What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[MPat]

The point was how you could prove a negative.

If you think a dragon in the basement isn’t worth the effort, then pick a god from another religion, one that has significant meaning for many people and prove it’s non-existence. You will be as succesful as I would be in attempting to prove the non-existence of the Abrahamic God.

Sure. I think Zeus should qualify. He was supposed to live in a palace on top of Mount Olympus. Check the top of Mount Olympus. No palace. We get a contradiction, therefore, the assumption that such Zeus as described exists is false. Therefore, such Zeus does not exist. Q.E.D.

As you can see, there is nothing especially hard about proving a negation. It is hard to prove a negation with insufficient evidence, but then, it is hard to prove anything with insufficient evidence. And, I have to say, it is very hard to prove something that is false - which might be a fact far more relevant to you here.

Also, if you think proving that Hee_Zen does not have a dragon in his basement is hard because it is a negative, try proving a positive - that Hee_Zen has a basement -, when no additional information is given.

 

[Bahman]

Well, okay, fire-breathing, seven-headed magical dragons not ONLY exist in basements as conjured by the vivid imaginations of three year olds, they also exist as the profile pictures of individuals who go by the name of Bahman and propose obtuse arguments about consciousness as uncaused causation.

What if I tell you that I experienced a dragon? Do you believe so?

And consciousness is uncaused cause otherwise we all would be God’s heads if I accept your definition of God who even cause consciousness.

 

[Al_Moritz]

I’m not sure what your point is supposed to be here. It appears to be a version of the “one god less” caricature of an argument, but your comment isn’t explicit in terms of an actual point.

If I understand the blurry lines of this “caricature” what you are getting at is that fire breathing dragons, like Thor and Zeus are imaginary in the same sense and therefore Thor and Zeus should be dismissed for much the same reason. What you fail to show, however, is that Thor and Zeus are anything like the God of classical theism.

The “one god more” argument is simply a bad argument, in any case. Bad books, that aren’t worth your time to read them, exist, therefore all books are not worth your time to read them.

Indeed. As I write in my article:

God as a brute fact?

There will be those who will counter that while atheists may postulate the universe as brute fact, theists do the same with God. This claim does not hold. There cannot be anything of necessity as to what properties the universe has; it could be different in any other way, see the discussion of this point below. Yet as the source of all being, God must have certain properties by metaphysical necessity, e.g. the property of being absolutely simple since not composed of parts (possible only as an immaterial being), the property of being pure act, and the identity of His essence with His existence, see for example Edward Feser’s article “Why is there anything at all? It’s simple”.

(For an overview of the author’s previous articles related to the issue, see Classical theism roundup; for the writing of Thomas Aquinas on divine simplicity, see the chapter in his Summa Theologica.)

Therefore, according to classical theistic philosophy God cannot simply be a brute fact, rather, He is the source of all facts that exist, the metaphysically necessary explanation of why there is something rather than nothing. Reading Feser’s article will make it abundantly clear that in classical theism God is in no way conceived as a ‘superman’, somehow analogous to the symbolic depictions of God as white-bearded man in the sky. If He were, I would already be an atheist. If God were conceived as ‘superman’, Richard Dawkins’ argument in the central fourth chapter of The God Delusion, which implicitly assumes God to have something like a complex giant material ‘brain’ (that would have to have evolved), would hold. But it does not. In fact, while there are substantial arguments in favor of atheism – which nonetheless I find to have considerably less weight than arguments in favor of theism – my experience from books and discussions strongly suggests that the philosophical position of many atheists is at least to some extent based on a misunderstanding of the classical concept of God in the three great monotheistic religions (see Feser’s article). This misunderstanding leads to on the surface logical, yet upon deeper examination non-sensical, questions like “who created God?”. It also leads to such a statement as “believers are atheists towards all other gods, atheists go just one step further”, envisioned as a ‘logical’ invitation to believers to do the same. By the way, in addition the misunderstanding results in the false notion that Jews, Muslims and Christians all believe in a different God, something that is not, and in principle cannot be, the case; the Catholic Church, for example, is quite clear about that.

 

[Bradski]

Sure. I think Zeus should qualify. He was supposed to live in a palace on top of Mount Olympus. Check the top of Mount Olympus. No palace. We get a contradiction, therefore, the assumption that such Zeus as described exists is false

He used to live in a palace? Nah, that was just mythology. Just like Pearly Gates and talking snakes. That’s like saying that if we can’t find the Ark, then there is no God. The absence of evidence etc.

How many goes at this are you going to have?

 

[Peter_Plato]

He used to live in a palace? Nah, that was just mythology. Just like Pearly Gates and talking snakes. That’s like saying that if we can’t find the Ark, then there is no God. The absence of evidence etc.

How many goes at this are you going to have?

I think you are intentionally leaving out the “Zeus, as described” part. The being we have come to know from Greek mythology had certain characteristics and assorted claims made about him. We can assume that Zeus is nothing more than what was described in the mythology. It is THAT Zeus we have to assume the evidence for is non-existent.

Now if you want to begin adding to what Zeus was claimed to have been, other attributes such as omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, eternality, etc., such that you arrive at God, under the assumption that “God” was whom the mythology was proposing, you are compelled to dress up Zeus using a boatload of characteristics which were never at all presumed nor attributed by the mythology to begin with.

In other words, morphing Zeus into God merely to salvage a poor argument, ought to be disclosed for what it is - a cheap ploy.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . youtu.be/cCR1KDxAnZ4

Nice clip. I recall seeing this band with a male singer in Toronto over forty years ago - the Horseshoe Tavern I believe. Now, if I could only remember where I put my coffee cup. Oh yeah, the fridge.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Nice clip.

Yeah, nice one. Perhaps finally something that all here can agree on?

 

[Hee_Zen]

Anyway, you asked for an alternative - you got it. You didn’t say what kind of alternative you wanted.

My fault, I guess. I probably overestimated you comprehensive skills or underestimated your desire to wiggle out. (I vote for the second one) An alternative epistemology is supposed to be able to give an explicit method, which can be used to separate the true claims from the false ones. To say that “philosophy” is an epistemological “method” is not useful.

Obviously not, unless you define “axiomatic system” so broadly, that this distinction becomes far less useful to you. For example: “Any bacteria has one cell. Socrates has more than one cell. Therefore, Socrates is not a bacteria.”. “Socrates is not a bacteria.” is a “negative”.

It is simply a syllogism.

If you want that “You cannot prove a negative.” to be true, you have to specify, what kind of “negative” you are talking about.

Again, it is probably my fault that I did not “prechew” the proposition. One cannot prove a UNIVERSAL negative in an inductive system is the precise way to put it, but I thought that you do not need that kind of detail. Mea culpa… though there is no “felix” about it.

Now you can be stubborn and so you can try to “prove” a universal negative, like “there are no invisible pink unicorns”. But be careful. To claim that “invisible” and “pink” are mutually exclusive will not cut it. I will counter it with the usual “cop-out” of apologists: “it is not a contradiction, it is a mystery”, which you cannot comprehend with your finite mind. As you can see, the sword is a dangerous weapon, it can cut both ways.

 

[Hee_Zen]

We have no reason for thinking a fire-breathing, seven-headed magical dragon exists in the basement. It is not required to explain anything, nor do we have any reason even for proposing such a thing in the first place. That is why it never is proposed except by three year olds with vivid imaginations.

The same is true for God. It does not explain anything nor do we have any reason to propose it.

The difference is that we have significantly different world views that hang completely upon the answer to whether the ground of existence is intentional, intelligent and personal in some profound and mystical sense or whether the ground of existence is merely material brute fact, a purposeless space-time continuum that just “happened” to spring into existence, magically and inexplicably some 13.7 billion years ago.

You really should learn more about your own propositions. No one says that the universe “popped” into existence. The correct way to put it is that the singularity changed into something else. The “why’s” are “wherefore’s” are under investigation. It is useful to learn what your opponents really say.

The first worldview provides a plausible explanation for the “apparent” meaningfulness of the universe, it’s ordered arrangement, the fact that it can be described in elegant mathematical terms and the fact that it can be apprehended at profoundly deep levels by human intelligence. Not to mention that the resources in the universe fit so well with the basic physiological, psychological and spiritual needs of intelligent human beings.

There is no “meaningfulness”, the “apparent meaningfulness” is imposed by us.

A dragon in the basement makes absolutely no difference to anyone’s world view - well except the world view of a three year old. The existence of a personal ground of existence who is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent makes all the difference in terms of how and why we carry on living as moral agents in the world.

It makes no difference. The “belief” or “lack of belief” has absolutely no predictive value on the behavior of the individuals.

What we ought to be doing is seriously considering the complete case for God as presented historically, morally, metaphysically and theologically rather than minimizing that case or dismissing it prematurely, as you advocate.

I would be amenable to that, IF you could describe the proper “historical epistemological method”, and also the proper “moral epistemological method”, furthermore the proper “metaphysical epistemological method” (what a horrible gibberish that is) and the proper “theological epistemological method”. If you wish to use some method to separate true and false propositions, then you are under the obligation to show that your suggested method is reliable, even if not 100% of the time, but at least 99% of the time.

But let’s remember, I may say that “I am amenable” to such an approach, but maybe I am a liar, or a poor, confused individual, who does not know what he is willing to do. This is the newest “accusation”. Makes me grin from ear to ear, which probably shows how unbalanced I might be.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The same is true for God. It does not explain anything nor do we have any reason to propose it.

Having “reasons” depends entirely upon intention. Obviously, if you live in a basement with your mind totally preoccupied with a virtual universe means you will have no “reason” to propose or think of anything beyond that universe.

If, however, getting to the complete truth of the matter is of any interest or concern then being too ready to wield razors or “slash and burn” possible explanations or reasons for them merely because you find them displeasing does seem problematic.

The problem, it seems, is you have made up your mind and, therefore, have defined the limits of your virtual universe as being coterminous with your understanding, by definition. Your certainty has rigorously defined the boundaries of your universe.

My thought is precisely the opposite. My uncertainty is fodder for looking beyond my current understanding.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . There is no “meaningfulness”, the “apparent meaningfulness” is imposed by us. . . .

Now I could be imposing my idea that this statement has actually no meaning other than being a negation of a truth. How would I know? Maybe you think you are actually saying something other than sticking a “no” onto collections of words. But hey, isn’t it me who thinks we are transcendent and eternal beings, existing in a universe of meaning. You’re probably just a random word generator.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Having “reasons” depends entirely upon intention. Obviously, if you live in a basement with your mind totally preoccupied with a virtual universe means you will have no “reason” to propose or think of anything beyond that universe.

You play a word game here. “Reason” to accept something does not depend and should never depend on one’s “desire” to accept something. I already gave an example how God could present an absolute, surefire way to demonstrate his existence. What was your response? It is a “brute” method. What of it? It would work.

I do not live in a basement without any desire to “look outside”. I am open to suggestions, but the suggestion must be made based upon what I already have as a foundation. I am willing to entertain even the most outlandish ideas, IF and only IF there is a rational foundation for them. Maybe you consider this an unreasonable obstacle, or not being “open” enough. Indeed I am not open to mysticism, to “faith” or other irrational and unreasonable ideas. Only to facts, logic and reason. If they are not sufficient to substantiate your points, then so be it.

I surmise you do the same when it comes to the curative powers of pyramids, or other new-age propositions. You do not give a-priori acceptance to their claims. And that is a healthy skepticism. Those, who make the claims must provide evidence for their claims. Quite unlike you when you suggested the claims about Jesus have never been “disproved” or God has never been disproved. I asked you to show the epistemological method to prove a universal negative, and so far you keep silent. MPat tried to step into your shoes, but failed.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You play a word game here. “Reason” to accept something does not depend and should never depend on one’s “desire” to accept something. I already gave an example how God could present an absolute, surefire way to demonstrate his existence. What was your response? It is a “brute” method. What of it? It would work.

No, actually, “reason” does not mean the same as desire. It means warrant or justification for believing and it is the very basis for the idea of “reasoning.” When someone provides sufficient “reason” for thinking something is true, that is when belief is warranted. It has nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with sound logic.

That is why “brute facts” are not accepted as “reasons” because “brute facts” are themselves inexplicable and therefore CANNOT ultimately explain anything. Brute facts are appealed to when their proposer has nothing to offer in terms of reasons to believe those facts to be true, but presents them as an arbitrary starting point.

The error lies in taking unexplained brute facts as axiomatic. They aren’t, in themselves, explanatory, but are assumed to be the starting point merely to begin the reasoning process.

This is where atheism falls harder than theism. It must resort to brute facts at some point to end the infinite regress. Theism points to the necessity of a self-explanatory beginning which must have certain definitive characteristics in order to be self-explanatory and meet the principle of sufficient reason for explaining anything else.

Atheists may not like that, but their preferences or, as you say, “desires,” are irrelevant.

 

[Bradski]

I think you are intentionally leaving out the “Zeus, as described” part. The being we have come to know from Greek mythology had certain characteristics and assorted claims made about him. We can assume that Zeus is nothing more than what was described in the mythology. It is THAT Zeus we have to assume the evidence for is non-existent.

The Zeus you are talking about bears no more relationship to reality as does the Abrahamic God wearing a long white beard sitting in the clouds doing Morgan Freeman impressions.

If you’d only open your heart and learn to believe then you’d understand. If you think that Zeus is going to build a temple where you think it ought to go simply to ‘prove’ to you that he exists, and ‘assume’ that he is nothing more than what you would like him to be then I’m afraid you are going to be disappointed.

"Followers of the 12 Greek Gods, who, according to mythology, ruled the Ancient World from Mount Olympus, have cast a thunderbolt at their Orthodox opponents.
After successfully staging a landmark ceremony at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, their leader pledged to fight for the right to conduct baptisms, marriages, and funerals according to the rites of the ancient religion.

“We are a legitimate religion. But the authorities don’t let us do this, but we shall claim this right through the European Union,” said Doretta Peppa, the high priestess, who led the prayers next to the 15 remaining columns of the temple". news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6285397.stm

As someone once said, at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of Zeus but by the abatement of your passions.

 

[MPat]

He used to live in a palace? Nah, that was just mythology. Just like Pearly Gates and talking snakes.

As Peter Plato has noted, you did ignore the “as described” part. You gave a challenge to disprove existence of some entity, preferably a god. That has been done. It does show that “proving a negative” is not hard and that a method other than “scientific-method-proper” can reach reliable conclusions.

Of course, if you want to issue an updated version of this challenge, you are free do do so. But it would be nice if you would show why our position would demand that we would be able to meet that version of challenge.

That’s like saying that if we can’t find the Ark, then there is no God. The absence of evidence etc.

Catholic faith does not include a claim that Ark exists at this moment.

The Zeus you are talking about bears no more relationship to reality as does the Abrahamic God wearing a long white beard sitting in the clouds doing Morgan Freeman impressions.

Naturally. After all, I have presented a proof of that.

 

[MPat]

My fault, I guess. I probably overestimated you comprehensive skills or underestimated your desire to wiggle out. (I vote for the second one)

So, when you make some claims about statistics, you feel that you can just claim to be a professor of Mathematics and leave it at that, and in many other cases you find it OK to dismiss an argument without answering it, but when others show that your claims, as stated (or misstated), are false, that shows a “desire to wiggle out”…?

An alternative epistemology is supposed to be able to give an explicit method, which can be used to separate the true claims from the false ones.

Why? Any arguments to support this claim?

Also, I did give you a method. You didn’t like it, but it has been presented. And there is no reason why we have to make you like it. After all, our goal is not to persuade you that our approach is right. That is likely to be impossible. Our goal is to show that each objection is going to have an answer.

It is simply a syllogism.

Yes. And…? Anything wrong with that as a method to get true statements?

Again, it is probably my fault that I did not “prechew” the proposition. One cannot prove a UNIVERSAL negative in an inductive system is the precise way to put it, but I thought that you do not need that kind of detail. Mea culpa… though there is no “felix” about it.

First of all, it is not a “precise way to put it”, as “universal negative” and “inductive system” haven’t been defined here.

Second, of course one can prove something like that. Let’s take 43th page of this thread. It is easy to prove that no current moderator of this forum has posted there (or, if you wish, that “no post by a current forum moderator in the 43th page of this thread exists”). Just check all posts. A clear counterexample.

Now seriously, if you want to persuade someone of something like that, construct a formal proof, instead of just making different imprecise and false claims until one fails to get a counterexample. As someone who claims to be a professor of Mathematics, you should be able to do that.

Now you can be stubborn and so you can try to “prove” a universal negative, like “there are no invisible pink unicorns”. But be careful. To claim that “invisible” and “pink” are mutually exclusive will not cut it. I will counter it with the usual “cop-out” of apologists: “it is not a contradiction, it is a mystery”, which you cannot comprehend with your finite mind. As you can see, the sword is a dangerous weapon, it can cut both ways.

There is no contradiction and there is no mystery. Wikipedia even has an image of one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipu.png.

But let’s remember, I may say that “I am amenable” to such an approach, but maybe I am a liar, or a poor, confused individual, who does not know what he is willing to do. This is the newest “accusation”. Makes me grin from ear to ear, which probably shows how unbalanced I might be.

Actually, you seem to be the only one who says that, offering such “dilemma”, as if we couldn’t either claim some wishful thinking (that can go, let’s say, from “I want to be someone who reasons rationally.” to “I reason rationally.”) or, in the worst case, just agree with you. Of course, in practice, it just makes little difference for us.

 

[Hee_Zen]

Why? Any arguments to support this claim?

Because that is what epistemology is all about. Elementary definition.

Also, I did give you a method.

You gave a one word “answer” : philosophy. Philosophy is not an epistemological method, no matter how hard you try to assert it.

First of all, it is not a “precise way to put it”, as “universal negative” and “inductive system” haven’t been defined here.

They do not need to be defined HERE.

Second, of course one can prove something like that. Let’s take 43th page of this thread. It is easy to prove that no current moderator of this forum has posted there (or, if you wish, that “no post by a current forum moderator in the 43th page of this thread exists”). Just check all posts. A clear counterexample.

Oh, but there is one. You just decided that you are not willing to see and acknowledge it. Don’t be so closed-minded. Have faith. Don’t try to rely on sordid “empiricism”. When you die you will understand. Sounds familiar?

Of course your counter-example is not a universal negative, it is a particular negative. Oops, I forgot that you don’t know the meaning of the “universal” operator. Oh, well. Just like I am not interested in teaching you statistics, I am not interested in teaching you the logical operators.

Now seriously, if you want to persuade someone of something like that, construct a formal proof, instead of just making different imprecise and false claims until one fails to get a counterexample. As someone who claims to be a professor of Mathematics, you should be able to do that.

You just don’t get it. “Formal proofs” only exist in axiomatic systems.

There is no contradiction and there is no mystery. Wikipedia even has an image of one: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipu.png.

Ah, a miracle occurred! A picture of an invisible entity!

 

[magnet]

Does reality consist of discrete entities?

For example when sediment is deposited by a river, the typical description entails the settling of sand, then silt, and then clay. However, it really is a gradual process as water flow slows down. Then why have we conceived of these artificial concepts of sand, silt, and clay which are not discrete?

Is God a distinct entity or is the phenomenon of God really a continuum?

 

[MPat]

Because that is what epistemology is all about. Elementary definition.

Speaking of which, what “epistemiological method” was used to find out that…?

You gave a one word “answer” : philosophy. Philosophy is not an epistemological method, no matter how hard you try to assert it.

No, I gave an answer about getting to a logical contradiction.

They do not need to be defined HERE.

Then a link wouldn’t hurt. You know, we are not all native English speakers here.

Though far more importantly, it would simply make contradictions easier to spot.

Oh, but there is one. You just decided that you are not willing to see and acknowledge it. Don’t be so closed-minded. Have faith. Don’t try to rely on sordid “empiricism”. When you die you will understand. Sounds familiar?

Oh, of course it is familiar. After all, strawman fallacy is very common.

Of course your counter-example is not a universal negative, it is a particular negative. Oops, I forgot that you don’t know the meaning of the “universal” operator. Oh, well. Just like I am not interested in teaching you statistics, I am not interested in teaching you the logical operators.

In other words, you are not interested in defending your position. Well, yes, that is your right - you can abandon the discussion at any time. And I think that in both cases it was indefensible anyway…

Oh, and, by the way, if you are unwilling to teach logic, I have nothing against doing it myself. “Universal negative” is a proposition of the form “No X are Y.” (or “All X are not Y.”), while “particular negative” is a proposition of form “Some X are not Y.” (see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article “The Traditional Square of Opposition” - plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/). Contrary to your claim, the proposition “No post in the 43rd page of this thread has been made by a current forum moderator.” is obviously a universal negative (with X being “posts in the 43rd page of this thread” and Y - “posts made by current forum moderator”). Thus the counterexample stands.

You just don’t get it. “Formal proofs” only exist in axiomatic systems.

Unfortunately, 1) Logic is an axiomatic system, 2) you have claimed that one cannot be completely certain without such a proof, thus, if this your claim was right, you wouldn’t be able to claim that “universal negative cannot be proved etc.” with complete certainty…

 

[Bradski]

As Peter Plato has noted, you did ignore the “as described” part. You gave a challenge to disprove existence of some entity, preferably a god. That has been done.

Whoa, hang on. I didn’t describe Zeus. You did. The term ‘as described’ is yours.

Sure. I think Zeus should qualify. He was supposed to live in a palace on top of Mount Olympus. Check the top of Mount Olympus. No palace. We get a contradiction, therefore, the assumption that such Zeus as described exists is false. Therefore, such Zeus does not exist. Q.E.D.

I’m not having you make up an imaginary god (as described) that fits with your interpretation of him (he lives in a palace on Mt Olympus) and then claim that because you can’t find a palace he doesn’t exist (and in any case, don’t you agree that absence of evidence etc is a valid concept?).

Would you accept me saying that God is meant to have destroyed the planet with a flood and saved a family by getting them to build an ark and as we can’t find the ark He doesn’t exist? Get out of here…

Catholic faith does not include a claim that Ark exists at this moment.

I’m pretty sure I knew that anyway. But if I can’t use mythology to disprove your god, then you can’t use it to disprove mine. Sound reasonable?

Zeus still exists (and even has real people praying to him now - something I’ll bet neither of us knew before today).