Freedomain Radio

hello. i was reading the book online today, "against the gods" and i have some major issues with the argument put forward against agnosticism, some quite weird logic i think ... one example being

"The moment that I say “gods may exist in another dimension,” I am making specific knowledge claims about the contents and processes of this other dimension"

how can a phrase containing the word "may" be called a "claim of specific knowledge" ?

there is a sea of difference between "there may be a dog in the house", and "there is a dog in the house".

only the second dog statement is a specific claim of knowledge, the first is not a statement at all, but just a guess, an admission that one isnt certain either way.

for example : "ive never been to india, but i imagine there may be a cave in which a tiger lives"

is certainly not a claim of specific knowledge about anything, rather, just giving my thoughts on the potential i feel about something based upon the knowledge available to me at the time.

 

just to clarify my personal position: im an atheist in regards to manmade religions of all flavours, but dont feel comfortable making positive statements about things my tiny brain and tiny experience, simply doesnt know, or may be incapable of knowing. such as the inside out of the 9th dimension on the dark side of andromeda.

another quote "At the very minimum, a god is defined as an eternal being which exists independent of material form and detectable energy, and which usually possesses the rather enviable attributes of omniscience and omnipotence"

so gods dont always have to be omnipotent, omniscient etc etc, and im not even sure that a god would have to be eternal, or any of the specific definitions that steph gives. i feel that steph is making his own personal definition (although it also happens to be the definition held by many religious people), to then show how it is illogical (strawman). but i feel that this is unfortunately not necessarily the definition some agnostics like myself may hold for "god" .

my definition would be more like this; there may be some force or process that exists, which humans will never be able to perceive, that may come under the definition that i hold for a god. not an 8 armed elephant and not a sky daddy. since it has never been detected, and can never be, humans do not have words to describe it, and never will; it is perhaps unimaginable. ultimately discussing it is totally irrelevant, but from a logical point of view, i feel i have to recoginise it as a possibility.  but to be perfectly honest, an agnostic doesnt even require a definition, we can just simply say that we dont agree with your definitions and statements since we lack the knowledge to be certain about it.

i dont agree at all that the creation of dimension X is a necessity of agnosticism. i dont think that humans understand all there is to know about the universe, or understand all the laws of physics, reality and of existence. therefore an unknowable may exist in an as yet unknown plane of existence. i think "dimension X" is not created out of necessity for an agnostic argument, but rather a self evident reality, based on humans lack of knowledge of all parts of existence. "dimension X" is simply those places humans cannot go or cannot know, ie into black holes. we arent creating a "dimension X", it already exists, we are just pointing it out.

and one more for the road : "First of all, saying that we cannot make any absolute positive claims about truth is itself an, absolute positive claim about truth"

agnostics like myself are not making any claims of truth, in fact the complete opposite; a non-claim. agnostics are just saying "maybe" and maybe is not a claim. it is possible to show, as steph did, that agnostics can claim that nobody knows anything, and therefore that is a claim in itself, and therefore not true. but that is just a word game. for the truth is, i dont know what other people know, and an agnostic should rather say to an atheist or a religious person "how do you know?" or  "prove it!".

if an agnostic said to someone "nobody knows anything", that is simply a mistake by that individual and does not equal a problem to the idea. people sometimes make mistakes. <frowny face>

i seriously dont see how the jump is being made from a recognition that things may exist, landing up at "nothing can be considered true". there are possible, yet stupid arguments to be made like "maybe we are all in the matrix, so its all nonsense" but that is rather different from, sensible yet possible arguments about those things which humans cannot know, the other side of black holes for example. we are fairly sure there are black holes, and we are fairly sure that we dont know what is on the other side. humans kind of know, that there are things that we dont know. otherwise sceince would have stopped looking already. if you havent travelled through a black hole then surely you have to admit that there are things you dont know ? but at the same time, just because you are admitting that you dont know what is at the other side of a black hole, doesnt mean nothing is true; what it means is maybe nothing is true. and that is different.

the point of agnosticism i feel, is just to pay hommage to the unknowable possibilities of the universe and to accept my place in it as tiny and insignificant. it is not to make stupid arguments such as "nothing is knowable", things like this have no practical value. agnostic means what its name suggests, just a lack of knowledge, not claiming anything.

mikep:

"The moment that I say “gods may exist in another dimension,” I am making specific knowledge claims about the contents and processes of this other dimension"

how can a phrase containing the word "may" be called a "claim of specific knowledge" ?

That's quite simple (though the evidence is clear that it's not at all easy to see or come up with): if I say "this universe may contain a square circle", I am making a statement about what is possible. That is impossible, so I would be wrong.

If you're striving to avoid presumption, I think the correct conclusion is "I have no idea whether that's a possibility" rather than "it's true that's a possibility". So, you would not just accept agnosticism, since one part of that is "it's true that gods are possible" (the other part is "we just don't know whether they're actual"). Instead, you'd want to actually try to find out whether gods are even possible.

I hope that helps.

in your "there may be a dog in the house", you are making sppecific claims of knowledge, not about the dog, but about the house.  house, in your analogy, is the universe.

q.e.d.

Actually, it is a specific knowledge claim, i.e. that it is possible for the dog to be in the house...

Mr. C:

If you're striving to avoid presumption, I think the correct conclusion is "I have no idea whether that's a possibility" rather than "it's true that's a possibility".

 

http://lesswrong.com/lw/oj/probability_is_in_the_mind/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/s6/probability_is_subjectively_objective

Saying "I have no idea if something is possible" is essentially the same as saying "It's possible that it's possible." Possiblity is in the mind, because probability is in the mind. To say "It's possible that a dog is in the house" is not, in fact, a statement about the world at all. Possiblity doesn't exist in the world, it exists in the mind. Statements about possibility are statements about a lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge exists in the mind, not in the world. To understand why possibility is in the mind, consider the scenario:

I am outside of a house that I have never been in, never seen inside of, I don't know who owns the house, anything like that. Given my state of knowledge, I could reasonably say "It's possible that a dog is in the house." I could also say "It's possible that a dog is not in the house." I don't think any of those two statements are inherently disagreeable.

However, another person inside the house, while looking at a litter of sleeping puppies in a room in the house, could reasonably say "It's not possible that a dog is not in the house."

So how is it that, at the exact same time, one person can reasonably say "X is possibly true" (X being the statement "a dog is not in the house") and another pereson can reasonably say "X is not possibly true"? How can both of those seemingly contradictory statements about possibility both make sense?

Well, the reason is because possibility is a statement about your mental state, not about the world.

If you read this post and disagree after first reading, I would appreciate it if you also read the first post I linked to, and the second if you like, before telling me why you disagree.

For clarification, I'm not agnostic, and if you want me to specifically relate this post to the agnostic debate: since possibility is essentially referring to a person's lack of knowledge, and not the actual universe, it's actually completely reasonable for one person who hasn't thought about the issue much to say "It's possible that God exists," and for a person who has thought about the issue quite a lot, and figured out that God is a contradictory concept, or incompatible with the laws of physics or whatever, to say "It's not possible that God exists." Two people can contradict eachother about possibility AND BOTH BE CORRECT, because possibility is only a reflection of the mind, not of reality.

mikep:

"The moment that I say “gods may exist in another dimension,” I am making specific knowledge claims about the contents and processes of this other dimension"

how can a phrase containing the word "may" be called a "claim of specific knowledge" ?

Another way to phrase this potential truth assertion might be, "In another dimension, conditions might be such that gods exist." Does that help? In order to make a potential truth assertion, some knowledge must be claimed, wouldn't you agree?

Also, are there any other entities for which you hold an agnostic position? For example, are you agnostic on the existence of Santa Claus, unicorns, or mermaids?

 

Dave Bockman:

 

Also, are there any other entities for which you hold an agnostic position? For example, are you agnostic on the existence of Santa Claus, unicorns, or mermaids?

 

 

I love this phrase.  It inevitably leads up to the recognition that being agnostic about God is simply an irrational "privileging the hypothesis" fallacy of inconsistent thought.  That is, if the other person doesn't fog and intentionally confuse the conversation as a defense mechanism...

 Alien civilizations?

kremlin:

Possiblity is in the mind, because probability is in the mind.

By possible, I don't mean a greater-than-zero probability, I mean that it is an event that doesn't contradict the rules of the system. I think this will illuminate my earlier post, since standard geometry is a system that doesn't allow square circles because they require a contradiction.

It follows that if you're not quite sure of the rules of physics since you lean toward this sort of skepticism, you can't quite claim to be sure that they allow for gods.

---

Please feel free to skip the following; it's fairly technical and the above is sufficient.

Though I use the definition I give for the intellectual clarity it provides me, one why the other definition isn't very good is that every continuous probability distribution will give every possible event zero probability, so above-zero-probability isn't so useful as the basis of a definition of 'possible'. After all, you presumably want 'possible' to work for single events as well as sets of them.

Yeah, this is an unfortunate recurring theme here -- defining your way into truth claims about how the universe has to work.

It's not that there is a bunch of evidence for gods lying around, it's just that this particular approach is a cheap way to go around claiming to know stuff. 

Remember -- proofs tell you only that some relationship exists between your own definitions.  They do not necessarily tell you anything about how the universe works (i.e. they do not tell you how well your definitions reflect some aspect of nature).  Physicists have been burned by this simple lesson time and again -- the proof is 100% correct, but the operation of nature simply doesn't care.  Philosophers, on the other hand, can die safely without ever having realized they were burned.

Mr. C:

...I mean that it is an event that doesn't contradict the rules of the system.

How do you know that that's what he means though? After all, we're talking about his claim. Not yours.

If that's your definition, you may well be right. He may mean something else though. he may mean p(G) > 0 [G being the existence of God]

 

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PS: to say that it's against the rules of the system sounds, to me, to be more or less synonymous with p(G) = 0. But, it still all depends on what he meant when he says "It may be true." If he did mean "It's not against the rules of the system," then you were right all along, but if he just meant "The probability given my priors is greater than 0," he could be right.

PSS: the continuous probability link you gave is irrelevant. "Intuitively, a continuous random variable is the one which can take a continuous range of values — as opposed to a discrete distribution, where the set of possible values for the random variable is at most countable. " The variable in question has a discrete distribution: it's boolean. True or false. God exists or god doesn't exist. It's not continuous.

"If that's your definition, you may well be right. He may mean something else though. he may mean p(G) > 0 [G being the existence of God]" - Kremlin

So is this a debate about definitions? Perhaps I'm a little too into the logic course I'm taking, but contradictions simply do not exist in reality. I always thought that if the entity is contradictory by definition (like God) then it cannot exist in reality.

(Compared to our subjective experience of consciousness) we only experience one consistent objective reality.  If one does ponder about alternate universes then they can't even begin to fathom the physics of such a system, let alone the entities that would be allowed to exist (like a deity) by such rules.  So it does seem to be intellectual cowardice to defend the concept of a deity by this argument, since if this principle holds true you MUST also argue for other things of that nature if you want to be consistent.

The principle applies to leprechauns and fairies, sure.  But it must also apply to "flat-earth theories" and alchemy and voodoo and sacrificial rituals.

How would you argue against p(A) > 0 [A being the validity of alchemy]? Because like you said, "If I just meant "the probability given my priors is greater than 0," I could be right."  Is alchemy true or not?

 

 I refuse to sanction those who totally reject X.

Partial rejection, I'm cool with.

huttnedu, if you are interested in learning why probabilities are subjective, based on the prior knowledge and lack of knowledge of the person calculating the probabilities, then please read the links I posted above and my argument. It is not very difficult to imagine scenarios in which two people with different priors could both - correctly - calculate different probabilities. I provided one.

kremlin:

huttnedu, if you are interested in learning why probabilities are subjective, based on the prior knowledge and lack of knowledge of the person calculating the probabilities, then please read the links I posted above and my argument. It is not very difficult to imagine scenarios in which two people with different priors could both - correctly - calculate different probabilities. I provided one.

Sure, perhaps I misunderstood you but my issue is that if probabilities are purely subjective then what does the "correct" calculation mean in a debate about reality?
Taste preferences are also purely subjective and two individuals can be equally "correct" in asserting "I think chocolate is better" and "I think vanilla is better".

I'll read up on the links you posted, I've just been swamped with work now that fall semester is coming to a close.