here are a couple of counter-arguments as to why tolstoy's hypothesis may be flawed
1. its hard to imagine that the space of all knowledge has a well-defined absolute/highest point. empirical evidence suggests that "knowledge" is growing over time and it is hard to see why it would ever reach a highest saturation point. 2. even if there is such a thing as absolute knowledge, it is not convincing that `life is meaningless' is a good candidate. arguably, meaninglessness is like a "null hypothesis", something you can resort as something that is easy to think of, but you strive to disprove. its hard to imagine a system in which the absolute and a rather trivial hypothesis converge. 3. even if it is the case that the null hypothesis and the absolute converge, `life is meaninglesss' is not sufficient to explain a lot of scientifically proven phenomena, i.e, it lacks sufficient expressivity to be the absolute state of all knowledge.
dude u r indulging in semantic warfare here - tolstoy's "absolute" is not "complete" - it need not explain every observable/provable phenomenon. all it says every other "knowledge" is relative and so can and needs to be measured w.r.t something else - at least the language in which it is expressed. as for the 2nd pt, most meaningful systems have their true and trivial hypotheses converging - the best thing to do in the absence of any knowledge in any situation is anything - applicable to most systems but trivial too; when u donno how good a team is, try to be ur best - trivial but the only thing any sports team will do etc. in fact elegance and truth in math even is linked to truth and our psyche likes it. and for the 1st pt, phd-life is killing ur imagination :P the unique absolute hypothesis is the unique union of all possible absolute hypotheses.
of course tolstoy was generalizing and half(only???) of wat these guys say is usually pointless and only for effect but who cares - am totally vetti!!! :D
@shyam: agree that it is semantic warfare but arguing for argument's sake is fun :-) it also an interesting exercise (read vettiness) to take some seemingly innocuous statement and take it apart word for word
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O, for the life of me, shut up.I didnt need to read that on a Friday morning.
I challenge u to spend one week without complaining or finding people or quotes complaining about life.
Really-I do.
here are a couple of counter-arguments as to why tolstoy's hypothesis may be flawed
1. its hard to imagine that the space of all knowledge has a well-defined absolute/highest point. empirical evidence suggests that "knowledge" is growing over time and it is hard to see why it would ever reach a highest saturation point.
2. even if there is such a thing as absolute knowledge, it is not convincing that `life is meaningless' is a good candidate. arguably, meaninglessness is like a "null hypothesis", something you can resort as something that is easy to think of, but you strive to disprove. its hard to imagine a system in which the absolute and a rather trivial hypothesis converge.
3. even if it is the case that the null hypothesis and the absolute converge, `life is meaninglesss' is not sufficient to explain a lot of scientifically proven phenomena, i.e, it lacks sufficient expressivity to be the absolute state of all knowledge.
afterthought: the assumption that there is a unique "absolute" hypothesis can be debated as well!
@dya, that was a rhetorical challenge really!!!
dude u r indulging in semantic warfare here - tolstoy's "absolute" is not "complete" - it need not explain every observable/provable phenomenon. all it says every other "knowledge" is relative and so can and needs to be measured w.r.t something else - at least the language in which it is expressed. as for the 2nd pt, most meaningful systems have their true and trivial hypotheses converging - the best thing to do in the absence of any knowledge in any situation is anything - applicable to most systems but trivial too; when u donno how good a team is, try to be ur best - trivial but the only thing any sports team will do etc. in fact elegance and truth in math even is linked to truth and our psyche likes it. and for the 1st pt, phd-life is killing ur imagination :P
the unique absolute hypothesis is the unique union of all possible absolute hypotheses.
of course tolstoy was generalizing and half(only???) of wat these guys say is usually pointless and only for effect but who cares - am totally vetti!!! :D
@shyam: agree that it is semantic warfare but arguing for argument's sake is fun :-) it also an interesting exercise (read vettiness) to take some seemingly innocuous statement and take it apart word for word
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