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_Zirath_ OP t1_j2lf8d8 wrote

Reply to comment by Bakuretsu-Sama in Atheistic Naturalism does not offer any long-term pragmatic outcome of value when compared to Non-Naturalist views, such as Theism by _Zirath_

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback.

I assert that the fate foretold on naturalism is as bad as a fiery hell. Right now, it would strip the adherent of objective purpose and meaning, condemn the adherent to everlasting nothingness as the universe grows towards eventual heat death, and deprive the adherent of any possible hope. This state, and it's future, are not just 0 (i.e. of neutral effect on well-being)- this is as bad as it gets. Pure deprivation and infinite loss.

"Why would merely believing in naturalism entail missing out on infinite utility, but not believing in non-naturalism?"

I'm saying that naturalism, on its own terms, indicates this to be the fate of all humans. If it turned out another way, that would be lucky to say the least, but I'm engaging naturalism on its implications.

"What do you mean when you call meaning illusory? Do you take "illusory" to mean "subjective", or "arbitrary", or something else?"

Sorry if I'm unclear. I mean that any sense of mind-independent purpose would only be the appearance of one. We wouldn't really be created for anything and our lives wouldn't really have some kind of in-built intent.

"P2 seems to be espousing an epistemic norm, specifically that whether a belief is warranted depends in part or in whole on the good/bad consequences it causes for the holder."

I could stand to reword it, but my intended meaning is simply that no one likes being infinitely unwell compared to infinitely well off. If anyone disagreed with that notion, I would find it contrarian, honestly.

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Bakuretsu-Sama t1_j2ljmp5 wrote

>it would strip the adherent of objective purpose and meaning, condemnthe adherent to everlasting nothingness as the universe grows towardseventual heat death, and deprive the adherent of any possible hope. Thisstate, and it's future, are not just 0 (i.e. of neutral effect onwell-being)- this is as bad as it gets.

I think it'd be worse if we lacked purpose, meaning, and hope, and we were trapped in fire feeling our flesh burn and blood boil forever. That fire would certainly bring an additional loss to my well-being that the other things didn't. But suit yourself.

>If it turned out another way, that would be lucky to say the least, but I'm engaging naturalism on its implications.

I want to make this clear: are you analyzing the implications of belief in naturalism per se, or of belief in naturalism and being correct about those beliefs? I took you to be talking about the former, but the latter is the only one of the two that constitutes a threat to our well-being.

I'll make the relevant distinction very clear here: belief in naturalism may cause belief in a lack of infinite utility, but it doesn't entail an actual lack of infinite utility. Naturalism being true entails a lack of infinite utility, and it's being true doesn't depend on our beliefs. If we were all non-naturalists, we might still have nothing left after death.

This is an important point because your argument is trying to move us to hold a certain belief based on the well-being it entails. But if believers and non-believers share the same fate (as I think they do), the nature of which depends on whether naturalism is true, which is independent of whether or not we believe in it, then the expected utility is the same for believers as for non-believers.

Therefore even if I was a pragmatist about beliefs, I wouldn't have a reason to prefer one belief over the other. In any case, I'm an evidentialist, so I wasn't very sympathetic to the argument anyways.

>I mean that any sense of mind-independent purpose would only be the appearance of one. We wouldn't really be created for anything and our lives wouldn't really have some kind of in-built intent.

Sure. I take it that any purpose we ascribe to ourselves originates from ourselves; the meaning of life is mind-dependent. Not all naturalists hold this view, and it's not a certain fact that naturalism entails it. If you want more info, check out the SEP article on the meaning of life, section 3.2.

>My intended meaning is simply that no one likes being infinitely unwell compared to infinitely well off.

This looks like a very different statement from P2. It seemed to me that P2 was an assertion about what makes a belief justified. But alright, the statement is actually just about what preferences people hold. But this bears no apparent relation to what they should believe. I could prefer to be cured from my (hypothetical) terminal cancer but be justified in my belief that I will die, for example. I'm not sure how your argument works from here.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j2lvxbs wrote

To your point: "I think it'd be worse if we lacked purpose, meaning, and hope, and we were trapped in fire feeling our flesh burn and blood boil forever. That fire would certainly bring an additional loss to my well-being that the other things didn't. But suit yourself."

I mean, I think that's bad too. Different kinds of infinities, different kinds of ways to be infinitely sporked. For what it's worth, I believe the Christian Scriptures indicate hell as annihilation rather than eternal conscious torment, but I suppose that's a discussion for another day.

"I want to make this clear: are you analyzing the implications of belief in naturalism per se, or of belief in naturalism and being correct about those beliefs?"

I'm saying if one believes naturalism, then their belief entails a number of believed conclusions that would color their outlook on life and expectations black. This is a threat to our current well-being when fully realized, and I know atheists who do in fact struggle living with these conclusions.

"This is an important point because your argument is trying to move us to hold a certain belief based on the well-being it entails."

To be clear, I am not pushing for anyone to hold a specific belief (e.g. theism). I am only trying to spur people into reconsidering their naturalism- the naturalist conclusions look bleak but maybe there's time yet to reconsider.

"I could prefer to be cured from my (hypothetical) terminal cancer but be justified in my belief that I will die, for example. I'm not sure how your argument works from here."

I agree. To bridge the analogy: if someone told me I had a terminal illness and that I was likely going to die, I would still seek treatment and wish to live until the day I died. While I may, in fact, be convinced that I am dying, I would remain motivated to disprove that. I certainly would not lie down, give up, and die.

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Bakuretsu-Sama t1_j2m117z wrote

Well P5 reads like you're trying to get the naturalist to switch over to ("abandon in favour of") non-naturalism. If that's not what you meant, then I take the gist of your argument is that holding a belief can be so psychologically harmful to us that we should be motivated to seek reasons to hold the opposing belief (which is all that's possible in the case of naturalism), or we should make the opposing belief correct (in the case of cancer, I can invest my life savings into drug research and maybe discover a cure).

My problem is then with P3 and P4, which misuse the concept of infinity. I thought that you were talking about the effects belief has on the existence and/or nature of one's afterlife, since an afterlife is the only remotely possible means by which an infinite difference can be made to someone's well-being.

I wonder how you define well-being, what you think an infinite amount of well-being would be like, if not well-being with finite positive magnitude and infinite duration (hence the notion of an afterlife), and why you think that the naturalist is probably infinitely worse off than the non-naturalist. I know naturalist people who appear just as happy as non-naturalist ones, and while I would say that the saddest naturalist is much worse off than the happiest non-naturalist, I wouldn't call them infinitely worse off.

My own view is that since naturalists and non-naturalists share the same fate after death, the only difference to their well-being happens during their lifetimes on Earth. I also think that this difference isn't infinite, and in fact isn't appreciably different on average. At best your argument (rephrased accordingly) would be persuasive to those with serious existential worries, which could be treated with therapy or consulting the vast philosophical literature written by naturalists about said worries.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j2rz1oe wrote

I think it will be helpful to try and clarify a few things; perhaps I was misunderstanding you or was otherwise not clear. I am saying naturalism entails a number of conclusions that are infinitely bad if the worldview is in fact true. Someone who believes naturalism will thus be tethered to a worldview that should appropriately cause someone existential dread and dissatisfaction. This should motivate them to try and disprove naturalism. I don't think naturalism is infinitely psychologically harmful, to be clear.

"I wonder how you define well-being"

Just in the ordinary sense of "happy, content, healthy, etc."

"what you think an infinite amount of well-being would be like, if not well-being with finite positive magnitude and infinite duration (hence the notion of an afterlife)"

While I do think a theistic worldview is most appropriate, there are other non-theistic worldviews that could conceivably allow for infinite well-being e.g. some forms of spiritualism or reincarnation.

"At best your argument (rephrased accordingly) would be persuasive to those with serious existential worries, which could be treated with therapy or consulting the vast philosophical literature written by naturalists about said worries."

Right, I suppose you could say I am trying to inspire serious existential worries for the naturalist, since their worldview appears to entail serious consequences when taken to its conclusions.

Sidenote: thanks for interacting with the content of the post and being pleasant.

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Bakuretsu-Sama t1_j2shedr wrote

>I am saying naturalism entails a number of conclusions that are infinitely bad if the worldview is in fact true. Someone who believes naturalism will thus be tethered to a worldview that should appropriately cause someone existential dread and dissatisfaction. This should motivate them to try and disprove naturalism. I don't think naturalism is infinitely psychologically harmful, to be clear.

I think we've finally worked our way towards the actual ideas you wanted to say in your argument, which with your exact wording were communicated poorly and ended up being lost.

The most important point I've been making is that a state of the word (ex. naturalism being true) is a very different thing from a belief in that state (ex. belief in naturalism), with different impacts on one's well-being. In light of this, the wording of P3 and P4 need to be changed, if you ever wish to present this argument again.

If you want to focus on the things that affect well-being by an infinite amount, your premises would be:

P3: Naturalism being true entails losing out on infinite utility.

P4: Non-naturalism being true maybe entails having infinite utility.

The problem with these is that P5 becomes a complete non-sequitur. Whether or not naturalism is true, hence whether or not I might get infinite utility, is independent of what I believe. So what reason do I have to disprove or abandon my belief?

If you want to keep the premises related to one's beliefs, as I think you should, then they would be:

P3: Belief in naturalism causes a large loss in utility.

P4: Belief in non-naturalism maybe causes a large gain in utility.

The problem with these is that they may not both be true for someone. In fact, I'm quite sure they're false for someone familiar with the relevant philosophy on how to live a virtuous and happy life under naturalism.

And if there are other ways to render P3 and P4 false other than disproving or abandoning naturalism, then P5 is a non-sequitur in this case too. Why should your recommended course of action be the one I take? Why wouldn't it be better to take up therapy or philosophy instead, and keep holding my belief?

In the end, I don't agree with the argument, but I am sympathetic to people who suffer from existential dread and take to non-naturalism to help address it. Anyways, it's been fun talking with you.

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_Zirath_ OP t1_j2ssudh wrote

Addressing the first set of premises you suggest:

"The problem with these is that P5 becomes a complete non-sequitur. Whether or not naturalism is true, hence whether or not I might get infinite utility, is independent of what I believe. So what reason do I have to disprove or abandon my belief?"

This gets back to P2: a worldview that entails infinite positive utility is preferable to a worldview that entails losing out on that (reworded for clarity and to entertain the changes you suggested). If it made little difference, the motivation would be weak, but given the magnitude of loss on naturalism, it seems like that would be a good reason to hope it's not true and therefore good reason to seek to disprove it. That is, if you desire to be well and live (a fair assumption for most people).

In light of the boat analogy: even if you are convinced you are likely going to die, fighting to live is preferable to doing nothing because the possibility of living (despite being small) is preferable to dying. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts in terms of this analogy, since this is where my intuition for this idea started.

To the second set of premises you suggest:

"The problem with these is that they may not both be true for someone. In fact, I'm quite sure they're false for someone familiar with the relevant philosophy on how to live a virtuous and happy life under naturalism."

I know many naturalists think this way on the basis of philosophical reasoning, but (no offense) to me it seems like a sort of coping mechanism in the face of an execution date, the very thing naturalists often accuse theists of (especially the suggestion of therapy). This is why I've tried to argue throughout the comment section that naturalism offers only a objectively purposeless, meaningless, and altogether hopeless outlook i.e. I reject that there is a way to live happily on naturalism when it's taken to it's full conclusions (except by self-delusion or something).

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Bakuretsu-Sama t1_j2tl2ph wrote

>This gets back to P2: a worldview that entails infinite positive utility is preferable to a worldview that entails losing out on that

The distinction is still muddled. Worldviews are beliefs, and mere beliefs can't have an infinite impact on utility. Actual states of the world can. Pick one of these two:

P2a: An actual state of the world that entails having infinite utility is preferable to an actual state of the world that entails not having it.

P2b: A worldview that commits us to the belief that we will have infinite utility is preferable to a worldview that commits us to the belief that we will not have it.

P2a works with the first set of premises I proposed, since all are about actual states of the world, and P2b works with the second, since all are about beliefs.

The issue with the first set still stands; P2a taken with P3 and P4 don't support P5 since one's beliefs have no relation to whether or not they get infinite utility.

You want to insist that one's beliefs do impact the finite utility they get on Earth. Therefore you should adopt the second version of the argument and stop combining it with the first. You're running together two different lines of thought, and this makes the logic of your argument unsound.

>I would be very interested to hear your thoughts in terms of this analogy

In the case of the boat, the best outcome (survival) requires both that there really exists a means of escape and that a person is motivated to search for that means. In the case of the naturalism debate, the best outcome (infinite utility) only depends on the state of the world, and not on what we are motivated to do or believe.

For the situation to really be analogous, assume that whether or not the passengers can be saved is independent of whether they're motivated to search for an escape. In that case, the similarity you might draw between the boat and naturalism is that in both cases, believing that one will enjoy the best outcome gives finitely higher utility than not believing.

Then the naturalist would give the same response to the boat case as to the case of naturalism. They could possibly deny any of your premises.

>to me it seems like a sort of coping mechanism

To call it this would presuppose that there actually existed an issue that was scary or depressing enough to be coped about, and this is exactly the presupposition that naturalists challenge.

In any case, the important thing to focus on is not why naturalists are giving the arguments they do, but whether these arguments are logically sound. Most acclaimed arguments for objective morality and for meaning in life make no appeal to any non-natural entities. You can make a post on r/askphilosophy if you want some pointers to them. I frequent that sub and see that you've already started a discussion there, so check out the sources that were given to you.

>the very thing naturalists often accuse theists of

What I've seen theists being accused of is having a set of views that are false; whether they are using those views to "cope" is besides the point. According to some naturalists, theists perceive a problem that isn't actually there (ex. that lack of meaning in life, or having only subjective meaning, is somehow terrible), propose a solution that actually isn't necessary (or isn't sufficient) for solving said issue even if the issue existed (ex. seeking objective meaning from god), and bundle with it a bunch of adjacent positions that are implausible (ex. divine command theory).

Finally, I'll say that on the question of whether a naturalist world makes life empty, most people defer heavily to their intuitions. But intuitions aren't infallible, and they aren't all the tools we have for reasoning.

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