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?
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One Response to “Heuristics for reality”
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Hiya Z -
Thanks again for responding – I know it takes time and energy from you, and I’m gratified you find it worthwhile to engage. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and, yes, civility, although I hope I didn’t offend you or anything with my asides on physics (a territory I’m more than happy to concede to you).
I’m working on a full response – and I’ll let you know when I get it posted. (It may be a while yet, as I tend to write and rewrite and rewrite.) But I did want to comment just to say that I will be pondering and writing, and am grateful to have someone to challenge me and force me to consider things.