Point taken: useful beliefs are not necessarily true beliefs.
That being said, in this particular case, belief in Jesus Christ wasn’t necessary for the cathedral to be built. If you, as a medieval, saw that the Muslims and Hindus too were building magnificentthings, then you should conclude that belief in a particular god in inessential (you’re still allowed to conclude to that it is well-justified to believe in a god).
With airplanes, the belief in Newtonian physics is essential.
That being said, in this particular case, belief in Jesus Christ wasn’t necessary for the cathedral to be built.
Sure, but in order conclude so you’d have to go beyond the people who believe x can make fancy technology y, so I suspect x is a well-justified belief heuristic.
With airplanes, the belief in Newtonian physics is essential.
My understanding of history is that this is not the case. Not too long before some bicycle mechanics were building the first airplane, prominent Newtonian physicists were saying things like “heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”
Specifically, “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of.” (Wikiquote seems to imply the “heavier than air” quotation is a misquotation.) And Kelvin wrote that in 1896, when the Wright brothers were building bicycles rather than flying machines; they didn’t start on the latter until1899.
(I upvoted the parent comment because its basic point is sound, but I don’t want to look like I’m upvoting the debatable history.)
In case anyone was wondering, I had changed the wording of the part satt quoted before he or she posted this comment, because I thought it sounded kind of misleading (which apparently I was right about). Good catch on the possible misquote, that was from memory.
Point taken: useful beliefs are not necessarily true beliefs.
That being said, in this particular case, belief in Jesus Christ wasn’t necessary for the cathedral to be built. If you, as a medieval, saw that the Muslims and Hindus too were building magnificent things, then you should conclude that belief in a particular god in inessential (you’re still allowed to conclude to that it is well-justified to believe in a god).
With airplanes, the belief in Newtonian physics is essential.
Sure, but in order conclude so you’d have to go beyond the people who believe x can make fancy technology y, so I suspect x is a well-justified belief heuristic.
My understanding of history is that this is not the case. Not too long before some bicycle mechanics were building the first airplane, prominent Newtonian physicists were saying things like “heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”
Specifically, “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of.” (Wikiquote seems to imply the “heavier than air” quotation is a misquotation.) And Kelvin wrote that in 1896, when the Wright brothers were building bicycles rather than flying machines; they didn’t start on the latter until 1899.
(I upvoted the parent comment because its basic point is sound, but I don’t want to look like I’m upvoting the debatable history.)
In case anyone was wondering, I had changed the wording of the part satt quoted before he or she posted this comment, because I thought it sounded kind of misleading (which apparently I was right about). Good catch on the possible misquote, that was from memory.
I need to learn to Google more quickly!