Marvels, Magic and Mysticism (from is belief/lack a choice)
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Ruv, you have a lot to say, all of it very interesting and worth thinking about, but I don't think I can address it all. I'll just go with what stands out the most to me at the moment, then maybe come back later after thinking some more.
First, I'd like to mention that - as you say - there might be fewer theistic scientists today, and as we make more scientific discoveries they're becoming even fewer. However, I can say that I know at least one scientist who claims to have a theistic belief, and he does not think it contradicts the science that he loves. He was my instructor for an astronomy class I took this last semester at TU. Although it dealt with more than astronomy, being a science class for non-science majors; it included the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and human evolution. Excellent class. I loved it.
Anyway, he does not agree with Intelligent Design theory and maintains that the naturalist theory seems the most accurate in his experience. But he believes that science and theism ask different questions: "how" and "why." He doesn't believe they contradict, but they have different purposes, and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with either.
Both questions are worth investigating, but only one falls within the purview of science. Neither is meaningless, whether or not you can observe and analyze it. This is obviously a significant part of our disagreement. You assume that just because it cannot be evaluated empirically it is meaningless, and you believe you have good reason to make that assumption. I, on the other hand, make the opposite assumption - and I also believe I have good reason to make it. Regardless, we're both starting from certain assumptions that can't be proven.
Perhaps you declined to speculate, as you say, but theories about the origin of the universe are speculation - however comprehensive and regardless of basis (such as extrapolating from what we observe and what we know about the universe now) - because it cannot be observed.
And, also according to the material I studied in that class, the universe does evolve. It moves from a state of simplicity toward increasing complexity. That doesn't mean it moves toward intelligence, but the development of intelligence fits with the observation.
Right. There is only sign of them becoming more complex over time, not necessarily better. Yet, those organisms with just the right features to survive within a particular environment stand a better chance than those without the same features. I suggest that it does get better at it over time, but we are just not very good at finding those signs.
In fact, there are plenty who believe the signs are here (although I don't necessarily see it in the same way).
Deity is also evolving, not so much planning and designing. It is similar to a living organism, moving from a state of simplicity toward increasing complexity. As it evolves, it probably learns how it can influence its evolution, just as humans do. We at least think it's plausible to instigate some changes to our development and that, if we don't yet, we might have the technology to do so in the future. This deity's implementation of that influence could be a process of trial and error. Our evolution proceeds not necessarily because this deity guides us, but more as a natural consequence of its evolution.
First, I'd like to mention that - as you say - there might be fewer theistic scientists today, and as we make more scientific discoveries they're becoming even fewer. However, I can say that I know at least one scientist who claims to have a theistic belief, and he does not think it contradicts the science that he loves. He was my instructor for an astronomy class I took this last semester at TU. Although it dealt with more than astronomy, being a science class for non-science majors; it included the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and human evolution. Excellent class. I loved it.
Anyway, he does not agree with Intelligent Design theory and maintains that the naturalist theory seems the most accurate in his experience. But he believes that science and theism ask different questions: "how" and "why." He doesn't believe they contradict, but they have different purposes, and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with either.
Both questions are worth investigating, but only one falls within the purview of science. Neither is meaningless, whether or not you can observe and analyze it. This is obviously a significant part of our disagreement. You assume that just because it cannot be evaluated empirically it is meaningless, and you believe you have good reason to make that assumption. I, on the other hand, make the opposite assumption - and I also believe I have good reason to make it. Regardless, we're both starting from certain assumptions that can't be proven.
Perhaps you declined to speculate, as you say, but theories about the origin of the universe are speculation - however comprehensive and regardless of basis (such as extrapolating from what we observe and what we know about the universe now) - because it cannot be observed.
And, also according to the material I studied in that class, the universe does evolve. It moves from a state of simplicity toward increasing complexity. That doesn't mean it moves toward intelligence, but the development of intelligence fits with the observation.
Right. There is only sign of them becoming more complex over time, not necessarily better. Yet, those organisms with just the right features to survive within a particular environment stand a better chance than those without the same features. I suggest that it does get better at it over time, but we are just not very good at finding those signs.
In fact, there are plenty who believe the signs are here (although I don't necessarily see it in the same way).
Deity is also evolving, not so much planning and designing. It is similar to a living organism, moving from a state of simplicity toward increasing complexity. As it evolves, it probably learns how it can influence its evolution, just as humans do. We at least think it's plausible to instigate some changes to our development and that, if we don't yet, we might have the technology to do so in the future. This deity's implementation of that influence could be a process of trial and error. Our evolution proceeds not necessarily because this deity guides us, but more as a natural consequence of its evolution.
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Stephen Jay Gould famously tried to delineate boundaries between science and theology in a thing called Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NoMa). He argued that:
I have great respect for Gould as a biologist and a humanitarian, but I think he has it wrong...
Religious belief typically encompasses some story of how we got to be here and where we're headed; advice on what's good; injunctions on how to behave; inspirational stories; and customs, rituals and arts.
Which of these potentially conflict with science? Stories of how we got to be here can be tested for authenticity. Stories of where we're headed (to the extent that such stories claim any change to the world) can also be tested. Advice on what's good can be evaluated psychologically, physiologically and socially. Injunctions on how to behave can be weighed against our understanding of what's good for us. Customs and rituals can be evaluated for their physical, social and psychological impacts.
So when you remove the areas of overlap that might conflict with science (which are also areas that often do), you're just left with arts. And I have no problem with religious art at all.
A great deal of this is mitigated though, if religious belief includes the principle: my faith is not authoritative.
I don't know what your scientist colleague's beliefs are, but if he includes that principle I'd agree with him that his faith is unlikely to conflict with science.
No, you're positing an origin and I'm not speculating at all. You're starting with an assumption that you can't prove and I'm pointing out how unlikely it is to be provable.
But they're not theories of 'origin' (though that's how they're reported in popular journalism), they're actually theories of early cosmological development. If you read closely, they typically talk about early microseconds of existence, but don't actually talk about what was at 'time zero'.
Thermodynamically, everything seems headed in one direction -- toward sparse matter at a uniform temperature. That's not complexity, but homogeneity. Along the way, we have matter and energy shuffling back and forth and that has given us complexity, but it seems transient.
Evolution seems to be a story of haphazard opportunism vs calamity. It's never been 'survival of the fittest' (and even Darwin never used those words). But parents aren't guaranteed to pass on their best traits to their offspring, and good traits aren't guaranteed to survive every calamity. Biology is a blind, desperate groping for survival that tries everything, and occasionally hits on a trick that works for a while before the game changes. You only need to look at the extinction of apex predators to know that nature is not striving for perfection -- biology, like our physical health, is a tightrope walk in an earthquake.
If our some parts of our cosmos can't communicate to one another, doesn't that suggest that there's no cohesion and hence no single unifying deity?
Yeah, it was kinda hard to be an atheist before Darwin.
Science does assume that reality is measurable. Or at least, that's how it started (you yourself said so actually), now it's obvious.
By 'science doesn't rule out the supernatural', I simply meant that it doesn't do so a priori. Some people, i.e. the creationist law professor Phillip Johnson incorrectly argue that science has made an irrevocable a priori committment to materialism, and that's wrong.
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Oh, it's easy to be an atheist without Darwin -- you just don't get taught stories of gods, or you don't believe the stories you're told. But there have been outright opponents of religious claims since at least Socrates.
I have said in the past that the scientific method relies on reality to behave consistently. Fortunately for us, reality seems extremely consistent. And because it's consistent whatever we observe under one circumstance seems to reappear under the same circumstance later, which means we can make predictions from empirical evidence. Consistency also makes measurement possible, but not all science is measurement... some qualitative observations [like 'alive' vs 'dead'
] are valuable too.I agree with the latter -- science works with immaterial abstracts all the time (like category theory in mathematics; or quantum mechanics where we can't directly observe the phenomena, just the side-effects).
But as to the former if by 'supernatural' we mean 'drawn from a world of wonder utterly at odds with our own'... well, we rule out the supernatural every day. Studies of statues weeping reveal that they cry canola oil, and only when nobody's watching. Studies of faith-healers reveal that the tissue they appear to pull from sick peoples' bellies is actually pork offal. Studies of astrologers, dowsers, psychics, levitators, mediums and astral travellers reveal that these people have convinced themselves and a few others but cannot demonstrate what they claim to routinely do.
As to ruling out all future claims of worlds of wonder, no, we have to wait until someone makes a new claim. But on the other hand we can observe a lot about the human mind while we're ruling out supernatural claims and we can predict the kind of thinking that differentiates people with genuine ability (like a cancer cure that works) from people who just wish they did.
Those predictions are getting very reliable. More reliable than driving a car to work safely, for example.
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Yes, but again, I'm not religious. The only story of how we got to be here and where we're headed that I believe is the one told by science. But again, I have a different perspective on what that means.
Ruv Draba said:
That's it. And neither is mine.
Ruv Draba said:No, you're positing an origin and I'm not speculating at all. You're starting with an assumption that you can't prove and I'm pointing out how unlikely it is to be provable.
But they're not theories of 'origin' (though that's how they're reported in popular journalism), they're actually theories of early cosmological development. If you read closely, they typically talk about early microseconds of existence, but don't actually talk about what was at 'time zero'.
Scientists do speculate on the origin. There are hypothses about the origin extrapolated from the theory (such as "popping into existence from nothing"). Yes, I know that the theory only goes back to "the first few seconds," but there isn't any empirical evidence for that, either. There is good reason to believe that the model is close if not completely accurate, based on what we can observe and theories that have made accurate predictions otherwise.
For instance, I understand that the theory of relativity naturally leads to the conclusion that the universe must once have been in an extremely dense, pure energy state, and other predictions in the theory have been sufficiently verified. And yes, there's even the cosmic background radiation, interpreted as evidence for the Big Bang. But what, exactly, occured cannot be observed. It is a rigorous model, with a strong basis, but it is in no way empirical.
Okay, as I have admitted several times, I start with an assumption that cannot be proved. However, science (the natural philosophy), also starts with assumptions that can't be proved. Yes, those assumptions are a lot easier to take for granted, because the experience of sensation is too overwhelming not to be convincing. Plus, as far as we know, most people - if not all - have the same experience. Most likely, if you and I look at a door, we will both call it a door and describe it in pretty much the same manner. While I believe we can trust our senses to some extent, we can't know for sure they are reliable - and there is some indication that, at least for some people, they actually are not reliable.
Ruv Draba said:
Ah. You got me there. That's true. In class, my instructor described the universe in the way I relayed it, but I don't think he meant it exactly that way. Of course, I think deity includes the universe but is not only the universe, so entropy doesn't change my thoughts on the subject.
Ruv Draba said:
While I understand this to be true, that doesn't change the fact that parents often do consistently pass enough traits on to their offspring. It might not be guaranteed that a bird will fly, but more often than not it will. Besides, what you describe is the same for us as it is for any other species, and yet we are conscious and we continue to evolve. I see no reason why a cosmic consciousness could not have evolved in a similar fashion - but on a much grander scale.
Again, I will admit there is nothing empirical about this idea. But it is not religion and it is not authoritative; it is a spiritual philosophy that makes sense to me.
Ruv Draba said:
Oh, well. I tried to look it up, but I'm not finding the exact reference I want right now. Anyway, I thought it had something to do with the holographic principle. The idea I want to express is that while for us what I call the "illusion of separation" is just as overwhelming and convincing as the information relayed by our senses, on a quantum level this does not always seem to be the case. From what I understand, some experiments have shown that two particles too far apart to have any connection can sometimes mirror each other, as if there were some kind of invisible connection between them (such as all information of the universe being contained within every particle of the universe).
You probably have a better idea of what I'm talking about. But I think this suggests the "communication" might be there, at least on a quantum level.
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Actually, there are some scientific hypotheses that go beyond the big bang. The math works and is 'elegant' -- they say.
And here comes the best part: It's actually testable. A new telescope will soon look back in time, trying to discover an umbilical cord from another universe. That would prove the multiverse hypothesis. There are other ways to prove it at the LHC.
The answer is most likely that there was no beginning. The underlying structure always existed.
And here comes the best part: It's actually testable. A new telescope will soon look back in time, trying to discover an umbilical cord from another universe. That would prove the multiverse hypothesis. There are other ways to prove it at the LHC.
The answer is most likely that there was no beginning. The underlying structure always existed.
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Interesting. That's a new piece of information. Every argument I've heard so far about "before the Big Bang" went along the same lines Ruv has presented: there was nothing, no time, no space, so any speculation concerning it is meaningless.
I like it. I might need to think things through more (something I always need to do, anyway) in light of this, but I like it. We'll see. Of course, we can't possibly "see" farther than light could have traveled since then, so how far back is it? I don't know. It seems odd...and confusing.
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I'm glad we agree on everything, because I was just telling my wife that it's your turn to wash the dishes.
But as to why I might keep dissenting: I'm an incorrigible pedant. We might agree on ideas but not use quite the same language and if the language means something slightly different it clangs in my mind. Alas, there's nothing I can do about the clanging but I do sometimes realise I'm being pedantic and stop.
Or.. sometimes people tell me.
Why do you say that?
Scientists sometimes get sloppy and say 'in the beginning was nothing', but they don't really mean that there's any way to observe the beginning and confirm that nothing was there. What they really mean is that they think they can work out what was happening closer and closer to the beginning but never quite get there -- much like trying to get mass to approach the speed of light. And so the more meticulous reports say things like: What really happened in the first few minutes after the big bang? One element could hold the answer, says Matthew Chalmers. (New Scientist #2663, July 2008)
I think I mentioned this before: we can observe and measure things without directly using our senses... For instance, a thermometer displays temperature -- we don't have to look at or touch the object; we just have to read a number. And if we don't want to read it as a number, we could hear it as clicks or have the thermometer drip a quantity of water into a flask...
And however we observe things we get the same results. So the Cartesian problem of "Is reality screwing with us" is pretty much resolved. Reality is more reliable than your parents, more predictable than chicken McNuggets.
Yes, but not necessarily their best traits. With your forbearance I'd like to indulge in an analogy here....
If you were designing an evolving product -- say a story you were rewriting and rewriting toward publication -- you might collect comments from your reviewers and preserve or strengthen those parts of the story that received favourable comments, and change those parts of the story that consistently get unfavourable feedback. That's pretty much what we do in critique, right?
But nature doesn't. Firstly, nature doesn't invent new stories -- it adapts old stories like the worst fanfic hack. To make a new story it takes a manuscript from pile A (which might have been published) and another from pile B (which might not) and then combines them -- a line of text here, a word there... the character everyone hated with the plot nobody understood, and some dialogue that doesn't fit and no ending at all... it does that a few times with those two stories to make a half-dozen new stories then it tears the old ones up. And some of the new stories go off to the publishers, and others go back into the pile to make new stories.
And most of what it writes is of course, utter crap.
But it keeps going, producing more and more stories, until spams a squillion of them to the publishers. And mostly it gets formletter rejections back, but sometimes it gets a manuscript back saying 'thanks, we've published'. And those manuscripts go back into the pile to be turned into new stories too.
But gradually the stories get better because the publisher only returns the ones it's accepted.
And sometimes nature screws up in the copying, and that's how utterly new stories are created.
But at no time does the author ever ask the publisher 'what did you like' or 'what do you actually want'?
Would you ever write fiction that way? I know I bloody wouldn't.
You probably want to look into 'quantum entanglement' and perhaps Ken Wilbur. (But I'll see if that's what you mean before I reply to it.
)Here's my pedantry coming out, as promised: I didn't say 'there was nothing'. I explicitly didn't say that because I'm a peevish, meticulous belt-and-braces, double-bowed-shoelaces pedant.
I said the question is meaningless in the usual range of Big Bang theories... and having dismissed the question, I would never endeavour to answer it.
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If you start with the idea that basic existence is odd, what do you do when you find something odd?
I haven't met any scientists who have started anything with mathmatical logic. The scientists I know start with some set of approaches to some set of problems and they work on them. In their scientific work they pay most of their attention to what other people working on similar problems are doing.
Before you break a symmetry and pop open something like a Higgs field, something and nothing are the same thing. The two fields of judgement (ie something or nothing) are exactly the same.
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosphy" - WS
"There is no spoon." - W's
"Magick is the art of diminishing the belief in impossibility." - DH
I shall return one day...after my self-imposed exile...to make this case....
"There is no spoon." - W's
"Magick is the art of diminishing the belief in impossibility." - DH
I shall return one day...after my self-imposed exile...to make this case....
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Because I'm not. I don't get involved in ritual and I don't adhere to dogma and religious principles like glue. I'm no zealot, and I like it that way. But I do have a personal spiritual belief (which means it's mine and I would never presume that it should be anyone else's) and endeavor to develop a philosophy about deity (which is a work in progress, of course).
Ruv Draba said:
To me, this sounds like an admission of speculation for anything that might or might not have happened "before" the first few minutes. As I said, I know the theory doesn't go back that far.
Ruv Draba said:
How does any of this not require the senses?
Ruv Draba said:
Most people get the same results. Anyway, although I argued that there is some reason to doubt them, those doubts are very few. And I would think it isn't necessarily "reality screwing with us." It's our brains: are they interpreting the data accurately? Again, we have information leading us to believe that - at least for some people - it doesn't always work the same (prime example: psychosis). We can say, "Their brains are wired differently," or, "It's a deleterious mutation." That doesn't change the implications.
But, as I said before, I do agree that we have good enough reason to make the assumption, and I tend to think our senses are reliable - at least enough. It's still an assumption, and it still can't be proven.
And for WalkingContradiction: It might be getting old, but it's true. In my biology textbook it clearly states that the scientific method takes certain assumptions for granted, which can't be proven. All philosophy does. And, while it is rigorous and active and has the best track record for making predictions about natural phenomena, science is a philosophy.
Ruv Draba said:
If there is a "design." I'm not saying there is. I don't rule it out, but I wouldn't stake my financial aid check on it, either.
Ruv Draba said:You probably want to look into 'quantum entanglement' and perhaps Ken Wilbur. (But I'll see if that's what you mean before I reply to it.
Thanks! I'll check it out.
Ruv Draba said:Here's my pedantry coming out, as promised: I didn't say 'there was nothing'. I explicitly didn't say that because I'm a peevish, meticulous belt-and-braces, double-bowed-shoelaces pedant.
Okay. My mistake. But you did say it's meaningless, and I still find it quite meaningful.
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That's also interesting, and not something I've seen before. But if that's the case, it isn't meaningless to ask what was or what happened before the Big Bang. If it is, then it's just as meaningless to ask about anything after the Big Bang.
Edit: Oh, and I guess that existence would not be "odd" or "absurd," either. Then there's no reason to posit "there could just as easily be nothing."
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Well, if you want to spend your time thinking about the Big Bang, then you might want to populate that image (the Big Bang) with some detail. There are a number of utterly charming aspects of the Big Bang, my three current favorites being lithium and Cosmic Background Radition and George Gamov:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gamow
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Hmm. Gamow had an interesting and varied career, didn't he?
Hoyle is also very interesting.
While we went over the BBN in class, I neglected to research it for the first exam. That article and, of course, its sources would have been helpful. The CMB I read enough about to keep me busy for a few months, though.
I think about the Big Bang and Steady State. The current evidence suggests the Big Bang model is probably the most accurate, but both are interesting. If we take what WalkingContradiction said at face value, it would seem that existence is a combination of both. Our universe began with a Big Bang, but the "underlying structure" of the multiverse is in a Steady State. Ironic.
Not saying this is so, just that it's interesting.
Edit: Oh, thanks for the links!
Hoyle is also very interesting.
While we went over the BBN in class, I neglected to research it for the first exam. That article and, of course, its sources would have been helpful. The CMB I read enough about to keep me busy for a few months, though.
I think about the Big Bang and Steady State. The current evidence suggests the Big Bang model is probably the most accurate, but both are interesting. If we take what WalkingContradiction said at face value, it would seem that existence is a combination of both. Our universe began with a Big Bang, but the "underlying structure" of the multiverse is in a Steady State. Ironic.
Not saying this is so, just that it's interesting.
Edit: Oh, thanks for the links!
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Ruv: I checked those links. I didn't know about quantum entanglement and it doesn't sound like what I mean. Although I hadn't heard of Ken Wilbur either, Michael Talbot's ideas seem to be closely linked to his, as they're both based on the work of David Bohm. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with Bohm's holographic priniciple but I couldn't find a referrence to it in the wiki article, so I'll have to check my research notes (which I need to organize very badly).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holographic_Universe#The_Holographic_Universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holographic_Universe#The_Holographic_Universe
Oh, Fred wasn't so bad. He worked on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B²FH
You can download the PDF. It's pretty interesting. Okay.
I mean actually intriguing.
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Just for info, Michael, I don't think religiosity needs to imply zeal, ritual or dogma and I don't think it would be fair to some religions (which lack all three) to say that it does. The word comes from the Latin religio, meaning 'respect for the sacred, reverence for the gods', and is traditionally used to refer to anyone who believes in gods or has belief that existence itself is sacred.
I mentioned Einstein before... He wasn't a member of any church rite and his sense of morality was largely humanistic -- the most good to the most people, that sort of thing. But his friends called him very religious because ultimately he saw reality (whose intricacies he loved) as a manifestation of the divine. He revered its beauty and order. But like you he also didn't say his view was authoritative.
I'd just like to reiterate that I have no problems at all with such religiosity, and it would sadden me if people who felt that way also felt like they had to call it something other than religion.
I also think that such a view is unlikely to be true, but in no sense do I feel that it's morally wrong.
No, it's just laziness... scientists know very well that counterfactual reasoning screws up their theories, but they still use sloppy language anyway because good fiction makes it easier to communicate. People want to know what happens when the impossible occurs -- it's our primate curiosity. We know about red/blue shifting and time dilation as we approach the speed of light, but what happens if we reach the speed of light? We can't help ourselves. We have to know.
(Even if the question is meaningless.)
It does, but not in the same way. So if our senses were consistently warping some perception (say that our visual notions of 'tall and short' were inverted), measuring height in different ways (e.g. converting height to a clicking sound instead of visually comparing heights) would eventually reveal that.
To paraphrase the other question you asked -- what if we were systematically in denial about a particular fact? Well, we've had many historical examples where this occurred. A good example was Einstein's relativity compared to Newtonian physics. Newton's physics are very easy to use and also very intuitive -- reality appears to work exactly as Newton said it did. On the other hand, we don't see red/blue shifting and apparent time or mass changes as we vary our speeds. So Einstein's theory was very counter-intuitive. Should we believe it just because Einstein won the Nobel prize for the photo-electric effect?
No, of course not. Einstein also made some predictions that anyone could check. One had to do with how much light would 'bend' around heavy objects if he was right, compared to if Newton was right. That particular prediction was independently verified in a solar eclipse viewed from the coast of East Africa, and it rocked the world of physics. Not long after, experiments found other evidence that reality supported relativity rather than Newtonian physics. So relativity took hold very quickly.
How do we know that there's not some big, inconceivable yet incontrovertable truth we're all systematically ignoring? (I'm so glad Diana's back, cos this is the sort of thing she loves).
Well, I have two arguments for you, innocence and relevance:
- Innocence: Big truths have many big consequences, but if we're ignoring that truth we can't know which consequences belong to it and which belong to something else. So we'd see the consequences and they would baffle us because they'd put lacy holes and big rips in whatever else we knew, and this would bother us. Our very innocence would tell us that there was a big truth we weren't seeing, and this would help us work out what it might be (and this is sometimes how science has discovered big new truths).
- Relevance: If the big truth were so invisible that we could never see it nor its consequences -- nobody in all the diversity of human thought, and no animals either (because it would affect their behaviour in noticable ways), exactly how is it relevant to the human experience? Do you really think that any amount of trying would reveal it?
The field of psychology tells us that at times we don't interpret data accurately. For example, our intuitions about very large and very small numbers lead us astray. (The marvellous vs miraculous is an example of this). Some creationists argue improbability of life as evidence of creation, but the plausibility of that argument is founded on our inability to intuit big and small numbers. Is it feasible to write War and Peace using that bizarre evolutionary writing method I described above?
Yes it is, provided that you can produce squillions of manuscripts very quickly, and there's a pitiless publisher that promptly shreds anything unsuitable. We know this because we now have computers fast enough to simulate this process, and they can now produce software to recognise handwriting with no initial knowledge of what the script is, what the language is, or what handwriting is.
It's not an assumption; it's actually being tested and explored. Every scientific field has people who go hunting for blind-spots (because as with Einstein's case, it's very good for your career if you can find one). It's actually a key part of your doctoral training to do this -- one of the first things you do. We usually grab young students who don't know much about science to go looking, because they're often the best at doing it. And we give them older scientists to guide them and help them avoid imagining blind-spots where there aren't any.
The main one is that reality is consistent -- not rigid, but that it plays fair and doesn't care who the observer is. The others commonly listed are that our senses are reliable and that everything has a rational explanation. But they're less important because:
1) Engineers pwn: Our senses are unreliable at times. Our sense of smell for instance, quickly ignores familiar smells, and we've all seen optical illusions. But we have methods for detecting and working around those limits.
2) We're screwed anyway: We know for damnsure that even if everything has a rational explanation we can never construct a language powerful enough to express all the answers we want. (This comes from Godel's Incompleteness Theorems). But we'll never know which questions we'll find answers to (from the same theorem), and which we're doomed to just keep plugging at. And our species isn't going to live forever anyway, so we just have to try our best. And we're a very opportunistic species, so we'll quickly abandon unpromising lines of enquiry for others that look more viable.
It's one of the few 'action at a distance' results in science with any credibility, so I guessed it might be the one you wanted. But if it's not, I dunno.
Good luck with organising your research notes very badly! Please do put something up once you know what it is you want to say.
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Going by that definition, I guess I am religious. Most people I know, especially those who are very religious, don't use the word that way, however. To a fundamentalist Christian, I would be secular, "of the world," and worse - a heretic (which implies "religion," I know, but to them I'd be both a nonbeliever and a heretic). So that accounts for my less than definitive use.
I was exaggerating the point by including zeal. Dogma, not so much, because every contemporary Christian church I attended in my life did have some kind of dogma - although some were not strict about it (and some were very strict). But then, I do have some acquaintance with other religions that aren't dogmatic.
Ruv Draba said:
Yeah, I really didn't get the sense you felt that way. It did seem like you thought of it as not true and meaningless.
Still, these days people seem to associate the word "religion" with something that's "organized." If a call myself religious in other contexts, I might have to clarify that I'm not a member of any sect or organization. Guess I could go the way some pagans go, and call myself a "solitary" practictioner.
Ruv Draba said:
All of this I'm following. But...I don't think I agree completely about the senses. I believe that we have good reason to accept all three assumptions and move on, but I'd still say that the accuracy of sensory data is an unprovable assumption. No matter how you test it, how can you ever be 100% sure that the interpretation your brain produces in response to sensory data is a reliable representation of reality? How can you even be 50% sure?
The only assurance we have is that, fortunately, most people seem to have the same experience, although that isn't complete assurance, either. Most of our brains have pretty much the same structure and, as per your own references to evolution, nature doesn't always "get it right."
Despite this, I am confident that I can rely on my senses.
On the other hand, I appeciate how much less likely (far less) it is that my assumptions concerning deity can be proven. I just don't think that makes it meaningless.
I must say, though, I hope my stubbornness doesn't put you off. Your posts are very interesting and informative.
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I have to agree with Maxx on this one. Though his attempts to explain the discrepancies in the Big Bang with alternative theories violate the law of energy conservation, he still had good reason to attempt alternative explanations.
Steady State and plasma theory do not agree with observation and have their own problems, much more than Big Bang theory, but they are still interesting and present points that beg for more investigation.
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