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Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 9, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I don't think so. Even for fundamental natural-law sort of questions, the available evidence feels finite.

Let me put it a different way: suppose you wanted to be certain about the existence of God, the way you are about Gravity. How many books have been written on the subject, for and against? If you started now and did nothing else, could you read them all before you died? How many other books would you need to have the right background to understand those books?

@fuckduck9000, as I understand it, claims that when we want to answer a question, we just look at all the evidence and draw the obvious conclusion. I'm attempting to point out that "looking at all the evidence" is itself frequently an intractable problem; there is more evidence than you can actually look at in your lifetime for single issues, and we must reason about multiple issues.