Krasnik og religion

Et uddrag fra hans kronik i dag, der helt sikkert fortjener at blive læst i sin helhed:

“Selv i gudløse Danmark erklærer frygtsomme ateister sig som en slags agnostikere, fordi de helst ikke vil fremstå som om de har en »tro« på, at Gud ikke eksisterer. Man vil da ikke opfattes som lige så religiøs som de religiøse – eller ligefrem som en menneskefjendsk nihilist.

Men faktisk forholder det sig lige omvendt. Sørine Gotfredsen har ikke den fjerneste anelse om, hvad ateisme er.

Ateisme står for en ganske simpel verdensopfattelse. Ateisme betyder uden gud eller gudløs. En ateist bliver hver eneste dag præsenteret for religiøse menneskers påstand om, at der er en gud, som har skabt verden i en eller anden forstand, en gud, der måske griber direkte ind i vores verden, eller måske bare »noget«, der elsker os, tilgiver os eller dømmer os, afhængig af, hvilken Gud vi nu taler om. Præsenteret for den religiøse forestilling om, at der er en objektiv sandhed.

Og så siger vi simpelthen nej tak – ellers tak. Det er ikke et spørgsmål om tro, idet jeg som ateist ikke har påstået noget som helst. Jeg afviser bare Sørine Gotfredsens mærkelige forestilling om, at der er en overnaturlig kraft, som har skabt verden, våger over mennesket og elsker os for evigt. For mig at se kunne hun lige så godt have påstået, at der hinsides stratosfæren flyver et kæmpestort lyserødt badedyr rundt og passer på os alle sammen, at hun beder til dette badedyr og har skabt en hel teologi omkring dette lyserøde badedyr. – Og nej, jeg kan ikke bevise, at Gud ikke eksisterer, ligesom jeg ikke kan bevise, at dette badedyr ikke eksisterer.”

Badedyrseksemplet har jeg i øvrigt set før, men kan ikke lige huske hvem der oprindeligt introducerede denne argumentationsvariant. Jeg har bemærket i min profil, at mit filosofiske udgangspunkt afhænger af, hvem jeg taler med. Det skyldes såmænd ikke at jeg frygter for de troendes angreb. Jeg er ateist, men betragter bestemt ikke mig selv som en moralsk nihilist, og ateisme er ikke en tro på lige fod med alle andre – disse anklager er lige så gamle som ateismen selv, og man har vel læst d’Holbach. Denne på det filosofiske plan ret fleksible tilgangsvinkel skyldes, at det, når det kommer til religiøse diskussioner, kan være meget belejligt at have et agnostisk jeg, der kan lukke diskussionen, før den kommer igang.

Når det så er sagt, er der i øvrigt ikke noget i vejen for at kombinere agnosticisme og ateisme. Som denne undervariant er forklaret her (“the view of those who do not know of the existence or nonexistence of god(s), and do not believe in god(s)“), kunne det godt være mit standpunkt, selvom det ikke er nogen særlig præcis definition – jeg ville kun acceptere kombinationen, hvis der er tale om den strenge variant af agnosticismen.

What I’ve been reading…

1) The Danish translation of Traudl Junges “Bis zur letzten Stunde” (the Danish version is published by Lindhardt og Ringhof and is called “Til den bitre ende”). Most of the book consists of Traudl’s collection of notes and memoirs written only two years after the war, in 47. The last 40 pages consists of notes from interviews between Traudl and the German journalist Melissa Müller that took place very close to Junge’s death. The book is very personal and it is also very recommendable.

2) Anna Politkovskaya: Putin’s Russia. I like Putin even less than before after having read this book.

3) I have tried once again to make progress in “The Road to Reality” by Roger Penrose, by reading chapters 6 and 7. This book is not recommended to people who do not like mathematics, and I don’t think you can rightfully consider it popular science – it is not at all comparable to books such as “Relativity” by Albert Einstein (which, incidentally I found was available online here. Amazon also has the book though and it isn’t all that expensive) and “A brief(/er) history of time” by Stephen Hawking. Even though I believe I understood most of the two chapters, they took an awful lot of time to get through, so I think I shall have to put it away again for a while before I continue. I might start reading a recent buy; “The Nuremberg Interviews” instead.

A short addendum to the Danish readers: No, I’m not lying about which books I’ve read…

Science and religion

“In modern society there is a prevalent notion that spiritual matters can’t be settled by logic or observation, and therefore you can have whatever religious beliefs you like. If a scientist falls for this, and decides to live their extralaboratorial life accordingly, then this, to me, says that they only understand the experimental principle as a social convention. They know when they are expected to do experiments and test the results for statistical significance. But put them in a context where it is socially conventional to make up wacky beliefs without looking, and they just as happily do that instead.“

“If, outside of their specialist field, some particular scientist is just as susceptible as anyone else to wacky ideas, then they probably never did understand why the scientific rules work. Maybe they can parrot back a bit of Popperian falsificationism; but they don’t understand on a deep level, the algebraic level of probability theory, the causal level of cognition-as-machinery. They’ve been trained to behave a certain way in the laboratory, but they don’t like to be constrained by evidence; when they go home, they take off the lab coat and relax with some comfortable nonsense. And yes, that does make me wonder if I can trust that scientist’s opinions even in their own field – especially when it comes to any controversial issue, any open question, anything that isn’t already nailed down by massive evidence and social convention.”

That is from a new post by Eliezer Yudkowsky over at overcomingbias. Read the whole thing here.

Dragsdalsagen

Bent Jensens kronik i dagens JP er værd at læse. Hvis jeg kunne linke til hans artikel bragt i søndags ville jeg også gøre det – men den er trods alt ikke længere væk end det nærmeste bibliotek.

IQ and willingness to pay

Ok, here’s a few thoughts (I have been studying for exams for some days now, bear with me…):

Consider a situation where the following 3 assumptions are fulfilled:

1) Doctors have found a method to increase cognitive ability (~ IQ)

2) The treatment is uncomplicated (no risks involved) and will if undertaken cause a permanent boost in the cognitive ability.

3) IQ and income are uncorrelated, and an increase in IQ do not change your current or expected future income (this in order to disregard investment incentives and only focus on the “pure” marginal utility of cognitive ability).

4) Having made these assumptions, how much would you now be willing to pay in order to increase your IQ by 1 point? 5 points? How do your marginal wtp-function look like? Is it increasing or decreasing? Is it kinked? Why?

5) Do your answers depend on the population distribution?

To elaborate on this, consider first the case where you are the only one offered the treatment; that is, the population distribution is unaffected by the introduction of the procedure – meaning that by undertaking the treatment, you will move up in the intellectual hierarchy. Consider next the case where the treatment is publicly available. Now, by paying for the treatment, you get more intelligent, but many others do so too; such a scenario might result in an outcome where you still will not be able to understand what the smart-asses around you are talking about, but to understand Einstein’s points about general relativity will no longer be a problem. Stated in another way – in this case, by not undertaking the treatment, you will most likely move downwards in the intellectual hierarchy.

5b) Having considered the two scenarios above: How much of your wtp is related to the cognitive ability per se, and how much is related to the distributional effect?

6) Might IQ and wtp be correlated? How and why? What about income?

I have a fairly good idea about my own preferences and wtp-function, but I shall not share this with you. I don’t know about 6)