"More Change we can't believe in"

more change we can't believe in

Where I found it: HERE (An interesting blog on Nietzsche and other extemporaneous topics)

And a podcast on Nietzsche Myths by the same fellow. Very educational!

AA on God as an explanation

In Arguing for Atheism Le Poidevin makes a central argument that theism is a bad explanation. He makes several arguments to back this claim. That theism takes the notions of cause and chance out of their original contexts (I have already discussed these points a bit in so I will not discuss them here), that God is not a good casual explanation, that personal explanations incorporating God are suspect, and that theism not have much explanatory virtue. I will deal with these 3 points backwards!

           

Poidevin highlights 2 explanatory virtues that theistic explanations having to do with a first cause do not have; they are not informative, and they have no “connections to generalizations” (pg 36). I don’t think it is controversial to say that positing a “first cause” is not at all informative; that is does not explain it is the case that x occurred or did not. Le Poidevin helps with this illustration: someone’s house was smoking and you walk over to a crowd which has gathered to watch the spectacular event. You ask a bystander for an explanation and he told you that a smoke-producing event had occurred. Le Poidevin thinks that introducing a first cause is as useful as the smoke-producing event explanation and I am inclined to agree—this however changes once you introduce and agent and try weave a personal explanation. A first cause also appears to have no connection to generalizations. To generalize is to say that “A-type events tend to cause, in certain situations, B-type events” (pg 42). An example of this would be chemicals combining in a certain context to produce another chemical. It is also clear that in order to generalize you need to have background knowledge; this background knowledge will include natural laws of causation and whatnot. However when we try to explain the existence of the universe we try to explain the existence of the laws and whatnot without the actual laws themselves; this means that no generalizations can be made. I believe Poidevin’s points are quite sound but they are not just problems for theistic explanations of the universe. They seem to describe a short of humble posture towards the explaining the universe; it appears as though we cannot casually explain it.

It however is quite apparent that not all explanations are causal explanations; another type of explanation (which is introduced by Swinburne in his book The Existence of God which I have yet to read) is a personal explanation. This involves an agent’s action and those agent’s intentions which led to that action. For example if a person does something they intend to achieve an end. If I have an intention to by nice to people I will try accomplish through a variety of means (in that way personal are quite teleological; “explanations in terms of purpose”). This is probably a gratuitously over complicated explanation of what a personal explanation, but Oh well I am quite exhaustedly incapacitated. It certainly seems like intentions are not causes in the normal way we describe causes but I believe I have already discussed this elsewhere. Any way, one way in which Le Poidevin points out those personal explanations are not the best at explaining the universe are is because they are contingent. Intentions are contingent because it seems like they could obtain or could not obtain. In this way if we are trying to explain the existence of the universe and point to intentions it seems like intentions either could be or could not be in the same way the universe could be or not be and if it is the case that the universe needs an explanation because it is contingent then intentions will need an explanation as well since they are contingent.

           

Finally Le Poidevin makes the argument that necessary facts cannot explain contingent ones. I have already made comments on thisHere as well as the intention objection that I discussed above.

Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction   to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge, 1996. N. pag. Print.

Now this is looks interesting (religious psychology)

I have just discovered this blog Ephiphenom, which seems to mostly summarize studies having to do with religion and whatnot. If I had another life I would love to study the psychology of religion.

Here is one interesting article, thought not altogether suprising: http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/12/what-you-want-god-wants.html

RF & AA: The Ontological Argument

The Ontological argument is one of the most interesting arguments for God’s existence. In Reasonable Faith William Lane Craig supports Plantinga’s formulation of the argument. The Ontological argument tries to show that God exists necessarily by definition, so not only does he exist but one would contradict themselves by saying God does not exist.

It is rather important to understand the logic of possible worlds as Plantinga’s employs them. Possible worlds as I understand them are logical possibilities—not only that they contain every logical proposition or their negation.  Craig somewhat helpfully explains them somewhat like this: A possible world is a conjunction which compromises every proposition or their negation. So we have propositions p,q,r,s…. These propositions are simply statements that refer to logical possibilities so you could fill them with any logical possibility you can imagine. Now the set of possible worlds would contain every proposition or their negation so in the case of our set they would look something like this:

Possible World₁:p,q,r,s…

Possible World₂:p,-q,r,s…

Possible World₃:p,q,-r,s…

Possible World₄:p,q,r,-s…

Hopefully I have explained possible worlds in a somewhat understandable fashion. Now according to S5 logic if it is possible that God exists in some possible worlds he must exist in all of them, including the actual world (the one we inhabit). Because if God exists only in some possible worlds then he is contingent, that is he could or could not exist in a possible world. But since God is necessary he in not contingent and therefore he must exist in every possible world. Perhaps you can already see one of the glaring problems with this argument, it appears to be begging the question. Anyway leaving that aside. Plantinga describes God as a maximally great being, one which has all the great making properties (omnipotence, omniscience, moral perfection). Here is the formal version of it:

           

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.

5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists

            6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

Now Le Poideving in Arguing for Atheism builds a similar argument but with a different conclusion:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being does not exist.

2. If it is possible that a maximally great being does not exist, then a maximally great being does not exist in some possible world.

3. If a maximally great being does not exist in some possible world, then it does not exist in the actual world.

4. If a maximally great being does not exist in the actual world, then a maximally great being does not exist in the actual world.

5. Therefore, a maximally great being does not exist.

Or at least he says something vaguely along these lines. Because of this simple turn of events it would appear that the Ontological argument is not the greatest argument for God’s existence. There is still much to say on this argument but I will leave you on this happy note.

Craig, William L. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Wheaton, IL:      Crossway Books, 2088. N. pag. 1 vols. Print.

Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction   to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge, 1996. N. pag. Print.

         

RF vs AA: The Moral Argument

 William Lane Craig says that he finds the moral argument the most successful when it comes to convincing other people that God exists (194), which is one of his favorite hobbies. Le Poidevin however does not find it that convincing as one would suspect. The argument from the objectivity of morality for God’s existence goes as follows:

1. If God does not exist objective moral values and duties do not exist.

2. Objective moral values do exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

As you can see it is an apparently simple argument, in order for it to succeed the theist must show that objective moral do exist, that they can exist with God, and that they cannot exist given atheism. I certainly could see as very psychologically convincing, if a person strongly thought that there was objective moral values and was convinced that those could not exist without God they would probably feel quite anguished. I am inclined to think that moral values exist and least that they probably exist—I do however need to think quite a bit more about morality and its implications. I do see a difficulty with many atheistic moral systems in that they are not very motivational or at least they don’t appear to have as much motivation as theism. This could actually be a good thing. Anyway Le Poidevin has 3 main critiques; if God is the basis of moral values: how do we become aware of moral values, why do moral facts supervene on natural facts, and how can the there exist a plurality of moral systems? He supports a rather subjectivist view of morality: “acts with certain natural properties tend to cause in us feelings of revulsion which, in turn, lead us to describe those acts as wrong” (Le Poidevin 86). I suppose this description of morality could be objective at least in a narrow sense since certain actions could always cause feelings of revulsion, but it would seem that most of this revulsion is the product of social conditioning. At any rate this description of morality fits with the 2^nd criticism of this argument that moral facts supervene on natural facts. If this was this case this would mean that explaining the existence of moral facts with God would be superfluous. Le Poidevin uses this analogy; whenever we look at an object we see color, now this color supervenes upon the surface structure. For example when we look at two objects with similar surface structures (meaning the atoms are arranged in similar way) light reflects of both surfaces giving us similar colors. Likewise if two objects have very different structures they will be very different colors. In this way when a person does something wrong it is because it causes a feeling of pain or revulsion and this feeling leads us to describe that act as wrong. It is clear that God plays no role in this account of moral value. In response to this Craig questions the explanatory value of this account. It is not clear given atheism why moral facts would supervene on natural facts. This seems like a shift in the first premise to “if God does not exist objective moral values it is not clear why moral values exist.” Unfortunately Craig does not quite explain why theism has a much greater explanatory value then atheism. I do wish he did. I think that will conclude my blog post and I will come back to this topic at a later date. I still need to talk about the Euthyphro dilemma and atheistic accounts of moral value.

Craig, William L. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Wheaton, IL:      Crossway Books, 2088. N. pag. 1 vols. Print.

Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction   to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge, 1996. N. pag. Print.

RF VS AA: the Fine-Tuning Argument

William Lane Craig sketches out another reason for God’s existence called the Fine Tuning Argument. It utilizes all those wonderful laws and constants of the universe and points out that if their values had been an inch or so different there would be no life; so therefore the universe would appear to be fine-tuned for life. It goes as follows:           

1) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.

            2) It is not due to physical necessity or chance.        

            3) Therefore, it is due to design. (Craig 161)

It is fairly obvious that the soundness of this argument relies on the 2^nd premise. It is similar to Moreland’s design argument based on possibility probability, only a little bit more expansive and refined. Craig first casts out the two options of physical necessity and chance and then settles on design.

Physical Necessity (the values and constants must be the value that they are): Craig explains that this seems rather plausible and I rather agree with him. It does not seem like there are any reasons to except this, though the multiverse hypothesis may provide something like this. However I can’t really see any good reasons to believe that multiverses exist either, though if some good evidence or reasons could be given in order to show that they do it may solve the problem. Actually their existence may be more than or at least equally as plausible as a God’s—perhaps I will pursue that further later.

Chance: To show that chance is an implausible hypothesis Craig uses an illustration from John Barrow:

Take a sheet of paper and place upon it a red dot. That dot represents our universe. Now alter slightly one or more of the finely tuned constants and physical quantities… As a result we have description of another universe, which we may represent as a new dot in the proximity of the first. If that new set of constants and quantities describes a life-permitting universe, make it a red dot; if it describes a universe which is life-prohibiting, make it a blue dot. Now repeat the procedure arbitrarily many times until the sheet is filled with dots. What one winds up with is a sea of blue with only a few pin-points of red. (Craig 164)

One objection to this is similar to the objection to the possible design argument laid out by Moreland; and that is that there is no reason to assume that possible reasons are equally probable and that we do not know the values that any given constant can take. In response to this Craig asserts that “in the absence of any physical reason to think that the values are constrained, we are justified in assuming a principle of indifference.” (pg 164) But this gives us infinitely many universes; if each value is equipossible we are left with infinitely many possible values. This will be a very large sheet. It seems like this would be a nice stopping point for Le Poidevin’s criticisms. What Le Poidevin says is very simple: the notion of chance is being applied to a concept in which we cannot possible apply it. This is related to the criticism above. Because the beginning of the universe was such an oddity in time it would not really make sense to say that any constant had a probability of obtaining. For example if one flips a coin we have a ½ chance that the coin will land heads, but if one flips a universe how could we possible tell what the chances are of it being life-permitting. Just like Craig one could conclude something along these lines and arrive at the opposite conclusion: in the absence of any physical reason to think that the values could be otherwise, I am justified in assuming that the fine-tuning is due to physical necessity. In response the defender of this argument may point out amongst other things that is very conceivable that the antimatter could be proportioned differently to the primordial matter or that the big bang could have expanded at a faster rate then it did. But at the same time it is very plausible that the antimatter and primordial matter had a very very constrained value pool to choose from and that there is really no surprise that they achieved the proportion that they did. Again in response the defender could reply that there are many instances of Fine-Tuning and that still leaves the expansion rate of the big bang unexplained as well as the values of gravitation force ect, and could ask what are the chances of all of these things having a constrained value set to choose from? And in response the atheist appears to be justified in saying who knows! It would seem as though we don’t have the ability to explain the fine-tuning of the universe.

Craig, William L. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Wheaton, IL:      Crossway Books, 2088. N. pag. 1 vols. Print.

Le Poidevin, Robin. Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction   to the Philosophy of Religion. London: Routledge, 1996. N. pag. Print.

SSC: some probability and the Design Argument

J. P. Moreland sketches out three probabilistic arguments from design. They are all based on three different conceptions of probability; possibility, frequency, and evidential.

Possibility (the classical way of viewing probability; if any event can occur in y amount of different possible ways the probability of x is x/y. For example if one were to flip a coin or throw it at your dog the probability of it landing on heads is 1/2): Moreland points to two examples for the theist to deploy this concept into an argument: the values of cosmic singularities or in the development of life. When talking about cosmic singularities and the like we mean that certain values seem to be necessary for life or for the big bang to occur the way it did. Now if these values (like the expansion rate of the big bang) could have been different there is a possibility probability (we could say for example that the chances of any value x obtaining are x/y). But can we set up a possibility probability for cosmological constants and singularities? No we can't. This is because we do not know the value any constant can take; in the x/y probability we do not know the y. Because of this when we say that the value of the expansion rate of the big bang could have been otherwise we are setting up a probability as follows: x/? and this is obviously not a very promising probability for anything. For all we know the possibility’s that the x could have obtained could be 1/1 or 1/infinite. However when we are talking about the chances of life developing this could be a much more promising argument, though unfortunately he does not write to much about this.

Frequency (a statistical view, to say that x is probable is to say that x occurred y amount of times and since y is a high number it would be reasonable to assume that x will occur again. For example if I flip a coin 65 times and it lands heads each time it would be reasonable to assume that it will land heads again on the 66th time): Moreland notes that this view is not very useful for the design argument however it may be able to strengthen the possibility view. For example he mentions experiments which display random results of the formations of protein. This would lead one to assume that the formation of protein occurred out of chance.

Evidential (this view asks to what extent does the evidence lead one to think that the chances of x occurring are reasonable or not so?): One could use this view to argue for God's existence based on the fact that y is more probable given God's existence then given atheism. This seems rather speculative but there certainly could be evidential arguments made for both atheism and theism. For example one could say life is more probable given theism or on the flipside evolution is more probable given atheism. Again it seems rather dubious how one could figure out how any event would be more probable given atheism or theism, but it would be interesting if one were to make a chart or something of all the things that may or may not be reasonable to expect given atheism or theism and how these things provide evidence for either position.
Moreland, J P. Scaling the Secular City. Grand Rapids,MO: Baker Books, 1987. N. pag. Print.