I think the GSH is largely that our whole way of thinking, our terminology, our philosophy, our science evolved in theistic societies. Taking god out of it leaves a lot of former linkages dangling in the air, probably we learn to link them up sooner or later but it requires revising a surprisingly large amount.
For example, a godless universe has no laws of nature, just models of nature that happen to be predictive.
For example, there isn’t really such a thing as progress because there cannot be a goal in history in the godless universe. There is social change, and it is up to you to judge if it is good.
For example, there are no implicit promises in the godless universe, we could do everything “right” and still get extinct. This is non-intuitive deep on the bones level, our whole cultural history teaches that if you we make a good enough effort some mysterious force will pat our backs, give a B+ for effort and will pick up the rest of the slack: because this is what our parents and teachers did to us. Just look at common action movies, they are about heroes trying hard, and almost failing, then getting almost miraculously lucky. Deus ex machina.
The GSH becomes very intense when you start raising children. For example it would mean not giving praise for effort, in fact, sometimes punishing good solutions to demonstrate how in the real world you can do things right and still fail. This would be really cruel and probably we don’t want to do it. Most education tends to imply what it teaches is certain truth, laws of nature etc. so things get hard from here.
When we create models, they are models of something other than your own mind’s processes. Or are you a coherence theorist/ epistemological anarchist? I think that some models (of progress, of biology, of morality) are more true aka, less wrong. Their predictive power comes from the near-miraculous fact that the symbols we use for math and science can be manipulated and after the manipulation still work in the world! I am always in awe at this natural wonder. Logic, Nature, Beautiful.
gjm:
Thanks for that link! It’s really good, as is the previous post on his blog. I underestimate how metaphysically-light most atheisms are. Since I still believe in a knockout-fundamental-goodness in the universe that we model with morality, I might be more in Scott’s camp.
I think the GSH is largely that our whole way of thinking, our terminology, our philosophy, our science evolved in theistic societies. Taking god out of it leaves a lot of former linkages dangling in the air, probably we learn to link them up sooner or later but it requires revising a surprisingly large amount.
For example, a godless universe has no laws of nature, just models of nature that happen to be predictive.
For example, there isn’t really such a thing as progress because there cannot be a goal in history in the godless universe. There is social change, and it is up to you to judge if it is good.
For example, there are no implicit promises in the godless universe, we could do everything “right” and still get extinct. This is non-intuitive deep on the bones level, our whole cultural history teaches that if you we make a good enough effort some mysterious force will pat our backs, give a B+ for effort and will pick up the rest of the slack: because this is what our parents and teachers did to us. Just look at common action movies, they are about heroes trying hard, and almost failing, then getting almost miraculously lucky. Deus ex machina.
The GSH becomes very intense when you start raising children. For example it would mean not giving praise for effort, in fact, sometimes punishing good solutions to demonstrate how in the real world you can do things right and still fail. This would be really cruel and probably we don’t want to do it. Most education tends to imply what it teaches is certain truth, laws of nature etc. so things get hard from here.
There’s a nice exposition of roughly this idea over at Yvain’s / Scott Alexander’s blog.
To Hollander:
When we create models, they are models of something other than your own mind’s processes. Or are you a coherence theorist/ epistemological anarchist? I think that some models (of progress, of biology, of morality) are more true aka, less wrong. Their predictive power comes from the near-miraculous fact that the symbols we use for math and science can be manipulated and after the manipulation still work in the world! I am always in awe at this natural wonder. Logic, Nature, Beautiful.
gjm:
Thanks for that link! It’s really good, as is the previous post on his blog. I underestimate how metaphysically-light most atheisms are. Since I still believe in a knockout-fundamental-goodness in the universe that we model with morality, I might be more in Scott’s camp.