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whatsThisBtn4today at 8:52 PM1 replyview on HN

9 years of philosophy and I'm over platonic realism and reading contemporary philosophy of science.

The thing is, we are wrong, but this stuff is useful to make predictions. Everyone knows about the copernican revolution. But when it first happened, the old models(earth at the center of the solar system) were more accurate at predicting where the plenets would be.

Scientists pragmatically spend their time doing best fits. (Typically)

But then the paradigm shifts and we are closer to reality than the current local minimum/maximum.

Before reading philosophy of science, I was into m theory and string theory. Now I'm nearly sure it's bunk that might be replaced in our lifetime.

I thank scientists, but I do not envy them.


Replies

dieselgatetoday at 10:10 PM

> The thing is, we are wrong, but this stuff is useful to make predictions

I understand where you're coming from but this is a very cynical take. String theory is a strawman compared to the empirical "discoveries" of items like black holes or the Higgs boson.

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