Finding, Making and Killing time

By Oskar

Time is a fascinating and often incomprehensible thing. Our everyday lives are defined by it, our language almost treats it as a physical entity. We find it, we waste it, we make it, we take it, have it, we even kill it. Despite its extreme relevance to our ordinary functioning as humans, we often don’t take the time (I couldn’t think of a better way of saying this) to consider exactly what it is, what it is doing and how we know it is doing it.

In the studies of geology, evolutionary biology and astronomy, time is often referred to a ‘deep’, (a wonderful example of of metaphor in science if I have ever heard one). This term is attempting to come to grips with the shear magnitude of the time we have found to exist. Our seemingly important lives are less than a single atom in the ‘ocean of time’. We give it numbers in this context. Billions of years. In reality I doubt very many people are able to appreciate the significance of this. A billion years is not something our brains were evolved to understand (I am constantly troubled by the fact that I contemplate such weighty topics with a brain that is essentially a really good food detector).

James Hutton (arguably the first modern geologist) said: “…there is not vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.” He was criticized, as he was thought to be implying that time was infinite, but my interpretation is that (like any good scientist) he simply didn’t know about such philosophical matters . He simply knew that time (and by extension Earth processes) was old beyond human reckoning.

Of course, when you move away from such physical sciences and into the realm of physics (ironic really), time becomes a whole lot messier. Some would say that time itself does not exist, that what we experience as time is really just our experience of change. To others time is a dimension, a strange one, unlike the spatial dimensions we are able to sense. It goes in only one direction, it cannot be turned on and off, or shaped by human intervention.

I hope I have given you something to think about, this article is by no means and end to itself, but more of a stimulus for discussion. Please comment if you feel you have something to contribute, but even if you don’t,  think twice next time you look at your watch.

Time is an amazing phenomenon, it still strikes me as strange that people are so intent on creating new mystery, replacing their world with imagined ones in an attempt to ‘bring back wonder’ that they claim has been taken by our modern understanding of the world. In reality, their creations could never exceed the wonder and mystery that is our own, rationally revealed world.

That last paragraph was a bit of a personal cause, it can be ignored if you wish.

Is Faith Rational?

By Oskar

I recently attended a joint discussion event between the Secular Society and Christian Union at Uni, the topic: Is faith rational? I will give an overview of the event and a critique of the arguments put forward by both sides of the debate.

The forum involved a speaker representing the views of each of the societies giving a 15 minute talk on the matter, after which they each had the opportunity to spend a short time rebutting the other’s arguments. This was followed by a less formal question and answer session with the two speakers, in which attendees could ask of the speakers any questions they they felt relevant. Speaking for the Secular Society was Ian Robinson, president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, while Danny Saunders from Ridley Melbourne Mission and Ministry College spoke for the Christian Union.

Ian began his talk by providing some definitions of both faith and rationality, claiming that faith is the belief in something that has no base in proof and that something is rational if it agrees with the laws of logic. He made it clear that he was disagreeing with the rationality of Christian faith in particular, as he had inferred from the nature of the groups participating that this was to be the main issue of contention. He went on to differentiate between faith in a particular deity over others, which had existed in the Christian sense for around 2,000 years, and faith in the existence of a deity at all, which is a far more recent; beginning in earnest in the 19th century (before which it was taken as a given that some deity existed). Suggesting that we need only prove the latter to be irrational, as the former relies on it, Ian argued that the premises on which Christian faith is based on did not fit the criteria of rationality he had initially set. He did not go into the specifics of why he believes the premises of Christianity are not rational, as he assumed that we, an audience of Christians and secularists would be familiar with these arguments. He rounded off by appealing to anyone who had found his arguments convincing to act on them by joining either the Secular Society or the Australian Rationalists.

Danny began by re-defining faith and rationality. His definition of faith was essentially the same as Ian’s, while he gave rationality a more probabilistic meaning (though he didn’t contradict Ian’s definition), claiming that it was rational to assume the most likely outcome. He gave the analogy of our thoughts when boarding an aeroplane (one that would resurface repeatedly during the question and answer session); when we board a plane, we make assumptions that the equipment is sound, the pilot qualified and that it will get us where we want to go. We are making a leap of faith, trusting the airline to have checked all these for us. In short, we are basing our our reasonable, rational predictions on the likely, though not completely certain, event that the plane trip will be a success. Having shown this kind of faith to be rational, he argued that rational faith extended to faith in Christianity. He cited many historical accounts that he considered to stack up and provide a greater probability that the events depicted in the bible were true than untrue, focusing specifically on the resurrection of Jesus. He rounded off by making the somewhat controversial statement that Christianity was not about being good, but recognising that you are bad. He invited anyone who wanted to participate in a discussion about why there is evil in the world if God could prevent it.

Ian’s rebuttal consisted largely of disagreeing with the validity of Danny’s historical sources. He claimed that neither rapid spread and longevity, nor personal accounts from the past were  satisfactory as evidence for the truth of an idea. He concluded with the amusing, though not entirely relevant fact that if Jesus had begun his ascension from the Earth 2000 years ago and traveled at the speed of light, then he would not yet have cleared the milky way.

Danny’s Rebuttal was mostly a restatement of  arguments form his original talk, though he also made claims about the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection in the form of questioning the reasons for the apostles’ commitment after Jesus’ death, particularly if as he seemed to think was being claimed, the apostles ‘made up’ the story of Jesus’ resurrection. Finally he made the claim that while science can deal objectively with the questions of the observable world, it is up to religion do deal with epistemological questions.

The question and answer time had a continuation of arguments for and against the validity of the claimed proof of Jesus’ resurrection. Questions addressed to Danny included how he took into account conflicting historical testaments such as the Koran, while Ian was questioned as to why the message of Christianity could have spread so quickly in its early years if the accounts of witnesses to the resurrection were false. At some stage the discussion turned from being strictly relevant to the debate to being a more general discussion about why the two speakers maintained their beliefs.

I found Ian’s talk to be sensible and logical. My main criticism of it is that he concentrated more closely on Christianity than faith in general terms, while the discussion topic did not specify Christian faith. I also feel that he could have given more time to detail some of the specific arguments for Christian doctrine not being rational, even one example would have proven that he was not assuming he was right before he began considering the logic. The assumption he made about our knowledge of the arguments would have been fine if he had been speaking to an all-secular audience, but because he was speaking to, and trying to persuade, Christians, he needed to understand that some of his audience would have different takes on the lack of evidence, so need to have his point of view demonstrated to them.

Danny’s talk began well for me, the first argument he constructed was well presented and thought out. It was the one argument in the discussion that I think really addressed the topic. I am referring to the argument about it being rational to accept something with overwhelming evidence, but never being able to say with certainty whether something is true or not. In this way, I agree with him that it is both rational and necessary to make some faith assumptions to get by in life. They protect us from absolute uncertainty, which, while philosophically justifiable does not make for a good strategy for getting along with your life when you are not being pedantically intellectual. This argument, however, is where our agreements end. I did not find any of his historical arguments compelling or believable and found his ignorance of rational philosophy as a tool of answering epistemological questions particularly annoying. How can religion be used to answer the questions “Is there a god?” or “Why is there a god?”?

So there you have it, my take on an interesting discussion between some interesting people. What do you think? Please critique the original speakers arguments, my own and add any new ones you feel are relevant.

Comments on the Supernatural

By Oskar

After around twenty failed attempts to write articles for this blog, I have decided to compile a series of my better paragraphs that can be understood alone, but I feel lend strength to one and other. Most of them are comments on the debate over the existance of the supernatural that has been continually re-raised by Reuben. While I am on that topic, I should mention that I think we should change our sub-heading, as little actual thinking seems to be going on on either side of said debate. This, I feel is a hypocritical situation, given that most of our contributions come from Reuben, supposed champion against political rhetoric. I also feel it is a bit condescending, I personally do not feel qualified to teach anyone as a superior and am equally open to and expectant of, learning from my discussions with those critical of my thoughts.

Essentially what has been repeatedly said during our discussions is that some of us think we know what we currently can’t know , while others think we don’t know what we currently can’t know (thought I’d better express it in clear English). I put myself in the latter category because I make an initial assumption that, while it is impossible to confirm something (with the possible exclusion of some mathematics [I'm up for debate on this]), we should include the most probable scenario, based on our observations of the world, as part of our working model. While this assumption is unfounded, it removes the need to assume a host of other things, so I’m going to stick with it.

Simply claiming that there are things we don’t know is a perfectly valid, even a constructive, thing to do. Claiming, on the other hand, that YOU know what others don’t, should only be done when you have some kind of evidence that makes the probability of your thoughts outweigh the probability of existing thoughts. This is not always a clear cut case, but the most dramatic shifts in our thinking are often accompanied by clear cut changes in evidence.

Claiming that things exist “beyond the material world”, is something that is difficult to substantiate with evidence (keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming article I am writing about how this might even be a paradoxical claim). The person who has come closest to the mark in doing this is, in my opinion, Plato. With this in mind I would like to suggest that any attempts to make this claim could be substantiated by speculative philosophy (still, no philosopher has really gone beyond Plato, in this respect, in the past 2400 years, so good luck with that).

I believe both sides of this argument have made repeated reference to some kind of Darwinian evolution as evidence. I feel this is quite out of place, as that is not a debate on how present biodiversity has occurred, but on the existance or lack of, of the supernatural. This is a common mistake in debates on the existence of a god, because it is often used as evidence against a literal interpretation of the bible, but it is quite removed from the supernatural debate (evolution would not be disproved if the animals being selected for and against had souls or experienced reincarnation, or if they coexisted with any number of supernatural beings). This is accepted by most theists as well and groups such as the Vatican and the church of England have made it clear that they are no longer in conflict with evolutionists.

At one stage during the heated debate in the previous post, Sanders said “we have never seen an ape change into a human”. Indeed this is true in both its literal meaning, and the meaning I believe it is clear he was intending it to have. Like all things in science, we cannot actually prove that Darwinian evolution occurs. There is certainly a very high probability of this being the way biodiversity has occurred, given current evidence, but we have no confirmation that new evidence will not arise. Like our judicial system, we must base what we accept as our reality on evidence we have available to us that proves something ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.

I feel that another point that has repeatedly been causing confusion in these discussions is the idea that logic and evidence will always agree. I believe (and history has shown) that this is not always the case. If I was to base an argument on my own assumptions, I would say that logic is, at least in part. based on our observations (in everyday situations). If we come across a non-everyday situation, the evidence we encounter may not follow our logic. Quantum undeterminism springs to mind as an example. On the other hand, logically applied reason can extend beyond our current evidence based theories and provide answers to questions yet to be evidentially confirmed, or even tried. A successful example of this is the other pillar of modern physics, Einstein’s relativity. A less successful example of applied logic is Xeno’s paradox (I know the paradox is actually based on flawed logic, but I have included it anyway because we do make wrong assumptions in our logical reasoning sometimes).

It should be noted that in the above paragraph I have used the word logic to mean something probably closer to common sense than some definitions of logic.

So there you have it.  A collection of my thoughts on the supernatural and our debate about it. Please debate, disregard, disprove, reinforce and force me to modify them as you like.

Oskar

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.