Define "observable."

Define "reasonable" and by extension, "unreasonable."  What is the measure of reason?

It's good that you see it as obvious.  Too bad you can't understand it.  Information is not observed in any case.  Information is the quantification of observed phenomena.  The words "provide information" are synonymous with "cause observable effects."

This is a broad generalization that can only cause confusion.  Knowledge, as you have stated, is justified true belief.  That is, it is a sub-class of belief, and belief is nothing more than the state of holding a thing to be real and true.  The "source of belief" can only be the mind.  Therefore, the source of knowledge is also the mind.

If you mean to say the sense organs through which perception occurs, there's no reason to obscure it behind an unrelated word like "modalities."

Reason is far different from your eyes.  Your eyes are sense organs.  Reason is the process by which your brain reaches conclusions.  They should not be lumped in one term.

Because of this conflation of several ideas into one term, P1 and P2 are nonsense, and must be clarified before they are useful premises.  There's no point in going on any further until you fix this problem.

A few comments.

Why?

Our sensory organs are not non-observable. We know they exist because of neuroscience. Your analogy isn't very good. Wait, how do we know supernatural knowledge exists again?

Have you considered the possibility that every specific q can be repeatedly used as the drastically more certain proposition? As such, why must there there be an endless chain instead of a web? Great philosophical mind games, but unrealistic. By intuition alone, it's obvious that the subject cannot know an infinite number of propositions or no propositions. 

Am I reading this right? Is this the succinct philosophical version of the "you can't know that you exist" argument? You're talking about an infinitesimally small number, so small, that by all practical standards, it is certain. Either we assume that natural modalities are certain, and thus, the supernatural does not exist, or, otherwise, nothing is certain. Do you not see the irony here? If we conclude that the natural is as uncertain as you claim, then we can you use your own logic to assert that we cannot be sure of the validity of your argument because your premises are logical, thus natural, thus uncertain.   

I am not sure how this follows from C12 and C15.

Really? Suppose Max steps into some sort of box that is totally impenetrable to all forms of analysis. Once he steps into the box, Max is non-observable. According to you, it follows that Max poofs out of existence once he steps into the box. But that is obviously not true.

See my definition of supernatural knowledge.

That is not relevant to my argument, actually. I'm not claiming that any specific thought is derived from a supernatural modality, just that some thought must be. 

Well, but the conclusions that we draw from reasoned analysis are qualitatively different from the premises that go into them. For example, the laws of thermodynamics are rather different from the observations that prove them. In calling reason a modality, I am accounting for this. Further, there are tautologies like those of logic or math that are known without reference to particular sensory observations, and it is appropriate to treat these as a separate class of knowledge. (And therefore reason, their source, as a separate modality.)

"Modality" as I use the term refers to the organ itself.

I am saying that the supernatural exists. See part four in the OP.

Ok, so how do you know that any thoughts derive form a "supernatural modality"? Why 'must' there be any such thoughts? Prove it.

But whether we can observe our sense organ or not is totally irrelevant to establishing the credibility of the ultimate supposed supernatural source of the information we are allegedly perceiving. We do not base our acceptance of the validity of visual information on whether we can see our eyes or not, that surely cannot be your argument...

But you have not established a logical case for it, let alone an empirical one.

C16 in part four does not follow. 'Reason' is not a supernatural 'modality'.

We are still back to my basic initial point - how do you distinguish a valid supernatural perception from an over-active imagination. How do you prove there are any such perceptions of supernatural entities, let alone that you are actually getting information from them? It seems to me that whatever the imperfections of our normal senses, any purported 'supernatural' senses don't even get to first base in justifying any confidence in what we imagine may be a 'genuine' such experience.

Even if your logic did not have yawning gaps, logic is insufficient to prove anything about the external world, only that your conclusions are consistent with your premises. You still have to prove that your premises actually do accurately correspond to the real world.

Presuppositionalist your argument for the existence of the supernatural defines the supernatural as "non-observable reality".  You have not defines observable.  For observable do you mean things which can only be directly observed, or do you also count things like the wind which can be observed threw its interaction with other things?  You made a comment about how I can’t see my own eye unless there is a mirror present, does this mean that you only define things as observable if they are currently being observed? I can’t accept your definition until you provide more detail.  With the right definition you could prove anything exists, for instance if I defined supernatural as my ass it would be very easy to prove the existence of the supernatural.

The second problem I have with your definitions is your definition of certainty.  You define certain as that which is unreasonable to doubt.  You have not defined reasonable.  Defining a single word with two words really isn’t that useful. Please go into a little more depth with your definitions.   

That said, there are certain parts of your argument I find illogical:

"C7. Therefore, If it is reasonable to doubt a proposition, p, then some proposition, q, is known more certainly than p. (P6 & P7)"

First why did you have to use the variables p and q in the same sentence?  For those of us who are dyslexic this is very frustrating.

Second what you’re basically saying is if I doubt that my car exists I have to have a reason for doubting it’s existence(q) that is more certain(unreasonable to doubt) than my reason for believing in its existence(p). 

In other word if q>p it is reasonable to doubt my cars existence.

"P14. That which may be wrong is reasonable to doubt."

So now you’re saying that if my reason for doubting my cars exists(q) has any certainty at all then it’s reasonable to doubt my cars existence.   In other words your saying if q>0 I should doubt my cars existence.

Your statements C7 and P14 contradict one another.  If C7 is true then p<q determines if it is reasonable to doubt something, and everything you say in part four is flawed.  If P14 is true then q>0 determines if it is reasonable to doubt something, and you arguments in part three are flawed(you yourself demonstrate with p12, and p13 that it is possible for someone to cast some doubt on everything they know with only a limited number of  proposition.)  In either case your whole argument is flawed
 
I can’t help but think that this argument was from the beginning nothing more then a word game trying to define the supernatural in such a way as to make it seem plausible.  One more thing, do you realize that if you argument was true it would mean that it was more reasonable for me to believe in the existence angels then it would be for me to believe the existence of my own car.  That is quite frankly ridicules. 

Except that your scenario has two huge problems (off the top of my head):

 - Max couldn't have detected the alleged box to be able to step into it.

 - Max couldn't have stepped into it and 'vanished', because that's a detectable act. If the box makes people disappear into it, that's an observable phenomenon.

Lemme have a go at this.

The act of entering the box is observable, which would allows us to assert with reasonable confidence that Max existed up to that point.

Once sealed up in an impenetrable box, we can no longer be sure, since there is no way to know what subsequently happened to him. The laws of Physics means that the matter of which he was composed almost certainly still exists, but we can longer know if the person still exists in any meaningful form.

If all we see is the box, then indeed we have no way to know whether there is a person named Max inside it. Or ever was, unless someone can give us proof that he entered it.

This indeed puts any statements about 'Max' into very much the same status as our 'knowledge' of God.

We are not saying that "Max poofs out of existence" once he steps into the box, but that we can no longer know whether he now exists or not, and we would be dependent on some evidence for his prior existence up to the point he stepped into it. 

Just like God.

 Why didn't you address my criticisms?

It should be pretty clear that I think the above argument is such a proof. Actually, the proof of a supernatural modality concludes in C17. The last few premises contain the final deductions necessary to establish supernature's existence.

Perhaps you should review my definition of supernatural. Also, perhaps a review of the argument would help.

I never said reason was a supernatural modality. I explicitly said the opposite, actually, listing it as one of the two natural modalities.

But I am curious about this C16 not following business. Let's see, I said that C16 followed from C12 and C15...

The argument for C16

C12. Every reasonable person has certain knowledge of at least one proposition.

C15. All knowledge from natural modalities is uncertain.

C16. Therefore, every reasonable person has knowledge of at least one proposition that does not come from a natural modality.

C12 and C15 imply C16 because if we know something with certainty, and we know that certainties don't come from natural modalities, then we must not have gotten this certainty from a natural modality. (Here's an analogy: My coffee cup has a Starbucks logo. I know that cups with Starbucks logos don't come from McDonald's. Therefore, this cup did not come from McDonald's)

I don't have to be able to do that for this argument to work. I don't have to be able to show that any particular perception is supernatural, that there are perceptions of supernatural entities, or that I am getting information from such supernatural entities.

Of course, if you think that any of those actually do pose a problem for my argument, specify the premise or inference on which they impact.

I have reviewed the premises, and they all seem pretty clear. I am not dodging you, I simply don't see what is left to establish. If you specify the premises that you have doubts about, I will be able to help you out.

DMT .04 mg, is the cure for Atheism. Try it or read "DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE," by Dr. Strassman.

As for the existence of the supernatural and paranormal, read any standard encyclopedia of the paranormal.

Ok so it is your definition of Supernatural that is flawed. By any reasonable definition, the observability of the sensory apparatus itself is irrelevant - it is the observability of the ultimate source of the information which is relevant. Your insistence on using the term 'modality' allows you to obscure this simple point. The ultimate source of visual data is perceived via our eyes, it is not our eyes themselves.

Whatever my original point was, this is clearly problematic - I covered this in a later post www.rationalresponders.com/forum/16279#comment-212863

So there is many classes of statement we can be certain of from reason, and many statements which inherently have no assignable certainty associated with them, and others which are inherently undecidable.

So your whole attempt to apply some calculus of certainty to this agrgument is fatally flawed, and your immediately following assertions about C16 just don't work.

I have already established that C16 is incorrect, and your analogy actually demonstrates an essentially certain statement that is derived from natural reasoning, thereby reinforcing my position. Thank you for pwning yourself...

OK, i guess you are strictly correct here - I was skipping ahead to point out that even if you coulsd somehow prove that thre could be Supernatural sources of information, there is no way we could discern with logical certainty when some bit of information in our mind actually came from such a source without checking it against external reality, which makes it no different from any other idea or inspiration we may have.

No. This is not valid. Anything (p) casting doubt on any of the assumptions in q is reason to doubt q, regardless of the level of confidence in p.

For a proper rigorous analysis of the likelihoods of propositions which depend in turn on other uncertain propositions, see the work of the Reverend Thomas Bayes. This completely supersedes the simplistic assumptions of Wittgenstein, at least in this area.

So your argument is not valid.

This is only a problem for me if I have an obligation to prove that. But it isn't clear why I should have to.

YOUR SIDE was arguing that point. I was arguing AGAINST it.

You say with great authority that "by any reasonable definition, xyz", but you don't explain (a) what the "reasonable" definition of supernatural is, (b) why this definition gets preference over mine or (c) why this definition implies xyz. Explain all of those and I'll address whatever is left to address.

I'll answer that separately from this post.

Actually, I hold that tautologies are not certain. It is an unusual position, but a defensible one. The argument for it, similar to one that I presented in an earlier response, is: Tautologies are produced by reason. Reason has produced falsehoods before. That which has produced falsehoods cannot produce certainties. Therefore, tautologies are uncertain.

Here is an analogy. Imagine that you have a calculator which is wrong once in every ten billion calculations. Once you knew that it was wrong once in every ten billion calculations, you would not be certain of anything it produced thereafter. You might be "certain for all intents and purposes", but not certain certain, not the kind of certain I mean in my argument. And we both know that your reason has a failure rate far worse than one in ten billion calculations.

Bob: "But this means that your argument is not certain!"

I don't have a problem with a tiny bit of uncertainty in my argument. And I was never saying that reason is enormously uncertain anyway. I only require a certainty of less than 100% for my argument to work. And no one, or at least no one on this site, is 100% confident in their conclusions. Isn't that what you're always saying - that everything ought be open to question and criticism? Anyway, let me know if I'm wrong, and you think you are infallible.

It is such a primitive concept that I can only define it by giving examples. A thing is observed if it is seen, heard, tasted, felt, or smelt.

According to you, reason is the method by which the brain reaches conclusions.

Cast that as an actual argument with a conclusion hostile to my OP, and I will address it. As is, it is not clear why this should be a problem for me.

You are correct in that the mind is the immediate source of all knowledge. It is the last link in the chain, in other words, so all knowledge has to pass through it. However, this does not mean that the mind is the only thing we can call a source of knowledge. I mean, that's like saying your computer is the source of all the information on the Rational Responders website. Your computer is the immediate source of all of that data, but surely the members and architects of the website are also the sources of that data in an important sense.

I would also think that, if you hold the mind to be the only thing we can call a source of information in any sense, you ought to be an idealist. I mean, apparently nothing in the external world is a source of information in any sense, and your senses are not sources of information in any sense. So it must all come ex nihilo from your mind. That is most certainly idealism. If you want to avoid that fate, I suggest you retreat from the above argument, and admit that there are multiple senses in which a thing can be a source of information.

I don't mean just the sense organs by which perception occurs. I mean the organ which is the source of any sort of information. The tautologies of math or logic, for example, are qualitatively different from the empirical propositions that we take by induction from the senses, and therefore the brain, their source, is properly identified as a modality.

Why? 

Okay - but then this statement remains internally inconsistent. In the box is, in fact, visible, it's susceptible to visual analysis. If the box blocks-out any analysis of what's inside of it, and we can text this by having Max go in and attempting to maintain radio contact with him, that's another way of analyzing the damn box because we then know that it prevents every known type of signal from penetrating it (this is similar to the way we analyzed black holes in the early days).

Do you have a point, anyway, Presup? Are you saying that God is locked away in a box at the center of the universe or somesuch?

Another fundamental flaw in Presup's argument is that our minds do not use such formal reasoning processes, so we do not actually require any formally certain knowledge to function practically. We only need to start from some working assumptions, and work from there by a mix of more-or-less formally valid reasoning and simpler short-cuts based on associative processes.

Hey Hamby,

Why do Christians claim that atheists use creation ex nihilo  (from whatever source) when that is a foundation of their belief system?

What specifically constitutes "non-observable reality," and how is it distinguishable from simple thoughts and fantasies? For instance, how would you distinguish between the Bible as revelatory truth, or simply as another religious text written by men and based on a mixture of myth, then-current morality, and wishful thinking? Is there some epistemic device which distinguishes between fantasy and non-observable reality?

Perhaps you've clarified this before, but reading through the responses here, I don't see it.

I'm imagining this. OK. Got it.

There are other ways of validating our sight, though, even though we can't see our own eyes (or lick our own elbows, except for HisWillness). We can touch things, as well, and so we can touch our eyes to validate that there are some sort of physical thing were our visual sensory organs seem to be.

Even considering that, if we could see things, but not touch them, would we then assume those things are real? Probably not. So we know that our vision is an accurate representation of reality because our other senses give us validation. If we were to see something that our other senses could not validate, we would justifiably begin to doubt reality.

This same must hold true for "non-observable modalities." I'll make a wild speculative leap, and go along with the assertion that these "non-observable modalities" exist. Unless we were able to reconcile the data gathered from these non-observable modalities with the data gathered by our other senses, this data would remain suspect. Further, the data gathered must be measurable, coherent, consistent, and universal. Otherwise, it is completely indistinguishable from complete and utter bullshit.

Sure, I'll go along with that. After all, you answer it in Part Four, although not in the way you think.

Here you go. This one assertion is enough to address P6, and avoids the problems of an infinite number of propositions to doubt. This statement can not be wrong, as it merely addresses possibility. It is also sufficient to be a reason to doubt other propositions, without resorting to "knowledge gained through non-observable modalities."

It's already contained in your argument, and is the central linchpin to the final stage of the argument. It completely unravels the rest of your argument.

Finally, there's this:

No. You may have two or more 'y's. y(1) implies y(2), and y(2) implies y(1).

I realize you are attempting to establish that if you doubt all of your propositions, there must be a "higher" proposition by which to lend doubt. But, there are many "modalities" of doubt. And so q may lead you to doubt p, but p may lead you to doubt q. You don't have the false dichotomy of 0 or infinity. The logic of Part Three is deeply flawed, and your conclusions are unsound.

P7 is invalid, because Wittgenstein was wrong, (See my discussions on Bayes' Theorem)

C8 is invalid - it also relies on the Wittgenstein hypothesis, and you have not justified "unique".

C10 is invalid, because it relies in the unjustified assumption of 'uniqueness'.

Therefore C12 is invalid.

By your own words, even within the unique and specially devised set of definitions you start with, that is more than enough to collapses your whole argument.

I see why you label this the "WITTGENSTEIN VERSION", since it hinges on the Wittgenstein hypothesis.

So you will need to justify accepting this hypothesis.

Final comment - even if you can justify this, your argument only supports the existence of the what you define as "Supernature", which is not what is meant by the concept in normal usage:

eg:

1. supernatural "adjective
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature" - New Oxford American Dictionary

2. supernatural adj 1 belonging or relating to or being phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of nature or physics. - Chambers Dictionary (UK)

Note: nothing to do non-observable anything, its about asserting the reality of stuff which is not explainable or 'beyond' naturalistic explanation.

So you have 'proved' an irrelevant straw-man proposition, based heavily around an extremely questionable hypothesis.

Clever lad.

 EDIT: Part Three of the OP is better regarded as a "Reductio ad Absurdum" demonstration that P7 is false.

You have not proved that what you categorize as Supernatural knowledge is certain, therefore C17 is not justified.

Tautologies follow from definitions/axioms, therefore it is utterly absurd to say they cannot be certain. If I say symbol A is the symbol that will be used in this discussion to refer to proposition B, then I later say something like "if B then A", that is a tautological statement that is always true.

"1 + 1= 2" is actually a tautology, since it follows directly from the definitions of all the symbols. It is a certain proposition, it would be the height of absurdity to say that we are not justified in regarding it as certain.

It seems your standard fallacy is

1. Group a number of somewhat distinct propositions under some collective term, C, such as 'modalities', or 'natural knowledge' or 'knowledge derived from reason';

2. Show that at least some members A of that group have some attribute, like 'uncertainty';

3. Then, and this is a fallacy of "guilt by association":

3.1. B is a member of group C.

3.2. Some members of C are have property P;

3.3. Therefore B may have property P.

Huh?  

I stated that my existence is self-evident. To be conscious and non-existent is in the same category as being a married bachelor. This is a certainty.  

So, I suppose I'll return to this line. Reasoned conclusions are only uncertain and can be wrong due to flaws in my perception and knowledge. Reason itself is perfect.  

I should have been more clear. If the supernatural, and thus knowledge about it, is not meaningful as far as existence is concerned (e.g. "Santa Claus is coming to town" ) then you have a weak argument for existence. Knowledge of Santa Claus does not change the likelihood of Santa's existence.

If I've confused the issue, I didn't mean to. But the last two statements in your argument go directly from knowledge to existence:

I've read it over and over, and allowing for the fact that I guess your numbering is a typo, I still can't figure out where the necessity for existence was addressed. You hopped right from people having knowledge to existence. I wouldn't argue that knowledge of supernature exists (e.g. "Santa has flying reindeer" ) but it seems like a big jump to existence from such knowledge.

To be precise, the premise should read, "Some reasoned conclusions may be wrong."  The statement "All reasoned conclusions may be wrong" is false, since all valid deductive conclusions from true premises are necessarily true.

I think Presup is getting confused between the method and the data.  Any data (excepting data representing axioms) may be wrong.  However, reason itself cannot be "wrong" if it is valid.  Only the data derived from the conclusion can be wrong, and then only if one of the premises contained bad data.

Arrg, yes, that's what I was trying to say. *stamps foot*