Belief through proof, or proof of beliefs?

reply to post by 547000


Yet your senses are imperfect and can be fooled. And the brain that stores the information is flawed and stores imperfectly.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Yeah, but I'm not going all existentialist here. If I have reason to believe something I will.

I see the Cats have been playing while ive been away.

Theoretical physics blows my mind.

I've enjoyed reading your posts and i find them really interesting. Even if i cant get my head around some of it.

Debate away boys and Girls i might even learn something.

reply to post by 547000


That is of course your choice and right. I was merely saying. The things we take as given will influence the foundations of what we believe about reality. And if you cannot truly justify even that basis how can you you truly consider believing anything with "good reason"? Practically every stance has it's opposite counterstance as viewpoints vary wildly. We tend to believe what we are inclined to believe. But does that make us right?

My opinion of science is that it, at it's purest form, provides us with nothing but information, statistics really. This seems to react this way with whatever percent reliability, etc etc etc. And that the implications of said information is largely dependent upon one's philosophy. I visualize it as a string of pearls, and how we string those pearls into a coherent *to the individual* pattern is up to us or those we allow to do our thinking for us.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not attacking you or not meaning this as an attack I should say. It is up to you after all, should you percieve it as such then I certainly can't dissaude you. But my intent is just wanting your take on the matter, or anyone else who feels like chiming in really.

Originally posted by 547000
Belief through proof. Any wacko can make all sorts of magical claims, but I won't believe until there's solid evidence, either a personal experience, or experimental or mathematical proof .

Yeah thats what i mean. People who make up these magical claims and then set out to prove them. Usualy by twisting facts or only showing you things that back up their claims.

Dont get me wrong i'll entertain any idea, as long as it stands up to some investigation on my part not theres.

This is a very intresting question.

But what is belief and what is proof?

First I'd like to state that not having a belief is nonsense. Everyone has a belief. Some are called religion some are called science or something else. The way I see it belief is simply how we explain ourselves what we experiance through our senses. It's how we answear our own questions about what's happening with us and around us. But for that we need information about what is what and how does it function in our existence. And that's our belief.

Now proof is an information we consider true. Or I could say, we believ is true... So we got back where we began. To believe we need a proof (information), but to accept the proof you have to believe it. Every sense and input can be altered and fed with false information. So I think the way it works is that if we are facing a new information than we chose the higher possibility based on the information we already posess according to our core-belief.

So my final opinion is: proof and than belief.

Originally posted by Echtelior

Everyone has a belief. Some are called religion some are called science or something else.

Science is not a belief. Neither is it a substitute for religion.

Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the natural world.[1][2][3][4] An older meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and convincingly explained (see "History and etymology" section below).[5]

Empirical

The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.[1] A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses.

So science relies on testable results, as where religion relies on pure speculation and fairytales. Although, some of the ancient texts may have actual basis in history. And some of the "spiritual" (still don't like that word) phenomenon may (or will) be in the future explained by science. Let us remember, science still cannot explain how consciousness is formed, or what it really is.

The truth (science) is often many times more mindblowing than any primitive religious belief. I.e, when the idea of atoms was first thought of (can't remember who it was), he thought that they were completely solid ball-like particles. Who would've thought that they actually consist of the nucleus and several electrons and that they are mostly empty?

History is full of examples like that.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Yeah, we can't know anything except that we exist, but it's not a terribly practical philosophy to live by. If we make errors in what we believe then we can correct them later. Even if we are flawed creatures, our flawed reasoning is the best we have at the moment, and I see nothing wrong with believing what you can with the best of your ability.

reply to post by Tryptych


"Science is not a belief". It is. And as you, I believe in it too. As were those scientists who proved that nothing heavier than air can fly, or those who believed that the Earth is flat, or those who believed nothing is smaller than an atom, or those who believed that the speed of light is constant, etc. etc. Very reliable. All those who were wrong in the history of science believed they were right and usually scientificly proved their right, only that they were wrong. In science the truth of today is too often a reason to smile tomorrow. That's why I say belief.

Also don't look down too much on religions. In some of them there is a lot of scientific knowledge buried deep inside what we know nowdays but they knew it thousands of years before our scientists (for example do a bit of a researche why the jews do the circumcision exactly on the 8th day).

reply to post by Tryptych


As far as I know the greeks were the first who thought that there must be something smaller than what we can see. If I remember correctly.

50 years ago I decided, that I wouldn't run my life on lines based on talking snakes involved in creating the social engineering concept 'original sin'.

So these days I introduce another talking animal, my omniscient mouse Henry, into debates, when the holies get carried away. And strangely enough I am then considered mocking, irrational or weird.

With an insatiable curiousity, and with nothing better to do except getting married occasionally (and believe me, that brings out the philosopher in a man), I started peeling the existential onion layer by layer. Eventually arriving at epistemology (=how do we know, what we know), and for reasons of being young and naive (I was only 50 then), I believed, that this was the core, where all uncertainty ends.

But then one day, being between wives and instead spurring my intellect with whiskey, I got an AHA experience about "I think, therefore I am am". And from being at the stage where 'you almost know it all' (between merry and having all the answers, if only you could remember the words), I decided to retest the Cartesian model the following way: "I drink, therefore I am". It functioned just as well.

The next day or so, after my head was clear again and the existential dread had subsided, I imagined a gruesome future filled with epistemology on epistemology on epistemology. And there simply aren't enough wives or whiskey in the world to live with that. I almost felt some mild understanding of the snake-believers, who've taken the easy way out.

Fortunately I came around to the latest bid in existentialism, science, philosophy, epistemology, cosmology and many other '-gies'. Existence, as we know it, is about 'relating'. Things exist (somewhat), because other things exist (and vice versa). It's a very big 'context'. And according to any given context, something can be 'true' inside it and not-'true' outside it. 'Reality' is relative.

"Ah", I imagine someone without my background of wives and whiskey saying, "but this is relativism, eventually making everyone more confused".

Not completely. Because inside 'relative realities' 'truth' can function quite well, and it is possible to slowly expand such relative realities. Maybe not arriving at ultimate answers in foreseeable futures, but....enough.

The recent fad in epistemology was deductive reasoning. You start with A, go to B, and C and conclude with D. The problem is to find a suitable A, the rock upon which you build churches, science or whatever. Often A is just an assumption, sometimes is a kind of more aristocratic assumption called an axiom. An axiom is an A, which appears to be true no matter how often you test it in different ways.

So A can be a talking snake, and by repeating it often enough (or by killing a lot of people), the holies have promoted talking snakes from an assumption to an axiom.

Whereas 'old' science really did start with true axioms, but from being sorely p....d at talking snakes, they excluded everything even remotely connected with said snakes. Old science thus ended up with empiricism. Not good, not good, too exclusive. Though it all ended well for science, because it finally came around to empiricism disproving empiricism, with new generations of scientists being even more weird and esoteric than any prophet frothing around the mouth.

But that's for another post, where A, B, C and D can be related to each other in an alternative way, even slightly including talking snakes, black stones, my omniscient mouse Henry and spooks.

reply to post by bogomil


I loved reading this.

I hope you wont be offended if i said it reminded me of something my Grandad would sit me down and tell me. By this i mean its got a certain wisdom in it that only comes with age.

Whats more is that i can relate to it. I myself have driven, through the streets of contemplation, while under the influence. Its sounds like a paradox, but some how your minds finds some new focus. You tend to block out the babble and get straight to the honest truths.

Trying to recall the journey the next day, is hard because your no longer in the same frame of mind and all that which made perfect sense, seems outlandish or hard to comprehend.

I'll take all that you have said on board and i agree that "reality" is "relative".

Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by 547000


It's a honest philosophy to live by. And admission of even the possibility that we can get something wrong is far better than then sticking to theories and twisting evidence in furtherance of said theories. Which would most likely do wonders for scientific progress. I'm not saying

If we make errors in what we believe then we can correct them later.

But that does not always happen now does it? Those who are labeled as "religious" are just as much human as you are or anyone else. I think the problem is that people have an innate need to think they have a correct view of reality and will clutch to ideas against all comers. And this is reinforced by the way our minds work.

Even if we are flawed creatures, our flawed reasoning is the best we have at the moment, and I see nothing wrong with believing what you can with the best of your ability.

Take a look at history. And a flawed creature will produce flawed results, no matter how many flawed creatures participate. And then there is the eccentricities of human interaction to be taken into account. Not taking these factors into account is silly at best, though I would argue it's downright stupid. And a lot like those currently demonized under a label of "religious".
Whether you wholeheartly believe a guy in a lab coat or whole heartedly believe a guy in a funny hat. You're still allowing others to do your thinking for you.

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


Here's the funny thing. I think the scientific method is good the way it is and want to be a scientist but I also believe in religion. I believe because I had an experience, so I have to believe. But my experience shouldn't convince a skeptic. I'm fine with people not believing the things I do. Hell, if I were someone else, I wouldn't believe me.

The scientific method works itself out in the end. What we have a wrong idea of today, we might have a better idea tommorow.

reply to post by 547000


I think scientist forget that science was only ever supposed to explain the physical world. So to try to use the same methods to explain that which clearly is not may be redundant from the start.

maybe the power to measure this world lies soley in our minds or hearts. Where people cant get at it. Saving it from explanation and exploitation. Maybe were just not meant to know. Part of the journey is to try to find out for yourself personaly. Who cares what anyone else thinks.

reply to post by 547000


Keyword here, might. Is it so unimaginable that our current view of the nuts and bolts of reality is incorrect? That just because it sounds just about right doesn't make it in fact right? It's happend before. But that doesn't phase a lot if not most people. You see it on this board every day, day after day.

I am not arguing for actively embracing ignorance. Have never even infered that. Simply pointing some things out.

It doesn't matter if it is indeed right or wrong, just that it is the only empirically verified view of reality. Science doesn't deal in absolutes, only things we can experimentally observe and show. What we can't perceive we can't know. But I think being skeptical and asking for evidence or reason is a healthy thing. Can't prove a negative and all that.

I like rigor because a lot of intuitive things can be shown to be wrong through rigor.

reply to post by 547000


But people tend to deal in absolutes, thusly science as well. Again, you need look no farther than this board to see that. Or do you think science transcends the people who came up with and maintain it? It is subject to the same forces and eccentricities as any other human collective. Yet somehow it get's a undeserved mantle of purity? Yea, right. Especially in light of the fact that ignoring drawbacks and possible flaws in the system most definantly does not make them go away. It tends to only make them worse.

Well, if it becomes politics or religion, someone is using science to argue for philosophy. Like I shrug at Richard Dawkins, who uses science as justification for his theological bent and triess to imply you can't believe in God and be a scientist at the same time.

What mantle of purity? I'm simply saying science is a very reliable way of studying reality, probably one of the best paradigms we have. Even if we are wrong, science tends to correct itself as we accrue more information. I would be more inclined to believe an argument that is scientifically demonstrable. I choose science and math as a preferred paradigm because it's practical. Do you say, "I don't know" when someone asks you what your name is? You could be wrong because your memory is faulty or your perceptions are imaginary, but out of practicality you just say what your best educated guess is. Same with science. It's not about right or wrong, but about the best guess based on empirical evidence. The only way you can be 100/% sure about right or wrong is if you are God. But you probably have a very good idea of the general direction of the answer to a question if you have empirical evidence to support your argument. I would take the stance that you can't prove a negative, thus the burden of proof is on the one making the claim. I probably won't believe something unless I've experienced it or there is evidence for it.

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
reply to post by KrypticCriminal

 

A skeptical mind is a healthy mind. When no empirical evidence is available, 'belief' is merely a proxy for faith.

My thoughts exactly. Considering that I thought the idea of precognition was highly, highly unlikely until a recent scientific study implied that precognitive abilities may, in fact, exist. If there isn't evidence that can be shown and repeated in an experiment following the scientific method, it have no reason to believe it.

My understanding of the world around me is extremely empirical in nature. One time phenomena is simply something that has a grounded, scientific explanation that has yet to be determined or understood. Sure I've seen things that I can't explain - things that strongly suggest something not yet established in science, but I believe that everything can be explained through scientific means.

A personal experience is skewed by an individual's perception of reality and is therefore unreliable. Numbers though, numbers rarely lie. And when they do, its only because the individual wielding them is at fault.