In the fourth
century BCE, Greek philosopher Aristotle boldly
proposed that everything about nature could
be logically deduced from what had already
been observed. From his observation
that the earth is obviously stationary and
that everything in the heavens is not, he
deduced that the earth must stand fixed and
immovable at the center of the universe,
while the sun, moon, planets, and stars all
move around it. Further reasoning
cleverly explained why celestial objects do
not fall out of the sky, and why their
movements are regular rather than random: All
celestial objects are embedded in great,
hollow, concentric crystal spheres of
different sizes, one within another, the
earth being located within at their common
center; these transparent spheres rotate
about the immovable earth at various angles
and rates—the innermost sun-carrying
sphere once a day, the outermost sphere
carrying the starry firmament in its yearly cycle,
and between them six intermediate spheres
carrying the moon and planets at varying
rates. Of course, there was never any
empirical confirmation of this belief; but at
the time it seemed the best explanation
anyone could devise. Subsequent
adoption of the virtually unchallenged
Aristotelian view by the Roman Catholic
Church allowed this belief to dominate
European science for nearly two thousand
years.
Since
the introduction of the telescope, however,
it has turned out that virtually everything
Aristotle had concluded (and therefore most
Europeans believed) about the heavens was
false. Mountains and plains on the moon
showed that it is just another rocky world
rather like the earth. Sunspots
revealed that the sun is not a gloriously
perfect celestial object. Moons
circling Jupiter demonstrated that there can
be no crystal sphere intersecting their
paths. Furthermore, the apparently
complex movements of planets are far more
simply explained in a system that is
sun-centered—as envisioned by
“heretics” from Aristarchus to
Copernicus—rather than
earth-centered. Evidently it is not
enough to assume our deductions about nature
true merely because they are based on what
seems obvious. Until confirmed by
conclusive evidence, our hypotheses must be
considered tentative. No measure of
authority, endurance, or popularity can ever
transform belief into knowledge or fact.
Belief
was around long before Aristotle, of
course. It has long been man's way of
“explaining” things that defy his
understanding. Belief satisfies his
ache to know—even though most of the
“knowledge” thus acquired might be
nonsense. Since the time Galileo first
tilted his makeshift telescope skyward and
thereby refuted the sanctified pronouncements
of Aristotle, it has become clear that
belief—even if based on logic—is
not the final word on matters, at least where
nature is concerned. Even though some
things in which we believe might be true, it
is not the power of our belief that makes
them so. The wishful notion, that we
can cause things to be true if only we
believe in them intensely enough, is not a
reliable way to establish or assess truth,
for humans can believe in false ideas as
intensely as in true ones. We must then
ask: Is there any infallible way to know for
certain what is true? To answer that,
let us first consider how humans have dealt
with ideas during the course of history, and
the role that belief has played in those
dealings.
Overview
In
its advance toward a hopeful future, humanity
has encountered many obstacles, which have
transformed its triumphant march into an
awkward stumble. In addition, the path
of progress is often blocked by tenacious
traditions and taboos, which set it
staggering backward in search of an alternative
route. Indeed, progress is both
propelled and restrained by our gradually
improving, yet far from complete and
accurate, knowledge and understanding of how
the universe works.
Much of our difficulty
arises from the fact that our species is
still among the youngest on the planet.
For most of its existence, humankind's
attention and energy have been primarily
devoted to the essentials of merely staying
alive. Only relatively
recently—during the past ten thousand
years or so—has there been the leisure
to contemplate the curiosities and the
unknowns of the world and beyond, and only in
the past half millennium have there emerged
reliable methods for systematically acquiring
and verifying information. Among the
things we have discovered, ironically, is
that human perceptual apparatus provides only
a sketchy working impression of reality, not
at all a complete and accurate representation
of it.
But while much of our
difficulty is attributable to our limited and
faulty perception and comprehension of our
universe, some of it is also a product of our
own doing, of antiquated ideas and
counterproductive ways of thinking, to which
we fondly cling though they frustrate our
efforts. Backwardness is often mistaken
for wisdom, while fad and folly pass for
innovation. Values are tied to the
social priorities of wandering goatherds, the
conquests of warring desert tribes, and the
dusty dreams of petty bronze-age
tyrants. Today’s laws are mired in
the archaic precedents of a feudal and
monarchical era, and modern technology is
wielded by medieval minds. The results
are sometimes comical, sometimes tragic, even
catastrophic.
In many ways, mankind
is its own most formidable adversary.
It seems that for every three steps forward,
it takes two back. The age of rule by
dynastic monarchies has largely passed, yet
empires of wealth, power, and privilege still
thrive upon the grinding labor of the
desperate poor. Factual evidence is
revealed at an accelerating rate, yet is
conveniently ignored if it conflicts with
short-term expedience, partisan ideals, or
cherished beliefs. Resources are
squandered while exploiters manipulate
supplies and people starve. Something
is obviously wrong. But just what is
it, and how do we fix it? We would be
fooling ourselves to suppose that there is
but one simple problem with one simple
solution. Mankind’s difficulties
stem from many roots, and it would be
impossible to address even a significant
fraction of them in a single sitting. However,
one fundamental failing springs, ironically
enough, from a talent that has uniquely
distinguished the human species from all
others since long before the dawn of
civilization.
Ideas in
Prehistory
During the early years
of genus Homo—before a couple of
million years ago—communication was
probably very rudimentary, comprising perhaps
a few dozen instinctive expressions of alarm,
dominance, need, and so forth. Indeed,
the communication needs of early hominids
were minimal, since their small brains had
not yet evolved the capacity to deal with
conditional concepts, such as “if,”
“when,” and
“unless.” Like their fellow
creatures, they existed strictly in the
here-and-now; though they had devised simple
tools, complex planning and innovation were
beyond them. There was probably little
to distinguish early hominid communication,
either qualitatively or quantitatively, from
the barks, chirps, roars, and squeals that
other species use to signal danger, find
food, attract mates, declare dominance, and
mark territory. Primitive communication
was confined by its simplicity to meeting the
incessant demands of survival in the natural
world. This included not only the
immediate needs of physical defense and
food-gathering, but also establishment of
group hierarchy and behavioral expectations,
and (eventually) instruction in the making
and use of fire, primitive tools, weapons,
and even crude art. But this
was probably about the extent of it, as far
as early hominids were concerned. Their
communication was not sophisticated enough to
allow even transmission of accumulated
history from one generation to the next, let
alone development of a complex mythology or
abstract discussion of mathematics, science,
or philosophy.
However, the processes
that gave rise to the distinctive
characteristics of our species—large
brains and opposable thumbs—also evolved
changes in the configuration of the breathing
and swallowing apparatus of the throat, and
in the musculature of the face. With
these changes came a gradual increase in the
variety of sounds that humans could
utter. By 500,000 years ago, human
speech was no longer confined to simple
grunts, growls, moans, and snorts, but had
developed the unique ability to form a
variety of consonant pops, clicks, buzzes,
hisses, and trills with the teeth, lips,
tongue, and palate. This enabled the
concatenation of complex utterances,
combining vowel and consonant sounds and
greatly increasing the range and flexibility
of communication. Such complexities, of
course, necessitated the organized
arrangement of certain sets and sequences of
sounds, so that all members of one’s
group could understand their meaning.
Some of humans’ extraordinary brain
capacity became increasingly devoted to the
functions of communication, both to interpret
aural input and to coordinate oral
output. As mutually understood
arrangements of sound sequences became
generally accepted and used to advantage,
spoken language developed, spread, and
diversified.
As human communication
evolved from a few dozen noises, first to a
few hundred complex utterances, and later to
thousands with an organized syntax and
grammar, language has correspondingly
expanded, by several orders of magnitude,
mankind’s ability to formulate, acquire, evaluate,
and transmit ideas. Indeed, not only
the number of ideas, but also their variety,
complexity, and degree of abstraction
mushroomed to the point that, by the end of
the last ice age, the mind of man had
expanded to cast his imagination beyond the
rudimentary necessities of life, to question
and ponder the unknowns of the universe, and
to acquire increasing control over it.
Ideas through
History
Ever since the
development of language, we have become
immersed in a broadening and deepening sea of
ideas. However, the complexity and
flexibility of language, and its capacity to
let us explore ideas beyond the austere
limits of plain fact, enable us to process
both information and misinformation with
almost equal ease (albeit with different
consequences). Ideas are not all equal;
some have greater merit than others.
Some are rooted firmly in fact, while others
are defiantly contrary to it, and still
others are speculative or subjectively
judgmental.
Among the great joys
of being human is our ability to fathom ideas
unrelated to fact, to speculate about the
unknown, to consider alternate possibilities,
to indulge in fantasy, and to allow our
aesthetic sense to flourish. However,
we still live in a real world that makes
certain demands of us. There remain
many situations in which accurate information
is important, whether for our survival and
health, for our prosperity and comfort, or
merely for intellectual satisfaction and
peace of mind. Among our primary needs,
therefore, are reliable means of determining
which ideas reflect reality and which do
not. Whenever accuracy is crucial, then
our processing of information must include
some effective method of evaluation.
Such a method should allow us to rank ideas
systematically, from clearly certain to
clearly impossible, with varying degrees of
probability and uncertainty in between.
Fortunately, the same reasoning ability that
helped give rise to complex language also
serves as a tool for assessing the ideas that
language conveys.
A rudimentary
precursor to reason is simple
verification. If someone claims that
there is a village on the other side of the
mountain, we can journey to the other side of
the mountain to see for ourselves. If
someone claims to have been bitten by a
snake, even without seeing the snake itself,
we know from personal experience that snakes
exist and that they bite, and we can examine
the wound and note whether it resembles known
patterns of snakebite. If, however,
someone claims to have been taken aboard a
UFO, without independent experience of UFOs
we cannot readily verify the report.
Lights in the sky and scorch marks on the
ground can indicate many things besides a
UFO. Verification is a powerful tool
for determining truth, but it has its limits,
particularly if the condition to be verified
has changed its form or location, or no
longer exists.
Another tool we often
use to evaluate ideas is trust in their
sources. If a claim is made by someone
who has demonstrated his honesty over time,
and who has never intentionally given false
information even if it might have been to his
advantage to do so, then we are inclined to
accept that claim on the basis of
trust. Contrariwise, if a claim is made
by someone with a reputation of giving out
false information, either through ignorance
or by design, then we are inclined to
distrust his claim, regarding it as suspect
unless and until it can be independently
verified.
Beyond verification
and trust, there are other ways of gauging
whether ideas are probably true or
false. Since the origin of Western
philosophy in Greece, reliable systems of
logic have been worked out, to tell whether
ideas are consistent, both within themselves
and with other established ideas. Now,
if those established ideas are based on
verifiable factual evidence, and if the logic
is tightly disciplined and impartial, we can
further establish a degree of credibility for
related claims based on their consistency
with evidence and reason. Moreover,
since the European Renaissance, the emergence
of science has greatly strengthened and
disciplined this process through the critical
and systematic examination of evidence and
rigorous testing of hypotheses.
Where
Observation and Reason Fail
Still, there are many
ideas that do not lend themselves to
observation, verification, testing, or
logic. Sometimes our only clue to
whether an idea is likely true or false is
the reputation of the source. Sources
upon whose reputations people frequently rely
include family, friends, and coworkers;
business and union leaders; field experts and
professionals; religious leaders and
institutions; scientists and teachers; books,
newspapers, broadcasters, and
celebrities. Meanwhile, most of us are less
inclined to trust advertisers, salesmen, and
politicians. We either figure out for
ourselves, or are assured by others whom we
already trust, which individuals and
organizations deserve our trust and which do
not. Indeed, we do this of necessity,
since no person can be an expert on
everything.
Consequently, it turns
out that much of our judgment of ideas is
second-hand at best, and (for all we know)
completely arbitrary or even purposefully
manipulated at worst. Moreover, many of
our evaluations are more subjective than
objective—hence more emotional than
intellectual. Indeed, if we were to
review critically the sum of what we regard
as “truth,” we might find that what
is actually reflected is our level of comfort
rather than our level of confidence.
Thus as individuals we arrive at very
different conclusions about which sources are
trustworthy and which are not, and hence
which ideas are true and which are not.
That is why, in fields where evaluative
processes are strongly subjective, there is
such a wide range of artistic tastes,
political views, religious beliefs, and cult
interests, compared to the relatively tightly
defined and organized spectrum of objective
disciplines, such as science and
mathematics. While human experience is
confined to a single reality, that reality is
subject to individual variation in
perception, a wide range of interpretation,
and almost unlimited speculation.
Nevertheless, people
have a craving for certainty. For those
ideas beyond the access of objective
scrutiny, whose truth or falsehood cannot be
impartially and reliably gauged, we are often
inclined to employ another mechanism as a
substitute for the confidence which cannot be
obtained through critical evaluation: the
mechanism of belief.
Conditional
Belief
Simple, passive
belief—that is, belief that
things exist or that events
occur—implies a degree of confidence
distinctly less than knowledge. Such belief
might be equated with opinion—perhaps
informed, or perhaps not. A shadow
moving in the manner of a wagging tail might
lead us to believe that there is a dog
behind the tree, for example; or the presence
of curved trails through a magnetic field in
a cloud chamber might lead us to believe that cosmic
particles are electrically charged. Such tentative
beliefs form working hypotheses that can be either built
upon if confirmed, or easily revised or rejected if refuted.
Applied in this way, conditional belief forms a basis for
supposition and hypothesis, which
can help us find solutions to problems more
efficiently and reliably than through purely
random guesswork.
Committed
Belief
Belief in
something, on the other hand, implies active
commitment, a willingness to subordinate
impartial evaluation to the presumed
overriding importance of the idea
itself. Belief in ideas allows
us to adopt them with an affected certitude,
even if the body of related evidence and
reason is ambiguous, scant, non-existent, or
even contradictory. Many people
steadfastly believe in astrology, for
example, despite that the assumption upon
which it was originally based—that the
soul of each newborn descends from heaven
through (and is consequently affected by) the
several concentric crystal spheres once
believed to support the planets and stars
above the central earth—has been
discredited for centuries. Belief in
ideas is not knowledge, but it goes beyond mere opinion,
and might be equated with wishful thinking or
make-believe.
Belief in ideas
makes us comfortable with
them—especially ideas we do not fully
understand but nevertheless find
appealing. Belief in ideas is a way of
taking ownership of them, of making them a
part of ourselves, of lending them the
affirmation of our personal support. It
is an active commitment that goes beyond
intellectual evaluation; it constitutes an
emotional preference for a concept and for
ideas that support it. Once
established, such a preference tends to
override the impartial evaluation
process. We accept uncritically ideas
corresponding to our preference, and reject
out-of-hand ideas conflicting with it.
Indeed, loyalty to a particular ideology
causes us to shift our evaluative reference
point, such that if there arises a conflict
between ideology and reality, we are inclined
to misinterpret or even deny reality in
defense of our ideology.
Belief in ideas
is essentially a mental shortcut, a way to
excuse ourselves from the task of evaluating
ideas on their own merits. We nurture a
pleasant feeling of certainty about the ideas
in which we believe, and put out-of-mind any
contrary ideas. Ironically, though, the
less we are inclined to evaluate ideas
thoughtfully and impartially, the less our
feelings of certainty are justified.
Lulling ourselves into a sense of security,
we also lock ourselves into a specific mind
set and wall ourselves off from any ideas
which challenge it. In time, we might
even find ourselves automatically accepting
ideas that are harmful or in direct conflict
with reality, and rejecting ideas of
significant merit and value.
Hazards of
Committed Belief
Most of us are taught
from birth that belief in things is central
to our acquisition of knowledge. How
can we understand anything without believing
in it? Yet if we stop to consider this
question seriously, we might be surprised by
the answer: Belief—as active
commitment to an idea—is wholly
unnecessary! Indeed, belief in
something can actually interfere with true
understanding of it. If an idea is
true—if it accurately reflects
reality—then it does not require
commitment; it stands firmly on its own
merit. If an idea is true, then all we
must do is accept it, and perhaps explore its
implications; we cannot make
it any truer by believing in it.
Ironically, by believing in an
idea—by emotionally exalting it and
shielding it from criticism—we betray
our own lack of confidence in its ability to
withstand scrutiny. Moreover, by
believing in a favored set of
concepts, we willfully blind ourselves to
other possibilities. We limit our
awareness and allow our thought processes to
degenerate, from inquisitive and rational to
defensive and stagnantly doctrinaire.
We might ask why
anyone would deliberately hobble his own
awareness and reason in this way. There
are two reasons. One is that we are
daily bombarded with ideas, and simply do not
have the time or expertise to sort them all
out; so instead we mentally filter out any we
find objectionable or uninteresting.
The other is that many people derive a kind
of happiness from the certitude of committing
to ideas, of not having to think, much as
others derive pleasure from eating foods that
leave them overweight and with their arteries
clogged. Certainty might be
unwarranted, yet there is no denying that it
is immensely comforting. While minds
clogged by unfounded certainty are arguably
less life-threatening than arteries clogged
by plaque, it is a major disadvantage to a
species whose ability to think is its most
powerful asset. Indeed, ill-considered
and unquestioning certainty has led to a variety of horrors,
from witch-hunting to the Nazi
Holocaust. The reason that both clogged
minds and clogged arteries are common is not
that they are desirable, but that avoiding
them requires a degree of directed discipline
and conscious effort, an investment that many
are neither prepared nor willing to make.
An Alternative
to Belief
We might well argue,
then, that we are actually better off, and
thus happier in the long run, by
provisionally accepting ideas as seemingly in accord with
reality, rather than by
willing them to be true through force of belief. Few ideas, if any,
are perfect—even (perhaps especially)
those we may choose to define as such.
Provisional acceptance acknowledges this, and
enables us to “upgrade” if and when
conflicts or improvements arise. For
example, while we are stuck with the reality
of gravity as long as we remain earthbound,
we need not stick with Newton’s
explanation of it, if Einstein’s is more
accurate over a more extensive range of
conditions. Yet fond though we may grow
of Einstein’s theory, we are always
ready to advance to something else, if and
when a more consistent and comprehensive
theory is developed.
Let us therefore
propose that our commitment should be, not to
specific ideas, but instead to an earnest and
impartial search for truth, wherever it might
lead. Belief is comforting, but we must
remember that beliefs have often turned out
to be wholly unsupported or even false, and
that their comfort is therefore
illusory. If we are in earnest in our
search for truth, then we must forego the
false comfort of unquestioning
certainty. We must be ready and
willing, as Socrates exhorted, to question
everything, especially those ideas to which
we find ourselves most fervently committed,
be they rooted in ancient religion, political ideology,
idealistic philosophy, or modern
science. We must discipline ourselves
to accept ideas provisionally, that is, only
as long as they appear to be in accord with
factual evidence and do not exhibit any
logical conflicts. We must accept that
human perception and reason have their
limits, and resign ourselves to not knowing
all the answers. We must frankly
acknowledge that ideas that do not lend
themselves to empirical scrutiny and
verification represent varying degrees of
guesswork. While we must sometimes rely
upon such ideas, we must also keep in mind
that they constitute speculation, not
knowledge.
In return for these
concessions, we shall acquire a vision less distorted and a
path less obstructed, hence a future that can be met with
open inquiry, honest learning, and steady progress, rather
than one of stumbling from crisis to crisis on false hope,
superstitious fear, and ignorant bluster. Perhaps as
important, we shall discover the reassuring confidence that
those ideas most deserving of our committed belief are the
very ones that do not require it, those that can be neither
improved by credulity nor devalued by its absence.