Ok, give me evidence that reason exists empirically.  If you can't, then reason is your dogma and thus its a religion.

 

(curtsy)

I may not be able to see my reason, but I can see evidence of my reason's existance.  The fact that I didn't burn down my house today or spend my entire paycheck on video games and beer is evidence of my reason's existance.

Many use the very same intuitive reasoning to point to the existence of God.  Why should reason be the only appropriate answer to the evidence?

Crediting god with the calculated thoughts of the individual or the happenings of chance isn't intuitive reasoning. It's pure poetry. It may sound pretty, but it doesn't make the world go round.

There are things that are verified and things that are unverified with a large swath of grey in between. We may not be able to hold up thought as something substantial to show one and other, or have all of the answers to every question. That doesn't using "god did it" as the default answer to every question is correct or even somewhat justifyable. The longer we do that, the longer our questions will remain unanswered.

Why seek inductive evidence of something that is axiomatic - i.e deductively (necessarily) true?! It is axiomatic that you are reasoning, because in order for you to ask your question, you must first reason. So you already have far more than mere inductive evidence, you have deductive proof! 

But let's play...

Well then, are you reasoning?

If not, then we can ignore your words, right?

If you are reasoning, then you've just refuted yourself. You've given us proof of the existence of reasoning.

Pick your poison.

 

(while the court laughs)

We know that reason exists empirically, because we can infer reasoning from behaviors.

We know that reason exists, axiomatically, when we ourselves employ reason.

So we have both empirical evidence and deductive proof. Deductive proof allows us to have certain knowledge that we reason.

I've never met anyone more thorougly refuted than you.... but you'll continue on, anyway, right?

Thanks todangst, you are a BEAST!  I've learned something today!

This is insane, giving you evidence for something IS 'reason'!

You are asking us to give you reasons why using reasons (evidence) is better than just making shit up, or accepting that the next thing you read, or that someone tells you, is true?? Or do you have some basis, ie a reason, for deciding what to believe?

How do you know you can trust your own mind? What if it is constantly deceiving you but you don't know it?

And how do you know you can trust yours about the existence and nature of God?

REASON leads us to seek which method of deciding what is most likely to be true seems to work best for us. Some people look at ALL the evidence, ie we test our ideas against what we perceive as the real world, compare our tests with other peoples', and do our best to avoid accepting stuff just because we want to, because it makes us feel good (otherwise we are no better than a drug addict, taking his 'fix' to get 'high' ) .

Other people find 'reasons' to reject ideas which don't fit their existing ideas, even when those ideas can be shown by lots of examples to better explain what we see. What is your 'reason' for rejecting reason??

 

Theist scientists think your strange 

Inference to the best explanation and abductive logic are not poetry.  My critique is that you rely on something that is not visible, measurable, etc. This is the same criteria leveled against belief in God.  Shouldn't you seek to be consistent?

Again, I already dealt with this claim - - what on earth do you mean by 'god is logical'?

Again, logic deals with assessing argument forms. It deals with signs, not the things that the signs signify. So your statement 'god is logical' makes no sense, unless you are saying "god makes logical arguments" OR you saying that 'god' follows natural law.

If you are saying the former, what does that even mean?

If you are saying the latter, then you're turning 'god' into a natural entity... he's no longer supernatural, and you've left theism altogether and have entered pantheism.

In addition, you need to explain how logic can refer to something outside of nature. That's yet another ontological blunder in your claims that you don't seem to have any awareness of...

You don't even seem to know what logic is, or what axioms are yet... so I'd advise you to stop making comments on subjects you're ill prepared to discuss. And before you lodge a complaint, your posts already demonstrate this ignorance, so just concede the issue and move on.

And your critique is ridiculous, because you've been forced to employ reason to question the existence of reason! So the fact that you think you can't 'see empirical evidence for reason' (even if it were true) is moot, because you already have rational grounds, deductive grounds, axiomatic grounds, for the existence of the fact that you reason!

I've already told you that you are making a category error, but it's now clear that you don't know what a category error is.... It's an error to ask to 'see empirical evidence for reason, if by this you mean 'see reason in it's pure form' ' because reason is an electro-chemical-neural process that takes place within a person's cranium, that can only be experienced directly by first person ontology.... so you would only be privy to a third person's view of my ontological experience of my reasoning.... So to ask to see my reason directly is a category error. See the error now? You infer my reasoning through behavior.

And again (notice how often I have to repeat the refutations to you) it's UNNECESSARY to ask to see something if you already MUST employ reason to ask about the existence or reason!

However, if you do want to 'see reason' you CAN see it, you can see it indirectly through inferences from behavior .

Which is PRECISELY WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING DOING NOW AS YOU READ THIS!

Think about it! If you want to argue my point with me, you are CONCEDING THAT I AM REASONING WITH YOU. When you respond, you respond because I am giving you reasons that you choose to deal with.

You REFUTE yourself with EVERY WORD in EVERY POST.

Do you get it yet, or does the bartender need to send you home?

This is not the same 'criteria' leveled against belief in god. No one is saying "I can't see god' and 'god' is not an axiom. You're error is a gradeschool error.... it equates non existence with invisibility!

What atheists actually tend to say is this: there are no good reasons to hold to god belief.

Look, let me be even more blunt: You don't have much of any idea of what you are talking about when you attempt to refer to the grounds for atheism typically expressed on this site... you don't even seem to know what an axiom is, or what logic is, so why not sit back and learn what you're talking about first?

Isn't it convient that you don't have any idea what you're talking about? This way, you're free from realizing just how ignorant your claims are, or that you've already been refuted!

Let's count the errors here:

1) My methodology is not above question! Axioms are defended through retortion. How on earth can you enter into this discussion if you don't already know that? And if you had any idea at all of what you were talking about, you'd already realize that you've demonstrated defense through retortion, by asking for REASONS to believe that reason exists. You've been forced to employ the very process you sought to doubt... this is defense through retortion!

2) No one ever asks for an argument for an axiom, unless they are ignorant of what an axiom is... Axioms are not defended by argument in the first place. Would you like to know why?

Because axioms are the grounds for which argument is possible in the first place. In order to have an 'argument' to defend an axiom, you'd have to find an axiom to make the argument! Sort of a problem, isn't it?

Axioms are defended however - they are defended through retortion. This means any attempt to refute them requires that you rely upon them as the basis of your refutation. This means that any attempt to deny an axiom leads to an internal contradiction.

If you want an example of axioms defended through retortion, just look at how your arguments all suffer from self refutation. The fact that I have to explain this to you demonstrates that you don't know what you're arguing about. You've refuted yourself here, and you've done so in the very way that provides the grounds for the defense of axioms.

3) "God" claims are not axiomatic, if they were, stating "god does not exist' would lead to an internal contradiction... therefore, if you want to claim that 'god exists' you need to give an argument. So the idea that we are asking for exhaustive evidence, when we don't expect it of ourselves is just moronic... you're just expressing an ignorance of what an axiom is, combined with ignorance of what atheism is, combined with ignorance of how to actually argue a point...

So that's one statement, with three basic errors in logic... quite a feat, even for a theist.

 

Spumoni wants us to prove why we should apply the same criteria of reason and argument that we, and he himself attempts to do in his own discussion here, use for every other area of reality, to arguments about the existence and nature of God.

He wants to justify giving God a 'free pass' from logic and reason, obviously because logic and reason have consistently failed to provide any evidence or argument remotely powerful enough to 'prove' his pre-supposition about such a fundamental aspect of reality.

To begin with,

I do NOT agree with Spumoni's presentation - I am more interested in his claim than his proof.

I think that our best reminder that reason can be elevated into a religion unto itself (i.e., that one can make reason into a sort of cult) is found in the sig. of one of the above posters "The Enlightenment wounded the beast, but the killing blow has yet to land..." . The Enlightenment's enshrinement of reason led to an overblown humanism which postmodernists have deflated -- and which critical realists have also come to reject. During the French Revolution reason would even be personified in the iconic image of an idealized female form.

To argue that one cannot question rationality without pain of contradiction is not exactly true. If reason demonstrates that rational systems are always incomplete (i.e., Gödel), one does not shoot the messenger for being irrational. If one finds that positivist empiricism cannot jettison its own hidden metaphysical baggage, one does not then claim that the sky is falling or that something must have gone wrong in the reasoning.

Reason becomes a religion when, for example, the positivist refuses to accept her own metaphysical baggage because she is sure that her answer is right. "Positivism as we know it cannot be wrong -- the error must lie in your demonstration." Reason is a tool -- it is not nirvana. When the map disagree with the territory, you redraw the map or acknowledge its inherent limits.

I have nothing against reason. I think that we should strive to be rational creatures. My caution is directed toward those who think that reason (specifically, Western Empiricism) is the end-all be-all.

Reasons to be cautious about reason:

1. We are not naturally rational in the sense of some logic-chopping UTM. Studies indicate that humans use heuristics that approximate purely logical computations without the pain of expending limited cognitive resources. People, in fact, are suckers are non-logical conclusions (from the peanut gallery I hear a yell - Yeah! and one of them is theism!). The so-called missing dollar problem and the Wason Selection task are examples of how non-logical we really are. Moreover, our brains did not evolve so as to make us "logical" - our brains evolved to help us survive long enough to spread our genes. Our brain, as one scientist puts it, is a collection of kludges which has been Jerry-rigged several times.

But isn't this all the more reason that we should be careful reasoners? Sure it is. My point , however, is that we should be cautious about any reasoned demonstration (even those that confidently claim to disprove God), because humans can always goof things up. But more importantly....

2. Reason is a human creation -- it is not a Platonic form, at least it should not be if you are a card carrying materialist, but rather a human creation. As a human creation "rationality" is implicated as having limits - of sometimes being wrong or unable to give a coherent answer (i.e., self-referring sets). Also, rationality evolves. This is most obviously the case in scientific rationality (today's scientific truth is often tomorrow's falsity), but even geometry and logic have evolved over time.

Faith always comes into the picture at some point no matter what you hold to be true. This does not bother me, because I believe one can have a rational faith. If you can endure the insult ( you have faith too), you can also enjoy the compliment (you are not irrational for having faith). We all have faith in something. The atheist cannot disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster anymore than the theist can prove it, but the choice to not merely remain agnostic points to willingness to believe without complete evidence.

And yes, one can make a reason a religion unto itself. When reason points it its own limitations, the logical thing to do is to recognize the limitations of the tool. There are times when reason (from a narrow definition of reason) loses all traction. These are the times when we go on instinct, or rely on tradition and hope for the best.

Note: This does not meant that the theist is right.

Note: This does not mean that you are wacky for believing in reason.

I am only here to argue for a weak version of Spumoni's claim.

Cheers,

YARN

You're giving him too much credit, even in saying that... he wants to give his god a free pass, because he doesn't understand what an axiom is - he thinks it's merely an unsubstantiated assumption, and he takes from that ignorance the belief that he's free to assume whatever he wants...

I've seen the same error 1000 times... it's called presuppositionalism.... the philosophy of the ignoramous....

Actually, he's clearly not making that argument at all. If you look at his posts, he asked for empirical evidence for reason. It's abundantly clear that he did so in the hopes of hearing that we could not provide any... (otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered with the rhetorical ploy at all, notice how he's bowing in belief that he's stymied the board). His hope was that he could then say "aha, but you believe in reason without evidence, ergo I can believe in god without evidence!

He was giving the same old bad theistic reasoning: I can't build an argument for my own case, so let me tear down your worldview, and then argue that my case is just as BAD as your own!

In other words, his argument was a 'can you see the wind' style of argument..... he even employed references to 'seeing'....

It was, by Hume himself, who noted that assuming the value of induction was not irrational.

However, you're probably looking for more than that.

So try here:

http://www.candleinthedark.com/inductive.html

Ok.

http://www.candleinthedark.com/inductive.html

Then you've not read enough to make a good decision on the matter. Heck, you could even get a solution from the imbecilic Thomas Reid

Actually, that's pragmatism, and not his solution per se, although it is part of his solution. His solution was to accept that induction was a habit. Yes, it did have survival benefits (pragmatism), but most of all the point here was that it was not irrational per se, merely non rational (i.e as a habit) as opposed to irrational. In other words, we learn habits unconsciously, not 'rationally'.

To me, the 'problem' was always overblown, and really stems from the error of trying to hold to inductive logic as if it were deductive. Do away with this error, and the 'problem' disapears...... Also, for such a well bandied about 'problem' it doesn't seem to bother any scientist I've ever heard of....

Well, I'd certainly call that a ringing endorsement of my posts here today. Thank you.

Our theist friend who doesn't seem to know what axioms are, or what logic itself actually is, raised the term, so I thought I'd mention it. Charles Pierce came up with the idea, and he claims that abduction is the sole method of learning something "new" - i.e. abductive processes have to do with generating hypotheses from observing phenomena.

http://www.Pierce.org may have some of his writings.

So to be brief, deduction has to do with deriving consequences from the known... (i.e. bachelor is unmarried)

whereas abduction supposedly works in reverse - in that it provides an explanation for a known or observed phenomena....

Some write it this way:

Deduction: B can be derived as a consequence of A

I.e., we know that is a man is a bachelor that he is unmarried.

Abduction: A entails B

I.e. this set of observations leads to this explanation.

I agree. Reason is a relationship between a sentient brain and the universe. And the universe itself is a 'given', something unalterable by thoughts alone, so there's no way that 'reason' could be wholly 'man made' - it has to be a relational phenomena... the universe shapes our brains to some degree.

Some like to argue that a brain could consider rational concepts (deductions) without a universe, but I don't see how a brain could even develop sans a stimulation.

Excellent observation! This is precisely what experts in schizophrenia, such as Louis Sass, have observed: the schizophrenic's sense of logical form remains intact, it is his presmise that are 'bizarre'

For example, if you believe that the only way to protect yourself from alien mind control is to wear a tin foil hat, then it does make sense to wear a tin foil hat. It is the premise, and not the logic, that is at fault.

Ah, but then you'd be turning logic to a religion, and I have no desire to debase something so valuable. An idea only needs religious protection if it cannot stand on its own.

Well, that question is a bit more interesting, I suppose, but our friend made it clear: either provide empirical evidence of reason, or concede that belief in reason is equitable with 'god belief'. There's nothing more than a 'can you see the wind' argument here.

Well, I've really given my review of philosophos' comments from his infidelguy presentation, but I concur with his reasoning of course.

Yes, agreed, and the problem of 'assuming the future will be as it has always been' is not really an issue to begin with... we don't need to make such an assumption.

Yes, and science is prepared to accept that 'gravity will cease to work tomorrow' - there's no need to assume that there will certasily be a continuous uniformity of nature accross time into the future.... that's a false dilemma. Yet that is the supposed 'problem of induction'!

There's another side to the problem that theists miss: even according to the Humian notion of the problem (how can we assume the future will be like the past?), there was never a reason to hold that the future will be different from the past! Inductive uncertainty is not a reason to hold that the universe will suddenly change in nature! It is merely a grounds to question the certainty of any inductive claim!

Yet you'll note that theists tend to present the problem as a problem that necessarily leads us into universal skepticism!

Yep.

Same here.

I am glad I finally got tagged with the "theist spotting" badge. I guess I'll have to wear my Star of David on my sleeve here. You will forgive me if I check out before you start piping in the Zyklon B.

"If postmodernism 'deflated' anything, it was Laplacian certainty, not a valuation for reason"

First, I said that postmodernism deflated the overblown humanism that contributed to the elevation of reason.

Second, there are plenty of postmodernists who have scandalized reason as well.

Third, I am not a postmodernist, so you can blast it all you want. -- I will, however, get queasy when your website turns to having a "pomo denial challenge" in which you encourage people to break in on late night coffee shop discussions of grad students and record taunting and denying the validity of the postmodern perspective.

"First of all, you're misuing Godel, like pretty much everyone else who brings him up. Godel has no application here..."

First, that last statement is a claim and not an argument. I could claim that there is a flying spaghetti monster.

Second, Gödel does have application if you read it in the context of my argument (i.e., down shift out "HULK SMASH!!!" mode for a moment or two, you might agree -- you might not -- but, it would be nice to be given a hearing before you get blasted). His proof demonstrates that no sufficiently developed formal theory can be both complete and consistent. In other words, it shows that the sidewalk ends -- there is always going to be something important that is not covered. The result was certainly a bummer for Hilbert. The result reiterates that our formal theories are tools -- not the end all be all -- because that cannot be.

"Second, whether or not 'rational systems are incomplete' (whatever you mean by that) has nothing to do with the topic being discussed here; it has to do with affirming the existence of reason through empirical methods."

If you note the beginning of my post (i.e., if you don't begin with a headlong refutation, but actually read the thing), you will note that I stake no claim for his reasoning, but only seek out to consider his claim.

"Again, this is not a reason to mistrust reason, it is a reason to mistrust human decision making, which is not always reasonable."

I am glad that you believe in the Platonic realm of reason - you are a true believer after all. Let's say, for the moment, that your world of the objective contents of thought supervenes with the material world. We are still left with a lack of a God's Eye view of this realm. That is, we only have the epistemic vantage point of human observers. The only thing we have is "human decision making" -- which is fallible. You, however, have faith in 1. a rational universe which is 2. adequately captured and represented by human reason. Rationality is a human concept, so I am not sure if the term even applies to the material world in so comfortable a fashion.

"I don't recall creating reason, nor can I point to any person who created reason, nor do I recall ever being able to make parts of resaon 'optional' as per human need - I don't recall being able to rewrite deduction or induction in a way of my own choosing in total disregard to reality."

Reason is part of your cultural inheritance and your biological endowment. Both of which are fallible, both of which have been demonstrated to have troubling flaws. If "reason" is floating in the ether out there, our brains are still not perfect tuning forks for it. What you have are bunch of short cuts, mental representations, and rational traditions. You were not built as a logic machine. It is very hard work to be rational in the way you suggest. Moreover, who is to say that a deeply rational universe has to be entirely comprehensible to humans? Before we had the concept of a limit Xeno's Arrow paradox was a deep mystery. Heck, before we had the concept of the "Zero" there was a lot of math we could not do. Calculus was not received quietly -- many mathematicians rejected it on the grounds that included "infinitesimals" in computations. It was not brute mathematical reason that compelled mathematicians to adopt it -- it was the fact that this heretical branch of mathematics worked so well that it could not be ignored. Sure, you can take the line that "Calculus" was always there -- after all, how else would have Newton and Leibniz developed them at the same time? (one uninspiring answer is that given how prior mathematics had been constructed, the time was right). There have also been bad theories in mathematics which at one time seemed perfectly rational. And before we developed this powerful new branch of mathematics, we had no answer to Xeno. The epistemic position is not a trivial inconvenience.

"While humans create logic, they are not free to create any logic they desire AND have this logic work. And while humans can create systems of induction, again, they are not free to simply create rules as they wish... their rules must conform to 'something' other than the self."

I don't think that it is an accident that human reason works (this is part of the reason that I am not a postmodern). I think that there are good evolutionary arguments to be made about the quasi-logical capacities of the brain -- brains that adequately approximate the world are more likely to survive -- this, however, is no guarantor that what passes for reason (for us) is not flawed (there are always paradoxes, mysteries, and anamolies that challenge our pristine theorizing -- this is the reason why the later Wittgenstein gave up the method of the Tractatus). There is a pretty strong argument for heuristics, but even our best "logical" methods (with which we frown at mere heuristics) are likely to prove faulty, incomplete (actually, Gödel mathematically proved that they have to be incomplete -- see he gets traction here after all) -- awaiting the day that we discover the zero (or do not).

"The fact that anything has a limit is what gives it identity in the first place... so I find it bizzare to hold a thing's limits, i.e. it's identity, as a reason to question it!"

I don't question the existence of reason -- I question the idea that reason is a universal solvent for all problems. I question the idea that everything we know or justifiably believe can be conveniently be boiled down to a first figure syllogism. I simply don't have as much faith as you do. Maybe you have religion after all.

I really get a kick out of how you define faith as irrational and then cite a bunch of Bible verses to me, like a theist necessarily has to assent to your cherry picking of one theist text. If your definition of faith is "unjustified belief" -- you have pretty much rigged the game in your favor. I would argue that there are other modes of justification than the scientific method. Our argument turns crucially on what we consider to be rational.

"Certainty is not required for disbelief, nor is certainty required to reject an internal contradiction!"

I agree with the first clause, but am not sure what you mean by the second. Where is the internal contradiction involved in believing that there is (or might be) a flying spaghetti monster, or unicorn, or planet Girggleblix? -- the contradiction is in your rigged game of faith = irrational does not apply to the statement I was making.

"Finally, I must ask: you do realize that we can make categorical universal negative statements, right? We can rule out claims if they are self contradictory, or incoherent. We make universal negatives all the time."

I must ask: you realize that falsifiability has proven to be as difficult a thing to prove as verification? There are, for example, "disproved" scientific ideas which have been revived with better instruments and theories. Sometimes a contradiction is only apparent, as is incoherence.

As for the problem of induction - I would point out that it is not just the difficulty of knowing the future, but of generalizing to unobserved cases. Statistical methods work great, provided one is allowed to make certain (crucial) assumptions about the sample population (like a normal distribution). Last I checked, the philosophers are no closer to solving the problem (or dissolving the problem as a you appear to suggest) than they were 200 years ago. There have been many proposals, but somehow we have managed to get by without the definitive answer. I suspect from the erudition of your own response that you know this perfectly well, so I see no need to dismiss this problem from the armchair (as if this were point that you had to win). 

 

 

Bob,

Your reasoning is impeccable.

In terms of reasoning which is socially compelling (i.e., not private evidence), I have no good reason for you to hold your breath for the FSM. In fact, I do not think that anyone really does. I could give you my reasons for belief, but they are anecdotal and private. I might as well tell you that I met Santa Claus.

I believe that on an individual basis we sometimes have good reasons which are not respectable in the socially verifiable way that is endorsed here. Suppose, for instance, that the Matrix was actually real. Now suppose you got unplugged, met Morpheus, and did some Kung Fu. If you went back into the Matrix and found me, I would have every inclination to think you were crazy. Your evidence, to me, would be laughable. And yet, within your frame of reference, I think that YOU would have a justified belief about the world different from my own. 

The only thing I was trying to do with Spumoni's claim, was to point out that most of what we believe in life, we actually have a weak warrant for. Most of what I know about history is based on testimony. When I read an article I don't understand, I trust in the authority of peer-review and skip to the discussion section. I don't know that my car is still there (I haven't checked). I believe in evolution, but I can't prove it in the same way one would wish for in a perfect world (i.e., with an alternate Earth to test counterfactual claims). Faith in the sense of relying on a social or statistical warrant is a fact of life. In that sense, we all have faith and if we are being honest -- we don't really "know" all that much.

My central claim is that there are some people who mistakenly hypervalorize reason from a tool into a God term. My claim was not that reason is wacky -- just that you can get carried away - even with reason - mistaking the map for the territory. I really don't think that this is really a threatening position to an atheist. I was simply reframing the OP's claim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know. And I asked you to defend that claim.... You haven't. Go back and look at my post. 

So the comment you are responding to here was a counter claim - i.e. post modernism is more a correction of the hubris of positivism,( a correction that was first noted by modernists). 

I don't see how it's a 'deflator of overblown humanism" - unless by this you mean to say the hubris of positivism!

So again, I ask you to demonstrate your claim. Or agree that our views are equitable on the matter, making this moot.

 

Oh my! 

I'm not blasting away as much as I am turning the tables on post modernism, by showing it's own hubris. Capice? 

 

I didn't deny the validity of the perspective. I said that there was nothing original to post modernism, as far as its key concepts go. 

So you're not really responding to my points here, nor are you on topic.  So far, I can't even say that you're beating a strawman  - you're beating the strawman's next door neighbor. 

Sure, it's a claim. Yes I didn't  go through the painful details of expressing what Godel is really about and about how it along with quantum theory and the theory of relativity are the three most overgeneralized concpets used on the net. Guilty as charged.

However, I didn't try to digress into a topic that I myself am not a master of, particulary when, again, Godel's theory has no relation to the conversation you're replying to... This conversation has to do with my posts about our friend's challenge to demonstrate reason empirically.

My point is that it has no relation to the argument I am having, the one you are supposedly commenting on. That argument has to do with a challenge to demonstrate the existence of reason, empirically.

  

Again, the discussion centers on affirming the existence of reason through empirical methods. So your comments have no bearing here. 

 

 

I do not hold to such a belief! I have as much respect for platonism as Ayn Rand.

You know, I can't recall ever talking to someone who was so clealry NOT talking back to me, or responding to anything I've actually said. What I just told you was that human decision making is not always driven by reason, it may be driven by instinct, or force of habit. Nothing here relates to platonism, in any way imaginable.  

The funny thing is that both of us know this... you seem to know a bit about cognitive psychology and how people actually 'think'.... and so do I. 

 

You are now conceding that reason is not man made. Agreed. It is born of biology, evolution, and secondary factors - societal, etc.

It is also a relational process - i.e. reality shapes biology.  Biolgoy seeks to manipulate aspects of reality.  

 

 

I've not said that reason is floating out in the ether. I have said that reason respresents a relationship between sentient brains, which are physical, and the universe, which is physical.

 So the rest of your comments have no bearing on anything I've said... you're clearly eager to talk about such things, perhaps another thread?

 

 

 

I have not said that of your argument, nor mine. Again, you're comments have no relationship, at all, to anything I say. You might as well reply to a different post altogether. 

Sorry, don't mean to be harsh. 

 

 

 No, he does not, as the discussion, again, for the 100th time, has to do with a challenge to demonstrate reason empirically.

Again, if you want to do some godel talk, by all means, open up another thread. You clearly have a lot to say, and your desire to discuss all of these intersting topics is bleeding over into our thread. 

 

 

 

Ok, but thats <I> what the discussion is about. </i>

 

Who said it was. Can you please, please, please, comment on a position I actually hold to?

Your comments are good ones, but they have no bearing on this particular discusison here.  

 

Hey! You are responding to something I actually said!

WOW!

Ok, now I get a chance to actually communicate something with you. Faith is irrational, as it is unjustified belief. It's belief based on desire. If this is news to you, my condolences. That's what 'faith' is.. and that's precisely why faith is not reason... if faith were merely belief on rational grounds, then why even use the term 'faith?
 

What do you even think it means? If you want to equate it with trust, or probability, then you have experience of 'god' and then yo have grounds for a reasoned belief, not FAITH.

It's really that simple. I can only see denials of this as  intransigience. Why are theists so pained by the idea that faith is not reasoned belief?

  

 You say 'cherry pick' without actualy demonstrating that that occured....  show me how I've taken Paul out of context. 

 I've given you what Paul himself says about faith and hope. I could also quote "jesus' himself, who blesses those who believe without seeing. Faith is belief without rational justification... it's belief based on desire. It's a hope.  

It's not mine, it comes from theology. It predates me by a few eons.  If you really want to credit me with inventing the concept of theistic faith (and deny jesus and paul's precedence on the matter) can you at least get me an honorary theology degree?

Seriously, can you please stop misrepresenting the situation in a biased fashion - assuming I created the definition? Thank you.  

No, I've defined the term accurately.  If you want to hold that faith is 'justified belief' then please, please, please, do more than  make up a lie and then attack me personally over it... instead, try to argue your point.

For example, you coudl explain the need for the word 'faith' in the first place.. why use the term at all if 'faith' is merely another word for reason? What's the point of delineatign faith from reason in the bible, if they are the same process? Explain how Paul can attack reason, and value faith, if they are fundamentally the same process - i.e. justified belief?

Can you do that? 

Of course, there is also deduction for example. Again, you argue a point that I don't hold to...  

 

Yes... go back and see how I edited the error. 

Where do I say there is one? My point is that we can create universal categorical negative statements if a statement is internally contradictory.

 

 

Can you please stop giving me credit for one of the key elements of christianity? You're making me blush.... 

Anyway, I've not rigged any game of 'faith','the definition of faith as unjustified belief predates me by eons, as I've demonstrated here and in my last post - unless you want to give me credit for the works of St. Paul... and Jesus for that matter.

And anyway, the contradiction has nothing to do with faith or how it is properly defined, it has to do with theistic claims for 'god' and omni traits... so get on the ball, Jack. 

 

Well, hold up first. You're missing the point before you.

We can make universal negative categorical statements.  We can rule out contradictions or incoherencies.

Now, to get to what you've said here:  What are you trying to say about falsifiability? Are you trying to argue that there needs to be a  "proof' for falsifiability?

But falsifiability relies on modus tollens. You do realize that modus tollens is a valid form of logic, right?  

 

Sure, but hw does this unseat modus tollens?! All it shows is that error exists. No scientist disagrees.

 

In fact, take a look at my entry on modus tollens on my webpage for the scientific method:

http://candleinthedark.com/scientific.html 

 

 

 If science is never certain, can it ever prove anything?

On stricly logical grounds, it is impossible to prove a theory, while is is possible to disprove a theory. To do otherwise would violate the tenets of formal conditional logic, by committing the formal fallacy of "affirming the consequent."

The logical fallacy of Affirming the consequent
p > q
q
p
Example of the fallacious thought: If you administer this drug, then the subject will feel better. The subject feels better, therfore the drug worked.

Possible reason for the error: The person could feel better for other reasons.

The logically correct form of Modus Tollens
p > q
~q
~p
Example: If you administer this drug, then the subject will feel better. The subject doesn't feel better, therfore the drug didn't work.

The distinction between affirming the consequent and modus tollens can be applied directly to theory testing. Hypotheses take on a conditional form: If X is true, then Y should occur. From this, we can see that if Y does not occur, then the theory is false. This is pure Modus Tollens at work.

However, imagine that Y does appear. Can we then say that the hypothesis is absolutely true? Unfortunately, no, because the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent informs us that there may always be other factors at work, even random factors, that are behind the phenomena. We can disprove, but never prove.

Note: It is important to note that realistically, single experiments are not really seen to disprove a theory. Other factors may have prevented the drug from working. Since error can occur, this error is corrected by the use of several experiements performed independently. Only then would we discard what otherwise seemed a good theory. But once we encounter multiple outliers, we must revise or abandon our theory, or risk mutating science into religion.

Even then, we record our results... future scientists may uncover our methodological errors.

 

See? 

 

Sure. Human error. When I note that contradictions are false, I am speaking deductively, in the abstract. But any particular claim for an contradiction could be in error. I have no problem conceding that a human can be in error concerning a contradiction.

I fail to see how this unseats the logic behind the reasoning however! I also fail to see how uncertainty itself can be a reason to doubt any particular claim of contradiction, it is only a reason to question the certainty of the judgement.

 

 Sure. I can agree.  Look, take a look at my discussion of induction first, and then get back to me.

 

Then you have a few centuries of reading to catch up on!

Seriously, I think you overstate the importance of the 'problem' and I think you might be interested to find out about how philosophers and logicians since Hume have dealt with the problem. 

Look, my points are twofold:

1) The problem is mainly overblown rhetoric

2) A lot has happened since Hume. 

 So go read it for yourself. 

If you insist on discussing the issue only on the terms that Spumoni proposes, that’s fine. It’s not particularly interesting, but whatever. If you insist on reading my post as supporting his reasoning (even though I lead off my initial post by explicitly washing my hands of it), then you are correct – I am missing the point and many of my arguments do not apply. I will say that you are misreading me and vice versa.

What concerns me is the anxious twitch that you and Bob exhibit when it comes to defending the faith. Bob, for example, writes off the entire discipline of philosophy as a valid enterprise! Last time I checked, philosophy journals also peer-reviewed and subjected to the scrutiny of the wider community. Sure, there is a lot of philosophical junk out there, but there is a lot of science junk too. At the point that your argument choice is to eject one of the strongest resources for atheism, (simply because you don’t like the dialectical position of not having knock down answer to some hoary old problem) you should suspect that your argument has taken a left turn somewhere.

You, on the other hand, argue that logical entailment somehow solves the problem ala falsification, but the fine print of your demonstration betrays the very point I have been advocating – of course you can formally disprove a theory – the sticky part, however, has to do with the material validity of any given premise of the proof. And even if we can logically disprove the existence of one spaghetti monster, there are an indefinite number of spaghetti monsters ready to take flight. Even more frightening is the realization that the proof may be flawed, not just because we may have erred ever so slightly in our computations, but because our reasoning itself is incomplete (i.e., there may be a theory of calculus that provides us with a limit which in turn resolves the paradox – and so goes another proof). Worse yet, our limited human brains may never stumble upon it or never have the capacity to recognize it if we do.

I don’t click on links in anonymous forums, so I am sorry that I did not peruse your suggested reading. I do think, however, that if the problem of induction had been solved, someone would have sent me the note or that, at least, I would have heard the celebratory guns firing off in the background.

It is not logical to demand more certainty than a subject matter allows. And yet you both have swooped in to defend the realm of induction as if the “rationality of rationality” demanded any such proof. If you believe in the panaceal power of rationality, despite its own rationally demonstrated limits, then yes, I would say that you have got religion.

 

 

Reason is the source of proof, not sourced from it. What you ask is similar to (assuming you have nothing reflective at hand): Can you look at your own eyeballs? How do you know you have eyes then?

Empiricism is the intent to apply reason to the observed. One does not 'see' reason, one analyzes what one sees using it.

You have the whole thing horribly backwards.

You should be able to answer this yourself. You can't trust your own mind and neither can I. All we can do is interpret with consistency to the best of our ability. That's why you should maintain a certain amount of HEALTHY SCEPTICISM regarding your own opinions of what you believe. This would have to include god as well. So, for your own good and to avoid fooling yourself, you should entertain and maintain the possibility that there is no god.

It not only makes sense that a logical god would create a logical world, it's absolutely mandatory. A logical god would have no choice but to make a logical world. But most people say god can do anything, including the logical and unnatural, which is one of the things that makes him god. The problem with insisting that god is logical is that you place massive, insurmountable LIMITS on what he can do. The whole point of logic is place these limits. Logic tells us that not everything is allowed. One of these thingsnot allowed is god...if one wishes to allow that he can do things that logic does not allow.

On a sidenote: "I think therefore I am" has problems too. It appears to assume its own conclusions...unless you can come up with a way to Think but not Be at the same time. I can't.

Because reason is about making sense... Trying to apply anything else is trying to 'make sense' using something that must not make sense. If whatever was used did make sense, it would fall within the realm of reason and could be called nothing other than 'reason.' Why are you trying to sidestep reason? Do you WANT to make no sense??

I like this bit you pointed out

because I can add: while dethroning the argument they are attempting to establish.

A clearcut contradiction.

Yes. The cogito is tautologous. I am not one to make the mistake to call the always-true meaningless, as I've often seen.

But when I look at it this way, all the apparent majesty of the argument drains away and I'm left wondering just what amazes people about it. God said "I am that I am" to which I reply: I remove my shoes from off my feet, for the ground upon which I stand is patently obvious.

Seeing as this post is still ongoing.. I will give my thoughts on this-- since, it's seems strange that it is still ongoing.

Reason is not a religion. Why? Because it is a mental tool.  And, much like other tools, it can be used for certain things and not used for others.

If there is no empirical evidence to support the existence of reason, then there is equally no evidence to support the existence of a reality.  In both these cases the evidence is experiential-- which is empirical evidence by definition. (experience or experiment)

(And while this may quickly turn into.. "I experience God.. therefore that is empirical evidence." This is true.. but since other people claim they have not, then the empirical evidence only supports your claim in so far as you can prove is experientially. (If all we are using is empirical evidence that is.) 

This is unlike, reason in which.. most everyone has used and/or experienced. In which case no further empirical is necessarily necessary.) 

 

YARN, you somewhat over-react to what I said about Philosophy. 

I wrote:

you may or may not have gathered from the tone of my comments, that I really do not put much weight on the works of philosophers, since I see little or no REAL knowledge about the world coming from that source. It seems to me mostly speculation - the truly valuable components of Philosophy in the classical sense have pretty much been spun off into true Disciplines, such as Logic, Mathematics, and Science.

The problem with Philosophy as I see it is the flip side of its main value, its very openness in addressing all conceivable aspects of thought and argument. It generates an awful lot of crap as well as genuine new concepts, and is very prone to generating 'schools' which may be little more than cliques mutually supporting each other, following a particular fashion.

It also has a tendency, as Richard Carrier has noted in a past RRS show, of paying a bit too much respect to historical but somewhat superseded ideas and practictioners, as compared to Science for example. I found myself very much in agreement with Richard in that show. This tendency is probably not so much an inherent problem with the subject as such, as with the traditions of its practitioners.

As I said, it has certainly been of immense value in the past, as it nurtured the more disciplined areas I mentioned, and may very well inspire further such spin-offs. We need it for that alone. 

I also said that it is valuable as a form of disciplined speculation at the fringes of Science.

I honestly don't see this as "writ[ing] off the entire discipline of philosophy as a valid enterprise!". 

I DID say that I don't see much REAL knowledge about the world coming out of it, and by that I mean as compared to what Science now generates. It lacks the methodology of science in winnowing out the truly useful ideas about the nature of reality by testing them directly wherever possible. Otherwise it would effectively BE Science.

The other sort of 'knowledge' that may be claimed for Philosophy is in defining what constitutes valid argument and ways to pursue Truth. There is real value in the Philosophy of Science here, but this is really just a generalised aspect of what I have already acknowledged, that it is valuable in association with Science, where we are on the boundaries of well-established Science. Other aspects of this area of Philosophy have been spun off as Formal Logic.

I was much more engaged with Philosophy in my early years, and still remember how much I enjoyed reading Bertrand Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy'. I still have a soft spot for him, altho I now recognise some of his quirks. He was still alive when I read many of his books, including HoWP. 

Not really sure when and exactly why I became somewhat disenchanted with Philosophy in general.

I have great admiration for particular people who happen to be philosophers, I think because their approach really resonates with my own, plus I find their work enormously stimulating of new ways of seeing things, new insights. Currently my 'hero' here would have to be Daniel Dennett.

I am here to advocate a weak version of Spumoni's claim - I support the claim that people can make reason into a religion.

Talk about narcissism - you say  "THIS THREAD HAS TO DO WITH SPUMONI'S CLAIM AND MY RESPONSE TO IT." What about other atheist's response to it? What about my response to it? Note: This is not a personal attack, it's just a little friendly ribbing. 

I am baffled that you want me to somehow invalidate reasoning via modus tollens. No thanks, I like to help myself to contraposition every now and again too. One does not have to attack this operation, however, to problematize the Popperian solution to the problem of scientific induction. Harry Collins, for example, does no such thing in bringing up difficulties like experimenter regress in replicating negative findings. My argument that applied reason that tests actual evidence (not theoretical evidence in which we can grind out conclusions with no regard for material validity) 

I see that you agree with another poster who claims that one suffers the pain of contradiction if you use reason to attack reason. I make no such attack. Reason is a tool which can be used reflexively. When you reason about reason, yes you find that there are problems. You do not have to throw down the tool of reason to realize that as a tool it has limits. There are paradoxes, mysteries, and frontiers even in the land of reason. So long as you stay on fairly well established ground, however, you can make claims that are good enough for now (i.e., respectable) about how other parts of the territory are perilous or not fully understood. And yes, someday, we may very well find that we are currently missing the "Zero" or we may never discover it -- our reasoning may always be limited. This does not bother me, because I don't venerate reason, I just try to use it as best I can (with mixed results).    

Please don't be upset with me for not clicking on any link. The last time I did, my computer got a virus and I woke up a theist the next day. I won't tell you to go read a book -- I will try to make the argument as best I can. I will read your response as best I can. If you understand your argument, you should be able to paraphrase or replicate it here, right?  

 BTW - I am not trying to debunk using induction. I am just pointing out that we do not have airtight justifications. 

I am glad, however, that you don't take me too seriously. This is, after all, just a website.  

As for my alleged ad ignorantium - please allow me the latitude to use a little wit -- read it charitably -- if you give me the benefit of the doubt (i.e., assume that I am reasonably educated and have sought out the sensus communis on this matter in addition to considering various arguments), then it is not narcissistic for me to be incredulous when you announce that the problem has been now and forever completely and totally resolved, full stop. I am sorry, but extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence - and since our game is one of dialectic (i.e., I am not accepting reading assignments), you will need to offer your proof here. Honestly, what do think the most likely result is going to be if poll a pod of "experts" on the problem of induction? We are going to get as many answers as we do respondents. Sure, there will be some dominant lines of response and I think you and I will be able to agree that some proposals are wack, but in the end will we find the holy Grail?

The rational thing to do, in my humble opinion, would be to concede my point, and then to say SO WHAT? Don't make an inviolable faith out of a tool and you still have the upper hand in our argument. But there is apparently felt need on your part to deny that there are loose ends in the land of reason and it is precisely this that I point out to use as a sort of "twitch" -- this is not an attack, but an observation.