Knowledge, belief & agnosticism (Agnosticism)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, March 16, 2008, 17:41 (6094 days ago) @ dhw

Perhaps I should have included this well known cartoon with my last posting. - http://socsci2.ucsd.edu/~aronatas/project/cartoon.math.miracle.3.12.htm - To clarify my position: It may be that a radical change in the paradigm will prove necessary to explain the beginnings of life. On the other hand a radical change certainly will be needed to incorporate ideas of life after death. - dhw leaves out part of the quotation from Dawkins. It should be (p.137): "But the spontaneous arising by chance of the first hereditary molecule strikes many as improbable. Maybe it is - very very improbable, and I shall dwell on this, for it is central to this section of the book." Note the maybe. - dhw says: "I am working with the definition of belief as an inner conviction." But where does an "inner conviction" come from? The way I look at things is that we accumulate experiences for and against propositions and "weigh up" the amount of credence we are prepared to give to them, for and against. This may be done partly subconsciously. Thus one's views should be, as I have stated before, proportional to the evidence, but may well be coloured by one's individual experiences; for instance the amount of trust one is prepared to give to particular authorities (parents and teachers) who have influenced your life. But ultimately basing belief on wish fulfilment or authority must take second place to scientifically reproducible and communicable results.