[ExI] A science-religious experience

[Ben Zaiboc]

Daniel said:
 > I fully acknowledge that science cannot tell us about the values we 
should choose. But I do not acknowledge that those values have to be 
belief. For me they can be ideas, principles, and are open to revision 
or change, given evidence, new states in the world etc. Which are only 
some of the things that set them apart from belief for me.

Bingo.
I'm in favour of getting  rid of the word 'belief'. It does us no 
favours, and leads to confusion and miscommunication.

A long time ago, I came up with an idea called 'relativity of 
importance', which has basically shaped my values ever since. Simple 
idea, I'm sure many others have had it too. Ask yourself "what's the 
most important thing you can think of?", then "Is there anything more 
important to you than that?", and keep asking that question until you 
come to a stop.
Then you have a list, in order, of the things that are important to you. 
Then behave in accordance with it.

As Daniel said, values don't have to be fixed. So periodically reviewing 
your list is important, to see if some of your opinions on these things 
have changed. For me, this method determines my values, morals, ethics 
and guides my behaviour (provided I do behave in accordance with it, 
which is sometimes hard, I admit (and why that is is a very interesting 
subject in its own right. I can recommend a book called 'Why everyone 
(else) is a hypocrite' by Robert Kurzban to shed some light on why our 
behaviours are sometimes (or often!) contradictory (ISBN 9780691154398)).

So while science itself can't tell us which values we should choose, 
logic can, if we decide to use it.

Jason said:
 > > As Einstein put it: "Science without religion is lame, religion 
without science is blind."
 > My interpretation of this quote is that religion defines the goals...

Einstein should have stuck to physics.

If he even really did say this. Lots of 'Einstein quotes' are hypocryphal.

But if he did, it's a good example of someone who's an expert in one 
domain, being taken seriously when they say something stupid in an 
unrelated domain.

To me, this looks like a religious apologist's attempt to justify 
religion. And for me, religion is pretty much the worst way of deciding 
on our goals. That's basically just letting some priests tell you what 
you should be doing. And we're all familiar with the tragic consequences 
of that.

It also implies that there are only those two options, science and 
religion, which is far from true.

In my opinion, religion doesn't even belong in the realm of philosophy, 
but rather psychology (or even psychiatry). Including religion in 
discussions about philosophy, ethics, etc., is basically equivalent to 
including homoeopathy in discussions about medicine, astrology in 
discussions about astronomy, alchemy in discussions about chemisty, etc. 
Religion is probably the biggest con trick in all of history.


Daniel asked:
 > What philosophers (if any) inspire you? It would be interesting to 
hear if I missed any good ones out there. =)

In general, philosophers don't inspire me at all, but there are some who 
have had what seem like good ideas, and many that have what seem like 
very bad ones, but most, to my mind, just seem terminally confused, or 
at least confusing.
Bacon, Hume, Locke, Spooner (Lysander, not Archibald!, & particularly 
for 'Vices Are Not Crimes'), all had some good ideas (as well as some 
bad ones, especially Bacon), and of contemporary philosophers, I only 
rate one, Dennett, although even he is dead now.
There are other people who, while not describing themselves as 
philosophers for the most part, do have ideas that are philosophically 
important, and that I agree with: Hitchens, Dawkins (I once desribed him 
as "the most sensible bloke on the planet"), Harris, Moravec. Minsky, 
Kurzweil, Korzybski, Hofsdtater, Wiley (Keith Wiley, of 'A Taxonomy and 
Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading' fame, ISBN 9780692279847 - very highly 
recommended), Max More, Anders Sandberg, Aubrey de Grey.


Jason said:
 > I think the word "belief" has too many extra connotations that are 
confusing and obscuring our conversation. I think it may help you 
re-read my email as if you had done a find/replace to change "belief" to 
"something you bet is true". I don't mean anything else beyond that when 
I use the word.

Ok, but why 'bet'? I think that 'something you think is true' would be 
better. 'Something you think is probably true' is better still.
If you have a bet on something, you have an emotional investment in it. 
You /want/ it to be true, which is dangerously close to big-B Belief.

Maybe 'assumption' would work better? Personally, I use 'think' in place 
of 'believe'. Usually.

 > Do you bet there is no afterlife?
 > Do you bet there is no God?
 > Do you bet there are no universes but this one?
 > Do you bet robots could be conscious?
 > Do you bet you are not in a simulated world?

 > These are all in the realm of religious ideas, whether you take a pro 
or con stance. The only escape from having bets on these ideas is pure 
non-committal agnosticism: not willing to bet one way or the other. But 
it is hard to truly avoid taking actions that expose your having a bias 
or opinion one way or the other. For example, do you choose to freeze 
your brain or not, do you oppose your child marrying a robot or not, do 
you pray for a safe landing or not, etc.


I wouldn't take a bet on any of these ideas (simply because I don't 
bet), but:

No, I don't think there is an 'afterlife', on purely logical grounds. I 
don't think there is any 'aftermusic' once the music stops, or 
'afterflame' once a candle goes out, either.
Think of it this way: If something ceases to exist, does it still exist? 
Rather a silly question, isn't it. If you die, and you're still alive, 
then you didn't die, did you.
The only thing that 'afterlife' can sensibly mean is nonexistence. The 
word doesn't mean anything.

Yes, I do think there 'is no god', or more accurately, 'aren't any 
gods'. (I find that there's a rather obnoxious short-sightedness (to be 
polite, and avoiding calling it arrogance), among very many people in 
the western world, using the word 'god', as if there haven't been 
thousands of gods throughout human history).
This is a more tricky question, because you have to define what 
'god/gods' means. But in the traditional religious sense of the word, 
gods simply cannot exist, unless we have our understanding of how the 
world works totally wrong (which is unlikely, because our bridges and 
buildings tend to not fall down, we have put people on the moon, and 
millions of other things that depend on our scientific understanding, 
work fine). Go back to the 31 Dec 2024 and read the post 'A paranormal 
prediction for the next year' on this list. It could well have included 
the prediction that no gods will be demonstrated to exist, for exactly 
the same reasons.

On the other hand, yes, I do think 'god/gods' exist. In fact I know they 
do. As concepts in the minds of millions of humans. So I think that 
god/s exist in the same way that pixies, santa claus, unicorns, beauty 
and justice do.

(incidentally, I think it's interesting that you capitalise the word 
'god', but not 'universes')

I simply don't know if there are universes beyond this one. I don't even 
know how to properly define this universe. It seems possible, from what 
I've read, but I'm not really qualified to have an opinion on it.

I think robots could be conscious, yes, of course. This is a no-brainer. 
We ourselves are proof of this (provided you accept that we are conscious).

Do I think we are in a simulation? There isn't enough evidence to 
decide. There may never be.

I don't know why you say these are all in the realm of religious ideas. 
Only the first two relate to religion, in that without it the questions 
wouldn't even exist, but they are still amenable to thinking logically 
about them, and coming to reasonable conclusions.

-- 
Ben