On Faith

[_grisha]

In the 17th century, Newton already saw farther only because he stood on the shoulders of giants, and nowadays, this appears to me to be the only way to do so. Scientific papers cite around a hundred references—or at least a very significant fraction of that—and checking each one is hopeless, as each of those will cite another hundred references

Comments

[dda]

Is there anything that separates "tenable" faith from "blind faith"?

The difference is that you could, if you wanted, check all 100 references and those 100 references, etc. One cannot "check" for the existence of God and/or the various stories about various prophets. The latter requires faith that cannot be verified; science doesn't require that kind of faith.

[_grisha]

Good point, and it eliminates any questions about situations with too many references. However, if we dig deeply enough, we hit things like Euclid's axioms, which can be "checked" only by negative observation and Gedankenexperiment—really just by intuition. (Or is this not the case?) We must thus have faith that our observations are "real" and that there is something "real" to what we imagine. Granted, this is a far more basic type of faith, and questioning it would force us to question things like the existence of reality. But still, it is a faith-based response at a moment when there appears to be no other way to achieve cerainty, and it seems troublingly close to what is more commonly called "faith."

[dda]

Granted, this is a far more basic type of faith, and questioning it would force us to question things like the existence of reality.

We could indeed be "brains in jars" or, worse yet, simulated people in some giant simulator. Occam's Razor argues against those and, more importantly, believing in them brings nothing extra to the table; we don't gain any additional knowledge. In addition, if someone did propose a way to "test that faith," some scientists would be all over it, trying to find bugs in the simulator, for example.

I'd also say that when most people talk about "faith-based" things, they don't just mean the faith part. They mean adopting a set of morals, rules and viewpoints based on that faith. Assuming that we really are people observing an external reality doesn't really bring with it morals and rules, although it is a viewpoint.

[jerkfacemcgee]

...scientists would be all over it, trying to find bugs in the simulator, for example.

That's just it: even if you were a brain in a jar, or a person in a simulator, you could still engage in observation, experiment, and analysis to try and determine the rules of the simulation. At its most basic level, that's what 'science' is: figuring out the rules.

[golger_i]

The meaning of the word "faith" is vastly different in the two areas.

In religion, it is what you are striving to acquire but usually cannot.

In science, it is something that you have internalized so completely that it may even be hard to consciously acknowledge.

[lovable_lobster]

It's true that every system of thought requires a certain nonzero amount of faith; however, it doesn't necessarily follow that we shouldn't be striving to minimize that requisite amount of faith. Just because it's impossible to acquire 100% complete knowledge of the workings of the universe doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to acquire as much knowledge as we can. It seems terribly pessimistic to say that, just because unequivocal victory is impossible, we should simply surrender now. If our 16th-century ancestors had thrown in the towel, we would still believe that diseases are caused by demons or by an imbalance in the four humors.

[lovable_lobster]

My point being that, given the choice between a worldview that depends 80% on faith and 20% on solid knowledge and a worldview that depends 10% on faith and 90% on solid knowledge, we should choose the latter worldview. The mere fact there exists no worldview that depends 0% on faith and 100% on knowledge does not at all justify choosing the former.

[lovable_lobster]

Inspired by your post, I just dug up my study guide from a class I took in college called "Are there any moral truths?" If you're interested in this subject, I could e-mail them to you, as they rather succinct summarize most of the major arguments in favor of moral subjectivism and most of the major rebuttals thereto.

[_grisha]

That would be really cool. Send them on over.