So, has this attempt failed? From the comment thread it looks like the OP has made an honest attempt and read up and probably learned a fair bit, but I did not see anything like “aha, this is where we disagree” and, to quote the link in the OP
If B, then A. Furthermore, if ¬B, then ¬A. You’ve both agreed that the states of B are crucial for the states of A, and in this way your continuing “agreement to disagree” isn’t just “well, you take your truth and I’ll take mine,” but rather “okay, well, let’s see what the evidence shows.”
It has been some time since the last comment. Are we still discussing now?
I think I have found my crux: If it could be shown that a God belief was founded on a sound epistemology that
reliably produced good results,
reliably did not produce bad results.
And there is enough information available to apply the method.
And the method indicates that God likely exists.
then I must conclude that God likely exists. (I will also not accept ad-hoc special pleading, like “take my particular God as an axiom” plus whatever method I’m already using.)
So my statement B is
“Belief in God is not founded on a sound and reliable epistemology. If it were, that would change my mind about A.”
Is this also a crux for you? So your statement B would be
“Belief in God is founded on a sound and reliable epistemology. If it were not, that would change my mind about A.”
If so, it is our first double crux. I have to assume that it must be, otherwise, you are disputing one of my conditions and admitting that
your God belief is not sound and reliable, or
that we do not have enough information to conclude God exists, or
you think God is unlikely to exist.
Then the next step would be to find a double crux for statement B.
I have yet to find a crux for myself, much less a double-crux, but not for lack of trying. I have maybe identified co-cruxes, that is, obstacles that would be necessary to overcome for me to believe in God as defined, but which individually proving would not be sufficient to prove God to me. Perhaps that is progress.
Trying to summarize,
I don’t think we’ve exactly nailed down what “God” means, but I think establishing at least the possibility of each of the necessary attributes of God would be a co-crux (because God as defined must have all of them). Necessary attributes we’ve identified so far include
“omnipotence” (in the limited sense of being able to alter a simulation, and actually doing so),
being a “mind” rather than a simple law of nature, and
“omnibenevolence”, which runs into the problem of evil, and the problem of defining evil.
I haven’t heard back enough on “omniscience” to know what definition we’re using, but I am concerned that “infinite knowledge” must exclude God a priori from the hypothesis space of any kind of induction, which rules out using evidence to prove God exists, because no finite amount of evidence can ever be enough to prove an infinite amount of knowledge. That may still allow some kind of deductive logical necessity argument though. And perhaps it can be weakened somehow as we have done for “omnipotence”.
Am I mistaken in my approach here? This is my first real attempt at Double Crux. Are these co-cruxes pointing to a crux I have that I’m not seeing?
I’m not sure if we can find a double crux before we first agree on questions of basic epistemology. My interlocutor is studying the topic as I bring points up, but it does take time.
I am feeling that our crux is prior probability for God that we are discussing in the other thread. I think that it is a little bit smaller than no God hypothesis, and gilch thinks that it is infinitesimal.
So, has this attempt failed? From the comment thread it looks like the OP has made an honest attempt and read up and probably learned a fair bit, but I did not see anything like “aha, this is where we disagree” and, to quote the link in the OP
We are still discussing :)
It has been some time since the last comment. Are we still discussing now?
I think I have found my crux: If it could be shown that a God belief was founded on a sound epistemology that
reliably produced good results,
reliably did not produce bad results.
And there is enough information available to apply the method.
And the method indicates that God likely exists.
then I must conclude that God likely exists. (I will also not accept ad-hoc special pleading, like “take my particular God as an axiom” plus whatever method I’m already using.)
So my statement B is
“Belief in God is not founded on a sound and reliable epistemology. If it were, that would change my mind about A.”
Is this also a crux for you? So your statement B would be
“Belief in God is founded on a sound and reliable epistemology. If it were not, that would change my mind about A.”
If so, it is our first double crux. I have to assume that it must be, otherwise, you are disputing one of my conditions and admitting that
your God belief is not sound and reliable, or
that we do not have enough information to conclude God exists, or
you think God is unlikely to exist.
Then the next step would be to find a double crux for statement B.
I have yet to find a crux for myself, much less a double-crux, but not for lack of trying. I have maybe identified co-cruxes, that is, obstacles that would be necessary to overcome for me to believe in God as defined, but which individually proving would not be sufficient to prove God to me. Perhaps that is progress.
Trying to summarize,
I don’t think we’ve exactly nailed down what “God” means, but I think establishing at least the possibility of each of the necessary attributes of God would be a co-crux (because God as defined must have all of them). Necessary attributes we’ve identified so far include
“omnipotence” (in the limited sense of being able to alter a simulation, and actually doing so),
being a “mind” rather than a simple law of nature, and
“omnibenevolence”, which runs into the problem of evil, and the problem of defining evil.
I haven’t heard back enough on “omniscience” to know what definition we’re using, but I am concerned that “infinite knowledge” must exclude God a priori from the hypothesis space of any kind of induction, which rules out using evidence to prove God exists, because no finite amount of evidence can ever be enough to prove an infinite amount of knowledge. That may still allow some kind of deductive logical necessity argument though. And perhaps it can be weakened somehow as we have done for “omnipotence”.
Am I mistaken in my approach here? This is my first real attempt at Double Crux. Are these co-cruxes pointing to a crux I have that I’m not seeing?
I’m not sure if we can find a double crux before we first agree on questions of basic epistemology. My interlocutor is studying the topic as I bring points up, but it does take time.
I am feeling that our crux is prior probability for God that we are discussing in the other thread. I think that it is a little bit smaller than no God hypothesis, and gilch thinks that it is infinitesimal.