Categories or Degrees of Existence (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Thursday, February 18, 2010, 23:02 (5391 days ago) @ George Jelliss

PART ONE-George wonders if we might avoid a lot of argument by agreeing that "existence" can occur in different degrees or categories, and he has raised two issues in particular that I'd like to focus on, one in relation to our discussions on evidence and faith, and the other more specifically on history and religion.-GEORGE: For instance dhw and DT lay much emphasis on subjective experiences and anecdotal evidence that I would discount. Perhaps claims based on such experiences can be said to refer to concepts having "subjective existence". Perhaps this is another name for "faith". Is it possible to separate arguments about things in the subjective world from those in the objective world?-That last question is the crucial one. In virtually every area under discussion, it's almost impossible to tell where subjective ends and objective begins, even if there's a consensus on what exists objectively. George always protests when I say that his belief in the chance origin of life, for instance, constitutes faith. By faith I understand belief in something even though there's no evidence for it. George fixes on the physical reality of life (objective), in my view quite rightly argues that there's no evidence (objective) for a divine creator, and concludes that chance is the most probable cause (subjective). I regard that as a perfectly reasonable argument. But I also argue that despite all the efforts of our highly intelligent scientists, there's no evidence (objective) that chance is capable of assembling the components for life. Consequently, in accordance with the above definition, belief in chance = faith. Both George and David look at all the factors that go to make up life (objective), and come up with diametrically opposed, but in my view equally reasonable conclusions (subjective), each of which requires a different kind of faith (subjective). My non-conclusion is also subjective, but without faith. One might therefore rephrase George's question: is it possible to separate subjective perception and/or interpretation from the objective world? -"Subjective experiences" and "anecdotal evidence" are attractive terms, but they sound far less reliable than "objective evidence", and so we need to ask: evidence of what? No-one will deny that in many areas of life, certain things can be proved by scientific experiment (objective) ... otherwise our technology wouldn't work. But there are other areas in which such practical tests are not possible, or where evidence appears objective but isn't, or where objective realities are open to subjective interpretation. Perhaps the nearest we can get to objectivity generally is consensus. For instance, I never saw a dodo, or the Battle of Hastings, or the Great Fire of London, or Napoleon, but there's a consensus concerning their reality, and so I believe they existed. However, once I would have believed that the sun went round the Earth, that Piltdown Man was a missing link, that junk DNA was useless, that global warming was a fact. There appeared to be a consensus. As a layman, I believe what I'm told if the experts agree and I see no reason to disbelieve them. (And if the pendulum swings hard enough, I'm liable to swing with it.) In a thousand years' time, how many of our facts will have been exposed as fiction? To put it another way, how many of our apparently "objective" realities will have been dismissed as "subjective" or "anecdotal"? Conversely, who knows how much evidence now dismissed as subjective and anecdotal will have come to be regarded as fact? The anthropomorphization of animals (a silly concept, in my view, since we are animals descended from animals) is no longer a matter of anecdote, as more and more evidence becomes available that they communicate, feel and think. Once upon a time, Europeans looked on Africans as subhuman. -In conclusion to Part One, then, while I can see the attractions of categorizing experiences as you suggest, I don't think that would stop us arguing about exactly the same things we're arguing about now, and for exactly the same reasons!