The Metaphysics of Disbelief.

[John D. Brey]

-Has any one ever clearly understood the celebrated story at the beginning of the Bible - of God's mortal terror of science?​

​

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ.​

​

Is God terrified of science? Or is so-called "science" terrified of God? More importantly, is there a scientific way to determine the answer to those question? ---- Yes Virginia, there's a way to answer those question. -----More importantly, they've been answered, conclusively, to no effect. What remains, then, is to question the metaphysics of a scientific-disbelief that rises up proud and ithyphallic in the face of truth?



John

 

[PureX]

According to most concepts of God (big G) science simply studies the mechanisms by which God's will is being actualized. Which would make it unlikely that God would be terrified of it.

But I suppose the theory would be that if science figures out all God's actualizing "tricks" then we will become God's equals, and able to actualize creation to our own liking.

But this is really more of a mythical conundrum than an actual one. My personal response to it would be that such an eventuality would result in our becoming one with God, not separate but equal gods.

 

[John D. Brey]

According to most concepts of God (big G) science simply studies the mechanisms by which God's will is being actualized. Which would make it unlikely that God would be terrified of it.

But I suppose the theory would be that if science figures out all God's actualizing "tricks" then we will become God's equals, and able to actualize creation to our own liking.

But this is really more of a mythical conundrum than an actual one. My personal response to it would be that such an eventuality would result in our becoming one with God, not separate but equal gods.

Part and parcel of Nietzsche's claim that God is terrified of science, is his intense hatred for Christianity. His hatred of Christianity is not some pathological or illogical product of childhood trauma or some psychological disturbance related to Christianity; it's based on the point this thread would like to point out, and which Nietzsche's great philosophical mind intuited immediately based on the correctness of so much of his other ideas: Christianity is a great and grave threat to throw a wrench into the metaphysical balance based on an eternal binary relationship between Yin and Yang; a balance/relationship that since its eternal, can never be overcome.

Nietzsche intuits that whereas all other human thought (religious or otherwise) has a built in genuflection to binary-objectivity (an objectivity thought to empower science over theology), Christianity thumbs its nose at this quasi-universal binary-objectivity. Which is to say that whereas human thought generally recognizes the fact that there are always two poles, opinions, or ways to interpret a matter, such that dogmatism is misplaced in dialogue, Christianity threatens to upend that apple-cart in a manner that Nietzsche better than most understands.

I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed — as the greatest and most impious lie: I can discern the last sprouts and branches of its ideal beneath every form of disguise, I decline to enter into any compromise or false position in reference to it — I urge people to declare open war with it.​

​

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated) (Series Five Book 24) (p. 3180). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.​

Though many people agree with Nietzsche's statement, few fully understand either the vehemence, nor the genesis and power of the statement. Nietzsche singles out Christianity and Christians as something like the fly in humanity's ointment so far as the true, eternal, purpose and reality of the world is concerned. For him, Christianity is far from a garden variety menace to society and reality.

On the contrary, Nietzsche realizes how deep Christianity has wedged its pry-bar into the very axis of eternal balance. Christianity threatens to pull back the curtain on the metaphysics of unbelief that every creature from the hand of God once assumed (and still does for the most part) would allow for the fact that unbelief could never be treated as anything other than, at worst, one pole in the Yin and Yang of reality; unbelief would be eternally free from answering to its disbelief.

Through the prism of his great genius, Nietzsche saw the truth of Christianity and was moved to immeasurable hatred, for fear that it would relieve him of the ace card he intended to play against the Living God: a belief that unbelief is metaphysically, eternally, part and parcel of a natural and good balance that's everlasting. Christianity threatens to undo the binary nature of truth and reality by destroying the eternal balance of Yin and Yang.

Upon this theological instinct I make war: I find the tracks of it everywhere. Whoever has theological blood in his veins is shifty and dishonorable in all things. The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith . . ..​

​

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (Kindle Locations 272-274). Kindle Edition.​

John

 

[Revoltingest]

The metaphysics of disbelief....
"Got any objective evidence for gods?"
"No."
"Then I disbelieve in them."

 

[Alien826]

Thanks for the word "ithyphallic". I'll try it out later.

"Honey, I'm ithyphallic. Want to do something about that?"

 

[John D. Brey]

The metaphysics of disbelief....
"Got any objective evidence for gods?"
"No."
"Then I disbelieve in them."

All evidence is evidence of God. Surely you believe in evidence? If so, then you believe in God since all evidence is evidence of God. Only if there was no evidence of anything whatsoever could we rest assured that there was no evidence of God since all evidence bears God's fingerprint. Without God there would be nothing and thus no evidence that there was anything requiring evidence. Thus if there's evidence at all it evinces the existence of God.

​

Since every competent philosopher of science admits that all empirical experimentation begins with belief in a hypothesis (belief that a hypothesis might be correct) . . . you literally have to -"have belief"- that it's possible that belief isn't based on evidence - before you could test the hypothesis that belief isn't based on evidence. Therefore you can't know that there's no evidence for belief . . . you can only base that hypothesis on belief. What's far worse . . . is that since you must have at least a modicum of belief before you can perform an experiment (to extract evidence) clearly belief is antecedent to all evidence and should thus logically transcend evidence. Belief is literally needed to produce evidence, yet as logic dictates, that belief doesn't need evidence; it precedes evidence; it is the primary ingredient of evidence.​

​

Since this is a logical truism (that belief is required to hypothesize that belief has no evidence) . . . wouldn’t it be more logical to presume that belief is its own evidence (births its own evidence) . . . or even that all evidence is belief's evidence (belongs to belief) - since all evidence is born of belief in some hypotheses? In other words, since all evidence comes after belief in hypotheses - shouldn't one put more belief in belief than in evidence? There is no evidence for a belief in the supposition that belief isn't based on evidence. But there is evidence that evidence is based on belief?​

​

The empiricist is proud to have married his worldview to Evidence . . . when in fact Evidence is Belief's half-witted child. But since the child will eventually end up looking just like the parent – eventually the Evidence which looked so good the empiricist married his worldview to it . . . will start to look just like the parent (Belief), which Belief the empiricist was never very fond of.​

​

Tautological Oxymorons, p.82-83.​

John

 

[John53]

Thanks for the word "ithyphallic". I'll try it out later.

"Honey, I'm ithyphallic. Want to do something about that?"

I had to google it. Who woulda guessed in the context of the post

 

[Revoltingest]

All evidence is evidence of God.

That works only for people who believed that God created all.
And it's oddly narrow, ie, the singular god named "God".
It ignores all the other deities people have invented.

Surely you believe in evidence?

Don't call me Shirley.

If so, then you believe in God since all evidence is evidence of God. Only if there was no evidence of anything whatsoever could we rest assured that there was no evidence of God since all evidence bears God's fingerprint. Without God there would be nothing and thus no evidence that there was anything requiring evidence. Thus if there's evidence at all it evinces the existence of God.

​

Since every competent philosopher of science admits that all empirical experimentation begins with belief in a hypothesis (belief that a hypothesis might be correct) . . . you literally have to -"have belief"- that it's possible that belief isn't based on evidence - before you could test the hypothesis that belief isn't based on evidence. Therefore you can't know that there's no evidence for belief . . . you can only base that hypothesis on belief. What's far worse . . . is that since you must have at least a modicum of belief before you can perform an experiment (to extract evidence) clearly belief is antecedent to all evidence and should thus logically transcend evidence. Belief is literally needed to produce evidence, yet as logic dictates, that belief doesn't need evidence; it precedes evidence; it is the primary ingredient of evidence.​

​

Since this is a logical truism (that belief is required to hypothesize that belief has no evidence) . . . wouldn’t it be more logical to presume that belief is its own evidence (births its own evidence) . . . or even that all evidence is belief's evidence (belongs to belief) - since all evidence is born of belief in some hypotheses? In other words, since all evidence comes after belief in hypotheses - shouldn't one put more belief in belief than in evidence? There is no evidence for a belief in the supposition that belief isn't based on evidence. But there is evidence that evidence is based on belief?​

​

The empiricist is proud to have married his worldview to Evidence . . . when in fact Evidence is Belief's half-witted child. But since the child will eventually end up looking just like the parent – eventually the Evidence which looked so good the empiricist married his worldview to it . . . will start to look just like the parent (Belief), which Belief the empiricist was never very fond of.​

​

Tautological Oxymorons, p.82-83.​

John

Errors & needless complexity.

 

[Copernicus]

The metaphysics of disbelief....
"Got any objective evidence for gods?"
"No."
"Then I disbelieve in them."

All evidence is evidence of God. Surely you believe in evidence? If so, then you believe in God since all evidence is evidence of God. Only if there was no evidence of anything whatsoever could we rest assured that there was no evidence of God since all evidence bears God's fingerprint. Without God there would be nothing and thus no evidence that there was anything requiring evidence. Thus if there's evidence all all it evinces the existence of God.

...​

John, evidence is information that bears on the question of whether a proposition is true. An assumption is not evidence of anything. If you assume that everything that exists was created by God, then all evidence cannot be evidence of God. That would be circular reasoning. Science is, at best, grounded in the assumption that everything we observe has a material explanation. It takes no stand on whether there can be unobserved phenomena such as spirits that somehow caused everything to come into being.

Nietzsche was speaking metaphorically about God being terrified of science. That's just another way of saying that scientific explanations of natural phenomena can always be godless explanations. Science has not found a need to posit the existence of a god or disembodied spirit to explain anything at all.

 

[John D. Brey]

John, evidence is information that bears on the question of whether a proposition is true. An assumption is not evidence of anything.

We could say that a hypothesis seeks evidentiary support. But where does the hypothesis come from? Do hypotheses come prior to evidence? If so, what is the genesis of a hypothesis?

If you assume that everything that exists was created by God, then all evidence cannot be evidence of God. That would be circular reasoning.

We could say in sloppy language that the bucks gotta stop somewhere.

A response more in line with where this thread wants to go is that the concept of "circular reasoning" as something bad, or false, is based on a naturalistic kind of cognition based on dualism like light/dark, true/false, good/bad, circular (or symmetrical) versus asymmetrical. This dualistic kind of thinking is what Nietzsche fancies eternally valid such that it's precisely the Christian threat to that kind of thinking he sees as something the world must declare war on. And I agree with him since I'm already at war with him and the world of dualistic thinking. Ya'll might as well fight back to make a game of it.

Science is, at best, grounded in the assumption that everything we observe has a material explanation.

One of the greatest scientists of the last century ---Noam Chomsky--- asked how there can be a material explanation when as yet we've to find anything truly material in the cosmos? We now know that below the Planck length, time and space themselves cease to be. As the serious physicists now concede, since locality itself disappears below the Planck length, we can say with all seriousness that our word is a simulation and not the solid foundation of reality.

Nietzsche was speaking metaphorically about God being terrified of science. That's just another way of saying that scientific explanations of natural phenomena can always be godless explanations. Science has not found a need to posit the existence of a god or disembodied spirit to explain anything at all.

If we take a deep woods aborigine on a Boeing 747 he might love the experience and be amazed at the view. But he doesn't need to know who made the plane, or how it was made. We can leave him with his belief that a strong wind blew through a junk yard and everything just happened to assemble into the 747 when the wind died down.

When scientists see the exquisite design perfection in the cosmos, they don't need to know how God made it or that he made it. Like their aborigine brothers, they can simply content themselves at the view and enjoy the ride. We can leave them with their belief that there was a really loud big bang a long time ago and when the noise and smoke cleared everything just happened to assemble into the world we know when the bang died down.



John

 

[Copernicus]

We could say that a hypothesis seeks evidentiary support. But where does the hypothesis come from? Do hypotheses come prior to evidence? If so, what is the genesis of a hypothesis?

A hypothesis is a testable claim. For it to be testable, you need to be able to show what counts as evidence in support of that claim. By defining God as the creator of everything, then you cannot use the existence of something to prove God's existence. Definitions are not evidence of anything. They are just terminological conventions.

We could say in sloppy language that the bucks gotta stop somewhere.

Sure, but first we have to agree on what a buck is.

A response more in line with where this thread wants to go is that the concept of "circular reasoning" as something bad, or false, is based on a naturalistic kind of cognition based on dualism like light/dark, true/false, good/bad, circular (or symmetrical) versus asymmetrical. This dualistic kind of thinking is what Nietzsche fancies eternally valid such that it's precisely the Christian threat to that kind of thinking he sees as something the world must declare war on. And I agree with him since I'm already at war with him and the world of dualistic thinking. Ya'll might as well fight back to make a game of it.

I can't speak to what Nietzsche said, but there are some predicates that are purely binary--for example, "pregnant", "true", "exists". They only have two values and no intermediary ones. Either something exists or it doesn't. It is true or it isn't. A woman is pregnant, or she isn't. That's simple logic.

One of the greatest scientists of the last century ---Noam Chomsky--- asked how there can be a material explanation when as yet we've to find anything truly material in the cosmos? We now know that below the Planck length, time and space themselves cease to be. As the serious physicists now concede, since locality itself disappears below the Planck length, we can say with all seriousness that our word is a simulation and not the solid foundation of reality.

No true linguist believes that Noam Chomsky was one of the greatest scientists of the last century. Seriously, I think he would have made a much better rabbi than a scientist, because he sort of came out of that tradition. So I'll need to disregard your opinion on that, much as I would like to dwell on my professional grievances, and move on. I have no interest in the claim that we live in the Matrix. I enjoyed the movie, however.

If we take a deep woods aborigine on a Boeing 747 he might love the experience and be amazed at the view. But he doesn't need to know who made the plane, or how it was made. We can leave him with his belief that a strong wind blew through a junk yard and everything just happened to assemble into the 747 when the wind died down.

I am familiar with Fred Hoyle's Junkyard Tornado fallacy. Not impressed.

When scientists see the exquisite design perfection in the cosmos, they don't need to know how God made it or that he made it. Like their aborigine brothers, they can simply content themselves at the view and enjoy the ride. We can leave them with their belief that there was a really loud big bang a long time ago and when the noise and smoke cleared everything just happened to assemble into the world we know when the bang died down.

I think I'll stick with the scientists. If you want to believe that the metaphorical Big Bang made a metaphorical loud noise of some kind, that's fine with me, but it's still just a metaphor.

 

[PureX]

Part and parcel of Nietzsche's claim that God is terrified of science, is his intense hatred for Christianity. His hatred of Christianity is not some pathological or illogical product of childhood trauma or some psychological disturbance related to Christianity; it's based on the point this thread would like to point out, and which Nietzsche's great philosophical mind intuited immediately based on the correctness of so much of his other ideas: Christianity is a great and grave threat to throw a wrench into the metaphysical balance based on an eternal binary relationship between Yin and Yang; a balance/relationship that since its eternal, can never be overcome.

Nietzsche intuits that whereas all other human thought (religious or otherwise) has a built in genuflection to binary-objectivity (an objectivity thought to empower science over theology), Christianity thumbs its nose at this quasi-universal binary-objectivity. Which is to say that whereas human thought generally recognizes the fact that there are always two poles, opinions, or ways to interpret a matter, such that dogmatism is misplaced in dialogue, Christianity threatens to upend that apple-cart in a manner that Nietzsche better than most understands.

I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed — as the greatest and most impious lie: I can discern the last sprouts and branches of its ideal beneath every form of disguise, I decline to enter into any compromise or false position in reference to it — I urge people to declare open war with it.​

​

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated) (Series Five Book 24) (p. 3180). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.​

Though many people agree with Nietzsche's statement, few fully understand either the vehemence, nor the genesis and power of the statement. Nietzsche singles out Christianity and Christians as something like the fly in humanity's ointment so far as the true, eternal, purpose and reality of the world is concerned. For him, Christianity is far from a garden variety menace to society and reality.

On the contrary, Nietzsche realizes how deep Christianity has wedged its pry-bar into the very axis of eternal balance. Christianity threatens to pull back the curtain on the metaphysics of unbelief that every creature from the hand of God once assumed (and still does for the most part) would allow for the fact that unbelief could never be treated as anything other than, at worst, one pole in the Yin and Yang of reality; unbelief would be eternally free from answering to its disbelief.

Through the prism of his great genius, Nietzsche saw the truth of Christianity and was moved to immeasurable hatred, for fear that it would relieve him of the ace card he intended to play against the Living God: a belief that unbelief is metaphysically, eternally, part and parcel of a natural and good balance that's everlasting. Christianity threatens to undo the binary nature of truth and reality by destroying the eternal balance of Yin and Yang.

Upon this theological instinct I make war: I find the tracks of it everywhere. Whoever has theological blood in his veins is shifty and dishonorable in all things. The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith . . ..​

​

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (Kindle Locations 272-274). Kindle Edition.​

John

He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't exactly right, either.

The whole good vs evil conceptual paradigm (as opposed the the yin/yang balance paradigm) has opened the door to a kind of extremist human insanity that has done a great deal of damage to us all over the eons. But it also opened the door for us to speculate on and dream of a 'higher calling' than that which is possible in an 'endless balance' scenario. Giving us the possibility of trying to rise to that higher calling. And this has afforded we humans the ability to advance, ethically and morally, over time.

Also, there is no rule that says we can't abide with both of these paradigms simultaneously (though this is not going to be easy to do). There are plenty of 'yin/yang' style bits of wisdom to be found in ancient Abrahamic tests as there is acknowledgment of some higher ethical/moral calling to be found in the Eastern balanced duality paradigm and it's related texts. And we humans are a complicated lot. We are quite capable of maintaining multiple and even antithetical cognitive paradigms simultaneously.

 

[John D. Brey]

The whole good vs evil conceptual paradigm (as opposed the the yin/yang balance paradigm) has opened the door to a kind of extremist human insanity that has done a great deal of damage to us all over the eons. But it also opened the door for us to speculate on and dream of a 'higher calling' than that which is possible in an 'endless balance' scenario. Giving us the possibility of trying to rise to that higher calling. And this has afforded we humans the ability to advance, ethically and morally, over time.

Also, there is no rule that says we can't abide with both of these paradigms simultaneously (though this is not going to be easy to do). There are plenty of 'yin/yang' style bits of wisdom to be found in ancient Abrahamic tests as there is acknowledgment of some higher ethical/moral calling to be found in the Eastern balanced duality paradigm and it's related texts. And we humans are a complicated lot. We are quite capable of maintaining multiple and even antithetical cognitive paradigms simultaneously.

You're right on the money in the sense that our natural means of cognition, i.e., the brain, is created through, and functions exclusively by means of, dualistic processes and concepts. The only way the brain functions in its natural dynamics is based on the nature of our world, which is binary.

As is under discussion in the thread The Gospel According to Karl Popper, Popper came to realize a very real problem with the common-sense theory of human knowledge. At best the brain should be able to mix and match dualities to come up with novelty (light an dark can make gray). But in the common sense theory of human knowledge the brain can't create new truths that transcend the known and knowable dualities. That is impossible. And yet Popper comes to the conclusion it occurs nevertheless.

What he shows happens when the human brain does its miraculous feats (which transcend dualistic thought) is that it does another miraculous thing to cover its tracks. The brain, which pulls rabbits out of the hat all the time (since it really does possess miraculous powers) miraculously covers its tracks by feigning the fallacy of induction.

By feigning the fallacy of induction, the brain takes the miraculous truism it pulled out of thin air (say Newton's theory of gravity, or Einstein' theory that light is subject to gravity) and it tells itself that the miraculous insight was packaged (though in a hidden way) inside the natural observations that come from the natural world such that the trick was merely to un-package the observation to see the Cracker Jack surprise inside. This is a lie. It's false through and through.

The doctrine that empirical sciences are reducible to sense perceptions, and thus to our experiences, is one which many accept as obvious beyond all question. However, this doctrine stands or falls with inductive logic, and is here rejected along with it.​

​

Karl Popper, in David Miller's Popper Selections, p. 152.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

A hypothesis is a testable claim. For it to be testable, you need to be able to show what counts as evidence in support of that claim. By defining God as the creator of everything, then you cannot use the existence of something to prove God's existence.

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists -- and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world. So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher. It's clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental.​

​

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.​

What you label "evidence," is equivalent to Wittgenstein's "ethics," in that even if ethics and evidence are real things, they couldn't be real things if everything is accidental. And for things to not be merely accidental, something must be real outside everything that's perceived as the whole. Only if there's an Archimedean Perch outside of what is, from which what is, can be judged as accidental or non-accidental, can things like "evidence" and "ethics" be gauged.

Karl Popper's great insight is that the human mind possesses this Archimedean Perch such that some part of human cognition is unnatural; it exists outside of natural causation and mediation.

Neo-Darwinian theory from the start admitted that evolutionary change has to be accidental, random, since otherwise Wittgenstein's axiom would contaminate the natural world and the supposed natural selection that gave rise to human cognition.

Today, most educated scientist are aware, even if they feign ignorance, that the processes that went from pond-scum to the human brain are not, and cannot with a straight face, but considered accidental, or random, even though this recognition puts immense pressure on one of the atheist's greatest pressure points.

I can't speak to what Nietzsche said, but there are some predicates that are purely binary--for example, "pregnant", "true", "exists". They only have two values and no intermediary ones. Either something exists or it doesn't. It is true or it isn't. A woman is pregnant, or she isn't. That's simple logic.

As Heidegger, and then Jean-Luc Nancy, tried to point out, where binary reality is kept intact, "Being" (existing) can't be juxtaposed against "Non-Being" (non-existing) if the latter is truly nothing. They must both have some kind of reality or else the mind is playing tricks on itself just as it does when it attributes it's amazing meontological feats to natural, inductive, processes, so that it can continue to believe man is merely an evolutionary rung of the mammalian species.

The term "meontology" is directly related to Heidegger and Nancy's understanding that Nothing isn't really nothing: it's just meontological; it exists outside of the ontology of the natural world. Modern physicists today are actually doing real experiments with the reality of meontology when they attempt to understand and perform experiments to plumb the depths of the strange but real reality below the Planck length where the ontology of our natural world (space, time, locality) disappears.

No true linguist believes that Noam Chomsky was one of the greatest scientists of the last century. Seriously, I think he would have made a much better rabbi than a scientist, because he sort of came out of that tradition.

Though he considers St. Augustine the first world-class linguist, and one of the most brilliant men he's ever encountered, Chomsky is nevertheless an avowed agnostic if not atheist. So it was funny when during one of his lectures, where he'd argued powerfully that human grammar is irreducibly complex, a student asked him why he would lend is brilliance to the theists Nietzsche considers canker worms and liars, by implying that human grammar is supernaturally complex (can't have arrived through natural steps)?

Chomsky turned the argument around on his student in a manner that lends his brilliance to this thread (though we shall be sure to return it to him). He said that the primary epistemological difference between the theist and the atheist is that the theist holds to a meontology that's accessible to the human mind so that from this Archimedean Perch the theists assume they can plumb all the mysteries of the natural world.

Chomsky asked his student if he believed his mind had access to this meontological reality outside the natural world? The student answered in the negative. To which Chomsky responded: Then don't worry about mysteries like how human grammar can be irreducibly complex. As creatures of the natural world there are naturally going to be mysteries minds designed for survival and survival alone cannot, and will not, ever breach.



John

 

[Copernicus]

...A hypothesis is a testable claim. For it to be testable, you need to be able to show what counts as evidence in support of that claim. By defining God as the creator of everything, then you cannot use the existence of something to prove God's existence.

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists -- and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world. So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher. It's clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental.​

​

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.​

What you label "evidence," is equivalent to Wittgenstein's "ethics," in that even if ethics and evidence are real things, they couldn't be real things if everything is accidental. And for things to not be merely accidental, something must be real outside everything that's perceived as the whole. Only if there's an Archimedean Perch outside of what is, from which what is, can be judged as accidental or non-accidental, can things like "evidence" and "ethics" be gauged.

John, I struggle to see what that has to do with my criticism of your circular reasoning in defense of god-belief. Ethics are rules of conduct that govern social interactions, nothing more. We know about them, because we actually put them into words, contrary to Wittgenstein's claim. They serve a purpose that bears on our comfort and our survival as a species, and it makes sense that such rules emerge as part of the self-regulation that is necessary to sustain complex societies like ours. You don't need to posit the existence of a deity to explain why they exist. Wittgenstein was a brilliant philosopher, but I think he was wrong about value lying outside of ourselves. Value for us comes from what contributes to our survival, and the outside world often gets in the way of that. Evidence is of value only insofar as it supports the truth of a proposition described by words in a language.

Karl Popper's great insight is that the human mind possesses this Archimedean Perch such that some part of human cognition is unnatural; it exists outside of natural causation and mediation.

Neo-Darwinian theory from the start admitted that evolutionary change has to be accidental, random, since otherwise Wittgenstein's axiom would contaminate the natural world and the supposed natural selection that gave rise to human cognition.

No, that's wrong. Evolution is not accidental or random. Environmental factors dictate its direction. And human cognition is very much a product of natural selection, despite Wittgenstein's flawed reasoning about what gives value to our expressions.

Today, most educated scientist are aware, even if they feign ignorance, that the processes that went from pond-scum to the human brain are not, and cannot with a straight face, but considered accidental, or random, even though this recognition puts immense pressure on one of the atheist's greatest pressure points.

I disagree completely. No scientist who understands evolution thinks that it is random or accidental. The environmental factors that shape and control its direction are serendipitous, not random. It is not necessary to posit the existence of a god to explain its direction, and that is precisely why it protects the atheist's "pressure points". It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that Darwin was an atheist, despite his beloved wife's best wishes.

As Heidegger, and then Jean-Luc Nancy, tried to point out, where binary reality is kept intact, "Being" (existing) can't be juxtaposed against "Non-Being" (non-existing) if the latter is truly nothing. They must both have some kind of reality or else the mind is playing tricks on itself just as it does when it attributes it's amazing meontological feats to natural, inductive, processes, so that it can continue to believe man is merely an evolutionary rung of the mammalian species.

The term "meontology" is directly related to Heidegger and Nancy's understanding that Nothing isn't really nothing: it's just meontological; it exists outside of the ontology of the natural world. Modern physicists today are actually doing real experiments with the reality of meontology when they attempt to understand and perform experiments to plumb the depths of the strange but real reality below the Planck length where the ontology of our natural world (space, time, locality) disappears.

Meontology is essentially the concept of non-being or nothingness. I'm glad you brought it up, but I think you misunderstand what quantum mechanics tells us about nothingness. Here is a 4-minute video by physicist Lawrence Krauss, who explains why "nothing is unstable" from a physicist's perspective. And, yes, the guy is an atheist.

Though he considers St. Augustine the first world-class linguist, and one of the most brilliant men he's ever encountered, Chomsky is nevertheless an avowed agnostic if not atheist. So it was funny when during one of his lectures, where he'd argued powerfully that human grammar is irreducibly complex, a student asked him why he would lend is brilliance to the theists Nietzsche considers canker worms and liars, by implying that human grammar is supernaturally complex (can't have arrived through natural steps)?

Look, I've met Chomsky, been educated as a generative linguist, and even had the opportunity to attend a few of his lectures in person. I know him better than you do. He knows that St. Augustine was not really the first world-class linguist. There were many before him, going all the way back to Panini. He has never argued that grammar is irreducibly complex. That's a myth that could be based on some remark taken out of context. His entire theory is about linguistic complexity being reducible. Sorry, but you have really misunderstood him.

Chomsky turned the argument around on his student in a manner that lends his brilliance to this thread (though we shall be sure to return it to him). He said that the primary epistemological difference between the theist and the atheist is that the theist holds to a meontology that's accessible to the human mind so that from this Archimedean Perch the theists assume they can plumb all the mysteries of the natural world.

I think we may have discussed this before, but I've forgotten the details. In any case, you need to provide a link or reference to the events you are talking about. I've never heard or read of Chomsky even mentioning meontology, let alone endorsing the nonsensical theological argument over irreducible complexity.

Chomsky asked his student if he believed his mind had access to this meontological reality outside the natural world? The student answered in the negative. To which Chomsky responded: Then don't worry about mysteries like how human grammar can be irreducibly complex. As creatures of the natural world there are naturally going to be mysteries minds designed for survival and survival alone cannot, and will not, ever breach.

This sounds like an anecdote that some individual claiming to be one of his students has written. Can you provide a link to it? I haven't found anything to corroborate the claims you are making about Chomsky, but I did find this letter that he wrote to the editor of the New York Review in response to an opinion by John Maynard Smith that he opposed a Darwinian explanation of language. Chomsky rejectd that interpretation of him, and Smith replied with an apology for misinterpreting him:

Language and Evolution (letter to the editor by Noam Chomsky)​

 

[Little Dragon]

-Has any one ever clearly understood the celebrated story at the beginning of the Bible - of God's mortal terror of science?Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ.

He's referring to the fact that the account of Genesis lacks a certain amount of correspondence with what the scientific method tells us, after gathering the evidence and transposing it mathematically into testable scientific theory.
In other words, the Bible God abhors a naturalistic approach when creating worlds, preferring the application of what can only be described as magic, instead, in any order he likes.

There is only one real kind of truth John D Brey, that which is testable.
Bible gibber jabber, is not testable.

As for hating Christianity because it destroys his argument, that is a hopeful and dare I say incorrect interpretation. Not one I share certainly. As a positive nihilist, and because such reasoning would be double think, highly irrational.

Your God imo does not exist, your religion imo, is a parochial primitive relic of a bygone era. A tool for manipulation coercion fraud persecution and oppression is all christianity is these days imo. I do not think any God hates or fears science. Nor did Nietsche, because the bible God does not exist, except in the minds of men and women. His fan club, however, they do fear the success and power of the scientific method, mostly because they do not understand it.

 

[John D. Brey]

No, that's wrong. Evolution is not accidental or random. Environmental factors dictate its direction. And human cognition is very much a product of natural selection, despite Wittgenstein's flawed reasoning about what gives value to our expressions.

Up until recently, almost all scientists claimed that evolutionary change was based on random mutations that were accidentally beneficial for survival in relationship to a given environmental niche. It was denied that there was any preordained design element involved in evolution; it's just fortuitous random mutations.

Now that we know that's not correct, the story is changing.

I disagree completely. No scientist who understands evolution thinks that it is random or accidental. The environmental factors that shape and control its direction are serendipitous, not random. It is not necessary to posit the existence of a god to explain its direction, and that is precisely why it protects the atheist's "pressure points".

A lot of your statement depends on how you're using "serendipitous"? I hope it's not anything like Dawkins' phrase: "designoid"?

Meontology is essentially the concept of non-being or nothingness. I'm glad you brought it up, but I think you misunderstand what quantum mechanics tells us about nothingness. Here is a 4-minute video by physicist Lawrence Krauss, who explains why "nothing is unstable" from a physicist's perspective. And, yes, the guy is an atheist.

Krauss is a brilliant scientist. But he has an agenda.

An anti-theist, Krauss seeks to reduce the influence of what he regards as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture.[2]​

​

Wikipedia, Lawrence Krauss.​

​

In the 4-minute video he takes a swipe at both God and Jesus. Imagine that, in a scientific presentation he takes a swipe at Jesus and God. Is that really necessary if you don't have an agenda for saying everything can come from nothing?

Look, I've met Chomsky, been educated as a generative linguist, and even had the opportunity to attend a few of his lectures in person. I know him better than you do. He knows that St. Augustine was not really the first world-class linguist. There were many before him, going all the way back to Panini. He has never argued that grammar is irreducibly complex. That's a myth that could be based on some remark taken out of context. His entire theory is about linguistic complexity being reducible. Sorry, but you have really misunderstood him.

The problems that can now be faced are hard and challenging, but many mysteries still lie beyond the reach of the form of human inquiry we call “science”, a conclusion that we should not find surprising if we consider humans to be part of the organic world, and perhaps one we should not find distressing either.​

​

Noam Chomsky, New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 17-18.​

If my goal in this thread was to prove that Chomsky considers language irreducibly complex (so far as our current scientific-knowledge is concerned), I would quote dozens of his statements in the book above, and from most of his other books, almost all of which I have, and have studied and annotated. But that's not my goal in this thread. This thread is about the nature of the atheist's ability to deny the facts and argue their position even though in truth it's very weak. I'm interested in the metaphysics of unbelief.

Possibly, as some believe, these problems are unreal. Possibly they are real but we have not hit upon the way to approach them. Possibly "that way," whatever it is, lies outside our cognitive capacities, beyond the reach of the science forming faculty. That should not surprise us, if true, at least if we are willing to entertain the idea that humans are part of the natural world, with rich scope and corresponding limits, facing problems that they might hope to solve and mysteries that lie beyond their reach, "ultimate secrets of nature" that "ever will remain" in "obscurity" as Hume supposed, echoing some of Descartes's own speculations.​

​

Ibid. p.133.​

John

 

[Copernicus]

Up until recently, almost all scientists claimed that evolutionary change was based on random mutations that were accidentally beneficial for survival in relationship to a given environmental niche. It was denied that there was any preordained design element involved in evolution; it's just fortuitous random mutations.

Now that we know that's not correct, the story is changing.

You should stop telling people what "almost all scientists claimed." Evolution is about more than mutations, but mutations introduce flaws in the mechanics of biological reproduction. Most of the time, those flaws are of no consequence at all and can even cut life short. Sometimes they produce a change that allows the offspring to adapt better to its environment. That is all. Evolution itself is not random, even if heritable changes that occur by chance turn out to be beneficial. The environment "designs" the forms of life in the same sense that a breeder of animals and plants design the form that their progeny takes. Hence, Dawkins' metaphor of the "blind watchmaker" and its very messy designs. There is no intelligence behind nature's designs, but the chaotic environment gives rise to predictable self-replicating patterns such as biological organisms created by DNA replication. If there was an intelligent engineer behind nature's designs, they wouldn't be so messy, complex, and error-prone.

A lot of your statement depends on how you're using "serendipitous"? I hope it's not anything like Dawkins' phrase: "designoid"?

Nothing to do with Dawkins' terminology. Serendipity is fortuitous or beneficial chance. We live in a universe of chaotic deterministic interactions, not random interactions. Randomness is inherently unpredictable. A chaotic deterministic system is predictable in principle, but only if you know its initial condition and all of the rules governing the interactions of the elements that comprise it. In the absence of that knowledge, its behavior is unpredictable. However, it can be modeled stochastically. That's how we are able to predict weather patterns, and no longer explain them in terms of the attitudes of capricious deities.

Krauss is a brilliant scientist. But he has an agenda.

An anti-theist, Krauss seeks to reduce the influence of what he regards as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture.[2]​

​

Wikipedia, Lawrence Krauss.​

​

In the 4-minute video he takes a swipe at both God and Jesus. Imagine that, in a scientific presentation he takes a swipe at Jesus and God. Is that really necessary if you don't have an agenda for saying everything can come from nothing?

John, everybody has an agenda, including especially you. That doesn't mean that what they say is wrong. Krauss was just being a little cute when he likened the death of stars to the sacrifice of Jesus. It wasn't a malicious swipe, because he simply doesn't believe in Jesus or God. He advocates for atheism in the same sense that you advocate for theism. What he said in that video was a fairly accurate description of what physicists have discovered about the so-called emptiness of space. It simply isn't empty.

The problems that can now be faced are hard and challenging, but many mysteries still lie beyond the reach of the form of human inquiry we call “science”, a conclusion that we should not find surprising if we consider humans to be part of the organic world, and perhaps one we should not find distressing either.​

​

Noam Chomsky, New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind, (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 17-18.​

If my goal in this thread was to prove that Chomsky considers language irreducibly complex (so far as our current scientific-knowledge is concerned), I would quote dozens of his statements in the book above, and from most of his other books, almost all of which I have, and have studied and annotated. But that's not my goal in this thread. This thread is about the nature of the atheist's ability to deny the facts and argue their position even though in truth it's very weak. I'm interested in the metaphysics of unbelief.

Possibly, as some believe, these problems are unreal. Possibly they are real but we have not hit upon the way to approach them. Possibly "that way," whatever it is, lies outside our cognitive capacities, beyond the reach of the science forming faculty. That should not surprise us, if true, at least if we are willing to entertain the idea that humans are part of the natural world, with rich scope and corresponding limits, facing problems that they might hope to solve and mysteries that lie beyond their reach, "ultimate secrets of nature" that "ever will remain" in "obscurity" as Hume supposed, echoing some of Descartes's own speculations.​

​

I'm not convinced that there is any metaphysics to being unconvinced that a religious doctrine is true. Is Occam's Razor metaphysics? However, I am thoroughly familiar with Noam Chomsky's work, and I assure you that you have completely misinterpreted him if you think that he is in any way promoting the doctrine of irreducible complexity, especially as used by those who attempt to criticize evolution theory--a theory that Chomsky is on record claiming to be uncontroversial. I know that you have put considerable effort into studying him in pursuit of your own particular agenda, but libraries are full of people who have devoted their lives to mistaken ideas. That doesn't make you wrong in your efforts, but it does mean that effort alone is not sufficient to guarantee being right.

Normally, Chomsky doesn't respond to people that he thinks misunderstand him, especially if he thinks they ought to know better. I'm pretty familiar with that arrogant attitude of his, which is somewhat legendary among us linguists. Some of my teachers were first generation students of his, and not a few of my acquaintances and friends have had serious disagreements with his generative theory of linguistics. One point some of them used to make to me was that he did his best work when people held his feet to the fire in the classroom and made him justify his theories. The more he became surrounded by sycophants who took everything he said seriously, the more his work suffered.

 

[viole]

Or is so-called "science" terrified of God

Yes, in the same way the electromagnetic theory of lighnings was terrified by Thor

ciao

- viole

 

[John D. Brey]

You should stop telling people what "almost all scientists claimed." Evolution is about more than mutations, but mutations introduce flaws in the mechanics of biological reproduction. Most of the time, those flaws are of no consequence at all and can even cut life short. Sometimes they produce a change that allows the offspring to adapt better to its environment. That is all. Evolution itself is not random, even if heritable changes that occur by chance turn out to be beneficial. The environment "designs" the forms of life in the same sense that a breeder of animals and plants design the form that their progeny takes. Hence, Dawkins' metaphor of the "blind watchmaker" and its very messy designs. There is no intelligence behind nature's designs, but the chaotic environment gives rise to predictable self-replicating patterns such as biological organisms created by DNA replication. If there was an intelligent engineer behind nature's designs, they wouldn't be so messy, complex, and error-prone.

I love ya man. I really do. But this is just the sort of belief I want to put under the microscope to examine more closely. I know you believe it could be true, and I know many people much smarter than I believe in the fairy-dust above. And it's just this proclivity for rational intelligent people to believe in things that are patently false, and to believe them strongly, even arguing them using the scientific-method, that not only do I want to examine more closely, but which I believe I have come up with a theory to help explain.

Which is to say, I think I have a viable theory that can help explain the metaphysics of disbelief.



John