Pragmatist said:
And you base this statement on what evidence precisely? This is not just advice he gave to his students, it was advice he gave to everyone and which he often repeated at public lectures. And I am quite certain that he didn't mean anything like your alleged context. You only have to look at something like the Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures
and you'll see exactly what context he said this in.
My evidence is your saying he gave that advice to students. And my own thought that if I were teaching QM to undergrads that's what would be going through my head. Also: public lectures? to laypeople? Same thing. I wouldn't be trying to teach them the maths without which a true understanding of QM is impossible.
I've found recordings of some of Feynman's lectures. I'll listen to them when I have the chance.
I'm ready to be proved wrong but I still find it hard to believe he'd say "Don't worry about understanding it, just accept it" to his
peers (not students, not lay people, but other scientists and researchers).
What appeal to authority? I gave an example of a physicist who claimed that there was no need to worry about understanding something that seemed intractable. What was important was to accept what the evidence showed regardless of whether it was understandable or not. My point was that some members of the scientific community see no problem in the fact that something is not understood and that they don't necessarily waste their time trying to make sense of something that seems senseless. Instead they operate with the data they have and hope that new data will arise which will provide further insight. Feynman was not alone in this view and he wasn't shouted out of the scientific community for expressing it, because it is a prevalent view. And the only reason I mentioned Feynman at all was because I specifically remebered him saying it.
I never said that he said that nobody should ever not try to understand it. Please look at what I actually wrote.
What you wrote (to El_Spectre):
I recall Richard Feynman saying that there were many elements of quantum mechanics that just didn't seem "right" - they were crazy, absurd, an affront to common sense - but above all they were what they were and regardless of his personal feelings about it, he just had to accept things the way they are. So he was forced by circumstance to accept those things as an irrational realm (on the basis of the knowledge that he had). But nobody is saying that quantum mechanics has to be rejected because its findings appear to defy logic and common sense. So we have to ask why anyone should insist that religion for example has to be purely rational, while one of the most profound expressions of science appears to show some aspects of the world as being irrational (again based on current knowledge)?
What you wrote (to me):
I didn't say that the science was irrational, I said that it can appear irrational given the present state of knowledge - the only reason I referred to Feynman was because he was an example of an excellent scientist who quite clearly said time and again that he was forced to accept the state of things as they were regardless of his own preferences in the matter. Which was in reply to El_Spectre's comment that it seemed like cheating to not try to understand it. Feynman frequently gave the advice to his students, "Don't worry about understanding it, just accept it". So I was saying that despite the fact that it might appear unsatisfactory, sometimes we get no choice in the matter.
What I'm getting from that is that, indeed, there are some topics (like QM) that we not only
can't understand, we shouldn't even try. We should just accept that it makes no sense if it appears to make no sense. Because Feynman said so about QM, which may defy common sense but does not defy logic and never did.
And, an "appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy which I did not make. Referring to an authority is not a fallacy of "appeal to authority" unless one uses it to avoid
arguing a point - which I didn't.
Quoting Dick Feynman to make a point for you about a topic that he wasn't even discussing? Concluding with "we get no choice in the matter", because... why? Because Feynman said so? Making an analogy between QM and your irrational religious realms? Yeah, smells a lot like argument from authority to me.
I didn't say that it did. Again, please read what I actually wrote. I agree that religion is irrational. It's what I've been saying all along. Maybe we're getting tied up in words here. Let's break it down into logical bites:
1. If religion is irrational, then it can't be "false" because the logical judgement of "false" is inapplicable to things that are irrational because logic doesn't encompass the irrational.
2. If religion really is "false" then it must be rational.
3. Some people say science must be true because it is rational.
4. When science appears to be irrational some people still say it must be true despite the fact of that appearance.
5. The reason why some people say that religion is "false" is because it appears irrational.
Points 1 and 2 are contradictory. Points 2 and 3 are contradictory. Points 4 and 5 are contradictory. Draw your own conclusions what that says about the rationality of some of the arguments used against religion.
You're using "irrational" to mean "beyond rational knowledge, logic, unspeakable, transcendant", right? This is following your own narrow definition of religion as "an exploration of a particular set of mental states", without dogma or actual beliefs or claims or anything to do with the real world, any more than the Mona Lisa? Sorry, but I don't have to be bound by that definition. Besides, you haven't shown that logic and reason have absolute limits, and your Korzybski exercise shows only that knowledge is finite for a given time and person, not that it has absolute limits. Also, let
me break it down. It's easy to merge two different ideas under one label "religion" (and likewise, "science"). When I say religion is
false, I mean the claims/beliefs associated with religion (or a particular religion). When I say religion is irrational, I mean the methods (such as they are) used to reach those beliefs. ie: faith, tradition, revelation, etc... are irrational (ie: contrary to logic and reason).
Something can be both false and irrational. Like a religion that teaches the Earth is 3,987 years old and the Sun is a burning tangerine 200 miles away (false), because its prophet was told this by blue pixies who spoke through his cornflakes (irrational).
So, 1 & 2: no.
3. I don't know what "some people" say, but I say that science, because it is rational (with the scientific method and various tools and techniques to filter out BS), is more trustworthy than anything else we have today. Especially religion.
4. I don't know what "some people" say, but I say that when a scientific theory appears irrational, then it's possible I just don't know enough to properly understand it. Some science is pretty esoteric, and requires specialized knowledge to properly appreciate. But the nice thing about science is I don't have to take any scientist's word as gospel, any theory on faith.
5. I don't know what "some people" say, but I say that religion is untrustworthy because it is (not just appears to be) irrational. Some bits of a given religion may be true (factually true, or ethically good), but the whole edifice rests on a poor foundation. Or it's pointless, as your purely non-rational religion. Either way, pfft.
I've explained this in other posts. Maybe I expressed myself badly. I say that there are certain things which are simply not within the domain of "knowledge". For example, you can know about something, you can't directly, personally experience all things. Experience itself is "unknowable", you either experience something directly or youddon't, but knowing about something is never a substitute for the actual experience of something. Experience itself cannot be conveyed by knowledge and is therefore a priori, "unknowable".
Oh, is that what we're talking about? I thought we were discussing breaking down elementary particles into even more elementary particles.
So you propose that we can continue to break things down into smaller units without limit. Do you agree that if there is no limit we will end up with an infinite number of things? And do you believe that anyone can "know" an infinite number of things?
1) See, that's the beauty of it! We'll never end up with "infinite number of things" because our investigation and research will never end. We'll just have a larger and larger body of knowledge. No such thing as infinite knowledge: there will always be one more mystery to unravel. And then one more after that.
2) How is that relevant? We'll never get to infinity, and I'm not implying that any one person will hold all of that vast knowledge. It'll be shared, just like it is now.
It is not a question of what I "predict" (I haven't made any predictions!) it's a question of logic that either there is a limit or not. I don't know either way, but in any event I believe that if there is a limit then the thing at the end of that limit will be "unknowable" in and of itself. And if there is no limit, we will end up with an infinite number of things which by virtue of the fact they are infinite in number we will not be able to know.
Well, your logic is flawed. See above.
To me, that is tantamount to saying that a good enough map of the territory can possibly one day be the territory. To me, that is an error of logic.
...what?
Okay, seriously, that just makes no sense. The map in question will just get more and more refined and precise, to an arbitrarily large degree. No one's claiming that it will one day
be what it's describing.
