Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
401. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76043 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Steve99 (post 437, or #75995)
Oh, I see, even though I wonder how do you know that there are more 1 kilo diamonds than cats in the universe :-) But no matter, let me try another example: There are definitely fewer solid gold life-size statues of people in the universe than living bodies of people in the entire universe, correct? I mean there are now about 7 billion bodies of people, but certainly less than 7 thousand such statues. So the statues are much more improbable. Therefore, according to your definition a golden statue possesses much more organizational complexity than a living human body. Which, again, does not sound right.A big one kilo diamond is a very improbable thing, certainly much more improbable than a cat. Does this mean that a big diamond possesses much larger physical/organizational complexity than a cat? This doesn't sound right.You are wrong. A big one kilo diamond is, in the universe as a whole, far, far more probable than a cat, and it possesses far less physical/organisational complexity. It has a more probable state vector. Crystalisation is simple. There are far, far more big crystals of things, even diamonds, than there are cats.
402. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76040 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 1:33 pm
_J_ (post 435, or #75984):
One is that evolutionary theory is not a theory of chance (but of ratcheting 'trial and error' in which 'errors' are deleted by natural selection and 'successes' survive) and therefore doesn't fall foul of Hoyle's claim, even if that claim is legitimate.Hoyle never claimed that there was some problem with natural evolution. What Hoyle argued is that the first viable biological organism (which is required for natural evolution to start) was exceedingly improbable. Now I don't personally agree with Hoyle for he focused on the worse case scenario, but the way Dawkins countered Hoyle's scientific argument is a joke (in my judgment as well in the judgment of well-known reviewers Nagel, Orr, and Plantinga ).
The second is that, without a theory like evolution to explain how things as 'complex' or 'apparently designed' or whatever as intelligent beings can arise in the first place, any other solution proposed is susceptible to Hoyle's criticism.But Hoyle's argument was a scientific argument that estimated the probability of an event that must have happened in the physical universe, an argument based on scientific premises that are valid in the physical universe. Dawkins, amazingly, commits the trivial fallacy of applying Hoyle's thinking to the supernatural realm, as if the supernatural realm is subject to the same kind of limitations and physical laws as the physical realm. You do see that you can't simply project what you know about the physical universe to God, don't you? It's not like the physical universe is a configuration of matter in 4-dimensinal spacetime, therefore God too must be a configuration of matter in 4-dimensional spacetime. Or maybe that the law of conservation of energy applies to God also. Or that brains in the physical universe are complex things with many parts working together, and therefore God too must have a brain that is complex and consists of many parts working together. And therefore, as complex things with many parts working together in the physical universe are improbable, so must God also be. – I mean, it cannot get much worse than that.
In order to back yourself up, are you able to give a short summary (a list will do - we can google for details) of the chief philosophical errors you think Dawkins commits?Well, see above. Or see my September 18, 2007 review of TGD in amazon.com. Or, better still, read the reviews written by well-known naturalists which I link in post 403 (or #75876) in this threat.
403. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76025 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 11:58 am
Dr Benway (post 427, or #75972):
Define "physical.""Physical" refers to the parts or aspects of reality that are governed exclusively by mechanical laws.
Lapsing into "theism vs. naturalism" takes us round and round in circles and establishes nothing.I fail to understand why you think that. Theism and naturalism are positive and opposing theories about how objective reality is, and hence directly comparable.
404. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #76022 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 11:36 am
Peacebeuponme (post 423, or #75962):
Well I agree that the falsity of naturalism does not imply the truth of full-blown Christianity, of course not. But to realize that naturalism can't be the correct description of reality kind of frees the mind, so from that point on insight into the nature of reality becomes much easier.
As for Steve99's specific list it fairly well goes from the more general to the more specific, but I do have a few comments: 1) Once one understands that God is not only the whole of reality but also a person then the Trinitarian nature of God is implicit, because all persons (including you and I) are Trinities. Indeed it's not like God has "3 parts" or consists of "3 persons". 2) The next logical step is that God is a perfect person; Steve omits this. 3) The last two steps he mentions about the nature of Jesus of Nazareth, and about the truth of the resurrection, are matters that are relevant only for somebody who is interested in Christianity. My point is that the existence of God is fundamental ontological knowledge that is open to all conscious beings there are, including, say, aliens who have never heard of Jesus. People sometimes fail to understand that religion is not only an ontological position and an ethical position; it's also a way of life, a particular way or form to relate to the transcendental and to express that relationship in one's society - in short religion is also a culture. As far as ontology and ethics goes there is one truth, but as long as a culture goes there can be and I think should be differences, for cultural diversity is to be celebrated.
405. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75992 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 8:42 am
Steve99 (post 421, or #75953):
A big one kilo diamond is a very improbable thing, certainly much more improbable than a cat. Does this mean that a big diamond possesses much larger physical/organizational complexity than a cat? This doesn't sound right.So how do you define "physical complexity" (aka "organized complexity")?Physical complexity is well defined. It is defined as the probability of the state vector of a system.
In general it's a fallacy to take a property of something and use that property to define it. Now Dawkins does not define what he means by "organized complexity" and only states that "organized complexity is improbable", but from this one cannot infer that "organized complexity is what is improbable". Consider an analogy: Suppose we did not know what "Earth" means but read "Earth is round"; from this we should not infer that "Earth is what is round".
So it seems to me your definition does not work. Maybe you want to try again? Or maybe some other reader wants to suggest here what Dawkins means in TGD when he speaks of complexity? After all it's one of the main concepts of his book.
406. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75979 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 7:45 am
Dr Benway (post 420, or #75946):
So, as there are very few Helium atoms in a junkyard, a Helium filled balloon such as kids play with is incredibly improbable and therefore possesses a lot of "organized complexity". Is that it?Anyway I am curious, what did you understand when Dawkins wrote about "organized complexity"?You keep leaving out Hoyle. It's his argument. Things too improbable to be assembled by a whirlwind in a junkyard are complex.
I think the way Dawkins trivializes the issues in TGD is catchy. In fact Hoyle did not build his argument on any terms that depended on the concept of junkyard and whirlwinds. He built his case seriously and meticulously as any scientist should and calculated his results using mathematics. His result (based on the scientific premises he used) is that the probability of a biologically viable organism coming about by chance is less that 1/10^40000. Only then, and only in order to give people a sense of how improbable that is, did he use the Boeing 747 in the junkyard analogy. But that analogy has nothing to do with his argument.
407. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75973 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 7:27 am
Dr Benway (post 417 or #75940):
Doesn't matter if person B is an authority figure. Doesn't matter if person B makes his argument in print or on the web. The arguments have to be evaluated on their own merits.Sounds good, and I would agree with you in the abstract. But pragmatically speaking one is not able to judge whether a philosophical argument has merit or not before studying some good books about philosophy, as one is not able to judge whether a scientific theory has merit or not before studying some good books about science. And my argument in this thread has been that Dawkins's book is not a good book, and that those who are impressed with its philosophical musings only evidence the fact that they have not studied philosophy.
408. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75971 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 7:11 am
Steve99 (post 410, or #75898):
No, I am talking about a factually true historic process: Special relativity falsified naturalists' intuition that speed is absolute, then general relativity falsified naturalists' intuition that space is plane and that space and time are independent, then quantum mechanics (pretty much) falsified naturalists' intuition that physical reality is deterministic and completely falsified naturalists' intuition that elementary particles have a concrete nature, then Bell's theorem falsified naturalists' (and especially Einstein's) intuition that reality is local and that "no spooky actions at a distance" exist, and string theory is close to falsifying naturalists' intuition that there are only 3 space dimensions. Now Bell's theorem with a twist from special relativity appears to imply that physical reality is such that two observers can with equal reason arrive to contradictory ontological beliefs, which renders physical reality non-objective (because its truths would depend on the observer).But scientific results themselves appear to falsify one after the other naturalists' intuitions about a physical objective reality up to the point of now putting into doubt the very existence of it.No. Yet again, you make a huge unjustified leap. Scientific results are only appearing to falsify what YOU consider to be requirements for a physical objective reality.
The appropriate response to the issues raised by the results is to say 'we may not yet understand the nature of physical reality', not 'there is no physical reality'.It seems to me that the alternatives are: 1) reality is physical but not objective, 2) reality is objective but not physical, 3) reality is a computer simulation, which implies that whether it's physical or objective is unknowable.
Even if there was no 'physical' reality, this is no evidence or justification for the existence of a God.Sure, but I think to realize that reality can't be physical is a big step in the right direction.
409. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75966 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 6:50 am
Alovrin (post 408, or #75884):
Of course I made it up. That's what a hypothesis is: something one makes up. There are no hypotheses that are not made up you know. The trick is then to show that the hypothesis if true has explanatory power, or offers other advantages.with people accusing me that I simply made up my hypothesis in such a way that everything would fit in the end :-)Oh So you didnt just make it up then?
Funny I havent seen this "hypothesis" anywhere else.Even though hypotheses are made up by whomever first suggests them, they are often derived from previous hypotheses. Mine is very similar to Berkeley's ontological hypothesis.
410. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75960 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 6:41 am
Steve99 (post 407, or #75882):
You don't really believe that this is a scientific site, do you? Or maybe you believe that TGD is a scientific book, or that the "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit" is science? It's all philosophy, but very bad philosophy, that's the problem.You imply that for you only scientific hypotheses are worth debating.I don't want to speak for him, but you are the one who has come onto a scientific site, and is trying to use scientific-sounding arguments to put your case.
As for me, sure, I use arguments based on scientific knowledge, but not only such arguments. There is much knowledge beyond scientific knowledge you know, and much reasoning beyond scientific reasoning. I mean anybody who studies even very little philosophy knows that.
411. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75945 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 6:09 am
Steve99 (post 406, or #75881):
So, you call "physical complexity" what Dawkins and Orr prefer to call "organized complexity". I don't see the point, and in fact I prefer Dawkins's expression, but fair enough. So how do you define "physical complexity" (aka "organized complexity")?So "organized complexity" it's all about.And this kind of complexity is "physical complexity"
Just because it is the only rigorous one YOU know, does not mean it is the only rigorous one. It also does not mean that Dawkins has to use any formal definition of 'complexity' to make an argument.People are supposed to explain their terms when making an argument, especially when using concepts that can have various meanings, such as "complexity".
You are just trying to find some way to attack what he writes. However Dawkins writes in a way that is well-understood by scientists everywhere.Well, TGD is not supposed to be a book for scientists only but for a broad audience; in fact Dennett uses this argument to excuse some of the superficiality of the book. Anyway I am curious, what did you understand when Dawkins wrote about "organized complexity"? As you know that's a central concept in TGD.
412. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75936 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 5:48 am
Dr Benway (post 395, or #75771):
So an argument made in a book by someone you deem an "eminent naturalist" is the only thing that counts.Pretty much, yes. If one wants to learn about naturalism one should find a good book about it, one written by an eminent naturalist and/or one that has received good reviews by knowledgeable people. Incidentally Dawkins is not an eminent naturalist; he is an eminent scientist who understands very little about philosophy. And naturalism is a metaphysical position best explained by philosophers.
413. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75932 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 5:31 am
Steveroot (post 392, or #75765):
Neither, so the next word I wrote in post 387 was "But" :-) and then I proceeded to discuss Weinberg's review and thoughts at some length.Authors of fiction and journalists, even if good ones, do not strike me as the kind of people knowledgeable in philosophy or science to authoritatively evaluate TGD's philosophical and scientific merit.So, which do you think Weinberg is- a journalist or an author of fiction?
414. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75929 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 5:06 am
Steve99 (post 391 or #75763):
And you hand-wave Daniel Dennett away?Well, Dennett is the intellectual buddy of Dawkins, the one who approved Dawkins's "Ultimate 747" argument before its publication in TGD and even judged it "unanswerable", and so on. So for Dennett to criticize the main intellectual argument of TGD would be tantamount to reversing himself and conceding that he had fooled his friend, and for him to criticize most of the content of TGD would be tantamount to criticizing himself (it's quite similar to his "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"). Even so he does criticize Dawkins's opinion that religion is necessarily a bad thing, never mind the worse thing around. So not even Dennett is willing to be that extremist.
See: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/dawkinsreview.pdf
So the fact remains that there is not one heavy-weight and disinterested naturalist who has written a clearly positive review of TGD, but several who have written clearly negative reviews. Naturalists are supposed not to shy away from facts, so here is one to face up to: it's not only I, but even knowledgeable naturalists (from well-known philosophers to well-known evolutionary biologists) who have trashed TGD.
415. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75924 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 4:51 am
In post 409 or #75890 I wrote:
Now a naturalist may say: "So what? Objective physical reality exists and does violate epistemological coherence. And if such a reality is difficult to imagine or bothers our deepest intuitions about how a physical reality should be then it's just too bad." But this time the matter cannot just be waved away by pointing out how unreliable our intuitions are. Here's why: If objective reality violates epistemological coherence, it means that what we mean by "objective observation" does not exist. Why? Because "objective observation" is by definition what would allow different people observing the same experiment to arrive at the same conclusions when following the same logic. But this is exactly the same that the epistemological coherence principle demands. So if objective reality is such as to violate that principle then objective observations are not possible, and so naturalism collapses anyway. Why? Because naturalism is based on the validity of the scientific method (that some insist to call "naturalism's methodology") which in turn is contingent on objective observations. If reality is such that the latter do not exist then naturalism's very methodology of thought does not work and naturalism collapses.Now the reader may wonder this: "If no objective evidence is possible and therefore naturalism collapses then why doesn't also science collapse? After all science too is contingent on objective evidence." The reason is that the observations that science uses for modeling phenomena do not violate epistemological coherence, in other words observers looking at the same experiment will never disagree about how to model the relevant phenomena (while using the same logic). It's in relation to attempting to use the same observations to model the physical objective reality that produces these phenomena that epistemological coherence is violated, in the sense that naturalist observers will have to disagree in some cases (e.g. in Bell's test results) in their modeling of the physical objective reality they believe is there (while using the same logic).
416. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75890 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 4, 2007 at 1:33 am
Steve99 (post 388, or #75760):
I am not clear about the implications of Godel's solution of general relativity which allows loops through time[1], but if you are right about these implications it means that not only quantum mechanics but also general relativity implies that physical reality would violate the epistemological coherence principle.A basic property of objective reality concerns what one might call "epistemological coherence", namely that two observers looking at the same experiment and using the same logic always arrive a the same ontological conclusion.That is not a basic property of objective reality. Just to give you an example; Godel came up with a model for objective reality using General Relativity that produced loops in time. This could definitely lead to contradictory observations, yet there is no doubt about the existence of an underlying reality, precisely described by Einstein's equations.
Further please observe that I am not attacking the idea of "objective reality" but the idea that "objective reality is physical". Naturalists believe that scientific models not only describe phenomena but objective reality itself, and therefore believe that objective reality is physical. But scientific results themselves appear to falsify one after the other naturalists' intuitions about a physical objective reality up to the point of now putting into doubt the very existence of it.
Now a naturalist may say: "So what? Objective physical reality exists and does violate epistemological coherence. And if such a reality is difficult to imagine or bothers our deepest intuitions about how a physical reality should be then it's just too bad." But this time the matter cannot just be waved away by pointing out how unreliable our intuitions are. Here's why: If objective reality violates epistemological coherence, it means that what we mean by "objective observation" does not exist. Why? Because "objective observation" is by definition what would allow different people observing the same experiment to arrive at the same conclusions when following the same logic. But this is exactly the same that the epistemological coherence principle demands. So if objective reality is such as to violate that principle then objective observations are not possible, and so naturalism collapses anyway. Why? Because naturalism is based on the validity of the scientific method (that some insist to call "naturalism's methodology") which in turn is contingent on objective observations. If reality is such that the latter do not exist then naturalism's very methodology of thought does not work and naturalism collapses.
[1] The reader can find a description of this here:
http://www.ecclectica.ca/issues/2004/1/groundhogs.pdf
417. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75880 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Dr Benway (post 381, or #75651):
You imply that for you only scientific hypotheses are worth debating. On the other hand you do believe that other people are conscious beings even though this is not a scientific hypothesis. Which implies that you are prepared to believe in non-scientific hypotheses but are not willing to discuss them. This does not look as a very reasonable stance to me, but hey, it's your mind.But the hypothesis that people are conscious beings is an unscientific hypothesis...Glad we can avoid that whole tedious "consciousness is evidence for God" debate.
418. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75878 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Dr Benway (post 379, or #75562):
Your three pieces of evidence for God are still crap.I understand you believe that. On the other hand it's interesting to note not only that many knowledgeable naturalists disagree with you and write serious books trying to counter that evidence, but also that the more knowledgeable these authors are (specialists rather than non-specialists, academic professors rather than non-professors, etc) the harder they have to work at it. Makes you wonder, no?
419. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75876 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Steve99 (post 378, or #75553):
You are getting confused by combining what you call 'organised complexity' (what is actually 'Kolmogorov Complexity') into discussions of thermodynamics.On the contrary I have been arguing that the Kolmogorov complexity is *quite different* from the organized complexity that living organisms display.
The issue of what you call 'organised complexity' has no bearing on this discussion.On the contrary, organized complexity is what Dawkins in TGD is talking about. In fact, the expression "organized complexity" is one I copied from him; Dawkins uses it in TGD albeit rarely (hence the confusion), for example in page 109: "A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right." (my emphasis). So it's "organized complexity" it's all about. Dawkins uses "organized complexity" in other sources too, see for example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dawkins/why-there-almost-certainl_b_32164.html
http://richarddawkins.net/mainPage.php?bodyPage=article_body.php&id=170
Eminent evolutionist Allen Orr also uses that expression in relation to the complexity that living organisms display, see:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19775
420. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75875 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Alovrin (post 375, or #75504):
Dianelos the magician "Hey presto look I can make everything fit" The audience looking at the loose ends hanging everywhere.:-) But that was not my experience in the McGrath thread. The only loose end I recall people pointed at was that my non-naturalistic worldview failed to solve naturalism's problem of how material things can become conscious. Indeed I was criticized by some that my ontological worldview worked too well and looked too easy, with people accusing me that I simply made up my hypothesis in such a way that everything would fit in the end :-)
421. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75873 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Alovrin (post 375, or #75504):
I have already discussed that evidence in the McGrath thread. This issue is in any case irrelevant: even if I am wrong in my belief that a few of the closest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth experienced very realistically the presence of Jesus of Nazareth close to them for a few days after his crucifixion, it makes no difference whatsoever to the main evidence for the existence of God I very quickly mentioned in posts #74435, #74864, and #75203 in this thread. Neither would my error in this belief make TGD and less mediocre, which is an important theme in this thread. So to drum my beliefs about resurrection is a red herring.What I claimed is that the evidence I have makes it probable that the closest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did have some realistic experiences of the risen Jesus, which is a completely different matter.So which evidence would that be then?
422. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75871 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Quetzalcoatl (post 363, or #75271):
And in fact the evidence is (mostly) easy to counter.Some evidence for theism is really easy to counter. But, as you say, there is some evidence for theism which is not easy to counter. So how do you explain that so many naturalists repeat like a mantra "There is no evidence for theism"? It's really weird. I find that popular naturalism (the kind that TGD epitomizes) has many mythological elements in it.
423. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75761 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Dr Benway (post 362, or #75261):
I was not talking about websites, which are a dime a dozen. I was talking about books written by eminent naturalists and which try to counter the evidence for theism. And I do not know any books written by eminent naturalists which try to counter the evidence for Scientology. I notice here aren't any serious books that try to counter the evidence for astrology, which hundreds of millions at least are convinced is true. Neither, for that matter, are there any books written by serious people that try to counter the evidence for fairies.The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.So all those anti-Scientology web sites are actually evidence for Scientology?
Everytime you argue against "naturalism" you shoot yourself in the foot. For without the natural world, meaning vanishes.Really? Somebody should have told that to the many eminent philosophers whose papers appear in "Naturalism in Question" (Harvard University Press, 2004).
424. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75759 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Steve99 (post 361, or #75257):
Authors of fiction and journalists, even if good ones, do not strike me as the kind of people knowledgeable in philosophy or science to authoritatively evaluate TGD's philosophical and scientific merit. But I was curious about Weinberg's review of TGD, which I found here:So do you know of any reviews by knowledgeable people who agreed with Dawkins's reasoning?Yes. Joan Bakewell, distinguished journalist. Stephen Weinberg (who needs no introduction). Michael Frayn (novelist)
http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25349-2552017,00.html
Well, it seems to me that in this review Weinberg expresses approval of Dawkins's general beliefs about religion, but has nothing particularly positive to say about the book itself. In fact, perhaps diplomatically, he does not even touch on what Dawkins himself declares to be the intellectual heart of TGD, namely his "Ultimate 747" argument, but only, rather ingeniously, criticizes eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel's judgment that Dawkins is an "amateur philosopher". All in all that's a lukewarm review at best. In fact I was watching an interview with Weinberg where he has this to say: "if what you're suggesting is that there is no necessary conflict between being a scientist and being religious, I have to agree" – so Weinberg does not agree with Dawkins on a fundamental issue, namely that God and science are incompatible, or that the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. See
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2260129385438753065
Here is another interesting bit of that interview: Weinberg agrees that "Christianity or Buddhism are, in a different way, more intellectually intelligible and complimentary to a scientific view, that they have a theory about the world – even though it's a theory I don't agree with". And I would agree with him when he says "the idea that God, whether it's Allah or Jehovah or whatever, has dictated certain ways of behaving, certain ways of worshipping, and that it's incumbent on you to force others to behave that way and worship in that way, God (sic), think of all the harm that's been done throughout all the ages by people who believe that and believe it very sincerely." He further says "Putting God ahead of humanity is a terrible thing." Further: "I don't like God. […] The God of traditional Judaism and Christianity and Islam strikes me as a terrible character. He's obsessed with the degree to which people worship him, and anxious to punish with the most awful torments those who don't worship him in the right way." It's actually refreshing to listen to hmm thoughtful naturalists. And I marvel how even naturalists are able to correctly reason about God. Further: "Science is corrosive to religious belief, and it's a good thing too", which I also agree with, as there is much in religious belief that is actually wrong and science can certainly help to pinpoint which.
Anyway, does anybody know any clearly positive review of the TGD by Dawkins's peers (except for his buddy Dennett)? Because we have at least three clearly negative ones (Nagel's, Orr's and Plantinga's – and now I understand one more by agnostic philosopher Anthony Kenny). If TGD is the important book many fancy, a book that, as Dawkins himself announces, explains "why almost certainly no God exists", it's kind of strange that so few knowledgeable people have anything good to say about it.
425. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75754 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Dr Benway (post 357, or #75228):
You do have access to the same kind of subjective experience of life I have, for example you see colors, you feel pain, you experience beauty, and so on. Even though there is no objective evidence for that, all reasonable people believe that normal people experience life in basically the same way. More knowledgeable naturalists have no trouble facing up to that fact and therefore have no problem discussing subjective experiences too, see for example Sam Harris's recent talk "The Problem with Atheism" where he intelligently talks about spiritual experiences. (see:The deist (or even the theist) God may not interfere with physical phenomena but may be present in our subjective experience of life...Then there's nothing for us to argue about. I don't have access to your subjectivity.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1702,The-Problem-with-Atheism,Sam-Harris#75674 )
426. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75753 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Geraint (post 353, or #75219):
OK, let me clarify what I mean. A basic property of objective reality concerns what one might call "epistemological coherence", namely that two observers looking at the same experiment and using the same logic always arrive a the same ontological conclusion. This must not be confused with the common relativity that is contingent on the observer. So, two observers seeing the same apple on a table will observe something slightly different and hence will not exactly agree about their observations. Einstein famously showed that two observers might even disagree about the relative timing of two events they observe. But these are all differences in claims about observations, i.e. about phenomenal reality. The principle of epistemological coherence refers to differences in claims about objective reality itself. For example, the epistemological coherence principle states that objective physical reality cannot be such that two observers opening the box with Schroedinger's cat claim with equal justification one that the cat is dead and the other that it is alive; or that two observers watching the start of a tennis match disagree about which player first served the ball, both with equally good reason.[The Bell test results], arguably, falsify all models of an objective and direct physical reality.No, unless objective and direct means tiny billiard balls bouncing off each other.
Bell's test results appear to violate epistemological coherence and therefore to falsify all naturalistic ontologies (or at least all ontologies of scientific realism). The reason is that two observers in different frames of reference will observe different measurements first take place, and therefore will disagree about which measuring device superluminally affected the other. Which is analogous to two observers disagreeing about which tennis player first served the ball.
But I know I should resist getting into this, since I managed to resist on the McGrath thread...Well, I would appreciate your opinion about the above.
427. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75751 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 3, 2007 at 2:49 pm
BAEOZ (post 348, or #75199):
Well I am sorry, really I am, but the similarities are too strong to go unnoticed: The superficiality of thinking, the focus on one source as the only permissible explanatory ground for everything (the Bible here, science there), the exclusivity of outlook (e.g. either God or else natural evolution – a point where both sides agree), the mental inflexibility to understand opposing ideas and the unwillingness to seriously study them, the demonizing of those of different ontological beliefs, the disdain for those who disagree, the sense of forming some kind of illuminated group of people fighting against some terrible threat for humanity that only they perceive, the quest for political power, the self-congratulatory tribalism, the modern marketing and PR resources, the super-stars and the admiring audiences, and, now, the money.My, the similarities [of new atheism] to fundamentalism just keep growing.[That's] wishful thinking.
428. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75506 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Steve99 (post 347, or #75198):
I understand so are the various fundamentalist mega-churches in the US, so that's quite irrelevant.This site is a commercial site meant to improve the sale of Dawkins's products; just look at its home page.No, it is not a commercial site. If you had been keeping up you would know that it is now a registered charity.
Joke well taken, but actually even stupid content that users add to a site increases that site's visibility to search engines, and hence adds value to it.We all, by posting content to it, are actually adding value for free.Well, I think that is debatable :)
429. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75505 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Geraint (post 343, or #75190);
It's true that TGD was somewhat ambiguous on this point, perhaps deliberately since a rigorous treatment of complexity would massively increase the length and unreadability of the book.Well, one should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. And the TGD is so simple as to become misleading. And I am not sure that the excessive simplicity was deliberate for readability purposes, because a careful analysis shows that Dawkins's arguments are in fact wrong. I assume he actually believed things are as simple as that.
Still, it's fairly clear Dawkins was talking about a macroscopic description of complexity. If you take two bodies of different temperatures and allow them to come into equilibrium, the entropy of the system will increase, and yet the description of their macroscopic state will become more concise.And hence less complex. Yes, good point. But in any case I am not attacking Dawkins's premise that "irreducible organized complexity is improbable". I was only pointing out that a) that premise only holds in the physical realm and it's question begging to apply it to the supernatural, and b) "organized complexity" is a special kind of complexity not related to the (fine-grained) complexity which actually normally grows in thermodynamic processes and is therefore more probable.
430. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75502 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Bonzai (post 336, or #75175):
Nail down your God first,--and I am not making reference to Jesus,-- then ask for "proof" or justification against its existence, whatever you call it. Until then you haven't even a meaningful claim that God exists, just words and more words.First of all to ask a Christian to "nail down your God" is very bad manners!
I am joking - I understand exactly what you mean. But I wish naturalists would make up their minds:
Is it "first define God's attributes and then prove God exists" or is it "how can you describe something you have not even proved exist"?
Is it "the God hypothesis is not a scientific hypothesis, and therefore no scientifically minded person believes in it" or is it "the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, and therefore science can disprove it"?
Is it "see how many people literally believe in the Bible, including all the absurd things and terrible morality" or is it "see how even fundamentalists do not take their morality from the Bible"?
Is it "we are serious people and do not do metaphysics" or is it "we believe in the metaphysical proposition that no supernatural beings exist"?
Is it "religious people should not be dogmatic" or is it "religious people should be dogmatic and not pick and choose"?
It sounds a little like "damn if you do, damn if you don't" doesn't it?
But to answer your point: Sure, one must first define what one means by the God hypothesis, and then show why it's reasonable to believe that it's true. There are various general definitions of God; Dawkins in TGD gives one that is not so bad. My own working definition of God is that the deepest structure of reality is one person. Now, normally, existential claims (such as "God exists") are justified by their explanatory power, i.e. a theist should proceed to show how their ontological hypothesis has more explanatory power than other ontological hypotheses. Interestingly enough explanations based on X often turn out to imply more properties of X, properties that go beyond its narrow definition.
So maybe that's where the confusion stems: As in all cases of existential propositions, a theist can define God minimally and then bit by bit use that hypothesis's explanatory power to illustrate more and more properties of God, or else give a more detailed definition of God which makes the subsequent argument easier. For example it's easier to start by defining the deepest structure of reality as a perfect person than by defining it as a person only and then proceed to show by what argument one arrives at the conclusion that that person is moreover perfect. In any case one is free to make any hypothesis one likes: if a theist wishes do give a full description of God before proceeding to compare that hypothesis to other ontological hypotheses then this theist is fully within their epistemological rights.
431. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75501 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Steve99 (post 330, or #75040):
You are confusing mathematical complexity with physical compexity.Well, I have defined what I mean by "complexity" (and have indeed given a rigorous mathematical definition). I wonder, how do you define "physical complexity"? There may be various meanings of "complexity" and if you think of some other meaning you must define it for your statements to make any sense.
432. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75499 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Lauregon (post 329, or #75036):
I find this a little disingenuous. Sure there are some people out there who suffer because of their religious beliefs, but this does not imply that most religious people feel like that and that in implication religion hurts people. In fact it's rather clear that most religious people find religion very useful in their lives. There are even studies that show that all other things being equivalent religious people tend to enjoy a higher quality of life (i.e. experience more personal well-being).
Indeed much of "new atheism's" popular books consists in finding out the worse anecdotes/facts/quotes related to religion possible. But using selective evidence is not a tool of reason, but of demagogy.
433. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75498 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Dr Benway (post 326, or #74977):
Sure. But we were discussing scientific reasoning not parsimonious reasoning :-) You may argue that all scientific reasoning is parsimonious, but this does not imply that all parsimonious reasoning is scientific.But the hypothesis that people are conscious beings is an unscientific hypothesis because science can explain all objective phenomena, including peoples' intelligent behavior, without making that hypothesis.No. The notion that others process information in ways similar to myself is a more parsimonious explanation for behavior than otherwise.
434. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75497 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Steve99 (post 325, or #74957):
If you enter into any form of discussion about the validity of an idea, then you have to follow certain rules about what is reasonable and what isn't.Sure, but in a formal argument you must show explicitly how you do that, i.e. state how you go for "is" to "ought" propositions. For example you could have suggested the premise: "If people tend to accept the truth of X then people should accept that it is more reasonable to believe in the truth of X". This would work in your argument, but looks of course like a terrible premise. That's the beauty of analytic philosophy: it forces us to explicitly state our argument step by step which helps us notice its weaknesses.
435. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75496 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Robert Maynard (post 321, or #74900):
E is a 'brain in a vat', Matrix-esque experience simulatorNot exactly, because in a "brain in a vat" (or Matrix) situation a physical brain actually objectively exists, which in world E doesn't. The world E is a world of experience, and represents idealism's understanding of reality.
Unfortunately, assuming that E is true and not M, the comparitive complexity of a creator and the universe it didn't create is irrelevant.You are correct. My argument only shows that a supernatural designer capable of producing all evidence we base scientific knowledge on could be much less complex than the universe that scientific realism posits.
Still, Dawkins's 747 argument depends on two unjustified and I think unjustifiable premises: 1) that a designer must be more complex than the design (a premise I think cannot even be justified for physical designers), and 2) that the higher but irreducible a thing's organized complexity is the lower the probability that it exists (a premise that cannot be justified for supernatural things and hence does not apply to God). If you can think of ways to justify these premises by Dawkins, please do so.
436. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75493 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Steve99 (post 320, or #74891):
God is considered to be the origin of the universe. That is a scientific issue.Hardly. In fact from the scientific point of view the very question of what caused the Big Bang is meaningless because there was no time before the Big Bang. How come the universe that resulted from the Big Bang appears so fine-tuned for life is not a scientific question either as I explained before. Science is there to model phenomena, and doesn't even care whether the physical universe is objectively real or not. All metaphysical questions about reality fall on naturalism's lap.
You personally claim that God restored life to an individual called Jesus. That is in principle a scientific issue, as by definition there must have been a corpse that was medically dead yet at some future time showed biological activity.Nope, I never claimed such, not least because the claim of a bodily resurrection only makes sense if one believes in the objective existence of the physical universe, which I don't. What I claimed is that the evidence I have makes it probable that the closest disciples of Jesus of Nazareth did have some realistic experiences of the risen Jesus, which is a completely different matter. In fact I think I clarified that for all I know Jesus's remains are still somewhere, in the sense that in principle somebody may be able to discover them.
But other theists do claim that Jesus's corpse resurrected after three days and then ascended to heaven. Is that a scientific hypothesis? I think it is, because science could at least in principle falsify that hypothesis by discovering Jesus's remains. One can easily find other theistic claims that are scientific hypotheses. For example the theistic claim that prayer to God is efficacious for curing illness is a scientific claim that can be tested, and I understand has been falsified by science. The theistic claim that believers in God are on average more altruistic people is another scientific hypothesis, and I understand it has been confirmed by science. And what about the harebrained claim of "new Earth creationism" according to which physical reality came into existence only about 6000 years ago? Unfortunately that thesis cannot by definition be falsified by science (not even time travel would be sufficient), and hence is not a scientific hypothesis.
Now Dawkins claims that the existence of a supernatural designer who supernaturally designed the universe is a scientific hypothesis. It should be clear that this hypothesis is not scientific either, because it can't possibly be falsified by science. After all, young Earth creationism is a much stronger claim which entails this hypothesis, and even so cannot be falsified by science.
How could Dawkins, a good scientist, commit such a mistake and believe that the God hypothesis as defined by him is a scientific hypothesis? I think the answer lies with what Plantinga first noticed, namely that Dawkins commits the "hasty generalization" fallacy and infers from "Darwinism implies that no designer of the species is necessary" that "Darwinism implies that no designer of the species exists". So he comes to believe that science can after all falsify the God hypothesis.
437. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75356 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 11:48 am
Robert Maynard (post 359, or #75252):
Robert, I can't believe you actually went to all the trouble and actually tested my affirmation :-( What are you, a scientist? My fundamentalist friends always advised me to never to debate with scientists, for the Devil has taught them all kinds of tricky stuff in order to confuse our faith.
But seriously now: I did make a mistake when I wrote that paintings by Lichtenstein will compress better than Pollock's when one saves them as .jpg files. The reason is that JPEG compression is lossy, i.e. it loses information while compressing. In the context of discussing complexity the idea of course is how much information can be compressed without losing any of it. A well-known lossless compression program is WinZip. Photoshop allows the lossless compression of images using for example TIF. I tried this out using your 6 images after cropping 400x400 pixel rectangles from their upper left corner so as to make the results better comparable. The Lichtenstein images produced 426, 307, and 378 KB TIF files. The Pollock images produced 432, 441, and 507 KB images. The Lichtenstein images clearly allow for more compression as they are less complex, still the difference was less than I expected. The reason is the originals were already lossy compressed images, which adds a lot of extraneous noise into the image. My guess is that if one uses uncompressed images (maybe by scanning high quality photos from books) and then compresses them using TIF the Lichtenstein files will be less than half the size of the Pollock files.
Now a few comments:
But whether or not "most people" would find a Pollock painting more complex than a Lichtenstein (really, do you know that for sure, or were you typing one-handed again?),It's difficult to argue about peoples' subjective sense, but I bet that if people were shown the pictures you picked and asked which groups of 3 strikes them as more complex, more than 90% would judge that Pollock's pictures are more complex.
I assume you did such a test too, before making a claim like thatI didn't. It turns out I have single-handedly written my own lossless encryption program (I could never make is as efficient as pkzip, but have nevertheless used it as part of some products), so I know how compression works. The concept of compression goes much further than just sending smaller files over the internet or saving disk space by the way. It turns out that to discover an explanation of a set of data (say gravitational phenomena) is nothing more than to discover a way to losslessly compress that data, and the better the compression the stronger the explanation. The reason is that explanations are at bottom patterns, and patterns, including statistical regularities, is what a compression algorithm looks for. Optimal compression would require artificial intelligence.
One could point out that the images I've sourced have already lost so much information they're useless for comparisonNo. We can compare the complexity of anything we like, so we need not measure the complexity of the original paintings, but may very well measure the complexity of any image of them, even compressed images. The only problem with highly compressed images is that they contain a lot of noise, noise cannot be compressed, and therefore tends to hide the complexity difference of two images. Noise is also hardly visible to the naked eye, so I could take an image by Lichtenstein that appears to be less complex than an image by Pollock and add noise to it in such a way that it becomes more complex.
Lichtenstein's paintings, while enjoying high regularity and visual simplicity, contain comparable orders of information to Pollock paintings, which contain high levels of visual complexity.Again it's not a question of amount of information for all images 400x400 (x24 bits of color data) contain exactly the same amount of information. The question is how much that information can be losslessly compressed. Images that strike us as more visually complex will tend to compress less, and are then by definition more complex.
And precisely what kind of timescale are we viewing water and ice on?Both entropy and complexity describe a property of the state of a system at a particular moment.
The crystalline lattice of any given quantity of ice, while pending towards a gross regularity, contains tremendous inconsistencies, mostly derived from microscopic variations in temperature exchanges, and conflictingly oriented subsets of crystalline structures.Even so it should be clear that the range of values of position and momentum parameter of each atom in the ice is much more restricted than in the case of liquid water, therefore the information that describes the state of an ice cube can be compressed more than the information that describes the state of a cupful of water of equal mass, and therefore the former has less complexity than the later.
438. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75255 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 6:43 am
Lauregon (post 317, or #74797):
There is lots and lots of evidence for the existence of God. - DianelosSure, but it's also Dawkins's idea of "God", and you were asking about specifically "whose idea of God". Well Dawkins's idea is perfectly acceptable, for I don't think many theists would disagree that God is indeed the supernatural designer of the universe.
Evidence for whose idea of "God?" Jerry Falwell's? A Muslim ayatolla's? Einstein's? – Lauregon
Dawkins's. (see page 31 of TGD.) - Dianelos
The "God" described on p 31 of TGD is the hypothesis of believers. – Lauregon
So, defining the meaning of "God" is rather easy; even Dawkins could come up with a good one, notwithstanding the fact that he hasn't studied any serious books on theology. That it's somehow difficult to find a general definition for the meaning of "God" is just another bit of naturalistic mythology.
Theists think that they do have evidence for the existence of God, and so naturalists have to show why these are not really evidence for the existence of God and only fallacies. - DianelosWhatever. The fact remains that many naturalists including Dawkins take theists' evidence seriously enough to write books arguing against it. Which shows two things: that evidence for God certainly exists, and that it's not trivially easy to counter.
No, "naturalists" don't. - Lauregon
Well, Dawkins in TGD certainly attempts to do that. As do more knowledgeable naturalists such as Mackie, Martin, Drange, Sinnot-Armstrong, and many others. - Dianelos
Thinking that something unseen exists and acts doesn't make that which is thought factual. Hypothesizing is conjectural, not factual. The burden of proof lies with those making the claim for the existence for the unseen, not with those who don't believe the unseen thing exists. Those who advocate for the unseen have profoundly disingenuous and dodgy ways of making their case for the unseen to unbelievers---ways that with very few exceptions convince only the consenting choir. – Lauregon
439. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75248 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 6:17 am
Steve99 (post 311, or #74693):
And far more naturalists find Dawkins' argument sound than don't.Sure.
You should know that cherry-picking those who support your views is no way to argue.So do you know of any reviews by knowledgeable people who agreed with Dawkins's reasoning? Let's see, on the back of the book itself there are several admiring quotes: The first is by Phillip Pullman, a writer of fantasy novels. The second is by Matt Ridley, science writer, businessman, and aristocrat, who mainly worked in journalism. The third is by Steven Pinker, who is a more impressive individual: he is a Harvard professor of psychology. The third is by Brian Eno, is an electronic musician, music theorist, and record producer. And the fifth is by Derren Brown, an illusionist and hypnotist.
Well, what can I say, except for Pinker the rest look distinctly unimpressive to me, certainly much less qualified to judge TGD than Nagel, Orr, or Plantinga. As for Pinker his quote is conspicuously lukewarm, basically only saying that TGD is an elegant book. Here's his complete quote "At last, Richard Dawkins, one of the best non-fiction writers today, has assembled his thoughts on religion into a characteristically elegant book.".
440. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75224 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:37 am
Steve99 (post 288 or #74522):
You were claiming that the descriptions of reality were in principle indistinguishable.How are the various interpretations of quantum mechanics in principle distinguishable by science, if they are all mathematically identical to the predictions of quantum mechanics?
I mean I know there are some ideas of how to falsify such interpretations. One is to try suicide; if you find you consistently fail to kill yourself then you have falsified all except the many-worlds interpretation. And, obviously, if you die and continue experiencing a world where quantum mechanics does not apply then you have falsified them all. But that's not the point. The point is that some people consider interpretations of quantum mechanics (i.e. descriptions of reality) as part of science, while being unable to explain what objective scientific test can confirm or falsify any of them. Naturalists should themselves respect their own definitions about what is scientific, as well as about what a reasonable ontological hypothesis is.
441. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75220 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:20 am
Vinelectric (post 285, or #74503):
In fact the undoing of any argument for God lies in the base moral level exhibited by the biblical narrative.This statement nicely demonstrates how often people conflate theism with Biblical literalism, or even Christianity with Biblical literalism. And why not? On the one hand people hear all the loud fundamentalists insisting that theism is Biblical literalism, and on the other hand people read books by the new atheists (Harris, Dawkins, etc) who appear to say the very same thing. And both groups, left and right, censure the study of serious books on theology that may dispel that nonsense.
442. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75218 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 4:12 am
Dr Benway (post 284, or #74502):
Robust, non-falsifiable metaphysical models below:All metaphysical models are falsifiable (or at least virtually all – right now I am having trouble imagining a counterexample). Scientific discoveries have regularly falsified particular naturalistic models. The Bell test results falsify all non-local naturalistic models, and, arguably, falsify all models of an objective and direct physical reality. If a fundamentalist dies and then experiences absolutely all people going to heaven that would falsify their own metaphysical model. Indeed to experience life after death would falsify the vast majority of naturalistic models, but arguably not all. And so on. It seems to me that all metaphysical models that actually say something meaningful must predict something or other and therefore are falsifiable.
1. Materialism and its variants (naturalism, physicalism, pantheism)
2. Idealism and its variants (brain-in-a-vatism, solipsism, idealistic theism)
3. Deism and its variants (supernatural realm distinct from natural realm, some dualisms)
The deist god establishes the nature of reality and its laws, but never violates any of them. He's outside the system and largely irrelevant to our understanding of it.It seems to me you are conflating phenomenal reality with phenomenal physical reality. The deist (or even the theist) God may not interfere with physical phenomena but may be present in our subjective experience of life, and/or their existence may be necessary for understanding the whole of our experience of life. It's a fallacy to infer from "I don't need the God hypothesis for understanding physical phenomena" therefore "I don't need the God hypothesis for understanding anything".
443. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75203 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 3:32 am
Dr Benway (post 283, or #74487):
Dianelos's evidence for God in 74435:Well, a clarification here. I that post I included a list of pieces of evidence for God, evidence that naturalist philosophers find serious enough to write book-length responses. I did that to counter the brainless mantra "there is no evidence for God". But I do not wish to imply that I myself consider each piece of this evidence significant. So here is the list you quote:
1) the impossibility of a non-designed first biologically viable organismThat's the list of evidence that Dawkins tries to respond to in TGD. It's not by any measure complete. For example you omitted one piece of evidence I explicitly mentioned in post 74435 as one of the most important ones, namely the existence of consciousness.
2) the fine-tuning of the fundamental physical constants
3) the existence of morality (which evidence he (Dawkins) completely misunderstood – more about this, maybe, later)
Your first piece of evidence is a bold claim that hasn't been established.I am not sure what you mean by "established", but in any way I agree that this evidence only reflects a gap in scientific knowledge, and there are even some good ideas about how it can be closed. I personally find it not very convincing one way or the other, and I think that Dawkins in TGD did a bad job responding to it, for I think he could have responded much more effectively then by suggesting the naive "Ultimate 747" philosophical argument and then incongruently topping off that self-proclaimed unanswerable argument with the tautological "planetary anthropic principle" (if life originated naturalistically then it has originated naturalistically somewhere).
Your second piece of evidence is, at best, a gap in our understanding of why the physical constants are as they are. The "God of the gaps" argument is recognized as fallacious.Two things: First it seems to me that the apparent fine-tuning of the constants is not a scientific problem, and hence does not represent a gap in scientific knowledge. Rather the fundamental constants and their values represent the deepest structure of scientific knowledge itself, and I don't see in what sense science must justify its models beyond demonstrating that they work. But the apparent fine-tuning of the constants, i.e. the fact that physical reality at its deepest structure appears to be designed for life, does represent a serious problem for naturalism. Do you recall your suggestion that God could have signed "Made by God" all our femurs? Well it appears as if God has put a signature on the very deepest structure of physical reality, where all intelligent beings can discover it. Second: It's not like any problems of naturalism that theism identifies can be waved away by joking about "God of the gaps". This is a serious problem for naturalism, one that theist philosophers are exploiting to the full, and one that moves naturalists to suggest ontological hypotheses (e.g. the multiverse) that violate naturalism's own standards of reasonableness. Naturalism does have some serious problems, and it would be best if naturalists in general faced up to them.
I define morality as those behavioral rules we decide to live by as social beings.You can define morality any way you like. The theistic argument is that naturalism directly contradicts theists' own and indeed most peoples' meaning of the word "morality". Please observe that theists do not have to show evidence that will convince you personally; that's not what reason requires of them. Reason only requires of them to base their ontological beliefs on evidence that satisfies them. If you prefer your particular definition of "morality" and therefore judge that particular evidence vacuous, that's quite ok.
444. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75196 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 2:48 am
Veronique (post 282, or #74485):
And have you paid your dues to RDFRS for your interminable postings?Are you serious? This site is a commercial site meant to improve the sale of Dawkins's products; just look at its home page. We all, by posting content to it, are actually adding value for free. And I did not know that Dawkins is actually soliciting money for his organization. My, the similarities to fundamentalism just keep growing.
445. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75194 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 2:42 am
Alovrin (post 281, or #74482):
Dawkins is a professor at Oxford University. There are many fine professors of philosophy there including naturalist ones, whom Dawkins should have consulted with, especially before calling his 747 argument "unanswerable".As far as I am concerned TGD shows very well what happens when you publish a book outside your field of expertise without first checking with specialists.Oh so who should he have checked with first.. the pope maybe? Pat Robertson? How about Ted Haggard?
446. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75181 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 1:55 am
Robert Maynard (post 331, or #75099):
I try to respond to posts in sequence, but would like to comment on this one in order to avoid a misunderstanding.
Before starting I notice that the plural of "die" is "dice" and not "dies" :-) I will have to fix my previous posts.A cup of liquid water has more entropy and is more complex than an ice cube of the same mass.- is still wrong. Your dice example and your phrasing sounds as though you think ice cubes are at a standstill, and maintain a regimented regularity. I repeat, they do not. "There are precisely as many fine structural irregularities and simple movement vectors in solid ice as there are in liquid water, and there is precisely as much substrate consistency in liquid water as there is in an ice crystal."
Dawkins in TGD uses the concept of "complexity" very often without defining it. The definition I gave in post 327 is the only rigorous one I know, the one used in the context of information theory, and indeed the one that fairly well correlates with peoples' subjective sense of complexity. For example most people would judge a painting by Jackson Pollock to be more complex than a painting by Roy Lichtenstein. And sure enough, paintings by Lichtenstein (at any resolution of detail) will compress better when you save them as .jpg files than paintings by Pollock. The definition then is that "complexity" is the measure of how little the description of something can be compressed, or, equivalently, "complexity" is the minimum size of information needed to describe something. (This, for example, implies that random things have maximum complexity. By the way, complexity should not be confused with useful information, indeed random things have minimum useful information content. It's rather organized complexity that positively correlates with useful information.)
Now I claim that according to the rigorous definition of complexity an ice cube is less complex than the cupful of liquid water it produces if it melts. I agree with you that in both phases you have exactly the same number of atoms, each atom has exactly the same number of quantifiable properties, etc. So I agree that the uncompressed description of the two phases contains exactly the same amount of information. But complexity is defined as the minimum amount of information necessary to describe a system. I hope it is clear that the information that describes an ice cube can be compressed much better than the information that describes the cupful of water. After all the range of values of the position and momentum parameters of all atoms in the former are much more restricted than in the latter, and so each of these values requires less binary bits of information for its representation. (And before you wave the wave-function or the tunneling effect in front of me I hurry to add that I mean restricted in the probabilistic and not the absolute sense.) So in conclusion the information that describes an ice cube is more compressible than the information that describes the corresponding cupful of liquid water, so the former is less complex than the latter.
Similarly most cases thermodynamic processes increase both the entropy and the complexity (as defined) of a system. Therefore one expects to find with the passage of time more and more complex systems in nature, even at the absence of natural evolution, and hence complexity becomes with time more probable. In fact the effect of natural evolution is the opposite: A living organism is not a system of high complexity but rather of low complexity (as well as low entropy) as I tried to illustrate with my example of the tomato and the blender. But islands of persistent low complexity or entropy are improbable and therefore require an explanation (in Dawkins's sense). To say that a living organism has little complexity sounds weird because in the context of organisms (or of machines) when we speak of "complexity" we really mean "organized complexity", a different concept altogether. Dawkins in TGD mentions another example of organized complexity (which looks designed but does not require a designer he says): planetary systems. And, clearly enough, planetary systems are regions of less complexity than regions of interstellar dust of the same mass and volume. So persistently low complexity appears to be a necessary but perhaps not a sufficient property of organized complexity.
Finally I would like to make clear that the discussion above does not point at an error in TGD, but only at some ambiguity in it. Dawkins should have made clear that he means "organized complexity" and not "complexity" in general.
447. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75168 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 2, 2007 at 12:59 am
Dr Benway (post 280 or #74481):
We've talked about the methodological naturalism vs. metaphysical naturalism problem. You've conceded that you accept methodological naturalism. Yet, still steve99 and others will respond to some point you make regarding "naturalism" with what looks to my eyes like a defense of methodological naturalism.As we saw "methodological naturalism" is a superfluous term, for it means nothing more than "scientific method", and it only represents naturalists' desire to appear to be associated with science. It's like saying: "Of course science and naturalism are closely related, after all science's methodology is methodological naturalism". Further when I, or anybody else, uses "naturalism" in the context of discussing ontological theories it's obvious that one's meaning is "ontological naturalism".
But perhaps you are right that when I deny naturalism people might get the impression I also deny the scientific method, in fact they are right in part. The scientific method is excellent in its field of application, namely in the study of objective phenomena, but I deny its automatic applicability to all fields of knowledge. For example you can't use the scientific method to discuss ethics because any ethical system is critically contingent on some assumptions about value, and the scientific method itself is value-neutral. The methodology one is supposed to use in all fields of knowledge is reason. And even though the scientific method is reasonable, not all that is reasonable can be subsumed to the scientific method. For example reason as used in one's own personal life is contingent on one's subjective tastes. Reason as used in analytic philosophy is contingent of premises that can affirm anything as long as it is meaningful. Reason as used in mathematics is to a significant degree contingent on mathematical intuition. And so on. It seems to me that some scientifically informed people, and maybe people just blinded by the success of science, tend to become like the hammer that only sees nails.
Please say "atheism" when you mean a reality without gods.I have already explained why I prefer to use "naturalism" instead. As you know my project is to compare different worldviews (or ontological theories about reality) one to one and see which is more reasonable. Atheism, even beyond the "lack of belief" nonsense, only says what atheists believe does not belong to reality, but not what they believe does belong. But in order to make comparisons I need a positive statement of one's ontological beliefs. Naturalism then fits the bill very well, as according to naturalism what belongs to reality is the nature we observe around us: material things following physical laws and all that these explain, and nothing more.
I did not mean that sarcastically but literally. I have no problem whatsoever with people who wish not to discuss their ideas. They don't have to justify to me why they wish that; I consider they have that right implicitly. On the other hand I find little sense to discuss with people who do not wish to discuss their ideas.Please feel completely free not to assume any burden at all and believe anything you like without explaining anything.Your sarcasm suggests that I want off the hook. That's not the case.
I gladly assume the burden of proof for my positive assertions. So must you. Those are the rules.If you imply that one has to only assume the burden of proof for one's negative assertions, I would like to point out that there are no such rules in reason. Naturalist philosophers gladly and to great lengths argue the negative assertion that gods do not exist. Even Dawkins does so. Mathematicians all the time prove negative assertions such as there is no greatest prime number. And I personally will gladly justify any negative belief I have, including, for example, that the moon is not made of cheese, that no teapot is there orbiting Jupiter, that no unicorns exist, and that no nuclear bomb has exploded over my house five minutes ago. Not to mention nobody is asking for any "proofs" one way or the other, but just for justifications grounded in reason.
448. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #75030 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 1, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I'd like to clarify here my understanding of the concepts of complexity and of entropy:
The mathematical definition of complexity is that complexity is the smallest amount of information that exactly describes the state of a system, and is often given as the number of binary bits necessary for that description. So, for example, "1212121212" is less complex than "3713274281" because the former can be compressed and hence described with less bits of information than the latter. This definition of complexity is unambiguous but is sometimes tricky to apply because sometimes it's difficult to find out which the smallest description is; so sometimes one only gives the upper bound of complexity. Take for example the following sequence of 100 digits:
14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
At first sight it looks irreducibly complex, so it looks that its complexity is as large as the sequence itself. But these are the 100 first digits of the decimal expansion of pi, so in fact they can be described much more efficiently, for example "the 100 first digits of the decimal expansion of pi".
Entropy is a property of mechanical systems that can be in many different states. The general idea is that the more "disordered" a system is rendered (perhaps by the influx of energy, perhaps by the diffusion of energy, etc) the greater the number of possible/probable states it can have and therefore the larger its entropy. Now not all states of a system need be equally probable, rather each state may obtain with different probabilities. For example consider the states of a system that consists of a shoebox with 10 pebbles randomly thrown in it. A state in which the pebbles are distributed more or less evenly all over the box is more probable than a state in which all pebbles turn out to lie in the same one half of the box.
The definition of entropy is: E = - k * Sum( Pi * ln(Pi) )
Where k is the Boltzmann's constant, and which we will henceforth assume equals 1, as it's actual value is irrelevant when one compares entropies. Pi is the probability of the i-th state of a system with N states, and the sum is taken over all N states. Ln is the natural algorithm which can be computed by most calculators.
Now in some cases all states a system can be in have the same probability. In order to get some feeling about how entropy works (and then how it relates to complexity) we shall for now assume such cases only. If a case of N possible states of equal probability P = 1/N for all i. The entropy of such a system can be computed thus:
E = - Sum( 1/N * ln(1/N) ) = - N * 1/N * ln(1/N) = ln(N)
Let's construct such a system and see its entropy grow: We take a carton box and glue 5 dice on it, all showing one. That system has only one possible state, so it's entropy is E = ln(1) = 0. Now let's take that box and vigorously shake it until one die becomes unglued, jumps around the box, and then falls showing a particular face of the die. That system has now 6 possible states representing the 6 faces of this die, each equally probable. So its entropy now is E = ln(6) = 1.79. Let's vigorously shake the box again until one more die gets unglued. Now we have a system of 36 states representing all combinations of the faces of two dice. Its entropy now is E = ln(6*6) = 3.58. With three unglued dice its entropy becomes E = ln(6*6*6) = 5.37. We see then that entropy is increasing linearly with the number of unglued dice. Now this is a toy example, but it does basically describe what happens to an ice cube when heat slowly melts it.
Relationship between complexity and entropy
Let's compute the complexity (in number of bits) of the system above while its dice become unglued. When only one die is unglued then we describe its state with a number between 1 and 6. The number of bits necessary to describe any number between 1 and N is the binary logarithm of that number, i.e. ln(N)/ln(2). So with one die unglued its complexity is C = ln(6)/ln(2) = 2.58. Similarly when we have two dice unglued we need to describe any of 36 possible states so C = ln(6*6)/ln(2) = 5.17, and with three dice unglued is C = ln(6*6*6)/ln(2) = 7.75. In this example then the complexity of the system is always equal its entropy divided by ln(2). So we see then that even though the concepts of complexity and entropy are quite different they are nevertheless related in the sense that an increase of entropy usually corresponds to an increase in complexity too (and when all states are equally probable then entropy and complexity are proportional). That's the case for example when an ice cube melts: both its entropy and its complexity grow.
Complexity does not always grow when entropy does. Here is such a case: Consider a system with 4 possible states of different probabilities, namely P1=0.1, P2=0.2, P3=0.3, and P4=0.4. To describe any state we need only two binary bits of information, because two binary bits are sufficient to describe in which of the four possible states the system is, so C=2. Its entropy E = -0.1*ln(0.1) + 0.2*ln(0.2) +0.3*ln(0.3) + 0.4*ln(0.4) = 1.28. Now suppose that after a while because of the second law of thermodynamics all states become equally probable, namely P1=P2=P3=P4=0.25. If we now compute its entropy we get E = -4*0.25*ln(0.25) = 1.39 so as expected its entropy grew. But its complexity C still equals 2 because one still needs only 2 bits to describe any state of that system.
Natural evolution, complexity, and organized complexity
What's the upshot of all this? That contrary to the impression one gets reading TGD with the passing of time it becomes more and more probable to find high levels of complexity (as well as high levels of entropy) and you don't need natural evolution for that. After all an ice tube melts without natural evolution playing any role, and a cup of liquid water has more entropy and is more complex than an ice cube of the same mass. Or consider a tomato with all its intricate organizational complexity. Then put the tomato in a blender and increase its entropy until you get some smooth tomato juice. The organizational complexity is now lost of course, but the complexity of the juice is much higher than the tomato's, because in order to describe the exact physical state of the juice you'll need much more information than before. The very fact that a tomato is ordered makes it possible to describe its state with less information.
To say that natural evolution increases complexity is simply false. What natural evolution increases is "organized complexity", a different concept altogether. Dawkins knows the distinction and therefore speaks of design and natural evolution being alternative explanations of organized complexity. You don't need neither design nor evolution to explain complexity itself. Statistical mechanics is quite sufficient to explain that.
I can imagine where the confusion stems from: In the context of biology, or of machines for that matter, when people talk of "complexity" they almost always mean "organized complexity", so it's easy for the general reader to conflate these two completely different concepts. Dawkins in TGD should have first made explicit the difference between complexity and organized complexity and then defined the latter.
449. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74906 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 1, 2007 at 5:02 am
Steve99 (post 276, or #74463):
Well "complexity" can mean different things, and our subjective sense of complexity is not always reliable. Dawkins, by not defining what he means by "complexity" in TGD, has probably managed to confuse a lot of people. The most rigorous concept of complexity, i.e. complexity as defined mathematically and used in information theory, is the minimum amount of information (often given in number of binary bits) necessary for exactly describing the physical state of a system. Indeed this definition also reflects the common use of the concept "complexity" because one would normally call a system that can easily be described as less complex than a system that requires a complicated description. Further that concept of complexity is closely related (but not equivalent) to the concept of entropy as used in the 2nd law of thermodynamics and as mathematically defined in statistical mechanics. That's interesting stuff and the math isn't really that complex; maybe I shall post an explanation here. But for now some examples should be sufficient:[1]: Actually the more complex something is the more probable it is (see the 2nd law of thermodynamics);No, this is nonsense. The second law of thermodynamics discusses the increase in entropy. Far from claiming that more complex things are more probable, it discusses how complex things break down into disorder.
Let's perform a thermodynamic experiment: We put in a box 10 dice reading "1111111111", close the box, shake it, and then open it to find the dice reading "3264341652". The final sequence is clearly more complex than the original one because it's more complicated to describe it. Which sequence is more probable? They are both equally probable, but if we repeat the same experiment many times we shall get sequences of high complexity much more often than sequences of low complexity, so complex results of thermodynamic processes are more probable than simple ones. Here's another example: Let's take a cube of ice. This is a system of water molecules arranged in a repetitive manner within a crystalline lattice and hence easy to describe. Now let's heat that cube of ice until it melts. We shall get a much more complex system which consists of water molecules moving around in different directions and different speeds. It should be clear then that thermodynamic processes increase the complexity of a physical system, because they increase the amount of information one needs in order to describe that system's physical state.
When Dawkins in TGD speaks of complexity he means "organized complexity", a different concept altogether. He does not define what "organized complexity" means, and only rarely mentions "organized complexity". Hence the confusion. I don't know why he did not explain that concept; maybe he felt it was too complex for the general readership of his book. Now, living organisms are islands of low entropy, and this is only possible because living organisms behave in ways that accelerate the increase of entropy around of them (they behave like refrigerators), and that type of behavior requires internal organization. So living organisms are islands of low internal complexity, but of high internal organizational complexity.
1. People tend to accept that if A is less complex than B then it is more reasonable to believe that A "just happened" than that B "just happened". (premise)OK. Here are my comments:
2. People tend to accept that the origin of the universe is less complex than God. (premise)
3. Therefore people should accept that it is more reasonable to believe that the origin of the universe "just happened" than that God "just happened". (from 1 & 2)
That is it.
1. This does not at all look like Dawkins's "Ultimate Boeing 747" argument. It does not even arrive at Dawkins's conclusion that "almost certainly there is no God".
2. Premises about what people "tend to accept" do not belong in arguments about objective truth which by definition is independent of peoples' opinions.
3. Proposition #3 does not follow from premises #1 and #2, because you can't directly go from "is" propositions to "ought" propositions.
In any case Steve I find commendable that you at least suggested how you understood Dawkins's 747 argument. I suppose the others here either found Dawkins's argument incomprehensible or maybe felt that argument doesn't really work.
450. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
Comment #74887 by Dianelos Georgoudis on October 1, 2007 at 2:08 am
Irate_atheist (post 272, or #74451):
It is my opinion that the existence of God is also clearly a scientific issue. Care to comment why you so clearly think it is not?I suppose the short answer is because science only deals with natural things, and God is by definition supernatural. Science only deals with things that follow physical laws and God by definition doesn't. Science only deals with things that are objectively observable and (at least I believe) the God hypothesis is not required to explain anything that's objectively observable.
I mean this much should be clear, and the fact that Dawkins thinks that God is a scientific issue only evidences how absurdly ignorant of serious theology Dawkins really is. Now Dawkins is not alone in this; religious fundamentalists also believe that God is a scientific issue, because they too are ignorant of serious theology. So TGD ends up making any sense only if a) you are a religious fundamentalist, or b) you are a naturalist as ignorant of serious theology as Dawkins is.
We can, and do, test for His existence by looking for evidence of his effect on reality. Studies of the efficacy of prayer, for example, have been carried out - we all know the result from that.Right, so?
It seems you are making the following syllogism:
1. The existence of God is a theistic hypothesis. (premise)
2. The efficacy of prayer is a theistic hypothesis. (premise)
3. The efficacy of prayer is a scientific hypothesis. (premise)
4. Therefore some theistic hypotheses are also scientific hypotheses. (from 2 and 3)
5. If some theistic hypotheses are scientific hypotheses then all theistic hypotheses are scientific hypotheses. (premise)
6. Therefore all theistic hypotheses are scientific hypotheses. (from 4 and 5)
7. Therefore the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis. (from 1 and 6)
Now I suppose I don't have to explain why the above syllogism is fallacious. The error is obviously premise #5. Logical fallacies are so common that philosophers have categorized them. The fallacy of premise #5 above is called "hasty generalization" fallacy. The fallacy that Dawkins and most Darwinists as well as fundamentalists commit when they believe that natural evolution implies the non-existence of a designer is called "appeal to probability" fallacy. Both are types of the "non-sequitur" fallacy. They are all explained in Wikipedia.
Now you may argue thus: "You Dianelos agree that the God hypothesis is a scientifically unnecessary hypothesis, because it is not needed by science to explain any objective phenomenon (for example you agree that the physical universe we observe would be exactly the same whether God exists or not.) But it's unreasonable to believe in hypotheses that are not required by science, i.e. are not required for explaining any objective phenomenon we observe. Therefore it's unreasonable to believe in the God hypothesis." The problem with this syllogism is that the second premise is in fact wrong, as I can show using a counterexample: Practically all of us believe in hypotheses that are not required by science, for example we believe that other people are conscious beings. But the hypothesis that people are conscious beings is an unscientific hypothesis because science can explain all objective phenomena, including peoples' intelligent behavior, without making that hypothesis. But only extremely few people (namely the solipsists) decide that therefore other peoples' consciousness does not exist, and virtually nobody takes solipsism seriously. I hope my point is clear: A naturalist cannot consistently argue that one should not believe in unscientific hypotheses and at the same time believe in the existence of other peoples' consciousness which is an unscientific hypothesis.
In conclusion the God hypothesis is 1) reasonable and 2) non-scientific. As, by the way, is the naturalistic hypothesis. Contrary to what most naturalists believe the naturalistic hypothesis is not a scientific hypothesis either, because "the physical universe we observe would be exactly the same whether naturalism is true or not". It makes absolutely no difference to science whether the objective phenomena we observe and it studies are produced by an objective physical universe (as naturalism/scientific realism has it) or is produced by the Matrix, or by God, or by a computer simulation, or whatever. Interesting, no?
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