From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 08:20:05 BST
Hi Mark (msh)
> On 7 Apr 2005 at 12:22, Sam Norton wrote:
>
> (And, of course, I don't see a religious commitment as
> the equivalent of a lobotomy, something I know you disagree with,
> along with others here).
>
> msh:
> I hope you don't mean me! I know from our many discussions that
> your frontal lobe is perfectly in tact.
I heartily welcome your return. But one of your recent messages to Ham did
seem a little intemperate.
You said to Adam:
> msh says:
> I think the difference is in the motive for the assumption.
> Scientists, engineers, mathematicians all make assumptions in order
> to solve problems. <snip>
> Now, see if you can find someone who's made the leap of faith, who
> believes God exists but doesn't really care whether or not their
> belief is correct. I think you'll see my point.
I think you're a) confusing two different sorts of belief, and b)
underrating or misrepresenting the nature of religious 'belief'. These are
things I've said ad nauseam on this forum, but they are worth repeating.
To say 'I believe that the mass energy of an electron is 0.51 MeV' is to
give one sort of a belief. To say 'I believe that my wife is faithful' is to
give another. One of the beliefs is hugely more important, and is cared
about, than the other.
If a scientist or engineer 'doesn't really care whether or not their belief
is correct' then they don't really care about the outcome. Which is probably
true for much of the time, certainly in most 'normal science', and is a
logical consequence of SOM and how scientists are trained. But it doesn't
happen always, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen in revolutionary
science. Did Newton care whether the laws of motion were true? He had a lot
of ego invested in the debates with the Cartesians and with Liebniz.
But religious belief is not analogous to 'scientific' belief, they are not
the same sort of thing. Religious beliefs are much more like beliefs about
personal relationships, (or revolutionary science) in other words, they
matter much more. You seem to make the assumption that caring about the
truth in this sphere is a flaw. Whereas I think it is in the caring that the
truth is found - and I think Pirsig makes just this point in ZMM. Your
argument seems to be a variety of the claim that science is 'value free' -
is that really what you are arguing for?
Sam
'it strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a
passionate commitment to a system of reference. Hence, although it's belief,
it's really a way of living, or a way of assessing life. It's passionately
seizing hold of this interpretation.' (Wittgenstein)
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