Flavor

Not wanting this lost amidst the jumble of replies to the numerous threads this applies to, I decided to make it a thread all its own. Anyway.

If I were to assert that the moon really was made of cheese, would you prove me wrong? Well sure we've been to the surface, but the rocks are only the build up of space dust. Not only that, but it handily explains those lunar tremors we've been confused about. It certainly seems to be a good explanation to me...

I'm attempting to draw a parallel to the reasoning behind belief in God. Well sure we've seen the phenomena easily explained by science, or chance, but it must be an omnipotent being turning the wheels. Not only that, but such an omnipotent being handily explains creation, which has so befuddled us.

The obvious argument against my first point(sic) would be, how would a massive ball of bovine by-product collect in orbit around the earth? Similarly... eh, I'll let you work it out.

The Admiral

Hi flavor

I hate to see your very first post go unanswered.

<<Not only that, but such an omnipotent being handily explains creation, which has so befuddled us. >>

I do not see how one can reduce the befuddlement by simply creating a creator in ones own mind.

Do you have knowlege of said creator? What is the source of that knowege?

I'm afraid you will have to do a little better than this to attract intelligent replies. But don't get discouraged, keep trying.

The Admiral

Shadowy Man

You've obviously not thought about it too much. You know that there are people whose careers have been to study the moon for decades with an extreme variety of methods.

Then one day some guy who has never really given it much thought comes along and says "hey... maybe you are wrong it is just X. Yes, that explains everything just as well and you can't prove me wrong."

Forgive me if I believe that very few experts on the subject will be swayed by such powerful reasoning that can't be denied.

seebs

I have argued for some time that the correct rule for "burden of proof" is this:

If you want to change someone's mind, you must convince that person.

That's it. No bullshit about "positive" and "negative" claims. (Which is the positive claim: "X is alive", or "X is dead"? How about "X is visible" vs. "X is not visible")

Most claims default to "however I would expect things to be, given my model of the world". People once alive are assumed to be alive unless it's been a long time, or they were old or in a risky profession. Even then, they're often assumed alive until someone says otherwise. Objects are assumed to have normal physical properties. I don't need to provide evidence for my "positive" claim "my car attracts every object in the universe with force proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them".

Furthermore, different types of claims require different types of convincing. The claim "Joe killed his old lady - she was messing around with another man" is a physical claim, for which we would expect physical evidence; at the very least, we would look for a bulk of hearsay evidence (which we have). The claim "it is morally preferable to capture a burglar and put him up for trial than to kill him outright" is not subject to claims of evidence; at most, you can use evidence to show how well it aligns with fundamental moral principles, but those principles are nonetheless subject to debate, but not to any kind of meaningful evidence.

I generally categorize beliefs about souls, God, and so on, as philosophical ones. God is not claimed to have the attributes of physical objects or natural forces.

Meanwhile, the burden of proof falls on anyone who wants to convince other people. If you don't believe in God, that's fine; no convincing is required. If I believe, that's also fine; no convincing is required.

If I want to make you *change your position*, then I have to convince you. It doesn't matter whether my arguments are good or bad - it matters whether you find them persuasive. Same thing if you want to change my mind.

This pragmatic approach eliminates dozens of stupid loopholes in arguments over what constitutes a "negative claim", and allows us to get on with life.

To your example about the cheese, I observe that I currently believe the moon to be made of rock, and if you wish to convince me otherwise, you will have to provide evidence.

See? Works beautifully, eliminates bugs.

Daggah

Admiral, the impression I got from Flavor was that he was attempting to show how the god explanation is ridiculous by comparing it with a similiarly ridiculous explanation of the nature of the moon.

Shake

Daggah, I'm not sure what Flavor is saying. But when he said this:it kinda sounds like he's arguing from the Prime Mover/First Cause, etc. standpoint.

Flavor, why would say that? Or is Daggah right, and you're trying to show how "the god explanation is ridiculous?"

GunnerJ

seebs, it's a little obtuse to claim that differentiating claims into positive and negative is "bullshit" simply because not all claims can be so differentiated. When pretty much everyone talks about the principle of the burden of proof (BP) in relation to theism, they're talking about a guideline for deciding the default position when there are two clear, oposite claims that can be described as positive and negative. In such a situation, you have to decide on a default just to see who goes first. If you want to operate under a nonstandard definition of BP, then by all means have fun, but it seems a little pointless when your "version" of it is little more than common sense.

To put it bluntly: pointing out where the principle of BP does not work doesn't invalidate its usefulness in the situations where it does work, any more than saying that trains cannot cross oceans invalidates their usefulness in crossing land.

I'm always willing to be surprised, so what is the supposed conumdrum here? If someone says I should be able to see something, I think it's logical to remain skeptical until he can point out where this thing I'm supposed to be able to see is.

That seems like an overly-simplified version of things. Once a positive claim has evidence (or, to be more general, support), it falls to the negative claimant to dispute this evidence, or show how it fits another model better. If he cannot do so, then it makes sense to incorporate the positive claim into one's "worldview." Defaulting to this position really doesn't violate the principle of the burden of proof, it simply starts up where the BP leaves off once a positive claim is supported.

Two points:

-"Once alive," or, in other words, "once someone is observed to be alive," thus supporting the positive claim of her existence with a detail about her condition.

-Assuming that someone is alive until evidence (or some sort of reasoning, such as "she's been missing for 100 years, and it's unlikely she's still alive after all that time, especially considering that she was lost in combat") arises to the contrary simply defaults to the already supported positive claim of her being alive, and the negative claim that nothing has changed.

Pay attention to what you're saying: "objects are assumed to have normal properties," such as gravitational attraction. However, that all objects are subject to gravitational attraction would not be an assumption of "normalcy" in an object until it is proven (as a positive claim.) Thus the reason you don't have to prove that your car is subject to the forces of gravity is because gravity's operation on your car is a positive claim with evidence to support it, and you are merely defaulting to this as the principle of BP suggests.

Granted, but this does not diminish the usefulness of the principle of BP.

We've been down this road before, seebs. Evidence is not always required for proof. Any proof in the realm of philosophy is going to have to assume certain axioms in order to be useful. This still has no baering on the usefulness of the principle of BP.

However, he is usually described as having very definate effects on the physical universe. If you believe in a God that merely exists with indifference to the Universe, than you are correct in making this a matter of mere opinion. However, when you claim that God created the Universe and has some sort of plan for humans that we ought to follow, and that he has manifested himself to us (I make these assumptions based on your self-identification as a Christian), then you move theism into the realm of scientific critical inquiry, and given that the existence of a God of such a description is a positive claim, it is reasonable to ask that you support it, else we assume that negative.

It is also compeltely useless for determining which claimant must support his claim when we must decide between two opposing claims. That's what the concept of BP is intended to do. Your principle here is just common sense about informal dicussion.

In addition, your claim that "it doesn't matter whether [your] arguments are good or bad - it matters whether [I] find them persuasive" seems poorly thought out, because it makes too many assumptions about what one might find persuasive. For example, if I only find good arguments persuasive, I'd be interested in hearing how the quality of an argument is irrelevent for the purposes of convincing me of something.

Also, I'm interested in hearing what you consider to be "stupid loopholes."

------------

On the subject of the OP, the concept of BP as it applies to positive and negative claims wouldn't even be useful for determining the composition of the moon before anyone had any idea what it is. In such a situation, there are so many possible materials which the moon could be composed of that no opinion can be assumed, and all claims about the moons composition are treated as competing positive claims. Once one theory has evidence to support it (i.e., the "rock" theory,) we can use the principle of BP as it applies to positive claims that are supported: the burden goes on the negative claimant (the "not-rock" theorists) to discount the evidence, or show how a competing positive claim (the "cheese" theory) is a better fit for the evidence. Arguments to this effect such as "the rocks are only surface deep space dust deposits" implies that we should be able to scrape beneath the surface and find a layer of cheese. If we can, then the cheese theorists win. Arguments about moon tremors require more, erm, expertise in the area of "cheese tremor dynamics" than I have.

Given that, in a position of complete ignorance about the moon's composition, there are as many possibilities as there are building materials, it's really not a good analogy for the existence of god, where there are but two posibilities: god exists (a positive claim) and god doesn't exist (a negative claim).

The Admiral

Daggah

Oh I'm sure he doesn't believe that the moon is made of cheese, but on the other hand it sounded like he was boosting creationism. It was rather ambiguous. I hope we didn't scare him/her off.

The Admiral

Flavor

I go to sleep, disappointed that I'd had no replies, and I wake up with an essay to respond to . Thanks for kicking things off Admiral, much appreciated.

To be honest, neither do I. If someone were so inclined, they would need to support it with innumerable other unsupported assumptions... such as where it came from, and how it manages to affect the cosmos while remaining seperate from it (to name a few).

Thanks for arguing my non-point... as I said, I was trying to draw a parallel to the reasoning behind belief in God. I don't believe the moon is made of cheese...

Thank you again, for unwittingly making my point for me.

Thank you, Daggah, that's exactly it, which I think answers Shake.

And Rimstalker... thank you for going to the trouble of arguing BP. Saved me a lot of typing .

Shadowy Man

No problem.. Always happy to argue a non-point.

A better parallel would be if someone showed up and claimed not that the moon was made of cheese, but that there was a second moon that couldn't be seen because it was always behind the moon, and it was made of cheese. And, also that the cheese changes type each month, and depending on what month you were born, will determine what type of cheese is your favorite, and you can't prove me wrong because you can't even observe the second moon because it is hidden and it's made out of mirror matter, so you can't attempt to measure its gravitational influence, and it is also transparent to solar radiation, so you can't see it if you flew a space probe out there, but it is really important and we should all get on our knees and thank the second moon that it is there because without it all would be lost and we'd never amount to anything.

All hail the second invisible, intangible, mirror matter cheese morphing moon!