Is the Past Finite? | Dr. Josh Rasmussen & Dr. Alex Malpass
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ก.พ. 2021
- Interested in grim reapers, causal finitism, the (in)finite past, and modality? I have just the conversation for you.
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Josh and Alex also discuss the Grim Reaper Paradox (GRP) here: • Is Suffering More Prob...
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joshualrasmussen.blogspot.com...
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Once again, the level of Joe’s content is unmatched :)
It's enjoyable content
I'm pretty much deleting my other philosophy of religion channels
i dont mean to be so offtopic but does any of you know a trick to get back into an Instagram account..?
I stupidly lost my account password. I love any help you can give me.
@Jerome Moshe Instablaster ;)
I love Joe's silent reactions to the convo
Still can't believe your content is free
Sheeshh, dont give him ideas! I kid, but he has a lot of premium content too if you're interested u.u
Wow, zero dislikes! Perhaps it's metaphysically impossible to dislike such a wonderful discussion?
Isn't it generally impossible to see dislikes? Or is this a special setting on youtube I'm missing
love how Dr Rasmussen does this discussion about time while he has a huge analogue clock behind him
Malpass and Rasmussen are awesome! More please
Flippin Joe Schmid with the definition of a circle like a total boss!
Holy shit. He said you're like a modern day Kripke. Dude. Congrats
That low key didn’t come as a surprise
My goodness, imagine being called the modern day version of one hello of a philosopher who marked philosophy with his name forever. I hope Joe gets respected as such in the future
Always a good day when Majesty of Reason uploads! Very interesting topic too.
This is a great convo. Please organise a part 2 so much more can be discussed here and I enjoyed every minute.
if only we had infinite time...
Bought your book a week ago man! Keep up the good work! Also, throughly enjoy the convos with Josh.... He’s my favorite guest of yours :)
Much love
Really enjoyed this! Alex and Josh are two of my favorites. And Joe, you are a fantastic host, as always. Very excited for what you are currently accomplishing and what you will accomplish in the field. Thanks for what you do!
Much love
Two of the loveliest-seeming philosophers on the web.
Nice to see Alex and Josh! They always make for a good conversation! You Joe are of course an enrichment as well, but since its your channel I expect you to be there :D
Much love
Fascinating! Three of the most interesting persons to listen engage about philosophy.
Amazing conversations
Fire content as always
i could listen to alex and josh talk for days on end
Yes! Yes Joe Yes! More Malpass!!
Rasmussen is a delightful fellow too
I feel the need for a part 3.
Amazing video
1:42:40 - 1:42:52 is epic. Super satisfying to bring it all into focus.
Wow this is amazing
Wow, even the background completely changed with the new camera
Woooow I'm excited🥰
53:18 to 52:29 - "A metaphysical possibility is a world that overlaps with the actual world at some point; it's one of these branching continuations of something in the past or from in the future."
nah. its just fantasy.
I think there's a problem when we are willing to even entertain the possibility that a contradiction might be instantiated. A contradiction could never be meaningfully stated, and meaning is a precondition of truth.
If a scenario is metaphysically possible then it’s logically possible.
If we from the scenario derive a logical contradiction then that scenario is logically impossible.
Therefore it’s also metaphysically impossible.
The dubious step is in generalizing to a whole class of scenarios. If the paradox can only be shown in a few representatives of the class then the the logical impossibility and metaphysical possibility of the whole class is only as strong as the generalization.
I wonder if people understand how epic this conversation is? Fantastic. I'm gonna have to watch it a few times and take notes.
Much love
🥰
In the square circle example, it's always the same scenario. We are just making clear on our definition.
If your participant blocks one of your moves he is simply disagreeing with you on definitions. Fair enough, maybe a square means something different than a thing with four corners to him. You can leave the discussion simply disagreeing on what the word square means.
In the grim reaper scenario we have different scenarios in each step so when objecting the disagreement is real and not simply definitional. We can't go away saying we simply disagree what a grim reaper or infinite or Bob means.
could you PLEASE try to get James Anderson/Greg Welty and Alex Malpass to talk about Divine Conceptualism? that would be so interesting.
I think intuitions break down at the macro and micro levels. They're outside of our ability to conceive because we have no experience of them. I don't think we can hang much on our intuitions about infinities or even on how logic applies to infinites.
So you think that x can be both true and false at the same time?! Remember, the laws of logic are built systematically out of our intuition that is formed from working with objects that are our size. This view of yours is very radical IMO.
@@michaelsayad5085 no, I don't think the laws of logic don't apply to reality at those levels. My point was about epistemic access. I think we need a healthy dose of intellectual humility whenever we try to understand things which are far removed from our everyday experiences.
@@TheologyUnleashed Fair enough.
I think infinities are obviously impossible, has nothing to with intuitions.
@@ceceroxy2227 how so?
3:54 Who else is imagining Bob from ‘Explaining Existence’?
Question: given the branching modal theory of time couldn’t we STILL have eternal red AND blue planets *if* they are both necessary and both part of the initial first necessary state? In this sense eternal red and blue planets would necessarily exist in every possible world? (Unless they posses accidental potentials which can become actualized) in which case they may not continue to exist unchanged in every possible world?
Does Alex have a paper coming out in Mind on this? I thought he said something like that, but I cant find it.
Joe saving the day with the proper definition of a circle only to have Alex say "Ok, cool anyway...." lol
"I'll cut this out, maybe."
- the intro
Do I have this right? : Josh has a problem using UPD as a way to account for apparent paradoxes in GR scenarios because the reapers in most GR scenarios don’t explicitly follow the logical rule of the biconditional (which would make a scenario with such reapers logically impossible to create), but instead take action based on the current state of some object (e.g., Fred), and thus some mysterious force is needed to explain why the reapers can’t do their job. If that’s correct, then I can understand his concern. However, it seems to me that all scenarios of this type don’t actually contain inherent paradoxes anyway. (It’s only when contradiction-causing assumptions are made that paradoxes arise.) Perhaps it's worthwhile considering that possibility.
Not bad.
Yo nice video wondering if your down for a conversation any time soon.
I fear no man, no discussion
but when Josh is so agitated he actually interrupts someone in a conversation, I'm scared
Lol
What does it mean for an interval of time or a causal event to be infinitely divisible but not infinitely divided? (In Rasmussen’s blog.)
Also, what exactly is an event? A substance instantiating some property at some time (to my ears, that sounds more like a state)? A change across time in the properties of something?
First question: it is the difference between a potential infinity and an actual infinite. If continuuism is true the you can divide an interval into an infinite amount of points (i.e it is infinitely divisible). Second question: Events are states changing into other states; they are "occurants", they *take up time* and have different stages. By contrast, objects are enduring "continuans" they are *in* time persisting through time and *occupy* space. Objects can be moved whereas events cannot etc. An object can be part of an event, or be affected by an event but it makes no sense to say that an event is part of an object or that an event is affected by an object. A substance is something different from both properties and events; they are particulars that are bearer of properties. Substances can undergo events (like acquiring or loosing a property) or be affected by events (like when a tree is crushed by a tornado etc).
@@andrejuthe appreciate it!
In order to get from an infinite past to the grim reaper paradox, you'd have to apply the recombination principle over an infinite number of things (you'd have to go from saying it's possible that there is one grim reaper to saying it's possible there could be an infinite amount of grim reapers). I don't think this application of the recombination principle is any more legitimate than doing the same from a finite past and saying that if one grim reaper is possible in a finite past then it follows that an infinite amount of grim reapers are possible in a finite past.
1:46:23 needs to be your mascot.
I need a written explaination of the recompination principle and why it favours finitism..watched 30 minutes and I don't want to be lost while watching the rest.
Hi! I'm not an expert but I'll give it a go.
Recombination principle - the idea that if you mix individually possible things together in a hypothetical scenario, you end up with a possible scenario.
Why it favours finitism - the grim reaper scenario is meant to show that from a mix of apparently individually possible things, you end up with an impossible scenario. So (accepting the principle of recombination) one of those individual things cannot really have been possible. It's proposed that the individually impossible thing is the assumption of an infinite past (or sequence) in the grim reaper scenario.
:) :)
@@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke
Thanks a lot.
May I inquire about two things?
1- why shouldn't the impossible thing be the condition in the scenario?
2- what gives the recompination principle its weight?
(1) It's very hard to argue that it's the infinite sequence causing the impossibility, I haven't seen a really good attempt. Rasmussen is taking the finitist position in this discussion. Alex Malpass is arguing it might as well be the scenario itself, with rebuttals like the 'incompatible pair diagnosis'.
(2) Intuition, I think. I don't have a good understanding of it, but what I outlined for the recombination principle is a slightly incomplete and naive version - people who hold to it still recognize that you can combine 'I am taller than you' and 'you are taller than me', and get to impossibility from recombining those possible individual things.
So (and I think there are a few different ways this is cached out), it has a clause like, 'as long as you add them in consistent ways'.
If you add individually possible things together _in a consistent way,_ you end up with a possible scenario.
With that added clarification, it's just meant to seem right, intuitively. We are to think ~'That seems to be what I do in my head to generate possible scenarios all the time, and I can't see how anything could be a relevant obstacle as long as I stay consistent.'
@@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke
Clear.
But why should we put the blame on one of the pairs deeming it impossible instead of doubting the validity of the recompination principle when applied to an area which is not intuitive at all (infinity)?
Well, that's what this video is about :)
I don't have a good reason, but I think you've got the context of the video now - it's exploring to find if there is a good reason to blame one of the pairs, deeming it impossible.
I don't think we should, but this video has a lot of Rasmussen arguing that we should. He feels like the underdog here though, with Malpass having more experience thinking about it, and why we shouldn't blame one of the pairs like that. :) :)
4.6k views 7 months ago 184 likes But 0 dislike Now this is awesome
This channel probably is the best philosophy of religion channel
Much love❤️
@@MajestyofReason thank you so much for the ❤ love your works
I am new to philosophy now finished watching half of this video And So much things is going over my little mind but I am learning step by step thank you for being a really great guide in my journey you 13 books recommendation was really helpful
And I am looking forward for your kalam series with rationality rules which is much easier for me to understand fully so I am thankful for that also
Joe I have a idea after your and RR kalam series end You both can publish a book on Kalam basically the Full series as written Book /document it will be nice what do you think about this idea ?
@@Hello-vz1md we are actually considering making the series into a book, yes! We will see.🙂
@@MajestyofReason oh wow that's great
Much love ❤❤❤❤
This looks familiar 😉
The problem of squaring the circle is about whether you can with ruler and compass construct a line whose length is the square root of pie and thus constucut a square whose area is pie. It is by no means obvious that the square root of pie is not a constructable number, given that pie is constructable and the square roots of integers are constructable. I felt sorry for Joe: He had to listen to these guys butcher the problem of squaring the circle for nearly two hours. One of them even said it was obviously impossible (So obvious it was not "solved " until the 1800s (even with the likes of Euler being aware of the problem)). They made it seem like you had to smoosh two shapes together. Joe is TOO kind sometimes.
no timestamps smh
Sadly, the natural world shows no concern for philosophers' theories about the impossible or debates on the finitude or infiniteness of the past.
Why is Malpass the big monster taking up most of the screen
He actually is that big. Met him once when he helped me down from the roof.
Skype is strange... lol
(P1) If marriages or bachelors (blue sphere) are possible, then married bachelors (red sphere) are possible.
(P2) Married bachelors are logically impossible. Hence married bachelors (red sphere) are not possible.
(Conclusion from P1 and P2 - _modus tollens_ )
Therefore, marriages and bachelors (blue sphere) are not possible.
I'm on Dr. Alex Malpass' side. It appears to me irrational to conclude from the Grim Reaper Paradox or similar contradictions and paradoxes alone, that even all non-contradictory infinite causal chains, such as the infinite causal chain of eggs and chickens is, are impossible.
I'm a little confused on the position that an infinite causal chain is impossible yet God exists. It seems like Josh believes in at least 1…
I don't know Josh's position on this but I think there's a way you could hold that position. Countable infinities are infinite in the quantitative sense. God is infinite in the qualitative sense. When talking about God being infinite, it's describing His attributes in the superlative sense - all knowing, all powerful, all present, infinitely wise, etc.
God is supposedly timeless, and doesnt experience an infinite causal series.
#JoeIsTheNewKripke
2020 was the year I discovered MoR. The rest was ephemeral babble.
Imagine we have 10 different way the universe could be five with an infinite past and five without. A philosopher does a lot of work and comes up with a paradox that rules out one of the five infinite ones. And then concludes that the universe is probably one of the finite ones. Even if he can feel that it’s a good bet he’s very far from showing that it must be so.
I think Ramsussen's point is that no one has shown the other 4 to be different in a way that clearly avoids the problem with #5. They're saying, "yeah, but this one is red, not blue", and he's saying "so what?"
That being said, I agree with Malpass that it's better to run an example like the date machines spread evenly throughout time, which is exactly what Rob Koons does (quite successfully, in my opinion) with the Grim Messengers.
@@Mentat1231 My current take on it is that the the paradoxical infinite pasts are probably an extreme minority among infinite pasts so that these arguments shouldn’t make us rule out infinite pasts in the slightest. I’m not saying I strongly believe that the past is actually infinite just that these arguments are mostly for fun and I might even go so far as to say that it’s pretty ridiculous how some apologists try to use them. But that’s just a my current take. If I find arguments potent enough I’ll probably change my mind.
@@HyperFocusMarshmallow
Fair enough. May I ask what your thoughts are on the Grim Messenger version that Robert Koons has been writing about? Basically, each Messenger is set to write its current date as long as no previous day's Messenger has already written one. As of today, there must be a number on the page (either of a previous Messenger or today's date), but there is no number that could possibly be written on it if the past is infinite.
At the end of the day, these are just intuition pumps. There really is no need for all the stories and analogies; they're just meant to draw out the absurdity. But the incoherence of saying "the sequence is such that it can never finish, and yet it just finished" is already rather obvious to me. I mean "infinite" literally means "cannot ever finish" or "having no end" (just look at the etymology of the term). And yet the present is, by definition, the end of the sequence of past events!
@@Mentat1231 I don’t think it’s bringing out a paradox with infinite pasts. There are models with infinite past where you couldn’t even construct the grim messenger paradox , for example if there is a limit to the possible message length. There are also lots of models where time isn’t something that’s ticking but rather all of space time is some structure and it could just be that inconsistent histories don’t exist etc. there are so many ways out of that particular though experiment it’s not even funny. I think the rule in the grim messenger paradox is way more problematic than infinity. Imagine if you are a person believing the experiment has been performed in the past, you open the message and you see some number representing some day in the past (never mind how to even distinguish an infinite number of possibilities for a finite little human). You are confused, if you get a number you realize that the day before should have written their number. So you conclude that the experiment has not been performed as you believed. So the world is not paradoxical but the past may still be infinite. If you see nothing, you’ll think pretty much the same thing. If you instead see “don’t play with grim messengers” written you take the hint. There is nothing that you could observe that would make you believe the experiment has been performed and the world is now contradictory. But infinite past with a grim messenger past might be contradictory as a combination like the square circle example squares are not contradictory and neither are circles. The combination though. That’s enough.
@@HyperFocusMarshmallow
I don't think you've understood the analogy, if you are concerned about mistakes and such. They're "Grim Messengers", not humans. And length of message is irrelevant if you have the right symbolic conventions. The scenario can be made totally unproblematic and then infinity will yield the contradiction.
Completed infinities are not impossible. They are necessary and were frequently used by the Saints namely the Cappadocian Fathers in explaining Christian theology. But I suppose it is unreasonable to ask for a naturalist to necessarily see things our way but surely we can agree on the maths! Cantor proved this with "the diagonal argument" To any who want to read it here is the argument by Cantor
jlmartin.ku.edu/~jlmartin/courses/math410-S09/cantor.pdf
Again, Cantor solved a very big contradiction in math. But Russell always loved to delight in paradox and as a result people today influenced by him still think these ideas are baffling when in actuality denying actual infinities causes the whole of mathematics to collapse. Do you believe that division is possible and indefinitely so? Then you agree that completed infinities are valid. Period.
How can an infinite be completed if an infinite goes on forever.
1:39:09 appeal to the banana :D
The atheist’s nightmare!!!
This topic needs more discussion!
Linear casual finitism postulates multiple events (change) where the set of all contingent events are ontologically dependent on a necessary first event. Thus, within a cyclical finite chain, there could be vicious circularity and a bootstrap paradox. To argue events are ontologically dependent, one should rule out a conceptual theory of time, where change is an illusion (mind dependent divisions of a single event which is itself ontologically independent). Where the event represents the chain. Causation/ Becoming can be an illusion (see Parmenides). Being/Existence doesnt change. Existence cannot become nonexistence, the same way nonexistence cannot become existence.
Josh is also wrong to combine two logically incompatible propositions to disprove metaphysical possibility of causal infinitism.
Also, there is no infinite past on a cyclical chain. There is no point on the chain that is past, present nor future. They are all simultaneous. The relational view is arbitrary. Im tired of apologists always saying an infinite beginningless past is impossible, it's a strawman.
43:29 A relative blue means the universe is collapsing where as red means its expanding. Your lack of seeing the relevance does not mean that it isn't.
not gonna lie, Josh dominated this conversation. Alex came across as very dogmatic here
Alex is literally five steps ahead of Josh at almost every point.
I'm an hour in and it's just killing me how badly we need a sprinkle of Wittgenstein here! If a string of words is incoherent or entails something incoherent, then that string of words cannot express a truth (it can't express anything!). That's why we have necessity of *either* the metaphysical or logical sort. As Swinburne has said many times, "metaphysical impossibility" is just fully-spelled-out logical impossibility (where the powers, properties, etc. of the things being discussed are all taken into account). This is not at tension with a branching view or "powers" view of modality; in fact it complements it very well (just read Pruss' book and consider the hybrid option at the end). But, Malpass needs to understand that mere "overlap" is not sufficient to call something metaphysically possible. The overlap needs to be consistent with the properties (specifically, the causal powers) of all the relevant entities. I could describe a branching overlap in which everything up to now is the same, but then I leap 100ft into the air unaided. It's a branching. It's an overlap. But it doesn't cohere with my causal powers, and so it is, when fully spelled out, incoherent.
I say all this because the point of Grim Reaper/Messenger paradoxes is to show that there is a straightforward incoherence directly entailed by saying an actually infinite sequence has elapsed. I don't think Malpass has come to grips with the fact that that would rule out any metaphysical possibility of an infinite past being instantiated. If a string of words doesn't make sense, then adding "it is metaphysically possible that..." or "a modal branch could exist such that..." before that string of words doesn't help anything.
On the other hand, I don't understand why Rasmussen is using an example that is so obviously relevantly different from the case of an infinite past, when he could just go with Koons' "Grim Messenger" version. Malpass basically handed him that as a replacement option, and I don't understand why Rasmussen won't just take it and run with it. The Grim Messenger paradox is a literal, straightforward contradiction entailed by nothing more than the causal infinity.
Thanks! So, it's untrue to say that the contradiction is entailed by nothing more than causal infinity. Koons himself explicitly points out that he needs auxiliary theses like the intrinsicality of powers, modal patchwork principle/recombination principle, and the further stipulation that each causal node n of the infinite chain is such that property or condition P holds at n iff it holds nowhere causally prior to n. Pruss is also explicit that it is false that 'the contradiction is entailed by nothing more than the causal infinity'. If you're curious about why we need to add the further condition about some property P's holding at member m iff it holds nowhere before m, for any m, see my discussion with Alex here: th-cam.com/video/uoTMs-kMny4/w-d-xo.html
@@MajestyofReason
It makes sense that you'd need that stipulation. I guess I was thinking of that as being akin to assuming the Messengers are literate and not confused about the day and so on. I was thinking it was part of what was unproblematically stipulated until the mere addition of causal infinity turns an unproblematic case into a contradiction. But, I'll keep looking into it. Thanks! And thanks for all the great content. I'm loving it.
I don't think they clearly addressed the flaw in Josh's reasoning from logical to meta-physical. If you make metaphysically possible changes and reach a logical contradiction then that is also meta-physically impossible. However, if you make metaphysically impossible changes, then you can't say that it proves metaphysical impossibility. That is if you violate the more permissive limits then that applies to the less permissive, but if you make more permissive moves, then it no longer applies to the less permissive at all.
Fifth!
Joe if you see this reply with "Much love
Much love
The existence of these guys alone are a proof that God exists.
How can you possibly get smart people like this from fundamentally nothing??!!
Please some one help me out
Most people don't hold there was nothing then something. Nothing there supposed a state of nothing which is something.
The theist posits god is necessary in all possible worlds. There's nothing different about plugging in a natural initial state or having an infinite regression.
@@jmike2039 God as a necessary being is more rational option, than those you suggest.
There is a clear difference
@@yadurajdas532 in virtue of what is it more rational? What's the inference?
By God, what do you mean? A being that has feelings? A personal being? An impersonal, amoral being?
@@gabri41200 essentially God is meaning and value. By value I mean anything that is an experience.
All that is valuable or meaningful to you, is a manifestation of God to you.
This is what the Cam vs RR debate should have been honestly given how much of the argument hinges on this exact discussion. Some thoughts.
1. I disagree with both Rasmussen and Malpass here.
Rasmussen seems to want to slide from causal finitism to either "a finite past" or "a finite number of events". Neither of which is actually entailed by causal finitism.
Malpass wants to boil down the paradox to a contradiction of a pair of premises. I disagree. The contradiction is a triple, or a trilemma, not a pair.
2. On causal finitism
In previous comment sections (this channel, RR's channel, CC's channel, etc.) I've laid out my "angel" solution for the Grim Reaper paradox and argued how it could be generalized with randomness to solve whole classes of paradoxes aside from that one. I don't feel like copy/pasting it again here.
If my solution holds, then the following holds;
i) Causal Finitism is true
ii) There are an infinite number of reapers
iii) There are an infinite number of angels
iv) There are an infinite number of events
So it is incorrect to think that Causal Finitism entails, in any capacity, that there is either a finite past, nor a finite number of events within the past.
3. On the Unsatisfiable Pair
The Grim Reaper paradox derives its contradiction from 3 components:
A) An infinite number of reapers
B) The Bernadette Rule
C) The reapers are uninterrupted while A
My angel solution allows both A and B (for both reapers and angels) only suspending C, which tells me the "no first member" rule is decomposable nontrivially into A and C.
This means you can suspend A (finitism, which is what Rasmussen wants to hold), B (particularism) or C (causal finitism). I agree with Malpass that there is a contradiction here but it's not from an untangle-able pair but from a triple which you can untie with metaphysical commitments.
But yeah this is a fun conversation and the level these debates should have been at all along.
Hi Logos, Loved the response. Agreed with alot of it. However, can you clarify a few things for me.
1. What exactly is the trilemma? A, B & C?
2. Can you present your angel solution for me please
3. How is B an derivation of epistemic particularism?
4. What metaphysical commitments do you think unties them?
@@CMVMic
1. Yes the trilemma is A, B, C.
2. Angel Solution:
The Grim Reaper Paradox has the following rules:
(i) Fred is alive at the beginning (agree)
(ii) Fred can only be killed by a reaper (agree)
(iii) Multiple reapers can't kill Fred simultaneously (agree)
(iv) Once dead, Fred stays dead (will be altered)
(v) There are an infinite number of reapers (agree)
(vi) The Reaper Rule (agree)
To modify (iv) I'm going to add an extra element to the Reaper Paradox called an Angel, and an Angel has the following properties:
(I) Angels can be any subsequence of indices occupied by reapers, (i.e. angels replace or "move" reapers, they are not "outside" the reaper sequence).
(II) An Angel will make Fred alive if Fred is not already alive, (just taking the same reaper rule and applying it to angels).
(III) There can only be a finite number of sequential reapers, and a finite number of sequential angels at a time. In other words, the following rules apply:
(i) Given a reaper, it is a finite number of indices away, in either direction, from an angel.
(ii) Given an angel, it is a finite number of indices away, in either direction, from a reaper.
Putting this together means that the infinite sequence can be organized like:
... -> (finite sequence of reapers) -> (finite sequence of angels) -> (finite sequence of reapers) -> ...
Now, does this solve the paradox? Yes.
Normally:
1. Suppose at some index k, Fred is dead.
2. This means that Fred is killed by some prior reaper.
3. But in order for this prior reaper to kill Fred, Fred would have to be alive, meaning the reaper before IT would kill Fred, ad infinitum.
C. Fred is never killed by a reaper because the previous one should have done it already.
Now:
1. Suppose at some index k, Fred is dead.
2. This means hat Fred is killed by some prior reaper.
3. The sequence of reapers with a reaper rule is finite before some angel appears.
4. As of that Angel, Fred is alive, made alive by the first in the sequence of angels.
C. the first reaper after the last angel kills Fred.
Repeat for the case where Fred is alive.
This rule basically flips the reaper paradox into a quasi-Thompson's lamp paradox where Fred alternates between alive and dead, however, we know he's alive at the beginning so that thwarts the Thompson's lamp question.
3. I don't know about epistemic particularism. I'm more getting at the idea espoused by Pruss as a contender to Causal Finitism that maybe in each paradox, there's a particular rule within that paradox that's the problem and so you evaluate each particular paradox by its own particular circumstances to dissolve it.
So for the Grim Reaper paradox, you could say something like:
The paradox happens because of the way the reaper rule is set up. Why would it be that the reaper rule depends on previous reapers? Why can't we just say that at any time a reaper shows up, if Fred were to still be alive (for any reason or no reason) the reaper kills him? Boom paradox solved.
1. Pick any index k.
2. Suppose Fred is alive as of k.
3. A reaper shows up at k and kills Fred.
C. The end.
If Fred is dead as of index k, great, some other reaper got him and it's none of our business which.
There may, after all, be finite paradoxes with rules like the Bernadette variety that show up in, say, Kafka novels (although admittedly those rules usually end up in a circle and so wouldn't work well a sequence of buck passing). So one might have a suspicion that continuous buck-passing may be the problem simpliciter (I'll do X if someone else didn't already do X).
4. to clarify this one, I think one can untie them, and their choice of which of the 3 rules to suspend comes with metaphysical commitments.
So if you want to allow an uninterrupted sequence of reapers with a buck-passing rule, then you'd have finitism which has things to say about time and all sorts of other considerations, unavoidably. Finitism is a pretty strong commitment.
If you want an infinite sequence of uninterrupted things (or more generally things that all causally relate to each other with no "gaps") then you're going to have to limit which kinds of rules you can say about those things, even if those rules make perfectly good sense for the Causal Finitist cases. That increases the work you have to do for each paradox you want to explain away, each rule possibly requiring different metaphysical assumptions to justify its disuse. Even extra if you want to use the infinite case to justify that it can't be used in the finite one.
Finally, everyone agrees that Causal Finitism has commitments it makes (I don't agree that time is discrete for example, but there may be others).
C is already implied by B. If the reapers can be interrupted then B no longer holds. The contradiction can simply be derived from A and B. There's no need to consider C.
@@RandomYTubeuser This isn't true, see Joe's write up on the matter here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1ghl_Lz1uypgdiOBvsIlU0HcuJDiB0iOmlULOKE2AZT4/edit
"(B) property P holds at member m [for any member m] of the infinite set iff P holds nowhere before m in the set (where 'before' refers to 'earlier' members within the ordering relation."
The property still holds as it would normally. A reaper kills Fred if and only if the reaper has not killed Fred already. Likewise the angel saves Fred if and only if an angel has not saved Fred already.
Neither rule was changed, there are still an infinite number of reapers, still an infinite number of angels, neither has a first member. The sequence containing both (distinct from their sets) has no first member either.
All that's been done is we've controlled their arrangement, accounting for C.
@@logos8312 This wouldn't make the scenario non-paradoxical. The contradiction is now that Fred died and Fred didn't die (Or, Fred was killed by a Grim reaper and Fred wasn't killed by a Grim Reaper). You can always derive a contradiction from just A and B.
Dude, your new camera is crap! The old one was far better because it wasn't as jumpy.
I don't get why theists have a hair up their butts about an infinite past. Even if we prove without a doubt there was an infinite past, they will say God created it, because God is out of time and can do that.
Finite past or Infinite past , you can still have well .... A Ground that grounds the chain .
@@parallax7819 Sure we can have a grounding for the chain. It is just there is no good reason to say it is conscious.
@@gabrielteo3636 is there any good reason to say it is unconscious?
@@jonathacirilo5745 Given there is many orders of magnitudes more unconscious stuff than conscious stuff, inductively the grounding is most likely unconscious.
@@gabrielteo3636 idk if this follows. the fundamental thing that grounds everything else doesn't have to be like most of the things it grounds, or at least it doesn't seem obvious to me that it has. there are also other issues like panpsychism and cosmopsychism too no? if these or some form of these are correct then the part about there being more unconscious stuff than conscious stuff is untrue, since everything is conscious or something like that.
yeeeeah my favorite closet atheist uploads again :DD
I don't know why Rasmussen keeps repeating that if something is metaphysically possible then it needs to be at least logically possible.
We've been over this a hundred years ago already, this is long gone, many of the observations in quantum physics are logically impossible (if you stick to aristotelian logic).
So you need to somehow deny that observation gives you access to metaphysics in order to defend the claim that if something is metaphysically possible then it needs to be at least logically possible.
Logic is not the tool that Rasmussen seems to be thinking it is, Logic is just a formal language, a human socially constructed tool that has its limits (cf Gödel)
If logic is socially constructed, then different cultures and people would have different logic, but logic is the same for everyone. Logic wont change for any culture or people, it is not constructed, different people have different languages, there is one logic,
@@ceceroxy2227 Not only logic is different in different culture, it is different in the same culture.
Hegel invented his logic, Tarski invented his logic, Kripke invented his logic, Quine invented his logic, Priest invented his logic... Need I go on ?
You have fuzzy logic, hybrid logic, quantum logic, paracoherent logic, paraconsistent logic, modal logic, classical logic.... Need I go on ?