Belief vs Knowledge - The Force

I wanted to start this just to see something about how people view their reality and the real world around them. People believe in many things and have many reasons to do so.. but what do you know and how? What have you experienced and what did those experiences really teach you about life, people, or the world?..

Have they shown you there's higher function underpinning our reality? What some would call God or The Force?..

Tell me what you know, not what you believe.. and let's discuss our experiences and how we've interpreted them..

For me... belief is a fun vehicle for exploration , and knowledge is vital for the engineering of those vehicles - 'vehicles' being conceptual frameworks to interpret experience as if modes of reality).

Within that, any beliefs are assigned to vehicles rather then self identity or group identities. It allows one to explore a much wider gamut of experiences I think. For it is a living/evergreen self-renewing path, asserting that belief is entirely open provided it does not become delusion. My definition for delusion would be along the lines of 'a fixed belief not amenable to rational argument or evidence to contrary, and being distinct from a belief which might be based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or some other misleading effects of perception'. But the only extent a belief needs to align with reality is that to which is interacts with it, and any restriction to a vehicle beyond that is unnecessary IMO.If a vehicle interacts with a new aspect of reality and conflicts then it either updates itself to align or is not an appropriate vehicle for that circumstance and a more appropriate vehicle should be used. Otherwise it would be restrictive and close one off to the amazing diversity, power and beauty of the universe. In the subjective world nothing is forbidden, everything is permitted. The trick is not mixing the subjective world with the objective world (going either way) and then having vessels enough to make safe expedition!

Foxes and hedgehogs.

I do not accept belief as a means to obtain knowledge. Faith is rejected simply because it implies belief without evidence. However evidence is the only viable mechanism to achieve knowing of anything in our reality.

What do you know and how?

I don’t know, I don’t know. I feel like there is a fishhook floating above me. I don’t know what I know. I think I know a lot of things. I’m not sure how/why I think I know those things. I just collect experience in this sack of meat and call it knowledge. Anyways, mostly I just feel things.

What have you experienced and what did those experiences really teach you about life, people, or the world?..

I’ve experienced a lot of things, I think. Here’s a specific one: Once upon a time I got laid off. I don’t think I had any control in the matter, but it taught me that if I’m going to subscribe to a system, I’ve got to accept when the system treats me like the number I’ve become to them. I don’t mean to sound bitter about that, it is what it is. And I don’t mean to say that I can’t or shouldn’t do anything about it, but it’s a waste to be bitter.

Have they shown you there's higher function underpinning our reality? What some would call God or The Force?..

That’s just the feeling thing I mentioned earlier. No specific experience has brought me any profound knowledge of this, but I feel it more when I’m away—out on the mountain, or far at sea. Maybe it’s just fear.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my liberal use of italics.

I know - that the more I learn the less I know. I know the more I explain things- personally - the less I wonder. I know that no matter what I do - I’ll never understand everything. My experiences speak to me often. I’ve felt more at home and comfortable in my enemy's home ( during time of war and peace) than in my own familys home some days. I know I’ve learned great character worth teaching my children from people of different faiths and walks and I tell their story - often. I know when I rid myself of my need to explain a lot of things I personally can appreciate them a bit more. I know I don’t HAVE to explain everything. I know my connections are there with others and the more I seek them and build them the more - me and my family can enjoy our life. I know my faith in the Force and the ability to help others to choose their own as I have - creates not a negative effect but one that can be felt even when those people are away. These are things I know from my own experience. These are things proven for me and to and my path. They can differ from path to path but what I do know is - it works for me. I am a benefit and a blessing to my family and friends rather than what I used to be. I know I’m not the same person as I was yesterday. I know what I practice now, is worth much more to me than when I started. That’s a tiny bit of what I know... but I don’t know much. There is still sooooo much out there left to be explored.

Uzima Moto wrote: People believe in many things and have many reasons to do so.. but what do you know and how? What have you experienced and what did those experiences really teach you about life, people, or the world?..

Have they shown you there's higher function underpinning our reality? What some would call God or The Force?..

Personal experience is in my opinion not a reliable path to knowledge if we want to make the sort of distinction between belief and knowledge that you are suggesting. I find that cross-confirming experiences with those of my peers - whilst by no means perfect - tends to produce a generally more accurate picture, at least of any sort of reality we seem to be sharing, whether that means something or not. After all, I find that the interaction with others is very essential to being human, and an experience that cannot be shared with anyone else is a lesser one for that reason alone. And so what I consider non-a-priori knowledge must come from data, from the experiences collected by a great conglomerate of my fellows and predecessors, and confirmed among them.

One of the things I know - not as a matter of personal experience or lack thereof, but as a matter of plausibility based on experimental data and theoretical predictions - is that what ever "higher function underpinning our reality" might be out there still hidden from our view, it would have to be so weak in comparison to what we already know about as to be essentially void of impact for our daily lives. What ever ghosts or spirits or gods or souls, or the Force, if one be so inclined, we can at best use as a label to describe things that exhibit none of the characteristic traditionally associated with those terms. There may be a Force that has an essentially impact-less will, flows as weakly as to be essentially not flowing at all. There may be a god that is has essentially no powers whatsoever and is as ignorant about things in general as we are.
We know this, because we already have quite a theory that is a kind of accurate of which there is no second instance... one might say it is one of a kind, that kind of accurate. As I say, it is not so much that therefore there are no magic powers beyond what we already know. Rather, the uncertainties, the margins of error where we can have any kind of expectation of finding any such thing have at this point become extremely slim. What ever hides in that tiny sliver of a shadow is so insignificant as to make basically no difference whatsoever. For all practical purposes, there might as well be nothing there at all.

My personal experience is living it. My belief in The Force is because I've seen certain events in my life unfold whether explained or unexplained circumstances. My knowledge of The Force comes from my own views and the added knowledge of others. I believe were all connected EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in an endless web of life and events. Ones purpose ends another grows in its place endlessly cycle.

Do I believe The Force is God? Nope. I believe were infinite beings living in temporary vessels. Do I believe were God's? No I don't think so. I am not certain if there is a God or Goddess I think their is simply The Force and this temporary existence. Once we die we return to The Force and become one with it and experience Reincarnation with new life and purpose.

In my humble opinion the key is to acknowledge that we have 2 hemispheres of the brain for a reason. Therefore, one should seek a balance between evidence and feelings. Everything you see is interpreted by your brain and are just signals. When you dream you can still "see" but your eyes are closed so you're not physically "seeing" or interpreting patterns of light bouncing off objects. And what if light doesn't bounce off an object? Does it mean it is objectively not there? Of course not.

I don't have to see the air I breathe to know it's there. The same is true with belief. Some people discount it because they can't prove it. There are still scientific theories that haven't been proven but if the people trying to prove them didn't believe in them they would never try and those things would never be proven. How did we get here? How did life begin? I have beliefs about this that don't involve a "king of the universe" but these are beliefs... theories... To say that anyone definitely knows is a lie. And we can simply accept "not knowing" but that's very limiting on human thought if we're not free to wonder, to dream, to imagine. I believe life itself evolved from simple animation caused by physics; the rules created order and the order a system and the system the ability for members of that system to adapt and evolve.

Now if I don't know something for a fact then I don't try to pretend that I do. I don't pretend belief is the same as knowledge which is where I think a lot of people go wrong because then they start getting offended by knowledge that disproves their beliefs. But if beliefs are just beliefs then they shouldn't be held so holy and sacred that they cannot be challenged by evidence. By the same token I don't think what claims to be knowledge is complete and cannot therefore be challegened by beliefs because those beliefs could LEAD to evidence and fact-finding that sheds new light.

Belief/Faith can be very powerful tools. For instance, if I apply faith to myself then I can discover that I can do more than I think I can. Without faith I'm limited in what I can achieve. People use belief in every day life to "hack" their brains into allowing them to perform at a higher level. Maybe a runner believes they can push themselves to run just a bit faster or longer. If a scientist says humans can only run as fast as the fastest known runner at the time then you can see how belief could impact our basic understanding. For me personally, when I tend to think positive and believe things will work out they usually do. When I think negatively things tend to get worse. Belief, therefore, often depends on application.

The reason belief is so important in certain religions is because if you don't believe then you wont have the motivation to change your lifestyle. If "Sin" (for example) is a habit then you need something stronger than that habit in order to break it.

ZealotX wrote: In my humble opinion the key is to acknowledge that we have 2 hemispheres of the brain for a reason. Therefore, one should seek a balance between evidence and feelings.

This is not to say that I disagree with you - in principle I probably don't - but this does not at all follow. Even if there be a reason our brains have two hemispheres (and by reason I assume you mean some kind of end goal rather than just a historical account of how this came to be), that by no means implies that therefore one "should" anything.

Everything you see is interpreted by your brain and are just signals. When you dream you can still "see" but your eyes are closed so you're not physically "seeing" or interpreting patterns of light bouncing off objects. And what if light doesn't bounce off an object? Does it mean it is objectively not there? Of course not.

I don't see (pun intended) that as quite so obvious. Sure, by a literal reading, just because I cannot see light reflected from air, as your example later goes, doesn't mean that there isn't any around. But surely you aren't trying to make the entire argument exclusively about literal light seeing. We have, after all, other ways of detecting things than that. For one, most EM waves are not visible to our eyes at all, and the colour resolution of what tiny sliver of the spectrum we see has long been surpassed by the instruments we built to resolve them by literally orders of magnitude. Gravitational and nuclear effects seem to be thoroughly orthogonal to interactions with electrical or magnetic fields as well, and we have means to detect those, too. But what if not only light, but no kind of particle at all "bounces" off an alleged object? What if the dragon in your garage is not just invisible, it is also inaudible, makes no smell, radiates no heat and cannot be touched? Saying a thing is not there just because you cannot see it is unreasonable, I agree. But how many detection methods does it have to perfectly evade before it becomes reasonable to shift the burden of proof where it belonged all along: To the ones making the claim that the thing "exists" in some way regardless?
Just because your dragon is invisible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But just because I cannot logically prove that it doesn't exist doesn't mean that it is reasonable for me - or indeed for you - to believe that it does.

Some people discount [belief] because they can't prove it. There are still scientific theories that haven't been proven but if the people trying to prove them didn't believe in them they would never try and those things would never be proven.

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven. Some are shown to produce more accurate predictions than others. But there is no such thing as a provable scientific theory. There is no such thing as a true scientific theory either, or a false one. These terms are matters of logic, of mathematics, not of science.

How did we get here? How did life begin? I have beliefs about this that don't involve a "king of the universe" but these are beliefs... theories... To say that anyone definitely knows is a lie.

A theory is not just a belief. A theory is a model that relates data collected in such a way as to make testable predictions about future findings, and that has made predictions that have been matching subsequent data sets.
Now whether having a model that consistently makes accurate predictions constitutes knowledge or not is perhaps a matter of philosophical debate. I for one am happy to avoid it by separating knowledge into matters of truth and matters of fact. That way we can "know" answers to the questions you posed just fine, by having well working models of these things.

And we can simply accept "not knowing" but that's very limiting on human thought if we're not free to wonder, to dream, to imagine.

I strongly disagree. I believe that it is the recognition of our fallibility that enables us to wonder ever more, to be yet more curious, yet more imaginative, in our pursuit of answers. To put it in the words of the great late Christopher Hitchens, "I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet, that I haven't understood enough, that I can't know enough, that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way."
It is, I believe, only by revulsing at our ignorance, by fearfully rejecting it, not through combat but through hiding from it, that we cease to wonder, and to dream, and to imagine. We are better off, I believe, embracing our limitations, and fighting to overcome them to what ever extent we can.

Now if I don't know something for a fact then I don't try to pretend that I do. I don't pretend belief is the same as knowledge which is where I think a lot of people go wrong because then they start getting offended by knowledge that disproves their beliefs. But if beliefs are just beliefs then they shouldn't be held so holy and sacred that they cannot be challenged by evidence. By the same token I don't think what claims to be knowledge is complete and cannot therefore be challegened by beliefs because those beliefs could LEAD to evidence and fact-finding that sheds new light.

With most of what you say here I agree. Allow me nevertheless this tiny nitpick: Yes, beliefs can lead to finding evidence. They especially lead to confirmation bias, where one filters gathered data through the belief, only to leave confirming - or indeed only disconfirming - evidence to be even acknowledged as such. I think what we believe should be dictated by what the evidence indicates, never the other way.

The reason belief is so important in certain religions is because if you don't believe then you wont have the motivation to change your lifestyle. If "Sin" (for example) is a habit then you need something stronger than that habit in order to break it.

A piece of information spreads more rapidly if people who get to carry it believe it to be true/accurate and important to spread and to remember. A system of ideas spreads more rapidly if it encourages those who carry them to keep on believing them, especially in the face of chalenge, and to share them and convince others. One might think it daft these days to liken religions to diseases, but as a matter of evolutionary fitness they are very analogous indeed. One might also liken them to genes - this is where the term "meme" comes from. The more convincing an idea is, the more successful it will be competing with fellow ideas for the minds of the individuals capable of having any. The religions that have stood the test of time, that have kept a number of adherents, or grown it, are religions that encourage adherents to remain faithful toward them and to proselytize them to the adherents' friends, family, or even strangers. It is no mystery why the most successful religions are ones that claim exclusivity of faith, or dominance over lifestyle, or even hostility towards those that couldn't be converted. A religion that tolerates or encourages mixing itself with others is just bad at competing for mind space against more "selfish" memes.
The reason belief - or faith, rather - is so important in pretty much all religions is the same reason they want to change the adherents' lifestyle. It is because religions that don't encourage commitment and devotion like that tend to be short-lived, "unfit", to put it in evolutionary terms. The ones that survive for any noteworthy time or grow to any noteworthy extent tend to do so precisely because they have religious zeal built right into them.

Couple of quick points here to correct mistakes that most laymen make. A scientific theory is not the same as the common use of the term theory. A scientific theory is not proof of anything but the highest current conclusion on the operation of a phenomenon based on a wealth of evidence. It is a working explanation of how some part of the world works. It is not based on belief but on fact. Also scientists do not test hypothesis based on belief, they test them based on observation. They make no conclusions about that observation (form no beliefs). Instead they form hypothesis on what might be causing the observation and then set out to disprove each one until only one remains and that gets added to the data that supports the theory and that is used as a predictor of future potential proofs. If one of those future proofs is proven not viable then that theory (of version of that theory) is discarded. This process is not done from a stand point of belief but actually a standpoint of skepticism. (unbelief)

So no belief and faith are not powerful tools, they are some of the most impotent and unreliable tools anyone could ever use to arrive at a conclusion. Using scientific methods we can arrive at a reasonable conclusion as to whether or not there is an invisible dragon in your garage, however using faith does not have this power because you can just as easily arrive at the incorrect conclusion and never know the difference.

Hello there,
I've been following a path of positive actions to people around me. People that I never met. They were in need of help but we're not asking for it, I noticed and acted in consequence. People which i just crossed in the Subway, on the street, in a shop. They were so happy, smiling at me with eyes that were telling "why?". That gave me joice and made me happy. People around us saw that and were smiling too. Somebody else helped a new right away someone else in need. Good actions brings happiness to people around you, to the person you're helping and to yourself.
After a couple of weeks, opportunities jumped in front of me and I took then.
It's now been almost a year since I started acting like that, not because of a search of reward but because I was trying to connect with everyone I'd meet.
I was a junkie, I'm now studying to become a primary teacher.
So, is there a god? We'll probably never know. But I can tell you, there is some power, and you can harvest it if you let go of your ego and use it for others. Only then will you be able to receive and see the opportunities that this power brings you. Ego puts a real barrier between the two of you, it blinds people.
That being said, no sciences will prove my story, but it doesn't make it a fake.
Siences has it's limits. The probabilities of being in a simulation is much higher than having a god above us.
I'm a huge science fanboy, from all that I have read/watched/heard/talked, we are our owns gods, but if that's true, let's be pious gods, good for each other.
What do you say?

Robinhood wrote: I'm a huge science fanboy, from all that I have read/watched/heard/talked, we are our owns gods, ...

Well, you haven't read/watched/heard/talked that from a science journal, or text book, or lecture...
Tell me... as a "huge science fanboy", what makes you reject its methods? Now, I understand that you are probably not elected to represent any kind of science fanboy club, so I can't expect you to speak on behalf of your brethren in that fandom. Understand hence my question to be rhetorical more than a genuine query. Why is it that those who "love science" the most tend to be the first to insist and stress just how limited science is and how an utter lack of evidence doesn't mean anything about the reality of their pet woo-woo and how consistently science has failed to disconfirm said woo that is quite deliberately formulated to be maximally unfalsifiable? Why are the "biggest science fans" almost always the ones to most strongly oppose the methods of scientific inquiry?

@Gisteron

This is not to say that I disagree with you - in principle I probably don't - but this does not at all follow. Even if there be a reason our brains have two hemispheres (and by reason I assume you mean some kind of end goal rather than just a historical account of how this came to be), that by no means implies that therefore one "should" anything

Let me start by saying how much I enjoy conversing with you. You have a strong logical mind. I was hoping my point would be more so understood the function of the left brain, while you would be able to function to a large degree, would be significantly less than ideal in handling all of what life has to offer. You'll miss out on a lot of things if you only deal with logic (speaking as a computer programmer) just like you'll miss out if you only deal with creativity. They both draw on each other for balance and for expression. The logical side gives us a system of language but our creative side adds all the herbs and spices that make it interesting. I mean you can eat plain chicken just for the protein and calories but why miss out on the taste to which you can enhance with other flavors? That's how life is (imo). Many people favor one side, whether logic or creativity, over the other and that helps us specialize and work in our professional careers. But even the most creative people use things that exist by way of logical systems. And even the most Spock like logical thinkers use things that wouldn't exist without creativity and imagination.

I don't see (pun intended) that as quite so obvious. Sure, by a literal reading, just because I cannot see light reflected from air, as your example later goes, doesn't mean that there isn't any around.

which is exactly what I'm saying. Continuing from my paragraph above, we have 2 different approaches from which to interact with the world. One is physical. One is not. One is literal. One is metaphoric. You can literally feel something in your hands to know its real. But if the thing is something your hands cannot hold then you must feel it with your heart. Love, for example. Can you see it? Is there any spectrum of which love emits anything that science can read? If your answer is yes then you've completely thwarted my reasoning so congratulations; but if not, then not everything can be measured and this is where belief and faith come in. But know that I do appreciate the extensive to apply science to my example; however, physical sciences all offer "physical" "touching"... you get what I'm saying? It doesn't have to touching with the fingers. Other instruments simply offer alternative means of physical detection.

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

A theory is not just a belief. A theory is a model that relates data collected in such a way as to make testable predictions about future findings, and that has made predictions that have been matching subsequent data sets.

I apologize if it was confusing the way that I went from talking about scientific theories to regular theories. However, again, these are not the same; of course.

Part of the problem is that the word "theory" means something very different in lay language than it does in science: A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. But to the average Jane or Joe, a theory is just an idea that lives in someone's head, rather than an explanation rooted in experiment and testing.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-a-theory-7-misused-science-words/[/qoute]

No reason to go down the rabbit hole on that note because we don't disagree. But please note, I did say "scientific theories" when referencing scientific theories and just theories when talking about just theories. I have to say this because there is a little lawyer that seems to exist in many online posters that feels the need to correct everything. But continuing on, belief is sometimes given a religious overtone or connotation and thus anyone who is against religion may also struggle with words like faith and belief. My job involves a lot of problem solving so as I look at the behavior of the program I usually form a (lay) theory about what's happening and I "believe" that this change or that will either correct the problem or at least help to isolate the actual cause. How do I come up with these theories? Ideas inspired by experience, knowledge, and yes... imagination. I need to be able to imagine it. I can then simulate how something is working or how something should work in my imagination. So before I can "create" a solution I have to use both hemispheres of my brain.

I strongly disagree.

Why? Saying we "can" accept "not knowing" is not the same as saying, "we should accept". Can is just an ability. You can murder someone but that doesn't mean you should or that you would get away with it.

Allow me nevertheless this tiny nitpick: Yes, beliefs can lead to finding evidence. They especially lead to confirmation bias, where one filters gathered data through the belief, only to leave confirming - or indeed only disconfirming - evidence to be even acknowledged as such.

I don't consider that a nitpick in the least because I didn't discount such a possibility. However, confirmation bias is still a bias. Most people have biases. However, if you are aware of confirmation bias (as we both seem to be) it is less likely that you will be affected by it. Of course this is where testing comes in. Whether I believe something or not choosing not to test that belief is a separate issue predicated on the idea that one enjoys some level of infallibility. Because my ideas (going back to my occupation) are regularly disproved by my own tests I don't make assumptions that I'm not willing to test. Testing is simply part of the process. So to kind of reach back into my original point... the two hemispheres of the brain work together to function more effectively than either can on its own. So, imho, one should seek balance (in all things) specifically in this case, between knowledge and belief because we get to knowledge often by testing beliefs.

A piece of information spreads more rapidly if people who get to carry it believe it to be true/accurate and important to spread and to remember.

This is absolutely true. I look at belief as something of a virus. A virus is (imo) a "hack" by nature. If one, for example, observes a lot of negative impacts of religion on their society... imo... it would be more effective for them to try and piggy back new ideas under that old umbrella because otherwise those new ideas would not take root. In this case I'm specifically referring to Jesus since I was making reference to him before. If Jesus said "hey guys, I have a new idea but its not Judaism. It's simply love." the reality is that he probably would have been laughed at prior to execution. This was a society built on the Mosaic premise that if you did not accept YHWH as your God then you were subject to death (Ex 31:14, 32:27, etc). Operating under this foundation a new idea could not take root ("go viral") without mimicking the accepted religion. To do so would be a "mutation" but to use that 'canon' has the potential of evolving it. When I say belief in this context I mean all belief, including political beliefs. It would be harder to convert someone to the opposite party than to implant an idea from the opposite party and make it sound conservative or liberal according to that person's leanings. We could also talk about the parable of the sower here as part of his "hacker theory" but that may get too far off topic.

The "strength" of a belief is what often makes the difference. It is the intensity to which one accepts something to be true. The more you believe you can win a game the better your chances of doing so. Why? Because its a mental hack. Your motivations and attitude and all the things that can make you successful are intertwined in the strength of your belief. This is why many religious believers have stories that, for them, are evidence to back up their faith. And while you could say "but that was just a coincidence" they would say otherwise. And even if you are objectively correct their beliefs can actually impact whether or not things happen and can effect the outcome because of how it affects them. For evidence consider this...

pla·ce·bo ef·fect
/pləˈsēbō əˈfekt,ēˈfekt/
noun
a beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.


What does this mean then? Doesn't this indicate that there is a real benefit to belief?

I find it interesting that the word Theory is used quite a bit....

the·o·ry

noun

a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
"Darwin's theory of evolution"
synonyms: hypothesis, thesis, conjecture, supposition, speculation, postulation, postulate, proposition, premise, surmise, assumption, presumption, presupposition, notion, guess, hunch, feeling, suspicion; opinion, view, belief, thinking, thought(s), judgment, contention
"I reckon that confirms my theory"
principles, ideas, concepts;
principled explanations;
laws;
philosophy, ideology, system of ideas, science
"the theory of quantum physics"
a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based.
"a theory of education"
an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action.
"my theory would be that the place has been seriously mismanaged"

Yet the words:
faith

noun

1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance, dependence; optimism, hopefulness, hope, expectation
"he completely justified his boss's faith in him"
2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, persuasion, religious persuasion, religious belief, belief, code of belief, ideology, creed, teaching, dogma, doctrine
"she gave her life for her faith"

Or

be·lief

noun
1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
"his belief in the value of hard work"
2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"a belief in democratic politics"
synonyms: faith, trust, reliance, confidence, credence, freedom from doubt; optimism, hopefulness, hope
"I have no real belief in the power of reason"

Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

ZealotX wrote: Love, for example. Can you see it? Is there any spectrum of which love emits anything that science can read? If your answer is yes then you've completely thwarted my reasoning so congratulations;

Thanks!

https://www.livescience.com/33720-13-scientifically-proven-signs-love.html

Neaj Pa Bol wrote:
Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Once again, this is not the same thing as a scientific theory...


https://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

I have no issue with people having "faith" or believing in anything.

The problem is when belief is confused for reality, and it is used to make decisions that affect others.

So, "I believe in God" does not bother me, whereas "I believe God created people to be less than 6 feet tall, and you are 6 feet 2 inches tall, so now you must die!" does bother me.

ZealotX wrote:

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

And yet, "gravity" not being a proposion, it has no truth value. It cannot be proven any more than a question can, or an elephant, for that matter.
One can treat gravity as a fact, or as a set of observations, including the observation of the motion an object performs after you drop it. A scientific theory of gravity would then be a model that accounts for a subset of the "gravity" observation set that has been made in the past and predicts observations to be made in future. It is subject to testing, by all means. We want to measure its worth by the size of the set of past observations it accounts for, the size of the set of accurate predictions it makes, and the costs involved in making those predictions, but no amount of testing can ever serve to prove. You can perhaps prove that assuming a given theory of gravity, a certain prediction follows, or that a theory that contradicts it indeed does so and would fail to make accurate predictions within the same margins of error. And in some colloquial or perhaps legal sense one can say that as room for reasonable doubt ever more disappears the theory becomes effectively "proven", but it is not proof in any stricter technical sense. This hard barrier between "true" reality if there is any such thing at all, and our grasp of it is the entire basis of that sermon we keep hearing about the limitations of science, the problem of induction, if you will.

Neaj Pa Bol wrote: Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Yea, and yet people don't mean one and the same thing when they use the terms. Weird, innit? It's almost like the one in half a dozen words a dictionary lists as sometimes used to mean the same thing in particular contexts might not mean that they have all that much in common. It's almost like cherry-picking a dictionary doesn't help in understanding what people are saying. So in the spirit of understanding, what is your point? What bearing do these entries have on anything else the thread has been about so far?

Gisteron wrote:

ZealotX wrote:

Scientific theories are not a matter of proof. None of them are proven.

I disagree. The scientific terminology in regards to theories isn't the same as a normal theory. A scientific theory is an explanation of something real that can be tested and proven. For example, the theory of gravity. As proof you can simply drop an object and observe what happens.

And yet, "gravity" not being a proposion, it has no truth value. It cannot be proven any more than a question can, or an elephant, for that matter.
One can treat gravity as a fact, or as a set of observations, including the observation of the motion an object performs after you drop it. A scientific theory of gravity would then be a model that accounts for a subset of the "gravity" observation set that has been made in the past and predicts observations to be made in future. It is subject to testing, by all means. We want to measure its worth by the size of the set of past observations it accounts for, the size of the set of accurate predictions it makes, and the costs involved in making those predictions, but no amount of testing can ever serve to prove. You can perhaps prove that assuming a given theory of gravity, a certain prediction follows, or that a theory that contradicts it indeed does so and would fail to make accurate predictions within the same margins of error. And in some colloquial or perhaps legal sense one can say that as room for reasonable doubt ever more disappears the theory becomes effectively "proven", but it is not proof in any stricter technical sense. This hard barrier between "true" reality if there is any such thing at all, and our grasp of it is the entire basis of that sermon we keep hearing about the limitations of science, the problem of induction, if you will.

Neaj Pa Bol wrote: Yet Faith and Belief gets torn apart but find in interesting the definitions of Theory, Belief and Faith have so much in common...

Yea, and yet people don't mean one and the same thing when they use the terms. Weird, innit? It's almost like the one in half a dozen words a dictionary lists as sometimes used to mean the same thing in particular contexts might not mean that they have all that much in common. It's almost like cherry-picking a dictionary doesn't help in understanding what people are saying. So in the spirit of understanding, what is your point? What bearing do these entries have on anything else the thread has been about so far?

https://medium.com/@EclecticScience/theory-idea-vs-theory-scientific-ab74e2d4f737

Oh, so nothing then. Just pointing out that words have various usages and that context matters. Alright. Thanks!