This was a conversation I had with a guy who called my own personal hero, Richard Dawkins “Dick Dorkins” because he thinks that [Dawkins] had no idea what he’s talking about when he criticizes religion.

So of course I had to defend the Dawkinator 😛 So enjoy our little conversation in which I totally owned the guy

Note: I tried to edit any mistakes I will catch but there are probably still some mistakes in there.

Me:

the only thing I criticize about his book (which he later recanted) is that he confuses the definition of religion and that he doesn’t think violence can be committed in the name of Atheism (violence can be committed in the name of ANYTHING really). Other than that everything else he said was full on. I would be interested in why you think he has no idea what he’s talking about.

and to say that his books on biology and evolution are “okay” is like saying that the sun is warm. He is one of the most influential evolutionists in history, especially on the theories of altruism and gene-centered selection (which to this day explains more data than any alternative–including the punctuated equilibrium)

Him:

Well, his “refutations” of the standard arguments for the existence of God are pretty weak, especially the ontological argument, which he pretty much just dismissed as childish without trying to understand it. He also completely ignored the doctrine of divine simplicity. The central argument of his book is based on the materialistic assumption that, if God existed, he would be a complex, contingent being, not a simple, necessary one. Dawkins also admits that he knows nothing about theology, so anything he says about it should be treated with skepticism.

Me:

I’ve studied the ontological argument in Philosophy, Dawkins understood it perfectly, which was why he could use a child’s playground to dismiss it. It was a play on words. Even my philosophy teacher said something similar and that was BEFORE his book came out. The essential of the ontological argument boils down to wordplay: if you can conceive a being greater than yourself which you deny, but at the same time that being, if it exists, would be even more perfect, then that’s a contradiction. This is very typical of philosopher’s wordplay, and Dawkins illustrated a perfect example of playground which is essentially the essentials of the ontological argument. And mind you, even apologists no longer use this argument because even they know how silly it is. What was Dawkins’ misunderstanding of this argument?

“He also completely ignored the doctrine of divine simplicity…. if God existed, he would be a complex, contingent being, not a simple, necessary one”

It seems that you have misunderstood what Dawkins meant by “complex” and simple. Which are btw, scientific terms in his book, not philosophical terms (which mostly I deem to be bullshit). The doctrine of divine simplicity tries to make God “simple” by attributing his qualities to his being and not to sum make up a whole. But that doesn’t solve the problem and Dawkins wouldn’t be interested in such a mind round-about. that’s still complex by scientific definition. A being that can intelligently create, interlope, and omnisciently oversee is complex, as Dawkins compared it to the multiverse theory, which is simpler: “God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability. The multiverse, for all that it is extravagant, is simple. God, or any intelligent decision taking, calculating agent, would have to be highly improbable in the every same statistical sense as the entities he is supposed to explain. The multiverse may seem extravagant in sheer number of universes. but if each one of those universe is simple in its fundamental laws, we are still not postulating anything highly improbable. the very opposite has to be said of any kind of intelligence.” (pg. 147) So in other words, God, whether through the philosophical divine simplicity or not, is complex because it does not follow laws, or outcome with statistical predictions. That makes it complex to understand scientifically. That was what Dawkins was trying to get at.

“Dawkins also admits that he knows nothing about theology”

because, as Dawkins pointed out, theology is not of use to anybody, whether in the realm of debating religion or not. It is only of use to theologians who already have taken for granted God’s existence to debate on the nature of God. Which would be like if I was debating against why vampire most certainly couldn’t exist, would I need to know all the vampire folklores? No, without knowing anything about, let’s say, the story of Dracula, I can still provide solid scientific evidence and arguments for why it couldn’t exist. All I need to know is vampires’ fundamental qualities (such as sucking blood, immortality etc). Just as, Dawkins simply need to know God’s fundamental qualities (such as being the intelligent creator of the world, may be may not be interfering people’s lives etc) to debate against those qualities. You can also understand theological arguments without having the knowledge of the survey of theology.

Him:

“The essential of the ontological argument boils down to wordplay: if you can conceive a being greater than yourself which you deny, but at the same time that being, if it exists, would be even more perfect, then that’s a contradiction.”

This may be true of Anselm’s original argument, but not of modern formulations based on modal logic.

“God, whether through the philosophical divine simplicity or not, is complex because it does not follow laws, or outcome with statistical predictions. That makes it complex to understand scientifically.”

Is it valid to apply scientific concepts to something that’s not scientific? Just because a scientific theory that can account for divine intervention would be more complex than a purely naturalistic one does not mean God himself is complex. If God is metaphysically necessary, the probability of him existing is 1.

“because, as Dawkins pointed out, theology is not of use to anybody, whether in the realm of debating religion or not. It is only of use to theologians who already have taken for granted God’s existence to debate on the nature of God… You can also understand theological arguments without having the knowledge of the survey of theology.”

Theology is of use to believers, and it doesn’t make sense to debate God’s existence without knowing anything about his nature. God’s fundamental qualities are a matter of theology, and to debate those qualities requires at least some knowledge of the subject. Also, a lot of theological arguments sound more reasonable in their original contexts; for example, Aquinas’s five ways are based on Aristotelian metaphysics.

Me:

“This may be true of Anselm’s original argument, but not of modern formulations based on modal logic.”

1. Dawkins is addressing Anselm’s argument and 2. what is the modern formulation based on modal logic?

“Is it valid to apply scientific concepts to something that’s not scientific?”

what is not outside of scientific concept? Science applies to existence in general. To say that God falls outside of it is just special pleading. If God exists, then he must exist in the natural world, because natural world by definition is all that exists. If God exists, he must act on some forms of laws and have some form of properties, even if they are laws and properties that we have not discovered. Even defining God is already putting him/her/it within the realm of having properties or some form of laws, therefore, he/she/it falls within the scientific hypothesis for existence.

“Just because a scientific theory that can account for divine intervention would be more complex than a purely naturalistic one does not mean God himself is complex. ”

Again, that’s only your definition of “complexity” I don’t have to go by your definition, nor does Dawkins. Only the scientific definition has any meaning in practice (e.g. predicting outcomes)

“Theology is of use to believers, and it doesn’t make sense to debate God’s existence without knowing anything about his nature.”

By this notion of “theology” then Dawkins DO in fact know something about God’s nature, which he thoroughly defined in his book. To say that he didn’t know anything in this case would be incorrect. To say that because he’s not well studied enough in a subject therefore he’s not qualified is not an argument, you have to show why that lack of knowledge even matters. In this case, it really doesn’t because Dawkins has defined what he means by God and he also has defined the aspect of the god hypothesis in which he argues against, which is simply: an intelligent creator of the world. That’s it, he only needs this particular definition to argue against the God hypothesis. Just as, again, I just need to know that vampires suck blood and are immortal to argue against such existence. If you want to, for example say that that’s not what God is, then you have to make a case what is God. But I’m pretty sure most theists would agree with this definition.

“If God is metaphysically necessary, the probability of him existing is 1.”

Metaphysics is just philosophical nonsense, it’s not verifiable and it’s highly subjective. It’s essentially wishful thinking and playing on your own psychology.

Him:

“1. Dawkins is addressing Anselm’s argument”

In that case, what’s he trying to accomplish? That’s like a creationist trying to disprove evolution by pointing out errors made by Lamarck.

“2. what is the modern formulation based on modal logic?”

Here’s Alvin Plantinga’s version: http://mind.ucsd.edu/syllabi/02-03/01w/readings/plantinga.html

Of course, it’s flawed too, but not for the same reasons as Anselm’s.

“what is not outside of scientific concept? Science applies to existence in general. To say that God falls outside of it is just special pleading. If God exists, then he must exist in the natural world, because natural world by definition is all that exists.”

The natural world is not all that exists “by definition.” The belief that it’s all that exists is a metaphysical one that can’t be verified scientifically.

“If God exists, he must act on some forms of laws and have some form of properties, even if they are laws and properties that we have not discovered. Even defining God is already putting him/her/it within the realm of having properties or some form of laws, therefore, he/she/it falls within the scientific hypothesis for existence.”

This is not true, any more than the fact that a programmer can modify a simulation proves that the programmer is part of the simulation.

“By this notion of “theology” then Dawkins DO in fact know something about God’s nature, which he thoroughly defined in his book. To say that he didn’t know anything in this case would be incorrect.”

Except that he’s arguing against a specific conception of God that’s very different from the classical view. Dawkins seems to be basing his idea of God’s nature on the beliefs of creationists, biblical literalists, and other such heretics.

“Metaphysics is just philosophical nonsense, it’s not verifiable and it’s highly subjective. It’s essentially wishful thinking and playing on your own psychology.”

Just because something can’t be verified doesn’t mean it can’t be meaningfully true or false. Also, you believe in at least one metaphysical theory, namely ontological naturalism.

Me:

Actually after re-reading the God Delusion, Dawkins did also address the Modal argument as well. But his point is mostly circulating around the a priori arguments

“The natural world is not all that exists “by definition.” The belief that it’s all that exists is a metaphysical one that can’t be verified scientifically.”

Yes I can, because I’ve already defined it. Anything that exists falls inside the natural world. If a “metaphysical” one exists, that would fall within the natural world as well, because anything that exists must have properties and laws. To say that there is a place that exists that don’t have those is only speculative and non-evidential, therefore there is no reason to believe the existence of such as place.

“This is not true, any more than the fact that a programmer can modify a simulation proves that the programmer is part of the simulation.”

No, but the programmer follows laws and have properties also, that’s the point. This is a common misconception of the scientific God hypothesis. No analogies that utilizes things in our known practices can fall outside of the natural realm in the first place. Therefore to separate them by these analogies are false. The programmer and the simulation that he creates are two microenvironments, but they both fall ultimately within the natural realm and both can ultimately be verified scientifically. God, if it exists, may reside in a microenvironment that is different from, let’s say, this universe bubble, but if that bubble exists then it would still fall within the natural realm, because any existence must have certain laws and properties in order to maintain and function. There is no reason to believe any existence that don’t have those. And in fact, even magic as we imagined have those, they just defy natural laws as we established today, but there could be natural laws that we haven’t discovered or established. The beauty of science is that it is self-discovering and self-correcting. If something is wrong, it is expected that other people will come and correct it.

“Except that he’s arguing against a specific conception of God that’s very different from the classical view. Dawkins seems to be basing his idea of God’s nature on the beliefs of creationists, biblical literalists, and other such heretics.”

Not really, again, the classical view is that there exists an intelligent creator who created the world (for e.g. Aquinas’ first cause, which is much more used among theists and apologists), then there are some debates regarding whether that intelligent creator interferes with human affairs. Dawkins’ accomplishment is using the scientific knowledge to argue against it, for which he is the first, which is why he is my favorite, because only the scientific way really matters in the ultimate scheme of things. Anything that science cannot prove or disprove is nowhere nearer to prove or disprove it otherwise.

“Just because something can’t be verified doesn’t mean it can’t be meaningfully true or false. Also, you believe in at least one metaphysical theory, namely ontological naturalism.”

No, but anything that cannot be verified is speculative and the important thing is that there is no reason to believe in them, which was Dawkins’ point through and through. I don’t “believe” in ontological naturalism (that’s evidential and have been verified many times throughout human history, the metaphysical one, or whatever, has not), I just ask people what else is there, so far no one, theists or nontheists, has given me a satisfying answer to that question, and I’ve debated a metaphysicist (the only answer he thought he got me on was that he cannot give me this answer because, according to him, a metaphysical realm cannot be defined, only experienced, which of course, is just special pleading and doesn’t explain anything). Because the truth of the matter is, although we can imagine a world where natural laws as we know today are defied, but we simply cannot imagine a world where there is no properties and no laws of any kind, since our neurons also must follow natural laws. And this actually goes back to the ontological argument—we really CAN’T imagine a perfect being–perfection is only an illusory notion in semantics that follows (some notions of) our idealisms, but not that one that can actually be constructed purely in our minds–there is a psychological study that asked people to write down all the characteristics of a perfect being, and the list ended up all contradicting each other.

Him:

“Actually after re-reading the God Delusion, Dawkins did also address the Modal argument as well.”

I don’t remember that. What did he say about it?

“Yes I can, because I’ve already defined it. Anything that exists falls inside the natural world.”

So you criticize theologians for trying to define God into existence, but you’re trying to define him out of existence? That’s what it seems like.

“If a “metaphysical” one exists, that would fall within the natural world as well, because anything that exists must have properties and laws.”

Everything that exists has properties, but that doesn’t mean that those properties are reducible to physical ones. There’s nothing logically wrong with the existence of irreducibly mental properties.

“To say that there is a place that exists that don’t have those is only speculative and non-evidential, therefore there is no reason to believe the existence of such as place.”

Of course it’s non-evidential; you can’t use physical evidence to prove the existence of something non-physical. That doesn’t mean that there’s no reason to believe in them, though. There are good reasons to believe in abstract objects like numbers and sets, for example, as well as moral facts.

“No, but the programmer follows laws and have properties also, that’s the point… any existence must have certain laws and properties in order to maintain and function.”

Of course the programmer’s properties are reducible to, or supervene on, physical properties, but it is just an analogy. My point is that the laws the programmer’s universe follows aren’t necessarily the same sort of laws followed by the simulation. Similarly, God may have properties that are not reducible to physical ones.

“Anything that science cannot prove or disprove is nowhere nearer to prove or disprove it otherwise.”

Maybe science is the best way we have of proving things, but it only applies to a rather limited range of phenomena. If you don’t believe me, try using science alone to solve political or ethical problems. Science cannot tell uoi what you ought to value.

“No, but anything that cannot be verified is speculative and the important thing is that there is no reason to believe in them, which was Dawkins’ point through and through.”

I’m sure you hold many beliefs that can’t be verified – for example, the belief that there is no reason to believe anything that can’t be verified.

“I don’t “believe” in ontological naturalism (that’s evidential and have been verified many times throughout human history, the metaphysical one, or whatever, has not)…”

Ever heard of Moore’s paradox? I suggest you look it up. I think it applies.

“I just ask people what else is there, so far no one, theists or nontheists, has given me a satisfying answer to that question, and I’ve debated a metaphysicist (the only answer he thought he got me on was that he cannot give me this answer because, according to him, a metaphysical realm cannot be defined, only experienced, which of course, is just special pleading and doesn’t explain anything).”

I’m not entirely sure what “metaphysical realm” is supposed to mean, or why he claims it can’t be defined. However, if your epistemology rules out all knowledge that can only be known through direct experience, you must not believe that people (including yourself) have minds, qualia, or consciousness. Do you really think every living being is a zombie?

“Because the truth of the matter is, although we can imagine a world where natural laws as we know today are defied, but we simply cannot imagine a world where there is no properties and no laws of any kind, since our neurons also must follow natural laws.”

Once again, there’s nothing logically wrong with a world where there are no physical laws or properties, only mental ones.

“And this actually goes back to the ontological argument—we really CAN’T imagine a perfect being–perfection is only an illusory notion in semantics that follows (some notions of) our idealisms, but not that one that can actually be constructed purely in our minds–there is a psychological study that asked people to write down all the characteristics of a perfect being, and the list ended up all contradicting each other.”

Who cares if some random people disagree on what properties a perfect being would have? That doesn’t mean the concept is incoherent, it could just mean some of them are mistaken. Most physicists disagree on the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, but that doesn’t mean there can be no correct interpretation.

(By the way, I don’t actually believe in God. I just think the standard arguments against God’s existence aren’t as strong as most atheists think they are.)

Me:

Since it’s late I’ll just answer part of your responses right now.

“So you criticize theologians for trying to define God into existence, but you’re trying to define him out of existence? That’s what it seems like.”

Where have I said that? I did not define God “out of existence” nor have I yet criticize theologians for defining God into existence. I said that God falls within the scientific hypothesis because natural world by definition is all that exists, by which I mean reality, which follows a set of observable rules that can be measured. Theologians define God into existence the same way as someone who can define pink unicorn into existence, by which they make up their own rules in their imagined realm. The only metaphysical belief you need is that the things you come up with in your brain are the things you come up with in your brain, in which you can come up with your own rules (such as God’s nature) and you can follow your own rules. However when you try to apply this rule that you create to reality, then it’s a whole different game all together, because then you must play by the rule of reality.

“Everything that exists has properties, but that doesn’t mean that those properties are reducible to physical ones. There’s nothing logically wrong with the existence of irreducibly mental properties.”

I’ve said nothing of “physical properties.” Anti-matter exists also, is that “physical” or not? And actually, mental qualities are reducible ultimately to neuronal networks, that has been largely shown in neuroscience studies.

“Of course it’s non-evidential; you can’t use physical evidence to prove the existence of something non-physical.”

Again, I think you are confused in your dichotomy of what is “physical” and what is “non-physical.” Moral facts are behavioral, which is the physical actively interacting with the environment. Moral facts are largely consistent with the theory of kin selection, which is based on gene-selection, and numbers and sets are based on inductive reasoning, which is based on what has already been observed. I talked about “rules” and natural laws, not this dichotomy of physical versus non-physical, because I don’t draw this distinction. Everything can be physical on some level, but if you only define what is physical on something that can be observed directly, then again, is anti-matter physical or not?

“My point is that the laws the programmer’s universe follows aren’t necessarily the same sort of laws followed by the simulation.”

I never said I disagree with this. I never spoke otherwise. I said that your analogy which attempts to prove that the natural world is not all there is is a false analogy

“Similarly, God may have properties that are not reducible to physical ones.”

Define “physical properties”

“If you don’t believe me, try using science alone to solve political or ethical problems. Science cannot tell you what you ought to value.”

Actually science can solve political or ethical problems. For a contemporary example. Whether homosexuality is a sin (unnatural choice) or whether it is just an innate, unhelped natural phenomenon has been solved by science, which shows that homosexuality is not a choice, not only this, but that the behavior is observed in non-human animals, suggesting that it is natural. From this fact, then using some basic reasoning, to deny homosexuals from sexual act is no different than from denying heterosexuals from sexual acts. Since heterosexual acts are necessary (not only in procreation), homosexual acts between homosexuals should also be accepted as such.

Regarding what you should value PERSONALLY, that’s an individual difference, however science can predict many of what you are most likely like to value based on your family history, environment, genes, social interactions etc etc.

More coming

Me:

More regarding science’s use in ethics:

How would you as a politician come up with laws? Try NOT to use science for ethical laws and see what happens. For example, are lions supposed to be punished because they kill? Are cats supposed to be punished because they torture other animals occasionally for play? Only science can tell us that these species are different so if you apply the same rules as homo sapiens, you are not going to get anywhere. This would be a basic example. If you as a politician use other means to make ethical laws (such as scripture for example), it can be proven that there is one much better answer which is based on the outcome. When you brought up how to solve ethical problems, that’s when you have already defined a problem (such as good versus bad), and that’s when you have a measure. You can then decide whether one solution is better than another. Sam Harris brought this up in his book The Moral Landscape, which is that you can define the problem by hypothesizing that there is one ultimately bad world, then every other possible world would be slightly better. That can be the starting point, that’s what science does.

“Maybe science is the best way we have of proving things, but it only applies to a rather limited range of phenomena.”

Nope, science can apply to ANY phenomena of existence. The only limitation in science is the tools that are necessary to achieve, for example: data collection, and our potentially limited intelligent capacity to yet solve every problem (for e.g. if there are infinite problems we probably wouldn’t be able to solve them all–but then none of the other current method can either). But there is nothing limiting about the method itself, only the tools that are needed.

“I’m sure you hold many beliefs that can’t be verified – for example, the belief that there is no reason to believe anything that can’t be verified.”

Well of course, you cannot have infinite regress of verifiability. How do you verify things that you verified? How do you know that correctness is really correct? Or for example, if I give a defining statement like: “liars tell lies” you can always ask: how do you know that that’s not a lie?

The way to solve any problem must always start with certain axioms that you choose. This can be illustrated by the following: The Ancient Greeks know about geometry before the formal discipline from building and measuring things. Then a few bright Greeks came to the conclusion that these geometric measurements do in fact, exist. These are the mental exercises. Therefore they had to start from axioms, such as, for instance, between two points you can draw one line and only one–this would be an axiom. From these axiom they made computations and they work. Why these axioms one might ask? Why not pink unicorns drinking blood on a sand beach (they could’ve)? Because they worked, and because of the consensus that they worked. All the metaphysical ramblings eventually converge to what people believe in (in this case geometric proofs)–this axiom is called Euclid’s’ axioms. Then in the 20th century 3 mathematical geniuses came up with 2 non- Euclidean geometry which is the sphere and saddle, in which you can draw a line that is infinite in the spherical geometry, and you can draw none in the saddler geometry, and these have their uses also, such as determining the possible shapes of the universe, then eventually it was determined that the universe is actually flat, because that is the only one that has been derived to be the most mathematically elegant one.

This is an example of formal systems which are everything that allows us to know stuff. And they are built on axioms then using some rules to derive other statements (such as true or false statements). So, you declare some sentences to be true, and you declare some transformation or rules of exchanging information that are valid. And if you take 2 true statement and apply value transformation to them, you come up with another true sentence.

The metaphysical world might be valid, however this is a soft underbelly: You either stay there, or here in the real world, when you start mixing the two then it no longer works. But basically, we start from axioms that we chose, and apply rules which we chose for no better reason, and we derive sentences that are true from the definition. Kurt Gödel showed that the limitation of the game is that some sentences cannot be proving true or false. Within any axiomatical system which is, for example, at least as complicated as basic arithmetic, there are questions that cannot be proven true or false. In other words, the statement that “there is no reason to believe in anything that cannot be verified” is derived from the concept that belief necessarily mean at least some impact in the real world, which is by verification, otherwise it’s impossible to convince another person to believe in it. More on this below:

The way that we assess existence is by measuring the effects of an outcome in our reality, in which we understand the rules in a system. Let’s say that the supernatural exists, which means that the rules cannot be predicted and it’s all random on the sub-atomic particle, in which a formal rule cannot be formulated. However in this case we can STILL measure the effects of that on particles that either exists or do not exist. We may not predict them but as long as we have some sort of reality, we can measure and/or observe the effects.

Now, when it comes to claims of the supernatural (world that is not natural, or not physical, depending on what you mean by physical), the claims in case of belief is that the supernatural does interact with our world in some way, and that is something that we can measure and it’s verifiable, because something that is not verifiable does not affect you in any way (it does not matter whether it’s true or not). So for example in Russell’s Paradox: the barber shaves everybody but himself—this is a paradox, we cannot prove this proposition to be true or not. But it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t have any role in our society, because it’s non-verifiable. So, if you take theology, or some form of metaphysics, or whatever, as a mind-exercise game, that’s fine, but in the case of worlds and reality in which we cannot deny/disprove, by definition, it doesn’t play any role in anything that is operated upon. So let’s say I make up a rule of chess and I play it, that’s fine, but the moment that I try to apply it to the real world, it has to go through scrutiny, because the moment you enter reality you have to fight with reality’s weapons. So there might be a supernatural world, or maybe many, and actually you can come up with infinite number of gods if human beings had infinity of time, and you ultimately decide to follow one, that’s your game that you play in your mind. But once you get out of the game and play in real life, that’s when you leave metaphysics and you enter the real life, and that’s when it’s worth nothing (which is Dawkins’ point of why theology is not of use in the grand scheming of proving things). So the impossibility of proving a negative is not worth anything—you cannot prove that God doesn’t exist in real life in your metaphysical realm, that’s what it’s meant by presupposition.

The bottom line is: if you choose to play a different game, that’s your game but it doesn’t apply to anyone else, that is the metaphysical choice.

“Ever heard of Moore’s paradox? I suggest you look it up. I think it applies.”

You misunderstood me, when I said “I don’t ‘believe’” I meant that it’s more than simply belief, it’s self-evidential, like a circle is defined as having equal radii—to say that you “believe” in that is silly; it’s been defined and all the measurements that comes after it in determine whether something is perfectly circular goes by this definition. In terms of the natural world, that is the definition which follows what I’ve just explained above.

“However, if your epistemology rules out all knowledge that can only be known through direct experience, you must not believe that people (including yourself) have minds, qualia, or consciousness. Do you really think every living being is a zombie?”

I don’t draw such a distinction between “minds” and something that “can only be known through experience.” But please define “minds,” “qualia” and “consciousness.”

“Once again, there’s nothing logically wrong with a world where there are no physical laws or properties, only mental ones.”

What is “mental laws?”

“That doesn’t mean the concept is incoherent, it could just mean some of them are mistaken. Most physicists disagree on the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, but that doesn’t mean there can be no correct interpretation.”

Another false analogy, quantum mechanics is something that is measurable, definable and makes accurate predictions. The interpretation of data does not nullify the data or outcome itself. And more importantly, all quantum theories are potentially falsifiable. The concept of perfection cannot be operationally defined, measured, or making predictive outcomes or falsified; it’s only a semantic concept, like omnipotency for example.

Me:

Dawkins on modal logic: “I once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly. They felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong. The ontological argument, like all a priori arguments for the existence of God, reminds of …Point counter point…Euler was employing what might be called the argument from blinding with science (in this case mathematics)…when translated into English, it’s no more (like) than: “when we die, none of the atoms of our body (and none of the energy) are lost, therefore we are immortal.” (pg. 84-85).

Essentially, Dawkins point is that, there are many variants of the Ontological argument (he name approximately three or four), but they all boil down to the same thing as using mathematics or logic to “prove” something into existence. But it doesn’t work like that and it is internally flawed, since proving something into existence must be based on evidence.

Me:

btw: “(By the way, I don’t actually believe in God. I just think the standard arguments against God’s existence aren’t as strong as most atheists think they are.)”

Or perhaps, you just haven’t really understood them or thought about them all the way through, which is what I perceive as the case is here.

Him:

“Where have I said that? I did not define God “out of existence” nor have I yet criticize theologians for defining God into existence. I said that God falls within the scientific hypothesis because natural world by definition is all that exists, by which I mean reality, which follows a set of observable rules that can be measured.”

This is an assumption, and a false one at that. Not all of reality is observable and measurable; for example, it’s reasonable to believe that there are galaxies beyond the cosmological horizon, and therefore outside the observable universe. It would be unreasonable to assume that the universe ended at the horizon just because nothing beyond it can be observed.

“Theologians God into existence the same way as someone who can define pink unicorn into existence, by which they make up their own rules in their imagined realm.”

If you try defining a pink unicorn into existence, you’ll find that it’s a lot harder than you think. You can’t just replace every instance of “God” in a theistic argument with “a pink unicorn”, because then you’d end up with something indistinguishable from God. It would be a unicorn in name only.

“I’ve said nothing of “physical properties.” Anti-matter exists also, is that “physical” or not?”

Of course anti-matter is physical. It has mass, charge, energy, momentum, and so on, all of which are physical properties. Antimatter, like ordinary matter, does not (seem to) have beliefs, intentions, or desires – although a being made out of antimatter might.

“And actually, mental qualities are reducible ultimately to neuronal networks, that has been largely shown in neuroscience studies.”

You misunderstood what I meant. That seems to be true in our universe, but it’s true by necessity.

“Moral facts are behavioral, which is the physical actively interacting with the environment. Moral facts are largely consistent with the theory of kin selection, which is based on gene-selection, and numbers and sets are based on inductive reasoning, which is based on what has already been observed.”

Evolution can explain moral behavior, but it can also explain selfish behavior (the free rider problem). My point is that you can’t use evolution to justify moral behavior – you can’t get an “ought” from an “is”, so to speak.

“Define “physical properties””

I’ll defer to wikipedia on this one.

“Actually science can solve political or ethical problems. Since heterosexual acts are necessary (not only in procreation), homosexual acts between homosexuals should also be accepted as such.”

I have two objections to this:

1: You can use the same reasoning to justify pedophilia. Pedophilia is not a choice, so it can’t be sinful and therefore must be accepted.

2: You seem to be implying that, if homosexuality were a choice or if it were not observed in other animals, you would find it unacceptable. If not, your views on homosexuality are not based entirely on science.

“Regarding what you should value PERSONALLY, that’s an individual difference, however science can predict many of what you are most likely like to value based on your family history, environment, genes, social interactions etc etc.”

Once again, you can use science to explain your values but not to justify them.

“How would you as a politician come up with laws? Try NOT to use science for ethical laws and see what happens. For example, are lions supposed to be punished because they kill? Are cats supposed to be punished because they torture other animals occasionally for play? Only science can tell us that these species are different so if you apply the same rules as homo sapiens, you are not going to get anywhere.”

Utilitarians and other consequentialists would disagree.

“This would be a basic example. If you as a politician use other means to make ethical laws (such as scripture for example), it can be proven that there is one much better answer which is based on the outcome.”

How do you decide which outcomes are better? That judgment must be based on some kind of values, which can’t be justified by science alone.

“Sam Harris brought this up in his book The Moral Landscape…”

Hahahahahahahahaha – wait you’re serious, aren’t you?

“The only limitation in science is the tools that are necessary to achieve…”

So you admit that science has limitations, which means that other methods may be more appropriate in certain situations.

“Well of course, you cannot have infinite regress of verifiability. How do you verify things that you verified?”

Verificationism isn’t just unverifiable, it’s also false. See above: cosmological horizons, etc.

“Then a few bright Greeks came to the conclusion that these geometric measurements do in fact, exist.”

Abstract objects can’t be observed. Why do you believe in them?

“…in which you can draw a line that is infinite in the spherical geometry, and you can draw none in the saddler geometry…”

You’ve got it backwards. There are no infinite geodesics on a sphere, but there are in the hyperbolic plane.

“then eventually it was determined that the universe is actually flat, because that is the only one that has been derived to be the most mathematically elegant one.”

Space-time is not locally flat, and it might not be globally flat either. The universe was determined to be almost flat by observation, not mathematical elegance, and inflationary cosmology was invented to explain this.

“In other words, the statement that “there is no reason to believe in anything that cannot be verified” is derived from the concept that belief necessarily mean at least some impact in the real world, which is by verification, otherwise it’s impossible to convince another person to believe in it.”

In addition to the cosmological horizon thing, many physicists believe in some version of the multiverse hypothesis. Since the other universes are causally independent of ours, the multiverse can’t be observed, but its existence (they say) would best explain the fine-tunedness of the physical constants in our universe.

“So for example in Russell’s Paradox: the barber shaves everybody but himself—this is a paradox, we cannot prove this proposition to be true or not.”

Your description of Russell’s paradox is absolutely wrong. The barber shaves all and only those people who don’t shave themselves. Such a barber can’t exist because he shaves himself if and only if he doesn’t. In either case, I don’t see how this is relevant.

So there might be a supernatural world, or maybe many, and actually you can come up with infinite number of gods if human beings had infinity of time, and you ultimately decide to follow one, that’s your game that you play in your mind. But once you get out of the game and play in real life, that’s when you leave metaphysics and you enter the real life, and that’s when it’s worth nothing (which is Dawkins’ point of why theology is not of use in the grand scheming of proving things).

“So the impossibility of proving a negative is not worth anything—you cannot prove that God doesn’t exist in real life in your metaphysical realm, that’s what it’s meant by presupposition.”

If you can demonstrate that the concept of God is incoherent or inconsistent with something you know to be true, then you can prove that God doesn’t exist. If you can show that there are no good reasons to believe in God (which Dawkins failed to do), then you would be justified in believing that God doesn’t exist.

“You misunderstood me, when I said “I don’t ‘believe’” I meant that it’s more than simply belief, it’s self-evidential… to say that you “believe” in that is silly.”

If it were self-evidential, everyone would believe it. X may seem obvious to you, but not-X seems equally obvious to someone else, so it’s not silly at all to say you believe X.

“I don’t draw such a distinction between “minds” and something that “can only be known through experience.” But please define “minds,” “qualia” and “consciousness.””

If you don’t know, you must be a zombie.

“What is “mental laws?””

Something like this: If agent a believes x and desires y, then agent a intends to do z.

“The interpretation of data does not nullify the data or outcome itself.”

Each intepretation is consistent with the data, but they’re not jointly consistent. It’s not as if they don’t make a difference, either; one consequence of the many-worlds interpretation is that everyone is subjectively immortal.

“And more importantly, all quantum theories are potentially falsifiable.”

Not true. Some theories, for example, involve hidden variables.

“Nah, this is much more fun :P”

Then why am I talking to you? This is a dating site, after all.

“Dawkins on modal logic: “I once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly. They felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong.”

All I’m getting from this is that Dawkins decided to make a fool of himself in front of a bunch of philosophers and got his ass handed to him.

“Essentially, Dawkins point is that, there are many variants of the Ontological argument (he name approximately three or four), but they all boil down to the same thing as using mathematics or logic to “prove” something into existence. But it doesn’t work like that and it is internally flawed, since proving something into existence must be based on evidence.”

But he failed to demonstrate that. The moral of his story is that you can’t adapt the ontological argument to “prove” whatever you want.

“Or perhaps, you just haven’t really understood them or thought about them all the way through, which is what I perceive as the case is here.”

Lol 😛

Me:

“This is an assumption, and a false one at that… ”

Similarly, things from the past cannot be observable or measured, but it can be inferred. You can believe that the universe a second ago follows the same rules as the universe in the present. You can also believe universe beyond our cosmological horizon because that belief follows the same principle of inference. There might be universes (or an infinite number of them) that do not follow the same rules as ours and are not observable or measureable, but they do not affect us, so the most they are is speculation. This is when the definition of “exist” can only be pertaining to THIS universe. So when I say that the natural world is all that exists, the definition of “exist” is for THIS universe. Because it is THIS one that matters– it is THIS universe in which we measure the effects in order to make predictions. There is no reason to believe God or Pink unicorns because they don’t make prediction in the only world that matters—THIS universe. There is no reason to believe in God or Shiva because there is no reason to believe that they would have an effect on our universe, since the world EXIST defines our universe.

Furthermore, just because you don’t have the tools to measure a cosmos outside of this one that does not falsify the definition that the natural world is all there is, or that this axiom is not as valid as saying that a circle is defined as having equal radii (which is also ultimately not verifiable). This axiom is defined this way because it works and has uses in real life (this universe), just as a circle has defined by equal radii works and has uses in real life.

Moreover, the reason why it’s (more) reasonable to believe that there are observable universes beyond the cosmological horizon (if those universes follows a set of fundamental laws of physics, as Dawkins pointed out) is based on internally consistent reasoning in science, which is consistent both with known natural systems, such as Darwinian evolution (universal Darwinism–which Dawkins addressed), and also does not contradict the anthropic principle (which Dawkins also addressed). Which once again only proves Dawkins’ point: God should be within the scientific hypothesis ultimately. If he matters and manifest himself, then he is a scientific hypothesis (but a very bad one– it’s something the theologians kept doing and it never works).

“In addition to the cosmological horizon thing, many physicists believe in some version of the multiverse hypothesis. Since the other universes are causally independent of ours, the multiverse can’t be observed, but its existence (they say) would best explain the fine-tunedness of the physical constants in our universe.”

And actually no explanation is given for what it means to be “fine-tuned.” And this goes back to why only the universe you live in ultimately matters in what you believe:

Let’s say a person just woke up on a weird island and takes a moment to ponder that he is alive and that that is a miracle, and he were to find out the explanation that the fact that there are somehow other human beings and/or animals and find out how it is that he came to be self-aware, but he doesn’t need to explain it. Theoretically he could investigate to see what happens and how he ends up there, whether it’s a miracle, or by an intelligent designer, or by evolution etc, the very fact that it is reachable to him he could eventually find the explanation. However, in the case of the universe by the definition of “existing” we cannot find out what the other universes are, we cannot draw any conclusion regarding probabilities outside of our universe, therefore we have no explanations for what it means for a universe to be “fine-tuned.” Because you cannot make one thing that is different about our universe, if you can, you would be outside of your universe. People may have theoretical reasons to believe in universes outside of our own that follows non-physical laws, but it’s still speculation. If you use the word “exist” in parallel to other universes, that definition is not of interest. Because again, it’s this universe that matters and it is this universe that we can measure the effects.

Btw Lawrence Krauss had done the computation in support of a flat universe and said that it’s mathematical elegant before the observation in support of it.

“If you try defining a pink unicorn into existence, you’ll find that it’s a lot harder than you think.”

Not seeing how the difficulty of definition is relevant to my point, I don’t try to define a pink unicorn into existence, that’s a metaphysical game I chose not to play.

“You can’t just replace every instance of “God” in a theistic argument with “a pink unicorn”, because then you’d end up with something indistinguishable from God. ”

Yes you are exactly right. And that’s one of their fallacies. They are indistinguishable from the perspective of proving their existence, which needs to be played by the rules of reality, and from the perspective of making the metaphysical choice.

“I’ll defer to wikipedia on this one.”

From wiki: “A physical property is any property that is measurable whose value describes a state of a physical system” I agree with this definition, and I would expand to mean that something that occupies space, that doesn’t mean that this does not encompass systems outside of our universe

“You misunderstood what I meant. That seems to be true in our universe, but it’s true by necessity.”

I don’t understand this statement. You mean that it’s NOT true by necessity? You seem to say that mental qualities can be something else than neural networks, which while I don’t disagree, I must point out that this is once again another false comparison: you once again employ something that IS physical as an example of something that supposedly is not. Which is a false comparison. The point is still that if non-neural network mental qualities exist, they are still “physical” by the wikipedia definition.

” My point is that you can’t use evolution to justify moral behavior – you can’t get an “ought” from an “is”, so to speak.”

Hahahahahaha ha ha ha… oh you are serious?

In order for something to make sense (because if it doesn’t make sense you cannot get anywhere, such as what is the color of jealous?) you have to clearly define all the terms and respect the basic rules. When you say that you cannot get an “ought” from and “is,” well, what is “ought?” Once you define the word “ought” then you’ll see that you have already included “is.” Someone can define an “ought” completely crazy, and if that’s the “ought” that you mean you of course cannot derive “is.” But generally, the word “ought” means that something that should happen.” So, for “something that should happen,” we need an actor that is motivated to do something that he thinks is right (simple basic definition). If something is good or bad that derives from this definition, how do you discern the two states? Good or bad only make sense if you use some property of reality to discern them. You must use something that “IS” to derive that something that “ought.”

So let’s say that the actor that want something, and he asks this question stupidly: how does reality have the things that influence what I want? It doesn’t make any sense. But YOU make sense of it, you might be nonmaterialistic. But even if only your consciousness exists, it becomes the “IS.” How about you then derive what you want from the state of happening? Well, the state of consciousness that happens currently, THAT’S what determines what you want to happen. In other words, if your consciousness needs a reality to occupy one space in a time, and it has to follow rules, then there is a reality which is “IS” that defines and follows your consciousness and guides you to what should happen.

“Once again, you can use science to explain your values but not to justify them.”

Explaining is justifying. It is true that science is not ethics itself. You can use a book called “Ethics” to derive ethical principles. Just like before scientific method was invented people have already derived ethics, from scripture, authority, folklores etc etc. However with science, you can also derive ethics by knowing what the homo sapien species started and compare it to what they want to become. So, if we have evolved differently, we would still do all the “right stuff.” When you ask “how do you want people to behave?” It would have already happened. If you make a decision in general, you could be scientifically informed or not. If you are, you would be more successful in solve problems of ethics. Therefore it is still the best method.

Me:

“I have two objections to this:

1: Pedophilia is not a choice, so it can’t be sinful and therefore must be accepted.

2: You seem to be implying that, if homosexuality were a choice or if it were not observed in other animals, you would find it unacceptable. If not, your views on homosexuality are not based entirely on science.”

1. yes it should be accepted as a natural phenomenon and not a sin, however, it brings suffering to others, therefore the cost outweighs the benefits in homo sapiens–more people would suffer than not, thereby you can classify it as a psychiatric disorder (which it is considered currently). But knowing that pedophilias do not have a choice raises conscience, by science, on how to deal with them, such as perhaps the best way is to create a virtual environment in which they can go with their tendencies instead of killing them or humiliate them etc. In fact, when Jean-Baptiste Pussin first had the reform of treating patients from asylums with sympathy and humane methods, the methods were remarkably successful—more patients got better faster than before. This is the value of science: it’s based on evidence of what works, and only science can tell you this.

2. Yes it is. If it is a choice, then you must access the second thing which is the level of healthy/sufferings (like smoking, which is a choice). If you find a significant level of suffering raises in the act, then homosexuality is not good. Because, like Sam Harris (which you belittled like you belittled Dawkins—with no evidence or counter-arguments), I have defined a problem, which is that suffering is not good for homo sapiens.

“Utilitarians and other consequentialists would disagree.”

Which is why many times they are wrong. That’s their choice not basing it on science, which makes it a wrong choice.

“So you admit that science has limitations, which means that other methods may be more appropriate in certain situations.”

This is faulty basic logic: Just because A has quality X does not imply that B does not have quality X; In this case other methods would be more “limiting” than science.

“Verificationism isn’t just unverifiable, it’s also false. See above: cosmological horizons, etc.”

You have not shown verificationism to be false just because you cannot have an infinite regress of verficationism (e.g. just because you can’t ultimately support that a circle is necessarily defined by having equal radii does not mean that the definition of a circle having equal radii is false) because what is “true” and what is “false” has to be derived from axioms that are ultimately unverifiable.

“Abstract objects can’t be observed. Why do you believe in them?”

I’ve just explained this elaborately. The rule in chess cannot be observed in real life, but there is such a thing as rule in chess. It’s about the metaphysical choice you make between the rules you set and rules of reality. Abstract things have uses in real life to infer real objects (as axioms), not that proving abstract objects by mathematics itself proves that such objects must necessarily exist.

“If you can demonstrate that the concept of God is incoherent or inconsistent with something you know to be true, then you can prove that God doesn’t exist. If you can show that there are no good reasons to believe in God, then you would be justified in believing that God doesn’t exist.”

This is a miscomprehension of what I said: “you cannot prove that God doesn’t exist in real life IN YOUR METAPHYSICAL [emphasis added] realm.” In your metaphysical realm you can make up as many rules you like without consistency of something that you know in real life to be true (e.g. I can make up: the only way to purify the magic sand is when the pink unicorn drinks the blood). You can also make up as many reasons as you want in your metaphysical realm for believing in such a being (e.g. the castle in the sky needs the magical sand or it would fall). But you cannot use the weapons of real life for proving something negative in your metaphysical realm (i.e. I imagined this being exists in an alternative universe, now prove that doesn’t exist!) you cannot do that because the rules of reality and rules in your metaphysical realm do not mix. Again, you either stay there, or here.

“If it were self-evidential, everyone would believe it.”

Again, axiomatic definitions cannot be internally verified. That’s what it’s meant by self-evident. You can agree with my definition or not like you can agree whether a circle is having equal radii or not.

“X may seem obvious to you, but not-X seems equally obvious to someone else, so it’s not silly at all to say you believe X.”

Again, that’s the metaphysical choice that someone makes

“If you don’t know, you must be a zombie.”

I really don’t so you can call me a “zombie” if you like. But I’m a cognitive science PhD student who study both psychology and the brain extensively–this is right up my alley of expertise. You can ask ANY cognitive scientist and vast majority of them would ask you the exact same thing. Minds, qualia and consciousness are extremely hard to operationally define. I can give you a commonly accepted definition and one that I go by: “consciousness is a spot on the map of cognitive functionalities” but I suspect that you would disagree with this definition, since this is a reductionist scientific definition, and defines consciousness as a product of physical properties. What is also commonly accepted among the cognitive and neuroscientist is that mind and body (brain) are not separate, and there are many evidence to demonstrate this.

“Something like this: If agent a believes x and desires y, then agent a intends to do z.”

These are all reducible to physical properties.

“Each interpretation is consistent with the data, but they’re not jointly consistent. It’s not as if they don’t make a difference, either; one consequence of the many-worlds interpretation is that everyone is subjectively immortal.”

This is another red herring and does not address my point.

“Not true. Some theories, for example, involve hidden variables.”

The outcome can still be falsified, doesn’t matter if some variables are unmeasurable directly (which was exactly my point in the first place). This is another red herring

“All I’m getting from this is that Dawkins decided to make a fool of himself in front of a bunch of philosophers and got his ass handed to him.”

That’s your impression and not an argument with evidence against Dawkins, which you did not have as usual. It seems like you are merely saying that because Dawkins is not a “philosopher” he is somehow not qualified to debate philosophers. There are many scientists who can successfully debate philosophers without having been trained in “philosophy.” And actually strictly speaking it’s not even true that scientists who did not study philosophy (in the humanities) have no training in philosophy. Since strictly speaking science IS a form of philosophy. It’s just a more rigorous version of philosophy and the best kind we have so far. Therefore actually all scientists are philosophers, and Dawkins is one as well and he can debate them just fine. That philosopher I debated had the same impression regarding me when he resorted to infinite regress of verificationism to disprove what I explained regarding epistemology. But it’s simply a child’s play (or “mental masturbation with 20 questions” like one of my colleague likes to say), like when a child goes “nur ni nur ni nur ni, what do you say to that adult?” and the adult says that you cannot use nonsense to argue anything, and the child says that the adult decided to make a fool of himself and got his ass handed to him because he has no counterarguments to nur ni nur ni nur or know anything about it.

“(which Dawkins failed to do)”

Dawkins did all of these things you mentioned above (for example, scientific simplicity is something that is known to be true; he also addressed the incoherency of the cosmological argument), you haven’t showed that he failed, all you did was belittling him without solid arguments against him. I criticized Dawkins also, but I had solid arguments. Your arguments seem to be to the effect of: Dawkins didn’t mention THIS (without putting forth how THIS would relevantly contradict his main points), or he admitted that he didn’t know THAT (again without putting forth how THAT would relevantly contradict his main points). It’s like again if I make a case for why vampires couldn’t exist because one of the reason is that vampires cannot maintain Homeostasis, therefore ultimately contradicting the principle of conservation of energy, and you say: “oh, but just because vampires don’t have Homeostasis does not mean that they don’t have conservation of energy as defined in philosophical terms which you didn’t address,” and “your arguments cannot hold water because you are not well-read enough in vampire folklores.” I would say the same thing that Dawkins would say: “if that’s what you choose to believe then you are welcome!”

“The moral of his story is that you can’t adapt the ontological argument to “prove” whatever you want.”

What’s wrong this is argument? It’s true and that was his point: you can’t use metaphysical rules for the rules of reality, I’ve explained this to death

“Lol :P”

You still haven’t shown that you understood so LOL back 😀

btw, thanks for catching some of my factual mistakes. As an aspiring scientist, I do appreciate that, even if those mistakes do not affect my major point. It’s still embarrassing 🙂

That was the last of it.

Enjoy 😛