Richard Dawkins: Why There Almost Certainly Is No God

Setanta,

My argument above which deconstructs lay concepts of "objectivity" equally applies to "subjectivity". It is based on "reality as a social construct" in which all "things" including "selves" and "gods" are nodes within an interactional network isomorphic to "semantics". What we call "science" represents an attempt at development of a universal semantic field in the face of the oersistence of our parochial and local limitations bounded by our particular physiological and social needs. The "transcendent position" is the vantage point from which this makes "sense". Signposts to that position arise from Quantum Mechanics/Heisenberg and Godels proof, together with esoteric descriptions of the "no-self" position found in some meditational practices.

One issue for consideration which follows from a transcendental position is the status of "time" which is of course intimately bound up with "scientific prediction" and "replication". What, for example, should we make of scientists claims that "time is a psychological construct" ? Scientific theists (or pseudo-theists like Einstein) tend to embrace such an admission in terms of the "omnipresence of a deity".

Hi Fresco, that was a brilliant answer and probably explains why Louis Saha missed that penalty. You dont contribute much to "The British Thread"...but I have taken the liberty of quoting you. You are entitled to participate yourself ....if you dont mind Smorgsie getting bladdered and falling through the leylandi and Spendius being his usual unpleasant self..

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=82495&start=2350

Consciousness could evolve because those who possess it can override instinctive responses and make reasoned decisions, and can imagine what others think and adjust their behavior accordingly.

How would possession of an immortal soul help us in this life?

We could set up a test where each God/Goddess was asked to perform a specific, public, scientifically verifiable task, such as move a mountain without any help from their followers.

Perhaps we should start with something easier, such as sealed glass containers set up in a public square, each with a weight on one pedastal which must be moved to another pedastal. Whichever God/Goddess moved theirs first would be acknowledged as real.

No, that would not be a true test if any of their followers were telekinetic. OK, a new life form with distinctive DNA would have to be created within the glass container. I'll give them 6 days.

What scientists claim that time is a psychological construct? The subjective experience of time may be, but physical processes act as if time is real and quantifiable. The universe was ticking away long before mankind was around to "psychologically construct" it.

Terry's point is, of course, well taken in response to Fresco.

I have no argument with the philosophical arguments with regard to observation, and the semantics of description. My point is that people for whom there is no reason to assume a consensual construct of a semantical description of the world have derived the same conclusions from examining data, or mathematical and/or theoretical constructs. The mathematical calculations of the Mayans, the Balinese, the Hindus and the Greeks are a marvelous example of people who do not have a consensual semantical description of the world have arrived at the same conclusions.

The point i am making is that it would be as foolish to dismiss consensus of the meaning of data, or mathematical and theoretical constructs on the basis of a philosophical exercise as it would be to deny that the philosophical exercise has any value.

With regard to the independent, "objective" reality of matter and the cosmos, i strongly suspect that the phenomenon of observation affecting that which is observed may only apply at the level of quantum physics, and simply represents a need to refine the "semantics" of description in that narrow area. Concluding that the observer changes the observed at the quantum level has only ever been reasonable at that level, and there is no good reason to extrapolate that to grosser levels of states of matter and energy.

Terry and Setanta,

(First apologies for typo "oerexistence" which should have read "persistence")


Einstein's celebrated quotation..........

"Reality is an illusion albeit a persistent one"

coupled with comments like........

"The bottom line is that our "common sense" notions of past, present,
and future and our perception of time as flowng from present into
future are distortions of reality. Instead of a flowing time that
moves from present to future, time is actually a block of past,
present, and future that is simply "there." The common sense notion of
past, present, and future must be discarded if we are to understand
the nature of time." (-"About Time : Einstein's Unfinished Revolution" by P.C.W Davies)

.........support my comments above about time as a psychological construct.

Terry's concept of "reality" as somehow independent of observers is meaningless to me. If the construct "time" is say equivalent to "ordered change" then the simple question "who measures change" should be sufficient to establish the necessity of an observer.

As for Setanta's "independent confirmations" at some stage "events" must be compared by members of a species with similar perceptual physiology
within a framework of a common language. Such is the nature of "consensus"....independence is a myth! (Interested parties may note here that I resist the temptation to indulge in the mystical "morphogenic fields" of Sheldrake which explains simultaneous "discoveries" by reference to a universal shared consciousness. Nor do I pursue the concept of "non-locality" in quantum physics which implies that "spatial separation" is not what it appears)

Setanta,

You may indeed be correct about the applicability of "objectivity" at the the everyday "macro-level" but this plays straight into the hands of theists who argue for "other levels". Further it delimits discussions of "reality" in the same way that Newtonian physics is delimited relative to later developments.For "reality" such developments would include sociolinguistics and second order cyberntic consideration of "observation".

You should be flattered that, coming from you, I spent 3/4 hour trying to find out what it was.

fresco, Don't you think no matter what the objective thesis, the theists would find an explantion for their beliefs? Try to have them explain the creation in the bible vs science.

cicerone imposter

I agree that theists operate on a "can't loose" basis but at the expense of an infantile epistemology. By this I mean that most never get beyond the philosophical problems of "causality" and jump for the ad hoc notion of a "prime mover". This has been philosophically and scientifically discredited now to the extent that "scientific theists" (Polkinghorne for example) steer well clear of it and suggest instead a "basically non-interventionist deity who may may on ocacasion tweak the "strange attractors" in chaotic systems".

Yet even this "arm's length theism" is a far cry from the "spirituality" with which the ardent atheist Sam Harris has some sympathy. His is a move against the reductionist materiality which seeks to explain human endeavour solely in terms of "hard science" (a la Dawkins). It is a recognition that ideas such of the entanglement of the observer and observed imply a closer look at terms like "existence" and "knowledge" to the extent that "reality" is an interactional process rather than a "created entity".

Fresco, yes, space-time can be visualized as a block of past, present and future (with 2 spatial and one temporal dimension), but that doesn't mean that time is illusory or that every past, present and future state of the universe came into existence simultaneously. It couldn't, since each temporal layer of the block is dependent on the conditions of the preceding layer.

An invariant speed of light REQUIRES that time be quantifiable even though it varies with velocity and gravitational fields. We may measure time by its effect on rate at which clocks tick, quartz vibrates, atomic decay occurs, but it also determines the rate at which chemical and physical processes occur, planets form and orbit suns, sediments from eroding mountains accumulate, etc, all of which happen independent of any measurer.

Much of what we believe about the evolution of the universe could is based on the principle that it takes longer for light from more distant stars/galaxies to reach us. If time were observer-dependent, we should be able to see the universe as it is, not as it was.

I agree that we have jointly constructed a vision of reality based on the photons that happen to impinge on our eyes and scientific instruments, but I have no reason to suspect that the photons that are the source of our perceptions are in any way illusory or that our interpretations of the data are substantially wrong. If they are, who created the illusion, and why?

I suggest that you are mistaken about "playing straight into the hands of theists." Theists are even less likely than i would be to attempt to carry on such a discussion about the nature of reality with you--for the dedicated theist, their theism constitutes reality, and all objections or qualifications of the description of reality are referable to their deity and his/her works.

My point is that, absent more and more conclusive data, it is entirely possible that quantum physics actually does no violence to concepts of "macro reality," because the effects of observation on that which is observed is only quantifiable at that level, or only actually occurs at that level.

As to the mathematical conclusions of various cultures, i chose four examples precisely because they reached those conclusion using the same methods, but with significantly different systems of expression. I consider the Greeks to have accomplished quite amazing mathematical "feats" because they had no formal system of enumeration, and simply used the words for numbers. The Mayans used a system of lines and dots. The Indians used "purpose-built" numerical symbols, which have come down to us as "Arabic numerals." The Balinese used "purpose-built" numerical symbols (which i am not qualified to describe). There was no case of anyone "getting together" to compare notes. It has been observed since these mathematical computations were already concluded in each of the four cultures that they coincide, which can be demonstrated by "translating" any one of them into the notation system used by another, or by reference to a fifth party system of notation.

There is a point at which reference to philosophy and semantics ceases to be a reasonable subset discussion of the terms of mathematics and science, and becomes solely a discussion of terms which are no longer relevant to the mathematical or scientific investigations to which such philosophical and semantic discussion refer.

By the way, although i recognize that my point of view makes me a "naive realist," i continue to consider Dr. Johnson's advice that the metaphysicians who doubt reality stub their feet against stones to be conclusive.

Terry,

We have been round this one many times.

Just suspend for a moment if you can the idea of any "objective world" separate from you. Imagine for example that are like a "wave" with respect to "an ocean" i.e. you are composed of exactly the same "stuff" as your environment. What then gives you your "individuality"...your "waveness"....your "structure" ?.....and who observes such "structure" ? .......a "sentient" being who "perceives coherence in time" ?......i.e. "an observer". Is it not a hypothetical observer who captures such "persistence of structure" by the act of "naming" thereby operating at the nominal level of measurement (the most basic level). Without such an observer there is no measurement.....there is no structure....and what constitutes "structure" is entirely a function of the sensitivity of the observer's own "structure"....as is the concept of "persistence"....as is the concept of "time".

Theists would evoke "God" as the "ultimate observer" in the hope extracting themselves from the above, but "thinking" scientists have no such escape.

Setanta,

I am prepared accept mathematics as a relatively culture free meta-language which has hence been "successful" in directing "observations" by the attempted application of "its results" to "the universe". The term "data" is of course not objective because it refers to the class of "observations" which have significance for particular observers.

One hypothetical problem for toe-stubbing naive realists is that they should never travel by air. The integrity of an aircrafts structure is tested by X-rays on the basis that most of matter is "empty space" and that which is not is a function of "the summation of the vector sum of event probabilities". Happy flying !

Ah, but them aereoplanes is just as substantial as them stones upon which the metaphysicians are sure to do themselves an injury.

I ain't askeert . . .

bloody hell

back to the dim but brit thread...

Right. "Thinking" scientists prefer the unexplained singularity that started it all. Hardly an improvement.

This has been a wonderful thread. I'm suprised I missed out on it. Let me just agree with those who consider Dawkins' arguments scientifically acceptable but philosophically inadequate (or insufficient). I see his level of argumentation similar to that of fundamentalist theists.