You should argue your case using the actual pertinent facts (i.e., the actual actions and professed beliefs of the religious), not hypothetical ones.
There’s nothing wrong with presenting (what I consider) the same, relevant dynamic in a hypothetical context in order to make a point about the conclusions you should draw in a different one.
My hypothetical simply takes the problematic elements of the situation at hand and amplifies them. In religions, it’s hard to see the disconnect between the professed beliefs and the adherent’s actual internal predictive model of reality. My example made the disconnect obvious, and also showed the surrounding motives that give evidence as to what they really believe.
In such a scenario, I would conclude that the person is using the term “believe” differently than the term is normally used. You would conclude that the person knowingly puts himself in a situation where he expects to die, despite not wanting to die.
There’s nothing wrong with presenting (what I consider) the same, relevant dynamic in a hypothetical context in order to make a point about the conclusions you should draw in a different one.
If the relevant dynamic in the actual situation is really the same, then why not just refer to the actual situation? If you have to “amplify” the problematic elements, then you are giving yourself the burden of proving that you haven’t amplified them to the point that they yield a different conclusion than the original setting would.
In religions, it’s hard to see the disconnect between the professed beliefs and the adherent’s actual internal predictive model of reality. My example made the disconnect obvious, and also showed the surrounding motives that give evidence as to what they really believe.
If the disconnect is “hard to see” in the case of religion, then you ipso facto need strong evidence to establish that the disconnect exists. By moving to a situation where the disconnect is easier to see, so that less evidence is necessary, you are moving to a situation where your burden of proof is less. Therefore, establishing your claim in your hypothetical does not suffice to establish your claim in the original situation.
In such a scenario, I would conclude that the person is using the term “believe” differently than the term is normally used. You would conclude that the person knowingly puts himself in a situation where he expects to die, despite not wanting to die.
Your conclusion would be one real possibility. Another possibility is that, although he doesn’t want to die, he prefers it to sleeping somewhere other than his bed. Perhaps sleeping elsewhere seems, to him, a fate worse than death. Since I’m manifestly dealing with a crazy person, that remains a real possibility, at least until I learn more about how he thinks.
The more someone professes different beliefs from yours, the more evidence there is that their mind works differently from yours in some crucial respect, and so the less credit you should give to your mental model of them.
In approximate order of your objections to the hypothetical:
Tyrrell, it’s not my fault if you can’t handle reasoning from hypotheticals, but it certainly doesn’t make that form of reasoning—used in the rest of the civilized world—off-limits. If you think the analogy I’m making doesn’t hold, you can politely show where it breaks down. I had already attempted to speak to the specific situation in dispute—about religion—but in that case it’s less obvious how one’s actions aren’t following from one’s beliefs if the professed beliefs are the real ones.
I actually think it’s obvious enough why actual beliefs in (certain religions’) doctrine of eternal hellfire would logically imply a direct transition to an ascetic lifestyle or other drastic choices, and we can go that route if it keeps things in your comfort zone.
But the point is pretty simple: in the hypothetical, we can quite easily draw conclusions: either a) the person doesn’t actual have an internal predictive model of reality including a deadly bed monster, or b) he has some kind of weird psychology.
In short, you go with b) and I go with a). Which is why I think this kvetching about hypotheticals suddenly being off-limit is moot: even when I make the situation “more favorable” to my theory, you just bite a bigger bullet, cutting off whatever implication I would have claimed follows back to the original topic of religion.
So, let’s review that position:
Another possibility is that, although he doesn’t want to die, he prefers it to sleeping somewhere other than his bed. Perhaps sleeping elsewhere seems, to him, a fate worse than death. Since I’m manifestly dealing with a crazy person, that remains a real possibility, at least until I learn more about how he thinks.
The more someone professes different beliefs from yours, the more evidence there is that their mind works differently from yours in some crucial respect, and so the less credit you should give to your mental model of them.
But note the difficult position you’ve forced yourself into. You have to believe he is obviously crazy despite:
not being obviously crazy in any other area of his life
the psychological unity of mankind somehow breaking for a huge class of people that have been interbreeding with the rest of humankind and whom no one seriously suggests mandatory psychotherapy
his mental model of other phenomena (let’s reasonably suppose) being superior to yours in several areas
his actions associated with these “beliefs” greatly helping him achieve many non-crazy personal goals: having a social network, meeting a compatible spouse, greater assurance of spousal fidelity, the feeling of belonging.
the similarity (discussed before) between him and the uncountable historical instances of people supposedly going to great lengths for inscrutable theological doctrines, but actually protecting a meme they benefit from.
Do you see why this is an implausible chain to follow? Especially when the alternative is the majestically simple “Belief means something different in this context that is not an internal predictive model of reality”?
Tyrrell, it’s not my fault if you can’t handle reasoning from hypotheticals, but it certainly doesn’t make that form of reasoning—used in the rest of the civilized world—off-limits.
Hypotheticals have their uses, but they are easy to abuse. Hypotheticals are usually fine for
making the meaning of a claim clear by putting it in a simpler context (e.g., explaining the physics of a pendulum by imagining that it has an inelastic and frictionless rod), and
constructing counter-examples to absolute claims (e.g., “Stealing is always wrong!” “Really? What about if you washed up on shore after a shipwreck, and you had to steal food immediately or else die of starvation?”
Neither of these apply to your argument. Your claim was already clear, and I’m making no absolute claim. I’m the one claiming that there is inadequate evidence to justify your confidence in your conclusion.
Despite their uses, hypotheticals are usually useless for resolving disagreement. As I’ve explained, by passing to a new hypothetical situation, you only increase your burden of proof. In addition to proving the original claim, you must now show that the hypothetical doesn’t differ significantly from the actual situation. Moreover, in practice, when both participants are intelligent and thoughtful, the hypothetical will almost always fail to capture the heart of the disagreement.
For example, you’ve said that your claim is “hard to see” and “less obvious” in the case of religion. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the elements making it hard to see and less obvious are why I doubt your claim. Thus, by moving to a hypothetical where those elements are absent, you fail to address the source of my doubt.
I actually think it’s obvious enough why actual beliefs in (certain religions’) doctrine of eternal hellfire would logically imply a direct transition to an ascetic lifestyle or other drastic choices, and we can go that route if it keeps things in your comfort zone.
This is a strong claim. I’m skeptical that religious claims are precise and unambiguous enough to logically imply such things. You should be able to give a logically rigorous demonstration of this implication if it is so obvious. I will concede your point if you can do this.
But the point is pretty simple: in the hypothetical, we can quite easily draw conclusions: either a) the person doesn’t actual have an internal predictive model of reality including a deadly bed monster, or b) he has some kind of weird psychology.
In short, you go with b) and I go with a). Which is why I think this kvetching about hypotheticals suddenly being off-limit is moot: even when I make the situation “more favorable” to my theory, you just bite a bigger bullet, cutting off whatever implication I would have claimed follows back to the original topic of religion.
You make a fair point, but one to which I have a response. Why did I object to your hypothetical if I reached the same conclusion within it anyway?
Naturally, if you keep adding conditions to your hypothetical, I will eventually agree that, given those conditions, your conclusion follows. But the more conditions you add, the further you take us from the actual situation, and so the less bearing the hypothetical has on the actual situation.
You had not yet added so many conditions to your hypothetical that I agreed with you, but I could already foresee that you eventually would, though it would be pointless for the reason above. Indeed, you added several such conditions below, conditions that were not present in your original formulation.
In particular you added that the person is “not … obviously crazy in any other area of his life” and you add that “his mental model of other phenomena … [is] superior to yours in several areas.” That is new information. It is certainly not what I would expect of the actual typical person who claims that there is a killer monster under his bed. Suppose you really did learn of some adult that he earnestly insisted that there was a killer monster under his bed. Prior to further information, wouldn’t you expect that this person suffers from numerous other severe delusions?
You’ve now ruled that out, but only by changing the hypothetical. I’ll save you work by repeating that, if you add enough such conditions, I will agree that this individual is probably lying about his beliefs. But that concession will have no bearing on what I think about actual theists.
Now to consider your list of conditions as they pertain to theists:
But note the difficult position you’ve forced yourself into. You have to believe he is obviously crazy despite:
not being obviously crazy in any other area of his life
Religious beliefs appear to me to spread to other areas of the believer’s life in a way consistent with what I’d expect. But I don’t expect them to spread as far as you do because I don’t see the “obvious” logical implications that you claim above.
the psychological unity of mankind somehow breaking for a huge class of people that have been interbreeding with the rest of humankind and whom no one seriously suggests mandatory psychotherapy
The psychological unity of humankind presents no problem for my hypothesis, because the overwhelming majority of people seem inclined to believe religious claims. It is you and I, natural-born atheists, who are the freaks :). We seem very rare.
his mental model of other phenomena (let’s reasonably suppose) being superior to yours in several areas
As I argued above, I would expect evolution to make minds capable of partitioning their beliefs in this way.
his actions associated with these “beliefs” greatly helping him achieve many non-crazy personal goals: having a social network, meeting a compatible spouse, greater assurance of spousal fidelity, the feeling of belonging.
It seems to me that the easiest way to reap all these benefits of belief is to make a mind that can sincerely believe without interfering with important day-to-day conveniences. This would be harder if religion really logically implied asceticism, as you claimed. But I think that the religions we’re talking about are designed (by natural memetic selection) to avoid doing that kind of thing.
the similarity (discussed before) between him and the uncountable historical instances of people supposedly going to great lengths for inscrutable theological doctrines, but actually protecting a meme they benefit from.
This presents no particular problem. People often sincerely love their children, but they also often falsely invoke that love as their reason for doing other things, such as going to war, etc.
There’s nothing wrong with presenting (what I consider) the same, relevant dynamic in a hypothetical context in order to make a point about the conclusions you should draw in a different one.
My hypothetical simply takes the problematic elements of the situation at hand and amplifies them. In religions, it’s hard to see the disconnect between the professed beliefs and the adherent’s actual internal predictive model of reality. My example made the disconnect obvious, and also showed the surrounding motives that give evidence as to what they really believe.
In such a scenario, I would conclude that the person is using the term “believe” differently than the term is normally used. You would conclude that the person knowingly puts himself in a situation where he expects to die, despite not wanting to die.
I think my conclusion is more reasonable.
If the relevant dynamic in the actual situation is really the same, then why not just refer to the actual situation? If you have to “amplify” the problematic elements, then you are giving yourself the burden of proving that you haven’t amplified them to the point that they yield a different conclusion than the original setting would.
If the disconnect is “hard to see” in the case of religion, then you ipso facto need strong evidence to establish that the disconnect exists. By moving to a situation where the disconnect is easier to see, so that less evidence is necessary, you are moving to a situation where your burden of proof is less. Therefore, establishing your claim in your hypothetical does not suffice to establish your claim in the original situation.
Your conclusion would be one real possibility. Another possibility is that, although he doesn’t want to die, he prefers it to sleeping somewhere other than his bed. Perhaps sleeping elsewhere seems, to him, a fate worse than death. Since I’m manifestly dealing with a crazy person, that remains a real possibility, at least until I learn more about how he thinks.
The more someone professes different beliefs from yours, the more evidence there is that their mind works differently from yours in some crucial respect, and so the less credit you should give to your mental model of them.
In approximate order of your objections to the hypothetical:
Tyrrell, it’s not my fault if you can’t handle reasoning from hypotheticals, but it certainly doesn’t make that form of reasoning—used in the rest of the civilized world—off-limits. If you think the analogy I’m making doesn’t hold, you can politely show where it breaks down. I had already attempted to speak to the specific situation in dispute—about religion—but in that case it’s less obvious how one’s actions aren’t following from one’s beliefs if the professed beliefs are the real ones.
I actually think it’s obvious enough why actual beliefs in (certain religions’) doctrine of eternal hellfire would logically imply a direct transition to an ascetic lifestyle or other drastic choices, and we can go that route if it keeps things in your comfort zone.
But the point is pretty simple: in the hypothetical, we can quite easily draw conclusions: either a) the person doesn’t actual have an internal predictive model of reality including a deadly bed monster, or b) he has some kind of weird psychology.
In short, you go with b) and I go with a). Which is why I think this kvetching about hypotheticals suddenly being off-limit is moot: even when I make the situation “more favorable” to my theory, you just bite a bigger bullet, cutting off whatever implication I would have claimed follows back to the original topic of religion.
So, let’s review that position:
But note the difficult position you’ve forced yourself into. You have to believe he is obviously crazy despite:
not being obviously crazy in any other area of his life
the psychological unity of mankind somehow breaking for a huge class of people that have been interbreeding with the rest of humankind and whom no one seriously suggests mandatory psychotherapy
his mental model of other phenomena (let’s reasonably suppose) being superior to yours in several areas
his actions associated with these “beliefs” greatly helping him achieve many non-crazy personal goals: having a social network, meeting a compatible spouse, greater assurance of spousal fidelity, the feeling of belonging.
the similarity (discussed before) between him and the uncountable historical instances of people supposedly going to great lengths for inscrutable theological doctrines, but actually protecting a meme they benefit from.
Do you see why this is an implausible chain to follow? Especially when the alternative is the majestically simple “Belief means something different in this context that is not an internal predictive model of reality”?
Hypotheticals have their uses, but they are easy to abuse. Hypotheticals are usually fine for
making the meaning of a claim clear by putting it in a simpler context (e.g., explaining the physics of a pendulum by imagining that it has an inelastic and frictionless rod), and
constructing counter-examples to absolute claims (e.g., “Stealing is always wrong!” “Really? What about if you washed up on shore after a shipwreck, and you had to steal food immediately or else die of starvation?”
Neither of these apply to your argument. Your claim was already clear, and I’m making no absolute claim. I’m the one claiming that there is inadequate evidence to justify your confidence in your conclusion.
Despite their uses, hypotheticals are usually useless for resolving disagreement. As I’ve explained, by passing to a new hypothetical situation, you only increase your burden of proof. In addition to proving the original claim, you must now show that the hypothetical doesn’t differ significantly from the actual situation. Moreover, in practice, when both participants are intelligent and thoughtful, the hypothetical will almost always fail to capture the heart of the disagreement.
For example, you’ve said that your claim is “hard to see” and “less obvious” in the case of religion. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the elements making it hard to see and less obvious are why I doubt your claim. Thus, by moving to a hypothetical where those elements are absent, you fail to address the source of my doubt.
This is a strong claim. I’m skeptical that religious claims are precise and unambiguous enough to logically imply such things. You should be able to give a logically rigorous demonstration of this implication if it is so obvious. I will concede your point if you can do this.
You make a fair point, but one to which I have a response. Why did I object to your hypothetical if I reached the same conclusion within it anyway?
Naturally, if you keep adding conditions to your hypothetical, I will eventually agree that, given those conditions, your conclusion follows. But the more conditions you add, the further you take us from the actual situation, and so the less bearing the hypothetical has on the actual situation.
You had not yet added so many conditions to your hypothetical that I agreed with you, but I could already foresee that you eventually would, though it would be pointless for the reason above. Indeed, you added several such conditions below, conditions that were not present in your original formulation.
In particular you added that the person is “not … obviously crazy in any other area of his life” and you add that “his mental model of other phenomena … [is] superior to yours in several areas.” That is new information. It is certainly not what I would expect of the actual typical person who claims that there is a killer monster under his bed. Suppose you really did learn of some adult that he earnestly insisted that there was a killer monster under his bed. Prior to further information, wouldn’t you expect that this person suffers from numerous other severe delusions?
You’ve now ruled that out, but only by changing the hypothetical. I’ll save you work by repeating that, if you add enough such conditions, I will agree that this individual is probably lying about his beliefs. But that concession will have no bearing on what I think about actual theists.
Now to consider your list of conditions as they pertain to theists:
Religious beliefs appear to me to spread to other areas of the believer’s life in a way consistent with what I’d expect. But I don’t expect them to spread as far as you do because I don’t see the “obvious” logical implications that you claim above.
The psychological unity of humankind presents no problem for my hypothesis, because the overwhelming majority of people seem inclined to believe religious claims. It is you and I, natural-born atheists, who are the freaks :). We seem very rare.
As I argued above, I would expect evolution to make minds capable of partitioning their beliefs in this way.
It seems to me that the easiest way to reap all these benefits of belief is to make a mind that can sincerely believe without interfering with important day-to-day conveniences. This would be harder if religion really logically implied asceticism, as you claimed. But I think that the religions we’re talking about are designed (by natural memetic selection) to avoid doing that kind of thing.
This presents no particular problem. People often sincerely love their children, but they also often falsely invoke that love as their reason for doing other things, such as going to war, etc.