In the Simpsons episode Lisa the Skeptic, the skeleton of an angel is uncovered. This sends the whole town into angel fever. Especially since the town finds the standard “The End Is Nigh” message near the skeleton. Then, the following conversation ensues:
Lisa: But they are morons! What grown person could believe in angels?
Marge: Well, your mother for one!
Lisa: You? But you’re an intelligent person, mom!
Marge: There has to be more life than just what we see, Lisa! Everyone needs something to believe in. [Source]
Here, Marge displays the Classic Supernatural Thinking Defence #23 (which is similar to the postmodern view I mentioned in my first post):
Natural explanations are only about what we can see.
Therefore natural explanations are close-minded.
[Therefore I'm right.]
Of course there’s more to the world than what we see. Let’s be snide for a second and deliberately take Marge’s rebuke too literally, meaning there’s more to what we can see with our eyes. Then, this is true because visible light only forms a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. 0.00000000000000000000000000035% to be precise. And then there’s all the stuff that doesn’t give off elecromagnetic waves, etc.
But of course Marge was probably talking about us not knowing everything. In which case, once again she’s trivially correct. If you could somehow enumerate all the facts that are out there in the universe (you can’t) our knowledge would be even smaller than the percentage of light that’s visible. And of course there are truths we’ll never ever be able to know. In principle. But if the things we believe in for good reasons miss most true facts, it doesn’t mean we should use bad reasons to get to those dark uncharted territories. Because the odds of us stumbling on a truth using bad reasons are also miniscule.
Of course, to this point I’ve deliberately been avoiding what Marge was really saying. The point of her line was that there’s got to be more than the “mundane” world — that the unseen angels are somehow more profound. Well, profoundness is a subjective quality. If you feel that angels are profound but science is boring then I can’t give you a logical argument as to why your sense of profound is wrong. But I do think reality is more profound. For instance, in my brief digestion of Marge’s words whilst talking about all the things we do NOT know, I mentioned:
- electromagnetic radiation that lets us see (which brings up the nature of light, the evolution of the eye and our cognition, dark matter etc etc.)
- Cantor’s diagonal argument which limits our enumeration of things (and shows that there is more than one kind of infinity)
- The halting problem which limits what we can calculate (and shows that there are true facts we will never be able to calculate).
- Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem which really sets limits on knowledge we consider the most reliable (ie. maths) and has been [wrongly!] interpreted by some to show that the human mind can’t be a computer.
Is it really that crazy to find such stuff more interesting and profound than angels?
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Is it really that crazy to find such stuff more interesting and profound than angels?
Not at all, and you know it, of course. The crazy thing is that the majority of people (enlightened academics included) cannot understand that our perception (and by this I mean anything we can see, think, understand) is very limited.
It is limited for the reasons you point out but also because each one of us sees the world through a filter, the filter of his/her “knowledge/cognition”.
It is POSSIBLE to train this filter and (greatly) enlarge the things we can “see”.
A (good) musician can hear things I can’t. I am convinced that a good composer can “see” music; much more deeply than I can (I am an amateur classical guitarist).
A (good) film director can perceive a very complicated scene before it even gets realized.
A (good) mathematician can see lots of things in the world that are utterly invisible to the untrained mind. With mathematics we enlarge (and I can assure anyone it is the case!) the way we see and understand the world; and we can do so without even solving equations (contrary to the popular belief that a mathematician deals with symbols and equations).
So the point is: how can Lisa’s mom or George W Bush or Tony Blair or any other similar moron claim they can understand the world and (what is worse) ACT FOOLISHLY/STUPIDLY because of their beliefs?
I am not asking them to learn mathematics or music. That would be too much to ask. I am asking them to try to understand that the way Homo Sapiens can perceive the world is much deeper than they can.
Furthermore, they should understand that, regardless of where Evolution actually takes us, there will always be something we cannot perceive; or at least that the possibility that this is the case exists; and that this is not because of Angels or Demons!
Well, I CAN FORGIVE Lisa’s mom (in the Simpsons) for being naive. She will, after all, tell you that “Maths was not one of her favourite subjects in School”. What I find disgusting is when you meet “enlightened” scientists who will try to prove that Angels and Demons exist using scientific/mathematical methods. Here is one of them, an Oxford professor no less.
Good point — I didn’t mention the theory-loading of facts (or the preconceptions we’re biologically wired to have etc) but this is also an important side to the argument.
Of course there is no *psychological* difference to Tony Blair believing he knows something about the world and acting on it and someone we consider more rational — so I don’t think we can blame him for that.
There’s a famous effect in psychology that states that when you’re incompetent in some area of knowledge you are also incompetent to evaluate your incompetence and hence think yourself competent. This is how religious falsities often perpetuate. We all have this cognitive bias whether we’re religious or not but some forms of religious thought are an extreme example.
There’s a famous effect in psychology that states that when you’re incompetent in some area of knowledge you are also incompetent to evaluate your incompetence and hence think yourself competent.
Wonderful! I was not aware that this had been studied in the field of psychology, but it is definitely something I observe daily. I would like to learn more about the phenomenon, so any references/pointers would be appreciated.
This is how religious falsities often perpetuate.
And talking about religion, the above also reminds me of a similar phenomenon which (lots of) religious people possess. Namely, because they think that god is behind them and because they feel that they have the right religion and, by extension, the right morality, they often judge others in domains unrelated to religion. They dictate how others should behave and they feel justified for this. I think it’s called self-righteousness.
I’ve found the name of this effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
It’s common sense really: when you don’t know something, you don’t know that you don’t know it. We all fall prey to this.
Thank you very much. Even though it is, as you say, common sense, it’s always good to have some scientific support. The pointer you gave me is great, especially the first paragraph.
As a side remark, lots of things are common sense but rigorously proving them can be hard. For instance, in geometry, it is common sense that a simple closed curve in the plane (i.e. a loop which starts and ends at the same point without intersecting itself) separates the plane into two disjoint regions. It’s called Jordan cuve theorem and it is a tough cookie.
Anyway, I side-tracked again. You also reminded me of the Socratic dictum: One thing I know; that I know nothing (ΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ ΟΤΙ ΟΥΔΕΝ ΟΙΔΑ).
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