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Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Pseudoskepticism and logic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
onifre Member (Idle past 2982 days) Posts: 4854 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: |
Hi Linda,
The closest that science seems to come at the moment is quantum physics. The more we learn about the fabric of reality itself, the more we may be able to reconcile it with spirituality. Not that I'm an expert, but nothing I've ever read in QM seems to be investigating god. What I'm asking for is the method. In Message 42, RAZD and I had this exchange:
RAZD writes: There are some members of the skeptics’ groups who clearly believe they know the right answer prior to inquiry.
Oni writes: While I agree that it's not honest to hold to a position not having done the leg work of investigating, it also seems dishonest to claim someone hasn't done the research when no viable method of research is available. Furthermore...
RAZD writes: if you claim a negative position, the burden of proof is on you to show evidence for it.
Oni writes: Fair enough, but what method exists to investigate the claim that would help provide proof against the claim? And you posit:
Linda Lou writes: No, because there may be ways of investigating that we have not yet discovered. I think the skeptical position would be that it could be possible to find evidence. So lets see if I can follow the logic here. (1) There is no method (currently) to directly investigate god.(2) I am asked to provide evidence against god. (3) I ask for the method to investigate it so that I may give evidence against it. (4) I am told no method exists (currently). Then how can I provide evidence against god if no method to investigate god exists? How can atheism be a negative hypothesis under these scenarios? God is not only an unevidenced assertion, it is also an assertion that can't be proven wrong because no method of investigating it exist. There is only one other area of human discourse that carries with it such conditions, and that is stuff people make up. No other area of human discourse is like that. There is always a method to investigate, there is always a means to get evidence. Nothing, and I mean nothing, exist as objective evidence for your premise - No method (currently) exists to get objective evidence. No avenue to investigate god exists. You said, maybe in the future we'll have a method, and maybe we'll find something. Yea, maybe. And if you do begin to provide evidence, and I still hold to my atheistic position, then and only then can you claim that I'm holding to a negative position. But (currently) I am not holding to a negative position, because there is nothing to hold a negative position towards. You can't hold a negative position to an unevidenced assertion.
Whether I personally can or not is beside the point. In this thread we're talking about assuming a negative hypothesis to be true when there is a lack of empirical evidence It seems that here is where you and RAZD are failing to see our logic. It's not that we're assuming a negative hypothesis to be true, what we are saying is that there is no negative hypothesis, because your premise has no supporting evidence. Until it does, we have nothing to hold a negative hypothesis towards. - Oni
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Kitsune Member (Idle past 4331 days) Posts: 788 From: Leicester, UK Joined:
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quote: Thanks Mike. I look forward to talking with you.
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Kitsune Member (Idle past 4331 days) Posts: 788 From: Leicester, UK Joined:
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Straggler, I want to have a productive conversation with you. Honestly, I do. But for the upteenth time all I see is that you are misunderstanding or ignoring most of what I say to you. Maybe it really is cognitive dissonance, I don't know. I'm not going to keep repeating everything to you because lots of other people want to challenge me here. If you can demonstrate at some point that you have read what I've written and understand it, I'll be happy to take the conversation back up.
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Kitsune Member (Idle past 4331 days) Posts: 788 From: Leicester, UK Joined:
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Hi Stile, it's been a while. Let's start with:
quote: BUT . . . how? At least two threads have been written on this subject recently. Some respond to the IPU with, "But that's just silly and we all know it." Why doesn't that wash with you guys? Because there are claims out there which may seem just as silly, in which people seriously believe. The question then becomes, what is real and what isn't, and how do we tell the difference? See Message 51 for my hypothetical response to a hypothetical sighting of the IPU, fairies, ghosts, or whatever immaterial entity you like. You will find that while I might end up with a leaning one side or the other of 50/50 based on personal beliefs or likelihoods, ultimately without empirical evidence I would have to say I was agnostic. How could I not be, if the negative could not be proved? So . . .
quote: Yes, because "cannot be differentiated from the human imagination" is not the same thing as "it's made up" and therefore with no empirical evidence one way or the other, the correct rational position is true skepticism or agnosticism.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Hi, Linda
Biblical omphalism, Last Thursdayism, Islam and Deism are mutually exclusive propositions, which is all we need to know for our purposes here.
LindaLou writes:
Biblical omphalism is new to me: is that the notion that everything was created with the appearance of age, but the world and life on it are only a few thousand years old?This, plus Last Thursdayism and Deism, are unprovable and there's no empirical evidence for or against them. There's no evidence for or against us living in a matrix. Therefore the rational stance IMO is 50/50. Impossible. If you're 50/50 on any two of them, there's no room left for anything else. Now, have you figured it out? Agnostic means you cannot know for sure, but it does not mean 50/50 on any specific proposition. The rational agnostic stance on all of the above is: "I cannot know for certain, but I think "x" is very unlikely". The reason that they're all unlikely is that there's no positive evidence to support any of them, and they're several of an infinite field of mutually exclusive evidenceless possibilities that all have to be regarded as equally unlikely. If you decide that one god creating the universe is more likely than ten goddesses or fifty elves doing so, you will have no evidence to support your view, and that would make you a pseudo-skeptic (the equivalent of deciding that a reported "ghost" phenomenon is an optical illusion or a real ghost prior to investigation, when there are a large number of other possible explanations), which is what the sociologist guy in the O.P. is on about. When atheists describe a specific god proposition as extremely unlikely, they can do so confidently, because of the infinite range of competing equally evidenceless alternatives!
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Kitsune Member (Idle past 4331 days) Posts: 788 From: Leicester, UK Joined:
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There are now two people on this thread who seem to have had a lightbulb moment -- that's cool. First Otto Tellick in Message 233, and now Onfire:
quote: quote: Bingo. I don't think you meant it like that Onfire; I think you're trying to make a case for atheism as "the negative hypothesis" being nonsensical. What I think you've really done, though, is shown why the rational position for belief in a god or anything else with no empirical evidence for or against is some degree of true skepticism or atheism. An "unevidenced assertion" is just that, so anyone who feels certain about it either negatively or positively, without any evidence on which to base their beliefs, is being irrational . . . or pseudoskeptical.
quote: 2) You are only asked to provide evidence against god if you hold a firm belief that god does not exist. IMO that would be the correct skeptical position to take.
Skepticism:quote: Note that while doubt is part of skepticism, the operative word in these definitions is uncertainty. The closer you get to Dawkins' 1 or 7, the more certain you are, hence the less skeptical. Placing oneself at 1 or 2, or 6 or 7, is therefore a peudoskeptical position, given the lack of evidence. 3&4 above, if there is no known empirical method which can be used to investigate whether or not god exists, then it can't be done. That's not the same as saying that by default he/she/it doesn't exist. There are some non-empirical methods you could try if you wanted to. You could investigate anecdotal claims. You could "try out" some kind of faith for yourself and see where it took you, whether it gave you some interesting experiences. You could meditate.
quote: Since the negative position is atheism, that presumably means you are an agnostic.
quote:I think you, like several others here, seem to be making the mistake that I am a theist; correct me if I've misunderstood you. My position in this thread is that anyone who holds some certainty about god existing or not existing should, in order to be truly skeptical and rational, be able to provide some evidence for the positive or the negative claim.
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined:
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LindaLou responds to me:
quote: Since that isn't what I was trying to claim, you'll forgive me if I don't comply. Instead, my point is that since we know that people make stuff up, it is the burden of the one claiming that an object exists to show that it does, not the ones claiming that it does not. The null hypothesis is always true until shown otherwise.
quote: So basically, we're throwing all of logic out the window because somebody doesn't like the implications it has for his theology? The null hypothesis is always considered true until shown otherwise. That is simply the nature of the beast. That's why it's called "burden of proof." It is always on the one making the claim. Existence is a claim. Non-existence is the status quo. The model works. Why do you demand chocolate sprinkles? Do you have evidence that they are required?
quote: Clearly, we aren't able to and we do have difficulty. Isn't that indicative of something?
quote:quote: (*blink!*) That is preicsely how science works. The entire point is to find evidence for that which you are looking for because chances are you're wrong.
quote: Yes, you do. That's why you design the experiment and establish controls: To start excluding things that we know exist to see if there is something else going on and the nature of it. You have to establish that the chocolate sprinkles are required.
quote: Incorrect. The only way to avoid confirmation bias is to be as negative as possible: That is, to demand that evidence be presented that shows the existence of something since the null hypothesis that it isn't there is true by default.
quote: And they have yet to establish even the existence of something unusual going on let alone a mechanism for how it might happen.
quote: Because the model works. Why do you insist on chocolate sprinkles? Where is your evidence that more is required?
quote: Because you check the model to see if it works. That's how you learn things. When you simply assume that disease is caused by demons without actually doing any investigation with controls to determine if they are there, you get people thinking that ghosts and spirits are all around us. Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
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Kitsune Member (Idle past 4331 days) Posts: 788 From: Leicester, UK Joined:
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Hi Bluegenes,
It seems to me like the guesses of "likelihood" in your post are based on some kind of personal incredulity factor. If you are as neutral as possible about any of these ideas, then when there is truly a lack of empirical evidence, I'd have to ask why you felt so sure that one idea was silly and one was not, or whether one was slightly sillier than the other. As we know from debating creationists, arguments from incredulity are not accepted as logical debate strategies.
quote: The only rational position for any of these, Last Thursdayism or whatever, is truly "I don't know." It's impossible for me to prove that the universe was not created last Thursday. I'm not sitting here laughing off the idea as silly or impossible; it's an interesting philosophical point. But its truth or falsehood don't bother me because it makes no difference to my life or anyone else's. Because we don't know if any of those ideas are true, and there is no evidence, then the only reason we'd pick one as being more or less likely than the other is because we prefer it for some reason, which is not logical or scientific.
quote: Correct, until (and if) some empirical evidence comes to light -- though you could equally replace the word "unlikely" with "likely" or better still, "possible". Problem with that?
quote: Yes, which is why I'd remain agnostic about the divine origins of the universe until (and if) some empirical evidence came to light. I might decide to take some ideas on faith but I'd be aware that my faith was not supported by empirical evidence either.
quote: Which brings us back to my first point. Where no empirical evidence exists, it's rather nonsensical to talk about "likelihood" because that implies you are using some kind of evidence to judge one premise against another, and that evidence doesn't exist; instead, you are relying on your personal belief factors. Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.
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Rrhain Member Posts: 6351 From: San Diego, CA, USA Joined: |
Catholic Scientist writes:
quote: That's because we're denying RAZD's definition. Skepticism is acceptance of the null hypothesis until shown otherwise. Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time. Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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You seem to want to label that god, don't know why, but I can say for sure that I'm not an atheist toward that concept. I hold no position at all.
Then you're not a psuedoskeptic... and that sure sounds like agnosticism to me (at least in the way I use the word).
You made it up. The reason I know is because you don't have any objective evidence for it. There is no other logical conclusion other than, you pulled it out your, as the brits would say, arse. I heard a strange noise in the back yard last night. I was gonna go look to see what it was but because I didn't have any objective evidence I concluded that I made it up
But as you can see by my reply to the source above, I'm not an atheist to your personal, experienced, speculated "god." Then you don't qualify for psuedoskepticism.
You are making a logical fallacy here, RAZD, in assuming that the premise is true without evidence to support it. And that we have a negative hypothesis toward this premise. The whole point is that there isn't an assumption either way... that agnosticism is the default.
The way I see it, I'm not saying there is no god (which would make no sense if you think about it), I'm saying you had no reason to ever conclude there was when you have no evidence for it. That's agnosticism, not atheism.
Athesim is not a negative hypothesis, it's just the place where one stand until there is evidence to make you consider moving from there. That's just not the way I use the word, but I don't really care enough to argue over what words mean. I don't think you're really arguing against the position in the OP, nor do you qualify as the psuedoskeptic that its against. I think you're using the terminology differently enough to think that you are when you aren't.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Oh god
That's because we're denying RAZD's definition. Skepticism is acceptance of the null hypothesis until shown otherwise. I remember that you like to make up your own definitions for words, like bigotry. I'm not really in the mood for that bullshit. If you're not going to use the definitions set out in the OP then GTFO.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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Straggler, I want to have a productive conversation with you. Honestly, I do. Then try actually explicitly answering questions rather than evading them all the time.
But for the upteenth time all I see is that you are misunderstanding or ignoring most of what I say to you. Maybe it really is cognitive dissonance, I don't know. Maybe it is that your position is unjustifiable under scrutiny and questioning? I think this is highly likely.
I'm not going to keep repeating everything to you because lots of other people want to challenge me here. I wish them luck geting any explicit answers out of you.
If you can demonstrate at some point that you have read what I've written and understand it, I'll be happy to take the conversation back up. Pots kettles and black all spring to mind. You don't answer questions because you cannot and then you tell me that I am at fault for not understanding your position. I know what your position is. I am just asking you to justify it. With that in mind here are some questions that you have never explicitly answered:
I won't hold my breath. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Straggler Member (Idle past 96 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined:
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I heard a strange noise in the back yard last night. I was gonna go look to see what it was but because I didn't have any objective evidence I concluded that I made it up Then that was a silly conclusion. I assume that your backyard is objectively evidenced rather than "something" only ever expereinced subjectively by you? I also assume that you have objective evidence that your sense of hearing works. I am also pretty sure that real things making noises in real backyards is a fairly well defined phenomenon. Perhaps a better anology would be if you had a back yard that nobody else could empirically detect and that you were also stone deaf. Then if you heard something in your backyard I would be wholly justified in my atheism towards whatever you attribute that "noise" to surely?
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Then that was a silly conclusion. That was my point.
I assume that your backyard is objectively evidenced rather than "something" only ever expereinced subjectively by you? How do I know?
Perhaps a better anology would be if you had a back yard that nobody else could empirically detect and that you were also stone deaf. Then if you heard something in your backyard I would be wholly justified in my atheism towards whatever you attribute that "noise" to surely? But we just don't know, do we?
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Hi Linda
LindaLou writes: The only rational position for any of these, Last Thursdayism or whatever, is truly "I don't know." It's impossible for me to prove that the universe was not created last Thursday. I'm not sitting here laughing off the idea as silly or impossible; it's an interesting philosophical point. But its truth or falsehood don't bother me because it makes no difference to my life or anyone else's. Because we don't know if any of those ideas are true, and there is no evidence, then the only reason we'd pick one as being more or less likely than the other is because we prefer it for some reason, which is not logical or scientific. That last point about picking one over the other not being scientific is correct. So, what's the argument against last Thursdayism? It's what I say here:
bluegenes writes: they're several of an infinite field of mutually exclusive evidenceless possibilities that all have to be regarded as equally unlikely. And you reply:
LindaLou writes: Correct, until (and if) some empirical evidence comes to light -- though you could equally replace the word "unlikely" with "likely" or better still, "possible". Problem with that? No problem. Remember, all the propositions have equal evidential support (zero evidence) and there are more than a trillion that we could make. So, don't you agree that unlikely sounds better, although the meaning's the same with all three words. Then:
bluegenes writes: When atheists describe a specific god proposition as extremely unlikely, they can do so confidently, because of the infinite range of competing equally evidenceless alternatives! Linda writes: Which brings us back to my first point. Where no empirical evidence exists, it's rather nonsensical to talk about "likelihood" because that implies you are using some kind of evidence to judge one premise against another, and that evidence doesn't exist; instead, you are relying on your personal belief factors. No. I thought you were getting there, and you're near. It's the opposite. There is no evidence, so, the proposition that the universe was created by one billion gods and the proposition that it was created by one god are equally likely/unlikely, and it's less than a 1 in a billion chance for each. If you brought in subjective cultural factors, you might come out with one god being more likely than any other number as you're from a monotheistic culture, but there's certainly no reason to do so, so you'd be practicing culturally induced pseudo-skepticism! Now, I'll try to explain why you're wrong when you see people moving from 4 up to 6 on the Dawkins scale as being less agnostic in their attitude. If you're a "4" for "god" singular, and a "4" for the proposition of 2 creator gods, you have to be "7" for all propositions of three gods and above and for all other origins propositions. Definitely pseudo-skeptical. So, think about it, and the true agnostic is an atheist/agnostic at 6 when it comes to all specific propositions on ultimate origins. You can't prioritize any of the evidenceless propositions over others. So, it's always "I cannot know, but it's extremely unlikely", whether for seven goddesses creating the universe, or teams of elves, or whatever. You can dismiss things like non-omphalistic young earth creationism on the evidence, obviously. But I'm talking about all propositions that would fit the universe as science perceives it.
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