The Difficulty Of Communicating Absolute Truth Statements

Barely gagging on my egg sandwich as I watched Trump at a National Prayer Breakfast this morning, I had to smirk when he babbled "And freedom is a gift from God".   This from an imbecile who likely wouldn't be able to find chapter and verse of a biblical quote from his bible - assuming he even has one. 

But it interjects the question of how much of what he said is true, and how much is BS.  Or was it all just made up crap - like in his exec orders (actually written by Steve Bannon) to get applause from the dopey peanut gallery?  Can there even be an absolute truth statement in religion (or science) and if so what attributes must it have?  What are the criteria, or are we limited to only relatively true statements?

Philosopher Herman Philipse has noted we may legitimately show respect for religions (or religious statements)  because they reflect deep human longings. However, we are not obliged to show any respect when they put forward claims of knowledge  (Philipse.: Free Inquiry (Feb./Mar. 2007, 37). In this sense, Trump's claim that freedom "is a gift from God" is meaningless. He could as well be blabbering about flying monkeys taking over the world.

Given the above, one may inquire into the inherent problems in articulating any alleged true statement. Scott Soames (1) clarifies the issue by appeal to more and less general schema to arrive at truth in a convergent way. Soames defines what is materially adequate.

He does this by referencing “Level 1” or L1 statements, depicted as partial definitions.¹ The task of communicating truth in language then reduces to consistently generalizing partial definitions to cover every type of sentence and condition. This also assumes the subjects, objects included in the statement have specific meanings - or "operational definitions", in the case of scientific statements.

He goes on to note that Tarski’s definition, i.e. that if an earlier iterate allows for additions without contradiction to the original proposition (truth statement), then we can arrive at materially adequate sentences. In this sense, most scientific explanations – while admittedly partial – are nevertheless materially adequate. But do they amount to true statements?

Consider the following sequence of L1 statements for solar flares and note the ascending hierarchy of information presented:

1) A class X-7 solar flare occurred last Tuesday.

2) A class X-7 solar flare occurred at 22h 33m GMT Tuesday.

3) A class X-7, optical class 2B solar flare occurred at 22h 33m Tuesday.

4) A class X-7, optical class 2B solar flare occurred at 22h 33m GMT last Tuesday, and lasted 1440 seconds.

5) A class X-7, optical class 2B solar flare occurred at 22h 33m GMT last Tuesday, peaked 543 seconds after inception, and lasted a total of 1440 seconds.

Are all of the above statements, referencing the same event, true? Are they all equally true? If not, why not? Can one therefore have true statements which do not express the entire truth but rather only a partial truth? If a partial truth is expressed can it be said to be the truth without reservation?

Obviously, the statements given are successively more materially adequate by degrees, but none of the statements are wholly materially adequate unto themselves. For example, using any of the statements (1) - (3) one would not be able to obtain an estimate of the power or energy released which requires knowing the flare’s duration. As one moves in ascending order each statement contains more material adequacy, hence arguably more truth than its predecessor, simply because one can obtain more from the information. Thus (5) is more true than (4), (4) more so than (3) and so forth. Is (5) the last word? Consider this description of the event:

A class X-7, optical class 2B solar flare, occupying an area 1800 millionths of a solar hemisphere and located at heliographic longitude 90 degrees, and latitude 22 degrees, occurred at 22h 33m GMT last Tuesday, peaked 543 seconds after inception, and lasted a total duration of 1440 seconds.

Thus, one is unlikely to deliver all the material and relevant truth on the solar flare at once since data generally aren’t processed simultaneously, certainly about a complex physical event. Even in the course of normal human interactions, and particularly teaching, total conveyance of information is unlikely. Is this a lie by omission? Hardly! In the case of physics teaching, even attempting to convey the full basis of Newton’s laws of motion would take one hundred times longer than the standard classical mechanics course if all details and exceptions were included. In the interest of time and convenience, therefore, one must often omit the whole truth, assumed to be a complete description of a phenomenon or the principle that governs it.

“The whole truth and nothing but the truth” may well be a fine courtroom bromide but it doesn’t make the practicality cut. Can one have true statements which do not express the entire truth but rather only a partial truth? Yes, and these are none other than the L1 statements by Soames’ definition. As Soames puts it²:

If such instances (e.g. L1 statements) are thought of as partial definitions, then the task of defining truth for an entire language may be seen as finding a way of generalizing the partial definitions so as to cover every sentence of the language.

Carrying this further, there is no way any practical expression of language can encompass more than limited truth. What does all of this say about any truth claim?  It says that in general truth claims must be treated with great skepticism, and in the case of scientific claims, confidence levels for them must be demanded.. At any rate, one must always assume the initial claim for truth is partial, or at the L1 level. The claimant must be then pushed as far as possible to disclose the maximum content of the truth as he understands it, especially if the truth claim is made dogmatically.

In terms of scientific publications and the formulations of scientific methods - as I will show in a later blog post- it implies one must treat them carefully. For example, one must be aware the different scientific methods exist, not one frozen in stone. These will therefore differ depending on whether the object of inquiry is a stochastic one, say like climate change, or a deterministic one - say like computing the orbit of Enceladus.

By contrast,, Trump's statement that "freedom is a gift from God" is totally devoid of even a limited truth aspect. For example, he hasn't even defined what he means by 'God" and we can't assume ab initio that he knows or that it comports with any traditional versions. 

Indeed, most people are unaware that when they use the word G-o-d they’re not talking or writing about an actual entity  (i.s. that they know like I do a solar flare) but a limited construct or ideation configured as a noun, which is really a God concept. Further, because it’s limited by content and comprehension, i.e. by finite minds with finite intelligence which can’t grasp all aspects, then all such concepts must be relative and subjective. This means that the Jewish concept of Yahweh, the Muslim concept of Allah, the Hindu concept of Brahmin and the Christian concept of the Trinity all stand in the same epistemological relation.  From an informational point of view, none can be selected as “true” to the exclusion of the others.

What this means is that neither Trump, Pence or any of their other cohort can show in an absolute sense that what they mean by "God" is distinct from what the Muslim means - and hence that their version is superior.  In science, at least, we have the advantages of future observations and experiments which ultimately will be able to isolate verified hypotheses or theories from failures - say like the basis for the downfall of the steady state theory because the 2.7 K background cosmic radiation was discovered that supported the Big Bang - not the steady state.

In religion, no similar observational or experimental measures apply, hence the religionist is compelled to fall back on faith, nothing more. In other words, Trump and those he was talking to can believe freedom is "a gift from God", but there is no substance behind it for the rationalist or scientist. We instead accept that humans crafted the concept of freedom with their brains - honed by evolution- and that they also defined the markers, criteria for human freedom. This enabled it to be referenced in documents that underlie our governance.  The Founders themselves who may have referenced a deity, were actually not Christians - but Deists - with their own limited God concept at variance with that of the orthodox Christian version.

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1 Soames: Understanding Truth, 69.

2 Ibid.

Why Do Some Brains Tilt Toward Atheism?

According to a 2008 Pew Religious Survey only 12.7 percent of those who grew up in religious homes later shuck off their faith and become "nones" or those who hold to no religion. (Also incorrectly called "unchurched")  It turns out the skeptical brain has a lot to do with it, as well as why many nones are atheists.

Conversely, other brains seem to have a biological tendency to gravitate to religion and a wide spectrum of spiritual beliefs. In the popular book “The God Gene,” American geneticist Dean Hamer said that “we have a genetic predisposition for spiritual belief that is expressed in response to, and shaped by, personal experience and the cultural environment.”

Belief - according to many - has been a positive development for the evolution of our species, and we haven’t evolved beyond it. According to a May Gallup poll, 86 percent of Americans believe in God. But with such a majority the question now becomes: Why doesn’t everyone believe in God? What's with the 14 percent who don't believe in God?

Many researchers have asked this same question. Some studies suggest that a skeptical brain works differently than a believing brain.  One example is a 2012 study titled “Is it Just a Brick Wall or a Sign From the Universe: An fMRI Study of Supernatural Believers and Skeptics.” In this experiment, the participants’ brain activity was monitored while they read a scenario, then looked at a picture. They were asked what thoughts the image would evoke if they were in that scenario, then saw that picture on a poster as they were walking down the street.

For example, imagine you just had a job interview. You walk down the street, and see a poster of a business suit. How would that make you feel? What does that poster mean? The supernaturally inclined people were more likely to see it as a meaningful omen, a sign that they would get the job. The skeptics in the group did not see any significance in the image. To them, a poster of a suit is just that, a poster of a suit. No other meaning applies.

Why this non-response for skeptics? The researchers found that one region of their brains (the right inferior frontal gyrus) “was activated more strongly than in supernatural believers.” The more active that part of the brain, the less likely participants were to find supernatural meaning in the images. The researchers think this is because the active region of the brain is associated with cognitive inhibition.

Cognitive inhibition marks the brain’s ability to stop or override a certain mental process — the ability to stop unwanted thoughts, say, or to weed out irrelevant information. One example of where cognitive inhibition is useful is in overcoming prejudice. If people want to avoid discriminating, they need to inhibit or suppress any negative stereotypes they might have toward a certain group of people - say thinking of or referring to black people as "apes".

Recent research has enabled remarkable insights into brains and what drives some toward religious belief, even mania, while others are 'turned off'. The research discloses the latter condition isn't the result of 'demons' or "Satan" afflicting the person, but rather particular brain chemicals, dynamics that differ in their manifestation between religious and non-religious.

Also of particular interest in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological research is the brain region known as the OAA or the Orientation and Activation Area.  In his book, The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience,, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg provides a putative basis for the divergence in religious acceptance, belief by showing how the brain’s orientation association area(OAA) determines the belief system for each of us.

Since each human brain is different, and the OAA varies in cognitive function from brain to brain, then the beliefs we choose will reflect that biological brain disposition.. An atheist, for example, will manifest a very high reductive cognitive function, in addition to very low dopamine levels, according to Newberg. A Fundamentalist will typically display a very high causality cognitive function, overlaid by primitive fears issuing from the amygdala.  The hyper-religionist who believes s/he talks to God or actually knows the deity on an intimate basis exhibits fronto-temporal dementia, as first demonstrated by Dr. Patricia Bannister in Barbados decades ago.

She found that patients at the Jenkins Mental Institution in Black Rock, St. Michael. exhibited hyper-religious behavior, calling out "God" every waking hour and preaching non-stop to whoever might listen. All had to be put on largactyl to calm their feverish,  god-obsessed brains and this was interspersed with ECT. One could be assured, on the basis of her work, that this hyper faction of religious believer comprised a very small fraction, perhaps not even 0.5% of humanity.

Moving on, let's bear in mind that the object of attraction for all religious believers is not something actually known by them, but rather an artifact of their minds - constructed by their previous exposure to religious programming, their personal experiences, and the level of dopamine affecting their brain dynamics and especially the OAA.  We call this subjective approximation, which is in fact a regulative ideal, a "God concept".  Thus, as when a D. Post letter writer (Mary Carter) asserted "everyone thinks they know better than a higher power", she's oblivious to the fact  that she in fact created that "higher power" in her cranium. It's a pure presumption on her part that she hasn't supported by evidence.

We know that because all brains are limited in neural capacity, all God concepts (including "higher powers")  must likewise be limited, as well as relative to each other. Hence, no one can be claimed as 'true' to the exclusion of all others.  One can call this the first principle of religious belief: what people profess belief in is not an actual entity they know, but rather their own brain-confected God concept. So why should we accept or believe in one merely because someone says so?

The biggest factor in parents being able to successfully pass on their religion to their children was their relationship with their children. The authors found that “parents who interact with their children during their formative years in a warm, affirming and respectful manner are more likely to pass on their religious tradition, beliefs, and practices.” Other things that aid successful transmission include having parents of the same faith who do not divorce and having a strong relationship with grandparents of the same faith.

On the other hand, religious conflict between parents and children has been cited  one of the most common routes from religion to atheism. If resistant children were forced into religious activities, they often rebelled as soon as they had the chance. This is exactly what happened to me. Forced into going to church - Catholic Mass - even when I despised it, and  forced to choose between being a Mass server (with my three brothers) or working in our 1/3 acre Fla. backyard pulling weeds.

As soon as I left home, and arrived at Loyola University, I dropped the church shtick and went my own way.  No longer religiously bound,  I'd begun a journey that would lead to becoming one of the earliest outspoken atheists - both in the West Indies and in the U.S. At Loyola,  after attending a guest lecture by Jean -Paul Sartre (in Jan. 1965)  on existentialism, I moved rapidly toward that future  atheism.

Conversely, a child with weak cognitive inhibition and a positive relationship with his married parents of the same faith is likely to carry on in the religious family tradition. A child with strong cognitive inhibition who is forced to go to church against his will is likely to rebel.

Those parents concerned with sons or daughters following in their religious footsteps might do well to bear all this in mind when raising their offspring- assuming the latter's  brains are also predisposed to belief. I don't think mine ever was.

What Prof. Keith De Rose Gets Wrong About God Claims (Part 1)

In this blog post I consider a recent interview given by Keith De Rose, professor of philosophy at Yale University and the author of “The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context.” .   DeRose sought to assure Gary Gutting that God claims are valid and atheists have no case in rejecting them.  I will be giving my own responses after each of DeRose's, showing why he is wrong.

Gutting noted that De Rose made the following statement: “Since atheists’ only real hope of knowing that God doesn’t exist would be through some kind of philosophical argument (perhaps some argument from evil), their knowing that God doesn’t exist doesn’t seem to me a very serious possibility.”

To his credit, Gutting went on to observe:

"I think many atheists would object that it’s wrong to require them to have an argument showing that God doesn’t exist. They’d claim their atheism is justified simply because there are no good arguments in favor of theism. After all, it’s theists who are making an extraordinary claim. Isn’t the lack of evidence for the claim that God exists sufficient grounds for denying it?"

This is the key point and crux of the matter, and in any initiation of debate or exchange it is always critical to tag whoever is making the extraordinary claim. Here, again, I note that the definition of 'GOD' is also relevant. If we are only talking about a non-literal or figurative deity - such as Einstein meant in reference to the "God of Spinoza" - then it is case closed because he didn't mean a supernatural, all powerful, all knowing Being but rather a regulative ideal predicated on the mathematical description of the universe. Ditto with the 'God' of Deists, who is claimed to have set everything in motion but then walked away from it. Even hard core atheists like Victor Stenger have no problem with this god as he noted in his book 'God and the Folly of Faith'.

Despite this,  De Rose's reply is as follows:

" I think you can sometimes rightly claim to know that something doesn’t exist even if you don’t have a good argument for your claim. This is the situation with the currently infamous Flying Spaghetti Monster: We all find it bizarre and literally unbelievable and so reject its existence without any argument."

I, in fact, think some of our most important and interesting knowledge comes not through anything like arguments, but from just rightly rejecting as bizarre things that so strike us."

Fair enough, but note how he's dodged the central issue. That is, how can Christians (or Muslims, or Jews or anyone for that matter) make a claim for deity without factual, evidentiary basis? But after further pressing by Gutting (a Notre Dame professor of philosophy), De Rose launches into the "God as distinct entity" argument:

"In any case, the situation is very different with God. The thought that God exists does strike many atheists as bizarre. But, in contrast to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, there are all of these theists and agnostics who do not find the thought of God’s existence bizarre, and I really think they ruin our atheist friends’ hopes for easy knowledge here. The basic point is that, when there are many other apparently sensible people who disagree with you, you need a good argument to claim that you know they’re wrong

But again, this is a dodge. First, because he is arguing without having delivered a formal definition of the God he's making reference to. Second, no agnostic I know withholds belief in the generic form of "creative" deity peculiar to Deism but  rather in the more specific personal deity claimed by many  Christians .  Thus, for these agnostics, profound doubt prevents them from simply accepting a deity who knows every hair count for every person in the world (and all to come)  and what each is thinking every moment. It's a stretch too far! Third, Christians themselves differ widely on the concept of God they align with. And here again, it is well to note it is God concepts we are all about here and not the actual God-GOD of reality - assuming such exists.

Again, unless one has specified the nature of the 'God' one believes in,  the discussion is sterile and without point. Since the meaning of 'God' is vague then any claim can be made, and any expeditious rhetoric delivered with its applicability never called into question. This is what's so wrong with DeRose's claim of "many sensible people who disagree with you". Uh, not so - not when you press these "many people" to sit down and specify the nature of the 'God' they are claiming to accept. Is it a personal God that involves itself in every decision and breath a human takes? Is it an impersonal God like Brahman of the Hindus? Is it a detached God like that of the Deists? Unless we know what these "many people" are really claiming or believing in then it can't be said that they disagree with atheists in large numbers - since the lack of a coherent definition accepted by all trashes the "many people" argument - which, let's admit- assumes uniformity of belief in the SAME deity.


Prof. Gutting challenges De Rose once more:

"Are you saying that the mere fact that many disagree shows that we don’t have knowledge? Most of us deny without argument the existence of the gods of many religions (the gods of the ancient Greeks and of contemporary voodoo, the pantheon of popular Hinduism). Don’t we rightly claim to know these gods don’t exist, although many have and do disagree?"

And De Rose retorts:

"When your basis is not evidence or argument, but just how the matter strikes you, yes, the fact that the matter strikes others differently can undermine your claim to know. So, in particular, I am very skeptical about claims to know that the beliefs of major religions are false just because they strike us as bizarre."

Again, the point eludes him: at the core of religions' belief systems lie the definition of 'God' that they accept. Unless one parses the definition and explores its deficiencies one cannot be said to have discovered anything about the religions' validity. As for sounding the note of 'striking others differently'  this merely returns us to the subjective nature of God concepts, which as I noted in my recent book ('Beyond Atheism, Beyond God')  means all such concepts are relative and no one can be held up as exclusively true in respect of the others. But DeRose doesn't deal with any of this, preferring to talk in comforting generalities. 

Again, whether a religion or its God strikes anyone as 'bizarre' is irrelevant to the point of the evidentiary basis. Indeed, as I pointed out in previous posts, atheists need not even disprove a religion's God basis only show that whatever the basis is, it has no bearing on how we conduct experiments in science, for example. Or how we engineer safety factors into airlines, or how we build rockets to reach Mars or Pluto. In other words, the particular God concept or belief in God is actually redundant to how business is conducted in the real world - especially for the hard sciences like physics, as well as engineering.

Unphased, DeRose continues his answer to Prof. Gutting:

"If we knew that adherents to other religions came to hold their beliefs in some way that discredits them (say, through brainwashing), we might still know those beliefs are wrong on the basis of how bizarre they seem to us. Of course there are probably some individual believers who have come to hold their beliefs in a way that discredits them. But we don’t know enough about many believers to discredit their beliefs. So I don’t think we can know they’re wrong just because their beliefs strike us as bizarre."

Again, the central issue isn't believers' adopting "discredited" or bizarre beliefs, but rather whether  the beliefs and the 'God' behind them reflect a consistent reality that is in any way observable in the physical world. People in insane asylums also hold bizarre beliefs and many even claim to be 'God' - but rational people discount them because tests have disclosed neural defects or brain dysfunctions, such as schizophrenia.  Hence the source of their information or beliefs cannot be trusted. All of which bodes caution in accepting claims, irrespective of whether we know "all about" who is making them. It is for this reason atheists constantly harp on independent, objective tests in the real world.

Prof. Gutting then at last cuts to the chase:

"O.K., maybe atheists can’t rightly claim to know that theism is false just because they find it a bizarre claim. But atheists also point out that theists don’t put forward any evidence for the existence of God that stands up to rational scrutiny. Isn’t a total lack of evidence for a claim sufficient reason for denying it?"

As usual, DeRose dodges the question and uses obfuscation:

"No. When there’s a genuine dispute, a lack of evidence on the other side does not give you knowledge if you don’t have evidence for your claim."

But the issue is first, what is being claimed and second, the comparative QA for evidence on either side.   In general it isn't a question of whether knowledge exists despite lack of evidence, but whether the side that claims belief based on knowledge possesses a consistent and valid epistemology - or method of obtaining knowledge. For example, most atheists embrace science when they adopt the "extraordinary claims" argument. Science selectively excludes problems for which no practical method of inquiry exists. The supernatural, on which most religious claims are based, is neither measurable or verifiable, so falls into this rejected category and that includes ‘God’. More to the point, we tend to regard such entities held by virtue of belief alone – as opposed to evidence - as evocative of superstition.  The latter encompasses such beliefs, especially when the supernatural realm is populated by invisible beings which can supposedly affect and interact with our world. To the empirical scientist this is the very epitome of superstition.

 

In addition, most physical sciences, still operate on the principle of materialist reductionism. Thus, our job and duty is to remorselessly cull all dross or irrelevant issues that clutter as opposed to expose, what our objects of inquiry are about. This means all invisible, unapproachable entities must go into the epistemological dumpster.

Prof. Gutting again tries to steer DeRose into a sensible response:

 

"Of course, many atheists insist that they don’t claim to know that there is no God. They at most maintain that God’s existence is highly improbable, but don’t claim absolute certainty that God doesn’t exist. So, for example, if theists came up with good evidence for God, they might change their minds."

And what does DeRose say?

"My suggestion is that neither theists nor atheists know whether God exists. And here I don’t just mean that they don’t know for certain, but that they don’t know at all."

This is true, but as a long time atheist would aver: It doesn't matter! Whether God exists has no bearing whatsoever, none, on the quality of our scientific research, its testable hypotheses, or how the tests are conducted. Apart from which, one can't say "atheists don't know whether God exists" unless the definition of God is first given - which DeRose clearly avoids in each of his responses.

For example, if "God" is taken to be identifiable with the universe itself (pantheism), there is good reason not to accept it. After all, it was Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts who first alluded to the danger of pantheism when he asked the question (in his book, 'Does It Matter?'):

"If the universe is identified with God, and the universe is destroyed in a 'Big Crunch' or superheated explosion, does that mean God is destroyed too?"

By the same token, if "God" is taken to be defined as the ultra-Being of ancient theology: i.e. as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, etc. there is also excellent basis to reject it since the "Omni" attributes end up making the Being contradictory as I pointed out in the penultimate chapter of my own book.

 None of this DeRose appears to grasp - or if he does, he prefers to let it slide or cover in obfuscations. As when he continues:

"I don’t think the arguments for either theism or atheism lead to knowledge of their conclusions. But there are arguments on both sides from premises that someone might reasonably judge to be plausible. If you find it quite probable that God does not exist, I think it’s perfectly possible that you are reasonable to think as you do. But this doesn’t mean that someone who thinks it is likely that God does exist can’t likewise be reasonable in holding that position."

True, in terms of the latter, but only again IF his God is defined. As we see already from these responses in Part 1, DeRose can get away with a lot because all the way through he adopts an elastic definition within which he can contain a baby asteroid, or more to the point -  mold his responses any way he wants to fend off Gutting's probes while making it appear ALL theists are as rational as your basic, garden variety, scientifically informed atheist.

More to come in Part 2.