What keeps people oblivious to what is true?

Question

Isnt physical science a search For truth?

Answer 1

Please don't think I'm being rude because I've been faced with it before and it was shear STUPIDITY!!!

Answer 2

People can only know what is true by their own perspective of what is true. Perspective is colored by their teaching and their own knowledge of what is true. Take for example, gravity. Many would have argued that all things objects do not fall at the same rate because it's obvious that that's not the case. Does paper fall at the same rate as stone? No. But we have to use our knowledge of the situation to interpret it. Why would a sheet of paper not fall as fast as stone? (To our modern minds, its pretty obvious answer because we've been taught it so many times over.)

It took many, many years for science to develop such that we have even some coginizance of what is true. We were oblivious to what was true for so many years because we hadn't conducted the experiments and come up with hypothesis to explain the world. We really can't say what is true even now, and we (as humans) probably will never know.

String theory, which supposedly is a mathematical theory which is consistant with all known laws of the universe, requires the belief (or faith as I would put it) that every single patical of matter or energy be made of "strings" which are a so small that if I were shrunk to the size of a proton, the protons in my (shrunk) body would sill be bigger than the strings in question. Handling the tricky issues with regard to these strings will be a problem for years to come (unless we happen to find some inconsistancy).

Now consider the case of schizophrenics... or people on drugs halucenating... they are completely oblivious to what is true (at least per the perspective of most humans), and yet even their senses are decieving them, telling them incorrectly what is true.

If there can exist a state of mind such that one could not even tell what is real and what is not, possibly without the people in said state of mind not knowing they are in a halucenogenic state of mind, why should we expect people in general to know the truth? What if it turns out, instead of maybe 3% or whaver not knowing the truth, what if it were more like 80% or 99.99% (that 0.01% would get pretty lonely!)

People are oblivious to the truth because its just not completely obvious what the truth is.

Answer 3

The simple answer is confusion and ignorance. Religion being the worst offender and destroyer of truth in world history.

For every authority there is an equal and opposite authority.

This means that if you believe in space aliens or any other fringe beliefs, you can find a PhD from some prestigious university somewhere who you can quote chapter and verse in support of your belief. An example would be Dr. John Mack of Harvard Medical School. He was the founder of the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Hospital with more than thirty years experience and practice as a board-certified psychoanalyst, yet he seriously believed that aliens were abducting people for experiments.

On the other hand, if I chose not to believe him, I could quote other experts with similar credentials in support of my position.

Who should you believe?

Most 'normal' people will believe or side with whichever 'expert' supports their particular pet belief. This is not scientific.

The only solution to this impasse is to educate yourself as much as possible in spite of the teachers and the abysmal educational system of today (USA). Do not use the reputation of anyone as the basis of important decisions. Considering the inferior standards required to become a 'scientist' today, I prefer to make those decisions myself, since the 'expert' these can't agree on the time, much less anything of consequence.

Just as with any medical doctor, get a second opinion. In fact get many alternative opinions. Basic common sense and self education can indicate which expert, if any, is closest to the truth.
 

Answer 4

Beliefs established at a young age are very often impervious to contradictory evidence, no matter how clear the evidence is. That's your answer. A similar situation is found for other traits acquired early: skills are retained, personality fixed, values established, accent determined - all while young. If you deprive a mouse of light during it's first month or so of life, it will be blind for life. It's just the way the brain develops; core neural pathways are established in youth and change only with great effort (at best) latter.

Answer 5

the OMEGA Effect is the premise that although we are supposedly the smartest creatures on earth, and masters of all, and seers of everything, we are using our minds. Our minds can see and understand everything, except to see and understand the workings of the mind that is in use, analysing everything around us.
It would be like a great computer trying to understand the working of the great computer - there is a flaw in that it cannot see itself,
since any flaw would affect the analysis of the thinking process that is supposed to be looking for flaws ---
If there are flaws in the human mind, ( and there are ) then
these flaws are PART of the process of the human mind in
any attempt to understand the human mind..

ie. you cannot use a flawed mind or program to analyse
flaws in itself - the flaws are redundant, - it would take an non-flawed outside entity to be able to see the problem.

We are trapped in our own teeny, flawed minds... Can't change much at the moment, just do your best... AND of course, some minds are a LOT more flawed than others, just like there are
people who can memorize an entire Encyclopedia instantly, there
are thousands of different levels of flaws and abilities - someone might easily see glaring flaws in someonelse's thinking, but be totally oblivious to their own thinking flaws in another area of
the human "whole". We are all probably flawed somewhere in the huge complexities of the entire process, to varying degrees, and that part of our thinking process that is NOT flawed can immediately see the flawed areas in someone else, but we can never see the flawed areas in ourselves - the flaw we have in that area protects itself, ( hmmmm windows protection errror, anyone? )

I will give you an example --- all humans are blind, in both eyes.
We cannot see our own blind spots, since the brain has, from the time we were babies, learned to cover up the blind spots ( this has caused terrible accidents, since an approaching frieght train,
if in the blind spot, would be missing !).

You can force yourself to see these blind spots by getting a piece of white paper and drawing two black dots about 1/4 inch
wide, about 3 inches apart, left and right on the center of the page.
Now close your left eye and look at the left dot. Move the paper
around slowly and move the paper away and closer, slowly.
Somewhere about a foot away ( it can be closer or further and
varies from person to person ) , you will see the RIGHT dot completely dissappear. The same is true if you reverse the
eyes and dots. You are blind. But you can't see it - the brain just
tricks you into thinking that everything is there, but you are
completely blind in both eyes in that area. Normally between both eyes,
you can see the missing data in one eye or the other, but there
are times, like when driving, where you look to the left or right,
and can miss a car or train or whatever in the distance, completely, since you are only using one eye...
If you brain has a " thinking" flaw in it, your brain would have covered up the flaw a long time ago, and you would never see it.
Someone else would have to work VERY hard to show it to you
with hard cold evidence, since to you, it never existed.

Answer 6

The need to trust external "authority" to give them the truth, conversely, the laziness to acquire knowledge.

Answer 7

Propaganda. Deception. Or on a more personal note, an unwillingness to believe the obvious

Answer 8

Perspective.

Perspective IS truth.

Answer 9

Why is this in physics?

Because they dont know what truth is? Do you?

Answer 10

Repression and denial. Why is this question under physics?

Answer 11

Fear of knowing of what will cause them pain.