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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Reflection 13: What if John 3:16 ∴ E=mc² ?

This week's class was very slow- Just like the book itself. At some point I even questioned if Eifelheim was really a sci-fi book. It read very much like a non-fiction piece with a bit of religion here and a bit of science there. It felt too real to be sci-fi. It can even give you a warm fuzzy feeling by the time you reach Chapter 8, which I have not really expected given Emilio's tragedy, conquest of America and Isaac's song in the previous weeks. Regardless, I'm glad that we got to read about an alien encounter that takes place not in the future, in present but in the past, then gets buried and is deliberately forgotten/ erased. 

It is clear from the book that these aliens have a social hierarchy and believe in ascribed status, with very little social mobility. They look at humans and as they "learn" from (or shall I say "as they listen to") Dietrich and learn about how peasants kill their Lords, Hans explains how he finds such an incident "unnatural" (142). When Hans explains, or rather tries to explain what is natural for them, Dietrich starts imagining foul couplings with beasts and wonders how monsterous creatures could be born out of such pairing. Right before Chapter 3, we see Hans and Dietrich fleding from each other. As it was mentioned in class, it is very much unclear if the Krenken and the Humans truly understand each other after this point on. In fact, they probably did not understand each other prior this point either. Language is a big obstacle in communication, but there are bigger obstacles between the Krenken and the Humans... the obstacle of form and spirit. 

If we consider language  as means of material exchange of thoughts, it is obvious that the Krenken and the Germantown people are unable to communicate. By learning about the social system of Oberhochwald (which was the feudal system based on religion), I think the Krenken tried to slip into the mind of Dietrich to understand him, and his references better. Or perhaps...Eifelheim was a social science research area for the Krenken. Maybe the converts were merely conducting a participant observation to get inide the heads of the humans?

Additionally, as for the the formulation of John 3:16 // E=mc² on the board, Aaron and I thought it might be interesting to modify the statement into John 3:16 ∴ E=mc², to indicate a causal relationship. Religious stories, myths and miracles have inspired many scientists to try and look for real answers after all. Maybe religion should exist to create more questions, than answers and science should exist to create more answers than questions. So, they might go hand in hand...cohabitate just like Tom and Sharon.

4 comments:

  1. The thing about it is this, throughout Eifelheim there are many doxastic (belief-making) practices in play. It was rather frustrating to spend an entire class period focused on empiricism and empirical proofs, which is only one manner in which knowledge can be claimed to hold a degree of truthfulness. Sense experience in itself, as William Alston points out in "The Reliability of Sense Perception", can deceive us. Dreams are an excellent example of such a deception, if we agree to dreams being separate from reality. A simple example: in the "real world", or outside of dreams, we are burned by fire that is of close proximity to us. In the world of dreams, no matter how close fire gets to us — even if we are engulfed by flames — we do not retain burns upon waking.

    Tom illustrates an approach, consilience — or the unity of knowledge, the "jumping together" of things — which may be far more appropriate way to deal with knowledge in general. Although initially scoffed at by Sharon during the occasion that I am thinking of in the book (pg. 465), consilience turns out to be the approach that furnishes the scientists with the answer.

    I also think we should keep in mind that, even if normatively, religion ought to create more questions, and science ought to create more answers, every questions begets an answer and vice versa. Either one will beget the other, and so to say that religion shouldn't create as many answers as it does questions is to ignore (understandably) the possibility that one day religion will have asked all the questions it can possibly ask, which begs the question: What then is the function of religion, if not to create more questions?

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  2. "Either one will beget the other, and so to say that religion shouldn't create as many answers as it does questions is to ignore (understandably) the possibility that one day religion will have asked all the questions it can possibly ask, which begs the question: What then is the function of religion, if not to create more questions?"

    One is reminded here how many Christians see the big bang as proof of God creating the universe. There's definitely a lot to be said for "John 3:16 ∴ E=mc²" when we consider that Einstein himself was an observant Jew (by the way, has anyone noticed that neither of the two Jews in our books are likable? First there was Rose de Nose, then Sophia Mendes. Why?). A lot of physicists hated the big bang theory because it meant the universe had a creation, which means annoying philosophical and theological debates. However, it seems that in this case we almost have the opposite scenario; "E=mc² ∴ John 3:16" where our knowledge of the universe in a general sense would confirm the Judeo-Christian creation story.

    Here, science is forcing the question, and religion is providing an answer (albeit a religious one). Nobody really knows why the big bang happened, so as far as we can tell there's at least the possibility of God (and thus we end up believing in God because of Pascal's Wager).

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  3. First off, I have to say that I liked Sofia!

    Second, what we know about the Universe, and even just the big bang, does indeed render certain interpretations (literal interpretations) of the Bible obsolete. There still remains, however, that possibility of a God, as you point out, but we have already entertained the notion of two Gods, two theologies. There's the one in which God created the world in seven days, and there's the one that set things off with the big bang, making sure all the quarks were just right for us. The trouble is that once you conceive of two Gods, Pascal's wager gets overwhelmed, made useless by the possibilities. It could never be as easy as "If I believe in God I go to heaven; if I don't, I wont." There are a whole lot more things to believe in than god, many more hells to go to if you forget to believe in some deity. It'd be just like Beni Gabor in the hit film, The Mummy who's got every religious icon around and tries them out against Imhotep like a bunch of unlabeled keys.

    So how, then do we talk about religion and science? Well, I'm just gonna Wittgenstein-out and pass it over in silence.

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  4. I am not sure if adopting a Wittgenstein style approach to talking about religion and science is appropriate though. I think we need to welcome questions about the preassumptions of religion and science. Only by talking can we try and find a common denominator from which we can build a better understanding-or conviction of it.

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