Thomas comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Thomas 03 March 2012 08:04AM

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Comment author: Thomas 03 March 2012 10:55:37AM 2 points [-]

I suppose people didn't understand it because they didn't want to

I suppose not. Why? People either have an inborn concept of the absolute up-down direction, either they develop it early in life. Updating to the round (let alone moving and rotating Earth) is not that easy and trivial for a naive mind of a child or for a Medieval man.

A new truth is usually heavy to understand for everybody. Had not been so, the science would progress faster.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 March 2012 11:25:15AM *  2 points [-]

I don't see how that contradicts my claim that it's not that people couldn't understand the meaning of the statement “the Earth revolves around the Sun”, but rather they disagreed with it because it was at odds with what they thought of the world. iħ∂|Ψ⟩/∂t = Ĥ|Ψ⟩, now that's a statement most people won't even understand enough to tell whether they think it's true or false.