God and Certainty

[Lord Muck oGentry]

I thought they were synonyms. I think what you should say is that certainty doesn't amount to being right.

Well, there are contexts in which they are used indifferently, and there are some where they are not. For example, if I say it's raining outside, you may accept that I'm sure if I say I am sure ( and perhaps offer to bet on it). But you are quite entitled to dispute whether I am certain if you know that I haven't looked out of the window recently or taken any other trouble to check what I say.

Being certain, in the sense I have in mind, implies some sort of warrant.

However, I see that rayback has been back to clarify his views, so this may now be off the point.

[Tony Williams]

I wish scifi and fantasy were not lumped together the way they are. Larry Niven is "hard science" fiction; H P Lovecraft is demons and goblins fantasy.

Some SF people (those supporting "mundane SF") would regard Larry Niven as fantasy because his stories contain many elements - faster-than-light travel, teleportation discs, and perhaps most of all a belief in "luck" as a predictable force - which are impossible as far as we know.

The fact is that SF and fantasy are part of a spectrum of story-telling which has no clear dividing lines, although the basic principle agreed by most is that SF authors try to convince readers that what is happening might just be possible (even if contrary to known science) while fantasy authors don't bother.

[Croydon Bob]

The fact is that SF and fantasy are part of a spectrum of story-telling which has no clear dividing lines,

I agree with you but this is by no means a 'fact'.

Many SF fans believe you can draw a line around hard SF, everything inside is SF and is good to read; everything outside is fantasy, horror, slipstream, etc, and is an abomination. I've spent hours in the pub throwing out book titles and letting the hardliners decide whether it is or isn't real SF.

I think that 2001 is a classic example of a hard SF novel with a small fantasy element, a small shift along the spectrum which proves your statement correct. Peter Weston (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Weston) considers such talk a heresy spread by the enemies of SF fandom.

[Trinoc]

Some SF people (those supporting "mundane SF") would regard Larry Niven as fantasy because his stories contain many elements - faster-than-light travel, teleportation discs, and perhaps most of all a belief in "luck" as a predictable force - which are impossible as far as we know.

Agreed about "luck" ... that was a bad lapse. Likewise the inclusion of telepathy in stories like Babylon 5 or "The Force" in Star Wars. I can't agree though about FTL travel, teleportation, etc. ... you have to allow some speculation otherwise it would not be scifi at all. The important thing is that the speculation much be presented up front - not introduced as a deus ex machina half way through when the plot gets bogged down or hits a dead end - and once presented it must be followed through in a plausible, scientific manner ... "OK, we have FTL travel, which may be impossible, but if it were possible, what would be the logical consequences?" ... different authors succeed in this to different extents.

The difference in what I would call fantasy is that impossible ideas are introduced willy-nilly whenever required, and if they are logically implausible even within the bounds of their own assumptions, this is simply dismissed as not applicable because the rules of logic are different here.

[Trinoc]

Many SF fans believe you can draw a line around hard SF, everything inside is SF and is good to read; everything outside is fantasy, horror, slipstream, etc, and is an abomination. I've spent hours in the pub throwing out book titles and letting the hardliners decide whether it is or isn't real SF.

I am not saying "SF good, fantasy bad", though I admit I enjoy SF a lot more because I can normally follow some sort of rational sequence of events without expecting some paranormal concept to be introduced to throw the plot onto a different track. I would just prefer to know in advance which genre I am about to read. Having Arthur C Clarke on the same shelves as Harry Potter in the bookshop is no help at all. They might as well say that crime novels ahould be mixed up with Mills & Boon, since a lot of romantic novels include crime and a lot of crime novels include romance.

[Tony Williams]

Speaking as an SF and fantasy (but mostly SF) fan of half-a-century's standing, plus an SFF blogger and occasional author, I quite often get involved in debates over how to categorise works - but I've come to the conclusion that it's rather pointless.

The SFF field covers a huge range of possibilities in terms of content and treatment, and does not lend itself to being neatly divided into two groups. For instance, my first novel (The Foresight War) imagines what might happen if present-day British and German historians woke up in 1934. The premise is pure fantasy, no attempt is made to provide any explanation - but what follows is as realistic (in technical military terms) as one heck of a lot of research could make it. How do you categorise that? My second work, Scales, might be classified as a present-day SF thriller, but it includes various impossible things such as psi powers and transfers between parallel worlds. Again, some would call it SF, some fantasy; I just call it a story!

The most recent "movement" in SF is "mundane SF", whose proponents argue that SF should be restricted only to known science. So that means no travel beyond the solar system, no aliens, no psi powers, no technology which is not feasible (if not yet achievable) today. Quite a lot of SF does happen to fall into this category (e.g. Arthur C Clarke's 'The Hammer of God', exploring the possibility of a major asteroid strike on Earth), but a lot more doesn't. Personally speaking, it's the "sense of wonder" which mainly drew me to SF, so I prefer tales like Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama' or Niven's 'Ringworld'. My favourite SF novel of all time is Bester's 'The Stars My Destination', which is hard SF by most people's reckoning except for one major plot element - teleportation.

Having said that, there are even arguments about what is meant by "hard SF"...

But perhaps this merits a separate thread?

[lost thought]

I was introduced to SF through Doc Smith the Lens men series up till then I read very little after my discovery of SF I read anything I could get my hands on and filled my head with wonders to behold.

[Croydon Bob]

But perhaps this merits a separate thread?

Nah... we've improved this one.

[farmersboy]

I see it as a natural progression from the opening thread - we've gone from believing in a god to fantasy and sci-fi.

One and the same thing I thought.


ps - Lovecraft is horror with occasional sci-fi overtones, and is some of the best horror ever written, IMHO, only outdone by Clive Barker.

[Trinoc]

I see it as a natural progression from the opening thread - we've gone from believing in a god to fantasy and sci-fi.

One and the same thing I thought.

Except that fantasy and scifi have a stronger grounding in reality ...

[Croydon Bob]

I see it as a natural progression from the opening thread - we've gone from believing in a god to fantasy and sci-fi.

One and the same thing I thought.

ps - Lovecraft is horror with occasional sci-fi overtones, and is some of the best horror ever written,

A cheap attempt at linking the different strands together; God, Certainty and Cthulhu in the style of Jack Chick:

http://rubbersuitstudios.com/ptcct.htm

[Tony Williams]

Ips - Lovecraft is horror with occasional sci-fi overtones, and is some of the best horror ever written, IMHO, only outdone by Clive Barker.

I'm not really a horror fan, but I've enjoyed some of Clive Barker's work and I'm currently reading through Lovecraft's 'Necronomicon', the new book featuring his best work.

[Dr B]

God is a major problem for many people.
Either there is evidence for God, or there is not.
But a more important question to consider is:

Can anyone ever be sure that God exists?

Is it logically possible to attain this certainty?
Please discuss.

The question is loaded and flawed and only has the capacity to support a false view.

I take it by 'sure' and 'certainty' you mean via evidence-based reasoning and scientific knowledge. Well, it's news flash time and today's headline is...the same as yesterday's and all the other days back to ancient Greek philosophy. Science is probabilistic and not deterministic. Everything has a probability of being so, and as such, a probability of not being so.

So, it is logically impossible to be 'sure' (i.e., 100&#37 of anything, including theories for gravity, light, evolution, etc. Everything is probabilistic. However, the theories we do have and endorse have a much higher probability of being correct relative to other ideas.

Therefore, it is not logically possible to answer a deterministic question of science, when all scientific knowledge is ultimately probabilistic

[Dr B]

I am simply asking if a real God does exist, then whether it is ever possible to be sure of his existence with complete certainly.

Please see the above post for your answer to this question.

why not ask "how could a god exist"? this would seem a more interesting question for you.

[rayback]

why not ask "how could a god exist"? this would seem a more interesting question for you.

I'm sure some of you guys wanted to hear an easy question such as that one.

My question is about our interest in a potentially invaluable treasure that might possiblity exist.
We can't logically rule it out.

It would surely be an ultimate find.