Common sense and science

I like to read the bill-boards in front of schools, churches, and so one. It was evening and I was on the bus, reading Utopia. I ran into an interesting idea, though I do not remember what it was, and stopped reading to look at the sign on the church, "faith is believing what common-sense tells you not to believe." I laughed.

In philosophy we discussed qualia, those qualitative experiences within ones mind which cannot be applied to or described by science. We also learned about the self. Both the self and the qualia which serve it are unscientific things. They are common-sense things. Taken a little further such believes lead us to dualism. Dualism is the belief that our selves and our personal experiences relate to something else, another portion of existence apart from the material world. Another step and we have religion.

On the other side is the belief that ourselves are simply constant conjunction and that everything we feel will be 'properly' explaind in future science.

For me, therefore, the sign told me to ignore the deep-rooted commonsense belief in self and accept the harsh but realistic views of science. Silly sign.