Talk:Fractal wrongness

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Links to files like this one from George W. Bush are what make RW still live for me... I still lol... ħuman 01:57, 19 April 2009 (EDT)

Example

this article would be great with a short example of an argument with a fractally wrong person... I can't think of any off the top of my head though. any ideas? 194.6.79.200 11:12, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

New World Order conspiracy theorists. These are the kind of morons who believe television is a brainwashing tool by a global state which is secretely the power behind every throne, Egyptians had hyper-advanced alien technology, all dogs go to heaven, etc. etc. --e|m|c ^[TALK] 12:08, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

Young earth creationism is a pretty good example. Is it mentioned? ħuman 16:41, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

How about the 'Law of Attraction'/'The Secret' people? It seems once you have accepted the foundational axiom of The Secret - that your thoughts can control the universe - then the rest just spirals wrongly out of that error. No possible counterargument can convince them that they are in error. Thus pretty much everything that gets built upon this is wrong. That said, I think the only way to discover a fractally wrong person is by observational inference. If you have investigated, say, five or ten layers of their beliefs and found that each of those layers has led to a further layer of bullshit, you can then assume that it is bullshit all the way down until you see evidence to the contrary. –Tom Morris (talk) 22:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

'There is no cure for deliberate stupidity.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:47, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it took 8 years

...but I think I've found us the perfect example. The guy is wrong about literally everything — dig that "Table of Contents" to the right on his page. I mean, the man lives fractal wrongness. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 00:49, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Bonus link: guess what he thinks he's doing? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:56, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Expansion

Seems like this might be a good candidate for expansion. I see that it is right at the top of the entry point list for last month, and frankly it is a bit weak for an article that attracts a lot of people new to RW. Unfortunately there isn't a lot on the net about the concept - perhaps a large reason why we are the number one hit for the concept.

• The expression appears to have been likely coined ca 2001, from a (then) computer science student named Keunwoo Lee [1] [2]. Whether he used it first, or he borrowed it from someone else, he may well be deserving of a mention.
• I also note that a search for the concept always brings up this image rather than the one that we have so perhaps it should be replaced.
• I have been trying to read about fractals, and I can't say that I understand them, except to say that the colloquial meaning of a fractal is a picture that is visually similar regardless of the level of scale. That is rather a hazy definition, but one that comes close to capturing the meaning behind the metaphor.

--Damo^Hi 23:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

The list

I added a section listing different worldviews that are fractally wrong. Please do not use it to simply snark about worldviews you don't agree with. They must actually fit the definition. --User:Brendan Rizzo, 11 March 2015 21:45 UTC

I'm not sure Oprah needs a unique entry as most of her views that qualify are already on the list.--SpecialFFrog (talk) 20:58, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

It's also not appropriate since she only has a few things wrong with her; it's not like her mind is an abyss of logic where sanity goes to dieCorruptUser (talk) 21:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

HELP

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I need some help debating someone on the evidence of god who puts out arguments like this,

“”@Billy Jones My thoughts on the video Oh great another pathetic atheist sob story I like how you make fun of religion but then you turn around and tell a story like a testimony. The atheist copies religion in every way and is the ultimate hippocrite and doesn’t realize it why because your prideful. It’s very hard to come to a perfect all knowing God when you have a wall of pride. Religious people and atheists are both very prideful. Um I didn’t connect well at church so I left and I realized facts and now I’m an atheist. Like most atheists don’t say what those facts are then say no proof of God provides proof now it’s confirmation Bias you guys are the Biggest hippocrites. Here’s what that is you ask a question and you say an answer then say that answer is invalid because your proof supports your standpoint that is a strawman you atheists make the most strawmans out of anybody. You guys always make the protective bubble myth. Not a single Bible story has been disproven not even the flood has been disproven what about geology yeah which relies on carbon dating which there’s no proof that method works because there’s no way to test its validity. Science like that only goes so far. A candle burns at half an inch when was it lit. There’s this much radiation in an organism when did it die? You see a bone in the dirt all you know is it’s dead you don’t know that it had any children let alone different children. Here’s an interesting one most atheistic tards don’t know your chromosome count alone debunks evolution. Apes have 48 chromosomes we have 46 chromosomes this implies a chromosomal mutation. Chromosomal mutations result in a sterilization of an organism and defects so how did the first ape with 46 chromosomes reproduce and have perfectly healthy children. I’ve researched this question and no one tends to give me an actual answer they just say oh it happened over time first off that’s an assumption which is not scientific that’s anti scientific. Number two you have no proof that occurred so you are putting blind faith and being ignorant on purpose. I’ve heard people say the end of one chromosome attached and that resulted in 46 chromosomes again based off assumptions and blind faith which is what a majority of what atheism and evolution is. Assumptions and blind faith. Oh and we believe in natural selection and speciation and adaptation just not Darwinian evolution. Saying a dog can become another form of a dog is way different than saying a dog can become a cat eventually. What about transitional fossils first off no proof they could break the chromosome barrier and there’s really not a lot of transitional fossils there is mere hundreds when there should be thousands considering the billons of species on earth and the supposed dozens of transitional species in between those billions. Not to mention dinosaurs date back what is it 500 million years ago or whatever what about the other 4 billion the earth has been around according to evolutionists yet there has been a little to no supposed ancestors of dinosaurs found. Also most transitional fossils all just so happen to do with humans. The justifications for putting them related to us is so stupid to me. Like for example a common one is intelligence. Your intelligence is impossible to change you can learn more information and pass it on but your actual intelligence is impossible to change. Our brains has set limits on how far we can go some can go farther than others but the intelligence is still set at some point your ability to grasp concepts is limited at some point. Apes can’t talk they can’t comprehend a language they can do sight language but they can’t freaking have a legitimate conversation with you they can understand what you mean by body language that’s prebuilt into most animals though. So how did the ape change the neuron density to lead to us as humans. At least that applies to animals humans can litterally make our brains bigger but guess what these are only things humans are capable of doing correctly. For example meditating you know mathematics, puzzles stuff really humans can do. Now maybe there’s some wierd species that can count 1234 but they can’t freaking do calculus their brains won’t even let them go there. Apes can do puzzles but then again we had to train the ape to do the puzzle and they aren’t complex puzzles either. Atheism- lies and blind faith and don’t forget assumptions. Oh and atheism and evolution are related that’s like saying Christianity and Judaism aren’t related in any way yeah there two different religions but a lot is similar and the two ideas complement each other greatly. Oh I’m an atheist I don’t have belief not in God but you sure do have tons of blind faith in the monkey religion. Oh and if your an atheistic dumbass who’s going to quote me multiple times and just say the exact opposite of what I’m saying without any proof don’t comment because I don’t answer ignorant people. Here’s an example “atheism is belief’’ no it’s not and we don’t put blind faith. Those are the type of people who failed English class and when asked to back it up with evidence they didn’t just made a meaningless claim. You know what do it you’ll only prove my point that atheist are just prideful and rebellious jerks. Isn’t insulting people a sin people who say that are usually ones who have depression and are prideful so my question is aren’t you an asshole. What you gonna do quote me and try to dismiss me with insults go troll someone else like evolution trolls children lol. Evolution is science my butt only people who say that are evolutionists themselves I can’t say that with real science I can’t say only physicists themselves believe in physics. I can say only evolutions believe in evolution because it is belief not a science. Also the dozens of scientific facts in the Bible written centuries before discovery helps my case pretty good. Oh and no the Bible was not mistranslated the first Bible was translated to Greek you really think they can’t translate Greek oh wait you didn’t know that because most atheists are quite uneducated and in reality just closeminded. Also the fact that a lot of the Bible’s historical sites have been found like sodom and Gammorah David’s tomb etc. So in summary atheists quite being ignorant and harassing Christians especially since most of you can’t back up anything you say with any facts or evidence just the same buzz word statements made by atheist youtubers themselves. Oh and this is the last thing don’t quote me and say something I said and then say most atheist don’t use this argument also I’ve met a lot that do and reguardless that is irrelevant I’m using an example to debunk your baseless assumptions. If your going to say something, say something factual don’t just say your brainwashed yes with facts and evidence now show me Your evidence I have shown you mine and I don’t care about the burden of proof I already showed you proof to say you don’t need to provide proof is just ignorant and are no better than an sjw because both deny facts and reality.

—Unknown Internet Apologist



I mean, just wow I couldn't get though this paragraph if you gave me a year. Tabula Rasa (talk) 17:30, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you mind if I edit your post to format this as a little more readable? ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 17:34, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

No, in fact I am trying to do that right now.Tabula Rasa (talk) 17:36, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I started building a response but sci-hub's captchas are down. And without reading actual papers about the methods used to analyze Carbon-14's half life, what's the point? I need to remember to come back here and answer this gish gallop later. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:14, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

(But I do believe, if I could read it, this paper would do a pretty good job explaining how we can know carbon dating works. At least as far as the half-life and elemental detritus evidence is concerned. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:16, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Oh boy, I'm answering just one paragraph. I'm more prepared to explain how they know the half-life of C¹⁴ now. The primary tool in the toolbox of a would-be half-life determiner for elements with half-lives in the order of millenia is the Gamma Ionization Chamber. Here, an isolated chamber with gamma ray sensors on all sides has a sample of centrifugally isolated isotopes. Given some early guesses of the composition decay elements by way of chemical signatures(for carbon 14 that's seeing nitrogen in masses of otherwise pure carbon, such as natural graphite). So given that model, they know the energy levels of photons they expect to be emitted when decay happens, and can observe rates of detection in that band on the gamma chambers sensors. Given sufficient original mass of radioactive element, in timescales far shorter than a single half-life, you can collect enough data that the inverse exponential function(a general principle confirmed hundreds of times experimentally for radioactive decay) of decay events is observed with a best fit having very narrow margins of error, easily duplicated experimentally. Our current margin of error for C14's half life is less than 25 years.

Let's address another point. As best I can tell, their whole chromosome thing is apparently in reference to the fact that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes while chimps have 24. And how could that possibly happen? Unfortunately, the evidence in the space points so very very very very very strongly to Chimp Chromosomes 2A and 2B joining to make human chromosome 2. Several critical, sine-qua-non genes are located in human chromosome 2. And they just so happen to be divided evenly on 2A and 2B in great apes. It's resounding evidence for an isolated mutation separating us only slightly from chimps.

I honestly don't think I'd have the patience to deal with this person myself, but they've made several claims that do them no service. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:38, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Fractal correctness

Should there also be a concept called fractal correctness? Truth is often fractal-like, i.e. best described by general statements that have small caveats, which themselves have smaller caveats etc.

Bad-faith arguers try to subvert fractal correctness via either strawmanning or finding some exception that proves the rule. Brandolini's Law can occur whenever lies are simple and truth is complex.

216.181.247.22 (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2024 (UTC)