Re: New A C Grayling book

Michael J Davis wrote:

In message <466da2a2$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, michaeld
<michaeld@xxxxxxxxxx> writes
Michael J Davis wrote:

In message <466a1615$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, michaeld
<michaeld@xxxxxxxxxx> writes
Michael J Davis wrote:

[...]

But my point above is that atheists believe that reason has evolved as
an aid to survival. Since atheists don't see any ontological
significance in reason, it merely [1] being a by-product of success, I
think my statement is sufficient.

[1] By 'merely' I am not denigrating such a wonderful talent.

Even granting that, I don't see why atheists should believe that reason
is
*only* an aid to survival. I think the concept of "reason" would exist in
some abstract sense whether or not humans or other life forms had evolved
to utilize it as a means for survival. A concept can exist perfectly well
without having any explicit physical realization.

So you are saying that 'through our reason, we can see that there is
*more* to reason than merely being an aid to, and product from,
survival'? Well if we can see *that* there is more to reason, could you
speculate what *more* there is?

Well for definiteness I will focus on a subset of reason namely "logical
deduction". Logical deduction is a mathematical concept; roughly speaking
it is the process of going from particular premises, which you take as
read, to conclusions, which are then just as certain as the premises. An
instance of this is called a "proof".

Right. Which is the reason for my question (pun not intended!).

The use of the word "process" sounds physical, but mathematically speaking
a proof is simply a sequence of statements ("propositions") each one
following in accordance with a specific set of rules (called the "rules of
inference") from the axioms and/or previous statements in the sequence.

Absolutely.

And can you do that without an ontological argument? i.e. How can you
define there being 'more to reason' without saying 'it's there for a
reason which isn't an advantage to the survival of the
individual/species?

The concept of logical deduction exists independently of whether there are
humans or other life forms around to identify it and use it. (And of
course, in our day to day lives we only really use an approximation of the
concept.)

So, let's be clear. If we take a model like Euclid, we start with a
number of premises and build a reticulum of logical connections. Some of
these have nodes where we recognise the 'truth' (based on the premises)
of the logical deduction. That provides a starting point for the next
series of connections.

In practice, however, if you use the 'network' model, there are areas
within the network that are unconnected. These may subsequently be
filled with a smaller scale reticulum of logical connections, or it may
just not be possible to go there.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. It's certainly the case that,
using logical deduction and starting from Euclid's axioms, you can't
identify any truths except those of Euclidean geometry; all the
conclusions of the logic are only valid in Euclidean geometry. Another
example of truth being contextual.

(Of course you can redefine the statements so that they include the
context - i.e. Euclidean geometry - in which case you can reasonably
assert them as being true in some more absolute sense. Same is true for
the non-mathematical example of a contextual truth I gave below.)

If we cannot get to a specific point by logic (however
multi-dimensional) then that may be because it is 'false' or because we
cannot get there. It doesn't prove that it is false, because we only
have the approach of human logic plus some tools - like mathematics -
that seem to have a reliable one-to-one connection with what we call
'reality' (or 'truth').

Well like I said earlier, logical deduction is only a subset of human
reason. I singled it out because it seems the easiest part to define in a
way that is independent of humanity (and other life forms) and their tools
for survival. Logical deduction per se cannot say anything about "external
reality", e.g. physics. The scientific process is fundamentally inductive
not deductive, and the crucial difference is that the process of
induction, unlike deduction, is not guaranteed to produce results that are
as reliable as the premises you put in. This fact is, I think, the root
cause of some of the objections below 1)-4) to making assertions of truth
in science.

I agree with the more general point though that there's no reason that
human reason should be sufficient to understand the whole of reality.

Sure a concept can exist, eg. the number '7'; but where does it *exist*
EXCEPT in the mindset of an intelligent being?

I am not a physicalist. I can only make sense of "where" questions when
we're talking about physical entities (and perhaps not even then). 7 is
not a physical entity. It exists, but not at a particular point in
physical space.

It exists at a particular point in logical space.

Right - also sometimes called Platonic space or Platonic reality. In case
you hadn't guessed - yes I'm a Platonic realist. (I prefer that term to
"Platonist" since sometimes the latter is taken to include Platonic
idealism, which I'm less enthusiastic about.)

"Platonic space" clearly isn't like physical space, but I suppose you can
answer "where" questions by showing where concepts like "7" are relative
to other concepts. For example you can construct 7 explicitly in the
framework of Peano arithmetic.

What's your problem with my comment, Phil?

Science does not do Truth, that is the whole bleeding point. Science
says
there is no
such thing as Truth, only the religious claim there is.

Science doesnt say any such thing.

It's an amazing claim, isn't it?

I also disagree with the way Peter stated this. I think it would be much
more accurate to say that some well-known and popular philosophical
approaches to science deny the existence of truth.

'Truth' as in external and objective 'facts', rather than as vectors in
a mathematical formula that humans use to make predictions about the
world around them?

Yes I think you have it about right, though you'd have to ask those who
hold sure a philosophy to be sure.

I think there are a number of reasons that scientifically inclined people
may be suspicious of the concept of "truth":

And I should also mention that only 3) is a serious challenge to the
concept of truth itself. The others are really reasons that it may be
unwise for we humans to assert truth (even if it actually exists).

1) the possibility that asserting "truth" amounts to making an assertion
with absolute certainty.

OK, I accept the reservation; as with all things what appears as truth
to us, may well depend upon our premises. But we are trying to identify
some thing that is invariant under all transformations (as a
mathematician may or may not put it!).

Very few things are invariant under all transformations. :)

2) the possibility that "truth" can be taken to mean "full truth about
everything", so that a claim to know "truth" is a claim to omniscience.

Um, no - but it may be a recognition that there is an external objective
view. I would have thought that that was a claim of all science (until
QM, at least).

Probably, as with Peter's original claim, it's safer to say it is a claim
of certain scientific philosophies rather than science itself. "Scientific
realism" I think makes a claim like the existence of an objective,
external reality but not all scientists subscribe to "scientific realism"
(even though some who don't may well use it as a "working philosophy" I
suppose).

Personally I subscribe (with some reservations) to a more instrumentalist
view of science as described for example in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism

I do think though that if you take an integrated approach to scientific
instrumentalism and make an effort to use language consistently then you
end up sounding like a scientific realist a lot of the time. In that
regard I usually find myself much more in agreement with the assertions
and language of scientific realists than with the pragmatists (such as
logical positivists and even more so the Popperians) even though I'm
probably closer to agreeing with the latter's philosophic fundamentals.

3) skepticism about the very existence or coherence of ontological
statements. In what sense do things exist? What is the exact nature of
things? Do things even have an exact nature? If so, how can we even
describe this nature using human language? If we can't how can we label
assertions about such things as being "truth".

Yes. That's the big area I ma exploring.

and finally (related to 2,3)

4) assuming ontological statements are in principle meaningful, how can we
make them without having omniscience or effective omniscience? Often after
a fundamental scientific discovery, the "nature of reality" looks
different to how it did before - most obviously in the case of the quantum
overthrow of the classical picture of reality. Without knowing all future
discoveries and paradigm shifts,

....plus also those that will never be found by humanity presumably...

how can one make any statement about
reality and call it the truth? Isn't it better to just say we have a
theory that can describe certain observations, but is likely to be
subsumed or even overthrown by a more sophisticated theory later? From
this viewpoint the label of "truth" seems to carry an inappropriate
implication of permanence.

Yes. You are expanding - helpfully - the issues that I'm raising about

a) the concept of truth that drives scientists,

b) the eventual inability of the human mind to comprehend the universe.
(Whether we mention God in that or not!)

I certainly think that these are interesting issues that are definitely
worth talking about. What's not been so clear to me is the *particular*
importance of these questions to the issue of whether God exists or not.

I think 1) and 2) are misguided. An assertion that something is true may
be made with any degree of confidence, just like any other assertion. To
assert that a particular statement is true is not the same as asserting it
is the full truth.

3) and 4) have more substance I think. I deal with them by taking "truth"
to be contextual. Primarily, I form a worldview and particular theories,
whose purpose is to organize experiences and observations as well as
predict future ones. But within the the context of a particular worldview
or theory it is meaningful to judge certain statements as true or false.
For example the statement "there is a computer screen in front of me" is
true in the context of my everyday worldview, even if I can't make it into
a statement that's valid at every level of the metaphysical hierarchy.
"Context" is the crucial word here.

OK, Good point.

Ultimately I don't think the abolition of the concept of truth does any
good and just confuses things. I take the assertion of statement P to be
equivalent to "P is true" in everyday language, and so from this
perspective you can only stop claiming things are true by not making any
assertions at all, i.e. becoming a consistent nihilist.

Right. I think we are on the same wavelength, thanks. But you can see,
I hope, that there can be room for 'God' without that concept residing
in a 'god of the gaps' supporting what we do not (yet) know.

Oh yes. There are many arguments for God that have nothing to do with the
"God of the gaps". I think they're all flawed of course, but they exist
and have to be addressed differently to the God of the gaps argument.

My difficulty, in this is to explain how I can know (connaitre) a
personal God, without being able to prove His existence. As a Christian,
I think God solved this in Jesus. ;-)

Thanks for your interesting comments,

You're welcome. I hope that this and other recent threads will prove
helpful for your essay.

Michael

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