Pigliucci On Pigliucci

"However, I do profoundly dislike guns and people who like them, and I am most definitely not a strong supporter of the military."

When the morally impaired take such a position, watch out. Pigliucci has long been promoting himself as a virtue ethicist and as a major, albeit brand-new professional philosopher (teacher) for some time now. What he actually is might be better classified as a contrarian - contrary to whatever anyone else thinks. That's how philosophers gain their notoriety: by being against. It doesn't matter against what, because each one is against everything everyone else might be for, including - especially including - other philosophers who are also vying for notoriety.

A philosopher cannot be original by accepting someone else's position; a philosopher must actively attack all that has gone before and then present his own original thoughts, which of course are contrary to all possible previous thoughts. It's a difficult position for an entry level philosopher since there have been lots of previous thoughts and positions and that leaves an ever narrowing field. Many just try to outdo Marx and Nietzsche.

"You can quote me as saying that the Democrats are far too conservative for me."

But just declaring oneself to be elite is always the place to start, and then to attack all the cultural norms. That's required just to get past the bouncer and into the philosophers club. Then head for the left side and out the left door, across the left parking lot and over the left cliff.

In fact, pretty much the only social issues that ought to unite every atheist are the separation of Church and State and the rights of unbelievers. Not even a defense of science and critical thinking are really “atheist” causes, since there is a good number of atheists who buy into all sorts of woo (just not the particular woo featuring a white bearded male who sits high in the sky and spends a lot of time watching people’s sexual habits) — trust me, I know a number of them.

Never one to attack a real oppositional position (I can attest), Pigliucci props up the childish cartoon for ridicule, not at all worried that it makes him look foolish in front of his readers, because they are dialed right in to that behavior.

"Clearly, plenty of abortions do not carry any moral problems at all (e.g., fertilized zygote, recently implanted embryo, and so on until a fuzzy line where the fetus is complex, responds to stimuli and most importantly feels pain). The current wording reflects my intended meaning."

And as a virtue ethicist, Pigliucci confers upon himself the moral authority to declare the morality of killing humans at stages he approves.

Pigliucci is not really dangerous overtly. He is dangerous in the manner that Nietzsche was dangerous, long after his death: the influence of contrarian hate is contagious, especially in unstable cultural climates. Again it should not be forgotten that Nietzsche was the official NAZI philosopher and a strong influence on Lenin. The influence of contrarian hate is a significant influence in historical disasters.

Massimo Pigliucci On Alvin Plantinga

There recently was a debate, of sorts, or at least an interview of Plantinga and Gutting, which received a lot of attention. I didn't see it, but I have read an analysis by Massimo Pigliucci which critiques Plantinga. That, of itself, is interesting enough to take account of, and perform a standard logic analysis on.

Massimo on Plangtinga:

” And here comes Plantinga’s first non sequitur: “But lack of evidence, if indeed evidence is lacking, is no grounds for atheism. No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.” Right, except for the not-so-minor detail that the priors for there to be an even or odd number of stars are nowhere near the priors for there to be or not to be a god. More on this in a second, when we come to teapots.”

Not an objection; merely an allusion to an objection. With a deferral, which we shall watch for:

” Following up on the above (puzzling, to say the least) response, [Massimo is happy to be puzzled by any reference to Atheists making decisions without supporting evidence] Gutting pointed out that the analogy with “even-star-ism” is a bit odd, and that atheists would bring up instead Russell’s famous example of a teapot orbiting the sun. Should we be agnostic about that? No, says Plantinga, because we have very good reasons to reject the possibility based on what we know about teapots and what it takes to put one in orbit around the sun. Precisely! Analogously — and this was Russell’s point — we have very good reasons not to take seriously the concept of a supernatural being (see comment above about priors). ”

The Teapot False Analogy and Materialism Camouflage Dodge cannot be purged from the Atheist bag of tricks, it seems. It is one of the most transparently false analogies ever made, yet it is still used as if it represents Truth.

Let’s revisit the problem, but first let’s not ignore Massimo’s circular referencing, where he now refers back to the prior issue, even or odd number of stars. Ok, that’s done.

Now let’s notice the logical failure of Russell’s Tea Pot: Russell made it up. Knowingly made it up. Everyone knows that he made it up. So the Teapot is meaningless except as a cover. So what is really being said is that evidence must be had – material evidence. Why don’t they just say so? Because that would shine a brilliant beam on their fallacy, which is, as always, a blatant and incontrovertible Category Error. The error is that Atheists wish to force the use of material space – only – for the examination of a non-material being. One does not rationally demand that only Category [X] be examined to determine the existence and characteristics of Category [!X]. Further, Category [X] is bounded, and Category [!X] is not bounded by any knowledge of the contents of Category [X].

The comparison, then, is between a physical entity - the orbiting tea pot - and a nonphysical entity; God. A false equivalence and a Category Error. But the impact is deeper; it impacts the very nature and validity of Materialism as a theory and worldview. It means that Materialism cannot be anything more than a religiously held ideology, based on no knowledge whatsoever. And this can be plainly seen by thinking about Russell’s Tea Pot with even a smidgeon of an open mind, not already ideologically attached to the Tea Pot as Truth.

Further, except for the fallacious Tea Pot scam, what other “very good reasons” does the Atheist have “not to take seriously the concept of a supernatural being”? Well, none are given, and Massimo charges into the next False Analogy with gusto:

” To see why, let’s bring in my favorite analogy. My Facebook profile (reserved for friends and family, please follow me on Twitter…) includes the usual question about religion, to which my response is that I’m an a-theist in the same way in which I am an a-unicornist: this is not to say that I know for a fact that nowhere in the universe there are horse-like animals with a single horn on their head. Rather, it is to say that — given all I know about biology, as well as human cultural history (i.e., where the legend of unicorns came from) — I don’t think there is any reason to believe in unicorns. That most certainly doesn’t make me an agnostic about unicorns, a position that not even Plantinga would likely feel comfortable endorsing. (I am, however, for the record, agnostic about even-star-ism. So, there.)”

This is the same dodge with another face on it: There is no material evidence to support the claim that unicorns exist. What is needed, again, is material evidence. So a-unicornism is sensible. That means that agnosticism is called for regarding even-star-ism, and Atheism is called for because of these analogies. It’s the same False Analogy type used to hide the real issue, which is the Category Error described above. It attempts to conceal the non-physical vs. physical false equivalency.

So now there is an Atheist “trump card”? And Plantinga disappoints on the issue, Evil:

”Gutting then brings up the usual trump card of atheists: the problem of evil (which, to be precise, is actually a problem only for the Judeo-Christian-Muslim concept of god, and therefore not really an argument for atheism per se). Plantinga admits that the argument “does indeed have some strength” but responds that there are also “at least a couple of dozen good theistic arguments” so that on balance it is more rational to be a theist.”

Plantinga is wrong: the argument from evil has no strength whatsoever. In Atheist-land, there is no evil; there is only that which “is”. So the Atheist cannot charge Evil under his own banner, he must assume the false flag of Abrahamic religions, and charge the religion’s belief itself with its own self-beliefs. So to make sense of this charge, one must assume that it means that (a) evil doesn’t exist , but if it did, then (b) religion is evil and (c) God is evil and disgusting for making this universe and earth and humans so evil. But of course there is no evil, because there are no universal morals evident in the material universe. The argument has no force because the Atheists don’t actually believe that there is evil. Secondly, the free will argument serves to justify the religious belief in evil, and that is why Atheists fight so hard to deny the existence of free will.

” Gutting, however, had to do quite a bit more prodding to get at least one example sampled from the alleged couple dozen on offer. First off, Plantinga states very clearly that the best reason to believe in (his) god is not a rational argument at all, but the infamous sensus divinitatis of Calvinistic memory, i.e. the idea that people experience god directly as a result of “an inborn inclination to form beliefs about God.”

This is so weak that it is hardly worth rebutting, but let’s elucidate the obvious for Prof. Plantinga anyway. To begin with, it is not clear even what counts as a sensus divinitatis in the first place. Does it equate to simply believing in god? If so, the “evidence” is circular. Or does it mean that some people have had some kind of direct and tangible experience of the divine, like witnessing a miracle? In that case, I’m pretty sure the number of such experiences is far less than Plantinga would like, and at any rate plenty of people claim to have seen UFOs or having had out-of-body experiences. Neither of which is a good reason to believe in UFOs or astral projection. Lastly, we begin to have perfectly good naturalistic explanations of the sensus divinitatis, broadly construed as the projection of agency where it doesn’t belong. The latter truly seems to me a near-universal characteristic of human beings, but it is the result of a cognitive misfire, as when we immediately think that someone must have made that noise whose origin currently escapes us (ghosts? a lurking predator?). It is sensible to think that this compulsive tendency to project agency was adaptive during human history, probably saving a lot of our ancestors’ lives. Better to mistake the noise made by the wind for a predator and take cover than to dismiss the possibility out of too much skepticism and end up as the dinner entree of said predator.”

The objection is exactly the same as all of the previous: the Fallacy of Category Error, prefaced with dripping condescension. Material evidence is all that will satisfy; no other evidence is legitimate. Why? Because it is not material. The demand is not just a Category Error, it is also circular. So far, Massimo has given no reasoning against Plantinga, only fallacy, and actually just the one: the Materialist Category Error, over and over, but in different disguises.

The objection analogies which Massimo uses, UfO’s for example, are mostly material claims requiring material evidence. But Massimo points also to astral projection, which is another Category Error with no material evidence possible (if I understand astral projection correctly). So Massimo is unable to differentiate types of claims, and lumps them all together into his materialist closed box.

And his judgment about delusion is even further without merit. It resolves to this: “If some can be deluded, then all with whom I disagree are deluded”. This is the fallacy of False Association. At least his fallacy usage is expanding to include other fallacies.

” So Gutting pushed a bit more: could Plantinga please give us an example of at least one good theistic argument among those several dozens he seems to think exist? Well, all right, says the esteemed theologian, how about fine tuning? That does move the discussion a bit, as the fine tuning problem is a genuine scientific issue, which has by no means been resolved by modern physics (see recent Rationally Speaking entries on related topics).

Of course invoking fine tuning in support of theism is simply a variant of the old god-of-the-gaps argument, one that is increasingly weak in the face of continuous scientific progress, an obvious observation that Gutting was smart enough to make. Besides, even if it should turn out that fine tuning is best seen as evidence of intelligent design, there are alternatives on offer, some of which are particularly problematic for Christian theists.”

Fine Tuning is obviously NOT god of the gaps; it refers to actual science, not to gaps in science. It cannot be weakened “in the face of continuous scientific progress, an obvious observation that Gutting was smart enough to make”, unless most or all of the universal constants are refuted; that is so unlikely as to be totally absurd. This should be so obvious that it is incredibly obtuse to make the arguments being made by both Gutting and Pigliucci. It is this issue which is usually attacked by the “infinite multiverse” counter-argument which is blatantly “science of the gaps” but even moreso, “fantasies of the gaps”, which are invoked by Atheists.

But Massimo moves the topic to another posting which we’ll ignore until later, if at all.

” Plantinga does concede that god-of-the-gap arguments are a bit weak, but insists: “We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified.” Wow. I think I’m going to leave this one as an exercise to the reader (hint: consider the obvious disanalogy between the moon — which everyone can plainly see — and god, which…).”

Plantinga clearly goes off the rails here. Lunacy does not relate to the belief that there exists a moon. Bad showing here. Finally the argument from evil takes the turn which decorates the subjectivity of Atheism which Atheists reject but revert to constantly:

” Eventually, Plantinga veers back toward the (alleged, in his mind) problem of evil, and takes it head on in what I consider a philosophically suicidal fashion: “Maybe the best worlds contain free creatures some of whom sometimes do what is wrong. Indeed, maybe the best worlds contain a scenario very like the Christian story. … [insert brief recap of “the Christian story”] … I’d say a world in which this story is true would be a truly magnificent possible world. It would be so good that no world could be appreciably better. But then the best worlds contain sin and suffering.”

Seriously? The argument boils down to the fact that Plantinga, as a Christian, finds the Christian story “magnificent,” that is, aesthetically pleasing, and that’s enough to establish that this is the best of all possible worlds. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find a world with so much natural and human imposed suffering “magnificent” at all, and it seems to me that if an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good god were responsible for said world he ought to be resisted at all costs as being by far the greatest villain in the history of the universe. But that’s just me.”

Not only does Pigliucci not address the reasoning used by Plantinga, he passes a summary and subjective judgment based ONLY on his opinion of what constitutes evil. Further, he invokes a definition of a god which he makes up to suit himself; he argues against his Straw Man, not against what Plantinga actually presented. Remember, for Atheists there is no evil, and there also is no “good”; so asserting “good” as an Atheist judgment is a fallacy.

The following is nearly perfect:

” Moving on, Gutting at one point asks Plantinga why — if belief in atheism is so questionable on rational grounds — so many philosophers, i.e. people trained in the analysis of rational arguments, cling to atheism. Plantinga admits to not being a psychologist, but ventures to propose that perhaps atheists reject the idea of god because they value too much their privacy and autonomy: “God would know my every thought long before I thought it. … my actions and even my thoughts would be a constant subject of judgment and evaluation.” Well, I’m no psychologist either, but by the same token theists like Plantinga (and Gutting, let’s not forget) delude themselves into believing in god because they really like the idea of being judged every moment (especially about what they do in the non-privacy of their bedrooms) and much prefer to be puppets in the hands of a cosmic puppeteer. Okay, suit yourselves, boys, just don’t pretend that your psychological quirks amount to rational arguments.”

This is attacking the attacker: Ad Hominem. Here’s why. Pigliucci does not respond to the issue being presented by Plantinga. The issue is that Atheists don’t want any authority over themselves. But Pigliucci goes straight to attacking theists without responding to the issue. First he claims that both Gutting and Planinga are deluded, “because they really like the idea of being judged every moment (especially about what they do in the non-privacy of their bedrooms) and much prefer to be puppets in the hands of a cosmic puppeteer.” This is another Ad Hominem, if not abusive, at least it is abusive of what they really claim to believe. Pigliucci has gone off into a childish tirade.

What Plantinga is actually claiming is that the best universe is one with free will and agency granted to its inhabitants. That implies that good (and bad) choices may be made from an assortment of bad and good circumstances. This is completely ignored by Pigliucci, who in fact claims that they “much prefer to be puppets in the hands of a cosmic puppeteer”, and further imbues them with psychological problems for adhering to his false claim of beliefs. But that is inverted: if there is exactly no free will, and no agency, then everything is deterministic. And that means that in the Atheist world, everyone is “a puppet in the hands of a cosmic puppeteer”, and that puppeteer is Materialism, pure and simple.

Further, the claim that people who are trained in rational assessment actually make rational assessments is obviously false. It is the dedicated and disciplined use of logic which counts, and that involves humbling oneself in the presence of the conclusion of a grounded, valid logical deduction. Atheists cannot do that. They humble themselves to no one, including other Atheists, much less to deductive conclusions which they did not personally derive. And they reject absolutes, so there is no attempt to ground their own deductions; what they project is opinion, pure and simple. Because it is “philosophy”, it has no material, empirical basis, and no grounding, and is therefore not ever – ever – rational in the Aristotelian sense.

Moving on:

” And we then come to “materialism,” which Gutting thinks is a “primary motive” for being an atheist. Here things get (mildly) interesting, because Plantinga launches his well known attack against materialism, suggesting that evolution (of all notions!) is incompatible with materialism.

Come again, you say? Here’s is the “argument” (I’m using the term loosely, and verycharitably). How is it possible, asks the eminent theologian, that we are material beings, and yet are capable of beliefs, which are clearly immaterial? To quote:

“My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis L’Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures. But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L’Amour.”

This, of course, is an old chestnut in philosophy of mind, which would take us into much too long a detour (but in case you are interested, check this). There are, however, at least two very basic things to note here. First, a materialist would not say that a belief is a material structure in the brain, but rather that beliefs are instantiated by given material structures in the brain. This is no different from saying that numbers, for instance, are concepts that are thought of by human beings by means of their brains, they are notmaterial structures in human brains. Second, as the analogy with numbers may have hinted at, a naturalist (as opposed to a materialist, which is a sub-set of naturalist positions) has no problem allowing for some kind of ontological status for non-material things, like beliefs, concepts, numbers and so on. Needless to say, this is not at all a concession to the supernaturalist, and it is a position commonly held by a number of philosophers.”

First let’s dispose of the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority; it makes no difference how many philosophers hold to a theory if the theory is false. So the appeal to a number of philosophers is at best inconsequential and at worst a blatant rookie fallacy. OK, done with that.

Now, let’s take on the Naturalism vs. Materialism concept. What they wish to convey is that there are some natural things which seem to exist but are really just artifacts of a material source. Thus concepts are non-material but are just contingent “seemings” that are effluent of the material brain. Being evidence based, they would have some evidence for this, right? But that evidence would have to be material, not natural, or it wouldn’t be objective. So it circles nicely back to Materialism. (And whenever it is suggested that God is natural, it circles back to Materialism post haste, and to the Common Variety Category Error with which Atheism is infested). A circular argument which is grounded in a Category Error is certainly without merit.

” Plantinga goes on with his philosophy of mind 101 lesson and states that the real problem is not with the existence of beliefs per se, but rather with the fact that beliefs cause actions. He brings up the standard example of having a belief that there is some beer in the fridge, which — together with the desire (another non-material thingy, instantiated in another part of the brain!) to quench one’s thirst — somehow triggers the action of getting up from the darn couch, walk to the fridge, and fetch the beer (presumably, to get right back to the couch). Again, the full quote so you don’t think I’m making things up:

“It’s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It’s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has.”

But of course the content of the belief is also such in virtue of particular electrical signals in the brain. If those signals were different we would have a different belief, say that there is no beer in the fridge. Or is Plantinga suggesting that it is somehow the presence of god that gives content to our beliefs? And how, exactly, would that work anyway?”

So now Pigliucci contradicts his immediately prior reference to non-materialism and Naturalism by claiming that the belief is no longer non-material, it is “instantiated” by electrical signals in the brain. So it is no longer the case that a belief has any ontological status, it is only the brain. So now we are lost between the two necessities which contradict each other; but contradiction is no problem in an environment which claims no truth and no falseness.

Also, he doesn’t actually refute Plantinga’s statement: he merely says, well what if there were a different belief? That is entirely beside the point, which is that the belief causes physical changes. Now if Pigliucci wants to argue that the brain itself caused the person to get up and go get a beer, then there would be no need for a belief, whether material or non-material, and again in the Atheist world the human would be an automaton. This defeats the Atheist claims, only if you believe you are not an automaton. Most of us do not believe that.

” Whatever, you may say, didn’t I mention something about evolution above? Yes, I’m coming to that. Here is Plantinga again, after Gutting suggested that perhaps we get a reasonable correspondence between beliefs and action because natural selection eliminated people whose brains were wired so to persistently equip them with the wrong belief (i.e., believing that the beer is in the refrigerator, when it’s not because you already drank yourself into oblivion last night):

“Evolution will select for belief-producing processes that produce beliefs with adaptive neurophysiological properties, but not for belief-producing processes that produce true beliefs. Given materialism and evolution, any particular belief is as likely to be false as true.”

The first part of this is true enough, and consistent with the fact that we do, indeed, get a lot of our natural beliefs wrong. To pick just one example among many, most people, for most of human history, believed that they were living on a flat surface. It took the sophistication of science to show otherwise (so much for the “science is just commonsense writ large” sort of platitude). It is the last part of Plantinga’s statement that is bizarre: 50-50 chances that our beliefs are true or false, given materialism and evolution? Where the heck do those priors come from?

It’s obvious, Massimo: there is no true or false in Materialism or in the Materialist universe; things just are. Truth is a human construct, right? So it doesn’t exist except as a human judgment, an opinion. And opinions are hardly truth. So the probability of beliefs being either true or false is actually weighted right in the center of the two non-existing contraries.

”But it gets worse: “If a belief is as likely to be false as to be true, we’d have to say the probability that any particular belief is true is about 50 percent. Now suppose we had a total of 100 independent beliefs (of course, we have many more). Remember that the probability that all of a group of beliefs are true is the multiplication of all their individual probabilities. Even if we set a fairly low bar for reliability — say, that at least two-thirds (67 percent) of our beliefs are true — our overall reliability, given materialism and evolution, is exceedingly low: something like 0.0004. So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable.” (Note 1)

Again, wow. Just, wow. This is reminiscent of the type of silly “calculations” that creationists do to “demonstrate” that the likelihood of evolution producing a complex structure like the human eye is less than that of a tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a perfectly functional Boeing 747 (the original analogy is actually due to physicist Fred Hoyle, which doesn’t make it any better).

The chief thing that is wrong with Plantinga’s account is that our beliefs are far from being independent of each other. Indeed, human progress in terms of both scientific and otherwise (e.g., mathematical) knowledge depends crucially on the fact that we continuously build (and revise, when necessary) on previously held beliefs. In fact, there is an analogous reason why the tornado in the junkyard objection doesn’t work: natural selection too builds on previous results, so that calculating the probability of a number of independent mutations occurring by chance (Note 2) in the right order is a pointless exercise, and moreover one that betrays the “reasoner's utter incomprehension of the theory of evolution. Just like Plantinga apparently knows little about epistemology.”

The first thing Massimo does is to Poison the Well with the Fallacy of False Association. He devotes an entire paragraph to it, starting with juvenile condescension.

Then Massimo makes the claim that beliefs are dependent upon each other, with beliefs building on each other. There is no evidence that says that this is a rule. If we stop for a moment to look at this claim, it in no manner refutes the calculation which Plantinga has made. If belief 1 has a 0.5 chance of being false, then belief 2 cannot have a better than 0.5 chance either. Its probability multiplies with that of belief 1. And that is the process whether belief 1 is true or false. Further, if belief 1 is true with an expectation of 0.5, that does not ensure that belief 2 is any better, especially in light of the inability of evolution to produce truth vs. producing environmental compatibility.

Massimo winds this up with the non-credible generalization in which he, after his article filled with fallacies and logic errors, claims that “Plantinga apparently knows little about epistemology”, a shot both cheap and false, and made from a position of extreme logical weakness.

And Massimo’s summary in no manner refutes Plantinga’s positions, just as his prior comments do not. But he exudes and asserts a knowing condescension which he has no credibility in asserting. In fact, Massimo’s own performance is massively erroneous by Aristotelian standards, so one knows instinctively to stay away from his vaunted “critical thinking” class (which probably teaches one how to be a critical person regardless of logical error).

To paraphrase Massimo, “Massimo is prone to complete fallacy and insult rather than rigorous grounded logic, but he is a great philosopher”.

ADDENDUM

NOTES:

Note 1. What Plantinga is referring to here is beliefs such as believing that violence works toward evolutionary selection; certain groups are inferior, other groups superior; eugenics is rational. When each conclusion becomes a belief, it is compounded by subsequent beliefs.

Note 2. The retaining of sufficient beneficial mutations which accrue to accidently create multi-functional organs (many of them simultaneously - e.g., heart/lung/circulatory/blood) is a fatuous fantasy which is necessary to prop up the vastly improbable mutation theory of evolution. The probability of negative mutations eliminating the positive mutations makes it even more vastly improbable. There are no known positional mutations which actually occurred in order to accomplish this feat, which is attributed to evolution, and I say this without fear of contradiction.

Relativism Gets To It’s Hard Problem

Ever since the great Skepchick elevator caper, the Atheist-Skeptic community has been in a turmoil regarding the amount of predatory sexual harassment that exists at AS Conferences. (Ever wonder what Atheists talk about when all they have is “no opinion”? Apparently they have No Opinion conferences all the time).

Massimo Pigliucci takes on the “Misogyny Wars” and, rather unintentionally it appears, sums up the problem with Relativism as an ethic: what is flirting to one person might be harassment to another person. (Really? What about the groping, stalking and rape threats that have been reported? Note 1) While that Relativism is a grounding issue in determining the rightness or wrongness of an action, it leads to another more fundamental problem: if there are no rules, then there are no rules to break. To spell it out for the defender of Relativism, anything goes.

So the automatically Consequentialist and Relativist Atheist-Skeptic community is faced with having to violate their own non-principles by coming up with actual fixed principles for defining acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors for individuals at their A-S Conferences. Otherwise, anything goes, and the behaviors and reactions to the behaviors have been, well, just anything goes.

While this addition of a fixed, immutable set of rules for behavior might be seen as common sense to outsiders, it is apparently gut wrenching for the A-S crowd which has always felt “Good Without God”, and automatically “good” even without having a definition of “good”. Now they find that not to be the case, and that they must spell out what “good” is, so that the A-S crowd will know how to behave.

Massimo wraps up his article thus:

”So, where do we go from here? Here are three conceptually simple, yet I’m sure extremely difficult in practice, action items. First, let’s tone down the self-righteousness, on both sides. It just doesn’t help. Second, organizers of all future CON(s), you need to take the issue seriously, develop and clearly enunciate your policies, and be ready to deal with the consequences in a firm, if courteous and hopefully constructive, manner. Lastly, the A-S community needs to take the first step toward solving any problem: admit that there is one. Pretty straightforward, no?”

So they need to admit that they cannot be “good” at their own conferences, and they need to have commandments and consequences in place to deal with those who violate the commandments.

Will they remember this when the next “Good Without God” campaign is launched? I doubt that they actually grasp the full impact of this moral issue, even now. And it is now an empirical, evidential proof that (1) A significant number of Atheists don't behave well without rules, even in the moral opinions of other Atheists, and (2) Relativism, the philosophy, fails on the ground to provide an adequate structure for civilized behavior, even amongst an all-Atheist gathering.

Note 1.
It has been suggested elsewhere that it is not Atheist-Skeptics who are involved in the harassing behaviors, but outsiders. In other words, Theists coming into the Atheist compound in order to harass women. Really.

Massimo Squirms on Free Will vs. Fate

It’s been awhile since I poked into Massimo’s place to see what the NY Atheists are up to. Today I had some time, and I found this, from Massimo who was discussing whether rejecting free will necessitates the acceptance of fate:

”“Yes and no” isn’t a wishy-washy non-answer to the question of whether or not I believe in fate because I can answer that question differently on the two sides of the is/ought divide. Metaphysically: yes, there is only one way the universe will unfold; Aubrey Plaza’s character will cause events that lead to her mother’s death no matter how many times she rewinds time. Morally: no, the way the universe unfolds isn’t the way things are supposed to be; it’s just the way things happen, in part because of our actions, and so Ms. Plaza’s character (indeed, any one of us) can still be responsible for what she does.

What do you do with a degree in philosophy? Obviously, you’d like to be doing something worthwhile and productive. It just isn’t clear to me that debating free will as a metaphysical issue accomplishes that. Intuition tells me that it’s not possible for the past to have proceeded differently; intuition may tell you otherwise. How do we resolve that debate? Our ignorance of what is and isn’t possible is so profound that philosophers can’t even agree on a system of logic with which to judge the truth of possibility claims. Discussions of free will in the metaphysical context just aren’t going to go very far; however, if philosophers get around to the moral context at all, it’s only after they’ve had the metaphysical debate.”

There appear to be a couple of misapprehensions involved here. First, changing the past, or rather the inability to change the past by going back in time, has no bearing on the ability to change the future from that same time. The time traveler argument merely diverts from the actual argument which is, “can a decision I make change the actuality occurred in the future?” And more specifically, “Can I actually make decisions, or has my deterministic brain made all the decisions without my actual conscious input, and made those decisions based on the positions of atoms and the flow of electrons through cranial impedances, as predetermined clear back to the origin of the universe?”. Massimo doesn’t address this, apparently because it is too metaphysical and our ignorance is “too profound”. Yet isn’t that what philosophers do?

Massimo conflates personal free will with teleology when he decides that the way the universe unfolds is not the way things are “supposed to be..”, which is not the issue at all. The issue of free will is this: can the way the universe unfolds be steered, in any miniscule fashion, by human decisions which result in human actions? So, Massimo continues, “…it’s just the way things happen, in part because of our actions…”.

Yes, in part because of our actions. And still Massimo does not address free will: are our actions deliberate and intentional, or not? Massimo’s final endorsement of personal responsibility seems to imply that he thinks they are.

Still, he has written an entire blog article based on the concept of using “yes and no” and “profound ignorance” as an answer, thereby placing the question into a category of implacable imponderability, beyond the reach of even philosophers.

So why are philosophers paid by public tax dollars, then?

Dualism at Massimo's Place

I have violated my (somewhat malleable) principle of not commenting on other blogs, by placing two comments on Massimo Pigliucci's blog article regarding physicalism vs. dualism. I really didn't expect them to see daylight (Massimo has 86'd some of the other comments I have attempted there), but he has allowed them this time. Since they go counter to the standard Atheist anti-dualism position, they might generate some interesting reading.

Over At Massimo’s Place

Over at Massimo’s place, things get ugly as three celebrity Atheists duke it out. Dawkins and Coyne get bitter and rude, and Massimo charges PhD envy, and he has more than the other two put together.

Of more substance is Massimo’s article on Atheist activism. The big division in the past has been over whether Atheists should be nice and tolerant while fighting for their own rights (whatever those are) or whether they should be “in your face”, meaning rude and crude while trying to eliminate religion altogether. This has been the internal Atheist war of “accomodationists” v.s. “anti-accomodationists”, where the anti-accomodationists refuse to tolerate even accomodationists like Massimo. (That’s the source of some of the vitriol from Coyne and Dawkins).

Massimo recommends four different objectives and gives reasons for them.
1. Unsurprisingly, first is the promotion of the Separation of Church and State. Even many Christians support this, especially when confronted with Sharia, or even the state churches in Europe. But the problem is in the definition: Atheists seem to want all ethical associations severed with the American religious tradition, Christianity. The dearth of common ethics associated with Atheism as a common objective for social contracts is a deadly characteristic for Atheism in this pursuit.

2. Atheists need to be accepted; Massimo points to the mistrusted groups data. Massimo’s position here is that Atheists need to behave themselves in order to generate trust:
” Now, if one’s goal is to be accepted (not just tolerated) in a society, one is more likely to achieve that goal by playing social and nice (which does not at all mean to capitulate or compromise on principles), as opposed to constantly jeering or hurling insults at other members of said society.”
Massimo is swimming up a waterfall here, for two reasons. First, Atheism as an ethical position generates distrust all by itself: it has no attached ethic. With out a specific Atheist ethic, there is nothing for anyone to trust in. Second, many people are Atheists for the purpose of satisfying their rebellion and giving themselves a sense of superiority, and that hubris in an intellectual and maturity void will naturally result in “constantly jeering and hurling insults”. And being nice and tolerant is specifically rejected by most of the New Atheists and the third tier players like PZ. There is no chance at all for the success of this initiative by Massimo. No, there is no reason that Atheists “should be accepted”, other than that they want to be; and they want to be without any change to their ethic-free world view: Atheism.

3. Combating dogmatism. Ironically, Philosophical Materialism is entirely dogmatic, and without a shred of material or logical evidence in its support. It is not credible to think that Atheists will give it up.

4. Elimination of irrationalism. Under Massimo’s personal definition, Materialism is tautological with rationalism. But in actuality, Materialism is irrational under its own evidentiary standards, making universal claims with no material evidence. Would Massimo eliminate Materialism due to its irrationality? Demonstrably not. So this is a lost cause for Atheism also, because of the same issues in #3.

But Massimo, even though a popular NYC blogger and man-about-town, is on the outs with the most powerful of the big dog Atheist icons. So there is little possibility that his opinions will get much airing outside of the Big Apple (except perhaps more ridicule). Maybe I have helped just a little bit with that. You’re welcome, Massimo.

Massimo Watch 060811

Massimo discusses a debate video between Dawkins, Craig, and others:

”The first segment of the video shows Dawkins addressing someone in the audience who had just told him that his belief in god is no delusion, to which Dawkins replies: “If you had been born in India, I dare say you would be saying the same thing about Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva; if you had been born in Afghanistan I dare say you would be saying the same thing about Allah.” And so on, you get the gist. (The “I dare say” is just as annoying as Craig’s “Surely,” but we’ll let it pass.)

Forward to time stamp 0:37 and you see Craig appearing on the screen, eloquently explaining to us that Dawkins just committed the genetic fallacy, dismissing belief in god because of the way it comes about (i.e., because of its origin). Of course, Dawkins does no such thing, and Craig lands himself straight in the mud of really really bad reasoning.”

Let's be clear. What Dawkins has said is that the person's assertion of the existence of God is due to where the person comes from, that the origin of the hypothesis is due to his heritage. If the person had different heritage, then he would have posed different religious hypotheses due to that difference in his heritage. This is an attack not on the validity of the hypothesis, but on the source / origin.

Massimo continues,

”First, let’s see what the genetic fallacy actually is. The Fallacy Files, an excellent resource on all matters fallacious, classifies it under “informal fallacies” (bear this in mind, it’s important), and particularly as a sub-class of Red Herring, related to the Straw Man and Bandwagon fallacies. The site defines the genetic fallacy as “the most general fallacy of irrelevancy involving the origins or history of an idea. It is fallacious to either endorse or condemn an idea based on its past — rather than on its present — merits or demerits.”

Craig is therefore claiming that Dawkins is dismissing the idea of god just because the guy in the audience believes in a particular god as a result of happenstance (i.e., the fact that he was born at a particular time in a particular place). But a first rule in philosophy (as opposed to sophistry) is that one always interprets an opponent’s argument in the most charitable way, to avoid setting up straw men. Had Craig followed this basic rule of intellectually honest discourse he would have acknowledged that Dawkins’ point was simply to show the arbitrariness of specific religious beliefs. Even if gods exist, it should give one pause that people fervently believe in their own “true” god simply because of an historical accident.”

The “charity rule” invocation is merely an attempt to redefine what it is that Dawkins said and meant, in order to salvage the statement from its obvious fallacy failure. Dawkins did not mean to imply, “if gods exist”. Nor did he mean the “arbitrariness of specific religions”, Dawkins meant that all religions are arbitrary by association. Dawkins was using the other religions in an attempt to sully the original God being discussed: Fallacy of Guilt By Association, and the Genetic Fallacy are both in play.

Now even if Dawkins actually had meant to attack the arbitrariness of specific religions, that would have been way off topic and not addressing the issue at hand: whether the person is justified in his belief. To be charitable to Dawkins we should assume that he at least was discussing the issue at hand; otherwise his reply is absurd, rather than merely false.

But Massimo makes the following amazing statement:

”But in fact, this isn’t all there is to the genetic fallacy. The Fallacy Files adds an important caveat to the definition, often neglected by sophists: “unless its past in some way affects its present value.” In other words, there are situations where invoking the origin of an idea or belief is actually pertinent to the discussion, and does not constitute a fallacy at all. This sort of qualification is what makes the genetic (and many, many other fallacies) an informal fallacy, as opposed to formal ones, where there are no qualifications and the reasoning is always bad (an example is affirming the consequent: If p then q. q. Therefore, p — there ain’t no saving this one).”

And how does this revelation pertain to the question at hand? Massimo does not even claim that it does; the entire paragraph has no value or meaning to Craig’s claim.

“unless its past in some way affects its present value.”

Exactly why is this caveat to the Genetic Fallacy pertinent here? How does it relate? It is not, and it does not. The entire paragraph is a Red Herring, expressed by Massimo here:

” In other words, there are situations where invoking the origin of an idea or belief is actually pertinent to the discussion, and does not constitute a fallacy at all.”

But of course this is not one of those situations.

Finally, Pigliucci makes the following claim:

” But in that case he [Craig] would run straight into a contradiction, because he is now saying that it’s okay for him to be “inclined” to believe that the (actually non existent) hardwired belief in god is the result of god’s will, but is denying Dawkins’ the complementary move of dismissing a belief on the grounds of its (cultural) origin.”

The idea of a possible “God Spot” in the brain has resulted from several studies, which Pigliucci either is not aware of, or is denying out of disingenuousness. The contradiction which he claims that Craig has encountered is that Craig claims an inclination to believe that the source of the possible God Spot is God, yet he denies that Dawkins can refute the God hypothesis based on its origin alone.

Let's take a look at these two arguments:

Craig: inclined to believe that a possible God Spot as being sourced by God.

If P then Q
P;
Q.
P> God Spot might exist;
Q> possibly God.

Full statement:
If the God Spot might exist, then possibly God exists;
The God Spot might exist;
Therefore possibly God exists.

This is not a statement with a truth value, it is a statement of possible truth values, not definite.

Dawkins: denies the God hypothesis based on its source.
Interpretation A:

If L then M;
L;
M.
L> Your claim depends entirely upon your origin in a certain location;
M> it is false.

Full Statement:
If your claim depends entirely upon your origin in a certain location, Then it is false; (this is the Genetic Fallacy)
Your claim does depend entirely upon your origin in a certain location;
Therefore, it is false.

Interpretation B:

If L then M;
L;
M.

L> if there are competing religions,
M> all religions are false and there is no God.

Full statement:
If there are competing religions, then all religions are false and there is no God; (this is the Guilt by Association Fallacy)
There are competing religions;
Therefore there is no God.

Dawkins statement is fallacious either way, so it cannot contradict any other statement.

Another way to demonstrate the Guilt By Association Fallacy is this:
“If there are ideas competing with your idea, then some must be false; there are ideas competing with your idea; therefore your idea is false.”

What has happened here is that Pigliucci has ridden roughshod over the actual statements made by both Craig and Dawkins, failing to extend the courtesy of charitable interpretation to Craig, while misusing it to extend an advantageous but false interpretation to Dawkins. That’s what seems to happen in the world of intellectuals possessed of a dogma which doesn’t contain absolutes.

Pigliucci brags that he “wiped the floor with Craig’s ass, repeatedly,” in a second debate. And later on he criticizes Craig’s choice of ties. I don’t think I’ll be needing his judgment on any of these issues.

Massimo Watch 04.01.11 De Dora: Chronically Confused..

Michael De Dora writes on Atheist Morality:

”One project is illustrated by the CFI advertisements. They seek to present to the public an affirmative secular worldview. This is important because atheists need to make more than just a case against religious belief, they need to make a case for a positive set of alternative values. But atheists must also critically examine religious belief, which is the mission of other projects. This is extremely important because, as plainly seen in this case, religious belief continues to undermine even the most basic and uncontroversial claims about secular morality.

Let’s repeat that last phrase:

” religious belief continues to undermine even the most basic and uncontroversial claims about secular morality.”

Secular morality is an oxymoron. Every Atheist is free from absolutes, and is therefore also free to bleat that his own behavior is moral, since he meets his own standards. This is not morality; it is anarchic thinking, which is the same as “Free Thought”. Every Atheist makes up his own standards. This is quite clear to everyone except De Dora apparently.

”The fundamental point here is that positive secular values cannot move forward without the critical examination of religious claims. As I wrote in a recent blog post here, “The critic of religious faith and dogma is on the same side as the promoter of secular moral values. To squabble about whose interests are more important is to lose sight of the underlying problem: the staggering amount of uncritical thinking that is putting society to ruin.” Once atheists realize this, they can get on with trying to complete both tasks, instead of arguing which is most important. Only when both are accomplished will humans be able to collectively have a rational, constructive conversation about morality.”

Atheists could be even more moral, according to De Dora, if they would just use critical thinking. For the Atheist, critical thinking means agreeing with him. There is no actual process for critical thinking because there is no absolute basis for anything, including logic. So Atheists change the definitions of most any concept to conform to what they want for it to mean under certain circumstances. In this case it is "critical thinking". We see this constantly as they try to convince us that babies, frogs, and rocks are all Atheist, in their scramble to avoid justifying their belief, which is that there is no God.

So De Dora has specifically admitted that the morality which Atheists claim is not the morality of Christianity, and he admits that Atheists don’t have a uniform morality to display in their own defense. But, of course, it is “ridiculous” to point out that Atheists have no claim on morality, and that their behavior is therefore suspect in every way, manner and form.

Massimo Watch 04.01.11 De Dora: And Yet He Writes.

Michael De Dora posts an attempt to define conservatism and liberalism. De Dora is sequestered in New York City along with Massimo Pigliucci, and like Pigliucci who admitted to not actually knowing any conservative, non-Atheists, De Dora proves that he has not actually encountered any either.

It is common for the sequestered Leftist to fantasize about those who don’t agree with him, and to conjure the vile qualities that it must take in order for a person to have such unthinkable opinions. As Barack said, they must hold onto their religion and guns out of fear of change. To the Leftist, the presumed irrationality of anti-statism suggests not just supreme immorality, it also suggests insanity or at least horrendous stupidity.

It is from this point of view then, that De Dora writes,

“The conservative mindset tends to value traditional institutions and values because they are traditional.”

There it is. There is no principled argument for conservatism. The conservative is merely a mindless obstruction to change. De Dora has pegged conservatives to a fantasized vile behavior. And this fabrication characterizes a category of opinion which he does not personally encounter or experience.

De Dora defines the liberal approach, on the other hand,

”… is that institutions and values are only worth following if they are correct or serve a worthwhile purpose. If they are false or outdated, they deserve to be thrown into the scrap heap and replaced with better and more worthwhile ways of doing things.”

Here De Dora is claiming the moral ability to decide for society which values it should have and follow; which institutions are false or outdated and are to be scrapped. It is an accurate statement of elitism, the arrogation of moral authority. The statement is purely Consequentialist, a rejection of moral absolutes disguised as pragmatism.

De Dora even attempts to associate modern “liberals” with the benefits derived from the French Revolution. This is either from ignorance of the actual revolution and its historical consequences for France, or maybe he thinks that bloodbaths really are a good thing, as “more worthwhile ways of doing things”. Says De Dora,

”For example, Enlightenment thinkers did not call for an end to government (anarchy). They called for a change in government.”

Yes, from tyranny A, to tyranny B which although massively bloody, failed, giving rise to tyranny C. Liberte’ was not achieved by the French Revolution: liberte' was guillotined along with all opposition members and suspected opposition including entire towns. No, the statist Left is not for liberte’. Nor is it for tolerance, free speech, and other iconic slogans, unless they apply strictly to themselves. Curse and threaten to kill Bush? Free speech. Criticize Obama’s programs? Racist.

As a matter of consistency with his previous history of writing about things of which he knows nothing, this essay appears to be a name-dropping defense of statist Leftism, based on the weighty premise that “Left is good; Right is bad.” And very little more. And he left out Hobbes, Hegel, Galton and Nietzsche as influences on the Statists.

De Dora again:

”For example, many American conservatives argue that the definition of marriage should remain the same as it has always been, thereby resisting its extension to gays. Yet, there has actually never been one universal definition of marriage. Rather, the concept has evolved and changed over the past few thousand years. As such, the “conservative” position simply reveals itself to be a mask for bigotry — a way for straight people who don’t like gays to display their abhorrence of a different lifestyle in a manner that is politically acceptable.”

There is no behavior that is wrong or abhorrent to statists, except possibly behavior that limits the behaviors of the Left, which is the only immorality. It is society which is responsible for the bad behavior of its “victims”, those who are called criminals by the bigoted conservative. Any criticism of virtually any behavior is now “bigoted”, according to the statist. So privileges such as marriage cannot be denied anyone based on behaviors. Does this apply to man-boy marriage? Well, not yet. But the logic is in place to support it as “the concept of marriage evolves”. How about woman-donkey marriage? Father-daughter marriage? Cloud marriage of huge groups of non-defined types of organisms? That would eliminate bigoted discrimination once and for all. Marriage would be meaningless as it is already becoming.

De Dora concludes,

”But, while liberals ought to be willing and able to defend the need for change on a case by case basis, it is equally unacceptable for conservatives to defend the status quo simply because tradition is important above all else. If the conservative believes in the defense of a particular custom, he or she must have reasons beyond the fact that we have always done things in a certain way. They have an obligation to make their reasons clear or they risk defending tradition for its own sake — a rather sterile position.”

De Dora seems completely ignorant of any actual principles that conservatives might have, and in fact seems unable to believe that such might exist. However, “sterility” seems most appropriately applied to the intellectual atmosphere that De Dora has chosen for himself. Actual research into conservative principles beyond the slant of the New York Times and wiki infobites are just not necessary in the De Dora’s statist world, where strawmen are made fresh daily and actual knowledge of opposing views is eschewed in favor of demonization of fabricated targets. In this regard then, De Dora is a shining example of Leftist intellectualism.

Massimo Watch 03.21.11

Massimo descends beyond irrationality into despicability.

Ever wonder why you are such a racist? Massimo explains why you are:

” Sure enough, it took only weeks for the same media [which had proclaimed post-racial America upon Obama’s election; ed.] to start reporting on large percentages of Republicans believing that Obama is a Muslim (as if that were somehow an indictment of some kind), that he is not American (despite the public availability of documents clearly showing that he is), that he is a socialist (despite his Presidency clearly settling on a pretty moderate course from the get go), and so on. Why? Because a large number of Republicans simply can’t stand the very idea that a (quasi) black is their President. But they can’t say it in so many words (we have made some social progress since the ‘50s), so they express their outrage by embracing political fantasies and conspiracy theories.”
[emphasis added].

Massimo is way behind the times. The racist card was worn out two years ago when anyone who dared question The One was declared “racist” immediately by every media hack and Leftist Congressman. But now, well, now the Left is even starting to talk about impeaching The One. Racists.

But let’s at least look at Massimo’s logic. According to him there can be only one reason to believe that Obama is Muslim; that he is not American; that he is socialist. There is only racism involved in each thought. Obama’s training in Islam, his head-down bows to Islamic leaders, his administration’s double-jointed back-bend to avoid using the word “Islam” or “Muslim” in regards to Muslim murders on American soil; his de facto hand-over of Egypt to the Muslim Brotherhood: no reason there to think Obama favors Islam; if you harbor contrary thoughts to that, you are racist.

And Massimo has continuously defended the non-legal Hawaiian birth notice as proof of Obama’s citizenship: any other position such as wanting a birth certificate is racist.

Socialist? No, no way, not The One. There is no socialism involved in the government commandeering of the health industry or of a major automotive corporation and handing it to the union while stiffing its debt-holders; there is no socialism in the hugely expanded debt to cover the hugely expanded government; there is no socialism in the president of the USA interfering in a state’s union and pension problems: to think otherwise is racist.

This descent by a self-described intellectual into the invective of false racial accusation is an indication not only of the commonly held self-righteous indignation of the morally superior elite, but also of the need to fabricate a false reason for that puffery out of no evidence whatsoever. Accordingly, the fabrication is that we who deplore the anti-democratic exploits of this president cannot express our racism, so we invent false accusations in order to vent our racism against him. No evidence is required for this outrageous fabrication of the Leftist mind. Like other Leftist machinations, it attempts to overcome the complete lack of evidence with the double accusation:”you’re evil, and you conceal your evilness with non-evil subterfuges – but we are not fooled because we know that you are evil underneath”. This is unquestionable to those who automatically hold the moral high ground merely because of who they are: “We are moral; to disagree with this is immoral”.

”a large portion of American evangelical and fundamentalist churches support the Right’s agenda because they've bought into the peculiar concept of “morality” that suits the Republican party (where sex is a moral issue, unless it is a pastor or Newt Gingrich who commits the deed, while obscene income disparity, raping of the environment, white collar crimes and so forth somehow don’t show up on the morality radar screen);”

Massimo’s concept of morality is orthogonal to any classical ethic or morality one might harbor. For Massimo, morality is the requirement that wealth and income be equalized and without disparity; justice is the top-down administration of the proper distribution of all wealth. When he throws in “raping the environment” as if the “large majority of Republicans” just go out and mindlessly rape, he creates a lie and he ignores the carbon footprints which the wealthy Left and the huge parasitic government present. Nancy Pelosi alone raped more than those Republicans with her constant globetrotting in military jets. Flotus taking hundreds to Spain; a constant stream of world-wide vacations for Potus; the charges made, in the presence of actual facts, are ludicrous. White collar crimes? These are protected by Obama’s DOJ at the behest of lobbyists galore who are now part and parcel of the Obama administration. White collar types on Wall Street and Corporate management get bailouts, unless they oppose unions in which case the unions get the bailout and the corporation, while the white collars get the ax. In fact, most of the white collar crimes in the past two years were tax evasion crimes by Lefties who are now in the government (including Clare McCaskill). The sex crimes of pastors or Newt? Which of those did not suffer for their ways? None of Massimo’s purported offenses is real. In fact, the opposite is the case, and evidence is available should he care about it.

But what really torques Massimo’s shorts is the vast Republican plutocracy, one where Republicans get rich while the unions are being devastated. This is not just racist: vastly rich and racist, a compound sin. If there are Republicans that are not part of the plutocracy they are “simpletons”, deluded by the super-rich. Simpletons and the super rich. That is the majority of the country, according to Massimo. It is no wonder that he eschews actual democracy. In a republic, it is the Democrat senators who become billionaires.

What is the cause for this sort of evidence-free rant? Why is his hatred of the Other worn on his sleeve? Perhaps the UberLeft is suddenly twisting in the wind? With blacks moving out of the old Democrat model of Jim Crow, segregation and enabled permanent poverty into the world of responsible capitalism-driven white collar careers, the Left is losing influence on its bastion of votes. And Europe is now crumbling under the Leftist structure which Massimo desperately wants for the USA. Are these the causes for such irrationality? It’s hard to say, because he doesn’t address such failures of progressivism (he even proudly claims that in the comments).

For more evidence-avoiding and fact-free ranting, finish reading his post. Then go have a drink with him; he needs one. While you are there, try to get some material evidence out of him to support his racism and morality theories. There certainly was no evidence contained in his meltdown rant.

Massimo Watch 10.31.10 Free Thinking About Ayn Rand

There are diametrically contradictory differences between thinking “freely” (i.e. Free Thought) and thinking in a disciplined fashion. Thinking freely has some utility in specific exercises of brain-storming and searching for the boundaries of a concept. But in order to claim rationality for a concept, there are known, specific disciplined processes that obtain. There is a discipline required that precludes the freedom of random notions or ideology-based rationalization.

In his recent venture in Ayn Rand’s philosophy, Massimo Piggliucci makes the following comment:

”Rand begins her metaphysics by articulating three axioms: consciousness, existence, and identity. She writes in Atlas Shrugged that “An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.” Wrong. An axiom is an assumption from which the discussion begins. It can (and should) be examined and/or challenged if the deductive consequences of the axiom(s) entail logical contradictions or any other rationally unacceptable conclusions. This is the way it works in math, logic, and philosophy.”

Massimo blatantly confuses axioms with premises, and then refers to actual axioms in the same sentence (Law of Non-Contradiction). Rand is right, although she describes the consequences of the existence of axioms, not the characteristics of the axiom itself.

Axioms are universal truths, availed through eras of observation, which are known by inspection to be incorrigibly valid, but are not provable by higher order logic or experimental validation, both of which are dependent upon the axioms for their own validity. This is what Rand was talking about: logic and science must presuppose the axioms of logic, and therefore logic and science cannot prove or disprove those axioms. As Massimo sarcastically says elsewhere, "this is logic 101". Yet he missed it, and missed it completely.

The error here is that the “analyst” is not equipped with the tools to do the analysis that he undertakes. By not even understanding axioms vs. premises and their role in logic, Massimo has undermined his intellectual authority to pass judgment on the philosophy of another.

However, this is not uncommon, especially amongst the public intellectuals, of which Massimo advertises himself as one. The problem arises not from the quantity of intellect in pounds and ounces, but from the ideological blockage to the proper use of that intellect. In many cases, the blockage is the ideology of Free Thought, Humanism, and Philosophical Materialism, all of which Massimo subscribes to.

These ideological rational delimiters serve as boundaries within which the logical processes are allowed to operate; they serve as faux axioms for the Free Thinker. So even the standard axioms of logic are subservient to these new, hardly rational, boundary conditions. False axioms cannot produce reliably valid output.

For Massimo and the thinking-freely crowd, there are no real logical limitations so long as one stays inside the ideological boundaries – on reservation, as it were. Massimo continues:

”Things get a bit more interesting when we get to the third axiom, the one concerning consciousness. According to Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, “consciousness [is] the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Well, no, that would be sensorial perception, which we share with the other animals. Consciousness is best thought of as a particular type of internal perception, the paying attention to our own mental states, analogous to what cognitive scientists call proprioception, the ability our brain has to monitor internal physical states.”

Now Rand did not say “perceiving that which exists externally”. She said “exists”. Massimo misinterprets in his haste to find Rand lacking. So he then makes the incredible leap that consciousness is merely the monitoring of our internal states, nothing more. He does not justify this in any way. He merely declares it to be so.

Oddly, most conscious folk would likely disagree that they are consciously and constantly merely checking their internal physical states, and doing nothing else.

How is it that a triple PhD and university professor can make such statements? And with such confidence that no justification of any type is required?

What is seen here is the unsubtle use of blatant rationalization. The answer is presupposed: Rand cannot be allowed to be right, not about anything. Her philosophy, although Atheist based, is not aligned with conclusions of today’s iconoclastic Atheo-Left. So everything she says, everything she stands for, must be wrong, and thus just saying: “no”, and then plugging in some random thoughts ought to suffice as refutations. There is no need to back up the refutations with the rigor of actual logical steps or syllogistic formats. As Massimo generally does, declarations are made as though factual, without analysis of their source or their logical quality.

And one of the most interesting qualities of Free Thinking is that it is couched within Philosophical Materialism. So if what a Free Thinker says is actually valid (aka true), then there should be physical, material evidence to support it. But there never is. Free Thinking is an end in itself: Free Thinking is Good; so it has to be right. Thus, Free Thinking is similar to imagination-turned-loose-in-a small-arena-of-ideology. And the results of that continuous thinking process are used to fabricate a worldview.

How valid can such a worldview be? For the Free Thinker, it needs no justification. But for the rest of us such a worldview is clearly a delusion.

Anti-Essentialism

Over at Massimo’s place, co-blogger Julia Galef takes off on several tacks at the same time. While she winds up trying to convince us that religion –Christianity – loves pain and suffering, and that humility is stupid, both subjects for another post, along the way she sideswipes Essentialism, the idea that there exist “essences” that are sets containing the necessary characteristics for all the members that are to be contained in a group or set. This might seem to be a benign concept, but it is not, to the Atheist. To the Atheist it is a threat. Galef calls it the Fallacy of Essentialism.

Atheists are committed to the idea of non-exceptionalism of humans. The human is an animal just like the others and no more. If humans are exceptional in any way, the questions of why and how that came to be demand an answer. That is not a debate that Atheists wish to entertain. It is very necessary therefore, to kill any idea of human exceptionalism. One way this can be done is by attacking Essentialism: if there are no essences, then there can be no essence that sets humans apart. Both Massimo and Julia take that position. There are no essences, no possible way to distinguish or differentiate humans or living things or anything from anything else. There is no else. To think that there are essences that can result in classification is a fallacy, or so Galef claims.

How is it, then, that the entire fundament of biology has been categorization and classification? Are there no essences that distinguish one genus from another, or genus from species, or even living thing from not living thing? Evolutionists now claim that all animals are the same, deriving from the same source. At least, the species are not stable; they are evolving. That still denies the obvious: is there no characteristic that differentiates a lioness from a male lion? Is there no difference between living things and dead things? Living things and minerals? Livers and Lungs? Blood and urine?

The following article addresses just that, and it was written earlier.

Essence of Life

I have written before about the essential denials that are required in order to support the Philosophical Materialist pose. One of the most interesting has been the denial of the existence of any differentiation between living things and non-living things, such as Massimo Pigliucci’s statement that he could see no life essence, unless it was DNA. Pigliucci is trained in biology and now is officially a philosopher since being transferred into a teaching position in the philosophy department.

Biologists have long been able to tell living things apart from mere minerals. It is their specialty, in fact, the study of living things. So certainly there must be a metric for determining if something is alive, dead, or is not capable of life. And of course there is. It is likely that every biology book informs students of something like this:

Life, n.: that property of plants and animals which makes it possible for them to take in food, get energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surroundings, and reproduce their kind: it is the quality that distinguishes a living animal or plant from inorganic matter or a dead organism.
Webster’s Unabridged.

Probably every 5th grader knows that. So why does the biologist – philosopher feel constrained to deny it? Or to reduce it to an absurdity?

There is a very good reason for a Philosophical Materialist to deny that life has an essence, a differentiating quality that sets it apart from mere matter. The problem is that life, its very essence, is not quantifiable materially. Life has qualities, such as those in the definitions above, but life, as an entity contained within a material entity, cannot be weighed, or measured in any way; it has no quantities. In fact, like truth, it is binary: it exists or it does not exist. A living thing possesses something at its core that is not material. And that non-material something differentiates living things from non-living things.

Obviously this is a fatal admission for Philosophical Materialism. Therefore life cannot exist as a differentiable quality from mere matter, if the doctrine of materialism is to be preserved.

This shows as clearly as possible the nature of the intellectual industry of today. Many pretenders to the title of Intellectual are sullied by their strict adherence to Atheo-materialist cant, a doctrine that comes first and foremost, an axiom and presupposition, with observable facts being either fit to the doctrine or denied outright.

The problem of life has further repercussions. Life, as a non-material entity, produces other qualities, especially in humans. These include sentience, conscious thought, agency, abstract design, intellect and the ability to communicate real and abstract concepts - all things that differentiate life from non-life, all things that are not predictable from the existence of mere matter, all things that refute the pure materialism doctrine.

So these things, life, sentience, conscious thought, agency, intellect, abstraction, these all must be “explained” within materialist parameters, or else denied as delusions or illusions. Denial is the easy way out, obviously.

Here is the harder problem for Philosophical Materialism: What is the source of this non-material entity, life? Some evolutionary biologists, in unguarded moments, claim that all life comes from prior life – an undeniable statement – that is intended to prove materialist evolution if one presupposes a magical First Life jumping into being. But that transfers the issue to a single instance, where a material, non-living entity somehow acquires this non-material quality, a quality not previously existing or predictable from material things. And this violates the universal laws of the material universe, cause and effect, and entropy.

Materialist/Evolutionists escape this issue by running away: they do not accept First Life as an issue for evolution; evolution starts after first life. The bloody gash in logic is inescapable.

The Philosophical Materialist / Public Intellectuals are not deterred by logical defects. They proclaim possession of Critical Thinking, a method they never define, one that somehow bends itself around the defects and incorporates itself into the thought pattern required to salvage materialism. And most importantly it salvages Atheism. It is Atheism that gives the Public Intellectual his eliteness, his elevated ability to create a universe to his own liking, his ability to create his own truths that are not beholden to any actual Truth.

As Julien Benda pointed out in his book, The Treason of the Intellectuals, the Public Intellectual quit any stance of disinterested search for Truth over a century ago. They incorporated political stances of racism, eugenics and nationalism in the early 20th century. Now they incorporate Consequentialism, secular socialism, Humanism and anti-Semitism in their philosophies, rather than rational objectivism.

What they don’t address is this: What is the source of the non-material entity, life, which differentiates living things from non-living? That thing, life, is merely denied as even existing, despite all evidence to the contrary. If it cannot be explained in material terms, then it must be denied, no matter how silly that is. When living things deny their own life, they also deny their own rationality.

On the other hand, maybe he is right and the essence of Massimo really is just DNA and nothing else; that would explain a few things. And if Julia is right about humility being degrading, that would explain the lack of intellectual humility and its consequent, rational objectivity, exhibited by Public Intellectuals. This is for Julia:

"Pride grows on the human heart like lard on a pig."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Massimo Watch 09.05.10

This piece by Massimo really illuminates the internal character of the “public intellectual”. Since words are the currency and thoughts are the value of a Public Intellectual, P.I's are not just hard pressed to admit error: they become incensed at criticism. After all, how can they deliver truth when there is an immoral attack on their version?

Massimo gets testy on a regular basis. In this instance, the comments are more interesting than the rambling, disjointed post. Most of the comments are critical of Massimo's glaring errors. For example, Massimo was chafing at a criticism by co-blogger, Julia Galef. He had said [X], and then turned around and said, "Contra Julia, [X] is not true", mistakenly attributing his statement to her and then refuting it. This gaffe must sting, but he has not acknowledged it.

One thing to note in the post, however, is Massimo’s purposeful continuing thrust against the three O’s that he strawman’s against Christianity. He does this both frequently and even in non-related conversations:

Massimo:

”For instance, the common concept of God in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition is of a being who is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.”
[emphasis added]

While the King James Version does mention the word “almighty” in reference to the deity, there is no usage of any of the three words, omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence in any translation, according to the Zondervan Exhaustive Concordance, nor in Vine's Concise Dictionary of the Bible. The three O's are not necessary much less sufficient for the concept of a deity. It appears that it is not necessary for a P.I. to actually study a subject in order to declare to the world what the essence of the subject is. Massimo has previously claimed to fear Christians and Christianity based on their irrational beliefs - beliefs that he, Massimo, apparently makes up to suit his own irrational beliefs.

In fact, one of the commenters points out that Judeo-Christianity theology is not based on the three O's, but when I last read it, Massimo had ignored that fact. Being a P.I. must be tough.

Massimo Takes On Information Theory

Massimo asks, what about information?:

"Another way to put it is that information is any type of pattern of matter/energy that causes (or contributes to cause) the formation or transformation of other patterns. Again, think of the examples given above: the light coming to the plant (energy) causes the alteration of the pattern of orientation of the leaves (matter); the DNA carried by germ cells (matter) contributes to the formation of a new organism in the next generation (matter); and the photographs (energy/matter, depending on the medium) taken by a satellite influence whether you’ll pick up an umbrella (matter) on your way out the door."

Massimo confuses end-points with meanings. The actual process is not so superficial as IF [light] THEN [turn leaves] which allows Massimo to declare only energy and mass are involved. Here is how it would be implemented logically:

1. Receive light, [L];

2. Implement comparison function, [c] to compare [L] input to expectations, [z] and [!z], where z = presence of sunlight;

3. If L=!z, do nothing.

4. If L=z, then send signal [s] to material function [t] to implement turn of leaf;

5. Continue to send signal [s] to material function, [t] until [L] reaches a maximum value, Lmax, then discontinue signal [s] and implement position lock [q].

6. And a real life seek system would likely implement hysteresis to avoid dithering or oscillation about the Lmax point.

Even after referring to a "pattern" as the primary source of meaning, Massimo continues to declare that information is material, which says that meaning is material. After all, information has meaning, in fact it is meaning. If a pattern has no meaning, then it is useless as instructions for performing subsequent actions. Since meaning itself has no physical aspects, it must be stored and transmitted on physical carriers, either energy or mass.

Massimo continues,

”While Shannon-type information theory tells us that information cannot be destroyed without increasing the entropy of a given system, the analysis above suggests the philosophical point that information is a type of energy/matter. That being the case, there is nothing mystical about information, and the concept cannot therefore be brought up as a way to defeat materialism.”

This is demonstrably incorrect. Information is meaning impressed upon a material carrier; the carrier type can be changed along the pathway, for example from audio sound waves in air, to electrical currents, to electromagnetic waves, back to electrical currents, then back to audio waves in air. The information carried in this example of radio waves can be transformed from air wave compression frequency and amplitude, to electrical current frequency and amplitude, to changes in frequency of an electromagnetic wave (frequency modulation, or FM), and then back to electrical and airborne energies. The meaning is carried on these substrates until it is apprehended by a receiver, in this case, a human mind.

What Shannon theory actually describes is the fact that the meaning impressed on the carrier will remain intact unless and until the ratio of noise in the system to the signal passing through the system increases to a point that the noise swamps out the carrier, and the meaning impressed upon it.

It is egregious for a supposed scientist / philosopher to completely misunderstand, or worse, purposefully misrepresent the physical concept of information carrier vs. organized modulation of meaningful information upon that carrier, be it energy or mass.

Now for the real argument: evolution,

” As for Dembski’s and co.’s claims about evolutionary theory, it is well understood that biological information of the type stored in DNA is created (and destroyed) all the time. The destruction comes, for instance, with the death of a given organism (which, accordingly, corresponds to a sudden increase in that organism’s entropy level), while creation/change occurs every time there is a mutation, i.e. a chemical alteration in the structure of DNA. Again, nothing magical going on, and certainly no need for conscious agents to get involved — be they of the supernatural type or whatever. (It is, of course, perfectly possible for a conscious agent to alter genetic information, it’s called genetic engineering, and we do it all the time.)”

and,

” Like Searle, I think it more reasonable to consider consciousness a biological phenomenon akin to, say, photosynthesis: something that does have a logical structure, but that also requires certain kinds of substrates to actually work”

The idea that meaning is created by mutation is possibly the crux of the materialist argument. It is bolstered by the ancillary idea that information does not really require meaning, or contain it. So it is possible to accidentally change the instruction pattern for fabricating a living thing in a manner that makes the living thing better able to cope with its environment. By doing this accidental change to the instruction pattern enough times, one finally gets sentience, consciousness, and intentionality, as well as uncaused causation. The mystical element is "deep time", so large that ordinary minds can't grasp it. This can't be proven by direct observation because we don't have access to deep time or sequential environments in order to replicate it. Similarly, it also cannot be falsified. And the fact that it is considered to account for all eventualities, without exception, there never could be a falsification even if we had a time machine. Under these conditions it is a metaphysical concept, religiously held without evidence possible to the contrary. And, being a creation story along with all these characteristics, it is a religion.

As for consciousness being material, this is indicative of the confusion that materialists harbor (or at least project) about the material world: ordinary mass does not contain information/meaning concerning its behaviors much less information/meaning regarding the behaviors of an overall construct containing the mass. The behavior of ordinary mass is determined by external forces which are described by scientific laws of nature. Only living things contain instructions that guide their self-development and in some cases, their behavior. However, and here is the big failure to comprehend, not all behavior of living things is coded into the genetic instructions. Specifically, much of human behavior is non-deterministic, and demonstrably so. So Searle’s substrate with a logical structure is an insufficient concept to account for Massimo’s exercise of free choice to accept or deny the fundamental concepts of information.

Finally,

” To recap: information is not a third type of thing outside of matter and energy (which are, of course, just two aspects of the same type of thing), and it therefore poses no problem to materialism. Also, talk of information does not require the presence or involvement of conscious minds, unless one wishes to talk about knowledge — the latter being a fairly uncontroversial and utterly non-mystical concept.”

In fairness to Massimo, this article appears to have been dashed off in response to a discussion with someone, and not a deeply analyzed position. In fact it is a restatement of the materialist requirement for Massimo’s underlying worldview. It is undoubtedly obvious to serious observers that there is no chunk of either energy or mass which corresponds to a specific piece of information or meaning (there are no jars full of meaning), and that the energy – mass involved is merely the carrier of the information. Information is a meaningful organization of details concerning a subject; that organization is a metaphysical attribute of the physical carriers or substrates that are used to store or transmit the meaning, which is impressed upon them.

In fairness to Massimo’s readers, there are serial errors and a lack of serious intellectual investigation in Massimo’s fairly careless, incorrect, and superficial thoughts about information. The injection of Shannon theory into the argument is entirely without purpose or merit. And Massimo's conclusions are entirely predictable based upon his dedication to a presupposed agenda.

Science and Underdetermination: The Uncertainty of Objective and Subjective Knowledge.

Massimo Pigliucci takes a swipe at Atheist Jerry Coyne concerning Coyne’s lack of understanding of the separation of Philosophical Materialism and functional materialism (science). Massimo is correct here, but he takes the idea in wrong direction, being under the influence of Philosophical Materialism himself. As expected, he declares religion to have no value, epistemologically, since it is not falsifiable, materially:

” In the cases we are discussing there is no science-like connection between theoretical constructs and empirically verifiable facts, so to “falsify” the latter is equivalent to shooting into a cloud of gas. It unnecessarily flatters and elevates religious belief to treat it as science.”

For Massimo, there is no knowledge that is not science, even though he disputes it in the text. He cannot relinquish it in his worldview. He continues,

”That is because they seem to equate science with reason, yet another position that is abysmally simplistic from a philosophical perspective. Science is conducted through the application of reason to a particular type of problems and in particular ways. But reason can be applied to other problems in other ways. Philosophy, of course, is an example, as it makes progress through the analysis and dissection of concepts, not via empirical discoveries. Logic and mathematics are additional obvious examples: mathematical theorems are neither discovered nor proved by using scientific methods at all. Unless one wishes to conclude that math is not a rational enterprise, then one is forced to admit that science = reason is a bad equation.”

Massimo goes on to claim that scientists are not educated in the history and philosophy of science, and they shouldn’t be commenting outside their areas of expertise (never mind that Massimo has been doing that all along as a prophet of evolution). Only philosophers should be telling the world what science consists of – not scientists, who don’t understand it:

” But when it comes to writing for the general public, I suggest that scientists stick to what they know best, unless they are willing to engage the literature of the field(s) that they wish to comment upon…”,

and,

” He has of course no obligation to study philosophy, but then he should refrain from writing about it as a matter of intellectual honesty toward his readers.”

In the course of his discussion, Massimo refers to the Duhem-Quine Thesis, which he thinks supports his idea that “the philosophers of science have moved well beyond Falsificationism”. The idea, refined by W.V.O. Quine, does not refute Falsificationism, it refines it in order to determine its value as a source of valid knowledge. But here Massimo takes off in the old Philosophical Materialist mode again, creating a strawman to shoot down:

” Conceptions of gods are infinitely more flexible (or vacuous, if you prefer) than either Marxist or Freudian theories, and they are thus simply not falsifiable. This is often (naively) mistaken to imply that no specific claim made by these theories can be rejected on empirical grounds. That’s as manifestly not true as it is besides the point: of course modern science can firmly reject the empirical claim that the earth is a few thousand years old; but since “the god hypothesis” doesn’t behave as a hypothesis at all from the epistemological standpoint, it doesn’t matter.”

Of course the “god hypothesis” is not that the earth is a few thousand years old (the strawman); the god hypothesis asserts that there exists a first cause for the universe. Here empiricism is emasculated. And it is hopelessly intellectually helpless to claim that,

“It unnecessarily flatters and elevates religious belief to treat it as science.”

Let’s examine the idea of underdetermination, and then examine first how it applies to objective knowledge, and then how it applies to subjective knowledge.


Holistic Underdetermination

“Duhem’s original case for holist underdetermination is, perhaps unsurprisingly, intimately bound up with his arguments for confirmational holism: the claim that theories or hypotheses can only be subjected to empirical testing in groups or collections, never in isolation. The idea here is that a single scientific hypothesis does not by itself carry any implications about what we should expect to observe in nature; rather, we can derive empirical consequences from an hypothesis only when it is conjoined with many other beliefs and hypotheses, including background assumptions about the world, beliefs about how measuring instruments operate, further hypotheses about the interactions between objects in the original hypothesis’ field of study and the surrounding environment, etc. For this reason, Duhem argues, when an empirical prediction turns out to be falsified, we do not know whether the fault lies with the hypothesis we originally sought to test or with one of the many other beliefs and hypotheses that were also needed and used to generate the failed prediction:”

“A physicist decides to demonstrate the inaccuracy of a proposition, in order to deduce from this proposition the prediction of a phenomenon and institute the experiment which is to show whether this phenomenon is not produced, he does not confine himself to making use of the proposition in question; he makes use also of a whole group of theories accepted by him as beyond dispute. The prediction of the phenomenon, whose nonproduction is to cut off debate, does not derive from the proposition challenged if taken by itself, but from the proposition at issue joined to that whole group of theories; if the predicted phenomenon is not produced, the only thing the experiment teaches us is that among the propositions used to predict the phenomenon and to establish whether it would be produced, there is at least one error; but where this error lies is just what it does not tell us.”

“In sum, the physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses; when the experiment is in disagreement with his predictions, what he learns is that at least one of the hypotheses constituting this group is unacceptable and ought to be modified; but the experiment does not designate which one should be changed.”
Pierre Duhem; “The Aim And Structure of Physical Theory”;

via plato.Stanford.edu.

From W.V.O. Quine:
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. But the total field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.”

Or as I have frequently put it, an hypothesis verification - or falsification - depends first on the deductive fallacy as a prediction made from a law, then on the inductive fallacy as a generation of the law; next, the hypothesis contains premises which must be reconfirmed, axioms upon which the premise reconfirmation depends, and First Principles which are observed characteristics of the universe which are thought to be universal, but without a universal proof.

Or as Feynman put it, every experiment should be accompanied by re-verifications of all the supporting principles to make sure they are still valid.

Quine argued further,

“…because this leaves any and all beliefs in that web at least potentially subject to revision on the basis of our ongoing sense experience or empirical evidence, there simply are no beliefs that are analytic in the originally supposed sense of immune to revision in light of experience or true no matter what the world is like.”via plato.Stanford.edu.

This argument against absolute truth is valid only for objective “scientific truth”, or sense and empirical truth. The argument for subjective truth cannot be allowed to suffer by any implications of this argument. To do so would be under a Category Error.

Contrastive Underdetermination is another name for the Dichotomy Fallacy, where a dichotomy is presented which ignores the possibility of other choices or hypothetical pathways. It is an example of the inability to prove a negative, the negative being that there are NO other possible choices to be considered, so that one of the choices offered must necessarily be correct.

Underdetermination and Subjective Knowledge
If objective scientific knowledge is subject to definable and measurable uncertainties, then what of the uncertainty of Subjective Scientific knowledge? Specifically historical knowledge and variable laden knowledge such as social science produces? Falsification in these areas is relegated to exceptions, not falsification. If falsification is the sole arbiter of validity, then the only possible source of knowledge is objective empiricism. But even Massimo argues that that is not the case. But if non-objective knowledge is subjected to falsification, it is jeopardized with refutation on scientific grounds. This is the basis for Massimo's refutation (and denigration) of religion (that generic belief).

But in even more jeopardy is evolution, which as a theory is allowed to produce any outcome, all outcomes, or no outcome at all. This is not falsifiable, certainly not in the empirical sense since it is not empirical. And it is not falsifiable in the inferential sense (a non-valid concept at best) because any finding is used to adjust the theory slightly in order to accommodate the “all outcome” conclusion.

Are inferential conclusions always false? Of course not. But they also are never objectively True; as shown above, even decent objective findings are never True in any absolute sense. Evolution is somewhat less than not objectively true. It is subjectively speaking, a series of extrapolations, stories made up in order to fill knowledge gaps that are otherwise unfillable.

These stories extrapolated to fill gaps in knowledge are now protected by law. They are being instituted as first principles. There are battalions of lawyers poised to defend these stories and their exclusive use in government education.

Scientifically speaking, evolutionary stories are not underdetermined, they are explicitly non-determined as empirical science; they are non-experimental and non-empirical, and thus have no real standing in objective knowledge at all, save as dogma for Atheist agendas.

But as Massimo continually demonstrates, the axiom of Philosophical Materialism in his swarm of supporting principles colors all conclusions that he tries to make, even when he starts out on the right track. It appears that the residual dogma from his years as an evolutionary scientist have stymied intellectual openness in his few months as a philosopher.

As it happens, many of the supporting swarm of underlying axioms and first principles of logic and rational thought are inferential and subjective. These paths to knowledge, it turns out, have more truth value than any objective science knowledge or subjective science knowledge. Massimo needs to look there, and adjust his worldview accordingly.