Intergalactic Summit

The idea of science and faith being somehow at odds with one another is frankly quite alien to any faith I've ever heard of.

I would question the statement above and would assert that science and fate are incompatible by virtue of their contradictory views on the source of knowledge.

Science assumes that only by observation can we learn about the universe, while faith assumes that, in addition, we learn from revelations from God.

Why do I believe that the Sun will rise tomorrow?

Why do I believe the future will be like the past?

Even if I go past the mere surface observation of the Sun rising, to the apparently universal and exceptionless laws of gravitation and nuclear physics, then I am still left with the question: "Why do I believe this will also be true tomorrow?"

I could appeal to Occam's Razor, the principle of using the simplest theory that fits the facts... but why believe in Occam's Razor? Because it's been successful on past problems? But who says that this means Occam's Razor will work tomorrow?

And lo, the one said:

"Science also depends on unjustified assumptions. Thus science is ultimately based on faith, so don't you criticize me for believing in [silly-belief-#238721]."

It's a most peculiar psychology—this business of "Science is based on faith too, so there!" Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say "Science is based on faith too!" in that angry-triumphal tone, rather than as a compliment?

Arguing that you should be immune to criticism is rarely a good sign.

But this doesn't answer the legitimate philosophical dilemma: If every belief must be justified, and those justifications in turn must be justified, then how is the infinite recursion terminated?

And if you're allowed to end in something assumed-without-justification, then why aren't you allowed to assume anything without justification?

Suppose you're drawing red and white balls from an urn. You observe that, of the first 9 balls, 3 are red and 6 are white. What is the probability that the next ball drawn will be red?

That depends on your prior beliefs about the urn. If you think the urn-maker generated a uniform random number between 0 and 1, and used that number as the fixed probability of each ball being red, then the answer is 4/11 (by Laplace's Law of Succession). If you think the urn originally contained 10 red balls and 10 white balls, then the answer is 7/11.

Which goes to say that, with the right prior—or rather the wrong prior—the chance of the Sun rising tomorrow, would seem to go down with each succeeding day... if you were absolutely certain, a priori, that there was a great barrel out there from which, on each day, there was drawn a little slip of paper that determined whether the Sun rose or not; and that the barrel contained only a limited number of slips saying "Yes", and the slips were drawn without replacement.

There are possible minds in mind design space who have anti-Occamian and anti-Laplacian priors; they believe that simpler theories are less likely to be correct, and that the more often something happens, the less likely it is to happen again.

Now, one lesson you might derive from this, is "Don't be born with a stupid prior." This is an amazingly helpful principle on many real-world problems, but I doubt it will satisfy.

Here's how I treat this problem myself: I try to approach questions like "Should I trust my brain?" or "Should I trust Occam's Razor?" as though they were nothing special— or at least, nothing special as deep questions go.

Should I trust Occam's Razor? Well, how well does (any particular version of) Occam's Razor seem to work in practice? What kind of probability-theoretic justifications can I find for it? When I look at the universe, does it seem like the kind of universe in which Occam's Razor would work well?

Should I trust my brain? Obviously not; it doesn't always work. But nonetheless, the human brain seems much more powerful than the most sophisticated computer programs I could consider trusting otherwise. How well does my brain work in practice, on which sorts of problems?

When I examine the causal history of my brain—its origins in natural selection—I find, on the one hand, all sorts of specific reasons for doubt; my brain was optimized to run on the ancestral savanna, not to do math. But on the other hand, it's also clear why, loosely speaking, it's possible that the brain really could work. Natural selection would have quickly eliminated brains so completely unsuited to reasoning, so anti-helpful, as anti-Occamian or anti-Laplacian priors.

So what I did in practice, does not amount to declaring a sudden halt to questioning and justification. I'm not halting the chain of examination at the point that I encounter Occam's Razor, or my brain, or some other unquestionable. The chain of examination continues—but it continues, unavoidably, using my current brain and my current grasp on reasoning techniques. What else could I possibly use?

Indeed, no matter what I did with this dilemma, it would be me doing it. Even if I trusted something else, like some computer program, it would be my own decision to trust it.

The technique of rejecting beliefs that have absolutely no justification, is in general an extremely important one. I sometimes say that the fundamental question of rationality is "Why do you believe what you believe?" I don't even want to say something that sounds like it might allow a single exception to the rule that everything needs justification.

Which is, itself, a dangerous sort of motivation; you can't always avoid everything that might be risky, and when someone annoys you by saying something silly, you can't reverse that stupidity to arrive at intelligence.

But I would nonetheless emphasize the difference between saying:

"Here is this assumption I cannot justify, which must be simply taken, and not further examined."

Versus saying:

"Here the inquiry continues to examine this assumption, with the full force of my present intelligence—as opposed to the full force of something else, like a random number generator or a magic 8-ball—even though my present intelligence happens to be founded on this assumption."

With respect, monsieur...


Even the definitions you've given do not make them incompatible.

It makes them different in both structure and purpose.

Science helps us understand the physical and natural realm we occupy.

Faith (and the spiritual quest it involves) helps us understand the metaphysical realm, or the supernatural, if you prefer.

The two are not incompatible, the difference is how they are prioritized to an individual.

Simply put: Do you believe that what we can physically observe is the final authority and limit on all of existence or do you believe there are things we cannot physically observe? Is the natural all there is or is there a supernatural?

Science, true, honest science, makes no effort to explain the metaphysical - it can't.

Faith, true, honest faith, drives an individual to understand that which appears beyond comprehension and can (and has) led to revelations in both the physical and metaphysical.

Where the notion that the two are incompatible with one another derives is completely beyond me because only by putting the two together and working them alongside one another can one truly claim to be seeking absolute truth to existence.

My apologies, I did not realize that you were replying to my post.

I saw that your post was attempting to reconcile reason and faith, while what I was trying to assert in my previous post was that *science* and faith were incompatible.

Science is defined as the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural universe through observation and experiment.

Therefore, the inclusion of a revelation of God as another source of knowledge would be counter-productive especially if both led to contradicting conclusions.

While one can be faithful while adhering to scientific principles, I posit that in order for technological and scientific progress to be worthwhile, the scientific method must be followed rigorously and without compromise, even if the resulting evidence would otherwise go against the tenets of one's faith.

Therefore, faith must play little to no part in scientific discovery, and would even be detrimental to the process.