From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Quantum (and untutored Zen) and Beliefs (was Re: Absolutes)
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 03:58:02 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.183956.8992@data-io.com> li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus) writes:
>In article <1govt3INN2cl@gap.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>I don't agree with your substitution of "true" for "valid."  I've just flipped
>>a coin, and haven't checked to see which way it somes up.  Now, were I to
>>believe it came up heads, and you were to believe it came up tails (rather than
>>both of us doing the reasonable thing and simply admitting that we don't know),
>>both beliefs would be invalid, in that there's no basis for either of them.  In
>>that sense, they'd both be equally valid.  However, one of them would be true,
>>while the other would not.

>But your example *can* be determined true or untrue.  I'm talking more
>about situations like Schrodinger's Cat which is, in essense, both there
>and not there at the same time, yes?  The example you give is something
>which can be determined.  The questions I'm asking are things which
>*cannot* be determined with any accuracy in any reportable manner.

	"In any reportable manner, perhaps.  But there are lots of
things like that.  If I told you I was feeling happy or depressed,
would you ask me to prove it?  And if you did, how would you suggest I
go about it?  Other people's emotions and thoughts are something we
believe in entirely on circumstantial evidence.  (So are all sensory
data, actually, but what goes on in other people's heads is yet
another level down.)

	"Do you believe that people you meet existed before you met
them?  There's a _very_ tough thing to determine.  That the past
happened, other than what's in one's own memories (if one believes
those) is a pretty big leap.  After all, you can no more see your new
acquaintance's past than you can see the cat in the box.  And if you
can infer the fact that the person's past existed by seeing her
present, you can infer that the cat died (or didn't die) minutes ago
by opening the box.

	"Personally, I believe, without proof, in a real universe--
one that doesn't go away when I go to sleep, or when I'm not looking
at it.  I won't try to claim that there's "more" to quantum events
themselves-- but Schroedinger's Cat fails to convince me.  I figure if
I can believe in the past, or in stars I'll never see, or books that
were burned before I was born, I can believe that there's a hidden
variable in the macroscopic experiment.  I don't believe that the
_cat_ is ever in an indeterminate state, whether or not the particle
is.  And the claim that it is, like my belief that it isn't, isn't
physics-- it's metaphysics.

>So like the cat, which may be there or not there at the same time, so with
>beliefs which are unobservable and undocumentable.  Both true and false at
>the same time.

>Actually, given that example, before the coin is tossed, the belief in
>either direction is equally valid, and to argue one way or the other is
>absurd, as you pointed out.  Both may be equally true or equally false.  So
>it is with *any* belief which hasn't been proven and cannot be proven.
>In essense, most of the questions of belief are in that section before the
>toss and there isn't going to *be* any toss in their lifetime.  

	"Except that it's a fact that some people, at least, believe
that they have inside information on how the toss will come out.  If
the coin is weighted, and you know it and I don't, then you may well
have reason for certainty which I don't.  Conversely, if one doesn't
believe in that sort of inside knowledge, then the logical conclusion
is that those who think they have it are incorrect.  You can't have it
both ways, it seems to me.  By asserting that there's no way to know,
you've essentially declared a host of religious and antireligious
beliefs _wrong_.  Not possibly right, or equally right, but incorrect.
Because those beliefs explicitly state that there _is_ a way to know.
Conversely, if you don't believe that you know whether it's possible
to know, then you also can't know whether some beliefs are more
correct than others.  Which means that you can't be sure the people
who think they're right-- that think they have ways of knowing which
they've successfully used-- are incorrect, if this sentence hasn't
become totally incomprehensible.  :-)"

>Thing is that some people will live as if they believe it will be heads,
>some would live as if they believe it will be tails; but neither can
>determine it.  In esesense, both are true *to* those that believe it, and
>neither can disprove the other.  I guess I'm saying that I choose to
>believe that both can happen, and choosing to say that it is *true* to each
>of those that believe that it is true because they act on that truth, and
>most of them can probably find evidense that the way that they see it is
>true to them.

>So it's not true in the terms of fact; but true in the terms of belief when
>there *is* no fact to back any of it up.

	"That, good lady, is itself a pretty strong assertion.  How do
you know there's no fact to back it up?  Who told you, and how did she
demonstrate it, or how did you reason it out for yourself?  I don't
assert that there is, mind you, but to say that something certainly
does not exist is sort of dogmatic, isn't it?

	"As far as I can see, though, that can't be helped, precisely
because two contradictory propositions can't both reflect reality.
Either a certain religion is true, or it is false.  Take it back a
step and say you can't know-- all right, then, _either_ it is
unknowable, or it is knowable (and you'll find partisans for each).
Will you call the ones who believe God, or the gods, are knowable
wrong?  If you don't wish to do that, you can step back and say that
whether the existence of a supernatural is knowable cannot, itself, be
known... but you see where this is leading.  Infinite regress.  At
some point, you'll have to take your stand-- if I tell you that God
has commanded you to take the hijab and go veiled, you can hardly
respond "maybe it's true and maybe it's not".  Provisionally, you must
either go veiled or unveiled-- there's no Schroedinger's veil which
can be both worn and not worn.  Similarly, if I say there is one God
and I am his prophet, you can be agnostic, but you can't be _totally_
noncommittal.  Either you will sing the Fifteen Silly Songs to the
greater glory of Golmong, or you will not.  Either my threats that
demons will come and whisk you to Cleveland are true or they aren't.
You can say that you're undecided... but at the very least you are in
a state of non-belief (though not anti-belief) if you don't come to my
temple and sing my songs and fear my demon servants.

	"Agnosticism isn't itself a religious belief, but it's a
belief about religion-- a belief that the evidence that you've
experienced is insufficient for a conclusion about religion.  But the
strong agnosticism you've asserted says that *there exists*
insufficient evidence for a true conclusion, for anyone.  At that
point, it's not an argument over Schroedinger's cat in the abstract,
but over a specific box: the real universe.  Various people claim to
have discovered a peephole, but they give different reports.
Nonetheless, you haven't examined the entire surface of the box--
which is to say, everything in the universe-- so how do you know that
no peephole exists?  And if you don't, then how can you be sure that
nobody knows whether the cat is alive?"

Michael

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)