Spencer says "the only way that I can take Plantinga's argument seriously as a possible sound argument is if I assume that it's metaphysically impossible for God to exist and then I can begin to assess the argument". Am I missing something here? That's the entire point of the argument. You assume naturalism is true. So far at 46 minutes in it seems like Spencer is missing the fundamental basis for EAAN.
I can clarify: the only way _Plantinga_ can take seriously his EAAN, with the first premise being "P(R/N&E) is low", is by assuming that it's metaphysically impossible for God to exist. This is because theism is non-contingent: it is either necessarily true or necessarily false. If theism is assumed to be necessarily true, then "N" in the first premise is necessarily false. This renders the first premise undefined or false (depending on the axiomatization we're assuming for our probability). You can't have a sound argument with a premise that is undefined (and thus meaningless) or false. So, the only way the EAAN can get off the ground is if we assume that theism is necessarily false. Only then can the "N" in the first premise be conditionalized on and made sense of in a probability statement.
Very nice job guys I thought the discussion was very good and informative and fun to listen to. I think one way of understanding this argument is to think about dreaming. I might have content in my beliefs (when I am dreaming) that I am thirsty and I am getting up to get water. But my body is not doing that it is still laying there asleep. Or maybe I am sleep walking and but my body is going in some other direction than i think or even in a different environment than what i think in the dream entirely. And yes it is true that my bodies actions are not tied to the mental imagery of my dream. Now the question is why do we think our mental imagery actually matches the world? How do we know we are not just in effect sleep walking - evolution could certainly work for sleep walking as well as being awake. In our dream would still think oh yeah our dream content is causing us to stay alive! Yet really our body would not need to do anything like that. It is IMO very similar to Descartes argument. But it goes a bit further. Descartes said to the extent we think god is less than perfect all of our beliefs are suspect. What NEAA argues is that the atheist who believes in evolution is doing is actually embracing a worldview that is very much like embracing a dreaming worldview.
At roughly 11:19 Wade states that causal irrelevance of semantic content means that a given NP state could generate "any semantic content at all". He made no attempt to justify that highly doubtful assertion. Even if semantic content were causally irrelevant there is no reason to believe it would be independent of the NP state. I quit listening at that point. If your argument depends on those results, it's already flawed beyond repair.
_At roughly __11:19__ Wade states that causal irrelevance of semantic content means that a given NP state could generate "any semantic content at all". He made no attempt to justify that highly doubtful assertion._ Probably because I didn't make that assertion. At least, not in the way that you've interpreted it. There's a difference between _metaphysical_ possibility (what is true in some possible world) and _epistemic_ probability (the "for all we know" possibility). Even if it's true that the alien mental states strongly supervene on their brain states (and thus it's metaphysically impossible to have a different mental state associated with that brain state), we don't know what brain states the aliens have for what the supervenience relation is. A more charitable (and more accurate) interpretation of what I meant is that "for all we know" the aliens could have any mental state at all, and no matter which state it is, it wouldn't matter (i.e. it would not be causally relevant).
"A more charitable (and more accurate) interpretation of what I meant is that "for all we know" the aliens could have any mental state at all, and no matter which state it is, it wouldn't matter (i.e. it would not be causally relevant)." Earlier, you used "mental state" to mean NP state. Now you seem to be using it to mean semantic content. That gets confusing. Assuming I'm understanding what you're saying, the aliens could not have an arbitrary semantic content associated with a given NP state. They could have only the specific semantic state that has become associated with that NP state. That is because, while semantic states are not, in general, the cause of behavior, they are a contributing cause of certain behaviors. A and B are talking. At the start of the conversation, in A, the NP state "4" is associated with the semantic content "four". In B the NP state "4" is associated with the semantic content "five". A: "What is two plus two?" B: "five" A: "No, two plus two is four" B: "Really? I thought that cross with a diagonal was a five." A: "No, it's a four." B changes the semantic content associated with "4" to "four" to match cultural reality. He was able to do so because A's semantic content of "four" caused him to say "two plus two is four". Any other discrepancies between B's semantic content and reality would be eliminated via feedback.
I really wish you'd have left Wade's slide up the whole time they're discussing it rather than switching to a round picture of Spencer whenever he speaks.
That was embarrassing for Wade. All this idiotic argument is saying, is that the naturalist could be wrong, therefore, it's irrational to be a naturalist. lol Too funny
The syllogism at 8:20 is valid, but is never shown to be sound. Premise 2 was never proven and appears to be false. Premise 1 says that if a given NP property is associated with 2 different semantic contents, the outcome will be the same. The definition of "causally irrelevant" says that semantic contents A and B are causally irrelevant if the, possibly distinct, NP properties with which they are associated, give rise to the same outcome.
_Premise 2 was never proven and appears to be false._ Look just before that (8:07 to 8:19) where I define what I mean by "causally irrelevant." As I point out in 10:19 to 10:34, premise (2) is true by definition of what i mean by "causally irrelevant." _Premise 1 says that if a given NP property is associated with 2 different semantic contents, the outcome will be the same._ Well, not quite. Premise (1) says that if a belief's associated NP property had a _different_ semantic content _instead_ we'd get the same outcome in the physical world. _The definition of "causally irrelevant" says that semantic contents A and B are causally irrelevant if the, possibly distinct, NP properties with which they are associated, give rise to the same outcome._ That was not my definition of causally irrelevant. As I said in 8:07, my definition is that it doesn't matter _which_ semantic content is associated with the NP property P (i.e. whether its semantic content _A_ associated with _P_ or semantic content _B_ is associated with _P_ instead); the same consequences (e.g. behavior) would result.
If all you are saying is that the semantic content associated with a particular NP state is not the proximate cause of the external reality associated with that NP state, I have no objection. I just don't see the point of creating the confusing term "causally irrelevant".
_I just don't see the point of creating the confusing term "causally irrelevant"._ It's less verbose. 😁 The concept of semantic content (or mental states) being causally irrelevant in that way also becomes pertinent to justifying premise (2) of my deductive argument for the Probability Thesis (13:13).
