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AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 062
AIList Digest Tuesday, 23 Aug 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 62
Religion:
Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god (V8 #61)
The Godless asumption
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Date: 22 Aug 88 09:10:20 GMT
From: cwp@otter.hple.hp.com (Chris Preist)
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god
Are you by any chance thinking of -
" God does not play dice. " - A.Einstein
In which case, he did not use it in the context you suggest. He actually
is using the existence of God to 'disprove' the validity of quantum
mechanics.
i.e. God exists & God is omnipotent
-> God isn't into probablistic structures over which
it/she/he has no control
-> Quantum mechanics is wrong
Chris
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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:39:04 +0100
From: "Gordon Joly, Statistics, UCL"
<gordon%stats.ucl.ac.uk@ESS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god (V8 #61)
> From: <YLIKOSKI%FINFUN.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
> I would say that a God needs not be unlawful. A counterexample of
> some kind could be a line by Einstein: I think he said that the
> regularity of the structure of the universe reflects an intellect. (I
> cannot remember the exact form of the quotation, but I think the idea
> was this.)
> --- Andy
If I may be permitted to attempt a second approximation, Einstein said:
"What really interests me, is the question of whether God had a *choice*
in the design of the universe". I guess this encompasses all "things",
including the human mind, no doubt.
Gordon Joly.
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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 10:38:29
From: ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: The Godless asumption
I was surprised at Professor Minsky's use of so naive an argument against
Religion. If Religion is discredited because Giordano Bruno was burnt at
the stake in 1600, then Science is discredited because 120,000 people were
burned in Hiroshima in 1945. In actual fact, neither Religion nor Science
are discredited because of that, only people who do things can be discredited
by them. Theories are discredited by negative evidence or by reason.
And this takes me to another append (which unfortunately I have lost, and
do not recall the signer) where it was stated that Religion and Reason
are contradictory. I challenge this assertion. For it to be true, there should
exist an argumentation that starting at a set of axioms accepted by everybody,
and through a set of reasonable steps, would arrive to the conclusion
"God does not exist". I do not know of such an argument. God's existence
or non-existence is an axiom for most of us, and axioms are not "Reason".
M. Alfonseca
(Usual disclaimer)
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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:00 EDT
From: "William E. Hamilton, Jr."
<"RCSMPB::HAMILTON%gmr.com"@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: the Godless Assumption
The recent debate on the "Godless assumption," in which Andrew Basden,
Marvin Minsky and William Wells have participated touches on the vitally
important questions of
What is science?
What is religion?, and
Where (if anywhere) is there any common ground between the two?
Wells is correct in saying that
"the religious entails something
which ultimately is outside of reason,"
in the sense that human reason alone cannot find God. I would add that
science deals with phenomena which can be observed and subjected
to analysis. If you accept that constraint,
then as a scientist you should be cautious about making judgments on
subjects you don't have observations for. However, Wells goes too far
when he says
...religion and reason entail diametrically opposed views of
reality: religion requires the unconstrained and unknowable as
its base...
...religion rejects the ultimate validity
of reason; ... years of attempting to reconcile the
differing metaphysics and epistemology of the two has utterly
failed to accomplish anything other than the gradual destruction
of religion.
Science ... rejects the
validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense
utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place.
The first two above paragraphs make assertions which are certainly not true
of all religions. The third makes statements I would have to
regard as religious, since it makes assertions (reality is lawful, God is
not) about phenomena outside the scope of science.
Granted, religion is outside the scope of science, but that does not make it
wrong. Art and music are outside the scope of science, too, and yet
they teach us important aspects of being human.
Bill Hamilton
GM Research Labs
------------------------------
Date: 22 Aug 88 18:32:08 GMT
From: uwslh!lishka@spool.cs.wisc.edu (Fish-Guts)
Reply-to: uwslh!lishka@spool.cs.wisc.edu (Fish-Guts)
Subject: Re: The Godless assumption
In a previous article, Marvin Minsky writes:
>Date: Sat, 13 Aug 88 01:47 EDT
>From: Marvin Minsky <MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
>Subject: The Godless assumption
>To: AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU, MINSKY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
>
>
>Andrew Basden warns us
>
>> Why should 'religious' not also be 'practical'? Many people -
>> especially ordinary people, not AI researchers - would claim their
>> 'religion' is immensely 'practical'. I suggest the two things are not
>> opposed. It may be that many correspondents *assume* that religion is
>> a total falsity or irrelevance, but this assumption has not been
>> proved correct, and many people find strong empirical evidence
>> otherwise.
>
>Yes, enough to justify what those who "knew" that they were right did
>to Bruno, Galileo, Joan, and countless other such victims. There is
>no question that people's beliefs have practical consequences; or did
>you mean to assert that, in your philosophical opinion, they simply
>may have been perfectly correct?
I find the above statement by Mr. Minsky to be out of line. It
is true that religious beliefs have been used *as*excuses* to commit
horrible attrocities (witch burnings, the Crusades, Mr. Minsky's
examples above, etc.), but I believe that "science" has been used
*as*an*excuse* in the same way (the Nazi's horrible experiments on
Jewish people, for instance). Furthermore, both science and religion
can be used as excuses for killing and attrocities in the future.
Personally, I think that "science" is but a set of beliefs also.
One can reject science as readily as on can reject religions. I also
propose that for some people a given religion (Christianity, Judaism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, African religions, personal religions, Pagan
religions, or whatever else) describes their world better than
Science; for them religion is a more appropriate (and *practical*) set
of beliefs than science is. For many people (myself included),
religion and science both provide "appropriate" ways of describing the
universe around them.
>I hope this won't lead to an endless discussion but, since we have an
>expert here on religious belief, I wonder, Andrew, if you could
>briefly explain something I never grasped: namely, even if you were
>convinced that God wanted you to burn Bruno, why that would lead you
>to think that that makes it OK?
I propose an alternative question: if you were convinced that, in
order to "better mankind" (in the name of science and scientific
curiosity), one would need to experiment on and kill countless numbers
of animals, would that reason make it OK? How much farther does the
same arguemnt need to be taken in order to justify maiming and killing
of human beings for experiments? Be really careful when you begin to
generalize.
Many religions advocate killing and sacrifices, and many do not.
There exists a religion where the final goal is to *stop* killing as
many creatures as possible (according to an Eastern religion class I
took taught by David Knipe, himself a student of Eliade). Science and
religion can both be used as excuses for killing, and they can both
provide reasons to prevent it.
-----
A final note: I see no reason why religion and science cannot
coexist together in one's personal beliefs (they do in mine). I see
no reason why science should deny the "practicality" of religions, or
vice versa. Although some religious sects (esp. Christianity, Judaism,
and Catholicism) sometimes clash with science on issues such as
evolution vs. creationism, other religions (such as some sects of
Buddhism) accept outside beliefs (e.g. science), which has aided in the
spread of those religions into various cultures.
-Chris
[p.s. if anyone feels that this does not belong in comp.ai.digest, I
am perfectly willing to discuss this via email.]--
Christopher Lishka ...!{rutgers|ucbvax|...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene lishka%uwslh.uucp@cs.wisc.edu
Immunology Section (608)262-1617 lishka@uwslh.uucp
----
"...Just because someone is shy and gets straight A's does not mean they won't
put wads of gum in your arm pits."
- Lynda Barry, "Ernie Pook's Commeek: Gum of Mystery"
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