Transworldly Depraved

Dr. Retard:

You said:

So it is a matter of definition. Naturalism means "The world is governed by natural laws and that nothing exists beyond the purview of these laws." I suppose that by causal regularity you also simply mean "that which natural laws describe".

So physical regularity would just be a presupposition of naturalism and not something the naturalist feels the need to explain.

The theist might similarly wish to claim that theism just means at least that "There is a rational being beyond the natural world."

You said:

A theist might say:

"Now we take it as a given that the physical world exhibits regularity. The question is: which hypothesis better explains this regularity, is it theism or naturalism? My claim is that, prima facie, theism does better. This is because theism implies the effects of a rational being beyond the physical world. In contrast, naturalism implies nothing that would lead one to expect physical regularity. So, on this score, theism is superior."

Later you said:

The solipsist will find a similar question just as irrelevant when asked of him. The solipsist will most likely say that either his existence and sensations shall remain a mystery or be seen as a bad question.

Then you said:

Is it more bizarre than saying that matter can give rise to conscious agents? If so, why? Further, theists do not believe God did "arise completely independently of a causal order" because they do not believe he arose at all. They believe he simply exists and has always existed.

Is it more "bizarre" that a conscious being would simply exist and not be dependent upon physical systems than that a physical universe would simply exist and not be dependent on anything? You gave one argument for accepting that the former is more bizarre. You basically appealled to the same reasoning I mentioned above with regard to Michael Martin. You said "every personal agent with which we are acquainted is causally dependent upon natural laws for its behavior".

This seems initially to be a strong argument but I am not so sure. First of all, we currently have no theory of consciousness and are completely in the dark about how a physical system gives rise to conscious states. All we really have are lots of correlations between conscious states and the brains of higher animals. Secondly, we have no reason to believe that our sample of conscious agents is representative of conscious agents in general. If we had a theory of consciousness we might be able to argue that there cannot be a conscious being unless it is dependent on a physical system. How could we know if there was such a dependence unless we had a theory of consciousness?

So it seems that such an inductive argument as you suggest appeals to a class of things for which we may not be justified in believing is representative.

So we are back where we started. Is it more reasonable to believe that all minds are dependent upon matter or not? If God exists then at least one mind exists that is not so dependent. And if materialism is true then all minds are dependent upon matter.

Why would it be more unusual to say that a mind simply exists uncaused than to say that matter simply exists uncaused?

Transworldly Depraved

Synaesthesia:

You said:

Theism does postulate more entities than naturalism. Naturalism postulates the existence of the physical world and theism postulates the existence of the physical world plus a god.

My argument was that solipsism is superior to naturalism just as naturalism is superior to theism with regard to Occam's razor. Since solipsism is absurd and Occam's razor implies we should accept it when determining our metaphysical scheme, I assume that Occam's razor does not apply to metaphysics and is only useful in science.

You also said:

Of course materialism is in fact simpler than dualism. But how much weight should be given to parsimony with regard to metaphysical systems? If it has a great deal of weight, then you should be a solipsist unless you are aware of factors that override parsimony.

Lastly you said:

But the claim is that evils are logically necessary conditions for outweighing goods. Normally theists do not attribute the ability to do logically impossible things to God. They are correct in not doing this since it is ultimately incoherent. A god which entailed an incoherence would not be as good as one which did not. So the theist should prefer the latter.

Datheron

TD,

Hm....now that I think about it, it probably was you and The Loneliest Monk. But, alas, let the argument commerce:

But that's precisely where Occam's Razor comes in. Yes, we are free to postulate and then set a series of "brute facts" concerning the Universe; we may do this at any point of inquery. For example, I may accept quarks as fundamental, or rather atoms, or perhaps matter the size of sand. Similarly, you can accept observations as brute fact, or you may accept explanations behind observations as brute fact, or perhaps even explanations to those explanations. (they correspond to solipsism, naturalism, and theism)

Yet, what stops us from postulating a brute fact that the sun "just rises from the east and sets in the west"? Or that "computers just work"? The problem here is that the premises themselves are too complicated when explanations exist to simplify them, hence Occam's Razor can effectively cut the former brute facts and replace them with the latter ones. For example, hence I can explain the motion of the sun via rotation of the earth, I did not set the motion of the sun itself as brute fact; the alternate explanation is much simplier.

I think the crux of the matter lies in the idea that even axiomic principles can be evaluated. Just because you can label something as axiomic does not mean that it's immune to tests, especially with Occam's Razor and its requirements of simplicity. Saying that one's observations are brute facts is good, but giving a set of well-defined laws that coincide with those observations precisely yet are vastly simplier is even better.

Transworldly Depraved

Kenny:

The first question in my first post should have included the term "merely" and it greatly alters what the question seems to imply. I apologize for that confusion.

I was not suggesting that theism does not add another being to our ontology. Clearly it does. I was just pointing to a way of conceiving of God that seems to capture what sophisticated theists have meant by the concept.

Theists are making a claim about the fundamental nature of reality. They are saying that at the ground floor there is a personal being of great purposeful power and knowledge.

Everyone stops somewhere with their explanations. And for that person that stopping place just is the ground floor. The ground floor is conceived of as that which simply is. (ie. that for which there is no set of necessary and/or sufficient conditions for it to obtain or be the case; that which is the case unconditionally and independently of every other fact).

The theist might claim that his view is more parsimonious since he believes that only one entity has that status. The naturalist seems to believe that there are billions of brute facts that correspond to each fundamental particle and field of force.

Of course the atheist can simply reply that we know the universe exists and see no good reason to go beyond it. But maybe there is an ambiguity here. "I do not believe there is anything beyond the physical world" is not the same thing as "I believe that there is nothing beyond the physical world." Does Occam's razor support both?

At any rate, I personally believe there are good reasons to believe there is no god and I am not particularly interested in trying to apply Occam's Razor to the issue.

Transworldly Depraved

Datheron:

You said:

How is it simpler if it postulates the existence of billions of more brute facts? If we can accept the billions of physical particles as brute facts then why can we not accept sensations as brute facts? How does adding billions of more entities and their relations to our sensations provide a simpler worldview? And if the theist can explain everything by referring to one being (the kind of being we are intimately aware of since we are directly aware of ourselves as persons), then why is that not just as parsimonious?

Also, the solipsist has no problem with accepting scientific theories. He will simply say the entities in scientific theories are useful fictions. To him, they do not refer to things that actually exist. To him , they are mere abstractions. They are mathematical models in his mind that allow him to predict future sensations. He will want to know why he should reify them.

Datheron

TD,

I've had this discussion with The Loneliest Monk, so let's see if we can go further with this one.

Like I said before, we can accept anything as brute facts. The difference between accepting the rotation of the earth and the rising of the sun, then, hinges on the how complicated that initial assumption is, and then applying Occam's Razor to trim the fat.

It does by giving us simple explanations and relations for each one of those entities. The problem here is that by abstracting everything into a single entity, that entity is necessarily complicated - you wish to wave your hands over the entity and call it "simple", but my previous post tried to tell you that we can even evaluate axiomic entities for their complexity.

I have explained that above. Actually, to group everything together into an entity is an act of complication; solipsism and theism both try to do this by clumping everything together into that single entity and then defining themselves to be immune to the tests of Occam.

The entire point of solipsism is that there can be no reduction possible or sensible. You have just shown that there is a great deal of effort required to rationalize why naturalism is also so successful. Don't you find it strikingly similar to theist arguments in explaining creationist dinosaurs as "tests of faith from God"?

Synaesthesia

Transworldly Depraved,

I quite agree that the application of Occam’s razor to metaphysical principles can be a slippery proposition. There is one point about it that I would like to clarify though. The principle is not simply a matter of cramming as few entities into your theories as possible, it is about ensuring that all of the entities that your theory DOES involve, actually support it in a meaningful way.

The key point I want to make is that plurality should not be posited without necessity. Imagine we had a dualistic theory of matter. Every substance is actually the same non-discrete stuff. What gives various substances their different properties is some undetectable spiritual force. Although it involves only two entities rather than the dozens involved in the atomic theory of matter, occam’s razor would, interestingly, rule it out.

I do not claim to be able to do anything so grandiose as explain existence, but I have not yet been satisfied that the god theory is necessary or even useful in understanding this world.

If God is helplessly chained to evil and suffering then omnibenevolence itself would be an incoherent property. Still, I can appreciate that your position logically addresses the classical problem of evil, God's nature is both good and evil.

HRG

According to set theory, "maximal greatness" seems to be an ill-defined concept, since by a construction analogous to Cantor's Diagonal Argument (or Power Set Theorem) we can always construct - and thus conceive of - something which is greater.

Even of those properties which have not been defined yet at creation ?
This kind of argument IMHO contains the fatal defect that the concept of positive properties (or basic properties) is not well-defined. It is a Humpty-Dumpty-type word which contains exactly what the proponent wants it to, neither more nor less.

When I define good as the absence of all evil, evil becomes a positive property. Thus the greatest being of the Ont.Arg. becomes supremely evil.

Why personhood and consciousness are basic properties of being - and not derived properties of particular physical systems of sufficient complexity - is another unanswered question.

In short, I submit that the Ont.Arg. - and all similar arguments - makes sense only for those who already believe.
Which excludes me.

Regards,
HRG.

Transworldly Depraved

Datheron:

You said:

I do not claim that solipsism is simple. Rather, I claim that it is far simpler than naturalism.

The reason is obvious. The naturalist postulates the existence of everything the solipsist does plus the existence of billions of fundamental particles, their properties, their relations to each other, and a sophisticated mechanism by which events in the physical world cause sensations. Both the solipsist and naturalist believe the solipsist exists and his sensations occur but the naturalist goes on to add in addition to this the complexity I just mentioned.

The solipsist can believe that solipsism is as complex as he likes, however, he does not see a reason to add complexity by embracing naturalism.

Further, you made the assertion that:

Why is it more complicated to say that a single entity has a plurality of features rather than saying there is a plurality of entities each with fewer features than the previously mentioned entity?

You quoted me and then said:

You seem to be saying that the solipsist should postulate the existence of the physical world because it allows him simple explanations of his sensations. However, perceptual mechanisms are not simple. Any neurophysiology textbook that goes into any detail supports this. The solipsist will just insist that it is just simpler to suppose only the sensations exist and scientific theories are just abstractions in his mind. The solipsist can accept scientific theories as useful. He is just not aware of any reason to reify their contents.

You also said:

I have said that, given Occam's razor, if naturalism is superior to theism then solipsism is superior to naturalism. In that case, Occam's razor can be applied but it yields absurd results. So I have not defined theism and solipsism as immune to Occam.

Lastly, you said:

No more effort than the naturalist must give to justify his position.

And, I do not see that the theist is committed to any claims about dinosaurs.

Transworldly Depraved

Synaesthesia:

You said:

I assume that by "actually support it in a meaningful way" you are claiming that one must understand how each entity fit into the scheme.

Theism claims that the physical world is the product of the intentional action of a personal being. I find this meaningful whether or not it is true or false.

You also said:

The solipsist will say the same thing about his existence and his nature. His position has the advantage that it postulates fewer entities.


Lastly, you said:

The term "helplessly" is a bit gratuitous. I might be helpless if I am not tall enough to reach something which is too high. But, I am not helpless because I cannot choose to be both over six feet tall and under six feet tall. The laws of logic do not coerce or constrain a rational being. Someone who wants to do something contrary to the laws of logic would be better described as confused rather than as helpless. The theist should not want to describe God as confused.