Will man go crazy when he knows the ultimate truth of the world?

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Suppose we teach a kindergarten child to write E = MC 2, and the child learns it. Can we satisfactorily agree that children have mastered the transformation of quality and energy?

See the problem?

If children can't understand what M, C, E or even 2 is, it is meaningless to just master the notation of this formula.

Then the problem is coming. To what extent should "what is M" be mastered before it can be called "mastery" satisfactorily?

Obviously, we can't repeat the same mistake and think that "knowing the definition of m" is the condition for passing the customs. Because even the shortest expression of "the definition of m"; It will also introduce many new concepts. The definition of each new concept may introduce new concepts.

This layer-by-layer decomposition obviously cannot be infinite, because the capacity of our human language is limited. Dig down layer by layer, and you will soon find that there are a lot of circular self-citation and mutual evaluation. For example, ABC collectively defines D, DEF defines G, and GHJ fucking defines A, which is very painful.

A lot.

Even to such a point-this seemingly exquisite description system is almost a "conceptual utopia"-a large group of relatives of unknown origin can't tell who is whose grandfather and who is whose brother's close relative, and cross-guarantee each other to be good people.

You break into houses and tell them to stand against the wall and touch their feet one by one. You will find that none of them have ID cards, all of them are temporary residence permits, and some of them have expired.

Give everyone a cigarette-"elder brother, elder brother! You are my brother! Do you think I look like a bad person? Can't! Look, look, I have a letter of introduction here, a letter of introduction from Grandpa Eight! Master Kant! Look at this word! All authentic old German! "

There are also some immortal recidivists, such as "morality" and "justice", who guarantee people everywhere, but every certificate is ignorant, just like a dead pig who is not afraid of scalding water.

Old Guevara, afraid of you?

Don't say you can't touch, not even a monk.

It is with such a pile of things that humans have teamed up to explain the truth.

To tell the truth, the earth hasn't been bombed yet, and it's really time to kill the cow.

This is argument one.

Now look at the second floor.

Suppose that after installing some mysterious and powerful plug-in in your brain, the language problem is solved, and you really have a complete description of the truth, and you really understand the meaning of every word.

It's like you've finally finished all the courses from elementary school to high school, at least let the admissions teacher fully confirm that you really understand the comprehensive content of E=MC2, and you can use it to get full marks in physics in the college entrance examination without any obstacles, and no question will baffle you.

So, here's the question-how can you be sure it's genuine?

The programmers all showed frightened expressions, and they had guessed what example I was going to give.

Well, I gave a hard disk-"This is all the source code of the perfect operating system, not a word, not a word."

How do you know what you got?

Yes, we assume that you can understand every line. It is understandable if every twenty lines are set as a paragraph.

But to verify that this is the source code of the perfect operating system, how to design a test sample?

What unit test are you going to do? How to verify the validity of the test results?

How to compare its performance with other operating systems?

How to tell if this is a bug or a feature?

How to determine an expense is the lowest necessary cost?

How to ensure that the system is permanently stable?

How to traverse all the possibilities of error and prove that it doesn't exist at all?

When the system gives you unexpected results, how can you absolutely judge whether it is better than you or not?

How do you know that all the answers are not "42"?

If you can't verify the perfection of the answer, how can you be sure that the answer you get is "ultimate perfection"?

Shouldn't it be confirmed before it is announced?

After all, you are not Trump!

Ok, let's consider this problem more seriously.

First of all, let's make it clear what "ultimate truth" means.

Judging from the expression of this word, what we should be able to satisfy most people is the final correct understanding of the relationship between things.

The so-called final correct understanding has two appraisal conditions:

First, based on this understanding, we can make a correct judgment on the next moment in any distant future. According to this understanding, we can also give a completely correct description of any time in the distant past. This means that as long as we accurately investigate everything at the moment, we will definitely find out who the murderer is, and the crime film will definitely be finished. )

This is a fact.

Secondly, if the prediction and backward deduction made according to this understanding are verified to be inconsistent with the real reality, it must be that there is something wrong with the operation of the forecaster, and it is absolutely impossible that there is something wrong with the understanding itself. So there will never be a need for "this version needs to be revised". As long as there is any reasonable need to modify this understanding, this understanding cannot be called ultimate.

Ultimate.

Everything that meets these two conditions and the expression of their relationship can be called the ultimate truth.

This is our starting point. Let's see where and how far we can go from here.

As soon as these two appraisal standards are released, you may immediately find the fatal problem of the concept of ultimate truth-

Obviously not a concept for human beings.

If it exists, using it to advance or retreat requires unlimited computing power. Starting from this state of the universe, according to the ultimate truth, it is required to push to any state in the future and push back to any state. At least, we should observe everything in the whole universe without touching its state, and then perform completely correct operations on it (in essence, there is no need to do check calculations). Because the so-called checking calculation is nothing more than a sure calculation. If the result of the last calculation needs to be verified by the next calculation, there is no reason why the next calculation is not needed. The necessity of checking calculation must negate the validity of checking calculation).

Knowing the state of everything is omniscient; Being able to perform absolutely correct operations without checking calculations is omnipotent in essence.

In other words, if there is such a thing as ultimate truth, if we follow its definition without any discount, then the only thing that can effectively understand and use it must be omniscient and omnipotent.

Obviously, we humans can't know everything and can't do everything, so we can't afford the ultimate truth in this definition.

Storing its complete content will exceed our human brain capacity; Using it once will be beyond our human computing power.

This overload of ability and energy is at least manifested as "infinite stagnation"-an excellent person, a large part of his brain's storage and computing resources are occupied by an endless process, and he can only talk to you with half of his brain to maintain his life, which is literally "brain-dead".

Now, let's look at a reduction proposition.

If you look closely, you will find that what is said above is actually a complete ultimate truth-a correct cognition enough to predict and trace back the whole universe indefinitely.

This thing obviously exceeds the storage capacity and calculation capacity of the human brain, and no one can convince anyone.

So, what if we don't want to be so complete? Suppose we remove the "integrity requirement" of the ultimate truth from the ultimate meaning?

For example, I only ask for a thing with a very exact premise, which can be accurately predicted by 100% according to a kind of cognition. For example, I ask a theory to predict the final speed of a ball falling freely from three meters to the ground. As long as the correct rate of this prediction can reach 100%, let's call it an ultimate truth, shall we?

Of course you can.

The problem is that there is a devil in the details.

What is "100% correct rate"? What is a "very accurate thing"?

Believe it or not, you have never really released the ball from an absolutely accurate height of three meters, and even the gravity on the ball has never really stabilized-the moon and the sun also have gravity on the ball, and they have an angular deviation in the process of landing the ball; Even the tides of the earth will cause the center of mass of the earth to move, and the gravity of the earth on the sphere will change direction with a small amplitude.

Even on such a well-known classical mechanical problem, there is an absolute problem that "correct prediction" is uncertain. Just because you ignore the difference every time, you will think that those two things are "the same"; That result is not correct either, just because you omitted the accuracy requirement, so it is correct.

The real key is that you accept these approximations. Only by ignoring these approximations intentionally or unintentionally can you think that some truths are solid, credible and "ultimately correct".

The problem is that every seemingly insignificant mistake will make the "local ultimate truth" you authenticate less and less credible after combination, so that when a thing needs a lot of "local ultimate truth" to form a final judgment, the more combinations and repetitions, the less credible it will be.

Life and destiny are such a complicated thing, and the variety and quantity of this "extremely approximate truth" involved are extremely amazing. Even the long-term forecast formed by their combination is almost completely invalid.

You think those are true because when you think about them, you are in an exam or in a laboratory. This is just the illusion effect caused by the education period.

So, "3 is three times of 1", is it the ultimate truth?

You see, even if I count this for 100 million times, won't the result be the same? There is no such thing as a mistake here, is there?

Yes, that's true, but unfortunately, this is the topic involved in the last round of discussion-1,"3", "times" and "yes". The "yes" here does not exist in this world, but in a world created by you as a God. In this world, your words are creation, everything exists by your creation, and everything works according to the rules you know and want. If you don't allow mistakes, they will disappear.

In the world you create, you are omniscient and omnipotent. "3 is 3 times of 1" is your intention when you created 1 and 3. You will not change, this proposition is of course the ultimate truth of that world.

The problem is that although this world is a parallel world inspired by you in the real world where we live together, as your kind, I am also inspired by the same, and I have exactly the same world that I created. In our private world, "3 is three times as much as 1" is the ultimate truth, but this does not make it the ultimate truth in this real world.

In our private world, yes. I admit that yours is in your world, and you admit that mine is in my world, but our consensus cannot bind the real world in the opposite direction.

Because the real world does not belong to us.

Now back to the original point.

It's impossible to know, to tell, to verify, even if it's just a fragment, we can't grasp-is there anyone who hasn't given up the ultimate truth?

So this brings us a new problem:

If we don't have the ultimate truth at all, or even a fragment, then what do we rely on to make any decision?

If those things are not the final truth, doesn't that mean that my decision is based on their predictions and those predictions are not based on quicksand?

Wouldn't it be lost at any time?

Yes, it will fail at any time.

Especially the long-term prediction-remember the problem of the ball? Long-term forecasting inevitably involves the superposition of a large number of forecasts with insufficient accuracy, and the final error will accumulate to a considerable extent.

Therefore, any specific long-term forecast is unreliable.

This point, no matter what technical level human beings have developed and what magnitude of computing power they have mastered, will never change as long as human beings are limited rather than infinite gods.

So what are we doing?

It's just a bet

The cleverest, the most promising, and the most worth gambling.

People are afraid to face the fact that "all my decisions are bets" before they want to declare that what they believe is the ultimate truth.

I didn't notice the side effect of this at all-by putting my bet on the truth, different beliefs were mutually exclusive.

I know mine is a bet, so although I chose mine, I won't think yours will be wrong. I also know that yours is also a bet, so I won't simply think that your denial of me is absolutely effective.

Is big gambling better than small gambling?

But if I want to sleep at night because I can't stand this bet, I will crown my choice with the truth, then anyone who refuses to admit his mistake is a murderer who wants me to lose sleep. I will get rid of it first and then settle down.

This is the root of all human suffering.