Ignorance of the gaps

[balto]

In fairness, this is usually true (particularly with respect to classical arguments), but the fine-tuning argument for example is definitely an inference to the best explanation. Kalam, in my opinion, falls somewhere in between an inference to the best explanation and a metaphysical demonstration, depending on how well one could make a case that an infinite series of past events is theoretically problematic. (Some attempts to do so here.) (I know that insofar that Craig uses Borde-Guth-Vilenkin as evidence for it, he is clear that his claim is that current cosmology currently supports his claim that the universe began to begin.)

Agreed. I had the cosmological argument as proposed by Aquinas in mind when I wrote my post which isn’t a proposal of the best fit of the data. I think that the strongest point a theist could make as regards scientific data is to show that the data do not contradict her metaphysics which is what Craig attempts to do by appealing to the BGV theorem. I agree with your assessment of the main arguments though.

 

[Oreoracle]

Suppose I write down on a slip of paper, “If p, then q; p; therefore q”. We can agree that modus ponens, the argument form I wrote on the paper, is a paradigm of logical thinking. Is the paper representative of logical thinking?

Again, this is just semantics. I understand what you’re saying, that’s just not the wording I chose. If you prefer to say that the paper would “simulate” logical thinking, that’s fine by me.

I don’t have a problem with people imposing an extra level of abstraction to thought, so long as they admit that thoughts could very well be determined by physical conditions.

So before I address your other points, I’d like to ask you a question: Do you agree that it is possible that having a complete understanding of someone’s brain at a given time could allow us to know their thoughts at that time?

If you agree that thoughts can be predicted, identified, and classified with physical information, it matters little to me if you insist that the thoughts are accounted for by something ethereal. It makes no difference to the way that science is conducted. In fact, we could propose that the thoughts of other intelligent animals are always contingent on some metaphysical entity and our understanding of their thinking wouldn’t change. It is analogous to the fact that assuming numbers exist as Platonic forms doesn’t affect how one does math.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . So before I address your other points, I’d like to ask you a question: Do you agree that it is possible that having a complete understanding of someone’s brain at a given time could allow us to know their thoughts at that time? . . .

This is pure fantasy.
Too much science fiction is being fed to kids rather than real science.
You have no idea how the brain works.

 

[Oreoracle]

If a** plausible** hypothesis that assumed the presence of a non-physical component was developed and explained the “gaps” in scientific knowledge, the explanation should be accorded equal stature to that of any scientific methodology.

Interesting post, Yppop. But what exactly do you mean by “non-physical”?

 

[Oreoracle]

This is pure fantasy.
Too much science fiction is being fed to kids rather than real science.
You have no idea how the brain works.

Scientists can already identify simple thoughts by hooking you up to a machine. They’ve even determined that in some cases your brain subconsciously makes decisions a few seconds before you’re aware that a decision has been made.

 

[jonathan_hili]

The difference between the “God of the Gaps” and the “Ignorance of the Gaps” arguments is simple but profound. God of the Gaps says, “we don’t know, so it must be God.” Ignorance of the Gaps says, “We don’t know, so let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Surely the latter is the most intellectually honest, as well as the less embarassing position to have held once we do know the answer, and it turns out not to have been “God” all along.

Hi, I agree, it would be intellectually honest if it was used in that way: to emphasise our relative uncertainty in particular scientific matters and not jump to conclusions. However, this is not how it’s used in many of the debates and literature I’ve come across. It’s used, rather, to avoid the evidence. The same thinkers who will use “ignorance of the gaps” to avoid the creation of the universe out of nothing (which is was practically all the scientific evidence points to), will then posit the multiverse or some such option, which has no evidential backing. But you make a good point.

 

[polytropos]

Again, this is just semantics. I understand what you’re saying, that’s just not the wording I chose. If you prefer to say that the paper would “simulate” logical thinking, that’s fine by me.

But that doesn’t quite work either. Whatever you want to fit in there–“represent”, “resemble”, “simulate”–it’s going to have to do a lot of philosophical work. And “simulate” does not do any better, since it is still smuggling in a mind-dependent notion. The issue is that it still only “simulates” one function rather than another relative to my interests. Its physical structure is incommensurable with our semantic interpretation of it.

The microstructure of a computer is made up of nand gates because philosophers defined the nand truth function, and computer designers found it useful to make such a machine. Logic is not intrinsic to its operations. The wedge is driven in that our minds do not simulate logic; we are intrinsically logical (in spite of our frequent failures).

So before I address your other points, I’d like to ask you a question: Do you agree that it is possible that having a complete understanding of someone’s brain at a given time could allow us to know their thoughts at that time?

I do not.

I do think we can anticipate some people’s subjective experiences (or at least some of them), but I think there are limits to this. We could possibly track what data is entering a person’s nervous system through their optic nerve, say, and predict what is in their visual field. (This would be akin to being able to check the microstate of a camcorder and discern what is in front of its “visual” field.) This does not, however, account for qualia and the way that the presence of such “visual data” in the system amounts to a subjective phenomenal experience.

I think there are further issues when one is engaged in thinking about formal entities. (By “formal entities” I mean universal forms, equations with determinate semantic meanings, formal propositions, rules of logic.) There are two issues with such entities: first, physical systems cannot amount to determinate semantic meanings (by the arguments given in my previous post–the meanings of any physical system are user-relative); second, while such objects are intentional, they are nonphysical since they do not have correspondence in the actual world.

If you agree that thoughts can be predicted, identified, and classified with physical information, it matters little to me if you insist that the thoughts are accounted for by something ethereal. It makes no difference to the way that science is conducted.

I don’t think cognitive science is a very fruitful scientific endeavor, since I don’t think substantial advances will be made in modeling the human intellect (though great advances can be made in aiding it–Wolfram Mathematica, for example). Even if materialism were true, modeling the mind using a computer (in Turing test spirit) would face huge limitations. (I believe the prognosis for materialism overall is worse.) Other research (ie. medical research) I have no issues with.

In fact, we could propose that the thoughts of other intelligent animals are always contingent on some metaphysical entity and our understanding of their thinking wouldn’t change. It is analogous to the fact that assuming numbers exist as Platonic forms doesn’t affect how one does math.

I do not think there are many animals for whom immaterial souls would need to be postulated. I regard just human intellectual operations as essentially immaterial (I think qualia have a material basis, though I am doubtful that methodological naturalism has sufficient conceptual tools to address qualia–but there is also not really a way to modify methodological naturalism, in any case), and I think most evidence points to chimps, dolphins, great apes, etc. falling seriously short of our capabilities.

 

[tonyrey]

The difference between the “God of the Gaps” and the “Ignorance of the Gaps” arguments is simple but profound. God of the Gaps says, “we don’t know, so it must be God.” Ignorance of the Gaps says, “We don’t know, so let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Surely the latter is the most intellectually honest, as well as the less embarassing position to have held once we do know the answer, and it turns out not to have been “God” all along.

In practice materialists say “scientists are working on it and will eventually find the answer”, thereby demonstrating their prejudice.

 

[wanstronian]

This is taken from the OP: Well, we don’t know. Yes, such arguments carry most of the evidence, however, anything is possible so we can conclude that these arguments are even probable or right

I don’t know if that is an actual quote or a summary of Professor Krauss’s remarks.

If it’s an actual quote then Krauss has just admitted WLC is right. So either it’s a misquote or a misinterpretation.

(I am writing under the assumption that it is a somewhat accurate representation of what he said.) If he is conceding that “such arguments” (as the cosmological argument or fine-tuning argument) currently “carry most of the evidence,” then would not tentatively and conditionally embracing the conclusions of said arguments be (to quote your signature) “a provisional truth based on the best available evidence” rather than “an absolute truth dogmatically expounded in contravention of the best available evidence”?

(I’m not suggesting that you would concede along with Krauss that the kalam cosmological argument or fine-tuning argument carries. I personally find such arguments less than robust in the overall metaphysical picture. But if Krauss concedes that current evidence leans toward those arguments, then it seems that he should at least accept their conclusions “provisionally.”)

Krauss, indeed, if nothing else, seems to be holding onto an absolute truth, if not in contravention of the best available evidence, then in contravention of the best available logic. This is the man who wrote a book titled A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing, which includes a chapter titled “Nothing is Something”. In short, he managed to publish a book the central argument of which depends on a massive and undisguised equivocation–without even realizing.

You can follow the KCA and even accept, for the sake of discussion, some of its more controversial logical steps (although most of his assertions are supported by intuition and not by settled science). But ultimately, what we’re left with as the ultimate cause is, “We don’t know.” Not “God.”

 

[wanstronian]

I don’t think that the OP was arguing that God should be used as a scientific filler explanation for anything. He seems to be claiming that atheists shouldn’t propose human ignorance when trying to deflect cosmological arguments for God’s existence, which are metaphysical arguments not scientific ones.

The Kalam is a metaphysical argument, and as such it carries no real weight. It certainly doesn’t prove the existence of God. So why are atheists wrong to dismiss it? All we ask for is an appropriate set of evidence to support the truth claims of the religious. Metaphysical arguments do not count as evidence. So you can say, “it’s a metaphysical argument so human ignorance is not a defence,” and we’ll just say, “Ok, then your hypothesis remains unproven in any substantive sense, come back to us when you’ve got something better.”

This seems to be a common misunderstanding of arguments for God’s existence (the serious arguments for His existence anyway). God is not being proposed as the “best explanation of the available facts” but rather He is being proposed as self-sustaining Being which grounds the reality of everything. The proof for it is more like a mathematical proof, which holds for all cases, than a positivist scientific theory which could be proven false whenever a counterexample arises. It would be like saying that the Pythagorean theorem amounts to a “theorem-of-the-gaps” and is the “best explanation of what we know about right triangles” and that we “shouldn’t jump to conclusions” regarding its validity. It holds as a matter of necessity.

I think that when you are making such a bold claim as the existence of an omnimax entity that created everything, you need to support the claim with something a bit better than metaphysical prestidigitation and “intuitively correct” premises.

If you are making a truth claim, you need to consider the audience you are trying to convince, and give them evidence to their standards, not just evidence that you happen to find convincing.

 

[wanstronian]

Hi, I agree, it would be intellectually honest if it was used in that way: to emphasise our relative uncertainty in particular scientific matters and not jump to conclusions. However, this is not how it’s used in many of the debates and literature I’ve come across. It’s used, rather, to avoid the evidence.

What evidence do you contend is avoided by this tactic?

The same thinkers who will use “ignorance of the gaps” to avoid the creation of the universe out of nothing (which is was practically all the scientific evidence points to), will then posit the multiverse or some such option, which has no evidential backing. But you make a good point.

Actually, although the multiverse was first postulated decades ago, it just so happens that more recently it’s been discovered that it’s a natural progression of string theory. Despite the claims of disgruntled theists that it’s just put up to deflect the fine-tuning and cosmological arguments, it’s a credible scientific hypothesis.

 

[wanstronian]

In practice materialists say “scientists are working on it and will eventually find the answer”, thereby demonstrating their prejudice.

Actually I think that’s a straw man - I suppose some might say that. The proper thing to say is that “scientists are working on it and given the overwhelming success of science to date, there’s a strong possibility that they will arrive at a working, predictive model.”

I wouldn’t call it prejudice to exclude the supernatural, which cannot be tested. It’s just good science. If you make something you can’t test part of your scientific theory, then your theory can’t be falsified and it’s simply not science, it’s just “guessing.”

You can call that prejudice if you like, I call it good practice.

 

[balto]

Scientists can already identify simple thoughts by hooking you up to a machine. They’ve even determined that in some cases your brain subconsciously makes decisions a few seconds before you’re aware that a decision has been made.

They may be able to identify sensation and imagination data but that would be all that could be identified. Suppose that a scientist can determine that you are entertaining specific mental images and words. That would give you a finite set of data. It still doesn’t follow that they know what concept you are entertaining because the thinker is the one giving semantic meaning to those states that is impossible for the scientist to know with certainty. Only the thinker can know with certainty. Yes, knowing that you are entertaining such and such mental images may allow you to make a somewhat informed guess, but that is the best you could hope for.

An analogy would be if I gave you a Cartesian plane with a finite set of data points and asked you to tell me what function I am instantiating. It would be impossible to know that with a finite set of data points.

 

[balto]

The Kalam is a metaphysical argument, and as such it carries no real weight. It certainly doesn’t prove the existence of God. So why are atheists wrong to dismiss it? All we ask for is an appropriate set of evidence to support the truth claims of the religious.

I don’t fault atheists for asking for rational explanations and evidence. I think that would be intellectually responsible, but the classical arguments for God are not positivist proofs so it’s not a matter of finding evidence and providing a hypothesis. The Kalam argument is somewhat inferred from science because it requires a beginning of the universe, but even then the beginning is not assumed. Instead it proposes and attempts to prove that infinite past time is logically incoherent. I wasn’t considering the Kalam argument however.

wanstronian:

I think that when you are making such a bold claim as the existence of an omnimax entity that created everything, you need to support the claim with something a bit better than metaphysical prestidigitation and “intuitively correct” premises.

Understood, but it’s really not based on a bold claim at all. It’s based most fundamentally on the observation that any contingent reality has a cause. If it comes into existence, then it has a reason for doing so. This is not controversial at all. The nature of a contingent being precludes its existence otherwise would not be possible for it to not exist. Yet it is possible for contingent realities to not exist. Positing an infinite regress of contingent realities solves nothing because you have not accounted for the existence of anything. Therefore, there must be a reality that has no conditions for existence and grounds the existence of all other realities. There is no scientific finding that could possibly overturn this argument. You would have to identify a flaw in the logical reasoning.

The omni attributes are derived by analyzing what unconditioned Being would entail. Since it grounds the existence of every contingent reality and was not compelled to create them, it has power unlimited. Since it contains no divisions, it is metaphysically simple. Since it unifies all intelligible content of reality, it is omniscient. Since it contains fullness of being by itself and yet created anyway, creation was not performed for its own benefit, so it is omnibenevolent. This is a massive simplification of the arguments but again there is no scientific finding in principle that could overturn any of this. You would have to identify a flaw with a premise or a flaw in the logic.

wanstronian:

Metaphysical arguments do not count as evidence. So you can say, “it’s a metaphysical argument so human ignorance is not a defence,” and we’ll just say, “Ok, then your hypothesis remains unproven in any substantive sense, come back to us when you’ve got something better.”

I’m not sure how one avoids doing metaphysics. Saying that metaphysics is unnecessary because we only need science is making a metaphysical claim that all knowledge is scientific knowledge. Is there a scientific experiment that was constructed that proved that science is the only form of rational inquiry?

 

[polytropos]

The Kalam is a metaphysical argument, and as such it carries no real weight. It certainly doesn’t prove the existence of God. So why are atheists wrong to dismiss it? All we ask for is an appropriate set of evidence to support the truth claims of the religious. Metaphysical arguments do not count as evidence. So you can say, “it’s a metaphysical argument so human ignorance is not a defence,” and we’ll just say, “Ok, then your hypothesis remains unproven in any substantive sense, come back to us when you’ve got something better.”

The argument’s metaphysical basis does seem relevant. Verification and falsification are standards in science, but as general principles of evaluating claims have been out of vogue for decades since the death of logical positivism. “Metaphysical arguments carry no real weight” is a nonverifiable and nonfalsifiable claim. (And, since it is a metaphysical claim, is self-referentially inconsistent.)

If you are making a truth claim, you need to consider the audience you are trying to convince, and give them evidence to their standards, not just evidence that you happen to find convincing.

I don’t think this is necessarily the case. If an evolutionary biologist is presenting to a group of young earth creationists, he is not in the wrong even if he is confident that they will not accept his evidence. Perhaps they are intellectually insulated enough to reject any evidence that would dispute their belief that the earth was created 6,000 years ago. It is not his argument that is a failure. It is just a fact of human dialectic that not all humans (not even all rational humans) will accept a sound argument.

That said, WLC seems to do pretty well in terms of conversion. If one scans the weekly questions on his website, one sees that there are quite a few atheists who appreciate WLC’s arguments, even if they don’t accept them. So perhaps he is giving evidence “to their standards.”

 

[Aloysium]

Scientists can already identify simple thoughts by hooking you up to a machine. They’ve even determined that in some cases your brain subconsciously makes decisions a few seconds before you’re aware that a decision has been made.

Define thought.

 

[tonyrey]

In practice materialists say “scientists are working on it and will eventually find the answer”, thereby demonstrating their prejudice.

The overwhelming success of science is restricted to physical phenomena.

I wouldn’t call it prejudice to exclude the supernatural, which cannot be tested. It’s just good science. If you make something you can’t test part of your scientific theory, then your theory can’t be falsified and it’s simply not science, it’s just “guessing.”

The assumption that science is the sole form of explanation is self-refuting because it implies that science is in principle capable of explaining itself.

You can call that prejudice if you like, I call it good practice.

It is not good practice to overlook the self-destructive implications of materialism.

 

[Oreoracle]

think we can anticipate some people’s subjective experiences (or at least some of them), but I think there are limits to this. We could possibly track what data is entering a person’s nervous system through their optic nerve, say, and predict what is in their visual field. (This would be akin to being able to check the microstate of a camcorder and discern what is in front of its “visual” field.) This does not, however, account for qualia and the way that the presence of such “visual data” in the system amounts to a subjective phenomenal experience.

Whether “qualia” even counts as information or not is in itself debatable. I’m more interested in more mundane things to start with. Does it seem plausible that we may one day predict what one wishes to have for supper, or how one adds two numbers in their head, or which girl a teenage boy is daydreaming about? Again, it doesn’t matter much to me whether we ever get to “experience”, say, colors from another’s point of view. So long as we can predict the colors they are imagining, that should be sufficient.

I suppose the problem is that I don’t think there’s anything to “explain” about subjectivity. There’s no reason to suppose that my experience of a sound and your experience of the same sound differ simply because the former is mine and the latter yours. I don’t see how ownership changes the information involved. It may change the information received if our brains are different, but then that would be observable and subject to science.

I don’t think cognitive science is a very fruitful scientific endeavor, since I don’t think substantial advances will be made in modeling the human intellect.

And this is our fundamental disagreement, I think. Every generation of humans has believed that science would meet its match in their lifetime, and they were wrong. Frankly, there’s no telling what science is capable of. It may turn out that a materialistic view of thought proves more fruitful than the current conception. Psychology currently thinks of the mind in non-materialistic terms, and look at how pitiful it is as a science. Half of it amounts to guesswork. So who really knows that a materialistic view would be less useful? What we do know is that science has a history of eventually ending disputes; metaphysics does not.

I do not think there are many animals for whom immaterial souls would need to be postulated.

But if we take qualia as a phenomenon that merits explanation, then surely the qualia that animals experience must also be explained?

The overwhelming success of science is restricted to physical phenomena.

As I said earlier, you can’t really claim to know what is physical or not on an a priori basis. There was a time when people thought other planets were divine and not physical.

 

[tonyrey]

The overwhelming success of science is restricted to physical phenomena.

Do you believe scientific errors discredit science?

 

[Oreoracle]

Do you believe scientific errors discredit science?

The notion that the other planets were divine and not subject to the physical laws that apply to Earth was not a scientific idea, but a metaphysical one–Aristotle’s, in fact. The scientific method had nothing to do with it.