Can theists be rational?

[yy2bggggs]

Of course that's the point. Without evidence, the most you can say is that it's possible.

You're begging the question. What is the evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow?

Well, it's risen for a large number of days, sure. Great. But that's not the question. What's the evidence that it will rise tomorrow?

This is your form of argument. You, and you alone, are, merely by insistence, refusing to recognize this as evidence. Well, what the hell is evidence anyway?

The sun will rise tomorrow|There could be intelligent life elsewhere|There is a god
is supported by|is supported by|is supported by
the fact that it did before|the fact that it did here|the fact that it could explain certain things

That third row, third column, is a mismatch.

 

[Beth]

Darn you. I need to be working on something else and you've drawn me back in.

How about a contradiction that a friend of mine pointed out? The argument hinges on two different values of P(B) (the probability of an inhabitable universe). I'll quote my friend:


Basically even though we know P(B)=1, and this knowledge is what makes the argument give you a near certainty of God's existence, the argument itself puts that value at about 10^-12.

THe problem with this is that I don't accept that P(B) = 1. I think it's reasonable to say that the P(B|A) = 1, but not P(B|A'). It could be something else entirely. By setting them both to one, it implies the two events are independent and I don't think that's a valid implication/conclusion.

The Drake Equation is NOT an argument for the existence of ET intelligence. If someone is misusing the Drake Equation to claim that ET intelligence exists, I agree it is an invalid argument. (And if that's the support for the God argument, it's a "tu quoque" fallacy.)

If someone is using the Drake Equation to help refute an argument that ET intelligence does not exist, it is a valid use. If the Drake Equation is used-- as it was designed-- to help us think of where we'd need to look to find the evidence that might resolve the question, it's also valid. It's basically a tool to tell us what information we'd need (but don't have) to answer the question about how many planets with intelligent life there might be. (We do know there is at least 1, so this is very unlike an argument for the existence of something whose existence is unknown.)

Actually, no. What I think Bri is trying to do is show that cj's argument is similarly able to refute an argument that a creator god does not exist. I think they work similarly for the two cases.

 

[Bri]

We know it's not impossible. We emerged. Do you know that a being capable of creating 300,000,000,000 galaxies is possible beyond not being defined as impossible?

Yes, it's possible.

We know that inteligent life is possible. Look in the mirror. Do you know if invisible elephants are possible beyong not being defined as impossible?

...

Only that it is possible. Do you know if a being is capable of creating 300,000,000,000 galaxies is possible beyond not being defined as impossible?

They are possible, yes. I don't know what "possible" means beyond not being impossible. Can you elaborate?

There is a huge difference between something that isn't defined as impossible and possible.

I'm having trouble parsing that.

The salient point? "unexplained phenomenon".

ET intelligent life doesn't require it. God, invisible elephants, unicorns and teapots orbiting Jupiter do.

Oh, so can you explain to me how intelligent life emerges? It seems that the emergence of life from no life would be an unexplained phenomenon. It also seems that the emergence of intelligence is an unexplained phenomenon.

Meanwhile, teapots orbiting Jupiter don't require any unexplained phenomena that I can think of. Other than maybe aliens.

-Bri

 

[Malerin]

In context of the discussion he can only be commiting the gamblers fallacy. There is nothing about a rare event that in and of itself proves anything. Malerin would like to add tje intent of a concious mind but that is begging the question because it is the intent of a concious mind that the rare event is supposed to prove.

The special pleading is on the part of Bri you and Malerin.

There is nothing to conclude from a rare event. I keep telling you that the probability of you existing is one of the rarest events in the unverse yet you don't conlcude anything from that fact.

You only want to conclude something from the "fine-tuning" argument. There is nothing to conclude.

The only "special pleading" is I desperately want to bet on some coin tosses with you . I'll bring my "lucky" coin

 

[RandFan]

This is very good, the end part says a lot........

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in_physics.html

You don't need something more to get something more.........

I doubt those who want to cling to the possibility of god will watch it but I did.

 

[Malerin]

You're begging the question. What is the evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow?

Well, it's risen for a large number of days, sure. Great. But that's not the question. What's the evidence that it will rise tomorrow?

This is your form of argument. You, and you alone, are, merely by insistence, refusing to recognize this as evidence. Well, what the hell is evidence anyway?

The sun will rise tomorrow|There could be intelligent life elsewhere|There is a god
is supported by|is supported by|is supported by
the fact that it did before|the fact that it did here|the fact that it could explain certain things

That third row, third column, is a mismatch.

One more column:

Bob is a murderer

is supported by

The fact that it could explain certain things.

The FT argument tries to show that the values of the physical constants is better explained on the hypothesis "something created the universe". Just as the evidence of a crime scence is better explained by "Bob is a murderer".

Pr(E/H) >> Pr(E/~H). That's at the heart of the FT argument.

 

[Bri]

You're begging the question. What is the evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow?

Had it only risen once, there would be little if any compelling evidence that it will rise again, particularly without knowing the conditions by which it rose the one time. There certainly wouldn't be enough evidence to conclude that it is probable that it would rise again.

Well, it's risen for a large number of days, sure. Great. But that's not the question. What's the evidence that it will rise tomorrow?

That it's risen for a large number of successive days prior is evidence that it is likely to occur again tomorrow, particularly since we understand the conditions by which it rises and it's unlikely that those conditions will change before tomorrow.

If it had only risen one day prior, particularly if we didn't understand the conditions by which it rose in order to determine how likely those conditions will be tomorrow, there would be no compelling evidence for the belief that the sun will rise tomorrow.

-Bri

 

[RandFan]

The only "special pleading" is I desperately want to bet on some coin tosses with you . I'll bring my "lucky" coin

But I have reason to assume that you have conscious intent. THAT'S the difference. Your argument starts with conscious intent to prove conscious intent.

Your argument is circular. The mistake you are making is the very reason Paulos wrote his book. People understand that thinking humans can game a system. So, finding a rare event they assume the system was gamed for that event to occur.

That's an error in thinking.

That said, I'd like to play the part of the casino operator, get a fair coin and a neutral third party to toss the coin and bet on some coin tosses with you.

 

[RandFan]

If it had only risen one day prior, and if we didn't understand the conditions by which it rose...

That it has risen once is proof that the conditions can exist. The conditions for god? We don't even know what they are.

 

[Bri]

That it has rissen once is proof that the conditions can exist. The conditions for god?

Yes, knowing that the sun rose once means that it's possible that it could rise again. It's also possible that a god exists. We cannot say that either is probable though. The most we can say is that the probability of both are greater than 0.

-Bri

 

[RandFan]

Yes, knowing that the sun rose once means that it's possible that it could rise again. It's also possible that a god exists. We can say that neither are probable though. The most we can say is that the probability of both are greater than 0.

I reject this. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that god is simply defined as not impossible. Then one is simply defined as not impossible and we must gloss over or ignore huge theoretical problems while the other is based on known conditions with no hurtles. It's happened once it can happen again. There is a basis for one. The other is simply an acknowledgment of non-impossibility and ignoring significant theoretical problems. They aren't the same.

That the conditions have existed once prove that there are no theoretical hurtles. God? God presents a number of serious theoretical hurtles that can't be easily swept under the carpet.

 

[westprog]

Given a fair coin and excluding slight of hand. No. I would not at all be crazy. You are commiting the gamblers fallacy.

The fact that you had thirty heads in a row is almost certain proof that you don't have a fair game. The assumption that the game isn't rigged is also a gambler's fallacy.

 

[RandFan]

The fact that you had thirty heads in a row is almost certain proof that you don't have a fair game. The assumption that the game isn't rigged is also a gambler's fallacy.

"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" --Paul Simon

As I said to Malerin, if I have reason to assume conscious intent then I would.

But this has nothing to do with fine tuning where we start by assuming conscious intent to prove conscious intent. Rare events are not proof of conscious intent. If they were, the improbability of your existence would be proof of something. That someone wins the lottery would be proof that a conscious intent caused that person, rather than a lot of other people, to win the lottery. Here's a hint. It's not.

 

[fls]

I'm not sure what "not highly unlikely" means, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean "likely."

I don't think it means 'likely', either. I don't think that it needs to mean 'likely', in that SETI is considered a long shot with a potentially big pay-off (as far as I can tell).

I don't know what you mean, but you need to read the article if you haven't already. There is evidence that if the universal constants varied much from what they are, the universe wouldn't support life.

Just like there is evidence that if the conditions surrounding the great red spot varied much from what they are, the great red spot wouldn't be sustained.

Your objection to the notion that there's not a valid difference between the two arguments that doesn't require special pleading.

I don't think there is a valid difference between the two arguments (although you're free to propose some other observation that is more likely in the presence of an alien civilization than in its absence, if you don't like the great red spot observation).

It would not be irrational to surmise that lacking any other reasonable explanation, a spot on Jupiter that looked exactly like a giraffe was probably made by an intelligent being that had seen a giraffe. It also wouldn't be irrational to conclude that if a building was found in a photograph of Jupiter taken by a probe that an intelligent being may have built it.

-Bri

The great red spot doesn't look anything like a giraffe or a building. It looks exactly like a great red spot should look. We should stick to something we've actually experienced, since the claim is that we are experiencing a fine-tuned universe.

Linda

 

[westprog]

Why did it expand at all?

This is irrelevant. The laws of physics don't need to change. Only the variables.

They aren't variables. They are constants, and they are part of the laws of physics. The gravitational constant is as much part of the laws of gravity as the inverse square law.

The point is that the idea that "fine-tuning" could mean anything requires the rejection of other possibilities. It's having your cake and eating it too.

No, the idea that fine-tuning might mean something means the acceptance of that as a possibility. Accepting that something is possible doesn't mean the rejection of all other possibilities. If all other possibilities were rejected, then it would not be possible, but certain.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Yes, I think it goes in our background knowledge that E was a result of two coin tosses, so ~E is a different result of two coin tosses. But what if E isn't the result of a test?

H = Bob is going to die
E = Bob is playing in the street.

This example isn't qualified enough for analysis. E isn't quite a premise--it isn't either true or false. It's sometimes true, and sometimes false. If E is, for damned sure, true, it could be false in ten minutes. That needs to be qualified more.

Same with H. Technically, H at large can be considered an event by proxy--is Bob going to die, at all? But in this sense, P(H)=1. Sure. Bob's a mortal--poor mortals.

What happens in practice with these particular premises, since the intent is presumably to figure out if Bob's going to die because he's out in the street, is that P(E) is going to depend on how long he's playing in the street.

Again, E isn't even a premise--P(E) doesn't even have a fixed value (it changes while Bob's playing, and depends on how long he does). So it simply can't be analyzed from a Bayesian approach. Fortunately this can be solved, in this particular case, by qualifying E some more.

It depends. Knowing the outcome of a single coin toss is little better than no coin toss at all.

I'm talking about a different sort of thing. In the coin toss case, you know there will be two options. Only a bad analogy can be made to this case--it would require considering the possibility that something you've never observed happened... something like, the coin turns up fingers.

You don't even know if they make coins with fingers on them. You know there are coins with heads, and coins with tails, and two headed coins even. Coins with fingers are entirely different. Once you know, for sure, that someone, somewhere, even makes a coin with fingers in the first place, something very significant happens.

This is about instances of classificiations existing, depending on whether or not anything else of that class is known to exist at all.

Edit: actually a single-coin toss provides some confirming evidence.

Correct. It does. But it does for a different reason than the thing I'm talking about.

Knowing that life occurred on Earth doesn't help us with respect to ET life because we don't know if there is something unique (or a combination of unique events) about Earth that isn't found on any other planet in the universe.

Yes and no. We don't know if it's unique. We can't get a probability out of a single data point. So it doesn't help us figure out what the odds are.

But from an epistemic standpoint, it is tremendously more valuable than not knowing there is life (however that can happen), because it puts the foot in the door that there's life in the first place. There's some sort of condition--we don't know whether or not it's unique, but we know there is one--that leads to life. That's a huge step.

 

[RandFan]

They aren't variables.

Actually they are.

They are constants, and they are part of the laws of physics. The gravitational constant is as much part of the laws of gravity as the inverse square law.

Not all and to the extent they are they are only laws of physics from the perspective of our universe. It's not theoretically impossible for them to be different. If it is, then that would in and of itself obviate a fine tuner.

No, the idea that fine-tuning might mean something means the acceptance of that as a possibility. Accepting that something is possible doesn't mean the rejection of all other possibilities. If all other possibilities were rejected, then it would not be possible, but certain.

No, because once we include these other possibilities the perceived significance of fine-tuning is obviated.

That's the part you are missing. You find something you think is significant but it really isn't. But even if we assume that it is it is, in some way, "significant", it is only significant with tunnel vision (the exclusion of other possibilities).

 

[westprog]

He is not committing the gamblers fallacy because he is not saying that a fair coin and slight of hand are excluded. In fact, he's trying to get you to realize they are not excluded and thus, to continue to bet at 50/50 odds is not particularly smart.

As I see it, the relevance to the question we've been discussing is that it becomes, as Bri puts it, "special pleading" to insist that in this situation, where we most certainly do NOT know the cause of those physical constants needing to be constrained in the way they appear to need to be, we discard the possibility of slight of hand.

What we would clearly say, in the case of the thirty heads, is that there is very, very strong evidence of what Fred Hoyle would call a "put-up job". Randfan is assuming an honest coin and a fair game when the honesty of the game is precisely what we are trying to determine.

In the case of the universe, it's the possibility of Chemistry happening which seems to require things to be very precisely aligned.

 

[Bri]

That the conditions have existed once prove that there are no theoretical hurtles. God? God presents a number of serious theoretical hurtles that can't be easily swept under the carpet.

Can you give me an example of what you mean by "theoretical hurtle?" The fact that we don't understand the conditions by which intelligent life emerges seems like a theoretical hurtle to the notion that intelligent life might exist elsewhere.

Real or not, these "theoretical hurtles" (or lack thereof) don't seem to increase or decrease the likelihood of the outcome. It is still just as rational or irrational to believe something without evidence regardless of what the something is.

Case in point, it is no more rational to believe in teapots orbiting Jupiter than aliens simply because we have a thousand examples of teapots here on earth. There is no compelling evidence of teapots orbiting Jupiter, and there is no compelling evidence of aliens.

-Bri

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

THe problem with this is that I don't accept that P(B) = 1.

First, it is or else we wouldn't be here. (In fact we KNOW for certain that B is true.)
Aside from that, this argument depends on P(B) being 1 at the same time the argument asserts that it is something close to zero. Whether you accept that P(B)=1 doesn't matter--the argument requires it, so there is a contradiction.

Actually, no. What I think Bri is trying to do is show that cj's argument is similarly able to refute an argument that a creator god does not exist. I think they work similarly for the two cases.

Actually no. The argument was given as an argument for the existence of God, not to refute the claim that God does not exist. It was put forth as "a rational argument" for the conclusion that God exists.

The Drake Equation is NOT an argument . . . .for ANYTHING. It certainly doesn't say or claim or prove that ET Intelligences exist. It points out merely that we lack the evidence to know whether there are more intelligences than our own and helps us focus our efforts at seeking the evidence we would need to answer that question.

Bri keeps saying that if people use the Drake Equation to make the claim that ET life exists then it's an invalid argument. I agree. If people are doing that, all he's making is a tu quoque defense of the God argument.

But I disagree that anyone is doing that with Drake's (or at least not the majority of people he's talking about). He claims that the people who spend time and money on SETI have necessarily done that, but that just doesn't follow. In fact, if people actually believed they already knew that ET intelligence would exist, there would be no point in conducting SETI. (It's attempting to answer a question whose answer is unknown. That's how science works. It's driven by curiosity about the unknown, NOT by dogmatic assertion of belief.) He claims that Sagan was a believer in ET intelligence, but Sagan most carefully denied exactly that. He said we don't know.

The Drake Equation can be reasonably used to refute the claim that we are unique. It does so by pointing out what knowledge we would need to have to make that statement. We don't have it. (Refuting the claim we are unique is NOT the same thing as saying anything about the probability of ET life. It merely shows that we lack the evidence to make that claim. You would need to know every one of those factors before you could claim to know the value of N. We can only estimate the first couple of those factors at this point.)

Even if you're casting the God argument in question not as a positive argument for God's existence but merely as a refutation of the strawman position ("God does not exist"), it still fails since it's got a great big old honking contradiction in it.