RCSMPB::HAMILTON@gmr.COM ("William E. Hamilton, Jr.") (08/23/88)
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 88 11:00 EDT From: "William E. Hamilton, Jr." <"RCSMPB::HAMILTON%gmr.com"@RELAY.CS.NET> To: ailist@mc.lcs.mit.edu Subject: the Godless Assumption X-VMS-To: RSVAX::NET%"ailist@mc.lcs.mit.edu" The recent debate on the "Godless assumption," in which Andrew Basden, Marvin Minsky and William Wells have participated touches on the vitally important questions of What is science? What is religion?, and Where (if anywhere) is there any common ground between the two? Wells is correct in saying that "the religious entails something which ultimately is outside of reason," in the sense that human reason alone cannot find God. I would add that science deals with phenomena which can be observed and subjected to analysis. If you accept that constraint, then as a scientist you should be cautious about making judgments on subjects you don't have observations for. However, Wells goes too far when he says ...religion and reason entail diametrically opposed views of reality: religion requires the unconstrained and unknowable as its base... ...religion rejects the ultimate validity of reason; ... years of attempting to reconcile the differing metaphysics and epistemology of the two has utterly failed to accomplish anything other than the gradual destruction of religion. Science ... rejects the validity of religion: it requires that reality is in some sense utterly lawful, and that the unlawful, i.e. god, has no place. The first two above paragraphs make assertions which are certainly not true of all religions. The third makes statements I would have to regard as religious, since it makes assertions (reality is lawful, God is not) about phenomena outside the scope of science. Granted, religion is outside the scope of science, but that does not make it wrong. Art and music are outside the scope of science, too, and yet they teach us important aspects of being human. Bill Hamilton GM Research Labs