The Lies of Richard Dawkins, Episode 6: Saint Thomas Aquinas

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

I’ve skimmed over a couple of posts, so I’m sorry for any redundancy, but there are a couple of points I wanted to respond to:

@Calculon

Note that Aquinas did NOT say (as those that say there is a contradiction suggest he did) that no causeless events are possible, except for God. What he is saying is that causeless events are not part of our direct experience of the world. Yet even through we do not observe them they must exist since otherwise there is no way to explain the world that we do experience.

I have been arguing that the argument only assumes a contradiction if we discount the trivial case of defining an arbitrary dividing line between things natural and supernatural, or ‘directly experienceable’ and not, which is what you are arguing for there. Again, he may have made the same argument regarding any other property of things, greenness, or fluffiness, or whatever have you; yet, it doesn’t prove the existence of anything, it merely slices the totality of existence into two parts and then claims to have achieved something extraordinary. But it hasn’t, and my assumption is merely that Aquinas, eminent thinker he was, would have been aware of this, and thus not made his argument in this way.

Besides, regarding something you said further down in your post, that there are things that are not part of our direct experience isn’t a great problem for science; indeed, you yourself give an example of things that can’t be directly experienced and are nevertheless very explicitly part of scientific inquiry – quantum phenomena, that hide themselves behind the averaging out of their probabilistic nature. They are, however, experienceable by proxy, just like uncaused things can be experienced by their effects, at least (and are not really part of discussion about reality if they don’t have effects that can be experienced). So, the existence of things outside of our rather narrow sphere of direct experience is no problem at all for science – on the contrary, science is the only framework that can detect and handle those things with any effectiveness better than mere guesswork.

Aquinas said that the natural world itself necessarily points to the existence of something else that we do not experience, and have no direct evidence of. Yet the nature of the world cannot be explained in any other way but to say that this entity exits.

That may well be, but to call this event/entity in any way ‘supernatural’ or ‘god-like’ is to merely define it as such, and engage in equivocation with the traditional perceived meaning of these terms (ill-defined as they are themselves). There may well be an uncaused cause to our universe, and it may well be hidden from our direct experience, but it may also well be completely natural and, indeed, subject to scientific inquiry.

Aquinas justifies calling the uncaused cause “God” in the rest of his quite sizeable work. To suggest that this argument is the beginning and the end of what Aquinas said on the matter is obviously false.

I don’t really like to be a cite-crier, but I’m by now sufficiently curious to see what reasoning Aquinas uses to connect the uncaused cause with god to ask if you could point out or at least paraphrase his reasoning on that.

The problem is that while the outcome of individual quantum events are not deterministic, neither are they entirely random.

They are, regarding their salient properties: while it is certain that an unstable nucleus will decay, the exact point in time when it will do so is completely and utterly random, and thus, the decay event itself is uncaused, at least according to current understanding. That the fact of decay is predetermined by the configuration of the system doesn’t impinge on this in the slightest.

So to go back to the electron tunneling example if quantum events were entirely non-deterministic then the tunneling current would be independent of the potential barrier and would also be unable to be predicted. This is not what we observe at all, and thus quantum events are caused on at least some level.

This doesn’t follow. You’re merely lumping deterministic and probabilistic properties together in order to get something not ‘entirely non-deterministic’, not to mention that it is somewhat unclear what something even is if is isn’t ‘entirely’ deterministic.

If natural uncaused events are significant enough to create the universe, is there anything that cannot be a result of them?

It may well be the case that only universes can arise in an uncaused way – i.e. it may be that there just cannot be nothing, since nothing is not a stable state, and thus eventually ‘decays’ into something. That is not a problem to scientific reasoning at all. Your larger point, however, does brush on one central assumption of scientific reasoning, which is that, in effect, we’re not just imagining it all. We can always assume a solipsist kind of viewpoint, from which we obviously lose any descriptive power science is thought to have; however, this comes at the cost of not being able to form any reasonably robust epistemology, i.e. any and all statements can be equally wrong and true. When you are saying that the existence of uncaused events in the natural world means that nothing can be solidly derived from empirical observations, you are, in effect, right, and assuming a viewpoint equal to that of solipsism in such a way that no robust epistemology can be achieved. This, however, is not a reasonable assumption to make, since so far, science seems to be working remarkably well in describing the natural world, so I would argue it is to be discarded – but I do recognize that one can be of the opposite opinion regarding this, however only at the expense of losing the ability to make any descriptive statements about this world and have an expectation of them to be meaningful.

Since Dawkins seems to elevate scientific empiricism to be the only way to discover truth,

Well, to be fair, it’s got a vastly better track record than any other method… And, well, this gets a bit into my personal opinion, but I think that only a ‘no-faith’ kind of framework is able to provide us with an epistemology robust enough to make definitive statements about the world, even if there are still some caveats to be attached; here’s a thread where I discuss this opinion in somewhat more detail, if you’re interested.

The other problem from a practical viewpoint is that what we know about cosmology suggests that the universe has not existed forever. The big bang requires that there is a zero-point in time, before which there was nothing.

That’s a surprisingly common misconception, but it’s easy to see that this is not necessarily so – just as the open interval (0;1) doesn’t have any smallest number, there need not be a first point in time, even if the past is finite. Besides, you’re arguing from a point of view that essentially separates space and time, which we know to be insufficient for a description of the universe, so you can’t really derive valid statements from there. (For some nice discussion on the subject of how, actually, our universe may have come into existence, here’s an essay by Paul Davies that, among other things, mentions how it’s possible for time to arise from space, or indeed for space and time to interchange identity under some circumstances.)

Since the cause of an event necessarily is before it (it cannot be after due to all sorts of logical paradoxes) than an infinite chain of cause/events also requires an infinite time scale.

This also doesn’t quite follow, mainly because ‘the cause of an event necessarily is before it’ is not quite right said like that. I don’t have time to go into it fully, and it would detract from the thread too much to do so, but, for a slightly intuitive example, consider how quantum entanglement entails the instantaneous change of state of a quantum mechanical particle across arbitrary distances – the cause does not precede the effect in this case (though there is some problem in talking about ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ here, I believe). At least one physicist, John G. Cramer, has also taken this idea further and developed what he calls the ‘transactional’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, where all quantum phenomena are superpositions of ‘retarded’ waves that travel into the ‘correct’ direction from the past to the future, and ‘advanced’ waves that go against it, from the future into the past (this indeed helps getting a little intuition about quantum physics, and resolves certain problems, like for instance the observer problem in the Copenhagen interpretation).

And therein lies the problem with Dawkins’ book. I think to him it is so self evident that religion is false, that serious intellectual work is not needed in interacting with it. How else could Dawkins’ dismiss theology without ever really studying it?

I don’t really want to go into Dawkins apologetics again, but I perceive his position as being somewhat subtly different: to him, it is obvious that atheism is the default stance from which to derive valid propositions about reality, and hence, religion first has to prove itself worthy of being given serious consideration; and that is, in my opinion, a very valid stance (see also my thread I’d linked to earlier). Just for a moment, consider how you would react when I presented to you the whole of Christian theology, without you ever having heard about the idea of a god: naturally, you would dismiss the whole thing as devoid of merit right at the point where you asked me to produce any evidence for all those outrageous claims, and I failed to do so. An a priori dismissal of unfounded claims is not sloppy logic, it is an instance of frugality in forming a consistent picture of the world (this may, of course, lead one down the wrong path; but uncritically accepting every proposition brought before one certainly will, almost all the time).

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@MrDibble

Oh, this is just rubbish. If I say a d6 die roll is mathematically random, I can still say a roll of pi is impossible. Unpredictable =/= “anything can happen”

Right. To put it another way, a tossed coin never comes up “fairies”.

[CurtC]

@Calculon

I also maintain that “The God Delusion” is full of shoddy scholarship. One of the striking things about it is that for a book that claims to be about God, how few theologians and theological works are quoted in it.

I agree with PZ Myers’ response to this criticism:

@PZ Myers

I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.

Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.

Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.

Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.

[Mijin]

I had some criticisms of The God Delusion when I read it, but nonetheless I’m still aghast when I hear that some theists have read the book and been unmoved by it.
It’s such an excellent summary of how humans cook up religions in the first place, why so many believe in them and the many scientific and philosophical problems with such beliefs.

But then when I read such theists’ reviews of the book, which often start with something like “I was expecting a high level of argument from this book, but I was disappointed…” I realise that they haven’t really read the book at all. They’ve just scanned it for ammunition.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

I suspect the same thing. Not only do I doubt that most of them actually read The God Delusion, I don’t think most of them have ever read the theologians they trumpet either, or even their own Bible, for that matter.

The accusations that Dawkins is nasty and condescending are largely made up too. Here’s a video of Dawkins taking question after question from fundies without ever being rude to them.

Richard Dawkins is not a perfect human being, but the boogeyman image he gets from religionists is ridiculous.

[Voyager]

@Calculon

No, your understanding of the scientific method is backwards.

Given a process of which there is something known, a number of theories may fit that data. We progress towards understanding which of those theories is the correct one by showing that other competing theories cannot be true because they contradict what is known somewhere.

Once we posit that something is uncaused however, it is impossible to prove definitely that that hypothesis is false. Even if we discover that there is another empirical relationship that explains the known data, it can be argued that that process only appears caused, where as really it is uncaused. Any set of data at all fits the explaination that something is uncaused, and so it can never be discounted.

Sorry, I have to respond to this bit of ignorance. Say we have two snapshots of a ball, at time t and at time t + n. At time t the ball is at rest, at time t + n the ball is in motion. They hypothesis is that the motion is uncaused. However, we have a picture of someone pushing the ball at time t + n/2. Does this falsify the hypothesis? To a certain extent yes, but if we do this experiment enough times we can calculate the exact probability that the correlation of the push and the motion is due to chance. This can easily be small enough so that it can be discounted. Saying that the hypothesis has not been falsified won’t get any of your papers published. So, we can certainly falsify the uncaused hypothesis, and that we haven’t falsified it for quantum events is powerful evidence of its validity. There is also theoretical justification for it.

But there is energy all around us now. If something as large as the universe can simply precipitate into matter, why not a few dinosaur bones. That would seem to be much more likely than a whole universe

Because there was a prediction of the distribution of atoms from this precipitation made before data was collected, and the theory behind the prediction was verified. I suppose we can calculate the probability that energy would freeze into a dinosaur bone - I suspect it is 10 - (number of atoms in the universe) or less.

“Random” in the mathematical sense means not able to be predicted. If you say that events are random, you are saying that there is no way to predict the outcome, meaning that it could literally be anything.

Bull. You can predict the outcome of a sufficient number of experiments statistically. The outcome of a single toss of two dice is random, the distribution of many tosses is not.

Wrong. You can’t add any number to infinity.

True, because infinity is not a number. Here is the axiomatic definition of the natural numbers. Each number is defined as a finite application of the successor function to 0. Since there is no number x such that succ(x) = infinity, infinity is not a number, and applying arithmetic to it is meaningless. This says nothing about infinite chains of regress.

[begbert2]

As a person who remains unconvinced that you can fill an infinitely deep hole by tossing in shovelfuls of dirt, no matter how many you toss in, I think you lot should stop arguing the ‘infinite chain of caused events’ angle.

Far better that we keep shouting for the cite of how Aquinas connected the uncaused cause to his onmimax God. 'Cause without that, Aquinas’s argument is garbage regardless.

[Contrapuntal]

@begbert2

As a person who remains unconvinced that you can fill an infinitely deep hole by tossing in shovelfuls of dirt, no matter how many you toss in, I think you lot should stop arguing the ‘infinite chain of caused events’ angle.

What about if you were shoveling them from an infinitely large pile of dirt? What then? How about if you get an infinitely large bulldozer and just ram the entire pile down into the hole? Would that do it?

As an aside, I want to say to the principals in this thread that I am thoroughly enjoying it. Lots of food for thought. Well done.

[begbert2]

@Contrapuntal

What about if you were shoveling them from an infinitely large pile of dirt? What then? How about if you get an infinitely large bulldozer and just ram the entire pile down into the hole? Would that do it?

Putting shovelfulls of dirt into the hole is adding +1 to -inf; and, to the degree that we can do math on infinities, +1 - inf = -inf. Which is to say, the shovelful of dirt does not contribute to the filling of the hole even one tiny bit. No matter how many of them you throw in.

On the upside, the +inf of the pile will also not reduce in size as you take shovelfuls from it. So while you’ll never make any progress, at least you’ll never run out of dirt, though you may get tired after a while.

If you get that bulldozer and push it, you are doing +inf + -inf. This result of this operation is ‘undefined’ - which I tend to interpret as “you can’t do this”; you’ve basically done something the mathematical operation (in this case addition/subtraction) isn’t able to manage.

There are of course those who think that ‘undefined’ is licence to declare that the answer is actually whatever you want. Those people would tell you that inf - inf = 0, ignore all other complications, and declare the hole filled.

To them I declare that, no, inf - inf = -inf, and the hole remains unaffected by the infinite supply of dirt you threw into it. (There’s mathematical basis for this; you can subtract all the odd numbers from the natural numbers and the same number of numbers, all even, remain). So however much they can convince (delude?) themselves, they can never convince me.
Of course, if we take the analogy too far, we note that the bottom of the infinite pile will have to have started at ground level before it entered the hole, and is only falling finitely fast, and thus is only a finite distance below the top of the hole at any point…which leaves you with a bottomless hole, stretching infinitely downward in complete emptiness, with a constantly but inconsequentially descending ‘plug’ of dirt, which sticks up out of the hole as an infintely tall (in fact, topless) column - and this situation never changes in any appreciable way, no matter how long you let the plug fall.

But that is indeed taking the analogy too far.

[Contrapuntal]

@begbert2

Of course, if we take the analogy too far, we note that the bottom of the infinite pile will have to have started at ground level before it entered the hole, and is only falling finitely fast, and thus is only a finite distance below the top of the hole at any point…which leaves you with a bottomless hole, stretching infinitely downward in complete emptiness, with a constantly but inconsequentially descending ‘plug’ of dirt, which sticks up out of the hole as an infintely tall (in fact, topless) column - and this situation never changes in any appreciable way, no matter how long you let the plug fall.

Is there any chance that this could work as a carnival ride? How much would a ticket go for? How tall would I have to be?

(If you can dredge up a serious answer to this, well, you have too much time on your hands.)

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Why does the hole have to be filled? Who’s trying to fill it?

[Ludovic]

I’d love to turnnnnnn you onnnnnnn

[Contrapuntal]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

Why does the hole have to be filled? Who’s trying to fill it?

My questions about the hole were tongue in cheek. Sorry about the misunderstanding. I’ll stop now.

[begbert2]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

Why does the hole have to be filled? Who’s trying to fill it?

The hole is my illustrative analogy for why I don’t believe in infinite chains of prior finite events; basically lifted whole cloth from this thread which DrCube mentioned a few posts back. If want to read me going on about that you might as well read that thread; in this one it’s quite suffient that we have not seen any argument whatsoever that Aquinas ever linked up the uncaused cause with the hairy thunderer of Christainity. (Though personally I think Aquinas’s argument is a joke because it explicity asserts away the possibility of an uncaused cause, and then special pleads it back, but that’s a separate issue.)

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@begbert2

The hole is my illustrative analogy for why I don’t believe in infinite chains of prior finite events;

I probably shouldn’t get into this again, seeing how much good it did the last time, but just to satisfy my own personal curiosity: do you believe that there is a finite amount of links in a causal chain such that one more link would not be admissible?
I’m asking this, in part, because I believe that our disconnect regarding the nature of the infinite lies in equating the ‘not-finite’ with infinity; you seem to be arguing, generally, that unconstrained quantities (like the above mentioned amount of links in a causal chain, which doesn’t seem to have a natural terminator) still are not necessarily infinite, while I believe that anything not limited by an upper (or lower) bound cannot be reasonably thought of as being finite, and therefore is quite literally infinite.

[begbert2]

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

I probably shouldn’t get into this again, seeing how much good it did the last time, but just to satisfy my own personal curiosity: do you believe that there is a finite amount of links in a causal chain such that one more link would not be admissible?

No, of course not.

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

I’m asking this, in part, because I believe that our disconnect regarding the nature of the infinite lies in equating the ‘not-finite’ with infinity; you seem to be arguing, generally, that unconstrained quantities (like the above mentioned amount of links in a causal chain, which doesn’t seem to have a natural terminator) still are not necessarily infinite, while I believe that anything not limited by an upper (or lower) bound cannot be reasonably thought of as being finite, and therefore is quite literally infinite.

Not to co-opt the thread, but my argument is that a lack of an imposed limit does not imply that unlimited actual objects can somehow cease to be of finite size. That is, I am arguing that despite there not being any imposed limit on how large you can make your house, any house you succeed in actually building will be of finite size. Regardless of the fact that your quantity is unconstrained, you cannot ever ‘pop the limit’ and make the actual quantity of actual objects you have cease to have a quantity and become “unconstrained” itself.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

But infinity isn’t a quantity. An infinite casual chain is not a quantity of casual events, it’s a sequence.

[begbert2]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

But infinity isn’t a quantity. An infinite casual chain is not a quantity of casual events, it’s a sequence.

Yes, yes, and when we ask “How many events have happened,” the universe gives us a syntax error. Because we’ve finally found an uncountable pile of objects in the real world.

But regardless, my personal disagreement with this peculiar idea that a person can have an infinite number of rocks in a box is largely irrelevent to whether Aquinas’s argument was correct.

[DrCube]

@begbert2

But regardless, my personal disagreement with this peculiar idea that a person can have an infinite number of rocks in a box is largely irrelevent to whether Aquinas’s argument was correct.

Yes. Even if you grant one of the premises, that infinite regress is possible, there are still the sticking points: a) Aquinas has not shown that everything must have a cause; b) you can’t conclude that uncaused things exist from the premise that they don’t; c) even if you buy the conclusion, there is still no reason to believe that “uncaused things exist” implies the existence of God.

And even if you DID manage to prove that God exists, there is no reason to assume the Bible (or your scripture of choice) nor any existing religion is correct in any way. Proving God’s existence doesn’t really put you any closer to proving your religion correct.

How did Aquinas get from his proofs of God to anything else about his religion? Does he attempt to prove the bible inerrant? Does he show that the Pope is the holiest Catholic? That prayer works? Does he prove the Trinity or transubstantiation, or anything else? I’m curious here, because the only thing I’ve read about Aquinas are the proofs in this thread. Frankly, they don’t leave me too impressed with his philosophical abilities.

[Indistinguishable]

Terminological peevery, though I’m on generally the same side as most of the people making these comments, I think:

@Voyager

True, because infinity is not a number. Here is the axiomatic definition of the natural numbers. Each number is defined as a finite application of the successor function to 0. Since there is no number x such that succ(x) = infinity, infinity is not a number, and applying arithmetic to it is meaningless. This says nothing about infinite chains of regress.

Reason like that, and 1/2 isn’t a number either.

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

But infinity isn’t a quantity

Bah! Infinity is a quantity in some systems of quantities; it’s not a quantity in some other systems of quantities, just the same as 1/2 or -3 or “scale by 8 and rotate 90 degrees” or some 8-dimensional vector or 6 meters or what have you are quantities in some systems, and not in others. Just like “___ isn’t a number”, “___ isn’t a quantity” is meaningless in general; there’s not some single, fixed notion of what counts as a number, quantity, magnitude, arithmetic object, etc.; there are multiple different concepts which fall under this umbrella, interrelated by family resemblances but not all the same.

It’s true that no one would consider anything infinite to be a finite quantity, but, then, that’s not saying very much, is it?

I’m just going to go whimper in a corner…