| Subject: Some more |
Author:
Damoclese
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 02/ 6/02 1:14pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "And again." on 02/ 6/02 10:01am
>
>This was not implicit in my argument at all. I was
>simply claiming that theism is the inference to the
>best explanation for the fact of nature consistently
>operating in mathematical patterns. There is no a
>priori reason to expect this from atheism, whereas
>there is reason to expect the patterns under theism.
>Hence, I think theism is the most rational,
>straightforward explanation of this data relative to
>atheism.
Okay, I'm going to disagree with that assertion based on the criteria you specified below on determining what is a more "reasonable" thoery. (more below).
>
>As for drawing a royal flush in poker when five cards
>are randomly dealt out, you would be correct in
>applying my reasoning in thinking that the cards would
>probably not be a royal flush. Let me explain why.
>The odds of getting a royal flush when five cards are
>randomly chosen is 650,000 to one. So there’s not a
>whole lot of a priori reason to expect to get a royal
>flush, whereas there is good reason to suspect that
>the five cards will not come up to a royal flush. But
>suppose it happens anyway. Was my reasoning
>incorrect? Not quite. I had rational reason to
>suspect that the person would not get a royal flush,
>but just because a theory is rational doesn’t
>necessarily means it is actually right. The rational
>theory may intuitively seem more probable, but we
>still don’t have absolute certainty and thus it is
>fallible, but this sort of method is the best we can
>do when choosing explanatory theories.
Okay, I can go for that. So let's up the ante a bit. (pardon the pun) You claim that the most rational theory in poker is that you probably won't get a royal flush based on the odds of drawing a royal flush are not favorable. With this I agree, it wouldn't be rational to play cards with the expectation of drawing a royal flush.
However, let's apply this reasoning to God and Evolution. What are the odds of abiotic macroevolution happening? Probably an immensely high probability. What about the probability that the Christian God exists? There is no way to assign probability to this hypothesis. It is incalculable due to the nature of the explanation of the hypothesis itself. Let me make a comparision to make my point more perspicous.
What is the probability that there exists in the universe some sort of human life? Well, given that we know the basic criteria that must be present to support human life, and the relative amount of these elements in space, we could assign some number that would be astronomically high to this event. What is the possibility that the universe exists because it rests in the stomach of a goat named Fred? We don't have any way of calculating this, so we cannot assign any sort of odds of it happening; the only way this can be true is if it IS the way it happened, and unfortunately, we don't know whether the universe rests in the stomach of a goat or not.
Back to the human life scenario, we do know the basic odds of the occurence happening, and that at least has some explanatory power, as opposed to assuming that the hypothesis of our goat's belly is "just the way it is".
Though something may be improbable, that doesn't mean it can't happen just as with our royal flush. When something is beyond the means of assigning probability, there is no way of determining how rational of an assumption it is or not, and clearly, Intelligent Design is far beyond the means of assigning any probability of the event in question. If you do have a way of assigning odds as to the creatoin of humankind by something intelligent, by all means, post it here so that I may see it.
>
>As far as the snowflake, you are simply wrong. I
>don’t deny the formation of snowflakes. The
>properties of molecules direct ordering processes,
>though there is some randomness in choosing what the
>precise pattern will be (hence, it is rare that two
>snowflakes get the same crystalline pattern). Thus,
>we do have sufficient a priori reason to expect
>snowflakes to appear in reality.
Okay, I can go with that, though I'm not certain how one would expect to see snow flakes as an a priori reasoning. As for me, the only reason I expect to see snowflakes is because of a posteiri facts; that being that I've experienced them.
>
>I wasn’t discussing the origins of life at all, but
>since you brought it up…
>
>The problem with pointing out snowflakes to counter
>intelligent design is that the basis of the theory is
>the kind of order, not order per se.
>There are some kinds of order that the currents of
>nature are not reasonably capable of producing, such
>as computers. Similarly, some scientists argue that
>life has the kind of order that nature is not
>reasonably capable of evolving from non-life.
To assume that there are things that nature cannot produce assumes that one has intimate knowledge of what nature is capable of. Do you have such knowledge?
Also, the problem with arguing for intelligent design is that it isn't the organization of life itself, rather its the KIND. We've never seen anything else with the organization of life other than life, and as such we have no means of comparison to say whole-heartedly that we know it was designed. Perhaps humans are like snowflakes, but the mechanism that determined their order is not yet known. How would you know the difference?
>Under the current theistic philosophy I’m referring
>to, I think the answer is yes. If I were a rationally
>orderly God creating the universe, I would indeed
>create a universe that consistently operates in
>mathematical patterns for my inhabitants to
>satisfactorily participate in it, just as in creating
>any sophisticated computer program with dynamic
>variables I would use quite a bit of math.
Yes, but this is effectually anthropomorphisizing God into what you would do, and as we all know, God is supposed to be above humans, so why would you have reason to suspect that God would do anything you (a human) would do?
I’m sorry if you don’t see the reasoning
>here, but it seems rather straightforward to me.
>Relative to atheism (as I explained before) theism
>seems to be a better, more rational, more
>straightforward explanation for this data. But like I
>explained before, you can use the underdetermination
>of theories to your advantage and believe whatever you
>want to believe. (Even if it’s not the most rational
>approach.)
It seems straight forward to you because you are building off premises that are tenous at best; such as that the existance of God is more probable than evolution, that intelligent design explains the unique organization of human life, that nature is only capable of producing x or y.
I don't believe these presumptions are pithy enough to found an entire belief, pushing aside the fact that before most of these conclusions must follow, one almost must neccessairly believe the christian God exists, which again, is based on the Bible which assumes his own existance. Without the underlying idea that the Christian God exists, I would expect it to be a great deal more difficult to arrive at these conclusions.
Damoclese
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 