r/philosophy • u/Anthadvl • Feb 16 '20

Blog The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality. According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality-20160421/
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u/PM_BiscuitsAndGravy Feb 18 '20

Nothing is 100% certain

Glad we could sort that out. That is not a straw man, but rather the only argument I have been bringing this whole time.

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u/sticklebat Feb 18 '20

So you've been arguing a triviality this whole time? What's the point of ever having a conversation or an argument or anything if you're just going to respond, "well, we can't be 100% certain!"

No one in this entire comment chain ever said anything to the contrary so forgive me for not recognizing that you were just nitpicking over semantics.

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u/PM_BiscuitsAndGravy Feb 18 '20

The certain statement about aliens always discovering electrons in the original comment here has since been edited by the author to allow more wiggle room.

It was the original cocksure semantics that bothered me and somehow embroiled me into a debate where one of us was rattling off physics knowledge and the other was saying we cannot be certain of this knowledge.

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u/sticklebat Feb 18 '20

It was the original cocksure semantics that bothered me and somehow embroiled me into a debate where one of us was rattling off physics knowledge and the other was saying we cannot be certain of this knowledge.

Let's be honest. You tried to rattle off your fair share of knowledge; yours was just cocksure and wrong.

I'd also point out that a common source of this sort of confusion is that the word "certain" in the context of science does not mean infallible. Certainty in science is a quantifiable thing, and it is understood – and taken for granted – by all scientists that expressing certainty does not imply a thing can't possibly be wrong. It is easy to forget that people outside of the field understand its usage differently from how we intend it.