Tag: liar

Book Plunge: Irreligion Chapter 13

Does complexity require complexity? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

John Allen Paulos is a thoroughly dishonest individual.

As we saw when discussing the design argument, he argued that complex things need a complex designer. One would hope an honest individual would keep that standard. Alas, they might, but Paulos is not such an individual.

We are skipping chapter 12 in case you are wondering as there is nothing really in there counting as an argument that needs to be addressed. Before we get to this point, let’s look at something amusing Paulos says:

The obstinate blindness to contrary facts that confirmation bias induces in some religious people always reminds me of the little ditty by William Hughes Mearns: As I was sitting in my chair, I knew the bottom wasn’t there, Nor legs nor back, but I just sat, Ignoring little things like that.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 109). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

I can’t help but be amused when someone who makes basic mistakes about the other side and doesn’t address any scholarship at all talks to us about confirmation bias. Confirmation bias works both ways. I regularly engage with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and atheists. I also ask them when the last time they read something that they disagreed with was and usually, I get absolutely nothing.

But moving on:

The last cognitive distortion I’ll discuss is a form of primitive thinking related to the availability error. It is best characterized as “like causes like.”

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 111). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Got it, so it is a form of primitive thinking to say in order to cause something, the cause must be like the effect. Good to know.

It is perhaps not surprising therefore that people have long thought the complexity of computer outputs was a result of complex programs.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 111). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Okay. So you can have a complex output, and yet that doesn’t mean that the program that produced it was complex. Does that mean it could be simple?

Although it’s not a new idea, no one has treated the notion of simplicity leading to complexity with the thoroughness of Stephen Wolfram in his book A New Kind of Science. The book is twelve hundred pages, so let me focus on Wolfram’s so-called rule 110, one of a number of very simple algorithms capable of generating an amazing degree of intricacy and, in theory at least, of computing anything any state-of-the-art computer can compute.

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (p. 112). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

Okay. So here Paulos is talking about the idea that simplicity can lead to complexity. Not only that, but apparently this is something scientific. Let’s keep going.

Simple programs, he avers, can be used to explain space and time, mathematics, free will, and perception as well as help clarify biology, physics, and other sciences. They also explain how a universe as complex-appearing and various as ours might have come about: the underlying physical theories provide a set of simple rules for “updating” the state of the universe, and such rules are, as Wolfram demonstrates repeatedly, capable of generating the complexity around (and in) us, if allowed to unfold over long enough periods of time. The relevance of the “like causes like” illusion to the argument from design is now, I hope, quite obvious. Wolfram’s rules, Conway’s Life, cellular automatons in general, and the Mandelbrot set, as well as Kauffman’s lightbulb genome, show that the sources of apparent complexity needn’t be complex (although they usually are).

Paulos, John Allen. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (pp. 114-115). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.

And this is how the chapter ends.

So apparently, a complex program can come about from something incredibly simple.

Unfortunately, when he talked about the design argument and the complexity of the universe, Paulos said the exact opposite. None of this simplicity stuff was there. There was no correction of Richard Dawkins at all.

Keep in mind as I pointed out, we have already observed that Paulos will lie for fun to trick people out of money. Paulos is not just ignorant of what he writes about. He is dishonest about it and has confessed to dishonesty for pleasure that leaves real victims before.

Have nothing to do with this individual. Do not buy his book. I am going through it so you won’t have to. If you meet anyone interested in his work, send them here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Accusations of Lying

What does it mean to lie? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This political season, as we watch debates, one term I want people to watch for is the term “lie.” We use this term regularly and it can be a powerful ad hominem, especially when we refer to someone as a liar. At that point, if that idea gets cemented, nothing they say can be used in their defense.

We often say a lie is to tell someone something that isn’t true. That can often be a part of it, but that is not sufficient to tell a lie. It’s telling a falsehood, but is that the same thing as lying? I’m not convinced it is.

A child is in school and fills out a test. He puts down an answer for a question. He is convinced that answer is correct. The teacher gets that one and marks it wrong and properly so. It is a wrong answer. The child told something that turned out to be false. Did he lie?

No. It would have been a lie if he had known that it was a wrong answer and had presented it was true or it would be a lie if he told something that was true and presented it as if it were false. By this standard, someone could actually tell a truth and be lying. I remain open to that. The lie is not only in the truth-content of the account. It lies mainly in the intention of the person.

Let’s use an example in the political discourse. In the interest of being impartial, I will present something the other side said opposite me that is often said to be a lie. This is in the VP debate when Kamala Harris told the story about honest Abe and how he wouldn’t appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year.

There have been several historical sources that have pointed out that this account is false. That is good, but not necessary for our point. We can say the story then is a falsehood. Does that indicate that Kamala lied when she told it? Maybe, but we don’t know. We don’t know because we don’t know if she really believed it or not.

Now some have said she probably had an intern do some research and try to find a story she could use because even a lot of politicians who study history might not know the facts about Abraham Lincoln right off like that and can respond. It might be different if you were a specialist in something like Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War, but most won’t know that.

What is necessary for it to be a lie is if the story is false and Kamala Harris knows that it’s false and yet she presents it as true. If that is so, then she has lied to the American people. The problem is we don’t know that. If she honestly believes the story is true, then she did tell a falsehood and she can be called out for that, but she did not tell a lie. She just didn’t do enough research. You can fault her for that as a VP candidate also, but it’s not the same as lying.

Be on guard against this term this political season. When you see a claim being made, you can ask some simple questions. “What is the claim being made exactly?” “What is the evidence for it?” “What arguments are against it?” “How powerful are those arguments?” “Is there any counter-reply and how powerful are those?” Etc.

Liar when someone tells a falsehood is too easy to throw out. Now if a politician answers the same question two different ways, it does make it more likely that a lie is going on, but even then someone can always change their mind. Still, be careful with giving someone a reputation like that. None of us would like that every time we told something false after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)