I can appreciate the perspective of the agnostic and atheistic. Without empirical evidence of God, and without any direct experience of the divine, believing in God can really seem like a fairytale. In this episode, I aim to guide these folks to the point at which God may become apparent by discussing a seemingly unrelated question: how can you prove that you exist? As we'll see, the same proofs for and against the self can be made for and against God. Ultimately, we hit on the existence of God -- like that of the self -- indirectly, as the unifying concept that allows us to make order out of chaos. Social Media Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090053889622 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/orion-taraban-070b45168/ Instagram: instagram.com/psyc.hacks Twitter: twitter.com/oriontaraban Website: oriontarabanpsyd.com Thinking of going to grad school? Check out STELLAR, my top-rated GRE self-study program based on the world's only empirically-validated test prep system. Use the code "PSYCH" for 10% off all membership plans: stellargre.com. GRE Bites: www.youtube.com/@grebites4993 Become a Psychonaut and join PsycHack's member community: th-cam.com/channels/SduXBjCHkLoo_y9ss2xzXw.htmljoin Book a paid consultation: oriontarabanpsyd.com/consultations Sponsor an episode: oriontarabanpsyd.com/sponsor-an-episode Presented by Orion Taraban, Psy.D. PsycHacks provides viewers with a brief, thought-provoking video several days a week on a variety of psychological topics, inspired by his clinical practice. The intention is for the core idea contained within each video to inspire viewers to see something about themselves or their world in a slightly different light. The ultimate mission of the channel is to reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world. #god #psychology #spirituality
You have excellent insights in other domains. By the way there is an invisible cat that appears in all your videos and hangs out next to your computer monitor.
@@shuabshungne8043 is the name too sacred to say and the dao which cannot be named. In other words the nonpersonified God Yahweh like in Judaism not the misplaced sky daddy all the other religions like to follow. Hinduism is close as well
The thing is that it still goes back to believing what you want to believe. I'm an Atheist and I had a difficult time having the nice feeling of having a higher power being on my side. I ultimately had a breakthrough when I realized that it doesn't matter if there is a god or not, the fact is that I am here against any odds and ultimately existence has been on my side enough for me to continue existing and that is enough. I choose to focus on love even though I see life eating each other. I choose love because I am capable of producing it. I choose to try every day to fulfill my potential and believe that luck is on my side because I create my own luck and write my own story and if there is a god I am part of god and deserve the best, be it for him or me/us.
Existence of God is paramount as without belief in God, even if your moral compass is strong you have no absolute meaning and no absolute ethical system therefore you are prone to falling into the abyss of moral relativism and lies of those who wish to enslave you. Also when you start believing and understand the theological patterns that manifest all around you life attains an additional meta-layer which to most gives meaning, serenity and hope; not because now they can safely cease critical thinking but rather because of everything up until that moment starts falling into place like a constellation forming from thousands of points, a piece of art in every minuscule experience. You indeed cannot unsee God once you realize how the material world and the spiritual world of meaning touch. I wish upon you true faith and a sincere conversion to a theistic worldview. Yours sincerely, ex-antitheist of twenty years. (English is not my native language)
@@nostromo9081I’ve found “theistic” ppl to often be very critically thinking themselves. This extends especially to our fast economic world and larger political issues.
As a former atheist, let me start out by saying I truly hope that you do choose to love. I truly hope you succeed in this choice. But I would also like to ask you, what is "love"? You say you choose love because you are capable of producing it. But you are also capable of producing a whole host of other outcomes and emotions - envy, hate, bitterness, gossip, lies, on and on. Why is love a superior outcome to any of these?
@@nostromo9081I understand your reasoning, it's true that it's easier (meaningful) to live a life within the boundaries of rules, being surrounded by people you love and share the same belief system. But this is not an argument that God exist, we're just social primates that love predictable paths to walk on. However it's hard for secular people to find this, though not impossible.
Thank you Dr. Orion Taraban, I love your TH-cam channel. Yes, it is consistent with my own personal experience. Initially, I assumed you were a very insightful observer of human nature. Now that you brought up God, you are, to me, much more. I grew up not believing in the existence of the divine because my mom said so. Nevertheless, I intuitively felt there was more. I started exploring. Thanks to my many enlightened teachers, I discovered the divine. I had many personal and direct mystical experiences. It was a privilege. I am now a healer, a servant, to make the world a better place. So it is. I bless all of you.
Being able to see the Logos in the world is key to being indestructible, and de-identifying with things we have. But harnessing the Logos to achieve your goals is on another level. I appreciate the help .
The Kingdom of God is within you. It always amazes me how wise those words in the Bible are. I'm not a particularly Christian person, never read the Book, but I do believe in God. Btw one of the best arguments for the existence of God I've heard.
I read that verse about the Kingdom of God yesterday. I fell to my knees and began to cry. The hardest thing I’ll ever do is uncovering my true self and living my divined purpose.
@@ottoeks1 I'll advise you research Jungian archetypes. The 16 personality types. Be careful though - most of the info out there is misleading. CS Joseph on YT is a good resource, but might come off as brash. His typing random people videos are a treasure. Only by watching a person being typed live by him, was I able to recognise myself as this particular archetype. It explains a lot and gives pointers as to what your particular purpose is. Sorry for jumping off into the depths, that's how I communicate. Don't have time for platitudes and small talk 😃
@slatanek You're alright, I appreciate the candor. I know of the Jungian archetypes but I could always know more so I'll look into that. Thank you for the reference.
@@ottoeks1 Good luck to you! I'm on the same journey and I've turned 40. It's never too late. The fact you react in such a way to profound words speaks volumes about you. You'll only be better as a person from any struggles coming your way. Keep it up!
Powerful insight-powerful stuff. You said in a short video what others want to say in a book, and sometimes they can't even say it in a book. To paraphrase Someone...
It's not the tired old 'watchmaker' argument again, I'll grant you that. But all it serves to accomplish is define within a narrow context an abstract existence, of which there are many examples of abstracts. (Abstract ideas such as Justice, where does justice exist? Inside policemen, at the court, in the brain, on the papers laws & rules are written on?) The issue with this is that god is almost never defined as an abstract entity, when in fact you make a very good case for seeing it like this. A human mental construct, like Justice that takes many forms & likely goes away in the absence of the species. Something that is what we make of it.
The rise and fall of civilizations and empires have similar patterns in them. Could Gods just be the collective selves of any given group identity? There is a collective unconscious so it's not impossible
The timing of this is impeccable. I've returned to belief after years of atheism followed by a brief time of paganistic practice. I'm finally at peace, and God is the reason for everything good in my life.
Hi Dr., atheist here. Found your channel about a month ago and I've been enjoying it a lot. Thanks for making an accurate representation of what I think. Most people make unfair representations like: atheists hate God, atheists don't believe what they can't see, and so on. If you'd like to know, your argument didn't convince me because I don't think my "self" exists, like, what is the definition of self here? A more detailed explanation of this could have helped. It's my memories, my ability to feel and think? Obviously, those are linked to my brain. Damage my brain, you damage my "self". Destroy my brain, you destroy my "self". Therefore, what we call self is merely a function of my brain, that's all. There's no intangible part that can't be observed. At the moment there is no technology that allows someone to know what I am thinking just by scanning my brain. Still, all my thoughts are reflected in my brain. So, does your argument require a belief in a dual nature of the universe or the mind? The material and the immaterial, the soul, the abstract, the intangible? because if so, then that must be proven. If not, then I misunderstood what you mean by my "self". I understand what you mean as a construct of language, like "my heart is broken" means my feelings.
Your brain doesn’t determine your likes, dislikes, desires , etc. you can’t think your way into desiring or liking something. That’s how people end up at jobs they hate, they “think” that’s what they want but they don’t know themselves. So hurting your brain can affect the way you “perceive” things, but it doesn’t change your essence
If your brain was what determined everything then how do you explain the ability to override instincts? Thats literally going against what your brain is telling you to do. Also they do have brain imaging software that combines with AI to read what your brain is thinking. You can google it and see.
"There's no intangible part that can't be observed." How do you know this? In principle, that could be totally false...and in practice, it's certainly false at the current time. I don't know what a "soul" is or if there even is such a thing...but it's quite clear that material/immaterial is a false dichotomy. Neils Bohr famously said "Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." and he wasn't saying this to support that dichotomy, but to point out its falsity. All of those words, "soul", "reality", "material", etc. were invented based on our everyday experience, so they are shown to be incompletely defined when we start uncovering what they are outside that everyday context.
I don’t have the god gene so your argument fell completely flat. The “self” as you describe it is a construct of course, but it is another way of describing the “hard problem” of cognitive science. The hard problem has to do with not yet understanding how our biology gives rise to consciousness. I don’t need faith to observe your self/consciousness. It’s just your human biology responding to stimuli just like any other living thing. To extrapolate the faith in the self into a case to believe in intelligent design is your leap of faith. You have made no converts here. Your argument is highly illogical. Live long and prosper.
@@jasonmiller3167 If the human biology is just responding to stimuli, then how is it a leap of faith to believe in intelligent design? Its literally just the human biology responding to stimuli. Yall think you are so smart, but you really arent.
Great work, Sir! I do believe this video to be very helpful and useful. I am already accepting, lead mostly by my experience. It helps to facilitate communication with both those who do, and those who do not accept the existence of God. The relevant thing for me is the kind of God that one envisions, the nature of that God, and what that God may inspire in the believers.
Hmm, I think there's a missing base piece. Before we question the measurement of 'self' and 'experience of that self', it needs to be alive first. You can experience another living being thru physical interactions.
@@my-rocket first you have to determine what is a good argument for god and what isnt. Atheists always get stuck when i ask them this: what would a man say that would sound good to you for a argument of God. If every argument is a bad argument then that means you cant say its a bad argument because there is no standard.
And the word of the Yah became flesh, died on the cross (for the sins of the mankind) and rose from the dead. For without the shedding of the blood; there is no forgiveness of the sin. Hence Yeshua said: I am the way The truth and The life. Those who receive the mark of the beast; they are unredeemable as the word states.
@@robertmccabe8632 And the Bible also said that the earth is flat, 10,000 years old, and that the sun revolves around the earth. Yet the Bible mentions nothing about dinosaurs, bacteria, or anything that the men of that time didn’t know. Just because the Bible gives you a pipe dream of immortality that doesn’t mean it wasn’t made up in a savage age by superstitious men. Oh, and one of the main characters is a talking snake.
@@faceious2006 Actually the Bible says the earth is round. It also doesn’t say how old the earth is, but merely how long it’s been from the creation of orderly nature on earth. The book of Job in the Bible, which is really a collection of books, does speak of dinosaurs. And there are verses referring to them in other books. Interestingly, the Book of Job also says that “God hung the earth on nothing”. How would people thousands of years before space flight know that the earth is actually hanging on nothing in space?
Keep going. Go deeper. Beyond our personalities and roles and “self” and thoughts and feelings, you will find the real you and God, and you will see it in others.
Thank you for making a video that helps us understand your perspective. For me, the merit of your argument is conveying an understanding that something may exist that I cannot prove. I concede this fact. The part I cannot concede however, is that we should follow our desire to see what cannot be seen because there is no way to prove it is not there. This is unfalsifiability. That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
I spent over a decade digging into this issue, mainly that strange things started happening in my life. My conclusion at this point - out of all of the ideas I've heard I think Donald Hoffman and Chetan Prakash's 'Conscious Realism' seems to map the most inclusively to both the things in life that fit and don't fit reductive materialism. To give a thumbnail there's a model of how consciousness connects to consciousness called 'functionalism with multiple realizability', where consciousness can participate in multiple levels of being at the same time - such that other parts of your body might have private experience but you'd experience that experience or its results as subconscious. The idea would be that this can go from cells to tissues to organs to people to families, cities, nations, planets, etc.. and each layer has it's own private experience of its own existence. What might be miracles or visions to us may not be exclusively but may easily include impulses from higher amalgamations of consciousness coming back down the chain and hitting us directly (synchronicity I'd speak similarly of). Hoffman and Prakash are working on a deeply granular model of this, ie. a kind of granular absolute idealism (similar style of mechanics to panpsychism but not buying into the existence of spacetime as fundamental) which hosts Darwinian game theory and evolution as well as genetic competition for fitness payouts.
I'm so grateful that I encountered this message - you can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't exist neither. As I came to believe in God, I'm a much more peaceful, grateful and kind person. So I'll be faithful, succumb to a higher power and work on approaching a better me, a higher self.
Science already proved that God exists, it's only that the $cienti$t$ chose to interpret the mathematical results upside down . God kind of hates pedophilia, therefore the darwinists chose to hate God .
@@exnihilonihilfit6316 Perhaps they could be explained scientifically, but science is explained theologically. God made Laws of Nature. Laws of Nature made... Nature. Nature made humanity.
Since I've come to God, I see the "self" in all animals and insects now. It's truly cool. We have spiders in our house (I leave them be) and they are fascinating to watch! I saw a momma spider carrying her egg sac, finding a nice safe spot. I saw two spiders gently touching each other's legs, they were clearly communicating in some fashion. My dog's obvious intelligence always impresses me. They definitely understand more of our language than we give them credit for. They can get "the gist." I watch the Dodo and Geobeats religiously. I've been able to attain a certain level of inner peace which I thought would never happen. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD so my brain was always screaming. I grew up in an abusive atheistic house. The only comfort I had was praying to God to make me good. Unfortunately my experiences left me so bitter and depressed that I stopped having faith and I lived in darkness for a long time. I allowed humans to corrupt my faith. Never again!
As an atheist, I find the alien analogy more convincing as an argument for the 'self' (whatever you mean by that) of other living beings than of a god. We believe that other humans have a consciousness and self because we experience it ourselves and assume other people do in the same way. But many animals exhibit the personalities and individual traits you listed that, from an intelligent alien's perspective, wouldn't make us appear so fundamentally unique as a species. If we wanted to convince aliens that we have a self, we'd have to first figure out how they experience their sense of self. We could connect over our similarities then show how we're the same but different. We just have to hope they're similar enough to us to do that before we destroy each other. Orson Scott Card explored this very well in Ender's Game where a fundamental difference in the human experience of self and the aliens' was the entire reason for the war. I agree that we're limited in what we can understand by our human perspective but that doesn't mean a god has to exist in the realm of things we don't understand. I can connect to the universe and a sense of the infinite in a deeply personal and meaningful way without believing that there is a being that I'm connecting to who it would benefit me to worship and who cares about me in a personal way.
I am christian agnostic. I am also a decade on a spiritual path of self-liberation. I read enormous amount of spiritual text especially about God. This is fantastic way of acknowledging God's existence in very simple way without going into quantum physics, galaxies, occult or any extremely expansive way of thinking. Bravo Dr. Orion.
A good job a challenging assignment for someone to take up. It's one that every human should. I like your thought about seeing God because once you do you can never unsee it. That's why there's plenty of Grace beyond our understanding.
This reminds me of the Vsauce video "Do Chairs Exist", where he takes a simple question and goes into endless semantics and nonsense to complicate something that is not even defined super precisely. The real and inportant question here is "does god influence our reality in some way"? There's no evidence that prayer works, no evidence for some of the historical events in the bible, and surely no evidence that god communicated to us any of that information anyway. No indication of a real heaven or hell or afterlife. So why should I follow any of it?
For the same reason you believe yourself to exist: because you have a direct experience of your own consciousness. You weren't always self-conscious, and one day you became that way. What happened? It wasn't evidence or a good argument that tipped the scales. You just sorta "recognized" yourself, and the rest is history.
@@psychacks So in the end your claim comes down to "people believe because of personal experience"? And those people that don't share your view or experience are...? Wrong? Damaged? Unreasonable? Unenlightened? Or does god simply hate us and has made us unable to perceive what seems so clear to you?
@@vex1669 The whole essay strikes me as a utilitarian, God of the gaps mish mash. It would be interesting to hear his view of terror management theory.
@@psychacks Yours is just a massive "God" of the gaps argument. You (think you) have identified something we do not quite (yet) understand and you want to shoe-horn "God" into that space. I always find it astonishing and sad when a person with some scientific understanding parks it at the door of the "church". If you have good, credible evidence for the existence of a "God", present it, but first be very precise about which "God" it is and how you reached that determination.
Consciousness and the sense of self is (as of our current scientific knowledge) inherently a subjective process. We assume other people are conscious and have a sense of self, only because we do. We can this idea of a 'self' to better conceptualize it, just like we black box 'personality' and some choose to blackbox 'God'. He mentions that they are just abstractions to better conceptualize observable behavior (walking on the beach - introvert, etc). Consciousness is an emergent behavior, and related to the ''fallacy of division". (check those out). For instance, why do birds flock? We can't identify exactly why they do that. We can't pick a 'part' of the bird that causes flocking behavior, but flocking behavior emerges. But fundamentally, some part/whole of the bird does cause flocking behavior. Somewhere in the brain, some part of interaction of parts that form some or all of the whole results in flocking behavior. This is how I view consciosness and the sense of the self. It is an emergent behavior, a conceptualization. What I think he misses here, is that just because we can't observe what exactly causes someone to be introverted/extroverted, sense of self, etc, doesn't mean the blackbox is actually a blackbox. God isn't actually 'God'. The self isn't actually 'the self'. The 'self' exists as a useful abstraction, but there is no evidence the 'self' exists, as he says. From my understanding, the 'self' is an emergent process that results from our electrochemical meat brain, which is beholden to the laws of nature, chemical reactions, electricity, etc. It is an illusion. We feel it strongly, but it only exists as an emergent behavior, that's why you can't 'see' consciousness on a scan currently. We don't have the understanding or technology to test these sorts of things, our understanding of the brain is quite vague and conceptual. You can't look at a part, you need to look at how the parts form an interact with the whole. One day, we might have a scan that can take the parts and the whole in totality and give us a YES/NO answer if something is conscious? What then? But I think religious people would agree, just because you can't measure something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, the burden of proof lies on the one purporting such unverifiable claims. I am proposing determinism causes all these behaviors, which is a leap of faith same as those who propose God causes all these behaviors. I would argue that determinism is a more 'real abstraction' (haha) than God, simply because everything we observed thus far in the Universe is deterministic or random, and randomness in my opinion is just determinism where we don't know all the contributing variables/factors. My main criticism is that I wish people were comfortable saying "I don't know", but people need to answer everything, even in the face of bad or non-existant evidence. I'm not absolved of this either, I have 'faith' in the fact that the self is an emergent behavior, in a deterministic electro-chemical meat brain. I have 'faith' that the universe is deterministic. I have 'faith' that randomness is just poorly-measured and conceptualized determinism (when we don't know all the variables of a system, we abstract some of it to randomness). I think that as we discover more, everything, including the self and God and quantum stuff will be reduced to determinism. But that is just my belief, as those who believe in God. I just feel determinism has more supporting evidence than a 'God', however I understand why people arrive at that abstraction. Just my thoughts. Love the channel btw :)
Love the flocking example. Sum of all is more. And can be observed by us as tied together or affect or not. Like if we look on our self. We have organisms in other body they are not us. Still they are seen as part of us. Microbiotics. Even parts of our cells is mostly likely formed long ago into a symbiotic. Take an ant hill. An ant hage very simple function. And most stimuli is just pheromone based. Still together they form pattern and what could be seen as intelligence. The hive mind. If I hurt my hand. My body reacts and sends sells there to repair. Of something happens in a crowd of people that also creates and outcome. All this very similar just on different scales and complexity. Then again the deeper we look the more skins the onion seems to have.
You mean Ahura Mazda, who in fact defeated and exiled Zeus from Eranshahr with the rise of the Parthians. Poor Zeus got so scared he changed his name to Jupiter after that 😔
Because I feel myself, I can understand the existence of others like me. Through my senses I can understand the idea of an external world. Thanks to our intellect we can understand the existence of patterns and infer the laws of physics. Thanks to history, sociology, psychology, we can understand why the human being needed religion and rituals to face a world so difficult to understand. The idea of God was a useful tool somewhere in the past. Today we must focus on improving science and ethics and also improve our interrelationships with other human beings.
@@obliteratebankai The concept of existence and self precedes all other things that the human mind can think of, the concept of God is only one among a million other things. But it is not on the same level as the concept of self.
You are plain Wrong. Thanks to our intellect we can understand the existence of patterns and infer the laws of physics, therefore If we need our intellect to grasp these patterns, these patterns required another intelligent being to exist in the first place. (If you dont get this argument you are certainly not as intelligent as all the geniuses who created modern science who actually believed in this argument). Also, "The concept of existence and self precedes all other things that the human mind can think of" , that is probably true for yourself in your mind but not for the external world. The rest of the world does not have any direct proof that you exist as a person.
@@jorge-7121 Of course I am completely wrong, and you are absolutely right. In three lines I wrote a casual, easy and subjective explanation of how the self can see the subject of the video. Sorry if I couldn't synthesize the work of all the geniuses in history. I hope you can do a better job. Waiting.
@@jorge-7121 patterns emerge naturally out of chaos and it has been observed everywhere. Data Science is about finding meaning and patterns and when you apply Data Science on whatever random data you often discover certain patterns. No intelligent entity needs to exist to put that data into any specific order. All conforms to laws of probability and quantum physics. I don't believe it was God who created Earth or human creatures. It is so arrogant of us as species to think we are that special in the whole universe. What I can believe, though, is that maybe it was actually God who created the fundamental pieces of which the whole universe is made of - space, time, energy and some matter, which we have already studied and to some degree understood and some matter that still remains mystery to us.
If I understand correctly, your argument rests on the notion that just as "you" is a concept obtained, not by precise definition, but rather a leap of faith based on empirical observations, the possibility of a God (as in a pattern generator) can be posited from the stable patterns (ie. laws of nature and such) that we've observed till date. This is supposedly because you cannot defend the notion of a self without also using the same principle to invoke a God whose machinations led to the universe as we experience it. Interesting argument and it's definitely one I haven't heard before, but this sounds to me like a variant of the prime mover argument. I'll have to ponder on this a little and come back to give my thoughts. P.S. I just discovered your channel and I like what I see so far. You are very eloquent and methodical without being too clinical like some of the technophiles on TH-cam. Keep it up!
Imagine your self-awareness is a phenomenon of your nervous system. All those chemical reactions and electrical impulses are too minute and complex(and maybe most are currently undetectable) to be translatable into the self-awareness the subject experiences. It's like you're saying, oh, there's something we don't understand so there must be god. I think if we could detect and understand everything about our nervous system we could translate those things into the phenomenon of self-awareness.
Unpopular opinion, but (ultimately) science "explains" nothing: it merely describes the succession of phenomena at an increasingly granular level. To "understand" in this context is to be cognizant of the correct sequence of steps.
@@psychacks how dose science explain "nothing" ? Could you elaborate. Since science have explained a lot of things we take for granted today. And it's still improving our understanding.
@@psychacks Thanks for the reply. I think science seeks to explain the "how", not the "why". For the "why" question there is no need to discuss phenomena at all.
@@SigurdKristvik is like how the "self" isn't proven but is a good hypothesis that explains behavior. In science we explain phenomena with other more basic phenomena. The assumptions we use for explaining all phenomena are unproven, like the law of conservation of energy or the assumption that the laws of physics are uniform across time and space. They aren't proven they just consistently seem to be true.
@@psychacks I don’t understand how you could claim that science explains nothing when the medicine and technology we’ve been able to develop from it are so useful.
Greatness. I’m glad you covered this topic because it is undeniable. Call it god, energy, collective consciousness, ether, Allah, doesn’t matter. The I AM exists apart from the i am. Good luck for all of y’all going down the rabbit hole!
“You can’t unsee God” is so true! A puddle is a miracle to me now (that humans are 70% water and all life on a floating supersonic rock has that), and the same puddle was a dull random fact/noun to atheist me. The absurdity of existence is something I chuckle at now. Praise to the creator
As an atheist, my problem is not with this kind of philosophical arguments about the existence of a "prime mover" or "first cause" or "pattern of patterns", etc. These can plausibly exist like "personaliy" or "time", or not exist like "ether" or "humors". My problem is with organized religion, and how it meddles into politics to control people's lives and decide for them how they should live, what they should learn at school, and how nations and armies should move and be organized, because a bunch people are convinced that "some hobo many years or centuries ago heard the voice of the Supreme being telling him to do X Y and Z".
Being a theist, I can agree with your point. Institutes muddle the idea of religion in a quest to have all the money and control possible when the spiritual aspect of it is so simple.
"Can never unsee it" is true. I was agnostic until I tried to disprove intelligent design, thinking rational and logic would prevail. It sucked me in for a year, and I concluded (based on logic and reason) that the argument for intelligent design outweighed the Richard Dawkins argument for randomness. Everyone has to take their own path, and not be judged by others. Thanks for another honest discussion Orion, it's the best any one can ask for.
But it doesn't prove God. If intelligent design convinces you, it can convince you just that it's intelligent, but not of a particular being, and in case of. Most religions, a very specific being.
Honestly I think this saying can cut both ways. Once you see the world without the common conception of "GOD" you can't unsee it. However there are those also who genuinely believed with religious persuasion and came to a place where per their greater knowledge and full experience and context, they unsaw it.
Easy to solve. There might be countless billions of paralel universes that are sterile. Filled with grey goo. Neutrons only. Exclusively photons or just vacuous.
Wow... what a long winded way of saying that you are scientifically illiterate and never actually studied biology or evolution. How much money would I win if I bet your family/school/community are Young Earth Creationists???
The universe is only chaotic and random to us humans...who are deeply inclined to impose order on everything. The universe just is. It has no obligation to ever make sense. It's actually circular reasoning to identify "chaos and randomness" just to invoke an explanation, which is (conveniently) your particular deity. Even if I accept the premise, it opens up numerous possible explanations, not just your god.
I don’t want to debate religion or philosophy but I’m compelled to point out a pretty serious logical flaw with your argument. A person does have very high quality evidence that he or she exists. Descartes said “Cogito ergo sum”, which roughly translates to “I think, therefore I exist.” That’s one of the most fundamental building blocks of thoughtful rational people. Because you do have this hard evidence supporting the conclusion that you exist, it is not at all analogous to the situation of pondering whether one or more gods exist, where similar hard evidence is missing.
As a physiologist my stance has always been "I can neither prove nor disprove God's existence" and always left it at that. This is the most compelling argument for the existence of God I have ever heard. Well done.
First off, you can’t prove something doesn’t exist. That’s literally impossible. Second, the burden of proof is not on you. The burden of proof is on those making unsubstantiated claims. Finally, how is this argument convincing?
if a god is given characteristics, then one can indeed prove or disprove this entity. That's why the various gods of the various religions keep getting vaguer and vaguer, giving the desperate theists a chance at their "hidden" god excuse.
thefaded etc: "... the most compelling argument for the existence of God ..." - What exactly do you find compelling? I note that you "... can neither prove nor disprove God's existence ...". So, do you believe a "God" exists or do you not? I have a small personal bet on your answer to this question.
From what I’ve learned. If you open up any science textbook. And see how complex the human body is, there’s no way you cant say God isn’t real. Chaos just begets more chaos. Order begets order. We are so intellectually designed. There for sure is a god.
In that video Orion just proved the position of Agnosticism by stating that you cannot prove the existence of God by the way 😅 Yes, you can believe in God and it's your ideology, but you can believe in no God and that’s also an ideology. Unfortunately, with the last one it’s not possible to explain every inexplicable thing you can encounter. It’s impossibly difficult to know all scientific fields and even so, there is no proven “Theory of Everything”. If you believe in God you can explain every transcendent thing as “It’s God” and that’s it. It’s very simple to live as a believer and I kinda envy these people.
Hi, Atheist here. I appreciate your argument. However, I am having trouble with the lack of empirical evidence of the 'self' or personality part. You say that there is no empirical evidence for a sense of self or a personality. But I don't think that this is a claim that can be made when one looks at emergent behaviour. In machine learning, adding together multiple simple models can produce an overall complex model with hard to predict behaviours. If you asked Chat GPT to write an essay, it isn't realistically possible to predict exactly what it is going to write. But, we understand how it works. In much the same way, the human brain is just a collection of simple models (neurons) that can work together to produce emergent behaviours (personality, self, etc). Therefore, the only difference between the human brain and an artificial neural network from this perspective is just the number of neurons. We can't predict personality traits, but we can stick a person in an MRI machine to see the electrical signals in the brain. And it's those electrical signals that lead to emergent behaviours such as personality traits.
But I think his point is that those signals dont tell you personality traits....his argument is rooted in the idea that randomness exists but allow me to flip that argument on its head...how do you know you're not in a simulation? Think the matrix, where in reality you're in a tube of liquid but you're body gets sent the signals to interpret what you see and sense as real... At the end of the day, theres no way to know for sure ANYTHING. Even with what we know to be proof and evidence can simply just not exist....the same way you sorta just trust what you experiece as real, people do that with God as well as other higher entitoes / beings...
Interesting point, but comparing the self to ChatGPT is actually a very theistic argument. It was created by humans, just as theists say God created us. It wasn’t random but intentional.
All your underlying statements are valid, and yet don't counter the argument made... Yes, your self appears as an emergent pattern of things, but there's no "thing" you can point to and identify as the "self particles". The self does not exist in that way. Similarly, God does not exist in that way. This isn't an argument for any particular God or gods, it's an argument that something that exists in the same manner as mathematics (or selves, or authors from the standpoint of characters in a story), rather than fruit, "exists" and is worth accounting for (by whatever model of "God" you wish to build).
I caught that. He takes Descartes self-awareness. And adds faith in the existence of others to it, which negates Descartes goal of a logical metaphysical foundation to philosophy. I'm satisfied with life, God and my own rational. I'll write a book on it someday.
I'm an atheist who enjoys life. I see no benefit in belief for myself. For others, if belief provides a benefit, that's great. As for religion, I think it has caused humanity a great deal of pain. I recommend listening to a few talks by the late great Christopher Hitchens for brilliant insight on this topic.
I know many will see this post and say that it's extreamly nagative. Honestly, with all the bullshit going on in the world and uncertainty. Why are humans so obsessed with seeing, feeling and acknowledging God. It seems to me that most humans are looking outside themseleves for some kind of answer. When in fact humans beings should be looking into themseleves so that they could understand themselves better. By understanding who you are as a person your better able to see your faults and work on them. Therefore being a better person to yourself and to other human beings. I'm sorry but seraching for God is not the answer, it's not working. Even when I speak to so called believers many don't look happy and wear a mask of deceit. I grew up in the church which allowed me to observe this first hand. I'm greatful for my experiance growing up in the church because it helped shape me into a nice young women. I was able to recieve good advice and stay on a pretty straight and narrow path in life. So it's not all bad but this is just my opinion .
1- God has given us enough wisdom, BUT (good or bad) he also gave us autonomy. 2- I took 5GR of psychedelics last year to battle depression and instead saw the sacred geometry and my life has never been the same. I saw everything, and I was told a lot. Love, compassion, care, and to be of service to others. I no longer say things like "with all the bs going on in the world", there's a lot of good going on in the world too and if instead of laying blame, if we all just did A LITTLE BIT! the world would change. Instead of blaming god, allah, jesus or whoever, if we each, individually were just nice to someone, bought someone a cup of coffee, filled the fridge downtown (if you have one of those in your city/town) with goodies people less fortunate etc. the world would be a better place. Instead our generation wants to outsource everything to god and do nothing. Note: If you take psychedelics, do not take 5GRAMS like I did, I'm just a weirdo like that and was suffering with depression and i literally thought, let it delete me , who cares. Don't take it at all if you have any medical conditions or are taking medications and take it under the supervision of a professional. DO NOT do what I did.
How can you look into yourself and determine how you can be better? That makes no sense. You have to compare yourself to something to know what "better" is. Even then that is subjective. Nothing is objective without God. Thats why everyone who looks at this subject logically comes to the conclusion there must be a God because we know things are objective like good and evil. Without God good and evil is relative and subjective so there is no actual good or evil, just opinions. I will never understand why atheists hold believers to some impossible standard of perfection and then pretend that proves there is no God. Completely incoherent arguement. The entire point of the bible is that we are all sinners and need a savior because we cant save ourselves. The bible explains every objection you have, but you create strawmen to fight with instead of read it. Growing up in the church means nothing, you dont know the first thing about God or Christianity. You have the understanding of a child.
@Maria Blanco Look around the world, people do evil stuff all the time. Anyone who doesnt believe humans are inherently evil is stupid. You were taught not to harm humans or yourself, by people who learned it from religion. Go look at how the world was in 3000 bc. Lots of bad stuff like human sacrifice (including children) and murder was going on. No one cared. Many Christians pretend what? We know God is good, because evil is the opposite of Gods nature. Thats how we define good and evil. We do what is in Gods nature (good) and we dont do whats against Gods nature (evil).
The problem with his video is that he does not define what god might be. My thoughts on that topic are very similar, but I don't think that "Your self exists. Therefore, a god has to exist too." but as "Your self exists, therefore a godlike entity exists." On that interpretation, I don't have a problem with looking for god if what I find is indeed myself. I might not decline an entity of god separate from us (since it can not be disproven), but that does not mean I am looking in that direction for answers for the betterment of my life. I would say that "Your self exists. Therefore, a god has to exist too." is also problematic because the first assumption does not prove the second. It only proves that if we take that leap of faith, a godlike entity exists. Maybe that even is his interpretation, and he only wanted to use the word god because he is fascinated with the belief that there is more than just physical matter and chemical reactions.
Well, you made some points that made me not believe even more: 1. you can't prove that you exist, therefore god - same old crap that many before you pushed and failed. Yes, we are reacting impulses based on previous known impulses received, stored in our brains. 2. universe is chaotic and unpredictable therefore god - not this again, it's not even funny any more. Who told you that? Like the previous point, universe it's reacting to impulses that we may or may not see or measure. That's quite a leap to claim that it's a supernatural force or entity. Can you prove that gravity exists? Or light? Now you can and because it wasn't proven before it was assumed it's "god". The more our race finds out, the less need is for supernatural beliefs. 3. if you want to interact with others in the universe, you would use a language that is common and constant in the universe like mathematics. (1+1 will be 2 in all corners of the universe, despite the woke agenda to make it 3 or 4 or....) 4. I'm not saying that religion is unnecessary, but the old saying "we don't know X therefore god" it's getting really old and annoying by now and honestly I was expecting more from you.
You know, I kind of wonder the same, and to be frank, I think it might be the case. Question really is, why hasn’t he call back? Kind of like a “lady send XXX years ago”. Faith truly is the evidence of the things unseen.
Your video gave a VERY compelling argument and resonated with me... I'm a bio-molecular physics researcher and engineer, and worked for famous Cornell Geneticist John C. Sanford. I believe in Intelligent Design and have written peer-reviewed scientific criticisms of natural evolution being an explanation for the complex structures in biology from the cell to the brain... From a pragmatic standpoint, it's much easier to look at biological systems as engineered for purpose rather than rote reproduction. Darwin said, each time he looked at a Peacock's tail it made him sick. He said this presumably because he realized the elaborate mating ritual that involved the Peacock's tail is reproductively inefficient, and therefore can't be the product of so-called Natural Selection. Prior to Darwin, it was believed the Peacock's tail and so much of the biological world was made to make men wonder at their Creator but also know their own mortality and frailty, and thus their need of God as their provider and Savior in a fine-tuned but also troubled and dying universe. The existence of God makes meaningful the concept of love. Atheist Bertrand Russell said in the prologue to his autobiography: " I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found."
Isn't the self just based on the arrangement of neurons and balance of neurochemicals? It's like a computer is fairly unique due to the data stored on the hard drive. It's the data on the hard drive of our brain that defines the self. I donno if you could access it non-destructively. But it seems like a pretty simple and intuitive answer. As for "proof", you're correct that an MRI is insufficiently precise, both in terms of being able to target individual neurons and in terms of being able to capture the full pulse sequence. I can't just trace through code like I can in a computer. However, it is precise enough to deduce a high level neural architecture. And experiments in individual neurons demonstrate the functions of the base "silicon". While these are extrapolations, they are extrapolations from a very solid basis of proven science. We have yet to even establish a starting point for extrapolations of God, based on any kind of observable phenomena. The only argument any believers can make boils down to "I am insufficiently creative or knowledgeable to come up with any explanation other than a simple catch-all." Both require a jump, but God requires a jump from nowhere.
Exactly. And it means we need to accept ALL jumps from nowhere or NONE. Meaning any god, or any phenomena that we can’t explain or observe with any of our methods needs to be seen as facts. Which could be rather unfortunate. At least in the good old witch hunt they had some basic rules to follow
This is essentially a leap of faith. This boils down to: I have a self and this self doesn't seem to be any individual part of my body, and since we can't point to anything individually in the universe to be god, then god exists. But IMHO, your reasoning can only lead to "god might exist". Because if you go all the way to "god exists", then the same reasoning could be applied to a rock having a self just because we can't find the individual thing to be the self in a rock. To me, the self is our bodies (mostly our brain) and all the processes that it goes through. One could even argue that the self is a convenient illusion that our bodies play for us, and that illusion could have been an advantage in natural selection and that's why it exists. And if that's the case, then I could have the same leap of faith but backwards: because the self is an illusion, then god doesn't exist. Which is also not true, because god might exist even if the self is an illusion. One more thing, folks: even if the god proposed by dr. Orion exists, it's even another leap of faith to believe it's the christian god or that it would care for you.
You have not convinced me. I still don't believe. However, you're a smart man and I like your red pill content so I will keep watching future videos. Cheerio bud.
I find the conclusion fascinating ( believed in God all my life), and i arrived at thelat same conclusion about searching for answers, back in high school: ..that most of the time, whatever we spend time looking for is almost always right in front of us.
lack of specific consensus does not negate the topic in question, on the contrary, the great amount of humans who can see something that you cant should bring your own ideas into a state of uncertainty, which by reasoning, seeing as you asked in the first place, already has.@@johnlesoudeur3653
God is concerned only with upliftment, spiritual progress, healing and the achievement of the Kingdom of Heaven. God demonstrates his UNCONDITIONAL LOVE towards us by enabling us to: grow, create, be nourished and nourish others, to be healed and to heal others, to educate and educate others, to protect and protect others, to fulfill our needs and for us to fulfill the needs of others, all within a clear system of law and order. This is God in action.
Good job Orion.I was just speaking to my fourteen-year-old son about this very subject. This may be a bit heady for him, but I think he will grasp the core concepts. You have fleshed them out in a manner that is tangible, logical, and relevant. Well worded.
The universe isn't random it follows the laws of physics. Having listened carefully to your video, I'm still of the opinion we have as much understanding about what's going on as an 🐜 sitting on top of a blade of grass has an understanding of a passenger aeroplane flying way above his head. Enjoyable video all the same.
The universe isn't random no, but your argument is akin to pointing out the electrochemical substrate that is the brain and say it doesn't indicate a self.
BEST QUICK MATH EXPLANATION FOR GOD: - behavioral systems follow natural selection: the lesser effective ones do not survive the presence of more efficient ones. - assuming the mind commonly need answers, and expands resources (time and calories) searching them, then the more efficient behavioral system is the one capable of providing non-malign answers at the least cost (time and calorie). - hence, a thought behavioral system which answers most insignificant question with "ITS DESIGNED BY GOD" is much more effective than a competing thought behavioral system which answers it by the correct, but much more brain-expensive answer Example: which population of humans is likely to survive and conquer: the one answering "the purpose of life is to praise the lord and reproduce", or the one who "huh, I don't know, let me search for the purpose of life for 40 years in possible anguish, at the expense of my own reproduction, OH! I FINALLY FOUND IT! [explanation, to his non-existent offspring]" ??? Hence, you can see that the belief in god is an evolutionary stable pattern. God is not the correct answer: its the stable one. (Much like it's useless for cats to enjoy sugar. or any number of specie-specific limitations that are actually evolutionary benefits to their conditions) PS: I used PsycHacks' many words against his own position.
This is called an argument from personal incredulity. Just because you don't understand something it doesn't make something else more likely. It just means you don't understand it. You've then hopped over to the god or gaps argument. You've created what you believe to be a gap in logic and inserted god. Even if lack of proof of the self was a valid argument (it isn't) there are an unlimited number of ways to try to explain it. But you went god. Your cognitive dissonance started you at a conclusion you were comfortable with and you then sought out an argument to fit your preconceived ideas. There's absolutely no proof of god in this argument and I would suggest spending some time reflecting on why you are attempting to prove it in the first place?
Jumping over the gap in logic is faith, and people do that in a thousand different ways every day without realizing it. There is no proof for God (just as there is no proof in the experienced self) beyond the conscious experience as such.
If we were able to fill in the gaps of our collective human knowledge, how is the existence of God or Gods ruled out in that scenario? Do we not have tools or instruments to be able to detect and analyze the things we can’t sense? I personally disagree with the video that Scriptures can’t be used as evidence to prove God’s existence because Jesus, the Savior, testified about Himself using the Scriptures. Speaking from a Christian perspective, if Jesus were walking the earth right this very moment, the only way to prove He is God would be through the Scriptures. If the Scriptures didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a way to differentiate Him from any other false prophet who performs miracles.
5:05 _we would be appalled and horrified_ I wouldn't. Probably cause I believe ego is an illusion. Probably birds can have "self" too, but does it count for us? 7:50 _everything starts to make sense_ Does it, or it seems? 8:40 _increasingly predict their future behavior_ It is good, but what predictions of God's behavior do you have? 10:40 _Univese seems chaotic_ What predictions of Univese's behavior do you have? 11:14 _responsible for generationg the patterns that we seems_ Like 9/11 or localhost? 11:40 _Futile of frustrating_ So, is it really predictable, or it is just feels-good explanation?
Hello, I think that your idea that science can and will explain all observable phenomena in a materialist reductionist way, is nothing short of faith itself. A faith in things (scientific theories) yet unseen, and a faith that such a theory will stand the test of time without being improved to the extent of requiring redefinition. What do you think?
Very nice way to look at this topic. As an agnostic myself (depending on the definition) my reaction to this video was: yes, but that view requires a definition of what God can possibly be that is not really in line with what most believers I talk to define god to be. But that may be a bit of a selection bias. Will definitely reflect on these inputs.
There are all kinds of believers. His description is certainly in line with my beliefs going decades back. I view religion as the set of unfalsifiable beliefs that a person uses to provide a sense-making frame and goal-setting basis to reality. I view the "organized" religions as competing religious theories, analogous to physical theories of impetus, universal gravitation, general relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. (which are all incompatible with each other, and all "true" to a degree, and incomplete/inaccurate to a degree, and which we would be much poorer for ignoring/discounting on grounds of their imperfections). In practice, I individually associate primarily with Christianity from an investigative and descriptive frame (rather than the dogmatic prescriptive frame that gets all the media attention due to its toxicity and targeting ease). Hope that was at least mildly helpful/useful. Grace and Peace to you. 😁
The best “ explanation” of the existence of God! Amazing video that I have shared with my family I totally loved your analogy of the alien trying to comprehend humans … I think that the human mind and body is limited by its basic 5 senses to truly “prove” the existence of God yet we experience God unknowingly, uncomprehendingly I am Indian, Hindu, loved your explanation of God Interestingly, in ancient Hindu scriptures, Gods are described as aliens
Hi Dr Orion, would you mind explaining this part at 13:53 " Indeed, once seen both seem the plainest facts of existence in no small part, because you realize that you had been looking right at them the entire time" . I feel like if I understand this sentence, it will help me understand the entire video. Many thanks
If free will doesnt exist then why even argue about it? We cant stop believing because we dont have free will. Its a waste of time. Sam Harris is a grifter.
@@mastershake4641 I mean, since we're on a psychology channel, let's take CBT for example - you use behavior to change unwelcome patterns your brain is operating under. Why would a brain want to change itself? Where did this decision come from? One could argue from the sensation of "pain" but if a brain is just a well-oiled machine that's made to run efficiently and with a part of least resistance I doubt this would be the case.
@@Vladimyrful They want to reduce us to being animals. Animals dont over ride their instincts, we do. Its on them to prove this is part of evolution, because there is absolutely no proof that is true. But they think we are the irrational ones.
Ok, fair enough. I'm an atheist and I this is my reply to your video. The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions God is "which one exactly?" You did not define God, so I don't really know what are we talking about here. Is it Yahweh? Allah? Brahma? Zeus? Odin? Or something else entirely? After you choose the one you believe in, my second question is: Why not the others? And I think this question is important because the reasoning behind why religious people disbelieve in all the "other" gods is pretty much the same as why I disbelieve in their god. About your point on the "proof" of self: Again, what do you mean by self? You didn't define that either. It sounds like you mean consciousness when you talk about the self, so I will take that. My answer to that is no, I cannot prove my consciousness to other people and other people cannot prove their consciousness to me. But I know I have it and since other people came into this world the same way I did, that's enough for me to make a fair assumption that others must have a consciousness of their own too. And since my relantionship with others under that assumption works well enough I really do not have the need of further proof. Also, It's not like my life would change in any way if I had solid proof of other people's consciousness, so I don't really care. Anyway, I don't think that your analogy works for the following reason: things like the self, consciousness or personality exist are just abstract concepts. They are nothing more than tools of the language we use to define patterns that only exist inside our brains. If I die, my "self", my "consciousness" and my "personality" will die with me. And if all humans die, then those concepts will lose all meaning whatsoever and will cease to exist as well. Those abstract concepts exist merely inside our brains, not in the objective reality. But I assume that that's not how you think of God, I assume that you believe that if all humans die, then God will still exist. That alone already makes your God claim completely different than something like the self or personality. You are not talking about just an abstract concept when you talk about god, you are talking about an entity that can manifest in objective reality, and that CAN be proven. If you say you think god is just an abstract concept that exists inside our brains, and you define it as "a higher purpose" or whatever, like Jordan Peterson does for example, then sure, I will have no problem in granting you that god exists then. But if we are being honest, we all know that's not what most people mean when they say "god". "Once you see god you cannot unsee it" Pretty much all atheists prove you wrong on that, because almost all of us were believers once. So yeah, you can very much "unsee" god. Unless you are willing to make a "no true scotsman" fallacy and claim that we weren't "true believers".
Hey! Greetings from germany! Thank you so much for your work. It has been realy useful to me, but in this case, I have to disagree: So, because I have a self, I assume that the universe has a self? And because I have moods, the World does, too? Like anger, when there is a thunderstorm? And because my moods are caused by the behaviour of others, what the world does must be caused by us? Because we are sinful? ...The world is a complicated and chaotic place. All stories that we tell ourselfs are a way of simplifing so that we can act in a world we dont understand. And thats why gods or personalities, even the sense of a self are useful - they are all a simplifications like maps. But we should not mistake the map for the landscape.
I had an Angel drive my car while I was having a bad allergic reaction driving on the highway. So yes I believe in God. I woke up coming into town driving the car and couldn’t remember the last 13 miles.
Atheist here, too. Set apart a rather "nebulous" definition of "self" on which I don't agree -- but ok, let's say I get the idea: from observations of human behavior, we INFER that a thing exists that we call "personality" or even "self". But now: what would be the "patterns" that would bring us to INFER the existence of a *deity* ? That there are laws of physics? And from that we should infer the "existence" of one infinite, therefore divine, "being" ? This seems like a *long* shot to me! I would suggest: keep on the good work with psychology, but don't play missionary !
Objective morality exists. Good and evil. Its not subjective or else it wouldnt be good and evil. Thus we know that God exists because he is the one that determines what is good and evil.
Assumption based on lots of observable phenomenons. The second step of the scientific method: hypothesis. Depending on where you sre on your journey, you may have or are very close to reaching your own conclusion depending on the amount of evidence you have.
Giving a definition "personality" to an pattern of phenomena is not assuming. "When you're born, you're not without personality - it exists in its fundamental form known as temperament. Your temperament, which consists of innate features like energy levels, mood and demeanor, and emotional responsiveness, can then drive the learning experiences that form your personality throughout life." I think many people are hung up on the differences of personality vs temperament.
The first video on the channel that won't bring anything to my life. Bad Dr. Orion, bad;-) Psychology is one of the fields of science. It is based on verified detailed knowledge. Religion is based on beliefs, which are grounded in emotions. In my opinion, if Dr. Orion is a religious person, that's the only reason why this film was made. An atheist version of Dr. Orion wouldn't record such an episode because there would be no need for it, and it would contradict everything that has been the foundation so far. Love the channel. Stunning work for humanity.
We may look for the "self" not in the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies but in their inter-relationships and in what they do. In this way we can see the "self" as a process of energy flow rather than a static "thing". A process that can start through the development in the womb and birth, is altered and further developed though experience with the environment, and ends at death. The individuation of personalities can be explained by minute differences in genes and the great variety of memories arising from different life experiences: so that even a clone can have a different personality than the original. For, even prior to any other different experiences in the world, the fundamental realization of being a clone would be likely to have profound consequences on the sense of "self". As for the order we see in the universe, it's pretty well explained by the laws of physics: in particular, the second law of thermodynamics (in short: the more ways that a thing can happen, the more likely it will happen). And - if we add the reasonable assertion that all stable systems must follow self consistent rules or they will become unstable and fall apart - then I see no need to add any further complicating factors. In jumping to the conclusion that an "externus" supernatural being must also exist, to manage and account for it all: Are we not simply moving the goal posts? Replacing one mystery with an even greater one? For, in making this leap (if we are to call ourselves committed truth-seekers), we are then compelled to ask: What is the nature and origin of an entity that must be far more complex than the thing/process we were originally trying to explain?
I can appreciate the perspective of the agnostic and atheistic. Without empirical evidence of God, and without any direct experience of the divine, believing in God can really seem like a fairytale. In this episode, I aim to guide these folks to the point at which God may become apparent by discussing a seemingly unrelated question: how can you prove that you exist? As we'll see, the same proofs for and against the self can be made for and against God. Ultimately, we hit on the existence of God -- like that of the self -- indirectly, as the unifying concept that allows us to make order out of chaos.
Social Media
Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090053889622
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/orion-taraban-070b45168/
Instagram: instagram.com/psyc.hacks
Twitter: twitter.com/oriontaraban
Website: oriontarabanpsyd.com
Thinking of going to grad school? Check out STELLAR, my top-rated GRE self-study program based on the world's only empirically-validated test prep system. Use the code "PSYCH" for 10% off all membership plans: stellargre.com.
GRE Bites: www.youtube.com/@grebites4993
Become a Psychonaut and join PsycHack's member community:
th-cam.com/channels/SduXBjCHkLoo_y9ss2xzXw.htmljoin
Book a paid consultation:
oriontarabanpsyd.com/consultations
Sponsor an episode:
oriontarabanpsyd.com/sponsor-an-episode
Presented by Orion Taraban, Psy.D. PsycHacks provides viewers with a brief, thought-provoking video several days a week on a variety of psychological topics, inspired by his clinical practice. The intention is for the core idea contained within each video to inspire viewers to see something about themselves or their world in a slightly different light. The ultimate mission of the channel is to reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world.
#god #psychology #spirituality
You have excellent insights in other domains. By the way there is an invisible cat that appears in all your videos and hangs out next to your computer monitor.
Now, since we have established there is a god, the next question is: which god?
@@matrices3987 Is that the cat o' nine "tales" lol
@@shuabshungne8043 is the name too sacred to say and the dao which cannot be named. In other words the nonpersonified God Yahweh like in Judaism not the misplaced sky daddy all the other religions like to follow. Hinduism is close as well
I am thinking, therefore I am.. 😁
The thing is that it still goes back to believing what you want to believe. I'm an Atheist and I had a difficult time having the nice feeling of having a higher power being on my side. I ultimately had a breakthrough when I realized that it doesn't matter if there is a god or not, the fact is that I am here against any odds and ultimately existence has been on my side enough for me to continue existing and that is enough. I choose to focus on love even though I see life eating each other. I choose love because I am capable of producing it. I choose to try every day to fulfill my potential and believe that luck is on my side because I create my own luck and write my own story and if there is a god I am part of god and deserve the best, be it for him or me/us.
Existence of God is paramount as without belief in God, even if your moral compass is strong you have no absolute meaning and no absolute ethical system therefore you are prone to falling into the abyss of moral relativism and lies of those who wish to enslave you. Also when you start believing and understand the theological patterns that manifest all around you life attains an additional meta-layer which to most gives meaning, serenity and hope; not because now they can safely cease critical thinking but rather because of everything up until that moment starts falling into place like a constellation forming from thousands of points, a piece of art in every minuscule experience. You indeed cannot unsee God once you realize how the material world and the spiritual world of meaning touch. I wish upon you true faith and a sincere conversion to a theistic worldview. Yours sincerely, ex-antitheist of twenty years. (English is not my native language)
@@nostromo9081I’ve found “theistic” ppl to often be very critically thinking themselves. This extends especially to our fast economic world and larger political issues.
As a former atheist, let me start out by saying I truly hope that you do choose to love. I truly hope you succeed in this choice.
But I would also like to ask you, what is "love"?
You say you choose love because you are capable of producing it. But you are also capable of producing a whole host of other outcomes and emotions - envy, hate, bitterness, gossip, lies, on and on. Why is love a superior outcome to any of these?
@@rougebaba3887 true true
@@nostromo9081I understand your reasoning, it's true that it's easier (meaningful) to live a life within the boundaries of rules, being surrounded by people you love and share the same belief system. But this is not an argument that God exist, we're just social primates that love predictable paths to walk on. However it's hard for secular people to find this, though not impossible.
Was not expecting this kind of video, but I’m glad you made it!
Same. Not convinced for God, but I wouldn't change vid for any other
Thank you Dr. Orion Taraban, I love your TH-cam channel. Yes, it is consistent with my own personal experience. Initially, I assumed you were a very insightful observer of human nature. Now that you brought up God, you are, to me, much more. I grew up not believing in the existence of the divine because my mom said so. Nevertheless, I intuitively felt there was more. I started exploring. Thanks to my many enlightened teachers, I discovered the divine. I had many personal and direct mystical experiences. It was a privilege. I am now a healer, a servant, to make the world a better place. So it is. I bless all of you.
Being able to see the Logos in the world is key to being indestructible, and de-identifying with things we have. But harnessing the Logos to achieve your goals is on another level. I appreciate the help .
The Kingdom of God is within you.
It always amazes me how wise those words in the Bible are. I'm not a particularly Christian person, never read the Book, but I do believe in God.
Btw one of the best arguments for the existence of God I've heard.
I read that verse about the Kingdom of God yesterday. I fell to my knees and began to cry. The hardest thing I’ll ever do is uncovering my true self and living my divined purpose.
@@ottoeks1 Welcome, fellow soul. I share your struggles. It's not easy to be a human. But I guess it isn't supposed to be.
@@ottoeks1 I'll advise you research Jungian archetypes. The 16 personality types. Be careful though - most of the info out there is misleading. CS Joseph on YT is a good resource, but might come off as brash. His typing random people videos are a treasure. Only by watching a person being typed live by him, was I able to recognise myself as this particular archetype. It explains a lot and gives pointers as to what your particular purpose is.
Sorry for jumping off into the depths, that's how I communicate. Don't have time for platitudes and small talk 😃
@slatanek You're alright, I appreciate the candor. I know of the Jungian archetypes but I could always know more so I'll look into that. Thank you for the reference.
@@ottoeks1 Good luck to you! I'm on the same journey and I've turned 40. It's never too late. The fact you react in such a way to profound words speaks volumes about you. You'll only be better as a person from any struggles coming your way. Keep it up!
Impressive. I was surprised that he tackled this subject. Great job!
Powerful insight-powerful stuff. You said in a short video what others want to say in a book, and sometimes they can't even say it in a book. To paraphrase Someone...
Tack!
It's not the tired old 'watchmaker' argument again, I'll grant you that. But all it serves to accomplish is define within a narrow context an abstract existence, of which there are many examples of abstracts. (Abstract ideas such as Justice, where does justice exist? Inside policemen, at the court, in the brain, on the papers laws & rules are written on?) The issue with this is that god is almost never defined as an abstract entity, when in fact you make a very good case for seeing it like this. A human mental construct, like Justice that takes many forms & likely goes away in the absence of the species. Something that is what we make of it.
The rise and fall of civilizations and empires have similar patterns in them. Could Gods just be the collective selves of any given group identity? There is a collective unconscious so it's not impossible
The timing of this is impeccable. I've returned to belief after years of atheism followed by a brief time of paganistic practice. I'm finally at peace, and God is the reason for everything good in my life.
This isn't a religious channel so be careful. He mainly talks about how humans mate and sex and money etc. Btw I also believe in God.
we're glad you're back!
How did you go from being an atheist to a pagan which is way less plausible than monotheistic beliefs ?
In God, all things are made possible. grâce à Dieu, tout est rendu possible.
@@emilpetrov5001 probably some new age bs
Hi Dr., atheist here. Found your channel about a month ago and I've been enjoying it a lot.
Thanks for making an accurate representation of what I think. Most people make unfair representations like: atheists hate God, atheists don't believe what they can't see, and so on.
If you'd like to know, your argument didn't convince me because I don't think my "self" exists, like, what is the definition of self here? A more detailed explanation of this could have helped. It's my memories, my ability to feel and think? Obviously, those are linked to my brain. Damage my brain, you damage my "self". Destroy my brain, you destroy my "self". Therefore, what we call self is merely a function of my brain, that's all. There's no intangible part that can't be observed. At the moment there is no technology that allows someone to know what I am thinking just by scanning my brain. Still, all my thoughts are reflected in my brain.
So, does your argument require a belief in a dual nature of the universe or the mind? The material and the immaterial, the soul, the abstract, the intangible? because if so, then that must be proven. If not, then I misunderstood what you mean by my "self". I understand what you mean as a construct of language, like "my heart is broken" means my feelings.
Your brain doesn’t determine your likes, dislikes, desires , etc. you can’t think your way into desiring or liking something. That’s how people end up at jobs they hate, they “think” that’s what they want but they don’t know themselves. So hurting your brain can affect the way you “perceive” things, but it doesn’t change your essence
If your brain was what determined everything then how do you explain the ability to override instincts? Thats literally going against what your brain is telling you to do. Also they do have brain imaging software that combines with AI to read what your brain is thinking. You can google it and see.
"There's no intangible part that can't be observed." How do you know this? In principle, that could be totally false...and in practice, it's certainly false at the current time.
I don't know what a "soul" is or if there even is such a thing...but it's quite clear that material/immaterial is a false dichotomy. Neils Bohr famously said "Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real." and he wasn't saying this to support that dichotomy, but to point out its falsity. All of those words, "soul", "reality", "material", etc. were invented based on our everyday experience, so they are shown to be incompletely defined when we start uncovering what they are outside that everyday context.
I don’t have the god gene so your argument fell completely flat. The “self” as you describe it is a construct of course, but it is another way of describing the “hard problem” of cognitive science. The hard problem has to do with not yet understanding how our biology gives rise to consciousness. I don’t need faith to observe your self/consciousness. It’s just your human biology responding to stimuli just like any other living thing. To extrapolate the faith in the self into a case to believe in intelligent design is your leap of faith. You have made no converts here. Your argument is highly illogical. Live long and prosper.
@@jasonmiller3167 If the human biology is just responding to stimuli, then how is it a leap of faith to believe in intelligent design? Its literally just the human biology responding to stimuli. Yall think you are so smart, but you really arent.
I realized all my seeking was just me looking for myself.
Great channel!
Thank you so much for leading me to se myself and the present of God in different perspective.
Great work, Sir! I do believe this video to be very helpful and useful. I am already accepting, lead mostly by my experience. It helps to facilitate communication with both those who do, and those who do not accept the existence of God. The relevant thing for me is the kind of God that one envisions, the nature of that God, and what that God may inspire in the believers.
I am agnostic, but I will admit this is the best argument for God that I have heard to date.
Hmm, I think there's a missing base piece. Before we question the measurement of 'self' and 'experience of that self', it needs to be alive first. You can experience another living being thru physical interactions.
But, it still isn’t a very good argument.
Yes it is I agree
@@my-rocket Everything you know is an idea that was formulated by someone else, you are only an atheist because atheism is a thing at the moment.
@@my-rocket first you have to determine what is a good argument for god and what isnt. Atheists always get stuck when i ask them this: what would a man say that would sound good to you for a argument of God. If every argument is a bad argument then that means you cant say its a bad argument because there is no standard.
It's an interaction like this that makes me appreciate the order and continuous revelation of who GOD is thru His changing not ❤
Enjoying the range of your content. Not an atheist but I have been trying to increase my faith!
And the word of the Yah became flesh, died on the cross (for the sins of the mankind) and rose from the dead.
For without the shedding of the blood; there is no forgiveness of the sin.
Hence Yeshua said:
I am the way
The truth and
The life.
Those who receive the mark of the beast; they are unredeemable as the word states.
@@robertmccabe8632 And the Bible also said that the earth is flat, 10,000 years old, and that the sun revolves around the earth. Yet the Bible mentions nothing about dinosaurs, bacteria, or anything that the men of that time didn’t know. Just because the Bible gives you a pipe dream of immortality that doesn’t mean it wasn’t made up in a savage age by superstitious men. Oh, and one of the main characters is a talking snake.
@@faceious2006 Actually the Bible says the earth is round. It also doesn’t say how old the earth is, but merely how long it’s been from the creation of orderly nature on earth. The book of Job in the Bible, which is really a collection of books, does speak of dinosaurs. And there are verses referring to them in other books. Interestingly, the Book of Job also says that “God hung the earth on nothing”. How would people thousands of years before space flight know that the earth is actually hanging on nothing in space?
Don't bother with faith, learn more facts!
In God, all things are made possible. grâce à Dieu, tout est rendu possible.
Wow… I am a christian. This is one of the best arguments and approach that I’ve heard without using a scripture from the Bible. This is amazing.
Keep going. Go deeper. Beyond our personalities and roles and “self” and thoughts and feelings, you will find the real you and God, and you will see it in others.
Thank you for making a video that helps us understand your perspective.
For me, the merit of your argument is conveying an understanding that something may exist that I cannot prove. I concede this fact.
The part I cannot concede however, is that we should follow our desire to see what cannot be seen because there is no way to prove it is not there.
This is unfalsifiability. That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
I spent over a decade digging into this issue, mainly that strange things started happening in my life. My conclusion at this point - out of all of the ideas I've heard I think Donald Hoffman and Chetan Prakash's 'Conscious Realism' seems to map the most inclusively to both the things in life that fit and don't fit reductive materialism. To give a thumbnail there's a model of how consciousness connects to consciousness called 'functionalism with multiple realizability', where consciousness can participate in multiple levels of being at the same time - such that other parts of your body might have private experience but you'd experience that experience or its results as subconscious. The idea would be that this can go from cells to tissues to organs to people to families, cities, nations, planets, etc.. and each layer has it's own private experience of its own existence. What might be miracles or visions to us may not be exclusively but may easily include impulses from higher amalgamations of consciousness coming back down the chain and hitting us directly (synchronicity I'd speak similarly of). Hoffman and Prakash are working on a deeply granular model of this, ie. a kind of granular absolute idealism (similar style of mechanics to panpsychism but not buying into the existence of spacetime as fundamental) which hosts Darwinian game theory and evolution as well as genetic competition for fitness payouts.
I'm so grateful that I encountered this message - you can't prove God exists, but you can't prove he doesn't exist neither. As I came to believe in God, I'm a much more peaceful, grateful and kind person. So I'll be faithful, succumb to a higher power and work on approaching a better me, a higher self.
Science already proved that God exists, it's only that the $cienti$t$ chose to interpret the mathematical results upside down . God kind of hates pedophilia, therefore the darwinists chose to hate God .
Near death experience survivor here. I know what I saw and let’s just say I’m a believer 😇🙏🏻
Tell us
It's irrelevant. These experiences have been explained scientifically...
@@exnihilonihilfit6316 have they ? How ?
❤ 🙏
@@exnihilonihilfit6316
Perhaps they could be explained scientifically, but science is explained theologically.
God made Laws of Nature. Laws of Nature made... Nature.
Nature made humanity.
Since I've come to God, I see the "self" in all animals and insects now. It's truly cool. We have spiders in our house (I leave them be) and they are fascinating to watch! I saw a momma spider carrying her egg sac, finding a nice safe spot. I saw two spiders gently touching each other's legs, they were clearly communicating in some fashion. My dog's obvious intelligence always impresses me. They definitely understand more of our language than we give them credit for. They can get "the gist." I watch the Dodo and Geobeats religiously. I've been able to attain a certain level of inner peace which I thought would never happen. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD so my brain was always screaming. I grew up in an abusive atheistic house. The only comfort I had was praying to God to make me good. Unfortunately my experiences left me so bitter and depressed that I stopped having faith and I lived in darkness for a long time. I allowed humans to corrupt my faith. Never again!
As an atheist, I find the alien analogy more convincing as an argument for the 'self' (whatever you mean by that) of other living beings than of a god. We believe that other humans have a consciousness and self because we experience it ourselves and assume other people do in the same way. But many animals exhibit the personalities and individual traits you listed that, from an intelligent alien's perspective, wouldn't make us appear so fundamentally unique as a species.
If we wanted to convince aliens that we have a self, we'd have to first figure out how they experience their sense of self. We could connect over our similarities then show how we're the same but different. We just have to hope they're similar enough to us to do that before we destroy each other. Orson Scott Card explored this very well in Ender's Game where a fundamental difference in the human experience of self and the aliens' was the entire reason for the war.
I agree that we're limited in what we can understand by our human perspective but that doesn't mean a god has to exist in the realm of things we don't understand. I can connect to the universe and a sense of the infinite in a deeply personal and meaningful way without believing that there is a being that I'm connecting to who it would benefit me to worship and who cares about me in a personal way.
self means your consciousness; what you see through your eyes' POV
"as an atheist, we believe..."
Wrong. Atheists don't 'believe' anything. It's lack of belief that defines us.
@@alan.mcswankno it means what is behind the eyes. Not what the eyes see
Amazing outlook , i enjoyed reading every word of it !
I am christian agnostic. I am also a decade on a spiritual path of self-liberation. I read enormous amount of spiritual text especially about God. This is fantastic way of acknowledging God's existence in very simple way without going into quantum physics, galaxies, occult or any extremely expansive way of thinking. Bravo Dr. Orion.
What do you mean by Christian agnostic?
"Christian agnostic" is an oxymoron. There is no such thing.
I have never thought about this in this way.
Thank You
I definitely am growing with this one here. Thank You
Wow!
A good job a challenging assignment for someone to take up. It's one that every human should. I like your thought about seeing God because once you do you can never unsee it. That's why there's plenty of Grace beyond our understanding.
This reminds me of the Vsauce video "Do Chairs Exist", where he takes a simple question and goes into endless semantics and nonsense to complicate something that is not even defined super precisely.
The real and inportant question here is "does god influence our reality in some way"? There's no evidence that prayer works, no evidence for some of the historical events in the bible, and surely no evidence that god communicated to us any of that information anyway. No indication of a real heaven or hell or afterlife. So why should I follow any of it?
For the same reason you believe yourself to exist: because you have a direct experience of your own consciousness. You weren't always self-conscious, and one day you became that way. What happened? It wasn't evidence or a good argument that tipped the scales. You just sorta "recognized" yourself, and the rest is history.
@@psychacks So in the end your claim comes down to "people believe because of personal experience"? And those people that don't share your view or experience are...? Wrong? Damaged? Unreasonable? Unenlightened? Or does god simply hate us and has made us unable to perceive what seems so clear to you?
@@vex1669 The whole essay strikes me as a utilitarian, God of the gaps mish mash. It would be interesting to hear his view of terror management theory.
Leap of faith of course, and by the way I'm selling led hand gliders who's in?
@@psychacks Yours is just a massive "God" of the gaps argument. You (think you) have identified something we do not quite (yet) understand and you want to shoe-horn "God" into that space. I always find it astonishing and sad when a person with some scientific understanding parks it at the door of the "church". If you have good, credible evidence for the existence of a "God", present it, but first be very precise about which "God" it is and how you reached that determination.
An excellent, logical analysis.
Ultimately I can't explain why I believe in God. I just do. I didn't have a religious upbringing.
When you say God what do you mean? Which God do you believe in?
You and "How communication works" are my favourite channels atm!
Gotta love how defensive all atheists/agnostics get when an argument for the existence of God is being made. Quite telling...
Consciousness and the sense of self is (as of our current scientific knowledge) inherently a subjective process. We assume other people are conscious and have a sense of self, only because we do. We can this idea of a 'self' to better conceptualize it, just like we black box 'personality' and some choose to blackbox 'God'. He mentions that they are just abstractions to better conceptualize observable behavior (walking on the beach - introvert, etc).
Consciousness is an emergent behavior, and related to the ''fallacy of division". (check those out). For instance, why do birds flock? We can't identify exactly why they do that. We can't pick a 'part' of the bird that causes flocking behavior, but flocking behavior emerges. But fundamentally, some part/whole of the bird does cause flocking behavior. Somewhere in the brain, some part of interaction of parts that form some or all of the whole results in flocking behavior. This is how I view consciosness and the sense of the self. It is an emergent behavior, a conceptualization.
What I think he misses here, is that just because we can't observe what exactly causes someone to be introverted/extroverted, sense of self, etc, doesn't mean the blackbox is actually a blackbox. God isn't actually 'God'. The self isn't actually 'the self'. The 'self' exists as a useful abstraction, but there is no evidence the 'self' exists, as he says. From my understanding, the 'self' is an emergent process that results from our electrochemical meat brain, which is beholden to the laws of nature, chemical reactions, electricity, etc. It is an illusion. We feel it strongly, but it only exists as an emergent behavior, that's why you can't 'see' consciousness on a scan currently. We don't have the understanding or technology to test these sorts of things, our understanding of the brain is quite vague and conceptual. You can't look at a part, you need to look at how the parts form an interact with the whole. One day, we might have a scan that can take the parts and the whole in totality and give us a YES/NO answer if something is conscious? What then? But I think religious people would agree, just because you can't measure something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, the burden of proof lies on the one purporting such unverifiable claims. I am proposing determinism causes all these behaviors, which is a leap of faith same as those who propose God causes all these behaviors. I would argue that determinism is a more 'real abstraction' (haha) than God, simply because everything we observed thus far in the Universe is deterministic or random, and randomness in my opinion is just determinism where we don't know all the contributing variables/factors.
My main criticism is that I wish people were comfortable saying "I don't know", but people need to answer everything, even in the face of bad or non-existant evidence. I'm not absolved of this either, I have 'faith' in the fact that the self is an emergent behavior, in a deterministic electro-chemical meat brain. I have 'faith' that the universe is deterministic. I have 'faith' that randomness is just poorly-measured and conceptualized determinism (when we don't know all the variables of a system, we abstract some of it to randomness). I think that as we discover more, everything, including the self and God and quantum stuff will be reduced to determinism. But that is just my belief, as those who believe in God. I just feel determinism has more supporting evidence than a 'God', however I understand why people arrive at that abstraction.
Just my thoughts. Love the channel btw :)
Great comment with 'self' awareness.
>*I wish people were comfortable saying "I don't know"*
louder for the people in the back
Love the flocking example. Sum of all is more. And can be observed by us as tied together or affect or not.
Like if we look on our self. We have organisms in other body they are not us. Still they are seen as part of us. Microbiotics. Even parts of our cells is mostly likely formed long ago into a symbiotic.
Take an ant hill. An ant hage very simple function. And most stimuli is just pheromone based. Still together they form pattern and what could be seen as intelligence. The hive mind. If I hurt my hand. My body reacts and sends sells there to repair. Of something happens in a crowd of people that also creates and outcome.
All this very similar just on different scales and complexity. Then again the deeper we look the more skins the onion seems to have.
Interesting perspective, I never took you for a man of Faith.
Good video.
Well, I'm convinced. Where do I go to learn about Zeus.
You meant to say Thor correct?
@@timothyirwin8974 HERETIC!
You mean Ahura Mazda, who in fact defeated and exiled Zeus from Eranshahr with the rise of the Parthians. Poor Zeus got so scared he changed his name to Jupiter after that 😔
Start with Clash of the Titans. The original not that abominable remake
Thaanks for all the great content sir, & Gods bless ye mightily!
The coherent way to reconcile this is that there is no self. You are not different from the universe, it's just a trick of your brain.
you dont exist. you only think you exist.
Great insight and I thoroughly enjoyed this! Please continue to experiment with different types of content; your channel has helped a lot!
Because I feel myself, I can understand the existence of others like me. Through my senses I can understand the idea of an external world. Thanks to our intellect we can understand the existence of patterns and infer the laws of physics. Thanks to history, sociology, psychology, we can understand why the human being needed religion and rituals to face a world so difficult to understand. The idea of God was a useful tool somewhere in the past. Today we must focus on improving science and ethics and also improve our interrelationships with other human beings.
The dude literally said without the concept of “I”, explaining the concept of… is not possible. You missed the point.
@@obliteratebankai The concept of existence and self precedes all other things that the human mind can think of, the concept of God is only one among a million other things. But it is not on the same level as the concept of self.
You are plain Wrong. Thanks to our intellect we can understand the existence of patterns and infer the laws of physics, therefore If we need our intellect to grasp these patterns, these patterns required another intelligent being to exist in the first place. (If you dont get this argument you are certainly not as intelligent as all the geniuses who created modern science who actually believed in this argument). Also, "The concept of existence and self precedes all other things that the human mind can think of" , that is probably true for yourself in your mind but not for the external world. The rest of the world does not have any direct proof that you exist as a person.
@@jorge-7121 Of course I am completely wrong, and you are absolutely right. In three lines I wrote a casual, easy and subjective explanation of how the self can see the subject of the video. Sorry if I couldn't synthesize the work of all the geniuses in history. I hope you can do a better job. Waiting.
@@jorge-7121 patterns emerge naturally out of chaos and it has been observed everywhere. Data Science is about finding meaning and patterns and when you apply Data Science on whatever random data you often discover certain patterns. No intelligent entity needs to exist to put that data into any specific order. All conforms to laws of probability and quantum physics. I don't believe it was God who created Earth or human creatures. It is so arrogant of us as species to think we are that special in the whole universe. What I can believe, though, is that maybe it was actually God who created the fundamental pieces of which the whole universe is made of - space, time, energy and some matter, which we have already studied and to some degree understood and some matter that still remains mystery to us.
If I understand correctly, your argument rests on the notion that just as "you" is a concept obtained, not by precise definition, but rather a leap of faith based on empirical observations, the possibility of a God (as in a pattern generator) can be posited from the stable patterns (ie. laws of nature and such) that we've observed till date. This is supposedly because you cannot defend the notion of a self without also using the same principle to invoke a God whose machinations led to the universe as we experience it.
Interesting argument and it's definitely one I haven't heard before, but this sounds to me like a variant of the prime mover argument. I'll have to ponder on this a little and come back to give my thoughts.
P.S. I just discovered your channel and I like what I see so far. You are very eloquent and methodical without being too clinical like some of the technophiles on TH-cam. Keep it up!
Imagine your self-awareness is a phenomenon of your nervous system. All those chemical reactions and electrical impulses are too minute and complex(and maybe most are currently undetectable) to be translatable into the self-awareness the subject experiences. It's like you're saying, oh, there's something we don't understand so there must be god. I think if we could detect and understand everything about our nervous system we could translate those things into the phenomenon of self-awareness.
Unpopular opinion, but (ultimately) science "explains" nothing: it merely describes the succession of phenomena at an increasingly granular level. To "understand" in this context is to be cognizant of the correct sequence of steps.
@@psychacks how dose science explain "nothing" ? Could you elaborate.
Since science have explained a lot of things we take for granted today. And it's still improving our understanding.
@@psychacks Thanks for the reply. I think science seeks to explain the "how", not the "why". For the "why" question there is no need to discuss phenomena at all.
@@SigurdKristvik is like how the "self" isn't proven but is a good hypothesis that explains behavior.
In science we explain phenomena with other more basic phenomena. The assumptions we use for explaining all phenomena are unproven, like the law of conservation of energy or the assumption that the laws of physics are uniform across time and space. They aren't proven they just consistently seem to be true.
@@psychacks I don’t understand how you could claim that science explains nothing when the medicine and technology we’ve been able to develop from it are so useful.
Greatness. I’m glad you covered this topic because it is undeniable. Call it god, energy, collective consciousness, ether, Allah, doesn’t matter. The I AM exists apart from the i am. Good luck for all of y’all going down the rabbit hole!
“You can’t unsee God” is so true! A puddle is a miracle to me now (that humans are 70% water and all life on a floating supersonic rock has that), and the same puddle was a dull random fact/noun to atheist me. The absurdity of existence is something I chuckle at now. Praise to the creator
As an atheist, my problem is not with this kind of philosophical arguments about the existence of a "prime mover" or "first cause" or "pattern of patterns", etc. These can plausibly exist like "personaliy" or "time", or not exist like "ether" or "humors". My problem is with organized religion, and how it meddles into politics to control people's lives and decide for them how they should live, what they should learn at school, and how nations and armies should move and be organized, because a bunch people are convinced that "some hobo many years or centuries ago heard the voice of the Supreme being telling him to do X Y and Z".
Being a theist, I can agree with your point. Institutes muddle the idea of religion in a quest to have all the money and control possible when the spiritual aspect of it is so simple.
The Doctor is gonna have 100k subs by the end of the month. He’s killing it in the game! Glad to see your channel having success
Wow! This was such a beautiful video to the soul! God bless you Orion for making this! I encourage you my friend and whoever edits this.
"Can never unsee it" is true. I was agnostic until I tried to disprove intelligent design, thinking rational and logic would prevail. It sucked me in for a year, and I concluded (based on logic and reason) that the argument for intelligent design outweighed the Richard Dawkins argument for randomness. Everyone has to take their own path, and not be judged by others. Thanks for another honest discussion Orion, it's the best any one can ask for.
But it doesn't prove God. If intelligent design convinces you, it can convince you just that it's intelligent, but not of a particular being, and in case of. Most religions, a very specific being.
I read a book years ago "Beyond Belief To Convictions" The author set out to do the same. And ended up with your same conclusions.
Honestly I think this saying can cut both ways. Once you see the world without the common conception of "GOD" you can't unsee it. However there are those also who genuinely believed with religious persuasion and came to a place where per their greater knowledge and full experience and context, they unsaw it.
Easy to solve. There might be countless billions of paralel universes that are sterile. Filled with grey goo. Neutrons only. Exclusively photons or just vacuous.
Wow... what a long winded way of saying that you are scientifically illiterate and never actually studied biology or evolution. How much money would I win if I bet your family/school/community are Young Earth Creationists???
Which God? and can I pick and choose?
that would be the first step.
I am atheist, and this is the first time I hear an argument for god's existence that makes some sense!
The universe is only chaotic and random to us humans...who are deeply inclined to impose order on everything. The universe just is. It has no obligation to ever make sense.
It's actually circular reasoning to identify "chaos and randomness" just to invoke an explanation, which is (conveniently) your particular deity. Even if I accept the premise, it opens up numerous possible explanations, not just your god.
I guess that also proves invisible rainbow unicorns exist too. 😂
I don’t want to debate religion or philosophy but I’m compelled to point out a pretty serious logical flaw with your argument. A person does have very high quality evidence that he or she exists. Descartes said “Cogito ergo sum”, which roughly translates to “I think, therefore I exist.” That’s one of the most fundamental building blocks of thoughtful rational people. Because you do have this hard evidence supporting the conclusion that you exist, it is not at all analogous to the situation of pondering whether one or more gods exist, where similar hard evidence is missing.
As a physiologist my stance has always been "I can neither prove nor disprove God's existence" and always left it at that. This is the most compelling argument for the existence of God I have ever heard. Well done.
First off, you can’t prove something doesn’t exist. That’s literally impossible. Second, the burden of proof is not on you. The burden of proof is on those making unsubstantiated claims. Finally, how is this argument convincing?
if a god is given characteristics, then one can indeed prove or disprove this entity. That's why the various gods of the various religions keep getting vaguer and vaguer, giving the desperate theists a chance at their "hidden" god excuse.
thefaded etc: "... the most compelling argument for the existence of God ..." - What exactly do you find compelling? I note that you "... can neither prove nor disprove God's existence ...". So, do you believe a "God" exists or do you not? I have a small personal bet on your answer to this question.
@@Nai61a Define god, Nai.
@@velkyn1 I do not have to. That is the job of the person claiming this "God" exists.
From what I’ve learned. If you open up any science textbook. And see how complex the human body is, there’s no way you cant say God isn’t real. Chaos just begets more chaos. Order begets order. We are so intellectually designed. There for sure is a god.
In that video Orion just proved the position of Agnosticism by stating that you cannot prove the existence of God by the way 😅
Yes, you can believe in God and it's your ideology, but you can believe in no God and that’s also an ideology. Unfortunately, with the last one it’s not possible to explain every inexplicable thing you can encounter. It’s impossibly difficult to know all scientific fields and even so, there is no proven “Theory of Everything”.
If you believe in God you can explain every transcendent thing as “It’s God” and that’s it. It’s very simple to live as a believer and I kinda envy these people.
Once you have seen God, there is no unseeing God. God is more real than we are. God wants Friends.
Hi, Atheist here. I appreciate your argument. However, I am having trouble with the lack of empirical evidence of the 'self' or personality part.
You say that there is no empirical evidence for a sense of self or a personality. But I don't think that this is a claim that can be made when one looks at emergent behaviour. In machine learning, adding together multiple simple models can produce an overall complex model with hard to predict behaviours. If you asked Chat GPT to write an essay, it isn't realistically possible to predict exactly what it is going to write. But, we understand how it works.
In much the same way, the human brain is just a collection of simple models (neurons) that can work together to produce emergent behaviours (personality, self, etc). Therefore, the only difference between the human brain and an artificial neural network from this perspective is just the number of neurons.
We can't predict personality traits, but we can stick a person in an MRI machine to see the electrical signals in the brain. And it's those electrical signals that lead to emergent behaviours such as personality traits.
But I think his point is that those signals dont tell you personality traits....his argument is rooted in the idea that randomness exists but allow me to flip that argument on its head...how do you know you're not in a simulation?
Think the matrix, where in reality you're in a tube of liquid but you're body gets sent the signals to interpret what you see and sense as real...
At the end of the day, theres no way to know for sure ANYTHING. Even with what we know to be proof and evidence can simply just not exist....the same way you sorta just trust what you experiece as real, people do that with God as well as other higher entitoes / beings...
Interesting point, but comparing the self to ChatGPT is actually a very theistic argument. It was created by humans, just as theists say God created us. It wasn’t random but intentional.
All your underlying statements are valid, and yet don't counter the argument made...
Yes, your self appears as an emergent pattern of things, but there's no "thing" you can point to and identify as the "self particles". The self does not exist in that way.
Similarly, God does not exist in that way.
This isn't an argument for any particular God or gods, it's an argument that something that exists in the same manner as mathematics (or selves, or authors from the standpoint of characters in a story), rather than fruit, "exists" and is worth accounting for (by whatever model of "God" you wish to build).
How can you demonstrate that it is emergent?
ChatGPT is deterministic. You can always predict its output. All you need all the dataset, the weightings and the initial random seed variable.
Dr. Taraban in a quasi-Cartesian mood. Interesting. Happy to see your channel growing. Keep up the good work!
I caught that. He takes Descartes self-awareness. And adds faith in the existence of others to it, which negates Descartes goal of a logical metaphysical foundation to philosophy. I'm satisfied with life, God and my own rational. I'll write a book on it someday.
I'm an atheist who enjoys life. I see no benefit in belief for myself. For others, if belief provides a benefit, that's great. As for religion, I think it has caused humanity a great deal of pain. I recommend listening to a few talks by the late great Christopher Hitchens for brilliant insight on this topic.
I love your channel. Thank you for the value.
Thanks!
I know many will see this post and say that it's extreamly nagative. Honestly, with all the bullshit going on in the world and uncertainty. Why are humans so obsessed with seeing, feeling and acknowledging God. It seems to me that most humans are looking outside themseleves for some kind of answer. When in fact humans beings should be looking into themseleves so that they could understand themselves better. By understanding who you are as a person your better able to see your faults and work on them. Therefore being a better person to yourself and to other human beings. I'm sorry but seraching for God is not the answer, it's not working. Even when I speak to so called believers many don't look happy and wear a mask of deceit. I grew up in the church which allowed me to observe this first hand. I'm greatful for my experiance growing up in the church because it helped shape me into a nice young women. I was able to recieve good advice and stay on a pretty straight and narrow path in life. So it's not all bad but this is just my opinion .
1- God has given us enough wisdom, BUT (good or bad) he also gave us autonomy.
2- I took 5GR of psychedelics last year to battle depression and instead saw the sacred geometry and my life has never been the same. I saw everything, and I was told a lot. Love, compassion, care, and to be of service to others.
I no longer say things like "with all the bs going on in the world", there's a lot of good going on in the world too and if instead of laying blame, if we all just did A LITTLE BIT! the world would change. Instead of blaming god, allah, jesus or whoever, if we each, individually were just nice to someone, bought someone a cup of coffee, filled the fridge downtown (if you have one of those in your city/town) with goodies people less fortunate etc. the world would be a better place.
Instead our generation wants to outsource everything to god and do nothing.
Note: If you take psychedelics, do not take 5GRAMS like I did, I'm just a weirdo like that and was suffering with depression and i literally thought, let it delete me , who cares. Don't take it at all if you have any medical conditions or are taking medications and take it under the supervision of a professional. DO NOT do what I did.
How can you look into yourself and determine how you can be better? That makes no sense. You have to compare yourself to something to know what "better" is. Even then that is subjective. Nothing is objective without God. Thats why everyone who looks at this subject logically comes to the conclusion there must be a God because we know things are objective like good and evil. Without God good and evil is relative and subjective so there is no actual good or evil, just opinions.
I will never understand why atheists hold believers to some impossible standard of perfection and then pretend that proves there is no God. Completely incoherent arguement. The entire point of the bible is that we are all sinners and need a savior because we cant save ourselves. The bible explains every objection you have, but you create strawmen to fight with instead of read it. Growing up in the church means nothing, you dont know the first thing about God or Christianity. You have the understanding of a child.
@Maria Blanco Look around the world, people do evil stuff all the time. Anyone who doesnt believe humans are inherently evil is stupid. You were taught not to harm humans or yourself, by people who learned it from religion. Go look at how the world was in 3000 bc. Lots of bad stuff like human sacrifice (including children) and murder was going on. No one cared.
Many Christians pretend what?
We know God is good, because evil is the opposite of Gods nature. Thats how we define good and evil. We do what is in Gods nature (good) and we dont do whats against Gods nature (evil).
You are god😂
The problem with his video is that he does not define what god might be. My thoughts on that topic are very similar, but I don't think that "Your self exists. Therefore, a god has to exist too." but as "Your self exists, therefore a godlike entity exists."
On that interpretation, I don't have a problem with looking for god if what I find is indeed myself. I might not decline an entity of god separate from us (since it can not be disproven), but that does not mean I am looking in that direction for answers for the betterment of my life.
I would say that "Your self exists. Therefore, a god has to exist too." is also problematic because the first assumption does not prove the second. It only proves that if we take that leap of faith, a godlike entity exists. Maybe that even is his interpretation, and he only wanted to use the word god because he is fascinated with the belief that there is more than just physical matter and chemical reactions.
This was AMAZING! Also a Deju Vu moment. WOW
Well, you made some points that made me not believe even more:
1. you can't prove that you exist, therefore god - same old crap that many before you pushed and failed. Yes, we are reacting impulses based on previous known impulses received, stored in our brains.
2. universe is chaotic and unpredictable therefore god - not this again, it's not even funny any more. Who told you that? Like the previous point, universe it's reacting to impulses that we may or may not see or measure. That's quite a leap to claim that it's a supernatural force or entity. Can you prove that gravity exists? Or light? Now you can and because it wasn't proven before it was assumed it's "god". The more our race finds out, the less need is for supernatural beliefs.
3. if you want to interact with others in the universe, you would use a language that is common and constant in the universe like mathematics. (1+1 will be 2 in all corners of the universe, despite the woke agenda to make it 3 or 4 or....)
4. I'm not saying that religion is unnecessary, but the old saying "we don't know X therefore god" it's getting really old and annoying by now and honestly I was expecting more from you.
Yep. God of the gaps.
The whole essay strikes me as a utilitarian, God of the gaps mish mash. It would be interesting to hear his view of terror management theory.
Dido that.
Fantastic deduction, Orion! Thank you for that elucidation.
Have you ever thought that God shows up when he chooses and not when you summon him?
What are you Babeling about? 😂
@@Patcannistan are you confused?
You know, I kind of wonder the same, and to be frank, I think it might be the case.
Question really is, why hasn’t he call back? Kind of like a “lady send XXX years ago”.
Faith truly is the evidence of the things unseen.
Your video gave a VERY compelling argument and resonated with me...
I'm a bio-molecular physics researcher and engineer, and worked for famous Cornell Geneticist John C. Sanford. I believe in Intelligent Design and have written peer-reviewed scientific criticisms of natural evolution being an explanation for the complex structures in biology from the cell to the brain...
From a pragmatic standpoint, it's much easier to look at biological systems as engineered for purpose rather than rote reproduction. Darwin said, each time he looked at a Peacock's tail it made him sick. He said this presumably because he realized the elaborate mating ritual that involved the Peacock's tail is reproductively inefficient, and therefore can't be the product of so-called Natural Selection.
Prior to Darwin, it was believed the Peacock's tail and so much of the biological world was made to make men wonder at their Creator but also know their own mortality and frailty, and thus their need of God as their provider and Savior in a fine-tuned but also troubled and dying universe.
The existence of God makes meaningful the concept of love.
Atheist Bertrand Russell said in the prologue to his autobiography: " I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found."
Wow
As someone who is into Christian apologetics I really love and appreciate this video❤
Watch the Bahnsen Stein debate then
You just helped me detach further from my attachment to personal personality. Excellent.
Isn't the self just based on the arrangement of neurons and balance of neurochemicals? It's like a computer is fairly unique due to the data stored on the hard drive. It's the data on the hard drive of our brain that defines the self. I donno if you could access it non-destructively. But it seems like a pretty simple and intuitive answer.
As for "proof", you're correct that an MRI is insufficiently precise, both in terms of being able to target individual neurons and in terms of being able to capture the full pulse sequence. I can't just trace through code like I can in a computer. However, it is precise enough to deduce a high level neural architecture. And experiments in individual neurons demonstrate the functions of the base "silicon".
While these are extrapolations, they are extrapolations from a very solid basis of proven science. We have yet to even establish a starting point for extrapolations of God, based on any kind of observable phenomena. The only argument any believers can make boils down to "I am insufficiently creative or knowledgeable to come up with any explanation other than a simple catch-all."
Both require a jump, but God requires a jump from nowhere.
Exactly. And it means we need to accept ALL jumps from nowhere or NONE.
Meaning any god, or any phenomena that we can’t explain or observe with any of our methods needs to be seen as facts. Which could be rather unfortunate.
At least in the good old witch hunt they had some basic rules to follow
This is essentially a leap of faith.
This boils down to: I have a self and this self doesn't seem to be any individual part of my body, and since we can't point to anything individually in the universe to be god, then god exists.
But IMHO, your reasoning can only lead to "god might exist".
Because if you go all the way to "god exists", then the same reasoning could be applied to a rock having a self just because we can't find the individual thing to be the self in a rock.
To me, the self is our bodies (mostly our brain) and all the processes that it goes through. One could even argue that the self is a convenient illusion that our bodies play for us, and that illusion could have been an advantage in natural selection and that's why it exists. And if that's the case, then I could have the same leap of faith but backwards: because the self is an illusion, then god doesn't exist. Which is also not true, because god might exist even if the self is an illusion.
One more thing, folks: even if the god proposed by dr. Orion exists, it's even another leap of faith to believe it's the christian god or that it would care for you.
You have not convinced me. I still don't believe.
However, you're a smart man and I like your red pill content so I will keep watching future videos.
Cheerio bud.
I find the conclusion fascinating ( believed in God all my life), and i arrived at thelat same conclusion about searching for answers, back in high school:
..that most of the time, whatever we spend time looking for is almost always right in front of us.
Love it! This was great, thank you! Inspires me to make my own proof of God video.
Which god, humans have invented around 50,000 over time.
lack of specific consensus does not negate the topic in question, on the contrary, the great amount of humans who can see something that you cant should bring your own ideas into a state of uncertainty, which by reasoning, seeing as you asked in the first place, already has.@@johnlesoudeur3653
God is concerned only with upliftment, spiritual progress, healing and the achievement of the Kingdom of Heaven.
God demonstrates his UNCONDITIONAL LOVE towards us by enabling us to: grow, create, be nourished and nourish others, to be healed and to heal others, to educate and educate others, to protect and protect others, to fulfill our needs and for us to fulfill the needs of others, all within a clear system of law and order.
This is God in action.
Good job Orion.I was just speaking to my fourteen-year-old son about this very subject. This may be a bit heady for him, but I think he will grasp the core concepts. You have fleshed them out in a manner that is tangible, logical, and relevant. Well worded.
You explained this perfectly brother.
The universe isn't random it follows the laws of physics.
Having listened carefully to your video, I'm still of the opinion we have as much understanding about what's going on as an 🐜 sitting on top of a blade of grass has an understanding of a passenger aeroplane flying way above his head.
Enjoyable video all the same.
no, physics is just an incomplete model of the world around us
What makes the equations real? What forces waves and particles to exist, and behave consistently in the way described by the equations?
The universe isn't random no, but your argument is akin to pointing out the electrochemical substrate that is the brain and say it doesn't indicate a self.
BEST QUICK MATH EXPLANATION FOR GOD:
- behavioral systems follow natural selection: the lesser effective ones do not survive the presence of more efficient ones.
- assuming the mind commonly need answers, and expands resources (time and calories) searching them, then the more efficient behavioral system is the one capable of providing non-malign answers at the least cost (time and calorie).
- hence, a thought behavioral system which answers most insignificant question with "ITS DESIGNED BY GOD" is much more effective than a competing thought behavioral system which answers it by the correct, but much more brain-expensive answer
Example: which population of humans is likely to survive and conquer: the one answering "the purpose of life is to praise the lord and reproduce", or the one who "huh, I don't know, let me search for the purpose of life for 40 years in possible anguish, at the expense of my own reproduction, OH! I FINALLY FOUND IT! [explanation, to his non-existent offspring]" ???
Hence, you can see that the belief in god is an evolutionary stable pattern.
God is not the correct answer: its the stable one.
(Much like it's useless for cats to enjoy sugar. or any number of specie-specific limitations that are actually evolutionary benefits to their conditions)
PS: I used PsycHacks' many words against his own position.
This is called an argument from personal incredulity. Just because you don't understand something it doesn't make something else more likely. It just means you don't understand it.
You've then hopped over to the god or gaps argument. You've created what you believe to be a gap in logic and inserted god. Even if lack of proof of the self was a valid argument (it isn't) there are an unlimited number of ways to try to explain it. But you went god.
Your cognitive dissonance started you at a conclusion you were comfortable with and you then sought out an argument to fit your preconceived ideas.
There's absolutely no proof of god in this argument and I would suggest spending some time reflecting on why you are attempting to prove it in the first place?
Jumping over the gap in logic is faith, and people do that in a thousand different ways every day without realizing it. There is no proof for God (just as there is no proof in the experienced self) beyond the conscious experience as such.
The whole essay strikes me as a utilitarian, God of the gaps mish mash. It would be interesting to hear his view of terror management theory.
Did you watch the video? He made it clear there was no proof, it is faith based.
If we were able to fill in the gaps of our collective human knowledge, how is the existence of God or Gods ruled out in that scenario? Do we not have tools or instruments to be able to detect and analyze the things we can’t sense? I personally disagree with the video that Scriptures can’t be used as evidence to prove God’s existence because Jesus, the Savior, testified about Himself using the Scriptures. Speaking from a Christian perspective, if Jesus were walking the earth right this very moment, the only way to prove He is God would be through the Scriptures. If the Scriptures didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a way to differentiate Him from any other false prophet who performs miracles.
5:05 _we would be appalled and horrified_
I wouldn't. Probably cause I believe ego is an illusion.
Probably birds can have "self" too, but does it count for us?
7:50 _everything starts to make sense_
Does it, or it seems?
8:40 _increasingly predict their future behavior_
It is good, but what predictions of God's behavior do you have?
10:40 _Univese seems chaotic_
What predictions of Univese's behavior do you have?
11:14 _responsible for generationg the patterns that we seems_
Like 9/11 or localhost?
11:40 _Futile of frustrating_
So, is it really predictable, or it is just feels-good explanation?
A lack of a measurement of "self" is not proof, nor even a suggestion that god exists. It only represents a science that is not fully understood yet.
Hello, I think that your idea that science can and will explain all observable phenomena in a materialist reductionist way, is nothing short of faith itself. A faith in things (scientific theories) yet unseen, and a faith that such a theory will stand the test of time without being improved to the extent of requiring redefinition. What do you think?
Just because you dont understand and science will never understand. Doesnt mean you cant know the answer
In other words, God is beyond all categories of thought.
Really interesting episode, thank you.
Very nice way to look at this topic. As an agnostic myself (depending on the definition) my reaction to this video was: yes, but that view requires a definition of what God can possibly be that is not really in line with what most believers I talk to define god to be.
But that may be a bit of a selection bias. Will definitely reflect on these inputs.
There are all kinds of believers. His description is certainly in line with my beliefs going decades back. I view religion as the set of unfalsifiable beliefs that a person uses to provide a sense-making frame and goal-setting basis to reality.
I view the "organized" religions as competing religious theories, analogous to physical theories of impetus, universal gravitation, general relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. (which are all incompatible with each other, and all "true" to a degree, and incomplete/inaccurate to a degree, and which we would be much poorer for ignoring/discounting on grounds of their imperfections).
In practice, I individually associate primarily with Christianity from an investigative and descriptive frame (rather than the dogmatic prescriptive frame that gets all the media attention due to its toxicity and targeting ease).
Hope that was at least mildly helpful/useful. Grace and Peace to you. 😁
The best “ explanation” of the existence of God! Amazing video that I have shared with my family
I totally loved your analogy of the alien trying to comprehend humans … I think that the human mind and body is limited by its basic 5 senses to truly “prove” the existence of God yet we experience God unknowingly, uncomprehendingly
I am Indian, Hindu, loved your explanation of God
Interestingly, in ancient Hindu scriptures, Gods are described as aliens
>Interestingly, in ancient Hindu scriptures, Gods are described as aliens
Respectfully, please never speak about Hinduism again.
Imma be honest this is the most convincing version of the finly tunes argument.
Amazing vídeo! Can’t believe that you being so logical and deep believes in God like me. Great approach thanks a lot for the video.
Hi Dr Orion, would you mind explaining this part at 13:53 " Indeed, once seen both seem the plainest facts of existence in no small part, because you realize that you had been looking right at them the entire time" . I feel like if I understand this sentence, it will help me understand the entire video. Many thanks
Fascinating video. What do you think of Sam Harris' idea of 'the self' being an illusion and free-will not existing?
If free will doesnt exist then why even argue about it? We cant stop believing because we dont have free will. Its a waste of time. Sam Harris is a grifter.
@@mastershake4641 I actually have no idea how he came to believe that in the first place.
@@Vladimyrful People say one thing but their actions show another thing. Hes a liar who makes alot of money lying.
@@mastershake4641 I mean, since we're on a psychology channel, let's take CBT for example - you use behavior to change unwelcome patterns your brain is operating under. Why would a brain want to change itself? Where did this decision come from? One could argue from the sensation of "pain" but if a brain is just a well-oiled machine that's made to run efficiently and with a part of least resistance I doubt this would be the case.
@@Vladimyrful They want to reduce us to being animals. Animals dont over ride their instincts, we do. Its on them to prove this is part of evolution, because there is absolutely no proof that is true. But they think we are the irrational ones.
Ok, fair enough. I'm an atheist and I this is my reply to your video. The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions God is "which one exactly?" You did not define God, so I don't really know what are we talking about here. Is it Yahweh? Allah? Brahma? Zeus? Odin? Or something else entirely? After you choose the one you believe in, my second question is: Why not the others? And I think this question is important because the reasoning behind why religious people disbelieve in all the "other" gods is pretty much the same as why I disbelieve in their god.
About your point on the "proof" of self: Again, what do you mean by self? You didn't define that either. It sounds like you mean consciousness when you talk about the self, so I will take that. My answer to that is no, I cannot prove my consciousness to other people and other people cannot prove their consciousness to me. But I know I have it and since other people came into this world the same way I did, that's enough for me to make a fair assumption that others must have a consciousness of their own too. And since my relantionship with others under that assumption works well enough I really do not have the need of further proof. Also, It's not like my life would change in any way if I had solid proof of other people's consciousness, so I don't really care.
Anyway, I don't think that your analogy works for the following reason: things like the self, consciousness or personality exist are just abstract concepts. They are nothing more than tools of the language we use to define patterns that only exist inside our brains. If I die, my "self", my "consciousness" and my "personality" will die with me. And if all humans die, then those concepts will lose all meaning whatsoever and will cease to exist as well. Those abstract concepts exist merely inside our brains, not in the objective reality. But I assume that that's not how you think of God, I assume that you believe that if all humans die, then God will still exist. That alone already makes your God claim completely different than something like the self or personality. You are not talking about just an abstract concept when you talk about god, you are talking about an entity that can manifest in objective reality, and that CAN be proven. If you say you think god is just an abstract concept that exists inside our brains, and you define it as "a higher purpose" or whatever, like Jordan Peterson does for example, then sure, I will have no problem in granting you that god exists then. But if we are being honest, we all know that's not what most people mean when they say "god".
"Once you see god you cannot unsee it" Pretty much all atheists prove you wrong on that, because almost all of us were believers once. So yeah, you can very much "unsee" god. Unless you are willing to make a "no true scotsman" fallacy and claim that we weren't "true believers".
Hey! Greetings from germany! Thank you so much for your work. It has been realy useful to me, but in this case, I have to disagree:
So, because I have a self, I assume that the universe has a self?
And because I have moods, the World does, too? Like anger, when there is a thunderstorm? And because my moods are caused by the behaviour of others, what the world does must be caused by us? Because we are sinful?
...The world is a complicated and chaotic place. All stories that we tell ourselfs are a way of simplifing so that we can act in a world we dont understand. And thats why gods or personalities, even the sense of a self are useful - they are all a simplifications like maps. But we should not mistake the map for the landscape.
I had an Angel drive my car while I was having a bad allergic reaction driving on the highway. So yes I believe in God. I woke up coming into town driving the car and couldn’t remember the last 13 miles.
Atheist here, too. Set apart a rather "nebulous" definition of "self" on which I don't agree -- but ok, let's say I get the idea: from observations of human behavior, we INFER that a thing exists that we call "personality" or even "self". But now: what would be the "patterns" that would bring us to INFER the existence of a *deity* ? That there are laws of physics? And from that we should infer the "existence" of one infinite, therefore divine, "being" ? This seems like a *long* shot to me! I would suggest: keep on the good work with psychology, but don't play missionary !
Objective morality exists. Good and evil. Its not subjective or else it wouldnt be good and evil. Thus we know that God exists because he is the one that determines what is good and evil.
@@mastershake4641 no
@@diemme568 Nice arguement
@@mastershake4641 ok I'll elaborate: there is no such thing as an absolute morality. ok now?
@@diemme568 So you dont think someone who diddles children, then tortures them and sets them on fire for fun is evil?
It's a nice thought experiment. But it's assuming something exists just because we have a concept of it.
Its not exactly assuming, just considering because of a similar situation.
Assumption based on lots of observable phenomenons. The second step of the scientific method: hypothesis. Depending on where you sre on your journey, you may have or are very close to reaching your own conclusion depending on the amount of evidence you have.
Giving a definition "personality" to an pattern of phenomena is not assuming. "When you're born, you're not without personality - it exists in its fundamental form known as temperament. Your temperament, which consists of innate features like energy levels, mood and demeanor, and emotional responsiveness, can then drive the learning experiences that form your personality throughout life." I think many people are hung up on the differences of personality vs temperament.
Personality does exist even if you didn't know about it before watching the video.
Thanks!
The first video on the channel that won't bring anything to my life. Bad Dr. Orion, bad;-)
Psychology is one of the fields of science.
It is based on verified detailed knowledge.
Religion is based on beliefs, which are grounded in emotions.
In my opinion, if Dr. Orion is a religious person, that's the only reason why this film was made. An atheist version of Dr. Orion wouldn't record such an episode because there would be no need for it, and it would contradict everything that has been the foundation so far.
Love the channel.
Stunning work for humanity.
We may look for the "self" not in the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies but in their inter-relationships and in what they do. In this way we can see the "self" as a process of energy flow rather than a static "thing". A process that can start through the development in the womb and birth, is altered and further developed though experience with the environment, and ends at death. The individuation of personalities can be explained by minute differences in genes and the great variety of memories arising from different life experiences: so that even a clone can have a different personality than the original. For, even prior to any other different experiences in the world, the fundamental realization of being a clone would be likely to have profound consequences on the sense of "self".
As for the order we see in the universe, it's pretty well explained by the laws of physics: in particular, the second law of thermodynamics (in short: the more ways that a thing can happen, the more likely it will happen). And - if we add the reasonable assertion that all stable systems must follow self consistent rules or they will become unstable and fall apart - then I see no need to add any further complicating factors.
In jumping to the conclusion that an "externus" supernatural being must also exist, to manage and account for it all: Are we not simply moving the goal posts? Replacing one mystery with an even greater one? For, in making this leap (if we are to call ourselves committed truth-seekers), we are then compelled to ask: What is the nature and origin of an entity that must be far more complex than the thing/process we were originally trying to explain?