Heuristics for reality
This is part 2 in my response to Chris Guin. Here, I’m going to begin by setting aside some of the direct ties to religious beliefs, and talk about Chris’s general statements about how we gain knowledge about reality. Here’s the bulk of it, an explanation of why we shouldn’t be so preoccupied with Biblical contradictions in the first place:
Modern Western culture has things backwards, I believe, when it comes to the big picture of how the world works. We feel that “the ground truth” is logical, governed by strict laws, mathematical – even binary – in character, and that our emotions, perceptions, will, desire, consciousness, and languages are “heuristics” – that is, ways of simplifying a complex underlying reality to better get by in and understand the world. The idea is that, if we simply had a computer quick enough and powerful enough, we could crunch all the numbers in the universe and have perfect knowledge.
But what if that has it mostly backwards? What if the base of reality is perception, consciousness, will, desire, and language (”the word”), and our logic and reason are simply “heuristics” to help us simplify a complex, probabilistic, subjective, and personal universe to get by in it? I think there’s good evidence that this is the case. For example, the deeper one gets into physics, the less “sense” everything starts to make. As a computer science student, I spent plenty of time in classes proving that there are things that computers can’t do – problems that can’t be solved in a reasonable amount of time. True logic knows its own limits.
The first thing I want to do in response to this is clear up some of the confusion about what the science actually says. Chris, I don’t understand how the fact that computers take a long time to solve certain problems is relevant here. Sure, EXP ≠ P, and while that may be inconvenient it doesn’t have any great significance for the value of logic. You may be going for something more along the lines of undecidability and/or incompleteness. In that case, yes, there are some things that no algorithm can compute; there will always be some mathematical truths which are unprovable with a given set of axioms. While this is true, and while it’s also true (in the more poetic, humanities-ified version) that there are some questions in life that logic can’t answer, I don’t think this is a reason to reject the answers that logic can provide. That would be like rejecting the concept of evolution because it doesn’t answer cosmological questions about the origin of the universe, or like rejecting the principles of electricity because electricity can’t bake you a pie from scratch. Like throwing out your crescent wrench because it isn’t a soldering iron.
When you say that “the deeper one gets into physics, the less ‘sense’ everything starts to make,” I assume you’re referring to quantum mechanics, and maybe also chaos theory. As a physicist myself, I have to tell you that this just isn’t true. I suspect that you’re seeing physical laws and theories that are counterintuitive to you, and erroneously classifying these as nonsensical and illogical. However, they are completely logical (and, much to my undergraduate surprise – at least in the case of quantum mechanics – can eventually become intuitive).
So, I can say with confidence that nobody well-informed on the science believes that “if we simply had a computer quick enough and powerful enough, we could crunch all the numbers in the universe and have perfect knowledge.” Quantum physics and chaos theory cast a whole lot of doubt on the determinism aspect, and the computing aspect is unrealistic whether you’re talking about complexity or computability. But (and this is my real point) so what? It’s still all based in logic. Logic with limits, sure. But logic nonetheless. And the fact that limits exist way out on the horizon is no reason to reject the repeatedly verified, reliable information we can glean from working inside those limits.
Second: what is this illogical universe that you’re talking about, Chris? You suggest that perhaps “the base of reality is perception, consciousness, will, desire, and language” and perhaps the universe is “complex, probabilistic, subjective, and personal.” The universe might be complex? Of this I have no doubt. Logic is not inconsistent with complicated systems. Reality might be based on language? I have no idea what this means, but feel compelled to point out that while subjective connotations exist within language, we couldn’t communicate at all unless we agreed on rules of syntax and a set of definitions – in other words, some basic axioms. A completely idiosyncratic string of sounds is not a language by any normal understanding. A probabilistic universe? This is my favorite one. See above… the “regular” universe is already understood in a probabilistic way.
So let’s distill what you are really proposing. I see two main ideas in the remainders of your lists. One (for perception, consciousness, subjective, personal) is a Matrix-esque “What if the universe I experience is completely dependent on my own senses and awareness?” The other (for will, desire, maybe personal again) is basically, “If I want reality to be like this, reality is like this.” I think I’ve shown why your supposed “good evidence” for this isn’t actually. I don’t think we have any evidence that these pictures of reality might be true. But I also think that this hypothetical universe you suggest is not an illogical one. It’s simply a different set of premises, new axioms from which we might build up the rules that would govern reality. “When I close my eyes, whatever I was looking at ceases to exist,” for example, might be a new rule. Or perhaps, “If I wish for something to be true, it happens.” You haven’t done away with logic in your hypothetical world.
I hope you can see why I, having read your inaccurate generalizations of science and your unclear assertions on the nature of reality, was somewhat baffled as I reached the point in your post where you claimed that God is outside the bounds of logic:
[Logic] is seldom the appropriate tool for understanding the eternal and the divine. After all, as God is perfectly supreme and in no way bound by our universe, on what basis can anyone “logic around” with God? God is outside of time, cause and effect, and even the proposition that something can not be both X and not X. Trying to reason about God as though any of these assumptions were true often results in goofy conclusions – consider the kerfuffle about predestination, or interminable arguments about the divinity/humanity of Christ, or the nature of the afterlife, or the nature of the trinity.
However, even though I don’t buy your build-up about how we should accept the possibility of a logic-free reality, I think I can be satisfied with this characterization of your God. After all, those “goofy conclusions” and “kerfuffles” resulted from contradictory passages of scripture. But you say you would reject those debates entirely in favor of a God outside of cause and effect, and while I’m not sure what exactly “outside” means, the most obvious interpretation would seem to indicate that he doesn’t cause anything. I have no idea how this could be consistent with God creating the universe, God giving Moses commandments, God sending Jesus to the people, or even God inspiring people to live good lives on a day-to-day basis in the present. God is outside of cause and effect, so nothing can be the effect of his cause.
Moreover, if we read the Bible and find that God supposedly commanded that we do X, who cares? Wherever God is, X and not-X might be the same! If the Bible says that God made a covenant with his people to protect them in exchange for their abiding by his rules, who cares? This presumes that God is okay with an initial act (rule-following) implying a resulting act (God’s protection), which may very well not be true if he exists outside of cause and effect! Any supposed sequence of events can’t be treated as truth, because God is outside of time! It is impossible to know anything about God at any time by any means, least of all by reading the Bible. In fact, it would seem that there can be no evidence, no reason to believe in this God at all.
At the very least, with this picture of God there is no reason to value what the Bible says for its own sake, no reason to suppose that the Bible says anything true. If God is not bound even by the rule that X = X and X ≠ not-X, how can you rely on the Bible or any sentence you read about God as a source of any knowledge about God whatsoever?
A quick question
Why do we say “swearing” to refer both to saying bad words and to taking an oath? That seems really weird to me. Any thoughts on this, readers?
I remember being especially confused by this as a child because the explanation I heard from kids on the school bus, about why they’d say “h – e – double hockey sticks” or something, was that it was a sin to swear. We could never agree on which words were really “swear words” (of course that list grew and changed between kindergarten and fifth grade), and I could never get a straight answer from them about whether it was a sin to use one of those words or if it was a sin to say, “I swear!” Perhaps it was both? (And yes, I was this pedantic, as a six-year-old.)
Naturally, the FCC doesn’t make you bleep out oaths on TV. Making a solemn pledge is a generally honorable thing to do. And I’m not quite sure whether the Bible takes a position on swearing as a sin. In any case, “to swear” in the Bible generally refers to oaths … and yet I know a bunch of religious people who are very careful not to swear, in the bad-word sense. I guess that’s one more question, for any religious readers who feel inclined to chime in on this: how do you feel about swearing, in both senses, and why?
News on the math gap
We interrupt these long essays on religious belief to bring you a tidbit of news about math education!
Back at the beginning of the month, the MIT News Office reported on a recent paper by economics professor Glenn Ellison and econ PhD student Ashley Swanson regarding the gender gap in math performance. Their research showed “not only that girls are a small minority of elite high school math students, but also that the prevalence of high-achieving girls in math varies from school to school.” It’s a very interesting result.
This extreme concentration of talent strongly indicates the crucial role that environmental factors, not just innate ability, play in shaping the accomplishments of students. “It’s significant that the top girls are coming from a very, very small subset of schools with strong math programs,” says Ellison. “That suggests most of the girls who could be doing well, aren’t doing well. The thousands and thousands of other schools in the United States must have a lot of talent, too, but it’s not coming out.”
I’m really happy about this work because so much of the dialogue about gender disparity in STEM fields centers around anecdotes, or on assertions of trends which, while convincing, are still assertions. And I think that’s part of why it’s still such a contentious issue. If we’re ever going to reach a consensus about the extent of the problem and what, if anything, should be done about it, we need to roll up our sleeves and crunch some numbers. (And okay, I’ll admit, I’m also happy about this paper because it makes me feel a little more secure about not having done so well on the AMC back in high school.)
There’s a PDF of the paper online, so give that a read if you’re interested in more details.
How to read the Bible
I had a very interesting and increasingly complex conversation about the Bible with Chris Guin in the comments of one of his blog posts back in October. What began as a discussion about the proper way for Christians to treat nonbelievers soon became more about how the Bible ought to be read and interpreted. Go check out those old comments if you are interested; I am going to respond here to Chris’s newest post about contradictions in the Bible.
Before I delve into what Chris wrote, let me reiterate/clarify my stance. I often bring up particular parts of the Bible in discussions with Christians when we’re talking about their framework of beliefs. I make the assumption—a reasonable one, I think—that the Bible is an important part of that framework. I think it’s important to have a coherent belief system, so I might cite some part of the Bible if, for example, I think a Christian is claiming or defending something that isn’t supported by the Bible.
That’s not to say that I think that Biblical teachings are, as it were, the “gospel truth.” I acknowledge that the Bible makes many clear and relatively unambiguous statements that contradict each other, so all those statements cannot possibly be true. I acknowledge that church doctrine often differs from particular passages of scripture—in fact, that entire distinct denominations have arisen because of different choices in sorting out apparent contradictions. In a theological debate setting, my goal in pointing out a Biblical passage isn’t really to convince someone of a particular version of theology, but rather to point out that it’s seemingly impossible to form a coherent theology from a text so fraught with contradictions and ambiguities. Either you are picking the parts of the Bible you like and ignoring the parts you don’t, or you are making up context and explanation where it doesn’t exist in order to argue away contradictions. In both cases, your beliefs are coming from within yourself rather than from Christian teachings, and the text that is supposedly the foundation for your religion can’t actually hold any weight on its own.
Chris, I was very impressed by your willingness in that earlier post to grapple with “the harder teachings” of “the complex, real, dissonant Jesus.” I don’t think you fall into the first category, cherry-picking which parts of the Bible to care about. I do think that in your current post, you are offering two ways of taking the latter route.
First, you write:
Some “contradictions” require a reevaluation of how one verse or the other is interpreted (or even translated – human language is not infallible, and it’s sometimes worth checking into things). Or how BOTH are interpreted. If there seems to be a contradiction, perhaps one or more of the Scriptures don’t mean what you think they mean.
Your second suggestion is that some seeming contradictions “require a larger contextual understanding” in order to be resolved. These sound like plausible ways to go about understanding a text, and in some cases may be reasonable responses. This is certainly how I would go about reading a physics textbook. I might find in my textbook two statements that I think can be used to work out a problem, but which recommend very different methods. I could study them both in more depth, and perhaps realize that one is a generalized principle and one is a simplification of that principle in a special case, so the two can be reconciled and thought of as the same concept. Or, I could study the surrounding context of those statements, and come to understand that they answer related questions in two entirely different situations—perhaps one applies to metals, and the other is about insulators. This is fine on face.
However, if the Bible plainly says “X but not Y” in one verse, and “Y but not X” in another verse, we are in a very different type of situation. No amount of reinterpretation, no amount of additional context can change the fact that there are very clear statements in the Bible on both sides of the “saved by faith alone” vs. “saved by good works” debate. In fact, the Bible includes specific statements about many different ways to get yourself saved, including statements that it is all predestined and not actually up to you at all. (I don’t think these lists I’ve linked to are perfect, but I think they’re more than sufficient to illustrate what I mean.) You yourself bring up the issue of the old and new covenants—no additional “context” could possibly smooth over the fact that in Leviticus 23 alone God tells Moses “it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations” four times, yet the New Testament is full of statements that Christians “are not under the law” and that Jesus is the mediator of a “new covenant” which is “superior to the old one” and “made the first one obsolete.”
You point out that “nowhere does God say that the Bible is comprised of the infallible and perfect words of angels, as some other holy texts claim to be.” This could hypothetically get us around some of the stickier contradictions. Maybe one of the statements is just wrong, a mistake. I would ask, though: is it possible to tell what parts are wrong? You shrug off inaccurate troop headcounts or precise timelines, and I agree, these details probably do not matter as far as theology is concerned. But what about the stuff that does matter? For example, how do you know that “the harder teachings” you are attempting to face head-on even came from Jesus himself? Or, one could ask instead, how do you know that the nicer ones did?
The bottom line: I think there are significant internal contradictions that are impossible to wriggle out of, and I see no reason to suppose that either (or if more than 2, any) face of a given contradiction is actually true. I’ve seen no reason to suppose the Bible is a reliable source of information, and therefore no grounds to believe that the teachings in the Bible are true.
I suppose I had better stop for now; this is long enough. I look forward to hearing what you think, Chris—and other readers who may want to jump in! I hope I’ve managed to keep up the civility and that I’ve explained myself clearly.
Coming soon: my responses to some of Chris’s other remarks, about epistemology, logic, and science.
Happy Thanksgiving!
To my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving! (And to my Canadian readers, a very belated Happy Thanksgiving. To any who don’t fall into one of those categories… I don’t know, you can have some pie too. It’s delicious!)
I’m hoping to see more of you in the near future. I’ve got a couple posts queued up, and plan to write some more over my long weekend in order to get back on my blogging horse. Metaphorically.
For now, I’ll share with you this interesting tidbit posted at Space City Skeptics last Thanksgiving: there’s nothing about turkey that would make you sleepy when you eat it. The whole tryptophan thing is basically a myth. So, as they say, stop worrying and enjoy your turkey!
Creationist insecurity
Via the delightfully snarky Ron Britton over at Bay of Fundie, I heard about this conference/webcast called “Darwin Was Wrong” [link to program PDF]. It’s sponsored by the Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa and some group called Logos Research Associates, Inc. (Sounds sciencey!) The program itself sounds like a real train wreck, with talks such as “Darwin Was Wrong About Science,” “Darwin Was Wrong About the Fossil Record,” and “Darwin Was Wrong About God,” but out of some kind of morbid curiosity I’m going to try to watch the webcast—today’s talks are just starting now.
It’s not my goal to rebut all the stupid claims made by the speakers in these talks. First, because nobody who cares about this event would care what I have to say, but second, because I’m sure it’s been done before. I’m also in touch with the fact that, no matter how much creationists would like to paint it that way, scientists don’t worship Darwin’s word as the ultimate and unquestionable truth. (And hey, guys, if you want to criticize that way of thinking as unscientific and therefore invalid… look in the mirror.) Bottom line: sure, there were some particular claims and conjectures that Darwin put forth in his writings which we now have evidence against, but we still appreciate his work and groundbreaking ideas. We adjust and modify our theoretical models in light of new evidence, new data to compare our models with. That’s how science works.
I really just want to make one simple point, and that is: isn’t this all terrifically insecure? Creationists are really obsessed with trying to demonstrate that “Darwin was wrong” (just search Amazon for “darwin wrong” and you’ll see what I mean), but you practically never see a panel discussion with a handful of evolutionary biologists just riffing on how Biblical creation has a couple plot holes. Yes, the community of skeptics is growing, and yes, there are groups like the National Center for Science Education which have sprung up to advocate for evolution. But the vast, vast majority of the time, scientists are just going about their science, and ignoring the crazy fringe ideas. That’s because the crazy fringe ideas are obviously wrong. It would just be superfluous for biologists to spend one tenth the time creationists do, flailing around and shouting about how the other side is wrong. If you have no real proof of your point of view, the best you can do is insist that your opponent’s proof is insufficient, but if the evidence is on your side, you can rest assured that the evidence will speak for itself.
One other note. Lunch at this conference is being provided by Chick-fil-A. Of course.
Dobbs leaves CNN
I want to take a moment to stop and celebrate the departure of Lou Dobbs from CNN. This is a really good sign for news. What’s more important is that apparently he left because the people in charge at CNN decided they didn’t want a crazy opinion show on their network. Fox, and to a lesser extent MSNBC, have clearly decided that opinion is a good way to get ratings, and they’re probably correct. However, it’s very good for the country that there is another network out there that’s clearly in between the two. (Also, as annoying as it is, it’s probably good that MSNBC went to the left, because it makes genuinely unbiased news look neutral, rather than looking liberal by comparison to Fox.)
I can understand the “it’s like the editorial page of a newpaper” argument, but it’s really not. A newspaper has a very careful separation between the news staff and the editorial staff, preventing overlap between the two, and clearly labels its opinion. That type of system just doesn’t exist on cable news networks—at least with their current organization.
Now, I would be happy to see any strongly opinionated show leave CNN, but it’s also worth pointing out that Dobbs is a xenophobic nutcase, and his departure from any sort of national spotlight would be cause for celebration for that reason alone.
Really, Maine?
Well, it looks like Maine’s Question 1 passed with 53% of the vote. I have to say, Maine, I’m disappointed in you. I had so much hope when you were the first state to lift the ban on same-sex marriage through the legislature rather than the courts. But no.
This would be so much easier to stomach if I had ever heard a single coherent reason why there’s any downside to legal same-sex marriage. At all. (And no, “it’s just icky to me” does not count.)
New WP theme
Just a heads-up: we’re in the process of transitioning to a new WordPress theme. Apologies if some links are broken or things look bizarre; it’s temporary, I promise! Should be running smoothly by tomorrow.
Tragedy at ASU
A most tragic and unfortunate wake-up call to anyone involved in university education, particularly graduate studies:
A male graduate student committed suicide in front of a professor at around 11:40 a.m. Monday [October 26] in the College of Design South building on the [Arizona State University] Tempe campus.
David Solnick, a 59-year-old student in the graphic design program, was talking with Associate Professor Mookesh Patel inside Patel’s office when the student pulled out a handgun and shot himself, ASU Police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina said.
I don’t know anything else about the story other than what’s covered in the link above, but the whole situation is certainly something worth pondering. Graduate school is a real pressure cooker pretty much everywhere, and while suicide is obviously not a healthy response, I can’t honestly say it’s an entirely surprising one to me. Can anything be done about it? I don’t have the answers, but for a thought-provoking discussion about the balance between the kind of struggle that’s a genuine challenge to learn from and the kind of struggle that makes you feel hopeless, go check out this post by Isis the Scientist as well as the comments that follow.
Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of Mr. Solnick as well as Professor Patel.
-
Recent Comments
sandeep on Thoughts on religious tolerance
bruce on Alternative medicine: worth a try?
Mike on Think before you speak
Zychan on What is Acts 29?
Emily on Grad students, 1…