Respect for reality is core

You can ignore reality but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Turtles are real observed living creatures. Ewoks are not. If you argue with this distinction then you may as well leave now.

There is a difference between reality and things we make-up. Anyone denying this is being silly.

Sophistry aside,:

• some stuff is true by observation (many dogs have 4 legs)

• some stuff is story only (many dogs have 45,967 legs)

For ease I call these two types of stuff green-stuff and pink-stuff, saves a lot of lists.

Either something is witnessed truth, reality, something genuinely known, not just believed,

Or it is something else.

Real Science is keeping these two rigorously distinguished

If we can’t tell the difference between reality and Imagined things we come a cropper eventually.

Along the way, before that point, we cause mayhem to others - especially given resources and power.

The Citadel of $cience blurs pink and green endemically and much of it has nothing to do with science.

True science is not some arcane collection of truths

Science is at core purely the uncompromisingly consistent application of total scepticism - combined with eager curiosity and imagination

It is the total refusal EVER to confuse

• a MODEL built to represent reality and/or any of its elements with

• actual witness of reality (DATA)

Of course it also seeks lots of both types of stuff and very usefully so but

all must built on this distinction.

True Science is only about wanting to know what is true about reality.

So Feynman is right to point to the pruning away of “non-truths taken as truths” as vital to science

Science is organised scepticism in the reliability of expert opinion - Feynman

This is a pretty cool definition except it skips the foundation step.

First you have to be clear what is opinion (pink-stuff) and what is truth.

When expert opinion is confused for truth then it doesn’t get challenged. When it has permeated all aspects of culture it becomes common knowledge.

None-truths “known” as true by the majority of people.

The organised scepticism in expert opinion must be rooted on the hard-scepticism that refuses to ever treat non-truth as if it were truth or vice-versa.

Why collect none-truth at all?

• Collect as much green-stuff as possible. Accurately observe actual reality.

This one is obvious. To know truth you collect truth. With curiosity.

But a large part of “Science” is a collection of things accepted to be only stories,

some of them known to have never been proved true,

some of them logically impossible to ever be proved true. Is that a problem?

No. As long as

• they are not treated as green-stuff

• they don’t clash with any

• they are capable of providing some

Pink-stuff, stories, are a huge part of true science. Pink-stuff is most welcome and useful.

And stories that could never be proved true are some of the most powerful and useful stories of all, generating huge amounts of significant useful green-stuff.

4 types of Fictions

There are four types of stories and three of them can lead to green-stuff. I group these three types of fiction and call them the:

Science-fictions.

A Science-fiction is a piece of pink stuff representing reality that is capable of leading to hard green-stuff from reality.

There are three types - easily distinguished by which of these questions receives the answer YES

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is false?

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is true?

Pure fantasy / Pseudoscience-fictions

The fourth type of fiction - which cannot lead to green-stuff and cannot answer yes to either question above can be called:

• Pure fantasy: if it isn’t making any claim to be a science-fiction, a representation of reality. It’s pure fantasy. Nothing wrong with that.

Or

• a Pseudoscience-fiction if it does try to make that false claim

Green → Pink → Green

The whole point of science is about knowing what is true. So any stories that cannot lead to green stuff are not science-fictions.

How do stories, none-truths, lead to truth?

There are three types that do.

3 types of science-fictions

1) THIS CAN NEVER HAPPEN!

This most useful and most potentially dangerous type of science-fiction I call a

Universal Restriction.

It claims something cannot happen - equivalent to saying what must happen.

“You can’t throw a piano out of a window without it falling”

“A piano thrown out of a window must fall”

How does it answer the two questions?

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is false?

YES. I claim something can never happen. You only need one single existential example of it actually happening to prove my story false. It is falsifiable.

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is true?

NO. You would have to check infinite cases including in the future. It is not verifiable.

MY STORY COULD NEVER BE TRUE!

So, why is it so powerful?

The power of a Universal Restriction is its ability to be proved wrong

Because this gives it the potential to remain unfalsified after many sincere imaginative attempts to find a counter-example.

“You say that can’t happen? Right, I’ll show you…

…Well I tried”

Each failed attempt to prove it wrong

(each time reality behaves as the Universal Restriction declares it must - despite attempts to show it not doing so)

is a new piece of DATA, proper hard existential witnessed reality. green-stuff. Truth.

If a concerted effort generates huge amounts of failed imaginative falsification attempts Then the Universal Restriction becomes a Veteran Restriction - A proper scientific theory.

A Universal Restriction Is usually called a hypothesis in science.

When it survives huge numbers of rocks thrown at it, It gets promoted to a Theory.

We must beware Scientific Theories

Firstly, many stories which are not genuine Veteran Restrictions get called Theories.

Secondly, Theories get identified with Truth all too easily. Pink-stuff treated as green.

The core foundation of science out the window.

Combining these two processes and total pseudoscience becomes seen not only as real science but as fact! Common knowledge.

Summary :

A Universal Restriction is a science-fiction that says something could never happen : equivalent to saying what must happen.

It can be proved wrong by real world DATA but never proved right.

It can be called a Veteran Restriction after surviving many attempts to prove it wrong.

2) THIS CAN HAPPEN

The inverse of a Universal Restriction is a

Science-prophecy

It claims something can happen, may be witnessed - that there is no restriction stopping reality doing this

How does it answer the two questions?

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is true?

YES. I claim something can happen. You only need one single existential example of it actually happening to prove my story true. It is verifiable. You may “detect a positron”

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is false?

NO. It may happen any-time you could never prove it couldn’t happen the next day.

3) CHECK THIS. IT’S TRUE

Can be shown true or false

Science-decideable

It claims some finite checkable fact is true.

How does it answer the two questions?

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is true?

YES. Check it!

• Could observed DATA prove that your story (of how things are) is false?

YES. Check it!

Bottom line

DATA, truth must always at every stage be properly distinguished from science-fictions.

Green-stuff and Pink-stuff must be properly kept separate.

We are at the stage where - amongst many examples - 100% fictional pink things

with not a shred of evidence for their real world existence having ever turned up

are treated by the majority as if they exist in their trillions causing harm and requiring highly damaging remedies to thwart them.

Warm thoughts

Tim