Evolution, Adaptive Beliefs and Tigers

This one's about why Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (or EAAN, recently invoked by MTCstrength33) runs aground.

MTCstrength33's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeIE7G4lkOI&feature=channel_page

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Plantinga
• evolution
• belief
• truth
• tigers
• MTCstrength33

[RyuDarragh]

"Adaptive beliefs" posits belief, not instinct. Instinct is behavioral. Belief is cogitational.

[bitbutter]

Not sure i follow.

[Epydemic2020]

Perhaps I missed something. Why would Plantinga want to argue for adaptive beliefs which are false? I don't understand the point of making that argument, even if it was true.

[bitbutter]

Plantinga wanted to show that natural selection couldn't be relied upon to produce minds that were good are holding true beliefs. So he tried to show that a mind that was 'good for' false adaptive beliefs was as likely to emerge as one that was 'good for' true adaptive beliefs.

His larger aim was to show that belief in evolution theory, without a God guiding it, should lead to a kind radical undermining skepticism about our beliefs.

[tooltime9901]

good video. I have a similar one planned that I have yet to get around to making. I think Plantinga's argument has some serious flaws that the arguments fan-boys just fail to grasp.

[bitbutter]

Thanks, looking forward to it.

[shizzleman8]

Naturalism is an untestable theory. It is a theory that there is nothing outside of the kinds of things that physics studies that there is nothing outside of matter and motion. That theory is consistently rejected by the majority of mankind so surely it is a hypothesis, and it is an untestable hypothesis. There is no way from external observations that an inidvidual is conscious. It is only because of our own individual personal experience of being aware that we know that consciousness exists.

[zarkoff45]

@Epydemic2020 "Why would Plantinga want to argue for adaptive beliefs which are false?"

I've got clips of Plantinga explaining why in my videos:

watch?v=eU-wpNOyuas

watch?v=D65WS8l8oCA

[zarkoff45]

And how in the world would Paul get these strange wrong beliefs? Beliefs are not like instincts, you are not born with them. You have to learn your beliefs and it would be weird and probably impossible to learn that badly and survive.

I dealt with Plantinga also:

watch?v=eU-wpNOyuas

But I actually agree in strange way -- a lot of our beliefs are false, like religious and philosophical beliefs. These are the beliefs that can not be tested and that do not matter to survival.

[AtheistRightWing]

I might have the answer for the question you ended the video with. In a complex society humans specialize, and they do so in the sphere of knowledge and power. Hence people who specialize in things other than knowledge find it to be an excessive, inefficient expense to pursue knowledge.

[iamundergrace]

if we are all part of this process, then how can you know that you are not under the system that you state in the vid.

[haerverk]

(continued)

So the further down the line you get, the more you are going to struggle trying to differentiate the true from the false.

Best to nib'em in the bud Im afraid.

[haerverk]

Id say the stability comes in when a network of false beliefs reaches a kind of critical mass. Aswell as the particular implications of course. But as the false belief gets further and further from the original false premisses, it can develope more and more "sane"(relative to their origin) adaptations and thus end up mingling with the true belifs, both in terms of practicality and stability...->

[haerverk]

Nice in-depth demonstration. It might be usefull for many if you put a link to an introduction of memetics in the description. If people are onboard with M it will be alot easier to digest this. Or it could work as a good vid to spark their interest in M.

Great nonetheless!

[zapzapzapche]

boring.sorry.you go into unnecessary detail.

[ReligionIsACrutch]

Ultimately, this is a question of stability. We tend to think of true beliefs as more stable than false beliefs. But is this the case universally? I don't know but I doubt it. I've seen some fairly stable false beliefs, such as geocentricism, determinism, and so on. How stable a belief is has a lot to do with the practical implications of that belief. If a false belief has unstable but impractical implications then those implications are less likely to be tested and shown as wrong.