If you don't watch the Big Bang Theory, or if you watch the Big Bang Theory but have never fully listened to the full Theme song, I wholly recommend that you go on Youtube right now and listen to the song.The theme song for the Big Bang Theory (the one by the Barenaked Ladies) is one of the most profound insights into epistemiology (or the 'Theory of Knowledge') that I've come across in popular culture. To be fair, I am self-admittedly not well-read in the realm of epistemiology, so I do wonder about the triviality of some of the things I am going to say here.
I have been (and not just recently) doing a fair share of thinking on the nature of reason and the nature of rationality/logic. Just definition-ally, I would say that rationality/logic are all positive statements in the Economics sense in the sense that rationality/logic are a sequence of facts/conclusions/statements that build on one another. Reason, on the other hand, is a normative thing - reason includes value judgments which reflect our beliefs, our ethics, and that sort of thing. For example, logic would say that a society where 1 person earns 1,000 and 9 people earn nothing is just as well-off as a society where 10 people earn 100. Reason would tell you that that may not be true because "well-off" could mean other things such as equality, distributional parity, whatever.
That said, in my mind, neither reason nor logic is more important than the other. I think you need both to think robustly. Both reason without logic and logic without reason could lead to very flawed arguments. In any case, for the purposes of this post, I am going to assume that an argument, for whatever position, is done based on both logic and reason. This will make a lot more sense in a few paragraphs.
Consider the first two verses of the Big Bang Theory's theme:-
"Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state
Then nearly 14 billion years ago, expansion started. Wait...
The earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids!)
Math, Science, History, unraveling the mystery
That all started with the Big Bang!"
[Slight digression: That second last line - "Math, Science, History, unraveling the mystery" is, as simple as it sounds, so beautiful in its thought, at least to me. Personally, I learn things not because it will make me more educated (though it should), more well-off (effect is debatable) or because I want to accumulate knowledge for knowledge's sake. I learn things because I want to understand the world better, to understand the human condition better, to understand the universe better and, further, to philosophize in some unifying theory what it all means. So, Math, Science, History (among others) unravels the mystery and that's why we (I) learn."
"Since the dawn of men is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes to sing this song,
A fraction of a second, and the elements were made,
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were too late,
And they all died (they froze their asses off),
The oceans and Pangaea,
See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya,
Set in motion by the same big bang."
The first two verses basically discuss scientific beliefs (I take them as fact, but for the purposes of this post, I am going to say "beliefs) about the evolution of the earth. Pretty straightforward. Also, cool fact: Pangaea was once the sole land block of the world, where all 7 continents were joined. I also wished the dinosaurs weren't too late.
Now, consider the last verse:-
"Australopithicus would really have been sick of us,
Debating why we're here, they're catching deer (we're catching viruses),
Religion or astronomy, Descartes or Deutoronomy,
It all started with the Big Bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology,
It all started with the Big Bang!"
For me, this is the profound part. Think about it - we all came from the same origin. How did the same species come up with things as widely divergent as, say, music and mythology (though they could be linked in some senses, I think - will need to think this thread through a bit more). We're the same species that produced Albert Einstein and astrology. The same one that produced Descartes and Deutoronomy. In this case, I am not saying that one is better than the other (though on a personal note, I do believe that one is actually better than the other), I am just saying that they're wildly different.
So, how did it happen? If we see the same things, and experience the same things, why do we come up with such different outcomes? And if, as per my assumption earlier, we came up with those outcomes from a logical and reasonable perspective, why are they so different? And I don't want to use the overly simplistic explanation that someone who crafted, say, music is smarter than someone who crafted some myth.
So, the question is this. How can two very logical and very reasonable people diverge so wildly in their conclusions using very logical and very reasonable methods of arriving at those conclusions? I think there are a variety of answers to these, but I think that the most fundamental answer - and the key to most disagreements among logical and reasonable people - is that both people use different assumptions on which they build their argument.
While this may seem like a real Captain Obvious statement, but I wonder sometimes if that is what it takes to construct or eradicate certain things which are "knowledge." I mean, consider the case of being born during, say, the Neolithic Period. Now, assume that somebody invented some time travel machine, and travelled back in time to that period with a gun. Knowing exactly what you knew as a Neolithic homo sapiens, what rational and reasonable conclusion would come to your mind first? You've never seen it before; in fact, it isn't close at all to anything that you have seen or produced. Wouldn't a rational and reasonable conclusion be - this person is some messenger from some god or perhaps a god herself?
I'm an atheist. I don't believe in some higher being for whatever reason. Suppose one day some being appeared before me with such incomprehensible powers and/or technology such that I believe either one of two things - This person is a God (unlikely) or this person is an alien (likely). But, if this person is a human being, then that person is not an alien (I'm going to assume that aliens aren't going to pretend to look like us or mind warp us into thinking that they look like us), then maybe I'll turn to the first bit. However, knowing what I know and knowing (or at least being aware) of the concept of a time machine or the concept of mutation or whatever - I would probably hypothesize that that person is a mutant or possesses some psycho technology.
But consider the Neolithic human again. She doesn't have the knowledge I have only because the knowledge I have wasn't accummulated yet by then. So, the belief that this person is a God is the most likely. Now, this goes on - as we know - for millennia. If people weren't off worshiping rocks and trees, they were off worshipping deities. It strikes me as super duper suggestive that pretty much every group of people in the history of the world has had some belief in a higher power. I don't think those people were dumb; I think they were just making the most reasonable and most rational conclusions based on the assumptions they held at that time, which were based on the knowledge they had at that time.
[NB: I think this is a good argument against the argument that "My religion is the only true religion." What religions tend to hold in common is a belief in some higher being. Why should a belief in Zeus, for example, be less worthy than a belief in Jesus Christ? How do you discount the various other religions around the world? If that religion is the true religion, wouldn't it be prevalent from the start?]
Anyway, the evolution of beliefs and culture is most likely path-dependent. This means that way leads on to way. So, if a particular society holds on to some theistic belief for a super long time, it is going to be difficult for members of that society to let go of those beliefs as well. But embedded in those beliefs (which are the conclusions of the argument process) are the assumptions on which those beliefs are built. I think that's why two very rational and reasonable people can disagree so widely. They use entirely different assumptions and follow the chain of logic and reasoning along those assumptions. Look, if you told me to assume that a higher being exists, then every conclusion I make would have to be based on those assumptions. So, unless someone forced me to challenge that assumption, why would I draw different conclusions?
This is also true for astrology, I think. Astrology is based on the assumption that movements in the stars (despite the fact all we see of stars (and their movements) are old photographs) and planets can affect our daily lives. Because, of course, the universe gives a shit about us. Okay, will try not to be overly snarky. But let's say I held that assumption. And let's say that everytime Venus was in some angle in the night sky from the Orion Belt or whatever, I notice that bad things tend to occur (may be a problem with availability bias, but I promised not to be snarky, so am continuing). While correlation isn't causation, I would think that it's weird and that there's some pattern. And so, I would conclude that when Venus is 45 degrees in the night sky from Orion's Belt, I better get a four leaf clover.
Is that a reasonable conclusion to draw? Yes, if you believe the assumption. Absolutely not if you don't believe the assumption. Coming to more contemporary academic times, a lot of academic work actually goes more and more into revisiting and revaluating assumptions. I mean, if you assume that a person is smart enough to publich a journal article, you can assume that their argument - based on the assumptions - they set out, would be coherent and logical. So, how do you address the argument? By evaluating their assumptions. Because, if I held those same assumptions, I probably would be led to that same conclusion. Extreme case - If I assumed water was poisonous, I wouldn't drink water. To counter this argument, I would ask, "Why assume water is poisonous?"
And so, in epistemiology, what makes sense to me is that humanity evolved the way it did with so many different branches of knowledge and beliefs because the context/assumptions under which those branches of knowledge and beliefs developed were so different. We look down now, for example, on the primitiveness of the belief that the Sun rotated around the Earth but, under certain assumptions which were prevalent at the time, we probably would have been led to that very conclusion ourselves. It is only when we challenge assumptions that we make some progress with knowledge.
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