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I started my opinion with "In my opinion", so it should be rather clear.

I would rather claim that due to epistemological reasons we cannot "understand" reality. And i think that "The problem with having "opinions" about reality is that reality doesn't care what your opinion is, at all." - is a great example of opinion (in my opinion) :)



I have some fundamental disagreements with that sort of thinking. I think it's dangerous to allow people to hide non-subjective claims behind the "it's just my opinion" veil. It's intellectually dishonest, even if you don't mean it that way.

Speaking of opinions in the context of reality implies that all (or at least most) alternatives are somehow equally valid, which is plainly not true. A justified belief is better than an unjustified one.

You have opinions about food. You may have opinions about what scientific hypotheses are well-justified and which aren't. You can't have opinions about how reality is.

You made a claim that black holes emit space. To justify it, you would have to come up with a model that incorporates this mechanism and then see if that model agrees with known facts before it has any practical value. If you have no such model, please at least go a bit further and explore the implications of your thought experiment.

As for epistemological reasons why understanding reality is impossible, that's just meaningless wordplay. For any practical definition of "understanding reality", it should be self-evident why opinions are irrelevant: reality is not going to just change itself to accommodate your thoughts.


So nobody should state ideas without full formal analysis? rude


I'm trying to advocate for more intellectual honesty and clarity. It can certainly be a lot of fun to just take a thought and run with it, and while the exercise can lead to useful insights, people are also prone to seeing patterns where none exist and stating their own ideas as if they were fact.

I think it's important to pay attention to how you communicate your ideas, because it's very easy to make completely baseless conjecture sound convincing to yourself, let alone other people, if you're not careful.


That may be true in general, but it surely does not apply to a post starting with "in my opinion" and you even proceed to nag on that phrase alone.

Ironic, how does that fit with "advocating intellectual honesty and clarity"?


"In my opinion" is not a magic phrase that you can use to say whatever you want. Opinions are subjective evaluations of things for which there is no justifiable objective answer, such as personal preferences and judgements.

Saying that the sky is green is not a valid opinion, because the sky is not green, and it can be shown not to be so. Some things are not a matter of opinion.




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