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Curated by: Ontology Explained: Philosophy and AI (109 videos)
We don't know. And sometimes, that's all we know. But does our ignorance give us reason to believe something else? In this video, I take a look at the logical fallacy known as the **appeal to ignorance**: the mistake of treating our lack of knowledge about something as evidence for a related conclusion. We'll look at examples involving reincarnation, evolution, and even AI—and then we'll complicate things. Because while "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a useful rule of thumb, there really are cases where failing to find evidence *does* give us reason to believe something is false. We'll cover: * What an appeal to ignorance actually is * Why these arguments are usually bad reasoning * How to spot them in the wild * When absence of evidence really is evidence of absence * Ockham's Razor and other legitimate uses of epistemic defaults * Why "we don't know" doesn't always mean "anything goes" And if you have a particularly terrible appeal to ignorance you've encountered, **please give me examples in the comments!** Be kind and charitable out there. See you in the next video. Resources: - My If Anyone Builds It series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSjZcAM1g_Us