[MD] Faith

[Case]

Gene said to Ian:
I would readily agree that science is a much better structure than religion.

The point I am trying to make is that they are both based on Faith.

dmb quotes from Pirsig's annotations on Copleston...

[Case]
So are we now the Church of the SubGenious? This is what Bob says... Sheesh,
cut me some SLACK.

Pirsig seems to be reacting, as you suggest, to the dogmatic connotations of
"faith." I have tried to make it clear that this is not the sense I have
used the term. BUT since it is the word itself that bothers you I have
offered up "Trust" to make you happy. Faith and Trust are closely related
terms that describe attitudes towards uncertainty.

I like the word Faith because using it in the sense I have tried to use it
pisses of the "faithful" even more than it has pissed off you. It
acknowledges the underlying uncertain, read illusory, nature of existence.
It points to the common origin of both religious and scientific attitudes.
When you admit that you have taken a leap of faith you can discuss how far
one should be willing to jump. You can compare the 'betterness' of one over
the other in terms of how much irrationality you can tolerate.

But this argument, at least from my end, has been reduced to analysis of the
connotation of meaning. I am ready to move along.

[dmb]
I mean, despite the fact that the MOQ is pragmatic and empirical, it can
still manage to include mysticism.

[Case]
Isn't throwing out theism and retaining mysticism a bit like trying to be a
little bit pregnant? Aren't theism, mysticism and science all in responses
to uncertainty? They are attempts to contain it; to minimize its negative
effects or maximize its positive effects. Mysticism urges acceptance of
uncertainty either through elimination of desire or identification with the
infinite. Theism urges acceptance of the will of God. Science urges
reduction of uncertainty through improvement of our powers to predict and
control.

We can argue about which is most effective but would you agree that this is
what is happening?

Here is one of my favorite examples:
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/

The way I heard the legend, B.F. Skinner was conducting a series of
experiments and wanted to leave the equipment on over night. When he got
back to the lab the next morning he found that the equipment had
malfunctioned but the results where so interesting that he pursued them and
published the paper above in 1947.

Basically it shows that given periodic reinforcement regardless of their
behavior, pigeons adopt ritualistic responses.

This example used a fixed time schedule of reinforcement to produce the
ritual behavior. I had not looked at this in a long time and am really
disappointed to see that there does not seem to have been much follow-up
research in this area. For example, I could not find anything on
superstitious behavior being produced by noncontingent random schedules. But
you can see a lot of it informally if you visit Vegas.