Intuition
peace,
You take for granted several times in your writings the idea that we have intuition and that we are more connected to it than to reason, etc. (in your arguments for God, and in your recent article on free will)
My question is 1. Do you believe that we all have the same intuitions and that anyone who denies this is deliberately deceiving? 2. Either way, what is the reason for the intuitions we have, there must be a reason for that too, right? 3. Can we understand the reason behind it? If so, what does that say about its reliability?
I’m convinced that most intuitions are psychologically (and evolutionarily) created, so to me it doesn’t have much value beyond what it is practical. Even the fact that it fairly accurately represents the external world can probably also be reduced to its evolutionary role, right?
Therefore, when we are presented with an intuition (causality, etc.) against another intuition (free will/God’s improbability), why do I even have to choose between the two, (and as you suggest we will have to go with lex specialis) why can’t I just take the one that makes fewer assumptions (Occam’s razor) without God and without free will?
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- No. Intuitions can be wrong. Even in mathematics, there are those who are wrong, and no one claims that there is no right and wrong in mathematics.
- I have often explained that intuition is a type of recognition. There is no need for a reason, just as there is no need to explain our sight or hearing.
- There is no point in talking about the reason, just as we would not talk about the reason why we believe our vision. These are the tools of perception that we have, and there is no use in them. If you are a skeptic, you do not accept them, but there is nothing to answer skepticism. And even if you are not a skeptic, then you accept them. There is no more fundamental principle that can explain the basis of our thinking and cognition. Explanations use these tools, and therefore there is no explanation for these tools themselves. Just as we would not seek an explanation for the fundamental laws of logic, because explanations use the laws of logic.
- You are convinced about intuitions by virtue of what? Your intuition? You have no way of escaping trusting intuitions.
- You don’t take one because you believe in both. This is not an arbitrary decision. There is a common misconception about the razor principle. It can decide between equal options. But the razor principle cannot promote an option that is itself implausible. There is no God is a clearly implausible claim, so the fact that it is economical doesn’t matter. Believing in an electric field without a magnetic field is also more economical. But what if there is also a magnetic field.
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I'm not sure I understand you well enough.
But on the point that you said that saying there is no God is implausible, let me put it this way: I have an intuition that everything has a cause (and therefore – there is a first cause – God), but at the same time I have an intuition that everything has a cause – (and therefore – God cannot be uncaused), which contradict each other. I can only escape this quandary by assuming somewhere along the way that there must be one cause that goes beyond my intuitive understandings. But once we have concluded that my intuition is necessarily limited why can't I say that just before I imply a first cause. And thus be left with the uncertainty of what causes the universe (just as with the uncertainty of what causes God)? What exactly would the God hypothesis do us if we were to necessarily agree with the limitation of our intuition?
On what basis would you say one is more unlikely, once we have limited the tools to say so anyway?
In other words, I have two hypotheses (or intuitive paths) to choose from, one that recognizes its inherent limitations and backs off before implying anything, the other that implies God and then backs off. Why would the other be ‘more likely’? And why wouldn't Occam's razor apply – implying fewer things is more likely?
And in fact, you state that I trust my intuition implicitly and intuitively and therefore cannot even question it, just as I cannot justify my reason for believing my eyes and cannot come up with a logical argument to justify the laws of logic.
A few points,
1. I can provide evolutionary and practical reasons to believe my senses, even though I cannot really escape them. I can even understand their limitations and blind spots and try different ways to compensate for them.
2. Like intuition, I can identify biases and points where it may mislead me, even though it is my only tool for recognizing something.
3. Justifying logic with logic is indeed a paradox, but to ‘understand’ (as opposed to justifying) intuition – and especially to identify its weak points through intuition itself, why not?
4. Intuition is indeed a priori and underlying all perceptions, but I can still understand that it was built through the evolutionary and environmental process, and is therefore limited in what it can perceive. The very intuition can help me to conclude that it is itself limited (and perhaps even only reliable in specific areas)
5. The fact that it tells me that something (- God) exists out there, does not necessarily imply this factually, I can continue to take this idea and rub it against other intuitive perceptions (e.g. that a concept like God is inconceivable) and conclude that one of them should be given up – which one? This is a new question, but both are still no less or less ‘reasonable’.
I don't understand how we got to God. You asked about free will versus causality. As for what you said, which I didn't understand, the exception to infinite regression is not because there is an exceptional cause, but because there is an exceptional object for which there is no need for a cause. The assumption is that something in our experience requires a cause, but another object may not.
In short, there cannot be an infinite chain of causes and therefore there must be a first cause. That's all.
I never wrote anywhere that intuition cannot be doubted. On the contrary, I have written and said more than once that it is possible and appropriate to do so. But if there is no reason to reject it, I don't reject it.
I probably didn't understand everything else, but in any case I don't see anything new there.
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