What I Believe

[Piers]

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My limited knowledge of science makes me reject both religion and atheism.

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I consider the term atheism to be an essentially meaningless; as it’s meaning depends on a word whose definition no two people seem to be able to agree on.

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The spookiness of quantum physics, especially randomness and double slit experiments makes me think something is going on that we can't explain.

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Quantum theory models the limitations of the observer. So the weird quantum effects that theory produces are really observer centric and not to be confused with reality. Don’t know anything about double slit experiments.

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The Big Bang also confuses me.

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If you ever believe you understand the big bang, you have caught an illness, probably thought spending too long in the Psychology forum.

The way I view the big bang, is that the universe contracting as you go back in time indicates information degradation.

At the extreme the information loss is so bad that you cannot distinguish any two points in the universe. So even at maximum resolution the universe still only appears as a single point.

But I doubt I know what I am talking about, but then neither do I think anyone else does.

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So does the fact that the speed of light and other constants are what they are.

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Chill out, its just a model that can be useful at times.

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Ditto for human consciousness. I don't share computer experts confidence that computers will one day actually be conscious.

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maurile thanks for recommending Consciousness Explained . I really think Daniel C. Dennett hit the nail on the head.

[Zygote]

Why does the big bang confuse you?

[NotReady]

I love this quote from a reviewer of Dennett

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Once you understand the dimensions of the problem, and the philosophical constraints within which it must be solved, Darwinism is practically true by definition -- regardless of the evidence.

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Monumental.

[IShark]

Who gives a [censored] what your views on religion are? You were put on earth (or appeared on it) to write about poker not your current babblish obsession.

[mackthefork]

I gotta use this line on the well meaning, ill informed guys who are always at my door, trying to 'sell crazy'.

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Who gives a [censored] what your views on religion are?

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Maybe they will leave faster, I normally have to spend 10 minutes trying to help them see the light.

Mack

[mindflayer]

David,

What you believe is rooted in the world of math and physics.
I am also rooted there, but I have a little faith. Not a great one, mind you. You have even less, but since you can make your statements of belief by using probabilities, you have not ruled out the existence of God.
With only faith can a rigidly sientific mind "believe" in such unprovable collection of ideas.


Jokingly
I find it very interesting that you would think it more probable
that an N dimensional creature which in our minds we would consider god like might have farted or spilled his milk or by some N dimentsional accident created us 3 dimensional humans and possibly our universe
than the existance of God (as the religious belive him to be) and Him/or her creating our universe.

In the following story a philosopher is trying to understand a mystery.. he has the faith to believe in God and religion but not one of its teachings.
YOu more rightly apply the questioning mind to the first of the questions about the existence of God and wether religion is a worthwhile (+ev) persuit, but the same story applys to the lack of faith in the existence of God.
(Replace 'mystery of the holy trinity' with 'existence of God' and read the story)


One day, after spending many fruitless nights trying to fully comprehend the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, St. Augustine was walking along the beach as an attempt to clear and sooth his mind. As he was wandering, he came across a young boy playing on the beach. The boy had dug a hole in the sand, and was racing back and forth between the ocean and his hole filling his bucket from the sea and emptying it into his hole.
St. Augustine watched the boy for a few minutes, then approached, asking:"My son, what is it you are trying to accomplish?".

The boy looked up and said, "I'm going to empty the ocean into this hole".

St. Augustine laughed, saying, "My dear child, you cannot possibly empty the ocean into that small hole!".

The boy stopped, looked the saint straight in the eye, and said in a voice that struck St. Augustine straight to his soul, "I have a far better chance of emptying the oceans of the world into this tiny hole, than you have of completely understanding the mystery of the Trinity, Augustine."

With that, the boy vanished, leaving St. Augustine alone on the beach. The saint realized that he had been visited by an angel, and realized that he had reached the limits of his comprehension of the Mystery.

a parable of the unbridgeable gap between faith and reason

[gasgod]

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"I think they already are, in a very rudimentary way. Consciousness, like its first cousin, Free Will, is a purely subjective phenomenon, and, like beauty, has no objective existence."

From Webster's
consciousness: the state of being conscious; awareness, especially of what is happening around one; the totality of one's thoughts, feelings, and impressions; mind.

Can you not objectively observe what is in existence around you? Are you not aware? Are you not conscious? Do you not have in memory a recollection of your feelings and thoughts? Do you not have a mind?

Have you studied the nature of your own consciousness? Did you figure out why a room can appear smaller when you are sad, although no measurable physical changes have occurred? And when you are happy, did you solve the question of why the room appears brighter? Consciousness has no objective existence, perhaps, but one can see its effects and form conclusions. Is rationality going to give you answers?

To experience and understand a simple thing, say for example, an orange, do you test it, probe, and measure, propose complicated theories that certainly are observable, without ever daring to taste the orange?

Until you have become aware of being outside of your own physical body, cognizant as always, conscious as always, thinking just as you always do, knowing (by obvious experience---please use some common sense) that your consciousness or awareness, your sense of self, is independent from your own physical body because you can see it still lying in bed, and then have this occur naturally and on many occassions, by your own experience you will know what consciousness is. Until then, keep rationalizing the orange...

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I'm not sure what to take from this post. On the one hand, you seem to disagree with my observation:

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Are you not aware? Are you not conscious? ... Do you not have a mind?

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But then you appear to agree with me:

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Consciousness has no objective existence, perhaps, but one can see its effects and form conclusions.

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Douglas Hofstadter in his wonderful book Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid comes as close to explaining consciousness as Daniel Dennett, in my opinion. Hofstadter's speculation that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the mental activity that takes place in the brain is very compelling. One simple epiphenomenon is the fact that in Go, "two eyes live". Nowhere in the rules of the game is this explicitly stated; it is just a necessary outcome of the rules.

So, too, is consciousness a necessary outcome of the mental activity necessary for survival. I am by no means scoffing at your poetic view of consciousness, but the reason it exists is accidental. If we do what is necessary to survive, we will be conscious, but that fact doesn't contribute to our survival.

It is significant that our brain is programmed to periodically switch consciousness off, that is, sleep. This adaptation was a puzzle until somebody noticed that it had survival value. Primitive man would be less likely to survive if he blundered about in the darkness of night, hence the necessity of sleep.

Consciousness has three components: memory, data input, and the ability to reason (process data). The epiphenomenon of self-awareness has no particular survival value, but it certainly is highly interesting, as your post points out.

Consciousness is so fragile; why is this? Drink a beer and it changes. Dozens of chemicals can affect it in diverse ways. Isn't it obvious from this that consciousness arises somehow from the mental activity that the brain engages in?

In a way, I view consciousness as a grand illusion, a negation of the Cartesian "cogito ergo sum". This illusion is so convincing that we carry out research, write booke, and spend endless hours thinking about it. This doesn't mean that I think consciousness doesn't exist; it most certainly does. Dreams also exist, but we clearly recognize them as illusions.

Again, don't think I'm trying to refute your poetic view of consciousness, I quite agree with most of what you said. But if you follow my reasoning, it leads to the conclusion that a computer is also conscious, albeit to a much lesser extent than we are.

Our inability to understand consciousness is akin to the inability of a camera to photograph its own closed shutter.

GG

[HDPM]

Good post Andy, and my gut reaction is to agree that persuasion of the religious is hopeless. After all, by definition they fall for non-rational argument. In fact, many religious beliefs are just beliefs composed of essentially meaningless language. However, I don't think the cause is hopeless. Here's why:

The human animal has not been around all that long. Our present forms are pretty new, and our brain functions seem to be evolving quickly. In less than 50000 years we have gone from a primitive thing to an animal capable of investigating the nature of the universe. We have made tremendous progress, but have a long way to go. As David said, it isn't exactly clear what human consciousness means. It may well be that religious belief is caused by a brain mechanism that is there for other reasons. Or it may be that religious belief is a hallmark of a being intelligent enough to wonder about things which cannot yet be explained; i.e. the being has not evolved enough to understand the things which he is intelligent enough to wonder about.

Some evidence of the progression of human development is the evolution of religion itself. Several primitive societies had religions that seemed to be based on individual audio hallucinations. The idol worship spoken of in the Bible. An idol would be built and it was considered a god. And people seemed to actually hear them talk. This evolved into the first big monotheistic religion. Judaism itself has evolved and softened as you know. Animal sacrifices are not required as they were a mere couple of thousand years ago, and all the places where the Old Testament says to kill rule breakers are interpreted in such a way that people aren't actually put to death for firing up a smoke on saturday. Christianity has evolved too. The Church used to torture and kill many people for heresy, and this doesn't happen now. Sure, there are more fundamental sects in all religions, but the overall trend over the last thousand years has been to a more liberal, open, "soft" form of religious belief. Many people have some beliefs that just aren't as literal or fundamentalist as they used to be. And I think this trend will continue and is actually why we notice some of the backlash against softened belief, i.e. Islamic nut case extremists or fundamentalist religious right people here etc... So while things seem grim and hopeless now, I actually think there is room to persuade people. Darwin came along less than 200 years ago. Advances in physics came along more recently. Human evolution will continue.


I didn't answer KJS's poll yesterday about 2 kinds of people. But I think for the purposes of this thread we can break people into 2 camps. Those who think the universe, our existence, afterlife, etc.... is knowable through rational, natural processes, and those who think those things can only be known by a non-rational feeling or faith in the supernatural. Obviously we don't know all the answers, but I think all of these things are knowable.

[Zeno]

Excellent response HDPM to Andy's post (which is also excellent).

You touched on some subjects well (evolution of religion for example) that mirror much of my own thoughts. And indeed some people have postulated that 'religious belief' (or the sense of mystery or wonder that is constantly interpreted as religious feelings) is part of and intertwined with the evolution of the human mind and societies, in conjunction. A survival mechanism that will be slowly shed has human's progress toward a more rational outlook. That is, if we make it that far. Which is very much in doubt - we may outstrip our capacity to evolve quickly enough and end it all with a bang or slowly fade away.

-Zeno

I'll post more later if I have time.

[NotReady]

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It may well be that religious belief is caused by a brain mechanism that is there for other reasons. Or it may be that religious belief is a hallmark of a being intelligent enough to wonder about things which cannot yet be explained; i.e. the being has not evolved enough to understand the things which he is intelligent enough to wonder about.


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Aw shucks, yall, i thunk its cuz we's all skeert,igneret n irationel.