Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?


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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Crysknife »

I didn't say that. What I'm pointing out is the difference in reasoning used in maths and science. In maths, given certain axioms, I can provide proofs of statements such as 1 + 1 = 2. In science I can only accumulate evidence that an hypothesis is true. I don't prove it.
Then if nothing is provable outside of math then you shouldn't believe anything or conversely, you should believe whatever you want? Is that what you are saying? So science is a religion because nothing is provable?

If evolution isn't provable then by all means explain to me where you came from. There are facts in this reality that can only come about by strong inductive reasoning. Simple logic does not create knowledge.

Many things in math I have to take on faith. I will never prove a difficult geometric theorem, but I must trust the people working on it to prove it in a "clean" fashion. Thus I trust scientists to find evidence and use the scientific method to find facts about our reality. Here is the kicker.......if all humans were to die and another race of sentient beings were to evolve, they would have mathematics exactly like we do, but they would also have the theory of evolution EXACTLY as we do. But who knows what other various "religions" they might create that look nothing like ours.

About the other thing......math works to define our reality as we see it. But can you ever have a perfect circle? Does anything reduce down to one of anything? I am a human, but I am billions of cells. Would an atom in my body see me as one human from its perspective? A being in the quantum world might disagree that 1 + 1 always equals 1.


I know 1 + 1 = 2, but the "1" is a subjective choice.

EDIT: meant to say inductive rather than deductive...I changed it.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Serkanner »

SadisticCynic wrote:
Serkanner wrote:
SadisticCynic wrote: Mathematics is strictly deductive, whereas science, as an empirical endeavor can never be strictly deductive.
In other words: Mathematics is not a science :lol: ... sorry.

I am not quite following your reasoning here. This doesn't mean I don't agree with you, I just don't understand the discussion and I am eager to learn.
Right, I don't take mathematics as science. Mathematics is essentially an extension of logic. Any boundary between the two is arbitrary. I don't need to refer to anything physical to do maths. With evolution, I need to make observations, and this is always restricted by induction.

For example, in maths, without checking all the whole numbers, I can claim that any number of the form 2n is an even number. If I try to do a similar thing with physical (empirical) reasoning I run into trouble. An example would be the claim that all swans are white. Really I should say, all the swans I have seen so far are white. (Indeed it turns out that black swans exist <- That was quite a surprise to me at the time :) )
Thanks ... I now know we don't agree. I claim all swans are either black or white ... I don't have to say all swans I have seen so far are black or white in the odd chance a blue one is born. You limit to much what science is.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by ahnnah »

Serkanner wrote:
I claim all swans are either black or white ... I don't have to say all swans I have seen so far are black or white in the odd chance a blue one is born. You limit to much what science is.

What if the swan was dyed blue? WHOA! I just blue your mind didn't I? :teasing-tease:
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Crysknife »

Serkanner wrote:
SadisticCynic wrote:
Serkanner wrote:
SadisticCynic wrote: Mathematics is strictly deductive, whereas science, as an empirical endeavor can never be strictly deductive.
In other words: Mathematics is not a science :lol: ... sorry.

I am not quite following your reasoning here. This doesn't mean I don't agree with you, I just don't understand the discussion and I am eager to learn.
Right, I don't take mathematics as science. Mathematics is essentially an extension of logic. Any boundary between the two is arbitrary. I don't need to refer to anything physical to do maths. With evolution, I need to make observations, and this is always restricted by induction.

For example, in maths, without checking all the whole numbers, I can claim that any number of the form 2n is an even number. If I try to do a similar thing with physical (empirical) reasoning I run into trouble. An example would be the claim that all swans are white. Really I should say, all the swans I have seen so far are white. (Indeed it turns out that black swans exist <- That was quite a surprise to me at the time :) )
Thanks ... I now know we don't agree. I claim all swans are either black or white ... I don't have to say all swans I have seen so far are black or white in the odd chance a blue one is born. You limit to much what science is.
Sadcyn doesn't even know if swans exist! I guess they approach existence but never quite reach it. I "believe" they exist which makes what I "believe" a religion. :D
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by SadisticCynic »

Crysknife wrote: Then if nothing is provable outside of math then you shouldn't believe anything or conversely, you should believe whatever you want? Is that what you are saying? So science is a religion because nothing is provable?
You can believe whatever you want to believe, but it may come at the expense of logical consistancy. The theories in science cannot be proved, but that does not mean we cannot accept them, or that they are all equivalently valid. Even if we had a deductive system it would require empirical reasoning, and that is the best we are going to get. This puts science on a less firm foundation than maths.
If evolution isn't provable then by all means explain to me where you came from. There are facts in this reality that can only come about by strong inductive reasoning. Simple logic does not create knowledge.
Evolution isn't provable, not in the sense that 1 + 1 =2 is provable. Just because I claim it's not provable doesn't mean I need to have a replacement theory for where I come from!
Many things in math I have to take on faith. I will never prove a difficult geometric theorem, but I must trust the people working on it to prove it in a "clean" fashion. Thus I trust scientists to find evidence and use the scientific method to find facts about our reality. Here is the kicker.......if all humans were to die and another race of sentient beings were to evolve, they would have mathematics exactly like we do, but they would also have the theory of evolution EXACTLY as we do. But who knows what other various "religions" they might create that look nothing like ours.
I think that's a really good point, but I suspect that religions built by other sentient beings would have quite alot in common with ours - a narrative on 'where we came from', a set of conventions or principles on how to act, ideas about what a perfect society/state/land would be, etc.
About the other thing......math works to define our reality as we see it. But can you ever have a perfect circle? Does anything reduce down to one of anything? I am a human, but I am billions of cells. Would an atom in my body see me as one human from its perspective? A being in the quantum world might disagree that 1 + 1 always equals 1.


I know 1 + 1 = 2, but the "1" is a subjective choice.

EDIT: meant to say inductive rather than deductive...I changed it.
How would being in a quantum world change the nature of mathematics? Doesn't physics claim we do live in a quantum world? I don't think anybody in physics disputes the claim 1 + 1 = 2.

A perfect circle is a mathematical object, not a physical one. We've known about perfect circles ever since the concept was discovered.
However, physics currently assumes that space is continuous and 3-dimensional. A perfect circle exists in 3-dimensional spaces over the real numbers.
This gives me a chance to make my viewpoint more explicit:

Usually scientists are very realistic about scientific theories, for example in Newtonian mechanics, we don't say that this thing we call space is like the Euclidean space in the theory, we say it is such a space. So the Newtonian physics in particular has a narrative about how to interpret the math. We call things particles, or rigid bodies (etc) and that they have certain properties we have defined such as energy and momentum, and that the trajectories of these particles are described by certain dynamical laws. We take this interpretation to be a true description of reality.

However quantum mechanics subsumes Newtonian mechanics, yet provides a very different physical picture. The process of taking a theory, a tool for prediction, and attaching a physical picture to it is, it seems to me, a very slippery activity. There are some scientists (Hawking, last time I heard) who believe that science isn't telling us anything about reality, but is just a useful tool for prediction.

So do perfect circles exist physically? Physics seems to make this claim, yet people don't seem to believe that to be true.

(Thanks for being so patient with me, by the way. :) )
Sadcyn doesn't even know if swans exist!
I am unfamiliar with any scientific (or otherwise :shock: ) theory of swans. :P
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

My issue with when people talk about science and how we view/experience reality in terms like this it's essentially just a thought/semantics exercise. Can I prove that I'm holding an apple to an absolute degree? No, but for me to do anything other than assume that I am correct is not practical.

I understand where this whole school of thought comes from, and it is important to accept that we don't actuually know much of anything to an absolute degree - but beyond accepting that in an abstract manner it really has no bearing on how we should conduct ourselves. At some point we have to behave as if we are in fact correct, as long as in the back of our minds we understand that we may turn out to be wrong about certain things.

So sure, science requires some faith that we're right. Just as when I go to sleep I have to have faith that my body will keep breathing, and have faith that my bed even exists, and have faith that I even exist - but these are such tiny degrees of faith compared to what is required for religion that it's not realistic to compare them other than in a semantics discussion.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

So to expand on that - calling science a religion because it has a slight overlap is good for a breif thought exercise, but in the reality of how both operate it's just not accurate. It's semantics, it instantly becomes not a discussion of whether science is a religion, it becomes a discussion about what the word "religion" even means. Religion and science are two nearly polar opposite ways of attempting to understand reality (overlapping essentially only in that they are both just "attempts").

Those working on science try constantly to prove previous knowledge wrong. Those working on religion do not attempt this, aside from those who try to bend scientific method to prove their religion correct - and even then, they're not using religion to prove religion wrong, they're crossing over into science (generally pretty bad science, but not always). You don't see a hardcore Christian attempting to live a Buddhist life to see if they can prove their own faith was incorrect.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Crysknife »

I agree AToE, my issue is with calling science a religion. I understand Sadcyn's point but we don't live in an ethereal world of absolutes and perfect circles. We live in a world we are trying to make sense of the best we can and that's called science. The Theory of Evolution is as close to absolute as anything we are going to get so again, if people choose to not believe in this thing(whatever it is) that we call "reality" it's not my problem, but it shouldn't be called a religion.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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Meh.

Less firm than maths is still far more substantial than Sky Pixies and zombie Jews.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

SandChigger wrote:Meh.

Less firm than maths is still far more substantial than Sky Pixies and zombie Jews.
:lol: Yes that pretty much sums it up.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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so all you heathens are denying the truth & origin of the Urantia Papers ?
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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SandRider wrote:so all you heathens are denying the truth & origin of the Urantia Papers ?
You mean aliens?

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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by SandRider »

well .... yeah ...
but when you say it that way,
it just sounds silly ...
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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SandRider wrote:well .... yeah ...
but when you say it that way,
it just sounds silly ...
Not silly, SEXY! :P
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by SandRider »

oh, okay ... I get it ...

so you're saying the Truth of the Universe & the Face of Gawd
can be realized with a mash-up of the Rocky Horror and the Urantia Book ....


wow, suddenly it all seems so clear ...
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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No, just Rocky.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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:?
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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A Thing of Eternity wrote::?
Confused?

Everything will be explained in the next episode of Soap.
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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:lol:

Soap. Loved it. Saw some of it again recently. A lot is still funny. ;)
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Serkanner »

SandChigger wrote::lol:

Soap. Loved it. Saw some of it again recently. A lot is still funny. ;)
I remember the episode where Billy Crystal thought he was an old Jew best. Great sitcom!
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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

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:lol:

I always remember the crazy European woman warning the family, "You tink I'm finish with you?" And Jessica replies, "No, of course not! We know you're Swedish!"

I always did love bad puns. :D

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Re: Would there be religion without the Butlerian Jihad?

Post by Zedwardson »

Demerzel wrote:If machines never 'turned against humanity' and everything did not descend into a feudal mystic age, would there be religion that late in humanity's future? It just occurred to me that there hasn't been a major religion founded in quite a while, and with all the gadgetry around us, I don't see the need for one (also I doubt that people wouldn't jeer at any eager founder). Project this into a distant future with machines. What do you think?
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