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Philosophy

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    For many tasks, the explanation system humans use is "someone I trust said it, and/or it seems to tally with my own observations (or at least not be refuted by them), so I will accept it as provisionally true." Relying entirely on direct empiricism and logic just doesn't produce results fast enough for animal survival. Commented 2 days ago
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    Gravity "is" what keeps us on the floor and what causes things to fall to the ground. It "is" what keeps planets in orbit. In science we identify things and effects by their properties. We aren't looking for any "deeper explanations". Why? Because philosophers have been trying to do that for 2500 years without any success. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, in other words it's just a waste of time. Commented 2 days ago
  • Right, a programmer who understands the programming level but doesn't know details of electronics beats one who can't program well but knows how it works diwn to the transistor level. But I would bet the second one would pass the first one eventually. Mmm, coffee... Commented yesterday
  • An answer to a similar question here Commented yesterday
  • Is the question also asking about logical fallacies? There are many of them, and ordinary humans use them in decision-making to make "reasonably accurate predictions", at least reasonable to them. Commented yesterday