Sunday, June 13, 2010

From Electrons to God: A Closer Look at a Design Argument Proposed by a Commenter on this Blog

In this post I want to feature a discussion that emerged in an earlier post between two regular discussants on this blog (Dianelos Georgoudis and Burk Braun).

In an exchange in the commentary on my “Contemplating New Atheism’s Effects” post, Dianelos sketched out an argument against naturalism and in support of theism, one which relied in part on the premise that naturalism forces us to accept certain extraordinary claims about electrons. Burk responded with the following dismissive comment: “I would be quite interested in how you deduce a personal god from the electron.”

Now in a sense, Dianelos had already offered just such a deduction in his prior comment. Whether that deduction is sound is another matter—and we can take Burk’s comment as, perhaps, a flippant way to ask Dianelos to elaborate on and defend certain key premises of the argument. Dianelos has since responded with a brief elaboration, one that presents his argument as a variant on the design argument—but an interesting variant that hasn’t been addressed to my knowledge in the philosophical literature (it’s neither the fine tuning argument nor an argument from the supposed irreducible complexity of specific organic systems).

Burk responds in turn with some of the standard complaints against design arguments—basically, “Just because science hasn’t explained a phenomenon yet doesn’t mean science can’t or won’t, and positing God explains nothing.” While there’s something to the first part of this retort (although there are complexities I won’t get into now), the second part misses Dianelos’s central thesis, which is that theism and atheism are holistic ontologies (that is, understandings of the nature of existence) rather than explanatory hypotheses in the scientific sense, and that locating scientific claims within the theistic ontology renders them less extraordinary than they are when located within the atheistic ontology. As I take it, Dianelos is thus not offering God as an alternative to scientific explanations but, rather, as a holistic framework within which all scientifically derived explanations are understood. As such, I don't think it's quite the same kind of design argument that we see in the ID community in relation to biological examples of so-called “irreducible complexity.”

But let me leave these general issues aside so we can lay out the argument at issue more formally (as a deductively valid argument for theism) and then zero in on the details (specifically identifying vulnerable premises and the controversies and conversations they might stimulate). I think doing so is worthwhile because I think it will raise some interesting points of discussion; and because it is a distinctive design argument worthy of fuller development (it not only involves some non-traditional indicators of design but has a form that’s a bit different from that of a conventional design argument).

So, while preserving Dianelos’s original language as much as is consonant with formalizing it as a deductively valid argument, here is my reproduction of The Argument from the Electron to God.

1. Theism is the doctrine that all existence ultimately rests on the presence and will of a personal being.
2. Atheism is the contrary doctrine that it is not the case that all existence ultimately rests on the presence and will of a personal being.
3. Hence, if atheism is false, theism is true (and vice versa) (from 1, 2)
4. If it is not the case that all existence ultimately rests on the presence and will of a personal being, then all existence is ultimately autonomous, purposeless, and of a mechanical nature.
5. Naturalism holds that all existence is ultimately autonomous, purposeless, and of a mechanical nature.
6. Hence, if atheism is true, naturalism is true. (from 2, 4, 5)
7. Scientific research supports the claim (E) that electrons, which are physical primitives with no access to some computing machinery, nevertheless behave in ways that are highly computationally complex.
8. On the presumption of naturalism, claim (E) is an extraordinary (highly implausible) claim.
9. Hence, if naturalism is true, we must accept extraordinary claims. (from 7,8)
[Note: Premise 7 is taken to be one example among many for which the same kind of sub-argument 7-9 can be generated}
10. Any ontology which requires one to accept extraordinary claims should be rejected unless those who would endorse it provide compelling reasons to accept its truth despite the extraordinary implications.
11. No naturalist has provided compelling reasons to accept the truth of naturalism.
12. Hence, naturalism should be rejected as false. (from 9-11)
13. Hence, atheism should be rejected as false (from 6, 12)
14. Hence, theism should be accepted as true. (from 3, 13)

Now as laid out, this argument is valid. The question, then, is whether we should accept the premises. Premises 1, 2, and 5 are definitions—and even if Dianelos’s definitions do not track onto all contemporary usage, that doesn’t change the outcome of the argument if all other premises are correct. In other words, we can treat these definitions as stipulative (that is, nothing substantive hinges on how well these definitions fit with ordinary usage). That leaves premises 4, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Should all of these premises be accepted?

Well, I don’t know quite what I think of 4, but I’ll let it pass. With respect to 7, there are really two claims: first, that electrons behave in computationally complex ways; second, that electrons do not have access to any computing mechanism. I really don’t know enough to assess the first of these claims, but I’m very curious about it and would like to hear more about what sorts of behaviors Dianelos takes to exemplify computational complexity. Educate me!

With respect to the second claim, I wonder if naturalists might not try to invoke recent quantum research (which I don’t really understand) suggesting the possibility of some mode of immediate communication across great distances. Could the possibility of such communication make it possible for isolated electrons to have some kind of access to a sophisticated computational machinery comprised of scattered basic particles forming an organized system through these non-spatial channels of communication? Possibly (I don’t know)—but even if this suggestion is plausible it probably wouldn’t deflect Dianelos’s argument—first, because communication of spatio-temporal objects in the absence of any spatial proximity or mechanistic mode of communication might be taken as another claim that is problematically extraordinary when located within a naturalistic ontology; second, because the suggestion begins to gravitate towards a kind of pantheism in which a “universal mind” emerging out of the non-spatial, non-mechanistically produced interconnection of the basic building blocks of the universe guides the behavior of the basic particles that make up the universe—which is so close to theism (albeit in a pantheistic variation) that I doubt atheists would find it a satisfactory escape hatch from Dianelos’s argument. But further discussion about this would intrigue me.

Premise 8 is the key “design premise.” That is, it is the premise which holds that what we observe is very implausible given an ontology in which the properties of existing things are ultimately explained by blind mechanism and chance (but not similarly implausible given an ontology in which the properties of existing things are ultimately explained by agency). The observational claim (E), again, is that electrons behave “in computationally complex ways” (some elaboration of this would be welcome) but that they do not have access to a computing machine (such as a brain).

I’d say that what is posited in (E) does seem pretty strange if there is no other possible guidance system for computationally complex behavior than a mechanistic computational system. If such a system is the only thing that can reliably guide computationally complex behavior (that is, if there are no immaterial minds or intelligences not rooted in the organized complexity of a mechanical system like an organic brain or synthetic computer), then (E) imples that there are these basic entities that behave in computationally complex ways for no reason at all. It’s just what they do—act as if they are guided by intelligence in the absence of any guiding intelligence. Put another way, (E) is highly implausible given naturalism. On theism, by contrast, (E) would not imply that basic entities behave as if they are guided by intelligence in the absence of intelligence, because theism posits that all existent things have the properties they have by virtue of an underlying intelligence. Hence, if (E) is true (which I’m in no position to assess), it follows that there is a fact about the universe that is extraordinary on the assumption of naturalism but not extraordinary on the assumption of theism.

There is, of course, more to be said here—about the basis on which we judge a proposition to be extraordinary or implausible. But let’s move on for the moment, since this issue will come back.

Premise 10 won’t do as stated, but has to be modified—an once modified appropriately, it calls for a modification in 11 in order to preserve its validity.

Why do I say this? Well, 10 says in effect that we should reject P if P has implausible implications and there is no case for P more compelling than P’s implications are implausible. But suppose it is the case that not only does P have such implications (without an outweighing justifying argument), but so does not-P. In that case, given 10, we’d have to reject both P and not-P. And so, under conceivable circumstances, 10 would require that we reject the law of excluded middle (which holds that, for any proposition P, either P or its negation, not-P, is true). And so I think 10 needs to be reformulated to say something along the following lines:

10*: Any ontology which requires one to accept extraordinary claims should be rejected unless either (a) there are reasons to accept the ontology that are at least as compelling as the indicated implications are implausible, OR (b) the rejection of the ontology requires one to accept claims that are just as implausible.

[Note that if (b) is the case, it doesn’t follow that one should accept the ontology in question, only that one is no longer called to reject it based on its extraordinary implications. If one is saddled with extraordinary implications whether one accepts or rejects an ontology, the fact that it has extraordinary implications ceases to be, by itself, a good reason to reject it.]

But if we replace 10 with 10* we can validly make the inference to 12 only if we replace 11 with the following:

11*: No naturalist has provided compelling reasons to accept to truth of naturalism and no one has shown that rejecting naturalism (in other words, accepting theism) requires one to accept claims that are just as implausible.

Now, once we modify the final premise of the argument in this way, what we open up are, I think, two very difficult philosophical research projects. The first calls for a careful critical examination of all arguments in favor of naturalism. And, as I’ve said countless times, we cannot establish naturalism through a simple exercise of the scientific method; so these arguments for naturalism will be essentially philosophical, appealing to something other than empirical evidence alone (although presumably making use of empirical evidence as part of a broader philosophical case). The second research project calls for an assessment of the implications of a theistic ontology (relative to the known features of the world) to determine whether any of its implications are as extraordinary as those of naturalism.

But here we again confront the challenge of the criteria we use to decide whether we take a claim to be extraordinary. Of course, many atheistic naturalists take theism as in some way intrinsically implausible in itself. They contemplate the idea of agency behind the universe and it just seems to them, in an immediate way, to be incredible. What are we to do with such anti-theistic intuitions?

One might dismiss them as irrelevant. In the case of (E), its implausibility is presumably a function of naturalism’s own standards of what is plausible or implausible. Since naturalism’s only explanation for computationally complex behavior is the guidance of an evolved computing machine of some sort, seeing the former without the latter is extraordinary by naturalism’s own standards. That is, Dianelos seeks to point to an implication of naturalism that a naturalist would find implausible looking at it from a naturalist perspective. Parity would require that, for theism to be viewed as comparably problematic, it have implications that are extraordinary by theism’s own standards.

But there is more to be said. Are the only standards by which we can assess the reasonableness of a claim internal to a given comprehensive worldview? Or are there standards that transcend worldviews? And if so, what are they?

Once we descend into these sorts of issues, we find ourselves quickly enmeshed in a range of ongoing philosophical debates. And since I’ve already gone on long enough, what I’ll say here is that there are highly intelligent, thoughtful, sincere, intellectually virtuous people who fall on different sides of the various implicated controversies. And this leads me back to my own default position—namely that, given the finite human intellectual position, reasonable people can disagree about whether there is a God.

19 comments:

  1. Hi, Eric-

    With all due respect, what you have done here is make a claim that there are things we don't know, thus belief in god is possible. Not that it is reasonable, nor that anything about electrons is evidence for such a belief by any way of deduction.

    Your acceptance of Dianelos's claim about electrons is unwarranted, since his claim fails the most elementary logic. Electrons behave in "highly computationally complex" ways- this is philosophically inert. All sorts of objects behave in complex ways. We also can not compute evolution, as it is full of complexity. Nor the weather. Whether the electron is "basic" is a matter of future physics to adjudicate, (it may be composed of strings or other whoosie-whatsits), and even so has no bearing on where its behavior might come from, as it doesn't for gluons, quarks, and the rest. We simply don't know the answer, describe them as well as we might.

    Complexity speaks to our understanding of things, not to them in themselves, as you are thoroughly aware. Our lack of an account does not (yet again) make reasonable a metatheory that, as you indicate, atheists regard as implausible, unfounded, and non-explanatory in the extreme. If such basic particles were simple, it is likely that you would turn around and take that as evidence for god, since god is simple.

    The basic issue is one of making positive vs negative claims. Naturalists accept lack of knowledge and mystery as our current lot in cosmological understanding. That is all. Theists propose an elastically ornate and unknown being to account for all this, which is all too clearly based on traditions that go right back to our most primitive superstitions. A gap of knowledge does not make such a god a "reasonable" belief. It makes it an unwarranted belief. If the hypothesis of god actually explained anything from properties that were securely known about it, then you would have a leg to stand on. But that is not the case.

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  2. "Your acceptance of Dianelos's claim about electrons is unwarranted."

    I haven't accepted it. Nor have I rejected it. I've identified it as an important premise of the argument which calls for further clarification and defense. I should hope that's clear in the original post.

    More broadly, my purpose in this post is not to "claim that there are things we don't know, so belief in god is possible." My purpose is to formalize the argument and raise an array of questions about the key premises in order to provide a frame for discussing the merits of the argument.

    Rereading my final paragraph gives me some sense of how and why you might misconstrue the post as you do in your opening sentence. It would have been better to put it as follows:

    "WERE all the other premises to be accepted so that all that remained at issue was 11*, we'd find ourselves in a place where a decision about the soundness of the argument would turn on deep philosophical disputes about which reasonable people disagree. In other words, some reasonable people would take one side on a cluster of questions which would lead them to endorse 11*, and others would take the other side, which would lead them to the rejection of 11*. And so, were it the case (which I'm in no position to say) that all the other premises are true, this argument would take us to the same conclusion I've reached in relation to other arguments--to wit, that reasonable people can disagree about its merits and hence about the support it lends to the conclusion."

    Most of what you say here targets what I call claim (E)--and I think this is precisely the place at which considerable discussion should be had.

    CONTINUED==>

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  3. But let me make a few more specific comments. First, you declare Dianelos's claim about electrons being computationally complex to be "philosophically inert" on the basis of the fact that "all sorts of objects behave in complex ways." But I'm sure Dianelos means to specify a certain KIND of complex behavior with his phrase "computationally complex."

    There is a broad meaning I could imagine being attached to such a term--roughly, "behavior of the sort that we would expect to see only if the behavior were directed by something capable of processing an array of inputs from the environment in order to calculate a behavioral output best suited in that environment for attaining a discernible end or goal" (for example, movement of pieces on a chessboard in accord with the game's rules and conducive to achieving checkmate given an opponent's moves).

    This kind of complexity is very different from the complexity of, say, the weather--and it is something in the ballpark of this sort of complexity that I take Dianelos to be attributing to electrons. Whether this attribution is appropriate is another matter entirely, about which I profess ignorance.

    Second, you say, "Complexity speaks to OUR understanding of things, not to them in themselves, as you are thoroughly aware." Is this right? When I say that my cell phone is more complex than a rock, am I merely talking about my understanding of the two objects and not attributing to the cell phone something that is true of the cell phone but not of the rock? If so, I'm not thoroughly aware of this.

    Finally, I have some sympathy for the following assertion: given that we haven't yet explained X within ontological framework O (where O renders X in need of explanation and allows explanations only of a certain kind Y), we are not thereby warranted in rejecting ontological framework O. But Dianelos's argument does not rely on this assertion, but on a more complex principle.

    Were I to attempt to state the principle as precisely as possible, it would be as follows: If a particular ontological framework O renders a large set of things in need of explanation, and allows explanations of only a certain kind Y, and Y is a kind of explanation that seems to be unavailable with respect to every member of the set; but there is an alternative ontological framework available within which each member of the set either needs no explanation or can be readily explained, then all else being equal the latter ontological framework is to be preferred.

    Now even if we attribute to Dianelos this latter principle, much work would need to be done in order to demonstrate that, all else being equal, a theistic ontology is preferable to an atheistic one relative to a set of unexplained phenomena. It would take even more work to show that a theistic ontology was preferable in all other relevant considerations taken into account. But let's not pretend that he is simply moving from "science hasn't explained it yet" to "we need to invoke God to explain it."

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  4. Eric,

    Thanks for the analysis; that’s very interesting. There is a lot I’d like to comment, but let me start with some specifics.

    About the claim that electrons behave in computationally complex ways: Quantum mechanics has greatly expanded the scope of the classical mechanics it substituted, but has also made calculations much more computationally complex. One reason is that in quantum mechanics classical attributes, such as “position”, are not directly computed. Rather only a probability distribution of the “position” attribute can be computed. So, in the case of an electron, given the initial parameters of an experiment, quantum mechanics does not say what the position of the electron will be at time t, but only with what probability we shall detect the presence of this electron in some particular position at time t, if we check there. And to compute that probability distribution, or even just the value of the distribution at a particular position, turns out to be highly computationally costly (it requires computing the solution of the so-called Schroedinger’s equation). “Computationally costly” is an objective measure, in the sense that in order to compute the probability of finding a particular electron at a particular position requires a lot of calculations, which are normally carried out by a computer. In this figure (see: http://img230.imageshack.us/i/rd2qa0.gif/) we see the probably distribution for the position attribute of an electron at three different times, in one of the simplest cases, namely the so-called double slit experiment. The intensity of the blue color represents the probability of finding the electron at the corresponding position. The complexity of the probability distribution after the electron has (in some sense) passed behind the slits give an idea of the complexity of the underlying calculations.

    As for the claim that an electron does not have access to a computing mechanism: The immediate communication across great distances you speak of is what “quantum non-locality” refers to. In some ways this matter exasperates the problem, because it implies that the electron must instantly “know” the physical state of the entire universe. Indeed there are cases where its behavior is greatly affected by what happens to another electron in the other corner of the universe. The idea you suggest in the sense that the whole universe is some kind of computer with non-spatial communication between its elements is a good one, but, again as you say, this describes the entire universe as being “a universal mind” which represents an even harder problem for naturalism, for it entails that the Big Bang would be such as to automatically produce such a universal mind.

    About premise (4), part of the argument is to show that atheism and naturalism refer to the same worldview. Incidentally this comports with Alvin Plantinga’s definition of naturalism, as the view that there is no such person as God. Indeed, given that nobody has ever suggested a coherent non-theistic non-naturalistic ontology, I think that’s a reasonable definition that comports well with common usage. In any case, one could simplify the argument in such a way that its conclusion is the falsity of naturalism rather than the falsity of atheism, so it’s not like an awful lot hangs on this premise.

    You write: “In the case of (E), its implausibility is presumably a function of naturalism’s own standards of what is plausible or implausible.

    That’s the key point. If there is any merit to this argument it rests on this matter. So, is the behavior of the electron extraordinary on naturalism? An analogy would be this: Electronic calculators too display computationally complex behavior (indeed that’s their reason of being). Imagine showing a working calculator to a naturalist and claiming that it has absolutely nothing inside; that it produced its complex behavior just like that. The naturalist would respond that this is quite impossible. Well, electrons, to the best of our scientific knowledge, do precisely that.
    [continued]

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  5. Eric,

    Some more general comments:

    I agree with your analysis that (10) and (11) should be changed to (10*) and (11*), which then moves the argument into philosophically deep waters. So perhaps the entire argument should be given in an evidential form. Let’s define that a claim is “objectively extraordinary” on some particular ontology when this claim is highly unexpected given this ontology’s own assumptions and epistemic standards. Then the evidential form of the argument would have the following kind of structure:

    1. Unexplained objectively extraordinary claims decrease the epistemic probability of an ontology.
    2. On naturalism electrons behave in an unexplained objectively extraordinary manner.
    3. Therefore, the behavior of electrons decreases the epistemic probability of naturalism.

    I think that premise (1) is an obviously reasonable epistemic principle, which especially naturalists (most of whom insist on Hume’s dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) will find difficult to argue against.

    As for premise (2), there are many other equivalent examples, and most of them come from modern science. Which allows one to generalize (3) thus: Therefore, modern science decreases the epistemic probability of naturalism.

    This evidential form also recognizes Burk’s objection in the sense that perhaps future science will falsify the (2)s. At the very least the theist can concede that such future development is possible, while pointing out that what science has been doing in the last 100 years or so is producing a long list of highly unexpected (2)s, and that therefore the theist is justified in inductively believing that this trend will not be reversed in the future. For example, as far as I understand it, it turns out that strings (which Burk calls upon as a possible solution) are even more computationally complex than the elementary particles of the current standard model. Moreover, the longer science keeps producing more (2)s, the less reasonable it becomes to expect or to hope that this trend will be reversed.

    Finally, I observe that a “hidden” premise this argument depends on is scientific realism. If electrons do not actually exist but are only abstract models which help us make predictions about observable phenomena, then the argument does not work. On the other hand it will be very hard to suggest a coherent naturalistic and non-realistic ontology, for if electrons do not exist then it becomes unclear what the existence of an apple refers to.

    Changing the subject a little. You write: “ what I’ll say here is that there are highly intelligent, thoughtful, sincere, intellectually virtuous people who fall on different sides of the various implicated controversies.

    I would agree more readily if you removed the “intellectually virtuous” clause, because I find that the more one studies and thinks about metaphysics the less viable naturalism becomes in comparison to theism, and, as I take it, “intellectual virtue” entails great dedication in matters of great intellectual import. From where I stand naturalism is suffering from an increasing number of unexpected conceptual problems (some but not all of which are produced by science) and I see no advancement in solving them. Theism, on the contrary, only suffers from the age old problem of evil (in some of its many forms) and, in my judgment at least, theology is producing a continuous, if slow, advance towards a solution. In other words I find that the epistemic warrant for naturalism is getting thinner, and for theism is getting stronger. More generally, if one compares theism and naturalism one to one under any reasonable criterion (including the all-important pragmatic or experiential criteria), I find that theism turns out to be stronger in each single case. So even though I would agree with John Hick that the world is religiously ambiguous, I don’t agree that the scales of ambiguity are found to be exactly balanced if one looks closely.

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  6. Burk,

    You write: “ A gap of knowledge does not make such a god a "reasonable" belief.

    True. On the other hand it’s not like science is only leaving smaller gaps for God to find a place to be, as many naturalists still believe. Rather both philosophy and modern science are producing an increasing number of unexpected gaps for naturalism, and to suffer from an increasing number of gaps certainly does not make a worldview more reasonable. Moreover, I would argue, naturalism’s gaps when put together produce a picture which is nicely God shaped. So naturalism’s gaps point at what is most basic in theism, such as consciousness, morality, freedom of will, significant responsibility, the difficulty of naturalistically interpreting scientific discoveries, etc. It is as if God made our experience of life and the reality it points to is such a way that even if one looks in the wrong direction with sufficient diligence one will not fail to find Him/Her.

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  7. I won't repeat myself, so I will let all these preceeding arguments go. But let me ask one thing. If god is such a well-shaped explanation for all the disparate mysteries of modern physics, then where does that leave us? What is the logical avenue for understanding and deepening this putative explanation? How do we learn more about it- its properties and causes?

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  8. Burk,

    You write: “ But let me ask one thing. If god is such a well-shaped explanation for all the disparate mysteries of modern physics, then where does that leave us?

    I am afraid you are conflating naturalism with science. I would invite you to re-read the previous posts, for nowhere does Eric or I claim that there modern physics suffers from mysteries. Physics is doing extremely well; it’s naturalism that is having trouble with what physics discovers. For example Quantum Mechanics is an enormously successful scientific theory for it models phenomena extremely well, which allows us to build powerful machines. It’s naturalism that has trouble interpreting what the theory says about reality, and hence all the talk about quantum “mystery”. Similarly it’s the naturalist who is troubled with quantum non-locality (which an incredulous Einstein called “spooky actions at a distance”). Science qua science has no trouble at all with the values of the fundamental constants, for they simply represent part of the order that science discovers. It’s naturalism that has the problem to deal with the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants for the evolution of complex life. In the context of the current discussion, the physicist does not care how the electron is capable of such a complex behavior; the problem is only naturalism’s. Indeed the physicist need not even care whether electrons actually exist or not; again this is only an assumption of naturalism. It goes without saying that the theistic scientist is only too happy to observe how all these scientific discoveries fit well with a theistic understanding of reality, and only create stresses for the naturalistic understanding.

    Previously you wrote: “ With all due respect, what you have done here is make a claim that there are things we don't know, thus belief in god is possible.

    On the contrary it is things we do know, namely the knowledge produced by the great scientific discoveries of the last 100 years, that make naturalism less tenable and thus belief in God more reasonable.

    In conclusion , naturalism suffers today from a double conundrum: First that the great advances of science are creating a lot of conceptual problems for it. And secondly, that science is not really working to solve these problems, simply because they are not science’s to solve. It’s only naturalistic scientists who are troubled, or are perhaps inspired by these problems to look for some development which would neutralize them. And that is why there are hardly any articles being published in scientific journals about the naturalistic interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. To put it crudely, a scientist does not get much financing for trying to solve naturalism’s problems.

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  9. Hi, Dianelos-

    I think you have evaded the question. Either that, or it makes no difference which ontological position one takes (outside psychology). If the hypothesis of god makes no difference to the physicists figuring how reality operates, then what good is it as an hypothesis? (Let alone being able to carry the weight of justifying whatever personal belief system you might have?) And if physicists, and science in general, don't care about the ontological basis of reality, then what possible difference could it make to the rest of us?

    Thus I do indeed conflate science with philosophy in this sense- that of all the thinkers grappling with the nature of reality, the cosmos, and its origin, scientists are far, far, far and away the only ones doing serious work. Everyone else is didling in their armchairs, reality and nature being coextensive as far as we know by way of evidence, i.e. natural signs such as the electron. If scientists have no need of a theistic hypothesis, but go merrily along with methodological naturalism, as you implicitly agree, then why indulge in ontological theism?

    If the electron is such a stark example of naturalism's failure and the success of theism, then one would expect some differentiation on the level of advanced theory. You can't have it both ways- either the electron is a problem that one treatment solves better than another (and thus leads to further research and understanding), or it is a brute fact that neither treatment yet resolves in a significant way. Theories must to have consequences, or they are pointless and useless. Or are all relevant consequences here confined to the comforts of personal religion rather than the rigors of cosmology?

    Here is a very nice discussion of the issue, from your perspective, ultimately. It makes the claim that "If some phenomena resist such explanation, and are forever objects of speculation, then there is evidence that naturalism is inadequate." I believe this follows your approach. But it also seems incorrect. If a phenomenon resists explanation, then we can be sure of nothing. Our capacities might be inadequate to figure it out, or it might be the work of a capricious demon, etc.. we just don't know. Such a position is insufficient to support alterntives to naturalism, though they don't, in fairness, support naturalism either. We don't by any cosmic rule under naturalism or theism have the necessary capacity to either abstractly conceive of everything, or operationally address all our theories experimentally/observationally.

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  10. Burk,

    You write: “If the hypothesis of god makes no difference to the physicists figuring how reality operates, then what good is it as an hypothesis?

    Phycisists’ job is *not* to figure how reality operates. Why not? Simply because the same physical phenomena that physicists study might be produced by many different realities (including, say, by Descartes’ evil demon, or by Nick Bostrom’s computer-simulation hypothesis, see http://www.simulation-argument.com). So physicists cannot possibly specify which of all these possible realities is the true one, because the data they operate with is insufficient for this task.

    Now the above may sound too abstract or too philosophical, but it came to pass that history demonstrated its truth: In the 1920s physicists managed to mathematically model quantum phenomena *without* visualizing what kind of reality produces them. When they tried to visualize what kind of reality that could be, at first (and for many years after) the only possibility they could visualize was one where consciousness is fundamental and physical parameters are contingent (see the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics). Such an ontology smacked of religion and was of course anathema to naturalists; Einstein who believed there must be something amiss with quantum mechanics asked other physicists whether they truly believed that the moon was not really there when nobody was looking, as the theory appeared to imply. Later several naturalistic interpretations were found, each with implications that go beyond implausible and are therefore little discussed in the popular press. So the single greatest scientific discovery of the last century, far from helping naturalists find out how reality is, has greatly confused them. Naturalists today do not agree even about the most basic parameters, such as whether reality is deterministic or not, whether causality only works forward in time or not, and even whether the universe stays put and not gets copied around without anybody noticing, as many naturalistic physicists actually believe. So much then for science describing how reality is. (A very good book to learn about these matters is Nick Herbert’s “Quantum Reality”. A more recent and easier book is Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner’s “Quantum Enigma".)

    As for your main question “If the God hypothesis makes no difference to physicists then what good is it as an hypothesis?”, I’d say that there is much more to life than discovering the mathematical patterns present in the physical phenomena we observe. Indeed the existence of consciousness itself makes no difference to physicists, yet we know it exists (indeed we can’t fail to note it exists) and it is of fundamental importance for us. Ethics is another field which is of critical importance and where science has nothing to say. Whether there is a deeper meaning to life is another. What beauty actually is, would be another. Finally the field of ontology, i.e. to think about how the reality which produces all of our experience of life (including our observation of physical phenomena) probably is, would be another important field. So there is a huge and marvelous field of thought which lies beyond the scientific field, and in which the hypothesis that reality is God-structured, or the alternative hypothesis that reality is just a big mechanism blindly churning away, makes a lot of difference.
    [continued]

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  11. Burk,

    You write: “ And if physicists, and science in general, don't care about the ontological basis of reality, then what possible difference could it make to the rest of us?

    The fact that natural science does not describe reality and can only indirectly help us find out how reality is (mainly by falsifying ontological hypotheses which would fail to produce the order of the physical phenomena that science discovers), does no mean that there are not other ways to reason about ontology. One possibility, for example, is to consider which ontological hypothesis better explains the success of science. Similarly, whether one believes that reality is theistic or else naturalistic, can strongly influence how one thinks and feels about ethics, about beauty, about oneself and other people, about tragedy, and so on. So, metaphysics makes a huge difference. From some point onwards metaphysical knowledge is much more relevant and useful than physical knowledge.

    You write: “ Here is a very nice discussion of the issue, from your perspective, ultimately.

    I have not yet read this, but thanks for pointing it out. In any case, I hope this time you’ll not feel that I am evading your questions.

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  12. Hi, Dianelos-

    Thanks for your extra comments- they are certainly more responsive. They cover two issues, first whether quantum mechanics really benefits from theistic ontological positions, and secondly, if scientists don't derive such benefits, do we in other ways?

    On the first point, I will study up a bit on the particulars, though the Bohm interpretation seems to be a very worthy and more consistent option, not dabbling in observer consciousness. But in very general terms, science has left common sense behind some time ago, so whether the world corresponds to our common sense, in terms of locality or other basic intuitions, is not really relevant. Theism could be as responsible for simple mechanisms as for complex ones, as could mechanistic origins, all of which are as yet shrouded in mystery.

    I seriously doubt that consciousness has anything to do with quantum mechanics- those theories are pretty much the definition of fringe science. (wiki). Consciousness is being studied quite successfully on the neurological level.

    At any rate, all you have pointed to are mysteries with the current state of quantum mechanics. Action at a distance, etc. might require 1E80 gods as well as one god (each with curiously mechanistic rules that it obeys without fail)- the evidence leaves one's theories radically open even were one to take deism seriously, with all the problems it in turn presents.

    On the second point, this is precisely what I was alluding to by the psychological status and purpose of theistic ontologies. If our investigations of physical reality (which underlies our being and consciousness) lead to radically open hypotheses about what might underlie it, no special reason to invoke deism (as far as I still see, pending study), and no distinct properties justifying traditional theisms at any rate, then the importance of beauty to us doesn't justify reinterpreting physics in order to create a theistic ontology of beauty. Especially not if evolution gives us a far more powerful account of beauty, which, after all, we share with the beautifully colored birds and other life forms.

    You are basically supporting Eric's position that the stories we make up about our world (when they are positive and hopeful) are more important than those we read from the world, and thus justify ontologies that pose as readings rather than creations, the better to propagate those supposed psychological goods.

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  13. Very interesting post. Is it just me or is the argument similar to the "Argument from Reason" which i think was articulated in some form by C.S. Lewis.

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  14. Burk, you write: "You are basically supporting Eric's position that the stories we make up about our world (when they are positive and hopeful) are more important than those we read from the world..."

    This is incorrect. We all "read" from the world. We then articulate our interpretations of what we "read." The question is why do we interpret or "read" the world differently.

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  15. Burk,

    You write: “Bohm interpretation seems to be a very worthy and more consistent option, not dabbling in observer consciousness.

    Bohm’s and Everett’s are the two interpretations which naturalistic physicists prefer. I tend to agree that they do not dabble in observer consciousness, even though there is some debate about this. (Bohm himself in his “The Undivided Universe” has a lot to say about consciousness.) In any case what is clear is this: In order to ontologically interpret quantum mechanics in a way in which consciousness does not appear to be primary, both Bohm and Everett had to posit the existence of a humongously large number of scientifically invisible existents, namely hidden variables in the case of Bohm, and hidden universes in the case of Everett. Similarly in order to respond to the apparent fine-tuning of the fundamental constants naturalists suggest the existence of parallel universes with different physics. I think it is remarkable and perhaps telling that in order to respond to the challenges that come from modern science naturalists find themselves having to suggest such over-the-top wildly excessive as well as empirically unfalsifiable hypotheses.

    I seriously doubt that consciousness has anything to do with quantum mechanics- those theories are pretty much the definition of fringe science.

    Given that many of the greatest physicists of the 20th century have long and arduously debated this very issue, it can hardly be the case that this issue is "fringe science".

    Consciousness is being studied quite successfully on the neurological level.

    Actually, that’s false. Nobody even knows how to scientifically detect whether consciousness is present or not, therefore the scientific study of consciousness does not exist.

    On the second point, this is precisely what I was alluding to by the psychological status and purpose of theistic ontologies.

    I am intrigued by this stand. It seems to me that all we are, and all our life, and all we value, is of a psychological nature, and thus that all knowledge cannot be divorced from psychology.

    Let me put it this way: Suppose you observe person A having a particular set of beliefs and person B having the opposite set of beliefs, and you notice that A is quite successful in her life and achieves what she desires, whereas B is not. Is there any sense in which one may argue that nonetheless B’s beliefs are closer to the truth than A’s? I mean at the end of the day the measure of truth can’t be other than the pragmatical success it engenders. This is a fundamental epistemic issue, indeed one which defines what “truth” means. From where I stand it seems to me that naturalists are in the unenviable position of having to defend the thesis that reality is such that the more truth you know about it the worse off you are.

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  16. Dianelos, you write: "From where I stand it seems to me that naturalists are in the unenviable position of having to defend the thesis that reality is such that the more truth you know about it the worse off you are."

    And this is especially true in the area of free-will and agency. The philosophical naturalist must posit a position that undermines his very asserting or propagation of that position. If one is not convinced he has arrived at a position by his own free judgment and choice, then why would he even assert that position? He may as well assert the opposite position.

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  17. Darrell,

    You write: “ And this is especially true in the area of free-will and agency. The philosophical naturalist must posit a position that undermines his very asserting or propagation of that position. If one is not convinced he has arrived at a position by his own free judgment and choice, then why would he even assert that position? He may as well assert the opposite position.

    I agree. Naturalism, understood as the idea that reality is ultimately mechanistic, is incompatible with libertarian free will, or “free will” for short. But denying the reality of free will makes a mockery of ethics, and of personal responsibility, and, as you say, of rationality (for rationality is the capacity to think well instead of badly), and, indeed, of our very experience of life.

    This insight is one of the reasons why for me naturalism is not even a viable ontology, never mind a probably true one. I really don’t know what it is like to be a human being and believe that free will does not exist. I have met naturalists who proclaim their belief that free will does not exist, but I am inclined to think they are not really meaning it. Perhaps they are conceptualizing some view of reality as an intellectual exercise without really supposing that they live in it. By the way, I think that this kind of in-the-third-person thinking about reality is not only found in the case of naturalism. I think that those theists who posit the existence of hell where people will live an unending life of suffering, are doing the same.

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  18. Hi, Guys-

    Firstly, the athesit posits a postion because it is true, not because she or he wants it to be true. In the case of free will, it just doesn't exist. Our psychology blinds us to our inner workings, so we have apparent free will. But look a bit deeper, and it all amounts to prior influences and structures expressing themselves, along with occasional reasoning, when it can be hear above the Freudian din.

    Speaking of reason, it is thus possible for the atheist to have moral postitions (along with a completely workable ontology generally) that draw on human desires- the source of all our morals- combined with some modicum of farsight and reasoning about how the best of our various conflicting desires can be reconciled for the most people.

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  19. As I see it, this argument is a non-starter for the same reason so many theistic proofs fail: it attempts to distinguish between two things that are not comparable. Naturalism bears the heavy burden of accounting for all cause and effect in the universe. Mr. Georgoudis’ argument has efficiently exported the cause out of the argument. No wonder naturalism looks ungainly. All the cogs and pistons and grease of the naturalistic truck are there to see while only the sleek body of the theistic roadster is on display. How many hamsters does it take to make that thing go?

    Arguing that the creator is “outside space and time” is going to take more justification than merely saying it is so. If the creator is the cause of all that is then it has bound itself to the cause and affect of its creation and can not simply bow out. In positing a creator, all the implausibilities from which Georgoudis’ would rescue the pitiable electron have been shifted to the electron’s creator, who has been conveniently placed off limits.

    This is what I think bothers many naturalistic atheists, the special pleading required to launch these kind of arguments for theism.

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