komponisto comments on Rationality quotes: March 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Morendil 01 March 2010 10:26AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 01 March 2010 04:02:57PM 14 points [-]

I haven't taken this position just to be difficult. To look around, the world does appear to be flat, so I think it is incumbent on others to prove decisively that it isn't. And I don't think that burden of proof has been met yet.

-- Daniel Shenton, President of the Flat Earth Society as of 2010

Comment author: komponisto 02 March 2010 12:27:23AM *  2 points [-]

In a similar spirit:

Excellent! Three cheers for Shenton!

As long as people are prepared to take on unpalatable ideas, and really push to see if they have merit, then we might just make significant NEW discoveries, instead of the slow and detailed clarification of what we already know.

It really doesn't matter if the Earth proves not to be flat. :-) There are other, equally crazy, ideas out there, and a few of them are true! THEY are the ones we want to find, if we can.

As Richard Feynman (the pre-eminent scientist of the modern era, in my opinion) said: "If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain. ... In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar."

-- PatternChaser0, commenting on the story about Daniel Shenton.

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