¶1Heat up Heat. Hello, hello everyone all across the vastness of the internets and well at least here on Earth. I I can't speak to the rest of the galaxy, but we're we're we're have we're doing we're doing a fun one today. We're starting a fresh debate. Thank you all so much for joining us.
¶2Mark and I do these debates every weekend. We alternate channels to make sure you're subscribed to both channels and press all the other buttons while you're at it. Mark is linked in the description. There's a playlist for past debates. We've been doing these for years.
¶3>> But more on what we're about to get into tonight in just a moment. First, Mark, how are you? >> Yeah, I'm okay. I'm tired, but I'm good. I'm good.
¶4I I had a fresh debate. I felt good about it. Um Yeah, I I I'm doing well. Thank you. How how are you?
¶5>> Pluses and minuses. I'm I'm I'm continuing to exist. Some some things are better, but some things are still a bit of a struggle. So, we're I'm we're trying trying to go day by day at this point. >> I guess that's a good thing.
¶6Some Some would say that's the bare minimum, you know, like um Yeah, I I think I think Yeah, some some would some might say some might say >> I Well, Yeah, some some days getting through the day is itself a victory, but we're doing more than that today. Today >> we're reviewing a new debate. Well, it's it's an old debate. It's a new debate for us. It's from a few years ago, and I find this very, very funny given recent events.
¶7So, as you may recall, I swiped Cameron Bratus's list of top 10 mustwatch debates, and every now and then, we put one of those on on screen. Cameron Bratusi from Capturing Christianity, who himself went from evangelical to Catholic a couple of years ago. >> One of the debates, number eight on his list, I believe. >> Well, I was going to say we a lot of them we wonder why they're on the list. >> Yeah.
¶8like for Cameron Batuzi or or for Christianity because you know they're they're in absolute shambles for Christianity while the atheist you know like wasn't um Dan Barker on there as well like when he just smoked somebody in a like anyway sorry go ahead it's just I some most of the ones that you've pulled up I've gone why would Cameron Petuzi want Christians to watch this >> I can't I cannot speak for Cameron. I have no idea what the hell he's thinking. But this one uh was hosted on Cameron's own channel, Capturing Christianity. Um, >> Ryan, >> you may have heard that in in the past few weeks awkate named Joe Schmid rather loudly converted to Catholicism and then went on kind of an unhinged tirade of, you know, 10 plus hour streams explaining why miracles are real and other magic stuff. Cool, I guess.
¶9Whatever. But the reason that made so many ripples in a big part of the skeptical community was because he was setting himself up for many years as a very careful skeptical thinker. And then he just kind of chucks it all and goes, "Magic exists." >> And consequently, on top of that, a bunch of other stuff happened. He's he's been good friends with Cam this entire time. He's a former Catholic and now he's a Catholic again.
¶10So make of that what you will. But in any case, after he first encountered Randall Rouseer, um, who is Twitter's most tentative apologist, you might say, that's that's actually what he calls himself is the tentative apologist. Um, who, if you're not familiar, is a uh, theology professor, I believe. I'll I'll pull up his bio in a second. But >> yeah, >> in any case, Joe Schmid as an agnostic with Randall Rouseer, who is an apologist, a a theologist, an actual theologist, not just an apologist cosplaying.
¶11He's like a professor at a seminary kind of thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And they decided to do a devil's advocate debate, which for anybody not familiar is when you present the other side's position, not one that you yourself believe.
¶12And people have mixed thoughts on these kind of things. A lot of people find it disingenuous or um an easy way to misrepresent the other side's positions, which could be true, but if you misrepresent the other side, you lower your own performance in that particular debate. I find them and and Cam tends to agree. Weirdly, Cam and I agree on this one. It helps you understand where the other side is coming from better when you put yourself in in their shoes.
¶13But that's that's just my position. So all of that to sum up, >> Joe Schmid, >> former skeptic, now recon converted to Catholicism, was at this time doing a devil's advocate as someone who very fervently believes in God. And I find that very very funny. >> Um I I'm just looking up now um what what people are saying. I mean, I see the first video which is like um Joe Smith, I can just convert it to Catholicism.
¶14Here's my story. But a lot of it is like the next two is Glenn Scrivener who we've definitely covered before um sort of saying um where's Jesus? I trust of Joe Schmidt. I have thoughts. So he basically is critical of him.
¶15And the next one is Brian Holdzsworth with a false convert pointing to him kind of thing. So he's getting lambasted both sides from atheists saying this is terrible reasons and you know the next ones are um yeah I see Randall Rouseer the tent of apologist but I also see like mind shift and um you know uh um like you know just a whole bunch of atheists rebutting him as well. So it sounds like the the Christians don't believe him either. like it's just >> well there is some reason to be suspect. I mean, for one thing, in in that first video, the short video where he declared that he's he's Catholic again, he um apparently >> I didn't watch the whole thing, >> but he said some questionable things, but he ended the video with send me money, support me on Patreon.
¶16That will prove that God is real. But also, he added a new tier to his Patreon of $250 a month and called it the saintly tier. And people are like, "This is a really transparent grift, my guy." And yet his subscriber count has nearly tripled since just a couple of weeks ago, >> and who knows what's going on with his Patreon. Now, I have to confess once I heard about the Saintly tier. I also added a $250 tier to my Patreon, but mine is the divine tier.
¶17Instead of having to wait until you're dead and be canonized through the long Catholic process, whatever rigomearroll, I >> will deify you today >> for the same price. Instead of [ __ ] around with maybe being a saint after you're dead, I will make you a god right now. >> Yeah. >> Beat that, Joe. >> Yeah.
¶18I I mean, obviously, we don't know the guy's mind, but that seems suspicious to me. Um, look, I I I think that anybody that is being that disingenuous, what do I know? Like, whatever. I I I just don't see it really um I I don't see it really changing anybody else's opinions just because some you know I mean the the Christians are going to jump up and down and go you know uh well you it's this this guy that's converted kind of thing. Yay.
¶19And see you should convert. But like we know tons of atheists that have deconverted. And the funny thing is that atheists generally don't jump up and down and say, "Oh, look, somebody's, you know, deconverted kind of thing. We just go, >> maybe we should. Apparently, it's team sports up in here and we didn't know.
¶20We're out here looking for truth, but we're supposed to be going rah rah go my side." >> Right. Right. >> I mean, >> we figured it out, folks. That's what we've been doing wrong all this time. >> Yeah.
¶21>> Hey, support us on Patreon. So we we know that God's not real. >> No, I mean feel free to support on Patreon if you like what I'm doing here. I appreciate it, but like don't don't make it a way to show your philosophical positions that it sucks I have to put that caveat on there that that actually was a joke. You're welcome to support, but that actually wasn't.
¶22Anyway, so Randall, for anybody who isn't familiar, because some people just aren't, and that's and that's fine. Um, here's Randall's biography, and I I really enjoy this. And so I just he he calls himself, uh, the tentative apologist, progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary, critical, Christian, not critical thinking. We don't do that here. Christian thinking.
¶23>> No, this >> and that's what I'm aiming for. Anyway, >> thank you. >> Whole bunch of books. >> Okay. So, I've got questions for a start.
¶24What does progressively Christian mean? Does that means he's sort of like champions progressive causes like gay rights and, you know, things like that? Or progressively evangelical? Or is he like, you know, will he evangelize um you know, while skydiving or something? You know what I mean?
¶25Like his evangelical is progressive or is he an evangelical that that champions progressive thing? You get what I mean? Like it it's not really clear. >> I read that and it is open to interpretation because there is a bit of poetry going on here. But I read that as he's gradually becoming more evangelical, like he's progressing along the evangelical path.
¶26>> Okay. Okay. >> Or something. I I could be completely off base there, but his >> and I don't know how you get Hang on a second. Um, how to be evangelical and gay affirm.
¶27Okay, so maybe he is championing for progressive stuff like cuz he's talking about white male privilege and how to be gay affirming. So, hey, at least that's a that's a something in his favor. Like, totally totally get it. You know, he's not being an ass to other people. That's that's definitely a tick in my book.
¶28So, Randall Rouseer, well done. I I can at least get behind that. But, um, yeah, generously orthodox, >> I mean, orthodox just means that you're you're keeping to the, um, traditional way of doing things basically. So, I'm not sure what generosity I I'm confused. Maybe it's got a different meaning.
¶29I must admit like I I I sort of I come from a completely ignorant of Christianity background. So maybe it means something a lot more. So I'm I'm certainly not going to say it's it's um a a oxymoron or anything like that. It just it confuses me to what it means. Maybe it means a lot more to Christian.
¶30Probably does. Probably does. >> It like the Bible, it can mean anything you want it to. >> Okay. All right.
¶31Well, that that's convenient. So, this is Randall's bio. It It escaped on me for a moment. Um, okay. He's he says, um, "My story begins in eternity past when God fore orained that I would come to be." Fast forward to 1973 when the divine decree was made manifest as I entered the world and Edmonton, Alberta was never the same again.
¶32At the age of four, I decided to move to Cal Kina, uh, British Columbia and I brought my family along with me and I just and you know, I mean, it's a little tongue and cheek, but like the way he phrases things, I don't know, maybe I'm old, but I find it amusing. >> It's probably a Christian joke, you know, like when God for ordained because I've seen bios like that kind of thing where they have a have a bit of a joke with the the circumstances kind of stuff. Perhaps perhaps. Oh goodness. All right.
¶33So, um, first of all, hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. I I see a whole bunch of fun people up in here. Uh, noise ending. We have we have ended noise endings noise apparently.
¶34Sapphire and Soot and and >> Hey, S. >> Keep an eye soot's got some cool stuff coming. I happen to be privy to a little bit of a preview. Soot's got something cool coming. So, so keep a weather eye.
¶35>> S's cooking. >> Let them cook. Let them cook. >> Andrew says, "Is that a snake around your neck? Are you just happy to see me?" So, the other day I I was over on Helen's and I I the outfit I was in it just cried out for a choker and I could not find my [ __ ] chokers.
¶36I don't know where. Who knows, maybe the cat stole them, whatever. And I happened to like on as the credits were counting down, I just like grabbed a ribbon that I sometimes tie around my waist to like keep dresses in place and [ __ ] I I just real quick tied a ribbon around my neck and then grabbed one of the um these these these uh scarf clip things that that Miranda sent me and and and I just attached it so it was like a br and and and I was like, "Haha." And it was fine for for the the time I was on with Helen, but I mentioned on the show that I couldn't find my damn chokers. And then today, a package shows up. Um, this is this is it's it's it's not technically a choker, although it look because it's a a snake.
¶37It it looks like a choker. Yeah, because snakes choke you. Whatever. In any case, it had been on my Amazon wish list for like two and a half years and it just showed up, I assume, because I mentioned jokers on on Ellen's show. So, thank you whoever sent that.
¶38I wasn't going to say anything until someone mentioned it because I thought it was really funny. And hello answer. Oh goodness. Oh, let's see. Deviant is of course uh Deviant wants to know if that's a I have answered.
¶39>> So there there you go. It is not actually but it's so cool because like the other side >> is just like copper colored. So, I could I can I can I'm excited. I can bend it into all kinds of different shapes and and so like I could like make it into a bracelet, which is another thing that I've like a really thick shiny bracelet and just you know what it's fine. But now you know and you know what they say about knowing our our divine moderator from last night.
¶40>> Hello. Yeah. or or yesterday morning if you're if you're Australian flavored. Um >> Maya is here. >> Maya managed to dodge all the flying moving goalpost.
¶41I I'm referring to a debate last night um on Skeptic Haven Experiment where Mark and Brody had a conversation. It was it was fine. It was it was a perfectly equitable conversation. It just Brody didn't have like a very solid position and it showed and it just >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶42>> Yeah. >> Oh goodness. All right. I I think that's just about everybody. If I missed you, my apologies.
¶43I'm I'm I'm doing my best. Oh, there's a now. Behold. >> Behold. >> I need a bell so I can You know what?
¶44It's fun. Jokes for days, folks. Tip your waitresses. I'll be here all week. All right.
¶45So, our debate begins with uh Joe Schmid on the affirmative because he's doing the devil's advocate thing and and presenting the position he did not at the time believe but does now, which is why it's very funny. >> Well, I'm glad you've you cleared that up because that could be very confusing. >> I know. I'm just so tickled. Oh goodness.
¶46Fox just arrived. Hello. Hello. My says Mark's kind of his own moderator. Made my job super easy.
¶47Barely an inconvenience. Hell yeah. Jess is here being a lovely >> Australians coming into America and taking your jobs. Damn them. True.
¶48>> Damn them all. >> Hey, did you know that while it's true um obviously there's there's an ember emoji and a mark emoji, were you aware there is also a just emoji? It's true. It's true. >> Is there I Hang on.
¶49Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
¶50Yeah. Yeah. And there's a Kelly one. I I knew about the Kelly one and the um little one. >> I forgot there was How How did I forget that?
¶51That That's That's terrible. Hey, Jess. >> Yeah, we have all all kinds of all kinds of goodies, especially for Um, Lil and Kelly co-hosted a whole lot of shows with me and so they they got emoji so that people in the chat could be, you know, >> Mhm. >> emoji at them and and whatnot. And we'll see we'll see how the future goes.
¶52I've started scheduling new deep dive deep dive lives. >> I saw that. starting we're starting season season five on uh well technically it's the day before the equinox but it's a Monday and that that seems like an opportune moment >> cuz I saw your your your ad for it and I'm like oh they're back cuz you sort of said oh I'm ending them but I'll leave the door open kind of thing. So I'm so glad that that the the deep dives are back. >> Yeah it should Oh I have so many freaking ideas.
¶53Weirdly enough, you know what? I'm I'm going to I know we do tangents here, but like it'd be a long one. So, I'll just set it aside. I'm excited. The shows are coming back.
¶54>> Y >> they're not going to be every day. I'm not going to like overstress myself because I'm still >> Yeah. >> No, >> be kind to yourself, Amber. Be kind to yourself. Yeah.
¶55>> Yes. Yes. So, I'm not going to push you to enjoy doing them so much. That's what I loved about it. Like, just how much you enjoyed doing them.
¶56And I know that any any kind of workload is is stressed. Like, you know, you shouldn't kill yourself trying to meet a workload, but it's nice if you can, you know, it really is. >> Yeah. Yeah. You should all, you know, try to do stuff that you love if if at all possible when when possible and and all of those things.
¶57Oh, goodness. Alrighty. Um, Nell says, "When a devil's advocate debate is done right, it can be a great intellectual exercise and a good way of steelman, but plenty of people just use it as as an excuse to be an asshole." And that's that's true. My >> Yeah. And I I was about to respond to that actually.
¶58And and I sort of I I I'm in two minds about them. I don't mind doing them um sort of like as as a fun thing to do, but um I I guess I worry that if I do a debate where I'm taking the Christian position, um it's going to be used against me by some random Christian kind of thing. I mean, it it doesn't it doesn't take much for some people to like cherrypick and take what you say um you know, and distort it into something they want. Uh you know, if you're saying what they want, I I really worry that it's going to be absolutely used against you at some point. I mean, I I did a um a mock debate with uh Maudi, Christopher Mauudy on um is is um is psychology a real science?
¶59And I took the negative position, which I don't believe. Don't get me look, just straight up, I don't believe that. But the people in the chat were so mad and nobody seemed to get that it was a mock debate. So, um you know, there's probably still people out there that are mad that I took that position. Um, but I I don't believe I you know, psychology you would call it a soft science, but it definitely is a science.
¶60Like just calm down. >> People are so quick to rush to judgment. I I I get that. Like um a while back, uh BS Lewis and I did did a um I I'm not even sure what to call it. It was devil's advocate for me, but not for BS.
¶61and and it was um >> whether Jesus Christ really was the Messiah. And I I I sort of cheated. >> It wasn't Jesus himself that saved anything, but it was the consequences of Christianity that that caused several historical turning points in in in history. And yeah, >> so >> but you know, that that was that was my argument. Now, VS was kind enough to not point out that I was just doing a history spanning argument from consequence, but still.
¶62>> Wow. >> It was It was fun though. >> Alrighty. Goodness. So, uh this debate um we're starting five and a half minutes in.
¶63Cam introduces everybody um and then he does the breakdown. And there is a breakdown on this one. Um, let's see. They they have 20-minute openings. Since Joe is on the affirmative on this one, that God exists, then he goes first.
¶64Uh, 20 minutes openings, 10 minute um Cam calls them rejoinders, rebuttals, whatever you want to say. Um, 10 minutes each and then 25 minutes of open discussion and then they go into Q&A. I'm not entirely sure if they do a quick closing at the end of the open discussion or not. Yeah, >> we'll we'll find out when we get there. >> Yeah.
¶65>> So, yeah. All right. Um, is everybody ready? Do you have your snacks? Do you have your water?
¶66Have Have you Have you stretched recently? You know what? >> A little. A little. I've got a coffee.
¶67That's That's a plus. >> Coffee. Oh, goodness. All right, let's hit it. See what Joe's got to say.
¶68>> So, by the way, God exists. So, by God, I'm going to mean roughly three things. First, God is a metaphysically necessary being. Uh, second, he's a perfect being. That is to say, he's maximally great, unlimited or supreme in value.
¶69And third, he's a foundational mind. Uh, and by foundational, I just mean a sort of fundamental ground. Don't forget don't forget that being in this the philosophical sense does not mean an agent something with some sort of um sort of ability to make decisions or free will like a being just means a state of being. So a state of affairs basically so this doesn't but the foundational mind obviously is pointing to something with agency but um I I would really push back on this sort of saying hey you know if if how does a mind exist as a foundation you know what I mean like a mind all the minds that we know are produced by brains or some sort of nervous system or some sort of collection of stuff like it's just Yeah. But I I get you.
¶70I get you. It's uh Yeah. Apparently, >> it's it strikes me as a bit of personification. It's it's that same classic projection we've been seeing since time in memorial where people would observe natural forces like floods and thunderstorms and things and be like, you know what, there's a something with the power to cause that and it happens to look like me and think like me and because I'm the greatest thing that ever existed, you know, it's very >> I've been thinking about this a lot, Ember. like really a lot and and I think there's two things going on and what you're describing is the anthropomorphification of natural events, right?
¶71Um but I think there's another thing going on and that's the deification of just ordinary stuff, right? Like oh the lightning strikes it's it's it's a god throwing it kind of thing and it sort of deifies that event. So I I don't know. I I think that sort of it it's two things happening at once. It's anthropomorphification, sure, but it's also well, this is just symbolic of a greater divine hoo-ha in the in the universe kind the universe is the great divine hoo-ha that is is providing us all of our um you know lives and it has an explanation for everything.
¶72So I think it's both. >> Yeah. So as as the concept of of I don't know I I don't I don't like foundational mind for a variety of reasons but we'll we'll we'll see we'll see how it goes. But as far as like necessary being as Mark pointed out and this was worth stopping for absolutely it doesn't mean there is like a bearded dude or a booby or or whatever that that has to exist. It just means there is a state that has to exist.
¶73And it's like if um I have dominoes on the brain because somebody brought up Aquinus's first way yesterday and >> okay, >> I was trying to explain to someone that um oh it was a GE video. Um he was reviewing um Jesus and whatnot versus um a a newer creator that I guess came over from Tik Tok or something. So forgive me. I can't I can't remember anyone's names. But in any case, um Jesus and whatnot terribly misunderstood Aquinus's five ways or first way, specifically the first way.
¶74And he was saying God has to be the first domino. Something has to knock down the first domino. And I'm like, "No, bestie. According to Aquinas anyway, God is not the first domino. He can't be the first domino because that would link him to causality to be the reason that causality works.
¶75A better analogy might be he's the table that enables you to set up dominoes. Even that's not a great analogy. It's more like the physics that allows the momentum to cause dominoes to do the thing dominoes do. But never mind that. So, it's a um maybe he's the person that that pushes the first domino down.
¶76>> It's It's Aquinus. He was imagining a domino into being. >> Wait, that's Anslam who imagines the greatest possible slice of pizza. I'm always confusing these these imaginary reasons, guys. That's it's a whole thing.
¶77It's a whole thing. And as far as perfect being, as I've said before, the concept of perfection is incoherent and almost always internally contradictory. To to propose a perfect anything is to propose something that cannot exist, but paradox is notwithstanding. We'll see what Joe has to say about it of reality. So I'll be defending four arguments for God's existence.
¶78uh from contingency, causal finitism, propositions, and freedom. So before delving into the first argument, uh we first need to get clear on some >> All right, I'm going to slow his ass down. >> Normally we speed these up a little bit for for efficiency reasons, but like Joe is hauling ass through his presentation. >> Principles of explanation. So the first is called the principle of explanation or PE for short.
¶79And it states that for any contingent concrete object or objects, the fact that that object or those objects exist is explained. Um, and so sometimes of course I'll say concrete object or contingent object. Other times I'll say contingent thing. I mean roughly the same thing. Um, you know, just like substances, things like people, particles, planets, amiebas, and so on.
¶80It's also important to note that >> there's there's a problem there because so so if if you don't understand concrete objects are things that exist in the real world as opposed to abstractor which is um things that don't exist in the real world but only exist as concepts in in a mind basically. So, um, Super Mario, right? The the the um the the concrete for Super Mario would be the bits of data, the electronics that that actually record what that character is, right? That's the concrete. But the image of a um Italian plumber who fights against dinosaurs, coopers, or whatever the hell he does, and jumps into pipes and things like that, that's an abstraction, right?
¶81It's an idea. it's a concept that just it doesn't exist in the real world. So if you're sort of saying um um you know for any contingent concrete objects um you're sort of it's kind of getting towards special pleading. It's sort of saying hey God's a concrete but he's not contingent so he doesn't need an explanation. And so it's sort of carving out this loophole which you can then sort of say well if the universe isn't contingent then that doesn't need an explanation either and just cut out the god completely.
¶82Mhm. Which is it's it's a neat trick and and you know, people have been saying it for years, but saying it in a bunch of different ways and there's always new people and so on and so forth is is often a lot of the special pleading arguments that can be used to justify any particular supernatural belief. You can just remove the supernatural thing and it works even better with just the reality we have. Like Mark was just saying, if you're going to special plead this kind of non-contingent thing, then that can just be the universe. We don't need magic on top of it.
¶83>> What we do need is is majestic back. Not not magic, but majestic. Okay. Okay. I'll keep working on my on my uh my segways, but thank you, Beck, for uh sending 10 gift memberships.
¶84Those went to Poor Claire. Uh, you know what? I One moment. I thought I was done with these for the moment, but now I have to read stuff. >> Oh no.
¶85Yeah, >> poor Claire. Jen Fay age. My apologies if I get these wrong because my monitor is not great even with glasses on. Um, Bruin. Uh, moccriscy.
¶86Random x80. Uh, Cafe Guitar Dog from Norway, Jillian Ren. All right. And and Shelly Belly. >> Yay.
¶87>> Thank you, Beck. And congratulations, folks. Enjoy all the fun custom emojis and assorted whatnot. Um, the gift levels are just 99 cents a month now, which means you get access to all the the cool custom emojis. There are more perks if you want to opt in and become a higher tier member, like a whole bunch of member exclusive content, early access to new uh pre-recorded videos, membersonly live streams, and and and assorted other shenanigan as as they say.
¶88But I hope you enjoy. >> Oh, but wait, there's more. >> Here I am doing my capitalism and I Beck hit it again. Thank you, Beck. Those went to uh Cissania 18, Maze Greywolf, um Curious Clay 77, maybe Katie Bluebird, um Lisa is a blogger, Robert X, Chicky Mary, Captain Pikes maybe.
¶89Oh, I'm so sorry. I can't pronounce anything. Changing Winds Productions and Burns 3132. Congratulations, folks. Yay.
¶90>> That's clearly Captain Captain Pickles. That's That's an awesome name. >> Is did Oh, Captain Pickles. >> Yeah. >> Okay.
¶91I I really My monitor is awful. I can't tell an I from an L. Oh goodness. Oh goodness. It's interesting.
¶92Very, very interesting. But I I very much appreciate it. Thank you back. >> Well, sort of Nell makes a really good point. As Graham Oppy puts it, the atheist can state the universe is a brute necessity.
¶93Well, I think it's just sort of a equilibrium thing. I think that um if Christians can claim there is a brute necessity, there's no reason why you can't say, well, it's possible that the universe is a brute, you know, necessity. the the the the the problem that their stance has is they're sort of saying it has to be a god because something must be the necessary being and don't forget being is state of affairs. So all you have to do is present as sort of a reductio or or a um as a contrary anything that just could be the brute necessity. So it's not important whether we know for sure that the the natural universe that we see is in fact the the um you know the the necessary being.
¶94Um all that we have to do is present a possible necessary being because they're relying on well it has to be a god right like so all we have to do is present an alternative. We don't have to um absolutely you know disprove a god in order to to you know sort of um um invalidate that particular line of argumentation. >> I don't even know that we have to present an alternative because as with many things a simple I don't know suffices quite well for for most things. But it is a lot easier um to >> counter a claim when you can present something that like with with a God proposal requires this much of a jump but to say you know what the universe meets the same criteria let's just call the universe a brute fact and it's this much of a jump >> well that's when they leap to the um deification >> sort of and once you start to go down this what is required from a um necessary being kind of thing and and sort of start to strike out William Lang's Craig's uh spaceless timeless uh uh you know transcendental uh you know maximally powerful personal god then you start to chip away until they're sort of saying well whatever was the necessary being if that was the universe then that's God and it's Like how was it a god at that point? >> Like if if it doesn't have these properties and it's just the uni the state of the universe at the origin of of everything emotarial.
¶95Yeah. Thank thanks Maya. Um then then like you're just basically deifying. It's it's it's the same and this this is something I really want to do something on. It's the same as looking at the lightning and going, "Well, then that the lightning is what we call God." kind of.
¶96It really is a deification of a mundane thing. And look, I I'm not saying that the universe is mundane. I'm saying that it's not divine. Basically, it's just it lacks that godess and you're just saying, "Hey, but that that's God." I should do a video on this. I I really should.
¶97I I should. Uh >> there's there's a lot of things I've been noting recently that just keep coming up. And yeah, >> while I'm sure producing a video specifically about them will in no way diminish the amount of times we have to keep reexlaining them, at least it'll be out there in its own standalone video other people can point at instead of saying go to this live stream at, you know, time marker 2 hours and 37 minutes or or whatever, you know, like it's just just its own thing. There's there's a lot. But, you know, if you do have to point to something, a foam finger is a great way to do it.
¶98Now, this sounds like a sponsor segue, but I didn't. I mean, I'm kind of self-sponsored with Astral Pride. Maybe we'll get into that later. I don't know. In any case, um, I >> think you are.
¶99You should say like we're sponsored by Astral Pride, you know, like that's that's a good a good sponsor. I like it. >> It's Well, yeah, it's it's true. I just I don't I don't know. I don't like to take ad breaks like super early, but you know what?
¶100I do have a really short um pirate flag, >> but you know what? I'll I'll play it. It's uh it's 28 seconds. >> Yeah. >> Like the flag ME HEARTIES HOIST YOUR OWN at astral pride.com.
¶101Ride on the mast, chaos on the sea. THE QUEER PIRATE FLEET sails fabulous and free girls and thanks to for that one. I just it's it's delightful. But yes, I do have not just that, but like all the different pride flags and things on astride.com. That's it's a thing I do.
¶102So, check it out if you haven't already. It's it's also linked in the description by the buy. Um, or in addition to gifting memberships and and sending foam fingers and and and other jewel based things, we also enjoy the occasional super chat like this one from Jester who sends $5 and says, "Ember and I are the two necessary beings and we went through gestrification, so no gods are necessary. The rest are being brought to justice." >> Justice. Justice for all.
¶103That's right. Because all the world's a stage and it's a comedy. >> Justice is blind. Blind justice. >> Oh goodness.
¶104Fox says being self-sponsored means you've vetted your sponsor thoroughly. Alas, it means I don't actually get paid for that sponsorship. >> I wouldn't trust her. I wouldn't trust that that that person. I wouldn't trust myself.
¶105Like there's no way I'd be better than this. >> I know. Why? Why would What? What are we doing?
¶106It's probably >> Yeah. >> All right. Continuing on. >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶107Yeah. >> Explanation I mean um two distinct conditions in addition to its normal meaning as a sort of mystery remover. So the first condition is that explanation is nonircular. And so this captures the idea that nothing can sort of explain or account for why it itself is in reality at all. Right?
¶108I mean in order for it to have any explanatory power in the first place, right? It would already as it were have to exist. And so that's sort of just part of what I mean by explanation. And then the second thing that I mean by explanation is that it's fundamentally a relation between concrete things. So concrete things are what have the sort of robust explanatory oomph.
¶109They do the metaphysical heavy lifting as it were with respect to explanation. So Lincoln's death for instance is actually explained by the concrete thing John Wils Booth and his actually pulling the trigger. And again these are just part of what I mean I mean by explanation. >> Well he's he's kind of >> he's not wrong. >> Yeah.
¶110He's kind of blurring a line between concrete as in concrete and and sequences of events rather than like material things like Abraham Lincoln's death. It's it's more nuanced, I suppose, like there's it's it's not >> it's a bullet that caused Abraham Lincoln's death, but Abraham's Lincoln's death isn't it isn't a concrete thing in the same way we normally refer to concrete things. It's more like digestion. It's a process. Except in that case, it was a one-time thing that happened, >> you know.
¶111>> Yeah. No, I I get what you're saying, but really he's saying that the the ceasing of Abraham's Lincoln's organs function, basically what we would call death, has a cause that was the bullet, which the cause was the gunpow firing, which you know, you're tracing it back through co. So, he's really talking about causal relations here rather than um um anything else kind of thing. Um I I would say that I I I do not disagree in the way that you know concrete are things that we would say are real and so things or things that really exist basically and so there's there's there's there's problems with defining what really exists and existence in itself, right? Because things can exist as abstracts like abstractor concepts exist like um America is an abstraction right like there there is no there's no um um physical or actual thing as America that exists outside the minds of people it's mostly a social construct an agreed upon thing that exists the the land exists you know that that's definitely something that is is concrete and the um buildings in it, but the actual idea of this country is an abstraction.
¶112But it so we came up I was in a massive panel with a ton of people talking about this. So we sort of agreed that um real things are those with some sort of causal relation. So I think what he's doing is just, you know, really tying that in to concrete things have a causal relation whereas abstractions do not. I think that's what he's trying to do. >> Maybe, but like abstract things can be involved in those in those causal relationships as well.
¶113Like you know the United States for instance, it it was caused by real beings doing a thing. you know, it's I don't know. I I get what he's driving it. I don't disagree with it. I just like I would describe it more precisely to prevent future muddying of the waters.
¶114Um I might and and you could do it more easily too by using a more simple example like any specific domino is in relation to the domino that pushed it over and the domino it is about to push over. It is between >> linked events, you know. Yes. Yeah. So, so where where you'd say okay some things caused us to form an abstractor, it's not in causal relation like doesn't cause anything by itself.
¶115Do you get what I mean? like it can't like the the idea is not something and I mean maybe the idea as in the the the structure of the you know how the memory is stored and things may be in causal relation but the abstraction is not like it is people that have to go out and you know invade the Middle East for America America doesn't do it by itself kind of thing >> right yeah it it can't money is the root of all evil But money doesn't actually do anything, >> right? Well, that's that's misqued, isn't isn't the love of money the root of all evil, isn't isn't that the uh >> I I believe it's along those lines. Yeah. There, you know, humans love to >> alter quotes for various reasons.
¶116>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Now, why should we believe this principle? Well, first, it just seems intuitively true, right?
¶117I mean, it just seems intuitively obvious that no contingent thing or things could just pop into existence uncaused or that no contingent thing, something which genuinely could fail to be even at any moment. >> Well, that's definitionally true. If a thing could pop into existence on its own, then it wouldn't be contingent in the way we typically mean contingent, you know. >> Yeah. Yep.
¶118>> Could somehow manage to exist from eternity past without any cause or explanation or ground. Uh, moreover, both the existence and non-existence of a given contingent thing or plurality of contingent things are real genuine possibilities. And yet only one of those genuine possibilities is actual as opposed to the other. This seems to demand some account or some reason as to why it falls on one side, existence, when reality easily could have been such that it fell on the other side, non-existence. Uh, second of all, I mean, the principle is just abundantly confirmed by our universal experience, right?
¶119I mean like >> well okay I get that he's appealing to intuition. He he said so. >> Yes. >> But there's more to it that has to be said like >> for it isn't just a question of why does something exist rather than nothing. It's why this specific something as opposed to something else.
¶120And that's a more precise, it's a different question, but it's a more precise question, I think, >> because when you get right down to it, >> something has to Why not this? >> Well, yeah, I I I I totally No, I'll pay that. But basically sort of the the idea that um something exists rather than nothing kind of thing like um the fact that you can't have nothing. Like why why does nothing exist? Well, nothing doesn't exist, right?
¶121like he's basically saying um why do we have a state of affairs with um concreta rather than non-existence of anything at all that it demands an explanation kind of thing. Now, um I I think there is a sort of a um weak um anthropic principle going on because if nothing existed, we wouldn't be around to like if if if non-reality was the state of affairs, then we wouldn't be around talking about it, right? It is necessarily the case for us to be sitting here talking about it that something had to be here >> as a foundation. Sure. I I I think this is one of the things that drives me a little bonkers with these kinds of apologistic discussions is there's all this this sitting around like, well, how do we know things really exist?
¶122Because if we can't justify reality existing, then how do we know reality exists? Like you you can you can see it, you can test it, you can determine it is really there. I know the whole, oh, you can't trust your senses. That's a whole other conversation for another time. I think it's a distraction from a much more interesting question of why do we exist?
¶123Why is there a lump of matter capable of introspection? You know, >> yes. And we're we're not asking that question because we're still playing in the [ __ ] kindergarten sandbox with these people going, "Why is there a universe?" >> Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, you're not wrong. You're absolutely not wrong.
¶124And that's the the the hard problem of consciousness. Why can we experience the world around us at all instead of like so many other um organisms or whatever? We they just react to the to the world around them. And what why is that a thing? and and there's been some sort of suggestions on why that is so, but nobody really has a solid answer.
¶125But I think it's also because Christians are loathed to give up the idea of absolute certainty. Like it it's okay to go um you know, okay, like you're talking with soypism, you know, how do we know anything is real at all kind of thing. It's okay to say, "Well, I'm 99% sure." But there's a there's a tiny bit that says, "Okay, what? I could be wrong." And and I think that Christians are really loathed to sort of go, "Well, I could be wrong about a God." You know, it's kind of that's what faith requires, right? Like faith precludes doubt because that's how they overcome those doubts that it is a god.
¶126Like, you know, if they could prove it's a god, it really wouldn't worry me that much kind of thing. Like it's just like Yeah. Okay. It could be a god. Sure.
¶127So what? >> Yeah. I mean, if there's an all not not even an all powerful, just like even a Greek god kind of god. If Zeus or Odin showed up tomorrow, >> Yeah. >> cool.
¶128What does he want? Let him speak for himself. You know, >> if it's Zeus, it's probably to uh sleep with some mortal on Earth. That was the usual reason that the the Greek god Zeus came to Earth, much to his wife's chagrin. Um yeah, >> you know, that's another problem that could have been solved with polyamory being normalized.
¶129>> Maybe. I I I feel like if if Zeus was around at the moment, he'd be running a, you know, how to pick up chicks course kind of thing. I I swear that that's what he'd be doing if Zeus was around today. >> Oh goodness. He'd be hold Yeah.
¶130>> I mean that that that God had some moves. I don't remember Jesus turning into a swan and seducing a woman. I mean that's some that's some highlevel stuff right there. That's you know that would be an interesting debate too like compared to how other gods have behaved through history is Jesus even a god like what are we doing oh goodness goodness goodness >> I wonder if Christians by saying Jesus had no game that would annoy some Christians a lot >> and be like he was celibate no that was a Paul thing He pretty clearly was not celibate. You just don't like who he was uh marking time with as it were.
¶131>> But never mind that different discussion. Object or group of such objects we've come across has some sort of explanation, some sort of prior condition which makes it intelligible why they exist. Third, when confronted with like this massive uniform inductive support for something, we have to ask what best explains this uniform inductive evidence. I mean, it seems clear that PE best explains this abundant uniform empirical evidence we have of contingent things having explanations. By contrast, like if PE were false, right, why on earth would we consistently and repeatedly find that contingent things have explanations and never stumble across any violation of PE?
¶132Um, it was that granted, yeah, yeah, things have explanations. There aren't things we've been able to determine that just pop into existence, >> which from my point of view is a reason to not believe in a god because we don't see things being poofed into existence by a creator still doing creation. >> That is true. That is true. Um so th this argument can go both ways because there does seem to be like so okay so um a causal relations right so so things that do not rely on a cause and just happen by themsel it seems so counterintuitive but how are we supposed to know if something is a causal it's like the problem of infinity in the real world how do you know if you start counting when you get to infinity like if if you can't find, you know, if you don't have a limit, how do you find that if that doesn't have a limit, right?
¶133There's no way you can actually test for that because you can never reach the limit to be able to say it has no limit, right? Like it could be that you count to um you know a quadrillion quadrillion Google plex of numbers and in 10 numbers you'd reach the end, right? This is just an example. I know that that you know numbers are abstract. I I know that.
¶134Just relax. It's just I'm saying that you can't really get to infinity or you can't know when you're going to get to infinity because you never reach it. Um in the same way, how do we tell the difference between something that is properly a causal and something we just haven't found the cause of yet? >> Like we can't tell the difference between the two. So there seems to be some things in um quantum interactions that seem a causal but you know I I wouldn't hang my hat on that because a lot of things at one point it seemed like life spontaneous generation of life which was there before um um uh who was it uh um pastor did did his experiments with with yeast and things um Before Pastor did any experiments, people thought that life did just poof into existence because you'd have water, there was no organisms in it, and suddenly they were there, right?
¶135Like, so um h how do you know when you found a properly a causal um thing? Well, you don't. You don't. But um the the thing about induction is that induction always has that it could be wrong. That is that is sort of what Papa put into place.
¶136You keep testing it until you find that it fails. That's even how you handle induction in and of itself. So just because something is inductively true doesn't mean that you can, you know, rule out that that it's wrong. >> Yeah. It's it's sort of like the rule of generalization, which isn't nearly as high a level rule, but >> um you know, if something seems to happen the same way every day, >> like the sun rising or Ember waking up and getting a cup of coffee, >> it doesn't mean it always will.
¶137Like there's always that asterisk of pending as yet unobserved exceptions, you know? And and just just as an aside, if you want to go by induction, something that we've never seen is a a number one, a non-contingent mind, right? Like a mind seems to be contingent on the um physical medium that that produces it. We've never seen a non-contingent mind and we have never seen something a concrete being spoken into existence out of nothing. Yeah.
¶138I mean, and and that too has its own problem of induction. Like that doesn't mean it never has happened, but I'm not going to believe it did until you show me it's at least possible. >> Yeah. Well, not even just possible because that sort of suggests that it's logically possible. At least it's plausible, right?
¶139That at least there is a um a valid process of it happening kind of thing, >> right? >> That that's really what we're talking about here. like a a a a a process that is at least likely or or or there is a pathway to it rather than just leaping that first hurdle of logic kind of thing. I I don't know. Abduction.
¶140Uh I don't know about that one, champ. So abduction is a bit of a weird one. That's sort of probability like and I I don't know how you would sort of Yeah, I I don't know. I I I I get it. Abduction sort of points to that concrete objects have have causes.
¶141I I get you. Um and I will just add that that you know the previous slide sort of outlined the god, but none of this sort of says a god. Like even if the explanation does exist and the cause does exist like a a necessary cause, this this slide does not make it a god in any way, shape or form except for maybe intuition and maybe he's going to appeal to that. Ember. Oh.
¶142Oh, Ember. Ember has been smitten. Smote. Smote. And And maybe it was Zeus this time.
¶143Look, you talk you talk crap out Zeus, you deserve what you're going to get. Usually, it's lightning bolts, but apparently this time it is a pig mealon statue. I did like I did really like that mythology. I'll also say I I Yeah, this is kind of the explanation is non-ircular fundamentally between concreta. Yeah, we've definitely we've definitely lost her.
¶144So, I do apologize everybody. It's probably um it's probably a conspiracy of some sort because everything on the internet is a conspiracy these days. It it has to be. So uh yeah, Medusa got to Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Saf.
¶145Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That is that is true statement. I I I would I would say that maybe I'm Medusa, but um famously Medusa has hair. All right.
¶146She has snakes for hair, but it is hair. and and that is something I'm not I'm not currently sporting. I will admit. I will admit. Um but hopefully she should be back soon.
¶147Um until then, you can get your um gay pirate flags through um you know the the uh space flags astral pride.com. Uh please go and check them out while we have a second because they're they're really cool and uh they're they're really awesome. Um, so yeah, I I uh just just going to wait for her to come back or if not I am hijacking the show. It it's all it's all going to hijack the show. Um, now I can't highlight comments.
¶148I would love to and I'd love to sort of continue the conversation in the chat. Uh, maybe got a whole mess of snakes tattooed on the noggin. Uh, no thank you. No, no, no. Absolutely not.
¶149Absolutely not. How would I shine God rays from my head onto you if that was the case? Yeah, that would that would definitely crimp my style a bit, I think. >> Oh, you're back. Okay.
¶150>> Hopefully. >> Oh my goodness. We're having we're having technical difficulties here in in the the first world or something. My goodness. All right.
¶151So, you're you're you're being all piratey on me, huh? >> Uh, did I steal the show? No, I wouldn't do something like that. I'm >> Australian lovers, but they were >> When have Australians ever stolen? That's That's >> But that No, that never happens.
¶152My goodness. But since we're doing devil's advocate, maybe we should go with a more appropriate background. >> Okay. All right. All right.
¶153Okay. >> Oh, shoot. All right. Let me get their our our thing reloaded here. All right.
¶154There's There's Cam being all close up and and personal. Where the hell were we? Um, let me scroll back in this. >> Who knows? Who know?
¶155probably the first slide and we're like, "How far are we in?" I've got no idea. Nobody knows. Come on now. No, nobody knows. >> Nobody knows.
¶156>> Goodness. No, nothing wants to work right for me today. It's >> We're having technical >> and it needs to stop. 8:27. We were paused.
¶1578:27 when I froze up. Yeah, we we are not making great progress today, but there's a lot to talk about, so it's fine. >> There is. Yeah. Yeah.
¶158>> Okay. I think I think we're probably good. It >> seem to be that's not what we would expect if PE were false. Um the fourth reason is that um is one developed by philosophers like Alexander Puce and Rob Coons. Um and they show that denying the PE is extremely troubling for a variety of epistemological implications.
¶159Um so but who is denying this principle of explanation? Like as as I stated earlier in a broad sense I don't disagree but it seems to favor not God more than God >> for purposes of time. It's just if it could be either without any additional information then what's the point of making the argument is is what I'm wondering. I don't know. And and I also I don't do also want to point to like there has been theorized hypothesized I should say rather um like a recursive universe that like a a universe that the end of it goes back to the beginning basically.
¶160Um so um if you if you look at say the big crunch kind of thing where time reverses kind of stuff right like it it's non-intuitive sure but you know who's to say that it's not possible. So, um, you know, I I I think it has problems, but or everything does. And so, nonircular, um, I I'm not 100% sure there's there's a massive problem with that. And, um, there there's nothing in physics which precludes infinite regress. Like, nothing.
¶161>> It's it's true. At least nothing we found so far. >> Right. Right. Well, when when I say physics, I mean our current understanding of the laws of physics, I guess.
¶162Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's a whole thing. An inf an in it's it's an infinite thing. We'll infinitely be talking about infinites.
¶163I'll just give like a sort of very brief and underdeveloped line of reasoning here, but basically um it seems plausible that objective probabilities of the occurrence or existence of something are grounded in the probabilistic causal powers and propensities of things. So for instance, the fact that there's a 50% objective probability of an electron going through the right slip as opposed to the left obtains in virtue of the indeterministic capacity or >> point of order. That's not actually true, >> right? >> We've we've the the fact the double slit experiment works like it does is because when there isn't an electromagnetic field interfering with the motion of the electron, it goes through both slits. That's the point of it.
¶164>> Yeah. >> And we don't really know why. >> Well, we we kind of do. Um it's it's not 100% understanding. But then nothing in science is 100% understanding.
¶165Right. Right. >> But the the TLDDR is that it is an energy wave. It it's it's a disruption in the electromagnetic field that we call spaceime >> and it behaves like a wave unless you interfere with it by creating an electromagnetic field that forces this energy distribution to behave like a particle. And this is broadly true of photons as well.
¶166>> Although it's harder to get a field that will interfere with a photon in the same way. >> Okay. >> Electrons, right? It's just simply part of their nature to consistently manifest such indeterministic tendencies. But if this account of objective probability is right, >> I hate it.
¶167I hate it when let's generously say philosophy types um just handwave away a major physical question with it's just in their nature well >> yeah I don't >> you could say it seems to be but to it drives me nuts it drives right >> well it it seem it seems like he's sort of saying that hey the the you know collapse of the waveform into the particle um or the particle like state um is a contingent concrete object, but that doesn't have an explanation. And it's kind of like, well, no, I I don't know which which he's arguing for here. Yeah. I I don't I don't know. I suppose I should be nicer because there's there's people who very much enjoy physics and science on its own terms who don't really understand this.
¶168Like there was a a a person who considers himself a highly educated individual giving a TED talk, not a TEDex talk, a TED talk um just five or six years ago and he said something he he was talking about the double slit experiment and he said if you can explain this you will win all the Nobel prizes until the end of time because he was trying to emphasize that it's completely inexplicable when we've had the explanation for close to a hundred years now, you know. >> He just didn't know it. He just heard from other people that it isn't solved and he never looked into it himself, you know. >> Well, at least that's better than the the tact that they went on that was like, "Oh, because the double slit experiment happens, particles can be in two places, so there's an alternate universe where all your possibilities are played out kind of thing." Like that kind of nonsense. And what was that video like?
¶169I watched it and and you know just because of my background it was like down the rabbit hole or something and I watched I'm like that's really cool kind of thing. Apparently just garbage absolute garbage like nothing you know they just basically filmed a whole load of physicists talking about it and then added on a whole bunch of woo. And I got to admit I felt for it because you know I had come out of a astrology and crystals household and it kind of was well it sounds plausible if you don't understand the science you know and you've got people um authorative talking about quantum mechanics and then they put in oh and this is how it works kind of thing. Apparently absolute nonsense. Yeah, it it was sort of like um Deepo Chopra the cartoon.
¶170>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
¶171Yeah. >> This sounds an awful lot like science. We'll just we'll just go with it. >> You can you can manifest reality. The moon's only real if you're looking at it.
¶172>> Right. Right. >> Oh well. >> And it does seem plausible. It would entail that something which utterly lacks any explanation would have no objective probability attached to it.
¶173Right? Because if it did have such a probability attached to it, well then its occurrence or existence would be explained in terms of the indeterministic causal power which produced it. But in that would sort of a cart before the horse kind of thing like a thing exists if it has an explanation. Well, no. If a thing exists, we assume there is an explanation, >> right?
¶174>> Well, yeah. Yeah, >> cuz I mean we the other way it's this is this is like a what what do you call it when when somebody like screws up a modus holand and gets things in the wrong order. I I forget or >> um >> no no um not not doing it the other way around. I mean when they try to do a modus tolins but they get the order wrong and it it the point is if a thing exists because it has an explanation that that doesn't work in reality because I can say I can explain why I'm holding the most giantest amazing piece of pizza right now. I have an explanation and yet I am not holding a piece of pizza right now.
¶175Having an explanation does not cause a thing. You know, this is this is it's it's Anselum again. It's saying because we can explain a god, the god must exist. >> No. Have you ever read a fictional story, my guy?
¶176>> Be inexplicable after all. It would have a a prior condition that sort of explains it even though it's an indeterministic prior condition. And what this means is that if PE is false, then it's not even objectively improbable that, for example, all of our perceptual experiences sprung into being without any cause, explanation, or link to the external world. But that just simply defeats our claims to perceptual knowledge. And then finally, uh the truth of PE is just the best explanation of why we don't witness like widespread chaos, uh like bunches of photons, say popping into existence uncaused on my porch.
¶177We don't actually know that. We don't. >> That's another topic for another time. >> Okay. Okay.
¶178Okay. Okay. >> We're Okay. For the sake of argument, we're fairly sure photons just don't pop into existence. Fairly sure.
¶179>> Yeah. And it's sort of like I said at one point we thought that life popped into existence. You know like really we you know spontaneous generation was an accepted scientific thing that if you had a a body of water that tadpoles just popped into existence. You know this is this is sort of what they believed and you know well done for um you know the the putting that to rest kind of thing. Um, so that >> held on to the scientific community of that period for seeing evidence and changing their [ __ ] minds instead of going, "Oh, well, this is a liberal conspiracy clearly.
¶180It's it's big cheese trying to sell more cheesecloth." Mhm. >> Now, there's also a related principle called the PPE or principle possible explanation which states that um for any contingent concrete objects, the fact that those objects exist is possibly explained. And so, I mean, why should we believe this? Um well, you know, in addition to all the um the pieces of evidence for PE, um because the PE would actually entail the principal possible explanation, there are also some distinctive um modal epistemological tools that strongly support PPE. Um and so, uh for instance, for you should always wear your PPE on the website, folks.
¶181It's it's just it's not just an OSHA thing. It's it's a good idea. But >> this is another issue I have with like the way off in the weeds philosophy types is he's taking concepts that could be explained more simply and adding a whole lot of extra stuff to make it sound fancier. It's it's it's not quite Jordan Peterson levels like this isn't completely irrelevant babble, but >> right >> it doesn't need to be this rarified. Not >> I I don't think so.
¶182I I think that he's used to talking and the the correct word is jargon. Jargon means the technical language of any particular field. So nurses if they're sitting there talking about blood pressure and stuff like it it's jargon to everybody else. It just means the the technical terms that that field uses and he's doing jargon for philosophers and it's kind of like you know I'm sure there's an audience for it. Uh I'm not so sure it's probably a good idea.
¶183He should just be using language that people understand. >> That's that's my thoughts. But it could also be again this is when he was still fairly new. Like Cam knew of him but not many other people. That's why they wanted to do it on Cam's channel rather than his own because his own was very tiny at this point.
¶184>> And so it could be that he was using more jargon than strictly necessary to kind of convince the philosophy community that he was in their league that he could play ball with them. >> Right. Yeah. Hi babe. >> Any contingent things, it's certainly conceivable even under close inspection that they be explained.
¶185It's certainly coherent. It doesn't contradict any laws of logic. It's certainly consistent with the known natures of things. And it's certainly consistent with our best scientific accounts of reality. Moreover, it certainly seems intuitively possible for a given group of contingent things to be explained.
¶186And excuse me, and also what Josh Rasmmanson calls like modal uniformity supports it. I mean, absent special defeaters to think otherwise, we have reason to think that contingent things in general possibly have explanations, given that we know that contingent things of our experience also possibly have explanations. Contingency is, as it were, uniform with respect to possibly being explained. And so, all of our best modal epistemological tools support PPE. And so, here then is my first.
¶187>> So, so here's the thing, right? Like so if you're talking about contingent and necessary things I I I think that really it's in relation to one another like for instance uh you know um I am necessary um a necessary being don't forget being just means a state of affairs for um my my computer to be in this office kind of thing but it's not necessary for me, right? It's contingent upon me because I was the one that bought it and set it up here, but it's not like I'm I I don't need that to exist, right? Like, so I I think this whole idea of well, there's got to be a necessary thing. If you're using induction, what completely necessary thing have you ever seen, right?
¶188like non-contingent thing because you're sort of hypothesizing a non-contingent thing when >> what >> right but all things seem to be necessary for some concrete and contingent on other concrete like this whole idea of a um non-contingent thing I I don't know if that exists like I'm just sort of saying like I you know the way that he's talking about about it. Well, everything's contingent. >> Yeah. As far as with the possible exception of the universe because we don't understand how causality would work outside of our own time space or preceding our own time space, whatever. >> Yes, >> it's it's a word that makes sense, >> right?
¶189So, Petite asks, "What is contingent? What does it mean in this context?" And my take is it's just dependency. A thing can only be because something else caused it. Usually multiple somethings, but >> there has to be a cause. And that and that makes a thing contingent on its cause or the effect contingent on its cause to be more precise.
¶190>> Yeah. So as good example would be the excuse me the relationship between you and your parents for instance like you would be contingent on them. So basically um the only way you could exist is if they caused you to happen. However, the reverse is not true. Your parents existed at a point in time where you didn't.
¶191So their existence is not contingent upon you. It's just causal relationships basically. Now the way that he's using it though is um a necessary thing would have no cause. So he's talking about necessary for reality, for everything, for the universe, for all everything at all. Right?
¶192So he's sort of saying, hey, there everything's contingent upon the necessary thing. The necessary thing is has no is not contingent upon anything else. It kicked everything else off and uh everything else is contingent upon it. um sort of so you could sit there and go, "Well, the big bang was the necessary thing. It had no cause and it just sort of sprung into being." He's trying to argue against a naturalistic one.
¶193um sort of saying, "Hey, everything, you know, all of these arguments are sort of saying, hey, there's got to be an uncaused cause or a uh what I think it was um um um was it um Aquinus caused the prime mover or was that um the first way is is translation and this is why that Jesus and whatnot fellow [ __ ] up the argument is because he thought first mover meant the first thing to move. But that wasn't what Aquinus was saying. He he was proposing a prime mover as in something that makes movement possible. >> Yes. >> By an entailment rather than in a causal sense, it existing enables motion >> in in the philosophical, you know, the the the transfer from potentiality to actuality.
¶194>> It's it's not physically moving anything. it just makes it possible for motion to happen, that sort of thing. >> So, yeah, we're I mean, you you can see a number of huge flaws in that line of reasoning right from the get-go. One being why should there be one cause? Um two, why does a necessary thing have to be causeless?
¶195you know, it doesn't it's assumed but it isn't entailed, you know, and there's to my knowledge never been a sufficient justification for that. >> Yeah. No, and Petite Fl's absolutely right. It's the cosmological it's sort of a subsection of the cosmological argument known as the argument from contingency. And it sort of just says that um I mean it gets into the weeds, right?
¶196because it really is that hey there's got to be a prime mover first cause uncaused cause whatever damn label you're putting on it and as you know from my experience with a lot of theists as soon as you start saying well it could be the universe they will then go to well that is what we call God and then it just becomes a definitional thing you know whatever started the universe is what is God and it's like well hold on a second if that's just a natural event you you know you could then what's the between calling uh the lightning god and the beginning of the universe god or the you know uh change in state of the universe to one that supports life god like what's the difference? It's just a natural event. >> What's the utility? Like to me, if you if you want to talk about the big bang or the inflation event or or whatever as God or the act of God or or however you want to phrase it, fine. You can call it that if you want, but it already has a name.
¶197But also, that isn't the god that you seem to be talking about in the rest of your conversation when you say that, you know, humans shouldn't eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics. Why would the inflation event care? You know, >> so it's sort of like a a bait and switch. We're going to call this thing that seems tremendously powerful and probably exists, but is still somewhat kind of mystical. That is God.
¶198That's the proof God exists. And because God exists, you now have to get married to who we say and and pay 10% of your income. You know, it's just >> these are not the same thing. >> Yep. And yes, he jumps from possible that a necessary concrete being exists.
¶199But don't forget being does not mean an agent, right? So the the way that he's saying number five here, so a necessary concrete being think being is state of affairs, right? So he's basically saying a necessary concrete state of affairs exists. Why is that a god? And this is what I'm sort of talking about when they get stymied on well it could be just a natural event.
¶200They're like well that then that's God. It could be an extradimensional alien who, you know, has enough technology to create a you, you know, I I I I do love Rick and Morty for the the things that they explored, right, in stuff like that because um um Rick, who's the inventor, creates a pocket universe where they think he's God um because he just has the technology to create a pocket universe with living creatures in it. So, um, you know, it could be an extradimensional, um, you know, alien that created the universe, and they're like, "Well, then that's God." And it's like, "Yeah, but why why would that be God?" So, I I love sort of media that in, you know, sort of really looks into, well, if a mad genius created our universe as a pocket universe in order to recharge his car battery, um, would that be God? Well, no. Of course not.
¶201Right. It's this drunk guy with, you know, he's really crass and an absolute jerk to everybody. Like, you know, of course that's not a god. Yeah. The conflation thing.
¶202It's it's like, you know, you you have to have parents and so the fact you have parents means this booby is your mother. Like, no, that's that's a big jump. like >> there has to be someone from whence you sprung kind of thing but that doesn't mean any proposed explanation is automatically correct. You have to demonstrate a link and it's that's just not happening. There are contingent concrete objects like you and me.
¶203Premise two, for any contingent concrete objects, the fact that those objects exist is possibly explained. That's the PPE. Um, but then premise three, the only thing that could explain the the fact that all the contingent concrete objects exist is a necessary concrete being, right? This just falls out of the meaning of that doesn't follow. And I mean, two isn't even necessary.
¶204Like there are contingent concrete objects, things might have explanations like there's no value in this premise. It's it's it's just there. And then we come to the third. The only thing that could explain now you're you could make a case. It's a whole subargument trying to justify that third premise, but on the surface as it's laid out, it doesn't follow.
¶205It isn't automatically true that because things exist and things have explanations, there must be one thing and only one thing. you know >> might be multiple things. Yeah. >> I mean there's a number of of gaps in that in that premise like we not I harp on the fact that it assumes there must be one thing but also we don't know that there even has to be a necessary thing. There is no logical reason why it couldn't be all contingent like just contingent after contingent after contingent.
¶206I know they don't like infinite regress but there isn't a reason why it couldn't be you know >> explanation as I used it right uh explanation uh is explicitly non-ircular and hence we can't explain all the contingent things that there are >> what explanations absolutely can be circular in fact some people have argued that all explanations end up being circular if you trace them back far enough what do you mean Well, >> all explanations are circular. What what do you mean by that? All explanations are circular. >> I I think that what uh the people who do say that are suggesting is that because um we generally shun infinite regress and people tend to call out dogmatic assertions. Yes.
¶207>> We always end up on >> Yeah. Yeah, I I I think in a way, but that's more sort of where knowledge leads you kind of thing. How how you're justifying your knowledge rather than explanations for um causal events. I think that's more um that you can't have absolute certainty o of any knowledge whatsoever. That you you have to have some sort of um sort of wiggle room in there for uncertainty.
¶208Maybe I I don't >> I'll call that one a topic for another time because I' i'd have to like >> Okay. Okay. No worries. >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶209Yeah. No, I I think that's more to do with like you know justification of knowledge rather than any given explanation like just in justification of knowledge in general rather than sort of saying hey I think we're basically saying that um one thing can't cause another which causes the first thing which I mean I don't know it it seems a bit weird to me um yeah probably I mean that's just the the arrow of time the direction that time flows in basically. >> Yeah, that's that's kind of just how causality seems to work. And I mean, well, it does work. We we've we've tested it rather.
¶210The the fact we can test things is because it works. But technically, that's an induction. That's it always has worked and therefore it will always continue to work. >> Yeah. Isn't philosophy so much fun, folks?
¶211Oh, goodness. >> Yeah. By means of one of those very contingent things, right? It's part of the very thing we're trying to account for is in reality in the first place. Um, and hence, the only thing that could explain the fact that all the contingent concrete objects exist is a necessary concrete being.
¶212And so, from those three premises, we get that it's possible that there's a necessary concrete being. And from the S5 axum, we get that there is in fact a necessary concrete being, that is to say, God. and I'll talk. >> Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a big difference between a necessary concrete being and God, specifically your God.
¶213But >> yes, as as a Catholic, but he's not a Catholic yet, so we we kind of that might be jumping the gun a bit. >> He's Catholic and and an Orthodox evangelical thing. a a progressive evangelical, I believe is the technical term, and a generous Orthodox um person. >> Generously, yeah. >> You know, I I I wonder if it's like he's orthodox, which means very traditional, but he's generous in the way that he goes, "Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'll allow people to violate the traditions if they want." Or whether he's just a generous lover.
¶214I I really wonder. Maybe he's generous because he's Orthodox and he he feels called to do so or >> maybe. Who knows? >> Maybe >> on that inference. >> Oh, right.
¶215Are you familiar what the S5 axiom is? I I don't know if I've heard that one before. >> No. No, I have not. I mean, axioms are just agreed upon sort of presuppositions kind of thing.
¶216Okay, so apparently according to the Googles and and again you know Google pluses and minuses these days especially um apparently um S5 is four different axioms about tautologies and why it's it's the K the T the four and the five for some reason and and it's it's logic language. It's it's like basically if P then Q um therefore P then Q is is the K axiom which is that's just a tautology that's if P then Q then P then Q you know um the T1 is called uh reflexivity which is if it is necessary it is true and I I see where he's building towards here um if you call a thing necessary then it must exist If but are we do we mean necessary in the same way in this context? Oh, damn. It's >> plant. >> The fourth one is called transitivity and it's um if it is necessary, it is necessarily necessary.
¶217Again, we're playing with tautologies, folks. So, you know, >> I didn't write these. And the fifth one is the ukitian. And it says, if it is possible, it is necessarily possible. which is different from the fourth that if it's necessary it it's necessarily necessary.
¶218It's >> it's adding necessary two things. But there's a problem here by the use of of these four axioms together which again are axioms and are not true demonstrated things. They're just whatever. Um, we're kind of saying you you could use these to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a contingent thing. Like the causal relationships that we observe apparently are accident.
¶219It's just coincidence that causality seems to work. Everything is necessary because if it is possible, it is necessarily possible. And therefore, if it is necessary, it is necessarily necessary. And if it is necessary, it is true. Tada.
¶220We're all the same. >> Well, I I I think that what they're doing is they're um leaning into the idea of perfection. Um basically sort of going, well, if a a god uh or a necessary being exists in some possible world, um then he exists in all possible worlds because he is perfect, right? and a perfect thing would exist in all possible worlds kind of thing, right? So, it's kind of a onlogical argument.
¶221He's sort of leading that into it. But the the the problem there is that I can't remember the name of the guy, but he came up with a perfect island analogy >> that if a perfect island exists in some possible world, then it exists in all possible worlds. So, there should be a perfect island out there. But there's not, you know, like this whole idea hinges upon a necessary god being in all possible worlds. And I think when you're talking about possible worlds that they are simply abstractions, right?
¶222Like um >> you know when when we say hey in some possible world I am not doing this um this show and instead I'm you know sleeping in bed or something you know like that that's possible. There's nothing logical contradictory. But when I say in some possible world, I don't actually mean there's a literal concrete world out there somewhere where I am, you know, like down the rabbit hole where I'm sleeping in bed as a, you know, different version of myself where maybe I have hair or something, you know, like this is sort of the thing that we're talking about. We're really just talking about an abstraction in my mind of a different series of causal chains in the real world. Now, I can't rule it out that, you know, there's a there's a multiverse and there's alternate mi running around, but there's no reason to believe that.
¶223And I I don't think when we use possible world that we're really talking about some sort of multiverse and that's how they use it, which annoys me because it's sort of like, well, you're all you're doing is just appealing to an abstraction, a hypothetical to say that your god exists in this world. That's what they're doing. >> Yeah. It's it it's there is a tendency for the people who are only partially science literate to say oh possible world that means alternate dimension it really does exist in another real reality rather than just a hypothetical that could exist I hypothetically could have won the lottery at some point that doesn't mean there's any real world we don't know that there's any real world besides this one at least that is to say this universe obviously there's other planets um we have to keep our our relative frames of reference straight. But the possible worlds thing, even before I learned anything about philosophy, it struck me as evidently self-defeating because if it's possible, if there is a possible world where God doesn't exist, then yes, he cannot exist in then he doesn't exist in all possible worlds and therefore he doesn't exist in this world.
¶224The same logic. Yeah. >> Counters the the first it works exactly the same way backwards. >> It doesn't it doesn't because they sort of define perfect as necessarily existing. Right?
¶225So they they sort of it is a to me it's a definitional game. Right? They're basically saying some possible world. I'm going to define a possible world as an alternative world where this thing could exist. Um it doesn't defy logic whatever.
¶226It can exist in some alternate dimension. And then they sort of define perfection as definitely existing. So it seems more of a a word like defining a god into existence than anything else. >> And that's what we mean when we say word games. Like a lot of people have criticisms when I just go word games kitty table.
¶227>> We could go into these long explanations. I'm using a shortorthhand. >> Yeah. Yeah. It it it really is that all all you're doing is sort of um just playing with the definitions till you get to a point where you can you know and it really is this idea that that I've sort of said before about apologetics is you've got the conclusion first and then you're sort of trying to find a way to that conclusion and it's sort of like well I'm going to believe that I won the the battle or whatever.
¶228Um, you know, so how do I reframe what victory is so that I have won, right? Like that's essentially kind of the same thing. >> Yeah. I'm I'm We get this with a lot of the tautology type stuff is like I'm just going to declare I'm right no matter how big a circle I need. I' I've declared I'm right.
¶229I don't think Joe's doing that because at this point in his life, Joe was was skeptical or claimed to be, I suppose, and he's trying to steal man theist position. >> Yes. Yes. >> But, >> but yeah, I I I think what would you what would you focus on if you had to do this? What what would you you know target if if you were in Joe's position here where you're an atheist or or at least agnostic and you have agreed to do a debate where you argue for a Christian God.
¶230What what what would be your focus? >> I suppose it would depend on what my specific goal is. Am I trying to >> um make a case for a god existing or multiple god or or whatever? or am I specifically trying to demonstrate the God of Christianity? Because those are different approaches.
¶231You know, >> let's say the God of Christianity. Let's just say the God of say classical theism, right? Like the the traditional Christian God. >> Okay. The the the traditional Christian God, I would say something along the lines of, and this is just off the top of my head, if I had time to prepare, I'd definitely do a much better job.
¶232>> Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. But on the spot, I would probably say something along the lines of >> Christianity exists >> and therefore it has a cause. >> Now, we can split hairs over what may or may not have been true about the life of Jesus Christ, but the fact of the matter is >> there seems to have been a historical figure named Jesus Christ.
¶233And within a few years of his death, there's people running around saying he is the incarnation of God. >> Like maybe that doesn't prove it per se, but that's pretty freaking remarkable. >> Yeah. So I would have to agree. You'd have to go to Bible, right, for the God of classical theism.
¶234You'd you'd have to like there's no way around it as far as I could see. think I would use I would definitely have to go to Bible, but I'd definitely use fine-tuning as well. I I would be surprised if he leaves fine-tuning out of this because while um it's not great, it's probably got the least problems of all all the arguments. >> I mean, I really don't like fine-tuning, and you know, we've we've talked about why. Maybe some of it will come up later, >> but it also lacks an ability to point to a god, let alone any specific god.
¶235>> Well, that's true. That's true. And that's why you'd have to use the Bible as well, kind of thing to say, hey, God created this entire universe for us. >> And if you're depending on the Bible anyway, why bother with the other stuff if it doesn't actually make your case? It just >> because it tricks people.
¶236Because it tricks people. >> It it it or so, so I've noticed that a lot of the theist arguments, they're not trying to prove a god. All they're trying to do is cast doubt that it could happen naturally. They're basically trying to tear down that things can happen. This has been the case forever.
¶237You know, I'm sure there was somebody back in the days of Thor and Zeus saying, you know, oh, you think that that, you know, lightning could just create itself and jut down from the heavens. How ridiculous. that must be a god kind of thing. Like how else do you explain it? >> That's exactly it.
¶238Yeah. And in fact, there's there's still people >> because intuitively you're like that's it's too powerful. Yes, it's an evident part of nature, but it's too powerful. Thunder and lightning, volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, all of these things, they're too powerful. We don't see them regularly.
¶239And so there must be something making a decision for when they happen. And that means there must be a decision maker with personhood and choice and and the power to do the thing. And now we're talking about a god again, you know. >> And I'm going to be starting a temple to Zeus. And there we go.
¶240There we go. >> Yes. >> I'm convinced. I'm convinced. >> We've done it, folks.
¶241Oh [ __ ] We're in a devil's advocate debate. Never mind. I wonder if I'll get traffic if I I announce that I've converted to uh you know ancient Greek uh polytheism. I I wonder >> you you might get Oceans Keltoy to come have a conversation about you know heathenry versus Greeky. >> I don't know who that is.
¶242I don't know who anybody is. I'm I'm completely ignorant. I'm an ignorant lad. What can I say? >> It's all good.
¶243later on. And so, um, we don't need to get into too much depth here, but suffice it to say that this argument is not susceptible of a symmetry argument since merely from the fact that contingent things are possibly not explained, we cannot infer the possible non-existence of a necessary being. Um, I mean, for all it could easily be the case that contingent things are unexplained, but yet a necessary being exists and simply just doesn't explain those contingent things. Okay. Um, and again, I've given reasons for my principle of explanation to think that contingent things actually couldn't exist unexplained, but I'm just working with a weaker premise of the PPE for this argument.
¶244And so, I don't think there's a symmetry worry. Okay. So, let's turn to this. >> Cool. A thing that absolutely no one is arguing.
¶245>> Well, he might like, you know, I' I've prepared for debates before. Sometimes you do throw things in that someone may argue for in order to preempt their um objection kind of thing. Uh the last debate that I did last last night for you guys, I think um was like a lot of it may have been that there are some Christians who follow process theology basically that um God sort of just they give up the omnipotence, right? that God's just an observer and he doesn't have the power to change much of the universe at all. Um, you know, okay, but um then then there's some entailments for that kind of thing.
¶246Um, so but I wrote my opening with the possibility that my opponent would just give up one of the the om, you know, omni benevolence, omnipotence or or omniscience, one one of the triomnes. >> Yeah, I the the observer idea is interesting because like we discussed with um the double slit experiment and the way the Dr. quantum cartoon puts it is an observer in fact a lot of people call it the observer effect even though yeah >> a human observer doesn't actually change anything. It has to be an electromagnetic field operating as a detector. So we call it an observer but it's an electromagnetic field that changes how an electromagnetic thing moves but never mind that.
¶247So there's people running around saying that um observation changes how things work and more specifically observation enables things to work. Therefore using this misunderstanding of some very basic quantum physics the whole universe must be being observed by a big mind because it has to be consciousness to power the observer effect. Even though the actual observer effect doesn't work with consciousness, it works with electromagnetic detectors. Never mind that. It has to be a very big mind.
¶248And that sounds an awful lot like a god. >> Yeah. >> Which is Yeah. They they they they're using a colloquial observer, you know, instead of a something that interferes with the electromagnetic field that is being they're basically taking it as somebody that sees something. That's not how >> we've done spotted.
¶249>> Yeah, it it can happen where you have a just a computer running a, you know, sensor kind of thing and none of it is conscious at all. It's just when you measure it, you interfere with the properties. That's it. That that's all that happens. >> Yeah.
¶250It's it I mean, we've known about it as long as we've known about quantum theory. It's it's the the uh uncertainty principle. If you measure a thing, you change how it moves at least at the quantum level. >> Second argument which stems from causalism, the thesis that all causal chains must be finite. So to start the argument, let's consider >> and and this is this is another axiom, right?
¶251It's it's not actually a supported thing. It's a thing we're just going to say is true to get through the argument. But if you're using it as as a building block of your argument, you have a problem because it isn't necessarily true. What is necessarily true? Mark Reed for >> 39 months.
¶252You know, this this Mark Reed fellow reminds me a lot of you, Mark. You you two should talk sometime. Um >> 39 months. Amazing. Mark says, "I am observing that the chat is a necessary being." And it's true.
¶253We we could not do the show without the chat. I mean, we could, but then it would be pre-recorded. >> Yeah. It would be boring as well. Like just just, you know, the chat keepers honest.
¶254They they they'll call us out. I don't know what I'd do without people like Dr. Kitt keep in the chat telling me I'm wrong all the time. It's It's fantastic. >> Or what he's having for dinner.
¶255>> He hasn't come by to tell me what he's having for dinner recently. I don't know. a scenario involving an infinite causal chain. Okay, so suppose we have an infinite series of paper passers. These things could be like machines or angels or people or whatever.
¶256He's actually going to try to construct an argument to justify finitude. Not necessary, Joe. Like >> you understand >> I want to just set aside infinite regress. let's let's just you don't have to justify it because you're not going to succeed at it anyway, but like you can just say for the purposes of this conversation, let's just say infinite regress can't happen. And that's what you're doing anyway.
¶257>> Each of which we're assigning a unique natural number. Okay? So each passer writes its number on the paper just in case no earlier passer does. Uh and so there are actually two variations on such a series. One involving a super task which is to say performing infinitely many actions in a finite time and one involving an infinite path.
¶258And I'll just stick with the latter for simplicity. So the paper passers are labeled with all the natural numbers 1 2 3 4 and so on. Um okay. And so we're going to suppose that paper passer number one is going to perform his duty in year 1 BC. Paper passer number two is going to perform his duty in 2 BC.
¶259Uh paper passer 3 and 3 BC and so on stretching back into the beginningless past. Now the question becomes what is written on the paper after the whole process is done. Say in the year 1 AD or today. Well, we know that there has to be some number on the paper, right? I mean if the paper was passed to paper passer number one without any number written on it, paper passer number one would write its number on it as that's its job.
¶260And so what follows is that there has to be some number written on the paper. Okay, we're going to call that number n. There has to be some number written on the paper. We're going to call that n. But interestingly, we can also prove that n cannot be written on the paper.
¶261Meaning we have a contradiction. N both is and is not written on the paper for in order for paper passer number n. Yeah, I feel like we've been over this in the last sort of conversation that we had. The last debate was more a conversation, but it was between um um Alex Malpass and William Lane Craig. And the sort of way that Alex Malpass is sort of saying, hey, you're looking at in infinities like integers and they're not.
¶262And this he's doing the same. He's sort of saying, hey, each writes an integer on there and there's an infinite number of them. Well, infinity isn't an integer. >> Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe I need to take like a full philosophy program at a major university because I have taken courses >> as as part of other programs.
¶263Like my pre-law program included a philosophy course, but that wasn't the point of it. >> Um, yeah. because I feel like they're only teaching half of logic, you know, like here's a list of fallacies and here's >> Q situations, these axioms that Joe mentioned. Um, they're teaching those things, but they're not teaching >> the way logic is a adaptation of mathematics like that. This seems to be a missing thing in philosophy.
¶264Well, that's modal logic >> problem. >> Yeah, that that's kind of modal logic, isn't you know, it's kind of a schema of the way that that logic works. But, um I I I don't know. I I think I think most introductions to it have sort of critical thinking rather than, you know, pure philosophy and stuff. It's just sort of, you know, the these basic fallacies and things like that.
¶265So, I I I don't know. I don't know. I think it's just um they're not listening enough to they're sort of bringing their own understanding of fields into into philosophy. And it's like well if a mathematician says hey you can't you know use infinity in that way because you can't subtract from infinity or whatever maybe listen to them. I know where the one time John Lennox could have something valuable to say.
¶266Where is he? >> In England, I presume Oxford. >> I mean, we know he he wouldn't say it. He'd take the opportunity to talk about how wonderful he thinks CS Lewis is, but I mean, >> man is a mathematician. >> It's it's it's your moment, John.
¶267to write its number on the paper, it would have to have received the blank paper from paper passer number n plus one from the year before. But then paper passer number n plus one had a >> No, no, no, no, no, no. You, the way you set up this this hypothetical, you're starting with paper passer one and if his number isn't on it, he writes his number and then paper passer number two exists in the year before. So you've built a retroactive infinity and now you're complaining that time doesn't run backwards. You set up the hypothetical backwards bestie >> blank paper and received a blank paper from paper pass number n plus2.
¶268But in that case, paper passer number n plus1 would have written his number on the paper since paper passers remember write their number on the paper if and only if no earlier passer does. That's simply how we set up the scenario in the first place. It's a simple and obviously possible job. >> That's also not what he proposed. It's not each passer writes its number on the paper if and only if no previous passer does.
¶269It's each passer writes it right there on the screen. Each passer writes its number on the paper just in case no earlier passer does because we do have this set up backwards through time. But also it means that regardless of whether their p their number is there or not, they're not reading through every number. They're just putting their number on it in case as it says just in case. No earlier pastor does or did depending on which way you're looking at time.
¶270>> Yeah. So it's not it's not like if they see a number they don't write on it. They write it on it regardless of of what happens. I'm not surprised he's he screwed up his own hypothetical. >> Yeah.
¶271He he got his his tens. I I I'm a sucker for alliteration. Dustin says, "I'm perplexed about paper passing people for a paper passer to do." And so paper passer number n plus one actually wrote his number on the paper. But that means that >> paper passer picked a paper >> paper >> picked a pe of pickled papers. >> How many paper passes pick a pe of pickled papers?
¶272Um perplexing. >> Yes. A a preponderance of paper passes picked a pack of pickled papers. >> Please paper passer number n didn't right because whenever a paper passer received the paper with a number on it, it simply refrains from writing its number and passes the paper to the next PP. And so what we get from this is that N both is and is not written on the paper and that is a contradiction.
¶273No, that's a paradox. But also, >> you set up the scenario. This obviously could never actually happen. That doesn't mean there is no such thing as an infinite regress. It means your hypothetical is broken.
¶274>> Yeah. >> And so here then is the argument. Premise one. If causalism is not true, that is to say, if there genuinely could be infinite causal chains in reality, then surely the paper passer scenario would be possible, right? I mean, there would seem surely if you know if human life was was created by aliens, then it would be possible that human life was created by aliens and therefore humans must have been created by aliens.
¶275Yes, it would be if humans were created by aliens, it would be possible for humans to have been created by like this is just what I'm trying to illustrate is this is more tautologies. It's it's saying if I'm right then I'm right. >> So I'm right right >> wrong be no reason uh that we couldn't construct such a paper passer scenario if infinite causal chains genuinely could obtain in reality. But we just found that the paper pass scenario is impossible for premise 2. And hence what follows is that causal finitism is true.
¶276And if causal finitism is true, now refresh me. When when you have an argument that is structurally good, but the premises are false. Is that invalid or unound? I think that's unound. Well, the thing that it's annoying me most, I mean, it's not to do with his argument.
¶277It's really to do with the fact that he's just saying there's an uncaused necessary concrete being and that's what he's calling a god. Like, it's like the calam saying therefore like so the calam is basically saying all um um all uh um um what is it? All uncaused things have a cause. The universe is uncaused. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
¶278And that's that's the the end of the calam, right? Like, and that and they use it as an argument for God when it doesn't have that as the conclusion, right? You're just c calling a cause a god. And and in this case, they're just saying whatever the necessary state of affairs was at the beginning of the universe, we're going to call God, say, "Well, hey, take our tithes from the the believers and and tell them not to have gay sex." You know, like that is that is basically what that like it just it's nonsense. Like it doesn't get you to the conclusion that you want.
¶279All you're doing is using a misappropriated label, which okay, you can call anything God, right? You you could call my computer god. I could call my dog god. It's just it's just a word. But god comes with some baggage.
¶280Okay. As a normative word used in society. When you're talking about a god, it cannot be a um a a non-aggent, a a something without free will. That's just a deterministic natural process. Okay?
¶281I'm just just saying that that is not what we use that word for. The way you phrase that is interesting to me because it suggests that the difference between a natural necessary concrete cause of whatever and a god is baggage is god is just a cause with baggage. It it comes with a list of demands and that's And also it's not actually attached to any necessary natural concrete thing. But like mostly the baggage though. >> Well, it's it's kind of like well if you want to call just say the big bang, right?
¶282Like I know that the big bang was the beginning of the inflationary period of the universe. It's not necessarily the beginning of the universe. Just say, okay, the big bang is the necessary cause uncaused thing that that started everything, right? Um, you would then say, "Well, that's God." And it's like, "Well, like why not just call it the Big Bang?" Like why have the label of God at all when there's already a social structure that is sort of has a book that is the most printed book on the face of the planet that has a definition of God in there that you know is in is in um um contradiction with what you're saying it is. And you know I I don't think it's deceptiveness.
¶283I don't think it's malice. I just think they're so eager to show you that God exists that they will call anything God. >> Yeah. And in in point of fact, I would kind of be down with calling your computer god because a it exists and b it's a rock we tricked into thinking and that's I mean it makes us higher than gods but still I mean it's a it's your bling stone. It's a magic rock.
¶284I really dislike that that description of a computer. I'm sorry. Like the rock we tricked into thinking. Come on now. >> It's right up there with like, oh yeah, I don't have a brain.
¶285It's my meat computer. You know, like come on now. >> I love meat computer. It's so funny. >> It is funny, but you know, you're taking a bit of leeway with language right there kind of thing.
¶286you know >> it follows that there's an uncaused concrete being right I mean if causalism is true right all causal chains are finite and so um given that there are caused concrete beings just go to the first member in such a chain right there has to be a first because it can't be infinite and by definition since it's the first member it's uncaused >> that doesn't follow either even if we grant causal finitism it doesn't mean that the concrete being has to be uncaused. Like if if you want to say that it's a necessary thing that it cannot be contingent, then that would require that it's not caused. But that's not what he's saying in this premise. >> Mhm. >> Um but premise five, contingent concrete beings are not uncaused.
¶287Remember that's what we looked at within our principle of explanation. By our principle of explanation, there was some um >> okay, I exist. My existence is contingent on my parents having produced me. However, that's not the whole story. My parents produced a human.
¶288Who I am isn't it doesn't necessarily follow. Like there is a necessary causal action for me to exist. But the me that does exist is one of many potential versions of me that could have existed. And this is what we mean when we say possible worlds. >> It it it isn't correct to say that I exist because of my parents alone.
¶289That's a necessary contributing cause, but it's not the only cause of the me that's on screen today, you know. >> Yeah. >> Prior condition which uh accounts for or makes it be the case that contingent concrete objects uh exist. they can't exist um unexplained in terms of some outside factor. That's just what I mean by a cause.
¶290And so um what follows from all of these is that there's an uncaused necessary concrete being that is to say God. And that's that's captured in the the final six. >> That is to say God. Oh my goodness. Again, he's he's playing devil's advocate.
¶291>> But oh my goodness, it hurts my head. >> Yep. I mean, he's he's doing hopscotch with Logic here, especially at the end. Like, he he really built up aces in the beginning for some very shaky premises, but now he's just like Grand Canyon chasms of of freaking jumping. >> Yeah.
¶292>> Yeah. and doesn't actually land at um sort of any kind of god of classical theism or a god that would necessitate any kind of worship. He's just putting a label on a very amorphous, vague, nebulous concept, >> right? Because again, we we could just grant premise six and while i.e. God fits the criteria the way he's interpreted what he's laid out, so does the universe or the big bang or any other god, you know?
¶293So, it doesn't actually >> do anything as far as demonstration. >> Nice. So I have actually been quick to identify the necessary being with God. But let's just slow down just a bit and see if it's actually God. >> Okay, he noticed appreciate.
¶294So first it just seems obvious that anything that's physical or material is contingent and not only does our abundant empirical experience >> Ah, yes, it seems obvious is my favorite demonstration. right after I heard as you know a news article >> for this but our best science indicates this as well. Um for every particle there's an antiparticle and they annihilate upon collision. >> Well that's not strictly true but never mind. >> Moreover we can smash particles together at the large hydron collider and actually cause particles to give way to electromagnetic radiation.
¶295I mean, this is a clear substant >> this we've seen before, but this is clear proof that he's like half familiar with a little bit of popsai. >> And what he's referring to is the annihilation reaction. When you match a piece of matter with an identical piece of antimatter, like a hydrogen and antihydrogen, or a proton and an anti-roton, or an electron and a posetron, when they merge, they they I'm trying to explain too many things at once. When they hit each other, they both poof into gamma rays. Like that's >> annihilate.
¶296Yeah. >> Yes. That that's what an annihilation is. It's the conversion of that matter into photons. And >> it's reversible.
¶297And >> yeah, >> there's so much cool science here, but I don't want to I I love my tangents, but we're talking like a half an hour explanation on this one. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but the the shorthand is that there's nothing non-physical or immaterial about that.
¶298It is it is simply a sort of, you know, energy isn't non-physical kind of thing. like it's not he's sort of using matter and um sort of immaterial the same way and that that's you know or or not matter and immaterial the same way. No, no, stop. Like just because it's not matter doesn't mean it is somehow supernatural, immaterial, non-physical. It is >> right.
¶299Photons are not magic. They're they're >> right. Whether you call the we wave particle duality shows there are two things. No bestie. It's just different models of how you think about them for different formulas so we can predict behavior better.
¶300Like >> y >> sometimes you want to use a topographical map to plan your trip and sometimes you want to use a highway map. They're they're different models of looking at the same terrain that doesn't change what the terrain is, you know. >> Yeah. change and hence such particles and such electromagnetic electromagnetic radiation are not necessary beings and moreover we also have reason to think that the physical universe as such began to exist. I mean if it were past infinite right if it it if it were beginningless in the past we would seem to get a violation of causalism since earlier states of reality >> no no nobody nobody says that they know that the universe began to exist.
¶301Well, William Lane Craig does and Frank Turk does because William Lane Craig does. >> Well, no. I mean, William Lane Craig, he he kind of has stuck to that, but he's got a lot of push back on it, especially from physicists who do know what they're talking about. We know the the inflationary period started. There was a beginning to that, but what was before that?
¶302Well, we can't we can't find out. We can't tell. >> Yeah. I mean that we often say that the math breaks down, but I don't think people really understand what we mean when we say the math breaks down. We've we've talked before about how gravity slows down the relative passage of time.
¶303How one h how to phrase this simply? Um as you go backwards through time, the universe becomes more dense. there's the the same amount of matter and energy taking up less volume. However much volume that is, even if it's infinite, it it becomes more, right? And so as you go past the the CMBBR into the air of the last scattering, when everything is plasma, you reach a certain density of the matter and the energy that time really starts to slow down relative to how we experience time now.
¶304So even though a year is a year, whether you experience it here or you experience it there, temporally speaking, the year then would take take it and put it into now and it would take a very long time, thousands of years, millions of years, billions of years. And as you go further and further back, the amount of time it takes relative to us for one second to pass gets so very long that we don't ever actually reach zero. It asytoically, it's just like trying to get to the speed of light. You can't quite get there. It just we can asyach.
¶305>> Yeah. >> It's it's the same thing with time. We can't the math breaks down because what time means in a physics sense stops making sense before we get even close to zero. You know to successive later states and so on add infinite to the past and of course in addition to all like the scientific evidence from big bang cosmology. And so what we found now is that physical things right are contingent.
¶306physical material things are contingent and hence whatever is necessary that is to say not contingent is non-physical and immaterial. Now immediately this might this might make us think that this necessary being has a mind right I mean the only immaterial causally efficacious things we know of are minds like numbers for instance don't cause anything but I won't place all my sticks in this basket so let's turn to a second reason and this second reason is that um this immaterial non-physical necessary being is what is explaining the wonderful world of contingent things we find ourselves in in it but having an explanation doesn't mean it is the explanation and also I have problems with the proposed explanation as we detailed in the first part, >> but details. Is that a Bitcoin symbol? >> I don't know. I'm not I'm not I'm not a sort of a you know, I'm not a crypto guy.
¶307>> It's probably another logic symbol. >> It is. No, you're right. It is. No, no, no.
¶308You're absolutely right. No, it's a Bitcoin symbol. That is That is Yeah. Okay. May Maybe we now know where this guy has invested his money.
¶309from all his views. >> Oh, good. >> This is a core tenant of theism. But more importantly, given that the world is intelligible, orderly, regular, consistent, rationally investigable, and contains massive amounts of stunning beauty, we have reason to think that this non-physical necessary being that accounts for such a world is more like a craftsman or an artist than some impersonal chancy process. The inference can in fact be put in basian terms.
¶310on the craft. >> I would really we we hear a lot of arguments from incredul about the fact that order exists and causality makes sense indicates there must be like a personhood that made decisions like an artist, like a crafter, like a creator, creation requires a creator, uh painting requires a painter, all this assorted stuff. But I've never heard a like a an internal critique of that argument. A a taking it and turning it inside out to see if it makes sense the other way. Like is it possible that a universe could exist that isn't rational?
¶311And how would you hypothetically construct that? You know like the the maybe it's my own incredul but the concept itself rebelss against rational thinking. I cannot rationally envision an irrational universe. >> Right. Right.
¶312H but you know one of the criteria that he's using is intuition. And it's sort of like saying well I can't intuitit an counterintuitive universe. And it's like well no obviously not >> right and how would you do that oneot thing it doesn't the fact we can't think of an alternative doesn't mean the proposed explanation is true it just means that it's quite possible that either a we lack the cognitive capability to solve this particular problem or b things could not be any other way. This isn't a masterwork, it's an inevitability, >> right? >> Or maybe a third option.
¶313I, you know, I hate dichotoies. >> Hypothesis, the type of contingent world we see is expected or at least not very improbable. Uh, but under the negation of the craftsman hypothesis, it's quite unexpected. Um, the third thing is that the necessary being is axiologically supreme. Now to see this first recognize that this being has at least >> axiologically supreme.
¶314So you're basically going to a generally agreed upon presupposition that says they're supreme. >> Yeah. It's supreme because it's supreme. Because we said so. Because it has to be because we said so.
¶315>> Yeah. >> Now it's a small circle. Mhm. >> But I there's there's so much I'm I'm skipping over like five or six different things he said just then. >> I really hate the way that he's using language as well because like what does value mean, right?
¶316Like when you're talking about value um that that's going to definitely mean different things to different people, right? So if you're sort of saying unlimited in value, what does that mean? Like break it down. what what criteria are you using for evaluation of this thing? Like I I get power, right?
¶317Like and I get um you know you're omniscient and you have unlimited this that but unlimited in value does he mean to society? Is that his case that hey it it's unlimited in value to society that people believe a religion and march like zombies down the street? I I would definitely challenge that, but you know, like that isn't an argument for God. >> Yeah. Like value and also just if a thing is unlimited in value, like what does that mean in any context?
¶318Like we could say a human life is priceless. It's in that it's beyond value. Does that mean it's unlimited in value? Because there's people who definitely put a value on it. But what what even is axiologically supreme?
¶319Like does it's like he's he's almost reached the Jordan Peterson in inflection point and it's started to just produce word salad. But maybe he'll explain some value, right? I mean it has the power to account for or produce contingent reality for instance. Um and that seems to be something that's quite valuable. But then ask yourself how much value does this being have?
¶320Well I mean it would seem that any finite cut off in value would be an arbitrary unexplained cutoff. Why value to degree D as opposed to as opposed to degree D plus one or D minus one. Right? I mean all else being equal I >> he's accidentally making an argument for an infinite regress here because why propose an arbitrary cutoff. >> Yeah.
¶321>> Because that's the the alternative if you're not if you're going to declare without any real concrete reason to say we know X is finite because of whatever and you're just going to like argue in that general direction. Then the entailment is you are proposing an arbitrary cutoff. You don't have to say what the specific value is but you are entailing a cutoff. Why that cutoff? Why not another?
¶322What is it? Why is it that you know it just h theory of the foundation that doesn't posit such arbitrary unexplained breaks or limits in degreed properties is more probable than a view which does posit such arbitrary unexplained cutoffs. >> Why why is it in what way is it more probable? Like you're just saying things at this point, Joe. Moreover, the hypothesis of unlimited value is simply more intrinsically probable than a cutoff or limit in value for the no because something being unlimited in value seems to me incoherent in its entailments and so it's not more probable unless you can demonstrate that it is coherent.
¶323>> Yeah. hypothesis that there's some cut off to say degree D requires extra specifications about the finite degreed value of the foundation and that's an extra specification that lowers the intrinsic probability of the hypothesis and we therefore have reason to think that the foundation's value is unlimited and from this we get to an immaterial non-physical metaphysically necessary maximally Great. That is to say, unlimited and value being that explains why contingent things exist. And this, of course, is just God. >> All of this intellectual labor and he's just going to throw up his hands and be like, "And that's what we call God." >> Yep.
¶324>> Every [ __ ] time. It it really does annoy me because I've been getting I mean I was on a call with with Godless Engineer and basically it was a guy going you know life is God and and it's like okay I mean you can call God anything you want but if if life naturally arose through natural processes and we're we're you know organic beings and like what is a god in this scenario and then he was sort of well the universe is god and it's like why call it a god? Like I it kind of, you know, it doesn't annoy me as much, but you know, Spinosa, Einstein, they were like, well, the laws of nature are God. And it's like, well, why call it a god? Like, why take this term that refers to something completely different in every single society on Earth and just go, well, then a god exists because that's what we're calling it.
¶325You could do that with, you know, your your your favorite freaking um plush pillow. You could go, "Yeah, but that's what I call God." Okay, then that exists because >> worse than to worship boobies, >> right? Right. >> To be real, >> so boobies is what I call God. So therefore boobies exist, therefore God exists.
¶326And it's like, yeah, but it like h it it's just frustrating because it's sort of it is just word games. It's just defining a god into existence and it's annoying as hell. >> But Mark, have you considered >> Look, we've got jellyfish that, you know, until something eats them, they can go on and on. And lobsters, for example. >> Lobsters, for example.
¶327I enjoy that clip far too much. >> I blame I blame Tommy. >> All right, we'll go on. >> X only has >> No, the next argument is from proposition. >> No, true.
¶328Truth and false. I don't think like so I I'm not sure you could cause a call truth and true true and false like concrete properties kind. They're just comparators. They just compare one thing to another basically and say is that true or is that false. So if you have a proposition it compares it.
¶329Um this this is really bad. Some propositions necessarily exist. Do you mean like exist conceptually or exist like in concrete? Like are they abstractions? They would be um like they would be models of how we are saying things are like for instance if I'm saying um um uh um Jesus built my hot rod, you know, that's either going to be true or false kind of thing.
¶330and and that proposition doesn't exist somewhere in the world. Like it's not out floating in the world by itself. So I I don't know why you'd say some propositions necessarily exist. What does that mean? >> Well, there's a lot here that's wrong.
¶331So for for anybody who may be listening, um he's he's got another syllogism up here and it it says um one, some propositions are necessarily true. Two, X only has a property if X exists. Three, so some propositions necessarily exist. Four, if some propositions necessarily exist, then theism is probably true. And I know that anyway.
¶332Five, so theism is probably true. And it just >> Mark takes issue with number one. What's really grinding my gears is number two, for example. >> No, I take issue, man. >> I I take um issue with number two.
¶333it. Oh, it drives me crazy. However tall Superman is, he has the property of tallness. Even though he does not exist, he's he's an abstract. He's fictional.
¶334You know, um things don't have to exist to have properties. This is sort of it's it's a reverse polarity of reality on this one. You know, >> I would say that something can have a a a property that is conceptual if they exist conceptually, right? But like the way that he's using exist though, he's using it as they exist in reality, not just as they exist as a concept. And this is something that um for some reason theists just mesh together and smudge all over the place.
¶335Because when we're talking about um God existing as a concept, it means that it's a social construct that people agree on and say, "Hey, it has these properties." That doesn't mean it actually exists in the real world because that um that covers also uh uh um Laura Croft and and Super Mario, right? >> Mhm. Mario, good man. Loves his mushrooms except when he stomps on them. He loves some mushrooms.
¶336It is It is necessarily true that Mario loves some mushrooms. >> Some mushroom. He He booked for our sins. >> I don't know why he's always depicted as a fat plumber or carpenter, whatever game you're playing, because like he gets so much exercise. He's constantly jumping.
¶337>> I know. I know. Um, but then again, you know, at least he's not Luigi. >> Poor Luigi. >> Free Luigi.
¶338>> Oh, wait. That's a different show. Never. Never mind. >> That is That is a different Luigi.
¶339But hey, if if Luigi is being held for murder, free him, too. Mario Luigi is in another castle. >> Yeah, it's it's a whole thing. So there's this is just this is just crap. Like and again I realize he's playing devil's advocate here, but like this is crap.
¶340>> Yeah. >> Some propositions are necessarily true. >> Well, here's the thing. If that proposition is true, then it proves itself. If this proposition is false, then it doesn't necessarily prove the opposite, which is to say it's a completely [ __ ] useless premise.
¶341>> Mhm. >> X only is a property if X exists. This is Oh goodness. God has tallness. It's in the Bible.
¶342It doesn't say how tall he is, but he he has a tallness attribute. Therefore, he exists in the Bible. Um, great. Cool. But we don't have to go through all this.
¶343We can just point at the Bible and be like, "God exists in the Bible, therefore God exists." >> I don't know why propositions would necessarily exist. Propositions seem to be um made by humans describing the world in some way, right? So a proposition >> all propositions necessar Well, I realize he's he's um equivocating on the word necessarily. He's using necessarily here in the logic sense in that it necessarily follows, but he's also >> hinging on that earlier version of necessary as in a necessary non-contingent thing, >> you know, >> and that a lot of conflation there. Like there is so much conflation in this and the the whole idea that some pro propositions necessarily exist.
¶344It is kind of like well no there's no reason for propositions to exist besides we create them. >> There's a proposition existing right there. Proposition three. Look at it existing in an abstract kind of way. >> Some properties necessarily exist, right?
¶345Like so if you have an apple it will have certain properties that exist but the proposition about it where you say the apple is red and it's not a red apple it's a green apple for instance you know that that's the proposition. It doesn't exist anywhere. It's it's just an abstraction. It's just a description. It's just a label of of um things that we apply to something and then it is true if it matches and it's false if it's not.
¶346It's not a thing by itself. The seven dwarves lack and tallness. I'm just going to keep going. It's fine. So, yeah, there's there's a lot of problems.
¶347Every premise is riddled with issues and it gets worse because they keep building on each other. >> Yep. >> I'll just let him go on for now. We're we're almost through his intro. >> He doesn't even come to the conclusion that God exists that says theism is probably true.
¶348It's like what the hell? You cheat that much and you still can't, you know, win the game kind of thing. Come on, dude. Seriously, what the hell? >> Yeah.
¶349It's like I forget who who said it recently, but some someone said that no matter how sophisticated the argument, ultimately this kind of word games is the philosophical equivalent of the pigeon who just [ __ ] on the board and strut around like he won, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so the first premise of this argument states that some propositions are necessarily true. Um and so for instance, it's just necessarily true that nothing can be both true and false in the same respect and at the same time.
¶350And the second premise says that X only >> that's weird for a guy who was just arguing for superposition a moment ago >> in in a metaphysical sense, >> but never mind >> has a property if X exists. I mean, just think about this. If X is precisely nothing then surely it cannot have any properties. I mean X cannot be anything like be red. If X is not well then nothing has the property of not existing and therefore nothing exists non-existently and now you have an incoherent contradictory statement.
¶351So good good job Joe. Well, I I would I would amend that and then sort of say, you see, he's talking about concrete at the moment without actually addressing abstracts. How we can make propositions about abstracts. Like you pointed out, I use a Superman example, right? Like Superman comes from Krypton is a true proposition even though Superman and Krypton do not exist.
¶352None of it exists, right? So, >> not anymore. Well, not >> okay. Okay. Um, you know, those things are um that that but that proposition is true because the when you're using these sort of true and false, it's highly contextual.
¶353Like for instance, if I say it is daytime today, that is true for me, but it's not for Ember, right? Because the the contextual thing that I'm leaving out is where I am at the moment, right? like that is sort of a unspoken given to that statement and so these these propositions are highly contextualized um so um you know w with the the proposition about you know Superman you made another example I can't remember which one it was sorry um but you know nothing about them exists the properties don't exist but we can still make true or false statements about them. >> Yeah. >> So in that >> being right >> in that case the property of Superman coming from Krypton it it doesn't have that property because it doesn't exist.
¶354>> Yeah. I I think what we're getting at is another way of approaching the you you can't imagine things into existence. Like it I mean it'd be cool if we could and then we'd believe in supernatural things because you know we'd be do of course it wouldn't be supernatural if it were an ordinary thing that and we can explain how and why it works. >> Yes. >> But still it it it' be neat.
¶355I, you know, on my Saturdays, I often make a one big meal for the week. Um, and and hang out with my son and and any of the other kids who may be in town, but my son is in town, so whatever. Um, made a big old pasta dish. So, we had a salad, we had a big old pasta, we had these tiny little pumpkin pies that cost like 75 cents and they're [ __ ] delightful. And then we had ice cream.
¶356And so I was very full and and then an ad came on for or no, it wasn't even an ad. It was it was one of those bar rescue shows or whatever, but they had this giant slice of pizza and I'm like, damn it, now I want pizza. How rude. I like I cannot eat anymore and yet now I want pizza. If I could imagine it into being, folks.
¶357>> Yeah. >> If it's utterly nothing, that is to say non-existent. And from these two premises, we can actually conclude that some propositions necessarily exist. Um the inference theory is a little bit complicated. But again with the the equivocation taken at face value, some preposition propositions necessarily exist.
¶358Behold, there's a proposition existing in an abstract sense. So yeah, some propositions >> Yeah. >> exist. There's one. That's a thing that's demonstrating a thing.
¶359This is how demonstration works theist friends. But I know again the equivocation he's also using necessarily in the other way as a non-contingent. Some propositions are necessarily non-contingent. I don't think that's true though because in order to describe something the thing has to exist first and so the proposition is contingent on the thing being described. Yeah.
¶360And I think that propositions are contingent on people making them. >> Well, yeah. Yes. Yes. That that too.
¶361>> If there's no one around, if you if people didn't exist to articulate a proposition, they wouldn't exist at all, even abstractly. >> Yeah. I don't I don't think you you not only have to have a mind that works somewhat similar to how how our minds work, but it also has to go through a certain process. Like I can very easily imagine humans with identical levels of intelligence and cognition to Mark and I who grow up in a vastly different culture where the concept of propositions doesn't even compute. And so they even though they're humans with human minds could not produce propositions.
¶362They'd produce something else that we don't understand perhaps. But >> yeah, >> but basically it goes like >> but frogs certainly frogs and slugs and snails and and probably puppy dogs tails not noting propositions. >> I will say when he's going through his arguments, I feel less and less bad that he's converted to Catholicism from from what I'm seeing. They can have him quite frankly. I'm I'm just looking now.
¶363It's um it's not great. Sorry, that was that was a bit of a shot at him. I'm just I'm just thinking like is is it is it that much of a loss? >> Well, again, devil's advocate debate. He's he's >> That's true.
¶364That's true. >> From his position, he does not believe this. And so, like, is he building flaws in because he doesn't want to accidentally like it's >> or is there just no good arguments? Maybe it's just you can't, you know, he's done his best to find good arguments and has to, you know, make some [ __ ] up. Like he's basically has to conflate in order to support this this thing.
¶365Could be possible as well. >> Yeah, perhaps. Perhaps. I'm trying so hard to be generous. If X only has a property if X exists, then if it's possible that X fails to exist, then it's possible that X lacks a property.
¶366But necessarily true things can't possibly lack properties, right? They necessarily have the property of being true um and necessarily having the property of corresponding with reality. And hence it follows, >> for those of you keeping track at home, >> that was an even number of negatives, >> right? So >> it can't possibly not exist. >> The truth I I think that it's sort of you know propositions do they correspond with reality?
¶367No. >> Superman comes from Krypton does is a proposition and it does not correspond with reality even though it is true. >> Sorry. >> Which which is a demonstration of how a thing can be true and false at the same time because it's true of Superman but it's false in reality. >> Yes.
¶368But that's why I'm saying that propositions are highly contextual because the underlying thing about that proposition is you're saying Superman comes from Krypton and the thing you're not saying is in the comic book in which it was relayed in the abstract concept at which it was you know penned or whatever that it was created. Yes, that is true. But if you say does Superman come from Krypton in reality then the answer is no. That is false because there is no Superman. There is no Krypton.
¶369I'll ask this universe seems fine-tuned for Homelanders. >> Yeah. Well, no, it's just contextual. It just means just like um it can be nighttime like it is nighttime is true where you are but not where I am, right? Like that can be true and false at the same time depending on the context in which you're placing it.
¶370>> That's all. >> Locally true, relatively true. Oh. Ah, this is this is where the philosophers get the idea that all truth is relative. But if all truth is relative, then is that relatively true or is it universally true?
¶371I >> it it's not it's not really relative truth because there will be an objective truth there. It's not really relative. It's more just that um most propositions lack the proper context in order to um correctly form them basically. >> You have to be ultra specific with what you're what you're actually saying >> or you're assuming the context. But that's where the wiggle room comes in that the theist like to play in the sandbox.
¶372>> Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. >> That some such propositions necessarily exist.
¶373And so um premise four states that if some propositions necessarily exist then theism is probably true. Now there are actually a few ways to motivate this. I'll just give two different ways. There's also a sort of Russellian paradox that we won't get into um at least for now. Um but the first way is that the most for the most part right the only two worked out systematic accounts of necessarily existent propositions are platonism on the one hand and theism according to which propositions are just thoughts in the divine intellect or are of course otherwise grounded in God's perfect nature.
¶374that those are not entailed by theism and also Platonism is closely related to that variation of theism in so far as Aristotle's student Platonius is the one who brought Christianity the idea that >> of Platonic objects. Yeah. >> Yeah. Because because there there we can conceive of the Platonic form of an ultimate good. It therefore must exist and it is equal to God in the A equals a sense.
¶375It it shares the identity trait even though that doesn't actually match any description of any god humans have proposed >> that I'm aware of. Well, I I think leaving out um sort of the idea that propositions are platonically real, that they have some sort of concrete existence or there some sort of existence in the real world. I think that's a leap. Like seriously, I don't I I I certainly would reject that and ask you to demonstrate that propositions do actually have a platonic form or some kind of actuality to them. You know, I I think that that is just kind of ridiculous.
¶376But then again, I I sort of reject >> platonic ideals completely. >> I think most people do. And I think that's why he may be setting up a dichotomy >> of of like either you have to believe in this silly thing or you're a theist. Granny's here. I'm a bit late.
¶377Did they discuss that a proposition being true doesn't mean it exists? No. Actually, kind of the opposite. If if a proposition is true, then it has to exist or the thing it's describing has to exist. If if Harry Potter wears glasses, Harry Potter must be real in order to have glasses.
¶378>> Yeah, that property exists. So yeah, I I would just reject so many of this. Again, it the syllogism falls down from um number one and just keeps falling like you know it's going over Niagara Falls, folks. Wave to it as it passes. >> It's got the jargon mark and that's what counts.
¶379>> Oh, that is true. Yeah. >> Yes. Sounds very official. Yes.
¶380>> But plism is false. And so we have reason to think that theism is true. >> Now um why I think that plism is false. >> Got it in one. You got it in one.
¶381False dichotomy. Yep. Yep. >> Yep. >> Uh well, one reason is just epistemological, right?
¶382I mean like these are eternal uncreated a causal platonic abstract, but we're like finite causal concrete things. >> No, no, no. Just because even if there were a platonic something, that doesn't mean they're uncaused. Like under theism, that's the the entire point is that the god laid out the metaphysical substrate upon which reality is draped like a fabric. They are created, but never mind.
¶383>> And plus there's other >> conceptually, abstractly, we can create them. What is a chair? What is the property of chairness? You know. >> Yeah.
¶384So that that would be my position of nominalism, right? Like these the chairness is just a label that we have created to describe something that we put on things, you know, that we we have this abstract that has been created by our brain to say, hey, this is this thing. And then we make comparisons. And a proposition is simply a statement about that whether it actually matches or not either an abstract like Superman or whether it matches a chair. So when you say that is a chair um you know that is either true or false but that depends on what you think a chair is >> right and that gets into the definition games.
¶385I'm actually really partial to the chair thing. Partly because of all the lore having to do with, you know, people declaring things and then saying, "Oh, definition games and people saying define a chair then." But also for a similar reason, because some people are very prescriptivist about their definitions. They're saying, you know, a chair has to have four legs and sit on the ground. And here I am in a swively chair that has one leg and a broad foot because it it swivels. And I like the swivel because it's it's good for my fidgetiness, but also because they would they would then turn around and be like, "Well, whatever you're sitting on, it's not a chair.
¶386It has to be something else." And it's like, you're just being arbitrary now. And once you can point out a person doing that, just being arbitrary to admit that there's more nuance to the world than they care to admit with their prescriptivism, you have them in a box. when they start saying, "Well, I have declared that the definition of X is this." They've set themselves up as an arbitrary authority, but it's just arbitrary. like Matt whether it's Matt Walsh saying adult human female or it's it's Ben Shapiro saying that Judeo-Christianity is the the the right way that caused Western civiliz whatever whatever it is that's being arbitrarily declared definitionally they're just erecting their own illusionary tautology >> chairs they solve a lot of problems including where to sit Mhm. >> How on earth do we get sort of cognitive contact between them um with these things in this mysterious third realm?
¶387Also, there's a kind of evolutionary debunking argument against plonism or at least pltonism plus uh naturalism in the realm of concreta uh or at least non-theism in the realm of concreta. Roughly, right? All the evolutionary factors that shaped our development of our cognitive capacities are entirely tangential and coincidental to whatever is specified in this platonic third realm. That's an excellent point. TLDDR, we cannot be created in God's image because we were shaped by uncontrolled natural factors.
¶388And being that that is the case, then how we ended up cannot be the result of a divine plan. Unless it's a very convoluted plan that definitely went wrong at some it's just there's there's a whole bunch of steps that that go in here to show that theism in fact is probably not true, but never mind. >> Well, that's why is a lot stronger position. the whole idea that God um you know did the ignition on on the universe and then just let the thing develop however it developed kind of thing. He basically handc cranked it and let it run is is a much stronger position because then you don't have the problem of well what what about this you know complete and utter chaos that is is life basically.
¶389>> Yeah. There there there isn't a god. There's an ex a a a lab assistant, a a postgrad in in an office somewhere going initiating universe 24603472. >> Roll the dice. Okay.
¶390This one doesn't form because of gravity. Okay. Universe 403 267 871. Roll the dice. Okay.
¶391>> Too little gravity. But let's try. >> Yeah. be an utter coincidence then if we reliably latched on to such facts concerning this third realm. And then a second argument for this premise four is just the mysteriously thought-like nature of propositions.
¶392I mean just think about it, right? Propositions have intentionality. They're about things. Granny asks, "Where did this third realm come from?" And that is a good question. It probably has a meaning that Joe's familiar with, but this is one of the things that Mark and I both frequently mention.
¶393>> Before you get your terminology out and start trying to build a chair with it, you should explain to the audience what tools you're using. To just introduce new tools midway through is confusing to people. And it's fair, you're not going to get every single thing unless you like think out your entire opening and prepare for it. like Joe seems to have done. But if you run across a new term that the audience probably isn't familiar with, like what do you mean by third space?
¶394Stop and explain it. Because even if your your counterpart, and we had the same criticism with William Lynn Craig and Alex Melpas, is the fact the two people talking to each other might understand what you mean. Nobody [ __ ] else does. >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶395And I think I think his third realm it kind of I think he's appealing to concrete abstractor and then some kind of mental realm that resides in the mind of God kind of thing. Like it's this you know because obviously if you sort of say well all abstracts are created by the mind of a god then I have an abstraction of a a foreheaded dildo that god has created. Why is that kind of thing? So he I think he's trying to separate in some way, you know, human thoughts which God wouldn't produce from from human thought kind of thing, which I I mean, why what what if sin is the difference between the thoughts you have that are tapping into thoughts already thought by God and the thoughts that aren't thought by God because he created everything, but also there's things he didn't create, >> right? And and the sin is when you're drawing from the wrong pool of created thoughts or something.
¶396You know, the entailments get a little wiggly. >> It does. Yeah. >> Propositions can correctly represent reality. They can be true or false or represent it rightly or incorrectly.
¶397They're necessary. They're immaterial. They're eternal. And so on. All of these characterize perfectly divine thoughts.
¶398It would seem that a unifying >> do they how do how do we compare this like do we have divine thoughts we can compare these two oh goodness >> simple explanation with substantial explanatory power of these features of propositions is to simply identify them with divine thoughts um and they clearly couldn't of course be thought >> well let's just say they're divine thoughts and that means that they are yes >> yeah Yeah, why not? >> You know that pizza I was thinking of earlier? Clearly. >> Yeah, why not? Can I have a slice of your divine pizza?
¶399>> Only in the abstract, unfortunately. >> Damn it. >> Curses. Curse you. Philosophy time machine.
¶400Can you go back and have some words with Aristotle of any finite intellect? And hence we get the conclusion that theism is probably true. And then turning now to the uh fourth and final argument. And I know I'm you know somewhere like 17 minutes in and so I'll I'll try to be brief with with this one. >> It feels like so much longer.
¶401>> It does. >> [ __ ] dude. Seriously, >> Brandolini's law is off the chain. >> I know, right? Wow.
¶402Ohay. The good news is folks that because Randall is playing devil's advocate for the skeptical position, even though his opening is also 20 minutes, it should be considerably shorter. I don't know if we're going to get it today, though. First, we have freedom or free will. Uh my argument can make do with either libertarian or compatibilist understandings, but I'll just stick with a libertarian understanding because it's sort of the intuitive one.
¶403Um and so specifically, we have the capacity to do otherwise and we are the source of our actions. Now, why think we're free? Well, first, I mean, it just seems self-evident, right? I mean, inspect your own mind and you can >> It seems evident the best argument for everything. Yes.
¶404>> Yeah. I mean I'm a compatibilist but even I will admit that we don't have as much free will as we think we have you know like because a lot of the time we are reacting to things and then going damn why did I do that you know you know what I mean like I I I really think there is a lot of that going on so you know I don't know I don't know >> now that you mention it that would be another one of my arguments for something resembling a god in so far as it seems and I stress seems seems to be some kind of element of fate involved in our lives because we've all had moments where something happened that is impossibly improbable like you know surviving a car accident or getting into a car accident that definitely should not have happened like um driving down the road and suddenly there's a deer like it poofed into existence. It actually fell from above somehow but there it is and you hit it and now you're in an accident that like in improbable things, but they still happen. >> But number one, >> I I would push back against that. Number one, there's confirmation bias.
¶405Okay? Because there's all kinds of events that are not improbable in your life and you don't pay attention to them. In fact, I would argue that every single second probable things happen and you only recognize the improbable ones, but you never recognize the probable ones, right? Like so you know if you if you do a you know if you drive somewhere and you don't get into a car accident you don't notice it. You're like yeah that's entirely expected.
¶406So you don't notice that. So number one is confirmation bias. Number two I can also add the weak anthropic principle to that because if you died in a car accident you wouldn't be here right now. So you're you're sort of looking back and saying oh it's incredibly unlikely that I I survived you know this car accident or whatever. was like, "Well, if you didn't, you wouldn't be asking that question." And lots of people die in car accidents.
¶407>> Mhm. Yeah. So, it's it's it's like I said, it's an argument. I'm not actually convinced by it or I would be a theist. But similar >> there's there's other moments and the same thing applies in in a slightly more abstract sort of way where >> I recall numerous conversations where someone would say something that one might find upsetting and I make a very intentional effort to not respond out of emotional reaction immediately.
¶408I try when when something really upsets me, I tend to default to neutral. Like I just I just go gray rock and then process it and then talk to the person later after I fully process. That's that's how I handle confrontations that come out of nowhere. >> And so a person might approach me and say something very upsetting and I intend to say something along the lines of we'll talk about this later. But what actually comes out is a Shakespearean monologue about how, you know, this is all your mother's fault or something, you know, like where did that come from?
¶409It's like you get taken over and driven by the narrative because there is a fate and you have to stay on script or the fates >> the universe will just come unhinged or or whatever something like that. Now, the same things do apply. I'm not paying attention to the moments when what comes out of my mouth is close enough to my intentions that it it matches. You know, it's like what you want to say and what actually comes out. It isn't a one-step process.
¶410It goes through several different parts of the brain before it actually emerges. And a whole lot of them are automated, a lot more automated than we think, >> you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
¶411Yeah. So there's there's a lot. But yeah, I that would be one of the ways I could try to build a case. >> None of that points towards even theism. >> I don't think it's a good case.
¶412Yeah. >> Yeah. That this is true. You can click off this video. I don't suggest it because I hope you're having the time of your life, but I mean, you definitely could.
¶413Um and second of all it's seems to be the only way to make sense of the obvious fact that sometimes we are morally responsible for our actions. For instance, Hitler along with others is morally blameworthy um for the atrocities of the Holocaust. Um and so what are some >> ah if we don't have free will then Hitler did nothing wrong. What an argument. >> Yeah.
¶414Look, I I I think we we I'm a compatist, so I think free will is compatible with a deterministic universe. But I could say even if I didn't have that opinion, um it might actually be easier to sort of get a morality if you a and and here's how you could possibly do it, even though I'm not convinced of it. basically have a um naturalistic explanation for morality, right? Some sort of evolutionarybased or an objective morality of how we ought to behave as humans. Okay?
¶415Now, I don't believe that, but if you have that, you can then say, well, h because humans ought to behave in a certain way, anybody not behaving in that way is not acting morally. For instance, we may um have expectations on how our computer ought to behave, right? Like remember when Ember's computer froze earlier? It shouldn't ought to have done that, right? Like that's not how it ought to work.
¶416Okay? It it has done something wrong. And you can say to your computer, you damn thing, you shouldn't have done that. I just had you cleaned out the other week. You know what is wrong with you?
¶417You [ __ ] Or your car. You know, like it ought to start, right? You might say, "Hey, my car ought to start. It has enough fuel and there's nothing wrong with it." kind of thing. So, under certain circumstances, we can say how things without free will or to behave given that they have an objective way that they were um um what what they were designed to do.
¶418Now, I'm not suggesting that humans have a designer, but if you do have an objective morality coming from some kind of naturalistic cause like evolution or um how humans naturally behave, I don't agree with that. But if you do have that and you do say hey there is no free will then you can still say what is moral but what it takes away is really that culpability right because what what you can essentially say is that oh that human is malfunctioning we need to fix it right it's not behaving in the way that it ought to behave we need to fix that thing we need to take it into the and put it there until it can actually behave like a human, right? Like a how a human should behave. Just like with your computer, we can say, "Hey, that isn't behaving in the right way. Let's take it into the, you know, IT guy until it decides to behave in the way that a computer ought to behave." Um, so free will does not necessarily ne negate morality like a lack of free will.
¶419>> Yeah. I mean, to me, it's intertwined with consciousness. Like, the more we learn about neurology, the more it seems like consciousness isn't just an emergent property of the mind. It's an illusion created by the mind. Because imagining we're a single organism with a single >> Yeah.
¶420>> choice making apparatus has evolutionary advantages for decision- making if nothing else, which in this African savannah is definitely helpful. you you see a tiger, run. Don't we'll we'll figure it out later. Run. You know, like all that kind of stuff.
¶421>> Similarly, we we behave as if consciousness were real. And and for the same reason, for evolutionary reasons, we behave as if morality were a real thing. We even if people don't have choice about what they do if everything's completely deterministic, we still treat them as if they did because we see a a result. When we do that, it improves outcomes in the future. When we don't do that, we end up with lawless societies with murder and chaos.
¶422So, >> sure, >> we have to pretend it's real, you know. >> Yeah. I I I think though there is a um there isn't a sort of so as a compatibilist I would say there is free will but you know because when you're talking about like the mind and the brain there is so many different it's so complicated because there's so many levels right so for instance if if you get burnt by fire >> you will jerk your hand away as an automated automatic response if you don't know it's there and don't override ride the response. You will automatically jerk your hand away um being being burnt by a fire. And that nerve signal we found doesn't come from your brain.
¶423It comes from the nerve cluster in your lower back. It will send the signal, right? Like it doesn't your mind is not involved in any way, shape or form, right? It is just a reaction. So, you know, some things like when you were talking about like when this charade comes out, like we have different levels and they've been sort of um colloquially and probably completely inaccurately being called your lizard brain and your monkey brain and all of that kind of things, but we kind of still have those evolutionary responses going through.
¶424But I think where free will comes out is that you do have the ability to reflect on past sort of decisions that you've made. And a lot of those decisions have been reaction, but you can change that reaction, right? Your brain can almost create a feedback loop where you're sort of changing the structure of it to do something in the future. And I think that is the seed of free will that you can actually change what your automated reactions will be, >> right? You you you're programmable after a fashion.
¶425And I think that's where uh Granny mentioned even if there is free will, I'm not sure punishment is a moral option. That's that's sort of the thing like I personally don't believe in our criminal justice system as we have it where it's a punitive system is effective. Like our recidivism rates are just so bloody high. It's clearly not working. >> The reason we do it is to the opposite of inspire.
¶426Uh cause people to not want to offend for fear of of the outcome. But it does provide that additional function of sort of programming people's behavior. And this is something that free will does not play a factor in. Right? Like um if you if you left-handed kids in schools, right?
¶427For many many years, teachers would smack them with a ruler when they wrote with their left hand, >> right? Even if they want to rebel, and they might, and continue to write with their left hand, it's going to build a a mental chain reaction that when I write with my left hand, I get hurt. And so, they'll write with their right hands in order to avoid that outcome. Like, it's it's it's immoral. That's the opposite of morality by most conventions, >> but it's behavioral programming, you know?
¶428Yeah, >> I think that's what a lot of punishments are at least intended to do is to provide a kind of many extra unnecessary steps behavioral programming. >> Yes. >> Which is rude. Requirements of freedom. Well, first of all, I mean you have you have to be >> Sounds good.
¶429Sounds good. Um, first of all, you have to be conscious, right? Um, you have to be aware that you are making certain actions. You also have to have rationality. You have to have certain reason based explanations.
¶430You're choosing on the basis of reasons. Um, I'm not sure. Maybe, but I'm not sure. I could see a person making decisions that aren't based. No.
¶431What do you mean by reason? Are we talking reason in the rationality sense or in that there is a reason? Like >> I needed money so I robbed the bank. I was hungry so I took an apple. You know, like that's a reason.
¶432>> Yeah. And I I would say that the um Yeah, I I I get what he's getting at. So basically I I get that some decisions may be arbitrary or based upon irrationality. I I get that. And I I you know, do they have freedom if somebody is is mentally ill and does something?
¶433Well, our court would say no. They didn't have, you know, the the capacity to understand what they were doing. So, is that what he's getting at or is he sort of getting at >> I'm not sure what he's getting at to be honest with you. >> Yeah. Seems like another It's not exactly a weasel word, but it's used kind of in that way where it can slide depending on the context.
¶434>> Yeah. I think you can have a rationality and still have human freedom. I mean, even if you're making decisions completely arbitrarily, it doesn't mean that you don't have free will anymore. Yeah. Likewise, I don't, you know, I'm reading ahead a little bit, but I don't see anything on here that entails freedom.
¶435Like, you could have all of these criteria and not have freedom. You could be conscious. You can be rational and lucid and all that things and exist in a world that's orderly and intelligible and so forth in a life permitting world. Obviously, you need to in order to exist >> and has causality. Maybe he'll explain what he means by irreducible more, but like all of those things can exist in a world that doesn't have any human freedom.
¶436Yeah, you could be locked up in a cell, have no free will to do anything you want. And you know, >> maybe he just means that they're prerequisites for freedom to be possible. They're not the only ones, obviously. There has to be some additional element, >> but without these, do you can you have freedom? And I don't know that that's necessarily true, but I'll let him go on.
¶437It's not some sort of a disordered or nonrational process. You also need a world that's orderly, predictable, and intelligible and stable long term in order that you can sort of sync up your intentions with their expected consequences. That's not necessarily true. You can make a decision even if you don't understand the consequences. That the the reason we say look before you leap is because you are capable of making a decision without understanding the consequences.
¶438I mean, look at MAGA. goodness. So yeah, if the world made no sense, we could still make decisions. We just wouldn't be able to sync our decisions to a desired outcome, >> right? >> You also need a world, of course, that's life permitting, right?
¶439Humans are lives. So we need a world that's lifemitting. And we also need an irreducible kind of causality. We need some sort of agent causal power. uh some kind of agent causality that's not just uh sort of um particles bashing into each other in the void.
¶440>> Now that's the fascinating thing and and he I kind of agree here. What he's talking about is the the ultimate question of free will is are you able to defy the rules of cause and effect? Like right now, I'm making these bits of matter move with my [ __ ] mind. We know there's there's a biochemical process that causes these reactions that makes movement happen. But there's still something that amazes the inner infant on the uh the level of Aristotle.
¶441What he called a soul, the difference between being alive and being dead is that animating force. And that's that seems to be linked to what we mean by free will is I can just choose to wiggle my fingers. I don't have to wait for certain time of day or certain set of criteria. It's just there. I can will it to happen.
¶442I have godlike power in a very limited way. >> Right? >> But am I defying causality? Am I causing a new thing to happen or is it something like is it is there no possible world where I don't go like this? You know, it just I I don't know.
¶443I mean, it's just sort of um I I think I think he's sort of trying to point to there has to be some sort of inciting thing. And you're right, he's probably going to try to point to a soul. There's got to be some sort of inciting thing that makes you wiggle your fingers. the animus basically the the thing that makes you move or do whatever you're doing. Um but you know I don't see why that's not the brain you know because you didn't have that level of control when you were born.
¶444You were just flailing around without any kind of knowledge of anything including that things that vanished um would come back if they came back. Like when they vanished you thought as a baby that they were gone forever because you didn't have object permanence. In fact, as a as a baby, we kind of studies have suggested or shown that the baby still thinks it's part of the mother. They don't cons they don't have a sense of identity of their own. It's it you're not wrong.
¶445But I think what he's getting at is agency in a first mover sense. Like when am I violating normal causality when I choose to move, you know, because like by right I'm a pile of matter. I should just sit here until acted upon, but I'm choosing to act on my own. >> And I think that's what he's driving at is is creating our own first causes >> thing. It's difficult to put into words.
¶446Well, I I would sort of say, hey, you know, the the the physical makeup of my brain is sort of deterministic from all genetics and things like that. But what I learn um changes the shape of it to such a degree that I think that is where it is compatible with free will that if I am reacting in a certain way, I'm getting angry at something, I can go back um and sort of even if I have no control over that when someone, you know, calls me a dirty Australian who who stole the stream, um I can go back and say, you know, teach myself not to react like that, excuse me. And I think that is where sort of free will kicks in. It's your ability to um learn and train yourself um to make a new choice that wasn't available to you previously. >> Well, I also I kind of first of all, as far as stealing the stream, that's sort of a thing.
¶447There there was a time uh early on the first year we were doing this where you had to leave the stream a couple of times, restart your computer, something like that and I'd do something similar. I'd just take over the stream and be like, "All right, y'all. You better subscribe and hit the like and all that crap, you know, and it it's it's it's all in good fun." >> But shoot, I I don't know. I'm starting to get really really tired, folks. So, I lost >> Well, we'll just get through this.
¶448It's 1 minute 15 to go. Okay, we'll get through this absolute debacle of a of a intro. >> Man, I hope he's Look, all I can say is now that he's actually converted to Cath, I hope he is using better arguments than this because seriously, this would just this is just bad. >> Miracles, >> a lot of jargon. Really?
¶449Is that the reason? Please tell me that story. >> He did a long stream on why miracles are real, though. >> What miracles? Has he seen them or is he just going, "Hey, a lot of people have stories about miracles, therefore true." >> I It's a very long stream.
¶450I didn't watch. I You know, I've got [ __ ] to do. >> Too long. Didn't read. Yeah.
¶451No, I I hear you. I hear you. >> If If I love audiobooks. If I'm If I have hours available, I'll put an audiobook on. Like I'm not gonna listen to some crazy person rant about me.
¶452May maybe I should. Maybe he does have the proof I've been asking for my whole life, but maybe he could do it a little shorter. Maybe. >> Well, you obviously can't hurry these things as we're seeing. >> Yeah.
¶453Oh, inspiration. That that was the other point. See, it it came to me. Estrogen brain working good. um the ability to originate thought that that doesn't follow from the normal causal chain.
¶454Like a lot of our day can be automated. In fact, it it often does get routinized to the point that people will drive to work without really thinking about it. They might not even remember the drive to work. They're paying so little attention. They might listen to what's on the radio or they might think about what they're having for dinner later, but they're not really there because it's automated.
¶455Same thing with the day at work. unless something remarkable happens, it just kind of it just is expectations, you know, and and that sort of thing. Um, so a lot of our days, especially as we get older and develop really ingrained routines, >> we don't have to have original thought. Now, some people do cultivate original thoughts. Like artists, for example, they're constantly conceptualizing new things.
¶456But everyone every so often has that flash of inspiration. A thought, an idea, a concept, a creation, an invention that >> sure >> isn't based on logical flow or cause and effect. It just flashes into being and that seems to defy normal causality too. Like when people say, well um where did you get this idea? Like a derivative creation.
¶457You can say, you know, you're designing a car. I looked at last year's car models and I saw we could use more cup holders and so I improved on it but that's iterative. Whereas someone who invents the car that's you know there's a flash but >> there is an argument that all new creations are amalgamations of ideas pulled from elsewhere kind of thing that >> Yeah. But in the same way that everything that exists is made from other things that previously existed. >> Yeah.
¶458I don't know. It's It's difficult, especially the way language works, to demonstrate there is such a thing as a truly original thought. But I don't know that you necessarily have to have an original thought, just a thought that doesn't follow from your normal routine and the things that were in your head at the time. Well, I I kind of think that both are um unfalsifiable, right? So, if if you sort of say, hey, all of your thoughts are based upon your experiences which were determined um your uh makeup of your brain chemistry, but everything was determined.
¶459We can't really falsify that. Um so, it's sort of unproven. But if you sort of say, hey, there is a free will element, that's sort of unfalsifiable as well. like how do you prove it either wayable in both directions. >> Right.
¶460Right. So it's kind of that we sort of just as a compatibilist I go yes almost everything's determined but we seem to have this seed of free will. So I'm going to live my life like that and believe that free will is compatible with um um a a deterministic universe. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it's perfectly fair to say I don't know, but you know, this seems a practical thing to do until I learn otherwise.
¶461>> Yeah. And it's it's not it's not that like I don't have a belief about it. It's just I lean towards compatibilism. It's just that, you know, we're talking about, you know, the the level of certainty that I would say, well, I'm certain I own a computer or something. You know, like that that level of certainty.
¶462I wouldn't I wouldn't die on the hill, but I'm I'm you know I I do lean towards that anyway. And that's the thing like your beliefs don't have to be oh I I 100% believe everything that I believe in kind of thing. Like you know God is real and right is wrong and all of this like why why put yourself in that position of leaving no door open to be wrong about something? I don't understand that. Um I I think that we have a different confidence level in a whole bunch of different beliefs and there's no reason to say, "Oh, well, I'm just as certain of, you know, morality as I am that a god exists, that I am that you know, the earth is 6,000 years old and that um you know, dinosaurs were aboard the ark and stuff like this is the kind of um thing." But you know, you might be really certain about something and that that's fine.
¶463you know just leave yourself a bit of bit of wiggle bit of wiggle room but that doesn't mean you can't say hey I this is what I think and this is what I believe or even this is what I know if it is justified >> I'm h I'm hamming a time over here folks >> to hijack the stream again I I I will do it I will do it Um, and so these are the requirements of human. >> Grab the bellaying pins and belay or delay or something like that. >> Lay over things. >> But here's the key. Freedom is extremely unprobable or unexpected or surprising, which is an epistemic notion on naturalism.
¶464Nowhere near as improbable >> like >> okay >> why >> I don't know >> I don't >> I I don't think anybody uses unprobable anymore. Just saying whatever. Yeah. Like this is just an assertion like it exists or at least it from a practical perspective it exists. Why would it be unexpected or surprising or whatever?
¶465>> But also remember he he's saying it's nowhere near as improbable on theism. But here's the thing, theism itself is inherently improbable because it it requires a foundation of magic happened. you know. >> Yeah. And and there's another there's I won't sort of get into it, but there's another argument about a god u being omnisient, knowing the future, and having free will.
¶466There's definitely a contradiction there. >> Yeah. Issues. So many issues. >> The issues have issues.
¶467>> Yeah. >> As As Granny says, what does he expect in naturalism? is is is it determined? Why does he expect that? On what basis does he calibrate that expectation?
¶468I just ahism and in fact we have some reason to expect it on theism given how valuable creatures are. Probability is really ultimately about your fundamental resources or building blocks afforded by your world view. Under naturalism the fundamental building blocks of reality are unconscious unfree bits of physical stuff. a pori. We wouldn't expect such utterly unconscious, utterly unfree physical bits of reality to be able to bridge that.
¶469>> No, no, no, no. So, he's conflating here. He's just basically saying, well, if your world view is that God did everything, then you're more likely to think there's free will. If it's naturalistic, you're more likely to think it's deterministic kind of thing. It's just basically what he's not getting at is what is the actual um state of affairs as far as free will is concerned.
¶470He's just basically appealing to a probability based upon your pre-existing suppositions or your your your your worldview essentially, which doesn't actually argue for it. It just argues that if you're a theist, you think it's more probable. Okay, but that isn't an argument for the thing. It's an argument to why you would believe it. Does that make sense?
¶471like it's not actually an argument for the existence of something. It's an argument for a probabilistic argument for someone explaining why someone believes it, >> right? Like it's it's if you're an American, you're more likely to think capitalism is reasonable, whereas if you are in China, you're more likely to think that, >> you know, communism is the way to go. That that doesn't make either true, >> right? Like so it's sort of a meta discussion that he's getting into here which doesn't actually address whether free will is or is not a thing.
¶472It just addresses the chances of you believing that it is. It's just it it's a non-argument >> a categorical gulf or chasm to consciousness and freedom. We would expect unfree things only to produce other unfree things. That wasn't a side. >> You can't You've never seen a dog produce a non-d dog.
¶473>> I can't believe he hovened in his philosophy. >> Hey, I've never seen a god produce an a god produce a non- good though. I've never seen that. >> It's true. It's true.
¶474Wow. >> Yep. Of course, I know that Randall is defending atheism, not naturalism. But, um, by naturalism, I don't mean causal closure. I don't even mean a denial of Platonic abstracta.
¶475I only mean the thesis that, uh, any concrete thing is either physical or grounded in or explained by the physical. This is sort of Paul Draper's, um, understanding of it. And so, um, I know I've got about 15 seconds left or something like that. So, here's a syllogized version of the argument. It makes use of B theorem.
¶476Um, but for time sake, >> oh, we love BM. We know >> B theorem. Yeah. Now base theorem does have some valid uses for statistical analysis um for for scientific studies various things like that but the people who use it in philosophy >> are doing something else and o >> yeah so basian analysis is basically a statistical analysis that it's designed to start out with some presuppositions some unknowns that you assume what they are, right? Like you assume certain elements and it's supposed to be updated over time as more evidence comes in.
¶477But the the problem with it is that if you're wrong about any of those things at the very start, you can throw that theorem straight out the window. Like it it it is so inaccurate at the start, but that's not how it's designed to be used. It's designed to be used where you have more information coming in and you update the theorem with the presuppositions that you got wrong. Like for instance, if you're tracking animal movements and you might hypothesize they don't go to this area, they do go to that area. What's the probability they'll be here?
¶478As you get more data about it, you update those unknowns. So that's what it is supposed to do. The the problem is that they will start it go, okay, here's all these presuppositions. So that must be the answer. That's not what it's supposed to be used for.
¶479>> Mhm. And that's that's what we see here is is he's saying oh well B theorem I have decided that to me the probability of naturalism seems very low and to me the probability of theism seems not very low. So because of B theorem theism is more probable. No, that's you just remove B theorem and just be like to me theism is more probable. >> Yeah, because the problem is that we're not getting any more data about the probability of free will existing or not existing, right?
¶480Like we're not getting that data coming in in order to update the probabilities. So while like BA theorem it's incredibly useful basian analysis incredibly useful just not when you don't have any new data to update the the the probabilities in that case all you're doing is just assuming states of affairs and then producing a probability at the starting state which is kind of not that useful at all. Mhm. It's It's functionally equivalent to making [ __ ] up. >> I mean, it does have like known quantities in there, but I don't think this one does.
¶481So, yeah. Um, you know, the theorem there's nothing wrong. >> If you have known values to start with, then then yes. But like in this context, it's it's just and Cam does the same damn thing, you know. In fact, Cam made another video >> um I believe after this one, but maybe it was inspired by this particular lack.
¶482Who's to say? Cam might, but I I don't know. Um he starts out with he's using B theorem to prove Christianity. And he starts out with a 50/50 probability that theism is true and atheism is true. And then he alters the probabilities based on his own subjective opinions of things.
¶483And every round of additional data input is just more of his subjective opinion of things. And then he ends up with something like a 58% probability that Christianity is more true than other theisms and theism is more true than theism. And and all of that is, you know, atheism is left with like a 0.001% chance of being true. And it's literally just Cam's vibes the whole way through. I am convinced of Christianity because I'm convinced of Christianity.
¶484Great argument. >> Nine seconds. We need we don't really need to go into that. Um and then one final thing before I end. By the way, God exists.
¶485Thank you. >> All right. Well done. Well, >> well done. Like like a steak.
¶486My goodness. Did Did I freeze up again? I may have frozen again. >> No, you're you're you're fine. I can hear you.
¶487You're you're you're good. You're good. >> Okay. Okay. I'm like, ah, I was I was trapped in absolute zero for a second there.
¶488Like nothing was moving or changing. it. I'm like, "Oh, no." All right. So, that is Joe's opening. >> Mark, are you convinced?
¶489>> No. No. I I think that hopefully though like those were pretty bad arguments, I must say. I hope that he would have >> words in them. >> Yes.
¶490>> Did you hear how many syllables were in some of those things? That's pretty convincing, right? >> Yeah. No, not really. Not really.
¶491I I just think that, you know, this this sort of word games, a lot of it was defining a god into existence. A lot of them was that um just basically saying, "Hey, um there can't be infinite regress." And I mean I just summed up of you know 10 minutes of him talking by just saying there can't be infinite regress. Like seriously he stretched that out so long. People if you say there can't be infinite regress they'll say okay. Um just from intuition.
¶492So um there can't be infinite aggress. There's got to be a first cause. Whatever that first cause is that's what we call God. It's like well what if it was just something natural? Then that's God.
¶493And so I don't like that is just playing games with words to say, "Oh, I believe in God. I'm a Christian." Well, you know, we know that the universe started naturally. Well, then that's God. It it really is a dodge. And and I I sort of have brought up in the past the Mton Bailey fallacy, um, which is sort of you you go out on a limb or you go out to the outer wall and and sort of make these claims.
¶494for instance, like Jesus is your savior, you know, repent or be burnt in hell. All of these kind of, you know, really, really grandiose claims about heaven, about hell, about all this stuff. But when then when you're pressured, some theists, and I'm not saying all of them, but some Christians and some theists will retreat to the keep, the Bailey, the strong point, which is, well, the universe had a cause. Whatever that cause is, we call God. >> Ergo, God exists.
¶495>> You have free will, therefore God. >> Right? Therefore, God, right? So that well they're sort of making these claims but um when forced to defend them they are just going back to a much weaker sort of position and then claiming victory because you didn't um get into their main stronghold which was um you know a demonstration that a god does not exist because you know the the big bang was the god even though it's just a natural event. And and a lot of that is just using word games to say, well, Jesus is Lord.
¶496Jesus is God. Jesus is the tr part of the Trinity, which is God. And then when really pressed on it, just going, "Well, God's whatever created the universe. That that's all that it is." It's it's an equivocation. It's it's it's conflating the two things.
¶497I think that when you're using the word God, you can refer to anything. You can say, "Hey, life is God or the universe is God or, you know, my bold head is God." You can call it whatever you want. It's just a word. But if if you're going to base your worldview on the Bible and be a Christian and in some way appeal to something divine behind the word God, just sort of pointing at natural things and saying, "Well, yeah, that's God." Just doesn't cut it. And I I don't think we should let them off the hook for that because if natural events or whatever created the universe is God, you can throw your Christian morality out the window.
¶498You can throw your promise of heaven and your threat of hell out the window. You can throw any um superiority of knowledge out the window. Like there's so much you are throwing overboard uh in that wall, but it it's just a game. It's just like, well, once we've defended the God, then we'll just push back up to the to the outer limits and say, "Oh, yeah, but it's Jesus. We've proved there's a God, and by the way, it's Jesus." kind of thing.
¶499>> But I see no reason to allow them to do that because it is just word. That's all it is. Word games. It's just word games. >> It's always word games, but sometimes they're fun word games.
¶500Needless to say, obviously, we're going to hell. Um, >> yeah, absolutely. Behold, we have proven Christianity by dent of the contrary or something probably. I don't know. Other religions have something like a hell.
¶501I I don't know. Um, Hades actually doesn't seem that bad. It's It's like I You know what? It's not important. >> Next time, Randall Rouser's opening.
¶502um a a a a theologian, a seminarian who will be playing atheist for the purposes of this discourse. What could possibly go wrong? >> Yeah. Yeah. What what what could >> Yeah.
¶503I mean, did did you have fun? I I I was with this choice. >> I I I I found it very interesting. I I worry that that unless you've sort of been in the soup that is um apologetics that a a lot of stuff is really hard to understand kind of thing which is why we're stopping and explaining so often. I think this was um completely opaque to most people kind of thing and that's I'm glad that we did it because we're there to explain but at the same time >> wow okay you know this is why people hate philosophy this is why people absolutely loathe it it's because um you know I feel like he is beating you over the head with philosophy in order to get you to accept something you know and a lot of people would just go yeah I I don't even care anymore and walk away and not bother to challenge him because it's just too too [ __ ] hard.
¶504Like seriously. >> Right. And if these lengths Yeah. If you this far to pretend you have a case, >> clearly that it's not a strong case. No.
¶505Yeah. If if your god if any god really exists and wants you to know about it so you'll worship and obey and [ __ ] you should be able to just show us. >> You don't need to play word games. >> My god. God wouldn't wouldn't take this approach.
¶506A a all intell you know super intelligent master of the universe if they wanted you to know they exist and had all the power to do so they wouldn't be doing this. It would be a triviality and it would already have happened. Like there is no possible way that a om omnipotent, omnisient um omni benevolent uh uh super intelligent um god that wants you to know that he exists would somehow still be hidden from you. >> Yeah, I wrote a book so you know I'm real. But also, I need I want a relationship, but you can't ever see me.
¶507Like, what kind of weird arranged marriages? You know, it's >> it's >> that's stalking. That is stalking. >> We we alternate every week. Next week, we'll be over at Mark's Place, so make sure you're subscribed over there.
¶508And And also make sure you're subscribed over here because I I do some other stuff from time to time. I'm working on getting my deep dive show going again in in uh uh very soon, but uh I'm aiming for the 21st. I may start early. Who knows? But I do random shows from time to time.
¶509I'll I'll just pop up when I have something to say. And there's a few things I have some things to say about. So, make sure you're subscribed, have the notifications turned on, and and and keep an eye out. And I'm also working on some more things that may or may not actually come to pass, but keep an eye out for other mischief. Um, >> Mark, you you have the usual goodies coming up.
¶510>> Yeah, something like that. Don't forget to like the stream. Um, just because it really helps the algorithm and we really appre Give a give a cheeky like. Just just hit it in a way that is is just cheeky, you know, like yaha. Um, that that's how I do it.
¶511Exactly. That's how I do it when I'm at home. >> Yeah. >> Yaha. Um, yeah, I' I've got stuff going on.
¶512Come over the channel and and you'll find out. Um, hopefully I'll get some more debates, but uh yeah, things are looking up. I've really wanted them. So, I'm I'm really working hard trying to do that. Um, and yeah, it's it's been a fun time, but uh thank you.
¶513I I've got stuff stuff's happening. >> Sure. the the stuff the stuff >> the stuff >> that would be the traditional stuff is on on our Tuesday here in in in the US Tuesday night um is God the [ __ ] um some Wednesdays there's a member stream so you know be be a member if you want in on that >> and uh Thursdays our Thursdays uh fundamentalist fails and then of course Saturday our Saturday we'll be back over the part two and a debate may show up from time to time as well. Oh, sure. Yeah.
¶514Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. >> Thank you, Ember. It was It was a delight.
¶515Thank you so much. This was actually a lot of fun. So, yeah. Um I I just I dread to think like if his arguments are the same, I I dread to think how bad they are. No wonder the the other Christians are going, "Is this guy for real?" Because wow.
¶516>> I I know. You look at that and you're like, "Is this can can this guy really be genuine?" Like even if he does genuinely believe, is it really based on reasons? I don't know. >> I don't know. I'm just I just feel a lot better about him converting now, >> right?
¶517We don't we don't have that baggage in our camp. >> Oh, no. That's That's >> no great loss. No great, >> right? >> No, I I do know that he's doing a devil's advocate position.
¶518I am hassling him. But it is a devil's ad cuz so it might be way better than that. Okay? Cuz like if his his reasons for converting is oh I saw a miracle or had this experience. You can't really argue against that, right?
¶519Like you can't say okay well I'm going to show that you didn't. All you can do is say hey the likelihood is a lot of people who claim to have had that happen you don't believe. So that's inconsistent. But that's the best you can do for something like that. So maybe maybe he is you know being rational.
¶520I I don't know. I haven't checked it out. >> Yeah. I just I hate being on the same side as Brian Holdsworth with anything, but it does not seem >> Yeah. >> good.
¶521>> It just, >> you know, say, in any case, thank you all so much for joining. As always, >> the reason we do these live is so we can interact with you folks. And I really, really appreciate you being here. If you're watching this in the future, you must really like this kind of thing. So, please do join us live sometime.
¶522We'd love to see you in the live chat. And uh >> yeah, >> live long and prosper. >> Thanks to all our patrons and top level members for August. Miranda, Tux, She Wonders, Ian Shen, Robin Webster, Karen Butcher, Lilith, Emberlin, Margie, the barely bearable atheist, Eric Wander, Jason Jacobe, Deviant Outcast, Thrive, Scapegoat, Noise Ending, Jenny the Secular Feelist, Ay the Free, and the Godless Engineer. And you can add your name here next month by signing up at patreon.com/betanmber or by joining memberships here on YouTube at the cinder level which also includes all the custom emojis, tons of member exclusive content, and a bunch of other stuff.
¶523I deeply appreciate all the supporters who keep this channel going. Thank you so much. Because of you, we're building a wonderful community that I'm very proud of.