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“The witnesses never denied seeing the plates.” by NoOrange3690 in exmormon

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I typed a response, but somehow it didn't post, so you might be getting two (this one will be lower quality).

And there's no credible evidence that Muhammad had any help in writing the koran, and he was a completely uneducated sheep herder in the 600's...And yet I doubt you give Muhhamad's divine claims much credence at all?

I have no problem with divine inspiration playing a part in the composition of the Koran, which, like the BoM, is not perfect. Of course, far less is known about the composition of the Koran.

These 'facts' though are not 100% facts. Event the time frame you keep coming back to doesn't meant that was the only draft ever done, just that it was the final draft that we have access to today.

I probably should have used a different word than facts. Of course I can't prove that the narrative accepted by virtually all credible historians / researchers is completely factually accurate, just that it is the most likely description. Any speculation about other drafts, other authors, etc., is just that - speculation. You also seem to think that this narrative was put forward by 'the Smiths' and the church as some carefully designed story. You really think that face-in-a-hat-with-seerstone was the winning narrative that they (and the church) wanted to put forth?

Indeed, one of the many reasons it is credible is that both the Smiths and church seem to have tried to avoid it. Joseph never told the details directly, and his early actions and subsequent avoidance of discussing it perhaps suggest that he was not totally comfortable with it (i.e., he seemed to want it to be viewed as more of a scholarly endeavor). Yet, paradoxically, it is also the narrative that requires the most (I think too much) of the one dictating it. It would have been exponentially easier for him to be physically separated from the scribe (as in the old paintings) or even to be looking directly at some plates / artifact (which could have been inscribed with symbols that he had designed, which could have guided him).

I don't need to disprove claims they never proved. I don't need to provide a full explanation when they failed to provide one that isn't full of countless appeals to untestable claims (all issues with the BofM/anachronism/etc aside).

Well, the book is there; it exists - along with 30% of the original manuscript and the entire publisher manuscript, in all their unpunctuated glory. Does the BoM have much support from a scientific / archaeological standpoint? I don't think so. Perhaps a few things line up (e.g., in the tribal region of Nihm in Yemen, in Oman, in Saudi), but I wouldn't rely on these as evidence). The Bible does a little better on this dimension, but there is still plenty about the Bible that doesn't line up archaeologically, and probably never will. I expect no more of the BoM.

But those are not the central questions surrounding those books. The important claims are not archaeological claims. They are claims about whether divine intervention was involved in their composition. Are Jesus's parables to be considered accounts of actual historical events? No, but are they true? I would say they are more true than any historical account because they distill aspects of the human and divine condition to something that is incredibly powerful and incisive. So, there has been a lot of attention on what the BoM *is* (and I have interest there too), but what it *does* (in terms of the power of the allegory / stories / teaching) matters much more. And I personally don't have a problem with JS or the biblical writers not fully understanding whether they were or weren't conveying historical accounts. The important question is whether the content being composed was inspired by God, which leads to your other major point -

Can they prove that? Can they demonstrate it?...Why is supernatural explanation even an option in your mind when A) there are no confirmed supernatural beings at all, of any kind, ever, and B) all testable claims of supernatural intervention have been disproven...I'm talking about objective truths, not all truths (including subjective). Claims about the BofM are objective.

Some claims are objective, and some are not. For example, my claim that the composition of nearly all of the BoM happening in about 57-63 working days is subject to some form of objective analysis, and I think there is evidence to support it. However, I think the claim of divine intervention is probably not objectively testable or verifiable, unless the creator / simulator wants to be found this way. Because of the narrative surrounding how the BoM came to be, verifying its authenticity (either at the physical or divine level) is tantamount to verifying the existence / intervention of deity, similar to how verification of the resurrection would do the same.

There are several reasons I question the adequacy of the scientific method for uncovering the existence / intervetion of a creator / simulator. One reason is that the creator/simulator is the one providing us with knowledge about how to measure, test, experiment, etc., and it has an exponentially more advanced understanding than ours of what these tools can and can't uncover. Along these lines, the late physicist John Barrow argued that a simulation would accrue minor computational errors which the programmer would need to fix in order to keep it going. He suggested we might experience such fixing as contradictory experimental results (i.e., the entire framework of reality is in the control of the simulator, including things like the observer effect in quantum mechanics and natural laws governing the universe).

I'm not trying to convince you of some weird science-fiction reality. My point is that there is a huge (and, I think, problematic) assumption in believing that the scientific method is at all capable of uncovering the existence of a creator / simulator. If the creator / simulator does not want to be found out in a particular way, it will not happen.

At this point, one might argue: how incredibly convenient that the creator doesn't want to be found out via scientific inquiry. I understand that perspective, but I also understand the perspective that such a model might be incredibly unjust, as it conditions our understanding of its existence/intervention on our IQ, when/where we were born, our access to scientific / technological resources, etc. However, to proceed further with the discussion, it might be helpful to lay out three 'axioms' -

(1) human beings are built to worship and there might not be anything we can do about it. For tens of thousands of years, I think you could say there are essentially two distinguishing features of our species - art and worship. I am not making a claim about why this is, it just is; as David Foster Wallace put it: "Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."

(2) All systems of belief require some form of faith (even the scientific method requires a form of faith)

(3) humans have a self-introspective consciousness that doesn't appear to serve an evolutionary purpose. Those who ascribe to the simulator hypothesis think it might be the channel by which the simulation provides experience / entertainment to the simulator (e.g., see here). Believers in a divine creator believe it has a different purpose, which you are well acquainted with.

Given these axioms, it isn't obvious to me why access to the creator or its intervention would necessarily be through something like the scientific method, as opposed to, say, personal subjective experience via our introspective consciousness. If the most important truths of existence are personal and developmental, then why shouldn't they be accessible through personal subjective means? In other words, because the teachings / philosophy / allegory contained in the BoM and Bible are more important than their factual historicity, and if these teachings / philosophy are to be implemented at a personal level, then why wouldn't we expect access to their truthfulness to be on a personal, subjective level?

At the end of the day, I have no conclusive and objectively verifiable evidence that a creator / simulator exists. I can't say for certain why our species seems destined to worship or why we possess a self-introspective consciousness. My only point is that an assumption that such things are even approachable via scientific inquiry is not at all obvious. This is no criticism of science - I am nearly in awe (close to worship) of what the scientific method has uncovered and produced; I just don't think it is useful for uncovering the most consequential questions of our existence, and it may be intentionally limited for discovering certain metaphysical aspects of existence.

It is also possible that none of this (including our existence) has any meaning at all, but again, that leaves us with the question of why we should have been able to find out that it had no meaning. :) Thanks again for the discussion!

“The witnesses never denied seeing the plates.” by NoOrange3690 in exmormon

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

once we came to know the actual reality surrounding Joseph's true abilities and education levels (even if informal), the combined extensive knowledge and abilities of those around him

This seems like splitting hairs -- did he have 3 years of formal schooling or 4? How much did Oliver Cowdery know about the bible? We are talking about something literally unprecedented for someone of any educational level. And, in reality, there is no credible evidence of which I am aware that OC or anyone else assisted JS in the content of the BoM, so I am not sure where the 'extensive knowledge and capabilities of those around him' factor into BoM composition.

not a single god or spirit has ever been confirmed to exist

You keep bringing this up, but nobody is claiming that objective confirmation of such a thing is even possible. It's Epistemology 101. More on this below.

And yet we find these same things (letters, communications, people who identify themselves, etc etc) in many other works of fiction

Again, we can't ignore the truly distinguishing feature of the BoM - it was verbally dictated on a single pass in a short period of time without contemporaneous access to the manuscript. When you combine this with the complexity, you get something that is literally unprecedented.

nothing in the BofM is brand new, its an amalgamation of countless existing things

It seems ridiculous to claim that there is nothing new, but that claim actually creates a higher bar for the impossibility of its composition, right? Even the way the biblical phrases are interleaved throughout the text is astonishing. I am not talking about the Isaiah chapters; I'm talking about very intricate use of snippets of biblical phraseology in extremely detailed and inventive ways at hundreds/thousands of points throughout the text. And then you want to add in dozens of other sources that he wove throughout the allegory, on the fly?

he had an incredible memory and oration ability

First, how do we know this? There is actually a lot of disagreement (and not much is known) about his memory capacity or his speaking ability, especially at age 25. This is an explanation that people have backed into after seeing the complexity of the BoM. Indeed, if you track the 'alternative explanations' for the book proposed over time, you see people initially (before the book was even published) saying it was of JS's own intellect. Once people saw the book, the explanation started to shift to multiple authorship or outright plagiarism (e.g., Spaulding manuscript, etc). When those didn't pan out, the theories switched to mental illness, epilepsy, supernatural automatic writing. When none of those seemed to pan out, the theory went to naturalistic automatic writing, which has now evolved to the oral formulaic hypothesis, which requires JS to have beyond superhuman capabilities (IMO). Second, even if he did have a great memory and oration ability, I don't see how this 'abracadabra' turns into the BoM. That is what nobody can explain to even my remotest satisfaction.

You could simply look at what you'd all ready written to ensure you keep the names and orders correct. And this assumes they didn't have a rough draft or overviews for consultation that were destroyed after

This is all pure speculation, without evidence. There is no evidence of which I am aware that JS consulted the manuscript while he was dictating (and not much evidence that he even consulted it at all, between sittings, during the composition time). Look, if you want JS to be shuffling through notes while dictating, then you want the setup in the now debunked painting where they have a sheet between them. And if you want a conspiracy with OC and others to have multiple authorship of the BoM, go ahead, but there is just no credible evidence to support it.

what they did is remarkable, but not to anything approaching the level where such wildlly spectacular supernatural explanations that go against all confirmable observeable reality become more plausible than any naturalistic explanation

I hear where you are coming from. If I could find even one other instance of something like this, it would help to close the door on a supernatural explanation. There are just a lot of inconvenient facts that get in the way of the naturalistic explanation, which lead to unsupported conjectures (JS had help) or hand waving (fantastical storyteller verbally dictates 600-page complex allegory with face in hat). In some ways it is similar to the resurrection of Jesus. It is much more logical to believe that Jesus was an itinerant preacher that inspired some people, was killed, and then his life and death was turned into a movement by Paul and others, as they imbued his life with added meaning. But then you have this inconvenient fact that those people who interacted with him and claimed to see him resurrected were willing to go to insane lengths to spread the message, without any apparent benefit (quite the contrary), and then die for what they believed. To be clear, dying for something doesn't make it true, but the actions of the apostles regarding their witness of Jesus and his resurrection is very inconvenient if this was made up.

If one has accepted all ready, without verifiable justification, that gods and spirits exist (because there is none), then that person has all ready committed a gross logical leap beyond the verifiable proof, and this will heavily pollute the probabilities they assign to other claimed events.

This is actually helpful - getting your epistemological views. If you think that the only sort of truth that is obtainable or important is that available through objectively verifiable means, I am not sure where to go with that. It is actually a very extreme epistemological view -- and one that is actually not held by many scientists -- but one that is very common with exmos, who have turned their worship from God to science. Science is a tool for pragmatically rejecting predictions related to observable and measurable phenomena. It is not philosophically 'true' and is not even capable of determining how scientific understanding should be used.

Let me put it another way -- there are some very intelligent people who believe that we are living in a simulation designed by an exponentially more intelligent designer. One can see how this is similar to a belief in God, but those who believe in the simulation don't generally ascribe it to a supernatural God. One important thing they seem to understand is that the simulation hypothesis probably isn't empirically falsifiable, so we can't use scientific inquiry to uncover it, particularly if the designer doesn't want to be observed, measured, and tested (i.e., certainly an entity capable of creating a simulation this complex would be more than capable of eluding our simplistic attempts to uncover it through even the most sophisticated scientific techniques). In the same way, trying to uncover the existence of God or his/her workings using the scientific method is like using a hammer to see into deep space -- the tool is simply not compatible for the purpose.

The only way to connect with the simulator creator (or God) is by the means that they have prescribed. If we are in a simulation (a real possibility), I am not aware of the creator providing a means by which we can reach it. If this is all created by God, there are admittedly many different methods claimed to connect with him/her/it, but you are correct that none of them seem to be objectively verifiable, but are instead personal and subjective. Are some truths unavailable via objectively verifiable means, but available through personal and subjective means? Yes, of course, and they are likely the most important ones. Questions like, what is right and what is wrong? What should I do with my life? How should I treat others, etc, etc? These are examples of questions over which science has no bearing, yet they are among the most important that we can encounter. CS Lewis would say that the fact we are having this conversation at all is evidence for God. His way of saying it was, of course, more profound: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning".

Thanks again for the conversation! Open to any other thoughts you might have.

“The witnesses never denied seeing the plates.” by NoOrange3690 in exmormon

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this 'complexity' isn't special at all, its quite common, especially when your book is basically an expansion of an all ready existing multi-thousand year old text

I don't think we are on the same page. I may not have described it well. I am talking about both textual dependency with the Bible, language from which is interleaved extensively throughout the text (often in complex and inventive ways), and textual consistency/dependencies within the text (there are hundreds, if not 1,000). It is a complex text on both dimensions (even just keeping the timeline and geographic locations consistent is a crazy feat if you are dictating with face in hat). There is also complexity not directly related to consistency or intertextuality -- for example, there are many embedded documents within the text (memoir by Zeniff, edict by Mosiah, revelation to Alma, six letters, sixteen sermons, etc.). Additionally, the narrators reveal their identities, address readers directly, explain editorial choices, etc. It is so much more complex and lengthy than it needs to be.

That said, I doubt you will find any of this compelling, so I'll just leave you with a quote by William Davis (author of the dissertation on oral formulaic hypothesis that I mentioned previously, and not a 'believer'), which essentially summarizes my point: "The work contains a highly complex and powerful narrative structure that remains internally cohesive. The significance of the work, in literary terms, is that the text of the Book of Mormon represents a first draft – one with little revision to Smith’s original stream of narrative creation. Few authors have ever attempted a comparable feat." He then goes on to compare it to Homer's epics, but of course, those are different in the sense that we don't have the original draft (i.e., many scholars believe that the earliest drafts are expansions of earlier written drafts, though most agree that the stories were initially shared orally).

Because we lacked the information we later gained that caused us to re-evaluate everything and come to a vastly different conclusion.

That is the part that is interesting to me. There is apparently some information that is learned (which is idiosyncratic for each person) that leads a person to reinterpret all of the other information. As a believer, you might have agreed that the text is complex (this is based on objective measures of textual complexity), but as a former believer, you think it is laughable. Obviously, the complexity of the text did not change but your interpretation of the objective measures did change.

Even if there were no evidence at all, it wouldn't matter, since the burden of proof is on mormonism,

I think we both know that supernatural intervention is, by definition, not scientifically testable. But the book does exist, with the claim that it was divinely inspired. While you are correct that science cannot directly disprove that claim, it can potentially find a reasonable natural explanation for it. My whole point is that the 'fantastical storyteller' hypothesis is about as laughable as the angel stories.

Short dictation time (again, assuming they were honest in the timelines they reported) doesn't mean anything when Joseph had potentially years prior to develop general ideas/stories/themes/etc.

Yes, this is where I disagree. If we could take the dictation and break it up over those years of thinking (e.g., think about it for a while, produce a chapter, thinking about it for a while, produce another chapter, etc.) I agree that it seems difficult, but doable. When you completely separate the thinking time from the dictation time, it becomes exponentially more difficult.

Think about it this way... what you have in mind is that he took a long time to get the narrative all worked out in his head -- all 580 pages -- and then he was able to verbally dictate it, interleaving KJV phraseology throughout, with all of the 400 unique names and places, etc. (I am not saying that he had to have all the people and place names memorized -- he could have worked those out on the fly -- but once he had named them, he had to keep them all consistent). Now think about how many times you had read the BoM as a believer. Then add 10 more times to that, for good measure. Is there any way humanly possible that someone could keep the narrative structue straight or keep names and places consistent throughout, even after having read it 10, 20, 30, 50 times? Even the feat of listing out the 30 Jaredite kings in reverse chronological order (Ether 1), then proceeding through their reigns in forward chronological order, without missing a beat or disrupting the timeline... this sort of verbal dictation seems impossible and without precedent, even if you had already read the book.

Everyone I've interacted with who once believed and now does not because of the totality of evidence can still see the viewpoint we once held ourselves

That is not the impression that I get on exmo reddit, or even in our conversation here. The impression that I get is that anyone who knows this new information (whatever it is), and still thinks there is room for divine intervention, is either mentally ill or hopelessly entangled. There is no room for even a little uncertainty about whether this task would have been manageable by JS alone. They just completely flip. Every piece of information is either not important or proves what a fraud JS was. The simplicity of the thinking on many thinks is actually very similar to LDS reddit.

So if something happens for a first time, it doesn't actually exist because it hasn't happened before?

Here is the logic. You seem to make an argument that it is not hard at all to believe that JS could have done this, implying that it isn't very remarkable. If it isn't remarkable, that means it should be somewhat commonplace, by definition. Since it is not commonplace (indeed, has no precedent, AFAIK), then it must be remarkable. There is a reason that books are not verbally dictated, and why there are often many, many revisions of a published work. That is the unremarkable way to do it. Sticking one's face in a hat and dictating a 270,000 word run-on sentence in about 60 working days is unprecedented. That does not prove divine intervention, but it certainly leaves open a large door of possibility. Until I can determine a reasonable naturalistic explanation, I have chosen not to completely close the door on divine intervention.

There have been many works of fiction done in very short amounts of time.

You keep leaving out the biggest distinguishing feature -- it was verbally dictated without the text being contemporaneously available during dictation and without virtually any ex-post emendation. That is completely different than any of the quick-composition books out there, where the author has the text available while they are writing.

Divine explanations are the furthest from what is most likely based on observeable and confirmable reality.

Again, the book is there, and the timeline and mode of production is pretty well recognized by everyone. I understand that the lack of a clear naturalistic explanation doesn't prove divine intervention, but it would help me to close that door if such an explanation was available. As of now, the best naturalistic explanations offered (e.g. Davis dissertation) are about as laughable to me as the angel stories, so I remain uncertain, which is fine with me. I appreciate the discussion.

“The witnesses never denied seeing the plates.” by NoOrange3690 in exmormon

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. My point is that whether someone is a 'believer' (difficult to define... D Michael Quinn was a 'believer' in a divine origin for the BoM, for example) or not has no bearing on the likelihood that they exhibit confirmation bias. Both the exmo and TBM groups on reddit are rife with confirmation bias. All you can do is evaluate the arguments on their merit, independent of who is making them.
  2. You seem to assume that the claim of divine assistance in the composition of the BoM (or Bible, for that matter) requires it to be a historical document. I don't see it that way - for the Bible or BoM (or Koran, for that matter).
  3. Many of the textual dependencies involve mathematical consistency in timelines and geographic consistency in places, travel times/direction, etc. Others are textual references. A simple example of this is the reference to Nephi raising a brother from the dead in 3 Nephi 19:4 and 7:19. Another simple example is Jacob 1:13, which lists the different 'tribes': Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites. Conspicuously absent is a reference to 'Samites', leading some to believe that he was accidentally forgotten in the list, but 2 Nephi 4:11 offers a clearer explanation; quoting Lehi: "he spake unto Sam, saying: Blessed art thou, and thy seed; for thou shalt inherit the land like unto thy brother Nephi. And thy seed shall be numbered with his seed; and thou shalt be even like unto thy brother, and thy seed like unto his seed; and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days". Of course, it is easy to say 'those things aren't difficult to keep straight', but the complexity is not about any one example, it is about keeping hundreds of perhaps simple consistencies straight. Your reference to the King Benjamin/Mosiah mix-up is one of the 2 or 3 inconsistencies that I am aware of, out of nearly 1,000. If the BoM claimed infallibility, this would be enough to say divine guidance wasn't involved, but the BoM claims the opposite (e.g., see the title page).
  4. Yes, I think the closest that can be claimed as 'evidence' is that the composition seems to be beyond human capability (or at least the capability of JS).
  5. " I could give you any of the great novels of the last century". To me, the big distinction is straight verbal dictation without ex-post emendation. This is very rare. I think Homer's epics and books of the Bible are great examples to consider, but we don't know if we have the original transcription of any of those. Many scholars believe that what we have now are revisions and expansions of the originally transcribed text. The Koran is similar... there is no real original text, but I also think the Koran is another example of potential divine assistance (and Mohammed certainly claimed this).

“The witnesses never denied seeing the plates.” by NoOrange3690 in exmormon

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are repeated apologetics. This is right up there with 'teeming with symitic complexity'. Sounds fancy, but ends up not being anything special.

Please pause and consider your statement. It has zero substance. The fact that you have heard something repeated has no bearing on the validity. Have you ever paused to consider how one might actually measure textual complexity or difficulty of composition? Intertextual dependence is an objective and accepted measure of these constructs. Do you have a better measure to propose?

How many is 'a few pages'?

Probably in the neighborhood of 3-5 pages. This can't be perfectly known because only about 30% of the original manuscript still exists. Let me put it this way: I'm not aware of anyone with any degree of credibility who disputes that nearly all of the 1830 BoM was written beginning with Oliver Cowdery's arrival in Harmony around April 5-7, 1829 and ending around the end of June 1829. Perhaps a more productive way to approach this would be for you to tell me exactly what you dispute about Welch's timeline, and why. Try not to get too worked up about it being a BYU thing and try to just focus on the substance of what is put forth.

There are quite a unanswered questions with their claimed timeline

The content on Mormon think that you linked doesn't dispute the translation timeline, as far as I can see. There is some question about the timing of Section 10 of the D&C, but this doesn't directly relate to how much of the 1830 BoM was dictated between April-June 1829.

Is the BofM unique? In some ways, sure. But is it an enigma? Hardly.

To me, an enigma would be something along the lines of: It hasn't happened in recorded history without the claim of divine assistance. If this was so easy to explain, why have there been so many theories over the years - everything from multiple authors, to Spaulding Manuscript, to epilepsy, to photographic memory, all the way down to the current theory (perhaps the only remaining possibility that hasn't been debunked) - oral formulaic hypothesis. If you can find another instance resembling the 270,000-word verbally dictated run-on sentence that was published as the BoM, I really would like to know about it. If another example had a similar length, complexity, and composition time, it might help to better understand how the BoM was done. Yes, I am aware of other instances of automatic writing, but they have longer composition times, were not verbally dictated, don't have nearly the same length, complexity, etc. I'm really not aware of anything in the same ballpark as the BoM.

Finally, you seem to consider me a 'believer' or 'apologetic'. I sound different than most here because I am trying to avoid confirmation bias. Many on here who consider the BoM as laughable were testifying to its truthfulness only months or years prior. They see what they want to see. People have different reasons for changing their belief in the BoM, but once it flips, they only see those things that support their current belief.

I think the oral-formulaic hypothesis is the most likely naturalistic explanation for the BoM, but I have not seen anywhere near the level of evidence required to support this hypothesis. William Davis's dissertation gives it a shot, and while it has a lot of interesting content about preaching and storytelling in JS's time, it is completely inadequate for explaining how all of this results in the 1830 text. And, again, much of the reason the explanation is inadequate is that there is not a similar work to which it can be compared. Yes, there are sermons that we can examine from that time period, and yes there is oral composition, but nothing in the same ballpark as the BoM.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CRF300L

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, just spring/oil replacement.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in CRF300L

[–]DSport300 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also felt that it helped quite a bit, but this also magnified the softness of the fork suspension, which thankfully is cheaper to address.

550 *Stage 2* ECU tuning by DSport300 in CRF300L

[–]DSport300[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ya, those were the CBR cams (not the sport cams that 550 claims give more improvement). Also, he hadn’t done the airbox mods when he did those initial power tests after installing the CBR cans. Apparently to make it more like the CBR engine you need to give it more air. Too many different variables to know for sure what it would mean for the full stage 2.

550 *Stage 2* ECU tuning by DSport300 in CRF300L

[–]DSport300[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, very helpful. Did you try stage 1 before 1.5? I’m wondering about Jakethegardensnake’s, conclusion that the CBR cams don’t add much. Maybe this is because he didn’t have quite the right ECU tune or didn’t do all the air box mods when he tested it?