God, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Neo-Scholastic

Belecqua and I were focusing on the category error of comparing material things within the universe to immaterial things that transcend the universe

Since it is not readily apparent that the Tooth Fairy and Santa are not ‘immaterial things that transcend the Universe’, it seems that you would need to demonstrate that they are before the comparison under discussion can be declared a category error. I think such a demonstration would be extraordinarily difficult, however.

I’m perfectly happy to agree that comparing God to a suitcase, a tree, or a plate of underdone veal is such an error, if that helps.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So's the USPS.

The gifts that were supposed to arrive in SC on Friday arrived today.  They were guaranteed two day delivery...that's what I paid for...last Tuesday.

geez...

Now if I would just get the stamps I ordered - from the fucking post office - they were supposed to be here last Thursday.  

What a way to run an operation.

Here’s something for you - I can get a package to my family in NI (11 000 miles) faster than my wife can get one to her bestie in Invercargill (1200 miles).

Boru

[LadyForCamus]

@Neo-Scholastic

I don’t think (and this is just me) that the objection is a claim: “it is impossible for immaterial things to exist.” I don’t really have a concrete objection to the possibility that things exist in reality beyond our ability to investigate. What I’m looking for is some justification, or way to show the the proposition “immaterial things/god can exist and do/does exist” is likely true. To be fair, that is the claim. How can that be done if god is exempt from the rules of methodological naturalism? How can it be shown that god is real in a way that is more substantive than a metaphysical guess or pre-supposition? You mentioned “Beauty.” I’d be interested in hearing more about that. I’d also be interested in hearing more about why you think the PSR justifies belief in god.

@Belaqua With regard to numbers; and please, keep in mind I’m a layman and a shitty mathematician who failed almost every math class I ever took, so take my opinion with a grain of salt; perhaps it is true that numbers exist on their own in an abstract, conceptual way, but only as tools to make sense of the material world. Would “2” still exist absent any minds to conceive of it? Would it exist absent a material world? If aliens came to earth tomorrow and asked us to explain the meaning of two, what would be the clearest way to do that? “Here’s a rock. Here’s another rock. Two rocks.” Numbers seem to me to be inextricably bound to a physical reality. Now, if I understand it correctly, the platonic god is described similarly; transcendent yet inextricably bound to, or woven into the physical reality. But how can that be shown? Simply pointing to the universe and declaring “god!” is insufficient, at least to my personal standard of credulity. How can theists be sure they’re doing anything more than simply guessing or pre-supposing without justification?



By the way, if I’m asking questions someone’s already answered in painstaking detail, I apologize in advance. Bun in the oven is killing me with sickness and fatigue, and I’m not at my best at the moment.

[The Grand Nudger]

All swirling the drain, as no god believer is content with a god that lacks the one defining attribute of materiality.

Interaction. Whatever theistic gods are made of, they interact..and in fact they must interact with this world - or they fail to be what they are purported to be. Doesnt matter what the stuff is, or what kind of stuff it is, or whether it's a different kind of stuff than every other kind of stuff, or what we call it. Let's go with unobservium. Unobservium, the thing that gods are made of, interacts with material. It's interaction is itself contended to explain the material.

Such a contention makes no distinction between any kinds of stuff, in reality. All natural things are godstuff themselves. The retreat to immateriality and the hiddeness of god is an argument of convenience, not a genuinely held theistic belief. Ask any of them here and they'll tell you, for example, that they -do- see god when they explore the world using the principles of methodological naturalism. That the divine is not immune to scientific inquiry at all, but glorified by it.

[polymath257]

Well, sure. Numbers exist in the brain. In the brain, they occur as electrochemical events among synapses. These have extension, but it's pretty small. There are thousands of synapses in every voxel of an fMRI scan.

So OK: numbers are synaptic events.

Now if we look at a piece of paper, if there are numbers on that paper, there must be synaptic events on the paper, since we've established that numbers are synaptic events. But strictly speaking, paper doesn't have synapses. The numbers on the paper are something else. Some of them are only a couple of millimeters tall, but I've seen billboards with numbers two meters tall. 

So now we have two types of numbers which are completely ontologically different. Synaptic events and printed symbols. And even the symbols can differ, since two can be shown as 2 or 二 or 弐 depending on culture and context. 

And then we have the abacus, which has neither synaptic events nor printed symbols. So it appears that there are all kinds of numbers in the world. And each of these has materiality and extension. 

Frankly, I think none of these things we're talking about are numbers. They are symbols which refer to numbers. We have developed a variety of useful ways to symbolize and refer to numbers. 

Now if all the numbers we use in daily life are symbols or referents, to what exactly are they referring? Perhaps the REAL number two is kept in a vault in Zurich. What is it made of? Is it heavy? Could Lupin III steal it?

No, I'm sorry, I think that's all silly. We use material symbols for convenience when talking about numbers, but numbers themselves have no materiality, no extension, and no location. They are immaterially real.

This is the general problem of abstractions. Numbers are abstractions: ways we pattern our thinking that allow us to deal with more than particulars.

Here is an analogy: does the game of chess exist? if so, where? In what way? Is it 'real'? Does it exist independent of human thought?

Was chess invented or discovered? if invented, are chess puzzles invented or discovered? Where do the solutions exist?

I see numbers in essentially the same way. We invented them to help us analyze the world around us, then using the rules  we invented, we discover further properties of these abstract concepts. But, ultimately, they exist only because our minds are functioning.

In your examples, the numbers written on paper have no inherent meaning. it is only in a cultural context that the symbols have any meaning at all. it is our culture and the way we use those symbols that defines what it means to be a number, just like the representation of kings, queens, pawns, etc is what makes something a game of chess.

As another thought: we easily distinguish between the numbers 2 and 3. those are small enough that any ordinary person has an intuition about them. They are distinct numbers. But, for example, are the numbers 19298798273 and 19298798277 really distinct in your mind? Do you have any 'feel' for either of them as an independent entity? I certainly don't.

What those 'numbers' are, for most people, is strings of digits that can be manipulated in various ways. We can add, multiply, and do other operations with those strings. but the 'numbers themselves' are not really imagined as distinct things.

This gets worse when we have numbers whose decimal expansions cannot 'fit' into the real world at all. Something like Graham's number, for example. is it real? does it really exist? Outside of some 'game' of a formal system, I would say not. In the same way 'check in five moves' doesn't really 'exist' outside of our minds. Note that a game of chess need not have 'real' chess pieces nor even images on a computer screen. Those are just ways we keep track and organize our thoughts.

If *this* is what you think God is: an abstraction that really only exists in our minds, then you may have a point. But I suspect most theists don't see it that way.

---

Belecqua and I were focusing on the category error of comparing material things within the universe to immaterial things that transcend the universe, in the same way that it is a category error to ask for the size of an idea. It may very well be that our responses are not landing because we are not properly hearing the objection, not just here but in an adjacent thread about God and Science. I will try to steel man this particular skeptical objection to belief in God as the best I can.

At least part of the problem there is that 'ideas' are processes, not, ultimately, things. They are localized to brains, but like 'velocity' or 'momentum', they don't have extension because they are not the physical things themselves, but properties and processes in those physical things. So, yes, you wouldn't ask for the size of momentum either or of cell division.

One problem is the focus on 'material'. Is light material? Are neutrinos? How about Higg's bosons? ALL of these are certainly *physical*, but I tend to imagine 'material' as being limited to those things made out of atoms (or, more generously, fermions). There are many physical things that are not 'material' in this sense.

Whereas Belacqua and I are saying it is irrational compare immaterial things with material things, the competing claim is that there are no things that are immaterial to begin with. If God were real then He would have physical effects because everything real is material. As such if there are no credible examples of God’s material affect, then God seems, at best, like an “unnecessary hypothesis”. So main challenge is something like, “Give me an example something immaterial.”

No. My ultimate view is that everything supervenes on the physical.  That is rather different than saying everything is physical or even material. Ideas, for example, happen in minds hat operate in brains (whether or not software is a reasonable metaphor). If you could know the *complete* physical situation, you would also be able to determine the ideas someone is thinking.

But does that objection apply to the fundamental claim of the theist? The theistic claim is that God is a common feature of all material reality. Not just parts of reality; the whole of reality. God is the reason material reality even exists.  As such, it seems irrational to binary sort the material universe into “god” and “not god” piles. (Christology deals with this apparent paradox but obviously is well beyond the scope of this discussion.)

OK, that is a big claim. First show that there is *some* 'common feature' of all of reality. Then show that it isn't an abuse of language to call that commonality God.

You don't get to define things into existence. Even the claim that there is a commonality to all of existence is something that needs to be demonstrated *with evidence*. Without said evidence, it is a claim and nothing more. And, that claim has no more coherence or reason to believe it than claims about the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

In reply though, I would offer a counter challenge to the idea that everything is material. Show me anything that is material. What do you really know about matter? Things are solid? Apparently, their mostly empty space. And then when you get right down to it, it seems fundamental reality can be credibly described as “structured nothingness”. In truth, idealism remains a credible metaphysical option.

Which is one reason I prefer the term 'physical' as opposed to 'material'. There *is* a difference between 'mostly empty space' and 'actually empty space'. And that difference is crucial. And no, idealism isn't credible simply because the nuclei of atoms are small and electrons are pointlike.

IMHO a complete picture of reality not only describes its contents but also accounts for our ability to make sense of it. I believe the universe is intelligible because reason transcends physical universe. For example, imagine there was some truly irrational anomaly in the universe, perhaps some effect that defied the very laws of known physics. Would we restrict our reasoning to known physics? No.  More than likely, we would expand our notions of what is possible in physics to discover the larger reality. I am not saying then expand and use god to explain the anomaly. No. The point is this: Reason must be valid. And that warrants giving primacy to mind rather than to matter, or at least taking it seriously.

Exactly: we would expand our concept of 'physical' to encompass any new phenomena we observe. That is ultimately why the term 'non-physical' is incoherent. Anything we can observe and make sense of is, BY DEFINITION, physical.

Now, sure, a theologian might be referring to the Ground of Being but the faithful pray to Jesus. Again, Christology is complex…and there is a point. The central claim Christianity is Jesus crucified and risen from the dead. But that’s another discussion, for another day.

Not even going to attempt to make sense of the logos and neo-platonism.

[Belacqua]

How can theists be sure they’re doing anything more than simply guessing or pre-supposing without justification?

Nobody should be sure. People who say they're sure are just telling you they don't understand the problem. 

Polymath does a good job of laying out one view of the issue. The last line of his post shows that he's not going to try to understand the main historical counter view. Nudger doesn't know what he's talking about. 

I apologize, but I'm not in a position at this moment to tackle this, which I'm sure you see is a huge problem. 

The Stanford Encyclopedia, as always, gives a good and serious introduction to the problems. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

I'm impressed by your personal news, and I'm wishing you only the best during what must be a joyous and also stressful time. Please take good care of yourself, and feel free to jettison all discussion of metaphysics when other concerns take precedence. We will certainly understand!

[Neo-Scholastic]

But does that objection apply to the fundamental claim of the theist? The theistic claim is that God is a common feature of all material reality. Not just parts of reality; the whole of reality. God is the reason material reality even exists.  As such, it seems irrational to binary sort the material universe into “god” and “not god” piles. (Christology deals with this apparent paradox but obviously is well beyond the scope of this discussion.)

OK, that is a big claim. First show that there is *some* 'common feature' of all of reality. Then show that it isn't an abuse of language to call that commonality God.

One common feature is being.

[polymath257]

OK, that is a big claim. First show that there is *some* 'common feature' of all of reality. Then show that it isn't an abuse of language to call that commonality God.

One common feature is being.

Yes, things that exist, exist.

So 'God' is 'existence'. Why use two words then? Why get bent out of shape about the 'transcendence' of God?

Existence is.

Done. Nothing else to say.

[The Architect Of Fate]

One common feature is being.

Yes, things that exist, exist.

So 'God' is 'existence'. Why use two words then? Why get bent out of shape about the 'transcendence' of God?

Existence is.

Done. Nothing else to say.

Theists engaging in definitional parasitism

[polymath257]

How can theists be sure they’re doing anything more than simply guessing or pre-supposing without justification?

Nobody should be sure. People who say they're sure are just telling you they don't understand the problem. 

Polymath does a good job of laying out one view of the issue. The last line of his post shows that he's not going to try to understand the main historical counter view. Nudger doesn't know what he's talking about. 

I apologize, but I'm not in a position at this moment to tackle this, which I'm sure you see is a huge problem. 

The Stanford Encyclopedia, as always, gives a good and serious introduction to the problems. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

I'm impressed by your personal news, and I'm wishing you only the best during what must be a joyous and also stressful time. Please take good care of yourself, and feel free to jettison all discussion of metaphysics when other concerns take precedence. We will certainly understand!

Oh, I am familiar with Neo-Platonism. I just consider Platonism in general to be a massive philosophical mistake.