Cicero said you should never believe something for which you don’t have what the philosophers call ‘sufficient epistemic warrant.’ The Stoics argued that if you want to live a good life, you need to understand the world in which you live as much as possible. Because if you don’t understand it, or if you misunderstand it, then you’re going to make bad decisions, some of which may be fatal.
So, in other words, you have to practice science, as we would say today — not as a professional scientist, of course — but you have to have a minimum understanding of how the world works.
Relatively short piece, but just the right input of abstract philosophical thinking i am comfortable with.
Well, It's quite subjective but yes, others will always consider a logical and scientific men to be good person.
The issue that many supposed logical and scientific men have shown themselves to be not necessarily good people. The issue is probably a matter of not being scientist in its true meaning, but just being scientists in name who lost track of what is expected and what is not expected of them.
(I have hidden a name in the message above~~)
Reading it, I got distinct vibes of guys like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens so i looked him up and unsurprisingly he's in his 60s. His quick dismissal of everything other than science reminded me a lot of the "New Atheist" school of thought, which at this point should really be called Old Atheism, because young people are not drawn to it anymore.
Young people are realizing that a purely materialistic, secularist, scientific view of the world is insufficient (on average) to endow life with any transcendent meaning, and they see how it's an insufficient set of principles to organize a society around. This is why Western youth are increasingly turning against the liberal elite. It's also why young people are flocking to thinkers like Jordan Peterson who are trying to re-integrate religion into modern thought.
Coincidentally, I just finished one of Dawkins' books called "The Selfish Gene", I really enjoyed it.
The Selfish Gene is incredible. I definitely consider it an S-tier work in popular science.
Any relatable books you can shill to me?
The World of Mathematics
Trust me, it's awesome.
I'll check it out.
Ai... Math...
It's about math, so is the Selfish Gene, btw. Most of that book is verbalizing game theory and systems of ordinary differential equations.
The key point is that he does so without difficult equations and heaps of numbers. 😁
I'd like to dabble into game theory as well at some point, though. The part about Prisoner's Dilemma was quite interesting.
Dawkin is a great writer. He really helped me to get evolution to click in my mind. Before that, I just had that vague notion of survival of the fittest. It's good to understand how well developed the theory of evolution is.
Dawkin is an awful atheist zealot. I am an atheist myself, but his crusade against believers is pathetic IMHO. In doing so, he becomes what he's preaching against: a dogmatic person without room for discussion. I say this even when I factually agree with all his ideas, if that makes sense.
I get what you mean, he's also very "confident" in pointing out other's mistakes and the solution to it... 😄
Have you read "The extended Phenotype"? I'm thinking about getting that one on a later day, but have read that its kinda technical; any input?
Don't remember if i did. It was a while ago. I think i only read books aimed at the general audience on this topic.
It's interesting you say that people are flocking to Jordan Peterson. In my environment, he's still very much of a fringe character at the same level as the Tate brothers. The example I got told a few times is his obsession with the lobster analogy to explain most of human behavior.
They have a good following though, so likely just fringe from the perspective of my social circle. Then again, my social circle is probably illustrative of the liberal elite you mention~~
Ironically I was at my most immoral when I was pursuing Chemistry in college. Altering my experimental results to fit the theory. Huddling inside a hostel room with friends to help each other ace online tests. Basically cheating haha
Proud of you finally coming clean~~
nice! Saw it (google thinks I want to read things like this... and they're correct, goddamnit), will read later
Yeah, it's sad to admit, but many of the articles I share here are the result of Google recommendations. It knows very well what I am interested in and manages better than any social media to find the right balance in adding variations to the recommendations.
True. We don't like feeding the algos... but they're also pretty good
This sounds like a view scientists would champion.
Indeed. Probably why it resonated with me~~
It appeals to me too, but it's also the kind of statement that makes people dislike scientists (or any group that's so self-aggrandizing).
That's true.
Also probably why many Bitcoin maxis on Twitter are very dislikeable or toxic.