quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: If your religion has a very good track record of providing effective answers to problems in your life, would you consider that an experimental test?
A nuclear bomb is an effective method of demolishing a building. Doesn't mean it's a good method.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: If your religion has a very good track record of providing effective answers to problems in your life, would you consider that an experimental test?
Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
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I must say the question still looks rather ill-formed to me. Suppose I reformulate it: "Taking General Relativity as the description of spacetime, does the best fit to the observed universe require a nonzero expansionary term?" In that case, yes, as I understand it. To ask whether a number 'exists' or not is to enter deep water. You might as well ask whether the number 3 exists.
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quote:Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
Given you consider a good track record to be experimental evidence, if a person follows the answers given to them by a certain religious authority and those answers consistently lead to successful results in their life, then would you agree they are not crazy for placing a degree of trust in that authority?
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I see how the way I worded it was ill-formed. I only asked the question because while Einstein came up with the theory but later rejected it due to lack of data. It has since appeared to be true after observing a supernova (1A?).
quote:Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
quote:Given you consider a good track record to be experimental evidence, if a person follows the answers given to them by a certain religious authority and those answers consistently lead to successful results in their life, then would you agree they are not crazy for placing a degree of trust in that authority?
Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
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quote:Indeed, I do consider that an experimental test; since religion in fact has no answers, I discard it.
Religion definitely has answers. For instance, if the question is "Should I cheat on my wife?", the answer from a given religion might be "Definitely not." Whether those answers are correct or not is up for debate.
Clearly by "has no answers," he meant, "has no useful answers of its own."
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quote:An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor. If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
quote:Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Do you believe that in order for me to trust the advice of my doctor, I must first have evidence that he will give better medical advice than any other doctor?
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor.
How is success determined? Are the getting similar kinds of advice from both sources? Can't the success of one be determined objectively while the other only subjectively?
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quote:An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor. If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
I already agreed to this, while denying that religion has any such track record.
quote:
quote:Not without evidence that they do better than those who follow a different authority, or none. To do otherwise is to commit the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
Do you believe that in order for me to trust the advice of my doctor, I must first have evidence that he will give better medical advice than any other doctor? [/qb]
Well, as a practical matter you do exactly that every time you see a specialist; but the analogy is false. Doctor:priest::medical tradition:religion. So, you should have evidence that the doctor is working in a school that gives better results than other schools - and behold, indeed you have such evidence - not that he is the best practitioner of that school. Although, to be sure, that doesn't do any harm and rich people often do seek out doctors of high reputation, who charge accordingly.
[ May 11, 2010, 12:35 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
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quote:An answer which may or may not be correct is no better than flipping a coin; it is not answer at all but merely a refusal to say "I'm not sure".
My doctor's advice on how to best treat my cold may or may not be correct - but it is definitely better than flipping a coin. That's, in part, because he has a track record of being successful, which you've said counts as evidence in his favor.
Again, do you have even an inkling of why the doctor has a better track record than the faith healer? And no, "because they have better authorities" and "because I just believe they do" are not answers.
quote:If a religious authority has a similar track record of success, then following that authority's advice is also better than flipping a coin.
So if a Muslim marriage counselor gives you excellent marraige advice, that makes her an authority in the divinity of Jesus?
If an LDS marraige counselor and a Muslim marriage counselor both give you the same marriage advice, whom do you believe is the beter authority on the question of who was the last and best prophet of God, and how do you decide that?
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You may be able to establish that a religious authority has a track recordof giving good social advice, but you can establish no such track record for supernatural advice.
My doctor is good at making me healthy, but I don't use that as a reason to take her advice on the nature of Hell.
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quote:How is success determined? Are the getting similar kinds of advice from both sources? Can't the success of one be determined objectively while the other only subjectively?
It depends on the question. If the advice is "If you want X, you should do Y", then I'd say a success is indicated if you do Y and X occurs. If you have a pitching coach that says to perform certain drills to become a better pitcher, and if you perform those drills and afterwards are better able to pitch, that suggests (but doesn't prove) the advice was successful. If a religious authority says don't cheat on your spouse if you want a happy marriage, and if you don't cheat and later find yourself in a happy marriage, that suggests (but doesn't prove) the advice was successful. If the question is about something more subjective, or more objective, then determining its success will be more or less subjective accordingly.
quote:I already agreed to this, while denying that religion has any such track record.
But I think if you ask religious people if their religious authorities have a good track record when it comes to giving helpful advice, most will confirm it does. And I don't think the opinion of a person on the internet is going to trump the evidence that they, themselves, have seen in regards to the track record of their trust authorities.
quote:If an LDS marraige counselor and a Muslim marriage counselor both give you the same marriage advice, whom do you believe is the beter authority on the question of who was the last and best prophet of God, and how do you decide that?
I'll go with the same thing I said on page 12 of this thread: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know." But the point you bring up is... what if the thing they are asking me to trust them about is something different from the subject they've proven they know about in the past. In that case, I'd have to figure out to what degree the two are linked. If they got their marriage advice from the person they consider the last and best prophet of God, then the two are slightly linked. I think its safe to say that good marriage advice by itself is not very strong evidence of one knowing the last and best prophet of God. I'd think for most people, reaching conclusions about the last and best prophet of God entails many different sorts of evidence and many different authorities which together point towards a given conclusion.
Edit: Expanding on that last point, heaven/hell and various other religious topics are subjects where it is essentially impossible to test a person's or thing's expertise. That means we have a choice between either trusting nobody about it, or trying to piece together what/who to trust based on what clues we do have available. Hence, even though it would make no sense to say "This priest gives good marriage advice, so she must be right about God!", it does make sense to try and use many pieces of evidence like that together to put together a picture of what seems most likely to be true. The alternative, trusting nothing at all, is no better than flipping a coin on that topic - or maybe more like saying "My vision is very blurry, so I'll see better if I just shut my eyes completely."
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You are suggesting that we have a blurry view of supernatural things, but the only "evidence" is the word of the people who you are trusting based on the percevied quality of their "blurry" evidence. It's completely circular.
If you and I both try to look at X-rays, I don't see them any more clearly with my eyes open than you do with your eyes shut.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I'd think for most people, reaching conclusions about the last and best prophet of God entails many different sorts of evidence and many different authorities which together point towards a given conclusion.
Wonderful. How do you decide which authorities should be listened to, and which ones not?
Who is a trustworthy authority in the divinity of Jesus, and how did you decide that? And what do they posess that you lack, that they are so much more likely to know the truth than you?
quote:Edit: Expanding on that last point, heaven/hell and various other religious topics are subjects where it is essentially impossible to test a person's or thing's expertise. That means we have a choice between either trusting nobody about it, or trying to piece together what/who to trust based on what clues we do have available.
Again, what distinguishes a person you should trust on the matter of Jesus's divinity from someone whom you should not trust? If this is a question of any import to you, you should have an answer you can articulate.
What would an authority know that you don't know?
And why is "I could draw my own conclusion based on the evidence" not even an option?
quote:Hence, even though it would make no sense to say "This priest gives good marriage advice, so she must be right about God!",
But it does make sense to say "I believe in this authority, and not that one, therefore, Jesus was just a human prophet"?
quote:The alternative, trusting nothing at all, is no better than flipping a coin on that topic - or maybe more like saying "My vision is very blurry, so I'll see better if I just shut my eyes completely."
Is trusting the conclusions of reason and evidence really "nothing at all" to you? Really, what do you think is so magically special about how other people draw conclusions that it's hopeless for you to even try?
But what if the problem isn't just with your eyes? What if everyone is having the same problem? Why is relying on someone else whose eyes are just as blurry smarter than shutting your eyes, and relying on more accurate information than your eyes can give you?
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What "authorities possess that non-authorities do not possess is usually considerable study. Authorities know how to, for example read the texts in the original languages and understand the context in which they were written. They have been exposed the accumulated wisdom that generations of other people who have spent time studying have gathered.
"I could draw my own conclusion based on the evidence", is a perfectly valid option. Knowing how to interpret the evidence is not automatic and "authorities" - not just one, generations of them - are pretty helpful here.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: [QB] What "authorities possess that non-authorities do not possess is usually considerable study.
Holocaust deniers have churned out a lot of books, and I'm sure there are enough that one can spend a great deal of time "studying" them. You can't think that all that study makes one good authoritiy about the Jewish experience in WWII.
Just studying doesn't matter. You have to be studying something real.
quote:Authorities know how to, for example read the texts in the original languages and understand the context in which they were written.
That can allow you to be able to accurately understand what the writers thought, but it doesn't help you if the writers were flat out wrong about the facts of the world. You can't get an accurate understanding of how the world was created by reading the Bible, no matter how flawless your undertanding of ancient Hebrew is.
And so what if scores of Muslims scholars thought that Mohammad was the last and best prophet of God? Your being able to read them accurately doesn't speak to the claim's truthfulness.
quote:They have been exposed the accumulated wisdom that generations of other people who have spent time studying have gathered.
Again, there's a limit to how much real medicine you can practive based on Galen, no matter how many commentaries you read. If you want to treat cancer, you are better off ignoring Galen, and looking at cancer cells.
quote:"I could draw my own conclusion based on the evidence", is a perfectly valid option. Knowing how to interpret the evidence is not automatic and "authorities" - not just one, generations of them - are pretty helpful here.
It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
My point is that true "authorities" are only such to the extent that they know the underlying evidence relevent to their area of expertice as is demonstrated by their claims in that field being falsifiable and not being falsified. You can do this in medicine. You just can't do this in theology. A theologian might know what all the different religious claims are, but the important ones are completely evidence-free, and always will be. Which makes absolutely no one a true and reliable authority on the truthfulness of most religious beliefs.
Tres will never find a true "authority" on the divinity of Jesus. His Muslim marriage counselor has exactly the same evidence available to her as the Pope has, and as Tres has.
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"Just studying doesn't matter. You have to be studying something real."
I beg to differ. In the example you gave, holocaust denial literature would be incredibly informative if looked at in certain ways. And I tend to think that people who draw such wildly inaccurate conclusions tend to reveal their biases fairly readily. So, you don't exactly get a reasoned look at the issue, accounting for all the details- you get something that should, I would think, look and feel horrendously tortured and malformed. I mean, look at Mein Kampf as an example of something like that. That book is bad... and not just in that it bespeaks horrifying things, but that it is just horrifying, unspeakably badly written, badly organized, janglingly off-kilter. I could never get through a paragraph of the thing the few times I've made the attempt without grimacing at the awfulness. Unsubtle intentions seem to breed fairly unsubtle clues, imo.
So yeah, Denial literature gives you no knowledge of the Jewish experience per se, but then neither does a chemistry textbook. There is other information there- other things to learn or to learn from. I think more fairly you should only go so far as to say that studying something in general isn't enough, one must know *how* to study.
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Yes, but the point being made was that no amount of study of denialist literature would teach you anything about what happened at Buchenwald in 1943-45. It might teach you other things, but about its ostensible subject matter you would still be ignorant. But in the case of denialist literature, at least there is a there there; Buchenwald does in fact exist and there is is a fact of the matter as to what happened there in 1943-45. (Notice that denialists agree on both these points.) On most theological questions there is no fact of the matter, and the rest can usually be answered with a straightforward 'no'.
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Well, I suppose the denial literature would be pretty useful if for instance it read something like: "There was most certainly not a camp here, and it most certainly did not hold 25,000 prisoners brought here by rail, and it most certainly was not in operation from 1943-5 and it most certainly was not a death camp, no way, no how."
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Actually I still don't think so, because it couldn't very well give evidence for its assertions or contradictions. But even at that, I must say I rather doubt you'll find any denialist literature quite so blatant.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Actually I still don't think so, because it couldn't very well give evidence for its assertions or contradictions. But even at that, I must say I rather doubt you'll find any denialist literature quite so blatant.
I've read a little bit of a few, just for the experience (and because I couldn't believe anyone was trying to deny it to be honest) and some of it is pretty much that. Saying Nope, nope nope, and covering their eyes.
Not a good example, perhaps. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
You are making untrue assumptions about why I care about the position I hold on this. I am not on a quest to justify Christianity to you here. My concern is epistimological. I am a strong believer in reason, evidence, and skepticism - but I've followed skepticism to what seems to me to be its inescapable end. That end is this: If you question everything you can possibly question (Descartes-style) and accept only what you, yourself, can directly conclude from the facts you are certain of without trusting anything else, you end up concluding that you really can conclude almost nothing at all. You end up with so little reliable knowledge that you are unable to live reasonably, or to even approach important questions like what you should do in life or why you should do it.
quote:My point is that true "authorities" are only such to the extent that they know the underlying evidence relevent to their area of expertice as is demonstrated by their claims in that field being falsifiable and not being falsified. You can do this in medicine. You just can't do this in theology.
You can't do this with most authorities. I can't falsify my grandfather's claims about his experiences in World War II, but he was in fact there so he is the authority on his experiences there.
Science is somewhat unique in that respect. But the downside of that is that science can only answer limited sorts of questions... only questions about testable topics.
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All topics are testable; unfortunately, theists tend to deny this. Would you like me to repost the story of Elijah doing the scientific experiment?
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Tres, the point is not that you can't falsify your grandfather's specific claims because of circumstances. There are many falsifiable claims which remain unfalsifiable for this reason. The point is that you *could* falsify his claims if, say, he had a friend or two with him, and they told a different story, or if you tested his claims against experimentation or examination of the areas he talks about. That this is impractical is not important. It is not *impossible* to falsify those kinds of claims. It is impossible to falsify religious claims- there is no test, not just an impractical test method.
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quote:The point is that you *could* falsify his claims if, say, he had a friend or two with him, and they told a different story, or if you tested his claims against experimentation or examination of the areas he talks about.
Falsifiable is usually a stricter standard than that. It only applies to general laws or truth claims, not individual events. A theory that states "Given such and such conditions, x will always happen" is falsified if an instance of x not happening under the stated conditions is observed. A claim about a currently existing object or phenomenon could also be falisfied, assuming it makes predictions about things that can be observed.
Stories about the past often don't make predictions subject to current observations. Tres's grandfather's two friends with conflicting accounts could cast considerable doubt on the truthfulness of his story, but that doesn't make it falsifiable.
That's part of the big debate over whether history can be considered a science.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Now, I'm not skilled at general relativity, but it seems to me that "there is no universe like ours but with more time before the Big Bang" and "cosmological spacetimes are inextendable" are basically the same statement, but one is more technical. To say that one is due to the other, then, is not to add any information; it merely expresses the tautology, A equals A. Unless you are prepared to show the proof (as a side note, since GR is effectively mathematics, there can indeed be a 'proof' and not merely 'evidence'), the technical language is just an appeal to authority.
Well, it might be extendable in the future direction, or to cover some other missing piece (like how Schwarzschild space is extendable to cover the part inside the horizon). So being inextendable is a stronger condition than just not having "extra time before the Big Bang."
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: All topics are testable
How would you test this?
By trying to find a topic which was not testable. I note that when a theist refuses to admit that his hypothesis has been falsified, that is not a refutation of its falsifiability. As a side note, I should perhaps have inserted the adjective 'interesting' before 'topics' in my sentence.
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Except that what you consider interesting may differ from what others believe interesting is.
Science is a tool, and a great one. But I am glad my life isn't ruled by it.
I can't quantify my feelings for my family, and I am not willing to "test" those feelings about them in any way, not by choice, yet they are real, and influence my every day decisions. You may be able to help explain HOW we feel feeling, or what chemical reactions happen when we feel these things, but it doesn't all boil down to those chemicals.
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Actually, it does boil down to those chemicals.
Ironically, your unwillngness to accept this is aslo simply chemicals (and electricity, and brain wiring, if you want to be specific).
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I can't quantify my feelings for my family, and I am not willing to "test" those feelings about them in any way, not by choice, yet they are real, and influence my every day decisions.
You confuse "I refuse to do X", and in fact "I refuse even to think about X", with "It is impossible to do X". These concepts are not the same.
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Nope. I am far more aware of the research in this area than you are, I would imagine. It's far more complex than you seem to think it is, and there is far more that we DON'T know than we do.
Human beings are complex beings, and are far more than the sum of their parts.
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quote:Human beings are complex beings, and are far more than the sum of their parts.
Just a quibble: when someone says "X is far more than the sum of its parts," they do not normally mean "X has a value that is supplemented by some supernatural force."
They mean that X, a final product with a certain amount of utility, has a utility higher than that possessed by each individual component of X, taken separately.
A watch, for example, is more than the sum of its parts; the glass, the gears, the band: all have some value, but nothing compared to the final product. You cannot tell time, for example, with a watchband. Nor can you easily balance a gear on your wrist.
People are more than the sum of their parts. That does not mean, however, that their feelings and conscious minds are somehow floating around in the aether, keeping their parts company; rather, their parts have been assembled (either by design or by random chance) in such a way that it makes feelings and minds possible, in much the same way that a watch has been assembled to make its functions possible.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Nope. I am far more aware of the research in this area than you are, I would imagine. It's far more complex than you seem to think it is, and there is far more that we DON'T know than we do.
This is not relevant to the question of whether something is knowable. I remind you of Lord Kelvin, saying something rather similar:
quote:The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concurrence of atoms... Modern biologists were coming once more to the acceptance of something and that was a vital principle."
And now we have a pretty good explanation of how nerves move muscles, and indeed that explanation is old enough that Lord Kelvin's words lay well within living memory when it was first proposed. "Infitely beyond"? Pff. About 50 years beyond, at most. Now you are not likely to be as famous as Kelvin, but are you really sure you wish to make such a statement? You might find yourself being similarly laughed at a mere century from now.
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I don't know how aware of the research you are, but if you can point me to the research that tells us about the non-physical aspect of thought and emotion that requires some supernatural explanation, I'll eat my hat.
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quote:It wasn't in Tres's argument. He seems to be desparate to find an authority to tell him what to believe. Rhetorically, he has to. He can't cede that direct examination is superior to hearsay, because he doesn't like the conclusions that direct examination of the facts, and only the facts, leads to. So he has to find someone who believes what he does, and label them an authority, and cling to that.
You are making untrue assumptions about why I care about the position I hold on this. I am not on a quest to justify Christianity to you here.
You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
quote:My concern is epistimological. I am a strong believer in reason, evidence, and skepticism - but I've followed skepticism to what seems to me to be its inescapable end. That end is this: If you question everything you can possibly question (Descartes-style) and accept only what you, yourself, can directly conclude from the facts you are certain of without trusting anything else,
You don't have to do that, and you know that. Accepting only authorities who possess the evidence is nearly as good as having the evidence yourself. It's not about authorities. It's about having the evidence, one way or another.
So, how did you decide which authority to trust on the question of Jesus's divinity again?
quote:
quote:My point is that true "authorities" are only such to the extent that they know the underlying evidence relevent to their area of expertice as is demonstrated by their claims in that field being falsifiable and not being falsified. You can do this in medicine. You just can't do this in theology.
You can't do this with most authorities. I can't falsify my grandfather's claims about his experiences in World War II,
You have to be kidding. If I had medical records showing that your grandfather were in a TB treatment center from 1938-1947, that would falsify his claims. If he claimed to be using weaponry that wasn't invented until 1970, that would falsify his claims.
How useful is a claim that can't be reality tested anyway? If your grandfather said that he knew where a multi-million dollar treasure was buried, but that you would never find it on your own, and he wouldn't reveal it until you and yur family were dead broke, what would you do differently? Would you really drive yourself to the poor house based on your grandfather's unevidenced "authority"? I don't think so.
Or, forget your grandfather. I know where a multi-million dollar treasure is hidden. I don't intend to demonstrate that it exists, of course, but you have to accept me as the best authority you have on its existance.
So, send me an advance of $1000 as a show that you do trust my authority, and I'll use the money to arrange your travel to the treasure site. I'm your authority, so it's better that you trust me than draw conclusions yourself, isn't it?
Or are you going to run to your Mommy, and use her as an authority, so you can justify disregarding my obvious authority in the matter?
quote:Science is somewhat unique in that respect. But the downside of that is that science can only answer limited sorts of questions... only questions about testable topics.
People bet money, and their lives on the accuracy of what the authority of science tells them. And it's as good bet as we fallible humans can make. What are you willing to risk on the strength of my unfalsifiable authority?
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quote:Or, forget your grandfather. I know where a multi-million dollar treasure is hidden. I don't intend to demonstrate that it exists, of course, but you have to accept me as the best authority you have on its existance.
So, send me an advance of $1000 as a show that you do trust my authority, and I'll use the money to arrange your travel to the treasure site. I'm your authority, so it's better that you trust me than draw conclusions yourself, isn't it?
This is a good example. You may be telling the truth or you may not be. If you are telling the truth, I stand to lose millions of dollars if I don't trust you. If you aren't, I stand to lose $1,000. So, it's up to me to figure out whether to trust you or not - which, again, I use a variety of factors to figure out, including your track record, my understanding of how you learned what you claim to know, and what other authorities have said about you. Sometimes these decisions can be obvious, and sometimes they can be extremely tricky, relying on countless inconclusive pieces of evidence that only begin to suggest an answer when all of them are put together.
In this case, everything seems to point to the conclusion that you are making this claim up for the sake of this argument, so I'm not going to trust you.
But, on the other hand, if all signs pointed to you telling the truth and you actually did know where a multi-million dollar treasure is hidden, I'd lose out big time if I failed to trust you simply because you could not provide evidence of your treasure that I could witness myself. This demonstrates the way in which it is possible for failing to trust a knowledgable authority to be extremely costly.
quote:People bet money, and their lives on the accuracy of what the authority of science tells them. And it's as good bet as we fallible humans can make. What are you willing to risk on the strength of my unfalsifiable authority?
I bet my life every day on unfalsifiable authorities. For instance, I'm driving around a car at fairly high speeds on the authority of my mechanic who said it was safe to drive after he repaired it - despite the fact I know very little about how he was trained, his track record, or how carefully he has examined any sort of evidence, other than the fact that he works as a mechanic.
quote:You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
Not at all. I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is. If I weren't, I wouldn't bother wondering about authorities and to what degree we rely on them.
But I'm not going to lie to myself - my everyday beliefs and choices don't stem solely from an infallible bedrock of evidence and reason. In order to make evidence and reason useful and live life, I must trust authorities.
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quote: I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is.
No you aren't, but you like to think you are. It is an unfortunate side effect of the enormous victories of reason over superstition that these days, even superstitious people like to put on the trappings of science; it gives them status, if only in their own minds. If it doesn't actually work for them, because they've only copied the superficial aspects - such as making statements like "I care about evidence", oh well. The surface is what matters, for most humans.
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Indeed I do: I derive it from a theory of human psychology, which is eminently testable. You keep confusing the specific with the general; it is legitimate to reason from the testable general to the the difficult-to-test specific, as dkw also tried to tell you.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: In this case, everything seems to point to the conclusion that you are making this claim up for the sake of this argument, so I'm not going to trust you.
So you would have had no good reason not to trust my sock puppet, if the sock puppet made exactly the same offer, and had exactly the same kind of evidence as your grandfather did about his WWII experiences (which you already claimed were unfalsifiable, but you trust anyway)
quote:This demonstrates the way in which it is possible for failing to trust a knowledgable authority to be extremely costly.
How do you intend to figure out whether or not I'm a knowledgeable authority? If you believe that your grandfather played poker with a guy names Mickey from Chicago during the war, and he's an authority on that, then I'm just as good an authority when I say I learned about the treasure from someone I met at a party in Vegas.
How do you know that your authority on the divinity of Jesus is knowledgeable?
quote:I bet my life every day on unfalsifiable authorities. For instance, I'm driving around a car at fairly high speeds on the authority of my mechanic who said it was safe to drive after he repaired it - despite the fact I know very little about how he was trained, his track record, or how carefully he has examined any sort of evidence, other than the fact that he works as a mechanic.
That's because you are lazy, not because the information is unknowable.
quote:
quote:You are on a quest to denigrate the use of reason and evidence, in favor of trusting whatever authority you can pick who agrees with your personal judgment. Your religion is just the most important reason you have to pick this argument.
Not at all. I am as much into reason and evidence as KoM is.
KOM doesn't argue that people should ignore the conclusions of reason and evidence if their "personal judgment" tell them to. You do.
quote:But I'm not going to lie to myself - my everyday beliefs and choices don't stem solely from an infallible bedrock of evidence and reason. In order to make evidence and reason useful and live life, I must trust authorities.
Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
My answer is that I pick mine based on how well they know the reason and evidence. And if they suggest a conclusion that goes against what my "personal judgement" says, I know that the smart thing to do is to ignore my personal judgement (which is probably ignorant, if not biased) and go with what the authority says reason and evidence shows. This is exactly what you claimed was immoral once on a previous thread.
And if people say they are authorities on subjects, but can't present their evidence, (like about what God wants, or whether Jesus is divine), I conclude they are lying or deluded, and I ignore them, because they aren't authorities at all. If the only "evidence" is my "personal judgment" which consists of a lot of things, including prejudices and biases and wishful thinking, it's too suspect to trust. Innocent people have died because some people trusted their own "personal judgment" when the evidence was non-existant.
But this can't be your way, because you trust all kinds of authorities on all kinds of topics where there is no reason or evidence, (and you can't explain why you trust them in the first place, you can't even figure out why docotrs are better at fixing people than shamans) and you have repeatedly said that trusting one's prejudices and biases and wishful thinking (which are all major componants of "personal judgment") is the right thing to do.
It's a typical theist ploy, to try and drag down reasonable people into the mud with you, by insisting that everyone is being just as irrational as you are. That trusting the process that makes life-saving vaccines is just as irrational as beliving that the right words spoken by the right man over a cup of wine make it the blood of a divine being. That believing that a time-tested airplane will fly is just as irrational as beliving that some people will be damned to eternal damnation, because they wrongly believe the good works will get them out of that penalty.
Well, these things aren't the same. Some beliefs can stand up to rigorous real world testing, and pass, and some can't, and sorry, but that does make the first kind better than the latter, because it makes the first kind far less likely to be wrong. You really want to argue that beliefs that are almost certainly wrong are better than beliefs that are almost certainly right? Be my guest, but make that argument plainly, rather than trying very hard to pretend that there is no difference there.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I don't know how aware of the research you are, but if you can point me to the research that tells us about the non-physical aspect of thought and emotion that requires some supernatural explanation, I'll eat my hat.
Never said it required supernatural. Just that it doesn't exclude it, and that I doubt we ever will be able to know all of what motivates us.
That's why psychology is a soft science. It isn't likely to ever be a precise as molecular biology.
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quote:Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
I will give the same quote I've given twice to this question is thread but this time I'll bold it so it is clearer: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know." Other factors like my beliefs about their motives or the degree to which what they are saying conflicts with what I already believe also come into play - so it is a bit complicated. My beliefs about to what degree they know the evidence is definitely a factor, but it is not the only factor.
We can see if this method works, if you want... For instance, I have very little evidence of who you are or what access to multi-million dollar treausres you have, but was I correctly able to figure out that you were not telling the truth about having a multi-million dollar treasure you were going to give me?
quote:But this can't be your way, because you trust all kinds of authorities on all kinds of topics where there is no reason or evidence, (and you can't explain why you trust them in the first place, you can't even figure out why docotrs are better at fixing people than shamans) and you have repeatedly said that trusting one's prejudices and biases and wishful thinking (which are all major componants of "personal judgment") is the right thing to do.
I have never said that trusting prejudices, biases, or wishful thinking is the right thing to do. Those things are just problematic side effects of trying to use good judgment. I think it makes sense to use evidence to check against those things when possible, but that it isn't always possible to check against them completely.
quote:Some beliefs can stand up to rigorous real world testing, and pass, and some can't, and sorry, but that does make the first kind better than the latter, because it makes the first kind far less likely to be wrong. You really want to argue that beliefs that are almost certainly wrong are better than beliefs that are almost certainly right?
No, I don't. You are mixing "more likely to be wrong" with "almost certainly wrong". I'm okay with believing something that has a chance of being wrong, as long as it seems to me to be more likely right than wrong, if the other options are believing nothing at all or flipping a coin.
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quote:Okay, but for the millionth time, how do you pick those authorities?
I will give the same quote I've given twice to this question is thread but this time I'll bold it so it is clearer: "Usually I decide which authorities to trust based on their track record, the degree to which other trusted authorities say I should trust them, and my beliefs about how they learned what they claim to know."
Why you think bolding the part where your answer is obviously circular eludes me.
If the question is "how do you pick your authorities", "I listened to the authorities I already picked" is obvioulsy a stupid answer.
But okay, so what is the "track record" with regard to your authority on the divinity of Jesus, for example?
Do you have even the slightest notion why medical doctors have a better "track record" that shamens when it comes to making people well?
quote:Other factors like my beliefs about their motives or the degree to which what they are saying conflicts with what I already believe also come into play - so it is a bit complicated.
(emphasis mine)
Bingo. You already believe, for completely separate reasons, that there has to be something more to your mind than just your physical brain. So when the authorities who know how the brain's physical functions tell you that you are wrong, your soul beliefs "come into play", and you reject the authorities.
quote:
quote:But this can't be your way, because you trust all kinds of authorities on all kinds of topics where there is no reason or evidence, (and you can't explain why you trust them in the first place, you can't even figure out why docotrs are better at fixing people than shamans) and you have repeatedly said that trusting one's prejudices and biases and wishful thinking (which are all major componants of "personal judgment") is the right thing to do.
I have never said that trusting prejudices, biases, or wishful thinking is the right thing to do.
It is a necessary consequence of your "personal judgment over reason and evidence" argument. It's a fantasy of yours to think otherwise.
Do you really think that every single time in history that a white man got a job over a more qualified woman or minority, that the decision was based solely on conscious malice, and not on someone having a "personal judgement" that the white guy was just 'better suited' for the job?
You actually argued that if reason and evidence said one thing, and one's pesonal judgement said something else, that it was immoral to not use one's personal judgment as the final arbiter of beliefs and decisions. And what are some prime reasons that a person's personal judgment might disagree with the observed facts? Bias, prejudice, and wishful thinking.
quote:Those things are just problematic side effects of trying to use good judgment. I think it makes sense to use evidence to check against those things when possible, but that it isn't always possible to check against them completely.
No, they are problematic side effects of being fallible humans prone to making mistakes. The best defense against making mistakes is to reality test with evidence, but if you are going to ignore those results every time your "personal judgement" diagrees, then you will be wrong a lot.
quote:
quote:Some beliefs can stand up to rigorous real world testing, and pass, and some can't, and sorry, but that does make the first kind better than the latter, because it makes the first kind far less likely to be wrong. You really want to argue that beliefs that are almost certainly wrong are better than beliefs that are almost certainly right?
No, I don't. You are mixing "more likely to be wrong" with "almost certainly wrong". I'm okay with believing something that has a chance of being wrong, as long as it seems to me to be more likely right than wrong, if the other options are believing nothing at all or flipping a coin.
I'm sorry, but your belief that Baby Jesus is waiting for you in Heaven does not fall into the category of "more likely to be right than wrong". The Neumann's belief that God wanted them to deny their child medical care doesn't fall into that category either. Neither does the belief that martyrs get 72 virgins in Heaven. You are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Did you forget that it's stupid and dishonest to claim to be able to compare two probabilities when you have absolutely no idea what they both are?
But honestly, what's so scary about saying "If there is a God, I have no idea what s/he is like, or wants"? What's so paralyzingly terrifying about saying "If there is life after death, I have no idea what it's like, or how my actions in life affect what happens there"? Why is it better to cherry pick authorities who pretend that they know these things, or to wish really hard and believe one's own wishes, than to admit those simple conclusions? Its like saying that you can't go on living unless you know if the Cubs will ever win a world series. So rather than chalk it up as something that you can't learn right now, and maybe won't ever learn, you consult a magic 8-ball, and it tells you that they will, and then you go around telling everyone how much better off and happier you are that you know the answer, based on your great authority.
Let's say that someone has a religious belief that your herasy is so vile and dangerous that it would be better for you to be tortured into repenting of it (even if that torture has a chance of accidently killing you) than it is for you to continue living.
Of course, this person, like you, believes that their beliefs are more likely to be true than not. So when they put you and your spouse on the rack, and show you the thumbscrews, are you glad that they believe something (based on the best of authorities, all of whom have great track records, and are supported by more good authorities)? Or would you rather have had them come to the conclusion that their authorities on the state of your soul didn't know anything at all, and that since they had no evidence about the existance, let alone state of your soul, that they'd better not draw any conclusions at all about it?
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posted
Prediction: Tres will respond by pointing out that his non-testable beliefs don't have real-world consequences, and therefore they are ok. In other words, he has a double standard: He only applies his "prior belief" stuff when it doesn't have any chance of actually affecting his comfortable modern life.
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