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Author Topic:   I Know That God Does Not Exist
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 211 of 3207 (676399)
10-22-2012 3:09 PM
Reply to: Message 208 by Straggler
10-22-2012 2:56 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Straggler writes:
Well if no-one had conceived of elephants before finding them they would be discovered before being conceived of.
There still has to be some pre-existing concept, some framework for the new data to fit into. The first human to see an elephant would have to think, "That's some kind of animal, like a deer but different...."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 208 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 2:56 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 213 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:20 PM ringo has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 212 of 3207 (676400)
10-22-2012 3:15 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:06 PM


Re: The Northwest Passage
Ringo writes:
What makes you think anything is a possibility?
Evidence. Methods of knowing that have proved successful in the past.
Ringo writes:
This is how science works: We imagine a possibility.
Really?
The Higgs Boson (for example) wasn't just plucked out of the air. Nor was anti-matter. Space-time curvature. Evolution. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
These were proposed based on evidence. Then tested.
Can you give an example of a fruitful scientific investigation conducted on something for which there was absolutely no evidential reason at all to even consider possible?
Ringo writes:
Then we devise ways to test that possibility.
Why are gods even considered a possibility?
Ringo writes:
Only when every test has failed can we say that something is impossible.
Nobody here is saying the existence of gods is impossible. Any more than I am saying the existence of immaterial unicorns is impossible. You are going down the absolutist path again.
I'm saying it's more likely to be a product of human invention than a real thing.
Ringo writes:
The catch is that we can never know if we have tried every possible test.
Knowledge is fallible and tentative. I've already said that. What is your point?
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 210 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:06 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 214 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:27 PM Straggler has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 213 of 3207 (676401)
10-22-2012 3:20 PM
Reply to: Message 211 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:09 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Ringo writes:
There still has to be some pre-existing concept, some framework for the new data to fit into. The first human to see an elephant would have to think, "That's some kind of animal, like a deer but different...."
OK. So we know that similar creatures (other mammals etc.) actually exist so the discovery of a new type of the same sort of thing isn't that shocking.
How many godly or supernatural entities have we come across such that we think the existence of gods is similarly possible?
Look Ringo - If the world were full of ghosts and demons and angels and whatnot the claim that gods don't exist would be pretty weak.
But the whole idea of supernaturality seems (based on all the evidence) to be a human construct designed to fulfill very human internal needs with nothing external to support it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:09 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:29 PM Straggler has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(1)
Message 214 of 3207 (676405)
10-22-2012 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by Straggler
10-22-2012 3:15 PM


Re: The Northwest Passage
Straggler writes:
The Higgs Boson (for example) wasn't just plucked out of the air. Nor was anti-matter. Space-time curvature. Evolution. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
That's what I'm saying. The idea has to exist before we know what to look for or how to look for it. You don't just find a Higgs boson under the microscope and say, "What the hell is that?" You have to have an idea where a Higgs boson might be and what it might "look like" before you can go looking for it.
Straggler writes:
I'm saying it's more likely to be a product of human invention than a real thing.
If that's all you're saying, you can save your breath. Nobody's arguing against that.
What I'm arguing against is extrapolating from "more likely" to "I know". If I deal out five cards, a pair is "more likely" than a royal flush. I'm saying that you can't "know" you'll get a pair on the basis of it being "more likely."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:15 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 218 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:35 PM ringo has replied
 Message 219 by Rahvin, posted 10-22-2012 3:37 PM ringo has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 215 of 3207 (676406)
10-22-2012 3:29 PM
Reply to: Message 213 by Straggler
10-22-2012 3:20 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Straggler writes:
But the whole idea of supernaturality seems (based on all the evidence) to be a human construct designed to fulfill very human internal needs with nothing external to support it.
How do you distinguish between advanced technology and magic?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 213 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:20 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 216 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:31 PM ringo has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 216 of 3207 (676407)
10-22-2012 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 215 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:29 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Are you suggesting that gods are just aliens with super-advanced-technology rather than genuinely supernatural beings?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:29 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 220 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:39 PM Straggler has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 217 of 3207 (676408)
10-22-2012 3:33 PM
Reply to: Message 209 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:01 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
And they didn't "know" that the earth was flat.
The average person 1000 years ago would have said that they "knew" the Earth was flat. You appear to be alternately using the wrong definition of "knowledge" here. "Knowledge" cannot imply certainty, as if that were the case the word would serve no purpose; we would all simply have to admit that none of us "know" anything.
Your "standard current thought" line is simply an obfuscated appeal to popularity - the prevalence of opinion is not and never is the determining factor (or even a contributing factor) to determining which hypothesis is most likely to be accurate. There are no words you can say which will make it otherwise.
Your argument can only be successful if you can provide evidence that suggests that "gods" do exist - when the only objective evidence regarding a specific hypothesis is negative, ringo, what does that mean? It means that all competing hypotheses which have either no evidence whatsoever or at least some positive evidence are more likely than the hypothesis in question.
As I've already pointed out more than once, you're not using the same goalposts for the gods as you're using for the pen. You know that there's no pen "on your desk" and you know that there are no gods "where you have looked". But you haven't even begun to scratch the surface of all the places you'd need to look before you could know that gods don't exist at all.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the terms "conspicuous" and "strongly expected" and "evidence." You may also be unfamiliar with the term "extrapolation."
There are many "god" hypotheses, ringo, from many cultures. Just about every single one, however, involves an entity that will respond favorably to prayer or ritual.
Yet in every test ever performed, prayer and ritual provides no meaningful statistical result distinguishable from doing nothing at all.
This is an absence of strongly expected evidence - prayer and ritual are strongly expected to have an effect, and in the absence of that expected effect, the likelihood that the "god" hypothesis is accurate is greatly diminished.
In the absence of any positive evidence suggesting that "gods" do exist, it's easy to tentatively extrapolate that "gods" are not llikely to exist outside of those studies, as well.
But look, ringo - "gods" are just unevidenced imaginings. They're like polka-dotted unicorns on Planet Xebes in Dimension X. All things being equal, hypotheses that do not include such extraneous entities are significantly more likely to be accurate than their competitors. The hypothesis that there are no "gods" is significantly more likely to be accurate than any of the myriad "god" hypotheses simply because it avoids extraneous terms in its equation.
That conclusion is tentative, as is all] "knowledge" of the practical sort, and can immediately be revised if new evidence is uncovered which requires the introduction of such an entity.
But as it is, the world would look exactly the same to us whether we are in the Matrix or not...and so the hypothesis that we are not in the Matrix is more likely, because there is no evidential requirement for such additional entities as the Matrix to be included in our model of reality.
In the same way, the world without "gods" is nearly indistinguishable from a world with "gods," save that there is some negative evidence in the form of failed predictions from the "god" hypothesis. Therefore, not only is the "no gods" hypothesis more likely, it is significantly more likely, by far, than the various "god" hypotheses.
Occam's Razor is not merely an optional logical tool, ringo.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 209 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:01 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 221 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:47 PM Rahvin has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 218 of 3207 (676409)
10-22-2012 3:35 PM
Reply to: Message 214 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:27 PM


Absence of Certainty - Likelihood Only Option
In the absence of certainty what can we ever have but estimations of likelihood?
I know that the Sun will rise tomorrow.
But in philosophical terms I have to admit that this knowledge is tentative and fallible and that I am effectively saying that, based on the evidence it is very unlikely that the Sun won't rise tomorrow.
Ringo writes:
What I'm arguing against is extrapolating from "more likely" to "I know".
Do you know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?
Is it absolutely certain in philosophical terms?
How likely is it that the Sun will rise tomorrow

This message is a reply to:
 Message 214 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:27 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 223 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:51 PM Straggler has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 219 of 3207 (676410)
10-22-2012 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 214 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:27 PM


Re: The Northwest Passage
That's what I'm saying. The idea has to exist before we know what to look for or how to look for it. You don't just find a Higgs boson under the microscope and say, "What the hell is that?" You have to have an idea where a Higgs boson might be and what it might "look like" before you can go looking for it.
Yet that's not always the case. As Straggler pointed out, the first person to see an elephant did not need to imagine or search for an elephant prior to making the discovery.
In fact, it's not necessary that physicists already have a theoretical model of and be searching for the Higgs prior to discovering it. That's the way it happened, but that doesn't mean it was a requirement - many similar discoveries have been made simply by analyzing aberrant data, simply stumbling over something important that we never even knew was there. Antibiotics, for example, were not previously imagined or sought - penicillin was discovered quite by (fortuitous) accident.
Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 214 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:27 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 224 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:54 PM Rahvin has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 220 of 3207 (676411)
10-22-2012 3:39 PM
Reply to: Message 216 by Straggler
10-22-2012 3:31 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Straggler writes:
Are you suggesting that gods are just aliens with super-advanced-technology rather than genuinely supernatural beings?
I'm asking how you would distinguish between the two.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 216 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:31 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 222 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:50 PM ringo has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 221 of 3207 (676413)
10-22-2012 3:47 PM
Reply to: Message 217 by Rahvin
10-22-2012 3:33 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Rahvin writes:
There are many "god" hypotheses, ringo, from many cultures. Just about every single one, however, involves an entity that will respond favorably to prayer or ritual.
Yet in every test ever performed, prayer and ritual provides no meaningful statistical result distinguishable from doing nothing at all.
There you go again, defining God out of existence. If elephants are defined as "large herbivores that live in Africa" then the one in your living room doesn't count - but it doesn't cease to exist either.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 217 by Rahvin, posted 10-22-2012 3:33 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 227 by Rahvin, posted 10-22-2012 4:05 PM ringo has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 222 of 3207 (676414)
10-22-2012 3:50 PM
Reply to: Message 220 by ringo
10-22-2012 3:39 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Well one is able to be explained by natural laws and phenomena whilst the other cannot be because it genuinely isn't natural. It is supernatural.
That is the distinction in principle.
So how are you concluding that gods are anything other than a case of mistaken identity combined with the human idea that there actually exists beings that can defy natural reality in some way?
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 220 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:39 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 225 by ringo, posted 10-22-2012 3:59 PM Straggler has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 223 of 3207 (676415)
10-22-2012 3:51 PM
Reply to: Message 218 by Straggler
10-22-2012 3:35 PM


Re: Absence of Certainty - Likelihood Only Option
Straggler writes:
Do you know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?
No.
I know how to bake a cake. I can demonstrate to you that I know.
I think it's pretty likely that the sun will rise tomorrow but I can't demonstrate it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 218 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:35 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 233 by Panda, posted 10-22-2012 6:34 PM ringo has replied
 Message 234 by Tangle, posted 10-23-2012 3:27 AM ringo has replied
 Message 235 by Straggler, posted 10-23-2012 8:00 AM ringo has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 224 of 3207 (676416)
10-22-2012 3:54 PM
Reply to: Message 219 by Rahvin
10-22-2012 3:37 PM


Re: The Northwest Passage
Rahvin writes:
That's the way it happened, but that doesn't mean it was a requirement - many similar discoveries have been made simply by analyzing aberrant data, simply stumbling over something important that we never even knew was there.
Data can only be aberrant if there is a framework for it to deviate from.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 219 by Rahvin, posted 10-22-2012 3:37 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 226 by Rahvin, posted 10-22-2012 4:03 PM ringo has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 225 of 3207 (676418)
10-22-2012 3:59 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by Straggler
10-22-2012 3:50 PM


Re: Snakes may be in the pudding
Straggler writes:
Well one is able to be explained by natural laws and phenomena whilst the other cannot be because it genuinely isn't natural.
What's the difference between something that "genuinely isn't natural" and something that we don't have a natural explanation for yet?
Straggler writes:
So how are you concluding that gods are anything other than a case of mistaken identity combined with the human idea that there actually exists beings that can defy natural reality in some way?
I'm concluding that gods might be something that we can't explain yet.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by Straggler, posted 10-22-2012 3:50 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 236 by Straggler, posted 10-23-2012 8:06 AM ringo has replied

  
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