00:00:02.100 Fallabalism is the stance that we can always be objectively wrong.
00:00:07.300 This means there is something to be objectively wrong about,
00:00:16.100 The idea there is no way of being objectively wrong,
00:00:21.400 the idea that sometimes about, at some things at least,
00:00:24.800 one cannot possibly be wrong because one has found the final truth.
00:00:28.900 This idea that it is possible to get to the final truth,
00:00:32.800 that the truth is manifest, as Karl Popper said.
00:00:38.100 That may seem like a bold claim, and it may be,
00:00:45.300 because there is nothing about this stance that rejects truth, the opposite.
00:00:50.200 It is just that we can never know we have found the truth,
00:00:56.800 for if they are good explanations, then objectively,
00:01:02.900 but they can only work by saying something correct,
00:01:06.100 something correct about the world, something true,
00:01:08.700 but they will always also contain misconceptions.
00:01:12.700 We are fallible, and no single theory can possibly describe everything.
00:01:17.400 In other words, every theory, every explanation, is a misconception.
00:01:22.800 David Deutsch once said that it would have been better for the broader understanding
00:01:28.600 Had we all long ago agreed not to call theories theories,
00:01:34.800 So we would have the scientific misconception of gravity
00:01:37.900 and the scientific misconception of evolution by natural selection
00:01:41.100 or of climate change, particle physics or tectonic plates.
00:01:44.000 And what happens is that we over time replace one deep explanatory misconception
00:01:48.900 with another, by correcting some errors, by finding just a little more truth.
00:01:53.300 Truth we cannot quantify, and truth we cannot speak exactly,
00:02:02.200 those are genuine problem solved with the new explanation.
00:02:09.800 There is only one way to science or to philosophy for that matter,
00:02:14.400 to meet a problem, to see its beauty and full and love with it,
00:02:17.200 to get married to it, and to live with it happily till death to you part,
00:02:21.400 unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem,
00:02:24.500 or unless indeed, you should obtain a solution.
00:02:29.900 you may then discover to your delight the existence of a whole family
00:02:33.800 of enchanting though perhaps difficult problem children,
00:02:37.700 for whose welfare you may work with a purpose to the end of your day's end, quote.
00:02:44.400 for if you do find a solution you will indeed discover more problems they will be revealed to you.
00:02:49.500 For, in standing on the shoulders of giants, you can see further,
00:02:53.700 more problems, more errors, more misconceptions,
00:02:59.700 A vaccine is a solution, but it's never perfect,
00:03:03.000 but it is far better than vast numbers of people simply being infected with whatever the disease is,
00:03:13.800 So your hair fell out and you felt quite tired and ill,
00:03:18.900 Einstein's theory of general relativity solved problems,
00:03:21.800 Newtonian gravity could not like anomalies with Mercury's orbit.
00:03:25.600 But in doing so, it opened up a vision of reality that was more grand and filled with new problems,
00:03:32.900 Space and time as a fabric that could warp and bend forming effects like gravitational lensing.
00:03:38.300 It opened up the problem of how to build a global positioning system of super high precision now,
00:03:43.600 coded into all mobile phones with Google Maps for location finding.
00:03:47.700 It revealed the possibility of gravitational waves and therefore the problem of how to detect them,
00:03:53.300 but should we expect general relativity to contain no misconceptions?
00:04:02.000 We do not know only that it must be because it cannot be the final word.
00:04:10.000 it cannot be the final story because it conflicts with quantum theory.
00:04:13.900 Both purport to be universal claims about physical reality,
00:04:22.200 despite they're both making astonishingly precise predictions,
00:04:30.300 There must be successes to them both or a single successor.
00:04:35.400 For we will never have a theory that explains everything
00:04:39.300 from the motion of fundamental particles and the behavior of space and time through to how life evolves
00:04:46.700 and how human beings make the choices they do and why
00:04:52.000 So because no single theory can explain everything,
00:04:58.500 Always some misconception it has about how to explain the world
00:05:06.900 We cannot guarantee anything we find is error-free.
00:05:15.500 All is a great tapestry of misconception coming to represent reality
00:05:21.300 but never capturing at all just correcting errors here and there
00:05:29.700 But we make progress nonetheless by correcting them
00:05:33.700 and moving from misconception to ever better misconception.