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How much do we know?

PureX

Veteran Member
You have a percentage? So how has the total been measured? I had no idea.

Oh, I see. Where did you come up with 16%?
From a lecture series by Neil DeGrasse-Tyson. It is a 6-part 6-hour series called "The Inexplicable Universe" (I think, it was a while ago, on Netflix), the main point of which was to illuminate how much we do not yet know about the universe. And he didn't just make the figure up, it was an estimate arrived at by he and many of his colleagues in the sciences. I recalled him saying the percentage was something like 84% unknown, but someone else on this thread pointed out that it was more like 93% unknown. Either way, the percentage estimates are so great that it pretty much renders the idea that we understand the universe, absurd. We understand only the very small part of the universe, if even that.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
So you are talking about the unknown and how it can't be known and all that is known, is known by science. That is testable.
I see I didn't express myself clearly. In saying 'reality', I meant to indicate matters beyond the personal, the matters considered by the physical sciences.
The correspondence theory of truth is not science. It is philosophy.
No argument from me. I usually phrase it that a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / conforms to / accurately reflects objective reality. And at some point I'm likely to add that there are no absolute truths, except possibly that statement itself.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I see I didn't express myself clearly. In saying 'reality', I meant to indicate matters beyond the personal, the matters considered by the physical sciences.

But that is sometimes the problem. You don't have it, but some do end here. E.g. only that, which is knowable by hard science, matter. When I then counter, that it matters, is that it matters to them and that is not science, they don't acknowledge that there is the individual and personal and that it matters, is individual and personal. They in effect go in a weird sense objective, universal, absolute and what not in that the personal doesn't real matter, because they don't do that. They don't attach subjective values, purpose, meaning and what not to how they behave. They are all objective in all sense, nothing but rational and so on.

Not that they are evil, wrong or what not. They simply take their own personal understanding of how reality matters as objectively, rational and so on self-evident. It is so true, that it can't be otherwise, because then you really don't understand reality. They are a weird kind of objectivists, absolutists and rationalists. As for skepticism they seem unable to doubt their own position.

No argument from me. I usually phrase it that a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / conforms to / accurately reflects objective reality. And at some point I'm likely to add that there are no absolute truths, except possibly that statement itself.

Yeah, I use a different version of that: Words are true, if what they imply, is actually so. So that I am personally a secular humanist, is true not for objective reality, but it is still true.
It is not objective, because it is not independent of all human thought and it is not a case of an observation. It is a person value system. Nor is it unbiased and thus not objective as without bias. Further it is not just based on reason and logic, because it involves emotions.

In other words meta-reality is the combination of objective and subjective reality. :)
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist

Unguru

I am a Sikh nice to meet you
If Atheists are to be held as a standard, then not a whole lot in that cranium.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Yeah, I use a different version of that: Words are true, if what they imply, is actually so. So that I am personally a secular humanist, is true not for objective reality, but it is still true.
The true statement is along the lines of, "He posted, 'I am personally a secular humanist'".

It seems likely that our views don't disagree much.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
If Atheists are to be held as a standard, then not a whole lot in that cranium.
The same goes for believers. In my experience, personal ethics, especially as translated into conduct, are the basis for judgment ─ not belief or nonbelief.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
If that is so, is your stance on the Bible the same--"Dan knows a lot, but not everything, and so might inquire further?" If so, we could talk about the Bible, yes?
That reminds me: the 72 hours are up, so thanks for the conversation. I'm sorry you weren't able to define a real god for me, but it seems, at least on the basis of my enquiries so far, that there's no such definition.

I guess what surprises me is that the lack of such a definition is so little remarked.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
Nobody has much idea what could cause that, but some hitherto unsuspected form of energy is a candidate. That is all dark energy is: a label for whatever this mysterious thing may be.
well let's get off the fence

do scientist go for it?
or is denial the goal?

looks to me......they seem sure of it
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
well let's get off the fence

do scientist go for it?
or is denial the goal?

looks to me......they seem sure of it
Get off what fence, and why? It is no part of science to offer instant solutions to every problem.

If we don't yet know, we don't yet know. Anyone who demands a choice be made, before there is enough data for it, reveals himself to be an idiot.

I leave it to you to decide how you want to appear to others. :D
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Of course. Also, a question lingers in my mind: If we know only some 5% of universe do we always make correct conclusions?

Where did you come up with the "5%" figure? What does it even mean?
It's impossible to say how many % we know of "all that there is to know", because you'ld be required to know the entire volume of all possible knowledge, to compare our knowledge to. Which ironically means that you'ld have to know everything. :D


I'm guessing you pulled it from the article, where Neil talks about how detectable mass only accounts for 5% of all mass that should be out there given the gravitational forces that hold galaxies together and makes them spin and whatnot.

So he's not talking about "5% of all knowledge". He's talking about "5% of all mass".
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
and in reply.....as from the beginning of my membership....

there will not be a fingerprint, a photo, an equation or a repeatable experiment

there will be no proving

but science believes in things not proven
dark energy
dark matter

can't prove it.....but we are CERTAIN it's all there

somewhere

If you would have read the article, and actually had a clue about the sciences involved, you'ld understand how:
1. dark matter/energy are not at all on par with superstitious baseless claims of supernatural shenannigans
2. nobody claims to be "certain" about dark matter/energy. In fact, in the OP article, Neil explicitly calls dark matter "the biggest unsolved problem in physics".



Try a dose of intellectual honesty.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
the certainty is there
scientist would not speak of a place holder if they were not sure

The certainty only exists in the observations made, which are in need of an explanation.

Dark matter is but a proposed explanation.
The explanation isn't certain.
The data that the explanation tries to address, is certain.
It's observed and measured.
And as a matter of fact, these datapoints are in fact also only as certain as the margin of error allows it to be.
 
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