¶1Right. So, I apologize. This is a delayed really late video. This was supposed to be like Q&A for when I reached 3,000 subscribers, but I just passed 4,000. And, you know, I'm just busy.
¶2You I in addition to this, I have a PhD that I do, and I just it just didn't take priority. Anyway, I'm sorry, but we're here now. Question one, which guest has changed your mind or challenged you the most since starting the channel? here. I think like in terms of my philosophical work, probably like Michael Hu, I've had him on the channel like six times if not more.
¶3We've talked about moral realism, libertarian free will, his case for reincarnation, and so on and so forth. And I think that he's given me a lot more confidence in these philosophical positions. He's made them feel a lot more philosophically respectable to me. And then Troy Dana has got to take pride of place as number two or at least close to it because of his critiques of the fine-tuning argument that [snorts] keep me up at night. And we have a uh we have a co-authored paper coming out.
¶4Well, it's under review. It'll be coming out soon where we kind of really try to rigorously assess this anti-design argument. So, good on you, Troy. Thank you for keeping me honest. What reasons do we have to believe that the fundamental constants are ultimately independent of each other?
¶5I don't know that we have powerful re we don't I I don't think we have any reason to think that they are dependent upon one another. So, so what I take this question to be getting at is we think of like the constants of physics given contemporary physics. There's no like explanation for why these various parameters found in models of physics or the equations of physics. There's no real reason that they have the values they do. They seem to just be brute contingent features of our universe.
¶6These are things like the masses of fundamental particles or the strengths of various fundamental forces. They're just given. There's no reason that they have the value they do. And across the board, it's like that there are 32 different dials that determine the effective physics of our universe. And it doesn't seem like when you turn any one of these dials, the others turn as well.
¶7Doesn't seem to be any relationship between them. They can all vary independently. Not always, but but in general, that seems to be right. Uh I think that while there may well be deeper physics here, there's no reason to think that when we do finally get say a quantum theory of gravity, it will show that all of these dials actually reduce down to one parameter and when you change that that determines the values of all the rest. That's a theoretical or epistemic possibility.
¶8But I think we shouldn't hold our breath thinking that that will that will come about. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in contemporary physics that indicates that that will happen. What are some of your hobbies? Outside philosophy. Well, thank you, Crimson NL2349 for asking.
¶9Uh, cooking. I like to cook. When I'm in Oxford, I cook every day. Uh, what did I put? Oh, drinking coffee.
¶10I do that a lot. That's a big part of my personality. I used to make wine and mead and cider. That was a that was a cool hobby that not any most people don't really know about because I don't really do it anymore. I had to give that up when I moved to Oxford, but I still have all of my wine- making equipment in a closet here in my mom's house where I am right now.
¶11I don't drink anymore though, so I probably won't get back into that. But if you're curious, I hesitate to share this, but there is a whole YouTube channel that came before this one where I was a homebrew home wine- makingaking channel where I cataloged all of my efforts at making homebrew and I showed you how to do it. It's called Let's Wine About It. So, if you're ever bored and you want to laugh at my kind of ill ill-based efforts to create these YouTube tutorials, go check them out. Uh, were you ever an atheist?
¶12No. What is your answer to the question, why is there something rather than nothing? Um, I think that a necessary being of some sort is the answer. I I think that if there is ultimately an explanation for why there's anything at all, it will have to be because there is a thing that could not fail to exist. So, it has to be the case that there's something there's a necessary being.
¶13That's their existence is just as necessary as the necessity that we attach to the truth 2 plus 2 equals 4. just ha it cannot fail to be [snorts] whether that being is God or you whether you can prove that is a much different question. I I think that one of the ways you escape the puzzle of getting real contingency out of a necessary being because the worry is like if you have a necessary being and all of its features are necessary then surely anything it does is also necessary and so if it creates things it does so necessarily so there can't be any real contingency in the world. Well, one of the ways out of that is to affirm like libertarian freedom that this necessary entity has libertarian freedom and can freely choose to do a or not a even given identical circumstances. It just it just chooses.
¶14I think that or like quantum indeterminacy can help solve this riddle. So there's some plausibility to a personal or theistic foundation or answer to the question why is there something rather than nothing. That's a whole It's a whole kettle of fish and I'm not equipped to assess it. Have you ever considered becoming a model? Stop.
¶15Oh my god. Stop. How much time do you spend thinking about theories of modality? Almost none. I mean, that's not that's not entirely true.
¶16I've spent a little bit of time thinking about branching actualism, but like barely any. I want to I want to think about it more. Oh, and and Louisian moto realism. I have a paper under review but given an RNR at a very prestigious journal philosophy that's philosopher code speak for revise and resubmit where I look at louisian motoral realism in part along with other things. So I've thought about it a little bit.
¶17Have you ever had a religious experience? No. Not not in the sense that I could recognize it as such. Nothing nothing powerful or any different than ordinary experiences. It my my religious experience if I can speak of it is very subtle.
¶18just kind of like a a sense of God's presence here or there maybe, but nothing nothing like the burning bush type experience. Besides fine-tuning, what are the best arguments for theism? Um, I think the argument from contingency might work. You know, that's got Josh Rasmmanson and Alexander Puce their intellectual power behind it. So, I'd like to read more thoroughly their discussions of the argument.
¶19It's got primapacia plausibility. I like the idea of the argument from the applicability of mathematics that various scientists and philosophers have pointed to but then that William Lane Craig is kind of fleshed out. It's adjacent if not just continuous with the fine-tuning argument uh where you find these these improbable occurrences within the laws of physics that seem to point to a designer. I I like it. So I I figure that if the fine-tuning argument works, this one probably does, too.
¶20They probably stand or fall together. So it's something I want to think about more. [snorts] I've also wanted to do work on the moral argument because I think that if I could defend the fine-tuning argu argument and the moral argument, that's a pretty decently fully orbed case for a perfectly good all- knowing all powerful god. I think it it provides a a decent case for theism as such rather than just like a cosmic designer or just a perfectly good foundation. If you can combine them, you get you get a decent boost to theism's probability.
¶21What are the chances that universalism is true? So I think given theism or given any view according to which the foundation of reality is like perfectly good and all things are aimed towards a good end. I think the the odds of universalism are are very high. And I think given theism specifically where it's not just a perfectly good being but also one that's all knowing and all powerful the odds that such a being will find a way to realize the ultimate fulfillment for every individual human being and to win their free ascent without violating their free will I think is very high. So contingent upon theism without supplementing it with specific religious doctrines, I think universalism is is a is a very rational position to hold.
¶22Were you always smart? Yes. What do you think about Paul Draper's understated evidence objection to fine-tuning? [snorts] So probably should have prepared this a bit ahead of time, but as I recall the objection, it's basically saying that like the relevant datim in all of the different theistic arguments is underspecified. It's it's abstracting away the aspects of our evidence that might disisconfirm theism so that we get this kind of gerrymandered evidence that confirms theism, but that's only because we've ignored all those parts that disisconfirm it.
¶23Kind of like, you know, a defense attorney might point to various lines of evidence that show that they're the defendant is innocent, but they're just ignoring those parts. maybe DNA evidence or or v CCTV video evidence which you know implicate the defendant they're just ignoring it. So for example in the case of uh fine-tuning he'll say yeah sure the fact that the constants all fall into the life permitting range maybe that raises theism's probability but then once you step back and look at other features of the universe like the fact that it's nearly barren of all life that disisconfirms theism. So it's not clear once you once you zoom out and extend your scope to include all the evidence that you get confirmation for theism. Um this is not I mean I would say this to Paul myself.
¶24This is not really an objection. This is just saying that we have other lines of evidence that outweigh or at least counterbalance the claimed evidence in favor of theism. Fine. I mean but put that way like of course of course the the atheist is going to say that. It's not all that unique a point.
¶25I also don't think that that specific case of so-called understated evidence where the universe is barren of life just does anything to outweigh fine-tuning evidence. I think that evidence if if it has any significance at all just is very weak evidence against theism. Theism has gives you some expectation of kind of like a lifeabundant universe. But once you've already factored in fine-tuning, the odds of a lifeabundant multiverse on or of a universe on naturalism are not going to be like many orders of magnitude less. So that the degree of disisconfirmation that you get when you notice that the universe is not life permitting, yeah, it takes a tiny hit, but not that much.
¶26So it's just weak evidence. It certainly doesn't counterbalance the claimed evidential significance of fine-tuning. So there you go. That's what I think. Paul, if you have a problem with that, then come on the podcast and we can chat.
¶27Do you think theism will grow or shrink as a philosophical position, not just among philosophers of religion, but also among philosophers more generally over the next decade? I I suspect it will grow. I think I'm I mean, we'll find out. I'll hopefully still be here to see that. I think that it's been the trajectory of the last 40 years, right, ever since Alvin Plantinga's publication of God and Other Minds.
¶28So I think the continued consequences of people like William Lane Craig and other Christian philosophers, the the consequences of their public outreaches and influence upon the next upcoming generation of philosophers will continue to be felt and I think that theism will continue to become more and more an intellectually serious option. I doubt that it'll become the majority view, but I think it will continue to be taken seriously and only grow in that capacity. Uh, how open are you to a fully empirical approach to religion? That is, [clears throat] one that starts with no labels or dogma and builds toward a worldview through inference to the best explanation. I mean, I think that is my approach to religion, right?
¶29That's why I'm largely agnostic because I don't see a very powerful inference to the best explanation to a fully religious worldview on the basis of the evidence that we have. So, a full send. I think empirical lines of evidence are just as a autobiographical fact more convincing to me than kind of more theoretical considerations. So, so yeah, you know, if if you could give me like that's why I think fine-tuning is so appealing is seemingly, you know, it's real empirical evidence from science. It's and on the other end of the spectrum would be the onlogical argument which just in terms of its subjective pull of persuasiveness irrespective of its objective credentials is almost worthless.
¶30So yeah that's how I feel. What do you think about the aesthetic argument for God and why is it not more popular? You know, I I think that it parallels the moral argument for theism in all important respects, but it's for sociological reasons that it's not as widely propounded or explored. People feel the pull of moral objectivity far more than they do of aesthetic objectivity. I think it's more obvious that there are certain moral facts about what is right and wrong than it is that there are certain aesthetic facts about what is beautiful or ugly.
¶31I think you can still give a parallel justification for what would you say aesthetic realism, but it's not going to be as powerful because the degree of warrant I think that we have in our in our moral experience exceeds that which we have in our aesthetic experience. It's it I just seems to me it's an easier pill to swallow to say there are no real objective standards of beauty or ugliness than it is to say there are no real objective standards of right and wrong, good and evil. So, so maybe I don't actually think then that they they are parallel or equally convincing. The the degree of obviousness of moral realism exceeds that of aesthetic realism. I think that's right.
¶32Will mainstream philosophy ever broadly abandon materialism? I don't know. I mean, I I suspect not. I I think that topics like God's existence, the ultimate nature of consciousness, morality, and so on are are too emotionally and existentially charged to allow for consensus opinion. And answering them is just far too complicated and requires far too high a degree of speculation that we will in the near future ever converge on answers to those questions.
¶33And so I think materialism will always remain a viable option unless someone can show like that a contradiction results from the materialist worldview where it's really crisp and clear and there's no way around it. Uh but even then even then the the grand priest of the world or JC Beals will come along and affirm dialtheism in those contexts. So you know even then you won't get you won't get wholesale rejection. But yeah, if you could draw out a contradiction, I think for most people that would be too big too big a pill to swallow to be a materialist. But but absent absent that the mathematical proof, no, I don't think materialism will ever ever leave us.
¶34You have previously suggested that standard arguments for theism, including the fine-tuning arguments, including fine-tuning arguments, do not decisively establish the existence of God. You have also noted that your own theistic leanings are motivated at least in part by Pascalian wager-like considerations. Have these always been your views or what or have they evolved over time? Well, certainly they have evolved over time. I mean, I used to be a pretty diehard advocate of the the fivepronged William Lane Craigesque case for the existence of God that he propounds in any given debate.
¶35Now, it's something like nine different lines of evidence, but yeah, I used to be convinced that those were all pretty much cogent. And so you had a a very strong empirical objective case for theism. I just don't think that anymore. I mean, I've only studied one of these, the fine-tuning argument, and realized just how complicated and difficult it is to assess all of these issues that I'll never hope to assess all of the different theistic arguments to come to a well-rounded opinion on all of them. It's just too much, too big, too big for any one human mind.
¶36So yeah, things change. I mean, I used to be like a young earth creationist. I used to think the rapture was right around the corner. So, I think it's important also to realize I don't believe in God because of Pascal's wager. It's important to distinguish between two sorts of pragmatic arguments you might give.
¶37Truth dependent ones or truth independent ones. Pascal's wager is an example of a truth dependent pragmatic argument. That is to say, it's trying to show that if these beliefs turn out to be true, then you will get these huge benefits to your life like gaining eternal life and avoiding eternal damnation. By contrast, a truth independent pragmatic argument is saying regardless of whether the belief turns out to be true, you will benefit from believing it here and now just by believing in God. whether or not that belief is true will yield benefits for your life.
¶38And and there I think it's uh provides a stability for life. It provides hope that things will work out, that evil is not gratuitous, that there's life after death. That the the benefit of believing those things I think is just obvious. But I think that where your evidence base is 5050, where you're agnostic based on epistemic considerations, I think it's obviously rational for then pragmatic considerations to come in and tip the scales one way or the other. So for that reason, I'm I'm fine if a large part of the reason I believe in God is because of these non-truthdirected reasons as much as that might irk people.
¶39Do you agree that either universalism or is true or theism is false? So I think this is a a plausible argument. If God exists, universalism is true. Universalism is not true. Therefore, God does not exist.
¶40You might present that argument. I have no idea how you'd prove the second premise, but I think the first one is right. Uh so unless you've been to hell and come back, then I don't know how you're going to press that argument. So I agree that the claim is right. either universal universalism is true or theism is false.
¶41But I don't see any significance to it. Can't derive anything substantive from that. I think the reality of the afterlife is just as removed to us, if not more so as the reality of God's existence. But even then, like, how does how would hell fit into an atheistic universe? I mean, maybe in a horrific scenario in which there is like an evil creator God, but but I don't know.
¶42Doesn't seem that plausible. I think it's better to argue if God exists, universalism is true. God exists and therefore universalism is true. What has your acceptance rate been so far? That is acceptances per submissions.
¶43I think what this person is asking about is my acceptance rate at journals. And that answer is pretty good. What do you think about tag? I think this is the transcendentalist argument for God. I only have the thinnest understanding of what it is.
¶44It's not been defended seriously in mainstream philosophy of religion. So, it's not of interest to me. I don't know. It's It's quite obscure. Maybe it works, but I don't really know anything about it.
¶45It doesn't have the same aesthetic appeal to me as does fine-tuning. So, how can one find one's life's purpose? Uh I I don't know obviously but I would pay attention to what makes you happiest in life. I think life is too short to pursue money and fortune and fame and security of those things for their own sake at the expense of love. So I think that you should do what you love and you should make time for the people that you love.
¶46And if you do that, I think you'll get pretty close to what this life is all about. Does Christian universalism significantly weaken the evidential problem of evil? So, I think that universalism obviously helps in a way because it decreases the gravity, the weight, the significance of the evil and suffering that transpires in the world. So imagine every single instance of horrendous evil and suffering from the entire stretch of human history and now tack on the claim that every person involved in these instances of suffering ceases to exist when they die. I think that is a tragedy of incomprehensible proportions.
¶47But then instead keep all of the suffering, all of the evil. But then but then add the claim that all of these people went on to an eternal joy in communion with God and with others in relationship with God in relationship with others of joy, peace, serenity and bliss. then I think that reality as a whole is far less tragic and the evils and the suffering far less deep because they don't they don't reach into reality and stain it nearly as much in a universalist framework. So I think that if universalism is true then the tragedy that we attach to evils and to suffering in human history is lessened obviously and to a huge extent. Now whether that solves the problem of evil, I don't know.
¶48I don't think so because I deny that merely giving someone a good thing after doing a bad thing to them is a morally sufficient reason for doing the bad thing. So it's not enough to get God off the hook to say, well, he gives everybody a eternal bliss after all the terrible suffering. There still needs to be a morally sufficient reason for it. But I do think it it weakens the problem of evil in this kind of way. What gives you the strongest reason for doubt that Christianity is true?
¶49You are not allowed to just say the existence of evil. Well, yeah. I mean, the problem of evil, but specifically the problem of horrendous evils. I mean, things that I don't even want to talk about. These these truly mindbending awful awful tragedies that transpire in this world.
¶50really sitting and thinking about them makes it very difficult to think that an all powerful perfectly loving being has arranged all of this. I think the version of the problem of evil that gives me the most pause is like the so-called common sense problem of evil which is the claim that just just by thinking about some of these scenarios we can see that they are gratuitous. We can see this like modal claim that there is no possible morally sufficient reason for them. And I know there are responses to it. Some people think skeptical theism can be extended as a response to the the problem the common sense problem of evil.
¶51But I don't know that that one gives me the most pause. And I used to think skeptical theism was like a oneshot successful resolution to all problems of evil. But I don't think it works anymore because I think it overgeneralizes. I think it has the implication that no possible evil, no matter how widespread, deep, or significant or plenteous, could ever be any possible evidence for atheism. Even if the entire universe were filled with sentient creatures suffering seemingly unending torment that if if the machinery of skeptical theism works in our mundane every cases, it seems to overgeneralize and show that even this observation would be no evidence for theism or for atheism.
¶52But that's absurd. Of course it would be. And so unless you can show me the asymmetry or the reason that skeptical theism works in everyday cases but not this extreme case, then I don't think it works. How have your theistic beliefs endured in the wake of Paul Draper's atheism in the problem of evil? Well, I haven't finished it yet.
¶53So, there remains to be seen. Um, I mean, I think two reasons that I still retain theistic belief or or will still retain it even after finishing the book. I think the first is kind of an inductive argument from my prior experience with objections to theistic belief. Most of the time, these things give way under careful reflection. I can usually fit the pieces of the puzzle together in such a way that the rationality of belief in God is held up and affirmed such that my crediences are basically where they were prior to encountering this this or that objection.
¶54So that might not satisfy the atheist. Maybe that's an obnoxious reason, but that is that is the honest answer. I think um arguments for incoherence, the incoherence of the divine attributes is a good illustration. extended reflection upon, you know, the supposed incoherence of omnipotence. You know, can God create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?
¶55Or the incompatibility of um divine fornowledge and human freedom. I think careful reflection on those objections have produced beautifully intricate and well thoughtout models of God that avoid incoherence. And so it's actually just increased our insight into what these what these attributes mean or what they ought to mean. So I think that just that just illustrates that very careful reflection upon these objections when you really take them seriously but you don't just give into them generally they give way to a resolution maybe not you know I mean it it the the book makes the problem of evil more acute for me but it's not it's not generated some seismic shift in what I think if you could talk to three dead philosophers of religion which three would you pick? I mean, dead philosophers of religion, that's specific.
¶56Um, I think Marilyn McCord Adams was a Christian philosopher who wrote about horrendous evils and their impact on belief in God. I I haven't I haven't read her signature book on that very topic, but I think that she and I would be kindred spirits because we would see the superficiality of contemporary responses to the problem of evil and their their unwillingness to grapple with truly horrendous evils. The I think she calls them like evils so souls shattering that they threaten to destroy a person's ability to find meaning in life. those things happen and if you are a philosopher who believes in a perfectly good God and in spite of those things then I think you owe us an answer as to how we can reasonably believe that in light of horrendous evils. So I would like to talk to Marilyn McCord Adams Thomas Aquinus because I disagree with his metaphysics his arguments for God and in general his confidence in the conclusions that we can derive from philosophical reflection alone.
¶57I've not read the whole Suma Theologia. I've only read some selections of it, but pretty confident guy and I think that outstrips the actual conclusion, the strength of the conclusions he's able to rationally draw, but maybe not. I I think it would be a good debate. Me and Thomas Aquinus. Um, and he's not typically classed as a philosopher of religion, but Plato would love to talk to the guy.
¶58I really fell further in love with philosophy uh after reading The Republic in high school. We all read it together as a class and debated its merits chapter by chapter or I guess book by book and it was fun. It was a great deal of fun and I liked his rigorous logical kind of argumentation that comes through through Socrates. To me it looked very much like analytic philosophy. So I think I think Plato and I would have a lot of shared assumptions about how to do philosophy.
¶59And I think again it'd be a good conversation. I can tell you this. I would not speak to Kirkugard. I cannot stand that guy. Since arguments like fine-tuning, psychological or nomological harmony, and conceivability arguments for dualism seem to turn on one's view of modality, how do we develop a good intuitive framework for something so unintuitive?
¶60That's a tough one. I don't have the time to get into all the nitty-gritty on this one, but I don't I don't think they turn on one's view of modality. Fine-tuning currently, as I understand, doesn't because everybody agrees that a life prohibiting universe is metaphysically possible. There might just be disagreement about its physical possibility. You know, maybe there's deeper physics that makes life permitting values for these parameters kind of fixed, but but nobody thinks that that such is either inconceivable, a life prohibiting universe or impossible.
¶61So I don't think that turns on one's view of modality. But I also don't think these other arguments like psychophysical harmony or the nom the nominological argument which pertains to the laws of nature. I don't think you have to assume a certain view of modality or a certain view about the contingency of these core phenomena in order for the argument to get off the ground. Instead, all you have to assume or or have is the epistemic possibility that these things are contingent in a robust sense. If you grant that then I think the relevant data you know psychophysical harmony or the harmony in the laws of nature that actually gives you reason to think both that theism is true and that the relevant phenomena are contingent.
¶62So there you go. That's that's my provocative hot take. I wrote a little note here that says opy and awesome theistic evidence but [snorts] don't know what I was getting at when I wrote that. So we're just going to have to wait for another day for that insight to come back. If life goes exactly how you want for the next 10 years, what are you doing at that point?
¶63Uh, I'm a professor of philosophy with kids and a family. If you came to believe that fine-tuning did not work at all and gave no credence to theism, say because new scientific discoveries showed that the constants could not have been other than what they are, uh, where would you stand on the theism atheism spectrum relatively unchanged? Why does God exist? One answer, what did I say? One answer is that God exists because it's good that God exists.
¶64It's a it's a good thing, the best thing that reality includes a greatest conceivable being and there's this axiological requirement that good things exist, but I don't think that's a good answer. Another would be that God exists because it's possible that God exists. And here you'd give the standard ontological argument for theism. There's something to that. I mean, it's not obviously false people.
¶65Philosophers still debate the merits of the onlogical argument. But if it succeeded, I think it would give you a pretty robust answer to the question, why does God exist? Well, because God exists in some possible world. It's possible that God exists and therefore God must exist. I I think the general lesson here is that all of our worldviews, no matter what our worldview is, we will hit explanatory bedrock beyond which there's just no further answers.
¶66I I don't think it can be turtles all the way down. There will be a fundamental layer and you can ask but why this? I don't know that there is a intelligible answer to that question. Is it possible for someone without a formal degree in philosophy to get published in a professional journal? Yes.
¶67Yes, it is. Troy Dana has been published in top tier journals and as far as I'm aware has no formal degree in philosophy. He's very, very smart. So, I think the only thing limiting you is your belief in yourself. What does it really mean for me or you to exist?
¶68I recall one explanation from Craig and Morland's 2017 philosophical foundations for a Christian worldview where they said to exist is to have properties. So non-existent things do not properly speaking have properties. It's not true to say that the unicorn has the property of having a big single horn in their forehead because unicorns don't exist. They don't have any properties. So to exist is to have at least one property.
¶69And of course we could talk about certain concepts having certain properties. But then maybe those exist in some sense. But the things they refer to unicorns or leprechauns or Santa do not properly speaking have any properties because they don't exist. I found that intuitive. Do you worry that because theistic arguments are more susceptible to technical defeaters such as a particular view of modality?
¶70Where is this coming from? Why does everyone think everything stands or falls with modality? While atheistic arguments often appeal to simpler examples of evil, the atheist may be making fewer metaphysically heavy commitments and therefore have the stronger case. Right? I think the key here is to show that the central theistic arguments don't require you to commit one way or another to these views about modality or contingency or or whatever rather they can give you grounds for preferring one to the other.
¶71So I think that's that's the implication with respect to for example psychophysical harmony. The the correl the yeah that's right the correlations between various physical states and various mental states. When I have the physical state in my brain right now, whatever this is, that corresponds to a mental state of seeing an Apple iPhone 2 feet away from my face, you know, maybe that connection is metaphysically necessary so that it doesn't make sense to ask, you know, why are there these fortuitous alignments between various physical states and mental states? You know, maybe they're identical. So, it doesn't make sense to ask why aren't they different?
¶72But I I think that Cutter and Crmit have made the case that in that in in the case of psychophysical harmony, you just have to allow for the, you know, open epistemic possibility that this thesis of metaphysical identity um is false. You just have to allow for the epistemic possibility that these connections between mental states and brain states are contingent. And if you do that then the probabilistic argument can get off the ground and it gives you very strong reason for thinking both that theism is true and that psychophysical connection psychophysical laws are contingent. So yeah if you then have a really powerful argument on the other side of the scale for the thesis that these laws are necessary well then then maybe that would counterbalance the harmony argument. But my point is just that you don't have to begin assuming their contingency in order for the arguments to work.
¶73rather the arguments can give you strong reason to affirm their contingency or those particular views of modality or whatever. So no, I don't see any strong asymmetry here between the metaphysical commitments required for you know the staple theistic arguments versus the staple atheistic ones. Who are you? Well, that is a good question and maybe after watching this video you have a bit more of an idea. >> [music] [music]