Religous philosophy?

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Lithium_joe
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Re: Religous philosophy?

Post by Lithium_joe »

As to what started the chain of events that resulted in the universe as we know it today. The answer is not known yet. [LJ]
I rest my case. [L]
If so, that is in my opinion a pathetic reason to therefore assume the something supernatural was responsible. Science progresses by addressing unknowns, assuming an answer, particularly one you can't see or test for is no better than guessing and no more assured to be right.
What is nature, who/what makes nature do what it does?
Nature, in the broadest sense is equivalent to the natural world, physical reality the physical, material, observable universe. Fundamentally, nature is governed by physics, which in turn gives rise to chemistry which is what underlies biology.
So nothing makes nature do anything. Your question presupposes purpose and is assuming something outside of nature (understood in the broadest sense) ie the supernatural (lit: above nature) that could make nature do what it does without explaining how.
Scientific theories hurt my brain
That's understandable and I don't intend that as a personal slight . Science has progressed in the last few centuries from explaining the intuitive to exploring the unintuitive, 2nd and 3rd order questions such as not just what makes the apple fall down, but how does gravity work, and how is gravity operative at the plank scale of quantum physics? This has entailed a complexifying of mathematical description. A victim of it's own success in many respects: science has become a subject for specialists - and that's good - it means we're getting better at conquering our own ignorance, but the downside is that fewer people in the general public understand the relevance of scientific discoveries and inquiries to them and are therefore all too easily dazzled and bewildered by the falsehoods of faith masquerading as science, e.g intelligent design.
I don't claim to be a specialist, I am however interested and have tried to understand the science, and just because the answer isn't available to me yet. I don't give up and assume that therefore absence implies god.

What science can show is that natural processes alone are sufficient explanations.[LJ]
Sufficient for some people, yes, but not all. [L]
I've long suspected that faith and logic have departed each other's company for some time, or to take the analogy further: have arranged separate single beds, which they occupy in frigid silence, and don't talk to each other at breakfast. So permit me to break the ice with the suggestive wink and sexy negligee of reason.

Necessary and sufficient conditions are elements of formal logic.

A necessary condition of a statement must be satisfied for the statement to be true.
A sufficient condition is one that, if satisfied, assures the statement's truth.
To say that P is sufficient for Q is to say that in and of itself, knowing P to be true is adequate grounds to conclude that Q is true.
The logical relation is expressed "P implies Q."

Couple of things to note about that:

Firstly recall my argument that empirical evidence is the only means we know of to arrive at the truth.

Lurker, you seem to think that anything anyone can dream up by virtue of "subjective truth" - which is a contradiction in terms - is also adequate evidence for believing it to be true. That's a version of the transcendental argument that because I conceive of an all -powerful crating deity one must exist. I can also conceive of The big Friendly Giant and Santa Clause. Merely thinking somethign exists doesn;t make it exist.

I put it to you before that that is sufficient grounds for also believing in alien abductions and out-of-body experiences but you declined to take me up on that point. By the definition of what a sufficient condition is in formal logical, it should be clear that subjective opinions (P) about anything, including the existence and activities of gods are not an adequate ground to conclude that the belief (Q) is true. Now you can argue that it is, but you'll look extremely silly doing so.

Secondly recall, if you will, my attempt to explain how falsification operates in science and how it now fits into our defintion of sufficiency.

1. P implies Q. <--- sufficient conditionality
2. If Q is false
3. Therefore P must also be false.

I tried to show then how observations that contradict theory are either anmalous or potentially show that theory is not sufficient to explain all the observed phenomena, so theory must be adapted, updated or replaced. That is the power of science to compare and predict theories in accordance with empirically gathered observations and evidence and become less bad or conversely: better.

If god does not submit to empirical study as a sufficient condition of Q, it cannot be falsified, so it has no place in a truly scientific understanding of the world. Now that might not bother you. But realise this, if you are going to insist upon a god-directed version of evolution or intelligent design, recognise what you are adhering to is no longer science but a theology that misapplies genuine science to it's own ends.

How can supernatural gods manipulate and influence the natural world? [Lithium Joe]
Why can they not - we won't go into the definition of God at this point, that's for another thread [Lurker]
Um...where to start? The definition of God: You go first - I insist - you believe in one after all.
Save it for another thread: If not in a thread called "religious philosophy" then where?
Why can they not? Well I asked first. Why should they be able to? I suppose it all depends if your "definition" places them in the universe or outside of it; imagines them as a deistic creator or a theistic meddler; are they natural or supernatural? Quibbling about my question won't get you very far - I've asked very straight forwardly how is something supernatural (assuming that is according to your definition) supposed to effect something natural (i.e the world) - you see the problem I assume? And shrugging your shoulders and saying 'why not' isn't even approaching an answer. Why not? Well,reaching for my philosophy background here, see Descartes ran up against this problem when he defined as two separate and distinct substances which shared no properties in his famous dialogues that culimate in the cogito ergo sum, moment. He envisioned 'mind' as 'sum res cogitans' 'that which thinks' and pretty much everything else, including the body as 'sum res extensa' (that which is extended (in time, space, dimensions etc)
So the problem was, I see my friend and am happy to see them and wave. How did my non physical, non physical, non exisiting (in time, space, dimension etc) mind make my arm go up? at what point do the two meet and interact?

The point I'm making to you is science cannot prove ('test') the 'controlling influence but which you claim is real, and my question, now as before is that if supernatural forces are acting on natural processes - HOW?

If you answers ascends above 'magic' - I'll be amazed.
Why have a god behind it at all? [Lithium Joe]
Why not? [Lurker]
As I hope I just demonstrated, answering my question with a question - particularly a rhetorical one - is a meaningless gesture.
See I can answer my question: It's isn't necessary(see above definition) to postulate the existence of a god controlling the weather when all that is required to understand how the weather functions is a knowledge of the system and processes involved. Such an advanced knowledge is sufficient. Indeed so advanced is our understanding that the we recognise the limits of prediction in complex systems and the operation of chaos upon such systems. The God of Weather doesn't have to be true, in order for the weather to work.

I'm also glad you find my argument amusing - it was intended to be so - but it belied a serious point: you saying that god controls evolution has for me the same standing in logic and proof and necessity as saying Poseidon controls the weather. How can you deny that Poseidon doesn't control the weather and argue simultaneously that your god controls evolution? How can you tell the difference. Doesn't it offend your logic for me to argue Poseidon makes it rain, as it offends my logic to have you argue that god controls evolution?
Early Celtic take on things
Poseidon is from Greek mythology, later Neptune in Roman legend. The Celts, insofar as what is known about them in pre-christian times is a little but a lot, had a polytheistic religion with gods numbering in the hundreds ( a literal case of Terry Pratchett's - Small Gods: a god for everything and in everything.) Until they were eventually conquered by Roman and Germanic expansionism had quiet a nice thing going. Shame.
Why insist that lying behind this amazing system of biology is a god carefully re-coating the protein shells of each and every flu virus every single winter? [Lithium Joe]
Because it is such a wonderfully intricate and perfect process - why a new flu virus every year - I don't know [Lurker]
I'll deal with the most egregious error first. Which is the how .

Viruses cannot replicate outside of a host, they need to bind to cells in a body. Certainly in our cases we have a very efficient killing machine inside of us called the immune system, so the poor old virus really up up against it, but they have a further problem, the evolutionary pressure involved means their target hosts would soon evolve resistance to them (as a static and unchanging virus would kill or at least prevent from reproducing whatever proportion of a population were susceptible) but those who remained and survived would have some beneficial adaptation that allowed them to resist, this would be promulgated in the gene pool and eventually the poor old virus would become as effective, as well - the common cold; which is exactly what happened to the common cold. Which is why it's so common and weak compared to other viruses.

You only have to see what happens to emigrating missionaries and imperial discoveries in centuries past, when what killed the locals tended not only to be wholesale slaughter or pious domination but the importing of strains of infection to which the locals had no natural (evolved) defence.

There is an arms race between cells, and viruses over the receptor proteins which allow virus to 'dock' and infect the cells. Cells change their surface receptors so viruses cannot attach; the viruses change their surface proteins so they can attach to the changed cell surface receptors. The viruses must always stay ahead of the evolution game. They are very, very good at this because viruses have such high mutation and reproductive rates - the perfect recipe for an annually resurgent virus outbreak like flu'.

As for being perfect and intricate: I find myself wondering 'perfect for who?', but regarding that - the process is one of mutation: how is this in your conception an an example of 'perfection'? Secondly, the 'intricacy' is well accounted for micro-evolution (indeed micro-cellular evolution) the mere fact of it's intricacy is no argument or evidence that 'god did it'.
"You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know."
~ Sam Harris.
Lithium_joe
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Re: Religous philosophy?

Post by Lithium_joe »

My next reply will be to Mattie's 10-point critique of cosmology and his follow up questions, then I will have caught up with myself and can properly respond to Lurker's last few posts.
"You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know."
~ Sam Harris.
The Lurker
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Re: Religous philosophy?

Post by The Lurker »

I have just come back from a tiring few days away, so I am not going to address your post in detail at this point - I would however like to take you to task about your statements below:
Why insist that lying behind this amazing system of biology is a god carefully re-coating the protein shells of each and every flu virus every single winter? [Lithium Joe]
Because it is such a wonderfully intricate and perfect process - why a new flu virus every year - I don't know [Lurker]
I'll deal with the most egregious error first. Which is the how .
I have made no remarkably bad errors thank you very much. At no point in any post have I discussed the replication of viruses, and I thank you for your summary below, but I can assure you I am well versed in virus reproduction.

I take it you assummed I did not know about virus reproduction because I said
why a new flu virus every year - I don't know [Lurker]
In fact by that statement I meant I did not know why God allowed these changes to occur, it didn't mean that I did not know the microbiology behind it.

Viruses cannot replicate outside of a host, they need to bind to cells in a body. Certainly in our cases we have a very efficient killing machine inside of us called the immune system, so the poor old virus really up up against it, but they have a further problem, the evolutionary pressure involved means their target hosts would soon evolve resistance to them (as a static and unchanging virus would kill or at least prevent from reproducing whatever proportion of a population were susceptible) but those who remained and survived would have some beneficial adaptation that allowed them to resist, this would be promulgated in the gene pool and eventually the poor old virus would become as effective, as well - the common cold; which is exactly what happened to the common cold. Which is why it's so common and weak compared to other viruses.

You only have to see what happens to emigrating missionaries and imperial discoveries in centuries past, when what killed the locals tended not only to be wholesale slaughter or pious domination but the importing of strains of infection to which the locals had no natural (evolved) defence.

There is an arms race between cells, and viruses over the receptor proteins which allow virus to 'dock' and infect the cells. Cells change their surface receptors so viruses cannot attach; the viruses change their surface proteins so they can attach to the changed cell surface receptors. The viruses must always stay ahead of the evolution game. They are very, very good at this because viruses have such high mutation and reproductive rates - the perfect recipe for an annually resurgent virus outbreak like flu'.
As I say thanks for the microbiology lesson, but I did actually do courses in microbiology as part of my degree ;)
As for being perfect and intricate: I find myself wondering 'perfect for who?', but regarding that - the process is one of mutation: how is this in your conception an an example of 'perfection'? Secondly, the 'intricacy' is well accounted for micro-evolution (indeed micro-cellular evolution) the mere fact of it's intricacy is no argument or evidence that 'god did it'.
I fear this discussion has run its natural course. Unless/until you experience "God" by whatever means you will never see where Mattie and I are coming from. It is not something you can prove by science or otherwise - I stated that from the outset and so we are going round in circles.

In the best scientific tradition ;) I will draw a conclusion, you don't agree with us and nothing will change your mind and we don't agree with you and nothing is going to change that :grin:
Lithium_joe
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Re: Religous philosophy?

Post by Lithium_joe »

My apologies if you felt I had somehow insulted you, I had not meant that be offensive. I believe I said someway back that your studies might outstrip my own accumulated understanding at some point so it appears we've come across that very juncture. I'm quite willing to cede the point that you may well know much more about microbiology than I do. I might add I was summarising microbiology not for your benefit in particular, but for anyone following our discussion so they could see the basis of my argument.

And that argument was the mutation, reproduction and evolution of viruses is well understood and explains why new virus strains emerge. Why I went to such apparently unnecessary lengths to stress those points was when you said you didn't know why there was a new flu virus every year.
why a new flu virus every year - I don't know [Lurker]
Unfortunately I cannot peer into your mind with remote projection and I can only take you on what you write.
I did not construe from that that you meant why god would 'allow' viruses to evolve. (An odd question in any case) I thought you meant you didn't know how. And please remember I've stood up for science as answering 'why' questions with 'how' answers so inferred that the appropriate reply to you and to anybody following this was a brief explanation of the 'how' in the evolutionary context which I've been defending as entirely sufficient to explain the observed phenomena without recourse to anything supernatural.

I do hope that this conversation hasn't run it's natural course; I would quite like it to continue not least because I think I've dealt with every* point that has been put to me and have yet to be presented with any good reason to see otherwise than as I do.
Perhaps I've not succeeded, but I've tried never to attack someone's knowledge or person, rather I have tried repeatedly to attack their arguments - those which have been offered in defence of faith.
I'm not being stubborn for stubbornness' sake (in fact I hope I'm not being stubborn at all) I've relished the intellectual challenge in countering the arguments put to me; none of which to date has demonstrated to me that I'm wrong, whereas I've said repeatedly, that if faith is justified on the grounds given here, then faith isn't justified at all.

For example, you say I need to experience god in order to understand - I just won't get it otherwise.
That bring a number of questions to mind:

I'm presuming (again) you have had such an experience, so what happened?

Christians experience Jesus; Muslims experience Allah; How could I, a humble atheist novice, tell when this experience comes, by whom am I being addressed? Could I even have an experience that is perhaps Satanic? If you believe in that sort of thing, he is apparently really good deceiving people afterall.

Why is 'getting it' conditional upon experiencing it?

Someone might say for example, you don't really 'get' Hamlet: the agony, the indecision, the torment, until you've acted it out , that is tried to emote as Hamlet did. I think there is an element of truth to that that knowledge of subjective emotional states is enhanced through empathic involvement, and it is quite likely that someone who has acted out Hamlet would understand it better than someone who merely read about it.

But is god to you really just an emotion? You've repeatedly denied to me that it is possible to show objectively the god exists and does the things you purport him to do and extolled subjective truths as valid and equal to objective ones. So it seems to me, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, I invite clarification as always - that god is something like an emotion as you've portrayed it.
Am I doing you a gross disservice in saying that?

See, if as you say there is no evidence of god - it is only a feeling based on an 'experience', I don't need to prove that either of us enjoy subjective states of mind. You are claiming that god exists independently of our beliefs (positive and negative) concerning him. In other words, that he exists in objective reality and that you stand in relation to Him such that his existence is itself the reason for your belief. This is a claim that demands empirical corroboration. If I were asking you to prove that you believed in god, your argument about experience would have some merit, because I would be asking you to present proof of your state of mind. However, I am not asking you to prove that. I am asking you to back up your claim that god exists in the same way you or I exist. In much the same way that you would surely demand proof if I claimed that Superman existed, I have a right to expect proof from you when you claim god exists.

The problem if I may characterise it by a further analogy, is rather like a court case. Of course it would be much simper process if everyone could have experienced the crime then they'd know exactly what happened. But as you know it doesn't work like that they have to procede by what the evidence shows is the most likely series of events.
Now the defense in our disagreement might well call their star witness to the stand:

Defense Council: God, do you swear upon your own autobiography to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help yourself?
God: I DO
Presiding judge: Begin your cross-examination of the witness, Council.
Council: Do you, in fact, exist?
God: I DO.
Council: Are you responsible for what happened?
God: I AM.
Council: All of it?
God: YES, EVEN GIRAFFES.
The defence rests.

In trying the case Atheists vs People who profess a personal faith in God; such a personal testimony would be very useful, but instead all we have to understand what happened is the evidence that has been collected - and what does it show? the universe is expanding, that reptiles evolved from fish**, that viruses evolve in competition with immune responses and still nowhere is there evidence of a god.

And you say I should not expect there to be becasue when I hear what your star wittness has to say about themselves I'll be convinced. Well if they don't turn up soon they will be held in contempt of court for failure to appear despite a subpoena requiring attendance.

I do hope your source of tiredness a) improves and b) isn't me O:) - I look forward (as ever ;)) to maybe getting a reply or several but don't feel obliged.

Lithium. :-k


*I've still got about 3 posts yet to reply to directly.
**I check myself here: what the evidence shows is just a touch more complex than that. 'Reptile' and 'fish' are not accurate categories of life that can be reliably used in taxonomy. Ever since cladistics took off in palaeontology and zoology, the evolvability of animals is best accounted for in a hierarchical classification of species based on evolutionary ancestry. What this demonstrates is life consists not in linear progression but rather a branching off of multiple strands, not all of which survived, and the extinction and fossilisation of such mid-range evolved states is what demarcates and evidences the distinction of separate species.
The Tiktaalik specimen is a good example of a what is likely a sister species on the branching tree of life that is an intermediate form between tetrapods and which is probably not ancestral but shows the progression of evolution and plots a point between, that is intermediate between the species. the effect is that the growing picture is not of how did one species (whole and complete) turn into another species but how did life diversify, and branch, and of those, which survived?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistic
"You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know."
~ Sam Harris.
Lithium_joe
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Re: Religous philosophy?

Post by Lithium_joe »

I'm going to reply to Mattie's 10-point post at some point here. I'm trying to muster up the energy and interest to do so. Not forgotten just brooding. :boxedin:
"You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know."
~ Sam Harris.
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