Best of all possible worlds and atheism

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@ Orwell

So, I finally got access to a proper computer. I am at Uni today. I took AG's advice and I checked in with the department of Philosophy, though my own Professor was not there (it being Friday afternoon at a University, most people have gone home), I did find a young Dr. He did find tell me that my use of the term 'invalid' to describe a premiss is not common, however, in relation to enthymemes is not unjustified. The fact that it is not common "does not necessarily render my use of it invalid'" (his words).

I also asked him about the use of the evidential argument to justify a logical decisive conclusion. He agreed with me he said using possible worlds to make an evidenital argument using logical possible worlds was 'shooting yourself in the foot' since you can never prove it to be true or false. He also agreed that the evidential argument from evil assumes the failure of the logical one and that to use the evidential to justify the logical was an 'silly mistake'.

Though he gave me a spiel about how the evidential argument is awesome (he is an athiest himself).

Bloody hell you are thick...

OK, one last attempt. You acknowledged that the logical argument was valid, but rejected one of the premises. Now, the remaining question is "Is that premise true or false?" If it is true, then so is the conclusion. If it is false, we know nothing about the conclusion (it is possible for a valid argument to have false premises and a true conclusion, but not the other way around).

The claim of likelihood is ONLY in reference to a specific premise. That is completely kosher. Premises can and should be established by evidence. There is neither any need, nor any attempt, to claim "this is not the best of all possible worlds" as an absolute logical certainty. You are STILL confusing premises and inferences. They are different things; they have different standards. An inductive argument in favor of a premise which is then fed into a deductive argument is definitely allowed. A valid logical inference gives a 100% guarantee when moving from a true premise to a true conclusion. But the premise itself is never 100% certain, except in some areas of formal mathematics where we get to define everything a priori and it has no connection to external reality. The practical implication of this is that, outside of mathematics, logical arguments are actually incapable of giving absolute 100% proof, since the inputs (premises) cannot possibly be that good, and there is ALWAYS some amount of uncertainty in any measurement or observation. However, when the premise is well established to the point where we can feel safe accepting it, then the conclusion follows with equal probability. (Actually, possibly greater probability since it is possible for the premises to be false and the conclusion to still be true)

Take the following argument (which was already given to you by AG, and is a classic example in basic logic):
1) All men are mortal
2) Socrates is a man
3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Now, the criticism you are leveling against AG's argument here is IDENTICAL to someone rejecting the above argument as invalid because there is not sufficient evidence to conclude "All men are mortal." We have no deductive proof for the premise "All men are mortal," but rather we rely on inductive arguments based on evidence to claim that all men are mortal. Rejecting an argument because of the use of induction in establishing the truth of a premise is quite frankly insane. If you want to completely rape logic of all practical applications and turn its use over exclusively to mathematicians, that's fine by me, but by rejecting the legitimacy of inductive arguments to establish the truth of premises you are forfeiting the right to ever invoke logic in any non-axiomatic context.


No, I'm really not. I have a much better mathematics background than you do; I know how logic works. I have a much stronger scientific background than you do; I understand how evidence is used appropriately. And quite honestly, I'm just plain smarter than you. Heck, you STILL have not come out and explicitly stated what your real objection to that premise is, presumably because you aren't able to articulate it clearly. The reason you reject it is because you are operating under a different definition of what would constitute the "best" possible world, one which ultimately ends up being tautological and therefore meaningless.

Given that you have consistently failed to even understand what you are arguing against, I highly doubt that you accurately relayed the disagreement to him.

Given that his wording suggests that he didn't accurately relay the disagreement, I think your high level of doubt is warranted. You see, the major words are "logical decisive conclusion", by which I assume that 91 conveyed that I claimed that this argument disproved God 100%. The fact that the guy believes the problem of evil works means that the guy he asked almost certainly actually agreed with what was actually presented in this thread.

In short, what the wording suggests is that your point was still lost, Orwell. Now, if there were a philosophy professor that would allow us to verify that what was said was an accurate phrasing, then I think this would push us forward.

@Orwell

Take the following argument (which was already given to you by AG, and is a classic example in basic logic):
1) All men are mortal
2) Socrates is a man
3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Now, the criticism you are leveling against AG's argument here is IDENTICAL to someone rejecting the above argument as invalid because there is not sufficient evidence to conclude "All men are mortal." We have no deductive proof for the premise "All men are mortal," but rather we rely on inductive arguments based on evidence to claim that all men are mortal. Rejecting an argument because of the use of induction in establishing the truth of a premise is quite frankly insane. If you want to completely rape logic of all practical applications and turn its use over exclusively to mathematicians, that's fine by me, but by rejecting the legitimacy of inductive arguments to establish the truth of premises you are forfeiting the right to ever invoke logic in any non-axiomatic context.

My response to your comment

You are quite right and also quite wrong. Let's use your example. Look at the first premise.
If I were the truth of the first premise (that all men are mortal) by using an argument that conceded that men can be immortal, this conclusion would be unjustified. No one has ever been silly enough to do this though.

Your statement

Now, the criticism you are leveling against AG's argument here is IDENTICAL to someone rejecting the above argument as invalid because there is not sufficient evidence to conclude "All men are mortal."

Response

I am not doing that, your aim is poor but your vicious attack seriously wounded the empty space where you think I am standing.

You state

No, I'm really not. I have a much better mathematics background than you do; I know how logic works. I have a much stronger scientific background than you do; I understand how evidence is used appropriately. And quite honestly, I'm just plain smarter than you.

Response

You may be a caesar of solid gold, but you have clay feet.

@AG

You state

Given that his wording suggests that he didn't accurately relay the disagreement, I think your high level of doubt is warranted. You see, the major words are "logical decisive conclusion", by which I assume that 91 conveyed that I claimed that this argument disproved God 100%.

Response

No, I did not explain it that way. I explained it telling him your premise (this is not the best of all possible worlds) and then followed it up with your evidential argument from evil. He thought your argument was deeply flawed and self-refuting.

Restate the argument. Restate his rebuttal, that is the grounds on which he claims it is flawed and self-refuting, and restate both in logical form as best you can.

As it stands, I don't believe you stated any of this accurately.

If he doesn't mind, I would like his e-mail address to see his argument on the matter.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 11 Feb 2011, 2:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Guess not.

I PMed you.

You simply do not understand what the premise says, then. The argument is not (and I have told you this a dozen times) that God and any amount of evil are incompatible, but that God and UNJUSTIFIED evil are incompatible. You seem incapable of grasping the distinction.

And even disregarding that, you are still wrong. Any inductive argument than all men are mortal would still be evidence-based and, if pressed, would have to concede to the possibility that men can be immortal. Did you not understand when I told you that no premise is ever 100% certain outside of formal mathematics? Do you have any coherent notion of epistemology?


Yes, you really are. You are attacking the use of an inductive argument to establish the truth of a premise. This is completely mental. To uphold your position, you have to claim that logic is invalid in any field that is not 100% a priori.


91, here is the issue: in ten pages, you have never once succeeded in demonstrating a basic understanding of the argument you are trying to refute. You also have generally failed at communicating your own points, and I have had to reconstruct your arguments from guesswork. There is absolutely no reason to believe that you were able to correctly explain the disagreement to this philosophy professor, and even on the off chance that you did I would be surprised if you were able to understand his response adequately to report back here.

@AG

Sure

Your argument had as one of it's premises 'this is not the best possible world'

I challenged the truth of this premiss. I also mentioned the validity issue, but this is not important to this bit.

You stated an evidential argument from evil. Basically 'that even one unjustified evil out of all suffering would make God's existence unjustified'.

He pointed out, that this is a logical argument from evil to justify a logical problem from evil, so it was a valid argument. (I was actually wrong here originally I misidentified your argument). I am quite glad you guys missed it.

I then stated that I responded to your logical problem of evil by stating that God only needed a reason for the level of suffering. (near the middle bottom of page one). I got lucky here, I responded to the logical argument from evil in my post, my wide shot still found its mark (this post is near the bottom of page one)

He stated that this is where the logical problem of evil fails.

I mentioned that you pointed out that God most likely does not have a reason.

He pointed out to me this is where you actually transitioned to the evidential argument.

From then we went back and fourth, you pointed out that you did not distinguish between the logical and evidential arguments from evil.

This is where he thinks you went wrong. You did not realize that they do not reach the same conclusion. He agreed with my point that you have invalidated your own conclusion. This is, as I have said also, that the evidential argument assumes the failure of the logical argument. Using it means you cannot then go back and claim the logical argument to be successful. He agrees you should change your premise to an evidential case from probability.

He pointed out that an evidential case most likely works.... I told him he was wrong. I'll go back and debate him later. I expect it to be a good challenge and to learn a lot.

@91, you mentioned that the PhD that you talked to loved the evidentialist argument and was an atheist. Did you attempt to make the same discussion with him as you are making here, and if so what was his response?

^^^ For the record, I am not an atheist. On page 1 I listed three separate ways a Christian can reject this argument, and it was not an exhaustive list. My objection was that 91's approach was completely wrong.

I mean, any branch of Christianity that upholds libertarian free will can simply say that the definition of "omnipotent" used in this argument isn't meaningful. An argument that 91 almost managed to get to would state that all evils are actually justified by some unknown master plan which is utterly incomprehensible to humans (this is basically the Calvinist stance).

^I know, Orwell.

Well we did not really have time to get into a seperate discussion. It was Friday afternoon at uni, everyone wants to get home. He simply stated that he thinks the evidential argument is a good one. I will certainly go and chat with him about it again.

Honestly, I can only see the real distinction found to be one that I don't see as mattering. You see, if his point about them not having the same conclusion means: "One has certainty and the other has best probability", then I also deny that distinction, which means that his point would not actually be valid when speaking on my beliefs on the matter. I hold that logical arguments, because of their history, are only probably true at best, for whatever reason, based upon the history of philosophy.

As for your point, I'd have to see his reasoning. If his reasoning is that "the evidential argument is irrelevant if the claims of the logical argument succeed" then I can see this as being correct, but not relevant to any real issue of multiple confirmation of a belief, as testing multiple arguments is important for this. If his point is "the evidential argument has to start with assumptions that do not agree with the logical argument" then this could also be perceived as correct, but not relevant to any real issue of multiple confirmation of a belief, as to confirm your own belief, you might try to see if your claim holds with weaker assumptions. Your point was that "a person who presents both arguments has contradicted themselves", and on that issue, this seems squarely wrong, for instance, one can present the logical argument, and then say "even if this logical argument does not work for reason X, there is an evidential argument as well" and then this person can present the evidential argument. This violates your claim that a person who presents both is dishonest, but in practice this is how a person could easily reasonably go about doing this. To me, there is no contradiction, and rather, my point is that they are of different spheres, as the logical problem of evil tries to show that evil and God are incompatible, and the evidential tries to show that a level of evil and God are incompatible using different assumptions, and both from the same person seem reasonable, as holding to hypothetical standards is reasonable for arguing a point.

And this is obviously true, because as we have both pointed out, no premise is ever known with 100% certainty to be true.

Besides, the objection that the evidential argument assumes the failure of the logical argument is wrong for two reasons: first, the evidential argument from evil was not actually made here. You may have declined to point out the distinction because you didn't anticipate this massive tangent, but this thread put forward the logical argument and only invoked evidence in favor of a specific premise- this is different from the evidential argument.