tell apart mad delusion from mad insight

 

When dealing with deep, complex, profound — the edifice becomes tall,

The merely probable won’t do for the foundation — the foundation must be made of the extremely highly probable

 

That alone requires rigour that’s almost by definition NOT common… since it’s quite NOT so useful, in the common life,

So the fool loses already at the start,

For his political or philosophical or whatever investigations — he’ll start from some plausible platitude,

Sometimes he’ll get it right,

Sometimes he’ll get it wrong, and the entire thing collapses

…worse still, he may not even notice,

He’ll start pretending that it’s some kind of breakthrough, a deep, highly unlikely idea that has “proven” itself,

He starts laying more bricks on top of that fucking rubble, with no regard for the foundations being ruined, no regard for any logical consistency, any logic

Bullshit is profoundly seductive,

Only few of us are born bullshitters — and then become one without even noticing

No one wants to be a bullshitter and yet bullshitters exist

 

But of course the confusion of those hard-earned truths with improbable fantasies is even worse

A few of us are obsessed with how things really work — hence they do all the hard work of discovering those very high probability ideas, by looking outside the merely probable,

And then, having understood those ideas — they build another ideas,

Most of us however just want the reward of feeling they know the truth

They’ll just parrot what someone else has said

Pseudoscientist will parrot what a scientist would have said

Populist will parrot the voice of the masses

Armchair philosopher will parrot some aphorism

Which doesn’t mean it’s wrong

It’s only the process which is wrong — if they can’t even state the reason why they’ll parroting this statement that they’ve heard,

If they don’t know anything about the process by which that truth, that extremely high probability theory has been created

And then of course once they start adding their OWN little ideas on top, their own cute little “truths”,

but with none of the rigour

 

What’s the conclusion?

It’s perfectly fine to rely on what’s (merely) probable. It on average works quite fine.

If you want more than that — you have to find a better explanation how things work, that’s more reliable, more predictable — so that after utilising it — the desired outcome is MORE probable,

Finding the more probable is but a function of testing it more, typically,

We know where to look by stitching together COHERENT theories from what we already know, from what is already extremely probable,

Of course this is an undertaking for the entirety of humanity, not just for a single person

But a single person has more than enough questions to answer of their own,

They too run their own TRIAL AND ERROR, TESTING, and REASONING — all based on data and ideas of varied plausibility

And of course ideally we use the theory that is the most PROBABLE, most sound

And of course the trouble only begins when we fail at that

Whether it’s an idiot failing a simple problem, of figuring out the probable solution,

Or an ignorant failing to appreciate the tremendous work others have done in proving a profound theory with extremely high degree of precision,

Or, worst of all, a typical ARROGANT — inhering the confidence of true scholars and sages — but none of their actual understanding, none of the experimental and theoretical foundation of that confidence,

Thus taking the improbable — and pretending it’s the new truth.

Thus rendering themselves effectively even more stupid than an average-witted common sense peasant, who uses his common sense to prefer the probable over the improbable,

And they also undermine the edifice of science and wisdom — by equating it to just a hot take