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Comment by jcoffland | Hacker News Reader

Since there are infinite things about which we are wrong and only a finite number of things we are right about learning one more thing does not make us any less wrong. Take that Asimov.

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Thus, the point is not to be right or wrong, but to improve?

The point is that we are wrong about everything to one degree or another. Maturing intellectually is a never ending process of becoming less wrong about the things we choose to study, but at no point do we ever cross a finish line and become right about anything. As soon as you think you're right about something, the only thing you can be certain of is that you're wrong.

I think a more accurate observation is that we always exist in a state of incomplete understanding and we will never achieve full understanding. Wrong and right connote a state of absolutes that are often relative and even if not, their usage assumes there will be an end point to deeper levels of understanding. I think not. :-)

Since we are able to reason by deduction and learning, there is an infinite number of things about which we are right.

I don't see how that follows. There are a finite number of humans each with finite capacity for knowledge and infinite capacity for ignorance.

While I could see plenty of mathematical/philosophical arguments that you would be correct, I don't see how this is a useful statement, unless its implication is that science actually doesn't move our understanding of the world forward. Then we have a real disagreement.

The implication is that we should be humble about what we do know. Pop science is always going on about how great we are at AI, gene editing, quantum computing, drug design, etc. but when you really start to dig in to these topics it's much more amazing how primitive our understanding really is. It's no surprise that we awe ourselves.

> Since there are infinite things about which we are wrong

That's... ahem... wrong.

How could there possibly be an infinite number of things "we" (humanity, I presume?) are wrong about, given that there have only been a finite number of human beings with (as far as I know) finite life spans?

It's quite simple. I am assuming there are an infinite number of things to know. That which we do not know we are wrong about.

That's not a very good assumption; the universe has a finite size and therefore cannot contain an infinite amount of information.

If the universe cannot contain infinite amount of information then it follows that there are infinite knowledge we cannot know - simply because we cannot store it anywhere (in brains or computers or anywhere).

For example: exact prime factorization of all natural numbers, etc...

Of course this is true only if you accept induction. So you can still back off by declaring yourself finitist* ;)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finitism

The observable universe appears to have finite size. I don't know how you could prove it though.

The observable universe is effectively defined to be finite in size. The proof comes from the speed of light.

Assuming a big bang is the source of all matter. Our observable universe may only be a spec in something much larger with out violating any of our "laws" of physics.

Assuming the observable universe is everything there is is not a good assumption.

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