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Author Topic:   Inductive Atheism
Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2330 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 25 of 536 (604542)
02-12-2011 11:53 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Straggler
02-11-2011 8:57 AM


Re: Inductive Atheism
Hi Straggler,
While I agree with the central assertion of your "tentative theory" (that all supernatural concepts are derived from human imagination), I find your statement of premises, predictions and potential falsification to be less than satisfying.
Not least among the problems is that we have no ability to define what "a supernatural concept derived from a non-human source" might be. As I see it, "supernatural concepts" fall in the domain of "tricks played with human language," using the grammatical tools for asserting existence, attribution, action, agency, experience, etc, along with tools for quantification ("some, most, any, all, none," etc), and -- crucially -- negation with controlled scope (negating a whole sentence, verb phrase only, subject only, object only, attribute only, etc).
Since humans are not aware of (let alone able to comprehend) any non-human system of communication with this extent of assertive power, it seems meaningless to refer to "non-human sources of supernatural concepts." (It's possible that non-human communication systems could exist, built on similar or equivalent principles, but if there has ever been any evidence of such a thing, humans have been unable to observe it objectively and recognize it as such.)
So I'll propose different approach -- dare I say, an alternate theory. To establish adequate grounds for "inductive atheism", we need to address two distinct categories of theistic assertions:
(1) Claims regarding any purposeful but unobservable entity acting as the causative agent for observed phenomena.
(2) Claims regarding the existence and attributes of consciousness (and particularly human-like consciousness) beyond the realm of objective observation (god(s), spirits, life after death, reincarnation, etc).
For the first category, we can form a theory that all such claims stem from a natural, innate human tendency to infer causes and reasons for things that affect our lives, including things that don't happen (a person didn't die from injuries, wasn't on a plane that crashed, etc).
It is in the nature of such claims that they cannot be refuted in any objective sense, do not yield any value in terms of making usable predictions for future observations, and have no more likelihood of being "correct" than countless alternative supernatural claims that could be made up to "explain" the same phenomena.
Given our experience with forming and testing natural explanations, and the fact that these have repeatedly succeeded with increasing accuracy while supernatural explanations have repeatedly failed, we can conclude by induction that supernatural explanations for observable phenomena are, at best, always useless, and lead, at worst, to misunderstandings and/or false assertions about the phenomena.
The second category is more pernicious, because it has no bearing on anything observable; the limitless indeterminacy of unobservable entities is compounded by the unobservable environs that they must occupy. In effect, there is nothing that differentiates claims of this type from mere fiction or mendacity.
One possible exception is the occasional observation of "cases suggestive of reincarnation," but these are so rare that they could well have happened "by chance" -- that is, they don't come close to refuting the null hypothesis, which says that each personality is a natural outcome of the particular genetics and environment in which the individual is born and raised, rather than being some sort of projection or continuation of an earlier personality from another lifetime.

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Straggler, posted 02-11-2011 8:57 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Straggler, posted 02-13-2011 4:44 AM Otto Tellick has not replied

Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2330 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 429 of 536 (617123)
05-26-2011 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 426 by tesla
05-25-2011 3:03 PM


Re: Inductive Atheism
tesla writes:
Imagination is the tool mankind uses to understand things: be it how a person feels ( by imagining yourself in their shoes) or how to build a shed ( which you imagine the parts coming together as a feasible project, you then research and begin the project with what you imagined in mind.)
This is a very handy (and facile) piece of equivocation. For sure, the sensation of empathy is inescapably subjective, and the ability to envision the properties and assembly of objects that do not currently exist is difficult to explain, despite being a pervasive (and probably unique) attribute of the human species. But should we refer to these things as being "supernatural"?
Empathy is simply natural. It's grounded in the (mostly justified) belief that there is a lot of commonality to human experience, and that the other people we see really are a lot like ourselves. If you choose to view this as resulting from purposeful supernatural causation, you might as well do the same for rainfall and lightening. But doing so won't really help you to understand any of these things better. As for problem solving...
My father was a residential building contractor, who sometimes took on jobs with unusual designs. Someone else (an architect) had already worked out the dimensions, appearance and components of a structure, but he had to figure out how to actually put it together. He often expressed his belief that there was some supernatural force -- indeed an entity he referred to as God -- that solved these problems for him by putting ideas in his head, because they tended to just pop in suddenly. He seemed to have an underlying sense that he wasn't able by himself to come up with these ideas, so this was the best explanation he could imagine for it.
Another way to look at his perspective is that he was given some pretty strong religious indoctrination as a child, and as an adult, while he really didn't care for organized religion or religious doctrine, he never broke free of the notion of being subservient to an all-powerful creator. So his notions of divine intervention in problem solving were just his own peculiar way of reconciling some of what he had been taught with what he actually experienced.
But he still didn't understand what was really going on in his own brain, and this is true for pretty much every human being. Those who seek to understand can only make progress to the extent that they put aside notions of supernatural causation.
Imagination is a remarkable trait -- it may be the only thing in this universe that can travel forward and backward in time, and move faster than the speed of light (e.g. we can imagine what things might be like right now in parts of our galaxy that are light years away). But it doesn't work as an example of, or evidence for, something supernatural.

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 426 by tesla, posted 05-25-2011 3:03 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 430 by tesla, posted 05-27-2011 7:08 PM Otto Tellick has replied

Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2330 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


(1)
Message 432 of 536 (617365)
05-27-2011 11:19 PM
Reply to: Message 430 by tesla
05-27-2011 7:08 PM


Re: Inductive Atheism
Thanks, tesla. I'm enjoying this dialog as well. Here are some "knee jerk" reactions for you (and some honest effort too)...
tesla writes:
It is my firm belief that when a person realizes that for anything to ‘exist’ at all is a miracle: that person is born into philosophy and religion.
Frankly, this does not necessarily count as a Good Thing. In your view, what distinguishes a "miracle" from a "normal event"? If you simply mean to say that it's crass or insensitive to take existence for granted, I'm fine with that. But it makes no sense -- it's fundamentally incoherent -- to speak of the alternative case: what would it be like for nothing to exist? Okay, that would certainly not be a miracle. Indeed for any attribute you can think of, it would not be that either. So what? This is just the simplest example of the trouble human language can get you into.
To point to a nonsensical proposition like "existence is a miracle" and say this leads us to philosophy and religion... well, it speaks poorly of philosophy and religion. (Perhaps in that regard, it's actually quite apt when applied to religion.)
Is God possible? Yes. Bottom line: no 'proof' against him has surfaced, and no proof for him is acceptable to scientific standards of 'proof'.
Are Zeus and Thor possible? Pink unicorns? Yes. (I suppose that even invisible pink unicorns are possible, given a suitably contorted fable about the properties that make them invisible, despite the fact that they are indeed pink. Or vice versa.) Such notions are forever impervious to any attempt to find or state "'proof' against" them -- and this points out yet another remarkable property of human imagination.
In my particular grasp of English, saying that "no proof for [God] is acceptable to scientific standards..." tends to imply that we could actually point to one or more "proofs for God", but none of them work in a scientific context. And that strikes me as a fallacious presupposition.
I think it's more accurate to say that notions of God are simply incompatible with any concept of 'proof'. Such notions are intrinsically imaginary, and cannot intersect in any meaningful way with a concept of 'proof' (i.e. verification), particularly in any attempt to describe interactions between God and reality.
So I define supernatural as: things not yet understood.
And that is precisely the kind of equivocation -- verging on "Humpty-Dumpty-ism" -- that others here have already objected to. Please, in order to progress in dialog, you must be willing to learn and accept the conventional definitions of such important (and transparently constructed) terms as "supernatural". This is a case where the whole is indeed exactly the sum of its parts: "super" (beyond) "natural" (what is observable in nature).
Things that are not yet understood are -- focus now -- "not yet understood." That's it. Consider this great quote from Richard Feynman: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you really don't understand quantum mechanics." He was certainly not attributing anything supernatural to quantum mechanics. He just found it to be profoundly puzzling. That's plenty. No need to elaborate it with terms like supernatural, God, etc.

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 430 by tesla, posted 05-27-2011 7:08 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 434 by tesla, posted 05-28-2011 10:44 AM Otto Tellick has replied

Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2330 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 438 of 536 (617451)
05-29-2011 2:20 AM
Reply to: Message 434 by tesla
05-28-2011 10:44 AM


Re: Inductive Atheism
First, I'd like to go back to something in your earlier post...
tesla writes:
Unless someone has discovered a way to communicate with 'God', I consider looking for God a healthy thing for mankind to do.
How would someone confirm that an asserted method for communicating with 'God' is in fact what it is claimed to be? If someone opts to "look for God", what are they actually looking for, and how do they know whether they've found it?
I'm really having trouble trying to imagine any condition would make "looking for God" a worthwhile pursuit (regardless of it being "healthy").
You never know, perhaps some of the mystery of 'supernatural’ events might become ‘naturally’ understood dynamics of a beautiful universe.
Um, that's what has been happening all along, ever since the Enlightenment put the Dark Ages behind us. (And it was happening before the Dark Ages as well, e.g. in ancient Greece.) It's what normally happens when you put aside the notions and terms regarding supernatural entities.
Now, to your later post:
Imagination is simply ideas belonging to the realm of consciousness. So in the end, are we dealing with the idea that things have actual reality, or the actual reality of what has being?
Here we go with Humpty-Dumpty-ism again, and stoner logic to go with it. Well, never mind that part.
I think it's more accurate to say that notions of God are simply incompatible with any concept of 'proof'... particularly in any attempt to describe interactions between God and reality.
This is where I believe you are limiting yourself by defining 'God'. God is not currently definable.
I totally agree that 'God' is not currently definable -- in fact, it never will be -- at least not in any way that involves positive assertions that are falsifiable and allow for objective confirmation.
The statement of mine that you quoted was not an attempt to "define 'God'", any more than a statement like "the Easter Bunny is imaginary" defines 'Easter Bunny'. It's just stating what domain of experience the entity belongs to: imagination.
Suppose that when a person dies, their electrical energy ... transferred into the ELF spectrum.
Now let’s say some human minds [have] the ability to 'read' some of the ELF waves and 'see' past lives.
Is this supernatural, or natural? It’s supernatural without the explanation of how a person could see a dead person’s life. But with the understanding of how it was possible, and that its perfectly natural to how the universe works, it would be natural.
I really do understand your point here. What if it could be shown that a "psychic reader" or "clairvoyant" or "mystic" was able to convey accurate, unambiguous information about dead people that he/she could not have had access to by any known natural means, and could do so with some measurable and greater-than-chance degree of success?
The last condition there is the crucial one. People have "demonstrated", on occasion, an ability to know things they couldn't have learned by "known natural means." Some people even put on shows where they demonstrate this ability to audiences.
Most if not all of the "regular performers" are in fact fooling their audiences with special tricks that reduce the audience's perception of mistakes and divert attention away from the normal, natural clues that the performer actually uses.
Meanwhile the "sincere" cases generally turn out to be isolated cases. Overall, when you put either type of 'supernatural seeing' under closer scrutiny, it tends to fall apart.
By the way, is "ELF spectrum" something you made up, or does it really refer to some sort of measurable phenomenon in physics? (I confess I'm not a physicist, and will risk asking a stupid question.)
Having brought my father into this in an earlier post, I'll now tell you something about my mother. She described, several times to various people, a few occasions when she had dreamed while sleeping and was able to remember the dream after waking. The dreams involved one or another person she knew (relative or neighbor or former schoolmate), and she found that features in the dreams tended to correlate with things that she later learned about the person.
In particular, when she saw the person at a wedding in the dream, she later learned that the person came to some physical harm or died; in fact, when she saw the person as a bride or groom, the person actually died (I don't recall whether the death happened before or after the time when she had the dream), and when she saw a child as a flower girl, she later learned that the child came to serious harm, but survived. When she saw a person in water, she later learned that the person came into some sort of good fortune, like overcoming a severe illness or getting an inheritance.
I don't know how often this happened; there were only 4 cases that I heard her describe (2 of each type) -- always the same ones whenever the topic came up. There's no way to know how often she might have had dreams involving people in weddings or water, but the "expected" result didn't come about. I do recall her calling me once, years after I had moved away from home, asking how things were, because she had had one of those dreams (maybe about me or maybe about my wife). Turns out it was a false alarm. I think this may have happened a few times, with other people.
So what should we conclude here? Did she tap into some unknown path of communication, or was it just coincidence? No way to know. If the apparent phenomenon were ever to be observed more reliably, it might be possible to start taking a careful look at it. But when occurrences are so rare as to be attributable to chance, when the available indicators show no predictive power, there's really not much you can do.
I've seen (but didn't fully read) a book titled "Seven Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" (or was it nine? -- pretty sure it wasn't as much as 12). Is that evidence for reincarnation, or is it just a catalog of a few unusual observations that really could have happened by coincidence and pure chance? Let's see... 9 cases out of... several billion? What are the odds?
You'll say the problem is that we're not looking hard enough for these things, that it would be worthwhile to search really carefully and keep searching in hopes of understanding these amazing phenomena, to expand realm of what we know of as "natural". And you'll say it's bad that science and/or atheism discourages this.
I'll say that the scientific method doesn't shut the door on searching really carefully. It's simply the best way to search, and sheds enough light on these shadowy phenomena that they end up being revealed as just shadows. Nothing real here, folks. Move along, please.

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 434 by tesla, posted 05-28-2011 10:44 AM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 440 by tesla, posted 05-29-2011 2:53 PM Otto Tellick has replied

Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2330 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 445 of 536 (617527)
05-29-2011 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 440 by tesla
05-29-2011 2:53 PM


Re: Inductive Atheism
What I'm seeing in your last reply to me is not only your continued confusion of "supernatural" with "not yet understood", but also a confusion that blames science for the problems caused by theism.
tesla writes:
I believe when scientists and the public both accept that nothing that truly exists ... is supernatural. Only then will discovery not only continue as it does now, but grow faster than anticipated on these particular issues.
Good show. I couldn't agree with you more.
As long as true events are considered supernatural and discarded because we do not understand them; what are the chances of discovery? Should we not examine an event in light of the event itself? And not the current interpretations of misunderstood events?
Exactly so. Total agreement.
I totally agree that 'God' is not currently definable -- in fact, it never will be -- at least not in any way that involves positive assertions that are falsifiable and allow for objective confirmation.
This belief and ideology of scientists is what scares me the most...
Wait... What? It isn't any sort of "belief and ideology of scientists" that makes God undefinable. It is the essence of the "God concept" itself, as "explained" by any and every theist. In the theistic world view, God must be unobservable in any objective sense. Science will look at the things that really happen, and will try to work out a way to understand them. Theism will be content to attribute observable things to unobservable causations (God did it), and keep everyone guessing (or 'better yet' in the theist's view, praying) about whether and when particular things will happen again.
... the potential for discovery is possible if it turns out God is a true entity...
Anything that turns out to be a "true entity" -- in the sense of being objectively observable -- will necessarily turn out not to be God, even if we find clear evidence that this entity is responsible for something like the creation of life on earth.
It won't be the scientists who make this point, it will be the theists. At least, those theists who decide, based on their religious "training", that such a newly discovered real entity is not one worthy of their worship will deny to the death -- yours, if need be -- that we have "discovered God". (On the other hand, I don't doubt that some people will be willing to accept this entity as "divine" and will worship it in any number of foolish ways, in hopes that it will treat them well in return.)
Meanwhile, for those people whose thinking is not confounded by "supernatural" notions, this new entity will simply raise more questions: how can we comprehend it? how can we communicate with it? what can we expect it to do? can we influence its actions, and if so, how best to do that? Arguing about "God" and "supernatural" is no help here. It's just another natural, observable phenomenon that we don't fully understand yet, and the scientific method is likely to be the best approach for making progress.
I simply find it intriguing that the earth resonates at brain wave frequency.
I gather this ties in with your earlier comment about the possibility that planets and stars have some sort of consciousness. And here you're wondering if the curious patterns of magnetic wave emanations from the earth might be some form of communication. Is that it?
I think it's fine to let your imagination run free like that, and even to try to tie together disparate bits of evidence to give your imagination something to stand on -- if nothing else, it's worthwhile for entertainment value, and that should be enough. Just don't confuse a random association of similar frequencies as being anything close to substantive evidence that confirms your imagination as true.

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 440 by tesla, posted 05-29-2011 2:53 PM tesla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 447 by tesla, posted 05-29-2011 5:37 PM Otto Tellick has not replied

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