I can’t trust science more than the most trustworthy part of my brain, which says that 2 + 2 = 4, because I’ve only come to trust science as much as I do because the most trustworthy part of my brain says it’s legit.
But I do trust science more than most of my brain, for example my instincts about simultaneity.
You’re talking about your scientific beliefs and your brain as though they are two separate things. In reality, you have your beliefs about science as one part of your brain and your common sense intuitions as another part of your brain. You don’t reject your own experiences and beliefs in favor of the external authority of Science, or, at least, you shouldn’t. Instead, you should evaluate probabilities internally, using different parts of your brain and weighing their arguments against each other to come to a conclusion. Your own judgement is the only one you have.
The post annoys me because it doesn’t seem to approach the problem from this direction. The problem isn’t that we place too much value on experience, the problem is that we don’t consider all aspects of our experience fully, even if those aspects are less visible. The fact that science works in the laboratory is something I know from my experience just as much as my intuitions are. The goal shouldn’t be to reject individual experience but to see individual experience from the broadest angle possible.
I can’t trust science more than the most trustworthy part of my brain, which says that 2 + 2 = 4, because I’ve only come to trust science as much as I do because the most trustworthy part of my brain says it’s legit.
But I do trust science more than most of my brain, for example my instincts about simultaneity.
You’re talking about your scientific beliefs and your brain as though they are two separate things. In reality, you have your beliefs about science as one part of your brain and your common sense intuitions as another part of your brain. You don’t reject your own experiences and beliefs in favor of the external authority of Science, or, at least, you shouldn’t. Instead, you should evaluate probabilities internally, using different parts of your brain and weighing their arguments against each other to come to a conclusion. Your own judgement is the only one you have.
The post annoys me because it doesn’t seem to approach the problem from this direction. The problem isn’t that we place too much value on experience, the problem is that we don’t consider all aspects of our experience fully, even if those aspects are less visible. The fact that science works in the laboratory is something I know from my experience just as much as my intuitions are. The goal shouldn’t be to reject individual experience but to see individual experience from the broadest angle possible.