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Comment by frutiger | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t that redundant? It’s like asking everyone to prefix every statement with “As far as I know…”

Fair point, I think it depends on the certainty. I am just about 100% certain Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon, so "first" makes sense. Hillary and Norgay were the first "confirmed" climbers of Everest. The "confirmed" part is needed because it is reasonable that others before them made it without evidence. I am open to the possibility a civilization had a writing system before the Sumerians, and the evidence has been destroyed or not found yet.

I'm more than open to the possibility - I think it's very likely that something existed beforehand which we don't (yet) know about.

I'm intrigued by the possibility of Sumerian-level civilization existing prior to the Younger Drias.

Where are the city mounds?

Right, but that's recent information. When talking about deep history, "that we know of" is effectively a given. There will never be true certainty.

In formal contexts, I believe this is reasonable. Some statements can still be made in confidence without the preface, particularly concerning the present or recent past. Given the existence of such certainties, I think it is important to differentiate those which are not.

As an anecdata most of my friends believe that we know everything about ancient history. They are also very eager to hear about other parts of human knowledge to be progressing, for example AI models. Yet, when it comes to history they have this sort of static view.

Well, I can see how someone would naively think that was true, because only a fixed set of events have already happened in the past, so there is a correct answer.

I think it also stems from the way it is taught in schools, where there is a lot of focus on memorising dates and events etc, rather than on the process of actually deriving them from sources of questionable trust.

Also, the majority of focus in schools (in the UK) is on much more modern history and doesn’t really focus too much on the really ancient stuff and the extra difficulties that arise from learning about it.

it’s kind of odd though to think about a kiddo learning history as the evidence allows it to be unfolded.

they’re brand new to being a human, and even then they aren’t adult humans (i guess defined as such, post facto)

seems like our brains are craving hard structural information to establish requisite coherency once fully ‘weened off’ by our family unit. so things are taught in the traditional scholastic type of way first, and then introduced to more scholarly approach later, revealing who is behind the curtain in oz.

We should openly discuss the epistemological standing of our claims.

"The first day ever was last Thursday, according to this calendar."

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No, you can't.

Our understanding of physical constants is based on empirical confirmation via multiple samples. They're still just probably correct, and we haven't confirmed the laws of physics are uniform across either time or space.

This whole concept is what the skeptical shorthand of "you can't prove a negative" actually means. You can show some instance or set of instances of something, but you cannot show that something is universally always true. The tentative nature of our ability to understand the world is the basis for why we use science to approximate objective reality.

so i tend to think that science, as approximated here^, is how i tend yo assertively believe as well.

namely, that science reveals our perceptible reality, through a specific arrangement of direct and indirect observations following along philosophical notions through critically formulated discursive language.

who is to say, like historical evidence, what type of philosophical investigations might provide us some way of becoming aware the breviously unknown?

i suggest having an honest imagination to everyone!

There is literally another MOND article discussed in this very forum every week or so. All theories are provisional and based on finite evidence and general consensus. There is no such thing as empirical truth the way you imagine.

> There is no such thing as empirical truth the way you imagine.

And statements misses the ability to hold an absolute truth. No, wait!

a significant portion of the US population believes the earth is 6,000 years old, tied to their religious sect and identity

concepts such as Neolithic and Paleolithic fall on deaf ears

getting just some people out of that funnel only to still have a static version of events is counterproductive as you are subverting a competing understanding of the world

you are replacing unfalsifiable appeals to a Sky Daddy authority with falsifiable observations where a challenge is simply neglected

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