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Comment by mrkeen | Hacker News Reader

> Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises

> Lawrence Krauss engages with philosophical arguments for theism without understanding them properly. Most saliently, he ends up criticising a caricature version of the so-called cosmological argument about the existence of God.

Oof. Perhaps back up those drive-by-shootings with some clarification.

> Usually, the prose is infused with arcane terminology and learned jargon, creating an aura of scholarly profundity. We can call this phenomenon obscurantist pseudophilosophy.

The irony.

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I mean harris is pretty bad with this. I agree that the article has that tone that most of us normies find distasteful, but it's not really wrong in my experience. If anything, in not directly calling Harris' straying from his area of expertise charlatanism, the author is being generous.

> The irony.

It's only ironic if you haven't read this so called "obscurantist pseudophilosophy." This sentence hardly holds a candle to the writings of someone like Deleuze or Derrida.

Agreed with this. Also, to give the author of the Psyche article credit, he defined what he meant by obscurantist philosophy earlier in the article. In my fairly limited reading of them, Foucault, Derrida, et al., don't always do this, even when the terms they use are much less self-explanatory than this one.

I admit Deleuze's writing is hard work but he has some really interesting metaphysical ideas linked to complexity and systems theory, try reading Manuel DeLanda for a more accessible introduction

> The irony.

That's just a sentence that isn't afraid of using long words, they're all pretty precisely, neatly used IMO. Not ironic at all. This would be a mouthful to say or understand out loud but it seems like normal writing to me.

> The irony.

Translation for the HN crowd: obscurantist pseudophilosophy == philosophy theater through obscurity.

couldn't agree more... the use profundity that many times....obscurantist..... sounds like a bunch of pseudophilosophising to me

> The irony.

Similarly:

> There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth.

...combined with:

> A problem is that most of us are lacking in epistemic conscientiousness, at least sometimes and to some extent. In order for something to count as pseudoscience, some minimal degree of unconscientiousness is therefore required. A good rule of thumb for being conscientious is to keep an eye out for classical fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking. Such fallacies occur in all kinds of contexts, but in pseudoscience they occur more systematically.

They "surely" occur more systematically in "pseudoscience", but it's funnier when they occur in an article that is literally criticizing others for this kind of thinking.

Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing.

Sure, terms like "epistemic" or "unconscientiousness" may be a bit unfamiliar, but they have specific meanings that are clear in the passage, and are used to make a salient argument.

The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation! For example, these two statements are very different:

"Making the world a better place through canonical data models to communicate between endpoints." (Silicon Valley season 1 episode 6)

"And then there are other aspects of complexity that come into programming with any of these more commonly used statically typed languages, which have to do with the complexity in the language space." (Rich Hickey talk)

If you aren't familiar with the jargon, they're both unintelligible, but if you are, one sounds silly and the other does not.

> Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing.

They sure do - that's the problem! The author shows little sign of being concerned with the degree to which they are true (which considering he's representing skills in epistemology, seems like a bit of a shortcoming).

>> These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth.

Setting the stage by choosing "astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx" at the start of the article seems like a bit of the very "straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking" the author complains about, since they go on to discuss pseudoscience in general.

I suspect "These 'fields'" is hinting (without explicitly saying) at conspiracy theories in general, going on to say "...upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is(!) [implicitly: without exception] revealed to be bullshit". (An example of using persuasive rhetoric to misinform readers.)

> An illustrative example is Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape (2010), in which straw men are lined up due to Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises.

The author seems to not considered the possibility that the same applies to him (he who is without sin...).

And then wraps it up with this beauty of a paragraph:

> While pseudoscience can perhaps be counteracted by science education, the cure for pseudophilosophy is not science education but philosophical education. More specifically, it is a matter of developing the kind of basic critical thinking skills that are taught to undergraduates in philosophy. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy [Oh? Are you sure?]. Students should be taught things like learning to distinguish in a disciplined way between central philosophical concepts such as belief, truth, rationality and knowledge. They should be aware of the way ambiguities can be exploited by equivocating arguments, and become adept at how to spot other fallacies such as ad hominem and straw man. With these fundamental tools in hand, there would be a good deal less pseudophilosophy going around.

Perhaps we should add psychology and mindfulness (self-awareness) to this list.

> The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation!

Agreed.

I remember the exact dismissal of Peterson's critics of Foucalt .

"He doesn't understand him, therefore his criticism is invalid." period. It's conductive to nowhere, and gatekeeps critics to a light variety.

Reading someone's work should be the only requirement to offer views on them.

That said, Peterson didn't read Marx.

Most of the modern atheists are clueless when it comes to the theism discussion.

Theism is bullshit, as much as people reading cards, voodoo or the horoscopes.

Your response proves my point.

You didn't prove your god.

There are many proofs:

- God is greater than the greatest imaginable thing, so must exist (this one is proven to be logically valid with computational theorem prover, and Bertrand Russell even said it was sound at one point in his life)

- the world is intelligently designed

- there must be a first cause, and that must be God

- nothing in this world is perfect so there must be a transcendently perfect being

- we can only be satisfied be an infinite being, so the object of our desire lies beyond this world

- moral laws exist and require a law giver

- our mind is not reducible to our body, and must have been created by an even greater being

- jesus existed, claimed to be God, and rose from the dead according to reliable historical documentation

Off the top of my head

On the other hand it is impossible to prove atheism, you cannot prove a negative

So we are left with theism and a lot of proofs, and atheism which is inherently incapable of being proven

Seems the rational choice leans towards theism

You and I have very different ideas of what the word ‘proof’ means. I have no doubt this is how it looks to you. From where I sit, we have theism and a lot of nebulous thought experiments that gel with the way religious minds already think, and atheism which is simply the default until the day God decides to grace us with a press conference.

There are tight logical proofs. Note I point out the ontological argument is now validated by computer. I am merely sketching them above. I also disagree atheism is the default. As Einstein says, simplify as much as possible, but no further. Atheism is incapable of explaining reality as we experience it. While simple it lacks explanatory power. Saying atheism is the default due to simplicity is like saying nothing is a better explanation than something because nothingness is simpler than something, which is clearly the wrong way to go about picking theories. Monotheism is our most parsinomous theory to date.

> There are tight logical proofs.

No, there aren't.

> Note I point out the ontological argument is now validated by computer.

While an invalid argument is useless, a valid one can still be no good.

Here is a logically valid argument:

Major Premise. all who post claims of proofs of God’s existence on HN should be killed.

Minor Premise. yters posted a claim of proof of God’s existence on HN

Conclusion. Therefore, yters should be killed.

Now, if I claimed I proved you should be killed, you would probably object, and claim there was a problem with the major premise. And I think many people would agree with you, but the correctness of the premises isn't relevant to logical validity, only soundness.

Well that's the problem with all proofs. If the premises are false the proof is not sound. That doesn't preclude the proof being tight, i.e. as in well reasoned and logically argued. Outside of mathematics you will be hard pressed to find a proof where someone doesn't disagree with a premise or two. And even within math we have intuitionists and constructivists claiming things like proof by negation is invalid. So if your criterion for solid proof is one that everyone agrees with, you are bound to be perpetually disappointed. On the other hand if your criterion is proofs that highly intelligent people find convincing after fully understanding the argument, then I again submit to you the ontological argument which even Russell claimed was sound at one point in his life before walking that back and saying it is wrong for some unknown reason.

> Well that's the problem with all proofs

No, its the problem with pure logical proofs, which is why for statements about reality rather than abstract relations of concepts, empirical proofs (despite being less absolute) are generally preferred.

> the ontological argument

Since you have merely waved at and sketched the argument, let me do the same it's demolition: existence is not a predicate.

I guess that means we cannot say anything exists. Sounds sensible to me.

> God is greater than the greatest imaginable thing, so must exist (this one is proven to be logically valid with computational theorem prover)

Logical validity is a very weak thing to demonstrate (it is trivial to construct a logically valid argument for any position), to be a proof you'd need to show soundness. https://iep.utm.edu/val-snd/#:~:text=A%20deductive%20argumen....

Sure, if I give an axiom that “The greatest imaginable thing must exist”, “God is an imaginable thing”, and “God is greater than any other imaginable thing”, a computational theorem prover will validate “God must exist”.

This doesn’t prove God exists. It just proves either God exists or one of your axioms are wrong.

> the world is intelligently designed

That’s not a proof, or even proven, just an unprovable conjecture.

> there must be a first cause, and that must be God

Those are two unproven claims, (“There must be a First Cause” and “If there is a First Cause, it must be God”), not a proof.

> nothing in this world is perfect so there must be a transcendently perfect being

That’s just a non-sequitur. Even taking the premise to be true, it does not (at all) lead to the conclusion.

> we can only be satisfied be an infinite being, so the object of our desire lies beyond this world

The “we can only be satisfied” part is unproven (and unprovable), and the other part doesn’t follow from it. That there must exist something that fulfills are desire to be satisfied is wishful thinking, not some kind of logical necessity, so even an infinite being was necessary for that that doesn’t mean such a being must exist.

> moral laws exist and require a law giver

All “moral laws” which provably exist are attributable to a huan lawgiver. Any other “moral laws” are speculative, as is any other lawgiver.

> our mind is not reducible to our body, and must have been created by an even greater being

The premise is not true, and isn’t even related to the conclusion. If it were true it would require a mind to have some nonphysical component, not “an even greater being” as a creator.

> jesus existed, claimed to be God, and rose from the dead according to reliable historical documentation

None of that is true based on “reliable historical documentation”

I recommend you look into these things more carefully, e.g. read the wikipedia article on historicity of Jesus. I am just throwing out sketches of the many different well know arguments for theism that atheist believe they don't even have to engage with to have an intellectually robust position. Well fine, anyone can believe anything they want to believe, but that doesn't mean they've put any careful thought into their position.

The problem with Atheism is no one will agree on the basic ground rules for a conversation. For example if I say I'm not an Atheist because I don't care to subscribe to a specific definition of god upon which to focus my lack of belief, I get accused of propping up a Straw Man.

It's clear that religion exists, it's impossible to find a human culture that lacks it. But the minute you try to put the discussion on a more rigorous footing the process seems to fall apart, hence the term pseudophilosophy. Carl Sagan was described as not wanting to be called an Atheist because that already requires knowledge that has not been introduced into the conversation. I guess that makes him an epistemological agnostic but even that choice of terminology can be challenged.

So where is one expected to go with this apparent dilemma?

There is no dillema. Probe it, or GFTO. It works with anything: science, self-called "engineers" applying for a job, trials in order to be guilty or not... easy.

If someone says "gold cures cancer", everyone and his mom would think he is a nut, unless that's true there's no proof that gold cures anything. The same with religion.

>It's clear that religion exists, it's impossible to find a human culture that lacks it.

So what. A lot of tribes had chamans too, and no magic did work, ever. Look up for "cargo cult" in order how religions works, that's the biggest slap to arrogant American Christian ever, because it works like a huge reality mirror, kinda like: hey, look at that bullshit these Australians are believeing, think for a while on your own bullshit from the Stone Age, because these people with no knowledge of the world (no one in China have heard of Jesus until very recent times (relatively) in the late Middle Ages, so maybe it's religion and god wasn't as Universal as they tought).

The same with Native Americans, no matter North of South. No one have heard of crazy world-wide floods, or whatever.

Also, Bible's great flood was a rehash from the Mesopotapian tales, whose legend maybe date back to the end of the Ice Age.

Ditto with Roman/Greek Gods: if you believe in Zeus/Iupiter, most people will tell you to head an asylum, yet the Judeo-Christian God looks "right". It's just hypocrisy. And fear.

It seems like this is your argument:

1) If some religions are false, then all religions are false

2) Pacific-tribe cargo cults and ancient Greek mythology are clearly false, plus there are some stories in the Bible that are hard to swallow

3) Therefore God doesn't exist

Is that right?

No, but most proof look the Bible as implausible, biased, full of contradictions and then contrary to what science have been told since millenia.

Religion is an aspect of the human condition. The question of whether any particular religious belief can be thought of as "true" needs to be unpacked in a careful way.

As soon as someone claims that a thing "exists" in a way that can't be demonstrated, I can choose to be polite but ignore the claim. That's trivial.

What's more complicated is the entire idea of substance dualism, and how human consciousness can apprehend an idea that has nothing tangible to back it up.

These questions matter, and are worth unpacking, regardless of how you happen to feel about religion.

Does that make sense?

Name one prominent modern atheist that is clueless when it comes to the theism discussion and present one point he/she misrepresents/lacks understanding of.

The four horsemen are all woefully uninformed when they try to deal with standard arguments for theism. Although I will say I like how upfront and clear Dawkins is in his statements. Bertrand Russell at least had the intellectual honesty to admit the ontological argument is logically valid (which is now proven with a computational theorem prover), and says it is very difficult to identify the problem with the argument even though it feels unsatisfying.

>>> Most of the modern atheists are clueless when it comes to the theism discussion.

>> Name one prominent modern atheist that is clueless when it comes to the theism discussion and present one point he/she misrepresents/lacks understanding of.

> The four horsemen are all woefully uninformed when they try to deal with standard arguments for theism.

Repetition is not a good argument.

Dawkins' argument that the presupposition of god requires then yet another explanation of god. He doesn't realize this criticism applies to any posited ultimate cause, including physicalism. In fact this very issue forms the foundation for some of the classic arguments for God. The only way the regress can terminate is with an uncaused cause, which only can be met by a godlike being. So followed to its logical conclusion Dawkins argument proves the existence of god.

Sam Harris seems to think the problem of evil disproves god, yet most philosophers now believe it does not after Alvin Plantinga's work. At any rate, at best it can disprove a good god.

Dennett doesn't seem to have an argument, and just tried to explain away everything he doesn't believe in.

Hitchens also doesn't have an argument and relies on emotional appeals, claiming god is like the north korean dictator, the irony apparently being lost on him that north korea is a forced atheist state.

So overall the most glaring problem is lack of any argument whatsoever, which is not promising for a supposedly intellectual position. When an argument is offered it would not even pass a freshman logic class.

Prior generations of atheists were not so intellectually vapid. Anthony Flew would be a good example if it were not for his conversion to theism.

Oh one more thing, all of the besides Hitchens erroneously like to rely on computer science to support their claims. Whereas if you have a background in CS you understand they don't know what they are talking about.

I don't think Harris would claim he's making philosophical arguments aimed at philosophers. I think he would say he's making arguments against beliefs that most people (non-philosopher) hold. Most people who show up to church don't claim that they worship a god who just so happens to not be good. They believe in a god is perfectly good, who takes an interest in their personal lives and will decide the subjective nature of their experience after death.

Yes, no one else has ever grappled with the problem of evil. Harris is certainly a trailblazer speaking unmentionable truths.

Dawkins thinks that the first three "Ways" of Aquinas all hinge on the premise that a chain of causes can't proceed infinitely backward in time. This is a standard misreading that could be straightened out by a quick perusal of secondary literature, or just by reading a little more Aquinas, who makes clear elsewhere that he thinks the universe does not, in principle, need to have a beginning in time.

And plus he could look at Duns Scotus arguments which even grant an infinite causal chain, e.g. by forming a circle. Modern atheists are just very snobbish thinking everyone who existed before you could post online take downs on reddit was an idiot.

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