numbnuts comment of the day #45,720

[realthog]

This time from "poppy", commenting on zap2it's article about Kirk Cameron's dimwittedly ignorant (and, separately, repugnant) remarks concerning Stephen Hawking (whose physics we only take seriously because he's crippled, according to Cameron). Quoth "poppy":

Why is it the scientific world always demand evidence that.God is real, yet they never provide tangible evidence that evolution, global warming, or now climate change is?

To display multiple signs of willful ignorance in so few words takes quite a lot of doing.

Comments

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Wilful ignorance, yes, and Cameron's comment is offensive and vile.

Of course, the comment by Hawking on which he was commenting was not in the area of physics, but of metaphysics, and I'm not sure what the Professor's qualifications are in that field. I'd be inclined to accept his authority on elementary particles, and I'd even agree with him that a computer stops working when its components fail, since I've seen that many times...but the software on the drive doesn't necessarily vanish, and if it's been backed up regularly may even be reloaded on to an upgraded machine on another network, though to other computers on the original LAN, even the most complex and capable ones, it may appear simply to be gone.

That doesn't make Cameron anything other than an unpleasant idiot, of course.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

First, please note that it was poppy's comment I was remarking upon, not Cameron's moronic remarks. However . . .

I've spent a while thinking about your response, and I'm afraid I have to disagree quite fundamentally.

the comment by Hawking on which he was commenting was not in the area of physics, but of metaphysics, and I'm not sure what the Professor's qualifications are in that field.

To be honest I think this is a cheap copout of an argument. I could very easily argue (and do) that, quite to the contrary, Hawking's point is completely within the bounds of physics, which is itself the core science (without it you can't understand chemistry, biology, geology, etc.). What he is saying is that physics offers no room for such entities as the afterlife, reincarnation, a creator god, etc., and that therefore any logical conclusion from everything that we know (which one can dismiss as "not a lot" only if one has learnt at least 1% of what Hawking knows about the physical universe, a.k.a. reality -- who among us can claim this?) is that such entities do not in fact exist. Like any physicist, Hawking leaves the door open to revise his conclusions later, should contrary evidence come in.

This is an opinion, to be sure, but it is not an opinion in the sense that you use the term in the Kirk Cameron context. An opinion in the latter sense is my opinion that the moon is made of blue cheese -- completely unevidenced bullshit, of course, but, hey, it's an opinion.

On this much we probably largely agree. But you introduce the canard that Hawking is talking about metaphysics, in which he has no relevant pieces of paper. As noted above, I think he's not talking about metaphysics at all. However, let's for a moment take your point aboard and explore it.

What exactly is metaphysics? So far as I'm concerned, it's the study of ideas that are not just unverifiable but in fact outside the scope of any rational inquiry. (I was about to say "irrational" but then realized this might be taken as an unnecessarily aggressive term.) Of course, that definition of "metaphysics" would include lots of people who, like me, study the irrational from a rationalist viewpoint. So let's include somewhere in the definition that it's an axom of mataphysics that you assume all this stuff is true, or at least possibly/arguably true.

The inevitable question then is: Why?

Why? should one give special intellectual preference to a set of beliefs which it's admitted even by those who support metaphysics can never be verified and which fly in the face of all experience and all rational deduction?

You may be able to offer a fine answer to that question (although I've not been able myself to do so). But then you have to clear the next hurdle, which is to explain how your answer applies to your blithe response to Hawking's remark: that he doesn't know what he's talking about because this is a matter of metaphysics, not physics.

In other words, first you have to demonstrate that metaphysics both exists outside the realm intellectual fantastication and is a discipline worthy of consideration; then you have to show that Hawking's remarks are not properly the provenance of physics. I'm not sure anyone's ever made a serious attempt to do this kind of thing beyond a lot of handwaving, deployment of obscure polysyllabic terms that do not respond well to parsing, and Shouting Very Loudly (as witness all the attacks on Dawkins's The God Delusion that dismissed him as ignorant of theology; all very well until you read a bit -- or a lot -- of theology and realize it's complete garbage unless you accept various fundamental tenets which defy rational analysis).

I've got flu and I'm trying to condense a lot into a little on a computer that's pissed off at me because I'm running too many programs. However, I hope I've made my case sufficiently clear for you to reply to!

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about the flu, and hope you feel better soon. And it's nice of you to invite me to reply; I often get the feeling, when in this kind of discussion, that my interlocutors would much rather I just shut up and crawl away into a hole somewhere.

To say that

"Hawking's point is completely within the bounds of physics"

and then to say that

"What he is saying is that physics offers no room for such entities as the afterlife"

seems to me a little contradictory. "There is no Lem-Sip in the house" is not the same thing as "There's no Lem-Sip in the kitchen, I know because I've looked, and the kitchen is the most important room in the house so that means there's none in the house." Physics may be the core science, but the other sciences are still necessary, and I am comfortably sure that there are still other sciences out there waiting to be discovered, both closer to and further from the actual "core" which is the subject of study. Similarly the argument that "it doesn't matter that Richard Dawkins doesn't know what he's talking about because what he's talking about isn't worth knowing", while it can be guaranteed not to fall off the edge of the table, doesn't actually contain much useful content.

Having said that, though, I have to point out that I did *not* say, blithely or otherwise (I'm almost never blithe. Or lithe. Sometimes I writhe):

"that he [Hawking] doesn't know what he's talking about because this is a matter of metaphysics, not physics."

I said, and meant, that I wasn't sure what his qualifications were in this field. Since metaphysics (as far as I can tell, not having studied it to any great extent) is largely based on subjective experience, for all I know he's far more qualified than I. Maybe you are, though you don't seem to think so. But to say that physics has no room for the afterlife, to my admittedly simple mind, puts the afterlife squarely and by definition out of the domain of physics, on which domain, as I've said, I would trust Professor Hawking absolutely, and into another one, possibly metaphysics, possibly something else we don't know yet, and on which, subject to any representation he may make, I would accord Professor Hawking's statements exactly as much weight as I would my own.

And while I'd very much like to be the one to demonstrate the truth of metaphysics (or, indeed, convincingly refute it), I don't have to. We can leave it right there. It's not going anywhere, and I'm comfortable with not being sure, for the moment. If I don't know the answer within half an hour of being dead, though, and am still around to realise it, there will be ructions, I can tell you.

I could, perhaps, with some effort, show that, from a layman's point of view, current physics is to an extent "a set of beliefs which can never (by me unaided) be verified and which fly in the face of all experience and all rational deduction" and then ask why I should give special intellectual preference to it, but again, I trust scientists to be right about these things. Some laymen trust theologians. I trust scientists. But I would never unquestioningly trust either group to try to perform the function of the other.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

To say that
"Hawking's point is completely within the bounds of physics"
and then to say that
"What he is saying is that physics offers no room for such entities as the afterlife"
seems to me a little contradictory.

I see no contradiction. The two statements seem complementary to me.

"There is no Lem-Sip in the house" is not the same thing as "There's no Lem-Sip in the kitchen, I know because I've looked, and the kitchen is the most important room in the house so that means there's none in the house."

That's a false analogy. Try: "I claim there is no Lem-Sip in the house because I have demonstrated that the stated chemical composition of the hypothetical Lem-Sip is impossible to achieve, and the described characteristics of Lem-Sip likewise."

Of course, some people claim there exists such a thing as faith-based Lem-Sip, which bypasses such restrictions as the way chemical bonds form, but . . .

metaphysics . . . is largely based on subjective experience

And that's its problem: it has no rational basis. Are subjective experiences useful in forming our descriptions of the world? Yes, of course -- think of music or art or literature. But are they any use as tools to define how the universe works? Not so much.

I could, perhaps, with some effort, show that, from a layman's point of view, current physics is to an extent "a set of beliefs which can never (by me unaided) be verified and which fly in the face of all experience and all rational deduction" and then ask why I should give special intellectual preference to it

That's a very good point. On the other hand, my computer works using lots of bits of physics that I don't understand, and those bits of physics are based on other bits that I've never even heard of, so I have at least some good evidence that the evidence which is physics is, at least to a large extent, not baloney. Further, when I make a big effort to try to understand bits of physics I've not hitherto known about, they hold water. So . . .

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I think my analogy stands. "Lem-Sip" for the afterlife, "the house" for reality, "the kitchen" for that part of reality specifically and comprehensively described by physics. Hawking hasn't demonstrated that the afterlife is impossible to achieve, he's just asserted it. Coincidentally, I've just re-read a rather good piece by Chesterton on this very subject, in which he comments on a medical man who similarly asserted that the life of the mind ceases with the death of the body, the evidence for this assertion being that the body is dead. Um, yes, and?

Subjective experiences are certainly of no use in the physical sciences, we agree on that. Are they then of no use in defining how *any* of the universe works? I'd say the jury's still out on that one, at least till we know we've seen all the levels of the universe that exist.

When I make a big effort to try to understand some bits of physics, they don't even make rudimentary sense to me (e.g. one electron going through two slots at the same time and not being in any sense two electrons--as the standup comics say, what's up with that?). My computer works, certainly, but as far as I'm concerned it's as much a matter of faith as the transsubstantiation of the host, which I am assured with equal authority by experts in that field works just as reliably as my computer whether I happen to believe in it or not.

The difference is that I believe science will one day come up with an explanation of physics that fits all the facts and does make sense to me. But just as I would not expect that explanation to emanate from the Archbishop of Canterbury, so I wouldn't expect any scientist, no matter how eminent, to be ipso facto qualified to pronounce on the afterlife.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I think I've misled you through my reference to physics as the core science. I didn't mean to suggest there was an area called "physics" with the other sciences clustered around it -- like rooms clustered around the kitchen. What I meant was that physics is the science without which none of the others work -- in other words, physics extends through the whole house.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Okay, that alters the metaphor a bit, though I do see the kitchen as the room without which none of the other rooms "work"--but then I am fond of my food and my hot water. The point being that, as you said, there is a very great deal in our experience of the world that, while it may be enabled by physics, is not explained by it in any sense that anyone can establish. We see the picture on the wall because light does what light does to our retinas, but the act of seeing the picture involves much more than that, and while I gather that it is now possible to look at the brain and see the little lights flashing on and off when the patient looks at a picture, that tells us nothing about what's actually happening.

But that analogy is fairly secondary to the main point that's emerged, to wit and viz., that when authorities on religion start making pronouncements on such things as evolution and expecting them to be believed, those who are outraged and horrified should at least admit the parallel case of experts in physics, or chemistry, or any physical science making pronouncements on the existence of the soul or survival after death and expecting them to be believed. Don't you think so?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

when authorities on religion start making pronouncements on such things as evolution and expecting them to be believed, those who are outraged and horrified should at least admit the parallel case of experts in physics, or chemistry, or any physical science making pronouncements on the existence of the soul or survival after death and expecting them to be believed. Don't you think so?

I'm afraid not. If the consensus of physicists says something -- e.g., life after death -- is almost certainly physically impossible, I tend to assume they're correct. (I include the qualifier not because there's any reasonable doubt but because, in science, one always should.) I think it's then up to the defenders of the concept of life after death to explain -- without invoking yet further physically undetected entities -- how something can exist even though it's physically impossible for it to do so.

I would respect anyone who made a serious effort along those lines, however much I might feel they were engaged in a fool's errand. Dishonest clowns like Cameron obviously don't qualify; but I'd maintain that neither do the vast majority of theologians, who may pride themselves on their scholarship but really are just impressing themselves and their devotees with their apparent willingness to "take on the big mysteries" -- sort of like Robert Charroux, really.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

In other words, you want them to explain how an apple can be an orange, and unless they can, to your satisfaction, prove that the apple is an orange you will assume that apples don't exist. You choose to start from the premise that only the physical is real--not simply that that is all that we see of reality so far, but that we have now seen all of reality and all of it is physical--and therefore unless something like life after death (which if it exists at all must logically exist in a realm other than the physical) can be proved to be in fact physical, you won't accept the possibility of its existence. So the question you put is in fact a non-question.

I choose to start from the premise that we haven't seen all of reality yet and therefore cannot possibly know that it is all physical, and I think that's where we're going to have to agree to differ. I don't believe physicists know everything that can possibly be known, and I don't think that they would, in their capacity as scientists, honestly say so themselves.

Their opinions as private persons on things like the afterlife, therefore, are, as I said, worth just as much as mine, no more and no less, and when they use (or tacitly allow others to use) their authority as scientists to lend weight to these unqualified opinions I think they are doing exactly the same as the preacher in Alabama or wherever who says that he knows evolution doesn't exist because it's not in the Bible. I don't agree with him, and I don't agree with them. I'll wait for something resembling proof one way or the other before I make up my mind.

Oh, and...putting in the qualifier not because you accord it any actual meaning but simply for ritualistic reasons ("because one should", like wearing a tie to an interview)...that hardly seems worth bothering with.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Hm. Quite a lot of straw men there, such as "I don't believe physicists know everything that can possibly be known". Who does think that?

You choose to start from the premise that only the physical is real

Depending on your definition of "physical": yes.

The reason I explained the qualifier is that customarily, when dealing with nonscientists, the use of expressions like "almost certainly" is immediately seized upon as a weakness or loophole. I realize that you understand this too (your expression "resembling proof" recognizes that science doesn't do proofs, only law courts think they do, and we all know how well that sometimes turns out). However, others may read this conversation who're not aware of that truism.

What I'm saying is that the onus is on those who believe in the existence of something that seems physically impossible to explain how that can be so, or at the very least to make the effort.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, England's cricketers have just demonstrated what I'd have thought to be physically impossible, so what do I know?

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Call me ignorant, but are not both men demanding proof of something that cannot be proven? After all, who was around several million years ago to provide concrete evidence for either viewpoint?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Would you make this same point if the two were arguing over whether or not the moon is made of green cheese? After all, neither of them has ever been there.

Or would you accept that, since there's a colossal amount of accumulated, interlocking evidence in favour of the moon being made of rocks 'n' stuff, the burden of proof is upon the greencheeseite to justify his claim?

I think it's Ken Ham who produces the fallacious "Were you there?" gibe to counter those who criticize his claim that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark. The fallacy lies in the (false) assumption that the two sides have equal evidential merit: I'm sure Ham would agree with me that it'd be ridiculous to suggest Noah took boxfuls of Barbie dolls aboard the Ark, yet his "Were you there?" rhetorical tomfoolery is equally valid in that instance.

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

dude, NOBODY UNDERSTANDS WHAT MAKES THE TIDES GO IN AND OUT!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

LOL

Joking aside, it's a very pertinent example. Cameron's facile "how can something come out of nothing?" question has been answered to him a thousand times or more, including face-to-face, yet he still pretends that it hasn't. Likewise, O'Reilly with his idiotic tides claim. The continued pretense can only be in an attempt to deceive -- i.e., it's a lie.