Ontological cluelessness seems poorly defined to me.
The notion of “concept” or “knowledge” does not seem especially basic given that philosophers have tried to define them for thousands of years and several different answers are given today, so it doesn’t make sense to declare we have ontological cluelessness if we’re wrong about them. What about “five” or “sodium chloride”? These are known to be extremely useful concepts in making sense of the world around us, and often rediscovered by humans, neural nets, and other systems, so it seems highly unlikely they would need to be revised to get an “accurate understanding” of 5+2 or the chemical properties of salt.
However, if the criterion is “an extreme upending of what we thought the cosmos was made of, the basic principles by which it operated, and the ways to make sense of those principles.”, it seems highly likely that we will have at least one extreme shift in what we think the cosmos is made of, given that relativity and QM have incompatible ontologies; there will also necessarily be new basic principles, given that physics steadily marches towards more and more general and abstruse math.
Ontological cluelessness seems poorly defined to me.
The notion of “concept” or “knowledge” does not seem especially basic given that philosophers have tried to define them for thousands of years and several different answers are given today, so it doesn’t make sense to declare we have ontological cluelessness if we’re wrong about them. What about “five” or “sodium chloride”? These are known to be extremely useful concepts in making sense of the world around us, and often rediscovered by humans, neural nets, and other systems, so it seems highly unlikely they would need to be revised to get an “accurate understanding” of 5+2 or the chemical properties of salt.
However, if the criterion is “an extreme upending of what we thought the cosmos was made of, the basic principles by which it operated, and the ways to make sense of those principles.”, it seems highly likely that we will have at least one extreme shift in what we think the cosmos is made of, given that relativity and QM have incompatible ontologies; there will also necessarily be new basic principles, given that physics steadily marches towards more and more general and abstruse math.