Perhaps you can help advance my education. The question is open to anyone familiar with the work of one or more leading atheist thinker/writers.
As you’ve seen, I’m obsessed with the question of whether reason is qualified to address infinite scale type questions. By that I mean, questions such as what does or doesn’t lie at the heart of all reality etc.
I’ve had these conversations many times over a period of years on a number of forums. To the best of my memory, atheist posters seem unprepared for a challenge to the authority of reason. My sample size is small, so perhaps this is too sweeping a conclusion?
This has me wondering if leading atheist writers such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins address this question at all. Do they first provide evidence that reason is qualified to address these questions, and then proceed from there? Or do they simply assume the authority of reason, and thus not bother to demonstrate it?
I’m hoping they do lay the foundation before attempting to build the house, as I’d be interested in their arguments.
On the other hand, if the leading writers in this field assume reason is qualified, and don’t feel the need to explore and demonstrate it, that would be quite interesting too.
I don’t claim to know the answer here. If you are familiar with the writings of leading atheist thinkers, your insight is appreciated.
The problem with the “authority of reason” which we have been wrapped in the throngs of since the Enlightenment, is that it takes an active creative mind to put together something like the theory of gravity. Think of the immense creativity and imagination it must have taken to go from an apple falling, to explaining gravity.
Reason such as logic and mathematics might just lead down the dead end road of what Thomas Kuhn calls “normal science”. This is where we have a good theory, and we stick with it only working upon it. However, then a creative visionary comes along, like Einstein, and starts “revolutionary science”. Science takes more than one faculty of the mind. This is why art is so important, it helps us defeat what psychologists call “functional fixedness”, where we use one heuristic to solve inappropriate problems, such as using a rake to stir the soup or the soup ladle to rake the leaves.
Notice how these thinkers are dogmatic in their own right, never wavering if they might be wrong, they are functionally “fixed”.
The answer to that is “yes it can”.
I don’t believe in the dichotomy of Theist/Atheist, so I don’t know whether I qualify as a respondent.
I can tell you that most, if not all atheist profundants today have laid the foundation of their paradigm on the notion that “if it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist”. That is actually an epistemology issue built into an ontological paradigm.
Thus to the atheist, due largely to Goedel and Plank, the universe must be quantized, discrete, and non-infinite (hence Quantum Physics).
Disassociated mathematics (a type of reasoning) is their “foundation”. They disparately try to claim that all questions have been answered, thus a “foundation”, without ever using the immeasurable entity or word “God”. Since God can neither been seen or measured, “God doesn’t exist”.
I should also mention that Quantum Physics is nothing more than a religion based entirely upon magic (as I have just recently seen) and founded specifically to be rid of Christianity, the “Christian God”. Mathematics is used much as the curtain in a magic show so as to blind the common eye from what is really going on behind the mind.
I’ve been making my argument on this score all over the forum, more or less ad naseum. See the religion section if you missed my manic rant fest.
In this thread I was hoping to better understand the perspectives of leading atheist thinker/writers, whom I’m guessing are the source of much of the atheist writings we see from posters on forums.
For this thread, I don’t care what a poster believes, but with what they might know about the writers I referenced, or similar writers.
Do they explicitly make this case? Or do they just assume it?
Wouldn’t the underlying premise of such an argument be that humans can measure everything? That seems so easy to challenge, do they really make this claim?
English translation available?
I understand that they are using reason as their method, just as a theist would use a holy book or personal experience as their method, ie. chosen authority. I’ve got that part.
My question is, do leading atheist writers attempt to demonstrate the relevance and ability of their chosen authority (reason) to address these questions? Or do they, like most atheist forum posters, simply assume reason is so qualified?
As example, some Christians will reply to every challenge with “But it’s in the Bible!”, as if that settled the matter, because they assume the Bible is the ultimate authority on such matters. They see no need to first demonstrate the Bible is qualified, because to them, it’s self evident and obvious etc.
My intention here is not to debate atheism, which I’ve been doing extensively in many other threads. I’m trying to understand why so many forum posters assume reason is qualified, by following the trail back to thought leaders in the field.
Yes. They state it. Science depends on it of course, which is fine. Science is merely to verify hypotheses. Some things can’t be verify. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist (or not in my book). Just as an example and merely a few hours ago, I had asked a question on another forum concerning Quantum Physics and got the following reply;
When the issue rises as to what happens when it cannot be measured, the reply is that “it doesn’t exist at that moment”. That isn’t strictly an atheist issue. It is more of the Quantum Magic issue.
What do you think “Humanism” is all about?
“If we can’t know about it, it can’t be included in our designs.”
“We can’t be God if we can’t control ALL existence. Thus all existence MUST be maintained as only what we CAN measure.”
But yes, they do claim that there is no limit to what Humanism can know except for what doesn’t exist. Hence the Plank constant determines the ultimate minimum size for reality itself, not merely what can be measured. The Uncertainty Principle (actually already defeated) disallows knowledge of, therefore existence of, specific things (hidden behind the curtain).
I’m sure that not all Atheists believe that story, just as all Christians don’t believe all of the same things. But at the base, the foundation, of Humanism, is the mental game of the Quantum Magi.
They often find themselves trapped by the issue of whether a principle exists, because a principle is not a physical entity. Anything proclaimed to exist that isn’t physical gets them back into the whole “invisible reality” bit. Dawkins got caught by that one in a debate against a Catholic priest.
Emmm… epistemology is the construct of what we choose to be “knowledge”, what terms we are going to think in, the concepts and words we are going to name stuff and declare as distinct stuff from other stuff. Ontology is the final construct of what we decide actually exists based upon what we epistemologically declared as meaningful concepts and constructs.
In short, “we declare that these are the concepts we are going to use to describe reality, and this is that reality using those concepts…”
But only limited reasoning, specifically mathematics. Reasoning must be limited because there is a goal in mind and reasoning cannot be allowed to interfere with the goal.
I think they kind of do both. But they have to leave open the option to proclaim that reason is unreasonable (when convenient). The Christians do that same thing. It is just a different religion is all.
The Atheist version is, “Science has proven” or “Einstein showed us…” or “Heisenberg proved that…”
The Atheists prophets are merely the famed scientists of a few years back. Once a famous scientist has declared something, it is gospel until another one, more authoritarian disputes it. It is just primitive Judaism. Humanism is the second half of the Judist Master/slave paradigm.
Yeah, I got that. But I’m not sure you can get a very valid response even from atheists.
The very idea of trying to substantiate reason itself when reason is required to substantiate it, is a little beyond the ability of Atheists to handle.
The default is to refer to “Scientific evidence” as the support. They don’t see the circular issues involved and how much of modern Science isn’t actual Science at all.
Thank you James. I will now struggle to translate your understandings in to my own language. Please feel free to correct me when I go off track.
So the premise is, if humans can’t measure something, it doesn’t exist? Is that close?
How might they respond to the observation that human beings are immeasurably small in comparison to reality, we were recently living in caves, we can’t manage our own affairs etc? It seems the limitations of human ability are pretty well documented. How do they handle this?
So basically, human reason is declared the ultimate authority, in much the same way a theist might declare the Bible the ultimate authority? I think I get that, but am trying to understand how they make that case, if that is the case they are making.
Yes, this makes sense.
Hmm, the mental game of Quantum Magi?
Well, thoughts have electro-chemical substance, yes? Perhaps “substance” is a tricky word here.
Ok, thank you for the clear language. Pondering in progress…
Start with the conclusion, and then assemble arguments to support that conclusion? Inconvenient arguments discarded?
Perhaps we should be careful not to automatically equate scientists with atheists?
Hmm… I guess I don’t see the difficulty. What is so hard about using reason to explore the limits of reason?
Here’s a concrete example. We gather evidence from many different couples, examine that evidence in a careful objective manner, and then propose that reason was not instrumental in the process of falling in love, and that actually a suspension of reason may be a key component of that experience.
To which Christopher Hitchens might retort… what?
So within theism there are fundamentalist theists who believe absolutely in their chosen authority, and there are theists of a more questioning nature as well. You are referring to a subset of scientists who might be labeled “fundamentalist scientists”?
That’s the idea. And it is actually very close to being accurate. Atheists/Humanists merely haven’t put all of the dots together yet.
There are two general schools of influence aimed at Christians concerning that;
Humans are too small for the entire universe to exist solely for us - the anti-“God created the Heavens and Earth for sake of Man” issue.
Reality is only what your mind chooses for it to be - the somewhat solipsist, relativity notion; “We are our own God”.
I think their issue is that reason is all we have of any significance. The goal is merely to vanquish Christianity. It doesn’t really matter how but using reason is the only thing they can come up with. Unfortunately, they can’t use reasoning any better than the Christians, but the Christians don’t claim to depend on it. The alternative is of course, “Faith”, a evil word to the atheist, despite their blatant faith in the honesty of “Science”, “Humanist social leaders”, and the nature of homosapian (thus needing no morals).
Magic is all about tricking the mind into believing that the source of power is over here, when it is really over there.
Quantum physics is all about tricks of the mind. Thus you get very many threads concerning “Consciousness” even though that issue is, in reality, a trivial concern. Sects within QM claim that consciousness controls the outcome of the experiments; Watch the Second video in this post.
Exactly.
Science is the authority in Humanism (“Scientism”). Christianity has the Bible. Humanists have Science. There has to be an authority to reference when the going gets tough.
Can you use mathematics to prove that mathematics is accurate?
How would you know if you succeeded? Getting a mathematical answer tells you what exactly?
Reasoning is even worse. How do you reason that reasoning is accurate? How would you know if your conclusions (gained from reasoning) were accurate?
To know if something is accurate requires reasoning doesn’t it? If your reasoning is false, then your assessment of accuracy is also off.
Case in point;
“We gather evidence from many different couples, examine that evidence in a careful objective manner”
Now did you use reasoning in that endeavor? How could you not? Which “couples” did you gather information about? What was your reasoning for choosing those? Isn’t it merely reasoning that told you that “love” was involved at all? If your reasoning is off (which to a degree it really is), perhaps you haven’t done any experiment of any worth at all. How would you know what “suspension of reason” really is?
You have to be good at reasoning merely to know if your reasoning is good.
Very, very few people know how to do that.
I haven’t been referring to “scientists”. I have been referring to atheists/Humanists of various types. They use reports from “Science” (which unfortunately isn’t always the real Science. Scientists are another classification not necessarily relevant. Most scientists used to be religious. They are not so freely allowed these days (if they want a job or to be able to publish anyway).
I understand. What I’m trying to get at is less their anti-God arguments, than their pro reason arguments. If they can’t convincingly argue that reason is qualified to address the topic, then none of their other arguments matter. That’s how I see it anyway. The proposed or assumed authority of reason is the foundation of the atheist house, and I’m interested in how this foundation is constructed.
Hmm… Will have to chew on this one, doubt I understand it.
Yes, this is the sense I get as well. Conclusion first, then arguments. But, as I’m trying to disclaim here, my experience is more with general public atheists than the leading writers. I have read a book by Sam Harris, and always tuned in to Christopher Hitchens, hung out on the Dawkins forum until it imploded, but am far from fully familiar with their work.
That’s my guess so far as well. But, I’m trying to keep an open mind, and am assuming there probably are some thinkers who really are loyal to reason itself, not just to their favorite conclusion. Not sure if I’m looking in the right place for them. One of my theories is that those who are well known are folks who have a talent for being well known.
I’ve been trying to propose that faith is an alternative, not the alternative. Perhaps Sam Harris is exploring this territory as well, not sure. By and large I detect a thorough lack of interest in anything that doesn’t involve “knowings”.
It’s possible I won’t make it to quantum physics, though anything could happen I guess.
Perhaps a factor to consider is that the more certain someone is, the louder they often are, while the more thoughtful folks willing to challenge their own assumptions tend to be quieter. If true, this would tend to warp our sample.
Judging from my posting activity about unknowability, it appears I’m more the certain type, an entertaining irony. Apparently, even moderates can be fanatics.
Ok, good example…
Hmm… Imho, two different things often get confused here.
One is the question, can reason know anything? Personally, this is not of interest to me, as it’s clear enough to me that reason is useful for a huge number of tasks.
Second is the question, can reason know everything? This seems just as silly as the idea that reason can know nothing.
So, if one accepts that reason is qualified to know some things, then one of those things might be discovering the boundaries of reason. Or so it goes in my head…
Yes, I did use reason, that’s my point. And it successfully discovered a place where reason is usually not very relevant or useful, falling in love. Are you disputing the conclusion?
Well, that right there would be your problem. You might want to try reading some philosophy, instead of that crap. Off the top of my head, Richard Rorty, and W.K. Clifford would be good places to start for the kind of questions you’re asking, if you want a couple of very different perspectives on reason that are nevertheless skeptical of religion.
— As you’ve seen, I’m obsessed with the question of whether reason is qualified to address infinite scale type questions. By that I mean, questions such as what does or doesn’t lie at the heart of all reality etc.
O- I noticed. The question for me is how do you decide if it is qualified or not? Who is qualified to decide about the capacity or incapacity of reason to decide such matters?
I don’t believe that reason is capable of deciding on such extreme questions but I am aware that this is my opinion on the subject. Secondly I know that this means that for me these questions are unanswerable.
— This has me wondering if leading atheist writers such as Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins address this question at all. Do they first provide evidence that reason is qualified to address these questions, and then proceed from there? Or do they simply assume the authority of reason, and thus not bother to demonstrate it?
O- well, is it a reasonable question? That’s number one. Number two is whether you’re prepared to accept the incapacity of reason. How do you decide such incapacity if not by using your reason. But if it is your reason that has decided, then it is qualified in the very matter it says it isn’t qualified. That is the paradox of the position.
I am doubtful of reason’s capacity, because of certain reasons I have against the questions themselves. I can’t reasonably decide about the ultimate because reason disqualifies the nature and vocabulary in the questions themselves. If it could be asked then reason should be able to decide, but what analysis finds is flaws with the concepts within these ultimate questions. Questions for example about whether we have evidence for god are disqualified, by me, simply because the subject is not a possible object of experience but can only be inferred.
As philosophers have discovered, when looking back at past attempts, metaphysics is very much a turbid, turbulent game. To play the game right one must be damn critical, however, one must also take into account all the problems so that they aren’t leaving anything out, due to biases or witlessness.
One thing I’ve discovered is just how much our first assumptions will determine the method we choose to use, too! The person qualified to “decide” would seem to be the person inclined towards that method. Philosophy though is after all a search for truth though, and not our own petty biases. Therefore, the true philosopher, which has a sense of wonder about the world–I would hope-- would decide to use reason where it seems best applicable, yet also knows the benefits of other methods, too.
A month or two ago I saw a good debate between Richard Dawkins, a Bishop, and an agnostic philosopher, Anthony Kenny who played the moderator. It was good to see each person checking and balancing the other. I would hope the person who is qualified would be comfortable using all methods and really does care for the search after truth. Any objections?
Good question. Personally, I doubt anyone is qualified to decide in a final perfect way, but reasonable theories seem pretty accessible.
To me, the interesting question is…
What is our response if we should conclude these questions are unanswerable? Are we interested enough to continue the inquiry without questions and answers? Which is more important to us, the inquiry, or the experience of questions and answers?
Honestly, I don’t see the paradox.
It seems entirely reasonable that reason is qualified to explore the limits of reason, given that we are examining something with which we have direct experience, human beings. This is a very local question, with observation and data readily available. As example, we can see reason is excellent for building bridges, but not so great at managing the economy.
Whether reason is qualified to address questions about all of reality, an arena we can’t even define, seems a question of an entirely different scale.
Note that you even instinctively include observation. Observation is NOT “reasoning”, but the food for it.
Yes, you must define it first. Your assertion that it cannot be defined was your false reasoning that led to your inability to address the question with reasoning. Although your reasoning is fine as long as you maintain no definition for “Reality”. You can’t define it until you do and thus can’t use reasoning to address it until you do.
Agreed. Almost. Observation is not reasoning, with you on that.
A significant quibble I would add is that observation is not necessarily always the means to some other end.
An assumption underlying these kind of discussions is that observation is a means to conclusions, getting answers to questions etc. By observing this pattern we might conclude that we aren’t actually getting answers to questions at all, despite thousands of years of trying. This raises the question of whether there’s something fundamentally wrong with our underlying assumption.
I like the atheist focus on observing the real world. What if we just stuck with that, and set the whole conclusions, questions and answers business aside?
Not observing as a means to some other end.
Observing, for itself.
I define reality as being something currently beyond our ability to define. You know, for starters, we have no idea even how big it is. I like to keep it simple, am wary of getting too fancy about such things.
Simple-minded observations are great…
…until someone gets clever and causes us to think we see something that isn’t there.
Thinking/reasoning, is to verify the apparent.
Clarify, Verify, Remember…
If we skip the conclusions part, there’s nothing that needs clarifying or verifying. And why remember some old dead observation when we can do a new live one instead?
