Wednesday, March 28, 2007

To Err Is You, Man


Mistakes will be made. There are reasons for this. Only perfect knowledge will rid you of being imperfect. And I think then still Gödel and Heisenberg would object. Just take a look at this list of cognititve biases, which clearly shows that our conscience is not made to perceive reality, but to make a depiction of it that seems best for us. Thats not bad, its actually very nice I can imagine. But it does create a problem for handling a valid scientific method. What you think is not what is there. It's an approximation finetuned by evolution. And though science seems something scientists do, its actually a very commonplace thing. Most people expect the world to behave according to science, even though they wont check in detail. But there is a difference between what science tells us and what we perceive (and not analyse to deeply). This means we have to put effort in our perception in order to do what we think is best, and even to know what best might be.
Maybe not at all a new point, but a nice way to try to releave myself of the burden of being afraid to make a mistake. It does seem that there is literally no escape from them, because my genes hid my perceptional flaws from my mind. I gotta be kidding right?

Here is a site with all kinds of video lectures, where you can follow complete university courses. If you happen to have the time.

Here is one of my heroes mr. Dennett in an interview, where he also adresses subjects which relate to what I was blabbering about. Maybe it gets you interested to view those university courses. For a while.