From: O'Regan, Emlyn (Emlyn.ORegan@actew.com.au)
Date: Mon Oct 25 1999 - 22:07:54 MDT
> ----------
> From: Clint O'Dell[SMTP:clintodell@hotmail.com]
> Reply To: extropians@extropy.com
> Sent: Tuesday, 26 October 1999 9:00
> To: extropians@extropy.com
> Subject: Re: Clint & Robert on "Faith in Science"
>
> >I assert that it is completely impossible for you to flip a coin 1
> million
> >times and have it turn up heads every time. When I say completely
> >impossible, I mean that it will never EVER happen, no matter how many
> times
> >you try.
>
> The laws of probability clearly state this won't happen, and it has
> already
> been explained by predicting that the more tosses I, make the closer to
> 50%
> 50% the calls become.
>
I think the point here is that probability says that it can happen; it has a
probability of 2^-1000000.
Faith is utterly present in science; Occam's Razor is not some absolute rule
of objective reality, its really an aesthetic principle. All the predictive
power in science is model based; you build a model of how things are, pump
in some inputs, and get a prediction of future behavior of the universe. A
good model will give you a truthful prediction, but this is only ever
provable in hindsight.
There are infinitely many ways to model the universe; we just use Occam's
Razor as a guide to which model to choose. With all these models, however,
there is always an underlying assumption, and that is that the rules of the
universe will not change on us. We say that, given the status quo and model
x, y will occur. If the status quo is not, then neither is science (unless a
pattern can be found in the changes to the rules, in which case we have a
new set of rules).
This is not to say that the faith underpinning science is in the rules not
changing. They change all the time, or at least our knowledge of the does.
Models get revised, re-revised, and so on. The faith is in the idea that
there is a true way that the universe works. Our models are all an attempt
to approach this, even though no-one assumes that we can capture the whole
thing.
This is in contradiction to faith in an external force which interacts with
the universe in such a way that we cannot model the results. Even dynamical
systems theory is about bounding and describing the limits to our
prediction; we still assume that these limits are consistent and that we can
create valid models.
Likewise athiesm is a faith. An atheist believes that there is no external
agent interfering with the universe. There is nothing wrong with this. You
cannot have a model, describe a system, without making assumptions. Every
system has its axioms. Atheists need a ground like anyone else. It is also a
rational ground, if you define rationality in terms of the scientific
method, and particularly atheism.
Pragmatism creeps in for the rational. A rational person (the reasonable
englishman?) may well ask what is the need for God in our models? We only
need god, the external agent, if we observe things in the universe which we
absolutely cannot model, and will never be able to. More so, we must also
not be able to model the limitations of our modeling caused by such. Perhaps
this expands to encompass everything: if we cannot model something, and
cannot model our inability to model that thing, can we model anything?
Leaving that aside, if we find we need to introduce God to create valid
models, then we have valid models. We no longer need God. Saying that we
can't model a particular aspect of existence because God interferes is still
defining bounds and limitations.
Why then would the purely rational choose atheism? The purely rational would
mark the question of the existence of God as an unanswerable and unnecessary
question. You cannot know if there is a God, and you don't need to know this
to understand the universe. If God's behaviour (effecting the universe) can
be modeled, then His behavior assumes the status of natural law. If God's
behaviour cannot be fully modeled, then we'll never know, because we can
only assume that our models are invalid, and that we are missing
information. Either way, we have no rational way to choose either option
(God or Not God), and cannot make anything useful of such information even
if we have it.
To choose Atheism then is to choose a belief. It is based on aesthetics; on
a feeling about how the universe works, and on nothing else. Like any system
of belief.
Emlyn
Godless, and loving it.
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