Pragmatic Argument for God's existense

[devolved]

I edited my post pretty significantly but you beat me in your reply. I’ll wait for your reply to that before I reply to this. I apologize, that was pretty irresponsible of me.

I'm not pointing to gaps though. I hope you can see it in the argument. I'm saying that even pragmatism itself becomes problematic and absurd, because pragmatism is goal-oriented and goals imply meaning and purpose.

In reality without inherent meaning , pragmatism as justification to do anything is rather arbitrary. It's excessive. We are adding something to our existence that doesn't need to be there just so we can re-shuffle a bit more of absurdity and get nowhere in the process, because there isn't anywhere to get to.

Thus... My entire argument here is that for us to do anything (that works through rational justifications for doing it) at all we'd need to believe that the inherent meaning is there to justify what we do. And to do that, we'd need to believe that our reality is not arbitrary.

It may be a necessary delusion. We can't know for sure. But the point being is that it leads us to presupposing God in such case... as a pragmatic means of justifying pragmatism.

It's not an accident that we have some god concept in virtually every generation of humanity.

 

[gaara4158]

Right, that is a singular statement, not an absolute statement as you returned it. It is a distinction that is more important than others.

I told you in my first response that you found it important to tell me that right beliefs don't make a difference. Which is a belief you are presenting to me as if it does make a difference. It may be an accident, but it's brought on by habitually living inconsistently with your claimed beliefs.

That habitual inconsistency will continue with your next reply where you further try to correct my beliefs as if there was a difference that mattered.

What other distinctions can you name? Can you demonstrate them?

I’m not saying right and wrong don’t matter. I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying the only meaningful definition of right vs. wrong is in terms of the actual difference they make. If you have some other criteria for truth, I don’t care anymore. You would be admitting that nothing you say makes any difference.

 

[Silmarien]

I’m not saying right and wrong don’t matter. I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying the only meaningful definition of right vs. wrong is in terms of the actual difference they make.

It probably goes without saying by now, but I think this is an incredibly dangerous definition of truth. Ptolemaic astronomy, for example, "worked" for a thousand years, and it would not have made much of a practical difference at that point whether people adhered to a Ptolemaic or Copernican model. Perhaps the Ptolemaic model was actually preferable, since those who accepted it would not have had to face the sort of radical skepticism about all their beliefs that eventually led Descartes to doubt everything. So a fully pragmatic definition of truth may lead us into a situation where geocentricism is true and the very notion of scientific progress can be discarded as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable.

Also, you're going to be necessarily ending up with value judgments concerning what counts as a "difference," which rely upon a previously established standard of truth to make any sense, so the whole thing just becomes circular anyway.

 

[Sanoy]

What other distinctions can you name? Can you demonstrate them?

I’m not saying right and wrong don’t matter. I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying the only meaningful definition of right vs. wrong is in terms of the actual difference they make. If you have some other criteria for truth, I don’t care anymore. You would be admitting that nothing you say makes any difference.

The issue with the condition I stated is one of self defeat. If naturalism is true then the content of our belief about naturalism is more probably false. So naturalism is most likely not true and we can drop that belief. That is the condition whether or not you think there is a boolean difference. Now as to whether or not there is a boolean difference I would say there is, we wouldn't be mutually talking about it if there wasn't. And I don't think we would be where we are in the world under a naturalistic world view or have the faculties for a meaningful discussion regarding the truth (which is what is happening). But I also think the statement 'right or wrong is meaningful only in the difference they make' is false, and contrary to our experience and behavior. Mankind certainly values truth intrinsically. We don't lie arbitrarily just because it makes no difference. There is a base coercion in our consciousness to acquire beliefs that are true, and to operate on truth, independently of our coercion to provide external benefits. In fact it is our base belief that we have the cognitive faculties to acquire truths about the world that facilitates every bit of difference we have acquired. You don't solve puzzles by finding a belief pattern that works, you solve it by assuming you have the cognitive faculties to know truths about the situation and find an analytic solution that parallels with a synthetic solution. If we are talking about an IQ test the person that solves the puzzle by finding a belief pattern that works gets an 80, the person that uses his cognitive faculties to find a parallel analytic solution gets the high score. (I am sincerely just using this as an example, I am not using it in any suggestive way) We do find truths about the world entirely through analytic thought, and that is because our analytic thought corresponds to how God thinks, not because we acquired it through coincidence.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

What other distinctions can you name? Can you demonstrate them?

I’m not saying right and wrong don’t matter. I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying the only meaningful definition of right vs. wrong is in terms of the actual difference they make. If you have some other criteria for truth, I don’t care anymore. You would be admitting that nothing you say makes any difference.

The matter of whether you "care" anymore could be a complicated statement to make within the horizon of ethical/moral considerations, particularly if the rest of us in society--whom you are somewhat accountable to in a limited degree--will have to discern if your statement is one made from a socio-pathic state of mind, or one made from just general existential feelings about "what works" for you.

If it's the first of these possibilities, then you might be culpable of moral failure ... along with having symptoms of psychological dysfunctionality.

In the second of these possibilities, you might or might not be culpable, depending on the implications and the actual issues involved in our corporate attempts to conceptualize right and wrong...

 

[Silmarien]

Whoops. Sorry about the dogpile, Gaara.

2) When we deconstruct our individual beliefs on the subject of origins we end up with some basic questions about reality, of which I would frame as two possible baseline categories of assumptions:

A) Either the reality is arbitrary, in a sense that there is no inherent meaning in variables that allow such reality for what we would recognize as intelligent processes and be intelligible. It's merely incidental with existence of such reality. There's no inherent meaning apart from what we would contextually project to be meaningfull.

Or

B) The reality was arranged to be intelligent and intelligible by a being which by extension would be necessarily both intelligent and intelligible in a way which exceeds the complexity of the reality that such being would arrange.

I haven't replied here before because I'm a bit of a broken record on this subject, agree with you 150%, and didn't want to get pulled into another drawn-out and ultimately pointless argument about it, but I was just rereading your OP and it occurred to me that you've tossed one position under the bus with this formulation:

Neo-Aristotelian naturalism. There are atheists out there who believe in immanent teleology and see reality as an intelligibly ordered whole, without the need for an intelligent creator (though they are usually more sympathetic to theism than their naturalistic brethren). This involves a more robust metaphysics than most modern atheists with their anti-metaphysical prejudices would be comfortable with: for a taste of scientific essentialism, you can take a look at the preview of Brian Ellis's book here, or Nancy Cartwright's article here, but basically the view is that the laws of nature are the result of the interaction of actual things in the world and their intrinsic properties, so reality is full of inherent causal powers and ultimately not arbitrary at all. And then metaethicists and other values theorists can really run with it too in an attempt to save logic, ethics, and the very possibility of knowledge.

Whether this approach actually stands on its own or silently implies theism is a separate question, and I've so far never seen an Aristotelian naturalist do more than allude to it and then ignore it, so I don't know how they handle it. But it is a potential non-theistic way out of this particular problem, and as far as I can tell, the only way to keep atheism from breaking down into an incoherent, irrational mess.

 

[gaara4158]

I'm not pointing to gaps though. I hope you can see it in the argument. I'm saying that even pragmatism itself becomes problematic and absurd, because pragmatism is goal-oriented and goals imply meaning and purpose.

In reality without inherent meaning , pragmatism as justification to do anything is rather arbitrary. It's excessive. We are adding something to our existence that doesn't need to be there just so we can re-shuffle a bit more of absurdity and get nowhere in the process, because there isn't anywhere to get to.

Thus... My entire argument here is that for us to do anything (that works through rational justifications for doing it) at all we'd need to believe that the inherent meaning is there to justify what we do. And to do that, we'd need to believe that our reality is not arbitrary.

It may be a necessary delusion. We can't know for sure. But the point being is that it leads us to presupposing God in such case... as a pragmatic means of justifying pragmatism.

It's not an accident that we have some god concept in virtually every generation of humanity.

Sure. If you examine any of your motivations deeply enough, you will eventually draw a blank. You can’t rationally justify, for example, the desire to pass on your genes to the next generation, which is the only clear directive we find for ourselves in nature. But the whole point of pragmatism is that it is self-justifying. It doesn’t need justification because it takes subjective experience at face value. We do things because we want to, and what we want is largely determined by biological and environmental factors. You’re trying to insert a god to justify something that’s already accounted-for. It may be comforting to believe your motivations are pre-ordained by a divine creator, but that doesn’t protect you from delusion any better than the face value approach. It just has an extra step.

 

[gaara4158]

It probably goes without saying by now, but I think this is an incredibly dangerous definition of truth. Ptolemaic astronomy, for example, "worked" for a thousand years, and it would not have made much of a practical difference at that point whether people adhered to a Ptolemaic or Copernican model. Perhaps the Ptolemaic model was actually preferable, since those who accepted it would not have had to face the sort of radical skepticism about all their beliefs that eventually led Descartes to doubt everything. So a fully pragmatic definition of truth may lead us into a situation where geocentricism is true and the very notion of scientific progress can be discarded as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable.

Also, you're going to be necessarily ending up with value judgments concerning what counts as a "difference," which rely upon a previously established standard of truth to make any sense, so the whole thing just becomes circular anyway.

You cease practicing pragmatism as soon as you ignore results that differ from your predictions. Refusing to investigate the predictive value of your beliefs also counts as departure. The consequences you are describing would be from a failure to investigate at all, not strict adherence to pragmatism.

As for the circularity problem, I’ve already stated that I’m taking subjective experience at face value, so it’s not a problem to define a difference by value judgement. Perception is reality for a pragmatist. This epistemology doesn't solve all problems of uncertainty inherent to subjectivity, but I believe it gets the job done making the fewest assumptions about reality.

To put the difference between OP and me simply, OP and I both believe our subjective experience is reliable. I take it at face value and go from there while OP takes God as a given and then takes it at face value. It seems to me OP is attempting to solve a mystery by appealing to a larger mystery, which is a philosophical no-no.

The matter of whether you "care" anymore could be a complicated statement to make within the horizon of ethical/moral considerations, particularly if the rest of us in society--whom you are somewhat accountable to in a limited degree--will have to discern if your statement is one made from a socio-pathic state of mind, or one made from just general existential feelings about "what works" for you.

If it's the first of these possibilities, then you might be culpable of moral failure ... along with having symptoms of psychological dysfunctionality.

In the second of these possibilities, you might or might not be culpable, depending on the implications and the actual issues involved in our corporate attempts to conceptualize right and wrong...

I was using “right vs wrong” in terms of truth, not morality, but maybe it still applies. We’ll see how far it carries.
When I say I don’t care anymore, of course I don’t mean I’m abandoning the discussion and am no longer concerned with the nature of truth. It means I’ve determined that this person cannot contribute anything meaningful to the conversation because he’s admitted that nothing he says is based on anything that matters.

The issue with the condition I stated is one of self defeat. If naturalism is true then the content of our belief about naturalism is more probably false. So naturalism is most likely not true and we can drop that belief.

I must say I've never seen a premise this bizarre before in my life. You can't mean what I think you mean. Are you saying naturalism can't be true because if it were, no one would believe it? You seem not to accept the plausibility of a naturalistic universe coexisting with people who believe naturalism is true. I can't imagine how you'd begin to justify this assertion.

Now as to whether or not there is a boolean difference I would say there is, we wouldn't be mutually talking about it if there wasn't. And I don't think we would be where we are in the world under a naturalistic world view or have the faculties for a meaningful discussion regarding the truth (which is what is happening).

Another bizarre opinion that needs explanation.

But I also think the statement 'right or wrong is meaningful only in the difference they make' is false, and contrary to our experience and behavior. Mankind certainly values truth intrinsically. We don't lie arbitrarily just because it makes no difference. There is a base coercion in our consciousness to acquire beliefs that are true, and to operate on truth, independently of our coercion to provide external benefits. In fact it is our base belief that we have the cognitive faculties to acquire truths about the world that facilitates every bit of difference we have acquired. You don't solve puzzles by finding a belief pattern that works, you solve it by assuming you have the cognitive faculties to know truths about the situation and find an analytic solution that parallels with a synthetic solution. If we are talking about an IQ test the person that solves the puzzle by finding a belief pattern that works gets an 80, the person that uses his cognitive faculties to find a parallel analytic solution gets the high score.

I've highlighted your thesis in bold. Everything else is either more unsupported assertions or restatements of your thesis. Since when does the method of puzzle-solving affect the score as long as the puzzle is solved? Can you give an example of an analytic solution that parallels a synthetic solution? I again find myself using the word "bizarre" to describe your arguments.

We do find truths about the world entirely through analytic thought, and that is because our analytic thought corresponds to how God thinks, not because we acquired it through coincidence.

This is another bare assertion that needs support. I understand that it's your belief, but I'm asking you to defend it in contrast with philosophical pragmatism. You can't just keep saying "because God."

 

[Sanoy]

I must say I've never seen a premise this bizarre before in my life. You can't mean what I think you mean. Are you saying naturalism can't be true because if it were, no one would believe it? You seem not to accept the plausibility of a naturalistic universe coexisting with people who believe naturalism is true. I can't imagine how you'd begin to justify this assertion.


Another bizarre opinion that needs explanation.



I've highlighted your thesis in bold. Everything else is either more unsupported assertions or restatements of your thesis. Since when does the method of puzzle-solving affect the score as long as the puzzle is solved? Can you give an example of an analytic solution that parallels a synthetic solution? I again find myself using the word "bizarre" to describe your arguments.



This is another bare assertion that needs support. I understand that it's your belief, but I'm asking you to defend it in contrast with philosophical pragmatism. You can't just keep saying "because God."

I'm not saying naturalism can't be true, not here anyway. I am saying it's probably not true because it's a self defeating concept as it undercuts the substantiation of it's own premise. Rather than begging it's own question, as it should for a founding point, it defeats it's own question.

This principle has created what are called Secular Christians, those who knowingly borrow a Christian world view of moral values and duties but deny any divinity as necessary to societal cohesion. Religious values whether real or imagined have been the bed rock of society since the beginning of civilization. We have yet to see a successful society form apart from that bedrock, just tiny blips of dictators that destroyed their own people.

Okay if we are at the point where we are calling out assertions I'm going to call you out on your own statement which I was responding too. Why say that 'right or wrong is meaningful only in the difference they make'? As to what I have said, do you deny having an intrinsic coercion toward telling the truth? It's an ostensive claim so I can't give you evidence. Though if you deny having that intrinsic coercive value then I must say the future of this conversation will be a bit tragic.

Professional IQ tests are timed, I know because I had to take one.

There are tons of examples of the success of analytic thought because it does reveal synthetic truth, and you use it everyday. Math is one... as for a specific example, the Higgs Boson. This is really common knowledge that has been the foundation our technological advancement that you are calling assertion here.

If we have the ability to determine truths about the world then God is the best explanation for that. If we don't have the ability to determine truths about the world, then I can't complete this sentence.

 

[Silmarien]

You cease practicing pragmatism as soon as you ignore results that differ from your predictions. Refusing to investigate the predictive value of your beliefs also counts as departure. The consequences you are describing would be from a failure to investigate at all, not strict adherence to pragmatism.

Yes, but you've said that the only meaningful difference between right and wrong is in terms of the actual difference that they make. Would you not need a more robust concept of truth to even be able to judge which of two options is true and which is false? If all that matters is practical differences, then we've ended up with a vicious circle wherein what is true is useful because it is true and true because it is useful.

As for the circularity problem, I’ve already stated that I’m taking subjective experience at face value, so it’s not a problem to define a difference by value judgement. Perception is reality for a pragmatist. This epistemology doesn't solve all problems of uncertainty inherent to subjectivity, but I believe it gets the job done making the fewest assumptions about reality.

How is it not a problem? I don't see how perception being taken as reality entails that truth and falsehood are only meaningful concepts in regards to future outcomes. Either this is itself completely meaningless, as we have no way of knowing what future outcomes will turn up for civilizations 1000 years from now or in theoretical afterlives, or truth is in the eyes of the beholder, and at one point Ptolemaic astronomy was true, as it was the result of subjective experience taken at face value, with no practical difference between it and other models that had not yet been dreamed up.

This form of pragmatism seems to run the risk of arguing that there is no reality except in so far as it affects us, which is really an assumption of astronomical proportions.

To put the difference between OP and me simply, OP and I both believe our subjective experience is reliable. I take it at face value and go from there while OP takes God as a given and then takes it at face value. It seems to me OP is attempting to solve a mystery by appealing to a larger mystery, which is a philosophical no-no.

OP seems to be arguing that theism alone really provides a framework whereby subjective experience can be expected to match up to objective truths. If this is true, then I think OP is in a stronger position--you would need to either bite the bullet and claim that subjective experience is not necessarily reliable (leading to the collapse of the possibility of any knowledge), or provide non-theistic justifications for believing that subjective experience can be expected to match up to objective truths. I think OP's argument only fails if it can be demonstrated that theism does not actually provide the sturdiest solution to the problem.

 

[devolved]

You can’t rationally justify, for example, the desire to pass on your genes to the next generation, which is the only clear directive we find for ourselves in nature.

If you can demonstrate that any given function or process works in the scope of its purpose or meaning, then you could justify it.

For example, a policeman can justify shooting someone in the scope of an action of a policeman as it relates to what it means to be the policeman and whether any given actions align with the intended purpose.

Before you can even invoke pragmatism as a justification, you have to presuppose that you are able derive meaning from results of any given action that you are examining, right?

But the whole point of pragmatism is that it is self-justifying. It doesn’t need justification because it takes subjective experience at face value.

You have a "chicken or the egg" problem here. What comes first, your action, or presupposition that you can derive a meaningful results from evaluating the consequences of that action? If you can't expect to derive any meaningful results, then such action is meaningless... at least in the way you would subjectively perceive it. Hence any derivative analysis of results wouldn't amount to much either.

You have to first presuppose that meaning exists before you can engage in the analytical enterprise. But, why would you do that in a reality absent of meaning?

It may be comforting to believe your motivations are pre-ordained by a divine creator, but that doesn’t protect you from delusion any better than the face value approach. It just has an extra step.

It's not about our motivations being pre-ordained by creator. That's not the issue, and you seem to keep missing the point. It's about necessity to maintain a coherent model of reality that doesn't devolve into absurdity upon closer examination.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Likely, you are either missing or avoiding my main point of the argument.

How do you even get to the point of having a process, which primary purpose is to recognize and contextualize meaning, in a reality that doesn't have any?

I'ld dare say that "meaning" in the sense of "purpose" is a human invention. A concept that only exists in our brain. Perhaps even some sort of survival mechanism.

 

[DogmaHunter]

A seems paradoxical, for if it's true we shouldn't believe it's true. If there is no God who created us, then why should the contents of our beliefs reflect truths about the world.

That makes no sense to me at all.

Why wouldn't our models of reality reflect reality if the models don't include believing in the existence of some entity - a belief which ironically can't be shown to reflect reality.

For example the content of my belief "God does not exist", why should that content be true if our minds came about circumstantially and evolved based on survival?

Brains that are incapable of building models that reflect reality, would not survive.

The content of a belief doesn't matter in regards to survival, only the behavior that it brings about.

Beliefs inform actions.
Accurate beliefs will bring about appropriate actions.
Inaccurate beliefs more often then not, will not.

If you believe fire can't hurt you, it won't end well for you if end up in a fire.

So for any belief that results in survival, the content of that belief could be any number of things other than actual truths about the world.

And how accurate and efficient your decision making will be, will be directly proportional to how accurate your beliefs are.

Accurate beliefs will result in good decisions.

Maybe I don't put my hand in the electrical outlet and survive because I think it's a tiger. Or a bear and so on. If survival is the only thing responsible for the way my mind works then the content of my beliefs will always be more probably wrong than right.

No, the exact opposite is true.

 

[Sanoy]

That makes no sense to me at all.

Why wouldn't our models of reality reflect reality if the models don't include believing in the existence of some entity - a belief which ironically can't be shown to reflect reality.



Brains that are incapable of building models that reflect reality, would not survive.



Beliefs inform actions.
Accurate beliefs will bring about appropriate actions.
Inaccurate beliefs more often then not, will not.

If you believe fire can't hurt you, it won't end well for you if end up in a fire.



And how accurate and efficient your decision making will be, will be directly proportional to how accurate your beliefs are.

Accurate beliefs will result in good decisions.




No, the exact opposite is true.

You need to distinguish the difference between models of reality, and the content of those models.

No, only models that do not result in a survival behavior.

There is no such thing as appropriate actions here. There is merely survival and not survival. Survival is brought about by belief derived behavior that results in survival. That has no bearing on the truth of the content of those beliefs. False beliefs can lead to survival as well. For example if Atheistic Nihilism is true it's probably better for survival to not believe in the truth. And the contents of those beliefs don't matter, the only thing that matters is whether or not the belief leads to survival behavior.

Accurate decisions just are the belief derived behaviors that result in survival wherein accurate refers to survival.

No if there is just 1 other belief content that makes it 50:50 probability, and one more and it's more probably wrong than right. This is just the first notch of this. It goes much deeper and we can get into the biochemical semantic structure forming by chance into an epistemological structure if you want. You either one, have natural forces fine tuned to building semantic structures for our epistemologically ready minds (theistic evolution) or you have it happening by random chance in which case the improbability continues even deeper. So pick your poison, teleology or improbability.

 

[DogmaHunter]

There is no such thing as appropriate actions here. There is merely survival and not survival.

And reproduction.
And to be able to survive and reproduce, one needs quite a few appropriate actions.
I encounter more then 100 things a day that would kill me if I were to do something stupid.

Survival is brought about by belief derived behavior that results in survival.

And the better you understand the world (ie: the more accurate your beliefs are), the easier it becomes to survive in it.

That has no bearing on the truth of the content of those beliefs. False beliefs can lead to survival as well. For example if Atheistic Nihilism is true it's probably better for survival to not believe in the truth. And the contents of those beliefs don't matter, the only thing that matters is whether or not the belief leads to survival behavior.

You're not making any sense at all.

No if there is just 1 other belief content that makes it 50:50 probability, and one more and it's more probably wrong than right. This is just the first notch of this. It goes much deeper and we can get into the biochemical semantic structure forming by chance into an epistemological structure if you want. You either one, have natural forces fine tuned to building semantic structures for our epistemologically ready minds (theistic evolution) or you have it happening by random chance in which case the improbability continues even deeper. So pick your poison, teleology or improbability.

You are absolutely hilarious.
First, evolution isn't random.
Second, this is why you shouldn't be content with just holding to your beliefs, whatever they may be. This is why things like science exist. You test your beliefs. You don't just declare that it matches reality. You check to see if it matches reality. You demonstrate that it matches reality.

Your line of argument is completely absurd.
It's as if you are completely unaware of how science is done, why predictive capability in ideas is important, what evidence is ...

 

[devolved]

I'ld dare say that "meaning" in the sense of "purpose" is a human invention. A concept that only exists in our brain. Perhaps even some sort of survival mechanism.

Well... you would then dare to jump into the ocean of absurdity without any justification for doing that either . It's a very brave, but not a very sensible thing to do.

I would argue that the only way that an intelligent process like the brain could function IS by contextualizing purpose. By purpose, we generally mean the reason that something is done or exists in context of observable reality.

For example, if we look at some object, like a hat, we don't look at it nominally. Our brain contextualizes it with some "end goal" in mind. The hat is something that you place on your head, to keep you warm, or protect you from the sun, or to express your uniqueness and dominance in some societal context. Whatever it may be, our brain contextualizes the entirety of a "brain map" of what the hat is in respect to its purpose. It's not arbitrary invention. It's how our brain works as a process.

In fact, in describing the above, I actually contextualizing the purpose and meaning of the brain as a process. Thus it can't be something that we "invented", because we didn't invent our brain function. We merely recognize it conceptually, and label it (hence we get self-awareness).

And the above only touches the brain part of the argument. We didn't even get to the concept of coherence of how our brain functions relate to reality, and we are already neck-deep in absurdity. Let's keep going though.

What you seem to be implying is that at some point of time our brains did not have that function, and then we invented, or let's say it was some evolutionary selection that happened to select brains that "invented" that function to survive better. Even in that case, you would have to admit that either:

a) Such concepts would allow brains to better map reality

or

b) That such concept is merely a delusion

You can't claim A and B at the at the same time, and here's why.

If B is the case, then it would mean that our functional map of the world is not grounded in reality, and it's merely a delusion. If you claim B, then you essentially giving up reason, logic, and scientific enterprise all together, because the implication is that any purpose-centric statement (in context of meaning) would be a delusion of the brain. There is no actual purpose in reality. We are just correlating the consitent absurdity and pretending that it works.

I don't know about you, but it seem doesn't like that's what we do.

If you claim that A is the case, then it means that you are not merely projecting meaning on otherwise absurd reality, but that reality inherently has some meaning and purpose and our brain recognizes it, and thus there is a sufficient grounds to build reasoning, logic, and scientific enterprise on.

I'd invite you to really think about about the implications of what you are saying beyond writing a couple of sentences that seemingly validate your view.

 

[gaara4158]

Yes, but you've said that the only meaningful difference between right and wrong is in terms of the actual difference that they make. Would you not need a more robust concept of truth to even be able to judge which of two options is true and which is false? If all that matters is practical differences, then we've ended up with a vicious circle wherein what is true is useful because it is true and true because it is useful.

I'm just not seeing the problem you're seeing. You call it viciously circular, I call it tautological. I do not claim that my epistemology can eliminate all uncertainty. I don't think such an epistemology exists. I know you prefer your neo-Platonic concept of truth, but unless it can help me get things done I don't know what it's good for. If you can use logic to predict an outcome if proposition x is true, and you can recognize that outcome in reality, then you can practice pragmatism.

How is it not a problem? I don't see how perception being taken as reality entails that truth and falsehood are only meaningful concepts in regards to future outcomes. Either this is itself completely meaningless, as we have no way of knowing what future outcomes will turn up for civilizations 1000 years from now or in theoretical afterlives, or truth is in the eyes of the beholder, and at one point Ptolemaic astronomy was true, as it was the result of subjective experience taken at face value, with no practical difference between it and other models that had not yet been dreamed up.

This form of pragmatism seems to run the risk of arguing that there is no reality except in so far as it affects us, which is really an assumption of astronomical proportions.

If perception and reality are one and the same, then any truth-statement whose predicted consequences (assuming there are any) can't be perceived is indeed meaningless. It's not that there is no reality outside of that which affects us, it's just that pragmatists don't attempt to address what that reality may be, and I think any epistemology that attempts to do so is doomed to fail. We don't assume untestable propositions are false, we just don't hail them as true. How could one possibly determine the nature of reality beyond what we can detect either directly or indirectly?

OP seems to be arguing that theism alone really provides a framework whereby subjective experience can be expected to match up to objective truths. If this is true, then I think OP is in a stronger position--you would need to either bite the bullet and claim that subjective experience is not necessarily reliable (leading to the collapse of the possibility of any knowledge), or provide non-theistic justifications for believing that subjective experience can be expected to match up to objective truths. I think OP's argument only fails if it can be demonstrated that theism does not actually provide the sturdiest solution to the problem.

This is the part everyone here is missing. You're all asking for justification for the fundamental assumption I'm making. There is none. That's what makes it an fundamental assumption. And you're making it too when you ask for justification, because only in an intelligible reality would beliefs require justification. Justification isn't even possible in an unintelligible reality, but if we were in such a reality under the illusion that it was intelligible, we would still have to assume it was. It's as inescapable as hard solipsism.

I'm not saying naturalism can't be true, not here anyway. I am saying it's probably not true because it's a self defeating concept as it undercuts the substantiation of it's own premise. Rather than begging it's own question, as it should for a founding point, it defeats it's own question.

Yeah, you keep saying that, but you're not demonstrating how it logically follows. That's what I'm looking for. You've provided no reason to believe that if our ability to reason has evolved, it has evolved to arrive at incorrect conclusions about reality. It clearly can, since people are wrong all the time, but calling it likely to be wrong about everything is absurd. The staggering accomplishments humankind has made in science, technology, and medicine seems to suggest the exact opposite.

This principle has created what are called Secular Christians, those who knowingly borrow a Christian world view of moral values and duties but deny any divinity as necessary to societal cohesion. Religious values whether real or imagined have been the bed rock of society since the beginning of civilization. We have yet to see a successful society form apart from that bedrock, just tiny blips of dictators that destroyed their own people.

You do know your sense of morality is not exclusively Christian, right? People figured out it's more efficient to cooperate for survival rather than live in hostile, fragmented societies long before Christ and common moral guidelines like the ethic of reciprocity emerged. Other animals exhibit a rudimentary sense of morality as well. Are they, too, borrowing from a Christian worldview, or is Christianity co-opting ethics that have emerged from millennia of trial and error? Also, the most secular societies in the world are the most peaceful. It's the theocracies that tend to be war-torn in perpetuity. The dictators you're alluding to were secular, sure, but their system was one of state religion, not secular humanism.

Okay if we are at the point where we are calling out assertions I'm going to call you out on your own statement which I was responding too. Why say that 'right or wrong is meaningful only in the difference they make'? As to what I have said, do you deny having an intrinsic coercion toward telling the truth? It's an ostensive claim so I can't give you evidence. Though if you deny having that intrinsic coercive value then I must say the future of this conversation will be a bit tragic.

I define truth by its utility in a decision-making process because that's the only thing that makes it relevant to me. If you use "truth" in such a way that true statements cannot be applied in any context whatsoever to inform a decision someone can make, we're talking about entirely different things and what you're talking about is irrelevant. Your definition of truth makes truth useless, so I don't care about anything you're calling "true." And you've admitted I don't have to.

That's why it makes a difference when we tell the truth vs. lying. When we lie, we are hoping the victim of our dishonesty will act on the untrue information because that will somehow benefit us. Children do it much more readily than adults because adults are better-able to grasp the far-reaching consequences of being a habitual liar. Getting caught in a lie can have some very dire consequences, and being a habitual liar can cause people not to trust you, defeating the purpose of lying in the first place.

This is what a logical explanation looks like. I'll be waiting for yours.

There are tons of examples of the success of analytic thought because it does reveal synthetic truth, and you use it everyday. Math is one... as for a specific example, the Higgs Boson. This is really common knowledge that has been the foundation our technological advancement that you are calling assertion here.

Analytical thought does not reveal synthetic truth. Analytic reasoning can only determine whether a set of ideas is strung together correctly. Synthetic truth is only determined by real-world testing. What did you think the Large Hadron Collider was for? Silly scientists, they should have just realized that all their analytic reasoning was sufficient to determine the existence of the Higgs-Boson. They really wasted a lot of time doing real-world testing.

If we have the ability to determine truths about the world then God is the best explanation for that. If we don't have the ability to determine truths about the world, then I can't complete this sentence.

Wrong, God is not an explanation at all. God is a bigger mystery than the intelligibility of reality. If intelligibility requires explanation, then so does God.

 

[Sanoy]

And reproduction.
And to be able to survive and reproduce, one needs quite a few appropriate actions.
I encounter more then 100 things a day that would kill me if I were to do something stupid.



And the better you understand the world (ie: the more accurate your beliefs are), the easier it becomes to survive in it.



You're not making any sense at all.



You are absolutely hilarious.
First, evolution isn't random.
Second, this is why you shouldn't be content with just holding to your beliefs, whatever they may be. This is why things like science exist. You test your beliefs. You don't just declare that it matches reality. You check to see if it matches reality. You demonstrate that it matches reality.

Your line of argument is completely absurd.
It's as if you are completely unaware of how science is done, why predictive capability in ideas is important, what evidence is ...

Survival entails reproduction, as that is the survival of ones genes. While there is a range of stupid things that could lead to your survival there is also a range of stupid contents that will lead to your survival.

Understanding the world doesn't lead to survival, behavior does. You can't conflate the two.

What isn't making sense to you? We can proceed at your pace just be specific about what is holding you back.

It would be far less hilarious if you would follow what I'm saying instead of seeing what you think. I didn't say evolution here. I am talking about the fundamental nature of all matter which could have been in any other logically possible state.

I follow science and philosophy (of which science is a school) the reason you are not following is not because I don't follow science, but because you ignore philosophy and only follow science. You need to broaden your thought horizon. While you may find my comments hilarious from ignorance of philosophic thought, I find my the situation tragic that I cannot reach you because of your hardend world view.

 

[Sanoy]

Yeah, you keep saying that, but you're not demonstrating how it logically follows. That's what I'm looking for. You've provided no reason to believe that if our ability to reason has evolved, it has evolved to arrive at incorrect conclusions about reality. It clearly can, since people are wrong all the time, but calling it likely to be wrong about everything is absurd. The staggering accomplishments humankind has made in science, technology, and medicine seems to suggest the exact opposite.

Of course it can, that is why I am saying that it is more probably false than true. If there are two contents that result in the same behavior than the likelihood that the correct content has acquired is 50%. Add one more and it's less likely. So if we experience a high degree of success that is counter indicative of a naturalistic ontology.

Of course, Christianity merely refers to an ontic objective source of moral values and duties that can be apprehended wholly apart from Christianity or Judaism. Christian scripture even says so. While you might have secular societies that do well they do do well because they don't do away with those same objective moral values and duties.

You can define truth as hamburger if you want, but then we are not talking about the same thing are we? Your definition is of truth is self effete for two reasons....
1. It's relative to you, not me per your own definition
2. It doesn't establish any objective epistemological ground that can substantiate it's own merit. It is self referential in a non axiomatic way and self falsifying under conditions of it's own utility.

So when you say things like "This is what a logical explanation looks like" I can't help but be sad about how you got to be in this position. I believe that a true belief is an intentional state which is identical with reality, basically what everyone has meant by the term for at least the last 5 millenniums. And I can actually say that without defeating my own statement. From what I gather you will only tell me the truth wherein there is a utility for you. As I don't know what you define as utility or whether this circumstance is static in regards to our conversation I can only assume that everything you say has a partial 50% probability of being true. So now you're in good company with the argument I presented at the start. I warned you it would be tragic.

Good you have googled this so we could move forward. Analytic thought does reveal synthetic truths about the world. That is why the Higgs/Boson was predicted before it was discovered as a synthetic truth. All of science relies on analytic thought predictions, whose experiments bear out their synthetic truths. It is led first by analytic thought, absolutely and without a doubt. Synthetic observation does not, on it's own lead to knowledge, only when it's coupled by Analytic thought does it lead to knowledge

It is literally an explanation. "God did it" is just as much a coherent semantic statement as God didn't do it. So if what you say is true you can't even disagree with me, which is a rather humorous position you have retreated to. There are properties that are a mystery about God, but there are also properties that are not a mystery, same with you and yet I wouldn't call you incoherent. The properties involved with the explanatory power are understood, that God is an intelligent, unmoved, mover. This is just another silly little slogan people have come up with to stall the conclusion because they do not want the conclusion. You have 1 lifetime to hide your mind from God, then your time is up. Spend it wisely.

 

[Silmarien]

I'm just not seeing the problem you're seeing. You call it viciously circular, I call it tautological. I do not claim that my epistemology can eliminate all uncertainty. I don't think such an epistemology exists. I know you prefer your neo-Platonic concept of truth, but unless it can help me get things done I don't know what it's good for. If you can use logic to predict an outcome if proposition x is true, and you can recognize that outcome in reality, then you can practice pragmatism.

I do not understand why you think that the concept of truth only has any meaning in regards to what use you might personally find for it. Let's look at something like quantum mechanics--there may ultimately be no empirical difference between the various interpretations tossed about to explain it, but this doesn't mean that objective reality is up for grabs and all of the interpretations are equally true. Presumably, quantum physics does work in a particular way--the Copenhagen interpretation is either true or false; multiple universes either exist or they do not. It may make no practical difference to us whether any model actually matches up to reality, but this doesn't mean that reality doesn't exist. This doesn't mean that a God's eye view would not reveal that certain models match up better to reality than others. Their truth or falseness does not depend upon our ability to differentiate between them.

Your account of truth does away with this most important aspect of truth altogether. You have declared reality irrelevant to the notion of truth--all that matters is our subjective impressions. If you want to say that genuine truth does not matter, that is fine (though you might not like some of the consequences), but you should not redefine truth in ways that make it the polar opposite of what it has always been understood to be. You can practice pragmatism, but you shouldn't call it truth.

If perception and reality are one and the same, then any truth-statement whose predicted consequences (assuming there are any) can't be perceived is indeed meaningless.

If perception and reality are one and the same, then we can make a truth statement regarding the fact that perception and reality are the same. If we have merely defined perception and reality to be one and the same, then there is no difference whether they are in fact the same or not--the very question of whether perception matches up to reality becomes meaningless. You have so far seemed very capable of grasping the meaning behind the question of whether or not perception matches up to reality, so I am going to assume that you do not actually consider this problem to be meaningless. Even if we do not have access to it, there is an objective answer to the question of whether what we perceive is actually reality. Which means this definition of truth has to be false.

This is the part everyone here is missing. You're all asking for justification for the fundamental assumption I'm making. There is none.

Yes, there is. Even for an atheist, as I pointed out earlier: you could be a Neo-Aristotelian naturalist and start theorizing that reality is teleologically ordered towards specific ends, and that the human ability to reason reflects this. This would involve grounding the fundamental assumption that reality is intelligible in a metaphysics that actually allows it to be intelligible. This is an example of a non-theistic framework that makes rational thought coherent. We are not asking for proof. We are asking for coherent, consistent metaphysical models. That is all.

If, on the other hand, you are going to insist upon grounding the idea that reality is intelligible in a metaphysics that rules this possibility out, then you are in trouble. This is what you are missing: fundamental assumptions only work within a framework that makes them coherent. You've only gone halfway if you're simply operate under the belief that reality is intelligible without actually exploring the implications of what it would mean for reality to be intelligible. By making no assumptions about reality, you are embracing hard solipsism and then escaping it through an act of blind will. Which is certainly an option, but then we're into the realm of irrationalism and fideism, and there be dragons I'm not sure you want to tangle with in those waters.