100k Stars(stars.chromeexperiments.com)
stars.chromeexperiments.com
100k Stars
https://stars.chromeexperiments.com/
108 comments
Great visualization, though (ironically, as one of the first Chrome experiments) the music no longer works on Chrome by default (go to site settings > sound and set it to "Allow" to hear it), and it is somewhat outdated now (for example, it states that no exoplanets have been discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri (and that the 'proposed' JWST is required to find these planets)).
When I first went to Josemar bank as a kid there was a display talking about how exploits may theoretically exist. This would have been early 1990s.
I went a few years ago with my kids, about the same age I was, and they had a counter which was in the thousands.
I went a few years ago with my kids, about the same age I was, and they had a counter which was in the thousands.
Did you mean "exoplanets" not "exploits"? That's my best guess, but I have no idea what "Josemar bank" is (another typo? Did you mean to name some kind of science museum, maybe?) which makes it hard to tell.
I think they meant Jodrell Bank,a radio telescope with an astronomy based visitors centre in Cheshire in the uk
https://www.jodrellbank.net/
https://www.jodrellbank.net/
Thanks!. Figured it was something like that, but Google and Wikipedia were no help.
It's an interesting name for a telescope. What does "Bank" mean in this context? The Wikipedia article links to another telescope, the "Green Bank", but that one just appears to be named after the town it's in, which doesn't seem to be the case for Jodrell Bank.
Edit: Nevermind, the Wikipedia page does have the answer. "It is named from a nearby rise in the ground, Jodrell Bank, which was named after William Jauderell, an archer whose descendants lived at the mansion that is now Terra Nova School.
It's an interesting name for a telescope. What does "Bank" mean in this context? The Wikipedia article links to another telescope, the "Green Bank", but that one just appears to be named after the town it's in, which doesn't seem to be the case for Jodrell Bank.
Edit: Nevermind, the Wikipedia page does have the answer. "It is named from a nearby rise in the ground, Jodrell Bank, which was named after William Jauderell, an archer whose descendants lived at the mansion that is now Terra Nova School.
Yes, post Eurovision posting from a phone leads to devastating typos
[deleted]
Why does it zoom the wrong way around? Scrolling up means "zoom in" not "zoom out".
I dunno, it works just fine with my intuition — which is that you're not zooming as such; rather, by swiping up / scrolling the page down, you're moving a camera "forward" / "deeper in", toward the stars at the centermost part of the cube. The UI then reacts by re-framing (zooming) to capture and center in the view frustum, the volume of space that's between you and that centermost point.
I think early versions of Google Earth (predating pinch-to-zoom) worked this way, too? In that scrolling "down" meant descending from space "down" to Earth — and thus zooming in.
I think early versions of Google Earth (predating pinch-to-zoom) worked this way, too? In that scrolling "down" meant descending from space "down" to Earth — and thus zooming in.
Well, if you use pinch or spread gestures, they are also reversed, so it is indeed getting it back to front compared to some default.
If you go on Google Maps today, it works correctly - scrolling up zooms in.
There is no reason other than conventions to call this choice the "proper" one though, is it?
Scrolling the wheel up makes my view of a webpage go up.
Scrolling the wheel up makes the part of the wheel I'm touching go forward (toward my computer screen). It thus makes sense by analogy with my first sentence that scrolling up would make the view go forward. Zooming in is similar to making the view go forward.
Scrolling the wheel up makes the part of the wheel I'm touching go forward (toward my computer screen). It thus makes sense by analogy with my first sentence that scrolling up would make the view go forward. Zooming in is similar to making the view go forward.
Surely 'going forward' would be scrolling down a webpage? So by that thinking it would make sense for scrolling down to be zooming in. You could also see it like pulling the thing closer towards you.
(Very difficult to unlearn though, I'm not in any hurry for zoom-in to be anything other than scroll-'up'!)
(Very difficult to unlearn though, I'm not in any hurry for zoom-in to be anything other than scroll-'up'!)
When you scroll down a webpage, do you think of it as going forward? I don't think people think about it that way. They think of it as going down. I think people think of it more in terms of spatial terms than in terms of text reading direction terms.
Also consider if you see a signpost with an arrow pointing to the right. That means go right. If the signpost has an arrow pointing up. That means go forward. Or any map, e.g. physical, or gps navigation software, or videogame in-game map, up on the map corresponds to forward in real life.
Also consider if you see a signpost with an arrow pointing to the right. That means go right. If the signpost has an arrow pointing up. That means go forward. Or any map, e.g. physical, or gps navigation software, or videogame in-game map, up on the map corresponds to forward in real life.
> Scrolling the wheel up makes my view of a webpage go up.
That's not universal though.
That's not universal though.
For people with the alternate configuration, having making the scroll wheel move down make the content zoom in makes sense.
I have scroll wheel up mean scroll up, but 100k stars has backwards scrolling mechanisms for me. So for me, the 100k stars is inconsistent with my system settings.
I have scroll wheel up mean scroll up, but 100k stars has backwards scrolling mechanisms for me. So for me, the 100k stars is inconsistent with my system settings.
> Zooming in is similar to making the view go forward.
Consider a timeline or history, which is usually thought of in terms of having an axis with endpoints "beginning" and "end", and navigation directions "backward" and "forward."
If you were to bind a chorded hybrid gesture (e.g. WheelUp/WheelDown while holding Control) to act as accelerators for going forward and back through your browser history — which direction would you expect to take you "forward" in time, and which direction would you expect to take you "back" in time? Personally, I'd expect down to be "forward" and up to be "back", because it lines up in a hierarchical sense with the timeline of reading and scrolling an individual page. You always end up scrolled to the top (i.e. the beginning) of a new page after navigating; and if you finish reading a page, you're at the bottom (i.e. the end) of the page. Because of this, in a browser with a hypothetical infinite-canvas model for history navigation[1], the destination page for each navigation would probably be laid out below the source page, such that you'd get back to the page you were on before navigating (i.e. "go back") by scrolling up past the beginning of the destination page you landed on. And likewise for scrolling down past the end of the source page, to take you forward again. (Or to navigate you to a <link rel="next"> page!)
[1] Really, you'd want to model this as links "unfurling" the new page in a way that slices the source page apart at the vertical position of the link, inserting the new page right below the link, before resuming the source page. This would mean that scrolling up would take you back to your recent-most scroll position within the source page. (But it would also mean that scrolling back down, would present a fork in the timeline: did you want to "down" as in down past the unfurled next page, or did you want to go "down" as in forward in history at the point of navigation?)
This "spatial model of time" — the model of "you're on a journey with no set destination, and you proceed 'forward in time' with each step forward into the unknown, but at any time can 'back up' in time [and thus in space] to where you were before you took that step" — is very common. It's the "spatial model of time" of an append-only log file; of a text adventure game; of a written diary; of those fancy Apple product landing pages where scrolling acts as a time-scrubber for an animation.
Compare/contrast: the timeline view in macOS Time Machine (e.g. https://help.apple.com/assets/65A8106E7C69B635140E606E/65A81...). Here, going "up" does take you "deeper" — but that's because the spatial model here is that you start at the latest version, at the "end" of the timeline, which is also the most "shallow" place; and you're "diving deeper" into history by going backward in time — which is both "upward" in a vertically-laid-out linear timeline, but also "forward and inward" in the spatial model.
This is a different "spatial model of time" — it's a model of "historical time as an investigation, where you start in the present, looking further back with each step you take forward, until you reach the earliest time, which is a terminal point you cannot pass." This model is not common in HCI, but rather is very case-specific.
If you consider the user story of someone exploring a 3D space as a "spatial model of time" — then you would expect it to be an "unbounded journey forward in arbitrary direction by steps"; not an "investigation that retraces a history step-by-step to a terminal origin point." You would expect that the "entry point" to the 3D space is equivalent to the top of a webpage, or the start of a timeline.
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That being said — if you replace the scroll-wheel with a flight stick, then it becomes seemingly natural that "up means dive", because that's what planes do. But even that's a corruption — before control sticks, there were only control yokes; and yokes have an actual Z input axis. You push the yoke deeper into the cockpit, away from yourself to dive; and you pull the yoke back toward yourself to climb.
The mapping of a control yoke's literal "make the yoke be further away from you" to a stick's "tilt upward" [where, therefore, the tip of the stick is further away from you] may seem principled, but it's entirely arbitrary; they could have just as well followed a different line of logic, and had control sticks interpret "tilt down" as "tilt the nose of the plane down, i.e. dive." (Both yokes and sticks were designed originally to operate with direct mechanical linkage. So there was no choice for how the yoke needed to work — the Z axis is the only axis of a yoke that you can push/pull on, and you need to be pulling on something to cause the linkage to in turn pull on the tips of the elevators. [Think bicycle brakes.] But a tilt in any direction on a flight stick can be made to generate "pulling" force away from center — and so any tilt-direction of a stick could have been mechanically linked to pulling on the elevators.)
And that's why so many people think inverted-Y-axis viewpoint controls are dumb. Even when planes did it, it was for no good reason :)
Consider a timeline or history, which is usually thought of in terms of having an axis with endpoints "beginning" and "end", and navigation directions "backward" and "forward."
If you were to bind a chorded hybrid gesture (e.g. WheelUp/WheelDown while holding Control) to act as accelerators for going forward and back through your browser history — which direction would you expect to take you "forward" in time, and which direction would you expect to take you "back" in time? Personally, I'd expect down to be "forward" and up to be "back", because it lines up in a hierarchical sense with the timeline of reading and scrolling an individual page. You always end up scrolled to the top (i.e. the beginning) of a new page after navigating; and if you finish reading a page, you're at the bottom (i.e. the end) of the page. Because of this, in a browser with a hypothetical infinite-canvas model for history navigation[1], the destination page for each navigation would probably be laid out below the source page, such that you'd get back to the page you were on before navigating (i.e. "go back") by scrolling up past the beginning of the destination page you landed on. And likewise for scrolling down past the end of the source page, to take you forward again. (Or to navigate you to a <link rel="next"> page!)
[1] Really, you'd want to model this as links "unfurling" the new page in a way that slices the source page apart at the vertical position of the link, inserting the new page right below the link, before resuming the source page. This would mean that scrolling up would take you back to your recent-most scroll position within the source page. (But it would also mean that scrolling back down, would present a fork in the timeline: did you want to "down" as in down past the unfurled next page, or did you want to go "down" as in forward in history at the point of navigation?)
This "spatial model of time" — the model of "you're on a journey with no set destination, and you proceed 'forward in time' with each step forward into the unknown, but at any time can 'back up' in time [and thus in space] to where you were before you took that step" — is very common. It's the "spatial model of time" of an append-only log file; of a text adventure game; of a written diary; of those fancy Apple product landing pages where scrolling acts as a time-scrubber for an animation.
Compare/contrast: the timeline view in macOS Time Machine (e.g. https://help.apple.com/assets/65A8106E7C69B635140E606E/65A81...). Here, going "up" does take you "deeper" — but that's because the spatial model here is that you start at the latest version, at the "end" of the timeline, which is also the most "shallow" place; and you're "diving deeper" into history by going backward in time — which is both "upward" in a vertically-laid-out linear timeline, but also "forward and inward" in the spatial model.
This is a different "spatial model of time" — it's a model of "historical time as an investigation, where you start in the present, looking further back with each step you take forward, until you reach the earliest time, which is a terminal point you cannot pass." This model is not common in HCI, but rather is very case-specific.
If you consider the user story of someone exploring a 3D space as a "spatial model of time" — then you would expect it to be an "unbounded journey forward in arbitrary direction by steps"; not an "investigation that retraces a history step-by-step to a terminal origin point." You would expect that the "entry point" to the 3D space is equivalent to the top of a webpage, or the start of a timeline.
---
That being said — if you replace the scroll-wheel with a flight stick, then it becomes seemingly natural that "up means dive", because that's what planes do. But even that's a corruption — before control sticks, there were only control yokes; and yokes have an actual Z input axis. You push the yoke deeper into the cockpit, away from yourself to dive; and you pull the yoke back toward yourself to climb.
The mapping of a control yoke's literal "make the yoke be further away from you" to a stick's "tilt upward" [where, therefore, the tip of the stick is further away from you] may seem principled, but it's entirely arbitrary; they could have just as well followed a different line of logic, and had control sticks interpret "tilt down" as "tilt the nose of the plane down, i.e. dive." (Both yokes and sticks were designed originally to operate with direct mechanical linkage. So there was no choice for how the yoke needed to work — the Z axis is the only axis of a yoke that you can push/pull on, and you need to be pulling on something to cause the linkage to in turn pull on the tips of the elevators. [Think bicycle brakes.] But a tilt in any direction on a flight stick can be made to generate "pulling" force away from center — and so any tilt-direction of a stick could have been mechanically linked to pulling on the elevators.)
And that's why so many people think inverted-Y-axis viewpoint controls are dumb. Even when planes did it, it was for no good reason :)
When I say forward, I'm thinking of forward in terms of 3D space, not forward in terms of time.
Thinking about time doesn't bring clarity. As you point out, you could lay out a timeline such that forward in space means forward in time (text adventure game). Or you could lay out a timeline such that forward in space means backward in time (macOS Time Machine).
The 100k Stars zoom has no notion of time, just of space. When thinking about space, up generally corresponds to forward. Think of a signpost with an arrow pointing right, that means go right. If a signpost has an arrow pointing up, that means go forward. Or any map, e.g. a physical map, or gps navigation software, or a videogame minimap: in those up means forward.
Our maps are meant to be read from above. If we lay a map on a table, we look down at it, and forward means forward. If we then pick up the map, so that our face faces forward instead of down, now up means forward.
If we had a map meant to be read from below, and we stuck the map on an upside-down table hovering over our heads and bent our necks backward to read it, then if forward means forward on that map, when we take the map off the hovering table and stop bending our necks back, up would mean backward. That's not how we make maps though.
Thinking about time doesn't bring clarity. As you point out, you could lay out a timeline such that forward in space means forward in time (text adventure game). Or you could lay out a timeline such that forward in space means backward in time (macOS Time Machine).
The 100k Stars zoom has no notion of time, just of space. When thinking about space, up generally corresponds to forward. Think of a signpost with an arrow pointing right, that means go right. If a signpost has an arrow pointing up, that means go forward. Or any map, e.g. a physical map, or gps navigation software, or a videogame minimap: in those up means forward.
Our maps are meant to be read from above. If we lay a map on a table, we look down at it, and forward means forward. If we then pick up the map, so that our face faces forward instead of down, now up means forward.
If we had a map meant to be read from below, and we stuck the map on an upside-down table hovering over our heads and bent our necks backward to read it, then if forward means forward on that map, when we take the map off the hovering table and stop bending our necks back, up would mean backward. That's not how we make maps though.
That's not out of any spatial analogy, but rather because many apps interpret mouse-wheel movement (perhaps chorded with some modifier key) as controlling some number, where up means "make number go up" and down means "make number go down."
VLC, for example, puts volume on the scroll wheel, such that WheelUp means "volume goes up."
Even Operating Systems themselves do this: if you can find a program with an OS-native number-picker control — the old-school kind with the little up and down arrows on the right of it — then if you have said control focused, WheelUp will increase the value, and WheelDown will decrease it.
IE6 decided that it — and all browsers coming after it — should do the following: Ctrl+WheelUp means "page elements get bigger", while Ctrl+WheelDown means "page elements get smaller."
Note that while this gesture (also accessible as Alt-Plus/Alt-Minus) was called "zoom" in IE6 and onward, it was never meant to be spatial zoom — the page isn't getting closer to you; you're not shrinking the viewport relative to the page; you don't get scrollbars where you didn't have them before. Rather, this gesture is literally increasing the base font-size: the page elements are growing — and then being reflowed, as fewer of them now fit inline in the viewport. So the mouse wheel here is controlling content size. Ctrl+WheelUp here means "content size up." It's an accessibility tool, not a "navigating within the page" tool.
Google Maps — released not long after IE6, and long before the first browser (Mobile Safari) shipped with spatial-metaphor zoom — decided to just "extend the metaphor" of the browser it was operating within.
Google presumed that users would guess that the browser's "change the content size" shortcuts might do something useful in Google Maps. They presumed that users would have a mental model where, if you "blew up" the page by increasing the content size, then a web-app could maybe notice that, and respond by doing something smart and analogous, e.g. re-rendering the content at a higher zoom level instead.
If they could have, Google likely would have directly overridden the accessibility "content size" shortcuts (which are pretty useless on a mapping app) and mapped instead them to zooming the content. But because browsers have no API for overriding browser-chrome accelerators on a per-tab basis, the best they could do instead was to make analogous shortcuts: just as Ctrl+WheelUp increases the content size, plain old WheelUp in Google Maps increases the map view zoom as if to increase the content size. (Helpfully, these analogous gestures would also be discoverable — people tend to be pretty sloppy at timing holding of modifier keys correctly, so they'd mess up and accidentally activate the correct gesture while trying to activate the incorrect one!)
---
Google Earth — released a few years later — also uses WheelUp to mean "descend"... but for an entirely different reason.
Google Earth, with its various navigation tools, uses cursor-key UpArrow, and also "click and drag the viewport upward", both to mean "zoom in" / "descend toward Earth." It's pretty natural-feeling in context.
Google Earth is always showing you a tilted view of the Earth, with the view curving away to the horizon when zoomed in, or on a tangent to the atmosphere when zoomed out. In either case, the Earth's surface is always aligned with the bottom of the viewport – and so going inward is always the same as going downward, toward the Earth.
WheelUp is "zoom in" here by analogy to the other uses of "up" to mean "descend." They're all unified in meaning "grab the stuff in the viewport and move it up, such that the camera moves down."
But note that this UX was also designed before inverted-scroll touchpads. The "click and drag upward to descend" gesture has exactly the same intuition behind it as double-tap-dragging upward does on an inverted-scroll touchpad. In both cases, they're meant to evoke a sense of sliding the content around in the viewport, rather than moving the viewport.
As such, presumably, had Google Earth been designed today, they'd likely have made WheelDown descend — as that would have resulted in the correct touchpad gesture (swiping up with two fingers to descend), rather than an inverted one (where you must swipe downward with two fingers to descend.)
But then again, nobody with an inverted-scroll touchpad is swiping to zoom; they're pinching to zoom. So maybe they'd have left swipe-to-zoom the way it is, so that it would still make sense for people zooming with a mouse wheel.
VLC, for example, puts volume on the scroll wheel, such that WheelUp means "volume goes up."
Even Operating Systems themselves do this: if you can find a program with an OS-native number-picker control — the old-school kind with the little up and down arrows on the right of it — then if you have said control focused, WheelUp will increase the value, and WheelDown will decrease it.
IE6 decided that it — and all browsers coming after it — should do the following: Ctrl+WheelUp means "page elements get bigger", while Ctrl+WheelDown means "page elements get smaller."
Note that while this gesture (also accessible as Alt-Plus/Alt-Minus) was called "zoom" in IE6 and onward, it was never meant to be spatial zoom — the page isn't getting closer to you; you're not shrinking the viewport relative to the page; you don't get scrollbars where you didn't have them before. Rather, this gesture is literally increasing the base font-size: the page elements are growing — and then being reflowed, as fewer of them now fit inline in the viewport. So the mouse wheel here is controlling content size. Ctrl+WheelUp here means "content size up." It's an accessibility tool, not a "navigating within the page" tool.
Google Maps — released not long after IE6, and long before the first browser (Mobile Safari) shipped with spatial-metaphor zoom — decided to just "extend the metaphor" of the browser it was operating within.
Google presumed that users would guess that the browser's "change the content size" shortcuts might do something useful in Google Maps. They presumed that users would have a mental model where, if you "blew up" the page by increasing the content size, then a web-app could maybe notice that, and respond by doing something smart and analogous, e.g. re-rendering the content at a higher zoom level instead.
If they could have, Google likely would have directly overridden the accessibility "content size" shortcuts (which are pretty useless on a mapping app) and mapped instead them to zooming the content. But because browsers have no API for overriding browser-chrome accelerators on a per-tab basis, the best they could do instead was to make analogous shortcuts: just as Ctrl+WheelUp increases the content size, plain old WheelUp in Google Maps increases the map view zoom as if to increase the content size. (Helpfully, these analogous gestures would also be discoverable — people tend to be pretty sloppy at timing holding of modifier keys correctly, so they'd mess up and accidentally activate the correct gesture while trying to activate the incorrect one!)
---
Google Earth — released a few years later — also uses WheelUp to mean "descend"... but for an entirely different reason.
Google Earth, with its various navigation tools, uses cursor-key UpArrow, and also "click and drag the viewport upward", both to mean "zoom in" / "descend toward Earth." It's pretty natural-feeling in context.
Google Earth is always showing you a tilted view of the Earth, with the view curving away to the horizon when zoomed in, or on a tangent to the atmosphere when zoomed out. In either case, the Earth's surface is always aligned with the bottom of the viewport – and so going inward is always the same as going downward, toward the Earth.
WheelUp is "zoom in" here by analogy to the other uses of "up" to mean "descend." They're all unified in meaning "grab the stuff in the viewport and move it up, such that the camera moves down."
But note that this UX was also designed before inverted-scroll touchpads. The "click and drag upward to descend" gesture has exactly the same intuition behind it as double-tap-dragging upward does on an inverted-scroll touchpad. In both cases, they're meant to evoke a sense of sliding the content around in the viewport, rather than moving the viewport.
As such, presumably, had Google Earth been designed today, they'd likely have made WheelDown descend — as that would have resulted in the correct touchpad gesture (swiping up with two fingers to descend), rather than an inverted one (where you must swipe downward with two fingers to descend.)
But then again, nobody with an inverted-scroll touchpad is swiping to zoom; they're pinching to zoom. So maybe they'd have left swipe-to-zoom the way it is, so that it would still make sense for people zooming with a mouse wheel.
That makes sense to me I think! In things going back as far as command and conquer, mousewheel up zooms in, and mousewheel down zooms out.
But here wheel up zooms out!
There was no zoom in Command & Conquer (1995) :p
It also gets pinch and spread gestures back to front, so it seems someone just got a sign wrong somewhere.
Yeah I had this same problem. Could be because of my experience playing space sims.
Enjoyed playing around the visualization to get a better mental picture of Earth's neighborhood. it's mind-blowing to know that there are 200 to 400 billion stars just in our galaxy alone. And it's even more breath-taking to comprehend that our galaxy is but one of a ≥100 billion galaxies in the _observable_ universe.
So about 4 × 10^22 stars in the observable universe, then?
A huge number compared to the number of values that can be stored in a 64-bit integer (1.8 × 10^19).
But a tiny number compared to the number of atoms in a human body (7 × 10^27).
A huge number compared to the number of values that can be stored in a 64-bit integer (1.8 × 10^19).
But a tiny number compared to the number of atoms in a human body (7 × 10^27).
Seems awesome, but unfortunately a bit glitchy on mobile. It'll pop open info panels even when I just mean to pan and I've not found a way to leave the info panels without a reload.
This is pretty old, I think those are the webgl demos for Chrome back then.
I like this visualization, but it got me thinking about how we often portray the universe in media. It seems like we always end up with the same message: 'Look how small and insignificant we are.' It's like we're drawn to the idea that our existence is just a tiny blip on the universe's radar.I think this perspective is a bit one-dimensional. It seems almost nihilistic.
It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. Except it has the benefit of being obviously true.
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/nobigdeal
https://www.oliverburkeman.com/nobigdeal
> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers
Summed up rather nicely in the Galaxy Song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk
Summed up rather nicely in the Galaxy Song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk
Technically true, but non-comprehensive / reductionist, and arguably misinformative.
Also: religion is technically also "obviously" true, though what is "true" is a function of one's frame of reference.
Also: religion is technically also "obviously" true, though what is "true" is a function of one's frame of reference.
Go on, then, I'll bite - how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe?
> religion is technically also "obviously" true, though what is "true" is a function of one's frame of reference.
I'm not even gonna touch that one :P
> religion is technically also "obviously" true, though what is "true" is a function of one's frame of reference.
I'm not even gonna touch that one :P
Because statements about how things are always boil back to a faith-based statement at some point.
Eg, all the evidence we see is completely consistent with an infinitely creative human-shaped god sitting in a 2m-by-2m universe who has turned themselves into a brain-in-a-jar and purposefully limited their consciousness to entertain themselves. With that interpretation "we" are not only the most important thing in the universe but also could reasonably argue that in reality we occupy a significant fraction of it.
Now I personally agree with the Occam's razor view that what we see is what we get, but every interpretation has to admit there are gaping holes at the foundation of any belief where the answer is "we don't know, we're just making assumptions that seem obviously true". Just because something is held to be most consistent with the currently available evidence isn't really enough to claim it is true, because it isn't obviously true to me that our evidence-gathering is uncovering important aspects about the nature of the universe. We're just doing our best - that might not be good enough. Evolution certainly isn't optimised to work out the truth, otherwise intelligence would be more usual instead of crab-shaped things.
Eg, all the evidence we see is completely consistent with an infinitely creative human-shaped god sitting in a 2m-by-2m universe who has turned themselves into a brain-in-a-jar and purposefully limited their consciousness to entertain themselves. With that interpretation "we" are not only the most important thing in the universe but also could reasonably argue that in reality we occupy a significant fraction of it.
Now I personally agree with the Occam's razor view that what we see is what we get, but every interpretation has to admit there are gaping holes at the foundation of any belief where the answer is "we don't know, we're just making assumptions that seem obviously true". Just because something is held to be most consistent with the currently available evidence isn't really enough to claim it is true, because it isn't obviously true to me that our evidence-gathering is uncovering important aspects about the nature of the universe. We're just doing our best - that might not be good enough. Evolution certainly isn't optimised to work out the truth, otherwise intelligence would be more usual instead of crab-shaped things.
Right, any system of belief (yours included) boils down to axioms that have to be either accepted or rejected without evidence.
I've thought many times in the past that we'd all do best if we could choose our system of belief based on how well seeing "through" it makes sense of things. But too often that sense of "how well" is subjective and so prone to being misguided based on things as small as what we had for breakfast. And it's exceedingly hard to see through the eyes of a true believer in another "faith" in the first place.
Even so, a deep-seated personal commitment to discover and submit oneself to truth in good faith, no matter where honest inquiry leads, can go a very long way.
I've thought many times in the past that we'd all do best if we could choose our system of belief based on how well seeing "through" it makes sense of things. But too often that sense of "how well" is subjective and so prone to being misguided based on things as small as what we had for breakfast. And it's exceedingly hard to see through the eyes of a true believer in another "faith" in the first place.
Even so, a deep-seated personal commitment to discover and submit oneself to truth in good faith, no matter where honest inquiry leads, can go a very long way.
What's true is determined by the scientific method. You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions, and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out, all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target. Yes, but that information is nearly useless, and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
There are a few issues with that position:
1) "What's true is determined by the scientific method" is, in fact, an axiom based on the old "obviously true" assumption.
2) There is thus far no evidence that the scientific method can deduce what the universe is and why it came into being. So according to the scientific method, we should probably be concluding that the truth isn't determined by the scientific method. It is a window into a fairly small subset of the truth.
3) We don't use the scientific method in court cases, we use standards of evidence and reasonableness tests. So when it matters what the truth is we don't use science (and, indeed, probably could not because it is too limited to achieve fairness).
1) "What's true is determined by the scientific method" is, in fact, an axiom based on the old "obviously true" assumption.
2) There is thus far no evidence that the scientific method can deduce what the universe is and why it came into being. So according to the scientific method, we should probably be concluding that the truth isn't determined by the scientific method. It is a window into a fairly small subset of the truth.
3) We don't use the scientific method in court cases, we use standards of evidence and reasonableness tests. So when it matters what the truth is we don't use science (and, indeed, probably could not because it is too limited to achieve fairness).
1. The scientific method is a way to rank all the available theories that has proven remarkably useful in practice. There is no presumption in the scientific method. It's the right way only because any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).
2. To unseat the scientific method would require a method with even more usefulness and consistent and proven track record. There is no other such method.
3. Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true). Would you be able to determine the laws of gravity in a court of law? Does that even make sense?
2. To unseat the scientific method would require a method with even more usefulness and consistent and proven track record. There is no other such method.
3. Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true). Would you be able to determine the laws of gravity in a court of law? Does that even make sense?
> ...any other way is chaotic and doesn't lead to a single answer (shooting arrows in the dark).
"God did it" isn't remotely chaotic and is a much more consistent answer than what the scientific method turns. One of the key parts of the scientific method is that scientists are constantly throwing out theories that are thought to be reasonable but eventually turn out to be inconsistent with the evidence; the process is quite muddled.
And you can't justify why you think consistency of the answer is the best indicator. It is still unlikely to give correct answers about the truly foundational stuff, the scientists just don't know.
> Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true)
You're implying that we don't care about the truth when deploying force against our own community. I put it to you that this is an area where the truth is of utmost importance. It has immediate implications on how people live! The only reason we don't make a habit of deploying scientists in the courtroom is that their methods are ineffective at working out the truth in general. They are only good at deducing a small handful of truths that are usually only important to engineers.
"God did it" isn't remotely chaotic and is a much more consistent answer than what the scientific method turns. One of the key parts of the scientific method is that scientists are constantly throwing out theories that are thought to be reasonable but eventually turn out to be inconsistent with the evidence; the process is quite muddled.
And you can't justify why you think consistency of the answer is the best indicator. It is still unlikely to give correct answers about the truly foundational stuff, the scientists just don't know.
> Courts are responsible for application of human law (which is completely different from an exploration of what is true)
You're implying that we don't care about the truth when deploying force against our own community. I put it to you that this is an area where the truth is of utmost importance. It has immediate implications on how people live! The only reason we don't make a habit of deploying scientists in the courtroom is that their methods are ineffective at working out the truth in general. They are only good at deducing a small handful of truths that are usually only important to engineers.
> "God did it"
Which god? There are billions of them if you lump all the religions together.
And what did they do exactly? And what are they likely to do in the future? How is this position any different from "we know nothing and can deduce nothing"? I don't know about you but I find that a very sad way to live a life.
Which god? There are billions of them if you lump all the religions together.
And what did they do exactly? And what are they likely to do in the future? How is this position any different from "we know nothing and can deduce nothing"? I don't know about you but I find that a very sad way to live a life.
> What's true is determined by the scientific method.
Not quite. This is how what is said to be True is determined...within some subset of the (culturally dominant) population, at this particular era in our semi-self-aware species' ongoing development.
Science practices watered down epistemology even in the lab, and the further you get away from the lab and toward public discussions, it gets watered down even further. And by the time it gets to the point of public discussion (science's fan base), epistemology is pretty much gone from consideration, it's regurgitation of memorization, if not worse (LLM level hallucination).
> You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions...
So far so good....
> ...and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out...
Ah crap. Crash and burn.
> all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target.
This isn't true, and there's also no way for you to know these things (what individual scientists are doing, saying, thinking).
> Yes, but that information is nearly useless...
There's no way for you to know this.
> ...and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
Yes it can. You can literally say and do pretty much whatever you want in this simulation. There are almost no constraints whatsoever, other than sheer lack of imagination (which is an extremely big problem imho)....I mean, just take your comments, and the vast majority of other comments in this thread. There's (almost) no need for anything anyone says to be true....in fact, even venturing a little outside of the Overton Window (to the positive side, on certain topics) of acceptable levels of epistemology here will certainly get you downvoted, if not warned by moderators. We have a culture here, and cultures have beliefs, and those beliefs are to be respected, regardless of the actual truth of the matter.
The truth of the matter, very often (on certain topics), is off limits for discussion. And even more interestingly: it seems like all social media platforms have somehow adopted the same set of rules for That Which Cannot Be Discussed. I often wonder if this is sheer coincidence.
Not quite. This is how what is said to be True is determined...within some subset of the (culturally dominant) population, at this particular era in our semi-self-aware species' ongoing development.
Science practices watered down epistemology even in the lab, and the further you get away from the lab and toward public discussions, it gets watered down even further. And by the time it gets to the point of public discussion (science's fan base), epistemology is pretty much gone from consideration, it's regurgitation of memorization, if not worse (LLM level hallucination).
> You can make as many theories as you want but if you can't make predictions based on that theory and devise experiments to verify those predictions...
So far so good....
> ...and perhaps most importantly, be open to abandoning your theory when even a single one of those experiments doesn't pan out...
Ah crap. Crash and burn.
> all you have done is shot an arrow in the dark and claimed it could have hit the target.
This isn't true, and there's also no way for you to know these things (what individual scientists are doing, saying, thinking).
> Yes, but that information is nearly useless...
There's no way for you to know this.
> ...and definitely can't be put on the same pedestal as someone providing actual evidence that the arrow missed the target.
Yes it can. You can literally say and do pretty much whatever you want in this simulation. There are almost no constraints whatsoever, other than sheer lack of imagination (which is an extremely big problem imho)....I mean, just take your comments, and the vast majority of other comments in this thread. There's (almost) no need for anything anyone says to be true....in fact, even venturing a little outside of the Overton Window (to the positive side, on certain topics) of acceptable levels of epistemology here will certainly get you downvoted, if not warned by moderators. We have a culture here, and cultures have beliefs, and those beliefs are to be respected, regardless of the actual truth of the matter.
The truth of the matter, very often (on certain topics), is off limits for discussion. And even more interestingly: it seems like all social media platforms have somehow adopted the same set of rules for That Which Cannot Be Discussed. I often wonder if this is sheer coincidence.
Hmm - fair enough. By this (valid!) argument, _any_ statement about the world is misinformative, because there's always an implicit caveat of "...if my perceptions of the world are accurate reflections of its state, and if I'm correct in believing that other people (who report their perceptions of the world to me) are in fact other people and not just hallucinations".
I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology, since, without it, any discussion will founder (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.
I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology, since, without it, any discussion will founder (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.
It is a bit more than a technicality. If we start from the position that our perceptions are accurate something interesting happens.
1) If we start by assuming our perceptions are accurate; we can reasonably conclude that we are a product of evolutionary forces.
2) Those evolutionary forces mean our perceptions are subject to the anthropic principle - ie, heavily biased away from truth and towards things that cause conscious patterns to reoccur and reproduce.
3) Therefore there is strong reason to believe our perceptions aren't accurate reflections of the state of the world, because if we are in a universe where accurate perception of reality means we won't bother to reproduce or wouldn't see ourselves as conscious, we are likely be unable to perceive those aspects of it.
So I'm quite happy to contend that our perceptions are probably critically flawed, because they are heavily biased towards making us believe things about ego, self, in- and out-groups, etc that are probably inconsistent with accurately perceiving reality. Under that lens, perceiving time itself jumps out as something that might be an evolutionary adaption rather than the true state of things.
Those baseline assumptions that allow the conversation to happen are therefore probably wrong. Although, humorously, that does mean there isn't much point discussing the topic unless you just like playing around with nonsense.
Long and the short of it; we can't escape what is "obviously true" to us. Although I don't think you were challenging that part of the conversation.
1) If we start by assuming our perceptions are accurate; we can reasonably conclude that we are a product of evolutionary forces.
2) Those evolutionary forces mean our perceptions are subject to the anthropic principle - ie, heavily biased away from truth and towards things that cause conscious patterns to reoccur and reproduce.
3) Therefore there is strong reason to believe our perceptions aren't accurate reflections of the state of the world, because if we are in a universe where accurate perception of reality means we won't bother to reproduce or wouldn't see ourselves as conscious, we are likely be unable to perceive those aspects of it.
So I'm quite happy to contend that our perceptions are probably critically flawed, because they are heavily biased towards making us believe things about ego, self, in- and out-groups, etc that are probably inconsistent with accurately perceiving reality. Under that lens, perceiving time itself jumps out as something that might be an evolutionary adaption rather than the true state of things.
Those baseline assumptions that allow the conversation to happen are therefore probably wrong. Although, humorously, that does mean there isn't much point discussing the topic unless you just like playing around with nonsense.
Long and the short of it; we can't escape what is "obviously true" to us. Although I don't think you were challenging that part of the conversation.
> 1) If we start by assuming our perceptions are accurate; we can reasonably conclude that we are a product of evolutionary forces.
You already have an ontological and epistemic problem here, demonstrating how easy it is to get these things wrong.
Luckily, we've culturally trained ourselves to give less than zero shits about correctness on this topic, so it "is" "all good".
You already have an ontological and epistemic problem here, demonstrating how easy it is to get these things wrong.
Luckily, we've culturally trained ourselves to give less than zero shits about correctness on this topic, so it "is" "all good".
> By this (valid!) argument, _any_ statement about the world is misinformative, because there's always an implicit caveat of "...if my perceptions of the world are accurate reflections of its state, and if I'm correct in believing that other people (who report their perceptions of the world to me) are in fact other people and not just hallucinations".
a) Simply explicitly reveal your axioms in the statement of your case, problem solved. (Good luck finding them all though, especially the ones not on Normative Human Reality's radar though lol)
b) The "just" in "and not just hallucinations" is a big part of why humans are unable to understand what's going on, or understand that they do not understand (which is core to the implementation of "is", which "determines" what "is" going on).
> I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology....
"Fair" is culture, not science/logic, and the culture you live in very often (perhaps even usually) values being incorrect. It insists on it.
> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder
Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.
> (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.
a) Sure, if you disallow epistemology.
b) Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)?
a) Simply explicitly reveal your axioms in the statement of your case, problem solved. (Good luck finding them all though, especially the ones not on Normative Human Reality's radar though lol)
b) The "just" in "and not just hallucinations" is a big part of why humans are unable to understand what's going on, or understand that they do not understand (which is core to the implementation of "is", which "determines" what "is" going on).
> I personally think it's fair to take that assumption as baseline in any discussion not specifically about epistemology....
"Fair" is culture, not science/logic, and the culture you live in very often (perhaps even usually) values being incorrect. It insists on it.
> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder
Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.
> (and, _if_ that assumption is taken as an axiom, I still maintain that it's not misinformation to make the ~~true~~ overwhelmingly-supported-by-my-perceptions-and-my-perceptions-of-other-people's-perceptions statement that "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale") - but you are certainly technically correct.
a) Sure, if you disallow epistemology.
b) Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)?
> "Fair" is culture, not science/logic
Yep, this is true. I was speaking casually and using "fair" as slang for "helpful, reasonable, and widely-assumed". And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant, because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture, just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you. Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion. Which leads neatly to the next point...
>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!
If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.
> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)
I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything, and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.
Yep, this is true. I was speaking casually and using "fair" as slang for "helpful, reasonable, and widely-assumed". And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant, because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture, just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you. Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion. Which leads neatly to the next point...
>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!
If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.
> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)
I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything, and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.
> I was speaking casually and using "fair" as slang for "helpful, reasonable, and widely-assumed".
I like the convenience of this wildcard, because it also applies to everything you say in this comment. It's a neat trick: anything I call you on "doesn't count", because you didn't intend it to be technically true, because that's "not realistic" and "not reasonable".
> And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant....
Let me guess: that which you perceive to be relevant "is" relevant, and that which is not, is not.
Am I close? Is this contrary to how your thinking works? Do you not have at least a tendency to agree with your own opinions?
> ...because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture...
Let me guess: the symbols you are using here ("reasonable") have no strict definitions?
> ...just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you.
Give up the cognitively magical "roughly" and where are you then?
> Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible....
Incorrect. Not only is there is no requirement for communication to be even remotely accurate, our culture is highly aligned against such communication. Take your comment for example: you are literally defending speaking deceptively, and describing accuracy in a pejorative manner!
> ...unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion.
Its an interesting idea!
>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!
I'm gonna reinstate the full context, lest others be misled by your reductive (thus deceptive) framing:
>> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder
> Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.
Carrying on...
> If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.
I like this because you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure. Considering the site we're on, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that your feelings on the matter change when it comes to things like science, engineering, programming, etc. I bet that in these domains, you not only believe the opposite of what you're saying here, I bet you praise these disciplines for the very thing you are criticizing here. (I wonder how far back in your history I'd have to go to find evidence).
There is a whole load of other things here that could be critiqued with ease, but I've gt a busy day ahead of me so will have to pass.
>> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)
> I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything....
Your problem is this: you are not trying to put yourself in my position, you are trying to put yourself in the position of your subconscious mental model of me. It's a very common error, due to it being fundamental to the culture we've been raised in.
> and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.
Ah, here you seem to be leveraging humour, a very popular technique in both rhetoric and culture/perception. I am duly impressed, though not so persuaded.
I like the convenience of this wildcard, because it also applies to everything you say in this comment. It's a neat trick: anything I call you on "doesn't count", because you didn't intend it to be technically true, because that's "not realistic" and "not reasonable".
> And yes, "widely-assumed" is also cultural - but in this context, that _is_ relevant....
Let me guess: that which you perceive to be relevant "is" relevant, and that which is not, is not.
Am I close? Is this contrary to how your thinking works? Do you not have at least a tendency to agree with your own opinions?
> ...because I assume that those I'm speaking with are making common and reasonable assumptions within our shared culture...
Let me guess: the symbols you are using here ("reasonable") have no strict definitions?
> ...just like I assume that the words that I use mean (roughly) the same thing to me as they do to you.
Give up the cognitively magical "roughly" and where are you then?
> Otherwise, communication and collaboration are impossible....
Incorrect. Not only is there is no requirement for communication to be even remotely accurate, our culture is highly aligned against such communication. Take your comment for example: you are literally defending speaking deceptively, and describing accuracy in a pejorative manner!
> ...unless we construct language from first principles in every discussion.
Its an interesting idea!
>> without it, any discussion will founder > Good!
I'm gonna reinstate the full context, lest others be misled by your reductive (thus deceptive) framing:
>> ...since, without it, any discussion will founder
> Good! Our never ending mass self-deception during our oh so enjoyable (mandatorily so) conversations is the problem.
Carrying on...
> If you think is is preferable to have discussions that go nowhere and yield no helpful outcome in order to remain _technically_ (not-in)correct, vs. taking a small number of reasonable assumptions as axioms ("our perceptions are _probably_ not hallucinations most of the time") which allow us to reach helpful conclusions that increase human happiness, then you and I will never be able to reach agreement on basically anything.
I like this because you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure. Considering the site we're on, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that your feelings on the matter change when it comes to things like science, engineering, programming, etc. I bet that in these domains, you not only believe the opposite of what you're saying here, I bet you praise these disciplines for the very thing you are criticizing here. (I wonder how far back in your history I'd have to go to find evidence).
There is a whole load of other things here that could be critiqued with ease, but I've gt a busy day ahead of me so will have to pass.
>> Is "human history is vanishingly-short on a universal scale" the(!) point of contention here (in the opinion of all participants)
> I don't know - if I try to put myself in your position, it seems to be that I cannot assume or know anything....
Your problem is this: you are not trying to put yourself in my position, you are trying to put yourself in the position of your subconscious mental model of me. It's a very common error, due to it being fundamental to the culture we've been raised in.
> and thus that I cannot make any claims about the opinions of any participants (or even that they exist), and thus banana wombat elaborate polyhedron.
Ah, here you seem to be leveraging humour, a very popular technique in both rhetoric and culture/perception. I am duly impressed, though not so persuaded.
We're very very very obviously not going to reach any form of consensus here, as I'm arguing from the perspective of practicality and you are arguing from one of philosophical purity (neither incorrect, in their own domains - but often incompatible) - so I'll just pick the most relevant point to hopefully allow you to understand why, and then leave this fruitless conversation alone.
> you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure.
No - you've misunderstood or willfully misrepresented the situation. _In general_, attention to accuracy and truthfulness are virtues which increase the likelihood of a successful collaborative enterprise. They become failings when they are excessively applied, beyond the point of helpfulness (which is a different point depending on the domain or topic under discussion). In a discussion about philosophy of mind, questions like "Are my sensory perceptions accurate reflections of the world, or hallucinations? Is it meaningful to make measurements of the world?" are pertinent, and meaningfully affect the successful outcome of the discussion. In a practical discussion about measurement of the fractional-volume of the Universe taken up by humans, they're not - if the answer is "no", the whole of the rest of the discussion is moot, so _in order to allow the conversation to proceed_ to a helpful (albeit admittedly "based on an assumed axiom") conclusion, they are taken to be "yes". The objective of the discussion is not a philosophically bulletproof airtight proof, but a conclusion which is reasonable and helpful.
If you asked a friend to give you directions on how to walk from their house to the corner store, and they answered "I can't tell you that. I only have my own perceptions to go on, and I cannot know that they reflect the world accurately, let alone any experience that you might have"; would that be a useful conclusion to the conversation? Their response would be intellectually and philosophically pure, but practically unhelpful.
If the friend said "well, last time I walked there I went north two blocks and then left on 4th street. I guess that'd work for you" - that's a philosophically weaker statement which could be criticized as inaccurate (_did_ they take that path? How do they know that? Even if they experienced sensations reflecting those statements, how do they know that those statements are true? Even if those sensations were accurate, how do they know their memory is accurate? Or that the streets haven't been reconfigured in the intervening time?), but is still helpful. It's wordier and more complex than just saying "go north 2 blocks then left on 4th", sure - but for someone aiming for philosophical purity _while still being helpful_, it's a reasonable compromise. This added attention to accuracy does not lead to a failure. But the original "I can't tell you. All experience is unknowable and incommunicable" statement _is_ a failure, despite being "more accurate". It is over-application of accuracy beyond the point of helpfulness that leads to failure, not accuracy itself.
Almost all human endeavor is built on a towering edifice of disciplines and abstractions, each relying on the stability and fitness-for-purpose of the layer below. Physics relies on the usefulness of mathematics without reproving its theorems, web application developers make use of the Internet without rewriting network protocols from scratch, athletes carry out team strategies without consciously thinking about each individual muscle activation, legislative bodies organize nations without directly communicating with each individual. _Familiarity_ with the concepts and limitations of the layer(s) below one's area of operation is valuable, to avoid making assumptions that will not hold true at the boundary - but useful outcomes almost always result from assuming that a dependency which has been consistently reliable and accurate will continue to be so. Responding to a question about practical physical measurement with a rebuttal that physical measurement is philosophically impossible is technically-true, but unhelpful.
> you are framing the situation as being that attention to accuracy/truthfulness will necessarily yield failure.
No - you've misunderstood or willfully misrepresented the situation. _In general_, attention to accuracy and truthfulness are virtues which increase the likelihood of a successful collaborative enterprise. They become failings when they are excessively applied, beyond the point of helpfulness (which is a different point depending on the domain or topic under discussion). In a discussion about philosophy of mind, questions like "Are my sensory perceptions accurate reflections of the world, or hallucinations? Is it meaningful to make measurements of the world?" are pertinent, and meaningfully affect the successful outcome of the discussion. In a practical discussion about measurement of the fractional-volume of the Universe taken up by humans, they're not - if the answer is "no", the whole of the rest of the discussion is moot, so _in order to allow the conversation to proceed_ to a helpful (albeit admittedly "based on an assumed axiom") conclusion, they are taken to be "yes". The objective of the discussion is not a philosophically bulletproof airtight proof, but a conclusion which is reasonable and helpful.
If you asked a friend to give you directions on how to walk from their house to the corner store, and they answered "I can't tell you that. I only have my own perceptions to go on, and I cannot know that they reflect the world accurately, let alone any experience that you might have"; would that be a useful conclusion to the conversation? Their response would be intellectually and philosophically pure, but practically unhelpful.
If the friend said "well, last time I walked there I went north two blocks and then left on 4th street. I guess that'd work for you" - that's a philosophically weaker statement which could be criticized as inaccurate (_did_ they take that path? How do they know that? Even if they experienced sensations reflecting those statements, how do they know that those statements are true? Even if those sensations were accurate, how do they know their memory is accurate? Or that the streets haven't been reconfigured in the intervening time?), but is still helpful. It's wordier and more complex than just saying "go north 2 blocks then left on 4th", sure - but for someone aiming for philosophical purity _while still being helpful_, it's a reasonable compromise. This added attention to accuracy does not lead to a failure. But the original "I can't tell you. All experience is unknowable and incommunicable" statement _is_ a failure, despite being "more accurate". It is over-application of accuracy beyond the point of helpfulness that leads to failure, not accuracy itself.
Almost all human endeavor is built on a towering edifice of disciplines and abstractions, each relying on the stability and fitness-for-purpose of the layer below. Physics relies on the usefulness of mathematics without reproving its theorems, web application developers make use of the Internet without rewriting network protocols from scratch, athletes carry out team strategies without consciously thinking about each individual muscle activation, legislative bodies organize nations without directly communicating with each individual. _Familiarity_ with the concepts and limitations of the layer(s) below one's area of operation is valuable, to avoid making assumptions that will not hold true at the boundary - but useful outcomes almost always result from assuming that a dependency which has been consistently reliable and accurate will continue to be so. Responding to a question about practical physical measurement with a rebuttal that physical measurement is philosophically impossible is technically-true, but unhelpful.
"Like others, I prefer intuition to epistemology" would be an easier and more accurate though perhaps less satisfying way to express your game style preferences.
> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe?
Physical space is only one way to measure things.
Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.
Physical space is only one way to measure things.
Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.
> Physical space is only one way to measure things.
> Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.
These are both true statements, that do not answer my question. For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. You might claim that it's misleading to _focus on_ "proportion of physical space" instead of "proportion of conscious experience" - but it's not _misinformative_ to accurately describe the proportion of physical space we occupy.
> Humans might account for materially all of the conscious experience the universe has ever known.
These are both true statements, that do not answer my question. For something to be misinformative, it has to be false. You might claim that it's misleading to _focus on_ "proportion of physical space" instead of "proportion of conscious experience" - but it's not _misinformative_ to accurately describe the proportion of physical space we occupy.
> For something to be misinformative, it has to be false.
Can you prove this to be true?
If you cannot, then how do you know it is?
If you cannot prove this to be true, does it mean that it is necessarily false?
Are all true statements non-misinformative?
Can you prove this to be true?
If you cannot, then how do you know it is?
If you cannot prove this to be true, does it mean that it is necessarily false?
Are all true statements non-misinformative?
As anyone who has had to fly economy knows, physical space is very important to our lived experience.
Besides, "other things are also important" is not an argument for why "universe much bigger than you" is misinformation.
Besides, "other things are also important" is not an argument for why "universe much bigger than you" is misinformation.
I think a simple touché would've been enough, you both made valid points.
What if your guess is wrong though? What if running a planet where even the smart people are this bad at thinking is actually a gigantic risk?
Take climate change for example: have you seen any signs in these forum discussions of anyone with any novel thinking or even curiosity substantially beyond some variation of "trust the science/experts + democracy" on the matter? What if simplistic, faith based thinking like that is 50% underpowered, or even more?
And climate change is just one problem.
Take climate change for example: have you seen any signs in these forum discussions of anyone with any novel thinking or even curiosity substantially beyond some variation of "trust the science/experts + democracy" on the matter? What if simplistic, faith based thinking like that is 50% underpowered, or even more?
And climate change is just one problem.
> you both made valid points
I'm not one of the two people who had previously made points (though HN's interface does not make it easy to notice that). Regardless - prompting someone to support or extrapolate on an otherwise-unsubstantiated claim is perfectly reasonable (though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been).
I'm not one of the two people who had previously made points (though HN's interface does not make it easy to notice that). Regardless - prompting someone to support or extrapolate on an otherwise-unsubstantiated claim is perfectly reasonable (though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been).
>>> I like this visualization, but it got me thinking about how we often portray the universe in media. It seems like we always end up with the same message: 'Look how small and insignificant we are.' It's like we're drawn to the idea that our existence is just a tiny blip on the universe's radar.I think this perspective is a bit one-dimensional. It seems almost nihilistic.
>> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. Except it has the benefit of being obviously true.
vs
>> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe
For starters, look at the various differences in how you're reframed the question, which gives some additional insight into the nature of the problem.
But getting back to the original comment, we have two claims:
> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers.
The "a" saves the day here (yielding my "Technically true" comment), but this implies that the speaker happens to have some objective insight into the need for people to be "comforted" by simplified stories (surely true in some way, and to some degree), but as I said, it is non-comprehensive / reductionist, and arguably misinformative - this style of thinking can easily cause someone to believe that they understand what is going on, when they actually don't - what is actually going on is much more complicated than the enjoyable memes we share with each other on the internet.
The second one (to which your normative (self-perpetuating) reaction is "I'm not even gonna touch that one"):
> Except it has the benefit of being obviously true.
Where do you even start with this? What claim is even being made? "Religion" "is not true"? And that this visualization "is true"? For each claim, what are the particulars? If you were asked to implement these functions, what would you have in your implementation? And: would it be an accurate representation of the reality it implies it is evaluating correctly (in a non-misinformative, non-reductive way)?
And then there's the "obviously" true. Heuristics is what both religious and non-religious people lean on constantly to implement "is true". When someone says "science is true/false" or "religion is true/false", do you think they're running a comprehensive, fine-grained, bug-free analysis of all the attributes and characteristics of each, in subseconds?
Or, might it perhaps be something more like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...
"In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased."
I'd maybe also link an article on epistemology, but I'm like....whats the point? (In turn, demonstrating the pervasiveness of my point? lol)
PS:
> though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been
Hubris like this is like syrup on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae. There are few things I enjoy more than watching humans making errors, and then watching them patting themselves on the back for it. No wonder you people can't even consider thinking of trying to get yourselves out of the mess you've gotten yourselves into, so thick is the delusion and how high the self-regard.
>> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers. Except it has the benefit of being obviously true.
vs
>> how is it misinformative to state that the scope of all human existence occupies only a vanishingly-small fraction of the physical space, or temporal lifespan, of the universe
For starters, look at the various differences in how you're reframed the question, which gives some additional insight into the nature of the problem.
But getting back to the original comment, we have two claims:
> It’s actually comforting to non-believers in a way that religion is to believers.
The "a" saves the day here (yielding my "Technically true" comment), but this implies that the speaker happens to have some objective insight into the need for people to be "comforted" by simplified stories (surely true in some way, and to some degree), but as I said, it is non-comprehensive / reductionist, and arguably misinformative - this style of thinking can easily cause someone to believe that they understand what is going on, when they actually don't - what is actually going on is much more complicated than the enjoyable memes we share with each other on the internet.
The second one (to which your normative (self-perpetuating) reaction is "I'm not even gonna touch that one"):
> Except it has the benefit of being obviously true.
Where do you even start with this? What claim is even being made? "Religion" "is not true"? And that this visualization "is true"? For each claim, what are the particulars? If you were asked to implement these functions, what would you have in your implementation? And: would it be an accurate representation of the reality it implies it is evaluating correctly (in a non-misinformative, non-reductive way)?
And then there's the "obviously" true. Heuristics is what both religious and non-religious people lean on constantly to implement "is true". When someone says "science is true/false" or "religion is true/false", do you think they're running a comprehensive, fine-grained, bug-free analysis of all the attributes and characteristics of each, in subseconds?
Or, might it perhaps be something more like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...
"In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased."
I'd maybe also link an article on epistemology, but I'm like....whats the point? (In turn, demonstrating the pervasiveness of my point? lol)
PS:
> though I concede I was a little snarkier than I could have been
Hubris like this is like syrup on top of an already delicious ice cream sundae. There are few things I enjoy more than watching humans making errors, and then watching them patting themselves on the back for it. No wonder you people can't even consider thinking of trying to get yourselves out of the mess you've gotten yourselves into, so thick is the delusion and how high the self-regard.
> Look how small and insignificant we are ..... It seems almost nihilistic.
It isn't nihilistic. It is a simple fact.
As an aside, if you have not yet listened to the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy radio plays (and you should!) you will know this is a major plot device.
It isn't nihilistic. It is a simple fact.
As an aside, if you have not yet listened to the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy radio plays (and you should!) you will know this is a major plot device.
>It is a simple fact.
It is a simple fact that the Earth and solar system are small relative to the universe, because everyone agrees on how to measure dimensions and volumes. It is not as simple a fact that something more large is more significant -- whatever that means (if we knew what it meant, this claim would be settled).
Physical size is such a universal metaphor for relevance/significance (eg, "it's a big deal", "it's a small matter") that they're implicitly treated as synonymous.
It is a simple fact that the Earth and solar system are small relative to the universe, because everyone agrees on how to measure dimensions and volumes. It is not as simple a fact that something more large is more significant -- whatever that means (if we knew what it meant, this claim would be settled).
Physical size is such a universal metaphor for relevance/significance (eg, "it's a big deal", "it's a small matter") that they're implicitly treated as synonymous.
There is a well defined meaning of "insignificant" in this context: none of our activities have any material impact on what we see beyond the confines on Earth.
So the precise claim is that to describe any interplanetary scale (or up) process you can completely neglect humanity in its entirely, because its contribution to the process is negligible.
You are right that there's an unspoken step from "too small to impact the sun in any important way" to "insignificant to the universe", but it is not actually a very large step: being unable to affect one's surroundings is a classic sign of powerlessness.
So the precise claim is that to describe any interplanetary scale (or up) process you can completely neglect humanity in its entirely, because its contribution to the process is negligible.
You are right that there's an unspoken step from "too small to impact the sun in any important way" to "insignificant to the universe", but it is not actually a very large step: being unable to affect one's surroundings is a classic sign of powerlessness.
We're insignificant now. If we develop interstellar travel, we could start to become significant if we the visit/colonize the rest of the galaxy. Of course, even if we do fill up the galaxy, our galaxy is only a small sliver of the observable universe, so we'd have to move on to other galaxies. Not as crazy as it might sound, if given we would have the tech for interstellar travel, as intergalactic distances are only ~3 magnitudes off the span of a galaxy. e.g. Milky Way spans ~30k light years, Andromeda is ~3m light years away, 100 times. The leap from short hops of a couple light years to galaxy-wide distances is greater (Proxima Centauri is ~3 ly, vs. 30k light years = 5 orders of magnitude). Which is comparable to the jump from interplanetary to interstellar distances distances, which is about 4 orders of magnitude.
So if we can reach the edges of the Milky Way, other galaxies should be within reach. But doing that before the Heat Death/Big Rip/etc. might be a challenge.
So if we can reach the edges of the Milky Way, other galaxies should be within reach. But doing that before the Heat Death/Big Rip/etc. might be a challenge.
This is a good point. It’s an over-hang from the belief systems that came before us.
We’re Mostly harmless. We’re significant enough to have a researcher double the length of our entry in space-Wikipedia.
How does one measure significance? Science? Logic? Common sense? What's obvious? Some stories?
It depends - that may be the takeaway that's meant to be taken away, but it's almost always "look how much we're loved" from my frame of reference.
This is great! One request would be for the smoothing when zoomed out to not generate square pixels.
Example: https://imgur.com/a/lRrHHTJ
Example: https://imgur.com/a/lRrHHTJ
Last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30850625 (81 comments)
Still crazy after all these years...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4784821
Perhaps update the title with (2012)?
Perhaps update the title with (2012)?
I miss playing Elite Dangerous
I love the concept of ED and spent many an hour exploring. But when you have a full size galaxy, everything gets fairly repetitive after a while.
I had a lot of hope for KSP2 and everything that was on the roadmap. Nowhere near a galaxy scale, but much more realistic combined with having to build all of the infrastructure to reach the nearest star. Maybe one day we'll get a game that delivers without being shut down.
I had a lot of hope for KSP2 and everything that was on the roadmap. Nowhere near a galaxy scale, but much more realistic combined with having to build all of the infrastructure to reach the nearest star. Maybe one day we'll get a game that delivers without being shut down.
For those like me who were wondering, it seems that the game studio in charge of Kerbal Space Program 2 (KSP2 above) has announced it will be shuttered down [0]. This is a few days old.
[0] https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-shutters-kerbal-space-...
[0] https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-shutters-kerbal-space-...
It worked beautifully on Linux and then an update broke it!
Curious -- how do we get information about the thickness/shape of the galactic plane from observations within the plane?
A whole bunch of assumptions, mostly of the form “what other things look like from far away is probably what we look like from far away”. And “there probably isn’t anything that makes our perspective different from others”. We can’t test these, of course. But people are happy to assume them because without that there isn’t a field.
Very nice simulation, the only snag is when rendering on iPhone, the stop/skip button cover some of the text
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There is such immense stored power in the universe, yet humans are struggling to harness even a tickle of the suns power via solar panels. Put into perspective of our galaxy, there is hardly no power difference between us and ants. Wild!
Very well made in terms of visualizing scale. Scroll not working on Firefox (Windows).
What tools or techniques do you think the developers used to build this ?
Probably something like threejs. Some custom shaders maybe.
Threejs indeed https://web.dev/case-studies/100000stars
This is really impressive. It's not important, but I kinda wish the constellations could be optionally overlaid onto the visualization somehow.
They largely wouldn’t translate to the pseudo-3d space… Constellations are a side-effect of the night sky being functionally 2D from our cosmically-speaking singular viewpoint.
Didn’t manage to close the cookie banner before the intro started playing on top of it on my mobile screen. Great “experiment”, Google.
There's one direction in which I see one very bright glare. What is special about it?
Where does the data come from for this? The Gaia satellite database?
It might be the hygdata set which can be found here: https://github.com/astronexus/HYG-Database
It currently says it has the "Hipparcos-Yale-Gliese" database, with 119,614 stars and the "Tycho-2/Gaia" subset with 118,971 stars. That seems pretty close to the numbers quoted in the demo.
I used it previously for a matrix math conversion project translating the NIST JAMA library into a Javascript library.
If interested, the test page as a githack link can be found here. Click the "Run 3D Ellipse Fitting on Nearby (100 LY) Stellar Data". My example only uses the 25,000 out to 100 LY.
https://rawcdn.githack.com/conceptualGabrielPutnam/JAMA4JS/2...
It currently says it has the "Hipparcos-Yale-Gliese" database, with 119,614 stars and the "Tycho-2/Gaia" subset with 118,971 stars. That seems pretty close to the numbers quoted in the demo.
I used it previously for a matrix math conversion project translating the NIST JAMA library into a Javascript library.
If interested, the test page as a githack link can be found here. Click the "Run 3D Ellipse Fitting on Nearby (100 LY) Stellar Data". My example only uses the 25,000 out to 100 LY.
https://rawcdn.githack.com/conceptualGabrielPutnam/JAMA4JS/2...
Looks cool, but scroll wheel isn't doing anything.
Extremely cool, made me clean my screen.
Why can't cookies be rejected?
Because you're supposed to use Firefox with a plugin like uMatrix or NoScript to block cookies regardless of the website's "legitimate" practices. Protip: 90%+ of websites work great without cookies.
And, you can do other things like... block scripts from phishy domains like google.com.
And, you can do other things like... block scripts from phishy domains like google.com.
Isn't the sun's name sol?
Holy shit, this is incredible. Thanks for making it!
I thought a project on GitHub reached 100k stars… I need to touch more grass.
I saw "Chrome experiments" and "100k stars" and figured it was about some popular feature that Google was dragging their heels on like JPEG XL.
I did too.
Came here to say that. The stars on this site looks cool tho.
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