In Another Person’s Shoes

I like sushi

Imagine you are a scientist dismissive of, and/or opposed to, religious positions.

Now imagine that the ‘natural laws’ observed by physicists start to slowly unwind - predictions and margin errors increase to the point where all readings and measurements become more about guesswork and blind luck (suspension of disbelief is needed here!).

Suddenly all those ‘religious types’ with their prayers and superstitious beliefs start to get things ‘right’ - for wholly inexplicable ‘reasons’. Nevertheless you remember when your scientific mind aligned with reality and you continue to apply the same scientific methodology. You tell your children of the scientific era and teach them the formulas and methods that once worked and encourage them to seek out the ‘laws of nature’ as you have continued to do ...

Generations later cults read from the prophets ancient tomes, from Einstein, Bohr and Faraday. They are mocked by the ‘religious types’ with their ‘method’ prayer and ritual life. Blindly and unsuccessfully the scientists apply their heuristic hoping that there is something they’ve missed, they hold faith in the old ways of their forbearers, of evidence based measurements that are now deemed mere ‘folklore’/‘myth’ - a dying superstition of primitive or befuddled minds.

If you follow this thought experiment through I am interested to hear how it could be built upon or what flaws there are with it.

Note: An argument against the impossibility of the situation is redundant as the point is to come to some semblance of an understanding of views that seem utterly beyond our personal perspectives.

Frank Apisa

Imagine there actually is a god...and further imagine that the GOD actually reveals itself to everyone in an unambiguous way so that everybody realizes that there indeed is a god.

Now, follow this thought experiment through.

Any flaws with it will be my answer to your question.

Lindrosn

Note: An argument against the impossibility of the situation is redundant as the point is to come to some semblance of an understanding of views that seem utterly beyond our personal perspectives. — I like sushi

While the entire situation is impossible what's interesting is that the part that considers that many would maintain their views despite the dynamics changing unexpectedly is plausible. One just assumes, and probably correctly, that most scientists and those who follow them have little understanding of the things they speak about and such submission towards those proclaimed to be authorities that the complete absence of evidence of all things scientific wouldn't cause them to reevaluate their views.

180 Proof

↪Frank Apisa

:smirk:

TheMadFool

↪I like sushi

I'm deeply intrigued. To play along with you, what I would like to do is create two lists, the first list containing scientific claims and the second list containing religious claims. A cursory look into the two lists indicate that there'll be a few mutually incompatible entries but it also appears that the two lists can be merged into one without any hassle. Where there are conflicts between the two, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that we can come to a compromise that'll satisfy both camps. I find God, thereby religion, to be very much like the color black, it goes with everything: all we have to do is include god's existence as part of all scientific hypothesis - god, not being a quantity, would probably not interfere in the formulae and calculations of science. Science can easily accomodate god for god doesn't contradict science; god is just redundant.

I like sushi

↪Frank Apisa

I don’t see how that follows.

I like sushi

↪TheMadFool

I never mentioned any ‘god’ on purpose.

I like sushi

↪Lindrosn

Yes, it’s utterly ‘impossible’. The point is to appreciate the unbending conviction of those that go against what experience clearly establishes as false.

In this bizarre scenario - if disbelief can be suspended - the whole of scientific method evaporates overnight, yet the previous use of science holds fast in the minds of those that harnessed it.

This wasn’t meant to be about god or science. It was merely a way of allowing us to consider the stalwart conviction of others that we may deem either ridiculous or idiotic. Appreciating this, I believe, helps us to sympathise and therefore create a constructive dialogue.

Lindrosn

If reality contradicts your beliefs then you change them or expect them to be ridiculed.

TheMadFool

I never mentioned any ‘god’ on purpose. — I like sushi

So, which godless religion are you referring to?

I like sushi

↪Lindrosn

How long would it take to change these beliefs though? This is especially difficult when previously all the evidence supported your position.

↪TheMadFool

I didn’t refer to any.

Lindrosn

It might take many years for one whose only impetus is to finally become honest, but in the scenario you mention one who already had honest beliefs could change them as rapidly as reality, itself, changes. One could suspends his beliefs and wait before forming new ones.

TheMadFool

religious positions. — I like sushi

:chin: ??

Benj96

↪I like sushi

What you seem to describe is a "copernican revolution of sorts" - a revelation or discovery that swings completely the status quo to a completely knew path of understanding and has already happened as you probably well know when scientific method was established around Galileo's time after copernicus realised the earth revolves around the sun and isnt the center stage if cosmological religious happenings. These are paradigm shifts of large magnitude and it is actually entirely possible that science may come to a point again where a large shift is realised or where it can reversibly explain consciousness and spirituality unifying the two separate factions of worldly understanding. I think your hypothetical example shows something more human - the ongoing divide between the conservative and the adaptable: those that resist change and cling to older concepts that used to satisfy general opinion and those that adapt quickly to the latest rational explanation.

I believe it doesnt actually matter what way one rationalises the universe and the bizarre experience of existing. Each mode has qualities that lead to personal development and an opportunity for comfort, meaning and utility/practicality in dealing with our environment and how life operates. The main issue has always been respect and the ability to entertain ideas that you dont necessarily agree with simply out of intellect.

Frank Apisa

I like sushi
2.3k
↪Frank Apisa I don’t see how that follows. — I like sushi

You asked us to do something absurd...something that by the nature of your "suppose" would end up where you want us to end up.

I merely presented a short cut to the same place.

I like sushi

↪Frank Apisa

I was posing a thought experiment in an attempt to better understand biases and dogma.

If you can improve on it I’d love to hear how. The short cut you took was completely tangental to what I was setting up.

I like sushi

↪Benj96

I think your hypothetical example shows something more human - the ongoing divide between the conservative and the adaptable: those that resist change and cling to older concepts that used to satisfy general opinion and those that adapt quickly to the latest rational explanation. — Benj96

That was the general intention.

I was hoping someone could build on it and make it more interesting/accessible and useful. Basically if the entire world started to behave differently from what you’d known all your life you’d - I highly expect - cling to long held heuristics because that would literally be all you knew.

The ability to adapt would be mostly based on the degree to which things changed. A paradigm shift is workable, but if all previous paradigms were left utterly redundant there would be nothing to build a bridge from.

3017amen

↪Frank Apisa

NICE!

That reminds me of this thought experiment:

Imagine someone coming to you declaring or proclaiming " I saw God yesterday and he said... ." How would or should, one react? Would the general inclination be that of disbelief or something else... .

Through logic, how should one go about justifying such an experience (?).

DingoJones

↪I like sushi

I hope you remember your past thought experiments and my willingness to play along because this time I dont think you thought experiment makes sense. Not because its impossible, but because it contains a contradiction.
You cannot follow the scientific method properly and dogmatically cling to its its previous conclusions. If everything changed (reversed really) then science would change with it. If prayer instead of medicine worked for sickness and injury, then the scientific method (followed properly) would adopt prayer as the scientific facts instead of medicine.
So if everything flip flopped like you describe and there were people who clung to previous scientific facts/foundations rather than accept the new facts (prayer and whatever religious stuff is now true) then they arent scientists, nor are they practicing science.
Just to be clear, Im not objecting to the impossibility of everything reversing, Im participating in the thought experiment in good faith, Im just not conceding that in that scenario science would become its own antithesis. If you want to include science becoming its own antithesis in the parameters of your thought experiment then I dont think your thought experiment is coherent.

Frank Apisa

3017amen
1.6k
↪Frank Apisa

NICE!

That reminds me of this thought experiment:

Imagine someone coming to you declaring or proclaiming " I saw God yesterday and he said... ." How would or should, one react? Would the general inclination be that of disbelief or something else... .

Through logic, how should one go about justifying such an experience (?). — 3017amen

The "thought experiment" is an absurdity. It was not really a thought experiment at all. It was a set-up to make something not especially logical...seem logical.

Braindead

I used to be religious and one of the intriguing things I took from that experience was that when they explained past actions that contradict modern teachings, they would chalk it up to human error. After all having a human guiding a human group isn’t infallible, even if that group was supported by an omniscient and/or omnipotent being. Religions can be quite flexible in some ways.

I like sushi

If prayer instead of medicine worked for sickness and injury, then the scientific method (followed properly) would adopt prayer as the scientific facts instead of medicine. — DingoJones

It wouldn’t. That isn’t scientific.

Besides the POINT of this is to try an appreciate what the world looks/feels like to those who we may consider blinkered/delusional/naive.

↪Frank Apisa

If you don’t like thought experiments that bend reality fair enough. If you don’t get see that it is meant as a means of creating a bridge from zealotry to more considerate thought fair enough again.

Note: this isn’t actually about god, religion or science - that’s merely the vehicle for putting yourself ‘In Another’s Shoes’.

I like sushi

↪Braindead

It isn’t meant to be a commentary on religious or scientific history:

Note: An argument against the impossibility of the situation is redundant as the point is to come to some semblance of an understanding of views that seem utterly beyond our personal perspectives. — I like sushi

DingoJones

It wouldn’t. That isn’t scientific. — I like sushi

Of course it is. Science uses its method to determine the way things work. If the way things work is prayer or magic then thats what science will be about.

Besides the POINT of this is to try an appreciate what the world looks/feels like to those who we may consider blinkered/delusional/naive. — I like sushi

Sure, I'm just pointing out the incoherency in your thought experiment. (You asked to hear about flaws). If what you want is to address is differing perspectives, your work is already done for you with the simple analogy you yourself used. In another person shoes. That addresses what you want without being incoherent.

Anyway, I guess the main consequence of such a reversal would be blown minds. I think many scientific based people would have a period of hard adjustment but would in time be able to adjust to the new facts. I also think some scientific based people would have various mental break down. Like when Neo is “gonna pop” after learning reality was a lie.

Echarmion

↪I like sushi

If the goal is to better understand people that have a different perspective, I think what's missing here is a sense of personal emotional investment. It's all rather abstract.

One could flesh out the scientist some more. Imagine their entire life as a prodigy in their field. Internationally renowned, invited to conferences, interviewed on TV. Until they're suddenly utterly irrelevant. That perhaps catches the emotional side of things better.

Alternatively, instead of making it about science in general, choose a specific belief that is widely and emotionally held among your audience. Vegetarianism is actually killing the planet. Green energy is a sham. It turns out the Libertarians are right. That kind of thing.

Frank Apisa

↪Frank Apisa If you don’t like thought experiments that bend reality fair enough. If you don’t get see that it is meant as a means of creating a bridge from zealotry to more considerate thought fair enough again.

Note: this isn’t actually about god, religion or science - that’s merely the vehicle for putting yourself ‘In Another’s Shoes’. — I like sushi

Just having a bit of fun, Sush. Yanking on the chain a bit. No meanness intended (or taken, I hope).

It is a fun thread...and I thought I'd bust some balls. Can't play golf...where I usually do my ball busting.

I like sushi

Sure, I'm just pointing out the incoherency in your thought experiment. (You asked to hear about flaws). — DingoJones

I guess the flaw here is I didn’t make it explicit enough that predictable experimentation would be useless (no better than astrology). Without a testable hypothesis scientific advancement would grind to a halt.

I was thinking about using a football analogy where current formations became useless, but that’s really weak.

↪Echarmion

Yeah! A personal and more emotional touch would probably help.

I went for religion and science because they are inherently part of humans cosmological position. Something equivalent, as a reality shift, would be if you woke up one morning and everyone was speaking an alien language - I assume a rational person would conclude they’d had a stroke or something. If brain trauma could be discounted then ... ?

A major problem is that all scenarios where reality is altered require suspension of disbelief - maybe that is actually the key. The way out of ‘zealotry’/‘rigidity of thought’ is to nurture our ability to suspend disbelief. In that sense liberalism and conservatism (at the extreme ends) could maybe be used to represent this?

In Another Person’s Shoes

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