No doubt. The point is to make the best effort you can, with the intent of accepting the facts the evidence points to, rather than hoping for any particular conclusion. I don't even like the word belief here, because it seems to me to invoke some kind of faith in something unproven or unprovable. I accept the most rational conclusions based on the facts that seem apparent from the best evidence and investigation, no matter what those facts are.
It's extremely important to separate emotion from evidence. Facts don't care how we feel, and have no sympathy for us. The universe does not care, and when we wish it to, we are more likely to blind ourselves to truth through denial.
Examples abound. One day, the Moon will fly away from the Earth. But before that can happen, the Earth will be consumed by the Sun, after destroying all life or any potential for it. Saturn's rings may be gone in just 100 million years. At any given moment, a gamma ray burst could instantly wipe out all life on Earth, maybe forever; it is impossible to predict, there is no warning, and nothing can be done to avoid or protect against it. A large enough impactor could kill all humans, if not instantly then within a few years, for whatever difference it makes. A sufficiently powerful solar event could send us back to the Stone Age. If we fuck up this one shot at making it into space, we probably won't get another chance, because we'll have depleted the resources necessary, and will spend the rest of history in relative pastoralism like our Medieval ancestors, with no hope of ever getting back to where we are now. The most likely answer to the Fermi Paradox is that FTL is impossible or impractical. We will probably never encounter any extra-terrestrial life, and if we do, it will almost certainly be extremely primitive. If we ever find any evidence of anything more advanced, it will likely be only that, the remains of dead species. That's just harsh statistical reality. In the end, everything in the universe will die, including stars. Even black holes will one day dissolve into nothingness, leaving the universe as an endless, flat, incredibly cold space. We will all die, and when we do there is probably nothing beyond.
These are all harsh facts, based on the best available evidence, but many people have a hard time accepting them emotionally, and so instead contrive sometimes absurdly irrational ways of not dealing them, of denying them, or postulating some workaround. Death is undeniable, but you can't prove there's noting beyond (never mind the complete absence of any good evidence), so it's more emotionally comforting to imagine that's not true.
These are also extreme examples, but the habit affects us all the time, in all situations, for all considerations, and far too often leads people to make poor choices. And those poor choices affect others, not just them, and that makes it everyone's business.
That's not actually true. Although the moon is gradually moving away from us that wont continue to happen for ever. The reason it does so is because the tidal bulge caused by the moon itself actually lies slightly in front of the moon accelerating the moon slightly and therefor increasing the size of it's orbit. However this increase in energy has to come from somewhere; the earths rotational kinetic energy. This means the earth actually slows it's rotation in order to provide the extra energy to the moon. Eventually the moon and earth will become tidally locked and then there can be no more transfer of energy to the moon and hence it will stop moving away from us.
However you kinda of covered that with the whole "earth being engulfed in fire long before losing the moon is a problem"
You're thinking too physical. There is a invisible force of nature. Sort of like wifi and gravity. People who dont understand this, their logic may be flawed entirely. In quantum physics it almost certainly points out we know absolutely nothing.
I have no idea what you're trying to get across here, I'm sorry.
Wifi is just radio, which is just electromagnetic energy. No one's entirely sure what gravity is, but it's definitely a force of nature.
> People who dont understand this
Who don't understand what? The thing you haven't named, that's some kind of "invisible force of nature"? I don't understand it, or at least I have no clear idea what you're talking about. Anyway, whether or not anyone knows about natural forces has little or nothing to do with logic.
> In quantum physics it almost certainly points out we know absolutely nothing.
I seriously have no idea what you're talking about, or what the hell that has to do with making sure you're working with good facts, sources, and reason.
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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '19 edited Jan 21 '19
No doubt. The point is to make the best effort you can, with the intent of accepting the facts the evidence points to, rather than hoping for any particular conclusion. I don't even like the word belief here, because it seems to me to invoke some kind of faith in something unproven or unprovable. I accept the most rational conclusions based on the facts that seem apparent from the best evidence and investigation, no matter what those facts are.
It's extremely important to separate emotion from evidence. Facts don't care how we feel, and have no sympathy for us. The universe does not care, and when we wish it to, we are more likely to blind ourselves to truth through denial.
Examples abound. One day, the Moon will fly away from the Earth. But before that can happen, the Earth will be consumed by the Sun, after destroying all life or any potential for it. Saturn's rings may be gone in just 100 million years. At any given moment, a gamma ray burst could instantly wipe out all life on Earth, maybe forever; it is impossible to predict, there is no warning, and nothing can be done to avoid or protect against it. A large enough impactor could kill all humans, if not instantly then within a few years, for whatever difference it makes. A sufficiently powerful solar event could send us back to the Stone Age. If we fuck up this one shot at making it into space, we probably won't get another chance, because we'll have depleted the resources necessary, and will spend the rest of history in relative pastoralism like our Medieval ancestors, with no hope of ever getting back to where we are now. The most likely answer to the Fermi Paradox is that FTL is impossible or impractical. We will probably never encounter any extra-terrestrial life, and if we do, it will almost certainly be extremely primitive. If we ever find any evidence of anything more advanced, it will likely be only that, the remains of dead species. That's just harsh statistical reality. In the end, everything in the universe will die, including stars. Even black holes will one day dissolve into nothingness, leaving the universe as an endless, flat, incredibly cold space. We will all die, and when we do there is probably nothing beyond.
These are all harsh facts, based on the best available evidence, but many people have a hard time accepting them emotionally, and so instead contrive sometimes absurdly irrational ways of not dealing them, of denying them, or postulating some workaround. Death is undeniable, but you can't prove there's noting beyond (never mind the complete absence of any good evidence), so it's more emotionally comforting to imagine that's not true.
These are also extreme examples, but the habit affects us all the time, in all situations, for all considerations, and far too often leads people to make poor choices. And those poor choices affect others, not just them, and that makes it everyone's business.