Dec 19
TED talks often blow my mind, but this one really stuck out for me. Highly recommend watching & listening.
SCOTT ON TWITTER- wait...the new Futurama episodes are on Comedy Central? I thought they were back on fox for some reason. Not that it matters.
- Ok. REALLY like Justified. I am so in for this series.
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EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson is powered by WordPress with ComicPress
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Good talk, although to put in into perspective he just made a very very good argument against our influence on global warming.
i fail to see how you come to that conclusion.
He came to that conclusion because its easy to change the variables to global warming. Is it caused by green house gases or by some other means? No one knows for sure and that is a “bad explanation”, too many variables. Once we have a “good explanation”, hard to vary, then we will have our answer to global warming. If global warming were in fact caused by green house gases, the temperature of the earth would increase every year as we release more and more green house gases into the atmosphere, yet that is not the case because we have periods of cooling and therefore we have a “bad explanation” for global warming. I think that is how he came to that conclusion.
climate science as a whole isn’t simply saying that “humans are the only cause for GW” what David Deutsch was talking about is explanations whose differences can yield the same results, explaining seasons by the sadness of one god, or the aura of another god for instance. both are independent explanations.
how the climate works, as an explanation is a lot different its not just industry that changes climate but the industry does have an effect on it. take this anaology:
what reduces mileage in a vehicle? engine problems, body shape, weight hauled, fuel composition, running temperature, lubricant used, speed driven, etc. do all these causes mean that engine mileage is not well understood? does it mean that one of those effects aren’t real or aren’t worth making note of?
now if you need to find some way to spend less money on gas, what is the easiest way to improve gas mileage? lets say your driving a truck with some heavy junk in the back, removing the junk would improve mileage, but just because i am suggesting that dosn’t mean that the only thing that can effect mileage is weight hauled.
So many people don’t understand the importance of logic and reason, not to mention the fact that people will believe anything they hear. Make up your own minds, people! Great find, Scott.
NO!
Now do you truly think(for yourself) that people will believe anything they hear, or did you just hear that somewhere. Do you have a GOOD explanation for this observation that is impossible to vary??!!
…lol just kidding i agree
Reality is testable yes, easily no.
). The same people writing the tests, answer the tests, and check them. Somehow that doesn’t seem right.
The problem with reality tests is there is no answer key to copy off from (not that i advocate cheating
Strictly speaking these is no such thing as reality since reality is different for everyone!
if reality was different for everyone than the concept of reproducibility wouldn’t even have gotten of the ground in terms of what garners scientific validity. the fact that we cant take simple data, feed it through multiple observers and get the same results shows that reality is separate from consciousness, and thus is real/objective.
i really dislike how ted’s embedded doesnt allow for clicking into the site, i want to see the video bigger. thanks for the vid though
You can open the “Share” menu via the bottom button. That will bring up a link into the site. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/666 in this case. Long way around, but it works.
or just hit the button in the top right corner for full screen….
sheesh
I’m not sure I agree with the author’s point, mainly because anything can be explained with a virtually unlimited number of “what ifs”, meaning that any statement has a virtually unlimited number of variations based on your imagination. It’s the testing of falsifiable predictions that will eventually whittle down the number of variations to one that provides the best explanation.
In my opinion, the turning point for humanity was the realization that there is a “natural order” in the universe exists (with absolutes), and everything isn’t chaos based on the subjective and relative opinions and beliefs of the individual. Once this realization occurs, and exploration of the natural order becomes the natural next step for people.
Brilliant.
Thanks for sharing.
It all comes down to the variables and if humanity has learned nothing else over the many centuries of scientific progress and even the building of the scientific process, it’s that there are always more variables that we aren’t aware of and haven’t accounted for.
If there is are no other absolutes or certainties in the universe, there is at least the fact that there is always something more to learn, one more bit of knowledge that changes everything.
Its a nice variant of Occam’s Razor – there is a strong parallel between ‘hard to vary’ and ‘the simplest theory’ I think.
Although on the other hand, the video ID of this talk is ‘666′ (click ’share’), so it must just all be the work of the devil!