tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post8697996077517573998..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Stenger's Failed HypothesisRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-43530008919521362542007-08-15T17:39:00.000-04:002007-08-15T17:39:00.000-04:00Thanks for the link, Jeff. It's actually quite go...Thanks for the link, Jeff. It's actually quite good for the limits of a radio show (which is unfortunately never the best place to examine ideas).Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-6206916999427479352007-08-14T21:22:00.000-04:002007-08-14T21:22:00.000-04:00Hugh Ross and Victor Stenger went at it recently o...Hugh Ross and Victor Stenger went at it recently on The Things that Matter Most. <A HREF="http://www.thethingsthatmattermost.org/gallery.htm" REL="nofollow">Here</A> is the audio.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14336155651560538168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-29446511915745636272007-08-14T15:25:00.000-04:002007-08-14T15:25:00.000-04:00Mathetes said:"The only way for science to justify...Mathetes said:<BR/>"The only way for science to justify objective knowledge is to go beyond the empirical evidence to the metascientific (and metaphysical) presupposition of a preestablished harmony between the experience of one percipient and another, as well as a preestablished harmony between experience and the object of experience."<BR/><BR/>Does this, essentially, relate to the problem of the one and the many? Because it seems as though if the metascientific/metaphysical is taken away, then the percipient is just left with a series of disconnected brute facts.<BR/><BR/>**************************<BR/><BR/>Good point. Ironically, you can't have sense knowledge if all you have is sense knowledge.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-24298720520716450412007-08-14T10:44:00.000-04:002007-08-14T10:44:00.000-04:00Saint,Actually Steve said that, not me.(See what h...Saint,<BR/><BR/>Actually Steve said that, not me.<BR/><BR/>(See what happens when Paul Manata shakes up the vats containing our brains???)Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-39581141573255108292007-08-13T21:07:00.000-04:002007-08-13T21:07:00.000-04:00Perhaps my last sentence should say, "...and as a ...Perhaps my last sentence should say, "...and as a result, is *stultifying* as a belief," since it only disproves the epistemology of the naturalistic worldview and not the entire worldview itself.<BR/><BR/>"If you don't believe in God, then you can logically believe in nothing else." -Cornelius Van TilSaint and Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14166699860672840738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-21252804663192980392007-08-13T21:00:00.000-04:002007-08-13T21:00:00.000-04:00Peter,I would revise this statement:"Natural selec...Peter,<BR/><BR/>I would revise this statement:<BR/><BR/>"Natural selection doesn’t select for true beliefs. True beliefs confer no survival advantage."<BR/><BR/>Natural selection does not *necessarily* select for true belief, only phenotypic fitness.<BR/><BR/>The argument still shows that naturalistic evolution destroys human epistemology, and as a result, is self-refuting as a belief.Saint and Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14166699860672840738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-51060195243863632852007-08-13T19:20:00.000-04:002007-08-13T19:20:00.000-04:00TOUCHSTONE SAID:“So your God, like everything else...TOUCHSTONE SAID:<BR/><BR/>“So your God, like everything else, by your ‘same token’, is so much figment, for all we know.”<BR/><BR/>No, it wouldn’t be” by the same token” since God was never an “observable” to begin with. <BR/><BR/>Not all knowledge comes through the senses. There is innate knowledge, including our natural knowledge of God (not all of which is innate). And there are a priori arguments for the existence of God.<BR/><BR/>Moreover, the empirical evidence for God does not depend on your being a color realist (e.g. Is grass is really green?). It isn’t based on the resemblance between my mental impression of a tree and what the tree is really like. The empirical evidence for God operates at a very different level. <BR/><BR/>“Our experience *is* reliable.”<BR/><BR/>Assertion.<BR/><BR/>“We are experiencing *real* objects.”<BR/><BR/>Assertion.<BR/><BR/>“In the *real* world.”<BR/><BR/>Assertion.<BR/><BR/>BTW, I don’t deny these statements, but you can’t justify any of those statements on the basis of science alone, much his naturalistically fumigated version of science.<BR/><BR/>“By coordinating and calibrating our experiences with those of other minds, we can achieve significant levels of objectivity, and effectively suppress individual biases, agenda, and subjective distortions about a great many things.”<BR/><BR/>So if one color-blind observer perceives a rose as a gray flower, that’s subjective—but if a hundred color-blind observers perceive a rose as a gray flower, that’s objective.<BR/><BR/>It’s obvious that tpebble has never studied the intricate philosophical debates over inverted qualia.<BR/><BR/>“It's only through affirming the objective reality of the world around us, affirmed by our collective, shared experiences, that ‘reality’ is even a meaningful concept.”<BR/><BR/>“Reality” is bigger than the sensible world. <BR/><BR/>“’God" isn't a useful concept in Steve's cartesian vat.”<BR/><BR/>Several problems:<BR/><BR/>i) Brain-in-vat scenarios are very easy to make fun of, and very difficult to disprove. That’s why there’s a vast philosophical literature on this topic.<BR/><BR/>ii) Does anyone believe in brain-in-vat scenarios? Not unless you’re addicted to the Matrix.<BR/><BR/>But that’s not the function of this thought-experiment. It’s an imaginative way to test the limits of what we can prove about our belief in the external world.<BR/><BR/>iii) You can retool the theistic proofs and apply them to the brain-in-vat scenario, for you must still account for the existence of the brain, and the vat, and the alien laboratory, &c.<BR/><BR/>By contrast, tpebble issues God a day-pass to perform his perfunctory religious duties. God is a vestigial organ in tpebble’s belief-system.<BR/><BR/>If he could do so, tpebble would dispense with God altogether. He doesn’t want God—he wants a cosmic machine: Newton’s clockwork universe. Everything running right on time. <BR/><BR/>But God performs an ancillary service by conferring eternal life. So tpebble tolerates God as long as God keeps his nose out of mundane affairs, except for funerals. <BR/><BR/>iv) And let’s consider tpebble’s alternative for a moment. He regards methodological naturalism as presupposition of science.<BR/><BR/>So the only version of evolution he can defend is naturalistic evolution. Therefore, he must act as if the human mind is the incidental byproduct of a mindless process. Indeed, eliminative materialism denies the very existence of mental states. <BR/><BR/>That’s a recipe for global scepticism. Natural selection doesn’t select for true beliefs. True beliefs confer no survival advantage. Lower animals and other organisms survive and thrive without any beliefs whatsoever.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-66742782143696550112007-08-13T17:20:00.000-04:002007-08-13T17:20:00.000-04:00Caleb,Yes, didn't you know: agreement is objectivi...Caleb,<BR/><BR/>Yes, didn't you know: agreement is objectivity. If ten color-blind people view a red ball as black, the ball is objectively black.<BR/><BR/>It's so simple, it's amazing philosopher's have never considered this before!Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-87984567494895282152007-08-13T16:37:00.000-04:002007-08-13T16:37:00.000-04:00Touchstone confuses belief that “Our experience *i...Touchstone confuses belief that “Our experience *is* reliable, we are experiencing *real* objects in the *real* world” with a proof that this is the case. Supposedly a transcendental solution leads to solipsism and utter skepticism. Yet, besides t-stone’s assertion, we are given no reason as to why this is the case. <BR/><BR/>“by coordinating and calibrating our experiences with those of other minds, we can achieve significant levels of objectivity” <BR/><BR/>This misses the point entirely. “significant levels” of objectivity?!?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-27358630843130370152007-08-13T16:30:00.000-04:002007-08-13T16:30:00.000-04:00I'm shocked!T-Stone taking the side of an atheist?...I'm <I>shocked</I>!<BR/><BR/>T-Stone taking the side of an atheist? Who woulda seen <I>that</I> one comin'?!Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-53720702092590425052007-08-13T16:18:00.000-04:002007-08-13T16:18:00.000-04:00"The only way for science to justify objective kno..."The only way for science to justify objective knowledge is to go beyond the empirical evidence to the metascientific (and metaphysical) presupposition of a preestablished harmony between the experience of one percipient and another, as well as a preestablished harmony between experience and the object of experience."<BR/><BR/>Does this, essentially, relate to the problem of the one and the many? Because it seems as though if the metascientific/metaphysical is taken away, then the percipient is just left with a series of disconnected brute facts.Matheteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13527032591499860552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-71352852619095718102007-08-13T16:06:00.000-04:002007-08-13T16:06:00.000-04:00Clearly White is "God," and Steve and Pete Pike ar...Clearly White is "God," and Steve and Pete Pike are members of the Final Five.<BR/><BR/>They look just like us.<BR/><BR/>They evolved.<BR/><BR/>They have a plan...GeneMBridgeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10504383610477532374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-3828013620271650682007-08-13T16:00:00.000-04:002007-08-13T16:00:00.000-04:00Steve,And it would be difficult to justify that pr...Steve,<BR/><BR/><I>And it would be difficult to justify that presupposition without bringing God into the picture, as the agent who coordinates observers and observables.</I><BR/><BR/>This is a classic case of why you and Peter do a better job of discrediting Christianity than Stenger could, as you're working the damage from the inside.<BR/><BR/>How do you suppose your skepticism of objectivity as a concept and the solipsistic subjectivism you resort to instead help your cause, apologetically or otherwise? If I'm Stenger reading this, I'm grinning ear-to-ear with the stupid little box you've put Christianity in. Specifically:<BR/><BR/><I>iv) By the same token, I can’t tell if my experience of the object corresponds to the object, for my only access to the object is filtered through my experience.</I><BR/><BR/>So your God, like everything else, by your "same token", is so much figment, for all we know.<BR/><BR/>The way you have it, God would solve *nothing* here, as God is just another "experience", and we know from your comments here just how reliable you think "experience" is.<BR/><BR/>Sheesh. With "friends" in Christendom like Hays, who needs "enemies"? <BR/><BR/>Peter, and Patrick, please remember this comment from Steve here when you want to go off on my skepticism. I'm the realist around here, it seems. Our experience *is* reliable, we are experiencing *real* objects in the *real* world, and by coordinating and calibrating our experiences with those of other minds, we can achieve significant levels of objectivity, and effectively suppress individual biases, agenda, and subjective distortions about a great many things. God can't underwrite any such "metaphysical harmony" as Steve says, in any way that's not immediately cut down by his own expressed skepticism about experience. It's only through affirming the objective reality of the world around us, affirmed by our collective, shared experiences, that "reality" is even a meaningful concept. "God" isn't a useful concept in Steve's cartesian vat. It takes a real world, with real people and real objects to give *meaning* to the *objective* reality of God, and the reality He created.<BR/><BR/>You guys go so far to soothe your dissonance with science, that you destroy the very epistemic foundations you stand on yourselves. Truly, you cut off your spiritual nose to spite your spiritual face.<BR/><BR/>Please don't do that.<BR/><BR/>-TouchstoneTouchstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03733806892886921425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-59193040313136458312007-08-13T15:41:00.000-04:002007-08-13T15:41:00.000-04:00Mathetes said:"Steve Hays" and "Peter Pike" are ju...Mathetes said:<BR/><BR/>"Steve Hays" and "Peter Pike" are just interchangeable names given to a Cray supercomputer in James White's basement to offload some of his apologetics work. But already, I've said too much...<BR/><BR/>****************************************<BR/><BR/>I refuse to confirm this malicious rumor since White might unplug me if I... <BR/><BR/>[Due to technical difficulties, we just lost the uplink to this transmission.]stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-44562399337169445852007-08-13T15:35:00.000-04:002007-08-13T15:35:00.000-04:00“Indeed, barring some form of transcendent philoso...“Indeed, barring some form of transcendent philosophy, how could science give us any concept of "objective evidence"? Usually this is done by asserting that multiple people have to observe the same event (yet when that occurs in the case of, say, multiple observations of miracles, skeptics label it as ‘mass hallucination’); or that it has to be predictive (yet when this occurs in Bible prophecy, for instance, skeptics label it as ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’), etc. But the fact is, even if we ignore the skeptics, there is still no scientific way to have objectivity, because science is based on observation, and observation is a subjective experience for all involved. It cannot make the leap to objectivity without a controlling philosophy governing science—and which one is a point that is much in dispute.<BR/><BR/>I’d like to briefly expand on Peter’s statement here.<BR/><BR/>i) If we define experience as the psychological process by which we experience the world, then two observers can never share the same experience for the simple reason that you’re not me. We are numerically distinct individuals with numerically distinct experiences. I can’t get inside your experience.<BR/><BR/>ii) Even if there were some scanning technology that allowed me to patch into your experience, I would still lack direct access to your experience since my knowledge would be filtered through my personal experience of the scan.<BR/><BR/>iii) But someone might say that even though we can’t have the same experience, we can experience the same object.<BR/><BR/>The problem is not with the possibility of a common experience, in this sense (i.e. a common object of experience), but with proving it. And that brings us back to (i).<BR/><BR/>Since I can never experience your experience, I can never prove that you are experiencing the same object that I am experiencing—at least I can’t prove it directly.<BR/><BR/>iv) By the same token, I can’t tell if my experience of the object corresponds to the object, for my only access to the object is filtered through my experience. <BR/><BR/>vi) The only way for science to justify objective knowledge is to go beyond the empirical evidence to the metascientific (and metaphysical) presupposition of a preestablished harmony between the experience of one percipient and another, as well as a preestablished harmony between experience and the object of experience.<BR/><BR/>And it would be difficult to justify that presupposition without bringing God into the picture, as the agent who coordinates observers and observables.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-67109507769501237062007-08-13T14:49:00.000-04:002007-08-13T14:49:00.000-04:00OOPS!Thanks Peter!OOPS!<BR/><BR/>Thanks Peter!Saint and Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14166699860672840738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-17529750045898289432007-08-13T14:40:00.000-04:002007-08-13T14:40:00.000-04:00"Steve Hays" and "Peter Pike" are just interchange..."Steve Hays" and "Peter Pike" are just interchangeable names given to a Cray supercomputer in James White's basement to offload some of his apologetics work. But already, I've said too much...Matheteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13527032591499860552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-51022581915313637512007-08-13T14:24:00.000-04:002007-08-13T14:24:00.000-04:00Saint and Sinner said:"Steve, Thanks for the revie...Saint and Sinner said:<BR/><BR/>"Steve, Thanks for the review."<BR/><BR/>Actually, Peter Pike wrote this review, which is why it's such a vast improvement over my own book reviews! :-)stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-90507444443546643362007-08-13T14:13:00.000-04:002007-08-13T14:13:00.000-04:00Steve,Thanks for the review.Ever since Bertrand Ru...Steve,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the review.<BR/><BR/>Ever since Bertrand Russel, atheists have had this self-reinforced ignorance that proves that they truly aren't "free-thinkers".Saint and Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14166699860672840738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-83474760347700780242007-08-13T13:21:00.000-04:002007-08-13T13:21:00.000-04:00Hey Mathetes!As far as omnipresence goes, I was an...Hey Mathetes!<BR/><BR/>As far as omnipresence goes, I was answering the argument on it's own grounds rather than putting forth the correct theological meaning. It is indeed the case that God's omnipresence doesn't have to do with physical presence. God is spirit, so when presenting a positive argument that cannot be ignored.<BR/><BR/>However, since Stenger was trying to posit a logical problem, it is useful to give the rebuttal that does not have to presuppose the existence of the spiritual. In this case, the logical argument is defused on its own grounds.<BR/><BR/>As for the watch analogy, I've never been a huge fan of it myself. Better, IMO, is Behe's treatment, which deals not merely with things that "look" designed but with things that are irreducibly complex. After all, given fundamental laws that give us complexity out of simplicity (yes, that begs the question about why these laws exist, which is another point of contention with the atheist), there will be some things that "look" designed that are really products of "simple" laws.<BR/><BR/>The strength of the irreducibly complex argument is that "simple" laws cannot account for these systems.<BR/><BR/>And, as aluded to in my parenthetical above, I would argue that the existence of the "simple" laws themselves point to a designer.Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-38982994521060933022007-08-13T13:02:00.000-04:002007-08-13T13:02:00.000-04:00Good article, and thorough too1) as far as omnipre...Good article, and thorough too<BR/><BR/>1) as far as omnipresence is concerned, I always thought that it simply mens that God can enact His will wherever He chooses. Since God is immaterial (a "timeless mind", as Steve once put it), it's hard to conceive of Him taking up any kind of space, regardless of dimension<BR/><BR/>2) since the watch analogy was brought up, what do you think of the counterpoint that this is simply an argument from incredulity? (i.e., "I can't <B>imagine</B> that something so complex could have evolved")Matheteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13527032591499860552noreply@blogger.com