 Yes, we've got Ben Watkins versus perspective philosophy. I'm gonna go ahead and just Get this thing rolling perspective philosophy the floor is all yours Hello there. I'm really nice to be back on here. Very nice to see Ben Happy to I think we spoke only on Twitter. So it's nice to actually finally, you know put a put a face to the conversation, you know but yeah, like it's Tonight is obviously theism versus atheism from two hergillians and I'm incredibly unprepared for this I've been writing on something entirely different. So I haven't Formulated an argument. So the way that I think would be best to proceed is outline just how I think about it and From my perspective if and then obviously if Ben has any criticisms or questions, obviously I'm sure you'll hone in on specific metaphysical and epistemological points that he would like to drive home And I'll do my best to review them. Okay So since I'm giving me a permit of I'm Going first. So I would begin really from my perspective with a cosmological argument I would say specifically an argument from sufficient reason. I would take primarily a live nitty in Our live nipsy and esk view in that I think for every fact there must be a sufficient reason So if all contingent objects do not contain do not contain the reason for their own existence So for example, like that's what defines a contingent object. So Why does this table exist? Because someone, you know, cut down a tree, you know Form the wood put it together finished it and then put in the store and I bought it, right? So that causal chain which pre-existed the existence of this object is the explanation is the sufficient reason for the existence of this object and more logically speaking it Identifies that all identities specifically or identifies with all identities. It indicates that all identities Have if they are contingent and not necessary must have an another identity which essentially led to their existence So this establishes a chain of reason which allows for the capacity for an explanation So then I can say, you know, this is what an object is and it can be understood as such And Aristotle was the first to identify this which is why I came up with the the four causes which include An efficient cause and a final cause the beginning the beginning of an instance of a being and the end instance of a being and what we call the being is essentially the unity of the this start of Its identity and the end of its identity and this has been something that's been debated for a long time whether this actually exists or not We'll see if we Get so far but so long as we accept that this identity is real There had to be some sort of cause which led it to come into reality now If this chain is established and that they're all contingent beings must have a reason for their existence then it can either form an infinite regress or it must end in a Perfectly actual being or a perfectly Or a perfectly necessary being and I've never seen terms. This means that they it contains The reason for its own existence So the reason for its own existence can only be understood in relation to itself that it can't actually be explained by something prior to it So, you know, there are beings existence is in relation to someone having done something else or someone having Created it. This would be what we could usually call potential or possibility But in this case, we'll call it contingency. This is something which essentially marks a limitation of a being Something which indicates that there is something causing it external to itself Okay It can either be an infinite regress or something which is necessary which has no Causes external to itself. It is cause or sui absolutely self-cause My point is to basically argue That this chain of reason cannot be an infinite regress that an infinite regress leads to having no causal chain Because the infinite implies that there is actually no first established Rational structure which allows for the contingent being to be explained. We're often to explain it through Essentially a never-ending series of infinite beings which all their existence to another infinite being which all this existence to another infinite being and The the first movement of this chain never occurred There is no first movement As such there is no reason to believe that there will be a last movement all to believe that this causal chain could just simply cease from existing And Therefore there has to be a necessary being there has to be a being which is necessarily absolutely self-caused So that is essentially a very Broken-down view of the libnitsian argument for sufficient reason. It's been given many different names. It originated from the Aristotelian cosmological argument Lot of people use the Kalem cosmological argument It's one in favor of arguably mostly today. I think libnits gave the best one because From a Hegelian standpoint everything and from even from an Aquianian standpoint everything boils down to identity everything boils down to a logical unity not necessarily Just a sort of material Existence or whatever it may be it doesn't have the same metaphysical baggage So I think the libnitsian one's the best so from that point I would move on to a teleological argument so I would basically say that This this unity this this movement or change that we like to perceive and in relation to sufficient reasons Implies a unity between a being's first first cause and its last cause this unity We would call an identity for every identity what we are positing is essentially an essence Something which absolutely explains the beings existence Every being and its movement then must be trying to essentially establish its essence So the existence of a being is the attempt to establish its essence So in other words every first instance of its being is being drawn towards the last instance of its being now That might sound like strange. Why would it be drawn and not necessarily accidentally moving or or whatever? but The point is to establish that the unity of the first and last in terms of the identity of the being and what establishes The meaning of an identity of a being Is essentially the unity the rational principle which unites the first instance of the being and the last instance of the being That would be its essence So a be all beings are understood relative to the essence All beings must aim towards the completion of the essence in order for change to actually be a Receivable and understandable process. So all beings are essentially trying to actualize themselves So in a process of actualization, this is where we would normally argue from potency to actuality You could see it from you know in terms of You know From sufficiency to necessity if you like if you like That which is perfectly actual is perfectly complete So if there is an absolutely necessary being with no causes outside of itself, which I'm hoping that the first argument is establishing that being is absolutely United It is perfectly complete and it's perfectly good And moreover it establishes what is an identity relation That is absolutely one with itself. It is something which unites being an essence Which means that it is possible and necessarily possible that a being can obtain its essence If a being cannot obtain its essence and it is impossible or does not obtain its essence necessarily Then there can be no description of their being existence Which means that you wouldn't actually be able to say there was A unified existence. So existence and its essence must necessarily be united to have established a concrete identity And then this relates to What is very famously understood as the ontological argument the ontological argument is to say that a perfectly That it is better for a perfect a perfect being to exist than to not exist Now the reason I would say that essentially it is better for a perfect being to exist than They're not to exist and therefore must exist actually makes sense is because One I would reject the Kantian view that existence isn't a predicate to some degree But moreover what we're actually talking about is that a being's good in the first instance From as the teleological argument is to establish is its completeness Being which is necessarily complete is perfectly good And so it is perfectly united. So if we had to talk about any form of actual existence We're going to talk about a being which is perfectly one with its essence And you know i'm sure ben you'll know from the domestic point of view That is essentially god a being which is absolutely one with its essence Um, so when we say that a perfect being absolutely must exist because it's better to exist that is true Now I do acknowledge some limitations to this argument. I don't think the Kantian refutation Was a good one. I do think that Aquinas's reputation Is the better uh refutation, which is essentially to say I can't imagine that being um I can't perceive the absolute unity of Existence with itself, um, you know hagel would call this absolute knowing and so that would be at the end of history But as you'll know that is the necessary Goal from which everything is aiming towards for hagel It is the absolute unity of essence of existence with its essence And so change as we are perceiving it from, you know, the cosmological standpoint Well from the teleological standpoint is moving towards this absolute ontological unity. So the The cosmological and the teleological argument essentially establish Are established by the ontological argument So if you were to refute the ontological argument You would essentially refute the cosmological and teleological argument But the point of the ontological argument in many ways is really just to establish that there has to be a unity between being an essence A perfect unity between existence and essence And without that unity essentially truth wouldn't function. It wouldn't actually be able to have a Coherent conception of reality. There would be no end and beginning which would allow for A point of analysis, which we could say things are changing that change can be understood that we can identify Individual specific beings in relation to that causal chain or that Chain of sufficient reasons. And so we wouldn't have the existence of individual facts So with that, yeah, that's why I personally believe I think a lot of people would probably find that a lot of a bit of a mouthful And i'm i'm sorry. I haven't been able to maybe formulate it a bit better, but um You know, i'm happy for for bent presses on any of that and if there's anything I can do to clear things up I'm happy to do it and thank you all for for the rest of my time Well for someone who uh claimed to be unprepared you certainly volleyed up a great intro well done Uh before I before I pass things on to ben. I just want to let everyone here know You're watching modern day debate a neutral platform for topics like religion science politics Our vision our goal here is to create a safe space for people to come Put their arguments to the test against other people And uh so far we have done pretty well with 130 000 subscribers But we don't want to stop there. We want to keep going So if you want to be able to say someday I remember modern day debate when it only had 130 000 subscribers now is the time to hit that subscribe button And uh while you're on your way over to that subscribe button stop by that little thumbs up and click on that also one last quick thing 13 days from now if you think the temperature Is hot in austin now just wait in 13 days modern day debate is going live on stage So you guys can pick up some tickets in the description below And if you are not in the austin area or not planning to move there in the next 13 days You can still support us at an indigo campaign also In the description below Um then with that if you're ready the floor is all yours Uh right do I need to share Yes, you do Can you see it? Nope Nope You got to click on the screen share there Got it. All right um Let me begin by first thanking louis for agreeing to have this discussion with me I've been really looking forward to this to be able to kind of take a deep dive into metaphysics And I also want to thank modern day debate for inviting us on My aim is to defend the following claim I'm going to defend the claim that rather than believing god has created mankind in his own image We should instead believe all gods were created in our image Both louis and myself agree our experiences make the world Uh more intelligible to us, but where we differ is in our explanatory frameworks That is in how we explain why the world is the way it is I take louis to be what's called a perfect being theist or theist for short Where theism is the view there is a supernatural non physical mind over and above the natural causal order God has certain properties to an infinite degree power wisdom and benevolence Creator and designer of the natural world Lord and savior and a being wholly worthy of our reverence and worship if we want to understand Ourselves in our place in the universe. We will need to appeal to god's intentional creative activity In other words, we are in explaining them and god is the explanance By contrast, i'm a metaphysical naturalist or naturalist for short Metaphysical naturalism is the view that the causal order is nothing over and above the natural causal order That is there are no supernatural non physical minds like god demons or any souls Metaphysical naturalism entails there is a natural history of religion where god is explained as a human phenomena If we want to understand the gods, we should understand how they are created in our image rather than as be as Us being created in theirs metaphysical naturalism reverses the order of explanation from that of theism Rather than god as an xx blend in it explain and them We are the explanance Though i will make use of both inductive and deductive inferences, it's important to realize my case is broadly abductive Abductive reasoning appeals to explicitly to explanatory considerations, which is why they are sometimes called inferences to the best explanation It involves selecting the most probable explanation among various competing explanations Because this method is broadly probabilistic It doesn't guarantee certainty like a mathematical demonstration would but it does aim to find the most reasonable view To believe given the available evidence We can visualize abductive reasoning using a helpful schema from the philosophy c s purse um The first stage of the schema is to observe some surprising fact Then to understand how that surprising fact would be a matter of course given some hypothesis And then hence we would have some reason to suspect that hypothesis to be true If the initial probability of the evidence is low And a hypothesis entails it then the probability of that hypothesis given the evidence is greater than the initial probability of the hypothesis if we interpret there is reason to suspect that h is true as The probability that the evidence is true given the hypothesis is greater the initial I'd Initial probability Then we can prove pierce's schema using bayes theorem because i'm making use of both pierce's schema and bayes theorem I need to say something about the prior probability of theism and naturalism That is the probability either view is true given only our background knowledge Prior probability is important in this context because one of my aims will be to show that naturalism is a better explanation than theism Because naturalism has better trade-offs between explanatory power and prior probability compared with theism Prior probability of a hypothesis is determined by scope Simplicity and its consistency with our background knowledge Given that naturalism and theism constitute comprehensive worldviews I'll assume they're explanatory scopes to be roughly equal According to occum's razor all else being equal We ought to prefer simpler hypotheses over more complex ones and simplicity is a function of elegance and parsimony Naturalism proves simpler than theism on both accounts in terms of parsimony Naturalism requires fewer ontological commitments All plausible worldviews share an ontological commitment to a natural causal order making it a fundamental subset of any plausible worldview However, the ontological commitments of theism are over and above any natural causal order Requiring entities like god heaven and souls Furthermore hypotheses can be deemed less elegant if they evade refutation solely by invoking ad hoc assumptions Hence hypotheses are less simple the more unfalsifiable they are Theism often relies on such ad hoc assumptions regarding god psychology such as his goals preferences and beliefs Or theodicies attempting to explain the presence of evil in contrast naturalism does not require Any such assumptions rendering theism less elegant compared to naturalism? So naturalism is simpler than theism The last component of prior probability is consistency with background knowledge consider for instance instance the entirety of mental activity encompassing Known consciousness the fulfillment of tension intentions choices beliefs memories and cognitive processes These activities are intricately intertwined with physical events Manifested as diverse patterns of neural activity within complex structured and body brains that had biologically evolved Conversely proponents of theism posit that god's mind exists over and above Anything with a physical location in spacetime if all mental activity in our experience depends on something physical In the existence of entirely non physical and unembodied minds becomes Improbable relative to that exceptionalist experience of physically embodied minds Given the empirical findings of neuroscience and psychology Which reveals strong correlations between mental activity and physical processes It becomes probable that all mental phenomena depend upon something physical Consequently the claims made by theism are likely to be false for this reason Given naturalism is simpler than theism and naturalism entails that all minds are physically dependent Naturalism becomes more probable than theism How can theism overcome its low prior probability? Theists ideally seek to compensate for this by emphasizing its explanatory power However, that will require us to decide what the empirical content of theism is If god is analogous to a human person then we might be able to independently specify what God would do in some situation given what a human person would do in an analogous situation However, as we will see specifying theism's empirical content in this way will leave it vulnerable to disconfirmation by the problems of evil and hiddenness Alternatively, we might instead claim god is not like an agent in the sense of having beliefs intentions thoughts or desires But then it's not clear how the empirical content of theism is any different from that of naturalism Denying the personal features of god will leave us wondering if the object we are considering could even respond to our religious concerns Like answering prayers performing miracles offering salvation Making promises or even caring about us at all Additionally, it becomes unclear whether god could serve any explanatory role at all Let's first consider theistic personalism and suppose god is more like an agent If there really is any supreme person worthy of the title god Then we already saw its power wisdom and love are infinite by infinite love I mean a quality of character disposed to eliminate suffering so as far as can be properly done However predation starvation and disease integral in the biological Evolution of human and non-human animals involves a great deal of suffering that someone with infinite power and wisdom could properly prevent Therefore, there is no being such as god notice. This is a logical problem either god permits the impermissible What we believe is evil is not really impermissible or god does not exist In the words of frederick micha god's only excuse is that he does not exist Now let us suppose either god's power wisdom or goodness are finite rather than infinite This resolves the previous logical problem at a great theological cost But it does not solve an evidential argument for the people um We can see this with a famous argument from david hugh and this will be An inference to the best explanation He says four hypotheses can be formed concerning the first causes of the universe That they are endowed with perfect goodness that they have perfect malice That they are opposite and have both goodness and malice that they have neither goodness nor malice Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles and the uniformity and steadiness of general laws Seem to oppose the third the fourth therefore seems by far the most probable That is the first causes of the universe are neutral with regard to good and bad There are parallel logical and ever evidential arguments from hiddenness too Some people lose their belief in god through time while others may have never entertained such a belief at all Importantly this absence of belief or lack thereof is neither emotional nor behavioral Opposition opposition towards god and god's perfect loves implies maximal openness to relationship By analogy a perfectly loving parent ensures nothing they do hinders a relationship with their child Turning to nicha again a god who is all loving and all powerful and who does not even make sure his creatures understand his intentions Could that be a god of goodness? If a good and loving god is indeed open to relationship every finite person believes there is a god unless they were Resisting such a belief After all a belief that god exists is a necessary necessary condition for any sort of meaningful relationship Therefore god's love entails that there are no non No non-theists who are not resistant god. However, there are non-resistant non-theists Therefore there is no being such as god Again, one might be tempted to avoid this logical problem by claiming god possesses limited power wisdom or love But this would move would also fail to address the evidential problem of divine hiddenness Non-resistant non-theists are surprising given theism What a matter of course given naturalism. This is the purse scheme So hiddenness in addition to evil presents theism with serious evidential challenges Let's call this the evidential problems call this evidential problem for theism the problem of disconfirmation We might be tempted to sidestep these worries by following classical theists rather than theistic personalists Instead suppose god is less like an agent rather than more But now the empirical content of theism becomes indistinguishable from naturalism We lose any grounds we might have had for claiming theism had any explanatory power that is distinct from naturalism Natural theology is the research project that attempts to justify theism using human reason alone And my final evidential consideration against theism is that natural theology is noticeably absent from contemporary science In fact, science has no need for god in the way it needs electrons or black holes A wildly accepted feature of contemporary historical and natural science Takes the form of an epistemic rule Methodological naturalism Is the view that our most compelling explanatory endeavors should proceed as if metaphysical naturalism were true Because theism is a poor explanation of the practice Naturalism is insufficient If only provisional working ontology for our explanatory Explanatory theorizing when asked by napoleon What place god had in his model for the solar system? Laplace is alleged to have bluntly quick back Genovi-Pabre-Sondecite-Hypothesila Which translates to I had no need for that hypothesis Whether this event is historically accurate or not is not the point What it illustrates is a methodological naturalism that has garnered the support of four centuries of historical and scientific progress Natural theology has not similarly enjoyed Naturalistic hypotheses frequently supplant theistic explanations, but the reverse is never observed Natural entities find their way into our best explanations with little fuss But supernatural entities always seem to elude our experiences of the world When comparing theism and naturalism as two competing research projects since the enlightenment Methodological naturalism has emerged as the preferred explanatory framework while natural theology has been eschewed When we consider the evidence and the patterns of scientific progress The success of methodological naturalism is surprising given theism, but a matter of course given naturalism Again, this is the Perse Schema Let's call this methodological problem for theism the problem of theological skepticism In our examination of the theater explanatory virtues of theism and naturalism we found theism wanted Theism is a low prior probability Little to no explanatory power insofar as God is less like an agent and is disconfirmed by evil and hiddenness Insofar as God is more like an agent Moreover, the contemporary historical natural sciences have made stunning progress within a methodological naturalist framework Whereas natural theology is a failed research project Naturalism on the other hand provides a simple well-supported even if only provisional explanatory framework more consistent more consistent with what we already know in theism When we engage our best explanatory theorizing based on publicly available evidence Theistic hypotheses enjoy no theoretical advantages Over naturalism or so I argue I take these four theoretical virtues to be Uncontroversially theoretically virtuous and they justify a theoretical preference For metaphysical physical naturalism rather than theism to overcome this Lewis needs to distinguish his a alien form of theism from my metaphysical naturalism And they explain either how any of these virtues supports theism over naturalism Or we'll have to provide additional virtues. He believes favors theism over naturalism on the whole And the less until he can do that. I think we have more reason to prefer naturalism to theism And I'll end there All right. Thank you ben well done Anyone here in case you're wondering where james is well, I'll tell you he's on mars Looking under rocks for people's with fingers in their ears to let them know that modern day debate is Going live on stage in texas november 4th and 5th So make sure that uh, you call all your friends in austin and let them know they need to go and check out this event Okay, for those of you who aren't going to be able to make it No worries. You can show your love and support in the indigo campaign in the description below We're about to go into the open discussion section where i'm going to let these gentlemen Freestyle some arguments back and forth But don't be shy. This is not just a two-way street if you have some comments or questions You want to share via super chat now's the time it'll be a first come first serve So if we don't get to your super chat, I'll apologize in advance Also, please try to keep them respectful if you want them read as written Okay, um, I will just Quiet myself now and let you gentlemen Uh, go free have fun Yeah, that was really great ban actually Well, since I did the last one, why don't you kick things off with questions? Uh, that seems that seems to make the most sense If you're okay with that, uh, yeah, absolutely. So Yeah, um, I actually really enjoyed what you what you said. I disagree with it obviously, you know, um, but I can see Dang, I was so close. I know You know, um Obviously, I see why you you see what you're saying, but so just to start from so we'll start I think There's so much that you covered there that it's actually it's actually painfully difficult to work out What is the best part to hone in on what I did notice overall is that there is a discontinuity between What is they with you do you describe yourself as a Hegelian, right? And what I would take as a traditionally Hegelian stance, which is idealism and the naturalistic approach Which you're proposing which seems to put existence prior to essence, right? Um Uh Which is why like, you know, when you talk about, you know, man is not made in the image of God But God has made in the image of man. Uh, that's like a fireback quote, right? Which is the birth of like post-hegelian materialism um but to start from the the sort of Like, you know, maybe from the the points in which you say there's the the the sort of uh refutation of the the power of naturalism the explanatory power of naturalism over um Hegelianism why it's superior as a position? So the final one was that naturalism is part of a successful tradition while theism has failed I mean that's yet to be established and I would say like in terms of the scientific tradition in terms of scientific analysis for example, my position, which I've just outlined is 100 compatible with natural science um and natural scientific explanations of The way in which physical objects work um, so I don't see anything in terms of Naturalism which aids us into in the ways in which we would you know as napoleon says he didn't need it I would you know I would argue in terms of the the principle of sufficient reason that he just hasn't realized that he's been utilizing essentially a deductive principle Which implies the existence of god without having taken note of it So whether naturalism is part of a successful tradition while theism has failed I think that's yet to be established um Naturalism has more explanatory power again I think that has to be established in the way that you'd have to you'd have to say okay Naturalism allows us to explain something that theism does not allow us to explain um But I I don't see that in fact. I see the quite the inverse where the behind the abductive reasoning which you are relying upon for your Bayesian probabilism is essentially a deductive relation between Of identity which hegel points out and which hegel believes to be the foundation of the christian god Which is essentially, you know existence with itself absolute truth. Um, which he takes to be mind um Which I think relates back to the point in which you said that a mind exists only inside of let's say a neurological structure It seems that that that's completely against hegel um, so that's another point which I am a little bit unsure on um But I don't see how but more of a question. I don't see in what way is naturalism offering more explanatory power um Naturalism being more consistent um, I don't think that I think that would that would rely upon I see what your point is to say that essentially is relying upon the inconsistencies that would be implicit from um, a failure to outline or explain Theodicies and like in relation to the problem of evil primarily or divine hiddenness Um, I personally don't think that god is hidden. Uh, I don't think that is there is any actual divine hiddenness per se Um, and the problem of evil I think is a misunderstanding of what actually is good and evil in the first place um, so if if I'm wrong on what good and evil are Or when I god is hidden then you're right on that and vice versa, you know And then obviously naturalism is simpler I think that the the the thing is is that It depends on how you're going to offer an explanation a formal explanation of the unity of existence with itself that isn't essentially what hegel would call a mind and in in relation to Absolute knowing which is retro causative, right? This this is the establishment which begins the Central logical movement of reality which explains causation Uh, which explains identity not in such a way as to be limited to limited to specific Instances, but is to explain the formal relation of um Of identities and sufficient reason itself so I don't really see how a naturalistic explanation is simpler in the sense that it usually ends up positing um explanations which are incredibly contentious whether it's um, you know, like there is an infinite number of universes there is uh Uh, essentially an infinite number of possible ways in which the universe has been actualized and uh They are absolutely being actualized at the same at the same Uh in the same way and uh plethora of other untestable unverified hypotheses, which you know theoretical physics is filled with So, I mean maybe maybe if you could point towards a naturalistic theory which offers A greater explanation a simpler explanation than a theistic one But I can certainly posit naturalistic theories which offer more convoluted and complex ones So that's where I think maybe we'll kick it off awesome, um So, yeah, I think now would be a really good point uh for me to kind of broadly unpack what it is when I say that I'm a hegelian because in one sense I'm kind of saying it tongue-in-cheek because um An analytic philosopher and hagel is just kind of considered the bogeyman devil In analytic circles And I like I really want to push back on that because I actually think that hagel has a lot of valuable insights that the analytic tradition ignores to its detriment um, so there's one there's one sense in which I'm being kind of coy by calling myself A hegelian, but there's another sense in which I'm very quite serious in the fact that I Find themes in hagel that I think are very very illuminating At least they have been to how I think about deep questions and so really kind of the four themes that I find in both hagel's um phenomenology of spirit and his science of logic is First being this idea that thought and meaning depend on a community So this is a willford cellars express this as the myth of the given this idea that we just kind of have this unmediated pure knowledge that doesn't depend in any way on the social conventions or language conventions of our community. I think that's a very deep insight of hagel another theme that I find is that Knowledge of objects as they are in themselves is always mediated by concepts So you mentioned earlier how there is this strain of idealism That's found in hagel that I do sympathize with but it's it's what's called objective idealism And so to use the jargon The idea is that The real is the rational and the rational is the real And so what this means is that the reason that the world is intelligible to us is because we are ourselves products of the world And so if the world has a rational structure We have a rational structure and that rational structure is what allows us To find the world intelligible um, and so this is the Another thing probably the most important theme for the way I think is this idea that thought and beings are abstractions of the same rational hole So the idea that there's just one reality But we have these two ways of conceptualizing it. So again to refer to wilfred cellars He sees he sees the identity of the world Um, being this identity between what he calls the logical space of reasons And the realm of law and so the logical space of reasons is where we characterize things like agency reasons mathematics logic ethics Um, and the realm of law is the causal domain. So it's what's studied by the natural science And where we find all of our experience Um, and then obviously hagel the major major theme that really makes hagel famous I think is the idea that the events of history are the progress of humans towards greater freedom So luis mentioned how there's this idea like history can have an end to it this idea that there's some um Time not to use the hagelian jargon, but I don't know how to not use it He calls it an absolute knowing so it's this idea that there's this final point where Spirit what how you will call spirit becomes aware of itself as a thinking thing that knows things in the world um So with those four things Is really kind of how I approach Big questions like the question of god's existence. So for example Um to use the thought and be in our our abstractions of the same rational whole I think that we have a knowledge of things and we have a knowledge of truths And that in some sense All the things and all the truths that there are in the world are identical to one whole and so to This kind of takes us deeper into hagel and more into neoplatonism The idea of plantanus and the the idea of the one So there he calls the zeroth form matter he calls um the first form the one he calls the second the um divine mind and then the fourth the good and so my hagelian picture just Cuts out the divine mind just says it look no all you need is matter and the one and then the concept of the goodness and the concept of a divine mind is just Unnecessary and so the type of mind that I deny as fundamental at Of the universe is the being that has thoughts and intentions and beliefs and makes choices and acts for reasons So I think that those are all complex um results of physical arrangements of matter like a biologically evolved brain and so I think Taking that picture of a person and putting it at the foundational level at the level of Matter and the one I think that's the mistake. I think that's the theistic mistake. That's where I would want to say no that's putting god as the Explan them and us as the explanance and instead we should reverse this remove the divine mind from the picture entirely God then because the divine mind becomes the explanandum and we are the explanance So that's broadly I know I used a lot of hegelian jargon. I tried not to but I just don't know how to express these ideas without using that those terms No, no, I mean, I think that's I mean, I understand you right but like what about anyone anyway I know the feeling they try to transpose this in the normal human I know there's a lot of people who have not read hegel listening to this going What in the world is he talking about? Specifically, I think as well the hegel that your reference especially with cellars sounds very brandon Oh, very much. So yes, uh, robert brandon wilford cellars c.s. Perce I'm very influential john mcdowell. They've been very influential I'm very much classically hegelian in the sense that i'm right hegelian. So i'm not even i'm left hegelian That's why this. Yeah. Oh, no. I heard fire back. I heard fire back. I you know, it's uh straight away Yeah, 100% In there just for good measure just yeah But I will say like so my there's some issues there though. Um, so this first is in this in this in relation of like when you say that you have sort of This foundation of matter. What do you mean by matter? Uh, and then what do you mean by mind? Because you did reference Objective idealism or like, you know hegel like calls it even he goes further than objective idealism He goes it calls it absolute. I often call it objective idealism. So it's no shade But it's absolute idealism, isn't it? So it's the unity of the subject and the object to the point of like at the absolute Which which is why it is the the point of absolute self-awareness So we're all being drawn to the towards this point of absolute self-awareness now He points out that we are being drawn towards this point of self-awareness because there is this relation of a real essence in existence Rather than a sort of theoretical essence um But when we talk about matter Hegel talks about so when we talk about mind, it's it's like a unity of ideas But we can get on about in a minute when we talk about matter It's it's very specifically for hegel, you know, he references like the objective world as a petrified intelligence He doesn't ever say There is a real concrete matter in fact like because matter is always given in terms of an essence from which it Exhibits, right? So you would say like, you know, if I was to ask you what is like what is matter You'll give me an instance of matter In which you you might say, oh, this is this is wood. This is copper. You might reference an element or you might reference Or you might reference You know another sort of form of matter where and no matter how far you sort of break this down you could break it down into You know atoms you'll reference sort of molecular structures. You might reference um You know, uh, you know subatomic particles and you might reference energy, you know at the very bottom you might reference like, you know energy um Regardless you're gonna have to give essentially what hegel sees as essentially a quality of quantitative distinction um a relationship So you're gonna say that there exists a thing with specific A specific real principality Um on that there is and it concretely exists that that actually exists. There is how many of them. What is it? You know that like Like so what what is it and how many of them exist or whatever? um You could think of this as like an energy in terms of energy you'd be like sort of wavelength in amplitude You know like the quality the the sort of specific conditions of the wave with the mathematical sort of Strength of the like the sort of strength of the wave versus the frequency of the wave um So whatever sort of way you're going to break this down whether it becomes As abstract as energy it always it's always going to break down into this point of of if it actually relating to A form there is never a sort of prime madara's Sort of Aristotle sort of refers to right in hegel Um, it's always a petrified form a stagnant specific essence It's never given a material concrete existence outside of that And that has to be the case for hegel because he sees that the empiricist tradition has absolutely failed and Moreover he's placing essence as essentially the the primary moving cause of A specific being's existence. It's the unity of a being's existence, right? It's the identity So to say that it is let's say copper wood or whatever is to presume It has an essence to presume that it has that unity. So do you think that there is these real essences? um Like you know, or is this like matt has some sort of Abstract thing. Do you know what I mean? uh, yeah, so, um Short answer it's complicated. Um yeah um So for me, I'm going to want to distinguish between Abstract objects and concrete objects, but I'm going to want to say that this Identity is not sharp Because they are that this distinction is not sharp because there is an identity Sort of like how there's an identity between water and h2o um, we can draw a sharp distinction between the two um, you know, water is the stuff that You know boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and falls from the clouds as rain, but we can also say that there's, you know water in the sense of having um, one Um oxygen molecule and two hydrogen molecules that behave in certain ways at certain temperatures and pressures and yada yada yada But at the end of the day they come out to be an identity um So for me this one of the ways in which um, I part from hagel um I I guess gravitate towards martin heidegger um, the idea that nothing knots Um, that was one of his favorite famous Um good old heidegger. Yeah. Yeah, one of his famous quotes and this these ideas have been developed more recently by the philosopher, um Eric steinhardt and his book atheistic platonism and so the idea is that um Nothing negates itself and so the reason why there is something rather than nothing is because there is a negation of Nothingness and so a negative times a negative is a positive and so you get this positive becoming so that I um Hagel in the science of logic famously says that you know the If our thesis is nothing Or is being Then our antithesis. He doesn't use these terms. Um is non-being and so that the synthesis Of being a non-being is where we get the idea of temporal becoming this idea of um In more contemporary literature is called the sway of the negative But the idea is here is that this proof more or less gets what's being itself This is not this is the um again the only way I know how to Uh talk about this is in abstract metaphors where so nothing. This is like the sea And being is an island coming out of the sea And so you can't Equate being itself with any particular being That's the that that's a very Hagelian notion and is that if you won't Understand the hard hard kernel of the real I think it's often the surface tension of the water the hard kernel of the real Yeah, that's such a great way of of visualizing it yes And so at the end at the end of all this Metaphysical speculation in my view is okay. Do we have something that is god? Or do we have something that is close to a naturalistic hypothesis that involves something like a hypothesis of indifference something that is just indifferent to our um Religious concerns, so I take us when we approach this correct this question We have certain religious concerns. We want to know what is our relationship to this We want to know what our deepest good is. We want to know if our prayers will be answered We want to know if evil will be defeated in the end or we'll find salvation And so do I have something at the end of these metaphysical speculation? um That resembles this being worthy of worship and reverence and so that's where I came across the two Problems one I called the problem of disconfirmation and the other one was the problem of theological skepticism So if we assume that being itself is more like a person Is like us in some analogous sense Then we then we find that being disconfirmed by the problems of evil and hiddenness So when you said, you know the explanatory power of naturalism Well, the the hypothesis of indifference built into the to naturalism Explains Non-resistant non-theists and it explains all the facts we observed about evil All right theological skepticism We don't we say okay. Look god's less like us. It's not like, you know, we shouldn't Idolatrize god. He's not, you know, a person personified He's being himself. Okay. Well now it's hard to distinguish this hypothesis From the naturalist hypothesis that I put on there this these other ways of thinking about these metaphysical speculations So the question becomes okay We can quibble about simplicity Consistency with background knowledge, but what role explanatorily does god serve at that point? um This will bring us back to methodological naturalism science needs Theoretical postulates like electrons black holes like we can't make sense of our experience of the world without those theoretical postulates But it seems that I we can Make sense of the world without postulating a being worthy of our worship A being that is infinite in goodness power wisdom makes choices acts for reasons and cares about us This is where you kind of hit the point of thinness, right? Where so you can postulate these things without after Out without actually having taken note of them So if you postulate so the whole point of what Aquinas is saying is like based on the fact that we necessarily have to postulate some good That we end that we are moving towards gives us an argument from graduation Which is essentially the teleological argument and it's and likewise is essentially postulating the universal chain of causation and sufficient reason is what gives us the ability to give Uh to allow for explanation and the concrete establishment of identities and understanding that there is specific beings in the world So when you talk about for example, like this idea that what I was Um, you know this uh the nothing knots and from that point you get this negation of itself, which is uh I mean that's that's very Hegelian as well as much as it's Hegelian I think the difference is with Hegel is that he doesn't use Uh, it's not that the you begin with nothing which negates itself It's that that being a nothing or identical because they're so far abstract from each other that there would be Uh the same anyway infinitely unknowable I'll be honest with you too. My my Hegelian knowledge isn't is isn't quite where it should be yet Oh, no, no, that's fine But the the sort of the I mean We don't need to talk about Hegel anyway, like the the point is is that really is that when we talk about this hard kernel of the real Like Hegel comes to the point of seeing at the end of this that there is uh A real concrete established Being uh, well what he calls existence that the ground I think he describes it as the ground which is the unity of identity and difference which is essentially the That which allows us to postulate a limited real concrete object Is essentially an invert when it's inverted then we'll have existence and we'll have when we have the unity of of this sort of logical relation then we have um What we would call existence um And the point that he's kind of making here Is is to say that there that there has to be it's not that there is this permanent state of becoming um Hegel says no it it completes It is completed that time. There is an end to this which allows us to say that it's a principal unity In which we can say that existence is A single thing which gives us credence to be able to say that there is individual things In relation to the lives that we live for example when you talk about water You're right in saying essentially like dependent upon the language game used to steal a term from vittgenstein Depending upon the language game that you're engaging in you've got the the language game of water Which might be you know something you splash around in you drink Whatever and you have the language game of essentially like sort of chemistry and Each one like depending on how you're using that it has a specific role in a human life now what Hegel's really saying in this is that all essences are in relation to an overall end Which is being which is essentially positing that there is a correct and a true way of establishing Not just one way of understanding the world, but the the this is where you know, you get the right There is the right way of understanding the world There is the true and the the complete now. This might mean that in various instances we postulate different substantial considerations of the self but the self ultimately has to be united in this Relation of all facts with each other to the point in which I can say well There's the way in which I should talk about water in this instance And then there is the way in which I should talk about water in that instance If I'm able to achieve my overall good, which gives meaning to why I'm even establishing like to steal A heideggerian concept again the idea of language as a form of equipment. There is an underlying um predation precondition of ourselves towards a an end point And and and that point is a truth a unity and the thing is when you talk about matter You see matter for hegel is is it's an emptiness It doesn't have anything other than it that it can't actually obtain Reality in the sense that it relates to some sort of form So if I say like there is this material existence I'm just positing an I an actual concrete idea, which is why he's not you would relate that to his objective idealism But remember the objective and the subjective are co-defined to the point in which when I'm positing The relationship of a man to water in these various instances both can be correct in relation to an objective reality Which has which has what heidegger would call a fittingness of the concept Which is essentially my capacity to relate to it in a way which Gives meaning so like I might use language as a form of equipment, but there actually is A a correct and an incorrect way of understanding reality Which means there is an actual real essence and to say like when we're referring something like a matter What we're doing is we're externalizing that we're saying that we're destroying that subjectivity, which is Which is sort of the foundation of what you're saying here And if we say so if we say it's just material then the essence is Unimportant it gets taken away and the matter becomes Unintelligible if we say it's just essence then it has no concrete existence. It's just in my minds. It's subjective So it's either we have to unite and the whole point of Hegel is to say that there is this unity Of subjective and objective which when which when taking to the nth degree gives us truth Now he wants to say that that truth is a self-conscious being in his mind Um, but before we can even get to that point. I have to be able to Agree with you that what we're observing externally isn't some sort of theory isn't some sort of material Which is alien From an idea and something radically different, but it's essentially a real logical formal Existent, you know, it's a logos. It's a it's a logic It's a it's a real quality or quantity and in which case I mean that's all Hegel really means when he's talking about ideas, right? um And that's the sort of the allegorical nature between what we consider like ideas in our mind the positing of Words and language, which is an essence and the actual thing which we're referencing so Um, I want to make sure that I had to misrepresent you because I said in my opening Or at least I define theism as this idea that Um, there is a non physical mind. So it's a mind without a location in space time that transcends the natural causal order but The way you talk about matter here. It almost seems um pantheistic in the idea that god is in The universe is in matter like I mean, I would say that I'm a pantheist And so So I did so no that clears it up. So I did misrepresent you in my opening statement because um I had a dualism of here that there was Yeah, no creator and a creation And so that god stood stands above the world and he has to because he creates it ex needle So this is this is a different model of god and I probably should have done a better job Oh, no, no, it's it's absolutely fine like like like I would I would go so far as to argue that I think that both Hegel and the coinus are both panentheists As well, but that's that's like an interpretation of like hey, go because I say The way I read a lot of Hegel is that you see Aristotle you see Aquinas and then you kind of see spinosa Take it to another level and then he will kind of take spinosa and goes another Um step That's the thing is from the absolute substance to the absolute But I mean that's the difference between I think all positions right now Like I think that fundamentally like your position Like are a lot closer than what this debate would make it sound like yeah, that's the thing like so if you're like Do you reject the spinosian position of an absolute substance over for the Hegelian position of an absolute mind? I mean that's the difference really like Between our positions I would say that I would affirm that there is an absolute mind which is this the absolute knowing Which is why at the end of existence is perfect self actualization of a mind Um at a divine mind where if you're from the more spinosian position, you just say well, it's it's an absolute substance But it doesn't have to be aware of itself Yeah, well, you know spinosis view Creates all sorts of problems for like providence. So the idea, you know The idea that god performs miracles Well, that's going to be problematic because The the the natural laws just are the divine will Um, well, I don't think I don't think I don't think there's a problem. I think that this this I think a lot of the time Uh, this approach uh clears up a lot of the humane mistakes that we see Uh round miracles right like where where miracles are interpreted as the as a supernatural as opposed to natural Where the Aristotelian teleological approach would say well, if nature is the substantial Will of god is essentially the end of like god willing himself, you know add infinitum or completely Then like eternally then what really was saying is that a miracle Is only a correct is essentially it is not as natural as the laws of nature right in the same respect It's just a it's just god changing what is a chain from which he's he's uh Essentially already established which is absolutely fine because the end goal was always god's will so like If if if we agree that you know god was to essentially start if the end is always god, which is what? Aquinas is right the end of nature is god the end of all things is god um And I think that mean I think that clears things up, but I think that like, you know, it's whether you you know, you take that view um We should probably I know like I know we're very deep in the metaphysics in the metaphysical rabbit hole Right, you know, and I know we should probably move on to what you call the problems of Well, I mean I know we need to talk about mind right like and what you mean by mind because obviously Right now it sounds like I'm an absolute Let me see if I can try to put a point on it so that we for the audience We can kind of wrap this part of it up and see if you know um, I For my birthday recently. I got uh for my mom The book by alissa nay, and it's called the world in the wave function And I've just absolutely been pouring over it for the past couple weeks. I just I love it um, and so the idea that she gives in this book is um, that the most fundal fundamental thing that exists in the universe is a universal wave function of quantum mechanics um, and so that all other phenomena emerge from um, this universal wave function, um, and That's what I'm saying is being itself really like that description of the universal wave function of quantum mechanics would be the Would be being itself. And so we would be able to say about this that it's necessary timeless purely actual spaceless and Sway generous And so I think these were kind of all the the properties that you ascribe to god on your panentheist model And so I want to say that like we stop there like we don't add This additional property of being personal like of having a mind Beliefs and desires and intentions acts for reasons and has cognizant cognition On your panentheist model Agreeing that god is necessary timeless purely actual spaceless and sways generous In what what like what does add if we say okay? This is god What does calling it god get us as far as natural theology is concerned? And I think that that probably will draw it together where our differences are Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, I mean, I've heard them. So I'm actually having a conversation with What's he called soon as well? Actually unless I imagine it will dip into this um, what's he called, uh, banardo castro because I mean, he's big in it. Yeah. Yeah, he's big in it this and um I think that the difference is is that like so for example castrope. I think is very uh Partial to your view in this respect. Um And you know when we talk about the collapse of these wave functions he's He doesn't he doesn't actually say He's unwilling to say that the collapse into the sort of macroscopic reality that we're not even the macroscopic like that's probably the wrong term the sort of What we would perceive as sort of concrete real Reality in terms of like the existence of atoms and and so on and that he takes that from what I've understood is is almost illusory and what exists is actually just this quantum field, right and that the collapse that we perceive that sort of generates this existence is essentially, uh It hasn't got any truth of reality in itself Right where the view that I'm offering is essentially an explanation of Not only why that would collapse why that necessarily must collapse, but an explanation of how it could be understood to exist in the first place because The point that I've been trying to sort of drive home Is that if we say that you know reality is constitutive of ideas and we see that these ideas are real essences And that you know, there's sort of there is a real qualitative distinction like there are real facts and distinctions in reality that those facts and distinctions in reality are Uh purely formal At that foundation, right? There is no matter in this and the but they they are like essentially a A rational coherence self coherence Um that rational self coherence when we're talking about this thing is a is a contingent being when we talk about this uh relationship that the wave function has to reality in its relation to the Its expression through you know, what can't would call categories of the understanding what hagel calls like the sort of categories that exist in reality The the difference is is that these categories are given a real substantial existence in a mind That's the separation between like spinos are in hagel, right where there isn't these real substantial differences You you could have this wave function It's all like everything that that it collapses into is an illusion But it doesn't explain why it's collapsing. It doesn't explain like why we even believe it exists in terms of having a specific Uh relation to itself because all it would be is an existence And you'd end up with a kind of Kantian numiner and hagel's just going to say well That's just an immediacy of being and the immediacy of being Is essentially the only way that we can actually even say it exists in the first place is to give it Is to essentially negate it So I have to say like no, it doesn't exist at least it doesn't exist as a one it exists as a many and we start positing Uh individual members and the collective of those individual members in its unity now Formulates the foundation of that of that being so the difference is essentially that god In in this perspective is a being which unites every single specific instance or specific particular Which this universal is collapsed into in relation to The universal which would be what Kant describes as singularity and what hagel calls individuality So like when we're talking about the individuality of god if or even like of minds When we talk about a mind and we talk about it's just the unity of our perception, right? Like it's the unity of specific ideas in relation to a perceived horizon from which a specific agent is engaging with right? so what we'll have is specific ideas which are Essentially formal entities related to one another how they're related to each other Uh is essentially what is essentially the the unity of the individual. That's what hagel's saying And so if we say that reality itself is intimately related to the in this in this way and it's formally an idea that it's essentially this It's not a merely a posteriori sort of accident or whatever But it actually exists in such a way that it has a foundational principle And this foundational principle unites it then what we have as a being Which is a way of the principality that unites it. It's aware of its own existence Or that it is a being that is Conceiving of its own existence They have the thing thinking of itself and it's the he's essentially defending the cog the cogito there In many ways and even the irish titillian prime mover I think the difference is is it offers a teleological account for why The events and the causal chain is essentially moving towards an end Um, I remember talking to emerson actually emerson green about this and even just in relation to things like Mechanical principles things like evolution it offers the benefit of seeing like actually The the reason that these mechanic and this is hegel again. I'm like there is Identities are attempting to gain stability and once you posit that actually an identity is a trying to gain stability That's because the the the overall goal is a stable identity And that that is essentially what it's aiming towards and that's a teleological approach You can't have a teleological approach without positing essentially this Unified existence where it is essentially aware of itself So that's the claim that I find interested this this Unity that has to be aware of itself. So like when you say like how are you cashing out has to be aware of itself So I would say the unity is the awareness of itself. If that means unity is the aware Okay, the unity is the awareness of itself um I'm still going it's straight from Kant. You know, I'd say yeah It's because it's I've struggled with this myself like I this like I've I've read this in both content and some secondary literature for hegel um because this is the move that I don't I don't I don't I don't quite see because to me it seems like this new to this unity um can be achieved with something like an abstract object like it's when we Start attributing to it something like awareness like this unity Itself has an awareness Or that the unity is the awareness the edit. Um, this is just where this is the part where I go I I don't know how we get I don't I don't know how that move well, I think that's probably because Kant is really from his perspective. He's seeing that this uniting force is the subject right and the subject's categorical Yeah, we our mind when we come to the object our minds are the unifying process of it, right? And before that there is actually there's no like there's no essence there Right for Kant now for hegel That's kind of complicated. There is an essence or dynamic. Yes more dynamic. Yeah, it's it's uh There is an essence there, but in attempting to like, you know in this process of trying to establish a stable identity It necessarily or and you can even see there's two ways that you can kind of look at the necessity of this It necessarily relates to producing a mind like minds have developed for a reason hegel saying that they are developing for a specific reason And that they are going to develop and would have always developed For a specific reason because the relationship that a mind has to nature is this essentially that nature is positing Essentially, you have an identity which is trying to stabilize itself that identity That relates to essentially a Where he sees this as a basic formal physical Mechanistic process then that turns into a chemical process which establishes an internal identity versus an external identity and you have Like particle physics and like chemistry uh, then you have the development of biology And biology coming from this in the sense that there is this constant development towards attempting to gain a stable identity you have this um process in which it is self replicating and self sustaining in order to try and Uh, create a more and more complex and stable identity or the increasing complexity in relation to the stable identity and as it moves onwards you end up with the prop the the the attempt to fulfill that goal with the product of with the With what it was like so you go from the nutritive as Aristotle would call it because Hegel loves the Aristotelian soul Um, which is essentially just the self sustaining processes of a natural being to the animal the the animal soul And that's the animated self directed attempts to sustain the identity So you you have at that at that point the birth of the subject which is essentially that the Goal itself is birthing a process which would maximize the the likelihood that it will self sustain So it's like if you if if the goal is self a self sustaining unity It will create A subject in order to self sustain to a greater and greater degree and that this process will create an A complexity and this is why it's very very much connected to like evolution It will create a process which which gets ever increases in complexity add infinitum in order to postulate a more and more A being which can sustain itself more and more uh in that process it becomes rational because the Nature is unable to facilitate for Hegel and implicit understand an implicit essence Unity between its being and its essence it realizes that it can't facilitate itself in relation to itself Then you have like the unity of species Where it's like, okay now you can recognize other members of your species You can gain points of communication which aid you in facilitating those natural drives which allow you to sustain yourself and also posit alternative ends which unite uh that dialectical viewpoint right whereas this One being and this and it's all and it's negation which is the other and The point that Hegel's saying is that the unity of all of these beings Like if we say that I mean like from the christian standpoint the unity of all of these beings is essentially absolute love If we say that these beings can be absolutely united, which Hegel's saying they must be and they're moving towards a process politically Towards being absolutely united. They're moving towards the kingdom of heaven. I think you wrote that to I don't know if it was foyerback. He wrote that let the kingdom of heaven come um and We are moving politically towards this process of an ever-increasing complexity Then what we have is essentially a natural process Which is directed towards the production of a being which can establish for itself its essence to itself um And that's because it is the same process that we see in its It it's sort of initial standpoint and the reason that you can't have that in an abstract object There's one you'd say well, you couldn't have it otherwise it wouldn't if it would have worked in a purely abstract way It would have but it didn't so like one thing you just reference is that it clearly is moving towards the production of consciousness and then the the next is to say that the The the rational mind because of its essentially adds the Capacity of self reflection is able to posit at a much greater and faster rate which shows a developing complexity The more you ramp that up the more you you gain this unity of absolute spirit, right? Just why absolute spirit it's and remember it's retro causative. So the whole point is that this has happened prior to the cause causes causal structure beginning because that that like the the It's like the unfolded flower Yeah, and then through time the flower unfolds to reveal the Exactly jump in real real quick there fellas I'm going to give you another about five minutes of this open discussion and then we're going to Jump into the super chats So I just wanted everybody to know we still have lots of space and time for more super chats So if you have a question for our debaters Get those in go ahead fellas carry on. Yeah, but the question is do we have infinite space in time? Right, you know, so that was like a stupid counting joke. Okay, like the like the like The yeah, the the point is essentially like even the unity of like a tree, right? Like the progenesis of a species can only be understood if we unite an identity Which essentially posits the end as explaining the efficient cause so the final cause explains the efficient cause Right, so you have this so when it's retro causative and when we talk about something like a wave collapse of a quantum field We already have to posit that it does it not only will a must collapse that it when it collapses It collapses in a certain way that the reason it was collapsing is essentially to achieve a certain end And that end is essentially this movement towards this sort of this this overall completeness That it establishes its that existence establishes its essence because being because existence Existence and essence are one and the same right like it's kind of like saying you could have an identity of something But you wouldn't be able to say what it is or um, or That you know that it wouldn't necessarily be itself Well, it doesn't exist. It doesn't make sense to say that it's something that's not itself, right? Gotcha. Um, so with our last few minutes here. What do you how do you how would you want to do you want to Just wrap up in the sense of Uh, I can kind of go through what I mean by um The one like I know I kind of put I put that concept on the table didn't really unpack it Because it sounds a lot of what you've said here Um, I think can be done on a theoretical metaphysical or speculative level by an abstract object um, so Let me say something briefly about this because um I'm I'm kind of harking back to play toe and permittees here um, and so On my view the the one this is a logical entity. It's it's a platonic object A universal abstract object whatever whatever term You want to use? Um, it's important to realize that This is Not a person. It's not a deity of any kind um, but it is um, what Eric steinhardt called Self maximizing self congruency So congruency is what I take To be the sort of unity that you're describing this purely positive Logical value that includes things like consistency um harmony complexity Order like you're talking about with the teological argument beauty. These are all ways of Expressing this self maximizing self congruency that we find throughout the world And so I take this to be a very Hegelian idea as well And so in this model, you know the purpose of the universe is To contribute as much as possible to cosmic computation so Realizing things, you know the possible making the possibilities of the universal wave function of quantum quantum mechanics actual um In universes actual universes in universal wave function exist for the sake of the computation um, they exist In order to give concrete existence to certain optimal sequences of Compuble objects So the whole point of uh, my methodological naturalist argument is to say that Whatever explanatory role when we look to the historical and natural sciences and even when we look into metaphysics Any role that we once Attributed to this god The person that would act for reasons have beliefs desires intentions and some prayers Any role that we assigned to this being would could be equally or better done By the role of an abstract object now I know a lot of especially atheists in my camp are going to kind of bristle the idea of You know platonic objects or the existence of universals But that's just that's the nature of metaphysics metaphysics is You know these metaphysical speculations. I agree can only take us so far, but um Really, those are the only tools that the way I see it that you and I could possibly have to try to resolve our disagreements. Um You you mentioned earlier like, you know All the science scientific facts it seems like we agree on them So it's not like we're going to have some sort of science experiment that is going to settle our Disagreement what we're going to have to do is actually go in and do metaphysics Yeah, the metaphysics metaphysical reason Yeah, you're going to have to read hagel. You're going to have to read conch. You're going to have to read plato. You're going to have to You know It's it's hard stuff and it's important Is that a good enough spot to stop their uh perspective or do you have a couple more words you want to share quick? um I don't want to do ben in a disservice and they try to say why I don't agree with the idea It could be an abstract object in that fulfill it because I think I've already outlined in some respects The what I take to be the case um But I just want to say that I don't think that an abstract object could do it So like that would be I think a point a port of call if we're to ever have another conversation as to why an abstract object Couldn't fulfill this and I think it does boil down to that separation between Spinoza and hagel spinoza is an abstract object hagel's is a subject So we'll have to move between that abstract object to subjectivity And uh, you know, maybe maybe maybe we'll what he calls the absolute when we have that next conversation though I'll be sure to make sure I have your model of god right beforehand. Oh It's no problem, man Like I'll make sure that I actually have the time to structure a solid opening. So but it's been really fun I've enjoyed it Awesome. Well, our chat is enjoying it a fair amount as well. It's very electric in there. Shout out to eddie I was having a little fun with him um Before we get into the super chats In case I didn't mention it yet. Maybe it hasn't been said I need to make absolutely sure it's said if you're in Austin, texas modern day debate is coming live to a stage near you You can grab tickets right now in the description And if you want you can go right into that indigo campaign as well and show your support Uh to james financially. I promise you if you buy a ticket for debate con 4 james will set your chair up personally I mean, he's gonna set all the chairs up anyways, but yeah, he'll be there and he's happy to do it All right. Also, uh, modern day debate is growing fast. So get your subscriptions Hit that subscription button and on your way over hit that like button as well I have some super chats. We're going to read right now Um, if you guys have any other super chats you want to provide for our debaters Feel free to add them to the chat all right, so For five dollars contrarian 4 20 do both Panelists accept that all concepts whether materialistic or spiritual are inherently limited That the description is not the described I will so I I certainly would want to warn against confusing the map for the territory Um, because that's obviously a mistake. Um, I don't know exactly what the questioner means by saying our concepts Are limited. Um, so I mean obviously our Concepts are limited in so far as they're distinct From one another, you know the way we demarcate concepts from one another. Those are obvious limitations But I would I think they probably have something stronger in mind Um, that I would probably want to push back on because again one of the hegellian themes that I've Been most sympathetic to in my readings of hegel is the idea That knowledge of the world as it is in itself is always mediated by concepts So like there's there's this there's no way to like get over and above um our concepts Well, I mentioned it earlier by wilford sellers He calls this the myth of the given this idea of this Neutral space where we can just start with everything given and then build our concepts. No, I think it's concepts all the way down Yeah, I mean I completely I couldn't have said that but it's concepts all the way down It's the best way to it's all the way back up as well, you know, like depending on which way Yeah, whatever direction we go whatever direction you're going like like it is uh, but I think that again like as you saw say with that is it's um Is you get this this point of going like What the one I say is like, you know, when you say like there's the map and then there is the territory like I think the important thing to recognize is that there is a The map in the territory are like the territory itself is a kind of mental map that was sort of created in It's a mediated construct And the the difference is whether you want to say that there is a real material reality And whether there is or it bottoms out an essence it bottoms out and in essentially in essence I think the the then you're going to end up having to say that there is essentially a point in which there is a unity of Uh existence with essence and I think that that's what I think he's pushing back on um If if there isn't a unity of existence and essence to the point in which there is like an actual truth um Then I mean, I think everything is a fiction at that point. You know, I was like, what are we what are we doing? You know, like You know, we're talking I think that it's I think it's a very naive theory for every domain of the world Just like can you imagine a more implausible? Oh, no, it would be it would be awful. It would be awful. It would be it would be terrible But yeah, I mean like I'm with you. I think that uh, it doesn't make sense the idea of an absolutely unmediated reality I think I find that I think that's so impose. I think that's the but I mean this is this is the product of empiricism I think that this was that's what we'll see materialistic empiricism All right Thank you very much our next super chat is from experiments in prebiotic chemistry for five dollars The only thing that matters in these debates is whether mind-body dualism is true because That is the basis of most religions, isn't it? Thanks So I think there is something I don't know if I'd put it Quite the way they did I do think that there's an evidential connection here between substance dualism and What is often contrasted with it with is just called physicalism And so if the world were to turn out fundamentally fundamentally to be a dualistic World in the sense that there's this sharp distinction between mind and matter I think that would be evidence For some form of deity At least our creator deity in the sense of there's a mind that is distinct from the natural world And it created the natural world for a reason Um, but the I you know evidence is a symmetrical relationship And so I think that in so far as we have evidence for physicalism to say that like no All the minds that we are aware with are at least dependent on something physical That's evidence against That model of god I gave this argument as the argument for physical minds to say that substance dualism and this radical dualistic natural supernatural concept of god Is inconsistent with our What we already know, but it turns out that louis's model of god does not Have this radical Distinction so at the end of the day, I gave four reasons of you know Against theism and I think that one with the consistency with background knowledge Is it going to carry much weight here because I I had the wrong model of god As my target Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say that like um, I would be saying like all religion Is dualistic because I'm a monist, right? So You know, and I think I even think that Thomas Aquinas is a monist I'd say that the catholic position is one of monism Just why god is the end of all things not all catholics obviously it's a very diverse tradition But I think it's a cool mystic so hard right now Oh like honestly The christian infighting is the best kind of infighting it's it's it's it's so unbelievably unsympathetic for whatever reason like Uh, but the thing is like you'd be surprised at how passionate like even orthodox and catholics can argue over the I mean, they're absolutely wrong their own. I've seen it happen. It's wild Exactly exactly. It's I mean the thing is I'm saying this I will hunt. I'll be like no the the orthodox are wrong You know the Protestants are wrong So I'm just as bad in some respects But but yeah, like but I was just going to say like, you know, there are monistic accounts And uh, I mean you've got loads of religions that are monistic I mean there's monistic interpretations of hinduism. There's monistic interpretations of buddhism There's monistic interpretations of catholicism. Like I'm presenting there's monistic interpretations of daoism There's more like that. Like literally the the the tradition that's like dual everything. Yeah, exactly Like it there's so like, you know, maybe it's just A little bit more mediated. Don't worry. It's not all mind-body dualism, you know All right. Thank you very much Brett Bernhoft two dollars asks what does the bible say about homosexuality? Um, I mean it depends on your interpretation, right? Like I as a catholic I'm happy to say that the interpretation of the bible is in relation to the living tradition That's just constantly being understood. So I don't think we understand the bible in its entirety. I don't think we understand the concepts Um, but and how to even understand how to even read them And I'm a big fan of her minutiae in this So I think that the problem is is that a lot of people want to read scripture And they want to look towards it and take a literal interpretation and say it says Well, the gays are bad and we should hate the gays and you know all that without actually underline analyzing the underlying Expressions of these things. It's kind of like the way I would approach it is kind of like a cycle a psychoanalyst approaching The the contents of a dream narrative in the same way as you would You know analyze the contents of a spiritual narrative in terms of revelation Like why is this being said not what is the contents of of just what you're saying and it's sort of dumb Understand like, you know a sort of dumb basic read in that an evangelical or sort of spout out but Why is this written this way? What kind of revelation are we supposed to be getting from this? And what does this indicate to us? And I think when you look at her minutiae you realize that Without considering the things like intentionality of the author without considering What unifies the peace in relation to things like love? and ultimately this Relationship between the the individual passage and the unity of the overall conceptual end The bible becomes incoherent anyway. Well, so does pretty much everything. I mean, that's philosophical her minutiae so arguably so does all of reality so I don't think that we should be reading the bible to hate the gay people And do all the nasty things because I think that actually is goes against many of the fund underlying fundamental principles of christianity so any of those of listeners that might be familiar with my backstory I grew up in a fundamentalist quicker tradition in the american south And I have a gay younger brother and so you can imagine that Didn't go over quite well um By many members of my family and so this is one of those topics where I have a horse in the race and I remember when I I was once a theist myself and it was in struggling with certain questions Like this one in particular that eroded my faith over time. Um, and in my experience The two things that really stuck out in my mind is the first the old Testament is the only place where you actually find statements about homosexuality. It's Actually, not very much mentioned in the new testament. It is not mentioned at all by the person of jesus And so you have to have a pretty tenuous reading Of certain scriptures in order to draw the conclusion that you won't in The analogous way is you can try to read the bible to be The idea that the sun orbits the earth But again, I think if you like louis said I would echo much of what he said Like if you really go into the hermeneutics of it and you really like what is the intent of this passage You know is a lot of this is literature And it's certain like the writers had an intent and a purpose and that just wasn't the intent and purpose for it but the second point that I think is is What does it matter even if you know, it said clearly in the bible? Um, homosexuality is wrong. The question is why is homosexuality wrong? We would still be no clearer into understanding the normative reason why it was wrong and so some This is where this will shade Inevitably into critiques of divine command ethics because what you say like just because god commanded it Doesn't make it right or good. This is you know, youth of froze dilemma A lot of ink has already been spilled a lot on this I've talked about this issue elsewhere in other places for real etiology. So Again, I have a horse in the race. So um, I'm certainly biased in This area All right. Thank you, Ben Our next super chat comes from Julio for five dollars in a previous debate Louis said that materialism has been ripped apart and absolutely destroyed Ben what do you make of it? Oh, so I would wonder the definition of materialism was being used because I certainly do agree With louis that there are certain naive forms of materialism. No one today really thinks that it's just atoms and a void That's a pretty naive conception of materialism um I find the terms materialism physicalism and naturalism to be quite slippery And often used interchangeably and conflated, which is why I tried to give um, a very precise definition as as precise as can be done For our purposes of naturalism. And so my naturalism is very close to quine um, so quine famously was a naturalist, but he was also a Platonist So him and Hilary Putnam developed what was called the indispensable argument Which was basically saying, you know, mathematics is indispensable to science the mathematics Mathematics requires us to postulate mathematical objects. And so he was a Platonist Um, and he thought that our best way of understanding what the world was like Is through our explanatory reasoning and our experiences of the world. And so I've tried to keep the spirit of quine um in the presentation that I gave in my opening um of laying out what I think is a plausible form of Metaphysical naturalism, but now again, these are these are really big questions. This is really deep metaphysics I don't at all pretend to say to the thing that I've had the last word on this This is just when I Approach these big questions. This is where my thinking at is these days What do you mean you haven't finished metaphysics? You have German idealism is still No, oh, yeah, I think that's look I mean to be fair like When I criticize physicalism, I take it to be That the natural world can be boiled. Well, that the the reality can be boiled down to essentially fundamental quantitative principle like quantitative relations like Like charge position spin Fundamentally, um, and that's all um Very much in the in the sort of light of binado castra up in that where he does the same and I think my responses to a position like yours would be like, well At what point isn't it physicalism anymore? You know at what point is it something else? And you know, are we just adding in a sort of conceptual relation? Well, and that's fine, right? Like that's not to say that you'd be wrong It's just to say like for the point of what we call it. It seems that when you're not talking about You know, you even said yourself you don't believe in an unmediated reality Right, like to say that you don't believe in an unmediated reality is to say that like reality is in some way like Where I would call it mind dependent where you might say that it is like dependent upon the existence of abstract objects Which may may or may not be immaterial like depending on how you know, how would define them. So the To say that like that's physicalist I think would be like I would say that's something like a neutral monism Right, like it like that. I would normally define something like that as like a neutral monism But I mean it doesn't matter really what you call it necessarily to the truth of the position. Anyway, it's just a point of going all right is You know, is this position correct, right? Like that's the big, you know The big overall goal But my point really is to say that like that kind of naive materialism that you referenced earlier, right the the sort of Atoms in a void or even, um, you know, uh, abstract physical principle Um, in the sense of it just boiling down to like charge spin uh position Scientism, I think we would both Critical of a of a scientific approach to knowledge exactly exactly and Um at that point is that's the point in which I think I think it's I think it's been ripped apart by now I think I think it's been murdered. I would agree with that. I think that it really I think it was Alex Rosenberg came out With a book and he kind of tried to re-embrace The label of scientism. I was like dude Stop don't just stop Well, I mean you you like cellars as well. I mean you like uh, like if you like cellars like like the two what is it the the sort of uh His argument his two pronged argument against empiricism. It's pretty pretty wild. He hasn't really he has like a big Argument against this idea of an unmediate reality where it's just like absolutely and in brandom loves that, you know Interesting arguments along those lines Yeah, sorry. So yeah, yeah, I'm glad we agree All right next super chat from bren uh, sorry brett burnhoff again a question for ben What should atheists do about white american christian nationalism? Oh man, um, I wish I had a good effort. So this is a question that I've thought a lot about in Certainly in the political realm Um, we it's a very real problem, especially here in america. Um, unfortunately Um, about all I'm good for is pointing at the problem I don't really have solutions Can I can I just say I think if anything like I know inspiring philosophy hates That nationalistic approach, I don't think it has to be racial I think it's only racial because I think it ties in a lot with racists But I think it's because it lends itself to fascists just trying to there's a selection effect going on there Yeah, yeah, it's it it's um But I think like reality is is that if you're a good christian like you understand christianity And you have a critical philosophical approach that I think someone like hegel would say that the only way you could Be truly religious is if you had that kind of philosophical approach You'd see that as an obscene political stance for a christian to hold like it's uh Awful so hopefully go watch inspiring philosophy on it. That's that he he hates it. He hates it Um, I have I guess radical political views in the sense that I think that Voting should be mandatory. I think that it's like Now that doesn't mean like someone should come lock you up if you don't vote Like you should have to pay a fine if you don't vote like I think like if you're going to Participate in society. You should be part of the political system And I think if everyone were required to vote I think a lot of that nationalist Voice would just be drowned out because I think At the end of the day and I don't have numbers to back this up, but I suspect the very vast majority of people don't hold those beliefs and the reason why they're so predominant is because Not a lot of the people who don't hold the the people who hold those beliefs show up to vote for whatever reason Yeah, it's almost as I'm motivated. I think that the you know, like as you see that I don't think it's that obscene to talk about political Incentivization, I know Aristotle's a big fan of it But he thinks of it like, you know, you you find the rich Yeah, you give to the poor right like so the poor like who don't turn up the vote And it's largely the poor that don't vote you give them an incentive to vote You know, you say like if you turn up the vote, you'll gain a tax break Or if you you know, if you if you don't turn if you turn up the vote, you know You get something positive and that way you don't have to coerce them as much as well A lot of them don't have anything to lose by not turning up So like, you know, you know, you know, I end up threatening them with things like prison time is going to cost the state you know, so it's it's I think that and then as well like I mean like, you know, we could probably have a full conversation about like political like Constitution, but I think it's it's incredibly difficult to Even get people to vote in their own interests and understand what their interests are like A bunch of people and educated people turning up to vote In relation to causes that don't understand is also a big problem, right? Like you end up with people You end up with populism, right? And so so yeah, I mean We've got to do something. I just but I mean I keep I just I'm starting to just turn the news off I can't look at it. I think I've come to the conclusion that like Maybe Nietzsche was right. Maybe like the life of a philosopher is to just go and live in the woods or something, you know like it's These people man, like what can you do like Some questions are just beyond me and I feel like some of those political questions are just I get the I get that there's a problem there and I get that something has to be done But what does a lot of people seem really confident in their solutions and I have no I Everyone thinks I've got the answer the door the door that we had to stop it. Yeah All right. Well, I have an opinion to share It's my opinion everyone should really quickly hit oh run over and just hit that like button for me Okay, before we finish here for the day. I'd like to see that's a good like yeah, man That's that's just you got it. You got to do perspective. Did you hit like yet? Is it you holding it back? Well, yep, he just look I just saw him go So perspective is going to go hit that like button already no bed in the reflection of his eyes If nothing else, uh, Siggy Sig Walding a huge channel supporter He's here all the time very active just gifted another 50 memberships to everyone watching right now So if uh, if you can't hit like for me or our debaters hit like for him so that you know I get the advantages of those likes for his Contribution, but he also contributes a question So from Siggy Sigwal our last super chat for the day I've never been a theist. So I found the idea just ridiculous for perspective philosophy How do you cope with the fact that at its core a belief in God is just an irrational belief Since the argument for a God that could be considered seriously and nowhere near a specific God Um, I mean I completely disagree in the sense that I think that it's absolutely I mean the way I argue for God is the exact opposite, right? Like I don't believe that you Yeah, I don't think you can have a truly By the way, Siggy just did another 20 memberships just It's just by any way to the truth. He's here truly political, right? Okay. No, but The thing is is that like uh, no, I actually think that you can gain like to specific divine attributes not like some sort of Deism I think that Aquinas does a really good job of outlining from why from divine simplicity You would you know gain these attributes, uh, you know live nits argues Essentially why you would get you know get to divine simplicity sort of Aquinas Sort of Hegel Hegel argues that there's specific logical relations within God which express the Trinity And why it necessarily must be structured like this if you go and check out these arguments in relation to in the science of logic in relation to Universals Universals particularly as an individuals in relation to the different forms of syllogisms and how it turns out that the absolute syllogism You'll see his defense of the christian trinity as the best expression of God um, why it's a personhood in the same in the same um In the same book, uh, there's loads of uh arguments for the specific attributes of God and also for gods in more abstract ways I think that the reason that a lot of people typically look towards theists as not being willing to defend specific Conceptions of God is because They aren't engaged in philosophy. They're engaged in the theater of debate specifically online And it you know, there's one thing to run the Calum cosmological argument as someone who's not familiar with Uh philosophy, but there's another thing to be willing to defend the christian trinity. That's a that's a much more difficult You know position to hold But you can see debates. There's a great debate between joshua member's name It's like joshua should sit away sit down Joani, right. Thank you and um Oh and I come with a neoplatonist muslim It was like so it's a catholic versus a muslim on the specific attributes of god Uh from and basically a catholic christian aristotelian perception of god in relation to the trinity versus Essentially a neoplatonic conception of god both arguing for concrete relations inside of concept of divinity so Christians even online are willing to do this. You've just got to find the ones that are willing to do this You've got to find the you got to look for the arguments yourself and maybe stop being so lazy. I don't know You're not off the hook yet perspective because while you spoke siggy through another five dollar super chat I wanted to uh, you want to you want to add? Yeah, well, so uh, because I agree with a lot of what louis said there um in the sense of Um, trying to think of who uh, one of my favorite philosophers of mine right now is uh, keith frankish And I want to say he tweeted it out or something I can't remember but he's it went along the lines of in philosophy If you think the answer is obvious then you haven't understood the question And I think that's exactly right. And so like if you think any of the questions Uh perennial questions of philosophy have easy answers or obvious I would I would suggest to Put the brakes on and look a little bit more into it because I think that religious belief can't be reduced to a psychological phenomena of Copying with death or something like if you leave like if you look at like the psychological literature For why people are religious like you just won't find these Views in that literature because I don't think it's a plausible explanation. I think religious religion serves Certain functions. Sometimes it can serve explanatory functions. It tries to make the world more intelligible other times It's an expression of a form of life um And so it's just Long story short, it's complicated Yeah, yeah, I couldn't have said it by myself. And then that's absolutely right man. Sorry. So what's the next one gone? Ziggy Sidwall Decided it was worth five bucks to Claim that not even the column the closest to an argument for god gives you a specific god um Well, yeah, but like ontological argument does I mean like it I mean the point is is that it's usually like a series of arguments anyway. So like Like so, I know Edward phaser gives arguments Uh, because I mean I just got sent them before this was like, you know, he's like read this go in with this like you don't want to be friends um And uh, you know, it's it's the equine in position where it's the five ways and But like, you know, if you read something if you pick up something like some a theologica, right? and you read proof of the existence of god And then you go down and you go to the you know, is god all good Is god Omnipotence like is he all powerful? Is he is he all knowing is he you know all present He gives specific arguments for each one of those divine attributes If you guys I say you go on a hagel and they give specific arguments For divine attributes, there are arguments for them and he might even be just one argument You might say like I often in a relate arguments There's one argument for one thing and then from that I can then build it into something more substantial, right? Um So so yeah, like I do think that christian debate as online. There's a lot of ones that I'm like, oh god I can't believe that representing christianity. I imagine ben probably feels the same with like atheist debate as half the time like Um, you know, like you see certain debates online and you're like, oh dear lord like This guy's arguing, you know that for the most the stupidest reading of the bible and just not even Listen and just saying that the earth's five thousand years old So like and you know, I'm I want to cry at that, you know a point like that So I can understand, you know, we don't have necessarily the best pr team. We don't You know, we do have a lot of people who are willing to say a lot of stupid stuff um but just You know the stupid people everywhere doesn't make that what they're trying to express It might be beyond them the might and understand it themselves But don't assume that all all of our beliefs are the same as theirs, you know You got a couple there last words ben before we sign off um, yeah, so I would uh recommend to people to really spend some time in um classical thinkers from the western canon of philosophy, so Spinoza's ethics, um labnitz monat monatology, decarts, meditations Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion these are all great ways of Getting a a good idea of the history of thought About the question of god's existence and how Central it has been in shaping our ways of thinking about not just religion in particular, but just in science history and art in general and to um have an open mind um face fact brutally and at all times try to be charitable with the people you're uh In discussion with and to make arguments as best you can to try to see See what arguments work what arguments don't work and if they don't work why they don't work um, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose from honest inquiry like that Well, Siggy comes in under the wire here real quick and I'm going to allow this last super chat Um that the ontological argument requires you have faith to be convinced by it the column goes from something to someone without proper justification Um, I mean look I'm I'm not here to defend like I think the ontological argument um requires essentially a It's I would go so far as to say that the ontological argument requires the existence of a necessary being to be given Credence so that the necessary being is the being thinking of itself Um, which is why I think it relates to a teleological argument But I think that the the way that it's structured in the sort of Hegelian standpoint Is to say that both the cosmological and the teleological and the ontological argument are essentially interconnected in the sense that None of the arguments stand alone that they are essentially very very much in the Hegelian sense performing different rational functions in relation to giving ex-explanatory power in relation to sort of the functions of Uh, uh, sort of logical functions So, you know, each syllogism has its own purpose in relation to the specific causal account of god Which you're aiming at at that point. So whether it's the formal account, which is the ontological argument whether it's the final account and the teleological argument or whether it's the efficient account in the cosmological argument I think that they all have specific logical functions and they're all interrelated and the Point of Hegel and Aristotle is to say that these causes are necessarily co-dependent anyway So I don't think any one of those arguments by themselves can stand scrutiny um, if you don't understand the other arguments that and the other aspects of Identity that are essentially being argued from the other perspectives in relation to You know People arguing the column It depends on who's arguing it and why and what they're arguing they might throw some other arguments in there Depends on who's doing it again. Do you know what I mean? So so yeah, but uh, but thanks and again ben I think as just to quickly say like I think, you know, you're absolutely right as well and saying like um A good honest discussion is like the best way to go good honest inquiry And I think you've exhibited those virtues yourself in this conversation. I think I think it's been really great I think the same of you too. I'm so glad that we were finally able to do this and I can't wait to do it again I think the level of respect there is this entire debate was incredibly high I think even maybe a bar has been raised so much so that siggy sends another two bucks Just to thank you for answering his questions You're you're good. You're good. You're good. You're good, but he spends more money to show gratitude um, so From myself from eddie siggy perspective philosophy ben walkins Thanks everyone for hanging out with us tonight or this afternoon rather depending on where you are And if you're in austin texas, don't forget to check out debate con four You may have missed the first three. Don't miss this one. It's going to be Amazing as a certain someone we all love would say uh gentleman have a great night and Take it easy. We'll see you all again next time. Hopefully Thank you for having me on thank you for pleasure