What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It?

[deliriouspixel]

A question asked of over 120 scientists, futurists, and other interesting minds.

"WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"

Great minds can sometimes guess the truth before they have either the evidence or arguments for it (Diderot called it having the "esprit de divination"). What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?

...and a very intersting read it is: The Edge Annual Question—2005 (http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html)

Help me read it.

Pull out the quotes that tickle your noodle and post them here.

[deliriouspixel]

I've always found belief a bit difficult; people tend to assume that I have rather strong beliefs, but I don't experience them in that way. As far as knowledge goes I'm a consumer, and sometimes a distributor, not a producer; most of what I believe to be true lies far beyond my capacity for proof, and I try to moderate the timbre of my belief accordingly. I know that almost all my beliefs are based on faith in people, and processes, and institutions, and their various capacities for correcting themselves when in error.
OLIVER MORTON

[deliriouspixel]

Wandering through the frontiers of the sciences, and the arts, I have always trusted the eye while leaving aside the issues that elude it. It can mislead—of course—therefore I check endlessly and never rush to print.

Meanwhile, for over fifty years, I have watched as some disciplines exhaust the "top down" problems they know how to tackle. So they wander around seeking totally new patterns in a dark and deep mess, where an unlit lamp is of little help.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

[Rasta4Eyes]

P2078:4, 195:7.1 How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true religion. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith -- human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.

P2078:5, 195:7.2 Science should do for man materially what religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences.

-Midwayer Commission

http://urantiabook.org/newbook/ppr195_7.html

[Rasta4Eyes]

2, 195:7.7 The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man's conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic.