Can theists be rational?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Well, I was responding to a question about a metaphysical, rather than scientific, null hypothesis. My mirroring of the principle of parsimony was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I meant to promote the same idea that we have been discussing all along. Ideas directed towards explaining things are far more fruitful than looking for things for imaginary entities to explain.

And I think your response was more appropriate to what Beth was thinking (that is that theists start by assuming God exists while atheists do not).

But I take issue with using the term "metaphysical null hypothesis" as if metaphysical assertions were testable by experiment. It also sounds a whole lot like our much earlier discussion on this thread --back when we were trying to pin down a definition of "God" and someone offered "supernatural", and you observed that the supernatural is that which is "unlawful". To me, that also means untestable.

We could defenestrate millions of reindeer and watch them splatter on the sidewalk without ever falsifying the null hypothesis that they can't fly.

However, it wouldn't be rational (reasonable) to conclude or continue believing that they can fly.

 

[Bri]

Yes, I am aware of the rare earth hypothesis. It's bascially people who give low numbers to all the options in the Drake equation.

Not exactly. The Rare Earth Hypothesis is only concerned with one of the terms of the Drake equation, specifically the probability that an average planet will go on to develop life. If the probability is very low (i.e. if there were very specific events and conditions which gave rise to life on this planet) then the result of the Drake equation would also be low.

The idea seems incredibly parochial to me, given the vast expanse of the universe, and completely neglects the issue of eternal space and time which may underly existence itself. In other words, it's small thinking and is not at all the likeliest scenario, all things considered. The existence of other intelligent life in the universe, even given all the necessary contingencies, is still, in my opinion, much likelier than the converse. I'm sorry, but I can't see how or why that is even controversial.

"In your opinion" being a very key phrase here. There is evidence against your opinion. Still, I wouldn't necessarily call your opinion irrational even considering that there isn't a great deal of evidence to support it.

As to the rest, surely you know of the problems with dualism -- the interaction issues?

I don't know what you mean by "problem" in this context. There is little if any compelling evidence for dualism, true enough. But again, I wouldn't necessarily consider a belief without compelling evidence irrational, not even yours above.

Only magic -- the mysterious and unexplainable -- provides a solution, albeit a very intellectually unsatisfying one.

So "magic" is the only possible explanation for how a supernatural being might interact with the natural world? I think you may be mistaken, but I'm willing to wait for evidence that there are no other explanations possible.

If you don't know this information, then I apologize because I assumed that you did.

No, I've never heard most of this information. I suspect that you made much of it up, but I'm willing to wait until you present some evidence.

-Bri

 

[Bri]

I think he's saying that the evidence that you use to predict that the sun will rise tomorrow is of the same general type as that used to predict that there is likely life elsewhere in the universe.

We know there is life here, so natural forces (presumably) can account for it; it is logical to assume that life could arise elsewhere. We know the sun rose yesterday, so it is likely that it will rise tomorrow.

The strength of evidence is not the same, but the type is.

I also assumed that's what he meant, but I'll wait for him to clarify.

We've already discussed some rather important differences between the two. We know that the sun has risen thousands of times prior and has never not risen. We know the conditions by which the sun has risen, We know that it is likely that those conditions will still apply tomorrow.

I don't know how you're defining the "type" of evidence here, but the differences in the strength of the evidence is clear. There is compelling evidence that it is likely that the sun will rise tomorrow, and no compelling evidence that ET intelligent life is likely to exist.

-Bri

 

[fls]

Sure.

Compelling evidence: there is plenty of compelling evidence that bones exist.

There is plenty of compelling evidence that life exists. I suspect you mean that there is plenty of compelling evidence that we haven't already discovered all discoverable bones, right?

Also, paleontologists tend to dig in areas where bones are more likely to be located as opposed to just digging randomly.

We tend to look for life where it is likely to be located (e.g. on the surface of a solid body, a meteor, near or in water), as opposed to interplanetary space.

A hypothetical falsifiable hypothesis that bones might answer: a dinosaur for which we only have some bone fragments was an herbivore. Finding evidence (such as from teeth) that the dinosaur was a meat-eater would falsify the hypothesis.

Wouldn't that be an unfalsifiable hypothesis per your criteria? It can't be falsified if you can't find teeth.

Explaining known observations: we have observed the affects of dinosaurs on our planet, so discovering new evidence might further explain those observations.

-Bri

Can you give some examples of observations of the effects of dinosaurs on our planet?

Linda

 

[Bri]

There is plenty of compelling evidence that life exists. I suspect you mean that there is plenty of compelling evidence that we haven't already discovered all discoverable bones, right?

I didn't know we were talking about life. I thought we were talking about extra terrestrial intelligent life.

Yes, there is compelling evidence that we haven't discovered all bones, and there is compelling evidence that bones exist in the locations where paleontologists look for them (i.e. paleontologists seldom look randomly for bones).

We tend to look for life where it is likely to be located (e.g. on the surface of a solid body, a meteor, near or in water), as opposed to interplanetary space.

SETI is actually not looking for life on other planets as far as I know. It's listening for signals from interplanetary space. There is no compelling evidence that intelligent life exists anywhere but on this planet, so looking elsewhere would certainly be different than the approach your average paleontologist takes when looking for bones.

Wouldn't that be an unfalsifiable hypothesis per your criteria? It can't be falsified if you can't find teeth.

The hypothesis can be proven false. If you've already found other bones, it is likely that the teeth also exist. There may also be other evidence that the dinosaur was or wasn't an herbivore. Even if teeth was the only possible evidence that would disprove the hypothesis, unless you can show that there are no teeth the hypothesis can be proven false. The hypothesis "ET intelligent life exists" cannot be proven false -- there is no observation or test that would disprove it.

Can you give some examples of observations of the effects of dinosaurs on our planet?

Observations of fossils are observations of the affects of dinosaurs on our planet. An example might be that there is a large concentration of fossils in a particular area. Further evidence might explain that observation.

-Bri

 

[fls]

And I think your response was more appropriate to what Beth was thinking (that is that theists start by assuming God exists while atheists do not).

Except that my response specifically denies that atheists do not. I'll explain below.

But I take issue with using the term "metaphysical null hypothesis" as if metaphysical assertions were testable by experiment.

Don't blame me. I don't disagree. I was just playing along with whomever it was that posed the question.

We could defenestrate millions of reindeer and watch them splatter on the sidewalk without ever falsifying the null hypothesis that they can't fly.

However, it wouldn't be rational (reasonable) to conclude or continue believing that they can fly.

That's a good example of what I was talking about. Instead of pretending that we would test any random* idea that came into our head (and so run into the problem you describe), 'tis better to recognize that science works to address whatever it was that gave us the idea in the first place. Whatever would have given us the idea that reindeer could fly, anyway?

I propose that this approach (explore ideas based on what gave us the idea in the first place) is justifiable, while the other idea (explore random ideas based on their pretended consequences) is not, from a metaphysical perspective (i.e. one approach has been successful, the other has not). The hypothesis I proposed (entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity) refers to the former approach. So it isn't that atheists assume that God doesn't exist. It's that there isn't anything that gave us the idea of God in the first place.

Linda

*not based on a careful consideration of what we have observed

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Not exactly. The Rare Earth Hypothesis is only concerned with one of the terms of the Drake equation, specifically the probability that an average planet will go on to develop life. If the probability is very low (i.e. if there were very specific events and conditions which gave rise to life on this planet) then the result of the Drake equation would also be low.

Sure, the result will be low, but given the popularity of planets circling the vast number of stars in the vast number of galaxies in the large number of galaxy clusters, the likelihood that it happened somewhere else is high, despite how low that number might be.

Whether we could actually contact anyone is a whole other issue.

"In your opinion" being a very key phrase here. There is evidence against your opinion. Still, I wouldn't necessarily call your opinion irrational even considering that there isn't a great deal of evidence to support it.

Of course it's my opinion. No one has definite evidence, except for the obvious that we see life here and there is no reason to suspect that the same conditions wouldn't result in life somewhere else. There is, however, significant evidence to support that opinion (we know of extrasolar planets, there are billions upon billions of stars, etc.). The numbers simply work in favor of the opinion that it is likely that life exists elsewhere and even that intelligent life exists elsewhere.

If we want to include infinite space and infinite time, then it is a given that it must.

I don't know what you mean by "problem" in this context. There is little if any compelling evidence for dualism, true enough. But again, I wouldn't necessarily consider a belief without compelling evidence irrational, not even yours above.

I do not think that we can call dualism rational, precisely, so it is either neutral or irrational. This isn't an issue over lack of evidence but rather a more fundamental issue over what dualism means.

The problem is that fundamentally different substances have no explainable means of interacting with one another; that is part of the definition of what it means to be a fundamental substance. "Magic" does not mean "interaction is impossible" but rather that "interaction is not explainable".

So "magic" is the only possible explanation for how a supernatural being might interact with the natural world? I think you may be mistaken, but I'm willing to wait for evidence that there are no other explanations possible.

Can you think of any other explanation? I didn't just dream this up; it is part of the definition of fundamental substance that Spinoza provides in The Ethics. It isn't as though we could speak of evidence for or against other explanations because it is part and parcel of the definitions used. Even theists agree that God's interaction with the world is magic, though they prefer the world "miracle".

No, I've never heard most of this information. I suspect that you made much of it up, but I'm willing to wait until you present some evidence.

-Bri

OK.

First, I provided a large portion of Spinoza's rationale on the first page of the "Can atheists be rational?" thread. Second, you can google dualism interaction problem and probably find a wealth of discussion on it. There are proposed solutions to the problem, but I can't see how any of them work or don't result in "magic".

This is a huge issue in philosophy of mind. Neo-dualists like Chalmers, from what I've seen, don't even try to solve the interaction issue. Instead, they go out of their way to try and prove that materialism is impossible, so dualism must be the answer. Idealists often try to do the same. I've never seen any of them succeed.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

II don't know how you're defining the "type" of evidence here, but the differences in the strength of the evidence is clear. There is compelling evidence that it is likely that the sun will rise tomorrow, and no compelling evidence that ET intelligent life is likely to exist.

-Bri

Type of evidence = prior experience.

We have prior experience with the sun rising though presumably natural mechanisms. We expect that it will rise tomorrow (despite the fact that it does not rise).

We have prior experience that life arose in this universe through presumably natural mechanisms. We suspect that, given the vastness of space and the number of opportunities, that it would arise elsewhere.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

So it isn't that atheists assume that God doesn't exist. It's that there isn't anything that gave us the idea of God in the first place.

Yup. I actually tweaked Beth's response to make it sound like this:

that theists start by assuming God exists while atheists do not

When in fact she said (in response to the question about what is the metaphysical null hypothesis):

For atheists, it's that no god exists. For theists, it's that god(s) do exist.

Mostly I just wanted to clear up the distinction between making an assumption (or having a belief as a default position) and an actual null hypothesis.

Since the supernatural doesn't have to follow rules, you can't falsify that type of claim (that is, you can never reject the null hypothesis based on the results of an experiment).

I like your approach--asking what led someone to think of such a thing to begin with. (It's an approach I've been taking in an astrology discussion.)

 

[fls]

I didn't know we were talking about life. I thought we were talking about extra terrestrial intelligent life.

There is plenty of compelling evidence that terrestrial intelligent life exists.

Yes, there is compelling evidence that we haven't discovered all bones, and there is compelling evidence that bones exist in the locations where paleontologists look for them (i.e. paleontologists seldom look randomly for bones).

I don't think the evidence is as compelling, but we at least strongly suspect that we haven't already discovered all discoverable intelligent life. And by 'compelling evidence' you seem to mean 'informed guesses about where to look that are sometimes fruitful and sometimes not'.

SETI is actually not looking for life on other planets as far as I know.

I'm pretty sure that they actually suspect that's where it's located. Although I don't suppose that they rule out sources coming from alien spaceships, either.

It's listening for signals from interplanetary space.

I don't think they can actually make that distinction. And if they could, I really don't think that they would deliberately exclude planetary sources. That's a very odd thing to say.

There is no compelling evidence that intelligent life exists anywhere but on this planet, so looking elsewhere would certainly be different than the approach your average paleontologist takes when looking for bones.

What would be compelling evidence that all bones have been found?

The hypothesis can be proven false. If you've already found other bones, it is likely that the teeth also exist. There may also be other evidence that the dinosaur was or wasn't an herbivore. Even if teeth was the only possible evidence that would disprove the hypothesis, unless you can show that there are no teeth the hypothesis can be proven false. The hypothesis "ET intelligent life exists" cannot be proven false -- there is no observation or test that would disprove it.

What about the hypothesis "ET inelligent life doesn't exist"? How is that different from "teeth don't exist"?

Linda

 

[fls]

Mostly I just wanted to clear up the distinction between making an assumption (or having a belief as a default position) and an actual null hypothesis.

Since the supernatural doesn't have to follow rules, you can't falsify that type of claim (that is, you can never reject the null hypothesis based on the results of an experiment).

What about "this force doesn't follow rules"?

I like your approach--asking what led someone to think of such a thing to begin with. (It's an approach I've been taking in an astrology discussion.)

Good.

Linda

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

What about "this force doesn't follow rules"?

As a supernatural claim or as a null hypothesis (in which case the claim is that it does follow rules)?

I think you're possibly getting at the central axiom of the scientific method (that the universe follows rules) and showing exactly why supernatural claims (that things don't always follow rules) can't be tested with the scientific method.

Let's say the "force" in question is someone's ability to walk on water. It wouldn't matter if 1000 subjects failed to walk on water, we still haven't proved that the supernatural ability of someone to walk on water isn't possible.

This thinking brings me back to the issue that cj and some others were defining "rational" by this standard. If we can't falsify something, then it's rational to believe it. I think that's a bizarre definition of "rational". The dictionary gives "reasonable" as a synonym. It's not reasonable to believe anything that you can't falsify.

Following this led some people here to conclude that it's rational to believe the story told in those Nigerian scam spam e-mails.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

What about the hypothesis "ET inelligent life doesn't exist"? How is that different from "teeth don't exist"?

Or, for that matter, "All swans are white"?
Or "All intelligent life in the universe is Terran"?

 

[fls]

As a supernatural claim or as a null hypothesis (in which case the claim is that it does follow rules)?

I think you're possibly getting at the central axiom of the scientific method (that the universe follows rules) and showing exactly why supernatural claims (that things don't always follow rules) can't be tested with the scientific method.

I was thinking that science can be viewed as the process of falsifying the supernatural by finding forces that follow rules.

Let's say the "force" in question is someone's ability to walk on water. It wouldn't matter if 1000 subjects failed to walk on water, we still haven't proved that the supernatural ability of someone to walk on water isn't possible.

Well, that gets back to my original question - what gave us the idea that someone has the ability to walk on water? Then we can explore whether whatever that was follows rules or not. Otherwise you are saying that the real definition of supernatural is 'stuff we made up'. And I haven't really seen anyone ready to admit to that.

This thinking brings me back to the issue that cj and some others were defining "rational" by this standard. If we can't falsify something, then it's rational to believe it. I think that's a bizarre definition of "rational". The dictionary gives "reasonable" as a synonym. It's not reasonable to believe anything that you can't falsify.

Following this led some people here to conclude that it's rational to believe the story told in those Nigerian scam spam e-mails.

It seems to me that the only stuff that can't be falsified is stuff that is made up to begin with. Then we have "if we made this stuff up, it's rational to believe it". Let them try to make that sound not dumb.

Linda

 

[Bri]

Sure, the result will be low, but given the popularity of planets circling the vast number of stars in the vast number of galaxies in the large number of galaxy clusters, the likelihood that it happened somewhere else is high, despite how low that number might be.

That's not necessarily true. It depends how low that number is and how high the number of "similar" planets is. There is evidence that the probability of events and circumstances that gave rise to intelligent life on this planet are very low and may have only occurred on this planet.

Of course it's my opinion. No one has definite evidence, except for the obvious that we see life here and there is no reason to suspect that the same conditions wouldn't result in life somewhere else.

True, there is no reason to suspect that the same conditions and events wouldn't result in life somewhere else, but there IS reason to suspect that the same conditions and events haven't occurred anywhere else.

There is, however, significant evidence to support that opinion (we know of extrasolar planets, there are billions upon billions of stars, etc.).

IF the combination of conditions and events that occurred on this planet aren't particularly rare then it may have occurred elsewhere. If they are rare (as is hypothesized by the Rare Earth Hypothesis), it probably didn't occur elsewhere. We don't know the combination of conditions and events by which life emerged here, and we don't know how rare that combination might have been.

The numbers simply work in favor of the opinion that it is likely that life exists elsewhere and even that intelligent life exists elsewhere.

No, sorry, but they don't lead to any such likelihood. There are no "numbers" to work from. About all we know is that there are a lot of stars. Other important variables are completely unknown.

I do not think that we can call dualism rational, precisely, so it is either neutral or irrational. This isn't an issue over lack of evidence but rather a more fundamental issue over what dualism means.

It's an issue over lack of evidence for dualism.

The problem is that fundamentally different substances have no explainable means of interacting with one another; that is part of the definition of what it means to be a fundamental substance. "Magic" does not mean "interaction is impossible" but rather that "interaction is not explainable".

Again, do you have evidence that such interaction is not explainable other than by "magic?" I'll be honest -- I think you made that up.

Can you think of any other explanation?

Can you think of an explanation for consciousness? Just because we don't know the mechanism by which something works doesn't mean that there's no possible explanation other than magic.

First, I provided a large portion of Spinoza's rationale on the first page of the "Can atheists be rational?" thread. Second, you can google dualism interaction problem and probably find a wealth of discussion on it. There are proposed solutions to the problem, but I can't see how any of them work or don't result in "magic".

That you can't see how any of them work or don't result in magic doesn't equate to "no possible explanation other than magic."

-Bri

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I was thinking that science can be viewed as the process of falsifying the supernatural by finding forces that follow rules.

But you can't. No matter how many times you observe things following the rules, you simply can't show that on another day, in another situation (especially when Linda and Joe aren't watching) the breaking of the rules can't happen. The supernatural doesn't have to be consistent.

Well, that gets back to my original question - what gave us the idea that someone has the ability to walk on water? Then we can explore whether whatever that was follows rules or not. Otherwise you are saying that the real definition of supernatural is 'stuff we made up'. And I haven't really seen anyone ready to admit to that.

Well, they could just say it originated because the apostles witnessed Jesus doing it and told others and eventually someone wrote the story down. I'd say it's likely that someone made up the story because they were trying to "sell" an idea.

Either way, even though we can show that it's not rational (reasonable) to believe in the supernatural, by its very definition the supernatural is not subject to falsification by the scientific method.

It seems to me that the only stuff that can't be falsified is stuff that is made up to begin with.

Or things that are logically inconsistent like circles with corners or 4 sided triangles. Trouble with using this approach on theism, is that any time we find these inconsistencies in God, the definition of God just shrinks into the gaps.

Then we have "if we made this stuff up, it's rational to believe it". Let them try to make that sound not dumb.

Here's one of cj's attempts to do that. He's basically just using a technical meaning of "rational" where it is any logical and coherent argument and having nothing to do with a proposition's truth value (or the empirical world).

Of course he has to ignore the fact that he's the only one using this definition when answering the question you posed in the O.P.

 

[Bri]

We have prior experience that life arose in this universe through presumably natural mechanisms. We suspect that, given the vastness of space and the number of opportunities, that it would arise elsewhere.

The problem is that we cannot suppose that because something happened only once that it will happen again. We have to know that it happened multiple times, and/or that there is reason to suspect that the conditions by which it happened have not changed.

-Bri

 

[Bri]

There is plenty of compelling evidence that terrestrial intelligent life exists.

Again, I thought we were talking about the belief that extraterrestrial intelligent life exists. There is plenty of compelling evidence that terrestrial teapots exist too, but no evidence of teapots orbiting Jupiter.

I don't think the evidence is as compelling, but we at least strongly suspect that we haven't already discovered all discoverable intelligent life.

What do you mean by "strongly suspect?" Is there evidence to support such a suspicion? If not, then it's not an informed guess -- it's just a guess. In which case, I wouldn't say "strongly suspect" and I might not even say "suspect," both of which imply to different degrees that it's more likely than not. I don't think we can say that it's more likely than not without more evidence.

And by 'compelling evidence' you seem to mean 'informed guesses about where to look that are sometimes fruitful and sometimes not'.

In the case of paleontologists, if by "informed guesses" you mean "informed by evidence" then yes. Certainly the evidence of where to look isn't conclusive (it seldom is) but it's generally compelling. More importantly, it produces better results than searching randomly.

I'm pretty sure that they actually suspect that's where it's located. Although I don't suppose that they rule out sources coming from alien spaceships, either.

SETI listens for signals from space, but I don't think they are isolating any particular planets as being more likely to contain aliens than others, at least not based on any evidence.

I don't think they can actually make that distinction. And if they could, I really don't think that they would deliberately exclude planetary sources. That's a very odd thing to say.

I don't think I meant what you thought I meant. I meant that they listen to signals from space in general. They don't look on planets specifically.

What would be compelling evidence that all bones have been found?

I suppose that they are no longer able to dig up bones.

What about the hypothesis "ET inelligent life doesn't exist"? How is that different from "teeth don't exist"?

As far as falsifiability, both are possibly falsifiable (by finding aliens or teeth). However, there is no evidence that can support either one -- neither can be shown to be true by an observation or a physical experiment.

According to Wikipedia:

Falsifiability (or refutability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. The term "Testability" is related but more specific; it means that an assertion can be falsified through experimentation alone.

Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable.​

-Bri

 

[fls]

Again, I thought we were talking about the belief that extraterrestrial intelligent life exists.

We were talking about acting on the possibility that something we have not yet observed may be present. Prior to digging at a chosen spot, the paleontologist does not know whether bones are present there.

There is plenty of compelling evidence that teapots exist too, but no evidence of teapots orbiting Jupiter.

Are you suggesting that paleontologists would consider searching for dinosaur bones in orbit about planets? That really doesn't make any sense.

I suppose that they are no longer able to dig up bones.

Okay. So have we reached that point in our search for extra-terrestrial intelligence?

As far as falsifiability, both are possibly falsifiable (by finding aliens or teeth). However, there is no evidence that can support either one -- neither can be shown to be true by an observation or a physical experiment.

Okay. So now you seem to (finally) agree that either both are scientific or neither are, considering that both are falsifiable in the same way.

Linda

 

[Bri]

We were talking about acting on the possibility that something we have not yet observed may be present. Prior to digging at a chosen spot, the paleontologist does not know whether bones are present there.

But there is evidence that bones exist and are present there. There is no evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere. There is no evidence that teapots exist elsewhere.

Are you suggesting that paleontologists would consider searching for dinosaur bones in orbit about planets? That really doesn't make any sense.

No, I'm not. That's my point. Paleontologists don't search randomly, but rather according to where they are likely to be found based on evidence. SETI, not so much (there is no evidence that intelligent life is likely to be found anywhere but on Earth).

Okay. So have we reached that point in our search for extra-terrestrial intelligence?

That all depends on whether aliens exist. Have we reached the point in our search for gods that we are no longer able to find them? That's the very reason why scientists rarely look for things without some evidence of their existence. We know that bones exist, and there is evidence that they exist in the locations in which they are being looked for.

Okay. So now you seem to (finally) agree that either both are scientific or neither are, considering that both are falsifiable in the same way.

I don't think I've ever disagreed with that. Sure, the hypotheses that no aliens exist, that no dinosaur bones exist, and that no gods exist are all theoretically falsifiable (if not practically so), but none can be shown to be true by observation or experimentation either. In other words, they are not only unsupported by evidence, but unsupportable by evidence.

What I did say (and still do) is that the hypothesis "ET intelligent life exists" is unfalsifiable (and therefore non-scientific according to some), unlike hypotheses for which most scientists collect evidence.

-Bri