In the thread “Is Fundamentalism Real?” there was a hijack (my fault! my fault!) that started with this:
There were a number of replies, but I invite those who replied to move over to this thread instead.
technology is getting to the point where love and pain can be “proven” as cerebral activities.
First of all, the very notion of “proof” is kind of inapplicable in this situation. Emotional states are not things that can be so well defined that you can consult a list to see if you are in them. We often fall in love gradually - what is the exact moment we’re in love with someone? There are also different varieties of love.
But the report of a subjective state is not an extraordinary claim. If you say you love your husband, and act like you do, there is no real reason to doubt you. It might not be proven, but it certainly is a reasonable working assumption unless evidence to the contrary comes along. You exist, your husband exists, you are living together, etc. Your subjective claim matches objective reality very well. Contrast that to claims of meeting god subjectively, where while we can believe that the subjective experience happened, there is never any objective confirmation that the person ever met anyone.
If God appeared often to us, and did miracles, the claim of God speaking to someone would be a lot more believable. In our world, though, I’ll wait for some objective evidence.
That’s as may be, but I still can’t prove things. Yet when I say, “Ow, my finger hurts!” I don’t hear in reply, “It is irrational for me to believe that your finger hurts without proof.” I’m not expected to prove my finger hurts before someone believes that yes, my finger hurts.
But if it’s irrational to believe things without proof, then it’s irrational to believe me.
My previous post was in response to Sapo.
I agree that there is much reason to doubt me. But if the premise is that if things can’t be proven then it is irrational to believe them, then it is irrational to believe me, since I haven’t proven it.
As a Christian believer, I think that Voyager has made a reasonable distinction between unprovable things that conform to everyone’s (pain) and almost everyone’s (love for another) experiences. These are also things that can in some way be related to some aspect of observable reality. Some claims of spiritual experience do have observable effects, which some would elevate to the level of proof.
An example of this can be found in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. In the story of Bill W., Bill has a crucial conversation with a friend who had previously been a hopeless drunk. The friend has clearly quit drinking, and attributes his success at doing so to a spiritual experience which was followed by a drastic change in behavior. Bill’s “proof” of his friend’s spiritual experience consists of his knowledge of the friend’s behavior before and after along with his friend’s testimony of what happened to bring it about. Clearly this is not scientific proof, but it was convincing proof to Bill.
My conversion from atheism to Christianity was complex and included a convincing testimony such as this. It also included a spiritual experience that I would not describe as God talking to me, but more vaguely as God making himself forcefully apparent to me by way of a strong emotional experience accompanied by a change in my thinking. The outward changes in me that followed this experience are apparent to those who knew me before and after. Some of them treat this as proof of something metaphysical, others don’t.
There are all sorts of things wrong with the statement, “It’s irrational to believe something without proof.” For one thing, it breaks down logically: there’s no proof for that very statement.
Not to mention that the very notion of “proof” means different things to different people in different contexts. The way a mathematician goes about proving something is different from the way a criminal lawyer does.
And the practical fact of the matter is that we all believe lots and lots of things without proof every day. The OP gives just a few examples; there are many more.
It would be better to say, “It’s irrational to believe something without a reason.”
I assume that your first sentence has a typo. I have no reason to doubt you. Now, if I knew you and knew you were out every night until 3 and acting like a woman in a blues song, that would be a different matter.
The thing about belief is that it almost never depends on proof, since there are few things in this world that can be proven, and few people who understand the proof even for things that are. What we should do is to believe provisionally, the way we provisionally accept scientific theories. So, I provisionally believe that you love your husband, but if I get evidence against it my world would not be rocked.
Most religious beliefs (and the Dalai Lama seems to be an exception to this) is not provisional, and is maintained even in the face of evidence. That’s the irrational part. We think of a guy who is convinced his wife loves him despite all evidence to the contrary as sad.
Maybe to strongly believe in something without a reason? Certainly I’d agree that it is irrational to believe in something against the evidence.
A weak and provisional belief in something without evidence (and absent of evidence against) doesn’t seem all that irrational to me. It’s a starting point.
Yeah, the key here is evidence, not proof. We believe in things without proof all the time, notably things like gravity, the fact that it’s raining in Seattle, etc… On the other hand, believing without evidence is irrational. I may not have any proof that my wife loves me but she has presented me with ample evidence for believing it over the years.
I usually define “faith” as the belief in something without evidence, even with plenty of evidence to the contrary. But there is an equally valid definition of faith that is pretty similar to “trust”: Believing something because there is a lot of evidence for it. In that sense, I have faith that my wife loves me and I’m not irrational at all, even though I can’t ‘prove’ it.
So I can’t prove other people’s emotions, but I can certainly believe them based on the evidence they present to me. Evidence like somebody screaming, “Aaaaaahhh! I’m hurt!! Call the ambulance!!” would certainly be enough to get me to the phone. I could wonder deep down if maybe somebody was playing a trick on me, but I’m certainly not going to ask for a mathematical proof of their pain.
P.S. I’ve only had experience with logical and mathematical proofs. Can anybody explain to me what the word means outside of those contexts?
I’ll also point out that saying that event/state X would be “extraordinary”, if true, is itself a subjective evaluation.
Solipsism would appear to be at the end of slippery slope, if you denied the existence of any and all subjective experiences.
What DrCube said. Science–which is the realm typically proclaimed to be “the opposite of” faith in these discussions–is about evidence, not proof. “Oh, I know he loves me” is widely regarded as a falsifiable proposition (“He’s slept with half your friends and made passes at most of the rest; plus he’s physically abusive”). Similarly, lawyers for insurance companies present evidence that people aren’t really in pain all the time (“Your honor, I have here a series of photographs of the plaintiff rollerblading, playing basketball, and carrying various heavy objects in the course of remodeling his home, all taken during the time period when he claims to have been completely disabled by lower back pain”).
What is proof? Euclidean-style proof isn’t found outside the pages of geometry texts or books about logic, but “proof” beyond a reasonable doubt is what we all have to deal with every day.
Why can I not just apply your own argument to itself here and say that there’s no reason to accept the statement “It’s irrational to believe something without a reason.”
Excellent point. I came to a point where I realized it wasn’t necessary for me to know, but that I can go forward on what I believe now with the understanding that I am still learning and growing. Willing to have my beliefs refined. Willing to let go of things that no longer ring true in new light. I guess that’s believing provisionally.
Part of my objection with some religions or flavors of a religion is they seem to satisfied and to sure with what they understand now. They don’t want their doctrine to be changeable in new light, in part because of beliefs about the Bible that seem purely traditional to me.
Thats a dialogue I want to stress to them. Tradition is not the same as truth. This is what everybody else believes, is not a good foundation. This is what the church fathers said in the Nicene creed is not enough.
We do have plenty of objective evidence in regard to some specific beliefs. I would agree it’s irrational to cling to a belief despite evidence to the contrary. Of course that evidence needs to actually be presented to someone rather than just exist. Many believers won’t even give it a serious look or consideration.
Since there seems to be no objective evidence about the existence of God, but some subjective evidence, then I don’t see it as irrational to come down on the believe side , but I agree, the belief should be provisional. Not just in belief or non belief as the only two options, but in our understanding or belief about the nature of God and what that term evokes in the hearts and minds of believers. Someone might go from believing in angry sky god , to a more deistic belief, and still maintained their god belief while the details change.
I like the discussion here of belief with or without evidence. Subjective evidence is still valid evidence yes?
The definition of faith I like is Hebrews 11: 1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. NIV
I see how this relates to the faith of believers and the kind of belief we’re discussing here. We believe in the love of our spouse or families. We don’t always see it. Sometimes they may do something that doesn’t reflect that love but we don’t abandon that belief easily. We can have faith in the path we chosen even though we can’t see the end result.
So, in spiritual belief, people can have faith, based in part on their subjective experiences, that seeking God is the correct path, even while the details of specific beliefs can change.
But this sort of proof is no better than the “proof” that Facilitated Communication works. It’s taking an experience as evidence of something OTHER than the experience itself, without any consideration as to all the various ways in which experiences can be produced.
I can offer the following evidence that my mother loves me:
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She brought me up in the world while feeding, clothing, teaching, and protecting me.
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She is affectionate in terms of hugging and kissing. She is also apt to cry when being nostalgic or looking at old photos or talking about, say, when I was in kindergarten.
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She shows a conversational interest in my personal well being and future.
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She enjoys my company and sometimes complains she wants to see more of me.
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She spoiled me rotten as a child.
Love is a trait that is extremely useful for mothers and is hence a solid evolutionary advantage. My mother does not appear to deviate from this path.
Your painful finger example I find interesting. If a source of damage shows up in an x-ray or physical examination then I think that is all the evidence one needs to conclude the subject is feeling pain. However, what if there is no obvious source? There seems to be two things that could happen here: either the nerve itself, for whatever reason, is sending pain sensations into the brain or the brain itself is misfiring and telling itself the nerve is sending the sensations. Can we tell the difference?
Now, I don’t know enough about neuroscience to make definite statements and thus welcome corrections by those who do, but I am fairly certain that at our current technological level it would be either impossible or extremely difficult to tell if someone was, for a fun brain scanning experiment, lying about a dull pain in their finger. I think it may be possible to tell if someone is in extreme pain, though, but it may not be possible to pin the exact location down. I could be wrong on that.
Either way, there is no principle reason I can see why it shouldn’t be practically possible in the future, given sufficient improvements in brain scanning technology. Thus, I see no reason why someone’s thoughts could not literally be read.
An example of this technology in its infancy:
Brain implants ‘read’ monkey minds
MRI: The Ultimate Lie Detector?
So if I tell you that I am currently thinking of a large breasted, brunette woman in a hot tub eating a banana there is no way for you to prove this at the current day. Maybe the fact that I even said that will cause me to think it 
or maybe an imaging device could see that the sexual arousal areas of my brain are lighting up slightly. Or a better example would be thinking of a number, perhaps…you can’t really prove I’m thinking of 5,162 besides my say so. Maybe in the future.
However, my point in the original thread was that this is all rooted in physical phenomenon that can be, in principle, measured and detected. The outlandishness of the original logic is that one simply can not use this as some sort of line of thinking to therefore conclude that there’s a god, or original sin, or heaven, or whatever other metaphysical assertions you wish to put forth. They are in fundamentally different categories.
Quite right. I always liked this example:
Some people believe the CIA is spying on them. They may even believe their government planted a chip in their brain or are trying to beam in mind control rays, thus the tin foil hats. This could also apply to aliens. However, their paranoia and fear, however honestly felt, is definitely not evidence that the CIA or an E.T. has any interest in them.
Of course you can’t prove internal states.
And they may change from minute to minute.
You trust your spouse.
A scented love letter arrives. You doubt your spouse. For 3 seconds.
The letter is from a silly niece. You trust again.
But you cannot prove that you were born, if you have a mother, or if there is a you. That’s fundamental. If you cannot prove there is a you (and other you’s) to other you’s then all other proofs follow that inability.
In the light of the fact I saw yet more theists using their odd stance on science being unable to show evidence for emotional states – especially love – in another religion thread I felt like bumping this one.
Even if we were living in the 1400s a casual glance over history or your immediate surroundings would lead one to believe there is something as love, anger, jealousy, etc. Maybe where the theists are missing the crucial logic link is that all these feelings, including religious awe and spirituality*, arrive from our biological brain and are hardcoded into us. They are not floating in the ether. These are not Platonic ideals being beamed into our heads.
- Or a scientific spirituality which involves no spirits but a humbleness felt using science to explore the world.
The TED Talk forum this year was really good and I’ve been sifting through the dozens of lectures posted on youtube for about a week now. One lecture I recently watched that has implications for this thread was by Helen Fisher, one of the leading anthropologists in the field of interpersonal chemistry and love. One of the more interesting things she said is that love is less like an emotion and more like a drive, like hunger for example. I recommend it.
It’s not impossible to love more than one person. Lust is different than love. It’s fully possible to love one person and wish to have casual sex with another. One interesting aspect of your last line is that it involves evidence based trust.
Another addition I would make to my list above for the evidence that my mother loves me would be, in principle, to put her under an MRI and see how she reacts to pictures and videos of me or audio recordings of my voice. This would be a falsifiable experiment on my claim that my mother loves me.
This is a bizarre series of statements. As we do not yet live in a world of true AI you can assume I am a human being. All human beings at this point have both a mother and a father. In principle, even in a world full of AIs and cloning I could meet face to face with you and introduce you to my mother. We could perform DNA tests to prove our claimed relation.
Your last statement leads me to believe going down your road would lead to solipsism.
It is commonly understood in philosophy; at least I hope it is, that it cannot be determined whether this existence is a dream or something that exists independent of observations (The idealist- realist debate). By dream, it is meant that whatever is observed is dependent on being observed to be whatever it appears to be. That is, any observable, sense data, concepts etc. has no autonomous existence as a thing-it-itself. Autonomous existence cannot be verified, and the sheer attempt to do so ends in an infinite regression where that which appears to be doing the search cannot find itself, or ‘that which appears to be doing the search’. Inquire and you might come up to that conundrum. Perception is bizarre. ?
Given that, if it is an illusion, you were never born for there is no you apart from observation and, low and behold, everything arises from moment to moment with no past and no history, just like in a night dream. It doesn’t lead to solipsism for solipsism implies a self and dreams do not have selves, i.e. you are the entire dream, the chairs, the ladders, microphone, these words, other people, the space etc.
This problem I think indicates that this presence is in fact an illusion: not there when not perceived, for how could there be such a problem if there was in fact a world that existed independent of observing? And what would that even mean? As I see it, perception could and would not work the way it appears to work if there were things-in-themselves.
In order to prove, a very strong word, internal states, external states have to be proven. Prove one you prove both. Yes, my thoughts cannot be observed by you (and vise versa), but neither can anything else: we are each others perceptions.