Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
451. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74864 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 1, 2007 at 12:07 am
Vinelectric (post 271, or #74449):
Well naturalists believe that physical laws have the power to move matter around, correct? Theists on the other hand believe that God has that power, and that physical laws only reflect the order designed and intentionally present in God's actions. For example naturalists say that the mass of the sun somehow bends spacetime around it which causes the planets to orbit the sun, while theists say that God causes the planets to orbit the sun in a way that can be modeled by the sun's mass bending spacetime (and idealistic theists say that God causes our experience of the planets orbiting the sun in this way). If you think about it without begging the question you'll see that how mechanical law causes changes is as much or as little "mysterious" as how God's intention causes changes. In any case theism's view does not amount to some "interference" with the natural order but rather to an explanation of the natural order. Normally by "interference" one understands some kind of violation of the national order. So regular interference by God does not make sense even in the theistic worldview....and even those theists who believe that God interferes today with the natural order believe God only very rarely does so. DianelosThat doesn't sound right at all. You maybe referring to miracles but nevertheless we are persuaded to believe that the natural order itself is sustained by and is a manifestation of the divine wisdom. Somehow.
Question-begging is a fallacy of arguments only. If you find a theistic argument against naturalism and that argument uses a premise that entails theism then you can say that that argument begs the question. I trust we agree so far.Question-begging is considered therefore a logical fallacy, and is a fallacy very easy to commit because a premise can entail the conclusion in a way that is not at all apparent. DianelosThis would equally apply whenever theists ask: what could have created the universe, where do we get our consciousness from (not 'how'), who gives us our moral values....etc.
Now, if I understand you correctly, you are pointing out that theistic arguments that assume that the universe must have been created by somebody beg the question. If that's what you're saying, I agree, they do. As for the question of "where we get our consciousness from?" I think that's a valid question both for theists and for naturalists. In any case if you wish to be more specific and produce actual theistic arguments that beg the question then please do so. Question begging is really a very easy error to commit, and it's quite possible that some theistic arguments commit that error too.
As for the argument from consciousness, allow me to describe here its basic form. It goes more or less like this:
1. Any monistic ontology hypothesizes one fundamental nature of reality. (premise)
2. If something is part of reality and a monistic ontology cannot in principle reduce it to the fundamental nature of reality it hypothesizes then that monistic ontology is false. (premise)
3. Monistic realism is the monistic ontology that hypothesizes that the fundamental nature of reality is a configuration of matter/energy in spacetime governed by mechanical laws. (premise)
4. Consciousness is part of reality. (premise)
5. Consciousness cannot be reduced in principle to a configuration of matter/energy in spacetime governed by mechanical laws. (premise)
6. Therefore monistic naturalism is false. (from 1-5)
Some comments:
a) "Can in principle reduce to" means "can in principle be explained based on principles of". Observe that all physical phenomena, including emergent or chaotic phenomena can in principle be reduced to materialistic principles.
b) I think no premise of this argument assumes that monistic naturalism is false and therefore this argument does not beg the question.
c) Premises #1-3 are definitions. Premise #4 is pretty conclusive, surely no conscious being can doubt its truth. So the only questionable premise is #5, which represents the so-called mind-body problem, which is a very hard problem. Now this argument shows that for monistic naturalism to be viable premise #5 must be false and therefore there must be some way for a material system to become conscious (and therefore all monistic naturalists by necessity believe that there is such a way) the fact is that there are some very deep conceptual paradoxes with this belief. (One of the finest thinkers in this field is David Chalmers who has concluded that #5 is indeed true and therefore monistic naturalism is false, and who therefore proposes the alternative of dualistic naturalism, which is an ontological view where matter and consciousness form both fundamental aspects of nature, and follow both mechanical laws.)
d) Even if premise #5 is true the argument above only proves that monistic naturalism is false, not that all versions of naturalism are false. Dualistic naturalism is still naturalism and rejects any kind of supernatural being or force and insists that all, including "free" will, can be understood under mechanical principles. But dualism has its own problems, and many naturalists have criticized Chalmers for taking this step. On the other hand Chalmers's decision is based on some solid thinking and, as Sam Harris says, the naturalistic belief that matter can produce consciousness is really faith based and probably will remain so for ever. (In this context it's interesting to note that traditional theism is a dualistic ontology too, but that idealistic theism isn't.)
One way or the other, the discussion above illustrates how difficult it is to build a convincing argument in favor or against individual ontological hypotheses. That's why I think the better way to proceed is instead of trying to argue the truth or falsity of any ontological hypothesis to rather define a set of criteria and posit that the ontology that fares better when compared one to one with another ontology under this set of criteria is the most reasonable one to believe. I, being a theist, have chosen what I judge to be the most powerful theistic ontology, namely idealistic theism, and have compared it to monistic naturalism in the McGrath thread. But to be fair monistic naturalism (aka scientific realism, Dawkins's worldview) may not be the strongest naturalistic ontology. I think Chalmers's dualistic naturalism is stronger, as may be others, such as the "indirect naturalism" I proposed elsewhere. (This is the idea that we all exist within some kind of computing mechanism. It is arguably a monistic ontology but one that, by transcending our knowledge of matter as we observe it, renders premise #5 above much weaker.)
452. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74701 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 3:01 am
Lauregon (post 270, or #74447):
Dawkins's. (see page 31 of TGD.)There is lots and lots of evidence for the existence of God. - DianelosEvidence for whose idea of "God?" Jerry Falwell's? A Muslim ayatolla's? Einstein's?
Well, Dawkins in TGD certainly attempts to do that. As do more knowledgeable naturalists such as Mackie, Martin, Drange, Sinnot-Armstrong, and many others.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. - DianelosNo, "naturalists" don't.
453. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74700 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 2:53 am
Dlitt (post 268, or #74442):
The leprechaun analogy works for me. I've just read "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" and unless I'm tickled by his noodley appendages, I'm still an unbeliever.Oh. Then I wonder if you told your physics professor that you will believe in the existence of neutrinos when they tickle you ;-)
The Bible is just another nonsense book - just older.Well I think the Bible has much nonsense in it but also some great poetry and profound wisdom too. I guess the FSM gospel is just nonsense.
I don't recall any Nobel laureates in Physics that believe in the existence of God, either.Charles Hard Townes, for example, or Joseph Hooton Taylor. There are others. But strangely enough they do not believe in fairies. Go figure.
454. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74697 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 2:29 am
Lauregon (post 264, or #74410):
Well, I disagree. There may be many people who claim they believe the Bible is the literal word of God, but surely there are only very few psychopaths among them. I mean we should not accept what people say as literal truth. Indeed, one of the self-contradictions of TGD is this: It first points out how many people in the US say they believe in the literal truth of the Bible and agree with the virgin birth and so on which shows how dangerous religion is. But then in the chapter on morality TGD argues that the fact that people in the US do not actually go out and stone somebody who did some work (say take the lift) on the Sabbath shows that they don't take their morality from the Bible – which is true but then also shows that they don't really believe in the literal truth of the Bible whatever they may be saying when interviewed about their beliefs.... would you call a state of affairs where you and a few others sit at the King's table while most people are tortured in hell for ever (including quite possibly various people you loved), would you call that wishful thinking? - DianelosGiven the degree of enthusiasm expressed by many believers I've debated with at the prospect of unrepentant "sinners" and unbelievers frying in hell, I'm led to conclude that the idea appeals to multitudes of wishful believers.Would you wish for such to come to pass? I really think it makes no sense. - DianelosI certainly wouldn't wish for it to come to pass, but it makes perfect sense if one believes the us-vs-them New Testament hell-fire teachings as being the word of "God."
Fundamentalists are rather ignorant people and I think it's fair to call them deluded (as I also think it's also fair to call many a naturalist deluded) – but certainly they are not crazy, or rather not more crazy than people in general. Let's not demonize people, that's a dangerous thing to do.
455. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74692 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 2:07 am
Geraint (post 262, or #74390):
Well I respect you sentiment there, but I find it difficult to understand. I couldn't possibly call a reality where the beauty of the galaxies not only evidences mechanical intelligence but also personal intent, an intent which moreover entails a great and deep and self-transcending meaning for our own condition, I would not call such a "desolate", or "bleak", or "pointless". And I am not sure what you mean by "the galaxies we observe are not really there". Sure they are, our children may one day even go visit them, who knows? The only difference is that according to my worldview all that experience is not contingent on an objective (and if I may say so pointless) configuration of matter following blind laws, but rather on the objective reality of the mind of God. We are all persons first and foremost, and surely if all of reality too is personal like we are then we are much more at home in reality, don't you think? Not just a whirlwind of matter displaying organized complexity that by some mysterious means became conscious and for a few seconds looked around in wonder, learned and created so very little, before again sinking back into non-experience.Surely you see that such an ontology is ethically empowering, makes all of life appear more beautiful, and helps blunt any misfortune that may befall us.Perhaps this is where many atheists part company with you. The point struck home with me on the McGrath thread when you mentioned that of course the distant galaxies we observe are not really there: God feeds our consciousness such that all observers have a consistent picture of these galaxies. Well, to me, such a picture is rather desolate. Perhaps the fact that my research concerns the early Universe colours that. To imagine it wasn't really there would make the whole process rather bleak and pointless. We're all little children given arbitrary, colourful toys to play with by God.
Isn't it more beautiful and ethically empowering to be part of a species forged by natural selection over billions of years, pulling itself up by its bootstraps and finally being able to explore and understand the Universe around it? Beating its own path rather than following a celestial study programme?
As for naturalism implying "beating its own path rather than following a celestial study programme?" it's clearly exactly the opposite. The naturalistic worldview is hardly compatible with our sense of free will, which many naturalists find therefore expedient to call "illusory". Indeed about half the naturalists (both specialized scientists and specialized philosophers) that Susan Blackmore interviewed for her very informative "Conversations on Consciousness" agreed that free will does not exist. Blackmore herself claims that she can actually experience having a deterministic mind. All versions of naturalism agree that fundamentally reality is mechanical, so any materialistic worldview is rather bleak as far as the possibility of true freedom or creativity is concerned. Contrasted to that according to theism the very universe we observe around us is a work of creation, a work of art.
Now I can understand that a person who has fallen for the many naturalistic mythologies (conflating naturalism and science, believing naturalism is objective as well as plausible and free of paradoxes, and so on) and has on top not really studied theology – I can understand that such a person would decide that reality is probably how naturalism describes. But if anybody really thinks that any naturalistic worldview is comparable to the beauty that theism is capable of then that person is truly deluding themselves. Not to mention contradicting themselves; after all what happened to the "theism is wishful thinking" ploy? :-)
You know Geraint, when all's said and done, when both sides of the debate have arrayed their best arguments or have done their best for pointing out the weaknesses or excesses or errors or stupidity of the other side, it all really boils down to this: Naturalism explains the physical universe we experience (and that's putting it generously for the more physics one studies the less certain that becomes), but does not explain ourselves – our own very condition as experiential beings. But theism does explain and illuminate our condition, and easily explains the order of the physical phenomena that science studies too. In my mind there is no contest, but to see that requires the study of both science and philosophy. Which is the only thing I would like to convince people here: to study more science and philosophy using the better books in these fields. My point in the current thread, as well as of top naturalists' Nagel and Orr, is that TGD trivializes the issues and thus spreads ignorance rather than knowledge.
Whatever, my subjective experience of what I find satisfying isn't relevant to the truth of what's out there.I understand what you mean, but actually I disagree. What "truth" means is a deep philosophical question, but this much is certain: The subjective experience of pain when we bump into a wall is highly relevant to the truth that walls are hard. Deep down truth is contingent on what works for our quality of life. There is no masochistic principle in logic, and there is no pride in masochism whatsoever. So let me propose "Dianelos's razor": All other things being equivalent the best explanation is the one conducive to a better experience of life.
456. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74690 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 1:54 am
steve99 (post 259 or #74378):
That's what I said: "it all comes down to probabilities". Therefore it's not as simple as to cry "objective evidence".It all comes down to probabilities again. So for a naturalist to simply cry "objective evidence" makes no sense.Yes, it does. The reason is that it all comes down to probabilities.
The naturalist explanation is less unlikely, as to call into existence a simple state of a universe which then proceeds by natural laws to generate what we experience is far, far, far more likely than to postulate a complex all-knowing mind that controls all thought and experience so as to emulate the experience of an objective Universe.I know you believe that Steve. I fully understand you found Dawkins's reasoning completely convincing and of "scientific rigor", and that you even go Dawkins one better and estimate that the probability of God is several orders of magnitude less than the probability of fairies at the bottom of the garden. That's fine. But I personally find Dawkins's "Ultimate 747" to be trivially fallacious (as, by the way, do several notable naturalists such as Nagel and Orr) and therefore find it irrelevant for estimating probabilities one way or the other. On the contrary, after taking into account all evidence and comparing my own theistic worldview with naturalism one to one as for explanatory and predictive power, as well as for internal consistency and freedom from paradoxes, I find that the probability of God to be overwhelming. When I further realize that theism is more ethically empowering and experientially valuable than naturalism I find theism even more attractive. So, obviously, we disagree. And that's ok. I mean if it turns out that you are right then it's ok with me. Let's only hope it's not so that we are both wrong and religious fundamentalists are right :-)
457. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74683 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 30, 2007 at 1:11 am
Robert Maynard (post 258, or #74376)
Please observe that world E above does not include a physical universe, just 7 billion persons' experience of it. So there is no physical universe there for it to be more complex than the sum of their experience of it. The facts and order of the phenomenal universe the 7 billion subjects experience is caused directly by 1 additional person (obviously God). It turns out that the naturalistic world M even at its simplest (no many-worlds or multiverse here :-) is many orders of magnitude more complex than this theistic world E. (E describes a simplified version of my idealistic theism.)Consider the (Kolmogorov) complexity of two worlds, which we shall here call "E" (for experiential) and "M" (for material). E consists of about 7 billion subjects experiencing life exactly like we do, and 1 person imposing order in their experience (in particular imposing the physical facts and laws present in their experience of physical phenomena). M consists of an actual physical universe of the dimensions, complexity and laws that our physical universe has, and in which 7 billion people exist experiencing it (how that universe actually produces experience is irrelevant; we assume it does). I estimate that the complexity of E is many orders of magnitude less than M's.You've agreed, here and elsewhere, that our cognition is more complex than what our cognition allows us to experience, in order to stress that there is complexity we don't perceive, which shows that the universe is more complex than its experiencers in aggregate. That is not what's in dispute, because such a question could have been dispelled with a simple mathematical statement. The material universe is more complex than subjects inside it that can experience it, because the material universe CONTAINS the experiencers, plus that which they're experiencing.
Now that's kind of an interesting result which I could use to argue that as this theistic world is much less complex than the even the simplest naturalistic world it is also much more probable, and thus create an argument for theism based on Dawkins's own principle that the more complex something is the less likely. This argument would then prove that God "almost certainly" does exist, and, for effect, I would call that argument the "Super Ultimate Boeing 747" :-) But it's not as simple as that.
458. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74467 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 29, 2007 at 2:19 am
Alovrin (post 254, or #74365):
Have done that already, please see post 84 (or #72515) where I link to the reviews of naturalists Nagel and Orr.the formal version of Dawkins's 747 argument I gave in post 243 is not a parody, but almost certainly what Dawkins actually thought. Not only because that's the sense I clearly got while reading TGD, but also because that's what several very smart reviewers of TGD also understood. And far from being "unanswerable" as Dawkins fancies this is a philosophically extremely naive argument.You want to get serious name the reviewers and show the quote.
I can bet you that it has already been deconstructed on this website and the criticism shown to be lacking credibility.I don't think these reviews have been discussed here but I could be wrong. If you find something let me know.
Again you attack Richard Dawkins credibility, well just put up or shut up. present your proofs for gods existence for peer review.When I publish a non-fiction book you can bet I will be more careful than Dawkins before publishing TGD. As far as I am concerned TGD shows very well what happens when you publish a book outside your field of expertise without first checking with specialists. To be fair Dawkins apparently did check his "Ultimate 747" argument with philosopher Dennett (whom I personally consider to have gone over to the la-la land; for example Dennett, after being the first person in history to actually explain consciousness (not to mention achieved that feat without actually discussing consciousness) is now claiming that all animals as well as pre-linguistic children are not conscious beings). Which teaches that one should pick one's reviewers with some judgment, and of course no only check with like-minded people. But I suppose Dawkins's disdain of believers of all kinds wouldn't allow the latter.
459. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74461 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 29, 2007 at 1:42 am
Steve99 (post 253, or #74362):
Physicists certainly do believe they are studying reality, and we recently had a discussion about the writings of Einstein that showed this.I did not mean that necessarily all physicist today have outgrown the illusion that what they study is not just phenomenal reality but objective reality, but certainly most have and that's why they distinguish between theory and interpretation of theory. As for Einstein, it's true he thought that science does (or rather should) study objective reality and therefore had his famous disagreement with Bohr - but as you know Einstein was proven wrong and Bohr was proven right.
There are certainly tests for these descriptions.There are? How come then there are a dozen or so mutually contradictory naturalistic descriptions of objective reality (and this just in relation with quantum phenomena) and none has ever been falsified by experiment?
David Deutsch has come up with a possible (albeit controversial) test for his Many Worlds interpretation, and there have been recent experiments which (again, controversially) appear to show evidence for the Transactional interpretation.Right. Well, I suppose there is much speculation around (have you seen what Max Tegmark proposes?), but speculation does not objective make. Objectivity entails testing. Until such time as some doable test is actually proposed one is justified to call the whole enterprise non objective. By the way have you thought why probably no such test will be forthcoming? All interpretations of quantum mechanics worth their salt are provably identical to quantum mechanics as far as phenomena goes, and the only thing one can objectively test are phenomena.
All naturalism says is that there is a real physical world out there. It is an attitude of mind.I agree, it's nothing more than an attitude of mind that makes no testable predictions. But, if I may point out, theism does make at least some testable predictions here and now; they apply to our subjective experiences (and are hence "unscientific") but to each one of us subjective experience is real enough.
But, it is a useful attitude as it encourages us to progress in our understanding. If we were to simply sit back and think that everything was just 'the mind of God', there would be little point.I don't see why a scientist having the attitude of mind that he or she is trying to descipher the mind of God is any less useful. Hmm, maybe it's a personal thing. Perhaps you are right and it's true that it's easier for many a physicist to think with the naturalistic state of mind. But then again one can be a theist and adopt the naturalistic state of mind when practical. I suppose I do that myself when I cross a busy street :-) By the way I have read Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" and even though I think that the many-world interpretation is beyond absurd I also see that it is very elegant and can be useful as a state of mind. In other words I see that visualizing reality like many-worlds describes is useful because it makes it easier to think about quantum mechanics. Certainly easier than collapsing wave-functions.
460. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74459 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 29, 2007 at 1:05 am
Dr Benway (post 252, or #74360):
Concede that reasonable people ought to require evidence for some entity before believing it exists.Sure I concede that. What's more in post 267 I counted three pieces of evidence for theism which Dawkins tried hard to counter in TGD. And there are more.
Concede that reasonable people ought to require evidence for some entity before believing it exists.Please feel completely free not to assume any burden at all and believe anything you like without explaining anything. But I notice Dawkins in TGD did assume the burden of proof, which evidences that he is a man of his convictions who does not shy away from arguing why he believes what he believes. I may think that Dawkins is wrong, but he is certainly not an intellectual coward.
Stop saying "naturalism" when you mean "atheism."I have already commented on this in post 228 where I wrote: "I don't know of any naturalistic worldview that is not also atheistic, nor of any atheistic worldview that is not also naturalistic." Thinking about it that's not completely clear though; arguably Buddhist worldviews are atheistic but not naturalistic (even though I suppose Buddhists too believe that some superhuman being designed the universe – but no matter I follow the convention that Buddhism is a non-theistic religion). However in the context of the Western civilization and especially in the context of discussing Dawkins's TGD there is no functional difference between atheism and naturalism. By the way it's true that I try to avoid using "atheism" here, because I try to avoid the inevitable diversion when a clever by half atheist comes along to accuse me of misrepresenting atheism, and that atheists are not those who believe no gods exist but rather those who lack any beliefs about gods, and all that nonsense. Some philosophers took to coining the word "atheologian" to denote the "thinking atheist", and that's a practical word I sometimes use, but to my knowledge there is no word "atheologianism". So in our context "naturalism" works just fine; after all, all naturalists believe by definition that no gods exist.
461. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74455 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 29, 2007 at 12:12 am
Steve99 (post 249, or #74289):
So you imagine God like some Kind of king governing some kind of realm called Heaven, which is not that much unlike Earth (with coins one can toss, or at least with complicated arrangements of things to which statistical mechanics apply) and so on. You may say "this is nothing to do with naturalism" but what you in fact do is to take your naturalistic intuitions you can't imagine doing without and hence believe are general, and apply them to theistic argument. And that's a textbook example of begging the question, and is exactly what Dawkins in TGD does.And why exactly do statistical mechanics apply to God? Don't you see that by assuming that naturalism applies to God you are begging the question?This is nothing to do with naturalism. It is general. If someone flipped a coin in Heaven and came up with 1000 heads, you would look for some kind of explanation....
But aren't there really general principles that apply to all arguments, whether theistic or naturalistic? Sure there are. Our own experiences for one, so for example if an argument uses as premise that we do not see the moon in the night sky, or that we don't see colors, that certainly falsifies that argument. Logic is another general principle, so if somebody writes an argument claiming that from "X is possible" it follows that "X is true" then it's bad. But clearly to apply naturalistic notions to the supernaturalistic claims is not allowed :-) Let me give you an example:
1. God, as believed by theists, is a conscious subject. (premise)
2. All conscious subjects think. (premise)
3. To think it's necessary to have some organ of many parts. (premise)
4. Therefore all conscious subjects have some organ of many parts. (from 2 and 3)
5. Therefore God, as believed by theists, has some organ of many parts. (from 1 and 4)
6. God, as believed by theists, does not have some organ of many parts. (premise)
5. Therefore God, as believed by theists, does not exist. (from 5 and 6)
What is wrong with the above argument? (Hint: premises #1 and #6, which describe theistic beliefs, are true; the error lies elsewhere.)
That you refuse to accept premise #8.The premise #8 reads: "Anything unexplainably complex is proportionally improbable.". I agree that in the naturalistic understanding of reality the more unexplainably complex [1] something is the more improbable. But I am not a naturalist, so why should I accept that premise? Or to put it differently: I understand that it's reasonable to believe that the more unexplainably complex a physical thing we observe in the universe is the more improbable it is, but I don't see why the same applies for non-physical things beyond the universe.
[1]: Actually the more complex something is the more probable it is (see the 2nd law of thermodynamics); it's only in the special sense of "organized complexity" that it's reasonable (for a naturalist) to believe that the more complex something is the more improbable. "Organized complexity" is not easy to define (Dawkins in TGD doesn't) but its meaning is clear enough: it means something both complex and ordered in a smartly functional way.
I asked for a formal presentation of Dawkins's "Ultimate 747" argument, Steve, not for numbered prose with simple words :-) Formal arguments should clearly state their premises, clearly explain how propositions follow from these premises step by step, and most important of all should arrive at the conclusion, which in our case is "God almost certainly does not exist". Also one's language rather than simple should be clear, and I don't see why, for example, 100 heads in a row is more complicated then 5 heads in a row; I only see that the former is far more improbable than the latter.Of if you too are not willing or not capable to formally present Dawkins's 747 argument (which as he says is central in TGD), maybe some other admirer of TGD will do so. I am all eyes.I already have. Twice. Let's try again, in simpler words.
1. People tend to accept that more complicated things require more explanation than less complicated things. A series of 100 heads in a row for a flipped coin raises eyebrows considerably, whereas 5 heads in a row does not much at all. [snip]
I am afraid you have never studied analytic philosophy. You shouldn't worry. Neither did Dawkins and he has written a bestselling book around a philosophical argument.
Now trying to make sense of what you are saying here, I understand your argument as follows:
1. People tend to accept that if A is less complex than B then it is more reasonable to believe that A "just happened" than that B "just happened". (premise)
2. People tend to accept that the origin of the universe is less complex than God. (premise)
3. Therefore people tend to accept that it is more reasonable to believe that the origin of the universe "just happened" than that God "just happened".(from 1 and 2).
4. According to naturalism the origin of the universe "just happened". (premise)
5. According to theism God "just happened". (premise)
6. Therefore people tend to accept that naturalism is more reasonable than theism. (from 3, 4 and 5)
Is that it?
462. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74435 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Geraint (post 247, or #74284):
Yes, one must make some assumptions. But they get you nowhere without data.But in the context of a philosophical argument data are premises too. Premises are all propositions in an argument that are taken as given without further justification. Such propositions are often self-evidently true beliefs, broadly accepted intuitions, objective observations (data), and so on. Normally the one who states an argument tries to also justify the premises explaining why they think it's reasonable to believe in each of them, because they ultimately wish to show that the argument's conclusion is a reasonable belief. But to justify one's premises is strictly speaking not even necessary. What all philosophical arguments really claim is this: "given these premises are true it follows this conclusion is true".
Now what people criticize the "Ultimate 747" argument for is that it begs the question. This does not mean that the argument is false, but only that it is vacuous because one of its premises entails the conclusion. So what a question-begging argument does is to use the conclusion as part of a premise and therefore what it really says is: "given the conclusion is true it follows the conclusion is true" which says nothing. Question-begging is considered therefore a logical fallacy, and is a fallacy very easy to commit because a premise can entail the conclusion in a way that is not at all apparent. So a common way to attack philosophical arguments is to show that one of their premises entails the conclusion. That's of course not the only way to attack an argument. One can also attack any of its premises arguing that in fact it's not reasonable to believe in it or that they are arbitrary and so on, or even to show that there is some error in the logical inferences within the argument. Incidentally all philosophical arguments follow some implicit premises, one of which of course is the belief in propositional logic.
The usefulness of analytic philosophy is that it forces people to write down an argument formally, i.e. in a rigorous and explicit form, which is then open to attack. (Unfortunately Dawkins did not so in TGD.) It is interesting to note how easily the human mind can be misled into believing that an argument given as prose is absolutely watertight when in fact it isn't. One famous example is the so-called argument from evil against the hypothesis that an all-powerful and all-good God exists as given by Epicurus more than two thousand years ago and still considered unanswerable by many naturists. The argument goes like this: "If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able then God is not all-powerful. If God is able but not willing then God is not all-good. If God is both able and willing then why does evil exist? If God is neither able nor willing then why call him God?" It looks absolutely watertight, doesn't it? Well, analytic philosophers (both theists and naturalists) have fairly demolished it. How did they manage to do that? By writing down the argument formally and noticing all the unstated premises. And this argument (plus the related argument from nonbelief) is supposed to be the best argument against the existence of God – that is until Dawkins invented his own unanswerable "Ultimate 747" argument ;-)
But, you may ask "Why do we need arguments against the existence of God in the first place? Isn't it sufficient to note that there is no evidence for God?". Well, no, that's just one more myth of popular naturalism. Even Dawkins knew that. There is lots and lots of evidence for the existence of God. Dawkins tried to respond to at least three such pieces of evidence: 1) the impossibility of a non-designed first biologically viable organism; 2) the fine-tuning of the fundamental physical constants, 3) the existence of morality (which evidence he completely misunderstood – more about this, maybe, later). And there are more. My favorite piece of evidence, which Dawkins does not even touch upon, is the existence of consciousness. At this juncture a naturalist may say: "No, no, no. These are not evidence for God. These are just examples of theistic fallacies." Could be, but that's exactly my point. 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. And this is not at all easy to do as anybody who studies serious books about theology realizes (whether written by theists or naturalists, it doesn't matter) – but unfortunately Dawkins felt so cocksure about his own beliefs that he thought one need not seriously study other peoples' beliefs. Which evidences a form of dogmatism I suppose.
At this juncture you may ask: "But have you studied serious books about leprechauns? Or for that matter have you studied serious books about astrology? Maybe billions of people believe in astrology, so why didn't you study serious books about astrology before deciding it's all nonsense?" But these questions are easy to answer, aren't they? The existence of leprechauns or of astrological influences is clearly a scientific issue, even their proponents would happily agree that this is so, and scientists unanimously agree that neither leprechauns exist nor the position of the planets in the moment one person is born affect the events in that person's life after years. Not so with religion. It's not obviously so that the existence of God is a matter of scientific investigation (after all there are no scientific programs that do research in this area, are they? – whereas I know of at least one study on astrology, as well as several studies on paranormal phenomena). And most theists do not of course agree that the existence of God is a scientific matter, after all God is not supposed to be a physical being and even those theists who believe that God interferes today with the natural order believe God only very rarely does so. And scientists do not unanimously agree that God does not exist, in fact a not insignificant percentage of scientists does believe in God. Further, not to put a fine point on it, there are no Nobel laureates in physics who believe in the existence of leprechauns. So the analogy with leprechauns does not work at all – rather it's a trivially stupid analogy. To compare belief in God with belief in leprechauns as the excuse for not studying theology looks to me like trying very hard not to look. Now I am not saying people should study theology; it's entirely reasonable to choose not to do so in one's life; anybody is free to judge that they have better things to do. What I find unreasonable is for a serious person to write a book against theology without having studied serious books on theology.
463. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74384 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 11:18 am
Dr Benway (post 250, or #74327):
Hoyle compared the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." Therefore life must have been designed.According to Dawkins that conclusion doesn't follow: Dawkins in TGD after giving his unanswerable "Ultimate 747" argument proceeds to also claim that the "anthropic principle does its explanatory duty" to explain any improbable phenomenon anyway. So should we ever face something as unlikely as a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard and assembling a Boeing 747 we could explain it naturalistically by pointing out that according to the multiverse theory we simply live in the universe where such an unlikely thing actually happened to happen.
So, suppose that after a million year of studying how life emerged scientists finally concede defeat and declare that the origin of life is not scientifically explainable, and that the only option is an intelligent designer. "Not at all" will Dawkins's ghost say, "the anthropic principle explains the origin of life very nicely without the requirement of any intelligent designer. Haven't you read my TGD? It's all there starting at page 141."
464. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74383 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 11:14 am
Lauregon (post 239, or #74161):
Or writing endless expositions on why atheism doesn't have as satisfactory explanations for how the universe came to be as theism does? ;)I hear you, but I am learning useful things here. Also please note that my argument is not that theism explains the universe better than naturalism (in fact naturalism may explain the universe better than theism) but rather that theism explains better the whole of our experience of life.
Better than a naturalistic ontology of course. In what way? Well, take the ontological view that God exists and is perfect in all respects, and has created us in this experiential environment in order for us to grow in virtue, a process that will continue far beyond our Earthly death and will in the end unite us all with God. Surely you see that such an ontology is ethically empowering, makes all of life appear more beautiful, and helps blunt any misfortune that may befall us.And if a theistic ontology help people live better, is that bad? - DianelosBetter than what, and in what way?
Even then, would you call a state of affairs where you and a few others sit at the King's table while most people are tortured in hell for ever (including quite possibly various people you loved), would you call that wishful thinking? Would you wish for such to come to pass? I really think it makes no sense. And moreover I think very few fundamentalists if any are really certain they won't end up suffering for all eternity in hell themselves.But speaking of "theism being wishful thinking", have you actually considered what many theists actually believe, especially fundamentalists? They believe that most people will go to eternal suffering in hell for no greater reason than because they didn't believe exactly the right things, or even because they didn't belong to exactly the right religion or exactly to the right denomination within the right religion. Does this really look like "wishful thinking" to you? - DianelosIndeed it does, since believers most often assume hell is the destination of others, not themselves, by means of their saving belief (in Jesus, in the case of Christians). They feel special and chosen, temporarily separated from their proper place at the King's table, but soon to be reunited.
I didn't come to my atheism by way of science, but through experiencing and observing Christian faith as requiring intellectual dishonesty.I don't pretend to put myself in your shoes Lauregon, but surely you did well to reject anything that required intellectual dishonesty. I am a theist as you know, but I can only agree that it's better to be an honest atheist than a dishonest theist. God is a freethinker you know :-)
465. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74373 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 10:27 am
_J_ (post 231, or #74112):
I am not using "objective evidence" in any strict sense. Objective evidence is the kind of public, corroborative evidence that science uses. That we see the moon in the night sky is objective evidence.Because if by "evidence" you mean "objective evidence" then it's true that there is none for theism but then there is none for naturalism either.Still this unworkable polarisation? Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as objective evidence. Fine.
Most naturalists repeat like mantra that there is no objective evidence for theism, but contrary to what they assume there is no objective evidence for naturalism either, simply because, given all objective evidence there is one can't really find out how the reality that produced that evidence really is. (Something that was known even to ancient Greek philosophers.) So reality may be naturalistic (you can pick any of the dozen or so interpretations of quantum mechanics for example), but it may be theistic also (many alternatives to pick from too). Unfortunately even harebrained "young Earth creationism" is compatible with all the objective evidence we have. It all comes down to probabilities again. So for a naturalist to simply cry "objective evidence" makes no sense.
Oh, for crying out loud, Dianelos, 'lack of belief in God' is just economical shorthand for 'lack of belief in the existence of God',Yes of course, I never meant anything different. My point is rather simple: It's impossible to understand what "belief in the existence of God" means without forming some belief or other about God's existence, if only "I have no idea whether that God guy exists". So anybody who understands the meaning of "belief in the existence of God" can't really "lack belief in the existence of God". But for you to know whether you are an atheist (according to the "lack of" definition) you must understand what "belief in the existence of God" means, otherwise how would you know that you lack such belief?
You could split hairs and try the following line: "You know I have no idea whatsoever what 'God' means, and so I certainly lack any belief about God's existence'. But this wouldn't work either, you see that? After all if you have no idea of what 'God' means then you still can't know whether you lack belief in God's existence. Why? Because, for all you know, maybe "God" is a technical name for "brown chicken" and you do believe in the existence of brown chickens. So any way you look at the "lack of belief" gambit it makes no sense. As far as I am concerned those who insist that they only lack belief in the existence of God and therefore do not have to justify their position only evidence their intellectual cowardice.
466. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74369 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 9:50 am
_J_ (post 227, or #74099):
- the original 747 argument suggests that a designer is necessary for life to have emerged.Well, true, it does suggests that. Hoyle specifically wrote that "If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of..."
- Dawkins' response to the 747 argument demonstrates, as Dr Benway describes, that a conscious designer is not a necessity. It does so by explaining a non-designer based alternative.No, that's not true. It was Darwin one and half centuries ago who described a non-designer based alternative, and Dawkins does not extend Darwin's explanation in any way. Rather he tries to do something much grander than Darwin and show that almost certainly no designer exists. That much at least is clear. After all, the central chapter 4 is titled "Why there almost certainly is no God" – and he previously defined God as the designer of the universe and all in it (page 31). The same becomes even clearer when you read the section "The poverty of agnosticism" (starting page 46) where Dawkins argues that agnosticism is not viable for "as we shall see" God's probability is very low, so low as to be comparable to the probability of "fairies at the bottom of the garden". So, very clearly, what Dawkins wants to show is not that a designer is not necessary but rather that a designer does not exist.
Right, my mistake. Darwin only showed that a designer is not necessary for the species, and Hoyle (a Nobel level scientist) made noises that life itself must have been intelligently designed. That is what bothered Dawkins and motivated him to come up with his "Ultimate 747" counterargument. Unfortunately what he managed to do is make Hoyle's argument more well-known while producing a counterargument that doesn't really work :-(Well Darwinism refutes that thesis pretty unequivocally and on scientific grounds, so why would the world need Dawkins's philosophical argument on top?Because, very clearly, not everybody in the world got the point from Darwinism alone. Equally clearly, a great number of people still don't get it, even with the addition of the 747 argument and much else besides.
I doubt this very strongly, but even if it's so, the rubbishness of one chapter of TGD does nothing to invalidate the perfectly good arguments that it could have, and should have, contained.Well, I will agree that it should have contained better arguments. I think the smartest stance for Dawkins would have been to coolly admit that there is currently no scientific explanation for the origin of life but that there are already some good ideas, and then use his admirable writing skills to make the convincing case that science will almost certainly explain the origin of life in the future, as it before explained the origin of the species. His producing the naive "Ultimate 747" philosophical argument to counter Hoyle's, and then the harebrained "anthropic principle" to explain the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants, were both bad moves. Why? Because by unfairly ridiculing all religion and not only fundamentalism Dawkins motivated not only knowledgeable theists but even naturalists to come out and trash his book including these two arguments – which will in the end only strengthen the fundamentalists' talking points: "See what great scientist Hoyle actually said; see how amazingly fine-tuned the fundamental constants are; see how weak Darwinist Dawkins's counterarguments really are; see how even his scientific peers disagree with Dawkins's Darwinist thinking, see how the success of TGD proves the general deficiency of atheistic thinking" and so on. I get upset thinking that perhaps by criticizing TGD here I may be giving fundamentalists talking points too (but probably nobody reads this forum). On the other hand, truth be told, any critical reading of TGD shows that the probability of God is not really comparable to fairies living at the bottom of the garden. Dawkins wildly overextended and it will boomerang. I have read naturalist academic philosophers estimate the probability of God between 5% and 25%, but no, that was not good enough for Dawkins. He had to play being supersmart and produce an "unanswerable" philosophical argument for the non-existence of God. He had to show that "we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns".
467. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74358 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 8:19 am
Steve99 (post 223, or #74029):
Well, you are right that modeling phenomena is not the only thing that science does: collecting evidence (i.e. phenomena) or testing predictions of models are other things that science does too. But finding good models is I think science's goal because that's after all what's most useful and that's why we admire those scientists who managed to find such models from Newton to Darwin to Einstein to Heisenberg to Feynman.But in fact the goal of science is to model phenomena, as evidenced by the fact that that's what science actually does.Ah. I see your problem. You are confusing the goal with the tools. Science uses modeling phenomena as one tool for studying reality
Now I will concede that a very very small part of scientists' endeavor (probably less than 1/1000 – one could count papers published in scientific journals and find out) is to "interpret" models, i.e. to think what kind of naturalistic reality would produce the phenomena modeled. Some might disagree and claim that, say, biological theories of all kinds including Darwinism do not model phenomena but rather explain what happens in reality – but this kind of thinking is illusory (see post 220 above). Physicists have already outgrown that illusion and hence clearly distinguish between theory and interpretation, but scientists at less "hard" levels of science such as biologists still believe they observe and hence study reality itself; almost certainly Dawkins believes that. But Darwinism would be equally true no matter whether we live in a computer simulation or not, or whether God directly feeds us phenomena or not, so biologists are actually deluding themselves. In any case there is an easy way to distinguish models (i.e. science) and interpretations (i.e. metaphysics): models describe phenomenal order and hence make predictions and hence are useful for building things; interpretations don't. So quantum mechanics has proven extraordinary useful and much of the gadgets we use are built using QM models; contrasted to that the dozen or so different interpretations of QM (i.e. descriptions of quantum reality) have produced not a single useful thing. No wonder, as nobody even knows how to find out which of these contradictory descriptions, if any, is actually true. That naturalism is based on objective thought is one more naturalistic myth.
But if you think that naturalism's study of reality (beyond science's study of phenomena) is a useful enterprise, please state what testable predictions that study makes. Because if naturalism does not make any testable predictions then it can't be very useful, can it?
468. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74287 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 3:35 am
Geraint (post 245, or #74264):
In post 237 I wrote:
But let me take you at face value. Apparently you did understand Dawkins's argument yourself. Why don't you then here explain what that argument is?to which you now respond:
Well, I don't see why I should rewrite someone else's book on an internet messageboard, or point out the flaws in any parody of its arguments that someone can come up with (and one could come up with unlimited numbers of such parodies).Yeah, right. Let's see an analogous case:
Naturalist: Please explain to me how exactly God stopped the sun for King Hezekiah, as it says in Isaiah 38:8.Incidentally, Geraint, the formal version of Dawkins's 747 argument I gave in post 243 is not a parody, but almost certainly what Dawkins actually thought. Not only because that's the sense I clearly got while reading TGD, but also because that's what several very smart reviewers of TGD also understood. And far from being "unanswerable" as Dawkins fancies this is a philosophically extremely naive argument.
Fundamentalist: I don't see why I should rewrite the Bible for your benefit.
Naturalist: But God couldn't have done this, because this would actually amount to suddenly stopping the Earth orbiting the sun and such an event would have produced a catastrophe on Earth of, well, Biblical proportions.
Fundamentalist: I don't see why I should point the flaws in any parody of the Bible, for you could come up with an unlimited number of such parodies.
Now it seems you don't want engage with me on the specifics. Fair enough. But do you find it plausible that so many great naturalist philosophers in the last centuries could not come up with an argument that shows that "there is almost certainly no God" and that Dawkins, trained in zoology and with no philosophical expertise whatsoever, would just like that find a simple as well as "unanswerable" philosophical argument, an argument which he did not even try to publish in a peer reviewed journal or at least check with philosophers of a different mindset of his before making a public fuss with it? I mean apart from the issue of plausibility, does this look like what a serious person would do? I think Dawkins is a good person and has done much good in his life – but here he was blinded by passion to a degree that is lamentable, but maybe also instructive: the angrier you feel the less you should trust your judgment.
469. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74273 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 3:01 am
Steve99 (post 244, or #74262):
No, that is not the argument at all. (Apart from anything else, the Universe is not complex; or rather we know how the current complexity can have arisen from a simpler state.)So the universe is complex after all. Great, so you agree with premise #3 in post 243.
Explanations that help us understand reality involve finding simple processes and patterns behind things that seem complex. For example, we build up complex mathematical proofs from simpler ones and simple axioms. We note how complex structures are formed from simpler building blocks. As we find such simplicity, we consider that there is 'less to explain' than with the more complex situation. The reason why we consider that there is less to explain is that in terms of physical systems we understand that less complex situations can occur frequently by chance.I agree with all that, but I don't see their relevance. After all, in my description of Dawkins's argument in post 243 I too make the relevant distinction between "unexplained complexity" and "explained complexity". The universe then is "explainably complex" (i.e. as you say the universe's complexity can be reduced to simplicity) whereas God is "unexplainably complex". So what problem do you find with my exposition of Dawkins's argument?
You are wrong to have doubts about premise #8. It is a very solid statement based on statistical mechanics.Oh. And why exactly do statistical mechanics apply to God? Don't you see that by assuming that naturalism applies to God you are begging the question? Haven't you read Plantinga's review? If you assume naturalism then it's trivially easy to prove that God does not exist. Here is how it goes:
1. Naturalism is true. (premise)
2. According to naturalism God does not exist. (premise)
3. Therefore God does not exist. (from 1 and 2)
But, anyway, if you think I misrepresented Dawkins's argument, why don't you present the correct version here. But please no vague literature, but rather explain the premises and how the conclusion logically follows from them. I see bellow that unfortunately Geraint is not willing to illuminate us about how Dawkins's invention of arguments without premises works, so I presume you will explain Dawkins's argument based on premises, like all known arguments barred none do.
Of if you too are not willing or not capable to formally present Dawkins's 747 argument (which as he says is central in TGD), maybe some other admirer of TGD will do so. I am all eyes.
470. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74245 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 28, 2007 at 12:37 am
Steve99 (post 238 or #74152):
The 747 argument is subtle but powerful. Given that the universe is really not that complicated at all, it is reasonable to use the same approach that has served us so well countless times in so many areas of understanding, and assume that simplicity is a guide to truth, and reject any idea of a creator far more complex than the Universe He is supposed to explain.I hear many positive adjectives for Dawkins's 747 argument, such as "unanswerable", "subtle", "powerful", "statistical, the way science is statistical", "based on data", and so on and so forth. But where's the argument itself? Neither you nor Geraint have yet shown it. It kind of reminds me of the Naked Emperor you know: everybody saying how splendid the Emperor's clothes are but nobody actually pointing out where those clothes are.
So, let me try. To the best of my comprehension Dawkins's "Ultimate Boeing 747 argument for the almost certain non-existence of God" goes like this:
1. God is defined as the designer of the universe and all in it. (premise)
2. The designer is at least as complex as the design. (premise)
3. The universe and all in it are extremely complex. (premise)
4. Therefore God is extremely complex. (from 2 and 3)
5. If a complex thing cannot be reduced to simpler things then it is unexplainably complex. (premise)
6. God cannot be reduced to simpler things. (premise)
7. Therefore God is unexplainably extremely complex. (from 4, 5 and 6)
8. Anything unexplainably complex is proportionally improbable. (premise)
9. Therefore God is extremely improbable. (from 7 and 8)
10. Anything extremely improbable almost certainly does not exist. (premise)
11. Therefore God almost certainly does not exist. (from 9 and 10)
Now the above does not strike me as subtle and powerful, but rather as naive and question-begging, or rather it strikes me as a soup of unjustified premises. Especially premises #2 and #8 just hang in there, apparently only reflecting Dawkins's personal preconceptions. As far as I am concerned premise #2 does not even hold in a naturalistic understanding of reality. I mean finding errors in this argument is like shooting fish in a barrel. For example premise #6 is arbitrary too, after all maybe God can be reduced to simpler things, only theists have not yet found out how (which is the same kind of argument naturalists use in the context of the origin of life). And if the anthropic principle has "explanatory power" as Dawkins claims, then one can argue that premise #10 is false too: while conceding that God is indeed extremely improbable one can "explain" God's existence by positing that we live in one of the extremely few universes of the multiverse where God exists (the same argument Dawkins uses to solve the problem of the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants).
But Geraint in post 221 appears to be saying that Dawkins's argument is misunderstood by most people, including by me and by reviewers Plantinga, Nagel, and Orr. Dawkins's argument is a new kind of argument which does actually require premises. Dawkins wants to avoid to play the "game of arguing from premises", Geraint explains. Now I know of no kind of argument that does not require premises; even science requires some premises. But, who knows, maybe Dawkins has invented a new kind of argument, and will come down in history not only as the one who definitely proved that God almost certainly does not exist, but also as the one who revolutionized the field of logic. So I can't wait to see Geraint's description of Dawkins's argument that does not require premises ;-)
471. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74147 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Geraint (post 221 or #74021):
What amazes me is how some of the philosophers who've reviewed TGD (Plantinga included, apparently) fail utterly to grasp the distinction between a logical deduction from premises and an inference from data. [snip] Statistical inference from data is something scientists do every day but which is unfamiliar to many other people, philosophers included, clearly. Maybe that's why Dawkins' argument is so often misunderstood.So in short you are saying that top theist philosopher Plantinga, top naturalist philosopher Nagel, and top naturalist scientist Orr have all misunderstood Dawkins's 747 argument in TGD. I find it especially hard to imagine that evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of Rochester Allen Orr is not very current with science's statistical methods. But hey, fair enough. I mean it is possible that Plantinga, Nagel and Orr misunderstood Dawkins's 747 argument in TGD, after all chapter 4 of that book is a mess: Dawkins first writes only a few lines about his argument in the first two pages of that chapter, and then goes off subject to discuss how important it is to raise peoples' consciousness of Darwinism, then to discuss the old news of Behe's idea of irreducible complexity as if Darwinism required defending, then to ridicule the "worship of gaps", then to discuss the "planetary anthropic principle" whatever that exactly is and how it performs its explanatory duty, and so on. Anyway if, as you say, people like Plantinga, Nagel and Orr misunderstood Dawkins's argument then it's fair to say that virtually all readers misunderstood him - which would make TGD one of the most obscure popular non-fiction books around. That's also hard to believe because it is well known that Dawkins writes well and for a broad audience.
But let me take you at face value. Apparently you did understand Dawkins's argument yourself. Why don't you then here explain what that argument is? I am really curious to understand Dawkins's "unanswerable" argument that demonstrates that "there almost certainly is no God".
472. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74135 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 11:23 am
Lauregon (post 210, or #73872):
Why, why, why must you so doggedly try to sell your theism to atheists?The reason I am posting here is basically because I am enjoying it, and because I find I am learning a lot (and learning is a joyful experience anyway). Why would you think I am trying to sell anything? Feel free to believe whatever you like about how reality is. You see, I don't think that if you adopt wrong beliefs about reality something terrible or other will happen to you. What matters is the good life, to live like a good person. And as we all are built from the same cloth from which God is made, we all deep down know that anyway. So the difference is not so much between those who believe in God and who don't, but between those who live their lives in a way consistent with their intrinsic human nature and those who don't. In other words a person who thinks freely and learns and enjoys life and does some good while not noticing the existence of God, is much better off than somebody who believes in the existence of God but then spends their whole lives in a room fiddling with the pages of the Bible.
Your reasons for believing appear to be entirely subjective, the result of your own personal need/desire to believe in eternal life and receive comfort in this one.Yes, I have heard that mantra before: theistic thought is wishful thought. Dawkins in TGD does not miss a chance to repeat the same, for example on page 231 he writes: "Even if it were true that we need God to be moral, it would of course not make God's existence more likely, merely more desirable (many people cannot tell the difference)" (my emphasis).
Now have you ever considered whether that mantra actually makes any sense? First of all, if an all-good God exists then the correct ontological views would sound like wishful thinking indeed, no? And if a theistic ontology help people live better, is that bad? After all it's a common feature of most true beliefs that they help people live better.
But speaking of "theism being wishful thinking", have you actually considered what many theists actually believe, especially fundamentalists? They believe that most people will go to eternal suffering in hell for no greater reason than because they didn't believe exactly the right things, or even because they didn't belong to exactly the right religion or exactly to the right denomination within the right religion. Does this really look like "wishful thinking" to you? To me it looks like the worse nightmare possible. I wish naturalists would think a little more critically instead of just repeating naturalism's keywords.
By the way, have you seen the Atkinson's video where he plays the Devil receiving newcomers to hell and sorting them out? He goes: "Rapists, please come here to this line. Lawyers there. Murderers here please. Christians, there – oh yes, the Jews were right you know" :-) See:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eJA9RPX9mRY
473. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74118 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 9:34 am
Newatheist (post 203, or #73693):
So, is God natural(istic) or supernatural?The correct answer is: beats me. I don't find any use for the "supernatural" concept in my thought, but naturalists love to use it, I suppose because they like its association of Santa Claus, fairies, and so on. But what do they actually mean by "supernatural" is rather vague:
What they often mean (and my working definition of that concept when I use it trying to communicate to them) is that "supernatural" describes everything that lies beyond nature or works against nature; "nature" understood as the visible material universe around us and how it works. But naturalists are not very consistent. For example the multiverse hypothesis (namely that there is huge number of parallel universes each with different fundamental constants and almost all uninhabitable to life) would appear to be a supernatural hypothesis. After all it posits something beyond our own visible universe, which does not work like our universe does. But the multiverse hypothesis is not considered supernatural, apparently because it is proposed by naturalists. Similarly some of the so-called interpretations of quantum mechanics describe reality in ways that are weird beyond imagination, for example one of the most popular descriptions (Everett's "many worlds") says that reality consists of a furiously growing number of universes (not to be confused with the multiverse) and implies that you and I exist identifiably in over 10^100 universes (yes there are more 10^100 human bodies just like ours out there, a number much larger than the number of atoms in our universe) and in some of these universes we shall experience being incapable of dieing, and in other dead people resurrect as a matter of course. Sounds unbelievable? Well that's what it says. And this apparently super-supernatural view is not considered supernatural by naturalists because it's naturalists who believe in it. You see it's consistent with quantum mechanics. But then the events described in John's Apocalypse is also consistent with quantum mechanics but everybody says that's supernaturalism at its worse. Go figure.
Sometimes naturalist appear to use "supernatural" as synonymous to "unknowable to reason", which is a strange definition because it would imply that God is not supernatural, as God is supposed to be knowable to reason even by the various dogmatic Christian institutions and that since the 4th century CE (see "natural theology").
Sometimes naturalists appear to use "supernatural" as synonymous to "magical" or against natural law as understood by science, but the problem is we don't know what goes against natural law and is therefore magical. As Arthur Clarke famously said "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". In other words many 20th century technological gadgets would strike a 18th century scientist as violating natural law and hence magical, but we now know they aren't. It's difficult then to state how one would know if something is magical or not. It doesn't help that according to quantum mechanics virtually no phenomenon is truly impossible, and who knows, future technologies may have developed "improbability drives" like Douglas Adams describes in his Hitchhiker series ;-) And of course an improbability drive can be used not only for traveling improbably fast but for doing any imaginable improbable thing.
In conclusion the only thing one can be sure of is that "supernatural" is something that naturalists believe does not exist. And as different naturalists believe in many different super-weird and mutually contradictory realities "supernatural" is not a very useful concept. But as all naturalists believe that God does not exist I don't mind when they say that God is supernatural and happily agree with them that God is indeed supernatural. On the other hand if God exists then God is the most "natural" thing there is of course.
474. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74104 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 8:39 am
Dr Benway (post 202, or #73640):
"Naturalism" as you use the term = "atheism."Right, because I don't know of any naturalistic worldview that is not also atheistic, nor of any atheistic worldview that is not also naturalistic. But if you see any difference please let me know.
We [atheists] don't believe in entities without evidence.Probably implying that theists do that. If so that's just one more mythological belief that naturalists entertain. Well, be my guest and believe that if you feel like it.
Or perhaps you are playing with words pretending there is no difference between "objective evidence" and "evidence". Because if by "evidence" you mean "objective evidence" then it's true that there is none for theism but then there is none for naturalism either.
Or perhaps you are playing with words pretending that what atheism "really" means is not what most people and dictionaries and published atheist philosophers actually mean, but rather means "lack of belief in God" for which indeed no evidence of any kind is needed. If so I have always wondered how an atheist actually knows whether he or she is an atheist. If you think about it you'll see that according to that definition to actually say "I am an atheist" is self-negating. Why? Because before knowing that you are an atheist in that sense you must have thought about whether you lack belief in God, and if so you must have thought what "belief in God" means in the first place, but if you actually thought what "belief in God" means you will have formed at least some belief about God so you can't truly lack such belief :-) In other words you cannot ascertain that you lack belief in the existence of God without actually thinking about God's existence and therefore forming some belief about it. I find it remarkable how atheists always manage to get themselves in such confusing states of mind when playing with words. Why not have the intellectual honesty and come out and say: "Yes, I believe no gods exist for such and such reason". I may be criticizing Dawkins for his philosophical naiveté and many logical fallacies, but at least he stands his ground and does not hide behind word-games.
475. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74090 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 7:47 am
Dr Benway (post 198, or #73618):
Dianelos: Dawkins in TGD claims that all these designers of our universe "almost certainly" do not exist.Are you are saying the Dawkins 747 argument was designed to refute the thesis that a designer is necessary? Well Darwinism refutes that thesis pretty unequivocally and on scientific grounds, so why would the world need Dawkins's philosophical argument on top? And why does Dawkins himself title the relevant chapter "Why there almost certainly is no [designer]", if his argument was only designed to show something much weaker, namely that a designer is not necessary? That makes no sense Dr Benway. I think it's clear that Dawkins really fancied that he had discovered an "ananswerable" argument that that went much further than Darwinism, and that showed that a designer almost certainly does not exist.
Me: Do you understand the point that argument was designed to refute?
Dianelos: ** crickets chirping **
Me: Necessity. The argument that a designer is necessary.
476. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74017 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 4:49 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):
Part 5: Is it theism versus naturalism, or theism versus science?
Correct, but irrelevant. Above I was discussing naturalism, not science.As far as I can see the only thing that naturalism per se produces is a long list of hard problems, paradoxes, and wildly complex, implausible and mutually contradictory suggestions about how reality is.On the contrary, the more we learn about the universe, the more it looks like everything is governed by the same set of rules, and that more complex phenomena emerge from this unique set of rules. Sociology reduces to psychology which reduces to biology which reduces to chemistry which reduces to physics.
But of course the reason that scientific inquiry is such a long and difficult process, while theism provides such an easy explanation for everything [snip]But we are not comparing science with theism; that would be like comparing apples with oranges. Science models phenomena, and therefore scientific knowledge is very useful for controlling phenomena and hence for curing illness or for quickly transporting us around. We agree on that. Science is really really great. But here we are comparing two competing ontological views about how the reality that produces all of our experience of life (including the phenomena that science so successfully studies) actually is. We are comparing two ontological belief systems: theism and naturalism. We are not comparing theism with science, for this makes no sense. Why not? Because theism makes claims about reality, and science makes claims about phenomena. And reality and phenomena are completely distinct things, I trust you see that.
Or maybe not. Here is I think where the confusion lies: When many a naturalist sees the moon the naturalist doesn't only think "I see the moon" (a phenomenal experience) but also "that's the moon out there which I see" (an ontological claim). In other words the naturalist conflates the phenomenon of experiencing the sight of the moon with the ontological premise that there is a moon out there producing this sight. And that's OK, it's a very powerful intuition. We all by the age of three make sense of our experience thinking this same way: We explain the fact that we see some thing in front of us by hypothesizing that that thing pretty much like we see it is really there in front of us. Fine. But then even a little study of philosophy teaches that this kind of thinking is in fact illusory. Many things we see, for example colorful things, are not really there in front of us but are only phenomenal, and (as a naturalist would say) are created in our brain. And our phenomenal experience of colors is only one obvious example. Modern physics has advanced so far in its study of phenomena that it is clear by now to knowledgeable naturalists that physical reality can be nothing like what we see around us. So, in conclusion: We all agree about phenomena (because we all experience life pretty much the same), and we all agree about the order that science discovers in these phenomena. Our disagreement is about the kind of objective reality out there that produces these phenomena. According to naturalism reality is fundamentally material and driven by mechanical laws, whereas according to theism reality is fundamentally spiritual and driven by personal intent. It's true that naturalism is very intuitive, after all reality around us does seem at plain sight to be material and mechanical. And it's true that theism is a more sophisticated hypothesis (Dawkins would say "more complex" hypothesis ;-) as it is true that theism was born out of superstition, and that many theists even today say stupid things some of which moreover contradict scientific knowledge (as do many non-theists by the way). But in the end of the day the fact remains that we can only compare apples with apples, namely theism with naturalism, and not apples with oranges, theism with science.
Finally, as there are many different naturalistic views (naturalists don't even agree if there is one universe or many, or if random events in our own universe exist), as well as many different theistic views (I don't need to give examples), it only makes sense to compare what one judges are the best theistic and naturalistic views. To single out the clearly more naive theistic views (virgin birth etc) as the "new atheists" consistently do is really a pathetic exercise in strawman building. Think of it: if naturalism were really so clearly superior to theism, why do new atheism authors find it so expedient to single out the most naive theistic views? Who cares about the last immoral tidbit they fish out of the Bible – I mean who interested in ontological truth really cares about ancient mythology? Beyond all its logical fallacies, I find that much of TGD's content insults its readers' intelligence too.
I don't know what you are talking about. The theist easily explains why the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned for life by pointing out that God designed the universe with the intent to create life.You do see that the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants does not represent any difficulty whatsoever for the intellect of theists.It only looks like as though it represents no difficulty for supernaturalists because they are not even trying to solve the problem. They have given up.
As for fine-tuning not being a scientific problem, the simple fact that cosmologists have proposed scientific hypotheses to explain fine-tuning disproves that little bit of nonsense.What scientific hypotheses are these?
It doesn't prove that fine-tuning can be explained by science in practice (there might not be enough evidence, for instance), but it does prove that it can be explained in principle.You probably mean the "multiverse" idea of many parallel universes. But that's not a scientific hypothesis, because there exists no evidence for it and because it is by definition not testable (for these parallel universes do not interact with ours). So the multiverse is not a scientific hypothesis because science is supposed to be about objective evidence and testability. Rather, the existence of parallel universes is an ontological hypothesis proposed by naturalists who can't find any better way to solve this particular problem for naturalism but to propose the existence of invisible entities. Sounds a little like claiming the existence of invisible pink unicorns, doesn't it, only now they are clothed in scientifically sounding talk.
Naturalism is a necessary methodological assumption of science.Suppose that reality consists of a supernatural (and proud of it) God directly feeding us each of our experiences, including the phenomena that science studies. Suppose just for a moment that reality is like that. How exactly would such a reality hamper scientific investigation? But if it doesn't then clearly naturalism is not a "necessary methodological assumption"? (Incidentally I hope you are not meaning "methodological naturalism" which means the same as "scientific method" and which is indeed what science uses, but which has also nothing to do with naturalism's view of reality except, for the clever re-use of "naturalism" in its name.)
In other words, the goal of science is to understand realityThat's what naturalists wish. But in fact the goal of science is to model phenomena, as evidenced by the fact that that's what science actually does. Some scientists have tried to clarify this point, for example a terse statement strongly attributed to Niehls Bohr says: "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is." But I will agree that most scientists, certainly Dawkins, do believe that science's job is to describe reality.
It's precisely how most people understand the concept of designer. To cause something is not to design something. To cause something is to be responsible for an event, to design something is to be responsible for its order and complexity.So you find a significant difference between somebody causing something complex and designing something complex. Well I don't. So let me agree with your meaning of "design" and concede that God did not design the universe as it is, but only caused it to be as it is.
But an intelligent being is only the designer of that which it has designed. It is not the designer of something that happened by itself even if the intelligent being started the process.Actually you are making a good point I think. It's not like God directly designed every little thing. For example I have a slightly crooked nose; what a relief to know that God did not actually design it that way :-)
--
I have enjoyed our discussion so far Janus, but please don't think you have to answer to every little thing I wrote. But feel free to concentrate on what you think is more important, or for that matter to ignore me completely.
477. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #73995 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 3:28 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):
Part 4: The predictions of theism, and the predictions of naturalism.
I think that one of the greatest misunderstanding naturalists entertain about theism, is that the truth of theism is irrelevant: It does not explain anything because it does not predict anything. Whether true or not, all remains the same. Clearly, while naturalists are under this impression they won't even try to understand what theism explains because explanation always implies some predictive power, so if theism does not predict anything then theism can't be explaining anything too. That's why I think it's so important to clarify that theism does make testable predictions.
You write:
You say that theism predicts life after death... but you admit there's no way to test this prediction.I don't think I did admit anything like that. On the contrary life after death is an inescapable prediction. Most other predictions are such that if you try to look away you can manage to avoid testing them. Not so life after death. What's not testable is naturalism's prediction (yes I found one) that there is no life after death.
Next, you say that theism makes predictions about our subjective experiences. And then you admit that neurobiology does too. Um, yeah. Remember that your goal is to show that theism is to be preferred over naturalism. And one of your three big predictions can't differentiate between theism and naturalism.First of all, see how nicely you conflate naturalism and science. Indeed that fallacy must be the primary factor why so many naturalists suffer from the illusion that naturalism is a solidly grounded ontological belief system. In fact science is as valid in theism as in naturalism. (Actually that's putting in generously, there are grounds to argue that some scientific facts contradict naturalism, but no matter.) Science neither implies naturalism, nor contradicts theism – to think otherwise is to fall for one of the main modern mythological beliefs, indeed one that many theists have also fallen for. Second, I did not actually write the neurobiology makes predictions about subjective experiences. I wrote that neurobiology can in principle do that. It's an observational fact that peoples' talk about their subjective experiences to the degree that this is at all possible does correlate with physical (and hence objectively observable) processes in their brain. The evidence for this today is rather flimsy but I think it's reasonable to assume that there is indeed a one to one correlation. And we know that the brain works purely on mechanical principles. So, any truth there is about the dynamics of our subjective experience can in principle be discovered by neurophysiology. Here is how: First build an exhaustive translation table between what people say about their subjective experiences and the processes in their brain that correlate with them; then predict the dynamics between these processes by analyzing how the brain mechanically works. So far so good. Now there are several relevant points to keep in mind:
1. Strictly speaking the scientific project described above does not explain the dynamics of our subjective experience, but the dynamics of how we describe our subjective experience. The very existence of our subjective experience is irrelevant to science. And as for naturalism, it can't even explain that conscious experience exists in the first place.
2. Neurophysiology is very far from producing any such predictions, whereas theism does it here and now. And when (or if – see bellow) neurophysiology does produce such predictions it will only confirm that our brain (as all of the physical order we observe around us) is designed in a way consistent with theistic knowledge.
3. It may (unfortunately) turn out to be the case that our brain's functioning at that level of scientific investigation is intractable. We know that even simple and deterministic mechanical systems can very quickly become chaotic, and our brain is not simple at all and possibly it can't be analyzed on purely deterministic grounds (some thinkers such as Roger Penrose believe that quantum mechanics plays an important role). I say it would be unfortunate if our brain turned out to be intractable, because it would be very nice indeed if scientific investigation would actually confirm theism's predictions about the dynamics of our subjective experience. And theism's predictions are of course based directly on the God hypothesis.
At this juncture the careful reader may recall that I disagreed with Dawkins's premise in TGD that the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, whereas in the previous paragraph I seem to be speaking as if it is. But it's not like it seems. It's true that ontological claims – whether theistic or naturalistic – can be falsified by scientific knowledge, because, obviously, reality cannot be such as to fail to produce the objective phenomena that science studies. But science cannot really validate an ontological hypothesis because many different realities (described by many different ontological hypotheses) could produce all of the objective phenomena that science studies. (For example the computer simulation hypothesis produces all of them by definition.) The "scientific confirmation" of theism I mention above works only in the sense that at that level of theistic specificity (namely in the description of the dynamics of subjective experience) it would be impressive if scientific discovery would fail to falsify it.
4. We are here discussing theism's predictions and their testability in our life here and now. The fact that science may one day and in some sense make the same predictions is entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Theism does make predictions based on the explanatory power of its basic premise, namely that the deepest structure of reality consists of a perfect person. And these predictions are testable and verifiable in our current life on a level that is extraordinarily valuable: in how we can manage the subjective, i.e. qualitative, dimension of our life. There is nothing more important in our life here and now than to understand and manage the quality of our experience of life. And that's the power that theistic understanding gives. Here and now.
And finally, the most hilarious prediction of all, that all conscious beings will tend to believe in theism. I would point out that since until Darwin the only way we knew that complexity could arise was design, believing in a Big Great Magic Designer in Some Inaccessible Place So That He Can't Be Falsified (like the sky, or Mount Olympus, or Mount Sinai, or a "spiritual dimension", or outside of time) is a pretty obvious thing to do. But never mind that, let's say you're right. In your next sentence you admit that people don't tend to believe in theism. Well gee whiz, I guess theism is falsified then, isn't it?Not at all. What I am saying is that since Darwin and in general since the scientific revolution and its remarkable successes many educated people have tended to become over-specialized in science and illiterate in philosophy, and therefore have become ontologically naive. In such a state of mind, blinded by the success of science as it were, many people (especially educated ones and especially scientists) made a wrong turn in their ontological beliefs. Now my thesis is that theism is by far the best way to understand the whole of our human condition (and not only the physical phenomena we observe and that science studies). I personally find that the most powerful theistic systems (especially so-called idealistic theism) work so much better than the best naturalistic ones that it's really no contest. And as I trust in peoples' cognitive capacity I therefore predict that in the future people will tend to adopt a theistic worldview, and that what we are experiencing now is only a temporal situation. Already some of the most interesting analytic philosophy that is produced is theistic by the way. As far as I am concerned this turn towards theism would be already noticeable if it weren't for organized religion and the respective institutional dogmatism. But I predict that this turn towards theism will happen sooner or later. As I predict that intelligent computers will tend to be theistic too, when we manage to build them.
Indeed my hypothesis that civilizations will always grow into adopting a theistic worldview (by which of course I don't mean anything like religious fundamentalism, or even dogmatic institutional orthodoxy) explains one of the surprising facts we observe, namely that the universe is so quiet instead of swarming with signs of intelligent life. (Many naturalists, as well as I, believe that life can't be so unlikely that it only evolved on Earth, so there must be many other civilizations out there, and some must be many thousands of years or even millions of years more advanced than ours, so where are they?). You see, a naturalistic mindset tends to focus on "quantity", so civilizations with a naturalistic worldview, just as science-fiction writers visualize, would colonize their surrounding space with geometric speed (and not only science-fiction writers think so, see for example the non-fiction "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil). But this has clearly not happened, and my hypothesis explains why: A theistic mindset tends to focus on "quality", and therefore theistic civilizations would assume a humble stance towards existence and be perfectly content to managing well their own planet and leave the rest of the cosmos in peace.
First of all, there is no theory supported by evidence that shows that something within the universe was not designed. This is an obvious fallacy as Plantinga in his review of TGD clarifies: Darwinism explains that the complexity of the species is not necessarily designed, or, in other words, that it is possible that the species are not designed. (Darwin showed pretty conclusively that the species could have evolved through a mechanical, and hence blind and non-intentional, process.) To infer from this true proposition alone that therefore the species are in fact not designed is a colossal logical error.While we are at it, have you ever pondered what exactly naturalism explains? To my mind it explains not a single thing beyond what science explains, but science's explanations of phenomena work equally well for theism too, so science's explanations do not count for naturalism.Needless to say this makes no sense if you define naturalism as I do, but even if you refuse to use my definition, this still makes no sense. Theism says that the universe is designed. Any theory supported by evidence that shows that something within the universe was not designed is a blow against theism, and once we've shown that everything came from mindless processes, theism will be falsified (unless theists redefine God to mean something other than a Designer, as some of them have already started to do!).
To reason correctly is not a simple matter. A good idea (all analytic philosophers do that) is to put one's argument in writing, clearly stating one's premises and why one believes they are true, and then step by step making inferences based on clear logic to arrive at some particular conclusion. And clearly, I am sure you can see that, from "X is possibly true" it does not follow that "X is true". In order to justify that "X is true" you need more than just show that "X is possibly true".
Now I notice you haven't really given any predictions of naturalism, but only have stated that your definition of naturalism is different from mine. (My definition of naturalism is that it is "an ontological belief system based on the hypothesis that the deepest structure of reality is material and follows mechanical laws". You don't say what your definition is, but I have the impression you define naturalism as "the rational understanding of reality". If so, that definition is hugely question begging once again, not to mention a theist could equally well define theism as the rational understanding of reality, so that's only playing with words).
Anyway, let me rephrase my question in a way that is independent of naturalism's specific definition, and only assumes that naturalism opposes theism:
We agree that science does make a lot of testable predictions about phenomena. Now there are two competing views about how reality is, namely theism and naturalism. Both these views are compatible with all of science's predictions, so any of these predictions count equally well for theism and for naturalism. Theism makes some testable predictions over and above the predictions that science makes. My question is this: Does naturalism make any testable predictions over and above the predictions that science makes?
Let me help you along here: One prediction that naturalism makes (and science doesn't) is that we shall not continue to experience life after we die. But this is clearly a non-testable prediction because if true one cannot possibly find out. Now similarly to my third case above, you could argue that naturalism predicts that people in general will turn towards naturalism in the future. I think that's a fair prediction, and we shall have to wait and see whether it or the opposing theistic prediction will turn out to be true. The Zeitgeist changes very slowly (see how much unscientific superstition there is still around; astrology for example may be a more popular belief than any single religion.) So this sociological prediction may take a long while to be tested. But my specific question remains: Does naturalism make any predictions that are testable here and now? Any predictions that are actually useful in one's life? Any predictions that add to one's knowledge?
I think it doesn't. I think that beyond what science says about phenomena, what naturalism says about reality is just completely vacuous in the pragmatical sense. Which entails that neither do naturalism's beliefs about reality actually explain anything (because explanations imply predictions). Interesting, no? Naturalism fails in what it accuses theism of failing, while theism doesn't really.
478. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #73993 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 3:26 am
Janus (post 212, or #73877):
Dianelos, are you done replying to my comment?Err, no. I am just about to post the fourth installation, and there is one more to come. But feel free to comment on the previous ones if you feel like it.
479. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #73848 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 26, 2007 at 10:44 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):
Part 3: Some random bits about dogmatism, falsification of theism and of naturalism, the problem of consciousness, infinite explanatory regressions, and why God is unexplainable.
Your definition of dogmatism amounts to saying that a dogmatic person is a person who will never change his mind about one or many of his beliefs.[snip]Not exactly; rather a dogmatic person is a person who has lost to a large degree mental flexibility, and is therefore functionally incapable of understanding ideas different from their own (which I am really sorry to say seems to be a description that applies to Dawkins). It's true that such persons rarely change their minds, but it's also true that many non-dogmatic persons rarely change their minds, so the relationship between dogmatism and propensity to change one's mind is faint at best.
[cont:] It is, in other words, a person who holds an unfalsifiable belief. How could your supernatural/necessary/unexplainable Designer be falsified?I justify my belief in God by its superior (in comparison to naturalism) explanatory power, among other things. The explanatory power of the God hypothesis implies a series of predictions. Some of these predictions apply to my life here and now, and some to my afterlife. If any of these predictions failed to obtain it would amount to evidence against my theistic belief. For example if in the afterlife I found myself burning in hell (which many a fundamentalist theist would argue will come to pass if I keep insisting in my heretical ideas about God) then clearly by belief in God would be falsified. If in this life I found that understanding does not make me experience its subject matter as more beautiful, or if I didn't experience prayer as ethically empowering, or if I stopped experiencing life as ethically challenging, or, in short, if any of the many predictions that my theistic belief implies for the dynamics of my subjective experience of life here and now were violated (more about that in part 4) all of that would also count as evidence against my theistic belief system.
On the other hand, as I have argued in post 162 above, it seems to me that a naturalist who consistently applies the dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence would find it difficult to state what would falsify their naturalistic belief system – at least in this life. But I suppose that if naturalists found themselves experiencing a consistent and complex afterlif