You may have noticed that I haven't participated here in a month; I have been too busy. I now have some free time that I am going to spend explaining to you how my thinking differs from your's, as a constructive attempt. If you're going to prefer to be argumentative and bring up the same old shit and just re-say things that you already have, then I am going to not reply any more. M'kay?
I said that it is impossible to have ANY confidence in ANY prediction borne of ANY naturalistic explanation without implicitly assuming both the consistency of natural law and the absence of supernatural agents that will override those laws
I don't think this is true, and I think it is an error in inductive logic.
Take the observation that every crow that you've seen has been black. There would then be a scientific theory that all crows are black. This theory is not saying that there are no white crows that exist. That is the nature of inductive logic. That doesn't mean that you cannot have any confidence in the all crows are black theory, especially if it is working.
Now, scientific theories do not explicitly state the lack of the supernatural, nor do I think they implicitly imply it. They simply don't touch on it. If it works then sweet, we can just continue on with it and get more shit done.
I am holding my pen in the air again. I am going to let go.
What do you think my pen will do
How confident are you of this behaviour?
Assuming that you do have confidence in the predicted behaviour of my dropped pen on what possible basis do you have this confidence if not in the consistency of natural law and the absence of any supernatural agents overriding these laws?
Of course we can have confidence that the pen will drop, and mass bending spacetime is the best explanation we have for that, and we can have confidence in that explanation. But this is not saying that, to be ridiculous, there are not undetecable angels dancing on the pen to make it drop. And it doesn't matter how many times you reproduce your result, that fits within your prediction, you are still not providing evidence that the angels are not there. But if your explanation works, then fuck the angels... nobody cares.
We can have confidence that they aren't there, and our predictions will be met, all the while not having anything to say about whether or not those angels actually exist.
So I ask you - Can we legitimately have confidence in conclusions and predictions made on the basis of consistent natural laws and the absence of any supernatural agents overriding those laws?
Or are you still asserting that such assumptions are "heuristic" and statistically invalid?
Yes we can have confidence in them, especially if they are working, but they are not statiscally, or logically, valid.
I think I've brought this up before, and you didn't reply...
quote:It has often been noted that the word ‘probability’ is used in two different senses in ordinary language. In one sense, probability is relative to the available evidence and does not depend on unknown facts about the world; probability in this sense has something to do with inductive inference and so I will call it inductive probability. In the other sense, probability is a fact about the world and not relative to the available evidence; I will call this physical probability.
As an illustration of the difference between these two concepts, suppose you have been told that a coin is either two-headed or two-tailed but you have no information about which it is. The coin is about to be tossed. What is the probability that it will land heads? There are two natural answers to this question:
(i) 1/2. (ii) Either 0 or 1 but I do not know which.
Answer (i) is natural if the question is taken to be about inductive probability, while (ii) is the natural answer if the question is taken to be about physical probability.
I still think you are trying to take an inductive probability about the supernatural and assign it a physical probability and that this is where the error of your logic occurs.
quote:Continuing with this example, suppose you now observe that the coin has a head on one side. Given the information you now have, the inductive probability of it landing heads on the next toss is 1. Thus the inductive probability has changed with the new evidence. You also now know that the physical probability of the coin landing heads is 1, but this probability has not changed, it was 1 before as well, only your knowledge about it has changed. This further illustrates how inductive probability is relative to evidence and physical probability is not.
I also think that part of your error is in assuming that a scientific explanation acutally precludes a supernatural one, and you think that pretty much all the supernatural explanations have been refuted by scientific ones. I don't think this is true. Just like it doesn't matter how many times you drop your pen, you still haven't shown that the angels aren't there.
Now, this doesn't mean that we cannot have confidence that the scientific explanation will work, it just means that inductice logic doesn't preclude an alternative. And I think this is what Bluejay was getting into with having something to compare it to. In the end, you're still just assuming that the supernatural doesn't exist. It isn't something that you're arriving at from the available evidence.
Now if we are confident that gravitational effects are caused by by space-time curvature then we must correspondingly consider it unlikley that gravitational effects are caused by dancing angels. Do you agree?
No. I don't think so because I don't think it follows from the inductive logic, but I'm having trouble with this example. I can't imagine any observations of mass curving spacetime so I don't see how it rules out something like angels being responsible.
Can you think of a better example?
Except that this explanation is simply unable to make any verifiable predictions. And is thus unworthy of any confidence. In short it is unlikely to be a correct explanation as the cause of the observed phenomenon (gravitational effects in this case). No?
No, something like that wouldn't follow from the inductive logic nor the observations. I see why you'd think that though.
So according to your argument we are only ever talking about supernatural entities which are utterly imperceptible. Utterly imperceptible because they either play no causal role in any aspect of observable reality or they do so in a manner that is indistinguishable from natural law.
Is that your position?
Not necessarily, I just thought you wanted to limit it to those. I don't like limiting the supernatural to utterly imperceptible things because then were limited to things that are impossible to ever be observed.
CS if we have confidence in space-time curvature as being the cause of gravitational effects how can we consider it anything other than unlikely that dancing angels are the cause of gravitational effects?
What makes space-time curvature cause gravitational effects?
Let me put it this way:
You make your observations and see what's reliable and then you put that in the "Keep" pile. The unobserved and/or unreliable are left in the "Unknown" pile. The falsified is put in the "Discard" pile.
Just because something hasn't made it to the Keep pile doesn't mean its in the Discard pile. Now, you can certainly discard things in the Unknown pile because you think they probably aren't true because you think someone just made it up, but that's not a conclusion you've arrived at from some observation.
I think The Dude said it best:
On the other hand, being not being reliable doesn't mean we can't have confidence in it, nor does being the product of human imagination. On a daily basis I'm confident in things that are a product of my imagination that I cannot show are reliable.
Like, if my girlfriend hasn't eaten in a while, then she's probably going to be crabby and I shouldn't do "this or that". I can't show thats reliable and it came from my imagination, ergo its most likely incorrect, right?
I've been traveling a lot for work lately and just generally too busy to reply. When I had enough time to visit, I'd just spend it all catching up on the reading, and you all are just nuts with this shit so I couldn't even keep up.
What makes space-time curvature cause gravitational effects?
So now you have retreated your dancing angels from being the cause of gravitational effects to being the cause of space-time curvature which is itself the cause of gravitational effects. Is that correct?
The point wasn't to provide you with an explanation of the effect. It was to point out that natural explantions don't show that non-natural ones aren't there somewhere. The theory that all ravens are black is not a claim that there is not a white one out there somewhere.
Thirty seconds after you reply to this message all gravitational effects will be supernaturally suspended.
If you are confident that this unfalsified and unevidenced possibility is unlikely to be correct please state for the record your basis for making this conclusion.
I don't have any evidence that it won't happen, but that doesn't mean that I cannot be confident that it won't. My point is that my confidence doesn't follow from the inductive logic. No matter how many black ravens I observe, I'm still not showing that there isn't a white one out there somewhere. But that doesn't mean that we cannot have confidence that the black raven theory will continue to work.
Girlfriends being crabby in any fucking circumstance is hardly an unevidenced possibility now is it?
Show me the data. Without it, I can only rely on it being most probability something you've imagined
On similarly factual basis do you you consider dancing angels or indeed the existence of any other supernatural entity to be even possible?
Sure, assume I "saw a ghost". I've got as much facts there as showing that "bitches be trippin'".
Apparently I shouldn't rely on either... Its wierd to me that I can.
The first one that I made when I entered this thread, from Message 286:
quote:
I said that it is impossible to have ANY confidence in ANY prediction borne of ANY naturalistic explanation without implicitly assuming both the consistency of natural law and the absence of supernatural agents that will override those laws
I don't think this is true, and I think it is an error in inductive logic.
Take the observation that every crow that you've seen has been black. There would then be a scientific theory that all crows are black. This theory is not saying that there are no white crows that exist. That is the nature of inductive logic. That doesn't mean that you cannot have any confidence in the all crows are black theory, especially if it is working.
Now, scientific theories do not explicitly state the lack of the supernatural, nor do I think they implicitly imply it. They simply don't touch on it. If it works then sweet, we can just continue on with it and get more shit done.
I went even further:
quote:
So I ask you - Can we legitimately have confidence in conclusions and predictions made on the basis of consistent natural laws and the absence of any supernatural agents overriding those laws?
Or are you still asserting that such assumptions are "heuristic" and statistically invalid?
Yes we can have confidence in them, especially if they are working, but they are not statiscally, or logically, valid.
I think I've brought this up before, and you didn't reply...
quote:It has often been noted that the word ‘probability’ is used in two different senses in ordinary language. In one sense, probability is relative to the available evidence and does not depend on unknown facts about the world; probability in this sense has something to do with inductive inference and so I will call it inductive probability. In the other sense, probability is a fact about the world and not relative to the available evidence; I will call this physical probability.
As an illustration of the difference between these two concepts, suppose you have been told that a coin is either two-headed or two-tailed but you have no information about which it is. The coin is about to be tossed. What is the probability that it will land heads? There are two natural answers to this question:
(i) 1/2. (ii) Either 0 or 1 but I do not know which.
Answer (i) is natural if the question is taken to be about inductive probability, while (ii) is the natural answer if the question is taken to be about physical probability.
I still think you are trying to take an inductive probability about the supernatural and assign it a physical probability and that this is where the error of your logic occurs.
quote:Continuing with this example, suppose you now observe that the coin has a head on one side. Given the information you now have, the inductive probability of it landing heads on the next toss is 1. Thus the inductive probability has changed with the new evidence. You also now know that the physical probability of the coin landing heads is 1, but this probability has not changed, it was 1 before as well, only your knowledge about it has changed. This further illustrates how inductive probability is relative to evidence and physical probability is not.
I also think that part of your error is in assuming that a scientific explanation acutally precludes a supernatural one, and you think that pretty much all the supernatural explanations have been refuted by scientific ones. I don't think this is true. Just like it doesn't matter how many times you drop your pen, you still haven't shown that the angels aren't there.
Now, this doesn't mean that we cannot have confidence that the scientific explanation will work, it just means that inductice logic doesn't preclude an alternative. And I think this is what Bluejay was getting into with having something to compare it to. In the end, you're still just assuming that the supernatural doesn't exist. It isn't something that you're arriving at from the available evidence.
I will answer any point made explicitly to me.
You totally avoided 75% of my post.
And how is asking you "On what basis do you confidently conclude that gravity won't be supernaturally suspended 30 seconds after responding to this post." NOT specifically challenging your claims of non-inductivist thinking?
I'm not claiming non-inductivist thinking, I'm challenging your conclusion logically following from the available evidence.
Without a degree of inductivism you cannot be confident of anything at all.
Can you?
I don't have a problem with inductivism. I'm saying the conclusions your deriving from it are not logically following.
Hell, even the wiki page on inductivism is takes the same route I am:
If I conclude that supernatural agents will not override gravitational effects 30 seconds after you respond to this post is that an argument derived from inductive probability?
That is not a logical conclusion derived from the available evidence.
ABE: I just want to point out that this doesn't mean that you can't have any confidence that gravitational effects will continue to operate as usual.
Because my estimation of the unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural is made on the same basis as the conclusion that supernatural entities will probably not override gravity 30 seconds after your response.
Can you not see that?
Yes, I see that. Too, your estimation of the unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural is not a logical conclusion based on the available evidence.
So you are totally agnostic to the notion that gravity will be supernaturally suspended 30 seconds after you respond to this post but utterly confident that gravity will continue as per usual 30 seconds after you respond to this post.
Can you not see a problem here CS?
With your strawman or my actual position?
I see a problem that you've created by making the positions absolute. Remove those qualifiers and we have:
quote:So you are agnostic to the notion that gravity will be supernaturally suspended 30 seconds after you respond to this post but confident that gravity will continue as per usual 30 seconds after you respond to this post.
It looses the contradiction, especially considering that I would have been talking about being technically agnostic, as in it being a logical position as opposed to some kind of statement of belief or confidence.
Admitting that the available evidence doesn't logically lead to a conclusion about what supernatural events will happen in the future doesn't mean that the person has to be totally agnostic to the notion that one will.
Also, for things as mundane as gravity continuing to operate, its a lot easier to be confident in them. You don't have the same amount of evidence showing that supernatural explanations have been wrong like you do for gravity having been working the same for pretty much ever. There's plenty of unexplained phenomenon where a natural explantion is assume because it was capable of being formed and not because it was shown to be more correct than the alternative.
I say this is deeply deeply improbable. I say that this is a rational, evidenced and wholly logical conclusion. I would put myself as a 6 on the Dawkins scale regarding this proposition.
What do you say?
Of course I don't think gravity is going to stop. But having the position of 'its always been this way so its going to continue to be' is not the same as a valid conclusion of the probability based on inductive logic of the observed evidence.
Too, something as mundane as gravity continuing to operate is not on the same evidential level as something supernatural never having happened.
But this proposition hasn’t been falsified has it? Which makes your confidence in this conclusion completely at odds with absolutely everything you have ever argued about being necessarily and rationally agnostic towards unfalsified possibilities.
Apparently you still don't understand my position. I don't think you necessarily have to be agnostic towards anything. This is about what is the rational position, that is the one that is a logical inference from the evidence. I don't think that the only rational position is agnosticism just because a possibility is unfalsifiable.
My overall point is that your probability of the supernatural existing is not something you've calculated nor is it derived from a logical inference of the evidence so therefore it isn't a rational position. But that doesn't mean its totally unreasonable, just like my theistic belief isn't rational but too I don't think it is unreasonable. Like I said before, its a matter of opinion.
And really, your position is just a post hoc rationalization, not an inference to begin with. I think that you don't believe in the supernatural so you've come up with this argument to rationalize that belief. Don't get me wrong, I think its a pretty good argument, it just turns out that your logic doesn't hold up.
CS writes:
But having the position of 'its always been this way so its going to continue to be' is not the same as a valid conclusion of the probability based on inductive logic of the observed evidence.
Then it is a good job that nobody but you is making that rather stupid argument.
But it looks to me like that is what you think. The supernatural has always been outdone by naturalistic explanations ergo the supernatural has failed.
Is that really the basis upon which you have discarded the possibility of gravity being supernaturally suspended in the near future?
Yeah, really. Gravity has been the exact same for my entire life and I think its going to continue to be that way.
Or do you think the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that this whole proposition is far more likely to be a fantasy scenario concocted by the human mind than anything with any actual basis in reality?
Not at all, in the slightest. I don't make any consideration about whether or not you made it up, it doesn't enter my thought process.
If you are dismissing this unevidenced unfalsified supernatural possibility as deeply improbable — Then on what basis are you making this conclusion? Be very very specific.
Gravity has been the exact same for my entire life and I think its going to continue to be that way. Not technically a rational position, but oh well.
CS writes:
Too, something as mundane as gravity continuing to operate is not on the same evidential level as something supernatural never having happened.
The only evidential difference between the supernatural proposition that I have put forward (i.e. that gravity will be supernaturally suspended this time next week) and any specific supernatural claim made by anybody else is that mine is ultimately testable.
That is the only difference.
False.
Some other supernatural claims are made after something wierd has been observed and someone is trying to come up with some kind of explanation. You've just made up your claim as part of a debate tactic. You're not trying to explain anything you've observed that lead you to provide your scenario.
So until it is tested why do you make any distinction between this particular unevidenced unfalsified supernatural claim and any other in terms of reliability or accuracy?
First, because its always been the same, I just plain old doubt that gravity is going to change. Second, because its not something that has followed from any kind of observation at all.
I suspect you cannot answer this question without some serious special pleading.
That was funny, well done. You failed, but you get an A for effort, even though the effort was all put into quote mining and spinning.
CS writes:
I don't think that the only rational position is agnosticism just because a possibility is unfalsifiable.
Well that has been your position in every thread up until now. Including your position on dancing fairies as the cause of gravitational effects in this very thread. So this is a radical departure from everything you have ever previously said to me.
quote:Of course we can have confidence that the pen will drop, and mass bending spacetime is the best explanation we have for that, and we can have confidence in that explanation. But this is not saying that, to be ridiculous, there are not undetecable angels dancing on the pen to make it drop. And it doesn't matter how many times you reproduce your result, that fits within your prediction, you are still not providing evidence that the angels are not there. But if your explanation works, then fuck the angels... nobody cares.
We can have confidence that they aren't there, and our predictions will be met, all the while not having anything to say about whether or not those angels actually exist.
CS writes:
Yeah, really. Gravity has been the exact same for my entire life and I think its going to continue to be that way.
So you are now rejecting an unevidenced unfalsified supernatural possibility on the basis that it contravenes everything we know about the world and the way it works.
quote:Gravity has been the exact same for my entire life and I think its going to continue to be that way. Not technically a rational position, but oh well.
CS writes:
Second, because its not something that has followed from any kind of observation at all.
Fuck me!!! You are now dismissing claims on the basis that they have no evidential basis and demanding positive evidence before deeming them worthy of consideration. CS - Welcome to sanity.
Why didn't you apply this same thinking to your gravity fairies earlier in this thread? And indeed all of the other wholly unevidenced entities we have ever discussed? You could have saved us both a lot of frustration and effort.
Not quite. I'm not dismissing it because of its lack of evidential basis, I'm dismissing them because it didn't follow any observation whatsoever, regardless of what king of evidence leads to whatever observation.
CS writes:
You've just made up your claim as part of a debate tactic.
Double fuck me!!! Now you are dismissing unevidenced unfalsified supernatural possibilities as being nothing more than products of the human mind.
Um, no. I'm not dismissing any possibilities, I'm talking about this one specific instance.
All of the evidence indicates that rather than supernatural entities somehow overriding natural laws to reveal themselves to people these experiences, like everything else the supernatural has ever been posited as a cause for, are due to wholly naturalistic mechanisms.
No, it doesn't. There's plenty of unexplained phenomenon. Typically, if a naturalistic explanation can be imagined, then it is assemed over any supernatural one even though there hasn't been any conclusion either way.
If you apply all of the same thinking that you have done to the supernatural suspension of gravity scenario above you will see that all of the same arguments apply to supernatural entities causing religious experiences.
That's part of the reason the conclusion doesn't follow, and can only be reached illogically.
And the evidenced conclusion is that supernatural entities are almost certainly human inventions.
No, that conclusion doesn't logically follow from the actual evidence we have.
Who ever claimed to have calculated any probabilities? And yes the "deeply improbable" conclusion is very much is based on the evidence.
What evidence? That natural explanations are assumed in unexplained cases even though we don't really know?
You agree with me that we can be rationally and evidentially confident that gravity will not be supernaturally suspended this time next month.
Did I?
But in the absence of certainty (which we have both agreed previously is philosophically impossible) how else can this confidence be expressed other than by saying that the posited scenario is "deeply improbable"?
How would you express this?
"Pfft I doubt it."
But I'd be willing to admit that it wasn't some conclusion I arrived at logically from the available evidence.
And in doing so you used practically all of the arguments against unevidenced unfalsified supernatural claims that I have put to you on numerous occasions previously.
Apparently you can only see things one way and no matter what I type, you're gonna see yourself being right.
It honestly never occurred to me you would actually take the position of declaring confidence in gravitational effects remaining in place next month as being irrational and illogical.
Not my position.
CS in your view is there any scientific conclusion or prediction that we can logically and rationally have confidence in?
Yeah, the ones that don't make predictions about supernatural activity in the future... so what's that? All of them?
So you think it is irrational, illogical and evidentially unjustified to be confident that gravity will not be supernaturally suspended next month.
Are you serious?
I don't think that you can make a logical inference about what supernatural things will happen in the future.
I doubt it."
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