The Ptolemaic Geocentric System was a real scientific theory (model) based on observation and calculations and, were it nor purloined by the Church as a belief. its rejection under pressure of new observations would be no more a tragedy than so many other changes the Science experienced were.

This strife will not go to an end because:

1)When science proves the reality is such (the Earth is turning around Sun), then the belief accepts its defeat

2)But it is always a new and unexplained observation that needs a first intuitive belief as a starting point in the algorithm of knowledge finding: I remind that Maupertuis intrοduced the least Action principle with metaphysical teleological argument. Now the above principle is our everyday coffee in applied science.

It will be an eternal process, since belief and reality are tight together for human being.

Dear Hermanta, thank you for sharing this question with me.

Honestly, I am not sure it is phrased quite correctly.

A Russian writer (Lev Kassil) told about his little brother who used to bother grownups with one and the same question: “If a whale picked a fight with an elephant, whose would be the upper hand?”

I think that the strife between belief and reality is of the same kind because, like whales and elefants, they belong to different worlds. Beliefs are figments of human mind while reality is something presumably existing outside it and indepenent of it.

I think that for a scientist belief is a strange word. We deal with proven facts and with hypotheses/theories explaining and predicting such facts as far as these hypotheses/theories, being conceptual models of reality, approximate it more or less closely. If one remembers that new facts will perhaps make us look for another theory, one is a scientist. If he/she merely believes that this or that theory is absoluyely correct forever, it is not Science, but Religion. Make your choice.

Of course, to believe is much easier than to look for reality, and there are much more believers than those who shun any belief in principle.

I think "reality" also is a sort of belief.

I mean, there is no such thing as "the reality", there is only what we believe to be one.

Everything comes down to some interpretations, but they hardly can lead us to some "objective" world somewhere in the pure and ultimate absolute.

When someone sees a lightning, he can interpret it as a Zeus' rage, or as a movement of electrons - it is equivalent in principle. It is a sort of mythology (and electrons are pretty much like any other mythological creatures), and there is no absolute measure of "reality" of any of such interpretation.

The only point that can help us here is the statement, that our myth must help us achieve something (to stay alive, to prosper etc.) - this is the only criterion of choice between different interpretations, and the choice is made pretty much individually in each case (of course, we should also correct for education, environment etc., but that doesn't change the main point).

So the struggle really is not between belief and reality, but between different beliefs. And, as long as there are at least two living beings alive, I suppose, the struggle would continue.

Dear all,

Believe it or not, the Reality is the totality of all possible beliefs, Right and wrong, proven and unproven, scientific and unscientific, subjective and objective and so on !

So there is no fight with reality, since no one can fight with reality ! Who can fight with reality ? We only (wrongly ) believe that there is a fight and the Reality does not mind either the wrong belief or the assumed fight.

Regards,

Rajat

Eugene:

"When someone sees a lightning, he can interpret it as a Zeus' rage, or as a movement of electrons - it is equivalent in principle. It is a sort of mythology (and electrons are pretty much like any other mythological creatures), and there is no absolute measure of "reality" of any of such interpretation. "

A very good illustration of what I said indeed!. For Homer, The Zeus a Thunderer was above any doubts and did not need any testing. If as a physicist you accept the electron in the same away, you practise not science but religion.

Hemanta,, the philosopher Unamuno (1864-1936) defined the human being as the strife between belief in immortality and the consciousness of mortality. We can´t deny our mortal limit, and therefore, if Unamuno is right-- and I don´t say he is--, as long as humankind exists, there will be this clash between belief and reality.

For example, now we know that our Solar System is heliocentric. Once upon a time, it was 'believed' to be geocentric. There indeed was in the days of Galileo a strife between this 'belief' and the concerned 'reality'.

The Ptolemaic Geocentric System was a real scientific theory (model) based on observation and calculations and, were it nor purloined by the Church as a belief. its rejection under pressure of new observations would be no more a tragedy than so many other changes the Science experienced were.

From Relativity point of vew, any Inertial System is equivalent for observation. But for mathematical sympicity the Copernick System stays above Ptolemaic.

Thank you Hemanta for sharing your question.

I tend to agree with Boris and Eugene.

I do not think there is a strife between belief and reality but rather, perhaps, between different interpretations of what we believe reality might be.

From a scientific point of view, there is no doubt that belief is irrational, the subjects are not to be proofed and tested. From a psychological point of view, I think, that believing is necessary for the mind and the inner contendidness of a great part of the humans, especially if theese are not trained in logical analysis or if they have problems, which are impossible to be solved with their abilities.

My consequence is, be so objectiv and rational as possible, if you are working as a researcher or scientist, but be tolerant of people, who cannot escape their beliefs.

Reality is what we "see" using our rational senses in science and logical research. So belief and reality are two totally different aspects of our mental reaction to our world.

In other words, there is nothing called absolute reality, although absolute belief is something we come across in everyday life! Is that what you mean, Eugene?

Dear Dr. Lehtihet,

If we already know what exactly the reality is, we do not have to believe in something blindly. On the other hand, when we do not want to disbelieve in something, we would tend to disregard the reality. For example, it is Wednesday today; this is a reality, and I have no reason to believe illogically that today it is Tuesday instead!

Your comments?

I agree with you when you say:

"If we already know what exactly the reality is, we do not have to believe in something blindly."

I do not agree with you when you say.

"On the other hand, when we do not want to disbelieve in something, we would tend to disregard the reality.".

I think when we do not want to disbelieve in something, we would tend to disregard, not the reality per se, but perhaps other beliefs.

Suppose, for example, that "something" = "hypothesis" and that "reality" = "measurement". If the measurement contradicts the hypothesis then

it seems very reasonable to question our hypothesis.

On the other hand, as long as there is no contradiction with the measurement, there is no need to give up on our hypothesis and so there is no need to replace it with another one.

Dear Hemanta,

I was trying to point out that there indeed is no absolute reality. If there was one, and even if we posessed full knowledge of it, - how could we even be sure, that it is absolute and "real"? There is basically no "reference points", no absolute knowledge-meter to distinguish "opinion" from "truth".

The best we can do is to compare two different opinions in terms of the aforementioned goals of staying alive, prosperity, wealth, power, whatever else. And here is where the discussed struggle usually begins.

The Copernican system is more convenient, it gives us more power to connect our perceptions, to structurize our experience in a more reliable way, to regularize the world around us a bit more. But it isn't "more true" than Ptolemaic one in a traditional "correspondence" sense. They both describe something that is relevant only in the framework of themselves, and Copernicus just offered a different glance, a different interpretation, a different set of relationships between given actors (Earth, Sun, planets); one cannot assume that it is "more true". It just gives us more strength in a scientific sense. Taking away, by the way, much of the older human-recognizable sense (like the meaning of the personal life etc.).

Eugene, one could say there is no absolute reality, but if there were not, how could you make an absolute, general statement?

One can understand the long persistence of an earth-centered, Ptolemaic worldview, because our eyes center on the earth. On the other hand, from space within this solar system, the sun appears as the center. Further away, the Milky Way galaxy seems the center. And so the center shifts the further we travel from the earth. This is a true statement, which no one can deny. So I would say that absolute reality is the integration of all perspectives (i.e., all relatively true statements).

Nelson, please excuse me for driving towards sophistics, but I must note that your last statement is also relative, not absolute, even though it virtually involves "everything". While the relativity of my statement is self-justified here, since it really proves that everything is relative.

Moreover, from such point of view no activity is possible at all. I mean, it doesn't lead us to something productive in any way. It is purely speculative and thus irrelevant, I would say.

Though it may be possible to define some "common-human" reality in a similar way. E.g. like the one that is (with the least error possible) common for all human beings. With today's cultural interactions all over the world this seems to be an important task at hand. But it certainly is not the easiest one.

Never !

Of course, when I say:

"I believe all this is sophistry"

or: "In my opinion, all this is sophistry" -

the difference between two phrasings is too subtle to matter.

Imho, however, beliefs and opinions gnoseologically differ as black and white.

Opinion is something that can (and has to) be discussed, that needs justification, that should be critically reviewed now and then by not only its opponents but proponents as well. Belief, on the contrary, needs neither foundation, nor justification; to question one's beliefs is senseless; to change them is a tragedy. In this they differ, not in being or not being "the truth".

Dear Professor Babchin,

According to you, the battle is never going to end. So you agree with me that the battle exists after all. But many people are of the view that there is no such battle.

Dear Dr. Lehtihet,

Got your point! Very subtly though, you have answered the real thing I was asking for! Unfortunately, this is the reality! And of course, nothing can be done about that!

Dear friends

I think that there are beliefs and beliefs. Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a conjecture or premise to be true (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief).

They are necesary to interact with reality. For example I read a paper which describe and experiment. I did the reading taking the necesary time to consider each of the affirmation of the authors. I take note of any interesting fact. All of this is supported by my "belief" that the authors are scientific that look to increase our knowledge of the reality in their field, and that the paper was revised by other informed scientifics before its publication. This belief frees me of a lot of headaches, but it may be a misleading belief in a particular paper, as has been shown in several examples. In many other examples this type of belief were confirmed, then I have a odd of reading an honest paper very much greater of 1 and I go on believing in this system of scientific communications. This is a belief based in authority (referees) and the presuppose that our colegues are honest in their publications.

I found useful other commentary on belief (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02408b.htm) from the philosophical and religious point of view.

Dear Guillermo, the kind of belief you described would better be called assumption. If spending enough time you surely can confirm such a suspension, so you are back in reality. The second type of belief is the state of a mind which replaces reality by some irrational ideas or suspensions. This kind of belief refuses every clearing up by experiences from reality.

Belief and reality, both exist in the same world but are far apart. To stay in this world, beliefs are necessary, unfortunately, which may sometimes, be far from reality. Beliefs are generally favorable and positive while reality may not necessarily be so.

@Jaya, nice post. But I´ve a problem if you state that beliefs are always "positive and favorable". There are a lot of beliefs which run the minds crazy and ill because they contain threats for the person affected with these beliefs.

Dear Hanno, I do not limit the beliefs to assumptions and I think that many assumptions are not really believed by who propose them, but they are provisory affirmations for following an argument.

Besides not all knowledge is susceptible of been experimentated but this does not invalidate a belief per se.

Moreover, not every aspect of reality is susceptible of being subjected to an experimental test, in many cases the evidence may be considered by pure logical reasoning as in philosophy, religion, mathematics or metaphysics. However it would be foolish to ignore that there are these aspects of reality that are beyond experimental control.

It can also happen that there unobjectionable experiences to an eyewitness that for him are a very strong evidence for his belief, but it could not be transmitted to third parties beyond his/her testimony, besides this experience itself can not be reproduced at will because the conditions are not under the control of the investigator.

This may be the case with so-called miracles, but also with many natural things that once occurred do not left enough evidence to make an impartial evaluation of how they occurred or if they occurred at all. For example, the lack of evidences do not invalidate per se an historical testimonial, but it may be invalidated by the existence of evidence against that testimonial or the presence of appropriate witnesses that refute it.

Dear Guillermo, thanks for your responce. I agree that experience not always can be experimental. Off course confirming can be done by "pure logical reasoning as in philosophy, mathematics or metaphysics" as well.

For my opinion, miracles affect only people who are not really interested or able to understand. These persons have to belief!

@ Hanno, of course, many beliefs are just head spinning, you don't know how to deal with them :))

@Dear Heamanta,

Thank you for sharing this question with me. As a matter of fact, It depends on your perception of reality and belief. Although you remark that sometimes reality appears unbelievable, but your accent in formulating the post gives away that you are contrasting reality with belief as though beliefs are not true. In fact, religion and science both are belief systems. As regard science, in the end we may come to know whatever we called reality (understanding of world) is like "a column of tortoise on which the earth is resting." As regards religious beliefs some may be contrasted with facts (not with what we understand as reality), as regards remaining part or core of the religious system, there is no way to ascertain them.

Dear Hanno.

I notice that you retired "religion" from my previous list and that your opinion is that miracles affect only people who are not really interested or able to understand.

I think that you have a prejudice or a belief that "There is not any thing supernatural!", but many authenticated miracles were attested by people that was very interested to understand and to refute them if they could.

For example the "Miracle of the Sun" in Fatima (Portugal) was attested for more than 30000 persons from 20 km around Fatima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun). Between them there were several famous journalists that were looking for proves against the Church and the three visionaries (a boy and two girls).

The 69 approved miracles of Lourdes were examinated by a rigorous scientific team which includes several of the most renowned in each medical field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_Medical_Bureau.

The miracle of Lanciano (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracolo_eucaristico_di_Lanciano) was attested by two of the most famed italian scientific of its time (1970) (Dr. Odoardo Linoli, Primary of the Laboratory of Clinical and Pathology of the Hospital in Arezzo and professor of Anatomy, Histology, Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and Dr. Ruggero Bertelli, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Siena).

The Shroud of Turin continues to defy scientific explanations attempted to explain the origin of the image that is imprinted in addition to the assumption that it was actually the sheet that covered Jesus in the tomb (see a balanced explanation in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin) . A group of 31 important american scientifics formed tha STURP Group and produced important information about it (http://www.lasabanasanta.org/docs/sturp.pdf).

There was also a study from 1987 with C14 that dated the shroud from s XIII, but later was very questioned (http://www.lasabanasanta.org/docs/carbono14.pdf)..

The same can be said about the tilma of jute, belonging to the azteca Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, which was imprinted in 1531 with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the cornea of both eyes of the image where detected first the image of a bearded man (by oftalmologist Escalante) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VeEZtI4-YU) and later, the peruvian engineer José Aste Tonsmann, detected the images of twelve persons (the same in each cornea) with digital software (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOVyb_DoRts).

When I spoke of Religion I was meaning Theology. Theology is the systematic and rational study of concepts of God and of the nature of religious truths. The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the monastic institutions and (especially) cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages (see, for instance, the University of Bologna, Paris University and Oxford University). From the beginning, Christian theological learning was therefore a central component in these institutions, as was the study of Church or Canon law. The universities played an important role in training people for ecclesiastical offices, in helping the church pursue the clarification and defence of its teaching, and in supporting the legal rights of the church over against secular rulers.

During the High Middle Ages, theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the Trivium and Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought. Theological studies at many universities continue active up today.

Dear Guillermo,

thank you for the sharp analysis of my response. Your post meets exactly my opinions and convictions. I beg your pardon for a "little" falsifikating of your answer.

The reason is: I´m physisist, believe in the scientific analysis of phenomena in my seen world.

Regards

Hanno

Hanno, I knew that wasn´t YOUR answer but your long-eared cat´s.

Dear Nelson, the cat is a fennek, a desert FOX. This misinterpretation is a typical example for a perception error.

Kind regards Hanno

Dear Hemanta,

The subtlety of your last post shows indeed that we have a slight difference of point of view. Possibly, this is due to a mere communication problem.

You believe there is a strife between belief and reality. Moreover, you seem to think that I do not agree there is a strife at all.

In fact, (see my previous posts), I did not reject the possibility of a strife. I said that this strife is not between belief and reality but between different beliefs regarding how we interpret/perceive reality.

Of course, once we share the same perception/interpretation of reality then there will be no strife at all and we both seem to agree on that.

Dear Nelson and Hanno,

Yes indeed the 'cat' is a fennec. It is also the mascot of our national football team :)

Dear Hanno and H. E., my apologies to your fennec. How could my biological perception have been so deficient?

Dear Dr. Lehtihet,

Indeed, when you have said that we disbelieve others' beliefs, that is what I found very subtle! At this point, our views converge!

What an interesting discussion - this will take us back to the old strife between belief (which is being referred to by some scientists as BLIND BELIEF) and science!

Well, for me, I think there are issues that are BELIEVED without raising any questions... as they are beyond the congnition of the individual limited rationality human being!

Regards

Theodora Issa

Reality is objective, belief is subjective. These two states of consciousness are mutually incompatible, particularly as we have abandoned the state of subjective consciousness that I believe is dormant in us all but rarely activated in this highly objective intellectual environment.

Dear Terry,

You mean, belief is fuzzy, while reality is not. Well!

Terry - well, I know of scientists who maintain belief! you might say those the exception of the rule - so, the rule is not generalisable!

Regards

Theodora Issa

Dear Terry

I concur that: while Reality is what it is, and then it is objetive and it do not depend on what we believe or not. But I hope very much that my belief were not mutually incompatible with reality. I do everything in my power to study carefully the validity of each belief. For some beliefs I can not have a formal or experimental evidence, they are based in the testimony of a credible authority, but even they may not be contrary to the reality because this would be repulsive for my conscience. For example I study the results and consecuences of a theorem that I myself do not was able to show, but as the professor or author that teach it to me is an authority in the matter I believe in its consecuences. If I find later that there is any example were the consecuences were refuted by the reality I will demand an explanation of the teacher or will review for myself if the premises for the theorem were valid in the example. The same argument may be used to support any credible belief on religion, metaphysics, etc.

Hemanta and Guillermo - thank you for your contributions... yes, you might need to ask questions in relation to religion but there is 'FAITH' that would lead to believe and have belief in things - which is very much different than the rationality that we consider when we look at science!

Regards

Theodora Issa

Dear Hemanta ,Terry and ISSA,

Both belief and reality can be fuzzy as proved in quantum mechanics. The idea of uniquely determined reality is a part of history now as indeterminism in quantum mechanics has been experimentally verified and has become well-established as a fact of nature. So reality is no longer non-fuzzy i.e. unique. On the other hand BELIEFCAN BE NON-FUZZY i.e. UNIQUE. There lies a subtle difference between them here at the boundary of fuzziness. Belief transcends quantum mechanics even. Doubt also may transcend belief, thereby making a particular belief fuzzy or hazy.

The belief which is beyond any possibility of doubt (fuzziness) can be regarded as FAITH, as ISSA wants us to consider.

Doubts lead to science, faith to religion and beliefs leave us somewhere in the middle, swinging back and forth endlessly. Reality however is beyond all this swinging, which depend on subject-object interactions.Please see my article on RG "Are quantum states subjective?" for the proof of the role of belief and faith in science.

Regards,

Rajat.

Well Rajat... will go with the uniqueness of BELIEF ...

I would add that we believe -or deposit our faith- in some version or interpretation of reality. When a new version is developed we have the choice of changing our old one. History has shown how our ideas evolve, return, advance and sometimes oppose change in some fields. In general I believe our ideas have advanced in many fields, but the stagnation in one of them may also affect other fields. Is our duty to develop better versions of reality and of ourselves as an ethical-practical task and how do we recognize that they are advancements? ... Cervantes was clear about the coexistence of reason and unreason in our lives, so he put don Quijote to speak about "the reasons of unreason and the unreason of reasons". .. and a rationalist as Decartes once said something like "heart has reasons that reason does not undertand" opening a window to doubt and intuition. In any case we should always consider the possibility that our most cherished beliefs and theories may be wrong, may have limited existance and premises, and may not be applied to all contexts.

I prefer people that believe in something and struggle to improve those ideas and practices because they face the need of interpreting, changing and sharing their reality and beliefs, assuming the risk of error, than people without beliefs nor goals about the sense of the question. Thanks, emilio

Emilio, I liked your comment - 'I prefer people that believe in something and struggle to improve those ideas... ' yes, having a belief in something adds value to your life.

Regards

Theodora Issa

"The seven pillars of wisdom" http://www.icr.org/article/3721/ To Lawrence of Arabia, "the idea of freedom is the second symbol of human belief". "The spirit of slavery is terrible. It steals the whole world from a human being"

Most of Soviet People were happy under Tov.STALIN. I remember this time well. No one cared about burzhua freedom.

Dear friends

I have found a quote that may impress you, as much as it impressed me. It is from John H. Newman in his novel "Loss and Gain": .

He was the author the several good works of religion, novels,... and filosophy like An Essay In Aid Of A Grammar Of Assent that may be useful in this discusion about beliefs and reality. His works may be download free in www.gutember.org