You speak of putting your trust in “a guru and a bunch of other people” as if it’s somehow utterly opposed to the alternative of independently verifying particle physics. That would be the case if we were limited to science alone, forced to explicitly test each and every hypothesis in a controlled way. No, I have not conducted independent, replicated studies with p < 0.05 that verify that the scientific consensus is a reasonably accurate picture of reality.
But, as a rationalist—looking at all evidence, not just the clean, isolated stuff that comes through science—I can make some inferences. If the scientific consensus were, in a significant way, more incorrect than correct, there would be signs, something that would be different in a world-with-correct-consensus. For example, in a world-with-correct-consensus, people would be able to use the fruits of that consensus to design techniques which used the laws they discovered to do more than they could do with their bodies alone. They might build devices which use these principles, which would simply not function if they were untrue.
Further, a world-with-incorrect-consensus would almost certainly have to contain a great conspiracy, to conceal either a hidden truth or a near-universal incompetence. Such a thing is improbable enough that it is reasonable to shift belief towards physics—yes, I personally might not have strong direct evidence for it, but I have reasonably strong evidence (my limited knowledge of human nature judges the probability of a super-conspiracy to be very small) that the evidence which I have received from others is good.
The leprechaun fellow, however, is in a different boat. The world-with-leprechauns would look different from a world-without-leprechauns; there might be photographic documentation that is verifiably unaltered, or consistent reports of lucky Irishmen finding pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. We do not live in such a world; to believe that we do requires one to ignore, rather than use, the evidence available.
Yes, ultimately we do rest on something other than evidence; everybody must have some first principles to go off of. But if your first principle is also your conclusion—“leprechauns exist; that is my belief”—it is a very different, far more useless thing than a first principle which actually gives you tools to deal with the world, such as “things tend to happen, all other things being equal, as they have happened before”. To equate the two would be much the same as the stuff required to maintain a scientific conspiracy: denial of a known truth, or denial of tragic incompetence.
Having processed this a little more, I want to address some a couple of your implicit questions:
Q: Would you prefer to have faith in a guru and a community of likeminded people, or is it better to have faith in leprechauns?
A: I would prefer neither. My belief is that it is optimal to have faith in what you can determine to be true at the most fundamental level you are capable, and have openness to updating your opinion as you search for truth at a more and more fundamental level.
Q: If you must choose between leprechauns and gurus/communities, isn’t it much more sane to choose gurus/communities?
A: This question is a red herring. The reason is that its not the real choice anyone reading this would be making.
You have chosen an example of faith that is obviously absurd and blind to attribute to me, so that you could make an argument to defeat me and win all in the same comment.
Actually, the point of my response was to illustrate that to say “all of these things are faith” is an incorrectly simplifying assumption. I did deliberately choose an absurd example of faith, not to attribute it to you, but to show the difference between one thing which you did explicitly claim is faith—trust in people—and another thing which would have to be an example of blind faith—belief in leprechauns. If you acknowledge that there is a real difference between the two, it would seem that I have misinterpreted your thesis.
Yes. I do see a huge difference between appropriate faith and blind faith.
It is my opinion that everyone functions based on faith far more than we acknowledge. That much of what we believe we have evidence for is actually based on quite flimsy chains of reasoning, that have lower and lower probability of being true with each subsequent link from the evidence we are supposedly basing the chains on.
It is also my opinion that this is pretty much unavoidable in order to function in the world, and that you pretty much have to function on a faith based system. Even a scientist who understands things at a fundamental level in one area is still probably accepting the world as she knows it based on faith in the majority of cases in her life.
So, it is my opinion that a key first step in being rational is to acknowledge that you have a faith based system, and then to optimize that system based on the acknowledged reality of what it actually is.
Please let me know if what I just wrote makes sense to you. If it does, perhaps this comment might be good as a start for making a second attempt at communication—I think I articulated what I was trying to say better here than before.
“putting your trust in “a guru and a bunch of other people” ”
Is a form of faith.
All of the rest of your comment is all arguing with assumptions you have made about what I am saying and thinking regarding conclusions you drew on my behalf.
I am not going to try to dig into what you say here to respond. However, if you want to ask me a couple of simple questions about what I actually do believe, to clarify about whether we are actually in agreement or disagreement, I am happy to answer.
You speak of putting your trust in “a guru and a bunch of other people” as if it’s somehow utterly opposed to the alternative of independently verifying particle physics. That would be the case if we were limited to science alone, forced to explicitly test each and every hypothesis in a controlled way. No, I have not conducted independent, replicated studies with p < 0.05 that verify that the scientific consensus is a reasonably accurate picture of reality.
But, as a rationalist—looking at all evidence, not just the clean, isolated stuff that comes through science—I can make some inferences. If the scientific consensus were, in a significant way, more incorrect than correct, there would be signs, something that would be different in a world-with-correct-consensus. For example, in a world-with-correct-consensus, people would be able to use the fruits of that consensus to design techniques which used the laws they discovered to do more than they could do with their bodies alone. They might build devices which use these principles, which would simply not function if they were untrue.
Further, a world-with-incorrect-consensus would almost certainly have to contain a great conspiracy, to conceal either a hidden truth or a near-universal incompetence. Such a thing is improbable enough that it is reasonable to shift belief towards physics—yes, I personally might not have strong direct evidence for it, but I have reasonably strong evidence (my limited knowledge of human nature judges the probability of a super-conspiracy to be very small) that the evidence which I have received from others is good.
The leprechaun fellow, however, is in a different boat. The world-with-leprechauns would look different from a world-without-leprechauns; there might be photographic documentation that is verifiably unaltered, or consistent reports of lucky Irishmen finding pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. We do not live in such a world; to believe that we do requires one to ignore, rather than use, the evidence available.
Yes, ultimately we do rest on something other than evidence; everybody must have some first principles to go off of. But if your first principle is also your conclusion—“leprechauns exist; that is my belief”—it is a very different, far more useless thing than a first principle which actually gives you tools to deal with the world, such as “things tend to happen, all other things being equal, as they have happened before”. To equate the two would be much the same as the stuff required to maintain a scientific conspiracy: denial of a known truth, or denial of tragic incompetence.
Having processed this a little more, I want to address some a couple of your implicit questions:
Q: Would you prefer to have faith in a guru and a community of likeminded people, or is it better to have faith in leprechauns?
A: I would prefer neither. My belief is that it is optimal to have faith in what you can determine to be true at the most fundamental level you are capable, and have openness to updating your opinion as you search for truth at a more and more fundamental level.
Q: If you must choose between leprechauns and gurus/communities, isn’t it much more sane to choose gurus/communities?
A: This question is a red herring. The reason is that its not the real choice anyone reading this would be making.
You have chosen an example of faith that is obviously absurd and blind to attribute to me, so that you could make an argument to defeat me and win all in the same comment.
Actually, the point of my response was to illustrate that to say “all of these things are faith” is an incorrectly simplifying assumption. I did deliberately choose an absurd example of faith, not to attribute it to you, but to show the difference between one thing which you did explicitly claim is faith—trust in people—and another thing which would have to be an example of blind faith—belief in leprechauns. If you acknowledge that there is a real difference between the two, it would seem that I have misinterpreted your thesis.
Yes. I do see a huge difference between appropriate faith and blind faith.
It is my opinion that everyone functions based on faith far more than we acknowledge. That much of what we believe we have evidence for is actually based on quite flimsy chains of reasoning, that have lower and lower probability of being true with each subsequent link from the evidence we are supposedly basing the chains on.
It is also my opinion that this is pretty much unavoidable in order to function in the world, and that you pretty much have to function on a faith based system. Even a scientist who understands things at a fundamental level in one area is still probably accepting the world as she knows it based on faith in the majority of cases in her life.
So, it is my opinion that a key first step in being rational is to acknowledge that you have a faith based system, and then to optimize that system based on the acknowledged reality of what it actually is.
Please let me know if what I just wrote makes sense to you. If it does, perhaps this comment might be good as a start for making a second attempt at communication—I think I articulated what I was trying to say better here than before.
It does—thank you for clarifying your point.
My actual statement was that
“putting your trust in “a guru and a bunch of other people” ”
Is a form of faith.
All of the rest of your comment is all arguing with assumptions you have made about what I am saying and thinking regarding conclusions you drew on my behalf.
I am not going to try to dig into what you say here to respond. However, if you want to ask me a couple of simple questions about what I actually do believe, to clarify about whether we are actually in agreement or disagreement, I am happy to answer.