From: James Thompson (thompsonj@higgslaw.com)
Date: Tue Jun 11 2002 - 12:46:39 MDT
[James] After having "perused the previously supplied synopsis" in an
attempt to "discover" that "faith" is not required or helpful in science
I am left with the sense that this "discovery" is not fully predicated
on the logic supplied. Furthermore, I am curious to know if anyone
actually accepts the idea that science is the only route to
understanding. It may be true that it is the most "objectively"
verifiable, but is this to say that it is even the most powerful? On
the most basic level what truly differentiates scientific theory from
religious faith?
[Hermit] ...we work from the perspective of an "imperfect and
fragmentary" knowledge, because the Universe is not just "unknown" but
also "unknowable" and systems are either complete or correct but not
both. We use the scientific method to resolve probable truths through
attempting to disprove our theories, not to support them."
[James] I certainly don't aim to dispute this and I have nothing against
the methods of science. Yet to say the universe is unknown and
unknowable raises a curious question: What would complete knowledge of
the universe really be? A knowledge of processes, concepts, and
details? It seems that often in rejecting the traditional idea of a
spiritual soul for the modern scientific idea of a neurological soul,
scientists must inevitably appeal to the very higher faculties whose
relevance they deny. Your argument depends on our ability somehow to
discern that scientific facts are inherently and objectively different -
more valid - than beliefs. But if, as the modern scientific model
insists, all ideas are nothing more than electrochemical impulses in the
neurons of the brain, determined only by other such electrochemical
impulses, then how could we possibly tell whether one impulse was more
valid than another? Imagine, for instance, a brain researcher who
proved that the impulses that produce and are reinforced by
scientific-fact ideas happen in a different part of the brain or have a
different electrical pattern from those that produce religious-belief
ideas. How could he then tell which kind of impulse was better? Each
would be merely an automatic response to a series of other impulses,
dictated by a pattern of brain wiring and a set of electrochemical
inputs that would vary from person to person. Whether you believed in
science or in religion or in genocide, or whether you changed your
belief from one to the other, would be a matter of meaningless
neurological reflex, not of free personal and existential choice. It
would have nothing to do with what is objectively true. If, however,
you believe that you are indeed somehow able to recognize ideas as true
or false objectively-the way many scientists seem to think they can
recognize mathematical equations as true and religious beliefs as
false-then there has to be something autonomous in you that is able to
do the recognizing. Whatever that something is, it cannot be just
another electrochemical impulse. This is the step in the scientific
process where "faith" is required. It is required at the neurological
level of our independent, subjective understanding. So it makes little
sense, if we are going to take our beliefs on faith, to have more faith
in the authority of science than in the authority of religion or of our
parents. But what if we are no longer content to take our beliefs on
faith in anyone else's authority? How, then, do we go about deciding
what composes reality. Ultimately we cannot do better than to have
faith in our own authority, and base our beliefs on what makes the most
sense, and feels most deeply right, to us. Interestingly enough, this
was precisely the method advocated 350 years ago by a man who has been
called the father of modern science, French philosopher Rene Descartes.
- James
"As you think, so shall you be."
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