The Loyal Opposition

When used properly, the Scientific Method runs like this: one develops a hypothesis (I think gravity doesn't exist), then one develops an experiment to try to disprove this hypothesis (therefore, I shall drop this apple). If the experiment fails to disprove the hypothesis, then this adds a bit of weight to the stack of evidence supporting the hypothesis. Eventually, this weight of evidence becomes sufficiently great that the hypothesis is upgraded to become a theory, and is considered proven... until someone comes along and break it.

(Hence, Newton's laws of motion were proven, up until some bright spark pointed out that they didn't work when things were very small and/or very fast. Eventually, they were superceded by Einstein's Relativity.)

This is, incidentally, different from a mathematical proof, where one works from a known and proven starting point and follows a sequence of steps, all of which must be valid and proveable, and arrive at a conclusion that must, therefore, itself by known and proveable. So, when Mathematicians say that Fermat's Last Theorem has been proven that means that's it, whereas when scientists talk about Evolution being 'scientific fact' it doesn't mean quite the same thing. (Of course, it is possible that there is a flaw in the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, that hasn't been spotted by any of the mathematicians who have checked it... but this is highly unlikely. And, if there is no such flaw, then there's no other room for argument.)

However, that all stands as introduction for the topic that I actually want to address, which is my view of opposing opinions in philosophy (for want of a better term - I'm using it as the catch-all term for various things one might think about).

Imagine, if you will, the set of all the things one might believe. This includes every notion you can think of... plus all the ones that you can't come up with but that someone else might... plus all the ones that no-one would come up with. That's a whole mess of ideas.

Now, it stands to reason that there are a whole bunch of ideas that it is reasonable to believe. And, there is a much larger body of ideas that it is not reasonable to believe. And then there is the set of ideas that I believe, which I hope is a subset of all the reasonable ideas.

An example of a reasonable idea that I believe in is "there is life on other planets". An example of a reasonable idea that I don't believe in is "there is not life on other planets". And an example of an idea that is not reasonable to believe in is "the Earth is flat". (And, if you happen to believe this, then I'm afraid I have some bad news: a whole bunch of ancient cultures, including but not limited to the Egyptians, proved that the Earth was round around 4,000 BC. In fact, not only did they know it was round, but they had a reasonably close approximation for the diameter.)

Now, a lot of people, when exposed to an idea that they disagree with, become very agitated. They don't like it. Not me. I take the view that the things I believe I believe for reasons (that obviously depend on the item in question). So, when I encounter an idea that I disagree with, it raises the key question: why do I not believe it? Why do I believe what I have settled on instead?

And so, ideas contrary to my own are useful - they are a crucible through which I refine my own thinking. And, occasionally, they become a means by which the flaws in my own thinking become apparent, and I am forced to change my mind. Which is fine, or even good. (It's also very rare, which is also good.)

For example, the reason I believe there is almost certainly life on other planets is that this solar system is actually fairly unremarkable. All one needs is a planet the appropriate distance from an appropriate sun, coupled with the right melange of chemicals, coupled with whatever it was quickened those chemicals into life, and there it is. Given the size of the universe, it strikes me as highly likely that this has happened somewhere else. Indeed, I fully expect many of the life-forms out there to be strangely similar to many of the life-forms on Earth, since many of the problems faced will have been the same, and many of the solutions used here were used because they worked... and so would probably work again.

What I think is immensely less likely is that there is intelligent life out there, or that said intelligence will resemble us significantly. Assuming evolution at work, I will note that the end-point of the evolutionary process is not intelligence, but rather is local optimisation. As such, there may well be no need for an intelligence such as ours, much as there was not when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

I'm also quite close to declaring the belief that there are aliens up there watching us as being in the 'unreasonable' camp (quite close, but not quite there yet). See, unless said aliens emerged from Mars (or the moons of Jupiter, or somewhere else in the solar system), then in order to be 'up there' they would need to have developed interstellar travel, which almost certainly means faster-than-light travel of some form. Now, there does exist a body of very theoretical physics that suggests not only that this is possible, but also how it might be achieved. However, where it can go from being theroretically possible to being practically possible is a very different question. It also seems likely to me that a species would probably hit the Singularity before achieving this goal.

Oh, and what is the Singularity, you ask? Well, it's a notion I first encountered in "Across Realtime" by Vernor Vinge. The notion is as follows: the pace at which technology is advancing is speeding up. Sooner or later, someone will invent a machine that will interface with a human brain to make the user smarter. Of course, as soon as that is done, this machine will be used to invent a better version of the same, and then a better one, and so on. At that point, the rate of progress becomes effectively infinite, and every problem that can be solved (that is, every problem to which there is a solution) can be solved easily.

And what happens then? Well, I don't know. I imagine it would be fascinating to find out.

Anyway, that's my happy little ramble for today.