Philosophy

I talked to Michael for the first time in a couple weeks and we had a very philosophical conversation I think I need to put here for reading at a later date. (Names and typos changed)

(Long conversation about statistics in a political science class)
Me: Science is just religion with numbers. If i wanted science I'd be in bio

Michael: >:o (closest to drop jaw dumbfoundedness)

Me: Well it's true. we're all looking for an instruction booklet so you choose either science or religion or some strange hybrid. It's all theories, you can't prove anything

Michael: That itself is science. science is not just belief, it is not just religion

Me: Like i said, it's religion with numbers. It's logic, with a belief system attached

Michael: Religion is predicated on an assumption of how the world is, science is the complete lack of predictions, purely the pursuit of truth

Me: It's trying to figure out the rule of the game, religion is taking what we have as the rules of the game. All in all we're all looking for the same thing

Michael: ? No not at all. Religion assumes to know an answer, science knows that based on new evidence old and wrong assumptions must be abandoned or modified

Me: And yet we're all looking for the same thing. Religions just aren't looking as hard

Michael: No religion is not looking for anything, religion assumes they know the answer. Science knows they can't know anything definitively, only have a best fit explanation for what we can observe

Me: Fine, but it's still all looking for a rule book. Religion just thinks it may have one

Michael: Religion assumes they have the rule book already. That is the anti-science

Me: Religions change too, just not as quickly

Michael: Only when forced to or avoid disintegration. When SCIENCE changes our understanding fundamentally, religions sometimes changes to try to keep its relative power. If it were up to religion exclusively, nothing would change

Me: Not Buddhism, not progressive religions

Michael: Progressive religions like.... nope none coming to mind.. progressive religions are still leaps and bounds behind where the secular community is

Me: As far as you know

Michael: Name one religion that isn't just on societies coat tails

Me: If science proves anything, it proves nothing is certain you can't pretend you are if you're behind science

Michael: ? I am just asking for one progressive religion that is not still worlds behind the secular societies of Europe. Religion is an over all retarding force in this day in age at least

Me: I'm just saying you're taking that for a fact. You can't take anything as absolute, unless you are religious

Michael: Well the evidence is that no religion is more progressive than secularism. That isn't a fact, its an observation

Me: True but anyone who wants to use science as an absolute, that's using science as a religion. they can come down to the same thing

Michael: Well if they use science as an absolute it sects to be science. Science by definition has absolute rules but no absolute truths. Well other than the truth inherent within their rules

Me: just saying, everyone is looking for the rule book, and religion is just what happens when science fails. They aren't so far apart.

Michael: That's a cop out bumper sticker view. Religion was a good organizing tool from before we understood that there were rules to the universe, now it is like a cancerous appendage that we can't get rid of.

Me: People have to have faith in something, and science only takes you so far. Is there life on other planets? Not that we've found, but u can take a position. Logic is your jumping block into faith

Michael: No...our brains are defective and crave a meaning, religion is a way of satisfying that, that does not make them true. Our search for meaning has no relevance to the universe

Me: I'm not saying it does. Just you have to believe something, and we don't have any answers. So you guess and that's your religion

Michael: Why do we have to believe? Because our brains crave a belief. It is that compulsion for simple answers that is the single greatest impediment to mankind. it has held us back and makes us capable of unimaginable cruelty

Me: Expand

Michael: Our minds evolved, they became biologically complex enough to think objectively only within the evolutionary last few blinks of an eye..that said, are brains are far FAR from purpose built to think, they are evolutionary accidents..so our minds are often left to find the subjective and "truly" embrace of a cultural belief system more comfortable than the rejection of it (and socially speaking, social evolution dictates that societies put emphases on conformity to a system) but these defects in our mind can, with great great effort, be overcome to see the world objectively rather than through the lens of a belief system. The lenses i mean are illogical manifestations of a type of religion. it can mean many things. but when you are able to reject objectivity in one respect it becomes easier to reject it in other respect. This leads to the rejection of knowledge the challenges the orthodoxy of the belief system, and that is only a mild example of what can happen. The religious wars of, well, every area on earth were all due to a breakdown (or total lack from the beginning) in logical objective thinking. If I KNOW the answer not only do i not keep searching, but i am inherently a better person that those who do not know the answer.. graduations of humans create cruel treatment because they are the other...they are less then me because I KNOW

Me: You can still know you don't know and hold a belief. I know i don't know if there's a god, but I believe there is. Who does that hurt?

Michael: It is just different gradiations of the rejection of objectivity... small rejections of objectivity is not harmful but where do you draw the line? the less rejection the better ant total objectivity is the best.

Me: Even when it makes you unhappy?

Michael: Yes

Me: Human's aren't built for that

Michael: I know we arne't, but rejecting truth is not an option to me

Me: You've got maybe 70 years on earth, why force yourself to be unhappy the entire time? What purpose are you serving? You must be doing something

Michael: I don't "have" to do anything. I don't require a purpose. I am the evedence of the law of large numbers as are you.

Me: So you're just floating through space accepting you know nothing, you can't even prove the laws are true if you accept anything, you have to accept you know nothing

Michael: Nothing is provable but that doesn't mean that nothing is understood. I can't prove gravity but i can undertand it should work

Me: But all it takes is one time of that pen falling up and gravity is disproved

Michael: yep

Me: So you can't know you know anything

Michael: Only cause of the definition of the word "know". Know assumes certainty

Me: But if you believe in anything absolutely you bring me back to my first point, it's faith, religion

Michael: There is no certainty but there is knowledge

Me: You can't base anything off a theory without it being faith if you adhear to it

Michael: Why can't I?

Me: You have to know you can't be absolute because if you believe that science is the answer, that it has the answers for your life and you base your life off that, it's faith. You can't prove it's true

Michael: You have a illogical jump. 'Because if you believe that science is the answer,** that it has the answers for your life and you base your life off that, it's faith' that jump here** is not a correct jump. Science is not a belief in and of itself. Science is the process of understanding the universe that does not believe i have a "faith" in it. Faith means i have assumptions.. but disprove any aspect of what I know then i reject it

You assume that it will not be disproved. That's your faith

Michael: No I don't. I have no assumption

Me: If you live your life on the principals that what science tells you is correct, then you assume that what you have learned is as close to the truth as you can get

Michael: I have evidence to back up things but that is not an assumption

Me: and you have faith that the evidence is strong enough to lead you to the truth. in believing there is a truth at all you have faith in what you are learning. the only complete objectivity is to accept there is no truth

Michael: assumption: something taken for granted; a supposition. Nothing I believe is taken for granted. I have no faith. How many times do i need to repeat that?

Me: You can say that as many times as you want but it doesn't make it true. The fact that you're living your life based on any principal at all is you putting faith in that you are living your life towards whatever universal truth out there, you have faith that there is a truth or you wouldn't trust science. You can't move towards anything without some basic level of faith, or you would say there's nothing out there and you should do what you want with your life

Michael: My life is irrelevent to the descussion of logic and science, but i'll just stick to what your focused on..I don't have faith that there is a knowable truth.. there is no evedence supporting a unified truth, though there is evedence supporting rules with predictive capability though there is evedence that demenstrates imperfections (ie disproves it as a "fact) most of the rules there is.. that is not faith yes you could argue that using logic is itself a faith, though at that point it is an argument over the definition of faith though the dictionary states:Faith: 1. belief that is not based on proof 2. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion 3.belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc. 4.confidence or trust in a person or thing 5.a system of religious belief

At that point I had to go to rehearsal, but yeah...he's depressing, but it gives me an outlet to think about stuff.
-Lia