Subjective Rationalism

[BountyHunterSAx]

So thusfar I've gotten into protracted discussions on this forum about religion, belief in God, etc. And each time I do I feel as though I never discuss my full perspective on it since it's usually so far off-topic.

http://student.seas.gwu.edu/~ahmadr/SubjRatn.doc

This link is to a paper that I've written in which I outline my concept of 'subjective rationalism' - not as part of a school or college assignment, so it does not fall under the banner of 'helping with homework'. I'd written this about two to three weeks back, and thusfar have only really shown it to a religious audience.

What I'm asking for in this topic is for you to poke holes in my argument - though I would really appreciate if you would do so politely. I like to think of myself as intellectually honest, and so if there is some issue that I can address better, or some flaw in my reasoning, I would want to either update the paper to reflect that, or change that part so as not to deceive.

Let me emphasize upfront that this document was not intended for submission or grading and thus has at best a semi-formal tone and may include linguistic or stylistic errors aplenty; these do not concern me right now.


Thank you, happy reading

-AHMAD

[wjs7744]

Sure, I don't mind annotating a copy and sending it back to you, or whatever you had in mind. It would help, though, if you let us know what the actual point of your paper is, as it wasn't immediately obvious from just skimming it.

[Rye]

I'll read it and address it when I get back from uni. Is it too big to post here?

[Paolo]

Read it (it's very brief) and here's a short summary. Ahmad lays out two problematic arguments (first cause and teleology) for objective belief in God, judges said objective belief unlikely if not impossible, and then argues that subjective belief may nevertheless rationally follow some perception of God's existence if we accept that reality stimulates the mind beyond our natural senses with or without the aid of instrument.

My only complaint is that Ahmad doesn't note that his opponent would likely obviously some distinction (a scientific one, no doubt) between such perception and delusion.

[Surlethe]

First, there are several scientific inaccuracies you should correct, such as the claim that the Big Bang started life, or the idea that speciation is a scientific law (it's not; it's a consequence of evolution theory).

Now, let me see if I can condense your chief argument. You're saying that subjective proof is, to an individual, just as good as objective proof. Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God, they should be treated as a sense. Therefore, God subjectively exists.

There are several problem with this reasoning. First, just because an individual is acting in a manner that is consistent with his beliefs and even his senses, that does not make him rational; you would not say that a schizophrenic is rational, though he avoids the place where he perceives a great gaping chasm in the ground. I therefore submit that rationality is a quality of the worldview itself: namely, whether or not it corresponds to objective reality.

Next, you simply define the 'heart' as a 'sense' based on loose definitions and suppositions. You do not know that the 'heart' even exists, let alone perceives emotions; moreover, you assume that emotions have some sort of external cause.

You cite one of Merriam-Webster's definitions of stimulus; the third would be more appropriate: an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by exciting a sensory organ or evoking muscular contraction or glandular secretion). Emotions clearly do not fit the bill.

Finally, you are ignoring the critical mechanism of Occam's Razor in enabling the jump from agnosticism (which you promote) to atheism. Even if you interpret your emotions to mean that you think God exists, you must admit that because objectively -- i.e., perceptible to all -- there exists no evidence for God, he is an extraneous term, therefore irrelevant to the universe, and hence should not be included in any good working model.

[Twoyboy]

I'll get to reading the rest of it another time, but right there on the first page "Modern science does not believe that God exists".

Sigh.

Science doesn't believe anything. It is merely a methodology used to discover how and why things are. Scientists believe things, but many believe that god does exist.

Try something like: Using the scientific method, we draw the conclusion that god does not exist by the agnostic principle.

Perhaps others can refine it better.

[Wedge]

*SNIP* You're saying that subjective proof is, to an individual, just as good as objective proof. Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God, they should be treated as a sense. Therefore, God subjectively exists.

Perfectly summarized.
Now comes the always good example of "hearing voices". If you "feel" or "hear" voices inside you, you think they exist. In your theory these voices are subjective proof for the individual and he/she can and should follow his "logic" and "rationality" on the premise that these voices are real.
You think that for the individual who is certain that these voices are real (because he felt them or heard them) acting accordingly would be rational.
If he thinks they are as real as people, and if these voices give him any good reason or argument that convince him to follow their orders, he would. With your argumentation it would be rational for him to do so.
Now you have a guy that follows the command of voices only he can hear and thinks he is being rational about it. What do YOU call this besides mentally insane?

Now replace the voices with God or angels, the order they give with the "law of god" or Bible or Quran or Torah.

So you have people believing in an entity that they think revealed herself to them, follow what THEY think this entity is telling them to do, and think they are being rational about it.

As for the orders given by God, people could interpret it as "kill the infidel", "take back the promised land" and the reason to do it would be 72 virgins or paradise.

That's my main point, but for example saying woowoo like this:

To properly utilize the heart to sense beyond the visible world takes effort.

doesn't exactly work in your favour.

Also I think you are mistaken here:

In this way, the heart can be easily influenced. Strong feelings of desire, lust, hate, greed, and anger or strong ‘positive’ feelings like joy, pleasure, and happiness can interfere with the ability of the heart to tap into that understanding of the other world. For this reason, we’re taught to try and ignore feelings, as they can often be interfered with by random emotions.

Who is teaching you to try to ignore feelings? In relationships feelings play a big role, love, being emotionally hurt. They aren't (always) rational, who is fighting against having those feelings?

I don't have a problem with people who think a god exists, my main problem is that almost always they think this divinity CARES about them or their actions.
If a god existed that created the universe why would he care about YOU having the vastness of universe to look after? Do you really feel so important? Isn't that a bit arrogant?

[Rye]

The site doesn't seem to be working at the moment, so I may as well cut to my initial reactions upon seeing Surlethe's post:

• Can your epistemology distinguish between a fraud fervently believed in?
• Can it distinguish between an imaginary god and a real one?
• Does your epistemology not distinguish between a person's imagination and knowledge of real world objects?
• Does your epistemology make diagnosis of mental illness and delusion impossible?
• When applied equally amongst different people from different cultural backgrounds, would your epistemology result in wildly contradictory results?
• If your epistemology can be used to justify belief in anything you really desire to be true (and thus "feel" it must be true), what real knowledge can it produce, since there are no checks and balances in the system beyond fervent belief?
• What use is this knowledge your epistemology supposedly provides over other, more strenuous methods? What practical application does your short-cut in rationality provide?

[BountyHunterSAx]

Firstly, I apologize for taking so long to respond to these comments. I've been busy - and most likely will continue to be - until at least spring break.

First, there are several scientific inaccuracies you should correct, such as the claim that the Big Bang started life, or the idea that speciation is a scientific law (it's not; it's a consequence of evolution theory).

Absolutely, thanks for letting me know. Was it bad outside of the two counter-arguments for 'proving' God's existence? Or were the scientific flaws mostly there?

Now, let me see if I can condense your chief argument. You're saying that subjective proof is, to an individual, just as good as objective proof.

Correct.

Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God, they should be treated as a sense.

No. I'm saying that the heart (emotions is only really one aspect) provide us access to another sort of information, period. Therefore they should be accepted as a sense. The reasons that it is often not accepted - i postulate - are that it is:

1.) Easily fallible / deluded / misguided
2.) Not 'sense-able' to the other senses or to other people.

The way you'd phrased it you're saying that I'm grasping for any straw to prove that God exists. "Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God". But that's not the reason that I'm considering the heart a sense; and as a consequence:

Therefore, God subjectively exists.

Or more accurately, an individual can prove to themselves, subjectively, that God exists. A thing cannot exist subjectively (at least as I understand existence).

There are several problem with this reasoning. First, just because an individual is acting in a manner that is consistent with his beliefs and even his senses, that does not make him rational; you would not say that a schizophrenic is rational, though he avoids the place where he perceives a great gaping chasm in the ground.

We wouldn't? Why not? We most certainly wouldn't believe that he's right in what he does, and if we showed him that we could walk into said chasm without injury we'd hold it against him that he didn't revise his opinion. But while there are no facts contradicting his perception of reality, he'd actually be stupid TO walk there!
Perhaps I'm off (or we disagree) on what rationality is.

I therefore submit that rationality is a quality of the worldview itself: namely, whether or not it corresponds to objective reality.

And I disagree. I think 'behaving rationally' is to follow what evidence you have about the world - being 'rational', and logical about it. We don't call a judge who sentences an innocent man 'irrational', we call him/her misinformed (or biased, but let's not go there). Similarly we wouldn't call a schizophrenic irrational for believing there was a hole in the middle of the floor (since nobody else was walking on that spot); deluded, yes - but John Nash was hardly irrational, despite having had problems with schizophrenia.

Next, you simply define the 'heart' as a 'sense' based on loose definitions and suppositions. You do not know that the 'heart' even exists, let alone perceives emotions; moreover, you assume that emotions have some sort of external cause.

Are you serious? I do know the heart exists, though you're right to say that I assume it has access to sensing a separate world - and that that IS a leap in logic. However, the way I've defined the heart; as that which makes you 'feel', all the proof I need for its existence is that I experience emotion. And as I explained in my paper, I wasn't contending that the physical pumping muscle was the one feeling the emotion - if you want to call it a shift in chemical concentrations that affects the brain, that's fine with me.

You cite one of Merriam-Webster's definitions of stimulus; the third would be more appropriate: an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by exciting a sensory organ or evoking muscular contraction or glandular secretion). Emotions clearly do not fit the bill.

I see. So what I ought to do then would be to include a note about how there are other definitions of 'sense' that are limited to physically observable phenomenon, and that I am choosing to re-interpret sense as that which we use to perceive our surroundings.

That brings me back to the point of proving that what the heart senses is truly external, which I have not yet bridged {yes, this is something of a concession, albeit temporarily, for that point}.

Finally, you are ignoring the critical mechanism of Occam's Razor in enabling the jump from agnosticism (which you promote) to atheism. Even if you interpret your emotions to mean that you think God exists, you must admit that because objectively -- i.e., perceptible to all -- there exists no evidence for God, he is an extraneous term, therefore irrelevant to the universe, and hence should not be included in any good working model.

True, but irrelevant.
1.) To me He is perceptible (at times more, at times less). To my understanding of the universe both the visible world and the hidden world, He is not an extraneous term that can be excised. If I accept my heart as a sense (again bringing it back to that one point) then I must accept God exists. If God exists, then an explanation for the universe that does not include God does NOT correctly explain all of the facts and Occam's Razor doesn't apply.

2.) Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb or a guideline. Certainly one that has great scientific merit, but not so much philosophically (and yes, this is largely a philosophical argument I've been putting forward). Thinkers have spent large amounts of time arguing that everything we see and hear does not actually exist, and then trying to prove that existence really exists, etc. etc. For an example, take Descarte's "I think, therefore I am". Occam's Razor would have you say that things exist because if they didn't exist the 'equation' would be that much more complicated (to have everyone agreeing on their perceptions of the world, and yet the world somehow not being real or consistent). From this I deduce that just because a term is Occam's Razored out, doesn't mean that that same term is any less real or provable (though, admittedly, it be unproven).


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I'll get to reading the rest of it another time, but right there on the first page "Modern science does not believe that God exists".

Sigh.

You know as well as I do (I hope) what that means; and it's STILL accurate besides, and the phrasing fits with the style of the paper.

Science doesn't believe anything.

Including that God exists? Because I could swear that's what I said.

It is merely a methodology used to discover how and why things are.

Philosophically speaking, science is still a belief system. It makes sense, and is consistent with the majority of people percieve as reality, yes. And by and large I find myself drawn to this belief system, yes. But at the end there are two critical assumptions that cannot be proven:
Repeated identical trials will yield identical results.
In other words, science requires induction for proof, when that need not always be available. If you drop a hammer in a gravity well, you expect it to go down, and it does. You do this 1000 times, and it still does. You draw a conclusion about why it went down; but that is still a conclusion based on inference. Normally I wouldn't nit-pick about this, particularly since I feel like that philosophical point of view is sort of pointless, but in the case of my argument it is a necessary point to say that science does not believe in the existence of God yet.

Try something like: Using the scientific method, we draw the conclusion that god does not exist by the agnostic principle.

Actually I think that's an incorrect application of the agnostic principle. As per: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ostic.html , the agnostic principle holds that

"Huxley states ...that for those forms and types of knowledge for which no demonstrable facts exist in support or in opposition, we MUST assign all such matters to the third category of the unknown, and if we cannot even conceive of a demonstrable fact which might prove the matter one way or the other, then that knowledge is clearly unknowable, at least so far as our present understanding of the matter can go."

This hardly shows that god 'does not exist'. It rather explicitly shows that "we do not know if God exists". I could revise the paper to say that Modern Science doesn't know if God exists, yes, but that sounds more arrogant than saying they don't believe in it, particularly to a religious group of people.



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

Now comes the always good example of "hearing voices". If you "feel" or "hear" voices inside you, you think they exist. In your theory these voices are subjective proof for the individual and he/she can and should follow his "logic" and "rationality" on the premise that these voices are real.

Correct. Unless (of course) he/she has good reason to think otherwise; like contradiction with other things that they believe/know to be true. Then they have themselves a little dilemma.

You think that for the individual who is certain that these voices are real (because he felt them or heard them) acting accordingly would be rational. If he thinks they are as real as people, and if these voices give him any good reason or argument that convince him to follow their orders, he would.

Absolutely, and I stand by that. You put a lunatic in an asylum because he's a danger to himself or to others as a result. He isn't being irrational, just acting on misguidance. And the fact that his actions - as a result- could cause himself or others harm gives society a reason to try and help him.

With your argumentation it would be rational for him to do so.
Now you have a guy that follows the command of voices only he can hear and thinks he is being rational about it. What do YOU call this besides mentally insane?

Misinformed. His heart is playing tricks on him, sensing things that aren't real - or his mind, if you prefer. I only use the term heart because of its religious parallel.

Now replace the voices with God or angels, the order they give with the "law of god" or Bible or Quran or Torah.

So you have people believing in an entity that they think revealed herself to them, follow what THEY think this entity is telling them to do, and think they are being rational about it.

Yes, and they are. Now, as I stated before, they are not able to prove to anyone else that they are hearing the voice of God (or whatever 'presence' they claim to feel) any more than anyone else can prove to them that they are not. If what they sense with their heart doesn't contradict what they 'know' to be true, then why would you expect them to NOT believe it? Because you don't consider what the heart senses as potentially being 'real' or external. That's the only reason; and on that point I've already conceded that it's a leap in logic, and I don't have the evidence for it.

Now as for what you say later, about the idea that people could kill, or do things as a result of this voice, yes of course they could. And as long as they don't expect you to believe their subjective proof of God's existence/commandment to them, I'd say they haven't violated rationality. You're left with two choices:

a.) Show them objective proof (superior to subjective proof) that their 'belief' is incorrect.
-- of course, God is almost certainly non-disprovable (look at Flying Spaghetti Monsterism) so this really isn't an option.

b.) Demand that they show you objective proof, and treat them as though their subjective proof is meaningless outside of their own head.
-- which is my recommended course of action. Which is why in the paper I mentioned (iirc) that you shouldn't expect to convince others with subjective proof.

Who is teaching you to try to ignore feelings? In relationships feelings play a big role, love, being emotionally hurt. They aren't (always) rational, who is fighting against having those feelings?

Maybe I was brought up different than you, or maybe my phrasing is off. During my upbringing I was taught that being emotional can and does interfere with rational judgment. That when you're angry you are more prone to do things that you'll regret later. That when you're infatuated it's harder to maintain your objectivity, etc. etc.

But re-reading the paragraph, yeah, I guess I do make it seem like we're taught all emotions are always bad. I should probably revise it to more accurately reflect what I mean.

I don't have a problem with people who think a god exists, my main problem is that almost always they think this divinity CARES about them or their actions.
If a god existed that created the universe why would he care about YOU having the vastness of universe to look after? Do you really feel so important? Isn't that a bit arrogant?

While it's a bit of a tangent, I'd like to address this.

As a Muslim, I believe that God is beyond the flow of time. In the Qur'an we're told, in Ayat-ul-Kursi:

"Allah! There is no god but He - the Living, The Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His are all things In the heavens and on earth. Who is there [that] can intercede In His presence except As he permitteth? He knoweth What (appeareth to His creatures As) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass Aught of his knowledge Except as He willeth. His throne doth extend Over the heavens And on earth, and He feeleth No fatigue in guarding And preserving them, For He is the Most High. The Supreme (in glory). "

Though it's better in its original arabic, this verse is my response. You're asking "why would God care about so small a speck as a human?" My answer is two parts. First part is that I don't know. Trying to know why God does what He does is, in my opinion, almost entirely futile. At times he tries to give us an approximation or a metaphor, but really how in the world am I supposed to understand a being that is beyond - by definition - my understanding? If you read through my disproof for a proof of God (from a Muslim) you'll see what I mean. The best I can do is speculate.

Secondly, to directly answer your question, I believe divinity cares about my actions because He told me he does. And in the vastness of the universe I'm just a speck, the vastness of the Universe is still (somewhat) finite, and God is the inifnity of infinities. To Him, monitoring everything that happens in the universe (heavens and the earth) cause him no fatigue. He cares about me because He gave me free will, He monitors me and it costs Him nothing to do so.



---------

The site doesn't seem to be working at the moment, so I may as well cut to my initial reactions upon seeing Surlethe's post:

That's alarming, on account of the fact that the site is off of my student-page at my university. At any rate, it's a direct-download link for a Microsoft Word document, not a full website or anything. It hasn't been down for me yet, and the bandwidth should be high enough, so please do try to read the actual thing rather than critiquing based off a critique - it's only 10 pages, after all.

* Can your epistemology distinguish between a fraud fervently believed in?

What is an epistemology? Assuming it's the same or similar to theory, then no it can't; not in the absence of objective data on the subject, in which case the objective data is naturally held superior.

* Can it distinguish between an imaginary god and a real one?

See above.

* Does your epistemology not distinguish between a person's imagination and knowledge of real world objects?

It does distinguish. Information garnered by an individual that he/she cannot show/prove to others is taken as subjective, not objective. Objective data is usable for proving to others as well as to oneself, subjective data only to oneself.

* Does your epistemology make diagnosis of mental illness and delusion impossible?

No, but it does affect it I suppose. The patient would have to believe something that contradicted objectively known data (contradicted, mind you, not 'could-not-be-supported'). Alternatively, the patient would have to be trying to force his/her worldview on others, since subjective proof is not permitted to be used as proof to others (why should they believe you if they don't accept your premises which are known only to you?). The only real difference, I suppose, is that they would not be called irrational; just delusional.

* When applied equally amongst different people from different cultural backgrounds, would your epistemology result in wildly contradictory results?

See first answer. As different cultural indoctrinations pre-dispose people towards different likely delusions there you have it. It's left to the individual to judge just how accurate their subjective sense was being at the time.

* If your epistemology can be used to justify belief in anything you really desire to be true (and thus "feel" it must be true), what real knowledge can it produce, since there are no checks and balances in the system beyond fervent belief?

Not sure I follow the question, to be honest. You lost me at checks and balances.

* What use is this knowledge your epistemology supposedly provides over other, more strenuous methods? What practical application does your short-cut in rationality provide?

Objectively, virtually none. That doesn't matter to me though. I don't measure the meaningfulness of my methodology on the basis of whether or not it garners new objectively provable (the only truly scientific kind) of information. If proven true, the only thing I suppose it really achieves is to say, "People who hear voices and act on it without violating that which is objectively known aren't irrational." You have no idea how much comfort those words would bring to lots of people I know - and likely many more that i don't know.




Again, sorry about the delay in responses, believe me I really do appreciate the criticism. Talking only to those who already agree with what you want to say is intellectual masturbation



-AHMAD

"And Allah knows best."

[Surlethe]

First, there are several scientific inaccuracies you should correct, such as the claim that the Big Bang started life, or the idea that speciation is a scientific law (it's not; it's a consequence of evolution theory).

Absolutely, thanks for letting me know. Was it bad outside of the two counter-arguments for 'proving' God's existence? Or were the scientific flaws mostly there?

Mostly in the first section, before it gets to "subjective rationalism".

Now, let me see if I can condense your chief argument. You're saying that subjective proof is, to an individual, just as good as objective proof.

Correct.

Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God, they should be treated as a sense.

No. I'm saying that the heart (emotions is only really one aspect) provide us access to another sort of information, period. Therefore they should be accepted as a sense. The reasons that it is often not accepted - i postulate - are that it is:

1.) Easily fallible / deluded / misguided
2.) Not 'sense-able' to the other senses or to other people.

You've not provided evidence for the notion that the 'heart' provides access to another sort of information; you've simply stated that it is so and expected us to accept that.

The way you'd phrased it you're saying that I'm grasping for any straw to prove that God exists. "Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God". But that's not the reason that I'm considering the heart a sense; and as a consequence:

Therefore, God subjectively exists.

Or more accurately, an individual can prove to themselves, subjectively, that God exists. A thing cannot exist subjectively (at least as I understand existence).

But here you shoot yourself in the foot: if, as you demonstrate in your paper, the best anyone can do is show subjectively that God exists, and if (as you claim) a thing cannot exist subjectively, then

There are several problem with this reasoning. First, just because an individual is acting in a manner that is consistent with his beliefs and even his senses, that does not make him rational; you would not say that a schizophrenic is rational, though he avoids the place where he perceives a great gaping chasm in the ground.

We wouldn't? Why not? We most certainly wouldn't believe that he's right in what he does, and if we showed him that we could walk into said chasm without injury we'd hold it against him that he didn't revise his opinion. But while there are no facts contradicting his perception of reality, he'd actually be stupid TO walk there!
Perhaps I'm off (or we disagree) on what rationality is.

I therefore submit that rationality is a quality of the worldview itself: namely, whether or not it corresponds to objective reality.

And I disagree. I think 'behaving rationally' is to follow what evidence you have about the world - being 'rational', and logical about it. We don't call a judge who sentences an innocent man 'irrational', we call him/her misinformed (or biased, but let's not go there). Similarly we wouldn't call a schizophrenic irrational for believing there was a hole in the middle of the floor (since nobody else was walking on that spot); deluded, yes - but John Nash was hardly irrational, despite having had problems with schizophrenia.

Irrationality, then, is persisting in a worldview even after being shown it is false -- i.e., being shown it does not correspond to the external reality.

Next, you simply define the 'heart' as a 'sense' based on loose definitions and suppositions. You do not know that the 'heart' even exists, let alone perceives emotions; moreover, you assume that emotions have some sort of external cause.

Are you serious? I do know the heart exists, though you're right to say that I assume it has access to sensing a separate world - and that that IS a leap in logic. However, the way I've defined the heart; as that which makes you 'feel', all the proof I need for its existence is that I experience emotion. And as I explained in my paper, I wasn't contending that the physical pumping muscle was the one feeling the emotion - if you want to call it a shift in chemical concentrations that affects the brain, that's fine with me.

If you're admitting that it's a leap in logic, then what more do you need? You are essentially agreeing that your argument is flawed.

You cite one of Merriam-Webster's definitions of stimulus; the third would be more appropriate: an agent (as an environmental change) that directly influences the activity of a living organism or one of its parts (as by exciting a sensory organ or evoking muscular contraction or glandular secretion). Emotions clearly do not fit the bill.

I see. So what I ought to do then would be to include a note about how there are other definitions of 'sense' that are limited to physically observable phenomenon, and that I am choosing to re-interpret sense as that which we use to perceive our surroundings.

In other words, you are choosing to use an inappropriate definition. That does not cut it.

That brings me back to the point of proving that what the heart senses is truly external, which I have not yet bridged {yes, this is something of a concession, albeit temporarily, for that point}.

Okay.

Finally, you are ignoring the critical mechanism of Occam's Razor in enabling the jump from agnosticism (which you promote) to atheism. Even if you interpret your emotions to mean that you think God exists, you must admit that because objectively -- i.e., perceptible to all -- there exists no evidence for God, he is an extraneous term, therefore irrelevant to the universe, and hence should not be included in any good working model.

True, but irrelevant.
1.) To me He is perceptible (at times more, at times less). To my understanding of the universe both the visible world and the hidden world, He is not an extraneous term that can be excised. If I accept my heart as a sense (again bringing it back to that one point) then I must accept God exists.

Not so; even then, the sensation your heart gives you may be a delusion.

If God exists, then an explanation for the universe that does not include God does NOT correctly explain all of the facts and Occam's Razor doesn't apply.

I've heard this before, and it is quite literally circular. Occam's Razor applied here is simply another way of saying, "if God existed, then there would be evidence that he exists."

2.) Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb or a guideline. Certainly one that has great scientific merit, but not so much philosophically (and yes, this is largely a philosophical argument I've been putting forward).

Any argument that has to do with modeling consensus reality -- philosophical or not -- must meet with Occam's Razor. If you argument regarding senses holds, then you will have shown nothing more than that a person's internal model of the world is not a good model of a consensus reality, and, therefore, false.

[Rye]

Now, let me see if I can condense your chief argument. You're saying that subjective proof is, to an individual, just as good as objective proof.

Correct.

That's not correct, though. It can be incorrectly assigned the same "likelihood to be true" inside someone's head, but in reality, how likely something is or not, and how knowable that is, is best determined through verification and healthy skepticism.

No. I'm saying that the heart (emotions is only really one aspect) provide us access to another sort of information, period. Therefore they should be accepted as a sense.

The heart is a pulmonary muscle, all emotion and intuition and reasoning goes through the brain.

The reasons that it is often not accepted - i postulate - are that it is:

1.) Easily fallible / deluded / misguided
2.) Not 'sense-able' to the other senses or to other people.

2 prompts 1 as rational conclusions, rather than 2 prompting "subjective rationalism".

The way you'd phrased it you're saying that I'm grasping for any straw to prove that God exists. "Because emotions can provide subjective proof for God". But that's not the reason that I'm considering the heart a sense; and as a consequence:

Therefore, God subjectively exists.

Or more accurately, an individual can prove to themselves, subjectively, that God exists. A thing cannot exist subjectively (at least as I understand existence).

Thoughts, dreams, delusions and soforth exist subjectively. That's not to say that they can't be determined to exist, (I would argue that they certainly can be determined to exist through the objective analysis of the behaviour of the human brain, which they are products and properties of) just that the "direct experience" of them is one-sided.

We wouldn't? Why not? We most certainly wouldn't believe that he's right in what he does, and if we showed him that we could walk into said chasm without injury we'd hold it against him that he didn't revise his opinion. But while there are no facts contradicting his perception of reality, he'd actually be stupid TO walk there!

True to an extent, however, it is also common knowledge that the human brain can "play tricks on itself" as my grandma used to say. People can become hysterical due to their own imagination in the dark, even adults, just watch any "haunting" show. The question arises as to what perceptions should be trusted. Suffice it to say, when something is out of place, it makes sense to try and get confirmation that it's actually happening and to get others to try and independently verify the supposed event.

Are you serious? I do know the heart exists, though you're right to say that I assume it has access to sensing a separate world - and that that IS a leap in logic. However, the way I've defined the heart; as that which makes you 'feel', all the proof I need for its existence is that I experience emotion.

That proves you experience emotion, not that emotion is a legitimate grounding for epistemology.

I see. So what I ought to do then would be to include a note about how there are other definitions of 'sense' that are limited to physically observable phenomenon, and that I am choosing to re-interpret sense as that which we use to perceive our surroundings.

Sense and interpretation are different things. The subconscious part of your brain perceives things your conscious brain is doing and responds (i.e. interprets) with certain neurotransmitters that gives your conscious brain an emotional experience. That experience is sensed, but the nature of the brain is a load of repeater sensory perceptions; experience and response in a big chain that looks like an ongoing experience to us.

That brings me back to the point of proving that what the heart senses is truly external, which I have not yet bridged {yes, this is something of a concession, albeit temporarily, for that point}.

Absolutely. Emotions only exist in response to things in the brain, both from the senses and imagined.

True, but irrelevant.
1.) To me He is perceptible (at times more, at times less).

My arse is perceptible at all times. I believe it created the universe halfway through this sentence, complete with apparent age, because it speaks to me in my dreams. Is this a rational statement, according to your epistemology?

To my understanding of the universe both the visible world and the hidden world, He is not an extraneous term that can be excised. If I accept my heart as a sense (again bringing it back to that one point) then I must accept God exists. If God exists, then an explanation for the universe that does not include God does NOT correctly explain all of the facts and Occam's Razor doesn't apply.

Prove it is an explanation.

2.) Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb or a guideline. Certainly one that has great scientific merit, but not so much philosophically (and yes, this is largely a philosophical argument I've been putting forward).

Horseshit. Parsimony's a critical part of decent philosophy.

Thinkers have spent large amounts of time arguing that everything we see and hear does not actually exist, and then trying to prove that existence really exists, etc. etc.

Only idiot solipsists, and they steal the concept.

Philosophically speaking, science is still a belief system. It makes sense, and is consistent with the majority of people percieve as reality, yes. And by and large I find myself drawn to this belief system, yes. But at the end there are two critical assumptions that cannot be proven:
Repeated identical trials will yield identical results.

How isn't that proven? If it were untrue, science wouldn't have useful results.

In other words, science requires induction for proof, when that need not always be available. If you drop a hammer in a gravity well, you expect it to go down, and it does. You do this 1000 times, and it still does. You draw a conclusion about why it went down; but that is still a conclusion based on inference.

So?

Normally I wouldn't nit-pick about this, particularly since I feel like that philosophical point of view is sort of pointless, but in the case of my argument it is a necessary point to say that science does not believe in the existence of God yet.

Of course it doesn't. God is superstitious nonsense from an archaic, primitive past. It's best explained through primitive anthropomorphisation of natural events and the desires of the priestly class to control the population, it is a totally absurd idea and indistinguishable from someone just making something up (like my mystical arse), so of course science doesn't believe it exists.

"Huxley states ...that for those forms and types of knowledge for which no demonstrable facts exist in support or in opposition, we MUST assign all such matters to the third category of the unknown, and if we cannot even conceive of a demonstrable fact which might prove the matter one way or the other, then that knowledge is clearly unknowable, at least so far as our present understanding of the matter can go."

This hardly shows that god 'does not exist'. It rather explicitly shows that "we do not know if God exists". I could revise the paper to say that Modern Science doesn't know if God exists, yes, but that sounds more arrogant than saying they don't believe in it, particularly to a religious group of people.

It justifies unbelief, however. It's entirely logical to conclude gods don't exist, the fact it is unfalsifiable doesn't change that at all. In fact, the total unknowability of something means it's entirely improper to suppose it as a realistic explanation because you can't know of it. If you can't know it, it is inherently illogical to propose.

Misinformed. His heart is playing tricks on him, sensing things that aren't real - or his mind, if you prefer. I only use the term heart because of its religious parallel.

Religion is indistinguishable from being misinformed or self-deluding. Weird that, isn't it?

Yes, and they are. Now, as I stated before, they are not able to prove to anyone else that they are hearing the voice of God (or whatever 'presence' they claim to feel) any more than anyone else can prove to them that they are not. If what they sense with their heart doesn't contradict what they 'know' to be true, then why would you expect them to NOT believe it? Because you don't consider what the heart senses as potentially being 'real' or external. That's the only reason; and on that point I've already conceded that it's a leap in logic, and I don't have the evidence for it.

Right then.

Now as for what you say later, about the idea that people could kill, or do things as a result of this voice, yes of course they could. And as long as they don't expect you to believe their subjective proof of God's existence/commandment to them, I'd say they haven't violated rationality.

If something is indistinguishable from a delusion, why should you consider it a rational conclusion?

Secondly, to directly answer your question, I believe divinity cares about my actions because He told me he does.

Prove it.

That's alarming, on account of the fact that the site is off of my student-page at my university. At any rate, it's a direct-download link for a Microsoft Word document, not a full website or anything. It hasn't been down for me yet, and the bandwidth should be high enough, so please do try to read the actual thing rather than critiquing based off a critique - it's only 10 pages, after all.

It may be that I can't get it due to being from the UK or something.

What is an epistemology?

A branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

Assuming it's the same or similar to theory, then no it can't; not in the absence of objective data on the subject, in which case the objective data is naturally held superior.

Since you voiced your wish to ignore parsimony, there is no objective data that you can't create an unfalsifiable ad hoc hypothesis to get around. According to you, that should make it impossible to declare irrational if someone believes it based on emotional conviction, right?

See above.

No, then.

It does distinguish. Information garnered by an individual that he/she cannot show/prove to others is taken as subjective, not objective. Objective data is usable for proving to others as well as to oneself, subjective data only to oneself.

But any subjective data can be believed if you really want it to be true to the point of autosuggestion, so it can't be distinguished.

No, but it does affect it I suppose. The patient would have to believe something that contradicted objectively known data (contradicted, mind you, not 'could-not-be-supported').

Can be dealt with by ignoring parsimony.

* When applied equally amongst different people from different cultural backgrounds, would your epistemology result in wildly contradictory results?

See first answer. As different cultural indoctrinations pre-dispose people towards different likely delusions there you have it. It's left to the individual to judge just how accurate their subjective sense was being at the time.

Why? Shouldn't it be more appropriate to try and find out what causes subjective experience to determine how likely these feelings are to be true, rather than just proclaim it's automatically got some validity because you have conviction?

Not sure I follow the question, to be honest. You lost me at checks and balances.

Objective analysis uses other people to cross examine things independently. If your original conviction was incorrect, it should be picked up using other people's analyses. If it was correct, their results are more likely to correspond to yours. If you believe in the existence of something outside your own mind without going through empirical observation, your belief is unjustified.

Objectively, virtually none. That doesn't matter to me though. I don't measure the meaningfulness of my methodology on the basis of whether or not it garners new objectively provable (the only truly scientific kind) of information. If proven true, the only thing I suppose it really achieves is to say, "People who hear voices and act on it without violating that which is objectively known aren't irrational." You have no idea how much comfort those words would bring to lots of people I know - and likely many more that i don't know.

It is irrational to believe in disembodied voices or telepathy external to yourself. Voices are recordable, made by people or speakers by manipulating the air. If you hear disembodied voices, your brain is probably fucking up. If you hear an internal dialogue in your own brain and know that it's you talking to yourself, that is pretty normal. It is the identification of it to something external that is irrational (when we already have imagination/neurology as an explanation), especially when this thing that's external has no proof for its existence.

"And Allah knows best."

Yeah, that's why the muslim world is such a nice place to live if you're gay, a woman or atheistic.

[Rye]

I also just thought of this while pissing:

Regarding checks and balances; personal, internal thought and conviction are subject to much less rational origins than more objective approaches. Autosuggestion, emotional blackmail, confirmation bias and a million other problems with internal reasoning were what prompted philosophy and science to become formalised in the first place. They had to come about to sort crap thinking from good thinking and to make judgements more likely to be accurate. Objectivity as a concept (and the corresponding checks and balances of scientific method) is a response to the unregulated idiocy that can arise without external points of reference. "Subjective rationalism" seems to be a backslide.

[Patrick Degan]

Subjective rationalism at work.

[Twoyboy]

You know as well as I do (I hope) what that means; and it's STILL accurate besides, and the phrasing fits with the style of the paper.

Yes, I know exactly what you meant by it and you can take this as pedantic criticism if you like. But in a formal essay anthropomorphising is a no-no. Science cannot believe anything. It's not sentient. So no, it's not accurate. But being less pedantic, it's still not accurate. It's not like science has a set of tenets like religions. Everyone is free to believe what they want but following the scientific method will lead to atheism due to the lack of evidence for a god. This is what you meant, I know, and it may be annoying and picky but when you're writing formally, it's important to be technically correct.

Science doesn't believe anything.

Including that God exists? Because I could swear that's what I said.

As above.

It is merely a methodology used to discover how and why things are.

Philosophically speaking, science is still a belief system. It makes sense, and is consistent with the majority of people percieve as reality, yes. And by and large I find myself drawn to this belief system, yes. But at the end there are two critical assumptions that cannot be proven:
Repeated identical trials will yield identical results.
In other words, science requires induction for proof, when that need not always be available. If you drop a hammer in a gravity well, you expect it to go down, and it does. You do this 1000 times, and it still does. You draw a conclusion about why it went down; but that is still a conclusion based on inference.

No science is not a belief system, in that it does not tell you what to believe. True, you can believe in science, though even that belief is based upon mountains of evidence, but science itself is merely the search for knowledge about the world and a systematic method for doing so.

Normally I wouldn't nit-pick about this, particularly since I feel like that philosophical point of view is sort of pointless, but in the case of my argument it is a necessary point to say that science does not believe in the existence of God yet.

Stange that you reject my nitpicking then. Your point can be made just as well using the technically correct terminology.

Try something like: Using the scientific method, we draw the conclusion that god does not exist by the agnostic principle.

Actually I think that's an incorrect application of the agnostic principle. As per: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ostic.html , the agnostic principle holds that

"Huxley states ...that for those forms and types of knowledge for which no demonstrable facts exist in support or in opposition, we MUST assign all such matters to the third category of the unknown, and if we cannot even conceive of a demonstrable fact which might prove the matter one way or the other, then that knowledge is clearly unknowable, at least so far as our present understanding of the matter can go."

This hardly shows that god 'does not exist'. It rather explicitly shows that "we do not know if God exists". I could revise the paper to say that Modern Science doesn't know if God exists, yes, but that sounds more arrogant than saying they don't believe in it, particularly to a religious group of people.

That is someone's analysis of the agnostic principle. Huxley actually wrote:

"Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which lies in the vigorous application of a single principle. Positively, the principle may be expressed as in matters of intellect, follow your reason as far as it can take you without other considerations. And negatively, in matters of the intellect, do not pretend that matters are certain that are not demonstrated or demonstrable."

From the same page as your quote.


But the point really is, that would be fine if there were no way to even obtain evidence of god. The fact is, if he created the universe and us and regularly seems to perform miracles, we should expect to see evidence of this all the time. And we don't. So perhaps I should have been specific in that the agnostic principle rejects the existence of the Abrahamic Gods.[/quote]

[BountyHunterSAx]

@All:

Thanks for the analysis, and particularly for the help in showing me exactly the line where my own personal beliefs and bias start to inform what I take as given - namely that the 'qalb' is capable of sensing some valid external reality. I agree that it's a leap in logic that I made, and that resultantly my argument is invalid.



To Surlethe:

Honestly, I found your analysis the most flesched out without being wordy and easy to follow, so thank you. Further, thanks for acknowledging that I conceded the key-point of my paper, earlier and not insisting that I prove it now that I've already conceded it. If I ever can find some more objective proof to what is still my belief - some way to bridge that leap in logic - then I'll be sure to repost.



To Zuul:

No. I'm saying that the heart (emotions is only really one aspect) provide us access to another sort of information, period. Therefore they should be accepted as a sense.

The heart is a pulmonary muscle, all emotion and intuition and reasoning goes through the brain.

*sigh*. Since I'm withdrawing my main point, I guess it's less meaning ful now, but in the future please read the paper before you say things like this. You are ignoring my addressing of that exact point; where I refute your quip almost entirely. Quoting at me exactly what I'd said in my own paper and ignoring my choice of using the religious word 'qalb's' nearest English equivalent, can only mean one of three things:

1.) You are being intentionally obtuse, which I don't think you'd do.
2.) You didn't bother to read the paper before responding to my large post (I already know that you didn't read it before posting your bullet-point question list).
3.) You were going for some deeper meaning which quite frankly I don't understand.

Are you serious? I do know the heart exists, though you're right to say that I assume it has access to sensing a separate world - and that that IS a leap in logic. However, the way I've defined the heart; as that which makes you 'feel', all the proof I need for its existence is that I experience emotion.

That proves you experience emotion, not that emotion is a legitimate grounding for epistemology.

And I was trying to prove that I am capable of experiencing things with my 'heart'. Where I define heart as I had in my paper. I answered the objection that was made. Simple as that.

I see. So what I ought to do then would be to include a note about how there are other definitions of 'sense' that are limited to physically observable phenomenon, and that I am choosing to re-interpret sense as that which we use to perceive our surroundings.

Sense and interpretation are different things. The subconscious part of your brain perceives things your conscious brain is doing and responds (i.e. interprets) with certain neurotransmitters that gives your conscious brain an emotional experience. That experience is sensed, but the nature of the brain is a load of repeater sensory perceptions; experience and response in a big chain that looks like an ongoing experience to us.

I wasn't talking about interpretation, I was talking about how I interpret sense. That is to say, my take on that which scientists currently term 'sense'. None of this has to do with the physiological basis of my ability to interpret what I see. I believe the operative part of my quote was that I am "choosing to re-interpret sense". As in to expand the definition of sense to include things other than physical stimulus that prompt glandular response. If you re-read the snippet you're responding to in the context of Surlethe's question you'll see that.

True, but irrelevant.
1.) To me He is perceptible (at times more, at times less).

My arse is perceptible at all times. I believe it created the universe halfway through this sentence, complete with apparent age, because it speaks to me in my dreams. Is this a rational statement, according to your epistemology?

For future reference, use the Flying Spaghetti Monster...it's much better developed. The idea that your ass created the universe contradicts what you know to be true of it, so no. Unlike the idea that an invisible unseen force created the universe - of which I know virtually nothing. However, as per my essay, someone who genuinely believed that could very well be rational in his revering his/her own arse. Is not rationality correctly applying logical principles to that which you know to be true? If your qalb has given you information that shows you your arse created the universe mid-sentence, and we ignore the one key-point of the essay that I cannot prove and thus conceeded by saying that the heart is a valid source of external information, then you would indeed be rational to follow up on those facts. Though if you try to convince anyone else, you'd be exceeding the guidelines of my essay as your proof is purely based on your own personal experience.

Philosophically speaking, science is still a belief system. It makes sense, and is consistent with the majority of people percieve as reality, yes. And by and large I find myself drawn to this belief system, yes. But at the end there are two critical assumptions that cannot be proven:
Repeated identical trials will yield identical results.

How isn't that proven? If it were untrue, science wouldn't have useful results.

Your understanding of useful. Your take on what is meaningful. Your bias towards consensus reality. These may seem like trivial assumptions but they really are not. You find a belief system that churns up zero 'predictions' and 'application to this-life' to be meaningless, yes? Then perhaps you shouldn't be too surprised that you and I disagree over what is and isn't meaningful.

In other words, science requires induction for proof, when that need not always be available. If you drop a hammer in a gravity well, you expect it to go down, and it does. You do this 1000 times, and it still does. You draw a conclusion about why it went down; but that is still a conclusion based on inference.

So?

Nevermind. I won't explain further. If you honestly don't see where there's a leap of logic between saying "something happened in the past' and "that same thing will happen again in the future", then perhaps the philosophical nit-pick I'm going for is too small below you for you to worry about. If you would like me to re-explain this point, then I am, of course, at your disposal.

Normally I wouldn't nit-pick about this, particularly since I feel like that philosophical point of view is sort of pointless, but in the case of my argument it is a necessary point to say that science does not believe in the existence of God yet.

Of course it doesn't. God is superstitious nonsense from an archaic, primitive past. It's best explained through primitive anthropomorphisation of natural events and the desires of the priestly class to control the population, it is a totally absurd idea and indistinguishable from someone just making something up (like my mystical arse), so of course science doesn't believe it exists.

You have a knack for reading what I'm saying, responding with a huge response that doesn't really refute much of it, and then missing the key point that needed objecting to. I said that science doesn't believe (or corroborate, if you prefer) in the existence of God yet. You post a huge paragraph on the fact that science does not believe in the existence of God, and ignore the yet. If you want to actually refute me, try showing me why it is impossible that science will ever coincide with the belief that God exists.
Oh wait, does that sound like a reversal of the burden of proof? It is! {Don't splice this paragraph in a response, pay attention to what comes next, it will explain my actions} After all, I'm only mentioning the possibility that something might happen in the future. I'm hardly using the possibility as a probability, or even a POINT in an argument. In other words, there's nothing to refute here. .. . . so why did you bother?

"Huxley states ...that for those forms and types of knowledge for which no demonstrable facts exist in support or in opposition, we MUST assign all such matters to the third category of the unknown, and if we cannot even conceive of a demonstrable fact which might prove the matter one way or the other, then that knowledge is clearly unknowable, at least so far as our present understanding of the matter can go."

This hardly shows that god 'does not exist'. It rather explicitly shows that "we do not know if God exists". I could revise the paper to say that Modern Science doesn't know if God exists, yes, but that sounds more arrogant than saying they don't believe in it, particularly to a religious group of people.

It justifies unbelief, however. It's entirely logical to conclude gods don't exist, the fact it is unfalsifiable doesn't change that at all. In fact, the total unknowability of something means it's entirely improper to suppose it as a realistic explanation because you can't know of it. If you can't know it, it is inherently illogical to propose.

Hmm, interesting. I refuse to try and argue this point with you for the same reason as the inference argument from earlier. If you want me to argue or concede this point, then let's first argue out the point on inference, as it will probably resolve this argument naturally.

If something is indistinguishable from a delusion, why should you consider it a rational conclusion?

Because being rational, in my worldview, is being logical and following that which you know to its logical conclusions. It is somewhat the opposite of being emotional or impulsive where you let other concerns cloud your rational judgment.

Secondly, to directly answer your question, I believe divinity cares about my actions because He told me he does.

Prove it.

No problem. To prove it, I can present you with evidence that I served as the Outreach Chair for the George Washington University MSA for 3 years. I can tell you that I have studied Tajweed and Tartil under more than five different teachers, that I have memorized the last 2 juz of the Qur'an, and that I led the Tarawih prayer at my university for half of Ramadan. Now, I ask you, why would I do that if I didn't believe that divinity cares about my actions?

And you ask me for proof that I believe He told me so? That's even easier, read the Qur'an. There are plenty of examples of where he talks of the day of judgment, and how each of our actions will be weighed and judged.


Oh - I'm sorry - you do know the context where I said that, don't you? I was answering the question why I *believed* that. Not why YOU should believe it, or why everyone should believe it. Hell, I don't think I've EVER said that objectively everyone can be convinced of Islam.

Not sure I follow the question, to be honest. You lost me at checks and balances.

Objective analysis uses other people to cross examine things independently. If your original conviction was incorrect, it should be picked up using other people's analyses. If it was correct, their results are more likely to correspond to yours. If you believe in the existence of something outside your own mind without going through empirical observation, your belief is unjustified.

Ah, I disagree, in which case. Of course, you'll find that neither of us can prove our points of view since Hume's law says you cant come to an 'ought to' or 'should' conclusion without having an 'ought to' or 'should' premise. In other words, you'll NEVER be able to convince me that I ought not to believe something that I believe to be true which has yet to be shown wrong.

"And Allah knows best."

Yeah, that's why the muslim world is such a nice place to live if you're gay, a woman or atheistic.

Fuck you.




"And Allah knows best"

-AHMAD

[Surlethe]

Honestly, I found your analysis the most flesched out without being wordy and easy to follow, so thank you. Further, thanks for acknowledging that I conceded the key-point of my paper, earlier and not insisting that I prove it now that I've already conceded it. If I ever can find some more objective proof to what is still my belief - some way to bridge that leap in logic - then I'll be sure to repost.

Glad I could help. If you find a new argument or more evidence, let me know.

[Darth Wong]

It seems to me that his viewpoint is pretty widely accepted among the general population, even if it makes no sense at all. You can pretty much condense the biggest problem with his reasoning down to the fact that a rational person accepts the possibility that he is in error, and so looks for outside verification of his own perceptions. That's why a rational person does not treat a hallucination, vision, or voice in his head the same way a credulous religious person does.

The first question a credulous religious person asks upon hearing a voice in his head is: "what does this mean for me and my beliefs?" The first question a rational person asks upon hearing a voice in his head is: "what's wrong with me, since nobody else is hearing this?"