Seeing Patterns That Aren't There?

by hmike 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • hmike
    hmike

    Suppose there is a factory, or maybe a bottling plant, that is fully automated. Everything, from the input and mixing of raw materials, to the manufacturing of containers, and filling, sealing, labeling, and packaging are all done entirely by automation—there is no human involvement from the time the process begins until the finished product rolls out of the plant on a conveyer belt where it is loaded for shipment outside the plant, at which point, the product is finally handled. The production equipment and process is monitored and programmed by someone in a separate part of the facility who checks the process through video displays and instrument readings receiving transmissions via wireless feed to the room. The operator makes adjustments to the production to meet customer orders by wireless remote controls.

    Let's say you bring in a visitor who knows nothing about electricity or modern manufacturing equipment or automation—perhaps someone from an isolated, primitive culture where everything is still made by hand. You give this visitor a tour of the manufacturing plant. He gets to see the entire automated process, but he doesn't get to see the operator in the control room and he doesn't get to see the loading of the finished product outside the building. You tell him, "Look at this wonderful process and product man has created." The visitor, who has not seen anyone having anything to do with the production, but rather has seen only mechanical equipment creating the product declares, "There is no person involved in this process. There is no need of any person in this process. Man has nothing to do with this production!" Your statement doesn't fit the visitor's idea of how things are made by people. From what he can see, the visitor is correct—the product is made by machines, not people. Yet, you would also be correct in your statement. Now the visitor notices the changes in the process, for instance, the changing of beverage from cherry to lemon-lime, or the change in container size, but now being convinced there is no human involvement, the visitor just assumes that changes are somehow also controlled by the equipment itself, or control-adjustment is somehow built in to the equipment (which, he might assume, has also been fabricated and assembled soley by machines). Perhaps, after a certain number of units of one type are produced, he assumes the production automatically switches over to a different type—or perhaps it's some kind of accident (he doesn't know of any purpose behind the changes because he doesn't know about the customer orders). The visitor can come to understand the principles of mechanics, and be able to calculate production rates, and can eventually understand the entire production process, but never having seen the operator or control room, has no reason to believe there is human involvement.

    To the visitor, the simplest explanation of this process doesn't involve any person because there is no evidence of it or any apparent need for it. All he has to work with is what he can see, and he sees a wonderful manufacturing process performed only by mechanical equipment. He has only your word that there is human involvement in this process, and it runs counter to what he observes and to his experiences.

  • serotonin_wraith
    serotonin_wraith

    There could be something behind the scenes controlling evolution, who knows? But to compare that example to us, some adjustments need to be made. Firstly, the set of humans saying there is someone behind evolution have no more reason to believe that than those who say they need proof. Rather than it being one group of people with actual knowledge and proof (like the ones who know people are controlling the machinery), it's two groups of people who both cannot know for sure. One group has just decided to say there is a creator/controller, and give it all kinds of attributes too. Until there is some reason to believe that, the default position should be 'we don't know'.

    Secondly, proof is available for anyone who doubts in your example. They only need to show the machines being made, or go to the control room and see how things are controlled. There's no proof for a creator being involved with us at all.

  • hmike
    hmike

    Secondly, proof is available for anyone who doubts in your example. They only need to show the machines being made, or go to the control room and see how things are controlled. There's no proof for a creator being involved with us at all.

    Yes, that is a problem. Taking the visitor to the control room may (or may not*) convince him, but when he would try to tell anyone else with the same background, his word—his eyewitness testimony—wouldn't be good enough for many (there are plenty of people who claim to have seen UFOs and aliens, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, etc.). He'd have to gather all kinds of physical evidence, and even then there would still be some skeptics.

    *I say may not because he may come to believe that he was halucinating, or was deceived, or any one of a number of other reasons that might cause him to doubt what he saw, or at least his interpretation of it.

  • hmike
    hmike

    In his book "Why We Believe What We Believe" (2006, Free Press, NY), Dr. Andrew Newberg makes the following statement on page 243:

    "Neurological evidence suggests that the brains of believers and skeptics function differently. According to research neurologists at University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, when subjects viewed scrambled words and phrases in a screen, believers were much more likely than skeptics to see words and faces when there were none, but skeptics often didn’t see words and faces that were there."

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