I find it somewhat of a hopeless discussion. One can explore any angle of science and reach a point where it looks insane and one can indoctrinate himself or train himself beyond that point. At that point you don't know anymore if you are on the cutting edge or if you are contributing to a new religion. The cutting edge might be useful and god might be real.
I think we can humble ourselves with the idea that the unknown is so large that puny humans will never figure out a significant part of it. Our knowledge to the whole will always be near zero. This perspective makes practical things a lot more interesting or a lot more important. I think there is a sufficiently infinite amount of work left close to the applicable.
Perhaps a good analogy is to first explore the forest close to the village rather than moving in a random direction. Its great of course to hear stories of far away lands but when it comes to funding we should aim to get something in return. At the same time we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things that seem implausible to us. There are plenty of empirical results out there that are dismissed outright and will never see publication.
I use to play with magnets just for fun, in pure ignorance. I made quite a few setups that behaved in an interesting way to me. Nothing complicated, they take 1-10 min to make. When I told some book smart people they got angry and told me I was lying. I'm not trying to accomplish or refute anything. To me the effects were less interesting than their outright rejection. My ignorance of the art was quite the advantage. All I have is my hands and my eyes. You can't convince me I cant be seeing what I'm seeing but it is damn fascinating to see people try.
I think we can humble ourselves with the idea that the unknown is so large that puny humans will never figure out a significant part of it. Our knowledge to the whole will always be near zero. This perspective makes practical things a lot more interesting or a lot more important. I think there is a sufficiently infinite amount of work left close to the applicable.
Perhaps a good analogy is to first explore the forest close to the village rather than moving in a random direction. Its great of course to hear stories of far away lands but when it comes to funding we should aim to get something in return. At the same time we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss things that seem implausible to us. There are plenty of empirical results out there that are dismissed outright and will never see publication.
I use to play with magnets just for fun, in pure ignorance. I made quite a few setups that behaved in an interesting way to me. Nothing complicated, they take 1-10 min to make. When I told some book smart people they got angry and told me I was lying. I'm not trying to accomplish or refute anything. To me the effects were less interesting than their outright rejection. My ignorance of the art was quite the advantage. All I have is my hands and my eyes. You can't convince me I cant be seeing what I'm seeing but it is damn fascinating to see people try.