army1987 comments on Philosophical Landmines - Less Wrong

84 [deleted] 08 February 2013 09:22PM

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Comment author: loup-vaillant 12 February 2013 11:20:13AM *  0 points [-]

I can't assign any remarkable property to the number you came up with, not even the fact that I came up with it myself earlier (I didn't). So of course I'm not surprised that you came up with it.

Our universe, on the other hand, supports sentient life. That's quite a remarkable property, which presumably spans only a tiny fraction of all "possible universes" (whatever that means). Then, under the assumption our universe is the only one, and was created randomly, then we're incredibly lucky to exist at all. So, there is a good deal of improbability to explain. And God just sounds perfect.

Worse, I actually think God is a pretty good explanation until you know about evolution. And Newton, to hint at the universality of simple laws of physics. And probably more, since we still don't know for instance how intelligence and conciousness actually work —though we do have strong hints. And multiverses, and anthropic reasoning and…

Alas, those are long-winded arguments. I think the outside view is more accessible: technology accomplishes more and more impressive miracles, and it doesn't run on God (it's all about mechanisms, not phlebotinum). But I don't feel this is the strongest argument, and I wouldn't try to present it as knock down.

Now, if I actually argue with a theist, I won't start by those. First, I'll try to agree on something. Most likely, non-contradiction and excluded middle. Either there is a God, or there is none, and either way, one of us is mistaken. If we can't agree with even that (happens with some agnostics), I just give up. (No, wait, I don't.)

Comment author: [deleted] 13 February 2013 03:43:57PM 5 points [-]

Either there is a God, or there is none, and either way, one of us is mistaken. 

Or the two of you mean different things by "a God", or even by "there is".

Comment author: loup-vaillant 13 February 2013 10:17:36PM *  0 points [-]

First things first.

  1. Make sure everyone accept the non-contradiction principle and mark the ones that don't as "beyond therapy" (or patiently explain that "truth" business to them).
  2. Make sure everyone use the same definitions for the subject at hand.

My limited experience tells me that most theists will readily accept point one, believing that there is a God, and I'm mistaken to believe otherwise. I praise them for their coherence, then move on to what we actually mean by "God" and such.

EDIT: I may need to be more explicit: I think the non-contradiction principle is more fundamental than the possible existence of a God, and as such should be settled first. Settling the definition for any particular question always come second. It only seems to come first in most discussions because the non-contradiction principle is generally common knowledge.

Also, I do accept there is a good chance the theist and I do not put the same meanings under the same words. It's just simpler to assume we do when using them as an example for discussing non-contradiction: we don't need to use the actual meanings yet. (Well, with one exception: I assume "there is a God" and "there is no God" are mutually contradictory for any reasonable meaning we could possibly put behind those words.)