Jeffery Jay Lowder on Empirical Evidence

Jeffery Jay Lowder provided a list of empirical proofs. Let’s take a look at what this list consists of: From Secularoutpost, per Jeffery Jay Lowder:

"the following is evidence which favors metaphysical naturalism over theism.

• The existence of a physical universe
• The beginning of the universe with time, as opposed to in time.
• The scale of the universe
• The hostility of the universe to life
• All complex organisms are the more or less gradually modified descendants of a small number of simple unicellular organisms
• The most complex form of known life is human life (as opposed to something much more impressive).
• While the universe is saturated with visual beauty, it is not saturated with auditory, tactile, or other sensory beauty.
• Conscious states in general are dependent on the brain.
• The biological role (and moral randomness) of pain and pleasure
• Our world contains an abundance of tragedy.
• The variety and frequency of conditions that severely limit our freedom.
• The flourishing and languishing of sentient beings
• The self-centeredness and limited altruism of human beings
• Facts about the nature and distribution of religious experiences, such as: (1) many people never have religious experiences and those who do almost always have a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion; (2) the subjects of theistic experiences pursue a variety of radically different religious paths, none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others; and (3) victims of tragedy are rarely comforted by theistic experiences.
• Nonculpable nonbelief in God.
• So much of our universe is intelligible without any appeal to supernatural agency"

In order to assess these as empirical arguments which disprove categorically the nonexistence of deity, it is only necessary to ask for the experimental data for each item on the list, and to see if that data proves incorrigibly that a deity cannot exist. One quick way to do that is to take the title of each line item and add this statement to it: “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.

So Let’s do just that.

• The existence of a physical universe “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The beginning of the universe with time, as opposed to in time “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The scale of the universe “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The hostility of the universe to life “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• All complex organisms are the more or less gradually modified descendants of a small number of simple unicellular organisms “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The most complex form of known life is human life (as opposed to something much more impressive) “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• While the universe is saturated with visual beauty, it is not saturated with auditory, tactile, or other sensory beauty “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Conscious states in general are dependent on the brain. “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The biological role (and moral randomness) of pain and pleasure “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Our world contains an abundance of tragedy “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The variety and frequency of conditions that severely limit our freedom “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The flourishing and languishing of sentient beings “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• The self-centeredness and limited altruism of human beings “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Facts about the nature and distribution of religious experiences, such as: (1) many people never have religious experiences and those who do almost always have a prior belief in God or extensive exposure to a theistic religion; (2) the subjects of theistic experiences pursue a variety of radically different religious paths, none of which bears abundantly more moral fruit than all of the others; and (3) victims of tragedy are rarely comforted by theistic experiences. “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• Nonculpable nonbelief in God, “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.
• So much of our universe is intelligible without any appeal to supernatural agency “therefore there cannot exist a deity”.

Since metaphysical naturalism entails atheism, it follows that evidence for metaphysical naturalism is necessarily evidence for atheism.

Now we can more readily see that not a single line item is a defeater for the question being asked, which again is this:

“where is the material, empirical, falsifiable but not falsified, replicable and replicated, open data, peer reviewed undeniable evidence that there cannot exist a deity?” And no matter how the questions are answered, they do not select or differentiate atheism as truth, necessary or even contingent.

It is apparent that the concept of empirical evidence is different for JJ Lowder, in that it seems to refer to personal inferences which are taken from material situations, and even then not all of the claims even refer to actual material “things”. Perhaps this is a consequence of habitual inductive thinking; but the term "empirical" should ring a bell, one would think. Empiricism is the gold standard for material evidence. However, under mataphysical naturalism, who knows what the criteria might be, since they would likely be metaphysical? That renders them nonfalsifiable, empirically, though, and thus they can't actually qualify as knowlege.

The idea that subjective conclusions which are inferred from observations are conclusive, is incorrect.

Here is another comment I made on patheos/Lowder site, trying to get engagement on actual knowledge based input:

Here's the challenge to atheists: Rather than disproving disproof, as your approach has been, the more straightforward simple proof for atheism illuminates the problem for atheism:

When you can prove, conclusively, robustly, and incorrigibly that there positively is no deity in existence, cannot under any circumstance be a deity in existence, and have the material evidence for that, or even a disciplined, grouunded, deductive argument for that, then you have proven your case (atheism), and not until.

Further, when you can prove, conclusively, robustly, and incorrigibly that there positively is no non-material existence outside and beyond the capacity of material detection, and have the material evidence for that, or even a disciplined, grounded, deductive argument for that, then you have proven that case (materialism/physicalism as closed system), but not until.

Failure to provide these straightforward proofs would indicate that atheists and physicalists cannot have actual knowledge which supports their atheism and physicalism. Without that knowledge, atheism and physicalism are no more supported than mere fantasies.

Jeffery Jay Lowder did not respond, although a couple of his readers did, sort of, but not in the sense of providing what was requested.

Taking Awhile

Is Evolution True or Fact or Managed Supposition?
What started as an answer to an Atheist regarding the debunking of “evolution as Truth”, has exploded into a full blown article on “What Qualifies As Knowledge?” (working title only). I currently have it only a quarter done, but I promised it out too soon and the massive expansion from a single point (wait; that was the Big Bang)… ok the increase in density (no wait that’s looking backward into the Big Bang)….

It’s just taking longer than I thought. Here’s a contingent outline that might not apply at all:

What Can Be Known
Introduction

A. The use and misuse of Logic in Pursuit of Ideology
B. The Rational Necessity of Supporting One’s Worldview
C. Inability to Support One’s Worldview
D. Evidential Theory, primary.

Part I Induction As Knowledge

A. Empiricism as disciplined induction (w/deductive subcomponents)
B. Hypotheses vs Knowledge
C. Limits
D. Dependencies
E. Application to Evolution Arguments (and Atheism/Materialism)

Part II Deduction As Knowledge

A. Logic, a summary
B. Mathematics, an overview
C. Necessary Precursors to Empiricism
D. Deduction

(1) Deductive Formatting
(2) Grounding
(3) Reductio Ad Absurdum
(4) Probability

E. Applicability to Evolution Arguments (and Atheism/Materialism)

Part III Evidentiary Theory

A Types and Quality of Evidence

(a) Physical
(b) Inductive
(c) Deductive
(d) Historical/

(B) Evidence As Truth
(a) Kinds of Truth
(b) Incorrigibility

Part IV What Qualifies As Knowledge?

A. Subjectivity As Defeater Of Objectivity.
B. Is Materialism Knowledge?
C. Is Skepticism Knowledge?
D. Probability And Bayes’ Theorem

Part V. Is Evolution Knowledge?

A. What is actually knowable from the fossils.
B. What is Actually Knowable from DNA
C. What is Actually Knowable from Empirical Observation
D. Power of Predicition; Utility for Biological Research.
E. What is Disallowed Under The Ideology of Exclusivity of Materialism.
F. What Can Be Rationally Concluded Regarding Evolution?

Addendum:
Also a section called:

How Atheists make non-rational demands of theists' evidence, which they cannot in any manner produce in defense of their own beliefs (i.e., completely irrational).

Evidentialism according to Evid3nc3

A person self-appelled ”Evid3nc3”, has produced a video in which he purports to produce a logical path which shows definitively that the only justifiable beliefs are those possessing (a) personal experience for primary justification, and (b) physical evidence as a remote and suspect secondary justification.

In his first video, the author claims that there are no a priori truths which exist without a basis in the physical world. Yet he also claims that he subscribes to the Cogito of Descartes, which accepts his thought as adequate proof of his own existence, even without any physical basis due to being voluntarily disembodied at the point of discovery.

He proceeds by claiming five unjustified axioms, and promises to justify them, but does not get to that. He leaves the first video with that unresolved non-coherence, and several logical fallacies. But it is actually the second video which is more interesting, and there is where I will focus this article.

The second video is a response video. Apparently he got called out a lot on his logical failures, and the second video is intended to patch things up.

In the second video he attacks “coherentism”, specifically Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. He claims that all three can be made to appear internally consistent, yet they contradict each other, so internal coherence is insufficient. He invokes the “Isolation Objection”: Not all can be true. OK, everyone knows that. But that doesn’t mean that all three are false, of course. He cites this principle:

“Coherence is necessary but not sufficient for a justified belief.”

No problem there; there are several logical considerations to validation of deductive processes. Coherence is one of those.

He then claims that the idea of universal consistency, while based on physical evidence, is an assumption and not self-evident or a priori truth; this doesn’t seem to follow, and he offers no proof for this claim, but he concludes:

Rationalists are making “some assumptions” just like the author does.

Tu Quoque.

The he labels it “dangerous” to unconsciously make an assumption, than to consciously make one, as he did. He can return to his assumptions for validation later. Does he ever do that? Not that I have found.

His ideas of Evidentialism expressed in his first video are apparently accused of self-refutation, and internal inconsistency. In response, the author now claims that in his first video, he implicitly excluded his first five claims from the requirement of evidence. (He is now sliding down his own slippery slope.)

He now claims that the first two claims cannot be proved, which seems to correspond to his critic’s claims against him. (6:56)

[And he inexplicably says that the Cogito assumes an “I” which can think. But it does not do that, it purports to prove that I exist, by virtue of knowing that thinking exists. There is no reason to suppose that “I” precedes thought, under this analysis. And there is no apparent reason to make this claim.]

So his first five claims now “are provisional hypotheses” which are open to future refutation or revision.” (7:04)

But if these five hypotheses can’t be proven, evidentially, how will he prove evidentialism based on them? He starts by scrapping the last three of the five, and making this declaration as #3:

“Physical evidence is a valid way of justifying beliefs.”

Aside from the tacit admission that his first video was wrong in this regard, this is a huge jump to conclusion. He might have said, that physical evidence “might” be a valid way of justifying beliefs, but he actually argued against that in his first video, where he claimed that personal experience was the valid method of justifying beliefs, and that evidence obtained through the body's sensors can be suspect and error prone.

At (7:49) he elevates a new revision to a full argument status (what was it before?) and claims that it is:

“OK, because even Rationalists agree that physical evidence is a valid form of justification”.

Well, no. Physical Evidence might or might not be valid, depending upon how it is acquired and perceived. It might be fraudulent, It might be ephemeral, it might be garbled in acquisition, etc. as the author himself pointed out in his first video. His original claim was that only personal experience could justify beliefs. That was then.

His argument now is this:

“ALL justified beliefs are justified by physical evidence” (!) (7:49)

Really. He makes this universal rule in part justified by his evidentiarily unproven “hypotheses” and in part as a reaction to criticism from Rationalists. If this is a justified belief, then where is the physical evidence which covers “ALL” possible beliefs which might in fact be true? Where is the physical evidence to support this universal claim? Now a belief is justified because someone else believes it?

What he seems to be doing at this point is to create a definition of “justified” to suit his own personal taste. The term “justified” has no metric attached to it, so it is a good wiggle word to put into one’s truth statement if one needs room to squirm. And he no longer seems to care to use the term “true”, as in “justified true beliefs”. Maybe he is off into something else now. Let’s continue and see.

Next he attacks that idea that mathematics is truth without physical proof. (Note 1) The author claims that “sets” cannot be extracted from anything except physical evidence. He presents no proof that no other source is possible. He is making a habit of associating a single possibility with the impossibility of any other answer, and declaring his single possibility as the sole truth. Yet he provides no actual physical proof that no other reason could have occurred for comprehending mathematical concepts. His solution is truth by assuming, not by any sort of proof.

He goes off into set theory, which he applies to all sorts of mathematics. Mathematics is abstractions of abstractions of abstractions, all of which are based on sets, he says. Abstracting from physical evidence (which he claims as probable, but provides no actual physical evidence for support) all derives from the physical universe. So apparently he is designating the physical universe as his axiom upon which all mathematics is conceived, and therefore no mathematics outside the universe would be valid, while our mathematics is justified by set theory, which could not have happened purely mentally. Has he proven that? Or has he merely provided a Just So Story to explain and keep his mental process intact? Is it even feasible that mathematics is confined to our universe?

He has not provided any physical evidence that math was actually derived by set theorists, or physical evidence that counting and naming numbers was only possible with physical objects and not otherwise. Nor has he provided evidence that pure mathematics is not supported completely by abstract axioms. (Note 1, again).

He is providing Just So Stories without any physical evidence, a process which should be anathema to him since he now absolutely requires physical evidence in order to hold a justified belief.

At 11:40 he demonstrates that math is useful for physical things, such as engineering applications. We all know that. His point is what? He doesn’t make a point: he jumps away quickly to:

Logic:
The deductive process of Modus Ponens is claimed to be “ubiquitous” in physical experience: but did physical experience cause Logic? Or as Locke claimed, is logic and rational thought a built-in organic function, a human intellectual faculty, an innate ability to categorize and axiomize and abstract? Did humans create categories, or did categories create themselves for humans to discover? Does Non-Contradiction exist as a physical entity, or is it a relationship discovered analytically by human intellect?

The author claims that logic is an illusion of self-evidence, and that our use of logic now doesn’t require the knowledge that physical evidence was used in the creation of logic. His presumption that the creation of logic absolutely required physical evidence is now, for him, a law, a truth yet completely and totally without any physical evidence for its support.

At 13:10 he claims that presenting the logic (in symbol form no less) to children will prove that the process is not self-evident. This is particularly unconvincing. Children understand cause and effect and if/then quite well.

But do they understand based only on physical evidence? Can consequences not be understood without lining up objects, as the author wants us to believe? He provides no physical evidence that this claim must be the case; he merely assumes that it is true without physical evidence that it actually is.

Now he jumps clear to a purely embodied mind, after originally claiming that his existence was dependent only on his disembodied mind, in concert with Descartes’ claim and not dependent upon his body or any physical existence. This has now changed to a physical dependency without any explanation other than that it just seems obvious to him.

He has lost the integrity of whatever his argument is or might have become. He starts with disembodied mind, and now claims the necessity of embodied mind with no logical if/then steps in between to justify that, much less does he demonstrate with physical evidence that there can absolutely be no mind without the body.

He has fallen into the Philosophical Materialism trap of claiming physical truths with no hope of any physical evidence to prove his claims. The universal claims which he now makes without physical evidence are actually blatant presuppositions which are necessary beliefs acquired after having concluded that Philosophical Materialism must be defended.

He is no longer following an argument to its actual conclusion, he is forcing the conclusion by contradicting his own earlier claims, and by making claims that are unsupported by his own evidentiary requirements. He is rationalizing.

He goes on to pursue the Lakoff/Nunez concept (Note 2) that mathematics doesn’t exist except in human brains. (14:01) While it is abstracted from material evidence, only, it really only exists in the minds of humans. If this is confusing, consider the response to the Lakoff/Nunez theory from actual mathematicians.

Here he now contradicts his earlier insistence that all mathematics derives specifically from direct material evidence, as when objects are pushed together in his example. It was all justified by physical objects. Now he endorses the idea that mathematics is a purely mental construct with no material component, except at the very beginning, somehow.

He then claims that Rationalists will not teach anything but memorization of “truths” while evidentialists will give examples (the example the author gives is not a physical example, by the way).

This complaint is necessarily incorrect. Rationalists will be more likely to teach the logical derivation of concepts, starting with axioms. The fact that the concepts might be easily demonstrated with physical analogs does not mean that the concepts came from the analogs and are wholly dependent upon them. That presumption is not proven nor is it provable using physical evidence.

Then he attacks “bad teachers” and uses the teaching process as a guide to the historical physical source of logic, mathematics and justified beliefs. He attacks Rationalism in teaching as the use of pure memorization rather than physical examples. This seems completely unjustified, yet it is the basis for his claim that his future videos can show that learning requires physical evidence. Undoubtedly learning is aided by physical examples; but as actual mathematicians know, math is not dependent on them for its existence.

Rationalism, he claims is due to a laziness about abstractions, leaving the job half done, by labeling some of the abstractions as a priori truths, rather than having a physical basis. Perhaps he will now psychoanalyze Peano, Frege, and all the explorers and practitioners of pure mathematics who claim otherwise, to determine why they disagree, as he did with Descartes.

He proceeds with the following obvious cop out: The evidentialist will at least have the

“intellectual honesty to admit when the job of justification is not yet finished”.

Not finished? Or is it that it actually does not exist under Philosophical Materialism? This is another way of stating the basis for Scientism:

I have faith that all justification will be provided with physical evidence, even though it currently cannot be done.

It is a religious faith statement, and a pompous, self-righteous, accusation against Rationalism.

It seems that the author is not actually familiar with the history of mathematical development, including the axioms of Peano, and the definitions of Frege. (Note 1)

His philosophy is another run at Logical Positivism? No, it’s not, he says.
Really? Looks like, sounds like, has the same principles as… why is it not? He doesn’t say.

His actual response is this: Prove it: The Burden of Rebuttal suddenly exists! The accuser must prove that this is actually Logical Positivism. Well, if all the elements of Set A correspond with all the elements of Set B, then Set A = Set B.

For his next video he wants to apply the physical evidentiary requirement to God. A whole video based on Category Error? Hm.

Note 1:
Refer to Bertrand Russell’s “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy” and his “The Principles of Mathematics” as well as “A History of Mathematics”, by Carl B. Bover. It is recognized that numbers and subsequent math derived in prehistory with base 5 as long ago as 30,000 years. According to Bover, anthropological studies suggest that counting was developed as ordinals by religious considerations in relating creation stories and their sequences, not by the need to count stones, or objects.

But mathematics was “untethered” from sensory considerations by Peano’s axioms, and Frege’s principles of "number" upon which modern mathematics is based. Today mathematics is completely abstract and without any material, physical input, starting with its axioms as the basis.

Russell:
“Thanks to the progress of symbolic logic, especially as treated by Professor Peano, that part of Kantian philosophy is now capable of a final and irrevocable refutation. By the help of ten principles of deduction and ten other premisses of a general logical nature (e.g. “implication is a relation), all mathematics can be strictly and formally deduced; and all the entities tht occur in mathematics can be defined in terms of those that occur in the above twenty premisses.

…

“All propositions as to what actually exists, like the space we live in, belong to experimental or empirical science, not to mathematics; when they belong to applied mathematics, they arise from giving to one or more of the variables in a proposition of pure mathematics some constant value satisfying the hypothesis, and thus enabling us, for that value of the variable, actually to assert both hypothesis and consequent instead of merely asserting the implication.”

From Russell, “The Principles of Mathematics”,Merchant Books, 1903, pgs 4, 5.

Note 2:
Wiki has some objections to Lakoff/Nunez by actual mathematicians.

One observation was this:

"When Paul Dirac's equations describing electrons produced more than one solution, he surmised that nature must possess other particles, now known as antimatter. But scientists did not discover such particles until after Dirac's math told him they must exist. If math is a human invention, nature seems to know what was going to be invented."

Indeed, the math preceded the observation, not the other way around. That frequently is how scientific hypotheses work, with the physical experimental data confirming the mathematics, not generating it. Einstein's abstract thought experiment produced Relativity, and was confirmed much later by experimental observation.

Also, Lakoff/Nunez appear not to know much about the history of mathematics including pertinent junctures provided by Peano and others.

Lakoff and Nunez reply that Mathematicians who are not cognitive experts cannot discuss their approach to mathematics; Yet, neither Lakoff nor Nunez is a mathematician and still they pretend to understand the primitives of mathematics.

Fred on Details of The First Principles.

I apologize to Fred for the delay in answering his question concrning the Details of the First Principles; it is a timely question, so I will answer it in a post:

Fred:
”Stan, Thank you for the answers and clarifications. I appreciate your time. In the third-to-last paragraph of your answer (Materialists do in fact claim...) you state Materialists' adherence to Cause and Effect doesn't allow for any human agency which in turn doesn't allow for any "original" - uncaused - thought, since this requires agency. You then say that because of this, reason,... also cannot exist under naturalism. How do you draw this conclusion? Would not a Materialist say that reason does not have to be uncaused (original) for it to exist? Would not a materialist also state that even granting for the non-material transcendent nature of thought one cannot deny the chemical and cellular processes occurring in the material brain in tandem with these thoughts as evidenced by countless scientific experiments; many of which have demonstrated that human behavior (and therefore thoughts) can be altered as a result of material changes through various means to the brain?”

For Cause and Effect to be completely in control of every aspect of human thinking, every thought (which must be material itself) must have a direct physical cause and that cause must be an effect of a prior cause, clear back to the big bang. Now Cause and Effect is ruled by entropy, which means that every effect must be less than its cause, with at least a portion of the cause resulting in disorder such as heat. A relentless trek toward disorder is the fate of the physical universe, and this is a rule that allows no exceptions: there can exist no reversible machines in our physical universe.

The emergence of life is the first anentropic (non-entropic) event, and that has been followed by generations of further anentropic events, all constrained to living systems. The universal law of Cause and Effect fails to account for the increasing order that is found in living systems. So there is some attempt to claim that things like sentience and thought “emerge” from complex systems somehow, yet there is no explanation for why complex systems exist in an entropic universe in the first place.

Cause and Effect as well as the Second Law of Thermodynamics are universal and undeniably applicable to every and all physical systems… except living systems. But for Philosophical Materialism to be valid, everything that exists must exist physically and obey the laws of physics. This means that, given the conclusion first and trying to fit premises to it, all life must not be exceptional, all life must also fit into the rules of the physical universe, including Cause and Effect and Entropy.

Now if entropy dictates the degradation of effects within a long chain of causes, how might we account for sentience, thought and rationality? It has to be argued that a) these things are physical, and b) they are not exceptional, so that c) if they seem to be exceptional, that is an illusion or delusion. Even the self and consciousness as well as intentionality and agency are declared illusory or delusory. (If we believe an illusion it becomes a delusion).

Brain activity is given as definitive evidence of this delusion; moreover, damage to the brain shows that no mental activity can be correctly performed without a proper brain, with all segments hooked up and working together as shown under MRI. That physical hardware is exercising software of unknown origin escapes this description, which requires that a hardware brain be hardwired with physical connections, and that these connections fire just right somehow to perform a thought, the results of which are then transferred to the conscious mind – which is a delusion.

So it is the firing of the synapses that create the thought, and the thought is a transient state, existing only in time.

We are deluded into thinking that we somehow control these transient states, even creating sequences of them as would be required for critical thinking. There is no agency in the physical universe according to Philosophical Materialism. There is only response to stimulus (effect from a cause) and the response is lossy at that. So we are locked into our delusions.

I am not making this up, as ridiculously absurd as it appears. It is the necessity of a physical-only, material-only dogmatic philosophy that forces such absurd conclusions. Those who think that these positions are not absurd should pledge to abstain from using the results of intentional, conscious agency, including clothing, buildings of all types, transportation of all types, toilets, water and power utilities, and communications devices; these are concrete products of intentional agency. Denial of agency is dumfoundingly absurd. And so are the claims that we all live in a shared delusion.

The existence of the mind, rationality, agency and self requires a completely separate understanding of our existence within a physical universe. Our existence defies the natural laws, and requires a separate and extended view of reality beyond the Materialist viewpoint. The Materialist viewpoint is not sustainable even using its own standards of empirical knowledge: it cannot prove the limits it self-imposes on reality. But even more damaging is the boatload of absurdities that become necessary to believe, if Materialism is to be preserved.

“I suppose the question then is whether it is these material processes in the brain which are the material precursors to non-material thought, or vice versa? Or is it that the two are in a circular relationship where one causes the other and back and forth, back and forth, etc. Of course, a Materialist would give the "first/original" cause of all this as being purely material, the big bang. And a theist would give first cause as the "thought" or original act of creation of God. Is this not then an endless argument which can never be resolved since neither claim can be proven?”

The Atheist / Materialist claim can be proven false, due to the non-rational absurdities required for all humans to be living in a shared delusion. Theism is an understanding of a non-physical, non-material reality that presumes that, for one thing, a sentient being is required to create sentience in other objects such as humans. This cannot be proven empirically because it is not an empirical hypothesis, but it is not non-coherent nor is it paradoxical nor does it depend on mass or individual delusion.

"Of course, you rightly point out that because of this inability to prove their claims atheists cannot claim to be any more rational than deists. Is this the main, and only, point of your blog: to deny atheists the claim of rationality? Do you go on to make any arguments in favor of the claims of theists? (I suppose I could answer the last question myself by reading your posts further!) Best wishes.”

Please do feel free to read the posts, they are categorized by subject for your reading convenience. I do not indulge in theodicies because they are not proof of anything to the materialist mind. There are a great many theological sources but very few logical assaults on the Atheist worldview such as is done here. So that is the focus of this blog. However, I provide an insight into the study and use of real logic, and that can be used to find a coherent theology; that is a particular journey that I feel every seeker must make for himself, not one that I try to influence.

Again sorry for the delay in answering your question.

Visiting weareSMRT Again.

Again, welcome to folks who are referred here by the weareSMRT bulletin board. Since no one has chosen to challenge or otherwise engage me here on issues that are posted over there, I will go ahead and take the initiative by challenging one of their front page posts. I will restate the arguments into syllogisms or something close to syllogisms:

Five SMRT Reasons To Be An Atheist

1. “Contrary to popular belief, lack of evidence is proof of lack of existence.”

Consider this for a moment. The statement might be made clear as follows: There is no evidence for X, therefore there is no X. Now let’s substitute something for X, such as X-rays, for example, which had no evidence for millennia. Or radio frequency electromagnetic signals. Or a zillion other things, including sub-atomic particles, dark matter, planets around other stars, etc.

In the comment section the author defends the statement as probabilistic: an island with no visible residents can be said to be “probably uninhabited”. This is of course, far different from declaring that something in another dimension does not – in fact – exist. Or declaring that the entire universe has been searched for all time and space, and decisions made at each point. Nor does it defend against the allegations that certain physical irregular singularities within human history are attributable to deity intervention, by claiming to have resolved, empirically, each and every one. Both the defense and the argument itself are not robust and are false.

Even mature Atheists agree that a negative cannot be proven. That’s why they move to cover their tracks with the notion of having “no deity theory” as opposed to a “theory of no deity”. The unicorn / orbiting tea pot / flying spaghetti machine theories are superficial veneers for actual arguments; they fail at first investigation, because they are arguments created specifically as “proof of no deity”, which they cannot do as failed proof-of-negative analogs.

For example, the probability of “no orbiting tea pot” is far different from the probability of a First Cause, or the existence of other dimensions, or the connection between mind and matter that doesn’t seem to exist between matter and matter. The fallacy is the “Black and White Fallacy”, and the tactic is the “Red Herring Fallacy”, used to redirect an argument into false argumentation.

2. All gods are made up; therefore the Judeo-Christian deity is false.

This is a Genetic Fallacy, combined with a Guilt By Association fallacy. There is no attempt to prove that the allegation is specifically valid for the target; the target is lumped together (falsely associated with) other entities in order to discredit purely by the association.

As a logic syllogism, the premise fails due to lack of empirical evidence: even if most gods are made up it doesn’t prove that all gods are made up; so the conclusion cannot be valid, being based on a non-valid premise. This is a basic type of logic error: false premise.

3. Religions are absurd (silly). Evidence for this is a) transubstantiation, b) condemning homosexuality, but allowing servitude; therefore religion doesn’t make any sense.

The attack here is not on any deity nor is it a defense of Atheism, it is a) an attack upon an ecclesiastical quirk, and b) a politically correct moral take on biblical positions, one of which is true (homosexuality), and one of which misunderstands biblical servitude as being “slavery”, which it is not.

Let’s take a) the ecclesiastical position of transubstantiation. This is a belief of a subset of theists. It is a human creation, added to theism, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient for theism to be valid or for a deity to exist. As an attack on theism, then, it misses the mark completely. As evidence for No Deity, it doesn’t even qualify as a minor position of rational Atheists at all.

b) The bible is against homosexual conduct, but it is not “homophobic” (an erroneous term used to engender an aura of victimhood, which resonates in today’s Leftist lexicon). The biblical sodomites were not merely homosexual, they were rapists. The view of homosexuality as non-aberrational is a recently manufactured view (mid 1970's), promoted via costly PR campaigns that have painted it as something which it is not: wholesome and normal and without consequences. Recovered homosexuals testify to this quite well. Homosexuality as non-aberrational is a view that requires a non-traditional scientific viewpoint along with denial of real statistics of both rate of incidence, consequences, and rehabilitation capacity.

As for “servitude”, biblical servitude practiced by Hebrews was not slavery for the most part, it was indentured servitude, wherein a person repaid a debt by service to the debt holder; and every so often all the debtors were automatically released from servitude. Enemies of the Hebrews did take slaves. And yes, sometimes the Hebrews were ordered to slay their enemies and take some prisoners, with it not being clear whether they were servants or slaves. Whether or not this offends modern, relativist sensitivities, the practicality can’t be argued on Consequentialist grounds; so if this is truly part of the ethics of a deity, then the ethics of the deity involved is congruent with Atheist Consequentialism on this point. So if the deity approves it, the Hebrews approved it, and the Consequentialist Atheists approve it, there is no argument left. (Note 1)

4. Religions promote violence, therefore there is no deity.

This fails immediately since the conclusion does not follow from the premise, and of course the over-generalization in the premise is not true. Neither the followers of Buddha nor the words of Jesus promote violence. Probably not all the 300 million gods of Hinduism promote violence. Much of the Qu’ran does promote violence; but Islam is not “all religion”.

Yes, the Bible is against homosexuality… but as a practice, not as people. And as for Prop 8, the violence was waged by the angry homosexuals, including against old women, when the homosexuals didn’t get their way – not by the anti-Prop 8 crowd. And the vote was turned by majorities of Hispanics and blacks voting against it, a multi-ethnic rejection. But homosexual enthusiasts blame Mormons. In fact, the homosexuals would have rioted against secularists if the secularists had defeated the proposition; the anger was not religion based, it was a violent homosexual tantrum at not getting what they wanted, when they wanted it.

The reference to the violence of Islam is always a point in the favor of Christianity. The connection between the Left and Islam, and the Leftist hatred for Israel and the Leftist anti-Semitism is an indicator of the radicalism and fascism that exists in the Atheist, elitist Left, not in Christianity. (Want to discuss this?)

But of course, the ethical opposite of Christianity is Islam, yet the violence of Islam is used as a smear against all religions, which is the familiar Genetic and Guilt By Association Fallacy, as in item 2, above. Once again, a presupposed a priori disdain of ecclesiasticism (human institutions) is substituted as an argument against the existence of a deity / First Cause.

But again, the argument fails, since it fails to address the conditions of existence of a deity / First Cause. The conclusion does not follow from the premise, and the premise is not true of all states of religious existence.

5. Prayers don’t work. Test this by praying for something and see if you get it.

Prayer is intended to be a communication channel with the deity, not a magic vending machine. This is either an indication of massive ignorance on the writer’s part, or a deliberate deception being practiced on the unwary (and such a deception is practiced by some media "evangelists", contra the bible). Either way, it is false, and millions who do pray successfully and have attained such a relationship will attest to that, and are ignored here.

These reasons do not rise to arguments against the existence of a deity or the conditions surrounding that argument. More substantive arguments such as “who made God” and “the argument from evil” and even "evolution as proof of philosophical materialism", are ignored. But I will discuss these and any other “reasons”, just say the word (or ask a question).

Please feel free to question or discuss any part of this.

Note 1: Slavery in the USA was defended by the Democrat party, the party of Southern slaveholders. The Democrats continued to practice severe discrimination against blacks during the 100 years following the Civil War, via Jim Crow and Separate but Equal legislation. Civil Rights legislation was passed by Republicans with many Democrats opposing it. But the Left now claims it as their own, contra historical fact. The Left has always identified with tyrannical leaders and within its power, practiced tyrannical and victimological legislation here in the USA. Care to discuss this further?

The In Side of Evidence

I have written about the characteristics of evidence before. Evidence is the mantra of Atheists: “We must have evidence in order to believe a thing” (Bertrand Russell); and, “Proof! Proof! We must have proof!” (Thomas Edison). But never is there a discussion of how to determine what constitutes valid evidence, nor how evidence is to be gathered, judged and internalized.

In fact, Atheism is based on the repressive philosophical stance of total materialism, in a single, physical reality, a self-refuting position that is required for support. And Philosophical Materialism attempts to co-opt empirical science as its foundational principle, falsely implying that the voluntary materialism of empirical science translates to total materialism and a single, physical reality – a proposition easily refuted, and one never proposed by science.

When Atheists demand evidence, they mean physical evidence. If non-physical entities are claimed, Atheists demand physical evidence as proof. This is consistent with their repression of reality into a single, physical reality, and their misapprehension of the principles of science.

But this post is not about the characteristics of evidence.

This is about the other side of evidence, the evaluation of it. When we think of evidence, first of all we decide who or what to trust. Evidence must be trustworthy if it is to be held as credible. So now we will consider not “what can be trusted”, but ”how do we trust?”

Then what is “trust”? If we are to trust a piece of evidence or a source of evidence, we have to go through our discernment process.

Then what is “discernment”? Discernment[1] is an internal human faculty that first allows discrimination between data inputs and then allows judgment to be made on these discriminated inputs. These data inputs are restricted to sensory inputs only if the dogmatic worldview is Philosophical Materialism. But there is no rational reason to lock out non-sensory input from the discernment process.

If evidence is sensory, then all the questions surrounding the quality and reality of the sensory inputs come into play. These have been discussed in detail before, including the errors that are possible; the techniques, including the scientific method, for minimizing the potential errors; the problems of dogma and ego which sacrifice accuracy for agenda.

But there is another source which is non-sensory. It is intuitive, intellectual.

If the evidence is intellectual (non-sensory) then new questions arise. For example, how can these purely intellectual understandings be tested physically? How do they interact with the material world? How can I know if they are valid?

I can document my contact with the First Principles and my comprehension of the nature of those principles. But I cannot supply physical evidence for impartial testing. I can do the same with logic. I can do the same with math, especially higher math. [2] Nor can I share my actual experience of comprehension – the moment of understanding; I can relate that experience as an historical anecdote, but the personal nature of apprehending and comprehending – say math or logic, for example - means that it is up to each individual to capture the experience for himself. This is entirely different from physically existential experiences, which can be shared simultaneously, although viewed from separate personal viewpoints.

None of these entities, First Principles, logic, math, were discovered by examining the physical world. They were discovered by examining the non-physical, intellectual region of existence – a reality that is non-material.

How to deny this reality? Is there a rational way to deny this non-material reality without denying the source of rationality itself which is non-material? The only philosophers to deny non-material reality and its contents are those who devolved into Anti-Rational philosophies.

Even evolutionists and scientism-ists agree that logic exists, math exists. But then they must develop new denials, such as Dennett’s idea that consciousness is only an illusion, or Minsky's idea that the mind is merely a meat machine, and that free agency doesn’t exist – all attempts to kill the idea of dual realities. And all without a hint or jot of material evidence to support them.

So on what rational basis can the non-physical intellectual region of reality be denied? Here is their problem: Because that position involves denial of the reality space that contains rationality, no denial of the existence of non-physical reality can be rational.

Now an impertinent question: What is it that has NEVER BEEN WRONG? The laws of physics crumble in black holes. The laws of biology haven’t even been completely written yet, and the ones that have been are contradictory.[3] Clearly only the non-physical reality entities – the First Principles, logic, math – are universal, correct throughout space and time, have always been and always will be (in this universe) valid. And again they are understood to be so without the possibility of materialist, empirical testing.

To repeat a prior theme, if you don’t value Truth, then what is it that you value? In order to value a thing, that thing must be worth defending and defended: in this case defending the existence of non-material reality and the value of its entities is essential to rationality and a rational worldview. It is the use of these non-material entities that determines the true value of evidence, including both material and non-material evidence.

And this leads to the final magnificent question: what is the source of these perpetually valid axioms? Can we just a deny a source and move on? (Caution: inserting ego always corrupts an intellectual process). Are these coherent entities an accident? Should we give credibility to new fables such as multiverses and other untestable tales designed to refute a source?

It becomes clear that there is an undeniable liklihood that they do have a source, just as the universe has a source. And because we must and have restricted their validity to this universe, then they are probably epiphenomenal to the initiation of the universe.

So the material reality and the non-material reality were likely initiated simultaneously – gaseous mass and energy, time and space all in one reality, and valid, cognizable relationships in a second, co-reality.

And again, what is the source of these realities?

Let’s investigate some responses that are possible.

First: “There is no “proof”.
This always means material, empirical proof. And no, physical proof of non-physical axioms is not expected. And empirically, proof is never expected since every experiment provides only an instance of falsification or non-falsification.

[As a side issue, there is no material, experimental empirical “proof” of evolution, either; it is all conjecture, extrapolative inferences that do not, of necessity, follow categorically from the data. It is based on a random occurrence in minerals producing random life forms that ultimately produce intelligence randomly, non-purposefully.]

But back to Materialist proof of non-material entities: that requirement is a tactic used to identify science with a cult, the cult of pure Philosophical Materialism that dogmatically restricts all reality to material reality – which science does not do. Science voluntarily accepts material limits to its investigations, which cannot be applied to non-physical phenomena due to the measurements and replicability required by empirical investigation. Philosophical Materialism is a parasite on science – it is not science nor scientific.

Second: This is all inferential.
Yes it is; in fact it is intuitive and it survives both the process of discernment and the concept that a rational, coherent universe exists, based on rational principles. There is no rational way to exclude a purposeful creation without also excluding rationality itself, as Materialism does.

Third: This is just another God-dunnit.
It is actually the use of all possible reality information to base a rational conclusion on all evidence available. The charge of “God-dunnit” is a simplistic statement of refusal to acknowledge certain evidence because it is contrary to Philosophical Materialism. The refusal to acknowledge data is irrational and cultish.

Fourth: Science will prove you wrong
I will not hold my breath for the day that science changes its position on measuring the unmeasurable. Absolute belief in science for all answers to all realities is “scientism”: a sub-cult of Philosophical Materialism. It is based on incorrect “axioms” and is speculative in a highly credulous and dogmatic fashion, eschewing intellectual humility for arrogance and locked-down intellects. Science will never answer the question “How should we live?” through laboratory experimentation.

There is no rational way to deny that the source for rational thought exists in a non-material reality. Similarly there is no rational way to deny that the source of the dual realities was powerful and rational and purposeful.

But there also is no way to provide physical evidence of that which must be personally experienced intuitively to be known to be valid.

Seeking a personal experience then, makes more sense than seeking physical evidence.


[1] A more complete description of the process of discernment includes apprehension, comparison, differentiation, judgment, comprehension.

[2] Higher math is abstract; e.g. integral calculus involves an infinite number of zero-size differentials.

[3] This lemur is mottled to “camouflage it from predators”: that lemur is brilliant solid gold to “stand out in the forest and attract mates”. An actual claim on PBS, 10-5-09.

Doonesbury vs. Reason

In our newspaper the Leftist cartoon, Doonesbury, is placed in the comics section along with the “funnies”. Doonesbury is never funny of course, because it is always very busy lobbing ad Hominems at everything that is non-Left. This week’s D’bury is somewhat of a classic. So if you missed it, I’ll give the gist of it here.

The scene is a radio station program room with two characters, the radio program host, and the guest.

Host: We’re still talking to conspiratologist Page Griffin about American gullibility…

Guest: It’s quite remarkable, Mark…

Americans believe in many things that can’t be verified. For instance, almost half of us believe in ghosts and 40% in alien abductions.

And that availability to alternative reality is reflected in conspiracy theory, from Truthism, which holds that Bush was behind 9/11, to Birthism.

And, of course, we still have many legacy fringe groups like the JFK Grassy Knollers, the Staged Moonlanders, etc.

Host: Professor, is there any counter to these powerful theorists?

Guest: Not really Mark. Only the Reasonists.

Host: Reasonists?

Guest: They believe in an evidence-based world, something called rationalism. But it’s a tiny group, not so influential.

The Left always claims rationalism for their own, but what they use is much closer to the Romanticism of Rousseau, the antithesis of rationalism. The Left's anti-rational arguments are devised in an attempt to be deceptive to the partially educated and seductive to the uneducated.

The idea that demanding to see existing evidence which is being deliberately withheld is conspiracy theory, is ludicrous. So “birthism” is buried in fallacious conjunction with actual illegitimate conspiracy theories to paint it guilty by association, a common informal logical fallacy.

The overall effect is cynical as well as anti-rational, indicating the underlying Leftist belief that Americans are not just ignorant, they are too stupid to differentiate between actual, reasonable rationalism and blatantly false accusations.

This is also the tenor of the national debate on socialism. When there is any evidence to consider, it is ignored in favor of self-righteous proclamations of moral imperative – based on false data. Evidence such as the failures of Canadian, British, and French government health systems; evidence such as the federal inability to properly manage healthcare in existing systems such as Medicare, Medicaid, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Veteran’s health care; evidence such as the congressional OMB reports that disclose the inability of the nation to pay for such systems; evidence that the uninsured population isn’t 45 million, it is less than 5 million; evidence that most Americans don’t think that health care really is a huge crisis and that congress is running amok with no countervailing force to stop it.

There’s plenty of evidence, but that is not what is being discussed; what is being sold to Americans is moral, the morals decreed by the self-anointed “partner of God”.

I predict that desperate moral imperative is what will be the selling point of the upcoming Obama speech to congress, and that whatever evidence is discussed, if any, will be suspect, at best. We’ll see.

The Scientific Method

When discussing science, it is apparent that most people have a concept of what science entails, yet when pushing into it a short way, it is also apparent that the concepts of science and the methods of science are variable and even at variance with each other.

As with all discussions it is useful to define the terminology at the outset, so that the discussion means the same thing to all the participants. The underpinnings of science are philosophical and can get to be partisan to various groups of philosophers. That is of little concern to scientists for the most part. Still, even amongst the science community there is variability as is seen in various text books that try to define science for the benefit of student readers.

Some of the more disingenuous definitions are these flip statements that I have actually seen published:

“Science is that which the majority of scientists say it is.”

“Science is whatever scientists do.”

Besides not being useful these statements obscure the fact that methods really are important to science and scientists. One of the best definitions is the one that Karl Popper develops in the first several chapters of his book, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”. I’ll try to summarize without prejudicing his concept:

The scientific method is more than just inductive gathering of instances of a fact followed by an inference of natural law from those instances (forensics): there is a “problem of induction” to be considered shortly.

Verification science, or empiricism, has the following preliminary elements according to Popper: First, check the internal consistency of the proposal to be tested; second, test for the character of the proposal, whether it is empirically qualified or if it is tautological or other non-qualified nature; third, compare with other theories to determine if it would actually provide a scientific advancement; finally, test the theory by way of empirical applications of the conclusions which can be derived from it (deduction of consequences).

These preliminaries fit into an overall empirical scheme that might be described as follows, going beyond Popper's preliminaries:

a) speculation and coherence check, possibly with inductive input, resulting in the formulation of a proposed hypothesis;

b) deductive experimental design and implementation;

c) data analysis and congruity check against hypothesis expectations;

d) adjust hypothesis and experimental design, and repeat.

Also, Popper insisted that it is necessary that falsification of the hypothesis be possible. Falsification is the most necessary criteria, according to Popper, because it allows the demarcation “between physical science and metaphysical speculation”. Any concept that cannot be falsified is not verifiable with physical techniques, and is outside the realm of materialist science. As Popper says, “it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience”.

Experiments and the replication of experiments cannot provide verification, it only provides instances of non-falsification. This is because singular statements cannot accumulate sufficiently to provide a universal statement (law). This is a failure of induction, where instance cannot prove the truth of the entirety. The exception to this is falsification where a singular statement deductively indicates falseness, which according to the principle of the excluded middle prevents the statement from being true.

Popper takes the following position on induction:

“Now in my view there is no such thing as induction. Thus inference to theories, from singular statements which are ‘verified by experience’ (whatever that may mean), is logically inadmissible.”

This position is essentially fatal to forensic inferential extrapolations such as those in evolutionary theory.

The problem of induction.
Induction has been addressed by a great many philosophers of science, from Hume on. There are several objections to induction.

First, there is the problem of verifying induction itself. If induction is a valid process for producing valid results, it should be able to verify itself. But it can’t verify itself if it is not known to be valid in advance. Further, if the principle of induction is taken as a universal, then the idea of validating the validator becomes an infinite regress, never resolving to a verification at any level. So the principle of induction cannot be verified, and cannot be a universal.

Next, according to Schlick (per Popper), “The problem of induction consists in asking for a logical justification of universal statements about reality… we recognize, with Hume, that there is no such logical justification: there can be none, simply because they are not genuine statements.” Hume had said that no amount of “constant conjunction” between events could ever prove the conjunction to be a universal (or law). For instance, if every object we encounter is red, it does not follow that the next object we encounter should be red. As Popper shows, the probability does not approach 1 without becoming a tautology.

Popper takes this one step more. Because induction cannot provide a demarcation between scientific and metaphysical systems, then statements about both systems are meaningless (being undifferentiable as well as non-falsifiable); thus while attempting to eliminate metaphysics from the empirical sciences, metaphysics is allowed (by induction) to invade the scientific realm, producing a contradictory or paradoxical result.

The Problem of Empiricism
Because in experimental science a single successful experiment provides a only a single instance of non-falsification, the need for more instances (replications) exists; this is an inductive accumulation, so the problem of inductive non-verifiability also applies. For this reason even empiricism cannot ever produce incorrigible, incontrovertible, noncontingent proof, in the sense of Truth. Truth is an object in metaphysics, and only metaphysics, never in science.

But empiricism also cannot verify “experiential” or “existential” statements. This is shown by the statement, “there are no white ravens”. No amount of either induction or deductive experimentation can bring a conclusive answer to such an assertion.

Axiomatic Limitations
1. As Hume demonstrates, it is not possible to “demonstrate that the course of nature must continue uniformly the same… Nay, I will go farther, and assert that he could not so much as prove by any probable arguments that the future must be conformable to the past. All probable arguments are built on the supposition that there is conformity betwixt the future and the past, and therefore can never prove it”. (Hume; A Treatise of Human Nature)

For this reason is it axiomatic for science to presume conformity of the past within itself, and between the past and the future.

There are presumed to be no singularities, ever, that are variations in the physical laws. Since this cannot be proved, it is accepted as axiomatic.


2. Notwithstanding Hume’s denial of “constant conjunction” verifiability, the principle of cause and effect is accepted as axiomatic.

3. All the first principles of logic are accepted as axiomatic.

So the scientific method, even if restricted to experimental empiricism, is limited to physical objects that are measurable in the sense that they possess mass/energy and exist in space/time. The scientific method is limited by its inability to prove its basic assumptions (axioms) and is not axiomatic itself, and is not itself a universal. The scientific method cannot provide or argue for or against Truth, because Truth is a metaphysic and is outside the realm of the physical. The scientific method cannot prove existential statements, because of the limitations of the inductive method, inherent even in empiricism.

Commentaries on the Scientific Method
The following comments on the subject of the scientific method and the scientific attitude are taken from known, accomplished and respected scientists.

From Albert Einstein:

“For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capable, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic effort of man in the sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations. Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source. And it is hardly necessary to argue for the view that our existence and our activity acquire meaning only by the setting up of such a goal and of corresponding values. The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration towards that very knowledge of truth. Here we face, therefore the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence.”

“But it must not be assumed that intelligent thinking can play no part in the formation of the goal and of ethical judgments. When someone realizes that for the achievement of an end certain means would be useful, the means itself thereby becomes and end. Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence. They come into being not through demonstration but through revelation, through the medium of powerful personalities. One must not attempt to justify them, but rather to sense their nature simply and clearly.“ The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition.”

Albert Einstein; “Out Of My Later Years”; Wing Books, Random House; copyright 1956, written in 1950, revised in 1956; pg 20,21.

Also from Einstein:
“The supreme task of the physicist is to search for those highly universal laws…from which a picture of the world can be obtained by pure deduction. There is no logical path leading to these…laws. They can only be reached by intuition, based upon something like an intellectual love of the objects of experience.”
Albert Einstein; speech on the 60th birthday of Max Plank, 1918; from “The World As I See It”, 1935.


Attributed to Feynman:

“It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
-----
“Remember: In science, we don't prove things true, we show them to be not false. Same thing? Not hardly. For a complete discussion on the topic, read the Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper. However what it comes down to is you do not do a test, and then prove a theory true. That can't be done. What you do is come up with a way to falsify your theory, that is to say you come up with a test that says "If things don't come out this way, we know this theory is wrong." You run the test, things come out that way. You have failed to falsify the theory, and we are now more certain it is true. The more than is done, the more certain we are a theory is correct. Each time we attempt to falsify the theory and fail, we are more sure it must be the truth.

“If we do then falsify it, the theory has to be redone. That doesn't mean you toss the whole thing out, it may just mean some refinement is needed. For example you have a theory that predicts when X happens Y will results. In 400 tests, this is the case, however 3 new tests show it isn't. What you discover is that in all those tests, A was also present. You the refine your theory: Y will result from X, except in cases where A is present. Your theory is now a little more narrow in application, and fits with the evidence. Perhaps later you find out what A does, and incorporate that in to a more general theory.

“The point of all this is that real science is all about trying to prove your theory wrong. You do everything you can to prove it wrong, then have other people do what they can to prove it wrong. When all of you fail at doing that, when the theory has been refined such that it fits all the evidence and you can't figure out how else to test it, then it is most likely the truth. THAT is what scientific rigor is about. It isn't about coming up with a theory, ignoring data you don't like, showing it to a few people who agree with you, and saying "Ok, we proved this true and nobody else can look at it."


And, from Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science”:

“That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying
science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just
hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific
investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now
and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity,
a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of
utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about
it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and
things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other
experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can
tell they have been eliminated.

“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know
anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you
make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then
you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well
as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem.
When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate
theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that
those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea
for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else
come out right, in addition.

“In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to
help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the
information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or
another.

“The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for
example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil
doesn't soak through food. Well, that's true. It's not dishonest;
but the thing I'm talking about is not just a matter of not being
dishonest, it's a matter of scientific integrity, which is another
level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement
is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain
temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will--
including Wesson oil. So it's the implication which has been
conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what
we have to deal with.

“We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other
experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you
were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll
disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some
temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation
as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind
of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to
fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the
research in cargo cult science.

“A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of
the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the
subject. Nevertheless it should be remarked that this is not the
only difficulty. That's why the planes didn't land--but they don't
land.

Feynman: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm



From Karl Popper’s “Logic of Scientific Discovery”:

“The old scientific ideal of episteme - of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge – has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative forever. It may indeed be corroborated, but every corroboration is relative to other statements which, again, are tentative. Only in our subjective experiences of conviction, in our subjective faith, can we be ‘absolutely certain’.

“With the idol of certainty (including that of degrees of imperfect certainty or probability) there falls one of the defences of obscurantism which bar the way for scientific advance. For the worship of this idol hampers not only the boldness of our questions, but also the rigour and the integrity of our tests. The wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right; for it is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

“Has our attitude, then, to be one of resignation? Have we to say that science can fulfil only its biological task; that it can, at best, merely prove its mettle in practical applications which may corroborate it? I do not think so. Science never pursues the illusory aim of making its answers final, or even probable. Its advance is, rather, towards an infinite yet attainable aim: that of ever discovering new, deeper, and more general problems, and of subjection our ever tentative answers to ever renewed and ever more rigorous tests.

Popper, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, 1935, 2002, Routledge, p 280. [emphasis added]

The Fulcrum of Thought

The question of an unseeable existence is a hard nut to chew for Philosophical Materialists. The idea of basic axioms, unprovable yet necessary, non-physical yet existing, cannot be allowed within a purely physical domain.

Yet rational thought cannot exist without such axioms as its basis. All rational thought is traceable back to axioms which are necessary if the thought is going to be considered true. These are first principles. Thought has no leverage without the fulcrum of the first principles. The fulcrum must be separate from the force of the argument, and must be stable, unmoving and unmovable.

This is the reason that relativism in thought is without any rational value. The lever of thought has nothing against which to assert its force; the result is randomness, meaninglessness. If there is no stable reference, no fulcrum, the lever arm spins circularly.

In an article for the NYT, Stanley Fish takes on this issue, not in terms of leverage but in terms of relativism that derives from and/or causes non-rational conclusions. His argument is different from one I would make, and that is what makes it interesting. I do think he could make it easier if he would differentiate the types of evidence that could be separated out: physical material evidence which is observationally irrefutable within the constraints of the current state of empiricism; and non-material evidence which is only available by introspection of the personal intuition (and the basis for intuition) that is available to every human.

Of course, many Materialists deny the existence of intuition, by using their intuition to frame their doubt as natural law. They might have been convicted of their Materialism by their intuition that evolution is the fulcrum of thought, not the first principles. But by replacing the first principles, they adopt an empirically unproven, inferred premise as the sole support for their thoughts. If evolution is inferred - only - then what sort of fulcrum does it provide for futher thought?

Fish’s article is worth the read and the contemplation it might induce. But be careful; contemplation might induce a bit of intuition that you might have to deny.

Denying the Self

Massimo Pigliucci is a triple PhD who is both an evolutionary biologist and now an historian of science. Massimo is a staunch defender of evolution, a member of the Altenberg 16 at the forefront of new evolutionary thought, and a Materialist / Atheist activist. I sometimes go to Massimo’s blog, and I find it to be a measured, calm delineation of Materialist thought – as compared to PZ Meyers or any of the New Atheists.

Excerpted from a recent blog at Massimo’s place:

“A study published in the 13 February 2009 issue of Science magazine by H. Takahashi and collaborators has investigated what happens in the brain when we experience those socially triggered feelings of envy or self-satisfaction. The results are rather stunning, if perfectly logical in hindsight: the researchers found that the same neural circuitry that is involved in the generation of physical pain and pleasure is also in charge of generating the analogous reactions in response to apparently more abstract situations. For instance, people experiencing envy because of another's success activate the pain circuitry of their brains, and when that person is befallen by misfortune, the reward neurocircuitry is activated because we feel delighted. On the more positive side, making a donation to a charity not only stimulates the reward system, but it does so more intensely than when we receive money ourselves.

Biologically this makes sense because the human species' survival and reproduction -- those golden standards of evolution -- depend as much on social interactions as on interactions with the physical environment.”

Massimo has previously denied the existence of anything like a “life essence” and he has continually taken the position that brain scans prove there is nothing more in the brain than localized voltage activity during a perception. For example, the perception of “red” is merely a collection of voltage activity in a certain local area of the brain, and that, coupled with our knowledge that “red” is a certain wavelength of light that impinges upon neurons in the eye, fully explains everything about “red”. Presumably there is a gland somewhere that contains the experience of “red” that is triggered. In the case of logic, a “logic gland”? The train of thought stops there…forcibly if necessary. (Except for rather gratuitous references to evolutionary inferences).

The hard problem of monism is to explain away the difference between neural voltage activity and personal subjective experience. So it is easier to deny that personal subjective experience even exists, and that is what monists do.

At Neuralogica blog, Materialist Steven Novella defends monism:

The materialist hypothesis - that the brain causes consciousness - has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated. Every single question that can be answered scientifically - with observation and evidence - that takes the form: “If the brain causes the mind then…” has been resolved in favor of that hypothesis.

For example, if the brain causes the mind then: there will be no documented mental function in the absence of brain function; altering the brain biologically will alter the mind functionally; mental development will correlate with brain development; and mental activity will correlate with brain activity (this holds up no matter what method we use to look at brain activity - EEG to look at electrical activity, PET scanning to look at metabolic activity, SPECT scanning to look at blood flow, and functional MRI to look at metabolic and neuronal activity).

This evidence cannot be dismissed as the “easy problem” nor as mere correlation. Brain function correlates with the mind in every way we would predict from the hypothesis that the brain causes the mind. From a scientific point of view, the mind is a manifestation of the brain.

As I have discussed previously, one way to dodge the obvious conclusion from this evidence is to confuse the question of how the brain causes the mind with the question of does the brain cause the mind. We certainly have much to learn about exactly how the brain functions to produce all mental phenomena, but this in no way diminishes the fact that the question of whether or not the brain causes the mind is settled - it does.

Novella dodges the hard problem with four points: first, scanning finds all that there is to find; second there is no part of the mind that is not predicted from scans; third, there is no hard problem; fourth, the matter is settled.

By claiming to predict the mind, Novella is playing a word game. Nothing about the brain predicts a mind; certain features known of the existing mind are being “explained” by Novella, not predicted. Imagine an alien finding only a sleeping person. Equipped with all the material technology imaginable, he measures neural electrochemical currents and voltage differentials in the humans head. From this he predicts that the human… has a mind? Is rational? Experiences? Of course not.

Novella’s predictions are retroactive explanation attempts based on the prior knowledge that there IS a mind that needs to be explained. And in the process he ignores the issue of experience, the hard problem, very likely because he can neither predict nor explain it.

Neural voltage activity is rationalized by Materialists into some sort of magical, or delusion of, experiential self. This is accomplished by referring to the logic circuitry now known to be embedded within, not only in the neural relationships, but within neurons themselves. The fact of the existence of that electrochemical circuitry is inferred to obviate the need for a separate mind to perform logical functions - and by unstated extension, corresponding experiences. Voltage differentials resulting in electrochemical currents in and between neurons ARE the mind: they are one and the same, identical, according to monists. But physically, materially, all that has changed with changing voltages in the brain and its logic circuitry is the routing of electrical activity around the neural network. Physically the mind doesn’t physically exist; voltages and secretions physically exist.

When Massimo denies perception as different from neural voltage/secretional activities, we are left with no reason to think there to be anything to his ideas other than voltage differentials. If the mind is only the brain, why should the mind perceive anything that is not the brain, such as physical phenomena like voltage or secretions? If the mind is the brain, then a slew of voltage readings would be the expected result of neural voltage activity; enhanced or depleted physical responses should result from changes in organc secretions. What is there to give those voltage differentials “meaning”? What is there to give the secretions “consciousness” or “rationality” or “will”? Presumably Massimo assumes his ideas to have meaning. Presumably he had the free will to make his case.

For Philosophical Materialists, the need to stop the train (of thought) at the point of neural voltage activity in the brain is driven by the total inability to explain the next step: consciousness; and the step after that: rationality. Why these should be derived from voltage activity is inexplicable. Moreover these are not predictable from the existence of a gaggle of neuronic activity.

If voltage activity in a certain lobe is thought to trigger an experience, all that could be triggered in the material brain is: more voltage differentials. So the experience of “red” is just voltage; the experience of "logic" is just voltage; the experience of "self" is just voltage. There is nothing to cause a transition to anything else, because there is nothing else to be detected in the brain but neural paths and voltage differentials.

So “justice” is just a neural electrochemical pathway, as are “human rights”, “self restraint”, “discipline”, “meaning”, “love”, etc. And so are “consciousness” and “rationality”. Or maybe they are secretions from, say, the “meaning gland”? The reductionism is apparent and is forced.

Presumably one must be conscious in order to apprehend Massimo’s words. Presumably one must be rational in order to appreciate Massimo’s logic.
And presumably Massimo thinks his writings have “meaning”.

Massimo and the monists are stuck at the voltage level in their theory of monism, due to the necessity of NOT having a mind, just a brain. So if monism is true, there is no reason to either predict or to believe that there is any ability to appreciate, to experience, to take joy in the knowledge of, monism.

Is monism axiomatic, as Novella insists? It is counterintuitive to say the least. Axioms are at least intuitive. So monism must be proved and must conform to rules of logic in order to be thought a coherent theory. The idea that it can indeed be proved now by voltage activity on brain scans is specious and insufficient to disprove the possibility of dualism. The idea that it will be proved using some currently unknown technology is unprovable and is a faith called scientism.

Is monism compelling as a philosophy? Monism is actually a requirement of another, overarching philosophy: Philosophical Materialism. Monism is an example of forcing a premise in order to maintain the conclusion as “truth”. This is known as rationalization, which is a logical fallacy, and is as opposed to rational thought, which requires the conclusion to be accepted ONLY if the premise is known to be true. It is intellectual dishonesty to declare a premise true merely to make the conclusion appear valid.

If the “self” is contained in the brain as electrochemical flows, then our putative perceptions are faulty and have no meaning beyond that. The idea that meaning is actually caused by electrochemistry is not likely to be proved. In fact it is so unlikely that it is rationally absurd.

The entire value of the argument for monism is contained in one hierarchical issue: monism is required if Philosophical Materialism is to maintained as “truth”. But more than that, if Philosophical Materialism fails, then Atheism is hazarded to subsequent rational thought, and can no longer be robustly sustained. And maintaining Atheism is necessary, even at the cost of selling irrational premises in order to keep it safe.

Massimo on evidence:

”Finally, my issue with faith doesn't have anything to do with humility or lack thereof. The problem that Feynman (and I) finds with faith is that it means that one believes in something regardless or even despite the evidence. This attitude is not only profoundly irrational (by definition), but also embodies one of the worst values we can possibly promote in our society. At the very least it leads to poor thinking, and at the worst it brings about the sort of uncritical acceptance of doctrines (religious or secular) that too often has had tragic consequences for humanity.”

This is Massimo’s normal tack: to presume that his views constitute evidence, and other views do not. Assuming that he means “material empirical evidence” as did Feynman - his appeal to authority - then the evidence required for his philosophy is more than lacking: it is false because it cannot exist. But Massimo does not mean empirical evidence; he means inferred, philosophical evidence (one should read what Feynman thought about philosophy and philosophers).

Neither Massimo nor any materialist can prove that there is no non-material existence. Nor can they prove monism. Nor can Massimo prove that religion is more hazardous to society than is Atheism, a proposition which he implies through guilt by association; in fact the evidence is quite the contrary. So Massimo’s statement violates his supposed ethic: he believes that which he cannot prove using materialist, empirical processes – and some of which is demonstrably false.

But his philosophy, Materialism, also violates his supposed ethic, so the ethic is not really part of Massimo’s thought process. For Massimo and the Materialists, the agenda proves the premises. And by Massimo’s admission that is “profoundly irrational”.

Rich on Hitch

The resident Atheist at Discover Magizine.com has written about a debate between Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete and Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens is declared the winner due to the Monsignor’s inability to provide concrete (material) evidence of the existence of a (non-material) god. The absurdity of this Atheist requirement is always lost on true believers in the Atheist faith, including the article’s author, Melissa Lafsky, and most of the commenters. However, one commenter, "rich" stands out in his comprehension of the underlying fallacy:

Rich wrote:

“What if the LHC does not provide the evidence needed to validate the theories supporting the Higgs Boson, dark matter and string theory?? Does that mean they do not exist? Or better yet does that mean that we do not exist since current theory hypothesizes that those things are the elemental building blocks of our existence? What are all of us practictioners of until we are able to grab onto something concrete? Faith. Faith that our calculations, assumptions and insights are correct. I fear the day when the human race gets to the point in its evolution where it’s arrogance out weighs its humilty and it believes that it’s knowledge of the universe actually defines the universe. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you never lose the part of you that hungers for truth and allows faith to inspire you to search for what others say does not exist because THEY have never seen or experienced it (such as a new route to the West Indies, Bosons, Dark Matter or God). When we do evolve to that place we will not be worth the primordial goo we came from.”

This entreaty will be lost on the predetermined mind-set of the reality-impaired. This is because reality must not be allowed to be composed of anything non-material, or the entire worldview is out the window. And the worldview is more important than the truth, because the wordview is what confers happiness and freedom from absolutes and self-annointed elitism. The materialist worldview is sacrocanct; fact is peripheral and to be explained away with stories. Reductionist stories of evolved morals, situational ethics, delusional transcendence, relative truths, human animalism, intellectual monism. By substituting stories for non-material reality, the fantasy of materialism and Atheism and all that these confer is preserved.

I will reprint some of Rich’s words. I have the same fear...

"I fear the day when the human race gets to the point in its evolution where it’s arrogance out weighs its humilty and it believes that it’s knowledge of the universe actually defines the universe."

And I have the same hope:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you never lose the part of you that hungers for truth and allows faith to inspire you to search for what others say does not exist because THEY have never seen or experienced it."

Thanks Rich, couldn’t have said it better myself.

Challenge to Atheists

Atheists are de facto Materialists. Materialism is a necessary consequence of denying the supernatural. As Materialists they tend to revere empiricism as a source of truth. And they are convicted of their own possession of the singular truth of the universe, that there is no first cause.

Since Atheists have possession of the truth, they should not be adverse to sharing it here with us. The truth of course would be in the form of material, empirical experimental data, replicated by separate disinterested scientific teams, unfalsified, peer reviewed and published in a major scientific journal. These are criteria frequently cited by Atheists, and should be agreeable to them.

Here is a partial list items requiring empirical proof (See Rules below):

1. Prove there is no God.

2. Prove Materialism is true.

3. Prove Monism is true.

4. Prove abiogenesis actually happened.

5. Prove macroevolution actually happened.

6. Prove Parsimony is a Law of Nature.

7. Prove Universal Uniformitarianism exists in all cases.

8. Prove wisdom does not exist.

9. Prove humans are perfectible.

10.Prove universal happiness is a moral imperative.

11.Prove information is identical to the media scaffold upon which it resides.

12.Prove the Multiverse exists.

Rules:
1. Only empirical experimental data, replicated by separate disinterested scientific teams, unfalsified yet falsifiable, peer reviewed and published in a major scientific journal.

2. No generalities or philosophical meanderings will be accepted; only empirical (material) experimental proofs are allowed.

3. Truth by majority vote is not accepted; Truth by deferring to authority is not accepted.

Note: If you can prove #4 (abiogenesis), there is $1,000,000.00 waiting for you here.

The Falsification of Falsification

I love it when someone claims that falsification provides truth. It is the sophomore's answer to God. And interestingly it seems prevalent in the academic atmosphere, where sophomorism is institutionalized by perpetually sophomoric professors.

It goes like this:

I believe only that which can be proven empirically, that which is verifiable and falsifiable. God is neither of these, so I don't believe in God.

This statement strongly decorates the absence of real education. Because the view of reality presented is too myopic to support even empiricism. Here's why.

Empiricism is a functional operation that pursues the cause of material effects which are observed. It has rules: verification and the possibility of falsification. Why is "cause and effect" a legitimate pursuit? Well you might ask, but sophomores rarely do.

Cause and Effect is a First Principle of logic and rational thought. Hume denied its validity in absolute terms, yet acknowledged its "usefulness". First Principles are those concepts that are known to be true. They cannot be proven. So they are the base line, the foundation for logic which, in turn, forms the basis for rational thought. Here are some common First Principles; there are others, these are fundamental:

The first is truth oriented (epistemological); the second, in parentheses, is existence oriented (ontological).

1. If it is true, it is true. (If it exists, it exists)
["Tautology"].

2. If it true, it is not false. (If it exists, it does not not exist)
["Principle of Non-Contradiction"].

3. It cannot be somewhere between true and false. (It cannot partially exist, and partially not exist)
["Principle of the Excluded Middle"].

4. For every effect there is a cause that is both necessary and sufficient to create the effect, and which pre-existed the effect.
[Principle of Cause and Effect].

5. The physical laws of the universe are consistent and persistent, and therefore can be known.
[Rationality of the Universe]

These are not provable; they are known true by inspection. And all rational discourse depends upon their truth. Even (gasp) empiricism and its derivative facts.

Empiricism cannot even prove - empirically - that empiricism itself is true, for any and all cases. Empiricism relies on the Rationality of the Universe, and the principle of cause and effect, neither of which can be proven. In fact these could be falsified, and if they were, the falsification would also then apply to empiricism.

A falsification of either Cause and Effect or of the Rationality of the Universe would indicate the presence of something akin to miracles. But miracles are denied outright by Atheists, which is thus taking the firm stance that these two First Principles cannot be falsified, although empiricism depends upon them.

To deny the belief in any entity that cannot be falsified is therefore a self-contradiction, a non-coherence in the position necessary to sustain Atheism using this argument. It is a fallacious stance.

The use of falsification to define Truth is falsified.