SingleDad

SeaKayaker

Ordinary logic (propositional calculus) is a technique to transform statements. If the statements that one transforms are true, then the transformed statement is true as well. However if one transforms a false statement, it is not known if the result is true or false.

It is also necessary to precisely qualify what you mean by "because".

Note that the law of noncontradiction and the law of the excluded middle are not logical statement but metalogical statement. It is possible to construct logical systems (paraconsistent or dialectical logic) that are not explosive. See <a href="http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/logsys/pnc-pem.htm" target="_blank">Non-Contradiction and Excluded Middle</a>.

Note that it is explosiveness of contradictions which lead us to the metalogical assumption of the law of noncontradiction. In ordinary propositional calculus, if a contradiction were true, it is provable that all statements are true. Such a system wouldn't have much value as an explanatory system.

Indeed, according to metaphysical naturalism, we believe that logic and reason are truth preserving because we have consistently observed this characteristic. Accordingly, our belief in logic is evidential and conditioned on our perceptual beliefs.

There are two ways of looking at the naturalist use of logic. One is that we privilege an "ultimate" metaphysical system that is partial; from this system we infer that logic is reliable and thus we use it to construct a complete metaphysical system.

The other is that we simply presuppose logic directly and then observe that it works well at its intended task of making sense of the world.

It should be noted that the CP cannot deduce the existence of logic, he, like the naturalist, must assume or infer it. The laws of logic do not follow from the existence of a god, they must be assumed as a property of a god. As such, the CP "account" for the existence of logic (that's the way a god works) is no less arbitrary than the naturalist's (that's the way the world works). Indeed, the theist attributes logic as a property of god for precisely the same reason that the naturalist attributes logic as a property of the world: Through inference from observation.

The presupposition of the validity of logic as a property of god is not any more formally "true" than the presupposition of logic as a property of the world. Neither logically follows from true principles; indeed it is impossible to make anything "logically follow" without already presupposing the laws of logic.

The question is not whether your worldview is internally consistent, it's what you have to assume to make internally consistent. In order to do so, I don't think you can preserve the truth of perception at all.

I don't want to get side-tracked into a discussion of the flood. I recommend you repeat this assertion in the E/C forum. Suffice it to say (and I would be happy to substantiate in another thread) that if you do not accept evidence against a global flood, you have to deny the ability of perceptual evidence to establish any truth.

A good place to get background material is at the Talk.Origins <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html" target="_blank">Problems with a Global Flood FAQ</a> and <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html" target="_blank">Flood Geology FAQs.</a>.

This is really not a useful analogy. First, we know that life arose from nonliving matter. Life definitely exists now, and it is noncontroversial that life did not exist on earth at some point in the distant past.

Secondly, the origins of life is not a particularly remarkable event. See <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-abiogenesis.html" target="_blank">The Probability of Abiogenesis</a>. Again, this is a digression probably appropriate for a separate thread.

Thirdly, the improbability of an event that has been observed cannot be, by itself, evidence that the event is caused, for good logical reasons to do with known probability theory. Again, this is a digression too off topic for this particular thread; feel free to start another if you wish to discuss the idea in more detail. See <a href="http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html" target="_blank">The Anthropic Principle Does Not Support Supernaturalism</a> for some background material.

Most importantly, though, my presuppositions have nothing to do with this issue. The evidence could indeed turn out that it is impossible or implausible that life could have nonteleologically arisen on earth, in which case my presuppositions would compel me to search for falsifiable teleological explanations.

The problem is that the definition of truth and the methodology of determining truth that must be assumed if one wishes to use the bible is in conflict with the definition of and method used to determine truth in science. You must hold that science is sometimes true, sometimes false, and if the bible does not speak on the matter, it is impossible to determine if a scientific proposition is true.

The problem is not whether or not these religions are true, but rather that CP asserts its validity relative to all other metaphysical system. To prove that assertion true, you must prove all the others false.

If you want to debate George Smith's beliefs, you'll have to debate him directly. My atheism is conditioned on evidence, not on other metaphysical systems; I do not hold it as true as a presupposition but as a conclusion. As a conclusion, it is relative to the known facts and subject to revision should I obtain different facts.

bgponder

Seak'er!

Okay, you drew me back out! I will continue, but first--

Goliath:

You quoted Seak'er--
and said--
He did qualify "Atheists" with arguing for evolution, thus nullifying your refutation.

Further, I believe that abiogenesis has been an assumption implicit in Seak'er's use of the term "evolution" throughout the discussion and though I appreciate your clarification, I do not see how it is relevant thus far. Anyone feel free to correct me.

Seak'er:

I know you can fight your own battles, but I needed the practice. However, I think you have made a rather serious error. You said:

If these statements are true, How can the Bible be the Ultimate Authority that you do not question? Since it does not reveal much about science, how can it be used to invalidate the laws, hypotheses, theories and discoveries of science?

You are right about the third statement; it is a bit of a stretch. It's also a bit ad hoc, and at any rate it is conditional(one could take) and unproven. But even if it were true, it would refute your assumption of the Bible as Ultimate Authority.

Am I wrong?

Peace, Abundant Cornbread and Joy in the Holiday Season--Barry

[ December 16, 2001: Message edited by: bgponder ]</p>

Jack the Bodiless

SeaKayaker:

To claim that the metaphysical naturalist is "autonomous" is meaningless without more info on what we are supposedly autonomous from. The United States of America can be described as an autonomous nation, but it doesn't float alone in space, autonomous from the planet Earth. We consider ourselves autonomous from the Judeo-Christian God: which we consider to be a fictional character, therefore not an essential component of the actual Universe.

Furthermore, Christian presuppositionalists believe that The Bible is an account of actual fact, and that everything in the world we percieve around us (and the accuracy of perception itself) is dependent upon this. Unfortunately for them, this makes every aspect of the real world an integral part of their worldview, including the fossil record and so forth. Thus, the incompatibilities between the real world and the Bible are internal inconsistencies, just as surely as direct contradictions between Biblical verses are. Simply waving aside such problems as "personal beliefs" is rather like saying "I'm no expert, but I believe the Bible says Jesus was hanged, not crucified".

Within the Christian presuppositionalist worldview, the fossil record clearly shows that the Genesis creation account is utterly false: the accuracy of this perception is (according to the tenets of the worldview) sustained by God, for believer and unbeliever alike, by common grace. The Christian may argue that he isn't aware of this, but he cannot argue that the problem does not exist. It is an internal contradiction, therefore Christianity fails the test of internal consistency.

The Christian may not know that his worldview hinges upon a falsehood, but he cannot reasonably expect that his arguments will impress those who do know this. Regardless of the merits of the method (and I agree with SingleDad, apparent consistency is not a guarantee of truth), the method is useless to Christians who insist upon Biblical inerrancy.

SeaKayaker

SingleDad,

Thanks for yet another thoughtful post.

I agree with you that logic exists and works, I think that our disagreement is over why it works.

What would this metaphysical system look like and how would it account for logic?

This method fails to give any insight into the question of why logic works.

All people, Christian and non-Christian alike, can infer the existence of logic because “it works.” This is not a problem, the problem comes when people try to explain why logic works. The Christian God is a God of order who, according to the Christian, created and maintains logic. I do not see how you can say that logic is an inherent property of the world, though.

In internally analyzing a system that affirms the existence of logic, we can use logic in the critique, can we not?

We cannot answer all questions in the same manner; the method that Christians determine the truth of something in the Bible is different from that they would use to determine truth of an extra-Biblical claim. However, this difference does not necessarily mean that the two cannot be used, each in its own place.

I do believe that science is sometimes true and sometimes false. After all, has that not been the case through history (there would be no science today if everything that earlier scientists said were true)? Many scientific propositions were accepted by the scientific community for a long time but have now been discarded. Therefore, I will not declare that everything science says today is truth. With that having been said, though, I will not totally disregard science. Rather, I find scientific advances, both the very practical and the more theoretical ones, interesting and I enjoy learning about them (if I did not, I would not read Science or Scientific American). I am just reluctant, given science’s track record, to immediately regard everything it says as truth. I do not think that this counts as a disregard for perception, but I would agree that perception is not my ultimate judge of reality.

Metaphysical naturalism also “asserts its validity relative to all other metaphysical system[s],” does it not? If they were true, metaphysical naturalism could not be true.

Even if you maintain that your atheism is not a presupposition, you have to admit that your presuppositions have led you to atheism. If nothing else, you must presuppose that Christianity is not true. From here, it is not difficult to arrive at the conclusion of atheism, but you have still arrived at it from a presupposition.

SeaKayaker

SeaKayaker

Bgponder,

Glad to see you back!

I think that our primary source of confusion here is over our definition of ultimate authority. I say that the Bible is my ultimate authority. This means that I believe that it is authoritative on those issues it addresses. I believe that it provides the basis for a consistent worldview, but not that it deals directly with everything. On those issues that it does not directly address, I would try to use the framework it provides (logic and science) to try to find the truth. In short, I do not believe that the fact the Bible does not answer our questions of science means that it cannot be an ultimate authority. Do you think that, in order for something to be an ultimate authority, it must answer every question?

SeaKayaker

Synaesthesia

Sea,
I wasn’t previously aware of a poetic device by the name of synaesthesia. (Though I could guess at what kind of device it is.)

The term, as I am using it, refers to the way our perceptual mechanisms occasionally mix up sensory signals. Sounds might manifest themselves as optical illusions or multiple senses become indistinguishable. When the miscommunication occurs between related but typically independant agencies (such as sight and sound) the brain is sometimes able to make some sense of it. I don’t think this kind of phenomenon is isolated to misrouting of sensory data. It could concievably occur any time agencies of neurons communicate when they haven’t been “trained” to do so.

From what I have heard it can be caused by stress, a rather uncommon neurological disorder and/or psycoactive drugs such as members of the tryptamine family.

There is no one inductive or deductive method. Our ability to perform such tasks depends upon many interrelated and constantly changing skills. How exactly is making the additional assumption that God wrote the bible more consistent that a system that understands the bible as information within a broader empirical context? I know you believe it, tell me why you believe it.

I agree that inconsistencies should be avoided whenever possible. We should indeed judge theories by the degree of (both evidential and procedural) consistency consistently produced. Scientific study, not bible thumping, has produced more coherent and usable knowledge. The theories are explicit, we know what they predict (they don’t require anything up your sleeve) and they can be revised in light of new or old information.

Materialists assume their senses correspond to some true information, presuppositionalists assume that their senses correspond to true information AND that they assume that the bible imparts true information. In the former case what our knowledge is must be refined over time and eliminated if inadequate. In the latter case the suggestion is that what they know to be true is simply presupposed therefore faulty information can never be shed. It would be consistent to persist in error but consistency is not the sole criterion by which we evaluate knoweldge.

The bible is a product of minds limited by the same communication skills as any human being. Like us, the bible’s author’s limited understanding of the structure of the world is reflected in the stories they tell. There’s a “consistent” reason you don’t see any fairies or parting seas you know.

quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most people may indeed assume the veracity of their senses. However, if they care to do so, they can confirm both the fact that their senses are accurate and the what their limitations are.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have you heard the proverb about the blind men exporing the elephant, each one develops an idea based upon his own local information? The way it is usually told, our blind men are rather silly so when one feels the legs she concludes that it’s a tree, one feels the trunk and thinks it’s a snake and so on.

I, however, have a rather higher opinion of the blind and a more realitic one of humanity in general. I think the blind men would consult each other and criticize each other’s theories. The tree theory would be squashed as quckly as the poor man who groped the leg. Other blind men would find that the various parts are connected. Eventually I think it’s quite likely that they would identify it. (or at least have a good tactile idea of what it is.).

Now since these blind men too are human, they will be subject to the very limitations that we are. Several of them might make the mistake of concluding that it’s a hippopotamus. According to you the only “logically sound” way they could learn that their idea is mistaken is by appealing to authority. In this case their king, the one eyed man.

Thanks be to God, this isn’t the case at all. Human beings can not only change their mind, they can isolate the reasons they did so and evaluate the shortcomings of both their old theories and their new ones. We very often find that what we at first perceived was not what was real. Indeed, the fact that we don’t is what makes magic tricks possible. Who says you can’t learn a trick that has fooled you in the past?

1: Wait a minute, this thing has a trunk!

2: Impossible! It’s a hippopotamus, they don’t have trunks. The one eyed man did say it was. He is, after all, something of an authority on the matter of object idenficiation.

Seakayaker: Two’s right. The only logically sound way of resolving this is by picking up one authority or another and using them as justification for whatever position you hold.

1: Come check it for yourself. An elephant trunk has features w, x, y and z. This object has all of those. The snout of the hippopotamus is round and short. Our previous judgements had not taken this information into account. My elephant theory explains a great deal more than the previous one. It shows why the object is so big, explains the presence of the trunk among others.

2: Oh. hmmm

Seakayaker: What about the one eyed man? His word makes it clear that this is a hippo.

1: You know, things like this almost make me doubt that the king is really all that knowledgeable. Perhaps we shouldn’t rely on him as a source of information even though we have done so in the past.

Our brains can’t gain direct access to “reality” so it is inevitable that we rely utterly upon our reasoning and senses. This is a problem if you think that human beings have to base their theories upon absolute certainty and has been dreamt of for thousands of years. That theory, however, doesn’t actually reflect how humans gain knowledge.

Knowledge is always in a state of flux, our very senses can be questioned and problems with them can be isolated. The reason that this is possible is not because we have some universal ruler with which to judge our ideas but we have a whole network of well established theories which can be compared to new ideas. The value of a theory is not judged in isolation but in relation to other theories. No other standard is, after all, possible.


Looking at some of the posts here, it seems that I am not alone in failing to understand what you mean by “basis”. Could you explain what you mean?


Ok, I’m starting to get a better idea of where you are coming from. You have yet to support your contention that atheists are neccessarily inconsistent in their use of logic and science. Perhaps we should delve into that issue in a bit more detail


If logic is merely an illusion, if up is down, black is white, good is pink, the moon is the sun and (a + ~a) is true, understanding anything at all is a totally futile venture.

Unlike in the case of logic, we don’t need to take our own reasoning or science to be infallible. I know for a FACT that I make mistakes and I know for a FACT that scientists, all of them, do too. Assuming that we are infallible, that we don’t make mistakes, would be making mistake very similar to that of the presuppositionalists.

Science is a method by which we can improve our knowledge because our knowledge is imperfect. If it was held to be infallible as you suggest, there would be no quantum mechanics, the piltdown hoax would never have been exposed and the status quo would reign supreme until people realized how foolish infallibility can be. You know as well as I that some theories are simply worse than others and because of that, scientific knowledge can grow.

So it is not true that “you have to admit that your presuppositions have led you to atheism.” My presuppositions lead me to Christianity, the reevaluation of these assumptions lead me to atheism.

"Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system." -WVO Quine.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

[ December 17, 2001: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

Goliath

bgponder

My refutation stands. I am an atheist, I have argued for evolution, and I do not know the origins of the universe. I therefore am a living counterexample to the proposition that all atheists arguing for evolution believe that the universe came about as a result of random chance.

Furthermore, there is an important distinction between evolution and abiogenesis. If SeaKayker wants to debate about abiogenesis, then fine, let him/her be clear about what he/she is debating about.

Goliath

bgponder

Seak'er:

You said:
Ergo you believe it is not authoritative on those issues it does not address, sine qua non.

More: (1)If science is part of the framework which the Bible provides, then science is contingent upon the Bible.
(2)But the Bible is not authoritative on the issues of science that it does not (directly) address.

Aside from the apparent inconsistency here, at this point I must ask you to define what you mean by "directly", for the Bible addresses almost everything important in establishing the value of science and the Bible as epistemological systems, at least indirectly!!! Talking snakes, stopping the sun, walking on water, genetic mutation of animals by breeding in the presence of certain colors, ad infinitum...

It seems to me you are at a loss as to which authority you will choose in these matters.

More later, I promise!

Peace, Cornbread, Happy Holidays!!--Barry

Jack the Bodiless

I have never knowingly encountered an atheist who has arrived at atheism from a "presupposition that Christianity is not true" (except maybe Hinduwoman and Yossarian). For atheists raised in "Christian" environments, they generally either begin with an implanted Christian presupposition that is later rejected due to inconsistencies, or with an "agnostic" presupposition in which the existence and nature of God is unresolved.

In my discussions with Jim Mitchell, I described his insistence that atheism is presuppositionalist as the "Van Til fallacy", as Cornelius Van Til apparently made the same error.

Xyzzy

A persons worldview has no bearing on whether a formal system like logic will offer any utility or not in representing and convolving survival problems. Logic is not predicated on any belief in its utility, it is an inevitable outcome of the regular and coherent structure of our universe, and the ineluctable processes of evolution.

What we know of as logic is simply a set of algorithms implemented in our brains by the processes of evolution to take avantage of the structure and coherence of sensory information to predict the future and learn from the past. It's utility and its existence is predicated on that external coherence of sensory information which our evolutionary ancestors were exposed to.

In fact, a formal system of 'rules' can be constructed that has no such terms as ontology, or true/false dualisms. There are many many formal systems that do not resemble our 'logic' at all. In fact, the simple 'proposition' in logic when applied to the real world assumes that the real world has a given 'state', and this state assumes the real world has such things as states. But worlds can be concieved which do not have definite states, and therefore the primary source of reasoning, that a statement of fact can not be both 'true' and 'false' would have no meaning in these worlds.

That these formal systems are of no use to us in reasoning about our world is simply due to the fact that our world does have definite states, and it offers practical survival utility to convolve those states with structures which have a possibility of evolving.

Logic is not an external 'system' which is randomly imposed on us from outside, a bodiless set of transcendental laws which exists outside the universe, but is derived directly from the fundamental behavior of the universe itself.

Likewise, the laws of science are simply extensions of the basic reasoning algorithms such as logic that evolution has equipped us with. In the case of science, these are simply more disciplined methods of applying inference and deduction.

If there is any external justification that is to be looked for in the origin and justification for logic and reason, it is not in presupposing a creator (since it is unreasonable to suppose an external entity that violates logic and reason simply to confirm logic and reason).

1. We can not divorce the existence of 'logic' from the existence of 'things' and 'facts' and 'time'. These are the qualities of the universe that logic convolves into useful information. Were things different, logic would be as well.

2. Presupposing a justification for logic that does not include its fundamental relationship with evolution and the apparent structure of the universe is unecessary. Though this still begs the question of why the universe has the structure that it does, and permits things such as definite states, time, quantification, movement, etc., it does answer the question of where logic comes from.

3. The presupposition that God created the logic is not necessarily to answer the question, because you have not explained how God could function and create without some sort of structure, laws, or logic that would permit him to create logic. Simply ignoring this question and saying that God did not need logic or structure to exist before he created them is directly equivalent to the view that God did not create logic, and that it simply came part and parcel with the universe.

4. It seems simpler to agree with the theory with the fewest unsupported assumptions. The Godless theory requires only that one accept that the universe seems such that logic is emedded within it. The presuppositional argument assumes there is an external source for logic, assumes that one is necessary, assumes that the source that it supposes actually 'is' the source of logic, and assumes that there is some solution to the apparent contradiction that having a 'source' for structure and logic seems to also to imply that there was structure and some sort of logical system for that source to operate with.