From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#6 Atheism cannot account for absolute truth
The rationality on the video doesn't really grasp the full implications for the problem of absolute truth. It's answer doesn't actually give an answer, it just pushes the problem back to beyond our grasp to a mind outside of time. To have rationality presupposes a rational mind, apparently.
Consider a moth. Now we can see that a moth would spiral into a candle and get consumed in the flame. Yet that mechanism has served the moth quite well in the millions of years before there were candles. A moth can navigate by light with no knowledge whatsoever. The implication being that the structure of the world is itself a limiter, and life by natural selection can build means to operate within the world.
The argument itself is somewhat bemusing in that it uses the qualifier absolute then all it does is try to argue what argued back in point four. And since that is covered, it should be that nothing needs to be explained. Though it would be a missed opportunity to talk about the nature of absolute truth.
I'm not going to make a case for absolute truth, rather I want to make a case against absolute truth. Beyond logic, mathematics and the cogito - there is no absolute truth. And on this there are two limiting factors. First is the vantage point we have in viewing the universe, the fallibility of the senses and mind. Second is the indeterminacy that seems to be built into nature itself.
It's one thing to make statements such as 2+2=4, all triangles have 3 sides, or all bachelors are unmarried. Such statements are true by definition. As argued previously, one doesn't need to see the addition of two and two bananas to know that there would be four bananas there, just as one wouldn't need to survey very bachelor to see whether they are unmarried (or any for that matter). But for statements of particulars such as all cars are red, one cannot use the same inductive logic for all it would take is one non-red car to make such a statement false.
Take a ruler, one with a straight edge. At least to us it would look straight. But how would it go on the microscopic level, or for that matter on an atomic level? On the level of magnification that visible light is still active, even the straightest structures aren't deadly straight. For our purposes here in what Richard Dawkins calls middle world, it's good enough for what we need.
In the very small, it is a world alien to us. Quantum physics it seems is beyond anyone's grasp. Yet such a system of physics has one advantage, it has demonstrated resilience. One of the triumphs of 20th century science was a theory of quantum electrodynamics where Richard Feynman puts the accuracy akin to measuring the width of North America to the width of a human hair. Yet it is not absolute.
Laplace in the 19th century made the boast that if he had all the knowledge of the current state of the world that he could predict the future to infinity. In the 20th century however it was shown that one could not do such a thing. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle prevents absolute knowledge in such a manner, that as observers there is a limit to observation. If modern physics is indeed correct, then it is impossible to expect absolute truth.
But all is not lost. It's important to remember just what you are sitting in front of now. The computer that is allowing you to see this message is a device whereby the flow of electrons through semi-conducting material allows for logic gates. An average device sitting in any given home in the western world these days is capable of mathematical power that rivals the whole human species. The success of the scientific endeavour can adequately be captured in the pervasiveness of applications of knowledge in civilisation. Skyscrapers, rockets, global satellite networks, global communications network, supercomputers, eradication of diseases, vaccinations, antibiotics, turkeys, etc. The list goes on and on.
Long story short, science works. It's endeavour is far from perfect, it has the problems associated with human observation and inference, and it's limited by our place and time in association with observation. Say tomorrow a lab through mimicking natural processes is able to get from inorganic chemicals to replicating protocells - that scientists are able to achieve abiogenesis in the lab. This wouldn't solve how life arose on this planet, we don't have the ability to see exactly what happened. Rather it gives us a model for how it could.
Science doesn't deal in TruthTM. It's a means of modelling reality, working out how reality works. Our desire for a God's eye view is something unobtainable, and a dangerous endeavour. Science is what we can know despite being fallible, the wise words of Jacob Bronowski in his wonderful series The Ascent Of Man. Even better is the wise words of Obi-Wan Kenobe "Only a Sith talks in absolutes". It seems that those who aspire to absolute knowledge are pushing themselves down a dangerous path. It leads to intolerance, a rigidity of dogmatism that any person should wish to avoid. To err is human, instead we find those trying to control others by making absolute moral proclamations unfettered by consequences or rightness.
Unlike other rebuttals, I want to finished with the aforementioned Bronowski from an episode of The Ascent Of Man called Knowledge or Certainty. Early in the episode he made the profound pronouncement "There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy." The following video sums up the notion of absolute knowledge for me.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Friday, 25 December 2009
Part 5: Logic
From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#5 Atheists cannot believe in the absolute laws of logic
It seems like the ultimate defeater argument and destructive to any empiricist. As it is laid out, logic indeed cannot be empirically measured, nor can it be proven by example. Take two blocks and two more blocks and one has four blocks. If one were to measure this empirically, then the problem of induction would apply. We couldn't take two apples and two apples and be certain that there would be four apples, or that if we repeated the experiment that it would give the same result.
So there are in effect universals, and it's these universals that are means to understand the empirical data. So the universals aren't empirically-derivable in the same sense as forces. We empirically measure the force of gravity, but while we can measure the the sum of angles on a drawn triangle, the drawn triangle is only a representation of the idea of a triangle. No amount of drawn triangles will be sufficient to draw the conclusion that a triangle must add up to 180 degrees.
The problem being is that if these abstract forms aren't measurable in nature, then how can it come to be that they are universals? While gravity almost certainly exists and is measurable, the same cannot be said for the law of identity or the law of non contradiction or the law of excluded middle. Even 2 + 2 = 4 cannot be understood to be a universal unless there is a form by which it could be universal.
So again it's pertinent to ask whether it is necessary. It would seem like it is necessary if logic is the basis of all thought, but to explore the concept some more. Say logic is a human-derived system, that the law of identity is something that the human mind has created in order to understand the world. Does it make it any less wrong to build an argument on the basis of logic without it being universal?
To put it another way, does being able to add 2 and 2 to get 4 rest on the ability to account for the abstract itself? Here I could contend otherwise, it's not contingent to put mathematics as anything other than a human construct to be able to use it. Do I need to account for the existence of a shovel in order to use one? No. But the fact that a shovel exists needs some explanation. So in there I will concede that yes the laws of logic do require explanation.
So how would positing a god help with this? I don't think it will for the same reason as I don't think that positing a god helps with morality. It comes back to a question of God's omnipotence, the old classic of whether God can make a four-sided triangle. Now one might say "that's absurd" by very definition a triangle has to have three sides so if it had 4 sides it's not a triangle. And thus the absurdity of the proposition is shown.
Are the laws of logic dictated by God? In other words, could the laws of logic be anything other than they are? Is the law of identity true only because God says it is, or is the truth of the law of identity external to the truth of God? If it's external to the truth of God, then how does theism solve this problem?
It could be that the law of identity is only true because God says so. But consider the implications for this position. Take the abstract of 2 + 2 = 4. If it were that theism solves this problem, then 2 + 2 = 4 is only true while God holds it to be true. It could be on a whim that 2 + 2 = 5, or 2 + 2 = pi. This clearly is absurd, the absolute nature of 2+2=4 is undermined by the fact that it couldn't be any other way.
So to that objection, it might be that the laws of logic are absolute and external to any notion of a deity. However, as an atheist you don't have the ability to recognise absolutes. So on that...
We ask the third question, how can an atheist account for the absolute nature of the laws of logic? They are self-evident. If they can't be any other way then what more needs to be said? Bertrand Russell in The Problems Of Philosophy gives a good account of universals and out they can be distinguished from matters of observation. That there are some probable truths and some universal truths.
Look at the text typed here. Immediately to the left of the word "typed" was the word "text". Regardless of the meaning of the words themselves the relationship in position is absolute. "text" is left of "typed" thus a universal relationship is established. Just as the relationship between two apples and two more apples being put together makes four apples. The general principle of relationships is based on universals.
Apples (the particular) is contingent on our observations, but the general principle underneath is not. We don't need to see that two phones and two more phones makes four phones, and two tissues and two more tissues makes four tissues. The relationship is self-evidently true.
This doesn't address the question of how we come to know these absolutes. Take something like a circle. Now when we see something circular, it's never an exact circle - only the appearance of a circle. One could draw a circle, take measurements and use that observation to reason about the circle, but the idea of the circle cannot be derived empirically. How would one measure pi for example? Now pi can be worked out mathematically from the idea of a perfect circle.
So to cut a long story short, to think of logic in the same way as boiling water is misleading. Although experience may be at the core of both, there is a means to distinguish between the abstract and the actual. The abstract holds absolute because it is not a measurement of reality, but of relationships that are universal. The laws of logic are not arbitrary concepts cooked up by the mind, but self-evident truths about reality. As for knowing probabilistic truths...
#5 Atheists cannot believe in the absolute laws of logic
It seems like the ultimate defeater argument and destructive to any empiricist. As it is laid out, logic indeed cannot be empirically measured, nor can it be proven by example. Take two blocks and two more blocks and one has four blocks. If one were to measure this empirically, then the problem of induction would apply. We couldn't take two apples and two apples and be certain that there would be four apples, or that if we repeated the experiment that it would give the same result.
So there are in effect universals, and it's these universals that are means to understand the empirical data. So the universals aren't empirically-derivable in the same sense as forces. We empirically measure the force of gravity, but while we can measure the the sum of angles on a drawn triangle, the drawn triangle is only a representation of the idea of a triangle. No amount of drawn triangles will be sufficient to draw the conclusion that a triangle must add up to 180 degrees.
The problem being is that if these abstract forms aren't measurable in nature, then how can it come to be that they are universals? While gravity almost certainly exists and is measurable, the same cannot be said for the law of identity or the law of non contradiction or the law of excluded middle. Even 2 + 2 = 4 cannot be understood to be a universal unless there is a form by which it could be universal.
So again it's pertinent to ask whether it is necessary. It would seem like it is necessary if logic is the basis of all thought, but to explore the concept some more. Say logic is a human-derived system, that the law of identity is something that the human mind has created in order to understand the world. Does it make it any less wrong to build an argument on the basis of logic without it being universal?
To put it another way, does being able to add 2 and 2 to get 4 rest on the ability to account for the abstract itself? Here I could contend otherwise, it's not contingent to put mathematics as anything other than a human construct to be able to use it. Do I need to account for the existence of a shovel in order to use one? No. But the fact that a shovel exists needs some explanation. So in there I will concede that yes the laws of logic do require explanation.
So how would positing a god help with this? I don't think it will for the same reason as I don't think that positing a god helps with morality. It comes back to a question of God's omnipotence, the old classic of whether God can make a four-sided triangle. Now one might say "that's absurd" by very definition a triangle has to have three sides so if it had 4 sides it's not a triangle. And thus the absurdity of the proposition is shown.
Are the laws of logic dictated by God? In other words, could the laws of logic be anything other than they are? Is the law of identity true only because God says it is, or is the truth of the law of identity external to the truth of God? If it's external to the truth of God, then how does theism solve this problem?
It could be that the law of identity is only true because God says so. But consider the implications for this position. Take the abstract of 2 + 2 = 4. If it were that theism solves this problem, then 2 + 2 = 4 is only true while God holds it to be true. It could be on a whim that 2 + 2 = 5, or 2 + 2 = pi. This clearly is absurd, the absolute nature of 2+2=4 is undermined by the fact that it couldn't be any other way.
So to that objection, it might be that the laws of logic are absolute and external to any notion of a deity. However, as an atheist you don't have the ability to recognise absolutes. So on that...
We ask the third question, how can an atheist account for the absolute nature of the laws of logic? They are self-evident. If they can't be any other way then what more needs to be said? Bertrand Russell in The Problems Of Philosophy gives a good account of universals and out they can be distinguished from matters of observation. That there are some probable truths and some universal truths.
Look at the text typed here. Immediately to the left of the word "typed" was the word "text". Regardless of the meaning of the words themselves the relationship in position is absolute. "text" is left of "typed" thus a universal relationship is established. Just as the relationship between two apples and two more apples being put together makes four apples. The general principle of relationships is based on universals.
Apples (the particular) is contingent on our observations, but the general principle underneath is not. We don't need to see that two phones and two more phones makes four phones, and two tissues and two more tissues makes four tissues. The relationship is self-evidently true.
This doesn't address the question of how we come to know these absolutes. Take something like a circle. Now when we see something circular, it's never an exact circle - only the appearance of a circle. One could draw a circle, take measurements and use that observation to reason about the circle, but the idea of the circle cannot be derived empirically. How would one measure pi for example? Now pi can be worked out mathematically from the idea of a perfect circle.
So to cut a long story short, to think of logic in the same way as boiling water is misleading. Although experience may be at the core of both, there is a means to distinguish between the abstract and the actual. The abstract holds absolute because it is not a measurement of reality, but of relationships that are universal. The laws of logic are not arbitrary concepts cooked up by the mind, but self-evident truths about reality. As for knowing probabilistic truths...
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Part 4: Reasoning
From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#4 To be an atheist you cannot believe that you can trust your reasoning
The argument is two-fold. The first part is that all we are is blind chemical forces. The second part is that evolution is not a solution as evolution breeds for survival and not for rationality. The first part again is greedy reductionism and has been dealt with in Part 2: Morality, so it won't serve to dwell on it further. The second part is far more interesting and touches on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. It is that argument which is interesting and there is much to be said for it.
The challenge of the EAAN is this, that natural selection doesn't select for beliefs themselves, it can only select for behaviour of beliefs. If a belief itself gives the right behaviour towards survival, then the truth of the belief doesn't matter. A true belief and a false belief that both give the same behaviour give the same result.
Consider the case of a child who is told to eat his vegetables. The first time he is told that eating his vegetables is good for him. He doesn't like the taste but does so on the belief that it will be good for him. The second time he is told that if he doesn't eat his vegetables he will burn in hell for eternity. He again doesn't like the taste but eats them on the fear of eternal punishment. In both cases the same behaviour that tends towards survival, so there is no difference between the truth (overall health) and the falsehood (eternal punishment).
Thus since multiple beliefs give the same behavioural outcome, it cannot be taken that the true belief is reliable because all it can confirm is that it is a potential truth that gives the right behaviour.
So to ask the first question, is it necessary? And finally I'm going to answer that yes it is necessary. It seriously undermines the atheist position if they have no ability to determine with confidence anything about the reality we reside in. It really is a defeater argument as Plantinga puts it. But beyond the conceptual, it's pertinent to point out just what needs to be explained.
Firstly it needs to be explained as to the evidence from the ascent of man. That is to explain tools, cave paintings, fires, domestication of animals, agriculture, civilisation, technological advancement, etc. What humans have achieved, because whether there is a god or not where we find ourselves now and what we find in our past remains the same.
Secondly it needs to be explained as to why there are so many different contradicting beliefs out there. Why some people believe in one god, why some believe in many, why some believe in ghosts, or spirits, or psychic powers, or electromagnetic theory, or gravity, or a geocentric universe, or anything else for that matter. In other words, so many contradictory beliefs out there that any explanation has to account for why so many have wrong beliefs.
Thirdly it needs to be explained how one can distinguish between true and false beliefs. This one is the clincher, for it is not enough to offer a means by which a belief could be given as true. And since there are so many false beliefs out there, how can one distinguish between what is a true belief and what is a false belief?
Okay, so for a theist how do they get around their own defeater argument? Well revelation could be one answer. But revelation doesn't pass the third criteria, for even if revelation were real how would we be able to distinguish between revelation and poor reasoning? This is the problem of claiming revelation, for even if it were really a god and really a good god, it still wouldn't be able to be distinguished - because merely being convinced isn't enough.
Another possibility in conjunction with revelation is that a good god intervened in the evolutionary process in order to allow us to gain true beliefs. But again this fails, this time because it fails to explain why there are so many false beliefs out there. Why was it that the Mayans sacrificed virgin girls to appease the sun god? Why is it that many now are convinced that not only psychic powers exist but that they have them? The fact that there are so many contradictory beliefs rejects this notion.
What could be the clincher is that we didn't evolve, but were created. This way we were created in almost perfection, and it was the fall resulting from eating from the tree of knowledge. It can account for why there are so many false beliefs out there, but still it fails because it means we can't know that it's true. the story is consistent, but it fails to break away from the problem of not being able to discern between true beliefs and false beliefs.
Furthermore the creation solution conflicts with all empirical data. If creation were true and the story of the fall being true, then why does all the empirical evidence suggest otherwise? Why is there a progressive fossil record in the ground? Why are there fossil genes and pieces of genetic code? Why is it that observations of the speed of light being constant extrapolate to measurements of distant galaxies being billions of light years away? Either we can't trust our senses and reasoning capacity, or creation doesn't fit with the evidence.
If Plantinga's argument is valid, then it is theism that is in trouble. One can't simply destroy our ability to reason without destroying one's own position. For it follows that if there was a good god then we should be able to trust our sense data and reasoning processes. But because our sense data and reasoning processes by those who study the natural world clearly point to evolutionary origins, then one has to conclude that evolution in some capacity can shape both the sense data and reasoning processes.
So how can evolution build a solid foundation for epistemology? Evolution selects for survival, this much is true. But survival is not simply reproduction of the genes. To think of what we as a social species has to do: be able to navigate the environment, avoid being killed / eaten, find a mate, interact socially, cooperate with others, raise children, etc. In any case, while survival of the genes is as far as one can reduce the process to, natural selection has built a vast array of structures to help facilitate that exchange.
It's been well established that evolution can build structures like eyeballs. But what good is an eye without the ability to process the information? To think of it another way, what good is a security camera without a means to see the input. One need to capture input and process it in such a way that would enable the survival. Without doing such, evolving a processing unit or an optical device would both be useless on their own.
So evolution is going to not only select a better eye, but select a brain that can use that input to elicit an appropriate response. In effect, we get mostly accurate senses not from having the organs alone, but a means to process the electrical impulses in a manner that makes the environment make sense. It gives a survival advantage, not just survival.
So what of beliefs? It should be established above that evolution can give us mostly reliable sense data as it would confer a survival advantage. But beliefs themselves aren't encoded into our DNA, thinking processes are. For instance, babies have an innate sense of gravity. They also have an innate sense of agency. And evolution-wise, both are essential. It's no accident that our visual range corresponds with the peak output from the sun's black body radiation. Just as it's no coincidence that we are wired to detect gravity or agents in the world.
So what of beliefs? Well there are the beliefs we form about the world through experience that correspond with what we see and measure. Some of these beliefs are testable here and now, that A corresponds with B. For example, I could test a belief about gravity by dropping something multiple times. If I see a pattern emerge, as we are pattern-detecting creatures, then I might be able to infer a rule.
This brings about 4 possibilities, being right (believing a truth, rejecting a falsehood) and being wrong (rejecting a truth, believing a falsehood). Certain beliefs are self-selecting, but as for the rest? Think about the ascent of man. Primitive tools getting gradually more complex. The domestication of animals and plants leading towards artificial selection. So beliefs themselves can be directly useful towards survival. Needing the right type of rock to make a hand axe or an arrow head, knowing the migratory paths of animals, selecting qualities directly seen on the animal. etc.
Again there's so much to explain and little space, so I'll finish with this. Beliefs themselves can be testable, and by having predictive beliefs and generally reliable sense data, there's the possibility to see whether a given belief can be true or not. Right now I'm sitting in front of a device that is built on the foundation of physics. Semiconductors made into logic gates, it's something that has come by measuring reality. Evidentially we have reliable enough beliefs to make computers, for how could the computer be even possible without having some ability to reason and measure reality? Evolution itself is not going to necessarily lead to all true beliefs, but with our evolved senses and reasoning abilities it would be absurd to think that the belief that electromagnetic force and magic smoke are equal explanations for how a computer works belies the process by which it was made.
#4 To be an atheist you cannot believe that you can trust your reasoning
The argument is two-fold. The first part is that all we are is blind chemical forces. The second part is that evolution is not a solution as evolution breeds for survival and not for rationality. The first part again is greedy reductionism and has been dealt with in Part 2: Morality, so it won't serve to dwell on it further. The second part is far more interesting and touches on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. It is that argument which is interesting and there is much to be said for it.
The challenge of the EAAN is this, that natural selection doesn't select for beliefs themselves, it can only select for behaviour of beliefs. If a belief itself gives the right behaviour towards survival, then the truth of the belief doesn't matter. A true belief and a false belief that both give the same behaviour give the same result.
Consider the case of a child who is told to eat his vegetables. The first time he is told that eating his vegetables is good for him. He doesn't like the taste but does so on the belief that it will be good for him. The second time he is told that if he doesn't eat his vegetables he will burn in hell for eternity. He again doesn't like the taste but eats them on the fear of eternal punishment. In both cases the same behaviour that tends towards survival, so there is no difference between the truth (overall health) and the falsehood (eternal punishment).
Thus since multiple beliefs give the same behavioural outcome, it cannot be taken that the true belief is reliable because all it can confirm is that it is a potential truth that gives the right behaviour.
So to ask the first question, is it necessary? And finally I'm going to answer that yes it is necessary. It seriously undermines the atheist position if they have no ability to determine with confidence anything about the reality we reside in. It really is a defeater argument as Plantinga puts it. But beyond the conceptual, it's pertinent to point out just what needs to be explained.
Firstly it needs to be explained as to the evidence from the ascent of man. That is to explain tools, cave paintings, fires, domestication of animals, agriculture, civilisation, technological advancement, etc. What humans have achieved, because whether there is a god or not where we find ourselves now and what we find in our past remains the same.
Secondly it needs to be explained as to why there are so many different contradicting beliefs out there. Why some people believe in one god, why some believe in many, why some believe in ghosts, or spirits, or psychic powers, or electromagnetic theory, or gravity, or a geocentric universe, or anything else for that matter. In other words, so many contradictory beliefs out there that any explanation has to account for why so many have wrong beliefs.
Thirdly it needs to be explained how one can distinguish between true and false beliefs. This one is the clincher, for it is not enough to offer a means by which a belief could be given as true. And since there are so many false beliefs out there, how can one distinguish between what is a true belief and what is a false belief?
Okay, so for a theist how do they get around their own defeater argument? Well revelation could be one answer. But revelation doesn't pass the third criteria, for even if revelation were real how would we be able to distinguish between revelation and poor reasoning? This is the problem of claiming revelation, for even if it were really a god and really a good god, it still wouldn't be able to be distinguished - because merely being convinced isn't enough.
Another possibility in conjunction with revelation is that a good god intervened in the evolutionary process in order to allow us to gain true beliefs. But again this fails, this time because it fails to explain why there are so many false beliefs out there. Why was it that the Mayans sacrificed virgin girls to appease the sun god? Why is it that many now are convinced that not only psychic powers exist but that they have them? The fact that there are so many contradictory beliefs rejects this notion.
What could be the clincher is that we didn't evolve, but were created. This way we were created in almost perfection, and it was the fall resulting from eating from the tree of knowledge. It can account for why there are so many false beliefs out there, but still it fails because it means we can't know that it's true. the story is consistent, but it fails to break away from the problem of not being able to discern between true beliefs and false beliefs.
Furthermore the creation solution conflicts with all empirical data. If creation were true and the story of the fall being true, then why does all the empirical evidence suggest otherwise? Why is there a progressive fossil record in the ground? Why are there fossil genes and pieces of genetic code? Why is it that observations of the speed of light being constant extrapolate to measurements of distant galaxies being billions of light years away? Either we can't trust our senses and reasoning capacity, or creation doesn't fit with the evidence.
If Plantinga's argument is valid, then it is theism that is in trouble. One can't simply destroy our ability to reason without destroying one's own position. For it follows that if there was a good god then we should be able to trust our sense data and reasoning processes. But because our sense data and reasoning processes by those who study the natural world clearly point to evolutionary origins, then one has to conclude that evolution in some capacity can shape both the sense data and reasoning processes.
So how can evolution build a solid foundation for epistemology? Evolution selects for survival, this much is true. But survival is not simply reproduction of the genes. To think of what we as a social species has to do: be able to navigate the environment, avoid being killed / eaten, find a mate, interact socially, cooperate with others, raise children, etc. In any case, while survival of the genes is as far as one can reduce the process to, natural selection has built a vast array of structures to help facilitate that exchange.
It's been well established that evolution can build structures like eyeballs. But what good is an eye without the ability to process the information? To think of it another way, what good is a security camera without a means to see the input. One need to capture input and process it in such a way that would enable the survival. Without doing such, evolving a processing unit or an optical device would both be useless on their own.
So evolution is going to not only select a better eye, but select a brain that can use that input to elicit an appropriate response. In effect, we get mostly accurate senses not from having the organs alone, but a means to process the electrical impulses in a manner that makes the environment make sense. It gives a survival advantage, not just survival.
So what of beliefs? It should be established above that evolution can give us mostly reliable sense data as it would confer a survival advantage. But beliefs themselves aren't encoded into our DNA, thinking processes are. For instance, babies have an innate sense of gravity. They also have an innate sense of agency. And evolution-wise, both are essential. It's no accident that our visual range corresponds with the peak output from the sun's black body radiation. Just as it's no coincidence that we are wired to detect gravity or agents in the world.
So what of beliefs? Well there are the beliefs we form about the world through experience that correspond with what we see and measure. Some of these beliefs are testable here and now, that A corresponds with B. For example, I could test a belief about gravity by dropping something multiple times. If I see a pattern emerge, as we are pattern-detecting creatures, then I might be able to infer a rule.
This brings about 4 possibilities, being right (believing a truth, rejecting a falsehood) and being wrong (rejecting a truth, believing a falsehood). Certain beliefs are self-selecting, but as for the rest? Think about the ascent of man. Primitive tools getting gradually more complex. The domestication of animals and plants leading towards artificial selection. So beliefs themselves can be directly useful towards survival. Needing the right type of rock to make a hand axe or an arrow head, knowing the migratory paths of animals, selecting qualities directly seen on the animal. etc.
Again there's so much to explain and little space, so I'll finish with this. Beliefs themselves can be testable, and by having predictive beliefs and generally reliable sense data, there's the possibility to see whether a given belief can be true or not. Right now I'm sitting in front of a device that is built on the foundation of physics. Semiconductors made into logic gates, it's something that has come by measuring reality. Evidentially we have reliable enough beliefs to make computers, for how could the computer be even possible without having some ability to reason and measure reality? Evolution itself is not going to necessarily lead to all true beliefs, but with our evolved senses and reasoning abilities it would be absurd to think that the belief that electromagnetic force and magic smoke are equal explanations for how a computer works belies the process by which it was made.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Part 3: Free Will
From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#3 Atheists cannot believe they have free will
To put the argument another way, the essence of man is natural and therefore is a slave to natural law. So even in terms of non-causality, such as random quantum fluctuations, free will cannot be as ultimately we would be slaves to the natural process. Any sense of control we have would be merely a sense, it doesn't follow that we can have real control.
I have a water bottle next to me. It might be that I feel thirsty and consciously decide to take a drink. But in reality the brain is merely acting on causation, it was causal factors in my brain that made me feel like taking a drink and causal factors that led me to pick up the water and take a drink. While it felt I made the decision, it was merely an expression of the underlying laws.
Imagine a robot that was running a software program. The robot might be incredibly advanced, it might be self-aware and be able to self-reference. And while it is interacting in the world, it might have a series of different inputs that get processed in order to make a decision as to what to do next. But at no stage is the robot doing anything beyond what its software says to do.
So to ask the first question, is free will necessary? Again, it's an appeal to consequences and has no bearing on the truth of the matter. We might desire for there to be free will, but that doesn't mean there is free will. Just as I might desire for my water bottle to magically replenish, but I know that I'm going to have to go to the tap instead.
The challenge isn't just part of a materialist world-view, it's being increasingly confirmed by modern neuroscience. It's not enough to say it's a problem for atheism, because it is a problem for all views that aren't merely engaging in sophistry. The science is pointing very clearly towards all decision making being the product of brain activity, and atheists are in no worse position than any other.
So many experiments ranging from electrically stimulating certain parts of the brain to seeing how particular chemicals work. From measuring how stimulants such as music light up certain areas of the brain to even seeing how those with brain injuries make moral judgements; there's just so much indicating that the brain is what we have to work with.
It might be that the brain is not the whole story, that there's something beyond the material - in which case it would need to be observed just how that immaterial interacts with the material. Until it's demonstrated that it exists, it's nothing more than speculation and not worth consideration. But if like the science suggests that the brain is the whole story, then can the notion of free will be compatible with causality?
So how could a theist solve this? As stated above, the main problem of free will lies in that it seems that our decisions indeed are made by the brain. So to argue that we have free will in the contra-causal sense, one must first show that there's such thing as contra-causal decision making.
Such an idea is ultimately inconceivable, what does it mean to be in control? Say there is a dualistic element in our brain. What sensory input would be sent? Would it be raw data or processed data by the brain? And once it got there, what process would happen? How would the homunculus make such a decision? Appealing to dualism doesn't solve the problem of free will in any way we can comprehend because of the mechanisms we know underlying any decision don't give the desired outcome.
Take the example of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Take the approach that eve truly did not know better. After all, she had no knowledge of good and evil. She ultimately had to make a choice without knowing the consequences. Such actions would be in effect random, for she did not know right from wrong. Now how was such a decision made? Does it even matter?
I would contend that it doesn't matter and that it serves as a distraction from the real issue at hand. The key is that she wasn't aware of right or wrong, and acted before being able to make a moral decision. Think of a monkey with a gun, if the monkey shoots the gun can it really be responsible in the same way that an adult who knows the consequences can?
As I said above, it could be something else. But such contra-causal decision making is inconceivable to us and serves nothing more than writing "then a miracle occurred". But it doesn't matter, for we work on the level of agents and agents who have knowledge and morality.
So how can we account for free will? It seems the best means would be to argue compatibilism, that is to say that free will is compatible with determinism. Philosophers such as Hobbes and Hume have taken this position, and in the modern day Daniel Dennett has written extensively on the subject.
Take a nut crushing machine, all the machine does is crush nuts, it checks whether there is are nuts under it and then smashes the nuts with a heavy hammer. Say the machine fails and a human face is mistaken as a pile of nuts - the machine comes down and kills the person. The machine has no responsibility in this case. Now say it was a human who pressed the button to crush the nuts. She sees another person on the machine and still decides to put the button. The person would have responsibility in this case. Why?
The person in this case is aware of the action and aware of the consequences for the action. If she pressed the button, she would crush the person. Far from acting blindly, she had knowledge as to the ramifications of the action. It's not whether she could have acted differently if the universe was replayed, but whether she would have acted differently had she no knowledge of the consequences.
We have evolved brains, it goes without saying. Our brains are capable of projecting into the future, understanding the proposed consequences for an action, making moral decisions, etc. A woman is sexually assaulted. It turned out that the assailant was mentally retarded, and didn't have a capacity beyond a two year old. So while his body pumped out testosterone, he had no ability to know whether what he was doing was wrong. Contrast that with a fully developed man who knew that it was wrong but still acted anyway.
There's a lot to say and not much space. I won't pretend to think I've solved the philosophical quandary, merely summarised what I see as the argument for compatibilism. It's not whether I can violate the laws of physics, but whether I'm able to understand the ramifications. Yet that isn't enough for some.
The eye can be evolved, the processing of the information can be evolved, but why can't the course of action be evolved too? Surely if the kitchen is on fire, we would want our brain to act accordingly to the input. It's really not a good time to make pancakes or sit down to plan next year's holiday, one could do such things but it would be best to make an appropriate choice. A fire might mean call the fire brigade and get to safety, does it really make such a difference when the potential options at any given time are ultimately decided by physics?
#3 Atheists cannot believe they have free will
To put the argument another way, the essence of man is natural and therefore is a slave to natural law. So even in terms of non-causality, such as random quantum fluctuations, free will cannot be as ultimately we would be slaves to the natural process. Any sense of control we have would be merely a sense, it doesn't follow that we can have real control.
I have a water bottle next to me. It might be that I feel thirsty and consciously decide to take a drink. But in reality the brain is merely acting on causation, it was causal factors in my brain that made me feel like taking a drink and causal factors that led me to pick up the water and take a drink. While it felt I made the decision, it was merely an expression of the underlying laws.
Imagine a robot that was running a software program. The robot might be incredibly advanced, it might be self-aware and be able to self-reference. And while it is interacting in the world, it might have a series of different inputs that get processed in order to make a decision as to what to do next. But at no stage is the robot doing anything beyond what its software says to do.
So to ask the first question, is free will necessary? Again, it's an appeal to consequences and has no bearing on the truth of the matter. We might desire for there to be free will, but that doesn't mean there is free will. Just as I might desire for my water bottle to magically replenish, but I know that I'm going to have to go to the tap instead.
The challenge isn't just part of a materialist world-view, it's being increasingly confirmed by modern neuroscience. It's not enough to say it's a problem for atheism, because it is a problem for all views that aren't merely engaging in sophistry. The science is pointing very clearly towards all decision making being the product of brain activity, and atheists are in no worse position than any other.
So many experiments ranging from electrically stimulating certain parts of the brain to seeing how particular chemicals work. From measuring how stimulants such as music light up certain areas of the brain to even seeing how those with brain injuries make moral judgements; there's just so much indicating that the brain is what we have to work with.
It might be that the brain is not the whole story, that there's something beyond the material - in which case it would need to be observed just how that immaterial interacts with the material. Until it's demonstrated that it exists, it's nothing more than speculation and not worth consideration. But if like the science suggests that the brain is the whole story, then can the notion of free will be compatible with causality?
So how could a theist solve this? As stated above, the main problem of free will lies in that it seems that our decisions indeed are made by the brain. So to argue that we have free will in the contra-causal sense, one must first show that there's such thing as contra-causal decision making.
Such an idea is ultimately inconceivable, what does it mean to be in control? Say there is a dualistic element in our brain. What sensory input would be sent? Would it be raw data or processed data by the brain? And once it got there, what process would happen? How would the homunculus make such a decision? Appealing to dualism doesn't solve the problem of free will in any way we can comprehend because of the mechanisms we know underlying any decision don't give the desired outcome.
Take the example of eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Take the approach that eve truly did not know better. After all, she had no knowledge of good and evil. She ultimately had to make a choice without knowing the consequences. Such actions would be in effect random, for she did not know right from wrong. Now how was such a decision made? Does it even matter?
I would contend that it doesn't matter and that it serves as a distraction from the real issue at hand. The key is that she wasn't aware of right or wrong, and acted before being able to make a moral decision. Think of a monkey with a gun, if the monkey shoots the gun can it really be responsible in the same way that an adult who knows the consequences can?
As I said above, it could be something else. But such contra-causal decision making is inconceivable to us and serves nothing more than writing "then a miracle occurred". But it doesn't matter, for we work on the level of agents and agents who have knowledge and morality.
So how can we account for free will? It seems the best means would be to argue compatibilism, that is to say that free will is compatible with determinism. Philosophers such as Hobbes and Hume have taken this position, and in the modern day Daniel Dennett has written extensively on the subject.
Take a nut crushing machine, all the machine does is crush nuts, it checks whether there is are nuts under it and then smashes the nuts with a heavy hammer. Say the machine fails and a human face is mistaken as a pile of nuts - the machine comes down and kills the person. The machine has no responsibility in this case. Now say it was a human who pressed the button to crush the nuts. She sees another person on the machine and still decides to put the button. The person would have responsibility in this case. Why?
The person in this case is aware of the action and aware of the consequences for the action. If she pressed the button, she would crush the person. Far from acting blindly, she had knowledge as to the ramifications of the action. It's not whether she could have acted differently if the universe was replayed, but whether she would have acted differently had she no knowledge of the consequences.
We have evolved brains, it goes without saying. Our brains are capable of projecting into the future, understanding the proposed consequences for an action, making moral decisions, etc. A woman is sexually assaulted. It turned out that the assailant was mentally retarded, and didn't have a capacity beyond a two year old. So while his body pumped out testosterone, he had no ability to know whether what he was doing was wrong. Contrast that with a fully developed man who knew that it was wrong but still acted anyway.
There's a lot to say and not much space. I won't pretend to think I've solved the philosophical quandary, merely summarised what I see as the argument for compatibilism. It's not whether I can violate the laws of physics, but whether I'm able to understand the ramifications. Yet that isn't enough for some.
The eye can be evolved, the processing of the information can be evolved, but why can't the course of action be evolved too? Surely if the kitchen is on fire, we would want our brain to act accordingly to the input. It's really not a good time to make pancakes or sit down to plan next year's holiday, one could do such things but it would be best to make an appropriate choice. A fire might mean call the fire brigade and get to safety, does it really make such a difference when the potential options at any given time are ultimately decided by physics?
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Part 2: Morality
From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#2 Atheists cannot believe there is objective moral law
To put the argument another way, humans can recognise the force of gravity because it exists. And even without knowing where gravity comes from, it doesn't change the fact that gravity is there. So it follows that an atheist can recognise an objective morality because an objective morality exists. But the nature of morality is unlike gravity, while gravity is a blind force morality is personal. So it follows that if there is objective morality in nature, then there must be a personal (i.e. interventionist) deity responsible.
So again to subject it to the established criteria, is objective moral law necessary for any particular world-view? And like with meaning, I think the answer is no. Again it's an appeal to consequences. We might desire objective moral law, society might even be contingent on having a moral law, but without objective moral law being necessary it doesn't reflect on the truth of whether there are interventionist deities.
What reach does objective moral law have. Is it contingent on the human species existing? Once it exists, does it have any reach beyond our species? Take killing another for example, does it hold that it is objectively wrong for one man to kill another on the surface of Mars? What about at the centre of our galaxy? Or in the far reaches of the cosmos? I would contend not, that is to say morality is a local phenomenon entirely contingent on our existence.
The obvious does need to be pointed out, humans do indeed have an innate moral capacity, a sense of right and wrong and act on moral impulses. This however doesn't necessitate objective moral law any more than sexual attraction necessitates an objective form of what is attractive. I would say the argument ends here, but I would be remiss if I didn't explore the nature of the question further.
So how can a theist account for morality? The question that any theist needs to answer is what is known as The Euthyphro Dilemma, which goes "is it pious because it is loved by the gods or loved by the gods because it is pious". Or to put it in modern terms, is murder wrong because God says it's wrong or does God say murder is wrong because it is wrong? The first part of the dilemma puts any God-given morality as arbitrary, the latter means that any attempt to reconcile morality through God is begging the question.
The argument in this video comes in the form of an authority, that we can only have morality because of a higher authority (God) gave moral instruct. It seems that those who made the video take the first option, that it is obedience to an amoral entity - lest the argument go ad infinitum or falls into a circular definition.
In the video they fall into what Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism by the removal of any possible authority in the material world. After all, it's all just material - blind forces acting indiscriminately. One can't help but think back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos where he laid out the raw materials that make us. The point he's trying to make is that life is more than just the atoms that make it up.
This straw man continues in making an analogy with the chair. That we have no moral obligation not to break the chair as the chair has no personal connection to us. They neglect the obvious, the chair isn't an intelligent agent. The chair itself may not have a moral obligation, but if the chair was owned by a friend they wouldn't take "materialism means no obligation" as a valid excuse.
I'd go so far as to say that theism cannot account for morality, the appeals to authority make no sense for the same reason as it doesn't make it right if a leader of a country proclaims a moral dictum. This sense of objective morality is obedience, it's right for the same reason a parent is right when telling a child what to do. It's an infantile way of looking at what is morality, and given its importance to us as a species it is deserving of something better.
Which brings me to how an atheist can account for morality. I'm not going to argue for objective moral law, rather for how certain moral maxims fall out naturally and how we've come to regard some morals as near universals. And far from morality being an exercise in authority, it's something that comes from the self.
I can already hear the cries of moral subjectivism, yet this could only apply if humans lived in complete isolation. To go back to the chair example. If it were just an individual and the chair, then what is there to stop you from breaking it? Perhaps the consequences of having a broken chair. But if the chair was owned by another, then the relationship between the agent and the chair is changed. Breaking someone else's property could affect your relationship with them.
In there a rule emerges, purely out of the self. Acting in a particular way has consequences, and certain actions can help or hinder others and affect ones relationship to them. It stems from a recognition of one's relationship to the environment around them.
It doesn't end there, game theory can show stable survival strategies fall out of repeated interactions even when weighting is put towards "cheating". In the thought experiment of the prisoner's dilemma, at each interaction it pays to defect. But when the situation is put into repeated interaction, reciprocal altruism emerges as a dominant strategy even though against any one individual it can at best break even.
So what of maxims? While such behaviours like murder and lying are still present, too much of such elements and there is a breakdown of society. The murder rate cannot exceed the birth-rate, too much lying and there's the loss of a vital component of success and fostering relationships. While they are not absolute, they are as close as we can get to objective morality.
There's so much to say on this subject and very little space, so I'll just quickly say this. Evolution can give us a sound base as to why we are moral, but it can't prescribe morality. For such precepts like the golden rule, it can explain why we aspire to it but not why we should aspire to it. It's important to note that we have the capacity to take on ideas, and to think through actions to their perceived consequences. This capacity for knowledge of outcomes gives us the ability to learn from actions in the past and work towards our future.
#2 Atheists cannot believe there is objective moral law
To put the argument another way, humans can recognise the force of gravity because it exists. And even without knowing where gravity comes from, it doesn't change the fact that gravity is there. So it follows that an atheist can recognise an objective morality because an objective morality exists. But the nature of morality is unlike gravity, while gravity is a blind force morality is personal. So it follows that if there is objective morality in nature, then there must be a personal (i.e. interventionist) deity responsible.
So again to subject it to the established criteria, is objective moral law necessary for any particular world-view? And like with meaning, I think the answer is no. Again it's an appeal to consequences. We might desire objective moral law, society might even be contingent on having a moral law, but without objective moral law being necessary it doesn't reflect on the truth of whether there are interventionist deities.
What reach does objective moral law have. Is it contingent on the human species existing? Once it exists, does it have any reach beyond our species? Take killing another for example, does it hold that it is objectively wrong for one man to kill another on the surface of Mars? What about at the centre of our galaxy? Or in the far reaches of the cosmos? I would contend not, that is to say morality is a local phenomenon entirely contingent on our existence.
The obvious does need to be pointed out, humans do indeed have an innate moral capacity, a sense of right and wrong and act on moral impulses. This however doesn't necessitate objective moral law any more than sexual attraction necessitates an objective form of what is attractive. I would say the argument ends here, but I would be remiss if I didn't explore the nature of the question further.
So how can a theist account for morality? The question that any theist needs to answer is what is known as The Euthyphro Dilemma, which goes "is it pious because it is loved by the gods or loved by the gods because it is pious". Or to put it in modern terms, is murder wrong because God says it's wrong or does God say murder is wrong because it is wrong? The first part of the dilemma puts any God-given morality as arbitrary, the latter means that any attempt to reconcile morality through God is begging the question.
The argument in this video comes in the form of an authority, that we can only have morality because of a higher authority (God) gave moral instruct. It seems that those who made the video take the first option, that it is obedience to an amoral entity - lest the argument go ad infinitum or falls into a circular definition.
In the video they fall into what Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism by the removal of any possible authority in the material world. After all, it's all just material - blind forces acting indiscriminately. One can't help but think back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos where he laid out the raw materials that make us. The point he's trying to make is that life is more than just the atoms that make it up.
This straw man continues in making an analogy with the chair. That we have no moral obligation not to break the chair as the chair has no personal connection to us. They neglect the obvious, the chair isn't an intelligent agent. The chair itself may not have a moral obligation, but if the chair was owned by a friend they wouldn't take "materialism means no obligation" as a valid excuse.
I'd go so far as to say that theism cannot account for morality, the appeals to authority make no sense for the same reason as it doesn't make it right if a leader of a country proclaims a moral dictum. This sense of objective morality is obedience, it's right for the same reason a parent is right when telling a child what to do. It's an infantile way of looking at what is morality, and given its importance to us as a species it is deserving of something better.
Which brings me to how an atheist can account for morality. I'm not going to argue for objective moral law, rather for how certain moral maxims fall out naturally and how we've come to regard some morals as near universals. And far from morality being an exercise in authority, it's something that comes from the self.
I can already hear the cries of moral subjectivism, yet this could only apply if humans lived in complete isolation. To go back to the chair example. If it were just an individual and the chair, then what is there to stop you from breaking it? Perhaps the consequences of having a broken chair. But if the chair was owned by another, then the relationship between the agent and the chair is changed. Breaking someone else's property could affect your relationship with them.
In there a rule emerges, purely out of the self. Acting in a particular way has consequences, and certain actions can help or hinder others and affect ones relationship to them. It stems from a recognition of one's relationship to the environment around them.
It doesn't end there, game theory can show stable survival strategies fall out of repeated interactions even when weighting is put towards "cheating". In the thought experiment of the prisoner's dilemma, at each interaction it pays to defect. But when the situation is put into repeated interaction, reciprocal altruism emerges as a dominant strategy even though against any one individual it can at best break even.
So what of maxims? While such behaviours like murder and lying are still present, too much of such elements and there is a breakdown of society. The murder rate cannot exceed the birth-rate, too much lying and there's the loss of a vital component of success and fostering relationships. While they are not absolute, they are as close as we can get to objective morality.
There's so much to say on this subject and very little space, so I'll just quickly say this. Evolution can give us a sound base as to why we are moral, but it can't prescribe morality. For such precepts like the golden rule, it can explain why we aspire to it but not why we should aspire to it. It's important to note that we have the capacity to take on ideas, and to think through actions to their perceived consequences. This capacity for knowledge of outcomes gives us the ability to learn from actions in the past and work towards our future.
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