801. Comment #51796 by mrm on June 25, 2007 at 2:08 am

I often think that images speak louder than words when dealing with the irrational.
This is Jung's experience of awakening to the relief of realisation and the terror of being found out.
"At 12 he had a fantasy that left him in fear of eternal damnation until he realized that it was God who gave it to him. The vision was of a giant turd falling from under God's throne in the heavens on to the cathedral of Basel, shattering its roof and destroying the walls. The affectual response Jung reported from this vision is one of intense relief and an unutterable bliss. He says he wept with happiness and gratitude for the 'grace of the vision', but remained in fear as it showed him that there is a terrible side to God--an idea that reappeared throughout life. Because those around him had no such experiences and reactions he was convinced that he was either cursed or blessed by the experience."

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802. Comment #51802 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 3:21 am

So to just respond "this is nonsense" won't do.

I didn't. I explained why later in the post.

To constantly try to defend science or to show how splendid science is as if anybody was criticizing science strikes me as a very big red herring.

But you are criticising science - you are claiming it can't be used to investigate reality.

Like this:

Indeed the issue of science is entirely irrelevant in our discussion about how reality is.

And as I keep telling you, science works as a way of investigating reality because it allows for investigators to be proved wrong by tests against what is 'out there'. It doesn't matter what that reality is.

However, this is still a side issue. You are avoiding the key problem - why you believe that objective things require substance.... why should the proof of the digits of PI suddenly become false depending on what universe or supernatural domain you are in?

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803. Comment #51808 by Dr Benway on June 25, 2007 at 5:02 am

Ethical principles arise out of the need to form cooperative relationships. They're like promises or social contracts. Humans develop general rules of thumb forbidding stealing, killing, bogarting the TV remote, etc., in order to live peacefully together.

Whatever. That doesn't answer which actions are objectively good or objectively bad...

Who would you rather have stuck with you on a desert isle: a social contract ethicist, or a divine intuition ethicist?

I'd want the social contract person. That person will talk to me and work things out with me. The other bloke will pray and likely tell me that the Lord needs all my fish.

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804. Comment #51830 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 25, 2007 at 7:24 am

Dr Benway (803, or #51808):

Who would you rather have stuck with you on a desert isle: a social contract ethicist, or a divine intuition ethicist?

All other parameters being the same I would choose the divine intuition ethicist. Indeed I wonder how well social contract ethics would work on a desert island with only two people on it fighting for their survival. But let me simplify the situation:

If I were stuck on a desert island then, all other personal parameters (such as age, education, intelligence, sex, etc) being the same, I would rather have with me a theist than a naturalist. Why? Because as the two only differ in their understanding of reality the theist would have one more reason to behave well than the naturalist. I would judge that the naturalist who believes that everything ends with death would tend to behave more egoistically or aggressively than the theist who believes that life here is only the beginning and that what one does in this life has relevance for the next.

And, by the way, I would judge the same even if I myself were a naturalist :-)

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805. Comment #51836 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 25, 2007 at 8:44 am

Epeeist (post 800, or #51793):

So now we are getting to the basis of your beliefs, Christianity, Platonic idealism and a dash of Pythagorean number mysticism.

The basis of my beliefs is "what works, works" :-)

I am an entirely pragmatic person. I find that naturalism is plagued with a lot of deep problems and that idealistic theism works much much better than naturalism on all levels. So why should I believe in naturalism? To escape the scorn that many naturalists typically shower theists with? Or to assume the mantle of the tough kind of guy who can "take it"? Or to belong to a group of people who fancy themselves especially smart? From where I stand naturalism is a concoction of fallacies and myths that will not withstand the test of history. We'll see.

In a number of posts you berate science for the variety of interpretations of QM. I wonder how you reconcile this kind of lack of agreement with the arguments in theology. The number of sects within Christianity and the disagreements between them is hardly trivial. And of course Christianity isn't the only religion.

Actually I don't berate science for the variety of interpretations of QM, simply because I don't consider that it's science's job to describe reality. Science's job is to model phenomena, a task that science performs very well, and a task that is very useful for obvious reasons (if you can model phenomena you can also tame them). It's ontology's job to describe reality, ontology is a philosophical field, and naturalism is one ontological theory about reality. The scientists who designed the various interpretations of QM were (probably unbeknownst to them) doing ontology, not science. How can one tell? Well easily enough: Competing scientific theories make different experimental predictions. Competing ontological theories make no such experimental predictions, and that's why nobody is suggesting any scientific experiment to decide which of the various interpretations of QM is the correct one. There can't be any such scientific experiments. Why not? Because the result of all imaginable QM experiments is predicted by QM and all interpretations of QM exactly agree with QM and are therefore exactly equivalent as far as the evidence goes. In conclusion, by pointing out the fiasco of interpreting QM within naturalism I am only berating naturalism itself. I do notice though a clear tendency by naturalists to try and toss naturalism's job on science's lap, and argue away naturalism's failures with "science has solved hard problems before, just wait and see how science will solve naturalism's problems too".

You may ask: How is theism any better than naturalism in this respect? Well, there is no need to interpret QM within idealistic theism, because according to idealistic theism all phenomena, including QM phenomena, are produced directly by God without the mediation of an objectively real physical universe that needs describing. In fact I interpret the impossibility of describing how the objective physical universe is, or even ascertaining whether the physical universe objectively exists in the first place, as God's way for telling us that no such thing as an objective physical universe exists. I cannot but marvel at God's intelligence. Indeed what I find so impressive (and the discussion in this thread has elucidated this for me) is how naturalism's failures are such that if one tries to find the most economical way to design an ontological worldview that is free of them one naturally arrives at a concept of God that shares all the major tenets of the traditional theistic religions. And what is especially impressive is that these tenets were defined many centuries before naturalism's problems became apparent.

But I digress. As for the different religious ontological views you mention my judgment is that compared to naturalism's views about reality 1) the differences are far less dramatic, 2) the descriptions of reality are far more plausible, and 3) there is at least some tendency to reach agreement. In fact I wish people would learn more QM and learn about how naturalists tried to find ways to describe a physical reality that would produce the quantum phenomena we observe, because this would help dispel the myth that naturalists have pretty much figured out everything, or that naturalism is a basically workable worldview.

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806. Comment #51846 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 10:26 am

In fact I wish people would learn more QM and learn about how naturalists tried to find ways to describe a physical reality that would produce the quantum phenomena we observe, because this would help dispel the myth that naturalists have pretty much figured out everything, or that naturalism is a basically workable worldview.

This is terrible debating technique.

First you set up a straw man: No-one is claiming that naturalists 'have pretty much figured out everything'.

Then you use the 'argument from incredulity': You don't like the implications of Quantum Mechanics, so you claim it is not a workable worldview. That is no argument at all.

What you neglect, again and again, that QM is not used because of its worldview, but because it allows predictions of unparalleled accuracy - because it works. If you don't like its worldview, then you are free to ignore the fact that the computer that you are using to post these comments would not work but for QM, so it seems a bit bizarre!

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807. Comment #51850 by epeeist on June 25, 2007 at 10:36 am

Comment #51846 by steve99

This is terrible debating technique.

Agreed, I really do wonder whether he actually knows anything about science, I am with Feynman on this one "Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong."

He has also studiously avoided answering my question about the disagreements across the "theological worldview".

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808. Comment #51851 by GBile on June 25, 2007 at 10:37 am

M. Georgoudis,

A worldview may result in a lifestyle.
Does the existence of your marvelously intelligent God makes you pray 5 times a day on a rug, makes you reluctant to eat certain species of shellfish, causes you to worry about the 'sinner inside', expects you to be with him in 'a loving embrace (Andrew Sullivan-style) after you die ?
What do you do as a result of your worldview ?

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809. Comment #51853 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:30 am

I find it hard to swallow his arguments myself, but I note that no philosopher of note has pointed out some clear mistake in Plantinga's paper.

Well, here is one. Plantinga has a very naive view of evolution, especially recent human evolution. His arguments about mental development and evolution may be fine for relatively intellectually simple animals, but above a certain level you get a new situation. As Dawkins explains in The Selfish Gene, we are no longer slaves to our genes. We can do things that even hinder our reproductive success, such as using contraception. To claim that beliefs are connected in a tight way to evolution is just plain wrong for humans.

In our society supposedly maladaptive beliefs need not be selected against.

But anyway, his argument is irrelevant, as humans have a way of investigating reality that helps to counter our cognitive weaknesses - science and experiment. What that does is to allow ourselves to be shown to be wrong. It helps to stop us being fooled by our cognitive failures.

I can give you a clear example of how this works. We have cognitive problems when it comes to things like space, time, and the physics of the very small. Left to ourselves, we would indeed have false beliefs about these things. However, science has revealed that beliefs are wrong: space is not absolute; space and time are relative, and strange things happen at the quantum level.

In one regard, Plantinga is right. Our minds are probably not reliable. But we have tools to help reveal that unreliability and overcome it, just like we have medicines to help overcome the unreliability of our bodies.

You might argue that an individual can be mistaken as to their use and understanding of science, so it doesn't help. But here, evolution helps, as it ensures that we don't all think and understand the same way. We each have a different perspective. And science works because it shows consistent results for the same experiments no matter what your perspective - it helps to remove subjectivity.

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810. Comment #51855 by Dr Benway on June 25, 2007 at 11:49 am

Dianelos:

I would judge that the naturalist who believes that everything ends with death would tend to behave more egoistically or aggressively than the theist who believes that life here is only the beginning and that what one does in this life has relevance for the next.

Wow. Your brain isn't like mine.

My reaction to being stranded on a desert isle with one other person would be to form a bond of trust and solidarity with that person. He or she would be more precious to me than any other resource.

BTW, I don't see why I need a belief one way or the other regarding life after death. The notion seems like improbable wish fulfillment to me, so I'm assuming it's false. But give me evidence for it and I'll happily change my mind.

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811. Comment #51858 by Yaweh on June 25, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Thus saeth Me: Dianelos, thou must givest of thy fish a tithe unto Benway, in whom I am well pleased.

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812. Comment #51890 by _J_ on June 25, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Dianelos,

(Hi, again)

Just want to agree with Dr Benway. Your brain's not like mine on this one, either.

And the other thing I like about the 'desert island' scenario (which, Benway, was an argument I was also putting into a long post for David Robertson's site - have you been reading my mind?) is the issue of who is going to be the most practically useful.

Put it another way: suppose, by virtue of Industrial Light and Magic, your flux capacitor strands you and 99 like-minded others in the year 1000. You find a nice, sparsely populated country to call your own.

Now, which society of stranded time travellers has the best chance of recreating the sort of world you're accustomed to living in - ie one where you don't die of tuberculosis before your thirtieth birthday, and where more than one-in-five kids makes it to adulthood? Is it a society of naturalistically inclined folks who'll reason, experiment and produce? Or is it a society that holds a theistic interpretation of 'reality' which accepts scientific discoveries but contradicts the methodological framework necessary to make any?

On another point, have you seen the charming video posted today featuring the song about how 'God Hates The World'? You've been challenged before on the basis that your perspective allows equally for an interpretation in which God is not the fluffy waver of virtue-flavoured carrots that you suppose, but rather a stick-brandishing thug. You denied this. I see a room full of grinning idiots (and one deeply unfortunate child) who beg to differ.

(Anyway: I'm not here; I'm not doing this debate anymore; Steve99, Epeeist and everyone are much better at it...)

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813. Comment #52003 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 25, 2007 at 10:56 pm

Steve99 (post 882, or #51802):

So to just respond "this is nonsense" won't do.

I didn't. I explained why later in the post.

Bellow I quote your full text:

Nonsense. This is an entirely false dichotomy. If naturalism is true, this means nothing more than we have to be cautious about how accurate our beliefs might be, nothing more. To claim that the belief in evolution is not justifiable is absurd.

Science does not study things with perfect tools. It samples reality. And even sampling reality with imperfect tools gets you a very, very long way, in terms of both understanding and predictive power.

I don't see any criticism of Plantinga's argument here. I only see you stating your belief in a much weaker (and obviously true) claim, your personal sense of a claim that Plantinga does not make (he does not claim that "belief in evolution is not justifiable"), and some irrelevant platitudes about science.

To constantly try to defend science or to show how splendid science is as if anybody was criticizing science strikes me as a very big red herring.

But you are criticising science - you are claiming it can't be used to investigate reality.

That's like saying that I criticize a sewing machine because it can't be used to make coffee, or that I criticize a coffee machine because it can't be used to drive around :-)

My point all along was that science's job is to model phenomena, a job that is performs remarkably well, and a job that is of obvious practical importance. But it seems that you think that science's job is also to describe reality according to naturalism's view of reality. Well, maybe you are not alone in this belief; many scientists may also think so. Not all though: the great Feynman famously said that he didn't care about what the calculations meant as long as they produced the right result. I suppose he had little choice: what QED (quantum electrodynamics – the most advanced form of QM) says is that if you shoot a photon at point A and detect it later at point B then in between that photon has passed through all points of space in the universe following any possible trajectory at any speed.

Anyway, what science is is a matter of definition. It seems to me that propositions that cannot be experimentally tested for fundamental reasons should not be called science – and ontological propositions cannot be experimentally tested because they all (except the most naive ones - and even that is debatable) purport to describe what causes the phenomena we observe, and are therefore exaclty equivalent as far as scientific observations go. But suppose I would accept your definition of science, namely that science is not only about modeling phenomena but also about describing reality according to naturalism. This would amount to dumping all of naturalism's dirty linen on science's doorstep. That, it seems to me, is equivalent to finding a way to criticize science, because it's a fact that naturalism has done a terrible job describing reality, and has not even come up with any epistemology for how one is to justify ontological claims. As I have no interest whatsoever to take a perfectly successful intellectual enterprise as science is and cloud it with naturalism's failures I refuse to accept your definition of science. I mean take any book of physics: it clearly only describes patterns present in physical phenomena. A book of paleontology may be somewhat misguiding in this respect but at least it can be read as a description of patterns present in physical phenomena too.

And as I keep telling you, science works as a way of investigating reality because it allows for investigators to be proved wrong by tests against what is 'out there'. It doesn't matter what that reality is.

Science's tests cannot prove wrong what is 'out there' causing the phenomena we observe; these tests can prove wrong scientific theories about the phenomena themselves. As you put it "it doesn't matter what that reality is". Exactly right.

However, this is still a side issue. You are avoiding the key problem - why you believe that objective things require substance.... why should the proof of the digits of PI suddenly become false depending on what universe or supernatural domain you are in?

Oh, maybe I have misunderstood you. When you wrote in post 776 "If they are truly objective, they are there for anyone to discover, in any universe, and in any context, be it supernatural or natural." I understood you meant any possible world we may imagine and not only in the world we find ourselves in. So I pointed out that one possible world is a world with no countable things in which the concept of numbers is meaningless. But if you did not mean "any possible world" but rather our world then I don't understand your point. Because in our world it is possible to reduce math to matter, which is a good thing for naturalism.

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814. Comment #52004 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 25, 2007 at 11:04 pm

Epeeist (post 807, or #51850):

He has also studiously avoided answering my question about the disagreements across the "theological worldview".

I did answer your question in the last paragraph of post 805 (or #51836), just after "But I digress." :-) Let me know if you want me to elaborate on this.

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815. Comment #52009 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 25, 2007 at 11:29 pm

Steve99 (post 806, or #51846):

No-one is claiming that naturalists 'have pretty much figured out everything'.

Well, I think most naturalists believe just that. I wonder, what important questions do you think naturalism has yet to answer? Or, alternatively, what important questions do you think is naturalism unable to answer?

Then you use the 'argument from incredulity': You don't like the implications of Quantum Mechanics, so you claim it is not a workable worldview. That is no argument at all.

On the contrary, I like the implications of Quantum Mechanics very much, such as how absurd it gets when naturalists try to describe an objectively real physical universe that could produce the quantum phenomena we in fact observe. That's why I wrote that I wished more people would study Quantum Mechanics: to see how flimsy and unstable naturalism in fact is.

What you neglect, again and again, that QM is not used because of its worldview, but because it allows predictions of unparalleled accuracy - because it works.

Actually what I affirm, again and again, is that QM works just splendidly for modeling physical phenomena. In fact, to our knowledge so far, Quantum Electrodynamics exactly models everything we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena).

If you don't like its worldview, then you are free to ignore the fact that the computer that you are using to post these comments would not work but for QM, so it seems a bit bizarre!

Sorry, it's not QM that has a worldview, it's naturalism that has a worldview. And when naturalism tried to actually describe that worldview in a way that is compatible with QM it failed, not just because it produced almost a dozen wildly incompatible descriptions, but also because every one of them is wildly implausible.

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816. Comment #52010 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:32 pm

I suppose he had little choice: what QED (quantum electrodynamics – the most advanced form of QM) says is that if you shoot a photon at point A and detect it later at point B then in between that photon has passed through all points of space in the universe following any possible trajectory at any speed.

I know this is a bit off topic, but you are really embarassing yourself with comments like this - as you show a terrible understanding of QM.

Quantum Electrodynamics is not 'the most advanced form of QM'. It is a particularly well-understood and well established part of QM. And a photon does not travel at any speed. It travels at the speed of light.

This does not help your case at all. To comment on science, you need to understand it, and not quote some tabloid-newspaper popular-article half-baked version!

because it's a fact that naturalism has done a terrible job describing reality

That is just crazy. First, you have to stop stating your opinions as facts. Secondly, it is sheer hypocricy on your part to claim this. You are typing this comment using a computer which has been built and designed entirely using science and naturalistic principles. That sure sounds like a pretty good job of describing reality to me.

But suppose I would accept your definition of science, namely that science is not only about modeling phenomena but also about describing reality according to naturalism.

That is NOT my definition of science. My definition of science is that it is about TESTING phenomena and reality. How we then describe reality based on the results of those tests is open to interpretation.

Where you are getting messed up is because you are making wild claims about what science is supposed to do, and then, using such claims, you reject it.

Science is a method for objective investigation. It is objective because it allows subjective views to be put to the test. It is objective because it is repeatable.

Because in our world it is possible to reduce math to matter, which is a good thing for naturalism.

I am getting really frustrated here. Why do you keep ignoring me and posting such nonsense! Do you simply skip over the bits I post that don't fit your worldview?

I tell you again and again about maths that CAN'T BE REDUCED TO MATTER. One example is PI, which has infinite precision. So show me any physical structure in this universe that has infinite precision. Why do you ignore this? I am sorry, but this is increasingly appearing like a desperate defense of a flawed worldview.

You now know full well that there are mathematical facts that are objective and can't be related to any form or substance. Your bizarre requirement that objective statements somehow require some form of generation from substance is clearly wrong. Your statement that objective things require instantiation from some supreme being is nonsense, as if they were objective, then they exist anyway, and require no instantiation.

The whole foundation of your requirement for the supernatural, and some kind of God is based on a seriously flawed understanding of logic and the use of words like 'objective'.

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817. Comment #52012 by epeeist on June 25, 2007 at 11:36 pm

Comment #52004 by Dianelos Georgoudis

I did answer your question in the last paragraph of post 805 (or #51836), just after "But I digress." :-) Let me know if you want me to elaborate on this.

You made a statement "In my view" for which you presented no evidence. I would like to see you reconcile the differences between not just world view of the Abrahamic religions, but also Buddhism and the more animistic beliefs.

I was struck by the similarities of your arguments and those of Galileo's contemporaries with regard to the things he saw through his telescopes. Some refused to look through it, arguing that since Aristotle's description of the world was correct then use of the telescope was superfluous. Others tried to reconcile the obvious imperfections of the moon by claiming it was embedded in a perfect crystal sphere thereby salvaging Aristotle's views using a scientifically unverifiable construct.

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818. Comment #52014 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:48 pm

Well, I think most naturalists believe just that.

What you think is of no importance. If you make a claim, you had better back it up, and simply saying that you 'think' it is no argument.

I wonder, what important questions do you think naturalism has yet to answer? Or, alternatively, what important questions do you think is naturalism unable to answer?

These questions are irrelevant. You need to realise that if there are indeed any problems with naturalism, to then conclude that supernaturalism is any kind of easy answer to those problems is the weakest possible form of reasoning.

On the contrary, I like the implications of Quantum Mechanics very much, such as how absurd it gets when naturalists try to describe an objectively real physical universe that could produce the quantum phenomena we in fact observe.

Don't try and weasel out of it like this. My argument was that you were using the 'argument from incredulity' and I was right. Reality is does not have to concert it self with your personal opinion of what is absurd. You are being wildly inconsistent: I am sure you accept that relativity occurs. Well, many in the past have considered that absurd. Opinions of what are absurd are no measure of what is true, and it is extremely poor and lazy reasoning to make that argument.

In fact, to our knowledge so far, Quantum Electrodynamics exactly models everything we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena).

Yet more half-baked understanding of science. You do realise that Quantum Electrodynamics involves the term 'Quantum'? And to claim that a Quantum model is exact is nonsense?

Sorry, it's not QM that has a worldview, it's naturalism that has a worldview. And when naturalism tried to actually describe that worldview in a way that is compatible with QM it failed, not just because it produced almost a dozen wildly incompatible descriptions, but also because every one of them is wildly implausible.

More nonsense. Yet again, you personally feel you have the scientific and philosophical authority to define what has failed! And you are using your own sense of implausibility as if that is any argument for anything at all, which anyone with a serious understanding of philosophy would realise is totally unjustified. A Dianelos of 200 years ago would claim that ideas of powered flight and electricity were implausible.

(Also, the descriptions that QM provides are certainly not incompatible. They are so compatible that it is very difficult to think of experiments that can distinguish them).

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819. Comment #52021 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 26, 2007 at 12:53 am

Dr Benway (post 810, or #51855):

I originally wrote:

I would judge that the naturalist who believes that everything ends with death would tend to behave more egoistically or aggressively than the theist who believes that life here is only the beginning and that what one does in this life has relevance for the next.

To which you respond:

Wow. Your brain isn't like mine.

I very much doubt that :-)

We think differently, but not that differently, as evidenced by how much importance we both place on ethics.

My reaction to being stranded on a desert isle with one other person would be to form a bond of trust and solidarity with that person. He or she would be more precious to me than any other resource.

Ah, but you are making this too easy. If survival on that island depended on solidarity and cooperation then the other person's ontological worldview matters very little anyway. In such situations it's only a question of minimum intelligence to see that the best strategy for survival is indeed solidarity and cooperation.

The question of ethics becomes interesting in situations where resources are scarce, where defending the other person's interests (say against the attack of a wild animal) may well go against one's own, in short in situations where ethics matters. After all ethical challenges are such where the right thing to do is not what serves our own personal interest of survival, future reproductive success, etc.

Now what follows is a little macabre, but I think is a good example:

Suppose that in that desert island there is some potable water but no food whatsoever and no possibility of catching any food. After a week or so of waiting for a passing boat you are both becoming weak. The best strategy for one's own survival is to kill the other person in his sleep and eat him to keep alive until a boat hopefully passes (while making sure to leave no evidence of the murder that the rescue party could discover). Of course the above is a very nasty course of action. The question at hand now is who is the one more likely to seriously consider or even resort to this course of action: the naturalist who believes that death is the definitive end, or the theist who believes that death is just a door to the next life in which our actions in this life will have relevance?

BTW, I don't see why I need a belief one way or the other regarding life after death. The notion seems like improbable wish fulfillment to me, so I'm assuming it's false. But give me evidence for it and I'll happily change my mind.

Naturalism is very clear about life after death: All of one's consciousness and intelligence and character and memories – in short all that makes a person a person – are produced by one's brain. One's brain is destroyed at death. Therefore there is no personal survival after death.

As for belief in life after death being wishful thinking - I agree, but then of course if I am right about how reality is (i.e. centered on a benevolent God) then there is absolutely no reason to think that wishful thinking could be misleading, quite the contrary.

As for the evidence you ask, I can describe the evidence I have: Life after death is implied by my worldview, and my worldview works better than naturalism in all one to one comparisons. It even works better than naturalism as a worldview for a scientist to adopt. And what works better on all fronts is probably true, don't you agree?

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820. Comment #52029 by krogercomplete on June 26, 2007 at 1:30 am

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in . . .

I understand Plantinga's argument as follows:

a) Naturalists believe that the natural, physical world is the whole of objective reality.
b) Naturalists believe that evolution is wholly responsible for the evolution of our cognitive functions.
c) We cannot be sure that evolution would produce in humans the ability to reliably decipher objective reality.
d) Therefore, we cannot trust any belief we hold about the supposed "real world."

Of course none of this disproves naturalism (this much should be obvious to anyone lurking around this thread still). The physical universe could be all there is, and here we sit with our faulty cognitive faculties, postulating brains in vats, alligator dream worlds, and alien computer simulations, utterly bewildered and wondering what the hell is going on. Or, evolution actually did provide us with reliable cognitive functions (reliable in terms of deciphering objective reality), and all the naturalists are correct. What Plantinga's argument does do is undermine our confidence. After all, we could really be living in the Matrix. How can we get around that possibility? As I understand your position Dianelos, we actually do live in God's Matrix.

So, where do we go from here? This debate has left me with the same feeling I had after the first day of my freshman philosophy course in college when the professor dropped the brain-in-a-vat theory on everyone and concluded that the probability of objective reality actually being as we perceive it is virtually zero (given the infinite number of possible alternatives). Holy shit, I thought. Where I really get hung up, though, is why the alternative you propose should be any different than any one of the infinite possibilities my professor proposed. Your theory should ultimately be just as likely as naturalism, if we want to play this brain-in-a-vat game. It reminds me of Shermer's "militant agnosticism": I don't know, and you don't either!

I suppose you could retort with the following: well, if you subscribe to naturalism then there is no reason to trust our cognitive faculties and any one of these crazy possibilities would be equally likely, BUT according to my worldview, God has given us the necessary tools to decipher objective reality! I think the operative phrase here is "according to my worldview." I am reluctant to take you seriously because it appears that, in the face of all this uncertainty, you just went ahead and made something up to provide objective pillars of knowledge, ethics, etc.

The following passage is from the last paragraph of the naturalism.org article, and I think it is instructive:

None of this, of course, will cut the least bit of ice for Plantinga and other supernaturalist rationalists (such as John F. Haught), since their commitment isn't to explanatory transparency but to discovering unimpeachable foundations for reason (and ethics, another story). Such foundations, they argue, cannot be supplied by a world whose ultimate constituents are inherently mindless. Only in god can we trust. So be it. Some people want certainties of the sort that god can deliver, some don't.

I suppose one final response to Plantinga's argument would be, "so what?" So what if naturalism would not necessarily produce brains able to reliably decipher objective reality? What on earth does this have to do with whether or not naturalism is true? Why is it that that objective reality should even be ascertainable? I understand the desire to craft a worldview where we do in fact have the necessary tools to figure out the true nature of the world, but this is not a necessary condition.

Other Comments by krogercomplete

821. Comment #52030 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 26, 2007 at 1:38 am

_J_ (812, or #51890):

Now, which society of stranded time travellers has the best chance of recreating the sort of world you're accustomed to living in - ie one where you don't die of tuberculosis before your thirtieth birthday, and where more than one-in-five kids makes it to adulthood? Is it a society of naturalistically inclined folks who'll reason, experiment and produce? Or is it a society that holds a theistic interpretation of 'reality' which accepts scientific discoveries but contradicts the methodological framework necessary to make any?

Hmm, the way you put the question the answer is obvious, isn't it? (Even though there were no sparsely populated countries in the Middle Ages with naturalistically inclined folks who'll reason and experiment, but no matter, I get the point).

You are saying that theism contradicts science's methodological framework, but this is like comparing apples and oranges. After all, why do you think theism should use science's methodological framework in the first place? Science discovers patterns in physical phenomena. Theism is an ontological theory, and ontology is a philosophical field that concerns itself with a different kind of problem, namely what is real. (Or, if you prefer, the problem of describing the reality that causes the phenomena that science studies.) So, if the problem is different, why do you think that exactly the same methodological tools should be used by theism, or by any ontological theory for that matter? For example science's methodology is based on objective experiments. Are you suggesting that therefore we should use objective experiments in all other cognitive fields also? Would you criticize politicians for not using objective experiments before making decisions? Or ethicists for not using objective experiments before developing ethical theories? Or mathematicians for not using objective experiments before proving theorems? Or sculptors for not using objective experiments before creating a sculpture? Or people for not using objective experiments before choosing their friends? Or people for not using objective experiments before choosing an ontological worldview? Let's see. I assume you yourself have chosen the naturalistic ontological worldview. What objective experiment did you perform before deciding that this is the correct ontological worldview?

I agree that what is required in all cases is reason. But to think that exactly the same methodological tools that science uses should be used in all fields of human discovery is quite unreasonable.

And as for reason, my goal in this thread has been to explain the reasons why I find theism to work much better than naturalism. And if one finds that one worldview works much better than another it's reasonable to adopt the first one, don't you agree?

Anyway: I'm not here; I'm not doing this debate anymore;

Pity. I am interested in your thoughts.

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

822. Comment #52031 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 1:41 am

and my worldview works better than naturalism in all one to one comparisons.

No, I am afraid it doesn't, and your repeated refusal to deal with arguments that show this reveal how weak your worldview is.

For example, your worldview does not explain the existence of objective facts. It only implies that some subjective moral sense is imposed by a creator. And there is no evidence for that at all.

Other Comments by steve99

823. Comment #52032 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 1:45 am

Science discovers patterns in physical phenomena

No. This is just the way you want to use the term. Science is a general technique.

To quote from wikipedia:

"In the broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge') refers to any systematic methodology which attempts to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions about events, in line with hypotheses proven by experiment."

I see no 'physical phenomena' mentioned there.

Science is about objective investigation of shared reality; that is all.

Other Comments by steve99

824. Comment #52045 by epeeist on June 26, 2007 at 2:46 am

Comment #52030 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Theism is an ontological theory, and ontology is a philosophical field that concerns itself with a different kind of problem, namely what is real. (Or, if you prefer, the problem of describing the reality that causes the phenomena that science studies.)

It isn't a theory in the way that I would understand it. Hypothesis I might give you, or possibly speculation. In this it is no different from science. The many interpretations of QM, M-theory and the like are ontological speculations. The difference between theistic ontology and empirical ontologies is that one day someone just might come up with a way to validate the empirical one.

For example science's methodology is based on objective experiments.

This is only a small part of the scientific methodology. You missed out all of the problem analysis and hypothesis formation which are the major parts.

And no, I wouldn't expect every field of human endeavour to use a scientific methodology. It may be inappropriate or ineffective. What I would argue for in some areas is evidence based reasoning (does s a National Health Service improve the overall health of the nation compared to a privatised system for example).

To use an analogical argument

Are you suggesting that therefore we should use objective experiments theistic ontology in all other cognitive fields also? Would you criticize politicians for not using objective experiments theistic ontology before making decisions? Or ethicists for not using objective experiments theistic ontology before developing ethical theories? Or mathematicians for not using objective experiments theistic ontology before proving theorems? Or sculptors for not using objective experiments theistic ontology before creating a sculpture? Or people for not using objective experiments theistic ontology before choosing their friends?

What value does a theistic world view add in the above? Little, if any, I would suggest. Apart from the feel good factor it offers no explanations and, at best, a confused guide to behaviour. It offers no help to the mathematician, let alone the scientist or sociologist. Theism might give the sculptor or musician some inspiration, but the same kind of inspiration can be seen in Mendelssohn's "Hebrides Overture" or Ansel Adam's photographs.

Other Comments by epeeist

825. Comment #52049 by BMMcArdle on June 26, 2007 at 3:13 am

I think, wish, believe, deem, maintain, presuppose, suppose, reckon, postulate, hope, assume, imagine, surmise, conclude, fancy. That is my "worldview", and I'm sticking to it.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

826. Comment #52060 by GBile on June 26, 2007 at 4:25 am

Mr. Georgoudis,

You chose to ignore my question to you in comment #808 so far, but nevertheless I like to give my opinion to what you wrote in a later comment:

Suppose that in that desert island there is some potable water but no food whatsoever and no possibility of catching any food. After a week or so of waiting for a passing boat you are both becoming weak. The best strategy for one's own survival is to kill the other person in his sleep and eat him to keep alive until a boat hopefully passes (while making sure to leave no evidence of the murder that the rescue party could discover). Of course the above is a very nasty course of action. The question at hand now is who is the one more likely to seriously consider or even resort to this course of action: the naturalist who believes that death is the definitive end, or the theist who believes that death is just a door to the next life in which our actions in this life will have relevance?

I would never contemplate to harm my companion. Because if I did so I would have an unbarable burden on my conscience which I could not live with. In case of a very religious companion, maybe he would murder and pray for forgiveness (after all, a nonbeliever, who cares, goes to hell anyway !)

Other Comments by GBile

827. Comment #52132 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 26, 2007 at 8:51 am

Steve99 (816, or #52010):

And a photon does not travel at any speed. It travels at the speed of light.

I am afraid you are factually wrong in this. According to Quantum Electrodynamics a photon does not always or even usually travel at the speed of light. In fact a photon can travel at speeds much higher than the speed of light. It's only on average that a great number of photons travel in vacuum at the speed of light. I understand Epeeist is a physicist and can confirm this. As you can easily do so yourself if you research a little.

You are typing this comment using a computer which has been built and designed entirely using science and naturalistic principles.

I agree that my computer was designed and built using scientific principles, but I object that it was built using naturalistic principles. Can you point out what naturalistic principles are those that one must agree with in order to design or build a computer?

I tell you again and again about maths that CAN'T BE REDUCED TO MATTER.

If that were true then naturalism has one more problem, namely how to account for mathematical objective truths. After all most naturalists believe all there exists in reality is this physical universe. If math cannot be reduced to matter they should have to affirm the objective existence of some platonic parallel universe. But I think math can be reduced to matter and therefore naturalism does not have this particular problem.

One example is PI, which has infinite precision. So show me any physical structure in this universe that has infinite precision.

Oh, three beans would do nicely: they are, with infinite precision, exactly three. Or, for that matter, the electrical charge of an electron has an infinitely precise value. You mention the number pi, but of course pi is used in many scientific equations, such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In other words a naturalist can safely claim that the value of pi forms part of how physical reality is, or if you will that the value of pi is an integral part of the structure of physical reality.

The following are my comments to your post 818 (or #52014):

What you think is of no importance. If you make a claim, you had better back it up, and simply saying that you 'think' it is no argument.

Well what somebody thinks does have some importance in the context of a discussion. And I do try to back up my claims, and I try to answer the questions people ask of me. Think, Steve99, about whether you are doing the same.

Indeed in the context of my claim that many people believe that naturalists have pretty much figured out everything I asked:

I wonder, what important questions do you think naturalism has yet to answer? Or, alternatively, what important questions do you think is naturalism unable to answer?

To which you responded:

These questions are irrelevant.

But they are clearly relevant to the claim I made and you objected, because they help clarify what your own beliefs concerning naturalism are.

You need to realise that if there are indeed any problems with naturalism, to then conclude that supernaturalism is any kind of easy answer to those problems is the weakest possible form of reasoning.

Well I figure that if naturalism has problems and idealistic theism in comparison doesn't, then I have reason to prefer theism over naturalism.

Reality does not have to concert it self with your personal opinion of what is absurd.

I fully agree. Neither has reality to concern itself with your personal opinion. But if I find that naturalism produces a number of contradictory descriptions of reality that all strike my as absurd when idealistic theism produces basically one description of reality that doesn't strike me as absurd, that's certainly one more reason for me to prefer theism, don't you think?

In fact, to our knowledge so far, Quantum Electrodynamics exactly models everything we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena).

You do realise that Quantum Electrodynamics involves the term 'Quantum'? And to claim that a Quantum model is exact is nonsense?

I stand by my claim, and invite you to point out any physical phenomenon we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena) that according to our knowledge so far Quantum Electrodynamics does not exactly model.

(Also, the descriptions that QM provides are certainly not incompatible. They are so compatible that it is very difficult to think of experiments that can distinguish them).

It's a fact that the interpretations of QM (i.e. naturalistic descriptions of the physical reality that causes quantum phenomena) are incompatible: Some claim the existence of one physical universe but others the existence of gargantuan and ever increasing number of physical universes. Some claim the physical reality is deterministic but some that it isn't. Some claim that the wavefunction is real but some that it isn't.

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

828. Comment #52142 by epeeist on June 26, 2007 at 9:53 am

Comment #52132 by Dianelos Georgoudis

I am afraid you are factually wrong in this. According to Quantum Electrodynamics a photon does not always or even usually travel at the speed of light. In fact a photon can travel at speeds much higher than the speed of light. I understand Epeeist is a physicist and can confirm this.

Epeeist was a physicist in a former existence. Yes, if you allow a sum over paths then this is a consequence of the theory. Assuming that there is a reality for it to operate in of course.

I think Pi was a wrong example to give, after all it does have some physical connotations. However e or i may be better.

It might even be better to start from the Peano axioms which don't define any numbers apart from 0 or 1. The axioms are usually stated in a first order predicate calculus.

This being so, is the first order predicate calculus reducible to matter or is this (like the reduction of mathematics to matter) simply a nonsense statement?

I believe what Steve99 was trying to say (correct me if I am wrong) is that the Laplacian dream of a completely deterministic mechanics is not achievable in QM.

It's a fact that the interpretations of QM (i.e. naturalistic descriptions of the physical reality that causes quantum phenomena) are incompatible: Some claim the existence of one physical universe but others the existence of gargantuan and ever increasing number of physical universes. Some claim the physical reality is deterministic but some that it isn't. Some claim that the wavefunction is real but some that it isn't.

Sorry to stoop to profanity, but you haven't a fucking clue what you are talking about.

Other Comments by epeeist

829. Comment #52162 by _J_ on June 26, 2007 at 11:40 am

821. Comment #52030 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Pity. I am interested in your thoughts.

Well, just for you… ;)

Thanks for responding.

I'm tight for time and haven't read the intervening posts, so I appreciate this may all be old hat, now.

Even though there were no sparsely populated countries in the Middle Ages with naturalistically inclined folks who'll reason and experiment

Yeah, I know. Ta for taking the point anyway, though.

After all, why do you think theism should use science's methodological framework in the first place?

I don't. In fact, I'm fairly confident that it can't. A mode of thinking consistent with the principles of the scientific method – what Carl Sagan referred to as 'science' or 'scientific thinking' in a loose sense, and which I tend to follow him in using – seems inevitably to steer one away from theistic constructions. It certainly has that effect on me.

Are you suggesting that therefore we should use objective experiments in all other cognitive fields also? Would you criticize politicians for not using objective experiments before making decisions? Or ethicists for not using objective experiments before developing ethical theories? Or mathematicians for not using objective experiments before proving theorems? Or sculptors for not using objective experiments before creating a sculpture? Or people for not using objective experiments before choosing their friends? Or people for not using objective experiments before choosing an ontological worldview?

Actually yes, I am. But I would be using 'objective experiments' in a much looser sense than you. Sheer objectivity is, as far as I can make out, an unattainable Holy Grail. All we can do is try to water down our subjectivity.

I think we would both expect a politician to give a better reason for a policy than 'Well I bloody like it!'. But we would both also accept that there's no way s/he can be perfectly objective about it either. We expect references to be made to precedent, to statistics, to the opinions of experts and the reactions of the people who will be affected by the policy, and more measures besides. We might even expect some sort of dedicated trial period. The amount of effort we will expect to be taken over this will be in relation to how severe we judge the effects of the policy to be.

Take the Iraq war issue in 2003 as a case in point. Large scale international violence wasn't something we were going to take lying down, so the types of justification had to look pretty strong, and to face up to a hell of a lot of scrutiny. Hence all the wrangling about 'sexed-up' dossiers and WMD. A few cabinet meetings and a confident smile aren't enough in that context, because of our (reasonably objective) understanding of the consequences – death and destruction.

(Politicians and others, of course, can be great masters at using our own subjectivity against us here – as in the 'A good day to bury bad news' debacle).

I expect similar attempts to constrain subjectivity and aspire to objectivity in all of the other situations. Here's a quote from James Goldman's play The Lion In Winter:

Henry Ask any sculptor, ask Praxiteles, 'Why don't you work in butter?' Eleanor, because it doesn't last.

That is, in my opinion, a fairly objective observation. We can all go and fiddle about with some butter and thereby become quite confident that it's not a great medium for robust works of art. 'Fiddling about with some butter' might strike you as not very objective, but we'd try harder were our efforts to prove inconclusive. Or we'd find out further along the line, were our insufficiently rigorous initial dabblings to tip us in favour of butter as a sculpting medium. We may never need to ask others whether their observations of butter back us up. Hopefully we will never have cause to lament the time spent on our masterpiece, 'The Golden Madonna', which transformed unexpectedly into a rancid puddle during that very hot day last summer.

It might seem to be reducing the matter to absurdity to take this approach, but I actually don't think it is. We all appeal to a 'making it as objective as we can' approach for dealing with most of the predictions we have to get through a day in the real world. The scientific method is straightforwardly a system for maximising objectivity. It does not assume the possibility of total objectivity, it just recognises that doing your best to overcome sheer subjectivity pays dividends, and it can demonstrate this through centuries of progress.

Of course, we all say 'bollocks to objectivity – I'm going with my gut on this' at times. That's justifiable in matters of little or no consequence or that only affect our individual selves. But 'Is there a god?' seems to me to be a more important, and more consequential, question. Our beliefs on this matter will effect the other people we interact with.

Let's see. I assume you yourself have chosen the naturalistic ontological worldview. What objective experiment did you perform before deciding that this is the correct ontological worldview?

It's entirely possible to decide afterwards, pending practice and evaluation. I find that by treating reality as objectively real, one can apply a naturalistic methodology that gets results. The question of what reality 'actually is' is irrelevant to this observation: even if we are living in The Matrix, to use the example you've used once or twice, this has no bearing on the observable efficacy of the scientific method as applied within reality - or on the equally observable inefficacy of theistic alternatives (here, for evidence – which is only a valuable concept if you accept some degree of objectivity - I refer you to the millennium before the seventeenth century). Personally, even if The Machines are running the show, I'd rather live in a simulation with antibiotics than one without.

I'm at a loss for how you take outright scepticism about what reality is to be in any way a useful position. If you refuse to accept 'stuff's real' as a productive model, what, of any use, are you left with? Back in world of The Matrix: 'Gosh', says Neo, 'That really was a simulation! Wow, next I'll find out that Zion is really just a movie sound stage! Wherever will it end…?' Where, indeed?

I also find the strategy you then employ (some time ago, now!) for getting yourself out of this existential whirlpool unpersuasive. Having rejected the lifeline of 'let's take objective reality as a functional working model', you instead seem to claim that your knowledge of yourself is special and true in a way that your knowledge of other things is not. Somehow, whilst you regard all sense-data about the world at large as suspect, you take sense-data about yourself to be beyond question. This assumption made, your keen philosophical thinking kicks in and pretty soon you're reasoning that, so long as all reality is the construct of a being that is in some essential way like you yourself, then knowledge of external things is actually of the same sort as self knowledge after all. (This really appears to be a species of extended, projected solipsism, although you reject charges of solipsism outright, apparently by deflecting such accusations with a definition of normal, vanilla solipsism.) If you had been prepared to acknowledge this equivalence between the two types of knowledge in the first place, you could have avoided the train of thought that sent you in search of a Dianelos-shaped god, and perhaps joined the rest of us in the 'working model' approach to the whole problem.

And as for reason, my goal in this thread has been to explain the reasons why I find theism to work much better than naturalism. And if one finds that one worldview works much better than another it's reasonable to adopt the first one, don't you agree?

Here's Carl Sagan (in The Demon-Haunted World):

If different doctrines are superior in quite separate and independent fields, we are of course free to choose several – but not if they contradict each other. Far from being idolatry, this is the means by which we determine the false idols from the real thing.

…and, to lend philosophical support, Bertrand Russell (in The Problems of Philosophy):

There can never be any reason for rejecting one instinctive belief except that it clashes with others; thus, if they are found to harmonize, the whole system becomes worthy of acceptance.
[My emboldening]

My point is that I persistently get the impression from your argument that there is a serious clash between a kind of naturalism that you must automatically apply on a day-to-day basis, and the supernaturalism that you claim allegiance to when questions become sufficiently complex to demand your full attention. I would argue that your 'theism works better' opinion only holds if you limit its application by adding either 'so long as not everyone shares it' or 'but not for long'. For, if we all subscribed Dianelosian theism, scientific progress would grind to a halt within a generation (and we'd soon learn to hate those drug-resistant bacteria…).

To come full circle:

Anyway: I'm not here; I'm not doing this debate anymore

Pity. I am interested in your thoughts.

And I'm interested in yours, but the time I'm spending on debate is doing me more harm than (what I now think of as) naïve theism ever did! And also, I don't feel philosophically literate enough to tackle you head on.

You see, in your arguments, I get the sense of a cloud of philosophical abstraction into which naturalism quietly leads and from which theism exits, but through which we can't see that the two don't meet up. I rather agree with Russell, again, when he questions (in the same place as before) the notion that philosophy can really 'give us knowledge', instead affirming the 'more modest function' of helping us to arrive at 'an orderly systematic organization of our knowledge'.

No, I'll leave it with a quote from the most brilliant lecturer I had in my university days in his book The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry. Having spent a few pages shooting gaping holes in Jacques Derrida's '"deconstruction" of Western metaphysics', he rounded off the section with a remark on the 'absurdly schematic relation of human practices to their philosophical articulations' he had identified therein:

It is quite possible to think…the converse of what the Derridan critique suggests – to think that philosophy is itself only a secondary elaboration of the rationality of what is already actual, a fallible attempt to bring practices to articulated self-consciousness, whose failures may reveal the difficulty with which we make forms of life articulate. In such attempts, we may commit philosophical mistakes without showing up all philosophy as mistaken, and the discovery of those mistakes is part of the history of philosophy as one of our practices rather than a demonstration of the groundlessness of our behaving. Some philosophers have also held this, or a similar, view – Aristotle, Hegel, and Wittgenstein, for example.
---Eric Griffiths

But maybe I misunderstand you.

Anyway: once again, and for the same reasons: I'm not here; I'm not doing this debate anymore…

Other Comments by _J_

830. Comment #52212 by Eric Blair on June 26, 2007 at 1:32 pm

I like DG's desert island question. It sort of cuts to the heart of this stuff. Who cares if morality is objective or not -- what's for supper and who do I have to kill to get it?

The answer (to the desert island question), of course, is that there is no objective (used in the normal every-day way) answer. One's response will depend entirely on one's opinion and experience of naturalists and theists, not to mention what variety of either "persuasion" this person might be.

As a humanist, your companion might resist eating you because of his/her respect for your shared human dignity. A Christian might, as suggested, eat you then seek forgiveness, or munch on you with not a pang of conscience because you are not one of the Elect.

A social Darwinist might consider justified in chowing down on you because that means she is clearly "fitter." A believer might do so because God told him to ("Better than fish, my son").

Another Christian might find no stricture against cannibalism or even torture in the Gideons (conveniently placed under the palm tree) and eat you slowly, limb by limb, while keeping you alive (and fresh) – while you're tied up, of course.

An Ayn Randian or Marxist would be bad news. A Utilitarian might have you comparing the number of relatives and friends who would miss you (or her) – raising the issue of whether it's immoral to lie in such circumstances.

The best bet would be a pacifist Christian (Amish, Hutterite, etc.). He would be unlikely to eat you and wouldn't resist your efforts to put him in the pot.

And on it goes.

I say we drop the other debate and pursue the possible dyspeptic permutations of this puzzler. Much better food for thought…

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

831. Comment #52224 by BMMcArdle on June 26, 2007 at 2:08 pm

I submit that you can't tell what you might do, or how strong your survival instinct might be, unless you were actually in that situation.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

832. Comment #52233 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 2:34 pm

It's only on average that a great number of photons travel in vacuum at the speed of light.

Well that was not what you said in your original post.

In other words a naturalist can safely claim that the value of pi forms part of how physical reality is, or if you will that the value of pi is an integral part of the structure of physical reality.

I really don't understand why you are such a selective reader of what I write, and why you ignore some parts. Pi is NOT an integral part of the structure of physical reality, because it is an infinite number. Physical reality does not have infinite precision. What is used in engineering and science is an APPROXIMATION to Pi.

If that were true then naturalism has one more problem, namely how to account for mathematical objective truths.

No, it really doesn't.

After all most naturalists believe all there exists in reality is this physical universe. If math cannot be reduced to matter they should have to affirm the objective existence of some platonic parallel universe.

I am sorry, but that is just raving nonsense!

Let me try yet again to explain this, because this is at the absolute core of your misunderstanding:

You are confusing abstractions with physicality.

Why do you assume that some platonic parallel universe is require for the existence of mathematical proofs? There is no basis for this.

You have set up the most absurd of straw men!

Let me quote a definition of mathematics to you from wikipedia:

"Other practitioners of mathematics[3][4] maintain that mathematics is the science of pattern, that mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere.
..
Mathematical concepts and theorems need not correspond to anything in the physical world."

I really don't see how this could be expressed any clearer: Mathematics can exist entirely as imaginary abstractions. Do you understand what this means? It means that there is no substance required.

You are, as I keep explaining, making the mistake of Reification or metonymy, the well-understood fallacy of confusing abstract concepts with concrete concepts.

Here is further explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29

I fully agree. Neither has reality to concern itself with your personal opinion. But if I find that naturalism produces a number of contradictory descriptions of reality that all strike my as absurd when idealistic theism produces basically one description of reality that doesn't strike me as absurd, that's certainly one more reason for me to prefer theism, don't you think?

You are trying to have it both ways. You are trying to claim that our reason is a poor way to investigate reality, but then you are using your judgment of what is absurd! Can't you see the contradiction? By your own reasoning, you can't judge what is possibly absurd about reality.

Well I figure that if naturalism has problems and idealistic theism in comparison doesn't, then I have reason to prefer theism over naturalism.

But it has precisely the same problems. All you are doing by transferring to theism is replacing 'how' questions with 'why' answers. Instead of explaining 'how' our consciousness work, you say 'we are conscious because God wants is'. That is not an explanation.

I stand by my claim, and invite you to point out any physical phenomenon we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena) that according to our knowledge so far Quantum Electrodynamics does not exactly model.

Easy. A single photon double-slit experiment. Quantum Electrodynamics will precisely give you the range of the uncertainty, but it can't predict which which detector a photon hits.

Look - I am sorry if I seem a bit terse, but I am getting a bit frustrated about posting the same arguments again and again, and having them either misread or ignored.

Other Comments by steve99

833. Comment #52249 by krogercomplete on June 26, 2007 at 3:13 pm

steve99,

You are trying to have it both ways. You are trying to claim that our reason is a poor way to investigate reality, but then you are using your judgment of what is absurd! Can't you see the contradiction? By your own reasoning, you can't judge what is possibly absurd about reality.

I think you have slightly mischaracterized DG's position (but I am sure DG will correct me if I am about to mischaracterize it too). I think what he means to say is this: our reason is only suspect if we subscribe to naturalism, because naturalism could not have possibly given us reliable mental faculties (in terms of deciphering objective reality). BUT, according to DG's theism, God creates our conscious experience and presumably has given us the tools to decipher objective reality (the true objective reality, which is not the physical world naturalists mistakenly believe it to be). Everyone has the potential to see the truth, but naturalists are getting it wrong (apparently for some pretty obvious reasons). We need only access the other tools God has put in our toolbox, as the scientific method is incapable of getting us all the way home. The problem of defective cognitive faculties cannot be hurled at DG because this defect is a product of naturalism which he does not subscribe to :)

Other Comments by krogercomplete

834. Comment #52255 by _J_ on June 26, 2007 at 3:23 pm

We need only access the other tools God has put in our toolbox, as the scientific method is incapable of getting us all the way home ...:)

Because (if I may tag on to you, krogercomplete) God, and the universe, are just a big one of us.

So it's 'Knowing me, knowing you - Amen', as far as understanding existence is concerned.

(Stop me if I'm getting this wrong, Dianelos...)

Other Comments by _J_

835. Comment #52335 by Downunder on June 26, 2007 at 7:15 pm

Dianelos 819#52021; I quote from yours: "All of one's consciousness....etc....are produced by one's brain....destroyed at death. Therefore no personal survival after death". Assuming that you mean: " ....no continuation of the life once departed from this earth....",I wonder how you know that. Have you been there, done that? Much as I am in awe of the time and the volume-of-words you are contributing to this site, may I be so bold as to humbly ask you: is the above quote your belief or is it a quote from somewhere? It seems conjecture to me, because to the best of my knowledge, no human knows what happens after death. May be I have overlooked it while glancing through only some of all these comments, but has LIFE entered these discussions at all? Life, the abstract which enters at birth and departs at death. Life which makes the individual, makes the brain work, the heart tick and the body function. We can sense life, measure its presence; we can prolong and manipulate life. We can end it at will in our self and in others but as far as I am aware, we can not bottle it and transfer it into a dead body to revive that individual or implant to make give a different individuality to a dead body. Please tell me what you think is life. Where does life come from, where does it go to?

Other Comments by Downunder

836. Comment #52336 by Dr Benway on June 26, 2007 at 7:18 pm

Dianelos:

If survival on that island depended on solidarity and cooperation then the other person's ontological worldview matters very little anyway. In such situations it's only a question of minimum intelligence to see that the best strategy for survival is indeed solidarity and cooperation.

Survival isn't the only value. But I digress.

Take off a shoe. Take off a sock. Put the sock on your hand. Push the toe end into your palm. Move your fingers and thumb like a mouth talking. Without moving your lips too much, make the sock say, "I am the Lord thy God!"

This sock puppet is the source of all truth, the alpha and omega, the ground of your being, the basis for your theistic worldview, etc., etc. This is it. Right there on your hand. Sing His praises!

What happens on the desert isle when you, me, and God debate an issue? Seems to me I'm outnumbered. Ergo, my preference to leave God out of the affair.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

837. Comment #52342 by _J_ on June 26, 2007 at 7:33 pm

836. Comment #52336 by Dr Benway

Seems to me I'm outnumbered. Ergo, my preference to leave God out of the affair.

No, Dr Benway, no! You have a tactical advantage! Your theistic opponent is reduced to one fighting hand (assuming he doesn't presume to launch divine headbutts) and is wearing only one shoe! Strike while the iron is hot, Dr Benway, strike while the iron is hot!

Other Comments by _J_

838. Comment #52344 by krogercomplete on June 26, 2007 at 8:03 pm

. . . assuming he doesn't presume to launch divine headbutts . . .

God help us all if that happens.

Other Comments by krogercomplete

839. Comment #52387 by