Bertrand’s teapot

Personally, I'm inclined to think a teapot God would be accompanied by an unusual capsicum halve...

Agnostics and believers alike tend to argue that there’s no way of proving god’s existence or lack of existence. That’s true enough, in the absence of deductive reasoning that would argue against their being a god. But why can’t we use reason to argue against this celestial dictator called God? I’ll save that discussion for later, but right now I’d like to bring to your attention, Russell Bertrand’s teapot analogy where he compares the notion of the existence of god to a harmless teapot. He wrote (back in the early 20th century):

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Logically, I think this analogy works. Dawkins agrees:

The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell’s teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don’t exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don’t stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don’t warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don’t kneecap those who put the tea in first.

What do you think? Is the celestial teapot analogy a good one?

The analogous relationship of politics and religion

I’ve consistently said that religion and politics are perfectly analogous. Nat and Kath disagree. I’m not sure about Oskar…though I’m sure he’d disagree with me just for the fun of it.

But what of this analogy? Well, according to Nat (who believes in Determinism…which states that our ideas and opinions are dependent on our environment and our experiences – so therefore we can’t be blamed for our values), this is all a bunch of bollocks. And besides, religion doesn’t cause externalities so we shouldn’t bother with ‘em. Leave those bible bashers in peace! But I beg to differ.

Firstly, let’s put aside the determinist ideas espoused by Nat (and Kath…but purely for convenience sake I suspect). It’s a grey area that’s undergoing immense debate (and will be posted on shortly, we hope). Here are the strong similarities of religion and politics:

• Religion and politics both form a basis for one’s own opinions on any variety of subjects. Euthanasia – for example – is a topic that usually results in some sort of moral high ground being claimed. In such a debate, someone else’s politics and religious identity becomes quite clear. Religion is often intertwined with other issues. To say there are no externalities that exist with personal faith is either blissfully ignorant or disingenuous.
• Politics and religion both dictate our way of life. Religion is more direct, with commandments such as “you mustn’t eat pork” whilst politics is more indirect…but still plays a major role. Vegetarianism – more often than not – is a political statement as one example.
• There are many political parties based on religion. The Christian Democrat Party and Family First are two examples I can think of off the top of my head. There are also plenty of theocracies in the world – I’m thinking Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel (though Israel is certainly the most democratic of all the theocracies) and the Vatican.
• Religion is often associated with conflict. Think of the Israeli/Palestinian Crisis, the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and the Indian/Pakistani animosity as classic examples. Obviously religion isn’t the sole factor in such bloodshed, but I think you’ll find it plays a significant role. The Hamas dogma explicitly calls for the destruction of all Jews. Within Israel, the most critical factor in the segregationist social paradigm is religion – except in Haifa, a city in Northern Israel. Does anyone seriously think these conflicts would be just as intense if we removed religion as a factor?
• Atheism, as an ideology, is antagonistic to the Abrahamic religions in close similarity to the way The Greens are antagonistic to the Liberal party. Their ideologies have very few, if any, similarities. Atheism states ‘there is almost certainly no god and religion is stupid dogma’ whereas the Abrahamic religions state ‘there is a divine tyrant in the cosmos that will wreak vengeance against sinners’. The Liberal party would demand that we ‘lower taxes for corporations and free up land in the outer suburbs for urban sprawl’, whereas The Greens would want to ‘curb urban sprawl and place greater taxes on housing to account for other costs’. The interplay betwen these various ideas is quite parallel and analogous.
  

  To say their dress code isn't due to a pious belief is inaccurate...

The logic of numbers, predisposed empiricism and the unreasonable accuracy of predictive modeling.

By Oskar (Osark, Sarko).
With a title like that, I don’t think I really need an article. I’ve got one nonetheless.
Before I get into the rather wordy topic I’m writing on, I’ll give a bit of info on myself to give you an idea of where I’m coming from and what to expect of me.
I was brought up without any religious instruction, both my parents and grandparents holding little stake in ‘muttering to the sky for help’. I like to think I have a slightly more complicated reason for my lack of faith. At the age of 10 I sat a test that put me in the 96th percentile for ‘non verbal reasoning’, but scored zero in ‘creative writing’ because I couldn’t think of anything to write. In high school I started a philosophy club which both Nat and Reuben were members of at one point or another. I am about to embark on a Bachelor of Science majoring in physics at The University of Melbourne. I am fairly calm unless arguing with Reuben, who I became friends with after a campaign of disagreeing with everything he said on his blog. I can’t spell the way normal people can.

So, the logic of numbers. Why is one one? How did we arrive at the values we have? Are they innate or do we learn them?
Well, tests on developing children reveal that there is a minimum age at which brain activity varies when shown different numbers of the same object. This makes me think that we arrive at the concept of numbers after we are born. It is possible that if the need to process and conceive numbers was not present in our developing environment then we wouldn’t be able learn them later in life.
This is certainly the case with language; it has been so far impossible to teach a child who had no linguistic stimulation before the age of twelve any more than the level of word-object association that can be taught to dogs, chimps and birds.
Perhaps it is not possible to not encounter numbers in the world in which we live, while it is certainly possible not to encounter language.
I would suggest that we encounter the world and tailor our logical systems (such as our numbers and our manipulation of them) to fit our needs in the reality we experience. This said, I certainly think we are predisposed to many of our mental and behavioral processes. Take the example of the hour for instance (numeracy). Chimps have been shown to be quite proficient at counting things rapidly and those that have been trained can do so much faster and more effectively than the average human. They are also able to add numbers quite well, but when faced with any other mathematical manipulative function (subtraction, multiplication…) they are unable to comprehend. This is probably due to their inability to hold abstract concepts, something that seems inherent in humans. In this way, I think we are applying our inherent tendencies, our built in ‘toolbox’ so to speak, to our environmental stimulus and so arriving at our thought and behavioral processes.

It has been said that mathematics shows an ‘unreasonable’ accuracy when describing the world. I believe this further supports my case for learned numbers, as a number logic based around what we observe would be expected to be closer to the observed world.

Not as controversial as some of the other articles, but please, discuss.

Tenuous Justification

By Reuben.

Kath says:

He [Jesus] challenged the hard and fast religious rules of the Pharisees, the leaders of the predominant religion (Judaism) of the time. He showed that the interpretation of God’s words could indeed be subjective.

Let’s skip over the irony of having a subjective book (the bible) preaching the subjective messages of an invisible dictator (‘God’), for an audience whose subjective views espoused off the subjective book are so incredibly diverse, it makes the book seem almost useless as a guide to one’s life.
Nay…that was a cheap shot; the operative term of the above quote is “challenged”. Yes…a tasty word, ‘challenged’. Other great words are ‘test’, ‘counter-intuitive’ and ‘doubt’ – and what does this all add up to?

The erosion of faith.

“But no!” shriek religious people, “I constantly test my faith” and “Faith unquestioned, is dogma, it is not real.” Good. I’m glad that believers challenge their faith. But how do they do this? In the face of tangible evidence – or no evidence – ‘faith’ is immediately dissolved. Theologians never tire of pointing out that the whole point of ‘faith’ is to ignore rationality and evidence for a bit whilst we get out our biblical texts and start praying. But then how do they question this faith if not through evidence or rationality?

Enter argumentum ad ignorantiam, guns blazing. If you repeat an idea (e.g. resurrection is possible) long enough to an audience (particularly a susceptible one, like children), they will – in all possibly – believe it. Unfortunately, argumentum ad ignorantiam is a logic fallacy and so, in the eyes of religion, to be shunned. Fortunately, most people re-energise their logic and rationality outside religious settings – possibly why the argumentum ad ignorantiam is employed so readily by the Department of Transport (the DOT). The DOT claim that our rail lines are at capacity, yet when one manages – somehow – to unearth the 1960’s engineering reports regarding the City Loop that show that they’re only a bit more than 50% at capacity with the current timetable, you know the government’s claims are fallacious to the extreme (extreme in the sense that the government – both federal and state – are ready to spend big on a project based on a so-called analysis that excludes the said reports). Shout, inculcate and bombard someone with an idea for long enough and eventually people just accept it. Fortunately in the last example I gave, we have people like Paul Mees reminding us of erroneous government claims; that’s to be expected in politics. The same can’t be said of religion.

The Doctor shouts at a Dalek in the vain hope that it'll just bugger off back to Skaro and leave his precious London alone.

So, now that I’ve gotten that idea out of the way, I pose this question to religious people: What epistemological reasoning do you employ to justify your faith?

Discuss.

Know Thy Enemy: Fundamentalism

(Nathaniel writes:)

There is a powerful and dangerous idea among the ‘elite’, scientific intellectuals. It is by no means a new idea, having been around for quite a long while, and it is this: That most (or all) of the problems in the world have been caused by religion – or superstitious beliefs – in one form or another.

That’s the great thing about prejudice, isn’t it? You can form great judgments without first getting all of the facts. As we shall soon discover, getting all the facts is a very difficult process – some might say impossible – and that’s why certain individuals find prejudiced ideas so useful.

We know of countless wars that have been waged in the name of one religion or another. According to history – which is not in itself completely infallible – these wars happen all the time. According to the news, these wars are happening right now. You can be sure they’ll continue to happen in the future.

Now, here’s the problem as it affects our society. Religion and philosophy, despite making great advances in our time, cannot possibly keep up with the scientific revelations that occur every decade. They are simply no longer fashionable – in our culture, the things that move the fastest survive, and science most certainly moves the fastest.

Science is valuable. There are tangible benefits to supporting science. My enmity is not reserved for science, though – in and of itself I have no problems with science or its advancements. I’m weary of science, I’m paranoid of science, but I bear it no immediate ill will.

I bear fundamentalism ill will. Alas, most scientists these days are also powerful fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is, as I define it, the holding on to ideas until it serves to actually hamper intellectual growth. When a new, better idea is developed, the fundamentalist spits on it and cries heresy.

As most people around here know, I’m a self-professed magician. Not a stage magician, mind you, but someone who believer’s an individual’s will can strongly affect reality. This is, to most, crazy-talk; it’s up there with UFOlogy and ESP-research to most men of science. It simply does not warrant investigation.

That’s a problem. Not the fact that they don’t believe I’m right – that’s a normal, expected reaction – but that they’re not prepared to test that theory out. “It’s impossible!” they cry, when I talk to them of witchcraft and the latent psychic abilities within the individual human being.

Science does not work that way. Science understands that the laws it establishes are not really eternal, unbreakable laws: they cannot be absolute ideas, in a Platonic sense, because certain absolute ideas since that time have already been broken. We do not accumulate scientific theories until we have collected them all and reach enlightenment about everything in the universe; we collect and revise, add the good and subtract the bad.

To claim something is impossible is a powerful statement to make. In order to make it, you have to show that you know everything that is and is not possible. This is illogical. In a time where our understanding of the world is being shaken every decade, to say that we know everything is a monumentally stupid thing to say. If science, our dear friend, has proven anything, it is this: that nothing can be considered entirely impossible.

“Ah,” but some men of science will reply, “But magic and ESP and UFOlogy and paranormal events defy common sense!”

It’s often said that common sense is not all that common. There is a damn good reason for this. It is detrimental to the evolution of mankind as a whole. Still, common sense is a little too common among the intellectual elite for my liking.

Common sense is not what we need: what we need is a healthy agnosticism towards everything in this world. A weary, sceptical approach is prime – not the immediate shutting-down of all new ideas, not this common sense. Einstein’s theories attacked the common sense of physicists at that time; Galileo’s astronomical findings attacked the common sense of those who knew that the Earth wasn’t moving; Darwin’s theories of evolution attacked the common sense of those who knew they weren’t primates.

As it has also been pointed out numerous times before, common sense and logic are not purely objective things. How could they be? There is no ‘true’ objectivism; at least, not as true as we would like to think. While there may be objective truths, the problem is that when they are deciphered by an individual the individual’s subjective thoughts get in the way.

This is called a reality-tunnel; our sphere of beliefs. Reality-tunnels, in and of themselves, are fine – but we have to understand that there will always be more to the world than to what our reality tunnel tells us. Our paradigms should be used until they are useless, in which case a better model should be found.

Ultimately, every individual’s reality-tunnel is flawed. Our beliefs are always going to be influenced by (a) the beliefs of those around us and (b) our previous beliefs. Let’s look at a typical Marxist socialist, for example. A typical Marxist shows typical rage towards those who do not agree with their ideals – capitalists, in other words. Any who do not support their cause are evil scum, and should be destroyed.

However, a Marxist also has to somehow come to terms with the belief, eschewed by Marx himself, of economic determinism; that capitalism will fall, communism (or socialism) will rise, and we will enter a utopia world. Every man and woman has his place – either as a capitalist or a revolutionary – but it ultimately doesn’t matter, because socialism will win in the end.

Ultimately: it’s not the fault of the capitalists. It is their place to fall – someone has to do it! The two ideas would clash within the reality-tunnel of an established Marxist more than they would realise, I should think, at least subconsciously. The Marxist sphere of belief is flawed.

There’s a reason we do not talk about truth in things such as mathematics, the ‘pure’ science: we talk about validity. How valid is this idea, now? It may not be true, but it can most certainly be valid for our purposes, and in this case mathematics got things right.

After all, there’s more than one type of self-consistent algebra and more than one type of geometry. We use the different types as we need to. One type is only better than the other in that it is more useful – not, as some would believe, because it is more right. All of them are wrong.

We’re quite honestly working with dodgy models of thought that only work in certain situations, and we have the nerve to cheerfully proclaim what ‘is’ and what ‘is not’? They’re useful, yes, but the idea that they are right is a powerful misconception. There are no eternal truths that we know of – there is no pure reason.

We see something occur, some event in space-time, and some (but not all) of that energy hits us. We process the energy, and then the neurological processes subtract and add things to what we ‘saw’. The important thing is that we could not possibly have experienced the entire event, so how can we fully judge it?

“This is an apple” then equals the much more correct “this seems like an apple to me”. Now, if we all had reasoning like that – if we all had the gall to admit that our spheres of thought may be incorrect – how many atrocities would have occurred this century?

Hitler: “The Jews are evil filth” sounds a lot worse than “the Jewish people seem like evil filth to me”. Bush: “The war in Iraq is fully justified” would be much better as “the war in Iraq seems fully justified to me”.

Religion doesn’t cause all the wars and terror in this world – neither does science. A greater, darker force – a force that encompasses the two of them – is the problem humanity needs to overcome before things get better. Sheer-minded fundamentalism is the enemy. Since we cannot possibly get all of the facts, we must admit that we’re all prejudiced in one way or another; but come on, can’t we just admit that?

Thoughts?

Guess the word

Trawling through the older blog posts over at GrodsCorp, I stumbled upon this quote by a certain conservative (and racist) commentator:

The problem is, all ##### are supporters of Saddam and love terrorism, and hate the Jews, who are the moist wonderful people in this, our earth.

Can you guess the missing word?

PS: Happy New ‘Ear. All the best from us here at Non-Linear Thinking.