OK; my surprise was predicated on the hypothetical theist giving the sentence a non-negligible probability; I admit I didn’t express this originally, so you’ll have to take my word that it’s what I meant. Thanks for humoring me :)
On another note, you do surprise me with “God is logically necessary”; although I know that’s at least a common theist position, it’s difficult for me to see how one can maintain that without redefining “god” into something unrecognizable.
This “God is logically necessary” is an increasingly common move among philosophical theists, though virtually unheard of in the wider theistic community.
Of course it is frustratingly hard to argue with. No matter how much evidence an atheist tries to present (evolution, cosmology, plagues, holocausts, multiple religions, psychology of religious experience and self-deception, sociology, history of religions, critical studies of scriptures etc. etc.) the theist won’t update an epistemic probability of 1 to anything less than 1, so is fundamentally immovable.
My guess is that this is precisely the point: the philosophical theist basically wants a position that he can defend “come what may” while still—at least superficially—playing the moves of the rationality game, and gaining a form of acceptance in philosophical circles.
Who said I have a probability of 1? I said the same probability (roughly) as 2+2=3. That’s not the same as 1. But how exactly are those things evidence against God (except maybe plagues, and even then it’s trivially easy to justify them as necessary.) Some of them could be evidence against (or for) Christianity, but not God. I’m much less certain of Christianity than God, if it helps.
OK, so you are in some (small) doubt whether God is logically necessary or not, in that your epistemic probability of God’s existence is 2+2-3, and not exactly 1:-)
Or, put another way, you are able to imagine some sort of “world” in which God does not exist, but you are not totally sure whether that is a logically impossible world (you can imagine that it is logically possible after all)? Perhaps you think like this:
God is either logically necessary or logically impossible
I’m pretty sure (probability very close to 1) that God’s existence is logically possible
So:
I’m pretty sure (probability very close to 1) that God’s existence is logically necessary.
To support 1, you might be working with a definition of God like St Anselm’s (a being than which a greater cannot be conceived) or Alvin Plantinga’s (a maximally great being, which has the property of maximal excellence—including omnipotence, omniscience and moral perfection—in every possible world). If you have a different sort of God conception then that’s fine, but just trying to clear up misunderstanding here.
Yeah, there’s only about 900 years or so of critique… But let’s cut to the chase here.
For sake of argument, let’s grant that there is some meaningful “greater than” order between beings (whether or not they exist) that there is a possible maximum to the order (rather than an unending chain of ever-greater beings), that parodies like Gaunilo’s island fail for some unknown reason, that existence is a predicate, that there is no distinction between conceivability and logical possibility, that beings which exist are greater than beings which don’t, and a few thousand other nitpicks.
There is still a problem that premises 1) and 2) don’t follow from Anselm’s definition. We can try to clarify the definition like this:
(*) G is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived iff for every possible world w where G exists, there is no possible world v and being H such that H in world v is greater than G in world w
No difficulty there… Anselm’s “Fool” can coherently grasp the concept of such a being and imagine a world w where G exists, but can also consistently claim that the actual world a is not one of those worlds. Premise 1) fails.
Or we can try to clarify it like this:
(**) G is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived iff there are no possible worlds v, w and no being H such that H in world v is greater than G in world w
That is closer to Plantinga’s definition of maximal greatness, and does establish Premise 1). But now Premise 2) is implausible, since it is not at all obvious that any possible being satisfies that definition. The Fool is still scratching his head trying to understand it...
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defence against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
Sorry my comment wasn’t intended to be political here.
I was simply pointing out that even if all the classical criticisms of St Anselm’s OA argument are dropped, this argument still fails to establish that a “being than which a greater cannot be conceived” is a logically necessary being rather than a logically contingent being. The argument just can’t work unless you convert it into something like Alvin Plantinga’s version of the OA. Since you were favouring St A’s version over Plantinga’s version, I thought you might not be aware of that.
Clearly you are aware of it, so my post was not helpful, and you are not going to respond to this anyway on LW. However, if you wish to continue the point by email, feel free to take my username and add @ gmail.com.
The phil. community is pretty close to consensus , for once, on the OA.
Yeah, as far as the “classical ontological arguments” are concerned, virtually no philosopher considers them sound. On the other hand, I am under the impression that the “modern modal ontological arguments” (Gödel, Plantinga, etc...) are not well known outside of philosophy of religion and so there couldn’t be a consensus one way or the other (taking philosophy as a whole).
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defense against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
I have read the critiques, and the critiques of the critiques, and so on and so forth. If there is some “magic bullet” argument I somehow haven’t seen, LessWrong does not seem the place to look for it.
I will not respond to further attempts at argument. We all have political stakes in this; LessWrong is generally safe from mindkilled dialogue and I would like it to stay that way, even if it means accepting a consensus I believe to be inaccurate. Frankly, I have nothing to gain from fighting this point. So I’m not going to pay the cost of doing so.
P.S. On a simple point of logic P(God exists) = P(God exists & Christianity is true) + P(God exists and Christianity is not true). Any evidence that reduces the first term also reduces the sum.
In any case, the example evidences I cited are general evidence against any sort of omni being, because they are *not the sorts of things we would expect to observe if there were such a being, but are very much what we’d expect to observe if there weren’t.
P.S. On a simple point of logic P(God exists) = P(God exists & Christianity is true) + P(God exists and Christianity is not true). Any evidence that reduces the first term also reduces the sum.
No it doesn’t. Any evidence that reduces the first term by a greater degree than it increases the second term also reduces the sum. For example if God appeared before me and said “There is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is My prophet” it would raise p(God exists), lower p(God exists & Christianity is true) and significantly raise p(psychotic episode).
What I was getting at here is that evidence which reduces the probability of the Christian God but leaves probability of other concepts of God unchanged still reduces P(God). But you are correct, I didn’t quite say that.
What I was getting at here is that evidence which reduces the probability of the Christian God but leaves probability of other concepts of God unchanged still reduces P(God).
In any case, the example evidences I cited are general evidence against any sort of omni* being, because they are not the sorts of things we would expect to observe if there were such a being, but are very much what we’d expect to observe if there weren’t.
For example? Bearing in mind that I am well aware of all your “example evidences” and they do not appear confusing—although I have encountered other conceptions of God that would be so confused (for example, those who don’t think God can have knowledge about the future—because free will—might be puzzled by His failure to intervene in holocausts.)
EDIT:
On a simple point of logic P(2+2=3) = P(2+2=3 & Christianity is true) + P(2+2=3 and Christianity is not true). Any evidence that reduces the first term also reduces the sum.
it’s difficult for me to see how one can maintain that without redefining “god” into something unrecognizable.
Despite looking for some way to do so, I’ve never found any. I presume you can’t. Philosophical theists are happy to completely ignore this issue, and gaily go on to conflate this new “god” with their previous intuitive ideas of what “god” is, which is (from the outside view) obviously quite confused and a very bad way to think and to use words.
Well, my idea of what “God” is would be an omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator. That doesn’t jive very well with notions like hell, at first glance, but there are theories as to why a benevolent God would torture people. My personal theory is too many inferential steps away to explain here, but suffice to say hell is … toned down … in most of them.
OK; my surprise was predicated on the hypothetical theist giving the sentence a non-negligible probability; I admit I didn’t express this originally, so you’ll have to take my word that it’s what I meant. Thanks for humoring me :)
Oh, OK. I just meant it sounds like something I would say, probably in order to humour an atheist.
On another note, you do surprise me with “God is logically necessary”; although I know that’s at least a common theist position, it’s difficult for me to see how one can maintain that without redefining “god” into something unrecognizable.
The traditional method is the Ontological argument, not to be confused with two other arguments with that name; but it’s generally considered rather … suspect. However, it does get you a logically necessary, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God; I’m still somewhat confused as to whether it’s actually valid.
So it is trivially likely that the creator of the universe (God) embodies the set of axioms which describe morality? God is not good?
I handle that contradiction by pointing out that the entity which created the universe, the abstraction which is morality, and the entity which loves genocide are not necessarily the same.
There certainly seems to be some sort of optimisation going on.
But I don’t come to LW to debate theology. I’m not here to start arguments. Certainly not about an issue the community has already decided against me on.
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defense against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
About the same as 2+2=3. The universe exists; gotta have a creator. God is logically necessary so …
OK; my surprise was predicated on the hypothetical theist giving the sentence a non-negligible probability; I admit I didn’t express this originally, so you’ll have to take my word that it’s what I meant. Thanks for humoring me :)
On another note, you do surprise me with “God is logically necessary”; although I know that’s at least a common theist position, it’s difficult for me to see how one can maintain that without redefining “god” into something unrecognizable.
This “God is logically necessary” is an increasingly common move among philosophical theists, though virtually unheard of in the wider theistic community.
Of course it is frustratingly hard to argue with. No matter how much evidence an atheist tries to present (evolution, cosmology, plagues, holocausts, multiple religions, psychology of religious experience and self-deception, sociology, history of religions, critical studies of scriptures etc. etc.) the theist won’t update an epistemic probability of 1 to anything less than 1, so is fundamentally immovable.
My guess is that this is precisely the point: the philosophical theist basically wants a position that he can defend “come what may” while still—at least superficially—playing the moves of the rationality game, and gaining a form of acceptance in philosophical circles.
Who said I have a probability of 1? I said the same probability (roughly) as 2+2=3. That’s not the same as 1. But how exactly are those things evidence against God (except maybe plagues, and even then it’s trivially easy to justify them as necessary.) Some of them could be evidence against (or for) Christianity, but not God. I’m much less certain of Christianity than God, if it helps.
OK, so you are in some (small) doubt whether God is logically necessary or not, in that your epistemic probability of God’s existence is 2+2-3, and not exactly 1:-)
Or, put another way, you are able to imagine some sort of “world” in which God does not exist, but you are not totally sure whether that is a logically impossible world (you can imagine that it is logically possible after all)? Perhaps you think like this:
God is either logically necessary or logically impossible
I’m pretty sure (probability very close to 1) that God’s existence is logically possible So:
I’m pretty sure (probability very close to 1) that God’s existence is logically necessary.
To support 1, you might be working with a definition of God like St Anselm’s (a being than which a greater cannot be conceived) or Alvin Plantinga’s (a maximally great being, which has the property of maximal excellence—including omnipotence, omniscience and moral perfection—in every possible world). If you have a different sort of God conception then that’s fine, but just trying to clear up misunderstanding here.
Yup. It’s the Anslem one, in fact.
Well, it’s not like there’s a pre-existing critique of that, or anything.
Yeah, there’s only about 900 years or so of critique… But let’s cut to the chase here.
For sake of argument, let’s grant that there is some meaningful “greater than” order between beings (whether or not they exist) that there is a possible maximum to the order (rather than an unending chain of ever-greater beings), that parodies like Gaunilo’s island fail for some unknown reason, that existence is a predicate, that there is no distinction between conceivability and logical possibility, that beings which exist are greater than beings which don’t, and a few thousand other nitpicks.
There is still a problem that premises 1) and 2) don’t follow from Anselm’s definition. We can try to clarify the definition like this:
(*) G is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived iff for every possible world w where G exists, there is no possible world v and being H such that H in world v is greater than G in world w
No difficulty there… Anselm’s “Fool” can coherently grasp the concept of such a being and imagine a world w where G exists, but can also consistently claim that the actual world a is not one of those worlds. Premise 1) fails.
Or we can try to clarify it like this:
(**) G is a being than which a greater cannot be conceived iff there are no possible worlds v, w and no being H such that H in world v is greater than G in world w
That is closer to Plantinga’s definition of maximal greatness, and does establish Premise 1). But now Premise 2) is implausible, since it is not at all obvious that any possible being satisfies that definition. The Fool is still scratching his head trying to understand it...
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defence against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
Sorry my comment wasn’t intended to be political here.
I was simply pointing out that even if all the classical criticisms of St Anselm’s OA argument are dropped, this argument still fails to establish that a “being than which a greater cannot be conceived” is a logically necessary being rather than a logically contingent being. The argument just can’t work unless you convert it into something like Alvin Plantinga’s version of the OA. Since you were favouring St A’s version over Plantinga’s version, I thought you might not be aware of that.
Clearly you are aware of it, so my post was not helpful, and you are not going to respond to this anyway on LW. However, if you wish to continue the point by email, feel free to take my username and add @ gmail.com.
Fair enough. I was indeed aware of that criticism, incidentally.
Or counters to those pre-existing critiques, etc...
The phil. community is pretty close to consensus , for once, on the OA.
Yeah, as far as the “classical ontological arguments” are concerned, virtually no philosopher considers them sound. On the other hand, I am under the impression that the “modern modal ontological arguments” (Gödel, Plantinga, etc...) are not well known outside of philosophy of religion and so there couldn’t be a consensus one way or the other (taking philosophy as a whole).
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defense against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
Source?
I have read the critiques, and the critiques of the critiques, and so on and so forth. If there is some “magic bullet” argument I somehow haven’t seen, LessWrong does not seem the place to look for it.
I will not respond to further attempts at argument. We all have political stakes in this; LessWrong is generally safe from mindkilled dialogue and I would like it to stay that way, even if it means accepting a consensus I believe to be inaccurate. Frankly, I have nothing to gain from fighting this point. So I’m not going to pay the cost of doing so.
P.S. On a simple point of logic P(God exists) = P(God exists & Christianity is true) + P(God exists and Christianity is not true). Any evidence that reduces the first term also reduces the sum.
In any case, the example evidences I cited are general evidence against any sort of omni being, because they are *not the sorts of things we would expect to observe if there were such a being, but are very much what we’d expect to observe if there weren’t.
No it doesn’t. Any evidence that reduces the first term by a greater degree than it increases the second term also reduces the sum. For example if God appeared before me and said “There is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is My prophet” it would raise p(God exists), lower p(God exists & Christianity is true) and significantly raise p(psychotic episode).
ITYM “lower p(God exists & Christianity is true)”.
Thanks.
Good point…
What I was getting at here is that evidence which reduces the probability of the Christian God but leaves probability of other concepts of God unchanged still reduces P(God). But you are correct, I didn’t quite say that.
Your point is a valid one!
For example? Bearing in mind that I am well aware of all your “example evidences” and they do not appear confusing—although I have encountered other conceptions of God that would be so confused (for example, those who don’t think God can have knowledge about the future—because free will—might be puzzled by His failure to intervene in holocausts.)
EDIT:
Despite looking for some way to do so, I’ve never found any. I presume you can’t. Philosophical theists are happy to completely ignore this issue, and gaily go on to conflate this new “god” with their previous intuitive ideas of what “god” is, which is (from the outside view) obviously quite confused and a very bad way to think and to use words.
Well, my idea of what “God” is would be an omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator. That doesn’t jive very well with notions like hell, at first glance, but there are theories as to why a benevolent God would torture people. My personal theory is too many inferential steps away to explain here, but suffice to say hell is … toned down … in most of them.
Oh, OK. I just meant it sounds like something I would say, probably in order to humour an atheist.
The traditional method is the Ontological argument, not to be confused with two other arguments with that name; but it’s generally considered rather … suspect. However, it does get you a logically necessary, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God; I’m still somewhat confused as to whether it’s actually valid.
So it is trivially likely that the creator of the universe (God) embodies the set of axioms which describe morality? God is not good?
I handle that contradiction by pointing out that the entity which created the universe, the abstraction which is morality, and the entity which loves genocide are not necessarily the same.
There certainly seems to be some sort of optimisation going on.
But I don’t come to LW to debate theology. I’m not here to start arguments. Certainly not about an issue the community has already decided against me on.
The universe probably seems optimized for what it is; is that evidence of intelligence, or anthropic effect?
I am no longer responding to arguments on this topic, although I will clarify my points if asked. Political argument in an environment where I am already aware of the consensus position on this topic is not productive.
It bugs the hell out of me not to respond to comments like this, but a lengthy and expensive defense against arguments that I have already encountered elsewhere just isn’t worth it.
It is logically necessary that the cause of the universe be sapient?
Define “sapient”. An optimiser, certainly.
“Creation must have a creator” is about as good as “the-randomly-occuring-totailty randomly occurred”.
OK, firstly, I’m not looking for a debate on theology here; I’m well aware of what the LW consensus thinks of theism.
Secondly, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
You seem to have started one.
That one version of the First Cause argument begs the question by how it describes the universe.
I clarified a probability estimate. I certainly didn’t intend an argument:(
As … created. Optimized? It’s more an explanation, I guess.