This post has little to do with faith and science. I just need an outlet. Life's been complicated recently, and in Joni Mitchell's words, "I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow, it's life's illusions I recall. I really don't know life at all."

I don't know anything anymore. What's right, what's wrong, what it's all about. At times it feels like a mean trick, and what you thought was the way through is not, and instead you are led through a really complicated maze of twists and turns and dead-ends. I think that's what she was talking about, life's illusions. The belief you had and the holes you are left with when the spell is broken.

All I want for Christmas is you.

Some things are too coincidental to be coincidences...don't you think?

It's funny that one moment i am so sure there really is something to believe in in this world, and another moment brings so much doubt.

Rocks by the Rockies

On my recent trip to Vancouver, we rented bikes one day and rode them through Stanley Park. Stanley Park is something like a mini peninsula with seawater surrounding three of its sides. The bike path takes you right around the perimeter of the park, through sandy beaches and marinas and rocky coasts with lighthouses. It is an absolutely scenic ride.

One of the more unique things that we saw was some outdoor artwork:



We happened upon these so randomly. We were pedalling around a bend with an overhanging cliff on our left and the brilliant ocean to our right, and all of a sudden against the sparkling water we see dozens of these stolid rock figures. Some were as tall as me. They were just strange enough to be shocking but not frightening.

Of course we stop to look. Accompanying the rock art was the rock artist himself - scraggly white hair, tattered vest and khakis, hippy-ish. He hung back from the curious passers-by but watched our reaction. He had laid out some signs on the path explaining what the rock figures are. Or -- not what they are, but what some might see them to be.

The signs said something along the lines of:

If you choose to believe that these rocks are held together by glue or nails or some other construction material, then that is what you will take away from them.

If you choose to believe that the figures are completely natural, that the rocks have simply and patiently been balanced on top of each other, and that astonishing things can be formed with strength, care, and time, then that is what you will take away from them.


What do you think?





Hard to say, isn't it? It seems impossible that these rocks could be standing end-on-end with NO glue or nails or anything. Just gravity and the forces of nature. Hard to believe.

I mean, look at them! They are standing tip-to-tip. They defy the laws of physics. They MUST be held together with glue, nails, some chemical or physical thing that would explain this "impossibility"...



So, i stood there for a little while, looking at the rock figures and contemplating what i believed.






I wasn't reaching any conclusions though, and unfortunately my train of thought was interrupted by several loud KER-PLUNKS. The source of the noise was another onlooker who, probably goaded by his comrades, had climbed down to the figures and pushed one over.






And it did fall over. And they were just rocks. No nails, no screws, no glue. And what at first had defied my reason and logic was proven to be not so impossible, after all.






This all led me to wonder...

Why do we need proof?

Why do we need to push things over, take things apart, test their truth?

Everyone else was appalled by that one man's daring intrusion, but in truth we all wanted to know. Some scoffed at the proposition that no construction material was involved; others opened their minds a little and toyed with the idea. But a tiny part of all of us wanted to know. With certainty. We all wanted to go up close to the figures, examine them, look for evidence for either hypothesis.

Why are we dissatisfied with just believing?






And...even after we got the evidence, we were still dissatisfied, still doubtful. With fallen rocks at our feet, the art was no longer so miraculous. This caused dissatisfaction. With the rest of the figures still standing so impossibly, the fallen one was deemed perhaps an exception. This is doubt.







If you choose to believe that these rocks are held together by glue or nails or some other construction material, then that is what you will take away from them.

If you choose to believe that the figures are completely natural, that the rocks have simply and patiently been balanced on top of each other, and that astonishing things can be formed with strength, care, and time, then that is what you will take away from them.



What do i want to take away from it all?





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Introduction

This blog is about belief.

Belief is something you just know. You just take that leap and you choose to know something to be true, even though it is not supported by any logic.

I've been thinking a lot about belief recently. Ever since i started my Master's degree (a year ago), i've been surrounded (at times suffocated) by science and scientists and the scientific method. In my mind, science and belief were never mutually exclusive. They are definitely not the same, and i might even argue that they are completely opposite ways of knowing. But they are not opposing ways of knowing; devotion to one doesn't mean devotion to the other is out of the question. I've always thought - and still do think - that science and belief could happily co-exist in a person. In fact, being an M.Sc. student seems to have shone light on something that i will now tentatively state: science and belief happily co-exist in me.

This is very tentative. Sometimes i waver in my "devotion" to science, sometimes in my "devotion" to belief. (Perhaps sometimes neither science nor belief exist in me.) As a science student, i question why we have to know so much and in such detail - why are scientists so obsessed with "discovering" and understanding every step of every mechanism in the world? Why can't we leave things alone, and appreciate the mystery?

As a student believer, i question whether there really is Something out there. Maybe there is nothing, and all mysteries have a logical explanation that will in time be revealed by its scientific discoverer. Are believers just fooling themselves into believing in Something, because without that, they are meaningless? Belief is generally fed by happenings in one's life - if one needs these tangible, observable things to believe, is it really belief?

Anyway, my point is that being amidst scientists has made me very aware of my belief. The thing is, scientists are typically non-believers. (This is stereotyping, but i am finding that there is truth to this stereotype.) Being constantly surrounded by non-believers this past year has made me realize that i am not a non-believer.

I hesitate to call myself a believer (and i also hesitate to call myself a scientist), but i do have an inkling of what it means to believe - to just know something without needing the logic behind it. And i do tend towards believing that there is something beyond the physical world which is beyond the realm of human understanding, but simplified... it Loves and wants us to love.

Or something like that.

I think i'll let this blog be a place for me to think about this. A refuge from the science i am expected to practice and output for the next year or so...



Comments/questions/concerns welcome.





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