Matt Sornson

In this book I argue that all progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for what I call good explanations. Though this quest is uniquely human, its effectiveness is also a fundamental fact about reality at the most impersonal, cosmic level – namely that it conforms to universal laws of nature tha... See more

Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species. It began at approximately the time of the scientific revolution, and is still under way. It has included improvements not only in scientific understanding, but also in technology, political ... See more

Deustsch defines Optimism as the theory that all failures are due to lack of Knowledge. That doesn't mean proceeding as if there won't be bad outcomes (since problems are inevitable) - he calls that Blind Optimism. In contrast Blind Pessimism is avoiding everything not known to be safe.

Good Explanations objectively differ from Bad Explanations because they are Hard to vary. Explanations are inherently error prone (see Fallibilism) which is why we need Criticism and Error Correction. Explanations can have unbounded Reach (i.e. apply to solve unforeseen problems).

Dynamic Societies tend towards Optimism and Rational Memes. Because they embody the principles of the Enlightenment they make rapid progress. Static Societies fear change, are dominated by Anti-rational Memes, and stifle Conjecture and Criticism.

There are many misconceptions about where scientific theories are derived from. A popular one is Empiricism, that we derive theories from our senses. Another is Inductivism, that the future will resemble the past. Testability is also generally accepted as a defining characteristic of the scientific method. All of these are wrong - there are many ex... See more

There are no mathematically provably fair forms of Governing and therefore the most important aspect to get right is to be able to remove leaders (see Criticism and Error Correction) when necessary.

Once those explanations are recorded somewhere they become Knowledge. For billions of years Knowledge Creation was limited to our biological Evolution, slow and random changes over time inscribed in our DNA. Then 7,000 years ago we invented language, 5,000 years ago writing, 582 years ago printing-presses, and very recently computers and hard-drive... See more