Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!apple!bloom-beacon!proxftl.UUCP!bill From: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Message-ID: <19880905183558.1.NICK@HOWARD-JOHNSONS.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: 5 Sep 88 18:35:00 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 162 Approved: ailist@ai.ai.mit.edu To: novavax!uflorida!comp-ai-digest Path: proxftl!bill From: T. William Wells Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: Re: science, lawfulness, a (the?) god Date: Sat, 3 Sep 88 18:43 EDT Reply-To: T. William Wells Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale Lines: 144 Summary: Expires: References: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Keywords: As expected, my messages generated something of a heated response. Also as expected, some of the response completely missed the point. It is flatly not arguable that religions (and quasi-religions like Marxism) have caused some of the greatest evils in the world. And, in spite of what those who would condemn science in order to defend religion say, science has never been the *cause* (only the means) of evil. Nor could it, since it does not propose an ethical system, and thus does not provide a cause for action. (And to forestall an almost certain response: yes, there have been great evils done *in the name of* science, but closer examination shows one thing: the purposes were unrelated to the scientific.) But those observations, however true, are irrelevant to the point. No matter how evil religion might be (and I hold that faith of all kinds, including the religious, is one of the greatest evils), this fails to invalidate it as a means of knowing. What *does* invalidate it is its assumptions of an unlawful reality and of an unknowable universe. There were also several responses which oozed various kinds of epistemological relativism to attempt to defend the notion that science and religion are compatible. I had originally written contemptuous and sarcastic replies to these idiocies, but I have had second thoughts: such fuzzy-mindedness does not deserve the attention that specific responses would create. That this kind of relativism invalidates science is not a matter for debate; I shall not waste time on it. Following are a number of messages about which I have some specific comments. --- T. Michael O'Leary writes: : >Science, though not scientists (unfortunately), rejects the : >validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense : >utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. : : To me this requirement is unnecessarily strict. Science does not : require that reality be utterly lawful, but merely that it be possible : for scientists to observe patterns in nature. The mere assertion that there are patterns, without reason to believe that they might be projected into the future, does not constitute science. However, the existence of the unlawful invalidates prediction. Of any kind. Consider what it means to say that something is unlawful: it means that there are *no* constraints on its actions. The proper answer to "Can the unlawful do X?" is *yes*. Given such a thing, there is no reason to believe that the patterns that we perceive, the predictions that come true, or even our mere existence, are not entirely accident, devoid of meaning. And the "partly lawful" does not provide an escape either: where would you draw the line? No, if we wish to accept that science be valid, we must accept that there is *nothing* unlawful. And since religion accepts that there is that which is unlawful, it undercuts the necessary ground for science. So, to reiterate: science and religion are incompatible. There is no reconciliation. --- "William E. Hamilton, Jr.", on Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:00 EDT writes: : ...religion and reason entail diametrically opposed views of : reality: religion requires the unconstrained and unknowable as : its base... : : ...religion rejects the ultimate validity : of reason; ... years of attempting to reconcile the : differing metaphysics and epistemology of the two has utterly : failed to accomplish anything other than the gradual destruction : of religion. : : Science ... rejects the : validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense : utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. : : The first two above paragraphs make assertions which are certainly not true : of all religions. I disagree; all religions I have heard of, and certainly all major religions, are based on a metaphysics that makes science invalid. : The third makes statements I would have to : regard as religious, since it makes assertions (reality is lawful, God is : not) about phenomena outside the scope of science. You missed the point: I did not say that reality was lawful (though that is *in fact* correct), what I said was that reality must be lawful in order that science be valid. : Granted, religion is outside the scope of science, but that does not make it : wrong. Art and music are outside the scope of science, too, and yet : they teach us important aspects of being human. I disagree. Art and music are *not* outside the scope of science. And, to mention AI at least once in this message, it is necessary, in order that AI be more than programming tricks and mental masturbation, that the presumption behind that statement (that that which pertains to consciousness is necessarily outside the knowable) be false. --- Richard A. O'Keefe , writes: : This topic really hasn't much to do with AI. : Perhaps it could be moved somewhere else? Actually it does. Of the sciences, AI is easily the most philosophical; debates on the nature of reality (which AI researchers will have to figure out how to represent somehow) and on the validity of knowledge are both inevitable and necessary. And has anyone considered that ethics, too, also is relevant? --- ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU writes: : In a previous article, sas@BBN.COM says: : : > To my knowledge there is no scientific litmus test which can determine : > the good or evil of a particular thought of action. : : True. From premises in the indicative mode ("this is so") you can never : deduce a conclusion in the imperative ("you shall do so"). You need at : least a premise in the imperative (i.e. a moral axiom). I disagree. Moreover, I hold that ethics is a central, if perhaps unrecognized, problem for AI. I would suggest that the answer to the questions of ethics are intimately related to the problem of goal-directed activity in AI systems. --- Bill novavax!proxftl!bill