From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Einstein and Judaism
Date: 11 Nov 92 16:11:53 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <RLK.92Nov10193422@underprize.think.com> rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz) writes:
>In article <RLK.92Nov10183802@underprize.think.com> rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz) writes:
>
>   There is >>NOTHING<< wrong with making a starting hypothesis and working
>   from that point.  From a scientific point of view, there is absolutely
>   nothing wrong with hypothesizing a god, even!
>
>Lest I confuse anyone, I should point out that the god hypothesized must
>be defined well enough to permit tests that could decide whether said
>god existed to be devised.  I. e. any scientist who proposed a god would
>be expected to describe its expected characteristics to some level of
>detail, such that someone else could come along and propose a test which
>if failed would serve to refute the hypothesis.
>--
>ames >>>>>>>>>  |	Robert Krawitz <rlk@think.com>	245 First St.
>bloom-beacon >  |think!rlk				Cambridge, MA  02142
>harvard >>>>>>  .	Thinking Machines Corp.		(617)234-2116
>
>Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- write lpf@uunet.uu.net

This is really getting into alt.religion.xxxx or philosophy.  But I
can't resist pointing out that science does not usually start with
hypotheses but with observation.  A penguin is not a hypothesis but
an observed fact.  An early explorer who went to the south pole and
reported his discovery of penguins could well be refuted by a learned
and logical theory that such a creature couldn't exist.  Or, when
asked to account for penguins, he may or may not be able to do so.

A better analogy would be the Indian story of the blind men and the
elephant.  One grabs its trunk and hypothesizes it is a rope.  Another
touches its leg and says it is a tree, etc.  There is no question of
its existence.  All are partially right.  Another man, who can see,
comes along and tells the others about it.  They were all born blind
and they can't grasp what this strange sense organ might be, but the
"seer", himself a scientist, attempts to formulate what he sees in
terms of what they can comprehend between their limited sense organs
(touch, hearing, etc.) and the concepts they can add to these. Then one
of the elephant scientists has an eye operation and regains his sight.  
He now has a new perspective from which to pull it all together.

The original "elephant seer" would be analogous to the founders of a
religion (of whom there may have been many who could see then).  The
man with the restored eyesight is analogous to a modern scientist of
the spirit, so long as he not only observed through his new sense 
organs but also applied the same integrating and unifying tests of
thinking to what he saw.  In terms of experience, the difference 
between the elephant and a supersensible being lies essentially in
the organs of perception.  The methods by which we integrate the whole
are the same for both.  Neither starts with a hypothesis and neither
ends with a hypothesis.  It is the elephant who corrects the hypothesis
not the other way around. Hypotheses come and go, but you elephants
have long lives.

One more point.  (Sorry).  Not all phenomena can be reproduced in
the laboratory.  The fact that nature does not always submit itself
to the scientist's test criteria does not make nature disappear. For
spiritual reality this is even more the case.  It is difficult to
put God in a test tube because you can't get out of God.

Cordially,
Gerry Palo
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish