The argument of irrelevance

[it's_sam]

I was thinking if space is God's "deity's" body technicaly it is perfect in the sense it is going to do what it has always done and nothing else. The only thing that is changed is what we do in our own space in that body. So it doesnt change the body just the space we have for ourselves.

 

[Engyo]

I was thinking if space is God's "deity's" body technicaly it is perfect in the sense it is going to do what it has always done and nothing else. The only thing that is changed is what we do in our own space in that body. So it doesnt change the body just the space we have for ourselves.

Kinda like a virus, no?

 

[it's_sam]

HAHA we are HIGHLY contagious

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Is the idea of measurement the pinnacle of human projection?
We seem to have a notion that reality should fit into our way of quantifying and understanding it.

i would say we have a notion that reality partially should be understandable or quantifiable. All parts of reality that are not and are not even (in principle) detectable are irrelevant for us.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

How can we measure the difference? Whether we're in a universe
with gods or without gods, we cannot examine the alternative.

We can measure differences within the universe. (see my point 2)

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

The fact that there are logical alternatives to the existence of God does not present a reason for believers to abandon their belief nor for unbelievers to continue in their skepticism. This argument should evoke a profound meh. If it does otherwise it's only because the person is strongly disposed to believe in the nonexistence of gods.

This was not an argument about logical alternatives.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

I appreciate questions like this, even if some others do not. And as Engyo aptly stated, such questions might just be more or less intellectual exercises, but such exercises entertain me, so thank you for posting your thoughts.

Firstly, I would ask why must we assume that the existence of an object should make some noticable and measurable impact somewhere, either on its environment or on other objects?
I see two possible alternatives to this assumption:

(1) Perhaps a thing can exist and have no impact on other things whatsoever. I doubt this is likely, but I am inclined to consider it as possible because I have yet to conceive on my own of any conclusive proof to the contrary. I will call this the anti-George Bailey theory. But since you have asserted it is not possible, I would ask that you explain why, if you would.

Reading through your post i think somewhere along the way you switched your interpretation of my statements from the "should" to a "must".

I do not rule out that something could exist that has no measurable impact anywhere although logically and philosophically i think it could be archived to demonstrate its unlikelyness.

I only state that something that exists SHOULD make a difference to its nonexistence. My argument for that is simply that if there is no difference then the question of existence as well as it's actual answer becomes irrelevant.

If there is a God who doesn't in any way interact with mankind or the universe at any time, who's existence was, is and will be without difference for us to his nonexistence, then its irrelevant if he exists and he can be treated as nonexistent.

But you had a second point:

(2) Perhaps God exists but purposely chooses to conceal his existence. This could be for reasons known only to God. Or it could be as some faithful followers have heretofore proposed, that God wants our belief in him to be a matter of faith. This second option I also find highly unlikely, at least the faith part. Personally, I don't believe a God, if one exists, would place more value in blind faith than empirical evidence, sound reasoning and rational explanations. But, the alternative must be considered at least, or so I think.

That's what i tried to adress in the second point of my original argument.
Of course there could be some form of a God that does as you state above. But i am not inclined to follow that line of arbitrariness where we talk about a being so far away from the "figure" that normally is described in any scripture that it becomes a something completely different.
None of the Gods of the scriptures supposedly behave like that, hiding and concealing themselves. Actually all claim the very opposite, namely that God wants us to love/fear/(put something in) him and that he supposedly has set up clear signs for us.
The christian, the muslim, the jewish God ... all of those three at least promisse interaction on earth during our life time, all of them supposedly intervened at several stages in earths history.
One simple example would be prayer (normal or intercessory). Or the question about life standards or catastrophes, protection, punishment and so on.

There are a lot of things that are measurable and that even should be compared to supposed promisses of scriptures.

But isn't it also a possibility that God does exist and he has made an observable and measurable impact, however, we humans have simply been incapable of verifying God's handiwork. Obviously, if God does exist and he created all this stuff around us, then we can certainly measure his creation. I think the concept of a divine Prime Mover, a God that set everything in motion but refuses to interact with his creation, is plausible. Again, I have no idea what the reasons for God's intentional remoteness might be, but again I must consider it due to lack of proof that such a proposition is impossible.

Sure it could be possible, but i simply claim that this contradicts the teachings of all mainstream religions.
And it renders God so "arbitrary" that you could "exchange" the word God with any word of your liking like "foo" or "bum", just as well as you could speak about 20 gods or 21 or 2.343 Gods.

I think a discussion about "God" should not derive from what "God" actually means for most people (or should accoriding to their scriptures)

 

[Eliot Wild]

Reading through your post i think somewhere along the way you switched your interpretation of my statements from the "should" to a "must".

I do not rule out that something could exist that has no measurable impact anywhere although logically and philosophically i think it could be archived to demonstrate its unlikelyness.

I only state that something that exists SHOULD make a difference to its nonexistence. My argument for that is simply that if there is no difference then the question of existence as well as it's actual answer becomes irrelevant.

If there is a God who doesn't in any way interact with mankind or the universe at any time, who's existence was, is and will be without difference for us to his nonexistence, then its irrelevant if he exists and he can be treated as nonexistent.

But you had a second point:
That's what i tried to adress in the second point of my original argument.
Of course there could be some form of a God that does as you state above. But i am not inclined to follow that line of arbitrariness where we talk about a being so far away from the "figure" that normally is described in any scripture that it becomes a something completely different.
None of the Gods of the scriptures supposedly behave like that, hiding and concealing themselves. Actually all claim the very opposite, namely that God wants us to love/fear/(put something in) him and that he supposedly has set up clear signs for us.
The christian, the muslim, the jewish God ... all of those three at least promisse interaction on earth during our life time, all of them supposedly intervened at several stages in earths history.
One simple example would be prayer (normal or intercessory). Or the question about life standards or catastrophes, protection, punishment and so on.

There are a lot of things that are measurable and that even should be compared to supposed promisses of scriptures.


Sure it could be possible, but i simply claim that this contradicts the teachings of all mainstream religions.
And it renders God so "arbitrary" that you could "exchange" the word God with any word of your liking like "foo" or "bum", just as well as you could speak about 20 gods or 21 or 2.343 Gods.

I think a discussion about "God" should not derive from what "God" actually means for most people (or should accoriding to their scriptures)

You're right, I made a poor assumption that you meant "must" when in fact you meant exactly what you wrote: God should make a noticable and measurable impact on his creation. Frubals for catching my mistake.

Also, I suppose I agree with you. Given the way that the Abrhamic God has been presented to the world by his followers and the holy texts they refer to, there is a cavernous disconnect between the image presented and the evidence observed. I was raised in a fundamentalist christian household and most of my family are still strictly religious. Personally, I have had periods in my life when I too was strongly devout. However, in all my experiences I have never observed God actively participating with his creation. I suppose that disconnect is one of the things that has lead me to agnoticism, among other reasons as well.

Good post and good response.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

I find it somewhat disapointing that there have not been so many replies till now.
If the argument is so silly i would expect a good argument against it.
If it is so good then i would expect people to agree.

 

[sandandfoam]

i would say we have a notion that reality partially should be understandable or quantifiable. All parts of reality that are not and are not even (in principle) detectable are irrelevant for us.

Doesn't that take us right back to the subjective nature of reality?

 

[ATAT]

Replying to the first post:
The Kuzari (old book) makes the argument as follows:
The story of the manna exists.

Where did it come from?

Either A: it was made up
or B: It happened
or C: a mixture of A and B.

let's leave C off the table for the moment.

One explanation for the fact that the story exists is that it happened.

Problems with A, the 'it was made up' argument.

Myth formation usually has certain characteristics, such as
1. The claim is reported to have taken place in front of small numbers
Example, two men went into the forest and killed a dragon.
2. You can't test the claim during the claim.
Example: Did anyone take Jesus’ pulse? Did they check to see if he was breathing?
3. The time was short:
Example, the fight with the dragon happened over a few hours.
4. The claim is not during a period of calm:
Example, during a fierce battle, a Greek god, looking very much like a man, fought his way to the front lines and pushed the enemy back.

The CLAIM OF the manna story was
1. In front of hundreds of thousands of people
2. During calm (the story says they got bored with it)
3. Testable by the layman. (you just go outside and pick it up off the ground)
4. Over a large period of time (the story says it happened for 40 years).

The existence of the story is evidence for that it really happened, because there are very very few stories like this. Each factor reduces the ease of making such a story up.

Imagine trying to bet people to believe that everyone in the United States had a tree of gold in their FRONT yard 20, 40, 100, even 200 years ago.

'Your father (or great grandfather) fed his family by selling gold leaves to the caravan merchants. Not just your family, but every family in this country!"

Really? I don't think you could get a nation to take such a claim seriously.

You could much more easily make up a story where the key details were a one time deal, in private, in front of only a few people, and during an exciting moment.

The idea is the existence of the story is itself evidence, that it really happened is one legitimate explanation for how we got the story of the manna.

We postulated a new force, the nuclear force, to explain certain facts. Similarly, one can postulate that God exists to explain Jewish history. Unless one has a bias against the nuclear force for some reason. Ockham’s Razor is a method for human understanding, but does not tell us which is more likely. The simplest explanation, the one with the fewest forces, is a great method for the ignorant. (such as myself) But Ockham’s Razor is only a useful bias, a great tool to help us discover assumptions without any basis at all, and it's not always right.

It just means that, of the factors that I know about, this one is not needed, so, I'm going to discard it.

It would be absurd to say, "Since Ockham’s Razor is an important and necessary tool, therefore we know all the forces that exist." It does not follow. Usually we permit the likelihood that there are other forces, other factors that we do not understand.

We just usually can't make machines harnessing the power of forces we do not understand, so, there's no point in throwing it on the table until we can.

The electric, nuclear, psychological (maybe I should take this one out?), biological, and astronomical (such as magnetic and solar radiation) forces all existed long before we became aware of them. Ockham’s razor is great for getting rid of a lot of trash that is false. But it doesn't mean that there are no other forces at play. We know there must be other forces at play, consider quark theory, neutrinos, string theory, etc, we expect to discover many more forces on the table. We expect our scientific paradigms to be radically changed in the near future.

On the other hand, if 'There are leprechauns dancing on this table." But they are invisible, odorless, silent, immaterial, then, sure enough, we should not assume them because there are an infinite pool of possibilities to consider. We just don't have the time, it wouldn't be practical to consider forces which have no detectable results. But we can't exclude forces which by definition, are beyond our detection. We just don't have the time to worry about them. I always say, "I'll take the super-natural seriously when I can make money off of it."

The Kuzari argument, which goes back a couple hundred years I think, is an attempt to describe an effect in the physical world, the result being the existence of the story, which is best described by the force, 'God.' It claims that the force, 'God' is a superior explanation and more likely than any other explanation for the story of the manna. And once this force is conceded, then there's no barrier to explaining other parts of the story including that force, assuming one doesn't have a psychological or social need to exclude God.

For instance, I don't want the preacher telling me what to do, so, I'm going to bias against the existence of God. Why? Because the preacher tells me to only have sex in marriage and to act in a restrained way, and I want the preacher off my back. Well, if there's no God, then I don't have to listen to the preacher, therefore, any evidence that might best be explained by a 'God', well, I'm going to grab any alternative explanation, no matter how less likely it is. If any other explanation is possible, then I'm off the hook.

The problem with that methodology, Cartesian criteria, is we don't use that methodology in our best judgment where we want the truth.

The standard should be, highest probability vis a vis the alternatives, not, if it's possible that it didn't happen, then I don't have to think about it.

We dont use the latter standard for anything where we care about getting it right.

My brakes might be bad? The water might be poisoned? Well, it's possible the rumors are false, so, I'm going to drink from the tap and not the bottled.

We don't do that where we take responsibility for the truth of the matter. (re: Pascal's Wager).


But I digress, thank you for your attention.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Doesn't that take us right back to the subjective nature of reality?

Since we all rely on our senses and our brain of course (philosophically and logically) we talk about some form of subjectivity.
Hence what we call "objectivity" is mostly the collective sujective data that is in agreement between us (or that we see and hear each other agree with).

There is in my view no conclusive way to argue for an absolute objective reality that is comprehensible for us. But frankly those relativistic, philosophical and theoretical debates are not really something that bring us anything new.

We DO actually rely on what we call "objective" nature of reality.
When we speak about a table we do not spend time normally to say "oh but you know thats just a subjective impression. Could be that it doesnt actually exist".
I see no reason why we should suddenly start changing that behaviour for those particular beings that some people amongst us have a great interest in postulating while no evidence that is as generally detectable as that for a table.

 

[sandandfoam]

I see no reason why we should suddenly start changing that behaviour for those particular beings that some people amongst us have a great interest in postulating while no evidence that is as generally detectable as that for a table.

Indeed.
But in accepting reality as subjective, it seems inconsistent that one would consider the views of others as irrelevant.
Surely the strongest one could confidently state is 'that's not how I see it'?

 

[ATAT]

There is in my view no conclusive way to argue for an absolute objective reality that is comprehensible for us.

Why say there is an objective reality, we just can never be sure what it is?

I shake a sealed box, I hear and feel something inside.

I may not know what's in it, I could guess and be mistaken, I might know some facts about it without knowing all the facts about it, but my inability to know everything about the facts do not mean that they do not exist.

Why does the argument for an absolute objective reality become incomprehensible?

Hey, there's a ball over in the corner.

What's incomprehensible about that? There really is a ball over in the corner, even if I do not understand everything about it and even if my impressions of it are temporary and immature.

 

[it's_sam]

But in accepting reality as subjective, it seems inconsistent that one would consider the views of others as irrelevant.
Surely the strongest one could confidently state is 'that's not how I see it'?

Not if you use string theory. If a higher purpose is the goal, it actualy leaves very little room to fail, wich is basicly disbelief that it exists in any way.

 

[it's_sam]

What's incomprehensible about that? There really is a ball over in the corner, even if I do not understand everything about it and even if my impressions of it are temporary and immature.

What ball? I only see atoms reflecting light... perhaps a ball to you but the compisition of its make-up is that of everything else. Mass + light = depth. what it looks like to you is subjective.

 

[ATAT]

What ball? I only see atoms reflecting light...

That's what we call a 'ball'.

what it looks like to you is subjective.

It looks the same to everyone.

All humans can mate with each other, produce children, hence, they have the same brains and same experiences.

Some variation? Yes, but my left eye's perception varies from my right eye. That we collapse the variations between eyes proves the variations are insignificant differences.

So if it is true that my 'red' is the same experience as your 'red', then it's not subjective, it's objective. It's an objective experience, because we all have the same experience, within a degree of variation.

Ah, my experience of 'red' color has little to do with the ball over in the corner?

That' doesn't change the ball.

I walk into a room, I see the red round ball.

You walk into the room six hours later, you see the red round ball.

We both meet at the coffee shop and we both have the same descriptions of the object. We both call it 'red', we both call it 'round', we both combine those facts and just call it a 'ball'. I didn't just make up 'green' because I love the color green, rather, we both know what to call it, a 'ball'.

That proves the object itself is objectively real, otherwise, how did all 8,000 of us relate the same description? We didn't have random reports, except for Bob who likes to mess things up and joke (he called it a 'clear kite' and kept touching the girls).

Otherwise, our relation of the facts would be random, you would see, who knows, a green umbrella, the next day I go in I would see a monkey arm, etc.

That it is consistant across different times and observations proves its existence is an objective fact.

That my 'red' experience does not describe the details of the atomic structure is a side show.

Imagine the following machine:

I have a machine that mulitplies your fact by 2, every time.

You put in a 7, it displays 14.

14 has nothing to do with 7, they are two different things.

But the 7 exists, objectively, and to be fair, the 14 is directly produced by the 7.

That there's a hidden muliplier is interesting, it proves we don't know everything, but the multiplier is consistant and therefore when we learn to deal with our 14, we learn all we need to know about the objective 7. In fact, the symbol '14' essentially means 7, I just don't know how to break it down, I don't know some significant facts about the 7, but the 7 remains objectively real and true.


Who would you hire as an accountant or bridge builder?

Person A: "I'll get it right for you, every time."

Person B: "Hey, man, who's to say what's real? Everything is subjective, there is no objective reality, so, lay off."

 

[Penumbra]

just 60 seconds of coffeine deprived brain cell activity.....

1) The existence of something should make a measurable difference to it not existing.
2) Given its supposed statements in its supposedly holy scriptures there should be measurable things we could expect from Gods existence even in this life.
3) There has not been any measurable difference that makes its existence nessessary.
4) Therefore we might conclude that (so far) (if it exists) that existence is no different than its nonexistence.
5) It therefore is (for now) safe to assume that the question of Gods existence is actually irrelevant and it is safe to treat it as not existing.

Have a free shot

1) We only have one universe to measure. We don't have a set of atheistic and theistic universes to compare and contrast.
2) Granted, certain scriptures make very measurable claims. A god may have little or nothing to do with religious scriptures, though.
3) This kind of goes back to point 1- we don't have an atheistic and a theistic universe to compare and contrast. It might be argued that existence is only here in the first place due to a god existing.
4) This seems to have been addressed in my statements for 1) and 3).
5) Irrelevant is kind of subjective. Some people find the concept irrelevant while others do not. Those curious and interested about the major aspects of existence might find it to be relevant.

As a mathematician I understand the definition of infinite without putting a limit on it.

Part of my definition of G-d is a race vastly superior and advanced compared to man. Thus I find it interesting when someone says there is no such thing as G-d. How arrogant and prejudice is it to believe you are the most advanced intelligence in the entire universe? In all the vastness of this universe how foolish and silly it is to believe man is the best possibility of whatever else there might be. And so they demand proof before they will even consider a possibility?

I find those that do not believe in G-d as even possible rather petty, silly and to be honest very unscientific and uninformed.

Zadok

You define god in an unusual and uncommon way and then get all bent out of shape when other people debate with a definition that has little to do with yours? Come now.

I define black as yellow. So when people say they don't like yellow cars, I find it ridiculous and silly that people wouldn't want a suave, dark-colored car.

I think the existence of space aliens is reasonable, even advanced space aliens. I see little reason to call space aliens gods.

-Lyn

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Replying to the first post:
The Kuzari (old book) makes the argument as follows:

Sorry if it sounds harsh, but you make a completely different argument without adressing mine.

Could you adress mine and post your argument in a new thread?

You could take a short first answer to parts of your argument with you:

The Kuzari argument, which goes back a couple hundred years I think, is an attempt to describe an effect in the physical world, the result being the existence of the story, which is best described by the force, 'God.' It claims that the force, 'God' is a superior explanation and more likely than any other explanation for the story of the manna. And once this force is conceded, then there's no barrier to explaining other parts of the story including that force, assuming one doesn't have a psychological or social need to exclude God.

The argument fails in the very first premisse by stating an effect in the world would be best described by a force that has not even been defined.
Of course once you accept that you can accept anything, but that doesnt really make it reasonable.

 

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Indeed.
But in accepting reality as subjective, it seems inconsistent that one would consider the views of others as irrelevant.
Surely the strongest one could confidently state is 'that's not how I see it'?

Strength is unrelated to truth.
And i did not state that reality is subjective i only stated that for us subjective beings it is hard to argue how to get to an objective truth.
Thats the reason why for example we do have the scientific method to form some "quasi objective" framework.

I also didn't say that the views of others were irrelevant. They can be right or wrong. That should be verified. The only thing were i mentioned irrelevance was the existence of something that doesn't actually make a measurable difference by its existence.