Perceptions of Reality v3

Building on previous versions ... and attempting brevity () ...

To begin with, I don't think it is possible in the slightest for two people to have exactly the same set of beliefs and knowledge, we are all a little different from anyone else and sometimes a lot different from some others. We are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand -- our personal worldview.

Let me open up the discussion a bit by first considering the whole playing field of human knowledge and perceptions of reality, first in very general terms:

science (click) is what we know about reality from objective evidence and the scientific method.

philosophy (click) is what we think about reality based on logic that is internally consistent

faith (click) is what we believe about reality without objectivity or logic.

These concepts can be wrong, however it is much harder to determine if a concept is correct than to determine if it is wrong, so this leaves us with concepts we think are correct versus concepts we know to be wrong.

Science tests concepts against the objective evidence to eliminate ideas that don't match reality as it is known by objective evidence, but it can't prove that the concepts are correct representations of reality.

Philosophy can be based on our knowledge of reality and it can consider hypothetical concepts that cannot be tested by scientific methods, they can only be tested for self consistency. Philosophical concepts that are contradictory to our knowledge of reality, however, are just as invalidated as scientific concepts so invalidated.

Faith involves concepts that include, but are not limited to, concepts of god/s, and there is no known test of beliefs, other than that any belief concepts that are contradictory to our knowledge of reality are just as invalidated as scientific concepts so invalidated.

If I were to draw a picture of this it would be something like this:

If I were to place over this the worldview knowledge of science, philosophy and faith of a YEC (young earth creationist) it would look something like this:

It is silly to consider scientific concepts at odds with reality.

It is irrational to consider philosophical concepts at odds with reality.

It is delusional to maintain belief in concepts at odds with reality.

Enjoy

Edited by Admin, : Minor wordsmithing.

faith (click) is what we believe about reality without objectivity or logic. This is a false definition of CHRISTIAN faith, whatever other kind of faith you may have in mind. Christian faith is faith in the God of the Bible and in His revelation. He's the Creator of everything including science and reason. Whatever truly derives from Him is true, objective and logical.

And yet you believe this is true without objective evidence or logic that it is true. This is not, of it's own, a bad thing.

It is when you believe things that are known to be false, like a young earth, where the evidence of the earth being over 4.5 billion years old is massive, that such beliefs become delusional.

Enjoy.

Is that right? Aren't science and faith both subsets of philosophy?

Perhaps, certainly they are subsets of human thought.

Science is like a refinement of philosophy, a distillation that focuses on what we can know from objective evidence.

Faith is like an extrapolation of philosophy, an expansion of thoughts of what may be outside the natural realm of objective evidence.

So I could be wrong in thinking that philosophy is concerned with logic and internally consistent concepts and would need another word for that to use instead. Do you have one?

Just a small quibble

... unlikely military victories such as the English victory at Agincourt in 1415 ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

It was the introduction and massive use of the English longbow that gave them the victory. The longbow shot further and had enough power to pierce the French armor.

Certainly the faith the French had in winning the battle proved to be wrong.

I am reminded of the Dylan song "With God on Our Side"
http://www.metrolyrics.com/...our-side-lyrics-bob-dylan.html

Good points again.

Perhaps what I should do is discard the labels and use just the definitions proposed

Inner core: is what we know about reality from objective evidence and the scientific method.

middle layer: is what we think about reality based on logic that is internally consistent

outer layer: is what we believe about reality without objectivity or logic.

And think about the layers in terms of the confidence we can have in their validity.

We both agree that there is always a reasonable explanation after the fact. I guess my point was that it is not always delusional to maintain beliefs in concepts that are at odds with reason.

At odds with logic, untested hypothesis, yes

At odds with theory, tested hypothesis, yes

At odds with facts, not so much.

Some philosophers might claim that. But philosophers can be wrong. It would at least be closer to say that theology is a subset of philosophy. Faith and theology are not the same thing.

So we could have a circle that contains facts -- objective evidence that we think is "true" to reality (or else all is illusion) ...

Surrounded by a circle that contains tested scientific theories that explain facts and objective evidence and predict future findings -- concepts that we have confidence are good approximations of reality, but which could be falsified by new evidence ...

Surrounded by a circle that contains untested scientific hypothesis based on theories and objective evidence -- concepts that may reflect reality or may be false and we can't know until some testing is done to see how they hold up ...

Surrounded by a circle that contains untestable natural philosophical hypothesis based on logic and internal consistency (not self-contradictory) -- concepts that may reflect reality or may be false and we can never because they can't be tested ...

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Then we have theological\supernatural philosophy -- concepts that may reflect reality beyond natural knowledge

Surrounded by beliefs -- concepts that include god/s and other non-natural things.

How do these fit together into a worldview? How do the natural and supernatural concepts mesh\interact?

The scientific method provides reliable answers to that question.

How do you handle questions that are not open to the scientific method in accepting or rejecting them -- by how they fit with your worldview? Whichever is less dissonant to you?

Take politics for instance.

Edited by RAZD, : subt

E.g. If I put a piece of potassium in water tomorrow (or at some other point in the future) we know it will react in a certain way as described in any chemistry book you can lay your hands on. We haven't actually put that specific piece of potassium in water yet but we still know what it will do when we do so. Which of your rings does that knowledge lie under?

Science.

Secondly - Where does knowledge of future events based on past experience fit into your diagram?

Putting potassium in water will cause the same reactions as before ... that kind of past experience ?

or we've always done it this way, it is traditional ... that kind of past experience ?

or every time the tax code is more progressive the economy improves and every time the tax code is more regressive the economy falters ... that kind of past experience ?

Firstly - Wouldn't we hope that one's political views are evidence led....?

Yet hoping doesn't make it so -- just look at global climate change and !bengazi! ...

So with your diagram - Are you attempting to describe what people actually do in terms of classifying their beliefs/knowledge? Or are you prescribing how knowledge/beliefs should be classified?

I'm just thinking of it as a generalized sum of all concepts and some basic categories they would fall into. Probably more of a spectrum than hard and fast circles.

Trying to get a handle on what we can know, what we think we know, and what we hope we know, as it were.

But everyone will have their own set of classified concepts, which gets back to worldviews.

I don't think I can classify your perceptions so much as I can classify my perceptions of your perceptions, and vice versa. But we can find consilience on some views, just as we can find some disagreements on others.

I mean... the whole point is that we never actually get to know when something matches reality or not. Simply because we can always be wrong/mistaken just because we're human.

Indeed, and that is why I decided to make no graphic distinction for incorrect concepts.

Well the way I see it, what we can have are different levels of confidence in concepts by the ways we can evaluate them.

There are scientific concepts that we can have a high degree of confidence in -- that potassium will continue to ignite under water, that gravity will continue to operate on a pen let go over a desk, and the like, in part because of many validating observations and in part because of no invalidating observations.

The process of deriving confidence from testing is more difficult when we move to philosophical concepts that can't be tested scientifically, such as the different philosophies of politics and morality. In this it seems that we look for internal consistency, that the philosophy will provide consistent results in similar situations and not end up contradicting itself. This holds for scientific concepts as well, so this like extending this aspect outside of science. The more internal consistency is developed it engenders more confidence in the concepts even when their validity cannot be scientifically tested (albeit less confidence than we can have in scientific concepts).

And it becomes even more difficult when we come to concepts that are beliefs, articles of faith. In these situations it seems that we seek conscilience with opinions of others, and the more conscilience we find the more secure we feel in our beliefs. This searching for conscilience also applies to science and philosophy

So... getting back to my non-understanding... what are we actually trying to show with this diagram? Perceptions of Reality... but what does that mean?

How we as humans, with all our cognitive mechanisms, see and understand reality. Everyone would have slightly different circles like the YEC example

and the composite would be built up by compiling everyone's personal circles

But I consider this a work-in-progress and welcome suggestions.

So for someone like Faith we would have a "fact" circle that had biblical inerrancy in it because her perception of reality is founded on that. Its totally individual.

With some acceptance of science and some rejection of science, as shown by the "YEC" example

Everyone could have their personal circle within the conglomerated combined whole.

Examining individual perceptions of reality looking for common ground no matter how different?

Yes, that is part of the exercise. It should be fairly obvious that day to day interactions between people are possible due to a large number of conscilient views, whether religious or political.