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Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
by Richard Skinner, Ekklesia
Reposted from:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5721
It's easy to get annoyed, but Christians really ought to listen to and take seriously what Richard Dawkins has to say. With his high profile books, articles, television programmes and general media coverage, he has become the number one scourge of religion and religious believers of all and every stripe. He is articulate, passionate, an excellent speaker and a formidable intelligence. He has made important contributions to his particular discipline of evolutionary biology, most famously with his first book The Selfish Gene, but no less impressively with the follow-up volume The Extended Phenotype, and a series of subsequent books. He is a major player in his discipline.
His book The God Delusion appeared in 2006. This isn't about evolutionary biology with a few side-swipes at religion thrown in, this is a concentrated assault on religion. He launches a series of exocet missiles at religion, at the concept of God, the 'supernatural', faith-heads (which is his term for religious believers), theology — the whole bang-shoot, in fact. Inevitably he has triggered much response. The theologian Alister McGrath, an Oxford colleague of his, who had already written one book critiquing Dawkins' views on religion, riposted rapidly with The Dawkins Delusion. Another Christian riposte has come from a more evangelical quarter in Andrew Wilson's Deluded by Dawkins? Both authors demonstrate that many of Dawkins' arguments are strewn with error and misunderstanding.
However, in response to the statement "theologians say that Dawkins is wrong" we can echo Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" It's part of their job description. Perhaps more significant, then, is the response Dawkins has drawn from non-Christian — or non-religious — quarters. Don't get me wrong: there are many who agree whole-heartedly with Dawkins. But consider the review of the book by Professor of English Terry Eagleton, a non-believer, which appeared in the London Review of Books (19 October 2006): it is a high octane demolition job.
Eagleton starts off "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be." He continues for another 3,500 words to elaborate on this.
Now I think the critics of Richard Dawkins are in the main quite right. I say 'in the main' because Dawkins does make a number of valid points, particularly relating to the role of religion, and Christianity in particular, in the life of this country; but I agree that a large proportion of his book is indeed based on error. However, I don't think it right for us to say, "Ah, well, not only theologians but even atheists have demonstrated where Dawkins has gone wrong, therefore we don't have to take his views seriously."
We do have to take his views seriously, for more than one reason. Wilson suggests, and I agree with him, that Christians should be grateful to Dawkins, because "he has gathered together all of the best arguments against God's existence in one place, with the intention of debating them publicly." Quite so, but I think there's another reason to listen to Dawkins. It's this: theological writers and others can point out at length that what Dawkins does is to set up a straw man — or rather, a straw God — and then demolish it; they can show that Dawkins has not really got to grips at all with a true understanding of God and the religious dimension; but the straw God that Dawkins sets up and then demolishes is often uncomfortably close to the notion of God that we Christians all too frequently seem to talk about, pray to and worship.
What Dawkins demolishes in this book may well be a misrepresentation of God, but it is a misrepresentation, an idol, that we Christians all too have often set up and espoused as the real thing. We should listen to Dawkins because doing so can help us reflect on what we claim to believe, or think we believe, or imply that we believe. His views can act as an acid to eat away the false and phoney elements of our faith.
By way of example, Dawkins refers to 'The God Hypothesis' which "suggests that the reality we inhabit also contains a supernatural agent who designed the universe and — at least in many versions of the hypothesis — maintains it and even intervenes in it with miracles...." (p.81). God, in this understanding, refers to a fellow inhabitant of the universe. Earlier in the book, however, he takes a marginally more subtle line, and the hypothesis is that there is "a personal God dwelling within [the universe], or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean)" possessing a whole range of unpleasant qualities he has earlier listed (p.59).
I doubt if many of us would fall into the simplistic belief that God is just another thing who inhabits the universe, such that if we went on a tour of the universe our guide would be saying "now ladies and gentlemen, over here is the solar system, over there is the Crab Nebula, watch our for the black hole at the centre; there's a super-nova; there's God, there's a comet...." and so forth. We don't think of God like that as simply an inhabitant of the universe. But what of the suggestion that God is outside the universe? I would guess most if not all past and present members of Sunday Schools and the like have sung, 'He's got the whole world in his hands', and other hymns or choruses with similar imagery which suggests an entity external to the universe. It may be a comforting image, and it may have a lot to recommend it — but there is the danger of it being too comforting and our taking it almost literally, which doesn't do justice to the biblical understanding of God as both immanent and transcendent — God dwelling within all things, but also greater than all things — and of God as a living presence.
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by 'God', have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as "God is ultimate reality"; or "God is the ground of our being", or "God is the precondition that anything at all could exist", and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you're not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over - God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
Let's face it, it is easier for most of us to hold a clear but inaccurate image of what we think God is, rather than to live with the discomfort of not being able to pin God down precisely. Many a mystic has said, in effect, that all descriptions of God are false because they are so inadequate, but that is not a comfortable place to be in. We prefer a domesticated God that our comprehension can contain, a golden calf that we have fashioned for ourselves, and that we can see. Richard Dawkins in effect, even though he may not realise it, is pointing at a load of golden calves that we have fashioned over the millennia, and saying, "what a load of rubbish". But of course, to rubbish a golden calf is not the same thing as to rubbish the living God. Dawkins, unwittingly, can help us distinguish between the two!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions — if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
Challenges to our image of God is not new. Back in 1963, the then Bishop of Woolwich John Robinson published Honest to God. After an extract was published in The Observer newspaper under the heading 'Our Image of God Must Go' the book became a surprise bestseller and triggered off a major rumpus. Robinson was urging us to jettison old images of God - uncontentious in theological circles, but a shock to the person in the pew. Commenting on it twenty years later, Ken Leech had this to say: "The 'god' whose image must go might well have been a caricature of the Christian God, but it was a caricature which corresponded with a widely held view, a view which effectively prevented any real engagement with God as a living reality. Robinson did not create this situation: he merely laid bare the reality of existing confusion and unbelief" (True God Sheldon Press, 1985 p.6). I think Richard Dawkins — though he may well not sanction my saying this — is performing a similar challenging function to that of Robinson
Curious perhaps to compare Richard Dawkins to John Robinson, but whether such attacks on our images of God come from within the church or from outside it, it is no bad thing regularly to be reminded that all images of God fall far short of the reality encountered and witnessed to by Moses and the prophets, and by Jesus and the apostles. We should listen to Richard Dawkins. His understanding might be full of errors, but they are often our errors of understanding too.
---------
© Richard Skinner. The author is a poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of spirituality and evolutionary psychology. He is author of Invocations: calling on the God in all (Wild Goose Publishing, Iona). This article was originally given as an address at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Exeter.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5721
It's easy to get annoyed, but Christians really ought to listen to and take seriously what Richard Dawkins has to say. With his high profile books, articles, television programmes and general media coverage, he has become the number one scourge of religion and religious believers of all and every stripe. He is articulate, passionate, an excellent speaker and a formidable intelligence. He has made important contributions to his particular discipline of evolutionary biology, most famously with his first book The Selfish Gene, but no less impressively with the follow-up volume The Extended Phenotype, and a series of subsequent books. He is a major player in his discipline.
His book The God Delusion appeared in 2006. This isn't about evolutionary biology with a few side-swipes at religion thrown in, this is a concentrated assault on religion. He launches a series of exocet missiles at religion, at the concept of God, the 'supernatural', faith-heads (which is his term for religious believers), theology — the whole bang-shoot, in fact. Inevitably he has triggered much response. The theologian Alister McGrath, an Oxford colleague of his, who had already written one book critiquing Dawkins' views on religion, riposted rapidly with The Dawkins Delusion. Another Christian riposte has come from a more evangelical quarter in Andrew Wilson's Deluded by Dawkins? Both authors demonstrate that many of Dawkins' arguments are strewn with error and misunderstanding.
However, in response to the statement "theologians say that Dawkins is wrong" we can echo Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" It's part of their job description. Perhaps more significant, then, is the response Dawkins has drawn from non-Christian — or non-religious — quarters. Don't get me wrong: there are many who agree whole-heartedly with Dawkins. But consider the review of the book by Professor of English Terry Eagleton, a non-believer, which appeared in the London Review of Books (19 October 2006): it is a high octane demolition job.
Eagleton starts off "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be." He continues for another 3,500 words to elaborate on this.
Now I think the critics of Richard Dawkins are in the main quite right. I say 'in the main' because Dawkins does make a number of valid points, particularly relating to the role of religion, and Christianity in particular, in the life of this country; but I agree that a large proportion of his book is indeed based on error. However, I don't think it right for us to say, "Ah, well, not only theologians but even atheists have demonstrated where Dawkins has gone wrong, therefore we don't have to take his views seriously."
We do have to take his views seriously, for more than one reason. Wilson suggests, and I agree with him, that Christians should be grateful to Dawkins, because "he has gathered together all of the best arguments against God's existence in one place, with the intention of debating them publicly." Quite so, but I think there's another reason to listen to Dawkins. It's this: theological writers and others can point out at length that what Dawkins does is to set up a straw man — or rather, a straw God — and then demolish it; they can show that Dawkins has not really got to grips at all with a true understanding of God and the religious dimension; but the straw God that Dawkins sets up and then demolishes is often uncomfortably close to the notion of God that we Christians all too frequently seem to talk about, pray to and worship.
What Dawkins demolishes in this book may well be a misrepresentation of God, but it is a misrepresentation, an idol, that we Christians all too have often set up and espoused as the real thing. We should listen to Dawkins because doing so can help us reflect on what we claim to believe, or think we believe, or imply that we believe. His views can act as an acid to eat away the false and phoney elements of our faith.
By way of example, Dawkins refers to 'The God Hypothesis' which "suggests that the reality we inhabit also contains a supernatural agent who designed the universe and — at least in many versions of the hypothesis — maintains it and even intervenes in it with miracles...." (p.81). God, in this understanding, refers to a fellow inhabitant of the universe. Earlier in the book, however, he takes a marginally more subtle line, and the hypothesis is that there is "a personal God dwelling within [the universe], or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean)" possessing a whole range of unpleasant qualities he has earlier listed (p.59).
I doubt if many of us would fall into the simplistic belief that God is just another thing who inhabits the universe, such that if we went on a tour of the universe our guide would be saying "now ladies and gentlemen, over here is the solar system, over there is the Crab Nebula, watch our for the black hole at the centre; there's a super-nova; there's God, there's a comet...." and so forth. We don't think of God like that as simply an inhabitant of the universe. But what of the suggestion that God is outside the universe? I would guess most if not all past and present members of Sunday Schools and the like have sung, 'He's got the whole world in his hands', and other hymns or choruses with similar imagery which suggests an entity external to the universe. It may be a comforting image, and it may have a lot to recommend it — but there is the danger of it being too comforting and our taking it almost literally, which doesn't do justice to the biblical understanding of God as both immanent and transcendent — God dwelling within all things, but also greater than all things — and of God as a living presence.
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by 'God', have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as "God is ultimate reality"; or "God is the ground of our being", or "God is the precondition that anything at all could exist", and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you're not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over - God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
Let's face it, it is easier for most of us to hold a clear but inaccurate image of what we think God is, rather than to live with the discomfort of not being able to pin God down precisely. Many a mystic has said, in effect, that all descriptions of God are false because they are so inadequate, but that is not a comfortable place to be in. We prefer a domesticated God that our comprehension can contain, a golden calf that we have fashioned for ourselves, and that we can see. Richard Dawkins in effect, even though he may not realise it, is pointing at a load of golden calves that we have fashioned over the millennia, and saying, "what a load of rubbish". But of course, to rubbish a golden calf is not the same thing as to rubbish the living God. Dawkins, unwittingly, can help us distinguish between the two!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions — if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
Challenges to our image of God is not new. Back in 1963, the then Bishop of Woolwich John Robinson published Honest to God. After an extract was published in The Observer newspaper under the heading 'Our Image of God Must Go' the book became a surprise bestseller and triggered off a major rumpus. Robinson was urging us to jettison old images of God - uncontentious in theological circles, but a shock to the person in the pew. Commenting on it twenty years later, Ken Leech had this to say: "The 'god' whose image must go might well have been a caricature of the Christian God, but it was a caricature which corresponded with a widely held view, a view which effectively prevented any real engagement with God as a living reality. Robinson did not create this situation: he merely laid bare the reality of existing confusion and unbelief" (True God Sheldon Press, 1985 p.6). I think Richard Dawkins — though he may well not sanction my saying this — is performing a similar challenging function to that of Robinson
Curious perhaps to compare Richard Dawkins to John Robinson, but whether such attacks on our images of God come from within the church or from outside it, it is no bad thing regularly to be reminded that all images of God fall far short of the reality encountered and witnessed to by Moses and the prophets, and by Jesus and the apostles. We should listen to Richard Dawkins. His understanding might be full of errors, but they are often our errors of understanding too.
---------
© Richard Skinner. The author is a poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of spirituality and evolutionary psychology. He is author of Invocations: calling on the God in all (Wild Goose Publishing, Iona). This article was originally given as an address at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Exeter.
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Posted: Thursday, September 20, 2007 | PermalinkComments 351 - 400 of 604 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers352. Comment #75219 by Geraint on October 2, 2007 at 4:20 am
The Bell test results falsify all non-local naturalistic models,
Yes.
and, arguably, falsify all models of an objective and direct physical reality.
No, unless objective and direct means tiny billiard balls bouncing off each other. In which case I may as well take theism as requiring a man with a long, white beard sitting on a cloud.
The hard thing about an ontology of QM was and still is the measurement paradox. If anything, the Bell test makes the job easier by restricting the sorts of ontologies we might consider. But I know I should resist getting into this, since I managed to resist on the McGrath thread...
Other Comments by Geraint
353. Comment #75220 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:20 am
Vinelectric (post 285, or #74503):In fact the undoing of any argument for God lies in the base moral level exhibited by the biblical narrative.This statement nicely demonstrates how often people conflate theism with Biblical literalism, or even Christianity with Biblical literalism. And why not? On the one hand people hear all the loud fundamentalists insisting that theism is Biblical literalism, and on the other hand people read books by the new atheists (Harris, Dawkins, etc) who appear to say the very same thing. And both groups, left and right, censure the study of serious books on theology that may dispel that nonsense.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
354. Comment #75224 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:37 am
Steve99 (post 288 or #74522):You were claiming that the descriptions of reality were in principle indistinguishable.How are the various interpretations of quantum mechanics in principle distinguishable by science, if they are all mathematically identical to the predictions of quantum mechanics?
I mean I know there are some ideas of how to falsify such interpretations. One is to try suicide; if you find you consistently fail to kill yourself then you have falsified all except the many-worlds interpretation. And, obviously, if you die and continue experiencing a world where quantum mechanics does not apply then you have falsified them all. But that's not the point. The point is that some people consider interpretations of quantum mechanics (i.e. descriptions of reality) as part of science, while being unable to explain what objective scientific test can confirm or falsify any of them. Naturalists should themselves respect their own definitions about what is scientific, as well as about what a reasonable ontological hypothesis is.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
355. Comment #75225 by BMMcArdle on October 2, 2007 at 4:37 am
Utterly useless meanderings on the road from nowhere to nothing.Other Comments by BMMcArdle
356. Comment #75228 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 4:48 am
Dianelos:The deist (or even the theist) God may not interfere with physical phenomena but may be present in our subjective experience of life...Then there's nothing for us to argue about. I don't have access to your subjectivity.
Other Comments by Dr Benway
357. Comment #75248 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 6:17 am
Steve99 (post 311, or #74693):And far more naturalists find Dawkins' argument sound than don't.Sure.
You should know that cherry-picking those who support your views is no way to argue.So do you know of any reviews by knowledgeable people who agreed with Dawkins's reasoning? Let's see, on the back of the book itself there are several admiring quotes: The first is by Phillip Pullman, a writer of fantasy novels. The second is by Matt Ridley, science writer, businessman, and aristocrat, who mainly worked in journalism. The third is by Steven Pinker, who is a more impressive individual: he is a Harvard professor of psychology. The third is by Brian Eno, is an electronic musician, music theorist, and record producer. And the fifth is by Derren Brown, an illusionist and hypnotist.
Well, what can I say, except for Pinker the rest look distinctly unimpressive to me, certainly much less qualified to judge TGD than Nagel, Orr, or Plantinga. As for Pinker his quote is conspicuously lukewarm, basically only saying that TGD is an elegant book. Here's his complete quote "At last, Richard Dawkins, one of the best non-fiction writers today, has assembled his thoughts on religion into a characteristically elegant book.".
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
358. Comment #75252 by Robert Maynard on October 2, 2007 at 6:33 am
Dianelos,For example most people would judge a painting by Jackson Pollock to be more complex than a painting by Roy Lichtenstein. And sure enough, paintings by Lichtenstein (at any resolution of detail) will compress better when you save them as .jpg files than paintings by Pollock. The definition then is that "complexity" is the measure of how little the description of something can be compressed, or, equivalently, "complexity" is the minimum size of information needed to describe something.Summary: You're wrong again.
You're trying to subtly blur the two words.
We could discuss complexity of Pollock and Lichtenstein in terms of the processes that went into their creation, the intention behind their 'structure' - Lichtenstein's painstaking pop art and Pollocks random emotionally-driven splatters. But whether or not "most people" would find a Pollock painting more complex than a Lichtenstein (really, do you know that for sure, or were you typing one-handed again?), I was intrigued and decided to test your claim about image compression.
I googled and downloaded three images of Lichtenstein paintings, and three of Pollock paintings. Then I resized them in Photoshop, so that the longest dimension was 400px, and exported them as jpeg's at the same quality settings. And no, I don't know why this is being rendered with such a large gap.
| Painting Name (year) | Original dimensions and size | Compressed dimensions and size |
| Lichtenstein | ||
| "Drowning Girl" (1963) | 424x432px, 313Kb | 393x400px, 96.9Kb |
| "Girl with Tear III" (1977) | 1063x1214px, 956Kb | 350x400px, 86.0Kb |
| "Takka Takka" (1962) | 803x665px, 163Kb | 400x331px, 93.1Kb |
| Pollock | ||
| "Shimmering Substance" (1946) | 835x1059px, 277Kb | 315x400px, 90.9Kb |
| "Lavender Mist I" (1950) | 1100x814px, 351Kb | 400x296px, 87.1Kb |
| "The Key" (1946) | 600x428px, 398Kb | 400x285px, 90.0Kb |
EDIT: to increase the comparative resolution of Pollock paintings used, I replaced my Lavender Mist painting. Original resolution/size: 800x592, 172Kb, resized to 400x296, 85.1Kb.
"Sure enough"?
To the contrary, Lichtenstein's paintings are on average larger when compressed, but ultimately the disparity is negligible. The information required to describe them is comparable, just like I keep telling you. The largest disparity, 96.9 and 87.1 kilobytes, (9.8 kilobytes) equals a binary difference of 78,400 bits - in favour of Lichtenstein. The smallest, 87.1 and 86 kilobytes (1.1 kilobytes), a mere 8800 bits of binary - in favour of Pollock. This is not impressive stuff.
I assume you did such a test too, before making a claim like that - maybe you could share your methods and we might figure out why your conclusion is so different from mine.
To be perfectly honest, I knew how this experiment would turn out before I spent time searching and tinkering with images in Photoshop - you're simply misusing image compression, and your argument is still a bad one. Worse, you're still not in tune with the fact that information compression requires systematic interpretation, some kind of algorithmic process to look at the data and figure out how to cut corners. For example, all of these images of paintings have gone through at least two compression processes - digital imaging which converted reflected photons into pixel information, at varying resolutions (measured in pixels/dots per inch), and compression to a resolution suitable for web viewing. One could point out that the images I've sourced have already lost so much information they're useless for comparison, but they'd still have to concede that Lichtenstein had lost LESS detail than Pollock, and yet its compressed versions (and the original - also compressed - versions) turned out altogether similar in size (though in fact larger). Perhaps the disparity is because they were they 'scanned' at a higher resolution? Pollock paintings are on average much larger than Lichtenstein's, if the scanning process involved photography Lichtenstein would definitely enjoy higher fidelity. Then again, the continuous diversity in colour and texture on Pollock paintings should STILL surpass Lichtenstein's, even when captured from a distance.
In any case, you're wrong, again. Lichtenstein's paintings, while enjoying high regularity and visual simplicity, contain comparable orders of information to Pollock paintings, which contain high levels of visual complexity. New example, please.
I hope it is clear that the information that describes an ice cube can be compressed much better than the information that describes the cupful of water. After all the range of values of the position and momentum parameters of all atoms in the former are much more restricted than in the latter, and so each of these values requires less binary bits of information for its representation.Only if you're describing water in a glass as a distinct group of molecules which are all being described at once, as a set, like some video game sprite. Note the description "all atoms".
And precisely what kind of timescale are we viewing water and ice on? You can only claim complexity by potential position by making predictive extrapolations over time, and this can be fairly precisely predicted with Brownian motion, which again levels the comparison.
If taken at a literal instant, a quantity of ice or a quantity of water that has melted out of it, will both require a molecule by molecule description, of the positions, vectors and velocities of all particles (to what ever degree it is possible to know velocity and position at the same time, given Heisenbergian uncertainty and all), which, since they are the same matter, is necessarily the same.
This is honestly just a matter of your ignorance regarding how complex ice is. The crystalline lattice of any given quantity of ice, while pending towards a gross regularity, contains tremendous inconsistencies, mostly derived from microscopic variations in temperature exchanges, and conflictingly oriented subsets of crystalline structures. These inconsistencies don't only destroy ones ability to simplify the total molecular structure of the ice at an instant, but are - as with the positions of molecules in liquid water - in a constant state of flux, owing to the fine heat exchanges taking place all throughout the structure, in its attempt to reach a stable equilibrium. Again, your point mostly rests on you seeking to provide a more detailed description of liquid water than you wish to of solid ice. No sale, honcho!
If you are in any way interested in providing a consistent standard of information in both states, the amount of binary information needed to describe individual molecules is practically the same, whether it's in the center of an icecube or part of a bead of 'sweat' running down the side to join a growing pool of water.
New example, please.
Other Comments by Robert Maynard
359. Comment #75255 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 6:43 am
Lauregon (post 317, or #74797):There is lots and lots of evidence for the existence of God. - DianelosSure, but it's also Dawkins's idea of "God", and you were asking about specifically "whose idea of God". Well Dawkins's idea is perfectly acceptable, for I don't think many theists would disagree that God is indeed the supernatural designer of the universe.
Evidence for whose idea of "God?" Jerry Falwell's? A Muslim ayatolla's? Einstein's? – Lauregon
Dawkins's. (see page 31 of TGD.) - Dianelos
The "God" described on p 31 of TGD is the hypothesis of believers. – Lauregon
So, defining the meaning of "God" is rather easy; even Dawkins could come up with a good one, notwithstanding the fact that he hasn't studied any serious books on theology. That it's somehow difficult to find a general definition for the meaning of "God" is just another bit of naturalistic mythology.
Theists think that they do have evidence for the existence of God, and so naturalists have to show why these are not really evidence for the existence of God and only fallacies. - DianelosWhatever. The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.
No, "naturalists" don't. - Lauregon
Well, Dawkins in TGD certainly attempts to do that. As do more knowledgeable naturalists such as Mackie, Martin, Drange, Sinnot-Armstrong, and many others. - Dianelos
Thinking that something unseen exists and acts doesn't make that which is thought factual. Hypothesizing is conjectural, not factual. The burden of proof lies with those making the claim for the existence for the unseen, not with those who don't believe the unseen thing exists. Those who advocate for the unseen have profoundly disingenuous and dodgy ways of making their case for the unseen to unbelievers---ways that with very few exceptions convince only the consenting choir. – Lauregon
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
360. Comment #75257 by steve99 on October 2, 2007 at 6:46 am
So do you know of any reviews by knowledgeable people who agreed with Dawkins's reasoning?
Yes.
Joan Bakewell, distinguished journalist.
Stephen Weinberg (who needs no introduction)
Michael Frayn (novelist)
The Economist
Well, what can I say, except for Pinker the rest look distinctly unimpressive to me, certainly much less qualified to judge TGD than Nagel, Orr, or Plantinga.
As he clearly states in the introduction to the paperback version of TGD, Dawkins did not intend to write a book for Nagel et al. He is, after all, Professor of Public Understanding of Science.
Other Comments by steve99
361. Comment #75261 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 7:03 am
Dianelos:The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.So all those anti-Scientology web sites are actually evidence for Scientology? WTF?
If you insist on using the term "naturalism" instead of "atheism," I'm going to point out that you are a naturalist as well. You just add a bit of God to your map of reality.
Everytime you argue against "naturalism" you shoot yourself in the foot. For without the natural world, meaning vanishes. Debate becomes nothing more than wotu jg0gu weri cs wto gaanvsdiut fadogtq heio!
Other Comments by Dr Benway
362. Comment #75271 by Quetzalcoatl on October 2, 2007 at 8:00 am
Dr Benway-wotu jg0gu weri cs wto gaanvsdiut fadogtq heio!
Damn it! That's what I was going to say!
Dianelos-
Whatever. The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.
It shows nothing of the sort. Just because a lot of people believe in something doesn't make it true. And saying that something isn't true doesn't somehow make it stronger or more true just because people bother to deny it. You also seem to be confusing arguments against the evidence for religion with arguments against religion itself. There is a difference.
And in fact the evidence is (mostly) easy to counter. The problem is that so many believers want to believe so badly that they're prepared to overlook the inconsistencies of their beliefs.
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363. Comment #75295 by Robert Maynard on October 2, 2007 at 8:58 am
Dianelos,So as to not appear dishonest - I will discuss why digitally compressed images of Lichtenstein paintings actually are comparable in complexity to digitally compressed images of Pollock paintings.
To present what you were trying to argue, I made a few pictures which do demonstrate significant differences in information content based on complexity.
Impressionist smudge, 72.9Kb
Regular pattern, solid colour regions, 43.3Kb
Clear lines, with solid colour regions, 27.3Kb
The compression explanation works when the information truly is easy to simplify, like scribblings made with simulated paintbrushes in a computer program. So why didn't it work with Lichtenstein?
It's because, just like ice (funnily enough), the painted images are full of the casual imperfections and inconsistencies we are accustomed to seeing in real world objects, which are barely perceptible, but which result in an unnatural image if removed. You need to recognise these inconsistencies in order to discuss the true information content available to us through visual stimuli.
Although in principle it would appear that Lichtenstein paintings are less complex, given his use of bold, solid colour regions, the information we receive when we look at that image is awash in the casual noise that comes from photons inconsistently bouncing off inconsistent surfaces. To demonstrate, I added a layer of noise to the lines picture, effectively doubling the information required to describe it:
Clear lines with solid colour regions, with added noise, 53Kb
Geddit?
Side note: Given that you are arguing for an experience simulation, the casual perceptual inconsistencies we experience must also be factored into your explanations regarding the information content of this simulation.
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364. Comment #75338 by Lauregon on October 2, 2007 at 11:20 am
Sure, but it's also Dawkins's idea of "God", and you were asking about specifically "whose idea of God". Well Dawkins's idea is perfectly acceptable, for I don't think many theists would disagree that God is indeed the supernatural designer of the universe. - Dianelos
Bogus response. What Dawkins describes is a more charitable version of the God Hypothesis than the "most unlovely instantiation." It's not Dawkins' "God." Dawkins makes clear on the next page (32) what he means by the God Hypothesis: a concept of a supernatural deity that's "founded on local traditions of private revelation rather than evidence." There's no evidence for such a "God" apart from the tortured, subjective explanations of the faithful which is why Dawkins calls the God Hypothesis a delusion (and why Daniel Dennet calls for breaking its spell on human minds).
Whatever. The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter. - Dianelos
Truly fatuous response. What exists is a grip on human minds which causes believers to go to enormous convoluted lengths in order to prove the existence of an unseen supernatural "God." That believers feel the need go to such lengths to persuade the populace of their "truth" stands as proof that their "God" is unbelievable to minds not already shackled to faith in a supernatural deity, and that the only ones being convinced is themselves. Simply observe what you're doing here---on and on and on, with no converts. The "evidence" you're trying to produce here is so convoluted, conjectural, ivory-tower, and undefinable that it has no meaning for ordinary people. It's just as authoritarian and hocus-pocus as what obsessed the church fathers of the fourth century. Leave behind the woo-woo stuff and the rewards and punishment factor which has bound believers for centuries, and you'll have exactly what? Without the "naive" woo-woo and rewards and punishment stuff, religion has no mass appeal---which is exactly why it's been used all this time to keep people shackled to ecclesiastical authority. You're going to absurd lengths, Dianelos, in order to prove merely that belief in a supernatural "God" makes your allegedly not-real human life better.
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365. Comment #75356 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 11:48 am
Robert Maynard (post 359, or #75252):Robert, I can't believe you actually went to all the trouble and actually tested my affirmation :-( What are you, a scientist? My fundamentalist friends always advised me to never to debate with scientists, for the Devil has taught them all kinds of tricky stuff in order to confuse our faith.
But seriously now: I did make a mistake when I wrote that paintings by Lichtenstein will compress better than Pollock's when one saves them as .jpg files. The reason is that JPEG compression is lossy, i.e. it loses information while compressing. In the context of discussing complexity the idea of course is how much information can be compressed without losing any of it. A well-known lossless compression program is WinZip. Photoshop allows the lossless compression of images using for example TIF. I tried this out using your 6 images after cropping 400x400 pixel rectangles from their upper left corner so as to make the results better comparable. The Lichtenstein images produced 426, 307, and 378 KB TIF files. The Pollock images produced 432, 441, and 507 KB images. The Lichtenstein images clearly allow for more compression as they are less complex, still the difference was less than I expected. The reason is the originals were already lossy compressed images, which adds a lot of extraneous noise into the image. My guess is that if one uses uncompressed images (maybe by scanning high quality photos from books) and then compresses them using TIF the Lichtenstein files will be less than half the size of the Pollock files.
Now a few comments:
But whether or not "most people" would find a Pollock painting more complex than a Lichtenstein (really, do you know that for sure, or were you typing one-handed again?),It's difficult to argue about peoples' subjective sense, but I bet that if people were shown the pictures you picked and asked which groups of 3 strikes them as more complex, more than 90% would judge that Pollock's pictures are more complex.
I assume you did such a test too, before making a claim like thatI didn't. It turns out I have single-handedly written my own lossless encryption program (I could never make is as efficient as pkzip, but have nevertheless used it as part of some products), so I know how compression works. The concept of compression goes much further than just sending smaller files over the internet or saving disk space by the way. It turns out that to discover an explanation of a set of data (say gravitational phenomena) is nothing more than to discover a way to losslessly compress that data, and the better the compression the stronger the explanation. The reason is that explanations are at bottom patterns, and patterns, including statistical regularities, is what a compression algorithm looks for. Optimal compression would require artificial intelligence.
One could point out that the images I've sourced have already lost so much information they're useless for comparisonNo. We can compare the complexity of anything we like, so we need not measure the complexity of the original paintings, but may very well measure the complexity of any image of them, even compressed images. The only problem with highly compressed images is that they contain a lot of noise, noise cannot be compressed, and therefore tends to hide the complexity difference of two images. Noise is also hardly visible to the naked eye, so I could take an image by Lichtenstein that appears to be less complex than an image by Pollock and add noise to it in such a way that it becomes more complex.
Lichtenstein's paintings, while enjoying high regularity and visual simplicity, contain comparable orders of information to Pollock paintings, which contain high levels of visual complexity.Again it's not a question of amount of information for all images 400x400 (x24 bits of color data) contain exactly the same amount of information. The question is how much that information can be losslessly compressed. Images that strike us as more visually complex will tend to compress less, and are then by definition more complex.
And precisely what kind of timescale are we viewing water and ice on?Both entropy and complexity describe a property of the state of a system at a particular moment.
The crystalline lattice of any given quantity of ice, while pending towards a gross regularity, contains tremendous inconsistencies, mostly derived from microscopic variations in temperature exchanges, and conflictingly oriented subsets of crystalline structures.Even so it should be clear that the range of values of position and momentum parameter of each atom in the ice is much more restricted than in the case of liquid water, therefore the information that describes the state of an ice cube can be compressed more than the information that describes the state of a cupful of water of equal mass, and therefore the former has less complexity than the later.
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366. Comment #75368 by steve99 on October 2, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Even so it should be clear that the range of values of position and momentum parameter of each atom in the ice is much more restricted than in the case of liquid water, therefore the information that describes the state of an ice cube can be compressed more than the information that describes the state of a cupful of water of equal mass, and therefore the former has less complexity than the later.
Let's go through this again. You are talking about complexity in terms of information, but this is not the same as physical complexity. The physical complexity of water is far less than that of ice. This can be easily seen as water has more symmetry than ice crystals.
For your argument, it does not matter if the information complexity of a particular state of water molecules is higher than the information complexity of those molecules when they were 'frozen' into ice. The argument is about probability. Systems which have higher physical complexity are rarer than those which lower physical complexity. A simple Universe which evolves into what we see now has unimaginably less physical complexity than everything we see now + a controlling super-intelligent miracle-working mind.
You are trying to treat Kolmogorov complexity as if it was related to entropy in physical systems. This is to confuse two entirely different concepts.
Other Comments by steve99
367. Comment #75493 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Steve99 (post 320, or #74891):God is considered to be the origin of the universe. That is a scientific issue.Hardly. In fact from the scientific point of view the very question of what caused the Big Bang is meaningless because there was no time before the Big Bang. How come the universe that resulted from the Big Bang appears so fine-tuned for life is not a scientific question either as I explained before. Science is there to model phenomena, and doesn't even care whether the physical universe is objectively real or not. All metaphysical questions about reality fall on naturalism's lap.
You personally claim that God restored life to an individual called Jesus. That is in principle a scientific issue, as by definition there must have been a corpse that was medically dead yet at some future time showed biological activity.Nope, I never claimed such, not least because the claim of a bodily resurrection only makes sense if one believes in the objective existence of the physical universe, which I don't. What I claimed is that the evidence I have makes it probable that the closest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did have some realistic experiences of the risen Jesus, which is a completely different matter. In fact I think I clarified that for all I know Jesus's remains are still somewhere, in the sense that in principle somebody may be able to discover them.
But other theists do claim that Jesus's corpse resurrected after three days and then ascended to heaven. Is that a scientific hypothesis? I think it is, because science could at least in principle falsify that hypothesis by discovering Jesus's remains. One can easily find other theistic claims that are scientific hypotheses. For example the theistic claim that prayer to God is efficacious for curing illness is a scientific claim that can be tested, and I understand has been falsified by science. The theistic claim that believers in God are on average more altruistic people is another scientific hypothesis, and I understand it has been confirmed by science. And what about the harebrained claim of "new Earth creationism" according to which physical reality came into existence only about 6000 years ago? Unfortunately that thesis cannot by definition be falsified by science (not even time travel would be sufficient), and hence is not a scientific hypothesis.
Now Dawkins claims that the existence of a supernatural designer who supernaturally designed the universe is a scientific hypothesis. It should be clear that this hypothesis is not scientific either, because it can't possibly be falsified by science. After all, young Earth creationism is a much stronger claim which entails this hypothesis, and even so cannot be falsified by science.
How could Dawkins, a good scientist, commit such a mistake and believe that the God hypothesis as defined by him is a scientific hypothesis? I think the answer lies with what Plantinga first noticed, namely that Dawkins commits the "hasty generalization" fallacy and infers from "Darwinism implies that no designer of the species is necessary" that "Darwinism implies that no designer of the species exists". So he comes to believe that science can after all falsify the God hypothesis.
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368. Comment #75496 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Robert Maynard (post 321, or #74900):E is a 'brain in a vat', Matrix-esque experience simulatorNot exactly, because in a "brain in a vat" (or Matrix) situation a physical brain actually objectively exists, which in world E doesn't. The world E is a world of experience, and represents idealism's understanding of reality.
Unfortunately, assuming that E is true and not M, the comparitive complexity of a creator and the universe it didn't create is irrelevant.You are correct. My argument only shows that a supernatural designer capable of producing all evidence we base scientific knowledge on could be much less complex than the universe that scientific realism posits.
Still, Dawkins's 747 argument depends on two unjustified and I think unjustifiable premises: 1) that a designer must be more complex than the design (a premise I think cannot even be justified for physical designers), and 2) that the higher but irreducible a thing's organized complexity is the lower the probability that it exists (a premise that cannot be justified for supernatural things and hence does not apply to God). If you can think of ways to justify these premises by Dawkins, please do so.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
369. Comment #75497 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Steve99 (post 325, or #74957):If you enter into any form of discussion about the validity of an idea, then you have to follow certain rules about what is reasonable and what isn't.Sure, but in a formal argument you must show explicitly how you do that, i.e. state how you go for "is" to "ought" propositions. For example you could have suggested the premise: "If people tend to accept the truth of X then people should accept that it is more reasonable to believe in the truth of X". This would work in your argument, but looks of course like a terrible premise. That's the beauty of analytic philosophy: it forces us to explicitly state our argument step by step which helps us notice its weaknesses.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
370. Comment #75498 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Dr Benway (post 326, or #74977):Sure. But we were discussing scientific reasoning not parsimonious reasoning :-) You may argue that all scientific reasoning is parsimonious, but this does not imply that all parsimonious reasoning is scientific.But the hypothesis that people are conscious beings is an unscientific hypothesis because science can explain all objective phenomena, including peoples' intelligent behavior, without making that hypothesis.No. The notion that others process information in ways similar to myself is a more parsimonious explanation for behavior than otherwise.
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371. Comment #75499 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Lauregon (post 329, or #75036):I find this a little disingenuous. Sure there are some people out there who suffer because of their religious beliefs, but this does not imply that most religious people feel like that and that in implication religion hurts people. In fact it's rather clear that most religious people find religion very useful in their lives. There are even studies that show that all other things being equivalent religious people tend to enjoy a higher quality of life (i.e. experience more personal well-being).
Indeed much of "new atheism's" popular books consists in finding out the worse anecdotes/facts/quotes related to religion possible. But using selective evidence is not a tool of reason, but of demagogy.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
372. Comment #75501 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Steve99 (post 330, or #75040):You are confusing mathematical complexity with physical compexity.Well, I have defined what I mean by "complexity" (and have indeed given a rigorous mathematical definition). I wonder, how do you define "physical complexity"? There may be various meanings of "complexity" and if you think of some other meaning you must define it for your statements to make any sense.
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373. Comment #75502 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Bonzai (post 336, or #75175):Nail down your God first,--and I am not making reference to Jesus,-- then ask for "proof" or justification against its existence, whatever you call it. Until then you haven't even a meaningful claim that God exists, just words and more words.First of all to ask a Christian to "nail down your God" is very bad manners!
I am joking - I understand exactly what you mean. But I wish naturalists would make up their minds:
Is it "first define God's attributes and then prove God exists" or is it "how can you describe something you have not even proved exist"?
Is it "the God hypothesis is not a scientific hypothesis, and therefore no scientifically minded person believes in it" or is it "the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, and therefore science can disprove it"?
Is it "see how many people literally believe in the Bible, including all the absurd things and terrible morality" or is it "see how even fundamentalists do not take their morality from the Bible"?
Is it "we are serious people and do not do metaphysics" or is it "we believe in the metaphysical proposition that no supernatural beings exist"?
Is it "religious people should not be dogmatic" or is it "religious people should be dogmatic and not pick and choose"?
It sounds a little like "damn if you do, damn if you don't" doesn't it?
But to answer your point: Sure, one must first define what one means by the God hypothesis, and then show why it's reasonable to believe that it's true. There are various general definitions of God; Dawkins in TGD gives one that is not so bad. My own working definition of God is that the deepest structure of reality is one person. Now, normally, existential claims (such as "God exists") are justified by their explanatory power, i.e. a theist should proceed to show how their ontological hypothesis has more explanatory power than other ontological hypotheses. Interestingly enough explanations based on X often turn out to imply more properties of X, properties that go beyond its narrow definition.
So maybe that's where the confusion stems: As in all cases of existential propositions, a theist can define God minimally and then bit by bit use that hypothesis's explanatory power to illustrate more and more properties of God, or else give a more detailed definition of God which makes the subsequent argument easier. For example it's easier to start by defining the deepest structure of reality as a perfect person than by defining it as a person only and then proceed to show by what argument one arrives at the conclusion that that person is moreover perfect. In any case one is free to make any hypothesis one likes: if a theist wishes do give a full description of God before proceeding to compare that hypothesis to other ontological hypotheses then this theist is fully within their epistemological rights.
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374. Comment #75504 by alovrin on October 2, 2007 at 9:11 pm
What I claimed is that the evidence I have makes it probable that the closest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did have some realistic experiences of the risen Jesus, which is a completely different matter.
So which evidence would that be then?
The statement under oath of the disciples eyewitness account of jesus' shoes reanimating, doing a little jig, maybe a tapdance. A voice booming out of the sky ITS MMMMEEEEEEEE.
For example the theistic claim that prayer to God is efficacious for curing illness is a scientific claim that can be tested, and I understand has been falsified by science.
Right
The theistic claim that believers in God are on average more altruistic people is another scientific hypothesis, and I understand it has been confirmed by science.
Wrong
but in a formal argument
Dianelos's argument. The answer is GOD, so lets just works backwards from that.
Dianelos the magician "Hey presto look I can make everything fit"
The audience looking at the loose ends hanging everywhere.
"No you cant"
Dianelos the Magician. " Oh yes I can"
Audience "NO you cant"
Dianelos the Magician. "OH YES I can. Let me unpack the box and show you again"
Audience. *Loud collective groan*
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375. Comment #75505 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Geraint (post 343, or #75190);It's true that TGD was somewhat ambiguous on this point, perhaps deliberately since a rigorous treatment of complexity would massively increase the length and unreadability of the book.Well, one should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. And the TGD is so simple as to become misleading. And I am not sure that the excessive simplicity was deliberate for readability purposes, because a careful analysis shows that Dawkins's arguments are in fact wrong. I assume he actually believed things are as simple as that.
Still, it's fairly clear Dawkins was talking about a macroscopic description of complexity. If you take two bodies of different temperatures and allow them to come into equilibrium, the entropy of the system will increase, and yet the description of their macroscopic state will become more concise.And hence less complex. Yes, good point. But in any case I am not attacking Dawkins's premise that "irreducible organized complexity is improbable". I was only pointing out that a) that premise only holds in the physical realm and it's question begging to apply it to the supernatural, and b) "organized complexity" is a special kind of complexity not related to the (fine-grained) complexity which actually normally grows in thermodynamic processes and is therefore more probable.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
376. Comment #75506 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Steve99 (post 347, or #75198):I understand so are the various fundamentalist mega-churches in the US, so that's quite irrelevant.This site is a commercial site meant to improve the sale of Dawkins's products; just look at its home page.No, it is not a commercial site. If you had been keeping up you would know that it is now a registered charity.
Joke well taken, but actually even stupid content that users add to a site increases that site's visibility to search engines, and hence adds value to it.We all, by posting content to it, are actually adding value for free.Well, I think that is debatable :)
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
377. Comment #75553 by steve99 on October 3, 2007 at 1:44 am
But in any case I am not attacking Dawkins's premise that "irreducible organized complexity is improbable". I was only pointing out that a) that premise only holds in the physical realm and it's question begging to apply it to the supernatural, and b) "organized complexity" is a special kind of complexity not related to the (fine-grained) complexity which actually normally grows in thermodynamic processes and is therefore more probable.
I have told you twice before. You are getting confused by combining what you call 'organised complexity' (what is actually 'Kolmogorov Complexity') into discussions of thermodynamics. This is naughty. As it has already been pointed out you (and it is easy to verify in text books), I have to either assume that:
1. You simply haven't read the posts.
2. You are continuing to mention this to deliberately confuse the issue, and to trick people into somehow thinking that your worldview gives a free-ride to the type of complexity that a God would involve.
The issue of what you call 'organised complexity' has no bearing on this discussion.
The issue, you see, is not that you need a lot of information to describe states that you get as a result of thermodynamics. The issue is that you are talking about a particular state - a God.
If you are saying that all that matters is 'organised complexity', then you are, in effect, saying that there is no difference between a finding universal mind of great intelligence and a finding a random distribution. Now we both know that this is nonsense, don't we?
We also know that it is irrelevant to the matter of supernaturalness or not. We are just as free to discuss the statistics of fairies as of atoms.
Other Comments by steve99
378. Comment #75562 by Dr Benway on October 3, 2007 at 2:31 am
Dianelos:Sure there are some people out there who suffer because of their religious beliefs, but this does not imply that most religious people feel like that and that in implication religion hurts people.A useless statement, unless you can identify some variable that will help you separate the harm from the benefit. Seems that variable is faith, or belief without corroborative evidence.
Your three pieces of evidence for God are still crap.
Other Comments by Dr Benway
379. Comment #75567 by BMMcArdle on October 3, 2007 at 2:58 am
Delusion is my heroin.Other Comments by BMMcArdle
380. Comment #75651 by Dr Benway on October 3, 2007 at 8:06 am
Dianelos:But the hypothesis that people are conscious beings is an unscientific hypothesis...Glad we can avoid that whole tedious "consciousness is evidence for God" debate.
Other Comments by Dr Benway
381. Comment #75680 by Lauregon on October 3, 2007 at 9:58 am
I bet that if people were shown the pictures you picked and asked which groups of 3 strikes them as more complex, more than 90% would judge that Pollock's pictures are more complex.- Dianelos
Depends upon where that group of people was selected. At a university your premise is at least possible. At a county fair, little chance.
Other Comments by Lauregon
382. Comment #75692 by Lauregon on October 3, 2007 at 10:50 am
I find this a little disingenuous. Sure there are some people out there who suffer because of their religious beliefs, but this does not imply that most religious people feel like that and that in implication religion hurts people. - Dianelos
One has merely to observe how quickly the conversation of most believers turns to punishment, hell, and/or eternal separation from "God," either overtly or subtly when disbelief in "God" is expressed by a non-believer in order to grasp that fear is what binds most people to theism.
In fact it's rather clear that most religious people find religion very useful in their lives. - Dianelos
Most likely what's most useful about it is that it helps them feel safe from hell and punishment and more virtuous and special than others who believe differently from others---or not at all.
There are even studies that show that all other things being equivalent religious people tend to enjoy a higher quality of life (i.e. experience more personal well-being). -
Given the imperatives of, for example, Corinthians I and II, would believers report otherwise? If you're not happy, you must not be a real Christian---and what believer would admit to that?
Indeed much of "new atheism's" popular books consists in finding out the worse anecdotes/facts/quotes related to religion possible. But using selective evidence is not a tool of reason, but of demagogy. - Dianelos
1. It's foolish to assume that non-theists have derived their opinions about theism merely from reading books by atheists. My opinions about believers, for example, are derived from my six-decades plus of living among them, and from reading widely on a variety of subjects related to religions. Only this year have I begun reading books by atheists.
2. Selective "evidence" is precisely what is used by theologians, clergy, and believers to assure themselves that an invisible supernatural "God" cares deeply about the details and events of their daily lives. Demagogy? Theism is sustained by appeals to the emotions---fear being not the least among them. There's a reason hell and punishment have been and are used as clubs in order to elicit belief in supernaturalism---not to mention sword and fire.
Other Comments by Lauregon
383. Comment #75751 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:49 pm
BAEOZ (post 348, or #75199):Well I am sorry, really I am, but the similarities are too strong to go unnoticed: The superficiality of thinking, the focus on one source as the only permissible explanatory ground for everything (the Bible here, science there), the exclusivity of outlook (e.g. either God or else natural evolution – a point where both sides agree), the mental inflexibility to understand opposing ideas and the unwillingness to seriously study them, the demonizing of those of different ontological beliefs, the disdain for those who disagree, the sense of forming some kind of illuminated group of people fighting against some terrible threat for humanity that only they perceive, the quest for political power, the self-congratulatory tribalism, the modern marketing and PR resources, the super-stars and the admiring audiences, and, now, the money.My, the similarities [of new atheism] to fundamentalism just keep growing.[That's] wishful thinking.
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384. Comment #75753 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Geraint (post 353, or #75219):OK, let me clarify what I mean. A basic property of objective reality concerns what one might call "epistemological coherence", namely that two observers looking at the same experiment and using the same logic always arrive a the same ontological conclusion. This must not be confused with the common relativity that is contingent on the observer. So, two observers seeing the same apple on a table will observe something slightly different and hence will not exactly agree about their observations. Einstein famously showed that two observers might even disagree about the relative timing of two events they observe. But these are all differences in claims about observations, i.e. about phenomenal reality. The principle of epistemological coherence refers to differences in claims about objective reality itself. For example, the epistemological coherence principle states that objective physical reality cannot be such that two observers opening the box with Schroedinger's cat claim with equal justification one that the cat is dead and the other that it is alive; or that two observers watching the start of a tennis match disagree about which player first served the ball, both with equally good reason.[The Bell test results], arguably, falsify all models of an objective and direct physical reality.No, unless objective and direct means tiny billiard balls bouncing off each other.
Bell's test results appear to violate epistemological coherence and therefore to falsify all naturalistic ontologies (or at least all ontologies of scientific realism). The reason is that two observers in different frames of reference will observe different measurements first take place, and therefore will disagree about which measuring device superluminally affected the other. Which is analogous to two observers disagreeing about which tennis player first served the ball.
But I know I should resist getting into this, since I managed to resist on the McGrath thread...Well, I would appreciate your opinion about the above.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
385. Comment #75754 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Dr Benway (post 357, or #75228):You do have access to the same kind of subjective experience of life I have, for example you see colors, you feel pain, you experience beauty, and so on. Even though there is no objective evidence for that, all reasonable people believe that normal people experience life in basically the same way. More knowledgeable naturalists have no trouble facing up to that fact and therefore have no problem discussing subjective experiences too, see for example Sam Harris's recent talk "The Problem with Atheism" where he intelligently talks about spiritual experiences. (see:The deist (or even the theist) God may not interfere with physical phenomena but may be present in our subjective experience of life...Then there's nothing for us to argue about. I don't have access to your subjectivity.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1702,The-Problem-with-Atheism,Sam-Harris#75674 )
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
386. Comment #75759 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Steve99 (post 361, or #75257):Authors of fiction and journalists, even if good ones, do not strike me as the kind of people knowledgeable in philosophy or science to authoritatively evaluate TGD's philosophical and scientific merit. But I was curious about Weinberg's review of TGD, which I found here:So do you know of any reviews by knowledgeable people who agreed with Dawkins's reasoning?Yes. Joan Bakewell, distinguished journalist. Stephen Weinberg (who needs no introduction). Michael Frayn (novelist)
http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25349-2552017,00.html
Well, it seems to me that in this review Weinberg expresses approval of Dawkins's general beliefs about religion, but has nothing particularly positive to say about the book itself. In fact, perhaps diplomatically, he does not even touch on what Dawkins himself declares to be the intellectual heart of TGD, namely his "Ultimate 747" argument, but only, rather ingeniously, criticizes eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel's judgment that Dawkins is an "amateur philosopher". All in all that's a lukewarm review at best. In fact I was watching an interview with Weinberg where he has this to say: "if what you're suggesting is that there is no necessary conflict between being a scientist and being religious, I have to agree" – so Weinberg does not agree with Dawkins on a fundamental issue, namely that God and science are incompatible, or that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. See
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2260129385438753065
Here is another interesting bit of that interview: Weinberg agrees that "Christianity or Buddhism are, in a different way, more intellectually intelligible and complimentary to a scientific view, that they have a theory about the world – even though it's a theory I don't agree with". And I would agree with him when he says "the idea that God, whether it's Allah or Jehovah or whatever, has dictated certain ways of behaving, certain ways of worshipping, and that it's incumbent on you to force others to behave that way and worship in that way, God (sic), think of all the harm that's been done throughout all the ages by people who believe that and believe it very sincerely." He further says "Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing." Further: "I don't like God. […] The God of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam strikes me as a terrible character. He's obsessed with the degree to which people worship him, and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way." It's actually refreshing to listen to hmm thoughtful naturalists. And I marvel how even naturalists are able to correctly reason about God. Further: "Science is corrosive to religious belief, and it's a good thing too", which I also agree with, as there is much in religious belief that is actually wrong and science can certainly help to pinpoint which.
Anyway, does anybody know any clearly positive review of the TGD by Dawkins's peers (except for his buddy Dennett)? Because we have at least three clearly negative ones (Nagel's, Orr's and Plantinga's – and now I understand one more by agnostic philosopher Anthony Kenny). If TGD is the important book many fancy, a book that, as Dawkins himself announces, explains "why almost certainly no God exists", it's kind of strange that so few knowledgeable people have anything good to say about it.
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387. Comment #75760 by steve99 on October 3, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Bell's test results appear to violate epistemological coherence and therefore to falsify all naturalistic ontologies (or at least all ontologies of scientific realism). The reason is that two observers in different frames of reference will observe different measurements first take place, and therefore will disagree about which measuring device superluminally affected the other. Which is analogous to two observers disagreeing about which tennis player first served the ball.
False conclusion. It does not falsify all natural ontologies. Why? Because the following is wrong:
A basic property of objective reality concerns what one might call "epistemological coherence", namely that two observers looking at the same experiment and using the same logic always arrive a the same ontological conclusion.
That is not a basic property of objective reality.
Just to give you an example; Godel came up with a model for objective reality using General Relativity that produced loops in time. This could definitely lead to contradictory observations, yet there is no doubt about the existence of an underlying reality, precisely described by Einstein's equations.
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388. Comment #75761 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Dr Benway (post 362, or #75261):I was not talking about websites, which are a dime a dozen. I was talking about books written by eminent naturalists and which try to counter the evidence for theism. And I do not know any books written by eminent naturalists which try to counter the evidence for Scientology. I notice here aren't any serious books that try to counter the evidence for astrology, which hundreds of millions at least are convinced is true. Neither, for that matter, are there any books written by serious people that try to counter the evidence for fairies.The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.So all those anti-Scientology web sites are actually evidence for Scientology?
Everytime you argue against "naturalism" you shoot yourself in the foot. For without the natural world, meaning vanishes.Really? Somebody should have told that to the many eminent philosophers whose papers appear in "Naturalism in Question" (Harvard University Press, 2004).
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389. Comment #75762 by steve99 on October 3, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Authors of fiction and journalists, even if good ones, do not strike me as the kind of people knowledgeable in philosophy or science to authoritatively evaluate TGD's philosophical and scientific merit.
Ah.. so like your belief in God, it is based on what 'strikes you'? And you hand-wave Daniel Dennett away?
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390. Comment #75763 by steve99 on October 3, 2007 at 3:07 pm
That's the beauty of analytic philosophy: it forces us to explicitly state our argument step by step which helps us notice its weaknesses.
If only it did.... let's try and count how many times people here have shown not just the weaknesses, but the absence of any validity of your arguments about entropy, naturalism, quantum mechanics, consciousness and so on. (It is a shame, as I am sure you have a fine mind, but you so deeply misunderstand so much about science in these areas). And you keep on quoting the same old arguments, ignoring any attempt to point out weaknesses.
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391. Comment #75765 by steveroot on October 3, 2007 at 3:19 pm
387. Comment #75759 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Steve99 (post 361, or #75257):
"...Joan Bakewell, distinguished journalist. Stephen Weinberg (who needs no introduction). Michael Frayn (novelist)..."
Authors of fiction and journalists, even if good ones, do not strike me as the kind of people knowledgeable in philosophy or science to authoritatively evaluate TGD's philosophical and scientific merit.
So, which do you think Weinberg is- a journalist or an author of fiction?
Steve
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393. Comment #75768 by Bonzai on October 3, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Yet another gem from Dianelo's verbal diaherra:Bell's test results appear to violate epistemological coherence and therefore to falsify all naturalistic ontologies (or at least all ontologies of scientific realism). The reason is that two observers in different frames of reference will observe different measurements first take place, and therefore will disagree about which measuring device superluminally affected the other. Which is analogous to two observers disagreeing about which tennis player first served the ball.
This reads like some kind of pomo gibberish, stringing together a bunch of names and scientific jargons more or less randomly and then claim to have proven a point.
It demonstrates that Dianelos probably have read some pop science books without understanding them or more likely, he is a sucker for half baked, inaccurate renditions of modern physics by scientifically illiterate philosophers and theologians who are more interested in grafting their metaphysics onto science than the science itself (I remember hearing Tom Harper, an Anglican theologian and apparently best selling author, claiming on national radio that he "knows a lot of physics" and he has "a library of books on quantum mechanics" and then went on to spew Dianelos styled incoherent nonsense)
It seems that Dianelos just enjoys hearing his own voice. Though I think it is a largely pointless exercise, I do have to admire steve009 at least for his patience to try to intrude into Dianelos' stream of consciousness like monologue.
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394. Comment #75771 by Dr Benway on October 3, 2007 at 3:33 pm
So an argument made in a book by someone you deem an "eminent naturalist" is tDianelos: I was not talking about websites, which are a dime a dozen. I was talking about books written by eminent naturalists and which try to counter the evidence for theism.Dianelos: The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.Benway: So all those anti-Scientology web sites are actually evidence for Scientology?
351. Comment #75218 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:12 am
Dr Benway (post 284, or #74502):All metaphysical models are falsifiable (or at least virtually all – right now I am having trouble imagining a counterexample). Scientific discoveries have regularly falsified particular naturalistic models. The Bell test results falsify all non-local naturalistic models, and, arguably, falsify all models of an objective and direct physical reality. If a fundamentalist dies and then experiences absolutely all people going to heaven that would falsify their own metaphysical model. Indeed to experience life after death would falsify the vast majority of naturalistic models, but arguably not all. And so on. It seems to me that all metaphysical models that actually say something meaningful must predict something or other and therefore are falsifiable.
It seems to me you are conflating phenomenal reality with phenomenal physical reality. The deist (or even the theist) God may not interfere with physical phenomena but may be present in our subjective experience of life, and/or their existence may be necessary for understanding the whole of our experience of life. It's a fallacy to infer from "I don't need the God hypothesis for understanding physical phenomena" therefore "I don't need the God hypothesis for understanding anything".
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