Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the world?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Moreno
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Moreno »

Eduk wrote:
There is no neutral ground from which one begins making assumptions.
Does there have to be?

No. But non-neutral ground is made up of assumptions, including assumptions about what is obvious, what is proven, what it takes to prove, about what is one assumption and what is many and a lot more.
If two people disagree can one person be more right than another person?
Sure.
If the person who is more right fails to convince the person who is more wrong does that mean they are less right?

Nope.
If someone makes an assumption without realising does that mean they haven't made an assumption?

My point precisely. Skeptics are often unaware of all the assumptions they bring to the table.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Eduk »

But non-neutral ground is made up of assumptions, including assumptions about what is obvious, what is proven, what it takes to prove, about what is one assumption and what is many and a lot more.
I don't see why this logically follows. You agree it's possible for people to be more right or less right. If that is the case it's possible for non-neutral ground to be more right or less right?
Skeptics are often unaware of all the assumptions they bring to the table.
I've heard that stated a lot. What is the number one assumption that all Skeptics bring to the table?
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LuckyR
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by LuckyR »

Moreno wrote:
LuckyR wrote:
Your post suffers because it is a post hoc argument. Back when the idea of gods was invented, it was Real Life that was complex. Science hadn't been invented yet, after all. So using the crutch of god to explain the (then) unexplainable was a SIMPLE device, not an "infinitely complex" one. Not unlike the device of putting sea monsters on the edge of maps beyond where the map maker's culture had discovered. Thus why (according to Occam's Razor) it is completely logical that primitive man would invent the idea of gods or the supernatural, regardless and separate from whether or not there actually are gods.
How does occam's razor explain why they posited a God (or sea monsters)? They could simply have described what was there? And wouldn't whatever reasoning that justifies this still hold? Why would scientific explanations now preclude what you are calling completely logical according to occam's razor? We still have unexplained origins.
Occam's Razor predicts that just painting a sea monster out of thin air to explain the (then) unexplainable, since it is simpler (either practically or emotionally) than both financing an expedition to voyage there or to admit that "we just don't know the answer". Though common sense will tell you that, no need for an alternate use of the Razor.

I don't understand your red statement. Are you insinuating that they had indeed explored that part of the map but were too lazy to write it down?

Your blue statement is partially true. Primitive man using the supernatural to explain things that Modern man currently understands is defined as myth. Modern man using the supernatural (whether of his own fabrication or borrowed from Primitive man) often falls into the category (but not always) of religion. You are correct that there are many currently poorly understood questions. I agree that this is the correct realm of both scientific theory and the supernatural/religion.
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Ranvier
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Ranvier »

LuckyR wrote: Primitive man using the supernatural to explain things that Modern man currently understands is defined as myth. Modern man using the supernatural (whether of his own fabrication or borrowed from Primitive man) often falls into the category (but not always) of religion. You are correct that there are many currently poorly understood questions. I agree that this is the correct realm of both scientific theory and the supernatural/religion.
I also agree that science and religion are not mutually exclusive, especially since each method of thought addresses different set of questions. As for "modern man currently understands", I'm still in search for such people who understand anything...
As for the original question of atheism being the most logical view, it's simply not logical to make a claim that supernatural doesn't exist because it can't be proven.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by -1- »

Ranvier wrote: As for the original question of atheism being the most logical view, it's simply not logical to make a claim that supernatural doesn't exist because it can't be proven.
That is not the logical claim most scientist make. The logical claim against the existence of the supernatural is that there is absolutely no evidencing it. All evidence that has been supposedly supernatural in origin, can be shown that there is nothing supernatural about them.
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Aristocles
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Aristocles »

-1- wrote:
Ranvier wrote: As for the original question of atheism being the most logical view, it's simply not logical to make a claim that supernatural doesn't exist because it can't be proven.
That is not the logical claim most scientist make. The logical claim against the existence of the supernatural is that there is absolutely no evidencing it. All evidence that has been supposedly supernatural in origin, can be shown that there is nothing supernatural about them.
Is nature not ambiguous? Is science not handicapped in understanding? Is logic a sentient phenomena? Is man, by many definitions of "nature," considered non-nature?
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Steve3007 »

Ranvier:
As for "modern man currently understands", I'm still in search for such people who understand anything...
How are you using the word "understands" in the above sentence? Do you mean that you are still searching for people who are capable of creating mental models that allow them to describe current observations and predict future ones?
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by -0+ »

-1- wrote:The logical claim against the existence of the supernatural is that there is absolutely no evidencing it.
This is a common logical error. An absence of evidence supporting X doesn't count as evidence supporting not X. Neither does it count as evidence against X.

Not support X doesn't imply against X. Not know X doesn't imply know not X.
-1- wrote:All evidence that has been supposedly supernatural in origin, can be shown that there is nothing supernatural about them.
How can it be shown that there is nothing supernatural about X or that there is something supernatural about X without access to the supernatural (which would confirm existence of the supernatural)?

A character in a computer game is controlled to some extent by the program (which may be viewed as controlling the nature of the character's universe) and it may or may not also be controlled to some extent by a player (who may be viewed as supernatural, existing beyond the nature of the character's universe, not controlled by the program). How can this character tell if any particular command it experiences is controlled by the program or the player? Even if the command indicates it is from the player, it could actually be from the program, and vice versa. How can the character tell for sure either way?
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Ranvier »

There is a great difference in knowing and understanding. A blind may know of color red but never will he understand it. Those who claim to understand anything are either delusional or liars. I predict that all of us will die someday, it speaks nothing of my understanding of death.

-- Updated July 27th, 2017, 7:13 am to add the following --
-1- wrote:
Ranvier wrote: As for the original question of atheism being the most logical view, it's simply not logical to make a claim that supernatural doesn't exist because it can't be proven.
That is not the logical claim most scientist make. The logical claim against the existence of the supernatural is that there is absolutely no evidencing it. All evidence that has been supposedly supernatural in origin, can be shown that there is nothing supernatural about them.
Please let us refrain from equating science with atheism. One has nothing to do with the other and only gives science problematic reputation by faulty association. Science is a tool of thought and methodology of process to explain reality not a philosophical toy to manipulate pseudo scientific assertions of belief.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by -1- »

-0+ wrote:A character in a computer game is controlled to some extent by the program (which may be viewed as controlling the nature of the character's universe) and it may or may not also be controlled to some extent by a player (who may be viewed as supernatural, existing beyond the nature of the character's universe, not controlled by the program). How can this character tell if any particular command it experiences is controlled by the program or the player? Even if the command indicates it is from the player, it could actually be from the program, and vice versa. How can the character tell for sure either way?
This is easy.

But only if the character has a way of establishing the rules of what the program does.

And that assumption is further strengthened by the other assumption, that the program's actions are repeatable and predictable; and the human's actions are random.

Possessing these two assumptions, the character, in time, can separate the random from the predictable.

Your dilemma still stays; the human who controls the game as well as the program, can be acting consistently, on purpose.

In this case the character could not tell the difference between the features in the game that are human-(i.e., by analogy, supernaturally) driven, and program- (i.e., by analogy, naturally) driven.

However. If the human is consistently consistent, then the paradigm of "consistency" and "predictability" can sub for "program" or "natural". And the characteristic of "random" can still apply to the human, in a hypothetically metaphysically connected way.

The human stays not random, and always predictable, means to the character in the game, IN PRACTICAL terms, that there is no supernatural forces present.

---------------

If one could show that there are supernatural forces acting on things in the universe, then we would find scenarios where things would happen in an unexpected way. This is when a pencil, a ruler, and a chair would fall downward in a room, but an apple and a teacher would fall upward. This does not happen, so we say with confidence, there is no supernatural forces acting in the room.

If we examine all claims that involve supernatural forces, then we find that there were no supernatural forces.

But one could still claim that the teacher actually fell upwards, or was going to be made to fall upward, by a supernatural force, but the same supernatural force instead made her fall downward, because that was the fancy of the supernatural at the moment. If the supernatural made the teacher fall down (and not gravitational attraction), consistently and in the same way as if gravity made her, then the supernatural would not be visible, and physics would not be able to tell the difference between her falling due to gravity and due to supernatural forces. So the supernatural forces would not be detected, and if they never get detected, then they can be ignored.

We must at one point commit to one side (supernatural forces exist) or to the other side (supernatural forces don't exist) in order to establish a policy of how to proceed, and not for any other reason. The policy which the scientific part of mankind adopted is that there are no supernatural forces. This allows them with confidence to proceed with their examinations of nature. If their ideology was clouded by "but it could be explained by the act of the supernatural", then the scientists could stretch, yawn, and give up their jobs, in futility.

One may make the claim that the unknown things in nature (the nature of mass or gravity, or the nature of perception or soul or self-awareness) is explicable only by assuming the presence of the supernatural. This is fine and dandy, perfectly allowed by logic (where -0+'s criticism applies as per the first part of the criticism of my claim) and is completely unconducive to furthering empirical human knowledge of the nature of the universe, things, laws, and events.

So the committing to the scientific assumption of no supernatural thingies is not logically necessary, and its validity can't be logically proven, but it has tremendous practical value.

Of course you, +0-, did not refute this, which I fully realize. This very post was left by me to show you that while you are right in your criticism in logical ways, there are still reasons, valid reasons, albeit not necessarily valid reasons in an a priori logical manner, why the scientific community assumes there are no supernatural in the actions of things in the known universe.

-- Updated 2017 July 27th, 7:25 am to add the following --
Ranvier wrote: Please let us refrain from equating science with atheism. One has nothing to do with the other and only gives science problematic reputation by faulty association. Science is a tool of thought and methodology of process to explain reality not a philosophical toy to manipulate pseudo scientific assertions of belief.
Atheism? Who talked about god or atheism? You did ? I did? Nobody did.

I don't know why all of a sudden you pulled god or the lack of it into this.

Supernatural does not start or end with god. There are many aspects of God that are not supernatural, (and many that are) and there are many aspects of the supernatural that have nothing to do with God (while there are many that do.)

So cut that out, will ya?

-- Updated 2017 July 27th, 7:31 am to add the following --
Ranvier wrote:There is a great difference in knowing and understanding. A blind may know of color red but never will he understand it.
So I gather from this that you understand the colour red.

What is the underlying meaning (which you understand) of the colour red? Pray tell us.

Because I am a seeing being, I see colours properly (tested for it when I applied for a cartographic scriber position) and yet I don't see any meaning in the colour red, or yet I don't understand the colour red.

You want to have an interesting conversation, fine, you said that, but you still have to work with the confines of the language. If you can't express a thought properly so it is unambiguous or at least not nonsensical (like a "meaning of red") then please don't say it. It destroys the quality in the level of conversation.
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Papus79
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Papus79 »

-0+ wrote:
-1- wrote:The logical claim against the existence of the supernatural is that there is absolutely no evidencing it.
This is a common logical error. An absence of evidence supporting X doesn't count as evidence supporting not X. Neither does it count as evidence against X.

Not support X doesn't imply against X. Not know X doesn't imply know not X.
-1- wrote:All evidence that has been supposedly supernatural in origin, can be shown that there is nothing supernatural about them.
How can it be shown that there is nothing supernatural about X or that there is something supernatural about X without access to the supernatural (which would confirm existence of the supernatural)?
Supernatural is also a bit of a strawman by it's own definition - ie. if we come to find evidence for something by finding out that it is a real effect it's no longer supernatural but natural. By the current definition of natural if Dean Radin's Ganzfeld studies turn out to be correct in that they continue to be replicated by other labs with the same results then, with the way we use the words natural and supernatural today, we'd be forced to call it a natural phenomena albeit we might have to admit that - like ball lightning - we don't really have the best grasp on how it operates.

The situation's bad enough that I'm really starting to wonder if we might not be forced to just rephrase 'supernatural' as anything we presently considered incalculable. That might be a more honest and contemporary interpretation because, for example, we don't have a great understanding of fractals in the growth and bifurcation within living systems but I don't think any contemporary thinkers, on a scientific level, therefore non-metaphorically posit Tiamat or some god or goddess of chaos as supreme creator of life.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by -1- »

Papus79, I see it the same way as you do. I further would add that while we call all uncalculable events "supernaturally driven", we call all supernatural events that are calculable (as it happens they may be, we just can't separate them from the naturally occurring events) "naturally occurring events".

Of course this is a case of something less than semantics, it is a case of nomenclature or naming conventions, but there are still some emotive elements to the component words, so I offered the truce.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Ranvier »

The problem always begins with faulty reasoning constrained by intentional inaccurate wording. Bad arguments arise in clinging to none descriptive terms such as "supernatural" aimed with some specific intent.

If I'm governed by logic and my being is of God's image, therefore God must be logical and laws of physics are a direct proof of such logic. Hence natural laws of physics are "supernatural" in otherwise chaotic reality of randomness.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Papus79 »

Ranvier wrote: If I'm governed by logic and my being is of God's image, therefore God must be logical and laws of physics are a direct proof of such logic. Hence natural laws of physics are "supernatural" in otherwise chaotic reality of randomness.
Lol, and the next step for someone like that - demonstrate that their governed by logic. I'm not sure anyone could do that because there's no clear threshold to the claim, leave alone that a lot of people would argue the other way - that as human beings we're much more expert at rationalizing our own illogical underpinnings.
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Re: Occams razor=Athiesm is the most logical view of the wor

Post by Ranvier »

You are absolutely right but I must be rational in order to recognize the logic of laws of physics, otherwise no one can be certain that natural laws are logical or predictable. Perhaps we are equally illogical as the laws of physics, as in it takes one to know one.
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