Thought experiments

Posted on October 3, 2010 by Michael

It has come to my attention as of late that a surprising number of people have little grasp on how thought experiments work. They’ve all been theists, but I’m rather unwilling to extrapolate my anecdotal experience to that entire group. I suspect there are a number of underlying personal factors at work here, so I will forego the speculation as to the motive/reason behind the poor grasping and instead focusing on simply explaining a few key points about thought experiments. (I will focus on the areas where these people have had trouble.)

A thought experiment is not meant to be inherently realistic. It very well may reflect a real scenario, but often it’s a contrived situation that could never happen. Take for example Judith Jarvis Thompson’s violinist. She created a scenario where we might be tempted to agree that abortion is permissible.

You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.

Using libertarian principles, she argues that we have no responsibility to that violinist and are therefore justified in disconnecting ourselves from his circulatory system. Her argument isn’t without its problems, but it is powerful. And why? Because a lot of people are going to agree that we lack responsibility in this situation and people are going to see the situation as analogous to the abortion debate.

Rather than focus on the merits of Thompson’s argument, I want to focus on the form of her argument. That situation is unlikely to ever happen; it presumes there are no alternatives when there probably are, it assumes the violinist wouldn’t simply detach himself or die beforehand anyway, absolving us of the responsibility of carrying on with the full nine months, etc, etc. But that isn’t the point. Thought experiments are often very restricted. When we enter in variables we offer people too much wiggle room. The whole point is to find a principle and see if we hold it consistently. To do that, it is necessary to limit the conditions.

The other point on which I’ve found people have confusion is – and this one is, frankly, bizarre – when someone uses a point in which that person does not actually believe. In the above explanation, I used a different example than the one that caused someone confusion. For this explanation, I will be using the experiment that is being confused.

First, let us go over another way thought experiments are used. Rather than being a contrived analogy created with purposeful restrictions, thought experiments can take the form of an if/then scenario. Generally this isn’t referred to as a thought experiment, but the relation is close enough where I feel comfortable including it in this post. Take for example an example provided by Peter Singer. (I’m at a loss for the book where this is included, so I will be paraphrasing.) In making an argument for the rights of animals, he begins by pointing out that we’ve long held assumptions that are easily abused when used in arguments. Specifically, he references an argument made in the 1800’s where a politically strong man argues that giving women the vote would be like giving gorillas the vote. He assumes that everyone else has the assumption that giving gorillas any sort of human rights is ridiculous; he doesn’t offer an argument as to why it would be ridiculous to give them the vote (or any other right). With this assumption he is able to allow his reader to follow the consequences: if it’s ridiculous to give gorillas the right to vote, then it is ridiculous to give women the right to vote for the same (unmentioned) reason(s).

Now on to my specific example. The Problem of Evil is something theists have been unable to resolve without violating certain principles. To refresh everyone’s memory, here is the Problem:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
Evil exists.
5. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
6. Therefore, God does not exist [as we know him]

The primary answer given to this is that evil is necessary for the existence of free will, but this fails because creating free will (a) creates evil and (b) is not necessary to God’s existence. The “if” portions of the argument which detail God’s properties (1-4), clearly show that God desires the elimination of evil. Everyone agrees that without that property he is a very different God (and therefore not the God in which so many people believe). No one, however, agrees that he needs to create free will in order to exist. The Problem remains.

Now here is the bizarre part I mentioned. I have heard it argued that it is dishonest (on some level – there was squirming around this issue) for an atheist to use the Problem of Evil as an argument against God. The reason is that an atheist does not believe in objective evil as derived from God. (An atheist may argue for an objective evil, but the one in question – not myself – did and does not believe in that argument – nor, incidentally, do I.) This, of course, is bunk. It is entirely unnecessary for anyone presenting the Problem of Evil to believe in any part of it. It is enough that the person to whom the Problem is being presented accepts the “if” portions. (Or that person can draw an issue with one of the premises and resolve the Problem that way, i.e., the person could say God doesn’t desire the elimination of evil. That would take care of any internal contradictions for that person, but the point that the God in which most people believe does not exist remains.)

I want to use my own thought experiment to help draw out and do away with the confusion. And remember – it need not be realistic.

Let’s say we have an individual named Sam. He believes in both the Christian god and the Muslim god. He says he fully accepts them both as entirely real and they both hold all of the characteristics listed in the above quote (omnipotence, moral perfection, etc). Immediately, Tom, a Christian theist, says to Sam, “But these two Gods say things which are in conflict with each other. If the Christian god says one thing, but the Muslim god says another, then how do you resolve the issue?” Rather than answer the question, Sam looks at Tom and says, “Ah, but Tom, you only believe in the Christian god. Since you reject the existence of the Muslim god, it is dishonest of you to use him as a part of your argument.”

I hope we all see how ridiculous Sam is in this scenario. Of course Tom can ask Sam how he resolves the obvious conflict. It isn’t necessary that Tom believes in both gods (or either). The conflict is independent of Tom and his beliefs. Anyone can ask Sam about the obvious problems that arise from holding contradictory beliefs.

Now I want to break it down. In the first scenario we have two important beliefs: (a) God exists and (b) evil exists. If someone believes (a), then a belief in (b) poses a Problem. That’s the Problem of Evil at its most basic level. But take a look at the discussion between Sam and Tom; there are two important beliefs there, too: (a) the Christian god exists and (b) the Muslim god exists. If Sam believes in (a), then a belief in (b) poses a problem.

This isn’t that hard.

I find it difficult to imagine someone calling a Christian or Jew or Muslim or atheist or Buddhist or agnostic or Scientologist dishonest for pointing out to Sam that he has a contradiction in his beliefs. I really hope it’s obvious to everyone that it is unnecessary for anyone to accept any premise of Sam’s beliefs in order to tell him that there is a conflict in believing that, say, it is necessary to accept Jesus Christ while at the same time it is unnecessary to accept Jesus Christ. We can all see that contradiction and we can all point it out. And we can do it with complete and utter integrity and honesty.

Finally, here are a few links which explain thought experiments in more detail than I have.

Standford

Answers.com

Wikipedia

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I’m not saying I’m a genius

Posted on September 20, 2010 by Michael

…but I really can’t help but feel a bit like Will when it comes to explaining some things to people. And I don’t mean the sort of complicated things that are so basic to him. I mean legitimately basic things, especially as they pertain to philosophy.

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Ugly apologetics

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Michael

It’s a beaten up issue, I know, but I’m going to delve into the Problem of Evil. For purposes here, “evil” is synonymous with the objective evil theists believe exists.

This first set of premises comes from a friend, but I’m just going to copy them since they reflect what we all recognize as the form of this argument. (And, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just taken from somewhere else for the sake of ease.)

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
Evil exists.
5. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil.
6. Therefore, God does not exist [as we know him]

This is an obvious problem for the Christian God (and other gods, but we’ll focus here). If God has all the listed properties and desires, then evil needs a special explanation. Of course, the most common response is that God has given us free will and that necessarily entails evil. But obvious problems arise from such a weak answer.

1. We’ve already agreed that God is all-knowing and all-powerful. This means he knows that the creation of free will is going to lead to evil. This is in conflict with the premise that God desires to eliminate all evil. That is, he has knowingly either created evil or created the potential for evil with the foresight that evil will actually happen. For the free will argument to work here, God cannot desire the elimination of evil.

1b. This argument assumes that free will is better than no free will. If, however, we agree that God chiefly desires the elimination of evil (and for him to be morally perfect, I think he must), then free will is not better than no free will.

2. Not all evil comes from human action. If we consider suffering to be evil, then Huntington’s Disease is evil, but we have no humans to blame. Whether we want to blame God or chance, God has allowed that evil to exist. That is, evil exists and free will cannot explain it.

3. Another argument, though less common, is that in order for good to exist, there must be evil. If this is true, then we must first look towards God. He is eternal and he is good. In order for this to be true, evil must also be eternal. If it isn’t eternal, but it is required for goodness, then God cannot be eternal. But God is the only thing that can be considered to be eternal. That doesn’t mean evil cannot exist; it must. It, however, can only exist as a property of God. If it isn’t a property of God, and good requires evil, then God has not been eternally good. That is, evil is a property of God by necessity of also making him good. But God is morally perfect; he can have no evil. If evil is necessary for good and God therefore has evil, God is not good. We’ve violated premise 1.

The fact is, there is no good answer to the problem of evil. This, however, unfortunately leads to the conclusion that if there is evil, God must not exist. But that isn’t the case. All this argument is saying is that God does not exist with the given properties. If, in order to exist in any form, one believes God must have those properties, then this argument does say he doesn’t exist. But if someone wanted to claim that God need not have all these properties, the Problem can be avoided. Or, if they say he need not obey human logic, then he can exist with or without evil all he wants. Of course, we can’t go any further in discussion since we’ve thrown logic out the window, and we have to admit that such a claim can be just as wrong as it can be right, but the Problem of Evil has been circumvented. (Naturally, it isn’t surprising that the best way the Christian God can work is with a lack of logic.)

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Philosophy experiments

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Michael

Go take a look at PhilosophyExperiments.com. Specifically, take a look at this thought experiment.

This activity is a treatment of some of the issues thrown up by a thought experiment called ‘The Trolley Problem’, which was first outlined by the philosopher Philippa Foot, and then developed by Judith Jarvis Thomson and others. But before we start properly, we need to ask you four preliminary questions so we get a sense of the way that you think about morality. There are no right or wrong answers. Just select the option that most corresponds to your view.

And it goes on from there.

The thought experiment is one of the most powerful tools in philosophy, so it’s worth following through.

There is also one about belief in God, but I found the wording on some questions to be pretty crappy.

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The failings of theistic arguments

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Michael

Most theistic arguments are failures. The primary reason is that there is no evidence for a creator (or designer or whatever fundamentally dishonest weasel word a theist wishes to abuse). But even on a non-empirical, philosophical level, theistic arguments fail again and again. It doesn’t matter if it is an initial argument or a counter-argument being presented, it always falls flat on its face. Here are the top five worst theistic arguments (or counter-arguments).

5. The argument from personal experience: This argument is one where the believer argues that he has had some fantastic spiritual experience or that praying has worked or that he really feels the presence of God. It’s almost insulting to refute such tripe. First, personal experience is not evidence; it cannot serve as a basis for proving something to someone else. Second, praying, believing, having faith, and all that silly jazz has no evidence. The person is drawing anecdotes. Third – and this is to what it really comes down – what one feels is true is not a substitute for what is true. Personal experience might serve as an interest, but there is nothing which says one personal experience is more valid than the other without some outside evidence or method for discovering what is true.

4. The transcendental argument: This is extremely similar to the argument from consequence. It argues that a number of things (such as morality) are dependent upon God. It then reasons that since morality is true, God must exist. But this is clearly erroneous. The argument presumes morality based upon wide-spread agreement that it actually exists. But this agreement 1) is largely based upon the presumption that God exists because, well, that’s from where morals come, right? and 2) does not require that anyone accept that morality comes from God. It’s an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, most people are assuming morality exists because they assume God exists (making the argument circular). But on the other hand, if someone accepts the existence of morality without God, this argument completely falls apart. If morality is a purely human affair, then it does not prove any god. Really, the way this argument ought to be framed – and this is a common mistake of the theist – is that objective morality only exists with the existence of God. But then the only way morality can be objective is if God exists. And so the circle runs.

3. The argument from reason: This awful piece of argumentation says that reason must come from a rational source, rationality cannot initially come from material things, and since reason clearly exists, God must also exist. This is similar to the first cause argument. And it’s just as weak. Nothing says rationality cannot come from a purely material source. That’s a bogus premise that ignores the power of natural selection. Humans evolved, in accord with every shred of evidence we have, from non-rational populations either without the hand of God (which is the most parsimonious possibility) or with an utterly superfluous hand of God (which may as well be the hand of ShamShams the Crazy Creating Unicorn).

2. The argument from degree: This one says that we can always imagine something with greater and greater properties. Eventually, we must conclude with something that has the greatest of all properties. It’s crap. We can conceive of a lot of things. That doesn’t mean those things therefore exist. It’s a simple word game, really.

1. The first cause argument: This posits that everything in the Universe has a cause, therefore something outside the Universe must have caused the Universe itself to exist. First, why not say Nature is the first cause? Not Nature in the sense of all that is within the Universe, but in the sense of a mindless actor which exists independently of the Universe, a sort of God without the intention; God only acts as a middleman. Second, what caused God? If he is without cause, where is the evidence? Third, we don’t even know if everything must have a cause. Of course, we know that everything which exists within the Universe must have a cause, but that says nothing of whether or not the Universe itself must be caused. (Note the distinction I wish to make: we know that what is within the Universe has cause, but the Universe as a complete entity is a different story.)

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Atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Michael

There’s confusion afoot. A lot of people aren’t sure what the difference is between atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists. Thank Zeus I’m here to clarify everything.

An atheist is someone without theism. This applies to those who actively reject all theologies but it can also apply to those ignorant of all theologies. The former point is clear enough (and includes deists), but the latter point begs for expansion.

Someone who is ignorant of all theologies is a bit of a rarity in one sense but then ever so common – in fact, they become commoner every day. In the first sense, few adults are without any form of theism. Anyone who amalgamates belief in a creator with normative statements has some theism. For instance, if someone says there is a creator of the Universe and that creator has commanded that people ought to act, behave, or believe in a particular way, that is a form of theism. (It isn’t necessary that an organized religion be the basis, but it does happen that even those who reject all religion tend to incorporate pieces of predominant cultural religious beliefs in their own personal theism.) On the other hand, someone who is a pure deist does not incorporate any statements of value into his belief (‘An entity started the Universe and that is it’) and is therefore an atheist, though connotations cause us to hesitate to such a label for a deist.

In the second sense, a baby is an atheist. This point draws the ire of a lot of theists who desire ever so deeply to incorrectly label their children things like “a Catholic child” or “a Baptist boy”, but this is part of the confusion. Remember, an atheist is simply someone without theism. A baby has no concept of God, except maybe in the sense that mommy and daddy are all-knowing and all-powerful. Until the child develops the ability to comprehend values, no theism can be said to exist.

A consequence of this definition is that all non-human things can be said to be atheists. A rock, a tree, speakers, spaghetti, metal, waterfalls. They’re all without theism. This is utterly correct, even if generally useless. Definitions are not required to acquiesce to popular connotations. A possibly helpful, if complicating, distinction can be made with the terms active atheism and passive atheism. An active atheist is aware of theologies, but rejects them. A passive atheist has no idea of any theology. An adult atheist would be an active atheist while a baby, tree, or spaghetti would be a passive atheist.

A new atheist is someone who rejects the existence of all gods, takes a strong stance against religion, and utilizes a strong tone. It originated in 2006 as a result of books written by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger. It does not refer to the novelty of any particular arguments, but rather the type of presentation of arguments. All the listed authors criticize religion, invariably making the statement or implication that religion is bad. This is a normative statement and it offers insight to a key difference between atheists and new atheists.

New atheists make value statements. Atheism is a descriptive position. To take a recent post, “Many people think bugs are gross” is descriptive. No judgement on the grossness or non-grossness of bugs has been passed. All that has been said is a statement of what many people think. On the other hand, “Bugs are gross” is a normative statement because it passes judgement on bugs. (It is necessary to qualify that atheism is “mostly” a descriptive position because this applies to active atheism. Passive atheism is a lack of description but gives the same result.)

New atheists aren’t merely rejecting the existence of all gods; they’re also saying religion, especially its component of faith, is bad. They’re saying something more about religion than that it isn’t true. They’re saying it’s a negative force in the world and we ought to find better alternatives such as reason, rationality, and science. Atheism, passive or active, does not make any of these claims.

An anti-theist is similar to a new atheist. Normative claims are made and belief in God is rejected. There are essential differences, however. One is that an active crusade against faith is not necessarily encouraged. Whereas a new atheist is considered out-spoken, an anti-theist may be as quiet as a mouse. In addition to this, tone is also not an inherent point. An anti-theist may take a gentle approach, offering respect towards religion and faith. New atheism, on the other hand, is partially defined by the vigor and forthrightness of its tone, as especially exemplified by the argument that says most religious claims have not earned anyone’s respect. In other words, new atheism is somewhat of a strategy (though that strategy is largely defined externally rather than internally by those who bear the label) while anti-theism may encompass a wide swath of individuals who believe in a wide swath of different ways to best attack the veracity of religion; new atheism takes one general path towards beating back religion (though it does not adhere solely to any individual path) while anti-theism makes no inherent claims of best strategy or approach.

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Dawkins and Chopra

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Michael

Here’s an excerpt from Richard Dawkins’ “Enemies of Reason” documentary. It’s a bit old, but it’s important. I’ve long come to realize that anyone trying to utilize quantum mechanics for the sake of dishing out spiritual or medical advice is playing everyone for a sucker.

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PZ’s challenge

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Michael

PZ has a post about an interview from The Daily Show with Marilynne Robinson. In it, he issues a challenge:

Name one. Name one insight religion has ever given us that could not have been made by secular philosophers, that was also useful and true.

There isn’t one. Not a one.

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Society and the individual

Posted on June 29, 2010 by Michael

I’ve pissed off feminists in my day. The reasons they give are going to revolve around me not understanding this or that, not automatically agreeing with them in the details, etc. (‘You don’t agree with me on this issue! Sexist!’ … ‘Why?’ … ‘Because!’) Basically, nothing specific.

But the problem isn’t some deep misogyny on my part. (Disagreement about what a picture of fat people means does not somehow magically equal hating women.) The problem, instead, is one of philosophical structure.

Feminism, as I’ve argued in the past, is a philosophy of consequence. It largely ignores intention, instead focusing upon the result of an action. It’s about as advanced as libertarianism. Of course, both philosophies have value, but when they’re promoted at the expense of everything else, they’re mere ideologies which inevitably lead to absurd conclusions. The same is true of all ethical and moral systems, including the ever-so-popular utilitarianism and egalitarianism (both of which I tend towards).

I got thinking about this because of a post by PZ on the lack of women in atheist and skeptic groups.

So I’m going to try something a little different. Instead of telling you my opinion, I’m going to forgo the essential principle of blogging (which is “Me! Me!”) and just ask people, especially women, to leave links to their godless/skeptical feminist blog or make suggestions or gripe or tell me what these stupid male-dominated conventions have to do to correct the imbalance…I shall be a passive receptacle for your ideas.

…

I do have to make one suggestion (the testosterone compels me) for something I’d really like to see happen…

Don’t mind his suggestion here (but at his site, he says a female-run conference on atheism/skepticism would be good). Take a look at the emphasis I’ve added. He says he is compelled, inherently, by the fact of being male. This is in line with a good bit of feminism, including the caricatures that haunt the Internet, but it’s a load of bull.

This idea that someone is compelled to do this or that may have a basis in sex, but philosophy is not the way to determine that. I want hard evidence. And, depending on just what is being discussed, there is plenty of evidence that men and women will tend towards certain behaviors because of their sex. Of course, that data often comes with the compounding factor of just what influence nurture has had, and the sociologists have a say there. But philosophy is not data. Logic can tell us nothing new; logic can only interpret the data we have.

What PZ does when he says it’s his maleness that makes him act one way or another is he devalues himself. (Hell, he even goes counter to all the feminist arguments that say the individual is responsible for rape/sexual abuse and ought not blame society – something with which I agree.) It’s a devaluing of the individual to place blame on some external source – especially without evidence. We may be able to blame an act of violence by a mentally ill person on his mental illness, but that principle does not extend to most people and most actions. It isn’t some external source that is to blame for individual actions among competent people 95% of the time. It’s the individual.

That said, there certainly is value to the arguments that say society is dominated by men and that that is an impediment to true equality between the sexes. Again, that doesn’t somehow magically mean a picture of two fat women is sexual objectification, but there are plenty of incidents where that domination is a serious problem, ones we gloss over on a daily basis. Watch just about any TV show. Women will be objectified and our culture allows it. That’s not a problem with the individual, but society. But it’s ridiculous, devaluing, and plainly wrong to claim that society is the whole problem.

The individual bears responsibility.

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