contact@onbelief.orgReader Responses Page 7
Jim: I believe without reserve in the theory of evolution. It is a wonderful and inspiring 'grand narrative' and beautifully explains the immense variety of life forms in our planet including, of course, the origin of homo sapiens. Yet it is not enough for me. It is all biology and has nothing to say about meaning. My own existence remains to me a profound and utter mystery. How could the long series of apparently random events lead to the phenomenon of mind-- capable of abstract thought, mathematics. and science, even to the extent of understanding the very laws of matter and, of course the theory of evolution!
There is also the mystery of beauty. Why do I experience the natural world as so beautiful? Even more wonderful is the fact that we human creatures are ourselves creative. What about the wonder of music and the other arts? Evolutionists may argue that even these can be understood as beneficial for the survival of the species, but to regard these as their main purpose seems an unnecessary bleak view of humanity.
The theory of evolution is a marvelous advance in our understanding of the world but neither it, nor science in general, can answer all our questions. The utter mystery of our being as person's remains and it leads me to the idea of the transcendent. This is not a scientific concept and there can be no question of proof here, yet I think it is a valid and sensible idea. I know it can be doubted but it makes sense of my experience. There is no contradiction in believing in both evolution and the transcendent. Things can be understood at different levels.
So my position is this, All things that exist are consistent with each other, in terms of the laws of matter. Everything is a unity and, I believe, it has a transcendent dimension. Great art is an expression both of the human spirit and the transcendent.
All the above, I suppose, is a faith statement. My understanding of 'faith' is a commitment to something that can be doubted -- and any faith statement is not merely one of the content of a belief, but also says something about the person making it.
Commentary: From my perspective you appear to have an interesting dilemma. You accept the value and inspirational nature of the scientific approach and value the wonderfully explanatory narratives that it creates. However they do not give you an adequate level of personal satisfaction. You therefore appear to have an emotional need for mystery. For me revealing the mechanism behind the mystery is what provides satisfaction not the mystery itself. The existence of the unknown (or mystery if you prefer) presents a personally rewarding challenge rather than a source of beauty and transcendent meaning. Beauty arises in the explanation of the mystery. Science has intellectual beauty despite its limitations.
I do not regard a materialist conception of the human condition as either bleak or meaningful. For me we are without meaning. We merely exist. It is better if we are content in simply being here at this brief moment in the evolution of the cosmos.
There is ultimately only the 'good life' to be aspired to in its many forms nothing more.
Ross: It is inherent in the definition of belief that it is something which we could either be true or false, and that we have no evidence while holding a belief that provides certainty that either is the case. This is a statement of fact which we cannot overlook not only when forming our belief structures, but understanding them.
This is the case because it is often a great failure of humanity to truly identify what is in fact a belief. So much of we now claim, and have claimed, to be knowledge, i.e. a belief which we a have justification to say is either be true or false, and can only be true or false, is in fact a belief. I say this because when we examine our knowledge, it becomes clear that for the most part, we can quite easily imagine evidence which would leave us justified in seeing the truth, or untruth, of an idea reversed. The significance of this idea becomes truly apparent when we look of the shape of the earth.
Up until a few hundred years ago it was seen as common knowledge that the earth is flat. People would of felt quite well justified in claiming to have this knowledge from what they see around them. But would it not occur to them that if they could look at the world as a whole, from great distance, the truth of the claim "the world is flat" could quite well be reversed? Under this consideration they would have to quite clearly reclassify what the(y) claim as knowledge to belief. I believe this is something like Socrates meant when he said "wisdom is knowing what you don't know" (paraphrasing), in that perhaps we are wiser when understand what ideas which are not in fact knowledge, under the standard definition, but beliefs.
So if we can assume that philosophy is pursuit of greater wisdom, it seams to me that this understanding of what ideas actually are is of great importance. It also seems to me that the importance of this reclassification of ideas is that if we understand that our beliefs can, and may well be wrong, and do not hold an emotional attachment to them, as many belief structures perhaps encourage, we can better understand the world around ourselves, progress our ideas, and engage in freer debate. As if we understand what our ideas truly are, and that it is perfectly reasonable to think that beliefs can be wrong, perhaps we will be far more open to changing our beliefs and our ideas under the influence of good reason. The reason this occurred to me recently is because I had to suffer listening to a fellow student argue that black and white can be grey at the same time...
Commentary: Interesting points Ross. You say, "understanding of what ideas actually are is of great importance". Yes I think this is really why this web site exists. You also say "belief ..... is something which we could either be true or false". From a practical point of view this is often a convenient way to look at the world. For example in a court of law. However for me the empirical value of truth and falseness are often overrated. Although there can be the logical values of true and false, as used objectively in the operation of computer logic for example, I would see these concepts as being ends of a spectrum for many aspects of human thinking as we do not exist in a binary world.
Technically your fellow student was correct if he or she was taking about grey in digital imaging. In digital imaging black white and grey are usually arbitrary values along the achromatic 'line' in geometric colour space (RGB, HSI, or HSB etc). RGB colour space for example is cubic so black and white are at opposite corners. Change the exposure of white in a scene (i.e. the white point value by any absolute or relative measure) and something that was white can become grey. This property is now commonly used in digital image manipulation and this has been the case for a long period in analogue photography. Is the brightest light we can imagine the computer screen, the car head light or the surface of the sun? No science has now gone past that to produce flux densities higher than can be observed in nature. Pulsed lasers of the sort used in multi-photon confocal microscopy achieve outputs equivalent to megawatts per square centimeter that could fry any sensor instantly. The same consideration applies to black. In the black depths of intergalactic space there will be a very low photon flux density. How black can an open system really be in our universe? It is, as I have said on the opening page, a question of our frame of reference; in this case one of relative brightness values.
Bear in mind that for many practical purposes it is sensible to behave as if the earth is flat. I hold to the view it is the utility of a belief that is important not its truth. If I were building a house or a football pitch the assumption of a flat earth is probably fine. If I am an airline pilot it makes much more sense to treat the earth as round and fly on a great circle route. Again it comes back to our frame of reference and the utility of approximation.
On the Nature of Belief
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Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter
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