SDG here (not Jimmy) with more on materialism and the moral argument (continued from Part 1).
Suppose you see me bullying a weaker party, and you confront me, saying: "Stop that, you louse!"
"Louse?" I reply. "Louse? A small, wingless insect of the order Anoplura? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, friend. No no, I’m familiar with the slang usage, of course, but you’re quite mistaken, I assure you. I don’t feel lousy at all! Never better. You may be thinking of the sorry specimen here at the receiving end of my bullying, who has surely had better days."
And, indeed, if by "like a louse" you were only describing how you would feel if you bullied the weak, then your calling me a louse would seem to be a case of sheer projection, as much as my saying "Stop making yourself nauseous, you fool!" when in fact you love haggis (or whatever).
On the other hand, if at this point you continue to maintain that, whatever my emotional state, there is some meaningful sense in which I am a louse, or that in some sense my lousiness is not contingent upon my own feelings or yours, then we will have to seek further for what exactly it is that we mean by "lousiness" beyond one or another person’s bio-electrical-chemical responses.
You might make a stab at reasoning with me: "But look here," you say, "of course you wouldn’t want to be bullied yourself, would you? Why should you treat someone else in a way that you yourself wouldn’t want to be treated?"
But I reply, "Why, obviously, being bullied makes me feel bad, but bullying others makes me feel good. You aren’t making any sense at all. Surely you aren’t suggesting some sort of quantifiable correlation between bullying or not bullying others and a higher or lower incidence of being bullied or not bullied oneself? I know people say things like ‘What goes around comes around,’ but don’t let’s kid ourselves. What correlates with being bullied is weakness; what correlates with not being bullied is strength. I, fortunate that I am, happen to rank in the upper percentiles of the strong — not strong enough to escape all bullying, perhaps, but strong enough to be the bully more often than not. So. There you have it."
If I were in a tolerant mood, I might even be willing, for the sake of discussion, to allow that if it were possible somehow to make a deal with the universe such that abstention from bullying would entitle one to exemption from being bullied, under those terms I might possibly (reluctantly) be willing to forgo the pleasures of bullying others in order to secure for myself a lifetime of freedom from being bullied. No such terms being possible, though, that would seem to be the end of that discussion.
Where can we go from here?
I should perhaps point out that nothing I have thus far said tends toward some sort of live-and-let-live moral relativism in which bullies should be allowed to bully and we should not stop them, because different strokes for different folks. Different strokes for different folks perhaps, but that would seem to include the preferences of those who like to stop bullies as well as those who like to bully.
So far, for all I can tell, it would seem that all impulses and desires are in principle equally actionable, in proportion to their strength and in inverse relationship to any counter-impulses or countervailing considerations; and so if we like stopping bullies, bully for us.
We are even, it seems to me, free to hate and despise bullies if we wish (or to forgive them, whichever floats our boat). Let’s not have any nonsense about loving the sinner and hating the sin (I mean, unless that’s your thing). We can even choose to label them (or their actions) "evil" from our point of view, just as I may call haggis "disgusting" because that’s how I feel about it, irrespective of how you feel.
Having said that, it seems to me helpful to have a vocabulary to describe areas such as long division and history and quantum physics in which different people’s answers can be weighed against one another and some found wanting in relation to others, not according to the personal preferences of the judges, but by some more meaningful standard that applies to everyone and everything being judged.
"True or false" might be a start, helpfully supplemented by subtler terms like "more nearly true" and "more clearly false," "better or worse," "more accurate," or "more adequate," or less, etc. Thus, your quotient is right; hers is wrong; how any of us happens to feel about it is irrelevant. Some estimates of the death toll of the Holocaust are better than others, and some are wholly inadequate and even reprehensible. The advocates of various proposals may (or may not) be equally sincere, but the question is not about that.
I hasten to add that dealing with facts doesn’t mean that we can necessarily say with certitude, or even at all, what all the facts are, or that there is no room for honest disagreement and different points of view. What exactly happened to Jimmy Hoffa? Is string theory "not even wrong," as Peter Woit has argued? Those may be questions we aren’t prepared to answer definitively here and now. The point is, whatever the answers are, they don’t hinge on your feelings or mine.
Back to lousiness. Is there anything to be said for "Stop that, you louse!" as anything other than a sheer projection of one person’s bio-electrical-chemical aversion-responses on another?
You might take a stab at it by appealing to something like the good of the social order. What’s wrong with bullying, you may say, is not that it offends your feelings, but that it harms another person and thus the greater good. That is why society labels me a louse if I bully, not just because of the feelings of any one person.
Now, as a matter of fact the defense of bullying semi-facetiously advanced above isn’t especially the kind of thing that an actual bully in a real-world situation would be likely to say, at least as phrased. Here, however, is something that is very much the sort of thing that bullies, when confronted, often say in their own defense:
"We were only playing."
Bracket for a moment the level of transparent dishonesty of this defense, all but confessed in the very sheepishness or glibness of the tone. Even the bully doesn’t really believe he will get away with suggesting that we are all friends here enjoying ourselves in a mutually agreeable and pleasant fashion.
Put that aside just a moment, and consider whether there isn’t actually at least a partial but significant level of truth in the bully’s defense.
Let me preface these comments with a borrowed line from The Problem of Pain: Let no one say of me "He jests at scars who never felt a wound." I am the last person in the world to make light of bullying. In childhood I was not only consistently the bullied rather than the bully, I was at the very bottom of the bullying hierarchy, the bullied of the bullied, and for years the oppression I faced was regular and merciless. The morning walk to school in those years was for me full of dread over the coming confrontations, praying, praying to be spared that day.
For all that, I was never badly hurt, and seldom hurt at all. I know some victims of bullying are, but I think my experience is far more typical. The bullies were out to aggrandize their own egos at my expense, but not to do me any real harm. There was real malice in it, but the goal was to enjoy my fear and their sense of power. The claim that they were "only playing," while odious, is actually more nearly true than it might initially seem.
What’s more, as intense as my fear was, I can’t see that it has inflicted any lasting harm on any measurable level. Having been bullied seems not to have affected my long-term prospects for happiness and success.
For some years in school, I may have been among the least happy in my class; today, well, I just might be the happiest person I know. I’m well-educated, I have a good job and rewarding occupations, I’m blissfully married to a domestic and maternal goddess, and — perhaps most importantly from a materialist–naturalist perspective — we have five beautiful and intelligent children who have excellent prospects of success in life as productive members of society.
By nearly any Darwinian measure, I think it’s safe to say I’ve been rather successful. My experience of bullying was intensely unpleasant while it lasted, but I can’t see that society’s interests or even my long-term good were ever particularly at stake.
That’s not to say I don’t think bullying a great evil. I do. I just don’t think it’s rooted in whatever measurable phenomena, if any, may be adduced under any such rubric as "the greater good of society." I think the evil of bullying is rooted in the dignity of the human person, which as I conceive it is bound up in a whole trans-materialistic understanding of human nature and the meaning of life and so on.
That is to say, I regard the dignity of the human person as the sort of subject that transcends individual feelings or preferences, much like long division and the exact circumstances of Jimmy Hoffa’s death. Different people may have different interpretations of the evidence; some understandings will be closer to the truth, and some are further, even if no human authority can definitively settle which answers are the closest. But we are talking about something real, not about personal feelings yours or mine.
Continued in Part 3
Oooh, goodie, can I say it first? Great post, Jimmy!
This is well presented so far, SDG. In my experience, the ultimate move tht materialists will make in the face of the sort of argument you’re developing is to bite the bullet and say, in essence, “Fine. If it turns out that the basic moral intuitions we start with turn out to be illusions and all we’re ultimately left with is subjective preference, then we’ll just have to accept that. What you can’t do is use this sort of argument to prove the existence of a God, because the structure of such an argument would be that if God does not exist then the moral situation would be intolerably bad. But that’s a fallacious structure. We have to follow the evidence, and if it turns out that there is no God, and if it turns out that in the absence of a God we have no objective ground for our moral notions, then I guess we have no objective ground for our moral notions.” I actually think this is a fair response by the materialist. I believe there are, in fact, good reasons for theism (and Christian theism, in particular), but I’m not sure it’s fair to argue for theism based upon the need to ground morality.
But again, I like the way you’re developing this, and I look forward to reading the rest.
Regards,
CThomas
Societal rules are a very interesting topic, and I’ve thought about it in the past.
Value judgements are a necessity of life that cannot be escaped. The criteria determining the result of value judgements vary for each person: to some it is religious belief, to others it may be utilitarianism or another arbitrary ideal, to the bully it is personal pleasure.
Part 1 of SDG’s post, and the thread that followed, was involved with the sources of these criteria. But as far as enforcing is concerned, personal preferences follow the same rule as moral beliefs, or any other kind of belief: they are exactly as strong as the power of the people holding them.
Thus, when the bully claims “I can do this, I like to do this, then why should I stop?” I cannot give him a reason why he should stop… in a vacuum.
*But* I can warn him that I don’t like the fact that he’s bullying a child – more importantly, the majority of the society doesn’t like that. And the majority of society is able to force him to stop – with violence, if necessary.
Most people would want a society’s collective rules of behaviour, what we call “law”, to be dictated by some abstract principles (liberty, right-to-the-pursuit-of-happiness, etc.). But this would require that the majority of people (measured not according to sheer numbers, but to the power they wield)
1) be rational
2) put rationality at the top of their priorities
This clearly isn’t the case. Most crimes, like theft or murder, are heavily persecuted, because they are only really liked by a small minority – the people who can commit them and profit from them.
Many of us would, for example, find it difficult to kill a person, even if it were to our advantage – we would feel terrible for a long period of time. This is probably caused by our education, which “hardwired” us to try not to harm other people if possible; there are also claims of a genetic contribution to this effect.
The cause, however, is irrelevant (stuff for Part 1); we are interested in the effect, and the effect is that most people never like anything in a murder – thus, they forbid this particular form of aggression.
By comparison, look at media pirating. Here, we have a large number of people who profit from the crime, and a minority who can suffer from the crime. In courts and parliaments, the minority has much more power and can push through punishing legislation; but they have much less power in everyday life. Thus, there is little or no societal pressure to punish pirating; you can tell everyone you know that you download pirated movies and it will be a while before you hit a person with such strong convictions that he’ll report you.
Another example is slavery, or most forms of racism; here, while the people who liked the existence of slavery were a minority, they hold the majority of the power. In the American case, this balance held until the Civil War, when the power of the part of society which didn’t want slavery (for whatever reason – economical, humanitarian, doesn’t matter) physically overcame the power of the one which wanted it.
Going beyond the boundary of adult people, we see that animals and unborn children can generally be killed with impunity, as they hold practically zero power to object, and most people who do have power don’t really care enough, since those attacks can’t hurt them, and they are only disturbed by the most gruesome cases (e.g. animal torture, late-term abortion).
The most blatant of all such examples is probably international politics – a near-absolute lack (“near” is for the UN) of any arbiter to conflicts, with the most powerful players directly enforcing their own preferences. The Law of the Jungle, if you want.
My point? There can be a working society that is not based on a shared moral system – in fact, we’re living in one.
I have noticed quite a few syntax mistakes and badly-constructed sentences in the above post; I apologize for that. I should have posted while less tired.
Nihil, my response to you would be in the comments section of the first SDG post on this topic. It’s the first (and so far only) one from me.
If you are interested.
Actually, if you thing along the lines of social darwinism, “bullying” serves an integral purpose.
The weak gets beaten to submission or else extinguished altogether while the strong prevails; thus, ensuring that only the strong of humanity is perpetuated into existence while those weak in society are eliminated for the greater good of humanity for its well-being and evolutionary development.
This is a sad thought, but one that many subscribe to since it is only by the strong (i.e., the ‘well-fit’ — be it intelligence, strength, etc.) that humanity as a race can evolve to even greater levels.
Corrigendum:
Actually, if you think along the lines of social darwinism, “bullying” serves an integral purpose.
*But* I can warn him that I don’t like the fact that he’s bullying a child – more importantly, the majority of the society doesn’t like that. And the majority of society is able to force him to stop – with violence, if necessary.
Having been bullied in school, I can assure you that the majority of society either doesn’t know or doesn’t care or finds it easier to blame the bullied. (Ever been punished for having been physically attacked by your classmates? It’s not fun.)
Warn away. But telling people things in obvious contradiction of obvious facts is not a good way to get them to listen.
In the previous thread, I tried to argue:
1) *If* the materialist worldview meant that life were meaningless (which I don’t think it does!), that still wouldn’t mean that the materialist worldview was wrong because the evolutionary explanation can still explain why we would mistakenly think it was meaningful.
Because of point 1), the moral argument is not an argument for God’s existence per se, but rather an argument for:
2) If God does not exist, the meaning we attribute to our lives is an illusion.
Let me now try to engage more directly with this second argument. Let’s imagine along the lines of SDG’s example above that there were a being with no conscience at all. Neurosurgeons removed the part of his brain that causes him to feel any qualms about causing harm to others. Further, he’s interacting with people he’ll never see again, so he has no prudential reason to respect them. Is he wrong to rape and murder them if God doesn’t exist?
One form of this question is: does he have any reason from a first-person perspective not to rape and murder them? I think he still has some reasons: for instance, he presumably has a higher-order desire that his own life have a certain degree of unity. He has goals and reasons for pursuing those goals and he wants to regard those reasons as good reasons and not as arbitrary. In order to so, he would have to recognize that these reasons are objective in the sense that they don’t depend on the particular pronoun involved in their statement. If he wishes to act on objective reasons in this sense, and if he would want others to be responsive to his desire not to be murdered, then he should likewise be responsive to their desires (for a much more detailed argument along these lines, see Thomas Nagel’s The Possibility of Altruism).
Of course, he might even reject this reason. He might be perfectly comfortable being a “wanton” and simply doing whatever he feels like doing at the spur of the moment. I would agree that if such a creature existed, he would have no first-person reason to act morally and he would never be punished for the horrible things he did (there would in fact be no sense in which they were horrible from his perspective). But I would make two qualifications: 1) I’m not even sure that such a creature would qualify as being conscious – I think there may be a close connection between consciousness and a reliance on objective reasons, but I won’t argue the point in this post. 2) This is not an accurate description of any living being – even psychopaths want to act on objective reasons.
I apologize that I can’t reply to all of the challenges that have been raised thus far – so please feel free to repeat them and I’ll try to reply later.
Just one more point: I don’t follow the argument that if materialism is true, we are “merely a bunch of particles hurtling through the universe.” This description is factually accurate, but why the “merely”? A Van Gogh painting is merely a bunch of liquifiable substances hurled onto a canvas, but that doesn’t mean that the whole doesn’t have properties not possessed by the individual parts. Similarly, consciousness and morality are emergent properties – an individual neuron is not conscious or moral, but these are words that describe properties of the immensely complex interactions between these component parts.
Is he wrong to rape and murder them if God doesn’t exist?
Why would you even entertain such a thought if God didn’t exist in the first place?
I feel perhaps my example strays too far from the example of the bully. What I would say to him is, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” He might be unresponsive to this, and if so he’s being unresponsive to a moral reason whose force he ultimately has reason to recognize because of his desire to act on objective reasons (in fact, his unresponsiveness in practice would likely be due to the fact that he failed to fully internalize the impact he was having on the other person).
But the point is: he has internal reasons to be responsive to this, and we as third person observers certainly have every reason to chide him for his unresponsiveness.
Mary raised an interesting question in the first thread on this topic. She asks:
I’d first reply that I basically agree with this sentiment – I don’t think it’s really coherent to talk about a meaningless universe since meaning seems to be a property we attribute to certain inclinations we have. On the other hand, it’s perfectly coherent to talk about a universe without God which I think is telling for the argument that Godlessness implies meaninglessness…
Before I elaborate more on this point though, what exactly does it mean to say we “crave meaning”? What is it that we crave? Do we crave that others will ultimately be punished if they are immoral? (in that case I would say, we might hope that but it’s not the case). Do we crave that the world is not an illusion and that we’re not living in the matrix? What would a meaningless world look and feel like?
One more quick response and then back to graduate school.
I’m not sure I understand the question. If you’re asking, “Why would I have a category called morality if God didn’t exist?” this is simply asking for a naturalistic account of our moral emotions, which evolution provides (or at least, can provide – the science is still at an early stage). If you’re asking why anyone would entertain the possibility that God was necessary for morality if God didn’t exist, it’s for the same reason that the Greeks thought Poseidon was necessary to explain why there were floods and sea-storms. They just didn’t realize there was a better explanation.
Jason,
It is quite evident by your response that you did not grasp the meaning of my inquiry.
That is, what would account for the moral content of the human condition?
It is quite evident that a system of morality is futile and even meaningless in an evolutionary organism if his purpose is merely to survive.
Survival requires instincts and evolutionary designs that would enable one to advance beyond their current design as well as their fellow species.
Morality would be an illogical component of such a design and, in fact, would be a hindrance given the drive for survival.
It is quite evident that a system of morality is futile and even meaningless in an evolutionary organism if his purpose is merely to survive.
…
Morality would be an illogical component of such a design and, in fact, would be a hindrance given the drive for survival.
If natural selection selects for the good of a species as an aggregate group, then morality makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
If it is to human beings’ benefit as a group to develop and maintain a social network (I think it’s obvious that is beneficial to our survival that we operate socially, just as it is beneficial to the survival of gazelles that they operate in herds), then perhaps the key evolutionary development was a desire in each of us to be accepted by the group.
When I inspect my inner self, much of the time that I feel guilty about something, I’m quite worried about what others would think if they knew I had done what I did.
So, if we are taught at a young age that murder is heinous, most people will avoid murder to avoid being ostracized. If our society accepts a practice such as torturing prisoners to death for sport (think Gladiator), most will feel no guilt about the matter despite it’s contradiction to what many here would call the Natural Law.
He might be unresponsive to this, and if so he’s being unresponsive to a moral reason whose force he ultimately has reason to recognize because of his desire to act on objective reasons (in fact, his unresponsiveness in practice would likely be due to the fact that he failed to fully internalize the impact he was having on the other person).
What desire to act on objective reasons?
And what if the desire is trumped by his desire to bully?
Given conflicting desires, one has to win. I like Chinese take-out, I like free time, but I like to earn more than I spend even more and so I cook my own meals. If you say a desire should win, you are introducing moral considerations, and if you say it’s the strongest — well, that’s obviously often false. Otherwise we wouldn’t have any bullying.
If natural selection selects for the good of a species as an aggregate group, then morality makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
Smoky Mt,
If you were to observe humanity from afar as well as historically, it would seem that those who genuinely abide by a strict set of morals more often than not suffer the consequences in comparison to their opposites.
Think of how bad things often happen to good people as a consequence of being the ‘good guy’ and the ‘good gal’.
Of course, those who are and do good would merely count such consequences as the ‘costs’ for doing good; nevertheless, it does not negate the fact that they become heavily disadvantaged.
Let’s take, for example, doing taxes.
There are those good folks who do indeed strictly abide by a sense of morals and, thus, suffer the consequences of a heavy tax burden.
However, those who don’t and craftily (while legally) manipulate their taxes often end up as their reward with such things as a bountiful tax return.
There are many more examples, no doubt, how the ‘good guy’ or ‘good gal’ often loses in the end.
Thus, as an evolutionary design for survival to advance ahead of the species, it would seem morals would be contradictory to such a purpose.
Morality would be an illogical component of such a design and, in fact, would be a hindrance given the drive for survival.
If natural selection selects for the good of a species as an aggregate group, then morality makes sense from an evolutionary perspective.
Evolution does not select for the good of a species as an aggregate group. It selects for genes.
Esau,
Evolution of morality as a part of survival is explainable, if one is willing to make leaps of faith about the evolution of consciousness/conscience, and make leaps of faith about our ability to recognize the passage of time.
Aesop wrote some great fables about planning now for what could happen in the future, and such foresight is needed to accept evolution of morality. First, we had to evolve self-awareness, then the passage of time, then recognition of cause and effect. Once all of those are in place, it becomes logical that we could “evolve” (figure out) the idea that a cooperative society is beneficial to survival. “Morality” then becomes a matter of “being in line with the accepted behavior within a cooperative society”, decided by the society as a whole (however the rules of society are determined), and it “evolves” out of a need to cooperate as a group.
At least, that’s how it could be explained.
One would then have to explain the evolutionary benefit of each step along the way, and how it could have evolved. Why self-awareness? Why a sense of time, or cause and effect? And not just why? but how?
Esau,
Thanks for your thoughts. My point, though, was that it’s conceivable that the morality is explained in the following manner:
1.) It is beneficial to human beings as a group that we operate socially.
2.) The key evolutionary development that permits this social operation is a desire in each (most) of us to be accepted by the group (our local “society”).
3.) We are taught at a young age what is “right” and “wrong”, from the local group’s perspective.
4.) Our sense of morality, therefore, is tied to what we learn is acceptable and unacceptable to our group. This obviously has changed throughout history.
I don’t think your examples about individuals faring worse due to morals contradicts my hypothesis … perhaps most people don’t cheat on their taxes because the urge to be accepted by the group (one could be ostracized if it became public knowledge that they cheated on their taxes) outweighs the urge for personal advancement.
Evolution does not select for the good of a species as an aggregate group. It selects for genes.
Mary,
I said “natural selection”. Nevertheless, I think natural selection can certainly operate on groups. If a individual organism evolves a “social” gene that creates a desire to operate as a group, and that individual’s offspring therefore begin operating as a social group, it’s possible that those offspring (and their descendants) will survive whereas other organisms of the same species without the “social” gene will die off.
That’s what I was getting at.
Matthew Siekierski,
I think you and I are thinking along the same lines.
Apparently there’s a term for something like what I’m describing, Group Selection. Naturally, since it’s a wikipedia article it may be full of hogwash. And, the article mentions that this topic is controversial among scientists. Still, it’s apparently something that has been studied.
Just one more point: I don’t follow the argument that if materialism is true, we are “merely a bunch of particles hurtling through the universe.” This description is factually accurate, but why the “merely”? A Van Gogh painting is merely a bunch of liquifiable substances hurled onto a canvas, but that doesn’t mean that the whole doesn’t have properties not possessed by the individual parts. Similarly, consciousness and morality are emergent properties – an individual neuron is not conscious or moral, but these are words that describe properties of the immensely complex interactions between these component parts.
The Van Gogh painting did not emerge from the colliding and interaction of liquifiable substances that just so happened to take place on a canvas. Rather, it came from the hand and mind of Van Gogh himself. But materialists seem to be saying a similar thing: that atoms and electrons interacted over time in such a way as to create individual neurons which came together over time in human beings to create things such as consciousness and morality and reason; that lower simple things became higher complex things without any intervention by some other entity. I think that is just about as likely as a painting creating a painter.
Matthew Siekierski,
That was very well-put!
I don’t deny that perhaps the cooperative effect of morals may extend to the survival of a species as a whole; however, there is still the question of the concept of right vs. wrong and how that, in itself, could actually have been brought about in our evolutionary development given that, for the most part, those who hold to such a notion are often at a disadvantage where survival of the individual is concerned.
For example, let’s dwell on the giraffe and how it has been submitted by some that perhaps those with long necks survived vs. those with normal-sized necks as, over time, when food became scarce; it was those who had the longer necks that were able to withstand famine as food was found at higher places.
However, this would seem the opposite where morals are concerned.
Time and again, we can find various examples throughout history where those who practiced morality in the strictest sense often were at a disadvantage.
Therefore, it would seem, in a sense, (for lack of a better term) an anti-evolutionary feature as it has been demonstrated to be a source of disadvantage where the survival is concerned as those who don’t practice or hold to such often advance further ahead of such persons and, in fact, accomplish more without needing to pay heed to any sense of morality where their various actions are concerned.
Think of science and the notion how morals are said to be what hinders the advancement of humanity in that regard since it is our seemingly fabricated sense of morals (in the view of some) that keeps us from exploring new ideas and furthering our advancement both in knowledge and practice.
Matthew Siekierski,
That was very well-put!
I don’t deny that perhaps the cooperative effect of morals may extend to the survival of a species as a whole; however, there is still the question of the concept of right vs. wrong and how that, in itself, could actually have been brought about in our evolutionary development given that, for the most part, those who hold to such a notion are often at a disadvantage where survival of the individual is concerned.
For example, let’s dwell on the giraffe and how it has been submitted by some that perhaps those with long necks survived vs. those with normal-sized necks as, over time, when food became scarce; it was those who had the longer necks that were able to withstand famine as food was found at higher places.
However, this would seem the opposite where morals are concerned.
Time and again, we can find various examples throughout history where those who practiced morality in the strictest sense often were at a disadvantage.
Therefore, it would seem, in a sense, (for lack of a better term) an anti-evolutionary feature as it has been demonstrated to be a source of disadvantage where the survival is concerned as those who don’t practice or hold to such often advance further ahead of such persons and, in fact, accomplish more without needing to pay heed to any sense of morality where their various actions are concerned.
Think of science and the notion how morals are said to be what hinders the advancement of humanity in that regard since it is our seemingly fabricated sense of morals (in the view of some) that keeps us from exploring new ideas and furthering our advancement both in knowledge and practice.
Esau,
Thanks for your thoughts. Some comments:
Time and again, we can find various examples throughout history where those who practiced morality in the strictest sense often were at a disadvantage.
Recorded history (yes, I know you didn’t say “recorded”, but we can’t know too much about what hasn’t been recorded) is probably an inconsequential amount of time as far as evolution is concerned. Most of human history occurred in pre-civilized times, and I would posit that most of our evolution therefore would be based upon the struggle for survival therein.
Nevertheless, you remark that people who practice morality are often at a disadvantage — but, the only “advantage” / “disadvantage” that would seem to matter from an evolutionary standpoint would be the capacity to procreate. Within recorded history, do you have any evidence that those who practiced a moral life had fewer offspring?
Possibly the opposite — I imagine that those who practiced an immoral life (according to the definition of that society) were often enough imprisoned or executed in previous societies, preventing their ability to procreate. Of course I don’t have any hard evidence of this — this is just a thought experiment — I’d be very interested to see evidence one way or the other.
I could imagine a similar circumstance in pre-civilized times — the caveman who kills his brother is ostracized from the group, reducing his ability to procreate.
Keep in mind that I’m positing a relativistic view of morality in relation to its evolution–so that what was “moral” in 100 AD Rome is not necessarily “moral” in 2007 AD America. My assertion so far is that “morality” results from a desire to not be ostracized from the group. Still, for the group to survive, what was “moral” probably ought to be good for the survival of the group.
I don’t necessarily subscribe to the view that I’m positing.
Esau, if I now understand your question correctly, both you and Mary are questioning how any kind of moral system could evolve through a process of natural selection.
To start, this is a difficult question about which volumes of technical work have been published. I’ll just sketch a very cursory response: Hamilton’s work on kin selection explains altruism towards close relatives – any gene does best to promote behavior that helps any of it replicas be they in the same organism or in other organisms. Axelrod’s work on the evolution of cooperation helps explain how reciprocal relationships might develop between unrelated groups. The key idea here is that “tit-for-tat” is an evolutionarily stable strategy. Now, implicit in this analysis is the idea that if one “cheats”, one might be caught. So one might raise the following further question: why do we think that it’s bad to cheat even if we won’t get caught? The kind of answer one might give here is: such an inclination means we have to waste less energy making difficult discretionary judgments in every instance. It may be that this kind of cheating would only create benefits in isolated circumstances (remember, we’re talking about the environment of evolutionary adaptation – not the modern world!) – if this is so, it might be better for an organism to adopt a strict rule “never cheat” than to have to expend the cognitive energy to decide whether to cheat in any particular case. The same kind of reason might explain altruism in cases that promise no benefit towards the organism. Especially when the costs to oneself are not great, it might be better to adopt a general rule than to try to discriminate on a case by case basis.
This is not my field of expertise – but I would only point out, unless you’re an evolutionary biologist, it’s not your field of expertise either. And the overwhelming opinion of the experts in the field is that these kinds of behavior ultimately have evolutionary explanations (although of course, social and cultural factors shape the evolutionary substrate into the observed norms).
Jason,
Nice attempt — however, I still find it wanting.
For example, in what other animal is there any evidence for the evolutionary need or even benefit of the notion of religion?
Even if one were to espouse the idea of some notion of ‘the path of least resistance’ or even deduce some kinetic/thermodynamic posit concerning an argument of ‘least energy’; there is no rational reason why the evolutionary development of man would warrant the development of the notion of morality and, further, religion itself.
You don’t see animals worshipping gods and, yet, we do.
Most evolutionary developments center around features of efficiency (the efficient neural network of an intelligent being — hence, no neural misfires) and greater adaptive capabilities for furthering the chance for survival.
I do not see the concept of morality — much less religion — as natural products of our evolution since they tend to contradict its purpose — at least, in my opinion.
Mary – if I understand your point correctly, you are asking on what basis I can say that the bully is wrong if he is unresponsive to “how would you like it if I did that to you?” The answer I would give is that he’s being inconsistent in a very deep sense. He has particular conceptions of himself and the world that are implicit in most of his actions, and in this instance, he is failing to live up to those conceptions.
When I say the bully “should” stop bullying I’m pointing out this deep inconsistency. This view is contingent in the sense that it hinges on the bully possessing these self-conceptions, but as I suggested in the above post, these conceptions are universally present among human beings. I’d be willing to bet that in this bully’s daily interactions, he is constantly making claims on others that are premised on the objectivity of reasons.
You might further say, “So what, why is hypocrisy bad?” A first point is that one could always make this claim about *any* proposed account of morality – “So what, why is what God thinks is good really good?” A second response is that the kind of hypocrisy I am talking about essentially undermines one’s ability to give live a meaningful life because an important part of living such a life is identifying things that are valuable in the sense that they are a source of objective reasons.
Moral philosophy is a big subject, so I’m not going to lay out a full account here of why we value particular things rather than other things.
I have a question that might help focus things: what does a Christian morality add to the picture? What feature of morality is missing in my explanation that is present in a Christian account that is premised on God’s existence?
Sorry for being off-topic: Smoky Mt, are you the same “Smoky Mt” who used to post on the message board of a certain Christian progressive rock musician/songwriter, earlier this year? Based on the content of your posts, I’m guessing that the answer is no, but I just thought I would ask. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then it’s safe to say that you’re not the same person I’m thinking of.)
Matthew brings up an important port here. Cognition is very complicated. I hinted at this above when I suggested that explaining the norms we actually observe in practice requires explaining how social and cultural factors act on the biological substrate provided by evolution.
To give a full account of how consciousness evolved, we would indeed need to give some account of self-awareness, of our perception of cause and effect and of our perception of time. Our current understanding of the brain is just beginning to scratch the surface of these questions.
The question before us now is not, “Has science provided a fully satisfactory explanation of consciousness?” No one believes that it has. The question is, “Can science ever provide such an explanation?” I see no reason to believe it cannot and plenty of reason to think that it can. Matthew (and others) – why do you believe it cannot?
Think of science and the notion how morals are said to be what hinders the advancement of humanity in that regard since it is our seemingly fabricated sense of morals (in the view of some) that keeps us from exploring new ideas and furthering our advancement both in knowledge and practice.
If you don’t mind my uneducated speculation, I can imagine how morals might arise out of a selfish desire for survival. (I believe in absolute morals, but its fun to speculate)
Take two neighbors who hunt for food in a situation where food is scarce. There’s enough food for them to make it through the season without dying but they each might have days at a time where they don’t eat. One day one of them might catch more than enough food to eat while his neighbor comes home with nothing. They might realize that if they cooperate and share their food they’ll have a more consistent supply and won’t have as many uncomfortable spans when they don’t eat. At this point its mutually beneficial to both of them.
From there it’s easy to imagine a whole village which adopts this strategy. You could say that it has established a moral that its better to share food than to hoard it. This strategy would help the village as a whole to strive and grow in numbers. But unlike pure natural selection there is no food sharing gene for one generation to pass on to the next. Instead of genes, they have society – each generation teaches the next to share food.
I guess the leap comes when someone has more than enough food during the entire season of food scarcity even though others in the village don’t. Does he stop sharing? Or does he share anyway because he’s realized that it results in a greater chance for his children and children’s children to survive if they’re ever on the other end of the equation in the future?
Question is, how did the guy who shared food because it was good for his stomach turn into the guy who shared food because it was good for his children’s stomachs?
John E – I think you’re eliding together several issues here. My analogy was only intended to show that a whole object can have properties not possessed by its component parts – the beauty of a Van Gogh painting was an example of such a property (whether it was designed or came about naturally is irrelevant to the force of the example).
You seem to be raising a different issue altogether when you ask how “lower simple things became higher complex things without any intervention by some other entity.” You deny that this is possible – I think the entire history of science is evidence against you. Everything we know about science is an attempt to explain precisely this. How it is that complexity emerged from simple rules and basic building blocks? For a start, you might want to try physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and economics.
Perhaps you had in mind a different question – why is it that the rules of the universe are such that they produced complexity rather than “fizzling out”? If this is what you mean, we could have a long discussion about it which perhaps could best be summarized by, “Physicists are working on it. They’ll get back to you some time in the next 50 years with a sketch of a response.”
Take two neighbors who hunt for food in a situation where food is scarce. There’s enough food for them to make it through the season without dying but they each might have days at a time where they don’t eat. One day one of them might catch more than enough food to eat while his neighbor comes home with nothing. They might realize that if they cooperate and share their food they’ll have a more consistent supply and won’t have as many uncomfortable spans when they don’t eat. At this point its mutually beneficial to both of them.
Brian,
I believe this was Matthew Siekierski’s point.
Esau – the evolution of religion and the evolution of morality are two separate (though related) issues. I think to start one must recognize that religion is a social phenomena – so an evolutionary explanation won’t tell us exactly why Aquinas’ writings have the content they do – it will just tell us why people might be predisposed to believe in a god or gods. If you’re interested in this, I’d suggest the work by Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran (there are of course many others who work on this question – Dan Dennett’s book on the topic gives a nice overview). One kind of explanation for which there is some evidence is the idea that attributing intentionality to any strange object was useful in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. If you mistakenly thought that lightning was due to a big man in the sky, you’d get out of the way anyway, but if you failed to realize that the stick lying on the ground was actually a snake, you’re in trouble (this just-so story is not the evidence I’m taking about – for that, see Boyer’s writings).
Religion is of course a multifaceted phenomenon and this theory would only explain one component (that’s how we do science, one small step at a time…). But what reason do you have for thinking that any aspect of religion is simply inexplicable (other than your prior reasons for thinking it is actually true)?
But what reason do you have for thinking that any aspect of religion is simply inexplicable (other than your prior reasons for thinking it is actually true)?
Well, allow me to ask you —
How do you know if the things we’ve studied in Science (that is, if you’ve even studied Science) are actually true?
By what little scientific knowledge I possess, I can predict certain chemical reactions by simply knowing the chemical structures of the chemical agents I am working with, the amount of energy needed for certain reactions to take place, the energy of activation barrier for the reaction, knowing and anticipating both the kinetic and thermodynamic products, etc.
However, even in the midst of all this knowledge, even after knowing and constructing a transitional state argument for all this in order to trace the steps from reactants to products and all possible sets of reactions — how the reaction might proceed or even, in some cases, reverse — I still don’t see the actual chemical structures themselves at work in all this — although I might be able to model them.
But, for all I know, what I know and demonstrate might merely be an illusion of the truth — whatever that is.
Sorry for being off-topic: Smoky Mt, are you the same “Smoky Mt” who used to post on the message board of a certain Christian progressive rock musician/songwriter, earlier this year? Based on the content of your posts, I’m guessing that the answer is no
Your guess is correct. I haven’t the foggiest clue what you’re talking about.
Brian,
I believe this was Matthew Siekierski’s point.
Sorry I guess I just had to think about it in a simpler, more literal, example to get it in my head.
Anyway, I apologize for jumping the line on the whole origins of morality discussion – but if morals really did arise out of evolutionary principals wouldn’t that still make contraception, and homosexuality intrinsically morally wrong (followed closely by adultery and fornication because they lower the chances of offspring surviving long enough to reproduce). I just mention those because they’re most highly contested today and also most closely related to the passing on of genes from one generation to the next. I mean, wouldn’t proving the natural source of morals only prove them to be objective and true?
Or would it just allow people to go from not following morals because they come from a God who they don’t believe exists to not following morals because they come from outdated evolutionary instincts which they don’t believe are applicable in our modern world?
That’s supposed to be: aren’t applicable in our modern world?
Esau, your question touches on a deep issues in philosophy of science and in philosophy more generally – what does it mean for a scientific theory to be true? Newton’s theory is true, but we now know it’s only a limiting case of general relativity which is in turn likely a limiting case of string theory / M-theory. We never declare once and for all that a model is “true” – we just find it to be a description of the world which yields useful predictions that may someday be supplanted by a better theory which yields more accurate predictions.
At any rate, I’m not sure I understand the point of your question. Scientific knowledge is provisional, but so is all knowledge (except arguably claims that you exist) – you might wake up tomorrow and discover that the sun didn’t rise, the universe is a simulation designed by enormous intelligent slices of cheese and you are in fact just one of them (even more radically, you could wake up tomorrow and discover you are three separate slices of cheese).
These kinds of philosophical musings about what is logically possible are only tangentially relevant to the question at hand: what theory does the preponderance of the evidence favor at any given time? In this regard, scientific truths, though provisional, are among the most reliable truths that we have.
Scientific knowledge is provisional, but so is all knowledge (except arguably claims that you exist)
But that’s just it —
The same kind of ‘FAITH’ that is submitted to notions of religion can be said to be similar to the kind of ‘FAITH’ in the Scientific truths that we hold/profess; that is, who is to say, exactly, that one is actually different than the other?
For example, I’ve heard of quarks and leptons — but, really, has anybody seen quarks?
In this regard, scientific truths, though provisional, are among the most reliable truths that we have.
Reliable only to the extent that what we know and how what we know are demonstrable.
However, even you have said:
…the universe is a simulation designed by enormous intelligent slices of cheese and you are in fact just one of them
… which brings me back to the former about Religion and Science.
If you can subscribe to a notion extending to this extent, it shouldn’t be any surprise that I subscribe to the notion that happens to be Christian — or, better yet, Catholic.
Again, I don’t see how ‘faith’ in Religion is any different as ‘faith’ in Science.
you might wake up tomorrow and discover that the sun didn’t rise, the universe is a simulation designed by enormous intelligent slices of cheese and you are in fact just one of them
That happened to me once. Turns out I’m muenster.
I think perhaps I am not following your argument. To say that scientific knowledge is provisional is not to say that it is *arbitrary*. Some explanations are better than others. The theory that objects are composed of atoms of different elements is a better theory than that they are composed of earth, wind, fire and water even if the former is not a complete theory of all microscopic phenomena. The theory that Santa Claus does not travel at faster than light speed to deliver presents to all the children in the world on Christmas morning is a better theory than the theory that he does.
As I understand it (and perhaps I don’t), your argument is saying, “We ultimately cannot know anything for sure, so anything we believe is just as reasonable as anything else” – this claim just seems obviously false.
My argument for atheism begins from the premise that if we have no reason at all to believe something it is unreasonable to believe it. This is why we don’t believe in leprechauns or in fairies or in everything else that strikes our fancy. So far, I’ve argued that the moral argument provides no reason to believe in God (and at least CThomas appears to agree with me on this point), and I’ve tried to address the additional question of whether this somehow undermines the moral judgments we do make. So let me turn the question back at you – what reason do you have for believing in God and if you can’t give a reason, how is your belief in God any more reasonable than a child’s belief in fairies?
Good choice :-).
My argument for atheism begins from the premise that if we have no reason at all to believe something it is unreasonable to believe it.
So we have no reason at all to believe in Christianity?
Tell me then, is there reason at all to believe in the Theory of the Big Bang?
If so, please provide your proof here — no copying from other people’s works, please.
If you should believe that matter is comprised of leptons and quarks — then, please, provide your proof for their existence. I mean, have you ever seen quarks and leptons?
If not, how do you know that they, in fact, exist?
What makes their existance any more concrete than that of God?
Nevertheless, I think natural selection can certainly operate on groups.
Then we would need to see some evidence.
There are phenomena that are explicably only on the “gene” level, not on the “group” level. How does it benefit the group for males to kill infants they have not sired? It benefits the males, who then have the chance to breed with the mothers and so pass on their own genes.
If a individual organism evolves a “social” gene that creates a desire to operate as a group, and that individual’s offspring therefore begin operating as a social group, it’s possible that those offspring (and their descendants) will survive whereas other organisms of the same species without the “social” gene will die off.
It’s also possible that it would harm them. Witness that in herd animals, the mother or parents still feed their own children. Orphans starve. Why do all herds act like this? Because if the mothers looked after other animals’ children, the mother who didn’t look after her own, or anyone else, could use the resources that she would have spent on her own children to breed more, and so spread her genes further.
Morality, unlike natural selection, doesn’t handle the free-loader problem.
What desire to act on objective reasons? And what if the desire is trumped by his desire to bully?
Mary – if I understand your point correctly, you are asking on what basis I can say that the bully is wrong if he is unresponsive to “how would you like it if I did that to you?” The answer I would give is that he’s being inconsistent in a very deep sense. He has particular conceptions of himself and the world that are implicit in most of his actions, and in this instance, he is failing to live up to those conceptions.
Where does the obligation to be consistent stem from?
And why does “a very deep sense” trump the immediate relative strength of impulses?
Yes, in the same sense that the Greeks had no reason to believe that there was a pantheon of gods living on Mt. Olympus.
But I didn’t mean my question to come off as just a blithe assertion or as some kind of insult to your reasonableness – I certainly recognize that Christians think they have good reason to be Christians. I’m just trying to find out what particular reasons you find compelling so I can give my argument for rejecting them.
It’s difficult to provide all of the reasons without elaborating at length on the underlying physics – and besides, I’m not a physicist, so my belief in the big bang is based mainly on the consensus among experts with the technical knowledge to actually appraise the evidence.
The most compelling evidence for the big bang is the cosmic microwave background radiation predicted by the theory and subsequently discovered by Wilson and Penzias.
I have to say I still don’t understand your argument here. Suppose we rewrite your question as:
Do I really need to answer this?
Of course, this question presumes that the evidence for God is on a par with the evidence for enormous flying pink elephants. But all I’m trying to show here is that *if* there is no reason to believe in God, than belief in God is as ridiculous as belief in flying pink elephants.
Again, how is your argument different from the summary I gave in my previous post: “We ultimately cannot know anything for sure, so anything we believe is just as reasonable as anything else” – isn’t this an obviously fallacious argument?
Interesting —
This:
I certainly recognize that Christians think they have good reason to be Christians.
sounds like:
It’s difficult to provide all of the reasons without elaborating at length on the underlying physics – and besides, I’m not a physicist, so my belief in the big bang
Again, your belief is based on a mere religion that centers on the Big Bang while my beief is based on a religion that centers on a Christian God.
As I requested previously, prove to me that your belief in the Big Bang is substantially demonstrable than my belief in a Christian God.
That is, perhaps you rather simply place your ‘FAITH’ in your ‘priests’ of the ‘Big Bang’ and submit to it without question.
I would not say there is an “obligation to be consistent” – that would be circular as you rightly imply. I would say only that consistency of this kind is important to us because without it, we would have no basis for distinguishing between good and bad normative reasons. This is a difficult question, because it’s like asking why claims in formal logic should be consistent. I’d consider the requirement that our reasons be consistent the practical analogue of the law of non-contradiction in theoretical reasoning.
Now, let me challenge you a bit. What does a Christian notion of morality have that the notion I have articulated is lacking? The kinds of penetrating questions you ask could equally well be applied to an account of divine morality. Why should we identify `rightness’ with what God wants? How does this add anything to our understanding of what we should do?
Esau, I promise to answer your question if you will first attempt to answer mine: in your view, is a belief in the big bang more reasonable than a belief that there are flying pink elephants on Mars which have thus far eluded our detection?
Well, you were credulous to this extent:
“you might wake up tomorrow and discover that the sun didn’t rise, the universe is a simulation designed by enormous intelligent slices of cheese and you are in fact just one of them”
I wouldn’t be surprised of you were gullible to the extent of believing:
“that there are flying pink elephants on Mars which have thus far eluded our detection”
Now, please answer my question unless your faith in the ‘Big Bang’ religion is merely a blind faith and that you simply believe because the ‘priests’ of the ‘Big Bang’ have declared thus.
Esau – I think you misunderstood my point about the slices of cheese. I was using that example to distinguish between what is logically possible and what is reasonable to believe. I certainly admit that God’s existence is logically possible, although I also believe that the slices of cheese story and the pink elephants on Mars are logically possible.
This is quite distinct from whether something is reasonable to believe. The big bang is reasonable to believe due to the enormous amount of observational evidence in its favor, while the cheese and pink elephants stories are not. Putting aside the issue of God for the time being, you still haven’t answered my question.
In your view, is a belief in the big bang more reasonable than a belief in flying pink elephants on Mars?
I realize now that perhaps I wrongly assumed that you would answer “yes” to this question. If that is not the case, let me try a different one:
In your view, is a belief in the big bang more reasonable than a belief that the sun orbits the earth?
big bang is reasonable to believe due to the enormous amount of observational evidence in its favor
Really?
Such as?
I would be most appreciative if you would kindly enlighten my faculty and I about such ‘observational evidence’ for the ‘Big Bang’.
I’m sorry, I actually ended my last post with the wrong question! :-). Maybe I should cut down on the frequency of my posts slightly… I meant to say:
In your view, is a belief that the sun orbits the earth more reasonable than a belief in flying pink elephants on Mars?
(I also would answer “No” to my question as stated!)
Wow, actually that question didn’t make sense either. I really need to cut down on the frequency of my posts – I wish I could delete my last two posts :-).
Let me just say as clearly as possible the point I am trying to make. I of course do think that there is an enormous amount of evidence for the big bang theory, but we can address that question later.
For now, I’m just trying to get you to admit that some explanations are more reasonable than others. You seem to be arguing that a belief in anything is equally reasonable. Is that really what you’re trying to say?
Again, please answer my question unless your ‘FAITH’ in the ‘Big Bang’ religion is merely a blind faith and that you simply believe because the ‘priests’ of the ‘Big Bang’ have declared thus.
Alright, the answer is “No, it’s not a blind faith.”
This is true for two reasons:
1) While I don’t appreciate all of the technical details, I can understand why there is evidence for it given my limited knowledge of physics. If you are genuinely curious, I can explain this to you, but I don’t want to waste my time doing so if your question is merely rhetorical.
2) The people I am relying on to interpret the evidence – i.e. physicists – are the people who are in the best place to know the answer. If I wanted to know whether a proposed mathematical theory was true, I would ask a mathematician. Likewise, if I wanted to know whether a physical theory was correct, I would ask a physicist.
Would you deny that this is the best way to determine if a physical theory is correct? How do you know that the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around? (this is ultimately what I was trying to get at before).
Very good post, Jimmy! 😉 SDG, You really should put this in pamplet form. really. [a’right, enough of the ego trip ;-)]
You seem to be raising a different issue altogether when you ask how “lower simple things became higher complex things without any intervention by some other entity.” You deny that this is possible – I think the entire history of science is evidence against you. Everything we know about science is an attempt to explain precisely this. How it is that complexity emerged from simple rules and basic building blocks? For a start, you might want to try physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and economics.
And my analogy is that when complexity arises from simpler things such as paint into a painting on a canvas, notes into melody and harmony, boards and nails into a house, it is due to something other than merely an interaction of those simple elements. But when it happens elsewhere in nature for much grander works of art, such as a person or an animal or a plant, why should one think they are an exception? If it’s preposterous for a Van Gogh painting to emerge from simple elements, it’s much more preposterous to think that Van Gogh did.
Every science comes to a point where it has to stop and say, “yeah, we don’t know how that’s done”. Physics and chemistry can explain in great detail (at least what seems like great detail to us) the materials and forces that were involved in creating every stroke and color and detail of the Van Gogh painting. Scientists could perhaps conjecture about how such a painting could be created by hundreds of falling paint brushes landing just so, or much more plausible theories than that. All the while they would promise that in 50 years they’ll know with much more certitude just how it was done and that it will all one day be explained without the need to resort to the illusory Van Gogh entity. Indeed, at a certain level it all makes sense and there’s nothing in the elements themselves that would seem to require a Van Gogh to explain it. The burden of proof would be on those who believe in the mysterious Van Gogh entity. But we feel quite right in believing that Van Gogh had at least some small part to play in the process. The same is true for grander works of art.
John,
If I understand your argument, it goes something like, “In the world we observe complexity arising through intelligent design. Therefore, when we observe complexity in nature, we should infer by analogy that it is due to intelligent design.”
The question we’re both trying to answer is: can natural processes yield complexity from simple elements? I would suggest that there are perfectly well understood natural processes that yield complex results from simple rules. Two examples from mathematics and physics:
1) The mandelbrot set
2) General relativity, which can be derived entirely from a set of simple invariance principles
Now, you would of course dispute the fact that these are really natural. You would say, “Ah, but these processes betray the hallmarks of an intelligent designer!” But how so? Is your argument that mathematics itself could not exist without an intelligent designer? What basis do we have for believing this claim?
If *everything* is really the product of intelligent design as you would argue, then we have no basis for determining the limits of natural processes because there is no such thing as a natural process.
How then can we test the hypothesis that *everything* is a product of design? The only way to do so is as follows: we assume temporarily that there is such a thing as a natural process and then ask, “Could such a process alone be adequate to explain the observed universe?” If it is not, then we may need to resort to other explanations (although I would dispute that “God did it” explains anything). If a purely naturalistic explanation proves adequate, then it would seem that any invocation of a designer is superfluous.
So I have two questions for you:
1) What is the particular phenomenon that you think naturalistic processes cannot in principal explain?
2) How does theism/Christianity do a better job of explaining this phenomenon?
Jason,
I’m interested in the concept that morals may have been a result of evolution as in the example you gave of a person who is pre-disposed never to cheat and thus has the advantage of not having to put energy into a decision of whether or not to cheat.
If it were ever proven that our morals are a result of evolution, what do you think it would mean? Would we drop the concept of morals altogether? Would we implement morals as an objective standard for all behavior? Would it just be an interesting discovery that wouldn’t change much of anything?
Jason,
Because you do not know of my background, you do not know entirely where I come from.
I happen to work with various groups of high-level staff scientists and even the brightest amongst them have flaws in their theories, regardless of consensus.
Yes, you seem to place such blind faith in the Big Bang just because various physicists subscribe to such a theory.
However, just because they do doesn’t automatically make such a theory true.
I can tell you of so many theories that the brightest throughout history developed and, in fact, agreed upon and, yet, the theory they subscribed to was completely wrong.
For example, folks back then believed that nucleic acids were far too simple to contain the blueprints to life and the vast majority of Scientists figured that it must be proteins due to the greater complexity of proteins.
Now, back then, it seems given by your answer here, that you would have believed likewise.
Needless to say that like them, you would’ve been terribly wrong.
“If *everything* is really the product of intelligent design as you would argue, then we have no basis for determining the limits of natural processes because there is no such thing as a natural process.”
Exactly. In a strict sense (because God invented matter and set up the sub-atomic relationships and forces that govern everything) there would be no process that was immune or isolated from God’s creative action. No object or process is “natural” in terms of being “self existing” or truly independent. So, yeah, God invented not only math, but physics. Or, I should say, these are an expression, an indication, of God’s character.
One problem with materialistic morality from where I sit is that, once you grant that morals are *merely* the result of natural (random) processes, from whence do you derive the authority to enforce your morals on anyone else? It seems always to fall back on the strong (or the clever, or the ambitious, or aggressive) ruling over everyone else. Nihilism, in other words.
You may view it all under terms like “social contract” or whatever, but it boils down to “You will do what we say because if you don’t, we can make your life very unpleasant or short or both”.
And one could hardly be blamed for replying “Shove your rules up your arse”. Morally, he would be on equal footing with you.
If there really are no moral absolutes there can be *absolutely* no morals.
In practice, it isn’t as if we all just sat down at a table some place and agreed “Well, this set of morals is the most useful right now”… we have historically agreed *on principle* that lying is – not just societally inefficient – but truly wrong. Truth is something beautiful and solid, and lying defaces it. Murder isn’t bad simply because it destabilizes society, it is – in principle – wrong and moreover, unjust. Life is a profound and mysterious thing, and murder destroys and wastes it. People have agreed on this and codified it in law ever since there have BEEN people.
You seem to be asking “Well, what if evolution has worked so as to make us FEEL that these morals are “absolute”?
In that case, (if by “evolution” you mean a blind, random, purposeless process) if it could be demonstrated that this has actually occurred – which is as impossible as proving that God Did It – I would say that science would have thoroughly debunked the idea of moral absolutes. People, societies, would now be free to define morality in any way they see fit. Individuals, too. Again, where do you derive the authority to impose your morals on me? Mob rule? Brute force? That’s really all you have left.
You can, of course, attempt to persuade and argue that this set of morals works better than that set, but beyond that you can have no authority to make anyone listen.
You may argue that certain morals are more suited to human survival, but now that we have shown that both we and our morals are the results of blind chance, who says that the survival of the human species is “better” than it’s extinction? How do we now toss around words like “better” or “worse” with any meaning? Good and evil have just been scientifically proven to be a mirage.
The whole universe will assume a uniform temperature near absolute zero at some point. What’s the use of our species sticking around for a few million more years? There are those among us already who see human-kind as some sort of virus or disease on the planet. Why not submit to the inevitable?
This is the equation that I find inexplicable under strict materialism;
1 + 1 + 1 = 0
Meaning + Meaning + Meaning = No Meaning.
Our lives, our relationships, our art, our civilizations are all meaningful, but the whole universe is not. A null set crammed full of stuff.
The universe exists, it came from somewhere… with a Big Bang, if I understand correctly. The world, at least from my experience, is full of meaningful things and events, so the world itself can’t be completely meaningless. If the world is not meaningless, then it has meaning, and if it has meaning then there has to be someone to mean it.
Esau,
I was confused by the tact of your posts. While you were making the point that belief in the Big Bang theory is just that – belief, even though it appears to best fit the evidence considered in the light of current knowledge – you seemed to be making the point that belief in the Big Bang is somehow incompatible with belief in the Christian God. Fr. Lemaitre would probably disagree with that assertion.
Jason,
“My argument for atheism begins from the premise that if we have no reason at all to believe something it is unreasonable to believe it.”
I have to wonder if you are using the royal we in this case. Simply because you have found no reason to believe in God does not mean that others have not or that such reasons do not exist. Indeed, that countless reasonable and intelligent people have and continue to hold such belief should give you, not all of us, pause.
Esau,
no-one here, much less Jason, is claiming that evidence and expert consensus make a theory absolutely true. Hume buried absolute physical certainty for good.
What is being claimed is that those two reasons are the best way to take a guess – i.e., that they are the most reliable criteria for choosing the hypothesis that is most likely to be true.
…you seemed to be making the point that belief in the Big Bang is somehow incompatible with belief in the Christian God.
I made no such assertion.
Only that one cannot say that the one is substantially demonstrable than the other.
In essence, both require a kind of ‘faith’.
Esau,
I do now uderstand that was not your point, but the potential for misunderstanding was there.
“Again, your belief is based on a mere religion that centers on the Big Bang while my beief is based on a religion that centers on a Christian God.”
This statement seemed to establish an exclusivity of the two positions, at least in my mind when I read it.
the best way to take a guess
EXACTLY!
All it is in the end is just that — A GUESS!
I can predict and put together various molecular models and any one of them can be proven true (or false) by mere demonstration; however, the fact of the matter is that even if the former were the case, it still would be a ‘guess’ since much of the knowledge we hold still centers on a kind of ‘faith’ — be it in the Science of things or in the Religion.
Tim J.,
absolutely spot-on, as usual. I have only a single objection:
You seem to be asking “Well, what if evolution has worked so as to make us FEEL that these morals are “absolute”?
In that case, (if by “evolution” you mean a blind, random, purposeless process) if it could be demonstrated that this has actually occurred – which is as impossible as proving that God Did It – I would say that science would have thoroughly debunked the idea of moral absolutes.”
This isn’t entirely undemonstrable (in fact, there have been brain studies in such a direction). When you find that our brains are hardwired (at birth) to make us feel some amount of empathy towards others, you have indeed found a biological basis for morals.
Of course, you haven’t disproved moral absolutes, since they are abstract ideas that cannot be falsified, but you have proved that if they exist, they are redundant.
Esau,
We agree that there are no absolute certainties. The point of contention is, are all guesses equally valid and reliable?
When you find that our brains are hardwired (at birth) to make us feel some amount of empathy towards others, you have indeed found a biological basis for morals.
Of course, you haven’t disproved moral absolutes, since they are abstract ideas that cannot be falsified, but you have proved that if they exist, they are redundant.
If you find that our brains are hardwired (at birth) to like sweetness, you have indeed found a biological basis for liking sweets. Of course, you haven’t disproved that some things actually are sweet, since they are abstract ideas that cannot be falsified, but you have proved that if they exist, they are redundant.
The argument, either way, is nonsense. Sweetness tastes good, bitterness tastes bad, sudden loud noises make us jump — before we are born. This is because they reflect external realities (sweet things are often safe sources of carbohydrates, bitter things are often poisonous, sudden loud noises are frequent indicators of danger), not evidence that external realities are redundant.
Nihil –
Feeling “some amount of empathy” toward other creatures can hardly function anything like a moral absolute. All kinds of animals seem capable of empathy. The question is always put to the test when we DON’T feel any empathy. That is exactly when moral absolutes kick in.
In addition, you would have to show that this “hard wiring” is a result of evolution (rather than a direct creative act by God) and you would then have to show that evolution is itself blind, random and purposeless, which is impossible.
Having a plausible theory doesn’t excuse anyone from having to support the theory with evidence. It’s possible that I’m just a brain in a jar and our correspondence is an illusion, but, you know, I doubt it.
There is a huge difference between positing evolution as a process and adopting evolution as an atheistic philosophy. Evolution itself can neither support nor disprove either atheism OR theism. Even if the precise mechanisms of evolution were proven tomorrow, it would be neither here nor there regarding the question of the existence of God.
So even given (for the sake of argument) that our feelings about moral absolutes were shaped through some evolutionary process, that speaks not at all to the question of whether God Did It. It only deals with the “how”.
As for belief in God being unnecessary, clearly it *is* unnecessary, in a sense. People live and work and function without it all the time. You also won’t fly into space if you cease to believe in gravity. That doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not gravity really exists. People functioned just fine for millennia without the theory of evolution, too. I find the tendency toward that kind of minimalism sort of puzzling.
The question we’re both trying to answer is: can natural processes yield complexity from simple elements? I would suggest that there are perfectly well understood natural processes that yield complex results from simple rules. Two examples from mathematics and physics:
1) The mandelbrot set
2) General relativity, which can be derived entirely from a set of simple invariance principles
I’m not that well studied in mathematics or physics to speak about the Mandelbrot Sets and relativity, but I’ll give it a shot. Let’s take the Mandelbrot Set. Is that something more complex than mathematics and emerge from it? Or is it not rather mathematics itself which is the vast complex entity consisting of simpler elements such as numbers and functions of which the relatively more complex Mandelbrot Set is “composed”? Mathematics *may be used* to decipher that the Mandelbrot Set is “composed” of “simpler elements”, or simpler elements such as numbers and functions *can be used* to discover the already mathematically existing entity now called the Mandelbrot Set, but numbers and functions do not come together on their own to explain the Mandelbrot Set and the Mandelbrot Set does not explain all of mathematics.
We’re assuming that the Mandelbrot Set truly is a case of a more complex entity arising solely from simpler entities such as numbers and functions. Can you objectively have numbers and functions pre-existing or existing without the Mandelbrot set or vice versa? No, they are part of the same package and it is we who categorize them into more or less simple or complex things. I don’t think the Mandelbrot set is really a good analogy of simple things arising on their own into more complex things.
Moving from the conceptual to the physical, though, it seems reasonable that you could have atoms and electrons without necessitating that there must therefore also be paintings, and I think most people would probably agree that there was at least some time in earth’s history where that was indeed true. One could explain the painting as being composed of atoms and electrons, but common sense says that the painting did not emerge from the atoms and electrons without an external entity, such as Van Gogh.
And this appears to be true for real Mandelbrot Sets that exist in nature as well — such as fractals I believe. If the mere concept of the Mandelbrot Set required someone like Mandelbrot to use the tools of mathematics to conceive or explain it, what do we say about Mandelbrot Sets that actually occur in nature? Would they not also require a “Mandelbrot” to do the more difficult job of actually creating it?
So I have two questions for you:
1) What is the particular phenomenon that you think naturalistic processes cannot in principal explain?
2) How does theism/Christianity do a better job of explaining this phenomenon?
1. truth, reasonable discourse, dignity, liberty, democracy, desire, a sense of purpose, a Van Gogh painting, a piece by Mozart or Bach, the conception of the Mandelbrot Set,…
2. Theism does a better job of explaining these things because it does not conflict with the micro-explanation (sciences) but also gives a macro-explanation — that is, we can at least begin to discern purpose and intent and meaning — a desire shared by most of humanity throughout history. Naturalistic processes ultimately can’t answer the question “why?” which seems to have been wired in us.
We agree that there are no absolute certainties.
Are you absolutely certain?
Leaving out the bothersome question of where matter came from in the first place and how the initial mammoth burst of energy that still drives the ever down-winding cosmos came to be…
In physical terms, blind chance and evolution might indeed explain everything… they just leave out everything else.
Brian, good question. First of all, I wouldn’t argue that morals are exclusively the result of evolution. I’d say evolution provides the substrate which cultural and social factors shape into moral claims. Not that this blunts the force of your question.
It really depends what you mean by an objective standard. I’d say that even granting their evolutionary origin, moral claims could be objective in the sense that everyone still has reason to affirm them on reflection – the origin of moral claims is irrelevant; what matters is the practical role they play in our lives. (see my above posts for my interpretation of what this view means we could say to a recalcitrant bully).
Michael, I of course do not claim to have refuted all of the reasons that you and others would offer for belief in God. I only meant this as an if-then statement: *if* there are no good reasons to believe in God, then one shouldn’t believe in him. This doesn’t say much – but Esau seemed to be suggesting that faith in God was just as reasonable as belief in a scientific theory, essentially on the grounds that we can’t prove anything with absolute certainty. If belief in God is reasonable, then one must be able to give reasons for it, not merely assert one’s faith. Hopefully, we agree on this point – you just happen to think there are good reasons for belief in God (I’d be happy to hear them if you’d like to share).
Esau – I think Nihil hit the nail on the head – do you really believe all guesses are equally reasonable?
The fact that scientific theories are revised in light of new evidence is a strength not a weakness, and of course, scientific theories are held with varying levels of confidence. I’d say there is a 75% chance string theory is correct, a 99.99% chance the big bang theory is correct and a 99.999999% that Newton’s theory of gravity is correct (this does not imply that they aren’t just special cases of a deeper theory as we now know is the case with Newton’s theory – it just implies that they are correct within their domain of applicability).
Also, do you believe that the seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth on its axis and its orbit about the sun? Presumably you have not made the necessary measurements to confirm this yourself. Why do you believe it?
a 99.99% chance the big bang theory
By this claim, it is more than certain that my dialogue with you was a waste of time.
Assigning the Big Bang Theory with a 99.9% confidence?
Surely, you have no concept of Science at all let alone Statistics.
Tim J,
You raise two important issues. Let me try to address them one at a time:
1) Where do you get the authority to enforce your morals on someone else?
If someone steals from me and I catch them, and they say back, “Shove your rules up your arse!” is there anything further I can say to them?
I think this case is like that of the bully above. I could point out things like, “If it weren’t for the institution of private property which you fail to respect, many amenities which you enjoy would not exist.” I think they have a reason to find this claim persuasive because of their underlying need to act on objective reasons. In practice, they probably wouldn’t find this claim persuasive (but certainly no one here would claim that the fact that slave-holders didn’t find the arguments against slavery persuasive means that slavery was morally acceptable!).
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “authority to enforce your morals” (and so perhaps I have not answered your question). If you mean literally, a cosmic lawgiver who will punish wrong-doers with eternal torment, then you’re just begging the question. Could you clarify?
2) Meaning + Meaning + Meaning = No Meaning.
You say “The world, at least from my experience, is full of meaningful things and events, so the world itself can’t be completely meaningless.” I’d argue that meaning isn’t a property of the external world – it’s a feature of our interaction with that world as conscious beings (perhaps your claim just reduces to, “How is consciousness possible?” If so, let me know and I’ll try to answer you). You say that you can’t understand how our lives could be full of purpose but the universe itself be purposeless. When you say you can’t understand this, what do you mean? It doesn’t matter if this idea is palatable to you – it just happens to be the way things are (perhaps this isn’t what you meant – if not, please clarify).
I have taken about a dozen graduate statistics and econometrics courses so I’d beg to differ ;-).
I should clarify the model I was using to arrive at the 99.99% estimate. One must distinguish between:
1) The formal probability arrived at through hypothesis testing within the context of a particular statistical model
2) The prior probability that one would attach to the assumptions of that model
Within the context of particular formal models, the big bang theory has been confirmed to many more decimal places than the estimate I gave. Of course, the underlying assumptions might be wrong. What gives physicists a great deal of confidence in the big bang is that different avenues of investigation which start from different assumptions have all converged on the same result.
Let me focus on this issue of deferring my judgment to that of physicists. Nearly everyone with the technical knowledge to assess the evidence now agrees that the big bang theory is correct. Those without this knowledge can’t make an informed judgment. By analogy, imagine if I was in a warehouse with 100 other people who looked out the window. I’m not tall enough to see out the window. I want to know if there is a tree outside. They all tell me that there is a tree there. What should I conclude? (and please, don’t tell me you think all the physicists in the world are lying).
John E.,
Let me try a different example that I think perhaps will shed some light on our disagreement.
Consider cellular automata. Here is a simple (and very short) introduction if you are not familiar with them:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ElementaryCellularAutomaton.html
I’m not concerned so much with the general characterization as with specific examples. For instance, rule 30 illustrated on the page.
I would say this is an example of a very simple rule yielding an enormous amount of complexity. Would you disagree?
No, Jason, I don’t mean that the idea of a meaningless universe is not palatable. In the past, in some moods, I found the *idea* somewhat bracing.
I just don’t think it comports with the evidence. There is no evolutionary necessity, that I can figure, for our brains assigning some illusory deeper “meaning” to very ordinary events. Death, the birth of a child, mating, friendship – sunsets, for cryin’ out loud… other species get on just fine without waxing all philosophical about these things. One might argue (if one believed we evolved from monkeys) that these ideas have been the cause of more violence and ruin than if we had just been content with our more modest monkey brains.
Perhaps you see sentience or speculative thinking, self-awareness, as a kind of evolutionary *defect* of the human species?
What the hell good does it do, in terms of human survival, to get involved in long speculative internet discussions about the meaning of life (or lack thereof)? It doesn’t put food on the table or a roof over the head (it can actually interfere with some people doing so the way they should). From the materialist point of view, these discussions couldn’t be anything but a waste of time and energy.
Most of mankind, however, has rather held that the speculative discussions were the whole POINT of human discourse. What you must see as useless jawing has been seen by most people through history as the raison d’être of human existence – to think about WHY we are here.
If the universe is really meaningless, why in the world did the overwhelming majority of homo sapiens evolve this tendency for obstinate belief that it is meaningful? What good has it done, just in sheer evolutionary terms? Surely we could have been highly intelligent without all the metaphysical static?
Also, I find this confounding; if the universe really is meaningless, why bother trying to convince anyone of the fact? Why the effort to persuade and change minds? If the truth is that *It Doesn’t Matter*, what’s is the point of arguing? Why, in other words, is it important to try and convince others to agree with you that the universe is meaningless? Why is *anything* important?
I should point out, too, that trying to explain away unpalatable ideas isn’t the exclusive territory of theists. Are you ever afraid God might exist? What would it mean if He did? You may think that Christians are taken in by wishful thinking, but do you see how attractive, how seductive the idea of a meaningless universe can be?
I believe (now) that everything I do matters in an eternal sense, and this carries its own terrors that have nothing to do with Hell. Didn’t you ever know someone you would feel awful to disappoint?
In moments of high spirits and good health, we might find a kind of invigorating liberty in thinking “It doesn’t matter what I do! Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. That’s one seduction of materialism. At our low points, though, when we are tired, or lonely, or deeply disappointed, thinking “It doesn’t matter what I do” takes on a different shade of meaning. That is what, I think, gnaws at the guts of modern man.
Just please don’t make the mistake of thinking that theism is some kind of cosseted nursery, or that theists run to belief in God as some kind of escape. That makes me laugh.
And, of course, there is the temptation to intellectual snobbery on both ends. Some theists act as if they and their club are very clever to have figured out the TRUTH, and some materialists take pleasure in being the knowing minority… different from The Herd. I have known friendships that were held together by little else than the belief that “We are not like Them”.
By this claim, it is more than certain that my dialogue with you was a waste of time…
Surely, you have no concept of Science at all let alone Statistics.
That was pretty obnoxious of you, Esau.
Esau – I think Nihil hit the nail on the head – do you really believe all guesses are equally reasonable?
This question seems to have been floating around unanswered for a long time on this thread. It might help to address this.
Jason,
“The question before us now is not, “Has science provided a fully satisfactory explanation of consciousness?” No one believes that it has. The question is, “Can science ever provide such an explanation?” I see no reason to believe it cannot and plenty of reason to think that it can. Matthew (and others) – why do you believe it cannot?”
I see one huge reason to believe that “science can never provide such an explanation”, i.e. can never explain consciousness as a physical process. Let me first stress that of all the opinions I have, this is by far the one I am most confident about. Indeed its not just that I think I am right, but I have difficulty seeing how anyone could disagree.
Consciousness is not an observable phenomenon. We tend to assume that other humans have what we ourselves have– and that rocks and paperclips do not. But surely there is no valid scientific reason for this, because the language of natural science cannot even define consciousness. Or do you think it can?
Do you suppose there is some outward manifestation of consciousness that can ONLY be explained by the existence of consciousness? (in particular, could not just be the physical process that we see MINUS any subjective awareness).
I remember being told in primary school that animals feel pain so that they know there is danger, and thinking, “why do we have to FEEL pain, why can’t our brains just take the necessary steps without “us” there experiencing it all?”
If you can think of no definitive manifestation, then it is silly to imagine that someday a scientist will be looking at a brain scan and say “Ah hah! this must be consciousness,” in the same way he can when studying subatomic particles, or the cosmic microwave background radiation, or even other functions of our brain such as arithmetic. for the arithmetic function of our brain has an outward manifestation… arithmetic!
In short, consciousness doesn’t DO anything. It just is. What else have you come across in science like that?
Consciousness is not an observable phenomenon. We tend to assume that other humans have what we ourselves have
That’s a good point; however, we also tend to assume that the external world actually exists — it might just be an illusion ala the Matrix. That doesn’t stop us from trying to learn about the world.
Regarding the outward manifestation of consciousness — at least for me, it’s generally clear when someone is awake versus asleep — i.e. it’s generally clear when they’re conscious. Their eyes are usually open, they respond rationally when I speak to them, etc. It’s similarly clear when they’re asleep (unconscious).
Of course I don’t know that anyone else is conscious for sure — but neither do I know that you actually exist for sure. That line of reasoning leads to intellectual paralysis.
I think perhaps your point would be stronger if humans were perpetually conscious — but we’re not. Sometimes we’re unconscious. And it’s not hard for rational people to tell the difference (though of course there are “in-between” states which are fuzzier). Measuring the difference between what’s going on in the conscious brain vs. the unconscious brain would seem to be a reasonable way to approach a scientific study of consciousness.
Having said all of that, there’s an excellent book by Roger Penrose called The Emperor’s New Mind which discusses whether a computer could ever become conscious. Via a long tour through computer science, mathematics, physics, biology, etc., Penrose argues that human thought is fundamentally non-algorithmic and therefore not duplicatable by a computer (which is fundamentally algorithmic). Very interesting stuff.
I posted:
Nevertheless, I think natural selection can certainly operate on groups.
Mary posted:
Then we would need to see some evidence.
Mary, I posted a link to a wikipedia article on Group Selection previously. And yes, I realize wikipedia isn’t a terribly trustworthy source–but the references provided on that page suggest that the idea of Group Selection is something that scientists have studied.
“That line of reasoning leads to intellectual paralysis.”
Smoky Mt,
Look, I’m not saying, “duuude, like, I could be the only self-aware being in existence and everyone else is just a zombie, maaann, trippy”. I am saying that it is not objectively demonstrable that the stoner is wrong. And I don’t say this to cast doubt on the fact that he is indeed wrong, in order to conclude in some vague way that, “woah,I guess we’ll never know, man… duuude”. Rather I say this in order to make a valid point about the epistemic status of consciousness. Namely, it is not the sort of thing that we can point to, out-there-in-the-world, and say, “What is that?”.
The book you mention sounds interesting. “Non-algorithmic” seems like a decent way of putting it. Whenever someone says something like “when computers are fast enough, we’ll be able to create conscious beings”, I want to shout, “Um, fast computers let you perform complicated computations quickly. What exactly makes you think that consciousness is a complicated computation?” a computation is just a function. what is the function of consciousness?
About the sleeping thing.
Our brains do a lot of things. The sort of things it does when awake and when asleep are different, and it seems we are not really conscious most of the time we are asleep. Sure. The trouble is this. In order to understand consciousness as a physical process, it must have a physical effect. Now suppose we are at the stage sometime in the future when all the things our brain does of the waking-sort that DO have easily identifiable physical effects have been identified and understood. For example, “rational responses when spoken to” is understood as a series of cause and effect beginning with the sensory organs traveling into the complicated neural network, resulting in a particular pattern of activity which is transformed deterministically according to the structure of the brain into another pattern of activity that causes a set of signals radiating out through the nervous system towards whatever muscles are involved in the particular rational response. (And I do think we can have a complete understanding of how all this works at some point) In such a framework, how do you scientifically define consciousness, i.e. the fact that there is a subject like you experiencing all this first hand?
I’d say there is a 75% chance string theory is correct…
Please, and not one testable prediction after all this mathematical work. String theory is fashionable and there may be some degree of truth to it eventually confirmed. It may also be one ot the most elaborate and fanciful deadends in the history of science. Your probabilities seem forced.
the references provided on that page suggest that the idea of Group Selection is something that scientists have studied.
Scientists have seriously studied phlogiston.
Anyway to give a positive proposition of my own, I think the reason that “consciousness” – though I prefer “subjectivity” or “personhood” – is so inscrutable is that it is a phenomenon very close in fundamentality to that of being itself. Sometimes we even use the word “being” in this way. “what is it like to BE you?” On the one hand, “being me” can just be speaking of bare being, like “being a washing machine” e.g. “that washing machine is being a washing machine” and on the other hand it can be speaking of really BEING, i.e. of living me. I propose the word “am-ing”; what is it like to am you?
The question of “why is there something rather than nothing”, mentioned several times already, is full of mystery. And the question “why am I me” is so very close in significance.
For this reason, we think it is very reasonable to place personhood at the heart of existence. A little reflection on the world, on bare being, produces the cosmological proof of A god. The god of the cosmological proof may just be the universe itself, mysteriously and terrifyingly self-caused. But a little reflection on subjectivity, on am-ing, makes us wonder whether to am isn’t more than an epiphenomenon. no?
Scientists have seriously studied phlogiston.
Mary,
That’s cute, but I’m not sure it’s helpful. I agree that any scientific theory can be disproven given evidence to the contrary. However, as Jason has pointed out numerous times, some theories are more reasonable to believe than others based upon their evidence.
You asked for evidence regarding Group Selection, and I provided a link that provided references discussing it. I am not qualified to analyze that evidence — I’m not a scientist. However, the fact that current scientists appear to be debating the theory is enough to suggest that it is not unreasonable to regard Group Selection as *potentially* true — a possibility.
It’s silly and intellectually lazy to dismiss all scientific theories and inquiries because previous ones have been disproven.
“duuude, like, I could be the only self-aware being in existence and everyone else is just a zombie, maaann, trippy”.
Lol. I know you didn’t say that…but you seemed to imply that line of thinking with:
We tend to assume that other humans have what we ourselves have– and that rocks and paperclips do not. But surely there is no valid scientific reason for this
You then went on to argue that there is no outward manifestation of consciousness, to which I disagreed…I think there are many outward manifestations of consciousness.
Still, you make many interesting points, which I shall need to chew on for a while. I think your basic point is this (my paraphrase):
Even if we understood all physical processes that produce and / or result from consciousness, we still would not explain the sense of self (or self-awareness) that corresponds to our inner, conscious life.
Is that about right?
Let me try a different example that I think perhaps will shed some light on our disagreement.
Consider cellular automata. Here is a simple (and very short) introduction if you are not familiar with them:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ElementaryCellularAutomaton.html
I’m not concerned so much with the general characterization as with specific examples. For instance, rule 30 illustrated on the page.
I would say this is an example of a very simple rule yielding an enormous amount of complexity. Would you disagree?
Thanks for the link. That’s cool.
I agree that you’ve shown how the concepts of simple binary logic and pattern rules could be used by an external entity to create interesting patterns. However, I think the argument put forth earlier further up on this thread regarding the Mandelbrot Set applies here as well.
I think both these examples are mixing the conceptual with the physical. What they attempt to show as a complex thing (Cellular Automaton) arising solely from simpler things (binary logic and pattern rules) is really not applicable because they are the same thing. That is, the complexity didn’t arise from simpler things, it was already there conceptually. To use these examples as analogies, you would have to somehow show that the conceptual abstract truth of binary logic and pattern rules existed first and then the conceptual abstract truth of Cellular Automatons rose from it and came into existence. But at no time did the abstract truth of binary logic and pattern rules exist while at the same time the abstract truth of any possible thing that can be done with binary logic and pattern rules, such as Cellular Automatons, not exist.
(Note to self: perhaps such analogies may be more useful as a small insight into the Persons of the Trinity — different, yet also the same, co-eternal).
Sure, the physical complex pattern of the cellular automaton itself emerged only after simple physical binary squares were arranged using a pattern rule. But this pattern did not emerge on its own. Somebody did the arranging.
Perhaps a materialist might say that the chemical processes in our brains that produced the sensation of having an understanding of binary logic and patterns existed first and on its own emerged the chemical processes that produced the sensation of having an understanding of cellular automatons. And this was all done without some other entity involved. But here you’ve only proved your assumption: there is no God so this process happened without God; or complexity can arise on its own from simpler things without another entity, therefore that’s what happened.
However the analogy of Van Gogh and his painting is a good analogy for the reasonableness of believing in God. And it’s more than just an analogy because it is itself an example of what it tries to illustrate. It also does not mix conceptual with physical and doesn’t assume what it “proves” (I don’t claim it proves God, only the reasonableness to believe in God). It indeed show a reasonable everyday situation of something complex (a painting) arising from something simple (canvas, paint, brushes) where it is quite reasonable to believe that another entity (Van Gogh or someone like him) was involved in its creation — even if we can’t see or hear or touch this entity and there are no other entities like him near the painting and we can’t with absolute certainty verify that it was painted by a Van Gogh-like entity. But we don’t need absolute certainty to believe it was painted by Van Gogh or someone like him. It’s reasonable to believe it. Some may even one day reproduce the painting using complex algorithms involving Mandlebrot sets and cellular automatons that also coincidentally exist in nature to show that we don’t need the unverified Van Gogh to explain how it came about on its own. But it’s more reasonable to believe it was due to someone like Van Gogh. In a very similar way, it’s more reasonable to believe in God.
Jason,
You asked for a reason to believe. I apologize that I will mostly be unable to get on the internet for the next few days but I thought I would offer this line of thought up to you in the mean time. Fasten your probabalistic thoughts on this.
In the first century a village carpenter and itinerant preacher draws the attention of local religious authorities and is executed for heresy and sorcery under the authority of the local representatives of the Roman Empire of which his home is a province. After his gruesome death, his followers go into hiding in fear for their own lives. They could have gone home at that point and lived out their lives in quiet obscuritie, but something happened. They became bold. The traveled to the ends of the known world in their time and preached the lessons of their crucified teacher, the good news of a new kingdom. All but one them meets a maryred end as well, one even being crucified upside down in Rome. But before their generation dies, they establish an organization, a Church to keep keep teaching the good news. In several hundred years, after multiple persecutions their faith is the faith of the Empire. After many hundreds of years, their faith is the faith of Europe and has been brought to every corner of the globe. Even now, two thousand years later despite the fall of empires, nations, and peoples, the organzation they established continues essentially with the same structure established after the death of the carpenter. A continuously existing organization that is the oldest in the world by far.
Now, my question to you is, how likely is such a scenario? What is its probability?
wow this was a good sharing…it helped me come to terms with bullying and seeing it in a different way.
for a person who doesn’t believe in bullying and playing fair…it became apparent to me that for the bully…its about winning….not about being fair.
thank you for this article.
Smoky Mt,
Yes I suppose that’s about right.
Smoky Mt,
Yes I suppose that’s about right.
Cool beans. Said another way: suppose we could create an object (perhaps a quantum or biological computer-like “machine”) which passed the Turing Test with flying colors and displayed every conceivable outward manifestation of a conscious human. We still would have no way of knowing whether the machine was self-aware, truly “conscious”.
True dat?
“…suppose we could create an object (perhaps a quantum or biological computer-like “machine”) which passed the Turing Test with flying colors and displayed every conceivable outward manifestation of a conscious human…”
We have no sure way of knowing – in an absolute sense – whether other human beings experience consciousness the way we do. It is just BY FAR the most obvious conclusion given what we observe. We know that we are conscious by direct experience, and we know how we behave as a result, so when we see other *humans* behaving in very similar ways, we can pretty safely conclude that they are conscious, free wills like ourselves. Every other explanation ends in absurdity. If we demand *absolute* evidence before we’ll believe any proposition, we will have to remain ignorant and paralyzed all our lives.
But it is a totally different situation when we are talking about a machine built and programmed to mimic the outward behavior of a conscious mind. The fact that such a machine might leave some people with the impression of that it is engaging in conscious thought would be no big surprise (since it was programmed to do that) and these people’s opinion would have no bearing on whether the machine was really conscious or not.
Also, Turing’s test really deals with intelligence rather than consciousness. The two concepts are miles apart.
Tim,
Did you miss my statement
We still would have no way of knowing whether the machine was self-aware, truly “conscious”
?
I think I am in agreement with you. I mentioned the Turing Test because I think a machine would need to pass it before it would be worth discussing whether that machine might be conscious. But you’re right — nothing rules out the logical possibility of a dumb yet conscious machine — something like a higher animal.
That was pretty obnoxious of you, Esau.
Smoky Arrogant,
Did you even pay attention to what he posted?
He assigned a 99.9% confidence to the Big Bang Theory.
Now, perhaps because you have a fondness and bias towards atheists given your personal background; but on an objective level, how can anybody assigned such an alarming high confidence to a theory as this?
There is no substantial evidence for the theory to give it such a high probability!
Now, if you were ignorant of Statistics, I would’ve overlooked your remark here as one made out of mere ignorance.
Yet, given what I know of you, I doubt you are that ignorant.
You may harbor serious doubts about Christianity (as you have posted this much in the past); but try to be objective at the very least when judging the comments of your atheist bed buddies.
Again, objectively speaking, to assign a 99.9% confidence to this theory is ridiculous.
Do you even know what a 99.9% confidence means?
How obnoxious of you!
Smoky Arrogant
…
judging the comments of your atheist bed buddies
…
How obnoxious of you!
Oh, Esau. 🙂
I haven’t the knowledge of Big Bang cosmology to dispute you; you may be perfectly justified in disputing the 99.9% figure.
But, what was obnoxious was this:
By this claim, it is more than certain that my dialogue with you was a waste of time…
You didn’t give him a chance to explain himself–as he attempted to do in a follow-up post. Neither did you provide an alternate figure. How do you expect to win converts to Christianity if you so easily dismiss them?
The other obnoxious gem was this:
Surely, you have no concept of Science at all let alone Statistics.
Again, I haven’t the knowledge to dispute the claim; but even if Jason is incorrect on his figures, that doesn’t justify your attack.
Put the vinegar bottle away. Try some honey.
Smoky,
I apologize for the tone of my remarks —
It’s just I find it arrogant of some folks (even in the Scientific community) who seem to subscribe to the notion that the Big Bang is a theory actually on par with Newton’s Laws.
However, this is the most arrogant statement on it that I’ve found to date — 99.9%?
I don’t dismiss the probability of the Big Bang on the whole in spite of my doubts concerning it since there is that chance that it may be valid.
Yet, 99.9%?
Without going into elaborate technical details to explain why I believe this is entirely wrong; let me just phrase it this way (which is already evident but bears accentuating) —
He is essentially saying that there is only — NOT even 1%, mind you — but a tenth percent (0.1%) chance that the Big Bang theory may be wrong.
This is just crazy.
I apologize for the tone of my remarks —
Thanks for that. And I understand your concern regarding the probability.
I breezed right over the 99.9% Big Bang probability because I was still choking on the 75% likelihood of String Theory being correct.
Please, someone tell me what String Theory really IS. I mean, if you can show me some balanced equations or experiments (instead of fun word pictures) that have resulted in any substantive confirmation of even a LITTLE of the popular theory, that would be nice.
At this point it should be called String Idea.
Smoky Mt,
True dat indeed. But why do I feel like I’m being led to the slaughterhouse.
JP,
I’m not leading anywhere. I saw your point, and I thought it was a good one. I wanted to ensure I understood it, hence the request for your agreement.
I won’t say I’m convinced that creating a conscious machine is impossible (but Penrose’s book is certainly a compelling argument to that effect); still, I agree with you that we could never *know* whether we succeeded.
we could never *know* whether we succeeded
Which leads to a fascinating ethical dilemma. Some people may argue that conscious machines are “persons” — and that therefore a whole morality surrounding our interaction with them would need to develop (we wouldn’t want to cause those minds “pain”).
But — if you could never know whether the machine was actually conscious, where do you draw the line?
I’m starting to feel guilty for throwing out my old toaster.
…conscious machines are “persons”
Animals are conscious.
Are they considered as “persons”?
Tim J.,
Let me first apologize for suggesting that your argument merely amounted to saying that a meaningless universe was not palatable – I must’ve known that isn’t what you meant, and I think I just made the suggestion to try to score some rhetorical points.
At any rate, let me try to engage as best I can with the argument you’re actually making.
I am not claiming that the meaning our brains assign to very ordinary events – sunsets, friendship, childbirth, etc… – is illusory. This meaning is very real. I’m just saying that this meaning emerges from our perception and interaction with these events – it is not a property of the events that exists independently from us.
I also certainly don’t see speculative discussions as pointless. Again, I think the confusion here might be between the two statements, “Our moral sentiments are based in biological factors which are the result of evolution” (with which I agree) and the statement, “The ultimate cause of these moral sentiments is normative for us.”
The second quote would imply that I should go around impregnating as many women as possible (perhaps raping them) to insure that my genes propagate. Of course I would not endorse this and neither would you. This doesn’t mean that the reason we would not endorse this view is not also ultimately a product of evolution, it just means that our moral sentiments being a product of an evolutionary process does not mean that we endorse the end product of that process or that this is the whole of our moral sentiments.
The truth is not, “Nothing matters” – the truth is that things matter to us as conscious beings, but that the universe itself has no intrinsic purpose or meaning. We create our own meaning, but this doesn’t make it any less valuable. I certainly would not endorse the claim “it doesn’t matter what I do.”
One frustrating thing about this argument – many of the posters on this website have been making statements like, “The materialist claims that nothing matters…” etc… when this is precisely the opposite of what I, and any reasonable materialist would claim! The point of contention is whether we have sufficient grounds to claim differently – you are welcome to argue that we do not, but please don’t put words in our mouth.
Jason
Of the remaining 25%, what are the odds that it is wrong, versus the odds that it is Not Even Wrong?
Esau,
I’m not sure…but good point. Though even excluding personhood, most people still expect stricter moral guidelines surrounding animals than plants due to animals’ consciousness…e.g. we general don’t worry about cruelty to plants.
In response to my claim that string theory has a 75% chance of being correct, Michael writes:
I should admit that of my probabilities, 75% was the only one that might be disputed by working scientists (I’m fairly certain there would be universal endorsement of my 99.99% number for the big bang).
Despite the lack of predictions, string theory unifies pre-existing and seemingly irreconcilable physical phenomena. There are a number of interesting issues here that I won’t get into at the moment, but I arrived at my estimate based on the fact that the smartest physicists mostly agree that the eventual unified theory will have to emerge out of a string theoretic framework. Those with the mathematical and technical skills to fully appreciate string theory seem to think it is right (i.e. Ed Witten, David Gross, Gerard ‘t Hooft, Steven Weinberg) and these are not people given to exaggeration or inflated claims. My probability might well be an underestimate.
SDG,
Interesting question. I’d say about 20% wrong and 5% not even wrong. The problem at this point is that the theory is in such a primitive stage that it cannot yet produce sharp predictions. Despite the landscape issue, I think the theory will eventually issue in falsifiable predictions (whether it will turn out to be a uniquely determine the underlying laws of the universe is another interesting question – this seems less likely).
Jason
John E.,
Thanks for your comments. I think I now understand your argument better.
Some points I think we agree on (though correct me if I’m wrong). The question at issue is whether or not something simple can create something complex without intelligent input. You argue that everything in the universe is ultimately a product of intelligent input. Perhaps. But in order to assess whether or not this argument is correct, the only way to proceed is: assume this is not the case. If it were not the case, are there any simple processes that would lead to complex results?
If there were such processes, it wouldn’t show that intelligence wasn’t involved, but it would show that intelligence isn’t necessarily involved – in that sense, the hypothesis of an intelligent guide to seemingly natural processes would be superfluous and one would have to look to other arguments to find support for belief in God.
Now, I offerred cellular automata as an example of simple inputs leading to complex outputs. You countered that ultimately these are not simple inputs because the complexity is inherent in the structure of mathematics.
My question to you is: what would mathematics and logic look like without inherent complexity of the type you speak of? If you cannot answer that question, then on what basis can you say they are inherently complex? It seems to me that the whole of mathematics is an example of a complex structure built off of simple rules (the rules of logic and the axioms of set theory).
The inference of yours that I don’t follow can perhaps best be summarized as: “The internal coherence of mathematics attests to an intelligent creator”. Is this a statement you would in fact make? If so, on what basis can you make it given that as far as I can tell, mathematics literally could not have been any other way.
Jason
Michael, let me throw back at you two comparable scenarios. I’d be interested to hear your comments.
In the 6th century in the Middle East, a wealthy merchant who could have lived a life of ease and prosperity instead begins to preach that he has received a revelation from God and that he and everyone else should foreswear many of lifes greatest pleasures. He risks his own life in an unlikely war to spread his rules – against the odds, he is victorious and manages to unite all the surrounding tribes behind his banner. Today, billions follow his lead.
In the 21st century, a man living in India claims to be able to perform miracles – he claims to heal the sick, to read minds, to foretell the future and many other incredible abilities. He also claims to have been born to a virgin. Educated western men and women follow his lead. He has millions of followers on the Indian subcontinent. Some of his more underwhelming miracles are available on YouTube. His name is Sathya Sai Baba (I should admit that this is paraphrased from a piece by Sam Harris).
I’d say the probability of your story is about equal to the probability of either of the above stories.
Tim J. – suppose you were transported 200 years in the future. You fell in love and were married. You lived for 40 years with your wife, and she bore two children with you. You then discover, much to your chagrin, that she is a robot – albeit, an incredibly sophisticated robot that seems capable of all the thoughts and emotions of any human.
You are then offered $1,000,000 to torture and murder her (or torture and destroy her if you prefer I not use an emotionally loaded word). Remember, one million dollars can do a lot of good. Would you do it? Would you destroy this being that you apparently consider not be conscious just like you would smash your desktop computer for a million dollars?
Esau and others who dispute my 99.99% probability.
You continue to claim it is ridiculous, yet you have done nothing to answer my subsequent justification – namely, that virtually everyone who is qualified to judge agrees that the theory is correct (as far as I know, every professional astrophysicist and certainly every astrophysicist working at a major research university). This would seem to suggest an extremely high probability.
You deplore the arrogance of the scientific community, but can you imagine what the members of that community think of you! Imagine what you would think if you traveled to China and found out that everyone there thought your wife had blond hair when in fact she is a brunette. Of course, it’s only true as far as you can tell, but they’ve never met her! Who are they to judge! And yet they express such confidence! It’s mind-blowing.
If you continue to doubt that the big bang is almost certainly a correct theory (though it will eventually be superseded by a more correct theory), then please – tell me your answer to the above argument.
Jason,
First, Tim did not say that conscious machines are impossible, but that the appearance of consciousness does not prove the existence of consciousness. Do you dispute that?
Second, what does your question attempt to prove? Suppose Tim says he would not — even if he *knew* the machine to be unconscious — so what? I may have an emotional attachment to a painting which I refuse to destroy for any sum of money. What’s your point?
Smoky,
You might have an emotional attachment. Fine. For what sum of money would you give up that emotional attachment?
My example is meant to prove that we would have moral obligations to such a being in the same way we would have moral obligations to another human (I agree with you that the claim does not show the robot is conscious – that would require a further argument, but I think there is an intimate connection between consciousness and being the subject of moral obligations).
I don’t think this emotional attachment argument is an escape. You might have an emotional attachment to a teddy bear. You wouldn’t destroy it for $100. But if you were offered a million? How about 100 million? With that kind of money, you could build a hospital in a third world country or you could insure that your parents and children never had to worry about material well-being again.
My claim is: if it were just an emotional attachment you would take the money. If it were a moral obligation, then you would not. Which would you do? Would you destroy her despite her protests? Despite her insistence that she is just like you and she wants to live?
Jason
as far as I know, every professional astrophysicist and certainly every astrophysicist working at a major research university
I highly doubt that they would assign a 99.9% confidence in the theory.
Please list actual names of those you do know who do.
This would seem to suggest an extremely high probability.
Exteremly high probability?
Please tell me your background —
I am really curious as to how much of a scientific background you actually have as your comments denotes ignorance in the ways of scientific investigation.
I am regularly in touch with some of the brightest minds in Science be they in Academia or in the private industry.
One look at your comment and they would burst with laughter.
Esau, I am a PhD student in economics at MIT – many of my close friends are math and physics PhD students at Harvard, Stanford, MIT and Princeton – none of them are aware of any professors at any of those schools who question whether the big bang theory is correct (although of course, there are many details to be worked out, and ultimately it is only a part of a deeper theory). To make sure we are talking about the same thing: I am calling the big bang theory the theory that the universe began approximately 13.7 billion years ago and expanded to its current state from a state of enormous density and temperature.
The above is just my anecdotal evidence and only refers to a few elite universities. Here is a list of physicists in the National Academy of Sciences:
http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir/595025347?pg=rslts
There are 138 physicists listed. I offer you the following bet: if you are willing to contact each of the members on this list and ask them if they accept the claim that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and expanded from a primordial state of high temperature and density, I will give you $1,000 for every physicist you find who denies that claim if you give me $50 for every one who accepts it (I’d expect that the actual ratio will be much greater than 20:1 – I’d be rather shocked if any of them don’t agree with that statement, but I’m a graduate student and can’t afford to offer you better odds).
Jason
Jason,
Okay, that clears things up.
I just knew with how you assigned your confidence value, there was no way you could be somebody with a Science background.
Yet, even so, given the fact that you are actually someone with a PhD in economics (and, further, an MIT grad student), such an intimate study of economics would require integral understanding of Statistics.
As I mentioned to Smoky, I don’t doubt that there is a chance of the theory being correct; however, I do take issue that there is only a tenth percent chance of it being wrong.
That’s totally ludicrous.
Esau,
I consider economics (at least the kind I do!) a science, but that is a topic for another day – I agree that I am not a physical scientist.
Still, I don’t think we’ve settled this issue. I can certainly understand if you are uncomfortable making a monetary wager and perhaps I was wrong to suggest one in the first place. I sent you a list of 138 of the best physicists in the United States as selected by their colleagues. I challenge you (let’s make it a gentleman’s bet) to find ONE who denies the big bang theory. If you find one, I’ll be surprised. If you find 5 out of 138, I will be shocked.
Jason
Jason,
Did you even read what I wrote?
My issue was NOT that the Big Bang Theory could be valid, but that there is only 0.1% chance that it could be wrong.
Esau,
I did read what you wrote. I responded by suggesting that of the 138 best physicists in the United States, 138 believe the big bang theory is correct. That seems like a pretty reasonable basis for according a physical theory a 99.9% chance of being correct.
Of course, ideally we would ask each of those physicists to give their own probability and take some kind of average, but that data is not available.
Can you name a theory from the hard sciences in the past 50 years that 100% of the top 100 or so practicing scientists in the field believed correct but which turned out to be wrong?
On what basis could you possibly assign more than a .1% chance to the big bang theory being wrong? Who are you trusting and why should I trust them over the universal acclimation of the best physicists in the country?
Jason
And for those who ridiculed my judgment of string theory as having a 75% chance of being correct, I would offer a similar challenge. Let’s confine ourselves to the theoretical physicists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences. I would expect that 2/3 – 3/4 believe that some version of string theory is basically correct (I recognize that this is different from saying that a theory has a 75% chance of being right – as I said to Esau, ideally we would ask the physicists for their own estimates and average them, but that data isn’t available, so this is the closest we can come).
I responded by suggesting that of the 138 best physicists in the United States, 138 believe the big bang theory is correct. That seems like a pretty reasonable basis for according a physical theory a 99.9% chance of being correct. That seems like a pretty reasonable basis for according a physical theory a 99.9% chance of being correct.
sigh…
Just because the majority of folks actually think a theory is correct doesn’t actually mean that it is!
Did you even read ALL of what I wrote in the past to you????
The MAJORITY of Scientists back then believed in the theory that PROTEINS carried the blueprint to life — by your fallacious argument, you’re essentially saying that this theory was, therefore, 99.9% correct and, by their overwhelming consensus, ‘VALID’ — which, of course, WASN’T AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!
By the way, confidence and, further, the validity of a Theorem isn’t proven valid by mere consensus in Science but by the evidence!
Jason,
Please take a course in Experimental Design —
Then, perhaps we can talk.
We’re speaking, essentially, in 2 different languages at this point.
You’re attempting to communicate Science when, in fact, you’re merely communicating trivia.
Esau,
Despite the capitalization and exclamation marks, I remain unconvinced that my initial 99.99% estimate (or the 99.9% we’ve been tossing around recently) isn’t perfectly reasonable.
I of course agree with you that a scientific theory is not correct by virtue of the fact that the majority of scientists think it is, and I would certainly acknowledge the possibility that the majority of scientists could be wrong.
However, the question is not whether the theory could be wrong. The question is with what probability we should believe it is correct. Suppose we could assemble the following dataset: we consider every scientific theory proposed in natural sciences in the past 50 years (since the modern scientific method of publication came into being). We isolate the sample of theories which are unanimously agreed to be correct by the top 100 scientists in the field. We then ask, “Was this theory subsequently disconfirmed, or did the evidence for it only increase over the following 20 years?”
My claim is that if we ran this experiment, we would find that 999/1000 times, the evidence for the theory that was unanimously believed correct subsequently increased. Of course, this experiment is impossible, in part because it is difficult to tell what count as separate theories. But you get the idea of where I am coming from.
You mention the theory that proteins contain the blueprint to life. Firstly, this theory certainly was not believed by the top 100 working biologists in the past 50 years since Watson and Crick isolated the structure of DNA in 1953. Second, even prior to 1953, I very much doubt that theory was believed by all of the top 100 scientists (although some of them might have thought it reasonable).
So, would you like to try again to answer my challenge? Name a theory that was unanimously agreed to be correct by the top 100 scientists working in the field (since we don’t have survey data I’ll accept any one for which this is a plausible suggestion) and was subsequently disconfirmed.
Esau, I’ve taken several such courses at both Harvard and MIT. Please stop impugning my qualifications and address my arguments. What probability would you assign to the big bang theory being correct?
Have any of the other posters here been following this exchange? What do you think?
Despite the capitalization and exclamation marks, I remain unconvinced that my initial 99.99% estimate (or the 99.9% we’ve been tossing around recently) isn’t perfectly reasonable.
Jason,
There is NO SUBSTANTIAL DATA whatsover to even suggest that there is actually a 99.9% probability the Big Bang Theory is correct.
If there is, please outline your Proof here.
Firstly, this theory certainly was not believed by the top 100 working biologists in the past 50 years since Watson and Crick isolated the structure of DNA in 1953. Second, even prior to 1953, I very much doubt that theory was believed by all of the top 100 scientists (although some of them might have thought it reasonable).
There were several experiments that were conducted that suggested nucleic acids actually were the answer to the riddle — even before Crick.
However, for the most part, these were dismissed by some of the best scientists since they thought it too simple and many did actually suspect proteins given the complexity of the latter as compared with the former.
Esau,
Neither of us is qualified to assess that data.
While it is true that the validity of the theory ultimately rests on the data, the question is how you and I here and now can determine the probability that the theory is true. Even if we were to spend the next year debating the evidence for the big bang, that would be much less reliable than even asking a single professional working in the field. It turns out, you and I could be wrong as well and our assessment of the evidence might be incorrect.
The best way around this thorny problem is to determine what the experts in the field think. It would help to ask one, it would be even better to poll a few hundred. Since we don’t have survey data, we are reduced to informed speculation. I have speculated that every physicist in the National Academy of Sciences believes that the big bang theory is correct. You have not challenged that statement (and rightly so, since I very much doubt you could find a counterexample). Determining the consensus among professional physicists seems to be indisputably the best method for you and I, here and now to determine the likelihood that the big bang theory is true given that neither of us are PhD physicists working in the relevant fields (correct me if I’m wrong).
Do you disagree? Do you think you can assess the data better than the 138 members of the national academy of sciences?
I see no reason to disagree with anything you have said, but this is insufficient to support the claim you want to make. If you’re right, some of the best scientists have been wrong in the past. I agree. My claim is only that when all of the best scientists agree (especially in the past 50 years since the advent of the modern system of scientific publication), they are correct with very high probability (99.9% was my estimate).
The best way around this thorny problem is to determine what the experts in the field think. It would help to ask one, it would be even better to poll a few hundred.
Jason,
That’s just it —
As I’ve hinted at before, you don’t determine the probability of a Theorem being true by mere consensus but by the available data.
That’s how I am.
I cannot subscribe to something being valid unless there is adequate data to support the hypothesis — and even there, you can have unavoidable problems and issues — which is exactly why you work hard at obtaining, at the very least, sufficient data.
Yes, I agree with you that in terms of an actual study, one cannot hope to obtain a comprehensive data set.
Even in simple matters, this would be too expensive, too time-consuming, and almost impossible in many instances; which is why you do what you can.
Now, I believe that your concluding question holds what I’ve been after from you all along.
You said:
Do you think you can assess the data better than the 138 members of the national academy of sciences?
The fact is there is data!
Therefore, what data is there that has been/currently being assessed which makes you think that such a Theory is actually true?
We isolate the sample of theories which are unanimously agreed to be correct by the top 100 scientists in the field. We then ask, “Was this theory subsequently disconfirmed, or did the evidence for it only increase over the following 20 years?” My claim is that if we ran this experiment, we would find that 999/1000 times, the evidence for the theory that was unanimously believed correct subsequently increased.
What if you did the same experiment with Catholic teachings unamimously agreed by 100 Catholic theologians?
Esau, you seemed to have missed the point of my post that began “Neither of us is qualified to assess that data.”
Your replacement of “theory” with “Theorem” provides an excellent analogy though. What probability would you attach to Fermat’s Last Theorem being correct? I would say about 99.9%. I can’t follow the proof; I don’t have the training in the requisite mathematical fields. But I know that the mathematicians who do are confident that Andrew Wiles proof is correct.
Perhaps that is how you are, but if you insist on judging everything first hand, you should face up to the fact that you will almost always be wrong when it comes to technical questions outside your field of expertise.
My whole point is that this exercise is fruitless and that we are much more likely to arrive at a correct answer if we simply attempt to determine what experts think. But if you must know – one compelling source of data in support of the theory (there are others) comes from the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation
for a brief introduction.
Uriana, this is an interesting point that deserves a full response. I’m not sure what the result of that experiment would be, but let’s suppose for the sake of argument that there would be universal agreement among Catholic theologians on the basic tenets. I of course believe that Catholic theologians are completely mistaken about these basic tenets. Is this view consistent with my above argument? I believe so – I think there are two main sources of disanalogy between the suggested survey of physicists and your survey of catholic theologians.
1) Are there selection biases?
Of course Catholic theologians agree on the basic points of Catholic doctrine, otherwise they wouldn’t become Catholic theologians! The same cannot be said of physicists. A physicist who disagreed about a widely accepted physical theory could easily win a nobel prize if they could present evidence that the theory was false or incomplete. This is the method by which progress is made in science. Is there any analogous process in theology?
2) Who is best qualified to assess the evidence?
A key presumption in my argument is that it is unanimously agreed that physicists are best qualified to assess the evidence for physical theories like the big bang.
Who is best qualified to assess the veracity of the trinity? I would argue that theologians are not especially well-qualified to assess the truth-claims of religion. Certainly, they are no more qualified than other philosophers and perhaps historians who study the period in question. I would also argue that scientists are well-qualified to assess these truth claims, although of course I realize that would be a contentious claim.
Perhaps that is how you are, but if you insist on judging everything first hand, you should face up to the fact that you will almost always be wrong when it comes to technical questions outside your field of expertise.
True — but that does not mean I should surrender my personal judgment in the matter for want of experience/expertise and follow blindly somebody else’s opinions on certain matters due to their expertise.
…we are much more likely to arrive at a correct answer if we simply attempt to determine what experts think.
Here, in this venture, you do realize that you are merely determining what they think and NOT what actually is the case — thus, you are not closer to arriving the correct answer as to whether a theorem is valid but only as to what they think.
Who is best qualified to assess the veracity of the trinity? I would argue that theologians are not especially well-qualified to assess the truth-claims of religion. Certainly, they are no more qualified than other philosophers and perhaps historians who study the period in question. I would also argue that scientists are well-qualified to assess these truth claims, although of course I realize that would be a contentious claim.
That is analogous to saying that somebody with a PhD in Economics is equally qualified in determining bioengineering principles than a biotech engineer.
Scientists would not be capable of assessing such truth claims unless they are gifted in a way other than their skill set.
That would essentially be like two reactants attempting to complete a reaction in which they are incapable of completing due to the high energy of activation barrier which prevents them from doing so unless, of course, in the presence of a catalyst; that ‘catalyst’ is something you have yet to discover apparently.
I’ve offered a number of earlier examples to which you haven’t responded but in which that is exactly what you do. Presumably you believe that the tilt of the earth on its axis is responsible for the seasons. 1) Do you believe that? 2) On what basis?
My last dozen or so posts have all been directed towards arguing that the best way to determine the correct answer in this case is just to determine what others think since we’re not qualified to assess the evidence. My claim isn’t just, “I want to know what experts think.” My claim is, “What experts think is the best indicator of the truth for you and I, here and now, since we’re not qualified to assess the evidence”. If you want to know the truth, you must ask those who are qualified to assess the evidence. By demanding first-hand knowledge in a field where you will never have such knowledge, you are denying yourself the only reliable avenue to obtain true beliefs in this case.
I’ve offered several examples to illustrate this point which you have not addressed, including the example of the person in the warehouse who isn’t tall enough to look out the window but wants to know if there is a tree there. In that case, asking others is obviously the best guide to the truth. That is not exactly analogous because scientists can’t observe the big bang directly – but they can observe all kinds of evidence, such as the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background that I mentioned.
By demanding first-hand knowledge in a field where you will never have such knowledge, you are denying yourself the only reliable avenue to obtain true beliefs in this case.
Jason,
You might want to ponder what you just said here —
It speaks volumes of a Truth that I have been trying to assert all along — albeit, surreptitiously though.
Of course Catholic theologians agree on the basic points of Catholic doctrine, otherwise they wouldn’t become Catholic theologians!
Catholic theologians come in many flavors, including disagreeable ones. Some are tolerated, some are not listened to, some are rejected, etc. Some of the people used to disagree but now agree with others.
A physicist who disagreed about a widely accepted physical theory could easily win a nobel prize if they could present evidence that the theory was false or incomplete.
A theologian who disagreed about widely accepted theology could easily be recognized if he could actually show the theology was false to the satisfaction of the judging parties.
A key presumption in my argument is that it is unanimously agreed that physicists are best qualified to assess the evidence for physical theories like the big bang.
Unanimously agreed by whom?
I would argue that…
Anyone can argue anything.
What experts think is the best indicator of the truth for you and I, here and now, since we’re not qualified to assess the evidence
And what expert told you who the experts are?
I suppose since you’ve capitalized Truth you can ignore the rest of my argument? Again, my use of the word truth above in regards to a scientific theory was no different from the way I have been using it all along. I have never attempted to give a precise definition, but rather appealed to our intuitive understanding that some theories are much more reasonable than others as descriptions of reality (and are in that sense, true, although always provisionally as with anything else) – to say that there is a 99.9% chance a theory is correct, it is enough for our purposes that you can distinguish between a correct theory (Newton’s theory of gravity) and a wrong theory (Ptolemy’s cosmology) without exactly defining what makes one theory correct and another wrong. By attempting to get into a philosophical discussion about the meaning of truth, you are just obscuring all of the very direct arguments I made above that you have failed to answer.
Uriana,
Let me respond to each of your points in order.
I was operating under the assumption that Catholic theologians agree about some basic doctrinal matters (the authority of the Pope, the divinity of Jesus, etc…). Perhaps they don’t, and if not, this presents no challenge to my appeal to the consensus among physicists at all! I would simply say that to the extent that Catholic theologians do agree about basic doctrinal matters, this is not at all surprising and not indicative of the deeper truth of those matters because of the selection issue – the great majority of people who become Catholic theologians have a prior commitment to these doctrinal issues.
This is an good point. I haven’t studied the history of theology enough to assess it, but I’m sure this sometimes happens. I would point to an important difference though: in physics, a physicist proposes a new theory, it is tested and eventually it is either accepted unanimously by all physicists as a correct theory (correct in the provisional sense I’ve explained above) or rejected. In theology, one never sees such unanimity developing around new theological ideas (if I’m wrong, please give an example of a new theological idea from the past 100 years that is accepted today by almost all theologians). This is telling – if there really were an underlying fact of the matter about theology, one would expect more agreement.
I assumed everyone, but perhaps you’ll prove me wrong. Do you not believe that physicists are the best judges of physical theories? If not, why not? Who is a better judge?
You ask what expert told me who the experts are – are you seriously challenging the idea that physicists are the experts on physics?
in physics, a physicist proposes a new theory, it is tested and eventually it is either accepted unanimously by all physicists as a correct theory… or rejected
Your claim is not unanimously accepted by all physicists.
Do you not believe that physicists are the best judges of physical theories?
I simply see that as a definition, not a matter for belief.
You ask what expert told me who the experts are – are you seriously challenging the idea that physicists are the experts on physics?
I’m inviting you to tell me who told you who the experts are and why you accept that assessment, being that you admit to being unqualified to assess the evidence.
That’s true, although it is accepted by an enormous majority of physicists and perhaps all of the physicists who have won nobel prizes / been elected to the national academy of sciences / work at major research universities.
But returning to your basic point – unlike say, Newton’s theory of gravity or the theory of electromagnetism – there are a tiny minority of physicists who believe the big bang theory is not correct. I would expect that, presuming it is correct, the big bang theory will eventually win over even those few dissenters because the evidence for it will continue to accumulate and the remaining puzzles will be dissolved.
My basic point in bringing up unanimous consensus was to contrast physics with theology. In physics, unanimous consensus is the eventual goal because the evidence for a correct theory continues to pile up until someone familiar with the evidence simply cannot sincerely question its validity (as is the case now with say quantum mechanics, despite prominent detractors in the early stages). In theology, there is no corresponding effect as far as I am aware – again, if you think otherwise, please provide an example of a theological proposition that originates in the 20th century that has won universal acceptance (I’d cite quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity as two among many other examples in physics). As I said in my previous post, I find the absence of this phenomena highly suggestive of a lack of any underlying truth to theological notions.
The experts are the professional physicists – people with PhDs in physics and especially those who study astrophysics and cosmology and publish in peer reviewed journals.
Just because I am unqualified to judge the evidence does not mean I am unqualified to determine who is expert. In my warehouse analogy, just because I can’t see out the window myself doesn’t mean I can’t tell which other people are tall enough to see outside. I think I am very well qualified to determine who the experts are in this case (in fact, I’d consider myself something of an expert expert chooser, since this is a topic of my own PhD research).
I’d consider myself something of an expert expert chooser
What am I an expert on, Jason?
I don’t know Smoky Mountain – what have you studied and what is your profession?
When I said I was an “expert expert chooser” – I only meant that I have spent some time thinking about how, given a field of inquiry – we can best identify the set of people with expertise in that field and test whether someone belongs to that set.
When I said I was an “expert expert chooser” – I only meant that I have spent some time thinking about…
Oh my. At your young age, how much time did it take you to qualify yourself as “expert expert chooser”?
Heh, alright, let me back off my claim of being an expert expert chooser since this not really relevant to the main points I was making above (at know point did I ask anyone to defer to me as an expert chooser). It’s certainly true that there are varying degrees of expertise, and I only meant to imply that this is a question I had thought seriously about in the context of my technical training.
No one has disputed my substantive claims that:
1) Even non-experts can determine who the experts are in a particular case (e.g. despite not being a professional physicist, I know that physicists are best placed to evaluate the evidence for the big bang hypothesis)
2) Physicists almost unanimously agree that the big bang hypothesis is correct (and the agreement is likely unanimous among the 138 physicists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences
3) This makes it extremely likely that the big bang hypothesis is in fact correct.
I’d also be interested in any responses to my comments about the status of theology above – I believe it is a disreputable subject due to the fact that no new ideas which are introduced are ever affirmed with anything close to a consensus among theologians, unlike in the natural and social sciences where this happens regularly.
Even non-experts can determine who the experts are in a particular case
Of course. All it takes is an opinion. And everyone is well-qualified to his own.
This makes it extremely likely that the big bang hypothesis is in fact correct.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. That too is in fact correct.
I believe it is a disreputable subject due to the fact that no new ideas which are introduced are ever affirmed with anything close to a consensus among theologians, unlike in the natural and social sciences where this happens regularly.
Sounds like your idea of reputable is a lady who puts out what you want regularly.
This seems to suggest that I am somehow being arbitrary in my selection of experts – I’ve identified 138 people who I believe are among the best qualified people in the world to judge the truth of the big bang theory. This is an opinion, but not an unfounded one. I can defend it if you dispute it – do you dispute it? If so, who do you believe is better qualified?
I have no idea what you mean here.
I have no idea what you mean here either. This seems like a completely random and baseless insult (like “your mom is fat!”). What are you talking about?
Jason,
you yourself have common sense. Then you can answer your own questions about the difference between science and philosophy. Of course science is easier! It is, for the most part observible! what one can see with his eyes is infinitely easier than what one needs to understand in the spirit.
You are smart enough to know the difference between the two.
Now “God is Spirit”, or so says Jesus Christ.
Since God is spirit, we must “Worship God in Spirit and Truth”.
Is SPirit readily observable? Of course not. Does it exist? Do I exist? do my thoughts have physical form?
“From the depths of the heart, does the mouth speak”?
Only a ‘dodo’ will equate spirituality with science! Science is TOO EASY.
But turning to experts…who are you going to call when it is time for you to die?
Is there an expert who will teach you how you will manage to exist lacking a physical, scientific, body?
Which of your intelligent physicists is capable of teaching you? What credentials do you need to answer questions about bodily death?
And sicne you are an ‘expert chooser’, would you believe somebody who actually rose from the dead, like Jesus Christ? Who also said He would ride from the dead on the third day?
OR do you choose to believe that these are all fabrications of one sort or another.
When you read the story of Christ…His very words in the Gosples…does it seem to you that they contain any wisdom at all? OR do they appear to be deceptions.
And about the Charity of Christ. Does He seem different from any other person in His great love for others? In his parables on lovbe ,faithfulness and charity, do these have any social worth what-so-ever? Or top you are they just random ramblings?
My answer to you.
Go to Amazon.com and buy a book titled “The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ” by Archbishop Alban Goodier S.J. 1930. One of the 100 most known Catholics (according to a poll) taken a few years back listed Fr. John Hardon amongst them. He said that this book was his favorite ‘secondary source’ for the life of Christ. I include this detail because I know you pay attention to such things.
However, a deep reading of the Life of Christ, by a truly holy writer, will open up to you many new insights into the Christian, and Catholic faith. Since everything is founded on Christ, it really is essential to study at least 1 good book on him..outside of the Gosples themselves.
If you want an expert in Cthe Life of Christ, who wrote in the 1930′ in the Holy Land, who was also the archbishop of Calcutta India for 10 years, then Abp. Alban Goodier is an author to look into.
Best with everything!.. and hope you find experts in the area of DIVINE LOVE amongst Christ’s faithful servants and friends in His Holy Church!
Sorry for the pathetic typos!!
I MUST proof read!.. I MUST proof read! 🙁
A Williams,
First I just want to thank you as you’ve been both passionate and civil throughout our discussion, which is not an easy task. I will add your recommendation to my list of books to read, but I can’t promise to get to it in the near-future.
My points above about the views of physicists in the national academy of sciences were mainly meant in response to Esau’s contention that the evidence for the Big Bang is weak, although you’re right that I don’t see science and philosophy as being quite so distinct from one another as you seem to. I think religion throughout history has made a number of claims about what the empirical world should look like (i.e. when human life began, how it came to be) and that these claims are well within the province of science. I also think that claims about the nature of morality are at least in part scientific (although they involve a purely philosophical component as well).
Do you personally have any beliefs about the observable universe that follow from your religion? That is, do you agree with scientists that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, that life on earth is 4 billion years old and that humans share a common ancestor with primates?
:-). When I first started posting on this blog, I was worried that I might have mild dyslexia because I omitted the word “the” and substituted “of” for “or” and things like that so many times. I say we both band together and blame the blog for our typos – I think it’s secretly adding them when no one is looking.
As for my beliefs in science, I agree with what logic and empirical evidence shows us. I am actually very happy with the universe as we see it, and even in the fact that we share almost all genes and attributes with animals.
I was converted by reading the Life of St. Francis of Assisi, and agree with every aspect of his spirituality, especially concerning the fact that all of creation, both animate and inanimate creatures, are in our family. We are brothers of all things, as it is the Almighty, Good God, that created us.
In all creation, therefore, I can see the goodness of God..even when we don’t understand it sometimes. ie. like when a volcano buries your house! I also like the prophet JOB very much, for accepting things as they were, and giving credit to God both when “He gives”, as well as ” when He takes away.”
There are also countless mysteries of nature, and especially human nature, that we will never understand. But I don’t worry to much about these. I would like to only be able to have the strength to live the life that God inspires me to, and ask Him to help it to not be too difficult. However, I think we all need to be courageous, because no one is immune from suffering, and we have the crucifixion of Jesus as one example of this.
But in everything, I would like to have great love and mercy for all people, as I also wish mercy for myself in all or any of my many failings. And as I wish not to succomb to temptations against God, faith and Grace, I also wish and pray that no one else succomb to temptations either. I really want all people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and niether myself nor anybody else be lost, so that all may be closely unitied for all eternity to God and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This is why I don’t like excessively logical argumentation much, because often it is not for the sake of true brotherly love, and to build up the faith of others, but rather only to find error and rejoice in destroying it. This is also why I always like to quote frequently from the Lord, because His words are always filled with burning charity, even when directed at His enemies!
But between science and religion, there is no comparison. Science does not deal in the realm of DIVINE LOVE…which is the only thing that can truly satisfy a soul. However, it does do a good job of filling the belly, which I certainly won’t complain about!
“Peace and all good for all!” was St. Francis’ greeting and motto. And I would like always to be of this same spirit!
You argue that everything in the universe is ultimately a product of intelligent input. Perhaps. But in order to assess whether or not this argument is correct, the only way to proceed is: assume this is not the case. If it were not the case, are there any simple processes that would lead to complex results?
Or, assume there is an Intelligent Designer and then show that it leads to an absurd conclusion and therefore there is no Intelligent Designer. I have put forth examples that I think show the reasonableness of believing in an Intelligent Designer. I have not seen any arguments that show the absurdity of believing in an Intelligent Designer, only the assertion that it’s superfluous. I admit though that I have not read every argument on these four threads, but I haven’t seen one that demonstrates the superfluousness of believing in an Intelligent Designer, just the assertion that it is.
However, here are a couple cases that I think demonstrate that the assumption of no Intelligent Designer leads to absurd results:
* Endless recursion of matter and/or energy. Where did the matter and energy for the big bang (if that theory is indeed true) come from if not from an Intelligent Designer? And where did that matter/energy come from? And so on? I don’t think this question can be endlessly asked. Or did matter and/or energy exist from the “beginning of time”?
* Endless time. If time stretches infinitely behind us and before us, then how did we ever get to Oct 27, 2007? How did we even get to the time of the Big Bang? No matter how far back you go, time would have had to have progressed from infinity to get to that time. Even if you go back an infinite time, it still takes an infinity to get even there. But how is that possible since here we are in October of 2007? And what caused the “big” that must’ve apparently existed in a stable state for an infinite amount of time to finally “bang”? You would think that if it was in that state for an infinite amount of time it would’ve been fairly stable. Or if you say time itself “started” on its own with no Intelligent Designer, then we have a case of something coming from nothing which is also absurd. In sum, I think it’s more rational to believe in God, and also better to believe in God (e.g. Pascal’s Wager, as one reason based simply on logic).
I think the above may be more important than your other questions, but I will go ahead and address them:
Now, I offerred cellular automata as an example of simple inputs leading to complex outputs. You countered that ultimately these are not simple inputs because the complexity is inherent in the structure of mathematics.
My question to you is: what would mathematics and logic look like without inherent complexity of the type you speak of? If you cannot answer that question, then on what basis can you say they are inherently complex? It seems to me that the whole of mathematics is an example of a complex structure built off of simple rules (the rules of logic and the axioms of set theory).
Actually what I’m saying is that all of mathematics is an unchanging truth. Granted, humanity may see the truth of the whole of mathematics by first recognizing and understanding the more simple truths, and only later (if you’re fortunate enough to be a Harvard or MIT grad) recognizing and understanding (i.e. “building”) some of the more complex truths and seeing that they do not conflict with the simpler truths. But it doesn’t mean that the simple truths created the complex truths. Our understanding of the truth may have “evolved”; our understanding may have been “built” upon truths simpler to understand; but the truth itself didn’t evolve. The truth itself wasn’t built from other truths that are simpler for us to understand. You can’t take away one without the taking away the other.
But if there were no paintings, that doesn’t mean you could deduce that there were no pigmented substances either. And just because you have pigmented substances doesn’t mean that there must necessarily be paintings as well. So the Van Gogh analogy works because it shows that when pigmented substances become paintings, an Intelligent Designer (Van Gogh in this case) was involved.
So no, I can’t answer the question about what mathematics would look like without its inherent complexity. We agree that mathematics could not have been any other way. And here I mean mathematics to be the entirety of what is really true about mathematics, not an understanding that may one day be disproved however unlikely that may be. If that were the case then that incorrect understanding was never true mathematics. So the question, as you probably agree, is the same as asking what truth looks like without true being true.
The inference of yours that I don’t follow can perhaps best be summarized as: “The internal coherence of mathematics attests to an intelligent creator”. Is this a statement you would in fact make? If so, on what basis can you make it given that as far as I can tell, mathematics literally could not have been any other way.
I’m sure I presented it poorly, but my inference is that mathematics itself cannot be used as an example that shows simple elements on their own creating complex elements, as I hope I explained above. Whenever mathematical concepts are at work in the physical world, though, such as actually constructing a physical model of a cellular automaton, a third entity is involved — someone or something to actually do the constructing or at least set it up and trigger it. However, if you’re referring to my “note to self”, that is an undeveloped thought where I think mathematics may be useful as an analogy in demonstrating similar properties that are commonly attributed to God, more specifically the Trinity. I only mentioned it in case other Christians here see it and would like to help develop that thought further, but it’s probably not relevant to this thread.
Jason,
Addressing your comment about theology:
I believe it is a disreputable subject due to the fact that no new ideas which are introduced are ever affirmed with anything close to a consensus among theologians, unlike in the natural and social sciences where this happens regularly.
Do you really think there is something close to consensus in philosophy among philosophers? Or is philosophy not a reputable subject either? It seems to me that there is much overlap between philosophy and theology.
John E, let me engage briefly with your last post for now – I’ll definitely engage with the many issues raised in your other post after I get some sleep and do some real work.
Your comparison between philosophy and theology suggests that my earlier statement was too crude. Both philosophy and theology actually involve a number of disparate endeavors only some of which I regard as misguided. Let me try to state more clearly what these are.
The type of philosophy generally categorized as metaphysics I believe is mostly vacuous. I think the potentially meaningful parts of metaphysics – speculations about the nature of time and space, the nature of mind and matter, consciousness and free will – are ultimately scientific questions which we have not yet developed the proper scientific framework for addressing. I think most of the current speculations by philosophers about these questions are akin to Aristotle’s speculations about the age of the earth. We can perhaps say something about what methods might someday lead to fruitful results, but any attempt to say anything substantive about these problems is still guesswork. I think a great deal of theology falls into this category as well. The telling feature of both fields is the lack of consensus.
What about moral philosophy? Here there is no consensus either. Does that mean there is no fact of the matter? In one sense, I would actually say that judgment is correct. There are not moral truths that exist independently of our minds waiting to be discovered. The task of moral philosophy is not to uncover new moral truths, but rather to help us understand the role that moral claims play in our lives and to help us to understand the claims that others are making by more fully appreciating the nature of their experiences. In this sense, moral philosophy is like literature – a demand for consensus in literature is absurd; likewise in moral philosophy.
On what basis can I then feel outrage at those who think slavery is justified? My feelings towards someone who sincerely thought slavery was morally acceptable would actually be of a very different sort than my feelings towards someone who held slaves despite feeling it was unacceptable. I think the person who believes that slavery is acceptable simply fails to successfully understand what the experience is like for the slave. Their sin is a lack of empathy. We should not expect even the most convincing philosophical argument to rectify this problem and lead to consensus. Such consensus can only come about over time through shared experience – and in fact, this is what has happened and this is why slavery is now almost universally regarded as wrong.
John E.,
Let me now try to address the arguments you made about why a lack of an intelligent designer leads to absurd results.
I think actually modern physics provides an extremely compelling answer to this objection – the net energy of the universe is zero! This has claim has been verified to a high degree of accuracy.
This is actually I think based on a misunderstanding of the scientific theory. The big bang is the origin of both space and time. Asking what is before the big bang is like asking what is north of the north pole. It’s not a coherent question.
Both of these are clearly well within the domain of expertise of theoretical physicists. Even if I could not provide an answer, I do not think you should place much stock in any intuition you might have them – instead you should defer to judgment of professionals in the field with vastly more knowledge about these matters than yourself.
Regarding your broader analogy about intelligent design – you seem to have rigged the cards in its favor. You say that we know that intelligent agents can design complex things – witness Van Gogh creating a painting. But any other example of complexity that I introduce you simply assume is also an example of intelligent design. You state, “Whenever mathematical concepts are at work in the physical world, though, such as actually constructing a physical model of a cellular automaton, a third entity is involved.” Suppose we found a process in nature that mimicked cellular automata (there are in fact many). Would this satisfy you, or would you say, “Ah, but it’s not really natural since God’s guiding hand is there.”
This response excludes the possibility of naturalism by fiat. For your argument to succeed, you need to explain what why the natural process alone would be insufficient. This is the step I do not follow.
Both of these are clearly well within the domain of expertise of theoretical physicists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time :
Ok. Now what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time :
Well, learn something new every day! So a Roman Catholic priest/scientist (likely partial to the belief in a Creator) puts forth the theory of the Big Bang which is widely accepted by scientists today and is even used by atheists to assert that God does not exist. Fascinating.
Even if I could not provide an answer, I do not think you should place much stock in any intuition you might have them – instead you should defer to judgment of professionals in the field with vastly more knowledge about these matters than yourself.
and
I think actually modern physics provides an extremely compelling answer to this objection – the net energy of the universe is zero! This has claim has been verified to a high degree of accuracy.
I guess that depends on what you accept as verification, but I will not argue. Can it also be assumed that the net matter of the universe is also zero? So the net energy and matter of the universe was zero at the beginning and is zero now, but between those two points nothing with no energy exploded and created the universe? It seems that these elaborate theories, at least from a materialist’s perspective or those who limit themselves to it, are basically saying, “We don’t know how it happened, but the universe came about on its own from a nothingness outside of time.” And you’re basically saying to me, “Don’t ask. Even if you do, it’s an incoherent question.” In other words, “Don’t look for the man behind the curtain!” I think perhaps it seems like an incoherent question because the answer ready-at-hand is itself incoherent. I do not mean this as a criticism of you or physicists. By their own admission, little is known about the earliest moments of the universe’s history — only speculative theories. Once again, science by its very nature runs out of answers before we run out of questions.
Regarding your broader analogy about intelligent design – you seem to have rigged the cards in its favor.
Point well taken, although its difficult to see how either of us could avoid rigging the cards with respect to simple elements creating complex elements on their own. You could show processes in nature such as a tree growing from a seed and say “See, God’s guiding hand is not needed to explain it”, being satisfied only with a depth of explanation for the practical purposes of agriculture or the understanding of genetics. Deeper questions can be safely ignored or deemed irrelevant when the assumption of God’s existence is assumed at the outset.
My brother, I’m not sure how much longer either of us will be contributing to this thread, so let me take the opportunity now to say, as others have already mentioned elsewhere, that you have been very considerate in these debates and discussions. My belief in God has been strengthened. Although that may cause you some disappointment now, I hope and pray that one day you are far from disappointed when we’re standing together in Heaven, laughing about this, and being thankful that you were wrong. Best wishes in your studies. (You do know though that Phd stands for permanent head damage, don’t you?)
when the assumption of God’s existence is assumed at the outset
clarification: “when the assumption of God’s non-existence is assumed at the outset”
Coincidentally I am reading a book called “Benedictus, Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI” that has brief snippets of our current pope’s writings.
The entry for today’s writing (October 30) struck me as very appropriate to this debate and perhaps a good way for me to end my participation in this thread if I do not feel compelled to participate further. It is titled “The Creating Reason is Love” and is taken from L’Osservatore Romano (1939):
I think actually modern physics provides an extremely compelling answer to this objection – the net energy of the universe is zero! This has claim has been verified to a high degree of accuracy.
It is one of the hypotheses that has been conjured to avoid the implications of creation ex nihilo. Some physicist have proposed that the entire universe is somehow a gigantic zero point fluctuation. It is just that, an hypothesis, and considering that many physicists are desperately searching for evidence of so-called dark matter to make their equations come out. The claim that the net energy of the universe is known to a high degree of accuracy is entirely baseless.
And of course the Big Bang theory was originated by a Catholic priest. I hope that Jason knew that all along and has simply been coy about it. As Einstein told Fr. LeMaitre before having to eat his words, “You maths are correct but your physics is abominable.” Physicists at the time favored a steady state model of the universe because they too did not like the implication of a moment of creation which the Big Bang theory invokes. It took Hubble’s observations to make them abandon the position their prejudices compelled them to hold.