Round 3   9/16/05

From Brady 

Tremblay wrote:

I guess what we disagree about is that Mr. Tremblay’s cosmology just doesn’t have the elements that allow him to get to “conceptualize” and “reason” in any meaningful sense. In neither his opening remarks nor his follow-up post has he offered anything from his cosmology that shows there is a difference between his “reasoning” and the necessary path that a rock is forced to follow as it rolls down a hill.

Something I think we can agree on is that science doesn’t make predictions, scientists do. Some of those predictions are correct and some fall flat on their face. Now, can Mr. Tremblay show from his cosmology those predictions are anything more than a form of brain matter changing in a deterministic way? If its only brain matter changing in a deterministic way, then they really didn’t make any predictions, did they? They just moved there bodies and mouths as they must, according to deterministic necessity. The scientist making the wrong predictions could do no other and the scientists making the right predictions could do no other; all their predictions are necessary and are based on antecedent causes. And of course neither Mr. Tremblay, nor anyone else could respond to those predictions in any other way than that which occurred.

Tremblay wrote:

I have to wonder when our subject changed. I thought it had to do with the ability of our world views to deal with the existence of knowledge. At this point we still have no clue of what Mr. Tremblay means by the terms “knowledge,” “understanding” or “thought.”

Let us review the topic of the debate:

I have stated that in my view “knowledge” has to contain an element of independence from a necessary and mechanized deterministic universe in order for the term to have meaning.

In one place Mr. Tremblay states, “But I will say this: Mr. Lenardos' argument assumes that the mind is not determined. That's ridiculous! The mind is material, has an identity that can be determined by science, and is subject to causation. So how is it not determined? If he wants to get anywhere at all with his free will/determinism side issue, he needs to justify this absurd premise first.”

First, let us notice that Mr. Tremblay asserts that deterministic necessity is a side issue, just several paragraphs below where he stated it is “the central point of the debate.”

Second, he asserts that the mind is determined and that it is ridiculous to suggest otherwise. To him independence of thought and free thinking is “absurd.” That is unless you read his previous words:

Saying that free will and determinism do not co-exist in the same respect doesn’t get him off the hook when it comes to “knowledge.” Our thoughts either have an element of independence to them or they don’t. This is an excluded middle, when it comes to logic. If all our thoughts are necessarily determined, we can’t “know” anything. We simply think the thoughts the antecedent causes force us to think; just as the rock is forced to roll down the hill in a specific path, caused by antecedent causes. Other terms are also destroyed; terms like “belief,” “opinion,” and “assent.” All of these terms have an element of independence built into them and when this element is removed, they all lose their meaning. Under Mr. Tremblay’s view, all of our “opinions,” like all of our thoughts are determined. All of our beliefs are determined, everything we assent to, we assent to because it is necessarily determined by the antecedent causes of our mechanistic universe. You see, in normal thinking “opinion” necessarily contains an element of subjectivism, but in Mr. Tremblay’s view every thought is necessarily determined, and there really is no such thing as the subjective. “Subjective” then also becomes a meaningless term.

What of terms like, “ignorance” and “error?” If we are determined in what we think, then the ignorant man is necessarily determined to be ignorant and the scientist who makes the grave error must think that way and can do no other. These terms also become meaningless.

When Mr. Tremblay says he is a “compatiblist,” does he mean that he freely and independently determined that on some level free will and determinism are compatible, or does he mean that he was determined by antecedent causes to say they are compatible? The former demands independence, the latter rejects it. Which is it? If Mr. Tremblay asserts that he determined that on some level free will and determinism are compatible, his argument fails, because he admits independence. If his assertion means that he was determined by antecedent causes to say they are compatible, he denies that this is knowledge and is merely a forced assertion, and my argument is successful. Because he is admitting that if his cosmology is true, then knowledge (and all of its corollaries as noted above) doesn’t exist. This I outline in my opening remarks.

Let’s look at another passage from Mr. Tremblay’s post. He first quotes me:

He then replies:

Here Mr. Tremblay demonstrates that he does not understand the nature of the form of “Petitio Principii” which is the vicious circle. In one sense all knowledge is circular, in that all words and concepts rely on other words and concepts, which will rely on other words and concepts that will at some point get us back to our original words and concepts. It cannot be avoided. But the vicious circle deals with a non-linear argument.

For instance, let’s take the Mormon argument:

Mormon: Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.

Tremblay: How do you know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God?

Mormon: Because Joseph Smith spoke to God.

Tremblay: How do you know that Joseph Smith spoke to God?

Mormon: Because Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.

The vicious circle should be clear to everyone.

Now let’s take a look at my argument:

1) For “knowledge” to mean anything, its definition must include an element of independence.

2) If “knowledge” (and its element of independence) exist, then all atheist cosmologies are false.

3) “Knowledge” (and its element of independence) exists; therefore all atheistic cosmologies are false. (via 2, 3, conditional syllogism)

4) It is either the case that some atheistic cosmology is true or that some theistic cosmology is true, but not both.

5) Since it is not the case that any atheistic cosmology is true, some theistic cosmology is necessarily true (3, 4, disjunctive syllogism).

What this argument demonstrates is that God is a necessary precondition for knowledge. So, if Mr. Tremblay knows anything, God necessarily exists.

If Mr. Tremblay’s cosmology is true, he has no argument. This is because the term “argument,” like “knowledge,” opinion” and “assent,” requires an element of independence for the term to have meaning, as noted with the other terms above. If Tremblay’s “argument” is nothing more than sounds (i.e. “words”) necessarily determined by antecedent causes in a mechanistic universe and the hearers response is also necessarily determined by antecedent causes in a mechanistic universe, then the terms “argument” and “response” become functional synonyms, and loose any distinction of meaning, along with all the other terms I have discuss previously. All of these terms simply mean matter reacting as it necessarily must to antecedent causes. There can be no right response or wrong response; the responses can be no other than they are. There can be no meaningful assertion of “true” or “false.” If there were, it would suggest that we can actually make an independent decision, but no such decision is possible. All that is possible is that which must be, i.e. matter reacting as it necessarily must to the antecedent causes in a deterministic universe.

If this is true, then the existence of God becomes a precondition for any argument, where the term “argument” has its original meaning and not Mr. Tremblay’s contrived meaning. Therefore, all arguments are in there essence arguments for the existence of God! Q.E.D.

From Francois 

In my opening post, I presented five reasons to reject theistic epistemology. By doing so, of course, I had to use some epistemic basis. Otherwise there would be no debate! To show the common ground between atheists and Christians on the issue, I used examples of daily experience. In reply to this, Mr. Lenardos calls my epistemology “naive” and that my emphasis on induction is incomplete.

To a certain extent, he is correct: if we are talking about daily experience, we are necessarily talking about a certain degree of philosophical assumptions. Most people don’t debate the primacy of existence, or the validity of induction. People just assume these things are valid as a matter of course. Everyone acts as if these things were true, and without these assumptions, we literally could not live. If we had no inductive understanding of eating, for instance, we would starve. No one had to mount a logical argument demonstrating why we should eat, for us to realize how good it is to eat !

But if, as I argue in my opening case, Christianity is incompatible with the validity of induction, then any Christian worldview clashes with basic facts of our daily experience, including propositions (C1), (C2), (V1) and (V2). And I don’t know any Christian who would object to them. I certainly hope Mr. Lenardos doesn’t. Whether induction is as important as I make it, or not, is not the issue here. The issue is that Christianity contradicts induction, and that without induction, any worldview is doomed.

It does not matter at all if there are propositions that are not based on induction. Propositions of our daily experience like (C1), (C2), (V1) and (V2) are. And that’s the whole problem.

Mr. Lenardos asks a number of questions against what he calls my naive empiricism. Actually, naive empiricism refers to the belief that percepts share all the properties of their corresponding existents (for instance, that when you look at them from a plane, people really are small like ants). No one holds such a view. Secondly, any supposed flaw of my epistemology is only relevant if it prohibits the acquisition or checking of knowledge.

I already answered his first objection about possible failures of knowledge based on induction. His error is in taking each proposition as a separate entity. Our knowledge concerns a network of interrelated facts we call “nature”, and so we must also consider our propositions to be interrelated. As I said in regards to flipping the light switch, “when the light does not turn on, I acknowledge it as an unusual situation and look to other material causes for an explanation (the light bulb is burnt out)”.

He asks:

“When Tremblay observes a reed in a pond and the reed looks bent, does that observation correspond to reality?”

I can’t believe he went for such a simplistic argument (everyone knows the “bent stick” analogy), but the answer is obviously yes. The observation tells me exactly the state of the light rays arriving to my eye. That is the reality of my percept. All percepts must be interpreted correctly through our conceptual framework. We know from science that a pond is not a “normal perceptual environment”, but rather is subject to refraction. That is an empirical fact. To ignore it is the equivalent of ignoring a percept : both are objective facts.

So ironically, it seems he is the one who is the “naive empiricist” here, at least in his assumptions. Or perhaps he simply assumed I was a naive empiricist and is now asking what he thinks are clever leading questions.

Then he starts getting downright arrogant :

“How does Mr. Tremblay know that an item still exists when he does not perceive it? (…) He may “assume” his oven is there, he may “believe” his oven is there, but he can never “know” his oven still exists when it is not being perceived.”

“But if causes are not like effects, what makes Mr. Tremblay think that his perceptions (the effects) are anything like the world (the cause) around him? He may “assume” they are and he may “believe” they are, but he has no way of “knowing” they are.”

Mr. Lenardos is very arrogant about what he thinks I know and do not know. If he already knows everything I know or do not know, then why isn’t he debating with himself?

Yes, I “know” that the oven is still there, because reality does not depend on me perceiving it, and reality does not depend on my perception because reality is objective. Every three year old knows that things still exist, move and change after he leaves. And causality is determined by three criteria: temporal succession,

spatial contiguity, and potentiality. He has failed to prove that percepts and existents are not linked in these three ways.

Why does Mr. Lenardos really think my worldview cannot account for logic, objectivity, causality, and the “self” ? Because that is the basis for his own beliefs. If he even concedes that both worldviews can account equally, the whole presuppositionalist reasoning falls apart, because like Creationism, it is based solely on assuming the impossibility of the contrary.

It is very easy to play this game. Let me try:

“How does Lenardos explain his assumption that objects keep existing when he turns away? He can claim it, but he can’t know it.”

“How does Lenardos explain his assumption that his percepts are caused by existents? He can claim it, but he can’t know it.”

“How does Lenardos explain his assumption that induction always holds? He can claim it, but he can’t know it.”

That’s pretty easy and crass, isn’t it? But in my opening case, I explained clearly, point by point, why the Christian worldview is impotent. In exchange, all Mr. Lenardos can do is ask questions and assume a negative answer. In essence, his side of the debate is a crowing in search of something to crow about.

Once again, no theistic worldview can explain any of these things, because they allow for divine breaks in the uniformity of nature. Indeed, from a theistic perspective, there is no such thing as uniformity, only divine subjectivity. It is only within a self-contained, materialist universe that we can be sure of the uniformity of nature, and by extension of induction and conceptualization. Mr. Lenardos does not, and cannot, have any such basis.

On his analysis of my arguments, Mr. Lenardos claims I am mounting a straw man. That the Trinity makes perfect sense. That Jesus’ contradictory nature is not contradictory at all. That logic is part of God’s nature. To the first two, I have nothing to say, except that readers should judge for themselves whether he has answered the points at all (I contend he has said absolutely nothing). The third point is meaningless, since logic is material (and if Christianity is true, a creation) and God is supernatural. So how can logic be part of God’s nature? Obviously he thinks this makes sense, but like his other points, it is simply objecting for the sake of objecting.

Let me repeat once again : there is no such thing as “three in one”, a person who is both god and man, and a being that creates logic with pre-existing logic. These are direct contradictions. No amount of obfuscating can change that. Trying to prove that A can co-exist with not-A is a waste of everyone’s time.

Then he literally questions himself out of any sense when he asks :

“Please show us how you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell goodness?”

Well, if we’re going to make a comparison between principles, how do we perceive the law of gravity ? Obviously both are acquired by the inductive observation of material things, but we can only perceive the principles in themselves in our own minds, through our memory of those principles and their justification, in the same way that we imagine a scene, feel an emotion, or talk to ourselves. Does Mr. Lenardos really think that imagined scenes, emotions and internal voices float around in the universe ?

To come back to my five arguments:

1. Christianity is a fundamentally incoherent worldview.

2. Christianity preaches belief, not knowledge.

3. Theistic worldviews (including Christianity) make inductive reasoning impossible.

4. Theistic worldviews (including Christianity) make conceptualization impossible.

5. The fundamental subjectivity of the Christian worldview.

To these five points, Mr. Lenardos only replied to 1. And all he has done is repeat Christian beliefs and that he believes them. We already know that he does not believe his doctrine has contradictions. Otherwise he would not be a Christian. No big surprise there. So how does that help his case?

I have already won this debate, insofar as everything Mr. Lenardos is saying right now is questions with no justification and crowing with no substance. Thinking the bent stick analogy is a killer argument for his side, or that he can just claim that Jesus was both man and god and that we should take him at his word, is very childish. I thought he would at least give it an honest effort, but he hasn’t. To me, this only demonstrates how the presuppositionalist reasoning is, as always, solely resting on ranting against opposite worldviews and getting your share of amens before you leave. But no one is here to give him any amens.