Hey Squared, it seems that there are a lot of people in the comments who aren't exactly reacting kindly to your video. I just wanted to encourage you by saying that I loved it! Please keep making them! You do such a good job of taking new and interesting arguments and breaking them down on a level that people like me can easily understand. So please don't be discouraged by the comments, they are just evidence that your videos are reaching new people who aren't used to these kinds of arguments!
Iʼm not sure it actually *does* make sense to have a universe full of masses and charges but no laws of physics that mention masses or charges. What would a mass or charge *be* in that case? (My very limited understanding of QFT makes it *even more* impossible but that doesnʼt mean much). Masses and charges are only properties of things *because* of the way things behave. Suppose that in addition to mass and charge (and “color” which is not the same as the ordinary English usage, and spin, and all the other properties physics talks about), some particles also have florp. However, no laws of physics talk about florp. What does it even *mean* to say that quarks have a florp of 1/3 while electrons have a florp of 1/𝜏? Physicists will certainly never detect or write about this florp because it *never does anything* and we might as well say it does not exist. (We can actually tell given modern physics that it has to be the same for all particles of a certain type; we could detect it if some electrons had florp 1/3 while others had florp 17i+23, because they would not interfere with each other in quantum experiments. But that would also make it mean something and no longer apply to this video.)
Behold this six-sided die that I just rolled. It shows five pips. We can all imagine that it showed two, six, even one pip...but it shows five, therefore god exists. The fine-tuning argument is great at kicking the can down the road, but not at being convincing in regards to the existence of a god or gods. Much less the abrahamic or any other god imagined by the various cultures of history.
The difference is that theists justify the claim that there is a high antecedent probability that God would fine-tune the universe (you can see my previous videos in this series where I explain my views on theism's predictive power). In the case of the dice, there is no reason to expect that He would make the dice come up five pips rather than any other outcome, so that outcome is not evidence for theism.
@@ApologeticsSquared You assume an undefined probability and claim it as justification. Like the die, there is no reason to assume a reason for this or any other state of physical laws, so the current state of the universe is not evidence for theism.
@@ApologeticsSquaredGod would fine tune the universe for evil so he can defeat it and become better than perfect, right? Because if the universe doesn't make God better then you have no explanation for why he'd have any preference for it.
to be fair, they are defining that probability as basically so low it's impossible, not just one in six. Not really saying I agree with the argument, idk what to make of most of this to be honest, but I am saying rolling a six sided die is not a good comparison. It's more like rolling a googol sided die and coming up on the result that happens to support conscious life. That's much harder to pin on random chance. The part where he lost me is how the multiverse explanation doesn't work.
Am I correct in observing this as a completely new philosophical argument? The observations about interrelationship between properties is a fascinating angle and very strong, particularly in light of the convergence of fields required for the universe as we know it.
You are not correct in observing this argument as new. He points out in his video where the ideas come from. In short, the 'stuff happens, therefore god' is better known as the 'fine-tuning' argument. Despite the oversimplification of the title he does go much more in depth on the argument and addresses some of the better known defenses with proposed defeaters. Not a bad video, and he's clearly done some reading. I recommend doing some reading as well, and try not to start at the end (apologetics often implies embracing a bias towards achieving a specific outcome when pondering metaphysics, and that defeats the purpose of pondering metaphysics).
@@adamchristensen2648 thanks. I'm familiar with fine tuning from a variety of aspects and made a reference to it, but hadn't heard it expressed from this angle before.
This is indeed a pretty new argument for theism! It was introduced in a paper by Brian Cutter and Bradford Saad titled "The problem of nomological harmony" which can be found online. It differs from the traditional fine-tuning argument, since the latter focuses on the dimensionless constants that appear in physics, whereas the argument from Nomological Harmony appeals to the fact that we have physics at all, so to speak. :)
@@goldenalt3166 Words are tools to convey meaning. Even if there is always a range of possible meanings for a word, God has been defined precisely in the context of arguments for the existence of God to help people like you not get things wrong. So, in this context, what's a definition?
@@goldenalt3166 when i use the word I have a clear, textbook definition of it in my mind. I use it consistently, as do all theistic philosophers I know of. You really can't look this up?
It is a law of nature that theists will eventually offer theistic arguments that are indistinguishable from parodies of theistic arguments. "Stuff happens, I could imagine it otherwise, therefore God exists"
It is a law of nature that non-theists will take a purposefully funny video title and use that to mock theists, all the while the non-theist ignores the actual argument made in the video and refuses to engage with it.
The best part of Squareds argument is you can argue the complete opposite: "stuff doesn't happen, I could imagine it otherwise, therefore god" The evidence is so bad that the complete negative/opposite counts equally to the argument.
A problem with the first view is that we have no reference for how many properties there are. We could be in a hypothetical universe where properties 1,2,3,4 ... ,N, and N+1 do not interact and properties N+2, N+3,... N+100, and N+101 do interact. Depending on N, our universe could only have a small handful of the possible properties interacting. As such, a universe where stuff happens would be far more likely than a universe where stuff doesn't. A way to state the second view is that it is possible that there is stuff that the laws of physics do not effect or laws of physics that govern stuff that does not exist. A problem with that is, by definition, the laws of physics is a list of how stuff interacts, prescriptive or descriptive. A law of physics that governs nothing in our universe would simply not be a law of physics. And stuff that the laws of physics do not apply to would simply require an expansion of our understanding of the laws of physics. ie matter attracts matter except for matter with property X. And the fact that we cannot tell if we are in a universe with for example "tricky mass" does not provide an argument one way or the other. It just changes the question from "Did a god create the universe?" to "Did a god create the universe with tricky mass in it?" Tricky mass would certainly completely upend our understanding of the laws of physics, but the laws of physics themselves would be the same as they've always been. Even taking the arguments to be true, they are still probabilistic and hypothetical arguments. We have no basis to say whether or not the alternative universes could exist. A universe where nothing interacts could be entirely impossible by some unknown method. We can imagine them certainly, but that does not lend any credence to the possibility of them existing. And even if they could exist they simply mean that the universe we exist in is unlikely, not impossible without a god. If the universe didn't exist we wouldn't exist to know that. My existence as a person to be watching this video is incredibly unlikely. My birth, 1 in millions, my life so far, 1 in billions, this video being recommended and made by you, 1 in trillions, and me clicking on it, 1 in tens. And yet I am here commenting.
"you could have a universe just having x" You're assuming an "alphabet" of possible properties and some kind of "mechanism" that's randomly drawing from these properties to make a universe. What reason do we have to think that this actually happens? Furthermore, your "alphabet" of properties would be infinite, would it not? The odds of any particular universe drawn from an infinite selection of properties is zero. It doesn't even matter if those properties interact or don't interact. If our starting point is that our universe was randomly selected from all imaginable universes, then yes, the odds of our universe being selected are always literally zero. There's no need to even discuss physics or cosmological constants.
I think a multiverse objection need not entail serious doubt about what happens next Tuesday. Maybe physical laws simply can’t include time-related clauses. In general, I think unlike the normal Fine Tuning argument, it’s difficult to speculate about how laws could have been different. I’m not persuaded that naturalists should expect a stillborn universe from the questions of laws and particles that are raised here. I think there are some links in the chain from “nothing” to “conscious humanity” that are very difficult to accept on naturalism, but for me this one is difficult to think about expectations around it. Maybe I’m just missing the point though.
So you think that even though there is no design at all under naturalism it still is obvious that consistent laws of physics have to exist? That that is just a given?
Hi. I just think this area is difficult to speculate about, really. Probably not a given, but I would say consistent laws are more likely than inconsistent ones. Perhaps one reason I struggle to relate to this argument is that it’s difficult to think of physical laws in the way they’re presented in the argument. And it’s always tempting to just go a little deeper, and wonder, “Why would we have any laws and properties at all?”
@@MatthewFearnleyBut I think consistent laws are more likely than inconsistent ones from the perspective of rational intelligence but from the perspective of matter in motion it is of no consequence. (Not looking to be confrontational just offering different argument)
you pull your probabilities straight out of your behind. do you know what kind of universes are possible? is it an infinite set of any combination of things? christianity/islam/voodoo always give the right answer, as you make it up as you go. the answer is..magic, specifically by your particular god.
Whether god exists or not is all semantics to me. What is more relevant is how should we live based on what we believe. Our behaviors and actions is what really matters. One could theoretically live as christ and not "believe" in him and vice versa.
This argument really smells like, I'm being generous, a highschool understanding of physics. It has two major flaws. 1) Physics aren't just a set of matching or mismatching "interactors" and "interactees" which can be arbitrarily permuted. For example, the electric field can be derived as an emitted flux. This leads to Coulomb's law and the appearance of charges. There are no charges without the electric field and no field without charges, therefore a mismatch between the two is impossible. This emerges from very basic geometry and a few fundamental assumptions such as isotropy. The laws of physics are derived from assumptions and math (logic). We can imagine a "solved" physics where these assumptions have been whittled down to the lowest possible number and we have the exact set of laws of the universe. There are two possible results which I note 1A and 1B. 1A) We are left with a few arbitrary assumptions, such as the values of some constants. This is because the possible laws of physics are limited by what logic allows. This case leaves space for the variation of these constants in the way your video suggests permuting the laws of physics. However, the allowed permutations are already with our current understanding of physics are already far more limited than your video implies. 1B) The laws of the universe are entirely emergent from logic. No permutation is possible, unless you consider the possibility that logic itself could somehow be altered. In all, your argument rests on a rather poor understanding of physics. You can't have a Universe with an electric charge and no electric field. Likewise, you can't have a non uniform electric field and no charge. Because your argument depends on an impossible idea of iterating the laws of physics, it's straight up wrong. 2) The probabilities are dependent on a arbitrary assumptions. There is nothing that tells us that this probability should go to zero. You assume that the probability for each would be somehow inversely proportional to the total number of interactors/interactees. It could grow or be constant. You assume that there is an infinite number of possibilities. There could two, or one, or six million. These are arbitrary assumptions on which you rely for your argument, but they are utterly unfounded.
1) The argument doesn't rely on *any* understanding of physics. No bits of it depend on anything about physics. The point is conceptual--to have a universe that produces anything, you need to have stuff and the stuff needs to do stuff. But stuff only does stuff under certain conditions, so you have to get some improbable pairing whereby the conditions under which stuff does stuff actually arise. Unless modern physics has taught us either 1) that there's nothing or 2) that the stuff doesn't do anything, it doesn't threaten the argument. 1A) even if we discovered some complete physics, that the complete physics produces nomological harmony would be surprising. The odds of that are low conditional on naturalism. 1B) If something has many conceivable values it could take on, without one of them being special, and then it takes on one particular value, when there's a theory that explains why it would take on that value, that's strong evidence for that theory. If I get ten royal flushes in poker, that's strong evidence I'm cheating. You can always say "well, maybe my getting royal flushes is caused by the laws of physics," which is true, but it's unlikely the laws of physics would cause that particular improbable outcome. This also addresses point 2)--if there are lots of values it could conceivably take on, and it takes on one value that's expected on theism, that's evidence for God, just like getting royal flushes is evidence I'm cheating.
Objection 1 doesn't do much because the point is what laws govern/supervene/whatever what kinds of physical things, if you have laws governing strings and all you have in the world are "zrings" we're in serious trouble. Also I don't think logicism about mathematics is true. Again if we have as you described "the exact set of laws of the universe" in some world wn but the laws don't govern the "stuff" in wn then the laws are only vacuously true. Objection 2 the assumptions aren't arbitrary IIRC Squared endorses the Principle of Indifference. But it doesn't matter, I think this objection also misses the mark. Even if something is necessarily true it can be evidence for something else being true. If there were a logically necessary law of physics that caused matter to spell out "Jesus is God" in every galaxy that would be evidence Christianity is true, even if it's necessarily so.
@@ShouVertica Well, yeah. 😆 I meant: Do they cause events or do they describe events or do they do something else entirely. If they’re descriptive, they describe. If they’re causal, they cause. They do what they do because they are what they are.
Please note that I said throughout the video I emphasized that I was simplifying the physics so that I could keep the video short. I value the time of my viewers, and so if I can save their time without sacrificing understanding, that's the route I try to choose. :) It's true that I used a sort of naive form of Newtonian physics when explaining the argument. Since Faraday, physicists probably wouldn't want to talk about, say, an electron acting on another electron. They would want to couch their language in terms of fields instead. They also wouldn't cash out gravity as a force at all! However, none of this affects the argument. Instead of noting the surprising harmony between the causal powers of the particles in our universe, the argument can easily be rehashed in terms of the surprising harmony between the causal powers of the *fields* in our universe! And if we were to come into a completely new paradigm for understanding the physical world, the argument would _still_ function. So, since the argument functions independent of how we cash out physics, I used a simplistic model in my explanation.
@theautodidacticlayman I'm not sure you understand what a physical "law" is. It's a description, the description itself does not "cause" the physical interaction, like some magical phrase.
...not really, naturalism has no sufficient reason to make any initial state of affairs more probable than another - if you think it does, then the burden is on you to show that it does... edit: it's like quite a few models of quantum mechanics - the only sufficient reason for the underlying randomness is the model itself, but clearly that doesn't make any sequence of events that follow within that model more probable than others
@@richardpogoson Naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. It makes no claims about other universes, which is what squared is doing.
@@mesplin3 okay, but it makes no claim about what such laws are - or why one set of laws pertains over another. By your definition, it just asserts the existence of natural laws in the universe, but as long as these laws can be numerically quantified and/or related to each other in some mathematical way, then Naturalism, at the fundamental level, doesn't assert that one state of affairs is more probable than another.
@@richardpogoson Right. Naturalism just excludes supernatural or spiritual entities or forces as explanations for phenomena. It doesn't assert that one state of affairs is more probable than another. So it doesn't make sense to assign a probability to alternative states as a means of disproving naturalism.
@@mesplin3well, not really. For a six sided dice, no outcome is more probable than another - yet we can still assign probabilities to outcomes. But ultimately you've just assassinated the predictive power of naturalism (if there was any). The point to be made is that if no situation can be said to be more probable than another, then for a given number of situations it's not unreasonable to assign equal probability in order to make predictions until proven otherwise
This is an argument from ignorance. Not having an answer is o a question doesn’t warrant a god belief. Gods are not demonstrable nor do they have any explanatory power. Natural selection explanations replace supernatural ones all the time. But not once has a supernatural explanation replaced a natural one.
I always love videos like this. I saw Godzilla in a movie and math and things happening means that Godzilla has to be real and the same goes for Quetzlcoatl. Praise Mohahmed and his magical sky horse that took him to the big heaven place in the sky. Theism be great!
@@nathanfosdahl4074His argument is that you’re jumping to conclusions inserting God to explain something. What about supernatural gremlins that got bored? And if you don’t believe in them, that’s special pleading for God.
lot's of people are making accusations / assumptions about your beliefs, namely that when you say "theism" you mean a belief system where a god that resembles the god of some human religion exists. I don't think this is necessarily true, I'm curious if it is though? Are you arguing for Christianity or just the presence of an unknowable, nondescript higher power? edit: ah, my bad, I only had to look at your channel description to answer my question. The idea that this video, even if all of your arguments in it were correct, in any way supports the existence of a Christian god is pretty laughable to me. edit 2: I'm realizing this isn't very fair; you never claimed this video would support the existence of a Christian god, the scope of this video is clearly just set on theism, and for all I know you have other videos which might further explore Christianity specifically. So I shouldn't claim you're argument is incomplete when my definition of "complete" is wholly separate from your intentions to begin with. My bad. there's gotta be a name for this logical fallacy...
That the laws of physics are purely self-forming and exist throughout inanimate universe consistently throughout time without design would seem improbable even impossible.
The idea that the laws of physics were self-forming without intent, design, awareness, agency or purpose and just arose out of matter and energy would seem improbable, even impossible.
@Redtornado6 Um, no, it's not a consensus is an agreement by professional scholars . Atheists. Muslims Christians jews etc . Why did Allah allow Satan to give muhammad revelation and worship pagan gods ?
You’re using probability in a context where it doesn’t make sense. You never establish why the probability distribution should be uniform. You also never establish why God created the universe and how likely a functional universe would be. There’s nothing to compare. Consider this alternative: Entities are defined by how they interact with other entities. An entity that does nothing in one universe is indistinguishable from an entity in a different universe that also does nothing. There’s only one entity that does nothing. If I was to incorrectly assume statistical uniformity, a universe is more likely than the nothing state. You assume that there is a difference between defective and functional physics without establishing the difference. Assuming you mean self-contradictory physics, such a universe is logically impossible by definition.
Without intelligent design or even any design at all the laws of physics must have self-formed in a way that is consistent and uniform. Probably difficult to calculate how unlikely that is or if it is even possible.
No, no, no... apologists only address defenses and defeaters they can effectively respond to. Not the ones that demonstrate the inadequacy of the argument. Why would anyone just study philosophy to think deeply about ideas? No, you pick what you want the answer to be, then read enough about it to make a convincing ten minute video for those that already agree with you.
@@MarkPatmosDifficult to say the laws of physics formed at all. And if we do say they formed, why not say that god formed? How did god form? Now we'll need to define god in such a way that makes this argument consistent...then we'll have to backtrack and make this definition of god fit the existing dogmatic definition of one's preferred theology. It's a pretty daunting intellectual feat to reach a solid "we don't know" moment and then boldly insert an "ahh, but I *do* know, because these ancient writings say I know..."
@@adamchristensen2648I think the normal theological argument is that God is aware of everything at once, so exists outside of time as we experience it. But you’re right that I have no proof for that.
Of course God exists. Sri Krishna tells us so in the most beautiful text on the planet - the Bhagavad Gita. In fact, not only does Krishna tell us that the Absolute, aka Brahman, exists but also how it can be directly experience.
This argument has the same problem as all fine tuning arguments. There is no reason to expect that God would desire a universe where something happens. God's desires aren't caused or explained by anything, they are brute facts. So, this argument is not a tie-breaker between theism and naturalism.
I said, "Hello! Imagine you want to go play a board game that you just bought. But there was a mix-up at the board game factory. The instructions are for a completely different game! Let's say, the box has a chess board and chess pieces, but the instructions are for Scrabble. This is a defective pairing between the game instruction and the game board, and it makes playing impossible. The instructions say to start by drawing seven tiles, but there aren't any tiles in the box! So the game can't even start. The idea with the Argument from Nomological Harmony is that, naturalism predicts a sort of mismatch in physics that would make all events in our universe impossible, but theism predicts the existence of a universe like ours. Now, before we can jump into the argument, we need to first answer the question, 'What are the laws of physics?' The argument works no matter how we answer this, but our answer will affect the structure of the argument. In this video, we'll look at two possible answers. First, some people think that the laws of physics are descriptions of how things in our universe interact. For a simplified example, let's say I'm falling. According to this view, the earth causes me to move downwards and the Law of Gravity simply describes what this looks like. However, the Law of Gravity isn't causing anything to happen to me; the earth is. Another view is that the laws themselves cause things to happen in the universe. So, on this view, the Law of Gravity actually causes me to move downwards. So, with these two theories of what the laws of physics are, we can look at two ways of running of the Nomological Harmony Argument. First, what if physics are just a description of how physical things influence each other? Then we better hope the right sort of things populate our universe! Again, simplifying for the sake of brevity, the physical stuff in our universe has different physical properties like mass and charge that interact with each other in different ways. Masses attract other masses, positive charges attract negative charges, and so on. But the property of mass doesn't attract or repel positive charges; in fact, masses do nothing to positive charges. So, sometimes physical properties have no influence on each other at all. But this means we can conceive of a hypothetical universe where nothing happens because all the physical properties that happen to exist have no influence on each other. For example, say there are things with property A in this universe, and property A would attract property B, but nothing has property B. And there are things with property X that would repel property Y, but nothing has property Y. So, nothing happens at all. Quick note: If you're a naturalist, you might not think that this scenario is metaphysically possible, but it's a priori epistemically possible. Now, to turn this into an argument for God's existence, notice that there are far more epistemically possible defective pairings of physical properties where the universe is 'stillborn,' than there are functional pairings where stuff happens; if property X only interacts with property Y, well there are more ways for property X to be in a universe lacking property Y than there are ways for property X to be in a universe containing property Y. You could have a universe with just X's, or just X's and A's, and so on. Given Naturalism, nothing makes one particular possibility more probable than any other pairing. So, the probability of a functional pairing given Naturalism is very low. However, a universe where stuff happens is quite plausibly going to be more valuable than a stillborn universe. So, theism strongly predicts a functional pairing between the physical properties that appear in our universe. Therefore, updating on the existence of a physical universe where things happen is strong evidence for theism over naturalism. But what if we instead take the other view about the laws of physics? What if the laws of physics are things that govern the universe? Then we better hope we get the right governor! Again, simplifying, our universe is full of properties like mass and charge. The laws of physics (on this view) cause masses to attract, like charges to repel, and so on. But we can conceive of a universe that didn't have charges or masses in it, but instead contained unique properties X and Y. Since the laws of physics govern charge and mass instead of X and Y, the laws of physics wouldn't cause anything to happen in that universe. Conversely, we can imagine our own universe with charges and masses in it, but laws of physics which cause X and Y to attract, but these laws don't govern mass and charge. So, we need laws of physics and a universe that are paired together in the right way for stuff to happen in our universe. Again, stillborn universes where nothing happens are going to be far more likely, given Naturalism, so the existence of a physical universe where things do happen is strong evidence for theism over naturalism. One response to the Argument from Nomological Harmony is a modified multiverse response. Instead of positing a bunch of universes, each possessing different constants for a single set of laws of physics for the standard fine-tuning argument, you could posit a multiverse where every possible law of physics is paired with every possible universe, or alternatively every possible combination of physical properties exists in some universe. Now, this multiverse is very broad; it would definitely include a universe like ours, but it's *so* broad that it entails the existence of 'deceptive physics.' For example, take this law of physics: 'Mass attracts other mass before next Tuesday, but repels other mass after that.' Or alternatively, we could say the property of 'tricky-mass' attracts other tricky-mass before next Tuesday, but repels tricky-mass after that. The number of universes with deceptive physics would easily outnumber the universes with well-behaved physics, so given such a multiverse, we lose all ability to predict the future, because all our empirical data is consistent with both mass and tricky-mass, so we can't tell which universe we ourselves are in! A multiverse renders us unable to tell whether or not gravity will suddenly reverse next Tuesday! So, you can't use a multiverse to escape this argument. One quick note: I called an argument in a previous video the 'Nomological Argument.' The reason is the word 'Nomological' basically means 'relating to the laws of physics,' and there are two main arguments that reason from the laws of physics to God. The argument in the previous video -- I probably should have called that one the 'Nomological Fine-Tuning' Argument, or just the 'Argument from Induction.' But the argument in *this* video is a distinct argument called the Argument from Nomological *Harmony*. I just wanted to make that clear. Now, what score do I give this argument? How much does it raise the probability of theism? Well, this is another one of those arguments which I find incredibly strong. There's an unfathomable number of epistemically possible laws of physics, I can't see how any objections to the argument could work, and as far as I can tell the argument rests on really solid premises, like 'stuff happens in the universe.' When discussing the Argument from Psychophysical Harmony and the Nomological Fine-Tuning Argument previously, I said that the evidential strength of those arguments were super big numbers, like a googol or a googolplex. This was because these arguments make virtually no assumptions, and the fewer controversial assumptions made by a fine-tuning-style argument, the stronger it is. Nomological Harmony fits into this same category, so if I were to numerically weight this argument's strength, I'd give it a similar score. Anyways, that's the end of the video! I hope you enjoyed! I'll see you in the next one."
This is a strawman and also implies you know probabilities of events you cannot even determine to be possible. You need to first demonstrate that any other universe is even possible to then present probabilities related to said universe.
Hello! The type of probability being used in this argument is called "epistemic probability" or "credences." Without getting too deep into the weeds (I do that in other videos), there seems to be a sense in which there is a 50% probability that the billionth digit of pi is an even number. That's the sort of probability used here.
@@ApologeticsSquared Firstly, we know that all digits are either even or odd. Secondly, analysis of millions or billions of digits of pi shows that all digits between 0-9 appear at a nearly perfectly uniform rate, which lends credence to the claim, and more importantly makes it at the very least possibly true. No evidence was presented that other universes can even exist, or that they can have any properties aside from the ones seen in this universe.
@@OhramiBut if the universe is entirely without design, then there may be no reason why laws of physics should exist at all. The laws of physics are an anomaly without any design, intent and purpose governing universe.
@@MarkPatmos You're using a lot of vague language there. The fact is that we are in a universe with some properties. It is unknown if any other properties are even possible. The only thing we do know is that the properties of this currently existing universe are possible.
Another video riddled with errors: 0:45 - "Naturalism predicts a mismatch" Incorrect. 0:55 - "Theism predicts the existence of a universe like ours" Also incorrect. 1:35 - "Another view is that the laws themselves cause things to happen." This is incoherent. It's misunderstanding the language and passing it off as a real position. Nobody actually holds this position. 2:03 "Then we better hope the right sort of things populate our universe" If the universe is different then physics would be different. There's nothing wrong with this in the thought experiment other than "we don't get the same universe" which....is intentionally described a different universe. (Contrived statement/complaint from Squared). 2:45 "We can conceive of a hypothetical universe where nothing happens." This means nothing. We can make up any number of universes, actions, events, etc for a thought experiment. 3:15 "It's apriori epistemically possible" Which means nothing, everything can be apriori epistemically possible. 3:44 "There are more ways" Which means nothing. Theoretically one actuality will _always_ be less than the nigh-infinite possibility, especially granting a nebulous "apriori epistemic possibility" and no metaphysical limits. 4:09 "The probability of a pairing given naturalism" None of this has anything to do with naturalism/theism. 4:13 "However a universe where stuff happens, is quite plausibly going to be more valuable than a stillborn universe" Value is assigned and a relative term. This statement doesn't even make sense, since the thought experiment just list out "universes with and without X pairing" there isn't a value to be given. 4:15 "Theism strongly predicts a functional pairing" But it doesn't. Nothing about this has anything to do with theism. (There is also a very interesting problem with this because Squared has brought out that "pairing is good" but then previously he admitted not everything has pairing, which would mean "only the very, very specific pairing we have is good, everything else is bad" which falls more into the problem with the argument being "point at rock, this exact rock is good, if rock was different it would be bad and therefore theism good.") 4:30 "A universe where things happen is strong evidence for theism." Ironically this shows how bad theistic evidence/argument has become. The evidence is so vague and undefined that theist are now resorting to "see things happen so therefore god." Not going to address the second view, nobody even holds this position and it's even more incoherent to talk about physics in such a way. Multiverse: 6:35 "It's so broad that it entails..." There is nothing actually wrong with all of this. It might make you feel icky, it might be metaphysically incoherent, but there is nothing wrong with it since Squared already gave "apriori epistemic possibility" with no limitations. 7:00 "Deceptive physics would outnumber" This (again) doesn't matter. 7:05 "We lose all ability to predict the future" Yet this doesn't matter, that would just be _how the universe is_ . Again, Squared makes up a universe with "tricky mass" and then complains the universe has "tricky mass" (Another contrived complaint). 7:22 "You can't tell whether gravity will reverse next Tuesday" This wouldn't matter, again, our inability to function given alternative universe doesn't matter in the hypothetical. Conclusion: 8:55 "It's a good argument." The interesting part of this argument: One could make the exact same argument, citing all the evidence in the negative and Squared would say it's a good argument. "The fact that X pairing doesn't happen means it's unlikely on naturalism and more likely on theism" You can't falsify a presuppositionalist argument, they will believe regardless of the evidence and argument.
Hey Squared, it seems that there are a lot of people in the comments who aren't exactly reacting kindly to your video. I just wanted to encourage you by saying that I loved it! Please keep making them! You do such a good job of taking new and interesting arguments and breaking them down on a level that people like me can easily understand. So please don't be discouraged by the comments, they are just evidence that your videos are reaching new people who aren't used to these kinds of arguments!
A lot of people say he's wrong on most of his videos...because he is wrong.
While I may be new here and some of us are responding less than kindly, I can assure you, its because we're far too used to these kinds of arguments.
Hey squared, can you please make a video on the transcendental argument for God? Russ manion and Fr Deacon Ananias have really great papers on it.
Great video! God bless you!
Salam
Amazing video
Heeellloo!! Quite a while, boss! Trust you and your family are doing great? Bless🙏❤️✝️
Iʼm not sure it actually *does* make sense to have a universe full of masses and charges but no laws of physics that mention masses or charges. What would a mass or charge *be* in that case? (My very limited understanding of QFT makes it *even more* impossible but that doesnʼt mean much). Masses and charges are only properties of things *because* of the way things behave. Suppose that in addition to mass and charge (and “color” which is not the same as the ordinary English usage, and spin, and all the other properties physics talks about), some particles also have florp. However, no laws of physics talk about florp. What does it even *mean* to say that quarks have a florp of 1/3 while electrons have a florp of 1/𝜏? Physicists will certainly never detect or write about this florp because it *never does anything* and we might as well say it does not exist. (We can actually tell given modern physics that it has to be the same for all particles of a certain type; we could detect it if some electrons had florp 1/3 while others had florp 17i+23, because they would not interfere with each other in quantum experiments. But that would also make it mean something and no longer apply to this video.)
Behold this six-sided die that I just rolled. It shows five pips. We can all imagine that it showed two, six, even one pip...but it shows five, therefore god exists.
The fine-tuning argument is great at kicking the can down the road, but not at being convincing in regards to the existence of a god or gods. Much less the abrahamic or any other god imagined by the various cultures of history.
The difference is that theists justify the claim that there is a high antecedent probability that God would fine-tune the universe (you can see my previous videos in this series where I explain my views on theism's predictive power). In the case of the dice, there is no reason to expect that He would make the dice come up five pips rather than any other outcome, so that outcome is not evidence for theism.
@@ApologeticsSquared You assume an undefined probability and claim it as justification. Like the die, there is no reason to assume a reason for this or any other state of physical laws, so the current state of the universe is not evidence for theism.
@@ApologeticsSquaredGod would fine tune the universe for evil so he can defeat it and become better than perfect, right? Because if the universe doesn't make God better then you have no explanation for why he'd have any preference for it.
to be fair, they are defining that probability as basically so low it's impossible, not just one in six. Not really saying I agree with the argument, idk what to make of most of this to be honest, but I am saying rolling a six sided die is not a good comparison. It's more like rolling a googol sided die and coming up on the result that happens to support conscious life. That's much harder to pin on random chance. The part where he lost me is how the multiverse explanation doesn't work.
@@Canyon_Lark or in other words rolling a googol sided die and coming up with ANY particular result without cheating.
god IZ a fallacy--trying To prove God through God. Circular argument. Debunked!
Wake up babe! Apologetics squared has just uploaded a new video.
This is my favorite type of fine tuning arg. Not rlly sure why
Am I correct in observing this as a completely new philosophical argument? The observations about interrelationship between properties is a fascinating angle and very strong, particularly in light of the convergence of fields required for the universe as we know it.
You are not correct in observing this argument as new. He points out in his video where the ideas come from. In short, the 'stuff happens, therefore god' is better known as the 'fine-tuning' argument. Despite the oversimplification of the title he does go much more in depth on the argument and addresses some of the better known defenses with proposed defeaters.
Not a bad video, and he's clearly done some reading. I recommend doing some reading as well, and try not to start at the end (apologetics often implies embracing a bias towards achieving a specific outcome when pondering metaphysics, and that defeats the purpose of pondering metaphysics).
@@adamchristensen2648 thanks. I'm familiar with fine tuning from a variety of aspects and made a reference to it, but hadn't heard it expressed from this angle before.
"Is there anything of which one can say look this is something new?"
This is indeed a pretty new argument for theism! It was introduced in a paper by Brian Cutter and Bradford Saad titled "The problem of nomological harmony" which can be found online. It differs from the traditional fine-tuning argument, since the latter focuses on the dimensionless constants that appear in physics, whereas the argument from Nomological Harmony appeals to the fact that we have physics at all, so to speak. :)
Amazing how God exactly matches what you think of as God.
That's a misguided objection. Did you have time to find the definition of the word "God"?
@@tafazziReadChannelDescription There's no such thing as "the definition".
@@goldenalt3166 Words are tools to convey meaning. Even if there is always a range of possible meanings for a word, God has been defined precisely in the context of arguments for the existence of God to help people like you not get things wrong. So, in this context, what's a definition?
@@tafazziReadChannelDescription No, the word isn't defined "precisely". Otherwise, you'd recognize that there are no arguments for "god".
@@goldenalt3166 when i use the word I have a clear, textbook definition of it in my mind. I use it consistently, as do all theistic philosophers I know of.
You really can't look this up?
It is a law of nature that theists will eventually offer theistic arguments that are indistinguishable from parodies of theistic arguments. "Stuff happens, I could imagine it otherwise, therefore God exists"
It is a law of nature that non-theists will take a purposefully funny video title and use that to mock theists, all the while the non-theist ignores the actual argument made in the video and refuses to engage with it.
@@unapologeticapologetics6953 He missed the obvious flaw in I can imagine ways for God to do otherwise therefore God is even more unlikely.
The best part of Squareds argument is you can argue the complete opposite: "stuff doesn't happen, I could imagine it otherwise, therefore god"
The evidence is so bad that the complete negative/opposite counts equally to the argument.
Try the TAG
@@E.B711, for a better argument or a worse one?
A problem with the first view is that we have no reference for how many properties there are. We could be in a hypothetical universe where properties 1,2,3,4 ... ,N, and N+1 do not interact and properties N+2, N+3,... N+100, and N+101 do interact. Depending on N, our universe could only have a small handful of the possible properties interacting. As such, a universe where stuff happens would be far more likely than a universe where stuff doesn't.
A way to state the second view is that it is possible that there is stuff that the laws of physics do not effect or laws of physics that govern stuff that does not exist. A problem with that is, by definition, the laws of physics is a list of how stuff interacts, prescriptive or descriptive. A law of physics that governs nothing in our universe would simply not be a law of physics. And stuff that the laws of physics do not apply to would simply require an expansion of our understanding of the laws of physics. ie matter attracts matter except for matter with property X.
And the fact that we cannot tell if we are in a universe with for example "tricky mass" does not provide an argument one way or the other. It just changes the question from "Did a god create the universe?" to "Did a god create the universe with tricky mass in it?" Tricky mass would certainly completely upend our understanding of the laws of physics, but the laws of physics themselves would be the same as they've always been.
Even taking the arguments to be true, they are still probabilistic and hypothetical arguments. We have no basis to say whether or not the alternative universes could exist. A universe where nothing interacts could be entirely impossible by some unknown method. We can imagine them certainly, but that does not lend any credence to the possibility of them existing. And even if they could exist they simply mean that the universe we exist in is unlikely, not impossible without a god. If the universe didn't exist we wouldn't exist to know that. My existence as a person to be watching this video is incredibly unlikely. My birth, 1 in millions, my life so far, 1 in billions, this video being recommended and made by you, 1 in trillions, and me clicking on it, 1 in tens. And yet I am here commenting.
Dang bro where you been?
Great video ❤
By the anthropic principle, we do not live in the universe in which nothing happens.
"you could have a universe just having x"
You're assuming an "alphabet" of possible properties and some kind of "mechanism" that's randomly drawing from these properties to make a universe.
What reason do we have to think that this actually happens?
Furthermore, your "alphabet" of properties would be infinite, would it not? The odds of any particular universe drawn from an infinite selection of properties is zero. It doesn't even matter if those properties interact or don't interact.
If our starting point is that our universe was randomly selected from all imaginable universes, then yes, the odds of our universe being selected are always literally zero. There's no need to even discuss physics or cosmological constants.
I think a multiverse objection need not entail serious doubt about what happens next Tuesday.
Maybe physical laws simply can’t include time-related clauses.
In general, I think unlike the normal Fine Tuning argument, it’s difficult to speculate about how laws could have been different.
I’m not persuaded that naturalists should expect a stillborn universe from the questions of laws and particles that are raised here.
I think there are some links in the chain from “nothing” to “conscious humanity” that are very difficult to accept on naturalism, but for me this one is difficult to think about expectations around it. Maybe I’m just missing the point though.
So you think that even though there is no design at all under naturalism it still is obvious that consistent laws of physics have to exist? That that is just a given?
Hi. I just think this area is difficult to speculate about, really.
Probably not a given, but I would say consistent laws are more likely than inconsistent ones.
Perhaps one reason I struggle to relate to this argument is that it’s difficult to think of physical laws in the way they’re presented in the argument.
And it’s always tempting to just go a little deeper, and wonder, “Why would we have any laws and properties at all?”
@@MatthewFearnleyBut I think consistent laws are more likely than inconsistent ones from the perspective of rational intelligence but from the perspective of matter in motion it is of no consequence. (Not looking to be confrontational just offering different argument)
you pull your probabilities straight out of your behind. do you know what kind of universes are possible? is it an infinite set of any combination of things?
christianity/islam/voodoo always give the right answer, as you make it up as you go. the answer is..magic, specifically by your particular god.
Whether god exists or not is all semantics to me. What is more relevant is how should we live based on what we believe. Our behaviors and actions is what really matters. One could theoretically live as christ and not "believe" in him and vice versa.
This argument really smells like, I'm being generous, a highschool understanding of physics. It has two major flaws.
1) Physics aren't just a set of matching or mismatching "interactors" and "interactees" which can be arbitrarily permuted. For example, the electric field can be derived as an emitted flux. This leads to Coulomb's law and the appearance of charges. There are no charges without the electric field and no field without charges, therefore a mismatch between the two is impossible. This emerges from very basic geometry and a few fundamental assumptions such as isotropy. The laws of physics are derived from assumptions and math (logic). We can imagine a "solved" physics where these assumptions have been whittled down to the lowest possible number and we have the exact set of laws of the universe. There are two possible results which I note 1A and 1B.
1A) We are left with a few arbitrary assumptions, such as the values of some constants. This is because the possible laws of physics are limited by what logic allows. This case leaves space for the variation of these constants in the way your video suggests permuting the laws of physics. However, the allowed permutations are already with our current understanding of physics are already far more limited than your video implies.
1B) The laws of the universe are entirely emergent from logic. No permutation is possible, unless you consider the possibility that logic itself could somehow be altered.
In all, your argument rests on a rather poor understanding of physics. You can't have a Universe with an electric charge and no electric field. Likewise, you can't have a non uniform electric field and no charge. Because your argument depends on an impossible idea of iterating the laws of physics, it's straight up wrong.
2) The probabilities are dependent on a arbitrary assumptions. There is nothing that tells us that this probability should go to zero. You assume that the probability for each would be somehow inversely proportional to the total number of interactors/interactees. It could grow or be constant. You assume that there is an infinite number of possibilities. There could two, or one, or six million. These are arbitrary assumptions on which you rely for your argument, but they are utterly unfounded.
1) The argument doesn't rely on *any* understanding of physics. No bits of it depend on anything about physics. The point is conceptual--to have a universe that produces anything, you need to have stuff and the stuff needs to do stuff. But stuff only does stuff under certain conditions, so you have to get some improbable pairing whereby the conditions under which stuff does stuff actually arise. Unless modern physics has taught us either 1) that there's nothing or 2) that the stuff doesn't do anything, it doesn't threaten the argument.
1A) even if we discovered some complete physics, that the complete physics produces nomological harmony would be surprising. The odds of that are low conditional on naturalism.
1B) If something has many conceivable values it could take on, without one of them being special, and then it takes on one particular value, when there's a theory that explains why it would take on that value, that's strong evidence for that theory. If I get ten royal flushes in poker, that's strong evidence I'm cheating. You can always say "well, maybe my getting royal flushes is caused by the laws of physics," which is true, but it's unlikely the laws of physics would cause that particular improbable outcome. This also addresses point 2)--if there are lots of values it could conceivably take on, and it takes on one value that's expected on theism, that's evidence for God, just like getting royal flushes is evidence I'm cheating.
Objection 1 doesn't do much because the point is what laws govern/supervene/whatever what kinds of physical things, if you have laws governing strings and all you have in the world are "zrings" we're in serious trouble. Also I don't think logicism about mathematics is true. Again if we have as you described "the exact set of laws of the universe" in some world wn but the laws don't govern the "stuff" in wn then the laws are only vacuously true.
Objection 2 the assumptions aren't arbitrary IIRC Squared endorses the Principle of Indifference. But it doesn't matter, I think this objection also misses the mark. Even if something is necessarily true it can be evidence for something else being true. If there were a logically necessary law of physics that caused matter to spell out "Jesus is God" in every galaxy that would be evidence Christianity is true, even if it's necessarily so.
gave up after 2 minutes - the guy started an argument by referring to physics and quickly proved that he hasn't the faintest idea about physics.
So you know what the laws of physics do?
@@theautodidacticlayman are*
@@ShouVertica Well, yeah. 😆 I meant: Do they cause events or do they describe events or do they do something else entirely. If they’re descriptive, they describe. If they’re causal, they cause. They do what they do because they are what they are.
Please note that I said throughout the video I emphasized that I was simplifying the physics so that I could keep the video short. I value the time of my viewers, and so if I can save their time without sacrificing understanding, that's the route I try to choose. :)
It's true that I used a sort of naive form of Newtonian physics when explaining the argument. Since Faraday, physicists probably wouldn't want to talk about, say, an electron acting on another electron. They would want to couch their language in terms of fields instead. They also wouldn't cash out gravity as a force at all!
However, none of this affects the argument. Instead of noting the surprising harmony between the causal powers of the particles in our universe, the argument can easily be rehashed in terms of the surprising harmony between the causal powers of the *fields* in our universe! And if we were to come into a completely new paradigm for understanding the physical world, the argument would _still_ function. So, since the argument functions independent of how we cash out physics, I used a simplistic model in my explanation.
@theautodidacticlayman I'm not sure you understand what a physical "law" is. It's a description, the description itself does not "cause" the physical interaction, like some magical phrase.
"Given naturalism, nothing makes one particular possibility more probable than any other pairing."
Citation needed.
...not really, naturalism has no sufficient reason to make any initial state of affairs more probable than another - if you think it does, then the burden is on you to show that it does...
edit: it's like quite a few models of quantum mechanics - the only sufficient reason for the underlying randomness is the model itself, but clearly that doesn't make any sequence of events that follow within that model more probable than others
@@richardpogoson Naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. It makes no claims about other universes, which is what squared is doing.
@@mesplin3 okay, but it makes no claim about what such laws are - or why one set of laws pertains over another. By your definition, it just asserts the existence of natural laws in the universe, but as long as these laws can be numerically quantified and/or related to each other in some mathematical way, then Naturalism, at the fundamental level, doesn't assert that one state of affairs is more probable than another.
@@richardpogoson Right. Naturalism just excludes supernatural or spiritual entities or forces as explanations for phenomena. It doesn't assert that one state of affairs is more probable than another. So it doesn't make sense to assign a probability to alternative states as a means of disproving naturalism.
@@mesplin3well, not really. For a six sided dice, no outcome is more probable than another - yet we can still assign probabilities to outcomes. But ultimately you've just assassinated the predictive power of naturalism (if there was any). The point to be made is that if no situation can be said to be more probable than another, then for a given number of situations it's not unreasonable to assign equal probability in order to make predictions until proven otherwise
This is an argument from ignorance.
Not having an answer is o a question doesn’t warrant a god belief.
Gods are not demonstrable nor do they have any explanatory power.
Natural selection explanations replace supernatural ones all the time. But not once has a supernatural explanation replaced a natural one.
The laws of physics are meant to be emergent without any design but seem more like top down design
I always love videos like this. I saw Godzilla in a movie and math and things happening means that Godzilla has to be real and the same goes for Quetzlcoatl. Praise Mohahmed and his magical sky horse that took him to the big heaven place in the sky. Theism be great!
Do you want to ACTUALLY address the argument?
@@nathanfosdahl4074His argument is that you’re jumping to conclusions inserting God to explain something. What about supernatural gremlins that got bored? And if you don’t believe in them, that’s special pleading for God.
@@seanpierce9386 right, and that would obviously be a stupid counterargument. So I hope he wouldn't write something that infantile.
@@seanpierce9386There'll be more parts to the video...
@@nathanfosdahl4074 Please explain to me the flaw in this argument. If it’s so stupid, it should be easy for you to point out why.
lot's of people are making accusations / assumptions about your beliefs, namely that when you say "theism" you mean a belief system where a god that resembles the god of some human religion exists. I don't think this is necessarily true, I'm curious if it is though? Are you arguing for Christianity or just the presence of an unknowable, nondescript higher power?
edit: ah, my bad, I only had to look at your channel description to answer my question. The idea that this video, even if all of your arguments in it were correct, in any way supports the existence of a Christian god is pretty laughable to me.
edit 2: I'm realizing this isn't very fair; you never claimed this video would support the existence of a Christian god, the scope of this video is clearly just set on theism, and for all I know you have other videos which might further explore Christianity specifically. So I shouldn't claim you're argument is incomplete when my definition of "complete" is wholly separate from your intentions to begin with. My bad. there's gotta be a name for this logical fallacy...
The "SCCC" in the video stands for "Square Cumulative Case for Christianity". This is a video Squared has labeled for Christianity specifically.
That the laws of physics are purely self-forming and exist throughout inanimate universe consistently throughout time without design would seem improbable even impossible.
Why?
@@MarkPatmos why is that?
The idea that the laws of physics were self-forming without intent, design, awareness, agency or purpose and just arose out of matter and energy would seem improbable, even impossible.
@@MarkPatmos Why? What specifically about Boyle's Law seems improbable/impossible without design?
@@ShouVerticaWhy are there consistent laws at all? It is not just without design in one area, it is entirely without design.
What i love about Christianity . Is our God jesus . The conensus is that he did exist
What I love about Islam . Is our Quran . The consensus is that it’s the word of Allah
@Redtornado6
Um, no, it's not a consensus is an agreement by professional scholars . Atheists. Muslims Christians jews etc .
Why did Allah allow Satan to give muhammad revelation and worship pagan gods ?
@@ramadadiver7810 free will doofus 😀 it is a consensus among Muslim scholars
You’re using probability in a context where it doesn’t make sense. You never establish why the probability distribution should be uniform. You also never establish why God created the universe and how likely a functional universe would be. There’s nothing to compare.
Consider this alternative: Entities are defined by how they interact with other entities. An entity that does nothing in one universe is indistinguishable from an entity in a different universe that also does nothing. There’s only one entity that does nothing. If I was to incorrectly assume statistical uniformity, a universe is more likely than the nothing state.
You assume that there is a difference between defective and functional physics without establishing the difference. Assuming you mean self-contradictory physics, such a universe is logically impossible by definition.
Without intelligent design or even any design at all the laws of physics must have self-formed in a way that is consistent and uniform. Probably difficult to calculate how unlikely that is or if it is even possible.
No, no, no... apologists only address defenses and defeaters they can effectively respond to. Not the ones that demonstrate the inadequacy of the argument. Why would anyone just study philosophy to think deeply about ideas? No, you pick what you want the answer to be, then read enough about it to make a convincing ten minute video for those that already agree with you.
@@adamchristensen2648 And atheists don’t defend any position because they don’t want to get stuck with materialism
@@MarkPatmosDifficult to say the laws of physics formed at all. And if we do say they formed, why not say that god formed? How did god form? Now we'll need to define god in such a way that makes this argument consistent...then we'll have to backtrack and make this definition of god fit the existing dogmatic definition of one's preferred theology. It's a pretty daunting intellectual feat to reach a solid "we don't know" moment and then boldly insert an "ahh, but I *do* know, because these ancient writings say I know..."
@@adamchristensen2648I think the normal theological argument is that God is aware of everything at once, so exists outside of time as we experience it. But you’re right that I have no proof for that.
Properties are emergent, so, this is not useful.
Of course God exists. Sri Krishna tells us so in the most beautiful text on the planet - the Bhagavad Gita. In fact, not only does Krishna tell us that the Absolute, aka Brahman, exists but also how it can be directly experience.
This argument has the same problem as all fine tuning arguments. There is no reason to expect that God would desire a universe where something happens. God's desires aren't caused or explained by anything, they are brute facts. So, this argument is not a tie-breaker between theism and naturalism.
What?
I said, "Hello! Imagine you want to go play a board game that you just bought. But there was a mix-up at the board game factory. The instructions are for a completely different game! Let's say, the box has a chess board and chess pieces, but the instructions are for Scrabble. This is a defective pairing between the game instruction and the game board, and it makes playing impossible. The instructions say to start by drawing seven tiles, but there aren't any tiles in the box! So the game can't even start. The idea with the Argument from Nomological Harmony is that, naturalism predicts a sort of mismatch in physics that would make all events in our universe impossible, but theism predicts the existence of a universe like ours. Now, before we can jump into the argument, we need to first answer the question, 'What are the laws of physics?' The argument works no matter how we answer this, but our answer will affect the structure of the argument. In this video, we'll look at two possible answers. First, some people think that the laws of physics are descriptions of how things in our universe interact. For a simplified example, let's say I'm falling. According to this view, the earth causes me to move downwards and the Law of Gravity simply describes what this looks like. However, the Law of Gravity isn't causing anything to happen to me; the earth is. Another view is that the laws themselves cause things to happen in the universe. So, on this view, the Law of Gravity actually causes me to move downwards. So, with these two theories of what the laws of physics are, we can look at two ways of running of the Nomological Harmony Argument. First, what if physics are just a description of how physical things influence each other? Then we better hope the right sort of things populate our universe! Again, simplifying for the sake of brevity, the physical stuff in our universe has different physical properties like mass and charge that interact with each other in different ways. Masses attract other masses, positive charges attract negative charges, and so on. But the property of mass doesn't attract or repel positive charges; in fact, masses do nothing to positive charges. So, sometimes physical properties have no influence on each other at all. But this means we can conceive of a hypothetical universe where nothing happens because all the physical properties that happen to exist have no influence on each other. For example, say there are things with property A in this universe, and property A would attract property B, but nothing has property B. And there are things with property X that would repel property Y, but nothing has property Y. So, nothing happens at all. Quick note: If you're a naturalist, you might not think that this scenario is metaphysically possible, but it's a priori epistemically possible. Now, to turn this into an argument for God's existence, notice that there are far more epistemically possible defective pairings of physical properties where the universe is 'stillborn,' than there are functional pairings where stuff happens; if property X only interacts with property Y, well there are more ways for property X to be in a universe lacking property Y than there are ways for property X to be in a universe containing property Y. You could have a universe with just X's, or just X's and A's, and so on. Given Naturalism, nothing makes one particular possibility more probable than any other pairing. So, the probability of a functional pairing given Naturalism is very low. However, a universe where stuff happens is quite plausibly going to be more valuable than a stillborn universe. So, theism strongly predicts a functional pairing between the physical properties that appear in our universe. Therefore, updating on the existence of a physical universe where things happen is strong evidence for theism over naturalism. But what if we instead take the other view about the laws of physics? What if the laws of physics are things that govern the universe? Then we better hope we get the right governor! Again, simplifying, our universe is full of properties like mass and charge. The laws of physics (on this view) cause masses to attract, like charges to repel, and so on. But we can conceive of a universe that didn't have charges or masses in it, but instead contained unique properties X and Y. Since the laws of physics govern charge and mass instead of X and Y, the laws of physics wouldn't cause anything to happen in that universe. Conversely, we can imagine our own universe with charges and masses in it, but laws of physics which cause X and Y to attract, but these laws don't govern mass and charge. So, we need laws of physics and a universe that are paired together in the right way for stuff to happen in our universe. Again, stillborn universes where nothing happens are going to be far more likely, given Naturalism, so the existence of a physical universe where things do happen is strong evidence for theism over naturalism. One response to the Argument from Nomological Harmony is a modified multiverse response. Instead of positing a bunch of universes, each possessing different constants for a single set of laws of physics for the standard fine-tuning argument, you could posit a multiverse where every possible law of physics is paired with every possible universe, or alternatively every possible combination of physical properties exists in some universe. Now, this multiverse is very broad; it would definitely include a universe like ours, but it's *so* broad that it entails the existence of 'deceptive physics.' For example, take this law of physics: 'Mass attracts other mass before next Tuesday, but repels other mass after that.' Or alternatively, we could say the property of 'tricky-mass' attracts other tricky-mass before next Tuesday, but repels tricky-mass after that. The number of universes with deceptive physics would easily outnumber the universes with well-behaved physics, so given such a multiverse, we lose all ability to predict the future, because all our empirical data is consistent with both mass and tricky-mass, so we can't tell which universe we ourselves are in! A multiverse renders us unable to tell whether or not gravity will suddenly reverse next Tuesday! So, you can't use a multiverse to escape this argument. One quick note: I called an argument in a previous video the 'Nomological Argument.' The reason is the word 'Nomological' basically means 'relating to the laws of physics,' and there are two main arguments that reason from the laws of physics to God. The argument in the previous video -- I probably should have called that one the 'Nomological Fine-Tuning' Argument, or just the 'Argument from Induction.' But the argument in *this* video is a distinct argument called the Argument from Nomological *Harmony*. I just wanted to make that clear. Now, what score do I give this argument? How much does it raise the probability of theism? Well, this is another one of those arguments which I find incredibly strong. There's an unfathomable number of epistemically possible laws of physics, I can't see how any objections to the argument could work, and as far as I can tell the argument rests on really solid premises, like 'stuff happens in the universe.' When discussing the Argument from Psychophysical Harmony and the Nomological Fine-Tuning Argument previously, I said that the evidential strength of those arguments were super big numbers, like a googol or a googolplex. This was because these arguments make virtually no assumptions, and the fewer controversial assumptions made by a fine-tuning-style argument, the stronger it is. Nomological Harmony fits into this same category, so if I were to numerically weight this argument's strength, I'd give it a similar score. Anyways, that's the end of the video! I hope you enjoyed! I'll see you in the next one."
😭@@ApologeticsSquared
This is a strawman and also implies you know probabilities of events you cannot even determine to be possible. You need to first demonstrate that any other universe is even possible to then present probabilities related to said universe.
Hello! The type of probability being used in this argument is called "epistemic probability" or "credences." Without getting too deep into the weeds (I do that in other videos), there seems to be a sense in which there is a 50% probability that the billionth digit of pi is an even number. That's the sort of probability used here.
@@ApologeticsSquared Firstly, we know that all digits are either even or odd. Secondly, analysis of millions or billions of digits of pi shows that all digits between 0-9 appear at a nearly perfectly uniform rate, which lends credence to the claim, and more importantly makes it at the very least possibly true.
No evidence was presented that other universes can even exist, or that they can have any properties aside from the ones seen in this universe.
@@OhramiBut if the universe is entirely without design, then there may be no reason why laws of physics should exist at all. The laws of physics are an anomaly without any design, intent and purpose governing universe.
@@MarkPatmos You're using a lot of vague language there. The fact is that we are in a universe with some properties. It is unknown if any other properties are even possible. The only thing we do know is that the properties of this currently existing universe are possible.
We know that the properties of this universe are possible, we just don’t know whether they’re possible on naturalism or theism or both.
Sigh
Another video riddled with errors:
0:45 - "Naturalism predicts a mismatch" Incorrect.
0:55 - "Theism predicts the existence of a universe like ours" Also incorrect.
1:35 - "Another view is that the laws themselves cause things to happen." This is incoherent. It's misunderstanding the language and passing it off as a real position. Nobody actually holds this position.
2:03 "Then we better hope the right sort of things populate our universe" If the universe is different then physics would be different. There's nothing wrong with this in the thought experiment other than "we don't get the same universe" which....is intentionally described a different universe.
(Contrived statement/complaint from Squared).
2:45 "We can conceive of a hypothetical universe where nothing happens." This means nothing. We can make up any number of universes, actions, events, etc for a thought experiment.
3:15 "It's apriori epistemically possible" Which means nothing, everything can be apriori epistemically possible.
3:44 "There are more ways" Which means nothing. Theoretically one actuality will _always_ be less than the nigh-infinite possibility, especially granting a nebulous "apriori epistemic possibility" and no metaphysical limits.
4:09 "The probability of a pairing given naturalism" None of this has anything to do with naturalism/theism.
4:13 "However a universe where stuff happens, is quite plausibly going to be more valuable than a stillborn universe" Value is assigned and a relative term. This statement doesn't even make sense, since the thought experiment just list out "universes with and without X pairing" there isn't a value to be given.
4:15 "Theism strongly predicts a functional pairing" But it doesn't. Nothing about this has anything to do with theism.
(There is also a very interesting problem with this because Squared has brought out that "pairing is good" but then previously he admitted not everything has pairing, which would mean "only the very, very specific pairing we have is good, everything else is bad" which falls more into the problem with the argument being "point at rock, this exact rock is good, if rock was different it would be bad and therefore theism good.")
4:30 "A universe where things happen is strong evidence for theism." Ironically this shows how bad theistic evidence/argument has become. The evidence is so vague and undefined that theist are now resorting to "see things happen so therefore god."
Not going to address the second view, nobody even holds this position and it's even more incoherent to talk about physics in such a way.
Multiverse:
6:35 "It's so broad that it entails..." There is nothing actually wrong with all of this. It might make you feel icky, it might be metaphysically incoherent, but there is nothing wrong with it since Squared already gave "apriori epistemic possibility" with no limitations.
7:00 "Deceptive physics would outnumber" This (again) doesn't matter.
7:05 "We lose all ability to predict the future" Yet this doesn't matter, that would just be _how the universe is_ . Again, Squared makes up a universe with "tricky mass" and then complains the universe has "tricky mass"
(Another contrived complaint).
7:22 "You can't tell whether gravity will reverse next Tuesday" This wouldn't matter, again, our inability to function given alternative universe doesn't matter in the hypothetical.
Conclusion:
8:55 "It's a good argument."
The interesting part of this argument: One could make the exact same argument, citing all the evidence in the negative and Squared would say it's a good argument.
"The fact that X pairing doesn't happen means it's unlikely on naturalism and more likely on theism"
You can't falsify a presuppositionalist argument, they will believe regardless of the evidence and argument.
Oof you are committed to hating this channel, I see your comments on every video.
@@TonyMetal If you take offense to my comments it is truly on you.