Why We Can't Communicate

Like many of you who debate the lofty matters of religion online know, the arguments have a high probability of degenerating into little more than shouting matches of "Nuh-uh!" and "Uh-huh!" To avoid such situations on Gather.com, I've created a group there called Debate Faith (no, it's not related to the Stickam chat room run by AtheistAtLarge). Come join us if you like to discuss these affairs within the context of proper argument.

And argument is what I wanted to blog about today, namely the question of why theists and atheists have such a hard time understanding one another. I suppose the reasons I'll state go beyond the "God debate" and touch any opposing viewpoints that are so at odds with each other that a conclusion seems impossible.

Code Words
We communicate through the language of logic. If a language exists, then by definition logic exists, otherwise we wouldn't be able to communicate a thing (or even understand a thing). If I want to communicate a sentence to you, we must both first agree on certain fabricated rules; a type of code that we mutually 1) either invent or borrow from someone else, and 2) agree upon. In order for you to understand the sentence, "I play drums", you have to know what the sounds "I" and "play" and "drums" stand for. These code words point to our experiences, things we have seen or otherwise experienced before, and the rules that are encoded to relate these ideas. The words we use are important. If we substitute another meaning for an idea we're trying to convey without first agreeing up the new meaning, the communication breaks down. So if you hear me tell you "I play the drums" but you don't think of me banging around on a musical percussion instrument, then you cannot relate to what I'm trying to convey. Likewise, if I tell you "I play drums" but mean instead that I engage in a game utilizing a large metal cylinder used for storing liquid, then I'm responsible for the ambiguity.

Humans created the language of logic. All the symbols, formulas, statements, rules -- logic is man-made, yes; but logic itself is a representation of something else: the behavior of existence. It's a reflection of the way the universe commonly behaves. We don't just arbitrarily decide its rules, but rather they are built upon the framework that the universe provided to us. Something cannot both be and not be. Something must either be true or its negation must be true. When two things are the same, they are the same. We get these rules out of observing the nature of nature. If nature wasn't consistent then we couldn't have logic and thus we could not have the language to express it (or we'd have a completely different version of logic). Either we have contradictions but no language, or we re-write contradictions, change the rules and meanings of things, make contradictions no longer contradictions, and communicate.

There may be things that exist but cannot be communicated or described. But if they can be experienced then they can be given a code name and the idea can thus be communicated to anyone who has experienced the same thing and knows the code word for it.

If It Happened To You
This brings me to the idea of personal experience as justification for believing something (a topic I've written about extensively), specifically when it comes to subjects of theism and faith. It may very well be that your personal experience is genuine and that your perception and conveyance of the event is flawless and true. I could rightly argue against it by citing the way people tend to shade their experiences based on what they know, the way the mind can be tricked, the numerous different and contradicting accounts of that type, my own personal experience, and the simple fact that it's subjective and untestable. Regardless, there is no possible way for me to refute that idea sufficiently enough to a believer who is positively sure it is real. I couldn't convince such a person to even try to imagine otherwise. No one could.

The problem then, lies in the fact that I have not experienced what you're talking about -- I don't have the same rule in my rulebook for that code word. If you are ever to express your ideas to me, then I must either agree to accept your rules as my own, or I will have to experience it for myself.

This may sound obvious -- we either mean two different things (your red is my green, for example), or one of us has a code word for an experience which the other has neither -- but understanding what limits us from reaching agreements is key to creating a better, healthier, more tolerant and connected world. We need to learn to identify what stifles conversation; what brings our relatable experiences of reality to an impasse...and I feel in no other arena than the domain of faith is this needed most.

It is our shared experiences of reality that lay the tracks for our engines of understanding to run upon. If you tell me something purely subjective, like "Last night I dreamed about flying," for instance, there's no possible way for me to prove or disprove that (other than looking and brain scans while you slept, but even still I couldn't know what it was you were dreaming about). So why do we believe people when they say they dream? Because people dream. Because we understand what they mean when they use the code word "dream". Sure, it's subjective, but we all share it. Therefore, if you're going to use personal experience as a proof of a deity, your only hope to convince me with that argument is to pray that the god reveals itself to me in the same way it did for you. The only way for me to know and understand it is if I, too, experience it. After all, if you weren't convinced until it happened to you, why would anyone else be different?


-STA

But I Got PERSONAL Experience

Nine times out of ten -- after all their arguments are laid bear, torn apart, and scattered on the ground, soaking in the tears of the theist who produced them -- a believer will resort to one of two (or perhaps both) arguments left to defend his beliefs: "I just have faith!" which we've covered here before; or "I have personal experience".

Very Superstitious
The uselessness of that argument should be clear to see because anyone can say anything about anything. We can't just take someone for their word. And calm down; I'm NOT saying you're lying. I think you really believe what you're saying. The issue is that people can be fooled.

It's no surprise that a lot of magicians are atheists. Guys like Penn and Teller or Jamie Ian Swiss or Steve Shaw understand how easy it is to fool our senses; to make people think that experienced something that can't happen. Magicians have intimate knowledge about the tricks and nuances of human perception, and the better ones know how exactly to work them.

So why is it that whenever you see a magic trick and you exclaim "Wow...how did you do that?", you are never satisfied with the answer "It's magic"? Don't won't you accept that as an answer? Probably because you know that magic isn't real...you understand that there must be some explanation for it. Saying "it's just magic" is equivalent to saying "invisible card-changing pixies did it", or "supernatural forces altered your perception of reality", or "God did it".


It's Always Personal If You're A Person
Not only can you not always trust your senses -- especially if your brain is experiencing some kind of trauma -- but other people can't always trust your judgment either. Again, it's not always that you're actively lying. Maybe you saw/heard/felt something you didn't. Maybe your mind was/is in a state that interpreted the actual event unfaithfully. Or maybe you really experienced something.

There's no doubt that experiences can have profound effects on a person's life. Many people have religious experience, and it changes their life. But this doesn't have to mean that the experience was real. Read that sentence again.

It is very possible to have experiences that are not real. Think about this scenario: Sally Sue spends the night in a house that she's told is haunted by evil spirits. She believes in ghosts, but she doesn't know exactly what they are or how they got there, etc. Her personality drives her to seek out strange things like haunted houses, but she's never actually seen a ghost before. She hopes she will tonight. As Sally is creeping around the dark upstairs hallways with her partner (come on, no one in their right mind would stay alone in an old abandoned house!) they exchange stories of the murders, suicides, and tortures that went on in this old house, all the while "building the suspense".

Ever been in a situation like that before? Where you psyche yourself up? Ever notice how fragile and easy-to-spook a mind can get when its in that hairpin-trigger state? Anyway, back to the scenario...

Sally Sue's mind is busy conjuring up images and sounds of these horrible stories, when a sudden "pop" breaks the darkness. Sally and her ghost-hunting partner freeze and look each other in the eyes. Suddenly, Sally feels something brush her arm, and she screams and starts to run. Another loud popping, cracking sound rings out, but Sally is running full-tilt toward the stairs. Other sounds echo from seemingly all around her as she turns back just in time to see her friend disappear through the floor. An instant before she rounds the corner, she swears she sees a face or a figure in the dust through her tears.

Years later, Sally still remembers the night her friend died. They said the rotten floorboard gave way and she fell through, embedding herself on a large piece of wood. Perhaps she could have survived if someone had been there to help her. Sally's life was changed.


Ya Know, I've Learn Something Today...
Look, I don't want to make this some kind of moral lesson, but I do want to convey the way in which our perceptions alter reality FOR US. Let's take an honest look at the story.

Here we have a girl who's hoping to see ghosts. She believes they're real, and wants to have an encounter. So, her emotionally-charged is fueled by ghost-stories (anyone ever had this experience as a kid around a campfire?) and by her friend. We scare easily, but even more-so when we're with someone. We scare each other in a back-and-forth, domino-effect kind of way. When they heard something, they looked at each other -- something common to all humans and a lot of animals. It's how we gauge what's going on when we're clueless about something. We watch each other for signs of how we should act. Should we run? Do you know what it was? Are you afraid? Should I be?

By this time, Sally's nerves are bristling. One touch -- could be an insect, a spider's web, or even just the air moving mites around on her skin -- was enough to start a chain reaction of scare-me-scare-you. Her brain was telling her what she wanted it to; what she had conditioned it to. But what about that face in the dust? Was it the figure of an evil ghost killing her friend? Or was it the way the light played off the dusty hallways and refracted against her tears? Or is it something her mind filled in later, after the fact?

I hope none of you are actually thinking to yourself, "maybe it was a ghost...you don't know". I do know. I made it up. If you're really trying to reason it out to be an actual "ghost attack" you might be too far gone in the realm of fantasy to ever hope to understand the lesson here. That lesson is this: Sally's life was changed. Her experience actually had a real, life-altering effect on her. But her experience wasn't real (not just because the story is fake). She lost a friend and suffered serious emotional trama.

So the next time you claim "You can't say God isn't real because I've had an experience that changed my life!" or something along those lines, think about Sally and think about how I can't take your word about experiences I didn't have. You try telling Sally it wasn't a ghost!


-STA