I think I was misunderstanding you: I was thinking "atheist views" in terms of epistemic positions traditionally voiced in terms of atheism, but you seem to be referring simply to the fact that you do not require a consensus amongst in-group and out-group, just in-group. Is that right? — Bob Ross

That is right. I think it is fair to ask the believers to come to a common definition among their "in-group" before they address the "out-group".

And sorry, also to @Nickolasgaspar, for mixing your posts in my recent answer.

The "plurality" of a claim(ad populum) doesn't benefit the epistemic or philosophical value of it. — Nickolasgaspar

Yes, it does. If not theoretically, then practically. In science we see a theory as accepted when there is a consensus. We don't require 100% acceptance but a reasonable threshold. And I wouldn't call it "ad populum" because we require the consensus among experts not the populus. — ArmChairPhilosopher

-Again you are promoting a fallacy. Consensus is not the criterion but the "symptom" of a successful theory. The epistemic value IS there and consensus follows...not the other way around. The popularity of a claim is irrelevant to its epistemic foundations.

There is no Null hypothesis is philosophy. And as long as we don't know if we have to tackle the god problem with science or philosophy, we can't require to use the Null hypothesis. — ArmChairPhilosopher

Of course there is. Its like saying there is no logic in Philosophy....
The Null hypothesis is useful to evaluate your default position and avoid unwarranted assumptions in your philosophy.

-"You did when you assumed that god is an ideal."
-I ddin't have to assume that!God concepts describe idealistic agents.(all knowing all powerful, merciful etc etc etc etc etc). My remark was descriptive. I didn't assume gods existed or not, I didn't assume they have roles in reality or not...I only pointed out the only nature we are aware of.

-"

Exactly. And since I only get contradictory claims from the believers, I don't know how to address the claims. What I do know is that the claims are inconsistent. And I can't conclude that they must be talking about different things as one of the claims is that there is only one god. — ArmChairPhilosopher

"
-And this is why we can only address the only thing we are aware of.... the actual concept in those claims! How can you ever go beyond the concept when you have nothing to work with, zero facts zero objective evidence zero methods capable to detect and verify the supernatural etc etc.

You are confusing transferable (potential) with transferred (actual). True knowledge could be potentially transferred from the last human to the next sapient recipient (alien or evolved rat) in writing.

Even if there is not potential for transference, I would still argue an individual could know things. It depends on what you mean by "potential" though, because I would characterize the possibility of transmittance as requiring a receptor (whether actual or potential); If (1) there are no receptors and (2) there is no possibility of any receptor every actualizing, then technically (I would argue) there would be no consensus yet there could be knowledge. Even if it were literally impossible for anyone to comprehend my knowledge, i would still know it. This is because, I would argue, knowledge is that which is deductively ascertained (as opposed to abductively or inductively ascertained) and, therefore, can be acquired individually (although the dialectic is nevertheless important).

"If you can't show it, you don't know it." as AronRa would say.

It depends entirely on what you mean by "show" whether I would agree with you or not. Something can be "shown" relative to the subject without ever having the possibility of being demonstrated to another being (e.g. contemplation whilst stuck in a coma). I could demonstrate, strictly to myself, that I have deductively ascertained something and, consequently, know it without necessarily having the capability to escape my own thoughts to write it down or speak it out loud. It could never have the possibility of even being transmitted and/or it could not have the possibility to be received (yet could be transmitted) and yet I would argue I can still "know" things. I don't base what I know on consensus.

Suppose you wake up and you remember dreaming about raiding the fridge. Then you are not sure if that was real. Then you are convinced it was real. Do you "know" you raided the fridge or do you have an illusion of knowledge? To be sure, you have to show it (if only to yourself).

My only point, as of now, here is that you could "show it" to yourself (as you noted) and never have the ability to demonstrate it to anyone else (which would entail it is not transferable nor transferred). Likewise, you could transmit it (broadcast it, so to speak) legitimately yet no one ever did nor had the possibility to receive it. Likewise, you could transmit it, somebody can receive it (possibly, potentially, or/and actually), yet it was never possible that that somebody could accept the contents of your transmittance as true (which is a completely separate consideration). What is most correct doesn't necessarily have to align with consensus, but, nevertheless, it tends to. Furthermore, on a different note, even after "showing it" to yourself that it either did or did not happen, you may still not know it: did you deduce that you did raided the fridge, or did you induce it? Without further context, I have no way of providing further elaboration.

Another example: you have studied for a maths test. You think you know the formulas and how to use them. Do you "know" or do you have an illusion of knowledge. You will be sure after the test.

You may or may not be sure after the test, if by "sure" you mean "know". Did you deduce that you did, in fact, comprehend the formulas appropriately or are you inducing such? It is entirely possible to induce a conclusion to another induction and mistake it for knowledge.

The principle works reasonably well in science.

Sure, the scientific method works well. However, to clarify, that is not the only means of achieving knowledge: I do not subscribe to scientism.

That is right. I think it is fair to ask the believers to come to a common definition among their "in-group" before they address the "out-group".

Fair enough; however, my contention would be that consensus does not equate to knowledge.

And sorry, also to Nickolasgaspar, for mixing your posts in my recent answer.

No worries my friend! It did trip me up at first a bit, not going to lie, but no worries.

Consensus is not the criterion but the "symptom" of a successful theory. — Nickolasgaspar

That's enough for my purpose. The lack of consensus is a symptom of an unsuccessful hypothesis.

Imagine the following scenario: on a conference 10 experts propose 10 different, contradicting hypothesis. Neither of the speakers can convince her colleagues. I can deduce that at least 9 out of those ten have to be wrong (don't know what they are talking about). The same goes for the experts. When they are honest, they have to admit that their hypothesis has as 90% chance of being among the wrong ones. So each single one has to doubt her hypothesis and can't be sure to know and as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge. Even if one of the hypothesis turns out to be true, neither can be justified in believing that it's hers.

That's the state of affairs with god beliefs. I don't know which one is right - if any. And when they are honest neither can the believers.

I would still argue an individual could know things. — Bob Ross

Even if you are right, it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. We don't deal with the last man on earth, we deal with a myriad of god claims and the possibility of the claimants to communicate. And, as I explained in my answer to @Nickolasgaspar, none can, in good faith, be justified in his belief of knowledge.

Even if you are right, it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. We don't deal with the last man on earth, we deal with a myriad of god claims and the possibility of the claimants to communicate

What I am disputing is that a necessary tenant of "knowledge" is "transferability". If I am correct, holistically in what I said (not just merely the last man on earth analogy), then the disputes pertaining to a claim within an in-group only suggests there is not a proper consensus, but never that an individual in that in-group cannot "know" the claim they are specifically making. The last man analogy was meant to explicate the issue of "knowledge" having a necessary "transferability" characteristic, which does pertain directly to "possibility of claimants to communicate".

What I am trying to convey is that the non-consensus amongst an in-group simply entails that they haven't been able to get each other to agree, not that one doesn't know something: they are two very distinct things in my mind. Likewise, "in-group" would need to be further defined, because everything is contextually an "in-group" to some other "out-group", and I don't think a generic "theism" would suffice as a valid "in-group" to your critique (it is incredibly ambiguous to be placed in "theism" just as it is to be a member of "atheism").

And, as I explained in my answer to @Nickolasgaspar, none can, in good faith, be justified in his belief of knowledge.

I do not know what post you are referring to, but if you would like to invoke whatever argument you made with someone else, then please feel free to share that argument with me. Likewise, I have no frame of reference to what you mean by "none can, in good faith, be justified in his belief of knowledge". A subject can derive an epistemology and, in good faith, be justified in it. Also, deriving an epistemology is not necessarily grounded in a belief (mine is certainly not).

I do not know what post you are referring to, — Bob Ross

Imagine the following scenario: on a conference 10 experts propose 10 different, contradicting hypothesis. Neither of the speakers can convince her colleagues. I can deduce that at least 9 out of those ten have to be wrong (don't know what they are talking about). The same goes for the experts. When they are honest, they have to admit that their hypothesis has a 90% chance of being among the wrong ones. So each single one has to doubt her hypothesis and can't be sure to know and as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge. Even if one of the hypothesis turns out to be true, neither can be justified in believing that it's hers. — ArmChairPhilosopher

That, of course, assumes faithful actors and a will to share and gain knowledge and acceptance of equality. But given those, it is not a matter of taste when they don't agree. Each one of them has to assume that the others are wrong (or at least ignorant) but without arrogance, they also have to agree that they are in the same position as their peers.

Imagine the following scenario: on a conference 10 experts propose 10 different, contradicting hypothesis. Neither of the speakers can convince her colleagues. I can deduce that at least 9 out of those ten have to be wrong (don't know what they are talking about). The same goes for the experts. When they are honest, they have to admit that their hypothesis has a 90% chance of being among the wrong ones. So each single one has to doubt her hypothesis and can't be sure to know and as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge. Even if one of the hypothesis turns out to be true, neither can be justified in believing that it's hers.

Firstly, I think your deduction is incorrect: you cannot deduce that 9 out of 10 are wrong. You could hypothetically stipulate that for all intents and purposes, but it is not deduced via the fact that all 10 are proposing contradictory hypothesis: they could all be wrong. As your analogy is explicated in the above quote, there is therefore not a 90% chance that any given expert is wrong (nor a 10% chance they are right): as the analogy was given, there's an indeterminate probability (quantitative likelihood) of any given expert being right or wrong.

Secondly, regardless of whether we assume 9 out of 10 are wrong or that it is indeterminate as explicated thus far, they should always be doubting their hypothesis (their inductions) as, by definition, the premises do not necessitate the conclusion. In terms of anything they deduced, they would know it, but they still should doubt those as well. By "doubt" I don't mean incessantly deny ever knowing anything but, rather, that anything deduced is categorized as "knowledge" with the careful consideration that they have not obtained 100% certainty. There's never a point at which someone should think that they have 100% definitively obtained knowledge of anything possibly imaginable.

Thirdly, your analogy is conflating a subject's knowledge with societal knowledge: I think these are two very different contexts. I can know something of which you only believe (and vice-versa), because I may be able to deduce it while you induce it. Society is simply a collection of individuals and, thusly, societal knowledge requires consensus: maybe that is what you were referring to by "knowledge"? I don't think "knowledge" or "truth" or what have you is a real, objective, body in the universe. Societal knowledge is inter-subjectively agreed upon deductions. "objectivity" is, in terms of societal knowledge, an inter-subjectively agreed upon classification of a concept as an "object", and, in terms of individual's knowledge, that which is deduced by the subject (without any regard for what other may think). These are both knowledge.

Fourthly and finally, let's assume, as a hypothetical (which isn't deduced, but simply stipulated as a presumption), that only 1 out of the 10 is right (guaranteed)(9 out of 10 are wrong in other words). Then, at best, they must agree that they have no consensus (which I think that's what you are referring to by "good faith"), which entails that there is no societally agreed upon knowledge of the subject S. However, this is also stipulating that S is actually narrow enough of a context to warrant the agreement that there's no consensus. In terms of religion, all theists do not have to agree for there to be a consensus about "god" in relation to a specific definition of such. "God" is purposely an incredibly vague, ambiguous term. So this analogy, at best, would apply to a specific subbranch of theism (e.g. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc), wherein none of the experts (1) agree and (2) they have contradictory claims. #1 and #2 are not necessarily the case in terms of disagreement. Either that or I think your analogy only is valid if one were to compare it to general "theistic" concepts of god, which do have a consensus.

Firstly, I think your deduction is incorrect: you cannot deduce that 9 out of 10 are wrong. — Bob Ross

That's why I wrote "at least".

Secondly, regardless of whether we assume 9 out of 10 are wrong or that it is indeterminate as explicated thus far, they should always be doubting their hypothesis (their inductions) as, by definition, the premises do not necessitate the conclusion. In terms of anything they deduced, they would know it, but they still should doubt those as well. By "doubt" I don't mean incessantly deny ever knowing anything but, rather, that anything deduced is categorized as "knowledge" with the careful consideration that they have not obtained 100% certainty. There's never a point at which someone should think that they have 100% definitively obtained knowledge of anything possibly imaginable. — Bob Ross

We are not talking about absolute certainty or even only 1 σ certainty. In the example we have at least 90% uncertainty (in reality much higher). That means no evidence, no argument could convince another. Being able to maintain the illusion of knowledge under those circumstances requires a lot of arrogance (or a lot of stupidity).

Thirdly, your analogy is conflating a subject's knowledge with societal knowledge: — Bob Ross

I addressed both:

So each single one has to doubt her hypothesis and can't be sure to know and as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge. — ArmChairPhilosopher

"God" is purposely an incredibly vague, ambiguous term. — Bob Ross

Well, yes, purposely or not, that's what I'm saying the hole time. And it's not even so that different religions have different definitions, the definitions vary within religions, often even within members of the same denomination.
And that inconsistency can't even be solved by agreeing on multiple gods. 1. The monotheists don't agree to that and 2. even then there would be disagreement whether an entity belongs to the category or not.
As long as you have "an incredibly vague, ambiguous term", you don't know - you can't know - whether a concrete example falls under the category.

Firstly, I think your deduction is incorrect: you cannot deduce that 9 out of 10 are wrong. — Bob Ross


That's why I wrote "at least".
...
We are not talking about absolute certainty or even only 1 σ certainty. In the example we have at least 90% uncertainty (in reality much higher).

I apologize: I did not see that you wrote "at least", which is indeed an important distinction. However, I still think your deduction is incorrect. At least 9 out of 10 does not equate to 90% uncertainty: this would only be the case iff 10 is holistically the denominator that accurately represented the entire set of possibilities on the given subject; however your analogy is not postulating those 10 experts as proposing the only 10 possibilities in relation to the given subject. In other words, deducing that at least 9 out of 10 experts are incorrect, does not mean that any given expert is 90% certain they are incorrect: there is not a 90% chance they are incorrect.

To really hone in on this, let's take a trivial example of probability. There's three cards: two kings and an ace. As you are well aware, if they are randomly shuffled, then the odds of picking a king is 66%. To choose to guess that the card will be an ace is to deductively know that there's a 66% chance one is wrong. Most importantly, I think you are trying to use this in your example but this is not analogous to what you proposed (in analogy). This is because the sole reason that choosing to guess ace has a 66% chance of being wrong is because we deductively know that the only possibilities are those 3 cards., whereas in your example the 10 hypotheses are not the only possibilities.

That means no evidence, no argument could convince another. Being able to maintain the illusion of knowledge under those circumstances requires a lot of arrogance (or a lot of stupidity).

Again, this is not an accurate representation of knowledge holistically. It would, indeed, be either arrogant or ignorant (I would not say necessarily stupid) for any given expert in your analogy to claim that there is a consensus among them all; however, it would not be necessarily arrogant or ignorant if one were to claim they know X about subject S even though the other nine have proposed hypotheses that contradict it. There is not a 90% chance they are wrong. Furthermore, to be specific, I think that it is only possible to determine a quantitative likelihood (probability) of that which has a deductively ascertained denominator and numerator. In your example, we only have a deduced numerator, not a denominator: therefore the probability is indeterminate because the denominator is inductively ascertained.

I addressed both:

So each single one has to doubt her hypothesis and can't be sure to know and as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge. — ArmChairPhilosopher


"God" is purposely an incredibly vague, ambiguous term.

I did not interpret it that way, but I apologize. If you are referring to individual vs societal in the aforementioned quote, then I think, although you are making such a distinction, you are misusing them. When you state "each single one has to doubt her hypothesis", I think you are suggesting (and correct me if I am wrong) that the absence of a consensus entails that they should doubt their hypotheses (as opposed to not doubting them if there was a consensus): it shouldn't matter how many people agree, if you didn't deduce it then you don't know it. A million people could collectively agree claim X about subject S and they are all incorrect. Quantity of agreement doesn't suggest that it is correct, it is the evaluation of the actual claim that determines whether it is knowledge or not in relation to an epistemology.

Likewise, when you state "as a group they have to admit they can't contribute to the body of knowledge", I am interpreting that as "knowledge" equates to societal knowledge: am I misunderstanding you? Just because 9 out of 10 must be wrong (at least) does not mean that a given expert cannot or should not claim to "know" their claim: what determines that is whether it was deduced or induced (abduced). If all 10 hypotheses are inductions, then none of them know. If they all, by their nature, necessitate that the others are wrong if one is correct, then if one of them is deduced then the other 9 are induced. If two or more are deduced (validly), then that would mean that they aren't contradictory after all (but in terms of your hypothetical, this has no bearing).

Moreover, it is possible that two are deduced but don't necessarily need to be agreed upon societally. For example, if one of the experts postulates that semantically "1" should refer to what we would consider (in terms of underlying meaning) 2 and another expert postulates that semantically "1" should refer to what we consider 3, then they can both know within their own individual contexts. It isn't that either one knows or the other, it's that they must understand that they haven't thereby gained any communal knowledge (inter-subjective agreement). Thusly, just because two hypotheses contradict each other societally does not entail that neither can know anything, which is what you seem to be claiming.

As long as you have "an incredibly vague, ambiguous term", you don't know - you can't know - whether a concrete example falls under the category.

Firstly, I was referring to generic "theism" and why it isn't a suitable candidate for your claim in terms of in-group consensus. I would agree that there are many denominations and such, but they do agree on basic tenants which constitute them under that specific religion in the first place (so there is a consensus to a necessary degree amongst a given label and the more specific the label the less ambiguous the claim is). Even if, hypothetically, every theist had a completely contradictory view of "god" in relation to each other, this would not mean that no one knows anything. This is because of what I stated previously in this post: I can deduce something which holds individually which is contradicted by someone's else equivalent in their individual context: we both have knowledge, yet it contradicts. This is because it contradicts societally (which is a different context, which I am not claiming to know). At best, I would say, completely unique contradictory views of "god" would prove that we have no societal knowledge of "god", in the sense that we have no consensus. This is not "knowledge": it is one of two general subcategories of knowledge.

Knowledge is contextual. We may not know X inter-subjectively, but do know it subjectively.