Tricks New Atheists and Theists Play (Part 1)

[durangodawood]

I have proven that a negative statement can be proven.

I agree for cases where the premises are already pretty much universally accepted... ie trivial cases.

 

[Tree of Life]

I agree for cases where the premises are already pretty much universally accepted... ie trivial cases.

It's also possible to prove a negative based on premises that only you might accept.

 

[Nithavela]

It's also possible to prove a negative based on premises that only you might accept.

Ill go take a ride on my invisible unicorn and think about this.

 

[durangodawood]

It's also possible to prove a negative based on premises that only you might accept.

In other words: crazy-person premises?

I suppose. But how powerful is that kind of proof?

 

[Tree of Life]

In other words: crazy-person premises?

I suppose. But how powerful is that kind of proof?

Enough to move that person to new belief or action.

It doesn't have to be a crazy person premise. Only you might accept:

1. If my wife isn't home, then she is with her boyfriend.

Others may see no reason to believe this. But you may be very persuaded that this premise is indeed true. From that we may continue:

2. My wife is not with her boyfriend.

And conclude:

3. Therefore my wife is home.

 

[Tree of Life]

Let me rework that personal syllogism to make it into proving a negative:

1. If my wife is home then she is not with her boyfriend.
2. My wife is with her boyfriend.
3. Therefore my wife is not home.

 

[Uber Genius]

Wow thats a crazy paper.

First he says you can prove something using assumed premises. But what is that.... a "conditional" or "provisional" proof?

Then later he gets slippery re inductive arguments. He appears to count strong inductive argument as "proof", like his alien abduction example. But maybe he doesnt go quite that far, and just wants us to not completely dismiss them? (Strictly speaking an inductive argument is never fully "proof", right?)

Maybe what he means by proof is just "highly convincing".

Thanks for reading the paper.
It is the nature of inductive arguments that they are descriptive and limited by the data.

The problem of induction (by our favorite skeptic Hume), suggests that all knowledge by induction is limited to a probability rather than a certainty. His example was of a supposed discovery of a black swan when all the data ever collected has suggested no such swan existed.

So too the paper suggests that we go from premises we trust seem true of all the data we have to arguments that are probable, not certain.

Of course deductive arguments work differently, but there again are a function of the truth of the premises.

In either case we can easily prove many negative claims. Our task from there will be to engage specific negative claims based on the support for those claims and eschew false maxims.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE!"

The statement above is uttered repeatedly by theists and atheists alike. Professors make the above statement as frequently as high-school students. Is it true?

Here is an article that will help people more accurately understand why we want to consider the claim more carefully before we mindlessly repeat it.

https://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf

After engaging the argument weigh-in on the claims and if you were able to change your position or at least soften entrenched beliefs on the matter.

I've decided there's just too many … propositions to know for sure either way. Consider the following possibility:

 

[Uber Genius]

Yes it could well be "logically inferred". But could it be "proven" (which is the topic)?

So "proven" in the sense that scientists claim gravity is "proven".

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Would you say that you know that?

Nope.

 

[durangodawood]

Enough to move that person to new belief or action.

It doesn't have to be a crazy person premise. Only you might accept:

1. If my wife isn't home, then she is with her boyfriend.

Others may see no reason to believe this. But you may be very persuaded that this premise is indeed true. From that we may continue:

2. My wife is not with her boyfriend.

And conclude:

3. Therefore my wife is home.

I see. Back to trivia. Not anything of general interest.

I'd really like to see a proof of negative do something interesting.

The OP paper tries to give example, and fails due to problematic premises.

 

[Uber Genius]

The first one. You cant prove that earth is the only source for teapots in the universe (that, again, would be proving a negative).

Also the second. You can't prove that there never was a secret nasa mission to shoot a tea pot towards jupiter.

You are missing the point.

Russell's teapot floating around Earth argument was meant to shift the burden of proof away from the atheist suggesting (circularly) that theistic claims of a immaterial God were necessarily unfalsifiable. It didn't succeed as all knowledge claims that are not immediate or properly basic need to be justified. Secondly, it was a false analogy to the arguments given from historical evidence, to scientific evidence in support of premises that in turn supported arguments in favor of theism.

So that we can't prove absurdly trivial claims is in no way analogous to proving theistic claims or atheistic claims and is just a false analogy and therefore false in every possible world.

Let us move on to the ideas in the paper.

 

[Uber Genius]

Never heard of substitute teachers?

"IFF" in logic represents (rhetorically "If and only if") means that particular argument no substitute teachers exist.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I see. Back to trivia. Not anything of general interest.

I'd really like to see a proof of negative do something interesting.

The OP paper tries to give example, and fails due to problematic premises.

...perhaps this has something to do with the possibility that God can't be proven by rational deduction. SWOOSH! Pascalians (2!); Cartesians (0!)

 

[Uber Genius]

So we quickly see how logically we have various ways to prove negative claims.

Secondly, we have a storied history of absurd claims that would require a near-infinite knowledge of things about the universe. But luckily we can approach the premises by way of "what evidence do we have that there is a teapot in space?"

So the response because we don't have any evidence doesn't mean it isn't there just commits the fallacy of appeal to ignorance.

So we can make negative claims such as unicorns don't exist, but they are based on premises about what we do know not what we don't know. If we argue from what we don't know about the world we just destroy what we can count as knowledge.

This is why Russell's argument dropped out of fashion, as well as the false analogy.

 

[Uber Genius]

...perhaps this has something to do with the possibility that God can't be proven by rational deduction. SWOOSH! Pascalians (2!); Cartesians (0!)

So while true, Pascal gave an entire book of rational proofs before resorting to his so-called "Wager."

 

[Uber Genius]

My stance is that nothing is proven scientifically. Proof is really the purview of math and liquor, and to a certain extent logic while science doesn't deal in proof nor is scientific proof a thing.

So too the paper does seem to suggest that we there is a technical meaning to proof, applicable to math and formal logic. And a common usage that more closely related to evidence, reasons, explanation of the current data that are better than other explanations. It is the latter that we would engage in apologetics it seems.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So while true, Pascal gave an entire book of rational proofs before resorting to his so-called "Wager."

And you know one of the reasons 'why' Pascal wrote some of the things he did, right? To counter what he saw as a deficiency in Descartes' thinking. Let's just say that … they talked.

Furthermore, if we take Tarski into account in our assessment of the nature of propositions and their supposed logical inferences, whether positive, negative, and/or especially those which are self referential, then we run into a clash between linguistics and meta-linguistics. Of course, we could....ignore Tarski, but I'm not sure that would make us very good Analytic Philosophers in the long run. I mean, there is a difference in the nature between 1) a possible physical miscontextualized entity [like our space cowboy teapot] just floating around Jupiter, and 2) the entity of the Law of Non-Contradiction in our heads here on earth. These two things have different linguistic contexts.

 

[Uber Genius]

I've decided there's just too many … propositions to know for sure either way. Consider the following possibility:

And I don't rest my belief in God on any of the arguments I give here. It is just that the type of a posteriori evidence for God doesn't translate well, at least not over the internet. Friends who were atheist and engaged me over time get to experience those evidences but not until they have a good knowledge of who I am and why they are more likely true than made up.

 

[Uber Genius]

And you know one of the reasons 'why' Pascal wrote some of the things he did, right? To counter what he saw as a deficiency in Descartes' thinking. Let's just say that … they talked.

Furthermore, if we take Tarski into account in our assessment of the nature of propositions and their supposed logical inferences, whether positive, negative, and/or especially those which are self referential, then we run into a clash between linguistics and meta-linguistics. Of course, we could....ignore Tarski, but I'm not sure that would make us very good Analytic Philosophers in the long run. I mean, there is a difference in the nature between 1) a possible physical miscontextualized entity [like our space cowboy teapot] just floating around Jupiter, and 2) the entity of the Law of Non-Contradiction in our heads here on earth. These two things have different linguistic contexts.

This goes back to how one conceives of epistemology.

I'm obviously a moderate foundationalist. But if one is a constructivist. They might deny such justification of knowledge suggesting that history, culture, society impinge heavily to make strong claims.

Even coherentists would deny that our knowledge goes from a few a priori immediate beliefs, to inferred more complex ones, and instead suggest that our knowledge operates like a web. So the assumptions one makes epistemically will create the a set of propositions one allows to count as evidence or reasons for any knowledge claim.