Re: Is there a god?
- From: Dianelos Georgoudis <dianelos@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:17:59 -0700 (PDT)
This is the third installment
On Sep 14, 2:31 am, Gareth McCaughan <Gareth.McCaug...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
[snip]
I wrote:
I don’t understand what you mean. How you feel about something causes
you to say something about it, but has nothing to do with what you
mean by saying it? Can you elaborate?
I'll try, but I'm not sure I can explain better than I already have.
Please forgive me if I succeed only in being equally unclear but
wordier and more annoying.
Consider the sentence S: "George, you are really stupid".
It is a sentence I'm extremely unlikely ever to utter, because
I'm usually quite polite. I'm probably much more likely to say
such a thing if I'm under stress: let's say I have a pressing
deadline at work, I haven't had enough sleep recently, and I
have a headache.
So, my (hypothetical) headache would be a major contribution to
*causing* my (hypothetical) utterance of S. But "Gareth has a
headache" is no part of the *meaning* of S; what S means is
that some person called George is stupid.
Well, that's kind of a special case, isn't it? And even here an
important (albeit not exclusive) cause of your saying "George, you are
really stupid" is that you in fact believe that George is really
stupid, which is precisely the meaning of what you are saying. My
point is that in almost all cases the primary cause that moves us to
that claim X is true it that we believe that what we mean by X is
true. In most cases then it is not a very useful exercise to separate
what we mean when we claim something from what causes us to claim it.
In other words: we have to distinguish sharply between the
states of affairs that *cause* some utterance, and the ones
that constitute its *meaning*, its criterion for truth.
OK. So now consider the statement W: "Snow is white". What that
sentence *means* is that snow is white. What *causes* it to
be uttered is that I think snow is white. (I'm ignoring all
sorts of corner cases, subtleties, etc. I don't think they're
relevant here.) The two are not the same.
Yes, but in order to discuss the truth of what W means, one has to
explain why one thinks so (which I agree is what causes one to claim
W). So what's the point in "sharply" distinguishing between the two?
What do you win by such distinguishing and what do you lose by not
making that distinction?
Also if the statement "snow is white" is a statement about vision
surely it's also a statement about what’s inside your head, isn't it?
At least from the point of view of a naturalist who believes that
one’s brain produces one’s experience of vision?
Not specifically *my* head, no; not unless I say "snow seems
white to me" rather than "snow is white". I could say "this
apple is green and that one is red", meaningfully and truthfully,
even if I suffer from a form of colour blindness that makes me
not see a difference in colour between the two apples.
How can a colorblind person understand the meaning of "red" and
"green"?
When I
say "snow is white" I am saying something about vision *generally*,
which involves facts about what happens inside people's heads
*generally*.
I don't see the relevance of this. In any people have been using
statements such as that "snow is white" long before naturalistic
theories about the brain and how it produces our experience of vision
and so on, so it seems to me that the meaning (and hence the truth
value) of this statement has really nothing to do with brains one way
or the other. I think it is quite plain that what one means by "snow
is white" is that one looks at snow one normally experiences it being
white. It's simply a statement of fact about an experience we have, a
small piece of evidence. Now what our knowledge that snow is white
implies for our ontological theories should not complicate or make
opaque what is a perfectly innocent, simple, and true statement.
[Thanks for your explanation why you think the value of pi is not
contingent on the structure of physical universe.]
[snip]
General relativity's equations describe a deep pattern present in the
gravitational phenomena we observe. We find it practical to work with
these equations by visualizing a curved spacetime, but the equations
do not really imply that there is such a thing as spacetime, never
mind that it is curved. For example should we exist within a computer
simulation then general relativity's explanatory power of the
gravitational phenomena we observe will remain exactly as true/
relevant/useful as it is now, even at the absence of curved spacetime.
If we exist within a computer simulation that has the properties
predicted by general relativity, then there *is* curved spacetime,
inside the simulation; and those properties predicted by general
relativity are not merely facts about what observers inside the
simulation see, they are structural facts about what the simulation
does.
Well, we are talking about reality, and the real world in which that
simulation runs may very well be one where space is flat and
independent from the time dimension. Our scientists would be
discovering facts about what the simulation does, but not about how
reality at bottom is. Similarly, in idealistic theism, our scientists
would be discovering facts about what the mind of God does, but not
about how reality at bottom is. My point here is that, whether
materialism or idealism or the computer simulation hypothesis are true
or not, there is no good reason why one should believe that the
scientific models about physical phenomena describe how reality at
bottom is.
That there is a fundamental difference between how reality *seems*
when we look around, and how reality actually *is* - is one of the
oldest insights of philosophy. As is the realization that how reality
seems cannot possibly by itself tell us how it really is simply
because many possible realities would produce the same impressions on
us. Even if scientific naturalism is true reality is not at all like
it seems: the pencil in the glass of water seems broken but it really
isn't, space looks flat but it really isn't, things look colorful but
they really aren't, it seems that there is only one physical body of
Gareth around but (if the interpretation of QM that most scientists
agree with is true) during the time it took to read this sentence a
huge number of copies of Gareth's copy have been created within
universes that continuously split from each other, and so on.
[I snip fast forward to a relevant bit you right bellow:]
Whether these [QM] phenomena are produced by the will of God or perhaps by
some kind of mechanical substratum or perhaps by XYZ ontological view
is an entirely different question.
Don't forget Cartesian demons. And pixies.
I haven't; these are all included under XYZ. Now even though phenomena
can't *by themselves* tell us what objective reality produces them, it
does not follow that all possible realities are equally reasonable.
But in order to decide which possible realities are more reasonable we
must reason beyond the phenomena themselves (for all these realities
are compatible with physical phenomena), and therefore go beyond what
science studies. How exactly? Well I have been suggesting what I think
is the only possible way: Define a list of reasonable criteria and
compare candidate ontologies against each other under that set of
criteria.
I understand that some cosmological theories use complex numbers to
represent time, but surely nobody thinks that therefore time has a
real and an imaginary component.
I don't think the machinery of "imaginary time" ever involves
giving time both real and imaginary components simultaneously.
And I think the question "is the time coordinate real or
imaginary?" is a non-question.
So even if one is a scientific naturalist it's not like any concept
used in a scientific model necessarily describes something in
objective reality. I wonder then how scientific naturalists sort out
which scientific models should and which shouldn't be thought as
describing objective reality. For example on what grounds does a
scientific naturalist believe that general relativity's model of
spacetime does describe how objective reality is, and quantum
electrodynamic's model that an electron moves through all points of
the universe at once does not really describe how objective reality
is? Or that some comological theory's model where time is a complex
quantity, doesn't either? How do you choose and pick? It seems kind of
arbitrary to me.
It seems to me that for your account of "explanation" to be
right, you'll need to use so broad a notion of "discovering
a pattern" that just about any act of cognition comes under
that heading; in which case, your definition fails to define.
Well, I do use the concept of "explaining" in a particularly broad
sense. For example when one sees a tree outside of one's window then,
in my use of the concept, one is explaining one's raw visual
information by discovering a tree-pattern in it.
So far you have not managed to communicate to me what acts of
cognition you class as "discovering a pattern" or as "explaining".
Perhaps I haven't described well what I mean by "pattern"; I certainly
do not mean any set of ordered information. Rather I mean "pattern" in
the sense one uses it in "pattern recognition" field of AI. More
specifically: A pattern is a particular relationship present within a
set of ordered information, which when discovered gives one the power
to compress that set of information, or (what is equivalent) to make
predictions about missing bits in that set with better than chance
success. What we do when we explain something is just that: to
discover such a pattern. And the deeper the pattern is (in the sense
of allowing one to compress the information more efficiently, or to
make more successful predictions about missing bits in that
information) the better one has explained that set of information. For
example general relativity is a deeper pattern present in the
gravitational phenomena we observe than Newton's mechanics. Now we
normally use the concept of "explanation" only in the case of the
deeper non-trivial patterns. But to look outside the window and
discover in the raw visual data we get that there is a tree outside
(i.e. discover that the raw visual data includes a tree-pattern) is
the very same process. Perhaps we don't call this "explaining" because
we do it very quickly and learned to do such "explaining" while we
were babies or toddlers and have no recollection of that learning
process. A half-way example you have recently raised is about
listening to a spoken language. If you have studied that language you
have learned to spot the patterns in it and are able able to explain
the sounds; if not it all sounds pretty much like random noise. For me
God is the deepest pattern present in the whole of our conscious
experience, and hence the overarching explanation of the human
condition.
[snip]
No, I think you are making a conceptual jump here. Once one is
committed to scientific naturalism then it is of course reasonable to
believe that a more powerful scientific model describes reality better
than a less powerful model. But the fact that there exist scientific
models that more or less well describe the physical phenomena we
observe does not in any way evidence that scientific naturalism is
true. This is a basic point. Do you agree with it?
Nope.
(Of course it's not *conclusive* evidence. I don't think it's
even very strong evidence. But evidence, I think, it certainly
is.)
I am curious: how is it evidence for scientific naturalism? Or rather
how is it better evidence for scientific naturalism than for
idealistic theism, or for the computer simulation hypothesis for that
matter?
Again, should we
live within a computer simulation, or should there be an evil
Cartesian demon deceiving us, scientific naturalism would be false but
nothing would change with scientific knowledge or with the way we
conduct science.
Except that at any point the Lords of the Matrix, or the Cartesian
Demon, might decide to mess with the input they're feeding us and
all our science would suddenly go terribly awry. If they never
choose to do that, then in fact our world does have structural
features that are more or less isomorphic to the ones science
describes.
How do you know that the Lords of the Matrix will never choose to do
that? And observe that if reality consists of the Cartesian Demon
delighting in deceiving us then it is to be expected that that Demon
will never mess with the input we are receiving, because doing that
would stop our deception.
They might in fact be implemented in computer hardware
or in the mind of the Cartesian Demon, but they would be no less
real for all that.
Surely you are not saying that a world simulated within a virtual
reality computer game is no less real than the world in which the
simulation runs.
One way or the other what's hugely more relevant is how well the
implications of these postulates work. Also, that reality is similar
to how we are (namely personal) has a prima facie plausibility that is
higher than any other model which postulates that reality is
fundamentally very different from us.
Clearly reality has two arms, two legs, and one head.
Not really, for these are neither necessary nor relevant properties of
what it is to be a person.
"Reality is not fundamentally very different from us" (which
might perhaps have some prima facie plausibility, though I
rather doubt it) has now metamorphosed into "Reality is not
fundamentally very different from those aspects of us whichDianeloschooses to associate with the word 'person'" (which
I think has much less prima facie plausibility, e.g. on account
of being a much more complicated statement).
My working definition is that a person is a conscious being capable of
moral action. Philosophers have been using for centuries the concept
of "person" in a similar way. I am surprised you should think that a
person must have two arms, two legs, and one head. Surely you do no
think that when theists say that "God is a person" they mean that God
has two arms, two legs, and one head.
Furthermore, the only persons we are definitely acquainted with
have all sorts of features in common that it is not at all
reasonable to assume Reality has too. (For instance, they are
living things made of meat, based on DNA and proteins; they
do their thinking using lumps of tissue of size comparable
to a human head; they have emotions that are influenced by
chemical changes in the fluids flowing through those lumps
of tissue; they experience anger and lust; they typically
have a lifetime of between one and one hundred years.)
I trust you see that when in a discussion with an idealistic theist
you claim as an ontological fact that human persons are made of meat
based on DNA and proteins and so on you are begging the question. You
see for me persons are not in reality made of meat; only our current
experience of human persons is in part that of observing a material
body.
I think it's perfectly ridiculous to expect that Reality
will not be "fundamentally very different from us". (That's
assuming arguendo that the statement even makes sense,
which I think doubtful.)
Again surely you see that what appears ridiculous from the point of
view of a scientific naturalist is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I
can assure you that from my point of view to believe that humans are
made of meat strikes me as ridiculous too, but that's equally
irrelevant. When comparing the reasonableness of different ontologies
one must take them at face value, otherwise one is begging the
question.
Not to mention the gargantuan
prima facie implausibility of the various naturalistic models of
quantum mechanics.
Given the gargantual prima facie implausibility of various
facts about the universe, clearly predicted by QM and verified
about as conclusively as anything can be, I don't think we're
entitled to expect that the underlying facts (whatever they
may be) are prima facie plausible.
QM does not predict any fact whatsoever about the universe; it only
makes predictions about the quantum mechanical phenomena we observe.
True only in the following vacuous sense: everything we know
about the universe we know from our observations, and all our
theories can if we choose be stated in terms of what we will
observe in given circumstances.
Well they can only be stated in such terms, unless one begs the
question by making ontological assumptions.
[snip]
Anyway I do wish you'd explain what your ontological beliefs are,
instead of explaining what they aren't.
Why should I? You've responded to all my attempts to get you
to be more specific about *your* beliefs with smoke-blowing
and bluster.
Is that really the impression I give? I can assure that there is
nothing I enjoy more than describing my ontological beliefs. Let me
prepare something in writing and I will post it as soon as I can.
.
- References:
- Re: Is there a god?
- From: Gareth McCaughan
- Re: Is there a god?
- Prev by Date: Re: Message failed to appear
- Next by Date: Re: C of E apology to Charles Darwin
- Previous by thread: Re: Is there a god?
- Next by thread: Re: Is there a god?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
