Agnostics: how do you stop pondering the unknowable?

Great Debates
1

This isn’t a debate per se, but I though it best suited to this forum. Mods, as always, feel free to move it if you see fit.

Life, the universe, and everything: I’m agnostic about it all. So many questions, so few concrete answers. Someone smart once said life unexamined is not worth living, but he clearly found himself a nice happy medium. I on the other hand seem to be walking through life like a movie reviewer who has lost his ability to suspend disbelief… watching “Independence Day.”

Is there a big picture in the theological sense? I tend towards no, but it doesn’t seem logical to rule it out entirely. Are we just the natural outcome of a hospitable environment, a biological oasis in the cosmic desert? Seems more likely, but really it’s still no better than a hunch.

Of one thing I’m certain: there are times when you need to stop questioning life, and just live it, to believe in something, anything. Somehow I’m less and less able to do this. It’s not a major bummer, and I have a strong feeling that with time and maturity it will pass as imperceptibly as it arrived. But, I just thought I’d share these thoughts and feelings with you.

2

Well, for most of the times I get myself stuck in a loop of pondering the infinite I’ve come to the realization that I really have no say in the matter, that what happens to me when the time comes, or what becomes of things is under no control of mine, at least in the sense of things that would be explained by religion.
For those really bad times what I do is I find out, I’ll go and read about some religion I didn’t know anything, or very much about (Raised Roman Catholic, so, that means pretty much any religion, but I’m getting there), and that usually helps, these times don’t come along too often, but, yeah.

Whats been really frying my brain recently is this repeating concept that I actually am someone, or that, my consciousness is real (to me at least) and that I’m actually a person, and that the chance that I’m me, let alone the chance that I (my consciousness) would exist as me (my body) is well, I’m sure infinite is an overshot, but I’m too lazy to type out guesses that have that many digits in scientific notation.

Agnostic… Great lifestyle eh?

3

As an atheist/strong agnostic:

Religion, and the worldview it sells, places too much emphasis on the unknowable. As a scientist, I realize that there are questions that can not be answered, but life is full of mundane questions that we can’t answer so we ignore. We have been fooled by religion into thinking that some of those questions are important (i.e. Why are we here?). If one accepts no eternal moral/ethical/legal system presided by a deity, the question loses meaning. An unexamined life is not worth living, as you said, but one doesn’t need a religion in order to examine one’s life. Each person has a place in society; each person can make the best of his/her time alive. In short, we are here, so we should determine how to make the best of it.

Astrophysics, geology, and biology, give a nice cohesive picture of how we arose. You may view it with disbelief, but it seems to be borne out again and again, with corroboration from numerous independent fields of study. Similarly, sociology, anthropology, history, and primate studies give a nice cohesive picture of how the human tribe works, and how much of our moral systems are based on some universal human truths. I recommend Robert Wright’s book The Moral Animal for more on this. We can use these things to formulate a better understanding of the human condition and predict what changes we can do to improve it. I try to live my life according to those predictions, not some piece of desert (or any kind of other) mythology.

I am agnostic because I have no sense of faith. I respect those with faith, and I do not seek to deny it to them. Most of my religious friends and family describe it as a sense that the unknowable exists. It sounds like you have discovered a sense of faith and are seeking to fit it into your agnostic view of the world. I would say to you that having faith is not a bad thing, and you must work it into a cohesive worldview in order to be satisfied.

4

I long ago stopped pondering things that I can’t do anything about.

I don’t know for sure what is or is not “unknowable.” Unless, of course, we can’t know what is or is not unknowable.

This way lies madness.

5

edwino, it’s not the big picture faith I’m sad to have lost, it’s the mundane faith, the day to day stuff. I too have chosen to give more credence to science than theology, and it hasn’t affected my grasp of morality in any deleterious way. What I’m speaking of is an odd way of looking at life that has taken hold of me of late. To give you a real world example: Making love to someone you find attractive physically and emotionally.

Art immemorial has articulated the feelings a person goes through when making love, but really there is no perfect way to describe it. There is an intangible aurora to it, a vibe, a transmission and sharing of psychic energy. Generally, I don’t believe in auras, vibes, and psychic energies because I’ve yet to see one measured by a scientist, but I know something of that nature is happening to me during many sexual encounters.

But sometimes I am abruptly pulled out of that illusory state. Suddenly I’ve lost touch with that power because I begin realize that it simply can’t exist. Everything I know says I am merely a biological organism responding to natural instincts and learned predilections. My pulse, my penis, my very arousal are all just responding to stimuli. The magic is gone and the hard-on with it. And all I can do is think, “Why oh, why did that thought have to occur to me now”!?

The really odd thing is at the same time I know that there must be more to it than just biology and sociology, because I had just been experiencing that intangible ‘whatever’ literally moments before.

It’s a battle of thoughts and emotions, and thought is winning far too often for my liking.

6

caixinth
For me, I haven’t had those feelings. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have had mind blowing sex with someone I love…but I have never been overwhelmed by a feeling that it was something that transcended the range of emotions and feelings possible through your brain. It is like doing drugs (not that I would advocate it, but it can be a fun time) – you find out new things that a brain can do. I mean take my Typical Cliche High School/College Let’s Get Stoned and Listen to Dark Side of the Moon experience. I have been playing and listening to music very carefully and intently for all of my life. But the TCHS/CLGSaLtDSotM gave me synaesthesia (visual cues corrolated to the music), something which I have never experienced sober. I was able to follow different instruments far better than I ever had, I could take apart the music and I heard this familiar music in a totally different way. That’s why people smoke the ganja.

This was a mundane experience, though. It is not something as momentous as sex which would make one question the unknowable in the universe. But it was a step along the same line – it is surprising what your brain is capable of. Our consciousness occupies only a small sliver of our brain’s workings, and all of that stuff brewing under the surface can sometimes percolate through and really give you a shock.

For sex this is especially true. Looking at it from a neuropsychiatric level, sex is the oldest and basest drive in all life. Every part of your brain, from your conscious forebrain to your reptilian mid- and hindbrain, probably even the simple reflexes in your spinal cord, are responding to the act of sex. Obviously you have conscious actions to control, and are heavily dependent on sight, touch, and hearing to coordinate your moves. Olfaction, a direct route into strong temporal memory banks, is directly engaged with both perceived scents and nonperceived pheromones. Lower brain centers are coordinating the autonomic nervous system in firing away in contradictory pathways not usually found in the usual fear/response reflexes of normal life (parasympathetic stimulation along the sacral ganglia to maintain arousal, sympathetic vasodilation and perspiration, followed by a complete reversal at the time of orgasm). The list obviously goes on – the short of it is that you are using all kinds of neural pathways that you don’t get a chance to use in ordinary every day life, and that is of course perceived as strange and unknowable. Thinking about it too much just yanks you out of those pathways and back into your everyday ones used for rational thought and behavior. And that’s no fun now, is it?

Yeah it kills the art and mystery behind it a bit. But I treat it like a roller coaster. Knowing how each part of the roller coaster works doesn’t kill the fun of it.

7

I don’t think one can ever really stop pondering the unknowable. I think it’s unhealthy to do so. I believe this is a huge part of being agnostic, to consider “what if…?”. It’s very rational. To stop thinking about such things simply because you can’t know the answer now is to you shut yourself out to the possibilities that this universe contains. Doing so is to invite the possibility of becoming as inflexible as many of those who subscribe to a particular religion/faith.

I think another big part of being agnostic is simply accepting that it’s not possible to know these things or do anything about them. Don’t allow yourself to become preoccupied with the questions. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know the answers now and probably won’t in this lifetime. (Or maybe even the next. heh.)

Take comfort in the fact that all of us know no more or less than you do in this respect, and anyone who claims to know the answers is full of it.

8

The mind resists uncertainty. It readily grasps certain or probable luck or even unluck.

For example, rats exposed to electric shocks will be less stressed if the shocks are predictable, i.e. if a bell is rung before the electricity is administered.

At any rate, one can believe in something provisionally, absent additional information.

----- Are we just the natural outcome of a hospitable environment, a biological oasis in the cosmic desert? Seems more likely, but really it’s still no better than a hunch.

With all due respect, you do understand that there exist meaningless questions, right? An example might be, “What color is the wind?”

“What is the meaning of life?”, is another question that is poorly framed.

Hm. That sounded a little aggresive. What I mean to say is that certain questions produce anxiety because they are poorly stated.

::Reads about sex experience::

Oh, that. I guess I’d note that, oddly enough, we are most certain about subjective experiences. I do not know for certain whether there is computer terminal in front of me: however, I am certain that I perceive a terminal.

Likewise, I’d be a heck of a lot more certain about any vibe I perceived during sex than I would be about the explanation for it or whether it was tangible in some sense.

9

Nobody can know anything, since even our very senses may be being deceived.

All one can do is, somewhat arbitrarily, choose an epistemology or two to follow and set the needle on one’s Belief-o-Meter accordingly.

10

Read the I Ching. Now I’m not saying you should become a Taoist. But there are useful ideas expressed therein. First you just accept that things are the way they are. You don’t focus on the why. Live in the now and concentrate on your life not the universe.

11

Learn to accept your limitations and relax. Enjoy life as much as you can without ruining it for anyone else.

The universe will take care of itself. You cannot and will not know or understand all its mysteries, so there’s little point in worrying about them.

That’s what being an agnostic is about and it sounds good to me.

12

And yet here I sit. Pondering Newton, the psychology behind thrill seeking, and the impossible question of why there are rollercoasters at all rather than throwing my hands in the air and screaming.

You’re analogy to music is good one as well. You perhaps choose not to use terms like ‘vibe’ to describe the sensation of listening to Floyd when buzzed on pot, opting for a scientific expression instead. But however you choose to describe it something enchanting is happening. And music and drugs and sex (or any combination therein) aren’t the only venues for this state, where thinking about it can (but not necessarily will) ruin the moment.

All social interaction requires a degree of letting go of deep thoughts of life, the universe, and everything and just “going with the flow.” Everyone does it to a different extent. For me I’ve taken to posing as someone who isn’t analyzing every word, facial expression, and biographical marker of the person I’m talking to. Because frankly if they knew that, it would freak them out. Alcohol is a big help, its a lot easier to “just be” when brain functions are mildly depressed.

I’d say of the people I know a lot operate quite differently. They let their heart, their gut, and their genitalia do a fair share of the thinking. I’m not looking to make a total 180 here, but it would be nice if I could find a balance that works for me, and I’m quite sure I’m not there. But, like I said I doubt anyone can tell me how to do it, nor am I seriously distressed by the situation. All in all, nobody I know or come in contact with assumes any of what I’m describing here is going on, and I still manage to enjoy myself most of the time despite the recurring over-thinking episodes.

I started this thread because I’m curious if anyone has gone through a similar experience in their life.

P.S. Sentient, Homebrew, and ** Futile **, thank you for your thoughtful advice and sentiments.

13

> Agnostics: how do you stop pondering the unknowable?
Wait for exhaustion to set in. Or administer many beers.

Once you’ve recovered, why wouldn’t you want to keep pondering the unknowable? That’s where all the good stuff that moves nations is found.

Just because a struggle is futile doesn’t mean you shouldn’t struggle.

14

You know cainxinth I have been having a similiar battle lately. Except kinda going the other way. I have spent so much time in the last few years probing the “mysteries” of the Universe, I have found myself wondering why I still believe in God. Science has a done a good job of pretty much explaining everything we need to understand why we are here…maybe not why in a philosophical sense, but why in a physical sense.

My head tells me sometimes my belief is a dellusion, but my heart refuses to listen. There are things that have happened to me, and I have witnessed, that just scream to me “God”. However, the world around me doesnt. Its very strange and unnerving sometimes.

I know your OP was to Agnostics, just wanted to let you know even those of faith, still question the uknowable.

15

I find that insistent cogitation on unanswerable questions makes one susceptible to superstition and nonsense. As others before me have said, it’s okay to leave something alone if a reasonable explanation doesn’t present itself, but you’ll have to train yourself to do it, because the human mind doesn’t like mysteries and blank spaces: We feel compelled to put something in place just so we don’t go crazy. Or to put it another way, there’s great wisdom in learning how to distinguish between “unexplained” as a label for mysterious phenomena and “not yet explained” as a better label when, frequently, it’s more appropriate.

In another thread, I described a semantic trick I use to short-circuit the obsession. When I’m confronted with what I consider a meaningless question, either because it’s formulated improperly (a nontestable proposition) or because there isn’t enough evidence to make a solid judgment, I respond with a nonsense question of my own or a nonsense answer that allows me to dismiss the inquiry rather than focus on it. It’s a colorless green idea, sleeping furiously, and I don’t need to think about it beyond that.

I actually had cause to use it a few days ago. I was talking to a credophile about their belief that a recorded snippet of sound was evidence for a ghost (don’t ask). They asked me if I heard the weird noise in the recording; I said yes. They asked if I thought it was a ghost; I said no. They asked how I explained it, then, if I didn’t think it was a ghost; I said, “It’s the opposite of Elvis.”

In short, just because a question can be formulated doesn’t mean it can or should be answered. My stock nonsense question at the moment is, as you might guess, “What is the opposite of Elvis?” One’s immediate reaction is that it’s a silly question, but it’s a well-formed thought in terms of grammar and superficial logic, so it sticks in your head, and you can’t help starting to think about things that would satisfy the inquiry, at least in your own mind. Everyone does this, and even if you resist it you’ll mentally consider options ranging from The Beatles to a platypus in a cowboy hat. Just because the question can be subjectively answered, though, doesn’t mean it’s worth asking.

So that’s how I get away from subjects like that, unknowable and unanswerable questions and topics that throughout human history have permitted the introduction of supernatural arglebargle into our worldviews. I drop it into the Opposite of Elvis bucket, and I forget about it.

16

This is interesting…

I went through the same sort of thought process as OP… actually i kind of go in a cycle, so it’s happened several times.

My mind knows that everything, from human behavior to photosynthesis to the death of a star, is based in the laws of math, physics and chemistry. But something else…my heart, or however you want to embody it… sometimes knows that there is more than that. Sometimes i think that there’s no way basic science can explain what I’m feeling.

But when the feeling goes away, my mind says that i’m kidding myself; that those ‘feelings,’ those convictions that life is more than science, are proabably just my subconscious way of avoiding facing the really scary things, like mortality and meaninglessness. (made-up word?)

And there’s the scary part that keeps me coming back to the ‘life is nothing but science’ viewpoint. Death, when i can get myself to fully contemplate it, is the scariest, most horrible thing. So it seems natural that my subconscious wants to avoid the subject of death. That terrible fear, it seems to me, is probably powerful enough to invent those grand feelings of love, trancendence, piety… anything at all that might convince me of the possiblity of an existence beyond death.

But then sometimes… sometimes love just seems too powerful to be a product of my own psychological needs and fears.

It’s a puzzling cycle… don’t think i’ll ever solve it.

17

Why would you want to stop pondering the unknowable?..It’s fun!

Seriously, I don’t see what’s wrong with living in a universe where we don’t have all the answers. As long as you don’t delude yourself that you actually are going to come up with concrete answers to everything in the universe, there’s no harm in acknowledging the questions. They’re not going to go away just because you can’t fromulate an empirical test.

It seems to me that it’s the fundamentalists and the neo-superstitious who reject the unknowable. The rationalist accepts the limits of human reason while the mystic posits made up answers that are–IMO–less interesting than just admitting human ignorance