Ideas which is purely mental in nature, and copy of the perceived impression cannot have weights. Your thoughts? — Corvus

I am not sure that we can not weigh our thoughts. A thought about fairies and unicorns would not weigh much. However, the thought of a nuclear war that is recorded in pictures and written accounts of what happened would have a lot of weight, both emotionally and logically, because of being supported by facts. You know, as in "weigh the evidence carefully". And the scales by which we judge.

There might be a cultural bias favoring physical weight only, but this would be too limited for an understanding of weights and our experience.

However, within a few days, they discarded this tool for assessing scientific validity as unsuitable for them, preferring astrology. — Astorre

They will probably outgrow their preference for the mystical. I will quote one fact from AI to add weight to what I have said. "Younger adults (18-30s) tend to identify as more superstitious." Those over 65 are more likely to have lost their sense of wonder and be more grounded in empirical information. However, those of us who have not grown old and retain our child-like thrill to discover, might have an advantage. That is totally my opinion. I would also argue that a love of superstitious notions is most likely to catch the imagination of adolescents. 18 is way too old.

I like what I read in a very old book about logic. The author said we can never be so well informed that we can be absolutely sure of what we think we know.

There might be a cultural bias favoring physical weight only, but this would be too limited for an understanding of weights and our experience. — Athena

Good point. I suppose ideas could have their properties, hence idea of gold would be heavier than idea of paper for the same mass and size. However, it would still be our faculty of reasoning which investigates, and can make the judgement. Ideas themselves would be still unable to present the knowledge of their own properties just by entering into mind.

Those over 65 are more likely to have lost their sense of wonder and be more grounded in empirical information. — Athena

I have great respect for your age and really enjoy your comments on this forum. They always convey a sensitive nature, tempered by a strong sense of self-control and self-discipline. That's why I'd like to elaborate a bit on what I'm writing here.

So, I'm not going to claim anything, but it certainly seems that everyone has a certain hierarchy of ideas. When making decisions, most of us would rather be guided by what we accept as fact than by what's written in the tabloids or on a fence (though this isn't necessarily true in all cases).

But what do we accept as fact? I'll give you a real-life example from history. Before the modern heliocentric model of the solar system, there was a geocentric model (the Ptolemaic model). People thought the sun revolved around the earth. The astronomy of that time accepted this as fact. Astronomers calculated the motion of the stars based on the earth being at the center. And you know, they were quite successful at this. Calendars were compiled and lunar cycles were calculated using this model.

However, due to the retrograde motion of the planets (natural to the heliocentric model), the geocentric model constantly required the addition of epicycles (circles within circles).

By the 15th and 16th centuries, there were already about 80 of these epicycles. Developing navigation and trade demanded incredible precision from astronomy to stay on track. But the existing model had become so cluttered that it required incredible calculation efforts.

Nevertheless, everyone liked it, and the church accepted this model as the truth. Geocentrism was the truth. Just imagine that. From within this model, it was impossible to revise it until Copernicus came along and said, "What if...?" He went beyond what was generally accepted as fact. How difficult it was for him and his followers to revise geocentrism. But it was revised.

Today, we look upon people who believe the Earth is flat, or upon geocentrists, as cranks. The same applies to adherents of other "facts" considered true in earlier times.

Imagine that perhaps our descendants will look upon us the same way in 300-500 years.

That is, everything we scientifically verify, compare with logic, and study factually will perhaps seem bizarre to our descendants.

Hence, I conclude that what we call "facts" may be nothing more than a trick of our minds.

Based on this reasoning, I constructed and proposed the model at the beginning of this post. I think you'll find it interesting to reread it.