coupland's Journal: Religion as Lossy Compression Algorithm?

As I was driving to work this morning I started to think that belief systems, be they religious, philosophical, or psychological, are simply ways to create an abstraction of reality. To summarize reality in such a way as to reduce redundancy. To teach by reducing the level of experience, knowledge, and understanding required to achieve wisdom. Really any kind of belief system is nothing more than intellectual short-hand.

Lossless compression is "I touched a stove and it was hot. I touched another one and it was hot too. I touched 100 others and they were all hot." Lossy compression is "stoves are hot". This is a belief system, and you take it on faith that you shouldn't touch stoves because they are hot. So any type of belief system requires faith because it requires trust in patterns and trust in the experience of others. If you're religious this might sting a bit, but trust and faith are the same thing.

For example, how do you know that lightning kills? Have you been struck by lightning? Presumably not. But enough people have told you that lightning kills that you believe it, without any first-hand experience to that effect. This is faith.

However people can be hit by lightning and live, so this is where lossy compression fails us. We've accepted that life follows patterns and that the pattern proves that certain things are predictable. But the downside is that when we receive information that contradicts the patterns we've observed / our belief system / our faith, we're apt to ignore it as invalid rather than take it at face value.

This being the case, it means that I don't believe metaphysics. If all belief systems or attempts to categorize knowledge are nothing more than lossy compression algorithms then they are only an approximation. If they are only an approximation then any attempt to categorize knowledge and label it as "truth" is false.

Oh shit, that's metaphysics...