"Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers"

@joe-shmo said
@wildgrass

Yes, I've watched the show. It arises from a simple substitution. Take out "God", and replace "Aliens". Its suddenly seems more "scientific" and "liberal" to the audience...but, Houdini just pulled a different rabbit out of the hat. Perhaps, its deeply rooted in our psyche to believe in some great illusion for a reason, and we will always be stuck changing ...[text shortened]... tain the illusion of progress. In essence providing something "to do" while we are here in the loop.

Total knowledge must be finite, as it represents what is known. The unknown cannot be considered knowledge. That's more a matter for philosophy and science fiction writers.

@wildgrass said
Total knowledge must be finite, as it represents what is known. The unknown cannot be considered knowledge. That's more a matter for philosophy and science fiction writers.

You don't consider the body of "known unknowns" to be knowledge?

Anyhow, I was characterizing "total knowledge" as complete knowledge of the universe and all of its workings( i.e. what we are in pursuit of, not what we have ).

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Dr. Suess perhaps?

@joe-shmo said
You don't consider the body of "known unknowns" to be knowledge?

Anyhow, I was characterizing "total knowledge" as complete knowledge of the universe and all of its workings( i.e. what we are in pursuit of, not what we have ).

The classical definition of knowledge is in terms of propositions that are believed to be true, for a belief to count as knowledge the belief has to be justified and the proposition that the belief concerns is true. So something that is known to be unknown would be a proposition whose truth isn't known, consider "There are supersymmetric particles.", it's unlikely to be true, but they haven't been completely ruled out by LHC yet as far as I know. So we know that we don't know it, but we do know what it is.

You could write a computer program that generated all syntactically correct English sentences. Filter them for complete gibberish and to see which would make for reasonable propositions. The set of such sentences should contain everything that can be known. On information theoretic grounds I'd expect random garbage to dominate and there'll be orders of magnitude more stuff about things like green eggs and ham than anything real.

@joe-shmo said
You don't consider the body of "known unknowns" to be knowledge?

Anyhow, I was characterizing "total knowledge" as complete knowledge of the universe and all of its workings( i.e. what we are in pursuit of, not what we have ).

I don't consider known unknowns to be knowledge.

Complete knowledge of the universe and all of its working is not a realistic goal.

@Duchess64
I demonize Trump because he IS a demon. Take a look at the multi year attempt at a deal to feed the Saudi's with nuclear energy and the Saudi's already said they would not give assurances the fuel would not be concentrated to weapons grade.
That is a clear violation of the multidecade stance of the US and other countries to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.

It was Flynn who started this deal and even after he was disgraced and headed to prison, Trump kept up with the deal and it is only now that democrats have power in the house can this atrocious deal be brought to light.

I have no doubt Trump's sycophants in the senate would have given their blessing if the house had not held this up to scrutiny.
This is a money making scheme and nothing more, except there is no accounting for the consequences of such an insane bargain.

I am American, I can say what I want about our insane POTUS, and if I hate him that is MY stance and there is nothing you can do or say that will change that.
Trump is ABSOLUTELY the most corrupt POTUS the US ever saw and it looks more and more like he is a puppet of Putin.

I assume you LIKE things that way in your hatred of the US and see joy in the wreckage of US credence.

@DeepThought

But language isn't static. From what I can tell it also doesn't seem like it could be a bounded body of knowledge itself? So how are we inputting an infinite data set into you hypothetical computer?

@wildgrass

I would agree with you. Its not a realistic goal, but I believe this is true because its infinite ( or at least circular - perhaps infinity is the illusion ).

Anyhow, I don't believe that will stop us from continuing on with the game of humanity, life, whatever,... trying to survive all eventualities; in essence achieving immortality. It seems very much the goal of science to know everything, perhaps extend existence indefinitely. It may not be a direct goal of science, but it is an emergent characteristic of our endeavors. If you say its not, then what really is the point? I mean scientist are actively trying to dismantle the illusion, but much to there dismay when the yank the hat from the magician, another instantly appears in its place!

@Duchess64

You love to make grand claims based on little evidence. Like I am now an 'ally' of Whodey. Not so. And you refuse to accept the fact some Muslim schools preach hate to this day. If that is not true, show me the evidence otherwise.
That is not hatred against all Muslims and you know it.