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To:    Guardian CiF
Re:   The
"Uncertainty Principle" of human knowledge and understanding
Date: Friday 15 June  07

 

In response to Mark Vernon's, "In the know" criticising religious and atheistic certainty.

Link to article and thread at The Guardian.

 
May I suggest that we establish an "Uncertainty Principle" in respect to human knowledge and understanding in the same way that Heisenberg's Uncertainly Principle has been established in quantum physics, or would that be being too dogmatic? I mean, who knows, perhaps there is such a thing as certainty? Then again, who can be certain? Thus the Uncertainty Principle, certainly as far as I'm concerned, is established.

However, I'm not sure that makes me an "agnostic", since I definitely do not believe in the Abrahamic God or the teachings of the New Testament (while acknowledging and to some extend embracing their immense importance for my own culture and civilization), and feel a strong need to be very decisive, rather than wishy-washy, about it. I could be wrong, of course (the Uncertainty Principle demands that I admit this), but I think it is about as likely as all the molecules of a gas concentrating at one end of a container, leaving a vacuum at the other, which according to Heisenberg's Uncertainly Principle (if I've understood it correctly) is also "possible".

An Atheist's and Agnostic's (not yet definitive) Guide to God: http://www.spaceship-earth.org/Sunturn/Index.htm

 
2nd Post
 
"[uncertainty] lies at the heart of the human condition"

I think it is truer to say that "fear of uncertainty" lies at the heart of the human condition", and that this fear is what gave rise to religion in the first place.

Man's first response to his dawning "(self)-awareness" was terror at all the things he did not understand or was "uncertain" of, and made 100 times worse by a vivid imagination inclined to assume the worst. Until some clever soul realized that he could also use his imagination to explain and reduce fear of the unknown: thus arose all the stories of creation and other religious mumbo jumbo, in order to give individuals a sense of understanding their situation (albeit illusionary) and to reduce their fears of it. It also offered fertile ground for social exploitation, especially once the myths and mumbo jumbo, mixed with oral history and moral codes, were written down, managed and interpreted by a priestly caste.


http://www.spaceship-earth.org