snakelegs:
Well, I’d like to try to help you come the rest of the way (because we need as many allies as we can get), but on the other hand, I have many other demands on my limited time. What I’ll do here, therefore, is provide just an outline, plus give you directions to elsewhere (where I’ve tried to explain the ideas in more detail). I’ll start with your statement:
What I would encourage you to do is try to move beyond the “true” vs. “false” dichotomy of Aristotelian logic: it’s appropriate only for “closed systems” (such as games, pure math, religions, etc.); in “open systems”, in reality, the best we can do is estimated probabilities (that statements or events are “true” or “false”). The following provides more detail, taken from Chapter Ih of my online book (see, http://zenofzero.net/docs/IhHypothesesandProbabilities.pdf ), in which the “Dear” is explicitly my teenage granddaughter but implicitly is any teenager who will invest the time to read the (free!) book.
[Well, sorry, I was unable to get the figure in that text to appear here; so instead, I'll just ask you to read from the middle of p. 4 to the bottom of p. 6 of the above reference, paying special attention to the figure shown there, which originally is from B. de Finetti, Probabilita, entry for Enciclopedia Einaudi, 1980.]
Now, let me return to your
What I would encourage you to do, first, is to try to break free from the Aristotelian “true” vs. “false” logic (which, again, is valid only for closed systems). In reality, that dichotomy is inappropriate. Instead, the challenge is to estimate the probability that a given claim is “true” (which, simultaneously, gives a value for the probability that it’s “false”, namely, unity minus the probability that it’s “true”). For example, if someone claims that the statement “God exists” is true, then the task is not (as you suggest) to try to prove or disprove the statement (as if it were a problem in pure math); instead, the task is to determine the probability that the statement is true. As I posted elsewhere at this forum (and as I show in the referenced chapter and the next chapter of the book at www.zenofzero.net ), my estimate for the probability that some god created our universe is astoundingly small: 0.0000000…1, with a huge number of zeros hidden behind that “…” (at least 200 zeros in total, but the total may easily be 1,000 zeros).
But you further state, “there are some things that are simply unknowable”. But if that’s the case, if something is “simply unknowable”, then it should be dismissed as irrelevant. As Bertrand Russell sarcastically proposed in his 1935 essay “On the Value of Skepticism”:
You state: “So you cannot logically tell someone to prove their religion is true.” But I wouldn’t ask anyone to try to do such a thing; instead, I would ask them to provide an estimate for the probability that their religion is true. You then add, “It is certainly true to them.” I agree that, in their simplistic thinking, some people conclude that their religion is “true”, but their thinking is faulty. In his 1935 book “Philosophy and Logical Syntax”, Rudolph Carnap made the point well, which I’ll quote below. First, however, note that he uses the phrase “perceptive proposition” instead of what, now, is normally called “prediction”.
The goal, then, is to get people to hold their beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants. Many people have said similar (as I’ve posted before, but now can’t find the post – so I’ll post them again):
Finally, at the end of your post, you state:
There are so many errors in that statement it makes my blood boil! But to try to “keep cool”, I’ll start with the comment that I don’t care what people “believe” – even if there’s zero evidence to support their beliefs – PROVIDED THAT THEIR BELIEFS DON’T INFLUNCE OTHERS. If people have some “deep-felt need” to believe that all invisible flying elephants are pink, then again I’d say, “whatever”.
But that’s not what going on today with religious extremists (be they in the Christian “Reich” or Al Qaeda). You can see it even in some of the responses in a thread that I started at this forum (in “World Affairs” dealing with “Secular Muslims” at http://www.islamicboard.com/world-affairs/42397-st-petersburg-declaration-secular-muslims.html ). What we’re dealing with are people who are still in their clerically-imposed Dark Ages: “kill the infidels” (who don’t believe that all invisible flying elephants are pink) is just barely below the surface. My response to them is to buy myself, my sons, and my daughter AK-47’s, with plenty of ammunition: if they think that they’re gonna impose such nonsense on me and my family, then “they’ve got another thunk coming.”
And meanwhile, statements such as yours (immediately above) dim the illumination of the enlightenment. Your statement has multiple errors:
1. “Beliefs do not require proof in the same way science does” displays a lack of understanding of science: in science we don’t “prove” things; we leave that for pure mathematicians, playing their games in closed systems; in science, dealing with open systems (i.e., dealing with reality), we “muddle by” with falsifiable hypotheses that aren’t yet falsified.
2. To your statement “I wouldn’t really compare science with religion”, I would respond: “Why not? That’s what they do!” Think of it: the current bases of all the Abrahamic religions are scientific claims (that their god created the universe, that humans didn’t evolve but were just popped into their current form, and so on). They are the ones making scientific claims. Our response should be: “Your science sucks!” Or in more delicate company, repeat M.M. Mangasarian’s assessment: “Religion is the science of children; science is the religion of adults.”
3. You erroneous statement “religion is a different system” is exactly what the ****able clerics of the world want you to say: if you buy into it, they can keep their con games operating. Don’t buy it! Given that some of them obviously have the deep desire to become your rulers, then now, while you still have a chance, demand that they provide evidence to support their childish claims. Extending what I wrote before, in response to your statement that it’s arrogant for me to make such a demand (in particular, arrogant of me to demand from you evidence that Martians were about to invade the Earth), I’m hereby putting all clerics of the world on notice: “With as much arrogance as my, my children’s, and my allies’ AK-47s can muster, I demand that you provide me evidence that there exists some giant Jabberwock in the sky who wants me to live my life according to your dictates; in this country, we the people rule; therefore, put up, shut up, or go back to your own backward countries.”
Well, I’d like to try to help you come the rest of the way (because we need as many allies as we can get), but on the other hand, I have many other demands on my limited time. What I’ll do here, therefore, is provide just an outline, plus give you directions to elsewhere (where I’ve tried to explain the ideas in more detail). I’ll start with your statement:
What I would encourage you to do is try to move beyond the “true” vs. “false” dichotomy of Aristotelian logic: it’s appropriate only for “closed systems” (such as games, pure math, religions, etc.); in “open systems”, in reality, the best we can do is estimated probabilities (that statements or events are “true” or “false”). The following provides more detail, taken from Chapter Ih of my online book (see, http://zenofzero.net/docs/IhHypothesesandProbabilities.pdf ), in which the “Dear” is explicitly my teenage granddaughter but implicitly is any teenager who will invest the time to read the (free!) book.
[Well, sorry, I was unable to get the figure in that text to appear here; so instead, I'll just ask you to read from the middle of p. 4 to the bottom of p. 6 of the above reference, paying special attention to the figure shown there, which originally is from B. de Finetti, Probabilita, entry for Enciclopedia Einaudi, 1980.]
Now, let me return to your
What I would encourage you to do, first, is to try to break free from the Aristotelian “true” vs. “false” logic (which, again, is valid only for closed systems). In reality, that dichotomy is inappropriate. Instead, the challenge is to estimate the probability that a given claim is “true” (which, simultaneously, gives a value for the probability that it’s “false”, namely, unity minus the probability that it’s “true”). For example, if someone claims that the statement “God exists” is true, then the task is not (as you suggest) to try to prove or disprove the statement (as if it were a problem in pure math); instead, the task is to determine the probability that the statement is true. As I posted elsewhere at this forum (and as I show in the referenced chapter and the next chapter of the book at www.zenofzero.net ), my estimate for the probability that some god created our universe is astoundingly small: 0.0000000…1, with a huge number of zeros hidden behind that “…” (at least 200 zeros in total, but the total may easily be 1,000 zeros).
But you further state, “there are some things that are simply unknowable”. But if that’s the case, if something is “simply unknowable”, then it should be dismissed as irrelevant. As Bertrand Russell sarcastically proposed in his 1935 essay “On the Value of Skepticism”:
You state: “So you cannot logically tell someone to prove their religion is true.” But I wouldn’t ask anyone to try to do such a thing; instead, I would ask them to provide an estimate for the probability that their religion is true. You then add, “It is certainly true to them.” I agree that, in their simplistic thinking, some people conclude that their religion is “true”, but their thinking is faulty. In his 1935 book “Philosophy and Logical Syntax”, Rudolph Carnap made the point well, which I’ll quote below. First, however, note that he uses the phrase “perceptive proposition” instead of what, now, is normally called “prediction”.
The goal, then, is to get people to hold their beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants. Many people have said similar (as I’ve posted before, but now can’t find the post – so I’ll post them again):
Finally, at the end of your post, you state:
There are so many errors in that statement it makes my blood boil! But to try to “keep cool”, I’ll start with the comment that I don’t care what people “believe” – even if there’s zero evidence to support their beliefs – PROVIDED THAT THEIR BELIEFS DON’T INFLUNCE OTHERS. If people have some “deep-felt need” to believe that all invisible flying elephants are pink, then again I’d say, “whatever”.
But that’s not what going on today with religious extremists (be they in the Christian “Reich” or Al Qaeda). You can see it even in some of the responses in a thread that I started at this forum (in “World Affairs” dealing with “Secular Muslims” at http://www.islamicboard.com/world-affairs/42397-st-petersburg-declaration-secular-muslims.html ). What we’re dealing with are people who are still in their clerically-imposed Dark Ages: “kill the infidels” (who don’t believe that all invisible flying elephants are pink) is just barely below the surface. My response to them is to buy myself, my sons, and my daughter AK-47’s, with plenty of ammunition: if they think that they’re gonna impose such nonsense on me and my family, then “they’ve got another thunk coming.”
And meanwhile, statements such as yours (immediately above) dim the illumination of the enlightenment. Your statement has multiple errors:
1. “Beliefs do not require proof in the same way science does” displays a lack of understanding of science: in science we don’t “prove” things; we leave that for pure mathematicians, playing their games in closed systems; in science, dealing with open systems (i.e., dealing with reality), we “muddle by” with falsifiable hypotheses that aren’t yet falsified.
2. To your statement “I wouldn’t really compare science with religion”, I would respond: “Why not? That’s what they do!” Think of it: the current bases of all the Abrahamic religions are scientific claims (that their god created the universe, that humans didn’t evolve but were just popped into their current form, and so on). They are the ones making scientific claims. Our response should be: “Your science sucks!” Or in more delicate company, repeat M.M. Mangasarian’s assessment: “Religion is the science of children; science is the religion of adults.”
3. You erroneous statement “religion is a different system” is exactly what the ****able clerics of the world want you to say: if you buy into it, they can keep their con games operating. Don’t buy it! Given that some of them obviously have the deep desire to become your rulers, then now, while you still have a chance, demand that they provide evidence to support their childish claims. Extending what I wrote before, in response to your statement that it’s arrogant for me to make such a demand (in particular, arrogant of me to demand from you evidence that Martians were about to invade the Earth), I’m hereby putting all clerics of the world on notice: “With as much arrogance as my, my children’s, and my allies’ AK-47s can muster, I demand that you provide me evidence that there exists some giant Jabberwock in the sky who wants me to live my life according to your dictates; in this country, we the people rule; therefore, put up, shut up, or go back to your own backward countries.”
