Mingyao’s Reviews > The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World > Status Update

I believe that it would be worth trying to learn something about the world even if in trying to do so we should merely learn that we do not know much . . . It might be well for all of us to remember that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
Popper - Conjectures and Refutations (1963)

In Israel, the country with the world’s most proportional electoral system, which has sacrificed all other considerations in favour of the supposed fairness of proportionality – even proportionality itself is not always achieved: in the election of 1992, the right-wing parties as a whole received a majority of the popular vote, but the left-wing ones had a majority of the seats.

Certainly you can’t derive an ought from an is, but you can’t derive a factual theory from an is either. That is not what science does. The growth of knowledge does not consist of finding ways to justify one’s beliefs. It consists of finding good explanations. And, although factual evidence and moral maxims are logically independent, factual and moral explanations are not.

Using knowledge to cause automated physical transformations is, in itself, not unique to humans. It is the basic method by which all organisms keep themselves alive: every cell is a chemical factory.

Both oppose arrogance: the Principle of Mediocrity opposes the pre-Enlightenment arrogance of believing ourselves significant in the world; the Spaceship Earth metaphor opposes the Enlightenment arrogance of aspiring to control the world. Both have a moral element: we should not consider ourselves significant, they assert; we should not expect the world to submit indefinitely to our depredations.