"Is Atheism Irrational?" -- NYT Interview of Alvin Plantinga

[A-GAME]

Matter is just an informational statement about integrated information.

Which appears on the screen of consciousness. Think of it like a tv screen. Matter (images) appear on the screen of consciousness (tv). Stop identifying with the images and instead identify with the screen.

[SonnyBIlly]

improbable, even absurdly improbable, is not impossible. Given enough time or enough chances, the elements that make life conducive will fall into place. If the universe is infinite then it is inevitable it will happen at some point provided it contains individual elements that, when properly configured, can support life.

Have a read of the fine tuning arguments to flesh out your argument.

Your second sentence isn't really valid. The fine tuning argument is that without the fine tuning of the universe's fundamental constants, it's not possible for a universe to ever become "properly configured" for life, even with infinite time and infinite space.

More generally what your saying could fall into two camps:

1. That the universe is absurd. But "absurd" here has a real meaning, things that are of an absurd probability generally do not exist (eg. roll me x number of 6's on a dice consecutively).
2. That there exists a multiverse of infinite/almost infinite universes, and therefore it's not improbable that a universe appearing fine tuned to existence would come into existence. It's similar to an argument of modal realism.

It's the fundamental constants at a universes moment of coming into being that matter and need to be fine tuned. That why you need multiverse (i.e. new universes with different (random?) fundamental constants coming into existence, with one of them eventually being conductive to life), not just one infinitely large and long universe.

The problem with a multiverse, is what it the effective cause of all these new and different universes coming into existence? And further, what is the cause of the fundamental constants being fundamental themselves (i.e. what is the source of the platonic realism of numbers, mathematics, the fundamental physical laws & constants etc., as they appear with different values in these different multiverses?)

[Weightaholic]

But anyway. Beliefs, depending on your philosophical bent, can have an effect. Plantinga argues that on materialism, only the physical events in the brain cause anything and beliefs are just an offshoot of those (like a the whistle-noise on a steam engine). Hence, beliefs do not matter and are invisible to evolution.


But even if beliefs do have an effect, even irrational/false beliefs can produce evolutionarily successful behaviour and will be selected for, rather than targeted. Examples:

Let's have a look at them.

-Animals are often frightened of thunder/lightning, and will run for cover believing it is dangerous.

Belief, or startle reflex and fear?

-I could believe I had a curse laid on me, and if I did not successfuly reproduce I would die a horrible death, which may in fact cause behaviour which assists reproduction.

Perhaps. Look up "pointing the bone".

-I could overestimate my attractiveness which may increase my confidence, which may increase my chances of reproducing

Probable. Women like confident men.

-I hallucinate a tiger in front of me and run away, which may keep me alive despite the fact my beliefs are not true.

If there is not in fact a tiger in front of you, I would suggest that at best, this behaviour would be neutral at best, and gives rise to the probability that you would run into danger in your panic.

-There is a tiger in front of me but my brain registers it as a huge gorilla, I run away regardless.

I am not sure what you're arguing for here.

-I could just generally be paranoid of everything in general, which actually assists survival if it is relatively mild. (example- I could believe someone is out to murder me, and they will definitely succeed If I am outside after 10pm, and barricade my doors before that time. Generally, it is not the best of ideas to be walking around carelessly late at night. But my behaviour, which is consistent with survival, arose from an irrational belief)

OK.

And of course, the best example in my opinion: Believing in Gods/supernatural phenomena may stave off depression/hopelessness/existential angst which may help longevity, which is selected for by evolution despite the atheists necessary admission such beliefs are not rational. The beauty of that point is that the atheist must cede it, being an atheist and all.

Ah. I didn't realise you disagreed with Plantinga.

[guyver79]

This has been a pretty cool thread so far.

(Hasn't led to the kalam or billy bob either!!)




Just a quickie, when we're talking about probability and using the lottery as an example and then talking about information.

Surely probability isn't random it's just that we lack the information on the variables to know the right numbers to pick on the lottery?

If you could see the lottery as pure information then wouldn't you know that the balls could only fall a certain way?

There might be some randomness at the quantum level but that wouldn't effect lottery balls would it?

Whether or not this has anything to do with the thread, just whilst we're on the subject.

Cheers.

[Reliance012]

If only the interviewee had but a rudimentary understanding of biological evolution.

Not every phenotypic characteristic of the body is a product of adaptation, directly. Organisms can, and do, possess and pass on deleterious / neutral characteristics depending on a multitude of variables at the level of the genome.

[SonnyBIlly]

What is matter but integrated information?

By "integrated" are you referring to integrated information theory (a theory of mind)?

If so, brb reading up, looks interesting.

I'm more coming from the "it from bit" of digital physics (although not necessarily digital).

Luciano Floridi has done a lot of work on it:
http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/About.html

[SonnyBIlly]

What does the matter appear on?

Matter is just information.

Our perception of matter and the world is how we process that information. Vision is as a result of the electromagnetic force, a photon exchanges information between the object and the rods and cones in your eye, likewise the other senses etc. But it's not true idealism, because the information is physically real and objectively exists external and independently to your experience of it.

For example, you could play a computer game and interact with a fantasy world. Or you, instead, you could let the game run and watch your CPU process a series of 0s and 1s and see them stored and retrieved in your computers memory, but they're are the same thing. The latter is the raw information, the former is the information arranged in a form that be perceived by your senses in a more complex manner (your eyes via a monitor).

[guyver79]

Matter is just information.

Our perception of matter and the world is how we process that information. Vision is as a result of the electromagnetic force, a photon exchanges information between the object and the rods and cones in your eye, likewise the other senses etc. But it's not true idealism, because the information is physically real and objectively exists external and independently to your experience of it.

For example, you could play a computer game and interact with a fantasy world. Or you, instead, you could let the game run and watch your CPU process a series of 0s and 1s and see them stored and retrieved in your computers memory, but they're are the same thing. The latter is the raw information, the former is the information arranged in a form that be perceived by your senses in a more complex manner (your eyes via a monitor).

This is what I meant in post #214, the lottery is seen as random when in actual fact it's anything but if looked at in terms of geometry and physics.

[SonnyBIlly]

This is what I meant in post #214, the lottery is seen as random when in actual fact it's anything but if looked at in terms of geometry and physics.

Yeah, there have been cases where casino players have used a laser system hidden in mobile phones linked to an app that predicts where a ball is more likely to fall on a particular roulette wheel spin, and profit off it.

There's a difference between true randomness, and something that it just difficult to predict, and it's a philosophically and scientifically interesting question as to whether true randomness exists.

Article by Hawking on it:
Does God play Dice?
http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

[guyver79]

Yeah, there have been cases where casino players have used a laser system hidden in mobile phones linked to an app that predicts where a ball is more likely to fall on a particular roulette wheel spin, and profit off it.

There's a difference between true randomness, and something that it just difficult to predict, and it's a philosophically and scientifically interesting question as to whether true randomness exists.

Article by Hawking on it:
Does God play Dice?
http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

Thanks, just about to read, if true randomness doesn't exist, then neither would free will?

[SonnyBIlly]

Thanks, just about to read, if true randomness doesn't exist, then neither would free will?

In that context, true randomness would deny agency/free will too. If your action is caused by something truly random, it's not a freely willed act of you as an agent, is it?

I'm not sure the issue of true randomness has much to say on whether we possess agency and free will.

[guyver79]

In that context, true randomness would deny agency/free will too. If your action is caused by something truly random, it's not a freely willed act of you as an agent, is it?

I'm not sure the issue of true randomness has much to say on whether we possess agency and free will.

And the fine tuning argument?

Surely the universe is the way it is because it couldn't be any other way?

Same as saying the number 42 came up in the lottery, it couldn't have been any other number, physics geometry ect.... Nothing random about it?

Film the the lottery draw no matter how many times you rewind and play it back the number 42 always comes up, there is no randomness.

Now if you could rewind the universe then play from a thousand years ago all events will lead to this moment, all thoughts all decisions will lead to this conversation, this moment, at what point is there free will?

Theist want causality and randomness?

[SonnyBIlly]

And the fine tuning argument?

Surely the universe is the way it is because it couldn't be any other way?

Fine tuning doesn't say anything as strong as that, it's not a Leibniz "best of all possible worlds" argument.

It's merely that the fundamental physical constants of the universe all have to be within very small ranges for the possibility of life to exist. That's all.

The actual events of a particular universe could be very different from another, it just that the constants in each have to be the same or very similar for the possibility of life to exist within them.

These:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_constant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensi...sical_constant

Same as saying the number 42 came up in the lottery, it couldn't have been any other number, physics geometry ect.... Nothing random about it?

If you repeated the exact same causes of the draw, the balls in all the exact same positions and the draw was conducted in the exact same way, then yes. It's still deterministic, it just that it's difficult to predict, because a small change in the initial conditions can lead to a very different result. Something that is difficult to predict is still deterministic, it's not truly random.

Let add a caveat, quantum processes are probabilistic. So if you were re-running the same thing over and over again involving wave function collapse, a certain percentage of the time, it will go one way, and a certain percentage of the time it will go another. Over the course of many reruns, the probability is deterministic, but in any individual instance, it would be unpredictable. That's not true randomness, but it's of a similar effect.

Film the the lottery draw no matter how many times you rewind and play it back the number 42 always comes up, there is no randomness.

Now if you could rewind the universe then play from a thousand years ago all events will lead to this moment, all thoughts all decisions will lead to this conversation, this moment, at what point is there free will?

Theist want causality and randomness?

I don't understand your argument here. Watching a replay of the past isn't the same as living the present; that last nights lottery results stay the same no matter how many times I rewind and replay the recorded draw on my DVR isn't an argument against agency/free will in the present. The past may have no additional agency/free will, because it has already occurred, but that isn't proof that the present and future don't have an opportunity to exercise agency/free will.

[Myriad88]

And the fine tuning argument?

Surely the universe is the way it is because it couldn't be any other way?

Same as saying the number 42 came up in the lottery, it couldn't have been any other number, physics geometry ect.... Nothing random about it?

Film the the lottery draw no matter how many times you rewind and play it back the number 42 always comes up, there is no randomness.

Now if you could rewind the universe then play from a thousand years ago all events will lead to this moment, all thoughts all decisions will lead to this conversation, this moment, at what point is there free will?

Theist want causality and randomness?

No, because there is no logical contradiction in suggesting the constants and laws were different.....

[GregariousWolf]

Further reading on Plantinga from his wikipedia entry:

Plantinga has argued that some people can know that God exists as a basic belief, requiring no argument. He developed this argument in two different fashions: firstly, in God and Other Minds (1967), by drawing an equivalence between the teleological argument and the common sense view that people have of other minds existing by analogy with their own minds. Plantinga has also developed a more comprehensive epistemological account of the nature of warrant which allows for the existence of God as a basic belief.

...

Plantinga's contributions to epistemology include an argument which he dubs "Reformed epistemology". According to Reformed epistemology, belief in God can be rational and justified even without arguments or evidence for the existence of God. More specifically, Plantinga argues that belief in God is properly basic, and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims belief in God could be justified independently of evidence.

...

In Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism, he argues that the truth of evolution is an epistemic defeater for naturalism (i.e. if evolution is true, it undermines naturalism). His basic argument is that if evolution and naturalism are both true, human cognitive faculties evolved to produce beliefs that have survival value (maximizing one's success at the four F's: "feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing"), not necessarily to produce beliefs that are true. Thus, since human cognitive faculties are tuned to survival rather than truth in the naturalism-evolution model, there is reason to doubt the veracity of the products of those same faculties, including naturalism and evolution themselves. On the other hand, if God created man "in his image" by way of an evolutionary process (or any other means), then Plantinga argues our faculties would probably be reliable.

...

In the past, Plantinga has lent support to the intelligent design movement. He was a member of the 'Ad Hoc Origins Committee' that supported Philip E. Johnson's 1991 book Darwin on Trial against palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould's high-profile scathing review in Scientific American in 1992. Plantinga also provided a back-cover endorsement of Johnson's book. He was a Fellow of the (now moribund) pro-intelligent design International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, and has presented at a number of intelligent design conferences.

When I first read the argument presented, I had the gut feeling that it misrepresented what evolution does. Now I understand why.

I'm sorry theists, but I was skeptical of this guy's argument before I knew who he was, and I am even moreso now who he is and where he is coming from.

[SonnyBIlly]

Further reading on Plantinga from his wikipedia entry:

When I first read the argument presented, I had the gut feeling that it misrepresented what evolution does. Now I understand why.

I'm sorry theists, but I was skeptical of this guy's argument before I knew who he was, and I am even moreso now who he is and where he is coming from.

It would be much better if his argument were simplified to being that we are "too intelligent" (or too whatever particular characteristic) to be a product of naturalistic evolution, and then made his case from there.

It's a dopey attempt to trap naturalists by using our creation of the theory of evolution itself as the example of us being "too intelligent" to have naturally evolved. IMO it adds nothing to the argument, and just muddles and detracts from it.

[Meatros]

Thanks, just about to read, if true randomness doesn't exist, then neither would free will?

I'm not even sure that libertarian free will even makes sense, regardless of whether or not it's true.

We all base our decisions off of past interactions and our genes. To say that our will is not determined by that - that it's truly free makes no sense to me. It would be like our decisions were haphazard that just popped into being.

Of course, the fault could lay with me and my understanding of free will.

Further reading on Plantinga from his wikipedia entry:

When I first read the argument presented, I had the gut feeling that it misrepresented what evolution does. Now I understand why.

I'm sorry theists, but I was skeptical of this guy's argument before I knew who he was, and I am even moreso now who he is and where he is coming from.

I always thought at first pass, his argument was interesting. The more I thought about it the worse it became. It does seem clear that he doesn't understand the process of evolution. In particular, he doesn't understand common descent - that our traits are passed along. What I mean by this is what I said several pages back - he seems to have the thought that once we developed consciousness our sense organs came into play. He doesn't realize that throughout our evolution our sense organs have been developing all the while.

So when you actually consider some of his scenarios they become absurd. An eye and cognitive structure that can do a good job of seeing what is in front of you seems vastly simpler to evolve than a brain that interprets empty air as a 'tiger' or whatever and sends signals to the rest of the body to react to that 'tiger'. How does that evolve, exactly? When you think about it, it becomes rather silly - are we to suppose that, for instance, when the eye registers something over 50 lbs, it transmits a signal to the brain that corresponds to a tiger? If so, how on earth would that be as beneficial as an eye that relays a proper message? How does it have an equal shot at evolving? Remember this is all prior to cognition.

[BobisMighty]

Have a read of the fine tuning arguments to flesh out your argument.

Your second sentence isn't really valid. The fine tuning argument is that without the fine tuning of the universe's fundamental constants, it's not possible for a universe to ever become "properly configured" for life, even with infinite time and infinite space.

More generally what your saying could fall into two camps:

1. That the universe is absurd. But "absurd" here has a real meaning, things that are of an absurd probability generally do not exist (eg. roll me x number of 6's on a dice consecutively).
2. That there exists a multiverse of infinite/almost infinite universes, and therefore it's not improbable that a universe appearing fine tuned to existence would come into existence. It's similar to an argument of modal realism.

It's the fundamental constants at a universes moment of coming into being that matter and need to be fine tuned. That why you need multiverse (i.e. new universes with different (random?) fundamental constants coming into existence, with one of them eventually being conductive to life), not just one infinitely large and long universe.

The problem with a multiverse, is what it the effective cause of all these new and different universes coming into existence? And further, what is the cause of the fundamental constants being fundamental themselves (i.e. what is the source of the platonic realism of numbers, mathematics, the fundamental physical laws & constants etc., as they appear with different values in these different multiverses?)

Again you're saying generally do not exist, but they still can. In an infinite universe there is plenty of time for the odds to fall where they may, or say in a universe in an infinite state of big bang to big crunch and the big bang again, there are enough chances for things to occur the way they do.
then there is the problem that assuming only carbon-based life can exist. We still don't know if that's the case. Until then we can't just assume the universe is fine-tuned for the building blocks of life, but rather "life is fine-tuned for the universe."

as for a multiverse why do we have to assume the event that spawned ours didn't necessarily spawn there's? Or that all universes exist infinitely simultaneously?

[MaximosJ]

I encourage people who are interested in considering these issues carefully to actually read Plantinga's arguments and some responses. I'm afraid that some of you are unfairly assuming that Plantinga is a lot dumber than he actually is, and are (thereby) being uncharitable. I'll say a bit about this in ome of my comments below.

If only the interviewee had but a rudimentary understanding of biological evolution.

Not every phenotypic characteristic of the body is a product of adaptation, directly. Organisms can, and do, possess and pass on deleterious / neutral characteristics depending on a multitude of variables at the level of the genome.

Plantinga does realize this. This is an interview for the New York Times, not a formal paper, so he is likely speaking at a general level that ignores some complications and distinctions. Being charitable seems to require acknowledging this context (rather than pronouncing, "If only [he] had but a rudimentary understanding!"). In his actual published work, he mentions exactly what you are saying -- that not all of our characteristics are the direct product of adaptation (see, e.g., his Warranted Christian Belief, p. 228; for example: "[A]t certain stages new structures (or new modifications of old structures) arose, not because they were themselves selected for, but because they were genetically associated with something else that was selected for (pliotropy)"). He isn't an idiot.

In any case, I'm not sure that what you mention is ultimately relevant to his argument. His idea seems (very roughly) to be that if our belief-forming processes are direct products of natural adaptation (and materialism is true), then it is likely that they are "selected for" because they are survival-conducive (or conducive to reproduction, or something else of that nature) rather than because they are conducive to having true beliefs, and this provides some reason to doubt that they reliably produce true beliefs in general (rather than, say, merely survival-conducive beliefs). If, as you mention, the belief-forming processes are not the direct products of natural adaptation, then, as you say, they may or may not still involve deleterious characteristics. Plantinga would likely say that, in that case, there is still some reason to doubt that they reliably produce true beliefs in general, if materialism is true. Since truth-conductive belief-forming processes are not selected for even in the latter case, it remains just as likely as not that the belief-forming processes are not actually truth-conducive. (In fact, once again, this is what he does say in his published work on the topic: "Either way these structures were not selected for their penchant for producing true beliefs in us" (ibid.).)

There are various additional complications to his argument, involving possible materialist views about beliefs and their contents (epiphenomenalism, semantic epiphenomenalism, and "folk psychology"), but to get into those would require way too much for a forum like this. You can read his published material on this, if you'd like. (See the above book, and the book dedicated to this argument called "Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.")

When I first read the argument presented, I had the gut feeling that it misrepresented what evolution does. Now I understand why.

I'm not sure that I understand what you think is the problem there. Can you say more? (Also see my above comments, since they may be relevant.)

Do you likewise feel that Darwin or Patricia Churchland (an atheist philosopher of science) get evolution wrong in the following quotes?

Churchland: "Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing [i.e., in beliefs about the world] is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost" ("Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience," p. 459, emphasis hers).

Darwin: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions [i.e., beliefs] of man�s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey�s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (Letter to W. Graham)

Those sorts of concerns (together with concerns about possible materialist views) are the same concerns that Plantinga has.

I'm sorry theists, but I was skeptical of this guy's argument before I knew who he was, and I am even moreso now who he is and where he is coming from.

I assumed that most people on R/P knew who Plantinga was; sorry about that. In any case, instead of coming close to (or actually) poisoning the well here (by suggesting that "who he is and where he is coming from" warrants some kind of skepticism concerning his argument), why not explain what goes wrong with the argument? While Plantinga is a Christian philosopher, he is regarded even by many non-theist philosophers as one of the best in recent times, and he does work not only related to theism, but also to metaphysics/logic, and his work is generally very highly regarded (some of it is now almost required reading in upper-level metaphysics courses -- e.g., his book, The Nature of Necessity and his edited collection, Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality).

In any case, in the hope that is helpful, I've quoted Churchland (an atheist philosopher of science) above, as apparently saying that truth is not of central concern from the perspective of evolutionary adaptation.

It would be much better if his argument were simplified to being that we are "too intelligent" (or too whatever particular characteristic) to be a product of naturalistic evolution, and then made his case from there.

It's a dopey attempt to trap naturalists by using our creation of the theory of evolution itself as the example of us being "too intelligent" to have naturally evolved. IMO it adds nothing to the argument, and just muddles and detracts from it.

In what way is his argument moving from the premise that we are "too intelligent?" He does not use the theory of evolution as an example of us being "too intelligent." That is not the point of his mentioning that theory. He doesn't simplify the argument in that way because it isn't his argument.

I always thought at first pass, his argument was interesting. The more I thought about it the worse it became. It does seem clear that he doesn't understand the process of evolution. In particular, he doesn't understand common descent - that our traits are passed along. What I mean by this is what I said several pages back - he seems to have the thought that once we developed consciousness our sense organs came into play. He doesn't realize that throughout our evolution our sense organs have been developing all the while.

I really don't understand where this comes from -- the idea that he doesn't realize that our sense organs have been developing throughout evolution. Plantinga is not a dunce. He knows that our sense organs have been developing all the while.

I started to respond to the rest of your post, Meatros, but I'm running out of time and there are a lot of complications here (again having to do with what exactly the argument says and possible types of materialist views). Maybe I'll try to say something about this later, but I can't guarantee it. Maybe check out the books mentioned above, if you haven't yet.

[Stizzel]

I'm not even sure that libertarian free will even makes sense, regardless of whether or not it's true.

We all base our decisions off of past interactions and our genes. To say that our will is not determined by that - that it's truly free makes no sense to me. It would be like our decisions were haphazard that just popped into being.

Of course, the fault could lay with me and my understanding of free will.

You're a body builder, right? We have a biological, genetic imperative to consume calories and preserve energy, yet you constantly choose activities that are in direct contradiction to your natural impulses. That's all free will means. It doesn't mean your decision making is absolutely free of influence, it just means you're not a rock falling down a mountain with no choice in where you land.

[SonnyBIlly]

Again you're saying generally do not exist, but they still can. In an infinite universe there is plenty of time for the odds to fall where they may, or say in a universe in an infinite state of big bang to big crunch and the big bang again, there are enough chances for things to occur the way they do.

If by infinite universe, you mean an infinite number of universes in a multiverse all with different physical constants at their beginning, then yes.

But not in our singular universe. Our universe had a finite beginning, so it's not past infinite, and as it is undergoing accelerating expansion, it will not suffer from a big crunch (and I don't think a big crunch would result in a change of physical constants anyway), and will suffer a final heat death or big rip, after which no more change can ever take place.

More importantly, the physical constants that are fine tuned for life don't change over time, their constants because they are constant. It's not a question of time, and waiting for variables to sync to values compatible with life. Its whether the physical constants a universe is created with at their beginning fall into a very narrow band of values that are compatible with life. Hence you either need fine tuning, or a very large number of universes.

Also, yes the absurd is possible, but it's "absurd" for a reason. It's like you rolling a million 6s in a row with a dice, there are good mathematical reasons to doubt the existence of absurd things, and outside of a few philosophers, no one really advocates for it, for good reason.

then there is the problem that assuming only carbon-based life can exist. We still don't know if that's the case. Until then we can't just assume the universe is fine-tuned for the building blocks of life, but rather "life is fine-tuned for the universe."

Again, I don't think you understand what the fine tuning argument is. It's not fine tuning for carbon life forms, it's fine tuning for life in any form. No life form, non-carbon or not, could exist in a universe that is not fine tuned.

Fine tuning refers to the fundamental nature of the universe and whether any type of life, in any form, could ever possibly exist in it.

Read the Wiki article or something similar to understand what a non-fined universe would look like, and how any form of life would be impossible in a universe where the fundamental physical constants fall outside the very small ranges.

You could validly apply "life is fine-tuned for the universe." to multiverse arguments, in a multiverse fine tuning isn't absurdly improbable and is just an observer effect.

as for a multiverse why do we have to assume the event that spawned ours didn't necessarily spawn there's?

Bubble inflation is one idea that generates multiple pocket universes out of one big bang, but I'm not sure they'd have different physical constants. And also don't forget "inflation" itself is an ad-hoc addition to the Big Bang theory, and quite possibly another example of fine-tuning.

Or that all universes exist infinitely simultaneously?

Yeah, modal realism is a valid answer. You could say that they all occurred simultaneously, but they'd be no real way to compare any time difference or chronology between different universes. In any case, it wouldn't be a "one after the other" until you get the right one for life thing, it'd just exist.

[SonnyBIlly]

In what way is his argument moving from the premise that we are "too intelligent?" He does not use the theory of evolution as an example of us being "too intelligent." That is not the point of his mentioning that theory. He doesn't simplify the argument in that way because it isn't his argument.

Would you accept that here "intelligence" can be used as a synonym for his "reliability of belief-producing faculties"? I don't think I'm being too broad with the term.

If we naturally evolved, then he offers a reason why our "belief-producing faculties are not reliable", i.e. we would be "dumb".

But we are not "dumb", we are intelligent, our "belief-producing faculties" are intelligent enough to, as an example, come up with and hold a theory of naturalist evolution.

Therefore, because we are "too intelligent", we can not be a product of natural evolution. And furthermore, to close my trap, the very existence of the theory of naturalist evolution is "self-refuting", if we're intelligent enough to hold a theory of naturalist evolution, we are "too intelligent" to have naturally evolved: "So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable... The belief that both materialism and evolution are true is self-refuting. It shoots itself in the foot. Therefore it can’t rationally be held."

[GregariousWolf]

The question is not whether truth is a central concern of evolution. A better question is how central is truth to survival?

[MaximosJ]

Would you accept that here "intelligence" can be used as a synonym for his "reliability of belief-producing faculties"? I don't think I'm being too broad with the term.

That's not how I would typically use the term "intelligence" (so I didn't initially think that's what you were saying), but I suppose you can use it that way. On that understanding, though, how should I understand your claim that Plantinga is "using our creation of the theory of evolution itself as the example of us being 'too intelligent' to have naturally evolved?" If I replace "intelligent" with your suggested synonym, I get the claim that Plantinga is "using our creation of the theory of evolution itself as the example of us having 'too reliable belief-producing faculties' to have naturally evolved." That misrepresents his argument; he isn't using the theory of evolution as an example of our belief-producing faculties being too reliable. I'm not even really sure what that would involve... It seems like he would have to argue as follows: "Look at the theory of evolution -- it's an example of a reliable theory that we produced, but no naturally evolved being could produce that!" That is definitely not his argument.

If we naturally evolved, then he offers a reason why our "belief-producing faculties are not reliable", i.e. we would be "dumb".

But we are not "dumb", we are intelligent, our "belief-producing faculties" are intelligent enough to, as an example, come up with and hold a theory of naturalist evolution.

Therefore, because we are "too intelligent", we can not be a product of natural evolution.

This isn't his argument. For example, his argument does not claim that "our belief-producing faculties are reliable" (or "are intelligent," in your language). Likewise, his argument does not claim that the fact that we "came up with and hold a theory of naturalist evolution" shows that our belief-producing faculties are reliable/intelligent. His argument, boiled down quite a bit, is just that if materialism is true, and if evolutionary theory is true, then it is improbable that our beliefs will be mostly true (because, on some materialist views, the contents of beliefs have nothing to do with our behavior (so their truth or falsehood doesn't even matter), and because the evolutionary process selects for characteristics that are survival-conducive, not necessarily truth-conducive), and therefore anyone who believes in materialism and evolution has a defeater for their beliefs.

And furthermore, to close my trap, the very existence of the theory of naturalist evolution is "self-refuting",

I don't know what it means to say that the existence of something is self-refuting. What Plantinga thinks is self-refuting is the belief that both materialism and evolution are true, since, in his view, if you do hold the belief that both are true, then you should believe that your belief-producing faculties are probably not reliable, and therefore you should not hold the belief that both are true (since it was produced by faculties you should regard as probably not reliable).

if we're intelligent enough to hold a theory of naturalist evolution, we are "too intelligent" to have naturally evolved: "So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable... The belief that both materialism and evolution are true is self-refuting. It shoots itself in the foot. Therefore it can’t rationally be held."

Again, the bolded phrase is not part of Plantinga's argument, and it's not what he's saying in the quoted portion. See my comment immediately above for a simplification of what he's saying.

I'm not sure that I even understand the first part of the bolded phrase in the quote above, since "intelligent" (for you) is a synonym for "reliable," and thus your bolded phrase begins, "If we're reliable enough to hold a theory of naturalist evolution..." What does that mean?

[Meatros]

I really don't understand where this comes from -- the idea that he doesn't realize that our sense organs have been developing throughout evolution. Plantinga is not a dunce. He knows that our sense organs have been developing all the while.

I realize he's not a dunce, that's what troubles me about his argument. He also seems to think that beliefs evolve through natural selection, as though you can sexually pass them down. It's bizarre when you think about it. Pascal was not a dunce either, but his argument still fails to convince.

In any case, I'm not sure that what you mention is ultimately relevant to his argument. His idea seems (very roughly) to be that if our belief-forming processes are direct products of natural adaptation (and materialism is true), then it is likely that they are "selected for" because they are survival-conducive (or conducive to reproduction, or something else of that nature) rather than because they are conducive to having true beliefs, and this provides some reason to doubt that they reliably produce true beliefs in general (rather than, say, merely survival-conducive beliefs). If, as you mention, the belief-forming processes are not the direct products of natural adaptation, then, as you say, they may or may not still involve deleterious characteristics. Plantinga would likely say that, in that case, there is still some reason to doubt that they reliably produce true beliefs in general, if materialism is true. Since truth-conductive belief-forming processes are not selected for even in the latter case, it remains just as likely as not that the belief-forming processes are not actually truth-conducive. (In fact, once again, this is what he does say in his published work on the topic: "Either way these structures were not selected for their penchant for producing true beliefs in us" (ibid.).)

There are various additional complications to his argument, involving possible materialist views about beliefs and their contents (epiphenomenalism, semantic epiphenomenalism, and "folk psychology"), but to get into those would require way too much for a forum like this. You can read his published material on this, if you'd like. (See the above book, and the book dedicated to this argument called "Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism.")

I quoted from something you've said above - What is meant by 'belief-forming processes'? From what I've read, Plantinga uses an example of seeing reality for what it is - say a tiger and the correct response is to run away, compared with an alternative reality where you see a tiger and you think it's a game and you out sprint it or something. The trouble with this is that it's not something that evolves. He's talking about a social response, not an evolutionary one. Beliefs don't evolve through natural selection (sexual selection, etc).

So my response has always been, well, how exactly would such a response evolve?

Do you likewise feel that Darwin or Patricia Churchland (an atheist philosopher of science) get evolution wrong in the following quotes?

Churchland: "Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing [i.e., in beliefs about the world] is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost" ("Epistemology in the Age of Neuroscience," p. 459, emphasis hers).

Darwin: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions [i.e., beliefs] of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (Letter to W. Graham)

Those sorts of concerns (together with concerns about possible materialist views) are the same concerns that Plantinga has.

Here's the thing - these 'improvements' cannot be totally removed from reality. It doesn't make sense to think that they could. In order for Plantinga's argument to hold, I would think they not only have to, but they'd also have to have an equal shot at evolving.

I used one example - our penchant for seeing patterns. This is an overall advantage to us, we can see a trail of deer foot prints which leads us to a deer that we can then kill and eat. At the same time, we also see faces in clouds, which are obviously not really there. We use our reasoning ability to decipher which is actually the case. Of course we can never be certain of it - but we can't be certain of very much in life anyway.

Plantinga would have us believe that this pattern seeking could all be some ruse that just coincidentally leads us to deer occasionally. If you actually think this through it would mean that something is wrong with our vision and/or brains that process visual signals. Well, how did that gain an evolutionary foothold? Further, both of these 'impairments' are actually masking whatever the truth is - but I can't even think of something that would have not only evolved that just so happens to lead us to the deer, but has an equal shot.

In short, our picture of reality - discovered through our senses - is certainly not a completely accurate picture, but it seems to definitely be A picture of reality that we can use to come to some reasonably sure results.

Plantinga's argument doesn't seem to actually make any sense when you consider how evolution actually operates.

[Meatros]

You're a body builder, right? We have a biological, genetic imperative to consume calories and preserve energy, yet you constantly choose activities that are in direct contradiction to your natural impulses. That's all free will means. It doesn't mean your decision making is absolutely free of influence, it just means you're not a rock falling down a mountain with no choice in where you land.

I don't even know anymore - I'm trying to get in shape, but I'm doing a modification of a powerlifter's workout. THAT aside, I see what you are saying here, however the reason we do this is because we have the end result in mind. This end result is based on my education, up bringing, and genetics. I think Libertarian free will does mean that we have some element of absolute freedom. I think what you are referring to could be considered compatabilism. Granted it's been a few years since I read up on free will and such, so I could be totally wrong. Take it with a grain of salt.

[MaximosJ]

I realize he's not a dunce, that's what troubles me about his argument. He also seems to think that beliefs evolve through natural selection, as though you can sexually pass them down. It's bizarre when you think about it. Pascal was not a dunce either, but his argument still fails to convince.

He doesn't think beliefs evolve or are passed down genetically. What he thinks is that, if you are a materialist, you must believe that all of your beliefs are the purely material results of purely material processing, i.e., the processing of purely material systems that were selected for (either directly or indirectly) because of their conduciveness to survival/reproduction/etc. (not because of their conduciveness to producing true beliefs). He then asks, "What is the probability that such processes produce mostly true beliefs given just those circumstances?" He calculates the probability to be very low or inscrutable, so that either we should believe that, under such conditions, our belief-forming processes are unlikely to produce mostly true beliefs, or we should suspend judgment concerning the likelihood that those processes produce mostly true beliefs. In either case, he thinks, we now have a defeater for any of our beliefs, since all of our beliefs are produced by those purely material processes, and we either should believe that such processes are unreliable or should suspend judgment about their reliability.

For the details of the probability calculations, see his "Naturalism Defeated" paper, or the middles pages (somewhere in the 230's?) of Warranted Christian Belief.

I quoted from something you've said above - What is meant by 'belief-forming processes'? From what I've read, Plantinga uses an example of seeing reality for what it is - say a tiger and the correct response is to run away, compared with an alternative reality where you see a tiger and you think it's a game and you out sprint it or something. The trouble with this is that it's not something that evolves. He's talking about a social response, not an evolutionary one. Beliefs don't evolve through natural selection (sexual selection, etc).

Right, but see my above attempted summary of Plantinga's argument form. The beliefs themselves don't evolve. However, the processes that produce them, whatever they are, do. The materialist must hold that these are purely material processes that are produced by evolutionary adaptations selected for their survival-conduciveness (not truth-conduciveness). So, the question to ask is what is the probability that our beliefs, given that they are the products of such purely material processes, are mostly true? Again, Plantinga thinks that it is low or inscrutable. Why? Because (and this is where the tiger example is relevant) purely material processes that produce mostly false beliefs can nevertheless produce the the same survival-conducive behavior (e.g., running from tigers), and survival-conducive behavior is "all that matters" from the standpoint of evolutionary adaptation. The likelihood that purely materialistic evolution will have selected the specific material processes that produce mostly true beliefs, when there are seemingly an infinite number of other possible material processes that produce mostly false beliefs but still produce the same survival-conducive behavior, is low. Sure, you think that your current beliefs about tigers are the right ones, but, once you see that they are produced by purely material processes that are the result of evolutionary selection for survival-conduciveness rather than truth-conduciveness, you should (in Plantinga's view) be skeptical that they are really getting things right, since it is unlikely that your own (purely material, survival-selected) belief-forming processes produce mostly true beliefs. Those processes may make you think and feel like your beliefs just have to be true, but, again, since they're the purely material result of survival-selective evolution, that's not likely, on Plantinga's calculations.

(I fear that you'll ask me to get into the calculations now... I probably can't get into all of that, at least right now. Check out the Plantinga pieces I mentioned above.)

So my response has always been, well, how exactly would such a response evolve?

The response doesn't evolve; the system/process/mechanism that produces beliefs evolves, and it evolves via selection for survival-conduciveness, not truth-conduciveness (as above). I'm not sure that I understand the concern here, if that doesn't address it.

Here's the thing - these 'improvements' cannot be totally removed from reality. It doesn't make sense to think that they could.

Why not? All that matters from the standpoint of purely materialistic evolutionary selection is whether they produce survival-conducive (or reproduction-conducive) behavior. All sorts of zany beliefs and desires, completely removed from reality, can produce the same survival-conducive behavior. (That's, again, the point of the tiger example. See also below.)

I used one example - our penchant for seeing patterns. This is an overall advantage to us, we can see a trail of deer foot prints which leads us to a deer that we can then kill and eat. At the same time, we also see faces in clouds, which are obviously not really there. We use our reasoning ability to decipher which is actually the case. Of course we can never be certain of it - but we can't be certain of very much in life anyway.

Right, but Plantinga's thought is that even the reasoning abilities that you use to "decipher which is actually the case" are, if materialism and evolutionary theory are true, the purely material results of evolutionary processes that select for survival-conduciveness rather than truth-conduciveness. So, maybe your reasoning abilities are themselves all messed up (though it doesn't seem that way to you). Maybe they get things massively wrong but happen to produce survival-conducive behavior. Your whole system of reasoning, believing, etc., is infected by the argument. In Plantinga's view, given the possible materialist views, it is improbable that (or inscrutable whether) your reasoning processes themselves are actually those that are truth-conducive. It's unlikely, given the materialist possibilities and the way that evolution "selects," that the truth-conducive reasoning processes were chosen out of the infinite number of alternative processes that are not truth-conducive but are nevertheless survival-conducive.

Plantinga would have us believe that this pattern seeking could all be some ruse that just coincidentally leads us to deer occasionally. If you actually think this through it would mean that something is wrong with our vision and/or brains that process visual signals. Well, how did that gain an evolutionary foothold?

Again, because various false beliefs, mistaken impressions, and mixed up desires can all lead to the same survival-conducive behavior, especially on some materialist views. So, even though your subjective visual sensations make things appear a certain way, that way of appearing may have nothing to do with your actual environment so long as your behavior is survival-conducive. As an example, Plantinga cites one materialist biologist who says that our subjective sensations have nothing much to do with our behavior; this biologist (J. M. Smith) "wrote that he had never understood why organisms have feelings. After all, orthodox biologists believe that behavior, however complex, is governed entirely by biochemistry and that the attendant sensations -- fear, pain, wonder, love -- are just shadows cast by that biochemistry, not themselves vital to the organism's behavior." So, your visual signals -- or the visual sensations of which you are aware, anyway -- could be misleading so long as they happen to result from biochemical processes that nevertheless cause you to happen to behave in a way conducive to your survival (e.g., maybe your false impressions of a deer cause your body to move in the direction of something that actually is food for you, though it is not actually a deer (even though it looks that way to you)).

Further, both of these 'impairments' are actually masking whatever the truth is - but I can't even think of something that would have not only evolved that just so happens to lead us to the deer, but has an equal shot.

But there are lots of possible combinations of mistaken sensations, beliefs, and desires, that would lead to exactly the same behavior. That's the point of Plantinga's tiger example. There are seemingly lots of possible combinations of beliefs and desires and sensations that you might have had that would cause your behavior to be the same, and thus survival-conducive. (Incidentally, by assuming that there really is a deer in those cases that you are discussing, you are already assuming that your cognitive processes are getting things right. But getting things right is not required for survival, so, if you assume that your processes are the purely material result of evolution, you ought, on Plantinga's view, to doubt that they do get things right.)

In short, our picture of reality - discovered through our senses - is certainly not a completely accurate picture, but it seems to definitely be A picture of reality that we can use to come to some reasonably sure results.

This seems to beg the question. Plantinga is pointing out that your "picture" may be completely misleading, so long as it results in survival-conducive behavior, and that there are seemingly an infinite number of possible ways that that could happen. You can't rule this out, in Plantinga's view, by appealing to facts about how things are or how evolution happened, because, if his argument works, it shows that you can't rationally hold your beliefs about those very facts themselves(!), since -- again -- your very beliefs about those things themselves are also the mere products of purely material processes selected for on the basis of survival-conduciveness rather than truth-conduciveness. In other words, if you don't assume (beg the question) that your current picture is mostly correct, and you then consider in the abstract how likely it is that your picture is correct given materialist assumptions about your cognitive processes and given the standard assumptions about evolution's survival-selecting mechanisms, Plantinga thinks that you will recognize that it is unlikely that your cognitive processes really are reliable -- really do get the right picture -- if those materialist and evolutionist assumptions are both true. That's why he thinks that adopting those assumptions -- believing both materialism and evolution -- is self-refuting, undermining itself.

[tuk22]

I�m interested in the fact that beliefs cause (or at least partly cause) actions. For example, my belief that there is a beer in the fridge (together with my desire to have a beer) can cause me to heave myself out of my comfortable armchair and lumber over to the fridge.

But here�s the important point: It�s by virtue of its material, neurophysiological properties that a belief causes the action. It�s in virtue of those electrical signals sent via efferent nerves to the relevant muscles, that the belief about the beer in the fridge causes me to go to the fridge. It is not by virtue of the content (there is a beer in the fridge) the belief has.

When we see a beer in the fridge there is a causal connection, via particles, that actually change our brain structure to allow for the reliably true belief that there is indeed a beer in the fridge. Now moments later when our brain chemistry changes to a desire for that beer our bodies naturally react, we get up, grab a beer, and pound it... It's like everything is connected in a materialist worldview...

Just thinking about this makes me want to have a beer...

[tuk22]

He doesn't think beliefs evolve or are passed down genetically. What he thinks is that, if you are a materialist, you must believe that all of your beliefs are the purely material results of purely material processing, i.e., the processing of purely material systems that were selected for (either directly or indirectly) because of their conduciveness to survival/reproduction/etc. (not because of their conduciveness to producing true beliefs). He then asks, "What is the probability that such processes produce mostly true beliefs given just those circumstances?"

Right, It's an epistemological issue. He isn't doubting there is a sensible material explanation... It was just interesting to me that AP was attacking the internal logic of materialism in a way I have never thought... But there is a more obvious issue... Metaphysical Naturalism cannot be rationally believed anyway. There is no logical proof or material evidence to suggest everything that exists is made up of matter/energy, and seems inconsistent for atheists to justify their atheism because they hold that world view...

[Meatros]

Part I

He doesn't think beliefs evolve or are passed down genetically. What he thinks is that, if you are a materialist, you must believe that all of your beliefs are the purely material results of purely material processes, processes that involve the processing of purely material systems that were selected for (either directly or indirectly) because of their conduciveness to survival/reproduction/etc. (not because of their conduciveness to producing true beliefs). He then asks, "What is the probability that such processes produce mostly true beliefs given just those circumstances?" He calculates the probability to be very low or inscrutable, so that either we should believe that, under such conditions, our belief-forming processes are unlikely to produce mostly true beliefs, or we should suspend judgment concerning the likelihood that those processes produce mostly true beliefs. In either case, he thinks, we now have a defeater for any of our beliefs, since all of our beliefs are produced by those purely material processes, and we either should believe that such processes are unreliable or should suspend judgment about their reliability.

For the details of the probability calculations, see his "Naturalism Defeated" paper, or the middles pages (somewhere in the 230's?) of Warranted Christian Belief.

I fail to see how he calculates that though - our beliefs are a result (at least partially) of stimuli that we interpret through our senses. How those could be mostly false and likely seems absurd to me. When I look at water I actually see something solid that instills in me a wish to drink from it. I fall into a lake and try to 'walk' out of it as though I was in a cascade of solid sheets. I drown. This is not equally likely as my recognizing water as it is.

Right, but see my above attempted summary of Plantinga's argument form. The beliefs themselves don't evolve. However, the processes that produce them, whatever they are, do. The materialist must hold that these are purely material processes that are produced by evolutionary adaptations selected for their survival-conduciveness (not truth-conduciveness). So, the question to ask is what is the probability that our beliefs, given that they are the produces of such purely material processes, are mostly true? Again, Plantinga thinks that it is low or inscrutable. Why? Because (and this is where the tiger example is relevant) purely material processes that produce mostly false beliefs can nevertheless produce the the same survival-conducive behavior (e.g., running from tigers), and survival-conducive behavior is "all that matters" from the standpoint of evolutionary adaptation. The likelihood that purely materialistic evolution will have selected the specific material processes that produce true beliefs, when there are seemingly an infinite number of other possible material processes that produce false beliefs but still produce the same survival-conducive behavior, is low. Sure, you think that your current beliefs about tigers are the right ones, but, once you see that they are produced by purely material processes that are the result of evolutionary selection for survival-conduciveness rather than truth-conduciveness, you should be skeptical that they are really getting things right, since (in Plantinga's view) it is unlikely that your belief-forming processes produce mostly true beliefs. Those processes may make you think and feel like your beliefs just have to be true, but, again, since they're the purely material result of survival-selective evolution, that's not likely, on Plantinga's calculations.

(I fear that you'll ask me to get into the calculations now... I probably can't get into all of that, at least right now. Check out the Plantinga pieces I mentioned above.)

The beliefs that process them include our sensory organs. Those must be relatively high in terms of giving us relatively accurate data from nature. It would be incredibly trick, complex, and inefficient otherwise.

Snipping a bit: "Why? Because (and this is where the tiger example is relevant) purely material processes that produce mostly false beliefs can nevertheless produce the the same survival-conducive behavior (e.g., running from tigers), and survival-conducive behavior is "all that matters" from the standpoint of evolutionary adaptation."

While it's logically possible that these material processes (our sensory organs providing us with the basis for our beliefs) produce false beliefs, it isn't remotely probable. How is it that a belief system that equates a danger (tiger) as something fun to run from is equally probable as a belief system that recognizes it as a danger? It's not, at all (maybe the 'participants' don't want to play that day, for instance). Further, to suppose that a group would all have this inclination to cheerfully run away from a tiger as opposed to seeing it as a danger would necessarily mean that all sorts of other cognitive processes are likewise effected. It's not like you can zero in on one aspect of a cognitive system and change it so drastically, yet not effect the rest of the system. How do such systems evolve over time? Take me through a possible example.

Further, as evidenced BY our cognitive systems, we don't get things absolutely correct. We see things in clouds and straws that bend when we put them in water. So we aren't perfect. Yet, we do seem to be able to distinguish what is real more often then not. This is because the basis for these 'beliefs' is grounded in a more primitive sensory structure. Our distant ancestors had sensory structures (eyes, ears, etc) that provided signals to the brain, they had to be relatively accurate or they wouldn't be our distant ancestors - because an eye that mistakes anything over 50 pounds as a threat is an eye that will get you into trouble more often than not.

The response doesn't evolve; the system/process/mechanism that produces beliefs evolves, and it evolves via selection for survival-conduciveness, not truth-conduciveness (as above). I'm not sure that I understand the concern here, if that doesn't address it.

Again, actually put it into practice - how would the system that tells a person to run from a tiger because it's fun actually evolve? You skim over this by just saying it would because it's conducive for survival. You are begging the question. The primitive brain that signals dangers would not be working the way it currently works, for instance. Instead of sending adrenaline (a fear response) it sends dopamine (or does nothing). Anytime that organism sees something that could potentially kill it, instead of being fearful of it, it feels elated or in competition. When you have two groups of organisms, one that recognizes the danger and fears it and one that sees the danger as a playmate, which do you think has a more likely chance at surviving?

Why not? All that matters from the standpoint of purely materialistic evolutionary selection is whether they produce survival-conducive (or reproduction-conducive) behavior. All sorts of zany beliefs and desires, completely removed from reality, can produce the same survival-conducive behavior.

Because how would they actually evolve?

Plantinga's assumption assumes that a group of organisms whose eyes tell them a bear is in front of them has an equal shot at surviving as a group of organism who hallucinate madly thinking a bear is ALWAYS in front of them.

For his argument to work, he has to show they have an equal probability - but how can that actually be the case?

Right, but Plantinga's thought is that even the reasoning abilities that you use to "decipher which is actually the case" are, if materialism and evolutionary theory are true, the purely material results of evolutionary processes that select for survival-conduciveness rather than truth-conduciveness. So, maybe your reasoning abilities are themselves all messed up (though it doesn't seem that way to you). Maybe they get things massively wrong but happen to produce survival-conducive behavior. In Plantinga's view, given the possible materialist views, it is improbable that (or inscrutable whether) your reasoning processes are those that are truth-conducive. It's unlikely, given the materialist possibilities and the way that evolution "selects," that the truth-conducive reasoning processes were chosen out of the infinite number of alternative processes that are not truth-conducive but are nevertheless survival-conducive.

Yes, I understand - I could be crazy. If Plantinga is correct that both the crazy me and the non crazy me have an equal shot at surviving, then why is it that *ACTUAL* crazy people do not have an equal probability of surviving as I do? Why is it that there aren't groups of crazies out there thriving, reproducing with each other?

That's the thing - we can actually look at what evolution has produced and look at organisms that are (compared to what we believe is 'true') hay-wired. They don't seem to have an equal shot at surviving. Why not, if Plantinga is correct?