What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

[Brown]

"What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

The Edge posed this question to a number of pretty smart people. You can read their responses for a limited time at the New York Times web site (registration required).

TAM3 speaker Richard Dawkins answered the question as follows:

I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all "design" anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

Some of the responses are quite thought-provoking.

 

[shecky]

David Myers
Psychologist, Hope College; author, "Intuition"
As a Christian monotheist, I start with two unproven axioms:

1. There is a God.

2. It's not me (and it's also not you).

Together, these axioms imply my surest conviction: that some of my beliefs (and yours) contain error. We are, from dust to dust, finite and fallible. We have dignity but not deity.

And that is why I further believe that we should

a) hold all our unproven beliefs with a certain tentativeness (except for this one!),

b) assess others' ideas with open-minded skepticism, and

c) freely pursue truth aided by observation and experiment.

emphasis mine

This really hit home with me, since it was pretty much my belief as a Christian (when I was one) as far back as I can remember. Even as a young child, I always had a sense that my faith was not scientifically provable and could be overturned. While a simple concept, I never expressed it, nor ever heard it expressed so concisely.

 

[c4ts]

To put it another way, you can describe the universe in terms of ◊◊◊◊:

◊◊◊◊ happens. Whenever ◊◊◊◊ happens, it causes more ◊◊◊◊ to happen. The longer ◊◊◊◊ happens, the more complicated the ◊◊◊◊, because so much more ◊◊◊◊ has been caused. Intelligence is some extremely complicated ◊◊◊◊, so it follows that a lot of ◊◊◊◊ has to happen before it can arise. But why does ◊◊◊◊ happen in the first place?




◊◊◊◊!

 

[LostAngeles]

That people are smarter, more capable, and kinder/more moral than we, "we" meaning "people," give them credit for.

Or the short version, "Most people are not ****ing stupid *******s."

As far as the article goes, I'm liking this one right off the bat.

Robert Trivers responded:
...
I believe that deceit and self deception play a disproportinate role in human-generated disasters, including misguided wars, international affairs more gnerally, the collapse of civilizations, and state affairs, including disastrous social, political and economic policies and miscarriages of justice.

I believe deceit and self deception play an important role in the relative
underdevelopment of the social sciences.

I believe that processes of self deception are important in limiting the
achievement of individuals.

How's your head, Nail?

 

[TragicMonkey]

That everyone is more interesting and amusing than is apparent, if you only got to know them well enough.

That life is not exclusive to this planet, although we may never encounter it.

That CocaCola tastes better from a glass bottle.

That monkeys are truly excellent.

 

[pgwenthold]

To put it another way, you can describe the universe in terms of ◊◊◊◊:

◊◊◊◊ happens. Whenever ◊◊◊◊ happens, it causes more ◊◊◊◊ to happen. The longer ◊◊◊◊ happens, the more complicated the ◊◊◊◊, because so much more ◊◊◊◊ has been caused. Intelligence is some extremely complicated ◊◊◊◊, so it follows that a lot of ◊◊◊◊ has to happen before it can arise. But why does ◊◊◊◊ happen in the first place?




◊◊◊◊!

I found your comments interesting because I have said for many years that one axiom by which I live my life is that sometimes, sh!t happens for absolutely no reason at all.

Like when you trip over a crack in the sidewalk. Or when you are walking up stairs and you "miss." Don't ask why, just accept it as part of the sh!t of every day life.

 

[RussDill]

That whatever can be explained mathmatically, has an existence.

That vi is better than emacs.

That my girlfriend loves me.

 

[StaticEngine]

That my wife loves me.

Or, more generally, that how I believe someone feels about me is actually how they feel about me. One can never really know this, we can only build up our own models of the internal thoughts of other people, and go by that.

 

[LostAngeles]

That's something I forgot about there that nagged at me for a long time. "How do I know my lover loves me?"

Then I realized, if they've put up with me for this long, then they must.

But yes, you can never really know precisely other's feelings for you.