Unifying human knowledge against society's BS?

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It seems like everything - from debates here to political debates all over every country, come from subjective guesswork on things that, you swear, you'd think there should be a clean and decisive answer on. Issues like human motivation, issues like monetary policy, issues where yes - the results of any action may always be somewhere on the gray scale *but* the important thing is we should have enough awareness to know to what extent and why.

I'm kind of trying to leave the particulars out as much as possible because I don't want this to be a debate thread on the particulars but I just wanted to give enough examples to be coherent or at least hope what I'm getting at here can be communicated.

My best guess - things like this simply won't hold still. We take it for granted that the issue of the lack of human self-awareness or one group vs. the next on any particular issue, working on polemics and dodgy/questionable 'facts' should eventually become a thing of the past as research essentially starts shrinking the ability of diametric groups to pit against each other with "I feel A" vs. "I feel B" and then having the topic then dictated by something as shoddy and unreliable as raw human impression.

What do you guys think? Can the information age, perhaps even within our lifetimes, start closing these loopholes to bonehead arguments or even better - perhaps start ushering in peace in certain places of the world that direly need it? I get that it'll never be a wedge against fundamentalism of any kind, that's its own animal, but it seems like it should really strengthen and unify everyone else.

Also, is there a 'name' for the kind of desired outcome I'm talking about? I've heard 'unification' of human knowledge but I'm sure on whether that's the term most political philosophers and scientists would use or whether its just a few different authors.

Some issues are inherently subjective. There is no way to prove what's "better" or how things "should" be in those cases.

If science proves A=B, for example
Some people will say B is "bad" so A is therefore "bad".
Some will say A is "good" and therefore B is also "good".
What constitutes "good" and "bad" remains an opinion.

I'd have to argue though that even there you'll have a shrinking pool. B is bad why? They'll be able to bring a quantifiable argument to the table on why B is bad. If some believe that B is bad but A is disconnected while others believe that both B and A are good, they'll be able to come up with sound and non-polemic arguments more readily.

I agree with you, individual differences will always lead to different people wanting different outcomes, but I'd argue that you'll still have a shrinking pool for vitriol and cynicism about the other side to draw from - which will do a lot to make demagoguery an increasing thing of the past and will essentially be looked down on universally as barbaric. From that I'm sure you'd have happier people in general, more good will and integrity to go around in aggregate, that in and of itself would be self-feeding and you'd end up with a world where the B and A are bad, A or B is bad, and both A and B are good sides can find their own niches and find their own space to test their theories and see if it works for them.

Science is as close as the human race has come to unified knowledge. The catch of course is that decisions aren't just based on knowledge. They're also based on desired outcome. There will always be conflict on what is a desired outcome because that depends on what groups of people want to happen, rather than the facts of the matter.

Right, and at the same time though that process becomes more peaceable when bogus arguments for impossible outcomes unrealistic claims about present realities simply can't be pulled from everywhere and anywhere.

Access to information can't help but help. Anecdotally, Ive noted a drop in the number of creationists who want to argue about the subject online. That's confirmed by a gallup poll that has creationism at it's lowest level in 30 years of polling (40%). If that trend continues, I think it's a result of the internet. Old media channels could never do the job.

Nope, not a chance.

Look at the evolution VS creationism 'debate' that rages in the states, science has already proven beyond any doubt that evolution is real but human beings are very good at ignoring all evidence and making up their own fantasies to believe in.

Look at homeopathy, which the NHS spends millions of pounds per year providing even though science has repeatedly proven it to be complete BS.

Apparently in this post modern dystopia that we live in all beliefs are equal no matter how much or how little evidence exists to support them and the greatest crime imaginable is offending someone by pointing out their beliefs do not match reality.

There are two problems.

(1) Knowledge is not permanent. What we "know" today may be disproved (or at least modified) tomorrow. Science is currently debating whether it is possible for neutrinos to go faster than light, and there are opinions on both sides - and bear in mind it's only a matter of a few centuries since the idea light HAD a speed first came about. And what about less esoteric subjects? What about, say, the recipe for Coca-Cola? If they bring out a new recipe, you'll need to update the records.

Science thrives not on declaring "this is true" but on challenging these declarations. A central store of knowledge is a great idea - but it needs to be a living store, not a collection of facts.

(2) Human beings are collectively very bad at critical thinking. All of us are prone to think silly things, though some more than others. The creationism example is a good one; so is homeopathy, which has been proven to be nonsense repeatedly and STILL gets sold as a real medicine by many quacks. And then there's the slew of nonsensical "facts" that get repeated as true. Bob Holness did NOT play the saxophone on "Baker Street". The one about the average person eating eight spiders a year? Made up, If you had such a central repository of knowledge, some BS WOULD sneak in, purely because those that believe in it would shout loudly until someone relents.

Watch those things over time though, like Simon Says (sorry... ) the gas tank is starting to sputter fumes to the injectors. With no fueling base things like that tend to starve for input energy and unravel. Plus, the fewer mysteries we have about the human mind the less 'feeling' like the earth is 7,000 year old or feeling like Satan planted dinosaur bones will work, because we'll be able to explain those feelings and atheists will, instead of telling people that their Hills Have Eyes mutants will be telling them exactly who they are, what they think, why they think it, and explaining them to themselves better than they themselves can - and tacking the 'Its not your fault, we accept you for who you've been - we just want you to know who you are in going forward; the choice is yours what you do with that info'. That will take the 'holders of true wisdom' being a much more internally healthy and less wounded-animal lot.

I think your first point feeds directly into this one.

My thoughts
1) We don't need to make verdicts on things we can't answer
2) We should really put more effort into answering the things we can answer but for whatever reason haven't.

Essentially I'm not talking about fixing the problem perfectly, and your right - we have no indication that we're anywhere near the end of science, so our changes in theories could pick our feet up on the air and drop us on our heads several times over before that comes to pass. My point though - outside of quantum relativity and quantum mechanics, ie. the really wild terra incognita type stuff, the debates over the very basics of human nature are much more local and it seems like there are tons of variables that we could scientifically squash - they seem to be an equal variety as well, politically, of both conservative and liberal mythology for instance that has politcal clashes at that end going on often that don't need to be.

As for the quality of collective decision making; that's something you'd simply fix at its nuts and bolts. The nuts and bolts approach is in essence trying to unify the fundamental bottom line so that people are somewhat forced to agree on the facts rather than occupying parallel factual universes.

It's the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative data, as follows:

Qualitative

• What is seems to be. Will rarely have a number.
• Based on perception of color, shape, feel, taste, aroma, sound.
• "Olivia is wearing a blue sweater."
• "The lab tabletop is smooth."
• "The dog's fur is shiny."

Quantitative

• How many. Will always have a number.
• Based on exact measurement.
• "The room is 8 meters across" (1 meter = 3.2808399 feet).
• "Sarah is 141 centimeters tall" (1 centimeter = 0.393700787 inches).
• "Sam weighs 450 Newtons* under 9.80665 meters per second per second of acceleration."

"Good" and "Bad" are subjective opinions, and may have little - if any - qualitative or quantitative data to support them. Opinions are usually based on subjective beliefs and feelings, not reason. Beliefs themselves are prejudicial and feelings may influence other beliefs. Politicians, Philosophers, Religious Leaders, other con artists know this, and use this knowledge to their advantage. This is why it is important to remember that belief proves nothing, and that only a critical examination of the facts or a demonstration of the principles may reveal the truth.

(*1 newton = 0.224808943 pounds of force; A newton is the measure of force necessary to move a mass of one kilogram the distance of one meter in one second).

Blue: roughly 610,000gHz to 680,000gHz
sweater: imperfection of language could challenge agreement as 'sweater' has an image but not the crispest definition.
Olivia: to stave off endless hypotheticals we'll assume that's really her - legal name, on paper with the government in most cases, with a valid state ID her Olivianess is difficult to dispute.


Frailty of language primarily. When Merriam Webster furnishes a maximum friction gradient that should be taken care of.


Light reflection gradient - could likely be given in some type of scientific measure if people wanted to be supergeeks, it just tends not to be the tendency.


I'm not trying to be a smartass, just that almost everything is a mix of both quantitative and qualitative and where the truly qualitative (human preferential) is - at this point with limited knowledge of human neurology - still off the table, we still have essentially the old 'raisins in plum pudding' model where we can track the shape of the objective; ie you mix two chemicals together you get cinnamon aldehyde which may smell wonderful but it smelling wonderful is a side point and better left to 'what to do with cinnamon aldehyde' rather than worrying about that effecting chemical equation. Similarly with most of what we do there are as many mathematical reasons as there are subjective 'emotional' and when we don't understand our own emotions and act on impulse we're often being more mathematical than ever.

Really IMHO they're two sides of the same coin, just that we're dealing with much more complex physical laws within a human being's 'I' experience and the propulsion it experiences rather than measuring basic macro qualities of our universe.

Don't get me wrong - I know I'm not talking to an idiot on science, just that I don't think it makes any sense to hold the qualitative in an off-limits box. It is wise of us to know how much we don't know as well as how much we do and *not* to pretend that we know what we don't (at least in terms of any societal policies, at an individual level its fine), it just takes maturity for us to start dissecting it all without jumping to conclusions that we have to do x, y, or z with the results.

I know, and you have made a point.

However, the determinant that separates Qualia from Quanta is the lack or use of numerical values.

"The sweater that Olivia is wearing reflects visible light remarkably well at the wavelength of 462.5 nanometres" is a quantitative way of saying "Olivia is wearing a blue sweater".

It's also something that Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper might say...

Well right... its highly accurate but also quite likely to insure a guy's chastity.

We might first have to resolve the matter of "'information age' versus so-called 'fundamentalism'".

That is still partially Qualitative. It has a component that is Quantitative, but the rest remains Qualitative.

There is also a fundamental difference between the color blue, and the wavelength of light 450-475 nm. This being conscious perception and the internal mechanism used by a biological entity in processing and comprehending this visual stimuli. (blue) The later being a type of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength restricted to 450-475 nm range.

Qualitative statements seem often to be embedded with subjectivity, while Quantitative ones with objectivity. That’s far from universal, it is easy to construct a statement otherwise.