Refuting the Matrix Argument (Or: Why Stoned College Kids Make Bad Philosophers)

[ddarko]

(Continued from above post…)

Plantinga is defending a litote, the idea that theists are “not irrational”, or are believing according to his particular sense of “warrant”, which is NOT the conventional sense, but something more like “proper function”.

I have a friend Ramesh who considers the reality of Brahma and, Ganesh as divines as “self-evident”. My other friend Joe considers the Christian God “self-evident”. Now what? Do propose an epistemology that just accepts “self-evidence” for conflicting claims? Neither of these men are internally conflicted on that matter. It’s only between them that we understand that “self-evidence” is false indicator in one or both of these guys’ claims.
No, other minds is an idea that stands up very well to evidential evaluation. The idea that we blindly accept whatever people want to assert (and you’ve pegged the needle here in your last post with the most egregious abuse of that kind of license – God as self-evident!) as “true” and that’s the end of the matter is absurd in the strictest sense. It produces absurd outcomes, like Ramesh and Joe both embracing contradictory “truths”. That’s where the nihilism comes in – as soon as you become promiscuous with the idea of “self-evidence”, and if you are affirming God as self-evident, there’s not further to go in terms of self-permissiveness, then all knowledge is destabilized as a result. If we can “know truth” byut just supposing X is true because it seems that way to us, then “true” and “know” just collapse in terms of meaning.

Actually this is the mistake you are making here. I would say God or a higher power is indeed self-evident. Denying God is like denying science. Irrational. So your friend Ramesh is correct in asserting a self evident knowledge of something greater than him-self. I do not disagree with him.

On the other hand, I would disagree with Ramesh’s particular description of this higher power since it leads to some contradictions. As I said once before, one cannot hold self contradictory “truths” as self-evident. But this is an issue of comparative religions and not the point of our debate. I think I would be correct in conceding that which description matches God best is OBVIOUSLY not a self-evident truth. If it was, then God obviously wouldn’t have had to have a plan to “save his people”

Self-evident truths do not lead to nihilism. Ironically the atheist (I don’t mean the leading new atheist these days who seem to have zero logic in their positions) have been trying for centuries to justify objectivity and escape the slide to nihilism in the atheistic view. Now if God is a self-evident truth, you already have justified objectivity. The belief in a God comes with the implication that there is an objective truth. So I see no way of things sliding down to nihilism unless you are ok with accepting contradictory truths as self-evident. I clearly made my point in my last post that this was not the case. If something is contradictory, it can’t be held as a self evident truth.

As a hint, consider a good rule of thumb for “self-evident”. If your denying the proposition causes you to contradict yourself in articulating the denial, you are in good shape.

-TS

If that rule of thumb is indeed true, then you are just explaining to me a self-evdent truth

Whats ironic is that you missed that point entirely

God Bless

 

[Touchstone]

What are you talking about?

You first need certain self evident truths to even describe what constitutes as evidence. You are forgetting this and saying we make a hunch and nature justifies it for us. What nature justifies is your hypothesis (in general terms, the empirical hypothesis). It DOES NOT justify the self evident truths.

Here’s an example based on the tip from above. My percepts are self-evident, as to deny them is to contradict my ability to formulate and send this message you are reading. It is self-contradictory to deny our percepts, because we rely on them to deny someone else’s claim. There’s a logical necessity implicated, and our percepts are implicated in the act of communicating.

We accept these, as we accept any axiom, because it is necessary, but only because it’s necessary, and when it is necessary. This is distinctly at odds with “God exists” as a self-evident truth as I’m not violating any logical predicates in denying that claim, if only provisionally for the purposes of investigation, as I would be in denying my percepts.

A reasoned use of self-evidence simply relies on the necessity of that claim to avoid self-contradiction. Denying one’s percepts in a post on a forum is to contradict oneself - and one’s percepts are self-evident as a product of the posting itself. This is not true of “God exists” or “unicorns exist” or any other such notion regarding other entities’ existence. Other minds may exist, but it’s not logically necessary that they must. It’s a solid conclusion based on the evidence.

You see, if they laugh, it just shows the nature of the intellect and ignorance of todays scientists. Those are indeed implicitly accepted truths by science.

What implicitly accepted truths are you talking about? Science stakes out a metaphysical claim that reality is real and to some degree, intelligible. It accepts nor even recognizes that what anyone claims is “self-evident” is the truth.

I am also not talking about justifying the premise here. I am talking about the justification to have a premise in the first place. These things are defined by self-evident truths.

A premise can be sound or unsound – depending on the evidential basis for it, or alternatively, its inescapable necessity. But where you draw this idea of “justification” for a premise, I can’t fathom. If my premise is “DNA is a double helix”, and I start with this because of, say, an LSD trip I just took, what do I need to do to justify JUST HAVING THIS STARTING POINT? I expect your answers must supply some set of self-evident truths, given what you’ve said.

Principle of contradiction for an example is such a self evident truth. If you are claiming that evidence proves it, that is a sign of your incorrect thinking. You use it in gaining evidence by invoking the principle of identity that comes with it. So to say that evidence proves self evident truths (or hunches in your case) are just logical errors on your part.

Well, we can’t process propositions without the law of non-contradiction, so it’s an axiom in that enterprise, it’s necessary, self-evident. But this is the very point I was making above, and is starkly at odds with the far out suggestion that ‘God exists’ falls into this category. If one supposes “God exists” qualifies, the principle of self-evidence cannot be necessity or non-contradiction, because the denial of God’s existence isn’t at all problematic in that sense.

One might as well say “unicorns exist, as they are self-evident to me”. And maybe follow it up with “and belief in them is necessary, as you couldn’t think logically or speak if unicorns didn’t exist”, or some such.

There is no demand for circularity. I am just showing you the fact that due to circularity, those things cannot be proved by evidence. But I agree with you that Scientific method is TRUE. I do so because I accept it as self-evident.

OK, from this we can certify that you are NOT subscribing to the basic qualifications applied to “self-evidence” – the necessity of their truth, the inherent contradictions that attend their denial. For there is no necessity that the Scientific Method is “true”, and that’s overlooking the problem that “true” for the Scientific Method doesn’t even make sense – it’s a method, not a true/false proposition. What you imagine qualifies self-evidence you don’t say, but it’s clear not the measure used in science, philosophy and analytics. Maybe it would help to point out, for example, Aquinas’ clarity on this very point? Would you accept correction more readily from him? See Q2 of “God and the Divine Attributes” in Summa, for example.

At any rate, self-evident here is apparently, “whatever occurs to me as true”. This is epistemic nihilism, as what occurs to you will be at odds with what occurs to someone else as true, thus creating a logical contradiction between you.

Not because of proof. To say that one accepts Science because it has evidence for it is logically incorrect and meaningless. You only have evidence for scientific hypothesis. Not for Science.

Science is hypotheses subjected to empirical testing. And if science’s metaphysical guesses are incorrect, that reality is real and in some measure intelligible, it should expect to make no headway with its hypotheses and models. The evidence, however, strongly suggests that the scientists’ gamble has paid off big time.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

ddarko:

Aah, well this is rather unfortunate that you have not heard of this view. The truth is that under atheism, there is no justification for any objective values. I would suggest you read some books by Nietzsche to understand this view better.

I’m familiar. I have a bunch of atheists I know and talk to who identify themselves as “objectivists” (either Rand or Pleikoff permutations), and here you have a framework which I don’t subscribe to, but which is thoroughly atheist, and if anything, overly obsessed with objectivity. Nietzshce’s observation was that in the absence of any god, man was the source of moral values. That neither affirms nor denies the objectivity of any values that would obtain as determined by our biology.

More importantly, though, justification is a non-starter for ‘objective’. If a state of affairs exists objectively – independently of the will or desire of any and all minds – justification isn’t even a meaningful concept. Reality is what it is. An atom doesn’t “justify itself as an atom”. Where a value obtains objectively, by definition it needs no justification, and justification is not even a coherent requirement.

Just to refute one point you made, something being hard-wired to the physiology does not necessarily make it objective.

If it obtains independently of any will or mental preference, it is necessarily objective. By definition.

What is the basis to make such a claim? This is what Nietzsche was getting at. We are not much different in our physiology from animals. Yet we don’t rape each other like animals do.

We don’t? I can provide links, if needed (unfortunately). This is a particularly curious response!

So physiology does not say “how something should be”. It simply says that this is how it is. Thus, physiology is not a justification for objectivity.

(Continued … )

To the extent our physiology determines our values, those values obtain objectively. By definition, unless you suppose our minds structure our DNA, and formulate our physiology?

For example, if we suppose that “gratuitous violence”, witnessed beatings where the victim has no ostensible basis for being beaten violently, is objectively distressing, the source of natural outrage, we should see physiological and neurological responses that reflect this, across all humans, from the earliest of ages where they are capable of being aware of what is happening, and across cultures, etc. And in fact, there are many sources of evidence that support just this idea. In that case “gratuitous violence = bad” would be the verbalization of a natural, objectively occurring reaction in humans. An objective value.

If we find cases where that the individual has no such reaction, where the three year old is not distressed by witnessing such things, we would have grounds to say that is NOT an objective value for that kid.

Either way, to the extent the value obtains independently of the mind, it’s an objective value.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Actually this is the mistake you are making here. I would say God or a higher power is indeed self-evident. Denying God is like denying science. Irrational.

It is very much like denying science, denying God’s existence – neither require self-contradiction in the denial. So neither is self-evident.

I have no idea what you mean by “irrational” here, other than as a substitute for “something I don’t agree with”. Maybe you could explain what you mean by ‘irrational’ there and what is irrational about denying the Scientific Method (whatever that even means).

So your friend Ramesh is correct in asserting a self evident knowledge of something greater than him-self. I do not disagree with him.

That wasn’t his assertion, and if you read it again, you will see that’s not Ramesh’s “self-evident truth”. His self-evident truth is NOT “something greater than myself exists”. Ramesh’s version is “Ganesh and Brahma are deities”. So, is Ramesh’s truth a truth or not, in your view. Per you words here, it must be, because he claimed it as self-evident!!

QED!

On the other hand, I would disagree with Ramesh’s particular description of this higher power since it leads to some contradictions.

On what grounds? He said it was self-evident. That’s the end of the matter, right? It’s manifestly NOT subject to the test “is this proposition inescapable, such that I can’t deny it without contradicting myself?” – see your earlier posts for all the evidence against that as your criterion. So Ramesh just claims it to be self-evident, and mirabile dictu, it’s a truth! And your epistemology collapses, because Joe makes a contradictory claim, and now your epistemology must accept contradictions, because they both claim “self-evident” truth status. Bingo, instant nihilism.

As I said once before, one cannot hold self contradictory “truths” as self-evident.

If you suggest that “God exists” is a self-evident truth, you’ve committed to precisely that, unavoidably. Someone else will claim otherwise, “self-evidently”, and now you have epistemic meldown. All because you fail to understand what qualifies a self-evident truth – logical necessity.

But this is an issue of comparative religions and not the point of our debate.

What the disagreement is over is entirely irrelevant. It could be about who the 16th President was, and it doesn’t change the point, which is the point at issue here, that if self-evidence is NOT strictly constrained to logical necessity, it corrupts the entire epistemology it gets attached to.

I think I would be correct in conceding that which description matches God best is OBVIOUSLY not a self-evident truth. If it was, then God obviously wouldn’t have had to have a plan to “save his people”

But the point is, in your model, anyone can claim anything they want as self-evident, once logical necessity is thrown out. It’s not logically necessary for Science to be “true”. To deny that is not to contradict oneself in the least. So you’ve clearly gone off the reservation here and are helping yourself to whatever you fancy and blessing it with the term “truth”. There’s a wicked backlash on that move, though, because if you can do what you’re doing, so can everyone else, and as a result, no one knows NOTHIN’. Knowledge has become a bitter euphemism at that point.

Self-evident truths do not lead to nihilism.

Correct, but only if we understand that they obtain by necessity, rather than “well it just seems that way to me”.

Ironically the atheist (I don’t mean the leading new atheist these days who seem to have zero logic in their positions) have been trying for centuries to justify objectivity and escape the slide to nihilism in the atheistic view. Now if God is a self-evident truth, you already have justified objectivity.

No, because not only is that not a self-evident proposition – it’s not logically necessary, and there’s no logical self-contradiction made in denying it – but it’s a wholly subjective claim if it is offered without objective evidence. Making the subjective claim “God is self-evident” does nothing to establish anything objectively.

The belief in a God comes with the implication that there is an objective truth.

Yes, but if that belief in God is unsound in the first place, the implication has no weight at all. If I say “unicorns tell me that objective moral values stem from the Grand Unicorn’s dicta”, have I objectively established the cosmic authority of the Grand Unicorn if I claim “unicorns exist, self-evidently”?

Certainly not. My “implication” hinges completely on the grounds for my claim that “unicorns exist”. If that’s bogus, the implication isn’t an issue to even consider.

So I see no way of things sliding down to nihilism unless you are ok with accepting contradictory truths as self-evident.

I’m the one insisting on logical necessity as the criterion. You are the one who supposes “Science is true [sic]” and “God exists” are self-evident, propositions which unavoidably introduce logical contradictions when someone else negates them with their magic “self-evidentializer” you are waving around.

I clearly made my point in my last post that this was not the case. If something is contradictory, it can’t be held as a self evident truth.

Then you are contradicting yourself. “God exists” cannot be a self-evident truth, then, as to accept it as such is NECESSARILY to accept its contradiction at the same time.

If that rule of thumb is indeed true, then you are just explaining to me a self-evdent truth

Whats ironic is that you missed that point entirely

God Bless

Again, more evidence that “self-evident truth” is just a term for “something that strikes my fancy” in your view.

-TS

 

[ddarko]

Here’s an example based on the tip from above. My percepts are self-evident, as to deny them is to contradict my ability to formulate and send this message you are reading. It is self-contradictory to deny our percepts, because we rely on them to deny someone else’s claim. There’s a logical necessity implicated, and our percepts are implicated in the act of communicating.

I think you are once again going around in circles. Even to say that logically necessary things must be accepted as true is a self evident claim. Secondly, it is not self contradictory to deny your percepts unless you believe that principle of contradiction and principle of identity is TRUE. The problem here with your argument is that you haven’t thought it through to its entirety and somehow failing to see that you are using self-evident truths.

If you really think things true and question how each part of your argument comes in to place, you will notice that you do take self evident truths like principle of contradiction to be TRUE first in order to make your argument/claim. So when you gave me the tip earlier, you were making a what could be called a self evident claim (lets put aside the fact that its self contradictory here for the sake of this argument). Do you see the irony?

We accept these, as we accept any axiom, because it is necessary, but only because it’s necessary, and when it is necessary. This is distinctly at odds with “God exists” as a self-evident truth as I’m not violating any logical predicates in denying that claim, if only provisionally for the purposes of investigation, as I would be in denying my percepts.

Again, I remind you that fact that accepting logically necessary things is a self evident truth.

Now about God, I think you fail to see the necessity since as you stated further down in your post, you don’t see why objectivity does not exist under atheism. Now I made a counter argument to you as to why biological make up does not justify objectivity. But you seem to have simply given me the reply as “I don’t see why there can be no objective values on the basis of biology”. As I explained to you, there are species with the same biological make up that behaves differently than humans.

Now if there is no God, you have no basis for holding anything objectively true. Why should one care about the truth more than a lie? Why is knowledge important? Why is it bad to rape someone? Now you and I can come up with nice subjective opinions. One might say lets all agree to do that to avoid pain (A very famous one). But the problem is, why should we avoid pain? What is the grounds to justify avoiding pain? In fact, pain is a necessity at times if we want to hold other truths like “we should toil for progress”. At the same time, some cultures do encourage pain. They think it makes one stronger and therefore is good. So avoiding pain can’t clearly be used as the grounds for objective values. I could go on and on taking down the common efforts to justify objectivity without no God but I think you could probably do this yourself. Now if you still want to hold objective values, then it does contradict your position to say there is no God. Thus, God is a logical necessity.

A reasoned use of self-evidence simply relies on the necessity of that claim to avoid self-contradiction. Denying one’s percepts in a post on a forum is to contradict oneself - and one’s percepts are self-evident as a product of the posting itself. This is not true of “God exists” or “unicorns exist” or any other such notion regarding other entities’ existence. Other minds may exist, but it’s not logically necessary that they must. It’s a solid conclusion based on the evidence.

Well Unicorns exists is certainly not self evident and I am not arguing for it. On the other hand, every culture that has existed has always held that there is something greater than them (i.e. God). So I would argue that God is self-evident.

“Other minds exist” cannot be proven by evidence. You can take apart a human person and say “yea he has the same anatomy as me” but you cannot really say if he is a person by evidence. I think your idea that there is evidence comes from a lack of exposure to this area of the philosophy of the mind. As such, I don’t think there is any point in discussing this specific issue further since I think there are other metaphysical truths that you would have to clearly accept without evidence. The empirical method for an example is a truth we accept without evidence. To say we have evidence for the empirical method is circular. The empirical method defines what is evidence. So yes there are truths that are self evident.

Secondly, you state “A reasoned use of self-evidence simply relies on the necessity of that claim to avoid self-contradiction”. But here once again you forget that you have already accepted principle of contradiction and principle of identity which are self-evident truths.

Thirdly, I would argue that accepting other minds exists is a logical necessity if you adopt a certain world view. For an example, if the other person exists, you treat them like persons. You believe that they have to be accounted for as persons. Thus, in order to be consistent with your feelings and actions, it does become a logical necessity to accept other minds exist. Now if you think everything is fake, no other minds exists, then your actions would reflect it. You will just do everything for your preservation and have a more utilitarian perspective. So basically, depending on the view you have, it does become a logical necessity.

(Continued … )

 

[ddarko]

(Continued from above… )

What implicitly accepted truths are you talking about? Science stakes out a metaphysical claim that reality is real and to some degree, intelligible. It accepts nor even recognizes that what anyone claims is “self-evident” is the truth.

Aaah, yes, I am starting to think that you might be one of the scientist you mentioned that would laugh.

Science does have self evident truths. The best example is the scientific method it-self. There is no evidence that the scientific method is true. Now keep in mind, the evidence for scientific theorems prove that the theorems work according to the notion of the scientific method. But it does not provide any evidence for the validity of the scientific method it-self. To say that our discoveries prove the scientific method is FALSE. Our discoveries prove the scientific theorems/ theories work according to the scientific method. Most scientist nowadays miss this point.

A premise can be sound or unsound – depending on the evidential basis for it, or alternatively, its inescapable necessity. But where you draw this idea of “justification” for a premise, I can’t fathom. If my premise is “DNA is a double helix”, and I start with this because of, say, an LSD trip I just took, what do I need to do to justify JUST HAVING THIS STARTING POINT? I expect your answers must supply some set of self-evident truths, given what you’ve said.

You see once again, I reiterate my point. Its not whether the premise is self-evident, its about why we should have a premise in the first place and what constitutes a premise. So in this case, the scientific method is the self evident truth. Your scientific premise has no reason to be justified since you are following the scientific method of inquiry to validate whether it is scientifically sound. So you are correct in asserting that the premise for a scientific theorem does not need proof. Its the starting point. BUT, this is because you already accepted the scientific theorem due to it being a self evident truth. I think you are confusing premises here with truths.

Well, we can’t process propositions without the law of non-contradiction, so it’s an axiom in that enterprise, it’s necessary, self-evident. But this is the very point I was making above, and is starkly at odds with the far out suggestion that ‘God exists’ falls into this category. If one supposes “God exists” qualifies, the principle of self-evidence cannot be necessity or non-contradiction, because the denial of God’s existence isn’t at all problematic in that sense.

Well this is once again because you have a notion that you should only consider as self evident things that you cannot deny without contradicting yourself. But this is obviously erroneous since you accept the principle of self contradiction not using the same basis. Because to accept the principle of self contradiction based on “I cannot deny it without contradicting myself” already presumes “principle of contradiction” to be true. Do you see what I am saying now? Your criteria for self evident truths is self contradictory as I mentioned sometime earlier and what I said right now is the reason why.

One might as well say “unicorns exist, as they are self-evident to me”. And maybe follow it up with “and belief in them is necessary, as you couldn’t think logically or speak if unicorns didn’t exist”, or some such.

Now I see your problem. I think you are afraid that accepting self evident truths can lead to a slippery slope of accepting everything. Now this is obviously not true. In fact, it limits the truths that you can accept pretty fast. For an example, the moment you accept principle of contradiction, you cannot accept negations of truths you already accepted. The moment you accepted God, you cannot deny that truth it-self is objective and etc etc. So your fear in this case is rather unwarranted.

Now as I said before about unicorns, its not the same as God.

OK, from this we can certify that you are NOT subscribing to the basic qualifications applied to “self-evidence” – the necessity of their truth, the inherent contradictions that attend their denial. For there is no necessity that the Scientific Method is “true”, and that’s overlooking the problem that “true” for the Scientific Method doesn’t even make sense – it’s a method, not a true/false proposition. What you imagine qualifies self-evidence you don’t say, but it’s clear not the measure used in science, philosophy and analytics. Maybe it would help to point out, for example, Aquinas’ clarity on this very point? Would you accept correction more readily from him? See Q2 of “God and the Divine Attributes” in Summa, for example.

Ok how is the truth of the scientific method not necessary? Are you trying to say that we are just playing around here spending millions on research on something that is not even true? As far as I can see, anyone who believes in scientific knowledge needs the scientific method to be true by necessity.

So no, me and Aquinas don’t disagree.

At any rate, self-evident here is apparently, “whatever occurs to me as true”. This is epistemic nihilism, as what occurs to you will be at odds with what occurs to someone else as true, thus creating a logical contradiction between you.

No, you are mistaking subjectivism with self evident truths. Self evident truths are what you call obvious to people in general. And as I said before, it doesn’t lead to nihilism. In fact, self evident truths are a necessity for epistemology.

(Continued … )

 

[ddarko]

(Continued from above … )

Science is hypotheses subjected to empirical testing. And if science’s metaphysical guesses are incorrect, that reality is real and in some measure intelligible, it should expect to make no headway with its hypotheses and models. The evidence, however, strongly suggests that the scientists’ gamble has paid off big time.
-TS

Once again, I think this is where your problem lies. You are missing the point that scientific success proves that the scientific theorems have been scientifically correct. It does not prove the scientific method itself is correct. To say that Science can prove itself using science is circular logic. Many fall in to this logical error by thinking all the scientific success proves the scientific method is correct/best etc. Now if you take the time to understand this key point, I think my position will become crystal clear to you

 

[ddarko]

(Continued from above … )

It is very much like denying science, denying God’s existence – neither require self-contradiction in the denial. So neither is self-evident.

I think I addressed the problem with our notion of self evident truths. So I think this has been addressed.

I have no idea what you mean by “irrational” here, other than as a substitute for “something I don’t agree with”. Maybe you could explain what you mean by ‘irrational’ there and what is irrational about denying the Scientific Method (whatever that even means).

Irrational means not logically consistent. If one denies the scientific method, then one must forfeit the scientific knowledge. No sane person would. Similarly, denying God requires you to forfeit any objective values since there is no grounding.

That wasn’t his assertion, and if you read it again, you will see that’s not Ramesh’s “self-evident truth”. His self-evident truth is NOT “something greater than myself exists”. Ramesh’s version is “Ganesh and Brahma are deities”. So, is Ramesh’s truth a truth or not, in your view. Per you words here, it must be, because he claimed it as self-evident!!

QED!

Slow down, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. You are missing the essence of Ramesh’s claim. We obviously know that Ganesh and Brahma are not self evident. Or you and I would grasp the concept and know who they are as obvious. Do you? On the other hand, God (something greater than myself) as a concept has been self evident to nearly every human culture that existed.

Also, while objective values necessitate a God, it does not say if its Ganesh or someone else. It just necessitates the concept of a God. But as I said, how to pick the right God is a different issue. You are first finding it hard to grasp that a God exists

So your proof has not unfortunately demonstrated anything.

On what grounds? He said it was self-evident. That’s the end of the matter, right? It’s manifestly NOT subject to the test “is this proposition inescapable, such that I can’t deny it without contradicting myself?” – see your earlier posts for all the evidence against that as your criterion. So Ramesh just claims it to be self-evident, and mirabile dictu, it’s a truth! And your epistemology collapses, because Joe makes a contradictory claim, and now your epistemology must accept contradictions, because they both claim “self-evident” truth status. Bingo, instant nihilism.

Aah, yes but thankfully I don’t have the same view you do about what is self evident. I think by the time you reach this point of my reply, that much should be clear to you.

If you suggest that “God exists” is a self-evident truth, you’ve committed to precisely that, unavoidably. Someone else will claim otherwise, “self-evidently”, and now you have epistemic meldown. All because you fail to understand what qualifies a self-evident truth – logical necessity.

It should be clear by now that you don’t go down this slipper slope.

What the disagreement is over is entirely irrelevant. It could be about who the 16th President was, and it doesn’t change the point, which is the point at issue here, that if self-evidence is NOT strictly constrained to logical necessity, it corrupts the entire epistemology it gets attached to.

Same reply as above.

But the point is, in your model, anyone can claim anything they want as self-evident, once logical necessity is thrown out. It’s not logically necessary for Science to be “true”. To deny that is not to contradict oneself in the least. So you’ve clearly gone off the reservation here and are helping yourself to whatever you fancy and blessing it with the term “truth”. There’s a wicked backlash on that move, though, because if you can do what you’re doing, so can everyone else, and as a result, no one knows NOTHIN’. Knowledge has become a bitter euphemism at that point.

Now all this typing could have been saved if you simply asked me if I denied “logical necessity” which I don’t. At the same time I don’t hold the narrow view that you do that logical necessity is the only criteria since its self contradictory to hold that view. How can I hold what is logical without first accepting by virtue of self evident truth the principle of contradiction?

(Continued … )

 

[ddarko]

(Continued from above … )

Correct, but only if we understand that they obtain by necessity, rather than “well it just seems that way to me”.

Not necessarily and I think I have made it clear.

No, because not only is that not a self-evident proposition – it’s not logically necessary, and there’s no logical self-contradiction made in denying it – but it’s a wholly subjective claim if it is offered without objective evidence. Making the subjective claim “God is self-evident” does nothing to establish anything objectively.

Well I already attacked your narrow view of self evident truths. So I leave this for now.

God establishes that there is objectivity in the first place

Yes, but if that belief in God is unsound in the first place, the implication has no weight at all. If I say “unicorns tell me that objective moral values stem from the Grand Unicorn’s dicta”, have I objectively established the cosmic authority of the Grand Unicorn if I claim “unicorns exist, self-evidently”?

Certainly not. My “implication” hinges completely on the grounds for my claim that “unicorns exist”. If that’s bogus, the implication isn’t an issue to even consider.

Ha? If you say that Unicorns justify objective values, then you would have just used a different name to describe God. I am not sure what you are getting at?

So I see no way of things sliding down to nihilism unless you are ok with accepting contradictory truths as self-evident.

There is no slide to nihilism. You are being ironically so conservative that I am starting to wonder how you are atheist.

Then you are contradicting yourself. “God exists” cannot be a self-evident truth, then, as to accept it as such is NECESSARILY to accept its contradiction at the same time.

What are you talking about? To accept God is to accept its negation at the same time??? I am confused. You are telling me you can do the very thing I said you cannot do

Again, more evidence that “self-evident truth” is just a term for “something that strikes my fancy” in your view.
-TS

I am not sure what this sentence means. So I can’t comment much on this

God Bless

 

[ddarko]

(Continued from above … )

I’m familiar. I have a bunch of atheists I know and talk to who identify themselves as “objectivists” (either Rand or Pleikoff permutations), and here you have a framework which I don’t subscribe to, but which is thoroughly atheist, and if anything, overly obsessed with objectivity. Nietzshce’s observation was that in the absence of any god, man was the source of moral values. That neither affirms nor denies the objectivity of any values that would obtain as determined by our biology.

First, are you familiar or not? You said you weren’t in your previous post.

Secondly, biology can’t give you objectivity. Biology tells you how things are. Not how things ought to be.

More importantly, though, justification is a non-starter for ‘objective’. If a state of affairs exists objectively – independently of the will or desire of any and all minds – justification isn’t even a meaningful concept. Reality is what it is. An atom doesn’t “justify itself as an atom”. Where a value obtains objectively, by definition it needs no justification, and justification is not even a coherent requirement.

If it obtains independently of any will or mental preference, it is necessarily objective. By definition.

Ok now you are really misunderstanding. The point is that if there is no God, there is no reason to hold that there is a way things ought to be. In other words no objective values. Where do you ground these objective values? In nature? What you said really makes no sense.

We don’t? I can provide links, if needed (unfortunately). This is a particularly curious response!

So humans rape each other all the time and its considered ok? You must be from a pretty crazy country.

To the extent our physiology determines our values, those values obtain objectively. By definition, unless you suppose our minds structure our DNA, and formulate our physiology?

Aah, yes but our DNA does not tell us that raping is objectively wrong. Our DNA does not tell us that murdering someone is wrong. Our DNA does not tell us that doing what our DNA tells us is what is RIGHT. Do you see my point?

For example, if we suppose that “gratuitous violence”, witnessed beatings where the victim has no ostensible basis for being beaten violently, is objectively distressing, the source of natural outrage, we should see physiological and neurological responses that reflect this, across all humans, from the earliest of ages where they are capable of being aware of what is happening, and across cultures, etc. And in fact, there are many sources of evidence that support just this idea. In that case “gratuitous violence = bad” would be the verbalization of a natural, objectively occurring reaction in humans. An objective value.

I am sorry, why is causing a specific neurological/physiological response wrong than another? They are all physiological and neurological responses. It is our minds that discriminate between one reaction over the other is it not? So it can’t obviously be the basis for objective values because our minds have already decided which reaction is good and which is bad

If we find cases where that the individual has no such reaction, where the three year old is not distressed by witnessing such things, we would have grounds to say that is NOT an objective value for that kid.

I think I answered this above.

Either way, to the extent the value obtains independently of the mind, it’s an objective value.

-TS

I think you should really think this one through. It appears to me that you are a person who believes in objective values unlike many hardcore atheists. So I think if you really spend sometime thinking about this one, you really might see why atheism is not compatible with your view of objective values. Nature is really not a proper grounding. Just keep asking why would you consider one value wrong and another right.

This might be an interesting debate for you as well.
You will be in my prayers my friend.

I unfortunately would not be able to reply back to your posts for sometime since I will be busy with a paper for an upcoming conference.

God Bless

 

[Betterave]

First you quoted me:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Betterave
Further, your claim, “all claims require evidence if you want to know that your claims match the world,” is trivially circular, since it refers to “the world,” which in your view appears to mean nothing other than “that which is evident.” Hence your claim is equivalent to: “all claims require evidence if you want to know that your claims match the evidence.”

This claim is not inductively justifed, as you claim, on the basis of its having proven to be “consistently reliable.” The only way in which it is justified is by virtue of the fact that it is self-evident.

Then you went off on this ramble:

Not Anti-Theist, he can answer for himself, but this is an important point for me to make, I think; this comes up all the time, the “circular argument” thingy. Science, and evidence-based inquiry/analysis, needs properly ZERO justification. It’s a gamble, a bet, a metaphysical what-if, a research program. As such, it needs no “other half of the circle”, any more than a scientific hypothesis needs to prove itself before it can be considered worthy of being proved.

If evidence and empirical testing of the extramental world are NOT amenable to modeling and development of performing theories and principles, we shall not expect those models to perform – why would they? There’s no correlation, no isomorphism, no interdependence if so. But if we can develop models that perform, and empirically, it very much looks like we can, and have then we congratulate ourselves smugly and pat ourselves on the make for making a shrewd metaphysical bet.

But it’s just a bet, call it a hunch if you like. It needs no justification whatsoever because it’s vetted by testing and empirical performance. This is the triumph of science over the insular pedantics of “classic philosophy” or speculative metaphysics.

So the “circular argument” thingy signals a fundamental misunderstanding of how science, and evidence-based analysis establish themselves. A priori justification is for suckers. to put it crudely. Make your bet, and let’s see how the external word treats it in terms of performance.

And importantly, we can just shrug at laments of "what about the ‘deeper truths’, you know, the really profound metapshysical truths where evidence doesn’t apply?’. Meh! What of it, we have real models that really perform, or don’t. This is where the real action is for minds seeking knowledge. There’s plenty of deep and profound questions inside that perimeter that we’ve made very little headway on for any who are determined to be “knowledge soldiers of the super-profound”.

At no point do you address what I wrote (I was making a rather specific point, in case you didn’t notice), so why did you quote me? Was this based on some kind of ZERO-justification-needed-‘hypothesis’ on your part (e.g., “if I repeat the same lame rhetoric often enough, it will begin to sound convincing”)? Meh! You appear not to have the first clue about how science really works. Hypotheses are not considered within a scientific framework unless there is some justification for doing so. This is true on multiple levels and is perfectly obvious - for example, according to your own view, science is the search for performing models and is therefore justified by the desirablilty of finding performing models - you just failed to notice that it means that your claim: science, and evidence-based inquiry/analysis, needs properly ZERO justification, is obviously false. Your meaningless abstract assertions about ‘performance’ as the arbiter of ‘the reality of reality’, therefore, blah blah blah, QED, are just as meaningless and unconvincing as they were eight months ago. Anyway, go ahead and take another shot at reformulating your view in a way that doesn’t contradict itself.

 

[Touchstone]

I think you are once again going around in circles. Even to say that logically necessary things must be accepted as true is a self evident claim. Secondly, it is not self contradictory to deny your percepts unless you believe that principle of contradiction and principle of identity is TRUE. The problem here with your argument is that you haven’t thought it through to its entirety and somehow failing to see that you are using self-evident truths.

That self-evident truths exist isn’t controversial at all. It’s “whatever strikes my fancy” as “self-evident truth” that’s controversial here. See my comments on the undeniability of my percepts if I’m going to deny them to you. It’s self-evident, logically necessary.

This isn’t the case for you, as you’ve shown with the wanton assortment of “self-evident truths” you’ve proposed. Using self-evident truths is not at issue, it’s the carte blanche you are advocating for the term that’s controversial, and annihilates knowledge to the extent it is embraced.

If you really think things true and question how each part of your argument comes in to place, you will notice that you do take self evident truths like principle of contradiction to be TRUE first in order to make your argument/claim.

I’ve not said otherwise. I’ve just got an epistemic principle at work in using them though, which is the distinction between us at this point so far. Something that “appears to be true” is not the same as a “self-evident truth”, and confusion over this nicely explains your posts, and the points of contention, here.

So when you gave me the tip earlier, you were making a what could be called a self evident claim (lets put aside the fact that its self contradictory here for the sake of this argument). Do you see the irony?

No, because it’s not a necessary proposition. There is no logical contradiction in denying that self-evident truths have those properties. You, in fact deny this yourself when you suggest “God exists” is a self-evident truth, proving that my claim was deniable. I think you’re quite mistaken, but there is no logical contradicting in denying it.

Again, I remind you that fact that accepting logically necessary things is a self evident truth.

That has never been at issue. Perhaps there is some confusion on what “logically necessary” means. Given the “self-evident truths” you’ve offered, that must be the problem. Denying God’s existence does not entail a logical contradiction. I’m not contradicting myself in denying that. Ergo, it’s not a self-evident truth, and cannot be. It just gets labeled that, perhaps, as an attempt at a “pass” from evidential scrutiny.

Now about God, I think you fail to see the necessity since as you stated further down in your post, you don’t see why objectivity does not exist under atheism. Now I made a counter argument to you as to why biological make up does not justify objectivity. But you seem to have simply given me the reply as “I don’t see why there can be no objective values on the basis of biology”. As I explained to you, there are species with the same biological make up that behaves differently than humans.

None of this speaks to the logical necessity of God’s existence. If “God exists” is a self-evident truth, then I must necessarily be introducing a self-contradiction in saying “I deny God’s existence”. But no such contradiction obtains. Remember the percept example. I cannot deny your (or my) claim that ‘percepts exist’, because the act of denying them logically depends on those very percepts.

Here is the stark difference between a necessary logical predicate and… something you suppose you’d like to be true. Both have their place, but these are not the same concept.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

ddarko:

Now if there is no God, you have no basis for holding anything objectively true.

Well, that’s a tempting statement to challenge, but let’s keep to the point – this doesn’t establish any logical contradiction in denying God’s existence. Even if we assume, arguendo, that your statement is true, there is no logical contradiction in denying God’s existence. It would just be subjective, false claim if one said something was “objectively true”. False <> logically contradictory!

Why should one care about the truth more than a lie? Why is knowledge important? Why is it bad to rape someone? Now you and I can come up with nice subjective opinions.

How about it’s imperative for survival? And that is not our choice, we’re just born with the biology we inherit. The world operates as it does, whether we like it or understand it or not, and if the natural optimization for natural resources interacting are “visual acuity” succeeds in survival/propagation, that is what tends to flourish. Objectively – irrespective of any mind/will.

It’s not an opinion at that point, subjective or no. It’s just physics in action. If rape is destructive to species survival at some level, beyond that level it will be punished by the environment, objectively, and “offenders” won’t propagate as efficiently as others.

But that’s a diversion, here, really. None of this, either goes toward the logical contradiction entailed by denying God’s existence.

One might say lets all agree to do that to avoid pain (A very famous one). But the problem is, why should we avoid pain?

We canot do otherwise. It is a biological imperative. Take your hand, and stick it into an open flame. Tell me how long you can keep your hand in the open flame. There is your answer. We are hardwired to avoid such pain, if we can. Our brain stem takes over subconsciously and triggers reflexive responses that overrule any higher level desire to burn our hand. Try it if you don’t believe me.

What is the grounds to justify avoiding pain? In fact, pain is a necessity at times if we want to hold other truths like “we should toil for progress”. At the same time, some cultures do encourage pain.

Sure, not a problem, here.

They think it makes one stronger and therefore is good. So avoiding pain can’t clearly be used as the grounds for objective values. I could go on and on taking down the common efforts to justify objectivity without no God but I think you could probably do this yourself. Now if you still want to hold objective values, then it does contradict your position to say there is no God. Thus, God is a logical necessity.

That seems a perfect non-sequitur. How does introducing God even help the idea of objective reality? It can’t do anything but diminish the idea, or invalidate it completely. Remember that the Christian God, as omnipotent creator, thus cast the world as a product of his will. That is the definition of subjectivity. Reality, in the Christian view, is perfectly subjective, a product of the will of God. An objective reality isn’t dependent on any will or mind.

Oops! That’s a different thread, perhaps.

Well Unicorns exists is certainly not self evident and I am not arguing for it.

Doesn’t matter. Given your rules here, anyone can argue for it, and you have no basis to resist it, because “self-evident truth” doesn’t depend on logical contradictions inherent in its denial. It’s wide open, babay, and if I claim “unicorns exist, self-evident”, I get the brass ring of truth, just like you do, with “God exists”. Instant paradox, and your epistemology comes crashing down.

On the other hand, every culture that has existed has always held that there is something greater than them (i.e. God). So I would argue that God is self-evident.

Uh, you are citing evidence(“every culture”) now to support your claims of “self-evidence”? And your last statement there is a textbook case of a self-refuting statement. If you are arguing for something, it cannot be “self-evident”, as a “self-evident truth” simply must be true, without argument, as it is necessary to avoid logical self-contradiction.

-TS*

 

[Touchstone]

ddarko:

“Other minds exist” cannot be proven by evidence.

Proof is a nonsense word, here. Evidence doesn’t admit of certainty. But it does admit of performance, better performance or not, with respect to other, competing ideas. And here, the idea performs much better than any known alternative, in light of the evidence.

That other minds exist can be denied without logical contradiction, and this has been denied as such for centuries. It’s not a logically necessary truth. It’s a practically important truth, but that is a much different idea, epistemically speaking.

You can take apart a human person and say “yea he has the same anatomy as me” but you cannot really say if he is a person by evidence.

That’s the only way I can think of to establish that proposition. How would you reach that conclusion? Don’t tell me: Unicorns exist! I mean, “other minds exist”! Just because I think they do…

I think your idea that there is evidence comes from a lack of exposure to this area of the philosophy of the mind. As such, I don’t think there is any point in discussing this specific issue further since I think there are other metaphysical truths that you would have to clearly accept without evidence.

Suit yourself. I wonder what would distinguish a “metaphysical truth” from a “metaphysical untruth” for you? Given metaphysical proposition X, what adjudicates it’s truth or falsehood?

The empirical method for an example is a truth we accept without evidence.

No. If the world were such that empirical methods were ineffective to our goals, we just wouldn’t use them. It’s not logically necessary that empirical analysis proves effective. It just happens to be the case, so far as we can tell.

To say we have evidence for the empirical method is circular. The empirical method defines what is evidence. So yes there are truths that are self evident.

It’s not circular to say that a proposition judged on its own terms, using its own internal logic is consistent. That just shows internal consistency. Think of the reverse case: if evidence didn’t work as a performative way to build models, we’d rightly criticize it as failing on its own terms. As it is, it just succeeds on its own terms.

Secondly, you state “A reasoned use of self-evidence simply relies on the necessity of that claim to avoid self-contradiction”. But here once again you forget that you have already accepted principle of contradiction and principle of identity which are self-evident truths.

Ayiyi. Please see all the comments I’ve made this far regarding the necessity of self-evident truths. Percepts, remember that? Axioms are good – this is necessity. Passing off speculative musings that entail no logical contradictions in their denial (“God exist”) as axioms is a problem.

Thirdly, I would argue that accepting other minds exists is a logical necessity if you adopt a certain world view. For an example, if the other person exists, you treat them like persons.

This would be a practical imperative, if not a necessity. Not a logical necessity. There’s no logical contradiction in denying that other minds exist, and then behaving as if they did. I think the problem here, now, is that “logical contradiction” is just an informal term to you, like “that’s illogical”, in the sense of ‘not in my best interests’, or ‘not a good
game plan’. A logical contradiction is not that, but the simultaneous emrbace of mutually exclusive propositions as ‘true’.

You believe that they have to be accounted for as persons. Thus, in order to be consistent with your feelings and actions, it does become a logical necessity to accept other minds exist.

You’re equivocating on ‘logical’ here, and using it in the sense of ‘practical necessity’.

Now if you think everything is fake, no other minds exists, then your actions would reflect it. You will just do everything for your preservation and have a more utilitarian perspective. So basically, depending on the view you have, it does become a logical necessity.

(Continued … )

Practical necessity <> logical necessity.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

First you quoted me:

Then you went off on this ramble:

This was the same error that ddarko is making over and over now, is all. A hypothesis needs not, and cannot use any such notion of ‘justification’. If no one cares to pursue the hypothesis, it may languish, but that’s just practical matter of priorities and resources. So long as a hypothesis has a way to be tested/falsified, it’s good to go. Like I said above, some very successful hypotheses come from all sorts of “unjustified” sources – an LSD trip in the case of Francis Crick and the helical structure of DNA, reportedly.

At no point do you address what I wrote (I was making a rather specific point, in case you didn’t notice), so why did you quote me? Was this based on some kind of ZERO-justification-needed-‘hypothesis’ on your part (e.g., “if I repeat the same lame rhetoric often enough, it will begin to sound convincing”)? Meh! You appear not to have the first clue about how science really works. Hypotheses are not considered within a scientific framework unless there is some justification for doing so. This is true on multiple levels and is perfectly obvious - for example, according to your own view, science is the search for performing models and is therefore justified by the desirablilty of finding performing models - you just failed to notice that it means that your claim: science, and evidence-based inquiry/analysis, needs properly ZERO justification, is obviously false.

Desirability is a practical matter – not an epistemic one. Priorities vary from one person/organization to the next. Epistemically, science just commits, without “justification” that reality is real, and that it’s intelligible to some degree. Science may be (have been) wrong about that. But the evidence we have before us makes a strong case for the intelligibility (to some degree) and reality of reality.

Your meaningless abstract assertions about ‘performance’ as the arbiter of ‘the reality of reality’, therefore, blah blah blah, QED, are just as meaningless and unconvincing as they were eight months ago. Anyway, go ahead and take another shot at reformulating your view in a way that doesn’t contradict itself.

I have no idea what you think is self-contradictory here. Your claim was that science needs some sort of justification based on “desirability” was not my claim, and it’s not an epistemic issue, at any rate. Desirability determines the practical dynamics of science, not the epistemic integrity.

In any case, I deny, and have consistent;y denied that such a “justification” is even coherent epistemologically, let alone required. So there’s no self-contradiction. If you want to say it’s you contradicting what I say, fine, but you aren’t me, so there’s no self-contradiction.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

This was the same error that ddarko is making over and over now, is all. A hypothesis needs not, and cannot use any such notion of ‘justification’. If no one cares to pursue the hypothesis, it may languish, but that’s just practical matter of priorities and resources. So long as a hypothesis has a way to be tested/falsified, it’s good to go. Like I said above, some very successful hypotheses come from all sorts of “unjustified” sources – an LSD trip in the case of Francis Crick and the helical structure of DNA, reportedly.

No, what I wrote is not the same as anything that ddarko has written! Your error is the same error I just tried to correct you on, and you again ignored the argument I presented and tried to assimilate it to what ddarko is saying.

So let’s look at your example: Do you think that the ‘hypothesis’ of a double-helical structure for DNA really “came from” an LSD trip?? I suggest you read about the history of this little discovery some more (which, I recall reading, was based partly on Watson and Crick stealing others’ research). That claim is too absurd!

Your absurd argument rests on the following absurd non sequitur:
If an idea D occurred to W while he was in state L, then the (prima facie?) epistemic warrant for D (in this case, the grounds for D being considered a scientific hypothesis) “came from” state L.
That sure seems to be what you’re saying - care to clarify??

In general hypotheses do not languish just because of lack of priorities and resources; that is obvious. Also, your claiming that they do does nothing to explain why some do not, i.e., does nothing to explain what justifies some hypotheses being taken up and investigated. Your claim that NOTHING justifies this and your implied claim that the ultimate and irreducible reason underlying this is some kind of perfectly unjustified “bet” is absolute nonsense. What on earth gave you the idea for that hypothesis? An LSD trip?

Desirability is a practical matter – not an epistemic one. Priorities vary from one person/organization to the next. Epistemically, science just commits, without “justification” that reality is real, and that it’s intelligible to some degree. Science may be (have been) wrong about that. But the evidence we have before us makes a strong case for the intelligibility (to some degree) and reality of reality.

You’re simply begging the question here. Your use of words is purely rhetorical and if you understood their meaning you would be able to see that they are trivial nonsense. You need to do better than this repeated incantation of apparently meaningless slogans.

I have no idea what you think is self-contradictory here. Your claim was that science needs some sort of justification based on “desirability” was not my claim, and it’s not an epistemic issue, at any rate. Desirability determines the practical dynamics of science, not the epistemic integrity.

TS, words and statements have meanings and implications, whether you recognize these meanings and implications or not. Would you like me to find your specific words and explicity spell out their implications for you?

In any case, I deny, and have consistent;y denied that such a “justification” is even coherent epistemologically, let alone required. So there’s no self-contradiction. If you want to say it’s you contradicting what I say, fine, but you aren’t me, so there’s no self-contradiction.

Your denial is pure assertion which is an indication only of the depths of your naivete, your failure to have thought critically about your own little narrative about knowledge. You use terms like performance as if such notions have some kind of pure epistemic essence, unrelated to human desires informing what counts as performance - then you contradict yourself without noticing that you have done so.

 

[Touchstone]

No, what I wrote is not the same as anything that ddarko has written! Your error is the same error I just tried to correct you on, and you again ignored the argument I presented and tried to assimilate it to what ddarko is saying.

So let’s look at your example: Do you think that the ‘hypothesis’ of a double-helical structure for DNA really “came from” an LSD trip??

I suggest you read about the history of this little discovery some more (which, I recall reading, was based partly on Watson and Crick stealing others’ research). That claim is too absurd!
That’s to miss my point, though. There isn’t any “too absurd” in terms of qualification so long as the idea is amenable to testing and verification. It doesn’t matter where it came from. A prof I had used the example of the “anonymous letter”, where a hypothesis would be put into an an envelope and slipped under the door. Not knowing who came up with it, or why, or what their credentials are, you have everything you need, so long as you can apply the idea with the method. There is no “pedigree” needed or relevant beyond its applicability.

You’ll note that I used “reportedly” in my references to Crick and DNA. The point of the reference is that it doesn’t have a pedigree. The idea is validated by its performance in the real world. Being the product of a hallucinogenic experience or deep thought from a carefully constructed line of inferences from a scientific genius doesn’t help it or hurt it – it performs against objective reality as it performs.

Your absurd argument rests on the following absurd non sequitur:
If an idea D occurred to W while he was in state L, then the (prima facie?) epistemic warrant for D (in this case, the grounds for D being considered a scientific hypothesis) “came from” state L.
That sure seems to be what you’re saying - care to clarify??

Sure – it’s a mistake, this notion of “epistemic warrant” for a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a conjecture, a starting point, and all it needs in practice is… practicability; it just has to be a model that the method can test and process. That’s it. The provenance of the idea is not a determinant of its efficacy in the real world, and this is important as it is how science often progresses, by the “crazy hare-brained idea”, the wild hunch that sparks some interest, even though it’s “absurd” or “couldn’t be” on first glance (or came from a grad student!).

Like the envelope under the door, where it “came from” is immaterial, what matters is its performance. It seeks validation after and because of rigorous testing.

In general hypotheses do not languish just because of lack of priorities and resources; that is obvious. Also, your claiming that they do does nothing to explain why some do not, i.e., does nothing to explain what justifies some hypotheses being taken up and investigated. Your claim that NOTHING justifies this and your implied claim that the ultimate and irreducible reason underlying this is some kind of perfectly unjustified “bet” is absolute nonsense. What on earth gave you the idea for that hypothesis? An LSD trip?

Well, even if so, that wouldn’t discount it’s performance (or non-performance), which is the major point, here. Results are what matter, and render any notion of “justification” for the hypothesis irrelevant. If I did have some inspiration on LSD, and rigorous testing and application in the real world showed spectacularly strong support for the hypothesis, promoting it to a successful theory, what would you decide about the “justification” of the hypothesis? Conversely, if you pick the awesomest “justification” you could imagine for a hypothesis, and the hypothesis falls on its face in real world testing, has the justification helped it even a little bit.

Not a bit. It’s irrelevant to what matters – the performance of the idea empirically. I’m imagining

You’re simply begging the question here. Your use of words is purely rhetorical and if you understood their meaning you would be able to see that they are trivial nonsense. You need to do better than this repeated incantation of apparently meaningless slogans.

Non-substantive ranting here.

TS, words and statements have meanings and implications, whether you recognize these meanings and implications or not. Would you like me to find your specific words and explicity spell out their implications for you?

I’m not aware of any self-contradiction and I’d like you to point it out for me, precisely, if you can. Thanks.

Your denial is pure assertion which is an indication only of the depths of your naivete, your failure to have thought critically about your own little narrative about knowledge. You use terms like performance as if such notions have some kind of pure epistemic essence, unrelated to human desires informing what counts as performance - then you contradict yourself without noticing that you have done so.

You keep referring to a contradiction, but you don’t bother to actual spell it out. I don’t see it – what’s the self-contradiction? Your claim is that a hypothesis needs some kind of epistemic justification. I see no basis at all for such a claim, and am wondering where that conclusion comes from. Maybe it would help to give me an example of a hypothesis that you believe has the necessary credentials for your approval, and can show what principles are applied to determine the bona fides for that hypothesis.

That would be progress, I think.

-TS

 

[Betterave]

Wow! This is a leettle bit frustrating! Here we go, let’s try to take a baby step:

So let’s look at your example: Do you think that the ‘hypothesis’ of a double-helical structure for DNA really “came from” an LSD trip?? I suggest you read about the history of this little discovery some more (which, I recall reading, was based partly on Watson and Crick stealing others’ research). That claim is too absurd!

Let’s stop right there: What is to miss your point??? What do you think my point is???

 

[Touchstone]

Wow! This is a leettle bit frustrating! Here we go, let’s try to take a baby step:

Let’s stop right there: What is to miss your point???

Whatever absurdity or soberness we might assign to the origin of the hypothesis has zero bearing on its merit (see my comment on the “anonymous hypothesis” slipped under the door in an unmarked envelope – little to nothing is known of the provenance of the idea, and nothing need be known). To complain that is “absurd” is to fail to see that’s the very reason I used that example, because of the crazy context of the iinspiration (reportedly). If you understand this, complaining that it is “absurd” as an epistemic warrant for knowledge, an idea that proceeds from hallucinogens, doesn’t follow as an objection. It would be responsive to say “No, one must justify one’s hypotheses, and here’s how one does that, how one garners the appropriate credential for having a hunch”.

That addresses my point, even as it disagrees. “That’s absurd as a basis for a hypothesis” shoots right by what I said. It complains by agreeing with my statements!

What do you think my point is???

You complained that the origination of a hypothesis from an LSD trip was “absurd”. I understand that to mean that’s a problem with the “justification” for a hypothesis. It ignores my claim that a hypothesis needs, and in fact, can’t use such a notion of justification (this would produce circularity!), and just continues on, ignoring what I’ve said. That’s your prerogative, but it’s unresponsive, taking no heed of the point being made.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

AntiTheist

This seems to be one of your favorite quotes from Jefferson.

*“To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul.”
–Thomas Jefferson *

Here is one of my favorite quotes from a Jefferson letter to John Adams:

*The argument which they [French atheists] rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of cosmogony, you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say, then, that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may forever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or creator of the world, a being whom we see not, and know not, of whose form substance and mode or place of existence, or of action no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend. On the contrary, I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and infinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, the generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order. *

Now when you take these two quotes together, do you think your quote gives the impression that Jefferson was an atheist? If so, how would you reconcile your quote with my quote, which clearly indicates that Jefferson is repudiating atheism? I brought this to your attention recently in another thread and you immediately disappeared from that thread. Hope this doesn’t run you off again!

By the way, I think Jefferson made a fair philosopher, but I doubt he was a stoned college kid. And you certainly don’t have to be a stoned college kid to make a bad philosopher.