真实世界的脉络
最新书摘：
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圆圆2023-12-01例如，为了“归纳出”它的错误预言，罗素鸡的脑子里必须对农夫的行为首先有一个错误的解释，可能它猜农夫对自己抱有慈善之心。假如罗素鸡猜的是另外一种解释，如农夫是要把自己喂肥了吃，那么它就会对农夫的行为“外推”出不同的结果。假如有一天农夫开始给鸡喂比往日更多的食物，根据这一新观察，怎样预言农夫将来的行为呢？这完全取决于采用哪个解释理论。根据慈善农夫论，这是农夫对小鸡更加慈善的证据，因此鸡们就更不用担心自己的命运了。但根据养膘论，这个行为就是不祥之兆一它是末日临头的证据。在上文所讲的例子中，对于相同的观察数据，由于采纳了不同的解释，可以“外推出”两个完全对立的预言，而且无法证实其中任何一个。这个事实并不偶然地局限于农家小院：在所有场合下的所有观察数据都是这样的。观察不可能承担归纳主义模式赋予的两个任务中的任何一个（即发现科学理论和检验科学理论）：连预言都不行，更不用说真正的解释理论了。诚然，归纳主义是基于常识的知识增长理论，即我们是从经验中学习的。在历史上它是与科学摆脱教义和专制的解放运动联系起来的。但是，如果我们想要理解知识的真正本质以及它在真实世界结构中的位置，就必须正视归纳主义是错误的这一事实，它彻头彻尾是错的。没有一个科学推理，实际上没有任何成功的推理，是符合归纳主义描述的。
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目送飞鸿2021-01-16We cannot observe any of this, but when we apply our best theories to the future of the stars, and of the galaxies and the universe, we find plenty of scope for life to affect and, in the long run, to dominate everything that happens, just as it now dominates the Earth’s biosphere.
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目送飞鸿2021-01-16So once again, any theory of the structure of the universe in all but its earliest stages must take a position on what life will or will not be doing by then. There is no getting away from it: the future history of the universe depends on the future history of knowledge. Astrologers used to believe that cosmic events influence human affairs; science believed for centuries that neither influences the other. Now we see that human affairs influence cosmic events.
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目送飞鸿2021-01-12Imagination is a straightforward form of virtual reality. What may not be so obvious is that our ‘direct’ experience of the world through our senses is virtual reality too. For our external experience is never direct; nor do we even experience the signals in our nerves directly — we would not know what to make of the streams of electrical crackles that they carry. What we experience directly is a virtual-reality rendering, conveniently generated for us by our unconscious minds from sensory data plus complex inborn and acquired theories (i.e. programs) about how to interpret them.