Atheism's Burden of Proof

[Silmarien]

I always enjoy people using computers and the internet to tell us how useless science is.

Science isn't useless. It just doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the nature of reality. Those are two very different things.

 

[Halbhh]

But the proposition of dark matter, unlike gods, is actually well-motivated

This is where you make an assumption, and where you could go back and challenge the assumption and learn new things. There is one true God, and thousands of attempts to put a face onto God, failed.

Really to find what you haven't you'd have to proactively seek the Lord. I did. The way to seek i know is to read through the accounts of what He said in the 4 gospels.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Science isn't useless. It just doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the nature of reality. Those are two very different things.

I'd argue it tells us plenty about the nature of reality. In fact, virtually everything we can demonstrate to be true about the nature of reality we discovered through science.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I'd argue it tells us plenty about the nature of reality. In fact, virtually everything we can demonstrate to be true about the nature of reality we discovered through science.

If by "reality" we mean the way things appear to work (which to me is a pretty lax, but common, definition), then science can say something about reality. But if we're talking about how things are independent of how we perceive them, then the problem of hard solipsism shows we can't be sure that what science tells us has anything to do with reality.

 

[Silmarien]

I'd argue it tells us plenty about the nature of reality. In fact, virtually everything we can demonstrate to be true about the nature of reality we discovered through science.

Not really. Science deals with predictable patterns rather than "objective" external reality--it's unlikely that our minds are just imposing order where it doesn't really exist, but we can't really demonstrate otherwise. It's an underlying assumption of science that reality is intelligible, but that assumption could ultimately turn out to be false. Or rationality could be an illusion. Goodbye, science.

There are reasons to think that science is actually providing us with genuine knowledge about reality, true, but that's an argument for the philosophy of science, not something you can demonstrate with science itself. So if someone is going to reject philosophical inquiry as meaningful, they can't say anything about scientific knowledge either. Which is fine, I suppose, as long as they're consistent about it.

 

[Halbhh]

Not really. Science deals with predictable patterns rather than "objective" external reality--it's unlikely that our minds are just imposing order where it doesn't really exist, but we can't really demonstrate otherwise. It's an underlying assumption of science that reality is intelligible, but that assumption could ultimately turn out to be false. Or rationality could be an illusion. Goodbye, science.

There are reasons to think that science is actually providing us with genuine knowledge about reality, true, but that's an argument for the philosophy of science, not something you can demonstrate with science itself. So if someone is going to reject philosophical inquiry as meaningful, they can't say anything about scientific knowledge either. Which is fine, I suppose, as long as they're consistent about it.

In addition to accounting for what's already observed, theories in physics can make unanticipated new predictions about potential observables never before seen nor expected.

Example: General Relativity predicted an not yet known (no observations showing it yet) bending of star light (around the sun), and seeking to test this new prediction, astronomers observed an eclipse and found the predicted deflection of star light (first observation for this ever) precisely as General Relativity predicted.

Spectacular and dramatic.

So, while we can still consider what is "reality", etc., that same reality in physics seems.... already existing.

Already real, before we ever discover.

I have a phrase i use for this: "reality is hard"(instead of soft or illusory).

It exists independently of us.

 

[Dave Ellis]

If by "reality" we mean the way things appear to work (which to me is a pretty lax, but common, definition), then science can say something about reality. But if we're talking about how things are independent of how we perceive them, then the problem of hard solipsism shows we can't be sure that what science tells us has anything to do with reality.

Sure, if we're all brains in a vat then we probably won't know the ultimate reality. Even then however, science would still be the most effective way of learning about the reality we experience.

Not to mention hard solipsism is unfalsifiable, and therefore not worth taking seriously.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Not really. Science deals with predictable patterns rather than "objective" external reality--it's unlikely that our minds are just imposing order where it doesn't really exist, but we can't really demonstrate otherwise. It's an underlying assumption of science that reality is intelligible, but that assumption could ultimately turn out to be false. Or rationality could be an illusion. Goodbye, science.

There are reasons to think that science is actually providing us with genuine knowledge about reality, true, but that's an argument for the philosophy of science, not something you can demonstrate with science itself. So if someone is going to reject philosophical inquiry as meaningful, they can't say anything about scientific knowledge either. Which is fine, I suppose, as long as they're consistent about it.

The problem is, science has a long history of producing results.

My previous reply deals with the rest of your post as well.

 

[Silmarien]

In addition to accounting for what's already observed, theories in physics can make unanticipated new predictions about potential observables never before seen nor expected.

Example: General Relativity predicted an not yet known (no observations showing it yet) bending of star light (around the sun), and seeking to test this new prediction, astronomers observed an eclipse and found the predicted deflection of star light (first observation for this ever) precisely as General Relativity predicted.

Spectacular and dramatic.

So, while we can still consider what is "reality", etc., that same reality in physics seems.... already existing.

Already real, before we ever discover.

I have a phrase i use for this: "reality is hard"(instead of soft or illusory).

It exists independently of us.

I agree that reality probably exists independently of us, but I don't think science establishes that fact in any way that common sense doesn't already. That physics seems to provide a consistent model of reality for us doesn't really shed too much light on the question of how well this model matches up to the real thing.

We thought we had physics figured out 100 years ago, and we were completely wrong.

The problem is, science has a long history of producing results.

My previous reply deals with the rest of your post as well.

It has a long history of invalidating the previously held scientific worldview. Ptolomaic astronomy, classical mechanics. It would be arrogance to claim that we've now finally crossed a threshold and science actually affords us an accurate picture of reality. We can't know.

My post had nothing to do with solipsism, but the fact that solipsism is unfalsifiable doesn't really mean anything. Unfalsifiability is just the conventional delineator between what does and doesn't count as scientific knowledge. It has nothing to do with whether or not something is worth taking seriously.

 

[Halbhh]

That physics seems to provide a consistent model of reality for us doesn't really shed too much light on the question of how well this model matches up to the real thing.

We thought we had physics figured out 100 years ago, and we were completely wrong.

By '100 years ago' I'm thinking you mean even earlier when in classical physics after Maxwell's equations summarized electromagnetism that physics was largely 'finished'?

Yes, at that time some significant portion of physicists (but never all, never) thought physics might be largely (mostly) finished on the fundamental law level.

Wonderfully there was much yet to discover.

Today the broad consensus in physics is that most of reality (most of what exists) is truly unknown on the fundamental level, due mostly to the unknown nature of putative 'dark energy' and 'dark matter', among other things.

Neither of those situations though, neither 130 years ago nor that of today, should lead us to think physics is illusory in any way.

Instead, there is a reality for sure independent of us, and that reality for sure consistently obeys known laws of physics, which are therefore as 'real' as anything can be.

Put in different words, physics laws like conservation of momentum, etc., and physics entities like electrons and photons, etc. are as real as water or air or human beings. Equally.

 

[Silmarien]

Put in different words, physics laws like conservation of momentum, etc., and physics entities like electrons and photons, etc. are as real as water or air or human beings. Equally.

Well... I don't entirely believe in matter, so that doesn't mean much to me.

I'm not an absolute idealist, but if I were one, physics really couldn't demonstrate that literally every aspect of the world we see around us wasn't merely an idea of the mind of God with no intrinsic reality, à la Berkeley. But you don't really even need to take things to that extreme to end up with a picture whereby the scientific image of the universe is obscuring more than it reveals about reality.

 

[Halbhh]

Well... I don't entirely believe in matter, so that doesn't mean much to me.

I'm not an absolute idealist, but if I were one, physics really couldn't demonstrate that literally every aspect of the world we see around us wasn't merely an idea of the mind of God with no intrinsic reality, à la Berkeley. But you don't really even need to take things to that extreme to end up with a picture whereby the scientific image of the universe is obscuring more than it reveals about reality.

Yes, even valididated theories can have a reducing effect on what Is in our minds, if we let them.

:=)

 

[ToddNotTodd]

We thought we had physics figured out 100 years ago, and we were completely wrong.

Someone like Lawrence Krauss would disagree with both parts of that sentence. I know because i just listened to an interview with him an hour ago that mentioned this exact thing. Must be fate...

His feeling is that science is never meant to say "this is figured out". It's not in the business of proving things.

And Einstein, for example, didn't show that Newton was completely wrong, Newton is correct in terms of cannon balls and space craft moving around the Earth. Einstein knew this. Ideas evolve and change, but there's never a point at which all previous information is thrown out.

 

[Halbhh]

Newton is correct in terms of cannon balls and space craft moving around the Earth.

Only the former to the degree needed in practice.

The GPS satellite system/timings you may use to navigate relies on General Relativity corrections to be adequately accurate!

Altogether, today, it's fair to say that Physics is less settled than ever, really.

 

[Dave Ellis]

It has a long history of invalidating the previously held scientific worldview. Ptolomaic astronomy, classical mechanics. It would be arrogance to claim that we've now finally crossed a threshold and science actually affords us an accurate picture of reality. We can't know.

I see, so a self correcting system which steadily improves over time as more knowledge is gained is somehow bad for you.

My post had nothing to do with solipsism, but the fact that solipsism is unfalsifiable doesn't really mean anything. Unfalsifiability is just the conventional delineator between what does and doesn't count as scientific knowledge. It has nothing to do with whether or not something is worth taking seriously.

If something is unfalsifiable, it has no practical value to us

 

[Tinker Grey]

I see, so a self correcting system which steadily improves over time as more knowledge is gained is somehow bad for you.



If something is unfalsifiable, it has no practical value to us

Indeed, if something is unfalsifiable I think is one is justified in hard denial (or a declaration of non-existence) without having to prove anything.

 

[Silmarien]

I see, so a self correcting system which steadily improves over time as more knowledge is gained is somehow bad for you.

When did I say that science is bad? My point was that we can never know to what extent the picture of reality it paints is actually true, due to its both limitations and the unproven assumptions underlying the entire system. The more abstract the field, the more potentially problematic it is.

If something is unfalsifiable, it has no practical value to us

Congratulations, you just dismissed all the arts and humanities, including the very philosophy of science that makes science intelligible at all.

Indeed, if something is unfalsifiable I think is one is justified in hard denial (or a declaration of non-existence) without having to prove anything.

Naturalism is unfalsifiable.

 

[Dave Ellis]

When did I say that science is bad? My point was that we can never know to what extent the picture of reality it paints is actually true, due to its both limitations and the unproven assumptions underlying the entire system. The more abstract the field, the more potentially problematic it is.

And yet, it still works and produces tangible results. Weird.

Congratulations, you just dismissed all the arts and humanities, including the very philosophy of science that makes science intelligible at all.

No I didn't, the arts and humanities as a whole don't make unfalsifiable claims about reality.

Naturalism is unfalsifiable.

Likewise, no it isn't. Naturalism is the only justifiable position we can follow at the moment. It posits that laws and forces of nature govern the structure or behaviour of the universe. We can confirm that through repeated testing. Gravity, electromangetism, etc. It all works.

Anything beyond that, we currently have no reason to accept as true. I can't say it's impossible that the supernatural exists, however until it's demonstrated I have no reason to believe it does. By default, I'm left with what we can show to be true, which is naturalism.

If at some point we can reliably prove the supernatural exists, then it would disprove naturalism. That by definition means it is falsifiable.

 

[Silmarien]

And yet, it still works and produces tangible results. Weird.

Yes, science is very good at manipulating physical reality. I have never contested the technological achievements associated with it.

I do actually hold to realism with regards to science--I think we are learning real things about the external world. But this is a philosophical position and not itself scientific, and there is disagreement. If someone is going to reject all of philosophy, they cannot really justify making any epistemological claim whatsoever. I really don't see how this is controversial.

Likewise, no it isn't. Naturalism is the only justifiable position we can follow at the moment. It posits that laws and forces of nature govern the structure or behaviour of the universe. We can confirm that through repeated testing. Gravity, electromangetism, etc. It all works.

Yes, naturalism is unfalsifiable, by definition. Science relies upon methodological naturalism, so it cannot test whether or not anything falls outside of those boundaries. We can expand the limits of what is considered naturalism--the definition of "materialism" has certainly evolved over time--but as soon as you drop methodological naturalism, you have dropped the scientific method.

If you do not feel comfortable with alternatives to naturalism, you certainly are not obligated to accept any of them. You do not get to tell anyone else that an unfalsifiable model of reality is the only justifiable position to hold, however. You're arbitrarily making up your own rules about how the universe is to be approached and then insisting that other people follow them. The word for that is "dogma."

The initial topic here was mathematical platonism, which apparently became controversial amongst atheists while I wasn't looking. I wish people would actually use falsifiability in the way Karl Popper intended rather than as a weapon to go after any doctrine but their own.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Yes, naturalism is unfalsifiable, by definition. Science relies upon methodological naturalism, so it cannot test whether or not anything falls outside of those boundaries. We can expand the limits of what is considered naturalism--the definition of "materialism" has certainly evolved over time--but as soon as you drop methodological naturalism, you have dropped the scientific method.

If you do not feel comfortable with alternatives to naturalism, you certainly are not obligated to accept any of them. You do not get to tell anyone else that an unfalsifiable model of reality is the only justifiable position to hold, however. You're arbitrarily making up your own rules about how the universe is to be approached and then insisting that other people follow them. The word for that is "dogma."

The initial topic here was mathematical platonism, which apparently became controversial amongst atheists while I wasn't looking. I wish people would actually use falsifiability in the way Karl Popper intended rather than as a weapon to go after any doctrine but their own.

Falsifiability depends on the ability to disprove something. If naturalism posits the natural world is all there is, and we discover the supernatural realm is a real thing, then naturalism has been totally disproven. Therefore in theory it's certainly falsifiable although in practice it's unlikely to be disproven that way.