[ExI] atheists declare religions as scams.

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2011-01-07 15:30, Sondre Bjellås wrote:
> Good feedback Anders and thanks!

Thanks!


> What I was referring too was not to apply science, but the tools of
> science (scientific method) as a means to verify the validity of
> morality. Those tools are amongst others empirical evidence and logic.
> There are no other rational means to understand what is true.

As far as we know. Consider that logic was invented around ~2400 years 
ago and the scientific method was invented ~400 years ago (and both have 
evolved *a lot* over just the last century) compared to the more than 
10,000 years of time humanity have had complex societies able to afford 
some systematic truth-seeking. We haven't had much time to search for 
other, equally good, methods of improving our true knowledge. There 
might be really good methods we haven't discovered yet because it is so 
hard to do it.

(Of course, there are also a whole bunch of philosophers of science who 
have trouble with what the concepts of truth and evidence are supposed 
to denote - it is a tricky business when you look at it closely. Not all 
of it is merely semantics either, as AI researchers have discovered the 
hard way.)


> Many
> people do not have a rational basis for their moral beliefs, and their
> moral easily crumbles under any philosophical and logical investigation.

With a sufficiently good philosopher, anybody's belief system will tend 
to crumble. :-)

The fact that we manage to get around in the real world despite the 
amazing crappiness of our knowledge, beliefs and thought processes is 
very interesting in itself. What does that tell us about ourselves, the 
world and the feasibility of making thinking systems?


-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford University