Essentially, does the proliferation of understanding of the world lead to a higher understanding of the world?
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Yes it has become more accurate– KenshinCommented May 17, 2017 at 10:42
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1Not everyone wants to know the truth, so modern man has become very sophisticated in his ability to develop doctrines that obscure it. It's a question of supply and demand. If you want obscurity, there are plenty of teachings that'll cater to your whims. So to answer your question, knowledge may be in some ways more accurate but only for those really want it.– user3017Commented May 17, 2017 at 13:21
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1Truth is like peace. It never comes unbranded. There may be peace, but it is always someone's peace. Pax Romana, Pax Britanica, Pax America etc. That doesn't mean that unbranded peace is impossible, it's just that the human condition effectively prohibits it. And so it is with truth, there is of course a concept of 'truth', but the reality is that it is always the truth of the powerful that prevails. Almost any endeavour which produces truth, contrary to orthodoxy is attacked by the powerful.– RichardCommented May 17, 2017 at 13:49
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2I do not follow your description of "accurate" and "stagnant". Presumably we know what our predecessors knew, for the most part, and refined it somewhat (or a lot), so the answer on more accuracy is trivial yes, regardless of definitions. Unless you suspect that some superior ancient knowledge was lost somehow, or you mean something else. The same with "stagnant", does it mean that we are not growing knowledge fast enough? Because by its nature it can hardly stay the same or decrease, except in some catastrophic circumstances.– ConifoldCommented May 17, 2017 at 22:41
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@conifold My use of the word stagnant was definitely wrong. Rather it doesn't change. Maybe knowledge in mathematics becomes more but wouldn't it always have the same degree of accuracy. A simple example would be that 1+1=2 will always have the same level of accuracy as it doesn't ever change. The same with mathematical proofs as the accuracy doesn't change, it's a definite rational approach that has intrinsic pure accuracy. But, maybe there is an example where knowledge in maths over time eventually destabilises and so there would be a decrease in accuracy of previous knowledge over time?– ChangingTimeCommented May 18, 2017 at 9:00
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2 Answers
Big question, opinion-piece answer:
The view that our knowledge has become more accurate (meaning, the human understanding of the world has been approaching to truth or reality) is wishful thinking of enlightenment, culminating with Popper's verisimilitude. The present, post-enlightenment view of knowledge is dominated by Duhem-Quine holism. Observations, facts, knowledge are all theory-laden. Our perception of the world changes when theories (paradigms) change. Presently popular social constructionists, for example, tell us that our cherished belief in race and gender are all wrong: race and gender are not real. Aristotle believed in natural slaves, which we think is ridiculous. It could be that people in the era of Star Trek regard 20th century belief in race and gender ridiculous.
Quine, later Wittgenstein, Kuhn are some pioneers of this new holistic thinking. But to me, Godel is the guy who slayed the enlightenment dragon. The mantra of the enlightenment thinking is that all true statements can (must) be proven (justified) to be true. Hilbert's program represents the mantra. Frege, Russell, whitehead all worked under the enlightenment mantra. Godel however proved that the mantra itself is false: a formal system bigger than the system of the first-order logic must always contain a true statement that cannot be proved within the system.
Knowledge is commonly defined as true justified belief. Extrapolating Godel's result, one could say that some of our true beliefs can never be justified. Ergo impossible is accurate knowledge.
answered May 17, 2017 at 16:44
If you start from the assumption that we already know everything, and have always known everything, then I think it is safe to say that our knowledge has probably become more accurate. However, if we consider that there were things we did not know, but know now (such as the existence of protons and electrons), then the question becomes more complicated. While our old knowledge is certainly refined over the years, our new knowledge is not necessarily and more accurate than the old stuff was when it was new.
How you value such a swirling mixture is a more complicated question indeed. For example, how do you value the accuracy in the crucial concepts such as "what is science" against the accuracy in less crucial concepts (such as, if I may hang one concept out to dry, the effect of the presence of topoisomerase IIβ on double strand breaks within neuron genetic material)?
Consider your own question and wording. Popper does not argue that empirical testing leads to more accurate hypotheses, but rather that it may lead to more accurate hypotheses and should lead to more accurate hypothesis. Even then, it really only leads to more accurate hypotheses if it indeed falsifies the existing hypothesis. Personally, I find that tiny nuance to be a very big deal, as it has caused an immense amount of strife in recent years from people who think science provides truth, rather than simply seeking truth. Does that taint the accuracy of all of the scientific knowledge we gather? It's not an easy question. I also know many people who have missed out on what I perceive to be the important knowledge in life because imperfect Popperian falsification has lead them to believe that there is no value in the places I find value. Am I right? Are they right? Well, we certainly aren't any more accurate on those questions!
Or perhaps consider the question of what happens after we die, which is still not a known thing unless you subscribe to a religion that tells you what to know. Science has trouble answering it because it requires us to define "ourself," which is a term that gets really tricky for objective and rational science. Perhaps that one question alone suggests we still don't have very accurate knowledge where it counts.
