Paola,
Responses embedded below.
thanks
for the clarifications below, which I had to read a couple of times
(..er)
Sorry. My sentences are often too convoluted. Please let me know if there
are some specific ones that you'd like me to disentangle further, to be
sure they're clear. Even re-reading some of them myself, I see how they can be
hard to follow, even though I know and can retrieve what I meant, and it's clear
to me.
Funny how when we acquire novel information we have to adjust our
preexisting mental model, so that yes what we believe is true is a variable,
and so is reality. Reality is constantly changing, at least from the
basic available observation of the known universe, as well as our perception
of it..
I am sure we could slice up further what you say below and
probe your proposed construct a bit more, but as JSowa would say, I have no
fundamental qualms about what you say.
I think your statement however
is particularly relevant to a prior disquisition on this thread about the
existence of God, from a scientific viewpoint. Somebody seems to purport that
'scientifically God does not exist because it cannot be demonstrated'. My
objection to that is that if God exists it may have a dimension that cannot be
measured/grasped in its entirety by humans.
Rather than saying "scientifically God does not exist ...", I'd rather say
that consideration of God is outside the realm of science. See my discussion
below. In my view, science cannot say that God does not exist, any more than it
can say that God does exist. It is simply not an issue in the realm of science,
and thus should not be considered a scientific issue at all (at this point in
history). Your last sentence above seems to me to be consistent with my view
(but not representing it completely).
I
would assume from what you say that, on the basis of your scientific
reasoning, you admit that we cannot observe *everything that there is*,
we cannot exclude therefore other dimensions and if beings in other
dimensions have a way of existence that cannot be conceived according to our
mental model
Yes. In fact one of the models that physics now has involves (if I
understand and remember correctly) ten dimensions of reality. Physicists are
coming up with ways to address this question. I don't know where it is going or
will go (I'm not entirely up on the status of the field). These are still hard
to conceive - it takes a level of abstract thought that is somewhat difficult to
achieve, I think, and even then, it's not entirely clear what "conceiving" of so
many dimensions means, much less beings or entities "in" them. Part of the
theory may be that existence of everything is in all these dimensions. But
it still could be that things are hidden from us, whether in other dimensions or
in some other way - such as how electromagnetic waves were hidden from us until
our mental models integrated observations in a way that we could conceive of
them.
Please note that I do not want to bring up again the disturbing
controversy about whether God exists or not, which I prefer to leave to
personal sphere, but rather the claim that scientific thinking would
automatically means ruling out 'unfounded beliefs'
I'd be
glad if you could comment on that
This may be more than you (or I) bargained for, but I'll
comment:
My view is that scientific thinking itself does not involve belief per se
inherently IN its practice, although, as I'll explain below, it has
a belief system that UNDERLIES its practice. Rather, in practice, it
involves sound, logical thought that has demonstrable correlation with reality.
The logical thought is associated with mental representation. The correlation
with reality is demonstrated using observations, either of "raw" phenomena or of
experimental results of manipulations, or both. It is therefore an approach to
ascertaining truth (accurate correspondence of mental models with reality)
that people can widely agree on. In fact, I think it is not a good practice to
use the terminology of "belief" in a context of a scientific discussion. In work
developing educational programs on scientific subjects, I generally use "think"
instead of "believe" for what scientists do (as scientists), because it more
accurately represents what I think the scientific endeavor is about. Therefore,
my answer to your question is essentially that scientific thinking, in
practice, not only rules out "unfounded beliefs" but that it does not deal
directly with beliefs at all. (However, in a very different sense, one can do
scientific study of beliefs - that is different from what I mean to say here.)
However, science itself is based on a mental framework - a set of beliefs,
if you like, that become assumptions of the system of science - similar to
what I have been attempting to present here, which is that reality can be viewed
with observations and probed with experiments in such a way that people can form
common mental models that have a relatively high degree of "truth" -
correspondence to the reality they represent. These are expressed in the
form of scientific and mathematical models, in words and symbols. Note that this
is essentially a formalization of what people do anyway as they interact with
each other to share what they know and learn - science in this sense is a
natural human endeavor that we all do, and "science" is a formalized extension
of it (as is math, a la Keith Devlin, as I previously mentioned).
In addition, scientists do typically believe in the truth of the scientific
models that work, but the belief goes beyond the science. Within the science,
they think the models are true, always reserving some measure of skepticism and
allowing for a new mental model to demonstrate that it has a greater degree of
truth for the same phenomena.
In this vein, I think that one of the most important things we need to
realize with respect to "science" is that it is a human endeavor, done by whole
human beings who have beliefs, including those at the foundation of their
practice of science. Beliefs of scientists, including some extra-scientific
beliefs beyond those at the foundation of the scientific
endeavor, inevitably relate to the thoughts they have and test as
scientists. Furthermore, their beliefs and values bear heavily on what they
choose as subjects of their studies and on how they choose to approach their
subjects. Even further beyond that, science in actual practice (as opposed to
what I see as ideal) often is not so pure as I would like to represent it
here. Scientists may often mix extra-scientific belief (not at the foundation of
the endeavor) with scientific thought. Some of the greatest scientific
discussions have raged around the tensions between beliefs and demonstrations of
thoughts, including the question of what constitutes adequate demonstration to
prove something (convince others of its truth - correspondence with reality).
Now, I'll address your point about "God" with the idea of not getting into
a controversy about God's existence, as you also didn't intend. Rather, I'll
express something about how I view the issue as an issue. As you know,
discussions around tensions between beliefs and demonstrations of
thoughts have extended into the theological realm to involve "proofs" of
the existence of God. As I see it, such "discussions" can be viewed as
attempts of one person or group to convince another that the first group's
mental model is more "true" (corresponds better to reality)
than others - a type of endeavor that is itself part of the foundation
of scientific practice. It is remarkable here that many people's
extra-scientific beliefs prevent them from acknowledging some things that
mainstream scientists consider long since proven, such as the reality of
evolution and the approximate ages of the Earth, solar system, and universe.
Beliefs shape thoughts and are themselves a foundation for mental models,
being a kind of mental model themselves. In fact, one could say that a basis for
controversies between scientific and extra-scientific ways of looking at the
world has to do with the difference in beliefs at the foundation of science -
the nature and types of evidence that are acceptable in demonstrating truth -
and beliefs that are at the foundation of religious approaches - about the truth
of certain texts and of statements of particular people, and their
meanings. Mainstream scientists may have extra-scientific beliefs that they
consider consistent with the beliefs at the foundation of science, even if not
within the realm of their science and scientific practice, or they may maintain
some reservations about what they themselves believe theologically. I have
some elements of both. They (we) typically try to keep the two realms
separate.
In my opinion, the "existence of God" is a concept or idea that is fraught
with the question of what the mental model is within which one has a concept or
idea of God. In my opinion, what "God" means is the crux of the question. I have
an idea of what that is for my own interpretation that allows me at least not to
reject something that could mean "existence of God," while holding to the idea
also that the very idea of such a concept is contradictory to its own meaning.
"God" in my view represents such an integrated and total entity of reality that
it must be beyond any meaningfully specific mental model - and yet I can imbue
the concept/non-concept with a kind of meaning that has some sense for me. You
see how easily and quickly this discussion becomes outside of the realm that I
consider the venue of science or rational thought - ascertaining in a
widely-agreed way a correspondence between concepts (mental models) of reality
and the reality itself - except perhaps insofar as we can consider (can
we?) what we mean by "God". I think it's differences in the meaning that
engender much of the discussions.
Another question that I am left with is: how much reality is
there that I cannot even begin to think of? Uh...
Well, that gets into what you mean by "think of" - if you can think of
there being much beyond what you can think of, then are you thinking of it? - I
agree with the "Uh...".
Ken
Kenneth
Cliffer, Ph.D.