Posted by
Steve Smith on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Faith-tp7580633p7580683.html
"'round and 'round the mulberry bush!"
Who is monkey and who is the weasel? And when do we all turn to
butter?
I have two words, one is "faith" and the other is "Faith". I try
not to conflate them with one another.
"faith" is roughly a shortcut term to describe articles in a
moderately validated but mostly internalized model. The floor is
under my bed nearly every time I get up (if I'm awake), the other
drivers don't cross the middle line, etc. I call that "faith" and
it is not a very big deal... my pets and the wild and domesticated
animals I know seem to have the same, sometimes to a fault. I
would be paniced if I didn't have opposable thumbs to operate
doorknobs and open my own food containers!
"Faith" is something not necessarily validated and usually more
externalized than internalized. It seems to require the creation
and adoption of "stories".
I think it is easy to dismiss what other's take on "faith" as
being "on Faith". I haven't accepted Jesus as my personal
Saviour (and frankly I have no idea what that even means) but I do
believe there are people who act very much in the "faith" that
they were created, and are watched over by a strongly
anthropomorphised "God" who sent "his only begotten son" to help
resolve the contradictions of "original sin" and "human
fallibility", etc... and that somehow giving him (the God and/or
his Son or that other fellow often referred to as Holy Ghost) lip
service (in private or in public) will fix all that up for them.
I really believe that they believe this... even though it comes
off as totally absurd to me. I don't think they are faking it.
Well many of them.
Similary, I think my non-scientific friends often dismiss belief
in scientific principles which are *very hard to observe* as being
articles of Faith rather than faith. I personally admit that I
have never really had a single personal experience that validates
general relativity or the heisenberg uncertainty principle (or
pick any one of millions of highly specialized counter (or extra?)
intuitive rules, laws, principles found in the context of
science). I've studied the mathematics and the (anecdotal?)
descriptions of experiments that have been run and repeated to
verify such things, but frankly I can't really call it "faith"...
it really is "Faith" in the sense that I believe it because I
choose to and because I'm embedded in a community who also
believes it and roughly my continued belief (or would that be
Belief?) is a requirement for my continued good standing in the
community.
While driving in Italy for 3 weeks recently, it took me a while to
accept that the motorcycle and scooter riders had complete "faith"
that the cars they were whipping past on the left and right
(extreme lane splitting) would not do anything overtly dangerous
to them. I also found that even car/truck drivers take it on
faith that even the slightest trajectory advantage yields "right
of way"... if an inch of your bumper is in front of another car's,
you can cut them off and they will yield *every time*! I
developed enough Faith to try it and it worked... with that
"Faith" and enough experience I'm pretty sure it would have become
"faith" for me. This would not serve me so well upon return to
the murrican driving milieu, however.
Like Doug, I've ridden motorcycles for a very long time and have
managed to stay off of the pavement, the guardrails, and the hoods
and fenders of other vehicles, and I did it by a combination of
ultra-vigilance, some common sense, and probably more than a
little luck. I ride (and drive for that matter) with a great
deal of "faith" all the time... but I *do* recalibrate my "faith"
while on a two-wheeler from being on a four wheeler.
I used to wear a helmet all the time based on the *Faith* that
somehow I was not only less likely to have a bad head-injury but
somehow I was less likely to have an accident in the first
place! I now wear a helmet more for comfort than for safety... I
sometimes prefer the warmth and wind-screening effect of a
full-face helmet... other times I prefer the wind in my stubble,
the bugs in my teeth and the cinders in my eyes.
Plenty of us feel more likely to have a deadly accident or
experience a life threatening (or at least very expensive) disease
or condition if we are not carrying low-deductible, high limit
insurance. We conflate *stakes* with *risk*. Is this an act of
"faith" or "Faith"? As a non-believer (in consequence-reduction
measures as risk-reduction measures), it looks like Faith in
others, yet, I swear they behave as if they really, literally
believe in this conflation?
- Steve
Russ,
Well,
as was observed the last time we went ‘round on this topic,
you have faith in your powers of induction: faith that the
world is the sort of a place where floors don’t evaporate
after several years of not evaporating. Do you remember the
car that drove off the severed bridge in Connecticut some
years back? That man had faith that an interstate is not
the sort of place where roads suddenly come to an end.
Turned out to be false.
By
the way, a story circulated about that incident that the
last thing that driver did was give the finger to another
drive that he had just passed. Urban folklore, right? Too
much Karma.
Nick
From:
[hidden email] [[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 8:42 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] faith
I don't buy
that "It
is faith when you get out of bed without checking to see
that the ground is still there." Why
should one suppose that the ground would not be there? It
seems to me that using "faith" that loosely robs the word
of most of its meaning. Faith, I would say (in fact I did
earlier) is believing something that one wouldn't
otherwise believe without faith. Believing that
the everyday world is the everyday world doesn't seem to
me to require faith. What would require faith is to
believe that the everyday world is somehow not the
everyday world but a manifestation of some unknowable
being.
--
Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
CS Wiki and the courses I
teach
_____________________________________________
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 5:23 PM,
Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]>
wrote:
It makes
for a great academic, philosophical talking point, though.
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 6:13 PM,
ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]>
wrote:
Since this thread is
still going... Curt said:
"Faith: that the other
drivers will stay on their side of the road.
I don't have to track every one exactly."
----
Exactly!
It is faith when you stop monitoring the other
cars when driving, stop looking at the ground
you are about to step on when walking, etc. It
is faith when you get out of bed without
checking to see that the ground is still
there. The actions themselves entail the
faith; they do not result from faith, they are
the faith. An interesting additional issue is
when we do and do not explicitly talk about
the things we have faith in. It might also be
an additional issue on what basis some people
have faith in a "super-natural"
"higher-power". (Both scare-quotes seem
necessary, because pretty everyone has faith
in higher powers, and most people have faith
in things they don't have natural explanations
for, but we seem to be focusing primarily on
the times when those faiths overlap.)
Eric
P.S. Curt, if you are into Power's Perceptual
Control Theory, do you know Richard Marken and
Warren Manell's work? They wrote a great
article for a journal issue I am putting
together.
P.P.S. The notion of "blind" faith is really
very modern. Certainly it was not long ago
that faith in the Judeo-Christian God was
primarily supported by experiential evidence.
"Behold the wonders," "experience God in every
blade of grass," "check out this amazing
cathedral," "our army won," etc. The fact that
we sometimes meaningfully talk about "blind
faith" seems to indicate that the normal
meaning of the term "faith" is not inherently
blind.
I had been nicely ignoring this thread
in the belief (faith?) that it would go
away without affecting me. Alas, the
need for a distraction from grading has
drawn me back into its basin of
(strange) attraction.
Faith: that the other drivers will stay
on their side of the road. I don't have
to track every one exactly.
Action based on belief: ref. William
Powers: Behavior, the Control of
Perception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_control_theory
Faith or belief: my mental models of the
world will still be true tomorrow. These
models have been built over time by
hypothesis, testing, and adjustment
(toddler and stairs example).
Curt
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------------
Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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--
Doug Roberts
[hidden email]
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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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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