Hawking says there are no gods

[Belz...]

The issue raised by the OP is the question of generalizing from experience.

We examine a volcano and find that it's caused by subterranean heat and pressure, rather than by the anger of a volcano god. We examine fifty volcanos and find that all of them are caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not one by the anger of volcano gods. But then a new volcano erupts somewhere that we've never examined before. Can we say with any confidence that that one's also caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not by the anger of a volcano god?

Most people (nowadays) would say yes, though some of them would also caution against absolute certainty, and suggest we should probably go there and take a few measurements.

Now instead of fifty volcanos, let's say we've investigated the causes of fifty different natural phenomena. In all cases where we could identify causes, we found causes other than gods. How justifiable, how rational, is the conclusion that no natural phenomena are caused by gods?

On the one hand, the pattern established by experience so far is clear. On the other hand, the fifty-first, fifty-second etc. phenomena that remain unexplained aren't just randomly chosen phenomena that we haven't got around to looking at before. They're unexplained because for whatever reasons, they're harder to examine or explain than volcanos and the rest of the previous fifty. Those reasons might be complexity, scale, remoteness, etc. but one of the conceivable reasons certain things might be hard to explain is the involvement of gods.

The question of how far we're justified in generalizing isn't specific to science. It applies to all learning. It's a fundamental issue in all learning.

Under-generalizing is "not getting the concept," not seeing the pattern or "not seeing the forest for the trees." When I studied machine learning in the early 80s it was the crux of the "open minded learner" problem demonstrating that built-in biases were necessary for all but the crudest of learning. A completely open-minded learning algorithm could be told that for an input of 1, the correct output is 1; for an input of 2, the correct output is 2; ditto for 3, 4, 5, and 7. But if then told to figure out the correct output for 6, it could only output "unknown" because it hadn't been taught that specific rule. In other words an open-minded learner cannot learn; or more precisely, it can learn only in the sense of being able to parrot specifically taught instances. That falls under our definition of learning (a multiplication table, for instance) but doesn't encompass all that we mean by learning. To go farther the learning algorithm needs a "model" which amounts to a system of biases. For instance if programmed to find the shortest computation that relates output to input for all known instances, the learning algorithm will no longer be "open minded," instead having a strong bias toward simpler rules, but will quickly learn the rule "output = input," and will offer the output of 6 for an input of 6.

Over-generalizing is "jumping to conclusions" or "mistaking the map for the territory" or "comparing apples to oranges" or "every problem seeming like a nail." Fictional AI-gone-wrong scenarios usually feature something to that effect. HAL is programmed to "protect the mission" and tries to do so by killing the astronauts. Colossus is programmed to "defend the nation" and does so by taking over the world.

Both possibilities loom in every learning situation. Both are the basis for jokes, sometimes but not always about silly things children do. From my own childhood, a comedy bit on Laugh-In by Totie Fields stuck in my memory: a toddler-age character (much like Lily Tomlin's "Edith Ann" character, but different) recites a series of laments: "Nobody TOLD me I shouldn't paint the baby. They said not to paint the walls, or the floor..." That's failure to generalize, which we associate with cognitive immaturity. (Fields' character appeared to be regressing in age with each transgression in the series.) In other family comedy bits, toddlers do things like try to feed the goldfish by dumping dog food in the bowl. That's generalizing too far, which we often associate with inexperience. It's the reason why "a little learning is a dangerous thing." It's usually the reason for the problems the "FNG" causes at work. FNGs know the dozen fundamental rules for how things should be done, but not the eight hundred exceptions.

Clearly the issue goes way beyond early childhood learning. Every romance is about learning not to generalize. "Can't you see Broody McLeatherpants isn't like all the other vampires?" Every recovery narrative is about learning to generalize. "I've just realized that every time I reach this point and go get a bottle of cheap whisky and open it up and drink it, it doesn't help! Maybe I should try something else instead."

The issue of this thread is not how science should be done, but how we should or should not learn from it. Some want to limit our learning to only the specific results investigated, like the "open minded learner" algorithm that can only repeat what it's been taught. "Be open-minded! That fifty-first volcano might have a god in it!" Others want to take models that might be shaky or incomplete and extrapolate them literally to the ends of the universe (I'm looking at you, cosmologists, though some other examples come to mind, such as the "central dogma of genetics" that proved over-generalized).

More specifically, some see only a small distinction between "no volcano gods" and "no gods at all," while others see a huge gulf. The first view can be justified on the basis of volcanos once being among the natural phenomena that were very consistently and solely attributed to the actions of gods. (They're even among the events that insurance companies technically term "acts of god" to this day.) The second can be justified on the basis of the still-unexplained things such as conscious experience, the origin of life, and the origin of the universe being, in present day eyes, so much very more mysterious than mere volcanos.

Hawking's viewpoint adds a bit of a new wrinkle: the suggestion that even if the second view is correct, and there is a huge divide between "no volcano gods" and "no gods at all," that science has succeeded in crossing it. That is to say, "no gods exist" is a reasonable generalization to have learned by now.

Excellent post, Myriad. You rule.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

According to you there is a science that is not published in scientific papers. But if that science is science it will work with the scientific method. If not, say how we can know what other method follows.

Do you know how silly this sounds? Gee, how did anyone figure anything out before there were science journals?

If that supposed science has not studied the subject of God, we are not interested. If it has studied it, say how we can know and contrast.
If neither one or the other, stop teasing us.

God beliefs are studied all the time and very much published in science journals. Beyond beliefs, there is no evidence of anything left to study.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Nothing anybody has said is even close to that. Stop lying.

To be fair, I have though I don't think it's what David is referring to. There is a ton of research that isn't published.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... But that came about because scientific explanations supplanted religious explanations and most people are smart enough to realize that this probably means religious ideas are invalid.

Just as scientific explanations supplant an awful lot of philosophy as we gain a better understanding of how brains make moral and other subjective choices.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The issue raised by the OP is the question of generalizing from experience.

We examine a volcano and find that it's caused by subterranean heat and pressure, rather than by the anger of a volcano god. We examine fifty volcanos and find that all of them are caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not one by the anger of volcano gods. But then a new volcano erupts somewhere that we've never examined before. Can we say with any confidence that that one's also caused by subterranean heat and pressure, and not by the anger of a volcano god?

Most people (nowadays) would say yes, though some of them would also caution against absolute certainty, and suggest we should probably go there and take a few measurements.

Now instead of fifty volcanos, let's say we've investigated the causes of fifty different natural phenomena. In all cases where we could identify causes, we found causes other than gods. How justifiable, how rational, is the conclusion that no natural phenomena are caused by gods?

On the one hand, the pattern established by experience so far is clear. On the other hand, the fifty-first, fifty-second etc. phenomena that remain unexplained aren't just randomly chosen phenomena that we haven't got around to looking at before. They're unexplained because for whatever reasons, they're harder to examine or explain than volcanos and the rest of the previous fifty. Those reasons might be complexity, scale, remoteness, etc. but one of the conceivable reasons certain things might be hard to explain is the involvement of gods.

The question of how far we're justified in generalizing isn't specific to science. It applies to all learning. It's a fundamental issue in all learning.

Under-generalizing is "not getting the concept," not seeing the pattern or "not seeing the forest for the trees." When I studied machine learning in the early 80s it was the crux of the "open minded learner" problem demonstrating that built-in biases were necessary for all but the crudest of learning. A completely open-minded learning algorithm could be told that for an input of 1, the correct output is 1; for an input of 2, the correct output is 2; ditto for 3, 4, 5, and 7. But if then told to figure out the correct output for 6, it could only output "unknown" because it hadn't been taught that specific rule. In other words an open-minded learner cannot learn; or more precisely, it can learn only in the sense of being able to parrot specifically taught instances. That falls under our definition of learning (a multiplication table, for instance) but doesn't encompass all that we mean by learning. To go farther the learning algorithm needs a "model" which amounts to a system of biases. For instance if programmed to find the shortest computation that relates output to input for all known instances, the learning algorithm will no longer be "open minded," instead having a strong bias toward simpler rules, but will quickly learn the rule "output = input," and will offer the output of 6 for an input of 6.

Over-generalizing is "jumping to conclusions" or "mistaking the map for the territory" or "comparing apples to oranges" or "every problem seeming like a nail." Fictional AI-gone-wrong scenarios usually feature something to that effect. HAL is programmed to "protect the mission" and tries to do so by killing the astronauts. Colossus is programmed to "defend the nation" and does so by taking over the world.

Both possibilities loom in every learning situation. Both are the basis for jokes, sometimes but not always about silly things children do. From my own childhood, a comedy bit on Laugh-In by Totie Fields stuck in my memory: a toddler-age character (much like Lily Tomlin's "Edith Ann" character, but different) recites a series of laments: "Nobody TOLD me I shouldn't paint the baby. They said not to paint the walls, or the floor..." That's failure to generalize, which we associate with cognitive immaturity. (Fields' character appeared to be regressing in age with each transgression in the series.) In other family comedy bits, toddlers do things like try to feed the goldfish by dumping dog food in the bowl. That's generalizing too far, which we often associate with inexperience. It's the reason why "a little learning is a dangerous thing." It's usually the reason for the problems the "FNG" causes at work. FNGs know the dozen fundamental rules for how things should be done, but not the eight hundred exceptions.

Clearly the issue goes way beyond early childhood learning. Every romance is about learning not to generalize. "Can't you see Broody McLeatherpants isn't like all the other vampires?" Every recovery narrative is about learning to generalize. "I've just realized that every time I reach this point and go get a bottle of cheap whisky and open it up and drink it, it doesn't help! Maybe I should try something else instead."

The issue of this thread is not how science should be done, but how we should or should not learn from it. Some want to limit our learning to only the specific results investigated, like the "open minded learner" algorithm that can only repeat what it's been taught. "Be open-minded! That fifty-first volcano might have a god in it!" Others want to take models that might be shaky or incomplete and extrapolate them literally to the ends of the universe (I'm looking at you, cosmologists, though some other examples come to mind, such as the "central dogma of genetics" that proved over-generalized).

More specifically, some see only a small distinction between "no volcano gods" and "no gods at all," while others see a huge gulf. The first view can be justified on the basis of volcanos once being among the natural phenomena that were very consistently and solely attributed to the actions of gods. (They're even among the events that insurance companies technically term "acts of god" to this day.) The second can be justified on the basis of the still-unexplained things such as conscious experience, the origin of life, and the origin of the universe being, in present day eyes, so much very more mysterious than mere volcanos.

Hawking's viewpoint adds a bit of a new wrinkle: the suggestion that even if the second view is correct, and there is a huge divide between "no volcano gods" and "no gods at all," that science has succeeded in crossing it. That is to say, "no gods exist" is a reasonable generalization to have learned by now.

I would simplify this. Often you can approach a problem from different angles.

You can ask, are there any real gods?
Or you can ask, what best explains god beliefs?

The first question is based on the fact people believe in gods, it is not based on any actual evidence gods exist.

The second question is based on actual observations. Scientific inquiry usually starts with an observation and proceeds from there.

 

[BadBoy]

Those reasons might be complexity, scale, remoteness, etc. but one of the conceivable reasons certain things might be hard to explain is the involvement of gods.

The question of how far we're justified in generalizing isn't specific to science. It applies to all learning. It's a fundamental issue in all learning.

The problem here for me though with certain things might be hard to explain could be due to the involvement of gods is that first one has to establish that a god or gods exist or can exist before postulating gods as the potential reason that an event is hard to explain.

If we had evidence of magical gods existing, then we could put odd stuff down to "oh gosh, it could be those bloody gods at it again". Else it has to be a big fat we just don't know. Otherwise we could say that a reason for an unexplained event was that the Spaghetti Monster (flying or otherwise) could have been responsible - and any infinite number of made up crap.

Also, postulating (I am not saying you are in this case), that unexplained events like this (e.g. the actor behind the big bang) suggests evidence for a God is bootstrapping and invalid reasoning in my book. My reply to the assertion that god created the universe would be, show me demonstrable evidence a god exists, then show me evidence he created the universe.

 

[fuelair]

If he said it I am quite sure he meant it and is quite correct. Of course I believe it either way!!!

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi Myriad.

Metacognition concerns the processes by which we monitor and control our own cognitive processes. It can also be applied to others, in which case it is known as mentalizing. Both kinds of metacognition have implicit and explicit forms, where implicit means automatic and without awareness. Implicit metacognition enables us to adopt a we-mode, through which we automatically take account of the knowledge and intentions of others. Adoption of this mode enhances joint action. Explicit metacognition enables us to reflect on and justify our behavior to others. However, access to the underlying processes is very limited for both self and others and our reports on our own and others’ intentions can be very inaccurate. On the other hand, recent experiments have shown that, through discussions of our perceptual experiences with others, we can detect sensory signals more accurately, even in the absence of objective feedback. Through our willingness to discuss with others the reason for our actions and perceptions, we overcome our lack of direct access to the underlying cognitive processes. This creates the potential for us to build more accurate accounts of the world and of ourselves. I suggest, therefore, that explicit metacognition is a uniquely human ability that has evolved through its enhancement of collaborative decision-making.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2012.0123

That is also learning and tests have shown differences in different humans in the ability to do that. Now that is relevant to overall learning, because it affects the ability to learn something new as accommodation(Piaget). But there is a "joke" about accommodation, when it comes how to do that, because "I don't need that, because I am right already and the new is a contradiction to the old and presents itself as meaningless".
To learn to do accommodation explicitly as far as I can tell seems to require metacognition not just as cognition but also how to handle a contradiction as an emotion.
It is how someone checks their own thinking and emotions and that connects to willingness to do so. But not all humans need/want that, because they don't experience a need/want and they don't need it, because their lives works good enough for them.

 

[Myriad]

The problem here for me though with certain things might be hard to explain could be due to the involvement of gods is that first one has to establish that a god or gods exist or can exist before postulating gods as the potential reason that an event is hard to explain.

I called it a conceivable reason. My evidence for that is that many people have conceived it as a reason since time immemorial and continue to do so today.

That said, when did "X must be shown to exist before it can be postulated as a reason for observed phenomenon Y" get added to the Rules of Science?

Erwin Schroedinger certainly wasn't following any such rule, when he helped kick off the search for the material basis of genetics in 1944 by suggesting the heredity substance must be an "aperiodic crystal" despite no such crystal being known to exist at the time. (There are more obvious examples—hi again, cosmologists!—but that one is really cool.)

 

[Myriad]

Hi Myriad.


https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2012.0123

That is also learning and tests have shown differences in different humans in the ability to do that. Now that is relevant to overall learning, because it affects the ability to learn something new as accommodation(Piaget). But there is a "joke" about accommodation, when it comes how to do that, because "I don't need that, because I am right already and the new is a contradiction to the old and presents itself as meaningless".
To learn to do accommodation explicitly as far as I can tell seems to require metacognition not just as cognition but also how to handle a contradiction as an emotion.
It is how someone checks their own thinking and emotions and that connects to willingness to do so. But not all humans need/want that, because they don't experience a need/want and they don't need it, because their lives works good enough for them.

Hi Tommy,

I can't disagree with any of that, and for once I think I'm understanding clearly what you're saying.

But, how are you suggesting it relates to what I was writing about? It seems you're suggesting that people continue to attribute causes to gods because they have no particular incentive or need to learn otherwise. Much like, most people don't learn much math because it's hard and they have no good reason to bother with it.

I think most people here would agree with that, but is it really what you meant?

 

[Myriad]

I would simplify this. Often you can approach a problem from different angles.

You can ask, are there any real gods?
Or you can ask, what best explains god beliefs?

The first question is based on the fact people believe in gods, it is not based on any actual evidence gods exist.

The second question is based on actual observations. Scientific inquiry usually starts with an observation and proceeds from there.

It's not actually that simple, though. If all you had to address was religious narratives, which are artifacts whose likely historical and psychological origins can be investigated, then maybe it would be.

But to make it that simple you must disregard people's experiences with gods. By that I mean experiences that people have that they comprehend in terms of gods, not just to explain their cause but to express their nature. And because they're experiences, all scientific observation of them is frustratingly indirect.

Some but not all of these experiences are subject to falsification. "God cured my cancer" can be challenged with "the chemotherapy you also had while you were praying cured your cancer" if you have access to the medical records. (Though you're unlikely to move past that impasse once you've reached it, as far as the cured individual is concerned.) But "I felt Jesus's presence and received God's grace and it turned my life around" cannot be. It can be dismissed, shuffled aside ("eh, probably some brain chemical or psychological trigger, assuming you weren't just high") but not meaningfully addressed. That is to say, you can perhaps address the experiencer's after-the-fact narrative of the experience in such ways, but it's much more difficult to address the experience itself. (It doesn't help that few people are any good at relating such narratives with any clarity.)

That's why everybody on both sides of the question want to argue about bleefs. (That's a disrespectful rendering of "beliefs," demonstrating my disdain for their overrated importance.) Bleefs are easy to compare and talk about. It also happens we currently have two major world religions whose scriptures emphasize bleef. In the larger scheme of things, this is a bit odd, to the point where it's affected even the dictionary definition of religions as being e.g. sets of bleefs instead of, more accurately, interrelated sets of narratives, experiences, and practices.

I think investigation of religious experiences will advance eventually, but it's far from simple and I haven't seen much progress. That avenue tends to get pushed toward the fringe, e.g. Persinger. "You're investigating God?!" skeptics and theists both say in unison with equal incredulity (though with differing inflections, one implying "what an unsuitable subject for investigation!" and the other "what an unsuitable way to treat the Lord of Lords!").

 

[JoeMorgue]

When can't get drug down the well of being expected to disprove unfalsefiable claims.

Any claim that can be stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

People keep trying to wedge in some tiny, tiny little sliver of a place in the argumentative scale where you get to make claims but not defend them and that sliver does not exist.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Hi Tommy,

I can't disagree with any of that, and for once I think I'm understanding clearly what you're saying.

But, how are you suggesting it relates to what I was writing about? It seems you're suggesting that people continue to attribute causes to gods because they have no particular incentive or need to learn otherwise. Much like, most people don't learn much math because it's hard and they have no good reason to bother with it.

I think most people here would agree with that, but is it really what you meant?

Yes, but not only these examples.
Here is one related to math:

Before the development of the notion of supervenience, physicalism was often stated as a reductionist thesis. It will therefore be useful to contrast the supervenience formulation of physicalism with various reductionist proposals, and also to consider a question that has received a lot of attention in the literature, viz., whether a physicalist must be a reductionist.

The main problem in assessing whether a physicalist must be a reductionist is that there are various non-equivalent versions of reductionism.

One idea is tied to the notion of conceptual or reductive analysis. When philosophers attempt to provide an analysis of some concept or notion, they usually try to provide a reductive analysis of the notion in question, i.e. to analyze it in other terms. Applied to the philosophy of mind, this notion might be thought of entailing the idea that every mental concept or predicate is analyzed in terms of a physical concept or predicate. A formulation of this idea is (6):

(6) Reductionism is true iff for each mental predicate F, there is a physical predicate G such that a sentence of the form ‘ x is F iff x is G’ is analytically true.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#RedNonRedPhy

Also check out supervenience on the page and then compare if all words have a physical referent. So if supervenience and non-reduction hold, a quale is a natural word, what only has a mental referent, for which the mental is caused by the physical but can't be reduced to the physical.
That could be important for e.g. the words "real" or "wrong".
That has relevance not just in this thread. Always check social facts versus brute(physical) facts and ask what knowledge is as a fact and if it is a combination of sorts.

 

[Belz...]

When can't get drug down the well of being expected to disprove unfalsefiable claims.

...what?

 

[JoeMorgue]

...what?

We shouldn't be expected to disprove unfalsefiable claims.

 

[David Mo]

There is science being done that is not published in the public academic journals to which you have referred and elevated as the sine qua non of scientific knowledge. You claimed that such science, if it were being done at all, is a rare occurrence. That claim ignores the facts. It is not at all rare, and in fact constitutes a significant portion of all scientific research.



The science to which I refer indeed employs the hypothetico-deductive method. I have never suggested otherwise.



Asked and answered.

Your rejection of the science that has studied the subject of gods is based on your authoritative declaration that it is not science. You give various criteria for what, in your estimation, constitutes valid science. In the course of delivering that criteria, you have shown yourself to be ignorant of how science is actually done. Therefore the reader has no reason to believe your criteria are properly informed. If your criteria for what constitutes valid science are ill-informed, then your rejection of the sciences that have studied the subject of gods is more likely to be self-serving and ad hoc than it is to be properly informed and widely accepted.

If the occult science of which you speak has something to do with the problem of the existence of God, it may be consulted in some way. If not, I don't know what we're talking about.

It seems to me that we are talking about the application of regulated science that appears in science texts to some specific field that has nothing to do with the subject we are talking about. Having admitted that this science uses the same method as "normal" science, it is to be assumed that it will use the same laws and theories as "normal" science.

Can you give an example of what you are talking about? Because if there is no way to do it, we are talking about something esoteric. Can you give an example that we can consult or do we move in the field of the esoteric?

What you mean is that normal science can be applied to fields that are not published for commercial or other reasons. It seems to me that trying to catch me you have got yourself into a dead end.

 

[David Mo]

It's not actually that simple, though. If all you had to address was religious narratives, which are artifacts whose likely historical and psychological origins can be investigated, then maybe it would be.

But to make it that simple you must disregard people's experiences with gods. By that I mean experiences that people have that they comprehend in terms of gods, not just to explain their cause but to express their nature. And because they're experiences, all scientific observation of them is frustratingly indirect.

Some but not all of these experiences are subject to falsification. "God cured my cancer" can be challenged with "the chemotherapy you also had while you were praying cured your cancer" if you have access to the medical records. (Though you're unlikely to move past that impasse once you've reached it, as far as the cured individual is concerned.) But "I felt Jesus's presence and received God's grace and it turned my life around" cannot be. It can be dismissed, shuffled aside ("eh, probably some brain chemical or psychological trigger, assuming you weren't just high") but not meaningfully addressed. That is to say, you can perhaps address the experiencer's after-the-fact narrative of the experience in such ways, but it's much more difficult to address the experience itself. (It doesn't help that few people are any good at relating such narratives with any clarity.)

That's why everybody on both sides of the question want to argue about bleefs. (That's a disrespectful rendering of "beliefs," demonstrating my disdain for their overrated importance.) Bleefs are easy to compare and talk about. It also happens we currently have two major world religions whose scriptures emphasize bleef. In the larger scheme of things, this is a bit odd, to the point where it's affected even the dictionary definition of religions as being e.g. sets of bleefs instead of, more accurately, interrelated sets of narratives, experiences, and practices.

I think investigation of religious experiences will advance eventually, but it's far from simple and I haven't seen much progress. That avenue tends to get pushed toward the fringe, e.g. Persinger. "You're investigating God?!" skeptics and theists both say in unison with equal incredulity (though with differing inflections, one implying "what an unsuitable subject for investigation!" and the other "what an unsuitable way to treat the Lord of Lords!").

Please, what means "bleef"?

 

[JoeMorgue]

I hear ya man. My math teacher was just so adamant that 2+2 = 4. It was like a religion to him. Total Mathist. Someone really needs to do something about the cult of math in this country.

 

[JayUtah]

I don't know what we're talking about.

Agreed.

Can you give an example of what you are talking about?

I've explained my argument at least three times in detail. Stay on the ball, if you please. If someone says he's an expert mechanic and tells you authoritatively what's wrong with your car, that judgment might be questioned if, when asked to verify the operation of the throwout bearing, he pulls the dipstick out of the coolant reservoir.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I hear ya man. My math teacher was just so adamant that 2+2 = 4. It was like a religion to him. Total Mathist. Someone really needs to do something about the cult of math in this country.

Or 2+2=11 or 2+2=5. Ask JayUtah if you have to, he is better at it than me.