h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey Noggin

I did a google search and some reading about Euthyphro's dilemna. The first website was actually from by a group called "Christian Ambassadors" and it was surprisingly extremely good and well reasoned (up until the very end). The also mentioned that Bertand Russell had re-framed the question, and several others as well.

It seemed that (to summarize) the dilemma came down if God is Good, that Good is something that came before God. And then where did Good come from? If Good is defined as what God orders, then God isn't good - God is a being who arbitrarily defines what is good, but has no compass by which to be guided him/herself.

One attempt to resolve this involved saying God is inherently Good. The problem with this is that saying God is Good (which is does several places in the bible) then becomes the equivalent to saying God is God, or Good is Good.

They ultimately ended the article by talking about how since "moral intuition" exists, therefore god exists, and basically modifiying the previous argument slightly. Kind of a weak ending to a strong article.

The thing about intuition. I learned about "chemical" intuition when I was an undergrad. One of the first things I learned in graduate school was that there was no such thing. You have to use theory and extrapolation from previous results to make predictions. So when they invoked "moral" intuition in the article I threw it right out.


But overall, what did strike me was a similarity between the above argument and mathematics. Especially getting into what is "good"? Mathematics relies on axioms, which are statements that are accepted without proof. Without axioms, you get nowhere in mathematics. And Godel proved that there is never going to be one unique set of axioms which will be sufficient for all of mathematics. So it seems that why should morality/religion be any different? I think if you "believe" in (or posit/hypothesize the existence of) right or wrong, you need, at some level, some axioms. You have to accept those without proof. Maybe if you're being religious, you're axiom is the existence of God=Good, or Good, then God, or God then Good. Maybe if you're an atheist, you start somewhere else.

But anyway, I don't see how morality/religion should expect to get by without axioms, if mathematics can't. I guess the real trick would be to somehow "prove" that you need axioms. Or maybe even better would be to recast the whole thing as a mathematics problem, show it as a branch of mathematics, and then just applying exisitng math techniques to the problem.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me in the right direction! It really opened my eyes and gave me some great reading. I'm going to have to check out Bertrand Russell now.

DeAlVEr

Hi Dealer

You spotted the fundamental problem that ED encapsulates. A lot of religious types seem unable to grasp the point.

The argument "moral intuition exists, therefore God exists" is indeed a weak one, since it excludes without explanation any other sources for moral intuition (or indeed any other sort of intuition).

I do think intuition exists, but I think it comes from deep familiarity with the subject matter, and that its results need to be confirmed by other methods before being accepted as valid (of course in real time decision making there may not be time for this, but this is one reason people don't only think about things when faced with decisions.)

Although the "mathematisation" of moral discourse is probably theoretically possible, it's dubious that everyone would accept an identical axiom set, and the problem might turn out to be noncomputable:

Noggin

Hi Guys!



When things are simple, and a reasonable amount of information is available, I think that's true. When information is sparse, we enter the realms of outright speculation. This, I think, is 'intuition', based on a myriad of details, most of which we could not list or describe if our lives depended on it.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

<>

Which is why I think "intuition" is a kind of 'pattern recognition system' whose offerings are likely to be improved by familiarity with the subject matter.

One horn of ED is that what things that are "good" have in common, their pattern, is that they are instructions from God. If they have no other pattern then they are, in fact, arbitrary - the very thing that moral absolutists are trying to avoid.

Noggin

<"intuition" is a kind of 'pattern recognition system' whose offerings are likely to be improved by familiarity with the subject matter>

Why yes, but aren't you just saying that if we can make more information available, our predictions will become more accurate?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Probably

Noggin

Sorry, I forgot to reply. I read your posts immediately, and then started thinking, but kept forgetting to post any of it. Anyway...

In my experience in physics/chemistry, I've learned to be more cautious and circumspect, and to try to not use "intuition" as much as possible. I get data, try to come up with every possible explanation, and then get more data that will eliminate some of those explanations. I've seen intuition fail so many times. It's not just that I personally have bad intuition - I've discussed science problems with many people, we've speculated about potential outcomes, and most or all of us are usually wrong. That's right - all. Doesn't seem possible, but nature finds a way

Really, it's why we do "re-search" and not just a "search". If we had any reasonable way of predicting, we would just be systematically searching for the information we needed that was already basically available. But we have to repeatedly cover the same ground and go down the wrong path, because we can't make predictions.

As soon as I stop hogging the computer, Noggin will be back to reply to you Dealer. A week or so ago the internet connection on his laptop went *phhhttttt* so he isn't online as much as before. Just so you know any delay isn't from lack of interest - he is quite enjoying this thread.


az

sorry to hear about the laptop. When I realized I hadn't posted to this thread, I said "oh sh*t!" because I'd been thinking about it, and didn't want it to die. Anyway, this thread takes some pondering for me, so I'm in no rush

I´m hoping to be back online on Monday or Tuesday if the new router arrives as promised <fingerscrossed)

I don't think there's actually a clear divide between intuition and more consciously logical modes of thought. The deliverances of intuition still have to be tested as far as possible, and scientific/philosophical/mathematical intuitions still have to be cast into a logical form if they are to be communicated to others, and data are still part of the input.

Also, I think that the role of intuition varies depending on the subject matter. Mathematics is a good case in point. The truths of mathematics cannot be discovered empirically. They *do* have to be tested according to the rules of mathematics and are subject to peer review, but the thought processes of individual mathematicians are often intuitive.

Same goes in philosophy. Is my journal entry "Boundaries" a formal deduction or an intuition (I think essentially the latter). The physical sciences probably have a different mix.

Noggin

On a probably unrelated topic - do you know anything about "information theory"? I don't, but wish I did. If you do, can you point me towards any good books?

I presume that question was prompted by the conversation about genetic information on the evolutionists are not christians thread?

The answer is "not really". I know it started as an engineering problem about the reliability of informtion transfer, and has since ramified into areas like chaos theory, but that's about my limit. I picked GN up on it because it's obvious he doesn't understand it either.

Noggin

yeah, exactly, I initially just hit reply over on the other thread, but then figured I can be more sensible than that.

What I know about it is basically from reading the fictional book "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson - so it could all be garbage for all I know. It seems like a field that is getting increasingly important for everything (physics, chemistry in addition to bio), not to mention the more "direct" applications in computers, communications, etc.

With respect to GN, evolution, etc. it's critical there, and getting confused about information vs. entropy seems to be a major point where creationists fail - but it's one that is so complicated, it's hard understand and explain. I understand the entropy part well enough, but when the discussion branches off into information content, complexity theory...I'm a goner. Anyway, I'll poke around in the library and the course catalogs and see what I can come up with.

Dealer

What most (all?) Creationists misunderstand is the notion of order as it applies to the development of the universe. The problem isn't really one of technical knowledge (good thing too as I don't have much), but of basic concepts, which need to be pitched at an understandable level. But if there's a psychological block, you're f****d.

Noggin

yeah, there's no way around the "it's a lie because God says so" argument.

This is turning into the me picking your brain forum - I hope you don't mind. I've now, randomly, run across "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus". I've only read a humorous description of it, and a one-paragraph serious description. When I read it had to do with meta-physics, I figured I should go straight to the source. Can you give me the short and long of it?

Just spotted this (must hve just missed it last night), but az and I are just off shopping, so I'll get back to you later.

Noggin

You can find an online copy here.

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/psychology/wittgenstein/tractatus.shtml

I haven't actually read it as such myself, to be honest, (though I may go and do so now) just dipped into it, and seen it referenced in other works.

At first Wittgenstein thought he had solved all the problems of philosophy (he was a relatively young man when he wrote it), and gave up philosophy for about ten years or so, before becoming interested in philosophy of language.

The tractatus, as far as I can tell, is largely about the relation of logic to thought, and both of these to our experience of the world.

It's not an easy book to read, because Wittgenstein's style is to say no more than the minimum, forcing the reader to stop and think about each proposition.

I'd recommend reading a small amount and seeing what you make of it.

Noggin

Nice to see someone else understands my point about energy being "an abstract conserved quantity."

I think it's a first.

Noggin

I tried to work through a classical mechanics book a while back, because I figured it would give me better grounding when I was working on quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, and that's when it really struck me.

I was actually quite relieved to hear you say it - otherwise I would have thought that I was wrong, just hadn't thought it through all the way.

That reminds me, I remember some Professors at college mentioning in passing this sort of thing. THey never went into it in too much detail, b/c they wanted to get on with the "practical" aspects (using it to solve problems). It may actually have been more interesting for them to have digressed...