Is it rational to be a theist?

[harvey1]

According to an atheist, there are few, if any, reasons to believe that God exists, and the God belief has been passed down from pre-scientific times in the guise of religion. The atheist often believes this in itself is good reason to reject the existence of God. The atheist might even say it is not rational to believe in God. Is it rational to be a theist?

[QED]

What reason could there be for a sequence of moments followed by another sequence of moments? It's either because there is a reason (i.e., there is some law that exists), or there is no reason (i.e., no law exists).

OK, if there is indeed something to answer here (and I'm far from convinced that there is) then it would obviously be in the same class as all the other physical laws that we are familiar with (whatever laws might be). Incidentally, when you said that you didn't think that string theory could answer the philosophical questions dealing with causation, I wonder if you've read Greene's book because it seems to be treating the matter with a different approach. I wish I could find the time to read it all before I go much further with this topic.

[harvey1]

OK, if there is indeed something to answer here (and I'm far from convinced that there is) then it would obviously be in the same class as all the other physical laws that we are familiar with (whatever laws might be). Incidentally, when you said that you didn't think that string theory could answer the philosophical questions dealing with causation, I wonder if you've read Greene's book because it seems to be treating the matter with a different approach. I wish I could find the time to read it all before I go much further with this topic.

I've read through some of the sections that I was interested in. I didn't see anything in there that would answer this question, not even close.

However, if you are going to postulate laws, then you are referring again to statements (propositions) that you say exist. So, again I ask, how can you have books without people? How can you words without a mind to understand what those words mean?

[QED]

However, if you are going to postulate laws, then you are referring again to statements (propositions) that you say exist. So, again I ask, how can you have books without people? How can you words without a mind to understand what those words mean?

Here you seem to me to be falling into the same fallacy as those who argue that the tree falls silently in the forrest if nobody is around to hear it. Obviously the pressure wave in air is still created in the absence of ears and brains. A similar argument is that it takes a conscious observer to collapse a wavefunction. But the idea that all possible states are suspended over an arbitrary length of time and distance until a conscious observer makes an observation is just as potty.

[harvey1]

Here you seem to me to be falling into the same fallacy as those who argue that the tree falls silently in the forrest if nobody is around to hear it. Obviously the pressure wave in air is still created in the absence of ears and brains. A similar argument is that it takes a conscious observer to collapse a wavefunction. But the idea that all possible states are suspended over an arbitrary length of time and distance until a conscious observer makes an observation is just as potty.

A better analogy would be if someone is reading a book in English, does that mean they can understand the English language? If they can't, then they aren't actually reading the book.

I think where you make your mistake is that you are using analogies. That is, you assume that if any analogy sounds good then its application must be right. Without using analogies, please explain how a law of nature (which exists in semantic form) can be applied to a natural surroundings without interpetation. I'm assuming we agree that if the law needs interpretation that a mind is needed?

[QED]

So, again I ask, how can you have books without people? How can you words without a mind to understand what those words mean?

Here you seem to me to be falling into the same fallacy as those who argue that the tree falls silently in the forrest if nobody is around to hear it. Obviously the pressure wave in air is still created in the absence of ears and brains. A similar argument is that it takes a conscious observer to collapse a wavefunction. But the idea that all possible states are suspended over an arbitrary length of time and distance until a conscious observer makes an observation is just as potty.

A better analogy would be if someone is reading a book in English, does that mean they can understand the English language? If they can't, then they aren't actually reading the book.

I think where you make your mistake is that you are using analogies. That is, you assume that if any analogy sounds good then its application must be right.

From where I'm sitting this accusation seems far more appropriately directed towards your own argument.

Without using analogies, please explain how a law of nature (which exists in semantic form) can be applied to a natural surroundings without interpetation.

Semantics i.e. meaning of language, or what language signifies. This is language that we humans use to communicate our ideas by using words that stand for objective things in and about the world right? This is the only place where interpretation enters the equation -- because the ideas in our heads are not hard-wired to the world. Are you suggesting that the laws of nature are subject to similar fuzzy interpretation as they apply to the hardware of nature?

I'm assuming we agree that if the law needs interpretation that a mind is needed?

How to parse this sentence I wonder? Strictly speaking if a law needs interpretation then we are discussing something upon which the law in question is not directly having an influence e.g. our mind contemplating the formula E=mc2. But in the case of a a couple of light nuclei fusing together into a heavy nucleus and a free neutron, obviously no mind is required for the law to be obeyed.

[harvey1]

Semantics i.e. meaning of language, or what language signifies. This is language that we humans use to communicate our ideas by using words that stand for objective things in and about the world right? This is the only place where interpretation enters the equation -- because the ideas in our heads are not hard-wired to the world. Are you suggesting that the laws of nature are subject to similar fuzzy interpretation as they apply to the hardware of nature?

No. I'm talking about the actual meaning of the terms as they relate to the formal system as a whole. So, for example, we can derive the uncertainty principle from deeper mathematical principles. The meaning of the uncertainty principle refers, then, to these deeper principles which are derived from a basic set of axioms. The axioms refer to the world, but they don't have to. Those axioms would largely apply if all that existed was some non-physical world where there is a principle of causality (e.g., axioms of set theory, axioms of category theory).

How to parse this sentence I wonder? Strictly speaking if a law needs interpretation then we are discussing something upon which the law in question is not directly having an influence e.g. our mind contemplating the formula E=mc2. But in the case of a a couple of light nuclei fusing together into a heavy nucleus and a free neutron, obviously no mind is required for the law to be obeyed.

No law is required if the "law" is about the regularities of the natural world. We agree on that. But, we are not talking about that. We are talking about the case where regularities occur because they are in response to these logico-mathematical laws.

So, I want to know how it is possible for there to be these semantic laws if there is no mind. How can an logical interpretation (i.e., math theorem) exist unless there is mind attached to that interpretation?

[Curious]

So, I want to know how it is possible for there to be these semantic laws if there is no mind. How can an logical interpretation (i.e., math theorem) exist unless there is mind attached to that interpretation?

It can't. But you are assuming that the mind that interprets this theorem is God and thus causes nature to act accordingly. For the theory to exist requires only a single mind, in this case your own. Hard fact and logic are not subject to interpretation.

[harvey1]

It can't. But you are assuming that the mind that interprets this theorem is God and thus causes nature to act accordingly.

What other mind could interpret objective laws before there was a physical universe?

For the theory to exist requires only a single mind, in this case your own. Hard fact and logic are not subject to interpretation.

My mind doesn't make things come to exist. Therefore, I cannot be the mind that brings about a universe. But, thank you for your high consideration of my capabilities. I hate to disappoint, but I'm human just like you.

[QED]

So, I want to know how it is possible for there to be these semantic laws if there is no mind.

I'm afraid that just seems like a really silly question to me. It's like asking how it's possible to have train timetables if there are no nuclear reactors.

How can an logical interpretation (i.e., math theorem) exist unless there is mind attached to that interpretation?

Now that seems more sensible to me, yes -- if there is to be an interpretation of some Axiom, then that would require a mind.

[harvey1]

How can an logical interpretation (i.e., math theorem) exist unless there is mind attached to that interpretation?

Now that seems more sensible to me, yes -- if there is to be an interpretation of some Axiom, then that would require a mind.

Alrighty then, are we agreed that if we are talking about laws as existing that we are talking about theorems derived from some axiom? If so, then it seems we must accept that these theorems require some level of interpretation. After all, computers can't produce new theorems of mathematics. The reason they cannot is that they cannot understand (or interpret the meaning of a mathematical statement), and without this attribute a computer cannot prove a theorem (or derive many statements rich in intuitive thinking). Without being able to prove a theorem, there's no way to know the theorem is true, hence no way to build laws upon the theorems that you just proved. You would have many universes based on contradictory theorems. Even Ramanujan, as brilliant at being able to derive theorems from mathematics was wrong in some of his deductions! It is why mathematicians insist on proofs and not conjectures to their arguments.

Therefore, since we exist in a universe where the laws largely share the structure of mathematical derived theorems, and those theorems are all consistent with the whole body of mathematics, it would seem that an atheist is precluded from believing that the laws of nature are non-regularities of nature. If so, then the atheist must pin their hopes of describing nature on a nominalistic interpretation of the laws, and the causal tie between two material events is non-existent (as I mentioned). Therefore, atheism is wrong. Or, at the very least, it is rational to be a theist!