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January 21, 2009, 02:40 PM
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#5761142 / #1 |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: March 2007
Location: Denmark
Posts: 7,920
  Emil |
A Good, Smart and Powerful God Exists -- cartesian vs. lukeprog
Start Date: January 30th 2009
cartesian vs. lukeprog This thread has been set up for a formal debate between cartesian and lukeprog on following resolution: Resolved: A Good, Smart and Powerful God Exists cartesian affirms. lukeprog opposes. The debate will have 7 rounds. cartesian will go first. These are the parameters of the debate. A Peanut Gallery has been set up in the Existence of God(s) forum for the rest of us to comment on the debate. Last edited by Emil; February 4, 2009 at 04:46 PM. |
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January 30, 2009, 02:33 PM
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#5776005 / #2 |
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Newcomer
Join Date: December 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 83
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The Nature and Stakes of this Debate
The topic of this debate is: A good, smart, powerful god exists. I’ll present some evidence in favor of this proposition. Before I do that, let’s get clear about the nature and stakes of this debate. I’m going to try to persuade people that God exists, using arguments and public evidence that I think count in favor of the claim that God exists. That is, in this debate, I have to appeal to our shared or shareable evidence. That’s part of the nature of this debate. Here’s another fact about this debate: Luke and I can only present a few pieces of evidence for or against the proposition that God exists. So neither of our conclusions will be that all things considered, God exists (or doesn’t). It’s awfully hard to consider all things. We simply don’t have the time. I’ll provide some evidence that God exists. Luke will provide some evidence that he doesn’t. Nothing at all follows about whether or not God exists all things considered. To sum up, in this debate, we will consider only a few features that count for or against God’s existence from among only our shared or shareable evidence. So we’re only considering a small subset of a small subset of all the available evidence. So again, nothing said in this debate will settle the question of whether God exists all things considered, i.e. whether God’s existence is probable relative to all of the available evidence. So much for the nature of this debate. Now let me talk about the stakes of this debate. Suppose I fail to persuade someone (or anyone) that God exists, given the nature of this debate. Would it follow then that theistic belief is unreasonable? No, it wouldn’t. And that’s because it’s simply not true that: (1) If I can’t persuade a rational person of the truth of some proposition p using only our shared or shareable evidence, then it’s unreasonable (for me or anyone else) to believe in p. Here’s a counterexample to that claim: there have been extremely rational, extremely intelligent, and extremely well-informed philosophers who did not believe that there really is an external world. Sextus Empiricus, for example. Chances are I wouldn’t have been able to persuade Sextus Empiricus that there is an external world using only our shared or shareable evidence. Does it follow that it’s unreasonable for me (or anyone else) to believe that there is an external world? Hardly. (If that does follow, then we’re forced into an extreme skepticism, according to which not even atheism or agnosticism is reasonable.) So (1) is false. And so even if I cannot persuade Luke (who I take to be rational, honest, and a generally nice guy) that God exists using only our shared or shareable evidence, it doesn’t follow that it’s unreasonable for me (or anyone else) to believe that God exists. So that helps clarify the stakes of this debate. It will no doubt be an interesting and fun intellectual exercise. But if I fail to persuade Luke (or you, or anyone) of my position, nothing follows about the reasonableness of my position. And of course the same goes for Luke. Even if he fails to persuade me (or you), nothing follows about the reasonableness of his position. So far, I’ve made three substantial claims that Luke may disagree with. So to facilitate his response, I’ll make them explicit and label them: (Evidence) In this debate, I have to appeal to our shared or shareable evidence. (So, for example, a private apparent perception of God doesn’t count.) (Nature) Nothing said in this debate will settle the question of whether God exists all things considered, i.e. whether God’s existence is probable relative to all the available evidence. (Stakes) Even if I cannot persuade Luke (or you) that God exists using only our shared or shareable evidence, it doesn’t follow that it’s unreasonable for me (or anyone else) to believe that God exists. OK, enough about the nature and stakes of this debate. Let me now move on to actually providing some reason in favor of thinking that a good, smart, powerful God exists. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A Good, Smart, Powerful God Exists In this first post, I’ll provide just one argument in favor of the claim that a good, smart, powerful God exists. Below, I’ll abbreviate this claim as just “God exists.” To do this, I’ll make the case that there is a certain feature of our universe that would be highly unexpected if God didn’t exist, but not at all surprising if God does exist. This feature, therefore, counts as evidence in favor of the proposition that God exists and against the proposition that God doesn’t exist. For example, suppose you go for a swim in the ocean near your family’s new beach house. You love this particular beach because it’s secluded (so only your family visits it), and because there is a really interesting population of sand crabs that make weird patterns in the sand as they walk. As you walk down the sand to the surf, you notice the following pattern in the sand: “Hi Luke – Welcome to the ocean!” You have two competing explanations: first, that a family member – excited about the new beach house – inscribed this pattern into the sand. Second, that the sand crabs happened to form this pattern by walking around. Clearly, this feature of the sand counts in favor of the claim that a family member inscribed the message, and against the claim that sand crabs did it. Right? And so this principle seems plausible: (Confirmation) If some feature of the universe F is surprising on one theory but expected on another, then F counts as evidence against the first theory and in favor of the second theory. Here’s the feature of our universe that I’d like to discuss: (Souls) There are immaterial minds contingently connected to bodies Just to be clear, I will use “minds,” “souls,” and “people” interchangeably. I don’t think minds or souls are parts of people. I think that people just are minds, i.e. things that think. And I think minds are not material objects. So I think people are not material objects, but rather immaterial minds. And as a matter of convention, philosophers call immaterial minds “souls.” The alternative to Souls is that people are material objects (probably brains). So if Souls is false, all the facts about people are just physical facts, since all the facts about brains are physical facts and people just are brains. I think we can agree that, if atheism were true, Souls would be surprising. That’s not what you’d expect, given atheism. There would have to be weird, complicated laws of nature connecting souls with bodies. And these laws of nature would have absolutely no explanation, even though they’re contingent. (Your soul easily could have been connected with my body, for example. Or your soul could have become disconnected from your body on your 21st birthday, for example.) However, Souls is not at all surprising if a good, powerful, and smart God exists. Such a God plausibly values the existence of free creatures, wants them to live and interact with each other and their environment, and wants them to live forever. If he had those desires (or others like them), it would make sense to create immaterial minds connected to bodies. These immaterial minds could be free, interact with each other and their environment via bodies, and survive the death of their bodies. So, if Souls is true, and if Confirmation is true, then we have evidence against atheism and for the existence of a good, powerful, smart God. Now, I’ll argue that Souls is in fact true. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- An Argument for Souls This argument is adapted from Richard Swinburne, who adapted it from Descartes. First, consider a lump of clay called "Lumpy." Suppose we cut Lumpy perfectly in half, and put one half to the left and one half to the right. Now suppose I asked you "What happened to Lumpy?" It seems to me that the obvious answer is also fully satisfactory: 1/2 of Lumpy is on the left, and 1/2 of Lumpy is on the right. Lumpy got cut in half, end of story. But now consider brains. Brains consist of two hemispheres connected via the corpus callosum. We know that people can survive the severing of the corpus callosum, and can even survive the loss of an entire hemisphere. And it seems possible that one day we’ll have the technology to transplant brains. After all, we can already transplant livers, kidneys, lungs, and hearts. So suppose one day when such brain-transplant technology is available, someone severs a subject's corpus callosum, and transplants each hemisphere into a separate vacated skull (of an intact, functioning body). Suppose the subject is named "Alan." The surgical plan was to separate his hemispheres, and then put the left one in a waiting, vacated skull (call it "Lefty"), and the right one in another waiting, vacated skull (call it "Righty"). Alan's original skull, then vacated, was destroyed along with his original body. Here's the question: What happened to Alan? In the case of Lumpy the lump of clay, the plausible answer was that Lumpy was 1/2 on the left and 1/2 on the right. But that answer doesn't seem plausible in the case of people. People can't be 1/2 on the left and 1/2 on the right. People – subjects of experiences – don't come in halves. A person is either there or not there; people are never “1/2” there, in whatever sense that a lump of clay can be “1/2” there. After the surgery, Lefty and Righty will both regain consciousness and go on with their lives. One may move to Idaho, say, and the other may move to South Africa. Can we really make sense of the idea that, in that case, 1/2 of a person is in Idaho and 1/2 of a person is in South Africa? One person is in two places with two completely independent streams of consciousness? No, that doesn't make sense at all. Clearly there are two people after the surgery, not one person existing in halves, and not two 1/2-people. People don’t exist in halves, and there are no half-people. But then there are only three options for what happened to Alan after the surgery: (Option 1) Alan is now in the body called “Lefty.” (Option 2) Alan is now in the body called “Righty.” (Option 3) Alan did not survive the operation. He ceased to exist. Which of these is true? What happened to Alan? The fact is that each option seems equally plausible. Each one is certainly logically possible, and it's hard to see how we could figure out which one actually happened from our perspective as neurosurgeons. But then we have an argument for the truth of Souls: (1) We can know all the physical facts about this situation. (2) If Souls is false, all the facts about people are just physical facts. (3) So if Souls is false, we can know all the facts about people in this situation (from 1 and 2). (4) If we can know all the facts about people in this situation, then we can know which of Option 1-3 happened. (5) We can’t know which of Option 1-3 happened. (6) So we can't know all the facts about people in this situation (from 4 and 5). (7) Therefore it’s not the case that Souls is false, i.e. Souls is true. (from 3 and 6). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion I argued that if Souls is true, and if Confirmation is true, then we have evidence against atheism and for the existence of a good, powerful, smart God. I have also argued that Souls is true, and that Confirmation is true. So I conclude that we have evidence against atheism and for the existence of a good, powerful, and smart God. |
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January 31, 2009, 02:31 PM
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#5777460 / #3 |
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Newcomer
Join Date: September 2007
Location: California
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Nature of the Debate
I agree with everything Cartesian said up to the (Souls) line. Also: Cartesian is not defending the existence of a specific God. Cartesian is not defending the Biblical Yahweh who spoke the stars into existence (Genesis 1:3), killed off the Amorites by throwing rocks from the sky (Joshua 10:10-11), repeatedly threatened to force the Israelites into cannibalism (Leviticus 26:29, Jeremiah 19:9, Ezekiel 5:9-10), and impregnated a virgin who birthed a man-god who preached eternal, loving torture to those who did not worship him. Nor is Cartesian defending the Koranic Allah who magically transformed unbelievers into monkeys and pigs (2:65 and 5:60), supported Mohammad's conquest with an invisible army (9:40), and made talking ants (27:18). No, Cartesian's case is much easier than that. Cartesian is only defending the existence of some kind of good, smart, powerful god (hereafter, "God"). And I'm not going to disprove God. How could I, with such a vague definition of God? Instead, I'll show that God probably doesn't exist. To show that God probably doesn't exist, I will do two things: (1) I will show that Cartesian's arguments are poor reasons to think that God exists, and (2) I will give some positive reasons why God probably doesn't exist. No Souls Perhaps the best reason to think God probably doesn't exist is the same reason we all think that Quetzelcoatl, unicorns, and millions of other fantastical things probably don't exist: no good evidence! None of us can disprove the existence of Quetzelcoatl or unicorns. They are logically possible. In fact, we cannot even think of many good arguments against their existence! But these are magical, fantastic claims with no good evidence supporting them, and we are justified in rejecting them. Likewise, if there are no good reasons to think that God exists, we are justified in rejecting his existence. Has Cartesian given us good evidence for God's existence? I think not. Let me now consider his argument from souls. I agree with Cartesian that if souls exist, that is some evidence for theism. First I will rebut his argument for souls. Then I will provide evidence that souls do not exist. Cartesian says that a "person" must not be a brain but instead a disembodied soul, because if we halve Alan's brain and both halves survive, then what has happened to Alan? Cartesian says there can be no half-persons, and that this scenario is proof that persons cannot be just physical brains. This is like the "problem" of the atom. The word "atom" always meant "indivisible." The idea of a "half-atom" made no sense. Then we discovered that you can split atoms into smaller parts. What happened here? Where is a helium atom after we explode it? Is the left proton the helium atom, or the right proton, or did the helium atom cease to exist? This was not a logical problem for the universe. It was a problem with our words. Words are not binding on the universe. Words are tools invented by ignorant humans to communicate ideas. When a word breaks down it is not a problem for the universe. It's a problem for our ancient and often silly words. So what happens when we split the helium atom? We have one proton over here, and one proton over there. Some electrons and neutrons are floating around, too. They used to be joined, now they are not. And what happens if we split a brain and keep both halves alive? This is not problematic for atheism at all. All that happens is that we have one conscious neuro-system over here, another over there, and they used to be joined. Whether we want to call one of them "Alan" and the other "Alan 2," or whether we want to consider them each a person - that is a problem for our words of convenience, not a problem for the universe. Also, there are good reasons to think souls do not exist, which is exactly what atheism would predict. Specifically, there is lots of evidence that all the things we used to associate with the "soul," - consciousness, personality, etc. - are direct products of the brain. There is no evidence that we need to take a further step back and say that brain phenomena are caused by an invisible, immaterial soul - so, the soul is sheared off by Occam's Razor. We all know that drugs or brain trauam that alter the chemistry or structure of the brain can render someone's personality totally unrecognizable. They can make happy people irritable, smart people stupid, bubbly people numb, crazy people calm. In fact, we can even map certain parts of our personality and consciousness to certain parts of the brain. If you stimulate the parietal and temporal lobes with a magnetic field, you can induce the conscious experience of a god or ghost. Frontal lobe damage can turn a focused, organized person into a distracted, disorganized person - literally overnight! The brain - not a "soul" - seems to have a direct cause-effect relationship with everything we used to associate with "souls." In fact, I was surprised by Cartesian's argument because even as a Christian I saw the "split-brain paradox" as a problem for theism, not for atheism! If we split Alan into two working brains and bodies, does God split Alan's soul, too? Does he give one half-brain the old soul and create a new soul for the other half-brain? Can each soul be saved or condemned independently? What about when we can upload someone's consciousness onto a computer and make a thousand copies of it? Does God create a new soul for each new copy, or does he only give souls to those who have a body made of meat? These questions kept me awake at night as a theist, but never as an atheist. (As a Christian, I threw them into the "God is mysterious" bin. As Hegel put it, "God is the sewer into which all contradictions flow.") For the atheist, all that happens here is the rearrangement of matter. However we want to label lumps of neurons or circuits as persons, that is up to our convenience (as all word-tools are). For the theist, there seems to be a lot of work to do to keep all these invisible, magical souls sorted out. So if anything, Cartesian's "half-brain paradox" is more problematic for theism than atheism, and I will add it to my list of arguments against theism. Not only that, but we have good evidence that souls do not exist, which is more surprising given theism than atheism, and is my second argument against theism. Pointless Suffering My third argument against theism is the problem of pointless suffering. On atheism, pointless suffering makes perfect sense. The universe is indifferent to living beings. Stars explode, wiping out entire solar systems. Earthquakes, floods, and volcanos destroy whole populations. Random mutations cause humans and other animals to be born with painful disabilities. This is because there is no transcendent, powerful being that cares whether humans suffer or not. The universe just goes about its business, indifferent to how living beings feel about it. But if there is a God who wants to limit the pointless suffering of those he cares about (because he is good), and is able to do so (because he is smart and powerful), then it's surprising there is so much pointless suffering in the world. When the theist reads about a volcano wiping out a whole city, or a disease that kills millions in agony, or a child born with a painful mutation that kills her after two months, he must ask himself: 1. Did God not know about this? 2. Was God impotent to prevent this? 3. Did God want this pointless suffering? 4. Or, was all this suffering somehow not pointless? Not wanting to say that God is so ignorant, impotent, or uncaring, theists have usually opted for (4). They say that God has a higher plan for suffering, or something. Of course, this is logically possible. But to say that God has a higher purpose for some catastrophe that we just can't understand is like saying that Hitler had a higher purpose for killing 6 million Jews that we just can't understand. After all, he did claim to be on a mission from God, and God is much smarter than we are. It's logically possible that the Holocaust served some higher purpose that we just can't understand, but it's highly improbable. Likewise, it's highly improbable that the abundance of pointless suffering we see every day serves some higher purpose. If Cartesian chooses among options (1)-(3), then God is probably not good, powerful, or smart - he is not the God we are debating. And I think option (4) is improbable given the abundance of pointless suffering, and therefore God probably doesn't exist. The Trend of Discovery We used to think that just about everything was the action of gods and spirits. Life, death, crop failure, weather, disease, eclipses, earthquakes... everything. As we learn more about the universe, we continue to discover that these things have natural causes. Lightning comes from electric charges, not Zeus. Earthquakes come from shifting tectonic plates, not an angry pantheon of jealous gods. Disease comes from germs, not demons or sin. In fact, if you think about it, this is a 100% perfect trend. There are no exceptions. Thousands of times, a natural explanation has replaced a supernatural one. Not once has a supernatural explanation replaced a natural one. As Tim Michin sings, "Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be. . . not magic!" Of course, there are those who claim to have replaced a natural explanation with a supernatural one. But they are not backed up by public evidence, and their claim is not accepted by people outside a specific minority - like Christians or Hindus or new-agers. Given its perfect track record, this trend will continue more likely that not. This fits with atheism, but would be surprising given theism, which postulates at least one magical entity who interacts with nature. Summary To start, I showed that Cartesian's "split-brain paradox" does not provide evidence for souls or theism. This is because the paradox is a problem for our word-tools, not for reality. Furthermore, there is good evidence to think that souls do not exist: namely the impressive cause-effect relationships between the physical brain and states of consciousness and personality. I also showed that the "split-brain paradox" is not a problem for atheism at all, and that it is a problem for theism. On atheism, all that happens is the rearrangement of matter. On theism, there is much confusion about whether souls can be divided, or whether they must be created anew to accomodate split brains or copied consciousnesses. (This is a general problem with theism. It must continually multiply assumptions for which there cannot be any evidence at all. Theism, at every turn, is carved to pieces by Occam's razor.) So first, Cartesian's "split-brain paradox" argument fails, and in fact is more problematic for theism than for atheism. And second, we have good reasons to think that souls do not exist, which fits better with atheism than with theism. Third, I argued that abundant pointless suffering is evidence against God. If God is good and powerful, he probably wouldn't allow so much pointless suffering. Fourth, I argued that the trend of replacing supernatural explanations with natural ones fits better with atheism than with theism. In order to give us reason to think God exists, Cartesian must provide some arguments for God's existence that do not suffer from such pervasive flaws as his argument for souls, and he must also show why my arguments do not render God's existence improbable. Finally: beware of the retreat to the possible. Quetzelcoatl and unicorns are possible, too. We want to know what is probable. I think God probably doesn't exist. |
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January 31, 2009, 10:01 PM
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#5778005 / #4 | |||
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Newcomer
Join Date: December 2008
Location: USA
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First Reply
This was my main argument in my first post:
(Confirmation) If some feature of the universe F is surprising on one theory but expected on another, then F counts as evidence against the first theory and in favor of the second theory. (Souls) There are immaterial minds contingently connected to bodies (Souls are Surprising) Souls is surprising on atheism, but expected on theism. These three propositions entail that we have evidence (namely, Souls) against atheism and in favor of theism. These three propositions constitute my main argument. Luke doesn’t accept the conclusion, so he must reject one or more of these three propositions. Luke says “I agree with Cartesian that if souls exist, that is some evidence for theism.” So Luke seems to accept both Confirmation and Souls are Surprising. Apparently, then, he doesn’t accept the truth of Souls. So he should give us some good reason to doubt the truth of one or more of the premises of my argument in favor of Souls. For convenience, I’ll reproduce that argument here: (1) We can know all the physical facts about the situation described. (2) If Souls is false, all the facts about people are just physical facts. (3) So if Souls is false, we can know all the facts about people in this situation (from 1 and 2). (4) If we can know all the facts about people in this situation, then we can know what happened to Alan. (5) We can’t know what happened to Alan. (6) So we can't know all the facts about people in this situation (from 4 and 5). (7) Therefore it’s not the case that Souls is false, i.e. Souls is true. (from 3 and 6). To repeat, since Luke rejects the truth of Souls, he ought to give us some reason to deny one or more of (1), (2), (4), or (5) in this argument. ((3), (6), and (7) follow logically from (1), (2), (4), and (5), so they’re immune from criticism.) Or, he ought to give us an independent argument against Souls. Or both. Luke seems to recognize that this is his task when he says “First I will rebut his argument for souls. Then I will provide evidence that souls do not exist.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luke’s Response to My Argument for Souls After recapping my argument, Luke provides this response: Quote:
The question was “What happened to Alan?” This isn’t at all a question about our words. It’s a question about Alan, that person. Surely people are parts of the universe. I just don’t get what Luke’s answer to the question is supposed to be. Did Alan cease to exist? Did he survive the operation? If so, where is he now – is he Lefty or Righty? I think that we can’t know what happened to Alan from our perspective as neurosurgeons. We could know all the facts about Alan’s brain in exquisite detail – still, it will be an open question what happened to Alan. And so I think (5) is true. Luke, do you think (5) is false? If so, why? If not, which other premise is false? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Luke’s Arguments Against Souls Luke then attempted to provide some reasons to think that Souls is false. Quote:
Second, someone who thinks Souls is true would accept that consciousness is a product of the brain. Clearly, brain activity causes conscious experiences. But that’s quite a different thing from saying that conscious experience just is brain activity. So it’s not enough for Luke to point to evidence that consciousness is a product of the brain. He must show that consciousness just is brain activity. To this end, he says: Quote:
(Localization) For many mental activities M, there are parts of the brain P such that when M occurs, there is increased blood flow and electrical activity in P, and when P is damaged or destroyed, M is inhibited or absent altogether. Now, does Localization lend any support to the conclusion that mental activity really just is an activity of the brain? Not at all. There are many activities that stand in the same relation to P, and which are not mere activities of the brain. That is, there are counterexamples to the inference from Localization to a conclusion of identity. For example, running. Call that activity “R.” For R, there is a part of the brain such that when R occurs, there is increased blood flow and electrical activity in P, and when P is damaged or destroyed, R is inhibited or absent altogether. But obviously it doesn’t follow from this that running just is an activity of my brain. Brains don’t run. They just sit in skulls. So I conclude that Localization doesn’t show that Souls is false. Luke will have to look elsewhere for an argument against Souls. Luke gestures at an argument against Souls from what he calls “the split-brain paradox.” He puts the argument (if that's what it is) briefly and roughly in the form of a series of rhetorical questions. I’ll briefly and roughly answer the questions, but I’d like to urge Luke to actually put his worry in the form of a careful, explicit argument. Luke asks: “If we split Alan into two working brains and bodies, does God split Alan's soul, too?” Well, I don’t think souls can be split. Remember, I think souls are people, and people don’t come in halves. He asks: “Does he give one half-brain the old soul and create a new soul for the other half-brain?” I don’t know. That’s up to God. Where’s the paradox? Where’s the argument? Luke asks: “Can each soul be saved or condemned independently?” Sure. Why not? Where’s the paradox? Where’s the argument? He also asks: “What about when we can upload someone's consciousness onto a computer and make a thousand copies of it?” I don’t know what it means to “upload someone’s consciousness onto a computer.” Maybe you could explain it more. As far as I can tell, the answer here will the same as it is with Alan's brain splitting: it's up to God where Alan goes, and whether each new "brain" (either one realized in meat or one realized by computer chips) gets associated with a soul. Where's the paradox? Where's the argument? The conclusion so far is that Luke has failed to engage my original argument for Souls. He has failed, that is, to say exactly which of (1), (2), (4), or (5) he thinks is false and why. He has also failed to construct a careful and explicit argument against Souls. What he’s done is point out the facts of Localization – which I’ve shown do not count against Souls – and string together a few rhetorical questions that he finds puzzling. We are very far away from an actual argument against Souls. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Problem of Evil(?) Luke then suggests that pointless suffering is a feature of the universe, and that it would be surprising if God exists but not surprising if God doesn’t exist. So pointless suffering, if there is any, counts as evidence for atheism. He anticipates my response, which roughly is that we shouldn’t presume to know whether any particular instance of suffering is pointless or not, since God is really smart, powerful, and good, and therefore may have reasons for allowing this suffering that we don’t know of. In response, he says “it's highly improbable that the abundance of pointless suffering we see every day serves some higher purpose.” Well, first, it’s absolutely certain that pointless suffering (if there is any) doesn’t serve any higher purpose, since it’s pointless. So we should just be discussing apparently pointless suffering. Secondly, why should we suppose that it’s highly improbable that God - the really smart, powerful, good person that I think exists – has some purpose or other for the suffering that, to us, appears pointless? As far as I can tell, Luke has just baldly asserted this. So, in the absence of an argument, I’ll just ask Luke to please support his assertion. Sometimes my own reasons for acting are obscure to me. Even more so with other people. Even more so with people who are quite different from me. Even more so with God. Right? Why should we expect to know his reasons for any given action (or omission) of his? Why should we think that we'd be the first ones he'd tell? That expectation seems to me to border on sheer intellectual hubris. Many philosophers have given many theodicies over the years. Some have to do with soul-formation, some with retribution, some with free will, some with achieving greater goods, etc. Can Luke honestly say that there are some instances of evil for which it's obvious to him that, more likely than not, none of these (or any other) explanations could possibly be right? That's a tall order, and I'd be interested in hearing why Luke believes that. Until we get that argument, Luke's bald assertion shouldn't move us towards his position in the slightest. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Final Thoughts I think Luke's claims about the so-called "trend of discovery" amount to an interesting confession of faith, but nothing close to a well-supported argument. If Luke means to suggest that we’ve somehow learned that there are no supernatural explanations or entities, he either owes us an argument or has begged the question under discussion, or both. As for me, I’ve given a careful, explicit argument for my conclusion. And I still can’t see just what Luke’s response to that argument is supposed to be. And Luke’s arguments against Souls and his argument from the problem of evil are insufficiently developed to move us towards his conclusion. (The facts of mind-brain localization are inconclusive. The rhetorical questions he presents about split-brain cases are nothing near an actual argument. And he merely asserts without argument that, probably, God could have no reason for some of the suffering we observe in the world. That’s a really strong claim, and certainly should be supported by an argument.) In the end, therefore, I think we ought to accept Souls, and therefore that we have some evidence for the existence of God. And, so far, Luke has provided no compelling evidence against the existence of God. |
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February 1, 2009, 06:02 AM
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#5778300 / #5 |
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Newcomer
Join Date: September 2007
Location: California
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(Cartesian challenged me to standardize my split-brain argument against souls. I did, but it is too long for this format. So, I drop that argument.)
I didn't have space in my opening statement for this, so now I'd like to thank Cartesian for joining me in this debate. I'd also like to thank everyone whose hard work has made FRDB such a fine place for formal debate - in this case, special thanks go to George Hathaway for helping us put together the parameters of the debate, and to Deleet for moderating. Note: Please do not interpret my harshness with Cartesian's arguments as any harshness toward Cartesian himself. Given our agreements on logic and epistemology, I suspect I'd enjoy taking a beer with him. Overview In my opening statement I warned readers of Cartesian's upcoming retreat to the possible, and that is exactly what he did with regard to my arguments. Remember, I'm not trying to prove that God is impossible. Rather, I'm trying to show that God probably doesn't exist. If Cartesian wants to say that God is merely "possible" - like Quetzelcoatl and unicorns are "possible" - then he has conceded the debate to my position. Instead, Cartesian must tear down all my arguments against God's existence (with more than a retreat to the possible), and then erect some successful arguments which show that God probably exists. Cartesian's Failed Argument for Souls Let me try another analogy to show that half-persons are not a problem. Consider the heap. Heaps really exist. Like persons, they are collections of other things. Now imagine there is a Heap of sand in my garage. I divide it into 100 small Lumps of sand, such that none of them can be called a "heap." But Cartesian shrieks, "What has happened to The Heap!? Is it in Lump 1? Lump 2? Lump 3?..." (I leave and come back in 10 minutes) "... Lump 99? Lump 100? Or did The Heap cease to exist? We cannot know!" There is no problem here, and likewise there is no problem with half-persons. Specifically, I deny the original formulation of premise (4), because the 3 options Cartesian gives are not the only options, and also of premise (5), because we can know what happened to Alan. Here's what happened to Alan. His brain was split in two. Some of his memories and faculties survive in the Left Brain. The rest of his memories and faculties survive in the Right Brain. They will now lead lives of independent experiences. Alan has been split in two. There is nothing confusing about that. Cartesian will complain that persons cannot be halved. But how does he know that? And what definition of "person" is he using? If he means "a living human," then he is empirically wrong: conjoined twins are split all the time, as are people in horrific accidents. If he means "a collection of traits that make up a personality," then he is again empirically wrong: in split-brain patients, each brain hemisphere can develop its own personality. If by "person" he means "soul," he is begging the question. So, premise (4) is false because it lacks at least one feasible option: that Alan has been split in two. Premise (5) is also false because we can know what happened to Alan: that he was split in two. So, Cartesian's Souls argument fails. The No Souls Argument My evidence against souls was that personality and consciousness are directly caused by the physical brain. Cartesian agreed that "consciousness is a product of the brain," but says this does not prove that consciousness is only brain activity. Of course not! But that is a retreat to the possible. I'm not trying to disprove God, only to show he is improbable. Because everything we previously attributed to souls can be explained by the brain, there is no need for the additional, problematic, magical hypothesis of souls behind it all. Cartesian's position here is basically to say that even though we've learned how lightning works, nevertheless it's still possible that an invisible Zeus initiates every crack of lightning by using natural processes to build up electrical charges in the atmosphere. Of course that is remotely possible, but it multiplies unnecessary assumptions and should be sheared off by Occam's razor. To quote Laplace, "I have no need of that hypothesis." Souls are just as unlikely an explanation for consciousness via brain activity as Zeus is an explanation for lightning via electrical charges. This does not disprove souls, but it does make them highly improbable (like Zeus), and the improbability of souls fits better with atheism than with theism. Cartesian's persistance here might show that Souls fails the qualification of falsifiability. So I have a question for Cartesian: What would falsify the existence of souls? Suffering I argued that given the abundance of apparently pointless suffering in the world, a good and powerful god probably doesn't exist. (A good god would prevent pointless suffering, and a powerful god could.) Here, Cartesian again made a retreat to the possible. He seems to admit there is lots of suffering in the world which we have great reason to believe is pointless and no idea how it could serve a higher purpose, and yet he says it is still possible that God has a higher purpose, or that one of the other theodicies can explain it. But I didn't say that suffering disproved God. I said it made him improbable - because we have lots of reason to think that some suffering is pointless, and no idea how it could be excused (theists leave it up to the "mystery of God" again). As I said, it is possible that Hitler had a higher purpose we just can't understand for killing 6 million Jews, but it is not probable. Given that we have every reason to believe that apparently pointless suffering is pointless, and no idea how it could be not pointless, it is probable that truly pointless suffering exists, and therefore a good and powerful god probably doesn't exist. The Trend I also argued that natural explanations have always replaced supernatural ones, and never the other way around. Cartesian didn't deny this. Instead he said that I haven't proved that no supernatural explanations are correct, and that I just have faith that the trend will continue. Notice again the retreat to the possible. I never said The Trend disproved the supernatural. I merely said it made the supernatural improbable, since it provides lots of evidence for naturalism and no evidence for supernaturalism. As for faith, well... if the sun rises every day for 300 years, is it by "faith" that I think it will rise tomorrow, or by evidence? Of course it's possible the sun will not rise tomorrow. But it's extremely improbable. As with the trend against supernatural explanations, all the evidence goes the other way. Therefore it is likely that natural explanations will continue to replace supernatural ones, which fits better with atheism than with theism. As Richard Carrier writes, "Supernaturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always lost; naturalism has been tested at least a million times and has always won. A horse that runs a million races and never loses is about to run yet another race with a horse that has lost every single one of the million races it has run. Which horse should we bet on? The answer is obvious." Here too, Cartesian's persistance might show that supernaturalism fails the qualification of falsifiability. So I have another question for Cartesian: What would falsify supernaturalism? I now have time for two more arguments. Where is God? Unless Cartesian says that God is floating somewhere specific in space - say, behind Neptune - then he will agree with many theologians that God has no location, that there is no location at which God exists. But then it follows that God exists nowhere, which entails that God doesn't exist. Cartesian might say that God exists everywhere. But then, he is literally indistinct from the universe (which is by definition all of spacetime), and pantheistic. Furthermore, everything we have ever experienced - all our evidence - says that a distinct being cannot exist everywhere at once. So if Cartesian chooses this route, it is probable that God doesn't exist, because existing everywhere would contradict everything we have ever experienced of beings. Or Cartesian might say God exists "beyond" space. But we have no knowledge of any "where" that is "beyond space," and we know of no method for a being to exist "outside of" the spacetime continuum. So if Cartesian chooses this route, it is probable that God doesn't exist, because existing "outside of" spacetime would contradict everything we have experienced of beings. How is God Conscious? Supposedly, God is a non-material conscious being. But all of the public evidence we have says that consciousness occurs only in the presence of a material brain, and we have no evidence that consciousness is possible without a material brain. It is possible that God has a non-material brain, but that would contradict all public evidence, and therefore God probably doesn't exist. Summary I showed that everything we previously attributed to souls is actually caused by the physical brain. Cartesian's only response was a retreat to the possible. Of course it's possible there are invisible souls causing these physical events in the brain, just as it's possible that an invisible Zeus causes the electric charges that lead to lightning. But all the evidence regarding physical brain events points toward naturalism, not supernaturalism. Thus, this is some evidence against God. I showed that there is a great deal of suffering that we have every reason to believe is pointless, and for which we can't think of any way it could be not pointless. So even if it's possible that God has good reasosns we can't know about to allow all this suffering (a retreat to the possible), it is highly improbable (just like it is highly improbable that Hitler was serving a higher purpose). So, the abundance of apparently pointless suffering in the world is evidence against God. I showed that natural explanations have always replaced supernatural ones. This gives lots of evidence for atheism, and no evidence for supernaturalism. Cartesian says it's still possible the trend will suddenly be contradicted as we continue to investigate consciousness or the Big Bang or something (yet another retreat to the possible), but that is highly unlikely, just like it's unlikely the Sun will suddenly not rise tomorrow. So, the trend toward natural explanations is also some evidence against God. I also showed that God's non-locality is a problem for theism. If God is floating around at a particular point in space, then I'm not sure we can call him "God." If he exists "everywhere" or "outside spacetime," then he contradicts everything we know about existing spatially, and therefore he probably doesn't exist. Finally, I showed that God, as a non-material conscious being, contradicts all our evidence about the dependence of consciousness on material brains. Therefore, though it's possible that God has a non-material consciousness, that would contradict all our public evidence about consciousness, and so God probably doesn't exist. Cartesian's only argument for theism, Souls, has failed. Half-persons are clearly possible, unless Cartesian defines "persons" as "souls," which begs the question. Notice that not only does his argument fall short of proof, but even its tattered remains fail to show that souls "probably" exist. In contrast, I have given five solid probabilistic arguments against theism that, though they (by design) fall short of proof, do indeed show that God probably doesn't exist. |
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February 2, 2009, 07:43 PM
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#5780758 / #6 | ||||||||
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Newcomer
Join Date: December 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 83
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My second reply
My Argument for Souls
Luke asked me to define “person.” I did that in my first post: X is a person just in case X is a thing that thinks. You think, so you’re a person. Rocks don’t, so they’re not. Luke successfully engaged my argument for Souls. He said: “I deny…premise (5), because we can know what happened to Alan.” Here is his account of what happened to Alan: Quote:
(Option 1) Alan is now in the body called “Lefty.” (Option 2) Alan is now in the body called “Righty.” (Option 3) Alan did not survive the operation. He ceased to exist. Clearly, if Luke thinks that they (i.e. two people) now lead lives of independent experiences, it may be that one of them is Alan (i.e. Option 1 or 2 is occurred) or that one of them is not Alan (i.e. Option 3 occurred). So if Luke thinks that two people result from this operation, he needs to tell us which of Option 1-3 occurred, and how we could know that from our perspective as neurosurgeons. Otherwise, he has no objection to my argument. But Luke also says that this list of options lacks “at least one feasible option: that Alan has been split in two.” So he seems to think that the option he suggests is not among Options 1-3. So perhaps when he said “they” will go on to lead independent lives, he meant “they” to refer to the two half-Alans (if that even makes sense). Maybe he really thinks that Alan survived the operation, and is the only person associated with Lefty and Righty. Perhaps he thinks that Alan exists ½ in Lefty and ½ in Righty. Or, to put it another way, perhaps he thinks that ½ of Alan is in Lefty and ½ of Alan is in Righty. But really, he thinks, there is only one person here, Alan, who exists in halves. On this understanding, Luke would have an objection to my argument. Luke claims that there is nothing confusing about this suggestion, but I confess to being deeply confused. Here’s a story to help you see the impossibility of Alan surviving the operation and continuing to exist in halves: After the surgery, Lefty was taken to Alaska and only tortured, and Righty was taken to Florida and only given back massages. On Luke’s view, Alan – that one person – was both tortured and given massages after the surgery. How could that be? Lefty and Righty are completely spatially isolated. Righty feels no pain at all, but feels only pleasure, in Florida. Lefty feels no pleasure; he feels only pain from his torture in Alaska. Surely it’s not the case that Righty believes that he’s in pain. And yet Lefty does believe that he is in pain. Can we really make sense of the idea that there is one person (i.e. one thinking thing) here – Alan – spread out across North America, feeling both pain and pleasure? Can we really make sense of the idea that Alan both believes that he is in pain and doesn’t believe that he’s in pain? Isn’t it just obvious that there are two thinking things here – one in Alaska being tortured, the other in Florida being massaged? Isn’t it just obvious that one person can’t both believe that he is in pain and fail to believe that he’s in pain? I say “yes.” But then Luke’s suggestion fails to call any of my premises into question. If he thinks that there are two people after the surgery (as he seemed to indicate when he say “they” go on to lead independent lives), then he doesn’t yet have any objection to my argument. If, on the other hand, he thinks there is just one person after the surgery – Alan – then he owes us an explanation of why it seems obvious that, in the case I described with Lefty being tortured and Righty being massaged, there are two people. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luke’s No Souls Argument Quote:
And Luke certainly hasn’t given us any good reason to think that everything we previously attributed to souls can be explained by the brain. That is, he hasn’t argued for this very strong premise at all. Luke pointed out the facts of Localization. But, as I showed, the inference from Localization to a claim of identity is clearly fallacious, since there are many counterexamples. Luke asked me: “What would falsify the existence of souls?” If they exist, nothing. What would falsify my belief that they exist? Their non-existence. What would rationally defeat my belief? Here’s one example: God’s testimony that they don’t exist. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suffering Quote:
What you need to do, Luke, is actually give some argument for your claim that: (We Would Know) If God exists, probably we would know the reasons for all of God’s actions and omissions. You haven’t supported that (very strong!) claim in the slightest; you’ve merely asserted it. And so your argument against God’s existence carries no force. Upon investigation of a normal camping tent, failing to see an elephant is evidence that there (probably) is no elephant in the tent. But upon investigation of a tent, failing to see any no-see-ums is NOT evidence that there (probably) are no no-see-ums in the tent. I think God’s reasons are more like no-see-ums than elephants. You, the advocate of this probabilistic argument against God’s existence from our failure to see some of his reasons, must provide some evidence or argument that God’s reasons are like elephants, i.e. that we should expect to find them all upon investigation. You haven’t done that yet. So I conclude that your argument – as it stands – is not at all compelling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Trend Quote:
If by “natural” you mean “whatever the white-coated cognoscenti currently endorse,” then it becomes vacuously true that “natural explanations” have always succeeded, since the explanations that succeed are “natural,” by definition. If by “natural” you mean “not at all related to God,” then you’ve clearly begged the question against me. Obviously I believe that God exists and that he has acted. So obviously I believe that some explanations are supernatural in this sense, and have not been defeated or replaced by natural explanations. To assert otherwise as a premise is dialectically inappropriate. You must argue for that premise; otherwise the argument fails to be rationally persuasive. It’s currently unjustified, and that’s why I said this premise is merely an interesting confession of your faith. So in sum, your premise here is either false, vacuously true, or question begging. Quote:
Suppose I argued this way: “Throughout history, many people have had neat relationships with God. Therefore, God probably exists.” You, naturally, would question the truth of the premise. And rightly so: it’s doing all the work, and I need to actually support it. And so it would be totally inappropriate for me to charge you with a “retreat to the possible” (What do you mean by that anyway?). But then the same goes in the case with the Trend. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where is God? I say “everywhere.” You object: “But then, he is literally indistinct from the universe.” I reply: First, your inference here (If X and Y share property P, then X=Y) is clearly invalid. You and I are both human. Yet we’re distinct. So that’s a counterexample. Second, after we count up all the planets, stars, atoms, people, etc., there is no additional entity, a “universe” that we’d have to add to the list. So, in a strict sense, there is no “universe.” There are only stars, planets, atoms, people, etc.; we refer to these things collectively as “the universe.” And so there’s no problem with God being totally collocated with some entity called “the universe,” since there is no such entity. Third, you seem to think: If X exists, then X is located somewhere but not everywhere. What do you say about numbers, propositions, and sets? Surely they exist. Yet it’s not true that they exist somewhere but not everywhere. So they are counterexamples to your claim. Quote:
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February 5, 2009, 02:28 AM
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#5784467 / #8 |
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Join Date: September 2007
Location: California
Posts: 82
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Cartesian's Souls Argument
I still don't see the problem with splitting Alan's brain. The physical facts are not confusing. The matter and processes of Alan's left brain hemisphere are over here, the matter and processes of Alan's right brain hemisphere are over there. Whether we want to call them each a person, or "Alan," is a problem of human convenience, not physical matter. The "facts" about whether we consider Alan a person, or what lump of matter we call "Alan" - those are what Christian philosopher Bill Alston calls "conventional facts," not physical facts. And so I deny Premise (2), as I should have earlier. When we talk about "Alan," that is not a physical fact but a conventional one. That's what I meant when I said this is not a problem of physics, but of words. My Five Arguments Let me rephrase my argument against souls Every year we discover more and more how consciousness and personality can be explained by physical processes in the brain. We have lots of evidence about how these phenomena are caused by the brain, and no evidence about how these things could be caused by the soul. Thus, they are more likely caused by the brain. Therefore, souls - along with a million other possible but un-evidenced explanations for consciousness and personality (quantum-sized telepathic gremlins, powerful alien life in another dimension, sparks of life directly from the mind of Vahiguru, etc.) - may be sheared off by Occam's razor. Now, about suffering. Cartesian says I haven't shown that the abundance of suffering in the world is probably pointless (and therefore evidence against God), because we wouldn't necessarily know God's reasons to allow suffering. But as I pointed out, this is just like excusing Hitler's murders because we wouldn't necessarily know that he doesn't have reasons we're just not aware of. Or it's like saying that souls aren't necessarily improbable, even though we have lots of evidence that consciousness comes from the brain, and no evidence that it comes from the soul. Or it's like saying that supernaturalism isn't necessarily improbable, even though natural explanations have always replaced supernatural explanations, and never the other way around (i.e. we have tons of evidence for how natural processes cause everyday phenomena, and no evidence for how supernatural processes cause everyday phenomena). Or it's like saying that a person who exists everywhere at once is not necessarily improbable, even though every person know of (setting aside God for the moment, since he's the thing under debate) could not possibly be everywhere at once. Or, it's like saying that consciousness without a physical brain is not necessarily improbable even though every instance of consciousness we know of (again, setting aside God for the moment) arises in the presence of a physical brain. Do you see a pattern here? Cartesian's only defense against my probabilistic arguments is that "these things aren't necessarily improbable, even though all the evidence points the opposite way"! This is his retreat to the possible, as I predicted. Cartesian's evasions are improbable because they run against all the evidence we do have. Cartesian: 1. I can provide lots of evidence of suffering that, as far as we can tell, is pointless. Can you provide any evidence that the worst such cases are not pointless? If you can't (as you seem to admit, since you're arguing that we don't know the reasons and wouldn't expect to), then all the evidence weighs in my favor, which is precisely why I say God is improbable given the abundance of apparently pointless suffering in the world. 2. I can provide lots of evidence that shows how consciousness and personality arise from physical brains. Can you provide evidence that shows how such things arise from souls? If not, all the evidence weighs in my favor, which is precisely why I say that souls are probably not the explanation for consciousness and personality, and can be cut off by Occam's razor. 3. I can provide lots of evidence that natural explanations tend to replace supernatural ones. Can you provide evidence that shows the opposite? Can you tell me why I should bet against the horse that has won a million times, and for the horse that has lost each of those million times? If not, all the evidence weighs in my favor, which is why I say naturalism is more probable than supernaturalism. 4. I can provide lots of evidence that shows how beings are limited in space (namely, every being we know of). Can you provide any evidence that shows how a being could be unlimited in space? If not, all the evidence weighs in my favor, which is why I say a person of unlimited space is improbable. 5. I can provide lots of evidence that shows how consciousness arises in the presence of a physical brain. Can you provide evidence that shows how consciousness could arise without a physical brain? If not, all the evidence weighs in my favor, which is why I say a consciousness without a physical brain is improbable. It really is that simple. All you can do is retreat to the possible, which is fine by me, since I'm arguing that God is improbable. Finally, you did not offer a test that could possibly falsify the existence of souls or the supernatural. On the other hand, there are thousands of tests that could falsify physicalism, evolution, atheism, etc. I ask again: how could we - hypothetically - falsify supernaturalism? Summary Cartesian's only argument for theism fails under common sense (consider my analogies about split computers or lumps of sand), and also has three false premises. His only response to my five arguments for atheism is to say that in each case, his explanation isn't necessarily improbable, even though all the evidence points the other way. This is Cartesian's continual "retreat to the possible," and it is the same defense available to everyone who asserts something that is beyond (and even contrary to) the evidence before us. There is no more evidence for God than there is for quantum gremlins, Vahiguru, powerful aliens fiddling with us from another dimension, or a million other wacky ideas. Even if souls existed, they could just as easily be explained by those theories as by Cartesian's "God" theory. Likewise for all the theist arguments Cartesian hasn't argued: cosmology, design, morality, meaning, etc. On the other hand, there is a great deal of evidence that shows how things we experience are caused by natural processes. And not just any natural processes, but very specific ones. Certain theories fit the data - from dozens or hundreds of experiments and measurements done on each question - better than the other theories. Not so with magical theories. With magical theories, any explanation will work just as well as another. For all these reasons, I think God probably doesn't exist. I don't need my 2,000 words. |
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February 6, 2009, 11:38 AM
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#5786780 / #9 | ||||||||||||||
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Newcomer
Join Date: December 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 83
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My Third Reply
My argument for Souls
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Things get confusing (for the materialist) when we ask this question: What happened to Alan? What happened to that person? Surely people exist, and surely Alan was a person. Surely there is some fact about what happened to Alan, that person. The problem is that no matter how much we know about the physical facts, we can’t know what happened to Alan. But if materialism is true, all the facts about people just are physical facts – and we can know all those. Therefore, materialism is false, and so Souls is true. Quote:
But Luke, the question for you was not “Which of these things (if any) do we want to call “Alan”? Nope, that wasn’t the question at all. The question was: What happened to Alan? That is certainly not a problem of human convenience. That’s a problem about that person, Alan. And if Souls is false and materialism is true, it shouldn’t be a problem, since we know all the physical facts in the situation. Yet it is a problem. So materialism is false, and Souls is true. Quote:
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I think you’ve conceded too much to your opponent. You’ve now admitted that there are non-physical facts. Surely that’s enough to get my argument going. Non-physical facts would be surprising on atheism, but not on theism. So we now have a piece of evidence for theism over atheism. You may object: “Hey! I didn’t mean that conventional facts aren’t physical facts!” Alright. That’s definitely what you should have said. But then you have no objection to premise (2). In sum, then, despite the fact that we’ve had several exchanges about my argument for Souls, no premise has been successfully challenged. So I conclude that there are immaterial souls contingently connected to bodies. This is surprising on atheism, but not surprising on theism (as Luke agreed). And so, this is a piece of evidence for theism over atheism. ------------------------------------------------------------- Luke’s Argument against Souls Quote:
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The same doesn’t hold with God, in these cases of suffering with no apparent point. We don’t have good evidence that his reasons were bad. We don’t have evidence about his reasons at all! We can’t see what the reasons are. So we can’t complain about God’s false beliefs or evil ends, because we simply don’t have enough information. So, unlike Hitler, we shouldn’t condemn God. What you’d need to do, Luke, is either show that we do have evidence that God’s reasons are in fact bad, or that the only possible reasons are bad, or that if there were good reasons, we would probably see them upon investigation. As far as I can tell, you haven’t done any of these things. And so your argument against God from suffering fails. Quote:
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If by “natural explanation” you mean “not invoking anything like God,” then of course I just flatly disagree with you that natural explanations have always replaced supernatural ones, and it’s question begging for you to assert this as a premise. Of course I believe God exists and has acted. So of course I believe that there are some explanations that invoke something like God, namely God himself. I could give lots of examples of things I take to have a supernatural explanation: the creation of the universe, the design of the universe, all the actions attributed to God in the Bible, actions that I have attributed to God in my own life, etc. In order to support your premise that every event, in fact, has a natural explanation, you’ll have to go through all of these events and give reason not just that there could be a natural explanation, but that there in fact is a natural explanation. Good luck with that! I don’t envy your monumental task. If your claim is merely that natural explanations have sometimes replaced supernatural ones, you’ll need to show how that fact would be improbable if God existed. For example, showing that some people were wrong about Zeus causing a rainstorm would not by itself be improbable if God exists. It would also be insufficient for you to show that natural explanations seem to hold in exactly the places we’d expect them to hold – physics, chemistry, etc. --------------------------------------------------------- Omnipresence Quote:
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Your arguments are generally of this form: (1) There is some feature F of the universe. (Much apparently pointless suffering, many brains causing consciousness, many non-omnipresent beings, many natural explanations replacing supernatural ones) (2) Therefore, (probably) God doesn’t exist. What I’ve consistently done, Luke, is to either question the truth of your premise, or the validity of your inference. So, for example, I’ve contested whether apparently pointless suffering exists, insisting rather that there’s only suffering with no apparent point. And, for example, I’ve contested whether the fact that every human has a brain makes it improbable that God doesn’t. (All life we know of is terrestrial – does it follow that it’s improbable that there’s extraterrestrial life? No.) These responses are perfectly legitimate. There’s no illicit “retreat to the possible” here. If you disagree, please provide an analysis of that phrase, and clear examples of when I’ve satisfied the analysans. (Here’s an example of an analysans: JTB in K=JTB.) |
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February 6, 2009, 11:47 PM
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#5787991 / #10 |
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Newcomer
Join Date: September 2007
Location: California
Posts: 82
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Cartesian's Souls Argument
I denied Premise (2) of Cartesian's argument, that "if there are no souls then all facts are physical facts." I said there are non-physical facts: namely, conventional facts. Conventional facts (facts defined my humans) are not at all surprising on atheism. So, Cartesian's Souls argument fails, and in a way that offers no support for theism. My Argument Against Souls I've argued that Souls should be cut off by Occam's razor because, as Cartesian seems to concede, we continue to gain evidence of how consciousness is caused by the physical brain, and souls are - unless we have positive evidence for them - an unnecessary postulation. Cartesian says that souls are not the cause of consciousness, instead they are the things that are conscious. But this renders them even more unnecessary than before! At least if souls are thought to be the cause of consciousness, the believer can make a "soul of the gaps" argument that everything we can't currently explain about consciousness is caused by the soul. But now souls have literally no explanatory power! I could just as well say that invisible quantum-sized gremlins are the things that are conscious. Can Cartesian give us evidence that souls are more likely to be the things that are conscious than invisible quantum-sized gremlins? If not, we can dispose of both. Suffering If a good and powerful God exists, we probably wouldn't see as much apparently pointless suffering in the world as we do. Therefore, God probably doesn't exist. Cartesian objects that we can't know how much apparently pointless suffering we would probably see if God existed, because we can't know that God doesn't have reasons to allow this suffering. But imagine if someone asserted that a powerful but all-evil God exists. We would all rightly object: "Wait a minute, what about all the apparently unexcused goodness we see in the world? What evil justification does this all-evil God have for allowing the abundant goodness in the world?" The evil-God believer responds: "Well, we can't know what my God's evil reasons are for allowing apparently unexcused goodness in the world, so you haven't shown him to be improbable." Nonsense. Or, let me paraphrase David Hume. Suppose an esteemed architect - the smartest man in the world - tried to sell you a house in which much of the house was disagreeable, ugly, noisy, confusing, tiring, dark, and cold? He then claimed that each of these apparent defects actually serves a higher purpose that makes the house better, but in ways you simply cannot understand. My point is that you probably shouldn't buy the house. In the same way, given the amount of apparently pointless suffering in the world, you probably shouldn't buy the idea that a good, powerful god exists. Cartesian, in this scenario, why should anyone think it is probably better to buy the house? The Trend I did not argue that every event has a natural cause, only that natural explanations have replaced supernatural explanations, and not the other way around. By "natural explanations" I of course mean nothing to do with magic, but instead matter and energy. Cartesian flatly denies this, saying there are many things he takes to be have supernatural explanations: the creation of the universe, the design of the universe, the Biblical actions of Yahweh, etc. Of course there are certain minority groups that assert particular supernatural explanations for things. Christians say the universe is explained by the creative act of Yahweh. Muslims say it is explained by the creative act of Allah. The Kuba believed it was explained by Mbombo getting a stomach ache and vomiting the sun, moon, stars, trees, animals, and people. The difference is that these supernatural explanations are not so widely supported by public evidence that anyone but a minority group accepts any particular magical explanation. In contrast, the natural explanations for thousands of things (lightning, disease, etc.) have replaced earlier magical explanations because they are so well supported by public, testable evidence. And it is not just that a natural explanation is supported by all this evidence, but that a particular natural explanation is well supported for each of these phenomena, and not others. Many things still do not have a natural or supernatural explanation that is so well-supported by public evidence that nearly everyone accepts it (cosmic origins, abiogenesis, consciousness, etc.), but given that natural explanations always seem to win out, it's more likely than not that the explanations for other phenomena will turn out to be natural, just as it is more likely than not that tomorrow the sun will, once again, rise. Also, Cartesian keeps evading the question: How could we falsify supernaturalism? He only says, "By providing evidence against supernaturalism." I want a specific example of a test we could (hypothetically) perform or a discovery we could (hypothetically) make that would falsify supernaturalism. For example, the discovery of mammal fossils in pre-Cambrian rock would falsify the theory of common descent by evolution. Cartesian cannot give a single example of something that could (hypothetically) falsify supernaturalism. Omnipresence I asked: "Can you provide any evidence that shows how a being could be unlimited in space?" Cartesian responded with a non-evidential argument that omnipresence is logically possible, precisely the retreat to the possible I keep warning about. Again, I repeat: We have lots of evidence showing how beings are spacially limited. Can you give evidence of how a being could be spacially unlimited? I think not. Consciousness without a Brain I said that every instance of consciousness we know of requires a brain, so brainless consciousness probably doesn't exist. Cartesian countered by saying that every instance of life we know is terrestrial, but this does not render extraterrestrial life improbable. He is correct. The crucial difference is that we have lots of evidence for how life could be extra-terrestrial. But, we have no evidence of how consciousness could arise without a brain. So, again I say: We have lots of evidence for how consciousness arises from a brain. Cartesian, can you give us evidence for how consciousness could arise without a brain? I think not. Summary Cartesian began his defense mostly by retreating to the "possible," but now he usually makes a better move: He tries to show that my arguments do not show that God's existence is improbable. But I think they do, as I've shown above. Cartesian's ideas about the existence of souls and a very particular God (probably, Yahweh) are no better evidenced and no more probable - given what we actually know about our universe - than the existence of Quetzelcoatl, fairies, invisible quantum-sized gremlins, Allah, a pantheon of battling deities, powerful aliens controlling us in unknowable ways from a higher dimension, or an unlimited number of other bizarre, un-evidenced, undisprovable theories. |
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February 11, 2009, 02:11 AM
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#5794495 / #11 | |||||||||
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Newcomer
Join Date: December 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 83
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My fifth and final reply.
My Argument for Souls
Luke denied Premise (2) of my argument, saying that there are non-physical facts about people, namely conventional facts. Response: These conventional facts are facts about words, not people. Premise (2) claims only that all the facts about people are physical facts, if Souls is false. The conventional facts that Luke refers to concern which material object we call “Alan.” He’s right that we determine the conventions governing our use of names. The conventions governing the name “Alan” are not settled by the description of the case. So in this sense, he’s right that there is a conventional fact that is not settled by the description of the case. No matter how much we knew about Alan’s brain, we wouldn’t be able to settle the following question about our linguistic conventions: Which material object ought we to call “Alan”? However, as I have consistently pointed out, this is all beside the point. The question we’re meant to consider in this case is not “Which object should we call ‘Alan’?” No, the question we’re meant to consider is rather “What happened to Alan?” There is a fact about what happened to Alan in this case. This is not a fact about the conventions governing the name “Alan.” To think otherwise, as Luke does, is to confuse word and object. We’re wondering what happened to the referent of “Alan,” namely Alan. And no amount of information about the physical facts of this situation settles that question. But if Alan were just a physical object, knowledge of the physical facts should settle the question of what happened to Alan. Therefore, Alan is not a physical object. Therefore, Souls is true. Nothing that Luke has said about the conventional facts of our language engages this argument. We’re not talking about our language. We’re talking about Alan, that person. So I conclude that my argument for Souls stands. Luke has agreed that Souls would count as evidence for theism and against atheism. Therefore, I conclude that we have evidence for theism and against atheism. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luke’s Argument Against Souls Quote:
(1) If we don’t have positive evidence for Souls, then we shouldn’t believe in them. I have given you an argument for Souls, which you haven’t defeated. So I deny that this antecedent is met. So your argument doesn’t go through. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suffering Quote:
You have never once argued that there is apparently pointless suffering, as opposed to merely suffering with no apparent point. Arguing for that would require you to justify the claim that God’s reasons would likely be apparent to us upon investigation. Since they aren’t apparent to us, we could then conclude that (probably) God could have no reasons for this suffering. But as I say you’ve totally failed to justify these premises of yours. Why think that God’s reasons should be apparent to us upon investigation? Why think we’d be the first ones to know God’s reasons? You’ve failed to support this premise. So your argument fails to be rationally persuasive. Quote:
You must argue for the strong claim that, if there is no apparent point to us, then there is in fact no point. You have never once taken up this burden, and so your argument fails. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Trend Quote:
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I don’t know of any scientific tests that would falsify the claim. But so what? There are many meaningful claims (which we all know to be true) that can’t be scientifically falsified. For example, “no prime minister is a prime number.” Here’s another: “there is an external world.” Try to scientifically falsify that! Here’s another: “scientific tests sometimes produce true results.” We all know this is true, yet no scientific test could falsify it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Omnipresence Quote:
You asked “How could a being be omnipresent?” As I said, if you admit that a being could be omniscient and omnipotent, and if you admit that exhaustive knowledge of what’s up in a place P and the ability to enact anything in P is sufficient for presence in P, then you must admit that omnipresence is possible. That seems like a really good argument for exactly the claim you asked me to support. This is all above board, Luke. And you found no fault in the argument. Therefore, you ought to accept the conclusion. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Consciousness without a Brain Quote:
(A) Every instance of X that we know of requires Y (C) Therefore, X cannot exist without Y I gave you a counterexample to this inference: every instance of life we know of requires the Earth, yet it doesn’t follow that life cannot exist without the Earth. You’ve now changed your argument to this: (A) Every instance of X that we know of requires Y (B) We don’t have evidence for how X could exist without Y (C) Therefore, X cannot exist without Y You say that since (B) isn’t satisfied in the case of extraterrestrial life, that fails to be a counterexample to the inference from (A) and (B) to (C). My response is that (B) also isn’t satisfied in the case of brainless consciousness. We do have evidence that brainless consciousness is possible in whatever sense we have evidence that extraterrestrial life is possible. We can clearly see that life could occur on other planets. Perhaps the life could be silicon based, or whatever. This is all clearly possible. Similarly, we can clearly see that consciousness could occur without brains. You may think it unlikely that angels and ghosts exist, but you must admit that there is no contradiction in the ideas. George Berkeley was a smart guy. He thought that only disembodied minds exist. Surely his proposal wasn’t one giant logical contradiction; he would have seen that! You think that you could have been born to different parents, at a different time. Yet if you are your brain, that’s patently impossible. (There’s no way this (pointing to your brain) material object could have had different origins than it actually had.) So you think that you’re not your brain. So you must admit that there’s no contradiction in that thought. I’ve given you an argument for Souls, which you have failed to refute. Souls entails that brainless consciousness is possible. So we have evidence that brainless consciousness is possible. Primitive peoples project agency into the sky, volcanoes, trees, empty space, etc. Surely they would realize it if they were entertaining logical contradictions. Therefore, there is no logical contradiction in the idea of brainless consciousness. Therefore, it is possible. Therefore, we have evidence that consciousness could exist without brains. Therefore, (B) isn’t satisfied in the case of consciousness and brains. Therefore, your argument from (A)&(B) to (C) fails. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evidentialism Quote:
(Evidentialism) If our evidence doesn’t support belief in p, then we shouldn’t believe p. First, what evidence can you offer in support of Evidentialism itself? If none, then it recommends its own rejection. Second, there are counterexamples to Evidentialism. For example, belief in the reality of the past. It may be that the world was created five minutes ago, with the appearance of age. None of our evidence counts against this hypothesis. So none of our evidence supports the reality of the past. Yet clearly it’s false that we shouldn’t believe in the reality of the past. So Evidentialism is false. It may be that belief in God is more analogous to belief in the reality of the past than it is to belief in cosmic teacups, flying spaghetti monsters, fairies, etc. After all, humans seem hardwired to believe both in the reality of the past and in God. Yet we don’t seem hardwired to believe in e.g. the flying spaghetti monster. So Evidentialism is a crucial assumption in your case against theism, yet Evidentalism is false. So your case fails. It’s been fun Luke! See you in the peanut gallery. |
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February 13, 2009, 01:38 AM
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#5798392 / #12 |
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Newcomer
Join Date: September 2007
Location: California
Posts: 82
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Cartesian's Argument for Souls
Cartesian wants to know what happened to "that person, Alan." But what is the referent for "that person, Alan?" Is it "Alan"? Then Cartesian hasn't clarified his question. Is the referant that collection of perceptions, memories, and personality in the brain of the body we have always called Alan? Then we know what happened: the brain was split in two. Is the referent that name, "Alan", or that word, "person"? Then we are talking about conventional facts. The only time we cannot answer the question "What happened to that person, Alan?" is when we assume the referent for "that person, Alan" is Cartesian's notion of a transcendent soul that cannot be split! That's why split-brain puzzles are problematic for soul theories, not for physicalist theories. Far from being evidence for souls, Cartesian's split-brain dilemma only illustrates one of many problems in the idea of a transcendent soul. My Argument Against Souls I argued that if we have no positive evidence for souls, we should discard them via Occam's razor. Cartesian provided a philosophical argument for souls (one that failed), but he has never even hinted at how we could have evidence for souls, or how we could falsify such a theory. So my argument stands: We have tons of evidence for how consciousness arises from brain activity, and no evidence for how consciousness could be associated with a soul. But consciousness (and its resulting traits of personality, moral decision, etc.) are exactly what the souls are supposed to be doing! It looks as though souls are out of a job; an unnecessary explanation, like explaining lightning with Zeus. Suffering We all know of great suffering with no apparent point. We can speculate all day that God might have reasons to allow this suffering that we simply can't understand, but we could just as well speculate that Hitler had sufficient reasons for his atrocities, reasons from special knowledge - or else that he had special revelation from God, who had unknowable reasons. The fact remains that we have no reason to think that certain sufferings do have a higher moral purpose. The vast amount of suffering with no apparent point in the universe fits much better with atheism - a universe indifferent to suffering - than it does with a universe ruled by a good, powerful god. Thus, all this suffering is some evidence against God. The Trend To defend the idea that natural explanations have always (or almost always; my argument works either way) replaced supernatural ones, and not so much the other way - that would take several volumes. But you all know what I'm talking about. There are thousands of things we previously explained with magic or gods, which we now all recognize have natural explanations. But we cannot think of phenomena for which there was a well-accepted natural explanation that has now been discarded in favor of a well-accepted supernatural explanation. Even Christians or Muslims will admit that much less is magical about the world than their ancestors thought, or than the writers of their holy books thought. This is because natural explanations keep replacing supernatural ones, and not so much the other way around. Thus, it is more probable than not that whatever we currently explain with reference to that vacuous grunt "Goddidit", we will eventually find a natural explanation that is better-supported and more-useful than "Goddidit." You all know the trend I'm talking about, and it fits better with atheism than with supernaturalism. Omnipresence Here, Cartesian only defended the idea that an omnipresent being is possible, however improbable. And even this mere possibility he defended with logical argument, not evidence. That's fine with me. A monkey as big as Jupiter is logically possible, but we have no evidence to think such a thing exists in our world. I've shown why an omnipresent being is improbable given everything we know about beings, and Cartesian has not denied this, but merely said an omnipresent being is logically possible. Consciousness Without a Brain I never argued that consciousness without a brain was impossible, only that all the evidence we have suggests that consciousness arises from physical minds (brain meat or silicon, whatever), so consciousness without a physical mind is unlikely. Cartesian points out that we have no evidence for life on other planets, but that doesn't make extraterrestrial life unlikely. The difference is that we have some idea how we could have life on other planets, but no idea how we could have consciousness without a physical mind. The only explanation offered is "Goddidit"... magic... "Poof!" That's no explanation at all. So all the evidence we have points to the fact that consciousness arises from physical minds, so consciousness without a physical mind is unlikely, and therefore God is unlikely. Evidentialism I didn't argue that evidence was necessary to justify all beliefs. Certain analytic or mathematical statements are axiomatic, or follow deductively from axioms. But when asking "What exists?", evidence is all we have. You can't prove something to exist by pure logic. Why not? Because the only way to prove something logically is to show that the contrary is logically impossible. But whatever we can imagine to exist, we can imagine not to exist. There is no logical impossibility in God not existing, souls not existing, or even the external world not existing. So when asking about existence, evidence is all we have. We have tons of evidence for what happened in the past. Obviously, a dinosaur fossil could have many explanations. Perhaps it - along with the rest of the world and all our memories - were created 5 minutes ago by a Cart... I mean, Big Demon; there never was a dinosaur who died and left his bones in the dirt. Or perhaps the bones were transported there by invisible aliens. Or perhaps God wants to trick us into thinking the bones are millions of years old so that we can only believe in him with blind faith, not evidence. The reason we reject these other hypotheses is that they multiply unknown assumptions, rather than sticking to things and processes we DO know something about. This is where Occam's razor comes in, and I think Cartesian knows it. This is a red herring. Everything Cartesian has said - both for souls and against my arguments, could be offered just as well in defense of an infinite number of magical, imaginative ideas: the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mbombo, Quetzelcoatl, powerful aliens in another dimension, quantum-sized gremlins, animism, whatever. And that is exactly the company with which souls and gods belong. The cemetery for dead gods is large, and growing every century. It is time to put one more to rest, and focus our attention on things that really matter, and things that really exist. |
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