Our Present Dark Age
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
- The best explanation for the current madness of the world is that we're in a dark age and have been for at least a century. The epistemic standards of the 20th century were not high enough to overcome social, psychological, and political entropy.
Original article here: steve-patterson.com/our-presen...
I am very much looking forward to this series.
Wow. This is fantastically written. I identify with your perspective so much
Absolutely Brilliant! The last century accurately explained in 20 minutes!
I was looking forward to the next parts as I've seen the same problem. Hope all is well.
Great work. It is seldom the case that we stand back far enough from an inquiry to get it's broader context sufficiently well founded.
Brilliant as usual. I nearly always agree with nearly everything you say. I find Godel Incompleteness & the Copenhagen Interpretation to be highly problematic to say the least.
However, I doubt that you are right to suspect that history will be kind to the skeptics. For example, it is nothing new to question whether of not it is valid to talk about an infinite collection. Various philosophers have questioned this going back to the Atomists of Ancient Greece about 2.5 thousand years ago. The internet has made these sources readily available to those who seek them out. But even when the flaws are pointed out to the mainstream followers, and even when these sources are referenced, the mainstream still don't budge an inch.
I recently posted an innocuous comment in a Reddit thread at r/math in which I suggested that maths should be based on verifiable logic and the only logic that is verifiable is logic derived from empirical evidence in our shared physical reality. For this I received an instant permanent lifetime ban and my innocent little comment was deleted by the moderators. As with all my comments, there was no swearing and I made my point in a polite and respectful manner, but the moderators told me I was banned for 'crankery'.
If the alternative information outlets introduce more moderation, to identify and remove the more harmful extreme views (such as those that encourage hate crimes), then eventually videos might go the same way as Reddit, and then all so-called 'cranks' will be silenced.
You also said that the methodology employed by intellectuals is not sufficiently rigourous enough to generate high quality ideas.
I agree, but what is a better/best methodology? Why is it that when you or I or Norman Wildberger tries to convince a typical mathematician that there is no such thing as an infinite set, we almost always fail? Why is one person's approach to logical reasoning so different to another's? How can two people ever agree on what is 'good logic'?
Perhaps we need to accept that when humans hold strong beliefs then it is almost impossible to convince them to reject those beliefs. Perhaps the best way forward is to not attack them but to build an alternative system so as not to cause any conflict.
But to build a system to replace the entirety of mathematics (or any of the other disciplines you mentioned) would take an enormous amount of work, far too much for one person. So it would help if all the skeptics could work together on a shared long-term project to build an alternative system. But then we would still have to start by resolving the most important point of what mechanism/process do we use to resolve disputes about what is good logic and what is not.
Incredible work! For the past five years, I have become a generalist in the past five years, not in academia, but thanks to UA-cam and te internet. After watching the video, I feel that my general knowledge could help me get us out of this dark age.
Wow! This was eye-opening. Thank you!
Love the big picture analysis of our current paradigms. I've always had a sort of vague intuition of this, but never quite pieced it together the way you've explained. Good video.
Comforting that there are actually other highly critical minds left ... most have been consumed by the ring of power !
This is a thoroughly excellent video and synopsis of our global situation. I agree that we are in a dark age philosophically and psychologically. I have often pondered that one of the main reasons for the growing chaos that is proliferating everywhere is that our sacred cows aka institutions are fraught with contradictions and superstitions along with downright lies and corruption to continue to uphold these lies. This equates to a breakdown in how we experience society and our reality in general but also poses a serious danger to our health, well being and livelihoods. We need to throughly reassess and revision pretty much everything if we are going to survive and hopefully evolve as a human race. However a big part of the problem is people do not want to think, and specifically think for themselves which takes time, effort and quite a bit of dedication from an individual. Most however would rather defer that responsibility to someone else unfortunately . But this is an absolute pre-requisite to begin this process in earnest with the foundations in logic, reason and I would use the term ‘functional thinking’.
Bariatric medicine, TAVR procedures on the elderly... new drugs generally dispersed, but tested on a limited demographic, operations based on statistics ...
Came here from the Dark Horse Podcast. I'm so stoked to have a new person to listen to that's engaging. 😁
Edit: Thanks for the hope as well.
Quality analysis.
You are a rational voice out there. I have subscribed to your channel.
This is an amazing video. When can expect some further entries in this series?
Jean-Yves Béziau might be interesting to speak with. His hexagons are pretty cool.
Excited about this. Can't wait for the next parts!
I guess the internet gave us all the ability to critically examine what was inaccessible before the internet. And so it became less clear that all the prior wisdom was foundationally secure. We find out about vigorous discussions, debates and disputes among domain "elites" that show that most fields of thought are very much based on a winning consensus of interpretation and aren't the only valuable interpretations available. whether in politics, maths, science , art, crafts, etc
Far from how mainstream education works, the way I research a new field is to think about it myself first then if I run out of steam I look for the smart-sounding "cranks" first and learn their views along with the mainstream, think more and see if I can get further, then find the debates, read them, think more, eventually engage in debates myself, think more, go out into other fields and look for parallels, think more, debate more, rinse, repeat. Topic breadth is far more important than topic depth when it comes to achieving precise and well-contextualized understandings. In other words, you must go broad to go deep. Topic depth is not depth of understanding.
As an INTP as I'm sure you are, too, I tend to specialize in finding errors and ironing things out to achieve conceptual clarity where it's lacking. The errors are egregious indeed. Almost no one in science has the mind for it, or if they do they are way too social about it, which turns their minds to mush as they allow the distorting influence of language to color their every thought.
Glad to have you back! Please fire up a LBRY/ Odysee account, your content would be perfect for that platform and it's the innovative alt-tech that you're referring to.
He already knows about crypto, including BSV.
@@green3488 I'm aware, but it never hurts to voice my support for a content creator that I respect and love towards at least diversifying his platform - especially one as useful as such. He's perfectly free to ignore it, but I figured as a supporter and consumer I'd voice my desire.
@@Richest_The k.
In the process of making a channel right now :)
Follow me there ! odysee.com/@stevepatterson
Your videos on mysticism are fantastic. I'd love to hear an update of your thoughts regarding the topic. Forgive me for writing this here but the comments are turned off on the mystic vids.
How long til part 2 of this comes out?? I have an example. The traditional model of muscular anatomy and its use in manual therapies and exercise physiology vs the myofascial meridians by Thomas Myers. It's a small one that's actually catching in a bit.
I would love to hear more about the history of this flawed incentive structure that plague the different fields you mentioned. How and when it came to be? What were the changes that happened since the "better ages"?
The private Money Power is responsible. This is the world they want to finance. The truth in the hands of “the little people” threatens them. This system is one big distraction from what should be the systemic discernment and documentation of “natural law” shared for the benefit of humanity.
Direct slavery is difficult. Abstract slavery through debt-based money systems that set up zero-sums game debt-money systems work much more efficiently, and keeps the alavés in the dark.
At a surface level, the story of Socrates and the Sophists sums up the general principles at play.
The Money Power, and the pathological money-seekers they hire, play the role of sophists.
Unless those they rule over become committed Socratics, of course.
How many committed Socratics do you know, apart from this channel’s manager?
I found this due to when studying infinity coming to the conclusion Canter's diagnolization was incorrect. I am glad this concern is not just mine.
Well said Steve. Once again a delight to have my grey matter stimulated by another rational mind who dares to depart from convention. Your observation of a current Dark Age resonates with my own research and intellectual observations.
This was a good video. I prefer the term "probabilistic thinking" over "critical-thinking" because it seems like critical-thinking comes across as less instantly useful as "probabilistic thinking", and it seems like "critical-thinking practices" are generally about being more probabilistic. Also I'm really high right now and I like to end paragraphs with the sentences in odd numbers.
i think we should be careful with labeling ourselves as seeing and others as blind. perhaps centrally planned economies *have* worked even if you don't like it.
Centrally planned economies work to the extend they mimick the market economies. That is the work only as cargo cult capitalsim. If you are planning USSR economy, you have to look what is happening in the west and try to copy. No planning and voting can find out even such things as how much toilet paper is needed. That is the Economic Calculaton probblem described by Mises. But i don't demand you adopt the same perspective and come to a certain level of understanding. You can explain your perspective to me, if you want.
I fully agree with the first sentence though. Patterson is bashing academics all the time. He doesn't even know even complete fundamentals of modern logic yet he pretends he is contributing to some pretty complicated problems.
Interesting. This sounds like a secular version of Francis Schaeffer‘s statement of the historical problem (“How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”) and an allusion to Norman Geisler’s critique and solution (“I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist”).
The concept of 'virus' is definitely something that needs to be re-examined.
Excellent work, Sir ! Any thoughts on neo-platonism?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on nano.
Does one have to fully rationally understand every step before he makes it in order to ever make any meaningful steps?
A question does complexity theory help us better get to verifiable truth?
The title is good.
'Bout time somebody tied this all together.
(It takes work to make a video)
1:34 Structures Plagued With Errors
- Absence of Trust
- Lack of High Quality Ideas
3:07 Taught Wrong and unaware how large the error spans
4:05 Alternative Channel Renaissance
“New life of the mind”
4:51
1. Intellectuals underestimated complexity of the world
1e: Doctors who fail at their job
6:20
2. Specialization makes people stupid
When are you going on the Lex Fridman podcast?
Read Jane Jacobs' book Dark Age Ahead.
As if by magic this video appeared at exactly the right time
Speaking of critical thinking, you are guilty of the Motte and Bailey fallacy. If you don't know what that is, it is good to look into. You make this fallacy when you object to Liar paradox on the grounds that it contains syntactic infinite regress, but when you are shown that syntactic infinite regress is not always a problem, you completely change the position arguing then about the type of the infinite regress...
Thank you.
Great stuff!
I try to shine light against your dark picture: To your first point: "1. Intellectuals have greatly underestimated the complexity of the world." I do not think that scientiest only make mistakes because they're ignore the complexity of the world. I think instead that they knowingly simplify the structure of the world. If you observe something complicated you try to simplify and catch that. So of course our picture of the world is too simple (and I think many scientist "know" this). However we're not gods, so how should it be otherwise? "2. Specialization has made people stupid." Specialization is needed because the amount of knowledge that exist today is too much. You can't be an expert in all fields. You must be a ignorant in some branche of science. However this is really a problem. But the solution is not to generate ultra-geniuses (or "Rambo-like philosophers") but to work more together with a lot of scientists in other branches. And I do not think that specialized scientist are because of the myopia more stupid -- I mean in their expertise they're good, not dumb. " 3. The lack of conceptual clarity in mathematics and physics has caused a lack of conceptual clarity everywhere else. These disciplines underwent foundational crises in the early 20th century that were not resolved correctly." I humbly confess I can't give a judgement on this. Only maybe an intuition: if we can't predict many (physical) events, doesn't show this that the mathematical foundation isn't total crap? 4. "The methods of scientific inquiry have been conflated with the processes of academia." Like my comment on the second point, I think this is pragmatic necessity. Of course we make errors even if we try to follow certain good scientific practices. They're not good because they're used by scientist in academia, but they help to collect empiric data that is meaningfull and can be related to other ideas. A psychologist can make experiment without making sure that it is blind. Such an experiment give also data. But it can be corrupted by biases. So to "clean" the experiment from such biases you make the experiment blind. "5. Academia has been corrupted by government and corporate funding." That may be so, but in this point I'm not optimistic. That's not gonna change. But that's (like all that I rite) my opinition. However I do see politic as a special problem. Our society is politicly democraticly structured way, so in one point of a time it can be that the society funds more left ideas and in another time more right ideas. This is legime because it is product of democracy. 6. "Human biology, psychology, and social dynamics make critical thinking difficult." It is one point why science is hard.
1. Models are of necessity simplified, but the constant awareness of this that's required is not held to.
2. Specialization is a scourge. That there is too much knowledge for any one person to know doesn't mean the solution is to have people who only know one field. Because if they only know one they don't really know even that field. Very soon more depth of field knowledge fails to yield more depth of conceptual understanding when pitted against broader study and thought. For example, you'll never understand physiology very well unless you also study at least one other natural order, such as economics or common law or linguistics, so that you can see the parallels and abstract away those dynamics that are common to natural orders in general from the specifics of the natural order of the human body.
Also there are many fields where people struggle with "hard problems" that would be easy for people in other fields. Probably many examples in psychology that mathematicians may find easy, for example, thanks to their rigorous training in logical thought (though not nearly rigorous enough as it neglects semantics; a mathematician who hasn't learned a foreign language or otherwise gotten a hearty taste of all the ins and outs of how language creates traps for thinkers is almost powerless in the field).
Also, the foundations of large parts of modern math are total crap, but the foundations of many other parts are only partial crap and some others barely crap at all. Depends on the subfield. Set theory is total crap, but nothing in practice relies on it. Engineering success is in general only very loosely reliant on science, and in some fields often not at all.
Somehow i think I knew this, but I did not understand it.
Ngl this is some big history if I ever heard any
Brilliant. Bravo. 👏
Have you considered that advancements in civilization have eliminated natural selection to a degree in which population is just getting dumber? Check out Jolly Heretic. I'm not a biologist etc. but so far I have not seen a good explanation why this wouldn't be the case.
Cool. Coolcoolcool.
So cool it's cold
Great video as always! I would argue a primary cause of the dark age is democracy. I think any democratic society must accept that quantity of opinions is more important than quality in order for the political structure not to collapse.
But what is the cause of democracy? It didn't invent itself after all.
@@mikewallis2987 It was an extreme opposite response to tyrants. If when 1 person rules it's bad, therefore the most opposite thing to that is everybody.
Have you read some of J.Y. Girard's book called The Blind Spot? It is philosophy/logic/mathematics combined. Chapter 2 is about incompleteness.
Great video so far. It directly speaks to a lot of what I think and have been saying. I have one point though. I think it's worth noting because my experience is it's often linked to a broader ideological irrationality. At around 15:30 he says a failing of academia is harboring far left radicalization. This is in context of his listing other failures, including vast influxes of money. Does he think that is true? Or it is more likely, as is evidenced in Democratic politics, that would only extend to aesthetics? I would argue academic institutions are primarily organs of the state and therefore, at least in the West, primarily serve to facilitate capitalism. Therefore, the ideology they are actually instilling is neoliberalism. Which gets me back to my original point for noting this. Not distinguishing this from leftism is a product of the broader dark age thinking your describing.
The west doesn’t have capitalism, it has cronyism or “political capitalism” at best. More recently it’s been partially changed to woke capitalism.
Lol
Lol, this is great content.
I agree on the science and engineering distinction. Sounds like you’re eluding to problems with vaccines. I hope you don’t conflate medicine with science. I say this because, though I agree on the low resolution assessment that sciences(I can’t speak for math) are “failing” in the last century. I think your argument with such large brushstrokes can sound foolish if you disregard the scientific (not necessarily medical) progress that occurred in biology.
That's quite the Zealous Accusation, I'm listening...
Though I agree **strongly** with your core thesis in this article, and was about to share it with others, I unfortunately decided I could not do so when I hit the roadblock of your almost offhand comment about global warming science. I, like you, believe that all science and academia are corrupted by corporate and corporate captured government interference. But just because there is some (or even substantial) corruption in a science, does not mean that **all** science in that field is corrupt - and this is particularly true and important when it comes to climate disruption and global warming. It has been known since the 19th century that global warming is a real problem.
This is so foundationally true that even the earliest the scientific research of fossil fuel companies **themselves** admits that there is a problem, with potentially civilization ending and biosphere collapsing consequences. So it is crucial when you broach discussing the corruption in global warming science, that you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater - because if we don't solve this very real problem, we are likely facing a Permian Extinction level collapse, on a much faster timeline than its namesake.
There is a very real and rapid global ecological and economic crisis happening, right now, caused largely by the multiple interacting factors of a hyper-financialized global capitalism, industrial scale animal agriculture, global warming (due to animal ag, overproduction for that hyper-financialized economy, and fossil fuel burning), as well as wars for global control of fossil fuel, nuclear, and imperial dominance. These factors are the Four Horsemen of a modern apocalypse. And if we don't get this combined synergistic crisis under control within the next few decades, we and most of life on Earth are likely finished.
Flippant comments about global warming science being generally corrupt, dangerously turn people away from acknowledging this potentially world ending reality. Please adjust your rhetoric on that subject to avoid that unintended consequence.
Wow he's back. Enjoy your videos man.
I would love to be a guest on your show and talk more about this.
What kind of angle would you take?
Couldn’t agree more about the Copenhagenist BS!!! Let’s just throw our hands up and say it’s UNEXPLAINABLE??!?!?
Thank you!
All of modern mathematical physics is total nonsense, as far as theory goes. In fact they only pretend to theorize.
good to see you still part of the solution.
It’s not malice nor stupidity nor corruption. It’s simply the nature of the beast. It’s a system that grows old. And decays. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Trying to save it will just prolong its life.
not a bug, rather a feature
"By a dark age I do not mean that all modern beliefs are false, the earth is indeed round." You yourself call the idea that the earth is round (by which you mean 'sphere') a "belief" instead of a fact but if you were to challenge that belief, which is easy to do, your following would be slashed by 80%. So don't get too preachy there smart guy, because you're very much a contributor to the present dark age. To sharpen the point, you have the kind of mind capable of challenging the absurd contradictions of the heliocentric model, and even though it would be by far the best example of your hypothesis, you'd go broke if you did so you don't dare touch it. Okay.
Would love to hear Steve's thoughts on the heliocentric model and how he came to his conclusion about it's validity. Also see him to address challenges to it.
I've looked at some flat earthers and their arguments so far just sound like misunderstandings. One thing I'd like to know: is the claim that all pilots are in on it?
@@ThePallidor First, argumentum ad populum fallacy. Second, you think maybe the pilots who’ve figured it out keep their mouths shut because why argue with the mob and lose their job? NO WAY!
Let’s find a pilot and a plane and do an experiment. If the aircraft has its artificial horizon pegged at 0 degrees (flying perfectly parallel with the land) and hits a target 100 feet above the surface of a lake, you must believe that it would pass 266 feet above a second target at 100 feet above the surface 20 miles away. I’ll put 1 million USD in bitcoin on the outcome that the plane will hit the second target just like he did the first.
There are many, many pilots who understand this basic fact. They know their elevator wings do not change 1 centimeter to adjust for the curve as they fly thousands of miles over the earth.
@@clivemossmoon3611 On ad populum, I'm not appealing to the fact that everyone thinks the earth is round, but that the flat earthers I've encountered so far haven't made good points as far as I can tell.
I don't buy the argument that all commercial and military pilots enter a secrecy club when they learn to fly and then never spill the beans even after they retire. What I know about human nature says that some would inevitably reveal the secret. Also, there are people who travel great distances by boat, even privately. They can't all be sworn to secrecy as well.
I don't have a view on what happens to the wings in your example because I don't know enough about plane instruments and flight; for all I know, the difference wouldn't be detectable to a pilot. I'd have to gather outside info from a reliable source to know this, or fly myself. If an appeal to pilots and sailors all being in on it is required, it gives me no reason to bother checking though, as I find that incredible.
@@ThePallidor
You put a lot of stock in others telling you what the truth is. I’m asking you to figure it out for yourself which you're clearly unwilling to do. Cheers.
Brilliant. But I’m afraid you’re only scratching the surface.
Unfortunately you are just stating the obvious.
Someone needed to. And he did a great job of summarizing it in a short form.