Round 8

From Agnostic Australian 06/18/05

Hi Brady,

Brady wrote: Now please present and explain exactly where and which fallacies you think are being committed.

Again, the conclusion does not follow from the premises that we agree to admit. As you are professing to offer a proof of your choice of "god" - and not merely to show the futility of skepticism or nihilism - you should set forth your proof clearly and abandon these irrelevant sideshows. As for your fallacies, exactly, keep reading...

Brady wrote: I have never affirmed the consequent.

While attacking the nihilist straw man, at one point, you asserted: every argument is an argument for the existence of God. That is, you stated not only that every argument is a refutation of nihilism, but that positively every argument is an argument for your choice of "god". On what basis do you make this claim?

Brady wrote: If the atheist cosmology is true, then there is no knowledge; knowledge exists; therefore, the atheist cosmology is false.

I think you are equivocating with the word "knowledge". Since you assert that "knowledge" does not exist in any possible non theistic worldview you need to define what it would mean for "knowledge" to exist in these worldviews and then show that, in fact, it does not exist there. If you define "knowledge" as meaning something that exists only in human souls created by your choice of "god" then I'm not concerned that non theistic worldviews do not have this kind of "knowledge".

On the other hand, your argument that "knowledge" exists requires only that universal negative statements be considered as "knowledge". Yet, this construction could be accepted as valid within any non theistic worldview - indeed, you are expecting me to accept this argument! That is, you are trying to assert (without proof) that "knowledge" (by the first definition) does not exist in non theistic worldviews while presenting to me, a non theist, for my acceptance a construction of an article of "knowledge" (by the second definition).

To harmonize these definitions, you would need to concede either that "knowledge" does exist in non theistic worldviews, or otherwise that your definition of "knowledge" is irrelevant to non theistic worldviews because it requires the existence of human souls created by your choice of "god". In this second case, your argument is about as devastating as saying: if the atheist cosmology is true, then there is no theistic god; a theistic god exists; therefore, the atheist cosmology is false.

If you proved your conditional statement instead of assuming it, and if you proved the existence of "knowledge" using the same definition, then you would have a good argument. As it is, your argument completely fails on both counts.

Brady wrote: So, here are your elements: matter and energy, time and space and motion according to the laws of physics.

No. You have this completely backwards. I would be quite surprised if anyone takes the current understanding of the "laws" of physics as axiomatic. For that matter, how do you discover the "laws" of physics? Does your choice of "god" reveal these to you somehow?

In the non theistic worldview that I have chosen to defend in this discussion, the "elements" consist of the immediate fact of my own sentience, the meta-axioms {MK, ML, MM}, and the worldview set {PC}. On this basis, I make observations, suggest hypotheses relating to these observations, derive predictions from these hypotheses, test these predictions against further observations, provisionally accept or reject the hypotheses, rinse and repeat. In this worldview, "knowledge" consists of all observations and all inferences; "understanding" consists of the compression of these into hypotheses with testable predictions.

Brady wrote: You seem to think that I am the one who made up the elements of these cosmologies.

You advanced these definitions in this discussion; you need to defend your uses of them in this discussion. After all, you are proposing the existence of your choice of "god" as a necessary fact before any valid observations can be taken. Are you now suggesting that you arrived at this opinion on the basis of observations? Then on what basis, at that time, did you believe that your observations were valid?

Brady wrote: As Manion pointed out in his paper, atheists have all but given up on epistemology.

This is not even close to reality. Besides, you are committing the fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam. Why don't you answer the arguments I have presented instead? If you want to debate Rorty, I suggest that you go to his web site [1] for his contact details.

[1] http://www.stanford.edu/~rrorty/

Brady wrote: So, yes I do find fault with a worldview that just assert correspondence, when their cosmology denies it.

In what way exactly does the non theistic worldview that I have presented deny the proposition of correspondence?

Brady wrote: I have not inserted the traits of God into the theistic cosmology, they are already there.

Ah, so you completely misunderstand the nature of the fallacy of equivocation. Your proofs of "god" do not prove your choice of "god" at all. You are using two definitions of "god", without distinction: the first, a restricted definition useful for proofs (as you said: The details on the personal traits of God are really meaningless here); the second, the full monty, a genocidal, murderous, vengeful, theistic creator of the heavens and the earth, and of all human souls, who created a world to be known and creatures to know it.

Since you are the master of equivocation, I shall ask you to define these traits exactly and to prove the existence of a "god" with these attributes, without also proving the existence of the invisible pink unicorn in the process. The invisible pink unicorn, as you know, will trample "god" believers beneath her hooves in due time, but she created this world to be known so that "god" believers may reject "god" of their own free will.

As you are proposing your choice of "god" as the answer to all philosophical problems I should hope that you would hesitate no longer to liberate us all from the chains of darkness. I ask you, then, to explain - without further assumptions about your choice of "god" or otherwise - how you infer:

(1) your own existence;

(2) the rules of deductive inference;

(3) the proposition of correspondence;

(4) the solution to the problem of causation;

(5) the solution to the problem of induction; and

(6) the distinction between animate and inanimate.

For starters, just to keep it really simple, please explain how you infer the validity of modus ponens, without assuming it.

Kind regards,

Agnostic Australian

From Brady 7/05/05

Brady wrote: Now please present and explain exactly where and which fallacies you think are being committed.

AA responded: Again, the conclusion does not follow from the premises that we agree to admit. As you are professing to offer a proof of your choice of "god" - and not merely to show the futility of skepticism or nihilism - you should set forth your proof clearly and abandon these irrelevant sideshows. As for your fallacies, exactly, keep reading...

“Agreeing to admit” has nothing to do with the conclusion following from the premise. The conclusion follows from the premises if and only if the form of the argument is valid and for no other reason. In any argument the conclusion can be false, if there is a problem with the premises (I.E. the premise is false, or fallacious), however if the form is valid the conclusion can still follow from the premises even though the conclusion is false. That is why we recognize a division between formal and informal fallacies. I am still waiting for you to give the exact fallacy and where it is. P.S. I never talked about nihilism; I only talked about atheism and agnosticism. Nihilism admits there is no knowledge or at least denies the possibility of knowing if there is any. And even though that seems to be contradictory to its own affirmation, it is consistent with its cosmology. It is the atheist and the agnostic that tries to affirm knowledge while affirming a cosmology that ultimately denies knowledge. I will keep reading.

Brady wrote: I have never affirmed the consequent.

AA responded: While attacking the nihilist straw man, at one point, you asserted: every argument is an argument for the existence of God. That is, you stated not only that every argument is a refutation of nihilism, but that positively every argument is an argument for your choice of "god". On what basis do you make this claim?

Once again, I have not attacked nihilism. There is a huge difference between atheism and nihilism. So, let’s assume you meant to say atheism. Show me the conditional syllogism I used. Could you point it out to me? Which post was it in? It seems quite clear that if all atheistic cosmologies ultimately deny knowledge, then if there is any argument, then some sort of theism is affirmed. In other words all arguments are arguments for the existence of God. This is concluded by affirming the antecedent “there is an argument.”  We continue.

Brady wrote: If the atheist cosmology is true, then there is no knowledge; knowledge exists; therefore, the atheist cosmology is false.

AA responded: I think you are equivocating with the word "knowledge". Since you assert that "knowledge" does not exist in any possible non theistic worldview you need to define what it would mean for "knowledge" to exist in these worldviews and then show that, in fact, it does not exist there. If you define "knowledge" as meaning something that exists only in human souls created by your choice of "god" then I'm not concerned that non theistic worldviews do not have this kind of "knowledge".

Asking for a definition is fair enough. What I mean by knowledge is our understanding of words, concepts and ideas that are independent or transcendent from deterministic necessity. In your above paragraph you indicate that you understand the difference between definitions and have come to conclusions and because you are writing to me, you seem to think your words can have independent effect upon my thinking and the thinking of others who read these posts.

If atheism is true, there are only predetermined brain states that are brought about necessarily by atoms bouncing around in your head the way they have to based on the laws of physics.

Am I wrong? It is easy to prove. Show the elements in the atheistic cosmology that allows for independent non-deterministic thought. Don’t just say: “We assume it.” Show it and we are done. If you had shown it in the first post, we would have been done then, but here we are in round eight!

Brady wrote: So, here are your elements: matter and energy, time and space and motion according to the laws of physics.

AA responded: No. You have this completely backwards. I would be quite surprised if anyone takes the current understanding of the "laws" of physics as axiomatic. For that matter, how do you discover the "laws" of physics? Does your choice of "god" reveal these to you somehow?

These are the elements given by atheists, not me. You don’t like them? Reject western atheism. I have!

AA continues. In the non theistic worldview that I have chosen to defend in this discussion, the "elements" consist of the immediate fact of my own sentience, the meta-axioms {MK, ML, MM}, and the worldview set {PC}. On this basis, I make observations, suggest hypotheses relating to these observations, derive predictions from these hypotheses, test these predictions against further observations, provisionally accept or reject the hypotheses, rinse and repeat. In this worldview, "knowledge" consists of all observations and all inferences; "understanding" consists of the compression of these into hypotheses with testable predictions.

But this is not a non theistic worldview. In philosophy a worldview has several basic parts: Metaphysics (consisting of cosmology and ontology), epistemology, anthropology, ethics and aesthetics. You have simply done away with any metaphysics and epistemology and said “I assert and assume that I know this stuff.” All your “elements” are merely assertions, as you already admitted in past posts that have no cosmological or epistemic basis. Allow me, if you will, to do some assuming of my own here: you have taken this stand because you are force to agree that there is no atheistic cosmology that has the elements to get you to knowledge. So, you just bypass cosmology. I don’t blame you for your stand, most modern atheist philosophers recognize their inability to get to knowledge from an atheistic cosmology and reject the idea wholeheartedly. Hence Rorty’s definition of truth: “Whatever my colleagues let me get away with.”

In your above statements you ask about the laws of physics and you make the assumption in  your “worldview” that for some reason the conclusions you reach from your observations and experiments now give you some knowledge about how things will happen next time, these you call predictions. But Bertram Russell already realized the futility in that when he wrote:

“It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past, and has always been found to resemble the past, so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures.  But such an argument really begs the very question at issue.  We have experience of past futures, but not of future futures, and the question is: Will future futures resemble past futures?  This question is not to be answered by an argument, which starts from past futures alone.  We have therefore still to seek for some principle which shall enable us to know that the future will follow the same laws as the past." (“The Problems of Philosophy” p64-65)

You see, you are not just fighting me, but also modern atheistic philosophy. Not to mention David Hume, who you have ignored.

Brady wrote: You seem to think that I am the one who made up the elements of these cosmologies.

AA responded: You advanced these definitions in this discussion; you need to defend your uses of them in this discussion. After all, you are proposing the existence of your choice of "god" as a necessary fact before any valid observations can be taken.

If there is to be worldview consistency, yes!

AA continues: Are you now suggesting that you arrived at this opinion on the basis of observations? Then on what basis, at that time, did you believe that your observations were valid?

You must realize I never denied the cogency (not validity, validity is a deductive term) of observation, I simply said if the atheist cosmology was true, you couldn’t get to observations. That is still the case. And, once again, since you are rejecting all cosmologies (including atheistic cosmologies) in your truncated “worldview,” it seems we are in agreement.

Brady wrote: So, yes I do find fault with a worldview that just assert correspondence, when their cosmology denies it.

AA responded: In what way exactly does the non theistic worldview that I have presented deny the proposition of correspondence?

By rejecting all cosmologies you have not rid yourself of the problem. Remember, metaphysics is the theory regarding, of what reality consists. When you make statements about the world you are making metaphysical, and specifically cosmological statements. How can you make statements about your observations, unless there is a real world to observe? So, even though you try to hide your metaphysic, it still comes through.

The further question is not, how does your “worldview” deny correspondence, but whether or not it is asserted Ad Hoc? Since you have not shown how any epistemological statement flows from your cosmology, all your epistemological statements are Ad Hoc. Given your “worldview,” one could as easily have inserted, “There is no correspondence,” rather than “there is correspondence?” One Ad Hoc statement is just as good as another, right? That is there is no reason for “there is correspondence,” other than you like it.

Brady wrote: I have not inserted the traits of God into the theistic cosmology, they are already there.

AA responds: Ah, so you completely misunderstand the nature of the fallacy of equivocation. Your proofs of "god" do not prove your choice of "god" at all. You are using two definitions of "god", without distinction: the first, a restricted definition useful for proofs (as you said: The details on the personal traits of God are really meaningless here); the second, the full monty, a genocidal, murderous, vengeful, theistic creator of the heavens and the earth, and of all human souls, who created a world to be known and creatures to know it.

Actually, I do understand equivocation. You seem to lack an understanding of the logical difference between “and” and “or.” Equivocation is based on “or” for instance is we are talking about John Smith. I begin talking about John Smith who lives at 100 Main St. N.Y , NY , but later I am talking about John Smith who lives at 200 North St. , Chicago , IL . I make this change without telling you and implying that I am always talking about the same person. In what you mention above (pejoratives aside, please that is far below you, leave those to the atheist wackos), is an “and situation as you readily admit. In our above example it would be like talking about John Smith who lives at 100 Main St. N.Y , NY and later talking about John Smith who lives at 100 Main St. N.Y , NY and drives a Ford truck. It is the same person, just more detail, therefore no equivocation. If you want to show an equivocation you must show an “or.” But, further, I never mentioned all those things you have inserted. I have consistently mentioned God only as the Original Being who created a universe intended to be known and creatures intended to know it.

Additionally, you must realize that there are two arguments here, one against the atheist position and one for the theist position. Even if I was completely wrong about the theist position, the argument against atheism still stands. And if we know for certain that all atheist cosmologies fall, we also know for certain that some sort of theism in general must be true, necessarily.

AA continues: As you are proposing your choice of "god" as the answer to all philosophical problems I should hope that you would hesitate no longer to liberate us all from the chains of darkness. I ask you, then, to explain - without further assumptions about your choice of "god" or otherwise - how you infer:

(1) your own existence;

(2) the rules of deductive inference;

(3) the proposition of correspondence;

(4) the solution to the problem of causation;

(5) the solution to the problem of induction; and

(6) the distinction between animate and inanimate.

Asked and answered, several times. All these things flow from the elements of the theistic cosmology. We were created to know, the world was created to be known. These are the ways we know. They are innate.