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Plantinga's argument for Design.

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  • shunyadragon
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    The difference is presuppositions. The metaphysical naturalist starts with the assumption that there is no God. Not all atheists do that. And, by the way, none of this is my argument.

    Let's read that citation in context:

    Source: The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, Alvin Plantinga

    According to current evolutionary theory, we human beings, like other forms of life, have developed from aboriginal unicellular life by way of such mechanisms as natural selection and genetic drift working on sources of genetic variation: the most popular is random genetic mutation. Natural selection discards most of these mutations (they prove deleterious to the organisms in which they appear), but some of the remainder turn out to have adaptive value and to enhance fitness; they spread through the population and thus persist. According to this story, it is by way of these mechanisms, or mechanisms very much like them, that all the vast variety of contemporary organic life has developed; and it is by way of these same mechanisms that our cognitive faculties have arisen.

    Now according to traditional Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) thought, we human beings have been created in the image of God. This means, among other things, that God created us with the capacity for achieving knowledge--knowledge of our environment by way of perception, of other people by way of something like what Thomas Reid calls sympathy, of the past of memory and testimony, of mathematics and logics by reason, of morality, of our own mental life, of God himself, and much more. And the above evolutionary account of our origins is compatible with the theistic view that God has created us in his image. So evolutionary theory taken by itself (without the patina of philosophical naturalism that often accompanies expositions of it) is not as such in tension with the idea that God has created us and our cognitive faculties in such a way that the latter are reliable, that (as the medievals liked to say) there is no adequation of intellect to reality.

    But if naturalism is true, there is no God, and hence no God (or anyone else) overseeing our development and orchestrating the course of our evolution. And this leads directly to the question whether it is at all likely that our cognitive faculties, given naturalism and given their evolutionary origin, would have developed in such a way as to be reliable, to furnish us with the mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself expressed this doubt: "With me," he said,

    the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of the monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

    © Copyright Original Source



    (All parentheticals and italics are Plantinga's).

    Plantinga is contrasting the theory of evolution under the metaphysical naturalist's worldview with that under the theists worldview (doesn't matter what sort of theist you are) and explaining to the reader that under the metaphysical naturalist's worldview there comes the question, are our cognitive faculties reliable, and do we hold mostly true beliefs. His argument is not that the ID movement or his special brand of theistic evolution is the better alternative. His argument is about the coherency of metaphysical naturalism.

    So, I've said all that I can say on this subject. I highly recommend you actually read the books you're quote mining. You may actually come to find that you agree with Plantinga's argument since it supports your claimed religious belief system.
    The greater context does not change the context of the quote. It just uncovers more problems with Plantinga's arguments.

    Context does not help you because you made too many false statements in your previous posts. You did manage to cite Plantinga's out of context, out of date, Darwin's quotes on his justified doubts of the limited knowledge of science at the time, which have no relevance to the level of knowledge in science today concerning evolution. You have failed to realize that Plantinga conflates Methodological with Metaphysical Naturalism, and uses his own concept of evolution and not the accepted evolution of science.

    Actually Plantinga also describes and ridicules contemporary evolution as the Grand Evolutionary Myth (GEM). Why would Plantinga go into great lengths to argue ID, conflate Methodological NAturalism with Metaphysical Naturalism, and long misguided arguments of probability, if he is not using all this to argue for the existence of God against atheism his whole dialogue becomes ridiculous.Just examples??? That's a farse.
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 03-24-2014, 10:20 AM.

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  • OingoBoingo
    replied
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    What is the difference between 'the belief there is no such person as God or anything like God' and atheism? You also need to clarify your remarks and use 'Metaphysical Naturalism' and not naturalism. These two beliefs are equivalent in Plantinga's. An argument against 'Metaphysical Naturalism' is an argument against Atheism. Your splitting frog hairs in meaningless manner to parse Plantinga's argument to suit your argument.
    The difference is presuppositions. The metaphysical naturalist starts with the assumption that there is no God. Not all atheists do that. And, by the way, none of this is my argument.


    No, In the next post I will cite again Plantinga's view of the normal contemporary Evolution that Plantinga decribes as a 'Grand Myth.' It is specifically and literally in the above citation that he uses his view of evolution in the argument. Again from the above quote "So evolutionary theory taken by itself (without the patina of philosophical naturalism that often accompanies expositions of it) is not as such in tension with the idea that God has created us and our cognitive faculties in such a way that the latter are reliable, that (as the medievals like to say) there is an adequation of intellect to reality." The patina of Philosophical Naturalism Plantinga describes has nothing to do with a philosophical question, it is the ToE as know by ALL scientists that Plantinga describes as a 'Grand Myth.'




    He is referring to his personal belief in ID and uses it in his argument as a matter of fact.
    Let's read that citation in context:

    Source: The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, Alvin Plantinga

    According to current evolutionary theory, we human beings, like other forms of life, have developed from aboriginal unicellular life by way of such mechanisms as natural selection and genetic drift working on sources of genetic variation: the most popular is random genetic mutation. Natural selection discards most of these mutations (they prove deleterious to the organisms in which they appear), but some of the remainder turn out to have adaptive value and to enhance fitness; they spread through the population and thus persist. According to this story, it is by way of these mechanisms, or mechanisms very much like them, that all the vast variety of contemporary organic life has developed; and it is by way of these same mechanisms that our cognitive faculties have arisen.

    Now according to traditional Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) thought, we human beings have been created in the image of God. This means, among other things, that God created us with the capacity for achieving knowledge--knowledge of our environment by way of perception, of other people by way of something like what Thomas Reid calls sympathy, of the past of memory and testimony, of mathematics and logics by reason, of morality, of our own mental life, of God himself, and much more. And the above evolutionary account of our origins is compatible with the theistic view that God has created us in his image. So evolutionary theory taken by itself (without the patina of philosophical naturalism that often accompanies expositions of it) is not as such in tension with the idea that God has created us and our cognitive faculties in such a way that the latter are reliable, that (as the medievals liked to say) there is no adequation of intellect to reality.

    But if naturalism is true, there is no God, and hence no God (or anyone else) overseeing our development and orchestrating the course of our evolution. And this leads directly to the question whether it is at all likely that our cognitive faculties, given naturalism and given their evolutionary origin, would have developed in such a way as to be reliable, to furnish us with mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself expressed this doubt: "With me," he said,

    the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of the monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

    © Copyright Original Source



    (All parentheticals and italics are Plantinga's).

    Plantinga is contrasting the theory of evolution under the metaphysical naturalist's worldview with that under the theists worldview (doesn't matter what sort of theist you are) and explaining to the reader that under the metaphysical naturalist's worldview there comes the question, are our cognitive faculties reliable, and do we hold mostly true beliefs. His argument is not that the ID movement or his special brand of theistic evolution is the better alternative. His argument is about the coherency of metaphysical naturalism.

    So, I've said all that I can say on this subject. I highly recommend you actually read the books you're quote mining. You may actually come to find that you agree with Plantinga's argument since it supports your claimed religious belief system.
    Last edited by OingoBoingo; 03-24-2014, 08:44 AM.

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  • MaxVel
    replied
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    I quote Planinga as he writes, and do not parse his writings to suit a convenient Gerrymeandered conclusions.
    Of course you don't.


    {You're conforming to your pattern quite nicely in this thread, BTW.}

    Leave a comment:


  • shunyadragon
    replied
    Originally posted by MaxVel View Post
    Shunya, everyone in this thread except you thinks you've mis-interpreted Plantinga. [B]Even[B] people who think the EEAN doesn't work. That should tell you something...
    I quote Planinga as he writes, and do not parse his writings to suit a convenient Gerrymeandered conclusions.

    Leave a comment:


  • MaxVel
    replied
    Shunya, everyone in this thread except you thinks you've mis-interpreted Plantinga. [B]Even[B] people who think the EEAN doesn't work. That should tell you something...

    Leave a comment:


  • shunyadragon
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Nope, not quite. As explained in the video I presented in post #65 Plantinga says, "When i use the word 'naturalism', what I mean is, really, the belief that there is no such person as God or anything like God. So naturalism is stronger than atheism. Naturalism entails atheism, but atheism does not entail naturalism."
    What is the difference between 'the belief there is no such person as God or anything like God' and atheism? You also need to clarify your remarks and use 'Metaphysical Naturalism' and not naturalism. These two beliefs are equivalent in Plantinga's. An argument against 'Metaphysical Naturalism' is an argument against Atheism. Your splitting frog hairs in meaningless manner to parse Plantinga's argument to suit your argument.

    I realize that Plantinga cannot make the distinction as follows, because he conflates the two. He describes Methodological Naturalism as follows:

    Originally posted by http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/when_faith_and_reason_clash_evolution_and_the_bibl e.pdf
    "But it is also taken to mean that natural science involves a methodological naturalism or provisional atheism."
    His warped contorted archaic view of science is obvious.




    Nope. Its not his view of evolution that he uses in the evolutionary argument against naturalism. He's using the standard normal everyday version of evolution that's taught by scholars, teachers, parents, atheist and non-atheists alike, around the world. He's saying If the normal every day theory of evolution is true,
    He makes it abundantly clear that he is not using the contemporary view of evolution as his evolution;

    Originally posted by http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf
    My claim was that naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory are at serious odds with one another--and this despite the fact that the latter is ordinarily thought to be one of the main supporting beams in the edifice of the former.
    No, as above in the next post I will cite again Plantinga's view of the normal contemporary Evolution that Plantinga decribes as a 'Grand Evolutionary Story.' It is specifically and literally in the above citation that he uses his view of evolution in the argument. Again from the above quote "So evolutionary theory taken by itself (without the patina of philosophical naturalism that often accompanies expositions of it) is not as such in tension with the idea that God has created us and our cognitive faculties in such a way that the latter are reliable, that (as the medievals like to say) there is an adequation of intellect to reality." The patina of Philosophical Naturalism Plantinga describes has nothing to do with a philosophical question, it is the ToE as know by ALL scientists that Plantinga describes as a 'Grand Evolutionary Story.'

    and metaphysical naturalism is true, then you cannot believe in proper function. And if you have no idea if your cognitive systems are functioning properly then there is no way to know if you hold true beliefs. Now, some metaphysical naturalists may be perfectly fine with that. In a post-modern society where we can never be sure that there really is anything like truth, then, maybe that's okay. But maybe its not okay either. Maybe its good to know that our beliefs are reliable, and not just a product of the four Fs. The argument is not an argument for God. Its an argument questioning the coherency of metaphysical naturalism. Some people find it convincing, some don't. Plantinga does explain what proper function is by showing how its related to design and belief in God, but that's not him referring to his personal belief in the movement called ID, or in his personal view of theistic evolution. When he refers to proper function as intelligent desing coming from a god-like entity with intention, he's talking about the gamut of theistic worldviews. Be they YEC, OEC, Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Mormon, and on and on.

    He is referring to his personal belief in ID and evolution and uses it in his argument as a matter of fact.
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 03-24-2014, 08:39 AM.

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  • Doug Shaver
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Funny that you were able to get it in one post. Maybe you can work with him.
    I got it long before this thread started. I've read lots of Plantinga's work, including most of his Warrant trilogy.

    As for Shuny, I think you've done as well as I could have to point out his mistakes.

    Leave a comment:


  • Doug Shaver
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Plantinga's theory uses Bayes Theorem and other arguments to show why the probability is low that metaphysical naturalist hold true beliefs, but, yeah, it is an objection that's come up.
    I'm OK with Bayes Theorem. I think its potency is greatly underappreciated. But it's a GIGO thing. The values Plantinga assigns to his prior probabilities reflect his presupposition that under naturalism, creatures with reliable cognitive faculties would very likely have had no survival advantage over creatures without reliable cognitive faculties.

    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Again, I'm not really here to debate whether or not Plantinga's arguments hold water, but to correct shunyadragon's abysmal understanding of the argument. After 20 odd pages of trying every which way I can, I'm tried of repeating myself, and think I'm done.
    I get that, and I'm really not trying to derail the thread. I just couldn't let a reference to his EAAN go by without comment. I'll be happy to start a new thread on it if anybody wants to follow up on my remarks.

    Leave a comment:


  • OingoBoingo
    replied
    Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
    It would be a problem if the argument were cogent, but it isn't. It presupposes that there is no relationship between our ability to survive and our ability to perceive the world as it actually is. I think it absurd to suppose that one has nothing to do with the other. Truth will take the hindmost only when there is a conflict between survival and truth. That could happen sometimes, but we have no good reason to doubt that most of the time in most situations, our ancestors were more likely to survive when they believed the truth than when they did not.
    I think its arguable whether or not his argument is cogent, but you're right, that is an objection to Plantinga's theory. Plantinga's theory uses Bayes Theorem and other arguments to show why the probability is low that metaphysical naturalist hold true beliefs, but, yeah, it is an objection that's come up.

    Again, I'm not really here to debate whether or not Plantinga's arguments hold water, but to correct shunyadragon's abysmal understanding of the argument. After 20 odd pages of trying every which way I can, I'm tried of repeating myself, and think I'm done.
    The strangest thing is that Plantinga's argument actually supports shunyadragon's claimed worldview. Other Baha'i believers think its the bees knees. Probably would have helped had he actually read Plantinga's work on the subject rather than starting with the assumption that he was wrong, and then finding online critiques to support that assumption, but at this point, I'm not even sure reading the relevant works (Warrant and Proper Function, or Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism) would help. Funny that you were able to get it in one post. Maybe you can work with him.

    Leave a comment:


  • OingoBoingo
    replied
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    Your confused. I never said it was; 'a naturalistic argument against evolution.'

    It describes Plantinga's argument for God and against Atheism (Philosophical Naturalism),
    Nope, not quite. As explained in the video I presented in post #65 Plantinga says, "When i use the word 'naturalism', what I mean is, really, the belief that there is no such person as God or anything like God. So naturalism is stronger than atheism. Naturalism entails atheism, but atheism does not entail naturalism."

    using his view of evolution arguing for the necessity of design to support the argument for the existence of God.
    Nope. Its not his view of evolution that he uses in the evolutionary argument against naturalism. He's using the standard normal everyday version of evolution that's taught by scholars, teachers, parents, atheist and non-atheists alike, around the world. He's saying If the normal every day theory of evolution is true, and metaphysical naturalism is true, then you cannot believe in proper function. And if you have no idea if your cognitive systems are functioning properly then there is no way to know if you hold true beliefs. Now, some metaphysical naturalists may be perfectly fine with that. In a post-modern society where we can never be sure that there really is anything like truth, then, maybe that's okay. But maybe its not okay either. Maybe its good to know that our beliefs are reliable, and not just a product of the four Fs. The argument is not an argument for God. Its an argument questioning the coherency of metaphysical naturalism. Some people find it convincing, some don't. Plantinga does explain what proper function is by showing how its related to design and belief in God, but that's not him referring to his personal belief in the movement called ID, or in his personal view of theistic evolution. When he refers to proper function as intelligent desing coming from a god-like entity with intention, he's talking about the gamut of theistic worldviews. Be they YEC, OEC, Baha'i, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Mormon, and on and on.

    Leave a comment:


  • Doug Shaver
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Yep. That's his theory. If metaphysical naturalism is true, and its true that our nervous system is purely the result of the four F's, then there is low probability that our cognitive systems serve us with true beliefs. That's a problem for the metaphysical naturalist.
    It would be a problem if the argument were cogent, but it isn't. It presupposes that there is no relationship between our ability to survive and our ability to perceive the world as it actually is. I think it absurd to suppose that one has nothing to do with the other. Truth will take the hindmost only when there is a conflict between survival and truth. That could happen sometimes, but we have no good reason to doubt that most of the time in most situations, our ancestors were more likely to survive when they believed the truth than when they did not.

    Leave a comment:


  • shunyadragon
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Yep. That's his theory. If metaphysical naturalism is true, and its true that our nervous system is purely the result of the four F's, then there is low probability that our cognitive systems serve us with true beliefs. That's a problem for the metaphysical naturalist. That's why its called an evolutionary argument against naturalism, and not a naturalistic argument against evolution.
    Your confused. I never said it was; 'a naturalistic argument against evolution.'

    It describes Plantinga's argument for God and against Atheism (Philosophical Naturalism), using his view of evolution arguing for the necessity of design to support the argument for the existence of God.

    Leave a comment:


  • OingoBoingo
    replied
    Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
    Again . . .
    Yep. That's his theory. If metaphysical naturalism is true, and its true that our nervous system is purely the result of the four F's, then there is low probability that our cognitive systems serve us with true beliefs. That's a problem for the metaphysical naturalist. That's why its called an evolutionary argument against naturalism, and not a naturalistic argument against evolution.

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  • shunyadragon
    replied
    Originally posted by OingoBoingo View Post
    Ok. if you say so.
    Again . . .

    Originally posted by http://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/plantinga_alvin/naturalism_defeated.pdf


    Naturalism Defeated

    In the last chapter of Warrant and Proper Function1 I proposed an "evolutionary argument against naturalism". Take philosophical naturalism to be the belief that there aren't any supernatural beings--no such person as God, for example, but also no other supernatural entities.2 My claim was that naturalism and contemporary evolutionary theory are at serious odds with one another--and this despite the fact that the latter is ordinarily thought to be one of the main supporting beams in the edifice of the former.3 More particularly, I argued that the conjunction of naturalism with the belief that human beings have evolved in conformity with current evolutionary doctrine--'evolution' for short--is in a certain interesting way self-defeating or selfreferentially incoherent. Still more particularly, I argued that naturalism and evolution--'N&E' for short--furnishes one who accepts it with a defeater for the belief that our cognitive faculties are reliable--a defeater that can't be defeated. But then this conjunction also furnishes a defeater for any belief produced by our cognitive faculties, including, in the case of one who accepts it, N&E itself: hence its self-defeating character.

    Now according to traditional Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) thought, we human beings have been created in the image of God. This means, among other things, that he created us with the capacity for achieving knowledge—knowledge of our environment by way of perception, of other people by way of something like what Thomas Reid calls sympathy, of the past by memory and testimony, of mathematics and logic by reason, of morality, our own mental life, God himself, and much more.6 And the above evolutionary account of our origins is compatible with the theistic view that God has created us in his image. So evolutionary theory taken by itself (without the patina of philosophical naturalism that often accompanies expositions of it) is not as such in tension with the idea that God has created us and our cognitive faculties in such a way that the latter are reliable, that (as the medievals like to say) there is an adequation of intellect to reality.

    But if naturalism is true, there is no God, and hence no God (or anyone else) overseeing our development and orchestrating the course of our evolution. And this leads directly to the question whether it is at all likely that our cognitive faculties, given naturalism and given their evolutionary origin, would have developed in such a way as to be reliable, to furnish us with mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself expressed this doubt: "With me," he said, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?8 The same thought is put more explicitly by Patricia Churchland. She insists that the most important thing about the human brain is that it has evolved; this means, she says, that its principal function is to enable the organism to move appropriately: Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?8 The same thought is put more explicitly by Patricia Churchland. She insists that the most important thing about the human brain is that it has evolved; this means, she says, that its principal function is to enable the organism to move appropriately: Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival [Churchland's emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.
    Last edited by shunyadragon; 03-23-2014, 09:34 PM.

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  • OingoBoingo
    replied
    Originally posted by whag View Post
    It doesn't matter who you are to me. It was enough to demonstrate you don't really know how Plantinga applies his argument. Those articles show his application.
    Ok. if you say so.

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