Pseudoskepticism and logic

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it makes me glad when I hear things from TRUE neutralists such as you and RAZD, and agnostics who are truly honest and fair, and unbiased. Good work guys.

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Thanks Mike. I look forward to talking with you.

Straggler, I want to have a productive conversation with you. Honestly, I do. But for the upteenth time all I see is that you are misunderstanding or ignoring most of what I say to you. Maybe it really is cognitive dissonance, I don't know. I'm not going to keep repeating everything to you because lots of other people want to challenge me here. If you can demonstrate at some point that you have read what I've written and understand it, I'll be happy to take the conversation back up.

Hi Stile, it's been a while. Let's start with:

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The first step is to make sure that what you're talking about isn't pure imagination.

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BUT . . . how? At least two threads have been written on this subject recently.Some respond to the IPU with, "But that's just silly and we all know it." Why doesn't that wash with you guys? Because there are claims out there which may seem just as silly, in which people seriously believe. The question then becomes, what is real and what isn't, and how do we tell the difference?See Message 51 for my hypothetical response to a hypothetical sighting of the IPU, fairies, ghosts, or whatever immaterial entity you like. You will find that while I might end up with a leaning one side or the other of 50/50 based on personal beliefs or likelihoods, ultimately without empirical evidence I would have to say I was agnostic. How could I not be, if the negative could not be proved?So . . .

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Are you sure you want to use the word "rational" in regards to an idea that cannot be differentiated from pure human imagination?

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Yes, because "cannot be differentiated from the human imagination" is not the same thing as "it's made up" and therefore with no empirical evidence one way or the other, the correct rational position is true skepticism or agnosticism.

There are now two people on this thread who seem to have had a lightbulb moment -- that's cool. First Otto Tellick in Message 233, and now Onfire:

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Then how can I provide evidence against god if no method to investigate god exists?

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How can atheism be a negative hypothesis under these scenarios?

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You can't hold a negative position to an unevidenced assertion.

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Bingo.I don't think you meant it like that Onfire; I think you're trying to make a case for atheism as "the negative hypothesis" being nonsensical. What I think you've really done, though, is shown why the rational position for belief in a god or anything else with no empirical evidence for or against is some degree of true skepticism or atheism. An "unevidenced assertion" is just that, so anyone who feels certain about it either negatively or positively, without any evidence on which to base their beliefs, is being irrational . . . or pseudoskeptical.

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So lets see if I can follow the logic here.

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(1) There is no method (currently) to directly investigate god.
(2) I am asked to provide evidence against god.
(3) I ask for the method to investigate it so that I may give evidence against it.
(4) I am told no method exists (currently).

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2) You are only asked to provide evidence against god if you hold a firm belief that god does not exist. IMO that would be the correct skeptical position to take. Skepticism:

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Main Entry: skepticism
Pronunciation: \ˈskep-tə-ˌsi-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1646
1 : an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object
2 a : the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain b : the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism characteristic of skeptics
3 : doubt concerning basic religious principles (as immortality, providence, and revelation)
synonyms see uncertainty

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Note that while doubt is part of skepticism, the operative word in these definitions is uncertainty. The closer you get to Dawkins' 1 or 7, the more certain you are, hence the less skeptical. Placing oneself at 1 or 2, or 6 or 7, is therefore a peudoskeptical position, given the lack of evidence.3&4 above, if there is no known empirical method which can be used to investigate whether or not god exists, then it can't be done. That's not the same as saying that by default he/she/it doesn't exist. There are some non-empirical methods you could try if you wanted to. You could investigate anecdotal claims. You could "try out" some kind of faith for yourself and see where it took you, whether it gave you some interesting experiences. You could meditate.

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But (currently) I am not holding to a negative position, because there is nothing to hold a negative position towards.

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Since the negative position is atheism, that presumably means you are an agnostic.

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your premise has no supporting evidence.

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I think you, like several others here, seem to be making the mistake that I am a theist; correct me if I've misunderstood you.My position in this thread is that anyone who holds some certainty about god existing or not existing should, in order to be truly skeptical and rational, be able to provide some evidence for the positive or the negative claim.

Hi Bluegenes,It seems to me like the guesses of "likelihood" in your post are based on some kind of personal incredulity factor. If you are as neutral as possible about any of these ideas, then when there is truly a lack of empirical evidence, I'd have to ask why you felt so sure that one idea was silly and one was not, or whether one was slightly sillier than the other. As we know from debating creationists, arguments from incredulity are not accepted as logical debate strategies.

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If you're 50/50 on any two of them, there's no room left for anything else.

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The only rational position for any of these, Last Thursdayism or whatever, is truly "I don't know." It's impossible for me to prove that the universe was not created last Thursday. I'm not sitting here laughing off the idea as silly or impossible; it's an interesting philosophical point. But its truth or falsehood don't bother me because it makes no difference to my life or anyone else's.Because we don't know if any of those ideas are true, and there is no evidence, then the only reason we'd pick one as being more or less likely than the other is because we prefer it for some reason, which is not logical or scientific.

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they're several of an infinite field of mutually exclusive evidenceless possibilities that all have to be regarded as equally unlikely.

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Correct, until (and if) some empirical evidence comes to light -- though you could equally replace the word "unlikely" with "likely" or better still, "possible". Problem with that?

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If you decide that one god creating the universe is more likely than ten goddesses or fifty elves doing so, you will have no evidence to support your view, and that would make you a pseudo-skeptic

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Yes, which is why I'd remain agnostic about the divine origins of the universe until (and if) some empirical evidence came to light. I might decide to take some ideas on faith but I'd be aware that my faith was not supported by empirical evidence either.

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When atheists describe a specific god proposition as extremely unlikely, they can do so confidently, because of the infinite range of competing equally evidenceless alternatives!

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Which brings us back to my first point. Where no empirical evidence exists, it's rather nonsensical to talk about "likelihood" because that implies you are using some kind of evidence to judge one premise against another, and that evidence doesn't exist; instead, you are relying on your personal belief factors.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hi Rrhain,

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my point is that since we know that people make stuff up, it is the burden of the one claiming that an object exists to show that it does, not the ones claiming that it does not.

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And yet something can be true or real but unprovable, which in your scenario above will be taken by everyone as being no different from imagination, hallucination, etc. To answer the question "Is there a god?" you seem to be saying, "People make stuff up, therefore I'm going to believe that God is made up until it's proved otherwise." But the converse of this can also logically apply: "People routinely don't make stuff up, therefore I'm going to accept that they are not making God up until it's proved otherwise." I don't see any reason why the former should be preferred over the later, apart from personal incredulity.

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The null hypothesis is always true until shown otherwise.

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Who says, apart from you? This goes against everything I've learned about science since elementary school. If you are invested in a certain outcome of an experiment, e.g. by believing that it will not produce a positive outcome, then you have confirmation bias. You seem to be confusing objectivity and neutrality with active doubt. This is just as counterproductive as conducting an experiment where you really, really hope you get a certain outcome. I'm sure this can be hard for some scientists to avoid when it's their life's work, but it's what they have to do in order to be open to results that might be surprising or disappointing but valid.Here is what one scientist says about skepticism in science: Source

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I am skeptical of people who believe they know what is possible and what is not. This belief leads to dogmatism, and to the dismissal of ideas and evidence that do not fit in. Genuine skepticism involves an attitude of open-minded enquiry into what we do not understand, and this is the approach I try to follow.

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Whether you personally like what this scientist researches is immaterial. If you believe that the negative hypothesis should be the default position in science, then "this belief leads to dogmatism, and to the dismissal of ideas and evidence that do not fit in." In other words, it becomes acceptable to dismiss a new idea with nothing more than, "Everyone knows that's ridiculous," with no obligation to prove that this is actually the case. Do you think that's what science should be about?

Hi Bluegenes,I think I see what you're trying to say. So if I decided to pick one way that I believed the universe had come into existence, I would be excluding all other ways, which means that the probability of my choice would be infinitely small compared to the infinite number of other choices available.On the face of it, it sounds all mathematical and logical. But when we look at something specific like the origins of the universe, there aren't that many possible causes that I can conceive of. Either it happened by chance as part of the natural processes of reality, or it happened through the operation of some conscious power. We can choose to call that hypothetical conscious power "God", a kernel of which exists in all the different expressions of theism that humankind has believed in. By this logic, we get a 50/50 chance that there is a god that created the universe, and we don't have to worry about whether it is a literal Zeus or Vishnu or Allah. But I personally think that all these odds are heavily dependent anyway on how we form these little scenarios, and they don't mean much.If my daughter claimed that she'd seen fairies in our garden, I don't know how I'd make up odds for that. It's immaterial. I know that children are particularly imaginative and prone to making things up but I also know that I can't prove fairies don't exist. I'm agnostic on the matter and I don't think it's doing either me or my daughter any harm.

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If you're a "4" for "god" singular, and a "4" for the proposition of 2 creator gods, you have to be "7" for all propositions of three gods and above and for all other origins propositions. Definitely pseudo-skeptical.

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This isn't really any different from saying, "I believe in the God of the Bible and I can prove why this God and no other Gods exist." No one can rationally do that. More evidence for the purely agnostic position to be the default one until more evidence comes to light.

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I say it as well. "Invested" is not the same as holding to the null in the absence of evidence; your elementary education would have been better served differentiating such concepts.

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Being invested in the outcome of an experiment is positive confirmation bias. Actively doubting the future results of an experiment or study is negative confirmation bias. There are some fields of research where negative experimenter bias can easily interfere with results. I'm finding it hard to believe that people are arguing with me here against neutrality/agnosticism as being the best state of mind for achieving accurate experimental results.

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No, it becomes acceptable to dismiss a new idea with nothing more than "You have no evidence to support that idea,". YES, that is what science should be about!

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Sure, but inherent in this are two possible attitudes:
a) "I will believe this is incorrect/nonexistent until I see some evidence."
b) "I will remain undecided until I see some evidence."Now before you or anyone else has more fun with making up silly situations, we're talking about instances where there is little or no evidence to go on. If a stranger walked up to me and claimed that they'd just seen a diplodocus walking through the park, I would not say "I will remain undecided until I see some evidence" because I know that:-- The fossil record shows that diplodocus went extinct millions of years ago (unless you credit something like the Loch Ness Monster), and people don't tend to see them walking through parks today;
-- I don't know this person and they could be schizophrenic or on drugs;
-- Someone could be trying to play a stupid joke.By my own terms I would have to leave room for a little doubt in case this person had had some kind of extraordinary vision, but the empirical evidence strongly suggests that's not the case. When we look at something like theism then there is much less evidence either way, which is why the agnostic position is IMO the rational one.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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Doubt alone does not negatively affect the outcome of any experiment, and is indeed the reason why experimentation is done. We learn from experiments because we do not know what the outcome will be; therefore, we *doubt* the outcome.

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If the word "doubt" were removed from your statements and replaced with "uncertainty" then I would agree. If you doubt someone's belief that a god does or does not exist, you are moving from certainty to uncertainty. If you doubt the existence of a god, then you are moving toward atheism rather than agnosticism. I think the negative connotations of the word can cause problems.

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Well, I think you're right, but your reasoning is slightly flawed.
It's the "teapot orbiting mars" conundrum - you could easily SAY that there is a teapot too small for the most powerful telescopes and equipment to detect orbiting mars, but you cannot prove it. You also cannot prove there isn't.

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Maybe this example is slightly flawed? We have some empirical evidence available here. We know that human beings make teapots; they do not occur naturally. We know that human beings have not been to Mars. Therefore it is highly unlikely that there is a teapot orbiting Mars. But no, I can't prove that there isn't. I don't expect that the uncertainty will keep me awake at night.

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of course, even the hardest skeptic would say it's possible, but that's nonsensical to assume it's true just because it may be.

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Don't quite get what you're saying there.

Hi Rrhain,Since the gist of your two recent posts to me is an argument about the scientific method in relation to theism, I'd like to make some general comments about that. Please let me know if you feel I've skipped over any major points. I'm getting an average of 8 messages to reply to in a 24-hour period.I have realised that it's been sloppy of me to start referring to atheism as the null hypothesis because that implies that the existence of the divine is suitable for the application of the scientific method. I think that this conflates science with ontology and it implies that science is the only basis for any ontological investigation. IMO this is specious reasoning. "Scientism" is an informal, derogatory term for the belief that empiricism can, now or eventually, find all truth, and this premise lays itself open to such a label.Let's look at why it's specious to apply the scientific method to ontology. The null hypothesis in ontology would seem to be solipsism. This is of course the premise that the only thing I can know for certain is that I exist. In order to get on with the business of living, I have to assume that you, this computer, the garden outside, etc all exist, though I have no way of proving it because it could all be something I'm dreaming. Science and reason are engaged only after we have already made assumptions about which bits of experience are real and which aren't. We're all complicit in the belief game, because it's the only way we can ever make sense of anything.Now according to you, we would rationally have to say that the null hypothesis (solipsism) is what we have to accept as truth unless new evidence comes along to prove otherwise. This would seem to suggest rather strongly that applying the scientific method to ontological questions is an erroneous use of the scientific method. The question of theism is an ontological one.I also still take issue with the assumption that a subject under scientific investigation is disproved, rather than unproved, in the absence of evidence. The OP covers this, as does RAZD in Message 377.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hi Onifre,

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Boy that On(fire) follows me everywhere.

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My mistake. Mind you, it seems a suitable monicker for a debate forum. It's also what your avatar will be if he's not careful with his cigarettes.

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So am I supposed to give validity to your premise (taking a negative or positive position on it), even before you establish the evidence for your premise?

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How can anyone be an atheist to nothing?

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Well first of all I don't take a negative or a positive position on it; I suppose you could call me an agnostic pantheist, though I haven't come across that term before. If I did call myself a theist or an atheist then it would mean I've been lying through my teeth in all the posts I've written here. I might have leanings one way or the other but that would be through personal choice, not based on empirical evidence.The fact that you're still asking the question above means that you're sort of getting what RAZD, CS and I are saying here. Think about it.

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please give me the method for investigating such a claim

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Again, the impossibility of doing so -- which you seem to have recognised -- is precisely the point. Though perhaps some of the frustration I'm sensing is due to the fact that the scientific method just isn't very suitable for such an investigation; see Message 383.

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I am not skeptical of the existance of god, because I don't yet know what god means.

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Your position seems to fit the definition of "skeptical" in the OP. RAZD and I have been defining G(g)od(s) as deism or spirituality, or the kernel of possible truth within all such beliefs.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

Hi again Bluegenes,

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We don't know the origins of the universe and exactly what it is, so that's all there is to believe in that area at this point in time.

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Well yes, I think it's rational to be agnostic about the origin of the universe. There's no evidence to suggest what that is.

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but that might be a false dichotomy, because we know that nature can produce "conscious powers" like ourselves, so it could be a bizzare mixture of the two

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Isn't it cool how this stuff can tie reasoning up in knots

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You're fond of the singular "God", which, as I pointed out in the last post, is as remote a possibility as a billion gods working together.

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As RAZD explained in a recent post, I'm using "God" as a handy label for a term. Deism/spirituality/G(g)ods(s) is a bit clumsy to type, but that's what I'm referring to. Maybe it's better just to call it "the divine" or "the transcendent."

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What about a multi-verse created by a pantheon of gods and goddesses who, like some particles, can be said to both exist and not to exist at the same time, therefore offending no-one?

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Sounds like a fun metaphysical discussion

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What's wrong with this thread is that it's an effort to claim that one has to present evidence in order not to believe in an evidenceless proposition, like wood-elves, or ogres with green hair, when actually it's the norm not to believe in things until there's positive evidence for them.

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It's not the norm to eat vegetables with breakfast either, but I do. Is that unscientific?
RAZD, CS and I have talked a number of times in this thread and elsewhere about hypothetical creatures and to be honest it's getting old. I wouldn't believe in wood-elves without evidence; nor would I see any reason to disbelieve in them without evidence to do so. I might decide that they are unlikely to exist but I would do that within the bounds of agnosticism. If someone claimed they'd experienced them and I'd investigated and eliminated every other logical possibility, then "I don't know" would seem to be the rational conclusion.

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"Purely agnostic" actually means 6 out of 7 on the Dawkins scale for any specific god propositions made.

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On a scale from 1 to 7, 6 is close extreme and 7 is extreme. The premise of this thread is that if one holds such certainty about an idea when there is no evidence either for or against, then one is not being truly skeptical.

Hi Stile,

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You claim there is a difference? What, specifically, is the difference between an idea that "is made up" and one that "cannot be differentiated from the human imagination?"

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There have been a couple of recent threads about this, but I'd ask you to read Message 383. How can I be sure that anything exists apart from me, eh?

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Like black holes. They were imagined and made up by science-fiction writers and it turns out that they actually exist in reality.

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So the rational response to the idea, before evidence existed to support it, would have been "I don't know." If you'd decided instead to say "That's ridiculous" then you would have been incorrect. IMO if a few more people were willing to have that extra degree of open-mindedness and say "I don't know" rather than "I don't believe it" then science would make faster progress.

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I'm not sure what you mean. That response washes perfectly with me.

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I think you must have skipped over the point I was making, because you've answered a rhetorical question. I wrote:

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Some respond to the IPU with, "But that's just silly and we all know it." Why doesn't that wash with you guys? Because there are claims out there which may seem just as silly, in which people seriously believe. The question then becomes, what is real and what isn't, and how do we tell the difference?

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If it did wash with you then you'd say, "I admit that the IPU is a silly entity in which no one believes, created for the purpose of ridiculing theists," and you'd leave it at that. Please note my emphasis above in bold. You can't tell me that something is made up unless you're certain of what is and what isn't, and that's a more profound question than would at first appear. But speaking within the general framework that we tend to agree is reality, people are capable of reporting experiences truthfully and accurately, and this capacity tends to be ignored by the "people make stuff up" claimants. Both are actually true.

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Since you continue to move around, and it's an unevidenced idea that your very next move will immediately lead to your death (regardless of past movements)... then you are being inconsistent by not giving that evidenceless proposition a 50/50 chance.

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Sure -- so why should that make a difference to how I live my life? It works for me. I could walk out my front door and get zapped by an alien raygun. The Morlocks could erupt from the ground and attack. If it happens, I'll deal. I won't be losing any sleep over it.

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I'm calling your position irrational because it's inconsistent.

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Please give an example of anything I've said that goes against the definition of skepticism in the OP.

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Atheism is rational because it's consistent.

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If consistency is your only criterion for rationality, then I've got some swamp land in Florida to sell you. I will be consistent in my claims that the view is fine and the weather is lovely.

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Agnosticism is certainly valid (logical). It's just very hard to keep it consistent when dealing with every and all possible non-evidenced ideas that cannot be differentiated from imagination.

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It's actually really, really easy.Q: Do you think the IPU exists?
A: Without any evidence, I don't know.Q: Do you think the FLying Spaghetti Monster exists?
A: Without any evidence, I don't know.Q: Do you think the Earth was created last Thursday?
A: Without any evidence, I don't know.Got the hang of it yet?

Hi Greyseal,

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You cannot prove there is not one.

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Therefore I ask you, do you believe there is?

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I explained to you why it is logically improbable. But I'm happy to say "I don't know." Teleportation isn't necessarily impossible either.

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Maybe there's a teapot orbiting mars.
Maybe there's a boogeyman under your bed
Maybe ghosts exist, you just haven't seen one
Maybe pink unicorns are real
Maybe, maybe, maybe...

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Why do you seem to have a personal problem with saying "I don't know?" Does it actually change anything at all?I should have said this earlier, but as of this point I think I've said enough not to be obliged to answer more "Do you believe in (whatever seems silly to me)" questions. They are getting very repetitious.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.