But the two alternatives are not equally likely:

1. By chance is a billion to one
2. By design is chance of God existing (say 10%) * chance of God being interested in life (say 10%) giving a hundred to one — Devans99

You've been discussing probability informally and drawing a false conclusion because your getting lost in the non-rigorous analysis. Let's clean it up.

You're basically saying that if naturalism is true, then it is extremely unlikely that a universe would be friendly to life. In probability terms, this can be stated as:

P(F|N) <<1 where F="the universe is Friendly to life, N= "naturalism is true", and "P(F|N)<<1" means "the probability of the universe being friendly to life given naturalism is a very small number (consistent with your informal claim that the chances are 1 in a billion).

This seems a plausible assumption, given the analysis by physicists about the implications of small changes to any of the fundamental constants. However, the relevant issue is: is naturalism plausible given the totality of evidence available to us. The totality of evidence includes the fact that our universe actually is life-friendly. So we need to consider the following:

P(N|F)....which means the probability that naturalism is true given the fact of a universe that is life-friendly. This is not a "billion to one".

You claimed we needed to factor in the background probability of God (the life-wanting kind). That's fine, but we also need to factor in the probabiliity of ~God, and that is equivalent to P(N)=1-P(G)
So let's use your assumption that the probability of God is 10%. This means:

P(G)=.1
P(N)=.9

So the going-in assumption (before considering fine-tuning considerations) is that naturalism is probably true. Now let's factor in the one additional bit of knowledge that we have: this universe is life-friendly. Now let's factor in our background knowledge that this universe is life-friendly. This means the key thing to compare is:

P(G|F) vs P(N|F) ......Key Comparison

You seem to believe P(G|F) is higher than P(N|F), but I see no reason to think so. The probability that THIS universe is life-frienndly is 1, so this means:

P(G|F) = P(G)
and P(N|F) = P(N)

This implies the key comparison:

P(G|F) vs P(N|F)

is equivalent to:

P(G) vs P(N)

and you gave us the assumption P(G) = .1, so you should conclude naturalism is true. Of course, the real issue is that the analysis doesn't result in giving us a reason to change our prior epistemic probability about God's existence - as I showed previously, and you have ignored.

Life is objectively significant if you factor in the possible existence of God (who would want intelligent life). — Devans99

God's existence wouldn't make life "objectively significant" because significance is always subjective. I could agree that being significant to God is relevant. But you are not considering each of the two possibilities on their own terms. The two possibilities are: 1) the universe is designed for life OR 2) life is the result of the chance characteristics of the universe. Analyze each:

Alternative 1: the universe is designed for life
Implication 1: Life is significant to the designer

Alternative 2: life is the result of the chance characteristics of the universe
Implication 2: Life has no significance to the designer or there is no designer

The question should be: is there more evidence for one alternative vs the other?

The only fact in evidence is: there is life in the universe. But this fact is consistent with both alternatives, so it doesn't make your preferred alternative any more likely.

Now let's "factor in the possible of existence of God (who would want to create intelligent life)." Let's consider epistemic probability:
A. P(God) = p (the probability of this sort of God is some value, p)
B P(Alt 1)= p (the probability that Alt1 is true is equivalent to the probability this God exists)
C. P(~God)= 1-p (the probability that this sort of God does not exist)
D. P(Alt 2) = 1-p (the probability that Alt 2 is true is equivalent to the probability this sort of God does not exist).

In other words, the alternatives inherit the prior probability that God exists (or does not). There is nothing about the alternatives that increases or decreases God's probability. i.e. consideration of "fine-tuning" has zero relevance to the epistemic analysis of God's existence.

Probably, but I'm baffled as to how his supporters could consider this a credible charge. Worst case the Dems did something similar to Trump: engaged in opposition research that included soliciting and utilizing information that came from foreign sources. How can he consider DEMS doing it as a crime if he doesn't consider it a crime when HIS folks do it?

I'm hoping I'm overlooking something, because otherwise - it's a sad indication of the quality of rational, critical thinking among the population of this country.

That's correct, but my point is that the mere fact that the dwarf won does not serve as evidence that the organiser wanted the dwarf to win. It's POSSIBLE that he did, but there's no basis for considering it probable — Relativist


I would say if you only enter one lottery in your life and you know nothing about lotteries except it is a billion to one shot and you win, then it is only natural to suspect the lottery was rigged. — Devans99

Saying "it is only natural" does not constitute objective evidence. Consider that in a fair lottery, some random person will win - and yet (per your admission) every possible winner will suspect the lottery was rigged for him, but he will be wrong

To be honest, I think you've hit on the source of the fallacious thinking: it's based on the unsupported belief that there "must be a reason" for all subjectively significant events. .

Trump just repeated his assertion that "there was a crime on the other side" - referring to the Democrats and or Clinton. Someone please explain what crime he is alleging?

My impression is that he's referring to the "Steele dossier," but what's the actual crime? Conspiracy? Whatever the crime is supposed to have been, what evidence establishes (or is suggestive of) guilt - and which individuals are implicated?

My point on the dwarf is that his unique set of characteristics happen to correspond to what the lottery organiser wants to win the lottery (is the closest analogy I can think of).

Or that the unique set of characteristics required for a universe to be life creating happen to correspond to what God would want from a universe - for it to be live supporting. — Devans99

That's correct, but my point is that the mere fact that the dwarf won does not serve as evidence that the organiser wanted the dwarf to win. It's POSSIBLE that he did, but there's no basis for considering it probable. If the lottery was fair, the dwarf had exactly the same probability of winning as every other individual. Being a OEHD doesn't change the probability of his winning. This can be depicted with conditional probabilities:

P(W) = 1/327M --- the probability of any individual winning, given there are 327M people in the population.

P(W|OEHD) = the probability of an individual winning, given that the individual is a OEHD

The fact is that P(W|OEHD) = P(W); this just means a OEHD has the same chance of winning as does everyone else.

Now let's say you are a person of average height, not hemophiliac, and with 2 working eyes. You know that almost everyone in the US is like you in those respects. Should this make you suspicious that the lottery was rigged? Clearly P(W|~OEHD) > P(W|OEHD) -- i.e. it was far more likely that the winner would not be a OEHD. But does that imply the lottery was rigged for OEHD?

So on the basis of the above argument, I can assign a non-zero probability to God's existence which is much higher than the chances of the universe being life supporting by accident. — Devans99

It is a certainty that an undesigned universe whose parameters are a product of chance would have some unique characterisitcs. If the universe is not designed, then clearly life is just a unique characteristic that results from the universe being what it is.

You have avoided responding to my analogy of a one-eyed, hemophiliac dwarf (I'll abbreviate as OEHD) winning a lottery. There are far more Hispanic girls, or men of European ancestry, than OEHDs, so should we suspect the lottery was rigged just because we identified a set of characteristics that make the winner unique? The point is that a post hoc analysis of ANY winner could identify characteristics that make him unique, and therefore uniqueness does not comprise evidence of rigging. This is similarly true for the existence of life: it is merely a unique characteristic of the universe, identified post hoc. So just like a OEHD- it doesn't imply rigging.

Regarding your case for a creator - Try again. You didn't show that the creator would be likely to desire life to exist.

Agreed

If you only entered one lottery in you life and you won at a billion to 1, would you not find it suspicious? This is the situation with the universe; there was only one lottery for life supporting attributes, our universe won the jackpot; it seems highly suspicious. — Devans99

There you go gain, treating the "universe lottery" as a lottery "for life supporting attributes" - i.e.treating life as a design objective.

The starting point of the analysis should be a consideration of the two possibilities: design or chance. If the world is a product of chance, this simply means there's nothing special about life - life is just an unintended consequence of the universe being what it is. If the world was a product of design, then perhaps life was a design objective. The fact is that we have exactly one data point (the actual universe), and this one data point is equally consistent with both these possibilities - it doesn't make design more probable than chance.

If you do not treat life as a design objective, there is no relevant coincidence. — Relativist

But God independently of fine tuning has a non-zero chance to exist. So there is a non-zero chance of a design objective which dwarves the chance of a fine tuned universe happening by accident. — Devans99

The phrase "the chance of a fine tuned universe happening by accident" is self contradictory. If the world happened by chance, then it is not finely tuned - it just happens to have the characteristics that it has (including the fact that it can produce life). This illogical thinking seems to be at the heart of your position.

Regarding the epistemic probability of God: bear in mind that you're referring specifically to a God that would choose to create life. What evidence is there for such a God? Cosmological arguments only point to a first cause; contingency arguments only point to there being a creative force that exists out of metaphysical necessity. What objective basis do you propose for assigning a probability to a God that wants to create life, over a God that just wants to create complex universes and is indifferent to life.

even so, on dogmatic grounds, Buddhists will never admit that there is 'a soul that has been reborn'. Again, they will depict in terms of a 'mind-stream', but in practice, it seems very much like 'a soul' to me — Wayfarer

Under this paradigm, the parts that are actually me (which is transient), are just hitching a ride on something that is eternal - so even if this were true, it seems to lack all significance to anyone's life.

And I might add, every being's self-perception gives rise to the sense of 'me'. I guess that this sense is fundamentally the same in every being - what is different in each, is the unique memories and experiences that are associated with it. — Wayfarer

Starting with that, if my memories are not being reimplanted into a reborn body, then (in my estimation) it's not me. For that matter, if my identity were implanted in a female, and my thought processes were then influenced by estrogen instead of testosterone, that also would not be me.

This seems to mean that could only be a pure haeccity (a bare identity devoid of any the above worldly properties) that is reborn. And if that were the case, it seems completely irrelevant because it omits all the things that I feel make me ME.

I don't see how any of this makes sense unless you assume there is some "essence" of a person. i.e. that which makes you YOU, as a unique individual - and this essence cannot be physical, not even partly physical. — Relativist


If you were a process philosopher, then you might analogise the possibility of rebirth as being more like a coherent stream of consciousness, than an essence. In fact that's close to the Buddhist attitude, which is that there is no person or singular self-existent entity which transmigrates from one life to another. Instead it's conceptualised in terms of the terminology of the 'citta-santana' (sometimes translated as 'mind-stream') which is the moment-to-moment continuum (Sanskrit: saṃtāna) of sense impressions and mental phenomena, which is also described as continuing from one life to another . — Wayfarer

I don't see how you can escape the essence issue if we are to regard this as an individual person (such as ME) being re-born. Whatever it is that is reborn is not ME unless it has all the necessary and sufficient properties that individuates me.

LOL. Fact-check from Trump-hating Wapo. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/fact-check-trump-claim-obama-separated-families/index.html?no-st=1557361075 — fishfry

Genetic fallacy to reject a claim because of a prejudice you (and Trump) have against them. Show that it's false (good luck with that).

Regarding the picture you showed, it's discussed here. The Obama administration had to deal with a short term sudden influx of unaccompanied minors, and they had to deal with it somehow. In Trump's case, it was a situation caused by his policy.

As far as separating families, Obama did the same. Obama also put kids in cages. You could look it up. — fishfry

I looked it up:

"Under past administrations, some border-crossers were occasionally prosecuted, and were thus separated from their families. Children were separated from parents when authorities had concerns for their well-being or could not confirm that the adult was in fact their legal guardian. Prosecution was more common in cases with more severe crimes, like drug-running. ...

"The main difference between Trump and Obama, as both experts noted, centers on how they handled immigrants caught near the US-Mexico border. Under Obama, the Justice Department was given broad discretion on who should face criminal charges, and federal prosecutors rarely went after families.
But in April, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would prosecute 100% of illegal border-crossers in a policy known as "zero-tolerance." Adults went to jails and awaited criminal proceedings. Children were sent to detention centers run by the Department of Health and Human Services, and some were eventually placed in foster care."

Trump's zero-tolerance policy treated all border-crossers as criminals, which resulted in separating children from parents whose only crime was crossing the border.

You are assuming the fundamental constants could have been different, so each combination of constants participates in the lottery. — Relativist


The fundamental constants could of all been very different:

- The strength of the 4 forces
- The masses and charges of the subatomic particles
- The rate of expansion of the universe

That gives a huge possibility space - and we have only one shot at winning. We won, so it is much more likely it was due to the lottery being rigged (=the universe being fine tuned). — Devans99

Sure, it's a huge possibility space, but you incorrectly treating "we" as participants. Let's be explicit about this universe lottery:

Where ci = a set of values for the constants (e.g. the set of values the constants have in THIS universe)
C = the set of all ci.
n =the number members of C (i.e. the number of possible combinations of constant values)

The possibility space = the participants in the lottery = C. "We" are not participants, so it's invalid to say "we won." Rather, some ci is the winner. We (life) is a consequence of ci having won. We can consider "life permitting" as a characteristic of the winner. In the real-world lottery analogy I gave, this is like identifying the characteristics of the winner (a one-eyed, hemophiliac dwarf) and noting how improbable it is that such a person would win.

If there was a God (lets say there is a 25% chance of that just for arguments sake), life would be a design objective. So we have:

- 25% chance of God * 100% chance of fine tuning
- 1 in a billion chance that we 'get lucky' and have a life supporting universe without God

Which of the above is a more likely explanation? — Devans99

Erroneous. The issue should be: does the FTA increase the epistemic probability of God's existence. Your 25% assumption refers to the prior probability of a God (one who wants to create life). The FTA does result in an increase to this prior probability. That's because we have knowledge of only one universe (this one), and the existence of life is consistent with both possibilities (God existing and God's not existing).

Back to my analogy, a one-eyed hemophiliac dwarf winning is consistent with a lottery that is rigged for one-eyed hemophiliac dwarves, and also consistent with an honest lottery in which everyone has an equal chance. You're treating the mere fact that such a person won as evidence of a dishonest lottery.

But that happens to be the number that gives us a life supporting universe. Do you honestly not find that a staggering coincidence? — Devans99

A coincidence consists of two facts. The only two facts you can be referring two are:
1) life is a design objective
2) there is life.

If you do not treat life as a design objective, there is no relevant coincidence. In my analogy, it's not "coincidental" that one-eyed hemophiliac dwarf won the lottery UNLESS we treat such a person's winning as an objective of the lottery (i.e. the lottery was rigged).

That the universe must be live supporting is a given; the real question is why is the universe life supporting? — Devans99

Would you ask, "why did a one-eyed, hemophiliac dwarf win?" There is a reason for this sort of person winning a lottery only if the lottery was rigged. Similarly, there's only a reason for the universe being life supporting if life was a design objective.

I'll get back to you later.

The Trinity is logically coherent because the concepts upon which it is based can be defined in a logically consistent way.

That said, if one considers the historical development of the doctrine, the Christian Trinity seems a rationalization of Jesus' divinity within a monotheistic framework.

But in this lottery there is only one participant - only one of the billion tickets was bought - as represented by our universe. — Devans99

Not true. You are assuming the fundamental constants could have been different, so each combination of constants participates in the lottery. Let n be the number of combinations. The probability of any specific combination "winnng" is 1/n. Therefore there's nothing remarkable about a 1/n probability participant winning.

You seem to be blind to the fact that you are treating life as a design objective. If you do not treat life as special, your argument falls apart. If you do treat life as special, your argument is circular.

Assume it's possible to make conscious simulated people with enough detail and computing power. They experience their digital world like we experience our world. — Marchesk

We experience qualia. How can these be simulated? If you flip on a bit for the perception od redness (for example), you could program a human-like behavioral reaction, but this is not experiening the world as we do.

By "rebirth", I mean something along the lines of "getting caught up in consciousness/life/world again."...
The idea here is of getting 'caught up' in life in some way again. It already happened once. If the pre-birth and post-death condition are the same, then why would life not again come forth? — Inyenzi

I don't see how any of this makes sense unless you assume there is some "essence" of a person.
i.e. that which makes you YOU, as a unique individual - and this essence cannot be physical, not even partly physical.

But it seems to me that many of the things that make me ME, are physical: memories and conditioned responses seem to be neural patterns. My sex (male) is related to my y-chromosome, and the testosterone that influenced my physical and emotional development. These made me what I am and continue to influence how I evolve.

Can some part of me live on (or again)? Sure- the molecules of my decaying body can fertilize a cornfield, but that isn't what I consider ME.

What this thread needs is more psychobabble.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/05/07/gabor-mate-russiagate-interview-transcript/ — unenlightened

FWIW: Anyone who "expected" Mueller to develop a prosecutable case for criminal conspiracy by Trump was misguided. On the other hand:

- anyone who suggests there was a "Russian Hoax" is ignoring the facts; there was a great deal of suspicious behavior that showed an investigation was warranted:
-- numerous interactions between members of the campaign and Russians
-- Trump's lying to the public about his (and his campaign's) interactions with Russia
-- Trump's instructing subordinates to mislead, lie and fabricate evidence
-- Trump's activities that (per Mueller) may have constituted obstruction

- Trump tried to impede the investigation and have MAY have actually succeeded in this (read about his dangling of a pardon to Manafort, who subsequently lied and may have continued to not be forthcoming).

- It is reasonable to consider whether or not Trump's behavior constitutes criminal obstruction of justice. This is not "moving the goalposts" (as Trump apologists assert) because there were no goals regarding "getting Trump on criminal conspiracy with Russia" (regardless of whether or not there were individuals who hoped for, or expected that). It is absurd to suggest that an investigator of possible criminality should ignore other criminal behavior that is uncovered during the course of the investigation.

You're overlooking that every one of the billion possibilities had an equal chance of being drawn (1 in a billion), and therefore it's not remarkable that the winner was a 1 in a billion shot. — Relativist


But it is still remarkable that we won at a billion to one - there was only one lucky ticket (the one life supporting universe). Suspiciously remarkable. Fine tuning is a much more likely explanation that a billion to one shot coming off. — Devans99

The universe lottery randomly selects a set of constants, and each set of constants will result in a universe with consequences that are unique to that universe. Life is unique to this universe, but how is this specific uniqueness relevant to assessing whether or not the selection of constants was actually random?

By analogy, consider a real-world lottery in which every person in the U.S. has exactly one chance to win. A name is drawn, and the winner is a one-eyed, hemophiliac dwarf. Consider the odds against a one-eyed, hemophiliac dwarf winning the lottery! Does the improbability of such a person winning give us reason to think the lottery was rigged to favor one-eyed hemophiliac dwarves? The existence of life in this universe is no different: There's no basis for assuming any lottery is rigged based on the post-hoc observation that the winner has some rare or unique attributes, because every possible winner has something rare or unique about it.

I absolutely agree that some opinions (and some guesses or estimates) ARE better than others. But why not just call them opinions or guesses or estimates. — Frank Apisa

Because when we use non-standard terminology, it impedes discussion. I don't have a degree in philosophy, but I've read a bit of epistemology and based on my limited knowledge - "belief" is a general, but core, term. The qualified term "categorical belief" entails treating the belief as a certainty. But epistemology also deals with "degree of certainty" also termed "epistemic probability." There's also a matter of justifying beliefs, and of belief formulation. This toolbag of terms and processes seems adequate to address the (valid!) issues you raise, and if everyone uses them we will at least understand each other better. I'm not saying it's intrinsically better than the terminology you prefer, but its problematic for everyone to use different terminology - you need to attach a lexicon in order to be understood.

The point is that when we come to the "I 'believe' (in) God" kind of thing...we actually introduce a factor of, "We must all respect the 'beliefs' of others"...AND INSTALL IT INTO LAWS we must all follow.

When someone says "I believe in God", I can ask them what degree of certainty they have, how they formulated that belief (with attached level of certainty), and their continued justification. The issue of "respecting" others' beliefs would be a complicated, but interesting, discussion - so I'll defer responding to that for now.

The "belief" in these cases are blind guesses about the true nature of the REALITY of existence. Everyone has a right to his/her guesses...but to change the word "guess" into "belief" and afford it a status above the guess status it deserves...does a disservice to humanity.

This sounds very similar to arguments I've made elsewhere: I often run into theists who proclaim they "know" the nature of reality, and they justify this solely on their proclaiming some particular metaphysics to be the factual basis of reality (Aristotelian-Thomist metaphysics seems popular). It's nonsense, of course, because it's entirely guesswork.

Not sure I understand the question. All possibilities in the lottery are a billion to one - all equally unlikely. So losing is almost 100% certain. So winning is clearly more unlikely than all other possibilities. — Devans99

You're overlooking that every one of the billion possibilities had an equal chance of being drawn (1 in a billion), and therefore it's not remarkable that the winner was a 1 in a billion shot.

If you see a face in the sand on the beach, do you assume it is a random arrangement of molecules or that someone drew it?

It's random. Now map out the exact shape of the grain and consider how improbable it was that the grain would happen to have this exact shape. See the problem? It seems remarkable only if you treat the actual shape as a goal, or design objective.

Mostly we make these 'decisions' unconsciously. We give them little or no conscious attention. So we don't really know if we're trying to make our best guess or not, do we? :wink: — Pattern-chaser

I'm referring to conscious decision making, of course, and we are also free to re-think many of our unconscious decisions. My fundamental point is that there are tools of reasoning available to us IN ADDITION to deduction and numerical probability, that - when applied correctly- lead to better (more reasonable, more rational) decisions than otherwise. You seem to be evading this, and merely stressing that these other tools do not lead to certainty. I agree that we tend to feel more certain than we're warranted, but that doesn't imply we should be abandon all tools of critical reasoning other than deduction and probability.

We know lotteries tend not to be rigged. We do not know if universes are 'rigged'. It could be that universes are not rigged and we just got lucky, but thats very unlikely. — Devans99

Show how this set's winning is more unlikely than all other possibilities. Do so without assuming life is a design objective.

What if a person has been raised from birth to believe killing is good. This person didn't choose his belief, so how can he be considered morally wrong for holding this belief?

"I 'believe' aliens from other planets live among us" does not sound as good to my ear as, "It is my guess that aliens from other planets live among us"...or "it is my opinion (estimate) that..." — Frank Apisa

Fine- call them opinions. There are still 2 important considerations that need consideration; how strongly you hold this opinion (which is a psychological state), and how strongly supported is your opinion (ideally, this entails an attempt to be objective). It seems more reasonable to have strong opinions when the support is stronger.

What I'm trying to get at is that some opinions are "better" than others - i.e. it is more reasonable to hold them. Further, it is more reasonable and rational (and more productive) to strive to hold opinions that are well supported.

Like everyone else, I will continue to use unjustified guesswork in my everyday life. — Pattern-chaser

I'm referring to every day life. Despite there being guesswork to our choices, we still endeavor to to make the best possible guesses. Imagine if you were to refrain from making your everyday choices simply because you could neither prove it optimal, nor compute the probability of your preferred outcome. That is not tenable.

Exactly.

Why does 'a set of constant values does not constitute a coincidence'? Over 20 independent physical constants had to be the way they are for life to be possible. Surely the mother of all coincidence. — Devans99

See what you just said: "for life to be possible." You are treating life as the objective. I am pointing out that life is a consequence of the constants being what they are. A consequence does not constitute a coincidence in need of explanation.

The license plate ARW 357 has nothing special about it Feynman's analogy falls wide of the mark.

You are treating life as special, just is Feynman is facetiously treating this license plate as special.

Yes but we have one instance of the universe being created to discuss. Did it come about by:

1. A billion in one shot coming off and we just happen to get lucky
2. The universe was fine tuned for life — Devans99

The winner of a lottery is "lucky" because his previously purchased ticket is drawn. We didn't have a ticket prior to the "universe lottery." Winning the universe lottery just means some set of constants is actual.

The consequence of random chance does not constitute evidence of non-randomness.

Consider a lottery on which a billion people have exactly one ticket. A ticket is drawn, and there is a winner. His chances of winning were 1 in a billion, and yet he won. Does his low probability of winning imply the lottery was rigged?

It is fallacious to claim the universe is fine tuned for life. Life is a consequence of the universe being the way it is. Only if one assumes that there was a design objective for life can one infer that the universe had to be finely-tuned to produce it.

The "Fine Tuning Argument" leads one to believe there is some "coincidence" that demands explanation, but a coincidence entails two or more facts that unexpectedly "coincide." A set of constant values does not constitute a coincidence, nor does a consequence of the values being what they are: If A causes B, B causes C, and C causes D - it is not an unexplained coincidence that A is "D permitting."

Richard Feynman once said, “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

Any particular set of values for the "fundamental constants" is low probability. As Feyman implies: low probability things happen all the time.

And that leads us into epistemology, and the justification of unproven/unprovable "beliefs." Regarding your opening question: no, we can prove causation, but is it more reasonable to believe everything has a cause or to not believe it?

No degree of trust? No, I wouldn't go that far. I don't accept that we "can have" "varying degrees of confidence", but that's because the phraseology is not what I would've chosen. :wink: To say that we assume "varying degrees of confidence" is to describe what we actually do, in RL. Because we have no choice, in practice. But those assumptions are unjustified; they're just guesses, nothing more. But most of the time, our guesses work, so we use them. :up: — Pattern-chaser

I suggest that "to believe" means to accept or treat something as true as a psychological attitude, an attitude that influences our future behavior (including our mental behavior). As you note, we have no choice but to make guesses (i.e. form beliefs in this psychological sense), so why not make the best guesses possible?

— Dusty of Sky

I'm not claiming that particulars, properties and relations can exist independently. But in order to explain what a state of affairs is, don't you need to appeal to the existence of its abstract constituents?

Sort of. The constituents exist (within a SOA), and we can think abstractly about them.

Just because the abstractions are codependent doesn't mean they don't exist. And I don't think it would be helpful to define existence as being exclusive to things which can (hypothetically) exist independently. Because independent SOAs consist of their codependent parts and therefore depend on them.

That's consistent with Armstrong's view. The constituents (e.g. specific properties) actually exist, but only in their instantiations as part of states of affairs. Returning to laws of nature as "relations between states of affairs types" - it shows that there's not actually a dependency on an equation existing as an ontic abstract object. Abstract objects (as ontic objects) are incompatible with physicalism. Constrast this with Platonism, which can assume Newton's law of gravity exists independent of there being objects to which it applies. For that matter, Armstrong would deny the existence of "4" as an abstract object. Rather, there are states of affairs consisting of 4 objects (sub-SOAs), but we can still think abstractly about the universal "4".

The Idea that "all People are Created Equal" is a essentially a useful moral principle: anti-chauvinism. If we treat all others as equals, it is to the benefit of society as a whole.

The "success of science" refers to the success of theory in making predictions. This constitutes evidence (not analytic proof) for the theories being at least approximately true.

You say you are agnostic to all things that are unproven. Compare your position to mine: my position is that if something isn't proven, then we should be open to the possibility it is false. I am agnostic to the degree that we can't have absolute certainty about much of anything. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that I live my life based on believing that a variety of things are (probably) true. For example, I expect my keyboard to correctly enter the letters I am typing, and that the contents of my typing will appear in my reply to you. I would regard as "extreme skepticism" the attitude that one could have no degree of trust in anything that is unproven (the sun might not rise tomorrow; the world external to my mind actually might not exist,...). Are you indeed extreme in that sense, or are you closer to my position - such that you acknowledge uncertainty, but accept that we can have varying degrees of confidence about many aspects of the world?

Interesting, and good to know. But if Armstrong takes the most basic objects in the universe to be states of affairs, then I don't see how he can call himself a physicalist in the traditional sense. States of affairs, as I understand them, consist of relations between abstract entities like properties, relations and particulars without instantiations. — Dusty of Sky

No. A state of affairs is not "relations between abstract entities." Abstract entities do not exist (that would be inconsistent with physicalism). Abstractions are just tools of the mind (useful fictions) they do not actually exist as ontic objects.

Consider actual objects in the real world, such as a rock. Consider the mass of the rock (700 grams). You can't physically separate the rock's mass from the actual rock. There is not a relation between the rock's other properties and the property "700 grams". The rock's mass is an intrinsic property of the rock. You can think abstractly about the fact that the rock's mass is 700 grams, but that doesn't mean "700 grams" exists independently of the rock, or that the rock exists independently of its mass.

Multiple objects can have an identical 700 gram mass: consider all such objects with a 700 gram mass: they can be considered a State of Affairs Type (states of affairs with the property "700 grams mass"). "700 grams mass" is a universal, because multiple objects can have this property.

I hope this helps you understand that a state of affairs is an inseparable package: everything that exists (such as a rock) has properties and relations, but it actually doesn't make sense to say that any of those properties or relations has some sort of independent existence.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Armstrong's theory is that physical properties are universals which particulars instantiate. So even if physical laws are just functions of properties, the properties have universal natures which exists over and above their particular instances. Are these universal natures real things? They're not physical objects. How do you resolve this problem without admitting non-physical objects into your ontology? — Dusty of Sky

The fundamental thing to keep in mind is that (according to Armstrong), everything that exists is a state of affairs (a particular with its properties and relations). The properties and relations do not exist independent of the state of affairs in which they are instantiated. We can still think abstractly about properties and relations (through the "way of abstraction"), but these are just mental exercises.

Yes, physical properties are universals, and exist in their instantiations. But it's not quite correct to say that physical laws are functions of properties. Rather, physical laws are relations between "state of affairs types" (SOATs). The distinction is subtle, but important, and it's lost if you conflate properties with SOATs:

We can consider there to be a SOAT for each property (i.e. the SOAs that have property x are a SOAT). But it would be incorrect to say "-1 charge" has an attraction to "+1 charge" - which implies a relation between properties (which is incorrect). Rather, we should say "states of affairs with a -1 charge have an attraction to states of affairs with a +1 charge" - which elucidates the fact that it fundamentally a relation between SOATs (a relation that is instantiated in SOAs of those types).

You asked, "Are these universal natures real things?" If a "thing" is an ontic object, then NO, because a property is not a SOA. Nevertheless, the universal "-1 charge" (which is a universal) exists, as a constituent of certain SOAs.

I wonder where/how maths fits in this ensemble? — Wayfarer

The relation between (or among) states of affairs can often be described mathematically. The point is that the equation is an abstraction, and doesn't exist independently of the states of affairs.

Armstrong is a realist regarding laws of nature. He believes there are actual laws of nature, not just regularities. To Armstrong, "laws of nature are dyadic relations of necessitation ... holding between universals." Where a universal is a "state of affairs type".

Electrons and protons are two different "state of affairs types". Each electron has the property "-1 electric charge"; while protongs have "+1 electric charge." It is a "law of nature" that protons and electrons attract one another because of their properties. This attraction is a dyadic relation (involving any electron-proton pair) necessitated by their properties.