This is what I think.

All knowledge has an associated probability of being correct. For the knowledge that I exist, I would put it at 100%; for the knowledge that others exist in the way I do, I would put it at 90%; for the knowledge that more than a quarter of the population of Europe died in the great plague, I would put it at maybe 60%; for the knowledge that I will die before I’m 70, I would put it at about 10%; and so on.

All these probabilities are of course subjective and approximate, but they reflect my degree of confidence that the knowledge is correct. The difference between any of the above probabilities and 100% is the doubt associated with that knowledge.

For me, all knowledge other than that I exist and have certain experiences is less than 100% and therefore has some doubt attached. Doubt is a natural and inevitable part of thinking and awareness.

I don’t believe it’s just humans that think and doubt. Watch a wild bird approaching food when there is possible danger present. It isn’t sure whether it’s safe enough to take the risk. The probability that it’s safe enough is less than 100%. Of course, it can’t count to 100, but it makes its decision based on an intuitive assessment of the probability in conjunction with its degree of hunger. Even a fly will exhibit the same sort of behaviour.

Does a fly doubt? I believe so. What’s more, doubt is a form of reason, so a fly reasons – and quite effectively for its purposes.

Thomas knew that Jesus had died. Other disciples told him that they had seen him alive since he died. Thomas’ reaction was to doubt what they told him. To him, the probability that they were right would have been less than 100% (though greater than 0%). To put it at 0% or 100% would have displayed an inability to reason well.

Jesus scorned Thomas for doubting, for not being 100%. But no thinking person would or could be 100%. Christianity, like many religions, requires faith. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ‘Certain’ means 100%. The choice is to listen to your reason or to have faith (100% certainty). But most humans can’t completely abandon reason any more than that bird or the fly can. Nor can they voluntarily be 100% certain of something without totally compelling evidence. This implies that faith (and therefore salvation) are impossible for most.

probability — Neb

That describes doubt but doesn't explain its existence.

The question then is what non-scientific, non-reductionist, explanation for the existence of our doubting nature is there? — TheMadFool

Doubt existed a long time before modern scientific method. Those questions you ask about dogs and wolves were asked in almost exactly the same fashion in ancient India in the form of 'is it a rope or a snake'? That tendency in philosophy was one of the factors that gave rise to scientific method in the first place. Scepticism has been a face of philosophy since it existed, a long time before science sought to explain human nature.

When you say 'our doubting nature', you're treating 'doubt' as a kind of theoretical construct. In realiy 'doubt' is a natural faculty. Seeking 'an explanation of our doubting nature' seems like a contrivance to me. As I said, 'our doubting nature' is a natural collorary of the ability to question. We can envisage things being different, so how can doubt not be possible? We can ask ourselves, 'what if it is not so?' If it's possible to know, then it's possible to doubt. You don't need to rationalise it in terms of evolutionary theory.

That describes doubt but doesn't explain its existence. — TheMadFool

Good point. The original question was 'How did doubt begin?'

I do tend to think that the answer to that is implicit in what I said, though. Animals need to make decisions in order to survive. Those that can't just die out. Decision making requires reasoning - like the bird deciding whether it's safe enough to come and get the bread from my hand. Good reasoning, in turn requires an assessment of the probability of the correctness of suppositions - 'How likely is it that I will survive the encounter?'

So doubt evolved right from the beginning of animal life (in the Cambrian or just before) along with other evolved behaviors. Basically it has always been there and animal life would be impossible without it.

How many of them have you persuaded to leave the church then? — Sir2u

The subject is doubt, not conversion.

Good point. The original question was 'How did doubt begin?'

I do tend to think that the answer to that is implicit in what I said, though. Animals need to make decisions in order to survive. Those that can't just die out. Decision making requires reasoning - like the bird deciding whether it's safe enough to come and get the bread from my hand. Good reasoning, in turn requires an assessment of the probability of the correctness of suppositions - 'How likely is it that I will survive the encounter?'

So doubt evolved right from the beginning of animal life (in the Cambrian or just before) along with other evolved behaviors. Basically it has always been there and animal life would be impossible without it. — Neb

Agreed.

Doubt comes from the logical understanding that all of your imagined predictions can't be true at once.

There is the way the world is and a way we think, or perceive, it is. If there wasn't this distinction, then there would be no doubt as they would be one and the same - like a solipsist. A solipsist never doubts.

There is the moment in our lives when we learn object permanence. This is when we realize that there is a distinction. This would be the catalyst for learning to doubt.

Doubt existed a long time before modern scientific method. Those questions you ask about dogs and wolves were asked in almost exactly the same fashion in ancient India in the form of 'is it a rope or a snake'? That tendency in philosophy was one of the factors that gave rise to scientific method in the first place. Scepticism has been a face of philosophy since it existed, a long time before science sought to explain human nature.

When you say 'our doubting nature', you're treating 'doubt' as a kind of theoretical construct. In realiy 'doubt' is a natural faculty. Seeking 'an explanation of our doubting nature' seems like a contrivance to me. As I said, 'our doubting nature' is a natural collorary of the ability to question. We can envisage things being different, so how can doubt not be possible? We can ask ourselves, 'what if it is not so?' If it's possible to know, then it's possible to doubt. You don't need to rationalise it in terms of evolutionary theory. — Wayfarer

It's entirely possible that the ability to doubt exists for no rhyme or reason but the way it has persisted in us must mean that it's useful in some way. Generally speaking, we consign to the scrap heap what's not useful and this isn't true of skepticism; in fact it's recommended that skepticism be cultivated and generously applied to all situations. Perhaps we can begin there.

Decision making requires reasoning - like the bird deciding whether it's safe enough to come and get the bread from my hand. — Neb

Plausible. :up:

in fact it's recommended that skepticism be cultivated and generously applied to all situations. — TheMadFool

Ok then, perhaps someone would like to prove that the rules of human reason are binding upon subjects the scale of gods. You see, the thing is, philosophers like to talk about skepticism, but don't actually like to do it that much. That is, philosophers are human too.

I sympathize with your position but, like it or not, reason has emerged as the final authority on matters of truth. Reason's a time-tested method and has the final say when our goal is to separate fact from fiction. Put differently, we have seem to be under the impression that there's no reason to doubt rationality/logic/reason. My question is, given your position, what does it mean to doubt reason itself? — TheMadFool

Reason is informed by nature, or more specifically, our observations of nature. Therefore, if we observe something in nature that defies reason, we must concede that our reason is mistaken. We cannot deny the existence of some phenomenon simply because it’s existence defies reason. Such is the case with quantum physics. Reason would lead you to believe that quantum entanglement is impossible, yet it exists. And to answer your question, that is what it means to doubt reason; questioning it when something is observed that defies it, or when reasoning leads to something contradictory or paradoxical.

FYI, there's more acceptance of doubt in religious communities than on atheist forums. — Hippyhead

The religious have more reason to doubt than the atheist. A text that is full of contradictions will necessarily lead to doubt. It’s something all religious followers go through before succumbing to faith. In fact, I would say that the existence of faith is evidence of the existence of doubt. The atheist may not have all the answers, but it isn’t necessary that he believe contradictory claims based on faith. The atheist may doubt due to an inability to resolve certain issues, whereas the religious person doubts due to having the wrong answers.

It's entirely possible that the ability to doubt exists for no rhyme or reason but the way it has persisted in us must mean that it's useful in some way. — TheMadFool

Your thinking is still muddled. Doubt is not a biological adaptation in the sense that claws and wings are. You’re still treating it like it has to be rationalised biologically in terms of the purpose it serves.

Your thinking is still muddled. Doubt is not a biological adaptation in the sense that claws and wings are. You’re still treating it like it has to be rationalised biologically in terms of the purpose it serves. — Wayfarer

Is the idea of utility so intimately tied to evolutionary biology that we can't think of one without the other?

Ok then, perhaps someone would like to prove that the rules of human reason are binding upon subjects the scale of gods. You see, the thing is, philosophers like to talk about skepticism, but don't actually like to do it that much. That is, philosophers are human too. — Hippyhead

Of course, philosophers are human but they do make a big deal of skepticism and, as you said, being human and yet to do that must mean something.

Therefore, if we observe something in nature that defies reason, we must concede that our reason is mistaken. We cannot deny the existence of some phenomenon simply because it’s existence defies reason. Such is the case with quantum physics. Reason would lead you to believe that quantum entanglement is impossible, yet it exists. And to answer your question, that is what it means to doubt reason; questioning it when something is observed that defies it, or when reasoning leads to something contradictory or paradoxical. — Pinprick

I don't think there's anything that contradicts the principles of rationality in quantum entanglement but I get what you mean viz. that there are some observable facts about the world that defy reason, in effect giving us a good reason to doubt reason itself. However, notice that this is still a rational thing to do i.e. we're still using reason when we make this judgement. Also, although I'm not a physicist, this whole idea of quantum physics not conforming to rational principles like the law of non-contradiction is merely a misconception, an unfortunate effect of poor analogies.

Your thinking is still muddled. Doubt is not a biological adaptation in the sense that claws and wings are. You’re still treating it like it has to be rationalised biologically in terms of the purpose it serves.
— Wayfarer

Is the idea of utility so intimately tied to evolutionary biology that we can't think of one without the other? — TheMadFool

What if 'the advantage of doubt' is that it simply leads to a coherent understanding of truth? I mean, if you go back to the Greek philosophers, they were concerned with profound questions of the nature of truth and what prevented our understanding of that. How is that 'useful'? What 'purpose' does that serve? I think the answer is that truth in that sense is sought for its own sake, for the simple reason that it ought to be the aim of every philosopher. It has no 'utility' and indeed philosophy in that has no 'utility' in the sense understood by biology or other science.

There is a passage somewhere in Aristotle about the 'uselessness' of metaphysics. The moral is that it's useless, because it is to be understood for its own sake. If you seek to rationalise it in terms of its utility or usefulness, you're already misunderstanding what it is.

Of course I understand perfectly well that modern philosophy doesn't see it like that at all, but this is attributable to what the critical theorists have described as the 'instrumentalisation of reason'.

Can I not say that the ability to doubt is "useful" in seeking truth but seeking truth for its own sake?

Of course! But 'truth for its own sake' is quite different to where the OP started out, isn't it?

Today’s biologists tend to be cautious about labelling any trait an evolutionary adaptation—that is, one that spread through a population because it provided a reproductive advantage. It’s a concept that is easily abused, and often “invoked to resolve problems that do not exist,” the late George Williams, an influential evolutionary biologist, warned. When it comes to studying ourselves, though, such admonitions are hard to heed. So strong is the temptation to explain our minds by evolutionary “Just So Stories,” Stephen Jay Gould argued in 1978, that a lack of hard evidence for them is frequently overlooked (his may well have been the first pejorative use of Kipling’s term). Gould, a Harvard paleontologist and a popular-science writer, who died in 2002, was taking aim mainly at the rising ambitions of sociobiology. He had no argument with its work on bees, wasps, and ants, he said. But linking the behavior of humans to their evolutionary past was fraught with perils, not least because of the difficulty of disentangling culture and biology. Gould saw no prospect that sociobiology would achieve its grandest aim: a “reduction” of the human sciences to Darwinian theory. — Antony Gottlieb

More here.

Of course! — Wayfarer

I admitted to the fact that a reductionist approach may not be the right way to tackle the issue. However, you said even a non-reductionist perspective is flawed as when I gave instances of how the world fools us, unintentionally of course. You did mention seeking truth for no reason but for itself and I let you know that doubt has a role in discovering truths by forcing us to double check the evidence and arguments for errors. Is there no explanation for why we're skeptical or if not, why we're advised to be so?

Why is it advisable to exercise reasonable doubt? Because it's a fundamental aspect of knowing. Why seek to explain it? 'Reason is the source of explanation, not the object of it'.

I suppose learning to think sceptically is an acquired skill, in fact it's part of the training for a lot of disciplines (including science, law, and many others). So I'm not deprecating the requirement, just questioning the argument that was presented for it in the OP, which I think we have now moved beyond.

Because it's a fundamental aspect of knowing. — Wayfarer

in fact it's part of the training for a lot of disciplines (including science, law, and many others). — Wayfarer

Right! It serves a critical purpose in the knowledge business and yet, on the matter where it seems it's most needed - god, his existence, religion in general - we're asked to abandon it for it's seen not as a virtue as we were taught but as a vice. What's up with that?

There’s a delicate issue here - belief vs doubt.

First factor: in Western secular culture, there is an assumed opposition or dichotomy between religion and science (see the Conflict Thesis.) This finds strident expression on both sides, either from religious fundamentalism, on one side (such as young-earth creationism or even some aspects of the anti-fax movement) or militant scientific materialism on the other (for instance, Jerry Coyne’s ‘Faith vs Fact’.)

How to resolve that, or address it, is a big question. I suppose one way would be to bring out the most extreme versions of both sides. Hardcore fundamentalism insists that you believe the articles of the faith, no questioning, no dissent. Hardcore scientific materialism insists that only what can be measured is real. In some ways they’re both caricatures, although there are plenty of examples on both sides.

But there are many other ways of seeing it. Take George Lemaître. He was a Belgian Jesuit priest and astronomer, who first devised the idea of what came to be called (by Fred Hoyle, decades later) the Big Bang, in a paper in an obscure journal in 1927. At first his paper was ignored, but during the 30’s it gained more traction. However it was resisted at least in part because it seemed too much like the ‘creation ex nihilo’ of the Bible.

From the Wikipedia entry on Lemaître

By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory. Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's scientific advisor, persuaded the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly, and to stop making proclamations about cosmology. Lemaître was a devout Catholic, but opposed mixing science with religion, although he held that the two fields were not in conflict.

I find that an admirable attitude. My personal view is that if you try and prove that God exists with reference to science, you’re falling into the trap of fundamentalism; if you try and prove that God doesn’t exist with reference to science, you’re falling into the trap of scientific materialism (which in my view is another kind of fundamentalism.)

Another point is that doubt often plays a huge role in religious conversion. But there’s two faces of doubt - one the niggling scepticism which is basically grounded in ego defence and fear of change; the other is the profound sense of questioning everything about yourself. I think that kind of ‘great doubt’ has a religious dimension.

More could be said but I’d better stop there.

Wow! :clap: :up:

One question: If God did exist and he did create the universe and us, do you think he would've considered it a moral priority to bestow on us the power ability to doubt?

I never think about ‘what God might consider’. It seems thoroughly anthropocentric to think that way. Again, I don’t doubt of the fundamental facts of evolution, but at the same time, I don’t believe in trying to explain such high-level functions as doubt and reason in those terms. As prehistoric anthropology has shown, the cave art of early h. Sapiens indicates a culture which emerged quite suddenly, and alive with art, symbolism and religious iconography fully-formed. Again I think at that point humanity transcends the biological and enters an imaginative and spiritual domain which is not strictly understandable from the biological viewpoint even if in some obvious sense we remain creatures.

Here’s something you might find interesting about scepticism. One of the originators of Greek scepticism, Pyrrho of Elis, journeyed to the East to converse with the ‘gymnosophists’ (‘naked philosophers’) - the Buddhist and Hindu sages of ancient Gandhara (an ancient centre of civilisation which now straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Bamiyan Buddhas, wantonly destroyed by the Taliban, were of that culture.) On his return, he taught a doctrine of ‘the suspension of judgement of what is not evident.’ This was associated with reaching a state of tranquility, ataraxia, which scholars believe was derived from the Buddhist ‘nirodha’, or cessation of desires. (I think it’s the case that it thereafter degenerated into mere academic scepticism. See Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism )

The interplay of reason, faith, doubt, insight, and wisdom are huge interpretive questions in their own right. Due to the emphasis on right belief - orthodoxy - in mainstream Christianity, the issue tends to be interpreted in a pretty stereotyped way, as ‘rigid dogmatism’ vs ‘scientific enquiry’. There’s some truth in that but it’s by no means the whole story.

I think the answer is that truth in that sense is sought for its own sake, for the simple reason that it ought to be the aim of every philosopher. — Wayfarer

Truth can not be contained in any philosophy, because the truth is what's real, and any philosophy any one might come up with is merely a collection of symbols which point very imperfectly to the real. To confuse a philosophy, any philosophy, with the truth is like confusing a highway sign pointing to the next town with the town itself.

Philosophers typically try to find the truth by building a pile of symbols higher and higher. Such a process is travel in exactly the wrong direction. A journey towards truth is not a process of addition, but of subtraction. The philosopher challenges each philosophy until it is destroyed, and when all the symbolic idols have fallen, truth is what's left.

Truth was there all the time, patiently waiting for us to finally exhaust ourselves, shut up, and find it.

How to resolve that (a perceived conflict between science and religion), or address it, is a big question — Wayfarer

The first step towards resolving that perceived conflict would seem to be the hardest, finding people who actually want a resolution. Philosophy forums may be the last place such folks would be found? :-) Anyway, assuming such a resolution was desired...

My take is that the paths of theism and atheism lead to essentially the same place if followed far enough.

A fundamental fact about the human condition is that the emergence of thought has increasingly shifted our focus from the real world to the symbolic realm between our ears. We've steadily lost a primal bond with reality which other creatures and primitive humans enjoyed. The idea of "getting back to God" is one way of expressing the desire to recover what's been lost.

The atheist path back to the primal bond with reality is observation of reality. Not observation as a means to the end of theories and conclusions, because developing such concepts is travel further in to the symbolic realm, thus feeding the ailment we are trying to heal. Instead, observation of reality is pursued for it's own value. When we observe reality closely and patiently enough the symbolic realm recedes and is replaced by the real. The real has always been there the entire time, but it gets covered up by the symbolic noise in our heads.

The theist path back to the primal bond with reality (now renamed god) is to shift the religious focus from explanations to experience. As example, Jesus said "die and be reborn". He didn't say "establish a doctrine about dying to be reborn". Jesus used the word "die", a verb, implying action, not analysis. When we love, we die to the ego, the primary product of the symbolic realm, and are reborn in to a larger realm of family, friends, community, and reality. Only the actual experience of love can accomplish this, not talk about the experience. The talk is for folks who'd like to love, but aren't ready yet, so they pretend the talk is love, which is a lot easier than the surrender involved in love.

Both paths, theist and atheist, lead from the symbolic realm back to the real world, if followed far enough. "Dying to be reborn" and "observation of reality" are two different cultural expressions, meaning essentially the same thing.

But "dying to be reborn" and "observation of reality" is a challenging business, so most folks walk a little ways down their chosen path, and then stop, and build a fort.

Truth can not be contained in any philosophy, because the truth is what's real, and any philosophy any one might come up with is merely a collection of symbols which point very imperfectly to the real. To confuse a philosophy, any philosophy, with the truth is like confusing a highway sign pointing to the next town with the town itself. — Hippyhead

Hey nice essay.

That is well understood in many philosophies. Buddhism says not to mistake the finger for the moon. Plato’s dialogues likewise often reflect on the unsayable reality. Certainly there are systematic philosophies that attempt to map everything out. I too read Krishnamurti for quite a few years.

Religion has had to serve all levels of culture including for most of its existence populations who were illiterate and uneducated. Hence the tropes in Christianity about sheep and fields and the like, which reflects the culture in which those analogies were meaningful. They don’t in the least relate to post-modern, post-industrial culture. So 'religion' in the west is kind of like a story book, or a quaint little nativity scene in a shop window, at least on the popular level, but there are many other levels also. Joseph Campbell - 'Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.' That reflects a lot of the confusion.

The issue in Western philosophy is that it really is at a fork in the road, and the roads don’t lead to the same destination. Scientific culture really is intent on re-defining mankind as h. Faber, ‘man who makes’, as distinct from h. Sapiens. Anything with religious connotations is ring-fenced off. You see that in debates about nature of mind. In reality, mind is not something objective, it is the faculty which defines what is objective. So the mind can't be accomodated in the modern scientific picture, because it transcends it. This is why the mind either has to be eliminated, as per Daniel Dennett, or explained in purely neural terms as the product of the meat brain. People feel very strongly about that and react adversely if you criticize it. From their perspective, the scientific outlook has to be all-definining, whatever can't be accomodated within it in principle has to be denied. 'The jealous god dies hard' is how I describe it, because scientific materialism is the progeny of the Western religious tradition.

You're right in saying that the spiritual path is a hard path, something I'm all too aware of.

That is well understood in many philosophies — Wayfarer

Agreed. I don't claim to be inventing anything new. You would understand the cultural references better than I do.

As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.' That reflects a lot of the confusion. — Wayfarer

Imho, a solution to the confusion is to shift the focus from explanations to experience, a shift available within both the religious and atheist perspective. You know, we don't have to get lost in all the confusion about metaphors etc, we can instead leap over the whole thing.

The issue in Western philosophy is that it really is at a fork in the road, and the roads don’t lead to the same destination. Scientific culture really is intent on re-defining mankind — Wayfarer

My guess is that this world view will collapse under it's own weight, just as religious culture is doing in many places. Science will give us ever more power at an ever faster rate until the inevitable moment when we lose control of the power and blow up science culture. This is another subject, but it is perhaps relevant that this future was basically predicted in the first book in the Bible. But as you correctly point out, the fairy tale story telling style of the Book of Genesis does more to obscure than reveal these days.

You're right in saying that the spiritual path is a hard path, something I'm all too aware of. — Wayfarer

Well, in the spirit of the thread, we might try doubting this too. Will welcome your thoughts if interested.

First, if we shift the focus from explanations to experience, it's no longer "the spiritual path". You know, for example, love and meditation aren't the property of either religious or secular culture, but are experiences available to anyone of any belief. It's the explanations realm that cause us to try to turn experience in to some kind of journey.

We have the choice to consider such activities as acts of routine maintenance. I'm going to eat dinner in an hour and won't conceive of that as some kind of path, but just attending to day to day human need business.

Experiences which shift our focus back towards the real might be compared to food. We can talk about tomatoes and bread all day long, but it's only in the actual eating that we obtain the needed nutrition.

End of day, tired, best I can do at the moment. Take it from there if you wish.

The subject is doubt, not conversion. — Hippyhead

If someone doubts the truth of their church, would they not leave it. Leaving is not the same as being converted.

I never think about ‘what God might consider’. — Wayfarer

Why? Shouldn't you we?

It seems thoroughly anthropocentric to think that way. — Wayfarer

God is not like a human? Is that what you mean? Yet, given God exists, he seems to have given us some abilities e.g. rationality which he must've thought would be useful to us. Also what's up with the idea of scientists claiming they're in the business of "reading God's mind." Too, asking the question doesn't amount to assuming God is like us or thinks like us; the ability to doubt is of some value to humans and all life in all likelihood. Surely, this ability, since it's "designed" for us, can be understood by us in the sense that we can discover why it exists.

the suspension of judgement of what is not evident. — Wayfarer

I saw a short video on Pyrrhonian Skepticism - if I understood correctly, it's the most radical version of skepticism, basically total and complete suspension of any and all judgements.

There’s some truth in that but it’s by no means the whole story. — Wayfarer

:up:

Thanks

given God exists, — TheMadFool

There's an old saying, 'familiarity breeds contempt'. It's applicable here.

I saw a short video on Pyrrhonian Skepticism - if I understood correctly, it's the most radical version of skepticism, basically total and complete suspension of any and all judgements. — TheMadFool

But it's not the silly parlour game of 'how do you know you know anything?' It's more like meditation: being aware of the content of consciousness without being drawn in by it.

But it's not the silly parlour game of 'how do you know you know anything?' It's more like meditation: being aware of the content of consciousness without being drawn in by it. — Wayfarer

I see. Is there any other way to deal with Pyrrhonian skepticism but to keep "the content of consciousness" at arm's length? Perhaps, philosophy is like wine then - we can indulge in it every now and then but we have to remember to maintain a safe distance if we don't want to get sucked into what is ultimately a confused world.. What's interesting is doubt plays a major role here - we're supposed to avoid making judgements about anything since everything can be doubted and simply cultivate an awareness of the experience of being itself. No judging, Just being. :chin:

Much easier said than done!