Why I am not an atheist.

[John D. Brey]

But you haven't actually addressed my point at all. All we have is something we don't (as yet) understand, so we either carry on with doing the science or we give up and say "it must be magic". And it's not as if there is nothing to go on at all, since we have the evidence in DNA that Dennett mentioned in the paragraph I quoted, and the fact that once we have replicators with inheritance and variation we can have the known and understood phenomenon of natural selection.

Every single thing we now have solid scientific evidence for today, started off as an unknown.

There is no valid argument from "here is something we don't understand" to goddidit.

Again, I think we're mostly in agreement. And particularly concerning your last statement.

Where we seem to diverge concerns the very nature of the true scientific endeavor. You appear to be under what Popper called the illusion of induction: that we move from what we do know, to what we don't. He and Einstein gave up trying to explain, and show, that that commonsense belief of how scientific growth occurs is purely illusion.

So when you claim that we have factual evidence about certain things, such that, inductively, we can move toward learning about the things we don't have certain evidence about, you are, in Popper and Einstein's understanding, and mine too, under an illusion.

When we use the things we know to be factual, to try and ramrod ideas we hold, that aren't factual (at least yet), we end up with tautologies that are merely restatements of what we already know, but stated in a way that makes it appear that inductively, our unsubstantiated hypothesis is backstopped by our factual knowledge.

Theists consider the existence of God factual. And it may be. But providing evidence for the existence of God requires real, hard, evidence, and not merely circular, or tautological, arguments based on the foundational premise or hypothesis.

Agnostics and atheists merely use a reverse form of the theist's metaphysics. Rather than going from the hypothesis that God exists, to circular and tautological arguments presented as evidence of that existence, they say: We see no evidence for God's existence so that for us that's evidence that nature somehow found a way to cause replication even though you already need replicators to have the mechanism required to replicate.

Theists ignorantly believe that since they believe God exists, that belief capitalizes tautological presentations of the evidence for that existence.

Atheists ignorantly believe that since there's no evidence for God's existence (outside the tautologies of the theists) scientific antinomies, paradoxes, or contradictions, can be ignored, and argued away with the same circular arguments, or tautologies the theists use.

Noam Chomsky is one of the most valuable thinkers alive precisely because he realizes that we can move forward far faster in our knowledge of the real word if we dispense with metaphysics, and flawed reasoning situated around using our primary thesis ---God exists, or God doesn't exist---as the capitalization for explaining what we can't, in truth, explain.

Theists can't explain where God is hiding (though I believe I can), while atheist can't explain why there are clear, substantiated, antinomy, paradox, and contradiction (like irreducible complexity) mucking up what would otherwise be a clear picture.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Except he clearly isn't saying that. Something new (at least to this planet) arising is not the same as saying nature is incapable of it. There have been multiple innovations in evolutionary history and there is literally nothing to suggest that any of them were not natural.

Of course they have to be natural if there is no other course. Naturally. <s>




John

 

[John D. Brey]

I think, its in part that he is somehow so
sure he is right that the most extreme sort of
confirmation bias takes ahold, whatever
is read goes through a converter until
it says what was sought.

I would say that in order to read at all, something must go through something. And the something through which something must go through could be called a prism of some sort. A prism of some sort has the unfortunate result that what the something going through the prism was before it went through the prism is forever transformed by the transforming filter of the prism.

What I mean to say is that there is no person so confused and convoluted in their thinking as the one who thinks their cornea is like a thin piece of glass presenting the world as it exists on the other side of the cornea: that's just corney. <s>

Which is to say, the first step in leaving our Platonic cave is to realize we're in it. Our bodies are a mechanism that transforms a world that is terrifying and unthinkable (literally) on the other side of the cornea that corney people think is like the glass window in their bedroom. On the other side of your cornea is nothing but a bloomin buzzin confusion.



John

 

[Audie]

I would say that in order to read at all, something must go through something. And the something through which something must go through could be called a prism of some sort. A prism of some sort has the unfortunate result that what the something going through the prism was before it went through the prism is forever transformed by the transforming filter of the prism.

What I mean to say is that there is no person so confused and convoluted in their thinking than the one who thinks their cornea is like a thin piece of glass presenting the world as it exists on the other side of the cornea: that's just korney. <s>

Which is to say, the first step in leaving our Platonic cave is to realize we're in it. Our bodies are a mechanism that transform a world that is terrifying and unthinkable (literally) on the other side of the cornea that corney people think is like the glass in their bedroom.


John

Just at least TRY to read what is actually
there ?

Hate to harp on it but your decades of
study including, you know, Popper, in
all that you had to have seen, "no proof
in science". But what did you do with
that info?

You still did not get past a grudging
" maybe technically".

So I dont think you are at all realistic
in your presentation that everyone is like
you, still less that you read anything to
find other than good old confirmation bias.

People trained in science recognize objectivity
as being as essential as finding each
penny is to an accountant.

For theists, it is the opposite.
FAITH is the highest virtue. Faith
despite all evidence, the more that
goes against you, the greater the virtue.

See " Job".

Incredibly difficult, so handicapped, not to convert and we see no evidence you even try.

 

[John D. Brey]

For theists, it is the opposite.
FAITH is the highest virtue. Faith
despite all evidence, the more that
goes against you, the greater the virtue.

Believe it or not, Karl Popper, who knows science and its genesis and mechanism like no one else, claims that that dogmatic faith you poo poo is a complete requirement for science to exist and function.



John

 

[Audie]

Believe it or not, Karl Popper, who knows science and its genesis and mechanism like no one else, claims that that dogmatic faith you poo poo is a complete requirement for science to exist and function.



John

Easy to claim, impossible to demonstrate.

But at least you admit to blind faith despite all,
on your part. Progress!

 

[ratiocinator]

Where we seem to diverge concerns the very nature of the true scientific endeavor. You appear to be under what Popper called the illusion of induction: that we move from what we do know, to what we don't. He and Einstein gave up trying to explain, and show, that that commonsense belief of how scientific growth occurs is purely illusion.

No, you're confusing the usual scientific shorthand for a philosophical position. As I outlined in another post (The Science of God. #64), what I think we are doing is building the best models (testable and falsifiable) we can about what appears to be the 'real world'. We can never know whether a model is right, only how many tests it has past (the intersubjectively verifiable evidence) or if it's been falsified. The criteria for successful science isn't that it's 'The Truth' but that it works.

If the 'real world' isn't real or there is something beyond it, why should I care? What difference can it possibly make to me? Science is a useful tool for understanding it, in fact the only, as far as I know, objective (used to mean intersubjectively testable) tool we have.

What is spectacularly missing from yourself (and every other theist I've talked to) is any similar methodology to investigate claims about the 'supernatural' or 'god(s)' (however you're going to define those terms).

Agnostics and atheists merely use a reverse form of the theist's metaphysics. Rather than going from the hypothesis that God exists, to circular and tautological arguments presented as evidence of that existence, they say: We see no evidence for God's existence so that for us that's evidence that nature somehow found a way to cause replication even though you already need replicators to have the mechanism required to replicate.

Not only is 'God' (presumably your favourite version) versus nature a glaring false dichotomy, what a is actually being said is: we don't know how this happened, so we'll go on investigating it with only reliable, objective tool we have. As for this example, so called 'irreducible complexity' doesn't have a good track-record, it's been claimed and debunked many times before.

And you still haven't answered the question of what you think should be done instead if (say) you start with a god assumption. How do we objectively test a hypothesis that god did it?

 

[ratiocinator]

Of course they have to be natural if there is no other course. Naturally. <s>

Which doesn't address the point that, yet again, you completely misrepresented what Dennett said. Saying that somebody concedes that some phenomena is "not something nature is capable of doing", when his whole argument is that nature did do it, is misrepresentation (at best).

 

[John D. Brey]

Which doesn't address the point that, yet again, you completely misrepresented what Dennett said. Saying that somebody concedes that some phenomena is "not something nature is capable of doing", when his whole argument is that nature did do it, is misrepresentation (at best).

Your statement is fair and to a degree accurate. But in my opinion it misses the very nuance I'm attempting to point out.

My point is that when someone like Dennett uses what they already believe to be the case ---in this case that there's no Creator, such that nature is all there is ---- as a fundamental truth-criteria of their argument, they produce tautologies which are only a real argument where the person reading the argument holds the same propositional truth (there is no creator) to be true.

A careful reader of the Dennett quote I provided, who can set aside their metaphysical bias ---belief that nature is all there is ----should be able to see (imo) that Dennett is using the word "freedom," as in "freedom evolves," in the most disingenuous manner imaginable.

The book is named "Freedom Evolves." And the very problem the book wants to solve is the fact that human sentience, human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose.

He even states that some of his most brilliant friends concede that they have a real problem with a blind watchmaker with no intentions of making a watch magically ending up with a Rolex like the human brain, which, not only tells time, but decides it wants to go to the moon and designs a way to do it, wants to create its own brain, and does it.

Dennett is aware that what human intelligence has done in the last 100 years refutes the concept that nature is a blind watchmaker. But because he holds a metaphysical proposition to be true, i.e., there's no Creator or designer, therefore, "freedom," i.e., freedom from having to look like you don't have free will, purpose, the ability to design things in a twinkling of an eye that nature would require billions of years to arrive at through thoughtless accident, must, that ability must, have "evolved."

A person able to decipher Dennett's book without succumbing to a treasure trove of tautological nonsense is fully aware that stated in a nutshell the book's premise is that since nature had to have designed human intelligence through non-intelligent, accidental, means, the fact that human intelligence is clearly free from those non-intelligent processes means human intelligence must have evolved to be "free" from the very processes of evolution through which it allegedly came.

That's a meaningless tautology that appears to be a cogent argument only to those people who think since nature had to arrive at human intelligence without supernatural help, therefore a tautological statement has a truth clauses: its cause; proving what needs no proof since its just true (nature did everything thoughtlessly).

Dennett's whole premise can be summed up in a few words: Since evolution is the only way anything evolves, something clearly incompatible with evolution must have evolved that incompatibility. In a word Dennett is saying, "incompatibility with natural processes (freedom from those processes) evolved." Ergo he names his book Freedom Evolves. The topic of the book is "freedom" evolving. And the "freedom" he's personifying as something that evolves, is freedom from the first law of evolution: mindless, design-less, purpose-less, contingency. Since that's the first law of evolution, and human intelligence is clearly free from that law (and he admits as much throughout the book), freedom from the laws of evolution had to have evolved.



John

 

[ratiocinator]

My point is that when someone like Dennett uses what they already believe to be the case ---in this case that there's no Creator, such that nature is all there is ---- as a fundamental truth-criteria of their argument, they produce tautologies which are only a real argument where the person reading the argument holds the same propositional truth (there is no creator) to be true.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, you are still guilty of misrepresentation when you say that he concedes something that he specifically argues against. If somebody says something as daft as "the universe exists, it wouldn't if there weren't a god, so there's a god", then I'd still be misrepresenting them if I said that they conceded that there was no god. No matter how daft you think somebody's argument is, it is still misrepresenting them if you claim they've conceded the opposite.

 

[Audie]

Your statement is fair and to a degree accurate. But in my opinion it misses the very nuance I'm attempting to point out.

My point is that when someone like Dennett uses what they already believe to be the case ---in this case that there's no Creator, such that nature is all there is ---- as a fundamental truth-criteria of their argument, they produce tautologies which are only a real argument where the person reading the argument holds the same propositional truth (there is no creator) to be true.

A careful reader of the Dennett quote I provided, who can set aside their metaphysical bias ---belief that nature is all there is ----should be able to see (imo) that Dennett is using the word "freedom," as in "freedom evolves," in the most disingenuous manner imaginable.

The book is named "Freedom Evolves." And the very problem the book wants to solve is the fact that human sentience, human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose.

He even states that some of his most brilliant friends concede that they have a real problem with a blind watchmaker with no intentions of making a watch magically ending up with a Rolex like the human brain, which, not only tells time, but decides it wants to go to the moon and designs a way to do it, wants to create its own brain, and does it.

Dennett is aware that what human intelligence has done in the last 100 years refutes the concept that nature is a blind watchmaker. But because he holds a metaphysical proposition to be true, i.e., there's no Creator or designer, therefore, "freedom," i.e., freedom from having to look like you don't have free will, purpose, the ability to design thing nature would require billions of years to arrive at through thoughtless accident, must, that ability must, have "evolved."

A person able to decipher Dennett's book without succumbing to a treasure trove of tautological nonsense is fully aware that stated in a nutshell the book's premise is that since nature had to have designed human intelligence through non-intelligent, accidental, means, the fact that human intelligence is clearly free from those non-intelligent processes means human intelligence must have evolved to be "free" from the very processes of evolution through which it allegedly came.

That's a meaningless tautology that appears to be a cogent argument only to those people who think since nature had to arrive at human intelligence without supernatural help, therefore a tautological statement has a truth clauses: it's cause; proving what needs no proof since its just true.


John

Since in your opinion dennett is so
disingenuous and intellectually dishonest,
why so much value on anything he says?

 

[Audie]

Regardless of whether this is true or not, you are still guilty of misrepresentation when you say that he concedes something that he specifically argues against. If somebody says something as daft as "the universe exists, it wouldn't if there weren't a god, so there's a god", then I'd still be misrepresenting them if I said that they conceded that there was no god. No matter how daft you think somebody's argument is, it is still misrepresenting them if you claim they've conceded the opposite.

Have you met anyone who holds that
" there is no god" is a fundamental
truth?

 

[ratiocinator]

...human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose.

Prove it, then.

He even states that some of his most brilliant friends concede that they have a real problem with a blind watchmaker with no intentions of making a watch magically ending up with a Rolex like the human brain, which, not only tells time, but decides it wants to go to the moon and designs a way to do it, wants to create its own brain, and does it.

We have a perfectly good (well tested) theory that explains that. Do you have no understanding of evolution at all?

Dennett is aware that what human intelligence has done in the last 100 years refutes the concept that nature is a blind watchmaker.

Another totally false statement. Human designs are the result of the 'design' of humans that was done via evolution, as Dennett clearly believes and strongly argues for.

 

[John D. Brey]

Dennett's whole premise can be summed up in a few words: Since evolution is the only way anything evolves, something clearly incompatible with evolution must have evolved that incompatibility. In a word Dennett is saying, "incompatibility with natural processes (freedom from those processes) evolved." Ergo he names his book Freedom Evolves. The topic of the book is "freedom" evolving. And the "freedom" he's personifying as something that evolves, is freedom from the first law of evolution: mindless, design-less, purpose-less, contingency. Since that's the first law of evolution, and human intelligence is clearly free from that law (and he admits as much throughout the book), freedom from the laws of evolution had to have evolved.

To understand the primary point of this thread, someone reading the paragraph above should know that the circular logic Dennett clearly employs doesn't mean his metaphysical archenemy, the creationist/theist, is any more free from circular, tautological, logic, than Dennett. For Dennett to be logically vapid, and he is, he's purely tautological, doesn't leave the creationist/theist standing on the battlefield victorious, since the creationist/theist uses the exact same metaphysical belief in his foundational premise to argue his creationist points.

The point of this thread is to do something truly valuable: argue the existence of God without reference to tautologies, circularity, and clique-oriented glad-handing.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

...human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose.​

Prove it, then.

There's a machine on the surface of Mars sending back selfies. It either got there accidentally through mindless contingency, or else an intelligent designer of some sort purposefully designed mechanisms to put it there?


John

 

[Audie]

To understand the primary point of this thread, someone reading the paragraph above should know that the circular logic Dennett clearly employs doesn't mean his metaphysical archenemy, the creationist/theist, is any more free from circular, tautological, logic, than Dennett. For Dennett to be logically vapid, and he is, he's purely tautological, doesn't leave the creationist/theist standing on the battlefield victorious, since the creationist/theist uses the exact same metaphysical belief in his foundational premise to argue his creationist points.

The point of this thread is to do something truly valuable: argue the existence of God without reference to tautologies, circularity, and clique-oriented glad-handing.



John

I never saw anyone go on so much about circular reasoning, and tautology!

Just go ahead and prove what you were challenged to prove, argue for God,
and quit going on about Dennrt, who you
don't understand and nobody but you even cares about.

 

[Audie]

There's a machine on the surface of Mars sending back selfies. It either got there accidentally through mindless contingency, or else an intelligent designer of some sort purposefully designed mechanisms to put it there?


John

In addition to "tautology " you should learn
'strawman ".

 

[ppp]

Prove it, then.

There's a machine on the surface of Mars sending back selfies. It either got there accidentally through mindless contingency, or else an intelligent designer of some sort purposefully designed mechanisms to put it there?

You attempt to prove that "...human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose" does not reference either human intelligence or nature having no preexisting purposes.

 

[John D. Brey]

We have a perfectly good (well tested) theory that explains that. Do you have no understanding of evolution at all?

If we say that evolution has no intelligent design or purpose in mind (so to say), and then we admit that human beings do have the ability to design things intelligently, and with purpose, that still doesn't necessarily mean that the mindless processes of evolution couldn't have produced a designer-machine (say the human brain).

So hopefully we're on the same sheet of music so far. . ..

In my opinion, that's just what Dennett wrote a book to try and understand: how do mindless, purposes-less, processes lead to the emergent phenomenon known as intelligence, and the ability to design with purpose?

If we assume that there's no divine designer, no supernatural intelligence, guiding evolution, then even if we don't know how intelligence and purposeful actions evolved, we can assume they did.

Nevertheless, there's a fundamental difference between making an assumption based on something we already believe to be true (human-like intelligence, though "free" from mindless contingency, nevertheless had to evolve), versus proving our assumption with logic, science, and non-circular argumentation.

Even if I agree with you that since there's no intelligent designer behind evolutionary products like the human eye and brain, they therefore had to come about through the mindless contingencies of evolution, I should hope that my own brain is able to accept that a preexisting requirement for why something is the way it is is fundamentally different from an explanation. A contingent requirement is different from an explanation.

In my opinion, when we treat a contingent requirement as though it's an explanation, we're not doing productive, scientific, research.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand

Albert Einstein.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

You attempt to prove that "...human intelligence, is, provably, utterly incompatible with the idea that nature has no preexisting designs or purpose" does not reference either human intelligence or nature having no preexisting purposes.

I caught that and tried to correct it in a subsequent message to you. In other words, I concede that we don't know that a thoughtless process with no design, desire, or purpose, can't accidentally end up producing a thoughtful machine.


John