A statement of belief
Jul. 1st, 2004 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesA lot of my friends have been consideirng and reconsidering what they belief in recently. I suppose I'm at the age whre I should ddo it as well. I'm probably going to put a lot of Discworld paraphrases in this... I can tell right now.
Religiously, I'm pretty close to agnostic. I think that there is probably (a) Creator(s). However, I know little about it, nor do I care beyond the fact it would be nice to know. To paraphrase Granny Weatherwax, I don't believe in gods... it only gives them ideas.
I do have my philosophical beliefs, though and I follow those.
I'm a cynical optimist, whihc means I believe people are inheirently good... just stupid and panicy. I don't think that one thing will change or damn the world -- change is a matter of evolution not revolution. The world get better overall. I'm not like Benjamin from Animal Farm,, holding that things will continue as they always have -- badly. I have too much of an optimistic streak for that. Still, people will always complain. If i were to use a time machine to tell my ancestors 2 centuries ago that their descnedants would consider University education commonplace, have slim odds of dying before puberty, would likely live til their 80's, would be able to communcate near-instantanously accross the world and travel accross the Atlantic in less than a day, they would think I lived in a second Eden. Yet, we sitll bithc and moan.
I believe strongly in free will and personal responsibility. While I might argue with people when I disagree with them (because I am human), I believe they have a right to behave as they wish as long as they don't harm others. I believe storngly in Freedom of Expression and that it works both ways -- you have a right to say whatever you want (well, as long as you aren't harming others directly, like causing riots in crowded buildings) but I have a right to say you're an idiot for saying that. Funny how people miss the second part.
But, with Free Will comes Personal Responsibility. If someone wants to sit around and moan about how Life Is So Unfair, and reject all advice (including getting treatment for depression) then I am going to loose patience. Part of having free will is being able to change your situation, at leats a bit. It also includes admitting when you are wrong, being bitchy, or otherwise owing someone an apology or compensation,
I am a scientist. Yes, this is part of my philosophy, as science is a way of looking at the world. My scientific principles are that the universe is behaves the same way no matter where or when I look (water still boils at 100 C at 1 atmosphere even in the Andromeda galaxy 5 million years ago). Or anyone else for that matter. Things operate by cause and effect, and even when they are unpridictable, they are unpredictable in predictable ways (Quantum mechanics, I'm looking at you).
Furthermore, science has the idea of approximate truths, which I like. Science sees the world as being knowable, assuming an infinite amoutn of time. I always lost patience with religions telling me that some things were Forbidden Knowledge because only God was supposed to know them or something. Science doesn't t think we will ever know everything -- because then us scientists would be out of a job -- but that we can approach the truth to infinite precision.
This is where approximate truths come in. Newton was appoximatly right with his Law of Gravitation -- at velocities approaching c or near dense bodies, his Law doesn't work very well anymore, but under normal conditions it wokrs wonderfully. Einstein managed to come up with a better appoximation that worked for any velocity nad near any mass -- but didn't work when looking on a small scale. Someone will eventually come up with a law that works on that small scale. I hope it's me -- I've never been to Sweden and I hear it's a lovely country.
I don't like absolute truths. They tend to lead to an us or them mentality. Approximate truths just mean if someone thinks different than you, they could have a better approximation, or merely a different one.
Religiously, I'm pretty close to agnostic. I think that there is probably (a) Creator(s). However, I know little about it, nor do I care beyond the fact it would be nice to know. To paraphrase Granny Weatherwax, I don't believe in gods... it only gives them ideas.
I do have my philosophical beliefs, though and I follow those.
I'm a cynical optimist, whihc means I believe people are inheirently good... just stupid and panicy. I don't think that one thing will change or damn the world -- change is a matter of evolution not revolution. The world get better overall. I'm not like Benjamin from Animal Farm,, holding that things will continue as they always have -- badly. I have too much of an optimistic streak for that. Still, people will always complain. If i were to use a time machine to tell my ancestors 2 centuries ago that their descnedants would consider University education commonplace, have slim odds of dying before puberty, would likely live til their 80's, would be able to communcate near-instantanously accross the world and travel accross the Atlantic in less than a day, they would think I lived in a second Eden. Yet, we sitll bithc and moan.
I believe strongly in free will and personal responsibility. While I might argue with people when I disagree with them (because I am human), I believe they have a right to behave as they wish as long as they don't harm others. I believe storngly in Freedom of Expression and that it works both ways -- you have a right to say whatever you want (well, as long as you aren't harming others directly, like causing riots in crowded buildings) but I have a right to say you're an idiot for saying that. Funny how people miss the second part.
But, with Free Will comes Personal Responsibility. If someone wants to sit around and moan about how Life Is So Unfair, and reject all advice (including getting treatment for depression) then I am going to loose patience. Part of having free will is being able to change your situation, at leats a bit. It also includes admitting when you are wrong, being bitchy, or otherwise owing someone an apology or compensation,
I am a scientist. Yes, this is part of my philosophy, as science is a way of looking at the world. My scientific principles are that the universe is behaves the same way no matter where or when I look (water still boils at 100 C at 1 atmosphere even in the Andromeda galaxy 5 million years ago). Or anyone else for that matter. Things operate by cause and effect, and even when they are unpridictable, they are unpredictable in predictable ways (Quantum mechanics, I'm looking at you).
Furthermore, science has the idea of approximate truths, which I like. Science sees the world as being knowable, assuming an infinite amoutn of time. I always lost patience with religions telling me that some things were Forbidden Knowledge because only God was supposed to know them or something. Science doesn't t think we will ever know everything -- because then us scientists would be out of a job -- but that we can approach the truth to infinite precision.
This is where approximate truths come in. Newton was appoximatly right with his Law of Gravitation -- at velocities approaching c or near dense bodies, his Law doesn't work very well anymore, but under normal conditions it wokrs wonderfully. Einstein managed to come up with a better appoximation that worked for any velocity nad near any mass -- but didn't work when looking on a small scale. Someone will eventually come up with a law that works on that small scale. I hope it's me -- I've never been to Sweden and I hear it's a lovely country.
I don't like absolute truths. They tend to lead to an us or them mentality. Approximate truths just mean if someone thinks different than you, they could have a better approximation, or merely a different one.
