6 ms·

Of Two Minds – A neuroscientist balances science and faith

20 points by milkcircle 12y ago

cicero 12y ago
This is a great explanation of how faith and reason operate together. I have degrees in computer science and theology, so I don't have the scientific cred of a neuroscientist, but I can say this piece does a good job of articulating my own experience.
- danbruc 12y ago
  It captures what happens but I find the conclusions wrong. Yes, we are often unable to act with complete scientific rigor because the systems we have to deal with are way to complex and so we use our intuition and the like to deal with the situations, but this does not at all mean that this is a good or useful way to understand our world - after all our intuition and common sense is exactly what gives us a wrong picture of our world. Only scientific rigor was able to teach us that the world is very different from what we usually see, from space and time over energy and matter to the dynamics of life, the earth and the universe as whole.
  - cicero 12y ago
    I am not saying, and neither is the author, that we should reject scientific rigor in the cases where it can be applied. Rather, we should not limit ourselves to only asking questions that can be answered by science. Indeed, it is impossible to live that way. Therefore, the rejection of religious claims, such as the existence of God, on the basis that they cannot be scientifically proven is not reasonable. If all questions of life were subjected to the same standard of proof that some people demand of religious claims, we would not be able to function. I used to be an atheist until I realized that my rejection of religion was intellectually dishonest. I therefore decided to investigate religion with an open mind, and that eventually led to my belief in God.
altrego99 12y ago
Admitted I didn't think he would be sensible when he said he is a minority being "serious Christian" in a community of scientists, he turned out not to be sensible.
jabelk 12y ago
"It hinges on a gut-level judgment about what sort of universe we inhabit." The thing is, I don't think a gut-level judgment is the best course of action here. Similarly, I don't make gut-level judgments about whether I believe in gravity, or whether I believe in evolution. In my mind, the nature of the universe falls squarely under "science."
- ohsnap 12y ago
  That was a confusing sentence by the author, but I think he was referring to the metaphysical quality of the universe - e.g. perceiving the universe as being made by a creator (or not)
- waps 12y ago
  TLDR: Science is inconsistent, and so is faith. "Gut-level judgements" are all we have, both in science and in faith. Can people please stop ignorantly claiming otherwise ? The laws of mathematics actually prohibit anything other than a "gut-level" judgement. Let's take one problem (but go ahead and take 5 books about "constructivism" out of the library and you'll get to 50 problems soon). Godel's theorem, because it's the most generic, but there's plenty of them. Assuming you believe in any science that uses natural numbers, rational ones, or real ones (ie. all of them), then there's 2 possibilities : - you're not convinced that there are no contradictions. In this case, what do you have that faith doesn't ? - you're convinced that there are no contradictions. In this case you can be sure : you're wrong. Either because you don't realize there are contradictions, or because you've got a wrong theory. So how exactly is science better than faith ? It's not. Here's how this argument evolved : 1) Faith does not follow reason ! It kind of does, or rather we can't find good examples of obvious inconsistencies. (the bible was written by people who had studied under Greek philosophers, so it really is quite consistent. It's not perfect, but compared to say, the quran or the vedas, it's bloody hard to find conclusive contradictions. Whereas the quran simply says that it has inconsistencies and you shouldn't care about that, for example, and points out a specific inconsistency in itself. But this was not a real argument at the time) 2) oh-oh the vatican claims they do follow reason. They have some good arguments on that too. But they don't follow reason entirely ! 3) oops ... science doesn't actually follow reason either. We don't actually have proofs of consistency, and worse : we don't even construct most arguments. Let's fix that. 4) (~100 years later) we give up. This is not possible. Let's be brutally dishonest and at least look for a proof that we could write a constructivist science and do that. (this is brutally dishonest because it would be a non-constructivist proof that constructivism could work without actually making it work) 5) (~10 years later) okay, that can't be done either. We can't have a science without pulling new concepts out of thin air without any real reason to assume they work other than that we haven't found any mistakes ! 6) (~20 years later) This idiot "Godel" comes on stage and claims if you have a proof that a scientific theory is consistent you can rewrite that into a proof that that theory is wrong ! Prepostrous ! Let's pelt him with tomatoes ! 7) (1 day later) "Say guys ... I've been looking through that proof of Mr. Godel and I can't seem to find a mistake" ... followed by 1 month of doing nothing but looking for errors in that proof. 8) (1 month later) Success ! Godel made a mistake. 9) (2 days later) Godel writes an article fixing the mistake 10) (~2-20 years later, depending on who you ask) Okay, we give up. Science is not consistent and can never be consistent. "We cannot pull ourselves out of the mud". Given this history, can we please drop the argument that science is consistent and faith is not ? (Christian faith, because it is the only one that claims and tries to be consistent, not saying you couldn't create others, but no-one did) Science is inconsistent, and so is faith. Can people stop claiming otherwise ?
SNvD7vEJ 12y ago
"religious insights" he says ... "religious delusion" I'd say. IMHO, thinking that science and religion would not be in conflict is just an even worse level of delusion.
acct_0053 12y ago
That's nice. In a sense he's rationalizing away the need to apply the same rigorous requirements to the existence of a god (and therefore whether or not obedience is necessary, followed by a source from which to gather his sense of morality) that one would apply to any other fantastical claim. So what? Nothing wrong with that. So long as he's not applying that same mode of thinking to the actual science he does (which he apparently does not), doesn't negatively impact others with that morality which he derives from his beliefs - or the source of those beliefs, and doesn't demand that others respect or accept those beliefs. Doesn't appear from the article that he's guilty of any of those actions. Then again, I'm unfamiliar with his name or his work. *Edit: rephrased "...or acceptance of..." => "...or accept..."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
n0rm 12y ago
This (short) book gives a sense of the "faith" required for scientists - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13574594-ignorance https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13574594-ignorance
babyturtle 12y ago
This guy doesnt understand science... Scientific method (as well as common sense) says that you dont waste time talking about hypothesis that are empirically untestable. (We can invent infinitely many of these... eg invisible purple elephants that dance in your ice cream are what make it taste so good) There is no way to prove or disprove things like this and its a total waste of time talking or thinking about things like this. That is what science says on the matter. If you then go ahead and put "faith" (ie probability >0.5 that untestable hypothesis is true... then you are not a scientist.)
taksintik 12y ago
I think "faith" is the operative word here. I don't believe our "religions" are congruent with science. I have faith in science!

20 points by milkcircle 12y ago

This is a great explanation of how faith and reason operate together. I have degrees in computer science and theology, so I don't have the scientific cred of a neuroscientist, but I can say this piece does a good job of articulating my own experience.

danbruc 12y ago
It captures what happens but I find the conclusions wrong. Yes, we are often unable to act with complete scientific rigor because the systems we have to deal with are way to complex and so we use our intuition and the like to deal with the situations, but this does not at all mean that this is a good or useful way to understand our world - after all our intuition and common sense is exactly what gives us a wrong picture of our world. Only scientific rigor was able to teach us that the world is very different from what we usually see, from space and time over energy and matter to the dynamics of life, the earth and the universe as whole.
- cicero 12y ago
  I am not saying, and neither is the author, that we should reject scientific rigor in the cases where it can be applied. Rather, we should not limit ourselves to only asking questions that can be answered by science. Indeed, it is impossible to live that way. Therefore, the rejection of religious claims, such as the existence of God, on the basis that they cannot be scientifically proven is not reasonable. If all questions of life were subjected to the same standard of proof that some people demand of religious claims, we would not be able to function. I used to be an atheist until I realized that my rejection of religion was intellectually dishonest. I therefore decided to investigate religion with an open mind, and that eventually led to my belief in God.

altrego99 12y ago

Admitted I didn't think he would be sensible when he said he is a minority being "serious Christian" in a community of scientists, he turned out not to be sensible.

jabelk 12y ago

"It hinges on a gut-level judgment about what sort of universe we inhabit." The thing is, I don't think a gut-level judgment is the best course of action here. Similarly, I don't make gut-level judgments about whether I believe in gravity, or whether I believe in evolution. In my mind, the nature of the universe falls squarely under "science."

ohsnap 12y ago
That was a confusing sentence by the author, but I think he was referring to the metaphysical quality of the universe - e.g. perceiving the universe as being made by a creator (or not)
waps 12y ago
TLDR: Science is inconsistent, and so is faith. "Gut-level judgements" are all we have, both in science and in faith. Can people please stop ignorantly claiming otherwise ? The laws of mathematics actually prohibit anything other than a "gut-level" judgement. Let's take one problem (but go ahead and take 5 books about "constructivism" out of the library and you'll get to 50 problems soon). Godel's theorem, because it's the most generic, but there's plenty of them. Assuming you believe in any science that uses natural numbers, rational ones, or real ones (ie. all of them), then there's 2 possibilities : - you're not convinced that there are no contradictions. In this case, what do you have that faith doesn't ? - you're convinced that there are no contradictions. In this case you can be sure : you're wrong. Either because you don't realize there are contradictions, or because you've got a wrong theory. So how exactly is science better than faith ? It's not. Here's how this argument evolved : 1) Faith does not follow reason ! It kind of does, or rather we can't find good examples of obvious inconsistencies. (the bible was written by people who had studied under Greek philosophers, so it really is quite consistent. It's not perfect, but compared to say, the quran or the vedas, it's bloody hard to find conclusive contradictions. Whereas the quran simply says that it has inconsistencies and you shouldn't care about that, for example, and points out a specific inconsistency in itself. But this was not a real argument at the time) 2) oh-oh the vatican claims they do follow reason. They have some good arguments on that too. But they don't follow reason entirely ! 3) oops ... science doesn't actually follow reason either. We don't actually have proofs of consistency, and worse : we don't even construct most arguments. Let's fix that. 4) (~100 years later) we give up. This is not possible. Let's be brutally dishonest and at least look for a proof that we could write a constructivist science and do that. (this is brutally dishonest because it would be a non-constructivist proof that constructivism could work without actually making it work) 5) (~10 years later) okay, that can't be done either. We can't have a science without pulling new concepts out of thin air without any real reason to assume they work other than that we haven't found any mistakes ! 6) (~20 years later) This idiot "Godel" comes on stage and claims if you have a proof that a scientific theory is consistent you can rewrite that into a proof that that theory is wrong ! Prepostrous ! Let's pelt him with tomatoes ! 7) (1 day later) "Say guys ... I've been looking through that proof of Mr. Godel and I can't seem to find a mistake" ... followed by 1 month of doing nothing but looking for errors in that proof. 8) (1 month later) Success ! Godel made a mistake. 9) (2 days later) Godel writes an article fixing the mistake 10) (~2-20 years later, depending on who you ask) Okay, we give up. Science is not consistent and can never be consistent. "We cannot pull ourselves out of the mud". Given this history, can we please drop the argument that science is consistent and faith is not ? (Christian faith, because it is the only one that claims and tries to be consistent, not saying you couldn't create others, but no-one did) Science is inconsistent, and so is faith. Can people stop claiming otherwise ?

SNvD7vEJ 12y ago

"religious insights" he says ... "religious delusion" I'd say. IMHO, thinking that science and religion would not be in conflict is just an even worse level of delusion.

acct_0053 12y ago

That's nice. In a sense he's rationalizing away the need to apply the same rigorous requirements to the existence of a god (and therefore whether or not obedience is necessary, followed by a source from which to gather his sense of morality) that one would apply to any other fantastical claim. So what? Nothing wrong with that. So long as he's not applying that same mode of thinking to the actual science he does (which he apparently does not), doesn't negatively impact others with that morality which he derives from his beliefs - or the source of those beliefs, and doesn't demand that others respect or accept those beliefs. Doesn't appear from the article that he's guilty of any of those actions. Then again, I'm unfamiliar with his name or his work. *Edit: rephrased "...or acceptance of..." => "...or accept..."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

n0rm 12y ago

This (short) book gives a sense of the "faith" required for scientists - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13574594-ignorance https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13574594-ignorance

babyturtle 12y ago

This guy doesnt understand science... Scientific method (as well as common sense) says that you dont waste time talking about hypothesis that are empirically untestable. (We can invent infinitely many of these... eg invisible purple elephants that dance in your ice cream are what make it taste so good) There is no way to prove or disprove things like this and its a total waste of time talking or thinking about things like this. That is what science says on the matter. If you then go ahead and put "faith" (ie probability >0.5 that untestable hypothesis is true... then you are not a scientist.)

taksintik 12y ago

I think "faith" is the operative word here. I don't believe our "religions" are congruent with science. I have faith in science!