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Awesome interview and awesome book! Also, you should write that paper arguing systemic problem of evil entails that creating sentient IA is morally wrong. Seems a cool idea.
Yujin isn't a cheap theologian, he demands more then most, and isn't happy by just defending god for another day. 59:25 so it is with god There also seems to be a symetry between the atheist position here, and a position yujin himself explained in 'closer to truth', There is nothing stopping atheists from being pesimists about the universe and life in general, but being optimists about their own life (if they enjoy the privlages compared to others), Just as there is nothing stopping the thesis from being optimistic about their own life (because of their privlages, or possible heavenly award for anwsering correctly in the quiz of life, or winning in the lottery by being born in the correct community) while acknowlageing the suffering within the universe, and life in general.
If you define a good life (or a life worth living) as a life with more flourishing than suffering, then you can be optimistic about your life while lacking optimism in other ways. It's very plausible, if not certainly true, that some lives feature more flourishing than suffering. It would be very hard to fault those folks for choosing to live such a life. The belief you will die someday, and that there is no (good) afterlife, certainly entails some degree of pessimism. But it doesn't entail a contradiction on behalf of the optimistic naturalist, because the optimistic naturalist can be an optimistic with respect to their ability to live a life worth living while pessimistic about life's status as fundamentally good. We can imagine a world infinitely worse than ours, and we can imagine a world infinitely better than ours. So our world is fundamentally neutral. That does call for a lack of broad optimism, but there is a lack of broad pessimism too. The naturalist can then have a kind of neutral view (we might call it 'realism') with respect to the long term, while having an optimistic (or pessimistic) view of the short term (with respect to their own life or to the state of the world). It's worth noting that Christian theists who are infernalists cannot be optimists with respect to all lives. On their view, some people will live a fundamentally bad life in the afterlife. So maximal pessimism is true for those in hell. In some ways then the infernalist Christian view is profoundly pessimistic.
I’m an hour in and I haven’t heard a single argument that is an argument from evil for atheists outside of (basically) backing into “but how do you deal with evil…?” What am I missing… it seemed to actually be mostly metaphysical considerations about God and God’s nature or what could be his nature and ways of thinking about his nature and so forth. I honestly heard no challenge to an atheist outside of “but how do you deal with evil then”?
Suffering? Would you trade your life, your existence, your existence at anytime in your life if you could releave the suffering of a stubbed toe of one small child? Two children’s stubbed toes? A femur fracture? A life of torture, starvation and torment? Perhaps a fair amount of people may replace their lives in order to replace suffering of others. But how much suffering? How much of your life? If you could give up your existence to have no one ever suffer anymore for anything, would you? Perhaps most people would choose that choice. Would you sacrifice your mother existence? Your father’s existence? Your child’s existence? Your cousins children? All children? All existence? Would you sacrifice existence itself in order to stop all suffering? Would that be Nirvana? Is there anything good enough for the conditions of any suffering? Does all the good outweigh all the suffering? Is one moment of greatest love worthy for any or all suffering? If in order to exist pain and suffering were necessary would it be wrong to create everything? Anything? Is any pain worth any suffering? Is life worth any pain or suffering? If by instantaneous, spontaneous or emergent creation how much suffering is worth how much life? Is it better to never have lived? Never know? Never be aware than to be alive, to know, or be aware? Perfection cannot occur without pain. Life cannot occur ungrounded; it by necessity requires struggle, pain and suffering. Take a vote on who wants to die today. That is the human perspective. Our wanting eternal life will not come without cost. It is fantasy to believe that your existence does not cause others to suffer. However all life would meet the challenges of suffering. How much Ill is worth how much good. How much good is worth all the suffering?
The problem of evil for atheists is that evil people are a problem. The problem of evil for theists is that an all powerful God must be evil to do this to us. Do you think people are evil or do you think God made us that way?
I think only naive people think of "evil" as an independent force. People have evolved to have good and bad traits. Some people don't want to admit they have some negative qualities, so they say everyone is either good or evil..and I'm not one of the evil ones.
Hi bro what,s your view on this passage in describing chomsky view that hegel dialectical method is dependent on experience rather than independent on experience.and also who is more close to empircism and other to rationalism from passage below """"freedom exists only in relation to constraint.(7) For Chomsky, there is a severe limitation on the human aptitude for understanding and self-knowledge. Perhaps one reason for Chomsky’s hostility to dialectical thought (beyond his devotion to Descartes) is an allergy to Hegel’s basic argument that self-consciousness may take shape through thought’s dynamic and ever-unfolding encounter with the world - and more significantly, Marx’s avowal of the unity of theory and practice. In contrast with the dialectic, which operates as it were “without” us, Chomsky’s notion of mind is of a faculty that is limited like any other biological organ."
Consider longevity. I recently reviewed the data on a survey regarding longevity. It seems a minority of people less than 10% would not increase their life expectancy a vast majority would increase their life expectancy eternally. Smaller percentages would increase 20 years or some 10 to 20 years. This suggests that life is so good despite all of the suffering many with people with endured even more suffering. Furthermore the suffering of all the animals that has ever existed is worth the life expectancy increase that would benefit humans. So all animals suffering all human suffering is simply placing a false presumption to the condition of life people generally accept and even embrace.
Nice vid. Yujin has a lot of thoughtful stuff to offer. His response at the end though kinda sucked. So athiests are allowed to run a conditional proof (CD) with thiest definition of evil but we're not allowed to run a CD saying suppose god doesn't exist now deal with these episodes that common man on the street would call evil
You can’t say that God is beyond your comprehension, because your ego won’t allow it. Philosophers can’t admit that few things can be understood by rumination alone. To them, philosophy is more powerful than God, because He must obey the rules of philosophy. Philosophers have the power to decide, not only whether God exists, but what attributes he is allowed to have.
The problem of evil is that it doesn't exist. Are animals evil? Are rocks evil? Is the sun evil? Depeicting evil as some separate force is just a way of elevating what humans consider bad behavior. It's a way of feeling important.
The problem of evil isn't about evil being "some separate force." It's just about there being badness in the world. Even if evil is just "what humans consider *bad* behavior," there's still a problem of why that bad is in the world.
Saying optimistic atheists are inconsistent shows no understanding of human psychology. We are full of contradictions and wired to be optimists. That’s why people put so much unfounded faith in religion and philosophy
you said that to say that optimistic atheists are inconsistent "shows no understanding" , only to *immediately* follow that up by saying that we are in fact full of contradictions, seemingly in support of your prior statement. don't you think that's a significantly contradictory element of your *own* thought here? and what do you mean by "unfounded faith" in a - religion and b - philosophy
@@unhingedconnoisseur164 It is not a feature of atheism that makes people be optimistic even when things look bad. It is a feature of human psychology. It's just that Christians (mistakenly) interpret their own optimism as a religious thing, and think it is evidence of God. Most of people's religious faith is based on this kind of unfounded assumption. And you also don't seem to realize the limitations of philosophy. Do you have any idea how much of what ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Augustine has since been proven wrong?
@@RayG817 Was he saying that optimism was a feature of atheism, or was he talking specifically about people who choose both to be atheists and optimists? Also I think that your comment on philosophy portrays a deep misunderstanding - of course Aristotle and Augustine were wrong about alot of stuff. But they don't represent the final say on "philosophy" as a whole. I'm not sure if you're aware of this but philosophy has been going and developing since their time and continues to do so today (and so have arguments about God's existence) . It would be like me saying "science is severely limited because newtonian mechanics cannot account for relativity theory. " and
@@unhingedconnoisseur164 Errors in philosophy and errors in science have one thing in common, both are corrected by science. One of the huge weaknesses of a philosophical argument is that it can be well-constructed and internally consistent, but totally wrong. Philosophy has no "acid test" like science, where you have to back-up your conjecture with evidence. As to your other point, optimism isn't a choice, it's an uncontrollable emotion.
@@RayG817 you seem to be implying that errors in philosophy are not also corrected by...philosophy. this is straight up false, idk what else to tell you. there are many examples of philosophical arguments and stances that are no longer in use due to purely philosophical refutations, e.g logical positivism furthermore, you surely must also think that scientific models can be "well constructed and internally consistent but totally wrong " . do you? as well as this, there are many philosophical endeavours out there which quite frankly would remain untouched by science because even in principle the things they deal with are things that science simply does not investigate. Examples: The Contingency Argument Wittgenstein's view of concepts Platonism Nominalism Paraconsistent Logic I could go on and on if I wanted to but i'll leave it a 5 examples. Last question: What is your epistemology? (More specifically, through what sources of knowledge and in what circumstances can we be said to acquire knowledge? e.g science, philosophy, testimony, reason etc etc.) which sources do you accept?
The research for this podcast is intense. If you guys like this show, help support it by becoming a member here on TH-cam or by supporting me on Patreon here: www.patreon.com/parkers_pensees (and watch this episode ad free!)
Great conversation! And agreed, his book cover is one of the best out there, by far!
Awesome interview and awesome book! Also, you should write that paper arguing systemic problem of evil entails that creating sentient IA is morally wrong. Seems a cool idea.
Underrated
Yujin isn't a cheap theologian, he demands more then most, and isn't happy by just defending god for another day.
59:25 so it is with god
There also seems to be a symetry between the atheist position here, and a position yujin himself explained in 'closer to truth',
There is nothing stopping atheists from being pesimists about the universe and life in general, but being optimists about their own life (if they enjoy the privlages compared to others), Just as there is nothing stopping the thesis from being optimistic about their own life (because of their privlages, or possible heavenly award for anwsering correctly in the quiz of life, or winning in the lottery by being born in the correct community) while acknowlageing the suffering within the universe, and life in general.
If you define a good life (or a life worth living) as a life with more flourishing than suffering, then you can be optimistic about your life while lacking optimism in other ways. It's very plausible, if not certainly true, that some lives feature more flourishing than suffering. It would be very hard to fault those folks for choosing to live such a life.
The belief you will die someday, and that there is no (good) afterlife, certainly entails some degree of pessimism. But it doesn't entail a contradiction on behalf of the optimistic naturalist, because the optimistic naturalist can be an optimistic with respect to their ability to live a life worth living while pessimistic about life's status as fundamentally good. We can imagine a world infinitely worse than ours, and we can imagine a world infinitely better than ours. So our world is fundamentally neutral. That does call for a lack of broad optimism, but there is a lack of broad pessimism too. The naturalist can then have a kind of neutral view (we might call it 'realism') with respect to the long term, while having an optimistic (or pessimistic) view of the short term (with respect to their own life or to the state of the world).
It's worth noting that Christian theists who are infernalists cannot be optimists with respect to all lives. On their view, some people will live a fundamentally bad life in the afterlife. So maximal pessimism is true for those in hell. In some ways then the infernalist Christian view is profoundly pessimistic.
I’m an hour in and I haven’t heard a single argument that is an argument from evil for atheists outside of (basically) backing into “but how do you deal with evil…?”
What am I missing… it seemed to actually be mostly metaphysical considerations about God and God’s nature or what could be his nature and ways of thinking about his nature and so forth. I honestly heard no challenge to an atheist outside of “but how do you deal with evil then”?
Suffering?
Would you trade your life, your existence, your existence at anytime in your life if you could releave the suffering of a stubbed toe of one small child?
Two children’s stubbed toes?
A femur fracture?
A life of torture, starvation and torment?
Perhaps a fair amount of people may replace their lives in order to replace suffering of others. But how much suffering? How much of your life?
If you could give up your existence to have no one ever suffer anymore for anything, would you?
Perhaps most people would choose that choice.
Would you sacrifice your mother existence? Your father’s existence? Your child’s existence? Your cousins children? All children? All existence? Would you sacrifice existence itself in order to stop all suffering?
Would that be Nirvana?
Is there anything good enough for the conditions of any suffering? Does all the good outweigh all the suffering? Is one moment of greatest love worthy for any or all suffering?
If in order to exist pain and suffering were necessary would it be wrong to create everything? Anything? Is any pain worth any suffering? Is life worth any pain or suffering? If by instantaneous, spontaneous or emergent creation how much suffering is worth how much life? Is it better to never have lived? Never know? Never be aware than to be alive, to know, or be aware? Perfection cannot occur without pain. Life cannot occur ungrounded; it by necessity requires struggle, pain and suffering.
Take a vote on who wants to die today. That is the human perspective. Our wanting eternal life will not come without cost. It is fantasy to believe that your existence does not cause others to suffer. However all life would meet the challenges of suffering.
How much Ill is worth how much good. How much good is worth all the suffering?
I heard him assert that optimism under atheism is unstable but I didn’t hear any substantive defense for it. Does he back it up in the book?
The problem of evil for atheists is that evil people are a problem. The problem of evil for theists is that an all powerful God must be evil to do this to us. Do you think people are evil or do you think God made us that way?
I think only naive people think of "evil" as an independent force. People have evolved to have good and bad traits. Some people don't want to admit they have some negative qualities, so they say everyone is either good or evil..and I'm not one of the evil ones.
Hi bro what,s your view on this passage in describing chomsky view that hegel dialectical method is dependent on experience rather than independent on experience.and also who is more close to empircism and other to rationalism from passage below
""""freedom exists only in relation to constraint.(7) For Chomsky, there is a severe limitation on the human aptitude for understanding and self-knowledge.
Perhaps one reason for Chomsky’s hostility to dialectical thought (beyond his devotion to Descartes) is an allergy to Hegel’s basic argument that self-consciousness may take shape through thought’s dynamic and ever-unfolding encounter with the world - and more significantly, Marx’s avowal of the unity of theory and practice.
In contrast with the dialectic, which operates as it were “without” us, Chomsky’s notion of mind is of a faculty that is limited like any other biological organ."
If you had any self-knowledge, you would understand how funny this sounds.
@@RayG817 what sound funny?
@@akbar-nr4kc Nothing, actually. I mis-read it.
Consider longevity.
I recently reviewed the data on a survey regarding longevity. It seems a minority of people less than 10% would not increase their life expectancy a vast majority would increase their life expectancy eternally. Smaller percentages would increase 20 years or some 10 to 20 years. This suggests that life is so good despite all of the suffering many with people with endured even more suffering. Furthermore the suffering of all the animals that has ever existed is worth the life expectancy increase that would benefit humans. So all animals suffering all human suffering is simply placing a false presumption to the condition of life people generally accept and even embrace.
Nice vid. Yujin has a lot of thoughtful stuff to offer. His response at the end though kinda sucked. So athiests are allowed to run a conditional proof (CD) with thiest definition of evil but we're not allowed to run a CD saying suppose god doesn't exist now deal with these episodes that common man on the street would call evil
You can’t say that God is beyond your comprehension, because your ego won’t allow it. Philosophers can’t admit that few things can be understood by rumination alone. To them, philosophy is more powerful than God, because He must obey the rules of philosophy. Philosophers have the power to decide, not only whether God exists, but what attributes he is allowed to have.
The problem of evil is that it doesn't exist. Are animals evil? Are rocks evil? Is the sun evil? Depeicting evil as some separate force is just a way of elevating what humans consider bad behavior. It's a way of feeling important.
The problem of evil isn't about evil being "some separate force." It's just about there being badness in the world. Even if evil is just "what humans consider *bad* behavior," there's still a problem of why that bad is in the world.
@@thejimmymeister Asking why there is "bad behavior" in the world seems like a silly question.
@@RayG817 If you don't think about it, I suppose it may.
@@thejimmymeister Why do you think about it?
@@thejimmymeister Do you also wonder why there is good?
This book is insanely expensive
It's literally free
@@ParkersPensees How so? It's 80 usd on Amazon
@@mgrycz Did you watch the first ~6½ minutes of the video? Go to 5:17.
@@ParkersPensees Are you christian ?
Saying optimistic atheists are inconsistent shows no understanding of human psychology. We are full of contradictions and wired to be optimists. That’s why people put so much unfounded faith in religion and philosophy
you said that to say that optimistic atheists are inconsistent "shows no understanding" , only to *immediately* follow that up by saying that we are in fact full of contradictions, seemingly in support of your prior statement. don't you think that's a significantly contradictory element of your *own* thought here?
and what do you mean by "unfounded faith" in
a - religion
and
b - philosophy
@@unhingedconnoisseur164 It is not a feature of atheism that makes people be optimistic even when things look bad. It is a feature of human psychology. It's just that Christians (mistakenly) interpret their own optimism as a religious thing, and think it is evidence of God. Most of people's religious faith is based on this kind of unfounded assumption. And you also don't seem to realize the limitations of philosophy. Do you have any idea how much of what ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Augustine has since been proven wrong?
@@RayG817 Was he saying that optimism was a feature of atheism, or was he talking specifically about people who choose both to be atheists and optimists?
Also I think that your comment on philosophy portrays a deep misunderstanding - of course Aristotle and Augustine were wrong about alot of stuff. But they don't represent the final say on "philosophy" as a whole. I'm not sure if you're aware of this but philosophy has been going and developing since their time and continues to do so today (and so have arguments about God's existence) . It would be like me saying "science is severely limited because newtonian mechanics cannot account for relativity theory. "
and
@@unhingedconnoisseur164 Errors in philosophy and errors in science have one thing in common, both are corrected by science. One of the huge weaknesses of a philosophical argument is that it can be well-constructed and internally consistent, but totally wrong. Philosophy has no "acid test" like science, where you have to back-up your conjecture with evidence. As to your other point, optimism isn't a choice, it's an uncontrollable emotion.
@@RayG817 you seem to be implying that errors in philosophy are not also corrected by...philosophy. this is straight up false, idk what else to tell you. there are many examples of philosophical arguments and stances that are no longer in use due to purely philosophical refutations, e.g logical positivism
furthermore, you surely must also think that scientific models can be "well constructed and internally consistent but totally wrong " . do you?
as well as this, there are many philosophical endeavours out there which quite frankly would remain untouched by science because even in principle the things they deal with are things that science simply does not investigate.
Examples:
The Contingency Argument
Wittgenstein's view of concepts
Platonism
Nominalism
Paraconsistent Logic
I could go on and on if I wanted to but i'll leave it a 5 examples.
Last question: What is your epistemology? (More specifically, through what sources of knowledge and in what circumstances can we be said to acquire knowledge? e.g science, philosophy, testimony, reason etc etc.)
which sources do you accept?