¶1This is this is every single argument every single philosophical argument that Joe makes. It's thinking about two different things that are linked, but then imagining that they were separate and ar and thinking about all the possible ways they could be associated with each other and then arguing that most of those would not be consistent. Most of those pairings would not allow for the type of universe we live in. Therefore, arguing that the type of universe we inhabit is very unlikely in that specific way. And then arguing that God resolves that issue.
¶2I think this is a very silly way to think because it's most of the things that he associates are are directly connected and that him he's just imagining them being separated and essentially inventing a problem that is solved not by postulating God but just by learning more about those things. [music] What's up guys? So this is part four of my response to Joe Schmidt's case for the existence of God. And today we're going to talk about something called the argument from nomological harmony which basically is is goes something like this. The world has things and laws for that kind of things.
¶3For example, the world has small objects and laws for small objects. And the world also has large objects and it also has laws for large objects. And Joe thinks that this is like some amazing coincidence like like wow we have objects with that have charge and and laws for objects that have charge. I mean that's amazing. It could be that we have objects that have charge and allows for objects that are like have mark I mean something like that you know something different [snorts] right so yeah so that's basically the the idea so let's let's look at what he says our universe is governed by laws that match its contents there are laws about the behavior of massive bodies and there exist massive bodies for those laws to govern there are charged particles and there exist laws laws specifying how charged particles are to behave.
¶4The point can be put somewhat more precisely in terms of a harmonious match between the states of our universe and its laws. There exist states such that applying those laws to those states yields other states. Matters might conceivably have been otherwise. >> So you know this is very interesting. This is actually a very interesting example.
¶5So let me show you how these things usually work in reality. You see those these two different equations. one equation for the force of a small object and one equation for the force of a a massive object. So at first you think that this is a these are like different equations, right? Well, it turns out that that's not the case.
¶6How? Let me show you. Uh what happens is that the original law that's something like this. There was one term that was let's say the contribution of the mass to the force. There was a second term that was something like the contribution of the magnetic effect to the force right and it was the being divided by something right and then what happens is scientists engineers they say something like this okay for large or or for massive objects the contribution of the the mass so large that the contriution ution of the magnetic force becomes negligible in comparison to the other one.
¶7Which means that we can just close it out of the equation. And then if that term is is gone, we can simplify the equation and it becomes a / 2, you know, which is four alpha over gamma, you know. So like it becomes the new equation, right? So that's what happens. It's not that like oh we have a we had a what a coincidence like we had small objects and we had allow for small objects and we had a massive objects and allow for massive objects.
¶8Well thank thank god allow for massive objects existed otherwise they will explode or whatever. No it was the same law but it was like fundamentally it go backs to the same thing to one [clears throat] same thing. It was just something like a different expression of the same thing. And this, by the [clears throat] way, this happens all the time in sciences in the natural sciences, right? I have a background on engineering.
¶9So I I do know about this. So I think what happens sometime I'm not trying to to say something negative about Joe or something but what happens sometimes with this when philosophers try to analyze things from from the natural sciences but they don't have like a really strong background on on that and they you know they can make like a mistakes of this kind but anyway so what are the laws of nature? Okay, in my view I think the laws of network are simply somehow like a description of the fundamental properties of the natural entities like of the particles or of the quantum field is like so in my view there is not it's not a surprise that we have objects and we have laws for those objects. No, no, the laws are somehow a description of the properties of those objects, right? And James Fo agrees with me.
¶10He also made this point in his life talking about George Schmidt's argument >> because I think the laws of nature are just descriptions of properties of the universe or more specifically I would say that it's a description of the properties of four dimensional spaceime and or quantum fields if it is the case that quantum fields are distinct from four dimensional space time. >> So yeah, he and I have the same view. We both hold to the powers view of laws which means which is to say that again the the laws are simply like powers or or properties of the fundamental entities. So it's no no surprise that we have these kind of things and laws for these kind of things, right? So Joe in his video, he acknowledges that this view exists and he tries to present an argument against that.
¶11So let's take a look. >> Let's turn now to the powers theory of laws. On this view, laws simply describe the powers things have. You might think this view like relatively easily explains nomical harmony. Since if we're holding fix that there are laws, well then you know the laws must match the contents of the universe on the powers theory since laws are nothing but descriptions of the powers of the things in the universe.
¶12But alas, things are not so easy for the naturalist because the powers theory just raises an exactly analogous problem of powers harmony, right? Like why do the powerful properties and relations featuring in the initial conditions harmoniously align so as to induce temporal evolution? Like this is an utterly fortuitous occurrence since it's entirely conceivable that the initial conditions feature powerful properties none of whose stimulus conditions are met. >> Okay. you.
¶13But that's a completely different argument, right? You just completely changed the original argument. The original argument was like, okay, what what a coincidence that we have objects X and we have laws for object X, right? But now you're saying okay what a what an incredible conscience or what an interesting thing that the laws of the universe were such as that it allowed for temporal development right where it couldn't have it could have been not the case it could have been that the laws were such as that the universe remained in earth right I mean that's fine but that's a completely different argument you just made you just change the argument okay there not the same and in fact if you look at their the paper Brian Carter and the other guy they actually agree with this look let me show you the quote they say power's prior priorities is largely free from the noted problems with the forgo going proposals unlike brutalism power's priorities does not seem to generate a striking coincidence in its attempt to respond to the match between loss and initial conditions right so they agree with that however I mean to be fair they they do say what what George Mid says on the other hand like the human and Armstrong solutions Paul's priorities faces the challenge of explaining why a our universe is not still born since poor priorities is consistent with steel universes uh even if a universe has initial state constituted by property with certain essential casual powers these powers will only induce the revolution if they stimulus condition are met which requires a kind of harmony with the order properties and relations involving the initial states. What do they mean?
¶14They they give an example of what they mean. For example, they give an example of what this means. For example, if there are X particles kind of the kind X and this can only interact with particles of the kind Y but there are but particles of the kind Y are not near the particles F X or they don't exist or something like that. So the idea is that well this also this is also some kind of problem right. However, uh like I said earlier, when when you do that, you're no longer talking about a an omological harmony problem.
¶15You're more like a it's more like an a priority, you know, oh, the universe could have been different kind of thing, right? James also talks about this >> like we could imagine a standard model that didn't have uh didn't have any bons if there was if there was no force mediation at all. um you just have essentially free fields there like free firm fields that just propagated and didn't interact at all. Uh and presumably then the type of any type of life that we know about wouldn't be possible in such universe which requires interactions. That's really just a version of the fine tuning argument about laws of nature.
¶16>> Yeah, I think he's right. He has a good point. If you're doing that, that seems more like a fine-tuning kind of argument instead of a nomological harmony kind of argument because you're basically saying, well, the universe could have been different. It could have not lead to this interesting things. But okay, when when you're doing that, I mean, that's feels like a like a bad f finetuning argument because you're just saying I can't a priority.
¶17I can't imagine many ways that the universe could have been such as that it remained in earth or it didn't do anything interesting or didn't evolve in time or whatever. And it just seems like and then is the question why didn't how come this universe happened to evolve instead of not evolving right and I would say yeah sure that that's fine but so how do you know that the a state where the universe stays in earth or doesn't interact or nothing interesting happened. How do you know that that's much more likely than a state where the universe does evolve over time? Because if you're going to say, and George Smith seems to say this, if you say that you can conceive of an infinitely many ways on which the universe could have remained in earth, right? Well, I can also say, well, but I can think of many many infinite possibilities of different ways in which the universe evolves into and things do happen, right?
¶18I mean, if you're going to do it like a priority, just you just saying, "Okay, but it could have been different." I'm like, "Yeah, I mean, so what? Where is the proof that the boring the or the Yeah, the boring states are like much like way way more likely that the interesting states. Like I'm I'm not sure that just saying, "Oh, it seems like there are more ways for it to be boring." I'm not sure that's enough, right? It doesn't seem so strong to me. Also, Josh Mid has another point where he thinks that uh it is possible that a a particle has a property to interact with something that doesn't exist.
¶19Like let's take a look >> as Matthew Addles puts the problem of powers harmony. Like why do bzons have the power to interact with fian rather than x's where x's are some type of fundamental particle that doesn't exist? It's thoroughly surprising that the fundamental things have the power to interact with other things that happen to exist rather than one of the infinitely many non-existent things. >> I'm not sure if I can make sense of this. Like it seems there's something that seems weird about it.
¶20And James Photo also mentioned this. >> I don't really know how something can have a property to interact with a type of particle that doesn't exist. If someone could explain what that means to me, I think that's a meaningful statement. >> Yeah, there is something strange about it when when you think about it. So you're saying that a a particle has a property to interact with something that does not exist.
¶21How is that work? How is that really? How does that look like? I mean, and let's let's let's analyze another case. Um I'm going to try to explain what I'm getting at.
¶22Let's think of a a a kind of thing that exists but cannot interact with anything at all. Think about it. Imagine imagine humans exist right and particles with max mass exist and gravity exist and like you know ch and there is this things uh that call let's say uh share let's say shmians do not interact with anything at all okay so humans cannot see them humans cannot touch them they can't interact with they don't interact and we also cannot see the effects of Sherman because they don't move mass or bend space or interact with any way she do not interact with anything in the world in any way. So we cannot ever see shaminess or their effects in any possible way. Let's say this is coherent.
¶23This is a a kind of so this is a kind of thing that does not interact with anything. Okay. Now here's the key philosophical question that reveals in my opinion the problem with this view. Is it really coherent to say that Shel exists in this world? Think about really what does it mean to say that something exists and is a concretic in this world.
¶24Right? Because to be actually to be concrete, one of the one of the things that define abstract form concrete is they say well abstract objects had no casual power, had no way to affect things at all. And when you're positing a shion, there is something in philosophy called epinomolon or something like that. It's a concrete thing that cannot possibly interact with anything. And this is supposed to lead to to the philosophical question.
¶25Okay, does that thing really exist? Or imagine something like this. Imagine a ghost that can think but cannot interact with anything in the world at all. Something like a lonely ghost. It cannot it can never possibly interact with the word.
¶26The nothing in the world can ever possibly interact with it. I mean does the ghost exist? I think yes because again the ghost is thinking. So he definitely exists. But does the ghost exist in this world?
¶27I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Or is he or is the go more like a his own? Is he like his own dimension in a way in a or is it like his own world? I don't know.
¶28But to say what it does mean to say that something exists in this world. Think about it. like he has to by definition it almost feels like he has to be able to interact with something else to exist in this world right so when Joe speaks about okay objects could have properties to interact with things that don't even exist I'm like what what what are you even saying what is that is that really a coherent thing I don't know I have my my doubts about that so anyway yeah this that's all I wanted to say on this topic Actually, speaking of James photo, he make he has a great series of lives going very deep into Joe's arguments and responding making an initial response to them. So, I highly recommend those. They are really long, so you have a lot of material to to watch if you want.
¶29I also we also want to do a a live together on the 27th of September where we respond to the psychophysical harmony. So yeah, stay tuning tuned for that. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, thanks for watching the video.
¶30See you next time. Bye. [music]