And in this light I agree that it is silly for people like Ward to claim to possess this kind of transcendental knowledge of God. But it is still interesting to see the path he takes to try and get there, and the issues that arise along the way.
"It is not to be supposed that young men and women who are busy acquiring valuable specialized knowledge can spare a great deal of time for the study of philosophy, but even in the time that can easily be spared without injury to the learning of technical skills, philosophy can give certain things that will greatly increase the student's value as a human being and as a citizen. It can give a habit of exact and careful thought, not only in mathematics and science,
...but in questions of large practical import. It can give an impersonal breadth and scope to the conception of the ends of life. It can give to the individual a just measure of himself in relation to society, of man in the present to man in the past and in the future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the astronomical cosmos.
It would have been nice if Dr. Carroll had made even the vaguest attempt to address Dr. Ward's points. What he presented instead was a farrago of irrelevancies to the question posed.
@@MMG-q1v I would be more willing to outline for you what you should be able to see for yourself if you had not used the word "astrologer" to describe Dr. Ward. This is pure ad hominem, and demonstrates clearly that your mind is closed.
@@davidford694 I did not say Dr. Ward is an astrologer. I was attempting an analogy. I was asking how you would respond to someone whose world-view you did not share at all. It is impossible to do that. My opinion is certainly firm on the non existence of a deity. I don’t believe in any no material entities or forces. I am not “seeking.” Proving the existence or non existence of such entities is impossible, as any honest philosopher will tell you. But I am happy with the conclusion I have come to. I expect no eternal reward or punishment.
I'm an atheist so I disagree with various bits of his reasoning, but he didn't say nothing. He addressed some serious and deep questions about the nature of knowledge and how we obtain it, and I think it an extremely serious error to dismiss these questions so carelessly.
I thought he was actually very clear and concise, and my only gripe was that I think he is wrong. I think the issues he discussed, which are indeed some of the most fundamental in philosophy, are no more solved today than ever. But as Russell says in that essay, it is not necessarily the task of philosophy to solve these problems; rather it should merely elucidate them, and allow us to be explicitly aware of every unstated assumption that leads each of us to the world view we think so "obvious".
I don't really know what you mean by "lower case" endeavor. It has always been a specialised discipline, and a luxury of the wealthy. I also am confused that you assert anything promoting critical thinking is of great relevance, while philosophy is not. What do you think philosophy does, if not promote critical thinking? Russell espouses this as one of it's greatest virtues. I find most religious discussion very sloppy philosophically, so I was happy to see Ward at least attempt some rigour.
Who's not calm? As for the relevance of philosophy, I can only be a little horrified that people could for a moment think it irrelevant. As to why, well let me point to one of Bertrand Russell's beautiful essays, in which he articulates well the importance of philosophy in various forms, no less relevant today than 60 years ago I think. It is available freely online, just google "Philosophy for Laymen (1946)". While the whole thing may be found that way let me quote his closing passage;
By enlarging the objects of his thoughts it supplies an antidote to the anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world."
Science shows that the reason we laugh is because we learned something or because something is told in a way that comes to a different yet logical conclusion than what we expected.The job of a comedian is to relate to his audience by way of laughter and in order to do this they must observe the world to find out what works and doesn't work comedy wise. In doing so and interacting with all kinds they become philosophers in order to speak on whats funny in a way that will relate to everyone.
Everyone who believes God exists has their own personal description of “his” ( a “spirit” has no body and thus no sex, right?) personality and intentions and capabilities. The professor has stated his. Almost all other believers “experience” something different. And they all disagree with each other. Naturalists, OTOH, generally agree with each other about their experience of the natural universe. This one fact is enough to confirm me in my naturalism.
Just because there are more reasons doesn't discount these reasons the chemical reaction in the brain is caused by this concept it's involuntary you can't choose what you find funny. My point is that on this one thing Hawking is wrong in my opinion philosophy will continue to exist because science needs questions to have answers. I'm not saying comedians are the end all be all but they are a small part of the philosophy that continues to exist today and will continue to exist.
Empirisme has gone off the rails there (06:38)... If one holds the idea that knowledge comes from experience, surely that must go to for his believe that minds can exist without a brain. But he just states that it means experiences must exist on themself?! This idea that consciousness is more primordial as te physical world is so bizar...but I'll agree it is hard to disprove since it seems to fall in the same category as sollipsisme.. It is true that is was once held by lots of philosophers.. but nowadays it usually only comes out in theologians. Anyway the way he drags in a god seems flat-out idiotic.
Not so bizarre actually. For a more detailed defence of Ward's idealism, see this talk: ua-cam.com/video/xRKA6OCSiZU/v-deo.html It's hardly just theologians - Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and others (they're the guys responsible for most of the contents of modern physics textbooks...) also defended Platonic idealism as the best philosophical framework to understand science and they have very strong arguments. A good collection of their philosophical essays is Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber (search it on Libgen). They raise many of the same points that Ward does in the link above. Galileo, Kepler and Newton also thought along the same lines. Contemporary physicists who also pursue this thinking include Paul Davies and Roger Penrose: ua-cam.com/video/At5bmO3kIkM/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/H9Q6SWcTA9w/v-deo.html It's when you start to wonder about the nature of mathematical truth and physical laws (e.g. where do they exist? and why are they so beautiful?), and for example the measurement problem of quantum mechanics, that you will see that Ward & co aren't so weird after all.
I didn't argue that Hawking said that, because it is irrelevant. Far more intelligent minds than yours also continue to pursue philosophy. Since when did Hawking become the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not worth thinking about?
If there is a value of materialism it is asking “how” and trying to understand how about the Universe by “how” questions but this fails as becoming “knowledge” in a true sense in some many ways. This empirical approach. All rational inferences, testing models against experienced reality, conceptualizing models, logic and probability theories; arise from consciousness/mind and all of these listed don't and can't exist without consciousness. “Consciousness” or the “Mind” accounts for all reasoning with nothing left outside of this self-awareness that is able to encounter or reason reality otherwise. A materialist seeks material as the cause of emergent phenomena such as the, “Mind”. The materialist posits an order following material as the first and total cause from chemical evolution to biological life, biological evolution to brain and then brain to Consciousness/Mind. In Materialism the unsaid "prima facie" is one of metaphysical, “the Mind”. Materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties. If "ALL things" are "composed of material" any "emergent phenomena" is what, a real thing or illusion? If real, "all things" are not "composed of material". How can an "emergent phenomena" that is non-physical be one of the counted “things” that are "composed of material"? Thus, "Mind" is not a "thing composed of material" according to Materialism, thus not a "thing" at all. If not a "thing","Mind" does not even exist in Materialism to be it's "prima facie". A Materialist finds no value to asking “why” questions because their world-view has assertions that there will be ultimate truth found in only, “How” questions. This reductionism is a denial of human freewill, self-awareness, moral conviction and value or truth in emotions. The real consciousness reality we live in though is much more complex than “how” questions and answers, especially when it comes to human action and human desires to understand other's actions and reactions. When someone drops a rock on your head the last thing you ask is "how". You ask and desire to know or understand, "Why" they did this. There is there something about people and human choice that leads us to think humans are outside of this method of gathering knowledge by asking "how"? With human action "why" is always better question in most cases but we are still a part of nature and natural causes. Are we somehow outside of the world we are trying to study with "hows"? When a girl slaps another, no one asks or cares how her biochemistry did that or how her body operates to do that, we ask why she did it. How is it, that when understanding people, science in this regard asks "why" every time and never worries much about "how" in a anatomic sense unless this “how” can help explain more of the “why”? "How" is secondary to "why" when it comes to human actions but if we are a result of this world and no more a part of it than a rock, why is this; Or "how" is this as the materialist would like to ask? If a girl you liked walked up and kissed you out of nowhere and you had a choice in asking her "why" she did it or having a neurologist study her brain without asking her ''why', then give you the science of "how" her neurons fire... and look like everyone else's doing the same...; Which would you choose to know, the "how" or her "why"? You would value her personal explanation of "why" much more than a brain scan and a materialist's explanation. Her "why" explains much more of the truth to "how" it happened. We know much about normal brains function but not why people do the things they do if there are just ultimate materialistic causes to human action. When one posits that consciousness and Minds are mere result of brain and we apply this same logic to known causes regarding autonomy this assumption and assertion fails. If I damage the electrical chip of a drone aircraft and it starts to fly around crazy, I do not assume the remote pilot is now crazy. I can simply assert the hardware running the software is damaged. The validity of mathematics, logic and human reason trustworthy; and that the Universe is rational and in line with a rational human consciousness/mind are ALL metaphysical constructs of "mind", thus metaphysical questions. Why would one limit themselves to posit empiricism (science's founding principle) as true, which is also a product/idea of “Mind” but a world-view that denies one's self, the objective reasoner, as no more than mere biochemical illusory as the result of it's assertions. Empiricism states that knowledge must be restricted to those objects which can be perceived by our senses. At the same time empiricism requires non-empirical foundational presuppositions and these presuppositions are not material themselves, they are metaphysical. The "theory that all knowledge is limited to what can be empirically known" is itself, incapable of being known or demonstrated empirically. It is fact that empiricism can not answer for any trustworthy substrate for knowledge that is solely metaphysical (one's self, the objective reasoner); and the fact that the only substrate for claimed knowledge is “one's self, the objective reasoner”, shows empiricism as fallacious at it's core claim of being the only methodology for knowledge. I don't deny reason, logic or mathematics as objective, I just understand the assumptions one must make to assert they are "objective" and apply the same to all results of un-testable consciousness. The error is with someone asserting objectiveness in some results of consciousness and subjectiveness in others without outside "proof". These others would include self-awareness, emotions, moral conviction and freewill. Consciousness includes all of the above and favors none!
Please tell me what consciousness is and please don't use the cop out: "you know what it is cause: you have it" because that is just answering the question of what is a cloud with: look, that is a cloud. I do agree that we need to know what the influence of - our concept of mind - and - our concept of Empiricism - is on the results of science but placing the cart before the horse with placing consciousness at the center seems positively prehistoric to me. The universe doesn't need consciousness to exist. If you disagree: we have billions of years of proof. The universe also doesn't need psychology and Keith Ward puts his psychological imaginings at the center. This is the most insidious kind of theology, there is no reasoning with this kind of babble. You couldn't start to ask the question of "why" because you would first need to establish a common language more precisely then with "classical" theologians because these 'thinkers' fumble at the first hurdle. The language of Keith Ward looks to much like our language to be able to identify where his ideas go on a slant.
Keith Ward: in order to be a rationalist, you can't just have some ultimate natural laws that are just there......you gotta have an ultimate "supreme intrinsic value -god" that is just there. Uh huh....tell me again how discoveries we've made about values or humans with theology?
i just finished the whole "God as explanation" videos. thanks a lot for this amazing talks and dialogues about this interesting topics.
And in this light I agree that it is silly for people like Ward to claim to possess this kind of transcendental knowledge of God. But it is still interesting to see the path he takes to try and get there, and the issues that arise along the way.
As an atheist materialist i still enjoy this kind of conversations, even if I don't agree with Chris Ward at all.
"It is not to be supposed that young men and women who are busy acquiring valuable specialized knowledge can spare a great deal of time for the study of philosophy, but even in the time that can easily be spared without injury to the learning of technical skills, philosophy can give certain things that will greatly increase the student's value as a human being and as a citizen. It can give a habit of exact and careful thought, not only in mathematics and science,
...but in questions of large practical import. It can give an impersonal breadth and scope to the conception of the ends of life. It can give to the individual a just measure of himself in relation to society, of man in the present to man in the past and in the future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the astronomical cosmos.
It would have been nice if Dr. Carroll had made even the vaguest attempt to address Dr. Ward's points. What he presented instead was a farrago of irrelevancies to the question posed.
@@davidford694 Imagine yourself debating with an astrologer. What “points” would you attempt to address?
@@MMG-q1v I would be more willing to outline for you what you should be able to see for yourself if you had not used the word "astrologer" to describe Dr. Ward. This is pure ad hominem, and demonstrates clearly that your mind is closed.
@@davidford694 I did not say Dr. Ward is an astrologer. I was attempting an analogy. I was asking how you would respond to someone whose world-view you did not share at all. It is impossible to do that.
My opinion is certainly firm on the non existence of a deity. I don’t believe in any no material entities or forces. I am not “seeking.” Proving the existence or non existence of such entities is impossible, as any honest philosopher will tell you. But I am happy with the conclusion I have come to. I expect no eternal reward or punishment.
I'm an atheist so I disagree with various bits of his reasoning, but he didn't say nothing. He addressed some serious and deep questions about the nature of knowledge and how we obtain it, and I think it an extremely serious error to dismiss these questions so carelessly.
I thought he was actually very clear and concise, and my only gripe was that I think he is wrong. I think the issues he discussed, which are indeed some of the most fundamental in philosophy, are no more solved today than ever. But as Russell says in that essay, it is not necessarily the task of philosophy to solve these problems; rather it should merely elucidate them, and allow us to be explicitly aware of every unstated assumption that leads each of us to the world view we think so "obvious".
I don't really know what you mean by "lower case" endeavor. It has always been a specialised discipline, and a luxury of the wealthy. I also am confused that you assert anything promoting critical thinking is of great relevance, while philosophy is not. What do you think philosophy does, if not promote critical thinking? Russell espouses this as one of it's greatest virtues. I find most religious discussion very sloppy philosophically, so I was happy to see Ward at least attempt some rigour.
Who's not calm? As for the relevance of philosophy, I can only be a little horrified that people could for a moment think it irrelevant. As to why, well let me point to one of Bertrand Russell's beautiful essays, in which he articulates well the importance of philosophy in various forms, no less relevant today than 60 years ago I think. It is available freely online, just google "Philosophy for Laymen (1946)".
While the whole thing may be found that way let me quote his closing passage;
By enlarging the objects of his thoughts it supplies an antidote to the anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world."
Science shows that the reason we laugh is because we learned something or because something is told in a way that comes to a different yet logical conclusion than what we expected.The job of a comedian is to relate to his audience by way of laughter and in order to do this they must observe the world to find out what works and doesn't work comedy wise. In doing so and interacting with all kinds they become philosophers in order to speak on whats funny in a way that will relate to everyone.
Everyone who believes God exists has their own personal description of “his” ( a “spirit” has no body and thus no sex, right?) personality and intentions and capabilities. The professor has stated his. Almost all other believers “experience” something different. And they all disagree with each other. Naturalists, OTOH, generally agree with each other about their experience of the natural universe. This one fact is enough to confirm me in my naturalism.
Just call yourself and Atheist, please.
@@eugenenegri No, thank you. I don’t self-identify as an “anastrologist” or a “non clairvoyant” either. I don’t think about “God” in an average day.
Were g0d real, how/where come?
So? None of this means resurrections will happen .Nobody will be happy in any afterlife.Heavens on Earth by Michael Shermer
Just because there are more reasons doesn't discount these reasons the chemical reaction in the brain is caused by this concept it's involuntary you can't choose what you find funny. My point is that on this one thing Hawking is wrong in my opinion philosophy will continue to exist because science needs questions to have answers. I'm not saying comedians are the end all be all but they are a small part of the philosophy that continues to exist today and will continue to exist.
Empirisme has gone off the rails there (06:38)... If one holds the idea that knowledge comes from experience, surely that must go to for his believe that minds can exist without a brain. But he just states that it means experiences must exist on themself?!
This idea that consciousness is more primordial as te physical world is so bizar...but I'll agree it is hard to disprove since it seems to fall in the same category as sollipsisme..
It is true that is was once held by lots of philosophers.. but nowadays it usually only comes out in theologians. Anyway the way he drags in a god seems flat-out idiotic.
Not so bizarre actually. For a more detailed defence of Ward's idealism, see this talk: ua-cam.com/video/xRKA6OCSiZU/v-deo.html
It's hardly just theologians - Einstein, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, James Jeans, Arthur Eddington and others (they're the guys responsible for most of the contents of modern physics textbooks...) also defended Platonic idealism as the best philosophical framework to understand science and they have very strong arguments. A good collection of their philosophical essays is Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber (search it on Libgen). They raise many of the same points that Ward does in the link above. Galileo, Kepler and Newton also thought along the same lines.
Contemporary physicists who also pursue this thinking include Paul Davies and Roger Penrose:
ua-cam.com/video/At5bmO3kIkM/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/H9Q6SWcTA9w/v-deo.html
It's when you start to wonder about the nature of mathematical truth and physical laws (e.g. where do they exist? and why are they so beautiful?), and for example the measurement problem of quantum mechanics, that you will see that Ward & co aren't so weird after all.
I didn't argue that Hawking said that, because it is irrelevant. Far more intelligent minds than yours also continue to pursue philosophy. Since when did Hawking become the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not worth thinking about?
Keith Ward sorry !
If there is a value of materialism it is asking “how” and trying to understand how about the Universe by “how” questions but this fails as becoming “knowledge” in a true sense in some many ways. This empirical approach. All rational inferences, testing models against experienced reality, conceptualizing models, logic and probability theories; arise from consciousness/mind and all of these listed don't and can't exist without consciousness. “Consciousness” or the “Mind” accounts for all reasoning with nothing left outside of this self-awareness that is able to encounter or reason reality otherwise. A materialist seeks material as the cause of emergent phenomena such as the, “Mind”. The materialist posits an order following material as the first and total cause from chemical evolution to biological life, biological evolution to brain and then brain to Consciousness/Mind.
In Materialism the unsaid "prima facie" is one of metaphysical, “the Mind”. Materialism holds that all things are composed of material, and that all emergent phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material properties.
If "ALL things" are "composed of material" any "emergent phenomena" is what, a real thing or illusion? If real, "all things" are not "composed of material".
How can an "emergent phenomena" that is non-physical be one of the counted “things” that are "composed of material"? Thus, "Mind" is not a "thing composed of material" according to Materialism, thus not a "thing" at all.
If not a "thing","Mind" does not even exist in Materialism to be it's "prima facie".
A Materialist finds no value to asking “why” questions because their world-view has assertions that there will be ultimate truth found in only, “How” questions. This reductionism is a denial of human freewill, self-awareness, moral conviction and value or truth in emotions. The real consciousness reality we live in though is much more complex than “how” questions and answers, especially when it comes to human action and human desires to understand other's actions and reactions.
When someone drops a rock on your head the last thing you ask is "how". You ask and desire to know or understand, "Why" they did this. There is there something about people and human choice that leads us to think humans are outside of this method of gathering knowledge by asking "how"? With human action "why" is always better question in most cases but we are still a part of nature and natural causes. Are we somehow outside of the world we are trying to study with "hows"?
When a girl slaps another, no one asks or cares how her biochemistry did that or how her body operates to do that, we ask why she did it. How is it, that when understanding people, science in this regard asks "why" every time and never worries much about "how" in a anatomic sense unless this “how” can help explain more of the “why”? "How" is secondary to "why" when it comes to human actions but if we are a result of this world and no more a part of it than a rock, why is this; Or "how" is this as the materialist would like to ask?
If a girl you liked walked up and kissed you out of nowhere and you had a choice in asking her "why" she did it or having a neurologist study her brain without asking her ''why', then give you the science of "how" her neurons fire... and look like everyone else's doing the same...; Which would you choose to know, the "how" or her "why"? You would value her personal explanation of "why" much more than a brain scan and a materialist's explanation. Her "why" explains much more of the truth to "how" it happened. We know much about normal brains function but not why people do the things they do if there are just ultimate materialistic causes to human action.
When one posits that consciousness and Minds are mere result of brain and we apply this same logic to known causes regarding autonomy this assumption and assertion fails. If I damage the electrical chip of a drone aircraft and it starts to fly around crazy, I do not assume the remote pilot is now crazy. I can simply assert the hardware running the software is damaged. The validity of mathematics, logic and human reason trustworthy; and that the Universe is rational and in line with a rational human consciousness/mind are ALL metaphysical constructs of "mind", thus metaphysical questions.
Why would one limit themselves to posit empiricism (science's founding principle) as true, which is also a product/idea of “Mind” but a world-view that denies one's self, the objective reasoner, as no more than mere biochemical illusory as the result of it's assertions. Empiricism states that knowledge must be restricted to those objects which can be perceived by our senses. At the same time empiricism requires non-empirical foundational presuppositions and these presuppositions are not material themselves, they are metaphysical.
The "theory that all knowledge is limited to what can be empirically known" is itself, incapable of being known or demonstrated empirically. It is fact that empiricism can not answer for any trustworthy substrate for knowledge that is solely metaphysical (one's self, the objective reasoner); and the fact that the only substrate for claimed knowledge is “one's self, the objective reasoner”, shows empiricism as fallacious at it's core claim of being the only methodology for knowledge.
I don't deny reason, logic or mathematics as objective, I just understand the assumptions one must make to assert they are "objective" and apply the same to all results of un-testable consciousness. The error is with someone asserting objectiveness in some results of consciousness and subjectiveness in others without outside "proof". These others would include self-awareness, emotions, moral conviction and freewill. Consciousness includes all of the above and favors none!
Please tell me what consciousness is and please don't use the cop out: "you know what it is cause: you have it" because that is just answering the question of what is a cloud with: look, that is a cloud. I do agree that we need to know what the influence of - our concept of mind - and - our concept of Empiricism - is on the results of science but placing the cart before the horse with placing consciousness at the center seems positively prehistoric to me. The universe doesn't need consciousness to exist. If you disagree: we have billions of years of proof.
The universe also doesn't need psychology and Keith Ward puts his psychological imaginings at the center. This is the most insidious kind of theology, there is no reasoning with this kind of babble. You couldn't start to ask the question of "why" because you would first need to establish a common language more precisely then with "classical" theologians because these 'thinkers' fumble at the first hurdle. The language of Keith Ward looks to much like our language to be able to identify where his ideas go on a slant.
Did you have a point?
Keith Ward: in order to be a rationalist, you can't just have some ultimate natural laws that are just there......you gotta have an ultimate "supreme intrinsic value -god" that is just there. Uh huh....tell me again how discoveries we've made about values or humans with theology?
Comedy is philosophy Hawking is wrong