Trope shmope
Mark Vernon discusses what he calls ‘common mistakes of atheists’ – but the examples he gives aren’t examples, because they don’t make the mistakes he says they make. His attributions are rather sloppy. Okay very sloppy. He doesn’t quote, he just says.
If you do the rounds of the philosophically minded blogs of atheists, it is common for arguments about the non-existence of God to be rehearsed. Typically, they present ‘proofs’ that require empirical evidence. For example, Stephen Law, argues that if God is all-powerful and all-good, then the fact that there is so much evil in the world provides evidence that tilts the odds decisively against God’s existence.
But arguing that something tilts the odds is not the same thing as ‘presenting “proofs”,’ and Stephen Law hedges things a good deal more than that.
Would this constitute a “proof” that there’s no God? Depends what you mean by “proof”. Personally I think these sorts of consideration do establish beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no all-powerful all-good God. So we can, in this sense, prove there’s no God. Yet all the people quoted in my last blog say you cannot “scientifically” prove or disprove God’s existence. If they mean prove beyond any doubt they are right. But then hardly anything is provable in that sense, not even the non-existence of fairies.
And so on. He doesn’t just ‘present proofs,’ so that ‘for example’ is misleading.
Vernon also just says about me, and I’m not convinced by what he just says.
Or they say that God is a supernatural entity for which there is as much evidence as fairies – a familiar trope on butterfliesandwheels.
Is it? A familiar trope? Is that something I say a lot? I’m not sure I’ve ever said it, and I am sure I don’t say it a lot, so what does he mean ‘a familiar trope’?
And more to the point, why do theists and pro-theist ‘agnostics,’ which is what I take Vernon to be (since he certainly seems to spend a lot of time rebuking imaginary atheists for saying things they don’t say, for a just plain agnostic) – why do they do that? Why do they mischaracterize atheists and then scold the caricature so much?
Well, maybe because they don’t have much to say if they don’t. I don’t know. But I must say I’m beginning to suspect it. All this complaining about imaginary atheists is beginning to remind me of people who say everyone to the left of Bush is a traitor.
Vernon says more, and most of it seems pretty woolly to me.
Now, I am an agnostic. So I think that the jury is out on the existence of God and, in fact, always will be. Why? Because the very best theologians – those who it is only reasonable to consult before claiming to have disproved the thing about which they are experts – say so.
Wait – what? ‘I think the jury is out on the existence of God and always will be; why? Because the very best theologians say so.’ Did he really mean to say that? Or did he lose track because of the inserted clause, and say something much cruder and sillier than he meant to. Probably. But then there’s that inserted clause, which is also not very good. Atheists don’t claim (most of them) to have ‘disproved’ the existence of god. And what does he mean ‘disproved the thing’? How would you disprove a thing? And then the ‘about which they are experts’ bit – experts in what sense? And experts in what? The thing, we know; but what does that mean? Do they have special expert knowledge that there is a god or that god does exist (and what kind of god it is and what it does and what it wants us to do)? If so why don’t they make it public? I realize they have arguments, but I’m not sure that having arguments that god exists (or ‘about the thing,’ for short) makes them experts. I have no problem agreeing it makes them scholars, but experts? No. No, frankly, I think that’s a stupid word to use about a supernatural subject – unless of course one of these experts comes up with some real evidence (yes, evidence) that a supernatural entity exists. That would be expertise. But just saying? Not so much.
There’s more, but that’s enough. I find this kind of thing depressing.
That bit about theologians being experts who should be consulted, shall we apply to that the people who claim to be the experts on Bigfoot as well?
Mark Vernon seems to be enamoured by liberal Protestant theology – God as “wholly other”, the total opposite of the fundamentalist big guy-white beard caricature. I think it goes too far in particularly denying the powers of human reason in dealing with ultimates, though. And I think that Aquinas did try to put forward an argument for the existence of God, rather than for the limitations of human reason.
His first example is problematic. Because as you say, the argument from evil is not an empirical proof as such, and answering that the God question isn’t ultimately empirical (which is true) doesn’t do at all. It’s a logical argument involving the empirical fact of evil. As such, it is somewhat weaker than a wholly logical anti-theistic argument would be, as the theist could simply deny the empirical fact of evil, or indeed argue that God’s ways are mysterious, etc. – but that would be a bit of a cop-out. It’s a very serious argument and deserves to be dealt with seriously.
Actually one could be an expert in Bigfoot, I think. One could have done extensive searching for evidence of Bigfoot for example, and thus be an expert in either the absence of physical evidence or the existence of possible evidence and the analysis of same. It’s the kind of thing that is subject to inquiry and research and thus real expertise. And theology isn’t, since the subject matter is defined as supernatural and thus by definition not empirical and not in a position to provide physical evidence. Okay you can claim that widespread inner experience offers a kind of evidence for a deity, but does (say) prolonged study of that kind of ‘evidence’ make one an expert in theology? I don’t think that’s what Vernon means by theological expert – but then what does he mean? Nothing, I suspect; it’s just a form of words. It’s meant to 1) impress and 2) silence.
OK guys, can we just agree that, despite JS’ positive ad hominem, Mark Vernon is a complete onanist?
I have yet to see a single piece of his ouvre that makes one iota of sense. Please let us stop indulging this no-brain. The very idea that mathematics is not empirically grounded is so laughable that I nearly spilled my plonk – and that is a tremendously serious indictm … charge.
Incidentally, what is all this twaddle about possible worlds as a concept in modal logic? I have a fundamental objection to the whole paradigm. How much do we need to know about the possible world in order to determine its ‘distance’ from our own world? It seems to me that unless our knowledge of possible worlds, whatever they might be, is very nearly perfect, they are a hypothetical fog, not a tool suitable for logical analysis.
Although the ramblings of an inebriated maniac, I really would appreciate any guidance qua the possible worlds paradigm.. trope… errr.. thingy.
Ah, um, er – just ignore him, eh? Not worth bothering with? Well, okay. I suppose you’re right. Only it’s this recurring thing of saying people say what they don’t say, that I have trouble leaving…
Of course mathematics is not empirically grounded – Mark Vernon was quite correct there. Surely you don’t want to argue that your continuous experience of adding two and two and ending up with four leads you to induce that 2 and 2 is 4?
Something can be only empirically grounded if it is possible to imagine a falsification of the fact at hand. Ergo, I can empirically state that all goats have two horns. I can very well imagine a goat with five horns, or one with just one, but all the ones that I’m actually seeing have two.
Now, can you really imagine having two rocks and two other rocks and ending up with five? Of course not. You’d probably end up thinking a rock appeared out of nowhere. That’s because logic, and basic mathematics, are prerequisites to rationally comprehending our sensory experiences.
So, I’m not sure you’re really in a position to criticize Mark Vernon about his comprehension of philosophy of science, not to speak of philosophy of mathematics.
As for possible worlds – the concept, implicit or not, is pretty much vitally necessary for any _empirical_ endeavour because it serves to delineate empirical truths (contingent facts) from logically necessary truths. I.e. water boiling at a certain temperature is an empirical fact because it is possible to imagine things otherwise – to imagine a “possible world” where water boils at a whole different temperature. Bachelors being unmarried, or circles not being square, are not empirical facts in the same way.
Merlijn & MikeS, I think you are speaking substantially past one another here. Many mathematicians and philosophers of mathematics think of math as fundamentally empirically grounded, in the sense that fundamental concepts such as counting and number are grounded in the empirical – there being no way to get to them in any purely logical fashion, really, which Whitehead and Russell more or less proved by counter-example many decades ago. On the other hand, mathematics is fundamentally a priori in many ways, in the sense that choosing axioms and teasing out consequences is in no way dependent on empirical observation, and much of mathematics is “pure” in the sense of only referring to other mathematical objects and concepts and not connecting to empirical reality in any obvious way.
Ditto for possible worlds: The metaphysical status and logical use of
“possible worlds” depends VERY, VERY MUCH on how you define “possible worlds” and to what use you put them. Many respectable philosophers think that some versions of “possible worlds” talk are the pure twaddle that MikeS dismisses them as – depending on which version. Similarly, some versions of “possible worlds” terminology are used to make just the sort of basic distinctions between a priori necessity and a posteriori contingency that Merlijn is talking about.
This is why most philosophers (or at least, all the better philosophers) start any argument whatsoever by carefully defining their terms. Otherwise, all disagreements dissolve into confusing mis-mashes of unintended equivocations on both sides.
The pantheism reference (in the God-is-everything sense, not the I-believe-in-all-gods sense) is interesting. So we can’t have N+1. But what happens when we have factored God into this, and said that everything that we are, that the rocks and pebbles are, that the oceans are, that cars and television sets are, that MP3 players and daffodils are is God? OK so far. Then God has a thought.
Now, I believe (lots of people believe, I believe) that our mind is separate from our bodies in that it is what the brain does, rather than what the brain is; it is the emergent properties of the brain when it is functioning. Same with God? Is that an extra thing, the 1 we now have to add back to N? What is the function of the Everything when it, i.e. God, has a thought and says, ‘I know: I’ll send my only son to Earth’? Is the movement of my left foot part of that thought, is the movement of my fingers touch-typing on my keyboard or the blink of my eye part of that thought, just as the firing of a neuron is part of what gives rise to the emergent properties that become a thought for me or you?
We can go round in bloody circles, I know, but it just seems to prove to me that the Vernons of this world might be better off using their intellects in ways that do some good for their fellows and/or the environment in which we and they live rather than pontificating on the existence of something we have no proof for – empirical or otherwise, interesting though this exercise can sometimes be. Angels and heads of pins come to mind.
And where does Apollo fit into all this, and Thor, and Toutatis, and Quetzalcoatl, and Hanuman?
Effing monotheists, just because their religion coincided with a scientific civilisation that thinks it sets the terms for how everyone sees things…
Empiricism
I can distinctly remember as a very young child discovering while playing with biscuits that 2 & 2 was 4, and then eagerly running to my mother for confirmation. This was before starting school and being taught it. Is this in some sense empirical? I vaguely remember reading in Bertrand Russell that he thinks what I’ve described isn’t possible.
Pantheism
Why call everything ‘God’? – what good purpose does it serve? The gods are a very large family coming with a hell-of-a-lot
of baggage. Why not call everything ‘everything’? – a lot less muddleheaded, a lot less lilylivered, and making for a lot less confusion.
_
There’s a sense that learning to count, or learning a language, is empirical in that it is done in constant interaction with experiential input – but this does not make mathematics (or theoretical linguistics) an empirical discipline. I.e. a child builds a “theory” (grammar) on the basis of empirical “evidence” (linguistic input, and the feedback on the correctness of its own linguistic output, etc.) but once the system is there, the rules are no longer open to empirical disconfirmation – they’re norms, not inductive generalizations which can be falsified by further evidence. I guess the same goes for logic, learning to count, etc. – they are learned, but it’s not a contingent empirical fact that A=A, or two and two is four.
“2” and “4” are concepts. Adam only ‘discovered’ their relationship because he had already been taught, a priori, what they meant. Otherwise we would have to posit him inventing the concept of number for himself, and doing so in a way which, coincidentally, turned out to have the selfsame conceptual markers as the pre-existent system he was allegedly unaware of. No?
Which is to say, it would just be dumb luck he didn’t decide that 2+2= strawberry yoghurt.
Dave, if someone puts two objects in front of you and repeatedly says two – and does the same again with different kinds of object; repeat ad nauseam with three, then show small children pictures on cards of 1 frog + 2 frogs = 3 frogs; is this not empirical? Nothing F*ing a priori is there? I’m coming at this from Quine’s naturalised epistemology kind of point of view, innit? Thanks to G for pointing out the problems inherent in the lack of definition of terms, but I have yet to come across a definition of possible worlds that makes sense, and don’t even start with David Lewis.
But the way small children learn to handle mathematical truths says nothing about the nature of mathematical truth itself. 2+2=4 remains purely deductive, there is nothing of the “provisionalness” of inductive empirical statements here. “Water boils at 100C” as an empirical statement referring to concrete entities in space and time, which happen to behave in a certain way, and as such is verified experimentally whenever anyone makes a cup of tea – but it is certainly conceivable that tomorrow water would start to boil at 25C. “2+2=4” is not in the same way an inductive generalization of all the cases of “2” and “4”. It’s a purely analytical, deductive statement in the same way as “bachelors are unmarried”, “circles are not squares” etc.
“coincidentally”(matching)
“2+2 = Strawberry yoghurt”
Of those acting independently,
wouldn’t conformity of report
indicate discovery, and disparity
suggest error or invention?
Can I create a new card game,
without having to reinvent
cards all over again?
I might be too tired or thick
to fully grasp your points.
_
Or for that matter that 10+10 = 100 (base 2) but the addition is the same, with the same result, it is just the nomenclature that is different.
Base three would be fun: 2+2 = 11 …..
Actually, what a lot of atheists say is a repeat of the chapter-heading in TGD, on the improbability of a god.
Or, my formulation: “No god is detectable” – and leave the proof/detection up to the believers.
After all, they are the ones making an extraordinary claim, about the existence of an invisible big sky fairy.
( P.S. Interesting typo there – I originally wrote: “an invisible bog sky fairy” – which would be very fascinating. )
“Or they say that God is a supernatural entity for which there is as much evidence as fairies – a familiar trope on butterfliesandwheels.”
My guess is he means in the comments at B&W… though I’d have said Invisible Pink Unicorns and Lunar-Orbital Teapots were at least as common.
Some loose use of “conceive” and “imagine” going on round here. When you “conceive” that water might boil at 25 degrees tomorrow, what is actually being conceived? If the difficulty of imagining 2+2=5 is a significant piece of information how did the power of your imagination suddenly gain such influence on the universe?
Yeah, it occurred to me that he meant comments – but then 1) he should have said so and 2) why bother? Funny guy.
Ken: Actually, that’s a can of worms. “Conceive” would mean “conceiving of a state of affairs (including x) without logical contradiction” which just means that x is not necessarily impossible. But the clarity with which we can and cannot conceive of possible worlds varies wildly. Which is an acute problem with conceivability arguments for God: it’s not at all clear at firsthand whether God as a clear, coherent idea is conceivable or not – whether it is possible to have a clear and coherent idea about God.
Ooh, ooh, I compared god to fairies quite recently – can I have a prize?
I note that he doesn’t suggest any reasons why the comparison is invalid – only hints towards what sounds like some kind of ontological argument.
Sholdn’t that be “Onanological” argument?