Man how cool is it joe that the modal collapse results in you as a necessary crucial role in necessarily discussing necessitatianism. The initial state chose you.
@@nmwinrich89 well thank you so much! Joes channel has helped me so much, especially correcting mistakes I've made in the past. It's extremely valuable to my discussions.
Some other things that stood out about this video: I think this is my favorite discussion that you've had in a while. But the bar is extremely high, because I love all of the content put out on this channel. Firstly, we all love Josh. His demeanor and way of approaching complicated issues is legendarily synergetic. From his kindness, to his clarity, to his charitability, and his humble curiosity, and so forth. In the realm of disagreement, he is possibly *the* icon of helpful discussion, rightly so. The perfect person to address a controversy, like the well articulated suggestion that a major branch of philosophy has become an antiquated and possibly misleading echo chamber. Secondly, I love everything about Amy's side of the conversation, from her intuitions, to her willingness to go against the flow, and her over all theory on the subject at hand. It's nostalgically reminded me that at a young age, I shared all of the views that she's come to flesh out. But my views definitely were swayed by mainstream literature about modality, contingency, and so on. I used to believe, both in my theistic years and otherwise, that what is, in some meaningful way, determines all of what else could not be. But the crowds of smart people around me seemed to take it for granted that this wasn't the case and somehow along the way I stopped really questioning it. This kind of discussion has made me weary of so easily giving up on things that seem clear to me, just because a lot of smart people form cultures and languages that largely overlook it's possibility. I love the way she talks about throwing away the ladder that other people are using, and looking at things freshly within the realm of your own linguistic preferences about the subject. So yeah, this is excellent content being created by an excellent set of personalities.
monism: the view in metaphysics that reality (that is, Ultimate Reality) is a unified whole and that all existing things can be ascribed to or described by a single concept or system; the doctrine that mind and matter are formed from, or reducible to, the same ultimate substance or principle of being; any system of thought that seeks to deduce all the varied phenomena of both the physical and spiritual worlds from a single principle, specifically, the metaphysical doctrine that there is but one substance, either mind (idealism) or matter (materialism), or a substance that is neither mind nor matter, but is the substantial ground of both. Cf. “dualism”. To put it simply, whilst materialists/physicalists/naturalists believe that the ground of being is some kind of tangible form of matter (or a field of some sort), and idealists/theists/panpsychists consider some kind of mind(s) or consciousness(es) to be most fundamental, MONISTS understand that Ultimate Reality is simultaneously both the Subject and any possible object, and thus one, undivided whole (even though it may seem that objects are, in fact, divisible from a certain standpoint). The descriptive term favoured in the metaphysical framework proposed in this Holy Scripture is “Brahman”, a Sanskrit word meaning “expansion”, although similes such as “Sacchidānanda” (Eternal-Conscious-Peace), “The Tao” and “The Monad” are also satisfactory. Perhaps the oldest extant metaphysical system, Advaita Vedānta, originating in ancient Bhārata (India), which is the thesis promulgated in this treatise, “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, is a decompositional dual-aspect monist schema, in which the mental and the physical are two (epistemic) aspects of an underlying (ontic) reality that itself is neither mental nor physical, but rather, psychophysically neutral. On such a view, the decomposition creates mutually-exclusive mental (subjective) and physical (objective) domains, both of which are necessary for a comprehensive metaphysical worldview. The mere fact that it is possible for Awareness to be conscious of Itself, implies that, by nature, Ultimate Reality is con-substantially BOTH subjective and objective, since it would not be possible for a subject to perceive itself unless the subject was also a self-reflective object. Therefore, it seems that the necessary-contingent dichotomy often discussed by philosophers in regards to ontology, is superfluous to the concept of monism, because on this view, BOTH the subjective and the objective realities are essentially one, necessary ontological Being(ness). In other words, because you are, fundamentally, Brahman, you are a necessary being and not contingent on any external force. This concept has been termed "necessitarianism" by contemporary philosophers, in contradistinction to contingentarianism - the view that at least some thing could have been different otherwise - and is intimately tied to the notions of causality and determinism in Chapters 08 and 11. Advaita Vedānta (that is, dual-aspect Monism) is the only metaphysical scheme that has complete explanatory power. Hypothetically, and somewhat tangentially, one might question thus: “If it is accurate to state that both the Subject of all subjects and all possible objects are equally ‘Brahman’ (that is, Ultimate Truth), then surely that implies that a rock is equally valuable as a human being?”. That is correct purely on the Absolute platform. Here, in the transactional world of relativity, there is no such thing as equality, except within the conceptual sphere (such as in mathematics), as already demonstrated in more than a couple of places in this Holiest of Holy Books, “F.I.S.H”, especially in the chapter regarding the spiteful, pernicious ideology of feminism (Chapter 26). Cf. “advaita”, “dualism”, “Brahman/Parabrahman”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Nirguna Brahman”, “subject”, and “object”.
Geez, I just finished the whole thing. You know, about Descartes and the pineal gland? Descartes denied the existence of the soul. Then again, he also said that nothing could be known. And he was interested in the idea that dreams could be real and even include suffering. He is sort of the father of the brain in the vat philo.@@TheWorldTeacher
My favorite part about Josh Rasmussen’s appearance in any dialogue is when he picks up some random and strange looking object and comments about how if it were bigger then it could be conscious/ a mind
"If there was reason for it's existence, then it would be." was a wonderful quote from Dr. Karofsky. One thing that came to my imagination in this discussion was the idea of there being a seed that requires sunlight that's planted in the soil and locked into a place that sunlight can't penetrate. In some way, I think it can be easily reasoned by most people that this seed wouldn't grow. Like a human without air or moisture, it would fail to realize development. I don't think we would reasonably argue that this seed, that necessisarily and by it's physical constitution needs sun light, could have grown. In that sense, I feel like I can see Amy's understanding of how this talk of the possibility of flower power comes down to an epistemological deficit and not a metaphysical truth. It seems like what a seed is can't produce alternative outcomes in it's own timeline, even if we can imagine a seed that needs sunlight growing in a place where sunlight can't reach it. It seems like if we're imagining that it could have possibly grown in such a place, then we're imagining that senario because of our misunderstanding of it's nature - and the nature of it's circumstances. Sunlight in this sense would just be an analogy of it's molecular, or even atomic make-up, and how this seed can have reasons to be, or have reasons to not be. A more simple metaphor would be a stone rolling down the hill. If we imagine that it could roll up the hill in the same exact environment that it could roll down the hill, then we're likely misunderstanding something about the nature of mass, gravity, or something equally relevant.
Really appreciate you bringing in top-tier philosophers of religion like Dr. Rasmussen to engage with other non-philosophers of religion. My hope is such conversations can raise the profile and discourse of PhilRel more generally.
Josh when he makes reference to a thought experiments is really talking about the Products of imagination. It is an interesting question whether What can be imagined is contingent or necessary. The concepts of necessity and contingency are created in the imagination and then try to be mapped onto the external empirical world. That attempted mapping is also in question.
I am just starting to watch the video for around 10 minutes..but i predict at the end of the videos..the host will thank the 2 guests for their participation in the discussion..before ending the video. Both guests will then smile politely. I just close my eyes and imagine what will necessarily should happen. And most of the time they indeed do in fact happen...i am utilizing PSR...karofsky doesnt even need it..please next invite stephen maitzen and michael della rocca.
It has been awhile since i have seen her work but I remember enjoying it. I do wonder in the context of this conversation though if there is a bit of an issue as necessity being what is and necessity as not being able to be otherwise. It seems that wanting to conceptually frame necessity as what is is meaningfully different than a conceptualization of necessity as being unable to be otherwise. All of this to say that it doesn’t seem that MERELY appealing to what is is sufficient to counter arguments for why things could be otherwise.
At 59:00 - I'm not sure what role Josh's "pure reason" plays in reality itself. I understand that maps for action follow from core principles and always include an unknown element, but surely the green ball in space is green because of its chemical structure, the nature of the stars and their distance, and the nature of the eye perceiving it as well as its owner's health and the atmosphere between the viewer, the ball, and the source of light. Therefore necessitarianism is accurate whether Josh likes to assign different values to different component contributors to that reality or not.
"Contingency's liable to feel undecidable, mayhap necessarily so..." 🎶🎶 Hmmm... my own grounds may be insufficiently caffeinated, but this was a marvelous debate. Thank you!
Don't forget what a colour on an object is. From what I know it's actual physical stuff, surface shape that makes electromagnetic waves reflect a specific colour. So in a very real sense a red and a blue ball each have a different shape. They two different things. It's humans who refer to them by one name and feel like "colour" is somehow more arbitrary.
Gödel's version of the Anselm ontological argument incidentally leads to modal collapse as well. I don't know if that is relevant as I do not understand it.
Is contingency necessary? Yes xd --- all possibilities are necessary as possibilities, and so are impossibilities! contingency only exists because what we understand by 'existence' is merely an existence in time, in a temporal way
I couldn't helo but laugh when Joe said sarcastically "everyone loves their slogans" because Dr Rasmussen has both a framed slogan on his desk ("the best is yet to come") and a slogan on his cup ("go with the flow") - both of which struck me as being oddly platitudinous for a philosopher!
On the identitarian idea of truth I think the problem comes in When you make judgments about what you identify. How do you get at the truth of those judgments. Identifying a rock as a rock is one thing but if it's blocking the road you make a judgment about that.
I think she commented on that on the other interview, but can necessitarianism explain stuff like randomness in quantum physics, or is it committed to determinism ?
There's nothing contradictory about me flipping a coin and getting tails, so we'd say it's possible for me to flip the coin and get tails. Until I reveal that the coin has heads on both sides. The "possibility" never was, it was purely based in our ignorance. All things that seem possible could be this way
But in that case it still seems metaphysically possible for you to flip a coin and get tails. And the law of non-contradiction is a bit of a red herring here anyway. For instance, I believe there are no necessary truths. Yet I believe the law of non-contradiction is true. I just believe it is contingently true. So, I suppose to use your coin analogy, my view is that true contradictions are akin to tails on coins. In your example there are no coins with a tail side. And thus it is true - not necessarily true, but just true - that there are no tails and thus that if you toss a coin you will not get tails. I think true contradictions a like that: there just aren't any. My own view - that there are no necessary truths - seems to me implied by theism. For if God exists, then a person who can do anything exists....and so there exists a person who can falsify any true proposition. Well, then no true proposition is necessarily true if God exists....
I just had a thought and I'm not a philosopher so it might be dumb but here it goes: Suppose there exists a lump of clay that is eternal and completely metaphysically necessary. There will always be that lump of clay no matter what and that lump of clay can never not exist. Now if you shape that clay into a square, would that particular shape be necessary as well? I think the straightforward answer is no. The clay can be molded into any kind of shape and that shape can be an infinite amount of different shapes. This would make the shape of the clay contingent (having the possibility to be otherwise) while the clay itself is necessary. I think this idea translates well to reality. It seems that the deepest layer of reality is necessary while the configuration and "shape" of reality is always changing, starting from the Big Bang. Think of how stars and galaxies form from whatever the fundamental reality is but there are all kinds of stars and galaxies that are all different from each other. It seems that while what makes up these stars and galaxies may be fundamental, they have the ability to be ordered and shaped in different ways. To me, the best explanation for the differences we see in the world is that they are contingent and have the ability to be something other than what they are now. To anyone reading this I'd love to hear some responses and see if I made a mistake somewhere
I do not believe in necessity, but what you've said sounds perfectly coherent to me. A necessary existent does not, by dint of existing of necessity, confer necessity on all it does. The clay example of yours illustrates this nicely - though material things are often thought not to be candidates for necessary existences due to being complex wholes rather than simples - but so too does the idea of a necessarily existent agent. The agent exists of necessity, but their choices are not thereby necessitated. However...if a necessary existent is posited in order to stop an infinite regress of explanations, then there may be a problem. If we suppose the clay to exist of necessity - and we suppose this because otherwise we will have to explain the clay's existence by citing something else - then unless we also suppose its initial shape to be necessary too, then we would have to explain its shape. That is, we would have to explain why it had that shape and not another. To stop that question from arising, we'd have to insist its initial shape was necessary. And then we'd have to say the same about any subsequent shape - that it was necessarily caused to change its shape, say. And now everything about it turns out to be necessary. So, though the idea of a necessary existent does not seem, in and of itself, to entail that everything the necessary existent subsequently does and becomes is necessary, this does seem to be the implication if necessity is invoked to stop infinite regresses. Unless one supposes that everything about a necessary existent is also necessary, it won't be able to stop regresses. (I'm not endorsing that argument - I think it fails as I don't think necessary existences stop regresses at all). So, anyway, I think you're quite right - nothing about the idea of a necessary existent entails that everything about it must also be necessary. But if necessity is to stop regresses (and it doesn't - but 'if' it is being put to that kind of use), then everything about a necessary existent is going to have to be said to be necessary as well, else the need for an explanation of why the necessary existent is like this rather than that would need to be provided.
Defining "grounded" to not include contingency supports the Pilot Wave Theory and leaves no room for the Copenhagen Interpretation. In other words, the source of the randomness we observe emerges due to our lack of knowledge about the universe (there are no observers). If you then follow the theory of necessity as it works for the Pilot Wave Theory it would also support the Many-Worlds Interpretation. I can almost wrap my head around the concept of space-time in General Relativity, but taking it much further and thinking that everything is happening everywhere because it is necessary will drive me insane. Somehow, having a wave function collapse to give us a single universe is more intuitive, despite the fact that it's a contradiction. How do I even start "believing" (read: understanding intuitively) in the Many-Worlds Interpretation? Necessity does not account for the experience of what we consider a single world.
might be more intuitive but it's not well physically motivated, and I don't see why pilot wave theory would support many world interpretation. About the video I think "contigentalists" must explain why and how a necessary thing can cause or generate a non-necessary anything instead of an equally necessary one.
@@ckmfunk Pilot Wave Theory says a hidden-variable is already added at the start, while the Many-Worlds Interpretation uses quantum decoherence to explain how one thing leads to another making all worlds necessary. They both follow necessity, meaning they are true in all possible worlds. Or is my understanding wrong?
@@DouwedeJong pilot wave theory is inherently a hidden variable theory and if you go for it then anything is 100% necessary (any space-time events is determined by any other space-time event, even outside their respective light cones). I never understood the added value of MWI and why people like it, but in that sense I think you are right, it "follows necessity" ..with little explanatory power (why and how does reality split at measurement? what does 'measurement' mean in the first place?). Note that we don't even need all this: necessity already follows from old special (not general) relativity and QM has no conflict with it, in fact quite the opposite.. it 's possibly the most prolific marriage in theoretical physics.
I knew it...just by using PSR alone, i could predict we will necessarily have another karofsky video..fantastic watch...mark my word..we will have another video on this on other youtube channel..hope stephen maitzen will be interviewed as well...also sadly by PSR...airplane accident will happen necessarily within next 1 year somewhere in the world...we are just witness future unfolding necessarily folks...ukraine war will necessarily end somehow at some point in time...
Oh, there's a word that fits me better than "determinist". I'm a necessitarian. I haven't listened to most of this yet, but here's my deal: I don’t know how our epistemological uncertainty can translate into actual uncertainty in the universe. It seems to me that saying "it could have been otherwise until it happens" only makes sense from a conscious point of view. From the point of view of the universe, there is no uncertainty. Things appear, disappear, are, are not, with different qualities. Wavering from our point of view is not the universe struggling to make a decision. It's just a failure of the determined universe to match our simplistic expectations. I don’t know hpw to say this better. When I talk to people about it they tend to respond with things that seem profoundly irrelevant to me, or they think I'm making a claim about some religious "best of all possible worlds" nonsense.
They seem to be saying that if you believe something that is false that is the same as believing something that is contradictory. I guess it's contradictory to the truth but it seems odd wording.
Having hard time understanding why something that COULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE necessarily need explanation if it as something THAT ACTUALLY HAD BEEN OTHERWISE. Am I stupid?
The idea is that something being one way when it could have been another way seems to cry out for explanation for why it wasn't another way and instead happened the way that it did. It's basically a great example of what motivates the PSR.
I don’t care what someone’s sex is. That’s weird to me. I care about arguments. Of course, it would be a problem if women were held back in philosophy. But otherwise the quantity of female vs male is a non issue
I liked the part where Dr. Karofsky basically said "Your example of a 'blue sphere in the sky' is way too abstract. Let's talk about something more concrete, like John Searle's theory that consciousness is an intrinsically biological phenomenon."
The question is what is the nature of the universe? Is it that hard and fast Newtonian place where everything is just so or is it more squishy than that? More quantum? I favor the squishy universe, the place with plenty of room for quintillions of free decisions, for human free will.
My personal view is that free will is not a fundamental property of the universe. It's an emergent property on a different level of abstraction, and is real on a human scale. That is, even if reality is fully deterministic (with quantum randomness injected in), free will as humans understand it does exist, since there is no way for us to tell the difference between "true" and illusory free will.
More quantum doesn't mean more contingent. There are many deterministic interpretations of QM and even a deterministic paradigm of QM, superdeterminism. If you combine one of these deterministic interpretations or paradigms with a necessary foundational initial state you end up with necessitarianism.
@@nio804Agreed strongly here. Using the libertarian definition of free will being the ability to chose otherwise and to have the way one chooses be up to oneself then it is false under determinism because one cannot choose otherwise and false under QM interpretations with objective randomness because it's up to the randomness of collapse and the determinacy of unitary/schrodinger evolution, not oneself what one choses
Just thinking out loud, but aren't contradictions a red herring here? For the law of non-contradiction can surely be understood to be contingent or necessary? That is, if one believes in necessary truths, then one is probably going to think that the law of non-contradiction is one. But if one thinks there are no necessary truths, then one is going to think that it is just true. I know some will say that the idea of there being no necessary truths generates an actual contradiction. For if the law of non-contradiction is contingently true, then it would have to be admitted that it is possible for it to be necessarily true (and possible for any other truth to be a necessary truth). And if it is possible for it to be a necessary truth, then it is a necessary truth. Maybe. I mean, if all truths are contingent, then it's possible for them not to be! And thus we get contradictions. However, that seems question begging. For if all truths are contingent, then the claim "if a truth is possibly necessary, then it is necessary" is possibly false and will be, in fact, false. That is, the person who denies that there are any necessary truths would be within their rights to insist that "If a truth is possibly necessary, then it is necessary' is false, for someone who insists it 'must' be true is assuming the reality of a necessary truth for the purposes of demonstrating one....which is question begging. The person who wants to claim that the view that all truths are contingent generates a contradiction has an obligation to assume that all truths are contingent and then show how a contradiction arises from this. But they cannot do that without tacitly helping themselves to a necessary truth. For if they say of the claim "if a truth is possible necessary, then it is necessary' that it cannot be false, then they are treating that claim as a necessary truth. And that's cheating. It must - on pain of begging the question - be acknowledged to be a claim that is possibly false. And now the universal possibilist can just say that it is, in fact, false. Plausibility is another matter, of course.
I don't lean any particular way on this. Necessitarianism, necessary being or even an endless series of contingencies. None of these affect my own personal view.
No. determinism is the thesis that past + laws of nature entail the future. Necessaritans of course accept this, but ADDITIONALLY think that the initial state of the universe + the laws of nature could not have been any different. This latter part is what makes necessitarianism so unpopular, compared with determinism
@@dominiks5068 make the "past" long enough to "infinity" then "initial condition" is no longer relevant. In such case, determinism can be equated with necessitarianism?
Unfortunately the inherent probabilistic nature of Quantum mechanics refutes Necessitarianism. The lack of discussion on this is a major oversight. Very disappointing.
I wouldnt say everything is necessary only what happens happens necessarily. The substance of existence doesnt exist necessarily, it exists as a brute fact. Anyways, im looking forward to this discussion
Well, necessitarianism is the position that everything that exists exists necessarily, not that everything [possible] is necessary. As for existence being a brute fact, I'm not sure I agree, if by "brute fact" you're implying it's contingent.
@@georgeel-azar4684 so I would disagree with that definition for two reasons: 1. Substances dont exist necessarily, there can be no reason for why substances exist. By brute fact, Im implying it has no reason for its existence 2. Necessitarianism is only coherent if it refers to becoming. It has to do with causality. Please define one thing that exists necessarily.
@@CMVMic Something can exist necessarily and not have a reason for its existence. It exists necessarily in the sense that it couldn't have "not existed" instead. IMO, the "contrary being impossible" doesn't count as a reason, but rather as some sort of property/quality of a necessarily existent thing. I don't see why your second point has to be true. What is your reasoning here? As for your request, per necessitarianism, any thing that exists exists necessarily. Meaning that it couldn't have been nonexistent instead. Necessitarianism can apply to all sorts of happenings, including existences. Again, per necessitarianism: reality, with all its actual contents and properties, couldn't have been any other way instead.
@@georgeel-azar4684 I grant that Necessitarianism, as traditionally understood in metaphysics, posits that everything that exists or occurs is necessary and couldn't have been otherwise. Asserting that something exists necessarily without providing reasons or arguments would beg the question. Also, happenings do not refer to existences. Furthermore, If there is only one possible world, the concept of necessity, as it is traditionally understood in modal logic and metaphysics, is not relevant. Necessity is defined within the context of possible world semantics, where different possible worlds are considered to explore the relationships between necessity, possibility, and actuality but in this case, possibility=necessity=actuality. therefore, making it redundant to make modal distinctions. Necessitarianism deals with metaphysics and if there is only one possible world and no contrasting possible worlds to consider, the concept of claiming existence as "necessary" becomes redundant. The term "necessity" may retain a semantic epistemic role in discussions within this single possible world, but its traditional philosophical implications would be less applicable. So it seems to shift Necessitarianism to talk of epistemic possibility rather than metaphysical possibility. Reasoning for my 2nd point Applying necessitarianism to the concept of being within a single possible world can be viewed as incoherent because it challenges the foundational principles of necessitarianism itself. Necessitarianism, relies on a contrast between necessity and contingency which hinges on comparing logical possibilities. In this scenario, discussing the necessity of being, leads to circular reasoning. Claiming that existence is necessary within the actual world may inadvertently assume that non-existence is a meaningful alternative or possibility, which is not the case when there's only one world to consider. This potential circularity challenges the coherence of applying necessitarianism to the concept of being within a singular world, as it lacks the necessary contrast and meaningful alternatives that necessitarianism traditionally relies upon. Futhermore, I am an extreme nominalist so I take issue with your statement i.e. the "contrary being impossible" doesn't count as a reason, but rather as some sort of property/quality of a necessarily existent thing. Just to elaborate, necessitarianism is the position that everything that exists exists necessarily and by necessarily you mean it could not have not existed but what does it mean for something to not exist? If nonexistence is incoherent, then there is no contrast and thus, it undermines the claim being made by necessitarianism in relation to existence.
@@CMVMicSomething can exist necessarily without having a reason for its existence. If something exists necessarily that only means it exists in every possible world. Something can exist necessarily as a brute fact at least in bare modal logic
How does the fact that neither of the positions discussed here can be falsified affect the discussion? This appears to be a purely conceptual conversation. Does this mean that the definitions given are tautologies?
I find God claims to be incoherent within the context of what we know about reality. Further, the act of attempting to dismiss the core incoherence results in the idea being indistinguishable from being imaginary. The following is an argument against a core element of God claims as I currently understand such in the context of my current understanding of reality. Thus, IF your God concept is NOT non-contingent and NOT intelligent, my argument does NOT apply to your God concept. P1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent (not dependent upon components) intelligent agent. P2: Intelligence is a process P3: Processes are contingent (dependent/predicated upon components - conceptually or materially). C1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent contingent agent. C2: X is contradictory and thus impossible P4: If there is an intelligence which is non-contingent, then such is unknown to us and thus imaginary. P5: There is no distinction between the imaginary and the non-existent. C4: X is non-existent (Pragmatic Conclusion - Predicated on current knowledge) (Granted. I am not a philosopher, so, if the presentation is in anyway sloppy, please focus on the point as opposed to the structuring.)
Yup. Everything is necessary, by definition. A rock is as necessary as a god, for without them existing or not, the universe wouldn't be the same. Waters down the special status of necessary entities, doesn't it?
"Waters down the special status of necessary entities, doesn't it?" The mere fact of being necessary gets watered down, sure. But as Dr. Karofsky grants, necessitarianism still admits notions of dependency -- the rest of reality could still depend on one foundational being, even if the whole package deal is necessary. And that kind of foundational grounding seems like why people invoke a necessary being, anyways. So maybe what philosophers want to *achieve* with a necessary being isn't all watered down.
@@user-lv9gm3fe6j Sure, if it's "necessary" to label unanswered questions answered by invoking necessary beings. And that waters down the whole necessity of searching the answers.
Per necessitarianism, a rock is indeed as necessary as a creator god. But it may still depend on that god for its existence ... per various theistic worldviews at least.
I just don't see why everything must have a necessary origin. Why must all non-necessary things have a cause? Why can't there be a causeless but unnecessary origin? The idea that all contingent things must have a cause themselves has always been an invalid definition. And I think, even more broadly, what reasonable basis do we have for even asking these kinds of questions? I just don't see any value in it. For all we know our logical/reasoning mind is simply incapable of comprehending the metaphysical structure of reality itself let alone these absurd simplifications from armchair philosophy. I can only conceive of necessary and non-necessary things, so it must be true regarding the foundations of reality itself? This is the same approach as Aristotelian philosophy, where we thought nature must conform to our logic. It would be like an ant comprehending relativity. Our logical rules may ultimately be deeply faulty and there could be a near infinite number of concepts beyond our grasp. So on what grounds do we assume it must all be compactly understood by our brains? There are rational limits to how deeply we can explore metaphysics. This is what Hume and especially Kant proposed decades ago. And yet philosophers are still baselessly arguing over these metaphysics today. Its just such a pointless intellectual exercise. Well I suppose something of utility could be discovered by accident, but that could be said of any research endeavour, so why not focus on more useful ideas?
Reality could have been some other way..... it's just no one anywhere has ever seen or experienced it. But reality could have turned out some other way. Otherwise known as "the ultimate copium". I would love to hear a conversation with Sapolski instead of this guy.
Amy says everything is necessary and there are no other possibilities but she didn't prove why the 'contray is impossible'. A thing can be necessery only in 2 scenarios. 1) Some prior law or event forces it be that way in which case it is dependent 2) The impossibility of the contray (which doesn't apply to anything that is geometrically measurable) the measurement could have been any other way in all possible world. There are mathematical possibilities. You can't prove the impossibility of the contray. Therefore the Ultimate Necessery has to be Immaterial.
Nonsequitur. Logical possibilities are not necessarily metaphysical possibilities. Reasoning, and propositions are activities. The mind and consciousness refers to Becoming, not Being. Necessitarianism represents metaphysical changes that could not happen any other way than they do. These changes are grounded in separated substances but the substance is of one kind or essence. This is why Idealism is false because it makes a category error. Reality is physical and Nominalism and Functionalism are true. Necessitarianism simply describes the pattern of transitioning from one state to another. To be metaphysical just means to be a specific substantial form that performs a specific function or has the ability to change in a specific way. To be logical just means to follow or conform to specific pattern of thinking. Cognitive processes that dont follow similar patterns lead to incoherent or contradictory views.
It all comes down to intuition. Amy at one point in the video seemed rather hesitant to appeal to that, but at the end of the day, we have to rely on our intuitions to determine the most satisfying account of reality. And we have to assume that these intuitions are shared by most (if not all) reasonable thinkers, once we've thought about these matters deeply. So let's appeal to intuition here, and let's not be afraid to do so. And using our intuitive thinking, let's try to make sense of the following: What does it mean for something to have possibly been otherwise at a given point? Why did it end up being what it is rather than what other thing it could have been instead? Think about the initial constants that supposedly underlie this one universe that we see ourselves in. Could they have been otherwise (as in different values from the actual values)? But if so, why didn't they end up otherwise? What breathed life, so to speak, to the actual values as opposed to all other possible values? Or let's ponder this question which might not sound relevant to the topic at hand but ends up being pertinent indeed: Can things truly/objectively be random?
She doesn't have to prove the impossibility of the contrary to argue for necessitarianism and we certainly have no good reason to think necessitarianism being true certainly requires being able to argue the impossibility of the contrary. Additionally necessity doesn't require laws. God as a necessary being wouldn't be dependent on laws. Of course something can of course also be dependent and necessary! If simple mathematical concepts are necessarily true then mathematical proofs that rely upon said truths are dependent and yet also necessary.
I get the impression that if someone proposed that everything was a creator being, Josh would be chuffed and exclaim that he was excited because that would confirm the Christian God exists.
@georgeel-azar4684 necessitarianism is wrong. The woman is just so confused. Identity is a necessary relation in all possible worlds but that's just saying that a thing is identical to itself. Not that things can't fail to exist or if they do fail they can't possibly exist.
I think her approach is mind-opening, but I think she's also doing what she's accusing the contingentarians of doing. According to her, "it could have been otherwise" isn't enough explanation. For example, if the humans on earth are exactly 8 billion, it couldn't have been otherwise that some family somewhere decided to have 1 more child, thereby making it 8 billion and 1. In other words, we are necessarily 8 billion. To anyone, this is simply absurd. Nothing stops *one* girl from somewhere from getting pregnant. One girl *could* very well have chosen to have one more child. Nothing makes this unlikely. This is simply basic and it's just absurd to think it's not. Seeing that the number of humans on earth will grow from 8 billion to 8 billion and 1000, it makes sense that being 8 billion is in no way *necessary* A necessaritarian will have to explain *what* makes this a *necessity*. To say "the foundation is necessary, therefore being 8 billion (or any other event like me just winking my right eye instead of my left eye) is necessary" is also not *enough* just as "it could be otherwise" is also not good enough. What makes so and so case a necessity? It intuitively seems like it could have been otherwise. If you say "It seems it could be otherwise, which is not good enough", you also need to explain why. Why should what seems so obvious from day-to-day real-life personal experience be challenged? "It's from a necessary thing" isn't good enough.
I suspect what Amy's concern is that when we say: "it could have been different" she's maybe wanting to know about the state in which brought about the outcome. If we use your population example where the population is at 8 billion. And we say: "It could have been 8 billion and 1." I guess it's not clear to Amy that if we were to rewind the clock back to the same prior conditions, how will we see a result that is different to the one that actually happened? I do think it's kind of hard to answer that. It's hard to see how the exact same conditions would produce a different result. I think that's where her concern is: how are we accounting for the different result *if there's no difference in the condition/state of the world? If all we are going to do to explain it is in virtue of more contingencies (things that didn't happen - not true about the state) then I think Amy is concerned we don't have a full account. I guess for Amy - saying "the universe is necessary" provides a full account as it will (ultimately) explain why there's 8 billion people. That's my interpretation of it anyway - there's a chance I misunderstood her.
I found the contributions of both philosophers in this video to be very illuminating about the motivations for and intuitions around necessitarianism and contingentarianism. Funny enough though the arguments and explanations mostly balanced each-other out by my lights just like in the last video and I'm still left having 0.5 credence for both positions. I don't really know what could shift my position, but I'll try reading Dr. Amy Karofsky's book and some book in favor of contingentarianism and see how it goes lol One thing that did change though was my credence toward the dynamic theory of time. Seeing it used to argue in favor of contingentarianism made it seem less clear and less obvious. It gave me the same feel of someone using a crackpot metaphysical theory to argue for something as I would get from reading Langan's argument for god. Something just sounds really implausible about things only being actual for less than or equal to 1.6*10^-22 seconds (the half life of the Higgs boson) especially when the view that that's the case is used to argue that what could be actual during the next infinitesimal slice or unimaginably thin slab could really be different in some number of ways. It's really hard to communicate why I get this impression but I'll try. If I look at a door that door seems like a real actual thing to me, but if the dynamic theory of time is true then that idea of a door in my head is an idea of something non-actual because the amount of time it takes the light from the one instant or one indivisible interval of the door to reach my eyes is on the order of nanoseconds which is much larger than the duration between creation and decay of most Higgs bosons and therefore much longer than the smallest possible duration of time. And that's not even taking into account the milliseconds it takes for the information from the door to travel from my eyes to my visual cortex and from there to the rest of my brain to create the idea of the door. And so the idea of the door would under the dynamic theory of time be an idea with a non-actual referent just as non-actual as Santa Clause. This seems like a complete violation of my intuitions already, but using the dynamic theory of time to argue for contingentarianism makes it a lot worse. It seems a lot to me like arguing that this non-actual door I have an idea of became an actual door in reality that I can't see in a way that could have been different; the actual door that I can't see (because when I do see a door from that time I'm not looking at an actual door) could have become a completely different door that I also wouldn't have been able to see! To me it feels like saying there's an actual hairy fat man in the real world who I can't see who isn't Santa Clause but was Santa Clause and who could have been some different hairy fat man. I hope that helps to explain why I give an incredulous stare to the dynamic theory of time and using it to defend contingentarianism. I understand that this doesn't disprove dynamic time and that the Santa example might not be equivalent, but it's the best I can do to explain how crackpot-like the dynamic theory felt while watching this video lol I think my credence in the dynamic theory of time is something like 0.1 right now
@@gg2008yayoI can't give an exhaustive list of the kinds of evidence that would convince me of the existence of a god or of the christian god, but I can give a short list. I can also give a short list of the kinds of evidence that would at least count in favor of believing in a god. Firstly my working definition of a god for the context of this discussion is a sentient being satisfying one of the following 1. They have supreme power and influence over the earth. 2. They have supreme power and influence over the universe at large but not necessarily over the earth. 3. They are omnipotent. 4. They created the universe. 5. They are omniscient. Things that would decisively convince me of the existence of a god: 1. Someone claiming to be a messenger from god telling me things about myself from my early childhood all the way to adulthood that I thought only I could know. Them also telling me many true predictions about stock market fluctuations, significant world events, and where I can find fossils. And then them telling me the solutions to one of the remaining millennium problems. Such a demonstration of superhuman knowledge in so many domains would be considered decisive evidence of omniscience in my book. 2. Someone claiming to be a messenger of god and then performing great miracles in front of me like the creation of general assemblers without any apparent mechanism. Creation of technologies far greater than humanly developed would easily demonstrate supreme power and influence over the earth. 3. Someone claiming to be a messenger from god and then claiming that the very next day the light from 3 stars going supernova in each galaxy in the observable universe would reach us all at once. The very next day we see 3 stars going supernova in every galaxy in the observable universe all at once including 3 supernovae visible during the daytime in this galaxy. This would demonstrate the existence of a god with supreme power and influence over the universe at large to me.
41:23 To be honest I think this modified flower argument probably fails. If you had a specific and detailed enough idea of a seed and of a soil then either that idea would assume indeterminacy of outcomes for the seed in the soil and the argument would be circular or the idea of the seed in the soil would involve how the cells in the seed are determined to respond to the contents of the soil based on their chemical/physical inputs and outputs and the argument would fail.
48:42 This blue sphere green sphere argument also seems to fail because we're not given a sufficiently detailed explanation for how that blue sphere came to be. If we were given a sufficiently detailed explanation then either that explanation would assume the blueness of the sphere is indeterminate on the environment/history of the sphere and therefore be assuming contingency or the blueness would be explained in terms of the history of the sphere and its environment in which case there being a red sphere given the same history and environment would be contradictory
Man how cool is it joe that the modal collapse results in you as a necessary crucial role in necessarily discussing necessitatianism. The initial state chose you.
It's pretty cool to see you here as well! You have become one of my favorite hosts. Granted, I'm usually a year behind current episodes
@@nmwinrich89 well thank you so much! Joes channel has helped me so much, especially correcting mistakes I've made in the past. It's extremely valuable to my discussions.
It's obviously false, or to even assert so refutes that you think so, because if so knowledge is impossible
Some other things that stood out about this video:
I think this is my favorite discussion that you've had in a while. But the bar is extremely high, because I love all of the content put out on this channel. Firstly, we all love Josh. His demeanor and way of approaching complicated issues is legendarily synergetic. From his kindness, to his clarity, to his charitability, and his humble curiosity, and so forth. In the realm of disagreement, he is possibly *the* icon of helpful discussion, rightly so. The perfect person to address a controversy, like the well articulated suggestion that a major branch of philosophy has become an antiquated and possibly misleading echo chamber.
Secondly, I love everything about Amy's side of the conversation, from her intuitions, to her willingness to go against the flow, and her over all theory on the subject at hand. It's nostalgically reminded me that at a young age, I shared all of the views that she's come to flesh out. But my views definitely were swayed by mainstream literature about modality, contingency, and so on. I used to believe, both in my theistic years and otherwise, that what is, in some meaningful way, determines all of what else could not be. But the crowds of smart people around me seemed to take it for granted that this wasn't the case and somehow along the way I stopped really questioning it.
This kind of discussion has made me weary of so easily giving up on things that seem clear to me, just because a lot of smart people form cultures and languages that largely overlook it's possibility. I love the way she talks about throwing away the ladder that other people are using, and looking at things freshly within the realm of your own linguistic preferences about the subject.
So yeah, this is excellent content being created by an excellent set of personalities.
So glad to see you here❤️
I chose necessitarian above, but if you keep wearing that baby blue we'll talk contingency.@@MajestyofReason
monism:
the view in metaphysics that reality (that is, Ultimate Reality) is a unified whole and that all existing things can be ascribed to or described by a single concept or system; the doctrine that mind and matter are formed from, or reducible to, the same ultimate substance or principle of being; any system of thought that seeks to deduce all the varied phenomena of both the physical and spiritual worlds from a single principle, specifically, the metaphysical doctrine that there is but one substance, either mind (idealism) or matter (materialism), or a substance that is neither mind nor matter, but is the substantial ground of both. Cf. “dualism”.
To put it simply, whilst materialists/physicalists/naturalists believe that the ground of being is some kind of tangible form of matter (or a field of some sort), and idealists/theists/panpsychists consider some kind of mind(s) or consciousness(es) to be most fundamental, MONISTS understand that Ultimate Reality is simultaneously both the Subject and any possible object, and thus one, undivided whole (even though it may seem that objects are, in fact, divisible from a certain standpoint).
The descriptive term favoured in the metaphysical framework proposed in this Holy Scripture is “Brahman”, a Sanskrit word meaning “expansion”, although similes such as “Sacchidānanda” (Eternal-Conscious-Peace), “The Tao” and “The Monad” are also satisfactory.
Perhaps the oldest extant metaphysical system, Advaita Vedānta, originating in ancient Bhārata (India), which is the thesis promulgated in this treatise, “A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”, is a decompositional dual-aspect monist schema, in which the mental and the physical are two (epistemic) aspects of an underlying (ontic) reality that itself is neither mental nor physical, but rather, psychophysically neutral. On such a view, the decomposition creates mutually-exclusive mental (subjective) and physical (objective) domains, both of which are necessary for a comprehensive metaphysical worldview. The mere fact that it is possible for Awareness to be conscious of Itself, implies that, by nature, Ultimate Reality is con-substantially BOTH subjective and objective, since it would not be possible for a subject to perceive itself unless the subject was also a self-reflective object. Therefore, it seems that the necessary-contingent dichotomy often discussed by philosophers in regards to ontology, is superfluous to the concept of monism, because on this view, BOTH the subjective and the objective realities are essentially one, necessary ontological Being(ness). In other words, because you are, fundamentally, Brahman, you are a necessary being and not contingent on any external force. This concept has been termed "necessitarianism" by contemporary philosophers, in contradistinction to contingentarianism - the view that at least some thing could have been different otherwise - and is intimately tied to the notions of causality and determinism in Chapters 08 and 11. Advaita Vedānta (that is, dual-aspect Monism) is the only metaphysical scheme that has complete explanatory power.
Hypothetically, and somewhat tangentially, one might question thus: “If it is accurate to state that both the Subject of all subjects and all possible objects are equally ‘Brahman’ (that is, Ultimate Truth), then surely that implies that a rock is equally valuable as a human being?”. That is correct purely on the Absolute platform. Here, in the transactional world of relativity, there is no such thing as equality, except within the conceptual sphere (such as in mathematics), as already demonstrated in more than a couple of places in this Holiest of Holy Books, “F.I.S.H”, especially in the chapter regarding the spiteful, pernicious ideology of feminism (Chapter 26).
Cf. “advaita”, “dualism”, “Brahman/Parabrahman”, “Saguna Brahman”, “Nirguna Brahman”, “subject”, and “object”.
Yo brownie, let me throw you this softball. Monism is an atheistic concept.@@TheWorldTeacher
Geez, I just finished the whole thing. You know, about Descartes and the pineal gland? Descartes denied the existence of the soul. Then again, he also said that nothing could be known. And he was interested in the idea that dreams could be real and even include suffering. He is sort of the father of the brain in the vat philo.@@TheWorldTeacher
My favorite part about Josh Rasmussen’s appearance in any dialogue is when he picks up some random and strange looking object and comments about how if it were bigger then it could be conscious/ a mind
😅
Incredible display of philosophical dialog. Breath of fresh air amidst debate culture here on TH-cam.
secular amen
religious amen
Absolutely. First of all the people are intelligent. Second they are cordial. Two things that rarely if ever happen on youtube :P
"If there was reason for it's existence, then it would be." was a wonderful quote from Dr. Karofsky.
One thing that came to my imagination in this discussion was the idea of there being a seed that requires sunlight that's planted in the soil and locked into a place that sunlight can't penetrate. In some way, I think it can be easily reasoned by most people that this seed wouldn't grow. Like a human without air or moisture, it would fail to realize development.
I don't think we would reasonably argue that this seed, that necessisarily and by it's physical constitution needs sun light, could have grown. In that sense, I feel like I can see Amy's understanding of how this talk of the possibility of flower power comes down to an epistemological deficit and not a metaphysical truth. It seems like what a seed is can't produce alternative outcomes in it's own timeline, even if we can imagine a seed that needs sunlight growing in a place where sunlight can't reach it. It seems like if we're imagining that it could have possibly grown in such a place, then we're imagining that senario because of our misunderstanding of it's nature - and the nature of it's circumstances. Sunlight in this sense would just be an analogy of it's molecular, or even atomic make-up, and how this seed can have reasons to be, or have reasons to not be.
A more simple metaphor would be a stone rolling down the hill. If we imagine that it could roll up the hill in the same exact environment that it could roll down the hill, then we're likely misunderstanding something about the nature of mass, gravity, or something equally relevant.
Really appreciate you bringing in top-tier philosophers of religion like Dr. Rasmussen to engage with other non-philosophers of religion. My hope is such conversations can raise the profile and discourse of PhilRel more generally.
41:30 "Metaphysical necessity ends up being equivalent to logical necessity"
A lot of people are saying this, folks!
Josh when he makes reference to a thought experiments is really talking about the Products of imagination. It is an interesting question whether What can be imagined is contingent or necessary. The concepts of necessity and contingency are created in the imagination and then try to be mapped onto the external empirical world. That attempted mapping is also in question.
I am just starting to watch the video for around 10 minutes..but i predict at the end of the videos..the host will thank the 2 guests for their participation in the discussion..before ending the video. Both guests will then smile politely. I just close my eyes and imagine what will necessarily should happen. And most of the time they indeed do in fact happen...i am utilizing PSR...karofsky doesnt even need it..please next invite stephen maitzen and michael della rocca.
This would make a GREAT book, like Rasmussen's dialogue with Leon: Is G-d the Best Explanation of Things?
It has been awhile since i have seen her work but I remember enjoying it. I do wonder in the context of this conversation though if there is a bit of an issue as necessity being what is and necessity as not being able to be otherwise. It seems that wanting to conceptually frame necessity as what is is meaningfully different than a conceptualization of necessity as being unable to be otherwise. All of this to say that it doesn’t seem that MERELY appealing to what is is sufficient to counter arguments for why things could be otherwise.
At 59:00 - I'm not sure what role Josh's "pure reason" plays in reality itself. I understand that maps for action follow from core principles and always include an unknown element, but surely the green ball in space is green because of its chemical structure, the nature of the stars and their distance, and the nature of the eye perceiving it as well as its owner's health and the atmosphere between the viewer, the ball, and the source of light. Therefore necessitarianism is accurate whether Josh likes to assign different values to different component contributors to that reality or not.
OMG I was just thinking about this. And two of my fav guests to discuss it too! It’s a great day for the internet.
The subtle and exceptional humor at intro. “I’m a philosopher, and who am I? I’m still working on that.” 💀
I am actually really impressed that Josh is trying explain seemings. I really think more people should atrempt to do this.
"Contingency's liable to feel undecidable, mayhap necessarily so..." 🎶🎶
Hmmm... my own grounds may be insufficiently caffeinated, but this was a marvelous debate. Thank you!
36:14 De La Roca
47:50 bookmark
41:24 Strong necessitarianism = Logical necessitarianism
Johs object look like a Calabi-Yau manifolds although its probably a coral or an artistic version of a coral. Great discussion as always.
This was a great discussion!
♥♥♥
Don't forget what a colour on an object is. From what I know it's actual physical stuff, surface shape that makes electromagnetic waves reflect a specific colour. So in a very real sense a red and a blue ball each have a different shape. They two different things. It's humans who refer to them by one name and feel like "colour" is somehow more arbitrary.
I get the sense from this discussion that if contingency exists then it must exist following strong emergence.
josh literally has the chad meme jawline bruh
Gödel's version of the Anselm ontological argument incidentally leads to modal collapse as well. I don't know if that is relevant as I do not understand it.
Is contingency necessary? Yes xd --- all possibilities are necessary as possibilities, and so are impossibilities! contingency only exists because what we understand by 'existence' is merely an existence in time, in a temporal way
Sings: “It ain’t necessarily so...” 🎤
I couldn't helo but laugh when Joe said sarcastically "everyone loves their slogans" because Dr Rasmussen has both a framed slogan on his desk ("the best is yet to come") and a slogan on his cup ("go with the flow") - both of which struck me as being oddly platitudinous for a philosopher!
On the identitarian idea of truth I think the problem comes in When you make judgments about what you identify. How do you get at the truth of those judgments. Identifying a rock as a rock is one thing but if it's blocking the road you make a judgment about that.
I think she commented on that on the other interview, but can necessitarianism explain stuff like randomness in quantum physics, or is it committed to determinism ?
You can still say the world of quantum mechanics is necessarily random.
There's nothing contradictory about me flipping a coin and getting tails, so we'd say it's possible for me to flip the coin and get tails. Until I reveal that the coin has heads on both sides. The "possibility" never was, it was purely based in our ignorance. All things that seem possible could be this way
But in that case it still seems metaphysically possible for you to flip a coin and get tails. And the law of non-contradiction is a bit of a red herring here anyway. For instance, I believe there are no necessary truths. Yet I believe the law of non-contradiction is true. I just believe it is contingently true.
So, I suppose to use your coin analogy, my view is that true contradictions are akin to tails on coins. In your example there are no coins with a tail side. And thus it is true - not necessarily true, but just true - that there are no tails and thus that if you toss a coin you will not get tails. I think true contradictions a like that: there just aren't any.
My own view - that there are no necessary truths - seems to me implied by theism. For if God exists, then a person who can do anything exists....and so there exists a person who can falsify any true proposition. Well, then no true proposition is necessarily true if God exists....
Does she give a description of her understanding of "free will" I tried to go back to see when she referenced it, but I'm not sure I understood.
This makes Swinburne’s rejection of a necessary being even more interesting.
I'm adding "gadfly" to my English vocabulary now 😂
I just had a thought and I'm not a philosopher so it might be dumb but here it goes:
Suppose there exists a lump of clay that is eternal and completely metaphysically necessary. There will always be that lump of clay no matter what and that lump of clay can never not exist. Now if you shape that clay into a square, would that particular shape be necessary as well? I think the straightforward answer is no. The clay can be molded into any kind of shape and that shape can be an infinite amount of different shapes. This would make the shape of the clay contingent (having the possibility to be otherwise) while the clay itself is necessary. I think this idea translates well to reality. It seems that the deepest layer of reality is necessary while the configuration and "shape" of reality is always changing, starting from the Big Bang. Think of how stars and galaxies form from whatever the fundamental reality is but there are all kinds of stars and galaxies that are all different from each other. It seems that while what makes up these stars and galaxies may be fundamental, they have the ability to be ordered and shaped in different ways. To me, the best explanation for the differences we see in the world is that they are contingent and have the ability to be something other than what they are now.
To anyone reading this I'd love to hear some responses and see if I made a mistake somewhere
I do not believe in necessity, but what you've said sounds perfectly coherent to me. A necessary existent does not, by dint of existing of necessity, confer necessity on all it does. The clay example of yours illustrates this nicely - though material things are often thought not to be candidates for necessary existences due to being complex wholes rather than simples - but so too does the idea of a necessarily existent agent. The agent exists of necessity, but their choices are not thereby necessitated. However...if a necessary existent is posited in order to stop an infinite regress of explanations, then there may be a problem. If we suppose the clay to exist of necessity - and we suppose this because otherwise we will have to explain the clay's existence by citing something else - then unless we also suppose its initial shape to be necessary too, then we would have to explain its shape. That is, we would have to explain why it had that shape and not another. To stop that question from arising, we'd have to insist its initial shape was necessary. And then we'd have to say the same about any subsequent shape - that it was necessarily caused to change its shape, say. And now everything about it turns out to be necessary. So, though the idea of a necessary existent does not seem, in and of itself, to entail that everything the necessary existent subsequently does and becomes is necessary, this does seem to be the implication if necessity is invoked to stop infinite regresses. Unless one supposes that everything about a necessary existent is also necessary, it won't be able to stop regresses. (I'm not endorsing that argument - I think it fails as I don't think necessary existences stop regresses at all). So, anyway, I think you're quite right - nothing about the idea of a necessary existent entails that everything about it must also be necessary. But if necessity is to stop regresses (and it doesn't - but 'if' it is being put to that kind of use), then everything about a necessary existent is going to have to be said to be necessary as well, else the need for an explanation of why the necessary existent is like this rather than that would need to be provided.
i liked the part where joe didnt say its philosophy time and then didnt philosiphy
I did like it when he says it's joeing time and joed all over both of the guests
@@snowforest1998 truly the moment of the video.
Defining "grounded" to not include contingency supports the Pilot Wave Theory and leaves no room for the Copenhagen Interpretation. In other words, the source of the randomness we observe emerges due to our lack of knowledge about the universe (there are no observers). If you then follow the theory of necessity as it works for the Pilot Wave Theory it would also support the Many-Worlds Interpretation.
I can almost wrap my head around the concept of space-time in General Relativity, but taking it much further and thinking that everything is happening everywhere because it is necessary will drive me insane. Somehow, having a wave function collapse to give us a single universe is more intuitive, despite the fact that it's a contradiction. How do I even start "believing" (read: understanding intuitively) in the Many-Worlds Interpretation? Necessity does not account for the experience of what we consider a single world.
might be more intuitive but it's not well physically motivated, and I don't see why pilot wave theory would support many world interpretation.
About the video I think "contigentalists" must explain why and how a necessary thing can cause or generate a non-necessary anything instead of an equally necessary one.
@@ckmfunk Pilot Wave Theory says a hidden-variable is already added at the start, while the Many-Worlds Interpretation uses quantum decoherence to explain how one thing leads to another making all worlds necessary. They both follow necessity, meaning they are true in all possible worlds. Or is my understanding wrong?
@@DouwedeJong pilot wave theory is inherently a hidden variable theory and if you go for it then anything is 100% necessary (any space-time events is determined by any other space-time event, even outside their respective light cones).
I never understood the added value of MWI and why people like it, but in that sense I think you are right, it "follows necessity" ..with little explanatory power (why and how does reality split at measurement? what does 'measurement' mean in the first place?).
Note that we don't even need all this: necessity already follows from old special (not general) relativity and QM has no conflict with it, in fact quite the opposite.. it 's possibly the most prolific marriage in theoretical physics.
I knew it...just by using PSR alone, i could predict we will necessarily have another karofsky video..fantastic watch...mark my word..we will have another video on this on other youtube channel..hope stephen maitzen will be interviewed as well...also sadly by PSR...airplane accident will happen necessarily within next 1 year somewhere in the world...we are just witness future unfolding necessarily folks...ukraine war will necessarily end somehow at some point in time...
Japan airline accident just happened.at haneda airport. Necessitarianism thesis is being corroborated yet again.
Oh, there's a word that fits me better than "determinist". I'm a necessitarian. I haven't listened to most of this yet, but here's my deal: I don’t know how our epistemological uncertainty can translate into actual uncertainty in the universe. It seems to me that saying "it could have been otherwise until it happens" only makes sense from a conscious point of view. From the point of view of the universe, there is no uncertainty. Things appear, disappear, are, are not, with different qualities. Wavering from our point of view is not the universe struggling to make a decision. It's just a failure of the determined universe to match our simplistic expectations. I don’t know hpw to say this better. When I talk to people about it they tend to respond with things that seem profoundly irrelevant to me, or they think I'm making a claim about some religious "best of all possible worlds" nonsense.
They seem to be saying that if you believe something that is false that is the same as believing something that is contradictory. I guess it's contradictory to the truth but it seems odd wording.
Jaime Lee Curtis doppelgänger 🎉
What do you think about transcendental argument? I don't know if you are familiar with Jay Dyer.
Having hard time understanding why something that COULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE necessarily need explanation if it as something THAT ACTUALLY HAD BEEN OTHERWISE. Am I stupid?
The idea is that something being one way when it could have been another way seems to cry out for explanation for why it wasn't another way and instead happened the way that it did. It's basically a great example of what motivates the PSR.
Good to see more women philosophers in these debates.
Analytic philosophy could certainly use more of a feminine touch.
why?
@@wasserstein5110 I want more women interested in philosophy and tackling the big questions instead of what makeup and nail color to put on today?
why@@JohnSmith-bq6nf
I don’t care what someone’s sex is. That’s weird to me. I care about arguments.
Of course, it would be a problem if women were held back in philosophy. But otherwise the quantity of female vs male is a non issue
Could one be both a sourcehood libertarian and a necessitarian?
I liked the part where Dr. Karofsky basically said "Your example of a 'blue sphere in the sky' is way too abstract. Let's talk about something more concrete, like John Searle's theory that consciousness is an intrinsically biological phenomenon."
Lolol
amy is my new crush xoxo
The question is what is the nature of the universe? Is it that hard and fast Newtonian place where everything is just so or is it more squishy than that? More quantum? I favor the squishy universe, the place with plenty of room for quintillions of free decisions, for human free will.
My personal view is that free will is not a fundamental property of the universe. It's an emergent property on a different level of abstraction, and is real on a human scale. That is, even if reality is fully deterministic (with quantum randomness injected in), free will as humans understand it does exist, since there is no way for us to tell the difference between "true" and illusory free will.
“I choose, therefore I can” is as obvious to me as “I think, therefore I am”.
More quantum doesn't mean more contingent. There are many deterministic interpretations of QM and even a deterministic paradigm of QM, superdeterminism. If you combine one of these deterministic interpretations or paradigms with a necessary foundational initial state you end up with necessitarianism.
@@nio804Agreed strongly here. Using the libertarian definition of free will being the ability to chose otherwise and to have the way one chooses be up to oneself then it is false under determinism because one cannot choose otherwise and false under QM interpretations with objective randomness because it's up to the randomness of collapse and the determinacy of unitary/schrodinger evolution, not oneself what one choses
Just thinking out loud, but aren't contradictions a red herring here? For the law of non-contradiction can surely be understood to be contingent or necessary? That is, if one believes in necessary truths, then one is probably going to think that the law of non-contradiction is one. But if one thinks there are no necessary truths, then one is going to think that it is just true.
I know some will say that the idea of there being no necessary truths generates an actual contradiction. For if the law of non-contradiction is contingently true, then it would have to be admitted that it is possible for it to be necessarily true (and possible for any other truth to be a necessary truth). And if it is possible for it to be a necessary truth, then it is a necessary truth. Maybe. I mean, if all truths are contingent, then it's possible for them not to be! And thus we get contradictions.
However, that seems question begging. For if all truths are contingent, then the claim "if a truth is possibly necessary, then it is necessary" is possibly false and will be, in fact, false. That is, the person who denies that there are any necessary truths would be within their rights to insist that "If a truth is possibly necessary, then it is necessary' is false, for someone who insists it 'must' be true is assuming the reality of a necessary truth for the purposes of demonstrating one....which is question begging. The person who wants to claim that the view that all truths are contingent generates a contradiction has an obligation to assume that all truths are contingent and then show how a contradiction arises from this. But they cannot do that without tacitly helping themselves to a necessary truth. For if they say of the claim "if a truth is possible necessary, then it is necessary' that it cannot be false, then they are treating that claim as a necessary truth. And that's cheating. It must - on pain of begging the question - be acknowledged to be a claim that is possibly false. And now the universal possibilist can just say that it is, in fact, false.
Plausibility is another matter, of course.
it iiiis what it iiissss
I don't lean any particular way on this. Necessitarianism, necessary being or even an endless series of contingencies. None of these affect my own personal view.
Isnt the necessary position another name for determinism?
More or less. ✅
No. determinism is the thesis that past + laws of nature entail the future. Necessaritans of course accept this, but ADDITIONALLY think that the initial state of the universe + the laws of nature could not have been any different. This latter part is what makes necessitarianism so unpopular, compared with determinism
@@dominiks5068 make the "past" long enough to "infinity" then "initial condition" is no longer relevant. In such case, determinism can be equated with necessitarianism?
Unfortunately the inherent probabilistic nature of Quantum mechanics refutes Necessitarianism. The lack of discussion on this is a major oversight. Very disappointing.
I wouldnt say everything is necessary only what happens happens necessarily. The substance of existence doesnt exist necessarily, it exists as a brute fact. Anyways, im looking forward to this discussion
Well, necessitarianism is the position that everything that exists exists necessarily, not that everything [possible] is necessary. As for existence being a brute fact, I'm not sure I agree, if by "brute fact" you're implying it's contingent.
@@georgeel-azar4684 so I would disagree with that definition for two reasons:
1. Substances dont exist necessarily, there can be no reason for why substances exist. By brute fact, Im implying it has no reason for its existence
2. Necessitarianism is only coherent if it refers to becoming. It has to do with causality.
Please define one thing that exists necessarily.
@@CMVMic Something can exist necessarily and not have a reason for its existence. It exists necessarily in the sense that it couldn't have "not existed" instead. IMO, the "contrary being impossible" doesn't count as a reason, but rather as some sort of property/quality of a necessarily existent thing.
I don't see why your second point has to be true. What is your reasoning here?
As for your request, per necessitarianism, any thing that exists exists necessarily. Meaning that it couldn't have been nonexistent instead. Necessitarianism can apply to all sorts of happenings, including existences. Again, per necessitarianism: reality, with all its actual contents and properties, couldn't have been any other way instead.
@@georgeel-azar4684 I grant that Necessitarianism, as traditionally understood in metaphysics, posits that everything that exists or occurs is necessary and couldn't have been otherwise.
Asserting that something exists necessarily without providing reasons or arguments would beg the question. Also, happenings do not refer to existences.
Furthermore, If there is only one possible world, the concept of necessity, as it is traditionally understood in modal logic and metaphysics, is not relevant. Necessity is defined within the context of possible world semantics, where different possible worlds are considered to explore the relationships between necessity, possibility, and actuality but in this case, possibility=necessity=actuality. therefore, making it redundant to make modal distinctions.
Necessitarianism deals with metaphysics and if there is only one possible world and no contrasting possible worlds to consider, the concept of claiming existence as "necessary" becomes redundant. The term "necessity" may retain a semantic epistemic role in discussions within this single possible world, but its traditional philosophical implications would be less applicable. So it seems to shift Necessitarianism to talk of epistemic possibility rather than metaphysical possibility.
Reasoning for my 2nd point
Applying necessitarianism to the concept of being within a single possible world can be viewed as incoherent because it challenges the foundational principles of necessitarianism itself. Necessitarianism, relies on a contrast between necessity and contingency which hinges on comparing logical possibilities. In this scenario, discussing the necessity of being, leads to circular reasoning. Claiming that existence is necessary within the actual world may inadvertently assume that non-existence is a meaningful alternative or possibility, which is not the case when there's only one world to consider. This potential circularity challenges the coherence of applying necessitarianism to the concept of being within a singular world, as it lacks the necessary contrast and meaningful alternatives that necessitarianism traditionally relies upon.
Futhermore, I am an extreme nominalist so I take issue with your statement i.e. the "contrary being impossible" doesn't count as a reason, but rather as some sort of property/quality of a necessarily existent thing.
Just to elaborate, necessitarianism is the position that everything that exists exists necessarily and by necessarily you mean it could not have not existed but what does it mean for something to not exist? If nonexistence is incoherent, then there is no contrast and thus, it undermines the claim being made by necessitarianism in relation to existence.
@@CMVMicSomething can exist necessarily without having a reason for its existence. If something exists necessarily that only means it exists in every possible world. Something can exist necessarily as a brute fact at least in bare modal logic
How does the fact that neither of the positions discussed here can be falsified affect the discussion? This appears to be a purely conceptual conversation. Does this mean that the definitions given are tautologies?
@@jongtrogers why?
Naming and Necessity
@@kimyunmi452 Tell me more.
Doris Day was right!
I find God claims to be incoherent within the context of what we know about reality. Further, the act of attempting to dismiss the core incoherence results in the idea being indistinguishable from being imaginary. The following is an argument against a core element of God claims as I currently understand such in the context of my current understanding of reality. Thus, IF your God concept is NOT non-contingent and NOT intelligent, my argument does NOT apply to your God concept.
P1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent (not dependent upon components) intelligent agent.
P2: Intelligence is a process
P3: Processes are contingent (dependent/predicated upon components - conceptually or materially).
C1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent contingent agent.
C2: X is contradictory and thus impossible
P4: If there is an intelligence which is non-contingent, then such is unknown to us and thus imaginary.
P5: There is no distinction between the imaginary and the non-existent.
C4: X is non-existent (Pragmatic Conclusion - Predicated on current knowledge)
(Granted. I am not a philosopher, so, if the presentation is in anyway sloppy, please focus on the point as opposed to the structuring.)
In my opinion, in the ultimate analysis the necessitarian assertion is simply unnecessary. At least, hypothetically.
Yup. Everything is necessary, by definition.
A rock is as necessary as a god, for without them existing or not, the universe wouldn't be the same.
Waters down the special status of necessary entities, doesn't it?
"Waters down the special status of necessary entities, doesn't it?"
The mere fact of being necessary gets watered down, sure. But as Dr. Karofsky grants, necessitarianism still admits notions of dependency -- the rest of reality could still depend on one foundational being, even if the whole package deal is necessary. And that kind of foundational grounding seems like why people invoke a necessary being, anyways. So maybe what philosophers want to *achieve* with a necessary being isn't all watered down.
@@user-lv9gm3fe6j Sure, if it's "necessary" to label unanswered questions answered by invoking necessary beings. And that waters down the whole necessity of searching the answers.
Per necessitarianism, a rock is indeed as necessary as a creator god. But it may still depend on that god for its existence ... per various theistic worldviews at least.
I just don't see why everything must have a necessary origin. Why must all non-necessary things have a cause? Why can't there be a causeless but unnecessary origin? The idea that all contingent things must have a cause themselves has always been an invalid definition. And I think, even more broadly, what reasonable basis do we have for even asking these kinds of questions? I just don't see any value in it. For all we know our logical/reasoning mind is simply incapable of comprehending the metaphysical structure of reality itself let alone these absurd simplifications from armchair philosophy. I can only conceive of necessary and non-necessary things, so it must be true regarding the foundations of reality itself? This is the same approach as Aristotelian philosophy, where we thought nature must conform to our logic. It would be like an ant comprehending relativity. Our logical rules may ultimately be deeply faulty and there could be a near infinite number of concepts beyond our grasp. So on what grounds do we assume it must all be compactly understood by our brains?
There are rational limits to how deeply we can explore metaphysics. This is what Hume and especially Kant proposed decades ago. And yet philosophers are still baselessly arguing over these metaphysics today. Its just such a pointless intellectual exercise. Well I suppose something of utility could be discovered by accident, but that could be said of any research endeavour, so why not focus on more useful ideas?
45:23 ^
Woman hoarder vs Man homeless , the Epic Battle.
Reality could have been some other way..... it's just no one anywhere has ever seen or experienced it. But reality could have turned out some other way. Otherwise known as "the ultimate copium". I would love to hear a conversation with Sapolski instead of this guy.
The passion of Christ? That's necessary. Without it who would be straight?
Necessarily, necessitarianism is wrong.
Amy says everything is necessary and there are no other possibilities but she didn't prove why the 'contray is impossible'. A thing can be necessery only in 2 scenarios.
1) Some prior law or event forces it be that way in which case it is dependent
2) The impossibility of the contray (which doesn't apply to anything that is geometrically measurable) the measurement could have been any other way in all possible world. There are mathematical possibilities. You can't prove the impossibility of the contray.
Therefore the Ultimate Necessery has to be Immaterial.
Contrary?
Nonsequitur. Logical possibilities are not necessarily metaphysical possibilities.
Reasoning, and propositions are activities. The mind and consciousness refers to Becoming, not Being. Necessitarianism represents metaphysical changes that could not happen any other way than they do. These changes are grounded in separated substances but the substance is of one kind or essence. This is why Idealism is false because it makes a category error.
Reality is physical and Nominalism and Functionalism are true. Necessitarianism simply describes the pattern of transitioning from one state to another.
To be metaphysical just means to be a specific substantial form that performs a specific function or has the ability to change in a specific way. To be logical just means to follow or conform to specific pattern of thinking. Cognitive processes that dont follow similar patterns lead to incoherent or contradictory views.
Did you misspell contrary twice or is that some whacky new word
It all comes down to intuition. Amy at one point in the video seemed rather hesitant to appeal to that, but at the end of the day, we have to rely on our intuitions to determine the most satisfying account of reality. And we have to assume that these intuitions are shared by most (if not all) reasonable thinkers, once we've thought about these matters deeply.
So let's appeal to intuition here, and let's not be afraid to do so. And using our intuitive thinking, let's try to make sense of the following:
What does it mean for something to have possibly been otherwise at a given point? Why did it end up being what it is rather than what other thing it could have been instead?
Think about the initial constants that supposedly underlie this one universe that we see ourselves in. Could they have been otherwise (as in different values from the actual values)? But if so, why didn't they end up otherwise? What breathed life, so to speak, to the actual values as opposed to all other possible values?
Or let's ponder this question which might not sound relevant to the topic at hand but ends up being pertinent indeed:
Can things truly/objectively be random?
She doesn't have to prove the impossibility of the contrary to argue for necessitarianism and we certainly have no good reason to think necessitarianism being true certainly requires being able to argue the impossibility of the contrary.
Additionally necessity doesn't require laws. God as a necessary being wouldn't be dependent on laws. Of course something can of course also be dependent and necessary! If simple mathematical concepts are necessarily true then mathematical proofs that rely upon said truths are dependent and yet also necessary.
I get the impression that if someone proposed that everything was a creator being, Josh would be chuffed and exclaim that he was excited because that would confirm the Christian God exists.
Mephysical necessity = logical necessity? Wth?
I certainly disagree very strongly with Josh here. Still, I recognize that Josh is a formidable thinker, and he doesn’t hold it for no reasons🙂
I wonder what his argument for this is
That's cause MEphysical is necessary and I'm not a contradiction either
Philosophers and their gad flies. They’re as bad as standup comedians
No. necessitarianism is insane.
Ffs. She shouldnt be let loose on the street.
that's right keep her locked up!!!!!! one juice box a day for sustenance
The question, though, is whether it is wrong. You might think this is insane, but are you confident that it's wrong? What is your reasoning here?
@@georgeel-azar4684 I can't be wrong. It is what it is.
@@atmanbrahman1872Struggling to make sense of what you're saying. If it is what it is, then does this mean necessitarianism is not wrong?
@georgeel-azar4684 necessitarianism is wrong. The woman is just so confused. Identity is a necessary relation in all possible worlds but that's just saying that a thing is identical to itself. Not that things can't fail to exist or if they do fail they can't possibly exist.
I think her approach is mind-opening, but I think she's also doing what she's accusing the contingentarians of doing.
According to her, "it could have been otherwise" isn't enough explanation. For example, if the humans on earth are exactly 8 billion, it couldn't have been otherwise that some family somewhere decided to have 1 more child, thereby making it 8 billion and 1. In other words, we are necessarily 8 billion. To anyone, this is simply absurd. Nothing stops *one* girl from somewhere from getting pregnant. One girl *could* very well have chosen to have one more child. Nothing makes this unlikely. This is simply basic and it's just absurd to think it's not. Seeing that the number of humans on earth will grow from 8 billion to 8 billion and 1000, it makes sense that being 8 billion is in no way *necessary*
A necessaritarian will have to explain *what* makes this a *necessity*. To say "the foundation is necessary, therefore being 8 billion (or any other event like me just winking my right eye instead of my left eye) is necessary" is also not *enough* just as "it could be otherwise" is also not good enough. What makes so and so case a necessity?
It intuitively seems like it could have been otherwise. If you say "It seems it could be otherwise, which is not good enough", you also need to explain why. Why should what seems so obvious from day-to-day real-life personal experience be challenged? "It's from a necessary thing" isn't good enough.
I suspect what Amy's concern is that when we say: "it could have been different" she's maybe wanting to know about the state in which brought about the outcome. If we use your population example where the population is at 8 billion. And we say: "It could have been 8 billion and 1." I guess it's not clear to Amy that if we were to rewind the clock back to the same prior conditions, how will we see a result that is different to the one that actually happened?
I do think it's kind of hard to answer that. It's hard to see how the exact same conditions would produce a different result. I think that's where her concern is: how are we accounting for the different result *if there's no difference in the condition/state of the world?
If all we are going to do to explain it is in virtue of more contingencies (things that didn't happen - not true about the state) then I think Amy is concerned we don't have a full account.
I guess for Amy - saying "the universe is necessary" provides a full account as it will (ultimately) explain why there's 8 billion people.
That's my interpretation of it anyway - there's a chance I misunderstood her.
I found the contributions of both philosophers in this video to be very illuminating about the motivations for and intuitions around necessitarianism and contingentarianism. Funny enough though the arguments and explanations mostly balanced each-other out by my lights just like in the last video and I'm still left having 0.5 credence for both positions. I don't really know what could shift my position, but I'll try reading Dr. Amy Karofsky's book and some book in favor of contingentarianism and see how it goes lol
One thing that did change though was my credence toward the dynamic theory of time. Seeing it used to argue in favor of contingentarianism made it seem less clear and less obvious. It gave me the same feel of someone using a crackpot metaphysical theory to argue for something as I would get from reading Langan's argument for god. Something just sounds really implausible about things only being actual for less than or equal to 1.6*10^-22 seconds (the half life of the Higgs boson) especially when the view that that's the case is used to argue that what could be actual during the next infinitesimal slice or unimaginably thin slab could really be different in some number of ways. It's really hard to communicate why I get this impression but I'll try. If I look at a door that door seems like a real actual thing to me, but if the dynamic theory of time is true then that idea of a door in my head is an idea of something non-actual because the amount of time it takes the light from the one instant or one indivisible interval of the door to reach my eyes is on the order of nanoseconds which is much larger than the duration between creation and decay of most Higgs bosons and therefore much longer than the smallest possible duration of time. And that's not even taking into account the milliseconds it takes for the information from the door to travel from my eyes to my visual cortex and from there to the rest of my brain to create the idea of the door. And so the idea of the door would under the dynamic theory of time be an idea with a non-actual referent just as non-actual as Santa Clause. This seems like a complete violation of my intuitions already, but using the dynamic theory of time to argue for contingentarianism makes it a lot worse. It seems a lot to me like arguing that this non-actual door I have an idea of became an actual door in reality that I can't see in a way that could have been different; the actual door that I can't see (because when I do see a door from that time I'm not looking at an actual door) could have become a completely different door that I also wouldn't have been able to see! To me it feels like saying there's an actual hairy fat man in the real world who I can't see who isn't Santa Clause but was Santa Clause and who could have been some different hairy fat man.
I hope that helps to explain why I give an incredulous stare to the dynamic theory of time and using it to defend contingentarianism. I understand that this doesn't disprove dynamic time and that the Santa example might not be equivalent, but it's the best I can do to explain how crackpot-like the dynamic theory felt while watching this video lol
I think my credence in the dynamic theory of time is something like 0.1 right now
May i ask are you a christian or a theist? Just curious
Also hope you dont mind me asking
@@gg2008yayoI'm agnostic toward both positions and I'm a non-christian non-theist. Thanks for asking! ^w^
@@gabbiewolf1121 Thanks for the reply! What would convince you of a gods existence or the christian god?
@@gg2008yayoI can't give an exhaustive list of the kinds of evidence that would convince me of the existence of a god or of the christian god, but I can give a short list. I can also give a short list of the kinds of evidence that would at least count in favor of believing in a god. Firstly my working definition of a god for the context of this discussion is a sentient being satisfying one of the following
1. They have supreme power and influence over the earth.
2. They have supreme power and influence over the universe at large but not necessarily over the earth.
3. They are omnipotent.
4. They created the universe.
5. They are omniscient.
Things that would decisively convince me of the existence of a god:
1. Someone claiming to be a messenger from god telling me things about myself from my early childhood all the way to adulthood that I thought only I could know. Them also telling me many true predictions about stock market fluctuations, significant world events, and where I can find fossils. And then them telling me the solutions to one of the remaining millennium problems. Such a demonstration of superhuman knowledge in so many domains would be considered decisive evidence of omniscience in my book.
2. Someone claiming to be a messenger of god and then performing great miracles in front of me like the creation of general assemblers without any apparent mechanism. Creation of technologies far greater than humanly developed would easily demonstrate supreme power and influence over the earth.
3. Someone claiming to be a messenger from god and then claiming that the very next day the light from 3 stars going supernova in each galaxy in the observable universe would reach us all at once. The very next day we see 3 stars going supernova in every galaxy in the observable universe all at once including 3 supernovae visible during the daytime in this galaxy. This would demonstrate the existence of a god with supreme power and influence over the universe at large to me.
41:23 To be honest I think this modified flower argument probably fails. If you had a specific and detailed enough idea of a seed and of a soil then either that idea would assume indeterminacy of outcomes for the seed in the soil and the argument would be circular or the idea of the seed in the soil would involve how the cells in the seed are determined to respond to the contents of the soil based on their chemical/physical inputs and outputs and the argument would fail.
48:42 This blue sphere green sphere argument also seems to fail because we're not given a sufficiently detailed explanation for how that blue sphere came to be. If we were given a sufficiently detailed explanation then either that explanation would assume the blueness of the sphere is indeterminate on the environment/history of the sphere and therefore be assuming contingency or the blueness would be explained in terms of the history of the sphere and its environment in which case there being a red sphere given the same history and environment would be contradictory
Isn't that what's being said at 01:03:20? Maybe I'm confused.
@@KyssifrotYeah that's right. At the timestamp you mention Josh Rasmussen undermines his own argument.