Posted by Jason on: 05.05.2008 /
I spend the afternoon today playing Cluedo with my youngest children. Essentially the players quiz one another in order to eliminate options from a list to arrive at a answer to the game, a person, place and weapon in a murder.
There’s an analogy here for all this questioning and pondering that we do. Each player has a bit of information and an idea of what is stored in the black envelope in the middle of the board. I’m never going to know what’s in the envelope without asking a lot of questions and challenging them for an answer. Some people will lie, some will try to deceive me, some may make mistakes. We’re all trying to find the answer and all we have to work with are the cards in our desk, reason and intuition.
Each answer leads to more questions in addition to providing a solution. I don’t know about anyone else but isn’t it more fun asking the questions and playing the game than reaching the end and finding out for sure what the answer is.
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Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1 05/5/08 4:37 AM | Comment Link |Jason thanks for this word picture.
I think people who are able to enjoy the unpredictability of life and see it as an exciting adventure enjoy it the most.
(And belief in God doesn’t take away the unpredictability of life or provide all the answers - you still don’t know what God is going to do next as you go about your daily life)
Comment by: Mike O
2 05/5/08 5:49 AM | Comment Link |Ain’t that the truth!
Comment by: Karen
3 05/5/08 10:05 AM | Comment Link |That game is called just “Clue” in the U.S. ;-)
Well, when the answers are all revealed, the game is over, along with the fun.
It’s kind of similar to inserting “god did it” or “it’s a miracle” into a scientific investigation. Once you reach that conclusion, there’s no further research needed or even possible. The conversation, like the game, is just over.
Comment by: Mike O
4 05/5/08 11:38 AM | Comment Link |Isn’t it fair to say, however, *perhaps* god did it? Or, *perhaps* it was a miracle?
Similarly, *perhaps* god didn’t do it or *perhaps* there is no god?
Comment by: Jason
5 05/6/08 7:04 AM | Comment Link |Helen, unpredictable yes, but having a certainty of the end must be confusing. It must give a bias in any exploration of life. In short it must influence the questions that you ask.
Karen, I know it’s called “Clue” in the US but I can’t bear to pander to your colonial foibles. ;) Besides which the name is a variation on “Ludo” and I’m sure you keep the name for that the same. Everything else you said I agree with.
Mike, “perhaps” is a reasonable starting place. How should you test and question your supposition? Logic and evidence are good methods that have proven to be effective. When we do not know and cannot prove or disprove something we fall to how likely or unlikely something is.
If I have all the weapons in my hand except for the rope and the dagger and I think the dagger is in someone else’s hand then I can be pretty certain that the murder weapon is the rope. I cannot know but I can deduce or make an educated guess.
Similarly with the question of God or miracles we must look first at the available evidence to determine the most likely answer before attributing an event to a supernatural source. Only if no natural explanation can be found, even the unlikely ones, should we even consider unnatural explanations. There are several further steps beyond a supernatural explanation before we get to the Christian god as the answer.
It may be that the most likely answer turns out to be wrong but we’ll never know if we don’t look at the evidence or change our questions to explore further.
I’d hate to play a game like Cluedo if I already knew the answer. I’d just be going through the motions. Where’s the joy in that? Games, as in life, need a reason to be played.
Comment by: Mike O
6 05/6/08 7:52 AM | Comment Link |I just started listening to an atheist-christian debate while I was working out this morning - I may write on it later, but it’s interesting to see, in light of this conversation, how the Christian is very willing to draw conclusions from the evidence he sees, and the atheist - at least as far as I’ve seen it so far - is looking at the nature of evidence.
I may write about it sometime.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7 05/6/08 8:11 AM | Comment Link |Jason wrote:
But this seems like an atheist approach to me because it presupposes a supernatural source is the least likely cause and only goes there as a last resort.
A theist would probably proceed in the reverse direction, presupposing God, and only going to the natural cause as a last resort.
If you say, I’m going in that order because I’m an atheist already, I understand that. But if you don’t attribute your starting point to your current view, I don’t understand how you know God is the ‘least likely explanation’ if you haven’t even examined the evidence yet.
Comment by: Karen
8 05/6/08 10:57 AM | Comment Link |Sure, you can say that. But since there’s no way (that we currently know of) to investigate that claim, the game’s over. No more research can be done.
Science is always, always provisional, but the game never ends as long as we don’t understand everything. Science can say “perhaps X caused Y” and then devise an experiment to test whether that hypothesis is true.
Once you say “perhaps god did it,” the conversation is done, because there’s no way to test that claim. You just have to come to a draw - maybe, maybe not. The game’s over.
Yes, I can see how your preference would be to avoid the unseemly foibles of we the unwashed. ;-)
But … “Ludo”? What the heck is that?
Comment by: Stephan
9 05/6/08 1:49 PM | Comment Link |First of all, you should never say “always”.
Second, we are not just talking about repeatable scientific situations. For instance, I believe the confluence of events during my unemployment three years ago was a miracle. I won’t go into all of the details here, but there was too much that went exactly right for it to be mere coincidence. I believe God worked in that situation. Now, we could not test scientifically if God did it, but there really is no way at all to empirically test how all of those events could have happened the way they did. You couldn’t put that situation in a lab and observe all of the variables to determine the cause. And since it was a one-time event you could not hope to recreate it so you could observe how it happened.
That’s a little different from saying, “God caused the sun to rise,” which you can clearly attribute to natural causes.
The game is certainly not over for me, even if I believe God did it. I mean, you always know James Bond is going to win, but it’s still fun to see how he is going to do it this time.
Comment by: Jason
10 05/6/08 3:18 PM | Comment Link |Helen, blame Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for this: “Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.” Or, begin with the most likely explanation (or what seems most likely) and test it. If it fails, move on to the next most likely, and so on. By the very nature of that which is supernatural we cannot test or eliminate it. Therefore we must discount it from any investigation as unworkable and proceed with what is workable.
I’m happy to concede that this comes from a viewpoint that does not consider the supernatural. I’d also add that I find it hard to believe that anyone could function if they first considered a supernatural explanation before a natural one.
Philistine. ;)
@Stephan, obviously I don’t know all the circumstances but improbable does not equate to impossible. The improbable occurs with undeniable frequency.
“Wizards have found, that Million to One chances occur as often as 9 times out of 10.”
– Terry Pratchett
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
11 05/7/08 5:07 AM | Comment Link |Jason wrote:
Ok, I’m happy too then :). That’s all I was looking for!
I hope you realize that comes straight from the Bible :)
I didn’t know Cluedo was called Clue in the US. Evidently I’m not as bilingual as I thought!
Comment by: Jason
12 05/7/08 6:29 AM | Comment Link |Oh yes. Many words and phrases in common usage have biblical origins. It’s hardly surprising considering the bible was a key work for many lives throughout history. Moreso since Henry VIII ordered that it be translated into English and made available to the masses.
Comment by: Stephan
13 05/7/08 8:33 AM | Comment Link |I’m sure there are people like this, but I don’t know any of them personally. I always assume the natural, and only go to the supernatural if nothing else fits. Of course, often the answer is simply, “I don’t know.” God does not need to fill in all of those.
Comment by: Jason
14 05/7/08 9:05 AM | Comment Link |Stephan, “I don’t know” is one of my favourite answers and a great place to begin an investigation. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Comment by: Karen
15 05/7/08 10:00 AM | Comment Link |Why not? It’s a perfectly good word, and it’s useful when describing something like the provisional nature of the scientific method. If science ever makes a finding and declares it is not open to further investigation and revision, it is no longer science.
Jason’s post talked about a game that involves clues and finding a solution that can be determined by investigation. That’s what I was talking about.
That situation doesn’t strike me as analogous to the Clue (okay, “Cluedo”!) game though. What you’re talking about is much more based on probabilities than direct clues leading to a well-defined answer.
You believe that the probability of so many factors coming together in a positive fashion during your unemployment is so low that a miracle must have occurred. That’s much tougher to investigate, obviously, and probably won’t lead to a clear-cut answer either way.
I would just echo Jason’s comments about coincidence and weird outcomes that are random but that we are evolutionarily programmed to view as supernatural. Michael Shermer points out that in a city of 16 million, “one-in-a-million” coincidences happen 16 times every day.
Comment by: Stephan
16 05/7/08 10:38 AM | Comment Link |That statement, which I’ve heard before, presupposes that we are not the product of a creator. I think it is possible that we were created to find patterns and assume the supernatural because they are really there.
Comment by: Jason
17 05/7/08 10:28 PM | Comment Link |The ability to see patterns in the world use these to imagine possible future events would be a useful trait for any species. It isn’t a great stretch to like a vivid imagination to ideas of the supernatural.
Comment by: Mike O
18 05/7/08 11:08 PM | Comment Link |I know people like that.
Comment by: Rev. Dan
19 05/19/08 3:09 AM | Comment Link |From the omniscient and completely-accurate-at-all-times Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluedo
Pretty interesting. I’d had no idea that Clue (as we North Armericans call it) was called Cluedo. The name change makes sense to me (I’ve never heard of “ludo,” which has negative name-recognition with me… it sounds like some sort of insult), but the Reverend Green vs. Mr. Green doesn’t, and I bet it’s either an interesting story or a kinda standard “oh, we can’t offend the Christianists” kinda one.
See, it’s things like this (and the pointers from a few weeks ago to Jam & Jerusalem, which I’m into Season Two of now) that make me appreciate the fact that this blog is in my aggregator.
Screw the religious stuff… bring on the minutiae and the references to awesome BBC programming!*
*Actually, it should be said that religious stuff is minutiae to some of us… so what I mean is “pop culture minutiae.” :)