| Subject: You put the FUN in fundamental |
Author:
Ben
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 03/20/02 10:43pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "A fundamental order to the universe." on 03/20/02 5:37pm
>>Yes, but my point is that the only claim the word
>>"atheist" _necessarily_ means a person is making is
>>that there isn't a God. An atheist, at least by my
>>definition, makes no claims about how the universe
>>should or shouldn't be.
>
>Very well, let’s take atheism in a more “raw” form,
>and let’s compare it with my theistic philosophy: a
>rationally orderly God created the universe. But
>before doing that, let me tell you about what I
>consider to be explanatory power and how it’s
>used as a factor in rationally favoring one theory
>over an empirically identical competitor.
Again, you are missing the point which I just made above. My point is that atheism is not a philosophy. You might meet one atheist who holds the theory that the universe ought to be orderly. You might meet another atheist who thinks the universe really should be non-orderly, and has trouble fitting the actual nature of the universe into his worldview (this is assuming the universe is "orderly," which I am still not willing to unilaterally assent to... we'll get into that more later, though). Atheism is not a theory. It simply means, "Someone who doesn't believe in God." If you meet an atheist and you want to know his beliefs regarding an orderly or non-orderly universe, you have to ask him. Again, "atheism" is just a word that says what someone _doesn't_ believe... it doesn't say much about what someone _does_ believe.
In light of this, I am deleting your examples, because I feel they really don't apply to what I'm saying. I do understand your points, but they would only be applicable if atheism were a theory which contained assumptions about how the universe ought to be--it isn't.
Perhaps what you mean is that a person who is an atheist has to explain how the universe could be orderly without some being stepping in to make it that way. That way, you aren't treating atheism as a theory that explains things, but you are confronting an atheist with data that seems to indicate that his belief about the universe isn't true. I can see that. I guess I'm thinking as I write here. I suppose that's a fair enough question. Maybe one of the atheists on the board could answer that better than I can. I guess I'd just say that, at least to many people, order does not imply design.
[snip interesting math history]
>Indeed, nature
>cannot be described precisely without high-level
>mathematics to explain its patterns. What can atheism
>say here about the fantastic level of mathematical
>sophistication and consistency on the processes of our
>universe? “That’s just the way it is”? Like in the
>detective example, simply saying, “that’s just the way
>it is” can have relatively weak explanatory power.
>Theism provides a bit stronger degree of explanatory
>power for this order: a rationally orderly God created
>the universe.
You are certainly trying to make "That's the way it is" sound like a pitiful explanation. So I again ask you... why is God there? Why, Wade? Tell me why God is there, and I will tell you why the universe is orderly. I think an important part of being intellectually honest is knowing when to say, "That's just the way it is, or at least that's the best way we have of explaining it thus far." Again, just because I don't have an explanation and you do doesn't make you right. I could easily come up with a theory that would explain the orderliness of the universe or anything else, but without a way of testing that theory, it is useless. Sure, your belief that there was a creator goes along with the data, but I could create a theory that says that there is "black force," and this force causes orderliness in the universe. This force is not intelligent, but it has been around forever and causes orderliness all over the place. My theory works well, but do you accept it? Is it suddenly more rational than just saying, "I don't know" simply because it explains the data?
>Another evidential argument on the order of the
>universe that has become fairly well known in
>theological circles is the “fine-tuning” of the
>physical constants. That is, if the physical
>constants in the universe were altered even slightly,
>no life could have possibly existed. Like the
>mathematics thing, the universe doesn’t have to be
>“fine-tuned” for life. It is logically possible for
>the universe not to have these “fine-tuned” physical
>constants. And yet it does.
Yes, and it's logically possible that you might have never been born. But you were. So now we have to work with what we have. Any time you try to play the statistics game with the likelihood for certain huge universal things to have happened, I think you get onto shaky ground. For all we know, although these things seem like "fine tuning" to us, they might be just part of the way the universe is. Sometimes you argue against macroevolution because people apply a concept that is used on a smaller level to a larger level. I would accuse you of the same problem here, except the opposite: you apply concepts which would work on a small scale (e.g., all the knobs are set to the right place for a plane to take off... the odds of this happening by accident are small, so some person must have set all the knobs to the right place... if even one knob had been wrong, the plane couldn't have taken off) to the much larger scale of the entire universe. I'm not sure these things can be carried over to that scale without losing some of their effectiveness.
> Is it very rational to
>believe that our universe just happens to have
>precisely the right constants, to simply say, “That’s
>just the way it is”? That sort of belief strikes me
>as having terribly impotent explanatory power compared
>to the theory of a rationally orderly God creating the
>universe.
It's interesting that you feel that coming up with an invisible being to explain things has much better explanatory power than anything else. Remember that Ptolemy had an elaborate explanation for the apparent retrograde motion of the planets. His explanation fit the data very nicely, but it was completely wrong. Now, if you were Ptolemy, and I were... well... me, you would be talking about how wonderful epicycles are, and I would be saying, "Well, I disagree with you." You would, of course, say, "Well, how do you explain it then?" To which I would answer, "Well, I'm not sure. I don't have enough data to decide, but I definitely find your explanation untenable." Simply coming up with a theory that matches the data is easy, but don't expect me to accept it or even say it has more explanatory power than anything else if I don't find it compelling. I think we simply don't know enough about the universe on a fundamental level to have any real understanding of what goes on "behind the scenes."
>>>>I do not think it is fair for you to assume that
>>>>people know what you mean by the word "atheist".
>>>
>>>I thought the standard dictionary definition would
>>>suffice in the context of these circumstances. If
>not
>>>I apologize. I hope I have made myself clear in this
>>>post.
>>
>>Yes, but your "standard dictionary definition" is not
>>the one you offered to me before. The standard
>>definition is "Someone who does not believe in God,"
>>and the context of my quote was that you were
>>discussing "classical atheism."
>
>I think it was clear that I was referring to
>“classical atheism” in that paragraph you’re referring
>to, mainly because I explicitly stated the term
>“classical atheism”
rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.voy.com/22190/2/3264.html">this
>post. In the other contexts (e.g. the order of
>the universe) I’m using a more “standard definition.”
I don't want to get into this much more, but the discussion went like this:
1) you said theism explains the orderliness of the universe better than atheism
2) I asked why
3) you said classical atheism states that the universe should be non-orderly
4) I said I didn't know we were talking about "classical atheism," and explained that the word "atheism" simply means that a person doesn't have a belief in a deity. It makes no assertions about the orderliness of the universe. Then I said I didn't think it was fair for you to think that when you said "atheism," people would know you meant "classical atheism." (this is where we pick up in the first quote listed above)
5) You said (see above) that you thought the dictionary definition would suffice in these circumstances
6) I said of course, but the "standard dictionary definition" does not include the points you made using "classical atheism"
7) You said you thought it was clear that you were referring to "classical atheism."
Go back to the beginning (number 1 here). Your quote that you have used several times on this board is that theism explains the orderliness of the universe better than atheism. You make no mention of "classical atheism" in this quote, nor did you until I pressed you to explain why. So no, it was not in any way clear that you were talking about classical atheism.
>>You seem
>>to think there is something wrong with saying, "That's
>>just the way it is." But let's say you are right...
>>let's say there is an invisible being in the sky.
>>What if I asked you, "WHY is God up there? How did he
>>get there?" If I asked questions like that, I'm sure
>>at some point your answer would look a lot like,
>>"That's just the way it is."
>
>I’m not sure how you would see my explanation. But to
>answer your question of “How did God get there?”, I
>would say that God never began to exist.
We can get into that later, but please answer this... WHY is God there?
>>By that same token, I
>>can think that nature just _does_ operate in
>>mathematical patterns. Maybe there is no "why" about
>>it.
>
>Such an idea is precisely the problem. To illustrate
>I’ll use an example. Evolution is an explanatory
>theory. That is, it explains why certain data exist.
>Suppose you adduce lots of empirical evidence that
>evolution explains (fossil sequencing, certain
>similarities between life forms, etc.) and suppose I
>say that evolution is wrong. My explanation? “That’s
>just the way it is,” and there is no “why” about the
>data you showed me. Would you be skeptical? I feel
>the same sort of skepticism with the notion that there
>is no “why” about the data I presented, at least in
>part because of the explanatory power factor.
I listed my reasons for this above. Basically, any theory (as you always say) can be offered to explain any data. So your theory is that God created things, and the orderliness of the universe (which you seem to say just means that the same actions produce the same events over and over again) supports this theory. Big deal. The evolutionary theory is a comprehensive theory that has been tested and involves all the major sciences. It has been proven over and over again. Tell me other things about your "creator" theory which fit the data better than any other theory. Again, my "black force" theory is just as good as your "creator" theory so far, unless you can offer more reasons why yours explains the data better.
>>>The universe
>>>does not have to be the way that it is. It is
>>>logically possible for nature to behave in completely
>>>random and non-mathematical ways, for example.
>>
>>And what would such a universe be like? Since it's
>>"logically possible," please explain what would be
>>different in this kind of universe.
>
>One that behaves more randomly and without physical
>laws as we know them. For example, picture a universe
>where gravity doesn’t always work. Rocks don’t always
>fall when pushed off a cliff. Sometimes they float
>up, sometimes they go down, and sometimes they fly
>around in all sorts of crazy directions. Sometimes
>gasoline catches fire when a lit match is on it, and
>sometimes it doesn’t even if the conditions are
>identical. The speed of light constantly changes and
>sometimes it doesn’t even move at all.
This is all very interesting. If you know much about quantum mechanics, you know that the possibility exists that any of these things might _not_ happen at a given time. Your car could flow through your garage one day out into the yard. It's not likely, but it's possible based on what scientists are learning about the quantum level.
In any event, I don't find this very compelling. I was trying to imagine a non-orderly universe, and I couldn't. Now I see that what you mean by "orderly" is that the same actions produce the same events. In other words, we can predict things. Do you honestly think that "classical atheism" or any other theory ever invented would say, "If you throw a ball in the air today, it will fall down, but tomorrow it may not." Humans have seen the constancy of such things for as long as our brains could process that information. Animals know it too (does the name Pavlov ring a bell?). I don't see how these cause and effect relationships say anything about the existence of an invisible deity.
Ben
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 