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from the Fee-Fie-Fou-Fhum-Fideism-Falafel dept.
Commentary at Salon!
Should you believe in a God? Not according to most academic philosophers. A comprehensive survey revealed that only about 14 percent of English speaking professional philosophers are theists. As for what little religious belief remains among their colleagues, most professional philosophers regard it as a strange aberration among otherwise intelligent people. Among scientists the situation is much the same. Surveys of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of the most prestigious scientists in the world, show that religious belief among them is practically nonexistent, about 7 percent.
[...] Now nothing definitely follows about the truth of a belief from what the majority of philosophers or scientists think. But such facts might cause believers discomfort. There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous, while today it is rare among the intelligentsia. This change occurred primarily because of the rise of modern science and a consensus among philosophers that arguments for the existence of gods, souls, afterlife and the like were unconvincing. Still, despite the view of professional philosophers and world-class scientists, religious beliefs have a universal appeal. What explains this?
[...] First, if you defend such beliefs by claiming that you have a right to your opinion, however unsupported by evidence it might be, you are referring to a political or legal right, not an epistemic one. You may have a legal right to say whatever you want, but you have epistemic justification only if there are good reasons and evidence to support your claim. If someone makes a claim without concern for reasons and evidence, we should conclude that they simply don't care about what's true. We shouldn't conclude that their beliefs are true because they are fervently held.
Another problem is that fideism—basing one's beliefs exclusively on faith—makes belief arbitrary, leaving no way to distinguish one religious belief from another. Fideism allows no reason to favor your preferred beliefs or superstitions over others. If I must accept your beliefs without evidence, then you must accept mine, no matter what absurdity I believe in. But is belief without reason and evidence worthy of rational beings? Doesn't it perpetuate the cycle of superstition and ignorance that has historically enslaved us? I agree with W.K. Clifford. "It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Why? Because your beliefs affect other people, and your false beliefs may harm them.
I am checking to see what the Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster has to say about all this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @02:34AM (6 children)
The Peano axioms are not accepted as truths by mathematicians, but rather as a framework for constructing proofs that will hold wherever these axioms hold. (Actually, you also need to assume consistency and a rule or two of inference...but formal presentations include that.)
Truths require being embedded in an external world. Math doesn't. Math has proofs, but the proofs (if solid) specify under what conditions they can be asserted, and are always subject to being shown invalid. The closest math gets to "truth" is "Q.E.D.".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 21 2019, @04:15AM (1 child)
So I assume you don't believe that there is anything called "applied mathematics" then?
Most people -- including basically all scientists, engineers, etc. -- believe that math actually applies to the real world... somehow. The Peano axioms are one method for building up the basis for a system of math, but they also need to be paired with other assumptions (usually discussed in philosophy of math) about how math then actually might mean something in the real empirical world.
Unless you want to deny that "objective reality" doesn't exist, that science can't measure it with math or understand it with math, etc. Is that what you're saying?
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:40PM
To the extent that it's applied, it's not mathematics (to paraphrase Einstein).
When you apply mathematics you're turning it into physics or chemistry or ... well, whatever. Even statistics is not math, though it's even more heavily dependent upon math than is physics.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 21 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)
They say, in a nutshell: Zero exists, it is possible to count things, and you can use proof by induction. That's led to a lot of useful conclusions and operations. Ergo, unless you're saying that it isn't possible to count things, then those axioms are accepted as true by mathematicians.
And, as a sibling poster points out, applied math exists.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:58PM
No. They are excepted as consistent, and useful in appropriate contexts. They are not accepted as true by mathematicians. (Although I'll admit that lots of mathematics teachers seem to think they are true.)
If you embed them in an inconsistent framework you can use them to derive conflicting results. So they aren't true. They're self-consistent. (I.e., if you don't embed them in a larger framework, it is accepted that there can be no inconsistent derivations which do not contain a flaw in the proof.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @06:11PM (1 child)
Well said. Pure math is The Tautology Club. It is beautiful and sophisticated elaborations of "If these premises are true then the conclusions from them are true".
I feel a sense of wonder that it ever applies to the real world.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:48AM
It does not apply in the real world, it is useful in the real world. No two apples are the same but we still count apples.