I’m not sure why this concept is so difficult for many people to grasp. Even though there are at least a hundred other blogs explaining the same topic, I guess I have to do what I have to do.
Agnosticism – anything with “gnostic” in it refers to knowledge of god(s). Knowledge in this concept is justified true belief. That is, the content of the belief must be empirically, factually true to the best of our ability to assess objective truth. Additionally, the belief must be justified. If I make an offhand guess that you, gentle reader, have exactly $1.76 in your pocket right now, and you do have exactly $1.76, I do not possess knowledge of your money. I am making an unsupported guess. If you show me the contents of your pocket, I will then have knowledge of it.
An agnostic, then is someone who lacks (by virtue of the a-, which is a negative prefix) knowledge of god(s).
Atheism – Theism is the belief in god(s). A person is a theist if they have the belief that there is at least one thing in the universe (or out of the universe) that qualifies as a god or gods. An atheist is (by virtue of the same prefix) a person who does not have a belief that there is at least one thing in the universe that qualifies as a god.
Note that one of these words has to do with belief and one has to do with knowledge. With that in mind, consider the following possibilities:
1) In factual truth, there is a god(s).
An agnostic would be someone who didn’t know that there was a god.
An atheist would be someone who didn’t believe that there was a god.
In this case, the agnostic would be ignorant, and the atheist would either be ignorant or irrational. (He would be irrational for seeing evidence of god and not believing it.)
2) In factual truth, there is no god.
An agnostic would be anyone on the planet. One cannot have knowledge of that which does not exist. Therefore, if atheists (those who do not believe there is a god) are correct in their belief — that is, if their belief also happens to be knowledge — then everyone on the planet has to be agnostic.
As you can see from this diagram, assuming there is no god, it is not possible for a theist to have knowledge of a god since no god exists. Supposing a god exists, you would just switch the two around, with “God exists” being under knowledge, and “God does not exist” being under belief.
Ok, now, on to the crux of the matter. There are two kinds of atheism typically discussed in philosophical circles — Strong and Weak.
Strong atheism – the positive statement, “No Gods Exist.”
Weak atheism – the statement of a negative, “There is no evidence for a god(s).”
These two statements are useful in a philosophical context, but in practice, it works differently. In practice, there are many things which we do not believe in, but which we cannot say definitively are nonexistent. For instance, I do not believe in gremlins, even though there is plenty of talk of them in literature and everyday gossip. ”Oh, gee, there are gremlins in my car. The damn thing won’t start every other day of the week.”
Technically speaking, I am a weak agremlinist, for I cannot definitively prove that gremlins do not exist. Practically, I am a strong agremlinist, since gremlins, as described in literature, are quite impossible based on everything we know about the physical universe. I can say that as described, gremlins cannot exist, and so I am a strong agremlinist. This is not to say that I cannot imagine the possibility that someone will come up with a definition of “gremlin” that is physically possible. If that happens, I may have to reassess my belief in gremlins. Until and unless it happens, I may remain content in my strong agremlinism.
It works just the same way with god(s). Any and all existing definitions of god (save the pantheist god, which is just a synonym for “all that exists”) are incoherent and/or impossible. Therefore, with respect to all gods that have been described, I can say that I am a strong atheist. Gods which cannot possibly exist do not exist. I hold to that as truth.
This is not to say that I cannot imagine the possibility that someone will propose a definition of god(s) that is plausible. If that were to happen, I would have to be a weak atheist until and unless someone produced even a shred of evidence that the proposed deity did, in fact, exist, and was not just a theoretical possibility.
Most atheists, then, are both strong and weak. They know that many, if not all, gods that have been thusfar invented by the minds of men are impossible, and are strong atheists with respect to them. To be philosophically correct, however, we must acknowledge the possibility that the term could become coherent in the future. Granted, we would have to be wrong about a great many things, including the foundation of knowledge itself, so there isn’t much of a chance of that happening, but since we are in the realm of induction, we must acknowledge the existence of a vanishingly small chance that we are wrong.
The problem I have with Dawkins simplistic diagram consists of the fact that there are many possible things for which we have no evidence but can not even evaluate the plausibilty because of our ignorence.
Of course, it is also true we can be almost certain that certain entities don’t exist because they utterly conflict with our knowledge.
This is the case for the flying spagueti monster (spagueti is a inert stuff which rapidly decomposes and can not be the base of any kind of living organism, and for any type of unicorn living on our earth: will all our present knowledge of paleontology and all numerous explorations and observations that have been undertaken until now, we should have found them if they really existed.
Now, let us consider the following possibility: among all existing universes, there exists at least one with at least one planet where yellow unicorns live: there are two basic attitudes one can have:
- the likelilhood may be evaluated
one can then believe with 90%, 60% , 20%, 1% and so on of probability that this creature does exist somewhere
- one can also be strong agnostic about it and either believe that the probability is not calculable or that this concept would be meaningless due to our lack of knowledge.
I rather tend towards the second position. While it may be unlikely that an unicorn would evolve on an other planet, it is not more unlikely than the evolution of horses on our own, and unlikely things happen every day and every minute !
In fact, if I was convinced that the multiverse version of Deutsch is true, then I would believe with certainty that such yellow unicorns do exist, for in this case all possible physical configurations are realized !
But to be honest, I am quite not sure there are parallel universes, let alone ones where all situations (or many) become possible, so I can not know if such entities or many other ones really exist or not.
If someone came up and told me he is almost certain that there exists somewhere a yellow unicorn, then I would expect of him to bear the whole burden of proof.
But the same thing holds for an “a-unicornist” who boldly claims he know beyond every possible doubts there exists absolutely no unicorn in every existing universe: he would also clearly have the burden of proof to show me why this is so.
Posted by Blue_Dale | April 2, 2010, 8:05 amWell, look. If we want to talk about Dawkins like he’s written the “Atheist Bible,” we can, but I think that’s barking up the wrong tree. But in his defense, he has addressed this concern at considerable length enough times that anyone who cares enough to look can find it. I honestly can’t remember if it was in The God Delusion or one of his other books on theism. At any rate, Dennett has most certainly dealt with this as well, so anyone who insists on quoting big wigs can find ample material.
The thing is, we don’t need to quote big wigs. We can work this out with our own brains. The universe is filled with possibility. There are two types — theoretical and actual possibilities. (Dennett dealt with this concept extensively in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, if you want some credentialed back-up for what I’m saying.) When we look at DNA, for example, there are billions, perhaps trillions of theoretically possible manifestations of DNA which would result in a bewildering diversity of living things. We can imagine a bird-like creature with eight legs and compound eyes (like a fly’s). There’s probably a way to manipulate DNA such that this creature could exist. If so, then that creature is a theoretical possibility. But it’s also an actual impossibility — or at least so staggeringly improbable as to be dismissed completely. Evolution on earth has taken real paths, and evolution doesn’t just reinvent itself. It has to play the cards it dealt to itself.
So when a scientist says, “no, such a creature is impossible,” he’s not saying that such a creature could not possibly exist in any imaginable scenario in this universe. He’s saying that it ain’t gonna happen on this planet anytime soon. It’s a colloquial way of simplifying a difficult philosophical distinction so that it’s accessible and easy to talk about.
In the same way, when we discuss “theoretical possibilities” for which there is no evidence, we have to be very careful with our language. When we talk about multiverses and yellow unicorns, we’re speculating. Nothing more and nothing less. We must admit, from a purely speculative point of view, that such things are theoretically possible. But for any practical purpose, we cannot do anything more than blind speculation; until and unless there is any evidence whatsoever that yellow unicorns wander lazily through forests with upside down trees and ninety foot tall daffodils, the person who brings up their possible existence is simply splitting a pedantic hair.
So you’re right. There are trillions of things in the universe about which we must remain completely agnostic, including various incarnations of “god” that no human has ever thought of. But when we remove the overly strict coffee table philosopher jargon and deal with belief on a pragmatic level, the “Dawkins Diagram” becomes an extremely accurate representation of how human brains and belief work.
Posted by hambydammit | April 3, 2010, 10:33 am