(h/t to Monica Harmsen, our former President and current Historian. Sign reads "It's easy to be an atheist when you don't think about where everything (including God) came from.")
The pamphlet that I was handed has, amongst its 40 (40!) footnotes, an explanation of the fallacy of infinite regress that I will quote (stretched across 2 footnotes):
"Positing (infinite) prior dependencies to account for subsequent ones is not the solution: it is the problem. Fn. 11 [so, going off of footnote 11, which reads...] E.g. no matter how many dominos you add to a line or group, they will never "fall" by themselves because every faller is completely dependent upon its prior. That's why dominos only fall when some outside force makes it happen. All the more so with domino existence. See also Tyson & Goldsmith Origins pg. 44 [link], Vilenkin pg. 204 [no link to page, but some discussion and Amazon has notes for p. 204], Scientific American pg. 50 (inset) [link], F. Collins The Language of God 2006 pg. 54-67 [no suitable link]. Plus, using various interpretations of quantum mechanics and/or special/general relativity and/or singularity theories (no mass = no thing) to ignore that and/or negate the fallacy of infinite dependent regress and the necessities of source/production is a composition fallacy, category mistake, and a red herring. (Craig pgs 150-156)."I don't know why the Scientific American article is referenced. Best guess is that the inset says "Expansion probably accelerated early in cosmic history as well, erasing almost all traces of the preexisting universe, including whatever transpired at the big bang itself," and thus that's just like arguing that the universe had an infinite prior universes. It's not clear that was the intent behind the statement though. The reference to Tyson and Goldsmith is just for a quote of them off-handedly positing that there might be multiverses or that the universe popped into existence from nothing we could see.
The important thing here is that it's being claimed that asserting there is an infinite number of explanatory events is inherently fallacious – in particular this preacher asserted that it's a "vicious infinite regress," which I can only satisfactorily define as a regression that posits new explanations to account for a cause, explanations that themselves require explanations. There are two main points to be made here:
Self-referential sequences
Let's say that I know a mathematical rule is true for the number 1; I can also show that if it is true for some natural number n, then it is true for the successor n + 1. Thus, since 1 satisfies the rule, so does 2 (n + 1 when n = 1), and then 3, and then 4, so on. Each number suffices the next. This is mathematical induction, and is in a sense a form of infinite regress.
This analogy isn't quite complete; it's more like infinite progress, not infinite regress. Each satisfactory number implies the next, but what we're actually trying to better understand is a cause/effect chain in reality, where it is not knowing the cause that allows us to presume the effect, but rather that knowing the effect allows us to presume the cause.
Induction is a form of self-referential thinking, and we can use that type of thinking to come up with a much better analogy: take for example the Fibonacci sequence, which goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, so on, with each number being the sum of the two prior. We are often satisfied with starting with zero, but if I was to ask "what are the first 3 numbers in the sequence that satisfies N = M + L, where M and L are the immediate and secondary predecessors, and we know 5, 8, 13 are in order in that sequence?"
Why would you say (0, 1, 1), aside from an a priori assumption that the Fibonacci sequence is the only sequence that satisfies that condition? In fact, that the sequence even has a beginning? We know we can count forward – we can count backward too: 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 0, 1, -1, 2, -3, 5, -8, 13, -21, etc. Negative numbers are not part of the Fibonacci sequence, BUT they do satisfy the sequence's element predictor. So I can say that the sequence isn't started by (0, 1, 1), but by (-21, 13, -8). I would be completely correct. I would be completely correct too to say that it has no beginning.
Let's put this in terms of cause and effect: given an event and given that an event implies a specific cause, that cause also being an event, there follows an infinite series of causes. The only way this statement is false or void is if there is a conceptual change in how cause and effect work anywhere along the chain (take, for instance, the beginning of the universe and thus the beginning of time), or if an event does not at all predict a specific cause. If I cannot say for certain that there was a particular cause for an event, then the universe is ultimately non-deterministic and we would, so it seems to me, inadvertently solve our question of whether or not there's a specific deity; and if the chain is broken because we can't demonstrate a possible way of knowing how cause extends past a certain point in time, we run into my second point:
Limits on observation: we can guess but we cannot know
In the case of the universe we have a very fundamental problem: we cannot actually observe to the point of the Big Bang, nor model before it nor arbitrarily close to it. There is a horizon past which we have no way to determine whether or not there could be an infinite regress; regress is a proposition, but not demonstrated.
Take our lovely domino analogy. We can see back 100 dominos – what was before then? Well maybe it's God; maybe it's another domino, maybe it's a billion dominos, maybe it's a volcano that knocked one over and a domino that initiated the volcano before that, or maybe it's just turtles all the way down or dominos all the way back.
Back to Fibonacci: if I had no conception of negative numbers (this was, in fact, something that persisted for some time until they were invented by the Chinese maybe some ~2200 years ago), I would not be able to conceive past zero, and thus would not be able to tell you that a possible start to the sequence I talked about before is (-21, 13, -8). My conceptual horizon, hopefully easily understood as analogous to an observational horizon, does NOT imply that the sequence is bounded on the lower end.
If the elements in a sequence can be deterministically and mechanistically tied to each other, then not only does our lack of ability to observe a definitive start compel us to have infinite regression as an open possibility, it makes it a logically self-consistent one, and a rather appealing one in that it doesn't require an outside explanation.
And you simply won't find people who say that there is definitively a multiverse, or that there are definitively an infinite vacua in which universes form (this seems to be what Vilenkin talks about), or that the universe for sure arose out of nothing. I would be gravely mistaken to call myself even an amateur on these subjects, but if I may: these ideas are hypotheses that mechanistically describe how one universe leads to another, or more, and are internally consistent with concepts we understand in cosmology. They are still being explored; most will probably never be experimentally verified. But the infinite regress some of them rely on is nothing more than self-referntial. We do not require some new unexplained mechanism, which would cause the regress to be "vicious" and thus unsatisfactory.
God?
I would tentatively say, right now writing this on my own without other people to bounce ideas off of, that a general deity is not any more or less out of the question than the above-listed hypotheses. Again, we have limits on our observation, so we cannot actually say if there was a "first cause" and what that might be if there even was one. We must say we do not know (at least, I'll say that as a non expert).
An infinite regress of events is not itself a logical contradiction, and so you are right in saying that such a construction can form a self-consistent hypothesis. However, I'm dubious that an infinite regression best explains the universe. From what I can find on google, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem shows that in most models of an inflationary universe, there is necessarily a finite past (although, interestingly enough, the first several pages of google results only contain references to this theorem as cited by Christian apologists, or in atheistic responses to apologists. The theorem itself doesn't even have a wikipedia page). I would rather say that an absolute beginning to the universe justifies God no more than any other hypothesis. We need to look at additional evidence to decide whether or not God exists.
ReplyDeleteIn the quote by Craig:
ReplyDelete"Plus, using various interpretations of quantum mechanics and/or special/general relativity and/or singularity theories (no mass = no thing) to ignore that and/or negate the fallacy of infinite dependent regress and the necessities of source/production is a composition fallacy, category mistake, and a red herring. (Craig pgs 150-156)."
An explanation of God as a "mind" or a "person" is also a category mistake: minds and persons are complex, worldy things that cannot be ripped out of their evolutionary context and taken as metaphysical primitives.
If you ever talked to a theologian like William Lane Craig, I'm sure he would insist that infinite regression is not a logical contradiction, but instead a metaphysical absurdity.
ReplyDeleteMetaphysics is hard to define. It at least has something to do with categories of being and causation. A tentative distinction that we can make is that metaphysics is known through experience, whereas logic is a priori. Craig would insist that certain things are "metaphysically impossible," even if they are not logically impossible. If you are wondering what that is supposed to mean, that's a very good question. I would guess that Craig would define a metaphysical impossibility as "something which contradicts what we know from our most fundamental experiences of the world." Craig considers the statement "everything which has a beginning has a cause" to be such fundamental metaphysical truth. He also thinks that an infinite regression of causation falls into the category of intuitive nonsense (he tries to give various explanations for this, some of which I covered in my post about the Kalam Cosmological Argument). Unfortunately for Craig, theories like quantum physics and relativity also contradict our fundamental experiences. Quantum physics shows that our notion of a billiard-ball-like "particle" is not in fact actualized in matter. Relativity shows that time itself depends on the observer, contrary to our deepest intuitions from everyday experience.
It is worth noting that Craig assumes the A-theory of time when he argues that infinite regress of time is absurd. The A-theory states that the present moment is uniquely real, and that the future "does not exist" in some strong sense ontological sense. He uses the A-theory to derive what he deems to be absurdities. (For example, his "actual vs potential" infinite arguments). Although as we discussed in my Philosophy of Religion class, his arguments are dubious at best. And I am of the opinion that the A-theory is hopelessly flawed.
I'm attempting to talk like a philosophy major, although it is worth noting that my understanding of the above subjects is mostly limited to internet searches and personal deductions.
ReplyDeleteIt's not clear to me that causality even makes sense when you start to approach the Big Bang. The concept of the line of dominos is quite inadequate to explain a more fundamental issue with the idea of infinite regress of causality: the question of "what came before the Big Bang" or "what caused the Big Bang" may not be unanswerable, but simply nonsensical; the idea of time before time should at least make us do a double take.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am the guy with the sign. Thank you for taking the time to read it/my handout and respond to it. It seems, however that the main point may have been overlooked - dependency (not causality). I posit that any and all events within a series of dependent material events are dependent upon their priors. As such, no series of dependent material events can produce itself, even if you appeal to infinity (a material one (since that is what we are attempting to account for), not a numerical one) because the problem of dependency is never overcome by the addition of priors within that system. Instead, every added prior simply extends rather than solves this dependency problem. That's why no matter how many dominos you have they never fall (not to mention exist) unless some outside force makes it happen. So, given that the cosmos, from sub atomic to multiverse, is a series of dependent material events, the cosmos could not have produced itself. Here some divert focus to 'time' (e.g., Hawking ) "Asking what was before the Big Bang is like asking what is south of the South Pole." An intriguing word picture, but it artificially ducks the production issue. Details about that and God on my web page: Proof-of-God.org.
ReplyDeleteDoug
Hi Doug, thanks for the comment! I rarely check through the comments on our posts because we get so few viewers, but let me see if I can briefly respond to yours (several months after the fact):
DeleteDependency does not itself seem to be a problem, as my self-referential example should at least illustrate. That there is another event that "caused" the next doesn't solicit a never-ending "an what caused that?" chain, unless each new explanation is ad-hoc itself. We could view a system as a closed Markov chain, and that would not require a "first event" even though each state determines the next probabilistically.
I'll have to read up more on cosmological models that do not follow single-direction entropy flow, I do believe some exist. This is something that another author here (Jon White) is more familiar with, so pardon another wait for a follow-up!
Yesterday I talked with Douglas for about 4 hours outside the San Diego Pride Festival, so I think I have a fair idea where he’s coming from. Douglas has been spending his retirement years visiting college campuses and promoting his 13- (or more) step proof for the existence of God. The problem of “infinite regress” came up in the context of his idea that material events are “dependent” on “priors”, which is how I came across this blog via Google. (Go Blue!)
ReplyDeleteIf you are willing to be patient with Douglas, you can eventually get a handle on the nature of his proof, which is his own variant of the cosmological argument - a type of proof by induction (he dislikes the comparison). On closer examination, he concedes that his framework is merely a set of propositions *consistent with his Christian beliefs, but is not an actual proof. I asked him several times to explain his “dependency of material events on priors” and we traded examples, but he conceded that it is a fuzzy step in his argument, being similar to Aristotle’s material cause or formal cause - take your pick. Proofs by induction are very clever things in math, but are seldom extendible to the natural world, to cosmology, or to quantum physics.
Some quibbles. There is no such thing as “a quanta”, and *it does not have a location, which seems to be a necessary step to the scope of his argument. A word used in one discipline may have a different meaning when used in another. You may believe that quoting the bible strengthens your proof, but it will not take the listener far unless you already believe the bible is a literally true and unimpeachable source of evidence. If your audience becomes “emotional" or “hostile” as your proof eventually arrives to coincide with your Christian beliefs, it may not be because they are fearful and resisting Repentance of Sin, but may quite possibly be for other reasons you have not considered thus far. Perhaps if he had finished his graduate program, he would have been mentored that the number of footnotes does not by itself strengthen an argument - and the quality of sources matters, as does their thoughtful application. Nor does the number of campuses he has visited, or the number of physics professors he has accosted outside classrooms. If you sincerely want to pressure-test your argument, then ask (politely) for feedback from scholars in the field who are familiar with the ins and outs of the cosmological argument, not from the low-hanging fruit of passers-by and visiting prospective students.
Something I found fascinating was Douglas’s lack of curiosity of any emotional dimension of what he was saying, and this will be familiar to those who know people who are good with abstract propositions but not with reading faces or detecting irony. It may be that his puzzlement over reactions to his driven line of argument is genuine, but I think if you spend your days traveling to college campuses, standing with provocative signs, then it would be disingenuous to act surprised that some people will react negatively or with indifference. If you stand in front of a gay pride festival with an admittedly half-baked argument that requires several minutes to explain, you are indeed drawing the foul, and it does no good to pretend to be a victim, or to demand equal time to respond. Festival-goers were heckling because they are getting in line to celebrate, not because the “gays aren’t interested in having a serious discussion” with you. If you are genuinely believe that two women posing and kissing will lead to a physical assault on your person, then perhaps you need a more non-confrontational way to fill your retirement years.
Nevertheless, negative attention is still attention, and it was visually apparent that initiating shouting matches was something that filled a deep need in his soul for validation. He was, for a moment, grinning.
http://www.advocate.com/pride/2015/07/21/photos-san-diego-pride#slide-1
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/2mwoma/need_help_on_a_physicsphilosophy_question/
ReplyDeletehttp://reasontogether.org/Past_Topics_11.html
ReplyDeleteAttention seeking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avep_1vbUOA
ReplyDeleteContrary to what some claim, thousands of people in many of the best universities in the US have told me that the infinite dependent material regress argument presented in my handout is sound. When some want more explanation (beyond dialogue) I refer them to my website "proof-of-god.org", especially to the end notes in the "science and logic" section. These seem to satisfy virtually all comers. If anyone on this page wants to look at that, and respond to it I will be happy to reply. It may be, however, that such will never satisfy certain agendized trolls, would be psychoanalysts, and false accusing ad hominists. I'll take a pass on that.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice day. :) Doug
Doug:
DeleteFirst, to follow up on my previous comment, there are some infinite models that comport with a low-entropy "start" to our universe, like Carroll and Chen's model:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0505037.pdf
But to your points:
"Contrary to what some claim, thousands of people in many of the best universities in the US have told me"
I am very skeptical of the claim that you have spoken to "thousands" of people on this issue. I have no doubt for instance that you have spoken to thousands of people in your preaching, but when it comes to professors of philosophy for instance, I think everyone here (myself is included in that) would appreciate if you could name one for me, and maybe I will send along an email to this person to interview them myself.
"I refer them to my website "proof-of-god.org""
Your endnote X, which deals with the infinite regress fallacy, does not really present any new information that your pamphlet didn't already include, from what I can tell anyway. The dominoes analogy illustrates dependency of events, but it doesn't actually demonstrate a problem with infinite time. I think that you've not responded to what I said about closed Markov chain systems, neither here nor in your page. Nor do I think are we being helped here by an insistence that we stick to this very classical idea of causality.
Doug conceded people are often frustrated that he focuses only on his own line of reasoning or the meaning of a word he selects. The reason for this, he said, was his training in analytical philosophy. Based on hours of first-hand observation, I think the reason is much simpler. Doug concluded his posts with denying self-aggrandizement, endorsements, donations - questions that were not raised. And yet by again linking back to his own site and pointing out the very video I had just referred to as “Attention seeking,” I think I've hit the mark pretty well.
DeleteAlexander,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your 8/25/15 post. I hope to be able to respond to it sometime this weekend.
Doug
Alexander,
ReplyDeleteSorry, but it looks like I won't be able to respond to your 8/25 until next weekend.
Doug
Hey Doug, no problem. Thanks for the heads up!
DeleteAlexander, sorry I had to split this into three posts due to length
ReplyDeleteIf I understand you correctly, you accept ‘classical’ causation all the way back to the Big Bang, but not ‘before’, because (relativity and quantum mechanics show?) there was no time before the Big Bang (e.g. Hawking). Well, that model of time ignores the main event - what produced the bang in the first place - and is operationally rejected by cyclical and multiverse cosmologies. Would you say that these cosmologies are (also) classical? Well, either way, these cosmologies don’t solve the production problem either, because they don’t account for what produced them. So, ‘where’ did everything ultimately come from? According to cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bb_whatpowered.htm, “No one knows."
Nevertheless, we can do naturalistic thought experiments. It could be that the overall cosmos came from nothing, but that is contradicted by all evidence. Or it could be that it is always existed, but that is contradicted by the second law of thermodynamics (in a closed system, the entire cosmos) and the fallacy of infinite dependent material regress (IDMR). However, some doubt that IDMR is a fallacy.
E.g., on 9/17/13 you said: Take our lovely domino analogy. We can see back 100 dominos – what was before then? Well maybe it's God; maybe it's another domino, maybe it's a billion dominos, maybe it's a volcano that knocked one over and a domino that initiated the volcano before that, or maybe it's just turtles all the way down or dominos all the way back. Well, I am sorry, but that is simply a (rather flippant) dismissal – not a rebuttal - which fails to engage the issue. On 8/25/15 you said: The dominoes analogy illustrates dependency of events, but it doesn't actually demonstrate a problem with infinite time. Well, if you think so, why not say how? E.g., perhaps you could say, specifically, what kind of material change could occur in a series of material events somewhere between a billion dominoes and infinite dominos and/or infinite time that could actually solve the material regress dependency problem (end note x)? If not, then giving infinity a pass on production is no more warranted than the false pass given to ‘pre’ bang on production. Both commit the fallacy of special pleading by ignoring the above principles and functionality.
Your 9/25/15 referenced a Carroll/Chen paper seems to suggest they have a form of infinite dependent material regress that is not fallacious? Well, I don’t see it. The paper says that because we can’t see or easily travel to other universes we are stuck with the one we can see – ours, and have to accept the conditions that we see. [Whether they do not consider other universes due to practicality, or they think other universes do not exist is not clear.] The paper makes no clear reference that I can see to an infinite past, but rather our universe started/inflated from a field of low entropy, which they take to be the “natural state of our universe.” So, if I understand them correctly [The paper says that and surrounding issues are “not precisely defined.”], the existence of our universe was dependent upon the prior existence of its own natural low entropy state. Humm. Moreoever, it is not clear to me whether they think this low entropy state has always/infinitely existed. If they do, perhaps that is what your reference to infinity in their paper is based on(?), but it is not explicit in the paper. Nor does it directly address infinite dependent material regress (IDMR). As such, it does not/cannot legitimately say whether or not IDMR is a fallacy.
see next post
Either way, theirs is an interesting proposition, given that the paper endorses the 2nd law of thermodynamics, where useful energy within a closed system depletes to zero over time. Given such, that energy cannot have always/infinitely existed and was/is therefore dependent upon outside prior(s), which they do not explain [the paper’s ambiguity on (being open to) other universes is not helpful here]. Therefore, just like every other naturalistic cosmogony, theirs does not ultimately explain ‘where’ everything ‘came from’. (An interesting article on a related topic, by David Albert, Professor of Physics and Philosophy at Columbia, in the New York Times Book Review of Lawrence Krause A Universe from Nothing, March 23, 2012.)
ReplyDeleteIn your limits on observation section you say that dependent regress is (merely?) a proposition, not demonstrated. Well, regress may be ‘just’ a proposition in linguistics, but, as noted above, in the material universe dependent regress is demonstrated everywhere - even with, e.g. classically uncaused virtual particles, whose momentary existence is nevertheless regressively dependent upon the prior existence of a vacuum. So, what grounds do you have to delete dependent regress ‘before’ our bang, especially since every non singular bang cosmogonist necessarily keeps it?
Now, some try to ‘defallicize’ infinite dependent material regress through mathematics. In your 9/17/13 “self referential” section you seem to say that the addition of numbers is a form of infinite regress. Well, with matter, regress refers to backwards (dependency on priors) rather than forwards, no? In your next paragraph you then refer to infinite progress, from which you say you can presume the cause of the effect. Presume? What exactly does that mean? Sorry, but that and the rest of that section seems incoherent to me.
Fibonacci sequences may be interesting with numbers, but perhaps you could explain to me how what you cited has any relevance to the serial production of matter, using the (unjustifiably dismissed) domino example.
see next post
Markov chains. I am assuming by that you mean something like (from Wikipedia):
ReplyDeletea random process that undergoes transitions from one state to another on a state space. It must possess a property that is usually characterized as "memorylessness": the probability distribution of the next state depends only on the current state and not on the sequence of events that preceded it. This specific kind of "memorylessness" is called the Markov property….
This too is interesting. But again, back to actual material stuff, e.g., dominos. Are you suggesting that the movement of dominos in a line (not to mention their very existence) is not dependent upon prior(s), and that we can just forget about it? Well, please correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t see how the stochastic distribution of already existing stuff (not numbers) has anything to do with how that stuff got produced in the first place.
In my tract and website (end note x) I provide and document reasons why an infinite mathematical regress and an infinite dependent material regress are different, why the former is logically possible, but the latter is not. Namely, unlike IDMR, ‘numbers’ are not serially dependent on their ‘priors’ in the way that a material regress is, so they can go on infinitely in all directions. Plus, numbers/equations have no materially productive power. I invite those who doubt that to write down their favorite numbers or equations on a piece of paper and wait until they produce something. :) Some will argue that, hey, equations put man on the moon. Not so fast. Equations (hopefully accurately) describe how nature behaves, and it was man using that description/understanding of nature’s behavior and materially acting upon it that put man on the moon.
There is an interesting article in the Jan. 19, 2012 Atlantic by Tim Maudlin, Professor of Philosophy at NYU, on problems confusing mathematics with nature.
God? A good and honest section, except that, how many, if any, non God explanations are sound?
I respect your skepticism of my claim that I’ve debated thousands of atheists, and that many of them are persuaded by my argument. Can I prove any of that to you? Probably not. Nevertheless, my claim is true. For the past 12 years I’ve been doing the above at my own expense at many of the best universities in the country – from Stanford to Harvard. I do not seek my own aggrandizement, I do not solicit endorsements, I do not accept donations, and I do not film myself. (Though you can see a youtube of me at UC Berkeley taken by others (linked at the bottom of the “miracles” section of my tract: proof-of-god.org)).
:) Doug
Alexander,
DeleteYesterday i came across the following review of your above mentioned Carroll/Chen paper:
arXiv.org>physics>arXiv:1309.4976
What do you think?
Thanks,
Doug
Alexander,
DeleteI just came across another one:
Entropy 2012, 14(3), 390-406; doi:10.3390/e14030390
Doug
Alexander,
DeleteInteresting article in NATURE ("Defending the Integrity of Physics), Dec 16, 2014 on the above issues and infinite regress.
Doug
Alexander cited the Carroll & Chen paper as an example of "some infinite models that comport with a low-entropy ’start’ to our universe.” Doug responded, “Carroll/Chen paper seems to suggest they have a form of infinite dependent material regress that is not fallacious? Well, I don’t see it.” He also complains “Nor does it directly address infinite dependent material regress (IDMR). As such, it does not/cannot legitimately say whether or not IDMR is a fallacy.” My reading of the paper is the “small nonzero vacuum energy” discussed on page 3 undermines premise (1) of IDMR, but perhaps Doug’s physics is on the thin side to recognize this. Doug dispenses with the paper by responding to a different question. And of course the paper did not directly address IDMR because it is Doug’s own invented term.
ReplyDeleteDoug’s endnote [x] begins “Whether caused, uncaused, determined, random, chaos, etc. all of nature from micro to macro, is dependent upon its priors.” I’ve been asking him for a definition of “prior” (as a noun), and what it means to be “dependent” on a prior. His recent post clarifies that "classically uncaused virtual particles” are dependent on the “prior” of a vacuum. Doug’s argument hinges on the distinction between non-material, mathematical regress (often true in theory) and material regress (may be a fallacy). The problem is by expanding his argument around modern physics to account for virtual particles and their “dependency" on a vacuum (or the location of a vacuum), the scope of “priors” becomes so broad that we are no longer talking about material regress. If a vacuum counts as a prior, and any thing doesn’t have to be caused (or even uncaused) to be “dependent" a prior, then IDMR is no longer necessarily a fallacy, and the “proof of god" falls apart. As with all cosmological arguments, you cannot force something into existence by fiddling with definitions. When you are already certain by your belief and the bible that you are right, your arguments don't have to be rigorous and you don’t have to take the time to respond seriously to substantive objections. Doug's endgame of getting atheists to hear about the gospel is never in doubt (Heb 4:12, Rom 10:17, Phil 1:15-18, so heed James 3:1).
DeleteAlexander asked Doug for the barest evidence to reality-test whether “thousands of people in many of the best universities in the US have told me [the IDMR argument] in my handout is sound.” Doug shifts this to “I’ve debated thousands of atheists, and that many of them are persuaded by my argument.” In an email, he wrote me “Over the last 12 years I have used the handout in literally thousands of individual and group discussions and/or debates with atheists (including professors of physics and philosophy) in many of the best universities throughout the country.” “After debating with a woman for 30 minutes in front of the philosophy dept at Princeton, she told me, "This is the most sophisticated argument for the existence of God I have ever seen. It is better than anything that is taught at Princeton." And a man at Stanford philosophy told me pretty much the same thing, then asked me how to accept Jesus.” No doubt Doug treasures these moments, but since the validity of his argument keeps returning to these thousands, let him give the names of five professors (not adjuncts, not lecturers) of philosophy or physics at top 100 schools (by US News). Alexander or I will contact them separately and report their accounts of their interactions with Doug. Perhaps he can start with Sean Carroll, who is now at Cal Tech and a short drive away.
ReplyDeleteDouglas is now flailing, because the Nature opinion piece had nothing to do with infinite regress: it argued the standard of experimental falsifiability in science should not be lowered. The piece can be read here: http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-defend-the-integrity-of-physics-1.16535 . Just because the piece disagrees with Sean Carroll on one issue does not mean Carroll's entire work is false (which seems to be the point of bringing up the other two articles, without explaining their relevance or strength). In fact, the Nature piece cautions against using inductive theories to prove something exists - exactly what Doug’s IDMR argument is trying to do. “But conclusions arising logically from mathematics need not apply to the real world. . . . . The idea that preconceived truths about the world can be inferred beyond established facts (inductivism) was overturned by Popper and other twentieth-century philosophers.” And this passage should have stung in particular: “To state that a theory is so good that its existence supplants the need for data and testing in our opinion risks misleading students and the public as to how science should be done and could open the door for pseudoscientists to claim that their ideas meet similar requirements.”
ReplyDeleteI'm just curious if anyone has any new developments on this debate? I've been corresponding via email with Doug, as well as posting his arguments on the Why Won't God Heal Amputees forum. Any relevant papers written? Has anyone contacted any of these alleged people at Harvard or Princeton?
ReplyDeleteAn infinite regress is logically valid concept. An infinite series with no first event. An infinite with no beginning and no end. A unique beginning with no end. A unique beginning with a unique end. An infinite with no beginning with a unique end. The concept of God is with no beginning and no end. The Christian concept of the incarnation of the Son of God has no beginning as God but an end of being only God in having a beginning as a man. A change for being the Son of God in becoming also human. These are all valid concepts. Believing them are another matter.
ReplyDelete