Structural Integrity

When I boarded the plane from Sydney to Los Angeles, the captain of the plane instructed us to make sure that we were seated at exactly the spot we were allocated, until after the plane had lifted off. Now, I have heard that instruction often on flights, but had never been given an explanation for it. However, this captain was particularly nice and patient, and explained at length that this was necessary because the seating was arranged by weight, and people had been seated so that the weight would be well balanced on both sides, facilitating a smooth take-off. (Don't know what they would've had to do if they had a group of obese people though! XD)

After the announcement, I thought: "Cool! I've learnt something new that I can share with my friends!"

After a while though, I realised: How do I know that the captain is right? How do I know that what he said is actual factual truth? How did I know that this information was actually worthy of being passed on to other people? I did not personally know the specifics of the laws of physics as they pertain to the realm of aerodynamics! All that I had to go on was that these words came from someone I thought had some amount of authority to speak on the subject, and that these words sounded somewhat reasonable.

And my mind was drawn to how this applies to the "Science vs Religion" debate. (That has been bothering my mind of late - not the subject itself, but the process of the debate). It is quite fascinating, really.

See, in reality, the experience that I had reflects generally the way we learn, doesn't it? We hear something from someone (a teacher of some sort); we decide whether that person is worthy of our attention or not (whether they have authority); then we consider their words, and try to understand it in terms of the world that we already know. If it fits, we accept those words remarkably easily. If what they say does not "fit" into that world (ie it "doesn't make sense"), then we either outright reject it, or we investigate it further, and maybe make changes to our way of seeing the world so that that new knowledge fits better. (Very few of us actually do the hard work in going through the experimentative discovery process - that is a task usually left to the scientists and explorers - the rest of us go through the much easier process of teacher-student learning).

All of us interpret information in terms of our already established world view. If it works with our world view, we accept it easily; and if it doesn't work, we often reject it, sometimes automatically and without much thought, sometimes even ridiculing anyone who would consider such a possibility. The thought is so out-of-line with your thought structure that you think that it cannot possibly be true. (eg. How the Atheists keep on ridiculing Christians for believing in the "ridiculous"). Only a very persuasive argument from someone with very great authority would have any hope of touching that very thought structure through which you interpret the information.

But think about this: What if your structure is wrong? What if the way you have built your world-view is fundamentally flawed? That would change everything, wouldn't it? If you realise that you have been using the wrong framework to accept or reject given information, then you will realise that you may have incorrectly accepted or rejected a lot of information given previously! That can shake even the very foundations of what it means to be you.

Understanding this way of thinking and learning casts a very interesting light upon the Science vs Religion debate. See, we often approach this sort of topic from the wrong angle (and this goes for both sides of the argument). It is too easy to keep it all on the surface, at the level of, "I say this is true because this person said so; you don't agree with it, so you are stupid and beyond saving." Of course the person would never agree with it! Their world-view/thought-structure could not possibly accept that and still survive! Their only choices are to reject it or to let the old, familiar, comfortable structure crumble. And faced with that choice, most people simply choose to reject what is before them.

Even worse is that people are often simply too LAZY (or too "busy") to investigate these issues for themselves. The information is quite easily accessible these days, thanks to the wonders of technology. Scientific research is easily accessible; the Bible is free and open in much of the world. But people often just throw up their hands and say that it is too hard to do the work to figure out whether their world-structure is actually has any structural integrity. It is amazing how so many of us would disregard the all-important questions of Universal concern, and would be happy to simply rely on the "who says what" method. So many of us would be happy to believe that there are multiple concurrent universes because Stephen Hawking says so; or that if you "believe it enough" it will happen (ie "The Secret") because "it was on Oprah"; or that evolution must be the only possible rational way because it simply must be since "all the scientists" agree (forgetting to carefully consider the source of that information).

So what can we learn from all this? Well, I suppose simply be more guarded against dismissing an argument from anywhere too off-handedly. How much of it is truly wrong, and how much of it is simply because you're not employing the correct framework to understand it? We should also get off our arses and start THINKING I suppose :) It's all there; we just need to stop being lazy :)

READ YOUR BIBLES!!!! :)

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15/5/12
For a much better article on the impact of world-views, have a look at this one: http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/05/11/same-sex-marriage-makes-a-lot-of-sense/