>At 07:03 PM 10/21/99 -0600, Aaron wrote:
>>
>>Science has faith at its foundations as well. Science puts faith in a few
>>fundamental assumptions -- universality, inductive proofs, etc...
>>The difference between a science and a religion is that science does
>>everything it can possibly do to minimize the amount of faith needed.
>>Religions are generally based on faith in excess.
>
>Aaron, while I agree with much of your comment, I have to take exception to
>this. Science does not (or need not) have *any* place for faith, if by
>faith we are talking about beliefs that are held in the absence of or
>contrary to the evidence--beliefs that are given an absolute foundation
>utterly resistant to the possibility of refutation.
Max, me having only taken an undergrad class in Philosophy of Science, and you being a professional philosopher, I am now cowering in the corner. You are probably correct in your reasoning, however allow me to timidly pose a question. Is there any way to escape a solipsistic view without some sort of faith in an external objective reality? I believe that this tiny little leap of faith is a rational choice, but it still remains a leap of faith.
>For my reasons for this view (not original to me), please see
>www.maxmore.com/pcr.htm for my essay on Pancritical Rationalism (my talk
>from our first conference in 1994).
I'll have to read this later today. I downloaded my mail to my laptop and I'm currently stranded away from a net connection.
>I think this point is exceeding important. To grant that science is based
>on foundations of faith inevitably collapses the distinction between
>science/reason and irrational faith. That this view is common is probably
>the fault of a long philosphical tradition of rationalists and empiricists
>who sought indubitable grounds for belief. They just couldn't seem to live
>with the idea that maybe there aren't any. To me, the ability to question
>your deepest convictions is one of the core aspects of being extropian. (So
>go ahead and convince me that science is based on faith in the sense I've
>stated--maybe I'm wrong on this very fundamental point...)
I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has risen every day I have ever lived. I believe that because of scientific induction. But I cannot prove scientific induction -- the only way to prove induction is by an inductive arguemnt. Induction has always been right in the past, therefore it wil hold today. I have faith in induction due to the observed regularities of inductive arguemnts. I think this is a rational belief, but still unprovable and therefore taken on faith. No?
Aaron
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+| Aaron Davidson <ajd@ualberta.ca> http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~davidson/ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+