Q&A: The Pincer Movement — The Physico-Theological Proof versus the Epistemic Proof
The Pincer Movement — The Physico-Theological Proof versus the Epistemic Proof
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m just finishing listening to your YouTube series on faith / belief (thank you, it’s wonderful), and I’m having trouble understanding a few points:
A. You argued that there is a pincer movement: if you believe the world was created by chance, then you should not trust the senses. But I don’t think so, and the atheist’s answer would be the same answer: if you believe that this complex and amazing world was created by chance, and that the wonderful complexity we see here could have arisen by chance, then there is also no reason not to believe that the wonderful complexity of our senses and their fit to reality also arose by chance.
B. Questions from evolution: I don’t understand why you don’t answer with what you write about in the book God Plays Dice—that it is more reasonable to assume that evolution itself was created by a guiding hand (the laws of physics, etc.), so claiming that it is the source of my trust in the senses amounts to claiming that I believe in God, who created the world.
C. Your claim that evolution should not have created trust in us but only obedience to the senses—I don’t think that is a strong proof. One could just as well assume that along with the developmental process of human beings and the enlargement of the brain, various byproducts emerged, one of which is belief in the senses. It is a side effect of a larger and more conscious brain.
D. The claim that if we are in evolution, then we should not believe all the senses because we are in the middle of the process—who says that being in the middle of the process means the senses are mistaken? Maybe it simply means they will become sharper—the ear will hear better, the eye will see better, etc. Precisely because we do not know where we are in the process, there is no reason to assume they are incorrect. I also find this claim hard to accept.
E. Also, the claim that who says evolution gives me reliable senses seems relatively weak to me, since clearly in the overwhelming majority of cases that is indeed what happens.
I would greatly appreciate your comments.
Answer
A. You missed the main point in this argument. The claim is not how it is possible that the senses arose without a guiding hand. The assumption is that they arose that way, by chance. The claim is that if they arose by chance, how can you trust them? How do you know they are reliable? Go back to the example of the train to Scotland.
B. I answered that regarding the “philosophical” formulation (the third argument). Here the pincer movement attacks someone who does not accept the claim that evolution itself requires a guiding hand.
C. You can assume lots of byproducts. So then don’t use evolution at all, and attribute everything to chance. You understand that with your claim you turn evolution into a theory that cannot be refuted at all.
D. Maybe yes and maybe no. How do you know they are already sharpened perfectly? Notice: I am talking about the assumption that even one small error cannot happen (and therefore we look for a local explanation for it), not about the claim that the senses usually work. I have to repeat what I wrote in section A: the claim here is not how this is possible, but how you know it from that.
E. I didn’t understand the question.
Discussion on Answer
A. No, you don’t. Because the world you see is also a Matrix, so what can you infer from it?
B. Absolutely. My view is also that it is not plausible that the world was created by chance. But the fourth argument attacks on the assumption that it may indeed have been created by chance. That is the pincer movement.
C. The component of survival of the fittest indeed cannot be refuted.
E. I return again to the airtightness of trust in the senses. If, as you say, we were supposed to accept anomalies of the senses with equanimity, but we do not. We look for an explanation for every such anomaly.
Rabbi, I’m continuing with questions according to the above division:
A. I understood the argument. Still, the atheist’s answer would be: indeed, no one has any way of knowing whether they reflect reality or are just a Matrix, but I do have reason to believe my senses because just as I see a world that, according to the atheist, was created by chance, and yet it has exemplary order, so too I can assume that as part of this world, I and my senses also belong to that order, and there is no Matrix here.
B. But your view is, if I understand correctly, that evolution does indeed require a guiding hand, right? That is what I understood from your book.
C. You don’t agree that evolution is a theory that cannot be refuted? I thought you did.
E. In the lecture you argued that it is not at all certain that reliable senses are necessarily evolutionary, since sometimes precisely a lack of fit helps survival. I felt that this was a weak proof, because it really seems that in most cases, matching what exists helps survival, and the minority case is nullified by the majority.