Scientism on the PS forum

[faded_Glory]

I see where you are coming from, but taking this argument to its logical conclusion we couldn’t do science at all because how is anyone going to do any science without having to rely on your memory at one point or another? Therefore we need to allow for a degree of reliabilty of our recollections (and our sensory observations, and our powers of reason and so on). Otherwise all bets are off.

As you flagged my main point was about the inaccessibility of my memories to anyone else (assuming I don’t tell anyone about them). This is I feel one element that distinghuises science from other avenues of seeking knowledge. Perfect knowledge is another kettle of fish, I think.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@Chad_the_Layman

…or maybe in hope that Puck would paint a fun word picture in rebuttal of my idea…

Ah, well, now I guess I have to say something. But, alas, I am not unrelentingly sarcastic, so maybe I’ll keep it on the straight and level for once.

I don’t think revelation is a “way of knowing” because to me “knowing” implies some sort of, at least in principle, objective validation. I know I’ve got milk in the fridge. That’s not a scientific finding, but I have the ability to check out this belief and determine, in a reasonably objective fashion, whether I am mistaken. And, importantly, this method of checking the belief is one which I could explain to another person and which another person, following the same procedure I would, could then employ to check the belief. But, two more notes on that:

(1) If the result of the inquiry were for some reason really important, with lots of people to rely upon it in order to make some crucial decision, we could probably arrive at a method not only to check the belief but also to report, verify and confirm the same in such a way as would satisfy all reasonable inquirers that I do, indeed, have some milk in my fridge.

(2) Most importantly: not only could we arrive at such a method, but we could probably get all concerned to agree in advance of the inquiry itself as to what would and what would not constitute a good method of inquiring, and what would and what would not constitute a good result to that inquiry.

Revelation is a subjective experience, and we know, in fact, that it’s not shared, even when people attempt to employ the same methods.

And, worse, we can’t agree on the method, even in general terms. I had Mormon missionaries at my door a couple of years ago who were surprised when I told them that I had indeed read the Book of Mormon, as well as the Pearl of Great Price, in full, and that I’d read substantial portions of the Doctrine and Covenants. They asked me whether I had then “prayed on it” and asked God whether it was all true, and my answer did not seem to be the one they were prepared for: “Why the hell would anyone ever do that?”

You see, we’ve got to validate the method. We’ve got to know that the method gives reproducible results. But in the case of revelation we know just the opposite.

Could a purely subjective revelatory experience impart some truth or other? Sure, who knows? Why not? But nobody could know whether that was so, and no recommendation of the method could ever be given.

Now, myself, I am no “seeker” in the sense that this seems to mean, among people I know who are of a religious bent. I seek to know what’s real, not to find some metaphysical answer to life, the universe and everything. I don’t “care” whether there are gods; I only want to know if there are or not, because I am curious. I do not expect the answers to questions like that to be profound, to have anything to do with “the meaning of life,” or anything like that; first things first. Are there gods? I’d like to know, and I have no need for the answer to be one thing or to be the other. I have no expectation of these answers being profound; most good answers are more practical than profound. I expect that if there were a “meaning of life,” it would lead only to the conclusion of which Howard DeVoto sang: “I know the meaning of life; it doesn’t help me a bit.”

Revelation, to someone who wants to actually know what’s true and what’s not, is a nonstarter. To someone who is invested in the truth of his religion, or who thinks that “getting religion” will make life better somehow, it’s a way of generating compelling subjective confirmation. But to someone interested in knowing what’s true, it’s utterly worthless.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Chad_the_Layman

Revelation is a way of knowing.

I would totally agree, and in fact argue that “revelation” (not necessarily of the divine sort) is the usual way (if not exactly the only way) we come to confident knowledge about critically important facts that are of monumental significance to us all.

For example, the only way I knew my future wife (at the time) would marry me was because I asked her, and she revealed her answer, “yes.”

More mundanely, the only way I’ll know what she intends to eat for dinner today is if I asked and she chooses to truthfully reveal the answer to me.

Revelation, in this mundane sense, ranks up there as among our most common epistemologies, and we have ample tools that enable us to reason through it (eg are people lying to us, etc).

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I don’t think revelation is a “way of knowing” because to me “knowing” implies some sort of, at least in principle, objective validation.

Revelation often can be an objective validation, depending on the context and question.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@swamidass

Revelation often can be an objective validation, depending on the context and question.

I suspect that Chad may have meant something beyond the “Did you eat?” “No, did you?” exchange when he used the term “revelation.” We evaluate such statements by practical, evidentiary, world-bound standards. There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about them. So, yes, if these incredibly mundane and unremarkable exchanges of information are to be deemed “revelation,” then we all get the baseball scores that way. Or, if not the baseball scores, we get people’s feelings about them that way. One minute it’s Ezekiel and the wheels within wheels, the next it’s some guy telling you he’s pissed off because of the way the Dodgers lost last night, and you’re going to put that all into the same epistemic category.

That feels a bit like the attempts, in another thread, to insist that if a Studebaker V-8 is a motor, and motors are designed, then flagella are motors, ergo, flagella are designed. If you’re going to defend the credibility of divine revelation, you’re not going to get there by pointing out that it’s fairly likely that the man on the elevator really WAS annoyed at how the Dodgers lost, and that’s revelation too, so, by gum, it really works!

So if by “depending on the context and question” you mean that revelation may encompass God or the Dodgers, I’d think that this is probably an overly-broad use of the term. It’s clear that divine revelation (by which usage, to be clear, I do not include facts revealed by the person featured in all those John Waters films; the overly broad uses of terms being a concern here, I’d hate to be misunderstood) produces highly inconsistent results and lacks any plausible process for confirmation. That’s a way to convince oneself to believe something, but it’s surely not a way of knowing.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Chad_the_Layman

If there is a Creator God. And if he wants to be known. He could reveal himself to people.

I tried to present my experience of taking the God of the Bible up on his offer to “taste and see” as evidence of “knowing” based on the revelation that comes from trusting God, and that got swatted out to half court by you guys. So, I’m not trying to rehash the same argument.

I just want to say that "If God IS, and wants to be known, then he can be known. And he would get to decide how that interaction takes place.

And there is no reason in principle that this could not be so. So if science allows us to predict tomorrow’s weather with a high degree of accuracy, but Divine Revelation allowed us to do so with perfect accuracy, then I think there would be little disagreement that Divine Revelation qualifies as a “way of knowing.”

Which also addresses the issue of why answering the questions of what @faded_Glory was thinking yesterday morning or whether @Rumraket needs to buy milk thru personal observation could be considered scientific in the broad sense, but saying one had a visitation from God is not. The former two entail an number of other assumptions and premises that, while so obvious we do not even need to think about them, are nonetheless rooted in empirical observation. The same cannot be said for the conviction that one has been visited by a God, no matter how convincing it might be for the particular individual who is claiming this. The same applies to the sort of “revelations” @swamidass mentions above. There is a vast amount of previous empirical data that justifies our understanding of that it means when someone says "I’d like pasta for dinnere tonight, that does not exist for the belief in revelation of the divine sort.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Faizal_Ali

The same applies to the sort of “revelations” @swamidass mentions above. There is a vast amount of previous empirical data that justifies our understanding of that it means when someone says "I’d like pasta for dinnere tonight, that does not exist for the belief in revelation of the divine sort.

The key point here @Faizal_Ali is that you aren’t objecting to revelation as a way of knowing, but you are objecting to purported examples of divine revelation.

In fact, I agree with you that at least most such divine examples are nothing of the sort and not trustworthy.

The real question, as I see it, is not whether or not revelation is a legitimate way of knowing. Of course it is. Rather, are any examples of divine revelation trustworthy and a source of actual knowledge?

Of course we’ll disagree on the answer to that question. That disagreement is okay. But it at least refranes the disagreement in a more coherent way.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@swamidass

The real question, as I see it, is not whether or not revelation is a legitimate way of knowing. Of course it is. Rather, are any examples of divine revelation trustworthy and a source of actual knowledge?

I think you’re combining completely unlike things under the heading “revelation.” The result is that something which is manifestly useless (divine revelation) shares the category with things which are completely ordinary, which enables you then to declare the whole category as a “legitimate way of knowing.”

But this is like combining Packards and unicorns into a category of “conveyances” and then arguing that since Packards do motor down the road very nicely, one can also ride unicorns, and the only remaining question is whether unicorns are particularly comfortable to ride.

The real problem is, as you note, that “most such divine examples are nothing of the sort and not trustworthy.” If that were all there was to it, that would be a difficulty, and would compel us to look to the ability to reproduce and confirm. It would compel us to scrutinize our methods of obtaining divine revelation, and to figure out which of these do produce reproducible and confirmable results. But it’s much worse than that. Where it all falls apart is this: we can’t actually do that – not in any sense which is meaningful. There’s no available method. From top to bottom, the entire enterprise is mere subjective experience, differed from by other equally sincere inquirers and non-reproducible entirely by those who do not share the original inquirer’s particular predilections.

So, no. “Revelation” as you are defining it is an incoherent category made of two phenomena that are unlike one another in every relevant respect, the sort of thing that would be a paraphyletic wastebasket if we were dealing in organisms rather than ideas. The fact that people can tell you things in no way validates the notion that gods tell you things sometimes, too.

[faded_Glory]

@Chad_the_Layman

If there is a Creator God. And if he wants to be known. He could reveal himself to people.

Please don’t take what I’m going to say the wrong way. It is meant as a critical dissection of the position you advance, not as a personal criticism on you.

Yes, what you write is correct. It is also potentially incredible dangerous. If someone claims to have received a divine revelation, something that by its very nature cannot be wrong, and if the only arbiter of
the truth of this revelation is the person making the claim, than that person absolves themselves from any personal responsibility for what they are going to do with the knowledge they now claim to have.

Is there anything to stop such a person from flying a plane into a skyscraper full of people if the divine revelation tells them to do so?

[AlanFox]

Revelation. Hmm. Seems to me there is some flexibility on the meaning. To reveal something is to uncover something and, in the passive, when something is revealed, observers see something new. They discover something — they find something out. Not sure there’s a clear distinction between scientific discovery and religious discovery. Of course, I would say scientific observations are testable, repeatable and consistent.

Perhaps the distinction lies between human intellect and human emotion.

[Faizal_Ali]

@swamidass

The real question, as I see it, is not whether or not revelation is a legitimate way of knowing.

And my position that it is only legitimate to the extent that it is scientifically grounded. i.e. to the extent it falls under the category of “science broadly construed.”

But if someone prefers to be a splitter rather than a lumper and separate all the forms of knowledge that fall under that category, I have no objection. We are still talking about the same thing, just dividing it up differently.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@swamidass

The real question, as I see it, is not whether or not revelation is a legitimate way of knowing. Of course it is. Rather, are any examples of divine revelation trustworthy and a source of actual knowledge?

Yes that is the question. Are they? How would we find out if not by application of some other way of knowing than revelation?(or is there an infinite regression of revelations to justify previous ones?) Usually the one we would normally insist on as a method of verification for basically all other claims of knowledge? A method of independent, empirical verification?

It seems to me if it can’t be independently verified then it’s just a belief, and it becomes impossible to separate false from true “private” beliefs. If we can’t separate true from false private beliefs, then they’re not knowledge at all. They’re just guesswork. Believe what you want due to circumstances of your religious upbringing or surrounding culture.

[PdotdQ]

There are non-scientific truths that are less controversial than “revelations”. The theorems or metatheorems of mathematical logic would qualify; they are surely “truths”, but they cannot be “science”, as science depends on logic to operate.

For example, if I start with assuming first order logic, the Deduction Theorem is a truth, but it’s not scientific truth, because science requires the deduction theorem to be true in order to operate.

[Faizal_Ali]

@PdotdQ

For example, if I start with assuming first order logic, the Deduction Theorem is a truth, but it’s not scientific truth, because science requires the deduction theorem to be true in order to operate.

So how do we know it is true?

[Chad_the_Layman (Chad Stewart)]

@nwrickert

How would you know that you had a revelation, and not merely a bad dream?

I’m not ruling out revelation. But I’m not ruling it in, either. I’ll watch from the sidelines, but with skepticism.

The idea of revelation in the Bible includes dreams and visions, which I think is what you refer to, but it also includes the idea that God wants to interact with people. Chritians present these ideas that are in the scriptures as God being knowable. And I think the way to process either type of knowing (dreams and visions or knowing God via relationship) is in community.

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I don’t think revelation is a “way of knowing” because to me “knowing” implies some sort of, at least in principle, objective validation.

Puck, I know you said a lot more than this, but I have to be brief today. I know that “knowing God”, hearing God, experiencing him, revelation in the form of dreams and vision, etc. doesn’t pass your reliability or testability concerns as it relates to knowing. For this conversation, I’m not sure what to do with that. I know that the Bible describes revelation from and experience of God. And I’ve experienced this as a way of knowing, but I don’t expect to convince you of that. Nonetheless, I don’t think my hypothetical itself is challenged by reliability and testability concerns. IF the God of the Bible IS and knowable, then he can make himself known.

@faded_Glory

Please don’t take what I’m going to say the wrong way. It is meant as a critical dissection of the position you advance, not as a personal criticism on you.

Yes, what you write is correct. It is also potentially incredible dangerous. If someone claims to have received a divine revelation, something that by its very nature cannot be wrong, and if the only arbiter of
the truth of this revelation is the person making the claim, than that person absolves themselves from any personal responsibility for what they are going to do with the knowledge they now claim to have.

Is there anything to stop such a person from flying a plane into a skyscraper full of people if the divine revelation tells them to do so?

No offense taken! I agree that folks have and could use “revelation” as a reason or excuse to perform horrific acts. By saying that revelation is a way of knowing I’m certainly not saying that we should accept what people claim as true or reliable without investigation. And no claim of revelation should ever absolve someone from responsibility for their actions. In fact, in healthy Christian community we (in my experience) sort this stuff out together, and correct or redirect each other as needed.

[Puck_Mendelssohn]

@Chad_the_Layman

For this conversation, I’m not sure what to do with that.

I think that understanding the difference between personal subjective experience and objectively verifiable phenomena is enough. If you choose to use a broader definition of “know” than I do then you can say you “know” things that you only subjectively experience. But then we need a new word for “know” if we’re going to have a conversation about knowing.

@Chad_the_Layman

Nonetheless, I don’t think my hypothetical itself is challenged by reliability and testability concerns.

I think what you mean is that the strength of your subjective belief is not affected by the fact that it’s subjective. That’s understandable, and it sounds as though you understand why that is a million miles short of being convincing or worthwhile to anyone else. If you do understand that, there’s not much more to understand.

@Chad_the_Layman

IF the God of the Bible IS and knowable, then he can make himself known.

Sure. Big “if,” and if by “known” we mean something which is more than a subjective belief, it’s clear he doesn’t wanna be. So we should probably leave the big old ghost alone and let him have some quiet.

[faded_Glory]

@Chad_the_Layman

By saying that revelation is a way of knowing I’m certainly not saying that we should accept what people claim as true or reliable without investigation. And no claim of revelation should ever absolve someone from responsibility for their actions. In fact, in healthy Christian community we (in my experience) sort this stuff out together, and correct or redirect each other as needed.

I’m glad to hear that (and I hadn’t expected anything else of course). However, there must be tension between a divine revelation and your human considerations, in cases where the reveleation might lead to harmful outcomes. In the OT there are examples of where people comitted violent deeds because they thought they had been spurred on by God.

I’m not a Christan, nor a theist in general, and I’m glad I don’t have to make judgements on whether certain revelations should be taken literally of figuratively. I wouldn’t know where to begin.

@Puck_Mendelssohn

If you choose to use a broader definition of “know” than I do then you can say you “know” things that you only subjectively experience.

What do you make of the example that I know what I was thinking about as I got up this morning? Surely that is only a personal subjective experience. Are you saying that I don’t actually know that? Frankly, that would be weird. It seems to me that there is more going on with the distinction between knowledge and belief than merely objective vs. subjective.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@Chad_the_Layman

Puck, I know you said a lot more than this, but I have to be brief today. I know that “knowing God”, hearing God, experiencing him, revelation in the form of dreams and vision, etc. doesn’t pass your reliability or testability concerns as it relates to knowing. For this conversation, I’m not sure what to do with that.

Isn’t that itself a problem, that it doesn’t pass these tests. How do you know these things you claim to know through revelation if you are unable to put them to the test? Can you really say something other than some vague generalities about how you guide and redirect each other in a Christian community? It’s not clear how that constitutes reliability and testability, nor how this results in claims of private revelation and personal experiences turning into actual knowledge.

@Chad_the_Layman

I know that the Bible describes revelation from and experience of God. And I’ve experienced this as a way of knowing, but I don’t expect to convince you of that. Nonetheless, I don’t think my hypothetical itself is challenged by reliability and testability concerns. IF the God of the Bible IS and knowable, then he can make himself known.

But how? If all you have is some sort of private experience you can’t verify, how do you know it’s a revelation from God? It’s just not clear how you can know.

[Art (Arthur Hunt)]

@Chad_the_Layman

IF the God of the Bible IS and knowable, then he can make himself known.

I am not sure about this. Colloquially speaking, there is an asymmetry between the finite abilities of mortals and an infinite god. No matter what, there necessarily exists something about an infinite god and in an infinite creation that contradicts, even refutes, any understanding or knowledge the mortal may think to possess about an infinite god. Inspired holy texts cannot help here, nor can visions, edicts from the priestly class, or any other revealed knowledge. Such knowledge is inevitably wrong.

In my own opinion, this is why revealed knowledge cannot be trusted. No matter the source.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

Could a purely subjective revelatory experience impart some truth or other? Sure, who knows? Why not? But nobody could know whether that was so, and no recommendation of the method could ever be given.

There’s no reason in principle that subjective revelatory experiences couldn’t impart verifiable truths. Someone could have revealed to them the value of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon to 30 decimal places, or the correct March Madness brackets for the next three years, and we could all verify the accuracy of the revelations. That doesn’t seem to happen a whole lot, though.

[Chad_the_Layman (Chad Stewart)]

@Puck_Mendelssohn

I think that understanding the difference between personal subjective experience and objectively verifiable phenomena is enough. If you choose to use a broader definition of “know” than I do then you can say you “know” things that you only subjectively experience. But then we need a new word for “know” if we’re going to have a conversation about knowing.

I understand that my experiences are subjective. No argument there. Sorting out the vocabulary: I think we do have different working definitions for the word “know”. Part of that is because the Bible speaks of “knowing” in broader terms than what you define. I know that I come to this forum as the religious guy that thinks science is really cool (and I appreciate you guys allowing folks like me in the club). But part of the difference in usage of “know” is embedded in English as well. I know my friends. English allows the use of “know” to refer to knowledge gained by relationship. And the Bible uses “know” regarding relationship with God.

@Puck_Mendelssohn

and it sounds as though you understand why that is a million miles short of being convincing

Agreed. I have not, in this thread, discussed whether what the Bible presents as knowable is convincing. I got convinced, and that brings us back to subjectivity.

@Puck_Mendelssohn

Sure. Big “if,” and if by “known” we mean something which is more than a subjective belief, it’s clear he doesn’t wanna be. So we should probably leave the big old ghost alone and let him have some quiet.

I’m not going to leave him alone!

The story told in the Hebrew Bible, continued in the NT, and testified of by my experience is of a God who doesn’t want to be left alone. But of course, I’m not asserting that any of that knowledge that comes from the story of the Bible and has been experienced by me would be convincing to you in any way.

@Rumraket

Isn’t that itself a problem, that it doesn’t pass these tests. How do you know these things you claim to know through revelation if you are unable to put them to the test? Can you really say something other than some vague generalities about how you guide and redirect each other in a Christian community? It’s not clear how that constitutes reliability and testability, nor how this results in claims of private revelation and personal experiences turning into actual knowledge.

The Bible itself can be evaluated. Evidence for Jesus’s resurrection can be evaluted. People come to different conclusions based on those evaluations. But as far as testing the reliability of the claims of the Bible, I do that with my life. I do not argue that my findings would convince you, but they might convince someone who really knows me. Regarding Christian community, we hold each (those that are willing), with grace and love, not cohersively, to the instructions of scripture, especially the teachings of Jesus, and to wisdom gained through experience with God.

@Art

I am not sure about this. Colloquially speaking, there is an asymmetry between the finite abilities of mortals and an infinite god. No matter what, there necessarily exists something about an infinite god and in an infinite creation that contradicts, even refutes, any understanding or knowledge the mortal may think to possess about an infinite god. Inspired holy texts cannot help here, nor can visions, edicts from the priestly class, or any other revealed knowledge. Such knowledge is inevitably wrong.

In my own opinion, this is why revealed knowledge cannot be trusted. No matter the source.

Art, thanks for the convesation! The model on which I’m basing my assertion is one where (according to the Bible) God created his world for the purpose of the overlapping of God space and the natural world. It’s one of the key themes and is outlined in Gen 1 and 2. IF the God of the Bible is real, and the Bible is a reliable source of knowledge about his purposes and activities, then he has created a world where interaction between the infinate and finate is possible.