Would there be any experimental results that he wouldn’t need to excuse?
The idea here is that if you really believed you had an invisible dragon in your garage, if somebody proposes a new test (like measuring CO2), your reaction should be “Oh, hey! There’s a chance my dragon breathes air, and if so, this would actually show it’s there! Of course, if not, I’ll need to see it as less likely there’s an invisible dragon.”
If instead, your instant reaction is always to expect that the CO2 test returns nothing, and to spend your first thoughts (even before the test!) coming up with an excuse why this doesn’t disconfirm the dragon… then the part of you that’s actually predicting experiences knows there isn’t actually a dragon, since it instantly knows that any new test for it will come up null.
Do people actually do that? I couldn’t think of anyone I know who would do that. I finally came up with an example of someone I know who has a belief in belief, but it still doesn’t translate into someone who acts like you described.
I am not saying it is impossible; I’ve just never met anyone who acted like this and wasn’t blatantly lying (which I am assuming disqualifies them from belief in belief).
Umm… have you met a religious person? As soon as you mention anything about evidence or tests, they’ll tell you why they won’t/don’t work. These sorts of excuses are especially common if you talk about testing the efficacy of prayer.
99% of the people I know are religious. This isn’t an exaggeration. I can think of 2 or 3 that aren’t. (This doesn’t count online interactions.)
So… I guess I will just repeat what I said earlier. I’ve never met anyone who acted like this and wasn’t blatantly lying.
You have to realize that “evidence or tests” does not mean the same thing to them as it does to you. They have been conditioned against these words. If the belief is something as vague as, “God will show up during worship.” you cannot ask the phrase, “What evidence do you have for this?” This puts them on an immediate defensive because they are used to jerks asking the questions.
This has little to do with quests for belief. It has more to do with the arguments as armies concept. This is an important point. Please don’t dismiss it without thinking about it.
The appropriate way to ask the question is to ask for details about how God is showing up and act enthusiastic. “Every time? Wow! How do you know? Does this happen at other worship services? Has it always happened here? Does he show up stronger at some than others? Which ones are the best? Does he say anything to you?”
If this sounds silly to you, than you aren’t getting it.
If you bring in an CO2 meter and expect to find God you will be called crazy by the people who believe in him. This is completely different than the dragon-in-the-garage example.
Prayer is the best example were I have seen Christians start getting frustrated. Not because they are coming up with excuses, but because they don’t understand why it isn’t working. The people I know actually expect something. If I were to ask them if we could see a statistical difference in a study on the effects of prayer they would answer, “Of course!” The problem with these people is that when the results come back negative they will start explaining away the numbers. If, later, you go back and try the same trick they will just repeat the explanations they used last time.
People who answer, “No.” are more likely to be praying without thinking it will actually work. They are praying for religious purposes.
Not that I’m saying that religious people don’t do this. If you can provide an example that would be great.
Prayer is the best example were I have seen Christians start getting frustrated. Not because they are coming up with excuses, but because they don’t understand why it isn’t working.
I have close friends who are religious, and something that always struck me as both odd and tragic is how they treat their prayers vs. the prayers of others.
When someone else laments that their prayers have not been answered, they reassure them and encourage them to continue praying.
When their own prayers are not answered, they get frustrated and worry that somehow they’re failing God and that they don’t deserve to have their prayers answered.
For others, they act like no excuse is necessary (“God has a plan”), but for themselves they look for one (“I’ve been lax in my faith”).
This is good evidence for the “belief in belief” theory, but is kind of a bummer to think about (How would you feel if you knew the person reassuring you about your prayers actually had the same frustration as you?).
What’s even more of a bummer is how often priests/pastors/etc. get asked “Why does God talk to everyone but me?”
For others, they act like no excuse is necessary (“God has a plan”), but for themselves they look for one (“I’ve been lax in my faith”).
The explanation is that they are just trying to make their friend feel better. You cannot make yourself feel better with the same trick because you know you are secretly condemning your friend for being lax in their faith. You could deny that, I suppose, but I see this more as hypocritical than anything else.
Also, this is significantly more common in certain denominations than others. Some denominations have entire books that solely address this problem.
I don’t think that the people I know are secretly condemning their friends for being lax in their faith. It’s like they feel constant guilt, and don’t identify their bad situations as caused by the same things other peoples’ bad situations are.
Kind of like chalking someone else’s bad behavior up to character flaws but your own to bad circumstances.
Your point about certain denominations is well taken; my friends are almost exclusively one.
You have to realize that “evidence or tests” does not mean the same thing to them as it does to you. They have been conditioned against these words.
I use different language if I’m talking to a theist. Usually I ask something like, “Do you think prayer works?” They say, “Yes.” I say, “So if there was a group of people with some disease, we should expect those who were prayed for to be more likely to get better, right?” The conversation branches here. Either they say, “No” because they know about the studies that have been done, or they say, “Yes,” I mention the studies, and they say something about how you can’t put God to the test.
This is completely different than the dragon-in-the-garage example.
No it is not. Their reaction is more emotionally charged than in the dragon example. The theists have a belief but anticipations guided by not-belief.
Another example: One of my friends is studying to be a Catholic priest. He believes in evolution. Of course I couldn’t help but ask him if he thought (non-human) animals went to heaven. He said no. “Ah-ha!” I thought, “The trap is set!”
Me: “So there had to be some point in evolution where two hairy proto-humans gave birth to a slightly less hairy human. Even though they only differed from each other as much as we differ from our parents, the proto-human parents didn’t have souls and the child did. If the child went to heaven, he would ask God where his parents went.
Friend: “Yes.”
Me: o_O
Well at least he was consistent. Later I asked him about the efficacy of prayer and he said it worked as long as you weren’t doing a test to see if it worked. How convenient.
ETA: Oh and he doesn’t think cryonics will work since the soul leaves the body at death. Also he believes strong AI is impossible.
Later I asked him about the efficacy of prayer and he said it worked as long as you weren’t doing a test to see if it worked. How convenient.
This is the best example I have seen yet, but I am still not convinced that the problem is with anticipations not being guided by beliefs. He still anticipates something but is willing to amend the wrong side of the experiment when something goes weird.
But yeah, this is a much clearer example. I can think of a bunch of people I know who act like this.
The rest of this comment is nitpicking over something only slightly related.
I say, “So if there was a group of people with some disease, we should expect those who were prayed for to be more likely to get better, right?”
This sentence will trigger the conditioning I was talking about. This is the exact wrong way to talk to someone about the subject.
Either they say, “No” because they know about the studies that have been done, or they say, “Yes,” I mention the studies, and they say something about how you can’t put God to the test.
No it is not [different from the dragon example]. Their reaction is more emotionally charged than in the dragon example. The theists have a belief but anticipations guided by not-belief.
Those who say “No” because they know about the studies are not like the dragon example. They would have to say no before they knew about the studies. And, included in “studies,” this means every single failed prayer from their own life.
If you found someone who had absolutely no good reason to doubt prayer they would expect the studies to show prayer works. A pre-dodge of the experiment is much more likely to point to previous encounters with experiments than anticipations hooked up to not-beliefs.
Those who say “Yes” are now amending their belief to fit the facts. This is not like the dragon example.
Another example: One of my friends is studying to be a Catholic priest. He believes in evolution. Of course I couldn’t help but ask him if he thought (non-human) animals went to heaven. He said no. “Ah-ha!” I thought, “The trap is set!”
Stop trying to trap people. It is petty, rude, and just makes the world worse. Most people, even theists, are willing to talk about their beliefs if they don’t feel defensive. People can smell a trap coming as soon as they see someone’s face. As soon as they get defensive, the conversation becomes a war. This is bad.
Me: “So there had to be some point in evolution where two hairy proto-humans gave birth to a slightly less hairy human. Even though they only differed from each other as much as we differ from our parents, the proto-human parents didn’t have souls and the child did. If the child went to heaven, he would ask God where his parents went.
Friend: “Yes.”
Me: o_O
Really, the fact that you seem so surprised by this answer makes me think you have no idea what your friend believes. When your predictors to answers about technical questions are off enough to make you go o_O you may want to start looking at your predictors.
Sigh. I am sorry for jumping at you. I don’t really have a good excuse, but I am sorry anyway.
Stop trying to trap people. It is petty, rude, and just makes the world worse.
But it’s fun! At least it’s fun between friends. Remember that my friend got the last laugh in my trap example. We both know we’re not going to convince each other, but it’s still fun to play argument chess.
Just to balance things out, I’ll give you an example of a trap my friend set for me.
Me: (Starts to explain transhumanism. Quotes EY saying, “Life is good, death is bad. Health is good, sickness is bad.” etc)
Friend: “If life is good and death is bad, then isn’t suicide wrong in your view?”
Me: “Umm… I guess that’s a bit of an edge case.”
On reflection, I do now wonder if it’s better to modify someone’s mind so that they are no longer suicidal than let them kill themselves. After all, death is a much bigger change than a few erased memories.
Sorry, I forgot about the difference between explaining away misconceptions about religious belief/practice and speaking in a descriptive positive way about them. I (try to remember to) self-censor the latter.
Your observation and orthonormal’s observations are correct: religious people often expect and claim that evidence for God is impossible. This is because when they say he exists, they mean existence in a different sense than what you think of.
It’s Gould’s separate magisteria. Physical materialism rejects the separate magisteria, and I’m convinced that it is self-consistent in doing so. However, dualists do believe in the separate magisteria and you cannot try to interpret their beliefs in the context of monism—it just comes out ridiculous.
Religious people who have assimilated the ideas of separate magisteria think that the religious fundamentalists who expect there could be evidence of God, and actually expect science to conform to ‘true’ religious belief are kind of crazy.
Ironically, physical materialists seem to have more affinity for and focus much more on the theistic beliefs of the latter (crazy) group. I don’t know what fraction of believers comprise each group (I do know that the fraction of bible literalists increases substantially as you move further south in the United States) but my impression is that the separate magisteria set are much more concerned with rationality and self-consistency, so you’re more or less ignoring the group that would listen to you and which you could have an interesting (albeit frustrating) conversation with.
I’ll go back and read ‘belief in belief’, but I don’t think you have a good interpretation of the people who expect no evidence of God.
It’s Gould’s separate magisteria. Physical materialism rejects the separate magisteria, and I’m convinced that it is self-consistent in doing so. However, dualists do believe in the separate magisteria and you cannot try to interpret their beliefs in the context of monism—it just comes out ridiculous.
It is not possible to interpret “separate magisteria” as different kinds of stuff, one “empirical” and one “non-empirical”. What they are, rather, is different rules of thinking. For example, prayer can often help and never hurt in individual cases, but have no effect in the aggregate (e.g. when surveys are performed). There’s no consistent model that has this attribute, but you can have a rule for thinking about this “separate magisterium” which says, “I’ll say that it works and doesn’t hurt in individual cases, but when someone tries to survey the aggregate, I won’t expect positive experimental results, because it’s not in the magisterium of things that get positive experimental results”.
Mostly, “separate magisterium” is the classical Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. It can’t be defined consistently. Mostly it means “Stop asking me those annoying questions!”
This division, needless to say, exists in the map, not in the territory.
It is not possible to interpret “separate magisteria” as different kinds of stuff, one “empirical” and one “non-empirical”.
I agree. Dualism is simply incoherent within the empirical framework.
Mostly, “separate magisterium” is the classical Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. It can’t be defined consistently. Mostly it means “Stop asking me those annoying questions!”
It also explains why they don’t expect a CO_2 detector to work or have any relevance.
For example, prayer can often help and never hurt in individual cases, but have no effect in the aggregate (e.g. when surveys are performed). There’s no consistent model that has this attribute,
If, in quantum mechanics, we can say that something doesn’t happen unless it’s observed, why can’t we say that prayer works only if it isn’t observed (in the aggregate)? They seem equally mysterious claims to me.
Indeed, certain interpretations of quantum mechanics (for example, non-local action at a distance) point to dualism. You don’t even need to be quite so exotic: spontaneous particle creation in a vacuum would be evidence that X isn’t closed or complete. These are real and interesting problems at the interface of science and philosophy. It doesn’t minimize physical materialism to acknowledge this.
(I keep saying that I agree that dualism is incoherent—likewise I think that some interpretations of quantum mechanics and the existence of any truly random processes would be incoherent as well for equivalent reasons. )
Oh yes, ‘Belief in Belief’, recalled vividly as I reread it.* I liked this post (up-voted). It’s a bit of physical-materialist solidarity-building, an opportunity taken to poke fun at the out-group. The material being made fun of is taken out of context only to the extent that material coherent to one world-view is transplanted without translation to another.
As Eliezer aptly put it,
The rationalist virtue of empiricism is supposed to prevent us from this class of mistake. We’re supposed to constantly ask our beliefs which experiences they predict, make them pay rent in anticipation.
The thing is, not everyone owns this. The out-group you’re making fun of doesn’t. The appeal of this view is the paradigmatic strength of physical materialism.
No one has mentioned the idea of dual magisteria as a better explanation for this behavior in these comments until now: that no evidence is expected for the dragon because the dragon isn’t just invisible, its existence is non-empirical.
John Mark Rozendaal simultaneously gets the paradigm difference and dismisses it:
I wonder why Christians say, “We believe in one God,” as if that were a particularly strong assertion. Wouldn’t it be stronger to say, “We know one God?” What is the difference between belief and knowledge? It seems to me that beliefs are usually based on no data.
This is an especially useful quote because it highlights how many religious groups (John’s background was Calvinist) realize their beliefs are non-empirical and find this virtuous. That’s why they say they believe in one God, rather than know of one God—faith in something non-empirical isn’t just tolerated, it’s what their faith is about.
* I was about to link to the post ‘Belief in Belief’ and then realized this is where I am .. these Less Wrong worm holes take some getting used to!
I am in occasional contact with religious people, and they don’t behave as the “separate magisteria” hypothesis would predict.
For instance, I have heard things along the following lines: “I hope my son gets better.” “Well, that’s not in your hands, that’s in God’s hands.” All this said quite matter-of-factly.
There is active denial here of something that belongs in the magisterium of physical cause and effect, and active presumption of interference from the supposedly separate magisterium of faith.
Of course most of those people back down from the most radical consequences of these beliefs, they still go see a doctor when the situation warrants—although I understand a significant number do see conflict (or at least interaction) between their faith and medical interventions such as organ transplants or blood transfusions.
This isn’t just an epiphenomenal dragon, it’s a dragon whose proscriptions and prescriptions impinge on people’s material lives.
For instance, I have heard things along the following lines: “I hope my son gets better.” “Well, that’s not in your hands, that’s in God’s hands.” All this said quite matter-of-factly.
I do not think this is the best example you could have given, because it can be interpreted—and often is meant as—just a version of the Serenity Prayer.
Much worse is when people promise to pray for you, or advise you to pray, as though this will improve the chances of everything turning out OK. In these cases, I try to just focus on their good intentions; that they will pray for me because they do care. However, sometimes I really do get quite upset with having to pretend that I’m grateful for and satisfied with their prayers when perhaps I would like more sympathy and emotional support or pragmatic help.
For instance, I have heard things along the following lines: “I hope my son gets better.” “Well, that’s not in your hands, that’s in God’s hands.” All this said quite matter-of-factly.
Think of the relation between the magisteria as a one-way relationship. The supernatural can affect the natural but there is no way to move backwards into the supernatural.
This is flat wrong and doesn’t accurately describe the theology/cosmology of most theists, but it helps when using the concept of magisteria. Personally, I don’t think the term magisteria is completely useful in this context.
There is a deep problem behind all of these things where one layer or set of beliefs trumps another. In a framework of map/territory beliefs this makes little sense. It certainly doesn’t translate well when talking to someone who doesn’t adhere to a map/territory framework.
An example: If you asked the person why God didn’t make your son get better you will get a bazillion answers. Likewise, if you asked about taking your son to the hospital they will tell you that you should. These two beliefs aren’t in conflict in their system.
I have watched an entire congregation pray for someone who had cancer. They earnestly believed that their prayer was having some effect but if you asked for particulars you will get the bazillion answers. These people are not trying to explain away a future answer. They have seen what appears to be a bazillion different endgames for the scenario they are now in. That, mixed in with the crazy amount of factions within Christian theological circles, isn’t going to make sense with a map/territory framework. But they aren’t using that framework.
The weak assumption in the dragon example is that the believer of the dragon hasn’t already tried using a CO2 meter. Don’t underestimate the amount of historical questions packed behind the confusing answers you get when you ask someone to prove their dragon exists.
That being said, the dragon example does bring up a very awesome and valid point. If I took a few of those people who were in that congregation who prayed about cancer and asked them years later about the prayee’s status… what would they say? Would they expect a change in their state? Would the cancer be gone? What do they expect from the prayer? My guess is that they wouldn’t make any prediction.
Think of the relation between the magisteria as a one-way relationship. The supernatural can affect the natural but there is no way to move backwards into the supernatural.
Then the natural can perceive the supernatural but not vice versa. To perceive something is to be affected by it.
The real problem with those who go on about separate magisteria is that they are emitting words that sound impressive to them and that associate vaguely to some sort of even vaguer intuition, but they are not doing anything that would translate into thinking, let alone coherent thinking.
I’m sorry to be brutal about this, but nothing I have ever heard anyone say about “separate magisteria” has ever been conceptually coherent let alone consistent.
There’s just one magisterium, it’s called reality; and whatever is, is real. It’s a silly concept. It cannot be salvaged. Kill it with fire.
I grew up as a Mormon; they have a very different view of God than most Christians.
God is an “exalted man”, essentially a human that passed through a singularity. Also, regarding spirits: “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.” Spirits are “children” of God, literally progeny in some sense. Spirits are attached to human bodies, live life as mortal beings, and then separate, retaining the memories of that time; the promise of the resurrection is a permanent fusing of spirit matter to undying bodies made of normal matter, and exaltation, reserved for those who prove worthy, is the ability to create spirit beings. It is the spirit that is conscious. “Eternity” just means “far longer than you have the ability to properly conceive of”. “Sin” means “addictive substances or behaviors”.
This sort of story is pretty decent sci-fi for early 1800s.
Mormons fully expect spirit matter to show up in the correct theory of physics, whether it’s dark matter or supersymmetric particles, or whatever.
As a missionary, I encouraged people to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true; many who did so had an experience that was so unusual that they took us very seriously after that. Those that didn’t couldn’t be held accountable for not believing us, since that kind of experience was up to God to provide.
I now think there are simpler explanations for most of what I once believed. It took me a long time to come to the conclusion that I was wrong because of the “no conflict between science and religion” tenet, and I was raised as a Mormon in a very loving, functional family, and had particularly clever parents who were very good apologists, and I’m not a very good rationalist yet.
The real problem with those who go on about separate magisteria is that they are emitting words that sound impressive to them and that associate vaguely to some sort of even vaguer intuition, but they are not doing anything that would translate into thinking, let alone coherent thinking.
Erm… I agree with you? I don’t think the term magisteria is an accurate description of what they believe:
This is flat wrong and doesn’t accurately describe the theology/cosmology of most theists, but it helps when using the concept of magisteria. Personally, I don’t think the term magisteria is completely useful in this context.
“Magisteria” doesn’t do anything useful. People have been using the word to describe why theists think God is “above” empirical results.
Then the natural can perceive the supernatural but not vice versa. To perceive something is to be affected by it.
Blarg. This is a semantic war. “Affect,” in this case has nothing to do with perception. Don’t forget that these people are not working with the same framework. I am not trying to defend the framework or even that I am claiming it for myself. I am only trying to help explain something.
I’m sorry to be brutal about this, but nothing I have ever heard anyone say about “separate magisteria” has ever been conceptually coherent let alone consistent.
There’s just one magisterium, it’s called reality; and whatever is, is real. It’s a silly concept. It cannot be salvaged. Kill it with fire.
Yeah, okay, I am with you. I hope I wasn’t giving the impression that I am advocating separate magisteria. You don’t have to apologize for being brutal; I am confused that it seems directed at me.
I think it is a useless concept even then. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t compute. By the time you translate whatever “stupidity” you are describing into “magisterium” you (a) know enough about the stupidity to speak to it on its own terms and (b) aren’t really talking about the stupidity; you are talking about magisterium which is a bastardization of two beliefs. How does that help?
Think of the relation between the magisteria as a one-way relationship. The supernatural can affect the natural but there is no way to move backwards into the supernatural.
As a specific example of Eliezer’s larger point, prayer is a natural attempt to influence the supernatural; so by that account, prayer must be futile.
Er, I am not defending the idea of one-way relationships between magisteria. The point was meant to highlight that magisteria is very much the wrong term.
As far as the one-way relationship, the term was not used to mean communication, causality, or anything else in particular.
The easiest example is a write-only folder on my computer. I can drop a file in that folder but do not have any direct measurement of its success or what happens to it after I drop it there. This relationship is “one-way” in the same way that my original statement was using “one-way.” Likewise, a read-only file can be opened and viewed but not modified. This is also “one-way” in the same manner that I meant “one-way” in the original statement.
Both of these examples are not one-way in the manner that magisteria would describe one-way.
And again, I am not trying to defend this view. I am merely trying to describe why magisteria is the wrong term.
Prayer would be an example of dropping a file into a write-only folder. We do something and assume that something happens to it later. We don’t have access to whatever happens because we don’t have read access.
As a specific example of Eliezer’s larger point, prayer is a natural attempt to influence the supernatural; so by that account, prayer must be futile.
This statement wouldn’t make any sense in the cosmology of a typical theist. That cosmology may be completely wrong but using this statement to tell them that prayer is futile would make you sound like a complete nut. The discussion needs to start somewhere else.
I am in occasional contact with religious people, and they don’t behave as the “separate magisteria” hypothesis would predict. [...] There is active denial here of something that belongs, in the magisterium of physical cause and effect, and active presumption of interference from the supposedly separate magisterium of faith.
Interactions between the magisteria are contradictions for you, not necessarily to a dualist who believes it all works out, somehow. (For example, somehow we know about the second magesterium, and knowledge of it has significance on our interaction with the first.)
Also complicating matters is that each religious person has their own location on a scale of self-consistency. I find that most religious people fall well short of self-consistent, but not as short as claiming the dragon doesn’t breath just so the CO2 detector won’t be used.
My point in the comments above is that when religious people claim that there is no evidence or counter-evidence for God, it’s not as often a desperate measure to protect their belief, but simply that their belief in God is not meant to be about an empirical fact like a dragon would be.
Interactions between the magisteria are contradictions for you, not necessarily to a dualist who believes it all works out, somehow.
Contradictions are contradictions. If, in general, the magisteria don’t interact, but in some specific case, they do interact, that’s a contradiction. It’s a model that doesn’t meet the axioms. That is a matter of logic. You can say “The dualist asserts that no interaction is taking place”, but you can’t say, “for the dualist, that is not a contradiction”.
I’m sorry to be brutal about this, but nothing I have ever heard anyone say about “separate magisteria” has ever been conceptually coherent let alone consistent.
I challenge myself to show you a concept of “separate magisteria” that is conceptually coherent and consistent. Of course it requires relaxation of the initial assumptions of empiricism. Should I proceed, or do you already grant the conclusion if I am going to relax these assumptions, to save me the trouble?
There is active denial here of something that belongs in the magisterium of physical cause and effect,
The set of religious people I’m talking about don’t deny things in this magisterium. They believe that things in this magesterium would never be in conflict with their beliefs about the second.
The person who is speaking second in this exchange would have assumed that the parent has already done all the pragmatic things they should. It is always the case that the health of a child is outside the parent’s hands to some extent.
When I used the words “active denial” I did so deliberately.
If you asked me about my son’s health, and I had cause to worry, I’d say something like: “We’re arranging the best care we can given our situation; we’re aware there’s a limit to how much we can know about what’s the matter with him, and a limit to how much we can control it.”
What a phrase like “God’s will” conveys is quite different. The meaning I get from it is that my efforts are futile: if it is part of God’s plan that my son should die, he will, no matter how much I arrange for the best care. If it is part of God’s plan that he should live, he will live, even if all I do is feed him herbs.
Now of course, in Bayesian terms, I have no usable priors about God’s plan. I can’t ever reason from the evidence—my son lives or dies—back to the hypothesis, since the hypothesis can explain everything. And if everybody admitted as much, it would be admissible to call this “a matter of faith, distinct from matters of evidence”. To say that everyone is free to form whatever bizarre beliefs they like.
The big issue, the elephant in the drawing room, is that faith is not just a private matter. There are people who do claim that they have privileged information about God’s plan—that matters of faith, for them, are matters of evidence. And this privileged access to God’s plan gives them a right to pass judgment on matters of worldly policy, for instance the current Pope’s recent proclamations on the use of condoms to fight the AIDS epidemic.
How is that not denying things in this magisterium?
If the “separate magisteria” hypothesis was tenable, we would have no reason to see so many people hold correlated beliefs about the non-physical magisterium. Each person would form their own private faith, and let each other person do the same. (The humor of Pastafarianism resides precisely in the ironic way they take this for granted.)
Correlated beliefs can only mean that the magisteria are not separate. To be one of the faithful is to claim—even indirectly, by association—some knowledge that outsiders lack.
The real issue, when you think of it that way, isn’t faith. It’s power—political power.
If the “separate magisteria” hypothesis was tenable, we would have no reason to see so many people hold correlated beliefs about the non-physical magisterium.
The correlation of beliefs (discounting bible literalists, etc.) is mainly over value judgements rather than empirical facts. For example, if you disagree with the Pope, you probably disagree with his ethics rather than any scientific statements he is making.
Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.
I have no idea. My meta-ethics are in flux as a result of my readings here.
I have described myself as a “Rawlsian”, if that will help. It seems to me that most of our intuitions about ethics are intutions about how people’s claims against each other are to be settled, when a conflict arises.
I believe that there are discoverable regularities in what agreements we can converge on, under a range of processes for convergence, humanity’s checkered history being one such process. What convinced me of this was Axelrod’s book on cooperation and other readings in game theory, plus Rawls. The veil of ignorance is a brilliant abstraction of the processes for coming to agreements.
I think the Pope is being an ass when he says that condoms would worsen the AIDS epidemic rather than mitigate it. I don’t know much about his personal ethics. I don’t pay much attention to Popes in general.
I most emphatically do not believe that the Pope has “every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds”. Perhaps he has a right to a private opinion on the matter.
But when he makes such a claim, given his influence as pontiff, it is a fact that large numbers of people will act in accordance, and will suffer needlessly as a result—either by contracting the disease or by remaining celibate for no good reason. They are not acting under their own judgement: if the Pope said it was OK to wear rubber, they would gladly wear rubber.
You’ve brought up many different points in this comment. Am I wrong to feel phalanxed?
I don’t see anything here that has to do with the original point I was making, except possibly an admission that you refuse to consider the group of theists I was talking about.
I guess the problem is that we’re all talking about different belief sets—me, you, MrHen—and without pinpointing which belief culture we’re talking about or knowledge of their relative incidence, this is fruitless.
without pinpointing which beliefs we’re talking about [...], this is fruitless
Agree entirely (I said as much in response to MrHen’s “outing” post); so I wanted this to be about things I’d heard first-hand.
“Phalanxed” is a word I wasn’t familiar with, but I hear your connotation of “mustering many arguments”, as in military muster. I’ll cop to having felt angry as I was writing the above; that isn’t directed at you.
I went back to your original comment, the nub of which I take to be this: you tolerate as self-consistent the belief of some groups of theists, on the grounds that their beliefs have no empirical consequences, and that is precisely what marks these beliefs as “faith”.
The nub of what I wanted to say is: you’re reading the exchange I quoted generously. The way I heard it, it had a different meaning. My understanding is that these women weren’t using “God” as a synonym for “luck/uncertainty”. They were referring to the personal God who takes an active interest in people’s lives, which is what they’ve been taught in their churches. (This is just something I overheard while passing them in the street, so I don’t know which church. But I picked this example to illustrate how common it is, even for an atheist, to hear this kind of thing.)
I have looked up Calvinists, if that’s who you mean by “the group of theists” in question. Their doctrines, such as “unconditional election”, refer (as best I can understand those things) to a personal God too, which is expected as a subgroup of Christians. They take the Bible to provide privileged access to God’s plan.
A personal God who takes an active interest in events in this world, as outlined in the Bible, does not meet your criteria for tolerance. It is a belief which has empirical consequences, such as the condemnation of homosexuality. It doesn’t matter how “benign” or “moderate” these inferences are; they show up “separate magisteria” as a pretence.
I went back to your original comment, the nub of which I take to be this: you tolerate as self-consistent the belief of some groups of theists, on the grounds that their beliefs have no empirical consequences, and that is precisely what marks these beliefs as “faith”.
I was responding to the idea that theists are involved in blatant double-think where they anticipate ways that their beliefs can be empirically refuted and find preemptive defenses. The idea of “separate magisteria” may have been one such defense, but it is the last: once they identify God as non-empirical they don’t have to worry about CO2 detectors or flour or X-ray machines—ever. I think that the continued insistence on thinking of God as a creature hidden in the garage that should leave some kind of empirical trace reveals the inferential distance between a world view which requires that beliefs meet empirical standards and one that does not.
You suggest that the “separate magisteria” is a pretense. This appears to be along the lines of what Eliezer is arguing as well; that it is a convenient ‘get out of jail free’ card. I think this is an interesting hypothesis—I don’t object to it, since it makes some sense.
We base our views about religion on our personal experiences with it. I feel like I encounter people with views much more reasonable than the ones described here fairly often. I thought that ‘separate magesteria’ described their thinking pretty well, since religion doesn’t effect their pragmatic, day-to-day decisions. (Moral/ethical behavior is a big exception of course.) I’ve encountered people who insist that prayers have the power to change events, but I don’t think this is a reasonable view.
I thought people mostly prayed to focus intentions and unload anxiety. Some data on what people actually believe would be extremely useful.
I polled some theist friends who happened to be online, asking “What do you think the useful effects of prayer are, on you, the subject on which you pray, or anything else?” and followup questions to get clarification/elaboration.
Episcopalian: “The most concrete effect of prayer is to help me calm down about stressful situations. The subject is generally not directly affected. It is my outlook that is most often changed. Psychologically, it helps me to let go of the cause of stress. It’s like a spiritual form of delegation.”
Irish Catholic With Jesuit Tendencies: “The Ignation spirituality system has a lot to do with using prayer to focus and distance yourself from the emotions and petty concerns surrounding the problem. Through detatched analysis, one can gain better perspective on the correct choice. … Well, ostensibly, it’s akin to meditation, and other forms of calming reflection possible in other religions. For me, though, I tend to pray, a) in times of crisis, b) in Mass, and c) for other people who I think can use whatever karmic juju my clicking of proverbial chicken lips can muster.” (On being asked whether the “karmic juju” affects the people prayed for:) “It’s one of those things. “I think I can, I think I can.”″ (I said: “So it helps you help them?”) “I guess. Often, there’s little else you can do for folks.”
Mormon: “Well, I think it depends on the need of the person involved and the ability of that person to take care of him/herself. I have heard stories from people I trust where miraculous things have occured as the result of prayer. But I find that, for me personally, prayer gives me comfort, courage, and sometimes, through prayer, my thoughts are oriented in ways that allow me to see a problem from an angle I couldn’t before and therefore solve it. Is it beneficial? Yes. Is it divine intervention? Hard to say. Even if it’s just someone feeling more positive as a result of a prayer, I think it’s a benefit—particularly for the sick. Positive attitudes seem to help a lot there.”
Even better, a study. (Upshot: Praying for someone has a significant effect on the praying individual’s inclination to be selfless and forgiving toward that person.)
Thank you, Alicorn. It’s very helpful to have any data. Even data from people that are educated and comfortable with atheism, like myself, is better than atheists just speculating about what theists think.
This was a sample of friends of an atheistic philosopher who were answering a question by that same philosopher. The sample, unfortunately, tells me almost nothing about the general population.
I’ve encountered people who insist that prayers have the power to change events, but I don’t think this is a reasonable view.
Believing in a specific God (who, for example, promises to answer prayers) is an unreasonable view. Believing in the same God but also believing that prayers are unable to change events is even more unreasonable. It’s just more practical.
I’m going to test the efficacy of “prayer”… online communication with other minds. I would like at least 30 karma for this comment. If I get this much karma, it will verify the efficacy of this kind of communication. If I get less than that, I guess it will show that this kind of “prayer” isn’t efficacious.
Of course, it could just show that people don’t always do what you want them to do, especially when you explicitly admit that you are testing them.
Just as a completely non-religious example, my girlfriend is a medical social worker and has been working recently with a patient that is absolutely convinced he has cancer.
There has apparently been some cases of tests that came back clean, and his excuses after the fact, but it’s also turned in to him anticipating future tests not finding the cancer, yet with him still certain he has cancer. I had originally suggested that she ask him ahead of time something like, “well if we do this test and it comes back clean, will you let it go?” but he wasn’t even open to the question.
Should I continue this conversation? Is there anything to be had or learned here? The internet is a tricky place and it could be my mood tonight, but I feel that this seems to be headed down a volatile path. I don’t mind talking about it but I will get tired of dealing with comments that aren’t making much of an effort to do some quick thinking on their own.
The implication in this is more that this is a stupid, dead horse, argument circle that everyone has been around a few times. The implication is not that you aren’t thinking or that you should be writing small essays on prayer. This is just a big rabbit hole and I get the feeling that no one really wants to go there again.
Talking anyway...
If I asked any Christian I know if they prayed for a brand new car in their driveway tomorrow morning they would probably give an answer like, “Well, it could happen, but it’s not very likely.” I don’t see this as dodging experimental evidence before the test has happened. More than likely they already tried something like that when they were kids and it obviously failed.
My expectation of the experiments on intercessory prayer is that it would do about as well as a placebo. (I am guessing we are talking about prayer for health issues.) Perhaps a little better than placebos, but I don’t know the positive affects of visitors on patients. For some reason, I assume that being stuck alone in a hospital is bad for the average person’s mood which would probably affect their recovery. What I would find more telling is the affect of prayer without the patient hearing about it. In this case, I would expect no significant difference.
But I still ask God for stuff. It makes me feel better and it helps me think about the stuff as a problem to solve. It is a way for me to acknowledge that stuff. “God” could be replaced by a different term, and if I reject Theism it probably will be, but for now prayer has a use. I don’t see it the same way everyone sees it, but even in the case of a Traditional Christian, I don’t think it is a good example of someone making up excuses for an invisible dragon before the experiment happens.
As much as I believe in the power of people to delude and lie to themselves, this is a hard stretch for me. Again, I am not saying its impossible. I just haven’t seen it. It could be all around me, I suppose, but I still don’t see it.
I think that you are interpreting your religious fellows with too much charity. Some of them might be like you. Others won’t be, unless you’re hanging out with an exclusively Unitarian crowd.
Yeah, I see everyone with charity. I rarely run into truly stupid people. Most of them have stupid beliefs and stupid habits but they are intelligent enough to still be alive. These people are smart enough to understand the concepts at LessWrong. At least, smart enough to understand everything I have read so far. Maybe not the mathy particulars, but the high level concepts, sure.
The astrologer in your example is not stupid. He dodges because he already knows it will fail because he has seen it fail. I suspect he latches onto his belief for other reasons. I really don’t see how he could be following astrology and not see it fail from time to time. The appropriate question isn’t in the form of an experiment because you don’t know what the believer expects.
I get that this is belief in belief. What I don’t get is how this matches the dragon example. He isn’t dodging an experiment that he hasn’t seen yet. He sees it all the time. Trying to verify the accuracy of astrology is something these people do every day. You can watch in the same video as people ponder if a saying applies to them. Half of them reject it without feeling like their whole system crashed.
I am not defending astrology. I am not defending the beliefs in it. I am confused as to how this looks like the dragon example.
The closest dragon-esque example I have seen posted here was this:
Later I asked him about the efficacy of prayer and he said it worked as long as you weren’t doing a test to see if it worked.
I am starting to think I am misunderstanding the example.
The idea here is that if you really believed you had an invisible dragon in your garage, if somebody proposes a new test (like measuring CO2), your reaction should be “Oh, hey! There’s a chance my dragon breathes air, and if so, this would actually show it’s there! Of course, if not, I’ll need to see it as less likely there’s an invisible dragon.”
If instead, your instant reaction is always to expect that the CO2 test returns nothing, and to spend your first thoughts (even before the test!) coming up with an excuse why this doesn’t disconfirm the dragon… then the part of you that’s actually predicting experiences knows there isn’t actually a dragon, since it instantly knows that any new test for it will come up null.
Do people actually do that? I couldn’t think of anyone I know who would do that. I finally came up with an example of someone I know who has a belief in belief, but it still doesn’t translate into someone who acts like you described.
I am not saying it is impossible; I’ve just never met anyone who acted like this and wasn’t blatantly lying (which I am assuming disqualifies them from belief in belief).
Umm… have you met a religious person? As soon as you mention anything about evidence or tests, they’ll tell you why they won’t/don’t work. These sorts of excuses are especially common if you talk about testing the efficacy of prayer.
99% of the people I know are religious. This isn’t an exaggeration. I can think of 2 or 3 that aren’t. (This doesn’t count online interactions.)
So… I guess I will just repeat what I said earlier. I’ve never met anyone who acted like this and wasn’t blatantly lying.
You have to realize that “evidence or tests” does not mean the same thing to them as it does to you. They have been conditioned against these words. If the belief is something as vague as, “God will show up during worship.” you cannot ask the phrase, “What evidence do you have for this?” This puts them on an immediate defensive because they are used to jerks asking the questions.
This has little to do with quests for belief. It has more to do with the arguments as armies concept. This is an important point. Please don’t dismiss it without thinking about it.
The appropriate way to ask the question is to ask for details about how God is showing up and act enthusiastic. “Every time? Wow! How do you know? Does this happen at other worship services? Has it always happened here? Does he show up stronger at some than others? Which ones are the best? Does he say anything to you?”
If this sounds silly to you, than you aren’t getting it.
If you bring in an CO2 meter and expect to find God you will be called crazy by the people who believe in him. This is completely different than the dragon-in-the-garage example.
Prayer is the best example were I have seen Christians start getting frustrated. Not because they are coming up with excuses, but because they don’t understand why it isn’t working. The people I know actually expect something. If I were to ask them if we could see a statistical difference in a study on the effects of prayer they would answer, “Of course!” The problem with these people is that when the results come back negative they will start explaining away the numbers. If, later, you go back and try the same trick they will just repeat the explanations they used last time.
People who answer, “No.” are more likely to be praying without thinking it will actually work. They are praying for religious purposes.
Not that I’m saying that religious people don’t do this. If you can provide an example that would be great.
I have close friends who are religious, and something that always struck me as both odd and tragic is how they treat their prayers vs. the prayers of others.
When someone else laments that their prayers have not been answered, they reassure them and encourage them to continue praying.
When their own prayers are not answered, they get frustrated and worry that somehow they’re failing God and that they don’t deserve to have their prayers answered.
For others, they act like no excuse is necessary (“God has a plan”), but for themselves they look for one (“I’ve been lax in my faith”).
This is good evidence for the “belief in belief” theory, but is kind of a bummer to think about (How would you feel if you knew the person reassuring you about your prayers actually had the same frustration as you?).
What’s even more of a bummer is how often priests/pastors/etc. get asked “Why does God talk to everyone but me?”
The explanation is that they are just trying to make their friend feel better. You cannot make yourself feel better with the same trick because you know you are secretly condemning your friend for being lax in their faith. You could deny that, I suppose, but I see this more as hypocritical than anything else.
Also, this is significantly more common in certain denominations than others. Some denominations have entire books that solely address this problem.
I don’t think that the people I know are secretly condemning their friends for being lax in their faith. It’s like they feel constant guilt, and don’t identify their bad situations as caused by the same things other peoples’ bad situations are.
Kind of like chalking someone else’s bad behavior up to character flaws but your own to bad circumstances.
Your point about certain denominations is well taken; my friends are almost exclusively one.
I use different language if I’m talking to a theist. Usually I ask something like, “Do you think prayer works?” They say, “Yes.” I say, “So if there was a group of people with some disease, we should expect those who were prayed for to be more likely to get better, right?” The conversation branches here. Either they say, “No” because they know about the studies that have been done, or they say, “Yes,” I mention the studies, and they say something about how you can’t put God to the test.
No it is not. Their reaction is more emotionally charged than in the dragon example. The theists have a belief but anticipations guided by not-belief.
Another example: One of my friends is studying to be a Catholic priest. He believes in evolution. Of course I couldn’t help but ask him if he thought (non-human) animals went to heaven. He said no. “Ah-ha!” I thought, “The trap is set!”
Me: “So there had to be some point in evolution where two hairy proto-humans gave birth to a slightly less hairy human. Even though they only differed from each other as much as we differ from our parents, the proto-human parents didn’t have souls and the child did. If the child went to heaven, he would ask God where his parents went.
Friend: “Yes.”
Me: o_O
Well at least he was consistent. Later I asked him about the efficacy of prayer and he said it worked as long as you weren’t doing a test to see if it worked. How convenient.
ETA: Oh and he doesn’t think cryonics will work since the soul leaves the body at death. Also he believes strong AI is impossible.
This is the best example I have seen yet, but I am still not convinced that the problem is with anticipations not being guided by beliefs. He still anticipates something but is willing to amend the wrong side of the experiment when something goes weird.
But yeah, this is a much clearer example. I can think of a bunch of people I know who act like this.
The rest of this comment is nitpicking over something only slightly related.
This sentence will trigger the conditioning I was talking about. This is the exact wrong way to talk to someone about the subject.
Those who say “No” because they know about the studies are not like the dragon example. They would have to say no before they knew about the studies. And, included in “studies,” this means every single failed prayer from their own life.
If you found someone who had absolutely no good reason to doubt prayer they would expect the studies to show prayer works. A pre-dodge of the experiment is much more likely to point to previous encounters with experiments than anticipations hooked up to not-beliefs.
Those who say “Yes” are now amending their belief to fit the facts. This is not like the dragon example.
Stop trying to trap people. It is petty, rude, and just makes the world worse. Most people, even theists, are willing to talk about their beliefs if they don’t feel defensive. People can smell a trap coming as soon as they see someone’s face. As soon as they get defensive, the conversation becomes a war. This is bad.
Really, the fact that you seem so surprised by this answer makes me think you have no idea what your friend believes. When your predictors to answers about technical questions are off enough to make you go o_O you may want to start looking at your predictors.
Sigh. I am sorry for jumping at you. I don’t really have a good excuse, but I am sorry anyway.
But it’s fun! At least it’s fun between friends. Remember that my friend got the last laugh in my trap example. We both know we’re not going to convince each other, but it’s still fun to play argument chess.
Just to balance things out, I’ll give you an example of a trap my friend set for me.
Me: (Starts to explain transhumanism. Quotes EY saying, “Life is good, death is bad. Health is good, sickness is bad.” etc)
Friend: “If life is good and death is bad, then isn’t suicide wrong in your view?”
Me: “Umm… I guess that’s a bit of an edge case.”
On reflection, I do now wonder if it’s better to modify someone’s mind so that they are no longer suicidal than let them kill themselves. After all, death is a much bigger change than a few erased memories.
[Deleted]
Sorry, I forgot about the difference between explaining away misconceptions about religious belief/practice and speaking in a descriptive positive way about them. I (try to remember to) self-censor the latter.
Your observation and orthonormal’s observations are correct: religious people often expect and claim that evidence for God is impossible. This is because when they say he exists, they mean existence in a different sense than what you think of.
It’s Gould’s separate magisteria. Physical materialism rejects the separate magisteria, and I’m convinced that it is self-consistent in doing so. However, dualists do believe in the separate magisteria and you cannot try to interpret their beliefs in the context of monism—it just comes out ridiculous.
Religious people who have assimilated the ideas of separate magisteria think that the religious fundamentalists who expect there could be evidence of God, and actually expect science to conform to ‘true’ religious belief are kind of crazy.
Ironically, physical materialists seem to have more affinity for and focus much more on the theistic beliefs of the latter (crazy) group. I don’t know what fraction of believers comprise each group (I do know that the fraction of bible literalists increases substantially as you move further south in the United States) but my impression is that the separate magisteria set are much more concerned with rationality and self-consistency, so you’re more or less ignoring the group that would listen to you and which you could have an interesting (albeit frustrating) conversation with.
I’ll go back and read ‘belief in belief’, but I don’t think you have a good interpretation of the people who expect no evidence of God.
It is not possible to interpret “separate magisteria” as different kinds of stuff, one “empirical” and one “non-empirical”. What they are, rather, is different rules of thinking. For example, prayer can often help and never hurt in individual cases, but have no effect in the aggregate (e.g. when surveys are performed). There’s no consistent model that has this attribute, but you can have a rule for thinking about this “separate magisterium” which says, “I’ll say that it works and doesn’t hurt in individual cases, but when someone tries to survey the aggregate, I won’t expect positive experimental results, because it’s not in the magisterium of things that get positive experimental results”.
Mostly, “separate magisterium” is the classical Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card. It can’t be defined consistently. Mostly it means “Stop asking me those annoying questions!”
This division, needless to say, exists in the map, not in the territory.
I agree. Dualism is simply incoherent within the empirical framework.
It also explains why they don’t expect a CO_2 detector to work or have any relevance.
If, in quantum mechanics, we can say that something doesn’t happen unless it’s observed, why can’t we say that prayer works only if it isn’t observed (in the aggregate)? They seem equally mysterious claims to me.
Indeed, certain interpretations of quantum mechanics (for example, non-local action at a distance) point to dualism. You don’t even need to be quite so exotic: spontaneous particle creation in a vacuum would be evidence that X isn’t closed or complete. These are real and interesting problems at the interface of science and philosophy. It doesn’t minimize physical materialism to acknowledge this.
(I keep saying that I agree that dualism is incoherent—likewise I think that some interpretations of quantum mechanics and the existence of any truly random processes would be incoherent as well for equivalent reasons. )
Oh yes, ‘Belief in Belief’, recalled vividly as I reread it.* I liked this post (up-voted). It’s a bit of physical-materialist solidarity-building, an opportunity taken to poke fun at the out-group. The material being made fun of is taken out of context only to the extent that material coherent to one world-view is transplanted without translation to another.
As Eliezer aptly put it,
The thing is, not everyone owns this. The out-group you’re making fun of doesn’t. The appeal of this view is the paradigmatic strength of physical materialism.
No one has mentioned the idea of dual magisteria as a better explanation for this behavior in these comments until now: that no evidence is expected for the dragon because the dragon isn’t just invisible, its existence is non-empirical.
John Mark Rozendaal simultaneously gets the paradigm difference and dismisses it:
This is an especially useful quote because it highlights how many religious groups (John’s background was Calvinist) realize their beliefs are non-empirical and find this virtuous. That’s why they say they believe in one God, rather than know of one God—faith in something non-empirical isn’t just tolerated, it’s what their faith is about.
* I was about to link to the post ‘Belief in Belief’ and then realized this is where I am .. these Less Wrong worm holes take some getting used to!
I am in occasional contact with religious people, and they don’t behave as the “separate magisteria” hypothesis would predict.
For instance, I have heard things along the following lines: “I hope my son gets better.” “Well, that’s not in your hands, that’s in God’s hands.” All this said quite matter-of-factly.
There is active denial here of something that belongs in the magisterium of physical cause and effect, and active presumption of interference from the supposedly separate magisterium of faith.
Of course most of those people back down from the most radical consequences of these beliefs, they still go see a doctor when the situation warrants—although I understand a significant number do see conflict (or at least interaction) between their faith and medical interventions such as organ transplants or blood transfusions.
This isn’t just an epiphenomenal dragon, it’s a dragon whose proscriptions and prescriptions impinge on people’s material lives.
I do not think this is the best example you could have given, because it can be interpreted—and often is meant as—just a version of the Serenity Prayer.
Much worse is when people promise to pray for you, or advise you to pray, as though this will improve the chances of everything turning out OK. In these cases, I try to just focus on their good intentions; that they will pray for me because they do care. However, sometimes I really do get quite upset with having to pretend that I’m grateful for and satisfied with their prayers when perhaps I would like more sympathy and emotional support or pragmatic help.
Think of the relation between the magisteria as a one-way relationship. The supernatural can affect the natural but there is no way to move backwards into the supernatural.
This is flat wrong and doesn’t accurately describe the theology/cosmology of most theists, but it helps when using the concept of magisteria. Personally, I don’t think the term magisteria is completely useful in this context.
There is a deep problem behind all of these things where one layer or set of beliefs trumps another. In a framework of map/territory beliefs this makes little sense. It certainly doesn’t translate well when talking to someone who doesn’t adhere to a map/territory framework.
An example: If you asked the person why God didn’t make your son get better you will get a bazillion answers. Likewise, if you asked about taking your son to the hospital they will tell you that you should. These two beliefs aren’t in conflict in their system.
I have watched an entire congregation pray for someone who had cancer. They earnestly believed that their prayer was having some effect but if you asked for particulars you will get the bazillion answers. These people are not trying to explain away a future answer. They have seen what appears to be a bazillion different endgames for the scenario they are now in. That, mixed in with the crazy amount of factions within Christian theological circles, isn’t going to make sense with a map/territory framework. But they aren’t using that framework.
The weak assumption in the dragon example is that the believer of the dragon hasn’t already tried using a CO2 meter. Don’t underestimate the amount of historical questions packed behind the confusing answers you get when you ask someone to prove their dragon exists.
That being said, the dragon example does bring up a very awesome and valid point. If I took a few of those people who were in that congregation who prayed about cancer and asked them years later about the prayee’s status… what would they say? Would they expect a change in their state? Would the cancer be gone? What do they expect from the prayer? My guess is that they wouldn’t make any prediction.
Then the natural can perceive the supernatural but not vice versa. To perceive something is to be affected by it.
The real problem with those who go on about separate magisteria is that they are emitting words that sound impressive to them and that associate vaguely to some sort of even vaguer intuition, but they are not doing anything that would translate into thinking, let alone coherent thinking.
I’m sorry to be brutal about this, but nothing I have ever heard anyone say about “separate magisteria” has ever been conceptually coherent let alone consistent.
There’s just one magisterium, it’s called reality; and whatever is, is real. It’s a silly concept. It cannot be salvaged. Kill it with fire.
I grew up as a Mormon; they have a very different view of God than most Christians.
God is an “exalted man”, essentially a human that passed through a singularity. Also, regarding spirits: “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.” Spirits are “children” of God, literally progeny in some sense. Spirits are attached to human bodies, live life as mortal beings, and then separate, retaining the memories of that time; the promise of the resurrection is a permanent fusing of spirit matter to undying bodies made of normal matter, and exaltation, reserved for those who prove worthy, is the ability to create spirit beings. It is the spirit that is conscious. “Eternity” just means “far longer than you have the ability to properly conceive of”. “Sin” means “addictive substances or behaviors”.
This sort of story is pretty decent sci-fi for early 1800s.
Mormons fully expect spirit matter to show up in the correct theory of physics, whether it’s dark matter or supersymmetric particles, or whatever.
As a missionary, I encouraged people to pray and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true; many who did so had an experience that was so unusual that they took us very seriously after that. Those that didn’t couldn’t be held accountable for not believing us, since that kind of experience was up to God to provide.
I now think there are simpler explanations for most of what I once believed. It took me a long time to come to the conclusion that I was wrong because of the “no conflict between science and religion” tenet, and I was raised as a Mormon in a very loving, functional family, and had particularly clever parents who were very good apologists, and I’m not a very good rationalist yet.
Erm… I agree with you? I don’t think the term magisteria is an accurate description of what they believe:
“Magisteria” doesn’t do anything useful. People have been using the word to describe why theists think God is “above” empirical results.
Blarg. This is a semantic war. “Affect,” in this case has nothing to do with perception. Don’t forget that these people are not working with the same framework. I am not trying to defend the framework or even that I am claiming it for myself. I am only trying to help explain something.
Yeah, okay, I am with you. I hope I wasn’t giving the impression that I am advocating separate magisteria. You don’t have to apologize for being brutal; I am confused that it seems directed at me.
Do you consider it a useful concept for describing a particular kind of stupidity (eg. Aumann)? Or is a useless concept even then?
I think it is a useless concept even then. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t compute. By the time you translate whatever “stupidity” you are describing into “magisterium” you (a) know enough about the stupidity to speak to it on its own terms and (b) aren’t really talking about the stupidity; you are talking about magisterium which is a bastardization of two beliefs. How does that help?
As a specific example of Eliezer’s larger point, prayer is a natural attempt to influence the supernatural; so by that account, prayer must be futile.
Er, I am not defending the idea of one-way relationships between magisteria. The point was meant to highlight that magisteria is very much the wrong term.
As far as the one-way relationship, the term was not used to mean communication, causality, or anything else in particular.
The easiest example is a write-only folder on my computer. I can drop a file in that folder but do not have any direct measurement of its success or what happens to it after I drop it there. This relationship is “one-way” in the same way that my original statement was using “one-way.” Likewise, a read-only file can be opened and viewed but not modified. This is also “one-way” in the same manner that I meant “one-way” in the original statement.
Both of these examples are not one-way in the manner that magisteria would describe one-way.
And again, I am not trying to defend this view. I am merely trying to describe why magisteria is the wrong term.
Prayer would be an example of dropping a file into a write-only folder. We do something and assume that something happens to it later. We don’t have access to whatever happens because we don’t have read access.
This statement wouldn’t make any sense in the cosmology of a typical theist. That cosmology may be completely wrong but using this statement to tell them that prayer is futile would make you sound like a complete nut. The discussion needs to start somewhere else.
Interactions between the magisteria are contradictions for you, not necessarily to a dualist who believes it all works out, somehow. (For example, somehow we know about the second magesterium, and knowledge of it has significance on our interaction with the first.)
Also complicating matters is that each religious person has their own location on a scale of self-consistency. I find that most religious people fall well short of self-consistent, but not as short as claiming the dragon doesn’t breath just so the CO2 detector won’t be used.
My point in the comments above is that when religious people claim that there is no evidence or counter-evidence for God, it’s not as often a desperate measure to protect their belief, but simply that their belief in God is not meant to be about an empirical fact like a dragon would be.
Contradictions are contradictions. If, in general, the magisteria don’t interact, but in some specific case, they do interact, that’s a contradiction. It’s a model that doesn’t meet the axioms. That is a matter of logic. You can say “The dualist asserts that no interaction is taking place”, but you can’t say, “for the dualist, that is not a contradiction”.
I can.
In another comment you wrote,
I challenge myself to show you a concept of “separate magisteria” that is conceptually coherent and consistent. Of course it requires relaxation of the initial assumptions of empiricism. Should I proceed, or do you already grant the conclusion if I am going to relax these assumptions, to save me the trouble?
I read your comment again.
The set of religious people I’m talking about don’t deny things in this magisterium. They believe that things in this magesterium would never be in conflict with their beliefs about the second.
The person who is speaking second in this exchange would have assumed that the parent has already done all the pragmatic things they should. It is always the case that the health of a child is outside the parent’s hands to some extent.
When I used the words “active denial” I did so deliberately.
If you asked me about my son’s health, and I had cause to worry, I’d say something like: “We’re arranging the best care we can given our situation; we’re aware there’s a limit to how much we can know about what’s the matter with him, and a limit to how much we can control it.”
What a phrase like “God’s will” conveys is quite different. The meaning I get from it is that my efforts are futile: if it is part of God’s plan that my son should die, he will, no matter how much I arrange for the best care. If it is part of God’s plan that he should live, he will live, even if all I do is feed him herbs.
Now of course, in Bayesian terms, I have no usable priors about God’s plan. I can’t ever reason from the evidence—my son lives or dies—back to the hypothesis, since the hypothesis can explain everything. And if everybody admitted as much, it would be admissible to call this “a matter of faith, distinct from matters of evidence”. To say that everyone is free to form whatever bizarre beliefs they like.
The big issue, the elephant in the drawing room, is that faith is not just a private matter. There are people who do claim that they have privileged information about God’s plan—that matters of faith, for them, are matters of evidence. And this privileged access to God’s plan gives them a right to pass judgment on matters of worldly policy, for instance the current Pope’s recent proclamations on the use of condoms to fight the AIDS epidemic.
How is that not denying things in this magisterium?
If the “separate magisteria” hypothesis was tenable, we would have no reason to see so many people hold correlated beliefs about the non-physical magisterium. Each person would form their own private faith, and let each other person do the same. (The humor of Pastafarianism resides precisely in the ironic way they take this for granted.)
Correlated beliefs can only mean that the magisteria are not separate. To be one of the faithful is to claim—even indirectly, by association—some knowledge that outsiders lack.
The real issue, when you think of it that way, isn’t faith. It’s power—political power.
Just curious—are you a moral realist?
The correlation of beliefs (discounting bible literalists, etc.) is mainly over value judgements rather than empirical facts. For example, if you disagree with the Pope, you probably disagree with his ethics rather than any scientific statements he is making.
Yikes! NYtimes
I have no idea. My meta-ethics are in flux as a result of my readings here.
I have described myself as a “Rawlsian”, if that will help. It seems to me that most of our intuitions about ethics are intutions about how people’s claims against each other are to be settled, when a conflict arises.
I believe that there are discoverable regularities in what agreements we can converge on, under a range of processes for convergence, humanity’s checkered history being one such process. What convinced me of this was Axelrod’s book on cooperation and other readings in game theory, plus Rawls. The veil of ignorance is a brilliant abstraction of the processes for coming to agreements.
I think the Pope is being an ass when he says that condoms would worsen the AIDS epidemic rather than mitigate it. I don’t know much about his personal ethics. I don’t pay much attention to Popes in general.
I most emphatically do not believe that the Pope has “every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds”. Perhaps he has a right to a private opinion on the matter.
But when he makes such a claim, given his influence as pontiff, it is a fact that large numbers of people will act in accordance, and will suffer needlessly as a result—either by contracting the disease or by remaining celibate for no good reason. They are not acting under their own judgement: if the Pope said it was OK to wear rubber, they would gladly wear rubber.
You’ve brought up many different points in this comment. Am I wrong to feel phalanxed?
I don’t see anything here that has to do with the original point I was making, except possibly an admission that you refuse to consider the group of theists I was talking about.
I guess the problem is that we’re all talking about different belief sets—me, you, MrHen—and without pinpointing which belief culture we’re talking about or knowledge of their relative incidence, this is fruitless.
Agree entirely (I said as much in response to MrHen’s “outing” post); so I wanted this to be about things I’d heard first-hand.
“Phalanxed” is a word I wasn’t familiar with, but I hear your connotation of “mustering many arguments”, as in military muster. I’ll cop to having felt angry as I was writing the above; that isn’t directed at you.
I went back to your original comment, the nub of which I take to be this: you tolerate as self-consistent the belief of some groups of theists, on the grounds that their beliefs have no empirical consequences, and that is precisely what marks these beliefs as “faith”.
The nub of what I wanted to say is: you’re reading the exchange I quoted generously. The way I heard it, it had a different meaning. My understanding is that these women weren’t using “God” as a synonym for “luck/uncertainty”. They were referring to the personal God who takes an active interest in people’s lives, which is what they’ve been taught in their churches. (This is just something I overheard while passing them in the street, so I don’t know which church. But I picked this example to illustrate how common it is, even for an atheist, to hear this kind of thing.)
I have looked up Calvinists, if that’s who you mean by “the group of theists” in question. Their doctrines, such as “unconditional election”, refer (as best I can understand those things) to a personal God too, which is expected as a subgroup of Christians. They take the Bible to provide privileged access to God’s plan.
A personal God who takes an active interest in events in this world, as outlined in the Bible, does not meet your criteria for tolerance. It is a belief which has empirical consequences, such as the condemnation of homosexuality. It doesn’t matter how “benign” or “moderate” these inferences are; they show up “separate magisteria” as a pretence.
I was responding to the idea that theists are involved in blatant double-think where they anticipate ways that their beliefs can be empirically refuted and find preemptive defenses. The idea of “separate magisteria” may have been one such defense, but it is the last: once they identify God as non-empirical they don’t have to worry about CO2 detectors or flour or X-ray machines—ever. I think that the continued insistence on thinking of God as a creature hidden in the garage that should leave some kind of empirical trace reveals the inferential distance between a world view which requires that beliefs meet empirical standards and one that does not.
You suggest that the “separate magisteria” is a pretense. This appears to be along the lines of what Eliezer is arguing as well; that it is a convenient ‘get out of jail free’ card. I think this is an interesting hypothesis—I don’t object to it, since it makes some sense.
We base our views about religion on our personal experiences with it. I feel like I encounter people with views much more reasonable than the ones described here fairly often. I thought that ‘separate magesteria’ described their thinking pretty well, since religion doesn’t effect their pragmatic, day-to-day decisions. (Moral/ethical behavior is a big exception of course.) I’ve encountered people who insist that prayers have the power to change events, but I don’t think this is a reasonable view.
I thought people mostly prayed to focus intentions and unload anxiety. Some data on what people actually believe would be extremely useful.
I polled some theist friends who happened to be online, asking “What do you think the useful effects of prayer are, on you, the subject on which you pray, or anything else?” and followup questions to get clarification/elaboration.
Episcopalian: “The most concrete effect of prayer is to help me calm down about stressful situations. The subject is generally not directly affected. It is my outlook that is most often changed. Psychologically, it helps me to let go of the cause of stress. It’s like a spiritual form of delegation.”
Irish Catholic With Jesuit Tendencies: “The Ignation spirituality system has a lot to do with using prayer to focus and distance yourself from the emotions and petty concerns surrounding the problem. Through detatched analysis, one can gain better perspective on the correct choice. … Well, ostensibly, it’s akin to meditation, and other forms of calming reflection possible in other religions. For me, though, I tend to pray, a) in times of crisis, b) in Mass, and c) for other people who I think can use whatever karmic juju my clicking of proverbial chicken lips can muster.” (On being asked whether the “karmic juju” affects the people prayed for:) “It’s one of those things. “I think I can, I think I can.”″ (I said: “So it helps you help them?”) “I guess. Often, there’s little else you can do for folks.”
Mormon: “Well, I think it depends on the need of the person involved and the ability of that person to take care of him/herself. I have heard stories from people I trust where miraculous things have occured as the result of prayer. But I find that, for me personally, prayer gives me comfort, courage, and sometimes, through prayer, my thoughts are oriented in ways that allow me to see a problem from an angle I couldn’t before and therefore solve it. Is it beneficial? Yes. Is it divine intervention? Hard to say. Even if it’s just someone feeling more positive as a result of a prayer, I think it’s a benefit—particularly for the sick. Positive attitudes seem to help a lot there.”
So it looks like byrnema is right!
(All quotes taken with permission)
Even better, a study. (Upshot: Praying for someone has a significant effect on the praying individual’s inclination to be selfless and forgiving toward that person.)
Thank you, Alicorn. It’s very helpful to have any data. Even data from people that are educated and comfortable with atheism, like myself, is better than atheists just speculating about what theists think.
This was a sample of friends of an atheistic philosopher who were answering a question by that same philosopher. The sample, unfortunately, tells me almost nothing about the general population.
Believing in a specific God (who, for example, promises to answer prayers) is an unreasonable view. Believing in the same God but also believing that prayers are unable to change events is even more unreasonable. It’s just more practical.
I’d like to clarify that I’ve not stuck my neck out that any beliefs are reasonable. I said I often encounter beliefs that seem much more reasonable.
Even more? Why?
Roughly speaking:
p(A) = 0.0001
p(A && !A) = 0
I think he may have had trouble avoiding them, even if you don’t count the mirror...
I’m going to test the efficacy of “prayer”… online communication with other minds. I would like at least 30 karma for this comment. If I get this much karma, it will verify the efficacy of this kind of communication. If I get less than that, I guess it will show that this kind of “prayer” isn’t efficacious.
Of course, it could just show that people don’t always do what you want them to do, especially when you explicitly admit that you are testing them.
The previous comment is now at −3… Result of the experiment: negative. This kind of prayer doesn’t work.
Possible conclusions from this study:
The Less Wrong community does not exist (because it can’t answer prayers.)
The Less Wrong community doesn’t always do what you want, especially when you admit you are testing it.
And most likely of all: not many people read many comments, and those who do, are of the second type.
The lesswrong community never claimed to answer prayers.
Still, if people here knew how to cure cancer, most of them would.
Just as a completely non-religious example, my girlfriend is a medical social worker and has been working recently with a patient that is absolutely convinced he has cancer.
There has apparently been some cases of tests that came back clean, and his excuses after the fact, but it’s also turned in to him anticipating future tests not finding the cancer, yet with him still certain he has cancer. I had originally suggested that she ask him ahead of time something like, “well if we do this test and it comes back clean, will you let it go?” but he wasn’t even open to the question.
Like what? Just curious.
I asked… he apparently doesn’t say much. She’s theorizing Münchausen syndrome, which means he’s not necessarily conscious that he’s feigning illness.
Do you ever pray? Have you ever asked God, even in the silence of your heart, for something you truly wanted?
Have you ever looked at the experimental results for intercessory prayer? What do you expect them to show?
There ya go.
Really? That’s it?
Should I continue this conversation? Is there anything to be had or learned here? The internet is a tricky place and it could be my mood tonight, but I feel that this seems to be headed down a volatile path. I don’t mind talking about it but I will get tired of dealing with comments that aren’t making much of an effort to do some quick thinking on their own.
The implication in this is more that this is a stupid, dead horse, argument circle that everyone has been around a few times. The implication is not that you aren’t thinking or that you should be writing small essays on prayer. This is just a big rabbit hole and I get the feeling that no one really wants to go there again.
Talking anyway...
If I asked any Christian I know if they prayed for a brand new car in their driveway tomorrow morning they would probably give an answer like, “Well, it could happen, but it’s not very likely.” I don’t see this as dodging experimental evidence before the test has happened. More than likely they already tried something like that when they were kids and it obviously failed.
My expectation of the experiments on intercessory prayer is that it would do about as well as a placebo. (I am guessing we are talking about prayer for health issues.) Perhaps a little better than placebos, but I don’t know the positive affects of visitors on patients. For some reason, I assume that being stuck alone in a hospital is bad for the average person’s mood which would probably affect their recovery. What I would find more telling is the affect of prayer without the patient hearing about it. In this case, I would expect no significant difference.
But I still ask God for stuff. It makes me feel better and it helps me think about the stuff as a problem to solve. It is a way for me to acknowledge that stuff. “God” could be replaced by a different term, and if I reject Theism it probably will be, but for now prayer has a use. I don’t see it the same way everyone sees it, but even in the case of a Traditional Christian, I don’t think it is a good example of someone making up excuses for an invisible dragon before the experiment happens.
As much as I believe in the power of people to delude and lie to themselves, this is a hard stretch for me. Again, I am not saying its impossible. I just haven’t seen it. It could be all around me, I suppose, but I still don’t see it.
I think that you are interpreting your religious fellows with too much charity. Some of them might be like you. Others won’t be, unless you’re hanging out with an exclusively Unitarian crowd.
If you really want to see a straight-up case, http://lesswrong.com/lw/1lf/open_thread_january_2010/1es2
Yeah, I see everyone with charity. I rarely run into truly stupid people. Most of them have stupid beliefs and stupid habits but they are intelligent enough to still be alive. These people are smart enough to understand the concepts at LessWrong. At least, smart enough to understand everything I have read so far. Maybe not the mathy particulars, but the high level concepts, sure.
The astrologer in your example is not stupid. He dodges because he already knows it will fail because he has seen it fail. I suspect he latches onto his belief for other reasons. I really don’t see how he could be following astrology and not see it fail from time to time. The appropriate question isn’t in the form of an experiment because you don’t know what the believer expects.
I get that this is belief in belief. What I don’t get is how this matches the dragon example. He isn’t dodging an experiment that he hasn’t seen yet. He sees it all the time. Trying to verify the accuracy of astrology is something these people do every day. You can watch in the same video as people ponder if a saying applies to them. Half of them reject it without feeling like their whole system crashed.
I am not defending astrology. I am not defending the beliefs in it. I am confused as to how this looks like the dragon example.
The closest dragon-esque example I have seen posted here was this:
I am starting to think I am misunderstanding the example.
I would like to hear which part of this post gets downvotes. I could see either part deserving them.
I didn’t think it deserved a downvote, so I upvoted, FWIW.
If you want to know which part people are voting on, split it into two posts.