Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
351. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78237 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 8:18 am
Richard Morgan (post 588, or #78175):
So let's naturalists and theists together fight against anger! And the very first thing we must do Ric is not get angry ourselves no matter what.It's a terrible thing, anger. It's worse than a mental virus; it can ultimately convert human minds into zombies.You're right!
And that makes me so angry, Dan!Oops.
352. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #78233 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 8:09 am
Epeeist (post 289, or #78194):
Well, I argue that the existence of God is not falsifiable by science, and it seems you answer that the non-existence of God is. Maybe you like to talk in riddles, but if you have something to contribute make it plain please.The "God theory" is not a scientific theory; that's just one of the many fallacies you read in TGD. The "God theory" is an ontological theory, just like naturalism is. And most "God theories" (up and including harebrained young Earth creationism [1]) are compatible with scientific knowledge,Haven't we been round this loop before? Didn't I propose a testable, falsifiable hypothesis for the non-existence of gods?
Didn't I show that YEC was not a valid scientific hypothesis?That's what I am saying. Even harebrained young Earth creationism is not a valid scientific hypothesis. But Dawkins in TGD says that all creator God hypotheses are.
353. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #78228 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 8:00 am
Steve99 (post 288, or #78186):
Multiverses have fewer parameters than Universes - there is less to explain.Clearly adding just one more universe to one's model of reality adds many more facts to be explained and requires many more parameters to describe than just having reality consisting of only one universe. I cannot conceive how adding one universe to reality increases complexity but adding 10^100 universes decreases complexity – but no matter.
The point that Dawkins is making is not that there is a logical path from atheism to morality. It is that there is a logical path from religion to wickedness.First of all there obviously is no logical path from religion to wicked behavior in general. And even in the case of the most literal fundamentalism which does offer a logical path to wicked behavior it does also offer logical paths away from it. (For example in the case of suicide bombings some expert fundamentalists argue that's not what scripture teaches). So what about naturalism? It seems to me that naturalism not only offers a logical path to wicked behavior but, what's much worse still, fails to offer any logical path away from it. So as far as logic and morals go it seems to me that, contrary to what Dawkins apparently believes, naturalism fares worse than even religious fundamentalism.
But maybe I am wrong and there is a logical path naturalism offers away from wicked behavior. So that's the context of my question in post 266 and 285, which I notice no naturalist here has yet answered.
354. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #78185 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 4:43 am
Bonzai (post 275, or #78129):
Scientific theories are found to be inadequate exactly because they have to meet extremely high standard which the "God theory" never has to subject itself to.The "God theory" is not a scientific theory; that's just one of the many fallacies you read in TGD. The "God theory" is an ontological theory, just like naturalism is. And most "God theories" (up and including harebrained young Earth creationism [1]) are compatible with scientific knowledge, so science can play no role for falsifying them. Incidentally the dominant naturalistic theory, namely so-called scientific realism, turns out to be arguably not compatible with scientific knowledge, but for discussion's sake let's suppose it is. So no matter how much naturalists try to associate themselves with science the fact remains that ontological questions cannot positively be decided by science. If God directly produces the phenomenal world, or if small invisible angels move planets and airplanes around and manipulate physicists' measuring devices, or if we all live in a computer simulation, or if any of the dozen or so current interpretations of quantum mechanics is true, or if only one is conscious and all other people are zombies – all these ontological alternatives make no difference whatsoever for science.
[1]: By "young Earth creationism" I understand the theory that God created the physical universe only about 6000 years ago exactly in the state that science believes the universe possessed 6000 years ago.
355. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #78183 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 4:15 am
Steve99 (post 274, or #78127):
If you say so. It's truly amazing then ;-)So to postulate that reality consists of 10^100+ different universes of which one is ours is actually less complex than to postulate that reality consists of just one universe, namely ours. Amazing.Yes, it is. It is also true.
At one point in the 60s we saw a subset of all possible particles (just as now we see a subset of the multiverse). As we saw more of the set, we saw the pattern and realised it was actually very simple.Well, we have in the past only observed a subset of one universe, are still observing a subset of one universe, and will continue to observe a subset of one universe, so we shall never "see more of the set" – so where's the analogy? I mean in one case we have a large and increasing number of particles and explain them by postulating the existence of a small number of quarks; in the other case we have and always will have one universe and explain it by postulating a huge and increasing number of parallel universes – and that's analogous?
You might as well say you have no problem with Buddhist ethics precisely because their monks wear orange. Unless you can specify a mechanism by which the existence of transcendental realist someone makes ethics absolute, this is an irrelevant factor. As philosophers since Plato have realised, there is no such mechanism. You are falsely assuming a connection between the existence and absense of objective ethics and the existence and absence of the transcendental.I see much smoke here but not any kind of answer to the question I asked. Maybe somebody else would like to try. The question again is this: What logical path would keep somebody who really believes that reality is at bottom like Dawkins's kind of naturalism has it (see his quote in post 266) from violating any of the Zeitgeist's moral precepts if doing so was to their advantage?
356. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78173 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 3:35 am
Alovrin (post 583, or #78166):
What can I say, your post evidences a lot of anger, but not really a lot of understanding of theism. And there is good and bad theism you know, as there is good and bad science, good and bad music, good and bad arguments, and so on.
And I am sorry to see how books like TGD fan atheists' anger by justifying and defending it. But anger is always a bad thing; it does not conduce to clear thinking and it's the very opposite of ethically empowering. It seems to me that anger explains better and is more the motivating factor behind the violent actions of terrorists than their religious or political beliefs. And quite possibly anger explains better the US invasion of Iraq, or the firebombing of cities in WWII, or the Jewish Holocaust than any of the many other reasons that have been put forward. It's a terrible thing, anger. It's worse than a mental virus; it can ultimately convert human minds into zombies.
357. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78169 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 3:11 am
Richard Morgan (post 576, or #78144):
But I had asked you what it meant as well as how it felt to be "ethically empowered". And since you harbour a certain esteem for the philosophical approach, I had hoped for a rather more pertinent reply.Sorry, I thought it was obvious what "ethically empowering" means. An experience is ethically empowering when it makes it easier for one to do the right thing.
358. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78161 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 3:01 am
The_essayer (post 570, or #78118):
Is there some standard by which you call the non-religious model "hideous". Are you claiming that it is a hideous model for everyone?Well, "hideous" was a word used by Dawkins in his debate with Lennox (but he then pointed out that we can overcome this state of affairs). The naturalistic reality is one where at bottom only matter following mechanical laws exists. Dawkins in his ""River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life" describes this view succinctly: "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." Now I cannot be sure whether everybody would find such a model hideous, but I believe most would find it so, yes.
Apparently there are a lot of people on this site, including me, who find that our quality of thought and life has been improved greatly by imbibing principles of skepticism and a higher standard of inquiry.I couldn't agree more. After all if reality is how I believe it is then the more skeptical and the more higher the standard of inquiry the closer to truth and to a better quality of life one comes. But please apply your skepticism to naturalism also – after all it's not like the only alternatives are religious fundamentalism or naturalism. For me the natural path is after first rejecting religious fundamentalism, to then also reject naturalism as failing one's standards of inquiry. The idea that reality is purely and blindly mechanical at bottom does not work either.
When trying to argue in defense of a religious model, it helps not to say stuff like "Religion is cool, atheism sucks!". It simply isn't a very good argument.Again I agree, and would like to point out that the reverse is not a very good argument either :-) What I tried to argue in the McGrath thread was this: Take the best naturalistic model you can find or think of, take the best theistic model you can find or think of, and then compare them one to one using a consistent set of criteria. Once you're done choose the model that fares better as the model of reality that is more reasonable to adopt among these two.
359. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78152 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 2:31 am
Lauregon (post 567, or #78066):
As Dr Benway has already mentioned, when the evidence for a "God" person is truly compelling, non-theists will reconsider their unbelief.As John Lennox pointed out in his recent debate with Dawkins, and notwithstanding Dr Benway's dislike of this fact, there are two major alternatives: Either reality is at bottom mechanical or it is at bottom intentional. And if you stopped for a moment believing in naturalist mythology you'd see that there is no "truly compelling" evidence that reality is at bottom mechanical.
The thing is, Dianelos, what you see as "evidence" simply isn't compelling to us.Oh, I fully understand that. And I don't mind that one bit. Maybe you misunderstand what "reasonable belief" means. A belief is reasonable when it can be justified on reasonable grounds to the satisfaction of the one holding that belief. So it's not like one can consider one's belief reasonable only when or if one can convince all reasonable people who happen to disagree. For example the belief in naturalism does not only become reasonable when or if naturalists manage to convince all reasonable theists that the evidence for naturalism is compelling. (Nor, of course, vice-versa.)
Now I personally think that naturalism is completely non-viable and that people who believe in naturalism simply have not really studied what it means, not to mention often confuse naturalism with science. Therefore I judge that belief in naturalism is unreasonable, but the fact that I judge so does not imply that you should agree :-)
Without a compelling reason to believe in the existence a supernatural "God" person who created and directs the universe, there's no motivation to search for an absent, unseen "God" person who has never been observed to actually exist. It's really that simple.No, it's really not that simple, and that's why knowledgeable naturalists write thick volumes trying to counter theism. I am afraid TGD is fooling you. You don't have to believe me, Lauregon, nor any other theist. But please go study what other naturalists (maybe more knowledgeable in this field and less angry than Dawkins) are thinking. There are many books about ontology written by naturalists that are head and shoulders above TGD; I have mentioned several in previous posts.
But let me try to very quickly counter your argument above. You are basically saying: Here is the universe with many bits and pieces in it all following mechanical laws and there is no compelling evidence that any supernatural person has to do anything with it. True. But you see the universe is not what is given. What is given is your experience of the universe, among your experience of many other things besides (say, how it is like to experience the universe). And what is given, namely your experience of life, is personal and not mechanical at all. So to simply brush away what is given and only concentrate our thoughts on a particular part of our experience (namely our observation of physical phenomena that do indeed follow mechanical laws) is arbitrary and therefore unreasonable.
Now at this juncture the typical naturalist will object and point out that all our experience of life can in principle be explained based on the view that reality consists of a mechanical universe. But that's only expressing a position of faith not based on reason or science, as Sam Harris explained. The reality is that no naturalist has ever suggested even an idea of how an explanation of how a material system could become conscious might look like. If you dislike beliefs based on faith, then there is no way around studying some more, Lauregon. If you now judge that there is no compelling evidence for theism I think you'll find out that there is even less compelling evidence for naturalism.
360. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78138 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 1:43 am
Lauregon (post 565, or #78057):
one man's belief in the rapture is another man's belief in the 'blessed sacrament.'Oh? And where exactly did I claim belief in the 'blessed sacrament' whatever that is? On the contrary I have repeatedly stated my belief that all physical phenomena can be explained without recourse to a supernatural agency.
You should have the mental flexibility of at least imagining that the truth may lie somewhere between naturalism on the one side (the idea that reality is at bottom mechanical) and naive theism on the other side (the idea of a demon-haunted world).
361. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78135 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 1:37 am
Walk (post 563, or #78033):
Ya know, DG, with all the hundreds of tortured explanations you've had to make defending your beliefs in these blogs, in the name of intellectual honesty, have you ever once, even for a second, asked yourself if your single, unprovable, basic premise could be wrong?I don't know about "tortured explanations" and "unprovable" this or that, but to answer your question: Yes, I often try to put myself in the shoes of a naturalist and consider reality purely naturalistically; try it for size as it were. But I find it's very hard for me to do so because the realization how untenable naturalism is (specifically in relation to the very fact that I remain a conscious being while trying to think naturalistically :-) quickly falls on me like a ton of bricks.
Naturalism is virtually all atheists' worldview at least in the West. I don't think that would remain so if people actually studied a little more about physics and about the mind-body problem.
Also, the fact that I am so easily misunderstood in this site evidences I think that when people here read what I write they visualize that I am the typical loud bible-thumping and fire-breathing theist under a veil of smart talk that only sounds like reasoning (many naturalists openly equate belief in the supernatural with unreasonableness :-) Well, it's not easy nor useful to directly counter peoples' preconceptions, so (except for very few exceptions like this one) I try to only comment on ideas.
362. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78131 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 1:22 am
Walk (post 562, or #78009):
Well, the premise is that "both a religious and a non-religious model of reality are reasonable". So we don't know what is true, either worldview could be true. (Indeed the fact that recent Nobel laureates in physics are religious people evidences that it's not like believing in God is like believing in fairies as Dawkins in TGD tries to convince us.) So, under this premise only a masochist would prefer to believe in a non-religious model of reality.So if both a religious and a non-religious model of reality are reasonable only a masochist would prefer the non-religious modelSo are you saying that because we WANT religion to be true, therefore it is?
363. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78128 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 1:02 am
Alovrin (post 551, or #77885):
I kind of was implying that it would be a good idea if naturalists too tried to understand how theists think. To ridicule or demonize those who disagree and to refuse to seriously consider their thoughts is not conducive to understanding.As I mentioned before, I am here to learn (including to learn how naturalists think),So we are all guinea pigs in a gigantic experiment by Dianelost in
364. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #78126 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 12:56 am
Richard Morgan (post 550, or #77874):
Well, that's really simple to explain. We all know that when we feel gratitude the right thing to do is to express that gratitude. And indeed it is satisfying to express gratitude. Anybody who has honestly said "thank you" knows that.In my experience praying is a very useful thing: It's an expression of gratitude so it's ethically satisfying. It's a form of meditation so it sharpens one's insight. And finally, whether one asks for it or not, it's an ethically empowering experience."ethically satisfying"? Er, well, yes, if you say so.....[snip]
"meditation that sharpens one's insight"? You should be talking to a young guy called Sam Harris.I agree with him on the usefulness of meditation and on the spiritual dimension of life. Incidentally Harris may be as angry with religious fundamentalism as Dawkins is, but having had philosophical training I find he is more insightful. And, incidentally, he is not that young (he's 40).
And the best of all : "ethically empowering". I've tried to imagine what that could mean, how it could feelIt's often not easy to describe how something feels, but let me try. In my experience the most common ethical challenges in life are of wrong things one would do because of greed, or for returning evil. I find the first kind easier to deal with because you don't really have to be very smart to realize that trying to earn even more money and putting much value in the acquisition of things is a fool's errand. But the second kind of ethical challenge is much more difficult; it's not only the sweetness of thinking about revenge but how it often feels that repaying evil is the right thing to do, and that not repaying evil is only a sign of weakness, and so on. Well, anyway, in prayer one hmm enters a place of harmony where one realizes how brightly beautiful and deeply meaningful all is – and in such a state of mind greed and revenge simply appear to be such petty things, so trivial, so unworthy of one. You know the Christian virtue of meekness is infinitely misunderstood (see Nietzsche for example); true meekness does not come from weakness but from strength, from realizing how foolish and pointless pride really is. Anyway, that's about how it feels and why prayer is ethically empowering.
365. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #78123 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 12, 2007 at 12:33 am
Steve99 (post 268, or #78040):
So to postulate that reality consists of 10^100+ different universes of which one is ours is actually less complex than to postulate that reality consists of just one universe, namely ours. Amazing.But isn't the multiverse humungously more complex than the fundamental constants of our universe it explains?Multiverses are simpler than Universes. This is easily understood. It is an argument from symmetry.
It is often the case in science that an increased number of things is the clue to an underlying simpler situation. A good example of this is in particle physics, where at one point in the 60s there seemed to be a huge 'zoo' of all kinds of particles, with little relationship. However, as even more were found, this revealed a simple pattern - the particles were made of just a few quarks with simple properties.Well, I completely fail to see the analogy. The example you give is appropriate: In the 60s we were confronted with a large number of elementary particles with different properties and we explained that complexity by postulating the existence of a much smaller number of even more fundamental particles, the quarks. But the situation at hand is the opposite of that: Here we are confronted with just one physical universe and its properties (including the values of the fundamental constants) and naturalists try to explain that by postulating the existence of a gargantuan number of parallel universes.
Yes, but that's a red herring Steve. As I made clear in my post I am speaking of "the case of the 'scientific' kind of atheism that Dawkins expounds". And Dawkins is not a Buddhist and does not believe in the supernatural or in re-incarnation, and the same goes for the vast majority of atheists in the West. I don't see any problem with Buddhist ethics precisely because Buddhists believe that reality is transcendental.But atheism is not only characterized by non-belief in Zeus or in the Biblical God but in all transcendenceNo. I have explained this to you many times. All atheism says is 'there are no God or Gods'. It is perfectly within the bounds of atheism to believe in the supernatural. Indeed, many Buddhists are atheist, yet believe in re-incarnation and karma.
So my question remains: What logical path is there for the kind of atheist I am here discussing to stop them from killing (or doing any other thing the current Zeitgeist considers wrong) when doing so is to their advantage? Surely there may be various emotional reasons that would stop them, but I can't see any "logical path" that would stop them. But if there is no such logical path then the implication for atheism looks very bad indeed: The more convinced that atheism correctly describes reality and the more logical a person is the more probably this person is apt to flaunt the Zeitgeist's moral precepts when it suits them.
366. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Comment #77989 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I found that was an interesting discussion, notwithstanding the bad format, which both debaters felt free to violate anyway. In any case I have two doubts about Dawkins's position, and maybe somebody here would like to comment:
At some point Dawkins (ca. minute 5 of the second file) says that the multiverse is a "satisfying" explanation for the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental physical constants in a way that a creator God couldn't possibly be a satisfying explanation. Why not? Because (as he says at about minute 16 of the second file) you can't use as the ultimate explanation something that is even more complex than what it explains, and a creator God, he believes, would be more complex than the universe. But isn't the multiverse humungously more complex than the fundamental constants of our universe it explains? I mean we are talking of at least 10^100 parallel universes here, i.e. many more universes than atoms there are in our universe. Perhaps Dawkins means that the idea of the multiverse is simple, but, if so, the idea of God is pretty simple too, certainly much simpler than the universe. So, on what grounds exactly is the multiverse a more satisfying explanation than God?
The second issue I have is this: When discussing morality it seemed to me that Dawkins softened some of his stronger positions against religion in TGD. But he insists (ca. 27:30 of the second file) that his main point is this: For somebody who really believes in fundamentalist religion there is a "logical path" from these beliefs to doing terrible things. But not so for atheism. He says: "I cannot conceive of a logical path that would lead one to say, 'because I am an atheist therefore it is rational for me to kill or murder or be cruel or do some horrible thing." He explains that an atheist's position in respect to the Biblical God is the same as Lennox's position in respect to Zeus, implying that if the latter position cannot possibly lead somebody do kill neither does the former. But atheism is not only characterized by non-belief in Zeus or in the Biblical God but in all transcendence, and indeed is characterized by the belief that at bottom there exists nothing in reality but matter following mechanical laws (at least in the case of the "scientific" kind of atheism that Dawkins expounds). After all, as Lennox pointed out, Dawkins himself writes in his "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life": "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." (page 133, paperback edition). But then it seems to me there is no logical path for an atheist not to kill somebody (or kill a million for that matter) if doing so were to their advantage. I mean if somebody really believes that reality is like Dawkins describes in the quote above then what logical path would keep that person from killing somebody else if doing so were to their advantage?
367. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77873 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 1:21 am
Phillip1978 (post 548, or #77870):
You'll notice that in post 546 I am expressively talking about my experience with prayer, and that I never mention anything like asking for "highly improbable" things :-)
Now I can't really condemn those who ask for a favor while they pray, because if tragedy befell my life I would probably do the same. But I would do the same while knowing deep down that doing favors is not how God works – and that if reality is centered in God then favors is not what we need anyway.
368. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77869 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 1:03 am
Dr Benway (post 536, or #77844):
The "naturalism vs. theism" stuff Dianelos repeats is in vogue. Even wee flea is chiming in with the same refrain. Not a new argument; just a new presentation. Get used to it.Even Dawkins agrees that's the main issue. After all in his recent debate with John Lennox (IRC) he calls the natural evolution versus creationism question just a "skirmish" and that the profound question is "naturalism versus supernaturalism".
See: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1707,n,n
But I understand that many people do not like profound questions. After all superficial thought has its attractions; for one it does not imply the need to study.
369. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77863 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 12:50 am
Shuggy (post 532, or #77820):
I think a lot of would-be modern theists have it both ways. They believe in a non-interventionist, compatible-with-science-and-rationality, ground-of-all-being god AND they pray to Him/Her/It.Right. In my experience praying is a very useful thing: It's an expression of gratitude so it's ethically satisfying. It's a form of meditation so it sharpens one's insight. And finally, whether one asks for it or not, it's an ethically empowering experience.
370. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77862 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 12:45 am
Steve99 (post 530, or #77815):
However, perhaps not responding to [Dianelos] for a while may have some effect.... I am prepared to give it a try.Steve, please feel completely free not to comment on my posts. But what I dislike is you being instructed by others what you should do. In-group morality is a clear sign of tribalism, and if there is one thing that nobody should compromise is one's freedom of thought and one's freedom of consciousness. I mean I may very strongly disagree with Dawkins's ideas and actions, but I have no doubt that he follows his mind and his moral sense where they lead him.
So do whatever you find best and think whatever you find best as long as it's you who is doing the thinking and the doing.
371. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77861 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 12:28 am
Walk (post 523, or #77775):
Well, we were discussing Buddhism, and it's a factual truth that that is what Buddhism teaches. Now you say that these are all assumptions and not a given. Well all assumptions are not a given by definition. And please observe that we all make assumptions in our life. For example we assume that an objective reality exists, we assume that other people are conscious beings, we assume that the inductive method is correct, we assume (or should assume :-) the axioms of Boolean logic, and so on. The fact that we assume these things does not make us irrational, does it? Quite the contrary in fact. And these assumptions are reasonable because they are justified pragmatically, i.e. by the kind of thought and life they lead one to, and how subjectively we judge that this kind of thought and life is good. Similarly then many people "assume" that life is meaningful (or that morality is not relative, and so on).Now all major religions, including Buddhism, teach that there is a transcendental meaning in our life here, a meaning that affects our afterlife and indeed affects the whole of reality. So we are by nature curious to know where that meaning came from (...)Simply teaching these concepts doesn't make them true. Here you are simply ASSUMING that there is a IS a transcendental meaning to life, and ASSUMING there IS an afterlife, and basing everything that follows on those two improbable assumptions. This is NOT a given.
John Hick (a very important modern philosopher of religion) argued that reality is religiously ambiguous, i.e. that a reasonable person can conceptually equally well adopt either a religious or a non-religious model of reality. I don't quite agree with that, but let's assume it's true. Even then there is little doubt that to assume a religious model of reality is conducive to a better quality of life than the alternative. So if both a religious and a non-religious model of reality are reasonable only a masochist would prefer the non-religious model of a "hideous" reality (to use Dawkins's expression in his recent debate with John Lennox).
372. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77860 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 11, 2007 at 12:10 am
Lauregon (post 520, or #77761):
The Templeton Foundation ran a double full page in the NYT earlier this week on the Big Questions, an array of (partial) essays (in full at the website) by a range of scientists, philosophers, theologians, etc., on the question of whether or not there is purpose in the universe. There was no consensus among those presenting their ideas. The answers were diverse: Yes, no, maybe, not sure, etc..But that's exactly my point: it's not that clear that the universe does not have a purpose (and a purposeful universe implies a creator), contrary to what Dawkins tries to convince people in TGD. And, obviously, if one had asked the same group of thoughtful people if they think there are fairies at the bottom of the garden they would all have responded with a monosyllable "no". As I mentioned before, I am here to learn (including to learn how naturalists think), but if there is one thing I would like to convince people here is that it is worthwhile to study more about ontology. And if there is one thing I dislike more than the bad reasoning in TGD is the general idea it projects that the issues are settled and that further study is not necessary and may even be a ridiculous thing to do.
Incidentally, Lauregon, thanks for the interesting links you have been providing – it only shows that people can learn from each other while deeply disagreeing.
373. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77857 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Bonzai (post 519, or #77757):
If the world is ruled by Karma as some Buddhist believe there is no need for God.Yes, well, on the other hand Buddhists pray, and I wonder whom they pray to.
I do not pretend to understand Buddhism very well; I have only read a few books on Zen Buddhism long time ago, and a book on Buddhist ethics is waiting in my to-read stack of books. I probably should learn more about it.
374. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77856 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Steveroot (post 517, or#77755):
At the risk of provoking another 1500 word post, I wonder what it is that we've understood here.I wonder about that too ;-)
375. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77855 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Lauregon (post 512, or #77737):
Not really; that's a statement Dawkins makes all the time. And it seems to me that he makes that statement as the result of the fallacious logic I described in post 510 above.which implies "God has not produced the species". - Dianelos...a statement which assumes by faith that there's a supernatural "God" person who could be believed to have produced the species.
376. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77853 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Epeeist (post 511, or #77732):
Assuming that science doesn't attempt ontological understanding of course.I don't see how this is possible while science is circumscribed by the scientific method. On the other hand scientists themselves are of course completely free to do ontology using their scientific knowledge to good effect. That's what great physicists Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Bell and mathematician von Neumann have done, as well as more recently physicists Nick Herbert ("Quantum Reality"), David Mermin ("Boojums All The Way Through"), Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner ("Quantum Enigma"), David Deutsch ("The Fabric of Reality"), Wojciech Zurek ("Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information"), Paul Davies and John Gribbin ("The Matter Myth"), and surely many others I don't know about. I am not implying that I personally agree with the content of all these books, but in any case one can learn much more about what scientific knowledge implies about objective reality by reading any the previous books than by reading TGD.
377. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77845 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Lauregon (post 509, or #77609):
I am not sure what the relevance was, but this video was interesting nonetheless. Actually it was quite amazing. I suppose that's the lunatic religious right in the US. What can I say? This is one more example of the failure of education.
Incidentally the "rapture" has no foundation in Christian orthodox dogma whatsoever. From the point of view of serious Christian theology and even official Christianity, it's a joke. Not to mention that, according to a recent article I read (I believe in Time magazine), these people help Israel in order to advance the Second Coming at which the Jewish people themselves will perish – so the hypocrisy is mind-boggling. On the other hand there is little question that these loonies do exert serious political influence in the US, and arguably manage to destabilize one of the most critical places on Earth, the Middle East. I agree that all that is scary, but what can one do? Again the only solution I see is education, not least to educate the American public at large that 1) these beliefs are heretical (in this official Churches could help) and 2) that the US's one-sided help to Israel is not to the best interest of the US, nor of the world, nor, arguably, of Israel itself.
This side of the pond, nobody believes in the rapture. It's interesting to think why such harebrained ideas and fundamentalism in general find such a fertile soil in the US. Perhaps the fact that the study of religion does not form part of the curriculum at American schools might be part of the reason.
378. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77762 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Epeeist (post 511, or #77732):
In a similar vein one shouldn't convert "Science, or methodological naturalism, can't currently explain this, therefore it will never explain this, which means that that it is a failure, which means that there must be another explanation, which is god"Right, that's the God of the gaps fallacy. My personal belief is that the scientific method can, at least in principle, explain all objectively observable phenomena.
The big question though is how to explain the whole of our condition (i.e. how it is like to be a human being) – which is not an objectively observable phenomenon.
379. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77752 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:50 am
Steve99 (post 504, or #77505):
Well, I understand what you are saying, but object to it on the following grounds: We humans are curious persons. Whether we are the product of blind nature or of intentional God does not matter: the fact remains we want to understand. Now all major religions, including Buddhism, teach that there is a transcendental meaning in our life here, a meaning that affects our afterlife and indeed affects the whole of reality. So we are by nature curious to know where that meaning came from (to use Dawkins's phrase). And as meaning is normally imparted intentionally it's difficult in my mind to reconcile a reality that is fundamentally meaningful but not fundamentally intentional. But then again the Buddhist may respond that to be curious about such matters does not increase happiness or peace of mind either :-)Arguably there are non-theistic religions such as Buddhism, even though it's not clear to me how a Buddhist would answer the question of whether the universe is designed or not.Well, firstly, most Buddhists assume that the Universe always was, so attempt to bypass the question like that.
Of course, the true Buddhish response is... "it doesn't matter"... does happiness and peace of mind depend knowledge of this? If not.. no need to worry about it.
Well, for me it does – there is nothing like the happiness and peace of mind that come with understanding.
380. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77741 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 11:27 am
Peacebeuponme (post 500, or #77461):
Well, a good place to start is to read "God? A debate between a Christian and an Atheist" by William Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. That's a written debate, so both professors of philosophy had plenty of time to think before suggesting their best arguments and attacking the other side's best arguments. This is an easy read too, and it's interesting to judge for oneself the merits of the individual arguments and how they are countered. Other authors I recommend are naturalist Mackie (for example his "the Miracle of Theism") and theist Plantinga. Incidentally you don't have to read theists for learning about theology, reading knowledgeable naturalist philosophers who write on theology works very well too.But the fact remains that there are already several serious theological arguments why the God hypothesis is the better explanationI'm genuinely interested in hearing some. McGrath bangs on about "serious theology" a lot, but forgot to include any decent arguments in his books.
Now, for me the best arguments for God are the argument from morality (which is included in the above debate) and the argument from consciousness (which isn't). You can find a very short exposition of the latter argument here:
http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000901.html
Your discussions with Steve99 and Dr Benway have got to around 2,000 posts I think, but this site hasn't seen the light yet.Yes – shocking ;-)
Anyway I think there is a better way to justify theism than stating the arguments for it. The better way is to compare one the two completing ontological worldviews (at least in the West), namely theism and naturalism. This is a better way because naturalists consistently attack theism on grounds their own naturalism fails, which is irrational of course, because what goes for the goose goes for the gander. Here is a remarkable example: Surely you must have heard the mantra that there is no objective evidence for theism - that's probably the single most repeated argument against theism. Well, it turns out that there is no objective evidence for naturalism either (and arguably there is some objective evidence against naturalism, but never mind). Similarly it's true that the God hypothesis is not necessary for science, but then again naturalism's hypothesis is not necessary for science either. And so on.
381. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77727 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 10, 2007 at 10:18 am
Steve99 (post 499, or #77460):
Dawkins is NOT talking about what you are trying to claim he is talking about, which is Kolmogorov complexity.Actually I was claiming the opposite, but never mind.
And as just about everything that used to be explained by God no longer requires him, then many intelligent and educated people realise that He has no explanatory power.Or maybe many educated people commit a series of logical fallacies, for example to think that "blind natural evolution can produce the species" implies "blind natural evolution has produced the species" which implies "God has not produced the species". Or to commit the fallacy to think that "the God hypothesis is not necessary for scientific understanding" implies "the God hypothesis is not necessary for ontological understanding". The good thing with truth is that fallacious thinking has an expiration date.
382. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77498 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Peacebeuponme (post 495, or #77430):
No. You see from "The falsity of A does not imply that B is true" is not equivalent to "The falsity of A implies that B is false". My point is that if you study at depth monistic naturalism you'll find that it is a deeply problematic ontology. But even if one decides that monistic naturalism is not viable (as for example David Chalmers did) it does not mean that one must therefore embrace theism, for there are alternatives to both monistic naturalism and theism (David Chalmers adopted dualistic naturalism). Arguably there are non-theistic religions such as Buddhism, even though it's not clear to me how a Buddhist would answer the question of whether the universe is designed or not. But as far as I am concerned monistic naturalism (or to be precise so-called scientific realism) is simply non-viable so to abandon it is certainly a step in the right direction. My argument in the McGrath thread was that if one compares one to one naturalism's and theism's (or rather idealistic theism's) ontology the latter works better than the former under all criteria I can think of and that therefore to believe in the latter is more reasonable than to believe in the former. But there may be other ontologies that work even better than idealistic theism, I just don't know any. Maybe I should study some Buddhism :-)Well I agree that the falsity of naturalism does not imply the truth of full-blown Christianity, of course not.At least we agree that Christians and all other religions should abandon all of their truth claims then, such as they are.
The deep metaphysics being discussed here have nothing to do with the everyday impact of religion.Probably true, but we must distinguish between the truth of religious claims and the effects of religion on society, I am sure you agree on that. For example no educated person questions the truth of science but some question the effects of science on society.
McGrath still believes the resurrection to be true, which is irrational - Maybe he can start there.Well I probably disagree with McGrath's belief about the resurrection (I understand that he like most theists believe that the physical universe is objectively real), but I question your saying that McGraths belief is not only false but irrational. If reality is like McGrath believes then you and I may be wrong in our belief that the physical remains of Jesus of Nazareth are still around somewhere and may in fact be found.
If one chooses to believe such a fantastic claim, I agree that Christians should therefore abandon the doctrine of the trinity.I discussed the idea that all persons have a Trinitarian nature in the McGrath thread and it's not fantastic at all – actually I find it trivially true.
Religion is a cultural position, but this means it can exist without making truth claims and indoctrination.I agree about the "indoctrination" bit, but you understand that what amounts to indoctrination is a matter of subjective opinion. Some people (and these are maybe ignorant but not crazy people) would say that to teach natural evolution at schools amounts to indoctrination; some would say that to teach a nationalist interpretation of one's country's history amounts to indoctrination, and so on. My ideas about this matter are as follows: Society should teach their young the best of knowledge there is in each field. Ontology (i.e. how objective reality is) may not be a field that is critical for becoming a usefully working member of society (knowledge about phenomenal reality is sufficient for that), but is obviously a very important subject matter nonetheless. And one cannot teach ontology without touching on two of the dominant theories about it, namely naturalism and theism. I think that all young people should be taught about the best thinking on both naturalism and theism and be allowed to judge for themselves which ontology is more reasonable. To put it plainly: religious beliefs play a huge role in society at large and in many peoples' personal life. To simply avoid discussing religion at school cannot possibly do any good, for ignorance is never good. If a naturalist thinks that naturalism really works better than theism then they can't possibly object to both naturalism and theism being taught at schools (at an age where young people can think for themselves); and the same goes for the theist who thinks that theism works better. Incidentally teaching the best thought on religion has nothing to do with science for only the most naive religion makes scientific claims.
Cultural diversity should be celebrated, but only to the extent that women are not oppressed, homosexuals are not persecuted, unelected bishops do not get a say over my life, doctors are not hindered in healing the sick, children are not mutilated, and all the other things that anger so many on this site.Couldn't agree more. And the same goes for many much worse things that happen, things that are fairly unrelated to religion but are mostly driven by religion-opposing greed and are sometimes facilitated by scientists, such as the destruction of the environment, the social injustice, the nationalism, the failure to offer good education, the still existing threat of nuclear annihilation, and so on. There are a lot of problems out there, and the only effective solution on the long run, it seems to me, is better education: Teach the best ideas to the greatest number of people possible. And in this context, unfortunately, TGD has a negative effect – not because it argues that God does not exist which is a serious ontological stand, but because it trivializes the issues beyond recognition, uses fallacious logic to an embarrassing degree, uses selective evidence to a degree that can only be called demagogic, and has some hate mongering in it to boot.
383. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77454 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 11:02 am
Steve99 (post 491, or #77365):
Why don't you actually look up the meaning of 'physical complexity'? (Which is what we are talking about).No, that's not what we are talking about. We are discussing Dawkins's TGD where he explicitly uses the concept of "organized complexity". Which is the same expression he consistently uses in several articles including the expression he several times uses in his recent debate with John Lennox. Dawkins is a scientist and the least one would expect is that he means "organized complexity" when he speaks of "organized complexity".
It was not an analogy. It was a direct explanation of the absurdity of your statement: YOU were the one who claimed that ALL possible explanations should be considered.Yes, well, you have a point there. That's one reason why evidential arguments are always probabilistic. But the fact remains that there are already several serious theological arguments why the God hypothesis is the better explanation, arguments that knowledgeable naturalist authors know about and therefore do not announce that it is easy to show that "God almost certainly does not exist" or that "the probability of God is comparable to the probability of fairies living in the garden". Anybody half as intelligent as Dawkins would have known about these arguments had they studied some serious books on theology; indeed some of these arguments such as the argument from consciousness is not broadly known or understood. Now it's not like Dawkins has not studied any books at all; in TGD he admiringly mentions David Mills's "Atheist Universe: Why God didn't have a thing to do with it", but this is the worse book on theology I have ever read (that is before I read TGD). Not surprisingly Mills's book was once quite popular too.
If you are going to insist that people discuss the possibility of YOUR God, because ALL explanations have to be considered, you are going to have to join the queue... the Poseidon believers have been waiting far longer.
On the positive side thinking about TGD maybe explains why so many intelligent and educated people do not believe in God: philosophy and specifically ontology is not something people study at school and popular culture is filled to the brim with fallacious naturalistic thinking (and unfortunately fallacious theistic thinking too).
No, as below statistical relevance is effectively the same as 'not there'.Not really. To control quantum events even below statistical relevance gives one the effective power to guide natural evolution. (By which I don't mean that I believe that God actually guided natural evolution by controlling quantum events :-)
384. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77429 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 9:32 am
Epeeist (post 488, or #77351):
We are here discussing Dawkins's TGD and specifically his fundamental and insistent claim that the God hypothesis (as defined by him) is a scientific hypothesis. The burden of proof for that claim would appear to be Dawkins's and of those who here agree with him. But as I find that the gambit of "the burden of proof is yours not mine" only evidences a person's intellectual cowardice I am perfectly happy to give my justifications for all beliefs I hold. In previous posts I have justified why I believe that the God hypothesis (as defined by Dawkins) is not a scientific hypothesis. Let me here put my argument analytically:I am discussing the God hypothesis as Dawkins defined it. If you can suggest how that hypothesis can be falsified by science please do so.With all due respect the burden of proof is on you.
1. Dawkins in TGD claims that all hypotheses about the existence of a God who designed the universe are scientific hypotheses. (premise)
2. A hypothesis is scientific if and only if it can be falsified by science. (premise)
3. Therefore Dawkins's original claim in TGD is equivalent to the claim that all hypotheses about a God who designed the universe can be falsified by science. (from 1 and 3)
4. Young Earth creationism is a hypothesis about the existence of a God who designed the universe. (premise)
5. Young Earth creationism cannot be falsified by science. (premise)
6. Therefore there exists a hypothesis about a God who designed a universe that cannot be falsified by science. (from 4 and 5)
7. Therefore Dawkins's equivalent claim that all hypotheses about a God who designed the universe can be falsified by science is false. (from 3 and 6)
8. Therefore Dawkins's original claim in TGD (i.e. that all hypotheses about the existence of a God who designed the universe are scientific hypotheses) is false. (from 3 and 7)
385. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77359 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 5:59 am
Steve99 (post 483, or #77332):
Dawkins is not 'claiming that organised complexity is improbable'. Organised complexity IS improbable, in the same way that heat is the fast movement of molecules. That is THE DEFINITION.Ah, so that's how it is. Organized complexity is improbable by definition, and organized complexity is simply the measure of how improbable the state of system is.
So let me suggest the "Ultra Super Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit", that shows that God almost certainly exists: Theistic nature IS probable, by definition. And, before you ask, "theistic nature" is the measure of how probable the state of a being is. Therefore, as God has maximal theistic nature, God is also maximally probable ;-)
No, you haven't given any concrete example of God interfering with the natural order.I haven't? Let me copy here from my post 470 above: But your point was about God interacting specifically with the natural order. Here too God could massively interact without science noticing. Even if harebrained "young Earth creationism" were true and God had created the universe about 6000 years ago and directly designed all modern species – science would not have noticed it. But maybe you mean God interacting with the natural order here and now. If so, that's possible too, for it's not like science can study every single thing that is happening right now. For example, as McGrath believes sometimes happens, God could in a way undetectable by science save a particular child from a catastrophe. Or God could massively interfere with quantum events, even quantum events under direct observation in a scientific experiment (God would only have to keep the interference bellow statistical relevance).
Do you know of any serious books where naturalist professors of philosophy try to respond to the evidence that believers in the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who has designed the species have put forward? If not then your analogy does not work very well. The very fact that serious naturalists do not write serious books trying to counter the evidence for the FSM evidence that the FSM is not comparable to God.In other words it's not sufficient to find one reason why A works better than B as an explanation, because there may be many other reasons why B works better than A as an explanation.Following your reasoning, we would have to have a detailed discussion about how Flying Spaghetti Monster fiddled with life to get the appearance of evolution, or how fairies intelligently designed things.
I must say I am surprised how both naive and persistent popular naturalisms' arguments are. You know serious books on God are not only written by theists, but by knowledgeable naturalists too; so maybe Dawkins and naive naturalists in general should at least study these.
386. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77347 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 5:32 am
Epeeist (post 482, or #77326):
I am discussing the God hypothesis as Dawkins defined it. If you can suggest how that hypothesis can be falsified by science please do so.I think it's rather simple to recognize that the God hypothesis as Dawkins himself defined it on page 31 of TGD cannot be falsified by science, and therefore is not a scientific hypothesis.Dianelos - I gave you the scientific hypothesis and the way it could be tested and falsified about half a dozen pages back.
387. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77345 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 5:26 am
Geraint (post 475, or #76980):
Oh, I see why my use of "particle" could sound confusing, but I meant something very simple: In the context of Bell's test results are we talking of one or two photons? It seems to me that in all possible ontological views (whether naturalistic or theistic) there are many different things, and what characterizes two different things is that each has at least one different property.I mean you agree that there are objectively two particles out there (even though they share part of their quantum state), correct?Well, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Isn't the nature of what's out there what we're trying to ascertain? You seem to be demanding before we start that the fundamental objects must be particles.
Perhaps you mean that even trying to give a physical model to what happens when one observes a property of one particle is problematic enough. But that I think is a different category of "problematic". So the various paradoxes related to a naturalistic interpretation of quantum mechanics only violate our deepest intuitions about physical reality; but Bell's test results appear to render physical reality incoherent in itself.In any case, can you describe a model of a physical objective reality that accounts for Bell's test results and which remains coherent for observers in different frames of reference?How about you tell me what happens in the reduction of a one-particle state first? This Bell's test stuff is all a red herring.
In any case, to answer your question above, I would say that any of the dozen or so different interpretations of quantum mechanics serve as model of a physical objective reality consistent with virtually all quantum phenomena (but not with Bell's test results). When I studied quantum mechanics the prof used the Copenhagen interpretation which I still find easiest to think with: that physical reality becomes concrete - in the sense that the values of the dynamic attributes (such as position) of elementary particles reduce to a value - *only* when an observation by a conscious subject takes place (and the wavefunction collapses); before that the values of these attributes do not exist. As Robert Oppenheimer put it "If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'." On the other hand of course a naturalist will insist that electrons and their positions form part of reality and point at a television set as evidence for that. But as eminent physicist David Mermin put it to respond to Einstein's question of whether the moon only exists when somebody looks at it: "We now know that the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks." So, the television set's picture only becomes concrete when one looks at it also.
Anyway, the Copenhagen interpretation works for any naturalist who wants to imagine what happens in a television set within physical reality. It's not unproblematic of course as it puts consciousness on a more fundamental level than physical reality, whereas naturalists think that consciousness is contingent on physical systems, but a) it nonetheless works as a coherent description of physical reality albeit one where consciousness plays an important role, and b) all interpretations of quantum mechanics are seriously problematic in some way or other. But the Copenhagen interpretation cannot coherently account for Bell's test results. Why not? Because according to that interpretation the wavefunction of the two entangled particles collapsed when the first observer looked, and the second observer only measured the already concrete attribute. The problem is that the two observers will disagree about who first collapsed the wavefunction, and therefore with equal reason adopt two contradictory versions of what happened in reality.
So my question remains: Can you describe a model of physical objective reality that coherently accounts for Bell's test results? Because unless there is such a description it is not reasonable to believe in a naturalistic description of reality.
388. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #77322 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 9, 2007 at 3:56 am
Steve99 (post 474, or #76969):
No. A corpse in a state of decay is not 'as improbable' as as living body. The state vector of the particles shows more disorder, with structures that were in certain organisations (such as membranes) no longer in that condition.So, let's see how it is: Dawkins in TGD claims that organized complexity is improbable, and you define "organized complexity" as "measure of the probability of the state vector of the particles constituting the object" (your post 464). And why is the state vector of a living body more improbable than a living body? Because a living body is more organized you now respond. So we come back full circle :-) Organized complexity is improbable because what has organized complexity is improbable. So what has organized complexity is improbable by definition.
Let me try this logic by changing the "organized complexity" property with the "theistic nature" property: I claim that a being with theistic nature is probable. You ask what I mean by "theistic nature" and I answer that "theistic nature is the measure of the probability of the exact description of a being". So you ask why then God is more probable than a cow, and I answer because God has more theistic nature than a cow :-)
I liked your other two definitions more. The first was that a system has organized complexity when it is in fact more improbable to be found in the universe. When I used the golden statues versus human bodies counterexample you offered the definition that organized complexity characterizes what is more improbable to obtain by a group of atoms moving randomly coalescing into that system (see your post 446). That's when I suggested the living body versus rotting corpse counterexample (they both would coalesce with similar probability) and now you come back with a circular definition.
See what happens when one trivializes the issues? Dawkins's offhand claim that "a physical system with more organized complexity is more improbable" sounds intuitively reasonable. But in philosophy (never mind in science) one is supposed to justify one's claims and Dawkins doesn't do that and, as you probably found out by now, it's not easy to do that. And if Dawkins (or you) would be reduced to arguing that this matter is intuitively obvious then the theist could of course respond that there is no a priori reason to trust Dawkins's intuitions in this matter over theists' intuitions in other matters.
Translation: no well-known reviewer that I, Dianelos, am prepared to accept. The 'I know' is the key phrase here.Not really Steve. I have asked you about which qualified reviewers in favor of TGD you knew of and you only came up with Dennett (who after approving before publication and even calling "unanswerable" the central argument of TGD could hardly be expected to trash this argument the way Orr, Nagel, or Plantinga did) and Weinberg (whose review is lukewarm and does not even touch on TGD's central argument - see my post 386 above). So we have three eminent reviewers who trash TGD's central argument (the Ultimate 747) against one who is disqualified and another one who doesn't mention it. These are the facts and you should better face them.
No, that is detectable as we know that subjective experiences are correlated with brain states, and we can detect brain states.It's not the subjective experiences that correlate with brain states, but peoples' declarations of having subjective experiences that do. You may ask, what's the difference? There is a very important difference because people cannot in fact describe a subjective experience, they can only affirm they are having it. For example a subject can say "I am now experiencing green color" (and indeed when they say that there is a correlation with some brain state) but a subject cannot describe the subjective experience of how it is to experience green color. That's where God then could interact with us on a level that is directly visible to us but fundamentally invisible to science: in our subjective experiences, in how it is like to experience life. (In his context see the "inverted spectrum paradox")
No, you are just making up the 'interaction invisible to science'. You have not given a single example of how it could happen.That's remarkable; I have just given you several concrete examples of how God could interfere with the natural order without science noticing (post 470 above). It seems you are so certain of your beliefs that you don't actually see the obvious counterexamples even if one gives them to you on a plate.
Secondly, I would claim that the creation of a universe or life is pretty noticeable, wouldn't you?No I wouldn't. If God had created the physical universe including Earth and all species in it only 6000 years ago (as young Earth creationists claim) how exactly would this be noticeable by science?
It seems the naturalistic syllogism goes like this:
1. Science has not detected God's interference with the natural order. (premise)
2. Anything that science has not detected has not happened. (premise)
3. Therefore God has not interfered with the natural order. (from 1 and 2)
and further:
4. Anything that God has not done God cannot do. (premise)
5. Therefore God cannot interfere with the natural order. (from 3 and 4)
Premises #2 and #4 are of course completely irrational. See how obviously fallacious popular naturalism becomes when one tries a little analytic philosophy?
If you are claiming that God has interacted with nature in ways that are not detectable by science, then you are claiming that all of nature is, in principle, explainable by science alone. If not, then there must be something that is NOT explainable in nature, which would be evidence of God...I am not claiming that God interacts with nature in ways that are not detectable by science; I am only claiming that if God interacts with nature this may very well happen in a way not detectable by science.
Your last sentence above implies that God could easily give us evidence of His/er existence by violating the natural order in a way detectable by science, but this too is false (as I have argued with Dr Benway earlier responding to his suggestion that God could have signed "made by God" all our femurs). If God chose to so violate the natural order a naturalist could still reasonably claim that naturalistic explanations are more probable and therefore such would still not count as evidence for God.
I think it's rather simple to recognize that the God hypothesis as Dawkins himself defined it on page 31 of TGD cannot be falsified by science, and therefore is not a scientific hypothesis. But perhaps when Dawkins claims that the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis he is only using a hyperbole in order to impress his readers, and what he in fact means is something else: Perhaps he means that science has given us enough grounds to philosophically judge that the hypothesis that the species are the result of a blind evolutionary process is a better explanation than the hypothesis that they were designed by God. If that's his meaning then he once again is committing an epistemological error. For an evidential argument to work (i.e. for arguing that A is a better explanation than B) one must take into account all possible evidence in favor of A or of B and weight them all before deciding whether A or B is the better explanation. In other words it's not sufficient to find one reason why A works better than B as an explanation, because there may be many other reasons why B works better than A as an explanation. Of course, to find out which reasons theists have for believing that the God hypothesis is a better explanation one has to first study serious books on theology. Which of course Dawkins did not deem essential to do before writing a book on theology himself.
389. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76963 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 8, 2007 at 1:11 am
Lauregon (post 469, or #76930):
Humans of an earlier age believed natural disasters and personal and group calamities were the result of the personal intent of "God." Modern people look at those beliefs as superstitions.Agreed.
Indeed people in the past were wrong in many things, including in their belief that the Earth is flat, or that blood-letting was a good cure for illness, and so on. In my judgment many or most theists even today hold some seriously wrong beliefs (e.g. the existence of hell), and as far as I am concerned superstition is alive and well in many theistic groups. But in my judgment many or most naturalists today hold many seriously wrong beliefs too. Now it's no shame to hold wrong beliefs. We now know that Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time, held some seriously wrong beliefs about gravity, and that Einstein, who is also one of the greatest scientists of all time, held some seriously wrong beliefs about physical reality. We can always be wrong; that's fine. What's not good is not to try to overcome one's fallacious thinking and follow one's thoughts where they lead one. What's bad is not to try to understand other persons' ideas, or to trivialize them, or to make fun of them, or to react with anger or aggressively to them – such behavior only evidences dogmatism. And as I have said before, the difference is not so much between people who hold a naturalistic worldview and people who hold a theistic worldview, but between people who think freely and those who don't. Naturalists used to be characterized by free and critical thought, but I think that's increasingly not the case anymore, and as far as I am concerned Dawkins's TGD is a push in the wrong direction. To ridicule the study of serious books on theology as Dawkins does is really obscurantist and displays the worse kind of dogmatism; in my eyes it's analogous to a religious fundamentalist ridiculing the study serious books on natural evolution. I mean the very least a freethinker would advice people is to go study whatever they like and particularly books that disagree with them.
390. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76961 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 8, 2007 at 12:49 am
Dr Benway (psot 468, or #76820):
Yes, that's exactly naturalism's worldview: that deep down everything, including personal intent, reduces to mechanical laws. The theistic worldview is different, namely that deep down everything, including natural laws, reduces to personal intent (God's in the case of natural laws, mine in the case of the post you are reading right now.) So the question remains: which understanding works better? Please observe that the theistic understanding does not in any way or form deny the truth of the mechanical order that science discovers in phenomena; it only claims that this mechanical order is not the last step in the abstraction ladder.Or, as I like to put it: "Is the world fundamentally driven by mechanical laws or by personal intent?" – DianelosPersonal intent is part of this natural world. The entire ladder of abstraction is true all at once, top to bottom: quarks to atoms to chemistry to biology to psychology to politics to ... – Dr Benway
This may seem an odd thing to say here at RD.net, but I find your frequent reference to Dawkins strange.Well, in this particular thread we are supposed to be discussing Dawkins's TGD, and I am making some feeble attempts to keep my posts within this thread's subject matter.
On the other hand, you also seem to lack self-confidence and will revert to an argument from authority, or will reference some authority's viewpoint.Well, it's fallacious to argue from authority, i.e. to argue that X is true just because authority Y believes X is true. On the other hand what authoritative people believe is objective evidence which cannot just be waved away, and it's a fact that both experts in philosophy and experts in science (and by "expert" I mean people of Dawkins's intellectual standing at least) have trashed TGD.
Science is like the systematic exploration of an unfamiliar, unlit basement. The supernatural is snorgel.The former is a good analogy, and the latter a good description of how you understand religion. But what I tried to explain here is that there is much more to the human condition than just the observation of physical phenomena that science so successfully studies. Religion is the study of all of it, of the whole of the human condition. So religion embraces science as the best way to understand the physical phenomena we observe, but embraces intuition, philosophy, and even revelation and tradition as potential means to illuminate the whole of our condition.
Incidentally, have you heard the Dawkins – Lennox debate? I haven't heart the whole of it yet, and I don't really like Lennox's speaking style, but it seems to me that what he says is not that different from my position. And I notice that in the first part there comes a point where Dawkins recognizes that the profound question is "supernaturalism [read 'theism'] versus naturalism" (see:
http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1707,Debate-between-Richard-Dawkins-and-John-Lennox,Richard-Dawkins-John-Lennox,page1#comments
and search at about 39' 30'' in the first part).
391. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76957 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 8, 2007 at 12:21 am
Geraint (post 467, or #76816):
It seems to me you're creating a problem where none exists. The particles are always constrained to agree with respect to polarization measurements made in the same direction. You know that before either experimenter makes a measurement at all.Right, there is no problem with the phenomena we observe. Indeed we agree about all phenomena, there is only one phenomenal reality we study. So, as you say, photons will always agree with respect to polarization measurement in the same direction, or, more generally will always agree with probability cos^2(alpha) where alpha is the difference between the angles of the polarization filters. That's all given. – The question is: What kind of objective reality can produce these phenomena? And my argument is that no physical reality can produce them, because the only model of how a physical reality could produce them (namely the non-local model of physical reality under any of its guises) becomes incoherent under relativistic effects.
Talking about naturalistic logic implying that 'two particles objectively exist out there' makes it sound like you're still thinking of little bullets trundling along happily, until one gets measured and tells the other how to configure itself. It just doesn't work like that, and only our middle-world experience leads us to think that it should. There is an entangled two-particle quantum state.I understand what you mean, but then again it's not like the only thing that exists is a two-particle entangled state. Many other attributes (e.g. position) of the quantum states of these two particles are independent. I mean you agree that there are objectively two particles out there (even though they share part of their quantum state), correct?
In any case, can you describe a model of a physical objective reality that accounts for Bell's test results and which remains coherent for observers in different frames of reference? Feel free not to limit yourself by our middle-world intuitions :-)
392. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76952 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 8, 2007 at 12:03 am
Steve99 (post 465, or #76806):
[Organized complexity] has been defined for you again and again and again and again.Maybe that's how you feel, but it seems to me you have changed your definition several times. And you still do not answer the counterexample I gave of the living body and rotting corpse, which falsifies all of them.
It was Dawkins' intent to counter Hoyle's scientific argument using exactly the same kind of scientific argument to get a reductio ad absurdum.Scientific arguments use numbers, Steve.
But maybe you will say that Dawkins did not use numbers in TGD as to not stress its readers reading comprehension capacity. You may point out that "The Selfish Gene" does not use any numbers worth mentioning either. But the Selfish Gene explains a well known scientific theory which is described mathematically in the relevant specialized books and journals. Not so the "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit". Indeed I don't see Dawkins sending his "scientific" argument for publication to any peer reviewed scientific journal. And, frankly, no well-known reviewer of TGD I know of thinks that Dawkins's argument is scientific like you do; they all attack it as a philosophical argument and indeed point out how naive Dawkins' philosophy is. I can't help but think you display too much faith in Dawkins here.
There is no problem with supernatural things doing supernatural stuff to each other in a supernatural world. The problem is when people claim that supernatural things do supernatural stuff to things in the natural world. That means that supernatural things must interact with the natural world. When they do that, there is then a natural aspect to them which is subject to science.We have discussed this already. A supernatural being could interact with our experience of life in a million different ways, but in such a manner that this interaction is invisible to science. For example God could interact with our subjective experience of life. But your point was about God interacting specifically with the natural order. Here too God could massively interact without science noticing. Even if harebrained "young Earth creationism" were true and God had created the universe about 6000 years ago and directly designed all modern species – science would not have noticed it. But maybe you mean God interacting with the natural order here and now. If so, that's possible too, for it's not like science can study every single thing that is happening right now. For example, as McGrath believes sometimes happens, God could in a way undetectable by science save a particular child from a catastrophe. Or God could massively interfere with quantum events, even quantum events under direct observation in a scientific experiment (God would only have to keep the interference bellow statistical relevance). But we've already discussed all that; it's remarkable how difficult it is for people to abandon fallacious thinking and insist on mantra-line repetition of old slogans (there is no evidence for God, if God interfered science would notice, our brain produces our consciousness, naturalism is the scientific worldview, naturalism is objective and based on solid evidence, and so on and so forth).
393. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76946 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 7, 2007 at 11:32 pm
USA_Limey (post 464, or #76801):
My point there was that the same kind of evidence can be interpreted differently depending on one's worldview. For example for a naturalist ancient mythological stories that correlate with Christianity, the "God gene", peoples' common sense of morality, in general our cognitive capacities, etc, appear to strengthen naturalism. But for a theist the same evidence appears to strengthen theism.
My point is this: If one is discussing with a person who holds a diametrically different worldview and one is trying to understand what the other person is saying it's always an error to take what the other person says and try to make sense of it within one's own worldview; one can only understand what the other person is saying within their worldview.
394. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76800 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 7, 2007 at 10:01 am
Geraint (post 458, or #76229):
Right, but I don't see how the change of wording affects my argument. Let's make away with the wording of "superluminal action" and use "shared quantum state" instead. That state does not exist before the first measurement is made, and the second measurement will always produce the same result as the first one. So epistemological coherence is violated again: The first observer will claim that measuring device A fixed the two particles' shared quantum state and that measuring device B only read that state anew, whereas the second observer will claim the opposite, namely that measuring device B fixed the two particles' shared quantum state and that measuring device A only read it anew. They can't be both right, and both base their claims on the same naturalistic logic (namely on the premise that the two particles objectively exist out there).Bell's test results appear to violate epistemological coherence and therefore to falsify all naturalistic ontologies (or at least all ontologies of scientific realism). The reason is that two observers in different frames of reference will observe different measurements first take place, and therefore will disagree about which measuring device superluminally affected the other. Which is analogous to two observers disagreeing about which tennis player first served the ball. – DianelosThe two measurements are measurements of one entangled (non-local) quantum state, not two states that superluminally communicate. – Geraint
395. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76798 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 7, 2007 at 9:47 am
Lauregon (post 459, or #76249):
Indeed. It very succinctly shows how TGD readers become absolutely convinced that the question is whether beside the natural world there is also a supernatural world (never mind a supernatural world one can naturalistically bump into :-) But this very question is question begging.Any "naturalist" who bumps into God will incorporate God into his map of reality. - Dr BenwaySuperly succinct. – Lauregon
In short, beyond Dawkins's naive understanding of religion, the question is not: "Is there something supernatural beyond the natural world?", but rather "Is the world natural or supernatural?" Or, as I like to put it: "Is the world fundamentally driven by mechanical laws or by personal intent?".
396. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76796 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 7, 2007 at 9:36 am
Steve99 (post 452, or #76073):
Well, God is by definition a supernatural being, and it seems to me a supernatural being is supposed to be able to do supernatural stuff, no? God is supposed do be "Magic Man" :-) I mean that's why we call such a being "supernatural". If a being were limited by naturalistic principles we wouldn't call it "supernatural", would we? So it seems to me that it's rather Dawkins who tries to re-define what "supernatural" means by kind of dragging God into a naturalistic kind of world (where capable beings must be complex, and so on and so forth – his argument is based on three or four question-begging naturalistic assumptions) and then arguing that such a being cannot exist. Of course it can't. By definition nothing supernatural can exist in a naturalistic world. The "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit" is really a complicated roundabout way of saying "Naturalism is true; therefore nothing super-naturalistic exists".After all a supernatural being may be both super-capable and also not complex. – DianelosNo, that is nonsense. That is simply trying to re-define the problem away with supernaturalism. It is a "Magic Man Done It" argument. – Steve99
397. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76793 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 7, 2007 at 9:33 am
Steve99 (post 451, or 76066):
The entropy if the complex organisation is lower than that of (say) the gold statue, because it does not matter where any of the gold atoms are in the statue (you can swap any atom with any other), but it certainly does matter where the atoms are in the complex organisation.I see you chose not to counter my last example (the living body and the corpse) that falsifies your last intent to define "organized complexity" as used in TGD. I also see that neither is any other poster suggesting a good definition for that concept. That's OK; as I said it's not easy to define the concept of "organized complexity" beyond what any reader understands, namely the intuitive and very vague "organized complexity characterizes a system that looks designed". But this is not how good science or good philosophy is done.
Incidentally Hoyle's scientific argument does not have this problem. Hoyle, under some explicit scientific assumptions (including the simplest model of, or rather some elements of simplest model of a biologically viable organism) computed that such a model would be extremely unlikely (read "impossibly") come about by chance. It was Dawkins's intent to counter Hoyle's scientific argument using confusing philosophy that is based on vague concepts.
398. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76065 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I am off for a trip for a few days and won't be posting. Cheers.
399. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76060 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Steve99 (post 447, or #76050):
Interesting. And I think this version of your definition probably goes close to Hoyle's analogy. But it still doesn't work. Here is why: Take two systems, a living human body and a human corpse in an advanced stage of decomposition. Reduce both systems into their constituent atoms. Then try to randomly reconstitute exactly the original two systems. You'll find that this task will be equally difficult, because even though the corpse is a mess it's as complex a mess atom per atom as the living body. But even though the corpse is as improbable as the living body, clearly it does not possess the living body's "organized complexity".
You see, your definition is missing the organized bit. You must find a good way to capture that characteristic. What's relevant in a complex organization is not the atom per atom structure, but rather the functional properties it has: that the atoms are structured together in a way that produces some kind of rare behavior. A necessary property of that behavior is surely to lower the system's internal entropy, but it's not sufficient.
400. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76059 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Steve99 (post 446, or #76045):
Maybe I didn't explain myself well. From positing that God is super capable (i.e. intelligent and powerful enough to create the universe) how do you justify that God must therefore be super complex without projecting physical knowledge into the supernatural realm? After all a supernatural being may be both super-capable and also not complex. And even if for discussion's sake we assume that God is super complex, how do you justify that God is therefore super improbable without, again, projecting physical knowledge into the supernatural realm? As I argued previously, the fact that physical beings must be complex (have a complex brain and do on) in order to be capable (intelligent and powerful and so on) does not imply that a supernatural being must be even more complex in order o be even more capable. But even if it were true that God is super complex, the fact that complex physical beings are improbable does not imply that a complex supernatural being must be improbable too. (God is not composed of atoms that have improbably coalesced to a powerful being you know. :-) But even if it were true that God is super improbable it does not mean God does not exist, because we too are very improbable yet we exist. Ah, you say, that's because we evolved from a simpler previous state. But then, who knows, God might have evolved from a simpler previous state too. (I know that's not what official Christianity teaches, but Dawkins's argument is supposed to work against all supernatural designers of the universe.)
Anyway you cut it Steve, Dawkins's argument is completely without merit. No wonder well-known reviewers such as Orr, Nagel, and Plantinga have trashed it.
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