Kalam & Causal Finitism - Joe Schmid & Robert C. Koons

[@AlexADalton]

I'd like to see a debate on causal finitism between a randomly chosen subscriber to this channel and Joe's roommate. Is it possible to set that up?

[@JohnDeRosa1990]

Great discussion! Suan thanks for making this happen. I thought 3 points were particularly interesting: (1) Semantic paradoxes don't generate the same issues as those which are paradoxical due to the causality involved (you can make a shirt with the liar paradox on it). (2) Causal finitism would put limits on how God (even the God of classical theism) could make the world (e.g. he could not reveal information to a prophet that depended on an infinite causal sequence of future events). (3) Towards the end, both Joe and Rob mention the Third Way and its non-temporal interpretation which I have personally found to be right (John Knasas and other Thomists take this reading as well). Overall, I thought this was a great exchange of ideas.

[@CatholicDwong]

Great point by Professor Koons. It was the conjunction of the patchwork principle + the hypothetical scenario that was deemed false by the contradiction proposed. That in no way logically entails the patchwork principle necessarily fails, it could be the case that either the patchwork principle was false alone in the conjunction, or the hypothetical scenario alone was false alone in the conjunction, or both parts were false in the conjunction. Showing the conjunction is false does not show preference to any of these outcomes. And it seems like Rob Koons was advocating for us to stick with what is clear over what is unclear, meaning to just stick to the patchwork principle maintaining in the contradiction and the hypothetical scenario alone being the source of the contradiction. At least that’s what I understood from this (sorry for any misunderstandings as I am not very familiar with contemporary philosophical terminology.)

[@catholic_based534]

The collab we knew we wanted and needed. It’s here!!

[@nemrodx2185]

Excellent conversation! Joe is always good but Koons is stellar...!! Congratulations to both.

[@sneakysnake2330]

@@TheWorldTeacher bro what

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

@@TheWorldTeacher No more like Joe's attack on the patchwork principal doesn't succeed.

[@sneakysnake2330]

@@TheWorldTeacher I am a man.

[@MaverickChristian]

48:46 to 55:24 - An oblique reference to the Eternal Society Paradox. For the curious, I talk about the Eternal Society Paradox on my channel in Vlog Episode 17, and I talk about the Unsatisfiable Pair Diagnosis in Vlog Episode 18.

[@Hello-vz1md]

Did you watch Alex Malpess On Thought adventure podcast KZbin channel they did a 3 hours long discussion on this Topic and they also did a 4 hours long review of that discussion please check that out and share your Views on that

[@MaverickChristian]

@@Hello-vz1md Honestly I'm not sure I'll have time to watch it. I'm in grad school now on top of a full time job and a part-time content creator. If there's a brief specific thing you have in mind I might be able to reply to it.

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@MaverickChristian thank you so much for your Reply you can watch this 12 minutes from that 3 hours long discussion people in that channel comment section is saying Alex Malpess Accepted Necessary being or Category of NB here he now believes in a Necessary being kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4ivgmikqcqch80

[@MaverickChristian]

@@Hello-vz1md Hmm, I didn't interpret him as saying a necessary being exists in that clip. One disputable point seems to be whether contingent things stand in need of explanation. Malpass doesn't seem to think the theist gains anything by positing a necessary being as an explanation because the necessary being itself doesn't have an explanation, so why couldn't contingent reality exist without an explanation? One way to look at it is that we're asking "Why is it that X exists rather than not?" That question doesn't apply very well to necessarily existing things since they cannot fail to exist, but one could argue that contingent things stand in need of explanation since they can fail to exist. So, arguably, contingent things require more of an explanation than necessary things.

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@MaverickChristian thank you for sharing your thoughts Is it impossible for a necessary being to be also a Brute fact? And is it possible that a contingent being can be a Brute fact ? I mean is there any possibility for this case or this is simply impossible logically? Thank you

[@annestephens9631]

Enjoying this discussion with the support of subtitles this morning, I have been introduced to 'Causal Planetism' and the 'Bender Daddy Paradox' -- so the reapiing has been far from grim. Thank you 👍🏼

[@telosbound]

such an interesting discussion!! i thoroughly enjoyed it

[@VACatholic]

34:00 I love Dr. Koons laying down the law there. Joe's a bit over his skis, and it's nice to see a chiding.

[@DesertEagel1995]

Oh come on

[@VACatholic]

@@DesertEagel1995 I said what that was wrong?

[@DesertEagel1995]

@@VACatholic It wasnt the content of what you said, but the tone. Joe is an absolutly swell and smart guy, why use such belitteling language? Does Joe do that anywhere? You could have just stated that you very much agree with what Koons wrote in his book from 1993, and that Joe would benefit from reading it considering how much he engages with the issue of temporal finitism lately, or something like that

[@VACatholic]

@@DesertEagel1995 Because in order to be a "swell and smart guy", one must know their limitations and have intellectual humility, especially when engaging with people who are more senior and have done their homework. Considering, even after being corrected, Joe insisted on being correct, rather than admitting he hadn't done his homework, he doubled down, I will also double down and admit I enjoyed Dr. Koons completely shutting Joe's comments down. This is even more true when one considers that in academia such shoddy work is all too commonplace, and passes for "scholarly work", it just shows why I have little to no respect for the vast majority of modern academics. You can disagree or claim I'm being "mean" if you want, but allowing people to say delusional things is far more dangerous to society than me enjoying seeing such people put in their place, in my opinion.

[@antipositivism3128]

@@VACatholic big facts

[@Mentat1231]

Thank you for this! I was very happy to hear someone of Koons' caliber say exactly what I have been thinking of this UPD approach. I have called it elsewhere, "epistemological poison", for that same reason.

[@runningdecadeix4780]

What is UPD, what are you referring to exactly? And can you give a timestamp?

[@Mentat1231]

@@runningdecadeix4780 This was a pretty substantial portion of the video. I think Joe first starts explaining and defending the UPD from 18:40 to 21:27. Koons' response starts at 23:07, though you could just watch through from 18:40, because Joe gives some justifications between 21:27 and when Rob starts talking at 23:07.

[@runningdecadeix4780]

@@Mentat1231 I am struggling to understand how UPD is supposed to work. If it's just saying a pair of propositions is impossible together, isn't that the point? If it's saying that grim reapers are possible and infinite regresses are possible, but the two together are impossible, isn't that just the point of the paradox, so therefore we must choose which proposition to reject? If it's just saying that we can hold both propositions as possible in themselves, but not possible together, isn't that just arbitrarily allowing for an exception to the patchwork principle or recombination without explaining it? ("X is possible and Y is possible, but X&Y is not possible even though prima facie if X is possible and Y is possible X&Y should be possible") I guess I'm struggling to understand it

[@ChristianSigma]

Awesome conversation with three great intellects!

[@Sveccha93]

This is so much fun! Thanks, gentlemen.

[@rickyenlow337]

Lovely conversation! (At least I assume it was, I didn't understand a single word of it) :)

[@archangel7052]

It's like ASMR for me😌

[@scotthutson8683]

I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!!

[@vulteiuscatellus4105]

I felt like they were talking past each other on the possibility of a world full of endless suffering. I think what Koons was trying to say is that the possibility of a world full of suffering, endless or not, is ruled out by theism, while endlessness itself is ruled out by paradoxes involving infinity.

[@Hello-vz1md]

If that's the case then is Eternal Afterlife Endless heaven and Hell impossible ?can casual finitism be use against Endless Afterlife?

[@vulteiuscatellus4105]

@@Hello-vz1md possibly. It depends on how you think of the afterlife, though. If it’s an infinite number of moments with actual changes, then yes, that’s ruled out. But if the afterlife is a state beyond or outside time itself, I don’t think this would be an issue.

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@vulteiuscatellus4105 traditionally people view Afterlife as Endless time or Potential infinite number of days and active movement and change exist there So casual finitism could be use to Support theism but it can also be use against Endless Afterlife or Abrahamic Religions

[@vulteiuscatellus4105]

@@Hello-vz1md that’s the intuitive view but I don’t know about the traditional one. The beatific vision seems like it would be outside spacetime.

[@Kristian-ql8zw]

@@vulteiuscatellus4105 Actually one distinction that's important is that they were talking about a world with ONLY endless suffering. So, there could be endless suffering or potentially endless suffering in a theistic world. The problem would come in if there was ONLY endless suffering.

[@AbrarManzoor]

Good topic sir

[@jamescantrell2092]

It's how Dr. Koons shakes his head "no" so often. Let Joe speak, and gently walk us through where those concepts break down for you.

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

Shaking his head doesn't interrupt Joe from speaking. IT's just a knee-jerk response to hearing stuff that doesn't make sense to him. I see no problem with it.

[@dustinellerbe4125]

Joe, are you saying Rob's patchwork principles are causing contradictions? That's my takeaway from this.

[@AbrarManzoor]

Joe my brother you talk too fast plz slow your speed

[@Weriono]

I listen at 2x 😤 but u can lower it to 0.75x or 0.5x wen he’s speaking + putting captions on may help track wat he’s saying better

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

He can't help it he gets excited lol

[@jamescantrell2092]

I wish Dr. Koons was slightly more gracious. Joe is doing his best and I feel like Rob is too certain on his presentations. They may be truer but help us plebs gently through the gate.

[@Friction]

Great discussion! I thought what Koons had to say about the semantic parodies was very fair; I would not have gone that route. I do think that there are clear counterexamples to the patchwork principle, like the (finite) lightbulb case I constructed in discussion with Alex Malpass. I do think that Koons' objection to UPD at around 48:45 is easily rejected by noting that not only can there not be infinitely many reapers which collectively satisfy those conditions in that way, but there also can not be infinitely many reapers which /possibly/ collectively satisfy the conditions in that way (this follows trivially in S5). It just follows immediately that a "world" at which the coin comes up tails and they do not get the instruction is not a possible world (contrary to what you might think), since it requires that the reapers have this impossible modal property. However, it will do no good for Koons to say that the reapers do not have this modal property, since then there would be possible worlds at which the coin lands tails, and possible worlds at which the coin lands heads and they fail to satisfy their task, and from this we get no paradox. We can say similar things about other cases as well.

[@m.l.pianist2370]

Why can't there be "infinitely many reapers which collectively satisfy those conditions in that way"?

[@Friction]

@@m.l.pianist2370 That's the whole point of the argument, that the Grim Reaper scenario is not possible! The problem is that a sequence of reapers with no first member must satisfy a task which is satisfiable only by a sequence of reapers which has a first member. And this isn't possible.

[@maggot1995]

That's smuggling causation into the picture. In this possible world, there must be some causal mechanism built into each lightbulb (like a NOT gate in a circuit) that causes it to be lit up based on the state of each lightbulb “to the left.” The conditional “lit up” property that begets the contradiction obviously derives from some mechanism that changes the state of the lightbulb; it’s not derived ex nihilo. It’s opaque to me what such a mechanism would look like. Somehow the NOT gate is instantaneous and includes its own state? Isn’t this just another semantic paradox? Hidden in the “circle of lightbulbs” is one lightbulb being on iff it’s off (the liar’s paradox). But semantic paradox aside, even if this circle of lightbulbs were constructed it’d be a demonstration that causal loops are impossible. Nothing can cause itself.

[@Friction]

@@maggot1995 Thanks for the reply! (1) I did not require that the lightbulb scenario is causal, and in fact it does not have to be. Note, however, that even if it were causal and that the conclusion is that causal loops are impossible, all we've shown is that the patchwork principle permits the construction of (impossible) causal loops. Either way, so much the worse for the patchwork principle. Perhaps you will reply that the scenario /must/ involve a causal loop, and we can amend the patchwork principle such that the patched up scenarios are causally coherent (involve possible causal structures). However, this will not do, since it is false that it must be causal, and the patchwork principle would then not permit the construction of Grim Reaper style scenarios (those, as well, involve impossible causal structures). I could go on about this point, but I'm going to make a video on this soon, so may explore it further there. (2) There is something analogous to self-reference issue here, which is that a lightbulb can be on only if it is off, but it is not thereby a semantic paradox. Aside from the fact that my scenario involves no semantics at all, note the other critical difference: in the semantic versions, unlike the lightbulb scenario, the patched together scenario /is possible/, as Koons is right to point out. You can have people uttering those sentences, or t-shirts with words on them, etc., and those can be patched up without issue; the paradox comes in only when we assume additional facts about semantics and truth. Nothing like that is going on in the lightbulb case.

[@maggot1995]

@@Friction Yes, he's right to point that out. Something is going on like that in the lightbulb case IF the conditional lit up property is free floating--not derived from physical mechanisms that change the state of the light bulbs. Then it's literally just the self referencing paradox. Else, the conditional property is causally enacted in the possible world. So there's a loop. And no, I really don't see how the patchwork principle is implicated in this. Can you spell it out? Consider 1 light bulb part of a circle and it's already impossible. So there's not even one possibility.

[@lukekrell5665]

Yes - Actual infinities are logically impossible. There cannot be an infinite past. The future has no ontology, so speaking of an infinite future delves us into equivocation. It is true that many Christians are inconsistent in rejecting the possibility of actual infinities. Many of them actually believe that the future has ontology and that it is infinite which puts them at odds with Cosmological arguments. Joe is right to point that out.

[@lukekrell5665]

Causal Finitism implies Open Theism for the Christian.

[@Hello-vz1md]

future is in God's Mind most paradoxes against infinity can also be use against potential infinite I personally think that

[@notnpc7965]

@@lukekrell5665 Can't God look forward any finite amount that he wants to? Is that still open theism?

[@ArthKryst]

Why are actual infinites logically impossible? I think they are possible, both metaphysically and logically. I find the Grimm Reaper paradox to be flawed argument. The entire paradox only arises if the first Grimm reaper is said to be assigned at 12.01. Just switch the order in how you number the reapers and you have infinite reapers and everything ajd the first Grimm reaper kills Fred and at 12.01 however many reapers there are will have known He's dead. So the paradox immediately goes away. Yablo's paradox is similarly on the same structure, Christians are willing to argue semantics on Yablo's paradox whereas Grimm Reaper paradox gets a pass for some reason

[@lukekrell5665]

@ArthKryst Why are actual infinities logically impossible? Here is a quick, clumsily assembled argument for the intuition, which certainly should be examined for equivocation. Nonetheless I think it holds up. To exist is to not not exist. There is an objective boundary between existence and non-existence. Therefore, everything that exists has an objective boundary. Finite means to have boundaries. Therefore, everything that exists is finite. Therefore, there are no actual infinities. I can’t say I find the Grimm Reaper Paradox moving, nor Yablo’s. I do find Xeno’s paradox moving. @Hello-vz1md I don't think the arguments against actual infinities work against the concept of potential infinities. I would be interested in being corrected if I am wrong. @notnpc7965 I am an Open Theist. That would mean that God does not have objective knowledge about some aspects of the future, because those aspects are yet to have ontology in any sense. I think my view entails that God does experience something like time in his nature.

[@YovanypadillaJr]

Joe rocking the buzzcut. Nice

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

Rob got a little too excited at times. But good stuff. Rasmussen and Malpass should have joined in too.

[@VACatholic]

That's what happens when you have a professor who knows the arguments talking with an undergrad who doesn't. Putting them on an even footing is a bit silly, tbh.

[@Hello-vz1md]

Did you guys saw this film on Kalam kzbin.info/www/bejne/pniulmmPr62cg6c

[@VACatholic]

​@@Hello-vz1md Do you have a tl'dw? I'm not spending an hour on an argument I don't particularly care about. I realize it's incredibly important to atheists because Dr. WLC has been eating the lunch of atheists for decades now with the same argument, and they have no good response, but fundamentally it's not the most interesting argument I've heard, nor is the debate particularly interesting given the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the so-called-atheistic position.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

@@Hello-vz1md Atheists have been far more dishonest in their use of Vilenkin than Craig, but in any case the most interesting kalam related arguments are philosophical and not scientific. On this score the video really should have had extended interviews w Koons, Pruss, and Rasmussen…

[@sebafacuse18]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns hello meow, since last time you told me that feser led you to theism I would like to know what you think about the existential inertia proposed by joe and his arguments against the entity, since feser answered him twice and did not pay more attention to him, I guess because he considers him just a student, so I wanted to know if you know an answer to joe or if I should worry about those objections.

[@glof2553]

Joe rocking the bowlcut. Nice

[@mistermkultra3114]

Kalam : The causal finitism is inevitable ...

[@Hello-vz1md]

What about Endless Afterlife ?

[@rosenzollern]

@@Hello-vz1md it’s a potential infinity. There will be a first cause which is for example your creation or your death which brings you to the life eternal. So there is no infinite causal chain. Also, there won’t ever be a last day of infinity. It will be always “reaching” to the future. So, the church objection is ruled out. Also the objection can be answered that in afterlife is no time/space dimension and that’s why it’s an another mod of existence, hence we can’t speak about time and infinity there.

[@phillwithskill1364]

Joe rocking the mullet. Nice

[@PaulQuantumWales]

Koons sounds so impressive and capable until he applies the logic to the bible (as at the 47m mark). Then the wheels on the wagon wobble. A 1h 20 they fall of completely.

[@Jimmy-iy9pl]

The award to the most confused youtube commenter goes to: You!