Cosmological Argument | Debate w/ Astrophysicist | | Podcast Highlight (2021-05-23) ​

0:00:08 hello and welcome to another episode of
0:00:10 the ea show my name is justin or khalil
0:00:12 now
0:00:13 um welcome guys thanks for joining in
0:00:15 and having a conversation with us today
0:00:17 and and checking out the conversation
0:00:18 we're going to be having i'm excited for
0:00:20 tonight we're going to be discussing the
0:00:22 kalam cosmological argument
0:00:24 um so we'll have uh uh we have six
0:00:26 people in here three on the thea side
0:00:28 three on the atheist side
0:00:30 uh we'll be discussing uh the kalam
0:00:32 cosmological argument with itself
0:00:34 um if this is your first time here
0:00:36 consider hitting the like and subscribe
0:00:37 button for more content
0:00:39 um and we will be pushing out more uh
0:00:41 debates debate reviews discussions like
0:00:43 we're doing
0:00:44 tonight interviews uh deconversion
0:00:46 stories reconversion stories things like
0:00:48 that
0:00:48 um so i want to go ahead and say hi to
0:00:50 everybody that's in the chat first
0:00:52 before we get started
0:00:53 i wanted to say hi to paul with rmgd
0:00:56 gaming
0:00:57 we have big zebra.com with us james is
0:00:59 tired is in the chat
0:01:00 skids the clown uh we also have
0:01:04 see who else we have uh wes uh who's in
0:01:07 the back he's our producer
0:01:08 uh making sure everything gets taken
0:01:10 care of backstage we have atheist mama
0:01:12 bear hanging out with us what's going on
0:01:14 mama bear
0:01:15 um a cat to humanist if i if i didn't
0:01:18 say it already what's going on cat
0:01:20 uh we have borg skeptic uh we have
0:01:23 witter shins i've never seen you here
0:01:24 before welcome to the show
0:01:26 um let's see who else we might have in
0:01:29 here
0:01:34 and we also have oz in the chat what's
0:01:36 going on oz um
0:01:38 a lot of these guys have have different
0:01:39 channels oz has the the the atheist
0:01:41 roundtable and the onstart live channel
0:01:43 check them out show show them some love
0:01:46 uh borg
0:01:46 uh borg skeptic uh has a
0:01:49 channel um the board skeptic show go
0:01:52 ahead and check that out show that some
0:01:53 love
0:01:54 uh and james is tired also he has a uh
0:01:57 a show also uh a channel called james is
0:02:00 tired where he has uh different debates
0:02:02 and things going on in his channel
0:02:04 i think he just hit a hundred
0:02:05 subscribers so congratulations james
0:02:08 um and let's let's let's keep those
0:02:09 numbers going up and get show them some
0:02:11 support
0:02:12 um we also have original win productions
0:02:14 what's going on thank you for uh for
0:02:16 hanging out with us today but let me go
0:02:17 ahead
0:02:18 and bring co-host in for today thomas
0:02:20 levi what's going on thomas
0:02:22 oh just enjoying spring finally
0:02:25 absolutely springtime it's it's a good
0:02:26 time of the year especially for
0:02:28 for me i do uh air conditioning and
0:02:30 heating and
0:02:31 i do not like the snow i do not like it
0:02:34 at all
0:02:36 i just like being outside absolutely yep
0:02:38 yep beautiful outside
0:02:40 um so let's go ahead and bring in the
0:02:42 other uh two
0:02:44 guests that we have that's going to be
0:02:45 uh hanging out hanging out with you on
0:02:47 your side of the position
0:02:48 we have ceased to know from uh from
0:02:50 axioms on trial
0:02:52 and uh dave and david who is a
0:02:54 theoretical physicist is that correct
0:02:57 yes i actually asked her for the system
0:03:00 astrophysicist cool cool awesome
0:03:02 um so these guys are going to be uh
0:03:04 discussing the
0:03:05 issues that they have with the column
0:03:07 cosmological argument
0:03:09 um and there's uh uh three three other
0:03:11 uh brothers of mine that have come in to
0:03:13 discuss
0:03:14 uh why the column cosmological argument
0:03:17 is is uh is
0:03:18 reasonable um and that would be uh
0:03:20 sharif
0:03:21 jake the muslim metaphysician and abdul
0:03:24 rahman
0:03:25 sharif jake and abdul they uh run
0:03:28 thought adventure podcast which is
0:03:30 another youtube channel
0:03:31 um and uh they they have a show to where
0:03:34 they have the
0:03:35 their three of the four panelists uh
0:03:37 they have people come on and discuss
0:03:38 anything they really want to and
0:03:40 normally there's most of the time a
0:03:42 topic for the show and
0:03:43 and i guess sometimes people call in
0:03:45 with other ideas so uh
0:03:46 check their show out um i enjoy it a lot
0:03:48 i think people
0:03:49 on either side of the playing field uh
0:03:52 can enjoy the content from everybody
0:03:53 that i've mentioned today
0:03:55 um but welcome guys thanks for joining
0:03:57 us today and
0:03:58 uh and if you guys want to um
0:04:01 who who wants to put their put their two
0:04:04 cents in first do we want to do we want
0:04:05 to pull the
0:04:06 the argument up and just go through the
0:04:08 argument uh real quick and then
0:04:10 move from there yeah i would say that's
0:04:12 a good idea put the column argument up
0:04:14 and
0:04:15 we can go over why we think that it's
0:04:17 inadequate was it
0:04:18 okay let's see
0:04:24 the argument from my perspective you
0:04:27 know it's
0:04:28 obviously there are clearly scientific
0:04:31 problems with
0:04:31 it that they will go over but also on a
0:04:34 philosophical level
0:04:36 um there are certain issues that i'll
0:04:38 address after
0:04:39 uh david uh gives you
0:04:42 his a breakdown of it
0:04:47 just out of interest just wanting to
0:04:49 know from from the other atheist
0:04:51 panelists
0:04:52 whether they are materialists they
0:04:55 they held to that view yeah i'm a
0:04:58 i would say a mythological uh
0:05:01 uh naturalist and i'm a physicalist so
0:05:05 yeah i would say i'm a materialist okay
0:05:08 and how would you define materialism uh
0:05:11 just
0:05:12 the idea that whatever exists um
0:05:15 is uh within
0:05:18 uh nature is just uh matter
0:05:22 uh and uh that there's no reason to
0:05:26 assume any kind of
0:05:28 um other ontology beyond that which is
0:05:31 material which is
0:05:33 uh made of stuff
0:05:36 so effectively there's always a material
0:05:39 explanation for
0:05:41 events that we observe sure
0:05:44 okay is that the case for thomas and
0:05:46 david as well is that
0:05:48 do they hold the same position
0:05:51 thomas go ahead he thinks the the
0:05:54 argument is basically
0:05:56 anything that exists had to have been
0:05:59 brought into existence either by you
0:06:02 know
0:06:04 intention or whatever reason
0:06:08 uh the argument for the universe
0:06:10 existing is that something
0:06:12 specifically created it
0:06:15 and that thing being a god uh basically
0:06:18 the atheist viewpoint is
0:06:20 that it didn't need a god just it exists
0:06:25 i think you're just asking if you're a
0:06:26 materialist or not yeah
0:06:28 yeah yeah
0:06:31 all right so i haven't pulled up in this
0:06:33 i guess this is the best one that i
0:06:34 could find on here with it just
0:06:36 uh have the premises just laid out uh
0:06:38 plainly uh premise one
0:06:40 of gazelle's re uh reasoning involves
0:06:42 whatever begins to exist as a cause of
0:06:44 its beginning
0:06:45 uh premise two the universe began to
0:06:47 exist premise three therefore a universe
0:06:50 had a cause for its beginning
0:06:53 justin i'm sorry i just wanted to
0:06:55 address sharif's question
0:06:57 sure absolutely um i wouldn't label
0:07:01 myself
0:07:02 as anything i'm open to whatever good
0:07:04 ideas are there i would say that
0:07:06 if you have a good idea let me know what
0:07:08 it is and we can
0:07:09 we can analyze it that's my position
0:07:13 okay no just the reason why i asked
0:07:15 about materialism is that
0:07:17 uh as cesaro mentioned that he says that
0:07:20 he's a methodological materialist
0:07:22 that he believes that events that are
0:07:25 observed
0:07:25 they have ultimately a materialistic
0:07:27 explanation i was just wondering if
0:07:29 that's how you
0:07:30 view things no i'm not committed to any
0:07:32 such position
0:07:34 okay oh i would say actually probably
0:07:37 a similar thing where i'm open to
0:07:40 changing my mind i'm not necessarily
0:07:41 committed to anything in particular
0:07:44 what i think the evidence suggests
0:07:45 currently is that that is the most
0:07:47 reasonable position to take
0:07:49 um and that is sort of the ontology that
0:07:52 i
0:07:52 um assume based on uh
0:07:56 you know the current available evidence
0:08:00 right right right so how just the david
0:08:02 then just
0:08:03 i'm just curious about that no this is
0:08:05 not just curious
0:08:06 so if for instance you're saying you're
0:08:08 open to
0:08:10 a non-materialistic explanation how
0:08:12 would you sort of
0:08:13 be able to substantiate that
0:08:17 what what evidence would that be in
0:08:19 order to put your idea together
0:08:21 show me that your idea predicts the
0:08:23 phenomenon that we observe and wherever
0:08:26 you're coming from if you can do that
0:08:28 better than other ideas
0:08:30 then your idea is at the top of the
0:08:32 hierarchy
0:08:33 that's the way i view it so i'm not
0:08:35 committed to anything in particular i
0:08:36 don't say that
0:08:37 you know they're there there's an
0:08:40 external world out there it's all
0:08:41 physical
0:08:42 and uh and consciousness emerges from
0:08:44 that
0:08:45 if it turns out there's a better
0:08:46 explanation i'm happy to acknowledge
0:08:49 that i just don't see
0:08:51 explanations of that type generally that
0:08:52 that seemed very good to me
0:08:59 so um yeah with getting to the
0:09:03 actual column now i think
0:09:06 yeah so justin had it pulled up i guess
0:09:08 you guys can like go through the
0:09:09 premises and tell us whether you agree
0:09:10 with them
0:09:12 obviously you don't but yeah maybe you
0:09:14 could just give us your overview
0:09:16 take on it steven you can go first
0:09:20 okay so should we start with number one
0:09:23 yep yeah
0:09:24 whatever begins has a cause of its
0:09:26 beginning
0:09:30 or whatever begins to exist as a cause
0:09:31 of its beginning
0:09:35 okay can you see the screen yeah no i
0:09:37 see i'm i'm thinking this is
0:09:38 a different version okay um whatever
0:09:41 begins to exist
0:09:43 okay uh this is about cause and effect
0:09:45 and i would say
0:09:47 that cause and effect are not
0:09:50 fundamental
0:09:51 so if you're interested in
0:09:55 things that are that that are the
0:09:57 deepest
0:09:58 understanding of of what's out there
0:10:00 it's not going to be a conversation in
0:10:02 terms of cause and effect
0:10:04 okay so over the last 120 years
0:10:07 from science we've seen evidence
0:10:13 and then we can talk about what we mean
0:10:14 by evidence pointing
0:10:16 towards cause and effect really being
0:10:19 something that's more of a common sense
0:10:21 kind of thing
0:10:21 and we normally say that it's an
0:10:23 emergent kind of property an emergent
0:10:25 kind of relationship
0:10:26 but it's not fundamental and we can go
0:10:28 into those details so that's my problem
0:10:29 with that
0:10:30 there's an assumption there that's
0:10:32 that's not compatible with what we've
0:10:33 learned over the last century or so
0:10:36 i'd ask you to elaborate on that if you
0:10:37 can't david i mean just to
0:10:39 to learn from you um so when you say
0:10:42 it's not fundamental
0:10:43 do you mean that it doesn't exist or
0:10:46 that
0:10:47 there are exceptions to the rules good
0:10:48 question right so so what does that mean
0:10:51 um we can go into sort of the nitty
0:10:54 gritty
0:10:54 um and it depends on
0:10:58 what aspects of physics you look at so
0:11:00 maybe we can start with
0:11:02 the simple um you know in an
0:11:05 introductory physics course
0:11:07 you study projectile motion you
0:11:10 you come up with these these uh
0:11:13 definitions
0:11:14 of acceleration velocity and position
0:11:17 and you and you can
0:11:18 through the math describe the position
0:11:20 of an object
0:11:21 at all times okay so already
0:11:24 within a few weeks of studying physics
0:11:27 you start to notice something very
0:11:28 strange about these
0:11:30 these equations right so the idea is
0:11:31 these equations are are capturing
0:11:33 reality at some level
0:11:35 and reality seems to be um
0:11:39 there seems to be a a clear distinction
0:11:42 between
0:11:43 um the the
0:11:47 the the passage of time from the past to
0:11:50 the future
0:11:52 and so you would expect you might expect
0:11:55 that
0:11:56 in in in the basic laws of physics
0:11:58 starting with the kinematic equations
0:12:00 which emerge from acceleration velocity
0:12:02 and position to to
0:12:04 to get nonsense if you decide that
0:12:06 instead of
0:12:07 having t increase in time on the x-axis
0:12:10 right you have it go the other way
0:12:14 and so when you go the other way what
0:12:16 you can do is build the kinematic
0:12:18 equations again and what you find is
0:12:20 that
0:12:20 you'll get the exact same you've got the
0:12:22 mirror image of what you described
0:12:24 so for example we can be specific you
0:12:26 throw an object up um
0:12:29 it flows down it reaches its maximum
0:12:31 height and it comes back down
0:12:33 you would you might expect that if you
0:12:35 reverse time you get something that
0:12:37 doesn't make sense
0:12:38 instead what you get is the exact same
0:12:39 description
0:12:41 and this uh this is the first kind of
0:12:44 strange thing
0:12:45 suggesting that that that the events in
0:12:47 the world
0:12:49 um are not governed by our intuition
0:12:51 which is that time necessarily has to
0:12:53 flow from the past
0:12:54 to the future and that's the first thing
0:12:56 that i would say but then
0:12:58 yeah but does that i appreciate that but
0:13:00 does that indicate any kind of like
0:13:02 a causality or or no it's just a strange
0:13:06 kind of feature right just a strange
0:13:08 kind of feature as i said
0:13:09 you know what you might expect from from
0:13:11 these laws of nature
0:13:13 to find this feature that we observe
0:13:15 that the future is very different from
0:13:17 the past
0:13:18 right and normally we we can think of
0:13:20 this and i and i
0:13:21 express this in terms of making movies
0:13:23 right if you make a movie of
0:13:25 um you know you you throwing a glass and
0:13:28 the glass falling on the ground and
0:13:29 breaking
0:13:30 there's some there's a clear asymmetry
0:13:32 there if you play the movie backwards it
0:13:34 looks like this is something impossible
0:13:36 and yet when you when you go and look
0:13:39 deeply in physics you realize that
0:13:41 there's nothing impossible
0:13:42 about that and this is this brings in
0:13:44 other aspects of physics
0:13:46 but i'm just saying it's a strange kind
0:13:47 of feature it's not yeah i mean i'll
0:13:49 grant you that it's
0:13:51 strange and i'll grant you that our
0:13:52 intuitions don't always comport to
0:13:54 reality but
0:13:55 as far as the first premise is concerned
0:13:57 about causality
0:13:59 i i think we need to like um we need to
0:14:03 like bring this back to that first
0:14:05 premise and question whether they're
0:14:07 whether what you're saying in indicates
0:14:09 that there's some kind of
0:14:10 a causal uh process going on so if it
0:14:13 doesn't
0:14:14 and causality then i wonder why um
0:14:17 i wonder how that impacts this first
0:14:20 premises i guess
0:14:21 what i've said so far is just there's a
0:14:23 hint when you start to look at physics
0:14:26 that there's something weird about the
0:14:28 way time is treated we have an
0:14:29 expectation
0:14:30 and that's expectation doesn't seem to
0:14:31 be met but it doesn't it doesn't
0:14:33 invalidate cause and effect
0:14:35 okay this doesn't invalidate cause and
0:14:36 effect at all we have to go deeper into
0:14:38 physics and see
0:14:39 to see what happens there can i
0:14:41 interject one thing
0:14:43 the argument is basically is the
0:14:45 creation of the
0:14:46 or the existence of the universe is it
0:14:48 something that was
0:14:49 proactive or reactive did something
0:14:52 intend to create it
0:14:53 or did it just come in right now we're
0:14:56 in premise one
0:14:57 everything that begins to exist has a
0:14:58 cause so i think it would help it would
0:15:00 be helpful or
0:15:01 helpful for the discussion for us to
0:15:03 like to go premise by premise
0:15:05 so i i was just wondering we can just
0:15:08 get your take on this the three of you
0:15:10 whether you agree that everything that
0:15:13 begins to exist has a cause if you don't
0:15:15 whether you propose some other kind of
0:15:17 causal principle that might be more
0:15:19 plausible than this one
0:15:21 or whether you're just gonna be agnostic
0:15:24 about it i mean
0:15:26 i had my perspective this as well sort
0:15:28 of going off of what david said
0:15:29 um i i have two issues with this one is
0:15:32 scientific the other is philosophical
0:15:34 um we don't observe anything coming
0:15:36 coming to exist
0:15:38 coming into existence we see changes in
0:15:40 matter
0:15:41 uh in in time but we don't see anything
0:15:45 come into existence from nothing did
0:15:47 this call begin
0:15:49 at a certain point uh sure but within
0:15:56 the call began at a certain point in
0:15:58 time and i was i'm wondering if that's
0:16:00 sufficient for us to infer that it has a
0:16:03 cause for the beginning
0:16:05 of its you know no no but you i think
0:16:08 you're beside saying
0:16:08 what i'm saying is that uh like i can we
0:16:11 could say
0:16:12 you know i i build a house right
0:16:15 and you can talk about it as i'm the
0:16:17 cause of the house being built
0:16:19 um but none of the things that i used to
0:16:22 build the house
0:16:24 came into existence they were that's
0:16:26 what the premise says the premise
0:16:27 doesn't talk about coming into existence
0:16:29 it talks about beginning
0:16:30 to exist so so
0:16:34 this this this current event of
0:16:37 you know this this this discussion we're
0:16:39 having began to exist
0:16:41 and i would say therefore it has a cause
0:16:44 would you agree with that inference or
0:16:46 am i
0:16:47 oh so you're making this so you're
0:16:48 making a distinction between
0:16:50 uh beginning to exist and coming into
0:16:52 existence you're saying that it's
0:16:54 forever i mean that's what the premise
0:16:55 says i mean everything that begins to
0:16:57 exist has a cause
0:16:59 not everything that comes into existence
0:17:01 has a cause although i i
0:17:03 i would think that yeah
0:17:06 what abdul isn't saying necessarily is
0:17:08 that that beginning to exist means that
0:17:10 the physical material
0:17:12 has to begin to exist from nothing
0:17:17 whether you're talking about forms
0:17:18 whether you're talking about events
0:17:20 whether you're talking about this call
0:17:22 it began to exist now whether it began
0:17:25 to exist because of the prior state
0:17:27 that's fine you know people could argue
0:17:29 that but the fact is that this something
0:17:32 an event began to exist and where that
0:17:34 beginning to the existence
0:17:35 of that thing had a cause for it right
0:17:38 so
0:17:39 so again i i think that that is holding
0:17:42 to a view of catalytic that is actually
0:17:44 problematic um
0:17:46 that and like david was saying sort of
0:17:48 going off of
0:17:50 what he described is that um the
0:17:53 feeling of causality is more of like a
0:17:56 narrative that we tell ourselves
0:17:59 it's not actually uh fundamental to
0:18:02 reality itself it's something that
0:18:05 it's a sort of more of a narrative that
0:18:07 emerges from a certain type of
0:18:09 experience
0:18:10 that when we look closer and deeper into
0:18:12 what is actually going on
0:18:13 we run into problems um it's more like a
0:18:16 common sense approach
0:18:18 that that where our intuitions actually
0:18:21 fall short of what seems to actually be
0:18:23 but i guess
0:18:23 cease to know um sorry i mean i i
0:18:26 i should call you c's to know right
0:18:28 that's that's what you go by right sure
0:18:30 yeah so okay so i guess the issue is i
0:18:32 mean that the reason i was asking david
0:18:34 whether these counter-intuitive uh
0:18:37 things that we observe in the world
0:18:39 whether they indicate some kind of a
0:18:41 causality whether they
0:18:42 negate causality or whether it's just
0:18:44 weird stuff that's happening
0:18:46 if you're saying there's a bunch of
0:18:47 weird stuff happening i don't think that
0:18:49 interacts with the first premise at all
0:18:51 i don't think it negates causality as
0:18:54 david
0:18:55 quite rightly i think from my point of
0:18:57 view said so
0:18:58 if you're saying it's an incoherent
0:19:01 principle of causality to hold to
0:19:03 i think i think i would want you to give
0:19:05 me a reason for that and maybe propose
0:19:07 an alternative
0:19:09 or or or maybe you can make the claim
0:19:11 that we
0:19:12 can't hold to a principle of causality
0:19:14 at all we need to be like
0:19:16 skeptics yeah and the other thing is i
0:19:19 want to know from you and also back to
0:19:21 david because i
0:19:22 the answer wasn't really clear to me do
0:19:25 you think that the first premise is
0:19:27 false or you're just agnostic on it that
0:19:29 you don't think
0:19:30 we can know that it's true based on the
0:19:32 current physics and the current science
0:19:38 you asking me uh yeah i'm asking you
0:19:41 because
0:19:41 you mentioned things in my view what i
0:19:44 was hearing was things that maybe cast
0:19:46 doubt on it
0:19:47 but i wasn't sure whether or not you
0:19:48 thought it was outright false or you're
0:19:50 just saying
0:19:51 there's this weird stuff going on right
0:19:53 now and we don't really know what's
0:19:54 going on
0:19:55 therefore we can't say that it's true
0:19:58 it's false
0:19:58 but the problem with with with one is
0:20:01 that there are two things that are being
0:20:02 mixed so
0:20:02 beginning and cause and effect maybe we
0:20:05 should separate the two things out
0:20:07 okay so i would say separate the two
0:20:09 things out because from the perspective
0:20:10 of physics they can
0:20:11 they're two sort of different things um
0:20:13 so what i was saying is
0:20:15 what i was trying to build a sense of
0:20:18 the last 120 years and the kinds of
0:20:20 things well actually this goes back to
0:20:21 the
0:20:22 this goes back to newton actually so so
0:20:24 uh people already started to notice
0:20:26 these things
0:20:26 over 120 years ago but but there are
0:20:29 strange features
0:20:31 that when you go deeper with with
0:20:33 physical theories like
0:20:34 relativity special relativity in 1905
0:20:37 and general relativity which completely
0:20:40 um is beyond our intuition and quantum
0:20:43 physics
0:20:44 then in a sense you kind of destroy
0:20:47 cause and effect at the fundamental
0:20:48 level
0:20:49 but that doesn't mean that cause and
0:20:50 effect is not a useful kind of thing in
0:20:52 fact most of physics
0:20:53 is about cause and effect but it's an
0:20:55 emergent relationship
0:20:58 but david you spoke about quantum
0:21:01 quantum physics and
0:21:02 obviously you know much more with this
0:21:04 than i do but
0:21:05 uh from the very little i know uh it
0:21:08 doesn't seem like
0:21:09 um but that you know quantum
0:21:11 fluctuations indicate some kind of like
0:21:13 a causal uh event it just indicates some
0:21:16 kind of improbabilistic event
0:21:18 sorry it's a probabilistic uh vague
0:21:22 occurrence that doesn't necessarily
0:21:24 negate causality
0:21:25 and and i think you were kind of making
0:21:27 an implicit reference to a b
0:21:29 theory of time there i don't know if
0:21:32 that's a causal either maybe you're
0:21:34 maybe you want to so if we look at
0:21:35 special relativity so maybe put
0:21:37 quantum mechanics aside for a second we
0:21:38 can get to quantum mechanics and general
0:21:40 relativity together
0:21:42 right and we can see what kinds of
0:21:43 things have emerged the last few years
0:21:46 and they completely scramble cause and
0:21:47 effect and they scramble to the point
0:21:49 where i don't i don't know what physics
0:21:51 is about anymore
0:21:52 and um i'm trying to have conversations
0:21:55 with philosophers because i don't know
0:21:56 what my subject matter is anymore
0:21:57 because the way we think and the way we
0:21:58 construct theories
0:22:00 the way we simplify our theories is all
0:22:02 in terms of cause and effect
0:22:04 so i don't even know how to and i think
0:22:06 this is one of the messages we don't
0:22:07 really understand things at a
0:22:08 fundamental level
0:22:09 we're just naturally prone to to to
0:22:12 simplify things and to
0:22:14 and to break things up into things
0:22:16 happening in space at given moments in
0:22:18 time
0:22:18 and this is basically counter to the to
0:22:21 to the
0:22:21 what you get when you when you look at
0:22:23 general relativity and especially when
0:22:24 you combine it with quantum physics
0:22:28 i really appreciate that but i think
0:22:31 what i'm trying to say is that
0:22:32 um so so when you're doing
0:22:36 quantum physics right and and you
0:22:37 observe these counter-intuitive
0:22:40 occurrences that are more probabilistic
0:22:43 in nature
0:22:43 and kind of like go against everything
0:22:45 you've been like the common sense
0:22:47 understanding of causality it's not like
0:22:49 you
0:22:50 negate causality i think you're still
0:22:52 assuming that there's some
0:22:54 kind of causal explanation for what's
0:22:55 going on you're just really confused in
0:22:57 the sense that
0:22:58 you don't know what is causing it to be
0:23:01 the way it is
0:23:02 a pro probabilistic causality is not a
0:23:04 causality i
0:23:06 and um that's that's the that's that's
0:23:09 as far as i know so yeah sorry
0:23:12 go ahead that's almost i was just gonna
0:23:14 maybe maybe bring in a practical uh
0:23:16 example um if you look at special
0:23:19 relativity just by itself
0:23:21 um right the theory says things like
0:23:25 it's a matter of principle that um
0:23:30 if i walk past you at
0:23:33 you know if i walk past you i'm not
0:23:35 going very quickly
0:23:36 it's an issue of principle that i now
0:23:39 have
0:23:40 in some sense a a view
0:23:43 a way of dividing space and time
0:23:46 differently from the way you define the
0:23:49 divide space and time up just because
0:23:51 i'm moving with respect to you and now
0:23:54 uh what you would consider as a matter
0:23:57 of principle
0:23:58 some distant uh event that's going to
0:24:00 happen in a billion years from now
0:24:01 on some distance in some distant
0:24:04 universe let's say
0:24:05 this is what the theory says from my
0:24:07 perspective
0:24:08 it's happening right now so now you try
0:24:11 to square this idea of cause and effect
0:24:14 with this with this consequence
0:24:17 if you don't mind i think the issue is i
0:24:19 think right now i think you're
0:24:21 what you're saying is more relevant to
0:24:22 to premise uh
0:24:24 two uh right now what you're advocating
0:24:26 for is some kind of a b
0:24:28 theory of time i don't think it's
0:24:29 contra-causal in the sense that if we do
0:24:31 have
0:24:32 some kind of a b theory of time there's
0:24:33 no causality
0:24:35 what you're saying is that we our
0:24:37 understanding of time would just
0:24:39 not be the common sense understanding of
0:24:42 time
0:24:42 and i think there's something else i'm
0:24:44 sure you would definitely know much more
0:24:46 than me about this but
0:24:48 relativity it doesn't necessarily entail
0:24:52 a b theory of time i mean you there are
0:24:55 models of
0:24:56 there are a theoretic models of time
0:24:58 that
0:24:59 take relativity into account so
0:25:02 um so i don't know if i think this is
0:25:05 more related to the second premise
0:25:06 because i don't think
0:25:07 anything you're saying right now and i
0:25:08 don't think you're trying to say that
0:25:10 that causality doesn't exist or that
0:25:14 things that begin to exist don't have a
0:25:16 cause what you're saying is that the
0:25:18 mechanisms
0:25:19 of the way things interact in the world
0:25:22 is kind of spooky and weird i mean we'll
0:25:25 grant you that
0:25:25 no so i don't think i'm saying that yes
0:25:28 i i agree that i'm describing the b
0:25:30 theory of time but i think the b theory
0:25:31 of time if you take it
0:25:32 seriously is saying that
0:25:36 cause and effect are uh
0:25:39 are not fundamental and the reason for
0:25:42 that is that these
0:25:43 all of these events in space and time
0:25:45 have to be there in space and time
0:25:48 in the same way that's the conclusion
0:25:51 that
0:25:51 that comes from the the example that i
0:25:54 was giving
0:25:54 and so it's not that that that right
0:25:57 that that a
0:25:57 that future that that event that's in
0:25:59 the your distant
0:26:00 future that you think can can be caused
0:26:03 by something
0:26:04 or you think of it as something that
0:26:05 results from some cause
0:26:07 is occurring from my perspective right
0:26:10 now
0:26:10 so this is this is very tricky but again
0:26:12 the best analogy that i have for this
0:26:14 is that what what special relativity is
0:26:16 doing and i agree with you some people
0:26:18 say that
0:26:18 special relativity is is is maybe not
0:26:22 uh strictly speaking correct and they're
0:26:25 looking for what's called lorenzen
0:26:26 a violation of lorenz invariants these
0:26:29 theories as far as i understand haven't
0:26:31 there hasn't been very good experimental
0:26:33 evidence for this but if you take the
0:26:34 ideas as they are
0:26:35 what they're saying is that here's
0:26:38 here's an analogy that
0:26:39 that i always use the idea of a book and
0:26:42 all the pages
0:26:43 of all of the events in space and time
0:26:45 are there right different pages
0:26:47 represent different times
0:26:49 but you would never say that page seven
0:26:51 calls the events of page 10
0:26:53 calls the events of page 11. yeah yeah
0:26:55 yeah exists there in the book of the
0:26:57 story right
0:26:59 dave yeah so i was gonna say just see
0:27:01 david i think
0:27:02 what you're basically saying is that
0:27:03 okay you've got a b theory of time b
0:27:05 theory of time says all events past
0:27:07 present and future all exist
0:27:09 it's not that the past causes the
0:27:11 present and the present causes the
0:27:12 future
0:27:14 but the question really is is that when
0:27:17 we talk about causality are we saying
0:27:18 causality is just simply a principle
0:27:21 that we arrive at through empiricism so
0:27:24 are we
0:27:25 observing causality and that's the
0:27:27 conclusion that we come to which is
0:27:29 causality
0:27:30 or are we saying that causality is more
0:27:32 fundamental it's a metaphysical
0:27:34 principle that we assume that events
0:27:36 that operate within the universe
0:27:38 have an explanation as to why they
0:27:40 operate the way they do
0:27:42 yeah so there's two separate things here
0:27:45 so that's why yeah
0:27:46 you could be a b theorist of time you
0:27:48 could believe that
0:27:49 all past present and future events exist
0:27:52 but at the same time you can also
0:27:55 believe
0:27:56 that every event within the universe has
0:27:58 a fundamental explanation it's not
0:28:00 completely random you know so yeah
0:28:03 i'm not saying that that there's no
0:28:05 explanation the explanation is the laws
0:28:07 of physics
0:28:08 well the laws of physics plus initial
0:28:09 conditions so
0:28:11 so for the laws what's the issue sorry
0:28:13 plus the issue of conditions
0:28:14 did you
0:28:20 yeah so so the laws of physics put
0:28:23 things
0:28:24 in a relationship to one another in the
0:28:27 same sense that
0:28:28 you know the numbers you know one two
0:28:30 three four five six are in a
0:28:31 relationship to each other
0:28:32 but you wouldn't say that these numbers
0:28:34 cause each other right
0:28:36 that same idea what i'm saying is that's
0:28:40 that's what emerges um so if you don't
0:28:43 like
0:28:45 the things that you know yeah so numbers
0:28:48 numbers are abstract they're not
0:28:50 concrete entities
0:28:52 i would say that math is a tool to
0:28:54 describe reality i wouldn't say that
0:28:56 it's something
0:28:57 that exists up there in some form it's
0:28:59 just right so then i
0:29:00 i don't see how it would be analogous to
0:29:02 the issue of causation that we're
0:29:04 talking about
0:29:05 now i'm just using an example to give a
0:29:08 sense of how
0:29:08 certain things that are clearly not
0:29:10 called caused by
0:29:12 each other you know the number line
0:29:14 these things are not related by a
0:29:15 cause-and-effect relationship right
0:29:16 they're just there
0:29:18 right they're all just sort of mapped
0:29:20 out you understand that david
0:29:22 i understand that david now what i'm a
0:29:24 little bit confused of
0:29:26 is there's one thing which is to talk
0:29:28 about b theory of time and talking about
0:29:30 events and whether the events themselves
0:29:32 the past are causing the present and the
0:29:34 presence causing the future in terms of
0:29:36 particular events so
0:29:37 that's one thing then there's another
0:29:39 thing which is more fundamental which is
0:29:40 a discussion that
0:29:41 events within the universe do they have
0:29:43 an underlying explanation as to why they
0:29:46 exist in the first place
0:29:47 now if we say yes then in essence we're
0:29:50 affirming
0:29:51 that first premise which is that which
0:29:53 begins to exist as a cause or
0:29:55 at the very least a metaphysical
0:29:56 causation
0:29:58 that events are not just appearing by
0:30:01 magic because i think that's the only
0:30:03 other option would be
0:30:04 is to say well things exist there's no
0:30:07 explanation
0:30:09 meaning in this context no causality
0:30:11 this is what i mean by explanation
0:30:14 then therefore it just appears and the
0:30:17 it appears randomly without
0:30:20 you know uh you know if from
0:30:24 you know literal magic or whatever it is
0:30:27 uh and i'm saying no you can't really
0:30:29 have that and i don't think you can have
0:30:30 that within a scientific paradigm using
0:30:32 science and methodology
0:30:34 because science presupposes this idea
0:30:36 that events within the universe are
0:30:38 comprehensible to the mind
0:30:40 and by comprehensible it means that they
0:30:42 follow patterns
0:30:44 by which we can understand why things
0:30:46 exist
0:30:47 whether that's the beginning of their
0:30:49 form or beginning of their existence
0:30:50 however you want to describe existence
0:30:52 that there is some explanation
0:30:54 for it for it to come about
0:30:58 okay you put a lot of things there i
0:31:00 don't think science
0:31:02 uh predicts that we can understand
0:31:05 things
0:31:06 and the things that we can use our
0:31:08 intuition
0:31:10 yeah i said i i yeah what is what i
0:31:12 meant by this is that
0:31:13 by using science we we're presupposing
0:31:17 that the universe is a comprehensible
0:31:19 place that we live in
0:31:20 something that we can understand i'm not
0:31:23 sure i i see that
0:31:24 we we try to do our best and if a
0:31:26 certain point we end up in a place where
0:31:28 we can't make any pro
0:31:28 any more progress we might say well
0:31:30 we've we've come up to the limit of what
0:31:32 we can understand
0:31:33 yeah but i think that so you wouldn't
0:31:35 even search if you didn't think it was a
0:31:37 possibility
0:31:38 sure sure but that's different than
0:31:40 saying that we're we're supposing that
0:31:42 we will find those answers we tried our
0:31:43 best to
0:31:44 uh but i don't think you're necessarily
0:31:45 pretty opposing anything but david no i
0:31:47 was gonna say that i think there's a
0:31:49 bias here that comes from a strong
0:31:51 intuitive sense
0:31:53 and what science predicts actually is
0:31:55 that we should find as we look deeper
0:31:57 that our intuitions are wrong
0:31:59 and so it's not that explanation it's
0:32:01 not that if cause and effect are not
0:32:02 fundamental it's not that explanations
0:32:04 don't exist
0:32:05 explanations exist and the explanations
0:32:07 are the laws of physics they're they're
0:32:08 telling us about patterns
0:32:10 or things but you wanna you wanna
0:32:11 elevate cause and effect
0:32:14 right to to to a place where i don't
0:32:16 think it it belongs
0:32:17 cause and effect is an emergent kind of
0:32:19 thing and so
0:32:21 um maybe
0:32:24 there's a difference there's no yeah can
0:32:26 i have one thing
0:32:27 i think you're conflating cause and
0:32:29 effect with explanation
0:32:31 something could be an explanation
0:32:34 something could be an explanation
0:32:36 with how it functioning as a cause in
0:32:38 the context in which the kalam argument
0:32:40 is trying to frame
0:32:46 so how how are you differentiating
0:32:48 between explanation and course
0:32:51 i'm just because i i i i don't
0:32:55 necessarily
0:32:56 hold on to the idea of him everything
0:32:57 has to have a materialistic causation
0:33:00 uh because obviously i'm a theist yeah
0:33:02 but what i
0:33:03 and that's why i ask the question about
0:33:04 whether you're materialists at the
0:33:05 beginning
0:33:06 but what i do believe is that everything
0:33:08 has an explanation yeah there is an
0:33:10 explanation
0:33:11 because if there isn't an explanation
0:33:13 then it's just literal magic
0:33:15 so so the absence of cause and effect
0:33:17 doesn't
0:33:18 preclude explanation okay so how are you
0:33:21 differentiating between the two if
0:33:23 you've got any examples that you can
0:33:25 explain
0:33:25 to differentiate them um
0:33:29 so you don't like my statement that
0:33:31 cause and effect is emergent
0:33:34 it's some kind of average kind of thing
0:33:37 so
0:33:37 when i was going back to looking at the
0:33:39 laws of physics they don't know the
0:33:41 difference between the past and the
0:33:43 future
0:33:44 and then you look at relativity and then
0:33:45 when you combine relative quantum
0:33:46 mechanics
0:33:47 you basically start to scramble
0:33:50 cause and effect and you now have a
0:33:53 world where
0:33:54 calls where where a causes b and
0:33:57 b causes a at the same time
0:34:00 right this is what we're coming to when
0:34:02 we combine
0:34:03 relativity or the part of relativity
0:34:05 that's that's called
0:34:06 the general part with quantum physics
0:34:09 and that's david if
0:34:10 yeah i was going to say if we rephrase
0:34:13 the first premise to say that
0:34:15 whatever begins to exist as an
0:34:17 explanation would that be problematic in
0:34:19 your view i would say that that that
0:34:21 mo anything that's out there
0:34:24 likely has an explanation i'm fine with
0:34:26 that okay
0:34:27 see so no do you think that would be a
0:34:29 presupposition just i'm just wondering
0:34:31 sorry sorry do you think what david just
0:34:33 said would would count as a
0:34:35 presupposition that
0:34:36 everything out there has an explanation
0:34:38 it might not be no yeah
0:34:40 uh well i wouldn't be able to make sense
0:34:44 of
0:34:44 what the opposite of that could be so i
0:34:47 would
0:34:48 i would if it is a preposition it's when
0:34:50 i share that i think everything that
0:34:52 exists
0:34:53 um would have an explanation but that is
0:34:55 separate
0:34:56 to whether or not we could actually find
0:34:58 that explanation yeah i agree but would
0:35:00 you agree that the belief that
0:35:02 everything out there has an explanation
0:35:04 has to count as some kind of a
0:35:05 presupposition because you're not going
0:35:06 to go out there and get evidence for
0:35:07 that
0:35:09 um perhaps i'm not i'm not
0:35:13 i mean i'm not sure why why do you have
0:35:14 to be it can't you just go and look and
0:35:16 say we'll see
0:35:17 let's see what we get and we might end
0:35:18 up you know it may not be commissioned
0:35:20 sure
0:35:21 i mean you know i mean the idea the idea
0:35:24 here is that
0:35:25 where we do have presuppositions in my
0:35:27 view
0:35:28 and uh i i don't want to go off on on on
0:35:31 that tangent
0:35:32 but i'm not convinced i'm not convinced
0:35:34 okay fine fine we can discuss that maybe
0:35:37 later but then i think what david just
0:35:39 said there does come as a presupposition
0:35:41 that he thinks he at least you believe
0:35:43 personally that everything
0:35:44 out there has an explanation i think i
0:35:46 wouldn't say i wouldn't make it i agree
0:35:47 with you that it's a presupposition
0:35:49 that's my intuition and as i always say
0:35:51 nobody should care about what my
0:35:52 intuitions are
0:35:54 sure sure but but can can i just because
0:35:56 i want to just
0:35:57 bring us back to premise one i think
0:35:59 what's happening here is
0:36:00 is is this is that uh david is proposing
0:36:03 some kind of
0:36:05 like a a a b theory understanding of
0:36:07 time
0:36:08 and and i'll grant you that like most i
0:36:11 think i think
0:36:12 most defenses of the cosmological
0:36:14 argument out there i mean william lane
0:36:15 craig being the main guy
0:36:17 in this field he doesn't defend the
0:36:19 column cosmological argument on a b
0:36:21 theory of time he actually
0:36:23 defends an a theory of time in his
0:36:25 defense of the
0:36:26 cosmological argument so uh and he
0:36:29 doesn't say that
0:36:30 on the b theory of time we can it's not
0:36:32 like we don't have arguments for the
0:36:33 existence of god i think
0:36:35 explanatory arguments that rely on
0:36:37 principles of sufficient reason like in
0:36:39 the contingency
0:36:40 argument doesn't really rely on uh
0:36:43 on an a or b theory of time and i think
0:36:45 that's what sharif was getting to
0:36:47 when he said that if things do have
0:36:49 explanations then we can
0:36:51 inst instead if you don't like the
0:36:52 language of causality we can employ a
0:36:54 language of
0:36:55 like a principle of sufficient reason
0:36:56 and what you just said kind of confirms
0:36:58 that that everything out there does have
0:37:00 an explanation
0:37:01 and we can see later down the line what
0:37:03 that actually would entail
0:37:05 but i think that the idea here is that
0:37:09 on an a theory of time on a common sense
0:37:12 understanding
0:37:12 of time just not to get too deep into
0:37:15 the science
0:37:16 uh if we can agree that there's some
0:37:18 aspect of permissiveness here between a
0:37:20 and b theory and and and i'm sure
0:37:22 there's not some kind of a scientific
0:37:24 consensus
0:37:25 on on on on this we're nowhere near that
0:37:28 so if there's some kind of
0:37:29 permissiveness here and
0:37:30 if if let's say if we assume an a theory
0:37:32 of time
0:37:34 um would you agree in that case that
0:37:37 everything that begins to exist has a
0:37:38 cause because sorry one last thing
0:37:40 because even on a b
0:37:40 theory of time i don't know if you would
0:37:42 agree the fact that there are different
0:37:44 frames of time that exist
0:37:45 simultaneously um i mean i think the
0:37:48 language used is before then
0:37:50 simultaneously with
0:37:52 after then instead of using it intense
0:37:54 language
0:37:55 that's how they put it so everything
0:37:57 actually does exist i think that doesn't
0:37:59 mean that
0:38:00 there isn't some kind of causal order
0:38:02 the fact that we're sitting here and
0:38:04 having a conversation actually has not
0:38:07 i'm not saying an explanatory aspect has
0:38:09 a real causal aspect to it would would
0:38:12 you agree with that okay so very
0:38:13 very good point so but you gave me a lot
0:38:15 there and um
0:38:16 sorry i thought no that's fine it's just
0:38:18 uh there are a whole bunch of things
0:38:20 there
0:38:21 so um
0:38:25 um uh i think i think
0:38:28 that the b theory of time is not is
0:38:31 is not is subscribed to by
0:38:34 is overwhelmingly subscribed to in
0:38:37 physics i don't see how to reconcile
0:38:38 that with
0:38:40 i don't see how to reconcile the atheist
0:38:41 time with relativity um
0:38:43 i i think that that that craig actually
0:38:47 uh dropped his adherence to the a theory
0:38:49 of time i think he recognizes that as
0:38:51 you pointed out
0:38:51 you don't the fact that you are
0:38:53 subscribed to a b theory of time doesn't
0:38:54 invalidate the idea of of um uh
0:38:57 beginning
0:38:58 yeah um so but there was a question that
0:39:01 came up at some point there and i i seem
0:39:03 to be failing to get my to get
0:39:04 to get my point across it's most of
0:39:06 physics is about cause and effect
0:39:09 but it's an emergent property it's hard
0:39:12 it's a hard idea to explain
0:39:14 but when when you when you look at at
0:39:16 special relativity for example
0:39:17 you know i throw the ball to you you
0:39:20 catch the ball
0:39:21 we look at this from different
0:39:22 perspectives that cause and effect
0:39:24 relationship
0:39:25 is never violated so
0:39:28 that looks like there's something
0:39:30 fundamental and important about cause
0:39:32 and effect
0:39:33 right but then there are things behind
0:39:35 that that seems to suggest that
0:39:36 all of this is out there in some fixed
0:39:38 way
0:39:40 and and then when you look deeper into
0:39:43 physics what you what you get is that
0:39:44 explanations
0:39:45 in terms of cause and effect are not
0:39:47 getting at anything deep about the world
0:39:49 what what what the explanations are are
0:39:52 just relationships
0:39:54 between things as determined by the laws
0:39:56 of physics you're not violating the laws
0:39:58 of physics
0:39:59 i don't i don't think you need cause and
0:40:00 effect
0:40:02 to to to to ground a notion of god
0:40:05 okay that's one thing i i don't really
0:40:07 understand why people
0:40:09 us think that they need to do that can i
0:40:11 just add the problem with the first
0:40:12 premise is that
0:40:13 it is approaching the question not in
0:40:16 terms of
0:40:16 explanation as sort of suggested earlier
0:40:21 but in terms of cause and effect which
0:40:23 is what we're sort of talking against
0:40:25 right now it's a bad approach
0:40:27 explanations can be causals used to know
0:40:29 i mean explain there's there's
0:40:30 contrastive and non-contrastive
0:40:32 explanations an uncontrasting
0:40:33 explanation is an explanation that is
0:40:34 external to the event
0:40:36 so that's a cause they can be they're
0:40:37 not mutually exclusive no no no i'm not
0:40:39 saying i'm not saying they're not
0:40:40 what i'm saying is in this context uh
0:40:43 we're describing
0:40:44 a situation in which it isn't causal
0:40:48 we're we're causes are not what is being
0:40:51 assumed they are
0:40:52 so david i think david is i think there
0:40:55 might be a bit of an equivocation here i
0:40:56 think david thinks we're
0:40:57 we're we're talking about some kind of
0:40:59 like unnecessary material causation
0:41:01 where we see an event and we assume
0:41:03 a certain theory of time and we say this
0:41:04 happened therefore that happened
0:41:06 now what we're saying is that if there
0:41:08 is an event there is
0:41:10 something that accounts for that event
0:41:12 so something that begins to occur
0:41:15 there is something that made it begin to
0:41:17 occur i don't know i don't know that
0:41:18 anything that david said
0:41:20 is actually negating that he seems to be
0:41:21 agreeing with that from a certain aspect
0:41:23 but what he is saying is that when you
0:41:25 get down to
0:41:26 the the you know the nitty gritty of the
0:41:28 physics when you get down to the quantum
0:41:30 level
0:41:30 and all that you see that things don't
0:41:33 work the way
0:41:34 we expect them to work on the quantum
0:41:36 level i think that's a different thing
0:41:38 from what we're saying we're saying that
0:41:40 things that occur
0:41:42 have explanations for their occurrence
0:41:44 whether that's going to be an internal
0:41:45 or external explanation there is
0:41:47 something that's going to be account for
0:41:48 account there's something that's going
0:41:49 to account for that and i think david
0:41:51 agreed with that when he said that
0:41:52 he he believes that everything does have
0:41:54 an explanation
0:41:55 so there might be a bit of an
0:41:56 equivocation in terms of how we're using
0:41:59 cause and effect
0:41:59 okay i'm perfectly with you when you
0:42:01 talk about explanation everything has an
0:42:03 explanation
0:42:03 any event in space and time
0:42:06 has an explanation and explanations are
0:42:09 the laws of physics
0:42:11 plus the initial conditions fine
0:42:14 we're okay with that so it seems you
0:42:15 agree with premise one
0:42:17 no i don't see why i agree with it it's
0:42:20 i think
0:42:20 i think you have a problem with the word
0:42:21 cause but then so if i tell you that
0:42:23 let's assume for oh
0:42:27 you have to keep in mind you have to
0:42:28 keep in mind that cause
0:42:30 and explanation or reason were used
0:42:33 almost
0:42:33 interchangeably in ancient greece where
0:42:36 this whole idea from
0:42:37 aristotle okay that we've learned right
0:42:40 so that's all
0:42:41 exactly but i'm just i'm just explaining
0:42:44 why there could be
0:42:45 a miscommunication happening oh you're
0:42:48 saying that we need to update the terms
0:42:50 of the arguments behind these things
0:42:52 instead of talking about cause we should
0:42:54 replace that with words like explanation
0:42:56 okay then i'm then i'm fine with that
0:42:57 yes i i'm saying that i think
0:43:00 in its original context com and
0:43:03 if we're taking into account how we use
0:43:05 it in modern terminology
0:43:07 it was something much more akin to
0:43:09 explanation or reason
0:43:10 that's what it meant
0:43:14 okay then then then we're all on the
0:43:15 same page
0:43:17 so everything that begins so yes things
0:43:20 that exist
0:43:21 have explanations yes nice so i think
0:43:25 we can move on to premise two then well
0:43:27 before we move on i do have a uh
0:43:29 i do have a super chat that uh asked uh
0:43:31 if abdul could
0:43:33 explain how the truth seeker label is a
0:43:35 presupposition
0:43:36 of something called truth existing and
0:43:38 it's being searched or
0:43:39 yeah so i think what our room is saying
0:43:41 here is that when we go out there and
0:43:44 do science we're assuming that there is
0:43:46 something intelligible about the world
0:43:48 uh and there are things that you have to
0:43:50 assume in order to do science for
0:43:52 example in order to do it to to
0:43:54 even have any notion of induction you
0:43:56 have to assume
0:43:58 that the future is going to be
0:44:00 predictable as in the future
0:44:02 is going to match your past observations
0:44:04 so that you have
0:44:05 you have specific observations and you
0:44:07 generalize them and you expect the
0:44:09 future
0:44:09 to mask to match your previous
0:44:12 observations i think that is
0:44:13 at a very fundamental level a
0:44:15 philosophical assumption
0:44:16 that you can't go out there and
0:44:18 empirically justify because
0:44:19 apparently i mean for now we don't have
0:44:22 access to the future
0:44:23 so uh i don't think yeah so i think
0:44:26 that's what arun was trying to say that
0:44:28 the intelligibility of the universe is
0:44:30 something that
0:44:31 has to be presupposed and i think this
0:44:33 this can take us back to arguments about
0:44:35 the discussions about the cohito and how
0:44:36 you know the external world exists and
0:44:38 how you know anything
0:44:39 you're experiencing is vertical all that
0:44:41 stuff go ahead cecino sorry
0:44:43 well i i want to give david because he
0:44:46 has to go from
0:44:47 the rest of the disabled parents but i
0:44:48 want to get back to that
0:44:50 issue because i actually disagree with
0:44:51 you that anything is being presupposed
0:44:54 in my in my world view
0:44:55 i think science yes you may be right in
0:44:57 saying that
0:44:58 um you know when we're using induction
0:45:02 our expectation is not one that is
0:45:04 matched with certainty like things could
0:45:06 end up being different than when we
0:45:07 expect it to
0:45:08 but i'm not saying no i'm not talking
0:45:11 about certainty i'm saying you couldn't
0:45:12 even
0:45:12 fallibilistically make the claim that
0:45:15 like like
0:45:16 like you could it's it's not a logical
0:45:18 uh
0:45:19 it's not a logical consequence like john
0:45:21 cerl makes this point when he talks
0:45:23 about the the relation between
0:45:24 rationalists and empiricists and the
0:45:26 debates they've been having
0:45:27 if there's one thing that the
0:45:28 empiricists are going to grant to the
0:45:29 rationalists
0:45:30 it's this one it's the fact that the
0:45:32 predictability
0:45:33 of the the natural order isn't something
0:45:36 that we can learn to experience because
0:45:38 if
0:45:38 if that were the case then you're going
0:45:40 to have to assume that your experience
0:45:41 is going to get repeated tomorrow i mean
0:45:43 that's it's you're going in a circle you
0:45:46 you so you had us
0:45:46 you had a certain actual background i'm
0:45:49 well aware of what the argument is
0:45:51 what i'm saying is that i ultimately so
0:45:54 i agree with the
0:45:55 with the fact that we can't um uh
0:45:58 there's no logical necessity that we can
0:46:01 apply there between one event
0:46:03 and and the other i wouldn't say that
0:46:05 we're presupposing
0:46:07 anything there yeah maybe maybe
0:46:09 presupposing is the wrong word
0:46:11 if if you want to say that it isn't
0:46:12 necessarily knowledge if you want to say
0:46:14 that it's something that's just
0:46:15 ingrained within us that
0:46:17 we just have this intuitive insight
0:46:20 into the world i talk about in terms of
0:46:23 justified uh belief given the tools
0:46:27 available
0:46:28 like i'm not presupposing that tomorrow
0:46:30 the sun is going to arise
0:46:32 i believe it does and i believe it based
0:46:34 on my experience and certain
0:46:36 tools that are applying to reality i'm
0:46:38 not saying you're not justified but
0:46:40 i'm not saying that you can presuppose
0:46:42 something and be justified in
0:46:43 presupposing it
0:46:44 but the priest the idea of
0:46:46 presupposition is that it's but i'm not
0:46:48 something
0:46:49 but i'm not starting with the
0:46:50 presupposition and then going out there
0:46:52 into the world
0:46:54 uh the the the belief is created
0:46:57 secondary to the experience so
0:46:59 let's change the word presupposition
0:47:00 because maybe maybe you're uncomfortable
0:47:02 with it
0:47:02 let's say let's just say it's not
0:47:04 empirically verifiable
0:47:05 sure this one yeah so so you don't learn
0:47:08 it through experience
0:47:09 it's something else i don't know what
0:47:10 that is well actually i'm not even sure
0:47:12 that i
0:47:13 quite agree with that either but if you
0:47:15 learn it through experience then it's
0:47:16 empirical but you just acknowledge that
0:47:18 it is an empirical so it's
0:47:20 so our experience of
0:47:23 um how many cities the uniformity up
0:47:26 until this point
0:47:27 is based on our experience but what's
0:47:29 the repeatability of that uniform so
0:47:31 that's different
0:47:31 so so i agree with you there the
0:47:33 assumption that it's going to continue
0:47:34 to be the case
0:47:35 that is not impairable okay so it's not
0:47:38 empirical but we know it then it's
0:47:39 something else
0:47:40 it's something i wouldn't even say that
0:47:41 we know it i would say that we are
0:47:43 justified in believing it i wouldn't say
0:47:45 that we know it
0:47:45 okay it's not knowledge but it's it's
0:47:47 something that's just difficult
0:47:48 i believe it's a justified belief
0:47:52 yeah okay fine so you can have a
0:47:54 justified belief that isn't based on
0:47:56 experience yeah but
0:47:59 see i'm not if we're talking about the
0:48:03 uh eventual return
0:48:07 to the the event um i'm still saying
0:48:11 that is it doesn't you don't arrive at
0:48:14 that
0:48:15 uh how do i see this
0:48:18 i think of the worst to use
0:48:22 um i don't think you can entirely
0:48:25 divorce our experience from the
0:48:27 totality of the thing um i i agree
0:48:30 you can divorce it in the sense that you
0:48:32 have to be conscious in order to
0:48:34 have any belief in the first place so
0:48:35 fine but the idea
0:48:37 the question here is whether the belief
0:48:40 itself is based on your experience and i
0:48:42 think we've already established that
0:48:43 that couldn't be the case because you
0:48:44 haven't experienced the future
0:48:45 so the assumption that the future is
0:48:48 going to match the past
0:48:50 is something that you believe and by
0:48:52 your admission
0:48:53 justifiably so and without experience
0:48:56 but it may not be justified it may or
0:48:58 may not be
0:48:59 well you're gonna have to make up your
0:49:00 mind no but i think that's the issue i'm
0:49:03 pointing to is the fact that we have
0:49:04 this intuitive it's not justified that
0:49:05 what you're saying is who holds the
0:49:07 belief that the sun is gonna rise
0:49:08 tomorrow is irrational
0:49:10 so so if i have to believe that the sun
0:49:12 is gonna rise tomorrow i'm not justified
0:49:13 i'm holding that belief
0:49:14 you wanna make that claim i don't know
0:49:16 what i'm saying is that
0:49:18 the reason why we think it's justified
0:49:21 is based on the exp prior experience
0:49:24 now if you want to say it's justified
0:49:26 but it's not justified
0:49:28 not in the sense not not in the
0:49:30 framework that you're putting it in
0:49:32 um if by justified you mean
0:49:35 uh
0:49:38 how would i say this david do you get
0:49:41 what i'm trying to say here
0:49:42 i have reasons that justify the belief
0:49:44 that's what justify so i have
0:49:45 reasons for my belief
0:49:48 it's not irrational you know it's the
0:49:50 laws of nature that we've identified
0:49:52 that give us confidence and certain
0:49:54 things that we can predict certain
0:49:56 things
0:50:01 is the fact that you're saying there's a
0:50:02 law the law presupposes that there's a
0:50:06 fixed
0:50:06 pattern within nature that fixed pattern
0:50:09 within nature is known for an inductive
0:50:12 process
0:50:13 which is trying to extend it into the
0:50:15 future and into things which we don't
0:50:17 experience
0:50:18 now obviously through science we do that
0:50:21 we have to have certain assumptions that
0:50:23 our local events
0:50:25 can be generalized to a certain extent
0:50:27 so long as the variables stay the same
0:50:29 now this is the problem problem is that
0:50:31 cease to know doesn't want to give
0:50:32 any credence to the idea of
0:50:36 any idea that doesn't come directly
0:50:38 through empiricism and
0:50:40 as people involved in science know you
0:50:42 have to have
0:50:43 a number of presuppositions or axioms in
0:50:46 order to
0:50:47 interpret the data and in order to make
0:50:49 certain
0:50:50 predictions and then act according to
0:50:52 those predictions and believe that you
0:50:54 are justified in acting according to
0:50:55 those predictions
0:50:57 theories are produced all the time that
0:51:00 are based on
0:51:01 intuitions and it's not even clear the
0:51:03 extent to which they're justified
0:51:05 in fact we have conversations about why
0:51:06 did you use this principle why did you
0:51:08 transplant this principle
0:51:10 in making this theory what is the
0:51:12 symmetry principle some people would say
0:51:13 you would need this in your theory and
0:51:15 some people say
0:51:15 you need that kind of thing why did you
0:51:17 do that it's certainly not just
0:51:18 empirical
0:51:20 okay i wasn't suggesting that i wasn't
0:51:22 suggesting that it was i think there was
0:51:23 a misunderstanding there
0:51:25 okay okay so maybe for example i'll go
0:51:27 ahead
0:51:28 i was just going to give a very basic
0:51:29 example isn't it it's like uh the covid
0:51:31 vaccine pfizer
0:51:33 yeah so hopefully we're not all
0:51:35 anti-vaxxers here or to run any
0:51:37 anti-factors
0:51:38 but what the the scientists do
0:51:41 is when they didn't undertake tests they
0:51:42 take a sample study of patients
0:51:45 and they'll take different age groups
0:51:47 and based upon
0:51:49 how those different age groups uh
0:51:51 interact so maybe they'll take a sample
0:51:52 size of a thousand from different age
0:51:54 groups
0:51:55 they'll look at the correlation of side
0:51:57 effects through taking it they'll try to
0:51:59 understand the mode of action
0:52:00 and based on that they will generalize
0:52:03 to the population
0:52:04 and therefore they will say we are
0:52:06 justified in saying this is safe
0:52:09 yeah until further evidence comes but at
0:52:11 that moment they are justified in that
0:52:14 so they're generalizing to future
0:52:16 populations yeah and greater populations
0:52:19 than just the narrow sample that they
0:52:22 investigated those are like the
0:52:24 presuppositions that we engage in when
0:52:26 we do science
0:52:30 i mean there's the most fundamental
0:52:31 presupposition that i think
0:52:33 cease to know would agree with me is
0:52:34 also not um something that is
0:52:37 demonstrable empirically which is the
0:52:39 assumption that the external world is
0:52:41 real
0:52:42 that's the most basic one it's the
0:52:44 classical example
0:52:45 really uh i think everybody here would
0:52:48 agree with me that the average person is
0:52:50 justified in believing that the external
0:52:52 world has a real existence
0:52:54 uh but i don't think you'd you'd be able
0:52:56 to demonstrate how
0:52:57 they're justifying holding that belief
0:52:59 in the sentence sense that there's there
0:53:00 isn't a direct difference they can make
0:53:01 from their first person experience
0:53:03 to the objectivity of the external world
0:53:06 or the objective existence of the
0:53:07 external world
0:53:09 so uh and it's not like these these are
0:53:11 just you know
0:53:12 uh uh one-off beliefs that you know okay
0:53:15 well let's
0:53:16 let's just assume these two things and
0:53:18 then we're good with the rest
0:53:20 of our uh our beliefs because we can
0:53:22 verify them through science and through
0:53:24 uh you know experience that's that's
0:53:27 it's actually way
0:53:28 way more serious than that because
0:53:30 everything else you know is based on
0:53:33 these beliefs
0:53:33 so everything else science assumes
0:53:37 the the the ontologic
0:53:41 ontological reality that is out there it
0:53:44 doesn't make
0:53:45 claims about the nature of the ontology
0:53:47 system i understand what your objection
0:53:48 is going to be
0:53:49 it doesn't make claims about what the
0:53:50 ontology is but it assumes that there is
0:53:53 a real ontology there is a true ontology
0:53:57 external to your subjective experience
0:53:59 if that weren't the case
0:54:00 science couldn't operate because science
0:54:02 relies on a third person
0:54:04 observation if there was there can't be
0:54:06 third person observation if there wasn't
0:54:08 an objective experience it would just be
0:54:10 your first person perspective
0:54:12 science would fall apart science relies
0:54:15 on third person
0:54:16 observation i don't know yeah you're not
0:54:18 suggesting though that there's a problem
0:54:20 with the way science works because of
0:54:22 these
0:54:23 no precisely i'm not suggesting that
0:54:25 what i'm saying there would be an
0:54:26 inconsistency
0:54:27 if you uh look at other beliefs that are
0:54:31 not necessarily directly verifiable
0:54:33 through experience like something like
0:54:36 uh you know effect cause precedes effect
0:54:39 for example and you will say that hey
0:54:41 that's not justifiable to our experience
0:54:43 or or or a presupposition for example
0:54:46 something like a principle of sufficient
0:54:48 reason
0:54:49 that every contingent fact has a an
0:54:52 explanation something that i can't go
0:54:54 out there
0:54:55 and empirically demonstrate to you i
0:54:58 think there would be an inconsistency if
0:54:59 you accept
0:55:00 that the basis of everything you know
0:55:04 is really by an empiricist standard it's
0:55:07 not empirically justifiable
0:55:09 but when someone else makes claims that
0:55:11 are based on
0:55:12 other uh seemingly equally intuitive
0:55:15 uh axioms it seems like there's a
0:55:18 problem there i think there's
0:55:20 a bit of an inconsistency if that if if
0:55:22 that's what you're saying
0:55:23 basically david i'll let you respond
0:55:27 then i'll
0:55:27 i'll jump on after because i know you're
0:55:29 gonna go ahead
0:55:31 no so uh well are you are you leaving at
0:55:34 nine
0:55:36 uh a few minutes later i'm okay
0:55:39 okay i'm gonna go to the other arguments
0:55:41 or yeah
0:55:42 let's let's go to the second premise but
0:55:44 abdul i will return to this issue here
0:55:47 because i think there are there are some
0:55:49 issues with what you're saying to some
0:55:50 degree
0:55:51 um so i i'll we can come back to that so
0:55:54 if you guys want to move on to the
0:55:56 to the second premise the universe began
0:55:58 to exist although
0:55:59 i think we yeah this is going to be this
0:56:02 is going to be
0:56:03 this is going to be the main i'll give
0:56:04 you a chance for you to comment first if
0:56:06 you want because yeah david go ahead
0:56:08 with time i don't want to let him have a
0:56:11 second episode
0:56:14 yeah maybe yeah possibly the universe
0:56:17 began to exist
0:56:20 um another way of saying it okay
0:56:23 the universe has an explanation for its
0:56:25 existence
0:56:27 well i certainly agree with that well
0:56:29 okay yeah so david to simplify it for
0:56:31 you
0:56:32 again where i think we're kind of like
0:56:34 from both angles like from a theory or b
0:56:36 theory so the universe began to exist
0:56:38 uh if you don't accept that then the
0:56:41 universe has an explanation
0:56:43 yeah actually yeah it isn't it isn't i
0:56:45 mean i've seen people argue for the
0:56:47 column cosmological argument on a b
0:56:48 theory of time
0:56:49 uh yeah because because yeah because the
0:56:52 fact that there isn't any succession
0:56:54 doesn't mean that it didn't come to be
0:56:55 at a certain point so
0:56:57 there's no yeah there's no problem with
0:56:58 the beefier top um in terms of
0:57:00 what physics says about the uh
0:57:03 a beginning of time um it's it's
0:57:07 it's not it's not well it's not well
0:57:10 understood so
0:57:10 there are models where time does have a
0:57:12 beginning and there are
0:57:14 uh models where time doesn't have a
0:57:17 beginning
0:57:17 there are again if you go back to laws
0:57:19 of physics there's some strange tension
0:57:21 there with
0:57:21 with the idea of beginning and the laws
0:57:23 of physics but it's not it's not a
0:57:25 resolved issue within physics
0:57:28 so would you say that you're agnostic on
0:57:31 the proposition meaning you just don't
0:57:33 know would you say it's
0:57:34 false okay i mean i'm my view i don't
0:57:38 know
0:57:39 sure if you want to say it i think
0:57:40 sharif can say a few things about this
0:57:41 but i just very quickly want to say
0:57:43 that like um i mean from
0:57:46 the point of view of science obviously
0:57:47 i'm not qualified to say anything about
0:57:50 that
0:57:50 i just know that some scientists talk
0:57:52 about big bang cosmology
0:57:54 and stuff i i'm not really qualified to
0:57:56 comment on that
0:57:57 but um
0:58:02 people who talk about you know the big
0:58:05 bang
0:58:06 um they talk about the big bang everyone
0:58:09 agrees about with big bang so
0:58:10 it's it's independent of whether they
0:58:12 think that there's the beginning of time
0:58:14 yeah yeah yeah i mean that's precisely
0:58:16 what i was getting at i was gonna say
0:58:17 that uh
0:58:18 regardless of the mechanisms of that you
0:58:20 know of the big bang and whatever is
0:58:22 going on in the singularity
0:58:23 uh that that we don't understand i think
0:58:26 there's a philosophical concern with
0:58:28 with uh
0:58:29 how we're going to interact with the
0:58:30 science here so
0:58:32 um so so let's look at it this way so a
0:58:36 scientist can
0:58:37 come and tell me like david can come and
0:58:39 tell me that hey look so there's this
0:58:41 point
0:58:41 x at the beginning of universe beyond
0:58:44 which we can observe no cause
0:58:45 so so that's that's we've reached our
0:58:47 maximum observational capacity and we've
0:58:49 concluded that
0:58:51 the universe started here now
0:58:55 i want to ask david if if if if you
0:58:58 would make that kind of like
0:59:00 negative ontological claim that there is
0:59:02 nothing beyond this point because
0:59:04 i think the the the the philosophical or
0:59:06 the
0:59:07 the epistemic concern here is that we
0:59:09 are limited by observation when it comes
0:59:11 to science so
0:59:12 we can assume that there's no observed
0:59:14 cause but
0:59:15 we can't assume that there's no um cause
0:59:18 i'm not talking about god here i'm
0:59:19 talking about material cause
0:59:20 so i guess my concern i'm actually on
0:59:22 your side here i'm guessing what i
0:59:24 what i'm trying to say is that a
0:59:25 scientist can't really come and
0:59:26 definitively tell me
0:59:28 that the universe certainly began
0:59:32 to exist because what they'd be saying
0:59:34 is that
0:59:35 there is nothing beyond this point and i
0:59:37 i think they can
0:59:39 have reason to believe that but i think
0:59:41 the way science
0:59:42 science works based on like
0:59:43 methodological naturalism and
0:59:46 and it would always assume a
0:59:49 material cause it would always assume
0:59:51 something behind
0:59:52 the observation or the phenomenon that
0:59:54 is in question
0:59:55 so i i don't know what you think about
0:59:58 that david but i'm kind of skeptical
1:00:00 about about uh i'm even skeptical about
1:00:02 a theists
1:00:03 having this over reliance on science to
1:00:06 to make the claim that the universe
1:00:07 certainly began to exist
1:00:09 okay so so you talked a lot about uh
1:00:11 observations
1:00:12 and we're very limited in the
1:00:14 observations that we
1:00:15 we can go back to three hundred thousand
1:00:18 uh three hundred thousand years after
1:00:19 the big bang and observe
1:00:20 certain things but we can't go back to
1:00:23 to the beginning
1:00:24 we can infer the properties given given
1:00:26 our theories
1:00:27 and so then we match we see how much you
1:00:29 know other stuff is out there
1:00:30 what's the form of this stuff and we can
1:00:32 infer that we can understand
1:00:34 how that came about given what we see in
1:00:37 the universe today
1:00:38 so we can't go to the big bang and
1:00:40 observe the big bang okay
1:00:42 so so there's a theory this is a place
1:00:43 where theory and observations come
1:00:45 together observations get us to a
1:00:46 certain point
1:00:47 and and then and then we sort of rely on
1:00:49 the theory but the theory
1:00:51 is corroborated by a lot of evidence
1:00:53 that takes us back to
1:00:54 very early on the problem is that the
1:00:56 theory falls apart
1:00:58 okay the theory falls apart it doesn't
1:01:00 take us to this thing called a big bang
1:01:01 so we can't understand this thing
1:01:04 you know you you get a point where the
1:01:05 math doesn't make any sense that's the
1:01:06 problem
1:01:08 so what do you say about a philosophical
1:01:09 approach like combining that with a
1:01:11 philosophical approach and there are
1:01:13 philosophical arguments for like let's
1:01:15 say causal finitism or stuff or
1:01:17 something or the
1:01:19 um the impossibility although i think
1:01:21 impossibility is a strong word
1:01:22 i'd say implausibility of an infinite uh
1:01:26 past or an infinite sequence what do you
1:01:28 think about these kinds of arguments
1:01:29 is that if the universe has a beginning
1:01:31 the laws of physics are just tricking us
1:01:33 it's something strange about these laws
1:01:34 of physics they're
1:01:35 giving us mixed messages you know
1:01:37 they're saying certain things and you
1:01:38 should see certain features
1:01:40 but again that's an expectation of mine
1:01:42 you know
1:01:43 you know i'm a creature but then again
1:01:45 i'm not concerned with the mechanism
1:01:46 like i'm not concerned
1:01:47 again with the mechanism of what's going
1:01:50 on like the mechanisms like even if i
1:01:51 say that the universe
1:01:53 has a cause right even if i conclude
1:01:56 that that causes god
1:01:57 i'm not making any positive claims about
1:01:59 the mechanisms
1:02:00 through which the universe came to be so
1:02:02 i know that's always going to be tricky
1:02:04 and i know that
1:02:05 you know the laws of physics kind of
1:02:06 break down at that point what i'm at
1:02:08 what i'm what i'm
1:02:09 i'm concerned with another aspect of
1:02:10 that with the philosophical aspect or
1:02:12 like
1:02:12 it's concerned with the metaphysics of
1:02:14 causality and causal
1:02:15 finitism and stuff like that and there
1:02:17 are arguments for
1:02:19 the the their arguments against an
1:02:22 infinite series of past events for
1:02:24 example
1:02:25 there are arguments for and against the
1:02:26 continuity uh uh
1:02:28 or uh you know the discreteness or of
1:02:31 time
1:02:32 and stuff like that that like alexander
1:02:34 proves alexander bruce and and
1:02:37 sorry their arguments against the
1:02:38 discreetness or the
1:02:40 or or the continuing their their
1:02:41 arguments for the discreteness of time
1:02:43 sorry
1:02:44 they like the the the the parrot the
1:02:46 benedetti
1:02:47 paradoxes that are proposed even though
1:02:50 um
1:02:51 even though they have their problems but
1:02:53 they do appeal to
1:02:55 some kind of intuition when we're
1:02:57 dealing with
1:02:58 that and they kind of conclude that when
1:03:00 we're dealing with infinite
1:03:02 uh sets or an infinite series an
1:03:05 infinite sequence
1:03:06 of uh of things they kind of
1:03:09 uh give us these paradoxes that would
1:03:12 give us reason to reconsider the
1:03:14 possibility of any
1:03:16 paradoxes that come from the idea of the
1:03:19 continuum and i think ultimately
1:03:21 a lot of people would agree that the
1:03:22 continuum is is an approximation that
1:03:24 that breaks down uh whether it's
1:03:26 discrete kind of thing or not it's
1:03:28 a different thing i don't know but um
1:03:31 there are people who make
1:03:32 models in which the universe has a
1:03:34 beginning and the same people
1:03:37 have part of models where the universe
1:03:39 doesn't have a beginning
1:03:40 so just to point that out yeah but i
1:03:43 mean it's
1:03:44 i mean it's it's regardless of that
1:03:45 there are arguments like for example
1:03:47 about the impossibility of an actual
1:03:49 infinite and
1:03:50 william lane craig goes into this and he
1:03:52 makes a distinction
1:03:53 i think those are resolved i don't think
1:03:55 they're they're they're they're
1:03:57 so i think this is this brings us back
1:03:59 to something cease that we we discuss
1:04:01 xenos paradoxes and things like that
1:04:03 these are
1:04:05 resolved within the continuum
1:04:09 right so finiteness is resolved
1:04:12 there's an infinity associated with
1:04:14 finite
1:04:16 times and finite distances if the world
1:04:19 is continuous in space and time
1:04:21 and calculus resolves those issues i'm
1:04:25 not sure that that yeah but
1:04:26 we're talking about the the infin an
1:04:28 infinite series of
1:04:30 like uh of an infinite series by
1:04:32 succession by successive edition
1:04:34 i'm not necessarily talking about a
1:04:36 potential infinite which is what you'd
1:04:38 be referring to
1:04:40 basically can you have an infinite
1:04:41 series by successive addition
1:04:44 uh where you would start at a certain
1:04:46 point and then
1:04:47 have an actual infinite you know i don't
1:04:49 see any any
1:04:51 ontological issue with past infinity
1:04:55 um and future infinity you certainly
1:04:58 have a problem if you're in space
1:05:01 time you're not going to get to pass
1:05:04 infinity
1:05:05 because that's an impossibility but the
1:05:07 existence of past infinity isn't
1:05:09 an issue can i can i traverse an actual
1:05:11 infinite
1:05:13 can i count
1:05:16 a kind of infinity if if space is
1:05:19 continuous
1:05:20 right that's a potential that's a
1:05:22 potential infinite i think
1:05:23 i think the idea is david do you believe
1:05:26 david do you believe that the universe
1:05:28 space is
1:05:29 a continuum or it's not made of discrete
1:05:31 parts no i don't think
1:05:32 could con that continuity is is is a
1:05:35 feature of the real world i think it's
1:05:36 an approximation of something
1:05:38 okay because obviously generally the
1:05:40 understanding is that
1:05:41 you know planck's length is the minimum
1:05:44 yeah
1:05:44 i think it's a point of confusion people
1:05:46 look at play around with these constants
1:05:47 and they get the small length and they
1:05:48 get a small time
1:05:50 and and then and then people think that
1:05:51 that people have decided that those are
1:05:54 chunks of space and time there's no
1:05:56 evidence of that that's
1:05:57 that's not this doesn't emerge from
1:05:59 anything it's just an argument
1:06:00 there might be something special going
1:06:01 on go ahead
1:06:04 i was going to say but the reason
1:06:05 there's two there's two discussions one
1:06:07 is a scientific discussion in terms of
1:06:09 what the science has come to
1:06:10 in terms of that and we can discuss and
1:06:12 debate that later on
1:06:13 there's also another discussion which is
1:06:15 the philosophical discussion
1:06:16 about the nature of being able to
1:06:19 partition something an infinite amount
1:06:20 of time
1:06:22 yeah so that's now no longer an
1:06:23 empirical discussion so david are you
1:06:25 saying that that discussion
1:06:27 the philosophical discussion that space
1:06:30 can be
1:06:30 divided subdivided in infinite amount of
1:06:33 time
1:06:34 is a real possibility it's
1:06:37 so so you if you make certain if you
1:06:39 allow certain assumptions
1:06:41 in like the existence of an
1:06:43 infinitesimal
1:06:45 then there's no problem you can resolve
1:06:47 it but you have to accept certain
1:06:48 assumptions
1:06:49 now i'm not a i'm not a fan of this
1:06:52 infinitesimal concept because it seems
1:06:54 to be a kind of
1:06:55 uh evanescent kind of quantity so i
1:06:57 don't think i think it's an
1:06:58 approximation
1:07:00 but what i'm saying is that if you do
1:07:02 believe in this in this kind of thing
1:07:03 you assume a certain thing then you can
1:07:05 resolve these these paradoxes that
1:07:07 you're
1:07:07 referring to yeah but it seems like
1:07:09 you're saying if we assume an infinity
1:07:11 then we can
1:07:12 say there is one
1:07:17 well you know you're assuming uh a kind
1:07:20 of
1:07:20 tiny little thing that's smaller than
1:07:22 any other thing that you can actually
1:07:24 write down
1:07:24 so that's the assumption that will get
1:07:27 you
1:07:28 to resolving these paradoxes of infinity
1:07:32 yeah but even that if that's a point by
1:07:34 which it can't be divided any further
1:07:36 then it's still
1:07:37 not going going going as an actual
1:07:40 infinite
1:07:42 yes you can't oops my battery's about
1:07:45 um so david can i start
1:07:48 i think to just to clarify this can i
1:07:50 start counting now
1:07:52 and then reach an actual infinite number
1:07:53 of count of like actually count an
1:07:56 actual infinite number
1:07:59 yeah so you you you're going to let's
1:08:01 say i'm immortal and i can let me just
1:08:02 do that
1:08:07 you you you're worried about the fact
1:08:10 that a finite distance or a finite time
1:08:13 in the continuum can be shown to have an
1:08:15 infinite number of subparts
1:08:18 right now that would be my concern with
1:08:19 a potential infinite with that which i'm
1:08:21 okay with
1:08:22 what i'm asking you is about the
1:08:24 possibility of an actual infinite
1:08:26 can i count an infinite set can i
1:08:29 complete the counting of an infinite set
1:08:32 okay so so the the the the
1:08:36 the kinds of infinities the way you
1:08:37 count infinities
1:08:39 is is beyond my intuition and
1:08:42 i don't have great intuition about
1:08:44 infinity you i'm always surprised by the
1:08:46 weird ways in which
1:08:48 infinity comes into play in physics but
1:08:50 it's essential um
1:08:52 what i what uh what i what i've said
1:08:54 before is that
1:08:56 i don't know that i can take my
1:09:00 problems or my issues
1:09:05 the misconceptions maybe that i have in
1:09:08 dealing with infinity
1:09:09 and and and put them up on a pedestal
1:09:11 and say therefore infinity
1:09:13 because it doesn't make sense to me can
1:09:15 you sure sure yeah yeah sure and that's
1:09:17 i mean you have the right to do that
1:09:19 it's not like uh we
1:09:20 necessarily have to follow suit but then
1:09:22 the idea here is i re
1:09:24 i recently read a paper by alex malpass
1:09:27 he wrote in response to william lynn
1:09:28 craig about actual influence he was
1:09:30 actually trying to argue against
1:09:32 the impossibility of actual infants he's
1:09:33 an atheist and
1:09:35 uh so in an answer to this question that
1:09:37 i just asked about the possibility of me
1:09:39 counting up to an actual infinite
1:09:42 it it's clear that that's not possible
1:09:45 you're not going to be finite
1:09:52 0 to l in dx i get l
1:09:56 and that's an infinite number of little
1:09:58 parts that i'm that i'm adding together
1:10:00 so i am
1:10:00 counting in some sense again you have to
1:10:02 accept the notion of
1:10:03 of an infinitesimal yeah yeah so that
1:10:06 would be a potential infinite so we have
1:10:07 we're okay with potential infinites that
1:10:09 i
1:10:09 i can keep on counting forever and
1:10:12 that's
1:10:12 okay i don't have to get to infinity in
1:10:15 my universe
1:10:17 yeah yeah so the idea is the idea is
1:10:21 an actual infinite can't be traversed
1:10:23 and the way alex malpass deals with this
1:10:25 is that
1:10:26 no sure there won't be a time when i
1:10:29 will have
1:10:30 counted to an infinity but the idea is
1:10:32 how many numbers am i going to count
1:10:34 the answer to that is uh you know
1:10:36 whatever the cardinality of of
1:10:38 uh of an infinity is infinity of natural
1:10:41 numbers
1:10:42 and and the what i think is happening
1:10:45 there is that
1:10:46 sure that's the right answer but it
1:10:48 doesn't really you can't really export
1:10:49 that into your reality because when we
1:10:51 ask the question
1:10:52 will there ever be a point where i
1:10:54 actually
1:10:55 have counted have completed the counting
1:10:57 of infinity yeah i agree with
1:10:58 that this is not impossible you're not
1:11:01 going to get infinity by counting
1:11:03 that's right that okay so if the past is
1:11:05 infinite can i go back in time
1:11:08 and and uh so considering that if the
1:11:11 past was infinite
1:11:12 yeah right so so th this is basically
1:11:16 the idea
1:11:18 uh uh that that some one of the
1:11:21 arguments that we can put forward
1:11:23 against uh like let's say i think uh
1:11:26 sharif would say for the impossibility
1:11:28 of an actual infant i'd make a more
1:11:30 modest claim and say
1:11:31 for the implausibility uh or maybe even
1:11:34 a weaker claim
1:11:35 for the counter-intuitiveness of an
1:11:37 actual infinite fast which i think at
1:11:39 least gives me a reason
1:11:41 gives me reason to believe that the past
1:11:43 is not infinite
1:11:44 yeah that's just sort of a preference
1:11:46 the fact that you can't get there
1:11:47 doesn't
1:11:47 doesn't imply that it doesn't exist guys
1:11:49 i'm going to jump out
1:11:50 this was a lot of fun but i thanks a lot
1:11:54 thank you really appreciate it thanks
1:11:56 thomas you didn't get
1:11:57 much of a chance to intervene no problem
1:12:00 please let thomas
1:12:01 say something all right thomas is ready
1:12:02 to jump in he's okay
1:12:04 he's he's ready to go thanks for coming
1:12:06 on david won't
1:12:08 take care we'll try to do this again so
1:12:09 we can hopefully get through this three
1:12:11 premise argument okay yeah one hour i
1:12:13 don't know
1:12:14 so i just want to say one last thing
1:12:16 about david david's leaving now so
1:12:18 you can leave first david i don't want
1:12:19 to keep you here but uh
1:12:21 i just wanted to comment on the last
1:12:23 thing you said that the fact that i
1:12:24 can't conceive of it for example doesn't
1:12:26 mean that it doesn't exist or
1:12:27 i agree i totally agree and the fact
1:12:29 that uh
1:12:30 i can't conceive of the fact that maybe
1:12:33 uh
1:12:34 you know soloism is true or the external
1:12:35 world doesn't exist doesn't mean
1:12:37 that it isn't a possibility that you
1:12:40 know
1:12:40 my experiences are all on their own i
1:12:43 agree
1:12:44 but again when we talk about jake was
1:12:47 talking to me about this earlier the
1:12:48 principle of credulity right
1:12:50 when something seems to be the case for
1:12:53 me
1:12:53 now i expect you if you're going to come
1:12:55 and tell me hey
1:12:56 you know i know that seems to be the
1:12:58 case but
1:12:59 you know it's not or or you're not
1:13:01 justified in holding to that belief
1:13:04 then i want you to give me a defeater
1:13:06 for my belief
1:13:07 in order for me to you know abandon it
1:13:16 we i think one of the lessons of science
1:13:18 is that we need to
1:13:20 recognize that that it's time to leave
1:13:22 our intuitions at the door
1:13:24 only with that how about our intuition
1:13:26 that the world is real
1:13:30 try to explain what you what you observe
1:13:32 given that assumption
1:13:33 see how far i mean i'd say we're going
1:13:35 to be skeptical we should go away and
1:13:44 just
1:13:48 you