Whatever else he may say that is profound, this tweet alone is sufficient for me to hold him in suspicion (though it's not a one-off; he often allows mythology and mysticism to trespass into the realm of science).
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Replying to @G_S_Bhogal
I think it's an intellectual hazard to weight a single tweet so heavily when so of his deeper material is freely available. His point regarding Godel is a deep one, and one that I've also made for over a decade now. No system escapes this truth. Science not only also bottoms...
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Replying to @MattPirkowski @G_S_Bhogal
...out in axiomatic faith in the process itself, but also emerged from the very mystical and religious explorations of our past, namely those of the alchemical traditions. Science is an amazing tool, but nonetheless remains a tool. I'd also suggest Hofstadter's work re. Godel.
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Replying to @MattPirkowski @G_S_Bhogal
The Godelian point also extends beyond what Peterson says there, and further implies that any sufficiently expressive, recursively enumerable set of axioms will remain incapable of internal consistency and completeness. This implies, albeit informally...
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Replying to @MattPirkowski @G_S_Bhogal
...that there exist scientific truths only knowable outside the axiomatic domain of science itself.
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Replying to @MattPirkowski @G_S_Bhogal
My guess is that was what Peterson was getting at, there, but of course I'm not in the man's head. Nonetheless, the point is deep, and requires a vast amount of scientific, philosophical, and historical context to unpack.
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Replying to @MattPirkowski
I still don't think mysticism is an answer. Science's predictive power is the only axiom we need. In any case, I'll take care not to interpret Peterson too uncharitably. But for God's sake man, please don't interpret him too charitably as it seems you've been doing here
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Replying to @G_S_Bhogal
Well I've personally spoken to the man about the topic, so it's not all interpretation. But yes, grain of salt and all that. I suppose I don't understand why you consider it mystical. To the best of my capacity to understand the history of science, many facts were once mystical.
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Replying to @MattPirkowski
When facts become facts, they cease to be mystical. Peterson often justifies his arguments with mystic concepts like Yin & Yang, the 10 Commandments, and Orpheus & Eurydice. I love mythology as much as anyone, but I don't really like using it as a basis of reality.
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Replying to @G_S_Bhogal
My take, as someone trying to understand these phenomena empirically, is that we're not far from being able to place such linguistic and cultural structures within the domain of science, via our increasing understanding of complex adaptive systems. Pushback is part and parcel.
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Yes, I too believe that we have good evolutionary reasons for our myths. But it's a topic we still don't understand well, and the field is filled with conjecture, so *much* salt is needed.
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