Faith and Evidence

[Sanhedrin]

Now replace his defintion of faith with "theory"

Theres a bit of a resemblence in context, of course outside the definition of context.

[hooa]

Hi SS

You said:
"My mother, when aged 9, certainly did care that her mother was murdered before her eyes by a Nazi in 1944. To this day, I cannot fathom where her faith in God comes from. I was about her age when my evil neighbour killed my cat and I became an atheist on the spot!" end quote



Your mother lost her attacment figure at a very early age ... she needed to replace it and God/Jesus fit the bill. It probably helped her survive.


You did not lose your attachment figure so you didnt need to turn to God or Jesus as a substitute ...

You and your mother have different childhood needs.

None of us are true adults ... We are all Adult Children

[Satan's Sister]

Hooa, you are probably right. God is a terrorist. I should have known better.

[the_gelf]

Hi, sorry it's taken so long to reply, I was away for the weekend, and had half-started addressing some of your queries

I'm glad you ask interesting questions.
I feel it is best to provide some different phrasing of you comments, as there seems to be some misunderstanding on some vital definitions.

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

Unless, you define the universe as its inhabitants of which many do care if you live or die.

This would not be 'the universe' then. This would be 'the fellow humans who are immediately affected by your presence or lack thereof. A tribesman in Botswana in 1940's did not care (let's use the term apathetic) that your grandmother was murdered. 'The universe' is not used by me in any subjective way, it means only "all that is exists that can be directly and indirectly observed"
[/quote]

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

You said the exact meaning of faith is to believe something with no evidence. Well O.K., but that kind of faith is often supported by very weak evidence, not zero evidence. Fairies for example.

There is as much evidence of fairies as there are of what is written in the bible about unicorns.

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

If you eat the right herbs or believe in dreams you will see them. On the other hand, I have corresponded with a professor of physics who stated on his website “length contraction is not a scientific theory, it is a proven fact”. Wow. That’s what I call faith. Since when did the theory of relativity get upgraded to the fact of relativity?

Since the laymen began stealing the phrase 'theory' and applying it to journalistic assumptions. Here's a quick refernce table

Scientist:Layman
Hypothesis:Unproved Theory
Theory: Unrefuted mechanism or Law
Evidence: Facts

I urge you to read further on the difference between a scientific theory and the definition of theory by nonscientists

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

Actually it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to define “proof” even scientifically.

It's not. That's why mathematics exists. Mathematics is a combination of proofs used to make it possible to understand physics and the scientific worl. It is by far from complete (you can't integrate a bell curve easily).

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

The “law of pi”

Which of these numbers has more meaning to you
3.110
3.021
3.243

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

Hooa, you are probably right. God is a terrorist. I should have known better.

Those who propound and enforce a belief of an invisible babysitter are the terrorists.

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

For example, someone argues 3+4=5, because if you walk 3 km north and 4 km east you have walked a net distance of 5km from the origin. Or someone argues numbers themselves have some kind of weird relativistic topology that conflicts with common experience. To the first argument, I say “no, you are arguing 3n + 4e =5, not 3+4=5” and to the second argument “that’s a crazy theory without evidence”. So we just need to believe in the law of addition as an article of faith and use it as a standard by which to judge the theory of calculation. So here I think it WOULD be the job of the mathematician or scientist to find evidence to support their faith. Otherwise the institution of science would be like a rudderless ship lost at sea.

Scientists stand on the shoulder's of other scientists. We see no reason to reinvent the wheel, until we are presented with information that asks us to question. A scientists build's their analyses from facts, and if the facts do not fit the hypothesis, they don't try to fudge them to fit. Maybe it is a problem with their measuring equipment first - that's usually the first step. They aren't sitting in a lab waiting for science to happen, they are making it happen.

And that’s why I believe in pi and the circle. In physics, the law of pi doesn’t seem to survive relativity theory, but I’ve worked out a way that it can. But that’s another story.[/size][/font]

As a physicist who has studied both relativity and quantum computing, I have never heard of this so called law. See above comments for clarification.

[Satan's Sister]

I'm glad this topic is interesting enough, though it may run out of steam. It's in the wrong section, isn't it? I'm a newbie so my mistake.

You can define the elements of the universe – i.e. energy and mass- as its “inhabitants”. It’s all one. Some of that energy is organised into intelligent entities, but most of it isn’t and is amoral. Morality, therefore, is just a superior form of organisation. There is no reason to divorce meaning from that equation. If some people conceptualise God as that higher organisation, then that is an idea, not fact or evidence. Ideas are OK, as long as they are not twisted into irrational dogma (religion) and forced upon us.

Fair enough, it was a little silly claiming weak evidence may exist for fairies. But as a scientist, we can never quite know anything through pure logic alone. This is a question for epistemologists. Experience is what counts, as long as it makes sense! I believe the great philosopher of science, Karl Popper, agreed with that. Evidence is only evidence because our system of logic admits it as such. Truth needs to “make sense”. This “making of sense” is an experiential process. So in the end, the belief in logic is a kind of faith in the validity of experience. This validity can be represented mathematically as proofs. But beyond (“meta”) the proof of that construction (i.e. from which we get “metaphysics”) proof remains a kind of faith in our experience of logic and science.

If I’ve made an error here, someone will point it out! Strato..hope I'm not being a sophist here.

With pi, I’m suggesting we should not give up believing in it. Pi may not currently be defined as law- in a likewise sense to the common law of addition-but why not? Is it because a theory conflicts with it (i.e. length contraction in special relativity), necessitating the invention of a different geometry to accommodate the anomaly? In a way, such refutation is similar to changing the facts to suit the theory whereas a better approach, in my opinion, is to challenge the underlying premises of the theory. Pi just needs a better defence lawyer.

What is interesting to me is where great hypotheses come from. I recommend Henri Poincare for that one. For a scientist, he was a great believer in intuition. I read his Science and Method.

Finally, I don’t believe “God is a terrorist” of course. We are the bad guys. God is an ideal. The ancient Greeks, who supposedly believed in the gods, were often blasphemous. One early philosopher suggested the gods would not have wanted the world to be based on things that didn't make logical sense- and so western science was born.

As Sanhedrin said, there is no faith, just understanding. Yes, I understand that Sanhedrin! Can I add for God-fearing people, replacing faith with the acceptance of knowledge and understanding is like taking a leap of faith in itself! Does that count in the definition of faith....don't answer that!

[Praxis]

Would you like us to split it off and put it somewhere the discussion can continue.

We're here to help

[DanDare]

Hey Sis, the problem with that kind of arms length philosophising is that if I told you to cut your foot off with a rusty knife I can predict you will decline. I can accept that other people exist as it is reasonable, but I cannot claim this is the truth. I claim that it is true I have the experience of other people existing. I go from there.

[Satan's Sister]

Originally Posted by DanDare

the problem with that kind of arms length philosophising....

It’s a problem for the argument that all levels of faith are bogus. For if there is only experiential truth, not “objective” truth, you are really making a faint argument for faith, aren’t you? The evidence for that faith is that I won’t cut off my foot with a rusty knife. Call it the scientific approach on your part. Still, the idea that truth persists outside of experience seems to belong more to metaphysics than to science. How convenient that the evidence for that truth is as compelling as consciousness. Can consciousness be rationalised as “just” a chemical reaction? We can only wonder. I believe that is how the story about faith and evidence begins and ends.

[EvilDRMike]

Hi SS and welcome. Just need to point out that theorem means proved. When a proof is mathematical it is absolute within the confined of the axioms used. That is without changing the meaning of things like numbers, basic mathematical operations, triangles and squares then Pythagoras' theorem will always hold true. As for length contraction being true it has been measured. It is through evidence and measurement that theories gain strength. Relativity has been shown to hold true over a wide range of conditions and many things we take for granted today would not be possible without things like relativity and quantum mechanics being "true". I put true in quotes as in this case it means that it has been shown to be useful and allows us to make predictions about what will happen under differing conditions.

EDM

[DanDare]

Originally Posted by Satan's Sister

It’s a problem for the argument that all levels of faith are bogus. For if there is only experiential truth, not “objective” truth, you are really making a faint argument for faith, aren’t you?

I disagree. I am refusing to pretend to know something other than what I have experienced. I do not have faith that that is the truth in any sense, but its what I can know. No faith is required.

The evidence for that faith is that I won’t cut off my foot with a rusty knife. Call it the scientific approach on your part.

The rusty knife "experiment" simply demonstrates that neither you, nor I, would have "faith" that its all just illusion and that we will escape harm. Instead we go with our knowledge based in part on instact but also on experience. That does not require faith, there is empirical evidence available to each of us from within our own consciousness upon which we base our understanding and our expectations.

Still, the idea that truth persists outside of experience seems to belong more to metaphysics than to science.

Its outside the limits of knowledge. It may be that everything is as real as it seems or something else. We can't see behind that veil even in principle. Making a conjecture at that level and then accepting it as knowledge is faith.

How convenient that the evidence for that truth is as compelling as consciousness. Can consciousness be rationalised as “just” a chemical reaction? We can only wonder. I believe that is how the story about faith and evidence begins and ends.

Consciousness can't be shared so there is primary data that cannot be studied directly. There is plenty of secondary data that tells us that consciousness can be erased or altered by physical effects on the brain. This is fairly strong evidence that consciousness is deeply entangled with the material. There is no evidence that consciousness is other than an effect of matter.