Definition of God: First cause, prime mover, objective source of human purpose (final cause) and resulting morality, source of free will; omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent inasmuch as principles of logic allow. I am not talking in particular about any specifically defined religious interpretation of god, such as the christian or islamic god.
Definition: Intellectual dishonesty occurs when (1)one deliberately mischaracterizes their position or view in order to avoid having to logically defend their actual views; and/or (2) when someone is arguing, or making statements against a position while remaining willfully ignorant about that position, and/or (3) when someone categorically and/or pejoratively dismisses all existent and/or potential evidence in favor of a conclusion they claim to be neutral about, whether they are familiar with that evidence or not.
The argument against weak atheism:
Weak, or negative atheism is the lack of any belief that a god exists, and the lack of belief that god probably exists, and is not the positive belief that gods do not exist.
The following is a brief summary of the evidence for a general finding that a god of some kind exists, even if variantly interpreted or culturally contextualized (one can generally look up these arguments and evidences using google or bing):
1) Anecdotal evidence for the apparently intelligently ordered anomalous, miraculous (defying expected natural processes and probabilities) events attributed to god, such as signs or answers to prayers to god, or the ability to manifest or positively affirm such events through free will intention;
2) Testimonial evidence (first-hand accounts) of experience of such phenomena
3) The various Cosmological Arguments for the existence of god
4) The Strong Anthropic (or Fine Tuning) argument
5) The empirical, scientific evidence assembled in the strong anthropic argument in #4;
6) The Moral Arguments for the existence of god.
7) Empirical and testimonial evidence of phenomena closely correlated to the existence of a god of some sort, such as the survival of consciousness after death, and the existence of an afterlife realm, and the apparent agreement of afterlife entities that a god and human purpose exist; the evidence for interactions with correlated entities such as angels and demons (which seem to act to influence our free will towards or away from our human purpose), etc.
While the various arguments listed (all of which, to some degree, begin with empirical evidence) have been subject to counter-arguments and rebuttals of varying strengths and weaknesses, one must not lose sight that while there is much evidence (as listed above) in favor of the existence of god; there is zero evidence (to my knowledge) or rational argument (to my knowledge) that no such god (as defined above) exists.
[Note: One may argue that the Christian god doesn’t exist because of certain contradictions contained in the expressed nature and actions of that entity (or of the Islamic god); and there are such arguments – but this thread is not about such gods, so please adhere to the stated premise.]
The rebuttals to these argument are simply attempting to show weaknesses or alternatives to the arguments themselves so that such arguments cannot be taken as convincing (that god exists); such counter-arguments do not make the case that god (as described above) in fact does not exist.
Also, the testimony of religious adherents of various specific gods can be counted as evidence of the god premised in this argument in the manner that various various cultures can vary widely in their description of certain phenomena or experiences, and come up with widely variant “explanations”; what is interesting as evidence here, though, is the widespread crediting of similar kinds of phenomena and experience to a “god” of some sort (which might be the case of blind or ignorant people touching different parts of an elephant and thus describing “what the elephant is” in various ways). Such testimonial evidence can be counted in favor of the premise here, but cannot be held against it where it varies, because it is not testimony that such a god doesn’t exist.
If a “weak atheist” claims to “lack of belief” because there is “no” evidence for god, they are necessarily being intellectually dishonest, because they certainly aren’t privy to all potential or available evidence. They cannot claim to not know of the evidence for god after having perused the above evidence.
If the “weak atheist” is not aware of any compelling evidence, then any categorical claim they make about the available evidence they are not privy to – that it is not credible or convincing – is again intellectually dishonest because they are making a categorical claim about something they have no knowledge of.
If we have a weak atheist who is aware of the existence of the above evidence and agrees that there might be more evidence they are not privy to; and who does not categorically assert problems with the evidence they have not yet seen; and who does not categorically dismiss the available evidence as “non-evidence” (such as: hypocritically accepting testimonial evidence as evidence when it supports what they already believe, but dismissing it when it supports the existence of god) but rather states that the available evidence they have seen is not compelling towards a conclusion that god exists; then one must ask the following:
In the face of such huge amounts of evidence – thousands of years of testimony and anecdotal stories; many sound arguments based on empirical evidence and apparently necessary logical premises and inferences; and the complete lack of any attempt to make a sound argument that god (as described above) in fact does not exist – one must ask: how can any intellectually honest person come to any conclusion other than that god probably exists, even if god is poorly and diversely defined, and even if the experience of god is open to interpretation and misunderstanding?
As an analogy: even if one has never personally experienced “love”; in the face of thousands of years of testimony and anecdotal stories that love exists, and empirical evidence supporting that certain physical states correspond to assertions of experiences of love, would it be intellectually honest to “lack belief” that love exists, or would it be intellectually honest to hold the view that even though one doesn’t experience love (or using the same argument, color, joy, dreams, etc.), that love probably exists – even if people are widely disparate in their explanation, description, or presentation of what love is?
That I am aware of, there is zero evidence, no argument, and no anecdotal or testimonial evidence that god does not exist (because lack of experience of a thing isn’t evidence the thing doesn’t exist), and there is a vast array of logical, anecdotal, testimonial and empirical evidence that god does exist.
Even if one doesn’t find that evidence compelling for for a final conclusion that god exists, it is at least, if one is intellectually honest, compelling to the point that when one weighs the balance of the evidence for and against, that one must admit that it is more probable that god exists that that god does not exist, which cannot be said to be an atheistic point of view at all.
The argument against strong atheism:
Strong atheism is defined as the assertion that no god or gods exist whatsoever.
First, it is obvious that strong atheism cannot be logically supported, simply because it is impossible to prove (not in the absolute sense, but in the “sufficient evidence” sense). There may be evidence that certain gods, or kinds of gods, do not exist; but there is certainly no evidence or argument (that I’m aware of, anyway) that no significant, meaningful god or gods whatsoever exist.
Instead, strong atheists usually attempt to shift the burden onto theist by essentially asking the theists to prove the atheist position wrong. However, that is not the theists’ burden.
Strong atheism is a sweeping, categorical, negative assertion that something does not exist at all, anywhere. However unlikely one fineds it, it might be true that a god of some sort exists, so the strong atheist position would be excluding a potentially true explanation from consideration unnecessarily.
What is the useful point of a metaphysical position that excludes a potentially true explanation from consideration? What does strong atheism bring to the table of debate other than the potential for intractable error and denial of potential truth for the sake of a sweeping, unsupportable, universally negative assertion?
Conclusion: atheism of any sort is an untenable position for any intellectually honest, rational, and informed person. The belief that god does not exist, or that it isn’t more likely that god exists than not, can only be a valid position based on ignorance of the available evidence and argument for god, or a pseudoskeptical, a priori dismissal of all of the evidence for god based on ideological bias.
(Reposted here from a post I previously made under another name, in another forum, with a few minor edits and additions.)
Oh I’m sure that’s the case Neil. I was merely providing an example of possible non-fallacious options. My list was not meant to be wholly descriptive or complete, just a small sampling that demonstrated that William was missing the boat.
William J Murray,
“Logical ramifications” are all you’ve ever had!
Your worldview is useless as an aid in understanding the world since your premises are not valid.
This results in conclusions that are also invalid.
“Garbage in/garbage out”.
Why do you claim that you have an open mind and are willing to learn when you can’t even be bothered to do the basic research about Philosophy re:consciousness, first cause, etc.?
Why do you insist that “the philosophy of atheistic materialism provides no ontological basis” when there are several, depending on which definition of materialism and/or physicalism you wish to address? For example:
Jaegwon Kim, Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough, Princeton University Press, 2005
OK, explain how to distinguish between an ontological and an epistemological challenge/question/issue, with specific reference to the distinction you think I am not making.
Thanks.
Good grief. I did exactly that in the post you quoted. That’s astounding.
No, you didn’t. I just checked and Lizzie quoted your entire comment. Where, exactly, did you “distinguish between an ontological and an epistemological challenge/questions/issue, with specific reference to the distinction you think [she is] not making”?
WJM: “I understand now why so many posts here are complete non-sequiturs”
LOL – come on, WJM, try something more original. That’s just a bit too lame (and transparently ill-fitting) of an excuse to avoid replying to posts that embarrass your position.
WJM: “Because the philosophy of atheistic materialism provides no ontological basis for the expectation that one can avoid epistemological delusion doesn’t mean that people who call themselves materialist atheists cannot avoid epistemological delusion; it just means their philosophy has no justification for their ability to do so.”
Please explain how your philosophical position avoids epistemological delusion. Even if you think that you have done so, I don’t think anyone here (but you) thinks that you have done so successfully.
Robin: “William, this isn’t that big a mystery and it doesn’t require rocket science – as a baby all I was aware of was two states: comfort and discomfort. There was no nonsense concerning “epistemology”, “ontology”, “materialism”, “superstition”, “atheism”, “distal causation”, etc.”
This is exactly the kind of common sense that WJM cannot understand. He labels comments like this one, that follow his argument through to the end and thus reveal its absurdity as non-sequiturs. I think he simply doesn’t get that calling something that empirically leads to a desired effect *effective*, *reliable*, etc. does not require axiomatic premises. Non-human living things may not use words, but they use the same method we do: they gather and use knowledge empirically. This is exactly why WJM needs to keep the claim up that how non-human organisms function is a non-sequitur to his arguments. However, this claim collapses because the scientific method of gathering knowledge (the scientific *epistemology*), that he so desperately wants to keep in the philosophical realm, parallels the *epistemology* of non-human organisms. Thus, for his argument to hold up, non-human organisms would need to be using *axiomatic premises* (or, to say it with one of WJM’s favorite accusations towards non-theist: “stealing” them from – ahhh, I guess their theist conspecifics…) in order to gather knowledge and survive.
This is exactly the kind of common sense that WJM cannot understand
When you have the power to change reality by wishing for it, empiricism is irrelevant.
I suspect we can make a distinction between those who try to see the world as it is and those who try to see the world as they wish it to be.
We all try to see the world as we wish it to be, which is where goals and purposes come from – to make the world become that way, insofar as it’s within our power.
As WJM admitted, he does look both ways before crossing the road. He explained that empiricism is one tool in his bag, which he uses as appropriate. What he meant, but couldn’t say, is that his philosophical tools are deployed ONLY when his trained-in religious beliefs are threatened. Otherwise, they aren’t much practical use.
So you might re-word this to say there are those who need psychological defense mechanisms to ward of uncongenial aspects of the world, and those who do not.
I believe WJM goes a bit beyond seeing the world as he wishes it to be.
http://thesecret.tv/living.html
No, that’s not what I meant to say. How can any of my beliefs, religious or otherwise, be threatened when I believe whatever I wish, regardless of any evidence? My beliefs cannot be threatened. This is clearly a reference that is a projection from how you hold beliefs, because nothing I believe can be “threatened”, in any sense whatsoever.
In contrast to the perspective you’ve outlined above, all of my beliefs are practical in nature because I choose them deliberately to serve my goals and are not held as being factually or absolutely true – they are all simply provisional and conditional views that I can hold or dispense with as I see fit – even including such fundamental views as theism and dualism. I deliberately changed over from atheistic materialism to theistic dualism because atheistic materialism wasn’t getting the job done (of giving me the basis for leading a good, enjoyable life).
You are apparently projecting onto me a quality of “believing” as such that I would feel “threatened” by evidence or fact that would contradict my views. The way I hold beliefs eliminates any perspective of my beliefs being “threatened”, because (1) I don’t hold beliefs as being necessarily true, and (2) I do not hold beliefs because of evidence or facts in the first place.
That makes everything I believe to be of practical value in the sense that they serve my goals, or else I ditch the belief. That gives me the ability to use whatever tools I wish, including consensual empiricism, regardless of whether or not others find them silly.
Your assumption that only materialistic tools are truly useful to me (or anyone else, apparently) is made again, apparently, as purely a projection of your faith that no other tools can make any practical difference or have any practical effect in anyone’s life.
There’s a difference between empiricism, and consensual empiricism. My entire belief structure is constructed from the former; I use the latter whenever it is convenient and useful.
I said that my philosophy provides the basis or the capacity for the expectation that one can deliberately avoid it; that doesn’t mean that just because one believes as I do, they automatically avoid it.
IOW, the difference between an atheistic materialist’s perspective and mine, is that at least in mine I have the opportunity (potential, capacity) to be able to deliberately discern true statements from false; there is no such opportunity (potential, capacity) in the A/M’s perspective. The A/M can only discern true statements from false by chance, not via a deliberate use of a independent agency of judgement.
Perhaps a better question would be, what independent agency of judgement can be trusted (as a premise) to actually be able to discern true statements from false? Only an agency that held, or has access to what is true can judge what is true, and what is not. Which is, again, why a premise of God is necessary – only god can know what is true, and what is not. Individual human subjectivity cannot pierce Plato’s Cave, so in order to be able to expect to be able to discern true statements from false, we must necessarily reference an objective source of truth that coexists within us and is beyond and transcendent of individuated human interpretation.
Without that assumption, we are all lost in individuated, solipsistic caves, whether held as material or not. The very idea that you and I can communicate and understand each other deliberately logically requires some external, formal truths to mediate our exchanges. If all we have are internal truths, themselves manufactured by whatever we ate last week or individual DNA codes, we have no hope of meaningful dialogue other than simply how it appears in our own materially-generated mind.
I asked Elizabeth how she would avoid epistemological (how knowledge is acquired) delusion, which cannot be answered epistemologically. It requires an ontological answer, as in what is your premised nature of being or existence such that one can hope to avoid epistemological delusion?
The only way to avoid the potential for epistemological delusion is if one has some innate, existential capacity to make such discernments, but atheistic materialism provides no such premised ontological capacity; in their view, “being” is only what their epistemology says it is, which offers epistemological delusion free reign and not point of exit and no capacity for supervening judgement.
When asked how to avoid epistemological delusion, Elizabeth referred me to her epistemology. That she doesn’t understand it is self-referential, and that she doesn’t understand that such a question requires an ontological answer, indicates her obliviousness to the necessity of having proper ontological premises to serve and support any epistemological methodology one employs.
The second statement destroys the validity of the first, where you imply an “actual-ness” of your baby-state in relationship to the concepts being debated in this thread. If your second statement is true, then nothing you think or say has anything to do with any “actuality”, including the claim that you have a “schemata” in place and that it doesn’t represent any actuality.
I have a question: if you find the subject matter here to be nonsense (but not in any “actuality”), and hold that nothing any of us say or think has anything to do with any “actuality” (but not in actuality), why on Earth are you defending one set of phrases/schemata (yours) and attacking another (mine), when you hold that neither have anything to do with any “actuality”?
This is why a clear understanding of philosophical principles is a good thing; it helps to prevent you from making arguments that are blatantly self-refuting.
I wasn’t aware though that there were any cosmological arguments that don’t suck, as implied by William putting them in his opening post.
You’re bafflegabbing William. My second statement does not affect the validity of the first. For whatever reason you can’t grasp that the combination of a layers of state perception coupled with memory allow for analysis and identification of the states. It’s a wonderful survival tool – you should try it some time. But of course you actually do. The ability to lay a schema out to project potential encountered states, assess (from memory) actions that affected given states (again from memory), and thus attempt to manifest those actions (again from memory), is not some magical ontology. You can believe it is and try to wrap it up in some metaphysical mumbo-jumbo if it helps you sleep at night, but that doesn’t change the absurdity of your response above. Schemata and all the other terminology and representative placeholders don’t have to be actual William – they just have be close enough to keep the game going.
Just curious, but who is the “us” above William? The only person whose statements here strike me as nonsense are yours.
As to your question, what is this “actuality” of which you speak and why should I care about it? If all of that I experience is an illusion – which is quite possible, though not very probable – the illusion still manifests as states. Assessment and accurate modelling of those states still represents the most successful approach to fulfillment (as far as what my memory indicates). I have no other data to go on, so unless and until I do, I shall continue to note such. My assessment of various states indicates that your particular schemata presents a foundation of dishonesty about and within specific state relationships and, upon further analysis, that such schemata have lead to discomfort and death among others I sense existing. So, I find presenting opposing information about said “reality” proper functioning and fulfilling.
It hasn’t yet prevented you from making such self-refuting arguments, but then perhaps you have yet to actually develop a clear understanding of philosophical principles, so I suppose you could still be right, but just not applying it correctly.
How is (1) an argument? While people have had lots of strange experiences, how does that make them evidence for gods? People have strange experiences under various conditions from seizures to mind altering drugs, but that does not make them evidence for gods.
Considering the content of what follows in that post, I’m content to let the reader reach their own conclusions about which of us is doing the bafflegabbing.
But “true” has no meaning in your Free Will paradigm. You’ve already argued as such.
No, I didn’t.
Robin,
Since you don’t claim your argument to be about anything “actual” in any metaphysical or philosophical sense, you’ll pardon me if I don’t feel it necessary to respond to what my not-actual “schemata” interprets as self-contradictory solipsistic rhetoric, since, according to you, that’s all the not-actually “we” are “not actually” doing in the “not actually” here.
And so we observe the necessarily self-refuting, self-referential tailspin that comes from materialism; it ends up being more solipsistic sophistry than anything else, all in an attempt (apparently) to deny the obvious ontological requirements for holding any epistemology meaningful.
Well, no, William. From where we are standing, to be honest, the tailspinning looks like it’s yours.
So can you explain what “the obvious ontological requirements for holding any epistemology meaningful”, and which you think we are denying, actually are?
Because your own position, from our end, looks like you declare a set of “axioms” true for the simple reason that they give you the answer you want.
For which “tail spin” seems to be rather a good metaphor!
So what am I not seeing?
Anecdotal and testimonial evidence are the weakest kind of evidence. They can suggest things to investigate, but they are not strongly supportive of anything.
1, 2. We have such evidence for UFOs, ESP, ghosts, Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, spoon bending and all sorts of rubbish. Sometimes such evidence is confirmed and sometimes it isn’t, but it’s not the kind of thing that should stand up in court. There are hundreds of prisoners that have been convicted on eyewitness testimony and released due to DNA evidence.
3. The cosmological argument is rubbish. One does not support the existence of a pet entity just to avoid infinities. Calculus and renormalization should warn us that apparent infinities can be artifacts of language.
4. Anthropic and fine tuning arguments are just painting the bulls-eye after the arrow has landed.
5. Scientific investigation consistently fails to support any form of theism. In many cases it refutes specific claims of revealed religion.
6. Moral argument involve the fallacy of appeal to consequences.
That was easy.
Thanks very much for the lengthy response detailing why you are not responding William. 😉
I must confess that the irony in the phrase actual things in metaphysical sense gave me a good chuckle. H.L Mencken’s observation is apt here:
Oh…so well phrased. I’m borrowing this!
All cosmological arguments that I have seen rely on special pleading and/or appeal to incomplete physical models.
It’s you.
Nothing you – or any of you, apparently – would find significant or meaningful.
Per Williams comment below, along with a number of his other comments, it appears that if one tries out the scientific method and finds it and predictable models practical and effective, one is instantly incapable of comprehending William’s profound point. It’s as though science and reason bar us the metaphysical actualization. As William implies Lizzie, what you (and apparently the rest of us) are missing are insignificant and meaningless insights, so we could not accept them even if we could comprehend them.
William, there’s a reason why intelligent people have lost interest in religion over the past few centuries.
Once religion lost its political power and its ability to punish people for apostasy, it had nothing to offer, other than for people who are afraid of death.
There will always be bunches of people who require hope of an afterlife, so religion will never go away.
I do believe, however, that you have made confirmation bias into something of an art form. That would be an achievement if it were original with you.
WJM,
I agree that many “lay” atheists may not have a full articulated metaphysical worldview that can account for challenges posed by a range of philosophical paradoxes — but that’s also true for many lay theists. Hence the profession of Philosophy. And I have to emphasize this point, since you have steadfastly ignored it, actual Philosophers have developed actual theories about Materialism/Physicalism that are ontologically grounded and can logically explain the validity of truth.
Do you understand?
That you repeatedly ignore this objective fact makes me wonder if your conception of truth is even worth debating.
My question is why would anyone care about systems of philosophy that are nothing more than self-consistent formal systems having no actual use.
As I have indicated, it can be something of an art form, and I suppose there can be some aesthetic pleasure derived from formal consistency. But its a bit like arguing over whether painting is better than sculpture or music.
If William is wiling to make a prediction that he can attract desirable outcomes merely by believing in them, perhaps he should do so. We could have something like a game of Wall Street, in which WJM could invest virtual money and show us how it grows.
There are numerous other possibilities, but the essential feature of any test is that one must not wait until after events before predicting them.
petrushka,
It’s because we humans are so curious about elusive ideas that leads us to systematically investigate their causal mechanisms. (science) Thus it is often the philosopher who first breaks ground in important areas of study, like the nature of consciousness.
Think of it as the profession that attempts to construct rational hypothesis, the precursor of scientific theories.
Yes, but I think I covered that when I said some kinds of weak evidence can suggest lines of investigation. Perhaps I didn’t exhaust all the possibilities.
Philosophy can be a bit like accounting. It can audit the books and tell you whether things add up, but it cannot by itself tell whether the bookkeeper entered the correct and honest numbers. For that you need to step outside the formal system and check the facts.
William seems to think one can devise a connection to reality simply by thinking about it. He keeps arguing that one can test axioms and premises through logic.
WJM: “I said that my philosophy provides the basis or the capacity for the expectation that one can deliberately avoid [delusion]; that doesn’t mean that just because one believes as I do, they automatically avoid it.”
It would be nice if for once you would answer the question actually asked, and not the question you wish was asked. Anyway – empiricism provides a basis for the expectation that delusion (in the way empiricists use the term) can be avoided. It even provides the objective mechanism by which it can be avoided (feedback and reinforcement processes that are part of the sensory system). But you have amply demonstrated in this discussion (and in an earlier discussion on a very similar topic) that you don’t understand, and are not willing to learn about these mechanisms. The reason for this I suspect to be your unwillingness to let go of the notion that unsupported, axiomatic ontological premises are needed to successfully navigate this world.
On to the more important part of my question (the one you didn’t answer): by which mechanism actually does your philosophy avoid delusion? The reference to some delusion-free entity outside of yourself that you simply assume to exist, as an axiomatic ontological premise, obviously is not a candidate (because it is nothing but an axiomatic premise within your own, possibly delusional perspective).
WJM: “the obvious ontological requirements for holding any epistemology meaningful”
What you don’t get about *ontological requirements* in the philosophical sense that you are insisting on using is that they do nothing but define *meaning* into existence in relation to an assumed entity. You don’t know whether this entity actually exists or whether it is anything like what you need it to be like in order to support your notion of *meaning*. Further, even if this entity exists and is exactly like you think it is, you don’t know what this actual *non-delusional meaning* is that is held/produced exclusively by this entity. Thus, what you call *meaning* does not refer to anything objectively real and accessible by you, let alone by anyone who is not you and does not share your particular assumptions.
It confounds me why you think that those of us who use what empiricism generates in the way of *meaning* in a very useful, objectively real kind of sense are the ones making *meaningless* posts or remarks or whatever. It is you whose notion of *meaning* is objectively useless!
I believe this is WJM’s concern (and please correct me if I have misunderstood): How do we account for the differences between truth and unintentional falsehoods?
At the base material level of matter and energy (putting aside quantum physics for the sake of discussion), is there anything other than the truth? Is it even possible that an atom or a photon can misrepresent itself? It seems doubtful, but as arrangements of matter and energy become increasingly complex, unintentional falsehoods are possible. That is, a receiver can misidentify a signal because of its similarity to another, despite the truthful intention (or lack thereof) on the part of the sender. For example:
By what means, then, can the materialist be certain that truth exists in the absolute sense, and not as the happenstance association/relationship of one piece of matter/energy to another that may or may not be unintentionally false? Furthermore, how can the materialist be certain that the mind can accurately detect truth when the mental processes themselves may be the byproduct of unintentional falsehoods?
Now you may argue that, while one entity or another may be deceived by an unintentional falsehood, the occurrence of these events is so low and the population of entities is so great that, given time and an orderly universe, such errors can be identified and accounted for. WJM would respond that unintentional falsehoods may not affect only individual entities, but perhaps a whole class of entities, physical properties, or even universal laws. How would we know?
Furthermore, the capacity for accurate error detection relies upon a presumed consistent, and persistent, order to the universe. And how could the universe be orderly if it were not inherently true? Thus he concludes that the universe could not have been the product of a material process prone to error. So from WJM’s perspective, either the materialist-atheist is unaware that their metaphysical assumptions ultimately require a God to explain truth/order, or they are deluded, or they are lying.
And as I mentioned earlier, there are philosophical theories that address WJM’s concerns. That’s not to say that they are true (or that WJM would be satisfied with their rationale), but that such arguments do indeed exist).
One last note. I did not attempt to summarize all of WJM’s concerns (like his argument against the materialist-atheist notion of “mind” (soul)), however they are subsumed by the framing explanation.
sez rhampton7: “By what means, then, can the materialist be certain that truth exists in the absolute sense, and not as a happenstance association or relationship of one piece of matter/energy to another that may or may not be unintentionally false?”
My answer is that absolutely no one, ‘materialist’ or otherwise, can “be certain that truth exists in the absolute sense, and not as a happenstance association or relationship of one piece of matter/energy to another that may or may not be unintentionally false”. So our friend wjm is in the same boat as everyone else; where he differs from the rest of us is that he’s imagined himself up an invisible friend that he defines as having whatever attributes would be required in order to serve as The One True And Absolute Basis For Absolute Truth. The upshot of this maneuver is that wjm gets to persuade himself that he’s got a line on Absolute Truth while everybody else has to be content with true as far as I know so far.
WJM seems unfamiliar with the concept of feedback.
I think the whole ID/creationist movement has the same problem.
rhampton: “By what means, then, can the materialist be certain that truth exists in the absolute sense, and not as the happenstance association/relationship of one piece of matter/energy to another that may or may not be unintentionally false?”
The problem I see with your approach here is that you label a perfectly measurable, unambiguous material configuration as a *falsehood*. That does not make any sense to me. You find a particular base-pairing. It deviates from the base-pairing most commonly found, i.e. most commonly accomodated by the chemical and physical relationships of the molecules involved. Labeling this rare pairing as a mis-pairing is an anthropomorphism (it is a “mis-pairing” in the sense that it violates our expectation of “proper pairings”: those we are accustomed to find), but it is a useful anthropomorphism because it expresses what we know about regularities, the mechanisms behind those, and about exceptions to those regularities, and the mechanisms behind those. But labeling them as *falsehoods* seems entirely inappropriate to me. The rare, unexpected pairings are completely true: we can objectively measure them, describe them, even explain why they occur. What is *false* about that?
rhampton: “unintentional falsehoods may not affect only individual entities, but perhaps a whole class of entities, physical properties, or even universal laws. How would we know?”
In what sense could a whole class of entities, physical properties or universal laws be falsehoods???? Well, I guess I know that answer: in relation to an assumed entity with imaginary properties that lies outside of our perception. In that case, I totally agree: we wouldn’t know! Fortunately, in that case, it also wouldn’t matter! The term falsehood in this case is entirely without consequence and meaning…
“And how could the universe be orderly if it were not inherently true?”
Same problem as described above: In what useful, consequential sense could the universe be false? But in addition: What does orderliness have to do with truth?