Disappointed with Shermer

_{Mark

April 6, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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From EXPELLED Dr Caroline Crocker.

“Recently I attended a lecture by Michael Shermer at the UCSD Biological Science Symposium (4/2/09). His title was, “Why Darwin Matters,” but his topic was mostly religion. He started by defining science as “looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena” and said that his purpose was to “debunk the junk and expose sloppy thinking.”

We were all subjected to an evening of slapstick comedy, cheap laughs, and the demolition of straw men.

His characterization of ID was that the theory says, 1) If something looks designed, 2) We can’t think how it was designed naturally, 3) Therefore we assert that it was designed supernaturally. (God of the gaps.) Okay everyone, laugh away at the stupid ID theorists.

I was astonished at how a convinced Darwinist, who complains about mixing science and religion, spent most of his time at the Biological Science Symposium talking about religion.”

Get the full text here.

Comments

StephenB:
No, I don’t get my knowledge from one book. Which one of the principles are you having a problem with?
For starters, can you tell me what book you got the principle "something cannot come from nothing" from? If I need to accept it in order to be rational, I'd like to read up on exactly what it means. And does the book explain the logic by which "something can come from nothing" entails that anything is possible? It seems to me that I can envision a self-consistent reality in which some things can come from nothing but other things cannot, and therefore not everything is possible.R0b_{April 16, 2009
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I'm not having time to keep up here, but I am putting together some thoughts for a longer response. But I'd like to say that this objection about worrying about whether the universe will keep on keeping on seems silly to me. We have extremely ample evidence that the world keeps functioning moment to moment as it has done in the moments before, and therefore that continuing in existence is one of the properties of the universe irrespective of how it came into existence. The idea that God is a necessary requirement for upholding existence (if indeed anyone is arguing that) seems even more unlikely than some of the other "necessities" that are being argued here. So I agree completely with Nakashima when he says,
And I’m not going to worry that God will stop thinking the universe into continued existence if I haven’t got any clear evidence of God in the first place.
hazel_{April 16, 2009
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Mr Vjtorley, Thank you for your lengthy post. I'm glad you found the book interesting! I read it several years ago and I thought it was quite enjoyable as well. However, if we could return to some of my criticisms of Koons' paper, I would like your opinion. It seems that in your recent post also, you make frequent appeals to common sense, to our experience as a guide. I think this is exposing one of the most fundamental problems of the argument so far. We know very well that the universe, at extremes, does not behave at all like our intuition based on our common sense experience. Quantum mechanics, special relativity, general relativity, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is a good list to start with. And while evolution does give us good reason to think that our minds contain good models of the universe (for common values of our ancestor's experiences), evolution does not warrant the same for the extremes. We still suffer from optical illusions, even after 500 million years of eye evolution. Our mental architecture is quite hapazard, and it is vastly suprising at times that we reason as well as we do. But at the same time, I am not worried that the world will end tomorrow. Perhaps I don't know this absolutely, but we've never seen a change in the values of the laws, constants or dimensionality of the universe on any scale that would warrant such a fear. And I'm not going to worry that God will stop thinking the universe into continued existence if I haven't got any clear evidence of God in the first place.Nakashima_{April 16, 2009
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Thanks to StephenB and vjtorely for their responses. StephenB [560], your four reasons for insisting that the universe itself is contingent are not bad, but they are not compelling. Reason 1 ("Philosophically, we know that universes don’t create themselves") fails for the reasons I have mentioned before -- we don't know much at all about "universes." We are entirely within the frame of reference of a particular universe. Reason 2 ("Scientifically, we know that this universe began in time") is irrelevant, since the cause of this universe could be a previous universe or a Big Crunch or several other possibilities. Reason 3 ("everything around us, everything we know about, and everything we interact with in the universe is contingent. What is the universe, after all, except everything around us on a very large scale?") exhibits the Fallacy of Composition. Reason 4 ("we have to explain not only how the universe came into being but also how it continues to exist") -- huh? Maybe you have to explain that, but it doesn't bother me in the least. vjtorley [561]: thanks for your expressions of concern. I'm actually fine. It does depress me to see people hang a belief in God on the very thin peg of philosophical argument. As for the difficulty of thinking, I agree, though I would not privilege philosophical thinking above other forms. (In fact, I would say that in an important sense philosophy is preceded by rhetoric, though rhetoric does not "ground" philosophy. But that's another debate.) I think StephenB (and to lesser degree you) should abandon the pretense that you're teaching your opponents how to think. To your specific responses. Koons's identification of the universe with "the aggregate of all wholly contingent facts" may seem to be a conclusion rather than a premise, but that's because it amounts to a circular definition. Further, his use of the term "contingent" is slippery, and his argument that a cause for this aggregate must be wholly different from the cause(s) for any part of it is a consequence of this slipperiness. You suggest that I "re-read section 5.2, where Koons argues that the denial of the universality of causation (every wholly contingent fact has a cause) has an unacceptable conseuqence: radical skepticism about the future (the old problem of induction - i.e. will the sun rise tomorrow)." I have read that section and arguments like it, and I find such jerimiads about the slippery slope for skepticism hollow (such arguments have been eviscerated by any number of relativist philosophers). Diffaxial [462], you ask "can a “moral compass” be far behind?" Too late! vjtorley: "you must never make the mistake of replacing your inner metaphysical compass for some philosopher’s system of metaphysics." vjtorley also says: "If I were an atheist, I’d be constantly expecting my mind, and/or the world, to break down at any moment. After all, what’s to stop either of them from doing so?" There are answers to those questions -- reasoned defenses of the sufficiency of our knowledge from a materialist framework -- but those are not the focus of the current debate.David Kellogg_{April 16, 2009
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What I am claiming here is that it is possible for human beings to know that God exists, by using our reason. Knowledge, however, does not imply certitude. Knowledge does not require that one has an airtight argument for one’s conclusion, either. And knowledge does not have to be based on a set of indubitable premises. Indeed, we may properly be said to know many things that we cannot argue coherently for at all...he appeal of belief in a Personal, Self-Sufficient Agent who maintains the world in existence is that it lays these metaphysical anxieties to rest....Hold onto gut instincts like these, and you won’t lose your way. (etc.)
Here, and throughout this post, you are in full retreat from the assertion that has been at issue for the most of this thread. All the while you and yours are deep in self-congratulations for your great victory. Lets be clear: You and Stephen have repeatedly claimed that your conclusions follow virtually axiomatically from your premises, and Stephen in particular has attributed our unwillingness to walk his garden path of pre-laid, putatively air-tight logical steps to irrationality, unintelligence, or the inability to understand the most basic principles of logic. The core of virtually all of our responses and assertions has been to argue that this sort of axiomatic certitude does not follow in his domain. Now you agree. This is progress.
Diffaxial accuses me of “advocating one model over the other not because it is demonstrably true, but because it has consequences you prefer.” Not so. I’m advocating the God-model over the Natural Necessity model because it offers me a universe where I can think straight and think freely
Yes I do. And not only does this post further exemplify advocacy motivated by preferences for consequences (in spades), as well as admit gut feelings and inarticulable metaphysical intuitions into the fray (can a "moral compass" be far behind?), it articulates yet another, ellaborately dubious set of preferred consequences. Your argument that science and rationality would not be possible in the absence of God does no more than beg a great many questions.Diffaxial_{April 16, 2009
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I've been reading comments posted in the last 24 hours or so. But before I continue, I'd like to address one comment by David Kellogg that leapt out at me, so to speak:
First, I would like to say that this whole discussion has tended to weaken rather than strengthen what faith I have... Having read a number of what are represented as the best cosmological arguments available, I’m not that impressed. These arguments can be persuasive to some but are not necessarily persuasive to all, or to all reasonable people.
What I am claiming here is that it is possible for human beings to know that God exists, by using our reason. Knowledge, however, does not imply certitude. Knowledge does not require that one has an airtight argument for one's conclusion, either. And knowledge does not have to be based on a set of indubitable premises. Indeed, we may properly be said to know many things that we cannot argue coherently for at all. So my advice to David Kellogg is this: even if you do not like the cosmological argument, do not despair. The metaphysical grounds for belief in God are notoriously difficult to articulate, and we are fortunate to be living at a time in history when theistic philosophers have had the time and intellectual resources to devote themselves to formulating arguments for God's existence. But you must never make the mistake of replacing your inner metaphysical compass for some philosopher's system of metaphysics. For whoever he/she is, that philosopher is probably wrong on some or all points. It would be a terrible intellectual sin to base one's faith in God on Aristotelian or Thomist metaphysics, impressive as these systems are. At all costs, you need to hang on to your fundamental intuitions about reality, especially the ones that make thinking possible. So here's my gut intuition. What strikes me most about the enterprise of thinking is that it is both dizzyingly ambitious and terrifyingly fragile. It strikes me as nothing less than a miracle that we can think straight about any topic we care to address and understand the world as well as we do, and it also strikes me as a miracle that the world "behaves itself" in such a way that allows us to rationally investigate it - and yet, when we ask what guarantees either of these facts, we can find no answer in the world. If I were an atheist, I'd be constantly expecting my mind, and/or the world, to break down at any moment. After all, what's to stop either of them from doing so? The appeal of belief in a Personal, Self-Sufficient Agent who maintains the world in existence is that it lays these metaphysical anxieties to rest. As a matter of practical necessity, I have to believe that my mind continually "works," and that the world continually "works" - or I couldn't live at all. And yet when I examine the world, I find nothing to ground this belief. Provided that the concept of a self-sufficient all-knowing and all-loving God makes sense, - and as far as I can tell, it seems to - this concept of God makes faith in human rationality and the ongoing success of the scientific enterprise reasonable, despite their fragility. Our minds might be liable to break down; but God's is not. Hold onto gut instincts like these, and you won't lose your way. It's easy to get lost in the fog of argumentation, but correct metaphysical insights are required to make a good argument in the first place, especially in speculative matters like God's existence. We all need to cultivate our insights - for we lose them at our peril. Now, what alternatives do non-theists have to offer us? It has been proposed by Hazel and others that events in the world which appear contingent to us are in fact not so; and that the world might have arisen 13.7 billion years ago as a product of Necessity, working in Nature in its own mysterious way. As I understand Hazel, she seems to be proposing that the cosmos could be the output of a timeless underlying program, operating according to timeless principles that we call laws or cosmic connections. Events may appear to us to unfold in time, but the program itself is beyond time. The problem with this view, as I pointed out, is that human reasoning takes place in time. If the events which accompany or go to make up our rational deliberations - and it is irrelevant here whether we regard them as higher-level or lower-level events - take place within time, and all events unfolding within time are the outcome of a Natural Necessity which transcends time (and space), then we have two undesirable consequences: our own rational deliberations are not free, and we have no grounds for believing that they are true, except when they pertain to purely practical matters. Diffaxial accuses me of "advocating one model over the other not because it is demonstrably true, but because it has consequences you prefer." Not so. I'm advocating the God-model over the Natural Necessity model because it offers me a universe where I can think straight and think freely. Show me that the Natural Necessity model does that, and I'll be impressed. Science itself would not be possible as an enterprise unless we could think straight and think freely; consequently, any hypothesis which entails that we do neither is profoundly anti-scientific. Naturalism is just that. Any self-respecting scientist should shun naturalism like the plague, for it is toxic to pure and unfettered theoretical enquiry. Hazel asks:
Is an act of free will an example of something coming from nothing, is it an example of the result of lawful cause-and-effect, or is it an example of something coming from an unknown something (which can’t be nothing because we know, logically, that something can’t come from nothing?)
You might like to check out these very interesting links on freedom: http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/cogito/ http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/adequate_determinism.html http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/requirements.html Free choices have causes, but they are not determining causes, as Professor Koons points out in the article I cited above, at http://www.arn.org/docs/koons/cosmo.pdf . A great deal of ink has been spilt on this post, on the subject of whether something can come from nothing. My question for the skeptics is: how "nude" is your "nothing"? If your "nothing" excludes even underlying laws of a statistical nature (such as those of quantum mechanics, which permit tiny energy fluctuations for a period which depends on the size of the fluctuation), then what you are saying is that something can just pop into existence with no underlying rhyme or reason, and likewise disappear with no rhyme or reason. In other words, what you're saying is that naked singularities are real (as opposed to closed ones, such as you'd find inside a black hole). Anything can happen, literally. If naked singularities are real, then couches, books or even perfect replicas of me could just appear out of nowhere. But if that's what you think, then I don't think many scientists would agree with you. If you think that belief in naked singularities is more rational than belief in God, well, all I can say is: good luck! If on the other hand you acknowledge that the appearance of something from nothing requires at least some kind of underlying law - even one of a statistical nature - then I don't find your position troubling. All I would ask you to do is to dare to question those laws, and ask what lies beyond them. "But this is something that we have no right to do," I hear you reply. "We may only look for causes in the realm of experience, and not beyond it." David Kellogg, who champions this line of thinking, contends that "cause is an inference that is limited to the universe in which we live... Since any pre-existent cause was not limited to the operations of its laws, and since causality is among those laws, it seems to me we’re at an impasse." A point of clarification here: "law", "cause" and "explanation" are all quite different metaphysical notions, and we should not confuse them. A law is a regularity covering a class of events. We should expect any laws we uncover to apply only to our own cosmos - i.e. the world of our own experience. After all, they're just descriptions, nothing more. They simply describe what regularly happens. However, a cause is anything that directly or indirectly helps make some change or state of affairs happen, while an explanation is anything that enables us to properly understand some change or state of affairs - i.e. serves to render it intelligible. In an earlier post(#279), I described "cause" and "explanation" as meta-concepts, and pointed out that "explanation" is metaphysically even deeper than "cause." These meta-concepts are not impressions formed from experience; nor are they mere regular associations between two or more classes of events occurring together in our experience. If they were, then the debate about the true cause of global warming would be meaningless: any event that correlated well with the warming observed could just as well be called its cause as any other. "Cause" is a metphysical notion that requires us to abstract from experience; it describes something we cannot merely observe. The notion of an "explanation" serves to render intelligible the nexus between cause and effect - which is why scientists attempt to construct models of how global warming works. My point is: in order to understand the world, we need to invoke these meta-concepts, whose scope is not inherently limited to the world, as the notion of "law" is. We should indeed confine our talk of "laws" to the cosmos we live in; but there is no reason why we must do the same with causation and explanation, especially when the cosmos fails to explain its own ability to stay together, and to produce creatures that can reason reliably about it. So I ask the empiricists: do you feel no inclination, then, to enquire as to why our human reasoning works so well, despite its apparent liability to break down at any moment? Do you feel no inclination to enquire as to how the world "hangs together" and "behaves itself" so well, despite its apparent liability to fall apart at any moment? Are you really prepared to shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, nature just works. The mind just works. Don't ask why"? Whatever happened to your sense of curiosity? Mark Frank You object to my characterizing Koons' argument as a "rigorous proof":
I don't accept #6 [the proposition that our universe has a timeless cause which is wholly distinct from it - VJT] and as far as I can see Prof. Koons is quite open that he does not offer a rigorous proof. The best he can offer is excellent empirical evidence that justifies accepting "every non-necessary effect has a cause" as the default position.
"Proof" was an ill-advised word on my part; I should have spoken more clearly. However, Koons certainly makes considerable claims for the status of his argument. He writes in section 5.1:
[O]ur experience warrants adopting the causal principle as a default or defeasible rule. This means that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we may infer, about any wholly contingent fact, that it has a cause. That, however, is all that is needed for the cosmologically argument to be rationally compelling.
Perhaps that's what I should have said in the first place. David Kellogg You write:
First, Koons defines the universe as "the aggregate of all wholly contingent facts" (sec 6.2). I don't think we know enough about the universe to define it in such a way.
Actually, he doesn't say that. He does say at the beginning of section 6, "I would go so far as to say that every physical fact is contingent," but he doesn't define the universe as the aggregate of all contingent facts (although at the end of part 6 he tentatively identifies it with this aggregate). Instead, what Koons does is define a class C of all wholly contingent facts in Definition 2 of part 6.2. He argues that such a class must exist, on the basis that there is at least one contingent fact in our world. That's a pretty modest assumption. He then argues, using the principle that every wholly contingent fact has a cause, that C has a Necessary cause which in no way overlaps with it, and in section 7, he goes on to argue that the Necessary cause cannot be an aggregate (else it would be contingent), or have any basic attributes that are contingent, or possess any quantifiable attributes such as dimensions (or once again, it would be contingent) or be located in space and time (or its location, which is a basic attribute of any object, would be a contingent fact). Only then does Koons conclude that the Necessary Cause cannot be a physical object. You object that "C could have many causes." I suggest you re-read section 7, where Koons argues that if the Necessary Cause were a collection of multiple entities who were capable of being separated from each other, it would be contingent and hence not necessary. In other words, if God includes multiple entities, then they are inseparable - in which case, I'd be inclined to call them one entity. I should add that if you don't like Koons arguing from the aggregate to a Necessary Cause, he offers an alternative argument in his lecture notes at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/menus/lecture.html , where he provides (in lecture 10) a revised version of his cosmological argument, which starts with the sum of all the wholly contingent causes of a single contingent fact, and then show that this sum requires a necessary cause. You also object to Koons' treatment of Kant's objection, "Isn’t causation valid only for the phenomenal world?" I suggest you re-read section 5.2, where Koons argues that the denial of the universality of causation (every wholly contingent fact has a cause) has an unacceptable conseuqence: radical skepticism about the future (the old problem of induction - i.e. will the sun rise tomorrow). Mr. Nakashima You write:
Since we are discussing Koons’ paper, I’d like to raise some points about his objections to a large (perhaps infinite) number of universes. Koons objects to a "junky cosmos" as bad science and against Occam's Razor. I don't see this to be the case.
You make some valid points in your post, and the book you link to looks very interesting indeed! I haven't read much of it yet, but liked Friedkin's assertion that we should be able to understand everything! I should add that I have no problem with God's creating extra universes for His own purposes - or even for ours (I believe Max Deutsch argues that high-level computing could not work without them). On a more serious note, however, Koons' real point against the junky cosmos is that even if there is one, it doesn't solve the problem of induction: since there are infinitely many more ways in which the universe can "go wrong" in the future than the number of ways in which it can go right, it makes no rational sense (if we additionally posit that there is no God) to expect the laws of nature to continue to hold tomorrow, as our universe will probably be one of the unlucky ones, despite its lucky track record to date. Anything could happen. As far as I can tell, no-one has answered Koons on that vital point. Well, that's enough for today.vjtorley_{April 15, 2009
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David Kellogg: I will try to be more diplomatic....again! Those of us who claim that the universe is contingent have provided very good reasons for holding that view. Philosophically, we know that universes don’t create themselves. Scientifically, we know that this universe began in time. Further, everything around us, everything we know about, and everything we interact with in the universe is contingent. What is the universe, after all, except everything around us on a very large scale? Further still, we have to explain not only how the universe came into being but also how it continues to exist. Those are four very good reasons for insisting that the universe is contingent AND that it had an antecedent cause. As I understand your comments, you have no counter argument except to say that we don’t know enough. Excuse me, but that is not a strong answer. On the matter of extending logic beyond creation’s door, I have made these points before but I will frame them a little differently.. [A] When atheist scientists discovered evidence for the big bang, they became very upset and had to be dragged in kicking and screaming before they could accept the finding. Why was that? It was because it showed first of all that the universe began in time and second that the universe was contingent and third that it pointed toward an antecedent cause. Do you think they were consoled with the hope that causation stopped at creation’s door? The record shows that they were not. They understood all too well what it meant. [B] We need not worry about whether science and metaphysics embrace the same principles of cause and effect because metaphysics PROVIDED those principles in the first place. It was the Christian notion that God created a rational universe that launched the scientific enterprise and it was the early scientists conviction that they were “thinking God’s thoughts after him,” that prompted them to follow through in spite of all their early discouragements. If you had told them that the laws of cause and effect are irrelevant to the cause of the universe, they would not have been open to that proposition. The more we learn about science, the more reason we have to believe in a first cause. More evidence may be found in the work, “The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science,” by Burtt. On other matters: Kant’s objection is relevant only to the ontological argument. It doesn’t invalidate the cosmological argument in any way. That is all Koon was saying. I could take fifteen paragraphs to make the point and add a lot of symbols, but that is what it all adds up to. ------“Even accepting dubious notions of what it means for the universe to be caused, to require a cause for anything presumes that those making the claim live in the universe we now inhabit (hence the appeal to empricism). Since any pre-existent cause was not limited to the operations of its laws, and since causality is among those laws, it seems to me we’re at an impasse.” There is nothing dubious about the fact that something cannot come from nothing. It is about as basic as things can get. Here is the way it appears to me: You, Diffaxial, and Hazel are simply repeating the same answer to every question regardless of the evidence or reasons provided. Either the terms are too loose or "I don't think it works" or "that doesn't follow." Frankly, it doesn't take much mental exertion to say, "I'm not convinced," time after time after time.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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A note on vjtorley's comment [498]. What parts do I disagree with? 1. Every individual with specified teleological properties has an intelligent cause which is distinct from it. A number of terms are loose or undefined (individual, specified teleological properties, intelligent cause). Further, the complex form of the claim suggests that it arrives at the end point of an argument. Why make it an assumption? 2. our universe has specified teleological propertiesI don't think this fine tuning claim works, but that would take another set of posts. 3. There exists a cause of our spatio-temporal universe which is intelligent and distinct from it. Besides making "our spatio-temporal universe" an individual, it shifts "intelligent" to another part of the syntax (significantly?) it's hard to tell. If Premise 1 is debatable, then 3 does not follow. 4. our universe had a cause which is wholly distinct from it. Koons has not establihsed this.David Kellogg_{April 15, 2009
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Diffaxial, I'm not a 'participant' in this conversation in any real sense, but I thought I'd chime in as a passive observer (And yes, I'm as biased as anyone else). What's more, no participant here has to be an NA for this exchange not to bode well for them in my view - but then, c'mon. Lately there's no shortage of atheists (and certainly agnostics) who think the NA's are a lost cause. Like I said, what mostly caught my eye is the all-defense, outnumbered state of VJ and StephenB, and their performance. Everyone on the offense here could be theists (It's not like every theist agrees with each other, you know) and the result would be the same for me. Either way, it was just a compliment and some observation. Let's see if this can hit the 600+ mark.nullasalus_{April 15, 2009
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nullasalus
I’ve gotta say - the New Atheists are in even worse shape than I thought...Besides, next to no one offers arguments in favor of atheism - in fact the modern, New Atheist trend is to avoid the very challenge like the plague.
If memory serves, among major participants, David has identified himself as a theist, I checked in as an agnostic whose argument throughout has been that neither proofs nor disproofs of the existence of God of this kind can succeed, and hazel self-identifies as an atheist. So your reading of the significance of the discussion vis the "new atheists" seems a wee bit off kilter. Whether Stephen and VJ's arguments are still standing should be left to less partisan judges than the participants here.Diffaxial_{April 15, 2009
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Well, this has been an interesting exercise. I have read not only Koons's article "A New Look at the Cosmological Argument" but also a number of other recent texts, both for and against the cosmological argument, to get a sense of how the argument is being made. My sense of the history is that the cosmological argument was more or less dead but has been revived in recent decades by William Lane Craig and a few others. Caveats: I'm not a philosopher, and my knowledge of this kind of logical notation is amateurish (though I'd be willing to test my knowedge against opponents other than vjtorley). I'll talk about Koons (which I read first) in this comment, and I'll follow up on some other issues later. First, I would like to say that this whole discussion has tended to weaken rather than strengthen what faith I have. (Must not be much of a faith then, I can hear some of you saying, and that may be true. But there you go.) I've been especially affected by the high stakes StephenB assigns to these arguments, along with his increasingly shrill insistance that his is the only rational view on the issue. Having read a number of what are represented as the best cosmological arguments available, I'm not that impressed. They arguments can be persuasive to some but are not necessarily persuasive to all, or to all reasonable people. StephenB's forceful assertion that they must be persuasive to all reasonable people seems to me like desperation. Now, my take on Koons. Koons is relatively clear. One of the advantages of stating things in formal terms is that the assumptions can be clearly identified. (This is what vjtorley did above. Contrary to StephenB's assertion, and consistent with vjtorley's, that really was the beginning and not the end of a kind of discussion, because we could finally clarify what was being asserted.) A potential disadvantage of such formalization is that it may offer the illusion that things in philosophy have the precision of mathematics. I would say they don't have that precision. Referring to a "lemma" in philosophy is an area where formalization offers more than it gives. A lemma in mathematics carries considerable force; calling such a proposition a "lemma" is to bask in the borrowed glory of mathematics. because we're never going to rid ourselves of conceptual issues, and the cosmologial argument easily shifts between conceptual and logical grounds. So: is there anything to take issue with? I'd say yes. First, Koons defines the universe as "the aggregate of all wholly contingent facts" (sec 6.2). I don't think we know enough about the universe to define it in such a way. Further, that definition smuggles contingency into a definition of the universe in a way that makes a conclusion that the universe is contingent seem necessary when it is not. In the same section, Koons offers Lemma 3: "If there are any contingent facts, C is a wholly contingent fact." Now, I'm not sure I follow this argument completely, but it does seem that Koons reaches this conclusion by the fallacy of the heap. (It also rests on his definition earlier, to which I objected.) I also object to Lemma 4, "If there are any contingent facts, C has a cause." This continues the problem of the heap, and it also does not define "cause" sufficiently. C could have many causes, and the cause or causes could merely be antecedent conditions leading to the creation of the universe as we know it. I find section 8.2, "Isn't causation valid only for the phenomenal world?" wanting. Here Koons replies to an argument of Kant. I don't fully get that debate, but the discussion opens a hole. Koons says that Kant's objection
is not relevant to an argument like mine that rigorously appeals only to empirical, a posteriori arguments. I am not claiming that the axioms of causality I am appealing to are known by us prior to their application to the world of experience. Instead, I appeal to our success in finding causal explanations as empirical evidence for these generalizations.
The statement implicitly supports something hazel and I have tried (and failed) to get across to StephenB: that is, cause is an inference that is limited to the universe in which we live. Even accepting dubious notions of what it means for the universe to be caused, to require a cause for anything presumes that those making the claim live in the universe we now inhabit (hence the appeal to empricism). Since any pre-existent cause was not limited to the operations of its laws, and since causality is among those laws, it seems to me we're at an impasse. So, anyway, that's the report of my first, naive pass through Koons. I have some other objections as well, but this note is long enough. I'll follow up with some comments on other cosmological arguments as well as some critiques I had not anticipated.David Kellogg_{April 15, 2009
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Nah, Dave, I'm reading this exact same thread, and I stand by my words. And I say it after quietly watching this play out for quite a while now. I didn't say the discussion has ever been one -for- atheism. In fact, I pointed out it's been all-offense to VJ and StephenB's defense. Besides, next to no one offers arguments in favor of atheism - in fact the modern, New Atheist trend is to avoid the very challenge like the plague. Even panpsychism fares better as a claim to argue positively for. And yes, I see the repeated complaints about StephenB's tone and what a mean guy he is. As someone who has personally engaged in long debate with StephenB before (he can attest to as much), all I can say is - who cares? Why bring it up to me, especially when I made no praise (or denunciation) of anyone's tone? Call StephenB's (or even VJTorley's, for that matter) views extreme if you wish. I'm just piping up to say how amused I am at the state of the argument after a very long, devoted, outnumbered offense. Sure, I'm sympathetic to Thomistic and Aristotilean arguments. And hell, the diplomat in me probably wouldn't go as far as StephenB is. But you don't need to go as far as he does to bury the New Atheist take on theism anyway. Guess we'll see if this discussion will reach 600+, and if it will devolve to 'Well, at least admit it's possible atheism isn't totally irrational, you meanie! C'mon, be a sport!'nullasalus_{April 15, 2009
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nullasalas: Thanks for the kind words. Dare I say that its nice to hear the voice of reason. Oops, someone among those who think something can come from nothing, might take that the wrong way. You know how I hate to offend people.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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nullasalus [552], you must be reading a different thread -- or perhaps you're saying this just because you're on StephenB's side. StephenB's first comment [58] offered no argument but a remarkably simplistic comparison/contrast of "the Christian religion and the Darwinist religion." The current debate began at [70], with StephenB's attack on hazel's carefully stated and provisional atheism as irrational. He said there that "atheism is not, and could never be, a rational position." Here he offered the proposition that "Once one assumes existence, the fact of a self existent creator is an inescapable conclusion for all those who reason properly." This has been, in my view, the subject of the ensuing debate. The argument has never been one for atheism. It has only been about StephenB's remarkably arrogant contention that only theists are rational. Now, vjtorley is a different story. He offers interesting, carefully reasoned arguments for his view. I don't think he's called anybody else irrational though, so I don't know if he shares StephenB's rather extreme view on this point.David Kellogg_{April 15, 2009
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I've got to say - you all are at 550+ posts now, with quite a share of those being a collective all-offense, no-defense (as in, offering no alternative) against what vjtorley and StephenB have laid out, both in terms of a foundation for reason, and a rational explanation of contingencies themselves. Since cheerleading is abundant in this thread, I'm happy to chime in with - throughout that one-sided onslaught, VJ and StephenB are not only still standing thanks to their arguments, but so far the best argument against them is an appeal to the Great Unknown and inklings of, oddly, a fideistic approach to reason and related topics. 'Anything but your answer!' seems to be the rallying cry here. If this is a sample of the great leap forward in rationality that was supposed to bury theism as a reasonable (even vastly preferable, in terms of argument and reasoning) option in the modern world, I've gotta say - the New Atheists are in even worse shape than I thought.nullasalus_{April 15, 2009
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Better yet, list all the principles that you have a problem with.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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----Rob: "StephenB, I find your principles of right reason to be, um, unique. Is there any literature that expounds on this particular set of principles, which you claim all rational people accept?" No, I don't get my knowledge from one book. Which one of the principles are you having a problem with?StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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StephenB, I find your principles of right reason to be, um, unique. Is there any literature that expounds on this particular set of principles, which you claim all rational people accept?R0b_{April 15, 2009
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Interesting point, R0b. Thinking about a post of vj's this morning, I ask: Is an act of free will an example of something coming from nothing, is it an example of the result of lawful cause-and-effect, or is it an example of something coming from an unknown something (which can't be nothing because we know, logically, that something can't come from nothing? Hmmmm. :)hazel_{April 15, 2009
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----Rob: "Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is the principle of cause and effect? Are you a determinist?" No. Good night all.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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StephenB:
Assumption: Something cannot come from nothing—-the foundation of the principle of cause and effect.
Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is the principle of cause and effect? Are you a determinist?R0b_{April 15, 2009
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---Hazel: "That is my answer to your question. If you’d like to write a little essay on the foundations of logic, then please do so, but my guess is that my disagreement with your thoughts would be just another example of the same more fundamental disagreements that separate us. It is less about disagreeing and more about learning. Both science and logic depend on assumptions about rationality. Two big ones are as follows: Assumption: Something cannot come from nothing----the foundation of the principle of cause and effect. Assumption: The law of non-contradiction------one of several foundations for logic. These are not the only ones, but, presumably, you get the drift. We reason FROM these assumptions TO other things. I thought I would point that out, since most of you, at one time or another, have told me that there is no "evidence" for these assumptions, which reflects a startling level of cluelessness. The assumptions cannot be proven; they must be accepted even before the discussion begins. To deny them is to abandon reason itself. They are NOT "deductions" or "inductions" or "abductions," or any other reasoning tool. They are the rational foundation, or the building blocks for the reasoning tools. So, when someone tells me that [A] I need to provide evidence for these assumptions, they are also telling me that [B] they have CHOSEN not to accept them [C} they think that they can be proven, and [D] they don't understand their role as foundational to the whole enterprise. That's a lot not to know. So, when I indicate that my adversaries militate against reason, I am not saying that they have low IQ's. The point is that they have CHOSEN to be irrational by virtue of the fact that they reject the foundations for science and logic. I will be a little more respectful when they show some sign of life with respect to the matters.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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Whoops: Koons not Koon.David Kellogg_{April 15, 2009
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StephenB writes, "Koon’s exceedingly mild disclaimer was a polite way of saying that we ought to go with his proposition, and that it is a waste of time to consider the alternative without any good reasons, for which there are none." Maybe. But maybe Koon doesn't want to claim too much, since he's had a tendency to hyperbole in the past. (He memorably said that Dr. Dembski was "the Isaac Newton of information theory," a claim that would come as a surprise to information theory.) I'm still working through the papers and will have a response in a bit.David Kellogg_{April 15, 2009
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Stephen, you wrote, "I didn’t ask you if you accept them. I asked you if you know anything about their foundation." But I had already written, "I am sure we disagree about where they come from, but that disagreement is precisely the big topic that we are discussing." That is my answer to your question. If you'd like to write a little essay on the foundations of logic, then please do so, but my guess is that my disagreement with your thoughts would be just another example of the same more fundamental disagreements that separate us.hazel_{April 15, 2009
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----Hazel: Of course we can make it a deductive conclusion by defining “nothing” as “that out of which something cannot come” or “something” as “that which must come from something else.” In this case the conclusion that something cannot come from nothing is a tautological truth, based on our definitions, but now it is not grounded in evidence." That isn't the way things work, but I can't explain it to you until you provide the prior information that I asked you about, namely your account of the foundations of logic.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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----Hazel: "That’s important. Early people did not know that things could not just “appear” out of nothing," Things don't appear out of nothing; they appear out of the unknown. To not know that is to not know a lot.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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----Mark Frank: "Where does he say that? The closest I can find in the paper is where he says that the empirical evidence for the axiom is so great we should treat it as the default position." Koon's exceedingly mild disclaimer was a polite way of saying that we ought to go with his proposition, and that it is a waste of time to consider the alternative without any good reasons, for which there are none. Much less should the alternative be used as an objection against a rational universe of causes and effects or as an excuse to think that something can come from nothing. I just thought I would do a little translating for the hyperskeptics. It's a small risk, I'll grant you.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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At 536, Mark Frank writes of Koons:
The closest I can find in the paper is where he says that the empirical evidence for the axiom is so great we should treat it as the default position.
That's important. Early people did not know that things could not just "appear" out of nothing, it wasn't until a few hundred years ago that they knew that things like flies didn't just spontaneously generate, and special creationists to this day believe that creation ex nihilo rather than common descent accounts for the distinctions between species. So the conclusion that something cannot come from nothing is actually an inductive conclusion about how this world works, and our success in finding the somethings out of which other somethings come has made it the "default position". Of course we can make it a deductive conclusion by defining "nothing" as "that out of which something cannot come" or "something" as "that which must come from something else." In this case the conclusion that something cannot come from nothing is a tautological truth, based on our definitions, but now it is not grounded in evidence. The difference between these two cases is the heart of the running disagreement between the two major camps in this discussion, and specifically between Stephen and me.hazel_{April 15, 2009
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----Hazel: "I accept the rules of logic." I didn't ask you if you accept them. I asked you if you know anything about their foundation.StephenB_{April 15, 2009
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