I think what’s happening here is that the theist’s preexisting belief about a creator god is causing them to privilege the hypothesis of divine RNA-creation.
The trouble is, you seem to be privileging it too. The way you’ve set up the scenario makes it seem like there are two hypotheses: (1) goddidit, (2) some unknown natural process.
But (2) is actually a set of zillions of potential processes, many of which have a far better prior than Yahweh and the Thousand Claims of Scripture, even if we can’t actually choose one for sure right now. Taken together, all their probability mass dwarfs that of the goddidit hypothesis.
You don’t have to know all the answers to say “you’re (almost certainly) wrong.”
I don’t see any reasons why (2) - unknown natural process—gets to benefit from being a “set of zillions of potential processes, many of which have a far better prior” and (1) - goddidit—does not.
If you want to sum the probability of a hypothesis by performing some weighted sum over the set of zillions of it’s neighbors in hypothesis space, that’s fine. But if that is your criteria, you need to apply it equally to the other set of hypothesises you are considering—instead of considering only one specific example.
Bostrom’s simulation argument gives us one potential generator of ‘goddidits’, and a likely high prior for superintelligent aliens gives us another potential generator of ‘goddidits’. Either of those generators could spawn zillions of potential processes which have far better priors than Yaweh, but could look similar.
None of this leads to any specific conclusion—I’m just pointing out an unfairness in your methodology.
I don’t see any reasons why (2) - unknown natural process—gets to benefit from being a “set of zillions of potential processes, many of which have a far better prior” and (1) - goddidit—does not.
You’re quite right. When I said this, I was thinking of “goddidit” as a set of very specific claims from a single religious tradition, which I should’ve stated.
Mmm actually you did state it as a fairly specific claim. I’m just saying one can’t fairly compare highly specific complex hypothesizes vs wide general sweeps through hypothesis-space. This is itself a good argument against the specific “yawheh did it”, but not against the more general “goddidit” which you originally were referring to:
I think what’s happening here is that the theist’s preexisting belief about a creator god is causing them to privilege the hypothesis of divine RNA-creation.
You’re right—but there is another side to this coin. An atheist has a top-level belief (or it’s negation) which sends down cascading priors and privileges naturalistic hypothesizes. So far this has worked splendidly well across the landscape.
But there is no guarantee this will work everywhere forever, and it’s at least possible that eventually we may flip or find an exception for the top-level prior—for example we may eventually find that pretty much everything has a naturalistic explanation except the origin of life—which turns out to have been seeded by alien super-intelligence (ala Francis Crick) - for example.
This is itself a good argument against the specific “yawheh did it”, but not against the more general “goddidit”
[...]
An atheist has a top-level belief (or it’s negation) which sends down cascading priors and privileges naturalistic hypothesizes. So far this has worked splendidly well across the landscape.
But there is no guarantee this will work everywhere forever, and it’s at least possible that eventually we may flip...
I entirely agree. While I don’t know of any good reasons to think the origin of life was not a happy accident, it is not inconceivable a priori (simulations, seeding etc.).
When I describe myself as an atheist (which I try not to do), I really mean that
(1) all the anthropomorphic creation myths are really laughable,
(2) there’s not much positive evidence for less laughable creators, and
(3) even if you showed me evidence for a creator, I would be inclined toward what I will call meta-naturalism—i.e., still wanting to know how the hell the creator came to be.
Basically, I doubt the existence of gods that are totally ontologically distinct from creatures.
Bostrom’s simulation argument does NOT give us a generator of “goddidits” regarding the origin of life and the universe, because implicit in the question “How did life originate?” is a desire to know the ultimate root (if there is one), and us being in a simulation just gives us some more living beings (the simulators “above”) to ask our questions about. Where did life in the universe “one level above us” come from? Where did our simulator/parent universe originate?
There is nothing unfair in dismissing “A MIRACLE!” in comparison to the set of plausible naturalistic processes that could explain a given phenomenon. And to second SarahC, it’s somewhat incoherent to talk about non-naturalistic processes in the first place. You need to be very clear as to what you’re suggesting when you suggest “god did it”. But, no one here is suggesting that, so I’ll stop tangenting into arguing against theists that don’t seem to be present.
You don’t have to know all the answers to say “you’re (almost certainly) wrong.”
Well, I certainly don’t have to know all the answers in order to think that. But my brand of atheism tells me that I ought to have at least some of the answers before saying that.
I think what’s happening here is that the theist’s preexisting belief about a creator god is causing them to privilege the hypothesis of divine RNA-creation.
The trouble is, you seem to be privileging it too. The way you’ve set up the scenario makes it seem like there are two hypotheses: (1) goddidit, (2) some unknown natural process.
But (2) is actually a set of zillions of potential processes, many of which have a far better prior than Yahweh and the Thousand Claims of Scripture, even if we can’t actually choose one for sure right now. Taken together, all their probability mass dwarfs that of the goddidit hypothesis.
You don’t have to know all the answers to say “you’re (almost certainly) wrong.”
I don’t see any reasons why (2) - unknown natural process—gets to benefit from being a “set of zillions of potential processes, many of which have a far better prior” and (1) - goddidit—does not.
If you want to sum the probability of a hypothesis by performing some weighted sum over the set of zillions of it’s neighbors in hypothesis space, that’s fine. But if that is your criteria, you need to apply it equally to the other set of hypothesises you are considering—instead of considering only one specific example.
Bostrom’s simulation argument gives us one potential generator of ‘goddidits’, and a likely high prior for superintelligent aliens gives us another potential generator of ‘goddidits’. Either of those generators could spawn zillions of potential processes which have far better priors than Yaweh, but could look similar.
None of this leads to any specific conclusion—I’m just pointing out an unfairness in your methodology.
You’re quite right. When I said this, I was thinking of “goddidit” as a set of very specific claims from a single religious tradition, which I should’ve stated.
Mmm actually you did state it as a fairly specific claim. I’m just saying one can’t fairly compare highly specific complex hypothesizes vs wide general sweeps through hypothesis-space. This is itself a good argument against the specific “yawheh did it”, but not against the more general “goddidit” which you originally were referring to:
You’re right—but there is another side to this coin. An atheist has a top-level belief (or it’s negation) which sends down cascading priors and privileges naturalistic hypothesizes. So far this has worked splendidly well across the landscape.
But there is no guarantee this will work everywhere forever, and it’s at least possible that eventually we may flip or find an exception for the top-level prior—for example we may eventually find that pretty much everything has a naturalistic explanation except the origin of life—which turns out to have been seeded by alien super-intelligence (ala Francis Crick) - for example.
I entirely agree. While I don’t know of any good reasons to think the origin of life was not a happy accident, it is not inconceivable a priori (simulations, seeding etc.).
When I describe myself as an atheist (which I try not to do), I really mean that
(1) all the anthropomorphic creation myths are really laughable,
(2) there’s not much positive evidence for less laughable creators, and
(3) even if you showed me evidence for a creator, I would be inclined toward what I will call meta-naturalism—i.e., still wanting to know how the hell the creator came to be.
Basically, I doubt the existence of gods that are totally ontologically distinct from creatures.
Bostrom’s simulation argument does NOT give us a generator of “goddidits” regarding the origin of life and the universe, because implicit in the question “How did life originate?” is a desire to know the ultimate root (if there is one), and us being in a simulation just gives us some more living beings (the simulators “above”) to ask our questions about. Where did life in the universe “one level above us” come from? Where did our simulator/parent universe originate?
There is nothing unfair in dismissing “A MIRACLE!” in comparison to the set of plausible naturalistic processes that could explain a given phenomenon. And to second SarahC, it’s somewhat incoherent to talk about non-naturalistic processes in the first place. You need to be very clear as to what you’re suggesting when you suggest “god did it”. But, no one here is suggesting that, so I’ll stop tangenting into arguing against theists that don’t seem to be present.
Well, I certainly don’t have to know all the answers in order to think that. But my brand of atheism tells me that I ought to have at least some of the answers before saying that.
Different strokes for different folks.