Practical Consequences (Humans)
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 20:52 (5296 days ago)
All this theology and agnosticism has become rather abstract in the latest series of posts. To my way of thinking it all seems pretty pointless, angels on the point of a pin type of stuff. What are the practical consequences for everyday life of being an agnostic, a panentheist, a process theologian, etc?-Despite the fact that he can't make up his mind what he believes, dhw indicates that he is in practice actually a humanist, like me. -Does any of this abstract philosophising lead you to have any actual definite views on practical issues? Or are your views on such issues entirely separate from all this ontology, and based on other ways of thinking, such as looking at the facts of the individual cases?
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GPJ
Practical Consequences
by David Turell , Thursday, October 29, 2009, 13:32 (5295 days ago) @ George Jelliss
If one wishes to live efficiently somewhat like a robot, then George's message is reasonable. However there are those of us who wish to ask deeper questions, or someone like Frank who has tried to explain a mystical experience, what ever it was. Angels on the head of a pin, perhaps, but here is a real nutty (IMHO) article on multiverses, which admits that we can't get out of this universe to check on the theory. All because to many materialist scientists the Big Bang looks too much like a creation, and an incomplete string theory permits such useless speculation.-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427323.700-multiplying-universes-how-many-is-the-multiverse.html
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, October 29, 2009, 13:40 (5295 days ago) @ George Jelliss
All this theology and agnosticism has become rather abstract in the latest series of posts. To my way of thinking it all seems pretty pointless, angels on the point of a pin type of stuff. What are the practical consequences for everyday life of being an agnostic, a panentheist, a process theologian, etc? > > Despite the fact that he can't make up his mind what he believes, dhw indicates that he is in practice actually a humanist, like me. > > Does any of this abstract philosophising lead you to have any actual definite views on practical issues? Or are your views on such issues entirely separate from all this ontology, and based on other ways of thinking, such as looking at the facts of the individual cases?-Though I think this was directed at dhw, I feel compelled to add my own thoughts. -This "abstract philosophizing" at least in my world allows me to get intensely new perspectives on problems that I couldn't get by just "following my nose." Such as "What if design were true? What would the implications be for the state of western thought?" This leads to finding further points for taking a design position without conclusive means. A proof for induction would then be quite a bit more necessary in order to support and accept using induction on untestable claims and phenomenon. -In my case, my own mindset is so closely attuned to logic that yes, all this abstract stuff leads to very practical consequences. For example, the Nietzsche question "Why base a system of thought on the unthinkable" had a series of drastic ramifications for my more "Dawkins/Harris" view that I had prior. I started thinking hard about what exactly logic does and doesn't allow us to say, and I came to the conclusion that declaring "God does not exist" was too strong a statement for us to be able to claim with any rigor--one cannot know that in the vastness of the cosmos there isn't a being like Star Trek's "Q." We act as if he doesn't, but "truth" is more important than the practical in most questions. In my mind, the induction that most all claims about God have been proven false, might also only be that every idea man has had about God is entirely wrong. If my "extreme deism" is true, than nearly every atheist and theist on this earth is wrong. -If it's one thing I've learned from mathematics, it is that the most abstract of ideas can eventually have profound impact on practical calculations; the same is true for abstract philosophy and logic, it's just that it takes some time for it to roll from the world of the abstract to the world of the "real."-I'm not a humanist: A TRUE embrace of man is one that also fully accepts his ugly half as part of the same whole. But from here we diverge into ethics...
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
George finds our current abstract discussions "pretty pointless", and asks if all this philosophising leads to any "definite views on practical issues". On a personal note, he writes: "Despite the fact that he can't make up his mind what he believes, dhw indicates that he is in practice a humanist, like me."-For the benefit of newcomers, I should point out that George has contributed to this forum right from the start. Between them, he and David Turell have woven strand after fascinating strand within the AgnosticWeb, but now we have to decide if the new strands aren't getting us into a tangle! Thank you, George.-There are actually three issues here. The personal one is easy: yes indeed, I am a humanist*** in so far as I believe in the value and meaningfulness of human life for its own sake. In my personal behaviour, I try to act in whatever I consider to be in the best interests of humanity and of my other fellow creatures (I hope that doesn't sound too sanctimonious). Even if God exists - my form of humanism allows for agnosticism - I have no trust whatsoever in the human interpreters of his will, and I think society should be run according to humanist and not religious codes, although these often coincide. My own code is almost certainly a product of my nature and not of any philosophy, as it distresses me to see any kind of suffering. (***I've just read Matt's comment on humanism, and it looks as if we have yet another problem of definition here!)-Despite the fact that I can't make up my mind what to believe in matters of religion, I have very strong views on many other issues, but I consider each one individually. I have no allegiance to any political party, and am sceptical about the wisdom of giving power to people who want power. I don't think abstract philosophy plays any role in my decision-making on practical issues, but on many moral issues I'm usually aware that there are at least two sides!-As for the "pointlessness" of abstract philosophising, it all depends on why people join this forum. My own motive for setting it up was simply a desire to find out how other people fill the colossal gaps that I can't fill myself. I've learned an enormous amount from the discussions, but it's inevitable that the inadequacy of language leads us into problems of understanding. These do sometimes take us away from the actual substance of a topic into discussion of terms and their implications, but I find this interesting too. The very process of formulating ideas, communicating them, and then trying to put right the errors that have arisen is an education in itself. It can also be fun, as we spark off each other, but that depends on people entering into a friendly spirit of give-and-take, without resorting to the personal vituperation that I've seen on some other sites. For the most part, I'm delighted to say that this is what has happened. To sum up, I don't think the philosophizing is pointless if it leads us to a better understanding of one another's viewpoints.
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, October 30, 2009, 01:41 (5295 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, > As for the "pointlessness" of abstract philosophising, it all depends on why people join this forum. My own motive for setting it up was simply a desire to find out how other people fill the colossal gaps that I can't fill myself. I've learned an enormous amount from the discussions, but it's inevitable that the inadequacy of language leads us into problems of understanding. These do sometimes take us away from the actual substance of a topic into discussion of terms and their implications, but I find this interesting too. The very process of formulating ideas, communicating them, and then trying to put right the errors that have arisen is an education in itself. It can also be fun, as we spark off each other, but that depends on people entering into a friendly spirit of give-and-take, without resorting to the personal vituperation that I've seen on some other sites. For the most part, I'm delighted to say that this is what has happened. To sum up, I don't think the philosophizing is pointless if it leads us to a better understanding of one another's viewpoints.-I'd like to ask what any great philosopher would say to George's same question... I think only a very few would agree that abstract thought is pointless or serves no purpose. Nietzsche and Emerson fill two great differences in philosophical opinion, yet both consistently celebrate that our capacity for abstract thought is something that is... insanely beautiful and part of what makes a good philosophy great. -As for Humanism... I'll be honest in saying that every person I've formally met that called themselves a "humanist" also had very... pacifistic ideas on war. But then, I'm also in college and war is unpopular among the college crowd... and the only ones who it IS popular with tend towards the "For God and Country!" crowd that I just don't belong with.
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Friday, October 30, 2009, 20:41 (5294 days ago) @ xeno6696
I certainly don't believe that "abstract thought is pointless or serves no purpose". Logic and mathematics have taken me a long way. Perhaps what I really mean is speculative metaphysical thought.-This article, which has been linked to on the RD.net, gets close to my own views. It maintains:-Many of the beliefs held by religious moderates -- smart people who respect science and the separation of church and state -- are as untenable as the dogma of fundamentalists.-http://www.alternet.org/story/143551/3_silly_religious_beliefs_held_by_non-silly_people?page=entire-So let's go! Today's beliefs on the chopping block are:-1: Evolution guided by God.-2: An immaterial soul that animates human consciousness.-3: A sentient universe.-All of these have been debated here. But are they even worth being agnostic about?-[The fact that the author Greta Christina is a lesbian writer of erotica is beside the point.]
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GPJ
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, October 31, 2009, 19:12 (5293 days ago) @ George Jelliss
George & David,-While I cannot disagree with the basic logic: Why posit something when you don't have to, I have a few things to say specifically regarding her article, on "Guided Evolution":-Quite the contrary. If there had been a divine hand tinkering with the process, we would expect evolution to have proceeded radically differently than it has. We would expect to see, among the changes in anatomy from generation to generation, at least an occasional instance of the structure being tweaked in non-gradual ways. We would expect to see -- oh, say, just for a random example -- human knees and backs better designed for bipedal animals than quadrupeds. (She said bitterly, putting an ice pack on her bad knee.) We would expect to see the blind spot in the human eye done away with, perhaps replaced with the octopus design that doesn't have a blind spot. We would expect to see the vagus nerve re-routed so it doesn't wander all over hell and gone before getting where it's going. We would expect to see a major shift in the risk-benefit analysis that's wired into our brains, one that better suits a 70-year life expectancy than a 35-year one. We would expect to see... I could go on, and on, and on.-The metaphysical counter of an imperfect God neatly deals with this issue. I would agree, why then posit an imperfect creator? I ask "What's the point?" I'm sure David would be much better equipped to answer that...-This next portion is much better: What we see instead is exactly what we would expect to see if evolution proceeded entirely as a natural, physical process. We see "designs" of living things that are flawed and inefficient and just plain goofy: "designs" that exist for no earthly reason except the slow incrementalism that's an inherent part of the physical process of evolution. We see anatomical adaptations severely constrained by the fact that each generation can only be a slight modification on the previous generation, with no sudden jumps to a different basic version. We see anatomical adaptations severely constrained by the fact that each new version has to be an improvement on the previous version (or at least, not a deterioration from it). We see a vast preponderance of evidence showing that evolution proceeds very slowly, very gradually, with the anatomy of each generation being only slightly altered (if at all) from that of the previous generation.-To me, it appears that Turell's strongest evidence for "jumps" in evolution lies soley in fossil-type questions, such as the Cambrian Explosion. I've seen no modern evidence that supports any kind of rapid speciation that happens without several generations. She handles that portion quite well, actually.-And I still don't know how RNA-mediation would "speed up" evolution when you consider that the trait still needs to be passed on to the next generation... RNA might just trigger that bit of random character that everyone displays in their human phenotypes. -As for the majority of the argument, she operates under a different definition of "supernatural" and "natural" than does our David... to David, there is no difference between the two: The distinction is meaningless. (Correct me if I'm wrong, David.) -Her assault on a cosmological consciousness is thoroughly demolishing... I can't find any wriggle room in her logic.
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
George has drawn our attention to an article by Greta Christina, which attempts to debunk some of the beliefs held by religious moderates. She trots out the usual "God-of-the-gaps" argument, as if the atheist faith in chance and still unknown natural laws was not also a gap-filler, but then she moves onto three specific areas. In each of them, she understandably attacks the religious position (I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God), but seems blissfully unaware that all her comments apply equally to the atheist position. -1) Evolution guided by God. She ignores the problem of the origin of life, and prefers to deal with what she sees as faults in the design: blind spots, bad backs and knees, the slowness of change. And that, she says, "isn't how things designed by a conscious designer, or even things tinkered with by a conscious designer, work." Bearing in mind that no human in the whole history of humankind has ever succeeded in designing a self-replicating, adaptable form of life, let alone one that has emotion, memory, consciousness, imagination etc., how the heck does she know how it works? In any case, has she ever come across a consciously designed machine that didn't eventually go wrong? And how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individual creatures wouldn't live for ever, or maybe - as Matt suggests - he's not perfect, or - as Frank suggests - he's not all-powerful. She also talks about the gradualness of evolution with its occasional rapid jumps: "exactly as we would expect if evolution were an entirely natural, physical process of descent with modification." So how much experience does she have of other evolutions? Has she been to other inhabited universes to inspect their natural evolution? And did she find that self-replicating molecules managed spontaneously over billions of years to turn themselves into dinosaurs, rabbits, humans? Our scientists are mystified by innumerable facets of the process. Without a precedent, and at least until it's all been understood (assuming it will be), how can anyone talk of what one would expect? -2) An immaterial soul that animates human consciousness. Virtually the same problem. She writes: "I acknowledge freely: We don't yet understand consciousness very well." And "the basic questions of what exactly consciousness is, and where exactly it comes from, and how exactly it works, are, as of yet, largely unanswered." But everything apparently points to it being "an entirely biological process". Of course we know that it involves a biological process ... even the most fundamental fundamentalist would acknowledge that. You can't get a TV picture without a TV set, but does that mean the TV set is the origin of the picture? Until all the above questions are answered, the belief that the process is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved. So why attack X's theory when your own theory is still so riddled with gaps? But see 3):-3) A sentient universe. She says she's going to repeat what she said in 2), and comes up with a classic: "We don't yet understand what consciousness is. But we do know that, whatever it is, it seems to be a biological product of the brain." Look closely at that statement: we do know that it seems to be...Is "seems to be" knowledge? What we do know is that she thinks her theory is correct. And since the universe doesn't have a brain that she can see, and since she believes the brain is the one and only source of consciousness ... a theory whose "seemings" have so far come up against a barrage of unanswered questions ... the universe can't be sentient.-As I said at the beginning, in my view she's right that there's no scientific evidence to support the claims that God directs evolution, that there is an immaterial soul, that the universe is sentient. In my view she's wrong to say "the evidence actively contradicts them." Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence, any more than do the assumptions of believers who consider the many unsolved mysteries to be indicative of a conscious power beyond our comprehension.
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, November 01, 2009, 18:27 (5292 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, forgive the length!!!! > George has drawn our attention to an article by Greta Christina, which attempts to debunk some of the beliefs held by religious moderates. She trots out the usual "God-of-the-gaps" argument, as if the atheist faith in chance and still unknown natural laws was not also a gap-filler, but then she moves onto three specific areas. In each of them, she understandably attacks the religious position (I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God), but seems blissfully unaware that all her comments apply equally to the atheist position. > I think you're engaging in hasty generalization here; while it is certainly true that many atheists claim that "science will ultimately solve those certain problems," that is scientism and isn't necessarily endemic to atheists. I-Though--and I must stress this--no other method of gaining knowledge has ever been as successful.-That said, faith in science is by no means an attempt at "gap-filling" as you suggest here. Most scientists are willing to admit that we don't currently have explanations for some things, or that certain explanations are inadequate--such as the evolutionary biologist that Turell shared with us yesterday (10/31). -I must also point out that at even at face value there isn't an assumption of faith--we know that life got here, and we know that for everything we've found we've had no reason to assert something other than an explainable and reproducible phenomenon of cause-and-effect, i.e. "natural" causes.-Her position--and it is a simple one--is that since there is no evidence for God, then it is reasonable to assert that God doesn't exist. Sagan's dragon is a *very* good analogy to use here. If I have no reason to accept a claim, then I shouldn't accept it. -Taking your own words: (I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God)-Than it follows that you should have no quarrel with atheism, and really you should accept scientific abiogenesis by default.-1. You agree that there is no scientific evidence for God. 2. This means that an existence claim for God is something that requires belief, defined as "accepting a claim in the absence of evidence." -This inescapably means that the question of God as agreed to by you, is purely one of faith. -Now, in what way does not accepting a claim cause an atheist to suddenly be engaging in an act of faith?-We come back to the oft-quoted assumption of naturalism: "At best, we cannot discern supernatural events from natural events." What exactly does this say? Naturalism in its full context looks at supernatural explanations as unreliable. Why are they unreliable? Are they unreliable? You've demonstrated to me in previous posts that you don't think that supernatural claims are unreliable, that looking upon all the traditions of man you see commonality in that we are special and that we were designed by some being. I argued that the generality of this statement is so broad that it doesn't actually accomplish anything. Do you understand a little more why I say this? My other oft-repeated phrase is "Everything we've ever thought about God could be wrong." -Returning again to abiogenesis, since you agree that there's no scientific evidence for God, than we don't have any reason to consider any other means of creation than scientific abiogenesis. I say this because we do have some evidence of it. To borrow from George, it is more reasonable than the alternatives.-Returning finally to "chance," if you don't accept the claim that God exists, based on the fact that there is no scientific evidence for it, then you don't really have any other choice BUT to accept chance. We lack a mechanism, but we've still ruled out a deity by not accepting the existence claim. -In conclusion, if you agree that there is no scientific evidence for God, and you accept naturalism, how is her position one of faith? To me the question is one of believing or not believing, and there is no middle-ground here; you either believe or you don't. It is binary; off and on, 1 and 0. If there's no evidence of Sagan's dragon, you don't withhold judgment until it is positively proven that the dragon does or does not exist, you simply go on not believing.
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
Matt: [...] if you don't accept the claim that God exists, based on the fact that there is no scientific evidence for it, then you don't really have any other choice BUT to accept chance.-There seems to be a general reluctance, both on this forum and elsewhere, to accept the possibility that someone might not believe in God and might not believe in chance either. If I could accept either explanation, I would no longer be an agnostic! Most of your post follows on from this strange blind spot.-You write: "faith in science is by no means an attempt at "gap-filling"." You have ignored the context of my remark (perhaps I should have said "her" atheist faith). Greta Christian's article is an attack on religion and the "God-of-the-gaps". She is clearly convinced science will prove that life and the mechanisms for evolution came about by chance plus as yet unknown natural laws, and consciousness will turn out to be "entirely biological". There is no evidence for this belief, and there is no precedent by which to judge its likelihood (see the various assumptions she makes about how a designer ought to design life, and how evolution would be expected to work). Hers is therefore gap-filling faith. I'm not attacking science, or even faith in science ... I'm attacking the assumptions of atheists like Greta Christian who try to use science in order to do the very thing they accuse believers of. -You write: "if you agree that there is no scientific evidence for God, and you accept naturalism, how is her position one of faith?" I do not accept naturalism/chance. I do not accept either theory (design v. chance). I'm an agnostic. See above for the nature of GC's faith. I would also point out that in the (so far) unique context of life in this tiny corner of the universe, scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence, since it presupposes the materialistic conclusion that the world is exclusively physical. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences.-Finally, you write: "To me the question is one of believing or not believing, and there is no middle-ground here." Of course there is middle ground. It's called agnosticism.
Practical Consequences
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, November 02, 2009, 20:45 (5291 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: "I do not accept naturalism/chance. I do not accept either theory (design v. chance). I'm an agnostic." /// "scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence, since it presupposes the materialistic conclusion that the world is exclusively physical. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences."-So you are not an agnostic after all! You are a mystic. A gnostic.-Scientific evidence does not presuppose materialism, it is agnostic. It is about reproducible, verifiable, falsifiable, evidence. If evidence of paranormal phenomena could be reproduced the subject would become scientific, and incorporated into the scientific canon.
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GPJ
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 05:31 (5291 days ago) @ dhw
Matt: [...] if you don't accept the claim that God exists, based on the fact that there is no scientific evidence for it, then you don't really have any other choice BUT to accept chance. > > There seems to be a general reluctance, both on this forum and elsewhere, to accept the possibility that someone might not believe in God and might not believe in chance either. If I could accept either explanation, I would no longer be an agnostic! Most of your post follows on from this strange blind spot. > -Well, the reluctance you perceive from me, is really the entire reason that I lean materialist. I pretty much spit out my entire thought process on why I think "no god" seems more reasonable. -At the same time, I realize that the total amount of knowledge we have access to is still going to be quite limited on this speck of dust. So I'm willing to keep the possibility open. One can't get a good picture of the entire cosmos by sitting in place. (Sorry my cosmological colleagues!) - > You write: "faith in science is by no means an attempt at "gap-filling"." You have ignored the context of my remark (perhaps I should have said "her" atheist faith). Greta Christian's article is an attack on religion and the "God-of-the-gaps". She is clearly convinced science will prove that life and the mechanisms for evolution came about by chance plus as yet unknown natural laws, and consciousness will turn out to be "entirely biological". There is no evidence for this belief, -Actually, the one iron-clad argument she had is regarding consciousness: We have no evidence at all for non-biological consciousness. That was (to my mind) the most damaging argument against a universal consciousness that I'd ever heard. I don't know how much training you've had in logic, but she's using a proof technique here. (Though she might not know it.) I can't [EDIT] describe this without potentially seeming pedantic, but what she's doing is saying, "We have no evidence of non-biological consciousness." So what she then does is create the null hypothesis "non-biological consciousness exists." When you then analyze the statement and find that there is no evidence, the null hypothesis is proven false, making the converse statement true. -and there is no precedent by which to judge its likelihood (see the various assumptions she makes about how a designer ought to design life, and how evolution would be expected to work). Hers is therefore gap-filling faith. I'm not attacking science, or even faith in science ... I'm attacking the assumptions of atheists like Greta Christian who try to use science in order to do the very thing they accuse believers of. > -I agree with you more here, except that since both she, me, (and you) have already concluded there is no evidence of God; that leaves only one option: we study all the things we've GOT evidence for. Which means that yeah, we've got an incomplete puzzle, but it's the only one we've got any hope to work with. (And we won't find the answer just sitting here on this rock!)--> You write: "if you agree that there is no scientific evidence for God, and you accept naturalism, how is her position one of faith?" I do not accept naturalism/chance. I do not accept either theory (design v. chance). I'm an agnostic. See above for the nature of GC's faith. I would also point out that in the (so far) unique context of life in this tiny corner of the universe, scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence, since it presupposes the materialistic conclusion that the world is exclusively physical. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences. >-If you accept science, then you accept naturalism--you have no choice. Science does not work without the assumptions of naturalism. (It's that one key assumption that pops back up time and again.) -Naturalism does not equal chance. -It seems to me that perhaps you are more frustrated that answers to those questions are so inconclusive. > Finally, you write: "To me the question is one of believing or not believing, and there is no middle-ground here." Of course there is middle ground. It's called agnosticism.-Here's the problem--and I get in many arguments with my other friends about this--when it comes to a belief, you've either believe it or you don't. Saying "I don't have enough information" is irrelevant--you still don't believe. I have a few other friends that also call themselves "agnostic." (Yes, I still consider myself agnostic too...)-If you don't have enough evidence to believe in God, it still holds that you lack that belief. Logically, atheists also do not believe in God. So to me, agnosticism is kind of an "artificial atheism." All agnostics are in fact, also atheists, when atheism is defined from its root "a" meaning "without," and "theism" meaning "belief in God(s)." All agnostics are "without belief in God." I still refuse to declare "There is no God," and I likely fall into that "bad category" of agnostics I remember you discussing in your original thesis, but that's exactly where I'm at. (My problem... not yours.)-[SEVERELY EDITED]
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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
Matt attempts to use logic in order to justify Greta Christian's belief that consciousness is entirely biological: She creates the "null hypothesis "non-biological consciousness exists." When you then analyze the statement and find there is no evidence, the null hypothesis is proven false, making the converse statement true." Your statement hinges on what you mean by "evidence", but let's first test your logic on another example. In evolution, we create a null hypothesis: "transitional forms exist". Stuart A. Newman: ...the fossil record is deficient in transitional forms between organisms distinguished from one another by the presence or absence of major innovations. Matt: ...it is a simpler explanation to say that the lack of fossils in those "gaps" is due to the fact that we simply haven't found them.-According to your logic, however, if we analyse the statement and find there is no evidence, should we not conclude that there are no transitional forms? The argument that the evidence is there but hasn't yet been found could be used to justify any claim.-Leaving aside the "logic", in the evolutionary example you make certain inferences, though of course inferences are not evidence. I could also make certain inferences concerning consciousness. Bearing in mind that nobody knows how it works, where it comes from, or even what it is, I could infer that it stems from a source beyond our comprehension, and that the long history of visions, mystic experiences, OBEs, NDEs, ESP, paranormal knowledge, religion etc., suggests that what is seen as lack of evidence constitutes a false definition of "evidence". We thus enter a highly subjective field, but the decision to discount it as evidence is also a subjective one. Greta Christian's assertion that consciousness is entirely biological may be correct, but in the light of present knowledge it remains no more than a subjective belief.-Matt: If you accept science, then you accept naturalism. [..] Naturalism does not equal chance. You have yourself said categorically that we need to exercise a degree of scepticism towards science, since so many accepted scientific theories turn out later to be false. But of course I accept most of the findings of science and the naturalistic explanations of many phenomena. I acknowledge, however ... as you do yourself ... that science may not have all the answers. This applies especially to the crucial and unique context of the origin of life and of the mechanism that made evolution possible, in which naturalism does equal chance. That was and is the context I have been focusing on. -As regards agnosticism and atheism, we need to find the right language. Forget the roots ... the terms have gone beyond their roots. My personal suggestion: An atheist believes there is no God; an agnostic does not believe there is a God and does not believe there isn't a God. Atheism makes a statement of committed disbelief; agnosticism makes a statement of uncommitted non-belief. Can we perhaps play around with that?
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, November 06, 2009, 04:36 (5288 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I apologize for taking so long to respond. There's alot going on scholastically... and I'm STILL waiting to hear about whether or not I will be accepted to grad school. (3 weeks my arse!) n what you mean by "evidence", but let's first test your logic on another example. In evolution, we create a null hypothesis: "transitional forms exist". > Stuart A. Newman: ...the fossil record is deficient in transitional forms between organisms distinguished from one another by the presence or absence of major innovations. > Matt: ...it is a simpler explanation to say that the lack of fossils in those "gaps" is due to the fact that we simply haven't found them. > > According to your logic, however, if we analyse the statement and find there is no evidence, should we not conclude that there are no transitional forms? The argument that the evidence is there but hasn't yet been found could be used to justify any claim. >-Here you raise a powerful challenge; but note the difference between God (no evidence) and transitional fossils "deficient in transitional forms..." I know you have blamed me in some instances of latching onto indirect meanings of words, but clearly "deficient" is not the same thing as "none." So that we're clear on the definition I'm using, "deficient" means "Insufficient," or "inadequate." To me, this means "we don't have enough," not "none," or "zero."-To me your argument of what constitutes evidence is a much stronger one; the threshold here is of course--open to debate. I freely admit mine is strict--but yours is too. Again... I *lean* towards one way, because as you have done before me--we agree on the lack of evidence for God, but the process of science accepts the *best* provisional explanation, and we don't have an alternative to abiogenesis. > Leaving aside the "logic", in the evolutionary example you make certain inferences, though of course inferences are not evidence. I could also make certain inferences concerning consciousness. Bearing in mind that nobody knows how it works, where it comes from, or even what it is, I could infer that it stems from a source beyond our comprehension, and that the long history of visions, mystic experiences, OBEs, NDEs, ESP, paranormal knowledge, religion etc., suggests that what is seen as lack of evidence constitutes a false definition of "evidence". We thus enter a highly subjective field, but the decision to discount it as evidence is also a subjective one. Greta Christian's assertion that consciousness is entirely biological may be correct, but in the light of present knowledge it remains no more than a subjective belief. > -I challenge you on this. This was her most airtight claim. We have no evidence that rocks have consciousness; we have no evidence trees have consciousness; we have no evidence that atoms have consciousness--only people and *some* creatures that obviously meet some criterion of neurological ability. The claim of a "universal consciousness" has the burden of proof of how this consciousness operates; the only thing that permeates through the cosmos in a sufficient manner is light, and the properties of light have been thoroughly explored, and we can determine what light does. That doesn't speak independent action! -For me to be swayed here, you need to attack this consciousness idea much more thoroughly: It's not enough to say "We don't know what causes consciousness, therefore we can consider that the cosmos is conscious." --> Matt: If you accept science, then you accept naturalism. [..] Naturalism does not equal chance. > You have yourself said categorically that we need to exercise a degree of scepticism towards science, since so many accepted scientific theories turn out later to be false. But of course I accept most of the findings of science and the naturalistic explanations of many phenomena. I acknowledge, however ... as you do yourself ... that science may not have all the answers. This applies especially to the crucial and unique context of the origin of life and of the mechanism that made evolution possible, in which naturalism does equal chance. That was and is the context I have been focusing on. > > As regards agnosticism and atheism, we need to find the right language. Forget the roots ... the terms have gone beyond their roots. My personal suggestion: An atheist believes there is no God; an agnostic does not believe there is a God and does not believe there isn't a God. Atheism makes a statement of committed disbelief; agnosticism makes a statement of uncommitted non-belief. Can we perhaps play around with that?-I know that this is what the terms have become... but sometimes logic leads me to "obvious" distinctions and my mind won't let them go. -I realize that my notion is an antique one, wishing to maintain the "purity" of language well past its prime. Privately, I'll still consider myself an "atheist" in this sense, because I can't escape "the trap." But I realize that's my own problem. Sometimes, I think I would have been better off being born in the 19th century, heh.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
Although the subject of transitional forms in evolution is a sidetrack, it's relevant to our overall discussion. Newman's reference is specifically to fossils proving innovation, but you rightly point out that "deficient" means "not enough", i.e. there are some. A rapid Google on the subject suggests that the very few examples are controversial, but we need expert guidance on this. If you're right, I will have to agree that my parallel was inaccurate. I hope you got the general message, though, which is that people demand evidence for theories they don't believe in, but argue that the evidence hasn't been found yet when it's a theory they do believe in. That is precisely the situation with Greta Christian's consciousness thesis on which you've challenged me.-First, though we need to clear up our usual problem: when I say I don't believe X, you generally insist that I have to believe Y! We don't know how consciousness works, where it comes from, or even what it is, and so I say the assertion that it is ENTIRELY biological is no more than a subjective belief. Your 'challenge' is that we have no evidence that rocks etc. are conscious, the "claim of a universal consciousness has the burden of proof of how this consciousness operates", and it's not enough to say, "We don't know what causes consciousness, therefore we can consider that the cosmos is conscious." I agree.-Greta Christian's belief that consciousness is ENTIRELY biological is subjective, because there's no scientific evidence to support it. The claim that there is a universal intelligence is also subjective, because there's no scientific evidence to support it. My own post doesn't even go so far as to propose a universal intelligence. I wrote that from what we actually know, "I could...[not I do]...infer that it stems from a source beyond our comprehension." And I could also infer that the long history of visions etc. constitutes evidence. This does not mean that I now believe in the paranormal and in a UI. The point of my post was to show that GC's beliefs are no less subjective than those which she's criticizing. The much pilloried "God-of-the-gaps" is a way of filling the gaps in our knowledge by belief in a power beyond our comprehension. GC fills the gaps in her knowledge by the belief that science will one day come up with a material, biological explanation. If we go back to the start of this post, then, the argument runs: 1) there's no evidence for an outside power, so we should reject the theory; 2) there's no evidence for an entirely biological explanation, but one day we believe it will be found, so we should accept the theory. -From my position on the fence, I can understand very well why some people believe the gap-filled evidence points to there being nothing beyond the material world, while others believe it points to some sort of intelligent power that set things in motion, but neither group can fill the gaps convincingly enough to make me jump down on their side. However, I have no quarrel with those that have jumped, providing they acknowledge the subjectivity of their beliefs, and don't insist that anyone who disagrees is an idiot or deserves to be assassinated.-This will be my last post for three or four days, but I'll try to fill the gaps when I get back. As always, my thanks to everyone for these stimulating discussions, and let's all keep our fingers crossed for Matt's acceptance to grad school.
Practical Consequences
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Friday, November 06, 2009, 22:46 (5287 days ago) @ dhw
dhw, > First, though we need to clear up our usual problem: when I say I don't believe X, you generally insist that I have to believe Y! We don't know how consciousness works, where it comes from, or even what it is, and so I say the assertion that it is ENTIRELY biological is no more than a subjective belief. Your 'challenge' is that we have no evidence that rocks etc. are conscious, the "claim of a universal consciousness has the burden of proof of how this consciousness operates", and it's not enough to say, "We don't know what causes consciousness, therefore we can consider that the cosmos is conscious." I agree. > > Greta Christian's belief that consciousness is ENTIRELY biological is subjective, because there's no scientific evidence to support it. -I must stop you here; the only observations we've had of conscious creatures are ourselves, and in some lesser extent by some other creatures that bear one common fact to ourselves: we're biological. -A truly conscious AI would be the only point where you would have any reason to claim the opposite. We have no evidence that non-biological objects are conscious, so we are 100% safe in ruling their existence out, until such time as we find a single piece of evidence to the contrary. -Her observation is patently scientific: We have no evidence for a universal consciousness, therefore it isn't reasonable to say it exists. Science's scope is exclusively binary in nature; all questions are "true or false," and the determination of "true/false" always results in the rejection of conclusions that aren't supported by the evidence. -You'll likely say that "It is equally true that we can't say that a UI doesn't exist." Since I say it's unreasonable to believe in a UI because of no evidence, you will also say that the same lack of evidence prevents me from saying a UI doesn't exist. However, we come to a practical dilemma that George brought up. What reason do you have to assert that Jesus didn't arise on the third day? What reason do you have to assert that leprechauns don't exist? If the answer is "We have no evidence that a person can come back alive after being dead for three days," or "We have never found a leprechaun," then you have caught yourself in a contradiction of methods; you're using the same method in all three cases, but somehow ending up with different results. If you think leprechauns don't exist, what reason do we have to also believe that a UI exists? Again, we are safe because all it takes to prove these claims false, is a single instance of existence. You've mentioned before that you don't believe in the "hocus pocus" of religion, but your reasoning of "sitting on the fence" resurrects ALL of these monsters. --To conclude: as we have no evidence of inanimate objects and particles possessing any property that we would attribute to a conscious being, we can safely conclude that as far as our knowledge extends, a universal consciousness does not exist. This is Greta's *base* position. She does engage in scientism, but only to the extent that we also have no evidence that any other form of gathering knowledge is as successful as science, therefore if there is going to be a solution, it is going to come from the enterprise of science. I share this view, but I also add that philosophically it is because we are tied to material methods to make discoveries about our universe. We have no other valid option.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
dhw: Greta Christian's belief that consciousness is ENTIRELY biological is subjective, because there's no scientific evidence to support it.-Matt: I must stop you here. [...] Her observation is patently scientific: We have no evidence for a universal consciousness, therefore it isn't reasonable to say it exists.-I wonder why you stopped me there, since my next sentence reads: "The claim that there is a universal intelligence is also subjective, because there's no scientific evidence to support it." You then attack me for views which I don't hold and for arguments which I've never used, ignoring the rest of my post, which aims to show that GC's beliefs are just as subjective as those she criticizes. Please read my post, and note that the paragraph which you reproduced, repeating your own arguments, ends: "I agree". -However, I will again answer you in the hope that you'll read what I write and not manufacture what you wish I'd written. First, you claim that because there's no scientific evidence, it isn't "reasonable" to say that a universal consciousness exists. (I'll ignore the bit about non-biological objects being conscious ... where have you found any such reference in my posts?) Science has so far failed both to explain the nature, origin and workings of consciousness, and to prove that inanimate matter can spontaneously come to life. Until scientists find explanations, I'm prepared to consider other possibilities ... such as a power beyond our comprehension (which is far from saying a UI exists). Who are you, Matt, to lay down what is "reasonable" and what is not? Who are you to say that only scientific evidence counts (see below)? We have unsolved mysteries, and until they're solved, each of us must decide for himself what constitutes a reasonable or unreasonable explanation. In my case, the options stay open.-You write: "all questions are true or false", and the determination of the "true/false" always results in the rejection of conclusions that aren't supported by the evidence." (Let's ignore your earlier, vehement opposition to the very concept of "truth".) It's you who talk of conclusions, not me. The evidence for abiogenesis has not been found; the nature, origin, and workings of consciousness are unknown. No objective conclusions can be drawn. But you join GC in assuming that the conclusion will be ENTIRELY materialistic. Science is objective. Until there's evidence, there's no true/false, and so any judgement can only be based on preconceived ideas. That is the whole point of my earlier post, but again see below on the subject of "evidence". -You wrote: "Since I say it's unreasonable to believe in a UI because of no evidence, you will also say that the same lack of evidence prevents me from saying a UI doesn't exist." No, I won't. We all know you can't prove such a negative (Russell's teapot), so why attribute this silly argument to me? It's the lack of evidence for the materialist solution and not the lack of evidence against a UI that makes the alternative an equally reasonable/ unreasonable/subjective solution. You ask: "If you think leprechauns don't exist, what reason do we have to also believe that a UI exists? [...] Your reasoning of "sitting on the fence" resurrects ALL of these monsters." No it doesn't. Nor do I give you reasons to believe in a UI. You keep falling into this trap of your own making, which is your refusal to accept the negativity and neutrality of agnosticism. It's based on what we don't believe, not on what we do, and in putting the case for not rejecting, I do not put a case for believing. I'll try once more to get this across. Please read on.-There are two main areas of controversy in our discussions. One is the complexity of life, and the other is the unsolved mystery of consciousness, which is related to all kinds of phenomena that appear to defy scientific explanation. Leprechauns and the resurrection of Christ are totally irrelevant (though if Paddy O'Reilly and Benedict XVI believe in them, that's their affair). Your claim that "if there is going to be a solution, it is going to come from the enterprise of science" is a creed. "We have no other valid option" is also a creed. You reject every single mystic, paranormal, extra-sensory experience, you presuppose a biological source of consciousness, and you downgrade the sheer magnitude of the mysteries connected with life and thought because you will not consider any "evidence" from outside materialism. That's your belief, and I have no quarrel with it, but it's no less subjective and no more "reasonable" than the claim that there are too many unsolved mysteries and too many instances of apparently non-biological experience for us to dismiss explanations beyond the reach of science. Not discounting alternative explanations does not mean advocating them, or saying they're acceptable just because you can't prove they're wrong! My form of agnosticism does not claim that there is a UI, does not make assumptions about what science will one day discover, and does not dismiss personal experiences on the grounds that they don't conform to the tenets of scientific materialism. It leaves the options open. Also sprach dhw.-Finally, and most importantly, any news of grad school?
Practical Consequences
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 18:34 (5282 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 18:47
> There are two main areas of controversy in our discussions. One is the complexity of life, and the other is the unsolved mystery of consciousness, which is related to all kinds of phenomena that appear to defy scientific explanation. -Take a look at this essay by an atheist philosopher on the subject of consciousness. He seems to think Darwin can't handle it!-http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=485 > > Finally, and most importantly, any news of grad school?-Any develolpments?-How complex a simple cell is also challenges Darwin that it can can arise from inorganic matter. How do the enzymes appear: (Taken from Uncommon Descent today)-"The simplest extant cell, Mycoplasma genitalium ... a tiny bacterium that inhabits the urinary tract requires "only" 482 proteins to perform its necessary functions and 562,000 bases of DNA...to assemble those proteins...Based upon minimal-complexity experiments, some scientists speculate (but have not demonstrated) that a simple one-celled organism might have been able to survive with as few as 250-400 genes" (p.201). For renowned biochemist David Deamer the first cell would at the very least have needed a polymerase enzyme to transcribe from a template such as DNA, a constant source of supplementary materials notably nucleotides, amino acids and ATP and enzymes that faithfully carry out DNA replication during cell division (3). To suppose that even a hypothetical first cell would just come together from a gimish of prebiotic compounds undergoing continuous destructive dilution is to appeal to the miraculous (4). Attempts to reconstruct such a cell start off from a fairly elaborate point of departure in which enzymes and other catalysts are already present and functional (5).-Just how important these functional enzymes are was brought to bear in a study led by University of North Carolina biochemist Richard Wolfenden (6). Wolfenden's team was able to demonstrate how a reaction with a half life of 2.3 billion years occurred in milliseconds when supplied with the necessary enzymes. Such spectacular differences are not uncommon. As Wolfenden remarked:-"What we're defining here is what evolution had to overcome...the enzyme is surmounting a tremendous obstacle, a reaction half-life of 2.3 billion years...Without catalysts, there would be no life at all, from microbes to humans. It makes you wonder how natural selection operated in such a way as to produce a protein that got off the ground as a primitive catalyst for such an extraordinarily slow reaction." (6)-Through a molecular technique known as random mutagenesis, scientists have now quantified the amino acid sequence variability that functional proteins can tolerate. Worthy of note in this field is the work of former Cambridge biochemist Douglas Axe whose data forms a pillar for the case that Meyer presents in his book. Using locally-randomized sequence libraries of a portion of the antibiotic resistance enzyme β-lactamase, Axe calculated that somewhere between 1 in 1050 and 1 in 1077 150 amino acid-long protein folds form configurations with a β-lactamase function (7). Of these one in 1050 to 1 in 1074 form folded structures that might perform any number of alternative functions (7).-Based on the structural requirements of enzyme activity Axe emphatically argued against a global-ascent model of the function landscape in which incremental improvements of an arbitrary starting sequence "lead to a globally optimal final sequence with reasonably high probability" (7). For a protein made from scratch in a prebiotic soup, the odds of finding such globally optimal solutions are infinitesimally small- somewhere between 1 in 10140 and 1 in 10164 for a 150 amino acid long sequence if we factor in the probabilities of forming peptide bonds and of incorporating only left handed amino acids.-In a 1981 legal challenge involving the Arkansas Board Of Education, astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe appeared for the defense as an expert witness. Taking on the dogmatic neo-Darwinist view on the origins of life, Wickramasinghe unwaveringly proclaimed that the probability of obtaining the information necessary for making the simplest cell by chance was 1 in 1040,000 (8). These estimates not only exceeded by many powers of 10 the total number of atoms available in the universe but also closely matched the minimal complexity predictions discussed above. By pulling together these probabilistic threads of evidence in Signature In The Cell, Meyer has relegated naturalistic life origin models to little more than fanciful speculation. His piece-by-piece dismissal of the chance hypothesis is beautifully executed as is the personal narrative that interconnects the various portions of his scientific story."
dhw: Practical Consequences Pt.1
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, November 12, 2009, 18:05 (5281 days ago) @ dhw
dhw...-> ...Until scientists find explanations, I'm prepared to consider other possibilities ... such as a power beyond our comprehension (which is far from saying a UI exists). Who are you, Matt, to lay down what is "reasonable" and what is not? Who are you to say that only scientific evidence counts (see below)? We have unsolved mysteries, and until they're solved, each of us must decide for himself what constitutes a reasonable or unreasonable explanation. In my case, the options stay open. > -Hrm... I must have done a good job of not communicating myself. First, non-biological objects: you said that she has no basis for saying a UI doesn't exist. I was countering that there IS such a basis. A problem I have with flighty concepts such as a UI, is that you have to be able to account for how it interfaces with the physical world. Since we know that particles behave in predictable ways, and that we haven't seen anomalies to suggest otherwise, we don't have any evidence that would suggest there's merit to a UI, unless the UI is trying to hide itself from us--which for our purposes means it doesn't exist "to us." -> You write: "all questions are true or false", -You left out my qualification "In Science." -and the determination of the "true/false" always results in the rejection of conclusions that aren't supported by the evidence." (Let's ignore your earlier, vehement opposition to the very concept of "truth".) -Please, see above. Science isn't about truth in any absolute sense, but building testable models, and all tests must be falsifiable; therefore all questions must be binary in nature. -It's you who talk of conclusions, not me. The evidence for abiogenesis has not been found; the nature, origin, and workings of consciousness are unknown. No objective conclusions can be drawn. But you join GC in assuming that the conclusion will be ENTIRELY materialistic. Science is objective. Until there's evidence, there's no true/false, and so any judgement can only be based on preconceived ideas. That is the whole point of my earlier post, but again see below on the subject of "evidence". > -For abiogenesis--we have tantalizing clues from nature; self-construction of complex structures happens without intelligence guiding it. (Crystals for one simple example.) Also please note that the origin of life is clearly one of chemistry and physics; we're chemical creatures living in a physical universe. Even if we were "designed" lets note that we are clearly material beings and therefore there IS a material process that resulted in life being formed. We also know that life HAS had a progression on our planet that moves towards increasing complexity; just as we inferred the big bang, we infer a similar (relatively) simple origin for life. (Note, I'm still separating "belief" from "acceptance.") - -> You wrote: "Since I say it's unreasonable to believe in a UI because of no evidence, you will also say that the same lack of evidence prevents me from saying a UI doesn't exist." No, I won't. We all know you can't prove such a negative (Russell's teapot), so why attribute this silly argument to me? It's the lack of evidence for the materialist solution and not the lack of evidence against a UI that makes the alternative an equally reasonable/ unreasonable/subjective solution. You ask: "If you think leprechauns don't exist, what reason do we have to also believe that a UI exists? [...] Your reasoning of "sitting on the fence" resurrects ALL of these monsters." No it doesn't. Nor do I give you reasons to believe in a UI. You keep falling into this trap of your own making, which is your refusal to accept the negativity and neutrality of agnosticism. It's based on what we don't believe, not on what we do, and in putting the case for not rejecting, I do not put a case for believing. I'll try once more to get this across. Please read on. > -I understand that agnosticism draws a line in the sand and says "I feel I don't know enough to pick this side or that side." I recognize this and don't (intrinsically) have a problem with this. Note that my own "agnosticism" is predicated upon epistemology, and the concept of what we really do/don't know about the universe at large. (Until you can "build" it, you can't fully understand it.) -What I'm driving at here is a question as to why you're willing to give equal hearing to things we can't gather evidence for. I can't, and that's my own problem. -We hear all the time about supernatural claims, but I find it interesting that they only come from religious people. In the great scope of things we don't hear about all the non-supernatural claims; because these never cause a stir. -Our "controversies" occur I think because we deal with these issues differently: I assume all claims are false until found reasonably true. When studying a claim, I ask "what is the evidence." We all know that I have a high threshold for evidence--which might well be another real sticking point. To me, evidence is something that can actually be studied; so *evidence* is inherently material in nature. (I'd be a bad person on a jury, because I don't care about "eyewitness testimony.")-Grad school: STILL unknown.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Practical Consequences
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, November 02, 2009, 20:26 (5291 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: "... she moves onto three specific areas. In each of them, she understandably attacks the religious position (I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God), but seems blissfully unaware that all her comments apply equally to the atheist position."-By this I take it that you mean that "equally there is no scientific evidence for there not being a God". These are not equivalent propositions. The atheist proposition requires no special, strange or extraordinary assumptions, only the existing knowledge we have of physics, chemistry and biology. -dhw: "... how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individual creatures wouldn't live for ever, or maybe - as Matt suggests - he's not perfect, or - as Frank suggests - he's not all-powerful."-That's three distinctly separate theologies there! All with different extraordinary assumptions. The idea that a designer would design the universe so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is a contortion of logic worthy of Philip Gosse's Omphalos.-dhw questions whether we can say that evolution proceeds "exactly as we would expect if evolution were an entirely natural, physical process of descent with modification" I think we can. He says: "at least until it's all been understood (assuming it will be), how can anyone talk of what one would expect?" Well if we waited until then (which would probably be for ever) it wouldn't be what we expect it would be what we actually know.-dhw: "Until all the above questions are answered, the belief that the process is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved." It is not faith-based. It is evidence-based. There are not just two equal positions here. There is one position, that pointed to by the evidence, and multitudinous different positions based on speculation, fancy and anecdote.-dhw: "As I said at the beginning, in my view she's right that there's no scientific evidence to support the claims that God directs evolution, that there is an immaterial soul, that the universe is sentient."-We agree on that then.-dhw: "Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence" -They are perfectly reasonable expectations based on the evidence we have.-dhw: "... any more than do the assumptions of believers who consider the many unsolved mysteries to be indicative of a conscious power beyond our comprehension."-Which is an entirely arbitrary fanciful assumption.-dhw doesn't seem to understand that science is agnostic, in the true sense of agnostic, that of being clear about what we do know and what we do not know about anything. dhw's brand of agnosticism is to treat all forms of speculative ideas as equally likely to be true as those based on scientific extrapolation. He doesn't like us talking about what "seems" to be the case on the balance of the evidence. He wants absolute certainty. Until that day comes (which will be never) he sits on all the fences he can find.
--
GPJ
Practical Consequences
dhw: Scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence [...]. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences. GEORGE: So you are not an agnostic after all! You are a mystic. A gnostic. No, George, not being prepared to ignore something does not mean believing in it. I am not prepared to ignore the possibility that there is no God, or the possibility that there is a God, so does that make me an atheist theist?-dhw: I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God. [Greta Christian] seems blissfully unaware that all her comments apply equally to the atheist position. GEORGE: By this I take it that you mean that "equally there is no scientific evidence for there not being a God." These are not equivalent propositions.-No, that is not what I mean at all. She attacks the "God-of-the-gaps", but proceeds to make assumptions about the exclusively biological nature of consciousness and about the mechanisms that drive evolution. The "existing knowledge we have of physics, chemistry and biology" does not explain the nature of consciousness (see below), and provides no evidence that chance could assemble the mechanisms needed for life and evolution. Until such evidence is provided, she ... like yourself ... is filling in the gaps with her beliefs.-dhw: ...how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individuals wouldn't live for ever, or maybe [...] he's not perfect, or [...] he's not all-powerful. GEORGE: That's three distinctly separate theologies there! All with different extraordinary assumptions. The idea that a designer would design the universe so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is a contortion of logic worthy of Philip Gosse's Omphalos.-First of all, they are not assumptions. They are "maybes". Secondly, who says the universe looks as if it isn't designed? How do you know the difference between the appearance of a designed universe and that of an undesigned universe? In any case, the reference was to life, not to the universe.-I argued that since nobody has been able to explain the nature of consciousness, belief that it is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved. GEORGE: It is not faith-based. It is evidence-based. GRETA CHRISTIAN: The basic questions of what exactly consciousness is, and where exactly it comes from, and how exactly it works, are, as yet, largely unanswered. What, then, is the evidence that consciousness is entirely biological?-dhw: Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence." GEORGE: They are perfectly reasonable expectations based on the evidence we have. Agreed, though I wouldn't use "perfectly". I'm not saying that atheism is "unreasonable". But since the evidence we have is so inadequate, and since the gaps in our knowledge are so enormous, it is also not "unreasonable" to believe that all these phenomena may have arisen from powers beyond our comprehension. -GEORGE: dhw doesn't seem to understand that science is agnostic, in the true sense of agnostic... Of course science is agnostic. But some scientists are not. And if a scientist ridicules the notion of God on the grounds that he/she believes science will eventually prove the correctness of his/her theories concerning the origin of life and evolution, or the nature of consciousness, he/she sacrifices the agnosticism of science.-GEORGE: dhw's brand of agnosticism is to treat all forms of speculative ideas as equally likely to be true as those based on scientific extrapolation. "All forms" is going a bit far (I accept Russell's teapot analogy). Research into the areas I've mentioned above (origin of life and evolution, consciousness) has not so far yielded any satisfactory explanation based on "scientific extrapolation". But I agree that I find the speculative idea of chance assembling all this complex machinery as likely/unlikely to be true as the speculative idea that the machinery was assembled by a designer. That is why I'm an agnostic.-GEORGE: He wants absolute certainty. Until that day comes (which will be never) he sits on all the fences he can find.-Only one fence, but it's a substantial one. I'd probably settle for 75% certainty, but as things stand I find both sets of explanations (chance/design) equally difficult to believe in. Consequently, it always surprises me when theists/atheists have such total confidence in their theories that they are prepared utterly to dismiss or even ridicule the "opposition". To be able, for instance, to say that a conscious power beyond our comprehension ... or, conversely, the theory that chance could assemble the mechanisms of life and evolution ... is "an entirely arbitrary fanciful assumption", a person must really imagine he/she has found "absolute certainty". But you and I know that the day will never come, don't we?
Practical Consequences
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Thursday, November 12, 2009, 12:26 (5281 days ago) @ dhw
I thought perhaps I ought to try to reply to dhw's confusing post, or some of it. So here goes.-dhw: Scientific evidence is not necessarily the only form of evidence [...]. I am not prepared to ignore, for instance, mystic or "paranormal" experiences. GEORGE: So you are not an agnostic after all! You are a mystic. A gnostic. dhw: No, George, not being prepared to ignore something does not mean believing in it. I am not prepared to ignore the possibility that there is no God, or the possibility that there is a God, so does that make me an atheist theist?-In a way I suppose it does! You are sitting on the fence looking at both sides and unable to decide which is more likely to be right. You are unable to decide despite the evidence being heavily on one side rather than the other. So long as there is the slightest possibility that paranormal experiences will one day be proved more than mere psychological phenomena, no matter how low the probability of that eventuality, you will obstinately continue to sit on your fence.-===-dhw: ...how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individuals wouldn't live for ever, or maybe [...] he's not perfect, or [...] he's not all-powerful. GEORGE: That's three distinctly separate theologies there! All with different extraordinary assumptions. The idea that a designer would design the universe so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is a contortion of logic worthy of Philip Gosse's Omphalos. dhw: First of all, they are not assumptions. They are "maybes". -That's just a qiibble. Assumptions, suppositions, ... call it what you like. By the way her name is Greta Christina (not Christian).-dhw: Secondly, who says the universe looks as if it isn't designed? How do you know the difference between the appearance of a designed universe and that of an undesigned universe? In any case, the reference was to life, not to the universe.-The idea that a designer would design life so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is still a contortion of logic -===-dhw: I argued that since nobody has been able to explain the nature of consciousness, belief that it is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved. > GEORGE: It is not faith-based. It is evidence-based. > GRETA CHRISTINA: The basic questions of what exactly consciousness is, and where exactly it comes from, and how exactly it works, are, as yet, largely unanswered. dhw: What, then, is the evidence that consciousness is entirely biological?>-I don't go along with Greta Christina's view of consciousness. I don't think it's as weird as so many people seem to want to think. The only form of consciousness known is that evidenced by life-forms with brains and nervous systems. There is no evidence whatsoever for any other kind. This again is a fence that you insist on sitting on no matter how sharp it gets, or how close to the abyss! I admire your fortitude. It is almost worrthy of Simon Stylites.-=== dhw: Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence." > GEORGE: They are perfectly reasonable expectations based on the evidence we have. dhw: Agreed, though I wouldn't use "perfectly". -Quibbling again.-dhw: I'm not saying that atheism is "unreasonable". But since the evidence we have is so inadequate, and since the gaps in our knowledge are so enormous, it is also not "unreasonable" to believe that all these phenomena may have arisen from powers beyond our comprehension.-On the contrary the evidence we have is good, and it is unreasonable to attribute the phenomena to other causes, especially causes beyond our comprehension. ===-GEORGE: dhw doesn't seem to understand that science is agnostic, in the true sense of agnostic... dhw: Of course science is agnostic. But some scientists are not. And if a scientist ridicules the notion of God on the grounds that he/she believes science will eventually prove the correctness of his/her theories concerning the origin of life and evolution, or the nature of consciousness, he/she sacrifices the agnosticism of science.-Once again dhw is evaluating both sides as having equal validity. Dawkins at least has a scale of agnosticism from 1 to 7, and places himself at somewhere near 6. He is blissfully unaware that the fence he balances on leans heavily to one side.-I'll stop there as I just seem to be repeating my previously expressed views.
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GPJ