Thinking out loud.

[RustyFork21]

I was wondering on people opinions about the fact ( if you can call it that )... that every thing we know about history have a chance of being false
( falsified ) .

Opinions and facts are welcome , just make sure to stat which are you sharing.
Just trying to make an informative opinion on the subject.

 

[Greenskyguy]

https://www.theonion.com/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks-1819571808

This might be topical.

 

[Henry IX]

What you are referring to is the problem of knowledge. If you reject received truth then all knowledge arises from experience. As such, you can be deceived both by your own experience (as illusions demonstrate) and by the information others provide you. After all, how do you know the Napoleonic wars happened? You never experienced them and you have never met someone who experienced them.

This being said, to actually function you have to make assumptions about truth. You ultimately only have your senses and sensations to rely upon so to reject them (radical doubt) leaves you unable to function. As such to assume falsification of basic historical facts without evidence to support them is absurd. What does it even mean to exist in a world where you seriously doubt that WW2 actually happened? The world view you are proposing if you assume radical doubt about 'established' facts is so far removed from our understanding and experience of the world that you need to provide a far stronger argument than simply to question the nature of knowledge.

I would tend to say that radical doubt is an interesting intellectual exercise but nothing more.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

https://www.theonion.com/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks-1819571808

This might be topical.

 

[Pero Coveilha]

You might be interested in Antoine Bello's trilogy The Falsifiers, in which the protagonists purposedly alter past history. Mind, it is fiction though, but it points out interesting views on our era of fake news. Apart from that, I wholeheartedly agree with Henry

As for your nickname, I for one am partial to rusty spoons. See David Firth

 

[bz249]

What you are referring to is the problem of knowledge. If you reject received truth then all knowledge arises from experience. As such, you can be deceived both by your own experience (as illusions demonstrate) and by the information others provide you. After all, how do you know the Napoleonic wars happened? You never experienced them and you have never met someone who experienced them.

This being said, to actually function you have to make assumptions about truth. You ultimately only have your senses and sensations to rely upon so to reject them (radical doubt) leaves you unable to function. As such to assume falsification of basic historical facts without evidence to support them is absurd. What does it even mean to exist in a world where you seriously doubt that WW2 actually happened? The world view you are proposing if you assume radical doubt about 'established' facts is so far removed from our understanding and experience of the world that you need to provide a far stronger argument than simply to question the nature of knowledge.

I would tend to say that radical doubt is an interesting intellectual exercise but nothing more.

Let's assume you are a CK2 character at one of the preset starting dates... it means everything you know about history is falsified since none played with Pepin the Short*, yet he is clearly there in the game database.

*on the other hand from the in character perspective, whatever Pepin the Short has accomplished had an effect from a gameplay view, so from another point of view it is a falsification indistiguishable form reality

 

[Sarmatia1871]

Let's assume you are a CK2 character at one of the preset starting dates... it means everything you know about history is falsified since none played with Pepin the Short*, yet he is clearly there in the game database.

*on the other hand from the in character perspective, whatever Pepin the Short has accomplished had an effect from a gameplay view, so from another point of view it is a falsification indistiguishable form reality

What?

 

[bz249]

What?

It's just impossible to tell whether the world is a computer simulation or real. If it is a simulation part of the history is forged as it never "happened".

 

[Tufto]

It's just impossible to tell whether the world is a computer simulation or real. If it is a simulation part of the history is forged as it never "happened".

This is just basic solipsism. It doesn't have much/anything to do with history and has much more to do with extremely introductory philosophy.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

This is just basic solipsism. It doesn't have much/anything to do with history and has much more to do with extremely introductory philosophy.

Yes. Although maybe someone should make a film about the world actually being a giant computer simulation? And then follow it with two completely pointless and terrible sequels that fail to develop the concept in any way?

 

[Pyoro]

It's a bit annoying how this "it's just theories ..." and so on is occasionally politically abused these days; in the sense of "look, they thought in that battle 2500 years ago 20,000 people fought, but now we know it might only have been 7,000 and it might even have taken place somewhere vaguely different! Clearly science can be wrong about EVERYTHING, thus you should believe [insert_random_rubbish]."

So, while, sure, it's good to keep in mind that history (or anything, really) gets things wrong and there's plenty we don't know, will never know; or which accuracy can only be constantly disputed that still doesn't mean that people can just claim whatever. There won't be sudden proof that shapeshifting lizards from space didn't build the pyramids. It's clear to everyone in the field that this is factually true.

 

[Sarmatia1871]

It's a bit annoying how this "it's just theories ..." and so on is occasionally politically abused these days; in the sense of "look, they thought in that battle 2500 years ago 20,000 people fought, but now we know it might only have been 7,000 and it might even have taken place somewhere vaguely different! Clearly science can be wrong about EVERYTHING, thus you should believe [insert_random_rubbish]."

So, while, sure, it's good to keep in mind that history (or anything, really) gets things wrong and there's plenty we don't know, will never know; or which accuracy can only be constantly disputed that still doesn't mean that people can just claim whatever. There won't be sudden proof that shapeshifting lizards from space didn't build the pyramids. It's clear to everyone in the field that this is factually true.

Yeah. Plus particularly once you get to the late-medieval period (and also before; and then exponentially onwards), the amount of written material and artefacts dating from the period in museums, libraries and archives is so immense that you need to propose a ridiculous and implausible level of industrial-scale fakery to account for it.

 

[pithorr]

History is written by the victors.
/thread

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

This is just basic solipsism. It doesn't have much/anything to do with history and has much more to do with extremely introductory philosophy.

It's just impossible to tell whether the world is a computer simulation or real. If it is a simulation part of the history is forged as it never "happened".

Yeah well UFOs could be just big lenses and they watch us through them. *nods*

Which means we are not a digital simulation but they created an alternate Earth in another dimension for study.

Hmm where do I have my teapot ?

 

[bz249]

Yeah well UFOs could be just big lenses and they watch us through them. *nods*

Which means we are not a digital simulation but they created an alternate Earth in another dimension for study.

Hmm where do I have my teapot ?

The question is more serious, do we have an alternate Earth where Rommel conquered the world and we all speak swäbisch?

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

The question is more serious, do we have an alternate Earth where Rommel conquered the world and we all speak swäbisch?

If there are infinite dimensions they can have infinite simulations so yes, propably.

 

[SirNat]

This is just basic solipsism. It doesn't have much/anything to do with history and has much more to do with extremely introductory philosophy.

Except there is a great deal to do with history. The conclusions to which you draw from the philosophical question of scepticism will ultimately shape how you perceive and even define history.

There is a good reason why most continental philosophers developed rich and detailed historical frameworks off the basis of their preliminary work within metaphysics.

 

[Avernite]

The question is more serious, do we have an alternate Earth where Rommel conquered the world and we all speak swäbisch?

Why is that serious? We're not on that world (at least, I don't speak Schwäbisch), and we know of no conceivable way to reach that world. For all practical purposes, it existing or not is presently irrelevant. The question is not just unanswered; for all that we know now it is unanswerable.

 

[SirNat]

Yes. Although maybe someone should make a film about the world actually being a giant computer simulation? And then follow it with two completely pointless and terrible sequels that fail to develop the concept in any way?

I don't wish to be rude but is all you do is write snarky one liners that contribute nothing?

 

[Canadian_95_RTS]

Historians generally don't do too well with such theories, but they exist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis