TeryWeb said:
The confusion here stems from the implicit assumption that at least some experiments would yield evidence in support of the thesis that the being under analysis is indeed omnipotent. This is clearly not the case as a limited observer is simply not capable of recording the full spectrum of omnipotence that would constitute the only possible kind of evidence that one is not in fact dealing with a lesser if also very powerful being. If one believes that Jesus indeed turned water into wine all that proves is that he is capable of that particular feat and possibly related ones if one can fathom that the process involved is extendable. It certainly does not prove that He is omnipotent.
I don't know why you seem limit evidence to experiments. I guess it depends on how you construe those words. But let's say they're construed broadly enough, for the sake of the argument.
Even then, there is no such confusion. I didn't claim that the probability was not stuck at 0.
But still, I didn't explain why it would have to be stuck at 0, not at some other value (and I was assuming no hyperreals, else I would have added a non-zero infinitesimal); the idea is the infinite number of claims involved, while not independent, appear to be no less complex than any other claim that one can come up with.
There is no need to argue for that in that context, though. If “0” is replaced by “0 or some x << 1”, that works as well. So, I'm willing to limit the claim to:
Well, unless no matter what the evidence H may be, the probability P(OB/H)=x<<1, then evidence might raise the probability (OB is the hypothesis that there is an omnipotent, omniscient being, and OOB the probability that there is an omnipotent, omniscient one).
TeryWeb said:
That is immaterial since we are interested in the level of certainty of tentative knowledge available to ordinary humans in a normal setting.
Okay, ordinary humans in a normal setting. Then, it's still P(OB/H)=x<<1 (one may argue 0, but no need to).
TeryWeb said:
It has already been alluded to that divine intervention by an omnipotent God could trivially grant certain knowledge of His nature even to beings otherwise incapable of it, as is predicted by most religious traditions for the afterlife.
Okay, so an afterlife does not count as “normal”. I can go with that.
TeryWeb said:
An atheist in common parlance is someone who does not believe in God, and as far as public debate these days is concerned comes in an obnoxious variety self-assured of his or her actually rather mediocre argument.
What do you mean by “God”?
The point is that the words “atheist” and “God” are used in very different ways by different people in common parlance, usually without realizing that, and talking past each other. For example, in this context, we're talking about an omnimax being. But I've seen people tell me things along the lines that atheism is irrational because the atheist has no good reason to believe that no gods exist, regardless of whether she has good reason to believe that there is no omnimax being.
If by “God” you mean an omnimax being, then I'm an atheist. But that does not encompass other definitions.
TeryWeb said:
As for your second point, in asserting that the prior probability for being able to destroy a galaxy is very low you are falling prey to the well-known fallacy referred to as begging the question: this statement contains a slew of implicit assumptions about the limitations trust upon probable physical phenomena and unsurprisingly finds extraordinary feats to be hence very unlikely. It is however silly in the extreme to expect the very laws of physics to be binding in the discussion at hand let alone the aforementioned assumptions.
No, this is not begging the question. It's making an assessment about prior probabilities.
After considering the evidence, I suppose you could argue that maybe there is some creator of a simulation. But before looking at anything, if someone just comes up with the claim that there is an entity capable of that, it would seem very low – at least, as long as probability can be properly assessed in the first place, at least as an approximation (like “probable”, or “improbable”. But you're apparently assuming it can – you claim it's one for all those things but the omnipotent one -, so I may assume so in this context.
As for the bindingness of the laws of physics, what do you mean by “laws of physics”? If they're laws (rather than local approximations), how could they have exceptions?
Regardless, you're mistaken about what I'm doing.
TeryWeb said:
And that would be the end of the story if logical deduction was the only rational tool available to us, but the possible remains to take a leap of faith in favour of either equally likely possibilities.
Actually, that's not psychologically possible for me – not deliberately. I'm not sure how it would be for you, but plenty of people claim they choose what to believe.
In any case, probabilities are epistemic probabilities in this context, not frequencies or some other stuff.
Granting that the choice you suggest is psychologically doable, it would be
irrational to make it. If the proper probabilistic assignment is p, choosing to give it q > p is an instance of epistemic irrationality – because, well, the proper probabilistic assignment is p.
TeryWeb said:
Note that the assertion of reality of the the very world outside of our mental experience i.e. the rejection of solipsism is just one such leap of faith based on the very same odds.
No, that's not a leap of faith.
In the sense in which you used “faith” before, faith entailed a jump beyond the proper probabilistic assignment. Now, the probability that solipsism is true is ridiculously low, on a proper assignment.
If it were epistemically proper to give solipsism ½ (or whatever you're suggesting it is), then would be it. We should not assign it any less.
TeryWeb said:
Again that's just begging the question (see above).
Again, that's not (see above).
TeryWeb said:
Angra Mainyu said:
Well, actually, we can tell what an omnipotent being would not do, or would do, to some extent, if we're talking about an omnipotent being with certain value system, like a maximally good, or maximally evil, or maximally something else. That's how arguments from evil work. But assuming that they do not (which is pretty much what skeptical theism says, but regardless), then the argument I'm giving succeeds anyway.
What you are saying is that certain actions are incompatible with a given moral code (or other system of value). In other words that engaging in them would create a blemish impossible to delete. But how can anything be im-possible to the omni-potent? Clearly an omnipotent being cannot be pinned down by such reasoning due to the boundlessness of His options. That this is highly counter-intuitive is a short-coming of this our finite mind and the reason for the undeserved credit given to problem of evil type arguments.
10. No, I'm saying what I said.
11. In any case, it's impossible for an omnipotent being to be morally perfect and also torture human beings purely for pleasure. So, as you can see, some things are impossible even for an omnipotent being.
Of course, I'm assuming for the sake of the argument that you have a coherent concept of omnipotence. That may well not be the case, but having an incoherent concept wouldn't help your case of course.
12. As I explained, even if we were to grant this claim for the sake of the argument, my other argument would work: the omnipotent being might be maximally evil as well, or neither maximally good nor maximally evil, but maximally interested in some other stuff he, she or it values.
TeryWeb said:
see above - There is no justification for your statement bar a lack of imagination, quite a startling one at that, since even without invoking omnipotence we are all aware of people who insist they wouldn't wish away a certain period of suffering in their lives, no matter how painful, because they value how it made them grow as individuals.
My statement is justified. Yours is not. Else, for that matter, we would have no good reason for, say, preventing serial rapists from raping people for fun. After all, that might help them in the future, right? And maybe the serial rapist is actually a morally good being, following orders from an omnimax being, in order to bring about some greater good beyond our ken in the future.
But clearly, that's not the case. The proper probabilistic assignment to the event that the serial rapist who seems to rape people for fun is actually a good agent following commands from an omnimax being to bring in order to bring about some greater good beyond our ken in the future, is that it's ridiculously improbable. So much so, that it's beyond a reasonable doubt that that's not the case.
With your argumentation, it would not be beyond a reasonable doubt: we would just lack imagination.
Regardless, as I have been explaining, granting for the sake of the argument that you're correct about the evidence – which is not true -, then one should conclude that an omnimax being does not exist, on account of the ridiculously low prior – which we would be stuck with.
TeryWeb said:
No, as our natural inclination to lessen suffering and the actions resulting thereof would of course be part of any Divine Plan themselves.
Now you're being inconsistent, since: you criticize me because I make an assessment about what an omnimax being would do or wouldn't do based on my moral sense – a very reasonable thing to do -. while
you're trying implicitly to do just that by assessing that “No, as our natural inclination to lessen suffering and the actions resulting thereof would of course be part of any Divine Plan themselves. Providing God is benevolent he would judge our lives according to fair standards, which would include not penalising us for acting sincerely according to our consciences.”
So:
13: You're mistaken. An omnimax being would not create anything remotely like our universe. I make that conclusion
sincerely following my conscience, my sense of right and wrong.
14. You're being inconsistent. You're attempting (though mistakenly) to assess the morality of his behavior. With your criterion, maybe a greater good is achievable by means of letting the rapist go on, or letting people die horribly because of a virus, etc.
15. Your assessment about whether God would punish us for behaving in that way misses the point. My point was not about whether God would punish us or not. My point was there would seem to be no good reason to try to help children suffering horribly – for example -, since we would have no means of assessing whether that horrible suffering is more likely to help them or not. Maybe it would help them, and then – by the reasoning you're defending –
our conscience under that assumption no longer tells us to help.
TeryWeb said:
Unless you re-define "rational" as meaning "necessarily excluding those things you are setting out to disprove" you will have a hard time justifying that accusation.
I already showed it's true, beyond any reasonable doubt. Granted, you have not realized that, and very probably never will, very probably because of your commitment to your metaphysical beliefs, perhaps also because of the contentious nature of on-line debates (i. e., you instinctively defend your position), and perhaps for some other reason as well. But there is nothing I can do about it.
TeryWeb said:
As already pointed out that is only true if one limits oneself to logical deduction.
16. No, you already claimed that the probability was ½. You were not talking about “logical deduction”. In fact, logical deduction does not allow you to assign ½, or anything else for that matter. You need priors, and deduction only does not give you priors.
17. With your new criterion, if one “limits oneself to logical deduction”, one assigns probability in a contradictory manner – since you proposed a contradictory method. That's absurd.
18. In any event, you incurred further contradictions in the post I'm now replying to (see below).
TeryWeb said:
However the existence or not of an omnipotent, benevolent God or not is the cornerstone of the distinction between objective ethics and nihilism.
That's a claim you repeat, without providing any good reason to think so. It's common for theists to do that.
I challenge you to back up your claim, either in this thread, or in the thread about objective morality, or better yet – given the relevance of the subject to many debates in philosophy of religion -, by starting a new thread entitled “the existence or not of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being is the cornerstone of the distinction between objective ethics and nihilism”, or a similar formulation (if you leave aside “omniscient”, you will be challenged on that, diverting the debate; if you say “omnibenevolvent” instead of “morally perfect”, the same will probably happen, so I suggest you formulate in a way that avoids that if you're wiling to defend your claim without going on tangents, but your choice of course)
TeryWeb said:
To limit oneself to agnosticism in the face of impending moral choices very much hinging on this distinction is simply impossible for inaction itself represents a course of action and as such it is irrational to try to convince oneself this is at all an option.
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. You're not being consistent, or rational, as I have been explaining.
TeryWeb said:
Also as already pointed out it would never occur to anyone to label as irrational the unproven belief in the validity of rejecting solipsism although much less is at stake there.
Of course, the probability of solipsism is no greater than the probability that I don't know whether you were alive yesterday, which is ridiculously low.
TeryWeb said:
me said:
5. Let's consider the event EV1: "The Earth is less than 15000 years old, and so are the galaxies, etc., and it was all created with the appearance that it has, with fossils, stars and all, by a being with sufficient power to make it look to us in any way she wants, and with reasons unknown to us to make it look that way", and the following event EV2: "The Earth is less than 15000 years old"
Now, there is no empirical evidence for or again EV1, so by your proposed assignment, P(EV1/H)=1/2, for any evidence H. But P(EV2/H) is no less than P(EV1/H). so P(EV2/H) ≥ ½.
The error here lies in assuming that adding new layers of complexity to a given set-up lessens its probability, an assumption which is again false. If one assumes an omnipotent being set-up to create the perfect illusion of an billion-years old universe the result maybe be as complex as required for such a being by definition does not labour under any restriction.
There is no error on my part. I was pointing out some of the consequences of your method of assigning probabilities.
TeryWeb said:
me said:
If that conclusion is not enough to persuade you that your proposed method of assigning probabilities (i. e., assigning ½ whenever no experiment can support the hypothesis or its negation) is not rational, one can actually show that it's contradictory, as follows:
EV3: "There are more than 10000000000000000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV4: "There are between 0 and 100000 people but no more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV5: "There are between 100001 and 10000000000000000 people but no more or fewer, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities."
Going by the ½ assignment, and considering the hypotheses are pairwise disjoint, we get a contradiction, namely that the probability of the union of those 3 events is greater than 1.
Except in this case there are three symmetric propositions not two hence p=1/3 for each one and the probabilities sum to 1 as required.
You continue to incur contradiction.
Let us consider another event:
EV3: "There are more than 10000000000000000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV6: It is not the case that there are more than 10000000000000000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities"
Now, there are two “symmetric propositions”, so the probability of each is ½ by your proposed method of assigning probability.
But as it turns out, the probability of each EV3 is 1/3 by your proposed method of assigning probability. Hence, 1/2=1/3. Contradiction.
Now, you can say that EV3 and EV6 are not entirely symmetrical, that the symmetry is only between EV3, EV4, and EV5, but that would be patently improper. Why would 3-way exhaustive options be “entirely symmetrical” but 2-way exhaustive options would not be?
Regardless,
even going by the “only 3-way” assumption of symmetry – already absurd -, one can derive a contradiction from your way of assigning probability. I will prove that below; so, let us recap:
TeryWeb said:
me said:
If that conclusion is not enough to persuade you that your proposed method of assigning probabilities (i. e., assigning ½ whenever no experiment can support the hypothesis or its negation) is not rational, one can actually show that it's contradictory, as follows:
EV3: "There are more than 10000000000000000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV4: "There are between 0 and 100000 people but no more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV5: "There are between 100001 and 10000000000000000 people but no more or fewer, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities."
Going by the ½ assignment, and considering the hypotheses are pairwise disjoint, we get a contradiction, namely that the probability of the union of those 3 events is greater than 1.
Except in this case there are three symmetric propositions not two hence p=1/3 for each one and the probabilities sum to 1 as required.
Okay, so let's consider an alternative:
EV7: "There are more than 10000000000000000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV8: "There are between 0 and 200000 people but no more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV9: "There are between 200001 and 10000000000000000 people but no more or fewer, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities.
Now, by symmetry, and by your own reasoning, p=1/3 for each. In particular, P(EV8)=1/3.
Let's consider now:
EV10: “There are between 100001 and 200000 people but not more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities”.
Now, given that P(EV10)+P(EV4)=P(EV8) (the events are disjoint), it follows that P(EV10)=0.
Now, let us consider:
EV10: “There are between 100001 and 200000 people but not more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities”.
EV4: “There are between 0 and 100000 people but no more, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
EV11: "There are more than 200000 people, in all realms beyond our observational capabilities".
By your assignment, then by symmetry, P(EV10)=1/3. But as I proved above, your assignment implies that P(EV10)=0, so 1/3=0. Contradiction.