Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[polymath257]

I exist too. I believe the existence of "myself" is self-authenticating. But even though it is incontrovertible, for another person it may not be incontrovertible insofar as their "opinion" goes. Some may deny it altogether and not even give a hearing to it. This is in spite of the fact that they suppress what is self-evident. I do not say that that is my opinion, though it can be taken as such, but I believe (rightly) that it is the truth.

One has to take into account standards of evidence, and not everyone possesses the same standard of evidence. For someone who rejects things like logic and things that are self-evident, forms of authority and so on, it may be impossible to even begin with the preliminaries of formulating an argument, a justification for beliefs.

Let's go beyond my own existence, how do I believe in other minds (besides my own) at all? There is a consensus among most human beings that there are other minds. We at least act as though there are. But what is the proof of this? At bottom, we only believe it because it is accepted, because others believe it, or due to some kind of existential knowledge. So let's extend that sort of scope of what is evident regarding the divine. I believe, based upon similar common sense, that some kind of Supreme Being or Essence exists, and that knowledge of this being, even only that of a "bare-bones" variety, is natural to our reasoning capacities and personal psyches. I extend my standard of evidence broader than others. And I more than believe, I know, that I am correct and others (atheists) are not, in this regard.

We believe there are other minds because we see other people moving around, talking, and acting in ways that show they have minds. They act in complicated ways that show the existence of internal states and motivations involving planning and long-term goals. That is the evidence for other minds.

What evidence can you provide that there is a divine? What do you see, hear, touch, feel, or taste that provides evidence for the existence of a divine that is *anywhere* comparable to the above evidence for other minds? You claim it is based on 'common sense', but common sense dictates that we should limit our claims of existence to those things that have obsevable evidence supporting them.

Humans are quite prone to any number of illusions and illogical leaps in thinking. That many people 'feel' the existence of a deity is very far from proof of the existence of such a deity *especially* when the claimed properties of such deities conflict on almost every point.

Let's give an example. Suppose you are color blind, for specificity red-green color blind. How could you learn that the claims people make for the difference between red and green is real? Well, you can observe that many people make this claim. That alone is not enough--they could be delusional or simply under some sort of illusory mechanism. But, after looking a bit more, you find that they are *consistent* in their evaluations of red and green. So, one person may claim an apple is red (which you cannot detect). And it then turns out that *other* people will agree that this particular apple is red. Even when there is no communication between the people involved, they will still agree that the apple is red. Similarly for a green apple (which looks identical to you): people who claim to see red and green will be agree between themselves about which are red and which are green even if there is no communication allowed between the people questioned.

On the other hand, when it comes to the divine, there are literally thousands of mutually contradictory claims concerning its nature made by those who claim to see such divinity. pretty much any two people who claim to experience the divine will disagree about most particulars, even if allowed to discuss with each other, let alone if they are prevented from such. Instead of the consistency of red and green, which can be determined even by someone who is color blind, the claims of divinity have almost no consistency at all.

This is strong evidence that the experience of the divine *isn't* an experience of reality, but simply a common malfunction of how the human mind works, like a sort of optical illusion.

This does *not* deny that you have some sort of experience. I believe you do. But it *does* deny that your interpretation of that experience is valid.

[unfogged]

Let's go beyond my own existence, how do I believe in other minds (besides my own) at all? There is a consensus among most human beings that there are other minds. We at least act as though there are. But what is the proof of this?

I accept that there are other minds because I observe them in action every day. There is a consistency in their actions and they produce information that I do not have available to me that can be checked and verified. The empirical evidence that other minds exist is overwhelming and denying it would require postulating something that can produce such an incredibly complex illusion and yet remain itself undetected. I may not be able to prove that impossible but Ockham's razor makes it unreasonable to believe.

At bottom, we only believe it because it is accepted, because others believe it, or due to some kind of existential knowledge.

We accept there are other minds because those other minds believe it? That is nonsense. We believe it because of the evidence and, for this particular claim, out of practical necessity. As a skeptic I don't accept any claim because others accept it and I don't see any evidence for "existential knowledge", whatever that is supposed to mean. It sounds like a way of giving yourself a pass for using faith when you have no justification for your beliefs.

So let's extend that sort of scope of what is evident regarding the divine. I believe, based upon similar common sense, that some kind of Supreme Being or Essence exists, and that knowledge of this being, even only that of a "bare-bones" variety, is natural to our reasoning capacities and personal psyches. I extend my standard of evidence broader than others.

In the case of the divine, there are no consistent results. Among believers the definitions of what they believe vary wildly and there is nothing demonstrable or testable to latch onto in order to even begin to identify what they claim to be sensing. Your standard of evidence isn't broader, it is just much lower.

And I more than believe, I know, that I am correct and others (atheists) are not, in this regard.

What evidence can you provide?
What evidence would change your mind?

[Angrboda]

I exist too. I believe the existence of "myself" is self-authenticating. But even though it is incontrovertible, for another person it may not be incontrovertible insofar as their "opinion" goes. Some may deny it altogether and not even give a hearing to it. This is in spite of the fact that they suppress what is self-evident. I do not say that that is my opinion, though it can be taken as such, but I believe (rightly) that it is the truth.

One has to take into account standards of evidence, and not everyone possesses the same standard of evidence. For someone who rejects things like logic and things that are self-evident, forms of authority and so on, it may be impossible to even begin with the preliminaries of formulating an argument, a justification for beliefs.

Let's go beyond my own existence, how do I believe in other minds (besides my own) at all? There is a consensus among most human beings that there are other minds. We at least act as though there are. But what is the proof of this? At bottom, we only believe it because it is accepted, because others believe it, or due to some kind of existential knowledge. So let's extend that sort of scope of what is evident regarding the divine. I believe, based upon similar common sense, that some kind of Supreme Being or Essence exists, and that knowledge of this being, even only that of a "bare-bones" variety, is natural to our reasoning capacities and personal psyches. I extend my standard of evidence broader than others. And I more than believe, I know, that I am correct and others (atheists) are not, in this regard.

We believe there are other minds because we see other people moving around, talking, and acting in ways that show they have minds. They act in complicated ways that show the existence of internal states and motivations involving planning and long-term goals. That is the evidence for other minds.

What evidence can you provide that there is a divine? What do you see, hear, touch, feel, or taste that provides evidence for the existence of a divine that is *anywhere* comparable to the above evidence for other minds? You claim it is based on 'common sense', but common sense dictates that we should limit our claims of existence to those things that have obsevable evidence supporting them.

Humans are quite prone to any number of illusions and illogical leaps in thinking. That many people 'feel' the existence of a deity is very far from proof of the existence of such a deity *especially* when the claimed properties of such deities conflict on almost every point.

Let's give an example. Suppose you are color blind, for specificity red-green color blind. How could you learn that the claims people make for the difference between red and green is real? Well, you can observe that many people make this claim. That alone is not enough--they could be delusional or simply under some sort of illusory mechanism. But, after looking a bit more, you find that they are *consistent* in their evaluations of red and green. So, one person may claim an apple is red (which you cannot detect). And it then turns out that *other* people will agree that this particular apple is red. Even when there is no communication between the people involved, they will still agree that the apple is red. Similarly for a green apple (which looks identical to you): people who claim to see red and green will be agree between themselves about which are red and which are green even if there is no communication allowed between the people questioned.

On the other hand, when it comes to the divine, there are literally thousands of mutually contradictory claims concerning its nature made by those who claim to see such divinity. pretty much any two people who claim to experience the divine will disagree about most particulars, even if allowed to discuss with each other, let alone if they are prevented from such. Instead of the consistency of red and green, which can be determined even by someone who is color blind, the claims of divinity have almost no consistency at all.

This is strong evidence that the experience of the divine *isn't* an experience of reality, but simply a common malfunction of how the human mind works, like a sort of optical illusion.

This does *not* deny that you have some sort of experience. I believe you do. But it *does* deny that your interpretation of that experience is valid.

One might counter this with Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the neuroscientist, who, having been raised in a black and white world, had never experienced the color red. Presumably, Mary, as a neuroscientist, knows all the factual knowledge there is to know about perception, yet all that knowledge would not inform her about what it means to experience the color red. The implicit argument is that factual knowledge cannot cover all possible knowledge, and that some things can only be known through experience. One might make an observation about consciousness that if we did not possess consciousness and experience it ourselves, then we would probably be unlikely to attribute such a thing to other persons, and the behavior of other people would likely remain a black box, the mechanism behind which we do not understand. It is only through our experience of our own consciousness that we make sense of, and develop a theory about, the behavior of others. (It is true that we have evolved the inference about the behavior of others and their consciousness, but I don't think that alters my point significantly.)

I know that there are various objections to Jackson's argument, but both the objections as well as the original argument seem inconclusive to me. YMMV.

My observations about the reliability of inductive inference and reason that I posted in another thread are relevant here as well, so I'll repaste them here for convenience.

This is similar to the question of how we can trust inductive reasoning. Logically, we can't. Take the black swan problem. For a long time, Europeans presumed that all swans were white because they had not encountered a black swan up until that point. Their sample of possible swans only included white ones. But that did not prevent the existence of black swans outside of the sample of swans they possessed. We may know the contents of the sample we are aware of, but that tells us nothing about the total size of the pool of possible instances that our inductive inference is about, so we have no basis for estimating that the next sample will be consistent with the characteristics of the current sample. Thus you cannot justify using inductive inference on purely logical or a priori grounds. Yet all the same it has been a useful tool because such inferences have proven to be generally reliable. As one philosopher put it, inductive inference cannot be justified, but it can be validated, through use and experience. Inductive inference will not reliably work in all possible worlds that we may find ourselves in, but in the actual worlds that we do find ourselves in, because of the general homogeneity of phenomenon, it proves itself to be a useful and reliable tool through its use and track record. I might point out that depending upon the reliability of inductive inference itself in this way leads to yet another inductive inference, namely that of whether inductive inference itself will continue to be reliable, but perhaps that may be justifiable upon a priori principles, whereas inductive inference in general cannot be (I have an idea or two based upon Ramsey theory, but it may not pan out; it may just be a paradox). In a similar way, perhaps the reliability of evolved brains cannot be justified based upon a priori reasoning, though I would follow Gae's suggestion and say that we mean something other than infallibility by "reliable" here, something which may be demonstrable. Even if not, even if we cannot justify the reliability of our brains and reasoning through a priori reasoning, a bit of a paradox itself, we can nonetheless validate that it has and likely will continue to be reliable based upon experience. If validation rather than justification is good enough, and if inductive inference on the whole can be put on a firm footing by the method outlined above, then we don't need logical justification for our belief at all. To use a time honored truism, "The proof is in the pudding."

This is one tack by which one can approach the question. I have another which I may explore, depending. Regardless, it seems something of a paradox to even ask the question, as in order to prove that reasoning is reliable, we have to first assume that our reasoning is reliable, or else we never get off the ground. This reminds me of an obsefvation I made recently that all systems of knowledge and belief start with assumptions and build from there. The reliability of reason is similar. We cannot justify our reliance upon reason, but no other system can justify its base assumptions either. So in that regard, it is no better and no worse than any contrary belief. And so it seems while our belief in the effectiveness of our reason cannot be justified any better than its contrary belief, its justification is certainly no worse than that of its contrary. We must just assume that our reason is reliable and work from there. There is no good alternative.

[Dmitry1983]

What is evolutionary purpose of subjective experience? P-zombies would be just as good at survival as conscious humans. Can atheists explain that?

[The Grand Nudger]

The moment that you introduce them...you're going to have to establish that we aren't them, before it can become anyone else's problem. Then, ofc, there are issues with the notion that some non-conscious thing would act exactly like a conscious thing. Beyond that, it's no more or less problematic to atheists than it would be to christians or believers of any other stripe. If pzombies are just as good as humans at doing what we do, why did the great fairy make us conscious? It may even be more problematic for believers..since evolution doesn't operate on any "whys" whatsoever. Evolutionary biology isn't some force that makes rational decisions or plans things out for purpose. It throws barrels upon barrels of darts at the wall and a few stick.

Evolutionarily speaking, there's no hard set issue with something arising as a byproduct of some other thing which does have advantages. That second thing may then become a selective pressure..but even if it doesn't, so long as it's existence is entailed by the first thing, which continues to be so....we would expect that the latter would also persist as a consequence of the first.

[polymath257]

What is evolutionary purpose of subjective experience? P-zombies would be just as good at survival as conscious humans. Can atheists explain that?

I don't think that p-zombies are a coherent concept. Anything physically identical to something having subjective experiences will also have subjective experiences. 

In the evolutionary framework, I see subjective experiences as being inevitable spandrels when the level of complexity of information processing gets to be enough to model ones own internal state.

[Dmitry1983]

What is evolutionary purpose of subjective experience? P-zombies would be just as good at survival as conscious humans. Can atheists explain that?

I don't think that p-zombies are a coherent concept. Anything physically identical to something having subjective experiences will also have subjective experiences. 

In near future robots will have behavior that is identical to humans without having consciousness. Subjective experience seems to be unnecessary.

[The Grand Nudger]

That may be so, but that won't make them physically identical to humans..so it doesn't speak to Polys comment. Still unsure why you think this is a problem for atheists. Unnecessary things exist. Suppose that consciousness actually was unnecessary (I doubt that you believe this, yourself, so you'll have to do so hypothetically) well...so what? What would that have to do with gods?

[polymath257]

We believe there are other minds because we see other people moving around, talking, and acting in ways that show they have minds. They act in complicated ways that show the existence of internal states and motivations involving planning and long-term goals. That is the evidence for other minds.

What evidence can you provide that there is a divine? What do you see, hear, touch, feel, or taste that provides evidence for the existence of a divine that is *anywhere* comparable to the above evidence for other minds? You claim it is based on 'common sense', but common sense dictates that we should limit our claims of existence to those things that have obsevable evidence supporting them.

Humans are quite prone to any number of illusions and illogical leaps in thinking. That many people 'feel' the existence of a deity is very far from proof of the existence of such a deity *especially* when the claimed properties of such deities conflict on almost every point.

Let's give an example. Suppose you are color blind, for specificity red-green color blind. How could you learn that the claims people make for the difference between red and green is real? Well, you can observe that many people make this claim. That alone is not enough--they could be delusional or simply under some sort of illusory mechanism. But, after looking a bit more, you find that they are *consistent* in their evaluations of red and green. So, one person may claim an apple is red (which you cannot detect). And it then turns out that *other* people will agree that this particular apple is red. Even when there is no communication between the people involved, they will still agree that the apple is red. Similarly for a green apple (which looks identical to you): people who claim to see red and green will be agree between themselves about which are red and which are green even if there is no communication allowed between the people questioned.

On the other hand, when it comes to the divine, there are literally thousands of mutually contradictory claims concerning its nature made by those who claim to see such divinity. pretty much any two people who claim to experience the divine will disagree about most particulars, even if allowed to discuss with each other, let alone if they are prevented from such. Instead of the consistency of red and green, which can be determined even by someone who is color blind, the claims of divinity have almost no consistency at all.

This is strong evidence that the experience of the divine *isn't* an experience of reality, but simply a common malfunction of how the human mind works, like a sort of optical illusion.

This does *not* deny that you have some sort of experience. I believe you do. But it *does* deny that your interpretation of that experience is valid.

One might counter this with Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the neuroscientist, who, having been raised in a black and white world, had never experienced the color red.  Presumably, Mary, as a neuroscientist, knows all the factual knowledge there is to know about perception, yet all that knowledge would not inform her about what it means to experience the color red.  The implicit argument is that factual knowledge cannot cover all possible knowledge, and that some things can only be known through experience.  One might make an observation about consciousness that if we did not possess consciousness and experience it ourselves, then we would probably be unlikely to attribute such a thing to other persons, and the behavior of other people would likely remain a black box, the mechanism behind which we do not understand.  It is only through our experience of our own consciousness that we make sense of, and develop a theory about, the behavior of others.  (It is true that we have evolved the inference about the behavior of others and their consciousness, but I don't think that alters my point significantly.)  

I know that there are various objections to Jackson's argument, but both the objections as well as the original argument seem inconclusive to me.  YMMV.

My observations about the reliability of inductive inference and reason that I posted in another thread are relevant here as well, so I'll repaste them here for convenience.

Well, it seems that the behavior of people *is* a black box. We just give that black box a name: consciousness. I strongly disagree that this is the only way to make sense of the behavior of others: we can collect and categorize information about their behavior and, yes, use induction to determine likely future behaviors. In that process, it becomes clear that a good model will include an ability to model internal states, which is the essence of self-consciousness. It will also include the ability to interpret and base behavior on data acquired from the senses, which is the essence of consciousness in general.
Here's a question: have you ever wondered if you are a p-zombie? How would you tell? Perhaps *other* people are 'really conscious', but you actually are not? That what you think you experience isn't really consciousness but rather p-consciousness?
There have been times where the claims of people thinking there is a 'hard' problem of consciousness are so fart outside of my experiences I wonder if they experience something very different than what I do and that, maybe, I really am a p-zombie.
But then, they then claim that noone could actually think themselves as a p-zombie,.....

---

I don't think that p-zombies are a coherent concept. Anything physically identical to something having subjective experiences will also have subjective experiences. 

In near future robots will have behavior that is identical to humans without having consciousness. Subjective experience seems to be unnecessary.

Why would you think they would fail to have consciousness if they behave identically? I would argue the exact opposite: when they begin to behave identically, they have achieved consciousness.

[Dmitry1983]

In near future robots will have behavior that is identical to humans without having consciousness. Subjective experience seems to be unnecessary.

Why would you think they would fail to have consciousness if they behave identically? I would argue the exact opposite: when they begin to behave identically, they have achieved consciousness.

Identical behavior doesn't mean identical subjective experience. If subjective experience is created by brain then it is likely that programmers will have to code additional layer of software that is responcible for artificial subjective experience in robots.