I think that I remember him saying that he’s not an expert. His tactics are indeed tedious though.

You're a bit boring - to me - to be an expert. — creativesoul

On what planet is that the test of whether someone is an expert? Is this person an expert? I dunno - see if creativeoul finds him interesting (creative soul's over there, trying to force his face through a closed window).

Are you an expert on experts?

A keen eye for using certain fallacious means at the appropriate time. — creativesoul

I don't think I've committed a fallacy anywhere on this site. But by all means draw my attention to one.

Your participation on this forum could be the one activity that keeps you thinking positively about yourself. I mean, some folk find picking on other people to be an acceptable worthwhile ability/habit/personality trait.

Now, you're attempting to use the notion of "expert" as a means of what... exactly? Self comfort?

:kiss: — creativesoul

Are you a psychologist? Hope not, because your analysis is rubbish. But anyway, the reason I keep talking about expertise here is because that's what this thread is about.

A means of devaluing another person's thoughts on a matter... God notwithstanding...

Appeal to authority is wrong for very good Reason. — creativesoul

Joined-up thinking please, not just a series of blurts.

You're a bit boring - to me - to be an expert.
— creativesoul

On what planet is that the test of whether someone is an expert? — Bartricks

The same one where it makes sense to ask such a stupid question.

The same one where it makes sense to ask such a stupid question. — creativesoul

So, as you clearly think it doesn't make senes to ask that question on 'this' planet, you admit that the 'is this person interesting to creativesoul' test is not the test of expertise here. Yes?

How do we know when the experts have been wrong?

You ask the experts.

Now, can you answer my question above please, if it isn't too boring.

↪creativesoulThe same one where it makes sense to ask such a stupid question. — creativesoul
So, as you clearly think it doesn't make senes to ask that question on 'this' planet, you admit that the 'is this person interesting to creativesoul' test is not the test of expertise here. Yes? — Bartricks

Sigh. As I said... you're a bit boring to have several years of graduate level philosophy. You've been talking in academic terms, so...

Since you asked to point out any fallacies...

Just after having denied being guilty of any logical fallacies and/or fallacious Reasoning, you immediately offer a non sequitur at best and an ad hominem at worst.

You're arguing against your own strawdogs my friend.

How do we know when the experts have been wrong?

How do we know when the experts have been wrong? — creativesoul

You ask the experts. — Bartricks

What about all the time that passes prior to their becoming aware of that fact?

Locate the fallacies.

As I said... you're a bit boring to have several years of graduate level philosophy. — creativesoul

So you think that what determines whether you've had several years of graduate level philosophy is not how much graduate level philosophy you have had, but how interesting you are (more particularly, how interesting you are to someone who has 'not' had any years of graduate level philosophy study). Is that right?

Do you think the point of graduate study is to be able to entertain you, or is perhaps the point to get things right, even if that might bore someone who doesn't care less about such matters - what do you think?

What about all the time that passes prior to their becoming aware of that fact? — creativesoul

What are you even asking there? You are asking me a question about a patch of time?

You are claiming that our path to knowing when the experts have been wrong is to ask them.

Is that correct?

It's not quite as simple as that, but the details would bore you.

I suppose you'd ask non-experts - is that right? God must be atheist? Praxis?

Are you a psychologist? Hope not, because your analysis is rubbish. — Bartricks

It was not an analysis. It was just offering a few possible explanations. That's something your entire philosophy rests it's laurels upon. Logical possibility alone.

Of course, you know that already, or at least ought given that you've several years graduate level academic philosophy.

You are claiming that our path to knowing when the experts have been wrong is to ask them.

Is that correct? — creativesoul

It's not quite as simple as that, but the details would bore you — Bartricks

I may not find it boring to critically examine your position...

Is it still based upon logical possibility alone?

Alas though, the point is being avoided...

How do we know when the experts are wrong?

Experts are wrong before they know it. So... We cannot just ask the experts. However, that is not to say that there are many historical situations where the experts were wrong, and we now know that much. Some experts may even be aware of being wrong about something themselves during their own lifetime...

The point stands...

We cannot always know that the experts are wrong by asking them. As a matter of fact, we cannot ever know that experts are currently wrong by asking them their opinion on the matter. We have to know what that opinion is in order to know that it is wrong... at least in most cases... but... because they do not ever know that they are wrong while they are...

We cannot know that they are by asking them.

Now what?

Now what? — creativesoul

Well, you likely have yourself, consciously or unconsciously or both, set up a bunch of heuristics. And your solution might or might not work fairly well for you but not be right for your neighbor. Intuition has to play a strong role in those heuristics. When you decide to ask for second opinions? When you choose to doubt consensus amongst experts and do some reseach? how to choose between opposing experts - and there are almost always opposing experts, from mainstreat to fringe? how much you decide other factors - monetary compensation, paradigmatic biases, tradition, etc. - are affecting or may be affecting expert positions? And what you do when you have doubt. These all end up being approaches to a no answer is perfect and certainly not everyone approach to dealing with fallibility. And different people have different optimal solutions, since they differ in intelligence, lay knowledge of different fields, vocabulary (reading justifications and evidence), confidence, available time and more.

How do we know when the experts have been wrong? — creativesoul

If it matters who says it, then what he says cannot possibly matter.

The reason why a statement is sound knowledge is because there is paperwork to justify it as well as a mechanical procedure to verify that paperwork. In that case, who cares who exactly has produced the paperwork?

For example, you can mechanically verify that bitcoin works. Hence, why would we need to know who exactly Satoshi Nakamoto was? Would that change anything to the software's reference implementation?

I don't think you do. It is surely sufficient for a non-expert to have reason to believe there is a proof of the existence of a god that an expert has said so, especially when the proof in question has not yet been assessed by other experts. — Bartricks

Not for me. I don't have some kind of working relationship with experts in metaphysics to get a sense of how accurate they are as a whole, how much divisions they have (schools, differing approaches and paradigms) and how much this affects their conclusions. With many experts I can look at the whole groups track record, to some degree at least, and also to some degree individual track records. My gut sense and experience is also that even experts overestimate their ability to deduce things. They are overconfident of their ability to judge the semantic scope of terms and what we can be certain of in general. Of course I could be wrong. And I assume that experts in metaphysics are much better than laypeople at that. Of course they are aiming high and very abstract.

Coben
I could follow your expert opinion that today's experts are not the right ones, but then other experts will have a different take on that.
— Coben

But I don't think any expert in metaphysics would deny that, historically, most expert metaphysicians - including most of the undisputed best - have thought that God's existence could either be proved or shown to be overall more reasonable than not. — Bartricks

But those experts were basing their opinion on other proofs than the one in question. Either their proofs were faulty or these should have convinced other experts that the proof had been found. Of course this leaves room for other proofs to be the case, but it doesn't apply to my needing to believe one modern expert in regard to his or her proof.

The point, though, is that for non-experts the fact that the majority of great metaphysicians have judged God's existence either to be rationally demonstrable, or to be more reasonable than not, provides them with good reason to suppose that this is in fact the case, — Bartricks

1) they were using different arguments than the one that has not now been confirmed by other ones now
2) those experts had extreme pressure to assess arguments in favor of God as sound.

Say you are in some kind of a diamond hall and the diamond experts are sat at their tables sifting through piles of diamonds and paste fakes, putting diamonds in one pile on their respective desks and paste fakes in the other.

You go up to one of these tables. There is a pile on the left marked 'diamonds' and a pile on the right marked 'paste'. Stones have been put in these respective piles by one expert - the expert sat at this particular desk. So no other expert apart from this one has inspected these stones. And it is also well known that diamond experts do sometimes - though far more rarely than any non-expert would - mistake a paste diamond for the real deal. Nevertheless, as a non-expert yourself you surely have very good reason to think that a stone taken from the pile marked 'diamonds' will be a diamonds and not paste? And that's the case no matter whose table you go to. — Bartricks

As I said in the other response, I don't think these kinds of experts dealing with concrete objects with real work direct consequences are in the same kind of expertise type. Further the closer parallel would be if one expert in the room says, I have come up with a new test for authenticity. I am the only one who has this test. It takes a while for others to evaluate it. Me, I am wondering why it doesn't have a coalition in favor of it. OK, the expert finished that diamond test protocol yesterday. Fine, I'll check in in a while. First I have no need to take it seriously now. If I was on a plane that is going to crash and there is one parachute expert and he is telling me how to put on, for example, the last remaining chute, which like his, is broken, so that it will work. Well, absolutely. I will take that expert deathly seriously. I have no other option. And his skill set makes it more likely than mine, for sure. But a metaphysical expert telling me he as a proof and thinks I should take it seriously, whatever that means, makes me wonder why he himself is not interested to see how other experts react. Individuals have tremendous motivation to view their creations as right. Hence peer revies type processes in most fields. I don't really need to do anything.

As a kind of parallel. Online I have encountered experts in all sorts of fields use their fields to rule ou what they would call supernatural phenomena. They have in the main been confused about what one can do with deduction. I have encountered professional philosophers, and fairly frequently, who reach what I consider confused conclusions. I have a smattering of expertise in philosophy, but I am no expert and I am not a philosopher. But I still find with regularity great individual confidence when it has seemed to me they were incorrect. And, in most cases, I could find philosophers who agreed with me, though this was not the basis of my disagreement. So, no, in some fields and some situations and to varying degrees I will take seriously experts conclusions. And it gets very complicated how I make my choices there, which are not binary.

Do you have reason to think that the piece of paper in the pile marked 'proof of God' in the tray on that one metaphysician's table is a proof of God? — Bartricks

I would wonder why there wasn't a crowd about that proof.

This is the philosophy forum. I have no time for those who are unable to explain what they claim to know.