Lothar's son

I've written a post about the misuse of Occam's razor on my blog and would be glad to receive comments and critiques :=) As you'll probably realize, English isn't my mother tongue ;-) Deconstructing the Popular Use of Occam’s Razor Occam’s Razor (OR) seems to lie at the very core of the worldviews of naturalism and materialism. It demands only few imagination to realize the pair would completely collapse if the razor was cut off. Also called principle of parsimony, it exists in two forms: a methodological form and an epistemological form. Methodological Razor: if theory A and theory B do the same job of describing all known facts C, it is preferable to use the simplest theory for the next investigations. Epistemological Razor: if theory A and theory B do the same job of describing all known facts C, the simplest theory is ALWAYS more likely. Here, I won’t address the validity of the Methodological Razor (MR) which might be an useful tool in many situations. I am much more interested in evaluating the Epistemological razor (ER), since it is under this form it most always plays an overwhelming role in philosophy, theology and the study of anomalous phenomena. Nowadays, the most popular argument for atheism looks like this: It is possible (at least a priori) to explain all facts of the Cosmos as satisfactorily with nature alone as with God ER: if theory A and theory B do the same job of describing all known facts C, the simplest theory is ALWAYS more likely God is much more complex than nature Nature alone is much more likely to be responsible for reality than God Of course, since neither God nor nature can explain their own existence, ER stipulates that the existence of nature as a brute fact is much more probable than the existence of God as a brute fact. ER is employed in a huge variety by proponents with diverse worldviews. This is the main reason why most scientists believe that UFO cannot be something otherworldly. Despite the voluminous literature related to ER, it comes as a surprise that only a few publications deal with its justification. And unlike the expectations of its most enthusiastic proponents, such a demonstration proves a formidable task due to its universal claim to always hold true. In this entry, I’ll show why I’m under the impression that nobody has been able to prove ER without begging the question in one way or the other. One common way to argue is by using a reductio ad adsurbum. Let us consider the following realistic conservation I could have with a UFO denier. Skeptical Manitoo: „I was really shocked as I learned you believe all this non-senses about flying saucers!“ Lothar’s son: „Actually, this isn’t quite true. I do believe most of them can be traced back to natural or human causes. I’m just undecided about a small minority of them. I consider it possible that something otherworldly might be going on…“ Sckeptical Manitoo:„What??? How dare you utter such lunacy before having drunk your third beer? The UFO hypothesis is the most complex one, therefore it is also the most unlikely one!“ Lothar’s son: „And how the hell do you know that, all other things being equal, simpler explanations are always more probable?“ Skeptical Manitoo: „And how do you know otherwise that the traces on the field stem from some wild living things rather than from elves?“ he replied bitterly. At the point, the skeptics expects me to recognize this is silly indeed, AND that the only way to avoid this madness is by believing ER, so that I’ll end up agreeing with him. But this is only a pragmatic argument, it has no bearing on the truth of ER whatsoever. What if I stay stubborn: Lothar’s son: „I believe your elfic intervention is also within the realm of possibilities, even if it is more complex.“ Skeptical Manitoo: „What? And would you also tolerate the presence of a Flying Spaguetti Monster which has caused the rain shower which fell on us previously?“ Lothar’s son: „„Of course!“ Skeptical Manitoo: „What? And do you also believe in a flying Dick Cheney who threw bombs upon the civilian population in Iraq?“ Reaching this level of insanity, I might very well be tempted to nod in order to escape the ordeal. But it is important to realize that this whole discussion only shows, at best, a pragmatic MR to be valid. If there is no INDEPENDENT ground for rejecting the crazy situations my imaginative friend has mentioned, anti-realism seems to be true, which means we can never have any kind of knowledge. To justify the Epistemological Razor, one clearly needs non-circular arguments which might come from pure philosophical considerations or experimental inferences. A very commonly used one is the alleged inexorable progress of science towards the simplest explanations. There are many problems with this argument. The history of science is full of examples of complex theories who were wrongly dismissed because of their lack of parsimony, tough the future vindicated them in the most triumphant way. Continental drift and the reality of ball lightnings are only two examples on a long list. But let us suppose for the sake of the argument that during OUR ENTIRE history, the simplest theories always proved to be the most likely. Would this show that ER, as I’ve defined it above, is true? Not at all. All this would prove is that we live in an universe (or perhaps even ONLY a region of an universe) where things are as simple as possible. But modern science seems to indicate there exist a gigantic (perhaps even an infinite) number of parallel universes out there. And as Max Tegmark pointed out, these are not only limited to those resulting from chaotic cosmic inflation and string theory, but include as well quantum universes (Everett’s theory) and perhaps even mathematical universes. Simulated universes can certainly be added to this list. So ultimately the justification of Occam’s razor would look like that: in our universe, simplest explanations are always the most likely to be true if it is true in our universe, it is also probably true in the other 10000000000000000000000000000000000…… universes we know very little of therefore, in the entire reality, simplest explanations are always the most likely to be true. I hope that most of my readers will realize that premise 2) is an extraordinary claim, an interpolation based on nothing more than wishful thinking. I know there have been many elegant attempts to ground ER on bayesian considerations. Like philosopher of mathematics Kelly I believe all are hopelessly circular because they smuggle simplicity into their definition of reality. I’d be glad to learn from my reader if they know ways to justify ER which don’t presuppose the existence of a simple multiverse in the first place. Finally, I want to point out a further problem one should have using ER against the existence of God. The Kalham’s cosmological argument (named after a great Muslim theologian) tries to establish the existence of a transcendence as follows: Everything that begins to exist has a cause the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause Due to the overwhelming experimental and theoretical success of the Big Bang theory, atheist apologists can no longer deny premise 2) Consequently, they typically deny premise 1), arguing like Jeffrey Low-Dahler that it is not always true. Low-Dahler agrees it would be absurd to believe something in our universe could pop into existence, and this is the case because all our experience allows us to INDUCTIVELY conclude this is never going to occur. But he also emphasizes that this inference is only valid for things taking place WITHIN our universe, and not outside. Since the grounds for believing in 1) are limited to our experience in this universe, we’ve no warrant to assert it is generally true. But this is exactly my point about Occam’s razor or the principle of parsimony. It might (or not) be true it holds in our universe, but this gives us absolutely no justification for believing it can be applied to transcendental realities (or to rule them out). So, this was admittedly a very long post, and I hope to receive lots of positive and negative feedbacks!

Hi Nebula: "How can we short-lived mortal humans ever claim to have achieved superior ethical ideas to our eternal Maker?" Actually, you should have written: "How can we short-lived mortal humans ever claim to have achieved superior ethical ideas to those CERTAIN TEXTS ATTRIBUTED TO our eternal Maker?" I view the Bible in the same way you view books from C.S. Lewis. A theoretical example: as humans we are mortal and fallen, but as the apostle Paul pointed out in Roman 2, we are capable of intuitively grasping moral basic truths. So we know that rape is always wrong, and that if a text pretendED that God ordered people to rape others, this cannot stem from Him. There are different theories of the atonement, and remember I don't hold Biblical inerrancy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement_in_Christianity My understanding is that God shared our deepest pain and anguish, defeated death through his ressurection and (importantly) utterly ridiculed the devil and his minions. He didn't have to die, it was his own sovereign choice. He invites each one of us to follow Him and to defeat sin in our lifes as he has defeated death. Willamina: thank you for your concern for my spiritual well-being ;-) I'm completely open to supernatural things and I hope I'll experience true miracles through God's grace. But as I look around, I find much more evidence for demonic than for angelic activity, alas. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn (once again, we do not allow direct links to blogs on Worthy - Fez)

How can we find out if a situation cannot be explained in a non-demonic manner? And even if there are natural explanations, can we really rule out something demonic might be going on? This is one of the issues I'm struggling with. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn (Link removed)

Approximately eight years ago, I discovered Christianity through them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payable_on_Death They arose a deep longing for God in my heart without being too explici Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn

Hi thank you very much for your answers :=) As a progressive Christian, I don't base my faith on an allegedly inerrant Bible, which I view as a human document about God like the writings of the early church father or C.S. Lewis. There are things which unchangeably define Christianity: God exists, He is perfectly good, he left us free choice and we turned away from Him. He invites us to repent and to follow Him. Through the life, death and ressurection of Jesus he showed us ultimately His true nature. I know it is quite challenging to defend one's faith in general, I know there are many possible objections, which I'm going to go into on my blog in the future. I don't identify myself as "emergent" because I'm no postmodern by anystretch and do believe in objective truth. It's certainly true God is always the same, but did he revealed Himself perfectly in a written manner? For evangelicals, it might seem obvious, but other Christians find that much more dubious. Progressive means getting closer to God's perfection, which means for instance, recognizing that the killing of babies through soldiers (like in the book of Joshua) is ungodly.

Hi folks, it seems to be a nice forum, I'm glad to have discovered it! Here, I want to go into the differences between progressive and conservative Christianity (and why that matter). I hope to convey the feeling that you don't have to make a choice between fundamentalism and liberalism (or atheism for that matter). Comments and critiques are more than welcome :=) Lovely greetings from Lorraine (France).

I do hope Christians of all denominations will start taking the Golden Rule much more seriously, since it lies at the very core of the teaching of Jesus. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn <<< removed blog link. >>>

To my mind, God loves each one of us and is more than willing to forgive us. The only ones who won't be in paradises will be those having made this choice. And this is an ungoing temptation. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn <<< removed blog link. >>>

I think we should always be wary of following the golden rule of apologetics. When militant atheists pick up the worst Christian movements and present them as if they would represent Christendom as a whole, how would we feel? There are many forms of islam, some of which are quite peaceful. To my mind, the enemy is everyone who attack (physically or verbally) innocent, harmless people.

As many have pointed out, there are very few hints in the Bible of any kind of secret rapture. As a rule, it would be better if Christians would cease making fools of themselve before unbelievers by propagating this kind of conspiracy theories. I'm certainly not pretending to be better, everyone has to keep oneself in check. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn <<< removed blog link. >>>

Since atheism only means the denial of the existence of a personal God, yes atheists can definitely believe in something spiritual. However most atheists tend to be materialists which think that everything real can be reduced to matter. To my mind, the existence of facts like subjective feelings and thoughts not identifiable with brain processes fits much better a theistic worldview. Lothar's son - Lothars Sohn <<< removed blog link. >>>