The Hiddenness Argument for Atheism

[Silmarien]

Right on.
I'm going to take it right now.
This is what you meant, right?

Primitive Survival Rating

I hope you're wrangling black caimans and powering rafts with electric eels!

(I got a 3.1 and officially hate you for leaving that link. )

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Right on.
I'm going to take it right now.
This is what you meant, right?

Primitive Survival Rating

Nah! I've already seen the Tom Hanks movie, Castaway, and I learned a lot, so I'm good to go.

 

[durangodawood]

I hope you're wrangling black caimans and powering rafts with electric eels!

(I got a 3.1 and officially hate you for leaving that link. )

9.0
electric eels power my Tesla, not my raft.

But what is PSR btw?

 

[Silmarien]

9.0
electric eels power my Tesla, not my raft.

But what is PSR btw?

The Principle of Sufficient Reason. Basically the idea that every contingent thing must have a reason, cause, or ground.

 

[durangodawood]

The Principle of Sufficient Reason. Basically the idea that every contingent thing must have a reason, cause, or ground.

I see. But at first glance thats true by definition rather than by reason. I mean, "contingent" means dependent on something else, right?

I'm not philosophically educated, though I'm fascinated by the topic. Did take one philosophy course in college: "Existentialism in Literature and Film" by the late Hubert Dreyfuss. Wow.

 

[Silmarien]

I see. But at first glance thats true by definition rather than by reason. I mean, "contingent" means dependent on something else, right?

Not exactly. I'm using the word "necessary" to refer to something that must be true in every possible world, and "contingent" to refer to something that need not be true. One of the best candidates for necessary truths are mathematics, whereas the physical constants of the universe are thought to be contingent. They probably could have been otherwise.

I'm not philosophically educated, though I'm fascinated by the topic. Did take one philosophy course in college: "Existentialism in Literature and Film" by the late Hubert Dreyfuss. Wow.

That is pretty cool. And existentialism is the best -ism.

 

[durangodawood]

the modern introduction of comprehendability of our universe arguments pointing to God is the atheist turned deist Albert Einstein.


On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine

Albert Einstein
1952
March 30, 1952

Dear Solovine,


Now I come to the most interesting point in your letter. You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way. One could (yes one should) expect the world to be subjected to law only to the extent that we order it through our intelligence. Ordering of this kind would be like the alphabetical ordering of the words of a language. By contrast, the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for instance, is wholly different. Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the “miracle” which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.

There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles”. Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the “miracle” without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it.


Your A. E.

But this deserves a thread of its own.
And since I have so much basic logic work to do with simpler arguments such as the Kalam or fine tuning argument I am hesitant to bring it up

Yes it probably does deserve a thread of its own, but it looks like we're already going down this road.

A.E. just hangs the crux of his argument out there: "Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way."

I understand that this is an informal letter, so I dont fault him at all for not backing it up. But as a result, its basically an intuitive appeal. And it doesnt work for me.

 

[durangodawood]

.......oh my! If I hear another person refer to or allude to faith as a form of epistemology, I think I'll go ballistic! And I know you don't want me to go all Gimli on you? That wouldn't be a pretty sight!...

Hey I warned you I was using the idea of "knowledge" loosely. Now please sheath that axe.

 

[Uber Genius]

Yes it probably does deserve a thread of its own, but it looks like we're already going down this road.

A.E. just hangs the crux of his argument out there: "Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way."

I understand that this is an informal letter, so I dont fault him at all for not backing it up. But as a result, its basically an intuitive appeal. And it doesnt work for me.

It had its context in an earlier letter and was outlined in Eugene Wigner's piece circa 1959 "the uncanny applicability of math."

It is beyond the ability of many here to comprehend the claims. I have been largely unsuccessful getting any but mathematicians and cosmologists to understand the argument.

But hiddenness is something people can relate to.

 

[Uber Genius]

No, it's the Kalam I don't like. I have serious sympathies for idealism, so "the universe exists" is a problematic premise for me. Any argument that relies upon the reality of space, time, and matter isn't going to strike me as compelling.

Now I don't meet to many anti-realists these days. In what sense are you an idealist? Scottish Hume or Berkeley, of German, Kant, Schopenhaur or later British or American version?

I am quite fond of the PSR, though. It was actually a response to Inwagen that finally dispelled the last of my agnosticism, so I have no problem even with the strong version.

got it.

I would definitely say pantheist rather than deist, but it's a lovely quote all the same.

I thought A.E.represented himself as a deist due to the problem of evil. Instead offering the inference that God was an ultimate cause but didn't interact with his creation via anything other than laws of nature?

Albert Einstein and Religion

It seems that between you and 2philo, and me we should start a deeper discussion of the various underlying views of reality and epistemology and the entailments of those views.

 

[Silmarien]

Now I don't meet to many anti-realists these days. In what sense are you an idealist? Scottish Hume or Berkeley, of German, Kant, Schopenhaur or later British or American version?

No, I am definitely a realist, but with leanings towards Platonic idealism. I think that a genuinely scientific picture of reality would be one of abstract mathematical concepts, so I'm not impressed when this possibility gets ignored. I'm probably closest to a continentally flavored Thomist right now, though, with phenomenological influences (primarily Sartre and Heidegger).

I thought A.E.represented himself as a deist due to the problem of evil. Instead offering the inference that God was an ultimate cause but didn't interact with his creation via anything other than laws of nature?

Was this a later development? I'm thinking about how negative he was about the concept of a personal deity, though I suppose his views might have evolved there.

It seems that between you and 2philo, and me we should start a deeper discussion of the various underlying views of reality and epistemology and the entailments of those views.

That might be fun.

 

[durangodawood]

....It seems that between you and 2philo, and me we should start a deeper discussion of the various underlying views of reality and epistemology and the entailments of those views.

Probly for the best to keep me on the sidelines. I'd run to the wrong end zone if I ever got the ball.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

That is pretty cool. And existentialism is the best -ism.

Now that is just objectively incorrect. Hedonism rules.

 

[Uber Genius]

pment? I'm thinking about how negative he was about the concept of a personal deity, though I suppose his views might have evolved there

So the distinction is small. Spinoza in Ethics, "On God," is described in the following way:

"By contrast, Spinoza’s God is the cause of all things because all things follow causally and necessarily from the divine nature. Or, as he puts it, from God’s infinite power or nature “all things have necessarily flowed, or always followed, by the same necessity and in the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows, from eternity and to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two right angles”

for more see:Baruch Spinoza (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

So God is not synonymous or identical to the world, however the world is NOT a creation via divine fiat. No free will choice to create the universe, and Spinoza rejects pictures of God such as are painted on the Sistine Chapel. He sees the world flowing deterministically from God's attributes, but God is NOT identical with the world as in pantheism.

When asked about atheism Einstein responded:

“I’m not an atheist and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.”

G. S. Viereck, Glimpses of the Great (Macauley, New York, 1930), quoted by D. Brian, Einstein: A Life

, p. 186.)

Now there are other quotes from Spinoza that suggest that there are only two substances God and mind. God sounds like everything that exists and mind would be our perception of those things God allows our mind to apprehend. Now A: if I characterize that idea correctly, and B: if mind is a part of God, in Spinoza's view then he would be properly described as becoming a pantheist at the time of that reference.

I take Buddhism to be the best approximation of pantheism currently in practice.

No, I am definitely a realist, but with leanings towards Platonic idealism. I think that a genuinely scientific picture of reality would be one of abstract mathematical concepts, so I'm not impressed when this possibility gets ignored. I'm probably closest to a continentally flavored Thomist right now, though, with phenomenological influences (primarily Sartre and Heidegger).

My working definition is something like objects exist in the world independent of our ability to perceive them. Idealism in contrast is the view that things exist only as ideas, they either have no reality as material objects outside of the mind (epistemically) that is they may exists but we don't have the faculties to know these objects, or (Ontologically) they don't exist outside of our mind.

So I am familiar with how one can be a realist in platonism, (I'm a fictionalist but I get the argument). But how can one be a realist and an idealist? I had these classifications as mutually exclusive.