Occam's Razor, Anyone?

[Heresis]

Occam's Razor basically states that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." In scientific terms, this means that the simplest answer to a question, when faced with two or more possible answers, is the most accurate. Having said that, I find Christianity has very strange and enigmatic explanations for history and the world around us.

For instance, the story about Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why create such an incredible penalty for something that this god knew would happen? After all, it is all part of his plan in the first place being that he is omnipotent and omniscient. This is the explanation given for why "evil" happens. This could better be explained by the conclusion that there is no god, or, if there is, he is deistic rather than theistic, but, as LaPlace showed us, the model works fine without a god figure.

Another strange example from the Bible is the story of Noah and the ark. Are we actually supposed to believe that Noah actually had two of every animal on the ark with him and his family? This seems mildly plausible until one examines some other beliefs held in the Christian faith, such as the belief that humans were created before animals (Which then begs the question, were there also two of every type of dinosaur on the ark? How did that work? Also, the interbreeding taking place would have surely destroyed our species after several generations, unless it was condoned by god in which case, it would just be weird).

The widely held belief that the entire universe is only six thousand years old comes to mind, as well, even though science has been able to date it as far back as 14.5 billion years old.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that since none of these claims have been adequately explained or backed up by evidence (the Bible is hearsay and doesn't count), why believe them when science offers a totally rational alternative based on tested facts and absent superstitious, non-provable (or disprovable) beliefs?

[Goat]

...Theism is a metaphysical position which--like all metaphysical positions--cannot be evidenced...

...If it can't be evidence, why believe it? Because it gives you warm fuzzies? If there can not be any evidence for it, how do you distiguish it from 'making things up as we go along' , or 'purest fantasy'...

Our metaphysical framework is what we use to guide our interpretation of evidence. Without a metaphysical framework of some kind, we wouldn't even be able to know what "evidence" or "rational arguments" are.

Of course, this statement is total and utter nonsense. You don't need to have a 'metaphyiscal framework' to know that 'If someone pokes me with a red hot poker, I am going to hurt'. You don't need to have a metaphsyical framework to know 'if you are hungry , you eat'. You don't need to know understand the evidence 'Fire will burn you.'. That is just plain overthinking things

...Still, we all necessarily live our lives within the context of some metaphysical framework, and none of us can provide evidence to show that our adopted metaphysical position is "the truth." All we can do as theists is to explain why we have adopted theism over any other non-theistic alternative...

...why make things so complicated, and play so many unsupportable word games ?? I find the more complicated the concept, the more likely it is to be wrong. If something is really really complicated, and it can't be evidenced, IMO, it is almost positive to be incorrect...

Your own metaphysical framework leads you to see things as "complicated" or "simple." Your own metaphysical framework leads you to think that everything that is "complicated" requires "evidence," but to me this sounds like a hopelessly complicated and self-defeating metaphysical framework in its own right. To me, you are arguing with yourself inside a narrow metaphysical straightjacket of your own devising.

Well, this last paragraph shows you are not a mind reader, that is for sure, because in my experience, even simple things need evidence. And, IMO, you are definitely over thinking the whole 'metaphysical' thing...

I am not the only one that noticed that simple things tend to work out better.. that is the whole 'Occam's Razor' point, now isn't it? Now, with the whole complicated , pseudo intellectual metaphysical concepts were you can not show evidence of, can not test for the end result, and you need more and more words to avoid things, well, that violates the whole 'Keep it Simple' idea

You have to keep on moving semantic goal posts all the time. You go from 'Reality' to 'Ultimate Reality' to 'Vocational Ultimate Reality'.. and you can't even do any definitions or provide evidence at each step.. you just make things more complicated at each step.

...If something is complicated , I would need to have a bit if verification before I accept it...

What evidence can you provide to "verify" your own metaphysical framework?

You see your computer?? You are using the results of my 'metaphysical framework'.. Oh. .and vaccines, and other medicines, including the biogenics. Cars, tv's, electricity in houses, flush toilets. Those are the results of my 'metaphysical framework'.

...the double talk of post modernism...is a barrier to 'mutual understanding' to begin with...

Okay, you disagree with the vast majority of modern-day scholars on this point. Nothing wrong with disagreeing with the preponderance of contemporary scholarship, but you should at least acknowledge that you're going against the tide on this point, and therefore you shoulder the burden of evidence for your own position.

And, I show you the results of technology. I can point to the knowledge about evolution, astrophysics, biology, chemistry, and agriculture

...you have to back up your assertions...

What actual assertion have I made that needs "backing up"? Can you be specific?

...If you can't back it up.. well, the idea just don't hold any water.

Can you back up this assertion?

Yes, I can. I can point to the practical results I can show of naturalistic methodology and using verification.. And the lack of same from the pseudo-intellectual metaphysical concepts that do not rely on verification. Is it 100%?? nope.. but it is a heck of a lot better than anything else that has been presented.

[Mithrae]

I am not the only one that noticed that simple things tend to work out better.. that is the whole 'Occam's Razor' point, now isn't it? Now, with the whole complicated , pseudo intellectual metaphysical concepts were you can not show evidence of, can not test for the end result, and you need more and more words to avoid things, well, that violates the whole 'Keep it Simple' idea

You have to keep on moving semantic goal posts all the time. You go from 'Reality' to 'Ultimate Reality' to 'Vocational Ultimate Reality'.. and you can't even do any definitions or provide evidence at each step.. you just make things more complicated at each step.

Explaining things in baby steps isn't necessarily the same as moving goal posts. And given that Chris has written about volitional ultimate reality (and not, to my knowledge, vocational ultimate reality), one can't help but wonder whether even using those small steps his alleged pseudo-intellectual concepts were actually understood by everyone. Volition (or choice, if you prefer) is the only causal agent we have direct experience or evidence of. Our experience or evidence of other causal agents are mediated by our senses and our interpretation of that data. Chris has explained this view ad nauseum, and it's both remarkably simple and coherent.

[EduChris]

...remarkably simple and coherent.

I should add that our assessment of concepts and arguments as "simple" or "simplistic," "complicated" or "comprehensive," and so on, will always depend to some degree on the prior metaphysical framework that we have adopted or absorbed.

[TheJackelantern]

I should add that our assessment of concepts and arguments as "simple" or "simplistic," "complicated" or "comprehensive," and so on, will always depend to some degree on the prior metaphysical framework that we have adopted or absorbed.

Yep, and that's because we are apart of a physical reality. Metaphysics is an emergent property of a physical reality.. Your point here is pointless..

What evidence can you provide to "verify" your own metaphysical framework?

Do you even understand what metaphysics means? Pinch yourself and you might get the picture. Here is the Academic understanding of Metaphysics:

Traditionally, metaphysics refers to the branch of philosophy that attempts to understand the fundamental nature of all reality, whether visible or invisible. It seeks a description so basic, so essentially simple, so all-inclusive that it applies to everything, whether divine or human or anything else. It attempts to tell what anything must be like in order to be at all.

Well, lets point out the obvious:

Information is the cause of causation. It's the essence value,meaning, structure, and complexity of all there is. Existence (reality) = energy = information = force = cause = everything... Hence, you can't get anymore simple than "E"

E = "E"xistence = Energy = Me = Everything else

This is what you call a Universal Set of all sets.:

In set theory, a universal set is a set which contains all and is all objects, including itself

Wasn't too difficult to break down the metaphysical framework.

[Goat]

I am not the only one that noticed that simple things tend to work out better.. that is the whole 'Occam's Razor' point, now isn't it? Now, with the whole complicated , pseudo intellectual metaphysical concepts were you can not show evidence of, can not test for the end result, and you need more and more words to avoid things, well, that violates the whole 'Keep it Simple' idea

You have to keep on moving semantic goal posts all the time. You go from 'Reality' to 'Ultimate Reality' to 'Vocational Ultimate Reality'.. and you can't even do any definitions or provide evidence at each step.. you just make things more complicated at each step.

Explaining things in baby steps isn't necessarily the same as moving goal posts. And given that Chris has written about volitional ultimate reality (and not, to my knowledge, vocational ultimate reality), one can't help but wonder whether even using those small steps his alleged pseudo-intellectual concepts were actually understood by everyone. Volition (or choice, if you prefer) is the only causal agent we have direct experience or evidence of. Our experience or evidence of other causal agents are mediated by our senses and our interpretation of that data. Chris has explained this view ad nauseum, and it's both remarkably simple and coherent.

Piling nonsense upon nonsense is not simple and coherent. It is just putting extra layers upon layers of rubbish.

And, repeating claims over and over again, but saying "it can't be evidenced' is not coherent either.

[Mithrae]

I am not the only one that noticed that simple things tend to work out better.. that is the whole 'Occam's Razor' point, now isn't it? Now, with the whole complicated , pseudo intellectual metaphysical concepts were you can not show evidence of, can not test for the end result, and you need more and more words to avoid things, well, that violates the whole 'Keep it Simple' idea

You have to keep on moving semantic goal posts all the time. You go from 'Reality' to 'Ultimate Reality' to 'Vocational Ultimate Reality'.. and you can't even do any definitions or provide evidence at each step.. you just make things more complicated at each step.

Explaining things in baby steps isn't necessarily the same as moving goal posts. And given that Chris has written about volitional ultimate reality (and not, to my knowledge, vocational ultimate reality), one can't help but wonder whether even using those small steps his alleged pseudo-intellectual concepts were actually understood by everyone. Volition (or choice, if you prefer) is the only causal agent we have direct experience or evidence of. Our experience or evidence of other causal agents are mediated by our senses and our interpretation of that data. Chris has explained this view ad nauseum, and it's both remarkably simple and coherent.

Piling nonsense upon nonsense is not simple and coherent. It is just putting extra layers upon layers of rubbish.

And, repeating claims over and over again, but saying "it can't be evidenced' is not coherent either.

In speaking of "vocational ultimate reality" rather than volitional, your comment to which I responded apparently showed a blatant lack of understanding of the views which EduChris has expressed in numerous ways and occasions. I may have missed the part where you've shown any understanding at all of the views which you're insulting. I've certainly missed the part where you show the 'nonsense' or 'rubbish' involved. And to be honest, you might want to check a dictionary about 'coherent' (holding together) also - if you're using words so loosely that you equate coherence with evidence, I can see why you're having difficulty.

Ironically, your two lines' worth of insults against a view about which you show no understanding come immediately after a post in which TheJackelantern, if I read him correctly, proposes to describe the nature of reality simply as E (energy). Even EduChris' views, as far as I've understood what I've read of his posts, are not quite so reductionistic or dogmatic as to equate existence with behaviour or causality and present it as simple and final. But apparently, you seem to think that he is somehow wrong or that his views are invalidated by his acknowledgement that he is no more capable of physically substantiating his view of the universe than you are of yours.

By implication, you prefer people to claim certainty and proof for any views which they express?

[Cathar1950]

I want to informally make a protest about the misuse and/or of the way metaphysic has been presented and the insulting nature of its presentation. I would also like propose any alternative to the “unmoved� mover as I agree with both Whitehead and Hartshorne that is was one of the worse of the many blunders in Western theology and philosophy.
As Hartshorne tells us, Natural theology is metaphysics.
Metaphysics as the central concern of philosophy is in search of the universal and necessary truths of existence in contrast to and including all contingent aspects in order to clarifying and purifying religious beliefs and furnishing suggestions for science or knowledge.
The “universal and necessary truths of existence� are true for the theist and atheist alike as well as to anything that exists including the possible and the impossible along with the actual as it is a related system that would be an all-inclusive existence.


No God would be preferable to a crazy one.
I refuse to believe in a crazy God, otherwise I am open and try to live as though God were not insane, nonsense or unmoved.


I was on my way back to the “Is Yahweh the first Non-Contingent god?� http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 74&start=0Thread when I ran across this interesting, or at least amusing thread.
It was the subject of metaphysics that sparked my interest and the garbled way in which it was being presented, while amusing, I found even after 30-35 years of metaphysics, I could hardly recognize what was being presented, as where error was presented, mostly error is what is being presented, insults prevailed rather then substance from those that claim to be trying to elevate the conversation and incoherence prevailed while it was being supported by more insults.

I am still not sure if I want to take on this subject or not as it is as vast as it is complicated and I am suspecting it will be the so-called :Non-Theist� that will have an easier time understanding the subject and might even find some rather familiar overlaps with the rest of the cosmos while the ones that now find it coherent might wish they had never brought the subject up as I suspect it is largely being used to beg any and all questions, they are trying to dress up a classical god in neo-classical terms with the same old nonsense and like too much pork on a bad piece of legislation, drag any and all rather arbitrary a priori dogma and doctrine with them claiming it is all “non-empirical� as they offer substance and materialistic dualisms dismissing even chance, relationship, energy and matter in favor of dogmatic abstractions inherited from the Greeks while they insist their “unmoved mover�, “the One� and even God Himself as their god of religion and reinventing their god as “God� used for evoking more feeling then substance, intellectual or other.

How can an atheist define God? How do you define what isn’t or how would you define nothing?
They define God much like the theist; imagination.



Awediot wrote:

I have reasons, attached to events which stretch some 40 years that have compounded into evidence... So yes, I have evidence...

JoeyKnothead wrote:

...how I can know they speak truth...

Notice above that clearly Awediot wrote “evidence�. Granted Joey had an obvious question provided he explained what he meant by evidence but still the subject is “evidence�. Then EduChris jumps in and tells us it can’t be “evidenced� because it is “metaphysical� as he misrepresents both theology and metaphysics.

EduChris wrote:

This is a clever twist on words--the effect of which is to imply that if the theist "cannot show they speak the truth," they are therefore not speaking the truth, or in other words, engaging in falsehood ("full of it" was your term).

Theism is a metaphysical position which--like all metaphysical positions--cannot be evidenced. Still, we all necessarily live our lives within the context of some metaphysical framework, and none of us can provide evidence to show that our adopted metaphysical position is "the truth."

First, theism is not a metaphysical position; it has many differing metaphysical positions or not at all if it finds the whole process invalid or just nonsense.
Theism is a general term for the belief or beliefs in one or more gods or even “God�, whatever that might mean to the believer.


EduChris wrote:

All we can do as theists is to explain why we have adopted theism over any other non-theistic alternative.

This doesn’t really sound like much of a plan or goal. He isn’t changing the goal posts; he is ignoring them so he can play another game.
Actually you battle or arguments are with other theist as Hartshorne points the positivist may excuse themselves as it being irrelevant.


Mithrae wrote:

Admittedly I've seen more of EduChris' views, but it seems to me that he and TheJackelantern share rather similar views on their debating partners' approach to the topic. They each present rather advanced/specialized information in their respective fields (metaphysics and theoretical science, respectively) and comment negatively upon those who presume to sceptically discuss the issue without sharing their level of understanding.

How is it you know anyone’s level of understanding? Do you really think he should comment positively when he disagrees?


Mithrae wrote:

For my part I find it considerably easier to understand what EduChris has to say. Perhaps that's because I've got marginally more background in philosophy than in science, or perhaps it's because I have to use my imagination more…

Here you seem to presume he has less imagination then yourself, or at least not enough.

Pehapes you imagine he said something coherent because you may have recognized a “philosophical phrase or word and then imagined you both knew what you wee talking about.

Or perhaps, as EduChris doesn’t actually say anything meaningful, it is easier because there is nothing there. How do you know he doesn’t share his level of understanding? You certainly seem to share his level of insults.

I am curious as to what leads you to call the views of EduChris coherent.
How is it you understand what EduChris has to say when by his own words he seems to be insinuating he hasn’t said anything. I know it is hard to believe with all the word mongering and frivolous rhetoric about Goat’s supposed metaphysics against his unstated metaphysics.


EduChris wrote:
“What actual assertion have I made that needs "backing up"? Can you be specific?�

I imagine assertions don’t need backed up either.
Maybe he either doesn’t remember or doesn’t himself know. At what point is he showing a higher, or any, level of understanding? We can only imagine.
His philosophy is sloppy and his metaphysics is sloppy while he slips back and forth with nothing more then the same old medieval theological and philosophical premises while begging the questions by some unspecified and unaccepted modal argument he has not bothered to explain that alone show them to be even valid or properly used.
Whitehead tells us to think simply and mistrust it, EduChris says nothing and insults.


Read this empty insult. I don’t recall any time where we were told his so-called “own metaphysical framework� or that of his opponent.
As I was saying earlier

Quoting myself and others:

Metaphysics as the central concern of philosophy is in search of the universal and necessary truths of existence in contrast to and including all contingent aspects in order to clarifying and purifying religious beliefs and furnishing suggestions for science or knowledge.
The “universal and necessary truths of existence� are true for the theist and atheist alike as well as to anything that exists including the possible and the impossible along with the actual as it is a related system that would be an all-inclusive existence.

It is EduChris that has making the claim that he has found it, a priori and all.

EduChris wrote:

Your own metaphysical framework leads you to see things as "complicated" or "simple." Your own metaphysical framework leads you to think that everything that is "complicated" requires "evidence," but to me this sounds like a hopelessly complicated and self-defeating metaphysical framework in its own right. To me, you are arguing with yourself inside a narrow metaphysical straightjacket of your own devising.

He is the one making the claim and living in a box built for him by dogma and doctrine. It sounds like everything looks hopelessly complicated.

Any metaphysical framework that doesn’t account for both simple and complicated should hardly be accepted as anything but nonsense. Just because it “sounds� hopelessly complicated to EduChris is hardly a reason for him to call some unspecified metaphysical framework “self-defeating� and adding “in its own right� adds nothing. On one hand he claims we all have metaphysical frameworks or whatever, and on the other hand his opposition and straw men non-theists have straightjackets. Hartshorne tells us that positivism and theism pretty much exhaust the metaphysical possibilities. Positivists may excuse themselves leaving it up to theisms of various types and possibilities to provide a equally justified metaphysics of God. Maybe his opponents’ metaphysics is a straightjacket for EduChris but I hardly think it is less of a straightjacket then his doctrines and dogma he uses to constrain his metaphysics placing dogma and doctrine on his definitions of God like to much pork on a bad piece of legislation.



He is largely begging the question, or questions, by claiming he is being somehow analytic, minus the analysis, while garbling philosophic and metaphysical concepts just so he can claim his concepts are not empirical, and subject to evidence, as he is replacing a priori metaphysical speculation and conceptions with doctrine.
Just because he uses philosophical terms that sound familiar to you doesn’t mean he is using them properly, or at all.


It isn’t so much that he is changing or moving the goal posts as he is simply ignoring them.
Rather then explaining what he might mean he resorts to insults as he pretends to bring sloppy metaphysics, philosophy and theology to some imaginary level of discourse and understanding without substance. He has not shown anyone that he understands “metaphysical matters� or why it should dismiss the need to "speak the truth".


Theism is not a metaphysical position; it has metaphysical positions as it is a general term for ideas or concepts of divinity or gods, including differing meanings of “God� and holds a metaphysical position. All isms can be metaphysical positions while the facts are the same the explanations might be different. There is no general theism as theism is already a general term which includes all theisms, and possibly some atheisms. He is using some misplaced notion of “general� theism to argue against some general “non-theism� straw man in order to show that somehow theism is a better alternative by which he means his particular theism as he fails to argue for but assumes a priori. It is not necessary to show that theism or non-theism is better if it can be shown to be as good as any alternative while all that is needed to refute a particular theism is to show that it is either wrong, nonsense or incoherent. They can also refuse to play the game and having no meaning or Is simply not valid or be positivists and excuse themselves.
I tend to think that whatever metaphysics, theists or other, the same a prior universe exists and when they say the same thing then they can decide if God is necessary or impossible, or at least know what we mean.
Among theists it is a matter of which “God� or gods.
There are Polytheisms, Pantheisms, Pan-en-theisms, Tri-theisms (the Trinity), Monotheisms, and maybe even Atheisms if you mean rejection of some or even all particular theisms as well as both classical and neo-classical theisms...

Theism is not only a metaphysical position nor should it be confused with theology, which may be analytical and may or may not be using metaphysical analysis.



Possibility is chance, so I find it amusing that we find EduChris even arguing against the very idea of chance.

God holds both contraries, change is the constant while it is actualities or events that are eternal once they happen as now they will have always happened. It is like we are looking at reality upside-down or backwards.
It is the possible, or actuality that creates the necessary which creates new possibilities.

[Waiting4evidence]

The widely held belief that the entire universe is only six thousand years old comes to mind, as well, even though science has been able to date it as far back as 14.5 billion years old.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that since none of these claims have been adequately explained or backed up by evidence (the Bible is hearsay and doesn't count), why believe them when science offers a totally rational alternative based on tested facts and absent superstitious, non-provable (or disprovable) beliefs?

You mention that the Bible is hearsay and doesn't count. What makes something hearsay? My understanding of hearsay is that it is information about something, that is acquired from someone else and not firsthand. If my understanding is correct then the science concerning the beginning of the universe is all hearsay as no one was there to witness it. That would put it on the same level of "hearsay" as the Bible if you don't believe that the Bible is true. If you do, then you believe that God was present at the creation of the universe, then at least the writings of the Bible originate from someone who was there.

Ok, what you're saying is very very very ignorant. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not willfully ignorant, and try to explain to you where the fallacy in your thinking is.

Imagine you have a dog, and you know that he runs at exactly 10 miles an hour.

Imagine you also know that the instant he frees himself from his leash, he will start running right away.

Imagine you are taking a nap in the middle of an enormous field, with your dog on his leash right next to you.

When you wake up you realize your dog managed to free himself of the leash. You look around with your binoculars and realize he is now exactly 5 miles away from you.

You were NOT THERE TO WITNESS when he freed himself and started running. You were deep asleep. Nonetheless you can calculate when the event happened. The dog runs at 10 mph, he is now 5 miles away, THEREFORE he freed himself and started running half an hour ago.

You divide the distance by the speed, and you get the time. 5/2=0.5

Your conclusion that the dog started running 30 minutes ago is NOT based on hearsay. It is based on empirical measurements taken right now.

It's the exact same thing with calculating the age of the universe.

We know that objects in the sky are very far from us, and are moving even further at a constant speed.

Specifically, we know there are objects in the sky that are 78 trillion miles away from us, and we know they travel away from us at 299 792 458 miles per second.

Using simple arithmetic, we can divide the distance by the speed, and conclude that they have been traveling away from us for 13.7 billion years.

In other words, all these objects were in the same spot 13.7 billion years ago. That's the Big Bang.

You calculation is NOT based on hearsay.

It is based on empirical measurements taken right now.

Do you get it?

[dianaiad]

Occam's Razor basically states that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." In scientific terms, this means that the simplest answer to a question, when faced with two or more possible answers, is the most accurate.

I like Heinlein's answer to this, when told that using Occam's razor results in the correct answer: "The woman down the street is a witch. She did it."


The problem with using Occam's Razor is this: the simplest answer may not ALWAYS be the right one, or the most accurate one. Just sayin'