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Comment by SapporoChris | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the fond reminiscing. The face on Mars is an optical illusion, an example of Pareidolia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

I sincerely hope that no one believes there are monuments or any such constructions on Mars.

Well it was fun as a child to speculate. Definitely don’t think there are ruins from ancient Egyptians on Mars now LOL. But the possibility of signs of microbial life is fascinating from an evolutionary biology perspective.

You don’t understand fondly reminiscing about when the world seemed more magical? It has nothing to do with the truth of it, it has everything to do with how it felt.

No, I don't. Whenever I learn I've spent time believing something that turned out to be false I always feel a sense of regret.

This reminds me of when I coach a kid in chess and the first thing I ask them is what they want to achieve. A fairly common response is to not lose. At first that doesn't sound unreasonable, yet the goal there doesn't require any coaching at all - simply only play terrible players!

So too with knowledge. The path to never believing anything false would be to simply minimize the amount you learn, and certainly to avoid learning anything developed within the past century or so. It's not a great perspective for self betterment. Learning from one's mistakes is the path to improvement in most of every domain. Mistakes and falsehoods are nothing to regret. If anything, they're something to rejoice over. It's only the fool that believes all he thinks must be true.

Hmm. I tend to have the opposite. With science usually the process of overwriting a credence means increasing understanding and getting a deeper perspective. No one is born knowing anything, and as we advance it’s inevitable to learn certain prior beliefs were wrong. Might as well make it a fun thing.

I empathize with this more so than the original opposite, more of a lamentation for how stupid I was

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