Afterlife: Pinker's skeptical thought (Endings)

by dhw, Monday, June 01, 2020, 12:03 (1634 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: So you believe there is no cause at all. Nothing was there and nothing forced nothing to finally create humans. Strange conclusion. If energy initially existed, as stated before, there had to some sort of force to cause progression. Can't have one without the other.

dhw: You seem never to have grasped the fact that I am an agnostic. I have shown you three possible first causes, and I find all of them equally difficult to believe. And so I have no belief. I remain open-minded. Maybe there is a God. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe it has all come about through chance. Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe there is some form of consciousness in all matter. Maybe there isn’t. And this means I am wrong, because one or other of these first causes is correct (unless there’s another I can’t think of). But I’m also right, because two of them are incorrect. That, in a nutshell, is the agnostic’s situation.

DAVID: Interesting. I clearly recognize your agnosticism. I also recognized it is fixed in stone. I just raised specific points about the progression of events from whatever had to be first to now. All I got was a non-answer. Why did you start the website? How to be a better agnostic? Everything that comes into being has to have a cause. This universe had a beginning. It has a cause.

You wrote: “So you believe there is no cause at all” (now bolded). Of course I don’t. The answer you got was that I can think of three possible causes, but can’t believe in any of them. And I acknowledge that one of them must be right! I don’t know what other answer you expect.

Why did I start the website? Initially because I was so disturbed by the superficial level of thinking behind Dawkins’ The God Delusion and by the equally superficial responses from the religious community. All my life I’ve asked myself the questions you and I have been discussing for the last twelve and a half years, and I wrote the brief guide and then opened the website because I hoped to create a forum for a more balanced and informed discussion than the one that was going on at the time. I had no idea what it would develop into, and for years it was a very mixed bag – ranging from the “cranks” (though I hope I was never rude to them) to some positively brilliant minds, theistic, atheistic and agnostic. They all came and went, as I think is inevitable since most people just want to have their say, and there’s a limit to the number of times they want to say it. The site has only kept going because of your massive contribution in the form of your ongoing research into the latest developments in all related fields. This amazing breadth of knowledge was also encapsulated in your two books, which for me represented the best possible response to Dawkins: namely, a scientific response to his distorted interpretation of science. And for me, the greatest reward for starting the website has been to have you as my science teacher!

In answer to the actual question you have asked, no, I didn’t start it in order to become a better agnostic! I started it for precisely the reasons stated on the homepage: “The truth is out there somewhere, and by combining our discoveries, we may help one another to gain new insights. Will enlightenment emerge from the AgnosticWeb? Watch this space. Better still, fill it.” Has enlightenment emerged? No. Have I gained new insights? Emphatically yes. Plus the pleasure of a unique friendship with – of all people – a panentheist!