1501. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #54021 by steve99 on July 5, 2007 at 1:42 am

Dianelos has been held to task by steve99 and J on many occasions and just skated around the points raised. He also keeps changing tacks. Saying he believes in god and then not, just a theistic worldview. So by no stretch of the imagination has he won anything. But if you want to call it that way go ahead.

Absolutely. The argument has been going something like this:

DG: "The flatness of the Earth can't explain experience, therefore I conjure up a God"

Others: "The Earth isn't flat"

DG: "My worldview is independent of flatness. God makes all experience."

Others: "Fine, but how does God help?"

DG: "Because those scientists who insist that the Earth is flat can't explain things - their idea of reality is wrong"

Others: "The Earth isn't flat"

DG: "It doesn't matter anyway... you can't trust any belief in the nature of physical reality"

Others: "Fine - but why invoke a God anyway?"

DG: "Because God objectively explains Flatness"

Others: "How does that help?"

DG: "Because we feel the world to be flat"


and so on, and on, and on...

Some here seem to have become convinced that a theist anti-flatness worldview has a consistency and interest that makes it attractive.

But that does not deal with the huge problems: The entire worldview has been set up on two falsehoods:

1. False assumptions about alternative views of the world, and their supposed problems.

2. An unjustified belief that a theistic worldview in any way solves those supposed problems.

1502. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #54016 by steve99 on July 5, 2007 at 12:50 am

So the fact that most people are continuously surprised by what science discovers in its subject matter of phenomena only evidences that people continuously have a wrong idea about how external physical reality is.

No. The fact that people are surprised is because they have open minds, and have no pre-concieved idea of what phsyical reality is.

Idealism does not have this problem of having to be surprised every turn of the way, because according to this worldview the reality out there that produces phenomena is not physical but personal, so reality is nothing like what we see when we look around us.

This is nonsense. It has exactly the same issues of causality. "God made it" has no meaning without causality.

Even more, quantum mechanics says that the universe is a superposition of probabilities until we look, in which case one particular concrete reality obtains.

No, this is nonsense. It is only an amateur science magazine popular view of quantum mechanics.

Indeed, a scientist who is an idealistic theist enjoys the freedom of creating hypotheses not encumbered by the preconceptions that a belief in the objective existence of physical reality entails

This is more nonsense, and completely contradicts your previous claims. If you are a theist, then you are claiming that there is something objective - God. You can't get around problems just by slapping a "supernatural" label on things.

If you actually kept up with the science, you would know that plenty of non-theist scientists have no difficulty with creating hypothesis that don't require objective existence.

I am afraid this is typical of your arguments - a sort of amateur mish-mash of incomplete understanding of the scientific views and straw men is being used to justify a theistic viewpoint that is no better at answering any questions.

But according to theistic idealism there is no such thing as causality in physics.

This has to be one of the most bizarre things I have ever read.

After all these constants as well as the evolution of life are both patterns in the physical phenomena we observe (and indeed one forms part of the other). Still one more reason then why theistic idealism works better than materialism for science.

No, it really, really doesn't. If this is truly is the worldview you are trying to express, then it is one of ultimate bleakness. Everything throughout time is determined by God. We have no choice, and no free will (because those are impossible without causality). It is the ultimate determinism, and is rejected by almost all scientists and philosophers as being as pointless as solipsism.

1503. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53851 by steve99 on July 3, 2007 at 2:47 pm

But I don't see how that relates to our discussion of a deterministic reality producing quantum phenomena that cannot be modeled deterministically.

One reason is that if you have non-locality you have major problems with time and causality. Once you make an observation of one of a pair of entangled particles, you can consider that you have caused the other particle to decide its state. However, as there is effectively communication faster than light between the particles this can be considered from some viewpoints as communication backwards in time (although we can never use it to send any signals).

If you start to get that kind of thing going on, you have serious problems with causality - what is causing what and when, at the level of quantum mechanics?

I am sorry, but your attempts to salvage some sort of mechanistic and deterministic reality from quantum mechanics just won't work.

1504. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53679 by steve99 on July 2, 2007 at 2:18 pm

Indeed one could argue that only matter and its properties can reasonably be called "natural" and that therefore the presence of non-material consciousness with the causal power to affect material systems amounts to supernaturalism.

One could argue anything. The problem is that David Chalmers does NOT argue this.

You make the huge and unnecessary leap that he does not want to make. Why do you claim to know more about the mind than he does?

1505. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53636 by steve99 on July 2, 2007 at 11:13 am

Totally agree, this was one of the reasons I lost my temper a few pages back. It was after arguing with another theist who was insisting on using "science" that had been disproved long ago though.

And indeed, I agree, this is precisely what Dianelos is doing. I was recently reading an article that indicated that the situation for determinism was even worse than the Bell Inequality implied. You can't even have non-local realism, which, if I understand things right, makes the pilot wave interpretation of QM distinctly dodgy.

1506. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53545 by steve99 on July 2, 2007 at 1:54 am

Anyway, I think it's clear that quantum phenomena may be produced by a deterministic (and hence mechanical) reality while at the same time be impossible to model mechanically. So there is no contradiction between the two.

No, this simply isn't the case. I suggest you get a good book by Brian Greene and read up on the Bell Inequality. It is actually a deeper result than quantum theory, and has a lot to say about what may or may not underlie quantum theory. Although Epeeist may well consider what I am to say simplistic, if you take the findings of tests of the Bell Inequality along with more recent studies, I don't think it is reasonable to claim that a mechanical deterministic reality is beneath it all.

So at least this part of your worldview is based on ignorance of the science.

1507. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53463 by steve99 on July 1, 2007 at 2:48 pm

Well, I pointed this out to my husband, and he thinks we can't be doing that badly. In biblical times, God would punish by plagues of frogs and even flooding the whole world. Making things a bit damp for a week or two seems nothing more than a gentle reprimand by comparison.

1508. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53447 by steve99 on July 1, 2007 at 1:48 pm

I find that theism's stance works much better because it avoids explanatory problems such as "How does matter produce consciousness?"

How does theism produce consciousness?

The question of how consciousness is produced does not vanish simply because you switch to theism.

1509. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53408 by steve99 on July 1, 2007 at 10:16 am

Naturalism asserts that reality is fundamentally mechanical which implies that at bottom all explanations must be mechanical too.

Just a while back you claimed that QED was an accurate theory because reality was uncertain. Now you claim it is mechanical.

Which is it?

1510. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53380 by steve99 on July 1, 2007 at 6:12 am

Right, because reality is such that it is unpredictable. Which QED exactly models.

That is stretching words a bit far!

Anyway, how do you know reality is unprectable?

The idea of a model is to represent reality as it is, so if reality is unpredictable the model must describe that unpredictability, which QED to our knowledge does perfectly well over the entire range of relevant physical phenomena.

Firstly, that is not the idea of a model. A model is simply there to explore ideas and help with predictions. Models rarely if ever represent "reality".

Let me give you an example. A long time ago, I used to work on molecular models. Much of the time we represented atoms as hard(ish) spheres. This was not intended to represent reality (as we know atoms are not like that), but just be good enough to allow useful predictions with limited computing time.

And as for QM - I am not sure there are really what can call 'models'. What there are is ways of calculating.

which QED to our knowledge does perfectly well over the entire range of relevant physical phenomena.

That is meaningless. If it represents reality (as you claim), then it should work over ALL physical phenomena... not just 'relevant' ones. Of course, it doesn't work over all physical phenomena. Which is why it is 'just' a model.

Yet again, you seem to be setting up a straw man about what science claims.

1511. Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift

Comment #53247 by steve99 on June 30, 2007 at 10:06 am

Most species modify their environment and this often changes how selection affects them: they construct, at least in part, their own environment. As evolutionary biologists we have little understanding of what these processes mean for evolution.

This seems pretty much what Dawkins was arguing years ago in The Extended Phenotype.

1512. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53229 by steve99 on June 30, 2007 at 7:36 am

also understand that some naturalists will not find that theism works better than naturalism even after they realize that science has nothing to say about reality and after they apply the same comparative criteria I applied to compare theism and naturalism.

I really wish you would not keep saying that science has nothing to say about reality. Going and testing out ideas experimentally clearly has something to do with some sort of external world, unless you are a complete solipsist. It may well not take you all the way to a true understanding of reality, but it certainly takes you further than just sitting down and imagining things.

1513. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53209 by steve99 on June 30, 2007 at 5:40 am

The case I was referring to above was concerning the ethical empowerment of the theistic worldview.

But that is the problem. As it only has the foundation of being what you want to personally believe, it can empower whatever version of ethics you want. It goes like this:

1. Pick an ethical viewpoint.
2. Believe in that ethical viewpoint so strongly that you define it as objective.
3. Support that objectivity (in a way I still don't understand) using theism.

Anyone can start from any ethical viewpoint whatsoever and use exactly the same reasoning. That is the danger.

My general case of why I find more reasonable to adopt a theistic rather than a naturalistic worldview rests on my application of all the comparative criteria I can think of to these two views and finding that idealistic theism works better than naturalism in all cases. I don't see anything shaky in my methodology, and I notice that most of my criteria are objective.

I have seen no evidence that they are anything but entirely subjective. They are supported by repeated statements of what you need or want or have to believe is true, and to support that you bring in a God to provide some sort of foundation.

Your methodology is shaky because you cherry-pick. You pick Berkleley but ignore Johnson. You select the bits of physics and maths that you find reasonable, and reject the bits you don't. You operate at a high level of intellect and education, but when it comes down to it, I think it is pretty much the same as those who follow the 'nice' bits of the bible and reject the 'nasty' bits, and build their own DIY religion.

My view is that the intellectually correct approach is simply to admit uncertainty and ignorance. My philosophy is that I really haven't a clue what reality is, and I see no evidence for a God, and I will just keep on muddling through and try and do my best. I am not going to try and guess what reality is 'really' like, as you are doing, as I realise my limitations.

1514. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53186 by steve99 on June 30, 2007 at 2:54 am

Observe that my case does not rest on the actual truth of theism, but just on the worldview a person has in fact adopted.

I feel exactly the same, which is why I have such a problem with theist worldviews in general. Because they have such a shaky foundation, and because they discourage doubt and uncertainty, I share Sam Harris' concern that they are becoming an increasing danger.

1515. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53159 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 6:20 pm

Vic Stegner (Failed Hypothesis and the Comprehensible Cosmos) addresses this point quite well. There's room for fiddling with the knobs and still ending up with a viable universe.

I think that Stenger's contributions to this debate have been vastly over-rated, and I am a little disappointed that Dawkins sometimes mentions him. As Dawkins is no expert in cosmology, he should surely go with the consensus, which is that Stenger's ideas are not widely accepted.

There is no avoiding the fact that there is very little room for 'fiddling the knobs' of physical constants and still ending up with a universe containing life. Almost all values of these constants result in universe with no structures of any kind at all; universes which rapidly expand to emptiness, or which collapse into a black hole in a fraction of a second.

This is no argument for a God, but it means that Stenger has not explained anything.

1516. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53158 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 6:07 pm

(In fact, I'd say his conduct is a better argument for his theism than his philosophy is...)

Absolutely. I am occasionally a poor debater - I sometimes reply to things with impulsiveness and impatience. But Dianelos has (to his credit) politely ignored those faults, and I am grateful to him for that. I am sure Dianelos is wrong, but he is wrong for very interesting reasons.

I just can't imagine having such a polite and constructive and educational debate with the Rev. Robertson, and if you have managed it, I am deeply impressed, and I would be interested to read such discussions.

1517. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53153 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 5:16 pm

Ah. That more or less coincides with the feeling I get from it. Which is that a lot of philosophical obfuscation is used basically to throw up enough confusion to hopefully disguise the fact that the basic argument don't make no sense. (Apparently also persuading Dianelos himself.)

Yes, exactly. That is my feeling too. I have no doubt that that Danielos is sincere in his views, but the obfuscation is really only a more intellectual version of the kind of tedious biblical selectivity that many Christians use to justify their core beliefs.

Instead of cherry-picking the bible (as our mutual friend Wee Free does), Dianelos is cherry-picking philosophers, and their views. It is at a high level, but it is equally flawed, and is combined with a profound misunderstanding of many principles of logic, linguistics, semiotics and epistemology.

The big difference between Dianelos and Wee Free is that Dianelos comes across as a likeable fellow - someone who will debate with enthusiasm and politeness, and I have even, in recent discussions, sensed some wavering in his position. I have a lot of respect for that.

I'm not well enough versed in the maths, logic and physics to check all the guy ropes, but bugger me if the tent doesn't appear to be floating in thin air...

Often it is! The well-known English mathematician Ian Stewart has described maths as like building a house from the first floor downwards...

Mathematicians often work in thin air, and hope that they can build the support for their work before it all crashes to the ground.

1518. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53147 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 4:31 pm

First, sorry for the math emphasis. Mostly my fault I guess. But hey, math can be fun!

(But whatever you do, don't get me started on statistics - then I get really boring, or so I am told)

I'd like some analysis of the assumptions that Dianelos makes in this chain of self-knowledge to world-knowledge. It just doesn't strike me as having anything at all to back it up, except looking to be a roughly tidy shape as unprovable philosophical speculations go.

I don't think you are going to get anything consistent in response. I would not agree that the chain of Dianelos' reasoning can even be called tidy. It seems to me to be little more than a selective reading of some 17th-Century philosophy, which is being defended by a poor knowledge of maths, logic and physics, and ends up as a form of Epistemological solipsism.

1519. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53115 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 1:06 pm

But "multiverse" is not even a scientific hypothesis. It is at the far speculative end of string theory, which itself is rather more like philosophy buttressed with esoteric math than physics(it has no testable consequence so far)

I know it seems like String Theory has dominated everything in physics these days, but multiverse theories usually have nothing to do with it.

There are various types of multiverse. To describe just a couple, there are the multiverses of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (a proposition I find unsatisfactory, as it has little explanatory benefit), and the multiverse of inflationary theory. The inflation model of the start of the universe suggests that the visible universe is a very, very small fraction of what exists, and there are a vast number of unreachable areas, which could have different physical laws.

1520. Richard Dawkins talks about Darwin and his visit to the Galapagos

Comment #53110 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 12:50 pm

We don't observe evolutionary processes adding novel genetic code to species populations.

I am amazed that this argument continues. We do see precisely that, and we see it often. We not only get individual gene duplication as been mentioned, but we see polyploidy - the multiplication of entire genomes. This then allows some copies of genes to mutate without the loss of the original function.

A significant number of food crops are polyploid. I find it somewhat ironic that those who deny that information can be added by mutation probably see and eat the results of that daily.

1521. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53107 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 12:11 pm

Berkeley proposed a theistic worldview based on idealism, which is roughly the same I am describing here.

I am glad you are explicit about that. This worldview was (in my view) eloquently dismissed by Samuel Johnson.

From Boswell:

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus."

I am a Johnsonite.

1522. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53093 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 9:51 am

Now, you can claim that this is a material system in which case you accept the unity of brain, mind and consciousness, or you can say that this is not material in which case you accept the abstract nature of mathematics. Which is it to be?

A wonderful argument :)

1523. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53092 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 9:50 am

and claim that one objective property it has is this: that if you push the pencil to write down symbols according to the relevant abstract symbolic rules then something specific (namely what the theorem claims) will obtain in the end.

Yes. I completely agree, and have been trying to convince you of this for some time now. But you still don't get it. What you are writing down is merely representative of some mathematical objects, and not the objects themselves, as some of the objects are not representable in that way.

If I write your name down, that is not you - it is just your name.

I fear we are being sidetracked here from the main issue

On the contrary, I think this is precisely the main issue - the difference between abstractions, representations and material things.

What we have now come to agree on is that there are mathematical facts and objects that cannot and do not exist in the natural world, but they can be represented in the natural world symbolically, and their existence does not conflict with naturalism.

Well, you could say the same thing of objective ethics. Even if (assuming they exist) they cannot be derived from the natural world, the fact that they can be symbolically represented means, according to your reasoning, that they are not entirely divorced from physical reality, and no more in conflict with naturalism than mathematics.

If you claim this for mathematics, after you now know that there are mathematical objects not representable in the natural world, you have no justification not to allow this for other non-physical but (supposedly) true propositions.

And if they aren't in conflict with the naturalism, then you don't need any supernatural domain to justify them, and a substantial basis for your theistic worldview simply vanishes.

but I insist that there cannot be any objectively true proposition that is entirely divorced from reality. I stick so much with this point because I think that the very concept of objective truth is contingent on reality.

But this is not any kind of argument, is it? No matter how one uses the phrases 'I insist' and 'I think', they form no basis for rational belief.

If you allow even a very small window for people to pass claims of objective truth in a manner that is completely divorced from reality then you are opening a huge window to irrationality.

No, you don't. Because you aren't allowing irrationality. Mathematical truths are based on chosen sets of axioms. Those axioms constrain things. If you accept certain axioms, then it is an objective fact that 1 + 1 = 2.

1524. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53074 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 7:58 am

claimed that all meaningful mathematical theorems describe a property of a material system (and therefore, in short, that math can be reduced to matter).

But that is obviously not the case.

As epeeist says, you are trying to twist the use of the word 'meaningful'. Trying to define it as that which can be reduced to matter just won't do.

No-one could possibly claim that Cantor's work on infinities is not meaningful, yet it clearly can't be reduced to matter.

I don't think it is fait for you to keep saying this within the context of this debate, when this is a matter that is the subject of discussion. You are pre-supposing that you win the debate about this.

But if you are trying to change that use of the word, then I can throw it back at you. I can simply define 'meaningful' ethics as those that are 'reducible to matter', and simply dismiss your ideas of supernatural origin as meaningless and therefore useless.

1525. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53023 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 3:01 am

I don't see any way around the problem, Steve99.

There isn't any problem. Epeeist has given you the details of this extremely well (as expected). But, it can be summarised simply:

All a set of axioms does is point you along a certain 'path' of mathematical discovery.

There is no restriction on axioms; there is no restriction on paths you can take. All we are saying is that if you go along the paths we have explored, you will see what we have seen. That is why this is objective - because it is available for anyone to discover.

1526. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #53002 by steve99 on June 29, 2007 at 1:30 am

I understand your idea, but what I don't understand is this: How can a naturalist know of objective facts that cannot be derived from naturalism? I have asked this before but I don't think I got an answer.

You got a very clear answer. We know of these facts because they are derived from manipulation of symbols (make of physical things) after we have set up the axioms and rules.

Not really. I suppose I have some dozen or so reasons why I find that idealistic theism works better than naturalism.

You seem to need a God to instantiate things that you say can't be derived from naturalism. If, as you have now conceded, that just because some things can't be so derived, that is no reason for them to need to be instantiated. So no need for a God. You are simply adding an arbitrary and unnecessary extra factor.

In my own idealistic worldview the issue of math is resolved very elegantly: All existents - be they apples, or matter, or physical laws, or numbers, or mathematical theorems, or other minds, or beauty, or God – are all patterns present in my conscious experience, and are therefore all epistemologically identical.

This isn't elegant - it is such bad thinking that it makes me wonder how much of what I (and others) have posted here.

Firstly, I have already explained that there are mathematical objects that we know about (so they are objective) that can't fit in any finite system.

You can only know *about* such truths using symbols. But, as that will fit in a finite system, then this knowing is entirely compatible with naturalism.

These things you mention are not epistemologically identical at all - yet again, you are confusing different layers of meaning. All that is in your mind and experience are representations of these things. But that no more implies similarity
than it suggest that a fish and a bicycle are similar because they both have nouns describing them.

In post 773 (or #51331) where I argued that math can be reduced to matter I was explicit about that encapsulating my argument between "putting on my naturalist hat" and "taking off my naturalist hat".

You either accept something or you don't. If you don't (as I suspected), then don't pretend you do.

1527. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52904 by steve99 on June 28, 2007 at 1:00 pm

That's all correct, but then again propositions about such numbers cannot by definition ever affect our conscious experience, cannot therefore be tested one way or the other, and are therefore meaningless (according to logical positivism).

No. They obviously affect our conscious experience. You have proved it by typing that comment!

And they can certainly be tested. Maths is definitely experimental. Fermat's Last Theorem was a conjecture that was eventually proven after centuries of experimentation with different approaches. It was tested and found to be true.

And of course meaningless propositions (such as "omega objectively exists") are not even false and cannot conflict with naturalism.

They aren't meaningless - you are simply labelling them as such. By labelling them as meaningless, you are claiming to know better than most of the mathematics community, and I am sure you aren't that arrogant!

The reason they can't conflict with naturalism is because they are abstract and symbolic in nature.

In any case I don't consider the claim that math can be reduced to matter relevant for my main point, namely that I am justified to consider that theism works better than naturalism. So for all practical purposes in the context of our discussion please consider that I agree with your belief that math cannot be reduced to matter.

It is absolutely central to your main point.

If you concede that objective mathematical facts cannot be reduced to matter, then you are also conceding the general point that objective facts don't have to arise from any form of substance, and so they don't have to conflict with naturalism, even though they can't be derived from naturalism.

This throws into question your statements that if such a thing as objective ethics exists, then it conflicts with naturalism.

Your belief that objective ethics exists and conflicts with naturalism is apparently one of the foundations for your theist worldview.

So, all it takes is for you to concede that, in principle, there are objective truths which can't be derived from naturalism, yet don't conflict with naturalism, (and you have indeed conceded that!) and the entire basis of your worldview is threatened.

1528. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52876 by steve99 on June 28, 2007 at 10:38 am

If mathematical truths are objective but do not describe a property of a material system, then how can we possibly know about them? After all they are not part of the structure of our brain, because if they were they would describe a property of the material system of our brain.

What you are doing is confusing different levels of meaning. Mathematical truths need not describe properties of physical systems. But the symbols we use to describe the truths are indeed part of physical systems. We assign meanings to those symbols, and using axioms and rules, we discover relationships and new meanings.

But just because the symbols are constructed out of physical substance (chalk on blackboard, pen on paper), this does not mean that what they represent has to be. This is unarguably the case - we can express in mathematical terms ranges of numbers which are not only beyond the numbers of particles in the observable universe, but beyond all possible combinations of those particles, so cannot possibly come from any physical form.

1529. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52676 by steve99 on June 27, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Therefore any mathematical truth describes a property of a material system. Therefore all mathematical truths can be reduced to matter.

Considering the nature of transfinite numbers and infinitesimals, I would have my doubts at this stage, but..

For example the infinity of primes can be reduced to the property that a computer that runs a program that inputs a number and outputs a prime greater than that number has: namely that the execution of that program will always end.)

DG. How easily are your arguments dismissed.

The number of primes is infinite. Therefore there is a prime number that cannot be computed within the the bounds of the physical universe. But, we know it exists, as we can compute the fact that exists. But, the number itself (as it is beyond the bounds of the universe) cannot be reduced to matter.

The problem, you see, DG, is not that whether or not that mathematics can be reduced to matter (which it obviously can't), but that you think that this is of any relevance to anything.

It isn't.

As I have shown you, mathematics is abstract. This means that the objective truth of mathematics is not based on whether or not mathematics can be reduced to matter. Any reduction to matter is irrelevant, so the truth of mathematics provides no problem for naturalism.

The same goes for your objective ethics. If they are truly objective, the issue of whether or not they are reducible to matter or physical nature is irrelevant, so their truth provides no problem for naturalism.

And, as this is the case, you have no logical or philosophical foundation to involve a God.

1530. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52665 by steve99 on June 27, 2007 at 4:49 pm

I think with my meagre efforts, and the recent posts by _J_ and epeeist, we are getting to the core of the debate (at last).

I am sure this all centres around DG's "Reification" fallacy, as stated in:

Therefore any mathematical truth describes a property of a material system.

.

My view is that we need to attack this with all the logical and philosophical ammunition we can muster.

The problem on this thread, if you all will forgive me for saying so, is that we have been diverted into discussing the precise details of the emperors new clothes of DG's point of view. We have been distracted into QM, into supposed problems with naturalism, into the nature of naturalism and so on.

But DG's worldview is naked. It requires foundations such as the statement quoted above, which any respectable philosopher or mathematician of the past century would consider to be laughable.

I suggest we don't let him divert us any more, and we ignore page-length essays into the exact nature of his philosophical views (as such diversions only provide a form of support) and we concentrate our Big Guns on this reification argument, as that is the thread, which, when pulled, will unravel the rest of his argument.

1531. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52655 by steve99 on June 27, 2007 at 4:21 pm

As biologists turn up evidence that animals can exhibit emotions and patterns of cognition once thought of as strictly human, Descartes's dictum, "I think, therefore I am," loses its force.

Talk about poor reasoning. This is in no way an argument against Descarte; it is simply an argument for allowing other animals to have an "I".

1532. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52425 by steve99 on June 27, 2007 at 2:20 am

Well, Plantinga develops to some effect a doubt first suggested by the great Darwin himself: namely that evolution has no obvious reason to produce in us truth seeking capacity.

If someone on this thread has recently posted an argument against Plantiga's point of view, as I have (comment 809), could you please actually respond to that post, instead of continuing to write as if such posts had not been made.

If people have posted arguments that are serious rebuttals to your core belief about objective facts, could you please respond to those posts as well, rather than just carrying on.

The point of debate is to respond to what others say.

My view is that what I consider your confusion about abstractions and reality is absolutely central, and needs to be addressed before anything else, as it has the potential show that your worldview has a fatal flaw.

1533. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52387 by steve99 on June 27, 2007 at 12:22 am

I think you have slightly mischaracterized DG's position (but I am sure DG will correct me if I am about to mischaracterize it too).

Yes, you are right, I should have thought about this bit more before posting.

I guess my haste here was because I find DGs position so logically unsupportable. It seems to go like this:

1. I find the naturalists' view of the some aspects of the world absurd.

2. I don't find God absurd.

3. The God that I find reasonable gives me the power to decide what is and isn't absurd.

This is horribly circular, as it reduces to 'I think what I think because that is what I think'.

This strategy (common to religious people) is simply to find a circularly self-supporting worldview that is small and simple enough to fit within our limited human imaginations, rather than to be honest and to just admit the limits of our minds.

1534. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52233 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 2:34 pm

It's only on average that a great number of photons travel in vacuum at the speed of light.

Well that was not what you said in your original post.

In other words a naturalist can safely claim that the value of pi forms part of how physical reality is, or if you will that the value of pi is an integral part of the structure of physical reality.

I really don't understand why you are such a selective reader of what I write, and why you ignore some parts. Pi is NOT an integral part of the structure of physical reality, because it is an infinite number. Physical reality does not have infinite precision. What is used in engineering and science is an APPROXIMATION to Pi.

If that were true then naturalism has one more problem, namely how to account for mathematical objective truths.

No, it really doesn't.

After all most naturalists believe all there exists in reality is this physical universe. If math cannot be reduced to matter they should have to affirm the objective existence of some platonic parallel universe.

I am sorry, but that is just raving nonsense!

Let me try yet again to explain this, because this is at the absolute core of your misunderstanding:

You are confusing abstractions with physicality.

Why do you assume that some platonic parallel universe is require for the existence of mathematical proofs? There is no basis for this.

You have set up the most absurd of straw men!

Let me quote a definition of mathematics to you from wikipedia:

"Other practitioners of mathematics[3][4] maintain that mathematics is the science of pattern, that mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere.
..
Mathematical concepts and theorems need not correspond to anything in the physical world."

I really don't see how this could be expressed any clearer: Mathematics can exist entirely as imaginary abstractions. Do you understand what this means? It means that there is no substance required.

You are, as I keep explaining, making the mistake of Reification or metonymy, the well-understood fallacy of confusing abstract concepts with concrete concepts.

Here is further explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29

I fully agree. Neither has reality to concern itself with your personal opinion. But if I find that naturalism produces a number of contradictory descriptions of reality that all strike my as absurd when idealistic theism produces basically one description of reality that doesn't strike me as absurd, that's certainly one more reason for me to prefer theism, don't you think?

You are trying to have it both ways. You are trying to claim that our reason is a poor way to investigate reality, but then you are using your judgment of what is absurd! Can't you see the contradiction? By your own reasoning, you can't judge what is possibly absurd about reality.

Well I figure that if naturalism has problems and idealistic theism in comparison doesn't, then I have reason to prefer theism over naturalism.

But it has precisely the same problems. All you are doing by transferring to theism is replacing 'how' questions with 'why' answers. Instead of explaining 'how' our consciousness work, you say 'we are conscious because God wants is'. That is not an explanation.

I stand by my claim, and invite you to point out any physical phenomenon we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena) that according to our knowledge so far Quantum Electrodynamics does not exactly model.

Easy. A single photon double-slit experiment. Quantum Electrodynamics will precisely give you the range of the uncertainty, but it can't predict which which detector a photon hits.

Look - I am sorry if I seem a bit terse, but I am getting a bit frustrated about posting the same arguments again and again, and having them either misread or ignored.

1535. God Hates the World

Comment #52130 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 8:50 am

I actually find it quite offensive and very unhelpful that you think that Richard Dawkins' views are typical of all atheists. More than angry, I'm just very very disappointed. It's easy for you to take pot-shots at the lunatic fringe of the atheist spectrum (if a spectrum can have a fringe), but this is not typical of what most atheists believe.

I do hope I am reading this wrong, and you aren't accusing Richard Dawkins of being on a 'lunatic fringe'.

1536. God Hates the World

Comment #52047 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 2:48 am

It is ironic that the British media will not make documentaries about people who are driven by their trust in God to heal, help and restore – but find the time and money to send a crew across to the US to a bunch of extremist, abusive self-publicists.

Are you really that ignorant about the media, or are you just pretending?

The media is already filled with sympathetic religious broadcasting, from Thought for The Day, The Daily Service and Sunday on Radio, to Songs of Praise on television. Just check the BBC's website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ to see the sheer volume of broadcasting, almost all of it uncritical.

But let them show a documentary that shows a few fanatical Christians, and you go into histrionics.

The question is why? Of course extremists always make good tv – but there is also another underlying agenda – one that suits you. Look where religion leads you to.

Rubbish. No-one claims that all religious people will end up like those nutters. The problem is that if you consider faith a virtue, then it enables such awful people to operate with the justification of religion. (And it allows people like you you claim a God-given right to be a bigot about people like me).

1537. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52032 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 1:45 am

Science discovers patterns in physical phenomena

No. This is just the way you want to use the term. Science is a general technique.

To quote from wikipedia:

"In the broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge') refers to any systematic methodology which attempts to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions about events, in line with hypotheses proven by experiment."

I see no 'physical phenomena' mentioned there.

Science is about objective investigation of shared reality; that is all.

1538. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52031 by steve99 on June 26, 2007 at 1:41 am

and my worldview works better than naturalism in all one to one comparisons.

No, I am afraid it doesn't, and your repeated refusal to deal with arguments that show this reveal how weak your worldview is.

For example, your worldview does not explain the existence of objective facts. It only implies that some subjective moral sense is imposed by a creator. And there is no evidence for that at all.

1539. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52014 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:48 pm

Well, I think most naturalists believe just that.

What you think is of no importance. If you make a claim, you had better back it up, and simply saying that you 'think' it is no argument.

I wonder, what important questions do you think naturalism has yet to answer? Or, alternatively, what important questions do you think is naturalism unable to answer?

These questions are irrelevant. You need to realise that if there are indeed any problems with naturalism, to then conclude that supernaturalism is any kind of easy answer to those problems is the weakest possible form of reasoning.

On the contrary, I like the implications of Quantum Mechanics very much, such as how absurd it gets when naturalists try to describe an objectively real physical universe that could produce the quantum phenomena we in fact observe.

Don't try and weasel out of it like this. My argument was that you were using the 'argument from incredulity' and I was right. Reality is does not have to concert it self with your personal opinion of what is absurd. You are being wildly inconsistent: I am sure you accept that relativity occurs. Well, many in the past have considered that absurd. Opinions of what are absurd are no measure of what is true, and it is extremely poor and lazy reasoning to make that argument.

In fact, to our knowledge so far, Quantum Electrodynamics exactly models everything we normally observe (except for gravity and some nuclear phenomena).

Yet more half-baked understanding of science. You do realise that Quantum Electrodynamics involves the term 'Quantum'? And to claim that a Quantum model is exact is nonsense?

Sorry, it's not QM that has a worldview, it's naturalism that has a worldview. And when naturalism tried to actually describe that worldview in a way that is compatible with QM it failed, not just because it produced almost a dozen wildly incompatible descriptions, but also because every one of them is wildly implausible.

More nonsense. Yet again, you personally feel you have the scientific and philosophical authority to define what has failed! And you are using your own sense of implausibility as if that is any argument for anything at all, which anyone with a serious understanding of philosophy would realise is totally unjustified. A Dianelos of 200 years ago would claim that ideas of powered flight and electricity were implausible.

(Also, the descriptions that QM provides are certainly not incompatible. They are so compatible that it is very difficult to think of experiments that can distinguish them).

1540. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52010 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:32 pm

I suppose he had little choice: what QED (quantum electrodynamics – the most advanced form of QM) says is that if you shoot a photon at point A and detect it later at point B then in between that photon has passed through all points of space in the universe following any possible trajectory at any speed.

I know this is a bit off topic, but you are really embarassing yourself with comments like this - as you show a terrible understanding of QM.

Quantum Electrodynamics is not 'the most advanced form of QM'. It is a particularly well-understood and well established part of QM. And a photon does not travel at any speed. It travels at the speed of light.

This does not help your case at all. To comment on science, you need to understand it, and not quote some tabloid-newspaper popular-article half-baked version!

because it's a fact that naturalism has done a terrible job describing reality

That is just crazy. First, you have to stop stating your opinions as facts. Secondly, it is sheer hypocricy on your part to claim this. You are typing this comment using a computer which has been built and designed entirely using science and naturalistic principles. That sure sounds like a pretty good job of describing reality to me.

But suppose I would accept your definition of science, namely that science is not only about modeling phenomena but also about describing reality according to naturalism.

That is NOT my definition of science. My definition of science is that it is about TESTING phenomena and reality. How we then describe reality based on the results of those tests is open to interpretation.

Where you are getting messed up is because you are making wild claims about what science is supposed to do, and then, using such claims, you reject it.

Science is a method for objective investigation. It is objective because it allows subjective views to be put to the test. It is objective because it is repeatable.

Because in our world it is possible to reduce math to matter, which is a good thing for naturalism.

I am getting really frustrated here. Why do you keep ignoring me and posting such nonsense! Do you simply skip over the bits I post that don't fit your worldview?

I tell you again and again about maths that CAN'T BE REDUCED TO MATTER. One example is PI, which has infinite precision. So show me any physical structure in this universe that has infinite precision. Why do you ignore this? I am sorry, but this is increasingly appearing like a desperate defense of a flawed worldview.

You now know full well that there are mathematical facts that are objective and can't be related to any form or substance. Your bizarre requirement that objective statements somehow require some form of generation from substance is clearly wrong. Your statement that objective things require instantiation from some supreme being is nonsense, as if they were objective, then they exist anyway, and require no instantiation.

The whole foundation of your requirement for the supernatural, and some kind of God is based on a seriously flawed understanding of logic and the use of words like 'objective'.

1541. God Hates the World

Comment #51997 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 9:16 pm

It's hosted on a video hosting site, it was posted by PZ Meyers of Pharyngula, and it's sourced here, on Richard Dawkins website, presumably because he saw it and was all "son of a bitch!"

And, of course, it was originally broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK as part of a longer documentary. A similar program about the same family was by Louis Theroux broadcast on BBC 2 a while back.

I assume David has, or is going to, shoot the other messengers too, with complaints and requests for apologies from those TV channels.

1542. God Hates the World

Comment #51991 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 8:13 pm

In TGD, in the chapter on child abuse ("Childhood, abuse and religion"), Dr. Dawkins refers to how parents should bring up their children teaching them how to think and not what to think (p. 327). Is this really not an implication that all religious indoctrination of children is abuse? I think so, and I totally agree with that sentiment. But this is not, as I'm sure you have understood, the point of my comments on this video post. Instead of arguing about the detailed technicalities of what Dr. Dawkins really means is the connection between child abuse and religious teaching, let's discuss the WBC and the video clip. In future replies, please address the main points in my comments. Thanks.

The problem is that we can only address what you actually post, and what you really intend your point to be.

You can state what you think Dawkins' implication might be. That is fair enough. But that is just your conclusion. And it is not the same as stating what Dawkins' actually said. You claimed that he has been making the sweeping generalisation "religious teaching is child abuse". That is obviously not the case, either from what you quote in TGD, from what Dawkins has posted here, or from anything else I have heard him say or write.

"Religious teaching" is not the same as "religious indoctrination". It is also not the same as "some aspects of religious teaching".

1543. God Hates the World

Comment #51918 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 2:41 pm

33. Yet another reasoned and tolerant approach from the 'rational' brigade.

As a gay man, who would, if your Church had it's way, have considerably reduced rights, and would have my currently happy and loving and full relationship labeled as wicked and immoral, I find that you have some nerve claiming that others have a lack of reason and tolerance.

1544. God Hates the World

Comment #51916 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 2:39 pm

However, Dr. Dawkins has on several occasions gone far in implying that all religious teaching is, to a greater or lesser extent, child abuse in that it teaches children that irrational belief is a virtue.

I think you will find that Dawkins is very careful in his choice of words, and has implied no such thing.

1545. God Hates the World

Comment #51902 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 2:13 pm

To post this video and use it as proof that religious teaching is child abuse is pretty cheap.

That is not what Dr Dawkins posted. He said
"I have been attacked for using the phrase 'child abuse' about certain aspects of religious indoctrination."

Which is certainly not the same thing as saying "religious teaching is child abuse".

1546. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51853 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 11:30 am

I find it hard to swallow his arguments myself, but I note that no philosopher of note has pointed out some clear mistake in Plantinga's paper.

Well, here is one. Plantinga has a very naive view of evolution, especially recent human evolution. His arguments about mental development and evolution may be fine for relatively intellectually simple animals, but above a certain level you get a new situation. As Dawkins explains in The Selfish Gene, we are no longer slaves to our genes. We can do things that even hinder our reproductive success, such as using contraception. To claim that beliefs are connected in a tight way to evolution is just plain wrong for humans.

In our society supposedly maladaptive beliefs need not be selected against.

But anyway, his argument is irrelevant, as humans have a way of investigating reality that helps to counter our cognitive weaknesses - science and experiment. What that does is to allow ourselves to be shown to be wrong. It helps to stop us being fooled by our cognitive failures.

I can give you a clear example of how this works. We have cognitive problems when it comes to things like space, time, and the physics of the very small. Left to ourselves, we would indeed have false beliefs about these things. However, science has revealed that beliefs are wrong: space is not absolute; space and time are relative, and strange things happen at the quantum level.

In one regard, Plantinga is right. Our minds are probably not reliable. But we have tools to help reveal that unreliability and overcome it, just like we have medicines to help overcome the unreliability of our bodies.

You might argue that an individual can be mistaken as to their use and understanding of science, so it doesn't help. But here, evolution helps, as it ensures that we don't all think and understand the same way. We each have a different perspective. And science works because it shows consistent results for the same experiments no matter what your perspective - it helps to remove subjectivity.

1547. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51849 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 10:35 am

You already pinned it, this video won't change the minds of ID'rs and Creationists. Well of course it won't.

But that is just how the video appears to be positioned. The first thing it mentions is Intelligent Design.

1548. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51846 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 10:26 am

In fact I wish people would learn more QM and learn about how naturalists tried to find ways to describe a physical reality that would produce the quantum phenomena we observe, because this would help dispel the myth that naturalists have pretty much figured out everything, or that naturalism is a basically workable worldview.

This is terrible debating technique.

First you set up a straw man: No-one is claiming that naturalists 'have pretty much figured out everything'.

Then you use the 'argument from incredulity': You don't like the implications of Quantum Mechanics, so you claim it is not a workable worldview. That is no argument at all.

What you neglect, again and again, that QM is not used because of its worldview, but because it allows predictions of unparalleled accuracy - because it works. If you don't like its worldview, then you are free to ignore the fact that the computer that you are using to post these comments would not work but for QM, so it seems a bit bizarre!

1549. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51802 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 3:21 am

So to just respond "this is nonsense" won't do.

I didn't. I explained why later in the post.

To constantly try to defend science or to show how splendid science is as if anybody was criticizing science strikes me as a very big red herring.

But you are criticising science - you are claiming it can't be used to investigate reality.

Like this:

Indeed the issue of science is entirely irrelevant in our discussion about how reality is.

And as I keep telling you, science works as a way of investigating reality because it allows for investigators to be proved wrong by tests against what is 'out there'. It doesn't matter what that reality is.

However, this is still a side issue. You are avoiding the key problem - why you believe that objective things require substance.... why should the proof of the digits of PI suddenly become false depending on what universe or supernatural domain you are in?

1550. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51789 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 12:27 am

God is what instantiates objective goodness

We have been over this. If something is objective, then by definition it does not need instantiating. If something needs instantiating, and so is not universally present for all to potentially discover, then it is subjective.

You can have objectivity, or you can have something that needs creating. You can't have both.