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// That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. I used to think this way but lately recognize this

// That’s not how this works, anywhere: the burden of proof, of presenting facts, is on those who say “yes”. I used to think this way but lately recognize this isn't intellectually honest. Even w/o religion we have to acknowledge that our ability to perceive and understand is very limited compared to what must be the totality of truths in the universe. This seems obvious - eg if you believe in evolution, you recognize that you evolved to be fit in your environment (eat and avoid being eaten) - why would you expect this process to grant you machinery to understand fundamental universal truths? Once I recognized this limitation, I recognized the intellectual dishonestly of what I previously considered rigor: "I can't see/understand it so it doesn't exist" is as ridiculous an assertion as anything.

michaelmrose 3y ago
Insisting on fixing burden of proof according to reasonable and customary rules is how we bring information from honest and forthright discussion partners into scope where their thoughts can be fully considered and guard our time from unserious, dishonest, or ridiculous individuals who sap our time and will by insisting that unreasonable meritless ideas spun with a minimum of effort demand profound effort on our part to disprove what they never bothered to prove in the first place. If you tell me the moon is made of cheese my rebuttal isn't going to be to launch a manned mission I'm going to tightly flip it on you. This isn't intellectually dishonest. The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. If you are wandering around an orchard and find what looks like a smelly pile of dung do feel free not to put it in your mouth to find out if it's actually an apple.
- mistermann 3y ago
  You clearly know your rhetoric, watch out for this though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I agree with everything you wrote here (this is indeed how I live my life) but I think your examples have something in common - they are cases where you are capable of recognizing the truth. EG: you know what shit looks like and you know what apples look like, and you can be confident in your ability to tell them apart. The upstream topic has to do with religion which deals with things that don't have that property (by definition, I would say.) One religious argument can go like this: Religion: all things that we know about, have a creator. Why wouldn't the universe have a creator? Why would the most sophisticated thing of all be random? Atheism replies: I am unable to see the creator therefore he doesn't exist. It's random. There's a difference between saying "I know what an apple is and I've seen thousands of apples, and this pile of shit isn't an apple" and saying "I assume I would be able to perceive and understand the creation/creator of the universe with my monkey meat-brain, so the fact that I don't see it means for sure there's not one" I feel like the logical approach is to say "I am a limited monkey meat-brain, I have no reason to expect to recognize the creator. But I can chose to use probability to expect that there might be a creator of the universe - since all else has a creator, and not get too hung up on my own limitation" Hope this elaboration makes sense, this is what I was trying to convey.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    Properly atheism replies that we observe a multitude of things which according to our best understanding don't require supernatural intervention to come into being and literally thousands of examples of prospective gods which are all complete bullshit. The fact that the concept is probably without merit is a probabilistic statement like most of the "facts" you know. There are no tigers in my house and there is no creator of the universe. I'm an atheist not because I have absolute proof of a negative but because surety crossed a threshold from probably not to definitely not because that is how human beings work. Most statements that you "know" work exactly the same. There is nothing in the natural world that has a creator in the sense that you mean. A star, a slime mold and you are a natural consequence of the configuration of matter that preceded the existence of matter we are labeling our sun, that ugly stain on the wall, and you. There is no reason to believe that your mom has conscious control over individual cells that became you for instance any more than the lose clump of dust consciously created the sun. As we move to the moment where the inception of our universe this of course breaks down not because we need to paper over our lack of understanding with a symbol we invented but because as you noted reality has no need to conform to our intuition or ability to understand.
- vacuity 3y ago
  > The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. In the colloquial sense, for sure. However, if someone bothers to engage in a discussion by providing an answer to a question, I think it is perfectly fair to say that the burden of proof lies on the answerer. If someone responds in kind, then they should provide evidence and reasoning for their claim. A holier-than-thou attitude to the point of providing one word as an answer and refusing to elaborate isn't remotely conducive to discussion. The question of whether vaccines cause autism isn't a question that can reasonably be dismissed immediately like "the moon is made of cheese" can. You probably put your trust in the scientists who say vaccines don't cause autism. You may very well be right. But if you choose to engage in a discussion, don't act like your argument is untouchable. That's a disservice to the spirit of scientific inquiry. Perhaps there's a new study that should be considered. If it's the same old debunked studies, feel free to end the discussion there. But you don't know that ahead of time. If you're going to continue a discussion, do so in good faith. > You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. That is...confident. I think animals are a lot easier to avoid dying to than trying to understand the universe and everything about it, whether that's physics, epidemiology, or philosophy. Natural selection isn't "survival of the perfect beings" but rather "survival of the fittest and then some mediocre ones who haven't died off".

michaelmrose 3y ago

Insisting on fixing burden of proof according to reasonable and customary rules is how we bring information from honest and forthright discussion partners into scope where their thoughts can be fully considered and guard our time from unserious, dishonest, or ridiculous individuals who sap our time and will by insisting that unreasonable meritless ideas spun with a minimum of effort demand profound effort on our part to disprove what they never bothered to prove in the first place. If you tell me the moon is made of cheese my rebuttal isn't going to be to launch a manned mission I'm going to tightly flip it on you. This isn't intellectually dishonest. The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. If you are wandering around an orchard and find what looks like a smelly pile of dung do feel free not to put it in your mouth to find out if it's actually an apple.

mistermann 3y ago
You clearly know your rhetoric, watch out for this though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
xyzelement 3y ago
I agree with everything you wrote here (this is indeed how I live my life) but I think your examples have something in common - they are cases where you are capable of recognizing the truth. EG: you know what shit looks like and you know what apples look like, and you can be confident in your ability to tell them apart. The upstream topic has to do with religion which deals with things that don't have that property (by definition, I would say.) One religious argument can go like this: Religion: all things that we know about, have a creator. Why wouldn't the universe have a creator? Why would the most sophisticated thing of all be random? Atheism replies: I am unable to see the creator therefore he doesn't exist. It's random. There's a difference between saying "I know what an apple is and I've seen thousands of apples, and this pile of shit isn't an apple" and saying "I assume I would be able to perceive and understand the creation/creator of the universe with my monkey meat-brain, so the fact that I don't see it means for sure there's not one" I feel like the logical approach is to say "I am a limited monkey meat-brain, I have no reason to expect to recognize the creator. But I can chose to use probability to expect that there might be a creator of the universe - since all else has a creator, and not get too hung up on my own limitation" Hope this elaboration makes sense, this is what I was trying to convey.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  Properly atheism replies that we observe a multitude of things which according to our best understanding don't require supernatural intervention to come into being and literally thousands of examples of prospective gods which are all complete bullshit. The fact that the concept is probably without merit is a probabilistic statement like most of the "facts" you know. There are no tigers in my house and there is no creator of the universe. I'm an atheist not because I have absolute proof of a negative but because surety crossed a threshold from probably not to definitely not because that is how human beings work. Most statements that you "know" work exactly the same. There is nothing in the natural world that has a creator in the sense that you mean. A star, a slime mold and you are a natural consequence of the configuration of matter that preceded the existence of matter we are labeling our sun, that ugly stain on the wall, and you. There is no reason to believe that your mom has conscious control over individual cells that became you for instance any more than the lose clump of dust consciously created the sun. As we move to the moment where the inception of our universe this of course breaks down not because we need to paper over our lack of understanding with a symbol we invented but because as you noted reality has no need to conform to our intuition or ability to understand.
vacuity 3y ago
> The fact for instance that our ability to understand the underlying reality if any may be limited doesn't mean that every proposition is equally valid. In the colloquial sense, for sure. However, if someone bothers to engage in a discussion by providing an answer to a question, I think it is perfectly fair to say that the burden of proof lies on the answerer. If someone responds in kind, then they should provide evidence and reasoning for their claim. A holier-than-thou attitude to the point of providing one word as an answer and refusing to elaborate isn't remotely conducive to discussion. The question of whether vaccines cause autism isn't a question that can reasonably be dismissed immediately like "the moon is made of cheese" can. You probably put your trust in the scientists who say vaccines don't cause autism. You may very well be right. But if you choose to engage in a discussion, don't act like your argument is untouchable. That's a disservice to the spirit of scientific inquiry. Perhaps there's a new study that should be considered. If it's the same old debunked studies, feel free to end the discussion there. But you don't know that ahead of time. If you're going to continue a discussion, do so in good faith. > You entire life has been built on picking the most likely explanation for a set of inputs received. It's how your ancestors didn't get eaten by animals. That is...confident. I think animals are a lot easier to avoid dying to than trying to understand the universe and everything about it, whether that's physics, epidemiology, or philosophy. Natural selection isn't "survival of the perfect beings" but rather "survival of the fittest and then some mediocre ones who haven't died off".