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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Perceiving is Believing
Message-ID: <665@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Mar-85 22:07:01 EST
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.665
Posted: Mon Mar 11 22:07:01 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 12-Mar-85 22:48:34 EST
References: <589@pyuxd.UUCP> <4898@cbscc.UUCP> <4899@cbscc.UUCP>, <3878@umcp-cs.UUCP> <4958@cbscc.UUCP>
Organization: Huxley College
Lines: 65
Keywords: Occam, natural flow, objective

>>Paul Dubuc suggests that God is the best explanation of certain
>>metaphysical questions (and perhaps he would also include subjective
>>experiences as indicating God as explanation, too). [TOREK]

> Including God in the picture seems best to me.  I am not implying that
> they are the best explanations or the only ones.  The point of my article
> is that my acceptance of the proposition that God exists is not more
> presumptive than the denial of that proposition. [DUBUC]

What I have trying to show is that the reason including god in the picture
seems "best" to you is PRECISELY because of the unwarranted assumptions you
make a priori regarding the requirement of a controlling will in the universe.
You may claim otherwise, but your writings have shown that you assume the
existence of an entity whose will controls the universe as a stepping stone
to reaching your further conclusions.  Moreover, it has been seen in the
writings of many Christians in this newsgroup (I don't recall whether you were
one of them explicitly) that the reason for making that initial assumption
about the universe having a directed purpose because of this entity is based
on wanting for their to be such a directed purpose---my old standby of
wishful thinking!

> Obviously a caused result doesn't rule out the possibility that it
> is proven.  But what insures that they are?  I don't see any necessary
> connection between cause and proof?  Causing a certain number to appear on my
> calculator by pushing buttons at random does not exclude the posibility
> that that number is the correct answer to a particular problem.  A stopped
> clock gives the correct time twice a day.  What elevates the level of
> trust in our own caused judgements above the trust we would place in these
> examples?

It is the very fact that the reliability can be verified independent of our
interpretations and masking of our perceptions that makes conclusions drawn
through such analysis trustworthy.  Of course, a deity could be running around
saying "Oh, dear, he's just pressed 2 + 2 on his calculator: better make sure
4 comes up as the answer, and oh, dear, there's a rock at the edge of a cliff
in Brazil, better make sure it starts falling and with the proper acceleration
towards the earth, and oh, dear..."  Causing everything.  I doubt that if
such a deity existed it would not be quite so stupid.  (or would it?)  I'd
venture that it would create a universe that worked of its own accord without
meddling interference.  That, in either case, is the reliability we have
seen.  If it wasn't reliable, we wouldn't be capable of talking about it.

>>Yes, our perceptions are caused, but they are accurate anyway (at least
>>most of the time).  Furthermore, there is
>>a good Naturalistic explanation (based on the evolutionary advantage
>>of accurate perceivers) of this fact -- *of course* our perceptions
>>are mostly trustworthy: if not, we wouldn't have survived.

> I don't see how survival is necessarily linked to accurate perceptions.

Perhaps because of an anti-evolutionist bent?  :-?  If you can't see, hear
or otherwise perceive correctly the tiger coming at you, you're going to
be eaten!!!  Those organisms with incredibly faulty perceptions don't seem
to survive.  The ones with the keenest perceptive accuracy, if combined with
other abilities, be the most likely to survive.

> Also, you treat accurate perception as
> an ability.  Does the accuracy of my perception in one instance imply
> that I generally make accurate perceptions?  Again this ability seems
> independant of "natural flow".

How so?  On the contrary, it is very much inextricably linked to the "natural
flow", whether that flow has an intent or not.  It is a part of it.  You seem
to be bogged down in assuming things about this flow vis a vis intent and
directed purpose, which was my point earlier in the article.