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AIList Digest Volume 8 Issue 079
AIList Digest Tuesday, 6 Sep 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 79
Religion:
The Ignorant assumption
The Godless Assumption
Science, lawfulness, a (the?) god
Religious experience and cognitive science
From the Moderator:
Teleology
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Sep 88 10:59:02 GMT
From: quintus!ok@sun.com (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Subject: Re: The Ignorant assumption
In article <545@cseg.uucp> lag@cseg.uucp (L. Adrian Griffis) writes:
>This is not to say that Science never indulges in this sort of intolerance
>of beliefs. But at least Science as a whole does not state as part of its
>fundamental platform that you must accept such and such a belief as fact,
>without evidence and without question (regardless of what individual scientist
>may do).
Straw man! Straw man! Neither does Christianity state any such thing.
A major theme of the Bible is "here is the evidence". Biblical
Archaeology (which tests the historical claims to the extent that they
*can* be tested by present archaeological methods) is regarded as a
PRO-religious activity. Thomas *is* one of the Apostles, after all...
>Another "ideal" of Christianity is the notion that part of what make one
>a good person is believing the right things.
Again, not so. To quote the Bible (paraphrased, because my memory's not
that reliable): "You believe in God? So do the devils!" An analogy:
you cannot enter into an effective marriage with a particular woman as
long as you continue to believe that she is a fossilized whale.
Criticims of any religion are more effective when they are well-informed.
I'm a little bothered by this reification of "Science" as if it were an
agent capable of "indulging in" behaviours and "stating" things. Perhaps
Gilbert Cockton could clarify the ontological status of "Science" for us
(:-).
What's the relevance of all of this to AI, anyway?
Are AI people unusually sensitive to "Science" issues because
we want to be part of it, or what?
The study of English literature is not normally regarded as part
of "Science", but it's a decent intellectual field for all that.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Sep 88 14:16:20 -0800
From: Liz Allen-Mitchell <elroy!grian!liz@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: The Godless Assumption
Where are we starting with this? Too many folks seem to be starting
with science and saying that God can't exist because of whatever or
that God does exist because the world is orderly or whatever. But I
don't think too many people actually start there. Science can't prove
or disprove the existence of God (as at least one person *did* point
out).
Where do *I* start? Where many people start -- I believe there is a
God. A lot of people start with the opposite assumption -- that there
is not a God.
So, how does either assumption effect how we do science? For me, my
belief in God goes a little further than just an assumption that there
is a supernatural being out there somewhere. I believe some very
particular things about God. I don't, for example, believe that God is
whimsical and changes the results of my experiments just to confuse or
mislead me. I believe that God created the universe and that He did so
in an orderly way -- in a way that allows us to reason about everything
from whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow to whether or not my
connectionist network is going to settle down with reasonable results.
I do believe that God does "interfere" in the natural world from time
to time, but that is more the exception than the rule (I could go into
more detail here, but I think it is getting rather far off the digest's
subject). But, because I believe that God made the world in an orderly
way and that He does want us to learn about His creation, I can do
science believing that I will learn not only about the world but also
about God. For me believing in God enhances doing science.
Others may believe in a God, but not believe in one who is orderly.
They may well have problems doing science, as some have pointed out.
Many do not believe in God at all. They may well believe the world is
orderly but others, who are probably not scientists, may *not* believe
in an orderly world. I don't think that a belief that there is no God
can lead one to assume that the world is a place that we can understand
in a scientific way. I can see how one who *is* doing science can
expect it to be fruitful because it has been in the past, but if you
have never been exposed to science, you may be difficult to convince
that science is not a rather hopeless pursuit. You may believe that
while some things (like the sun rising) are predictable, other things
(like the wind blowing) are totally random events.
I assume that since we are all scientists (or at least trying to be!),
that we do believe in an orderly universe. Believing that there is a
God no more precludes that than believing that there is no God.
Re Bill Wells' article about revealed knowledge: He seems to be
assuming that anyone believing in revealed knowledge must hold all
revealed knowledge absolutely. This is not necessarily so. I think
all of us hold some knowledge absolutely (eg that the world is
orderly). For those of us who believe that some knowledge is revealed
by God, the knowledge we hold absolutely includes some revealed
knowledge. But does that mean we hold all revealed knowledge that
way? No. One can believe in God, believe that He is perfect and
believe that He speaks to you and yet believe that not everything you
think He has told you is absolutely true. Some do come to this
conclusion, but they are basing this on the (false) assumption that
they always hear God perfectly.
Let me give you an example and then explain how I handle this. If you
run an experiment twice and get results that contradict previous
results, how do you handle it? Do you decide that the world must not
be orderly after all? Maybe you do on a cynical day, but most likely,
you decide you made a mistake somewhere. That's how I handle revealed
knowledge. If it contradicts some other beliefs I have or if some
later evidence contradicts the revealed knowledge, I don't stop
believing in God or in an orderly world. I try to figure out where I
made a mistake -- and I do allow for the possibility that I simply made
up my "revealed knowledge".
>From a scientist *and* a Christian...
--
- Liz Allen-Mitchell liz@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us
ames!elroy!grian!liz
"God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." -- 1 John 1:5b
------------------------------
Date: 3 Sep 88 22:43:25 GMT
From: proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu (T. William Wells)
Reply-to: proxftl!bill@bikini.cis.ufl.edu (T. William Wells)
Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god
As expected, my messages generated something of a heated
response. Also as expected, some of the response completely
missed the point. It is flatly not arguable that religions (and
quasi-religions like Marxism) have caused some of the greatest
evils in the world. And, in spite of what those who would
condemn science in order to defend religion say, science has
never been the *cause* (only the means) of evil. Nor could it,
since it does not propose an ethical system, and thus does not
provide a cause for action. (And to forestall an almost certain
response: yes, there have been great evils done *in the name of*
science, but closer examination shows one thing: the purposes
were unrelated to the scientific.)
But those observations, however true, are irrelevant to the
point. No matter how evil religion might be (and I hold that
faith of all kinds, including the religious, is one of the
greatest evils), this fails to invalidate it as a means of
knowing. What *does* invalidate it is its assumptions of an
unlawful reality and of an unknowable universe.
There were also several responses which oozed various kinds of
epistemological relativism to attempt to defend the notion that
science and religion are compatible. I had originally written
contemptuous and sarcastic replies to these idiocies, but I have
had second thoughts: such fuzzy-mindedness does not deserve the
attention that specific responses would create. That this kind
of relativism invalidates science is not a matter for debate; I
shall not waste time on it.
Following are a number of messages about which I have some
specific comments.
---
T. Michael O'Leary <HI.OLeary@MCC.COM> writes:
: >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), 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.
:
: To me this requirement is unnecessarily strict. Science does not
: require that reality be utterly lawful, but merely that it be possible
: for scientists to observe patterns in nature.
The mere assertion that there are patterns, without reason to
believe that they might be projected into the future, does not
constitute science. However, the existence of the unlawful
invalidates prediction. Of any kind.
Consider what it means to say that something is unlawful: it
means that there are *no* constraints on its actions. The proper
answer to "Can the unlawful do X?" is *yes*. Given such a thing,
there is no reason to believe that the patterns that we perceive,
the predictions that come true, or even our mere existence, are
not entirely accident, devoid of meaning. And the "partly
lawful" does not provide an escape either: where would you draw
the line?
No, if we wish to accept that science be valid, we must accept
that there is *nothing* unlawful. And since religion accepts
that there is that which is unlawful, it undercuts the necessary
ground for science.
So, to reiterate: science and religion are incompatible. There
is no reconciliation.
---
"William E. Hamilton, Jr.", on Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:00 EDT writes:
: ...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.
I disagree; all religions I have heard of, and certainly all
major religions, are based on a metaphysics that makes science
invalid.
: 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.
You missed the point: I did not say that reality was lawful
(though that is *in fact* correct), what I said was that reality
must be lawful in order that science be valid.
: 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.
I disagree. Art and music are *not* outside the scope of
science. And, to mention AI at least once in this message, it is
necessary, in order that AI be more than programming tricks and
mental masturbation, that the presumption behind that statement
(that that which pertains to consciousness is necessarily outside
the knowable) be false.
---
Richard A. O'Keefe <quintus!ok@Sun.COM>, writes:
: This topic really hasn't much to do with AI.
: Perhaps it could be moved somewhere else?
Actually it does. Of the sciences, AI is easily the most
philosophical; debates on the nature of reality (which AI
researchers will have to figure out how to represent somehow) and
on the validity of knowledge are both inevitable and necessary.
And has anyone considered that ethics, too, also is relevant?
---
ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU writes:
: In a previous article, sas@BBN.COM says:
:
: > To my knowledge there is no scientific litmus test which can determine
: > the good or evil of a particular thought of action.
:
: True. From premises in the indicative mode ("this is so") you can never
: deduce a conclusion in the imperative ("you shall do so"). You need at
: least a premise in the imperative (i.e. a moral axiom).
I disagree. Moreover, I hold that ethics is a central, if
perhaps unrecognized, problem for AI. I would suggest that the
answer to the questions of ethics are intimately related to the
problem of goal-directed activity in AI systems.
---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!bill
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 21:32:24 -0200
From: Antti Ylikoski <ayl%hutds.hut.fi%FINGATE.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: religious experience and cognitive science
It seems that one of the main arguments against "religious knowledge" is
the subjectivity of religious experience. But when a scientist carries
out an experiment then he gets out of it subjective experiences such as
the act of perceiving the position of a pointer on the scale of a
milliamperemeter.
Knowledge which has been derived from experience is usually considered
reliable if:
a) the experience has taken place under circumstances which are known,
are described by the experimenter, and are known to produce reliable
results
b) the experience is repeatable; it is described by the experimenter and
can be carried out by others, and when they do this they get the same
results.
Religious experience is repeatable, I would claim. I have read
descriptions written by evangelist Christians involving their
experiences, and they are very similar.
Whether religious experiences can be considered to take place "under
circumstances which produce reliable results" is less evident. I have
played with the idea that one could collect a large number of people
representing various religions and study them and their religious behaviour
and experiences with the methods of experimental psychology, trying to
exclude the possibilities of hallucination, bad mental health, cheating
and so forth. This would produce scientific data either confirming or
not confirming the "reality" of religious experience.
I would guess that the experiment proposed above would indicate that
religious experience is real. More than a decade ago, I read a book on
popularized science and found the statement that the
electroenchephalograms of people that have regularly practiced Zen
meditation for a long time are different from those of ordinary people;
they have more theta waves. Thus, Zen experience is scientifically
observable even at the neurological level. (It is not certain whether I
can find the reference any more.)
I'm dreaming of the day when Cognitive Science can say facts about
religious experience with the same level of detail and reliability as
cognitive scientists nowadays know the human vision.
--- andy
------------------------------
Date: 4 Sep 88 22:57:57 GMT
From: garth!smryan@unix.sri.com (Steven Ryan)
Subject: Re: The Ignorant assumption
>This is not to say that Science never indulges in this sort of intolerance
>of beliefs. But at least Science as a whole does not state as part of its
>fundamental platform that you must accept such and such a belief as fact,
>without evidence and without question (regardless of what individual scientist
>may do).
Frequent mistake--to do science you have to accept the scientific method on
faith. Essentially science states that the universe is rational and
objective. Ultimately, any way of viewing the universe is based on assumptions
taken on faith.
A similar subject is the Church-Turing hypothesis (after all, this is comp.ai).
Minsky-style people assert it is true and justifies their most ambitious scheme.
>> I do take issue that Christians are held in checked by the wider society. In
>> this country Christians are the majority: it is eternal internal conflicts
>> between the sects that holds things in checks.
>
>And am I ever grateful for that.
I once heard that in English Civil War Protestant Anglicans and Puritans
fought each other with the hatred normally reserved for Catholics.
I suppose the battle between pro-ai and anit-ai programmers is similar.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 88 11:47:24 HOE
From: ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Religion
In
>AIList Digest Saturday, 3 Sep 1988 Volume 8 : Issue 76
L. Adrian Griffis writes:
>This is not to say that Science never indulges in this sort of intolerance
>of beliefs. But at least Science as a whole does not state as part of its
>fundamental platform that you must accept such and such a belief as fact,
>without evidence and without question (regardless of what individual scientist
>may do).
This is a misunderstanding of what religious beliefs mean.
First, it is false that they must be accepted without evidence.
There is evidence. The clearest case is, of course, that of
adults who become converted into a religion (there are scientists,
too, in this class). They found the evidence sufficient for them.
Mostly, however, it is not a "scientific evidence", rather a
"historical evidence" or a "reasonable evidence".
Second, it is true that, after the evidence has been accepted, a
certain "obstinacy on belief" (in the words of C.S. Lewis) is required.
But this is also true of other human beliefs (which amount to more than
99 % of all our knowledge, even to scientific knowledge).
What would you say about a scientist who refuses to believe all those
scientific facts which must be learnt on authority grounds
and decides to test everything in practice? Science would not
advance much if every scientist did that.
Let me put a more convenient example. When we meet a person of the
opposite sex, we first take some time to "get the evidence". At some
point, we may be convinced that this person is appropriate as a
spouse. We may marry this person.
But later on, a certain "obstinacy on belief" is required. Or am I
going to believe every slander that may come to my ears about
my wife? Or, to be a good scientist, should I put her to the test?
Devise an experiment to find out whether she is faithful to me
under different conditions, for example? Perhaps, if I did that,
I would be considered a good scientist, but certainly, too,
a very devious person, or even a fool. Remember the story about
Cephalus and Procris.
M. Alfonseca
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 88 14:18 EDT
From: AIList Moderator Nick Papadakis <AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Reply-to: AIList@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Teleology
The wise, it is said, never discuss religion or politics in
public. This is not to say that they don't think about the issues, or
consider them unimportant, but merely that they recognize the frailty of
public discussion as a means of obtaining useful results.
One should always be suspect of a discussion where the most
knowledgeable parties also have the largest axes to grind, where no one
invests the time and effort to master the issues unless they have a
vested interest in the result. The final product seems to consist of
little other than elaborate rationalizations for pre-existing notions.
Both 'Science' and 'Religion' are, in my view, guilty of this.
So what?
The problem with arguing politics or religion is the small
likelihood of anyone convincing anyone else of anything.
AIList already has enough traffic for any *four* normal lists.
The most common reason given by people who unsubscribe is 'just couldn't
keep up' or 'low signal-to-noise ratio'.
As moderator, I find it difficult to squelch a discussion that
so many people obviously find interesting (interesting enough to post
their two-cents worth) but it simply is not germane. Perhaps a new list
for discussing the 'Philosophy of Science' would find a large readership
(Interestingly, the physics list is currently undergoing the same sort
of turmoil over the appropriateness of meta-discussion), but it certainly
would not find me as moderator.
Accordingly, all future postings on this topic that do not take
extreme pains to highlight their specific relevance to AI or CogSci will
be bit-bucketed without further apology.
Sorry ...
- nick
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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