32 CAREER-ENDING mistakes about the Kalam and contingency arguments
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- In this third installment of my common mistakes series, I cover mistakes relating to the Kalam cosmological argument and contingency arguments.
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OUTLINE
0:00 Intro
1:12 Mistake #73
16:39 Mistake #74
20:00 Mistake #75
20:49 Mistake #76
45:12 Mistake #77
46:35 Mistake #78
48:32 Mistake #79
51:16 Mistake #80
53:15 Mistake #81
54:49 Mistake #82
1:00:51 Mistake #83
1:03:19 Mistake #84
1:04:56 Mistake #85
1:06:56 Mistake #86
1:07:09 Mistake #87
1:10:18 Mistake #88
1:17:23 Mistake #89
1:18:02 Mistake #90
1:18:56 Mistake #91
1:20:37 Mistake #92
1:22:25 Mistake #93
1:23:25 Mistake #94
1:25:17 Mistake #95
1:26:49 Mistake #96
1:34:14 Mistake #97
1:37:04 Mistake #98
1:38:21 Mistake #99
1:46:30 Mistake #100
1:48:37 Mistake #101
1:49:33 Mistake #102
1:52:16 Mistake #103
1:56:12 Mistake #104
1:56:46 Conclusion
CORRECTIONS
54:37 I should have written and said “Nothing in science shows that none of (a)-(d) hold.”
RESOURCES
(1) Resource Document for Part 3: docs.google.com/document/d/1a...
(2) Kalam playlist: • Kalam Cosmological Arg...
(3) Contingency argument playlist: • Contingency Arguments
(4) My Springer book: (a) www.amazon.com/Existential-In... (b) link.springer.com/book/10.100...
THE USUAL...
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My website: josephschmid.com
My PhilPeople profile: philpeople.org/profiles/josep...
*_Corrections and List of Mistakes_*
_Corrections_
At 54:37, I should have written and said “Nothing in science shows that _none_ of (a)-(d) hold.”
_Kalam mistakes_
1:12 Mistake #73: Confusions about paradoxes
16:39 Mistake #74: “From nothing, nothing comes” as a motivation for the Kalam’s CP
20:00 Mistake #75: “If everything has a cause, then what caused God?”
20:49 Mistake #76: Ignoring non-causal explanation
45:12 Mistake #77: The Kalam commits the fallacy of composition!
46:35 Mistake #78: The Kalam equivocates on the word ‘cause’
48:32 Mistake #79: Nothing ever begins to exist + not being willing to accept mereological nihilism
51:16 Mistake #80: The cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, and personal
53:15 Mistake #81: Science proves the universe began to exist!
54:49 Mistake #82: The illicit slide from ‘finite past’ to ‘universe began to exist’
1:00:51 Mistake #83: The endless future is a potential infinite
1:03:19 Mistake #84: Ignoring that stage two even exists
1:04:56 Mistake #85: Merely asserting that there can’t be an infinite past because today would never arrive
1:06:56 Mistake #86: Krauss showed that the universe could have come from nothing!
1:07:09 Mistake #87: Wood’s painful tweet
1:10:18 Mistake #88: Paucity of imagination about what a first cause might be
1:17:23 Mistake #89: Assuming indeterminism → uncaused
1:18:02 Mistake #90: Merely assuming a tensed view of time in defending the Kalam
1:18:56 Mistake #91: Mistakes surrounding Hilbert’s Hotel
1:20:37 Mistake #92: Causal finitism automatically entails a finite past
1:22:25 Mistake #93: Totally overlooking arguments _for_ the possibility of actual infinites
_Contingency argument mistakes_
1:23:25 Mistake #94: Atheists can’t answer “why is there something rather than nothing?”
1:25:17 Mistake #95: Merely assuming that a necessary thing can’t cause contingent things
1:26:49 Mistake #96: “I can conceive of the universe not existing, therefore the universe is contingent”
1:34:14 Mistake #97: Composition entails contingency
1:37:04 Mistake #98: Claiming the only kinds of explanations are personal and scientific
1:38:21 Mistake #99: Confusing contingency with dependence and necessity with independence
1:46:30 Mistake #100: Confusing _necessarily existent_ with _couldn’t have been otherwise_
1:48:37 Mistake #101: If something begins, it can’t be necessary
1:49:33 Mistake #102: Necessary truths can’t be explained
1:52:16 Mistake #103: Being far too swift in stage two of the contingency argument
1:56:12 Mistake #104: Naturalists can’t accept a necessary being + naturalists have to reject the PSR
Joe, you probably won't see this but I'm a huge fan of the channel, and love what you're doing! I'm curious as to what you think of this line of reasoning with regard to uncaused beginnings.
(1) Something cannot have the causal or explanatory power to prevent uncaused beginnings
(2) If (1) uncaused beginnings are possible
(C) Uncaused beginnings are possible
The reason for (1) is that the nature of uncaused beginnings (if possible) are such that they are inexplicable, that is there can be no explanation for their instantiation. It seems to me at least odd to say that the reason uncaused beginnings are impossible is in virtue of some existing thing that prevents the what would be inexplicable. For then there would be an explanatory relationship between the explanans and the inexplicable.
I'm taking (2) for granted. Perhaps that's where I'm mistaken. Btw I'm only 19 and am not a philosophy student so I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Also, keep posting the soccer clips! I'm a track athlete myself, I run the 400m, PB=54s. What are the odds you film yourself doing an all-out 400m and posting it? Thanks so much for your hard work, you've helped me so much in my journey of exploring the nature of reality!
@@joshvh8348 broooo I wish I could keep posting the soccer clips 😭😭😭 The reason they've been missing since April is because I tore my ACL in April. Had surgery in May, and now I'm 6 months post-op. I've just been cleared to start doing some basic ball work (but no full participation for 3 more months). I actually recorded one here for my friends, if you're curious :) ua-cam.com/video/jabjlfgihdg/v-deo.html
And it's wonderful, btw, to hear that my channel is serving you -- that's the goal!!
Now for your argument:
“The reason for (1) is that the nature of uncaused beginnings (if possible) are such that they are inexplicable, that is there can be no explanation for their instantiation.”
Importantly, though, the fact that something would be uncaused does not imply that it would unexplained or inexplicable; see Mistake #76 for more on this point :)
I’m also quite suspicious of premise (2). Even if there’s nothing _causally preventing_ x from existing, x may still be impossible. For instance, I don’t think anything is *causally preventing* water that’s H3O from existing; but still, water that’s H3O is just impossible.
Hope this helps!
Great video. You’re helping me level up philosophically!
your content is amazing as always
Thank you for trying to sort some reason out of the chaos of Kalam arguments! As an average Kalam defender, this is really helpful.
❤️
I feel useful and satisfied after listening to your videos.
"for more, refer to my Hilbert's Hotel video."
Loving the use of the singular here. Really burying the lead.
Thanks for your intelligble and useful content. It is very valuable for me that your goal is informing others rather than becoming famous.
You are incredibly talented one of a kind amazing a national treasure boy. I have had my horizons broadened by your videos . Good luck!
From my experience talking to theists who confuse contingency with dependence is they will define it such. eg:
"A thing is contingent if it depends upon something else for its existence."
And then they'll typically switch between using 'contingent' and 'dependent' as synonyms.
Listening to this while driving to university and back, first one is really interesting! It is like a composition fallacy in reverse.
omg this is awesome
While I completely agree with your point #78 I do think it highlights a level of dishonesty in the argument. If what Craig means if that everything that begins to exist has an efficient cause then why isn't that the first premise? I think the answer is fairly obvious. If he were to word the first premise like this it would immediately raise the question as to why material causes are not being included in the same way, and thus rob the Kalam of much of its intuitive power. The argument is worded in such a way as to appeal to people with limited understanding of philosophy and to seem as intuitive as possible, but in doing so the actual argument being made, which is far lest intuitive, is purposefully hidden.
Really nice, Joe - thanks.
mistake no.75b: "Saying God can't have a cause is special pleading."
This is one I often hear internet atheists say in response to the point that God is uncaused (which excludes him from the principle).
The actual point is that it’s just an assertion with zero supporting evidence.
@@ramigilneas9274 Ok, but then just say that - don't appeal to "special pleading" when it isn't special pleading (there's a reason why God is excluded).
Bring on David bentley Hart for a debate on CT
What is CT?
Great Video! Some of my own thoughts- I think philosophy can be really hard to get into. Therefore I would like to add three own problems, or "accessibility- hurdles" as maybe food for thought.
When someone says "A thing outside space time exists", the confidence and simplicity of the sentence can put a wall over your eyes (and also hide further entailments). It's like mentally drawing a circle, calling it spacetime, and then drawing a point outside, and boom, object out of spacetime imagined. It is a simple sentence, so it can seem like a simple idea and that everybody conceives the same concept there. This seems to boil down to two problems:
Firstly- Not taking more about the details about what is actually intuited and meant.
Secondly - Philosophizing to quickly (again, especially towards layman, like myself- e.g. an apologist shouldn't walk in a church, give a sermon about "first necessary causes" with no time to breathe and just expect everybody to grasp this in five seconds).
The unrelated, third point- limiting the scope of an explanation, yet not mentioning it. I would be delighted if a debate would start with: "Me and my opponent agree about moral judgements being facts, but would like to inform you that there are other views like xyz".
Anyways, keep up the good work!
what do you mean by cause? what is your theory of causation in mistake #76?
Mistake no. 105; Just cos it's out there, it doesn't mean every other claim/hypothesis/theory can be rationally explained nor does it enjoy popular support or that it's plausible, so I should not look at adding it to my list of mistakes.
on mistake 95: What do you think about a deterministic causation of A object by a necessary being who/which is completely free? say, a God that chooses to create A in some fashion rather than another, where A is "ab alio" (dependently) necessary rather than a se (independently) necessary. I'm just wondering if this is not an option on your view due to something I missed. As I saw that in your discssion of the modal collapse, you mostly lean on indeteministic causation to facilitate an argument for classical theists (with some caveats though) but dısmıss such deterministic causation which is based on having a "necessity" categorization; mainly dependently and independently necessary beings.
The thumbnail made me think this was posted by Rationality Rules haha. Not disappointed though! Looking forward to watching :)
I sometimes have elves make thumbnails🤣
45:12
The fact that things that begin in spacetime must have a cause, does not entail or even imply spacetime itself must have a cause. All evidence regarding it is inside spacetime, and not of spacetime itself. Physicist Don Page wrote:
"We learn our ideas of causation from the lawfulness of nature and from the directionality of the second law of thermodynamics that lead to the commonsense view that causes precede their effects. But then we have learned that the laws of physics are CPT invariant (essentially the same in each direction of time), so in a fundamental sense the future determines the past just as much as the past determines the future. It is just from our experience of the one-way causation we observe within the universe, which is just a *merely effective description and not fundamental, we cannot logically derive the conclusion that the entire universe has a cause,* since the effective unidirectional causation we commonly experience is something *just within the universe and need not be extrapolated to a putative cause for the universe as a whole."*
You’re definitely correct that the mere fact that beginnings within spacetime require causes does not entail that spacetime itself has a cause. Importantly, though, defenders of the causal principle don’t argue that this entailment relation obtains. Instead, they tend to argue that when all observed F’s are G, that gives defeasible inductive reason to think that all F’s are G. Since all observed beginnings have a cause, they argue, that then gives us inductive reason to think all beginnings have a cause. And if all beginnings have a cause, then spacetime itself - if it has a beginning - has a cause.
Of course, as I go on to note in the video, we might try to find some relevant difference between the observed class and the unobserved class which defeats the inductive generalization; but then we’re not raising the composition fallacy charge. Instead, we’d simply be urging that a defeasible inductive generalization has a defeater. It remains true that no composition fallacy has been committed; it’s just standard defeasible inductive inference being wielded on behalf of the causal principle. And as you point out, some have argued that there are undercutting defeaters here - I explore some of those elsewhere in my Kalam series, too!🙂
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough!
Are you going to publish another book in which you will present all the mistakes you address in this series of videos? - thanks
Lately I've been noticing a lot of the equivocation mistake regarding the Kalam, where people support 'P2: the universe began to exist' with quotes from astrophysicists about the big bang being a beginning of our universe. This should lock them into using a local definition of universe, as astrophysicists aren't saying the big bang was the beginning of the whole cosmos, and there is no other spacetime anywhere in reality. However by the time we get to the extended kalam, the cause supposedly has to be spaceless and timeless 'because it is the cause of _all space and time_'. This shows they've switched to a broad, cosmos-style definition of universe.
So depending on how we interpret this equivocation (whether P2 is using a narrow or broad definition of universe), the Kalam is either logically invalid, or valid but the support given for P2 is completely irrelevant - it's as if someone was meant to support a money bank existing, and instead they showed photos of a sand bank by the river.
This is spot on
Is this a definition thing? Suppose they changed to not describing the universe with quotes from physists. Rather they said, all time and space neccessarily had to have a begining.
@@redx11x Yep it sort of is a definitions thing - people support the premise under one reading of the word 'universe', but the logic of the argument ends up needing them to have used a different one. But more than just a definition thing, this leads to people giving inappropriate support for the premise. They give support for our local universe having a beginning, instead of all of space and time.
Your rephrased premise is great, that's more clearly stating what the logic of the argument needs the premise to be. However it isn't supported by Big Bang science. That's the point I'm making here, a clearer premise won't fix the problem on its own, people need to stop appealing to Big Bang science to support it. :)
Appropriate lines of support people explore are philosophical arguments against infinite regresses, but I personally think those don't work :) :)
@@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke i can still see this as a definitions thing because the universe is used interchangebly with ALL Space and time. Even if you posit a, multiverse, it won't change the principle argument.
I think there is some justification for calling upon aspects of Big Bang science. The universes expansion from (theoretically/metaphorically) the tip of a needle to its vast expanse in less than the blink of an eye, redshift, etc.
This all points to a backward direction to a single point.
Yes, the laws of physics break down the closer your get to the begining and thus there is no scientific method that can be used, only philosophical.
The infinite regress of time is a compelling argument. I understand that almost all scientist agree with time is not infinite in the past.
Please explain why you think that time is infinite. Thanks for the polite reply
@@redx11x :) Let's posit a multiverse, I think it does matter. We can also be charitable to proponents where actual big bang science doesn't go quite as far back as a real beginning without the physics breaking down. Let's say it goes back to a beginning of the spacetime _of our local universe within the multiverse._ Well that's not good enough, because the premise claims a beginning of the whole multiverse. So the premise about ALL space and time cannot be justified with big bang science. :) :)
On infinite pasts, are you familiar with papers by Alex Malpass and Wes Morriston? I loooove them
Great video thanks Joe ! I still don't understand what a non-metric time could be though. It seems to me it is like defining time without succession, but how can it be called time then ?
Non-metric time isn’t time without successive.
Look at this way. Let’s suppose that time is analogous to the real numbers. Each point along the real line corresponds to an instant of time. Now, for the real numbers, if we ask how far apart any two points are, we have an easy answer: just subtract the two numbers. For example, the distance between 5 and 2 is 5-2=3.
Time is a little bit different. If we just have the instants of time, then nothing tells us how far apart the two instants are, that is, how long of an interval there is between them. You can add some additional information that does tell us how far apart any two instants are - but that’s just to say that you can add a metric.
Without a metric, you can still have instants, you can still have facts about which instant comes before which other, and so on. What you cannot have is any fact about the length of time between any two instants.
Just to make sure that i understand the concept- I'm currently thinking of a beam scale- you can tell which weight is heavier (prior), but not absolute weight or weight difference. Is that a good metaphor or is it way off? @@daniellinford9643
@@daniellinford9643 Thanks for your response, I'll meditate that.
One of the (many) problems I have with the Kalam is its assumption of singularity: the assumption that there was only ONE thing responsible. This same unjustified assumption is made with many other apologetic arguments, for instance, the design argument (why would you assume there's only ONE designer? Is it not possible for something to be designed by committee?).
The problem is that the kalam asserts without reason that everything that comes into existence has "A" cause - that is, only one cause.
This is blatantly false. I'd say that in general, things that come into existence have AT LEAST ONE cause. This is what we observe throughout our universe. And why stop at two? There can be any number of causes necessary for an event to take place.
Here's a more concrete example: Suppose you have a simple electrical curcuit: there's a battery for power, a light bulb, and 100 switches connected in series, one after the other.
At the start, all switches are in the off position. Flip the first switch. The light bulb remains unlit. Now flip the second switch, same result. Keep flipping until the 99th. The bulb is still off.
Now flip the 100th switch. Now all switches are in the on position and so electricity flows. This causes the light bulb to light up, and emit photons.
These photons have certainly "come into being", therefore the Kalam asserts there must have been A cause. But in this example, there was no singular cause; instead there were 100 independent causal events required.
Theists also seem to misunderstand the notion of "first cause". A first cause is "that which has no causal precedent". That says absolutely nothing about how many independent first causes there can be. The property of being "first" is a local property - not a global property. "First-ness" is a non-exclusive predicate.
To put it another way, suppose Alice claims to have come first in a marathon. But Bob also claims to have come first in a marathon. How can both statements be true? Simple, there's more than one marathon being run, and each person came first in their respective races. Just because you came first in one marathon does not mean you came first in all marathons.
Now, when discussing causality, the common visual metaphor is a line of dominos, with the first in a chain being the "first cause". In this model, that first domino obviously has no prior domino, and so something external to the system is required to make it topple. Nothing wrong here.
But here's the problem: Here's a second line of dominos. With its own first domino. And here's a third line. And a fourth. And so on.
Thus, there can be arbitrarily many independent causal chains, each with their own first cause.
Now consider a large domino with two independent chains leading into it. The first chain topples in sequence, leading up to the large domino, but the large domino remains untoppled. Then the second chain topples, and it's only after the combined weight of the first chain AND the second chain, that the large domino topples, and continues onwards. A single causal chain is INSUFFICIENT.
And who says that these multiple causal chains of dominos have to be toppled by just one entity? I knock over a line, and you knock over a different line. This system has TWO PRIME MOVERS.
Thus the kalam fails to even establish monotheism, as there is no reason to suppose a single causal prime being for all causal chains.
Hi Joe,
Concerning Mistake #76: Ignoring non-causal explanation (which I find also relevant on contingency arguments),
You mentionned those papers :
Pruss and Rasmussen (2018)
Rasmussen (2014, ch. 2)
Feser (2017, pp. 94-95)
Concerning Feser, which paper or book is quoted ? The google link is dead.
Concerning Rasmussen and Pruss (in the two other works quoted), could you (or anyone else) indicate at which pages they are explicitly discussing non-causal explanations ? I am curious since in a brief exchange, Rasmussen wrote explicitly to me that his argument from contingency (I think all his versions) ultimately imply a causal explanations.
Thanks.
Feser (2017) is his Five Proofs book - at the cited pages, he argues that abstract propositions play various roles in explaining features of concrete reality (Eg, our ability to successfully communicate shared linguistic content). The Rasmussen 2014 is his book Defending the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Therein he argues likewise: abstract propositions explain (or help explain) our successful communication and joint understanding. As for Pruss and Rasmussen 2018, they argue that the truth of a causal/explanatory principle explains why chaos doesn’t pervade reality, which is a non-causal explanation (causal/explanatory principles don’t themselves have any causal force or power). This is different from (and independent of) whether the contingency argument delivers an ultimate necessary cause of contingent reality. Hope this helps!
Thanks for the time being (maybe later more questions will arise), I found your explanation clear and convincing.
Apart from that, do you think that cosmological arguments starting from the PSR purely in terms of explanations/sufficient reason all finally reduced in saying that God is causing the world ?
In other words, it seems to me that as soon that we start from reasons/explanations (in a broader sense than cause in the sense efficient cause, which I assume is the predominant sense in contemporary philosophy) in a cosmological argument, albeit all the words we use, if we get very precise, we finally roll back to the concept of cause.
Because otherwise God would not be a real but only an "abstract reason/explanation" without existence. And you don't want to prove just an abstract (though ultimate) reason like in mathematics but a real concrete existing being (i.e. God).@@MajestyofReason
I appreciate your depiction even as it requires a fair amount of reconciliation depending upon how one models/classifies various terms.
It might be useful for me to review your modeling just to make sure I have even made the proper reconciliations.
How is it that all of your latest videos have been nothing but bangers?
#99 is extremely interesting, does somebody have a source or paper?
I simply don't understand what it means to exist outside of spacetime when existence by definition means having a specific location within spacetime. What does it mean to "be" (experience time and occupy space) if you are "outisde of spacetime" (experience no time and occupy no space because you are not made of matter)?
"location is spacetime" is not apart of the "definition" of the word existence...
James Fodor discusses a lot of these in "Unreasonable Faith," as well. His approach is in book form, though, so a bit more wordy.
For #79, I favor embracing miriological nihilism and rejecting that "I exist" as a thing unto myself. That doesn't mean that I don't exist in any form, however. I could still say that the arrangement if things which would constitute me exists. The oattern of me exists within the arrangement of fundamental particles. And that pattern hasn't always existed, and it began to exist at some point in the past. But I am an abstract thing at the fundamental level. There is nothing fundamental about me. I am an emergent phenomenon of all these more fundamental things interacting and being arranged in such a way. I can be destroyed and rebuilt ten times and then those ten copies of me can all be destroyed, but no concrete stuff was ever destroyed or created. If Craig wants to say that the universe came into being in an analogous way to myself coming into being, that means that the universe was constructed out of fundamentals which pre-existed it in some way. Because that is how I came to be, and how chairs come to be, and rocks and bicycles.
I thought the vid was glitching, then I realized it was a Zizek impression. sniiiiiiff
"being an actual infinite doesn't require having members all of which exist - otherwise Craig couldn't consistently claims that a beginningless past is an actual infinite, since the members of that collection also don't all exist in Craig's view."
_Or_ Craig is just wrong about a beginningless past being an actual infinite.
What do you think about transcendental argument? Are you familiar with Jay Dyer?
I saw Jay Dyer vs Alex Malpass, and Jay showed potential, but I think he was nervous and felt a need to impress Dr. Malpass. Jay never actually got his argument out, he kept getting halfway through his first premise then getting distracted by name dropping lots of philosophers.
It was like, Premise 1: There are lots of transcendental things, like logic.... but I'm not making the same argument as Kant... and my argument isn't the same as the 'perfect forms' by Aquinas... and my argument isn't (etc. etc.). Jay really only said what his argument *isn't* while name dropping, but never returned to give his argument.
But again, I think he was just nervous. I'd like to see his TAG :) :)
I appriacite you for being honest and critiquing New fools movement ı wish you have the Best life with your family and Happy life brother ı am a muslim but for your honesty ı congrate you
Bro those careers ENDED and now they're HOMELESS
At least they had a home to begin with.
One principle, one principle that suffices to show its absurdity:
Deductive closure.
If the universe were derived, we see from logical derivations in mathematics that from axioms you derive by transforming the predicates of the initial statement into the desired statement.
In other words, the pre-universe state provided variables and statements which under axioms, encoded within its components, transformed, thus gave rise to matter.
Which means that this matter must be made of that of which the pre-universe was made of, follows from said principle of predicate transformation due to derivation via axioms and deductive rules.
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Socrates is mortal.
But the property of Socrates being a man has been conserved, via deductive closure.
Same spiel for the universe and pre-universe. The pre-universes axioms are conserved within the universe.
Hence, nothing was ever really created, only transformed.
So matter and thus time are eternal in the past? Based on your logic
@@redx11x Well yes, it doesn't seem like quantum fluctuations ever had in mind to just "begin".
And it's not my logic really.
Look how it's proven that sqrt(2) is irrational or that a continuous function takes on between any two values every value.
You start with axioms, substitute in your variables, derive new statements, repeat, proof (hopefully).
Carry this over to all there is, and you land at "uncreated", invariant axioms that stay conserved.
@@Monolith1616 but what you are saying is against the majority consensus of scientific opinion, that being that time is finite in the past.
Its also ilogical.
@@redx11xTime is not past-finite, time is a measure that is attached to state changes, to yield a norm.
Time is definable if and only if your frame of reference registers state change.
And state change potential is a logical invariant, you can try to figure that on your own. Neither can it vanish, nor can it begin, it is axiomatic. There must always exist a model that fulfills state change ability.
And in that regard, fluctuations never began, they are supposed to have initiated the inflation, since the Pauli principle never did not hold, such that some fluctuations produced such energy densities that the repulsions sufficed to introduce the cosmic inflation.
Since fluctuations are believed to be acausal, i.e. not a function of prior states (Conway-Kochen theorem), they could not have been derived by anything prior.
So, the argument does make sense after all.
I have no idea what the technical term is but Joe here keeps listing out a tonne of reasons to negate each of the so-called mistakes on his list (example, mistake 88) but seems to blindly fail to see both the consequences of the weird and wonderful reasons he offers (example, Brahman as an explanation for the cause of the universe), as well as how these reasons fail to compare with others that, through their definitions, clearly offer a superior explanation of our everyday experiences and reality.
What is the point of saying "yeah, but theres all these other possible explanation" when those explanations are inferior in the end?
The point of bringing these options up isn't to say that they're plausible or devoid of problems; the point is that, in order to infer that *God* is the cause of the universe, one would have to *rule out* all these alternative options. Since defenders of the Kalam have failed to do so, they have failed to show that God is the cause of the universe. Of course, *if* they showed that they're all inferior explanations for the origin of the universe, *then* they will have justified (More precisely: made significant steps toward justifying) the claim that God is the explanation. But the point is simply that they haven't showed this. Craig, for instance, acts as if these alternatives aren't even there.
@@MajestyofReason "Since defenders of the Kalam have failed to do so" - please tell me you are not that ignorant of the content put out by MANY theologians and apologists.
Is this channel really that naive, that even for an absolute layman like myself, all it takes is to watch/read a few of Dr William Lane Craig's appropriate talks/books/questions of the week, to realise that he (and others) have not only responded to these questions and found their explanations "deficient" but have received no credible rebuttals from any corner.
But for the cheap seats, let's just say WLC has refuted the claims of islam and other religions as being "defective" in not only their claims but also how they fail to account for all our typical human and existential experiences; everything from creation, sovereignty of man, life's meaning, beyond death, justice, redemption, salvation, grace, etc.
I think you need to hit some 1on1 Christian doctrine books, before you can make such presumptuous claims in your videos and follow them up with replies that I would expect from an internet lacktheist.
Honestly, I thought this was a much deeper channel but if you're going to arbitrarily just 'pull a Dillahunty' every time, then I have no reason to follow this channel any longer.
@@thecloudtherapist No. You will not find theologians or apologists discussing wavefunction monism as propounded by philosophers of physics like Julian Barbour, Jill North, Alyssa Ney, etc. as a candidate for answering what’s responsible for the beginning of spacetime. You will not find theologians or apologists discussing an atheistically-construed Thomistic-esque purely actual reality as a candidate for what’s responsible for the beginning of spacetime. And so on. They don’t even *discuss* these options, let alone offer sufficient reason to rule them out. But to infer that *God* is the cause of the universe, they *would* have to rule them out. I recommend here consulting Mistake #45 on the difference between rebutting and undercutting defeaters, since it addresses similar points.
Moreover, even for the candidates I mentioned that theologians and apologists *do* discuss, their reasons for ruling them out are typically confused and clearly wrong-headed. In this video (within Mistake #88) I explicitly addressed WLC’s own reasons for ruling out *some* of the alternatives as candidate causes of the universe. His reasons are demonstrably poor.
@@MajestyofReasonIt's interesting how you switch the arguments from the one I mentioned, to something in another area 🤔
The mistake you are making here is the typical one made by every atheist.
No matter how ridiculous, unconnected, biased, presuppositional, remote, implausible a scenario/argument/hypothesis might be, it's good enough in order to say "See? there's something that's not been considered, so they haven't answered every objection" and it's taken as enough to counter the common sense superior argument.
If we follow your line of thinking, as atheists do, to get out of any argument that seems, in contrast, more plausible than what they're proposing (like when they started pushing the multiverse in order to push back the argument from Fine Tuning), then we will end up explaining nothing!
The Egyptians have a saying: Le'saneck ala bahr
Loosely translated it means, you got to make up your mind.
To take your thinking through it's logical path, NOTHING in philosophy (at least) will be explained, because there's always another remote/ridiculous argument that we can consider and which people can pathetically cling to, in order to avoid a more weighty and plausible argument.
Joe's got his little happy camper bus and he's driving it right up to the mouldy gates of relativism.
@@MajestyofReasonI just read back your first response again and as WLC says "I find it multiply confused".
You first state that the reason for bringing up Brahmans is not because "they're plausible or devoid of problems" but because we would have to "rule out" what they claim.
Did it not even occur in your student brain that the likes of Plantinga and Craig have done exactly that already, in their academic, written and popular work?
Have you not watched a single 5 minute video of Craig refuting islam, for example, because their perspective of God's justice (a) is incomplete as an explanation of the sum of human experiences (b) offers no reconciliation between justice and mercy and (c) is defective in its doctrine of salvation (i.e. deeds, not grace)?
Just listing things out again, is effectively, what atheists/agnostics/lacktheists do. There's always one more fallacy or exotic quantum loop multiverse gravity theory from Carroll to throw into the pot.
Well, yeah, we could do that but that's no way to reason, though, cos we won't be able to explain anything then!
Question for Bard:
"If the view of mereoloigical nihilism constitutes, that there are no chairs but fundamental particles arranged chair wise, then what is the view called, which constitutes, that there are chairs, which are made out of fundamental particles arranged chair wise?"
Bard'S response:
_"The view that there are chairs, which are made out of fundamental particles arranged chair-wise, is called mereological compositionalism or classical mereology. It is the most widely held view in the philosophy of objects and is the opposite of mereological nihilism, which denies that there are any composite objects, including chairs.
Mereological compositionalism holds that objects are composed of their parts, and that these parts are also objects in their own right. For example, a chair is composed of a seat, a back, and four legs, and each of these parts is also an object. The chair is not simply an arrangement of fundamental particles; it is a distinct object that has its own properties and existence.
Mereological compositionalism is supported by a number of arguments. One argument is that it is the most straightforward way to explain our common-sense beliefs about objects. We believe that chairs exist, and we believe that they are made out of wood or metal or plastic. Mereological compositionalism provides a natural way to explain these beliefs.
Another argument for mereological compositionalism is that it is the only way to make sense of certain kinds of statements we make about objects. For example, we can say "the chair is broken," or "the table is heavy." These statements make sense because they are about the properties of the whole object, not just its parts. Mereological compositionalism allows us to explain how these statements can be true.
Mereological compositionalism is not without its challenges. One challenge is that it is not always clear what constitutes a part of an object. For example, is a chair's cushion a part of the chair, or is it a separate object? There are no easy answers to these kinds of questions.
Despite these challenges, mereological compositionalism remains the most widely held view in the philosophy of objects. It is the most straightforward way to explain our common-sense beliefs about objects, and it is the only way to make sense of certain kinds of statements we make about objects."_
Sure.
its surprising how many dont realize how incoherent of a question "who caused god?" is.
There isn't anything incoherent about the question
Athena is a god, she was caused by Zeus eating some other God and then having an headache from which Athena chopped her way out.
Weird story.
There are models where God isn't caused and that is presumably your view.
But since you can have models on which God is caused it isn't incoherent to ask although better to phrase it like
If God was caused, what caused God?
@@Oskar1000 I guess i agree with you but the main reason i made the comment was because when atheist ask this question they usually ask it like because they think they are showing something wrong with the concept of a Perfect god. I guess that just made me kinda mad so i made the comment.
@@slashmonkey8545 makes sense to me.
I might have said something along those lines just to make the theist have to say something about "well something don't need a cause" just so I can say "yeah, I agree, maybe the initial state of the universe is like that"
But I can understand the frustration, will keep in mind
Of course a better question would be:
What is your evidence that God always existed and wasn’t caused by anything else?
Or what is your evidence that there ever was nothing or that the stuff that our universe is is made of isn’t eternal and always existed?😉
@@ramigilneas9274 " your evidence that God always existed "
there are plenty of books written on the subject you can read one of those.
"wasn’t caused by anything else?"
I am assuming you are refering to the abrahamic god of perfect being theism.
In which case go look at the defination of that God. The moment you say this thing has a cause then by defaut this thing cant be that god. In otherwords you are basically asking how do i know wether or not a Bachelor is married. The moment you say the person is a bachelor at that moment that person cant be married. The case with the abrahamic god is quite similar but i assume you are smart enough to figure it out :)
1:33:48
Wow, that's brilliant! I haven't heard that objection before. Apologists often reply that we can't actually conceive of God's non-existence because we can't grasp His full essence, but this response totally avoids this sleight of hand.
I wonder whether you, Joe, came up with that idea or you read it in some book.
I haven't seen people bring this up *in this context* and put it to use in exactly this way, but the point about conceiving a horrific world incompatible with God's existence _has_ been brought up in the context of modal versions of the problem of evil (the basic idea being: such a horrific world is conceivable, intuitively possible, consistent, etc., which purportedly motivates its possibility, and if it's possible, then God possibly doesn't exist, from which (by S5 and God's necessity) it follows that God doesn't exist). I'm not here saying that modal versions of the problem of evil succeed, of course; my point is simply that the point about conceiving such a horrific world has been brought up in other contexts :)
Mistake no.74.
This is interesting, because I always took the statement "From nothing, nothing comes" to be appealing to the causal principle.
By that i mean - when I ask someone: why can't something come from nothing? They tend to appeal to a causal principle that for something (Z) to begin to exist there must be some prior existing thing (Y) to *cause that something (Z) to exist. "How can (Z) begin to exist if there is no prior (X) existing?"
So I wonder - is there some circular reasoning going on there?
To motivate the KCP they appeal to this idea that "From nothing, nothing comes" which itself is motivated by a causal principle (that for something to begin to exist requires something prior to 'cause' into existence).
I think the way you put is best - really it's just to restate/paraphrase the KCP.
Because nothing means No thing absence of anything you cannot get from absence of anything "a thing" otherwise it is a contradiction
@@nasrullahtoprak5461 That's my point.
All you're doing here to motivate the phrase "from nothing, nothing comes" is to appeal to/paraphrase the causal principle.
But the phrase "from nothing, nothing comes" is being used to motivate the causal principle.
ie: you're either just restating/paraphrasing the causal principle or at worst - being circular (using B to supports A but then also using A to support B).
Thanks for this video! Any chance you could make a video explaining "burdens of proof" and atheist vs. theist burdens? We often hear online that only the theist has the burden because they are the one making a positive claim, which we all know is false. But how can we articulate why? 🤔
I do have a short segment on burden of proof in part 1 of my common mistakes series :)
Yes, some atheists make positive claims, but the only positive claim a _soft atheist_ is making is that they don't believe at least one god exists. If you are talking with a soft atheist, and they are merely responding to your claim about god existing with their reasons they are unconvinced, they are not making the claim that your god doesn't exist, just that they are not convinced. Some may _also_ claim your god doesn't exist, making them a strong atheist in this regard, and then they have assumed a burden of proof.
@@MajestyofReason Thank you, I will check it out. :)
@@Rogstin Yes I'm aware some online atheists like to conflate atheist and agnostic labels. I was referring to those who believe God does not exist.
@@n.a.odessa3939 There is no conflation because they are separate categories.
If I ask someone if they believe in at least one god, and they say no, then they are an atheist.
If I then ask them if they _know_ that there are no gods, and they say no, then they are _also_ agnostic.
WOOOOO
No wonder my career was over before it began!
You should give some lessons to Cameron Bertuzzi...
#73: this is exactly a common identity in math proofs: not p(x) for all x iff there exists x such that not p(x)
I disagree to an extent about Mistake #74, I think two different propositions can represent the same thing metaphysically, for example take these too preposition
"The bottle of 500ml has been fulled till 250ml " and "The bottle is half full"
Considering we are talking about the same bottle ,these two preposition represent in essence the same thing metaphysically(or when we see the bottle)
Now when it is said
"from nothing, nothing comes"
These two statements mean the same
" Something can not come to existence from a state of nothing ness"
And
"Something can not come from a state that lacks everything "
Because nothing is normally defined as the complete lack of anything/everything/something (i.e the proposition "there is no thing" serves as a negative to the propostion "there is a thing)
So when you say something begins to exist without being caused by anything, you are essentially saying there is no thing that cause it to exist.
It follows that if it began to exist but its existence was not caused by something(or somethings),then that thing began to existing from nothing or out of nothing.
This is just my humble opinion.
I think what Joe means is that the statement "Nothing has no causal powers" is confused. Because WLC thinks numbers have no causal powers. So it's not true that 'nothing' has no causal powers.
ie: the statement seems to treat 'nothing' as a 'thing' that has no causal powers. When it's supposed to the absence of anything anyway. The term 'nothing' already implies no causal entities anyway.
I would say that most egregrious mistake is assuming that classical logic and our knowledge about our surroundings describes what was before our universe.
IP is that you?
Classical logic? What is the alternative. Thanks
@@redx11x you think that classical logic is only one out there. duh...
@@sasilik please expand
@@21stcenturyrambo16 IP would never say something so illogical
About #77, wouldn't people would say that the inductive generalization fails precisely because we are trying the generalise from parts to whole ? Even though the proponent of the generalisation might no appeal to whole/part relation, it seems you still need to be worried about it here.
"I'm not saying that the set of integers is divisible by one because each part of the set is divisible by 1, I'm just using induction to generalise from that fact that every integer is divisible by 1 !"
Not really. As Joe points out - the inductive reasoning is based on discovering things that begin to exist had a cause for its beginning. So if the universe is of the same type of thing that began to exist then there's reason to think it also had a cause.
So they're not trying to generalise from parts to whole. Rather it's the type of thing the universe might be.
The misstep is that the universe might not be that type of thing anyway: maybe it didn't begin to exist? Which would exclude it from needing a cause.
Or maybe the universe is a 'special' case ? Maybe it's the type of thing that can begin to exist *without a cause?
I agree with Joe that this isn't a composition fallacy. They're reasoning from observing patterns of a type of thing (begin to exist has a cause), then saying that the universe is *that type of thing, so also has a cause.
To *Mistake #73: Confusions about paradoxes* at 1:12.
I mean, I understand your example with the story involving taxis. But there is a better example convaying the very same idea:
Sure, the existence of "married bachelors" is impossible, since "married bachelors" themselves are paradoxical. Yet clearly the existence of "married" people and the existence of "bachelors" are possible, since obviously there are (many) married people and bachelors. Duh.
And it is very much so irrational to conclude from the impossibility of the existence of a "married bahcelor", that neither the existence of married people nor the existence of "bachelors" wouldn't or couldn't be possible.
PS: Besides that, to reveal the true nature of a modus tollens argument just take the contraposition of the involved material conditional premise:
P1) If that particular element of the story is possible, then the story as a whole would be possible. [Linking premise], *(IFF if the story as a whole wouldn't be possible, then that particular element of the story isn't possible.)*
P2) The story as a whole is not possible.
C) So, that particular element of the story is not possible (or in other words impossible).
AND if you want to hide that true nature of your argument, then just reformulate it into a modus tollens argument.
1:06:59
Professor Krauss didn't even come up with that cosmological model -- he merely wrote a book about it (essentially popularized it). The model comes from Alex Vilenkin's 1982 paper on the creation of the universe.
In Vilenkin's model, the universe comes from a non-spatio-temporal "point", and not absolute nothing. Jim Gott emphasized this in his paper with Li.
correction** John Richard Gott.
Scientist suck at giving names and many popularizers suck even more understanding them.
While Vilenkin asserts the universe came from "nothing", a closer inspection shows it actually comes from a timeless and spaceless quantum point. Let me quote him:
"Mathematically, I discovered that when I take the size of the initial universe to zero, the mathematical description of the whole thing simplifies greatly, and *what I had was a mathematical description of a universe tunneling from a point,* to a finite radius, and starting to inflate. So, a point is no space at all. So, basically this is no space [or time], it's no matter, and the universe in this picture is created spontaneously from basically 'nothing'." [Vilenkin, Before the Big Bang 9: A Multiverse from "Nothing", timestamp: 10:28]
Physicist John Gott echoed this point in his paper:
"[T]he Universe [in Vilenkin's model], we argue, should really start not as nothing but as an S3 universe of radius zero - a point. A point is as close to nothing as one can get, but it is not nothing." [Gott & Li, Can a Universe Create Itself?, 1997, p.41]
Concerning your paper with Alex Malpass "Branching actualism and cosmological arguments" Branching actualism per se is not incompatible with Theism. Why I theist can not call the initial state where modal history begins "God"?
You can posit God as your initial state. That's what monotheism does anyway.
It's been a while since I read the paper you mention, but if I recall correctly - it's not saying you can't posit God as the initial state. The paper is used to undercut certain arguments theists use to support premises (Grim reaper paradox etc). Basically these arguments assume (don't justify) the falsity of branching actualities and so the paper addresses that presupposition - undercutting motivations to appeal to those arguments.
That's how I (at least) understood the paper. But that was a while ago, so I might be mistaken.
Ive always seen 75 as a rhetorical question to get the theist thinking about the idea that if a god can be uncaused then maybe a universe can too, that they already accept uncaused entities
It's an intentionally malformed question to mirror their malformed question about what caused the universe.
Why do you think the question about what caused the universe is malformed?
@@MajestyofReason for the same reason asking what created God would be malformed based on the definition of God as uncreated
Under a naturalistic paradigm the universe wouldn't be a created thing, the fundamental substance of reality would be uncaused and self-existent.
j
oe is based
Re mistake 74, this wholly intellectually dishonest error literally comes right out of Craig’s mouth. He quotes in debate (See his debate with Hitchens) “The physicist PC Davies says ‘the universe came into being from literally nothing”
Since Craig asserts (according to his own theology) only god can create something from nothing, this is why he follows this quote up with the ‘from nothing, nothing comes, etc.”
This is both a straw man and ad hominem against his opponent, which seems to be dishonestly conceived and designed to make any argument his opponent poses to object to his assertion appear to be irrational before any argument is even made. Furthermore, if his opponent makes the valid point that the nothing of physics is not the nothing of his theology, that the physicist is equivocating on nothing, but in the process Craig is implicitly re-asserting that his opponent cannot make any rational argument from ex nihilo fit’, (because to do so would be consistent with the science) which is the very point he claims P C Davies makes as a scientist.
So, while your assessment of the error is a fair one, this is a hare that Craig has deliberately set running because he knows full well his supporters (believers) will erroneously assume that only god can create ex nihilo fit and hence this is the ultimate defeater of any atheist objection. And all this based on a quote mine from a physicist.
Other than that, it’s all wonderful stuff here. You’ve a fine mind and it is a joy to listen to your dissection of debate errors.
This is a great video and I really appreciate the effort! However I do think your response to mistake #76 was a bit lackluster. Not in the sense that it lacked effort - it certainly did not - but it just seemed to miss the point in a way.
The principle you are trying to refute is that for any event of coming into being that event must have a cause (this is slightly modified by me). You then go on to list a bunch of non-causal explanations for things that have nothing to do with the principle.
Your first example is moral explanation, but this is just not relevant. Sure, moral explanations explain moral facts, but moral explanations do not (plausibly) cause events. It is not that a chair came into existence because it was good or bad (a theist might say that God will bring about an event because it is good, but here God is a necessary condition, and the goodness itself is not sufficient).
You keep on listing types of explanations that do not plausibly bear on the principle in question. There are some examples that might more plausibly refute the principle, like the mathematical explanations for features of concrete reality. Take the cookie example. It seems very implausible to say that mathematical constraints explain the event of Stephen becoming frustrated. Rather the mathematical constraints put constraints on the possible states of affairs that could obtain, meaning that there is not a possible state of affairs where a) Stephen will become frustrated if 23/2 does not equal a whole number, and b) Stephen does not become frustrated. But that does not explain why the specific state of affairs that did obtain in fact did. In other words the mathematical constraints did not explain the event.
I do think that necessity and perhaps metaphysical grounding might serve as good rebuttals of the principle. But then why not just list those? Why bombard your audience with 20 minutes of examples that have no bearing on the actual point in question? I think that this takes away from the ethos of the video as well as the pedagogical value of the point you are trying to make.
I say this in the best meaning, and I am 100% sure that you did not mean to be misleading and that it was an honest mistake. And I very much appreciate the huge amount of time and effort you put into these free videos! I hope i don't sound too arrogant in this comment, as that is not what I am trying to be.
what is this! the majority of the things you call mistakes are not mistakes at all
CAREER ENDING 🤣
More accurate description: 50% actual mistakes that reveal a poor grasp of the arguments, 30% weak but defensible statements that are defended by some professional philosophers in POR, and 20% perfectly viable opinions that Joe disagrees with.
I’d love to hear which 6-7 mistakes are ‘perfectly viable’, and which 9-10 mistakes are ‘defended by professional philosophers in PoR’
@@MajestyofReason I was being a bit snarky and the percentages were thrown out pretty flippantly. The main point here is that in a lay-level video, you are including among some obvious "mistakes" claims that are clearly debatable and are defended by Academic philosophers who specialize in POR. IMO it's muddying the waters and isn't a very helpful way of moving dialogue forward.
The ones I think are perfectly viable aren't worth pointing to - since you will just respond with why you think they are wrong, and we will disagree. But as to which ones are defended by professional philosophers, there are some fairly obvious examples: #74 (interpreted charitably), #80, #81 (assuming that by "proves" you mean "provides strong confirmation for"), #82, #97, #104 (just the first half). Those jumped out at me because I've already read well-published professional philosophers who specialize in POR defending those perspectives. I'm sure if I did digging I could find defenses of a couple others in the list.
To be clear, my snark wasn't meant to imply that you're wrong to think these are mistakes. I think most of them are. But if you are trying to simply give some general list of mistakes for a general audience, it's a bit misleading to combine obvious errors that all philosophers would agree on with some in which you are making a contentious claim that some experts who specialize in this field would disagree, especially without clarifying that you are doing so.
@@travispelletier3352 Thanks for the elaboration and clarification!
You say: “The main point here is that in a lay-level video, you are including among some obvious "mistakes" claims that are clearly debatable and are defended by Academic philosophers who specialize in POR. IMO it's muddying the waters and isn't a very helpful way of moving dialogue forward.”
I don’t see it that way. Nowhere do I claim that all these mistakes are ‘obvious’; and, indeed, in the first video in the series - where I lay down important preliminary points for the whole series - I explicitly say that not all the mistakes are obvious. So it is simply untrue that I’m including, among obvious mistakes, ones that are clearly debatable. I also explicitly say in that first video in the series that some of these mistakes come from professional philosophers, thereby clarifying that while I think they’re mistaken, they aren’t universally agreed to be mistakes by professional philosophers, and some professional philosophers defend or make them. So I see no issues here. You also allege that I’m being misleading when I “combine obvious errors that all philosophers would agree on with some in which you are making a contentious claim that some experts who specialize in this field would disagree, especially without clarifying that you are doing so.” But this, again, is simply untrue. I explicitly clarified, at the outset of the series, that not all of these mistakes are obvious errors, and that some of them are committed/defended by professional philosophers. In other words, I made _precisely_ the clarification you imply I did not make. And it’s perfectly fine for me not to include the annoying 3-minute clarificatory preamble for the whole series in _each and every video in the series_, since (1) that’s atrociously bad for viewer retention, (2) I already made that preamble in part 1, and (3) I say at the outset of each video “I already covered some important preliminaries in part 1 of this series, so let’s dig in” or some such, thereby alerting listeners that there are important preliminaries for the whole series that should be kept in mind.
@@MajestyofReason So you don't think there would have been any value here in distinguishing between "mistakes" that are defensible and those which are practically indefensible in contemporary academic discourse? That it's better to have a long list and then mash them all together without distinction? I don't think that's helpful. But w/e, we can agree to disagree.
@@travispelletier3352 My point is that I already made precisely that distinction. In the first episode of the series, I alerted everyone to the fact that not all the mistakes are obvious, and that some are committed/defended by professional philosophers. So of course I think there's value in that; and for that reason, I did it!
By contrast, if what you mean is constantly and annoyingly reminding everyone of these preliminary points that I already made in part 1 (despite reminding people of their existence and importance at the beginning of every single episode in the series), then no, I see no value in that. (Especially when, throughout the mistakes, my tone, and even my manner of presentation and word choice, often readily indicate when something is more or less controversial, more or less defensible, and so on.)
(Finally, as an aside, we should distinguish being defensible, which in my view is a normative notion, and being defended, which is a descriptive notion. It's not at all clear to me that the mistakes in the series that are seriously defended -- a minority of the total mistakes -- are actually defensible in the normative sense.)
tottenham, boooo!
I still don't believe in non-causal explanations. None of your examples work. About half of them are clearly equivocations on the word "explanation", confusing the everyday concept of "any answer to a why-question that a person might be satisfied with" with the metaphysical concept of "a real, observer-independent reason why it is this way" (the cookie example fits into that category). And the other half just seem to be _not relations at all,_ but just artifacts of the way language works (like the trucker strike example).
Thanks for the comment! I don't share those reactions to the cases. First, I think those are both legitimate senses of 'explanation'. Call the former an 'epistemic explanation', which is an answer that removes mystery as to why something is (or is not) the case, and call the latter a 'metaphysical explanation', which is an extramental relation whereby something exists (or obtains, or occurs, or is true, etc.) because of something else.
With this distinction in hand, I don't see confusions or equivocations at play. To take the cookie example you mentioned, it seems to me to afford both an epistemic and a metaphysical explanation. Steve's desire is frustrated because its content is related in certain ways to features of the number 23 -- namely, non-divisibility into two equal whole numbers. This mind-independent relation affords a metaphysical explanation in the case at hand. We also have an epistemic explanation at hand: once one grasps the nature of 23 and its divisibility, and once one understands the content of Steve's desire, one will thereby see or understand why the desire must be frustrated. This affords an answer that removes mystery for an agent as to why something is the case -- an epistemic explanation.
As for the other cases which are allegedly not relations at all, I also don't think that's right. Plausibly, there are strikes. We quantify over them, they have certain effects, and so on. But strikes aren't fundamental denizens of reality; they bear various relations to more fundamental things in virtue of which they occur and which constitute the less fundamental event of the strike itself -- specific human activities, beliefs, relationships, and so on. And in any case, this isn't my favorite case of grounding, since it is admittedly controversial whether there even *are* strikes at all (as opposed to there merely being humans and their various activities which we merely linguistically reify as 'strikes'). That's why I gave tons of other examples of grounding, which is a pretty uncontroversial example in the literature of a non-causal extramental explanatory relation, with dozens of plausible examples thereof in the literature too (see, inter alia, Schaffer, Fine, Rosen, Bennett, Cameron, Barnes, etc.)
@@MajestyofReason I'm sorry, the strike example seemed to me to be the _least vague_ of your examples in the "explanation by grounding" category, the other ones are even weirder. But, for the money example: do you think there is some object (or set of objects) called "the value of money", which is connected by a relation-arrow with the object "our beliefs and attitudes towards money"? It seems to me that those two phrases simply pick out one and the same object, so there's simply nowhere to put the relation-arrow, except in the mind of an observer who is thinking about them.
As for the cookies, I think that numbers play a role in the epistemic explanation, but not in the metaphysical one. After all, the event "Stephen's desire is frustrated" has a _causal_ explanation, in terms of how cookies have moved through space, and what decisions Stephen has made in the process, and the content of his desire, and what Stephen considered a sufficient condition for having "given" cookies to someone, and so on. All of these things together _cause_ Stephen to be in the state of "failing", and that explains everything there is to explain. Mind you, _even given mathematical Platonism,_ numbers still don't figure into this explanation.
@@user-qm4ev6jb7dso what explains why Stephen can’t satisfy his desire to divide 23 into equal shares? There doesn’t seem to be a causal reason.
@@anitkythera4125 There a causal explanation for why he *didn't.* As for why he *can't,* that depends on the kind of modality you're talking about.
Yep. Noticed that as well. Is it even possible to do philosophy without playing language games? I'm starting to think not the "best" philosophers are really just the "best" at hiding these little games that they play.
lying to make a point isn't really a good way to go about it
I'm curious. Who do you claim is lying, and what point do you believe them to be making?
To lie is unarguably morally wrong. Nobody ever said we should lie. Regardless of God and religion nobody ever enjoyed eternal paradise lying and deceiving innocent and vulnerable children. The most important and urgent question is "is atheism a logical fallacy?". Atheism is a logical fallacy that assumes God is the religious idea of the creator of the creation to conclude wrongly no creator exists because a particular idea of God doesn’t exist. Atheists commit the atheist logical fallacy always because they believe God is what they call "sky daddy" and they don't believe God exists, and they are wrong because they believe. God is not "sky daddy". "Sky daddy" is a particular idea of how the creator of the universe is. The question "does God exist?" means "was the universe created from an eternal entity superior to oneself?". You don't have to believe in God because God is necessary because logically it is impossible the existence of the creation or finitude without the creator or infinitude. Atheism is the belief immune to arguments that all reality is created and nothing uncreated exists, and that's why atheists ask "who created god?". If you understood God is necessary would you live lying deceiving innocent and vulnerable children defending an idea without any arguments?
6:37 I'm with you here. I'm not convinced at all that the book is paradoxical. Maybe in some epistemically open to be possible world there's a book like this such that the boundary between the back cover and the pages is filled up by some powerful evanescent field effect that obscures the infinite pages behind it. The effect would be generated by the presence of infinitely many ultra-thin pages composed of lighter and lighter fundamental particles.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanescent_field
Benardete himself had some fun stuff to say about it!!
32 mistakes in the Kalam???? Nearly 2 hours worth??!?!?
Its a fallacy of composition error... CASE CLOSED
Just because things INSIDE the universe began to exist DOES NOT MEAN the universe itself shares the same attribute
There... it took 30 seconds to totally demolish the Kalam in a SINGLE mistake
You just committed mistake #77 lol
So did the universe begin to exist or not??