I have tried these thought experiments on two smart people and I am glad with the results.
Of late, I have become a lot more sceptical about God and miracles and so on. When people try to bring any kind of logical semblance to the notion of God, Karma and things like that, I challenge them to a few very simple thought experiments.
Let's start with the assumptions first.
A coin toss is a chance event. Something beyond our control. Purely a chance event means that it is not pre-decided by some divine force, and it is beyond everyone's control, including God.
Suppose I am able to put a gun to your head and toss a coin. If it comes heads, I will shoot you. If it turns out to be tails, I will let you go. Now, who decides whether you get to live or not ? I am a slave of the coin and will do whatever it says. If the outcome is a function of your Karma, then the result of the toss is pre-decided, ain't it? That contradicts the assumption we started with. If it is not a function of Karma, then the single most important turning point in your life is not affected by your Karma. What use is Karma anyway?
If I were to attach no significance to the outcome of the coin toss, you would have no issues saying the coin toss is a random chance event. But as soon as we attach something of life changing consequence to its outcome, that clarity fades away. But the coin toss is still the same process!
My take on the whole subject is this:
I think what we experience in life is a function of chance. And by chance, I mean, the most critical things are beyond our control - also anyone else's, including God. We only work with probabilities, but we can never be sure we can achieve something with 1.infinite zeroes probability.
God exists because our cognition created it and it soothes a lot of people's minds to believe in Him. It gives them an anchor in times of distress. There is absolutely no role of logic in faith.
In fact I suspect there may be a role for evolution to play in this God business. Suppose there were two tribes, one with the notion of God and the other without it. The former would have a lot of beliefs built around God, prohibiting things the elders thought were not good for the community, and forcing the belief that a bad act will result in eventual after effects. The latter would not have this kind of a faith system. The former group is more likely to flourish and survive than the latter. The belief in God system seems to bode well for the community but we should know where logic ends and blind faith begins!
On a similar tone, on the subject of Homoeopathy : this link and this.
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5 comments:
Interesting that you would write on this !! And let me take a moment to disagree with you :)
I agree that you do not control your destiny. And neither should it stop you from trying. What happens is if something is destined to happen, you will get that with very little effort. If it is not, you need to work really hard to get there. Its more like if you are destined to get somewhere, you will have a Ferrari to get there and if you are not, you probably have to walk :D. Bad analogy but I guess you get the drift.
On the karma side, it is wrong to blame all your failures to bad karma. But then you don't know what your karma is - good or bad. You do certain things hoping it is good karma but you can never be sure. And hence when the gun is put to your head you don't know. You can only hope your good karma will save you.
Of late, even I have been thinking a lot on these things. Some things I have learnt and begun to believe:
1. For some acts, no reason can be attributed. Its "God's will" may sound like a good excuse while on the other hand it may also mean that we do not fully understand how "God" or an-alleged-supreme-divine-power works.
2. Your destiny will not get you somewhere. It can only make things easier or difficult for you to achieve. That is where the human spirit comes in....where there is a will, there is a way.
3. Human mind and the power of self belief is still unexplored. I It does work wonders.
4. There seems to be some order in the chaos all around the world. Why cannot science comprehend all phenomena? Why can't we control all things in life? There are so many whys we do not understand. There is indeed a possibility of super-cosmic power, isn't it?
PS: Are the two smart people Frooti and you :P
First and foremost, you say everything with the presumption that Karma and God exist, that there is something called destiny. That is the thing I am questioning. How do you know it exists?
100 years back, mankind did not understand how chicken pox spreads and several commnities attributed it to God's will. We now know how it spreads and it is not God's will, but a virus. Just because we can't explain some phenomenon today does not prove that there is God!
I reiterate - it's all in the mind!
You do not control the outcome of a perfect coin toss, but you do not feel the need to explain the phenomenon either - do you ? Chance means it is beyond control, ours or God's !
One of the two smart people is Frooti, the other is the husband of a friend.
@V: Couldn't resist but to document what we spoke about earlier :). God/ Divine power/Destiny cannot be restricted by a null hypothesis. It is a complex set of beliefs that are used to derive strength when things go against you or simply when you don't understand why some thing happened the way it did.
Conceptually what I am trying to say is close to the story of Bruce Almighty in pop culture or the phenomena of Butterfly Effect. In our limited field of vision if you do 'A' then 'B' should follow, then 'C' and so on. But we being humans cannot even fathom at how many levels one action or event can influence another. I agree it's complete chaos! But the fact is, the world functions much more smoothly ( I feel ) than it would have if left to its own devices.
Hence the belief that there is a higher power who is clued in on why my life is going the way it is going.
I may not get what I want always but perhaps because it is part of a larger plan. By our very nature, all men and women cannot be happy because it would mean at least a few would be left unhappy. If that were possible then we would be robots not creatures with a 'free will'.
Pravachan samapt.
@Suryansh, @V: The closest to getting the theoretical answer, rather more accurately 'a mere feel' for the Higher Power is in the mind-boggling book "God's Debris" by Douglas Adam (yes the Dilbert guy). You can come to only one conclusion - the day humans understand 'God', they will be 'God' themselves and perhaps that will be the ultimate climax of the millions of years of human evolution.
Theory : We cannot fathom how one action affects another. We cannot comprehend the God's ways, so we cannot disprove His existence.
This is the most self-proving theory ever. It's like saying, I am telling you that I am a millionaire, but I won't show you my bank account statement because you won't understand the language it's written in. Trust me. Some people might trust me, some might not. It does not mean I become a millionaire.
The whole point is this : there is no rational reason to believe God exists. Your parents taught you something, their parents taught them something, etc etc. You choose to believe in all that. I don't.
As an example, till about 15th century, everyone thought earth was flat. That was as far as the technology/science could take them at that time. We have moved on!
The world is complex, no doubt. Show today's most complex machines to the primitive man and he would also marvel at them and think they could only be work of God.
I am not trying to restrict God with a hypothesis - I am saying He(She) IS a hypothesis, yet to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
When I get what I want, God is graceful, thank you God. When I do not get what I want, God must have something better in His mind, so thank you God. I cannot argue with that because this belief system is beyond logical analysis.
"World would be in chaos if it were left to its own" - how do you know ? How do you even know that it is not already left to its own!?? God is so deeply embedded in your thought process that when you start an argument, you start it with the assumption that there is a God!
And talking of movies, I think 'The Invention of Lying' is far more profound than Bruce Almighty.
"The whole point is this ... in all that. I don't."- and my simple proposition is the coin toss experiment as you call it, is by far inadequate to prove or disprove that existence. More importantly, NEVER have I tried to force my opinion on anyone because I am only too aware that "God" defies any kind of logic or proof. Precisely the reason why humans have 'invented' this whole concept - to figure out if there is indeed a higher ( if some what as yet unseen) purpose to our existence.
If you have never found yourself confused with the direction life has taken and never found the need to appeal to an invisible higher power for courage and strength or simply to shout out a thanks when there was nobody around to share your joy with, I must congratulate you on your near perfect existence! I wish I had that clarity and total self-assurance in life.
"God is so deeply embedded ... that there is a God!"- to this I have always said that till such time "God" is conclusively proven or disproven let me have the choice and comfort of my beliefs. There are so MANY things that my parents thought they taught me that I have discarded. I think you should give me some credit for having reached certain conclusions on my own. Believe me when I say that I have struggled for a long time to terms with the bundle of contradictions that is "God". In the meanwhile I will leave you to your own analysis, logic and judgement. Let me just add that don't let antipathy towards organized religion stop you from exploring a higher consciousness whether or not you choose to call it God.
I am glad you have chosen to talk about "Invention of Lying", which may I point out you must have watched in intervals of 5 minutes each, to crib for up to 2 minutes each, about what I could possibly enjoy in that movie. Anyways, if you keep aside the absurd speech about the Man-in-the-Sky (yes, it was meant to be funny and not to be taken literally), in the end it does restore your faith in the concept of good karma. You have chance at true happiness if you do the right thing. Actions that go against your conscience may give you momentary pleasures but will come back to bite you in the arse some where or the other.
I think even the staunchest atheist will have some sort of value system along the same lines. At least I'd like to believe that whether or not you believe in God, as a human you will do the right thing :).
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