tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post2551358098226177538..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: An interview with Alvin PlantingaVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-10579539631850200912014-02-25T21:03:10.972-07:002014-02-25T21:03:10.972-07:00http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2014/0...http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2014/02/23/plantinga-on-the-alleged-irrationality-of-atheism/Secular Outposthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10289884295542007401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-83157021302040770532014-02-25T06:05:42.025-07:002014-02-25T06:05:42.025-07:00Frances:
The point of a multiverse is to explain ...Frances:<br /><br />The point of a multiverse is to explain why something that doesn't look like an accident, a fine-tuned universe, in fact is an accident<br /><br />It's not true that the Multiverse theory was invented as a response to the "fine-tuning" argument. It is posited because it explains other things about the universe we live in.<br /><br />---------<br /><br />I agree with you. I am aware of the claim that multiverse theory was originally proposed (rather tentatively) by Wheeler and others as a possible explanation of the collapse of the wave function in physics. But one reason why multiverse theory has gained favor is because of its naturalistic answer to the fine-tuning question. I concede that I overstated my point and should have said "one of the reasons" instead of "the reason."<br /><br />Sam Calvinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03517785944163539482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-63552407369873784582014-02-16T07:41:42.983-07:002014-02-16T07:41:42.983-07:00William,
Thanks for this. I agree that this make...William,<br /><br />Thanks for this. I agree that this makes much more sense and now I can stop agonsing about how Plantinga could <i>possibly</i> have imagined that naturalistic evolution could not account for the real reason we run away from tigers.<br /><br />But where I still think Plantinga's going wrong is what seems to be an assumption that metaphysical/philosophical beliefs are coming from a completely different place to beliefs about the truth about tigers. <br /><br />My take on this would be that the ability to reason is the same ability whether it's used in planning a hunt with a successful outcome (prey do what you reasonably predict and end up tumbling into the trap) or whether it's used to formulate (or understand) philosophical concepts. <br /><br />I also think that Plantinga seems to understand evolution as working in a very simple way, with skills only being selected for if they have an immediate survival advantage. But it's more complicated than that. The ability to play the piano or sing might seem to have no obvious connection with evolutionary success but in Jane Austen's novels the woman who could do these things well had a better chance of passing on her genes because she would be seen as "accomplished" and therefore worthier of selection by a high status male. In much the same way a display of intelligence which would be involved in reasoning about philosophical subjects would make someone more attractive to a potential mate.franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-72367309280660168242014-02-15T23:18:21.207-07:002014-02-15T23:18:21.207-07:00Frances:
I think we agree that the EAAN creates a...Frances:<br /><br />I think we agree that the EAAN creates a very weak defeater for most ordinary knowledge about our environment. That is why the tigers example was always unfortunate, though it was interestingly provocative, I think.<br /><br />A much more limited version applying only to <i>metaphysical</i> beliefs remains valid as a defeater against <i>metaphysical</i> physicalism, but not methodological naturalism. <br /><br /><a href="http://ichthus77.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/wilkins-and-eaan-reply-by-dr-alvin.html" rel="nofollow"> See for example this reply by Plantinga. </a>Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-7698413183611387452014-02-14T15:50:43.814-07:002014-02-14T15:50:43.814-07:00Hi Frances,
I'm afraid I'm no epistemologi...Hi Frances,<br />I'm afraid I'm no epistemologist. I'd say I have basic beliefs about the objects I'm acquainted with, and about mathematical objects, but any attempt I make to justify my belief, say, that <i>the Prime Minister is a man called David Cameron</i>, seems to generate a never-ending tree of further justification obligations. However, disagreements over matters of fact can get resolved if common ground can be found from which the disputants can work forward, so a kind of relative justification seems possible even if the absolute kind is not. Interesting. The Nagel quote seems relevant here too.<br /><br />I'm delighted you think so. We do too! Thank you so much for not saying 'cute' ;-)David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-38445880893750972692014-02-14T15:02:37.402-07:002014-02-14T15:02:37.402-07:00From Nagel's NYT review of Plantinga's Whe...From Nagel's <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/sep/27/philosopher-defends-religion/?pagination=false" rel="nofollow">NYT review</a> of Plantinga's <i>Where the Conflict Really Lies</i>. Recommended.<br /><br />It is illuminating to have the starkness of the opposition between Plantinga’s theism and the secular outlook so clearly explained. My instinctively atheistic perspective implies that if I ever found myself flooded with the conviction that what the Nicene Creed says is true, the most likely explanation would be that I was losing my mind, not that I was being granted the gift of faith. From Plantinga’s point of view, by contrast, I suffer from a kind of spiritual blindness from which I am unwilling to be cured. <i>This is a huge epistemological gulf, and it cannot be overcome by the cooperative employment of the cognitive faculties that we share, as is the hope with scientific disagreements.</i><br /><br />My italicsDavid Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-49767633772958570212014-02-14T13:37:06.629-07:002014-02-14T13:37:06.629-07:00planks,
"This is why skeptics like im-skepti...planks,<br /><br />"This is why skeptics like im-skeptical are barking up the wrong tree. They desperately long for something more fulfilling than the arid, inhuman materialism that provides no comfort, no hope, no purpose, no acknowledgement of their human nature, no ground to stand upon, no explanation of why they are what they are, no meeting of their deepest and truest needs."<br /><br />You made this same assertion before, and I answered. Clearly you have ignored what I had to say on the matter. You are mistaken in assuming that materialists have no sense of humanity. In fact, many of us call ourselves humanists.im-skepticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08267710618719895303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-45993094970998119482014-02-14T06:43:20.302-07:002014-02-14T06:43:20.302-07:00David,
Doesn't this get us into an infinite re...David,<br /><i>Doesn't this get us into an infinite regress? For if one believed B that G1, G2,... were reasonable grounds for believing P, couldn't one ask what were the reasonable grounds for believing B? </i><br /><br />I think you could legitimately ask that. But at some point you would come up against either a proposition where you both agreed that it was supported by valid arguments/evidence or you would come to a properly basic belief.<br /><br />PS - Your dogs are lovely.<br />franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-36725659396771279242014-02-14T06:43:03.187-07:002014-02-14T06:43:03.187-07:00David,
You ask, "Will anyone say they have b...David,<br /><br />You ask, "<i>Will anyone say they have been brought to believe through metaphysical argument?</i>"<br /><br />I answer: perhaps there have been people persuaded to believe in the Gospel solely by means of argument. But I would hasten to add that such a "bringing to belief" would be totally irrelevant - of no use to the person himself or to humanity at large. (Repeating myself here from a different posting to this website), as Pope Benedict XVI wrote (slightly paraphrased, so no quote marks), <b>Christianity is not just an intellectual idea, but is rather an encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a new direction.</b><br /><br />This is why skeptics like im-skeptical are barking up the wrong tree. They desperately long for something more fulfilling than the arid, inhuman materialism that provides no comfort, no hope, no purpose, no acknowledgement of their human nature, no ground to stand upon, no explanation of why they are what they are, no meeting of their deepest and truest needs. But an obstinate insistence on "observed facts" (the drunk searching for his lost car keys under the streetlamp) prevents them from finding God blazingly apparent in every rock and stone around them.<br /><br /><b>I the Lord have not spoken from hiding, nor from a land of darkness. And I have not said to the descendents of Jacob, "Seek me in an empty waste or in chaos."</b> (Isaiah 45:19)planks lengthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01176715815596833639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-68222372624398257492014-02-14T06:38:01.637-07:002014-02-14T06:38:01.637-07:00EDIT
Nobody spotted my - ahem - deliberate mistak...EDIT<br /><br />Nobody spotted my - ahem - deliberate mistake. Of course, it's not the Evolutionary Argument Against Natural Selection. Duh! It's the Evolutionary Argument against *Naturalism* (EAAN)<br /><br />William,<br />I don't exactly read Plantinga as saying that beliefs are inherited. However much I disagree with him, I don't underestimate his intelligence, so doubt that he would made such a rookie error. <br />But I can't find what it is that he's saying IS inherited, why it confers some advantage in its first crude manifestations and how it becomes more pronounced by being selected for through the generations. <br />The EAAN is based on the premise that if you can form beliefs that might, through a lucky combination of circumstances, lead to adaptive behaviour, then the law of averages will ensure that you win the battle of the 4Fs. But to accept this, you must accept that no evolutionary advantage whatsoever is conferred by being able to form correct beliefs. I can't see how this can be right. <br />If you have the ability to work out what is true and what isn't then you are more likely to be able to plan successfully. However good Paul is at getting away from tigers, if his mate Peter has the ability to watch what happens to those who don't run away fast enough to befriend tigers and to adjust his beliefs about tigers accordingly, then Peter is better equipped in the 4F competition.<br />It's true we are somewhat slewed towards "false positives" because it is 4F friendlier to mistake a creeper for a snake than it is to mistake snake for a creeper. But I don't see that that goes so far as to support Plantinga's central hypothesis.franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-27232697692510984352014-02-14T03:48:40.718-07:002014-02-14T03:48:40.718-07:00I wonder if 'belief' and 'evidence'...I wonder if 'belief' and 'evidence' are the right words in this context. They obviously are in the case of the thoroughly tangible FSM. But in the case of 'God', and indeed of 'electron', it's not clear quite what we are asked to 'believe' in. Now, I can do the electron talk fairly comfortably but if you ask me quite what an electron is I start to wave my hands. It's become clear that an electron is not like something one can believe in writ very, very small. Just to talk of 'an' electron may be misleading. I'm less comfortable with the God talk, perhaps through lack of practice, and even less sure what the words are pointing to. It's not, for example, like something one can believe in writ very, very large. With electrons I can take refuge in equations. Lacking the sensus divinitatis, what can I take refuge in with God? Will anyone say they have been brought to believe through metaphysical argument? None of these, to my mind, is as compelling as mathematics. But that may just be my intellectual luck.David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-74929026581315535362014-02-13T22:26:11.895-07:002014-02-13T22:26:11.895-07:00David Brightly,
Of course there are grounds for b...David Brightly,<br /><br />Of course there are grounds for belief. There are observed facts. That's the best starting point available to us for formulating postulations about what constitutes reality.im-skepticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08267710618719895303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-8695040179795962542014-02-13T19:35:32.711-07:002014-02-13T19:35:32.711-07:00Frances says to Planks,
Skep's challenge to y...Frances says to Planks,<br /><br />Skep's challenge to you to is to ask you to consider what constitutes reasonable grounds for belief.<br /><br />Doesn't this get us into an infinite regress? For if one believed B that G1, G2,... were reasonable grounds for believing P, couldn't one ask what were the reasonable grounds for believing B? And this suggests that if there are such things as 'grounds for belief' then they aren't propositional.David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-22064819726424363262014-02-13T15:33:04.909-07:002014-02-13T15:33:04.909-07:00"Whoever said it did?"
I wasn't say..."<i>Whoever said it did?</i>"<br /><br />I wasn't saying you did. But the following statement of yours indicates a basic misunderstanding of the fundamental problem with the FSM "argument": "you can't use [generations-long belief] as a basis for distinguishing FSM from God <b>without begging the question of whether God was made up</b>" (my emphasis) <br /><br />The difference here is not between one idea that is made up and another that is not, but rather one that is <b>known</b> to be made up and another that is the subject under debate. Night and day difference. Makes all reference to the FSM completely pointless, and indeed counter-productive.planks lengthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01176715815596833639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-82732708393422382112014-02-13T15:28:50.810-07:002014-02-13T15:28:50.810-07:00frances,
I wonder if you are reading Plantinga as...frances,<br /><br />I wonder if you are reading Plantinga as saying that beliefs are inherited. I think the flee-tiger-to-make-friends analogy was always unfortunate. The issue is one of the reliability of our belief formation. If we tended to make absurd beliefs in such a way (gerrymandered of course, to us from where we reason now) that they resulted in more and healthier offspring, then we might have absurd beliefs, yet these absurdities of thought would be selected for by the part of evolution that depends on natural selection (admittedly there is also genetic drift and so forth).<br /><br />Ironically, it is exactly this argument that has been co-opted by some atheists to explain the prevalence of theism in the general population. The claim they make is more or less that religion is a side effect of vigilance against predators.Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31526239806294691192014-02-13T14:52:13.432-07:002014-02-13T14:52:13.432-07:00"but the fact that something has been believe...<i>"but the fact that something has been believed for generations doesn't mean that it didn't start as made up"<br /><br />And neither does it imply that it was.</i><br /><br />Whoever said it did?<br />franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-37127307608839233472014-02-13T14:47:42.780-07:002014-02-13T14:47:42.780-07:00" If you wouldn't accept lack of positive..."<i> If you wouldn't accept lack of positive proof that there's no FSM as a good reason to believe that there might be a FSM, would you say the same about God? If not, why not?</i>"<br /><br />Frances, See my comments posted to the conversation "Lowder on the Pastafarian analogy" above this one. I've already answered this up there.<br /><br />"<i>but the fact that something has been believed for generations doesn't mean that it didn't start as made up</i>"<br /><br />And neither does it imply that it was.planks lengthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01176715815596833639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-2614247586004176022014-02-13T14:12:18.767-07:002014-02-13T14:12:18.767-07:00One of the things I can't understand about Pla...One of the things I can't understand about Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Natural Selection (EAANS) is why it has so little to do with evolution, given that "Evolution" plays such an important role in the title. It would be better titled "the Survival Argument Against Natural Selection."<br /><br />For evolution to take place the following things have to be true of the organism:<br />1. It must reproduce<br />2. The reproduction must allow variations (not perfect copies every time)<br />3. The characteristics of these variations must be heritable.<br />4. They must be capable of conferring some advantage or disadvantage in what Plantinga calls the "4 Fs" (Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding or errr, Freproducing)<br /><br />The beneficial variations lead to the at least one of the 4 Fs being achieved and so become more and more enhanced in the offspring. An insect that looks somewhat like a twig will have some advantage over other insects which don't look at all like twigs so will probably live longer and produce more offspring than the others. Some of those offspring will look even more like twigs than their mother, some less. The latter will tend to get picked off before they can reproduce as often as their luckier brothers and sisters. So the most twig-like produce the most offspring some of which will again look even more like twigs than either their parents or grandmother. And so on, the advantageous traits being always selected for and the less advantageous weeded out.<br /><br />Survival is a part of this process but it is just a part. It is not the same as evolution. It is one of the means by which evolution operates but the two are not the same.<br /><br />Plantinga talks a lot about how beliefs might produce adaptive behaviour but in all the versions of the EAANS I've read, he never (that I've seen) gets to grips with <br />1. What <i>heritable</i> characteristic is possessed by the beings he describes (such as Paul, who runs away from tigers in order to befriend them)<br />2. How, if any heritable characteristic can be identified, it could get "better" at whatever it is supposed to do. Plantinga's characters survive, and that's all they do, by good luck it seems to me. They don't ever get "more" or "better versions" of whatever the gene is supposed to be and so they never change. But change is what evolution is all about.franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-11906961854060730352014-02-13T13:36:29.282-07:002014-02-13T13:36:29.282-07:00Planks,
when you make statements like "[The ...Planks,<br /><br /><i>when you make statements like "[The FSM] definitely exists. Prove me wrong", you are either lying or merely blowing smoke. Either way, what you are not being is serious. </i><br /><br />Your indignation is misplaced here. What skeppy is inviting you to do is to take part in a thought experiment. If you were asked to disprove the existence of something for which there was no actual evidence, how would you do it? And if you couldn't do it, what effect would that have (or ought it to have) on your acceptance of its existence? It's irrelevant that skep doesn't actually believe in the FSM. It doesn't matter that you do genuinely believe in God. The sincerity with which a view is held has nothing to do with its reasonableness and cannot in any way go towards discharging the burden of proof.<br /><br />Skep's challenge to you to is to ask you to consider what constitutes reasonable grounds for belief. If you wouldn't accept lack of positive proof that there's no FSM as a good reason to believe that there might be a FSM, would you say the same about God? If not, why not?<br /><br />The fact that there is no debate about whether or not the FSM exists is of no relevance. A thing might be true without being understood or debated. <br /><br />The FSM has been made up. But you can't use that as a basis for distinguishing FSM from God without begging the question of whether God was made up. I know that you didn't make him up, but the fact that something has been believed for generations doesn't mean that it didn't start as made up.franceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-54548967432465202012014-02-13T07:46:37.834-07:002014-02-13T07:46:37.834-07:00"It would count as evidence if you could prov..."It would count as evidence if you could prove that the universe could only come about as a result of God."<br /><br />That's not how evidence works. If that were how evidence works, there would be no evidence for anything.<br /><br />There is no such thing as a collection of data which only admits of one possible explanation.<br /><br />You ask for evidence, but you don't seem to know what the term "evidence" means, or how it functions in either science or philosophy.<br /><br />I would recommend reading up on the undertermination of theories.Screwtape Jenkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13874779097608201662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-76412738597519016972014-02-13T07:43:46.275-07:002014-02-13T07:43:46.275-07:00Sam
The point of a multiverse is to explain why s...Sam<br /><br /><i>The point of a multiverse is to explain why something that doesn't look like an accident, a fine-tuned universe, in fact is an accident</i><br /><br />It's not true that the Multiverse theory was invented as a response to the "fine-tuning" argument. It is posited because it explains other things about the universe we live in.<br />http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/132932268/a-physicist-explains-why-parallel-universes-may-existfranceshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16679842803715180697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-63077046979062292332014-02-12T20:45:13.900-07:002014-02-12T20:45:13.900-07:00oozzielionel,
Of course the evidence is the same ...oozzielionel,<br /><br />Of course the evidence is the same for all (unless you have some secret evidence that I don't). We look at the world, and we see different things.im-skepticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08267710618719895303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-57788598062572566292014-02-12T19:29:26.364-07:002014-02-12T19:29:26.364-07:00"The FSM argument (if one can dignify it with...<i>"The FSM argument (if one can dignify it with such a term) represents basically the death of reason on the part of a certain subset of skeptics."</i><br /><br />Indeed. <br /><br />The question of God's existence - particularly when God is scrupulously conceived of as Being Itself, the Ground of Being, Prime Mover, Pure Actuality, etc. - is a metaphysical question <i>just as</i> serious and legitimate as metaphysical enquiries into the existence of numbers, universals, possible worlds, propositions, essences, events, and so forth.<br /><br />Can you imagine how colossally asinine it would sound to hear someone say, <i>"There's no more evidence for the existence of numbers than for the existence of the FSM, and so - as far as I'm concerned - the latter is just as real as the former"</i>? Well, that's precisely how it sounds to me when the metaphysical question of God is handled so clumsily with these inept FSM comparisons. At this point in the discussion, we've hit rock bottom, and pity is what I would feel, rather than annoyance.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02711722054893080462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31461102655192973452014-02-12T16:10:31.165-07:002014-02-12T16:10:31.165-07:00Skep:
"You see God when you look at the natu...Skep:<br /><br />"You see God when you look at the natural world and the people in it. I see the natural world and the people in it."<br /><br />Are you saying that the evidence is the same for origins by natural process and origins by creation; only the interpretation of the evidence is different?oozzielionelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00326968846352428451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-45867030549712811732014-02-12T08:47:55.071-07:002014-02-12T08:47:55.071-07:00Paul Mendola,
"It is a thing that makes sens...Paul Mendola,<br /><br />"It is a thing that makes sense to me for a deeply good God to create. ... Now doesn't it seem like this evidence is the kind that could apply to God, but not to a random physical object floating around the universe?<br /><br />The evidence you cite could just as well be an observation of human nature, as it developed by natural processes in a natural world. You see God when you look at the natural world and the people in it. I see the natural world and the people in it.im-skepticalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08267710618719895303noreply@blogger.com