I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
He also believes we live in a simulation. I assume that he thinks that the simulation is being run to study us and thus all that physics stuff is just “background” decorations on the fish tank.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell I mean, he's the guy who, despite being head dude of the largest satellite operator in the world, argued satellites couldn't be a problem for astronomy because they'd be in darkness at night… so yeah, I'd agree there's a much more straightforward explanation for his apparently nonsensical statements https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/113817738470795433
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell trying to defend this man's stream of weird takes is a thankless, exhausting and fruitless endeavour. Idk why many still do it.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell billionaires:
no need to look inside, there's no point, introspection is deadalso billionaires: there is also no need to look outside
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
That post sounds like it came out of a particular 2026 AI crevasse, the speculations of the LLM are more impressive to it than doing the work to find out the ground truth from actual reality. Until you tell it to stop guessing and instrument so we can find out what actually happens.
Humans know by bitter experience, reality beats everything, and one word that definitely came from the heart of your problem in reality, is worth more than all the LLM's speculation.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell #ElonMusk Proves Yet Again That He's Just Not Very Bright. America's dumbest smart guy strikes again with an idiotic take on subways. https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-proves-yet-again-that-hes-just-not-very-brigh-1848835670
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
Elon is a fake physicist. He bought a degree from Penn and he pretends that he is a physicist, but he is really just like Bill Gates -- nothing but a ruthless businessman and entitled rich guy.
If he were a real physicist he would know that his dream of being on Mars has a few, shall we say, difficulties. The main one being radiation once he is outside the blanket of our atmosphere.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
This is what happens when you surround yourself with people who never call you out on your bullshit.
It doesn't go any deeper than that.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell well, for analysis of ever increasing amount of astronomical data, some kind of automation is needed anyway. So maybe it would be better use of AI, than all this chatbot nonsense.
The huge colliders are special case, that now there is AFAIK no special prediction in physics, which can be confirmed or falsified at higher energies. Somehow it is probably not the direction to find any new physics (which would be cool). Also the dark matter detectors are somehow infamous as spending huge amount of money for (predictably) finding nothing.
The situation in astronomy is very different and of course we need new telescopes and new ideas for telescopes. Lot of them would have to be placed in space, probably.
So, somehow the discussion "what next in science" makes sense, and I would not probably bet on particle colliders to be the right answer. Still, over-relying on LLM-líke AIs si ridiculous. Of course, science needs new (not necesarily "more") empirical data and also, for huge amounts of data, some automation to process them.
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@coreyspowell trying to defend this man's stream of weird takes is a thankless, exhausting and fruitless endeavour. Idk why many still do it.
@abesamma their paycheck depends on it
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell By the way it's a luck that AI works "in the cloud" and not in expensive datacenters connected to us with expensive high-speed networks.
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@coreyspowell you could build a whole lot of Superconducting Super Colliders and JWSTs for the cost of one gigantic "AI" fraud company.
@oddhack @coreyspowell one or ten per data center at the very least.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
@coreyspowell and even if AI happens to come up with some new theory (!) someone needs to test it, and that takes time and real experiments and observations.
And coming up with a new theory is based on what we have already observed and tested. At any point in time, gobbling up that real data and finding a new pattern may, possibly, be quicker with AI. But you still have to have that data. And frankly it is not simply about finding a new pattern. It needs actual insight.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell Elon - This is impossible. AI's knowledge wil never become bigger, better, greater than the information that has been stolen on the net, AI itself does not research. Human thinking is the core element of scientific progress.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell He is conflating having a lot of money with intelligence.
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I've also seen smart people tie themselves into knots trying to defend the original claim.
"He just means big science is expensive."
"He just means that AI can help with data analysis."
"He just means that string theory is a dead end."But that is not the claim, and the efforts to justify it only make the argument even stranger.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
Progress is a loaded term. In this case, it means him making money.
The point is not to debate science with some social media shadow of him, but to do science away from him.
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@coreyspowell
"As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message."- Ur-Fascism, Umberto Eco
@Rudicron @coreyspowell when talking about idea of "pure knowledge", it is very Platonian, and according to Karl Popper, Platon's idea of perfect government could be considered as an archetypal fascist state (on the other hand, Platon had some basic ecological thinking ahead of his time).
So we somehow re-run the classical discussions of ancient Greek philosophers again and again. While the "pure knowledge" school invented almost nothing in the field of pure knowledge, the mathematics and natural science, which built on the work of Erastothenes, Archimedes or Euclides, gave us all the technical tools, using which Elon now wants to return... to search for "pure knowledge", again.
At some moment, what used to be practical research, can turn into blindly followed rituals, workshops into temples, and so. I am afraid, that science is not immune to this process (the large colliders may be actually temples, we just don't see it). But while science may fall into this trap, with all the grace and glory of huge, timeless, established religion, the AI already is thriving as kind of pagan cult worship, based on ritual sacrifices.
The brute search of possible state space works only for system, where the models are precise enough, which is never possible for non-linear systems.
Somehow, Elons reminds me of the famous 19th century patent office. Just because he ran out of creativity, is stuck in his singularity mindset and cannot imagine any new discovery or progress by anything else then his AI, it doesn't mean, that it makes any sense.
Still, the AI is somehow the ad-absurdum extrapolation of the "statistical" era of science, and there is about to be any new era, not AI based, it will have to be different.
The LHC is itself is based on the way of thinking and data processing, which somehow, when applied on other type of data, gave rise to LLMs... so if we consider LLM AI a dead end, so...
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@coreyspowell
Progress relies on understanding.
Science is built on hypothesis / observation / analysis and identification of the success or failure of the hypothesis.Elon Musk demonstrates clearly that he has no idea what science is. Much as he has demonstrated that he has no idea what software engineering is.
@TobyHaynes @coreyspowell and he has no clue, what hardware engineering is. Probably it is safe to assume, he has no clue at all.
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I keep seeing versions of this post, which imply a bizarre misunderstanding of how we know the world.
Do people imagine that if we'd never observed galaxies or neutrinos or exoplanets or the cosmic microwave background, we could have *imagined* these things & that would be just as real?
Or that we've magically reached the point, just now, where we no longer need to observe the world?
@coreyspowell @andersgo@oslo.town So smart that you are actually stupid
