This post is to move a discussion from Sandbox(4) at Entropy’s request.
Over on the Sandbox(4) thread, fifthmonarchyman made two statements that I disagree with:
“I’ve argued repeatedly that humans are hardwired to believe in God.”
“Everyone knows that God exists….”
As my handle indicates, I prefer to lurk. The novelty of being told that I don’t exist overcame my good sense, so I joined the conversation.
For the record, I am what is called a weak atheist or negative atheist. The Wikipedia page describes my position reasonably well:
“Negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism, also called strong atheism and hard atheism, is the form of atheism that additionally asserts that no deities exist.”
I do exist, so fifthmonarchyman’s claims are disproved. For some reason he doesn’t agree, hence this thread.
Added In Edit by Alan Fox 16.48 CET 11th January, 2018
This thread is designated as an extension of Noyau. This means only basic rules apply. The “good faith” rule, the “accusations of dishonesty” rule do not apply in this thread.
Knowing gerbil (filthymonarchyguy), I wouldn’t be surprised.
That’s very interesting. But I was talking about the binary (classic true/false) one, because that’s the one gerbil was referring to.
One of my many points. Plantinga thinks of “truth” as some magical thing floating around, and/or attached to objects, and potentially “selectable.” Rather than the label for propositions that it is.
Exactly one of my main points. By framing the discussion in true/false terms, Plantinga ignores the role of cognitive faculties: the improvement over simpler, primitive, links between experiences and their outcomes.
I made the example of pain. In simple terms, pain is a feeling that makes animals instinctively avoid some things. Primitive cognitive faculties would allow the linking of pain with experiences, thus avoidance of painful experience next time around.
I made up an example of being hurt by some smallish red cylindrical thing. Then the hurt individual would avoid any smallish red cylindrical thing. That could be called a primitive “belief.” Now, the belief is “corrent” in being a connection between the actual experience and the resulting pain. However, it might be too generic. Better cognitive faculties would allow the individual to realize that hey, that other animal is eating a smallish red cylindrical thing! Maybe not all smallish red cylindrical things produce pain, maybe some are edible. On closer inspection, oh, the pain-inducing smallish red cylindrical thing had hairs, this one doesn’t. So, this individual calls Jack (who didn’t have the red smallish cylindrical thing hurting him, so he doesn’t know the risks), and tells him if he wants a taste of this hairless smallish red cylindrical thing. Jack enjoys it! Now the individual has a wider dietary choice than if she relied on the first experience alone, and didn’t have the cognitive faculties to make judgement calls involving maybes, involving exceptions. The individual is better off than individuals who cannot deal with exceptions and thus produce improved models.
Cognitive faculties can progress, evolutionarily speaking, as faculties that allow for incorporation of information into simpler models to improve predictions. It’s about accuracy, not about true/false dichotomies. By starting this way, we can understand how evolutionary phenomena could produce cognitive faculties that allow us to make judgement calls about whether naturalism is a much better model than those based on fantasy beings like the deities.
No reason to be stuck on whether something is true or false, when one of our cognitive faculties’ great features is the realization that our models can be improved upon.
I apologize if I misinterpreted you.
Didn’t you say that logic was the inevitable outcome of the fact that organisms could not thrive in our world unless they could make binary distinctions?
If that is not your position how do you explain the apparent ubiquitousness of the law of non-contradiction?
Do you now agree with KN that the law of non-contradiction is not universally valid?
Entropy seems to be saying that Plantinga is incorrect because he insists on using absolutist binary notions like true and false.
Would you agree with his aprasial or not?
peace
Entropy did not originally say he was talking about when logic was formalized.
His comments were in response to my bringing up your explanation for the origin of logic in response to Eric’s comment that cats don’t need to conceptualize much beyond binary food verses not food distinctions.
If I understand him he was arguing that you were wrong to suggest that that logical thinking was the inevitable result of organisms being able to make those sorts of binary distinctions.
The period in which logical rules were first formalized in western society seems to have very little relevance to that sort of discussion.
peace
keiths:
KN:
Nothing about “justified true belief” implies “endorsed claim”. It simply isn’t there. This “endorsed claim” business is baggage that you are imposing on it. In my lightning scenario, I believe (and know) that there’s lightning across the valley, but I haven’t endorsed any claims, including my own.
keiths:
KN:
That strikes me as bizarre. What is the cat pawing at, if she doesn’t believe there’s a mouse on the other side of the door?
Sure, but note that the disposition precedes, and is independent of, any actual claim I make or endorse — if I even bother to make or endorse one at all. A belief cannot be an “endorsed claim” if there’s no claim and no endorsement!
Or suppose I have lost my capacity for language. Would you go so far as to say I no longer believe that there’s lightning across the valley? That seems pretty far-fetched to me.
Of course, but that certainly doesn’t mean that beliefs are endorsed claims!
I think it is crazy. It seems ridiculous to me to claim that the cat doesn’t believe something about the location of the mouse, or that a chimp doesn’t believe that a stick he’s just picked up for that purpose will help him fish for termites.
As far as I can tell, all of the trouble is coming from your desire to see beliefs as claims, or even endorsed claims. But there’s no need. Sever the two concepts and I think you’ll see that everything works out just fine. Beliefs can still lead to claims, but they aren’t themselves claims.
Entropy,
You’re still pounding the straw man, I see.
Plantinga knows that our models can be improved upon, and it’s reflected in his use of the word “verisimilitudinous”. We’ve been over this already.
From Wikipedia’s article on “verisimilitude”:
“Closer to the truth” is a matter of degree. It’s not dichotomous.
Let the straw man go, Entropy. It’s much more interesting to discuss Plantinga’s actual argument.
I’m pretty sure I said that it is because we organize the world into hierarchical trees, and logic is the natural way to deal with such trees.
That certainly sounds like something we might have agreed on 😉
1) Do you think that the only animals capable of organizing the world into hierarchical trees are humans?
2) Do you agree that organizing the world into hierarchical trees requires making binary distinctions?
peace
OK, you seem to be right about what “verisimilitude” means. But I’ll tell you what: you show me that Plantinga says that it’s not about true/false beliefs, but about whether our cognitive faculties allow for improving our understanding or models, and how that would work in evolutionary terms, instead of his ridiculous false-belief-correct-behaviour-put-together-dichotomies bullshit, then I’ll start considering that Plantinga is not talking in true/false terms.
What fucking straw-man? Plantinga might have mentioned “verisimilitude” four times in that book. Most probably while quoting “famous” naturalists (as in the one example I found). But I seriously doubt that he did so in order to fix his mistaken notions about how “reliable” cognitive faculties could evolve, where reliability is not measured in terms of proportions of true beliefs, but as faculties that allow for working less accurate models into better ones. Cognitive faculties that work on experience, rather than merely consisting on genetically inheritable true/false beliefs. After all, he didn’t use the word “verisimilitude” at all in the article that I linked, which is supposed to be an “improved” version (the fucking irony).
No. Rather, I think that it is the basic pragmatic way that perception can work. So it is likely that any perceiving organism organizes its world into a hierarchical tree. I see it as mainly a low level procedure, below the level of conscious thought, though humans do some of that organizing at a conscious level.
Yes, that seems right. And that’s why I wasn’t particularly concerned by the mischaracterization.
Entropy,
You crack me up. You finally concede that “verisimilitude” means what I said it means. But is that the end of it? No, of course not. You can’t concede even an inch to Plantinga, so now you’re insisting that when Plantinga talks about “verisimilitudinous beliefs”, he doesn’t actually mean “verisimilitudinous beliefs”.
You are so focused on proving Plantinga — the person — wrong that you won’t allow yourself to see his actual argument. It’s silly and pointless.
And as I keep telling you, even if you were right about the absolutist dichotomy claim — and you’re not — it wouldn’t make sense to focus on it:
I’m not interested in the pissing contest you want to have with Plantinga. I’m interested in showing that naturalism and evolutionary theory can withstand the best possible version of the EAAN.
Why would this be wrong? If you’re right about that, then you’re right about that.
That’s not what I said. I said that he didn’t use that word in the development of his argument. According to you, he used that word four times in that book. That doesn’t mean that he used as part of his argument as such. The example I found included the word as the position of some philosopher(s), but Plantinga didn’t take the hint when developing the argument. Plantinga is fixed on true/false.
While I find Plantiga quite the despicable character, the reason his argument fails is because it’s astoundingly, preposterously, stupid.
That you couldn’t find a version of the argument that’s not about true/false bullshit says otherwise. Since that’s a huge problem in the development of his piece of crap, it’s proper to point that out.
A pissing contest with the guy would be unfair. I doubt that the guy could keep that metaphorical piss from landing right by his feet. The proper action here would be to ask him to stop pissing, to tell him that he’s just making a mess and ridiculing himself.
Pointing out to the mistakes in an argument is what shows them to be wrong keiths. You don’t seem perturbed of pointing out at straw-men, circularity, contradictions, absurdity, etc. in other instances. I don’t understand why you’d be so hesitant to point at straw-men, contradictions, absurdities, etc, in the EAAN case.
If the argument had just semantic mistakes, then I’d understand why you’d prefer to salvage those and deal with the “actual” argument. but there’s no actual argument keiths. The problems are not merely semantic.
Plantinga makes severe mistakes, both philosophical and biological, in his EAAN. If he fixed them, he would have to develop an entirely new argument. If, after that, the new thing still looked like an evolutionary argument against naturalism, then we could deal with that. For now, what he has is a monstrosity that doesn’t deserve the slightest respect.
I’m sure you know that some folks here seem to be looking to jump on any thing like that so as to make it appear that I’m disingenuous and prone to misrepresentation.
That is why it’s important to me that we clarify.
That and to point out areas of agreement between us. Remember that you are my favorite.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Things do tend to get a polarized from time to time. I usually try to avoid “piling on”.
Let me put it this way: I certainly think that the mental lives of non-discursive animals (animals without language0 should be characterized in terms of map-like representations of salient affordances, that map-like representations are not only affordance-detecting but also action-guiding, and that these representations are strongly correlated with affective states. So non-discursive animals have (on my view) a primitive kind of intentionality (what Hutto and Myin call “Ur-intentionality”) consisting of directedness towards affording particulars.
By contrast, the mental lives of discursive animals are characterized by genuine intentionality, a capacity for having thoughts about objects, as a result of having internalized the socio-cultural practices involved in asserting, showing, indicating, pointing out, asking, arguing, and justifying.
If you can accept that there’s an important distinction between kinds of minds along these lines, then it’s just a semantic quibble whether we use “belief” as the genus for both kinds or just as the species of the latter.
KN,
It isn’t just a quibble. You said it yourself:
If your position strikes you as “odd and maybe almost crazy”, it’s a sign that you have a problem.
That problem goes away if you simply distinguish beliefs from claims. Beliefs can lead to claims, but they aren’t claims themselves, and they do not depend on claim-making machinery.
Whence your reluctance to distinguish the two? The only reason you’ve given so far didn’t make sense:
keiths:
We hardly have to “jump” on such opportunities. They present themselves daily.
You are disingenuous and prone to misrepresentation.
KN:
You don’t think the cat, who is pawing frantically under the door, is having thoughts about the mouse?
And how are thoughts about a mouse not instances of “genuine intentionality”?
Entropy,
I’m not hesitant in the slightest. I just think we should point out the flaws in the real EAAN, not the Entropy version of the EAAN. And we should even improve the argument if we can, because the primary goal here isn’t to diss Plantinga but rather to defend naturalism and evolutionary theory.
There is an actual argument, which I summarized this way:
keiths,
I do think that beliefs have to be taken as propositional attitudes, i.e. endorsed claims, in order for the JTB model of knowledge to work out. So that might be one area of our disagreement.
I don’t see how the cat can have thoughts about the mouse without positing a Language of Thought.
KN,
Yes, and I think that might even be the crux of our disagreement.
Let’s look at the lightning scenario. I’m alone when I see the forked flash across the valley. Do you really think I need to make a claim (silently or otherwise) and then endorse that claim before I arrive at the belief?
If I didn’t already believe there was lightning across the valley, why would I make (and endorse) such a claim in the first place?
I dealt with that too:
This is nonsense because beliefs are not genetically inherited.
It’s not the beliefs that can be adaptive, it’s the cognitive system and its potential to help us decide that can be adaptive. That potential depends on how well the system links events/experiences with outcomes, especially given the potential for exceptions. It’s not a system producing mere false/true dichotomies. This is a continuation of his foundational nonsense (thinking of beliefs as genetically inheritable), with the added bonus of being true/false claims, with the added bonus of being randomly generated and randomly linked to behaviours.
Which we do not accept out of genetic inheritance, but out of examination of the evidence. Mere continuation of the nonsense.
Of course. That’s what he wants to achieve.
keiths:
If you’re going to be pedantic, then cognitive systems aren’t inherited, either. It’s the genes that are inherited.
But of course you and I and Plantinga all know this. You’re trying very hard to misunderstand him, apparently because of your desire to defeat him in the pissing contest.
If you refuse to engage his actual argument, then he wins by default.
Entropy,
Let’s try to get your mind off Plantinga, since he’s clearly gotten under your skin.
Setting Plantinga aside, what is the strongest possible version of the EAAN that you can come up with?
If one teaches adaptive beliefs their offsprings they could be genetically influenced.
Are you saying that we should accept the idea of the beliefs themselves being the objects of natural selection? Are you serious? By your reasoning there’s nothing wrong with Plantinga’s argument. We just have to accept every misconception, every stupid absurdity, and probably become Christians.
Oh for fuck’s sake. It is possible that Plantinga knows this. Yet, in his argument he still talks as if we inherited our beliefs genetically.
Were you really born with the belief that naturalism makes sense, and that evolution makes sense? If so, I’m astounded. My experience was very different. My first impressions about evolution was that it was some ridiculous idea invented by evil people. I wasn’t born with that “belief” either. I learned it from the society around me, mixed with some misinformation. I also remember, quite well, being taught about “God” at a much earlier age. So, well, talking to me as if beliefs were inherited genetically would not have made sense, even back when I was a Christian.
I just fucking did! I engaged with what you presented keiths! That you’d rather not read for comprehension is not my problem. It’s entirely yours. That you’d rather accept every piece of nonsense from Plantinga is also your problem. I’d rather point them out.
The offspring can have genetically-determined predispositions to take your word for a lot of things. That’s not the same as inheriting the beliefs themselves genetically.
Entropy, what does Plantinga say that suggests to you that he thinks we inherit our beliefs genetically?
Not Plantinga keiths, you with your mindless defence. Hey, let’s pretend that Plantinga’s bullshit is not bullshit. Buy on every misconception. After that. Well. Then you can try and defeat the bullshit. Oghbut don’t point to stupid mistakes, ok? That’s forbidden. Why? Because keiths said so.
None keiths. After thinking a lot about it, since you “incepted” that idea. I think that the best case for an EAAN would be a case for human limitations. However, that would no longer be an EAAN, because everybody is in that boat, regardless of what they might believe. I suspect that’s the reason things like pragmatism have arisen. I’m starting to think that pragmatism is the most “natural” of all philosophical postures.
walto:
Yes, please answer this, Entropy.
Entropy:
Damn, Entropy. You’re completely lost.
Here’s Plantinga, proving Entropy wrong:
It’s the cognitive faculties, not inheritance, that furnish us with the beliefs.
Plantinga knows this and states it explicitly. You are really off the deep end on this one, Entropy.
Whatever sells is True.
At least until it no longer sells.
The moment anybody suggests that individual beliefs are the object of natural selection, they’re implying that those beliefs are genetically transferable to the offspring. That’s what natural selection is about. If you take a look at Plantinga’s “examples,” consisting of random combinations of “false beliefs” with “good behaviours,” you’ll see the implication right there and then. How could “Tim”‘s “belief” that “petting” tigers is accomplished by running away from them* be subject to natural selection unless the belief was genetically determined in Tim, and he could thus pass it to his offspring?
*The absurdities upon absurdities make me vomit, but I won’t explain, because keiths would feel deeply offended. Apparently it’s very wrong to point to absurdities if it’s Plantinga’s absurdities.
More like pretending that he’s talking about cognitive faculties, yet his examples are randomly generated belief/behaviour pairs. Didn’t you read about Tim and the tiger? It’s so nonsensical that I thought people were misrepresenting Plantinga! I thought that the Christians presenting the argument were making that shit up. But then I heard that shit from the horse’s own mouth …
Then why would the beliefs be subject to natural selection, rather than the cognitive faculties?
It doesn’t matter if he states that explicitly, he ends up presenting beliefs as if they’re the ones under natural selection.
petrushka,
Wouldn’t that be capitalism? 😀
keiths:
Entropy:
If that’s really the question, why present scenarios involving random combinations of beliefs/behaviours, and present them as f they were subject to natural selection?
If the focus was the cognitive faculties, Plantinga would quickly realize that faculties producing random beliefs, and assigning them, also randomly, to behaviours, could never arise. It would be disastrous.
If that’s really the question, why not take into account how “primitive” cognitive faculties would work and use that as a starter? Why not talk about the most instinctive behaviours, and then how cognitive faculties would evolve on top of that?
Plantinga is a pretentious sophist.
Entropy:
Here’s Plantinga, proving Entropy wrong again:
keiths,
Yet his examples are randomly generated belief/behaviour pairs.
Do you understand that at all?
Yet his examples are randomly generated belief/behaviour pairs.
Not really. It’s “interested” on how your cognitive faculties might modify your behaviour depending on your situations. So, neither set beliefs, nor set behaviours.
So, it doesn’t select for beliefs, except that it does, because. well, the beliefs come randomly associated to behaviours, genetically, of course.
He sure proved me wrong. Sigh.
Ha, I wish that were the case! But I don’t think it is — and I say that as a (card-carrying) pragmatist. Pragmatism came on the scene only when empirical science was finally developed to the point where philosophical reflection on the methods of science was becoming quite sophisticated. It was only then that Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead finally asked: “what if we took scientific methods as a model for how to solve all intellectual problems, including those of metaphysics and ethics?”
But while science is efficacious, it is hardly “natural”: it emerged historically in only a few civilizations. Science is difficult, and it doesn’t come easily to us. Superstition, myth, ritual, magic — those are far more “natural” than science is.
Entropy,
It’s obvious that you don’t understand Plantinga’s argument. Why not reread it, for comprehension this time? The first step in refuting something is to understand it well enough to refute it.
It’s not about what everyone believes it’s about what process is conducive to cognitive faculties that tend to produce true beliefs.
If naturalistic evolution is true then everybody is indeed in the same boat in that we have no reason to expect our cognitive faculties to produce true beliefs.
On the other hand it’s indeed possible that naturalistic evolution is not true and instead our cognitive faculties tend to produce true beliefs when they are functioning properly.
As for me I know that God exists, loves me and is faithful therefore I am justified trusting that my cognitive faculties will produce true beliefs when functioning properly.
So we are not in the same boat at all.
Did you see what I did there?
peace
Philosophy isn’t natural or intuitive, but the problems addressed by philosophy are pretty ordinary, and ordinary people are rather pragmatic.
If magic and superstition seem unpragmatic, it is because cause and effect are difficult to determine, not because people are not trying to be pragmatic.
Too many nots.
keiths,
I’d say you’ll never read my comments about Plantinga for comprehension, so whatever you say keiths.
fifth:
Yes, we saw what you did there, fifth. It’s known in the literature as “delusional thinking”.
Kantian Naturalist,
Well, remember that I quoted the word “natural.” I didn’t develop the point. I didn’t mean that it was the philosophical inclination that would prevail, or come to us most naturally. I meant that it looked more “like nature.”
Let’s see. As I think about how evolution would shape our cognitive faculties, and paint scenarios, I see something eerily similar to pragmatism, at least in the way it would work, with evolution favouring cognitive faculties that can take into account more data to have more precise “predictions,” like when to go hunting, or what animals are dangerous, which ones look dangerous but are, actually, edible, etc.
The similarity to pragmatism comes from the emphasis on what’s done with the data, and how more data modifies your conceptual frameworks and thus improves predictability.
Not a well developed point yet. So, sorry if this doesn’t come out clear enough.