We're not in disagreement that you can "know" things without using the formal scientific method. We're 100% aligned on that.

But in addition to this, you can also use the scientific method to "know" things, but with a much stronger type of "knowing" than before.

(Why's it stronger? Because the scientific method can flush out hypotheses that are wrong, and we couldn't really do that very well before we figured out the method to systematically do that.)

So, this is good - we have a method that gives us a stronger version of "to know"... BUT it relies on things that don't look like they'd work to examine things like consciousness - for example being able to do experiments, and also replicate experiments.

Maybe that's not going to work for consciousness?

So, what I am saying (from the first comment I made back up the chain) is that maybe we might have to step back from the scientific method, and come up with a new method (call it the "superscientific method"), which works slightly differently, but is able to extract more knowledge out of things that we struggle with currently, like consciousness or dreaming or whatever.

I have no idea what the superscientific method would look like, but it's very fun to think about.

Yeah, like "fetch", that one hasn't stuck because even if you hate the place for whatever reason, Melbourne can't really be accused of being "boring" compared to anywhere else in Australia.

Yes, if earth escaped the sun it would cool down and down over a long time until it was the same temperature as the cosmic background radiation, about 3 Kelvin or so.

Radioactive decay in the core will keep adding heat for a very very long time, but eventually it'll decay away too.

His point was that the only way we can know anything about the world is by observing empirical evidence.

Roughly speaking I agree with this (of course), but:

1. There is more to the scientific method than just observing empirical evidence. There is also a process of formulating and articulating hypotheses (based on the observations), testing those hypotheses, and also the social aspect of publication/replication and scientific consensus.
2. Without these extra processes, you aren't following the scientific method and can't truthfully call it "science".
3. In other words cavemen were generating some knowledge without the scientific method. So while knowledge is generated through the scientific method, it doesn't always have to be (which is my point)

How would we ever know something without evidence, for example?

1. We know about lots of things that don't have empirical evidence. For example, we know that humans dream. That is not observable to anybody else. We believe it because we experience it, but that's not evidence you can point to.

The scientific method has always been the pathway to knowledge even when it was not recognized as such.

I'm not sure if you're saying that:
A) The scientific method is a universal thing, regardless of it not having been developed until ~500 years ago. So it has always existed.
b) It was being followed de facto, before we had formalised it, and the knowledge we built up was as a result of this

But either way, I think you've missed my argument. I'm saying:

1. It's possible that the scientific method as a "pathway to knowledge" might never be able to grapple with consciousness. (Analogous to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, but for science itself)
2. At some point we might invent another pathway to knowledge, that either extends or compliments the scientific method as we know it today, which can grapple with consciousness.

The scientific method is a relatively modern tool to establish knowledge.

We got pretty far without it though, which tells you that pre-scientific revolution we still had some capacity to establish knowledge to a degree that carried predictive power, and we built whole civilisations on that basis.

Since we invented the scientific method, it has accelerated us immensely, and I'd argue that it's humanity's greatest invention. (I'm a big fan of it, don't let anyone convince you otherwise.)

BUT that doesn't mean it is a tool that is capable of answering every question. It doesn't mean that it's a tool without any limitations. It doesn't mean that it's a tool that we will necessarily ever be able to fully understand consciousness with.

It just might not be able to do that, without it being extended or supplemented with another method.

To understand consciousness, we have to take epistemology into account, the question of "how do we know things about the world?", and we need to find a mechanism of establishing knowledge that can simultaneously: 1. Satisfy ourselves that it is truly generating knowledge, and to what degree, and 2. Is actually capable of grappling with consciousness itself

It might not be the scientific method of today that is capable of doing that.

I suspect that we'll have to create a new method of knowledge creation, quite possibly one that doesn't give us the same degree of confidence as the scientific method does, but on the other hand can actually probe consciousness in some meaningful way. I have no idea what that would be, but it'll be weird.

And that new method will have to withstand criticism that it's non-scientific, but that it establishes a form of knowledge any way.

If there were creeping corruption in the judicial system, are you saying that the rot would eventually translate into a political issue and we would (eventually) end up with a democratic remedy?

If so, what kind of remedy could that be? Would that be calls for law reform and codes of practice, etc? Or something else?

Yep, and it's also Amsterdam Pride that weekend too, so there will be a million Aussies in Amsterdam for that as well (meaning, heaps of us are doing both)

Is that enough to warrant a new name?

So, the problem with coming up with a better name is that the new name has to do at least a better job of describing the thing than the current name.

And the whole point of black holes, and why everyone talks about them all the time, is that they sit right at the extremes of our models of physics, which is also the exact place that we are the least sure of what's going on, and where we might find interesting stuff that we don't already know about, so that we can learn more about the universe.

So, if you want a better name, then you're going to need to make a discovery about black holes that makes the term "black hole" look like a silly name because it doesn't really capture the reality of whatever it is you've just discovered about them.

For example, if you made a discovery that black holes were actually just Quantum Disco Balls, that are remnants of ancient parties thrown by a highly advanced civilization that harnessed quantum physics to create massive disco balls capable of warping space-time. They spin and reflect light in such a way that they appear dark from the outside but host the universe's most legendary dance parties within.

Well, then I think it'd be time for a rename.

Smoke? Was this during bushfires or something?

Everytime I go back (from Melbourne) up to QLD for a visit. Jesus Christ that place is white and uptight. I mean "laid back", they're really "laid back", but they just don't like "all that weird shit".

It's me, hi. I'm the weird shit, it's me.

But also, if you converted 100% of the mass of the universe to accelerate an object, what would remain in the universe for you to measure the speed of that object relative to?

At least 10km/h, I reckon.

What's this process called, so I can youtube it?

It's none of their business.

The vast majority of people are not scientists and are not "doing science". They would be wise to simply go about their lives following the advice to "trust the science" - it would be very rare for any part of their life to be better off by them not trusting the science.

For people actually doing science (i.e., scientists), they already know how it works and what role questioning plays in that. They are not the audience for a statement of "trust the science".

But you'll need to factor in things like health care. The US seems like a great place to earn money, but if you were insured to the same extent that you get in all of the other countries, it might even out a fair bit.

This is a purely economic problem, caused by our current economic model, and potentially curable with some future economic model.

But there are a couple of (big) obstacles:

1. What should that future model look like <- This is interesting and solvable

2. What are the pathways to transition to that model <- This is also interesting and solvable

3. Change management at a geopolitical level <- This is literally the most diabolical problem you could imagine. God knows how we would do this.

They played at PICA a couple of weeks ago (alongside SPFDJ and others)... They were absolutely ace!

But are we counting just change in vertical distance, or are we counting the *effort* in going uphill and downhill (as the mention of the treadmill implies)?

Speaking of the bicycle, I haven't seen that many hub-and-spoke designs in Factorio.

That'd be a fun little challenge

How does skiing work in this shower thought?

"turning on the vacancy light" 💀

I think the point of this is postulating a way to operationalise panpsychism (which is one of the main two schools of thought on consciousness, the other being "emergence")

Having a postulate like that is useful because it gives a framework upon which people might be able to hang further postulates or hypotheses, and maybe one day, something testable.

Known physics, btw, isn't anywhere near enough to explain consciousness, so we can't reasonably use the limits of known physics as a benchmark for assessing theories of consciousness.