Only two different types of belief

[atheist buddy]

In my opinion there are only two types of beliefs.

Examples of type 1 beliefs
Planet earth is approximately globe shaped, 2+2=4, my mother loves me, Los Angeles is west of Chicago, I have a million dollars in my bank account, humans have 23 chromosome pairs, Napoleon was born on August 15th 1769, Bradd Pitt is married to Angelina Jolie


Examples of type 2 beliefs
Jesus was born of a virgin, Mohammed flew into heaven on the back of a winged white horse, there is an alien space ship hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet which you can teleport to by committing suicide, Apollo causes the sun to rise eveyr morning by carrying it up into the sky on a charriot, the Lock Ness monster exists, Frosty the Snow man occasionally comes to life, Santa delivers gifts from his invisible North Pole factory to millions of homes every Christmas night.

What do all type 1 beliefs have in common? They are all supported by empirical evidence.

What do all type 2 beliefs have in common? They are all NOT supported by empirical evidence, and in many cases contradicted by empirical evidence


If you are religious, which type do your religious beliefs fall into?

If type 1, can you please spell out what your beliefs are, and what the empirical evidence for them is?

If type 2, can you please outline what justification there is for believing your specific type 2 belief and not any other type 2 belief?

If you agree that they are not type 1, but assert that they don't belong in type 2 either, could you please outline what attributes your beliefs have that differentiate them from type 2 beliefs?

[atheist buddy]

There is a huge difference. The evidence for Napoleon's birthday is not contradicted by ANYTHING.

Yes, but it is a thing that really matters. Only few would bother to disagree with it, because it is not important thing.

First half of your statement: "It is a thing that really matters".

Second half of your statement: "It is not important thing".

Your statements make no sense.

The evidence for Jesus walking on water, for Noah's ark, for the talking donkey, for the rain of frogs, for the zombie invasion, are contradicted by everything we know about science.

I agree that modern science and modern people don’t understand how those could be possible. However, in my opinion it is not wise to define possibilities by lack of knowledge.

Agreed. It's silly to say that it's possible that Mary was a virgin based on the lack of knowledge of whether she as or not.

I have no reason to believe that today people have the highest knowledge so that they could tell what can ever in any situation be possible.

People in the bronze age had even less knowledge.

Also it's not about whether something is possible. It's about whether it's reaosnable to believe that it actually happened. And the evidence ovewhelmingly points to it NOT being reasonable to believe that the virgin birth happened, for example.

[Divine Insight]

What an awesome post, and what a shame it didn't get more response.

Kind of off topic (but the topic died anyway) let me throw back a few thoughts.

Yes, there are a lot of sub-topic concepts that would obviously take this topic far off course. And each one of them are worthy of detailed debate in and of themselves.

Since the thread hasn't been real active, I'd like to respond very quickly to the concerns you have brought up:

On quantum discreteness and the mathematical continuum
Like all mathematics, the continuum doesn't have to depend on the real world for its validity. And the continuum is there... once you start doing addition and multiplication you will eventually be led to it because it's the unique complete ordered field. Even if we had always believed space to be ultimately discrete we would have discovered it. And the calculus that uses it does things that a "discrete" viewpoint can't - try doing relativity without infinitesimals.

Actually the "continuum" doesn't stem from addition or multiplication. On the contrary it's actually a result of two totally unrelated things: Irrational Numbers, and a Set Theory that is based on "nothing" (or to be more precise, based on a concept of an "empty set".

Also, infinitesimals do not demand a continuum. In fact, neither does Calculus. Calculus is based upon the concept of the Calculus Limit. And that was initially quite a problem for mathematics. Obviously very closely related to the concept of an infinitesimal.

It was actually Karl Weierstrass who came up with a very nice formal definition for the Calculus Limit what is on the math books today. It's often referred to as the "Epsilon-delta" definition and if you are familiar with Calculus I'm sure you are also familiar with this definition of the limit. This definition actually forbids the infinitesimal to ever become zero. And therefore, ironically this definition actually supports that it's incorrect to imagine a continuum.

Calculus neither requires a continuum, nor does it technically define one.

In fact, if you have ever taken a calculus course you must also know that in order to prove that a limit "exists" you do not need to prove that anything is continuous. On the contrary all you need to do is prove trends and boundary conditions. And then you can legally say that the "limit" exists.

In fact, if you really paying attention in calculus you will quickly realize (and quickly be taught) that just because a limit "exists" does not mean that the point the limit defines needs to exist. The "existence" of a limit in calculus does not automatically imply the existence of the point to which the limit refers anyway.

So the use of Calculus limits (or the concept of infinitesimals) in no way implies that a continuum must exist. It's simply not supported by the formal definition of the Calculus Limit as created by Karl Weierstrass.

So Calculus neither defines, nor requires, the existence of a continuum to work.

But for other reasons as I had previously mentioned (i.e. irrational numbers, and empty sets) do require a continuum in order to exist. But both of those concepts are flawed. A totally separate and interesting topic.

You say that quantum science is "real" and it's just that the discrete nature of reality isn't apparent at large scales
We should have learnt by now that it's hasty (and unnecessary) to declare that any objects postulated by a scientific theory are "real". The moon landings were achieved using Newtonian mechanics even though that was already known to be "wrong" because it was the best tool for the job. Everything you can do with the Standard Model will still work if String Theory (or something else) supersedes it as a description of the smallest scales. And like I said, try doing relativity with the tools of quantum mechanics. Why should we ever expect to reach a point where our theories cannot be revised?

In the case of Quantum Mechanics no 'objects' need to be defined. In fact, they have cleverly avoided that problem by speaking in terms of 'observables' instead of 'objects'.

Also, "The Standard Model" is not "Quantum Mechanics". The Standard Model is a model of particle physics. Quantum Mechanics is a mathematical theory that describes the observable behavior of these potential "particles". But there is nothing in Quantum Mechanics that actually requires that we even think in terms of "particles" at all. All that Quantum Mechanics describes is observable behaviors. Its says nothing about what might be causing these observable behaviors.

Scientists say that these observable behaviors are "real" simply because they are indeed "observable" which in science means that they are also "measurable".

In science if you can observe and measure something, it is accepted to have physical reality. If it cannot be measured or observed in any way, then it cannot be said to be real. (note: this can get a little tricky when speaking of things that can be observed or measured indirectly).

So scientifically speaking Quantum Mechanics (or Quantum Phenomenon that is described by Quantum Mechanics) is "real" because it describes observable and measurable properties of the physical world.

A theory fits observation closely enough for the task in hand or it doesn't. The notion of "real" is redundant.

No, not in science. In science the term "real" actually means "physically real" and refers to any observable or measurable property of physical reality. If you can observe it and measure it you are more than welcome to state scientifically that this behavior is real. If you want to go beyond what you can observe or measure can claim that 'particles actually exist as real entities' then you're moving into a realm where you have gone beyond what you can observe and measure.

In other words, you can't really say whether quarks are "real" or strings are "real". But you can say that the behaviors that you are attempting to describe as quarks or strings are "real".

But to say that quarks or strings are causing those behaviors is nothing more than a speculative guess.

Another dichotomy
Either there is a definite way reality is or there isn't. Either there is something behind the veil in the Holy of Holies, or not.

There's clearly "something behind" reality whether it be "holy" or "quarky" or "stringy". Somethings going on. Even pure secular materialists believe that there is something behind the veil of reality (i.e. A Material Substance)

Materialism versus pantheism
Is there really a difference between your first and third options? If so, what? It seems to me that the question is, do the rules work all the time or are their sometimes miracles. If you go with option one then the difference between materialism and pantheism is only labelling and a matter of taste. If you go with option two then we can ask for empirical evidence of the miracles and we return to Atheist Buddy's original dichotomy.

Like I said, a pleasure to read...

Yes, I think there is a difference between materialism and pantheism. At least as materialism is being presented by secularists.

The difference lies in just what it is that is having the experience of awareness.

Pure secular materialist tend to believe that awareness is something that has emerged as a property that is basically different from the material from which it has emerged. Therefore in this scenario this awareness is temporary, fleeting, and basically has no foundational reality. In other words, it's really not even the material substance that is aware of anything. The experience of awareness is attributed to some sort of emergent feed-back loop of a biological analog computer. - This may be a correct picture of reality, but it's different from the mystical view.

In the mystical view the foundational substance of reality is the "ground of all being". It's not believed to simply be materialistic in an inert sense like string or particles. Instead the substance of reality is itself a being. An entity that is capable of having an experience. It may have physical attributes (i.e. it may be the energy that becomes standing waves of string vibrations). In fact, many mystics actually believe that there is a physical structure to this entity that is the ground of being. Where the term "physical" simply means that it has properties that are 'real' in a scientific sense (i.e. observable and measurable). Those properties may actually be observed and measured as packets of vibrations that scientists call quarks and strings. However, the difference in this picture is that it is this ground of being that is having the experience of awareness. Therefore in this scenario awareness is not something that merely arises and fades away, but instead it's something that occurs repeatedly basically forever (or for as long as this ground of being exists). So in this picture awareness is not a temporary feed-back loop that is unrelated to the foundational substance of reality, but rather awareness is something that the foundational substance of reality is actually experiencing. And as the mystics say, "Tat t'vam asi", "We are That".

So there is quite a difference between a purely secular materialistic view of reality and the view that reality actually arises from an entity which is the ground of all being.

So these are two different philosophies to be sure.

How it can be determined which might be true is anyone's guess. I don't think we currently have a way to distinguish between these two hypotheses.

It would be nice if we could. Then we could put the matter to rest.

[atheist buddy]

What an awesome post, and what a shame it didn't get more response.

Kind of off topic (but the topic died anyway) let me throw back a few thoughts.

Yes, there are a lot of sub-topic concepts that would obviously take this topic far off course. And each one of them are worthy of detailed debate in and of themselves.

Since the thread hasn't been real active, I'd like to respond very quickly to the concerns you have brought up:

I don't mind

[Unhand Me Sir]

It was actually Karl Weierstrass who came up with a very nice formal definition for the Calculus Limit what is on the math books today. It's often referred to as the "Epsilon-delta" definition and if you are familiar with Calculus I'm sure you are also familiar with this definition of the limit. This definition actually forbids the infinitesimal to ever become zero. And therefore, ironically this definition actually supports that it's incorrect to imagine a continuum.

Surely the whole point of the epsilon-delta approach is that there is no smallest distance - which is where you might see a tension with Planck lengths.

In fact, you aren't even talking about the continuum here, just the property that between any two points there lies a third. The rationals have that property and they're less rich than the continuum. And that property does arise just from addition and multiplication - if a and b are numbers then so is (a+b)/2.

In fact, if you really paying attention in calculus you will quickly realize (and quickly be taught) that just because a limit "exists" does not mean that the point the limit defines needs to exist. The "existence" of a limit in calculus does not automatically imply the existence of the point to which the limit refers anyway.

I'm afraid I don't know what this means. As I understand it, limits are defined by saying "x is a limit for a sequence/function if...." You cannot then say that the limit exists but x doesn't.

There's clearly "something behind" reality whether it be "holy" or "quarky" or "stringy". Somethings going on. Even pure secular materialists believe that there is something behind the veil of reality (i.e. A Material Substance)

That sounds like an article of faith to me, or at least an unchallenged assumption. Compare, for instance, what Stephen Hawking calls model dependent realism, according to which there is no all-encompassing description of reality, just the hope that different models will agree where their domains coincide.

So these are two different philosophies to be sure.

How it can be determined which might be true is anyone's guess. I don't think we currently have a way to distinguish between these two hypotheses.

It would be nice if we could. Then we could put the matter to rest.

I'm familiar with pantheism as you've set it out. But here's the thing... if we agree that there's no way of telling which theory holds then they aren't different theories. Until a pantheistic world can be said to differ in some respect from a materialistic one the difference is a matter of aesthetics.

The phrase commonly used is "not even wrong." At least string theorists are embarrassed that they can't make any predictions. Mystics should be too, unless it's basically a kind of poetry.

[Divine Insight]

Surely the whole point of the epsilon-delta approach is that there is no smallest distance - which is where you might see a tension with Planck lengths.

That still doesn't define a continuum. And besides, even though this is a formal method of technically defining a Limit you need to keep in mind that it's not really definition an "entity" but rather it's simply defining the rules that must be satisfied to say that this condition exists.

A lot of people have difficulty with this formal definition precisely because they try to imagine that it is definition the property of an actual mathematical object or entity. But it's not. The calculus limit is not a mathematical object. It's a condition that must be satisfied before you are permitted to say that a limit exist. But even then this definition does not require that the actual point you claim as the limit even exists.

In fact, you aren't even talking about the continuum here, just the property that between any two points there lies a third. The rationals have that property and they're less rich than the continuum. And that property does arise just from addition and multiplication - if a and b are numbers then so is (a+b)/2.

That's exactly right. In fact, a continuum would actually not have this property. A continuum would require that there can be no space between any points. In fact, if you think about it, the very concept of a continuum is an oxymoron because if there is discrete space between points then all points must in fact be the same point. How could they not be if they are not separated by a discrete space?

In fact, if you really paying attention in calculus you will quickly realize (and quickly be taught) that just because a limit "exists" does not mean that the point the limit defines needs to exist. The "existence" of a limit in calculus does not automatically imply the existence of the point to which the limit refers anyway.

I'm afraid I don't know what this means. As I understand it, limits are defined by saying "x is a limit for a sequence/function if...." You cannot then say that the limit exists but x doesn't.

You absolutely can. If you have function that is undefined at say zero, yet it is well defined and well behaved on either side of zero then it this function clearly has a limit zero, yet it is undefined at zero (i.e. the value for this function at zero does not exist). And there you have a limit at x where the limit exist at x but the value at x does not exist.

In fact, this is often a trick question on calculus exams to test to see if the student caught this necessary fact.

A limit is a property of a function, not a property of the point that we are calling the limit. The point at the limit does not need to exist just because the limit exists.

There's clearly "something behind" reality whether it be "holy" or "quarky" or "stringy". Somethings going on. Even pure secular materialists believe that there is something behind the veil of reality (i.e. A Material Substance)

That sounds like an article of faith to me, or at least an unchallenged assumption. Compare, for instance, what Stephen Hawking calls model dependent realism, according to which there is no all-encompassing description of reality, just the hope that different models will agree where their domains coincide.

I think he was talking about abstract mathematical theories in that case.

He also said, "Even if we find a theory of everything it would just be a mathematical description, but what breathes fire into these equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"

Clearly Stephen Hawking understands the difference between attempting to describe reality using mathematical models, and the actual existence of that reality.

So these are two different philosophies to be sure.

How it can be determined which might be true is anyone's guess. I don't think we currently have a way to distinguish between these two hypotheses.

It would be nice if we could. Then we could put the matter to rest.

I'm familiar with pantheism as you've set it out. But here's the thing... if we agree that there's no way of telling which theory holds then they aren't different theories. Until a pantheistic world can be said to differ in some respect from a materialistic one the difference is a matter of aesthetics.

I would disagree that they aren't different theories just because we have no way of telling which theory might be true.

Clearly we can see that they are different ideas. They are two different concepts. If one of them is true, then the other one is false.

Just because we might not be able to make a final determination to which is true does not mean that the question is reduced to aesthetics. It simply means that the answer to the question may simply be beyond are capability to discover. After all, we have never been given any guarantee by nature that we should be able to fully understand the ultimate nature of reality. There may actually exist things that we can never know. In fact, it seem to me to be totally unwarranted on our behalf to think that we should be able to know everything.

The phrase commonly used is "not even wrong." At least string theorists are embarrassed that they can't make any predictions. Mystics should be too, unless it's basically a kind of poetry.

I don't think that mystics should be as embarrassed as string theorists. After all it's the purpose of science to predict things. So if String Theory cannot predict things then it fails as a science. But I'm not even sure that this should be an embarrassment for String Theorists. After all, why should any scientist be embarrassed for having proposed a hypothesis that turns out to be wrong? Isn't the process of determining whether hypotheses can be true or not what science is all about?

So even if String Theorists ultimate prove that String Theory is wrong they can consider that to be a successful scientific result.

However, Mystics never claimed to be able to predict anything. That's not their goal. So if they can't predict things why should they be embarrassed? That's not their agenda.

All the mystics are doing is putting forth philosophical ideas that they see as being plausible. Whether they can be tested is irrelevant. The mystics are more concerned with the question "Can they be ruled out?". If not, then clearly the question must remain open.

So the mystics are more concerned about what can be ruled out. And so far their philosophy cannot be ruled out. Moreover there are reasons to believe that it may very well be true.

So I don't think the mystics have anything to be embarrassed about. Unless of course, they are claiming to "know" that their mystical philosophies are true. In that particular case they aren't any better than gnostic theists.

I think the Dalai Lama is open about his faith in Buddhism for example. I don't see where he is demanding that his philosophy be accepted as truth by anyone. In fact, he has even stated openly that people of other faiths should retain the faith into which they are born. So I don't think he's concerned with trying to claim that his philosophy is truth. But he will argue that it's a faith worthy of belief based on many reasons, not the least of which is that it definitely cannot be ruled out an any known science.

The Dalai Lama is aware of the scientific studies into the human brain. He has even worked hard to get Buddhist monks to volunteer themselves to be studied by science for this purpose. And they have found amazing things about the brains of the Buddhists. Clearly Buddhist practices have secular results on the brain. So Buddhism has something to offer the secular world even if their mystical philosophy is ultimately false.

But yes, if there are mystics running around proclaiming to know the truth of their philosophies like gnostic theists then those particular mystics are indeed misguided. And I'm quite sure there are mystics out there who are like that. That's just a natural part of human nature.

[1213]

There is a huge difference. The evidence for Napoleon's birthday is not contradicted by ANYTHING.

Yes, but it is a thing that really matters. Only few would bother to disagree with it, because it is not important thing.

First half of your statement: "It is a thing that really matters".

Second half of your statement: "It is not important thing".

Your statements make no sense.

Sorry, I meant: "Yes, but it is a thing that doesn’t really matter".

[atheist buddy]

There is a huge difference. The evidence for Napoleon's birthday is not contradicted by ANYTHING.

Yes, but it is a thing that really matters. Only few would bother to disagree with it, because it is not important thing.

First half of your statement: "It is a thing that really matters".

Second half of your statement: "It is not important thing".

Your statements make no sense.

Sorry, I meant: "Yes, but it is a thing that doesn’t really matter".

No prob.

It's not a matter of people agreeing with it or not. Napoleon being born DOESN'T VIOLATE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

[Zzyzx]

.

It's not a matter of people agreeing with it or not. Napoleon being born DOESN'T VIOLATE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

I observe that mention of "violation of the laws of physics" (or what actually happens in the real world) is NOT an effective argument against the proposals of many or most supernaturalists / Theists / worshipers.

Perhaps disregard for real world conditions occurs among those trained, taught, indoctrinated to accept tales of "supernatural" entities and events. If one believes in magic and miracles (violation of nature's processes), then it is often fruitless to provide evidence and reasoning.

OR "You can't reason a person out of a position they emoted themselves into" as some have said.

[Unhand Me Sir]

That's exactly right. In fact, a continuum would actually not have this property. A continuum would require that there can be no space between any points. In fact, if you think about it, the very concept of a continuum is an oxymoron because if there is discrete space between points then all points must in fact be the same point. How could they not be if they are not separated by a discrete space?

I think we're using words in different ways here. By continuum I mean the set of real numbers as defined by mathematicians i.e. a complete ordered field. Any two real numbers a and b are separated by a distance of a-b or b-a (whichever is positive). They are the same number if and only if that distance is zero.

You absolutely can. If you have function that is undefined at say zero, yet it is well defined and well behaved on either side of zero then it this function clearly has a limit zero, yet it is undefined at zero (i.e. the value for this function at zero does not exist). And there you have a limit at x where the limit exist at x but the value at x does not exist.

Yes, I see what you mean. I wasn't clear before on what you meant by "the point defined by the limit".

Clearly Stephen Hawking understands the difference between attempting to describe reality using mathematical models, and the actual existence of that reality.

I'm afraid that misrepresents him. In The Grand Design he's very clear that Schroedinger's Cat type issues make simple realism untenable.

After all, we have never been given any guarantee by nature that we should be able to fully understand the ultimate nature of reality. There may actually exist things that we can never know. In fact, it seem to me to be totally unwarranted on our behalf to think that we should be able to know everything.

Again, assuming the idea of ultimate reality is tenable.

We've already covered that certain conditions have to be met to say something is true mathematically. For different kinds of truth, different conditions. But what if there are no possible conditions?

I think the Dalai Lama is open about his faith in Buddhism for example. I don't see where he is demanding that his philosophy be accepted as truth by anyone. In fact, he has even stated openly that people of other faiths should retain the faith into which they are born. So I don't think he's concerned with trying to claim that his philosophy is truth. But he will argue that it's a faith worthy of belief based on many reasons, not the least of which is that it definitely cannot be ruled out an any known science.

The Dalai Lama is aware of the scientific studies into the human brain. He has even worked hard to get Buddhist monks to volunteer themselves to be studied by science for this purpose. And they have found amazing things about the brains of the Buddhists. Clearly Buddhist practices have secular results on the brain. So Buddhism has something to offer the secular world even if their mystical philosophy is ultimately false.

I recently read quite an interesting book called "The Philosopher and the Monk" - a conversation between a French philosopher and his son, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Presented with the usual distinction that scientific truths are publicly verifiable whereas a Lama's claim that a particular child was the reincarnation of a particular person is not, the monk pointed out that in order to actually verify most scientific claims for yourself you'd need at least a postgraduate training in the appropriate discipline. And in that time you could probably undergo Buddhist training and verify the reincarnation claim. In the end we all accept the work of experts. I don't know if the comparison stands up (imagine Buddhist peer review!) but it's interesting.

The monk was also amused by European phenomenology asserting as obvious claims like "it's impossible to stop the stream of consciousness". What would these people say to someone who claimed they routinely did just that? Another area where there isn't a methodology for establishing truth.

[1213]

Napoleon being born DOESN'T VIOLATE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.

Also virgin birth of Jesus is not against true laws of physics; it is against your current knowledge or understanding of what is really possible.