God, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy

[LadyForCamus]

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.

Is there a rational alternative to being?

[Ranjr]

I choose Santa.

The Tooth Fairy only shows up for at most 7 teeth.  And she's cheaper than the great aunt who sends a check for 3.50 when you turned 8.  It costs more to keep your teeth than to lose them.  If you're gonna break in my room, Tinkerbell, don't reach under the pillow.  I put the tooth lower this time.  Fuckin tease.

God could give me eternal bliss or agony, but the rules are so impossible, they're a waste of time.  Fuck that prick, I'm gonna party.  Hell ain't shit.  I've been to Shreveport.

Santa always comes through.  He says you have to be more nice than than naughty, but I've done some really bad things.  At first, they were accidental.  But after the presents kept coming, it became a challenge.  He always delivered.  So, go Santa!

[polymath257]

Open-mindedness! Here in the 21st century! This makes me happy.

One good book on this subject is The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart. He is an academic, Eastern Orthodox Christian. This book avoids unreadable jargon and provides an introduction to what you're asking about here. 

I predict it will NOT make you a theist, but it will show how the God = tooth fairy argument is naive. The quote from the Guardian on the Amazon page is accurate, I think:

"Hart marshals powerful historical evidence and philosophical argument to suggest that atheists—if they want to attack the opposition's strongest case—badly need to up their game."—Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Be...filtered=1

Out of a spirit of Christian charity, I suspect Dr. Hart would be OK if you pirated a copy:

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Link removed

OK, I started reading this. I'm only about a third of the way in. I am intrigued by the distinction made between God and the demiurge in this. I suspect that the vast majority of theists would almost violently disagree with this distinction, but such is as it is.

The author makes a number of very basic mistakes early on and continues them. For example, describing matter as 'inert' and 'lifeless' is, at best, problematic since most physical things are *defined* by how they interact (which certainly makes them NOT inert!).

There is also the old trope than physicalism cannot be its own support. That misunderstands the way knowledge is arrived at via the scientific method. Such knowledge is *always* tentative and subject to revision is new evidence points in a different direction. In particular, the hypothesis of physicalism is tested by seeing whether it produces results. And it is unquestionable that it has. That is the basis for its support.

And, to give a particularly atrocious quote:

"All things are subject to time, moreover: they pos-

sess no complete identity in themselves, but are always in the pro-
cess of becoming something else, and hence also in the process
of becoming nothing at all. There is a pure fragility and necessary
incompleteness to any finite thing; nothing has its actuality en-
tirely in itself, fully enjoyed in some impregnable present instant,
but must always receive itself from beyond itself, and then only by
losing itself at the same time. Nothing within the cosmos contains
the ground of its own being. "

This is simply false in the case of fundamental particles, such as electrons, muons, quarks, or neutrinos. They *are*, in fact, a 'complete identity within themselves' and are NOT in the 'process of becoming nothing at all'.

But we should get to a more basic question: what in the world would it even mean to have 'actuality entirely in itself'?? That, to me, seems like a wonderfully meaningless turn of phrase. Things exist. They don't 'have actuality' and in what way do these things not have 'actuality in themselves'? Again, what does that even mean?

And what does a 'ground of its own being' mean? From what I can see, this is a completely empty phrase as well. Among other things, it *assumes* there is a 'ground' (?) of being. That seems to be highly unlikely in any reasonable interpretation.

Anyway, thanks for the book recommendation. I will continue to read it, but I suspect that the biases in it are going to prevent anything close to agreement with its premise. From my perspective, it uses an outmoded metaphysics to arrive at very questionable conclusions.

[Neo-Scholastic]

After first contact and we see that the aliens navigated between the stars with board games then I will admit that mathematical truths can be invented rather than having to be discovered.

[polymath257]

After first contact and we see that the aliens navigated between the stars with board games then I will admit that mathematical truths can be invented rather than having to be discovered.

Do you really expect that aliens will have the same mathematics as us? That the Peano axioms for the natural numbers are universal?  That Euclidean geometry is a priori? Do you really think that they will use the same trigonometric functions that we do? Or have the same set theory or even logic?

I don't. There are simply too many ways to construct math.

Math is, ultimately, a board game. It has rules of deduction (of play) and axioms (starting positions) and gets results from those.

On the other hand, I would suspect that their math and ours would be mutually comprehensible and that they arrive at equivalent laws of physics as we (given equivalent technology).

I would also be very, very surprised if they have anything close to the same metaphysics.

[The Architect Of Fate]

After first contact and we see that the aliens navigated between the stars with board games then I will admit that mathematical truths can be invented rather than having to be discovered.

Why would you assume aliens even use math?

[Neo-Scholastic]

After first contact and we see that the aliens navigated between the stars with board games then I will admit that mathematical truths can be invented rather than having to be discovered.

Do you really expect that aliens will have the same mathematics as us? That the Peano axioms for the natural numbers are universal?  That Euclidean geometry is a priori? Do you really think that they will use the same trigonometric functions that we do? Or have the same set theory or even logic?

I don't. There are simply too many ways to construct math.

Math is, ultimately, a board game. It has rules of deduction (of play) and axioms (starting positions) and gets results from those.

On the other hand, I would suspect that their math and ours would be mutually comprehensible and that they arrive at equivalent laws of physics as we (given equivalent technology).

I would also be very, very surprised if they have anything close to the same metaphysics.

Thank you for putting that in bold because the key issue is in fact an intelligibility that transcends circumstances. If their maths are true, they will be true in the same way ours is and for the same reasons, i. e. In all possible worlds...includeing the alternative physical universes of a speculative multiverse. That is why I do not find your conviction that everything supervenes on the physical persuasive. A universe with different physical laws seems conceivable but not a universe in which true logic systems or maths yield different results. As such, those are metaphysically prior preconditions for a physical universe.

BTW I have to hand it to you for reading Hart. May I ask, because I assume you can see that Hart is a serious and intelligent thinker even if you think he is wrong...do you feel it is right and proper to compare his sincerely held conviction in God with believing in Tooth Fairies?

[The Architect Of Fate]

A heap of assertions 

[polymath257]

Do you really expect that aliens will have the same mathematics as us? That the Peano axioms for the natural numbers are universal?  That Euclidean geometry is a priori? Do you really think that they will use the same trigonometric functions that we do? Or have the same set theory or even logic?

I don't. There are simply too many ways to construct math.

Math is, ultimately, a board game. It has rules of deduction (of play) and axioms (starting positions) and gets results from those.

On the other hand, I would suspect that their math and ours would be mutually comprehensible and that they arrive at equivalent laws of physics as we (given equivalent technology).

I would also be very, very surprised if they have anything close to the same metaphysics.

Thank you for putting that in bold because the key issue is in fact an intelligibility that transcends circumstances. If their maths are true, they will be true in the same way ours is and for the same reasons, i. e. In all possible worlds...includeing the alternative physical universes of a speculative multiverse. That is why I do not find your conviction that everything supervenes on the physical persuasive. A universe with different physical laws seems conceivable but not a universe in which true logic systems or maths yield different results. As such, those are metaphysically prior preconditions for a physical universe.

I can see you haven't done much with the foundations of mathematics, Nor, I would guess of its history.

There *are* in fact different sets of logical axioms (paraconsistent logic, for example) and different mathematics that we know about. Kant made the mistake of thinking geometry to be synthetic a priori just before the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. We know there are many different ways to set up set theory and to 'ground' the natural numbers.

So, no, I do NOT think that there is only one 'reasonable' math and that aliens would be forced to have anything like the same mathematical assumptions that we do.

I am a formalist and not a platonist when it comes to mathematics precisely for this reason. We choose the axioms of math to satisfy our intuitions, but those intuitions are far from being mutually consistent or determinative of a single foundation for math.

BTW I have to hand it to you for reading Hart. May I ask, because I assume you can see that Hart is a serious and intelligent thinker even if you think he is wrong...do you feel it is right and proper to compare his sincerely held conviction in God with believing in Tooth Fairies?

Yes, I do. I think he gives a good argument for equating tooth fairies and a demiurge (would you agree with this?)

But I would go further. His metaphysics is so poor that, if anything, I would consider the evidence for the existence of the tooth fairy far more persuasive. Poor logic and bad ontology doesn't show the existence of anything. He comes across as someone who is trying desperately to believe in the tooth fairy by saying it has the special property of necessary existence.

Arguing for the 'necessary being' seems to me to be trying to define something into existence without any real evidence. Trying to define a 'source of existence' seems to be a category error of the type that you like to accuse others of when arguing that the tooth fairy and God are equivalent. And, frankly. I find the whole 'contingent existence' concept to be a horrid philosophical obfuscation.

But then, I find most of classical metaphysics to be severely lacking. It assumes *way* too much about how things 'must be' without looking at how they actually are (as revealed by quantum mechanics, for example). This is in essence, the same mistake that Aristotle made when saying heavy things much fall faster than light things or that motion requires a force.

I am frankly surprised that a serious modern philosopher still accepts these types of arguments.

[LadyForCamus]

Do you really expect that aliens will have the same mathematics as us? That the Peano axioms for the natural numbers are universal?  That Euclidean geometry is a priori? Do you really think that they will use the same trigonometric functions that we do? Or have the same set theory or even logic?

I don't. There are simply too many ways to construct math.

Math is, ultimately, a board game. It has rules of deduction (of play) and axioms (starting positions) and gets results from those.

On the other hand, I would suspect that their math and ours would be mutually comprehensible and that they arrive at equivalent laws of physics as we (given equivalent technology).

I would also be very, very surprised if they have anything close to the same metaphysics.

Thank you for putting that in bold because the key issue is in fact an intelligibility that transcends circumstances. If their maths are true, they will be true in the same way ours is and for the same reasons.

But only if we share the same physical reality. A universe with different physical laws may necessitate different tools to describe and understand it. Is there a way to show that can’t be a possibility?