I was rewatching Moon on Netflix last night. Spoiler: the protagonist is supposed to be alone in a space station on the moon and one day comes face to face with another person who talks and acts like himself, and claims to have the same identity as the protagonist.
The first time I watched Moon I believed the protagonist was delusional until the twist ending reveals they are just two of many clones awakened and then killed every three years, spending their short lives working at the station as free labor.
I am bad at predicting twists (I guess I prefer to get swept up in the moment rather than trying to guess where everything is going) but I think my rational brain just felt that delusion was more probable than cloning.
When someone makes an assertion I believe is misguided, I ask two questions that I am stealing from Neil Degrasse Tyson:
- What is your best evidence for this belief?
- What would it take for you to believe otherwise?
The latter question subtly asks the person to consider that they may be wrong; something the human mind is loathe to do on its own.
I was thinking about God the other day and what it would take for me to believe in him. At first, I thought that he would have to reveal himself to me and communicate with me for me to believe. However, I think I would make the same rationalization I made the first time I watched Moon. I would believe that there is a higher probability that I am delusional than having a conversation with God.
What about something experienced by many people at once that cannot be explained by science, like the Miracle of the Sun? Even then, it seems more probable that it would be a Black Swan-like event, something we have just never seen before and will understand eventually.
This disappoints me because I don't want to close myself off from changing my mind on a position.
