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darrenreynolds comments on The Useful Idea of Truth - Less Wrong
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"It's not, we know it's not, and I bet that you yourself treat reality differently than you treat fiction, thus disproving your claim."
How do we know it's not? You might say that I know that the table in front of me is solid. I can see it, I can feel it, I can rest things on it and I can try but fail to walk through it. But nowadays, I think a physicist with the right tools would be able to show us that, in fact, it is almost completely empty space.
So, do I treat reality different from how I treat fiction? I think the post we are commenting on has finally convinced me that there is no reality, only belief, and therefore the question is untestable. I think that is the opposite of what the post author intended?
History does tend to suggest that anyone who thinks they know anything is probably wrong. Perhaps those here are less wrong, but they - we - are still wrong.
"And one of the beliefs they've confirmed is "reality is really real, it isn't just a belief." :-)"
Hah! Exactly! The experiments confirm a belief. A confirmed belief is, of course, still a belief. If your belief that reality is really real is confirmed, you now have a confirmed belief that reality is really real. That's not the same thing as reality being really real, though, is it?
;-)
So f***ing what? What does solidity have to do with amount of empty space? If according to your definition of solid, ice is less solid than water because it contains more empty space, your definition of solid is broken.
Yes. I bet that if a fire happens you'll call the fire-brigade, not shout for Superman. That if you want to get something for Christmas, you'll not be writing to Santa Claus.
No matter how much one plays with words, most people, even philosophers, recognize reality as fundamentally different to fiction.
This is playing with words. "Solidity" has a macroscale meaning which isn't valid for nanoscales. That's how reality works in the macroscale and the nanoscale, and it's fiction in neither. If it was fiction then your ability to enjoy the table's solidity would be dependent on your suspension of disbelief.
The operative word here is "less". Here's a relevant Isaac Asimov quote: "When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
You are effectively being "wronger than both of them put together"
1 and 0 aren't probabilities, but you're effectively treating a statement of 99.999999999% certainty as if it's equivalent to 0.000000000000001% certainty; just because neither of them is 0 or 1.
That's pretty much an example of "wronger than both of them put together" that Isaac Asimov described...