Yep, it's literally false. Astrophysicists estimate 5% of the universe is visible to us. Modern calculations say dark matter comprises about 27% of the Universe. Whatever else is out there, we truly do not know.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/big-questions/what-universe-made

>>> "Science taught me that it's all just atoms and the void, so there can't be any deeper point or purpose to the whole thing"

> Yep, it's literally false. Astrophysicists estimate 5% of the universe is visible to us. Modern calculations say dark matter comprises about 27% of the Universe. Whatever else is out there, we truly do not know.

No. At worst it's only technically false, but broadly on the right track. If you're a materialist/physicalist; and Science requires you to take that position, at least methodologically; "it's all just [particles, fields,] and the void."

I don't understand that. Are there any differences when used here, in this context?

https://wikidiff.com/literally/technically

> I don't understand that. Are there any differences when used here, in this context?

There are. You're going to have to look at it from the perspective of colloquial shades of meaning.

It's funny that a materialist would say it's all 'particles and void' when our current understanding only accounts for a few percent of the universe...

> It's funny that a materialist would say it's all 'particles and void' when our current understanding only accounts for a few percent of the universe...

It's not really funny to repeat the same point as GGP, and totally miss the point of the intervening comment you were replying to.

* * *

This is a great point. When I was studying philosophy in university, an extremely common roadblock to moving the discussion forward was that people (professor and students) were philosophizing about specialized topics that they themselves were not well informed on or held no expertise in. I think this is the problem with philosophy adding practical value to people's lives in general. We seek answers to questions that require specialized knowledge in areas in which we don't have sufficient knowledge in.

The discussions that were more fruitful were the ones where the professor asked if there was someone who majored in that specific subject in the class, and that person would be used as an expert to speak to whatever thing we were questioning, and since it was philosophy, we would question everything.

Stephen Hawking actually wrote about the importance of physicists finding a theory of everything so physics could stop moving so quickly. Our scientific understanding of the universe has advanced and changed so rapidly since the early 20th century that no layperson without extremely specialized training has any hope of grasping the current state of it. This includes philosophers and public intellectuals, but even just average people on Hacker News who have no idea how wrong they are just because they aren't keeping up with new developments. If we could slow down the rate at which new developments happen, maybe there'd be some hope of regular people catching up to it. We could learn a canonical, comprehensive model in primary school, and what we learned would still be current and accurate decades later when we're armchairing all of the narrow technical experts in our blogs and discussion boards.

This isn't even just about laypeople versus physicists. Lee Smolin has written about string theory becoming a crisis in physics because 1) it takes so long to understand any of it mathematically, that by the time anyone has done so, sunk cost fallacy precludes them from ever giving it up, and 2) other physicists responsible for peer review also don't understand the math, but don't want to admit it, so they'll let near anything through to publication even when it's probably nonsense.

Between atoms and the void (which is not even a thing science recognizes), there is a potentially infinite amount of knowledge yet to be discovered. I use the word "infinite" literally here. Not only that, but it's possible some aspects of the universe and existence are undiscoverable by humans.

Who is to say that purpose cannot exist within this? It is unknown and possibly unknowable.

I believe the author has drawn the wrong lessons from science.

Ah yes, reject religion on the grounds that God is unfalsifiable and then proceed to...proclaim an uncertain, if not questionable statement as the objective truth. Sometimes what people call "science" should really be called a mirror. "Science tells me that..."

Well, science may be lacking but next versions of ChatGPT could make people lose any hope for there being a greater purpose for humans.