I am trying to understand individuation. So I considered atoms. Very cold atoms can get entangled, so to be specific I thought about helium atoms. They are Bosons, so they will become entangled, such that I need a single wavefunction to describe the state of two atoms. Any measure that I could use requires an operator to be applied to wavefunction in the standard way. I recognized that the wave function is in the model, while the atoms are in reality. But the quantum model is easily the best model we have at the atomic scale. Philosophers seem to be in no position to complain about mappings between 'real world' and 'ideas', since that seems to be the entire focus of this paper. I then realized that there are additive measures, like mass, that allow me to count the number of atoms, even if they are entangled. Now I can count, but I cannot individuate the entangled atoms. This is a case that seems to break nearly every naive (e.g. pre-quantum mechanics) idea of individuation. The 'features' that I would normally use to individuate simply fail when there is an entangled state - the two atoms are so entangled that they lose their individuality. But by heating the entanglement, you can restore individuality. Quantum weirdness seems to break naive assumptions about 'reality', even if they are held by philosophers.
Perhaps Father, Son and Holy Ghost are quantum entalged :p Their mass just happens to be 3*infinity=infinity. A mass of infinity would make them timeless via E = hf (E=mc^2 is energy, h is Heisenberg's constant and f is frequency (1/t)). So M => infinity implies t => 0. (tongue planted so firmly in cheek that I risk bleeding if I enunciate.)
Good video. One thing in the Gel paper that seemed to be to be wrong which you didn't really dispute was that he claimed that by virtue of positing one entity, theism is simpler than Oppy's naturalism. That seemed clearly false. Suppose we have two theories, theory one doesn't posit any specific number of entities, while theory two posits one entity, theory one would be better in terms of simplicity. The commitments of theory 2 in terms of number of entities are (there is entity 1, ~entity 2, ~entity 3, ~entity 4, etc. Theory 1 has no such commitments. If one theory requires positing things about the number of entities, then that's an extra commitment. The other theory not positing such entities makes it simpler, because it requires positing fewer things. Theory 1 posits nothing about the number of entities, while theory two has to posit something to rule out any entity more than 1. Gel gave independent arguments for accepting that there can only be one necessary entity, but I think A) Those arguments fail. B) If they succeeded, they could also apply to Oppy's naturalism.
Something that always bugged me since I came across it is the philosophical concept of “explanation” and “explanatory power” of some theory. To me, it seems that “explaining” something or some event implies that that thing or event has to be, at a given time, “not explained yet”, in order for it to be given an explanation at a later time (it seems to me that “explained” is not a property of the thing or event, but some kind of interaction of the thing or event with my conceptual framework). For something or event A to be considered “not explained yet” by me, it seems that it is necessary for me to have some previous expectation B that was subverted by A, otherwise i would just accept A. In other words, when I ask “How can it be that A?” what I'm really asking is “How can it be that A and not B?”. B, it seems, has to come from some theory or idea about the world C that I already hold. So an explanation can either say “C does not imply B, it actually implies A”, or “C is false, the theory which is actually correct is D”. To summarize, it seems to me that a theory does not, per se, “explain” anything, because the need to explain something is relative to my previous expectations; instead, some person is going to explain to me why it is the case that A and not B, possibly giving me some new theory. It seems to me that A does not require any explanation, unless I have some previous expectation that “not A”, or some theory which implies “not A”. Any help in understanding these matters would be appreciated.
I'm curious how you justify factors like qualitative and quantitative parsimony as making a theory more likely to be true. It doesn't seem intuitively obviously to me that just because a theory is simpler in the sense of postulating fewer entities it is more likely to reflect reality.
Excellent question, and I don’t have strong views on this particular matter; the purpose of my article here was to work within a pre-given dialectical context - namely, that between Gel and Oppy. Since they already laid out the various theoretical virtues by which they’re evaluating theories, I worked within their framework🙂
Honestly We need more people like them and we need to make them popular because Most popular theists/atheists r bad source for arguments for/against God's existence If people like Joe collab with popular online figure like Rationality rule, Alex O Connor, frank turek, matt dillahunty, Aaron Ra so on this may change the online community for better
Hey Joe, super basic question. Why should we not say that the necessary initial state was five seconds ago? All the brutely contingent outplayings of random chance in the big bang model just get converted into brute necessities but you end up postulating less entities overall.
I can’t reply in depth since I’m prepping for graduation; but long story short, Oppy would respond by saying that such a hypothesis profoundly suffers in terms of its explanatory power
Joe, allow me to make some comments about your recent video on the Kalam with Rationality Rules. At some point you said that some fundamental particles (such as quarks) do begin to exist from no pre-existing materials (or more fundamental particles), but that's factually and scientifically incorrect. Quarks as well as all other particles are just excitations of quantum fields (according to quantum field theory). If a particle appears at all, it is just a field manifesting itself. So, no, particles don't come out of nothing (i.e., without a material cause). This is also true in certain interpretations of quantum mechanics (as you know) which postulate particles can ultimately be reduced to the universal wavefunction. With respect to the point that the principle of causality probably applies to beginnings out of nothing just as they do to re-arrangements, I've talked about that with philosopher David K. Johnson some time ago, and he told me that he will probably criticize this objection in a future paper (that he is writing).
You can think of a fundamental or elementary particle as a ripple on the surface of a pond or just a protrusion on a carpet. The protrusion or ripple is not ontologically distinct from the carpet or pond. To help you visualize a particle on a field, see a very nice and short video on youtube titled What Is a Field? - Instant Egghead #42.
Thanks for the comment my dude!!! Re the quark point: At this point in the video, we weren’t claiming that quarks begin to exist without a material cause; instead, we were pointing out that quarks are things that genuinely begin to exist and aren’t merely rearrangements of pre-existing things. And if quarks are excitations of fields, then they aren’t rearrangements of already-existent things. Yes, they definitely depend (in some manner) on a more fundamental physical ‘substrate’ (as it were) - to wit, the field they’re excitations of; but there aren’t things that rearrange to come together to make them up. So it doesn’t seem to me that there is a scientific inaccuracy in our presentation. 🙂
@@MajestyofReason "Thanks for the comment my dude!!!" Sure :) "if quarks are excitations of fields, then they aren’t rearrangements of already-existent things." Joe, if a quark is an excitation of a quantum field, then this quark is just the rearrangement of an already-existent thing, namely, a field. This quark is not merely 'dependent' on its respective field, but is the field itself changing form (i.e., "deforming" itself or being deformed by another field). "but [they] aren’t things that rearrange to come together to make them up" Well, two or more things coming together to form a composite object is not precisely what the objector is claiming is the important difference. Instead, they are pointing to the fact that in our experience objects never come into existence without material causes, and the universe (allegedly) did. One way to make this point clear and vivid is by emphasizing the fact that chairs, cars and trees are just rearrangements of various pre-existing particles. But even if a particle is not a composite of various particles, it is still a rearrangement (of a field). So, the objector's point is still valid.
@@CosmoPhiloPharmaco Alright! I finally got some time to sit down, read your comment carefully, and -- most importantly -- to watch the relevant bit of our video closely. This allows me to clarify things for both of us! So, here's the clarification. At this point in the video, we were addressing the following rejoinder: "For instance, one might reason that we’ve never actually experienced things ‘beginning to exist’. Instead, we merely have experience of already-existent things being rearranged. Our inductive evidence base therefore only consists in seeing rearrangements of pre-existing stuff having a cause; and in that case, we should only be prepared to generalize that every rearrangement of pre-existing stuff has a cause." Now, I think we definitely could [and should] have been clearer in the video about what, precisely, this objection is saying. The goal, way back when I wrote the script, was to address a common internet atheist objection to the Kalam [e.g., one Cosmic Skeptic raised to Craig in their dialogue] that we don't have any experience whatsoever of things beginning to exist. [Hence, the rejoinder: "we've never actually experienced things beginning to exist".] The idea is that things don't really begin to exist; our experience solely consists in things being rearranged or taking on new forms, but no object ever really has a beginning. In response to this, we made two points. The second point was that composite objects aren't *merely* just rearrangements of things; this was the example of my beginning. I am something that truly began to exist -- my past is metrically finite. This isn't a denial that I am a rearrangement from pre-existing things or stuff; I most certainly am. But that is actually *compatible* with my beginning to exist. What this shows us is that the objection is mistaken -- our experience *does* include beginnings to exist [*even if* those beginnings *also* involve rearrangements of prior things or stuff -- indeed, *even if* they invariably or necessarily involve a material cause in that sense]. The only way to deny this point is to adopt mereological nihilism. This takes us to the first response. The idea behind the first response was not that quarks don't have material causes [in the sense of some thing, things, or stuff from which they're made]; instead, the point was just that quarks genuinely begin to exist as discrete entities in their own right. The idea in my mind was that this was an especially clear case -- clearer than the case of composite objects like humans -- of something 'beginning to exist', since the particle isn't 'built up out of' a rearrangement of simpler particles, even if -- as you rightly point out -- we have reason to think they're in some sense 'built out of' fields (by dint of being excitations thereof). So our point was a rather mundane one: quarks genuinely begin to exist. The reason we said something about quarks not being composed of more fundamental particles was because we thought this would count in favor of its being an especially poignant illustration of why quarks genuinely begin to exist. [It avoids someone potentially (albeit incorrectly) saying things like 'well, strictly speaking, Joe doesn't exist -- he is totally reducible just to a complex array of particles etc.'.] Now, I think your point is good, because it pinpoints that we weren't as clear as we could [and should] have been in our first response. Here's what we said, (A), and here's what we should have said (B). I agree that (A) can be interpreted as denying that quarks have material causes in the sense of some things or stuff from which it is made; we didn't want to convey this, however, but instead wanted to convey an especially poignant case of something genuinely beginning to exist, even if that beginning to exist is accompanied by a material cause. (A) "First, we know that some kinds of quarks - which are, as far as we currently know, not composed of simpler things - can turn into other kinds of quarks. This doesn’t seem to be a case of already-existent things being rearranged to form a new composite object; instead, it’s a case of a fundamental particle beginning to exist." (B) "First, we know that some kinds of quarks - which are, as far as we currently know, not composed of simpler particles - can turn into other kinds of quarks. This is an especially clear case of something genuinely beginning to exist, since it isn't built up from an arrangement of particles like the composite objects of our experience are. And while it does have a material cause in the sense of some thing(s) or stuff from which it is made (by dint of being an excitation of a prior quantum field), this is no barrier to its being a case of something genuinely beginning to exist. Hence, our experience *does* involve things truly beginning to exist." Thank you for inviting this clarification!!! You're helping us improve the series, which will eventually probably be compiled into a book. :) So thank you, sincerely!
The Occams-razor based argument is pretty weak, and there might be something to the IoI argument but it is unecessarilly complex. My argument for uniqueness would be: Def. Two entities are metaphysically inseparable if and only if in every possible instant of time/circunstance/world-segment in which one exists the other must also exist, and vice-versa. Def. An entity is necessary (in a strong sense) if it exists in every possible instant of time/circunstance/etc... 1. Metaphysically inseparable entities are consubstantial (i.e. internal to the same substance). 2. Any pair of necessary entities is metaphysically inseparable. 3. Any pair of purely actual entities is a pair of necessary entities. Hence, any pair of purely actual entities is consubstantial, and hence there can be only at most one purely actual substance, no matter how many purely actual entities are internal to this substance. Add to this: 4. Only substances as a whole have causal powers. And it also follows that a purely actual first cause would be an unique substance. Other than this, let me say something about the Foundational Layer argument. A "physical" non-spatiotemporal entity looks like an oxymoron, except if by "physical" you merely want to say "whatever 'physical' theories may talk about", and even then it would be ambiguous insofar as it is ambiguous to determine which theories are theories of physics. At any rate, I could simply say that under this interpretation there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being "physical", as there is no fundamental impediment to there being a "physical" theory which postulated the classical theistic God; in fact the theory you presented just might be one such theory. The fact that a physical theory talks about an entity doesn't mean that this entity is naturalistic, unless "naturalism" is supposed to mean something entirely trivial. Furthermore, it is quite unlikely the author in question intended to take "material" as a synonym for "physical" in this sense. He probably intended the former to mean something like "is a substance composed of spatiotemporal mereological parts, or a spatiotemporal mereological simple which could potentially be a mereological part of a spatiotemporal substance". And it seems pretty clear to me things of this sort should be changeable and potential, first because being in space they could move in space, and if these things have their parts only contingently, it would be possible for them to lose some parts, gain some parts, change parts, etc...
Thank you for your comment my dude! ! I’m in finals week, and I’m also preparing to move out. So I prolly won’t be able to respond further. :) “My argument for uniqueness would be: Def. Two entities are metaphysically inseparable if and only if in every possible instant of time/circumstance/world-segment in which one exists the other must also exist, and vice-versa. Def. An entity is necessary (in a strong sense) if it exists in every possible instant of time/circumstance/etc... 1. Metaphysically inseparable entities are consubstantial (i.e. internal to the same substance). 2. Any pair of necessary entities is metaphysically inseparable. 3. Any pair of purely actual entities is a pair of necessary entities. Hence, any pair of purely actual entities is consubstantial, and hence there can be only at most one purely actual substance, no matter how many purely actual entities are internal to this substance. Add to this: 4. Only substances as a whole have causal powers. And it also follows that a purely actual first cause would be an unique substance.” (1) strikes me as implausible - I don’t see any issue with there being two different substances, each of which cannot fail to exist. (4) also strikes me as implausible. My stomach isn’t a whole substance, but it has lots of causal powers. Various mental properties and processes of mine also aren’t substances, but they have lots of causal powers. (E.g., my pain causes me to cry. My perceptual experience of a tree causes me to think ‘there’s a tree’; and so on.) “Other than this, let me say something about the Foundational Layer argument. A "physical" non-spatiotemporal entity looks like an oxymoron, except if by "physical" you merely want to say "whatever 'physical' theories may talk about", and even then it would be ambiguous insofar as it is ambiguous to determine which theories are theories of physics.” I don’t see it as an oxymoron. There are lots of ways to understand ‘physical’, but one way is something capturable and describable in terms of (or at least ultimately grounded by) the entities, properties, and phenomena recognized in our best physical theories. Yes, we don’t have a sure-fire, silver-bullet way to determine which theories are physical theories. But we can pick it out pretty reliably by ostension. It’s like what that judge said about pornography - ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it’. Similarly, we can pick out physical theories when we see them. “At any rate, I could simply say that under this interpretation there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being "physical", as there is no fundamental impediment to there being a "physical" theory which postulated the classical theistic God; in fact the theory you presented just might be one such theory.” The theory I presented is developed extensively in Ney’s work, and ithe foundation of reality is an impersonal universal wave function (a kind of field) with various physical properties and defined in terms of configuration space, and it functionally realizes spacetime. (It does not cause spacetime in any sense.) This is very, very, very far from the classical theistic God. And it’s not clear to me whether ‘there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being physical in this sense’. (i) For starters, all that matters is that I drive a major wedge between ‘unchangeable, cross-world invariant, necessary foundation’ and ‘God’ that exacerbates the gap problem; and this, I think *is* secured by the fact that we have perfectly respectable metaphysical views in philosophy of physics on which the foundation is atheistic/naturalistic and physical [even in the sense at hand]. (ii) Second, given the trajectory of science over the centuries, I think we have excellent inductive reason to think that the entities posited in our best physical theories won’t be God. (iii) Third, I think it’s extremely plausible that moral properties won’t be posited by our best physical theories. Moral properties like goodness, badness, and so on just aren’t the purview of scientific and empirical investigations. But then God will *not*, it seems, be posited in our best physical theories, since that would require moral properties (minimally, goodness) being posited by our best physical theories. “The fact that a physical theory talks about an entity doesn't mean that this entity is naturalistic, unless "naturalism" is supposed to mean something entirely trivial.” This doesn’t render ‘natural’ trivial. This is simply asserted, firstly, but second, and as I argued above, there are very plausible constraints on what is or would be recognized by our best physical theories. “Furthermore, it is quite unlikely the author in question intended to take "material" as a synonym for "physical" in this sense. He probably intended the former to mean something like "is a substance composed of spatiotemporal mereological parts, or a spatiotemporal mereological simple which could potentially be a mereological part of a spatiotemporal substance”.” Maybe so, maybe not. But then (i) the author should have specified what they mean [‘material’ is used variously in both the literature and common parlance], and moreover (ii) notice that I said in my article “*if* we understand ‘physical’ as synonymous with ‘material’”, and so my point at this portion of the paper is conditional in nature - it’s conditional on the synonymity of these terms. And one of the prominent ways of understanding ‘physical’ does, indeed, render the universal wave function ‘physical’. And so my point stands. “And it seems pretty clear to me things of this sort should be changeable and potential, first because being in space they could move in space, and if these things have their parts only contingently, it would be possible for them to lose some parts, gain some parts, change parts, etc…” One note at this juncture: one way for something to be spatial, it seems, is to be located every point of space; and *this* sort of spatial thing would not (or, at least minimally, need not) have the potential to move in space.
@@MajestyofReason Well, it's fine if you don't want to have an extended conversation, this was only a short comment. My premisse (1) is a theorem of the theory of substance I am developing, but I cannot go into greater details about it here anyway. Suffices to say that it also appears to hold under Nuclear Trope Theory, for instance, and might be pressuposed in some analysis of the formal distinction of Duns Scotus. At any rate, if we assume that there are (and I can prove this) some stipulative definitions of substance which would make (1) a theorem, we would be able to prove there is only a single necessary substance under this definition of substance, and the question would then be one of exegesis: When classical theists speak of there being only a single Divine substance, is this definition what they mean by "substance" or not? I know it is what I mean. But more on that later (I will be sending my theory for you to read someday). What I think would be our main point of disagreement here is that I don't believe that if "physical" is defined relative to the content of "our best physical theories" it has any metaphysical relevance at all. For one thing, our physical theories are constantly changing, for another, if something is to be "physical" in virtue of the content of our physical theories, then being "physical" is not an intrinsic or natural property of physical things, but a gerymandered notion, since it is not *about* physical things, but rather about our physical theories. It would be comparable to the property "being mentioned in the Bible", which is never about its subject but rather about the Bible, i.e. it is only a property of the Bible that it mentions a person X, not an intrinsic property of X that it is mentioned in the Bible. Similarly, being physical would be a property of the content of a physical theory, not of extra-mental physical objects. For another thing, it was never ever actually proven that some of the terminology present even in past physical theories isn't just pressuposing God under the guise of a different language. For instance, in Newtonian mechanics the gravitational field was supposed to be the cause of the motions of the stars, something we should also expect God to do. What *exactly* then is the difference between the gravitational field and God? Before saying something trivial like "God is not a field" or "the gravitational field is not purely actual" bear in mind Newtonian mechanics has no technical concept of God nor of pure actuality, and hence that it has *never* either affirmed nor denied either pure actuality or Divinity of fields. It has similarly not denied personhood, nor that a field could cause spacetime, since it doesn't even make use of these concepts to even deny that they apply to anything. Regardless, it is at any rate unclear that the classical theistic God would even need to cause physical "spacetime", since physical spacetime is an abstraction, not a real, concrete entity. We might as well be meinongian about it and say that it doesn't even exist at all. At any rate, it appears to us that God is only distinguished from the gravitational field by fiat, by postulating that the latter is "physical" because mentioned in "physical" theories, while the former is pressumed not to be, even though it was never actually proven that He wasn't mentioned, i.e. that the things mentioned don't turn out to be identical to God. It seems what I said about Newtonian gravity might also apply to your example, for all I know, so I remain unconvinced there is a real disagreement between these theories of physics and classical theism. Nobody has actually PROVEN a real disagreement, and I tend not to multiply real disagreements beyond necessity. There are furthermore a ton of perfectly physical objects never mentioned in any of our physical theories, such as apples and donkeys, as there is no complete physical theory which perfectly explains any single biological entity. Is physicalism also committed to the inexistence of biological entities? For yet another thing, I wonder how this definition would fare under instrumentalist or anti-realistic conceptions of science. Could I be a physicalist instrumentalist? If so, I would have to believe everything that exists is postulated by some of our best scientific theories while also disbelieving in the existence of entities postulated by our best scientific theories. Ergo, I would have to conclude nothing whatsoever exists. Now, instrumentalist looks way more plausible than physicalism to me. Anyway, if "physical" is to be so vaguely and irrelevantly defined I might as well become an eliminativist about this concept. In which case I would never either affirm nor deny that "God is physical" as this would appear meaningless to me. Just some thoughts I would like to share.
Thank you for the great and fun video :) coming back here after watching it. I had trouble understanding why you think Oppy's naturalism is explanatorily more powerful in answering the questions put forth by Gel. I would get it for simplicity, but not for explanatory power. Didn't Oppy escape satisfying his naturalistic contingent initial singularity to the PSR by arbitrarily determining it as a necessity due to being initial entity even though that the singularity occupies space and is dimensional (taking into account the contingency argument for God) ? (Oppy in another video stated that he holds that PSR is used on non-initial things, but should be left out when discussing initial things.) isn't this special pleading? He left us wondering why would a universe and not a table would be the divergent non-initial reality ? and what is the ground on which initial and non-initial states differ ?
@@Hello-vz1md He will only select very few, and by that time that I first saw his video, a hundred comments were already shared :D But on my question, I saw that Oppy in other academic papers, state the singularity as a brute contingency, which is a total arbitrary label to make it academic, but not supported with arguments except the assumption of "philosophical naturalism". Also, "brute contingency" is an oxymoron . what was he thinking! :D
@@AShaif I sent you the e mail address many times but YT always delete my comment with an e mail address. So if you give me your e mail address I could send that to you directly.
Enric Gel has a TH-cam Channel named "Adictos a la filosofía" and a secondary channel that is called "Filoadictos clips", where he talks about causal finitism and stuff, he's brilliant imo. Also, there's this guy called Agustín Echeverría from "Teología Filosófica", which is also a Classical Theist, and he has quality content as well. His channel is focused on arguments for and against the existence of God (evil/pain, hiddenness, evil God challenge, simplicity of naturalism, 5 ways, etc.) Its good to see where the disagreements are, because it helps the dialectic go forward. Cool stuff as always, Joe!
I would love for you to cover Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytical Idealism. Absolutely love his work and I would say one of the most brilliant philosophers of our time. And I don’t want to make an appeal to authority because if I’m being honest I am completely jealous that he has 2 PhD’s one in the hard sciences and then the other in philosophy. You know how much it cost for me to get ONE PhD in Oncolytic Virology?!?! And during my PhD work I, like Bernardo, found that my true love is philosophy and want to spend all my time thinking about the true nature of reality as it is in itself.
@@MajestyofReason No, good sir, thank you for the work you’re doing. And hopefully you do get a chance to cover it because I’d love to hear your thoughts for or against what he has to say about the true nature of reality as it is in itself.
There doesn't seem to be anything about a singularity that warrants the necessity of its existence. Accordingly, Oppy's naturalism seems to suffer from a worst kind of bruteness compared to theism. It doesn't also seem like a singularity could be a first cause since it must exist either in a mind or in space. In either case, the singularity would be preceded by something else. A singularity can not give a good and proper account of the plurality of structure seen in nature, given that a singularity, by definition, has no internal structure. Similarly, a singularity can not give a good and proper account of the plurality of phenomena seen in nature since it seems that phenomena require at least one mechanism which, in turn, would seem to require a structure, which is absent in a singularity by definition. Finally, a wave function is a description in mathematical language of how quantum mechanical systems evolve. It simply has no causal power. And a wave needs space, and a source of perturbation (energy), so it doesn't seem like a quantum mechanical wave could be a first cause.
Yo, btw; what did you think of the Oppy Kenny debate book, if you’ve seen it? Finished reading it myself recently; Kenny seemed to disappoint, nowhere near as good as Rasmussen with Leon imo.
@@jakek.403 Hi, Jake. I have this book and I read some of Oppy's chapters, but with all respect to Oppy, he can be very boring sometimes. Haha A lot of technical jargon and an endless discussion about ontological commitments. Your mind starts wandering and getting anxious. Oh, and I didn't even read Kenny's chapters, so I can't say anything about his performance in the debate.
Let "X" and "Y" stand for things that are identical to existence. If X and Y share existence, and each is identical to its existence, then X is identical to Y (and so there is only one). But if X and Y do *not* share existence, then only one exists (and so there is only one). Either way, there can only be one thing that is identical to existence. Concerning 'primitive individuation': it is things that are *primarily diverse* (i.e. have nothing in common) that can be individuated primitively. For example, since the species man and brute have something in common (animality), there must be a feature whereby they differ (rationality). But, since 'rationality' and 'non-rationality' are primarily diverse, no difference is needed. This not only solves the infinite regress problem, but shows why two things whose essence is actual existence cannot be primitively individuated. Because they have the same essence (namely actual existence), they cannot be primarily diverse. Therefore, if they are distinct, there must be a difference. It won't work to respond that X (or Y) is not identical to 'existence', but instead is identical to 'X's existence' or 'the existence of X'. For there is no subject/existence distinction or relation. In this case, the existence is without a subject. So, there is literally nothing (i.e. no subject) for the existence to be the existence "of". This is the entire meaning of ipsum esse subsistens: existence which is not _anythings's_ existence, but subsistent existence itself.
Thanks for the comment! You say: “Let "X" and "Y" stand for things that are identical to existence. If X and Y share existence, and each is identical to its existence, then X is identical to Y (and so there is only one). But if X and Y do not share existence, then only one exists (and so there is only one). Either way, there can only be one thing that is identical to existence.” I don’t think this fits nicely within the Thomistic DDS with which my article is concerned. For consider the following, which - by my lights - seems just as plausible as your reasoning here [and, indeed, seems to have steps sharing the same motivations as your steps]: Let ‘X’ stand for something identical to existence, and let ‘Y’ be an essence-existence composite. If X and Y share existence, and X is identical to its existence, then Y is an essence-X composite - X would be an internal principle composing it. But then anything identical to existence would enter into composition with everything else as an internal composing principle along with essence. But this, of course, entails Thomistic CT is false, since God [=existence] couldn’t be an integral composing principle of created things. But if X and Y do not share existence, then either there is no X such that X=existence [and so God doesn’t exist], or else there is no Y that is an essence-existence composite. Thus, either Thomistic CT is false, or else there are no essence-existence composites… in which case, I am not an essence-existence composite; and since per Thomistic CT, everything is either God or an essence-existence composite, and since I exist and am not an essence-existence composite, it would follow that I am God. But then Thomistic CT is false. So, either Thomistic CT is false, or Thomistic CT is false. So, Thomistic CT is false. You say: “Concerning 'primitive individuation': it is things that are primarily diverse (i.e. have nothing in common) that can be individuated primitively.” One thing to note, however, is that if b and c are each identical to their own respective acts of existence, then b and c have nothing in common. You might say that they must have existence in common; but that isn’t so, at least if (as we’re assuming!) we have a broadly Thomistic metaphysical backdrop at play. For God and creatures don’t have existence in common, in the sense of sharing something [to wit, existence or being or reality or whatever] in common (since God is identical to whatever he has, and so if creatures had some F shared in common with God, then creatures would ‘have God’ - they would either exemplify/instantiate him [speaking in relational ontologist terms] or else he would be a constituent of them [speaking in constituent ontologist terms]). At least in principle, then, there seems to be no barrier to b and c being ‘primarily diverse’ in the sense you specified. Another thing to note is that it’s open to the opponent of your argument [Gel’s argument? It depends on whether you’re offering an argument of your own here, or whether you’re trying to buttress Gel’s argument] to simply reject that it is only things that are primarily diverse that can be primitively individuated. You say: “This not only solves the infinite regress problem, …” Well, it certainly avoids the infinite regress; but it seems to do so at the cost of rendering it no longer problematic for some A and B to be primitively individuated despite sharing everything in common. If rationality and non-rationality are primitively distinct, why *can’t* A and B be primitively individuated? Why isn’t it enough simply to recognize that A is not B? Just as R and non-R are primitively individuated, why can’t A and non-A [of which B is an instance] likewise be primitively individuated? It’s not clear. You continue: “… but shows why two things whose essence is actual existence cannot be primitively individuated. Because they have the same essence (namely actual existence), they cannot be primarily diverse.” As I noted in a footnote, however, we needn’t suppose that the relevant beings of pure esse have the same essence; their essence is *not* ‘actual existence’, but *their own respective acts of existence*. Next you say: “It won't work to respond that X (or Y) is not identical to 'existence', but instead is identical to 'X's existence' or 'the existence of X'. For there is no subject/existence distinction or relation. In this case, the existence is without a subject.” There are several things to say here: (1) We could say, first, that the existence is *not* without a subject; the existence *is* the subject, and the existences in question aren’t thereby identical to one another, since they’re primitively distinct. [Footnote: You might say that the very question at issue is whether they could be primitively distinct; and this is true. But this just shows that we cannot non-question-beggingly assume *either way* that they’re primitively distinct. And yet your case requires holding that they are *not* primitively distinct. My project is essentially undercutting: I say we don’t have sufficient reason for ruling out the scenarios I’m describing. I’m not aiming to positively justify my scenarios.] (2) We could also say, second: so what? Then we would simply have Existence_1 and Existence_2, where (i) neither existence has a subject, and yet still (ii) the two are primitively distinct.
@@MajestyofReason I think your reply would have more bite if, on Thomism, essence-existence composites somehow *wholly* have existence as an internal principle composing them, but this isn’t quite true. Composites don’t exist essentially, but rather participate in existence. They don’t have whole, complete existence but only have existence partially. From Gaven Kerr’s entry on Aquinas’s Metaphysics for the IEP: “to participate is to limit that which is participated in some respect. This follows from the original etymological definition of participation, that to participate is to take a part (in); for if to participate is merely to take a part in something, the participant will not possess the nature of the thing in which it participates in any total fashion, but only in partial fashion.” So I don’t think one can truly say that, if X is existence and Y is an essence-existence composite, then Y is an essence-X composite. That would only hold if the composite participated in existence in a *total* and not a *partial* fashion. OB’s comment assumes that the entities they call X and Y are wholly existence, so the identity claim holds more strongly. Such linguistic clarity might also help your Platonism. If the forms exist but bear no causal relations with concrete objects, then the most intelligible way to understand them would be a participation relation. So Socrates would be a man who participates in the form of man (though Aristotle and Aquinas would classify “man” as a species), but it doesn’t follow that Socrates is composed by the form of man. (I realize this is a very archaic version of Platonism, but the basic idea should still hold.)
Currently watching this, but as a note to myself and possible viewers, after watching hundreds of videos and reading books and multiple papers, I neutrally came to the conclusion that both naturalism and theism were depending on some bedrock of a necessary being either as a theoretical cost or as means of avoiding infinite regress. However, theism was way more compelling, to me at least, due to two reasons : 1- it at least proposed a casually efficacious AGENT rather than an idle or random ineffecatious simple (or even worse, simples). 2- the way that the universe is proposed as the dependent necessary (or brute contingency in another term) in naturalism/atheism was contrary to the definition of "necessary". (or a very question begging alternative if we use the term "brute contingency"). As a necessary being, I claim, has to be one and only one independent thing to be a coherent metaphysical entity (yes, the philosophical term necessary is defined only that it exists in all possible worlds, but we can derive that it should be independent and only one entity.. I will shortly list it in a reply under this comment )
I find this idea of looking for a bedrock to be impractical. How is "perfection" which seems to be the "foundation" of God not also an "ineffecaious simple"?
Coming back here.. So, a necessary being is defined as which exists in all possible worlds, i.e. Necessarily exists. And it can be derived as being independent and one singular being. How? Well, if it's a being in all worlds, then it doesn't depend on any thing to exist in any world, let alone depend on something contingent. Even in a world where it only exists, it exists there as well without dependence on any other being. Why does it have to be one necessary being? Because : 1- if there are two necessary beings, their identities would depend upon their distinction from one another. Both of them would then be dependent upon one another, and neither would be absolutely necessary and independent. This contradicts my first claim of independence of an NB. 1.5 - whatever grounds their distinction, would itself be a part of the explanation of why one of them or both of them exists in that way respectively, and hence, they both would not be independent. 2- if we took the case of God as the necessary being, imagine that we have two necessary Gods, both are omnipotent. They would surely have tried to overpower or constrain one another, use veto over each other's actions. Therefore, there can only be one God in its full definition. More on this can be seen on Koon's video on unity of God part (th-cam.com/video/an_neGBKKo8/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CapturingChristianity)
@@AShaif This idea that being distinct is a dependence doesn't sound right. The concept of a triangle is different than that of a square but neither depends on the other.
@@goldenalt3166 I'm not sure I understood your question. bedrock foundation of reality is accepted by Oppy but he said it's simples ( not God, unlike theists say). I found this to be causally non-efficacious because nothing could prompt/compel a necessary being to bring about this world in its complex designed parameters except agency (free will) ? neither the Simples' random chance, nor set-up quasi determined conditions could explain this world while also not contradicting necessary being's independence, yet these simples abide by time-space laws of physics at the same time! Such ordered world is expected from minds, agents. Unless we make an exception now for this expectation of ours, the burden of proof is still on Oppy on why now, but he said it's a brute contingency in one of his videos. Just like Russel, he just relied on this intuition as a bedrock and stopping point for PSR. IF ONE REFUSED TO SIT AT THE CHESS BOARD AND MAKE A MOVE, ONE CANNOT, OF COURSE, BE CHECKMATED - F.C. COPLESTON
@@goldenalt3166 we are talking about necessary beings here, not contingent beings like triangles. Of course, in contingent beings, the identity of a triangle would depend on it's shape ( three-sided angled shape), this "shape" property limit is what it depends on. Same thing for a square, its identity would depend on its 4-sided shape. However, a necessary being would not depend on any property that limits it.
I often think if the whole philosophy thing falls through, you have a promising future as a voice actor, but your Aussie accent needs a little work (or it did then).
P1. There cannot be a plurality of Gods. P2. Only divine simplicity can account for the impossibility of a plurality of Gods. Conclusion. Divine simplicity is true.
Thanks for the comment :) It's not clear whether P1 is true -- why couldn't there be one God that's Trinitarian, another that's Unitarian, another that's Binitarian, and so on? But suppose P1 is true. Even still, I think P2 is false. There are lots of other ways to account for the impossibility of a plurality of Gods. Consider: To be God is to be perfect, and to be perfect is to have every perfection essentially and lack every imperfection essentially. But, intuitively, it is a perfection to be that upon which everything else depends (if there are other things). So, suppose there were two (or more) Gods. Then each would be perfect, and so each would have the aforementioned perfection. But that's absurd, since they would each be dependent on another, which is a vicious circle of dependence. So, there cannot be two or more Gods. There can only be at most one God. Note that none of this requires divine simplicity. Each of these perfections could, in principle, be numerically distinct, for instance.
@@MajestyofReason I would argue that P1 follows from the PSR, and that the PSR is undoubtedly true. If there can be a plurality of Gods, then there can't be a sufficient reason for why one God created X but another didn't create X instead of that God. Now, as for the contention that divine perfection would rule out a plurality of Gods without recourse to simplicity, we would argue that such a notion is itself contradictory. On the one hand there could be many Gods since they can be distinguished through a difference in one or more properties, but on the other hand there can only be one because God is absolutely perfect, and being that God is absolutely perfect entails that there can be only one God. A manifest contradiction. The problem lies in positing a distinction between absolute perfection and absolute simplicity. That is where the contradiction is at.
Does God have a gender? Brahman does not, if that is correct? With regard to divine simplicity, this is a description of the philosopher’s God. The Philosopher’s God is completely abstract and cannot be a personal God. Does it make sense to apply gender to a completely abstract concept like an absolutely transcendent God? Or, is it just linguistically awkward to refer to God as It or They?
P1. Whatever is distinct from its existence does not entail its existence. P2. What doesn't entail its existence is contingent. P3. God is not contingent. Conclusion. There is no distinction between essence and existence in God.
P1 seems deeply implausible to me. Consider: 'having a circumference' is distinct from 'having a radius', and yet each entails the other. So, just because A is distinct from B, it doesn't follow that A doesn't entail B. A could still entail B despite being distinct therefrom. In principle, I don't see anything incoherent about God's nature being distinct from his existence but nevertheless entailing it. In that case, God is distinct from God's existence, and yet what it is to be God still entails God's existence.
@@MajestyofReason So a radius and circumference entail each other by definition, even though they are distinct. The difference though with existence and essence is that it becomes impossible to explain how an essence can entail its existence when they are distinct. It's not that there is a universal rule that a thing cannot entail what's distinct from it, but that in the specific case, and other cases as well, of essence and existence it just cannot be that an essence entails its existence when the two are distinct. No one has been able to give an account of how it can be.
People too often conflate Omnipotent (All Powerful.) as being able to do anything and everything. This is false and thats not what it means. For instance, in Classical Theism (Thomistic understanding.) God is Omnipotent. However, God cannot go against His nature, He cannot do wrong or commit evil. He cannot redeem the angels, He cannot go against Himself, ect. Anything that would be inherently opposed to His nature He is incapable of doing for then He would cease to be God. Omnipotence extends to God's ability to take actions of potency within Creation. It does not extend to God being able to defy Himself.
Irrefutable proof of divine simplicity. P1. Whatever contains a plurality is dependent on a plurality for its existence. P2. God is not dependent on anything. Conclusion. God does not contain a plurality.
I think you may be inclined to accept the following argument, but here's a parody: 1. Whatever contains a plurality is dependent thereon. 2. God is not dependent on anything. 3. Whatever is Trinitarian contains a plurality. 4. So, God is not Trinitarian. 5. So, Christianity is false. But in any case, I'm actually skeptical of your P1. I discuss this sort of reasoning in my videos "Arguments for classical theism | Part 1/2" and "The Neo-Platonic Proof of God's existence". In short, a whole can ground its parts. And in that case, the parts are actually dependent on the whole. Since dependence is asymmetric, it follows that such a whole would *not* be dependent on its parts. Since wholes contain pluralities, it would follow that P1 is false.
@@MajestyofReason Yes, this is why I would argue that Trinitarianism is absurd. Now, I'm aware that you, correct me if I'm mistaken, don't think that the relation of a substance to its attributes is one of metaphysical dependence, but only of some kind of logical dependence. The problem that I have with this is, I believe, that it ignores that the relation between a substance and its attributes is a metaphysical relation.
@@MajestyofReason Jake the muslim metaphysician Did alot of works in this argument you should check out his debates,Interviews etc with Top Christian philosophers
@@MajestyofReason I think you need to know more about Trinitarian theology before asserting the 3rd and 4th premises. Not saying that it plays out any differently by reason (I honestly don't know), but Trinitarian theology isn't that straight forward.
![[ ออกกอง ] วัยหนุ่ม 2544 โลกหลังลูกกรง..ทัวร์กองถ่ายหนังใน "คุกของจริง" | JUSTดูIT.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vB--aOkZCpw/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm a simple naturalist, I see Graham Oppy, i click :DD
I'm a simple agnostic, I see Joe's video in my notifications I click :DDD
I think this is what philosophers call divine simplicity
@Dharma Defender Simplest theory to explain universe.
@Dharma Defender Watch videos on naturalism and decide yourself.
@Dharma Defender Do you believe in supernatural powers and phenomena?
I can't wait to hear your Aristotle impression
Congrats on publishing this impressive paper!
This video is a gem. You going through you published material and commenting on it is just great.
Great video, Joe! I had to pause the video multiple times in between to finish laughing, your impressions are hilarious
❤️❤️
I am trying to understand individuation. So I considered atoms. Very cold atoms can get entangled, so to be specific I thought about helium atoms. They are Bosons, so they will become entangled, such that I need a single wavefunction to describe the state of two atoms. Any measure that I could use requires an operator to be applied to wavefunction in the standard way. I recognized that the wave function is in the model, while the atoms are in reality. But the quantum model is easily the best model we have at the atomic scale. Philosophers seem to be in no position to complain about mappings between 'real world' and 'ideas', since that seems to be the entire focus of this paper. I then realized that there are additive measures, like mass, that allow me to count the number of atoms, even if they are entangled. Now I can count, but I cannot individuate the entangled atoms. This is a case that seems to break nearly every naive (e.g. pre-quantum mechanics) idea of individuation. The 'features' that I would normally use to individuate simply fail when there is an entangled state - the two atoms are so entangled that they lose their individuality. But by heating the entanglement, you can restore individuality. Quantum weirdness seems to break naive assumptions about 'reality', even if they are held by philosophers.
Perhaps Father, Son and Holy Ghost are quantum entalged :p Their mass just happens to be 3*infinity=infinity. A mass of infinity would make them timeless via E = hf (E=mc^2 is energy, h is Heisenberg's constant and f is frequency (1/t)). So M => infinity implies t => 0. (tongue planted so firmly in cheek that I risk bleeding if I enunciate.)
Good video. One thing in the Gel paper that seemed to be to be wrong which you didn't really dispute was that he claimed that by virtue of positing one entity, theism is simpler than Oppy's naturalism. That seemed clearly false. Suppose we have two theories, theory one doesn't posit any specific number of entities, while theory two posits one entity, theory one would be better in terms of simplicity. The commitments of theory 2 in terms of number of entities are (there is entity 1, ~entity 2, ~entity 3, ~entity 4, etc. Theory 1 has no such commitments. If one theory requires positing things about the number of entities, then that's an extra commitment. The other theory not positing such entities makes it simpler, because it requires positing fewer things. Theory 1 posits nothing about the number of entities, while theory two has to posit something to rule out any entity more than 1. Gel gave independent arguments for accepting that there can only be one necessary entity, but I think
A) Those arguments fail.
B) If they succeeded, they could also apply to Oppy's naturalism.
Nice!
1st
BTW will you make atheist tier list video? Like ur theist tier list video
Eventually, yes ;)
@@MajestyofReason noice
It would be more interesting if he makes a nontheist tier list so he can include agnostics or even thinkers like Spinoza.
Something that always bugged me since I came across it is the philosophical concept of “explanation” and “explanatory power” of some theory. To me, it seems that “explaining” something or some event implies that that thing or event has to be, at a given time, “not explained yet”, in order for it to be given an explanation at a later time (it seems to me that “explained” is not a property of the thing or event, but some kind of interaction of the thing or event with my conceptual framework). For something or event A to be considered “not explained yet” by me, it seems that it is necessary for me to have some previous expectation B that was subverted by A, otherwise i would just accept A. In other words, when I ask “How can it be that A?” what I'm really asking is “How can it be that A and not B?”. B, it seems, has to come from some theory or idea about the world C that I already hold. So an explanation can either say “C does not imply B, it actually implies A”, or “C is false, the theory which is actually correct is D”.
To summarize, it seems to me that a theory does not, per se, “explain” anything, because the need to explain something is relative to my previous expectations; instead, some person is going to explain to me why it is the case that A and not B, possibly giving me some new theory.
It seems to me that A does not require any explanation, unless I have some previous expectation that “not A”, or some theory which implies “not A”.
Any help in understanding these matters would be appreciated.
I'm curious how you justify factors like qualitative and quantitative parsimony as making a theory more likely to be true. It doesn't seem intuitively obviously to me that just because a theory is simpler in the sense of postulating fewer entities it is more likely to reflect reality.
Excellent question, and I don’t have strong views on this particular matter; the purpose of my article here was to work within a pre-given dialectical context - namely, that between Gel and Oppy. Since they already laid out the various theoretical virtues by which they’re evaluating theories, I worked within their framework🙂
With watching Joe and Kane B, who needs a philosophy degree?
Seriously tho, we love your vids :P
they're both such a blessing we don't deserve lol
Honestly We need more people like them and we need to make them popular because Most popular theists/atheists r bad source for arguments for/against God's existence
If people like Joe collab with popular online figure like Rationality rule, Alex O Connor, frank turek, matt dillahunty, Aaron Ra so on this may change the online community for better
@@logicalliberty132
How modest, lol.
Hello! I just wanted to know what are your thoughts on naturalism and theism?
That footnote was epic
Hey Joe, super basic question. Why should we not say that the necessary initial state was five seconds ago? All the brutely contingent outplayings of random chance in the big bang model just get converted into brute necessities but you end up postulating less entities overall.
I can’t reply in depth since I’m prepping for graduation; but long story short, Oppy would respond by saying that such a hypothesis profoundly suffers in terms of its explanatory power
(You might email Graham to ask him; I’m guessing he’d respond; he often (though not always) responds to email queries!)
Joe, allow me to make some comments about your recent video on the Kalam with Rationality Rules.
At some point you said that some fundamental particles (such as quarks) do begin to exist from no pre-existing materials (or more fundamental particles), but that's factually and scientifically incorrect. Quarks as well as all other particles are just excitations of quantum fields (according to quantum field theory). If a particle appears at all, it is just a field manifesting itself. So, no, particles don't come out of nothing (i.e., without a material cause).
This is also true in certain interpretations of quantum mechanics (as you know) which postulate particles can ultimately be reduced to the universal wavefunction.
With respect to the point that the principle of causality probably applies to beginnings out of nothing just as they do to re-arrangements, I've talked about that with philosopher David K. Johnson some time ago, and he told me that he will probably criticize this objection in a future paper (that he is writing).
You can think of a fundamental or elementary particle as a ripple on the surface of a pond or just a protrusion on a carpet. The protrusion or ripple is not ontologically distinct from the carpet or pond.
To help you visualize a particle on a field, see a very nice and short video on youtube titled What Is a Field? - Instant Egghead #42.
Thanks for the comment my dude!!! Re the quark point:
At this point in the video, we weren’t claiming that quarks begin to exist without a material cause; instead, we were pointing out that quarks are things that genuinely begin to exist and aren’t merely rearrangements of pre-existing things. And if quarks are excitations of fields, then they aren’t rearrangements of already-existent things. Yes, they definitely depend (in some manner) on a more fundamental physical ‘substrate’ (as it were) - to wit, the field they’re excitations of; but there aren’t things that rearrange to come together to make them up. So it doesn’t seem to me that there is a scientific inaccuracy in our presentation. 🙂
@@MajestyofReason "Thanks for the comment my dude!!!"
Sure :)
"if quarks are excitations of fields, then they aren’t rearrangements of already-existent things."
Joe, if a quark is an excitation of a quantum field, then this quark is just the rearrangement of an already-existent thing, namely, a field. This quark is not merely 'dependent' on its respective field, but is the field itself changing form (i.e., "deforming" itself or being deformed by another field).
"but [they] aren’t things that rearrange to come together to make them up"
Well, two or more things coming together to form a composite object is not precisely what the objector is claiming is the important difference. Instead, they are pointing to the fact that in our experience objects never come into existence without material causes, and the universe (allegedly) did. One way to make this point clear and vivid is by emphasizing the fact that chairs, cars and trees are just rearrangements of various pre-existing particles. But even if a particle is not a composite of various particles, it is still a rearrangement (of a field). So, the objector's point is still valid.
@@CosmoPhiloPharmaco I hope to reply tomorrow at some point! V busy rn
@@CosmoPhiloPharmaco Alright! I finally got some time to sit down, read your comment carefully, and -- most importantly -- to watch the relevant bit of our video closely. This allows me to clarify things for both of us! So, here's the clarification. At this point in the video, we were addressing the following rejoinder:
"For instance, one might reason that we’ve never actually experienced things ‘beginning to exist’. Instead, we merely have experience of already-existent things being rearranged. Our inductive evidence base therefore only consists in seeing rearrangements of pre-existing stuff having a cause; and in that case, we should only be prepared to generalize that every rearrangement of pre-existing stuff has a cause."
Now, I think we definitely could [and should] have been clearer in the video about what, precisely, this objection is saying. The goal, way back when I wrote the script, was to address a common internet atheist objection to the Kalam [e.g., one Cosmic Skeptic raised to Craig in their dialogue] that we don't have any experience whatsoever of things beginning to exist. [Hence, the rejoinder: "we've never actually experienced things beginning to exist".] The idea is that things don't really begin to exist; our experience solely consists in things being rearranged or taking on new forms, but no object ever really has a beginning.
In response to this, we made two points. The second point was that composite objects aren't *merely* just rearrangements of things; this was the example of my beginning. I am something that truly began to exist -- my past is metrically finite. This isn't a denial that I am a rearrangement from pre-existing things or stuff; I most certainly am. But that is actually *compatible* with my beginning to exist. What this shows us is that the objection is mistaken -- our experience *does* include beginnings to exist [*even if* those beginnings *also* involve rearrangements of prior things or stuff -- indeed, *even if* they invariably or necessarily involve a material cause in that sense]. The only way to deny this point is to adopt mereological nihilism.
This takes us to the first response. The idea behind the first response was not that quarks don't have material causes [in the sense of some thing, things, or stuff from which they're made]; instead, the point was just that quarks genuinely begin to exist as discrete entities in their own right. The idea in my mind was that this was an especially clear case -- clearer than the case of composite objects like humans -- of something 'beginning to exist', since the particle isn't 'built up out of' a rearrangement of simpler particles, even if -- as you rightly point out -- we have reason to think they're in some sense 'built out of' fields (by dint of being excitations thereof). So our point was a rather mundane one: quarks genuinely begin to exist. The reason we said something about quarks not being composed of more fundamental particles was because we thought this would count in favor of its being an especially poignant illustration of why quarks genuinely begin to exist. [It avoids someone potentially (albeit incorrectly) saying things like 'well, strictly speaking, Joe doesn't exist -- he is totally reducible just to a complex array of particles etc.'.]
Now, I think your point is good, because it pinpoints that we weren't as clear as we could [and should] have been in our first response. Here's what we said, (A), and here's what we should have said (B). I agree that (A) can be interpreted as denying that quarks have material causes in the sense of some things or stuff from which it is made; we didn't want to convey this, however, but instead wanted to convey an especially poignant case of something genuinely beginning to exist, even if that beginning to exist is accompanied by a material cause.
(A) "First, we know that some kinds of quarks - which are, as far as we currently know, not composed of simpler things - can turn into other kinds of quarks. This doesn’t seem to be a case of already-existent things being rearranged to form a new composite object; instead, it’s a case of a fundamental particle beginning to exist."
(B) "First, we know that some kinds of quarks - which are, as far as we currently know, not composed of simpler particles - can turn into other kinds of quarks. This is an especially clear case of something genuinely beginning to exist, since it isn't built up from an arrangement of particles like the composite objects of our experience are. And while it does have a material cause in the sense of some thing(s) or stuff from which it is made (by dint of being an excitation of a prior quantum field), this is no barrier to its being a case of something genuinely beginning to exist. Hence, our experience *does* involve things truly beginning to exist."
Thank you for inviting this clarification!!! You're helping us improve the series, which will eventually probably be compiled into a book. :) So thank you, sincerely!
The Occams-razor based argument is pretty weak, and there might be something to the IoI argument but it is unecessarilly complex. My argument for uniqueness would be:
Def. Two entities are metaphysically inseparable if and only if in every possible instant of time/circunstance/world-segment in which one exists the other must also exist, and vice-versa.
Def. An entity is necessary (in a strong sense) if it exists in every possible instant of time/circunstance/etc...
1. Metaphysically inseparable entities are consubstantial (i.e. internal to the same substance).
2. Any pair of necessary entities is metaphysically inseparable.
3. Any pair of purely actual entities is a pair of necessary entities.
Hence, any pair of purely actual entities is consubstantial, and hence there can be only at most one purely actual substance, no matter how many purely actual entities are internal to this substance.
Add to this:
4. Only substances as a whole have causal powers.
And it also follows that a purely actual first cause would be an unique substance.
Other than this, let me say something about the Foundational Layer argument. A "physical" non-spatiotemporal entity looks like an oxymoron, except if by "physical" you merely want to say "whatever 'physical' theories may talk about", and even then it would be ambiguous insofar as it is ambiguous to determine which theories are theories of physics. At any rate, I could simply say that under this interpretation there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being "physical", as there is no fundamental impediment to there being a "physical" theory which postulated the classical theistic God; in fact the theory you presented just might be one such theory. The fact that a physical theory talks about an entity doesn't mean that this entity is naturalistic, unless "naturalism" is supposed to mean something entirely trivial. Furthermore, it is quite unlikely the author in question intended to take "material" as a synonym for "physical" in this sense. He probably intended the former to mean something like "is a substance composed of spatiotemporal mereological parts, or a spatiotemporal mereological simple which could potentially be a mereological part of a spatiotemporal substance". And it seems pretty clear to me things of this sort should be changeable and potential, first because being in space they could move in space, and if these things have their parts only contingently, it would be possible for them to lose some parts, gain some parts, change parts, etc...
Will respond later today! Thanks❤️
Thank you for your comment my dude! ! I’m in finals week, and I’m also preparing to move out. So I prolly won’t be able to respond further. :)
“My argument for uniqueness would be:
Def. Two entities are metaphysically inseparable if and only if in every possible instant of time/circumstance/world-segment in which one exists the other must also exist, and vice-versa.
Def. An entity is necessary (in a strong sense) if it exists in every possible instant of time/circumstance/etc...
1. Metaphysically inseparable entities are consubstantial (i.e. internal to the same substance).
2. Any pair of necessary entities is metaphysically inseparable.
3. Any pair of purely actual entities is a pair of necessary entities.
Hence, any pair of purely actual entities is consubstantial, and hence there can be only at most one purely actual substance, no matter how many purely actual entities are internal to this substance.
Add to this:
4. Only substances as a whole have causal powers.
And it also follows that a purely actual first cause would be an unique substance.”
(1) strikes me as implausible - I don’t see any issue with there being two different substances, each of which cannot fail to exist. (4) also strikes me as implausible. My stomach isn’t a whole substance, but it has lots of causal powers. Various mental properties and processes of mine also aren’t substances, but they have lots of causal powers. (E.g., my pain causes me to cry. My perceptual experience of a tree causes me to think ‘there’s a tree’; and so on.)
“Other than this, let me say something about the Foundational Layer argument. A "physical" non-spatiotemporal entity looks like an oxymoron, except if by "physical" you merely want to say "whatever 'physical' theories may talk about", and even then it would be ambiguous insofar as it is ambiguous to determine which theories are theories of physics.”
I don’t see it as an oxymoron. There are lots of ways to understand ‘physical’, but one way is something capturable and describable in terms of (or at least ultimately grounded by) the entities, properties, and phenomena recognized in our best physical theories. Yes, we don’t have a sure-fire, silver-bullet way to determine which theories are physical theories. But we can pick it out pretty reliably by ostension. It’s like what that judge said about pornography - ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it’. Similarly, we can pick out physical theories when we see them.
“At any rate, I could simply say that under this interpretation there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being "physical", as there is no fundamental impediment to there being a "physical" theory which postulated the classical theistic God; in fact the theory you presented just might be one such theory.”
The theory I presented is developed extensively in Ney’s work, and ithe foundation of reality is an impersonal universal wave function (a kind of field) with various physical properties and defined in terms of configuration space, and it functionally realizes spacetime. (It does not cause spacetime in any sense.) This is very, very, very far from the classical theistic God.
And it’s not clear to me whether ‘there is no impediment to the classical theistic God also being physical in this sense’. (i) For starters, all that matters is that I drive a major wedge between ‘unchangeable, cross-world invariant, necessary foundation’ and ‘God’ that exacerbates the gap problem; and this, I think *is* secured by the fact that we have perfectly respectable metaphysical views in philosophy of physics on which the foundation is atheistic/naturalistic and physical [even in the sense at hand]. (ii) Second, given the trajectory of science over the centuries, I think we have excellent inductive reason to think that the entities posited in our best physical theories won’t be God. (iii) Third, I think it’s extremely plausible that moral properties won’t be posited by our best physical theories. Moral properties like goodness, badness, and so on just aren’t the purview of scientific and empirical investigations. But then God will *not*, it seems, be posited in our best physical theories, since that would require moral properties (minimally, goodness) being posited by our best physical theories.
“The fact that a physical theory talks about an entity doesn't mean that this entity is naturalistic, unless "naturalism" is supposed to mean something entirely trivial.”
This doesn’t render ‘natural’ trivial. This is simply asserted, firstly, but second, and as I argued above, there are very plausible constraints on what is or would be recognized by our best physical theories.
“Furthermore, it is quite unlikely the author in question intended to take "material" as a synonym for "physical" in this sense. He probably intended the former to mean something like "is a substance composed of spatiotemporal mereological parts, or a spatiotemporal mereological simple which could potentially be a mereological part of a spatiotemporal substance”.”
Maybe so, maybe not. But then (i) the author should have specified what they mean [‘material’ is used variously in both the literature and common parlance], and moreover (ii) notice that I said in my article “*if* we understand ‘physical’ as synonymous with ‘material’”, and so my point at this portion of the paper is conditional in nature - it’s conditional on the synonymity of these terms. And one of the prominent ways of understanding ‘physical’ does, indeed, render the universal wave function ‘physical’. And so my point stands.
“And it seems pretty clear to me things of this sort should be changeable and potential, first because being in space they could move in space, and if these things have their parts only contingently, it would be possible for them to lose some parts, gain some parts, change parts, etc…”
One note at this juncture: one way for something to be spatial, it seems, is to be located every point of space; and *this* sort of spatial thing would not (or, at least minimally, need not) have the potential to move in space.
@@MajestyofReason Well, it's fine if you don't want to have an extended conversation, this was only a short comment. My premisse (1) is a theorem of the theory of substance I am developing, but I cannot go into greater details about it here anyway. Suffices to say that it also appears to hold under Nuclear Trope Theory, for instance, and might be pressuposed in some analysis of the formal distinction of Duns Scotus. At any rate, if we assume that there are (and I can prove this) some stipulative definitions of substance which would make (1) a theorem, we would be able to prove there is only a single necessary substance under this definition of substance, and the question would then be one of exegesis: When classical theists speak of there being only a single Divine substance, is this definition what they mean by "substance" or not? I know it is what I mean. But more on that later (I will be sending my theory for you to read someday).
What I think would be our main point of disagreement here is that I don't believe that if "physical" is defined relative to the content of "our best physical theories" it has any metaphysical relevance at all. For one thing, our physical theories are constantly changing, for another, if something is to be "physical" in virtue of the content of our physical theories, then being "physical" is not an intrinsic or natural property of physical things, but a gerymandered notion, since it is not *about* physical things, but rather about our physical theories. It would be comparable to the property "being mentioned in the Bible", which is never about its subject but rather about the Bible, i.e. it is only a property of the Bible that it mentions a person X, not an intrinsic property of X that it is mentioned in the Bible. Similarly, being physical would be a property of the content of a physical theory, not of extra-mental physical objects. For another thing, it was never ever actually proven that some of the terminology present even in past physical theories isn't just pressuposing God under the guise of a different language. For instance, in Newtonian mechanics the gravitational field was supposed to be the cause of the motions of the stars, something we should also expect God to do. What *exactly* then is the difference between the gravitational field and God? Before saying something trivial like "God is not a field" or "the gravitational field is not purely actual" bear in mind Newtonian mechanics has no technical concept of God nor of pure actuality, and hence that it has *never* either affirmed nor denied either pure actuality or Divinity of fields. It has similarly not denied personhood, nor that a field could cause spacetime, since it doesn't even make use of these concepts to even deny that they apply to anything. Regardless, it is at any rate unclear that the classical theistic God would even need to cause physical "spacetime", since physical spacetime is an abstraction, not a real, concrete entity. We might as well be meinongian about it and say that it doesn't even exist at all. At any rate, it appears to us that God is only distinguished from the gravitational field by fiat, by postulating that the latter is "physical" because mentioned in "physical" theories, while the former is pressumed not to be, even though it was never actually proven that He wasn't mentioned, i.e. that the things mentioned don't turn out to be identical to God.
It seems what I said about Newtonian gravity might also apply to your example, for all I know, so I remain unconvinced there is a real disagreement between these theories of physics and classical theism. Nobody has actually PROVEN a real disagreement, and I tend not to multiply real disagreements beyond necessity.
There are furthermore a ton of perfectly physical objects never mentioned in any of our physical theories, such as apples and donkeys, as there is no complete physical theory which perfectly explains any single biological entity. Is physicalism also committed to the inexistence of biological entities?
For yet another thing, I wonder how this definition would fare under instrumentalist or anti-realistic conceptions of science. Could I be a physicalist instrumentalist? If so, I would have to believe everything that exists is postulated by some of our best scientific theories while also disbelieving in the existence of entities postulated by our best scientific theories. Ergo, I would have to conclude nothing whatsoever exists. Now, instrumentalist looks way more plausible than physicalism to me.
Anyway, if "physical" is to be so vaguely and irrelevantly defined I might as well become an eliminativist about this concept. In which case I would never either affirm nor deny that "God is physical" as this would appear meaningless to me. Just some thoughts I would like to share.
Thank you for the great and fun video :) coming back here after watching it.
I had trouble understanding why you think Oppy's naturalism is explanatorily more powerful in answering the questions put forth by Gel. I would get it for simplicity, but not for explanatory power.
Didn't Oppy escape satisfying his naturalistic contingent initial singularity to the PSR by arbitrarily determining it as a necessity due to being initial entity even though that the singularity occupies space and is dimensional (taking into account the contingency argument for God) ?
(Oppy in another video stated that he holds that PSR is used on non-initial things, but should be left out when discussing initial things.) isn't this special pleading?
He left us wondering why would a universe and not a table would be the divergent non-initial reality ? and what is the ground on which initial and non-initial states differ ?
Ask questions in his 10k AMA video
@@Hello-vz1md He will only select very few, and by that time that I first saw his video, a hundred comments were already shared :D
But on my question, I saw that Oppy in other academic papers, state the singularity as a brute contingency, which is a total arbitrary label to make it academic, but not supported with arguments except the assumption of "philosophical naturalism". Also, "brute contingency" is an
oxymoron . what was he thinking! :D
@@AShaif maybe you could send an email to joe or oppy asking about this issue
@@Hello-vz1md Do you have Oppy's email ?
@@AShaif I sent you the e mail address many times but YT always delete my comment with an e mail address. So if you give me your e mail address I could send that to you directly.
Enric Gel has a TH-cam Channel named "Adictos a la filosofía" and a secondary channel that is called "Filoadictos clips", where he talks about causal finitism and stuff, he's brilliant imo.
Also, there's this guy called Agustín Echeverría from "Teología Filosófica", which is also a Classical Theist, and he has quality content as well. His channel is focused on arguments for and against the existence of God (evil/pain, hiddenness, evil God challenge, simplicity of naturalism, 5 ways, etc.)
Its good to see where the disagreements are, because it helps the dialectic go forward. Cool stuff as always, Joe!
Much love❤️
I’ve had some wonderful private chats with Enric - he’s great!!
Im a Naturalist, but I personally think Deism or Pantheism are much stronger then Classical Theism.
But I have no clue what is going on with Polytheism.
I would love for you to cover Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytical Idealism. Absolutely love his work and I would say one of the most brilliant philosophers of our time. And I don’t want to make an appeal to authority because if I’m being honest I am completely jealous that he has 2 PhD’s one in the hard sciences and then the other in philosophy. You know how much it cost for me to get ONE PhD in Oncolytic Virology?!?! And during my PhD work I, like Bernardo, found that my true love is philosophy and want to spend all my time thinking about the true nature of reality as it is in itself.
Maybe eventually I'll be able to cover his work! It's super fascinating. And thanks for the comment ♥
@@MajestyofReason No, good sir, thank you for the work you’re doing. And hopefully you do get a chance to cover it because I’d love to hear your thoughts for or against what he has to say about the true nature of reality as it is in itself.
@@MajestyofReason While I have your ear lol. Do you plan on going for your PhD?
@@Wandering_Chemist Yep! I'm applying to grad programs for philosophy this November
Bernardo Should get Nobel in metaphysics.
For destroying physicalism
For a better view on this subject see “The Myth of Religious Neutrality” by Roy A Clouser
lol* @ footnote 11. *Not to be confused with 'lol', which (I'm told) the learned folk use for identity of indiscernibles.
There doesn't seem to be anything about a singularity that warrants the necessity of its existence. Accordingly, Oppy's naturalism seems to suffer from a worst kind of bruteness compared to theism.
It doesn't also seem like a singularity could be a first cause since it must exist either in a mind or in space. In either case, the singularity would be preceded by something else.
A singularity can not give a good and proper account of the plurality of structure seen in nature, given that a singularity, by definition, has no internal structure.
Similarly, a singularity can not give a good and proper account of the plurality of phenomena seen in nature since it seems that phenomena require at least one mechanism which, in turn, would seem to require a structure, which is absent in a singularity by definition.
Finally, a wave function is a description in mathematical language of how quantum mechanical systems evolve. It simply has no causal power. And a wave needs space, and a source of perturbation (energy), so it doesn't seem like a quantum mechanical wave could be a first cause.
Great video
I haven't even watched it yet, but I already liked the video! :) I'm sure it will be great (like the other videos you posted).
Yo, btw; what did you think of the Oppy Kenny debate book, if you’ve seen it? Finished reading it myself recently; Kenny seemed to disappoint, nowhere near as good as Rasmussen with Leon imo.
@@jakek.403 Hi, Jake.
I have this book and I read some of Oppy's chapters, but with all respect to Oppy, he can be very boring sometimes. Haha A lot of technical jargon and an endless discussion about ontological commitments. Your mind starts wandering and getting anxious.
Oh, and I didn't even read Kenny's chapters, so I can't say anything about his performance in the debate.
Let "X" and "Y" stand for things that are identical to existence. If X and Y share existence, and each is identical to its existence, then X is identical to Y (and so there is only one). But if X and Y do *not* share existence, then only one exists (and so there is only one). Either way, there can only be one thing that is identical to existence.
Concerning 'primitive individuation': it is things that are *primarily diverse* (i.e. have nothing in common) that can be individuated primitively. For example, since the species man and brute have something in common (animality), there must be a feature whereby they differ (rationality). But, since 'rationality' and 'non-rationality' are primarily diverse, no difference is needed. This not only solves the infinite regress problem, but shows why two things whose essence is actual existence cannot be primitively individuated. Because they have the same essence (namely actual existence), they cannot be primarily diverse. Therefore, if they are distinct, there must be a difference.
It won't work to respond that X (or Y) is not identical to 'existence', but instead is identical to 'X's existence' or 'the existence of X'. For there is no subject/existence distinction or relation. In this case, the existence is without a subject. So, there is literally nothing (i.e. no subject) for the existence to be the existence "of". This is the entire meaning of ipsum esse subsistens: existence which is not _anythings's_ existence, but subsistent existence itself.
Thanks for the comment!
You say:
“Let "X" and "Y" stand for things that are identical to existence. If X and Y share existence, and each is identical to its existence, then X is identical to Y (and so there is only one). But if X and Y do not share existence, then only one exists (and so there is only one). Either way, there can only be one thing that is identical to existence.”
I don’t think this fits nicely within the Thomistic DDS with which my article is concerned. For consider the following, which - by my lights - seems just as plausible as your reasoning here [and, indeed, seems to have steps sharing the same motivations as your steps]:
Let ‘X’ stand for something identical to existence, and let ‘Y’ be an essence-existence composite. If X and Y share existence, and X is identical to its existence, then Y is an essence-X composite - X would be an internal principle composing it. But then anything identical to existence would enter into composition with everything else as an internal composing principle along with essence. But this, of course, entails Thomistic CT is false, since God [=existence] couldn’t be an integral composing principle of created things. But if X and Y do not share existence, then either there is no X such that X=existence [and so God doesn’t exist], or else there is no Y that is an essence-existence composite. Thus, either Thomistic CT is false, or else there are no essence-existence composites… in which case, I am not an essence-existence composite; and since per Thomistic CT, everything is either God or an essence-existence composite, and since I exist and am not an essence-existence composite, it would follow that I am God. But then Thomistic CT is false. So, either Thomistic CT is false, or Thomistic CT is false. So, Thomistic CT is false.
You say:
“Concerning 'primitive individuation': it is things that are primarily diverse (i.e. have nothing in common) that can be individuated primitively.”
One thing to note, however, is that if b and c are each identical to their own respective acts of existence, then b and c have nothing in common. You might say that they must have existence in common; but that isn’t so, at least if (as we’re assuming!) we have a broadly Thomistic metaphysical backdrop at play. For God and creatures don’t have existence in common, in the sense of sharing something [to wit, existence or being or reality or whatever] in common (since God is identical to whatever he has, and so if creatures had some F shared in common with God, then creatures would ‘have God’ - they would either exemplify/instantiate him [speaking in relational ontologist terms] or else he would be a constituent of them [speaking in constituent ontologist terms]). At least in principle, then, there seems to be no barrier to b and c being ‘primarily diverse’ in the sense you specified.
Another thing to note is that it’s open to the opponent of your argument [Gel’s argument? It depends on whether you’re offering an argument of your own here, or whether you’re trying to buttress Gel’s argument] to simply reject that it is only things that are primarily diverse that can be primitively individuated.
You say:
“This not only solves the infinite regress problem, …”
Well, it certainly avoids the infinite regress; but it seems to do so at the cost of rendering it no longer problematic for some A and B to be primitively individuated despite sharing everything in common. If rationality and non-rationality are primitively distinct, why *can’t* A and B be primitively individuated? Why isn’t it enough simply to recognize that A is not B? Just as R and non-R are primitively individuated, why can’t A and non-A [of which B is an instance] likewise be primitively individuated? It’s not clear.
You continue:
“… but shows why two things whose essence is actual existence cannot be primitively individuated. Because they have the same essence (namely actual existence), they cannot be primarily diverse.”
As I noted in a footnote, however, we needn’t suppose that the relevant beings of pure esse have the same essence; their essence is *not* ‘actual existence’, but *their own respective acts of existence*.
Next you say:
“It won't work to respond that X (or Y) is not identical to 'existence', but instead is identical to 'X's existence' or 'the existence of X'. For there is no subject/existence distinction or relation. In this case, the existence is without a subject.”
There are several things to say here:
(1) We could say, first, that the existence is *not* without a subject; the existence *is* the subject, and the existences in question aren’t thereby identical to one another, since they’re primitively distinct. [Footnote: You might say that the very question at issue is whether they could be primitively distinct; and this is true. But this just shows that we cannot non-question-beggingly assume *either way* that they’re primitively distinct. And yet your case requires holding that they are *not* primitively distinct. My project is essentially undercutting: I say we don’t have sufficient reason for ruling out the scenarios I’m describing. I’m not aiming to positively justify my scenarios.]
(2) We could also say, second: so what? Then we would simply have Existence_1 and Existence_2, where (i) neither existence has a subject, and yet still (ii) the two are primitively distinct.
@@MajestyofReason I think your reply would have more bite if, on Thomism, essence-existence composites somehow *wholly* have existence as an internal principle composing them, but this isn’t quite true. Composites don’t exist essentially, but rather participate in existence. They don’t have whole, complete existence but only have existence partially. From Gaven Kerr’s entry on Aquinas’s Metaphysics for the IEP: “to participate is to limit that which is participated in some respect. This follows from the original etymological definition of participation, that to participate is to take a part (in); for if to participate is merely to take a part in something, the participant will not possess the nature of the thing in which it participates in any total fashion, but only in partial fashion.”
So I don’t think one can truly say that, if X is existence and Y is an essence-existence composite, then Y is an essence-X composite. That would only hold if the composite participated in existence in a *total* and not a *partial* fashion. OB’s comment assumes that the entities they call X and Y are wholly existence, so the identity claim holds more strongly.
Such linguistic clarity might also help your Platonism. If the forms exist but bear no causal relations with concrete objects, then the most intelligible way to understand them would be a participation relation. So Socrates would be a man who participates in the form of man (though Aristotle and Aquinas would classify “man” as a species), but it doesn’t follow that Socrates is composed by the form of man. (I realize this is a very archaic version of Platonism, but the basic idea should still hold.)
28:21 Hahaha Oh Gosh. And you certainly don't use "lol" like the "youths".
56:40 to 58:14 lmaoooooo
I love it when Google suggests translating a random comment to English. In this case apparently it deleted a single non-English space.
All I have to say about footnote 12: lol
Anybody else seeing Ye Olde Scholastic’s comment thread where I made a few points of my own? I’m not seeing it.
I haven’t checked; but I have a policy of not deleting any comments unless they’re racist or pornographic
@@MajestyofReason that’s good. I was guessing they deleted it themselves.
@@vulteiuscatellus4105 That's annoying, I spent quite a bit of time writing my comment...
Currently watching this, but as a note to myself and possible viewers, after watching hundreds of videos and reading books and multiple papers, I neutrally came to the conclusion that both naturalism and theism were depending on some bedrock of a necessary being either as a theoretical cost or as means of avoiding infinite regress. However, theism was way more compelling, to me at least, due to two reasons :
1- it at least proposed a casually efficacious AGENT rather than an idle or random ineffecatious simple (or even worse, simples).
2- the way that the universe is proposed as the dependent necessary (or brute contingency in another term) in naturalism/atheism was contrary to the definition of "necessary". (or a very question begging alternative if we use the term "brute contingency").
As a necessary being, I claim, has to be one and only one independent thing to be a coherent metaphysical entity (yes, the philosophical term necessary is defined only that it exists in all possible worlds, but we can derive that it should be independent and only one entity.. I will shortly list it in a reply under this comment )
I find this idea of looking for a bedrock to be impractical. How is "perfection" which seems to be the "foundation" of God not also an "ineffecaious simple"?
Coming back here..
So, a necessary being is defined as which exists in all possible worlds, i.e. Necessarily exists. And it can be derived as being independent and one singular being. How?
Well, if it's a being in all worlds, then it doesn't depend on any thing to exist in any world, let alone depend on something contingent.
Even in a world where it only exists, it exists there as well without dependence on any other being.
Why does it have to be one necessary being? Because :
1- if there are two necessary beings, their identities would depend upon their distinction from one another. Both of them would then be dependent upon one another, and neither would be absolutely necessary and independent. This contradicts my first claim of independence of an NB.
1.5 - whatever grounds their distinction, would itself be a part of the explanation of why one of them or both of them exists in that way respectively, and hence, they both would not be independent.
2- if we took the case of God as the necessary being, imagine that we have two necessary Gods, both are omnipotent. They would surely have tried to overpower or constrain one another, use veto over each other's actions. Therefore, there can only be one God in its full definition.
More on this can be seen on Koon's video on unity of God part (th-cam.com/video/an_neGBKKo8/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CapturingChristianity)
@@AShaif This idea that being distinct is a dependence doesn't sound right. The concept of a triangle is different than that of a square but neither depends on the other.
@@goldenalt3166 I'm not sure I understood your question.
bedrock foundation of reality is accepted by Oppy but he said it's simples ( not God, unlike theists say). I found this to be causally non-efficacious because nothing could prompt/compel a necessary being to bring about this world in its complex designed parameters except agency (free will) ? neither the Simples' random chance, nor set-up quasi determined conditions could explain this world while also not contradicting necessary being's independence, yet these simples abide by time-space laws of physics at the same time!
Such ordered world is expected from minds, agents. Unless we make an exception now for this expectation of ours, the burden of proof is still on Oppy on why now, but he said it's a brute contingency in one of his videos. Just like Russel, he just relied on this intuition as a bedrock and stopping point for PSR.
IF ONE REFUSED TO SIT AT THE CHESS BOARD AND MAKE A MOVE, ONE CANNOT, OF COURSE, BE CHECKMATED - F.C. COPLESTON
@@goldenalt3166 we are talking about necessary beings here, not contingent beings like triangles.
Of course, in contingent beings, the identity of a triangle would depend on it's shape ( three-sided angled shape), this "shape" property limit is what it depends on. Same thing for a square, its identity would depend on its 4-sided shape.
However, a necessary being would not depend on any property that limits it.
There is an article called a critique of deism on Academia, have you read it
Link?
Who is the author?
I often think if the whole philosophy thing falls through, you have a promising future as a voice actor, but your Aussie accent needs a little work (or it did then).
P1. There cannot be a plurality of Gods.
P2. Only divine simplicity can account for the impossibility of a plurality of Gods.
Conclusion. Divine simplicity is true.
Thanks for the comment :)
It's not clear whether P1 is true -- why couldn't there be one God that's Trinitarian, another that's Unitarian, another that's Binitarian, and so on?
But suppose P1 is true. Even still, I think P2 is false. There are lots of other ways to account for the impossibility of a plurality of Gods. Consider: To be God is to be perfect, and to be perfect is to have every perfection essentially and lack every imperfection essentially. But, intuitively, it is a perfection to be that upon which everything else depends (if there are other things). So, suppose there were two (or more) Gods. Then each would be perfect, and so each would have the aforementioned perfection. But that's absurd, since they would each be dependent on another, which is a vicious circle of dependence. So, there cannot be two or more Gods. There can only be at most one God. Note that none of this requires divine simplicity. Each of these perfections could, in principle, be numerically distinct, for instance.
@@MajestyofReason I would argue that P1 follows from the PSR, and that the PSR is undoubtedly true. If there can be a plurality of Gods, then there can't be a sufficient reason for why one God created X but another didn't create X instead of that God.
Now, as for the contention that divine perfection would rule out a plurality of Gods without recourse to simplicity, we would argue that such a notion is itself contradictory. On the one hand there could be many Gods since they can be distinguished through a difference in one or more properties, but on the other hand there can only be one because God is absolutely perfect, and being that God is absolutely perfect entails that there can be only one God. A manifest contradiction. The problem lies in positing a distinction between absolute perfection and absolute simplicity. That is where the contradiction is at.
Does God have a gender? Brahman does not, if that is correct? With regard to divine simplicity, this is a description of the philosopher’s God. The Philosopher’s God is completely abstract and cannot be a personal God. Does it make sense to apply gender to a completely abstract concept like an absolutely transcendent God? Or, is it just linguistically awkward to refer to God as It or They?
lol
I dont believe Metaphysical Foundationalism is superior to Metaphysical Coherentism.
This video needs more emotion. Or at least a map.
P1. Whatever is distinct from its existence does not entail its existence.
P2. What doesn't entail its existence is contingent.
P3. God is not contingent.
Conclusion. There is no distinction between essence and existence in God.
P1 seems deeply implausible to me. Consider: 'having a circumference' is distinct from 'having a radius', and yet each entails the other. So, just because A is distinct from B, it doesn't follow that A doesn't entail B. A could still entail B despite being distinct therefrom. In principle, I don't see anything incoherent about God's nature being distinct from his existence but nevertheless entailing it. In that case, God is distinct from God's existence, and yet what it is to be God still entails God's existence.
@@MajestyofReason So a radius and circumference entail each other by definition, even though they are distinct. The difference though with existence and essence is that it becomes impossible to explain how an essence can entail its existence when they are distinct. It's not that there is a universal rule that a thing cannot entail what's distinct from it, but that in the specific case, and other cases as well, of essence and existence it just cannot be that an essence entails its existence when the two are distinct. No one has been able to give an account of how it can be.
Waiting for Enric answer, and Joe answer to The Enric answer...
You are wrong! Not being omnipotent does not mean being impotent. One can still be extremely potent despite not being omnipotent.
Read 'impotent' as 'impotent in at least some respect'
So I'm right ;)
People too often conflate Omnipotent (All Powerful.) as being able to do anything and everything. This is false and thats not what it means.
For instance, in Classical Theism (Thomistic understanding.) God is Omnipotent. However, God cannot go against His nature, He cannot do wrong or commit evil. He cannot redeem the angels, He cannot go against Himself, ect. Anything that would be inherently opposed to His nature He is incapable of doing for then He would cease to be God.
Omnipotence extends to God's ability to take actions of potency within Creation. It does not extend to God being able to defy Himself.
Irrefutable proof of divine simplicity.
P1. Whatever contains a plurality is dependent on a plurality for its existence.
P2. God is not dependent on anything.
Conclusion. God does not contain a plurality.
I think you may be inclined to accept the following argument, but here's a parody:
1. Whatever contains a plurality is dependent thereon.
2. God is not dependent on anything.
3. Whatever is Trinitarian contains a plurality.
4. So, God is not Trinitarian.
5. So, Christianity is false.
But in any case, I'm actually skeptical of your P1. I discuss this sort of reasoning in my videos "Arguments for classical theism | Part 1/2" and "The Neo-Platonic Proof of God's existence". In short, a whole can ground its parts. And in that case, the parts are actually dependent on the whole. Since dependence is asymmetric, it follows that such a whole would *not* be dependent on its parts. Since wholes contain pluralities, it would follow that P1 is false.
@@MajestyofReason Yes, this is why I would argue that Trinitarianism is absurd.
Now, I'm aware that you, correct me if I'm mistaken, don't think that the relation of a substance to its attributes is one of metaphysical dependence, but only of some kind of logical dependence. The problem that I have with this is, I believe, that it ignores that the relation between a substance and its attributes is a metaphysical relation.
@@MajestyofReason Jake the muslim metaphysician Did alot of works in this argument you should check out his debates,Interviews etc with Top Christian philosophers
@@MajestyofReason I think you need to know more about Trinitarian theology before asserting the 3rd and 4th premises. Not saying that it plays out any differently by reason (I honestly don't know), but Trinitarian theology isn't that straight forward.
IrReFuTaBlE