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User blog:Bromley/Confirmation Bias: everything "What's wrong with the world" (aka "to a hammer everything is a nail"): Difference between revisions
User blog:Bromley/Confirmation Bias: everything "What's wrong with the world" (aka "to a hammer everything is a nail") (view source)
Revision as of 20:11, 19 November 2023
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Alas, to know what is "right" is the problem. | Alas, to know what is "right" is the problem. | ||
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17th century poet John Milton argued that truth (what is right) can only be known by God, thus men can only approach it, but always with error (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica). We are limited by incomplete and inadequate senses and reason, so what we think we know is impossibly and necessarily short of reality. Yet, we must not shy from the search for truth, which, as Milton warns, is limited by human error -- limits aggravated by human arrogance that it knows right and wrong. Milton thereby defends free speech, noting that it is only through error that we can approach truth (never reaching it), so to shut down an idea is to shut down the search for truth. | 17th century poet John Milton argued that truth (what is right) can only be known by God, thus men can only approach it, but always with error (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areopagitica). We are limited by incomplete and inadequate senses and reason, so what we think we know is impossibly and necessarily short of reality. Yet, we must not shy from the search for truth, which, as Milton warns, is limited by human error -- limits aggravated by human arrogance that it knows right and wrong. Milton thereby defends free speech, noting that it is only through error that we can approach truth (never reaching it), so to shut down an idea is to shut down the search for truth. | ||