Theism and Naturalism
This book was written to show that Theism is false and that Naturalism is true. Theism is the proposition that a perfect, all-powerful and all-knowing agent created the universe. The God of classical theism cares very much about his creatures, and so we can expect him to either interfere in the world today or to have interfered with the world in the past.
Naturalism is the proposition that “nature is all there is”. There are no supernatural entities, be they gods, ghosts, wizards, etc. The universe as we see it today is a product of chance, necessity, or both.
…But how do you know?
Before we decide whether Theism is true or Naturalism is true (or any alternative) we must understand how we decide what is true and what is false. We must invent an “epistemology”, which is basically a “theory of knowledge”.
I am going to set forth my own theory of how human beings know things, and, if you agree with me, that’s great. If not, at the end of this section I will present some resources which will help you construct your own theory of knowledge.
I am a Foundationalist, which means that I have a few self-evident beliefs upon which I base everything else I know. My foundational beliefs include the basic Laws of Logic:
1. The Law of Identity. Things are what they are and are not what they are not.
2. The Law of Non-Contradiction. A statement cannot be both true and not true.
3. The Law of Excluded Middle. Something must either be or not be.
You do not have to look elsewhere to know that these statements are true. They are self-justifying; They provide their own evidence that they are true.
Likewise, Mathematics can be seen as a self-justifying study. When I say that ‘one plus one equals two’ I know that two is defined as ‘one and one’, and so all I that am saying is that ‘one and one equals one and one’. This is a self-evident statement, as is the statement A=A.
I also take my memories and experiences to be self-justifying. I can deny that my memories are true. But I cannot deny that I have those memories. I can say that my current experience is a hallucination. But I cannot deny that I am having an experience right now. This is why experiences and memories can be accepted as self-evident.
For more on this issue, please see:
An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge by Noah Lemos.
Philosophy: The Basics by Nigel Warburton
Philosophy for Dummies by Tom Morris
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
Is Reality an Illusion?
This brings me to another important issue: How do we know that what we experience is reality? Several years ago a movie called The Matrix debuted. The plot was that reality as we know it was really just an enormous computer simulation. Is it possible for us to know that we are not inhabiting a massive computer-generated world? I do not think it is. However, there is no need to worry: If there is no way to tell the difference between a computer simulation of our day-to-day life and a “real” version of life, we may as well consider whatever we inhabit to be reality, whether it turns out to be a physical universe or a simulation of one. The way we know and understand things about our world will remain the same whether it is made up of bits of computer information or matter and energy.
This brings me to yet another issue: how can we be sure which of our memories/experiences are reliable representations of what we call the “external world”? I suggest that human beings are constantly testing their memories against their current experience as well as against their other memories. If you have a false memory or have hallucinated at some point in your life, you can know that this memory/experience was false either because it is not consistent with a greater number of other memories, or because it is inconsistent with your current experience. To see what I mean, consider a hypothetical example: Let’s say that a woman is attacked and knocked unconscious. She stays in a coma for several months, and, when she returns to consciousness, she has a strange (and false) memory of her husband being the attacker. How could she, or anyone else, know that this memory was false? For starters she could compare this memory to her other memories of her husband’s character. She could ask him what he was doing the night of her attack and attempt to verify his alibi with anyone who was with him that night. She could consult hospital and police reports and determine whether they provided any evidence that he had been her attacker. Finally, she could think about whether her memory ‘felt real’ or more like a dream.
This brings me back around to a question I partially addressed earlier: How is anyone to know that all of reality, as they know it, is not just one big hallucination? I do not think we could ever know the answer to this question with certainty. However, I would suggest that it does not matter whether the world, as we know it, is a hallucination or not simply because there is no way to tell the difference. The only thing that we can do is to compare our memories and experiences and toss out anything that is not consistent with the big picture. Once we do this, whatever the ‘big picture’ is constitutes reality.
Simplicity
Scientists and Philosophers frequently use “Ockam’s Razor”, a principle which states that “All things being equal, the simplest explanation is most probably correct”. This is a principle which I use very frequently, and since it is not as obviously true as the Laws of Logic, I wanted to take time out to explain why I believe it very frequently points us in the right direction. Allow me to use an analogy:
Suppose that you are forced to choose between two cars, one of which you will drive on a trip. You are told that the first car has a problem which may cause it to break down on the way. You are not told what the problem is. The second car, you are told, has five problems which may cause it to break down. Again, you are not told what they are. Based on this information, which car do you choose?
I would choose the first car, and here is why: We have no way to distinguish between any of the "problems" each car has. One could conjecture that some problems are far more likely to make the car break down than others. One could conjecture that some problems are far less likely to make the car break down than others. But to us they are indistinguishable, and so based on that knowledge, we should treat them equally. Essentially, we are going to treat each car problem as the same (for the time being). This is the same as when you assign a coin flip a fifty percent chance of coming out heads, even though coin flips are completely determined by the laws of physics. You lack the knowledge of whether a coin-flip will come out heads or tails, so you assign an equal probability to both possible outcomes.
Since we have assumed that the car problems have an equal chance of killing the car, we can know that no matter what probability we'd like to assign, the car with more problems always has a higher chance of breaking down. Let "x" be the probability for the car breaking down based on one car problem. The first car equals 1x, and the second car equals 5x. Therefore, no matter what number we plug in, the second car always has a higher probability of breaking down.
Now, replace “car” with “theory” and “problem” with “assumption” and “trip” with “truth”. It is easy to see that a theory which requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct than a theory with many assumptions. This is because of the simple fact that an assumption can be wrong, and so for every new assumption you make, you are adding another chance of being wrong to your theory.
Of course, this principle can never lead to certainty, and I must advise that certain precautions be taken to prevent the Razor from being abused. For example, Einstein is said to have remarked, “Things should be as simple as possible, not simpler.” This is a very wise piece of advice to scientists, historians, philosophers, and even ordinary people. The fact is if we can make an extra assumption or two and in turn use our theory to explain many more facts, it is alright to do so. The reason for this is that even though our theory is losing simplicity, when it begins to explain more facts we are actually taking on a simpler overall view of the world. To see how this works, I’ll use an analogy from Physics: Einstein’s theories are far more complex than
Another factor which must be considered is whether a theory makes predictions which have been verified. If a theory tells us what to expect, or what not to expect, and its predictions have been confirmed (or have survived the possibility of being proven false) then we naturally see it as being preferred over a theory which does not make any predictions. This increases the theory’s explanatory power, and so it is to be preferred.
