Poly, I know you meant to clarify with that last paragraph, but I think you succeeded instead in confusing me!
Seriously, you seem to be saying I advocate materialism, but then you say that I accept non-overlapping magisteria (which is true). I don’t see how I can be in both camps.
To clarify: If materialism means, as you say, that I believe all real things must be testable, then I am not in that camp. If it’s not testable, then I can’t know if it exists, and thus I can’t say for certain that it does not (though I certainly have my doubts).
Ok. I disagree with your disagreement to my disagreement to the quote in your original post :).
On the same topic, someone else wrote:
They don’t need to take someone’s word for it. At no point does faith need enter into the process. That’s the key difference; they can arrive at a correct conclusion on their own.
Ramachandran asks: if you can only see in greyscale (because you lack the biology to do otherwise), does it make sense to believe in color? And if so, then why do we not ask the same question about God? If you cannot perceive God due to some biological limitation, does it make sense to believe in God? On the surface, it sounds like the same question.
However, the first has the weight of evidence behind it. Our alien who can only see in greyscale can very accurately predict the nature of color vision. Even never having seen in color, there’s no doubt in our aliens mind (assuming he understands a little physics) that other entities might distinguish between things that look exactly the same to him. He can even measure exactly why they appear different to someone else. He’s never had the experience himself, but he can definately say that color is real, and isn’t just in someone’s mind.
But how can I, who (for sake of argument) lack the proper biology to percieve God, decide whether it makes sense for me to believe in God? What measurements can I make to indicate whether God exists? What math and physics can I apply? None that I know of. So the situation is (IMHO) quite unlike the color analog; here there is no evidence, and I must decide without it. Perhaps I decide based on what makes me feel good, or whatever else, but I have no objective process available.
You are not making objective measurements that prove color exists; you are making objective measurements that prove frequencies exist.
Color is merely a subjective interpretation of light frequency. An alien cannot see red like you do unless his eyes and brain are like yours, nor has he any basis (or reference frame) from which to perceive color. You might tell him you see color, but then he might just laugh at you, and invoke Ockham’s Razor, leaving you quite frustrated. “All light looks the same,” he might say to you, “you are unnecessarily complicating it.”
Sorry I don’t know if that is the exact name of the book, or whether the following attempt at paraphrase is correct because I can’t find my copy and can’t remember the author; can anybody help me out?
Anyway, I think the main premise of the book kind of goes like this: A scientific theory is held to be true until enough anomalies and contradictions to the theory occur to abandon that theory, and eventually make a new one, taking the new findings into consideration.
My thinking is that with the current knowledge of science (and whatever other discipline with which you would approach the question) God is not falsifiable. Otherwise, someone would have conclusively done so.
I consider myself to be an agnostic, because I don’t know (many things, but among them) if there is a God/dess being, entity, whatever. I believe if there were such an all powerful being, that if s/he? did not want us to be able to prove her/his presence, we would not be able to do so.
In my first post on this thread I said that I believe everything is explainable, and I guess that would be everything except that which has the power to keep itself hidden and therefore unexplainable.
Damn. someone beat me to the process theology reference.
sulk
As to the color vision::God analogy. Lib, you seem to be arguing through this analogy that color exists in some sense “other” than as a subjective phenomenology. If you are not, then I would happily accept the analogy.
I am quite certain that some people experience a subjective phenomenon which they label “God”.
Now, if you wish to extend the analogy beyod that, then you will need a testable model for the external referent “light frequency” and an explanation for how the limbic system responds to this external referent.
Not true at all, at least if our alien understands just a little bit of physics and the mathmatics of color spaces. Our alien has little choice in the matter, really - he is constrained by math. Perhaps he only sees in greyscale, himself. He still has no choice but to believe that a dimensionality-3 vision system can distinguish things he cannot. He can even predict the characterstics of such a system without ever having encountered one, and he can understand that nothing prevents such a system from existing (just like nothing prevents a dimensionality=4 system from existing).
I beg to differ! You can not only make objective measurements that the EM spectrum exists, you can predict, quite objectively indeed, whether some arbitrary vision system can perceive a difference between two arbitrary colors. So if the alien laughs at you when you claim to distinguish two colors he cannot, then he needs to go back to math class!
Do you mean what word do you use to represent it? Who cares? “Red”, “glorpus”, “meeblethump”, whatever. That’s just semantics. The original question by Ramachandran posed wasn’t about naming convensions, I don’t think, but about the reality (or lack thereof) of color.
Let’s pretend that I can only see in greyscale, and I can’t tell apart two objects that look, respectively, red and green to you. You tell me which you label “red” and which “green”. Let me run some tests on them. Then show me a random new object, and I will build for you a device that indicates whether it is red or green. How can I possibly then argue the position taken by Libertarian’s alien (who is saying something like, “All light looks the same - you’re making this color thing up, aren’tcha”)? My alien understands dimension-reduction mapping functions, so he’s not remotely surprised when he runs into an earthling who sees colors he can’t. He takes the earthling out for a beer, and they become friends and have interesting debates about earth religions vs. alien religions.
But, I fear we’re beating this one into the ground :).
What he was saying was that you cannot presume that color doesn’t exist simply because there are some beings who do not perceive color, just as you cannot presume that God doesn’t exist just because there are some beings who do not perceive God.
It is an eminently reasonable argument that has very little to do with what we have shifted into here.
You seem to have color mixed up with hue or brightness. Shades of gray are one color. Though your alien friend can point out your colors to you, by consulting your machine, he still cannot perceive them the way you do.
There are theists who “believe in” God, because they have run Him through the theology machine, but who do not perceive a personal relationship with Him.
Thanks Libertarian! If someone can’t SEE Red, there is no way he’ll ever KNOW what Red looks like, though he may be able to figure out it exists, has a wavelength, etc.
(I haven’t figured out how this applies to the OP of course – but perhaps man is the machine that can know God. So if you want to build a machine that can know God – I’d recommend you do so the old fashioned way if you like that sort of thing)
The reason I brought up Ramachandran was that I thought his point was pertinent to the Opening Post. The same data can be interpreted in various ways, and therefore God['s existence] is not falsifiable.
Of course. If he can’t perceive them, he can’t perceive them. That seems like a tautology. The point is, he can verify that they are real (even without perceiving them), and also verify that my perception of them is based on an objectively real phenomenon. That’s considerably more than he can do in the God case, yes? That’s my whole point. The situations are not similar, in that one has evidence behind it, and one does not.
Sure. That also works for the IPU and flying pink elephants, so it doesn’t seem like a very interesting statement to me I guess.
How does he verify that your perception of them is based upon an objectively real phenomenon? All he can verify is that some sort of relation between person A and phenomenon B.
But what if the alien can’t find the phenomenon B that person A perceives? Suppose this alien doesn’t have a spectrometer or what not. Then what does the alien do? hmm… may just shrug it off as a bizarre neurological issue within our particular species.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at here. You don’t need an alien to not be able to do it. My cat can’t do it, for instance.
Even if our alien doesn’t know jack about light, he can still do very simple statistical double blind tests to indicate to a high degree of confidence that color vision is real. The information is all there, and it is not subtle or difficult to find. Even if he doesn’t already know, our alien can discover it in an objective manner, which is the key difference! What objective test can our alien do to discover whether God is real? For whatever reason, God doesn’t seem to cooperate with that sort of thing.
The only problem of course with the anlogy is this,
God is not a static entity, you can’t apply such a test to him in the first place.
(please understand, I’m not dissagring with your postion, I complety understand it… but like most things … well, to be honest, like everything… it has flaws. Just as the postion against it has flaws. I’m drunk so I"m going to stop typing now.)
