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Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

#134: Dec. - Feb. 2015 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

Please use this thread to discuss the above section of Lex Bayer and John Figdor’s “Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century.”

You’re also welcome to create new threads however you see fit.
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Toward the end of the chapter, B & L say, "After all, most of us accept these notions in our everyday lives without feeling the need to explore all their nuances." By "most of us," I think they mean people in general, not just those who call themselves humanist, agnostic, or atheist. The notions they refer to are the first three non-commandments, which are "the bedrock beliefs of all subsequent beliefs":

1.) The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief. 2.) We can perceive the world only through our human senses. 3.) We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world.

Others may disagree, but I think that, apart from the hot buttons of morality, all of us do live by these principles. This would explain why we don't need to worry about people presenting hazards to us by using peculiar thinking as we go about our daily lives. Although people we may cross paths with and interact with might think evolution is bunk, on the more practical matters that form 99% of social contact, they're in synch with these principles. So I like the fact that these non-commandments aren't the property of any group but are truly general truths that we live by. Some of us appear to make more exceptions to them than others do.

I also like the way no. 2 enables us to say that denying evolution equals denying our senses. The theory rests on observations, many of them made through sophisticated tools. Yet these tools always reduce to the use of our senses.
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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At first I thought they were putting too much emphasis on sense evidence, as evolution relies on a theory to make sense of what you're seeing of course. But they did cover that with #3.

It's sort of trivially true that understanding evolution relies on your senses, in that you're seeing something when it comes to interpreting DNA evidence, for example.
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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The paradox discussed in this chapter is the infinite regress, the idea that all claims eventually rest on a claim that cannot be justified, on the model of turtles all the way down.

I have some problems with this logic. First, I have a hypothesis about the origin of the Indian myth of kurma the turtle. This won't be familiar to t'othersiders, or to anyone who does not share my habitual pastime of naked eye astronomy, but the south ecliptic pole is occupied by the Large Magellanic Cloud, which directly matches the function of the turtle at the bottom of the universe - as seen in this sky map http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... sion_S.gif

Image

Second, the concept of infinite regress involves a defect in logic, as does the authors' claim that some true propositions are not justified. The problem here is the nature of axioms in philosophy.

If we take it as an unprovable fundamental axiom that the universe is real, as these authors actually do, it is debatable whether that claim is unjustifiable, which what they seem to allege. Kant's argument was that the reality of space, time, matter and causation are necessary conditions of experience. By this he meant we cannot possibly imagine how our experience could be possible without these basic facts of reality. So it is sloppy for the authors to state "the only way to justify a particular belief is to start with an unjustifiable belief."

To say 'the universe is such that our experience is possible' is perfectly justifiable. But it creates a circular logic. We know the universe is real because we could not exist if it were not. The fact that there are topics outside our knowledge, such as the process of the Big Bang, in no way justifies the fallacy of infinite regress.
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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I took their point to be that a minor leap of faith is required for us to state that our experience is real at all, or that a thing that has has empirical evidence today will have it tomorrow. My thought was that it would have been sloppy of them not to put it this way. No? It might get back to the matter of certainty, not that, in the practical terms of everyday, anyone really feels uncertain on this level. It just has to be included when you make a formal declaration.

I had guessed there was a deeper meaning to "Yurtle the Turtle," but never knew what it was until now!
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Robert Tulip wrote:By this he meant we cannot possibly imagine how our experience could be possible without these basic facts of reality.
This seems to me to be based on an argument from ignorance. Just because we cannot possibly imagine something doesn't mean it's impossible. Perhaps it is our imagination that is the limiting factor. I don't see justification from Kant's reasoning.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Interbane wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:By this he meant we cannot possibly imagine how our experience could be possible without these basic facts of reality.
This seems to me to be based on an argument from ignorance. Just because we cannot possibly imagine something doesn't mean it's impossible. Perhaps it is our imagination that is the limiting factor. I don't see justification from Kant's reasoning.
Frankly Interbane, your logic here is ridiculous. You are saying it is reasonable and justifiable to imagine that time, space, matter and causality are not real. It is not reasonable or justifiable, it is stupid and wrong (with the greatest of respect for the Straight Arrow), except in the purely hypothetical realm of imaginary philosophy land. Giving credence to such nihilistic solipsism gives philosophy a bad name.

Saying time and space may not be real is like Maxwell Smart justifying the cone of silence by saying ashes can be reassembled.

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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Robert Tulip wrote:Frankly Interbane, your logic here is ridiculous. You are saying it is reasonable and justifiable to imagine that time, space, matter and causality are not real.
No, I'm not saying it is reasonable and justifiable to imagine that these things aren't real. I'm saying that Kant's reasoning doesn't appear justified. So the authors claim that at the start of every justified belief is an unjustified one still rings true. Because I agree with the authors, I'm a nihilist? Are they nihilists?

You don't need to be so defensive if I disagree with you. My logic appears sound rather than ridiculous(not that I care if it's ridiculous).
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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I am not trying to be defensive, and sorry if I give that impression. I am genuinely interested in the language that logicians use to explain how we understand things. My complaint was about the authors' comment that that all claims eventually rest on a claim that cannot be justified. I do not agree with this alleged infinite regress, because the claim that the universe is real can be justified, and provides a logical foundation for all knowledge. I agree with Kant's anthropic grounding of philosophy in the assertion that the universe must be such as to make our experience possible.

Descartes argued that this problem of reality presents two options. Either science reveals an objective reality, or there is some highly complex and mysterious deception built into the structure of reality. Parsimony indicates that such complex deception is ridiculous.

The question of nihilism here is about the logical possibility that nothing is real, which is what nihilism means. Stated in those terms, nihilism is absurd. However, if we accept that a complex mysterious deception may be possible, which is what the rejection of Kant's logic means, then we are forced to accept the absurd nihilist proposition that nothing may be real.

The principle of non-contradiction requires that no absurd statements are true. Therefore the universe exists, because the statement that the universe may not exist is absurd.
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Re: Ch. 2: The Paradox of Belief

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Robert Tulip wrote:the claim that the universe is real can be justified, and provides a logical foundation for all knowledge.
How do you justify the claim? By ruling out the contrapositive? Is the universe real even if it is holographic? If you try to rule out the contrapositive, you get into issues with the definition of "real" and "universe", to the extent that the claim becomes analytic(the proposition only works when these terms occupy the same conceptual territory). If you have the answer, I'm all ears. But from all my searching I haven't found anything that works except to satiate belief. Satiating belief is not justification.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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