Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 11

I'm fascinated by pseudo-archaeology and ancient Egypt. I've shared videos about it in the past.

But here I want use pseudo-archaeology in a meta way to teach you some lessons about epistemology and the nature of science. In my foundational series, Deconstructing The Myth Of Science, I pointed out how science doesn't function the way that laymen and even professional scientists assume. I pointed out that there is no such thing as a canonical "scientific method". I pointed out that it is impossible to make a distinction between science and pseudo-science. But those points were all abstract. Now I want to show you a real-world example of how everything I talked about in that series plays out in real life because, of course, all of my philosophy applies to and predicts the real world. If you learned the lessons above you should be able to predict the epistemic and methodological traps that scientists' minds fall into.

The following is a 4-hr long scientific debate that took place on the Joe Rogan podcast on the topic of what counts as valid archaeology. It's a debate between professional archaeologist Flint Dibble and the popular pseudo-archaeologist Graham Hancock. They spend 4 hrs arguing over which of them is doing proper archaeology.

As you watch this, focus on seeing the meta-scientific issues and epistemology under-girding their debate, not the content of their archaeological claims. In this case we don't care whether Hancock's lost Atlantis exists or not, we care about understanding the trickeries of defining valid science. This is essentially a debate between orthodox science (Dibble) and unorthodox science (Hancock). Each claims to be superior to the other. But who is right? Rather than taking a side, I want you to see that there isn't a right answer here because there is in fact no such thing as "scientific method". Scientific method is a myth, a human invention which can be changed at any time in order to get a better handle on phenomena. But of course, there is no guarantee that your new version of the method will lead to truth, it could lead to self-deception and falsehood. But also, there is no guarantee that the old version of the method will lead to truth either!

What is interesting about this debate is that it shows how science really works, with serious scientists accusing others of racism, sexism, charlatanry, bullying, ridicule, slander, etc. in an effort to discredit their work. And it shows how much science is a cultural construction, a marketing game, not merely a presentation of truth or facts. Just the fact that this science debate is taking place in a pop-culture non-academic arena like Joe Rogan is an important point, because it shows that science isn't just a factual matter, it's a marketing matter. This example illustrates the hairiness of science.

Personally, my opinion is that Graham Hancock is doing sloppy and rather irresponsible archaeology/science by jumping excessively to conclusions and seeing things he wants to see. Ordinarily this would get Hancock dismissed and marginalized as a pseudo-scientific crackpot and charlatan — which he is often accused of being. However, the lesson I want you to learn here is that this orthodox scientific perspective is actually wrong, but not because I believe Hancock's lost Atlantis actually exists. It's wrong on meta-scientific grounds. It's wrong to dismiss Hancock as being unscientific because in fact Hancock is engage in science, he's just doing it in an unorthodox and non-academic way. But the key is to realize that no one has a monopoly on science or archaeology. When Hancock goes out and scuba dives to look at ancient underwater ruins or geological formations and reasons about them, he IS doing valid science. Of course that doesn't mean his conclusions will ultimately be valid, but scuba diving around the world to look for Atlantis IS absolutely valid science! This is what people who haven't watched my series on Deconstructing The Myth Of Science misunderstand.

Science can be done in many different ways and it is never clear which ways will yield new discoveries. It is certainly possible that you could go scuba diving and discover Atlantis. And in fact, if Atlantis does exist, this would be one of the best ways to find it.

Notice how serious scientists tend to dismiss unorthodox science by calling it words like pseudo-science or pseudo-archaeology. Understand why this is an epistemic mistake, such that Flint Dibble could be completely right about all the facts of this matter, but still wrong in his epistemic attitude towards Hancock and science at large.

Notice that while Flint Dibble might be a legit archaeologist and scientist, he does not have a deep grasp of epistemology or meta-science. Dibble is a career scientist, which means he's good at doing orthodox science but it does not mean that he understands what science is or how scientific method evolves in meta-scientific ways. As I said in my series, there is a big difference between doing science vs understanding science itself as an epistemic system. You can be great at one and terrible at the other. And while I say that, I don't mean that Hancock has a deep grasp of science or epistemology either. He is not rigorous in this thinking, but at least he is openminded enough to think outside the orthodox box. And when it comes to groundbreaking science, openmindedness can be more important than technical rigor.

Other points to notice and contemplate:

• What counts as the difference between archaeology and pseudo-archaeology?
• Is scuba diving to look for Atlantis a valid scientific method? Why or why not?
• Who gets to say whether an underwater structure is a man-made ruin vs a natural rock formation? Is that an objective fact or an interpretation of one's mind?
• By what objective method can you adjudicate how and where to do legit archaeology?
• Is the age of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids a scientific fact?
• Is it a scientific fact that the Pyramids were tombs for Pharaohs? Even though no Pharaoh has ever been found inside a pyramid?
• It is a scientific fact that just because a Pharaoh's name is carved on a pyramid that he built that pyramid?
• How much speculation, theorizing, and jumping to conclusions is allowed within legit science? For example, is it legit science to go searching for Atlantis based on the fact that it was mentioned in one of Plato's books?
• Was Heinrich Schliemann, the amateur archaeologist who discovered the lost city of Troy based on reading Homer's Iliad, doing valid science? If not, how come he discovered something of great interest to science? And how it this different in principle from what Hancock is doing?
• Is it legit science to assume or conclude that no advanced civilization could have existed 15,000 years ago even though archaeologists have not even excavated 1% of the Earth?
• What is a "scientist rat"? (as opposed to a visionary scientist like Einstein)

Bonus: Personally, based on the amazingly precise stone cutting I've seen from ancient Egypt, I suspect that there did exist some kind of more advanced ancient peoples than we currently know. I suspect that Plato's account of Atlantis is more likely to be real than fake. But these are just my hunches, not any kind of serious science. But I think that Hancock's theory of a highly technologically advanced ancient global civilization is a fantasy. However, I take seriously the possibility that ancient humans had significant contact with aliens. To me this idea is not crazy at all and aligns well with reports of alien spacecraft in possession by the US government. If the government has alien spacecraft, the chances that ancient humans had significant contact with aliens is very high, and there is nothing unscientific about this theory. Don't let orthodox scientist rats gaslight you about that.

The ultimate lesson from all this is that to do good science you must be intellectually rigorous and simultaneously extremely openminded.

Advaita Vedanta has an interesting term: Ekajivavada

It means, Absolute Solipsism. Which means that nothing exists outside your experience. Your experience is the sum total of reality. If you stopped dreaming, nothing at all would exist, and until you started dreaming, nothing at all existed, because there is only one conscious being in existence: You.

Ilya Ponomerov is a former Russia parliament member who used to work with Putin. Now he is organizing a Russian shadow government overseas to overthrown the Putin regime and replace it with a new constitutional democracy. I was amazed to learn that this is happening in public light. Ilya has some serious balls. This is serious politics:

I am not saying overthrowing Putin is a good idea. I'm just sharing this development with you. In general it's a bad idea to interfere with the internal politics of any nation.

This 2-part podcast is a must-watch if you want a serious understanding of how the CIA works. This is not stupid conspiracy theories but how it really works:

Notice the difference between conspiratorial crap and this. This is real knowledge. Vital, grounded, eye-opened, empowering.

This is an unusually honest talk about developments within AI:

And people think that Harvard will deliver anyone to Truth? Ha!

Harvard isn't about truth. Harvard is about survival. Harvard mints some of the world's most morally bankrupt degenerates and gives them cover with a fancy degree.

The Devil has long ago made his way into the halls of Harvard and every other top university. The Devil isn't stupid. He knows that a fancy degree is the perfect disguise for his work.

Think of it this way: Imagine that Satan himself incarnated on Earth tomorrow. What would be his plan to cause maximum damage? Why, of course, graduate with a degree from Harvard. Then get to work.

The Devil works by taking any source of high goodness, authority, or credibility, and just co-opting it from the inside for his own purposes. The Devil is bold, he dares to roost right in the heart of goodness.

Am I being melodramatic? Why did Jeffery Epstein affiliate himself with MIT?

If Satan existed on this planet, you can be sure he would make large donations to Harvard or MIT. And his son, Satan Jr, would be on the Z-list.

It's not a conspiracy theory. These are just the mechanics of devilry.

The following example perfectly illustrates the stark difference between low and high cognitive development:

Destiny is the only one here who has a clue.

Low cognitive development (everyone in the video except Destiny) isn't construct-aware, so it takes categories for granted as objective. Moreover, low cognitive development is so unaware that it cannot even understand how something like "a woman" can be a complex metaphysically-loaded question, therefore it laughs at a serious answer.

High cognitive development (Destiny) is construct-aware, so it appreciates the insane complexity and metaphysical-loadedness of a question such as "What is a woman?" and treats the question with the nuance and respect is deserves.

So what you see in this video is one mind of high cognitive development (Destiny) dealing with a dozen epistemically-clueless baboons who act like they understand anything but actually understand less than nothing.

Study this example carefully.

The difference between low and high cognitive development is not a matter of opinion, belief, or ideology. It's not that I agree with Destiny. It's that Destiny is construct-aware, at least to some degree. His construct-awareness is quite limited, but still orders of magnitude beyond a conservative pundit.

No conservative knows what a woman is, which is why they act like jackasses when talking about this question. To understand what a woman is you would need to do 20 years of advanced epistemology, and you would still not know. That's how serious the question is. But to a baboon it seems that a woman is just tits and vagina.

Until you start to appreciate the depth and seriousness of such questions you're stuck in low cognitive development.

I have a powerful new video explaining how to distinguish low and high cognitive development coming soon. This was just an appetizer.

This is an usually deep political discussion:

Hint: What really matters is survival. Everything, including ideology, serves the god of survival. Which is why political behavior is often so confused, messy, twisted, and contradictory. The mind uses ideology as a vehicle for its own survival, and there are infinite ways for the mind to survive — which is why there exist hundreds of species of ideology. But the mind doesn't really care about being a pure-breed, it cares about survival!

Survival. Survival. Survival. Survival! EVERYTHING humans do is SURVIVAL! Especially so within the domain of politics. Politics is survival on steroids. Which is why it is so devoid of truth and consciousness.

The core problem every ideology faces is that no ideology can ever capture reality accurately. Not even close. Even the best ideologies grossly misapprehend reality, so their implementation always requires a lot of fudging, and the maintenance of an ideology always requires lots of bullshit to make it seems like it's going to work. The problem with ideology is that no ideology can solve mankind's deepest issues. Every ideology thinks it can, but ends up failing spectacularly. Notice that.

In the end every ideology fails because it lacks Requites Variety. Which is why an intelligence mind should free itself of all ideology.

Watch the following discussion with an ambassador from China. It is an absolute masterclass in the human's ability for bullshit. The discipline and skill with which he bullshits is just awesome:

With that said, a deeper issue is still being missed by everyone watching.

The reality is that China cannot have free speech, liberalism, or democracy because it is not at a stage of development that allows such freedoms and luxuries. The problem is that a leftist like Mehdi Hasan does not understand this. Leftists and liberals take freedom for granted. When in fact such freedom can only exist under suitable collective survival conditions and centuries of development. China does not have free speech because it cannot have free speech. This is not a mistake. This is their reality. And to not understand and appreciate that is ignorant.

The reason humans bullshit with such skill is because God holds a gun to their head.

Here's what this Chinese ambassador should have said to Medhi and the audience:

"Let us be serious and stop playing games. You in the Western liberal democracies look at China and criticize us for our lack of freedom and strict policies. You are shocked that we are not as free as you. But we are not as free as you because we cannot be as free as you given our stage of development, given our history. Every country must go through stages of development at its own pace, just as every child must go through school at his own pace. Some move faster, some move slower. Do not be so short-sighted to forget your own country's rocky and bloody histories and illiberal repressions. You are liberal now, but only relatively so, and you were not always this way. Liberalism is a luxury that the Chinese people cannot yet afford, but we have made much progress over the last 70 years. One day we will be as free as you, but that will take time, and I hope you will be as patient with us as you were with yourselves. This is the truth which you do not wish to admit to yourselves and this is why you are perplexed by the situation in China. China is doing what we must do to one day have the freedoms which your forefathers gifted to you with their blood. Everything of value has its cost. What you see in China is us paying the cost to one day have your freedoms."

Mike drop.