After the debate in The Contrafiction and Christ, something struck me: I lacked solid support for some of my premises. As I argued that a great problem with the Bible and Christian doctrine is that it invites so many interpretations, I became aware that I don’t know why that is a problem. I am going to give a preliminary argument for epistemic parsimony that I worked out while writing this, and then I am hoping ya’ll will jump in and give some better ones. Please keep your answers parsimonious.
Premises:
- Parsimonious explanations are more easily used by the human mind. In other words, they allow a closer match between our ability to perceive reality and reality itself (Potentially human perceivable reality).
- Parsimonious explanations make clearer predictions and are easier to falsify.
- Parsimonious explanations prevent a falsehood from being believed to the elimination of a true premise. In other words, I don’t believe what I haven’t discovered and only believe what has been discovered, so I don’t believe a falsehood that prevents me from looking for or concluding something that may be the truth (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/simplicity3.pdf).
- If parsimonious explanations are easier to cognize, then they allow for a truer human understanding. If a theory is difficult to cognize, or impossible to cognize effectively, then a person is more likely to believe or assert something equivocally—and thus he is more likely to have a false belief or spread a false belief. He is unable to truly assert or deny to himself a theory because he cannot cognize it effectively.
- If a person doesn’t have a good reason—a reason that that person understands (cognizes completely or effectively) and is able to see the limits of and defining context—then they should not believe what they believe.
- A person who doesn’t have solid reasons for a belief is more likely to be wrong than correct. Without contextual, factual reasons for a believe, a person faces that their explanation (believed on the basis of reasons they don’t understand) is one out of an infinity of an explanations, where, obviously, the infinity is more likely than the one. Parsimonious explanations allow a person to provide a limited context to continually narrow the realm of probability that they are correct or incorrect.
In Short:
If an idea is parsimonious, it is easier to cognize, which makes it easier to assert or deny. If it is easier to assert or deny, then it aids in reducing (hence, increasing the probability of alternate options) or increasing the probability of an options (hence, decreasing the probability of alternate options). If an idea is more probable, then, analytically, it is more likely to be true. If an idea is parsimonious it is more likely to be true.
Aside Concerning The Contrafiction and Christ:
Believing in a god, without an empirical justification for god and especially given the complete lack of parsimony, means leaving context and accepting that it is infinitely more likely that you are wrong about your belief than you are correct. Parsimonious explanations, like science and philosophy strives for, lock down probability into the context of the apparent, and allows belief to be justifiable or falsifiable—or at least more or less probable—within that context of the necessarily, limited, apparent world. Faith, in general, however, reaches outside the context of the apparent and attempts to grasp limited options out of infinity, facing infinity of alternate explanations.
I’m very interested in these ideas, but I had trouble with one line. And can you rephrase the aside? Thanks.
What is this supposed to say?
“increasing the probability of an options”
increasing the probability of any options?
increasing the probability of an opinion?
Wow, beginning with premises, I like that! I must say, five is epistemologically brutal (I wonder if it grants one the ability to believe in what you call a ‘mind’ in #1? speculative physics? strong theory? consciousness?).
Appeal to parsimony…interesting approach. Would you say this is unique to the appeal to Occam’s (Ockham’s) razor?
I look forward to others teasing out clarity on a lot of these terms and phrases because either I am unfamiliar with their philosophical application or they are not strictly defined (parsimonious, cognize, ‘truer human understanding’, ‘see the limits of and defining context’, and ‘probable’) and until I learn how to interpret them, I am unsure how exactly to interpret your premises.
*String Theory.
Brandon:
It should have read: “increasing the probability of an option (singular not plural)”. However, it probably would have read better if I had said: “increasing the probability that there is a good match between the idea and the potentially human perceivable world”.
Rephrase:
There is a distinct difference between saying, (1)”there is a god and he is such and such” and saying, (2)”4 in a 1000 homes in the US were robbed on the night of 5/7/2011″ or (3) “There are monkeys in mexico and they are brown” or a (4)”such and such molecule at this time and in this condition has certain movements”.
All of the later 2,3 and 4 are verifiable, and, given that it is at least possible to search all of mexico to discover whether there is indeed a monkey, or to have a clear look at such a molecule and never find those movements, you could falsify 3 and 4. This allows you to narrow down the odds of being right or wrong by defining parameters that are well with in our observable range.
For 2 we can say that that has been the ratio of robberies for the last 20 years on that day, or the law enforcement data-base recorded that many robberies that night. That makes it more probable within the context of prior conditions and predictable regularity. 3 and 4 narrow down the possibilities in the same way by providing the context of a national boundaries, number of recorded monkeys that are brown and how many monkeys have been observed in Mexico or that region of Mexico. 4 is limited by regularity of past observances under certain conditions and theoretical definitions so the probability is pretty high if they have seen that molecule move that way a 1000 times that it will continue to move that way under the exact same circumstances.
However, believe in a non-sensible entity, like god, has no standard of observation or limitation. He can never be discovered or falsified. There is not context. Even if you met a great being, you would not know whether it was god or wether it was an angel or an alien or a robot or a hallucination. If a god or gods exist, they exist in an infinity of space, time and potential dimensions. Faith is simply stating that their is the possibility or a certainty of such a thing as a god or gods that have such and such characters, and then hoping that your version is the right one out of innumerable possibilities.
Say that we knew there was such a thing as a god and say that we knew that this god could only have 10,000 combinations of attributes. But we did not know which character he was. Given that constraint, if you believe in one of those combinations of characters traits, you only have .0001% chance of getting the right god and 9,999% chance of getting the wrong one. However, there is no sense in which we have such constraints when talking about a god or gods. There is an infinity of attributes that could be in combination or in singular in a god, and a god/gods might not exist at all.
Sorry the paraphrase is longer than the aside. I hope this clarifies.
Nick:
First, yeah, me too: I love to keep premises up front. It makes it so much easier to see if you have problems in your reasoning and to let others point it problems if you can’t. Flowery language just gives the impression of meaning and many times obscures bad reasoning. There’s this proverb from Proverbs of Bible that says, “The more the words, the less the meaning”. I’ve held that as a personal maxim. I have failed many times, though.
Just to Clarify: I’m not appealing to Ockham’s Razor, here; I’m trying to establish it. In our debate, I appealed to parsimony and simplicity as if it were a given. I wasn’t happy with my assumption, so I wanted to have a follow up discussion.
Terms: Please feel free to point out any specifics where I fell prey to ambiguity or vagueness in my terms, but as far as I can tell they match up pretty well with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy definitions and even Webster’s dictionary. “see the limits of” and “context” might be a little vague, but they need not be specific—and it may be a strength that they are vague. Context can mean anything from a cardboard box or a room to a paradigm. “Truer human understanding,” well, that may be vague. But, what I mean by that is a better match between the intentional representation and the potentially human perceivable world.
Have you read Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief and are you familiar with Richard Swinburne’s Fine Tuning argument. For instance, the latter uses empirical justification and the principle of parsimony, to argue that it is rational to believe in God. I am not siding with either of the two philosophers mentioned, just that they would have, or at least it seems they would have, responses to your argument. However, I am not sure exactly what you are arguing. Perhaps a simple thesis sentence for my simple brain lol.
TD:
No I haven’t. Actually, I just read about the Fine Tuning Argument because of your response. It’s interesting but I don’t think it can hold any water. But, then again, it may just have a skeletal view of it. It sounds like a varient of the Watchmaker argument. But instead of using biological entities, it’s using physics and astronomy. If I get it right, it’s saying there are necessary conditions that would have resulted in our universe being completely different and life as we know it never arising, so something so “fine tuned” requires a tuner (god) or at least makes it rational to believe in that tuner. And, the parsimonious part would be that it is simple and only has one assumption: GOD.
It’s like walking into your basement and finding fungus that only grows and moist, dark conditions with the poop of a Nebraska rat, which it needs to feed on, and saying, “this requires so many unique conditions for life—high moister, dark and the poop of a nebraska rat—and I live in Nebraska and it’s dry and somehow out of all the possibilities that could have happened—no rat, a dead cat, a different fungus a not leaky pipe—I had this one. This gives me a rational reason to believe in providence.” It’s a post hoc argument. It’s after the fact. You could say that of any situation that happend because any situation that arises is going to have necessary conditions for its existence, and without those, there could be no existence in that form. Everything, no matter how it exist, is going to be the same way.
And, as for parsimony, all things being equal between two explanations, then the one that is simplest is probably best—it has the fewest assumptions. However, I would correct this a little: the one that has the lowest ratio of assumptions to valid empirical or rational claims should be accepted of two competing explanations, all thing being equal. However, all things being equal, assuming god as the “fine tuner” is 100% assumption still. It’s a 100% assumption as a foundation for a 100% assumption.
Thesis:
If I said “what I am thinking about?” (assume you don’t have ESP), and I am giving no signals to what I am thinking and you don’t know me, you could come up with lots of different ideas of things I could be thinking about. I could be thinking about the blue signs, strippers, my dog, my cat, Jesus, molecules, Hegel, coffee, the booger in my nose, how I am hungry, the library, peaches, trees, differential equations, my mom, murder, power cords, mulch, Dantes Inferno, highlighters, pepsi machines, Oligodendrocytes, my high school sweetheart or how pretty the color pink is. It is almost infinite and that is just in the context of a one person. Picking any one of those options leaves me with little chance of being right and infinite possibilities of being wrong. However, if I asked that same question, but said I am thinking either about Jesus, Hegel, strippers, being hungry or coffee; then, You have more of a chance of getting my question right. If I said I am thinking either about strippers or Jesus, then you have a better chance of getting my question right.
What I am saying about a metaphysical god or gods is that you are close to the first conditions where I gave you no details. I am arguing that when you choose an option like god, you are infinitely more likely to be wrong than correct like the first option. When I talked about science, I was saying that it is closer to the second and third conditions. It is based in a world that has limited options so it gives you a better likelihood of being correct and allows you eliminate options, so you can reduce the possibility of choosing wrong next time. In religion, you have infinite options; in science, you have options that are limited by the apriori conditions for experience, like regularity, extension and causation; and you have things like closed systems, observed regularity, empirical definition and logical forms that allow you limit the options still further. In religion you have no frame of reference to limit possibility; in science you have several frames of reference to limit possibility.
Just to be clear
: the above post is Thesis for the aside, not the whole post.
Joel:
Thanks for the clarification. I will check the SEP for further clarification and (if life permits) return with any philosophically interesting thoughts (if I stumble upon any).
Andrew,
Thanks for mentioning Swinburne. I only know of his thought experiment on “Split Brains”. Would love to hear your input on it his theory there (as applied to God’s existence; as it is my understanding its how he justified it). I assume his argument “The Existence of God” is in his book, “Is there a God?” Which I would like to read sometime…..whenever I graduate….”if” I ever graduate…🙂
Swinburne, it seems, would have to reject Paley (perhaps he does, I haven’t read much of his work). Paley wrote before Darwin’s On the Origins of Species and has views more similar to ID advocate Michael Behe* viz. irreducible complexity. Swinburne seems to be able to conceptualize and accept evolution but allows theism to be incorporated. I would think Swinburne’s Fine Tuning Argument is more analogous to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s. But of course I need to review the literature before I make that claim.
*Behe writes his books (Darwin’s Black Box and The Edge of Evolution) with Paley in mind.
I should probably note that I think Swinburne and Chardin fail to conceptualize evolution properly. But I didn’t want to dwell on that issue.
Sorry. I should have also noted that all of the people mentioned fail to conceptualize evolution properly (while understanding that Paley was writing before Darwin).
Andrew,
Oh! Thanks! I will check out that book if you think it fuller, richer. I haven’t read much of him, I know little other than, what I assume, was his split brain theory was to prove mental substance exists but only to further prove God’s existence. I could be wrong as I have not read his works. And my assigment was not supposed to treat that issue. But I thought it was interesting as I think his split brain theory could prove mental substance exists, but not in the sense that it could prove afterlife, or God’s existence. I’ve pondered this, I want to read more on it. BUT I have so much other reading that is required of me now. I would like to read this outside of my classes and revisit the issue, once of course, I have more reading under my belt to support my argument. Thank you for the reference to his works! 🙂
Andrew Brenner:
You say:
.
This is exactly what we discussed in The Contrafiction and Christ. One of the reasons that Christianity is in serious trouble is that it would be hard to pin down any one attribute of God that is agreed upon. What constitutes a god? What constitutes the God? Even among the major groups of protestantism that would be terribly difficult.
You say:
.
Even if this just Christianity as a whole were not confused, I dont think God is the kind of thing you can make predictions about. What would it look like for to have created? What would it look like for him even to exist? He isn’t the kind of thing you can even plug into a probability. Trying to explain the problems I may have been misleading. I explained him within probability to show in accessible terms how it isn’t even the kind of thing we can talk about and actually mean anything. However, when talking about God, you don’t have anything to plug in. To ask what the probability of being right about a version of god or to ask what the probability is of him not existing in infinity would make no sense. To be God is to be a non-sensible entity; to make it otherwise, it would make him sensible and predictable and would make him just another being, albiet a really powerful being.
You say:
Again, this is not the kind of thing you can plug into a probability. And the reason this sounds like the Watch Maker is that it works back from what it declares to its necessary conditions and tries to say that they say something about what the necessary conditions say about the status of God. To talk about fine-tuning is to again get into the problem of how, given our existence, it could be otherwise. Yes, the universe is fine-tuned, and without it being that way it is unlikely we would be as we are; however, that means nothing. The universe could have produced another kind of life, no life, a different kind of physics, no sensible physics, and an infinity of other options in-between and beyond. There is no contrast class. We can’t talk about what it means not to be fine-tuned.
It is useless to postulate “fine tuning”: it is a word that only has the appearance of meaning and actually none at all.
Joel,
When Andrew (and Swinburne) provides the following probability function Pr( | ), he does not use it as a function over frequency of outcomes or propensity of observing some phenomena. Instead, the way in which Andrew is using it involves epistemic probabilities (or, more commonly, subjective probabilities). In other words, given the available and relevant evidence, what is our degree of belief, measured in standard probabilistic ways, i.e., for every truth-functional sentence, S, our degree of belief, B, in that sentence, BS, must be 0≤ BS≤1. (Similarly, our degree of belief in the negation of the sentence, ~S, = 1 – BS.)
So, if Andrew’s degree of belief in God’s existence, G, is .80, then his degree of belief in God’s non-existence, ~G, is .20 (1 – .80 = .20). And we may represent them with the probability functions Pr(G) = .80 and Pr(~G) = .20.
If you would like to know more, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_probability
Thanks Aaron.
You said:
“One of the reasons that Christianity is in serious trouble is that it would be hard to pin down any one attribute of God that is agreed upon. What constitutes a god? What constitutes the God?”
Arguments about the nature of the Judeo-Christian God have been going on for millennia and I see no reasons why we should abandon belief in God because there are arguments about his true nature. By this logic it seems I should stop watching football because there are too many people who argue about which is the best team. Andrew wants a specific God that we can talk about in order to have correct assumptions and premises. I don’t see a problem with his request.
From your second paragraph you seem to suggest that if God does exist, evidence must be presented. I believe Swinburne does a good job providing evidence that the existence of God might be highly probable. Whether I am convinced or not is irrelevant. Further, you seem to believe also that if God exists, he will be some “superhuman like entity” and will exist among us quite casually. Paul Moser would respond that Divine elusiveness is not only important but essential. He gives many possible reasons for this including value for personal volitional fellowship with God and to remove human complacency towards God. Again, whether I am convinced of his arguments is irrelevant.
You said in your last paragraph:
“And the reason this sounds like the Watch Maker is that it works back from what it declares to its necessary conditions and tries to say that they say something about what the necessary conditions say about the status of God.”
I am confused by what you mean exactly. Are you critical of teleological arguments? Further, closer examinations of both arguments will show you why Paley and Swinburne’s arguments are not supportive of each other (but I will admit there may be some degree of similarity).
You said:
“Yes, the universe is fine-tuned, and without it being that way it is unlikely we would be as we are; however, that means nothing.”
I am unconvinced by your assertion. If you are going to argue against Swinburne you have to provide counter evidence to his “Fine Tuning” argument. Perhaps when you do I will be more convinced.
note: I am not endorsing Swinburne’s arguments but I don’t think you are properly criticizing it.
I see a lot of claims but no evidence or sources to back them up. This so-called support for your premises is in need of extensive argumentative support, of which you offer none. Ironically, for wanting an argument that emphasizes parsimony, you instead create an undifferentiated muddle of ill-defined concepts and naïve philosophical gestures.
To begin with, what do you mean by ‘parsimonious’? Let’s take it to be frugality in the concepts used in an explanation. With regards to (1) I take it that you imagine parsimonious explanations somehow allow for a more accurate perception of reality. It seems implicit in that statement, or in at least my first reading of it, that our explanations somehow shape reality or influence our perceptual abilities; prima facie, that is absurd. Or, rather, perhaps you mean that parsimonious explanations provide some sort of isomorphic mapping between our intentional states and the external world. But I doubt this, intentional states are notoriously difficult to formalize. With regards to (3), we needn’t only form doxastic attitudes about what has been verified as fact. We may conjecture all we like, however to claim hold of knowledge of some statement, we had better be justified in our belief, and that statement should turn out to be a fact. With regards to (4), “If parsimonious explanations are easier to cognize, then they allow for a truer human understanding”, this is simply false. A Euclidean model of space-time is conceptually simple and intuitive, but it does not allow for a “truer” understanding of space-time in general. If by (5) you mean a belief is rational for a person to hold only if they have a reason to hold it, then I might agree. Finally, but not less bogus, in (6) you claim that a person without solid reasons for a belief is more likely to be wrong than correct. I take it that by ‘solid reasons for a belief’ you mean a justified belief. However, while a justified belief maybe necessary and sufficient for knowledge, it has nothing to do with the content of the belief being true or false. If you are a brain in a vat, then you may have solid reasons for every one of your beliefs, but every one of your beliefs is wrong, or false. Furthermore, any explanation for an event may be over-determined, and so I agree that not having evidence for any one of those explanations makes accepting the explanation a trivial matter. However, even if an explanation that is backed by evidence is the most conceptually simple, or parsimonious, it does not follow that it is the best explanation. In order to be the best, it should also have more explanatory power than any other explanation (see Jonathan Vogel in “Cartesian Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation”). By skipping anything your post, I do not mean to implicitly endorse it.
I don’t see how you’ve argued for any kind of “epistemic parsimony”. At best you have talked about some kind of ‘doxastic parsimony’. In closing, here is a parsimonious explanation of god: god is an omnibenevolent being who has sufficient reason for everything it does. Furthermore, if this being’s existence is a necessary truth, then one may argue that no empirical verification is required to see that truth.
I wrote the following in haste,
“I take it that by ‘solid reasons for a belief’ you mean a justified belief. However, while a justified belief maybe necessary and sufficient for knowledge, it has nothing to do with the content of the belief being true or false. If you are a brain in a vat, then you may have solid reasons for every one of your beliefs, but every one of your beliefs is wrong, or false.”
I should not have said that justified beliefs have nothing to do with the veracity of the content of the belief. To be sure, setting any sort of reliabilism aside, the quality of the evidence supporting a belief may give it more veridical momentum. However, it is quite common to have justified beliefs that are false.
“However, while a justified belief maybe necessary and sufficient for knowledge, it has nothing to do with the content of the belief being true or false.”
I should clarify that a justified belief is not by itself necessary and sufficient for knowledge, but only taken in conjunction with other criteria.
TD:
You say:
No, this is not what I am saying. I am saying that we should stop arguing over a game where we don’t know the rules, have never seen the game and don’t know what constitutes a player, while staring into a blank tv screen believing it says something about the game.
Teleology:
No, I don’t have problem with the teleological argument. I think in some cases it is necessary for an explanatory paradigm, like evolution. Some philosophers have done a great job redeeming it. There is a difference between saying that a subsistance conditions allows for teleology in biology and saying that because there is a fundamental, necessary order that if it changed slightly we wouldn’t be—which will always be the case no matter what condition you are in, necessarily. This will always be the case. We will always have necessary conditions. To say that because we have necessary conditions that if one were changed, we wouldn’t be the way we are is necessarily true. To infer from that necessity that there is a god, is absurd.
However, I don’t know these argument that well, I am simply arguing based off a preliminary understanding and what you tell me. So I could be arguing against a straw-man. Please feel free to argue where that is the case. If you feel I am misrepresenting these arguments, please show me the proper form, as you know it. And, as I understand his argument he tries to make God probable, and God would necessarily defy being put into a probability. I think this is an appropriate counter to his argument.
Devine Illusiveness:
Wow, yeah, that may work within the context of doctrine, but because God might have reason to be mysterious, is no reason to believe in God. Or even to make the arguments for the existence of God more probable.
The reasons why a great burden of proof is necessary for Christianity: If religion didn’t influence politics and everyday life, then believing about something simply out of faith, emotion, big books and/or clever wordplay is not a problem. However, given that we live in a democracy, this is a serious problem. Faith influences politics and daily life and not only because of expectancy but also because it makes belief based on appeals to authority and helps create serious fuzzy thinking. Now within this context, this problem, faith needs to NOT be given the benefit of the doubt. It is a big claim. It needs to have strong evidence, clear evidence, especially since it has such social power.
We should give up belief in a god after thousands of years of argument because it leads to claims which cannot be verified, and upon these claims that cannot be verified comes political and social change. It doesn’t seem like a good foundation, even partial foundation, for us to head into the future. For such a contagious religion, there should be powerful proof. This is not a small matter. Certainty by faith is dangerous. A habit of making decisions by faith is dangerous. Especially certainty in such an elaborate structure of authority, literature and doctrine.
Because of the influence of Christianity on the world and America, specifically, it necessary motivates a higher level of required proof. It can’t be a matter of simply making faith more rational or probable.
Ted:
I will get back to you. I wrote this a while ago, and didn’t post it. So, when I get a little time, I will read your response and respond.
Andrew Brenner:
When we talk about God, we don’t know what his compassion would look like, his malevolence would look like or what it would look like if he intervened. God would have the eternal view, so “his ways are higher than our ways”. We have no values to plug in because we don’t know what form the kind of traits you speak of would take.
And what I meant by Gods predictability nullifying his power is that if God were the kind of thing we could understand, if he were the kind of thing we could predict based on what we know of his nature, then he wouldn’t be infinite. I’m sure that if God spoke every Tuesday we could predict that he will speak next Tuesday; however, we could not predict from knowledge of his nature what he was going to say, or whether he would continue to keep the form he has at this time. We could never know an infinit God.
When you talk of Jones exactly who are you referring to as the reliable speaker?
Ted:
First, wow, I laughed so hard when I read this line: “By skipping anything your post, I do not mean to implicitly endorse it.” . This statement is one most flagrant expressions of megalomania I have ever read. You have a very high estimation of yourself. I will be careful that I don’t feel I have the acceptance of my premisses when you don’t address them. The “Ted Stamp” is safe.
I don’t believe you read me well or have read the follow statements. But, I will still attempt to answer you because I think that you demonstrate something that I didn’t explicate well. When is say that this is epistemic parsimony, I am saying this because logically, analytically, we only have access to the human perceivable world. And, we necessarily have potential access to the human perceivable world. Parsimony: All things being equal in the human perceivable world the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually the best when confronted with two opposing explanations. This is the case because it allows us to create a better fit between us (our language) and the external human perceivable world. When there are fewer assumptions, it is easier to falsify or verify in the human perceivable world necessarily because it has more concrete predictions. Also, look at 3 again. When we demand fewer assumptions for a belief or explanatory paradigm, we don’t assume the facts and wait for their evidence so the truth of the premises are more probable. Necessarily, clearer predictions, and waiting for evidence for a premis makes it more likely that we are correct when we test our predictions and wait for proof. We have access to our world. And, we can make claims about our accessible world that are not simply belief. They are claims based on the fact of the regularity we observe. In this case, we necessarily have access to the world and making sure the claims we make have been proved in our world make us more likely to get at the world the way that it is.
And, it may be true that we’re a brain in a vat, but that doesn’t matter. If I make a claim about the occurrence of an occurrence within the rules of my brain in the vat I can be correct. Claiming anything else would be to talk about the noumenal, necessarily imperceivable reality to that brain in a vat. It is the vat-brain’s non-sensible reality—the one it can never have access to. But, it does have access to its vat world.
Joel,
I would be more careful in the future before calling another poster a ‘megalomaniac.’ Ted criticized your argument, not you. Frankly, I agree with his assessment.
Joel,
Despite the fact that I cannot understand your response to my discussion of your original post, I look forward to seeing your arguments take shape. I am, after all, only in the beginnings of a long course of education in philosophy.
In addition, I wrote my response in haste, and so when I wrote, “By skipping anything your post, I do not mean to implicitly endorse it”, I think I may have made myself misunderstood. I certainly do not think my endorsement of any claim adds to the cogency of that claim. I only meant to convey that I did not agree with anything you said that I skipped over in my response and that did not respond to it because I failed to see the cogency of those claims. But, admittedly, that may be a fault of mine, and perhaps such a comment is irrelevant to the discussion.
Edgar, I have no problem with his assessment of my argument. I like that he actually attempted to assess it and argue against it. Arguments like Ted’s help me to gauge the clarity and truth of my argument. And I have seen several flaws in my argument’s clarity and truth already. But, I did not call him a megalomanic. I said his statement had that quality. Please forgive me Edgar (and Ted); the philosopher in me said leave the statement alone, but the psychology bent in me said, “pounce”. It was easy prey. But thanks Edgar for your admonition.
And, Edgar, if you agree with Ted, and there are some reasons I believe you should—on certain parts—please feel free to argue them. I am at best falible and am writing because I enjoy a community of people sharpening each other’s insights.But your agreement means nothing; your argument does. But as it stands, you have not offered an argument against my premises, asked for clarification or offered an alternate or better argument. Why do you agree? Where are my philosophical flaws? Please attack my premises. I will appreciate it, as I appreciated it when Ted did it.
I will again offer my opening statements:
Edgar, also, I think I should point out the relevance of pointing out statements like the one I said was an expression of megalomania. Statements like that have psychological affects on the reader. They give the post a position of authority that otherwise it wouldn’t have. It gives the position a power that is not based solely on the validity, cogency or the relevance of the premises. Little sentences and phrases like that are the subtle ways that politicians and persuasive people give their speeches force. By Ted saying something that should be implied, and using words like “endorse”, which have an a position of power implied in their meaning, it is using an reflexive appeal to authority. The same thing you did when you said you agreed with his arguments. It is irrelevant and implies that somehow your agreement or approval gives relevance or implies validity or invalidity to a statement. That is simply irrelevant; though it is psychological persuasive.
Joel:
How is Edgar’s agreement with Ted that your argument lacks clarity a “reflexive appeal to authority”? Moreover, why should Edgar bother to rehash Ted’s argument for your sake when all he has said is that he shares Ted’s critique? While you criticize both Ted and Edgar for an allegedly tacit and psychological barb, you overlook and attempt to explain away the fact that you introduced what many have taken to be an ad hominem attack. While I appreciate your verve for discussion (and I am sure others do as well) it does seem as though in this instance your frustration got the better of you. I too share Ted’s assessment of your argument, and I say so without any appeal to authority whatsoever.
You said:
“No, this is not what I am saying. I am saying that we should stop arguing over a game where we don’t know the rules, have never seen the game and don’t know what constitutes a player, while staring into a blank tv screen believing it says something about the game.”
Andrew cleared this issue up so I won’t dwell on it. There are certainly core attribute that all followers of the Judeo-Christian God agree upon. Further, by a process of negation we can develop propositions for what ‘x’ may be (Maimonides ship metaphor would be a good example here).
I’m not entirely clear on what you are suggesting in your section on Teleology. But, in regards to teleology being useful as you say, “an evolutionary paradigm,” I imagine that you mean it is only useful to a degree. For instance, using a teleological perspective to see why the respiratory system evolved (Francisco Ayala suggests this).
You said:
“However, I don’t know these argument that well, I am simply arguing based off a preliminary understanding and what you tell me. So I could be arguing against a straw-man. Please feel free to argue where that is the case.”
First, I can assure you I am not straw-man but I will admit I am probably more elementary in my philosophical skills than most people on this blog. That said, the literature for these arguments is not hard to find on the internet or at your local bookstore. I noticed that Aaron and Andrew posted links for you to utilize.
You said:
“We should give up belief in a god after thousands of years of argument because it leads to claims which cannot be verified, and upon these claims that cannot be verified comes political and social change.”
Are we assuming political and social change is a bad thing? I would certainly disagree with this assumption. I am suspicious of this correlation that social and political change occurs as belief unable to be verifiable, increases. Or is this not what you are suggesting? Further, it seems that religion has had to adapt to communities where social and political change was already occurring due to other external factors. For instance, the agricultural revolution occurred and had nothing to do with religion, however, religious epistemology adapted to the drastically changing political and social infrastructure.
Everyone:
I find myself to be a little frustrated with some of your post. When we are arguing, We are arguing. Not other philosophers. I don’t want to argue with them; I want to argue with you. There is obviously much all of us don’t know. However, when we argue we sharpen our minds. Name dropping and book dropping doesn’t help anyone. And it definitely doesn’t help you see the limits of your own knowledge. Reference is fine, and giving credit where credit is due is professional, but please if you mention someone’s argument, please argue their argument and take responsibility for it as your own.
It is tempting take recourse to other arguments, and simply reference them by name. However, when we discuss things in our own language, making another’s argument our own, and adding to them, we come face to face with what we don’t know, where we need to improve and what we really know.
That is difficult, but it is necessary. Please do not throw half formed, regurgitated ideas that someone else fed you, and you have not made your own, into these arguments. Please, when responding to these blog entries, be bold enough to take a chance with having a bad or good argument—that is your own.
If we write an argument and you can not clarify in every day terms or examples, then you probably don’t know what you are arguing. Please stretch yourself; that’s what I am trying to do. It is quite embarrassing when I expose the weakness of my ideas and thoughts and that trust is not reciprocated. Please don’t hide behind an argument: Make one.
That being said. Some of you have really challenged me in clarity of writing, clarity of thought and the rightness of some of my premises. And many of you have dropped links to give background on arguments that you put out there as you own. That is great argumentation and being a facilitator to learning. And, a special thanks to Nick for seeing that I was missing something fundamental to the argument. That was sharp and very nice.
TD:
I don’t think Andrew adequately cleared up that issue. The things that he speaks of are not predictable things in any real sense. Please give me an example, any one give me an example, of how we can say anything about God using the criteria mentioned. Show me, in your words through straight forward example how this can be the case. Unfortunately, I don’t understand formal modal logic well. I agree there a many core tenants of faith. It is what I argued in the beginning comments of The Contrafiction and Christ . However, there is nothing about those ideas that gives you anything by which it was reasonable to assume God, and definitely not without strong counter examples.
Teleology:
Please hit “control F” for a PC and “Command F” for a Mac and type “fungus”. In the argument I talk about this in example form. This example is all I mean.
Politics:
All I am saying is that religion strongly influences people’s expectancies, world views and voting. And, if this is the case, and it is, then with such a strong and current influence on the beliefs, intentions and actions of people, religion should not be given the benefit of the doubt. It should be something that it scrutinized, and attacked until it is able to give the burden of proof that is required. With religion, we should not say, a rational person could have a religious belief; we should say that a rational person should have religious belief. If it cannot give up evidence as to why we should believe rather than could believe and still be rational, then we should scrap the entire religious project. It has too much of an influence on people’s minds and actions and peoples politics, to be given so much play room. It isn’t that it is wrong, necessarily. It is that given that much of religion (especially Christianity) has strong dictates about how to conduct your personal life and political life, and subjects you to certain religious authority that further influences you and makes demands on you, and that there are such a large number of politically inspired religious individuals, congregations and denominations—representing millions of people just in America—that is should have a higher standard and be subjected to a higher level of verification. It is very dangerous to have such an a-rational or irrational force swaying political policy. Because of its potential effects and great strength numbers and organization, it posses a fundamental problem for a democratic society.
All I am saying here is consider George W. Bush, Abortion, and gay rights. These alone show good examples of the significant affects and effects of religion on the course of our personal rights and political course. The debates are bogged down, not by rational debate, but by dogmatic collective monologue. Doctrines that have such influence should motivate great scrutiny and have a lower threshold for being considered irrelevant or plain wrong. When we debate Christianity or religion in general, it seems like we are playing with kid-gloves philosophically and allowing ourself to get caught up in word games. That’s all I am saying.
Joel,
Perhaps it is just my view, but it certainly seems that philosophical dialogue takes place within a large context that includes the thoughts and ideas of an entire community of thinkers, both past and present. If it were unacceptable to stand on the shoulders of “philosophical giants”, we would be missing out on an opportunity to try and push the “intellectual frontier line” out a little farther. Moreover, we would find ourselves reinventing the wheel and stepping into philosophical traps that have been illuminated by the efforts of current and past thinkers. All of that being said, I also should note that most people in this post, including the author, could be charged with “name dropping”, “book dropping”, or throwing “half formed, regurgitated ideas that someone else fed you” around. Is that so bad? I don’t think it always is; such is often done for brevity in conversation. What is bad, within the scope of discussion, is someone not providing clarification or defense of an idea when asked.
I also would like to add that I do not agree with your assessment of agreement. You said, “your agreement means nothing.” However, agreement or disagreement by an interlocutor does offer *some* prima facie evidence for or against a claim made. People do it all of the time, wouldn’t you agree? To make the agreement or disagreement more substantial, however, it is always to follow-up with the question, “Why?”
To make the agreement or disagreement more substantial, however, it is always *important* to follow-up with the question, “Why?”
Ted:
You are right there is a context in which dialogue takes place, and that context is important. There are key terms that are used and certain things taken for granted. And, throwing half from ideas out their is sometimes necessary. However there is a difference between taking credit for that idea and just regurgitating it as the other philosophers.
For example, If I say, “Spinoza’s argument concludes that XYZ, and I am not endorsing him, but he does address this issue well. And this shows your argument is flawed”.There is something seriously wrong with this, prima facia. On a deeper level you have not argued anything; you have made a statement about what another arguer says. However, if you said, “Spinoza’s states in his argument against Z that if R then Y, if Y then P, if P then X, if X then Z, and concludes with not R so not Z”. I could respond and say the argument is seriously flawed, and say his conclusion doesn’t follow deductively. It is the fallacy of affirming the consequent. However, I cannot do that with the just the name of some obscure, or not obscure, Christian author. There is simply too much background with those people to state their name. It bogs down discussion. Not to mention it is simply an appeal to authority.
Also, I think sometimes it has to do with the brevity of discussion but many times it is simple fear that they don’t know the argument well enough to argue it. No one can tell who is who, so it is best to simply argue arguments that we know. Because if we think we know them and argue them, we discover they are half formed or strong. Honestly, you can’t push the frontiers of philosophy without arguing uncertain claims. Most of the books and claims that have been presented in this discussion have been very very uncertain claims. You cannot argue an uncertain claim with an uncertain claim. At least, it’s not a good argument.
And, no, an authors claim of agreement means nothing. Well, unless he is a specialist in that area and his expertise trumps yours in that area. But, none of us are. You may agree because they are persuasive, or you understand one and not the other, or you have a background belief that is similar to arguer. There is something prima facia wrong with agreement counting as a prima facia. A person’s agreement. People agree with things all the time that are simply not true. That is why arguments without personal, psychologically persuasive belief assertions are necessary. When you say, ” I agree with him” you are saying his argument has the force of numbers, me and him, against your argument. Do you see how that doesn’t work?. This is similar to the bandwagon fallacy.
Joel, in your second paragraph I think you mean denying the antecedent, which is a logical fallacy as well.
Also, I said that after an agreement or lack of, to make the agreement or disagreement more substantial it is always *important* to follow-up with the question, “Why?” However, thinking of Socratic dialogues I would have to change the “always”. When Socrates is pressing his interlocutor(s) he often establishes an agreement of certain premises with little argument. However, once unanimity is lost, more substantial dialogue begins.
As for the lesser known philosophers and their arguments, here is a much better source than Wikipedia, which you may already know about:
http://plato.stanford.edu/
Sorry, that “Thanks” was for Aaron. Not Nick. Though, Nick, I am thankful that you gave such great debate in my last blog post.
Joel said:
I believe there is much to be said for referencing the work of those who have gone before us and have, in many cases, built the framework for the discussions we have on a daily basis. Including the names and works of these authors demonstrates the genealogy of our ideas and the history of the already robust conversations that have taken place across decades. At times your posts, like the above quote demonstrates, give the impression that you would like to wholly dismiss any argument that has come before and does not take place on this message board. While clearing away past confusions and clarifying age-old arguments can be beneficial, I doubt many of us have the time to concisely present the arguments of other philosophers like Paley, Frankfurt, Parfit, Pereboom, etc. and so it is often much easier to provide a few sentences on why the ideas of the author in question are pertinent or resolve issues being brought up in the discussion, and give the name of the works in which these problems are addressed. I do not see this as doing the dialogue any disservice, or even hiding behind an argument. It demonstrates that many of these ideas have already been discussed, and that geniunely important information can be found elsewhere and need not be posted on this message board to constitute a valid argument.
Joel said earlier:
I believe this is why others have put forth the names and works of philosophers and theologians who have written extensively on these topics. This way, the burden does not fall upon the person referencing the material to present the arguments of other philosophers in full for you. Again, I do not think this is inappropriate in the least.
In clarification to the above, when I say “genuinely important information can be found elsewhere and need not be posted on this message board to constitute a valid argument” I mean to say that the past conversations (between various philosophers) need not be reproduced in a novel way for them to provide traction to the discussion on the board. I did not mean this sentence to sound as though people shouldn’t be posting on this board, since they should!
Also, if it is not clear in the above, I do believe that a slight bit of exposition as to how the ideas of a philosopher or specific philosophical essays/books inform the conversation should be included, and I do not think that such references amount to an appeal to authority.
Jared:
The references that are mentioned in here have not been the ones of the greats that have a long history and whose syllogisms can be named and quickly found and understood on wikipedia. They are authors who are hotly contested. And when these people who have dynamic, complex and highly suspect arguments are brought up, their argument should be shared. References are appreciated when it is a complex argument that others may not understand when you explicate or try to explain it. I appreciated all the links to other information. That is just being friendly.
Joel:
I agree that it is weak support to say, “there are plenty of books about this topic, go read them.” I would admit that one should not assume authors such as Vogel will be widely read. However, Paley, Plantinga, and Swinburne are widely considered as some of the more prominent writers on this topic. In this way I do not think it is at all inappropriate for someone to suggest that the best defender of Swinburne’s argument is Swinburne himself. But again, there is the caveat that some sort of exegesis be given, even if it is small, to clarify how mentioning the author/work informs the discussion. Classification as “one of the greats” seems irrelavant – they are widely-read specialists in this field and, as many people have pointed out, they pick up and attempt to address some of the same threads you question.
Similarly, as a previous poster pointed out, not all who reference Swinburne are affirming his position – they are merely pointing out that Swinburne and others have tackled this same issue. I believe this resolves the problem you have with “hotly contested” authors. Is Swinburne an apologetic? Yes. Does that makes his argument invalid prima facie? No.
I hesitate to post here. I do not want to be ‘pounced’ upon, but I read a paper recently which seems similar in approach to this post, but it deals with Metaphysics rather than Christianity. It’s called From Metaphysics to Mysticism. Check it out or don’t. It seems you are quite busy with comments on your recent posts.
Peace.
Thanks, Nick, I’ll check it out.
Good catch, Ted. I don’t know how I did that. And the Stanford site is one of my favorites. I live there during finals.
One of the problems with parsimony is that it has to hold to ‘all things being equal’ clauses, but this is impossible. No two things are ever equal, and there are always slight differences, to major difference. And a slight difference can expand, through deductive measures, to a greater difference.
There is another problem, and it is a logical problem. Take a conditional statement A–>B. Let us take A to be some theory. Let us take B to be a prediction from A, the theory. Now we find B to be the case. However, this does not allow us to assert that A is true, since ~A can be the case as well, since ~A carries the same prediction of B. ~A contains an infinity of different theories, and all have the same prediction. And these infinity of theories have their own negation that have the same prediction, and this goes on infinitely. Not only this, but If A is simple, then there are an infinity of other simple theories, with the same prediction, but different conceptual underpinnings. Thus, if we deal with probability, then we have an infinity of different theories with the exact same probability.
Take an example of a dye, as an extremely simple analogy. We have six sides, and each side has the same probability of 1/6. Thus, each side has the same probability. Thus, through parsimony, they are all equally likely to be true, and all things *are* equal. Side 1 is equal to side 2 through 6. We have no reason, even under parsimony, to choose one over the other, and are left with preference devoid of simplicity. Thus, we have no rational reason to pick one over the other, and this would hold with the conditional statement example that I gave. Thus, parsimony does help us choose among theories.
Another problem is that parsimony deals with the idea of what humans can fathom and understand. Reality in no has to comply with what we consider to be simple. Just because we might have to work with things that are simple, it does not follow that reality has to be simple. Parsimony, would also seem to imply a metaphysical assertion that reality is simple. We don’t seem, as far as I know, any way to falsify or verify this, without assuming it to begin with. Also, simplicity is an aesthetic choose. What is simple to one person, can be complex to another, and vice versa.
But let us go back to the conditional statement again (A–>B). With a truth table of a conditional statement, the antecedent can be false (A), and the consequent true (B), and the whole conditional statement would be true. Thus, even if we have a parsimonious theory (A), which gives us a true prediction (B), it does does not follow that the theory is true. However, the conditional statement would still be true, under a conditional statement truth table. Not only that, the antecedent and consequent could both be false, and yet the statement would be true.
Parsimony is a practical method of action and construction, and does not deal with what is true or false.
gondoliere:
I’m not entirely sure you are correct. You’ve heard the saying: “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don’t expect to see a zebra” (only goes for America). Well I think that this is a better paradigm for parsimony than what I wrote above. In this case, the parsimonious explanation for the sound is more likely to be correct, for it is far more likely to a horse or horses running behind you than Zebras. Parsimony in this case allows us to assert that one statement is more probable. It might not be deductive truth, but it does make it likely. In the same way that when I see the light turn on when I flick the switch, it’s likely there’s wires and electricity doing their work and not monkeys playing in the ceiling.
The problem is that your argument is relying on inductive argument, since you said “it might not be a deductive truth…”. However, your inductive argument does not escape anything I have said. Why? Well, we go back to the conditional statement A–>B. The truth table of the conditional statement shows that just because the consequent is true, which is “you hear hoofbeats behind you”, it could be Zebras are the true cause of the sound, which are ~A, instead of A, which is a Horse that are the true cause of the sound. You have no probability to decide one over the other, since both are consistent with the evidence, the consequent, and have the same experience to attest to them. What causes those sounds, from human experience? Zebras and Horses.
There is no probability involved, since both have the same probability. What you have going is some auxiliary hypothesis, and so you cannot know which one it is, until you look. However, your argument (the point of this blog) is dealing with things that we cannot check, and have to have a background metaphysical assumption that we are using.
You can act *as if* it were a horse, or you can act *as if* it were a zebra. However, in this case, I am using Zebra and Horse as metaphysical assumptions that have the consequent of what you saw or heard.
gondoliere:
Yes, things we cannot check, that isn’t the point of the blog. The point of the blog is, if I remember what I wrote, is that parsimonious explanations allow us to define parameters and define probability so that we can further define probability within that context. For instance, if I say that within this building, a building that has only ever had people in it, that the foot steps behind me are an elf, I am unlikely to be true. When I contrasted Christianity and science, I tried to show that science and parsimonious explanations allow us to define context within the realm of our experience, whereas religion doesn’t, and because of this inability to make one option more or less likely Christianity offers us no reason—something within the realm of our experience—to believe one option, like Jesus is God, is more or less likely to be true or even know what they mean by that statement.
So when I say if footsteps –> (person) or ~ (person), I am more likely to choose the correct answer do to defined context. A and ~A are not equally as likely because it isn’t just hoofbeats that determine my answer.
You can define a context, which is a model, and come up with a probability within that model. The only problem becomes, you are making parsimonious within that model. There are infinite models that can have the same parameters, yet completely different conceptual underpinnings to it, and all account for the same observable consequences. Thus, they all have the same probability. So the Christian model would be just as probable as the non-Christian model. You have no reason to pick one over another, since they all work within the same parameters and have the same probability. The only way to choose is because of your metaphysical assumptions that you are using, which can never be shown without assuming it to begin with. You have no better ground than the other one.
Religion works just as much within our experience as science, and both invoke things beyond our experience in order to account for our experience. They go beyond our expeirence with metaphysical assumptions. You have no logical reason for one over the other, and only have your metaphysical assumption that you hold to to choose one over the other. There are scientific models that might not be as simple as others, and there are religious models that might not be as simple as others.
Now going with your finial paragraph, we come to a problem. It might not be just hoofbeats that determine your answers, because you are making a theory laden observation to makes you choose one answer over another. Our observations are theory-laden, and science is especially theory-laden, as is the Christians explanations for what they observe. One gains no more ground than the other than metaphysical assumptions that they use to account for their experiences.
gondoliere
You are right in one way and wrong in another. All “Assumptions” are not created equal. There is a huge difference between science and religion. Science, at its base, depends on things that are preconditions for experience, like time, space, number, extension, causation and regularity. Without these we could not function as conscious, conceptual organisms to make observations or even make the most basic of plans. They are firmly planted in basic experience. Theories may get complex, but, fundamentally, they start with very basic elements of experience and build on that and extrapolate with those to greater complexity.
The assumptions with religion start with assumptions that are not as primary to experience. They are not necessary assumptions. If I were to deny all religious experience, I would be able to function as a person perfectly fine; if I were to eliminate the preconditions for my experience, like causation and regularity, I would not even bring food to my lips.
It could be that they are both terribly wrong to their core, but one is more built on more necessary assumptions. To call those assumptions—causation and regularity—is to not make sense anymore. At that point, we don’t even know what we are talking about. I do not assume those, I experience those things. They are what I use to make assumptions, at the very core, the first things I know, and to say those core, very present features of our experiential universe are assumptions is just plain weird. The language no longer works.
If I say that religion makes assumptions my language still works; when I say science makes assumptions about causation and regularity kills language all together.
There doesn’t seem to be anything about saying “science makes assumptions about causation and regularity” that doesn’t make sense. In fact, they make perfect sense. (It most certainly doesn’t kill language altogether…) What you experience is relations, you assume causation (Hume has something there, I think).
As for “if I were to deny all religious experience, I would be able to function as a person perfectly fine”, it all depends on what you consider the proper function of human life. While it certainly seems like accepting perceptual experiences would be necessary for almost any definition of a properly functioning human being, that doesn’t mean it is sufficient. For example, what if some religions are right and a life spent in worship is the proper life for a human? Would you really be functioning well without religious experiences then?
Stephanie,
If in putative cases which reveal causal events, e.g.
the collision of billiard balls, what is experienced is simply correlation and not causation, I must ask: What, exactly, might a causal event look like?
That is, let us admit the Humean skeptic his contention pro tem and inquire: If two putative causal events are simply correlations, what *would* causation look like?
All assumptions are assumptions, and thus they are identical. Of course this is a tautology following the law of identity, but it is a very important point.
Now one of your problems is that you are holding to things that we can never have experience of, and basing your assumptions on transcendent concepts. Now, as is commonly said, God is a transcendent concept. Worse yet, God is even said, within some circles, to be the thing that presents causation, and also, following causation, regularities. So if you were to deny God, you would also be denying causation and regularities. However, you said that if you deny causation and regularity, then you would not be able to eat food. Well, if you deny God, then you would not be able to deny eating food? You are able to eat food. Thus, you do not deny God. Yet then again, as far as I can tell, you seem to imply the denial of God. Which means that you would also be denying causation and regularities.
But then again, where is time? Do you observe it? I do not. Where is space? Do you observe it? I do not. Where is number? Do you observe number? I do not. Where is causation? Do you observe it? I do not. Where is regularity? Do you observe it? I do not. All of these I assume to exist, and can never show that they are so without assuming that they exist. This is begging the question, and is not very logical or acceptable. Is this the same with God? It sure seems so.
Your argument seems to be nothing but an argument about linguistics. Without X,Y,Z, then I cannot talk. One does not need to talk about something in order to exist or act (I think animals show this). Worse yet, one can be a nominalist and words mean whatever you say they mean. You can go even further, like Confucius, and have that words do not correlate to reality, but create reality. They only have a pragmatic value.
And of course you are making an assumption about causation and regularity. And it makes prefect sense. The idea of causation and regularity make sense, and so do their denials. As a matter of fact, we have word called ‘chaos’, which is actually what causation and regularity are not. Chaos makes perfect sense, and is understandable. In point of fact, causation itself breaks down at, the so called, quantum level. Non-locality has shown its ugly head, and it destroys the very idea of causation. But worse yet, causation is typically considered to be local, and ‘before’ and ‘after’. Yet the idea of time travel is conceivable, and even leads to the idea of ‘reverse causation’, where ‘after’ causes ‘before’. All of this is perfectly conceivable, and shows that your assumptions are not necessary. It shows that these categories are not necessary. They are useful, but not necessary.
Reality has no use of these of things, but we like to use them. They have a useful character for us, but even does the concept of God.
One of the glaring problems is that you are talking about religion. Religion is an institution, like science is an institution. It is a community of like minded people. They all make assumptions and act within those assumptions.
In a final note, the case and point about assumptions of causality and regularity, along with God, is a historical one. Science is a western activity that has come up through societies heavily laden with concepts of a controlling deity. They believed that this God caused what they observed with their senses, and imposed a regularity of the world to make it understandable (since this deity wanted people to take part in its works and understand them). In fact, science rose up from these assumptions of a God, and wanted to figure out how God made their world work around them following these assumptions. Science’s assumptions rose from the way that God was said to work, and has followed this trend up to this day.
Gondoliere,
I have a scenario and a few questions that I would like to pose to you. I would much appreciate honest, concise, and unambiguous answers (i.e. please no verbose tomes which might serve to obfuscate the point):
Scenario:
There are two bridges, Alpha and Beta, which span a river.
Alpha was designed and constructed by a firm which has built numerous bridges throughout the territory over the years, all of which remain sturdy and safe to this day. Alpha’s design is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge (much like the Sundial Birdge at Turtle Bay in Redding, California) which has been employed to safe effect in other bridges all over the world. Lastly, Alpha has been certified by numerous firms and even the local government to be within industry standards and thousands of individuals use the bridge every day to cross the river safely.
Beta was constructed by the local high school mechanics’ club out of straws, bubble gum, some construction paper, and Elmer’s school glue and without any identifiable design heretofore observed.
Now, you and a loved one (a lover or sibling, perhaps) seek to cross the river without falling to your certain deaths in the raging waters below and may only do so by taking one the two bridges.
Question:
Which bridge would you choose to cross the river and why? Would one be rational to believe that one has as good a chance to get across the river safely via Beta as via Alpha? Do you *really* think Hume’s problem of induction makes unjustified one’s belief that Alpha is more likely to convey one safely across the river than Beta?
Supplemental question:
If your answer to the last question is ‘yes,’ then my question is: Really?
Allow me to add that no other individuals even considered utilizing Beta to cross the river, so if you and your love one elect to take that route, you guys will be the first. Also, you two are aware of the opinions of bridge designers, physicists, etc., that Beta has no reasonable chance to convey two human beings across the river safely.
I find your question to be like a “loaded dice”. In order for your question to be fair at all, and not be lop sided, you would need to qualify your question.
For example, bridge Alpha, as you say, was “certified by numerous firms and even the local government to be within industry standards and thousands of individuals use the bridge every day to cross the river safely.”. Now bridge Beta, you have presented nothing of the same kind. So you are intentionally giving a loaded question.
But what do you say for bridge Beta? You say, “Beta was constructed by the local high school mechanics’ club out of straws, bubble gum, some construction paper, and Elmer’s school glue and without any identifiable design heretofore observed.” There is a major difference.
Alpha has been built; Beta has been built. Alpha as been tested and certified by the government; Beta has not been tested and certified. Alpha has had people walk over it and already test it out; Beta has not had people walk over it and test it out.
Now if you presented a question that was equal, (hey, isn’t this blog about all things being equal, and picking the simplest?) then your question would be worth answering.
But any way, we would go for Beta. It offers us more experience, and it also shows that the bridge works and has falsified other peoples opinions. It adds more to our knowledge, as Popper would say. No way to find out till you test it out. And who wants to live forever?
Another problem, is that you would need to show some logical support for going with Alpha over Beta. Psychological reasons offer one nothing except for your personal feelings of something. We have to be rational, don’t we? Or do you prefer to ignore rationality and base your decisions on that?
gondoliere:
We do want to be rational, and that is the point: rational requires the sensate world. You can’t even begin to talk of rational thinking before you talk about causation, relation, regularity, space and time: without these you have nothing. Scientific thinking starts—or is suppose to start—with the most basic of a priori “assumptions”. These are not assumptions in the conventional sense they are a prior necessary to even speak of assumptions. The word assumption doesn’t even make sense unless it has a contrast class of a known world. Place it before the known sensory world, and it no longer makes sense. Science begins with these and then makes its assumptions. Science, religion and rationality make no sense unless these contrast and a priori conditions exist. Reason and science build on the smallest of units; religion builds on the largest of concepts—a mountain of unfounded assumptions.
You talk about the an “assumption” and its denial makings sense. You are right verbally. When you stay in the realm of words, then any denial is possible. However, just because something can be denied in language and makes linguistic or logical sense—as in syntactic and logical validity—does not mean the propositional content makes sense. If someone said regularity exist, and I replied “no it doesn’t”, the denial makes sense as a denial, but when its meaning is considered and what that entails, all meaning falls apart. I could make absolutely no sense of there being no regularity, of a world without regularity. I wouldn’t have even typed a letter, here, unless there were regularity and you wouldn’t have read this. Maybe it’s true that there is no regularity—I’m just deceived—but no word, no action, no meaning makes any sense once I get into this world of non-regularity. The same goes for other basic things that you call “assumptions”.
It seems to me, gondoliere, that you have confused propositional truth, the truth of the premises, with logical validity. They are not the same.
In short, there we are always begging the question because we are always going back to experience, but you’re not going to have anything without this experience (it’s all we have), and to call it an assumption is wrong because without it we wouldn’t have assumptions in language as any kind of belief as anything at all.
See, I can grant you causality, regularity, and relations. However, these assumptions in no way take away from a deity, since in some circles a deity is the one that has all of these things and expresses them, and are there because of such a thing. So as soon as you grant these assumptions, you are granting that deity. So you would be implicitly granting a deity, and then denying that we need such a thing (deity) would deny causality, regularity, and relations.
I find your last paragraph to be the most interesting, since you talk about a prioir assumptions, and then talk about experience. This is basically coming back to Kant and Hume. Like Hume said, experience is contingent, while you are working with a priori assumptions that are necessary for our thinking. I can take out causality, and just have a brute fact of something before something else, and then something after something else. No causality is required, and I am pretty sure that this talk of causality as an a priori assumption has been discredited. That is actually not showing that they are false, but that it is tough ground to sit upon, which is actually an argument used against a deity causing anything.
But any way, talking of science working with the smallest assumptions while religion works with the a mountain of assumptions is just not credible. Take your regularity idea. From this, we derive all sorts of constants, and these just grow from one idea. From this one idea, we come to have all sorts of other assumptions. From this one assumption, other assumptions follow, which make a mountain of assumptions. However, religion does the same thing. It starts with an assumption, and from this assumption follows a mountain of assumptions. It does not take one even further. So we can find that your a priori assumptions, within some circles, all come from the assumption of a deity. And from these assumptions other assumptions follow as well. So from one assumption, we come to find a mountain of assumptions.