For those of you commenting on the title and thumbnail: I didn't use old photos--the thumbnail was actually run through a "Young" filter on FaceApp! Haha. And yeah, I ran the joke by the two of them beforehand. As for the title, while it's intended as a lighthearted joke, I actually see it as a compliment (since I have so much respect for their thinking/accomplishments at such a young age). Make sure to sub to their channels!
Hey Cameron, you probs won't read this, but I found a set of papers once by a Polish guy whose name I can't remember, but it might be of significant interest to these guests, because he seemed to prove (to my satisfaction at least, as a very rusty but upper undergrad trained logician) that the modal ontological arguments, various of them, don't need S5 or even S4 to follow, that they can't be proved by really primitive logical concepts, and that the "meat" of them is the premises. I might try finding those papers if they'd be interested?
Yeah I though this was going to be a diss, basically saying they are bad debaters. But it was a hosted debate and he's just saying they are young and smart. He baited me
According to Materialism, philosophy doesn't exist because it isn't physical. Materialists should never be taken seriously because their entire philosophy is self refuting.
@@bookishbrendan8875 Because it only makes sense together with something. For example, most atheists are 'agnostic atheists' because they address two different things, what you think is knowable and what you believe.
@@ztrinx1 My problem with this is that it seems to be a fairly recent popular phenomenon regarding the etymology of the word “agnostic.” It means, in a sense, “unknown.” Why then turn it into a qualifier regarding belief in a deity? It’s also not really practical nor logical, because to believe something in some sense necessitates thinking that thing is known or can be, which is the opposite of agnosticism. How many honest to god agnostic-theists have you met? It almost seems to pigeon-hole agnosticism into one of the two camps. But what if my position on the matter really genuinely is, as a matter of belief, “I don’t know”? In a sense it’s an entirely negative position, unlike both theism and atheism, which each posit the existence or lack thereof of god/gods. My belief on the matter is entirely presupposed by whether or not I believe or not. But that’s the thing. I don’t either way. I simply don’t know. What’s the point for someone like to me go from that conviction to believing either side?
@@bookishbrendan8875 This has been discussed endlessly on the internet. Here are a few objections to the view you describe, why many think it doesn't make sense to use agnosticism on its own, or at all useful in any way. It is not to turn agnosticism into a qualifier regarding the belief in a deity - specifically - it is to say that you can be agnostic about anything, e.g. you don't believe in ghosts or dragons, but it is impossible to prove a negative, so you can be agnostic about that belief. That is completely logical. "Agnostic theists" Actually, if you listen to many of the well-known Christian apologists, they will say exactly that, in any which way they phrase it, because they want to get out of the burden of proof. "As a matter of belief - I don't know" Yes, and that is the completely useless and incoherent part. It is your belief that you don't know? Do you say the same when it comes to other subjects, e.g. aliens, dragons, whatever? If not, what is the difference? It is more coherent to say that you don't think it is possible to know/prove, and therefore you don't believe - which is what the vast majority of atheists will say. "Unlike theism and atheism, which each posit the existence or lack thereof" No, herein lies your issue. Atheists don't posit/claim that god(s) don't exist, they reject the claim(s) made by theists. That distinction is absolutely necessary, since the overwhelming majority of atheists do not claim to know and do not think it is possible to know/ that you can disprove the existence of god(s), i.e. disproving a negative.
Here's some concerns I have with the argument. First, after slowing it down to .75x speed and listening twice, here's my attempt to formalize it: 1. For any existential fact (concrete thing(s) X exist) there is possibly an explanation for their existence, the explanation follows these rules: i. The explanation is not one of the X's being explained. ii. The explanation is noncircular, i.e. it doesn't presuppose the existence of one or more X's. iii. The condition for the explanation is an "all else equal" condition. iv. The explanation includes a mechanism, grounding, process etc. for how the things come to be. 2. Imperfect beings (beings that aren't God) is an existential fact which possibly has an explanation. 3. From 2 suppose a possible world in which this fact has an explanation. 4. The explanation satisfies i-iv. 5. The explanation isn't an imperfect being. 6. The explanation is a perfect being. C. There is a possible world in which a perfect being exists. Here are the concerns: A. In order for someone to accept "the imperfect fact" as something under the scope of 1, they must already believe, immediately, that possibly, God exists as an explanation of that fact. Premise 2, along with premise 1 (when properly understood) just does entail the conclusion of the argument, resulting in a case where the juxtaposition of 1 and 2 are even stronger than what the argument wants to show. This means that one could employ a Moorean shift against 2. If they did indeed believe that such a vague "imperfect fact" was under the scope of 1, then they'd already have been a Theist in the first place, making the discussion moot. All that has been clarified then, is that one reason they aren't a Theist is precisely because it's not intuitive to them that 2 falls properly under the scope of 1. The other reasons provided might give them independent reasons to think that. B. Non circularity might be violated here, and the reason is pretty technical so I'll go over it carefully. This is a discussion about God's being metaphysically necessary, but let us also ask the auxiliary question about whether God is logically necessary or not. We have two cases: God is logically necessary, or God is not logically necessary. Logically necessary: God is both logically and metaphysically necessary. In every possible world, God exists and God exists in the particular way that God exists. If there are contingent outcomes, then God is necessarily producing random or otherwise indeterminate effects, or there are nonrandom effects produced by God necessarily. Joe mentioned this kind of dilemma in his paper on Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse, but I think this dilemma is more wide reaching than just the question of DDS, generalizable to any model of God in which God may be logically necessary. Logically contingent: Possibly God is otherwise. How do we know which possible God we're talking about? We know in virtue of which possible world that this possible God has created. In other words, there is an implicit identification between God and the possible world God produces, i.e. God(A) is the possible expression of God in which God is the kind of God that produces world A. Now note that what is being explained here are "all the imperfect things in world A" or "all non God things in world A" or succinctly "World A" given that in this model "World A" is just the non God stuff about World A that God produces. The imperfect fact then, if it has this explanation, has God(A) explain World A. But remember that on this model, God(A)'s definition presupposes the existence of world A in order to differentiate God from one of his other possible counterparts (say God(B) for World B). And thus circularity is violated in the case where God is logically contingent. So insofar as the explanation satisfies noncircularity, it risks modal collapse or randomness being the fundamental explanation. Insofar as the explanation is uniquely "God", it risks violating circularity. C. I'll admit that I just don't know what Joe means by ceteris paribus here, and I might have to read the paper to better understand it. But it seems that such a vague "imperfect fact" is going to be impossible to enforce the condition on. This is because every possible world except the world in which only God exists, is going to have this imperfect fact. And this imperfect fact for world A would be explained in exactly the same way that imperfect fact B would, despite that certain properties of those facts may be unequal. It's all going to come down to wording, so what I have here is a reservation, but I can't judge until I've read the fine print. D. Theism never provides an exact mechanism for how God does anything physical and that's its biggest weakness. It's also a part I feel was really glossed over in the discussion. If there is a possible world in which God is this explanation, then in this possible world, we have this exact mechanism by which God explains all the imperfect things that aren't God. But if that's so, then we should have knowledge of this mechanism (insofar as Joe says it's necessary to be an explanation on his model) in all worlds including ours. So the lack of present mechanisms in the Theistic literature then is weak evidence against such an explanation being possible in this possible world. More explicitly we might have good reason to think that such a thing can't happen in principle due to the Principle of Proportionate Causality. Whatever is in the effect must be, in some sense, in the cause. So insofar as there is a causal mechanism from a perfect being to imperfect effects under explanation, by PPC this means that there's imperfection "in some sense" in the cause which means that the cause is either in the imperfect fact "in some sense" or at minimum presupposes the perfect fact, to the extent that the imperfect fact is in some sense in the cause which seeks to explain it. PPC aside, another analogy that makes this point more clear is a look at limits, causes and effects. A limited dice, i.e. one with 6 defined sides, produces limited effects when rolled. You could roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. These are the limited effects which come from the limited cause. Suppose instead that the dice were completely unlimited in its number of sides, i.e. an actually perfect sphere with an actually uncountably infinite number of points on its smooth surface. When you roll the sphere on the floor, it's going to stop somewhere, there will be some "topmost" point facing up. But which point is it? Can you map all the uncountable points on the sphere and name them? If you can't, then the unlimited nature of the cause results in epistemic uncertainty of the kinds of effects it produces even assuming it does in fact produce effects. In short, given the 4 rules about explanations that Joe uses to make his principles intuitive, those same rules make me think that his imperfect fact isn't properly within the scope of his principles due to how the only thing which could serve as its explanation comes into massive tension with each of the 4 rules.
A. It does mean an implication of theism as a probable explanation. It also doesn’t mean one is a theist in the first place, since the conclusion is reached from the condition of imperfection, which describes objects perfectly. Even concepts that we have in our minds may be contingent on other concepts, not just objects being contingent. B. Perhaps nonrandom and randomness are not exactly objective truths but are rather relative in relation to God. This can be resolved through idealism. C. Can be resolved through multiple worlds hypothesis aka you and I are God experiencing different realities. D. Engaging in the physical is that all is made up of existence itself, such that different condensed forms of existence can interact with each other. For example, ice and water are both made of H2O but they interact with one another. With your dice analogy it fails since it exists within time and space. God is dimensionless and thus can exist with no dimension such that everything can map to God.
@@christopherlin4706 "It also doesn’t mean one is a theist in the first place, since the conclusion is reached from the condition of imperfection" So far, imperfect just literally means "not God". You'd only think that objects being "not God" needs an explanation if and only if you think there's some God thing apart from non God objects. "Perhaps nonrandom and randomness are not exactly objective truths but are rather relative in relation to God. This can be resolved through idealism." Wut?
@@logos8312 nope, we can think of something imperfect in terms of not having all the attributes of our experience. Like take your bottle for example, it doesn’t have the properties of metallic etc, thus it is incomplete in reality. I take imperfect to mean incompletion. Also in regards to the second point, if my subjective experience is primary to what is real, then it is also possible that every point of reality has the same subjective experience, if we are to describe experience as something unlimited. Then what is random pertains to things that are influenced by a relatively unconscious element of existence versus a more conscious element. To make this more easier to understand, I mean that what is random can be a manifestation of the completeness of reality vs a manifestation of something existing within it.
@@christopherlin4706 "nope, we can think of something imperfect in terms of not having all the attributes of our experience. Like take your bottle for example, it doesn’t have the properties of metallic etc, thus it is incomplete in reality. I take imperfect to mean incompletion." That doesn't make any sense. What explains my bottle not having qualities of a rock? It's a bottle, and not a rock. Done. That just doesn't need an explanation. Any concrete thing that has all predications of our experience simultaneously isn't a thing able to predicated on. And things unable to be predicated on can't be embedded in propositions about explanations. "To make this more easier to understand, I mean that what is random can be a manifestation of the completeness of reality vs a manifestation of something existing within it." Yes. Possible worlds necessarily exist by S5, and random states are just possible world states. But what does that have to do with God?
@@logos8312 when we see a bottle and a rock, a bottle is not a rock precisely because we map our thinking upon two patterns existing in our experience, and we find that the properties do not match, and we bundle the properties of one into a rock and one into a bottle, and yes, a bottle is not a rock and we convey our insight to another person. Now what we are mainly fully focusing on, is explaining, why does the properties of my rock not have the properties of the stone? And also ask, what explains this object? What explains an object is what we can consider a cause. And this is where we can go backwards in time and understand the origin of all things. It seems as if farther back in time we go, we capture a bigger part of existence and the properties all come together. Well this gets us very close to God, something ultimately personal as it is our personhood, experiences everything in completion, while also existing everywhere at the same time while also being everything fully. Also has the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence
To me, this argument just equivocates on "cause" and "perfection" and "necessary" until you get something that tugs on people's intuitions enough to feel as though something is going on here. Our intuitions shout "it feel logical smoke so there must be tautological fire somewhere", when this almost certainly is an illusion. One of the most obvious counter arguments, to me, is that "thing 1 with property X" must have an explanation of "thing 2 with property NOT X" does not follow from PPE. It's saying that NOT thing 1 must explain thing 1, and some property of that NOT thing 1 must be different from thing 1. It's not saying that ALL properties of not thing 1 are different. For example, I'm caused by my parents in some sense but we're both human. I think this "symmetry breaker" is assuming that because I'm human, I must be caused by non-humans, but this isn't the case. It's perfectly possible for it to be the case that the causer has some properties in common with the caused. PPE may be saying that the infinite regress of causes of humans must include non-humans. The generalization would be that all properties of thing 1 must in some way, in the infinite regress, have a causer that has none of those properties. I think this has very flimsy justification, since we can define something into existence by a negation of anything about anything (for instance "imperfect evil" therefore the devil, or "imperfectly tasting pizza" defining a perfect pizza into existence). In philosophy, it's a common trick to say "assume thing 1 doesn't exist", then prove this is a contradiction, then throw your hands up and say "yay, thing 1 exists!". In mathematics, this is fine as things are rigorously defined, but in philosophy this is lazy, imo. This is lazy, especially so, when using fuzzy words like "imperfect" to "cause" thing 1 in order to prove the negation. For this example, we're using 2 intuitions: 1) "imperfect" things exist, and 2) all "imperfect" things must, in the regress, have a non-"imperfect" "cause", since "imperfection" cannot "cause" itself. "perfect" is an archetype in the mind of conscious creatures, without an exact analog in the world. Using "perfect" in this argument, means that this wordplay is lazy, and doesn't really get at what causation means in and of itself.
It's not a conflation; each predicate implies the other such that they can be used interchageably: if God is necessary then he must be both the first cause and perfect in all respects. Per divine simplicity nobody believes any of these predicates each represent really distinct properties of God anyway
I'm not a philosopher but one issue I'm stuck on with that symmetry breaker is that arbitrary non-circular, concrete, perfect fact T. It seems like all of these exercises, from Plantinger's modal ontological argument all the way down to PPE, are just piling up layers of modal logic to bury the circular argument a little further each time. For PPE to work, you need that non-circular, concrete, perfect fact T to exist, so you say that it must exist.
I’m 1 1/2 times as old as both of them combined (truth), and TEN TIMES as smart as both of them put together (lies)!!!😁 Seriously, though, I was blessed to have met the Savior by the time I was their age, and true to His Word, in my 62 years of life on this earth, He has never failed me or forsaken me (Heb.13:5). I pray these two young men will do the same, and soon.
One way in which explanation couldn't be equivalent to entailment is if true randomness and probability exists. If you throw a coin in the air and lands in heads, and this event is truly randomized, then one can say that throwing the coin in the air explains the result of landing in heads, but doesn't entail the result, it is not necesarily the case that by throwing a coin you will get heads, and in that sense the final state of the coin is contingent. And at least following the current state of our understanding of quantum mechanics, true probability either does exist, or at the very least we cannot completely exclude the fact that it might exist. At least as how we understand the universe currently, the world seems to be not deterministic, but that I don't actually think it means that things are un-explained, there are still causes and effects, just that probability distribution is part of the explanation.
That was a nice crossover Cameron, I also think it would be nice to see a conversation between Alex and Dustin Crummett, since they are both interested in the topic of animal suffering and how that relates to the problem of evil.
It would be nice to see more theists stop torturing and killing God’s creatures, or even just discussing whether Veganism is compatible with/necessary from their premises
@@mcel6551 Well I'm not a theist, but I agree it definitely deserves more attention, specially considering there's this whole thing called Christian Vegetarianism going way back to the early church, although even if no tradition existed, the incalculable level of unnecessary suffering should be more than enough to persuade anyone.
Alex at 1:03:12 "I'm sure you're familiar with modal fatalism, Joe." Yep! He's one of the world experts on modal collapse, writing multiple papers on it, especially as it relates to Divine Simplicity.
PE and PPE are just symbolic representations of propositions. The propositions are specified in the video. They're useful so you don't need to restate the propositions constantly you can just say PE or PPE depending on which one you're talking about.
If I've understood Joes argument and principles correctly. When applying it, It seems I could state that the existence of something cannot be explained by something as that would be circular (nothing can explain itself). Therefore it entails the existence of nothing? But that seems a nonsensical concept and statement.
Joe qualifies PE with 'all else being equal' a lot in the discussion, he says explicitly PE doesn't demand an explanation of existential facts here: 33:53
@@vincentiormetti3048 yes that's right. It seems to me one should expect an explanation for why there is something. Now we may have reason to think there is no such explanation, but that's if we limit it to external, non-self contained explanations. I guess I don't see why we should do that. Tbh I need to read his paper.
Parmenides used this argument to show that change is impossible. If change requires a cause to explain it, and explanation is non-circular, then to explain how Being undergoes change, something outside of Being, i.e. Nothing, must explain it. But Nothing does not exist and thus cannot explain anything. Therefore change is impossible. Aristotle responded in part not by denying the non-circularity of explanation, but denying that Being is a genus, i.e. a class of things that can be further differentiated. Animal is a genus, and rational animal (man) is a species of the genus animal. A genus is differentiated by something outside that genus. Only Nothing is outside of Being, and Nothing cannot differentiate Being, therefore Being is not a genus. It is not valid to talk about Being the same way you talk about animality or something similar, so Parmenides' argument is invalid since it treats Being in that manner. This also ties into set theory and the impossibility of the "set of all sets".
In the example Alex was giving of his daughter having to explain why she was late, a full explanation is somewhat impossible. She could say she made a particular choice, which at the time she couldn't foresee certain consequences, and it lead to those consequences, which ultimately lead to her being late. She could to some degree account for why she made the choice she made, but there would be aspects about that which would be impossible for her to have recognized as to why she made the choice. Also, if determinism is at play, and she was determined to do something, she wouldn't necessarily know why she did that thing. And regardless of her response, Alex also being subject to determinism would have a particular reaction that wouldn't necessarily follow logically.
I have now subscribed to each of these 3 guys' UA-cam channels. My only negative comment is that "baby philosophers" would seem to imply 2 many potential UA-cam viewers that the 2 guests are new to the field with only an introductory level of acquaintance with Philosophy & that obviously is not the case. I hope the title didn't discourage many from listening. It was a good discussion. I think Joe defended his position very well. His opponent is very talented, but in the end I believe the tie breaker held up to everything Alex threw out. (Cool another debate between Alex and Trent!!!!)
These guys are so frigging smart it's scary! When Alex brings up the question about the explanation entailing what is explained, is basically-if I understood it rightly-the question that theologians have been trying to answer for centuries: why did God create?
The problem is that the explanation entailing what is explained is extremely different from the "why did God create?" question, as the latter assumes a human activity of creation on such a being and there's no reason for that assumption, much less that this being would correspond to the Biblical YHWH.
The God of the Bible is far from an anthropomorphic figure. The Bible writers are humans trying to convey divine realities to other humans, so it's understandable that at times they resort to anthropomorphic figures of speech. But there are plenty of biblical and historical evidence that even the most primitive amongst the Hebrew people were very clear about the infinite transcendence of their divinity, which wasn't in the least marred or diluted by some anthropomorphic language here or there.
I’m confused. Assuming that Joe’s symmetry breaker is sound, the conclusion of the ontological argument can be no more certain than this argument Joe provides to show that it’s possibly necessary that god exists. So why not just scrap the ontological argument and treat this symmetry breaker as a novel argument for god?
@Chad Not sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say. I'm pretty sure this boils down to: (imperfect beings possibly have an explanation) => (premise of the modal ontological argument) => god exists. Joe's symmetry breaker (the first implication) is not an argument for the existence of god. Also @GeoMicPri Mizrany, u must be getting mixed up. Godel's incompleteness theorems have nothing to do with God's existence. They are just theorems which characterize the incompleteness of formal systems which have a sufficiently rich notion of arithmetic, i.e. they say nothing outside the realm of mathematics.
@@ethan_martin I believe he's saying that the fundamental concept being explored is redundant, and so it doesn't add new, independently confirming information that would be needed to shift the probability.
@@whatsinaname691 i knew about his ontological argument but i didn't know it was sometimes called his "imcompleteness" argument. Wow that is confusing lol.
48:09 - I don´t think that the omnipotence paradox can be dismissed so easily, because there's nothing logically impossible in creating a stone that cannot be lifted by its creator. If you say that such thing is incoherent is not because the impossibility of the predicate but because there´s something incoherent in the nature of the subject. By declaring it logically impossible you are solving a paradox with another paradox: an omnipotent being cannot do logically possible things because of its omnipotence. So, in the same way you solve the Grim Reaper paradox by saying that an infinite sequence of Grim Reapers is impossible, you solve the omnipotence paradox by taking omnipotence out of the subject.
There are much more fundamental problems with the MOA that I'm surprised Alex didn't bring up. In particular, at 25:13, he agrees that the argument succeeds at reducing a question of existence to one of possible existence, the latter being a much weaker proposition. But this isn't actually the case here! Since the definition of God that the MOA uses includes necessary existence, the statements "God exists potentially" and "God exists necessarily" are 100% identical with respect to that definition, and therefore the premise should be subjected to the same scrutiny as if it outright stated the latter. All the MOA is is an attempt to avoid that scrutiny by "disguising" the necessity claim as a possibility claim.
You actually are not correct in your assertion here, that saying "it is possible that God exists" is logically equivalent to saying "it is necessary that God exists". This becomes very clear if we substitute "God" for "a necessary being". 1) It is possible that a necessary being eixsts. 2) It is necessary that a necessary being exists. Clearly, these are not the same claim. The fact that a thing is necessary instead of contingent does not make the 2 above statements identical. The fact that the possibility of a necessary being entails its actuality is simply result or consequence of necessary existence. You are confusing the result of necessary existence with the claim made about a necessary being.
@@jackplumbridge2704 That's the trick, though - In modal logic, these two statements *are* effectively the same claim. To exist necessarily means to exist "in all possible worlds", while to exist possibly means to exist "in at least one possible world". We are used to thinking about ordinary things and beings, which usually exist in some possible worlds but not in others. But a necessary being can't do that because then it wouldn't be necessary after all. There are only two options: it either exists in all possible worlds or in none. Thus, if statement 1 is true, there is a possible world in which a necessary being exists. But that can only be true if that being also exists in all other possible worlds, so then statement 2 is also true.
@@Rhangaun "That's the trick, though - In modal logic, these two statements are effectively the same claim. " - They aren't the same claim, its just that the implication of a necessary beings existence being possible is that it is also actual. Also, im not sure why you call it a "trick", its just logic. A necessary being, by definition, cannot fail to exist, it has no potential to not exist. So if someone were to say that a necessary being's existence were possible but not actual, they would be claiming: 1) A being which cannot fail to exist, failed to exist. 2) A being which has no potential to not exist, does not exist. Which are, of course, logically incoherent statements. "To exist necessarily means to exist "in all possible worlds", while to exist possibly means to exist "in at least one possible world"" - I think you meant "to exist contingently" not "to exist possibly". "Thus, if statement 1 is true, there is a possible world in which a necessary being exists. But that can only be true if that being also exists in all other possible worlds, so then statement 2 is also true." - Right. The **implication** of a necessary being's existence being possible is that it actually exists. But the claim "it is possible that a necessary being exists" and the claim "it is necessary that a necessary being exists" are obviously not the same claim. I'm sure you are aware that beliefs are probabilistic, not black and white. When we assess whether or not a proposition is true or false, we make a probabilistic assessment of whether the claim is true or false based on the evidence we have access to. We don't, for example, claim that all propositions we believe are 100% probable, and all propositions we disbelieve are 0% probable. Some of our beliefs are more probably true, and therefore we hold to them more confidently, and some are less probably true, and so we hold to them less confidently. The claim "it is necessary that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a 100% probability that a necessary being exists". The claim "it is possible that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a >0% probability that a necessary being exists". The claim "it is impossible that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a 0% probability that a necessary being exists". The first and third statements are the most radical statements a person could make regarding the existence of a necessary being. The second statement is the most modest statement a person could make regarding the existence of a necessary being. So, in response to your original comment, the MOA does indeed make it much easier to prove the existence of a MGB (God) by lowering the evidential bar that has to be met. If a person, after weighing the evidence for and against God's existence, thinks there is a >0% probability that God exists, the MOA demonstrates that they must conclude that he actually does exist. The only way a person can reject God's existence is if they think there is a 0% probability that God exists. Or, alternatively, they could play the skeptic card and say they cannot know whether or not God's existence is possible or impossible (which would be to never make a probabilistic assessment of God's existence), but then i would have to wonder why such a person would even engage with theistic and atheistic arguments in the first place.
The supposed infinite regress problem of "god knows that he knows that he knows..." has always seemed like a limp noodle to me. You can collapse the infinite regress into "god knows X," by saying that "god knows that he knows X" is just a restatement of "god knows X," just with more words redundantly added. You could have the same "infinite regress" about any fact, e.g. "it's true that a chair exists," in that you could also say "it's true that it's true that a chair exists," and so on. You can add arbitrarily many words to the statement, but it's still just a rephrasing of the same statement you started with; it's still just a single fact
@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I’d recommend reading my OP again. “Sounds like” =\= they were. However, their debate is too semantical for me because I believe as Joe (and even Alex) mentions, we don’t require this level of proof for most other sort of “knowledge” in our daily life, which nonetheless has profound impacts on our decision making. Also Joe’s tiebreaker is a contingency argument. I do appreciate this discussion in the sense that we become more clear as to “the current score” in these sort of debates.
@@b4u334 I understood your comment. I just thought it was unfair, albeit far better than some of the other comments here. We have people in the comment section hating on academic philosophy and its sub disciplines because of the discussion between Joe and Alex! Totally nuts.
Didnt Know Joe B4, Alex I Know... you Both are a Dream... I wish I could get to this level of Thinking. Need to watch this more than 10 times to understand every line of thoughts...
When talking about "undeterministic causation" (and ideas like "free will"), what comes to mind is the phrase, "The illusion of choice," as we, defined a humans, separate ourselves, to a degree, from the world around us (despite the effects it has on us and also being made of the same exact materials/components as the "world around us"), and "we" _make choices_ without having a "full explanation" on hand before acting (though it is oft said that inaction is still consider an action, so acting, at this time is unavoidable), and this lack of knowledge leads to the appearance that we can make a choice, despite not fully understanding how "connected" we are to everything. Having a higher level of awareness still leaves one without a "full explanation", but has one aware that "choices" they made were, deterministic, and had many causes, known and unknown. A mind meter for sure, but due to luck, or misfortune, we do not oft spend our time thinking this way, and don't oft end our "suffering", as defined by some, to "stop it".
It's interesting that people try to make convincing arguments for determinism, as if making an argument at all didn't imply some level of free will in the first place.
@@BornOnThursday Why do you argue your point if not for free will or the fundamental belief that making an argument will change someone's mind? We may as well be farting into the air. These arguments usually either straw man what "free will" means, or at least what theism means by free will.
@@RohannvanRensburg Well, in this case, you commented on my original post, and I felt the urge to explain what I felt was (or is) happening. *Free will* is one of those concepts that is untestable in my opinion, as... 1. "We can't go back and watch the same event and see if it could have played out differently nothing had changed," and... 2. "We make all our *choices* without access to all the information, past and future, and we are only acting on information we have access to, which we arguably had no choice in receiving and absorbing." If these two points are examples of the strawmen you are talking about, then I'd like to know the version you are speaking about.
Can't believe I spent an hour listening to this discussion and *then* did my own Google search and realised that MOA's propositions are so obviously bollocks. Can't believe I'm going to watch the remaining half hour too
Can somebody tell me what's the difference between epistemological possibility and metaphysical possibility? Also, where can I find the proof that if something is possibly necessary then it is necessary in all possible worlds?
38:00 I don't think there is something that is imperfect. Everything is perfect. If you think something is imperfect, you are just putting it in the wrong category. For example, if you draw a circle that is not perfectly circular, it is not a perfect circle, sure, but whatever form you have drew, say, lets call it a "bloba", you just have drew a perfect bloba. Even if your intention was to draw a circle, we can call this mistake is a perfect mistake. The very definition of "perfect" is so flexible that its not very useful as an argument.
As far as I can tell, the following refutes MOA. Note, because of the way _possible worlds_ is defined, _necessary_ here refers to _logical necessity,_ i.e., failure to exist would create a type of incoherency. Further, if you try to reformulate MOA with _metaphysical necessity,_ that still fails because the _possibly necessary -> actually necessary_ entailment, which is central to MOA, does not apply to metaphysical necessity. Also, while I'm confident Axiom 1 can be justified a priori, I've spent longer on this post than I originally intended, and if you deny it, you break possible world semantics, and MOA dies with it. Not to mention the catastrophic implications to philosophy as a whole. Definition 1a) Incoherent concepts are concepts that contain two or more contradicting properties 1b) Not incoherent = coherent Premis 1a) A concept that contains only one property cannot be incoherent (Entailed by definition 1a) 1b) A concept that contains only one property is coherent (Definition 1b + Premis 1a) Definition 2) A world is a concept of reality Definition 3) Possible worlds are worlds that are coherent Definition 4) An empty world is a world with the single property that no entities exist within it Premis 2) An empty world is a possible world (Premis 1b + Definitions 2, 3, and 4) Definition 5) Necessary entities are entities that, if they exist in any possible worlds, they exist in all possible worlds Premis 3) If a necessary entity exists, it exists within an empty world (Premis 2 + Definition 5) Premis 4) Necessary entities do not exists in an empty world (Entailed by definition 4) Premis 5) If necessary entities do not exist in an empty world, they do not exist in any possible world (Entailed by Definition 5) Premis 6) Necessary entities do not exist in any possible world (Premis 4 + Premis 5) Definition 6) The actual world is the world that describes extant reality. Axiom 1) The actual world is a possible world Premis 7) Necessary entities do not exist in the actual world (Premis 6 + Axiom 1) Conclusion: Necessary entities do not exist in extant reality (Definition 6 + Premis 7)
Alex argued that necessary things can't explain contingent things and I wholeheartedly agree with him. This is called the difference principle. The idea, intuitively, is that necessary things are like control groups in experiments. Whatever else is the case, they are the case. So just like how you cannot appeal to control groups to explain different observations in trials, you cannot appeal to necessary things to explain contingent things. They are the ultimate control groups. Now, when it comes to explanations, let's suppose that P is necessary to explain Q, but it does not entail Q. This leaves us with a gap in explanation. You have to fill it with something because if you don't, then you cannot claim that Q and ~Q are distinct, nonrandom outcomes. I can think of two options: you can fill this gap with randomness or you can fill it with some other relevant thing(s). Take option 1, then Q and ~Q are random outcomes. Insofar as randomness isn't an explanation, Q and ~Q would fail to have explanations beyond "Q obtained because Q obtained, and if ~Q obtained we'd be in a different possible world." Take option 2, and then there exists some other relevant thing(s). Let this collection be called R. Then, R and P cooperate to produce Q. It doesn't matter whether or not we know R, what matters is that R and P together are sufficient for Q. But if R and P are sufficient for Q, then R and P existing entails Q. Q would be both distinct and nonrandom. To circle back to the difference principle, if ~Q obtained, then ~Q obtaining would be explained by some difference, either in P, R or both of them. But this just means that R or P cannot be necessary. Great stream, loved it!
@@m.l.pianist2370 Without it you can't do science because you immediately lose the philosophical machinery that underpins: Treatment levels control groups blocking factors etc. Which makes running most basic experiments utterly impossible. So in the same way the PSR holds science hostage, the Difference Principle holds science hostage (arguably moreso).
@@logos8312 That gives inductive support for that principle, but this is compatible with the existence of counterexamples to it, such as free choice and indeterministic causation.
@@m.l.pianist2370 Free choice is compatible with the difference principle. Imagine the possible world in which I was never punished as a child and ended up "spoiled" by adulthood, vs the world in which I was properly disciplined, obtained good habits, etc. My decisions would still be freely mine, but what explains my choices is in part explained by my past. Otherwise one would think the idea of punishing children is utterly and completely useless, which is prima facie absurd. If you want God to just cause things in an indetermined fashion, that's cool. My Tychist friend will be happy with the entailments of that view. Most Christian Theology instantly gets nuked but if that's the bullet you want to bite, all power to you.
@@logos8312 Yes, some free choices are compatible with the difference principle but some aren't. If I'm choosing between two movies to watch on Netflix, and have no strong preference for either, and I choose one of them, my choice is free but there's no difference in my previous state that accounts for this.
I know my comment is way late but here it is. Genesis 1:1 is a statement of absolute. It is absolutely true or absolutely false. There is no in between or other possibility. So it logically follow if the statement absolutely false then everything that follows it is also absolutely false. If the statement is absolutely true then what follows is logically absolutely true.
God = his attributes. Logic = attribute of God. Logical contradiction = God contradicts his attributes. God cannot contradict himself, therefore God cannot contradict logic
It’s good to watch people honesty discussing ideas without trying to push a line. The conversation about the possibility of God has come a long way since the early 2000s
Wouldn't language (or other transcendental categories) disprove the principle of PPE/PE? How can one possibly explain language apart from the use of language? If you can not use PPE/PE on abstract concepts then why is Joe allowed to use PE for PPE?
At 44:06 Joe distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemic explanation and provides description of both. He maintains that he is only using explanation in the metaphysical sense. Our ability to explain language would fall under the category of epistemic explanations and so not be subject to your proposed problem.
Enough with the book backgrounds. Are you guys really so desperate for people to think you are smart? Put up a Backstreet Boys poster or a green screen of a wheat field. Stop being so unoriginal.
(Right after hearing Joe's explanation) I have one question about PPE: AFAIU PPE proposes that there are two sets of existential facts, one in which the existential facts are explained by other existential facts outside their own subset (derived), and one in which existential facts are not (axiomatic), with causal links necessarily going from the second set to the first. But when inspecting a singular fact on its own, its membership is derived from other elements, so on its own, it cannot be assigned to one of the two sets. Wouldn't it thenceforth be meaningless to say about any existential fact on its own, based on such a calssification, or any set of existential facts (for example the existence of imperfect beings) based on such a classification, to either belong to the derived or axiomatic subset, as any definition of these subsets (imperfectness, etc.) and their membership is infact dependent on the existence of other EFs? Does that not mean that for any element on its own in PPE, we cannot determine its membership of the axiomatic/derived subsets, and therefore we cannot say that it is in one or the other? (In fact I find the whole construction a bit fishy). Sorry if I'm rambling complete nonsense.
MOA easily wins. In other words, as it pertains to necessary existence; "possibly exists" is synonymous with "necessarily exists". For the inverse, "possibly doesn't exist" is synonymous with "necessarily doesn't exist" which in turn is synonymous with "absolutely impossible". By default, positive claims have a possibility, unless they can be shown to be a logical contradiction. We can say that unicorns, for example, are possible, but we can't say that about square-circles. Unicorns obviously don't work for this argument because there is no ontological attribute for unicorns to require necessary existence. In short, it is possible for God to exist. If you disagree, you need to show that it is impossible for God to exist. It must be logically impossible for God to exist, or God exists.
You mistake metaphysical possibility for logical possibility. Logical possibility only requires non-contradiction, whereas metaphysical possibilty requires a reason for something to be possible. If we formulate the MOA on logical possibility we have the same problem: by default, saying "God necessarily exists" means saying "it is absolutely impossible for God not to exist", which equates to claiming a logical incoherence in claiming he doesn't exist. The parity problem still remains, and it is a weaker version since when it comes to logical possibility, you cannot provide symmetry breakers. Also, Kant's objection that "existence is not a predicate" might apply here. So there is a reason why metaphysical possibility is used here, and the parity problem remains unless you can find a symmetry breaker.
@@misticulandrei2234 Sorry, the proposition "God necessarily exists" is not at all the same as "it is absolutely impossible for God not to exist". I'm not sure where you got that. **Sorry, I'm updating this: I didn't see that last *not* the first time I responded. You are correct, they are the same thing. .. The criticisms you cite, just don't follow at all. I'm not mistaking metaphysical possibility and logical possibility. I am stating that the argument refers to logical possibility and logical possibility only. To show that it is even possible that God does not exist, in this argument, you need to show that it is a logical contradiction. Nowhere did I appeal to a metaphysical possibility in my comment. When I used a unicorn f= as an example, most people would not think there is a metaphysical possibility they exist (I have no idea why not... but whatever). However, all I stated is that it is not a LOGICAL contradiction for a unicorn to exist. It is absolutely not a criticism that the "predicate" argument is applicable to the MOA. The predicate refutation pertained to the fact that "being" and "existing" are the same thing. Anselm corrected that argument himself, and the MOA has nothing whatsoever to do with that.
If you say something possibly exists and neccsarily exists you have created a contradiction. prossibility implies for some state of affairs not X. Necessity implies for all states of affairs X. You have asserted X and not X at the same time to be true.
@@Apanblod I think that one thing is to know that God exists but another is having Faith in him, for example, many of the disciples of Jesus Christ believed in God and in his words, but sometimes they did not have enough faith or trust in Him. Just as it happens with a person. You can understand that God can exist, but still believe that he is very far away from you and that he will not listen to your prayers.
What motive should we have to „not want to believe“? I think when believers make asinine claims like this, they do so because they cannot handle the thought, that what they assume to be sufficient evidence for god, is not sufficient evidence for others. Especially not „personal experiences“.
@@Asilentlearner43 According to the Bible, no one will have a valid excuse for their atheism on the day of judgment, since all creation is evidence of the power and deity of God. And that deep down everyone has an internal knowledge of Him, but some reject it and decide to be puffed up in their own reasoning (Romans 1:20-21).
God is the one being where "it's true because God knows it" is sensical vs "God knows it because it's true." If God is a being in which all things are grounded (knowledge, logic, etc) then in some sense nothing can be true without being dependent on God's knowledge, in similar way to how nothing can exist without God creating them. But I'm also not a philosophy expert and I'm not well versed in the vocabulary. I'm just working off intuition.
That's quite right! The argument to counter the omniscience objection is basically the same as the one to counter the omnipotence one. Just as God's omnipotence is "limited" by irrational facts (because He is the source of all reason and Reason itself, whereby anything irrational would go against His very being); so is God's omniscience limited by being, namely, being God ipsum esse (being itself), He cannot know things that are NOT. In other words, human knowledge implies that something else exists for humans to know it. Being precedes human knowledge. But the contention, required by the proposition that God is the creator of everything that exists, is that in God, knowledge precedes being. God knows the universe into being. I wonder if "imagination" is a better concept to use in relationship to God. The only "knowledge" strictly speaking in God is the Logos, namely, His self-knowledge. That's why it is said that the Father and the Son (the Logos) are co-eternal.
The perfect being necessitated by imperfect beings strikes me as a false dichotomy/non-sequitur of sorts. Imperfect beings don't all exist at one standard of imperfection. Therefore one imperfect being could be caused by a less (or merely different type of) imperfect being, and in doing so, avoid a fatal circularity of explanation. Perfection is unnecessary in this scenario. The permeations of hierarchies/varieties of imperfection created by such a circumstance seem infinite and mirror what we see in the world around us; a group of imperfect beings that continues to spawn other imperfect beings. This argument for the necessity of a god or gods seems to be a case in which the language used by the philosopher leads the philosophy astray.
I'm sorry I just don't understand this argument. If I asked some if it is possible that I have a Ferrari and the dont know what kinda car I have they would have to say yes but I don't have one no matter how they answer. And it seems to me saying that it is Necessary that in some work that I to have one dose not make it so in this world am I missing the point?
I agree with Alex: the ontological argument is the most "fun". I'll grab my wine glass and sit back, either thinking God into existence or non-existence as the whimsical sea of intuition may take me.
The actual paper from Joseph Schmid was very underwhelming. Almost as underwhelming as the modal ontological argument itself. You can find it on PhilArchive. Title: "Symmetry Breakers for the Modal Ontological Argument"
I think I have a response to Alex's objection about modal fatalism. One could maintain that imperfect reality is neccesary. Being perfect isn't just being neccesary, it's being neccesary AND omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. So all of imperfect reality could be neccesary (and have its neccesity derived from it's perfect explanation) but lack omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. This means that all of neccesary non-omni-3 reality is explained by a neccesary omni-3 being in some possible world. Being imperfect entails lacking only a single perfection, so imperfect things can still be neccesary and imperfect.
Yes, and even if it doesn't, we have no justifiable reason to think that it doesn't. Any claim to the contrary would be an unfalsifiable/unverifiable proposition which would incur a burden of proof.
I’m certain that applies to _material_ existence, right? But if all space, matter and energy began to exist at the Big Bang, wouldn’t that require a (causally) preexisting _immaterial_ cause?
@@Mark-cd2wf the Big Bang is what is called an expansion. Something existed and expanded for some reason. I'm not claiming to know what form of energy that would be, or how it happened. However, existence itself requires space and time. To you, what does it mean to exist nowhere, and for no time, and be made out of nothing?
For me, if Joe is right and there is something that exists necessarily in every possible world, it can be Existence itself, because nothingness cannot be a possible world. And, if anything that exists is a being, then Existence is a being. So Existence would be that necessary being that exists in every possible world, which by itself explains the existence of whatever that exists.
41:50 if a necessary being can be explained (or caused) by something else outside of itself, how is it necessary? We can say that a "necessary being" cannot be explained by something outside of itself, but it doesnt mean that nothing can explain it. If the very nature of the being is necessary, then it would follow that it explains itself. In the case of God, because His necessity entails eternality, there should be no issue Him explaining Himself. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you Exodus 3:14
The ontological argument boils down to 1. god by definition exists 2. therefore god exists. It is simply defining god into existence. Of course an apologist can state that “ nothing can be greater” as much he wants. However, what he defines as greater and what I or anyone else would define as greater, are subjective values and can be logically contrary. Ontological arguments have a way of coming off as generalizable to just about any topic: the greatest possible theme park, the greatest possible mosquito, the greatest possible screwdriver, the greatest possible Rumpelstilzchen etc. They might sound clever to the target audience who are anyway believers, but this is of little value if the desired conclusion is already written into the premises from the beginning!
An agnostic is just a cowardly atheist. When a waiter asks me if I want dessert and I say, "I don't know," that means I don't want it at this particular moment, though I am open to changing my mind later. That's why the waiter doesn't then bring me dessert. When you say you don't know if God exists, that means you don't believe he does exist at the moment, but you are open to changing your mind later. Your belief is still "not at this moment."
A non-agnostic is just an imprudent agnostic. You say you "know" for sure whether there is a God or not. In reality, we don't have a full answer either way, so everyone is agnostic to some degree.
@@grmancool The only people who claim to know for sure are gnostics. Gnostic theists and gnostic atheists. Gnosticism deals in knowledge (hence the Greek word for knowledge gnosis) while theism deals in belief. This is why Alex clarifies at the beginning that he is an agnostic atheist.
@@LogosTheos Because to be an agnostic is to not know. It should logically follow that someone who does not know should not believe. So by denying their atheism by hedging their labels is to be a coward. An agnostic theist, or someone who believes without knowing, is just a psychopath who believes in things that can't be known.
@@RohannvanRensburg Thats all just mental masturbation. If there was evidence, the question would be answered and every point in this video would be moot.
@@dougniergarth236 So logic, that which undergirds the validity of evidence, is "mental masturbation"? You are in effect rejecting the primacy of reason, in which case I fail to see why you stated your argument in the first place.
@@RohannvanRensburg Would you, gentle sir, change your mind if evidence was introduced to change it? This is what happened when Copernicus showed that the sol did not revolve around the earth. That is all I'm asking for, evidence. You can bet philosophers were jerking off to the question back then too. Hell, they probably made a good living at it.
@@dougniergarth236 Does 2+2=4 require "evidence"? No, it is a *proof* . There is no evidence that will refute the basic concept of arithmetic. It is fundamentally deductive, not inductive, meaning that the conclusion follows *necessarily*. What you are continually insisting on is that deductive arguments are invalid (even though deduction is the fundamental premise of mathematics and logic) and inductive ones are more valid. I can give you a long list of evidence for God's existence, but you will a-priori reject it based on your prior assumptions. What is at stake here are fundamentally deductive arguments. The continual masturbation references are not something I feel particularly compelled to address.
In short: I can imagine X therefore X exists. Philosophy devoid of proper and sufficient evidence might show that something does not exist, but not that it does.
@@ivwesnwindy6804 I feel like this was meant to be an insult... what i meant was that I've never heard someone call a skeptic an atheist apologist, I thought that term was reserved for Christian apologists
I know that Alex does not believe in non-deterministic free will. I was wondering what Joe's beliefs are in that regard? If we lack non-deterministic free will then doesn't that mean that there are "possibilities" that we are inevitably bound to not believe? Then the determinist Atheist would have to agree that a perfect being, or a contingent being could be possible even if we are deterministically bound to never conclude that, although that seems to lead to a paradox that upon believing that lack of free will implies our inability to conclude some possibilities, then we are concluding the existence of of indeterminable things (although not particular indeterminable things). Anyway, I wonder if Joe could not begin with perhaps a weaker form of his argument that the materialistic universe is contingent on a non-materialistic antecedent. Wouldn't this do the trick? A non-materialistic antecedent to which the materialistic cosmos is contingent seems to fulfill the minimalistic definition of a god, and also seems to promote the premise that we can never rationally conclude that we lack free will.
It's not a symmetry breaker, because PPE possibly entails only a PARTIALLY independent existential fact. It must include something not among the explained things, but this inclusion can be partial. So, in the case of imperfect things, a partially perfect thing can still be imperfect as a whole and the symmetry is restored.
The ontological argument from Plantinga is begging the question so obviously that I wonder how he could dare to offer this argument (and how people, even trained philosophers, can take this somewhat seriously). Let's look at P1 : "Possibly, a maximally great being exists" implies "there is a possible world where there is a maximally great being" implies "there is a maximally great being in our world". DUH, literally stating in P1 the conclusion we wanna reach. Cringe.
Wouldn't the more rational thing to think be, given the credentials of people like Plantinga and the other trained philosophers, that there is something you, presumably not a trained philosopher like them, are missing instead of thinking that they missed something so "obvious"? To your point, is it your contention that "if it is possible for a maximally great being to exist" is the same as "therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world"?
This isn't begging the question, it's a result of a maximally great being having necessary existence and the operators of S5 modal logic. If a maximally great being is possibly necessary, then by S5 it is actually necessary. 1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists. 2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then by definition it exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists. 6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists. 2-5 are unassailable, and the conclusion follows logically from the premises. The only question is P1, is it possible that a maximally great being exists? Philosophers like Richard Gale argue that 3 begs the question since S5 shows that a possibly necessary being is in fact an actually necessary being, but that's just a rejection of the axioms of S5 and is in fact an objection to 1. You're confusing metaphysical possibility with epistemic possibility.
@@grantgooch5834 1. begs the question. if it is possible that he exists, it means that he exists in one possible world and this logically implies that he exists in every possible world, thus in our world.
@@Norbingel P1) If a maximally great being exists in one possible world, then a maximally great being exists in every possible world, thus also in our world. (definition of a maximally great being) P2) A maximally great being exists in one possible world. (premisse 1 of Plantinga's argument) C) A maximally great being exists in every possible world, thus also in our world. There you go, a simple modus ponens showing how the conclusion of Plantinga's argument is logically entailed by P1, thus showing that the argument begs the question.
This might be a silly objection I have with the reverse argument but it comes off as a double negative. For example, if it is logically possible I wore a red shirt today then my wearing a red shirt does exist in some possible world but the fact that I did not wear a red shirt today does not suddenly imply that it's logically impossible. The red shirt is still logically possible even if I didn't wear it (today). So the counter argument that it's logically possible that God doesn't exist (it's impossible for God to exist) is the very point atheists and theists would argue in the first premise of the Ontological Argument. So there is no need to reverse the argument (it's possible that God's existence is impossible). As far as the Ontological Argument goes I believe it's actually a very powerful argument because there are many reasons to think God's existence is logically possible and necessary. For one the very attributes of the very being were describing is a necessarily existing being. Two, is that God would be the unmoved mover which itself seems to be a logical necessity. Just from those things you can support the first premise without it falling into a God of Gaps. Why because in order for something to be a God of the Gaps argument there has to be a natural explanation that could explain something reasoned that is supernatural.
These kinds of philosophical thought experiments can be fun. However, I think that it is important to keep in mind that contemplating hypotheticals like an unsubstantiated yet "necessary" being without any actual examples of such a phenomenon can never lead to any satisfying conclusion. It is like trying to conjure something into existence by merely thinking about it. It's the same reason why paradoxes like Bertrand Russell's set theory seems so confounding. Physical objects don't pop in and out of existence because they can't decide which arbitrarily defined set they should belong to. It's just an abstract concept that doesn't accurately describe anything real in any useful way. Garbage in, garbage out.
Interesting that Alex is committed to determinism despite intrinsically non-deterministic phenomena in physics such as radioactive atom decay and indeterminism in quantum mechanics. Joe doesn't get away scott free either, his paper on "The fruitful death of modal collapse arguments" where he implicitly treats indeterminate causes as random. And implies that intention by a free willed agent is deterministic. There is a conversation to be had about what is indeterminism, what is randomness/chance, are free willed agent choices deterministic or indeterministic, etc.
For those of you commenting on the title and thumbnail: I didn't use old photos--the thumbnail was actually run through a "Young" filter on FaceApp! Haha. And yeah, I ran the joke by the two of them beforehand. As for the title, while it's intended as a lighthearted joke, I actually see it as a compliment (since I have so much respect for their thinking/accomplishments at such a young age). Make sure to sub to their channels!
These babies have beards😁
I appreciate your explanation... but change the title, man.
Don't change a thing. If we can't have sense of humor about this then the eternal Necessary being help us.
Hey Cameron, you probs won't read this, but I found a set of papers once by a Polish guy whose name I can't remember, but it might be of significant interest to these guests, because he seemed to prove (to my satisfaction at least, as a very rusty but upper undergrad trained logician) that the modal ontological arguments, various of them, don't need S5 or even S4 to follow, that they can't be proved by really primitive logical concepts, and that the "meat" of them is the premises. I might try finding those papers if they'd be interested?
I honestly didn’t notice you’d used a filter 😂
"Way back when I first heard about the ontological argument..."
-22-year-old
This is basically every single Christian discord server you join lol
R u personally attacking me?
When you're 22, 6+ years is a long time
Haha yes 😆
Mocking young people for just being young. Cool?
The title, lol
yeah i thought, whats going here :)
And the pictures too. Looks like from 10 years ago.
Yeah I though this was going to be a diss, basically saying they are bad debaters. But it was a hosted debate and he's just saying they are young and smart.
He baited me
These discussions are always the best. We need more young people exploring these ideas in philosophy.
@snow forest fr bro . We focused on stupid stuff
According to Materialism, philosophy doesn't exist because it isn't physical. Materialists should never be taken seriously because their entire philosophy is self refuting.
@@extract8058 lol that's bs
@@lumbratile4174 prove it
@@extract8058 i am not the one asserting ridiculous things, you are, you prove 'em ✨
0:18 How was Alex supposed to respond?
“No! I hate you!” 😅
Yeah, super cringy
HAHAHA
Man, I freaking love philosophy
Right?
Really digging Joe’s takes. Wish him the best with his channel. Interesting to hear an agnostic jump into the fray.
Are people really using 'agnostic' on its own again? It's just so useless.
@@ztrinx1 How so?
@@bookishbrendan8875 Because it only makes sense together with something. For example, most atheists are 'agnostic atheists' because they address two different things, what you think is knowable and what you believe.
@@ztrinx1 My problem with this is that it seems to be a fairly recent popular phenomenon regarding the etymology of the word “agnostic.” It means, in a sense, “unknown.” Why then turn it into a qualifier regarding belief in a deity? It’s also not really practical nor logical, because to believe something in some sense necessitates thinking that thing is known or can be, which is the opposite of agnosticism. How many honest to god agnostic-theists have you met? It almost seems to pigeon-hole agnosticism into one of the two camps. But what if my position on the matter really genuinely is, as a matter of belief, “I don’t know”? In a sense it’s an entirely negative position, unlike both theism and atheism, which each posit the existence or lack thereof of god/gods. My belief on the matter is entirely presupposed by whether or not I believe or not. But that’s the thing. I don’t either way. I simply don’t know. What’s the point for someone like to me go from that conviction to believing either side?
@@bookishbrendan8875 This has been discussed endlessly on the internet. Here are a few objections to the view you describe, why many think it doesn't make sense to use agnosticism on its own, or at all useful in any way.
It is not to turn agnosticism into a qualifier regarding the belief in a deity - specifically - it is to say that you can be agnostic about anything, e.g. you don't believe in ghosts or dragons, but it is impossible to prove a negative, so you can be agnostic about that belief. That is completely logical.
"Agnostic theists"
Actually, if you listen to many of the well-known Christian apologists, they will say exactly that, in any which way they phrase it, because they want to get out of the burden of proof.
"As a matter of belief - I don't know"
Yes, and that is the completely useless and incoherent part. It is your belief that you don't know? Do you say the same when it comes to other subjects, e.g. aliens, dragons, whatever? If not, what is the difference?
It is more coherent to say that you don't think it is possible to know/prove, and therefore you don't believe - which is what the vast majority of atheists will say.
"Unlike theism and atheism, which each posit the existence or lack thereof"
No, herein lies your issue. Atheists don't posit/claim that god(s) don't exist, they reject the claim(s) made by theists. That distinction is absolutely necessary, since the overwhelming majority of atheists do not claim to know and do not think it is possible to know/ that you can disprove the existence of god(s), i.e. disproving a negative.
Here's some concerns I have with the argument. First, after slowing it down to .75x speed and listening twice, here's my attempt to formalize it:
1. For any existential fact (concrete thing(s) X exist) there is possibly an explanation for their existence, the explanation follows these rules:
i. The explanation is not one of the X's being explained.
ii. The explanation is noncircular, i.e. it doesn't presuppose the existence of one or more X's.
iii. The condition for the explanation is an "all else equal" condition.
iv. The explanation includes a mechanism, grounding, process etc. for how the things come to be.
2. Imperfect beings (beings that aren't God) is an existential fact which possibly has an explanation.
3. From 2 suppose a possible world in which this fact has an explanation.
4. The explanation satisfies i-iv.
5. The explanation isn't an imperfect being.
6. The explanation is a perfect being.
C. There is a possible world in which a perfect being exists.
Here are the concerns:
A. In order for someone to accept "the imperfect fact" as something under the scope of 1, they must already believe, immediately, that possibly, God exists as an explanation of that fact. Premise 2, along with premise 1 (when properly understood) just does entail the conclusion of the argument, resulting in a case where the juxtaposition of 1 and 2 are even stronger than what the argument wants to show. This means that one could employ a Moorean shift against 2. If they did indeed believe that such a vague "imperfect fact" was under the scope of 1, then they'd already have been a Theist in the first place, making the discussion moot. All that has been clarified then, is that one reason they aren't a Theist is precisely because it's not intuitive to them that 2 falls properly under the scope of 1. The other reasons provided might give them independent reasons to think that.
B. Non circularity might be violated here, and the reason is pretty technical so I'll go over it carefully. This is a discussion about God's being metaphysically necessary, but let us also ask the auxiliary question about whether God is logically necessary or not. We have two cases: God is logically necessary, or God is not logically necessary.
Logically necessary: God is both logically and metaphysically necessary. In every possible world, God exists and God exists in the particular way that God exists. If there are contingent outcomes, then God is necessarily producing random or otherwise indeterminate effects, or there are nonrandom effects produced by God necessarily. Joe mentioned this kind of dilemma in his paper on Divine Simplicity and Modal Collapse, but I think this dilemma is more wide reaching than just the question of DDS, generalizable to any model of God in which God may be logically necessary.
Logically contingent: Possibly God is otherwise. How do we know which possible God we're talking about? We know in virtue of which possible world that this possible God has created. In other words, there is an implicit identification between God and the possible world God produces, i.e. God(A) is the possible expression of God in which God is the kind of God that produces world A. Now note that what is being explained here are "all the imperfect things in world A" or "all non God things in world A" or succinctly "World A" given that in this model "World A" is just the non God stuff about World A that God produces. The imperfect fact then, if it has this explanation, has God(A) explain World A. But remember that on this model, God(A)'s definition presupposes the existence of world A in order to differentiate God from one of his other possible counterparts (say God(B) for World B). And thus circularity is violated in the case where God is logically contingent.
So insofar as the explanation satisfies noncircularity, it risks modal collapse or randomness being the fundamental explanation. Insofar as the explanation is uniquely "God", it risks violating circularity.
C. I'll admit that I just don't know what Joe means by ceteris paribus here, and I might have to read the paper to better understand it. But it seems that such a vague "imperfect fact" is going to be impossible to enforce the condition on. This is because every possible world except the world in which only God exists, is going to have this imperfect fact. And this imperfect fact for world A would be explained in exactly the same way that imperfect fact B would, despite that certain properties of those facts may be unequal. It's all going to come down to wording, so what I have here is a reservation, but I can't judge until I've read the fine print.
D. Theism never provides an exact mechanism for how God does anything physical and that's its biggest weakness. It's also a part I feel was really glossed over in the discussion. If there is a possible world in which God is this explanation, then in this possible world, we have this exact mechanism by which God explains all the imperfect things that aren't God. But if that's so, then we should have knowledge of this mechanism (insofar as Joe says it's necessary to be an explanation on his model) in all worlds including ours. So the lack of present mechanisms in the Theistic literature then is weak evidence against such an explanation being possible in this possible world. More explicitly we might have good reason to think that such a thing can't happen in principle due to the Principle of Proportionate Causality. Whatever is in the effect must be, in some sense, in the cause. So insofar as there is a causal mechanism from a perfect being to imperfect effects under explanation, by PPC this means that there's imperfection "in some sense" in the cause which means that the cause is either in the imperfect fact "in some sense" or at minimum presupposes the perfect fact, to the extent that the imperfect fact is in some sense in the cause which seeks to explain it.
PPC aside, another analogy that makes this point more clear is a look at limits, causes and effects. A limited dice, i.e. one with 6 defined sides, produces limited effects when rolled. You could roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. These are the limited effects which come from the limited cause. Suppose instead that the dice were completely unlimited in its number of sides, i.e. an actually perfect sphere with an actually uncountably infinite number of points on its smooth surface. When you roll the sphere on the floor, it's going to stop somewhere, there will be some "topmost" point facing up. But which point is it? Can you map all the uncountable points on the sphere and name them? If you can't, then the unlimited nature of the cause results in epistemic uncertainty of the kinds of effects it produces even assuming it does in fact produce effects.
In short, given the 4 rules about explanations that Joe uses to make his principles intuitive, those same rules make me think that his imperfect fact isn't properly within the scope of his principles due to how the only thing which could serve as its explanation comes into massive tension with each of the 4 rules.
A. It does mean an implication of theism as a probable explanation. It also doesn’t mean one is a theist in the first place, since the conclusion is reached from the condition of imperfection, which describes objects perfectly. Even concepts that we have in our minds may be contingent on other concepts, not just objects being contingent.
B. Perhaps nonrandom and randomness are not exactly objective truths but are rather relative in relation to God. This can be resolved through idealism.
C. Can be resolved through multiple worlds hypothesis aka you and I are God experiencing different realities.
D. Engaging in the physical is that all is made up of existence itself, such that different condensed forms of existence can interact with each other. For example, ice and water are both made of H2O but they interact with one another. With your dice analogy it fails since it exists within time and space. God is dimensionless and thus can exist with no dimension such that everything can map to God.
@@christopherlin4706 "It also doesn’t mean one is a theist in the first place, since the conclusion is reached from the condition of imperfection"
So far, imperfect just literally means "not God". You'd only think that objects being "not God" needs an explanation if and only if you think there's some God thing apart from non God objects.
"Perhaps nonrandom and randomness are not exactly objective truths but are rather relative in relation to God. This can be resolved through idealism."
Wut?
@@logos8312 nope, we can think of something imperfect in terms of not having all the attributes of our experience. Like take your bottle for example, it doesn’t have the properties of metallic etc, thus it is incomplete in reality. I take imperfect to mean incompletion.
Also in regards to the second point, if my subjective experience is primary to what is real, then it is also possible that every point of reality has the same subjective experience, if we are to describe experience as something unlimited. Then what is random pertains to things that are influenced by a relatively unconscious element of existence versus a more conscious element. To make this more easier to understand, I mean that what is random can be a manifestation of the completeness of reality vs a manifestation of something existing within it.
@@christopherlin4706 "nope, we can think of something imperfect in terms of not having all the attributes of our experience. Like take your bottle for example, it doesn’t have the properties of metallic etc, thus it is incomplete in reality. I take imperfect to mean incompletion."
That doesn't make any sense. What explains my bottle not having qualities of a rock? It's a bottle, and not a rock. Done. That just doesn't need an explanation. Any concrete thing that has all predications of our experience simultaneously isn't a thing able to predicated on. And things unable to be predicated on can't be embedded in propositions about explanations.
"To make this more easier to understand, I mean that what is random can be a manifestation of the completeness of reality vs a manifestation of something existing within it."
Yes. Possible worlds necessarily exist by S5, and random states are just possible world states. But what does that have to do with God?
@@logos8312 when we see a bottle and a rock, a bottle is not a rock precisely because we map our thinking upon two patterns existing in our experience, and we find that the properties do not match, and we bundle the properties of one into a rock and one into a bottle, and yes, a bottle is not a rock and we convey our insight to another person. Now what we are mainly fully focusing on, is explaining, why does the properties of my rock not have the properties of the stone? And also ask, what explains this object? What explains an object is what we can consider a cause. And this is where we can go backwards in time and understand the origin of all things. It seems as if farther back in time we go, we capture a bigger part of existence and the properties all come together.
Well this gets us very close to God, something ultimately personal as it is our personhood, experiences everything in completion, while also existing everywhere at the same time while also being everything fully. Also has the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence
1:02:56 _”That is to say...”_
Cameron and Joe smile and look at each other probably remembering Joe’s awesome impressions of Richard Swinburne. :)
I feel like Joe could slay Eminem’s Rap God.
To me, this argument just equivocates on "cause" and "perfection" and "necessary" until you get something that tugs on people's intuitions enough to feel as though something is going on here. Our intuitions shout "it feel logical smoke so there must be tautological fire somewhere", when this almost certainly is an illusion.
One of the most obvious counter arguments, to me, is that "thing 1 with property X" must have an explanation of "thing 2 with property NOT X" does not follow from PPE. It's saying that NOT thing 1 must explain thing 1, and some property of that NOT thing 1 must be different from thing 1. It's not saying that ALL properties of not thing 1 are different. For example, I'm caused by my parents in some sense but we're both human. I think this "symmetry breaker" is assuming that because I'm human, I must be caused by non-humans, but this isn't the case. It's perfectly possible for it to be the case that the causer has some properties in common with the caused.
PPE may be saying that the infinite regress of causes of humans must include non-humans. The generalization would be that all properties of thing 1 must in some way, in the infinite regress, have a causer that has none of those properties. I think this has very flimsy justification, since we can define something into existence by a negation of anything about anything (for instance "imperfect evil" therefore the devil, or "imperfectly tasting pizza" defining a perfect pizza into existence). In philosophy, it's a common trick to say "assume thing 1 doesn't exist", then prove this is a contradiction, then throw your hands up and say "yay, thing 1 exists!". In mathematics, this is fine as things are rigorously defined, but in philosophy this is lazy, imo. This is lazy, especially so, when using fuzzy words like "imperfect" to "cause" thing 1 in order to prove the negation. For this example, we're using 2 intuitions: 1) "imperfect" things exist, and 2) all "imperfect" things must, in the regress, have a non-"imperfect" "cause", since "imperfection" cannot "cause" itself. "perfect" is an archetype in the mind of conscious creatures, without an exact analog in the world. Using "perfect" in this argument, means that this wordplay is lazy, and doesn't really get at what causation means in and of itself.
It's not a conflation; each predicate implies the other such that they can be used interchageably: if God is necessary then he must be both the first cause and perfect in all respects. Per divine simplicity nobody believes any of these predicates each represent really distinct properties of God anyway
This thumbnail is amazing.
I'm not a philosopher but one issue I'm stuck on with that symmetry breaker is that arbitrary non-circular, concrete, perfect fact T. It seems like all of these exercises, from Plantinger's modal ontological argument all the way down to PPE, are just piling up layers of modal logic to bury the circular argument a little further each time. For PPE to work, you need that non-circular, concrete, perfect fact T to exist, so you say that it must exist.
I'm as old as these two combined, but only half as smart as either one
Hahahahaha yeah bro, not much familair with joe but alex is just awesome.
I’m 1 1/2 times as old as both of them combined (truth), and TEN TIMES as smart as both of them put together (lies)!!!😁
Seriously, though, I was blessed to have met the Savior by the time I was their age, and true to His Word, in my 62 years of life on this earth, He has never failed me or forsaken me (Heb.13:5).
I pray these two young men will do the same, and soon.
I’m an idiot
@Gaijin Takashi perhaps in a possible world, it might be necessarily necessary to be smart like them
Not necessarily, some people are just not educated as much as smart they truly are.
FIRST MINUTE-Alex: “What are we? Are we going to have that chat right here?”
I’m already laughing! 🤣
Well, that start wasn't awkward
😂😂
What was that?
Gay
@@actingfan11 you're my best friend x
my soul cringed
1:49 An example of England’s famously good WiFi.
One way in which explanation couldn't be equivalent to entailment is if true randomness and probability exists. If you throw a coin in the air and lands in heads, and this event is truly randomized, then one can say that throwing the coin in the air explains the result of landing in heads, but doesn't entail the result, it is not necesarily the case that by throwing a coin you will get heads, and in that sense the final state of the coin is contingent.
And at least following the current state of our understanding of quantum mechanics, true probability either does exist, or at the very least we cannot completely exclude the fact that it might exist. At least as how we understand the universe currently, the world seems to be not deterministic, but that I don't actually think it means that things are un-explained, there are still causes and effects, just that probability distribution is part of the explanation.
That was a nice crossover Cameron, I also think it would be nice to see a conversation between Alex and Dustin Crummett, since they are both interested in the topic of animal suffering and how that relates to the problem of evil.
It would be nice to see more theists stop torturing and killing God’s creatures, or even just discussing whether Veganism is compatible with/necessary from their premises
@@mcel6551 Well I'm not a theist, but I agree it definitely deserves more attention, specially considering there's this whole thing called Christian Vegetarianism going way back to the early church, although even if no tradition existed, the incalculable level of unnecessary suffering should be more than enough to persuade anyone.
@Garfield's Minion Perhaps read the whole sentence?
_“SHOULD_ (as in _IDEALLY)_ be more than enough to persuade anyone”
@@mcel6551 there is no God and so there is no reason not to kill animals for food. They are tasty.
Alex at 1:03:12 "I'm sure you're familiar with modal fatalism, Joe." Yep! He's one of the world experts on modal collapse, writing multiple papers on it, especially as it relates to Divine Simplicity.
May u send a link to a writing?
@@justanotherhomosapian5101 philpapers
This PE PPE formula stuff is a bit over my head lmao
Appreciate Alex for trying to explain in simple English. Good discussion here.
Personal Protection Equipment lol
PE and PPE are just symbolic representations of propositions. The propositions are specified in the video. They're useful so you don't need to restate the propositions constantly you can just say PE or PPE depending on which one you're talking about.
This was super interesting. I for one would have watched in even longer form as well. So many interesting topics covered
If I've understood Joes argument and principles correctly. When applying it, It seems I could state that the existence of something cannot be explained by something as that would be circular (nothing can explain itself). Therefore it entails the existence of nothing? But that seems a nonsensical concept and statement.
That's the hole at the bottom of philosophy. Reason long enough, and you'll convince yourself you don't exist.
Joe qualifies PE with 'all else being equal' a lot in the discussion, he says explicitly PE doesn't demand an explanation of existential facts here: 33:53
@@vincentiormetti3048 yes that's right.
It seems to me one should expect an explanation for why there is something.
Now we may have reason to think there is no such explanation, but that's if we limit it to external, non-self contained explanations.
I guess I don't see why we should do that.
Tbh I need to read his paper.
Parmenides used this argument to show that change is impossible. If change requires a cause to explain it, and explanation is non-circular, then to explain how Being undergoes change, something outside of Being, i.e. Nothing, must explain it. But Nothing does not exist and thus cannot explain anything. Therefore change is impossible.
Aristotle responded in part not by denying the non-circularity of explanation, but denying that Being is a genus, i.e. a class of things that can be further differentiated. Animal is a genus, and rational animal (man) is a species of the genus animal. A genus is differentiated by something outside that genus. Only Nothing is outside of Being, and Nothing cannot differentiate Being, therefore Being is not a genus. It is not valid to talk about Being the same way you talk about animality or something similar, so Parmenides' argument is invalid since it treats Being in that manner.
This also ties into set theory and the impossibility of the "set of all sets".
@@CMVMic what even is existence is it a property of things
In the example Alex was giving of his daughter having to explain why she was late, a full explanation is somewhat impossible. She could say she made a particular choice, which at the time she couldn't foresee certain consequences, and it lead to those consequences, which ultimately lead to her being late. She could to some degree account for why she made the choice she made, but there would be aspects about that which would be impossible for her to have recognized as to why she made the choice. Also, if determinism is at play, and she was determined to do something, she wouldn't necessarily know why she did that thing. And regardless of her response, Alex also being subject to determinism would have a particular reaction that wouldn't necessarily follow logically.
I have now subscribed to each of these 3 guys' UA-cam channels. My only negative comment is that "baby philosophers" would seem to imply 2 many potential UA-cam viewers that the 2 guests are new to the field with only an introductory level of acquaintance with Philosophy & that obviously is not the case. I hope the title didn't discourage many from listening. It was a good discussion. I think Joe defended his position very well. His opponent is very talented, but in the end I believe the tie breaker held up to everything Alex threw out. (Cool another debate between Alex and Trent!!!!)
These guys are so frigging smart it's scary! When Alex brings up the question about the explanation entailing what is explained, is basically-if I understood it rightly-the question that theologians have been trying to answer for centuries: why did God create?
The problem is that the explanation entailing what is explained is extremely different from the "why did God create?" question, as the latter assumes a human activity of creation on such a being and there's no reason for that assumption, much less that this being would correspond to the Biblical YHWH.
@@LordJagd Why do you think that the question, "why did God create?" assumes "a human activity"?
@@xaviervelascosuarez Because god is an otherwise anthropomorphic figure in the Bible.
The God of the Bible is far from an anthropomorphic figure. The Bible writers are humans trying to convey divine realities to other humans, so it's understandable that at times they resort to anthropomorphic figures of speech. But there are plenty of biblical and historical evidence that even the most primitive amongst the Hebrew people were very clear about the infinite transcendence of their divinity, which wasn't in the least marred or diluted by some anthropomorphic language here or there.
I’m confused. Assuming that Joe’s symmetry breaker is sound, the conclusion of the ontological argument can be no more certain than this argument Joe provides to show that it’s possibly necessary that god exists. So why not just scrap the ontological argument and treat this symmetry breaker as a novel argument for god?
It’s actually part of Gödel’s incompleteness argument for God’s existence, isn’t it? I might be getting mixed up here.
@Chad Not sure I'm understanding what you are trying to say. I'm pretty sure this boils down to: (imperfect beings possibly have an explanation) => (premise of the modal ontological argument) => god exists. Joe's symmetry breaker (the first implication) is not an argument for the existence of god.
Also @GeoMicPri Mizrany, u must be getting mixed up. Godel's incompleteness theorems have nothing to do with God's existence. They are just theorems which characterize the incompleteness of formal systems which have a sufficiently rich notion of arithmetic, i.e. they say nothing outside the realm of mathematics.
@@ethan_martin I believe he's saying that the fundamental concept being explored is redundant, and so it doesn't add new, independently confirming information that would be needed to shift the probability.
@@ethan_martin Godel made an ontological argument for God often called his incompleteness argument. @Chad is correct in his assertion.
@@whatsinaname691 i knew about his ontological argument but i didn't know it was sometimes called his "imcompleteness" argument. Wow that is confusing lol.
48:09 - I don´t think that the omnipotence paradox can be dismissed so easily, because there's nothing logically impossible in creating a stone that cannot be lifted by its creator. If you say that such thing is incoherent is not because the impossibility of the predicate but because there´s something incoherent in the nature of the subject. By declaring it logically impossible you are solving a paradox with another paradox: an omnipotent being cannot do logically possible things because of its omnipotence. So, in the same way you solve the Grim Reaper paradox by saying that an infinite sequence of Grim Reapers is impossible, you solve the omnipotence paradox by taking omnipotence out of the subject.
There are much more fundamental problems with the MOA that I'm surprised Alex didn't bring up. In particular, at 25:13, he agrees that the argument succeeds at reducing a question of existence to one of possible existence, the latter being a much weaker proposition. But this isn't actually the case here! Since the definition of God that the MOA uses includes necessary existence, the statements "God exists potentially" and "God exists necessarily" are 100% identical with respect to that definition, and therefore the premise should be subjected to the same scrutiny as if it outright stated the latter. All the MOA is is an attempt to avoid that scrutiny by "disguising" the necessity claim as a possibility claim.
Well put.
You actually are not correct in your assertion here, that saying "it is possible that God exists" is logically equivalent to saying "it is necessary that God exists".
This becomes very clear if we substitute "God" for "a necessary being".
1) It is possible that a necessary being eixsts.
2) It is necessary that a necessary being exists.
Clearly, these are not the same claim.
The fact that a thing is necessary instead of contingent does not make the 2 above statements identical.
The fact that the possibility of a necessary being entails its actuality is simply result or consequence of necessary existence.
You are confusing the result of necessary existence with the claim made about a necessary being.
@@jackplumbridge2704 That's the trick, though - In modal logic, these two statements *are* effectively the same claim.
To exist necessarily means to exist "in all possible worlds", while to exist possibly means to exist "in at least one possible world". We are used to thinking about ordinary things and beings, which usually exist in some possible worlds but not in others. But a necessary being can't do that because then it wouldn't be necessary after all. There are only two options: it either exists in all possible worlds or in none.
Thus, if statement 1 is true, there is a possible world in which a necessary being exists. But that can only be true if that being also exists in all other possible worlds, so then statement 2 is also true.
@@Rhangaun "That's the trick, though - In modal logic, these two statements are effectively the same claim. " - They aren't the same claim, its just that the implication of a necessary beings existence being possible is that it is also actual.
Also, im not sure why you call it a "trick", its just logic.
A necessary being, by definition, cannot fail to exist, it has no potential to not exist.
So if someone were to say that a necessary being's existence were possible but not actual, they would be claiming:
1) A being which cannot fail to exist, failed to exist.
2) A being which has no potential to not exist, does not exist.
Which are, of course, logically incoherent statements.
"To exist necessarily means to exist "in all possible worlds", while to exist possibly means to exist "in at least one possible world"" - I think you meant "to exist contingently" not "to exist possibly".
"Thus, if statement 1 is true, there is a possible world in which a necessary being exists. But that can only be true if that being also exists in all other possible worlds, so then statement 2 is also true." - Right. The **implication** of a necessary being's existence being possible is that it actually exists.
But the claim "it is possible that a necessary being exists" and the claim "it is necessary that a necessary being exists" are obviously not the same claim.
I'm sure you are aware that beliefs are probabilistic, not black and white. When we assess whether or not a proposition is true or false, we make a probabilistic assessment of whether the claim is true or false based on the evidence we have access to.
We don't, for example, claim that all propositions we believe are 100% probable, and all propositions we disbelieve are 0% probable. Some of our beliefs are more probably true, and therefore we hold to them more confidently, and some are less probably true, and so we hold to them less confidently.
The claim "it is necessary that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a 100% probability that a necessary being exists".
The claim "it is possible that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a >0% probability that a necessary being exists".
The claim "it is impossible that a necessary being exists" could, in probabilistic terms, be rephrased to "there is a 0% probability that a necessary being exists".
The first and third statements are the most radical statements a person could make regarding the existence of a necessary being.
The second statement is the most modest statement a person could make regarding the existence of a necessary being.
So, in response to your original comment, the MOA does indeed make it much easier to prove the existence of a MGB (God) by lowering the evidential bar that has to be met.
If a person, after weighing the evidence for and against God's existence, thinks there is a >0% probability that God exists, the MOA demonstrates that they must conclude that he actually does exist.
The only way a person can reject God's existence is if they think there is a 0% probability that God exists.
Or, alternatively, they could play the skeptic card and say they cannot know whether or not God's existence is possible or impossible (which would be to never make a probabilistic assessment of God's existence), but then i would have to wonder why such a person would even engage with theistic and atheistic arguments in the first place.
Where is the link to Joe's paper?
Nice to see Joe with a nature of necessity book in the background. Absolutely classical text in modal metaphysics and philosophy of religion
😂 the epitome of wasted brainpower...
Alex O'Connor stepped into the world like: PASCALS WAGER IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT 👶🏻
The supposed infinite regress problem of "god knows that he knows that he knows..." has always seemed like a limp noodle to me. You can collapse the infinite regress into "god knows X," by saying that "god knows that he knows X" is just a restatement of "god knows X," just with more words redundantly added. You could have the same "infinite regress" about any fact, e.g. "it's true that a chair exists," in that you could also say "it's true that it's true that a chair exists," and so on. You can add arbitrarily many words to the statement, but it's still just a rephrasing of the same statement you started with; it's still just a single fact
Bruh the thumbnal is so cute!!
Sounds like they're just saying "if it's true, it's true" or "if it's not true, it's not true" as if they've stumbled upon some great insight.
I’d recommend listening again.
@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I’d recommend reading my OP again. “Sounds like” =\= they were. However, their debate is too semantical for me because I believe as Joe (and even Alex) mentions, we don’t require this level of proof for most other sort of “knowledge” in our daily life, which nonetheless has profound impacts on our decision making.
Also Joe’s tiebreaker is a contingency argument. I do appreciate this discussion in the sense that we become more clear as to “the current score” in these sort of debates.
@@b4u334 I understood your comment. I just thought it was unfair, albeit far better than some of the other comments here. We have people in the comment section hating on academic philosophy and its sub disciplines because of the discussion between Joe and Alex! Totally nuts.
Didnt Know Joe B4, Alex I Know... you Both are a Dream... I wish I could get to this level of Thinking. Need to watch this more than 10 times to understand every line of thoughts...
When talking about "undeterministic causation" (and ideas like "free will"), what comes to mind is the phrase, "The illusion of choice," as we, defined a humans, separate ourselves, to a degree, from the world around us (despite the effects it has on us and also being made of the same exact materials/components as the "world around us"), and "we" _make choices_ without having a "full explanation" on hand before acting (though it is oft said that inaction is still consider an action, so acting, at this time is unavoidable), and this lack of knowledge leads to the appearance that we can make a choice, despite not fully understanding how "connected" we are to everything.
Having a higher level of awareness still leaves one without a "full explanation", but has one aware that "choices" they made were, deterministic, and had many causes, known and unknown.
A mind meter for sure, but due to luck, or misfortune, we do not oft spend our time thinking this way, and don't oft end our "suffering", as defined by some, to "stop it".
It's interesting that people try to make convincing arguments for determinism, as if making an argument at all didn't imply some level of free will in the first place.
@@RohannvanRensburg
You thinking making the argument was an act of free will, and not caused to happen based on all current and previous factors?
@@BornOnThursday Why do you argue your point if not for free will or the fundamental belief that making an argument will change someone's mind? We may as well be farting into the air.
These arguments usually either straw man what "free will" means, or at least what theism means by free will.
@@RohannvanRensburg
Well, in this case, you commented on my original post, and I felt the urge to explain what I felt was (or is) happening.
*Free will* is one of those concepts that is untestable in my opinion, as...
1. "We can't go back and watch the same event and see if it could have played out differently nothing had changed," and...
2. "We make all our *choices* without access to all the information, past and future, and we are only acting on information we have access to, which we arguably had no choice in receiving and absorbing."
If these two points are examples of the strawmen you are talking about, then I'd like to know the version you are speaking about.
Is the Joe's paper available? #JustAsking
Never had the urge to grow a beard until I could actually grow one.
Didn't expect to find you in a philosophical discussion, Precise,
Can't believe I spent an hour listening to this discussion and *then* did my own Google search and realised that MOA's propositions are so obviously bollocks.
Can't believe I'm going to watch the remaining half hour too
the simplest version of it perhaps but it does have layers to it.
Dude that first half minute was awkward 😂
Can somebody tell me what's the difference between epistemological possibility and metaphysical possibility? Also, where can I find the proof that if something is possibly necessary then it is necessary in all possible worlds?
Read Necessary Existence by Josh Rasmussen.
damm smart babies
38:00 I don't think there is something that is imperfect. Everything is perfect. If you think something is imperfect, you are just putting it in the wrong category. For example, if you draw a circle that is not perfectly circular, it is not a perfect circle, sure, but whatever form you have drew, say, lets call it a "bloba", you just have drew a perfect bloba. Even if your intention was to draw a circle, we can call this mistake is a perfect mistake. The very definition of "perfect" is so flexible that its not very useful as an argument.
God knows that he knows that he knows... Alex: "Incoherent!"
As far as I can tell, the following refutes MOA. Note, because of the way _possible worlds_ is defined, _necessary_ here refers to _logical necessity,_ i.e., failure to exist would create a type of incoherency. Further, if you try to reformulate MOA with _metaphysical necessity,_ that still fails because the _possibly necessary -> actually necessary_ entailment, which is central to MOA, does not apply to metaphysical necessity. Also, while I'm confident Axiom 1 can be justified a priori, I've spent longer on this post than I originally intended, and if you deny it, you break possible world semantics, and MOA dies with it. Not to mention the catastrophic implications to philosophy as a whole.
Definition 1a) Incoherent concepts are concepts that contain two or more contradicting properties
1b) Not incoherent = coherent
Premis 1a) A concept that contains only one property cannot be incoherent (Entailed by definition 1a)
1b) A concept that contains only one property is coherent (Definition 1b + Premis 1a)
Definition 2) A world is a concept of reality
Definition 3) Possible worlds are worlds that are coherent
Definition 4) An empty world is a world with the single property that no entities exist within it
Premis 2) An empty world is a possible world (Premis 1b + Definitions 2, 3, and 4)
Definition 5) Necessary entities are entities that, if they exist in any possible worlds, they exist in all possible worlds
Premis 3) If a necessary entity exists, it exists within an empty world (Premis 2 + Definition 5)
Premis 4) Necessary entities do not exists in an empty world (Entailed by definition 4)
Premis 5) If necessary entities do not exist in an empty world, they do not exist in any possible world (Entailed by Definition 5)
Premis 6) Necessary entities do not exist in any possible world (Premis 4 + Premis 5)
Definition 6) The actual world is the world that describes extant reality.
Axiom 1) The actual world is a possible world
Premis 7) Necessary entities do not exist in the actual world (Premis 6 + Axiom 1)
Conclusion: Necessary entities do not exist in extant reality (Definition 6 + Premis 7)
Alex argued that necessary things can't explain contingent things and I wholeheartedly agree with him. This is called the difference principle. The idea, intuitively, is that necessary things are like control groups in experiments. Whatever else is the case, they are the case. So just like how you cannot appeal to control groups to explain different observations in trials, you cannot appeal to necessary things to explain contingent things. They are the ultimate control groups.
Now, when it comes to explanations, let's suppose that P is necessary to explain Q, but it does not entail Q. This leaves us with a gap in explanation. You have to fill it with something because if you don't, then you cannot claim that Q and ~Q are distinct, nonrandom outcomes. I can think of two options: you can fill this gap with randomness or you can fill it with some other relevant thing(s). Take option 1, then Q and ~Q are random outcomes. Insofar as randomness isn't an explanation, Q and ~Q would fail to have explanations beyond "Q obtained because Q obtained, and if ~Q obtained we'd be in a different possible world." Take option 2, and then there exists some other relevant thing(s). Let this collection be called R. Then, R and P cooperate to produce Q. It doesn't matter whether or not we know R, what matters is that R and P together are sufficient for Q. But if R and P are sufficient for Q, then R and P existing entails Q. Q would be both distinct and nonrandom. To circle back to the difference principle, if ~Q obtained, then ~Q obtaining would be explained by some difference, either in P, R or both of them. But this just means that R or P cannot be necessary.
Great stream, loved it!
Why accept the difference principle in the first place? Your argument in the second paragraph presupposes the difference principle.
@@m.l.pianist2370 Without it you can't do science because you immediately lose the philosophical machinery that underpins:
Treatment levels
control groups
blocking factors
etc.
Which makes running most basic experiments utterly impossible.
So in the same way the PSR holds science hostage, the Difference Principle holds science hostage (arguably moreso).
@@logos8312 That gives inductive support for that principle, but this is compatible with the existence of counterexamples to it, such as free choice and indeterministic causation.
@@m.l.pianist2370 Free choice is compatible with the difference principle.
Imagine the possible world in which I was never punished as a child and ended up "spoiled" by adulthood, vs the world in which I was properly disciplined, obtained good habits, etc.
My decisions would still be freely mine, but what explains my choices is in part explained by my past. Otherwise one would think the idea of punishing children is utterly and completely useless, which is prima facie absurd.
If you want God to just cause things in an indetermined fashion, that's cool. My Tychist friend will be happy with the entailments of that view. Most Christian Theology instantly gets nuked but if that's the bullet you want to bite, all power to you.
@@logos8312 Yes, some free choices are compatible with the difference principle but some aren't. If I'm choosing between two movies to watch on Netflix, and have no strong preference for either, and I choose one of them, my choice is free but there's no difference in my previous state that accounts for this.
I know my comment is way late but here it is. Genesis 1:1 is a statement of absolute. It is absolutely true or absolutely false. There is no in between or other possibility. So it logically follow if the statement absolutely false then everything that follows it is also absolutely false. If the statement is absolutely true then what follows is logically absolutely true.
We need CosmicSkeptic and Deflate here
True that!
God = his attributes. Logic = attribute of God. Logical contradiction = God contradicts his attributes. God cannot contradict himself, therefore God cannot contradict logic
I love intellectual chat but I don't think this type of conversation actually leads to know anything in reality.
Same, seems like a brain teaser game. Fun but pointless.
It’s good to watch people honesty discussing ideas without trying to push a line. The conversation about the possibility of God has come a long way since the early 2000s
Thinking come from NOT KNOWING
Wouldn't language (or other transcendental categories) disprove the principle of PPE/PE? How can one possibly explain language apart from the use of language? If you can not use PPE/PE on abstract concepts then why is Joe allowed to use PE for PPE?
At 44:06 Joe distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemic explanation and provides description of both. He maintains that he is only using explanation in the metaphysical sense.
Our ability to explain language would fall under the category of epistemic explanations and so not be subject to your proposed problem.
Enough with the book backgrounds. Are you guys really so desperate for people to think you are smart? Put up a Backstreet Boys poster or a green screen of a wheat field. Stop being so unoriginal.
Why are you so salty about books in the background? 💀
Incredible thumbnail
1:49 it would appear God wanted Alex to go second lol
But which God? 🤔
@@FahadAyaz Well I am a Christian so, The Christian God.
@@FahadAyaz Whatever one is the greatest possible being. Hehe
(Right after hearing Joe's explanation) I have one question about PPE: AFAIU PPE proposes that there are two sets of existential facts, one in which the existential facts are explained by other existential facts outside their own subset (derived), and one in which existential facts are not (axiomatic), with causal links necessarily going from the second set to the first. But when inspecting a singular fact on its own, its membership is derived from other elements, so on its own, it cannot be assigned to one of the two sets. Wouldn't it thenceforth be meaningless to say about any existential fact on its own, based on such a calssification, or any set of existential facts (for example the existence of imperfect beings) based on such a classification, to either belong to the derived or axiomatic subset, as any definition of these subsets (imperfectness, etc.) and their membership is infact dependent on the existence of other EFs? Does that not mean that for any element on its own in PPE, we cannot determine its membership of the axiomatic/derived subsets, and therefore we cannot say that it is in one or the other? (In fact I find the whole construction a bit fishy). Sorry if I'm rambling complete nonsense.
Bro what you wrote has no sense at all, tell me that the sky is blue I swear it's much more interesting and smart to say.
@@Nothing_to_see_here_27. Well, rayleigh scattering IS very interesting, I give you that. But why would I post anything other than my question?
I like how everyone on screen is sporting their best Covid face fuzz...
MOA easily wins.
In other words, as it pertains to necessary existence; "possibly exists" is synonymous with "necessarily exists". For the inverse, "possibly doesn't exist" is synonymous with "necessarily doesn't exist" which in turn is synonymous with "absolutely impossible".
By default, positive claims have a possibility, unless they can be shown to be a logical contradiction. We can say that unicorns, for example, are possible, but we can't say that about square-circles. Unicorns obviously don't work for this argument because there is no ontological attribute for unicorns to require necessary existence.
In short, it is possible for God to exist. If you disagree, you need to show that it is impossible for God to exist. It must be logically impossible for God to exist, or God exists.
You mistake metaphysical possibility for logical possibility. Logical possibility only requires non-contradiction, whereas metaphysical possibilty requires a reason for something to be possible. If we formulate the MOA on logical possibility we have the same problem: by default, saying "God necessarily exists" means saying "it is absolutely impossible for God not to exist", which equates to claiming a logical incoherence in claiming he doesn't exist. The parity problem still remains, and it is a weaker version since when it comes to logical possibility, you cannot provide symmetry breakers. Also, Kant's objection that "existence is not a predicate" might apply here. So there is a reason why metaphysical possibility is used here, and the parity problem remains unless you can find a symmetry breaker.
@@misticulandrei2234
Sorry, the proposition "God necessarily exists" is not at all the same as "it is absolutely impossible for God not to exist". I'm not sure where you got that.
**Sorry, I'm updating this: I didn't see that last *not* the first time I responded. You are correct, they are the same thing.
..
The criticisms you cite, just don't follow at all. I'm not mistaking metaphysical possibility and logical possibility. I am stating that the argument refers to logical possibility and logical possibility only. To show that it is even possible that God does not exist, in this argument, you need to show that it is a logical contradiction. Nowhere did I appeal to a metaphysical possibility in my comment. When I used a unicorn f= as an example, most people would not think there is a metaphysical possibility they exist (I have no idea why not... but whatever). However, all I stated is that it is not a LOGICAL contradiction for a unicorn to exist.
It is absolutely not a criticism that the "predicate" argument is applicable to the MOA. The predicate refutation pertained to the fact that "being" and "existing" are the same thing. Anselm corrected that argument himself, and the MOA has nothing whatsoever to do with that.
If you say something possibly exists and neccsarily exists you have created a contradiction. prossibility implies for some state of affairs not X. Necessity implies for all states of affairs X.
You have asserted X and not X at the same time to be true.
No amount of evidence will convince people who won’t want to believe.
Ok. Then no amount of evidence will dissuade someone who wants to believe, I assume?
@@Apanblod I think that one thing is to know that God exists but another is having Faith in him, for example, many of the disciples of Jesus Christ believed in God and in his words, but sometimes they did not have enough faith or trust in Him. Just as it happens with a person.
You can understand that God can exist, but still believe that he is very far away from you and that he will not listen to your prayers.
@@pascalarancibia5199 But if you don't believe in god,you will suffer for eternity in hell?
What motive should we have to „not want to believe“?
I think when believers make asinine claims like this, they do so because they cannot handle the thought, that what they assume to be sufficient evidence for god, is not sufficient evidence for others. Especially not „personal experiences“.
@@Asilentlearner43 According to the Bible, no one will have a valid excuse for their atheism on the day of judgment, since all creation is evidence of the power and deity of God. And that deep down everyone has an internal knowledge of Him, but some reject it and decide to be puffed up in their own reasoning (Romans 1:20-21).
God is the one being where "it's true because God knows it" is sensical vs "God knows it because it's true." If God is a being in which all things are grounded (knowledge, logic, etc) then in some sense nothing can be true without being dependent on God's knowledge, in similar way to how nothing can exist without God creating them.
But I'm also not a philosophy expert and I'm not well versed in the vocabulary. I'm just working off intuition.
That's quite right!
The argument to counter the omniscience objection is basically the same as the one to counter the omnipotence one. Just as God's omnipotence is "limited" by irrational facts (because He is the source of all reason and Reason itself, whereby anything irrational would go against His very being); so is God's omniscience limited by being, namely, being God ipsum esse (being itself), He cannot know things that are NOT.
In other words, human knowledge implies that something else exists for humans to know it. Being precedes human knowledge.
But the contention, required by the proposition that God is the creator of everything that exists, is that in God, knowledge precedes being.
God knows the universe into being.
I wonder if "imagination" is a better concept to use in relationship to God. The only "knowledge" strictly speaking in God is the Logos, namely, His self-knowledge. That's why it is said that the Father and the Son (the Logos) are co-eternal.
I wast interested but they take forever to get to the point, and the point doesnt seem to be as grand either
Feser vs. Joe, GO!
Is that baby Alex?!
That bastard turned me vegan! *shakes fist* (then *pets a cow*)
The perfect being necessitated by imperfect beings strikes me as a false dichotomy/non-sequitur of sorts.
Imperfect beings don't all exist at one standard of imperfection. Therefore one imperfect being could be caused by a less (or merely different type of) imperfect being, and in doing so, avoid a fatal circularity of explanation. Perfection is unnecessary in this scenario.
The permeations of hierarchies/varieties of imperfection created by such a circumstance seem infinite and mirror what we see in the world around us; a group of imperfect beings that continues to spawn other imperfect beings.
This argument for the necessity of a god or gods seems to be a case in which the language used by the philosopher leads the philosophy astray.
intredasting
It’s like watching young Bruce Wayne VS Peter Parker.
I'm sorry I just don't understand this argument. If I asked some if it is possible that I have a Ferrari and the dont know what kinda car I have they would have to say yes but I don't have one no matter how they answer. And it seems to me saying that it is Necessary that in some work that I to have one dose not make it so in this world am I missing the point?
I agree with Alex: the ontological argument is the most "fun". I'll grab my wine glass and sit back, either thinking God into existence or non-existence as the whimsical sea of intuition may take me.
Ad hom moment
@@xeixi3789 Where... Where is the ad hom?
The actual paper from Joseph Schmid was very underwhelming. Almost as underwhelming as the modal ontological argument itself.
You can find it on PhilArchive. Title: "Symmetry Breakers for the Modal Ontological Argument"
As far as we know, turtles have always been turtles. They have no known ancestors. The same applies to scorpions.
Same with humans
I like turtles
Absolutely wonderful conversation. Thank you!
WOW! I’d go because Of Lee Stobel
I think I have a response to Alex's objection about modal fatalism. One could maintain that imperfect reality is neccesary. Being perfect isn't just being neccesary, it's being neccesary AND omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. So all of imperfect reality could be neccesary (and have its neccesity derived from it's perfect explanation) but lack omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. This means that all of neccesary non-omni-3 reality is explained by a neccesary omni-3 being in some possible world. Being imperfect entails lacking only a single perfection, so imperfect things can still be neccesary and imperfect.
I also think that existence itself requires space, time, and energy. It's hard to imagine a possible world without all 3.
Yes, and even if it doesn't, we have no justifiable reason to think that it doesn't. Any claim to the contrary would be an unfalsifiable/unverifiable proposition which would incur a burden of proof.
Yes, and usually the Universe is defined as "everything which exists" so how can something exists out of existence ?
Numbers can exist, in my opinion, without space, time or energy
I’m certain that applies to _material_ existence, right? But if all space, matter and energy began to exist at the Big Bang, wouldn’t that require a (causally) preexisting _immaterial_ cause?
@@Mark-cd2wf the Big Bang is what is called an expansion. Something existed and expanded for some reason. I'm not claiming to know what form of energy that would be, or how it happened. However, existence itself requires space and time. To you, what does it mean to exist nowhere, and for no time, and be made out of nothing?
For me, if Joe is right and there is something that exists necessarily in every possible world, it can be Existence itself, because nothingness cannot be a possible world. And, if anything that exists is a being, then Existence is a being. So Existence would be that necessary being that exists in every possible world, which by itself explains the existence of whatever that exists.
Here the old adage "with age comes wisdom" is put into doubt.
I don't know what you think wisdom is -it's not knowledge.
It should be "with age comes wisdom teeth" (mans in agony right now lmfao)
@@jaimelopez8921 Wisdom is to people what they agree with.
41:50 if a necessary being can be explained (or caused) by something else outside of itself, how is it necessary?
We can say that a "necessary being" cannot be explained by something outside of itself, but it doesnt mean that nothing can explain it. If the very nature of the being is necessary, then it would follow that it explains itself. In the case of God, because His necessity entails eternality, there should be no issue Him explaining Himself.
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you Exodus 3:14
The ontological argument boils down to 1. god by definition exists 2. therefore god exists.
It is simply defining god into existence.
Of course an apologist can state that “ nothing can be greater” as much he wants. However, what he defines as greater and what I or anyone else would define as greater, are subjective values and can be logically contrary.
Ontological arguments have a way of coming off as generalizable to just about any topic: the greatest possible theme park, the greatest possible mosquito, the greatest possible screwdriver, the greatest possible Rumpelstilzchen etc.
They might sound clever to the target audience who are anyway believers, but this is of little value if the desired conclusion is already written into the premises from the beginning!
It’s like you slept through the whole video.
It goes to your head is it?
Ancient argument.
You didn’t watch the video.
@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I watched, but I wasted my time.
Lol I was convinced at 19:30
Whether got necessarily exists in our world is the question?
I've just realised Alex looks like Randy Marsh.
Only this we can write.
Makes sense
Amazing how much Aristotelian metaphysics hasn't changed.
An agnostic is just a cowardly atheist. When a waiter asks me if I want dessert and I say, "I don't know," that means I don't want it at this particular moment, though I am open to changing my mind later. That's why the waiter doesn't then bring me dessert. When you say you don't know if God exists, that means you don't believe he does exist at the moment, but you are open to changing your mind later. Your belief is still "not at this moment."
A non-agnostic is just an imprudent agnostic. You say you "know" for sure whether there is a God or not. In reality, we don't have a full answer either way, so everyone is agnostic to some degree.
@@grmancool The only people who claim to know for sure are gnostics. Gnostic theists and gnostic atheists. Gnosticism deals in knowledge (hence the Greek word for knowledge gnosis) while theism deals in belief. This is why Alex clarifies at the beginning that he is an agnostic atheist.
Why can't they be a cowardly theist?
@@LogosTheos I suppose if you say I don’t know, you could secretly want some dessert. But do you think the waiter will bring you some?
@@LogosTheos Because to be an agnostic is to not know. It should logically follow that someone who does not know should not believe. So by denying their atheism by hedging their labels is to be a coward. An agnostic theist, or someone who believes without knowing, is just a psychopath who believes in things that can't be known.
49:50 "unknown knowns" lol
**Still waiting for any good evidence**
If you think the ontological argument is primarily evidential then you don't understand the argument or its implications.
@@RohannvanRensburg Thats all just mental masturbation. If there was evidence, the question would be answered and every point in this video would be moot.
@@dougniergarth236 So logic, that which undergirds the validity of evidence, is "mental masturbation"? You are in effect rejecting the primacy of reason, in which case I fail to see why you stated your argument in the first place.
@@RohannvanRensburg Would you, gentle sir, change your mind if evidence was introduced to change it?
This is what happened when Copernicus showed that the sol did not revolve around the earth. That is all I'm asking for, evidence. You can bet philosophers were jerking off to the question back then too. Hell, they probably made a good living at it.
@@dougniergarth236 Does 2+2=4 require "evidence"? No, it is a *proof* . There is no evidence that will refute the basic concept of arithmetic. It is fundamentally deductive, not inductive, meaning that the conclusion follows *necessarily*.
What you are continually insisting on is that deductive arguments are invalid (even though deduction is the fundamental premise of mathematics and logic) and inductive ones are more valid. I can give you a long list of evidence for God's existence, but you will a-priori reject it based on your prior assumptions. What is at stake here are fundamentally deductive arguments. The continual masturbation references are not something I feel particularly compelled to address.
Awesome talk! I love hearing from these two!
Alex is the baby philosopher for like 5 years lol 🤣
In short: I can imagine X therefore X exists.
Philosophy devoid of proper and sufficient evidence might show that something does not exist, but not that it does.
Why is it that almost all atheist apologists have a British accent? 🤔
Rain
Atheist apologist what
Pick up a dictionary and look up apologist
@@ivwesnwindy6804 I feel like this was meant to be an insult... what i meant was that I've never heard someone call a skeptic an atheist apologist, I thought that term was reserved for Christian apologists
I know that Alex does not believe in non-deterministic free will. I was wondering what Joe's beliefs are in that regard? If we lack non-deterministic free will then doesn't that mean that there are "possibilities" that we are inevitably bound to not believe? Then the determinist Atheist would have to agree that a perfect being, or a contingent being could be possible even if we are deterministically bound to never conclude that, although that seems to lead to a paradox that upon believing that lack of free will implies our inability to conclude some possibilities, then we are concluding the existence of of indeterminable things (although not particular indeterminable things).
Anyway, I wonder if Joe could not begin with perhaps a weaker form of his argument that the materialistic universe is contingent on a non-materialistic antecedent. Wouldn't this do the trick? A non-materialistic antecedent to which the materialistic cosmos is contingent seems to fulfill the minimalistic definition of a god, and also seems to promote the premise that we can never rationally conclude that we lack free will.
Baby philosphers and baby host
💀
It's not a symmetry breaker, because PPE possibly entails only a PARTIALLY independent existential fact. It must include something not among the explained things, but this inclusion can be partial. So, in the case of imperfect things, a partially perfect thing can still be imperfect as a whole and the symmetry is restored.
The ontological argument from Plantinga is begging the question so obviously that I wonder how he could dare to offer this argument (and how people, even trained philosophers, can take this somewhat seriously). Let's look at P1 : "Possibly, a maximally great being exists" implies "there is a possible world where there is a maximally great being" implies "there is a maximally great being in our world". DUH, literally stating in P1 the conclusion we wanna reach. Cringe.
Wouldn't the more rational thing to think be, given the credentials of people like Plantinga and the other trained philosophers, that there is something you, presumably not a trained philosopher like them, are missing instead of thinking that they missed something so "obvious"?
To your point, is it your contention that "if it is possible for a maximally great being to exist" is the same as "therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world"?
This isn't begging the question, it's a result of a maximally great being having necessary existence and the operators of S5 modal logic. If a maximally great being is possibly necessary, then by S5 it is actually necessary.
1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then by definition it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
2-5 are unassailable, and the conclusion follows logically from the premises. The only question is P1, is it possible that a maximally great being exists?
Philosophers like Richard Gale argue that 3 begs the question since S5 shows that a possibly necessary being is in fact an actually necessary being, but that's just a rejection of the axioms of S5 and is in fact an objection to 1.
You're confusing metaphysical possibility with epistemic possibility.
@@Norbingel Yes. Claiming that it is possible that a maxmimally great being exists logically implies that it exists in the actual world.
@@grantgooch5834 1. begs the question. if it is possible that he exists, it means that he exists in one possible world and this logically implies that he exists in every possible world, thus in our world.
@@Norbingel P1) If a maximally great being exists in one possible world, then a maximally great being exists in every possible world, thus also in our world. (definition of a maximally great being)
P2) A maximally great being exists in one possible world. (premisse 1 of Plantinga's argument)
C) A maximally great being exists in every possible world, thus also in our world.
There you go, a simple modus ponens showing how the conclusion of Plantinga's argument is logically entailed by P1, thus showing that the argument begs the question.
The symmetric argument doesn't work for me, because necessity doesn't work with a negative proposition in the same way it does with a positive one.
Next let’s discuss if the spaghetti monster is possible
This might be a silly objection I have with the reverse argument but it comes off as a double negative. For example, if it is logically possible I wore a red shirt today then my wearing a red shirt does exist in some possible world but the fact that I did not wear a red shirt today does not suddenly imply that it's logically impossible. The red shirt is still logically possible even if I didn't wear it (today).
So the counter argument that it's logically possible that God doesn't exist (it's impossible for God to exist) is the very point atheists and theists would argue in the first premise of the Ontological Argument. So there is no need to reverse the argument (it's possible that God's existence is impossible).
As far as the Ontological Argument goes I believe it's actually a very powerful argument because there are many reasons to think God's existence is logically possible and necessary. For one the very attributes of the very being were describing is a necessarily existing being. Two, is that God would be the unmoved mover which itself seems to be a logical necessity. Just from those things you can support the first premise without it falling into a God of Gaps. Why because in order for something to be a God of the Gaps argument there has to be a natural explanation that could explain something reasoned that is supernatural.
Joe reminds me of Anthony Rapp's character in Dazed and Confused.
These kinds of philosophical thought experiments can be fun. However, I think that it is important to keep in mind that contemplating hypotheticals like an unsubstantiated yet "necessary" being without any actual examples of such a phenomenon can never lead to any satisfying conclusion. It is like trying to conjure something into existence by merely thinking about it. It's the same reason why paradoxes like Bertrand Russell's set theory seems so confounding. Physical objects don't pop in and out of existence because they can't decide which arbitrarily defined set they should belong to. It's just an abstract concept that doesn't accurately describe anything real in any useful way. Garbage in, garbage out.
Absolutely beautiful display of dialectical goodness!
Interesting that Alex is committed to determinism despite intrinsically non-deterministic phenomena in physics such as radioactive atom decay and indeterminism in quantum mechanics.
Joe doesn't get away scott free either, his paper on "The fruitful death of modal collapse arguments" where he implicitly treats indeterminate causes as random. And implies that intention by a free willed agent is deterministic. There is a conversation to be had about what is indeterminism, what is randomness/chance, are free willed agent choices deterministic or indeterministic, etc.