But when you’re really done, you’ll know you’re done. Dissolving the question is an unmistakable feeling...
I’m not so sure. There have been a number of mysteries throughout history that were resolved by science, but people didn’t immediately feel as if the scientific explanation really resolved the question, even though it does to us now—like the explanation of light as being electromagnetic waves.
I frequently find it tricky to determine whether a feeling of dissatisfaction indicates that I haven’t gotten to the root of a problem, or whether it indicates that I just need time to become comfortable with the explanation. For instance, it feels to me like my moral intuitions are objectively correct rules about how people should and shouldn’t behave. Yet my reason tells me that they are simply emotional reactions built into my brain by some combination of biology and conditioning. I’ve gotten somewhat more used to that fact over time, but it certainly didn’t feel at first like it successfully explained why I feel that X is “wrong” or Y is “right.”
Dissolving a question and answering it are two different things. To dissolve a question is to rid yourself of all confusion regarding it, so that either the question reveals itself to be a wrong question, or the answer will become ridiculous obvious (or at least, the way to answer it will become obvious).
In the second case, it would still be possible that the ridiculously obvious answer will turn out to be wrong, but this has little to do with whether or not the question has been dissolved. For example, we could one day find evidence that certain species of trees don’t make sound waves when they fall and there are no humans within a 10 mile radius. This won’t change the fact that the question was fully dissolved.
Eliezer, you wrote:
I’m not so sure. There have been a number of mysteries throughout history that were resolved by science, but people didn’t immediately feel as if the scientific explanation really resolved the question, even though it does to us now—like the explanation of light as being electromagnetic waves.
I frequently find it tricky to determine whether a feeling of dissatisfaction indicates that I haven’t gotten to the root of a problem, or whether it indicates that I just need time to become comfortable with the explanation. For instance, it feels to me like my moral intuitions are objectively correct rules about how people should and shouldn’t behave. Yet my reason tells me that they are simply emotional reactions built into my brain by some combination of biology and conditioning. I’ve gotten somewhat more used to that fact over time, but it certainly didn’t feel at first like it successfully explained why I feel that X is “wrong” or Y is “right.”
Dissolving a question and answering it are two different things. To dissolve a question is to rid yourself of all confusion regarding it, so that either the question reveals itself to be a wrong question, or the answer will become ridiculous obvious (or at least, the way to answer it will become obvious).
In the second case, it would still be possible that the ridiculously obvious answer will turn out to be wrong, but this has little to do with whether or not the question has been dissolved. For example, we could one day find evidence that certain species of trees don’t make sound waves when they fall and there are no humans within a 10 mile radius. This won’t change the fact that the question was fully dissolved.