1151. Comment #54841 by _J_ on July 9, 2007 at 5:05 am

Hi, Dianelos (1144),

I completely agree with your points about aliens and crop circles. I thought I said much the same things, in fact? ('This doesn't mean that scientists have ruled out the possibility of intelligent life existing in the universe' and so forth.) And quite right: the redundancy of god to the evolution of life does not rule god out completely. It just demonstrates that one of the assumptions that previously counted as 'evidence' for god is false. For the god hypothesis to remain a reasonable option, it needs at least one good, unshaken piece of evidence to remain. I'm yet to be persuaded that such evidence exists. And yet I find it childishly easy to imagine the sort of evidence that such a god could give if he actually existed. What a conundrum.

In fact one thing you can't understand without God is consciousness itself.

So you keep saying! But even if I accepted your insuperable misgivings about naturalistic approaches to consciousness, I still don't share your reasoning on positing god as an explanation. Don't worry, you've spelt it out before (although if you have a favourite statement of it from an earlier post, by all means tell me the post number and I'll re-read it). But it reads to me like a little string of assumptions (about self-knowledge and self-similarity) that don't necessarily mean what you take them to. It's as though your highly acute thinking is relaxed for just long enough for you throw a rope bridge (called god) across the enormous chasm of uncertainty that stands between you and your conception of the consciousness problem.

Going back to this consciousness problem:

But consciousness is not just "a gap" in naturalism's understanding of reality. […] It's not like that because consciousness is the single greatest fact there is, the most important thing there is, indeed what defines what's important. […] And the fact that naturalists have really no idea about how anything physical could become conscious is not just one gap, but the mother of all possible gaps.

No. If naturalists had no idea about how life could come into existence ('All life, conscious or unconscious!') then you could call that 'the mother of all gaps'. If we had no grasp of atomic science ('The stuff from which naturalists think all life – conscious or unconscious – and everything else is made!) then you could call that 'the mother of all gaps'. If we still didn't know what the sun was ('The sun, that gives us heat and light and without which all life, conscious or unconscious, would be impossible!') you could call that 'the mother of all gaps'. This is absolutely God of the Gaps-ism, with standard God of the Gaps goalpost-shifting. Any person who lets their God in through a Gap will obviously regard that particular Gap as unusually special and important – important enough to warrant a god, indeed. Your excitement about consciousness is not a surprise and does not confer automatic 'Argument Winner' status to the Gap that is consciousness.

If nobody comes up with some testable idea of how something material could become conscious in the next 50 years or so[…]

It doesn't seem reasonable to you that the biggest and most difficult questions might take the longest to answer? It's a sad fact (I feel) that so many interesting questions will not be settled in my lifetime – and I, soulless infidel that I am, will probably never know the answers. If this is intolerable to you and you powerfully feel the need for an answer, by all means, stick with your god, who seems like a well-meaning, harmless sort. But don't be surprised if atheists don't recognise your impatience as evidence for his existence.

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1152. Comment #54842 by Dr Benway on July 9, 2007 at 5:09 am

Dianelos:

Anyway, assume for a moment that my worldview is true. What kind of evidentiary rules should apply for it to become collective belief?

I think you've asserted many times that your worldview cannot be falsified. Thus it is not compelling.

Downunder:

...the baby comes out into this world, watch it closely, heart is beating.......but......nurses and doctor can see that LIFE has not entered yet, until after a moment all present can see and may hear that a new human individual is in their midst. If LIFE had not entered soon enough the heart will stop. (Unless other action is applied to prolong the opportunity for LIFE to enter as yet, but that is digressing). I would like you to evaluate the common scenario.

You're defining "life" as the inspiration of air? Guess that leaves out the fishes.

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1153. Comment #54863 by steve99 on July 9, 2007 at 7:05 am

What kind of evidentiary rules should apply for it to become collective belief?

Not being founded on philosophical fallacies would be a start.

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1154. Comment #54871 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 9, 2007 at 7:50 am

Steve99 (post 1122, or #54682):

In other words, to believe that these laws, which very precisely allowed the evolution of intelligent life, which would not have if the slightest tiny detail were changed, were just the result of hugely improbable chance, would be to accept the very unlikely in the face of a far better explanation.

There are two explanations I have come across that seem to have some power to me.The first is the multiverse one.

You mean the idea that reality consists of a gargantuan number of physical universes, each with its own randomly selected values of fundamental constants and that we happen to exist in one of the extremely rare universes in which these values are such that intelligent life can evolve? I agree that this hypothesis works, but have you any idea how made-up it looks? Of course I am not against worldviews that look made-up :-) but remember that what goes for the goose goes for the gander. Speaking of which, as you often ask for testability, how do you suggest this hypothesis can be tested?

The other explanation is one being explored by Paul Davies, based on ideas by the great physicist John Wheeler. This is that time is not what we think it is, and neither is causality. The past and future are the result of an on-going 'negotiation'. Conscious life arises in the universe because it selects past values of physical constants that allows it to arise, simply by observing. This sounds pretty wild, but it is interesting.

Oh, good, another made-up looking and untestable naturalistic worldview.
Incidentally some time back I proposed my own version of a naturalistic worldview that would explain the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants, which I think looks less made-up, less wild, and less complex that the previous two. Here it is:

You know how quantum mechanics describes any material system by its wavefunction, which is a superposition of all possible quantum states with the respective probabilities. The most obvious interpretation (the Copenhagen interpretation) affirms that when somebody makes an observation that superposed wavefunction "collapses" into one actual observed and therefore real state. Now consider a generalized version of the wavefunction which includes the values of the various fundamental constants as parameters of equal probability. Now after the Big Bang the universe's wavefuncton evolves without any collapse because there is no conscious being there to make an observation. So all possible universes allowed by quantum mechanics exist concurrently as superposed states in that wave function. In exactly one of these universes the values of the physical constants and the sequence of quantum events are such that the first material system with the appropriate structure to produce a conscious being evolves. Of course we don't really know how a material system of a particular structure can produce consciousness, but a basic premise of naturalism is that it can. So that organism performs the very first observation in the universe's history which collapses the wavefunction into one actual universe, namely the one in which that organism evolved. From that point in time onwards the continuous observations by that organism and its descendents keep the universe real evolving through one particular track. That's the universe we too observe, as we are all descendents of that first organism.

Nice, huh? I mean my hypothesis explains the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants by just generalizing quantum mechanics's simplest interpretation, affirms the existence of only one universe and is therefore much less complex than the multiverse with its gargantuan number of actual universes (it's 10^99, or 10^99^99?), and is much less wild than Davies's with its spooky negotiation between future and past and playing fast and lose with the arrow of time.

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1155. Comment #54877 by steve99 on July 9, 2007 at 8:09 am

In fact one thing you can't understand without God is consciousness itself. At this juncture a naturalist often responds: Oh, here comes the God of the gaps again

But that is precisely what it is. Until you actually come up with a mechanism by which God produces consciousness, it is just as much a supposed problem for theism as it is for naturalism.

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1156. Comment #54879 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 9, 2007 at 8:13 am

Phil Rimmer (post 1123, or #54685):

if personal will does not exist then, according to naturalism, a person's actions can be fully explained by the previous state of the physical universe (plus maybe some randomness).

Yes, but I said free will EFFECTIVELY exists. In no current, practical sense is the future state of our mind predictable except in some limited sense, though theoretically it is predictable.

But free will does not exist in reality, according to your understanding. So if we experience that it exists it is some kind of illusion.

So, by adopting the the concept of free will we have engineered a society of individuals that seems attractive to us, to whit, individuals possessing the attributes of responsibility and an enhanced (even foolhardy)impression of themselves as agents of change. The concept both stimulates the creative ability of the individual and holds her to account for too much independence of thought, a nice balance.

Right, but responsibility does not really exist either, because we can't really choose a course of action and therefore be responsible for it – we can't avoid doing anything that we in fact do. So responsibility is only a concept people come to while being mechanically driven around by the planet-wide chemical reaction that life is all about. So "responsibility" is an illusory concept.

Illusions here, illusions there, that's what naturalism says is really there ;-)

Your Spiritual free will requires an actual transfer of information from the spirit world to work. Your Spiritual free will requires an actual transfer of information from the spirit world to work. To direct the flow of thoughts in your brain your spirit self must somehow stop some thoughts and initiate others. The spirit self must transfer the direction to be followed. Or are you suggesting the something other???

No, I am not a dualist. I don't believe that reality is composed of some spiritual realm there and a physical realm here, so that information from there must be transferred to here, or vice-versa. According the idealistic theism reality consists only of the spiritual realm, and that the physical facts and phenomenal order we perceive are caused by God's will. Our brain too does not objectively exist; it only exists as a pattern present in the physical phenomena we observe, the same way that apples, galaxies, and gravity exist. All information we know about is created by personal will, be it God's or ours.

By the way as David Chalmers, who is a dualist, points out the famous transfer of information problem is not really a problem. After all the reality described in The Matrix movie is dualistic and allows for such transfer without breaking any laws of logic, so actual reality might work like that too. Dualism has its problems but transfer of information is not one.

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1157. Comment #54882 by _J_ on July 9, 2007 at 8:23 am

Dianelos, 1154,

Is this coming down to 'I find god easier to imagine than the multiverse' again?

Can you show a deity-based theory to be markedly more likely than the others? Your personal incredulity at some of the suggestions of physicists notwithstanding, god doesn't seem to be widely accepted as the most likely explanation by the majority of those people who know most about the physics of the universe.

On the subject of your incredulity, one detail: I don't know how you always fail to catch yourself falling into the sharpshooter's fallacy when you talk about the multiverse theory:

...we happen to exist in one of the extremely rare universes in which these values are such that intelligent life can evolve?

We could hardly live anywhere else! Someone wins the lottery most weeks and amazingly it's always the person with the winning ticket.

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1158. Comment #54914 by steve99 on July 9, 2007 at 10:02 am

You mean the idea that reality consists of a gargantuan number of physical universes, each with its own randomly selected values of fundamental constants and that we happen to exist in one of the extremely rare universes in which these values are such that intelligent life can evolve?

You need to read what I posted. The values are not necessarily randomly selected. I gave the example of the Mandelbrot set. Read it again. The entire set of values of constants may well be determined by a very simple process, and our particular set are as much a part of that process as the vast range that we aren't in. This is why multiverse theories simplify things.... just like anyone discovering the complexity of pictures of the Mandelbrot Set would realise its underlying simplicy when they found out the generating process.

Oh, good, another made-up looking and untestable naturalistic worldview.

That is your worldview, not the one of Paul Davies. It is entirely testable. The delayed choice experiment on which this worldview is based has been done, and has given positive results.

Nice, huh? I mean my hypothesis explains the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants by just generalizing quantum mechanics's simplest interpretation, affirms the existence of only one universe and is therefore much less complex than the multiverse with its gargantuan number of actual universes (it's 10^99, or 10^99^99?), and is much less wild than Davies's with its spooky negotiation between future and past and playing fast and lose with the arrow of time.

First the matter of playing fast and loose with time is not wild. It is established scientific fact. This only shows how useless personal judgment is in these matters. You are trying to use your judgment about what is absurd to reject what you think might be unreasonable when it is already known to be true! There is an important lesson here - absurdity is no measure of truth.

Secondly, do you realise you are basically quoting Davies' ideas? After ridiculing what he is saying, you are coming up with just the same thoughts!

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1159. Comment #54927 by PeterK on July 9, 2007 at 10:50 am

DIANELOS-
Just entered the thread myself, and trying to backtrack here.

Just for my own point of reference, would you agree that God at one time existed as pure consciousness before anything else existed?

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1160. Comment #54943 by phil rimmer on July 9, 2007 at 11:59 am

1156. Comment #54879 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But free will does not exist in reality, according to your understanding. So if we experience that it exists it is some kind of illusion.

But, I am under no illusion, am I? You're the one with the illusion. And I truly believe you and I have the same mental experiences. Do you distrust all the useful memes that mankind has created for itself? Is money not valuable? Are justice and democracy not useful? Constructs all, not illusions! And, there are always alternatives and some people live by them.

You try to create absolutes based on other peoples' sloppy thinking.

Metaphysical responsibility grew seamlessly out of simple responsibility. I am responsible for my actions. I cause them. No-one owns them except me. If that action were the slaying of a particular tax inspector (to pick a crime purely at random) I would be subject to the requirements of civil society and be prevented from re-offending by incarceration. Depending on the society (say Sweden or Texas) I would be encouraged to behave better through training and therapy or executed to make the populace feel better. No metaphysics involved.

Now, society discovered the immense power of abstract ideas long ago. By taking the idea of being responsible for each individual action into a more generalised form, society discovered that it could discuss actions that had not yet occurred, and create moral pressure in advance of misbehaviour. So, now, I will be responsible for all the "actions" I might commit. Acting responsibly is to act in a way that I am mindful of (i.e. think often about) my behaviour and its impact on others and its consequences. Society encourages this action to make its function better. We are all trained this way and, blow me, it works!

Am I depressed that money, responsibility, justice, love, free will are all human constructs?
No. They are all wonderful! We should treasure all these amazing mind tools we have created, even money….(if it weren't for the bloody tax inspectors….)

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1161. Comment #54952 by steve99 on July 9, 2007 at 12:29 pm

According the idealistic theism reality consists only of the spiritual realm, and that the physical facts and phenomenal order we perceive are caused by God's will.

How?

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1162. Comment #54986 by SharonMcT on July 9, 2007 at 3:17 pm

alovrin:

Yes...universal healthcare. I live in Canada and we have it here. I would not want to live in a society that did not. I am lucky to have been born here and in this time, (let alone to have been born at all), but it is a struggle to keep our healthcare and we have had to be vigilant about how important it is. I also worry about the 3rd world. I am not really too sure what the answer will be there, but I would like to contribute.

Dianelos:

O...he deems to direct his essays once again in my direction. ;) I thought I had lost your favour forever.

I said, "no tax dollars for faith-based schools". There is a vast difference between religious indoctrination of children and teaching religious history. I have a great book about Greek, Roman, Norse and Celtic gods. I enjoy learning about mythic history. But if someone told me they actually believe that Thor is real, I would ridicule this belief. Someday I think it will be as ridiculous to profess aloud a believe in any gods. That is one way that encourages society to change. If someone says aloud that they don't "believe in" gay marriage or equal rights, I feel no shame in ridiculing that belief. If they believe that women should be subserviant to men, and told me so, I would be happy to embarass them in public for holding such a belief. It is one of the best ways to bring about rapid change in society. Kind of like 80's big hair. How embarassing for those who still have it. ;)

Sharon

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1163. Comment #55016 by PaulEmecz on July 9, 2007 at 5:35 pm

-J-

Why do you find a multiplicity of universes less likely than a reality-transcending, super-intelligent über-being?

I experience morality - I know one thing to be wrong, another right. The multiverse doesn't account for the existence of morality.

I experience.

The multiverse doesn't account for this amazing fact.

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1164. Comment #55038 by Downunder on July 9, 2007 at 8:08 pm

Dianelos 1140. No offence intended. Far from wanting to belittle these life-important discussions, I did feel like adding a lighter note to it. We have to hunt&gather to exist, that involves competition. If we don't keep things in perspective competition can develop into a fight, a war. I rather approach life as a game, win some, loose some, but keep going to maintain the balance. These discussions sharpen the mind.

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1165. Comment #55047 by Downunder on July 9, 2007 at 9:39 pm

DrBenway1152 "life=inspiration of air"? Can't leave out the fishies, need them to feed my stents! You must have been influenced by too many Whitsunday preachings to receive that "inspiration" from the Holy Spirit. You, or whoever was your observer may have blinked their eyes just when life entered. I thought that breathing is evidence that life has already entered. I wonder if anyone has been so bold as to add some science to the rather delicately emotional birthing atmosphere to scientifically determine the instant when the brain starts functioning in relation to the readily observable breathing? Is the brain the "spring" to be released to drive the body functions? What is the legally accepted evidence of death? Heart can stop, can be transplanted and "kick-started" ticking again; lungs can be replaced by a machine. Have not heard of a brain-transplant yet. Please enlighten me.

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1166. Comment #55061 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 9, 2007 at 11:10 pm

LeeC (post 895, or #53033):

We could debate what you mean about reality, but this would just be words to me - so lets not just yet.

Nonetheless as we are discussing which is the most reasonable worldview about reality it's important to clarify this term. For me reality is all that exists independently of one's opinion. And I say that something exists if it might affect me (even if only in an indirect roundabout or delayed way), or if it can explain what might affect me. And for something to affect me it must impact on my conscious experience.

Let's take these definitions in reverse: If something cannot affect my conscious experience then it can't affect me in any way. If something cannot possibly affect me in any way then it is meaningless to say that it exists. And finally many things that exist are created by me (for example my ideas, my tastes, and so on), so objective existence (i.e. reality) is all that exists independently of me. (While speaking of objective existence one kind of takes oneself out of the picture and thinks what would exist even if one wouldn't.)

To repeat myself, I believe the scientific method can be used to explain much about life [snip]

It is demonstrable false that the scientific method can be used to explain the very fact that we experience life: our consciousness. So it can't explain the singlest greatest fact of all in our life. The reason is that our consciousness and all it contains (e.g. experiences) are first-person data, data that are private and not objectively observable from the outside (which would be third-person data) – and the scientific method allows only third-person data. Some philosophers such as David Chalmers insist that data are data, and if science can deal with third-person data it can also deal with first-person data. This is true but would require a transformation of the scientific method. And I suppose many scientists would not agree with such transformation; it's an article of faith in science that only objective, publicly verifiable data are allowed because subjective and private data are often misleading.

That's the reason why for many years both psychologists and philosophers embraced behaviorism, i.e. the idea that in scientific discourse one should not and cannot speak of subjective data, such as consciousness and "how it is like" to experience this or that (say the color red). According to behaviorism scientists can meaningfully speak only of objectively observable behavior, such as what people say, including what they say about conscious experiences. Behaviorism strikes me as entire reasonable (in fact it strikes me as a direct implication of the scientific method), but has become unpopular lately. Why? Because according to naturalism all that exists can be studied by science and it is extremely difficult, not to say laughable, to claim that consciousness does not exist, that there is nothing like what red looks like, and so on. What's more consciousness struck people as an extremely big deal and they were curious to investigate it. So now the discourse proceeds in some kind of epistemological limbo: as everybody believes that the brain produces consciousness (I don't, but no matter) the general idea is to study what's objectively observable in the brain, while believing subjects' description of their first-person data, and try to find a way to use the former to explain the latter. What this mostly amounts to is finding correlates between brain structure and subjects' testimonies. But as many have pointed out, no matter how perfectly we map the correlations between brain states and conscious states it doesn't advance one iota the explanation of how the brain becomes conscious in the first place. Some other philosophers (mostly following Dennett) try another track: to declare that any property of consciousness we know of by direct experience, but which goes beyond plain behaviorism, is - you guessed it - an illusion, and by this trick remove any of the hard aspects of the hard problem of consciousness. So, it's really a mess. And people who work in the field know it's a mess. A very good book to read about this is "Conversations on consciousness" by Susan Blackmore, where she interviews most of the well known people in the field, both philosophers and scientists. Another is John Searle's "The mystery of consciousness" which is a very interesting book because here you have an eminent naturalist philosopher discuss and fairly knock down the ideas about consciousness of his fellow eminent naturalist philosophers, in individual chapters. I personally like Searle a lot (even though I disagree with him on the fundamental issue on strong AI), for I like how he speaks his mind without any calculation.

One addition I make to the method - it is added philosophy really - and this is Occam's razor. If I have two (or more) theories that are equal, in that they can explain the observations, then I will choose the simplest method over the complex since this is more likely to be true. (As I said, it is a philosophy no science here)

Right, that's what Occam's razor says, and it applies beyond science too.

So, with my scientific methodology, I accept that there are areas/subjects I cannot explain - they are outside science. This does not mean something does or does not exist... it just means it is outside science to be able to confirm it. Luckily I have my razor to help me chose which of these "unscientific" theories is more likely to be correct.

Right, but Occam's razor (or the principle of economy) is not the only criterion that help one choose what is more reasonable. Or in other works Occam's razor applies exclusively only when two alternative explanations work exactly as well under all other reasonable criteria. As you say, Occam's razor applies only in those situations where "I have two (or more) theories that are equal".

you got me confused with "ontology", but don't let this stop you.

Well, as we are doing philosophy, it's not a bad idea to use basic philosophical terminology. "Ontology" is the study of what's real. When one discusses the existence or non-existence of God, or whether the physical universe objectively exists or not, one is doing ontology.

I wrote:

all these descriptions (or worldviews) [of reality] produce exactly the same phenomena that science studies, and are therefore exactly equivalent from science's point of view. So it's impossible to decide which of these different worldviews is more probable (i.e. is more reasonable to believe in) based on scientific knowledge

Now in what follows in your post I am afraid there is a misunderstanding. You inferred from "all worldviews are equivalent from science's point of view" that "all worldviews are equivalent". But they aren't. Starting in post 333 I described an entire list of criteria with which one can compare worldviews, including the criterion of economy (or Occam's razor), and then argued that idealistic theism works much better under these criteria than naturalism. In other words it's true that no worldview works better than the other from science's point of view (as long as it exactly produces the phenomena that science studies). But it's false that no worldview works better from our point of view.

Three, idealistic theism (my own view), according to which God directly produces all our experiences (including our observation of nature) without the intermediation of an objectively real physical universe.

No evidence for the existence of this god. Any such evidence could be tested with the scientific method (you could debate whether god himself could be tested but not the evidence) the lack of such evidence makes this view unlikely – extremely unlikely. So here we have a different view, it is different from Option 1 – you say I cannot use science to decide between the two? So I will use Occam's razor – Option 1 is the best.

First of all there is no scientific evidence for any ontological worldview (including naturalism), so your first point is moot.

As for your second point of Occam's razor. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that naturalism works as well as theistic idealism under all other criteria. So let's create an artificial situation in order for Occam's razor to apply, and investigate which worldview is less complex. In fact let's overlook one of naturalism's great troubles, i.e. how to account for the existence of two entirely different things, namely matter and consciousness, and let's assume that there is a good explanation of how it's all matter deep down. (Idealistic theism does not have this problem, because it asserts only the existence of consciousness and easily accounts for matter as patterns present in our conscious experience). But let's overlook all that and simply compare one to one the complexity of the two worldviews.

Further, let's not use the most sophisticated or advanced naturalistic worldviews. These, via string theory, assert that our universe is an 11-dimentional spacetime continuum in which mainly but not only 1-dimentional strings wiggle away. In turn our universe is only one of "many worlds", and by "many" we mean a really gargantuan and furiously growing number to cover all possible quantum states of the universe since the Big Bang. And in turn these many worlds are supposed to form but one element of the multiverse, each element of which instantiates a particular combination of values of the fundamental constants. I mean you are looking here at really mind-boggling complexity, almost as if somebody were doing their best to maximize naturalism's complexity beyond imagination. (I must say the fact that naturalists have found in necessary to merily add levels and levels of complexity to their worldview just to keep it making sense does not look good.)

But let's overlook all that too, and assume the simplest possible naturalistic worldview: reality consists only of the universe we actually see, and that universe consists only of atoms in some particular configuration (we'll ignore the added complexity of elementary particles). Even so, have you ever considered how complex that worldview is? Should you write down just the number of atoms in the universe you'd get a number of 80 digits. And, taking into account that the diameter of our universe is about 90 billion light years and that the position of an atom can be described in Angstroms, just to describe the position of one atom you'd need an 87 digit number. And we haven't yet described the speed vector of that one atom, nor its other physical properties (temperature and whatnot). And we have only described our universe in one instant without taking into account its history. If you'd add everything together you'd probably get to a number of about 300 digits. So even at its simplest that's a pretty complex worldview, don't you think?

So how does idealistic theism compare? Well here we have one God and about 6 billion and counting people existing in a field of conscious experience. Of course the experience of each one of us is complex: just look around and you'll see quite a bit of information. How much? Well there are about 6 million cone cells and about 90 million rod cells in the human eye. Let's assume they produce visual information at 40Hz and that each visual quale can be described by a 7 digit number. Finally let's assume a lifespan of 100 years. Then the entire complexity of one person's visual experience fits in a number of about 26 digits, or 36 digits for all persons. That's only our visual experience, but everybody agrees that's by far our most complex experience. How would one reasonably estimate the complexity of the whole of our experience? Well let's generously assume that the whole of our conscious experience is a thousand times more complex than our visual experience. This would add only 3 digits the idealistic theism's complexity, which now stands at 39 digits. Of course we did not take into account God's complexity. That's tricky. For all we know God's complexity need not be much more than the complexity of us all. But let's assume that God's experiential complexity is a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times more complex than all of us put together. We end up with a nice round 100 digits of complexity – still much much much less complex than the most simple naturalistic worldview.

So in short, idealistic theism trumps naturalism even in Occam's department.

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1167. Comment #55062 by Dr Benway on July 9, 2007 at 11:12 pm

Downunder

You, or whoever was your observer may have blinked their eyes just when life entered.

Perhaps. Back in the day when I caught babies, I focused primarily on not dropping the slimy things onto the floor.

Your idea is an ancient one. "Spirit" has the same root as "inspire." But there's no evidence for any life substance entering the body at birth.

No pulse, no breathing for several minutes = death.

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1168. Comment #55063 by Dr Benway on July 9, 2007 at 11:15 pm

PaulEmecz:

I experience morality - I know one thing to be wrong, another right. The multiverse doesn't account for the existence of morality.

I wish you theists would cobble together your apologetics in such a way as to leave out Osama Bin Laden et al.

Wake me when you're on to something. I'm off to bed.

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1169. Comment #55066 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 12:14 am

Steve99 (post 1126, or #54691):

I have never understood this argument. Even if there were a designer, why would this help us with morality? Suppose the designer did hard-wire some sense of morality into us - how do we know anything about the morality of the designer? I am afraid that going to a universe-designer for any sense of morality solves nothing.

You are right that from assuming some hard-wired sense of morality one cannot infer anything about the designer's morality. Indeed, one of the worldviews I described in post 870 is of two demons playing ethical chess with us.

But the problem is not the epistemology of ethics in naturalism, i.e. how a naturalist is to find out what is ethically good or bad. Even though the lack of such an epistemology is a serious enough problem for naturalism. That's the crux of Hume's "is-ought" problem that Dr Benway introduced in post 765: "Given our knowledge of the way the [naturalistic] world is, how can we know the way the world ought to be?" But there is a much deeper problem: That in the naturalistic understanding of reality the very concept of an objectively good or bad act is meaningless. See about this post 778 or #51639.

You seem to try to avoid that problem by asserting that objective propositions can be meaningful even if they don't make any claim about reality. But in fact all propositions are supposed to say something about reality; we use "objective" only to make clear that a proposition refers to a part of reality that is not inside peoples' skulls as it were, i.e. does not just describe somebody's particular personal opinion. So all propositions in general, and objective propositions in particular, are by definition supposed to claim something about reality. If they didn't, why would we care one way or the other about them? I mean even the proposition "fairies exist" claims something about reality.

Incidentally I find your position irrational for one more reason: You often ask me for how to test a proposition I claim - and I agree that all meaningful propositions must be testable. But, as I asked you before, if you have any proposition (never mind an objective proposition) that does not refer to anything that exists in reality, how do you test it?

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1170. Comment #55070 by steve99 on July 10, 2007 at 12:25 am

But there is a much deeper problem: That in the naturalistic understanding of reality the very concept of an objectively good or bad act is meaningless.

It is only a problem if you want to believe that acts are objectively good or bad independent of any observer. But that is only what you want to believe. You have no evidence that this is the case, so it is no problem for naturalism. We make our own ethics through reason and concensus.

It is rather like having a firm belief in faries, and wishing that they existed so very much that you claim it is a problem with naturalism because we can't find them.

You seem to try to avoid that problem by asserting that objective propositions can be meaningful even if they don't make any claim about reality.

No, I am not saying that at all. They can make claims about abstract realities. Your mistake in your reasoning, as I keep explaining, is your reification of abstractions, forcing you to falsely require substance for all truths.

But, as I asked you before, if you have any proposition (never mind an objective But, as I asked you before, if you have any proposition (never mind an objective proposition) that does not refer to anything that exists in reality, how do you test it?
proposition) that does not refer to anything that exists in reality, how do you test it?

Exactly as epeeist has described earlier. With logic. I suggest you read up on the story of the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. This shows well how such things are tested.

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1171. Comment #55075 by Downunder on July 10, 2007 at 12:54 am

phil rimmer's 1160, well put but I must comment on a mere detail near the end of the para: "Metaphysical..........or executed to make the populace feel better....".Do you feel execution (humanely of course, no media hype) for a major crime against our society, as making us "feel" better? I would not feel better but safer. I see such execution as sending the free-will-possessing, drug-addict, deranged or whatever, but positively guilty "parcel" of misery back to "the maker" wherever that may be, because the offender by his/her own actions has indicated an extreme desire to not be in our society. I accept that there will be borderline cases, but even then, is it not better to err on the sure side than take the known risk of re-offending? It always intrigues me that some people shout out loudly, the news media "make news" by feeding emotional stuff to the public, drawing lots of letters to the papers and entertaining the radio stations, whenever capital punishment is mentioned. Let me add that cp is a misnomer. The dead culprit has gone beyond punishment; it are the surviving relatives and friends of the offender and the offended who do the suffering brought on to them by the offender. Placing such offenders in jail is cruel indeed, achieves nothing, prolongs the agony, costs a lot of money for no benefit that I am aware of, other than that the legal system thrives on it. The law is an ass so long as guilt depends on the craft of the defending council rather than on the spirit of the law. Most so called civilised societies have armies with sophisticated weaponry, killing all and sundry in war zone. Innocent lives are then not even counted. I advocate to stop wars and weeding-out the bad apples.

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1172. Comment #55085 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 1:45 am

Steve99 (post 1137, or #54801):

We were discussing your claim that I have evidence with which my worldview does not fit. So what is the evidence I have with which my worldview does not fit?

Well, for one, the evidence that the world is not deterministic.

Oh, there is a misunderstanding here. I have justified my worldview in posts 333 and 470. Can you point out where I use that evidence? In fact as I explained in post 1131 "evidence" is for me any proposition I believe with a very high degree of confidence. "Reality is not deterministic" is not such a proposition for me. Maybe the misunderstanding comes from my claiming that at face value quantum mechanics appears to be saying that reality is not deterministic, but then I explained that there are at least two interpretations of quantum mechanics that assert a deterministic reality. I even argued that even if reality is not deterministic one can always claim to understand it deterministically.

I mean: For me it's self-evidently true that objective ethical precepts (such as that gratuitous torture is objectively wrong) are meaningful.

And that is the problem. Because that is no proof or evidence for anything, as you know. You are an intelligent fellow, and so you know that millions of people have held 'self-evidently true' beliefs that we know are nonsense (such as the flatness of the Earth).

We have already discussed (see post 571) that all reasonable people rely on intuitions, i.e. on self-evidently true propositions. For example you rely on your intuition that there is some kind of reality out there that produces the phenomena you experience, right? The fact that some intuitions can be wrong, and that some intuitions have been shown to be wrong (for example Einstein's scientific intuition that there can't be any non-local phenomena) is irrelevant. We can't very well reason about anything without using some intuitions we trust. The very premise that the inductive method is reasonable is an intuition. I can give you an entire list of intuitions that naturalism depends on. So to wave the "that's only an intuition" flag again is a red herring.

In short: I intuitively know that the proposition "gratuitous torture is objectively wrong" is not a meaningless proposition. What about you? I asked this before: Do you believe this proposition is meaningless?

But in any case what you believe about these issues in no way affects me, does it now?

Yes, it does. Because it means that a major platform of your worldview is false.

Do you really mean that? :-) Are you saying that my disagreeing with something you believe implies that a major platform of my worldview is false? Are you claiming to be like the inerrant Pope or something? Doesn't this stance strike you as very slightly dogmatic?

Or maybe you mean that your own personal beliefs about "reality substance" and so on should be accepted as "facts" by me?

They aren't my personal beliefs. They are the beliefs of just about every philosopher and scientist who has ever lived.

Well, I am quite well read in both science and philosophy but I don't recall ever reading anything about "reality substance". I just googled "reality substance" and couldn't find anything about this concept either.

Your personal beliefs about this are so widely recognised as being mistaken that there is even a classical logical fallacy that describes them - "reification".

Well, as far as I can see you use reification because it sounds kind of applicable. Or maybe you misunderstand what reification means, or maybe you make the wrong inferences from it. I wouldn't know – you just keep repeating that I am committing the "reification fallacy" without specifying why. Actually the reification fallacy is a very primitive kind of fallacy. Here is how it works: We often use metaphors when we speak (for example when we say "natural evolution selects those organisms that produce more offspring") and the reification fallacy consists in literally believing such metaphors (of course evolution is not really selecting anything – evolution is a blind process). But all that is entirely irrelevant to my argument; and I try to avoid using metaphors anyway. Or maybe you think that the reification fallacy implies that objective propositions need say nothing about reality. If so, I wonder why you think that; I mean what does the reification fallacy have to do with whether objective propositions must or mustn't claim something about reality?

So you don't know if there is something objectively real out there, something that does not depend on anybody's opinion? Your mind is open to the idea that maybe there is no objective reality at all?

Yes.

Then your mind is open to solipsism. Here we are discussing what worldview about objective reality is the most reasonable, so the stance that maybe there is no objective reality at all, that everything – including our seeing the moon – depends on somebody's opinion and has no independent reality by itself, well such a stance is kind of self-defeating not to mention kind of absurd, don't you think? I mean to keep an open mind is fine and good, but in order to advance in understanding you must make some decisions and advance some steps. One extremely reasonable decision to make is that objective reality does exist. Another that you are not the only mind that exists. Another that induction works. Another that reality did not come into existence 10 minutes ago.

Surely you are not saying that the Bell Inequality implies that physical reality is not deterministic, are you?

Yes, of course I am. That is what it implies.

I know something about the Bell's Inequality, but I don't see where it implies determinism one way or the other. Could you justify your claim?

Incidentally, how do you explain that 20 years after the experimental verification of Bell's theorem many physicists keep insisting on one of the two deterministic interpretations of reality (Bohm's and "many worlds") while others insist on a non-determistic interpretation of reality?

You can't just take something that supposedly deals with consciousness and morality, and spread it out to cover the no universe, with no evidence for that.

I have been justifying my worldview as compared to naturalism since post 333 now, and have given plenty of evidence, including the evidence that naturalism is having a very hard time accounting for consciousness and for the meaning of objective ethical propositions.

Incidentally, the fact that we are conscious is the greatest piece of evidence possible. We come to know of any other piece of evidence, including all objective evidence that science uses, via consciousness. Consciousness is the only evidence that is absolutely certain, and the only evidence that stares us in the face for every single second of our waking life. Makes you think that that's precisely the kind of overwhelming evidence that God would give us for His/Her existence, no?

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1173. Comment #55087 by _J_ on July 10, 2007 at 1:48 am

Hi, PaulEmecz (1163),

I experience morality - I know one thing to be wrong, another right. The multiverse doesn't account for the existence of morality.

I experience.

The multiverse doesn't account for this amazing fact.

This sounds like a combination of presumptuousness with an impatience to feel like you have all the answers. In fact, it's God of the Gaps-ism.

If you mean 'the theory of the multiverse doesn't say anything about morality or conscious experience', that's an accurate but pointless observation. Neither does the theory of gravity, or the observation that the earth is roughly spherical.

If you mean that 'theories that postulate an existence can't account for morality or conscious experience', then we're in God of the Gaps territory again. If that observation alone does nothing to convince you, I want to make the following points:

1 Our understanding of morality is not total, but is sophisticated and constantly improving. Through psychology, neurology, zoology and our understanding of evolutionary principles, we have a basis of understanding that it as least sufficient for us to not to require a supernatural agency in morality. You can disagree with me if you like, but I can assure you that I personally find morality complicated rather than mystifying from a naturalistic perspective. You may personally feel a god to be required, but you would be in a striking minority when compared to experts in the fields mentioned above. How would you convince them that a god is required?

2 Conscious experience is a vexed question, on this thread at least! But what grounds could you have for suggesting that naturalistic (ie non supernatural, godless) enquiry cannot explain conscious experience? It seems to me that the most you can say is that you haven't seen a full and convincing explanation yet. To reject the possibility of such an explanation on that basis is like the jury walking out at lunchtime on the first day of a difficult court case because they just can't be bothered to sit through the trial.

3 In case you're tempted to turn that point against me (for rejecting god as an explanation), consider that the reason we conduct court cases in the way we do is that they have a history of working pretty well most of the time and we haven't contrived a better method of establishing legal truth. This can also be said of naturalistic science, as it has toppled mystery after mystery in the centuries since the scientific revolution. The history of the god hypothesis over the same period is the exact reverse, with an increasing number of its claims now lying on the discard pile of no-longer believed myths. For a fair metaphor: if the case for the prosecution opened with 'We seek to establish guilt by ducking the defendant in water for five minutes, and, should she emerge alive, to burn her as a witch', the jury would have good cause to walk out. That's not a method that has been shown to get good results.

4 Lastly, check your assumptions. Supposing that, for whatever reasons, you find nothing to inspire confidence in naturalistic science's approach to morality and consciousness. How does 'so there must be a god' provide an answer? This may feel like a satisfying solution, but look at what it actually does to the situation. You are simply responding to an unknown by positing another unknown, and declaring that it causes the first one. Wonderful: now you have two unknowns to worry about, plus an entirely mysterious causal process between the two. Proliferating mystification doesn't help us to get closer to any answers; it just allows us to heap layers of imaginative speculation onto the problem until we feel comfortably insulated from it.

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1174. Comment #55089 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 2:06 am

Steve99 (post 1142, or #54825):

Religious ideas are real and are serious; believing in God is really nothing like believing in fairies.

It is precisely the same. [snip]

Believing in God and believing in fairies is clearly not precisely the same thing, see post 708, or #50347.

In both cases people are believing in invisible supernatural beings because of a lack of understanding of the scientific and rational explanation for things.

It seems you are equating "scientific" and "rational" here, no? :-) I agree that science is rational, but not that anything rational must be scientific. If that were so my marrying my wife would have been irrational.

As for rational explanations of things – can you describe how those who don't believe in God rationally explain how our brain produces consciousness? Because if they can't explain this greatest fact of all – if they don't have the very slightest inkling of an idea of how to explain it - then by your own measure they are like believing in an invisible process that somehow makes consciousness magically spring out of our brain. Sounds like believing in fairies, no? ;-)

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1175. Comment #55091 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 2:20 am

Alovrin (post 1143, or #54828):

Humor and ridicule are invaluable weapons when dealing with falsehoods.

Humor and ridicule are also invaluable weapons for dehumanizing other people. Haven't you seen all the smiling faces in the photos from Abu Ghraib? Do you think that was accidental? Soldiers since time immemorial are stimulated to ridicule and belittle their enemies (it's easier to kill them that way) – the Abu Ghraib tragedy was only the logical conclusion of that.

One basic principle of human decency (and this goes way beyond the theism versus naturalism debate) is that you never cause gratuitous pain to others, and especially not for fun. That's why I thought the recent publication of cartoons that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad was ethically wrong. I don't myself find reasonable that Muslims are so sensitive in that department, but what one believes about Islamic reasonableness in that department is irrelevant to the fact that those who published those cartoons fully well knew that they would cause others gratuitous pain.

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1176. Comment #55093 by steve99 on July 10, 2007 at 2:24 am

Believing in God and believing in fairies is clearly not precisely the same thing, see post 708, or #50347.

It clearly IS precisely the same thing. Here is something posted on this site today from the respected philosopher A. C. Grayling:

That is the essence of the thing, no matter how slippery the gloss, how polysyllabic, how evasive and gestural, how cloaked in appeals to mystery and depth and the convenience of our own epistemic limitations, that theologians and apologists invoke in their continuous attempts to move the goalposts whenever they come into the firing line for holding what is, fundamentally, exactly the same kind of commitment - exactly the same intellectual delusion - as is involved in believing that there are pixies and gnomes lurking invisibly among the rhododendrons.

I think it is amazing how well his summary fits our discussion here!

As for rational explanations of things – can you describe how those who don't believe in God rationally explain how our brain produces consciousness? Because if they can't explain this greatest fact of all – if they don't have the very slightest inkling of an idea of how to explain it - then by your own measure they are like believing in an invisible process that somehow makes consciousness magically spring out of our brain. Sounds like believing in fairies, no? ;-)

It isn't up to them to do this. It is not like believing in fairies, as they are free to say "We don't know this (yet)".

You are the one claiming an explanation. So it is up to you to explain the mechanism by with God produces consciousness. Please go ahead and give it, if you can't, then you are exactly in the same position as 'naturalists' - you have to admit that you just don't know!

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1177. Comment #55096 by alovrin on July 10, 2007 at 2:30 am

can you describe how those who don't believe in God rationally explain how our brain produces consciousness? Because if they can't explain this greatest fact of all – if they don't have the very slightest inkling of an idea of how to explain it - then by your own measure they are like believing in an invisible process that somehow makes consciousness magically spring out of our brain.

And of course your explanation that god doles out this precious commodity from behind a curtain is so much rational and satisfying as an explanation.
Than, not sure yet and may not be for a while, tho' there are promising avenues of investigation worth pursuing, lets see where they may lead...
You really outdo yourself sometimes
Oww look a fairy...I must get my fairy net.

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1178. Comment #55097 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 2:34 am

Steve99 (post 1147, or #54834):

This is a fundamental failure of naturalism, and will remain so while nobody is able to at least propose some testable idea about how something material could become conscious.

Please provide a testable idea about how something supernatural could become conscious.

Haven't you been reading my posts since #333? According to my worldview reality is the supernatural realm and its basic constituent is consciousness, so to ask me how consciousness could become conscious, is like me asking you how matter could become material. The only reasonable question you can ask me is how come consciousness produces matter – and the answer is that consciousness does not produce matter; matter does not exist objectively but only exists as an orderly pattern present in our conscious experience. We've gone over this many times. I was under the impression that I was making some sense :-) Happily, Krogercomplete in post 820 did make sense of me when he wrote "As I understand your position Dianelos, we actually do live in God's Matrix."

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1179. Comment #55098 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 2:42 am

Dr Benway (post 1149, or #54838):

For example a famous piece of scientific evidence is that when one measures the speed of light in different frames of reference the result is always the same. Even though I believe this is true with a high degree of confidence, such belief is strictly speaking based on hearsay.

But it need not be based upon hearsay.

I agree, and that's why we call that kind of evidence "objective". But if I wanted to split hairs here I would point out that even though I agree with you latter proposition, it's only because of hearsay too :-) There is a more basic point to be made here: All evidence is in the end subjective – we only call objective a particular class of evidence which we have reason to deem reliable as a class.

To be precise, I am not saying that gratuitous torture is objectively wrong, only that the proposition "gratuitous torture is objective wrong" is meaningful.

To be precise, I am not saying that gratuitous torture is objectively wrong, only that the proposition "gratuitous torture is objective wrong" is meaningful.

No, I am only pointing out the obvious: that propositions "X is true" and "X is meaningful" describe very different claims.

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1180. Comment #55102 by _J_ on July 10, 2007 at 3:01 am

Dianelos, 1175

[...] what one believes about Islamic reasonableness in that department is irrelevant to the fact that those who published those cartoons fully well knew that they would cause others gratuitous pain.

Total agreement that causing gratuitous pain is to be avoided, so point taken - but with the addition that, as far as I understand this story, the cartoons were not actually published in the way that was subsequently claimed by those who most violently objected to them - i.e. the story of which cartoons actually made print and how they were presented was exaggerated and distorted. The point being that often the desire to take offence, and to use the excuse of having been wronged as a justification for aggression, is a greater contributor to the resultant anguish and conflict than was any malign intent or negligence on the part of those blamed for 'causing' the offence.

This trick, whereby the 'victim' exaggerates their 'injury' and essentially victimises the injurer through their claims, can be found everywhere from football (soccer) matches to religious debates. In football matches, when it is recognised by a referee, it can be a sending-off offence. In religious debates it all too often wins the bogus plaintiff undeserved support.

Lastly: it is possible, is it not, for a 'sensitivity' (such as that of Muslims to pictures of Mohammad) to be so extreme as to require criticism rather than silent acceptence? If people genuinely feel that it is better to murder people than to allow a picture to be drawn of their prophet, is this not a matter that we - as people who may find ourselves at the sharp end of this homicidal sensitivity - might legitimately seek to deal with? An argument might be made for the daily publication of cartoons featuring Mohammad (and the figureheads of other religions) by as many papers and magazines as possible. The logic is of the 'lancing a boil' or 'a stitch in time saves nine' variety. Failure to engage the issue at all seems to lead to the sort of runaway extremism whereupon Pakistani politicians feel empowered to support suicide bombing as a response to British royal honours awards.

One way or another, we have a situation in which one culture's reasonable actions cause disproportionate upset in another. Might we not be best to attempt the task of dealing with the causes of this problem and face up to the reality that doing so will cause a certain amount of pain, rather than allow the problem to swell and escalate - in the same way that we inoculate against a disease by suffering through a mild dose of it?

I'm not, of course, suggesting that the Danish cartoonist was attempting some form of cultural therapy, or that drawing more would be the best way of addressing the issue. But I think incidents like this one are not simple examples of cruelty or thoughtlessness on one side, but rather are indicative of a more sticky problem. I would find it difficult to condemn the Danish cartoonist or to decide that his actions were simply 'ethically wrong'.

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1181. Comment #55105 by steve99 on July 10, 2007 at 3:14 am

According to my worldview reality is the supernatural realm and its basic constituent is consciousness, so to ask me how consciousness could become conscious, is like me asking you how matter could become material.

Funny you claim that - because physicists are working right now on that question.

And I am afraid that your response isn't good enough. You can't hand-wave away a problem that you claim naturalism has simply by not calling it a problem. Anyone can justify any viewpoint that way. And, of course, even if your reasoning were true, there is no reason to bring in a God.

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1182. Comment #55107 by LeeC on July 10, 2007 at 3:18 am

This thread moves so quickly it is hard to keep up.

I wrote this post offline (no access at work) and more posts just keep appearing.

If the group does not object I will still post it… hope it is not too far behind the thread.

Not had chance to catch-up yet.



Responding to by Dianelos
1144. Comment #54829
1148. Comment #54837

Hi Dianelos,

In fact one thing you can't understand without God is consciousness itself. At this juncture a naturalist often responds: Oh, here comes the God of the gaps again....

...And the fact that naturalists have really no idea about how anything physical could become conscious is not just one gap, but the mother of all possible gaps.

A gap is a gap however large it maybe, so you have "read my mind" - you are using the god of the gaps, and you know it.

Consciousness may be difficult for us to "understand", but whatever the solution may be to the problem it will be far simpler without god in the equations.

The consciousness of you, me or Einstein maybe difficult to explain - but your god is factors of billions more complex.

How can you hope to explain god? You cannot... so without evidence for god the simplest solution will be without such a god.

Faith is what you have when you do not have evidence.

This is a fundamental failure of naturalism, and will remain so while nobody is able to at least propose some testable idea about how something material could become conscious.

No... it is merely a gap. I am not happy about it, but that is the way it goes.

You have a more "fundamental" problem to address, that is, how to explain something more complex than the problem you say needs solving.

Consciousness may be difficult to explain, but you claim it was god "who did it", and since a god is more complex, your problem requires more explaining.

Now that is what I call a "fundamental failure" so please address it - explain god and how he/she is more likely than say, a conscious human.

My view is that, based on all the best science I can get my hands on, intelligent life should not exist in this universe.

This is your view, and my view is that you are very wrong.

Why? The simply reason that life, intelligent life at that, does exist, so science will agree to that and no science will say it should not or cannot exist.

Science cannot say intelligent life should not exist, since any such statement would be against the observations and outside the scope of science. It may say intelligent life is unlikely, but however unlikely it is, it is here on planet Earth (so we are told)

However, maybe the "science you got your hands on" says differently - "intelligent life should not exist". Care to quote it some of it?

Also, wouldn't this make the Christian view that god made Earth and universe for man completely WRONG?

I mean, most of the Earth is uninhabitable for man, the universe is even harsher. Hardly looks like a universe "created" for man - looks more like it just came together at random without a god to me. (My view, I require evidence to think otherwise.)

Responding to 1149. Comment #54838 by Dr Benway

I know your game. It's the old "you have faith just like me, Mr. Science, therefore my faith is justified." How tedious.

Or the "classic", you cannot prove A so B must be true.

Love it.

WOW so isn't life great - strange that the theist wastes it dreaming of the next or in worshiping a "leader" they have no evidence for its existence?

Lee

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1183. Comment #55108 by LeeC on July 10, 2007 at 3:22 am

Hi Dianelos,

Just seen your reply (Post 1166 Comment #55061), not had chance to read it yet, but I am looking forward to it - so lets not waste anymore time.

Thanks for persevering with me and getting through your back catalogue.

Lee

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1184. Comment #55113 by _J_ on July 10, 2007 at 3:31 am

Dianelos, 1166

First of all there is no scientific evidence for any ontological worldview (including naturalism), so your first point is moot.

But you accept that there is such a thing as scientific evidence, right?

So, let's say all I do is accept the scientific evidence about stuff we can observe. And I say: 'That's all we know; I can go no further until we have more evidence'.

What's my worldview? Is it theism? No. Is it 'there is no god'? No. It's 'This is all we know and I'm trying not to assume anything else'.

Operationally, this is naturalism, isn't it? It's not naturalism that states that the material is all there is. That, as you observe, would be to add a supposition to the body of scientific evidence, similar to your addition of a god. As you say, this would not be deriving an ontological position from scientific evidence, it would be creating one by adding something else to it.

But my position is avoidance of such an addition. It's 'This is what we can observe and I will try to avoid making untestable imaginative additions to this.' The attitude is to work from the inside and expand our understanding through advancing scientific observations.

If this can be called an ontological position, it is indeed one that proceeds from scientific evidence. But mightn't it more properly be called a lack of a metaphysical view? In practical terms, this may be identical to an assumption of metaphysical naturalism, but you see that the direction of reasoning is different.

It's Hamlet being bounded in a nutshell, isn't it? I am refusing to speculate on the nature of the nut, or whether it's inside a bag or sitting on a table or whatever, because I am inside it. This does not mean that I have, counter-scientifically, decreed that what I can see is all there is. It just means that I'm not incorporating speculations about what else there might conceivably be into the picture I draw from my observations within the nut.

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1185. Comment #55120 by _J_ on July 10, 2007 at 4:04 am

Dianelos, 1166 again,

So in short, idealistic theism trumps naturalism even in Occam's department.

First, a round of applause! I enjoyed that.

Second, though, aren't you cheating with your maths?

You start off with naturalism, and observe:

[…] let's assume that there is a good explanation of how it's all matter deep down. (Idealistic theism does not have this problem, because it asserts only the existence of consciousness and easily accounts for matter as patterns present in our conscious experience).

Later, you come to your idealistic theism:

Well there are about 6 million cone cells and about 90 million rod cells in the human eye.

Right: so your information count is based on the constructs of matter – the same approach you used for naturalism. Except that for naturalism you tried to be consistent and count upwards after breaking things down to a countable unit (arbitrarily stopping at atoms and ignoring that, once you do get down to fundamental particles, there are huge grey areas of Here Be Dragons that we're still building Large Hadron Colliders to help us explore, making something of a mockery of this whole flight of imaginative mathematical whimsy…but never mind).

But, for theism, this 'complexity' counting makes damn-all sense if matter is but 'patterns present in our conscious experience'. You have no way of measuring complexity at all. So, you incongruously use matter (rods and cones) as your starting point, but inconsistently fail to break them down to their constituent atoms. You take these cells as sufficient representation of our ability to see, making no mention of the 'complexity' represented by the light that they actually register, or the objects that that light has reflected off (if you regard these as unnecessary, then why bring up eyes and photoreceptors in the first place?). You do not consider that rods and cones would be of less use than a bicycle to a haddock without the rest of the eye and the cabling that carries the information to our brain, and the brain structures that interpret it – but you've given up on matter again by now.

So, let's forgive your (unforgivable) skipping back and forth between matter-counting and matter disregarding. Your equation still makes as much sense as a sponge submarine. Behold:

Naturalism
Matter + matter + matter = A really big number

Idealistic theism
Some matter + The uncountable and unexplained influence of god = A smaller number + The uncountable and unexplained influence of god

Simplifying the numbers (which were barely better than random anyway):

Naturalism
1 + 2 + 3 = 6

Idealistic theism
1 + 2 + X = 3 + X
where X represents the unknown value that is god

You are maintaining that 6 is more complex than 3+X (where X is an unknown). Care to explain…?

Other Comments by _J_

1186. Comment #55121 by Dianelos Georgoudis on July 10, 2007 at 4:08 am

_J_ (post 1151, or #54841):

And yet I find it childishly easy to imagine the sort of evidence that such a god could give if he actually existed.

You mean something like reordering the stars in the night sky to read one different verse of the New Testament every night, or something like that? I agree that God could do that, but that's irrelevant. The real question is not what God could do, but what God would want to do. And there are reasons why God would not want to give us this kind of Mickey-Mouse kind of evidence. Why do I call it Mickey-Mouse? Because it would be kind of childish and too easy. There is nothing good in our experiential environment that can be gained trivially easy, so why would one suppose that God would want knowledge of His/Her existence and attributes to be trivially easy to gain?

What's more such a physical demonstration would be misleading, and God surely does not wish to mislead us. Why misleading? Because even without any such physical evidence of God's existence people find it very easy to confuse physical phenomena with reality. If there were physical phenomena that spoke of God's existence then it would be even more difficult to us to understand that reality is much more than the physical phenomena we experience.

In fact one thing you can't understand without God is consciousness itself.

So you keep saying! But even if I accepted your insuperable misgivings about naturalistic approaches to consciousness, I still don't share your reasoning on positing god as an explanation.

They are not just my misgivings – many serious naturalist philosophers have such misgivings too, and have even produced a list of paradoxes entailed in the idea that something material could become conscious. Also, we have the objective fact that nobody has really suggested the slightest idea of how anything material could become conscious, and in general that the advance towards solving the hard problem of consciousness in the last decades has been exactly zero. Of course, maybe there is a solution – but I find that "maybe" increasingly difficult to sustain in reason.

As for me positing God as an explanation – I am positing a worldview which does not require an explanation for consciousness. According to idealistic theism the whole of reality is consciousness, and indeed the whole of reality is God. Why then use the concept of God in the first place? Because that concept expresses how the whole of reality is organized, namely as a person.

If naturalists had no idea about how life could come into existence ('All life, conscious or unconscious!') then you could call that| 'the mother of all gaps'.

No, all the gaps that science has closed in the past and some it is working to close today are objective gaps. They are about explaining objectively observable phenomena, say the complexity of the species, the very existence of life, the movement of the planets, why the night sky is as bright as it is, and so on. Consciousness is not such an objectively observable phenomenon, and that's why it's not clear why consciousness represents a gap for science in the first place – I only argue that consciousness represents a huge gap for naturalism. Incidentally, it's wrong to call consciousness a phenomenon, for consciousness is a different category: it is the space where all other physical phenomena take place.

In short the problem of consciousness is a problem of first-person data, and there is indeed a chasm between explaining third-person data and first-person data. You see, third-person data has been used by science only to explain third-person data. Naturalism pretends to use third-person data to explain first-person data, which looks impossible. One might say that it only looks impossible because of a failure of imagination, or even because of a fundamental limitation of human intelligence (as philosopher McGinn does), but to claim that a sufficiently complex configuration of matter could become conscious strikes me like saying that a particularly complex way of mixing black and white pigment could produce colors. I think there is already sufficient evidence and arguments to justify in reason the belief that it's impossible to explain the presence of consciousness in a material world. On the other hand theistic idealism can easily explain the presence of physical phenomena in a world of consciousness. It's really easy to use first-person data to explain third-person data.