tayga wrote:so I assume you're familiar with Thomas Kuhn's work.
Never heard of him. But after looking at wikipedia he seems to have ideas of paradigm shifts.
For me the shifts are not big enough, some things must be turned up-side down.
Paradigm Change is a good word for it I think.
I have seen so many things, with other witnesses, that it is clear for me that there is a whole
different reality that we can experience. This gap is enormous, but many of these things
are too far fetched. So I focus on simple /common things that everyone can experience or learn.
That way people can see for themselves what is true or not and from there we
can grow towards more understanding.
It is also a spiritual journey of some kind, whether we want it or not, and it seems
that we are in this together.
Regarding Thomas Kuhn's ideas:
I agree with the idea that we can not progress in a linear way.
I have been a programmer for a while, and in programming there is no way one can solve new
difficult problems in a linear way. It is kind of impossible. You either need someone who has solved it,
or make a total change of the way you model or handle your data.
For a programmer it is a challenge to find a bug, and to see that something does not work. That means
new stuff to learn or invent.
For scientists, the bugs and problems with the old models, are something to push away or ignored it seems.
It is exactly the opposite reaction. No change in thinking, no change of modeling. They do make small
hacks to make the old model work again. And that is what many now see as progress: explaining away
problems in the old models.
In a site like this, science is still vivid. People come up with new models, sometimes exotic models. And some
with clever hacks that may or may not repair some of the bugs in science.
That is what I indeed see as progress: Accepting that models have failures. Sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes they don't work under certain special conditions. That is life! Sometimes things go wrong in a way
we never expected. But mainstream science likes to uphold this idea of "perfection". For reasons that
are not really scientific. Like as a skeptic person told me: because they do not want "general people"
to "think strange things".
How did they come up with the idea of becoming a "thought police"?
How did they have the idea that other people are "unqualified" to be correct?
Why are they refusing to accept that any groups of humans, including themselves, can be wrong?
This is really a bold thing such people have put on their minds, and sometimes even put their whole
career on it.
I have never seen any programmer that stated: "there is nothing wrong with my program".
Yet, that is what many scientists claim each time they "explain" something.
One fun fact:
I had a discussion with a student. He was claiming that everything could be modeled as a matrix.
That meant that if you put all variables in a computer, you could calculate with a linear function
what would happen next.
People have now the same idea with the quantum-computer. The idea is kind of similar.
I held up a glass of water.
"So if it is a matrix, there is it does not really matter whether
a glass is on the table or in my hand is it?"
-"No.."
"Then if the distance does not matter, what if it nearer to you? Does that matter?"
-"No, everything is linear.. "
And after that I emptied the glass of water over him.
