To quote Albert Einstein, "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."RECENTLY I CAME ACROSS this rather interesting conversation by the way of (old) Google Reader comments on this nice article that someone had shared there. The comments are between two individuals (and many spectators who were following this shared feed). They are named here as "RGD" who had originally posted the article, and "JM" who engages "RGD" in this theological dialogue (neither of them have English as their first language, and some of the submissions may have used a machine translation).
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| Illustration by Matt DeTurck |
JM: I am almost sure that already there is some 'church' out there picturing Einstein on its stained glass window.. Boy, and that would bring about sainthood coming of some age.* * *
RGD: Hola JM, for sure there is such an 'organization'. Although it would be nearer to religion than science.
In my opinion, science has nothing to do with religion. Humans tend to be religious by nature. People need to answer somehow the question: "what is the meaning of life?". Needless to say this is far more difficult to do by using theories and mathematical formulas than by using something else, call it either religion or philosophy. But I also disagree with most of mainstream religions and their static points of view.
JM: Long time :) How have you been, RGD?
Oh well, someone that I know would passionately argue that Science has everything to do with Religion. It is but the tighter end of the same funnel.. :) And on my part, I would perhaps argue that everything in science that is not objective, is philosophy I guess.
Btw, my reference to Einstein for 'Sainthood' was more towards the evolving nature of the definition, qualification and function of 'saints' (read: leaders, achievers and roll-models) per say in the times we live in...
RGD: Yes, I was away for a while, craving for a good conversation :) What about you??
I guess science resembles philosophy in the same way that religion's.
They all look for the Truth somewhere somehow, but the methods they employ is quite different from each other.
Actually they were the same thing in ancient times, but they split up into different categories for some reason.
As far as I know, (not really well researched to say the truth) Science's proofs are experiments or data from physical world. Philosophy's proofs are other reasonings. Whereas religion doesn't really need proofs.
what do you think?
JM: Nice to see you around again :)
Well, I was very young - early teens perhaps - when I read or heard it being explained about the three most important and basic 'intellectual' questions: Who, What, Why.
And though its an entirely different context that we have here, there seems to be some relevance here of that model:
Religion claims to answer for Who.
Science contests conflicting answers (with 'proof') for What.
Philosophy tries to deal with Why.
What one calls Truth, the other calls Mystery and the third considers it simply a figment of one's own imagination.
Where as in actuality when one succeeds, all three succeed; And any one's failure defeats all three.
RGD: I love this model, it matches seamlessly in most of the cases.
'What' is usually something tangible or at least measurable; 'Why' is something you can ask for iteratively ad infinitum, (it's what children ask over and over again); 'Who' is the way we as humans try to see things around with an anthropomorphic point of view.
However there are some exceptions to the rule, e.g. mathematics could be something between science and philosophy? Buddhism is a mix of philosophy and religion? thinking of something kinda hybrid religion-science... scientology?
JM: That's a great analogy that you have put together there, mate :)
The consideration with this model is that all three refer or relate to the same 'source' or thought or idea or entity, (or non-entity or anti-entity or beyond-entity or whatever one fancies).
To address to and 'invoke' that 'source' effectively, and also make the address (method of 'worship') popular, a sect or a set of people may come up with any combination of Who, What, Why, that fits the bill in the context of their times, circumstances, surroundings, etc. (Organised religions. And from the socio-political perspective, it has been a greatly helpful thing.)
In doing so, they will also create rules.
(and while I might be guilty of over-simplification through this thread) In my humble view, Buddha simply said: there are no rules; Contemplate and create your own personal address.
RGD: Resuming the conversation :) I cannot find the flaw in the reasoning but everyday situations don't seem to verify the idea.
'Who', 'What', 'Why' build an interface between people and reality, but neither of them are reality itself.
You can choose the glass you want to look through (religion, science, philosophy), and it gives you an idea about the world around you.
So it doesn't matter if you're a believer or you explain things with a scientific point of view: that's not the Truth in neither case.
But which one is closer to reality? Is it useful to see things that way?
Science does believe there are rules, and using them makes our lives easier sometime, is it an illusion?
JM: Let's take a step back, and ask, what is that one 'purpose' that you see all of the three are/should be fulfilling? Individually as well as collectively.
RGD: elaborate on the question a little bit more, please...
JM: Since you said "I cannot find the flaw in the reasoning but..." we are primarily looking at this as empirical inquiry. At least for the moment.
So, taking a step back, let's see what are the reasons or purposes that Who, What and Why parts of the model fulfils. What is the one most important purpose or reason among them?
RGD: ok, I guess they all have their purposes, letting us know how different aspects of life are. Let's say it's all about knowledge.
'What', about the physical world.
'Why', about the underlying motive in the action.
'Who', about the actuator that carries the action out.
These three big questions depict differently what we call reality or whatever.
And all three, are useful sometime somehow (kind of true), but does it mean we can trust them equally?
We can test the truthfulness of a scientific statement by foreseeing future events through them.
We can test the truthfulness of a philosophical statement iteratively by breaking it down into simpler statements (that we know are true in the same way).
I don't really know how to test a religious statement, but it doesn't mean they are false, but simply means they are unverifiable.
Something could pass one test but fail another. So we can almost say that there are at least three entities or realms or whatever out there and they have their own Truth.
SOS: This is a dead end. I'm blocked now.
JM: I'm afraid, the comments that follows is rather longer than I am generally used to... :)
I just got reminded of reading somewhere in the introduction section of Margaret J Wheately's very interesting book Leadership and New Science.
Wheately argues that the Newtonian principles that drove forward industrial revolution of the planet also deeply influenced the management practices and philosophical thinking over the past 500 years or so. The fundamental building block of this thinking is to break things down into smaller and smaller chunks for 'ease' of management, understanding, analysis, etc.
This works wonderfully upto a certain extent but beyond that point, it actually start crippling the thinker for want of or lack of the 'big picture'. She argues that all major ecosystems of the world, with billions and billions of life forms, spread across thousands of miles as a colony, primarily work as a single system. And the Newtonian unitization and simplification could hardly help you understand how everything fits in together and works as a kind of seamless, interdependent, organism made up of individuals.
Interesting concepts, explained using empirical methods, making some strong cases in favour of unlearning some of the information consumption patterns that we pick up from childhood. (Not a very easy book to read through though, because true to its message against overuse of unitization, the book does not have paragraphs and each chapter is written as a single block to text.)
Personally, I consider Why as a bridging part between What and Who of the model. And when we say that "We can test the truthfulness of a philosophical statement iteratively by breaking it down into simpler statements (that we know are true in the same way)." We might be missing something here, as Wheately suggests...
Science (assuming Mathematics as a part of it) has turned out to be terrible at predicting future. Its primary forte is analysing past data and reach a certain understanding. Nicholas Taleb (who claims that Mathematics is his meditation) has some interesting and insightful, as well as rebellious, points on this.
And, imho, neither of these two would be much useful methods in 'validating' the Who part...
RGD: Firstly, I thank Wheately for helping us out in this chaos :)
I'd dare to say that an important part of Science is understanding things by partitioning them into simpler pieces that you take for granted that are true. I would even add that Western reasoning laws work in that way eg (A & B) is true if (A is true) & (B is true).
On the other hand, the further you go the fuzzier it gets (like in my argument two comments ago).
Maybe is the way we think what misguides us and lead us to an endless process.
The later you halt, the neater the outcome.
It reminds me vaguely Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
The world we live in vanishes when we try to comprehend it.
We can both, being satisfied with an ever more accurate approximation or as Buddha said: "Contemplate and create your own personal address".
poor we :)
JM: Well my friend, Science existed long before the scientific method of "partitioning things" came to be :) Anyway, Buddha would also suggest that the ethically judgemental mind - the 'reasoning' and 'logic' - would be one of our major stumbling blocks to overcome..
I like the depth, length and breadth of Jung's saying that "Religion is a defence against a religious experience." It seems that right there it is, a few worthy books and some lifetimes worth of wisdom in a line, to contemplate about.
But then, my question about that one purpose that each of the faculties fulfil remained unanswered.. :) Some other time perhaps..
MIL: http://goo.gl/R9Rk - Prof Sandle's lecture on moral philosophy. Could be an interesting reading.
RGD: Thanks for a remarkable text, Mil.
An idea that caught my attention:
"philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us, by confronting us with what we already know, [...] not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing."
Also think that both risks personal and political, are worth taking to set you free.
MIL: That's my favourite line as well. And also: "Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'... philosophy is a distancing, even debilitating, activity."
JM: yeah, agreed, philosophy is a lot of waste of 'time' :-)
And I guess so much as it is true for the questions of morality, the recurring and persisting nature of the inquiry is equally true for the questions of theology as well.. Perhaps because it is about 'You'.
Hope you enjoyed!