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

[[Syl]]

To get started, you can check out this site and the answers of 120 "third culture scientists and science-minded thinkers."

I believe that time and the universe are solid. I believe that there are infinite universes and that our consciousness is simply the universal, subconscious drive to pick the most likely universe for survival.

[[Syl]]

I particularly liked this piece:

RUDY RUCKER
Mathematician, Computer Scientist; CyberPunk Pioneer; Novelist; Author, Infinity and the Mind

Reality Is A Novel.

I'd like to propose a modified Many Universes theory. Rather than saying every possible universe exists, I'd say, rather, that there is a sequence of possible universes, akin to the drafts of a novel.

We're living in a draft version of the universe—and there is no final version. The revisions never stop.

From time to time it's possible to be aware of this. In particular, when you relax and stop naming things and forming opinions, your consciousness spreads out across several drafts of the universe. Things don't need to be particularly one way or the other until you pin them down.

Each draft, each spacetime, each sheet of reality is itself rigorously deterministic; there really is no underlying randomness in the world. Instead we have a great web of synchronistic entanglements, with causes and effects flowing forward and backwards through time. The start of a novel matches its ending; the past matches the future. Changing one thing changes everything. If we fully know everything about the Now moment, we know the entire past and future.

With this in mind, explaining an given draft of the universe becomes a matter of explaining the contents of a single Now moment of that draft. This in turn means that we can view the evolution of the successive drafts as an evolution of different versions of a particular Now moment. As Scarlett's climactic scene with Rhett is repeatedly rewritten, all the rest of Gone With The Wind changes to match.

And this evolution, too, can be deterministic. We can figure we think of there as being two distinct deterministic rules, a Physics Rule and a Metaphysics Rule. The Physics Rule consists of time-reversible laws that grow the Now moment upwards and downwards to fill out the entire past and future of spacetime. And we invoke the Metaphysics Rule to account for the contents of the Now moment. The Metaphysics Rule is deterministic but not reversible; it grows sideways across a dimension that we might call paratime, turning some simple seed into the space-filling pattern found in the Now.

The Metaphysics rule is...what? One possibility is that it's something quite simple, perhaps as simple as an eight-bit cellular automaton rule generating complex-looking patterns out of pure computation. Or perhaps the Metaphysics rule is like the mind of an author creating a novel, searching out the best word to write next, somehow peering into alternate realities. Or, yet again, the big Metaphysics rule in the sky could be the One cosmic mind, the Big Aha, the eternal secret, living in the spaces between your thoughts.

[dennisrwood]

i believe that someone, maybe myself is the only real person in existance, and the rest of you fade away when i go to sleep. it would explain why i don't hear from folks, i just forget them. the good news is that i built some folk, like my wife, to act as triggers for my memory.

[Nathan]

All those things I said in the Determinism thread.

[wayfriend]

George W. Bush is a criminal. I believe it; I can't prove it.

[Kymbierlee]

George W. Bush is a criminal. I believe it; I can't prove it

Me, too, Wayfriend......me too.....

[Iryssa]

I'm the best driver in the world kidding.
I believe that Stephen R. Donaldson is the most amazing author alive today...wait...that's kinda proveable.
I believe that my Art History prof is stupid...nope...that one is, too
Ok, I'm resorting to this one, even though I probably don't need to say it:
I believe in God

[Lorelei]

I believe that someday I will kiss a frog and he will turn into a prince.

[Cail]

I believe that someday I will kiss a frog and he will turn into a prince.

Ribbit.....

[Loredoctor]

I agree with what you said, Syl.

[ChoChiyo]

I believe that there is an ultimate Right and Wrong, and the are all responsible to do the best we can to do what is Right and to refrain from doing what is Wrong.

I believe that there are many possible ways to understand what is right, and that God judges the intents of our hearts more than what we actually managed to do.

I believe reality TV sucks.

I believe that we need to become more global and less nationalistic.

I believe that the poor are every bit as important as the rich and that the more you have the more obligated you are to help those that have not.

I believe that all people start out good. I believe that most people WANT to be good.

I believe that true love is a wonderful concept.

I believe that all children are precious and that even one death of an innocent is an abomination.

I believe that the worst crimes against humanity are committed by zealots and that Jesus cries over many of the idiots who commit atrocities in his name. (And Allah does too.)

I believe that there is life on other planets.

I believe that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in anyone's philosophy.

[Loredoctor]

I believe that all people start out good. I believe that most people WANT to be good.

I agree with everything you said, with the exception of this. People don't commit bad acts because they are bad - it's because they think are doing the right thing. Witness Stalin's purges. I don't think it is enough to think one is doing good.

[dennisrwood]

i believe most people do what they think they can get away with.

[Kymbierlee]

I agree with everything you said, with the exception of this. People don'y commit bad acts because they are bad - it's because they think are doing the right thing. Witness Stalin's purges. I don't think it is enough to think one is doing good.

Witness GW's war in Iraq....... I really think HE thinks he is doing the right thing, which to me makes him even scarier... I know- wrong forum for this......

[Avatar]

I believe that all people start out good. I believe that most people WANT to be good.

I agree with everything you said, with the exception of this. People don'y commit bad acts because they are bad - it's because they think are doing the right thing. Witness Stalin's purges. I don't think it is enough to think one is doing good.

Once again, I find myself in agreement with LoreMaster. Your enemy is never evil in his own eyes.

However, this raises the question of objective good once again. If you are 100% convinced that you are doing the right thing, then for you it is the right thing. We measure it's "objective rightness" only in terms of a generally accepted view, developed over time.

To return this to topic though, I believe in many things that I can't prove.

My own divinity, the importance of freedom, the malleable nature of reality, The importance of treating others well, and all manner of other improbable things.

--Avatar

[Loredoctor]

My concern is if one is 100% convinced one is doing the right thing. It's like what Donaldson says about innocence; it's for stupid people. If you think you are good and innocence, how are you aware of the negative consequences?

[Avatar]

If you truly believe that you are good and innocent, then you probably wouldn't conceive of those consequences as negative at all.

One of my favourite bits of "wisdom" from the chrons is about the dangers of certainty, and the need to continually re-examine both or means, and our motives.

--Avatar

[Loredoctor]

Same here, Avatar.

[Avatar]

Are we starting this again?

--A

[Loredoctor]

You started it! God man, what are you doing to me?! Half the time, i have no idea who I am!