Pragmatic Argument for God's existense

[bhsmte]

Your opinion is noted.

Yep, see how that works?

 

[gaara4158]

I am trying to explain it, not add to it as you are not retaining the things that have been said.

Use google for learning, not for finding defenses of ones world view. Don't look up "how to counter x" look up "what is x" and you will be straight. Enter a discussion to learn the truth, not to maintain belief.

I actually wasn't thinking of you when I said that. Though on these forums it's not unreasonable to draw such a conclusion.

Yeah, the way you’re suggesting I should do research is the way I do it. Anyway, you can say I’m not retaining your answers if that suits you, but my most recent responses to you have been pretty direct refutations to the reasoning you provided and you haven’t acknowledged that or pointed out how they’re missing the point. Others around here will probably tell you I’m pretty slow and stubborn, but when I’m shown to be wrong I do come around to admit it and adjust accordingly. You think you’ve provided enough to prove me wrong, but as others have noted, your arguments cut corners in a way that leads to confusion. You can’t blame me for misunderstanding you if you’re not making yourself clear.

 

[Sanoy]

Yeah, the way you’re suggesting I should do research is the way I do it. Anyway, you can say I’m not retaining your answers if that suits you, but my most recent responses to you have been pretty direct refutations to the reasoning you provided and you haven’t acknowledged that or pointed out how they’re missing the point. Others around here will probably tell you I’m pretty slow and stubborn, but when I’m shown to be wrong I do come around to admit it and adjust accordingly. You think you’ve provided enough to prove me wrong, but as others have noted, your arguments cut corners in a way that leads to confusion. You can’t blame me for misunderstanding you if you’re not making yourself clear.

I don't think they were, and I replied directly to your rebuttal. The reason I don't want to move forward is because I am tired of repeating myself over things you forgot I already stated and being continually misquoted because your eagerness to do away with this exceeds your eagerness to understand it. I told you we can continue when you go back through and try to understand it.

"your arguments cut corners in a way that leads to confusion" you don't even know what that is referring to.

 

[Sanoy]

Fair enough, but in that case, you're going to need to unpack your own evolutionary argument against naturalism a bit more, since where things stand right now, familiarity with Plantinga (or Nagel) is necessary to make sense of what you're saying.

1) Why, under naturalism, do you think that it would be surprising if our cognitive abilities matched up to reality? Does evolutionary theory truly involve cutting off the branch we're sitting on, as Darwin so famously worried?

2) Why would the existence of God solve this particular problem, and what, in this context, is meant by the word "God" at all? (I am actually curious about how you conceptualize things.)

Now, I obviously think there are approaches to naturalism that do get around this problem, though they might fall prey to very specific cosmo-teleological arguments in the process.

Yeah I agree with you there are ways around it, but only through teleology. Strict naturalism is in such a poor position that it is assaulted by two fronts, that of teleology, and that of improbability. Retreat from one is impossible without losing ground to the other.

Next time I remake it I will do a better job of laying those two points out. As far as the personal question of God, any intelligence would work that would not push the question back further. So one could posit aliens, but that would only move the issue back a step. So it would have to be an intelligence that does not involve an infinite regress. It would need to be grounded in an explanation that doesn't require a further explanation, and God is the only grounding that I think could fit such a bill through His nature. If it is grounded as a brute fact, there is no further question to be asked, but there is the reflecting question of why is should it be a grounding.

 

[gaara4158]

I don't think they were, and I replied directly to your rebuttal. The reason I don't want to move forward is because I am tired of repeating myself over things you forgot I already stated and being continually misquoted because your eagerness to do away with this exceeds your eagerness to understand it. I told you we can continue when you go back through and try to understand it.

"your arguments cut corners in a way that leads to confusion" you don't even know what that is referring to.

You replied to my rebuttal saying you had no idea what I was talking about. You pointed me back to your 50% true/false belief example when I asked you what calculus led you to a greater probability value of God’s existence than naturalism successfully explaining the reliability of cognitive faculties. That didn’t answer my question at all, and I showed you what question it did answer, which was not my question. You replied by simply restating that the conclusion undercuts the premise. I certainly don’t want you to repeat yourself again, and if you cannot recognize the flaws in your reasoning as I’ve shown them to you, I’m not going to repeat myself either. I will invite you to take your own advice, reread our conversation, and come to the conclusion that you have failed to justify your assertion that the statement “naturalism is likely true” undercuts its underlying assumptions.

 

[Sanoy]

You replied to my rebuttal saying you had no idea what I was talking about. You pointed me back to your 50% true/false belief example when I asked you what calculus led you to a greater probability value of God’s existence than naturalism successfully explaining the reliability of cognitive faculties. That didn’t answer my question at all, and I showed you what question it did answer, which was not my question. You replied by simply restating that the conclusion undercuts the premise. I certainly don’t want you to repeat yourself again, and if you cannot recognize the flaws in your reasoning as I’ve shown them to you, I’m not going to repeat myself either. I will invite you to take your own advice, reread our conversation, and come to the conclusion that you have failed to justify your assertion that the statement “naturalism is likely true” undercuts its underlying assumptions.

Not that part, I am talking about the part that did make sense. The last paragraph you made from that post. It actually went at the argument I was making. ...by accident apparently.

The existence or non existence of God does not change the nature of the problem of naturalism. It doesn't address my OP because my OP didn't require God. It was purely a statement of the conclusion of naturalism. As far as the probability of Gods existence He is a logical and metaphysical necessity. I invite and encourage you to understand what you are disagreeing with before you disagree with it.

 

[gaara4158]

Not that part, I am talking about the part that did make sense. The last paragraph you made from that post. It actually went at the argument I was making.

The existence or non existence of God does not change the nature of the problem of naturalism. It doesn't address my OP because my OP didn't require God. It was purely a statement of the conclusion of naturalism. As far as the probability of Gods existence he is a logical and metaphysical necessity.

Well, you’d need to run an ontological argument successfully to establish God’s logical and metaphysical necessity, and I’m more than happy to debate that with you.

You seem to think you’ve shown me a problem with naturalism. I don’t know why you beat around the bush so much when I ask you to explain it. I don’t take naturalism as a hard stance in the way we’ve been using the word, but I’ve provided a line of reasoning under which an intelligent species’ cognitive faculties are not unlikely to reach the correct conclusion that naturalism is true. I haven seen any response to that.

 

[Silmarien]

You seem to think you’ve shown me a problem with naturalism. I don’t know why you beat around the bush so much when I ask you to explain it. I don’t take naturalism as a hard stance in the way we’ve been using the word, but I’ve provided a line of reasoning under which an intelligent species’ cognitive faculties are not unlikely to reach the correct conclusion that naturalism is true. I haven seen any response to that.

Well, if you want my favorite "shoot yourself in the foot" naturalistic argument, it is that we evolved specifically to survive getting eaten by lions on the African savanna. Every cosmological argument necessarily fails because abstract, macrocosmic thought involves using our cognitive abilities in a way they were never "designed" for in the first place. The mind is not reliable outside of its specific evolutionary niche.

This is an example of an argument that undercuts itself, since if cognition cannot be trusted far outside of its ability to keep us out of trouble with lions, then science is equally suspect, and we would not be justified in believing any of the evolutionary theory that leads us to this conclusion in the first place. I believe this is what @Sanoy means by saying that if naturalism were true, we would not know it--our minds could not be expected to correctly grasp a concept as abstract as naturalism if there is no reason to think that we evolved for such a task in the first place.

If I were a naturalist, my response to this would be to modify my approach to naturalism in a way that it did not lead to this type of absurdity. This tends to involve ditching materialism for something a bit more teleologically robust. As long as we think that our minds are imposing order and intelligibility upon an unknowable chaos, we're in trouble.

 

[Sanoy]

Well, you’d need to run an ontological argument successfully to establish God’s logical and metaphysical necessity, and I’m more than happy to debate that with you.

You seem to think you’ve shown me a problem with naturalism. I don’t know why you beat around the bush so much when I ask you to explain it. I don’t take naturalism as a hard stance in the way we’ve been using the word, but I’ve provided a line of reasoning under which an intelligent species’ cognitive faculties are not unlikely to reach the correct conclusion that naturalism is true. I haven seen any response to that.

The ontological argument is the hardest for people to comprehend. If you can't comprehend or retain the particulars of this relatively simple argument that even convinces non Theists I see no point in moving to an advanced argument with you.

I am tired of explaining what I have already explained because you cannot retain what has already been explained. You have even failed to retain the questions you have already asked. Or because you cannot retain what I have said in print and always manage to add your own words into it when a simple C/P would avoid that.

If you had shown what you claim to show toward the argument I made then you would have shown either...
1. A natural force that leads toward true content of belief. (add teleology)
2. A selective force that leads toward true content of belief.

The only claim you made toward that end I responded to and you have not replied to it. If you have failed to do either of those two steps then you are failing to address my argument and are instead addressing a strawman, which has been the case for you this entire conversation where I have been misquoted. Or upon which you are addressing internet versions you looked up counters for, or slogans you remember from other counters rather than the version I presented.

 

[gaara4158]

The ontological argument is the hardest for people to comprehend. If you can't comprehend or retain the particulars of this relatively simple argument that even convinces non Theists I see no point in moving to an advanced argument with you.

You take the conclusion of the ontological argument for granted in your comparative calculus of the likelihood of naturalism vs. non-naturalism. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to say which was more likely unless one of them was impossible, which you explicitly stated you weren’t doing. So you’ve failed in your endeavor to demonstrate that naturalism is more likely false than true by refusing to actually make the ontological argument. That’s a corner you’re cutting.

If the ontological argument is proof positive that God exists, I don’t know why you bother with any other argument.

Now, I agree with you that we shouldn’t believe that naturalism as you define it is true. If it is true, we have no means by which to confirm it. But not confirmable is not the same as “likely false.” Because naturalism and non-naturalism is a true dichotomy, the best your 50% explanation can demonstrate is that naturalism and non-naturalism are equally likely. Further, if it makes absolutely no actionable difference as per your hypothetical scenario, it doesn’t even matter which is true. I hope this is clear now.

 

[Sanoy]

You take the conclusion of the ontological argument for granted in your comparative calculus of the likelihood of naturalism vs. non-naturalism. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to say which was more likely unless one of them was impossible, which you explicitly stated you weren’t doing. So you’ve failed in your endeavor to demonstrate that naturalism is more likely false than true by refusing to actually make the ontological argument. That’s a corner you’re cutting.

If the ontological argument is proof positive that God exists, I don’t know why you bother with any other argument.

Now, I agree with you that we shouldn’t believe that naturalism as you define it is true. If it is true, we have no means by which to confirm it. But not confirmable is not the same as “likely false.” Because naturalism and non-naturalism is a true dichotomy, the best your 50% explanation can demonstrate is that naturalism and non-naturalism are equally likely. Further, if it makes absolutely no actionable difference as per your hypothetical scenario, it doesn’t even matter which is true. I hope this is clear now.

What are you talking about??? The ontological argument is not a part of this. I merely brought it up because of the res herring about the probability of God. GO BACK AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DISAGREEING WITH...

This does not include non naturalism. It is purley a statement of naturalism. I even gave you a guide to follow so you wouldn't strawman and still you fail. You can make a sosyourolman argument once you deny or accept the present one as it's formulated. Key word...as it's formulated.

 

[gaara4158]

What are you talking about??? The ontological argument is not a part of this. I merely brought it up because of the res herring about the probability of God. GO BACK AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DISAGREEING WITH...

This does not include non naturalism. It is purley a statement of naturalism. I even gave you a guide to follow so you wouldn't strawman and still you fail. You can make a sosyourolman argument once you deny or accept the present one as it's formulated. Key word...as it's formulated.

Look, I don’t even disagree with you on the fact that if naturalism is true, then we would have no way to confirm that that is in fact the case. YOU need to understand what it is I’M disagreeing with. I disagree with your statement that naturalism is likely false. You said it. Many times. THAT STATEMENT REQUIRES YOU TO WEIGH THE ACTUAL LIKELIHOOD OF NATURALISM BEING TRUE VS NOT TRUE. I have walked you through your own logic and shown you how it is insufficient to lead to that conclusion.

I’ll admit that my explanation of pragmatism was clumsy and I’m in the process of reformulating that thrust of my argument, but you need to take some responsibility for your failings as well. It is not productive to assume your interlocutor is just an idiot and needs to read your arguments again. If that’s all you’re going to do, I’m done.

 

[Sanoy]

Look, I don’t even disagree with you on the fact that if naturalism is true, then we would have no way to confirm that that is in fact the case.

That is not what the argument is about. GO BACK and understand it. Why is that so hard for you to do??? The only thing you should be disagreeing with is what I actually presented, and you cannot do that until you go back and understand what was said, and then retain what was said longer than 30 minutes.

It is likely false by self defeat, it doesn't require a contrast anymore than the statement "There are no three letter words in this sentence."

The only thing you have walked me through is the missrepresentation of what I have said in print. You have intentionally avoided all attempts by me to get you to walk through what I have actually said.

I cannot succeed where my interlocutor does not retain what I say between posts, misrepresents what I say and the argument, and utterly refuses to go back and fulfil their duty to understand what I have said. You do need to read it again as apparent in your replies and by forgetting your own questions that you have asked. You are by no means an interlocutor.

Your description of pragmatism was intentional and previously formed. Change it all you want, it won't help, and it will still be harmed by the fact that you only tell the truth when it carries utility.

 

[gaara4158]

That is not what the argument is about. GO BACK and understand it. Why is that so hard for you to do??? The only thing you should be disagreeing with is what I actually presented, and you cannot do that until you go back and understand what was said, and then retain what was said longer than 30 minutes.

It is likely false by self defeat, it doesn't require a contrast anymore than the statement "There are no three letter words in this sentence."

The only thing you have walked me through is the missrepresentation of what I have said in print. You have intentionally avoided all attempts by me to get you to walk through what I have actually said.

I cannot succeed where my interlocutor does not retain what I say between posts, misrepresents what I say and the argument, and utterly refuses to go back and fulfil their duty to understand what I have said. You do need to read it again as apparent in your replies and by forgetting your own questions that you have asked. You are by no means an interlocutor.

Alright, I’m done.

 

[Sanoy]

Alright, I’m done.

Till next then.

Peace be with you.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Look, I don’t even disagree with you on the fact that if naturalism is true, then we would have no way to confirm that that is in fact the case. YOU need to understand what it is I’M disagreeing with. I disagree with your statement that naturalism is likely false. You said it. Many times. THAT STATEMENT REQUIRES YOU TO WEIGH THE ACTUAL LIKELIHOOD OF NATURALISM BEING TRUE VS NOT TRUE. I have walked you through your own logic and shown you how it is insufficient to lead to that conclusion.

I’ll admit that my explanation of pragmatism was clumsy and I’m in the process of reformulating that thrust of my argument, but you need to take some responsibility for your failings as well. It is not productive to assume your interlocutor is just an idiot and needs to read your arguments again. If that’s all you’re going to do, I’m done.

...I think it's enough to just say that any sort of human truth should have some pragmatic elements within it, but it should also have some elements of correspondence as well as coherence. And this is just in regard to the essence of human truth. The essence of human knowledge, however, is a bit more complex than that, and if we try to tie all of this into our considerations for Christianity, then not only is it all highly complex, it becomes downright complicated. On a practical scale, I think we should just all leave it at that and try to encourage each other to explore the world, explore possible factors that make up our individual understandings of our perceptions, and to be open to something bigger than ourselves. Whether there is a God or not, we're all in one big cosmic boat together, one that I think is fascinating any way we slice it--unless one is downright cynical about it all ...

 

[devolved]

THAT STATEMENT REQUIRES YOU TO WEIGH THE ACTUAL LIKELIHOOD OF NATURALISM BEING TRUE VS NOT TRUE. I have walked you through your own logic and shown you how it is insufficient to lead to that conclusion.

I think the issue here with switching the context of applicability of likelihood, hence you seem to be hung up on the 50/50 issue, when it's a non-issue at all.

The goal of statistics is to derive likelihood in context of KNOWN outcomes. So, we have KNOWN outcome to compare to ... a car crash, for example, and then we have variables that would either decrease or increase one's risk of getting in one.

In this discussion, the outcome (God's existence) is NOT KNOWN, thus what he's pointing out is that in such context it's very much like flipping a coin at the level of axiomatic presupposition. But, it doesn't mean that our composite experience still can't feed into either belief.

Another important concept that I'd like to point out is that we generally view these as "Either Or" type of concepts, but it may not be so. There's a great read from Asimov on the issue of "relativity of wrong":

Asimov - The Relativity of Wrong

I think it also applies in the realm of philosophy, because we tend to think of all of the "isms" as exclusive "correct view", instead of thinking of these as "reduced subset" of broader continuum of "true" or "false".

Now, I'm not trying to be flippant here, it's just how analogy works out, but Flat Earth view to Spheroid, would be equivalent to Naturalism to Theism, or Pragmatism to Idealism. We tend to view these as "either or", but there's no reason to do so in context of "chunk of continuum" that we can zoom to.

Thus, Theism is not a denial of naturalism. Theism is an extension of naturalism. Naturalism (as a methodology) still works in context of theism, and that's what a lot of atheists tend to misunderstand. Just because we believe in God, all of the observable consistencies are still consistent. We simply allowing for room of broader range of parameters to be evaluated in scope of what's plausible, even though we wouldn't be able to make some statistical calculation to derive certainty.

The same with pragmatism. "Theistic telos" concept is not a denial of pragmatism. We still would need to derive pragmatic applications of "telos". It's merely an extension of pragmatism when it comes to foundations on which we build certain justifications as to why we do those things, and why we would think that meaning exists beyond our subjective perception. It would be the layer that keeps pragmatism in check.

Thus, I think there's a disconnect at the level of which arguments take place. You are arguing that pragmatism works at the level "zoomed in" level of pragmatism. Of course. The argument is about "zooming out" and seeing what could be beyond the flat philosophical landscape that we observe as our immediate surroundings.

You MAY say, I don't really care. What works for me... works for me, and it's ok. No one is arguing that something doesn't work for you subjectively. We are discussing broader context of possibility, and in such there are greater risks of being wrong, but there are also greater rewards when it comes to broadening the overall awareness and understanding of where we fit in our reality.

 

[Silmarien]

Now, I agree with you that we shouldn’t believe that naturalism as you define it is true. If it is true, we have no means by which to confirm it. But not confirmable is not the same as “likely false.” Because naturalism and non-naturalism is a true dichotomy, the best your 50% explanation can demonstrate is that naturalism and non-naturalism are equally likely. Further, if it makes absolutely no actionable difference as per your hypothetical scenario, it doesn’t even matter which is true. I hope this is clear now.

I wouldn't consider naturalism and non-naturalism a true dichotomy anymore than I would consider theism and non-theism one. To a certain extent (possibly a large one), these are paradigms, not actual metaphysical possibilities.

If someone offers a specific naturalistic ontology, I can say whether or not I think it's plausible. There are some that I do find interesting and plausible--but I'm comfortable taking things a step further than the naturalists are. Are our ontologies in oppositional relationship with one another? No. In some cases, I actually think that they are largely the same ontology, with the lines between what can be discussed and what cannot be discussed drawn in different places. (I often prefer drawing upon Neo-Aristotelian naturalists to their Catholic cousins, since the Catholics will invariably toss in additional metaphysical baggage that I am not interested in signing on to, at least at present. I prefer expanding on a minimalistic account to trying to deflate a maximalistic one.)

Of course, there are other naturalistic ontologies that make me want to put a bag of popcorn in the microwave and sit back and enjoy the show. Am I going to say that there's a 50/50 percent chance that Dennett's eliminative materialism is true? No. He may have interesting insights to offer, but if your metaphysics necessarily lead to absurdities, that is a sure sign that you are conceptualizing things incorrectly. The same goes for just about every conventional materialistic ontology out there.

To a certain extent, I would say that a naturalistic metaphysics is necessarily false, as it ultimately amounts to an artificial demarcation between what we are comfortable discussing and what we are not, and this is a reflection upon ourselves, not upon reality itself. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Whenever anyone, theist and atheist alike, tries to define their terms too much, they slip into error. They mistake approximations for reality. This was true for the scholastics, and it is true for the naturalists now.

But insofar as naturalists have purposefully tried to undermine the intelligibility of nature to defang classical natural theology, saying that they could be right is rather like saying that Descartes' demon could exist. Maybe, but that seems like a pretty pointless exercise in skepticism for its own sake.

 

[gaara4158]

...I think it's enough to just say that any sort of human truth should have some pragmatic elements within it, but it should also have some elements of correspondence as well as coherence. And this is just in regard to the essence of human truth. The essence of human knowledge, however, is a bit more complex than that, and if we try to tie all of this into our considerations for Christianity, then not only is it all highly complex, it becomes downright complicated. On a practical scale, I think we should just all leave it at that and try to encourage each other to explore the world, explore possible factors that make up our individual understandings of our perceptions, and to be open to something bigger than ourselves. Whether there is a God or not, we're all in one big cosmic boat together, one that I think is fascinating any way we slice it--unless one is downright cynical about it all ...

I agree. I think it's proper to talk about truth in terms of correspondence to reality, but I feel quite strongly that the importance of truth is directly related to its pragmatic value, which does require coherence. So if we're going to talk about truth, then we have to assume from the start that reality is intelligible without any justification for doing so. If you don't make that assumption, you can't hope to communicate that fact to anyone outside of yourself. But when you do make that assumption, empirical data seems to line up with the predictions it makes.

If we're going to try to justify our belief that beliefs must be justified, that leads to an infinite regress. So we’re going to have either at least one unjustified (perhaps self-justifying) belief at the foundation, or an infinite regress of beliefs justifying one another. Where I depart from proponents of a theistic solution to this dilemma is it seems to me that any founding unjustified belief should itself make testable predictions. If it doesn’t, even in principle, then we cannot tie these beliefs to reality in a way that has any pragmatic value. If we can’t tie a belief to reality, we can hardly say it’s justified. I don’t know of any theistic solutions that make testable predictions. Ergo... I don’t see how theism can solve this dilemma.

 

[Silmarien]

If we're going to try to justify our belief that beliefs must be justified, that leads to an infinite regress. So we’re going to have either at least one unjustified (perhaps self-justifying) belief at the foundation, or an infinite regress of beliefs justifying one another. Where I depart from proponents of a theistic solution to this dilemma is it seems to me that any founding unjustified belief should itself make testable predictions. If it doesn’t, even in principle, then we cannot tie these beliefs to reality in a way that has any pragmatic value. If we can’t tie a belief to reality, we can hardly say it’s justified. I don’t know of any theistic solutions that make testable predictions. Ergo... I don’t see how theism can solve this dilemma.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. If you're saying that foundational beliefs should be such that testable predictions can follow as a result, then theism is actually very effective. The conviction that the world was the product of a rational God, and therefore intelligible, was very crucial for the development of what would become modern science in the medieval universities. There are certain approaches to theism that are pretty harmful to the idea that reality is intelligible, but the Catholics kind of struck gold with theirs.

It should also be pointed out that we're not all presuppositionalists. There are two approaches going on here:

1) Reality appears to be intelligible, and this makes more sense if a Maximally Great Being exists as its cause, so let's go with that as our foundational hypothesis, even though there might be other options.

2) Reality appears to be intelligible, and the types of metaphysics whereby this would be possible entail an intelligent First Cause, since if the order we see is arbitrary and accidental, it is not actually intelligible after all.

(I'm in the second category, and amusingly, it's just occurred to me that I have Enlightenment era arch-atheist David Hume to thank for that, rather than any theistic apologist. If you want to take a wrecking ball to the very possibility of pragmatic epistemology, look no further.)