Is history useless?

[ParkCungHee]

It's knowledge that nobody had before, therefore it's new.

Right, now suppose that is actually wrong. Supposed someone in the 14th century figured out all this physics and chemistry business and just didn't tell anyone. That would reduce chemistry and physics to a useless field, correct?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

He didn't tell anyone though. It's not part of humanity's collective knowledge that others can use and build on.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Well that seems to be a different standard than Zelig introduced, but I can run with it.

So, leaving aside where we set the bar for how many people need to know something for it to be part of "humanity's collective knowledge," you're introducing the principle, at least, that if something is forgotten, and relearned, or simply never entered into ease of access to the public, and becomes that way, it qualifies as "new knowledge" yes?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

It's new knowledge for the generation that relearned it. I don't think the criteria for ease of access to the public is as important. What can the average person do with the genetic sequence of mouse claudin-5, for instance?

 

[ParkCungHee]

It's new knowledge for the generation that relearned it.

Alright then.

I don't think the criteria for ease of access to the public is as important. What can the average person do with the genetic sequence of mouse claudin-5, for instance?

I meant ease of access in the sense that someone can relatively easily look up the genetic sequence of mouse claudin-5, for instance, if they need to. It is not stored on a flash drive in an unmarked bunker in Siberia, for instance. If that was the only place that information was available, and someone discovered it independently, that would also be "new knowledge". Sound reasonable?

 

[Agent327]

Let's put back in the full quote, shall we:

Returning to topic, however, in essence all science is 'useless' - although some have more practical implications than others. History then (or the recording of it), is especially uselss, since humans, historically speaking, tend not to learn from past mistakes, but rather to over and over repeat them - despite their best efforts to the contrary.

This is pretty obviously not the case with any commonly accepted definition of "usefulness".

Pure science is by definition useless; only practical science is.

 

[Zelig]

Known by who? Just by any other human? And if any other human, why not any other sentient mind? It's possible that the inhabitants of some distant planet have discovered the structure of benzine, for example, so should we refrain from stating whether this was or was not "new knowledge"?

Yes, humans.

Right, now suppose that is actually wrong. Supposed someone in the 14th century figured out all this physics and chemistry business and just didn't tell anyone. That would reduce chemistry and physics to a useless field, correct?

Nope, I said if A (nobody had the knowledge before) then B (the knowledge is new).

That does not imply what you said.

See my clarification anyway:

Anthropology that was already known at some point (ie. history falls in this category) is pretty obviously not new knowledge.

A fact that was never known, and which remain true irrespective of the existence of humanity is pretty obviously new knowledge.

Other things (anthropology which wasn't known in the past, and rediscovered non-anthropological knowledge falls somewhere in-between)

Pure science is by definition useless; only practical science is.

pure science: systematic observation of natural phenomena solely for the discovery of unknown laws relating to facts; the study of science alone, not including its relations to other subjects

Not seeing the uselessness.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes, humans.

Why humans in particular?
Will this standard always apply?

 

[Crezth]

'History' isn't about storytelling (in fact, there are quite of bit of good historians that are awful storytellers).

Fine, but it was a classification that Phrossack conjured up with a wave of his hand and a pithy remark to distinguish history from "useful" professions. The reason it struck a quarrel with me is because I think you'd have to be quite mad to assert that storytellers are useless.

Pure science is by definition useless; only practical science is.

The utter meaninglessness of this statement should tell you something about the utility of the terms "useful" and "useless" for describing any part of human society, let alone the wholly imaginary divide between "pure" and "practical" science, whatever that may be.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Nope, I said if A (nobody had the knowledge before) then B (the knowledge is new).

So it is quite possible, in your mind, that science has not produced any new knowledge in the past 6 centuries?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Sound reasonable?

Yes, it does.

 

[Zelig]

Why humans in particular?
Will this standard always apply?

We discuss knowledge in the context of humanity, because that's what's useful to discuss.

I can't predict the future.

So it is quite possible, in your mind, that science has not produced any new knowledge in the past 6 centuries?

No, I never implied anything of the sort.

"If A then B" does not imply "if not A then not B".

 

[ParkCungHee]

We discuss knowledge in the context of humanity, because that's what's useful to discuss.

What predicative power does it offer?

I can't predict the future.

I'm not asking you to, I'm asking you the limits of the standards you've invented.

No, I never implied anything of the sort.

"If A then B" does not imply "if not A then not B".

Yes you did. You claimed history is not as rigorous because it cannot compare to a field where "no one" has discovered something before:

""rigorous" research in an area where there's nothing new to discover pales in comparison to research where you're trying to discover something that nobody else has ever managed to.

This means that the level of rigor science has is dependent of whether or not someone has ever done it before, which we have yet to ascertain.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes, it does.

Well then to say there is no new knowledge to be gained in History is simply untrue, by the standards we agree to.

There is a good deal of information on an unmarked flash drive, in a box, in a secured vault, in a department of defense site, in rural Pennsylvania. You can only access it by requesting it specifically, and if you don't know what it is, good luck with that.

I am the only person in the entire world who knows the contents of that flash drive. It is a transcription and audio file of a conversation between two humans who are dead.

It's got some rather important information on it, and this is the level of work that an unpaid intern does while working on a history degree.

That's just the research end of things.

If we consider integrated knowledge to be knowledge, for example if we consider Newton's theories to be new knowledge even though the motion of objects was already observed, then Historians produce new knowledge even more regularly.

If I integrate individual known facts about 16th century Ireland, and come up with a new causal model for why and how the Nine Years War was started, something that wasn't even understood when it happened, I've also contributed new knowledge.

 

[Zelig]

What predicative power does it offer?

That isn't relevant.

I'm not asking you to, I'm asking you the limits of the standards you've invented.

They're conventions, I haven't invented them.

Yes you did. You claimed history is not as rigorous because it cannot compare to a field where "no one" has discovered something before:

Firstly, if I had claimed that, that still would not imply what you think it would. That simply does not logically follow.

Secondly, I didn't claim that anyway, I was referring specifically to the rigor of research, not to any field as a whole.

 

[ParkCungHee]

That isn't relevant.

Of course it is.
"The entire point of knowing anything (excepting stuff that's fun to know) is for the predictive ability."
If your standards have no predictive ability, there's no point to knowing them. If I shouldn't know them, why should I use them?

They're conventions, I haven't invented them.

Who did? Who taught you them?

Firstly, if I had claimed that, that still would not imply what you think it would. That simply does not logically follow.

Of course it does. If the knowledge is not new, it follows that the knowledge is not new.

Secondly, I didn't claim that anyway, I was referring specifically to the rigor of research, not to any field as a whole.

But the rigor of the research is still in question. If an unknown genius had all the knowledge of chemistry in the 14th century, then it follows that chemistry is a field where there is nothing new to be known. That would mean that contrary to previous beliefs, chemistry is exactly as rigorous as any other field where there is nothing new to be known.

The rigor of scientific research, in your model, is dependent on events you have no way of knowing.

 

[TedSkymer]

history is interesting, and learning about it is a hobby for many people . if you take the position that history is useless, then all hobbies are useless.

moving on to the study of history at the professional level, there are several uses of history beyond scholarship. the skill that is most important to those studying history (at least this is what i tell my undergrads) is writing skills. the study of history hones ones ability to process, synthesize, and articulate information and ideas. this is what leads many historians of graduate degrees to move onto the fbi, cia, other alphabet organizations (the language skills also help).

 

[Agent327]

The utter meaninglessness of this statement should tell you something about the utility of the terms "useful" and "useless" for describing any part of human society, let alone the wholly imaginary divide between "pure" and "practical" science, whatever that may be.

The utter meaningless of this statement only tells me you have a problem discerning between pure science and applied science. I suggest you google a bit and come back with something more substantial.

 

[Zelig]

Of course it is.
"The entire point of knowing anything (excepting stuff that's fun to know) is for the predictive ability."
If your standards have no predictive ability, there's no point to knowing them. If I shouldn't know them, why should I use them?

Okay, add effective communication to predictive ability for reasons it's worth knowing stuff.

edit: Actually, no, effective communication falls under the purview of predictive ability.

Who did? Who taught you them?

Not relevant.

Of course it does. If the knowledge is not new, it follows that the knowledge is not new.

You're saying that if A, then A. Yes, that's correct, but not relevant.

But the rigor of the research is still in question. If an unknown genius had all the knowledge of chemistry in the 14th century, then it follows that chemistry is a field where there is nothing new to be known. That would mean that contrary to previous beliefs, chemistry is exactly as rigorous as any other field where there is nothing new to be known.

Nope:

Anthropology that was already known at some point (ie. history falls in this category) is pretty obviously not new knowledge.

A fact that was never known, and which remain true irrespective of the existence of humanity is pretty obviously new knowledge.

Other things (anthropology which wasn't known in the past, and rediscovered non-anthropological knowledge falls somewhere in-between)

The rigor of scientific research, in your model, is dependent on events you have no way of knowing.

I never made any claims or implications about determining the rigor of scientific research.

 

[Zelig]

The utter meaninglessness of this statement should tell you something about the utility of the terms "useful" and "useless" for describing any part of human society, let alone the wholly imaginary divide between "pure" and "practical" science, whatever that may be.

This is a pretty good summation of this thread.