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andrewduckerI'm in discussion elsewhere about beliefs. Having actually gone to the bother of writing it down, I figured I should store it somewhere in case I forget what I believe. On top of the original I'm going to ramble on about philosophical underpinnings and other waffle.
A quick word on layout. I originally had lots of brackets and digressions in the middle of this. I've moved as much as possible into footnotes. Of course, none of the modern browsers support the footnote tag that was in HTML3, or this wouldn't be a problem. Right, on with the show:
On the most basic level, I believe in matter and energy and the movement and interrelation of them in simple ways. These simple ways are described by us as the physical laws. While the laws we know may be only approximations*, or accurate under certain circumstances I believe they are approximate to laws inherent in the universe which are probably** discoverable using the process known as science.
I believe that everything is made up of various combinations of matter and energy and that no matter what you are talking about, they are nothing more than incredibly complex combinations of matter/energy, subject to the same laws.
I waver on the subject of "psi" and ghosts and suchlike. I've neither seen any of it, nor seen concrete proof, but I'm not comfortable ruling it out, because I have read reports by people that seem reputable who seem to have statistical proof of the existence of psi. Even if psi exists, I'd still expect it to follow some kind of rules as to its working, and to be (theoretically) predictable in its actions.
"God" is further down the scale than the paranormal, as I've not seen any kind of attempts at proof of any existence of a creator. I'm unwilling to rule out the idea of some being who created the universe or, indeed, has incredible power over us. But I've got no reason to believe it's true.
The Christian God falls even further down the scale, as even if we posit some kind of all powerful being I have no reason whatsoever to believe any of the things said in the Bible are true. I'm happy to be non-denominational here and throw in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, whatever Sikh's practice, Shintoism and all other religions. Even if someone was able to show that mankind was Created and not Evolved, this tells us nothing about who the Creator is, after all.
I do not believe in Free Will and, having thought about it a lot, no longer have any real grasp on it might actually entail. Either events are caused or they are not. If they are caused, then there is no choice. If they are not caused, then by what mechanism do they occur? This may, of course, be a failure of my imagination.
I do not believe in any kind of absolute morals. Even if we were created by a being infinitely more powerful than us, I cannot grasp how that power has any relationship to morals. Morals, I believe, are nothing more than what we like and do not like, inflated by ourselves into codes that we believe should be universal.***
Obviously, you can see that there's an awful lot I don't believe in. The question arises, why do I believe the things I believe? As you can see from the link from science above, I'm obviously sceptical. This is note the same as cynical, it merely means I doubt. I do not have faith, or rather I strive to have as little faith as possible. I have a psychological need to see or interact with something before I believe it exists. In certain conditions I'm willing to trust other people, but because I don't trust random other people, I prefer that those other people have their claims verified by as many other people as possible. Basically, when it comes to believing new things I tend to ask "Why should I believe that?" I also try to avoid thinking that just because I like an idea it must be true. I don't always manager this, but I try to remind myself on a frequent basis that just because it would be nice if the saucer people came and took me off to the planet of the busty air hostesses doesn't make it a likely hypothesis.
* For instance Newton's Laws are approximations that work perfectly well at sizes above the quantum and at speeds lower than 70% of the speed of light. There's no reason to think that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics aren't also approximations. In fact, if there's a Grand Unified Theory they both have to be approximations to it.
** I can't see a reason why the rules would be undiscoverable, but I'm not willing to rule it out.
***I try to avoid using the term "moral" or "right","wrong","good" and "bad" in a moral sense as it tends to cause confusion. I don't always manage it. Certainly, if I say "Paedophillia is wrong" what I mean is "I don't like the fact that Paedophillia is wrong, and I wish others wouldn't do it.". Of course, those things which people refer to as morals tend to be the ones that cause an almost physical reaction in them. For instance, imagine someone slitting the throat of a close friend. You don't just think "I wish they wouldn't do that.", you actually feel a physical response to it. The fact that it causes this near-physical response causes most people to believe that other's must also feel it, and therefore it is a universal truth. For instance, some people feel physically revolted by the idea of two men kissing and therefore find it hard to dispassionately talk about freedom of expression. I, personally, would happily eradicate every spider from the face of the planet, because of the way the make me feel, because spiders feel "wrong" to me, but I recognise that just because I feel something (a) it doesn't make it true and (b) not everyone else feels it.
A quick word on layout. I originally had lots of brackets and digressions in the middle of this. I've moved as much as possible into footnotes. Of course, none of the modern browsers support the footnote tag that was in HTML3, or this wouldn't be a problem. Right, on with the show:
On the most basic level, I believe in matter and energy and the movement and interrelation of them in simple ways. These simple ways are described by us as the physical laws. While the laws we know may be only approximations*, or accurate under certain circumstances I believe they are approximate to laws inherent in the universe which are probably** discoverable using the process known as science.
I believe that everything is made up of various combinations of matter and energy and that no matter what you are talking about, they are nothing more than incredibly complex combinations of matter/energy, subject to the same laws.
I waver on the subject of "psi" and ghosts and suchlike. I've neither seen any of it, nor seen concrete proof, but I'm not comfortable ruling it out, because I have read reports by people that seem reputable who seem to have statistical proof of the existence of psi. Even if psi exists, I'd still expect it to follow some kind of rules as to its working, and to be (theoretically) predictable in its actions.
"God" is further down the scale than the paranormal, as I've not seen any kind of attempts at proof of any existence of a creator. I'm unwilling to rule out the idea of some being who created the universe or, indeed, has incredible power over us. But I've got no reason to believe it's true.
The Christian God falls even further down the scale, as even if we posit some kind of all powerful being I have no reason whatsoever to believe any of the things said in the Bible are true. I'm happy to be non-denominational here and throw in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, whatever Sikh's practice, Shintoism and all other religions. Even if someone was able to show that mankind was Created and not Evolved, this tells us nothing about who the Creator is, after all.
I do not believe in Free Will and, having thought about it a lot, no longer have any real grasp on it might actually entail. Either events are caused or they are not. If they are caused, then there is no choice. If they are not caused, then by what mechanism do they occur? This may, of course, be a failure of my imagination.
I do not believe in any kind of absolute morals. Even if we were created by a being infinitely more powerful than us, I cannot grasp how that power has any relationship to morals. Morals, I believe, are nothing more than what we like and do not like, inflated by ourselves into codes that we believe should be universal.***
Obviously, you can see that there's an awful lot I don't believe in. The question arises, why do I believe the things I believe? As you can see from the link from science above, I'm obviously sceptical. This is note the same as cynical, it merely means I doubt. I do not have faith, or rather I strive to have as little faith as possible. I have a psychological need to see or interact with something before I believe it exists. In certain conditions I'm willing to trust other people, but because I don't trust random other people, I prefer that those other people have their claims verified by as many other people as possible. Basically, when it comes to believing new things I tend to ask "Why should I believe that?" I also try to avoid thinking that just because I like an idea it must be true. I don't always manager this, but I try to remind myself on a frequent basis that just because it would be nice if the saucer people came and took me off to the planet of the busty air hostesses doesn't make it a likely hypothesis.
* For instance Newton's Laws are approximations that work perfectly well at sizes above the quantum and at speeds lower than 70% of the speed of light. There's no reason to think that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics aren't also approximations. In fact, if there's a Grand Unified Theory they both have to be approximations to it.
** I can't see a reason why the rules would be undiscoverable, but I'm not willing to rule it out.
***I try to avoid using the term "moral" or "right","wrong","good" and "bad" in a moral sense as it tends to cause confusion. I don't always manage it. Certainly, if I say "Paedophillia is wrong" what I mean is "I don't like the fact that Paedophillia is wrong, and I wish others wouldn't do it.". Of course, those things which people refer to as morals tend to be the ones that cause an almost physical reaction in them. For instance, imagine someone slitting the throat of a close friend. You don't just think "I wish they wouldn't do that.", you actually feel a physical response to it. The fact that it causes this near-physical response causes most people to believe that other's must also feel it, and therefore it is a universal truth. For instance, some people feel physically revolted by the idea of two men kissing and therefore find it hard to dispassionately talk about freedom of expression. I, personally, would happily eradicate every spider from the face of the planet, because of the way the make me feel, because spiders feel "wrong" to me, but I recognise that just because I feel something (a) it doesn't make it true and (b) not everyone else feels it.
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Date: 2002-09-30 12:56 pm (UTC)Just a thought: Have you considered the notion that morals are less what we like and do not like, and more evolutionarily refined strategies for a productive society? "Don't kill (members of the tribe)" and "Don't steal (from members of the tribe)", however "tribe" is defined, and similar basic "moral laws" seem to be pretty universal. I'd say it seems less that people "dislike" being stolen from, as that having a basic concept of property rights and social justice creates a more stable, prosperous society -- which means more members surviving to bear children and rear them with those same morals, and so on and so on. Evolutionary morality. It's really not a coincidence that the western women's rights movements came into existance shortly after the Industrial Revolution, or that the "sexual revolution" happened after the creative of reliable contraceptives -- technology changes the playing field, so to speak, and makes the function of some moral strategies obsolete or redundant.
But this is pretty neat, altogether -- writing down your, hrm, axiomatic beliefs? System of reality? I think I'll do it. It'd probably be interesting to do it every year and see what's changed.
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Date: 2002-09-30 01:05 pm (UTC)Absolutely, yes. Well, come peoples are. You can replace "good" with "social" and "evil" with "antisocial" a lot of the time, but then it's still personal, it's just personal for the majority :->
Man is definitely a social animal, and I do think that the evolutionary strategies that have developed are extremely strongly reflected in the instincts which underly our morals (Erin recently got hold of Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate, which is all about that, so far). I think that the richness of people in western society has allowed them to be independent of each other enough that they feel secure enough to open up about those instincts so that (for instance) the sexual revolution happened. Ooh, having come up with that as I typed, I think there's enough there for a separate post. I'm off to cut and paste.