Fine tuning, a dialogue

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Revised from this:

Scene setting

Charles: Consider our universe. It seems to be precisely tuned for life. Were its initial parameters even slightly different, the universe would have no stars, or no matter, or collapse in on itself a moment after it arose, amongst many other life denying fates.

It would be strange if this ‘just so happened’ in a purposeless, undesigned way. That out of all the possibilities, we landed on the one that permitted life. Theism (and other more ‘anthropocentric’ hypotheses, admittedly) provide a much more plausible explanation for the data. Because God wanted living beings, he would make a life-permitting universe. It makes a much better fit for the facts.

Debbie: How are you constructing this sort of inference? I can see ways you can do it, but what do you have in mind? Continue reading “Fine tuning, a dialogue” →

A simple ontological argument for Atheism

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Modern (Modal) forms of the ontological argument go something like this (modal moves in brackets).

  1. Possibly, God exists (◊G)
  2. If God exists, necessarily God exists (G → □G)
  3. Possibly Necessarily God exists (◊□G, From [1] and [2])
  4. Necessarily God exists (□G, from [3] and S5)

God exists

The modal logic works (even if you find S5 unintuitive), and generally one stipulates God such that it has the property of necessarily existing.

The key premise is [1]. Although colloquially it seems obvious God is possible, it is probably best thought of as possible in an epistemic sense: for all we know it is possible that God exists (even if we don’t think it likely). Yet that is distinct from saying it is a metaphysical possibility: that there really are possible worlds in which God exists. And it is this claim which is needed to drive the OA.

So what, though? We can conceive God’s existence without contradiction, seems to be well-formed proposition, etc. etc. So all of these epistemic reasons appear to give warrant to the metaphysical claim via Yablo conceivability or similar measures. What’s the problem?

The same applies to God not existing! Continue reading “A simple ontological argument for Atheism” →

Not “God isn’t nice”, but “God isn’t there”

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

There is a common misconception in discussions surrounding evil and God: that when presenting the argument from evil, the conclusion sought is that God is failing to live up to his moral responsibilities – that God isn’t very nice. Yet this is nonsense: the God all standard arguments from evil have in their sights is a God who is morally perfect. It simply cannot be that this God would exist and yet do anything wrong. What the argument is trying to show is that the world with all its apparent evil could not be the the work of this morally perfect God. The conclusion is not God isn’t nice, but that God simply isn’t.

Yet this confusion is fairly common. Perhaps it is partly due to how one often discusses the argument from evil. Often God is ‘put on trial’ where various defenses for his seeming misconduct are offered and scrutinized, and this sort of trial-esque game seems to imply (like a defendant) that his character is in doubt, not his existence. Regardless, it needs to be emphasized that God is not on trial in the sense that he is being called to account for his deeds, but rather the question is whether the world-as-it-seems contradicts the idea of a being with the character and resources that God is meant to have. Not least, this distinction must be made because it is possible that some argumentative moves are licit for ‘trials’, but illicit here.

I’m sorry sir, but you’re fucking annoying

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Some patients can be extraordinarily irritating. Some are easier to tolerate than others: it’s easy to put up your professional barriers towards a patient swearing at you or who regards you as an irritation. Far harder are those that aren’t trying to annoy you – the garrulous but well-meaning patient wastes you oh-so-valuable time.

A recent case:

GP placement, late morning. I’ve been observing another student try and take a history from the same man for forty-five minutes. I doubt I would have done any better at fighting through the free-associating detours and distractions. He varied from lecture, to anecdotes, to slideshow (he brought photographs of his various collections of computers and cars to show to us). Continue reading “I’m sorry sir, but you’re fucking annoying” →

What makes a good argument?

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Debbie: We argue a lot, yet what do we need to do to be convinced by it? What makes some arguments good, and others bad? How should we assess an argument, and whether or not to believe it?

Adam: Take a recent example. William Lane Craig offers something called a Kalam Cosmological argument, which runs like this:

  1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist
  3. The universe had a cause.

The argument is valid – that is, the conclusions follow from the premises. The question is whether the premises are true. Craig’s standard conception of what makes a good argument is whether or not the premises are more plausible than their negations.

Is that sufficient? Suppose that you do find each premise more plausible than it’s negation, but not by much: so you assign something like P=0.6 for each premise. Yet, given this the probability of the conclusion is only around 0.36, so you shouldn’t accept it. Continue reading “What makes a good argument?” →

Arguing on the Internet

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Browser beware

The internet is a dangerous place. Not, as commonly imagined, in the dark underbelly of porn and software piracy, but in the vast bulk of information available. One can drown in the oceans of words, with little remaining but some trivia and some ill-thought-out good intentions. It can deceive you into thinking you are doing something worthwhile whilst, in fact, you are spending time for little return.
Discussion is one example. The internet offers opportunities to talk to vast multitudes of people you would never meet. However, some of these opportunities are better left alone. When criticism is a comment away, and the back-and-forth restrained only by the stamina of the participants, one can get locked into a futile cycle trading responses with someone-or-other. Any pretense of irenic discussion has long past: you’re just in it to win; everyone else will be patiently scrolling through the block-quotes and vitriol. It is a game where you ‘win’ by not getting suckered in to taking part.

What to avoid on the internet

Continue reading “Arguing on the Internet” →

Act/Orientation

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

It is said there is a distinction between an act, and being orientated or predisposed to perform the act. This often comes into play with homosexuality, in defence of positions like:

Gay sex is wrong but I don’t have a problem with gays as people.

Or:

Although we oblige members not to have gay sex, that isn’t discrimination against homosexuals.

Or perhaps:

Marriage is to recognise procreative-type unions. Non-procreative type unions should not be recognized as marriages. As the latter group includes homosexual unions, these should not be recognised as marriages.

In one sense, this is obviously right. Particular moral judgements about behaviour don’t necessarily imply particular moral judgements about the people who behave this way. You can ‘hate the sin yet love the sinner’.

In other senses, though, something’s off. We wouldn’t take seriously someone who proclaimed they didn’t mind the ‘orientation’ of Jewishness, yet wanted to ban behaviours like reading the Torah, Rabbinical office, and Jewish religious services. They’re just anti-Semitic under a pretence. So what is it about certain behaviours (or sets of behaviour) of people that mean being ‘against’ these behaviours implies you are ‘against’ these people? Continue reading “Act/Orientation” →

Flies and Fine-tuning

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Multiverses

Charles: Consider our universe. It seems ‘fine tuned’ for life. Many of the fundamental dials of our universe need to be set ‘just so’ within an exceptionally small degree of tolerance for our universe to remain ‘life friendly’. Assuming these values can range fairly freely, that we arrived at this combination is ludicrously unlikely ‘just by chance’. If God exists though, we’d expect a universe he creates to be life friendly, because life is part of his design plan. So the fine-tuning of our universe confirms Theism over Atheism.

Debbie: Several problems. Good metaphysical sceptics like me won’t be happy to say how, or in what sense, the relevant values can ‘range freely’ (maybe they’re necessary). Ignore that though – I suspect these worries can be answered. I’m more worried about a multiverse. Take some sensible principle like “all possible worlds exist” or “every possible combination of these values exist”. If that is true, then we shouldn’t be surprised at all to see that we exist, even in a universe finely tuned (or even uniquely tuned) for life.

Charles: That seems ad hoc to me. What reason is there to suppose a multiverse, but for Atheists to explain away fine tuning data?

Debbie: Ad hoc isn’t the be-all and end-all of explanatory virtue. After all, we all should develop and modify hypotheses in light of new data. I believe some think many worlds because of certain mysteries of quantum mechanics, so for these people it isn’t an ad hoc addition to protect their atheism. Regardless, I see no reason to deny a multiverse, even if I don’t have much reason to affirm one. I should leave it as a live option. Yet, if this is a live option, then the confirmation of Theism over Atheism seems to be lacking: fine tuning becomes unsurprising because it is unsurprising on a multiverse, and that itself is unsurprising given Atheism.

Charles: Maybe so. But even if we get to ‘unsurprising’, that isn’t as good as exactly what we’d expect. Given Theism, fine tuning is exactly what we’d expect, whilst on Atheism, it is (given the live option of a multiverse) merely unsurprising. Suppose I know of two urns, one filled with white balls, and one filled with a fifty-fifty mix of white and red. I draw out a white ball. That’s unsurprising on the half-and-half urn, but exactly what you’d expect on the all-white urn. So that acts to confirm the latter.

Debbie: Sure, but I have more than a few worries about whether we should really expect life given Theism. I’m not convinced perfect beings would be motivated to create anything at all. These worries are insiginificant if you can show the fine tuning data is ludicrously unlikely on Atheism, but spring to the forefront if it’s only unsurprising.

Leave that aside, though. I think there’s a bigger worry – I don’t the argument works even if we restrict ourselves to a single universe. Continue reading “Flies and Fine-tuning” →

You’re just saying that because you’re a… : Demographics as defeater

~ Gregory Lewis ~ Leave a comment

Imagine these:

Conservative: You’re just saying that because that’s the liberal party line – the party line it just so happens your teachers and lectures agree to.

Atheist: You’re just saying that because these are the religious beliefs of your parents.

Science sceptic: You’re just saying that because that’s the scientific orthodoxy – an orthodoxy that just so happens to say whatever Big Pharma likes.

Crudely, we might consider these accusations of bias (they aren’t), and sentiments like these are common in argument. What do they mean, and are they a worthwhile argumentative strategy? Continue reading “You’re just saying that because you’re a… : Demographics as defeater” →