Goff's inverse gambler analogy does not work to save the Fine Tuning Argument given his belief in Panpsychism. He says that the probability that _our_ universe has these peculiar physical constants is independent of the big number of universes in the multiverse, and so fine tuning still has to be accounted for and explained in _our_ case (as opposed to _a_ case). The problem is that this cannot work if we take a deflationary view of Personal Identity (PI). If we think about what it means to say that this is _our_ universe, it's merely the fact that we experience ourselves being in this universe through our consciousness. But if we take a no-self view and don't attach a further PI fact to consciousness, then in whatever universe consciousness exists there will be consciousness to perceive it. It will then suffice that there is _a_ life-permitting-universe in the multiverse for this universe to become _our_ life-permitting-universe. *In short, there is no such thing as "our" universe if you take a no-self view of PI. Whatever universe that has consciousness will be "your" universe since numerical identity does not exist.* I don't know enough of Goff's view on PI, but usually Panpsychism comes with (or entails) a no-self view of PI.

Since the visible universe is mostly hostile to life and only has a miniscule pocket that supports life, it would seem more reasonable to assume that the visible universe is also a miniscule pocket in a larger hostile cosmos than that the miniscule part is the purpose of the universe.

@barry.anderberg

8 ай бұрын

Why is that a reasonable conclusion?

@goldenalt3166

8 ай бұрын

@@barry.anderberg Because of the reasons given. If you came upon a flea living in a house, which is more likely that the flea was the purpose for the house or that there are more things than just a house in existence?

@redx11x

8 ай бұрын

That's a terrible analogy. The human mind can contemplate and reason, it has the ability to think deeply about these questions. The creatures that live on this Earth have a complexity to the nth scale compared to the inanamate objects in universe, the biosphere of this Earth etc etc. This alone is pause to think. To use the analogy of a flea in a house is not comparable.

@user-vq6xc6zj5z

7 ай бұрын

This argument is so often repeated and it shows so lidl understanding of biology that it makes me angry. We know from the biodiversity of islands that distance is important to keep biodiversity high. Even atheists like Steven Hawkins warned of what would happen if the distance to other inhabitat planets would actuably be bridgable by alien life forms. But when it comes to this argument than all atheist suddenly forget that emptiness can have a protective effect too.

@user-vq6xc6zj5z

7 ай бұрын

​@@barry.anderbergBecause atheist think that only a universe that looks and consists in it's entirety of an isomorphic algae slutch qualifies as one "designed to be optimal for life". Because that is what you get if you substitute "diverse environments" for a optinital and hence necessarily unified environment and let evolution run again.

It has yet to be established that the physical constants can be anything but what they are, let alone fluke or fine-tuned variables with supposed random or directed knobs attached to them. Perhaps they are just ramifications of our efforts to map mathematics onto the universe. "How do we explain the precise value of Pi? It can't just be a fluke!" Viewing it from this perspective your "directedness" becomes the direction of human understanding rather than some kind of cosmic direction.

@hissupremecorrectfulnessre9478

8 ай бұрын

Of all the problems I have with the fine tuning argument, that's the biggest one for me. I cannot get past the arbitrariness. Of all the trillions upon trillions of features of the universe, both known and unknown, why pick out life as the intended outcome?

@theintelligentmilkjug944

7 ай бұрын

If it was determined that the constants can't be anything but what they are then that suggests the existence of a determiner that desires a universe like our own. Evidently it would be quite odd if a determiner didn't have a tendency to create a universe capable of life then proceed to be the cause of a habitable universe.

@quantenmoi

7 ай бұрын

@@theintelligentmilkjug944 It doesn't suggest anything of the sort. My point is the constants could be "determined" within the mathematical framework we use to describe the universe. If true, our description doesn't determine the constants. In other words, the universe determines the constants in accordance with our description. So, the "determiner" you want to invent is simply the universe. And your attempt to ascribe creativity and desires to your invention is a further nonsequitur..

@theintelligentmilkjug944

7 ай бұрын

@@quantenmoi Let's say that mathematics can completely describe moral agents (I don't necessarily agree with that I'm just saying for it the sake of the argument.). If you have constants that describe moral agents, and those constants had to be that way then the source of those constants must be similar with the constants itself. Now I'm not into computer programming, I think it would be a good analogy for what we're describing right? It's not by chance that a block moves in a game of Tetris it was designed to be that way, therefore, the designer must have some predisposition for the existence of a moving block. I'm sorry I'm honestly trying to understand what you're saying, but I can't imagine a system that is determined to do a certain thing without being that certain thing in some sense. It sounds a lot like pantheism to me.

@quantenmoi

7 ай бұрын

@@theintelligentmilkjug944 Perhaps we're talking past one another? Because, if I understand you correctly, you seem to be presupposing some conscious intelligent agent (moral or otherwise) that determines the structure of the universe. And I just don't see any reason whatsoever for such a presupposition. The only examples and evidence of conscious intelligent agents we have are complex biological organisms with brains. I'm not saying conscious intelligent agents necessarily need to be biological. But every evidence seems to indicate that they are directly associated with and emergent from complex and highly integrated physical structures. Sure, we don't yet know how consciousness emerges. Nonetheless, this direct connection to complex and highly integrated physical structures is undeniable unless you're simply not interested in scientific evidence. Therefore, anyone who wants to argue for some other form of intelligent agent, be it material, immaterial, panpsychist, pantheist, or whatever, has a very high mountain to climb. At a bare minimum, they need to develop a plausible theory describing with high specificity how such an agent functions and interacts with the world. And, of course, this theory needs to conform to all the other extremely well-developed theories we have that are already backed up by literal mountains of evidence. Personally, I have never seen any real attempt at such a theory other than obtuse philosophical handwaving. And even if you manage such a theory, you're job is still far from done. Now you have to develop theory and evidence showing that this new form of intelligence is foundational to the universe and not simply just another kind of entity within or adjacent to the universe. Modern science has at least a 400-year head start, so good luck.

27:27 There's a relevant difference between the casino analogy and the fine tuning situation because as living organisms we can only observe life permitting universes to begin with at least. If you were in a magical casino that you know none of your priors (like expectations for the number of people in a casino) apply to and you can only enter rooms where people are winning big (maybe you black out while traveling between rooms) then hypotheses where there are unfathomable numbers of people in the casino would be on the table. Also I disagree with Philip that the evidence would not be made more likely by the multiverse hypothesis when considering the total evidence. It would make it more likely that this universe is fine tuned because part of the identity for this universe is that it's fine tuned. It's sort of like how when we respond to Craig's argument that there's no explanation for why someone infinitely counting down ends on one day rather than another we say that what defines the specific day when someone finishes the count is the events happening in it and around it. Similarly the thing that defines the Earth universe is that there is an Earth in it and the specific people that are in it. And if there is a vast vast multiverse it's highly likely that there would be the Earth Universe. Also cool to see that you ran the individuated by contents argument by him! 49:07 What? His response seemed to miss the point of your "why this possible universe rather than those other possible universes" objection entirely. He seemed to construe your objection as being "why this concrete universe rather than some other actually existing concrete universe" 54:02 To me this "probabilistic processes" argument fails because I could still take a consistent view that universes are individuated by their contents as a spacetime-worm, and so the probabilistic contents would just be determining which spacetime-worm-bubble occupies that part of the mega-universe. That is to say it would just be determining which universe occupies that part of the mega-universe. It's probabilistic that our universe got to exist and that it exists here. So what? 55:00 Well to me it's also epistemically essential that our universe has the law structures it has because that's how our universe is defined to me. It's sort of like how it's epistemically essential that a working computer can run programs

If you are going to allow for the epistemic possibility of other universes, then you have to allow the epistemic possibility for different Gods who could want each type of universe. The probability of the God hypothesis is then equal to the naturalistic hypothesis.

I really loved the video and I was really intrigued by Philip's points even though I had a lot to say about them. I look forward to reading his book and knowing better about the cutting edge arguments in favor of the fine tuning argument. It definitely seems like a much more interesting argument with weaker barriers to succeeding than the Kalam arguments or ontological arguments! Thanks to Joe and Philip for having this wonderful discussion and making it available! I look forward to seeing what you'll have next.

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

❤️❤️❤️

I'm glad to see philosophers like Goff exploring new territory. However, going back to the part about whether objective value is needed for the argument to work, I have doubts about the strategy of building objective value into the hypothesis. Suppose we have Goff's hypothesis that ultimate reality is directed towards some set of values which he takes to be objectively valuable. For one, we could construct a new hypothesis which says that ultimate reality is directed towards the same set of values, but doesn't make the claim that this set of values is objectively good. It may suffer in terms of elegance, maybe, but it's more likely to appeal to someone who rejects the existence of objective value on principled grounds. Additionally, we could create a coherent hypothesis in which ultimate reality is directed towards a similar set of values, but with the addition of at least some things we would find disvaluable. Again, perhaps it would be less elegant, but considering the amount of evil in the world, it may gain some level of confirmation. The doubt, then, is whether someone who rejects the existence of objective values or someone who thinks ultimate reality could also be directed at some disvaluable things would have reason to prefer Goff's hypothesis over any of these other hypotheses.

How are we sure that Life can not exist in universes much different from our own? If sentient life forms can exist, they too might wonder about the Fine-Tuning problem and only consider Life as they know it...

29:30 I think the "thisness" makes it confusing. In the casino the evidence is "the first guy we observed" is winning, there usually isn't a selection effect where winners are more likely to be situated near the entrance so thats why the inference doesnt work. But the "thisness" in the universe is a selection effect. If there is a multiverse and we exists to observe, we exist in an observer sustaining universe. Consider this inference. Most planets dont support life so we should be really surprised that we are on a life sustaining planet. Doesnt work right.

@DigitalGnosis

8 ай бұрын

That last sentence is a great example

@kyleblack5136

8 ай бұрын

The Wikipedia article gives the example that it's more like if when someone wins a jackpot you are then taken to the winning table. In that case what matters isn't the chance that a specific table wins when you are looking but instead the chance that there is at least one win among all the attempts (since you'll be "pulled" to that success no matter where it is) which clearly is dependent on the number of attempts so in that case you are justified in taking the unlikeliness of a jackpot as evidence there were multiple attempts. Tbh I think Goff isn't quite understanding how the statistics work here, he's focused on it being life in this specific universe but what we should care about is if there is life in any of the universes since if there is that'll be the universe we would be observing things from.

@eccentriastes6273

7 ай бұрын

I'm surprised this objection wasn't raised in the video. The first person you observe in a casino is randomly selected, but the first universe you observe in a multiverse isn't. A better analogy would be if you walk into a casino where everyone except big winners are invisible (and you are aware that's how it works). If you see someone winning, you can infer there are probably a lot of invisible people around.

@shirube313

7 ай бұрын

It's especially ridiculous how he just says, "We could get into anthropic stuff," doesn't get into anthropic stuff, and then just completely ignores how the anthropic stuff is the substantive part of the objection. And he keeps going on about Bayesian reasoning, Bayesian reasoning - but Bayesian reasoning doesn't care about the proportion of possible universes which would support life, because it's impossible for an actual observer to approach the situation without effectively-certain knowledge that the universe they're observing supports life. The marginal probability given by the model should be 100% minus your odds that you don't exist, and so should the conditional probability for each hypothesis in which it isn't straight-up impossible.

Awesome discussion!

I'd really love a second interview focused only on fine tuning, i find the argument and the objections to it fascinating, and there are so much more to discuss, and i know that since you are very familiar with these objections that were not present in the video yourself, you could have a very fruitful dialog about it with Dr. Philip Goff.

On evolution. There is no need for a prior ideal of good or bad outcomes being associated with pleasure or pain. Random changes in genomics lead to changes in behavior. Changes that cause behaviors that enhance representation in future generations (i.e., survival and reproduction) will tend to persist. Its not about good or bad its about which batches of chemicals (and later cultural tools) are more likely to result in more representation in future generations.

50:19 A great way of putting this individuated by contents argument is that the multiverse hypothesis predicts that our universe would have a fine tuned cosmological constant in the same way that the "multi-stellar-system-hypothesis" predicts why our stellar system has a Earth and has it at a fine tuned distance to the sun. Universes and stellar systems are individuated by contents!

I don’t see how the casino gamblers fallacy is analogous to our universe. Surely the “thisness” in the casino is that you’ve preselected a table close to the entrance, and I agree - that makes the other players in the casino irrelevant - but that’s not the case with our universe. We didn’t pre-select “this universe”. We showed up in it precisely because it was life permitting. A better analogy would be if we were standing outside the casino and whenever a royal flush hits, someone runs out to claim the jackpot. Then we observe someone we didn’t know running out describing the royal flush they won. In this situation, we would be justified in thinking that there are many people in the casino.

4:54 Rather than being a force that pushes things apart dark energy is presently expected to be some force or energy or something that adds curvature to the spacetime manifold in a directional way such that the universe expands over time. That's probably what Philip Goff meant though so this is a light nitpick. I just think we should be careful about how we phrase things in cosmology since I've seen misconceptions like people thinking that the big bang was matter physically traversing from a point in space to fill a pre-existing empty "void-like" space up and I think vague phrasing like this can lead to similar misconceptions.

@user-vs9sd9vj1o

5 ай бұрын

Are you a physicist? 🤔

@whitemakesright2177

3 ай бұрын

Part of the problem is that most philosophers don't understand science, and most scientists don't understand philosophy. So you get these two groups mostly talking past each other, and both come away with erroneous ideas about the other field.

13:33 Another objection is the the huge diversity of intuitions that could be used as the basis of value in the argument. Many negative utilitarian antinatalists would wish that we had gotten one of the oogles of cosmological constants that would have separated all particles before life had a chance to form.

I'm a bit surprised at Dr. Philip Goff's response to the epistemically illuminated region objection, to me his response is secretely admitting that Bayesian arguments are often worthless, which is quite usually the case, because the probability calculations they claim to make are utterly impossible to evaluate.

@whitemakesright2177

3 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly. What is the probability that G (the gravitational constant) is a given value? No one knows! Anyone claiming to know is, at best, wildly speculating. We have only one case, our own universe, and no evidence that G could have been anything else. I'm not saying it couldn't have been anything else, but we simply have no evidence one way or another. Ditto for all the other constants, and for the physical laws themselves.

@joshuapena6757

Күн бұрын

@eberlon I tend to agree, but I think there is still a good response Goff could have made: Imagine a mile-long island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In the middle of the island is a bucket of water. If someone dropped a coin out of a plane at a random spot while crossing the ocean from LA to Tokyo, we would 'not' be surprised if it hit the water, but we 'would' be surprised if it hit the water 'inside the bucket.' There is far more water than land in the Pacific, but the bit of water in the bucket is distinct from the other water in that it is immediately surrounded by land, and it would therefore be surprising if the coin just happened to land in the bucket. Similarly, I think the fine-tuning is indeed surprising, and would be so even if it turned out that life-permitting universes were abundant outside the epistemically illuminated region.

looking forward to this. very ambition task Phillip has set himself here, haha

Very interesting

I didn’t understand why we set the laws of physics (formulas and their constants: law of universal gravitation) as the background and then manipulate one component (the constants ) instead of the other (their respective formulas). What is the symmetry breaker that obliges you to change the numbers instead of the the formulas. It can’t be that in one case we must take into consideration all the possible universes and in the other we do not, since only changing formulas leaves out what would happen if you changed both. Lastly, It might somehow be interesting to consider this: General Relativity “explains” the form (formula) for the law of universal gravitation. Great vid.

Is there an argument in this video for why the stuff we think is valuable is objectively valuable? Or why what happened was necessarily what was meant to happen (as in hoped for)? And finally, (half way through) could we just say that cosmic purpose is just another (more romantic) word for determinism?

Never clicked on a video faster

I may not be understanding the psychophysical harmony problem, but this is my take. Dr. Goff seems to grant that there's an inherent rational association between pain and avoidance behvaior, i.e. that it is necessarily rational to avoid pain. But if the question is just "why do people behave rationally by avoiding pain?" then natural selection is a sufficient explanation. Imagine someone who is starving, they want to eat and alleviate the pain of hunger, and they know how to get food. Clearly the rational thing to do would be to go get the food, but it happens that this person was born with no tendency to behave rationally, so they decide to sit and do nothing until they die without passing on their genes. That's just one example, but I hope it makes clear why I think nature would select for rationally behaving humans.

I think natural selection was dismissed a tad too quickly and without real explanation, when it comes to psychophsyical harmony. I don't understand why natural selection presupposes a causal link between pain and the flight response. Surely, if pain (by which I mean the unwelcome feeling induced by particular damaging stimuli) was merely one of many random reactions induced by a particular stimulus, then we wouldn't say there was a presupposed link. And if natural selection acts on populations, then surely the individuals whose reactions to stimuli happen to impede survival (such as an individual who reacts with joy upon being burned by fire) will become a gradually smaller and smaller percentage of the population, until the entire population has a preference for the avoidance of pain. Am I missing something here? 'Simple' animals and even plants react in a similar way to stimuli we consider pain inducing. There doesn't seem to be a problem between cause and effect there. I'm not sure why it's somehow different when you throw consciousness into the mix. There seems to be some sort of assumption being made here that 'pain' is an abstract object that exists in the same way a theist might claim 'goodness' exists. I'm not sure that's right. It seems like we don't call certain things painful because they possess some property of 'pain', but rather we've simply ascribed a name to things that cause us to react in a certain way, and thanks to natural selection, that reaction has become fixed in the population, with very little variance, and we call it 'pain'.

Fine-tuning: If things had been different then things would be different. Whoop-de-do.

@redx11x

8 ай бұрын

If things has been different you would not be here to contemplate the fine tuning

@Autists-Guide

8 ай бұрын

@@redx11x Indeed. And that would have been a weight off my non-existent mind.

@redx11x

8 ай бұрын

@@Autists-Guide why is your mind non existant?

@CMVMic

8 ай бұрын

@@redx11x Minds are not existents, they are specific set of events.

@CMVMic

8 ай бұрын

lol What he should have done is present a convincing case for why things could have been different

Re: the Casino Analogy. A man stands in front of a casino with bags of money. This is our universe. The odds of this man winning bags of money are so low that a hypothesis of him robbing the casino is more likely. This is fine tunning. However, if the hypothesis that there are many people playing in the Casino is true, then it's not unlikely that a man stands in front a casino with bags of money. This is multiverse naturalism. Now suppose we are the person in front of a casino and we suffer amnesia about how we got the money. Given the fact of us holding the money, and that us robbing the casino is more likely than winning, even if we presume that we are one of many people playing in the casino, it's still the case that it is more likely that we robbed the casino. Is that about right?

Objective value is necessary so no matter what world existed it would’ve still been valuable.

My criticism of philip is that I don’t think that his enterprise does what he claims it does. The purpose of his belief system is to provide answers to questions of consciousness. He does this, but I don’t think those answers are satisfying. This is entirely my personal opinion I think that for an explanation to be satisfying it has to be mechanistic and reductionist. You have to be able to look into the system see it’s smaller parts and then go aha that’s why that happened. Panagentialism is an example of a solution that fails to do this. It may be my simplistic understanding but the gist seems to me to be that matter responds “reasonably” to forces acting on it and that that explains the phenomenal character of the experience. Matter + reason = phenomenal character. But this “reason” is a magic box. Yea you can pull answers out of it and those answers even sound plausible, but 1 what’s your tangible proof that that’s actually how it’s working, 2 how does this purpose work on the inside? I think philosophy should be tasked with helping science do it’s work. I think the days of grand theories are gone. I think that philosophy needs to be satisfied with incremental progress and finding answers based on natural categories rather than creating ones that are not materialistically instantiated. Leave that to therapists and priests.

As an ex-Catholic I’m interested!

26:15 the multiverse actually just kicks problem back, As Stephen Meyer points out The speculative cosmologies (such as inflationary cosmology and string theory) they propose for generating alternative universes invariably invoke mechanisms that themselves require fine-tuning, thus begging the question as to the origin of that prior fine-tuning. Indeed, all the various materialistic explanations for the origin of the fine-tuning - i.e., the explanations that attempt to explain the fine-tuning without invoking intelligent design - invariably invoke prior unexplained fine-tuning.

@quantenmoi

7 ай бұрын

So what's your point? The entire scientific endeavor has been an endless onion of discoveries leading to deeper questions. Do you want to establish an arbitrary cutoff where we stop peeling back the layers and so can insert your intelligent designer? Don't you guys ever tire of your god of the gaps as he fades into ever more nebulous abstractions?

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

7 ай бұрын

@@quantenmoi how is the foundation of everything an arbitrary cut off? I am saying that Goffs limited god is more flawed because he is putting in arbitrary cut offs and it doesn’t make since for him to accept fine tuning then posit a find tuner that is limited

@quantenmoi

7 ай бұрын

@@JohnSmith-bq6nf Positing an intelligent designer as foundational is an arbitrary assertion unless you have something extraordinarily solid to back it up. Where is this intelligent designer? How does it function? How does it interact with the universe? If you want this to be taken seriously in a scientific sense, to actually explain the cause of the fundamental constants, you need to develop a highly specific and testable theory about this supposed designer. Handwaving and philosophizing will not suffice. And, of course, this theory needs to be compatible with all the other extremely well-developed theories we have which are already backed up by literal mountains of evidence. Personally, I have never seen any real attempt at such a theory. You’ve really got your work cut out for you. Even a highly developed system like String Theory is still considered speculative. String Theory is grounded in Quantum Field Theory which is possibly the most successful theory in all science. String Theory can, in principle, merge quantum mechanics and gravity using rock-solid mathematics, being the closest thing to a theory of everything we have. Nonetheless, its predictions are currently untestable. And it’s difficult to imagine how we would ever develop the technology to test them. Therefore, it doesn’t enjoy anything close to wide acceptance in the physics community. That said, String Theory has vastly more going for it than any intelligent design hypothesis. Intelligent design offers no system at all - just a vague assertion that some anthropomorphic intelligence is behind everything. It basically offers nothing of substance whatsoever. After thousands of years of groundless assertions, how about actually doing the science? Come back to us in 400 years and perhaps you’ll have something interesting to show for it.

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

7 ай бұрын

@@quantenmoi inference to the best explanation is not arbitrary, but all your questions have been answered look up Luke Barnes or robin collins. I'm not going to sit here in a youtube comment section and spoon-feed you.

@warptens5652

7 ай бұрын

"invariably invoke mechanisms that themselves require fine-tuning" citation needed this response is telling. Fine tuning is supposed to be rooted in reliable scientific knowledge, look, the cosmological constant has this value and if it changed then here's what the consequences would be, etc. But then you'll just claim, based on absolutely nothing, that the universe-generating process is fine tuned. Which shows that you don't actually care about the cosmological constant. You'd be saying the universe is fine tuned no matter what.

So something's been bugging me for quite some time now on this channel. I want to delve into why people prefer assigning percentages to credences rather than simply using plain old words and rankings to convey their confidence in their belief. I also want to explain why doing so seems way more impractical within philosophical discourse. First, let's talk about nuance. Philosophical discussions are like an intricate web that a spider weaves; full of complexity, context, and depth. Trying to fit all that into numbers can be like trying to fold a fitted sheet. On the flip side, using words and rankings allows us to embrace the rich tapestry of ideas and fosters deeper, more fruitful conversations. Now, beliefs, like underwear, are always changing, well almost always. They evolve over time, and Im not talking Pokemon here, especially when the welcome has been outworn. Pun intended. Expressing these shifts in beliefs using words and rankings helps us grasp why we change our minds and where we're coming from. Numbers have their issues too. You see, everyone's brain is wired differently, so assigning numbers is like evaluating art. Imagine defining a painting as 63% beautiful - sure, it sounds sophisticated but it's just impractical. Now, let's talk open-mindedness. Using words and ordinal rankings (like high, medium and low) makes the belief more flexible. It's like opening the door to different perspectives and having a more inclusive exchange of ideas. When you're stuck with numbers, it's like playing a game of tetris on the hardest level. Makes me wonder what is the highest level.... And the thing about precision? Well sure, numbers seem to provide precision, but in the realm of complex beliefs and the sheer amount of considerations that exist, it's like nailing jelly to a wall. What's even trickier is that these numerical probabilities tend to be deeply personal, like your choice of pizza toppings. It can lead to bias and inconsistency, which is about as much fun as a rainy day at the beach. Lastly, you know what's really tricky? Trying to find a definitive answer in the philosophical jungle that is epistemology, is like trying to tame a lion. Not impossible but not worth the effort. It's more like searching for a unicorn in your neighbor's garden - sometimes, it's just not going to happen unless you're on some powerful hallucinogens. When you throw in Agrippa's Trilemma and the problem of the criterion to the mix, you get a mouthful of doubt. Anyways, that's my two cents. Using words and rankings instead of numbers is like having a cozy chat by the fireplace, instead of tallying seconds spent in a jail cell. Not that I've been to jail or anything lol Point is, it's not a rule, but a reminder that sometimes, simplicity brings the deepest insights into one's philosophical journey. Thanks for stopping by and listening to my TEDx talk!

@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices

8 ай бұрын

What's your opinion on Bayes' theorem?

@CMVMic

8 ай бұрын

@@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices Bayes' Theorem is like having a logical compass to navigate through the fog of uncertainty. It's great for updating one's beliefs when they get new info but it faces its own shortcomings. When we start slapping numbers on beliefs, things get tricky. For starters, we often don't have all the facts nor always account for all considerations, so percentages can be more like educated guesses. It can also give off a false sense of precision. It's like saying your pizza has exactly 63.27% pepperoni - looks fancy but requires rigorous analysis to make sense. Then there's the mind games. Our brains are wired differently, so those percentages might mean something else to you. We're talking about overconfidence and anchoring here, which can skew the numbers. Beliefs aren't set in stone; they're like clay that changes shape over time. Fixed numbers can't always capture that. And, some stuff is just too fuzzy to put a precise number on. So, in practical terms, using words or rankings seems more practical to me. It keeps things clear and avoids the numerical traps. Again, don't get me wrong. Numbers have their place in probability theory when precision is required.

@SpiritualPsychotherapyServices

8 ай бұрын

@@CMVMic, nice! 💯

@goldenalt3166

8 ай бұрын

​@@CMVMicI've never seen anyone use Bayes' theorem without merely fudging the numbers to fit what they want the answer to be. Usually by way of some long prelude about how probability isn't about actual numbers.

Dr. Phillip Goff is such a cool philosopher!

I used to thing the objection of requiring the physical and psychophysical laws was strong. I now think it is weak, or perhaps better as a restriction to the creator of the argument. Here is my analogy as I found the one here convoluted. I had to give it some thought before understanding it. Here is my analogy. Say you are making a chess board and have a big bag of black and white tiles (effetely a 50-50 draw no matter how many draws you draw). If you just placed them down without looking at them (not using your intelligence) it is very unlikely to end up with a usable chess board (around 1 in 2^63 or ~9,223,370,000,000,000,000). My objection is like saying but what if we put in red and blue tiles, then put in half tiles too. It would be unfair to add to the rules of the process in assessing probabilities. These extra premises are restrictions on future claims about the process/intelligence. If say the intelligence could made a checker board, I can call the original uniqueness into question since we restricted the tiles to be black and white. You no longer have the freedom to make checker boards or any other that are not simply black and white regular sized tiles. This is a price for the proponent of a creator that they may accept.

What do you think about transcendental argument? Are you familiar with Jay Dyer?

@barry.anderberg

8 ай бұрын

I'm sure he has a very low opinion of transcendental arguments. And Jay Dyer is a boob.

I am not entirely convinced that if pain made us desire more pain and the behaviors that are good for our body were pain that this experience would be disharmonious. (Even in reality we sometimes like to experience small doses of pain in the forms of spicyness or heat.)

2nd comment here: I am not very convinced by Dr. Goff's response to the Epistemically illuminated region objection. His response seems a bit like a magic joker card he can pull at basically any objection. I don't know, something seems off with it.

It's a shame that you chose not to discuss the normalization argument since it is in my opinion one of the most compelling responses to the FTA.

How can value be present unless a mind is there?

If you observe nothing except one guy in a casino winning over and over, you have no basis for knowing the guy is lucky. You need some way of knowing that we should expect him to often lose.

I feel like that first objection (which is as far as I’ve gotten into this video so far!) kind of parallels an argument from contingency. 🤔 The law structures could’ve been some other way, but they’re this way, which allowed this thing to occur. Weard.

Has Dr. Goff read Kuhn? What he said about paradigm shifts was childish and fantastical. He seemed to believe that solely because he likes the idea of fine tuning, that scientists are wrong not to accept it.

I don't think Goff's response to the "electrons in love" retort is any good. Isn't the basis for any bayesean analysis that we have a prior probability of a hypothesis that, while it might be low (the prior), the evidence when considered supports the hypothesis so well that it overcomes it's intrinsic low(or not) prior? Goff seems to be saying that ... well what is he saying? We're not allowed to consider versions of the fine tuning argument with so low intrinsic priors the evidence doesn't suffice? What WAS his response? I couldn't make sense of it. It sounded like a dismissal to me, on no real basis.

@simonodowd2119

8 ай бұрын

I'm not sure if it was just a poor analogy, but the reference to Newton vs Einstein was strange. Of course we don't consider all possible universes in that scenario, we're asking a question about phenomena *inside of our universe*.

The argument for homogenous eternal inflation does not seem follow, because it ignores the antropic principle, it's not "our" universe be fine tuned by numbering each universe and a priori choosing, the qualification "our" universe is a posteriori, so heterogenous EI predicts that one universe be fine tuned, and this universe will necessarily be "our" universe. His claim that we ought to go with "this" universe vs "our" universe does not seem to work.

10:00 post hoc? Of all the life forms that could exist, they were limited by the laws of physics. If you put it the other way, infinite regression.

"It's so hard to convince people that natural selection presupposes psychophysical harmony" (paraphrasing) Probably because it's false. Firstly, there would not have been the same number of possible psychophysical connections in the early development of life as we have in modern humans. You're restricted by the number of connections you can draw between stimulus>response. For all anyone knows, the earliest lifeform capable of experiencing a sensation may have ONLY been capable of experiencing that one sensation. But let's imagine a world in which an ancient lifeform does have the same number of possible psychophysical connections as a modern human. Even in this world, natural selection still doesn't presuppose psychophysical harmony. It's not a roll of the dice which stimulus>response connection gets passed on. Only the connections most prone to reproduction would be passed on. An organism that imagines the color purple instead of experiencing pain when it gets injured, doesn't pass on its genes. I remain thoroughly unimpressed by this argument.

@goldenalt3166

8 ай бұрын

Not to mention that our perception of psychology of any individual (perhaps even including ourselves) is based on their reactions not their thoughts. Either psychology is irrelevant or it's a model of the physical.

The number of life forbiding universes versus life allowing universes is infinitely high. As you see gravity and the cosmological constant have to be in a cerain fixed relation for complex matter to form. You can increase gravity and the cosmological constant IN THE SAME RELATION and you would get similar result but as soon as you don't do that it's game over for a complex universe. The problem is that in theory each of both values could be infinitly high or low. If you compare this two as two infinite paralel number beams this would give a rule similar too: for life permitting universes you can always connect 1 with 2 or 2 with 4 or 4 with 8 (means the life permitting ratio is hypothetical always double in this example) but for universes that colapse or explode you are allowed to connect almost any number with any number on both infinite number beams (minus the states where they are exactly double of course). For more on why some infinities are (much) bigger than others see Cantor🎉❤ And this is not only a hypothetical example. Since physics measure only relation to each other we would not notice the difference between living in a "2 to 4" or "4 to 8" type universe. So in reality it will not make a difference of you kick all this relational equivalent universes out and say "this is the one possible universe" counted against an infinite number which are not.

50:15 If you take the teleological argument as another iteration of the contingency argument or Aquinas’ De Ente argument, rather than a Bayesian argument, I think this issue is resolved. 1) Certain constants (such as the cosmological constant) permit the existence of life. 2) The reason why the constants permit the existence of life is external to them, i.e., one cannot explain why the cosmological constant is the value it is by reference to itself. 3) There must be an ultimate cause that explains why the constants are the values that they are, whose reason for existence is internal to itself. Otherwise, there would be no reason why the cosmological constant is the value that it is, since it would have been determined to be so by nothing, which is absurd (a violation of the PSR). 4) Therefore, the ultimate reason why certain constants permit the existence of life is self-existent being. I think his strongest and most interesting argument was the one about psychophysical harmony!

Could Dustin Crummett and Philip Goff come on the channel and talk about physophysical harmony?

@muhammedshanushan3931

8 ай бұрын

They did but on other channel

It remains disappointingly not compelling as it fails to truly answer a lot of the strongest objections. Doubts as to the fine tuning of the universe can not be dispelled simply because we don’t have a universe-creating mechanism to observe. You can’t claim fine tuning if you can’t properly show the probability space. Everything else is addressed by the Anthropic principle and argument from divine indifference.

""" Value selection hypothesis: Certain numbers in physics are as they are because they are out conducive to value. """ So, "value", "causes" ("because") and being "conducive" are somehow more primitive than the universe itself on this view. It's kind of weird to call it a minimal hypothesis and at the same time throw out the possibility that those things are part of what can happen in a physics theory. We're perfectly aware of suggested solutions for fine tuning that only use physics, right. So calling this hypothesis minimal is a bit questionable. The hypothesis itself seem to be highly questionable in its own right. Why "value" rather than almost any other correlate to life or complexity or whatever. I don't imagine he has any empirical data to distinguish "value" rather than any other property that would only exist if Lambda takes a value in the range that makes this predictable. Picking value among that set is arbitrary as far as I can tell so far in the conversation. We can imagine Goff had a bag of possible properties that could play a similar role and somehow, so far without motivation he just arbitrarily chose "value". Maybe there is some better reasoning behind this, but it doesn't look great as presented. (forgot to time-stamp. figure it out! ^^)

Probability is a measure of how likely an event is to occur. A situation with a sample size of one means that you only have one observation or one trial of an experiment Or one or more measurements of the sample. In this case, the probability of the event is either 0 or 1, depending on whether the event occurs or not. I don't see how you can say anything is probable or improbable about a sample size of one. In this case the sample size is the universe itself. We take a bunch of measurements and make some calculations and then say with the results are improbable. I don't think Bayesianism helps you here. How can you get the prior probability of A measurement of something in a sample size of one? What am I missing? How does the fine tuning argument make any sense?

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

7 ай бұрын

Depends on what kind of fine-tuning argument you are running. However, this isn't really a defeator.

@jjjccc728

7 ай бұрын

@@JohnSmith-bq6nf I agree it isn't a defeater. I do think talking about probabilities with a sample size of one is irrelevant. So it is incoherent to talk about probabilities of a unique item such as the universe.

Im completely unmoved from my position. But, idk. should i be? I just didn't find a single thing he said convincing. i didnt understand every point be made iether. but im wondering if that's my or his fault. idk! To me the bottom line is, we don't even know if alternative laws of physics are possibilities. let alone picking and choosing which specific aspects of it that we would change to determine what universes are likely or not. And anything regarding pre-universe, fundamental laws type stuff i just dont think human brains, or our mental tools are developed to tackle any of that stuff. I am pretty agnostic on fine tuning but since it posits like, at least some extra entity or force pushing the universe towards life. then it just de-facto seems less likely. but mostly I just dont see a reason to think its true. rather than thinking its false.

@quantenmoi

8 ай бұрын

Agreed. I would just add that even if human brains are equipped to understand the fundamental workings of the universe, we haven't done it yet. So fine-tuning arguments are nothing but vague speculations based on extremely incomplete knowledge. Physicists have no idea yet whether the physical constants can be anything other than what they are. Yet philosophers seem very confident in making all kinds of assertions about such things. Maybe the only thing random or directed about the physical constants is which theory about them any given philosopher will choose as their favorite.

@SuperLemonfish

8 ай бұрын

@@quantenmoi lol yea you summed it up pretty well

Illuminated region objection strengthen the FTA and also prevents it from multiverse objections

The best of things is the middle ground. Maybe because when we find a middle ground between two, we make it closer to oneness (divinity).

Digital gnosis already btfo psychophysical harmony argument on his channel

@pabloandres6179

8 ай бұрын

no he did not and ur clueless to think so

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

8 ай бұрын

@@pabloandres6179 nice counter argument

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

Ай бұрын

@@pabloandres6179 then care to explain how he’s wrong?

Taxation is theft 😅

"God is kind of a FAT hypothesis" I love that 😂

It's a real pity that Goff never wants to go into details on the inverse gambler's fallacy charge. Imho he is just wrong about that, but nobody can ever expose him because he simply stays vague as soon as he gets strong pushback on it

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

If you shared your response to the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge here, that would make me happy🙂

@MindChat

8 ай бұрын

It's a very technical issue that's hard to explore in detail on a podcast, but I go into plenty of detail in the book and other writing, and we got into it a bit more here kzread.info/dash/bejne/pppnytJsd5e1cZs.html Philip

@dominiks5068

8 ай бұрын

@@MajestyofReason Well so I think you already partly gave a decent response: NO theory (neither teleology, nor naturalism, nor theism) predicts that THIS universe is fine-tuned, if we understand "this" as de re and not de dicto. So if the multiverse theory commits the fallacy, then so does Goff's solution! I don't think Philip had any good response to this at all, not even the response he added *after* the interview properly addresses that worry, I feel. Secondly, I think that the selection effect CAN make a difference, pace Goff. In the literature there is the analogy of a case where you are awoken iff somewhere in the casino some table rolls four double six in a row, otherwise you remain asleep forever. Imagine that you are being woken up and you get the evidence "Table 69 rolled four double six in a row". Now of course you DO have evidence for the hypothesis that there are many tables in the casino, even if the evidence is "THIS table rolled double six" and not just "SOME table rolled double six" Now is this scenario analogous to the fine tuning case? Imho it is, as long as we don't presuppose origin essentialism (i.e. we assume that you could exist even if your physical origin were completely different, maybe even in a different universe). So in order to defend the inverse gambler's fallacy Goff would have to argue in favour of Origin Essentialism, which a) is an incredibly controversial metaphysical thesis and b) I've never seen him do before

@vulteiuscatellus4105

7 ай бұрын

@@MindChat ^ a response to you

@vulteiuscatellus4105

7 ай бұрын

@@dominiks5068 ​​⁠Why do you think Goff is using “this” in a de re fashion and not de dicto? Also, I’m not sure your example is analogous because we have evidence in that case that we’re in a casino where we’ve been asleep for a while; we have evidence that some favorable result turning up at some point or other was only a matter of course.

Very confusing. Probabilities cannot be used for reasoning about one-off events. The question what is the likelihood that a meteor could have hit the Earth with enough destructive power to wipe out the dinosaurs is valid question to ask in terms of probabilistic reasoning. The question: what is the probability that the Chicxulub meteor specifically could NOT have hit the Earth is not a valid question in probabilistic reasoning since the identity of the Chicxulub meteor is defined as the observable of being the meteor that hit the Earth. One can imagine counterfactual worlds where Chicxulub meteor did not hit the Earth, but one CANNOT assign a probability to those counterfactual worlds. The nature of the universe is just like the Chicxulub meteor, a one-off event. We can only imagine counterfactual universes, putting probabilities to those counterfactual universes is meaningless.

Fine tuning would tell me this supernatural allegation is not all powerful. At best it is an allegation that can create life only where conditions are as precise As they are here on planet earth An actual all powerful deity Would be able to create life where Conditions are not finally tuned. Fine tuning is just the mud puddle argument. Of course an all powerful deity would be To blink an entire universe into existence Instead of needing six days to do the same thing. Six days seemed awful powerful to the people Who dreamed up this allegation.

Why does analytic philosophy sound so shallow often times? Cosmic purpose "proved"?! Like is it the Goldbach's conjecture to be proved or something.

@MajestyofReason

8 ай бұрын

It’s a thumbnail - it’s supposed to be provocative and get clicks. Philip doesn’t think we can prove - in the sense of decisively demonstrate - cosmic purpose, and neither do I. It’s a question posed to the audience: do you think his arguments are successful? What do they show (or ‘prove’), if anything? Also, I don’t see how using the language of ‘proved’ indicates shallowness!

@zsoltnagy5654

8 ай бұрын

​@@MajestyofReason _"Also, I don’t see how using the language of ‘proved’ indicates shallowness!"_ Really? You don't see how using the language of ‘proved’ indicates shallowness? Well, take for example one of your philosophical idols *Alexander Pruss.* He makes unsubstantiated and unjustified claims upon unsubstantiated and unjustified claims by declaring one of those unsubstantiated and unjustified claims to be a *_"theorem"_* - a statement, which has a rigorous proof substantiating and justifying it to be true - yet never ever clearly stating that rigorous proof, since there is of course no such rigorous proof substantiating and justifying it to be true as it is of course not true but usualy false. That _"theorem"_ or its rigorous proof has simply and falsy been pre assumed to be true and or existing, because that's how current and today's analytic philosophy operates - concluding hypotheticals upon and from hypotheticals rather than making conclusions from plain and simple facts. It's really not that such language of ‘proved’ would indicate shallowness but rather such language of ‘proved' IS shallow without the provision of the required and necessary rigorous proof of it and for it. Isn’t that taught in academic philosophy?!? Isn’t that supposed to be philosophy 101?!? If not, then why not? Just call it exactly that, what it is: a *hypothesis,* a *thesis* or a *conjecture.* A *preassumption* or a *postulation* - an unproven but assumed to be true statement (with some evidence behind it pointing towards that statement to be somewhat true). And do not call it a _”theorem”,_ if there is no proof for it to be true or if you’ve got no solid and bulletproof proof of it. Otherwise that language and usage of those words of _"theorem"_ and _"proved"_ is just shallow and empty in itself without that required rigorous proof.

"The only reason you're interested in the outcome, is because it's the outcome" -> reason for a hypothesis being ad hoc "The numbers that came up in our physics are consistent with great value emerging" -> defense for FT not being ad hoc That seems to be exactly what's going on in the case of the fine-tuning hypothesis(!). The only reason you're interested in the outcome (possibility of 'value'), is because it's the outcome (a universe with human beings in it who cares about 'value'). I don't understands this defense at all. I don't think it works.

If fine tuning were true then there would be no death or decay. Only the ones who survived have fit the environment. Fine-tuning proponents tend to neglect all the life that failed to survive in these conditions.

The fine tuning argument fails because it's too speculative. We have no idea what values of the fundamental constants are even possible, let alone probable. It could be that the values we have are the only possible values. It could be that other values are possible, but highly improbable for some reason. We simply don't know.

I never took fine tuning seriously, but now I do. Also Psychophysical harmony was very interesting; not a long road from there to theism.

@DigitalGnosis

8 ай бұрын

Ffs

7:05 "[...] what I call cosmic purpose." (facepalm). The bad habit of naming a thing with a fancy label with a hand wavy definition..

If this universe was fine tuned for life, it seems an awful waste of space...

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

7 ай бұрын

To show humans the importance of life??

@gabrielteo3636

7 ай бұрын

@@JohnSmith-bq6nf "To show humans the importance of life??" more like how unimportant life is. If life stopped existing on this rock, the universe wouldn't notice at all.

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

Ай бұрын

@@gabrielteo3636so what is your argument here? You aren’t really making a case here. It would be like finding a table of one cup apple juice and other cups empty and saying why didn’t they fill all cups with apple juice? God had reasons.

@gabrielteo3636

Ай бұрын

@@JohnSmith-bq6nf "God had reasons." Any feature of this universe that doesn't seem to comport to an omnibenevolent God, you need extra explanations which are ad hoc additions to the onmibenevolent God hypothesis, which makes the omnibenevolent God hypothesis less and less likely...vanishingly unlikely. Instead, I'll offer a different hypothesis. Quantum fields (QF) is the necessary foundation of reality. QF have a necessary nature to create the universe we observe and there is no further explanation possible. If you ask why, the answer is it necessary and could not be another way, because we are talking about the foundation of reality. QF created this uncaring universe, because QF is not conscious.

@JohnSmith-bq6nf

Ай бұрын

@@gabrielteo3636 I would suggest looking into kenny pearce debate book with Oppy. He goes into what is known as autonomous facts.