[MD] Faith

[david buchanan]

Howdy MOQers:

dmb said to Case:
You accept the validity of mathematics on faith? Dude, that is simply NOT 
what the word means.

Case replied:
Tell that to Russell and Whitehead. They wrote the Principia Mathematica in 
an effort establish mathematic on firmly logical ground. Russell almost 
halted publication when he discovered Russell's Paradox at the last minute. 
But they added a hasty set of notes to cover it. Shortly after its 
publication Gödel published his incompleteness theorem proving that any 
formal system must contain statements that can not be proven within the 
system. You can apply what ever "reason" you want. You can stack and unstack 
the nested Russian dolls to your hearts content but in the end that last
doll is irrational.

dmb says:
I don't get it. How do you go from Godel's theorem to the assertion that 
math is based on faith? Are  you are saying that faith-based beliefs are 
beliefs that fall short of perfect, complete knowledge? Like I said to Ian, 
this way of looking at the issue strikes me as quite ridiculous since we all 
agree that there is no such thing as the absolute truth. I'm certainly not 
saying that beliefs based on evidence and experience are absolutely true, 
just that they are better than unsupported beliefs and that the distinction 
between the two is an important one. I really don't see how the failure 
attain perfect knowledge undermines anything except the belief in perfect 
knowledge.

Case said:
...No problem but let me repeat myself: accepting the evidence of the senses 
as a pathway to truth is an act of faith. You have to trust that your senses 
are accurate. Most of us agree to do this and we do it in spite of the fact 
that we know them to be unreliable.

dmb says:
Accepting the evidence of the sense is an act of faith? Huh? This is the 
assertion that makes no sense to me. Again, if faith-based beliefs are 
defined as beliefs held in the absence of evidence (or even contrary to the 
evidence) then it makes no sense to say we accept evidence on the basis of 
faith. Its like a really bad card trick where I can see you pull a card out 
of your sleave. Also, I'm still detecting this unarticulated assmption that 
we only have two choices; perfect knowledge or faith-based beliefs. You seem 
to think that just because our senses are limited and imperfect, trusting 
them is a matter of faith. I just don't see it that way at all. And I'll 
also remind you that the MOQ attacks the limits of and unexamined 
assumptions behind the idea that sensory data is the only valid kind of 
evidence. So that's a bit of a red herring too.

Case said:
I am not saying that all beliefs are faith based. I am saying that it takes 
a kernel of Faith to get to a point where rationality makes sense, where we 
can interpret our perceptions, where we can reason together.

dmb says:
I don't know what you mean. I'd agree that all sorts of cognitive 
development needs to take place before rationality can then evolve out of 
that. This is how the MOQ and lots of other models describe the evolution of 
consciousness. But what does that have to do with "Faith"? In what sense 
does it take "faith" to interpret our perceptions? What does the 
pre-requisites of rationality have to do with maintaining faith-based 
beliefs within our present scientific world view?

Case said:
I don't. (Dismiss the importance and relevance of evidence and experience) I 
have Faith in them. I am just not kidding myself about why I think they are 
important.

dmb says:
Again, the point you keeping skirting is the difference between supported 
beliefs and unsupported beliefs. To say you have faith in the importance of 
evidence begs the question in a very frustrating way, in a way that 
contradicts the definitions of key terms like "faith" and "evidence" through 
mere rhetorical slight of hand. Its utterly unconvincing like a bad card 
trick.

Case said:
Polanyi, points out that in many instances it is not reason or evidence that 
drives science forward. Insight, aesthetics and a host of other processes 
come into play. Reason is icing on the cake. It is how we check our work. 
Even Russell did not claim that he could disprove the claims of the mystic; 
only that claims are irrelevant if they can not be tested. Kuhn showed that 
much of what drove the Copernican revolution was mathematical aesthetics not 
an appeal to evidence. Or as Karl Popper put it, "...no rational argument 
will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational
attitude." Faith is my basis for adopting such an attitude.

dmb says:
Yes, there are lots of interesting issues to explore around the nature of 
rationality and the scientific process. And as the Popper quote suggests, 
there are psychological and developmental dimensions involved. All that sort 
of stuff would be fun to talk about. I'd like to disagree with Kuhn, or 
rather with your interpretation of what it means to undergo a scientific 
paradigm shift, for example. But at this point in the debate I'm just 
opposed to the deliberate attempt to erase the distinction between 
faith-based beliefs and beliefs based on evidence. I'd agree that picking 
one hypothesis over another is not purely rational, that intuition and 
creativity play a role even in the hardest of sciences. I just don't see how 
this wonderful fact leads you to conclude that the scientific process 
requires an act of faith. The fact that we all have to live with a certain 
amount of uncertainty and within limits should not be used to undermine 
important distinctions.

Case said:
People in this discussion group are not driven by reason or evidence...

dmb says:
Sadly, that's all too true. And, in that respect, this forum is just like 
the rest of the world.

Case continued:
...If they were we would have nothing to disagree about. We all have our 
private world views; our reinforcement histories, and we cling to our 
favorite ways of thinking about things as much from faith and habit as from 
reason. Reason is a tool for rationalizing our prejudices.

dmb says:
Well, here you seem to be continuing an attack against the assertion that 
reason can produce universal agreement and that people are purely rational 
creatures. As far as I know, this is an assertion that nobody made. I 
certainly didn't. I'm not even trying to assert reason over faith so much as 
evidence over the lack of evidence with respect to any kind of belief - 
mathematical or spiritual or emotional or aesthetic or anything else. Sure, 
the modern rational mind is where things like logic and evidence begin take 
on value for us, but I should like to think our debate is taking place some 
time within the last few hundred years.

Case said:
What I have said several times in the past is that I am willing to take a 
leap of faith and embrace materialism and reason. This seems more of a hop 
over a mud puddle than a drive into an abyss. I share your distain for 
"faith in dogma" but I will not pile up words trying to put a rational face 
on an irrational act.

dmb says:
I guess you're trying to get at "the church of reason" and "ghost of 
rationality" stuff we find in ZAMM. But I gotta tell you, it makes you look 
an awful lot like a Creationist trying to undermine evolution by saying its 
"just a theory". It looks like you're warming up to the next move, to put 
myth and science on the same level. I mean, why does it take a leap of faith 
to accept materialism and reason? Don't we like materialism and reason 
because they work to explain things, predict things, invent things and all 
that. If we drop the impossible idea that science or reason or evidence can 
be absolute or perfectly complete, then the superiority of "reason" over 
"faith" has to be one of the easiest call in the world.

Case said:
I don't think that Pirsig is anti-theistic at all. In fact he spends most of 
his time talking about western philosophy because they are the opponents 
that would have anything at all to say about his views.

"Of the two kinds of hostility to metaphysics he considered the mystics'
hostility the more formidable. Mystics will tell you that once you've opened
the door to metaphysics you can say goodbye to any genuine understanding of
reality. Thought is not a path to reality."

He does not deny this. He can't.

"Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition,
ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior
to intellectual abstractions."

dmb says:
Well, first of all Pirsig himself says explicitly that the MOQ is 
anti-theistic and views faith as very low quality in terms of belief. 
Secondly, you've mistaken these Pirsig quotes as supporting theism when in 
fact they are in support of philosophical mysticism, which is not theistic. 
Notice the phrase "Quality is a direct experience". That little phrase 
speaks volumes. Unlike theistic religions, the MOQ does not assert the 
existence of a supernatural creator or a divine personality beyond human 
experience. In fact, the MOQ equates reality with experience and asserts no 
reality beyond experience. There is no absolute reality, no Kantian thing in 
itself, no God. The divine is known in experience. So what I mean to say is 
that yes, the MOQ's attempt to expand rationality and expand the notion of 
what constitutes valid empirical evidence is aimed at broadening our 
perspective enough admit mystical experience into the picture. But this is 
definately not Pirsig trying to sneak God in through the back door, a move 
he finds objectionable. This expansion is not supposed to be so broad as to 
admit unsupported beliefs or to give faith and the scientific method the 
same weight or value.

Case said:
I am saying that you and Peter and I hold unsupported beliefs. The belief 
that belief requires support, for example. We all hold unsupported or 
unsupportable beliefs. What makes sense to me is to figure out which ones 
they are and be honest about why we believe them.

dmb says:
Yea, I think honesty has everything to do with this issue. I guess I believe 
that the belief that beliefs are better when they have support is supported 
by more than mere belief. Ha! Try to untangle that one! Seriously. Don't you 
think the superority of supported beliefs is demonstrated every day of the 
week? Don't you think their validity is proven constantly in experience? I 
mean, an example would be a lot more convincing if you could come up with an 
"unsupported" belief that isn't so obviously, fabulously successful. As far 
as unsupported beliefs go, that one has to be near the bottom of the list, 
right down there with tomorrow's sunrise.

dmb asked:
By the way, Case, are you a religious person?

Case didn't answer:
How is that relevant?

dmb says:
Well, I don't know how closely you've been following current events for that 
last few decades, but there is a movement afoot. There is a 
sociological/culture phenomenon occuring at present which can be 
charcterized as faith-based and anti-intellectual. These reactionary forces 
have been hard at work in trying to undermine scientific truths in favor of 
faith-based believes. I asked if you are a religious person because this 
movement is largely motivated by their religious beliefs and your arguments 
very closely resemble theirs. So, I'd say its extemely relevant to our 
discussion of the meaning of the word "faith". Even if you have no intention 
of lending support to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson, that is 
the effect. They want people to believe that science is merely a rival faith 
too. I think religious beliefs are more than relevant to the problem. I 
think they ARE the problem.

Thanks.

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