The Contradictory Failure of Prayer, Part II
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Direct continuation of: The Contradictory Failure of Prayer, Part I
How does prayer make sense? Prayer is believed and practiced throughout the entire world, but it has been disproven by science, makes no sense theologically, and reveals God as unfair and evil. The failure of prayer seems so conclusive that, despite biblical statements of it’s efficacy, it derails Christianity.
My argument is as follows:
- God, as traditionally conceived by Christianity, is an all-good entity who listens to and grants prayers.
- Prayers are not granted any more than we would expect by chance.
- God, being all-knowing, would not need prayers to know what to do.
- Prayers cannot be granted if the common defenses to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and Problem of Evil are true.
- If God answers some prayers, but not the prayers of the most hurt and deserving, then he is not all-good.
- Therefore from 2, 3, 4, or 5, an all-good God that grants prayers does not exist.
- Therefore since 1 and 6 conflict, Christianity is false.
In the previous part, I sketched an introduction. Now I will properly defend all the premises and argue for my conclusion.
Scientific Tests of Prayer
What does it mean for prayer to be testable? If something has an impact on the world, then it is testable — we can go out and see if that impact really exists. This means that if prayer really did work, we would be seeing all sorts of noticeable results: quite simply, we’d notice that the things which are prayed for would occur. For example, if every time Rick Perry prayed for the end of a drought, rain came, then prayer works. If every sick person got healed when prayed for, then prayer works.
Yet instead, every time we look at the results, we notice something different:
- We notice that atheists recover from illness just as frequently as believers who pray.
- We notice that the number of people praying for an outcome makes that outcome no more probable.
- We notice prayers for changes in the weather happen no more frequently than accounted for by chance.
- We notice that the prayers of one religion are no more successful than the same prayers from another religion.
- We notice people who pray daily are no more happer, healthier, successful, or compassionate than those people who never pray.
- We notice the nations where people pray frequently are no better off than the nations where people do not pray.
If prayer works, why would all of the above be the case? Some scientific studies of prayer have even been taken with two group of people — one that receives large amounts of prayer and one that does not. Wikipedia summarizes and cites these studies, which demonstrate no statistically significant benefit of prayer. Most notably are the 2003 Duke University MANTRA study, in which two groups, one receiving prayer from Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims; and one group receiving no prayer, saw no difference in results.
Two follow-up studies, the 2005 Duke University MANTRA II and the 2006 Mayo Clinic Study, saw the same results. This excellent article by the Florida Freethinkers summarizes some more failed results. Additionally, studies which did find some benefits of prayer, such as the Columbia study, were found to be fraudulent.
What studies did find is that when people know they are being prayed for, they do indeed sometimes recover better. However, this is a surprise that is not a surprise at all — it is instead fully explainable by the placebo effect, no thanks to prayer. When people don’t know they are being prayed for, they fare no better than they’re unprayed counterparts.
Perhaps prayer could be defended with the notion that since some people pray for everyone (including nonbelievers), prayer might not be seen to benefit only believers. But this defense doesn’t work for two reasons: (1) it seems unlikely that God’s will includes providing benefits given through prayer to nonbelievers and (2) those who do believe still receive the focus of far more prayer, since not everyone prays for everyone.
The bottom line is that prayer has been disproved. If prayer has an impact on the world, prayer is testable. All the tests of prayer have shown prayer to be largely ineffective. Therefore, prayer doesn’t work.
Why Pray to an All-Knowing God?
Besides the fact that prayer has been scientifically disproved and therefore demonstrated to be ineffective, prayer also makes no sense from a theological standpoint. Specifically, if God is all-knowing, he knows which prayers you will issue ahead of time. Additionally, an all-knowing God would already know exactly what to do in order to make the world work according to his will without the need of any fallible humans to provide suggestions. Therefore, prayer makes no sense, since you would be telling God to do what he already knows to do and would have done anyway.
Prayer, from a theological standpoint, is also a suggestion that you know better than God. If you pray to God to heal your sick grandmother, you are suggesting that you know about your grandmother better than God does — you’re saying that your will is more important than God’s will. If it was God’s will to heal your grandmother, God would do so regardless of whether you pray for it, making your prayer irrelevant.
Furthermore, think about what this would mean if this was not the case. What if God really did take suggestions? Wouldn’t this indicate that God’s will is dictated by popularity contest? God already knows everything and already will do specifically and only what he wants regardless of what prayers are made, therefore prayers are pointless for getting God to act in specific ways. This is a contradiction between God’s nature and the idea of prayer; a contradiction specifically included in the Bible.
Showing Gratitude
In response, it is often said that “God is not a cosmic vending machine” and that not all prayers are petitionary. While, yes, petitionary prayer makes no sense in relation to an all-knowing God with an unshakable will, perhaps prayer is instead meant to show God that you’re grateful and that you desire to worship him.
I think that first this might be a bit unfair, since I imagine these people who say “God is not a cosmic vending machine” would have also been the first people to stand up and declare these studies proof of God, if they had come out the other way in favour of prayer. And indeed when the Columbia study initially seemed to prove the success of prayer, it was hailed as overwhelming proof of faith healing. …Only later did the tunes of prayer-enthusiasts change.
This notwithstanding, though, the idea of needing to tell God you’re grateful of him doesn’t make sense for the same reason — God is all-knowing. This means that God automatically knows exactly how grateful you are and how much you desire to worship him without you needing to say a single word; in fact, if God exists, he knows how grateful you are better than you do. By definition, there is nothing you can tell an all-knowing God that he doesn’t already know.
Additionally, the idea of God, a perfect being, somehow desiring or needing worship seems inherently contradictory — a perfect being doesn’t need or desire anything.
Prayer as a Relationship
What if prayer was simply seen as communicating with God to build a relationship? This too seems to be rocky, however, because there is nothing you can do to change God. God, as an infinite being, will always be and therefore is incapable of being moved by your friendship. Since a relationship is supposed to be a two-way bond with a spirit of give-or-take, it isn’t really possible to have a relationship with God by our understanding of what it means to be in a relationship.
Instead, the believer simply prays and God does or does not. The believer talks, but God never responds in any audible manner. The relationship is entirely one-sided. However, not only that, but as the Conservational Atheist pointed out and Ebonmusings pointed out, the relationship with God appears abusive even to the point of threatening an eternal torture in Hell if you ever leave him.
Prayer as a Benefit
So perhaps it makes no sense to say that prayer is actually affecting an infinite being, but that it is being done entirely for the sake of the person praying. Perhaps communication with God is for our sake, making us a better person through him. Abusive relationships aside, it’s interesting that this doesn’t pan out in any of the evidence — again, those who pray seem to live no better lives than those who don’t.
Additionally, if prayer is actually communicating with God, we would expect for believers to come to an actual understanding of his will. Yet as I argue in “Where is God?”, the religious landscape remains as confused as ever, with millions of people still holding thousands of different, entirely contradictory viewpoints of what God is like. Why do these people come no closer to agreement, despite allegedly authentic communication with a consistent God?
Clearly prayer makes no sense in relation to an all-knowing God, regardless of whether prayer is seen as petitionary, thankfulness, developing a relationship, or simply a means of benefitting the person praying.
Praying for a Theodicy?
After arguing for premise 2 that prayer is disconfirmed by the evidence and premise 3 that prayer makes no sense in relation to an all-knowing God, I will now argue for premises 4 and 5, that prayer also makes no sense in relation to the responses given in response to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and the Problem of Evil (that, of course, fail anyway).
Specifically, why won’t God heal birth defects? Why can’t we cure babies of deformities through the power of prayer? Surely babies are the most worthy and deserving of healing, since they have not yet done anything wrong. Additionally, such a miraculous event would not only ameliorate a great deal of suffering, but provide conclusive evidence for God, winning millions of souls. There is no reason God wouldn’t want this, yet it does not happen. Why?
This isn’t an unfair request, and it does get a lot of responses. When we ask why God permits birth defects at all, we are frequently reminded of free will. Yet how do prayers affect free will? Wouldn’t praying for something require God to co-opt freely willed agents in order to bring about certain events?
We are also frequently reminded about how God needs regular and consistent physics. Yet wouldn’t regular prayers upset such a consistent world?
We are also frequently reminded about how God needs people to suffer in order to bring them to closer to God. (Oddly, no one seems to notice that this regularly used excuse is comparable to “Love me or I’ll torture you”.) Yet wouldn’t prayer reduce suffering and thus reduce opportunities for people to come closer to God?
It seems that not only is there no reasonable answer to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness and the Problem of Evil in wondering why God doesn’t conclusively prove himself by healing birth defects from babies, but there is no reasonable conception of how prayer works within such a system.
Some birth defects leave the baby to suffer immensely. Why doesn't God grant their prayers?
Prayers are Unfair and Trivializing
In many ways, prayer as currently employed by the religious is extensively unfair and trivializing to both all those that suffer and all those that help ameliorate suffering.
For instance, consider every prayer that says “Thank God for curing me of cancer”, ignoring the fact that you were cured through several aggressive rounds of chemotherapy on behalf of a hard-working doctor. You should thank the Doctor, not God. Then consider every person that died of cancer, or of an even more horrible and painful affliction; those who prayed desperately for their survival. What happened to them? By crediting God, you trivialize the work of every person who worked hard to help you and trivialize the suffering of every person who wasn’t able to get as much help as you.
Consider every prayer that says “Thank God for saving the survivors of 9/11″. This prayer is to the same God that allowed 9/11 to happen without redirecting the planes or preventing the bombers from getting on the planes in the first place; the God who responded to 9/11 by allowing rain and making it even harder for the rescue crews to work. Many apologists say “Why should we expect God to save everyone on board?” without realizing that it would be literally no work at all for an infinite being, and any compassionate person would surely do so, given that kind of power. Such prayers ignore everyone who died because of 9/11 and ignore the hard work of every emergency responder who risked his or her life to actually save the survivors.
Then when it gets to prayers along the line of “Thank God for helping me find my car keys” — that shows a disregard and disrespect for all those who have prayed for weightier things than car keys and gotten nothing in return. You’re worshipping a God that assists you in finding your car keys, but won’t assist the starving in finding food? What kind of evil, unfair God is that? What kind of infinite being actually cares about your keys? You found your car keys because you finally figured out where they were, not because of some sort of divine intervention.
Conclusion
Many people pray for God to do a wide variety of things. One won’t have to travel very far to find a church with prayer requests that range from “pray that this church relieves enough money to fix the roof” to “pray that Jim’s grandma successfully fights her battle with cancer”. Yet all of these prayer requests are ultimately futile and meaningless, and I think conclusively so.
They might as well just say “Dear God, well I know that praying to you is proven to not change the probability of anyone getting better, that you’re an all-knowing God who will do his will regardless of what we say, and that there’s no reason to grant our prayer when you won’t grant the prayer of all the babies suffering from birth defects, so um… I guess we’re really just praying to make ourselves feel better and not to ask you to do anything in particular.”
The truth is that despite all the lofty words the Bible says about prayer, prayer fails. The only reason people don’t notice this is because of the massive web of rationalization and confirmation basis put around to excuse unanswered prayer, and the fact that no one really considers the implications of the unheard prayers of the suffering or the implications of an all-knowing God. And if prayer fails, this means Christianity is false.
This also means that any religion that, regardless of what else we actually think of God and whether or not such an entity exists, it is certainly not the kind of entity that we can pray to. For a variety of reasons, it really makes no sense to conceive of a God that we can pray to or get to act on our behalf. Any religion that suggests God will do stuff for us if only we pray is a religion falsified by both logic and the evidence.
Instead, we ought to rise up and fix our problems for ourselves. As Robert Ingersoll once said “The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.” Prayer is the ultimate slacktivism, where believers think they are working to make change in the world when they really aren’t.
This is the realization and ethic of humanism — that since God won’t intervene to help us ameliorate or eliminate suffering because he is either evil or nonexistent, we ought to do so by ourselves. If prayer is ineffective, we’ll have to work that much harder to make the world a better place. Instead of praying, we’ll donate to charities or volunteer our services.
We’ll be compassionate people and make the suffering in the world all the more bearable with friendship, kindness, and love.
Followed up in TheraminTrees’s Atheism, Part I: Incompatibility
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Your point #5 is flawed. It falls to the traditional “we’re too dumb to understand why god does what he does” argument.
#3 assumes that the point of the prayer is notification. But I believe it’s meant to be some form of worship.
You can use the omnipotence and omniscience as reasonable arguments for showing that religion and god represent an obvious contradiction. But you can’t make presumptions about the actions/motives of some other entity and then use them as tautologies.
If god were truly this super intelligent being, you can be assured we wouldn’t have a clue what or why he was thinking or doing most of the things he did.
This won’t be unlike our observations of some of the greater versions of super intelligent AI. Does a flea have any clue of your existence or why you do what you do? Or how? Compared to us does it even have the capacity to have a clue about anything?
Sorry, but as an atheist, it’s harder for me to watch people pursue fallacious atheistic arguments than it is for me to watch the believers try to defend their delusions.
You see, I expect it from them. I don’t expect it from people with larger, better brains.
Sorry to disappoint you then, but at least I can learn from your criticism and use it to construct better arguments in the future. So thanks for speaking up.
That argument doesn’t adequately defeat #5, however, because if we don’t understand why God is good, then calling God good is meaningless. I write a lot more about this in my essay “The Great Problem of Evil”, specifically in the third part under heading “Does God Work in Mysterious Ways?”.
I thought I addressed this in the “Showing Gratitude” subheading under the “Why Pray to an All-Knowing God?” heading, here in Part II — specifically, an all-knowing God already knows how much you want to worship him.
Also, and I say this for other people following the conversation, keep in mind that if this argument is logically valid, #3 doesn’t have to be true to prove my conclusion. I only need to demonstrate #1, #6, #7, and one of the following: #2, #3, #4, or #5.
Though I do of course think it’s good to point out any of the flaws in #2-#5, even if it doesn’t undermine the argument.
I agree with you, but I can notice that the Bible and Christianity seems to say A, and reality seems to suggest not-A. To the degree that this is true, the Bible and Christianity are false.
If we really can never understand God’s actions or motives, then we have no basis for saying if his actions are good, or if he even acts consistent with any religion at all. We would have to just be generic theists (which, I’m told, is different from deism, and I don’t argue with definitions).
Also, we’d want to ask why God doesn’t spend more time explaining his motives and actions to us, and clearing up our confusion about him and his nature. I elaborate on this in “Where is God?”.
Love, just because you’re frustrated by politicians who ask their constituents to pray doesn’t mean that this post will get you anywhere :) is there a point to your rabble rousing, or is it as useless as prayer? Should you not be out saving the world, rather than insulting the validity of people’s opinions? It’s very well to defend your own, but while this clarifies your already clear view, it’s not going to win you friends or favors (I know friends and favors aren’t your goal, but sometimes subtlety is kinder…it’s easier for people to step against something so direct, and be defensive without reconsidering their beliefs, but if you present it in a tactful way, that might make them think about actually doing things in addition to praying). :) I think that the story “San Manuel, bueno martir” would be eye opening for you. It’s about an agnostic catholic priest, who teaches his people salvation and prayer to keep order, provide hope, and give them reason to do good deeds, while he’s really working to better the world, and has no idea what’s out there in terms of religion.
An important lesson to learn is that just because something is true does not mean to one has to say it. I could argue that video games are just as useless as prayer – they make people feel good about doing useless things in a world that doesn’t exist – but I don’t, because it’s really none of my business. And I think that unless you really study why people follow religions that involve prayer, it’s really none of yours, and that your arrogance is astounding.
First, I would ask David Bandel to be more respectful to those who are religious and believe in a God. Religion is a belief, a faith, not a delusion. Also, to assume that atheists/humanists are smarter or have “larger, better brains” just makes you seem unbelievably arrogant and pretentious.
Now to Peter. Religion is a deeply personal matter, just as a lack of religion is personal. And so is prayer. Do I believe that prayer works like a magic charm, that when you add more prayers, the thing you are praying for will happen? Of course not. However, the point of prayer is to connect oneself to something bigger.
We obviously see that good does not always happen. Innocent people, children, die everyday. wicked people are given power and long lives. Some people have more than they can use, and some have nothing at all. Yet a belief in God is a belief in the fact that good can overcome bad. God is that extra effort that puts a positive spin on the events of the world. A light that comes through. While there still is darkness, it is our belief in something bigger, something better, that allows light to shine.
That’s where prayer comes in. Let’s say a relative of mine is diagnosed with cancer. I am going to pray for that person. Why? I cannot do anything to cure his/her cancer. I am not a doctor, nor am I a scientist. I can work for charities and donate money all I want, but that cannot change the prognosis on my relative. So I pray. I pray to God that they will beat the cancer and live on. Scientifically, I know that it will not help them get better (except, as you point out, if they know I am praying for them). But personally, I put my trust in the good in the world, in the God in the world. And personally, I find peace and solace. I have done what I could, and I am relying on the good to help them.
And it is important to keep on relying in the good of the world. That’s what prayer is. You might say that collective prayers cannot cure someone, but I believe they can cure the world. A group of people, who are dealing with something they cannot understand, asking for good to triumph over bad. Even individual prayer does that. A belief in something positive that binds us all together. It is impenetrable, and our spirit is resolute. We MUST keep believing in the good.
Two scenarios exist for my relative. First, he/she could live. Overjoyed, I believe that my prayer worked. Death and disease were overcome by good. Now you might say it would be silly to thank God, instead we should thank the doctors. Yes, by all means thank the doctors. But thank those who cared for and those who loved as well. Why should we not thank God too? Ah yes, you believe there is no God. Yet, if you look at my view that God is the good in the world, that oomph that prevents the world from being taken over by bad, then how can God not exist? Did the prayer work? Not scientifically or physically. However, being human, we exist beyond scientific and physical boundaries. We have our hearts, our souls, and our minds. And in these arenas, our prayer DID work. We called upon God, or the good, and it answered.
Scenario 2, my relative dies.
Heartstricken, I turn away from any beliefs in God and in good. How can a good God have forsaken me? Why did they have to die? But I will eventually remember my belief in the good, in the something bigger and better. I am inspired! Inspired to help others. I will donate to charities, volunteer my time. Help others who are dealing with what I have gone through. Again, while it may seem upside-down, the prayer WORKED. Not for me, necessarily, but for others, whom I have been inspired to help. The good, which did not cure my relative, has been rebounded back to me. This is what some folks describe as being ‘reborn’. And imagine, that if I help one person, if losing my relative makes me change myself and others in any way at all for the better, the good lives on, and the prayer has worked.
For that is the goal of prayer. We want the good to live on, to persist. We pray for it. And in our minds, our hearts, and in our souls, our prayers have a presence. You can argue science, you can argue facts, but none of them will ever be able to touch inside the soul. And that is the whole point of a faith. It is that inner belief in the good that exists, and as we act upon the good, it grows.
As a final comment, I suggest that you take some of Katie’s advice. I’m sure that, while you do not believe in a God, you believe in a good. A greater good, toward which you want to achieve more. Act then! For some, prayer is a form of channeling and growing the good. For you, obviously not. But channel your inner good into acts of kindness, of respect, and of generosity. Look for the good in others. I promise you, the results will surprise you.
Believe in the good!
Respectfully yours,
Kevin Girardi
Kevin Girardi,
Thank you for thoughtful comments. I’d like to respond to some parts in particular:
You’re right that if you define God to just be “goodness”, than I believe in what you call “God”. If you define “fizitnig” to be “goodness”, than I believe in “fizitnig”.
However, it’s important to note while I don’t want to argue about definitions, there’s not much point in calling “good” God, because we already have a word for “good”… we call it “good”.
If I were to tell you that when I say “atheist”, I’m talking about a disbelief in a supernatural force that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and that created the universe. While you believe in “good”, do you believe in this supernatural being? Maybe you too are an atheist?
You act as if I don’t already channel my inner good into acts of kindness, which is rather presumptuous of you to say. As I mentioned before, you can believe in the greater good and still be an atheist (on my definition).
In fact, that’s a lot of what humanism is. The humanist philosophy is that “we’re all in this together”, and that we should use our efforts and talents to make the world we live in a better place for everyone. I strive to do this on a daily basis.
A belief in God (by your definition) is indeed this belief, but that’s not the same God other people are believing in, by their definitions. Remember that not everyone uses words the same way you do.
Other people believe in this being that is perfectly capable of righting all these wicked wrongs, yet chooses not to do so. This is the kind of god that I’m arguing against, not your concept of goodness. I suggest reading through “The Great Problem of Evil” for more on this.
Now, and I mean no disrespect by this, but we have a word for this: it’s called self-delusion. You fully admit that you praying for your relative will not make any difference in whether or not your relative heals.
Though the fact that you recognize this is really all I ask. You have no more right to see your relative healed than any other person who’s relative is undergoing cancer right now… even those who never recover, despite being prayed for.
Perhaps we agree a lot more than you think, but we’re just using words differently. Placing hope in goodness and working toward progress is something that I, and many atheists, do every day. This is not a self-delusion.
We shouldn’t thank God, because God did absolutely nothing to help these people. All the thanks should be given to every good person who helped heal the patient, especially the doctors. In thanking these people, you thank goodness, for these people are the goodness. There’s nothing left over, no whirly floating goodness-force that also needs thanking.
Here is where we might disagree, though it depends on what you mean by “soul”. Science and the physical is capable of fully describing us with nothing left over. “The good” is not something that is capable of hearing a prayer, though good people are.
Indeed, though you could do all that without praying, and find that same inspiration as a humanist, with no belief in God (my definition). The prayer worked as you define it, but all the points in my essay stand — prayer, as thought of by someone like Rick Perry, does not work.
And when you’re idea of prayer works, it works exactly as we would expect considering humanism — good people do as much as they can, but they’re not aided by any supernatural healing forces that we can find.
Good is not opposed to science and facts — it is a fact that good people exist, and their actions can be described and predicted by science. As far as we have an idea of what “good” means, we can even use science to figure out how to get more of it, such as better medicines and a higher quality of life for all.
In conclusion, we use different definitions to describe the same words. When you take these definitions and make them the same, so we’re speaking the same language, we actually agree on a lot.
Came from CSA link, interesting stuff 頑張れ!
One note:
“Religion is a belief, a faith, not a delusion”
Faith: A belief despite, or against, evidence.
Delusion: A belief despite, or against, evidence.
Any suggestions as to how we pry these apart (other than the obvious “If it’s me, it’s faith, if it’s not me it’s a delusion).
Reminds me of:
My dad was too poor to be an alcoholic, he was just a drunk.
@Katie:
I just responded to your comment in my essay “Why Argue About Religion”.
David Bandel,
“You see, I expect it from them. I don’t expect it from people with larger, better brains.”
Oh get real. Take your smarm and stuff it!
Peter,
In short, I think you’ve sustained your conclusion on terribly naive, pseudo-scientific premises. Namely, your opening paragraph. That X is alleged to have an impact on the world does not make X scientifically testable, and that’s just the beginning with the problems in your setup. Prayers are not unfair and insulting, either. You might be insulted by some prayer, or you might find them insulting, but that’s just your opinion. Prayers are utterances directed towards God, period. I’m sorry, but questions are not the same thing as valid arguments.
“Besides the fact that prayer has been scientifically disproved and therefore demonstrated to be ineffective, prayer also makes no sense from a theological standpoint.”
It disturbs me to hear stuff like this masquerading as a rational position. I suspect you’ve drastically overlooked the unscientific nature of prayer studies. Honest. No offense, but you’re leaning on balsa wood here.
To leave on a positive note:
“Prayer, from a theological standpoint, is supremely arrogant. If you pray to God to heal your sick grandmother, you are suggesting that you know about your grandmother better than God does — you’re saying that your will is more important than God’s. If it was God’s will to heal your grandmother, God would do so regardless of whether you pray for it.”
Well, I think you’re wrong about the “arrogant” part, but the rest of that has merit. When I pray, I ask that God’s will be done.
joseph,
“Any suggestions as to how we pry these apart”
You could start by not conflating things.
cl,
I’m glad you made it here, and I appreciate your comments! Sorry your comment got caught up in the spam filter, by the way.
I want to make sure you know I agree with you on this — Bandel’s rhetoric on “bigger brains” is not the kind of rhetoric I want to use or endorse. I allow it because it’s not the kind of stuff that requires censoring, but I do feel it unproductive and detracting from the conversation.
~
I doubt this in a way — I think that if X has an impact, the impact of X is going to be scientifically testable. Are there any other examples you can think of for something that has a continuing impact on the world, but that the impact cannot be measured or tested for?
I am aware of your posts on the unscientific nature of prayer studies, and I did consider them when writing this essay, though I did not respond to all of your arguments as directly. Perhaps I owe them a direct response.
However, I do think the prayer studies conclusively demonstrate that praying specifically for a person to recover does no better than the placebo effect. Do you agree with this? Do you think that it is possible for a prayer study to be effective in principle?
Also what do you think of 1 Kings 18?
~
I just dropped the “unfair and insulting” rhetoric because it wasn’t communicating what I wanted to and intended to communicate. I’m sorry for that.
Still, the arguments there still stand. What do you think of them? Do you think Jesus really does help people find their car keys, for instance?
~
Yes, but they still can make good points and create good discussion. I hope you won’t ignore what I write just because I phrase some arguments in the form of questions.
It’s also a good thing that, for your convenience, I did include a valid argument that deductively concludes that Christianity is false. What do you think of it?
~
If I may ask, how is that not redundant? Surely God will do his will regardless of whether nor not you ask for it.
And would you agree with me then that the people who ask for specific stuff to occur are mistaken in thinking their prayer will affect God’s will?
CL,
Though I stated it in a cheeky way, it is a genuine epistemological (not ontological) problem.
We label delusions as “bad” beliefs without evidence.
We label our own faith as “good” beliefs without evidence.
We label the faith of others as “incorrect” beliefs without evidence.
To me the good, bad or wrong bit seems subjective.
Or phrased in another way, how do I avoid conflating them?
In response to this essay, I offer The Contradictory Failures of Peter Hurford.
joseph,
All I can say is that my faith is not held without evidence. Contrary, it survives attack after attack, for example, this one. There’s a reason Peter recanted his POE.
But if you have evidence is it still faith (by definition)?
And does surviving attack after attack prove it true, as of course (neutral) beluef and (negative) delusion may also do the same.
As for Peter Hurford’s POE argument his formulation changed, but the crux of it (that unnecessary suffering seems logically incompatible with a tri-omni deity) seems to have survived, your position seemed to become more nuanced as well, in that you seemed to decide there was unnecessary suffering (though you contend it is compatible with a tri omni-god).
I would like a repeat of your debate, but I would like things like a literal interpretation of the fall to be allowed to enter the discussion. I am fairly at home with such ideas, as that’s how I was raised. I do think you need judges, and I don’t think you need to worry to much about involvement.
Not by your definition, no.
No, but if it was false, one wouldn’t expect it to survive attack after attack.
You and me both, joseph. I’ve asked Peter about DBT02. He hasn’t responded. It’s been 3 weeks or so.
It really isn’t an uncommon definition CL, among believers and non-believers, for instance:
http://saints.sqpn.com/ncd03203.htm
As for an argument surviving being an indication of validity, the same could be said of solipsism.
Cut to the chase.
Pardon? That was the chase.
C’mon joseph. “Solipsism” isn’t an argument. Show me an argument for solipsism that survives attack after attack.
As for the first thing,
If I believe there is a monster in my closet, and this belief disrupts my life and thwarts the desires of my loved ones, then I have an unhealthy belief without evidence or argument or logic to support it. Worse, I believe in something demonstrably false, because I can look in my closet and see that there is no monster.
If I believe God created life for good, creative purposes, and that humans willing to repent of sin are granted eternal life, and this neither disrupts my life nor thwarts the desires of my loved ones but actually makes me healthier and happier, and I hold this belief as a result of inner conviction sustained by evidence and logic, then, clearly, we’re talking about apples and oranges, and there should be no worry of conflation.
If Solipsism didn’t survive attack after attack it wouldn’t still be with us. CL, I think you must admit both that non-falsifiable ideas and stubborn people exist. Given those facts, an argument enduring does not validate it. It is not a bold or extraordinary claim.
The closet monster idea, in it’s stated form, can’t be compared to an idea which is unfalsifiable. Like you said you could check.
How do I know that your belief in the scriptures won’t lead you on Witch Hunts? How do I know it doesn’t make you intolerant to homosexuality? Now I am not suggesting it does, nor am I suggesting bad theists invalidate theism, I am just stating that it’s not something I can take for granted. Of course the same can be said for atheism, and secular humanism in this regard.
Instead of a monster in the closet what about an invisible friend? You could argue that some people may benefit from that belief.
Yes, I don’t think I use faith for things I have evidence for, or can support logically to some degree. For instance I would not say I have faith that I brushed my teeth this morning, or I have faith in three sided triangles, or that CL exists. I might use it in cases where I found the evidence went both ways for example, I have faith in humanity.
What is faith? The opposite of reason? A short piece, “Faith,” by Less Wrongian Phil Goetz disputes this view http://tinyurl.com/7xvegrr
I endorse it and offer a mechanism based on psychologist Daniel T. Gilbert’s work on “Spinozan” mechanisms of understanding—in a short essay Unraveling the mystery of morality: The unity of comprehension and belief explains moralism and faith: http://preview.tinyurl.com/cxjqxo9
I didn’t say endurance entails validation, did I? To contrast, an argument being falsified certainly invalidates it, right? And it’s certainly true that we would expect true beliefs to resist falsification, right? Take this post for example. I easily and swiftly falsified a few of Peter’s claims. If his claims were true, would that have happened? On the other hand, if that had not happened, would we not have greater warrant in believing his claims were true?
You never stipulated that the delusion / faith required an unfalsifiable subject. That’s easily disposed of. Instead of a monster in the closet, just change the belief to a monster somewhere out there, and presto! Unfalsifiable as they come and the rest of my comment remains intact.
You don’t. How do I know your atheism won’t lead you to mass shootings? I don’t. What’s your point?
Perhaps, but could you demonstrate the necessity of an invisible friend via logic?
Then there you go. A belief without evidence that isn’t delusion. We all have them.
So, do you now understand how to categorize these things?
Not if they were non-falsifiable to start with.
1/ Be careful with labelling me an atheist, I don’t believe that God does not exist, just that there’s not enough evidence to confirm God’s existence.
2/ I covered that already.
3/ My point is simple. You assure me Christianity is a good faith, a positive force in your life. Your assurances do not match my experience. I am sceptical.
The invisible friend…hmmm I don’t believe in arguments for necessary objects. I suppose you could argue inner experience the same way some Christians promise me they experience the Holy Spirit as I experience sound, smell or sight.
My faith in humanity may be a delusion, I don’t know. At times it makes me harmfully trusting of others.
Anyway. Night CL.
Are you saying that only falsifiable claims can be justifiedly believed / disbelieved?
Then you’re a weak atheist.
I don’t know what “that” refers to.
What experience? Further, does any of this relate to your questions about delusion and faith? Are you just meandering here? If so, no big deal, but I’m under the impression you’re going to connect all these thoughts. If not let me know.
It doesn’t matter what you believe. All that matters if if the arguments are valid and/or sound. Since you don’t believe, then you need to demonstrate why. I’d love to hear your takedown.
JosephI don’t believe that God does not exist, just that there’s not enough evidence to confirm God’s existence.
So what’s your likelihood estimate that God exists? I would interpret your statement to say it’s around .5, but I think that’s not what you intend.
The testability criterion is so early-twentieth century. Testability, really, is a matter of degree. People (that is, those who still talk in these archaic terms) say something is testable if the demonstration is clear enough to convince the scientific community—or its elite in a given field.
You can’t separate plausibility matters from testable issues except arbitrarily. Arbitrary distinctions are necessary for institutional practices, but they don’t bequeathe the natural kinds needed for generalizations in the philosophy of science.
CL’s position is extremely shadowy: it always seems like he’s hiding something or other. He wants to call “faith” that which is subject only to low degrees of belief (if that’s what’s meant by belief without evidence)–although he’s apparently certain of conclusions he reaches, despite evidentiary failings. (But no doubt I’ll be corrected here, as none of this is clearly asserted. He’s made distinctions, but whose to say what their function is.) The best I can decipher, CL thinks that plausibility estimates are wholly subjective.
The problem–coming back to the main point–is that every factual conclusion rests on plausibility estimates. (I think the same is true for wholly analytic conclusions and math–only still more so in their aptness for consensus. But we needn’t go there for the moment.) Scientific theories are just highly plausible to the scientific community; but that doesn’t make scientific theories subjective.
I should say well-tested) theories are highly plausible to the scientific community in light of the evidence of the test results.
CL, by the way, also confuses testability with likelihood of being falsified. But I hesitate to correct, due to the limitations of the "testability" concept itself.
Well, it’s not namecalling or accusations without evidence, so why not…
No, I don’t think they are “wholly subjective.” I think that *SOME* plausibility estimates are inextricably intertwined with subjective prior assumptions. Other plausibility estimates strike me as wholly objective. As an example of the former, Peter’s claim that the existence of God is “less tenable” than the oscillating universe (despite the plethora of observational evidence condemning the latter). As an example of the latter, the probability of any single six-sided die turning a 3.
I’m skeptical of any plausibility estimate that doesn’t involve demonstrable math. In my experience, most of those reduce to “I feel” or “I prefer,” as opposed to the die example, which nobody can dispute.
Joseph,
<
I construe this kind of “faith” completely differently. What I think you’re really saying is that you have a bias in favor of optimism about people. You recognize it’s (epistemically) irrational, but you either don’t care much or there’s nothing (that’s overall helpful) you can do about it. The latter is more plausible than it might sound: many times, we can’t compensate for a bias because we are likely to overshoot the goal. See http://tinyurl.com/26w4k4j
Hey CL and Stephen R. Diamond,
On non-falsifiable claims all I’ve said is:
1/ they can’t be settled by empirical evidence
2/ they can’t be logically refuted
So I believe they can endure all sorts of attack, and discussing them with someone can take an extremely long time and result in no change of opinion.
I’m sort of halfway on the whole Bayesian thing, I think the testability criterion vould be expressed in Bayesian terms, and that Bayes encompasses Ockham’s Razor nicely. Like CL I don’t really like that without explicitly showing a calculation it amojnts to a more nuanced version of I feel ‘x’.
To answer Stephen R. Diamond’s question, rating my belief in God/s:
Innerrantist Evangelist God <0.001
Anglican/Catholic Style God <0.01
Liberal Christian Style God <0.015
Shinto style polytheistic Gods <0.02
Deistic God <0.2
Pantheistic God 0.5
So, whatever label you like, yeah weak atheist or strong agnostic are a fairly good fit.
What experience? I was raised a Christian, CL. I have told you, but you may have forgotten. How does it relate? You seemed to be indicating “faith”, the Christian one, is good because it has a positive effect on your life. I am saying there are some possible negative effects (as there are for atheism) so I am not sure we can say that “belief without evidence or logic, in Christianity, is good because the effects are good”. To put it a biblical way there are plenty of trees producing bitter fruit. Am i meandering? I think not but our way of thinking is quite different.
Necessary objects. Hmmm…my “takedown” will be a mess up, so at least you’ll get a laugh.
Something like I understand how an object can be necessary in some situatiins but not in all and I don’t understand is one object can exclusively be the necessary object.
Bertrand Russell seemed to make more sense than me:
But, to my mind, “a necessary proposition”
has got to be analytic. I don’t see what
else it can mean. And analytic propositions are always complex and logically somewhat
late. “Irrational animals are animals” is an analytic proposition; but a proposition such as “This is an animal” can never be analytic. In fact, all the propositions that can be analytic are somewhat late in the build-up of propositions.
Hey CL and Stephen R. Diamond,
On non-falsifiable claims all I’ve said is:
1/ they can’t be settled by empirical evidence
2/ they can’t be logically refuted
So I believe they can endure all sorts of attack, and discussing them with someone can take an extremely long time and result in no change of opinion.
I’m sort of halfway on the whole Bayesian thing, I think the testability criterion vould be expressed in Bayesian terms, and that Bayes encompasses Ockham’s Razor nicely. Like CL I don’t really like that without explicitly showing a calculation it amojnts to a more nuanced version of I feel ‘x’.
To answer Stephen R. Diamond’s question, rating my belief in God/s:
Innerrantist Evangelist God <0.001
Anglican/Catholic Style God <0.01
Liberal Christian Style God <0.015
Shinto style polytheistic Gods <0.02
Deistic God <0.2
Pantheistic God 0.5
So, whatever label you like, yeah weak atheist or strong agnostic are a fairly good fit.
What experience? I was raised a Christian, CL. I have told you, but you may have forgotten. How does it relate? You seemed to be indicating “faith”, the Christian one, is good because it has a positive effect on your life. I am saying there are some possible negative effects (as there are for atheism) so I am not sure we can say that “belief without evidence or logic, in Christianity, is good because the effects are good”. To put it a biblical way there are plenty of trees producing bitter fruit. Am i meandering? I think not but our way of thinking is quite different.
Necessary objects. Hmmm…my “takedown” will be a mess up, so at least you’ll get a laugh.
Something like I understand how an object can be necessary in some situatiins but not in all and I don’t understand is one object can exclusively be the necessary object.
Bertrand Russell seemed to make more sense than me:
“But, to my mind, “a necessary proposition”has got to be analytic. I don’t see what else it can mean. And analytic propositions are always complex and logically somewhat late. “Irrational animals are animals” is an analytic proposition; but a proposition such as “This is an animal” can never be analytic. In fact, all the propositions that can be analytic are somewhat late in the build-up of propositions.
Sorry attempting to change the format resulted in the comment being published.
Feel free to delete to 1:32am comment Peter Hurford.
It seems the only way something normally considered falsiable, for example Newton’s theory of gravity not predicting gravitonic lensing to a great enough extent, is that if we refuse the result, over and over again.
As for the article on faith in Less Wrong, I have mixed feelings.
For example early atomic theory may have let you calculate masses of reagents for the most efficient chemical reaction, or predict x-ray diffraction patterns for certain crstalline structures (and vice versa); maybe this could be construed as faith.
But when we became able to see and manipulate individual atoms (with equipment built on those successful models) the word “faith” seems to take a beating.
joseph,
Not sure if this will get mangled (I’m too lazy to escape your brackets):
That’s exactly what I criticize, and what you say you’re skeptical of. What *MATH* supports these plausibility estimates? How are these not just more nuanced versions of “joseph feels X?”
Then they are bitter trees.
How so?
Stephen R Diamond requested I present the information that way, I obliged. Yes I agree, it equates to “I feel x”
How do are thoughts differ? I don’t know exactly, but we’ve often had to clarify our differing definitions with each other and you’ve asked more than once if what I am saying is related, when to me the relation is plain. So one possible explanation is that we look at problems in different ways.
That Atheism can equally lead to bad fruit, as much as Theism.
Joseph,
You’d add them to get the probability you think there’s some kind of God, right? (Instead of the stronger ones being a subset of the weaker?) They sum to .746. I wouldn’t call that atheistic or even agnostic. You’ve put 3 to 1 odds on some kind of God. I put pretty much those odds against the same. [This is defining theism very broadly as any kind of idealism.]
Nobody calls this kind of statement an argument. But it’s no different in principle from my asking, “Are you an atheist?” Is the answer to that question any different from saying “I feel x?” You wouldn’t reply, “I really can’t say because I can’t show any math.” — All you’re _really_ saying if you say you’re an atheist is you think atheism is more plausible than theism, and we do it all the time without showing any math. There’s no principled reason to object to statements about plausibility estimates than about statements about bald beliefs.
I’m still waiting for either one of you to bring the math. Why *SHOULDN’T” I at least provisionally conclude that you’re both just pulling numbers out of your ass as prompted by cognitive bias?
Good point Stephen R Diamond, let me revise that:
Innerrantist Evangelist God <0.001
Anglican/Catholic Style God <0.009
Liberal Christian Style God <0.014
Shinto style polytheistic Gods <0.05
Deistic God <0.0135
Pantheistic God <0.35
Sorry I was regarding the early ones as possible subsets.
CL, I have said already I think this is just a shorthand way of writing:
An Inerrantist Evangelical style God is very, very, very, very, very unlikely. And so on. As you can see <0.001 requires less keystrokes than very, very, very, very, very unlikely.
Also you can get an idea of the "strength" of my agnosticism/atheism, as Stephen R Diamond did.
There is no maths behind the numbers. I am just using numbers to communicate the strength of my conviction. If a Cashier at a supermarket asked me to rate how much I like a new muffin recipe out of 10 I don't have a breakdown because I can't show my working.
This is an entirely analogous situation. No more, no less.
Often you'll find I'll attempt to make biblical references when communicating with you. Does it mean I believe the Bible? No, I'm just attempting to communicate clearly by attempting to build on what, I hope, we have in common.
I get what you’re saying. Yours is just a numerical way of quantifying internal conviction. Still, whenever anybody posits “probabilities” without math, I have to be skeptical. How do you know that you aren’t underestimating the probability due to bias? Know what I mean?
Hell, as an example, look how you just “reworked” your numbers to avoid the direct conclusion that you are actually more of a theist than an atheist! The second Diamond called you out, you lowered the numbers. Did you suddenly become privy to a slurry of arguments and/or evidence that would justify this apparently arbitrary lowering? Or, were you just seeking to avoid the unwelcome conclusion that you are closer to theism than atheism?
Interesting stuff, this is.
Of course not. That’s because the cashier would be asking you to rate your preference for the muffin. OTOH, when you give your numbers, you aren’t supposed to be relaying your preference.
But, whatever. It’s late here. Early where you are. London?
I wished to give the idea of “up to and including”, I failed to correctly convey that idea, Stephen R Diamond made me aware of my error, I atempted to fix it. What would you have done?
In Asia now.
No relevant difference: you can be wrong about your preferences, just like about your beliefs. But consider this: Since you understand one can be wrong about one’s beliefs, you should understand that when you say you’re a theist, you might be vastly overestimating the real subjective probabilities you assign to theism. (Because telling me you’re a theist is nothing more than a self-report of your subjective probabilities, albeit in coarser, dichotomized form.)
In other words, what you accuse Joseph of possibly doing—doctoring his belief strengths—many people might be doing when they simply label their positions. The only possible fault you can allege of the probability statements is that they give a false impression of precision. (But then, bald statement of belief are probably too imprecise; hence, all the discussion of labels, trying to have them do the work of degrees of belief.)
While people can be terribly wrong about what they really believe (and I think often are), the ability to accurately estimate one’s own real plausibility estimates—and the willingness to (not necessarily publicly), is the central component of the virtue of intellectual honesty.
Joseph,
“I wished to give the idea of “up to and including”, I failed to correctly convey that idea, Stephen R Diamond made me aware of my error, I atempted to fix it.”
There is a substantive difference between the two, but it’s small. I’d say, actually, it _supports_ the accuracy of the estimates of your degree of belief in that it suggests the two estimates were somewhat independent of one another yet converging. The first is (as intended) .5 (the superset); the second .4375 (the sum).
Averaging the two, shall we say about .47? 11 to ten odds against theism. Agnostic. Nothing strong about it.
OK. Your turn to label my 7 to 3 odds.
Joseph,
Unless it’s a form of dry, British humor, could I request you call me Stephen, Diamond, or R but not all at once.
Diamond R,
Well, since the conversation has taken a turn towards criteria for intellectual honesty, I suppose this comment won’t be out of place…
You mistakenly assume I assign probabilities to theism.
That’s your opinion. In my opinion, there are many components to intellectual honesty. For example 1) the ability to serious consider the possibility that one might be wrong; 2) the ability to admit so when demonstrated; 3) the ability to apologize when shown wrong; 4) the courtesy of charity; 5) an aversion to misrepresenting one’s opponents; an aversion to personal insults and false accusations without evidence; 6) willingness to defend one’s claims when asked; Etc.
IOW, all those things I demonstrate your failure to do, here. So yeah, suffice it to say, you and I apparently have different criteria regarding intellectual honesty.
It’s not clear whether our criteria are different or our definitions are. “Intellectual honesty” is a vague enough concept that different people will assign different meanings, not because of any semantic difference but because they use the concept for a different purpose.
The purpose intellectual honesty serves for me is subordinate to the virtue of true belief. I can’t recognize truth unless I recognize what I find plausible. (WHY is an interesting question, but in some ways, it seems self-evident.) It’s a standard I emphasize (without claiming to be good at it) because I’ve adopted principles emphasizing knowing what’s true–mind you, not necessarily communicating them.
What purpose does your grab bag serve? It is a list of charges with which to indict others, not one to hold yourself to. That’s why there can be an unfocused variety to what you’re extolling: it gives you more things to attack others for. For instance, how you use “willingness to defend one’s claims” (which to me is often a vice, letting others waste one’s time or wasting theirs) and how you use these “morals” to importune others can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/6pt9eq5
What I think is important in debating others, respecting intellectual honesty, is choosing the strongest opposing views to contest as exemplars of a position. It goes without saying why I should tend to ignore yours.
I made no claim above about my own degree of intellectual honesty. Your introduction of the question is a silly provocation. It only shows you’re so sore a loser regarding your debate with Peter that you have to redebate the details. The cite above shows you are seriously obsessional.
“blockquote>You mistakenly assume I assign probabilities to theism.
Correction: you think you don’t. But what it says is you are badly out of touch with what you believe–what you believe you believe isn’t what you believe. It can’t be–because we know people assign probabilities to all beliefs, whether they realize it or not.
@ Stephen R Diamond (for the last time!)
Any preference as to what I call you? Stephen seems personal, as you posted your surname, Mr.Diamond sounds stuffy, and reminds me of a character from “Thud!” by Terry Pratchett, and if I’ve gone to the trouble of typing Stephen Diamond it seems negligent not to add the R.
If you notice I usually do the same with Peter Hurford.
It’s not so much British Wit, though it did make me smile wondering if you’d notice and address it or not, and more to do with being instructed not to address people by their Christian names until given their express permission. My exposure to Oriental culture has strengthened this instinct.
I think CL probably still classifies me as a weak atheist, though I may be wrong, and I don’t mind him/her doing so. He/she say he/she doesn’t put much stock in labels.
I’m totally open to you classifying me as an agnostic too.
I would label you a strong-moderate agnostic.
Yes, I don’t see any notable difference between saying “I very strongly belief in x” and “I attach a probability of 0.999 that x exists”. It just seems like a difference in presentation. I’m not sure why CL is pertubed by it.
Yes, they aren’t,and aren’t ment to be bayesian probabilities, sadly I also don’t know if I am underestimating the probability due to my own bias. You can’t see what’s in your own blindspot, you can only be aware that you have a blindspot. (Of course I know you can move to see what’s in your blindspot, but I liked the metaphor).
Do programmers view these “<" as brackets? I thought they were "less than", such as x<1, x is less than 1?
Joseph,
After careful consideration regard what you might call me, I propose:
If “Joseph” is your last name: Diamond
If “Joseph” is your first name: Stephen
Have you ever held a belief you thought so foundational that you believed you attached a probability of 1 to it? I recall when a junior-high version of myself was “formulating” a first philosophy that I thought there were two things I’m certain of: that the external world exists and that human happiness is the ultimate good. Nothing is certain, but what happens if you think so? Thinking so is the fundamental irrationality and the essence of faith. (“Unraveling the mystery of morality: The unity of comprehension and belief explains moralism and faith” is my attempt to explain in schematic fashion how this is possible.)
When I believed I knew with certainty the external world’s existence and utilitarianism’s truth, I think they wouldn’t seem credible had I heard others’ stating probabilities of their beliefs about such matters. When you believe the falsehood that you have total confidence in the truth of your posits, it seems inevitable or almost so that you will also see these beliefs as the foundation for everything else.
Stephen,
That was an even-handed way of settling it.
Have I ever believed in something so much I attach a probability of 1 to it?
I suppose that “I exist, now” is that belief in practice for me. I can speak of the possibility that I am an idea in a greater mind I suppose. I think even then I can just be honest and say, I attach a probability of 1 to that.
I suppose there are two paths a believer in theism can take if they choose to assign probabilities to their faith. They can assign a high probability, something like 0.75, and some will think them more reasonable, but some will claim they lack faith. They can assign a probability of 1 and some will consider them unreasonable but some will laud them as a paragon of faith.
Except that now we’re literally talking about “assigning” probabilities, rather than trying to read the real value on their own plausibility functions. I don’t think such a person can honestly “debate” his position. He can “assign” .75—and lie to the world. Or he can adopt the probability he logically must hold—and lie to himself. Either makes it impossible for him to participate honestly and rationally in a debate.
I wouldn’t mind clarifying things a little.
By “assigning probabilities” you mean coming to a conclusion that would be objectively rational for any human being with our current, total level of evidence?
By “read the real value on their own plausibility functions” you mean provide an assessment of their own conviction from their own logical system (which may be flawed) and their own interpretation (which may be flawed) of the evidence they have personal knowledge of (which will be less than the total)?
A lot of the debate comes down to:
1. Exploring Logical fallacies
2. What constitutes evidence
Joseph,
Let’s start with the second.
Yes, this seems exactly right.
It means doing anything besides reading their own plausibility functions. There seem to many many possible causes. If someone is convinced of a philosophical theory that concludes some proposition is incoherent, he may declare the probability of that position being true is zero. But tomorrow another professor convinces this student that a contrary theory proves this one incoherent. The likelihood that the student really found himself with after the first lecture was a lot greater than 0. Otherwise he could never have been convinced of the second view, and certainly the ease with which he was convinced suggest the student would have been foolish to think the probability that he was wrong is 0. I don’t think the student is correcting reading his plausibility function when he claims to be utterly convinced. He is influenced by a bad theory: that to think a theory incoherent is to assign a 0 probability. Empirical evidence indicates we are much less influenced by logic, much more by empirical results, than that.
Perhaps the most general summary is that people may report what they think they should believe. They can be innocently diverted from recognizing their actual beliefs by a confused theory but also by a policy of moralizing belief, as in thinking that good people have faith, i.e. complete belief, in God. I think that many religious people who think they are completely convinced God exists really are atheists. They simply don’t put the effort into avoiding sin that they would expend if they believed the threats and promises.
This dominates certain debates when some or all participants refuse or are unable to accurately assess their plausibility functions. The debate ends up being an effort to police for intellectual dishonesty. Without that obstacle, debates would focus more on the meaning of the concepts involved and what new evidence can be brought to bear.
Which isn’t to imply in any way that I consider myself terribly intellectually honest. For example, I said I put a .3 probability on idealism. Do I really? Not long ago, I posted this on another board:
So, I can’t claim to know what I really think. Only that someone who both does think he or she knows what he really thinks AND thinks he or she thinks he (or she) is certain can’t rationally discuss the question he or she thinks he or she is certain about. Which usually is OK because usually they don’t want to discuss it, since they understand that their beliefs are irrational.
If that someone was at least aware they didn’t know/hadn’t considered every piece of evidence it would seem they could only make the weaker claim that (what we are calling) the plausibility function is zero.
Indeed, this seems a re-wording of the fact that they were wrong i.e. their logic was flawed and/or incomplete, and/or their evidence was flawed and/or incomplete.
This is has interesting parallels with the claim many theists make that atheism is a religion (and an increasingly militant one).
The difference here seems to be between a destructive debate (where the key is to attempt to whittle away, or destroy even, any parts of your opponents reasoning), and a constructive conversation (where the key is to embellish, or add clauses to, your partners reasoning until some kind of mutual agreement is reached). One comment that I’ll make is that the first kind of debate seems pre-eminent in European culture, the Japanese (when they aren’t fleeing the latest Godzilla attack, enjoying hanami, commiting seppuku, other amusing stereotypes) seem to prefer the second.
There seem to be some possible paradoxes in here:
As it seems to amount to the only thing we can be certain of is our uncertainty.
Why must we be certain of our uncertainty?
Doesn’t being uncertain of our uncertainty equate with being certain?
If it does then:
“[that someone] thinks he or she thinks he (or she) is certain…”
Or do you mean being uncertain of uncertainty is a situation perhaps analogous to putting error bars on a graph?
I don’t think it’s atheism they make into a religion. It’s moralism. Having trashed the supernatural support for moralism, they turn to moralism itself as the new supernaturalism. Usually, they purvey a shallow utilitarianism. Moralism flourishes because it serves the function of religion and because it wards off the “scandalous” charge that atheists must be amoral.
I don’t think so. It implies only the possibility that we are certain (of something).
Dr. Diamond,
Thanks Doc, I feel, like, so much better already. I can’t believe I’ve been overlooking your psychological expertise for so long. Now I can go forth happily, knowing that I’m badly out of touch with what I believe!
Yippee! Toodles! Stephen R. Diamond, savior of the deluded!
Well, it asserts there may be bar graph whose error bar is zero. I’m trying to understand what seems problematic about it.
I guess it asserts that there is an objective truth and that it is within the scope of humanity to uncover that objective truth. Realism?
Joseph,
Maybe this will help. Consider the adage “Doubt everything.” It’s effectively the same principle. Is there a paradox, in that you must doubt that you should doubt everything? There’s nothing contradictory about carrying out the principle consistently and apply it to itself.
Maybe you have the liar’s paradox in mind. If I said, “Everything is false” (to retain present the syntax), you could say, then the statement itself is false; so, you have a paradox. The same self-contradiction doesn’t arise from doubt and uncertainty.
Strictly speaking, it implies that there probably is an objective truth. I don’t think it implies anything about the scope of humanity.
I see you’re in the anger phase of your grief reaction over the loss of your illusions.
It seems to hinge on wheへther doubt is total (as in denying the possibility that there is any truth in the statement), or whether something can be partially doubted.
As the second case seems true, the paradox I was imagining is resolved.
I was thinking of this:
to claim that the proposition “no truth is knowable” is knowably true is to refute oneself; as it is contradictory
Joseph,
The other possibility for your perplexity (if that describes it correctly) is that you actually are a foundationalist. Your indubitable belief in your own existence of course reminds of Descartes, who used his own existence as a foundation.
I think this self-existence may seem indubitable when people can’t conceive of how it could be false. How could you not even exist, when you experience your existence directly. I think this underestimates the amount of theory in the claim that you exist. I don’t think we really know that the best science won’t eventually determine that it is incoherent to speak of individual minds existing and that the referent of “I” doesn’t truly exist. (I’m not so proposing; only setting the bounds for possibilities.)
Yes, in essence the liar’s paradox. You’ve showed the incoherence of the unknowability version. Try to do the same with uncertainty claim. I don’t think you can.
OK. Missed that one.
After a very quick read on the subject I am more inclined to Pragmatism and Critical Rationalism….but now I know I must learn more…which is why I love these discussions.
My problem with foundationalism is when I say:
“I exist, now”
I am totally unaware of how I can extend that. The exact definition of “I” (some kind of pattern of information perhaps eludes me. I don’t even feel confident I can say:
“I existed in the past, I exist now and I will exist in the future”
The problem of moral foundations often cross my mind.
I’m an arch-enemy of pragmatism, but it must be admitted that pragmatism may offer a way out of the is/ought problem: just by claiming that value is inherent in the fabric of fact. It’s the route taken by the greatest living philosopher, Hilary Putnam, to repel the onslaught of us nihilists.
Well you’ve made a great case for nihilism, so I won’t be ignoring that any time soon. Amy books you’d recommend on the topic? Preferably availabe for kindle due to ease of delivery to Asia…
Joseph,
The main works are Mackie’s “Inventing right and wrong” and Richard Joyce’s “The myth of morality.” I read Mackie long ago, but I just finished Joyce, which I didn’t enjoy that much. The main division I now see between error theorists regards their attitude toward morality. Mackie and Joyce more so see the loss of morality as unfortunate, whereas I have a less favorable opinion of morality. I just stumbled on an error theorist who might come closer to my assessment: Ian Hinckfuss. (The moral society (1987).) I haven’t read it yet, but here’s a taste of what I like:
Joseph,
If you’re interested, “The moral society” is widely available for free on the web.
Another fellow amoralist is Richard Garner:
Had I fictionalist tendencies, I doubt I’d consider the morality issue worth the bother.
For a decent paper on moral eliminativism (the view that we don’t get very much by talking with moral language, and should consider just abandoning it altogether, which I am very sympathetic to), I recommend Joshua Greene’s The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth about Morality and
What to Do About it.
Thanks, think I’ll give Mackie a go…trying to teach myself Calculus now, don’t really understand binomial expansions of y=x^-n, I’m too old for this sh!t.
Really? Never heard you say that before! I’m wondering how you would go about giving an account of public policy that isn’t “cynical,” yet abjures moral language.
For a real hair-splitting quibble (probably)–I’d question that “eliminativism” is the right term for this position. By analogy to the philosophy of mind, eliminativism would simply correspond to nihilism in ethics. An eliminativist about mentalistic terms simply doesn’t believe they correspond: he doesn’t make any necessary recommendations about use, as they must admit that speaking of beliefs and desires remains practically useful. Moral “abolitionism” (per Hinckfuss) captures the sense. As I said, this is probably a trivial point.
Joseph,
Why are you learning calculus? As I recall, I learned something from differential calculus: the concept of a derivative and of higher-order derivatives is a good thing to get a firm handle on But integral was sheer drudgery without compensating enlightenment: endless drills. I wonder if they teach it that way any more, given that hand-held devices can calculate integrals. Has performing integrations gone the square root (if you know what I mean)?
I’ve mentioned my strong leanings toward this in the past: see “Web of Beliefs and My Philosophy”, “Blog Plans for Next Year”, and the comments section of “Is God Good, Part I”. Also, consider our conversation in Cl’s “Atheism and Moral Naivete”.
It’s something I’ve gone back and forth on, but after reading Tim Dean’s “Of Metaethics, Error Theory, and What Morality Really Is”, Joshua Greene’s dissertation, Mackie’s “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong”, I’ve really been coming around to it more and more.
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In reference to our conversation at Cl’s “DBT 02 Update: JT Eberhard Withdraws His Challenge”, I just don’t agree that people will always hold allegiance to their political “side” no matter what. Maybe that’s not what you’re actually saying, but that’s how I read the comment.
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It’s a trivial, yet fair point. I personally really dislike the great lengths to which people go in order to create a taxonomy of all philosophical positions, and then label and categorize people with these positions. It seems to just introduce more confusion than these labels are worth. For example, am I a moral realist or a moral anti-realist? Depends on who’s definition we’re using.
Most days, I just want to step outside most of these labels. Sometimes language is just confused, and I think “moral”, “good”, “right”, are times where language hurts us rather than helps us. Thus, moral abolitionism, or whatever you want to call it, as long as you know I’m advocating a conclusion for which we should stop saying “moral”/”good”/”right” and just say whatever we reduce these terms to.
Although my quibble was trivial (still trying to figure out why I even posted it), “labels” aren’t. No labels, no issues. The existing labels might be unhelpful, but if you locate the true loci of dispute, the “labels” (or at least their substance) pops out of the analysis. Some positions transcend a given labeling system, and those might represent either philosophical advance or philosophical confusion. If you truly have a position that defies classification (based on current rubrics, that is), then you are either really on to something or in confusion.
One source of confusion adopting the forms of a new theory while retaining the substance of an old, which is how I’d describe the linked Tim Dean piece. As I see it, his contractarian position is a sophisticated form of moral realism. Current developments in social psychology (construal level theory http://tinyurl.com/7yqe7zp) should clarify that even fictionalism only amounts to maintaining antirealism from “far” and realism from “near”–a breach of intellectual integrity contravening the imperative to seek to unify perspectives, including “near” and “far.”
Mackie falls at the border; he proposed a limited fictionalism, which he began doubting toward his life’s end. For a thoroughgoing amoralism, I recommend Hinckfuss (http://tinyurl.com/7gjr2t2) which is a quick read. (I find much analytic philosophy prolix.) I don’t agree with him sociologically, but his ideas are provocative, and by my lights, he does understand what moral discourse and moral systems consist.
The problem for me has been not that my positions fit outside current rubrics, but that there are multiple, mutually exclusive rubrics all claiming to be the same.
Consider moral realism, for example: I think hypothetical imperatives are coherent, truth-apt propositions that are occasionally and objectively true. I think categorical imperatives are truth-apt yet incoherent propositions. Am I a moral realist?
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Where do you see him falling back into moral realism?
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I’ll read it and get back to you.
Consider moral realism, for example: I think hypothetical imperatives are coherent, truth-apt propositions that are occasionally and objectively true. I think categorical imperatives are truth-apt yet incoherent propositions. Am I a moral realist?
Based on those positions alone, you’re a moral antirealist. Hypothetical imperatives simply aren’t moral. Does any antirealist reject hypothetical imperatives? I don’t know of any (why, however, says little).
I’ve noticed one issue—which I haven’t seen analyzed—concerning hypothetical imperatives is what they properly pertain to. I haven’t thought about it much either, but here it is. If a friend has a fever and I say, “You should see a doctor,” what do I mean. I probably don’t mean she has an objective moral imperative. I might mean that given her preferences, it would be prudentially rational for her to see a doctor. Or I might mean that given the problem (expressly or tacitly) presented, that of the fever, the problem calls for seeing I doctor. Now, I don’t accept the first kind as possibly true because I don’t think our desires are such as to present a direct issue of rationality. And I think it one way of maintaining a form of moral realism in an anti-realist guise. I would call the first (agent-oriented) approach a form of moral relativism (moral truths are relative to the individual), and I think moral relativism is a form of moral realism (moral objectivity, albeit without moral absolutism). That’s because not all hypothetical imperatives in form are, in my opinion, really hypothetical. Some are “cryto-moralistic.” This possibility is what makes labels important, although they depend on one’s meta-ethical position.
One way I recognize a true error theory is that it permits the individual to choose a “moral” framework or to choose none (a choice taking them outside of any kind of objective moralism). There’s no right or wrong with regard to “moral” propositions, or what remains of them, which become individual principles of integrity, no only individually selected but subject to the individual’s decisions about their degree of bindingness.
In his type 2 morality, proposes society-wide covenants. What I think this view suppresses is the fact that different social groups with clashing material interests (say, the class of employers and the class of employees) will develop divergent “moral” standards. The notion of a society-wide covenant, moreover, restricts the scope of individual choice of principles of integrity. And it is moral realist because it gives implicit moral weight to promises, which are thought to engender moral duties. Even though they aren’t absolute, they are objective. [It may be that "realism" really isn't a very good term for the core objectivist position.]
I look forward to your opinion–particularly whether you agree with me that there really is a sharp difference in the so-called anti-realist positions of Tim Dean and Ian Hinckfuss.
Hi Stephen,
Sorry for the delay, hell of a workload on the weekend. Why? Well 2 reasons, firstly it seems within my reach, secondly it’s nice to study something that can be easily seen to be right or wrong, which is what puts me off economics, politics and even philosophy until recently.
As I’m self teaching the drills are up to me…