A Millionth of One Percent

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.

— Thomas Edison

Editorial Comment: Since Edison's time, we have learned an amazing amount. Of course, one of the things we don't know is how much there is to know, so it's impossible to be accurate about this -- but I think it's safe to say that we now know at least one-tenth of one percent about everything.

Mike Treder

Tag: quotes

Comments

[KAZ]

You really think we know one thousand times as much as we did in Edison's time?

[KAZ]

Wait...I was doing some needless reduction math, you're actually saying we know one hundred thousand times as much.

Question just gets stronger, though; you really think we know one hundred thousand times as much as in Edison's time?

[Mike Treder, CRN]

It might be reasonable to say that we now know one thousand times as much as we knew in Edison's time -- as for 100,000 times, I think that is a result of Edison's exaggeration, not mine.

[KAZ]

I would not be even slightly surprised if Edison were not exaggerating at all. We're still struggling to understand even a tiny fraction of this perceptible three dimensional universe, whereas there are now serious suggestions from the fusion of string and supergravity theory that we may live in a universe of ten spacial dimensions, full of more other 3d universes than there are particles in our own universe.

And, for all we know, there may be something outside our realm of reality altogether. Take the Simulation Argument, for example; our entire 10 dimensional omniverse could be just a single simulation in some calculation system -- a computer, for example -- within some universe whose rules might have nothing to do with ours at all.

I would be less surprised if Edison understated than if he exaggerated.

[James "Thundarr" Vassar]

Or we could already know it all and just be refusing to admit it.

The world is just a dream of God.

Or "I think therefore I am - and nothing else matters".

Measuring absolutes without any exterior references to which to compare -- hazardous at best.

[KAZ]

Indeed, as Charles Pierce established a long time ago, there is actually no way to prove anything at all. There are no truly valid external references, because THEY can't all have external references of their own. It's a paradox akin to the prime mover issue.

All human knowledge...all of one's personal knowledge...is simply a matter of weighing guesses. One never absolutely knows anything at all.

The core premise of the Simulation Argument -- that our apparent reality may be a virtual manifestation within some other system -- actually works equally well with hard science (we will run simulated universe of our own, with sentient beings evolving in them) and with religion (the Buddhist suggestion that we're all the dream of a god).