Denying the Truth is not the Same as Not Knowing it

_{Barry Arrington

October 20, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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Highlighting an exchange in a prior post:

Phinehas

As a result of your [i.e., ES’s] metaphysics, you are unable to describe in any meaningful way the difference between a mound of dirt and a sand castle.

Silver Asiatic

It’s amazing how difficult this concept is for some people.

Well, Silver, yes and no.

No, in the sense that it is no more difficult for them to apprehend a self-evident truth than anyone else. That is what it means for the truth to be “self-evident.” Don’t let them fool you into believing they genuinely do not perceive the self-evident. They do.

Yes, in the sense that as Phinehas has noted, ES’s prior metaphysical commitments force him to deny self-evident truths. The cognitive dissonance that is necessarily entailed by denying self-evident truths must be a difficult burden to bear.

Comments

Barry, I will even draft it for you: I, Barry Arrington, being of sound mind and body, do apologize to Tintinnid for erroneously declaring that he was incapable of rational argument... Feel free to modify this draft as you see fit. Unless, of course, you don't think that someone who falsely accuses someone else of something, should apologize. But please remember this the next time that someone accuses you of lying.tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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Box:
According to your metaphysics, there are blind particles in motion behind the ‘steering wheel’ of your thoughts. Why would particles in motion be capable of – or even be interested in – rational argument?
Explain yourself. What are tintinnid's metaphysics that compel your characterization? Rule of argumentation: Putting words in other peoples' mouths is misrepresentation. (A lot - really a lot - of that goes on here.)Daniel King_{October 20, 2014
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Tin
I also know that any number of physical or chemical interventions can affect this
You most certainly do not "know" that your consciousness results solely from chemical reactions in the brain system. You assume it because your metaphysical commitments require you to assume it. If you "knew" it you would explain it to everyone, thereby utterly destroying dualism, ID and probably theism as well. When you head off to Stockholm to collect your prize maybe then I will believe you "know" it. Why is it so hard for materialists to distinguish between their assumptions based on little more than their a priori metaphysical commitments and a posteriori knowledge? Do our schools no longer teach the difference?Barry Arrington_{October 20, 2014
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tintinnid #11: If someone publicly, and falsely, claims that I am incapable of rational argument, is it self-evident that this person should apologize? Just asking?
According to your metaphysics, there are blind particles in motion behind the 'steering wheel' of your thoughts. Why would particles in motion be capable of - or even be interested in - rational argument?Box_{October 20, 2014
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Barry: "Don’t dismiss Box so quickly. There may be an equivocation at play here." I don't dismiss Box. Yes, I believe that I am conscious, but I also know that any number of physical or chemical interventions can affect this. So, is my consciousness physical and chemical, or god given? I have to go with the former until evidence suggests otherwise. And I haven't seen any evidence (other than BA77's link blasts).tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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Tin, Don’t dismiss Box so quickly. There may be an equivocation at play here. Of course a materialist such as yourself admits that he “exists” in the sense that the physical stuff of which your body is made is not an illusion. Box is not denying that. His argument is a little more subtle. Read and contemplate the lengthy quotation Box has provided. It is called the “hard problem of consciousness” for a reason my friend. Actually, for theistic dualists such as Box and myself, the problem is not hard at all. For materialist it is well-nigh insoluble. You experience subjective self-awareness. That cannot be denied. Yet a materialists’ metaphysical premises utterly exclude the possibility of a “real” subjective self that is not a “physical” thing. It is called a “hard problem” because there is no good answer to how a “physical thing” can have subjective self-awareness. How can a bag of chemicals have subjective self-awareness? This does not mean that materialists don’t try to answer the question. Indeed they do. And their answers are stupid. Just this week News has highlighted a materialist spewing the hoary “we only think that we think” idiocy. The other dodge is to say that “consciousness” is an “emergent property” of the brain system, as if that is an explanation instead of a confession of ignorance. So yes, the professor who is the subject of this post is denying that he exists (in the second sense of the word). And that is what Box is getting at. And I am not “full of it” when I point it out. Barry Arrington_{October 20, 2014
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Barry, how about this one. If someone publicly, and falsely, claims that I am incapable of rational argument, is it self-evident that this person should apologize? Just asking?tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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Tin “It is the more esoteric ones that are in the grey zone.” Not a problem, because anything that is even remotely close to esoteric cannot possibly be a self-evident. Here is the classic example: 2+2=4. A person perceives the truth of the proposition merely by understanding it. Interestingly 587X264=154,968 is not self-evidently true. Here’s another: I am conscious. If I deny that statement I have descended into patently absurd self-referential incoherence.Barry Arrington_{October 20, 2014
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Box: "tintinnid, for me a crystal clear self-evident truth is that I exist. A materialist, like yourself, is forced by his metaphysical commitments to deny his own existence. Is that indeed psychologically painful, as Barry suggests?" Well, then Barry is full of it. I am a materialist and I consider it self-evident that I exist. Why should that be a problem? Can you find another example?tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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tintinnid, for me a crystal clear self-evident truth is that I exist. A materialist, like yourself, is forced by his metaphysical commitments to deny his own existence. Is that indeed psychologically painful, as Barry suggests?
FOR SOLID EVOLUTIONARY REASONS, WE’VE BEEN tricked into looking at life from the inside. Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV (OMG, you don’t know what a POV is?—a “point of view”). The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind. Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion. Even after scientism convinces us, we’ll continue to stick with the first person. But at least we’ll know that it’s another illusion of introspection and we’ll stop taking it seriously. We’ll give up all the answers to the persistent questions about free will, the self, the soul, and the meaning of life that the illusion generates. The physical facts fix all the facts. The mind is the brain. It has to be physical and it can’t be anything else, since thinking, feeling, and perceiving are physical process—in particular, input/output processes—going on in the brain. We can be sure of a great deal about how the brain works because the physical facts fix all the facts about the brain. The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will. It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives. It excludes the very possibility of enduring persons, selves, or souls that exist after death or for that matter while we live. (....) The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak. To see why we make these mistakes and why it’s so hard to avoid them, we need to understand the source of the illusion that thoughts are about stuff. [Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide To Reality, ch.9] - [my emphasis]
Box_{October 20, 2014
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Barry: "I think I may see tintinid’s problem. He seems to think that “self-evident truth” is a synonym for “strongly held belief.” It is not." You may be correct. Maybe if you gave some concrete examples, I might understand better. But see if he can stay away from the "sun rises" type examples. It is the more esoteric ones that are in the grey zone.tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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I think I may see tintinid's problem. He seems to think that "self-evident truth" is a synonym for "strongly held belief." It is not.Barry Arrington_{October 20, 2014
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What about the superiority of man over other life? Is that a self-evident truth? Warning: if your answer is yes then it is opinion.tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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Tintinid:
Barry, you wield self-evident truths as if they were weapons.
Self-evident truths are powerful things, but they are not weapons. I don’t doubt that denying them is psychologically painful and it may seem like they are.
Declaring that something is a self-evident truth does not make it so.
I could not agree more. A self-evident truth is such only if, as KF has already pointed out, one must descend into patent absurdity to deny it. Sadly, ES has demonstrated not only a willingness, but seemingly an eagerness, to do just that.
Is it a self-evident truth that the sparkling point of light in the night sky is a star?
No, it is not. You don’t seem to understand the concept of self-evident truth. You should study it.
99% of the time (or more, I don’t really know), this extrapolation may be correct. Except when it is a plant or a galaxy.
Again, you don’t seem to understand the nature of self-evident truth. A self-evident truth, by its very nature, is never perceived by means of an extrapolation. In other words, if you have to extrapolate to get to it, it may be true, but is not self-evidently true.
In many cases, what somebody calls a self-evident truth is nothing more than opinion.
That may be so. I am not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that just because some people commit category errors, that everyone always commits an error when they categorize? If so, surely you can see that your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
For a theist, the presence of god is self-evident;
No it isn’t. Only someone who does not understand what a self-evident truth is would make this statement.
the ultimate nature of morality is self-evident,
Close. Some moral truths are self-evident. From this we infer that there is an ultimate foundation for morality. The moral truth is self-evident. The inference requires, well, an inference.
the uniqueness of man is self-evident.
Yes, that is correct.
But they aren’t.
See the OP. Barry Arrington_{October 20, 2014
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ES, strawman. The blatant, screaming from the housetops, recognisable by any child difference between a volcano dome and a sand castle is in functionally specific complex organisation and associated information. This, sadly, you are not prepared to acknowledge based on a zero concessions policy, even at the price of clinging to patent absurdity. Please, think again. KFkairosfocus_{October 20, 2014
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Barry, you wield self-evident truths as if they were weapons. Declaring that something is a self-evident truth does not make it so. Is it a self-evident truth that the sparkling point of light in the night sky is a star? 99% of the time (or more, I don't really know), this extrapolation may be correct. Except when it is a plant or a galaxy. In many cases, what somebody calls a self-evident truth is nothing more than opinion. For a theist, the presence of god is self-evident; the ultimate nature of morality is self-evident, the uniqueness of man is self-evident. But they aren't.tintinnid_{October 20, 2014
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