The various shades of proof

Amongst the myriad questions raised and discussed during and after Friday's talk, was one regarding the possibility of developing a concrete proof for hypotheses about God, the human soul etc. Now I've always believed that it is fundamentally impossible to develop a firm scientific proof (as we understand science) for these ideas, for many reasons which we won't go into now. Hamid however gave a most elegant answer to the question, and one which related directly to our own experience, so thought I'd share that here. I'm of course paraphrasing here, and adding a lot of my own thoughts, but the core of the reasoning is his.

There are several realms in which we learn about the world today. At the most abstract level is mathematics - where we deal solely in concepts, idealizations and numbers. It is only in the mathematical realm, really, that one sees examples of watertight proofs, that are always true, come what may. Once I've proven that 2+2=4 (which, incidentally, can be very rigorously done using the tools of real analysis), I know it to be true and there is no way it can be contradicted - ever.

Then we move into the real world, into the kingdom of the mineral. Here we use our mathematical tools (which are absolute), but in addition, comes our observation (which by definition is finite and often imperfect). These combined together create what we broadly know today as the physical sciences. By using our own observations, as well as observations made by instruments we build, we create mathematical hypotheses which can be tested against the real world. When considering the mineral world, these hypotheses are often very close to reality, and for all practical purposes, can be said to accurately represent reality. In a sense, therefore, we can accurately prove our hypotheses about the mineral world, and create theories.

The waters become a little more murky when we move up the ladder to the vegetable/plant kingdom. Still, modern day science has reached a stage where we can describe, to a very large extent, the inner workings of a plant. Every once in a while we still find ourselves confounded by certain elements of a plant's nature, but in general we can be fairly confident of our understanding of these systems. The approximate nature of our theories and proofs, though, is ever so slightly evident, for the first time!

Move to animals, and things become worse. One can be even less sure of what one is saying. The complex laws of evolution are, in most cases, sufficient to explain a wide variety of the behavior and complexity seen in animals - and yet our theories become much more difficult to prove. Behavior and thought are clearly discerned in animals, and by the fundamental separation we have as individuals, it becomes impossible to ever be absolutely sure.

You can see where this is going. Come to humans, and the sphere of what one knows, and can prove, becomes significantly larger. The human body is understood fairly well, but thoughts and emotions have certain qualities that prevent us from ever being able to make definitive statements about them beyond the most general and superficial. Move up to one further level of complexity - human society - and literally, all hell breaks loose! All one can really do at this level is hypothesize, bring out examples where the hypothesis is true, and try to ignore the rest (and hope nobody else discovers them either!!).

The above is all factually true - this is where we stand today. Now is this because of the fact that science just hasn't progressed enough, that eventually we will "get there", and understand all these things? I believe not. As I said, there is a certain quality to human behavior, actions and thoughts, that defies all attempts to lock it down to a mathematical equation. We are forever trapped in our own subjectivities - a fact we can safely ignore when considering the inanimate world, but certainly not when considering fellow human beings who have as much capacity for thought, choice and action as we do. The whole concept of objective experimentation - one the Holy Grails of science, and an underlying assumption to all scientific thought, loses all meaning when we consider subjective experiences. Experiences can never be objectively viewed and can never be repeated perfectly in a controlled environment - however, as each of us can testify, they are very real and alive - and in fact, make up a huge part of what we are at all!

So, when just at the human and societal level we have no access to rigorous proof, what about levels of complexity greater than us? What if, for a moment, we assume the existence of a transcendent reality far superior to us, not bound by the confines of space and time? Could science, crippled by its basic assumptions, ever hope to comprehend this reality? Can we even hope to develop clear scientific proofs of the existence or nature of this reality? Based on all that I've said above, the reasonable answer to this question seems no. The most fundamental assumption of science is that the universe is physical, that it can be observed, and that these observations and rationality can help us discover the underlying principles of the universe. By definition, if there exists something that does not conform to the above, science can tell us nothing about it. The unfortunate thing is that most people who defend scientific thought as the only way to get knowledge are completely unaware of these most basic assumptions - and even if they are, see them as unequivocally true.

Is God all about blind faith then? Can we never "know"? I don't think that is true either. What really is required is an acceptance that science has certain limitations based on its underlying assumptions, and the recognition of other sources of knowledge as equally valid. Divinely inspired revelation is one; subjective experience another. What science does provide us when considering these alternate sources of knowledge, is a process - the scientific process of hypothesizing, experimenting, and verifying. Only, the experimental apparatus in this case is our own self. I see this as a critical component of the kind of independent investigation of truth that the Baha'i faith talks about. We are given a set of teachings by these great Manifestations - let us go out and apply them to our lives and see how it affects us, our hearts, and others around us. If conducted with a pure and sincere heart, without preconceived ideas or notions - the spiritual equivalent of an objective observer - I believe that our observations will verify those teachings, and further solidify our faith in them. Of course, I cannot prove that - but that has been true in my own subjective experience.

A lot of people spend a lot of time today searching for proofs of the existence of God - or of the non-existence. An even greater number spend even more time proclaiming that the fact that this seems to be an unresolvable question in itself proves the non-existence of God :). Personally, I believe it best to move away from such theorizing - time is better spent trying to openly search for the truth, and grow spiritually.