Taking things on faith
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Sometimes religious leaders like to point out that intellectually, we need starting points, such as induction. So, faith in God, for example, is just one possible starting point. Other religious leaders say that faith is not an intellectual starting point, but an attitude that helps us be happy.
Consider a belief in the existence of the physical universe. It's philosophically respectable to not hold this belief, but even philosophers might need something like it in order to drive their cars effectively Another example of the difference, consider two people, A and B, who belong to the same fundamentalist church and both believe in God and the inerrancy of the bible. But A's faith means that she wakes up each morning feeling like she lives in the palm of God's hand just as surely as she feels that she is surrounded by world of physical objects. B's faith is intellectual. He feels that his church places nearly intolerable restrictions on his freedom, but it's best to go along with them to avoid spending eternity in hell instead of heaven. A's faith makes her happy just as B's faith makes him unhappy. (I didn't decide to make A female and B male, until I noticed how I was using the pronouns.) One (of many) Unitarian-Universalist views of the problem can be found in the following. I don't know if I agree with every detail, but basically I like it: http://clf.uua.org/quest/2010/10/morales.html ________________________________________ From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts [[hidden email]] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:54 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big "No thank you" to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon "hieroglyph"-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a miracle to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. “What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?’ And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his The New Riddle of Induction. So let’s say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, “Look in the Bible. I am sure it’s in there somewhere.’ My atheist buddy says, “nonsense, go out and look at the grass.” I’m an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. “All you have is evidence that grass is grue.” “Grue!?” I say. “What’s Grue?” Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, “I dunno. What’s Grue with you?” my religious buddy simply says, “It’s the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. “ “Nonsense,” I reply. “What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn’t HAVE properties like that. “Perhaps that’s been true”, he replies, but only up till now!” In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> [mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way This is a red herring. The argument for dark matter/energy need not be inductive. The inductive form is: o we've defined the set based on the laws of physics we've observed o everything is in this set o gravity seems stronger/weaker than predicted in some contexts .: there are unobserved members of the set: dark matter and energy. A non-inductive argument for dark matter/energy is just as valid: o the model we've induced is not completely consistent with the data o the laws characterize everything we've encountered so far .: there must be something we haven't encountered that will refine the laws. No induction is necessary to motivate a hypothesis for some form of matter that's imprecisely or inaccurately described by the laws we've, so far, induced. But parsimony suggests that a theory that assumes it's complete is more testable than a theory with metaphysical holes in it. So, the argument for dark matter _seems_ inductive, even though it's not. Only someone who assumes our laws are complete (fully refined) would think the argument is inductive. My sample is small. But I don't know of any physicists or cosmologists who think our laws cannot be modified. I.e. it's naive to assume identity between a scientific theory and the reasoning surrounding the pursuit of a scientific theory. Douglas Roberts wrote at 03/24/2012 03:08 PM: > There's also an interesting "dark matter" inference that has found its > way into grudging cosmological acceptance. This time the role of the > inferred substance is to keep galaxies from flying apart, as it has > recently been observed that based on the amount of their measurable, > observable mass and rotational velocities, they should flung their > stars off ages ago. > > --Doug > > > On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> > <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: > > I feel that I am being drawn in to an enemy encampment, but: > > Developing a proof would be far better than choosing to rely > on inference, if the goal is to develop a larger-scale understanding > of a system. > > Take "dark energy" as an example. Its presence is inferred from > having observed that the rate of expansion of the observable > universe began to accelerate relatively recently, on a cosmological > time scale. In response to this, the cosmologists have inferred the > existence of a mysterious energy with magical gravitational > repulsive properties as a means to explain away an otherwise > inexplicable observation. A much more satisfying approach will be > to develop a sufficient understanding of the underlying physics of > our universe from which a rigorous proof of the phenomenon could be > derived. > > But, without that understanding, we are left with cosmological > "magic dust", instead of a real understanding of the observed dynamics. > > --Doug -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095<tel:971-222-9095>, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- Doug Roberts [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins <http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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I suppose if one felt a compelling need to subscribe to a Christian-flavored religion, one could do worse than the Unitarians. At least the Unitarians don't require knowledge of a hierarchy of secret handshakes which are necessary to gain access to those decreasing-diameter inner circles of the club. Unlike certain other, unnamed religions.
--Doug On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:11 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]> wrote:
Sometimes religious leaders like to point out that intellectually, we need starting points, such as induction. So, faith in God, for example, is just one possible starting point. Other religious leaders say that faith is not an intellectual starting point, but an attitude that helps us be happy. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Thanks for your response, Doug. Unitarianism used to consider itself a Christian religion, with the exception of its rejection of the trinity and of the concept that Jesus is God. The Christian flavoring now competes with humanist, Buddhist and pagan flavors. You can take your choice. In this country, the Unitarians merged with the Universalists who argue that a loving God wouldn't send anyone to Hell. This tends to focus the religion on the here and now rather than on a preparation for a successful afterlife. ________________________________________ From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts [[hidden email]] Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 7:45 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Taking things on faith I suppose if one felt a compelling need to subscribe to a Christian-flavored religion, one could do worse than the Unitarians. At least the Unitarians don't require knowledge of a hierarchy of secret handshakes which are necessary to gain access to those decreasing-diameter inner circles of the club. Unlike certain other, unnamed religions. --Doug On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 2:11 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: Sometimes religious leaders like to point out that intellectually, we need starting points, such as induction. So, faith in God, for example, is just one possible starting point. Other religious leaders say that faith is not an intellectual starting point, but an attitude that helps us be happy. Consider a belief in the existence of the physical universe. It's philosophically respectable to not hold this belief, but even philosophers might need something like it in order to drive their cars effectively Another example of the difference, consider two people, A and B, who belong to the same fundamentalist church and both believe in God and the inerrancy of the bible. But A's faith means that she wakes up each morning feeling like she lives in the palm of God's hand just as surely as she feels that she is surrounded by world of physical objects. B's faith is intellectual. He feels that his church places nearly intolerable restrictions on his freedom, but it's best to go along with them to avoid spending eternity in hell instead of heaven. A's faith makes her happy just as B's faith makes him unhappy. (I didn't decide to make A female and B male, until I noticed how I was using the pronouns.) One (of many) Unitarian-Universalist views of the problem can be found in the following. I don't know if I agree with every detail, but basically I like it: http://clf.uua.org/quest/2010/10/morales.html ________________________________________ From: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> [[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts [[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>] Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:54 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way Thanks, Nick, you describe an interesting way of establishing a life-view. Not quite sure how to answer, except to say that if I have faith in anything, it is in evidence. If I have accrued a sufficient pile of evidence that supports a conclusion about some observation, then I'll probably believe it. If my collected evidence is such that the inescapable conclusion is that nothing is constant, then I suppose I'd eventually come around to believe that, so long as I had a constant framework from which to corroborate and verify the inconsistencies. Otherwise, I'd continue to look for the missing pieces of the puzzle (a reference to the cosmological artifacts I sent you earlier). As to religion: for me it's a big "No thank you" to any cult mindthink that requires brainless acceptance of a supernatural homo-centric benevolent/malevolent boogyman. And that goes double for one particular cult whose belief system is predicated upon "hieroglyph"-inscribed disappearing golden tablets. Oh, and I guess that goes triple for any cult that attempts to dictate what kind of skivies I must wear to become a member of the club. I guess you could say that it would take a miracle to get me to assent to becoming a member of any of the existing flocks of theist-following sheep out there. In retrospect, I suppose I do have faith in one other fairly immutable quality -- the accuracy of my bullshit detector. --Doug On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>>> wrote: Dear Doug, I am afraid that the black hole example is already too technologically dense for me, so I am going to punt on the project of luring you inside my walls and slaughtering you there, and just out-right tell you what I think . The argument began with my detecting in you (perhaps wrongly) the belief that you, unlike the religious, can get along without some sort of faith in your life. Most people I have known in the past who have reached this conclusion have done so through their confidence in induction. “What do I need with faith if I can just collect the evidence and act on it?’ And the answer is that without faith of some sort, there is no foundation for induction. The argument for this position is famously from Hume. A version of it is colorfully laid out by Nelson Goodman in his The New Riddle of Induction. So let’s say, I want to learn if grass is green. My religious buddy says, “Look in the Bible. I am sure it’s in there somewhere.’ My atheist buddy says, “nonsense, go out and look at the grass.” I’m an atheist, so I go out and start collecting samples of grass. I collect a hundred samples and I bring them back in announce that I am satisfied that all grass is green. At which point my religious buddy says, No, No, you have no evidence there that Grass is green. “All you have is evidence that grass is grue.” “Grue!?” I say. “What’s Grue?” Charitably forgoing the opportunity to ask, “I dunno. What’s Grue with you?” my religious buddy simply says, “It’s the property of being Green until your last measurement, and Blue thereafter. “ “Nonsense,” I reply. “What kind of a property is THAT? Nature doesn’t HAVE properties like that. “Perhaps that’s been true”, he replies, but only up till now!” In other words, our belief in induction is based on our plausible but unfounded belief in induction, i.e., faith. Nick -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> [mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>>] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 11:40 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Just as a bye-the-way This is a red herring. The argument for dark matter/energy need not be inductive. The inductive form is: o we've defined the set based on the laws of physics we've observed o everything is in this set o gravity seems stronger/weaker than predicted in some contexts .: there are unobserved members of the set: dark matter and energy. A non-inductive argument for dark matter/energy is just as valid: o the model we've induced is not completely consistent with the data o the laws characterize everything we've encountered so far .: there must be something we haven't encountered that will refine the laws. No induction is necessary to motivate a hypothesis for some form of matter that's imprecisely or inaccurately described by the laws we've, so far, induced. But parsimony suggests that a theory that assumes it's complete is more testable than a theory with metaphysical holes in it. So, the argument for dark matter _seems_ inductive, even though it's not. Only someone who assumes our laws are complete (fully refined) would think the argument is inductive. My sample is small. But I don't know of any physicists or cosmologists who think our laws cannot be modified. I.e. it's naive to assume identity between a scientific theory and the reasoning surrounding the pursuit of a scientific theory. Douglas Roberts wrote at 03/24/2012 03:08 PM: > There's also an interesting "dark matter" inference that has found its > way into grudging cosmological acceptance. This time the role of the > inferred substance is to keep galaxies from flying apart, as it has > recently been observed that based on the amount of their measurable, > observable mass and rotational velocities, they should flung their > stars off ages ago. > > --Doug > > > On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 3:16 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> > <mailto:[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>>> wrote: > > I feel that I am being drawn in to an enemy encampment, but: > > Developing a proof would be far better than choosing to rely > on inference, if the goal is to develop a larger-scale understanding > of a system. > > Take "dark energy" as an example. Its presence is inferred from > having observed that the rate of expansion of the observable > universe began to accelerate relatively recently, on a cosmological > time scale. In response to this, the cosmologists have inferred the > existence of a mysterious energy with magical gravitational > repulsive properties as a means to explain away an otherwise > inexplicable observation. A much more satisfying approach will be > to develop a sufficient understanding of the underlying physics of > our universe from which a rigorous proof of the phenomenon could be > derived. > > But, without that understanding, we are left with cosmological > "magic dust", instead of a real understanding of the observed dynamics. > > --Doug -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095<tel:971-222-9095><tel:971-222-9095<tel:971-222-9095>>, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Likewise, John, I appreciate your feedback.
--Doug
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 7:29 AM, John Kennison <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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