How not to experience.....

[jayleew]

Faith as I understand it is setting aside judgement until you see something through. In the case of religion it would be believing that God exists (even though you don't know) in order to sincerely explore the possibility.

No, that's just not completely right. Both of these definitions are similar in that you are setting aside judgement to explore the possibilty. That is not faith. If it were, then you could say that I have faith, but I can tell you that I don't have faith in God.

Setting aside judgement is what we should call agnostic tendencies. I was a Christian, but i've set faith aside and now only set aside judgement. I explore both sides, setting aside judgement. But, I have faith in neither.

Faith is about hope and/or irrational certainty. It is the only argument one has when faced with something unprovable. If something is provable, then faith is not required. Faith is the exact opposite of what stateofmind says. It is about passing judgement to believe in something that may or may not be true. It is about jumping in the water, not knowing the depth. It is about weighing probabilites and taking the first step towards one side or the other of a mystery. Faith is about trust. Faith is about bravery. I admire people who have it, and most Christians do not have it, even though they profess their faith. And that is ironic. Sadly there are those who say they have faith, but are not brave enough to have it. Peter in the Bible had what we might call a lapse of faith when he denounced Jesus and the cock called. Did he ever have faith? I think he did after Jesus died and apparently rose from the dead. But, I would question his faith before that as he did not pass the test.

 

[stateofmind]

I don't really see faith as being irrational - rather it may be the only rational method for exploring the unknown.

 

[jayleew]

I don't really see faith as being irrational - rather it may be the only rational method for exploring the unknown.

Well, this is in the eye of the beholder. If you yourself say you have faith, then it is rational to you. You've made the choice to believe no matter what others think. Others would weigh your evidence and call you irrational for ignoring the evidence. They would still say you had faith, but think you irrational. So, what it comes down is I see your point, I can't say faith is necessarily irrational, just how i see it as a personal choice for me. It is the biggest reason I set aside my faith in God. But...if you say that faith is the only rational method for exploring the unknown, then that would make me irrational for exploring the unknown. Well, I'm not opposed to that, so maybe I should just stop for the sake of not being irrational.

 

[stateofmind]

Others would weigh your evidence and call you irrational for ignoring the evidence.

By definition there is little or no evidence of an unknown so there is no evidence to ignore.

 

[jayleew]

By definition there is little or no evidence of an unknown so there is no evidence to ignore.

So if there is no evidence that you will get in a car accident tonight, then you shouldn't put on your seat belt?

My point is that everything in this world is defined, measured, and calculated. Things like souls and gods, if they exist, are mysterious and magical. So, if I were to ask you to believe in a rabbit that flies, you would say I was irrational to ignore the evidence wouldn't you? Or would you agree that since there is no evidence of the unknown that it is perfectly rational to have faith that a flying rabbit exists?

Do you see where I'm getting at? To the person who has the faith, it is rational. To the person who has none, it is irrational.

I guess the better question is what is the truth? Skeptical people like me don't have faith in God is because it is irrational to dive in because that isn't real. I see many lost Christians like I used to be, who had faith even though they reserved judgment. Once they come to realize the importance of having faith with judgment, it is painful. That is why I am so interested in the brave ones if they exist: The ones who have faith for such a strong reason that they throw rational thought to the wind in the face of their knowledge or wisdom. I'd like to meet some Christians who dive in head first knowing that the water might be only 2 feet deep or 20 feet deep. But, they dive in and test the waters for me because God sure doesn't want me to know how deep it really is and he is pointed a sword in my back pushing me off the plank.

 

[stateofmind]

So if there is no evidence that you will get in a car accident tonight, then you shouldn't put on your seat belt?

My point is that everything in this world is defined, measured, and calculated. Things like souls and gods, if they exist, are mysterious and magical. So, if I were to ask you to believe in a rabbit that flies, you would say I was irrational to ignore the evidence wouldn't you? Or would you agree that since there is no evidence of the unknown that it is perfectly rational to have faith that a flying rabbit exists?

Do you see where I'm getting at? To the person who has the faith, it is rational. To the person who has none, it is irrational.

Actually many people put on their seat belts because there is evidence that accidents happen - in fact there's a lot of it. We have so much information about accidents actually that we can predict roughly how many accidents will happen in any given year in a given country and also the likelihood of someone being in an accident in a given area. The unknown of this system of driving is relatively low compared to, say, ReadOnly existing in an alternate universe and connecting with me through the internet. So it's not really fair to call it an unknown - at least not in the sense that I'm using the term "unknown".

As far as you asking me to believe in rabbits that fly (I'm assuming somewhere in the entire universe) well I can't rule out the possibility and therefore I choose not to form a belief about it - in fact I can't rule out the possibility completely of one existing on earth either but I believe it's very unlikely given my own experience and the experiences of others. Also, I have no interest in exploring the possibility of rabbits that fly so I'm not going to waste my time investigating it - but that doesn't mean it's not a possibility. Many people assume that not ruling out possibilities means you HAVE TO explore all of them. That is a naive assumption. People explore what is immediately relevant and/or interesting to them.

 

[Doreen]

Do you see where I'm getting at? To the person who has the faith, it is rational. To the person who has none, it is irrational.

This assumes that the beliefs must be based on faith, rather than on various kinds of experience.

 

[jayleew]

Actually many people put on their seat belts because there is evidence that accidents happen - in fact there's a lot of it. We have so much information about accidents actually that we can predict roughly how many accidents will happen in any given year in a given country and also the likelihood of someone being in an accident in a given area. The unknown of this system of driving is relatively low compared to, say, ReadOnly existing in an alternate universe and connecting with me through the internet. So it's not really fair to call it an unknown - at least not in the sense that I'm using the term "unknown".

Before we go off track, I'm questioning this statement:

By definition there is little or no evidence of an unknown so there is no evidence to ignore.

It is not wise to lean on evidence alone. We must all weight the evidence to put on the seat belt or not. There is an astounding lack of evidence of the existence of God, and there are plausible theories of how we came to be based on sound scientific reasoning and fact. It is irrational to me to have faith in something that is possibly explainable, partly reproducible, and there is no evidence. However, personal experience tips the scales, and that is why whether faith in God is rational or not is in the eye of the beholder.

As far as you asking me to believe in rabbits that fly (I'm assuming somewhere in the entire universe) well I can't rule out the possibility and therefore I choose not to form a belief about it - in fact I can't rule out the possibility completely of one existing on earth either but I believe it's very unlikely given my own experience and the experiences of others. Also, I have no interest in exploring the possibility of rabbits that fly so I'm not going to waste my time investigating it - but that doesn't mean it's not a possibility. Many people assume that not ruling out possibilities means you HAVE TO explore all of them. That is a naive assumption. People explore what is immediately relevant and/or interesting to them.

We're talking about the rationality of having faith in something unknown. Having faith in something because you choose to not explore other possibilities is fine one thing. That is a rational position, but others looking at you would say you are irrational. It is up to oneself to take that into consideration that maybe they could be wrong. And therin lies one who either is ignorant or irrational, but having one who still has faith.

I am wanting to meet the irrational believer who realizes they appear to be irrational and accepts that. No one I've met yet has enough faith in God enough to do that.

 

[wynn]

I am wanting to meet the irrational believer who realizes they appear to be irrational and accepts that. No one I've met yet has enough faith in God enough to do that.

Or "believers" just don't think that you are God so that they would have to justify themselves to you.

 

[heliocentric]

I think the problem with mystic experience (read: any abnormal experience) is that there's a reflexive tendency to say that the irregular experience is the invalid experience, and that contriwise, the regular experiences MUST by default, be the valid ones. Well, obviously as a philosophical argument this wont do - there is no reason to suspect regularity should have any firmer relationship with the truth than the irregular. A similar argument has always been put towards people want to include 'simplicity' or 'elegance' in their version of an 'inference to the best explanation' - in what way does simplicity latch onto the truth that complexity doesnt?

Even forgoing the usual philosophical finger-waging, surely if science has taught us anything it is that our way regular way of experiencing the world is analogous to a man trying to work out what's going on in a room through a tiny crack in the door. At this point, there is very little (none i would say) to suspect that our linear notion of time, our experience of causality, our understanding of what it is to be a 'physical object' have anything to do with the way things 'really are'.

Given that we know this, why do we immediately balk at the mystic who suddenly experiences time as an unbroken totality? Or who suddenly realises the fundamental inseparability of objects? It certainly cant be that these sort of claims breach the limits of accepted science (if anything they are harmonious with physics) so perhaps the answer is a more ordinary psychological one - the mystical skeptic is just fundamentally uncomfortable with the mind's ability to pull the rug from underneath itself to reveal a new version of reality which is hardly anything like the one we knew before. The anti-mystic in this sense is more worried by the threat of conceptual disorienatation, than the (imagined) threat to scientific rigour.

 

[Doreen]

I swear someone just opened the door in this stuffy house and I think I feel a breeze.

I think the problem with mystic experience (read: any abnormal experience) is that there's a reflexive tendency to say that the irregular experience is the invalid experience, and that contriwise, the regular experiences MUST by default, be the valid ones.

I appreciate this argument. I would like to add that from where I sit most experiences, be they regular or irregular, strike me as mystical. I do not mean by this 'religious'. But rather as strikingly unique and odd. To put this another way: I think if any of us had the experience of meeting someone via someone - iow through their way of experiencing - from another culture or via a person of the opposite sex, notions of the banal would go out the window. The banal is just something very strange we got used to. And if you look at the way Mom and baby look at each other - if they haven't been given too many drugs, it should be clear that the foundational reaction/experience is wonder.

Well, obviously as a philosophical argument this wont do - there is no reason to suspect regularity should have any firmer relationship with the truth than the irregular.

Especially since we can find motive behind the regularity of experience and have pretty well document how much we will all put square pegs in round holes if there is any way we can manage it.

A similar argument has always been put towards people want to include 'simplicity' or 'elegance' in their version of an 'inference to the best explanation' - in what way does simplicity latch onto the truth that complexity doesnt?

The categories are also not so easy to define. Certainly many mystical experiences are simpler than 'non-mystical' ones. The elimination of the whole subject object experience triad for example.

Even forgoing the usual philosophical finger-waging, surely if science has taught us anything it is that our way regular way of experiencing the world is analogous to a man trying to work out what's going on in a room through a tiny crack in the door. At this point, there is very little (none i would say) to suspect that our linear notion of time, our experience of causality, our understanding of what it is to be a 'physical object' have anything to do with the way things 'really are'.

Given that we know this, why do we immediately balk at the mystic who suddenly experiences time as an unbroken totality? Or who suddenly realises the fundamental inseparability of objects? It certainly cant be that these sort of claims breach the limits of accepted science (if anything they are harmonious with physics) so perhaps the answer is a more ordinary psychological one - the mystical skeptic is just fundamentally uncomfortable with the mind's ability to pull the rug from underneath itself to reveal a new version of reality which is hardly anything like the one we knew before. The anti-mystic in this sense is more worried by the threat of conceptual disorienatation, than the (imagined) threat to scientific rigour.

Oh, you will be punished for saying this. Every now and then someone almost lays this out openly. They express a concern about how we would determine which intuitions we should listen too - as if any of avoid doing this all the time anyway - and the consclusion is that intuition must not be trusted. That there are disciplines out there that create experts in these areas tends to get skipped past. I do think there is a very strong control issue here.

 

[heliocentric]

I appreciate this argument. I would like to add that from where I sit most experiences, be they regular or irregular, strike me as mystical. I do not mean by this 'religious'. But rather as strikingly unique and odd.

Yes, that's a very good point i think. I had a similar thought recently when reading some physicalist paper on the nature of mind. I think the general idea of the piece was to say that a an idea or thought is 'no more than' a synaptic spark/impulse in the brain, which initially struck me as a pretty mean and joyless way to think about the human mind. But then it occurred to me that to rather that by reducing mind to the physical process, you are making explicit reference to physical matter; which stands as ineffable and vague as any sort of 'dualistic substance' we might conjour up.

The problem of mystical undertones in science and philosophy never really goes away; not even when you reduce it all down to physical matter; qua atoms. This is a unit of reality which is notoriously slippery; being at many places all at once, seemingly having existence, and not having existence, of taking up a location, and of making a nonsense of the entire concept of locality. So yes, if all my mental processes are to be reduced down to this, so be it.

if they haven't been given too many drugs, it should be clear that the foundational reaction/experience is wonder.

Yes, this reminds me of the phrase (cant remember who said it) that the highest state a person in the sciences can aspire to is a state of wonder. Ive often thought infact that if you remove the imperative of technological progress from the picture, this is all science is trying to do - reintroduce the banal universe of everyday experience as something ineffably absurd, extravagant and fantastic.

 

[Doreen]

Yes, that's a very good point i think. I had a similar thought recently when reading some physicalist paper on the nature of mind. I think the general idea of the piece was to say that a an idea or thought is 'no more than' a synaptic spark/impulse in the brain, which initially struck me as a pretty mean and joyless way to think about the human mind. But then it occurred to me that to rather that by reducing mind to the physical process, you are making explicit reference to physical matter; which stands as ineffable and vague as any sort of 'dualistic substance' we might conjour up.

Couldn't agree more. Here's how I might come at it...
1) to call it a synaptic spark/impulse is a pretty reductionist view, even within the bounds of science. It seems clear that thoughts occur simultaneously with a range of activity, not only in different portions of the brain, but even in our posture, endocrine activities, facial expressions, etc. For example, if you ask people to tuck in their asses, they are more likely to be submissive - and one would guess have submissive thoughts. For some reason there seems to be this trend to referring to the tip of the iceberg of 'thinking' as thinking.
2) What the heck is matter anyway? It is a shorthand term for what we have experienced in minds. A lot of phenomenological events. Then we get used to these shorthand terms like 'brains' and 'stuff' and 'matter' and then these somehow take on qualities of realness which we are supposed to think of as more real than the very region - using that term very metaphorically - they got culled from.

The problem of mystical undertones in science and philosophy never really goes away; not even when you reduce it all down to physical matter; qua atoms. This is a unit of reality which is notoriously slippery; being at many places all at once, seemingly having existence, and not having existence, of taking up a location, and of making a nonsense of the entire concept of locality. So yes, if all my mental processes are to be reduced down to this, so be it.

Yes, those 'things' that it gets reduced to seem fundamentally unlike what anyone 200 hundred years ago - read: most people today too - associate with matter.

Yes, this reminds me of the phrase (cant remember who said it) that the highest state a person in the sciences can aspire to is a state of wonder. Ive often thought infact that if you remove the imperative of technological progress from the picture, this is all science is trying to do - reintroduce the banal universe of everyday experience as something ineffably absurd, extravagant and fantastic.

I think one difference between the mystic and the scientist is that the former is not a day job.