Rebutting Trent Horn’s rebuttal of Alex O’Connor’s rebuttal of Ben Shapiro and Ed Feser

[@tdodyssey]

This is the only channel not afraid of making a response to a response to a response

[@HarryNicNicholas]

well can i point you in the direction of hamza's den's response to pinecreek on hamza's den's response to nathan ormond's response to pinecreek on hamza's den's response to hamza's den's response to pinecreek, i think apostate prophet also did a response to pinecreek on hamzas den too.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

also known as hilberts response video.

[@tdodyssey]

@@HarryNicNicholas lol I'll check it out

[@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke]

@@tdodyssey You'll check that out, will you? I don't have anything to say about that, but I'm addressing that comment. Because now, I'm making a response to a response to a response to a response :) (I'm responding to your response to Harry, who was responding to your original post, which was a response to this video)

[@tdodyssey]

@@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke well I would like to respond to clarify that I did in fact not lie when I said I would check it out! I guess now we have a response to a response to a response to a response to a response! Next we need to invent time travel so we can make this a vicious circle!

[@midwesteigensheaf]

1:23:27 Trent: So, I hope you enjoyed- Joe: Why?

[@VeNeRaGe]

My day was pretty sh*t, but once this video got uploaded and received a notification, it instantly became a great day. Thank you, Joe.

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

Great and lowly are RELATIVE. 😉

[@Slanghappy]

40% understood. 100% appreciated. TY!

[@Sugarycaaaaaandygoodness]

Once Ed offers a rebuttal, the circle is complete

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

He never will lol

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

He took forever with his Oppy response too. It will most likely take awhile. I was surprised how fast he responded to Ryan Mullins on his blog.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

@@JohnSmith-bq6nf Yah, he *really* doesn’t like Mullins haha

[@JohnSmith-bq6nf]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I actually agree with his Oppy criticisms, but he didn't really give any new or interesting justifications for his Aristotelian proof once again.

[@logans.butler285]

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns If Feser was Loke, he definitely would offer a rebuttal en no time

[@brunoarruda9916]

Dude, Trent gets no pass from this channel. Imagine posting anything while being pretty sure Joe is going to have a 2 hours response to your remarks.

[@MajestyofReason]

Solution: don’t make unsuccessful arguments in my favorite area😉❤️

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

@@MajestyofReason, how many guests will remain in Hilbert's Hotel after a SINGLE guest leaves?

[@tdodyssey]

@@ReverendDr.Thomas "how many" makes it seems like there is a finite number of people in the hotel. Think about the natural numbers N, and the natural numbers including 0, N_0. There's a bijective mapping from N to N_0 (and vise versa) so they have the same "number of items". We can also create such a bijection between the people in the hotel and the natural numbers, so all of them have the same cardinality.

[@jacobhubbard617]

@@tdodyssey But 0 is a natural number ;)

[@tdodyssey]

@@jacobhubbard617 not really. In the U.S., at least, we treat N, the natural numbers, as the set {1, 2, 3, ...} and N_0 as the set {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}. N_0 can also be notated as W, the whole numbers.

[@Enne_esse]

I am so happy to find a channel that is not afraid to make rebuttals on Trent Horn. Even when I was catholic, I knew he was overrated.

[@demergent_deist]

In case anyone is interested: The German philosopher Friedrich Trendelenburg (1802 - 1872) criticized the Aristotelian definition of change as the actualization of potentiality: “Trendelenburg took issue with [Aristotle's] definition in the Logische Untersuchungen on the grounds that the concepts of actuality and potentiality are less primitive than motion itself, and indeed need to be defined through it (I, 153).” “Trendelenburg points out, change, i.e., the concept of something becoming different than it was, already involves that of movement, for we understand change as the result of movement (I, 152).” And Leibniz even offers an intermediate between act and potency, the vis activa, which constitutes his concept of force: “Leibnizian force is a power amplified by a striving so that it can transfer itself into actualization. It is always active as an invisible internal motion and manifests itself in an outward development as soon as all hindrances are removed. So, its status is located between potency and act.”

[@PhilosophyThatMatters]

Will this video lead to an infinite chain of rebuttals? Only time will tell.

[@CharlesPayet]

Rebuttals all the way down, is that what you’re saying? But are they just potential rebuttals until actually uploaded?

[@FLP_33]

Joe really is the actualizer of the potential in all of us to doubt the classical proofs for God.

[@asadr9794]

Freaking love that someone finally notices the strange way Dr. Craig pronounces "al-Ghazali", he says it like "al-Khazali"

[@pedroamaralcouto]

He pronounces weirdly several words. Some are Arabic, like "Koran". He pronounced it to a Muslim. It's like he's trying to speak Arabic but fails.

[@TheOtherCaleb]

I’d love to see a video responding to some bad anti-theistic arguments! Maybe even a two hour one lol. That would be sick.

[@eapooda]

Joe we need a video on the Evidential Problem of Evil 🥺:(

[@BatmanArkham8592]

Also on logical problem of evil

[@patienbear]

Everybody acting gangsta until MR shows up

[@unhingedconnoisseur164]

right, who’s gonna make a refutation of majesty of reason’s refutation of trent’s refutation of cosmic skeptic’s refutation?

[@williammcenaney1331]

Mr. Schmid, please tell us what you think of this. St. Thomas Aquinas believes that an object can have a property possibly or actually, but not both at the same time. But modal logicians can have a property possibly and actually at the same time. Can you reconcile these two descriptions of possibility and actually? Here's another question because Mr. Horn mentioned immaterial minds. If a person's sense organs never work, will he know that. he exists?

[@daanmollema6366]

Wait until the counter-counter-counter-counter-counter is dropped

[@razi_kr]

I think this rebuttal cannot go ad infinitum. So I announce your video as the unrebutted rebuttal.

[@MajestyofReason]

And not just unrebutted, but unrebuttable! And in every respect!!!

[@roddydelipsa1769]

Or maybe the rebuttals can go as far as God giving the last one

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@roddydelipsa1769 Good one

[@goldenalt3166]

Are potentials required to all exist in the object or can they be created? It seems like you could limit the potentials of the coffee by the fact that change is limited. When you heat the coffee, you actualize its potential to be a degree hotter AND give it the potential to be another degree hotter.

[@tombrown9679]

I hope you have a long produtive life. You are leaving a mark and you will make a lot more.

[@polycarp777]

Joe could you please link me a paper or book on the Bayesian arguments from consciousness that you stated was a good argument in the video ?

[@coltoncauthen8696]

I haven’t watched this yet, but rest assured I will be rebutting this entire video before the week is over. 😂😂😂😂

[@africash0cks]

Just discovered your channel... bit rough round the edges but incredibly impressed with your intellectual rigour and your facility with complex arguments. In short.. I like your style mate. Will be a regular 'subscriber'.

[@BatmanArkham8592]

Joe, Have you watched Skydivephil's recent Documentary on Fine tuning argument? I was wondering what do you think about this and will you add this video to your design argument playlist like you did with your Kalam playlist.

[@PlaylistWatching1234]

Just magnificent stuff.

[@matthewsocoollike]

Honestly I wish Joe would dumb things down a bit. I really love joes brain but I’m not a philosophy expert so sometimes I just can’t understand what he’s saying with all these big words that I never heard of. Cosmicskeptic is really good at that

[@sneakysnake2330]

You and Trent should really schedule a dialogue, considering you guys seem to be going back and forth and a lot of these same issue. I think it would be very edifying.

[@MajestyofReason]

We haven't really gone back and forth; Trent has made one response to me in total, to which I responded in turn :) But yes, we're thinking about doing some sort of project together

[@BatmanArkham8592]

Maybe writing a debate book would be a good idea.

[@sneakysnake2330]

@@BatmanArkham8592 that, and then a ufc match. I don’t know who’d win. Joe is young and is pretty fast judging by his soccer skills, plus I think he has the height advantage, but Trent has been taking jiu jitsu and muy Thai, so he’s probably got the experience.

[@BatmanArkham8592]

@@sneakysnake2330 Good idea and if joe win that match then he will be qualified for a death battle with Feser.

[@sneakysnake2330]

@@BatmanArkham8592 and if Trent wins, he fights Graham oppy

[@johnbaustian5180]

As I recall, Ben Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew. I find it curious that he cites Roman Catholic philosophers to prove the existence of a God, rather than relying on the learned members of his own faith.

[@callidus9421]

I have a question: At 13:55 you say that if actual infinetely small distances in space can exist the number of times one could divide this space would be infinite and so actual infinities exist. My quetion is this; doesn't this argument already assume nominalism (at least about infinities) to be false and is thus question begging? Wouldn't someone like W. L. Craig deny that space was infinitely dense?

[@MajestyofReason]

I was simply following along with Alex's example; later I give my own examples which don't assume that space is infinitely dense (see the examples involving potentials to exist for n more days, and potentials to be n feet away from something, for each natural number n)

[@callidus9421]

@@MajestyofReason This is why you don't comment on videos unless you watched them in their entirety. 😅 Thanks, Joe!

[@guilhermemms8708]

But since Feser's point here in the book 1:08:47 states that the reason why the universe needs actualization is because there has to be a reason why he world is of one type and not other, why can't the same thing be applied to god? I mean, he could be other sort of god than the one that he is

[@goldenalt3166]

In Feser's view, God is simple. There's no "other way".

[@tdodyssey]

Is there even a case for eternalism? We only know change/time through our perception, which is itself constantly changing. If time were a 4th dimension, our perceptions are still "moving" through that dimension of time to observe change, and this change would have to be outside of the temporal dimension because it itself is what is causing us to move through the dimension of time. So even in an eternalist view, it would seem to imply a change beyond a temporal dimension of time.

[@Oskar1000]

I don't know if that is a datum. I only have an experience of the current moment. At no time T do I have an experience of T+1 or T-1. Those would be currently had premenitions or memories. I'd be tempted to say "it seems like I am experience a flow of time. But then I remember Wittgenstein's retort to the person saying "it looks as the sun is going around the earth". His response: "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?" What would eternalism feel like. It wouldn't feel like a long drawn out moment where you are thinking "boy I sure hope somethings happens soon". That would be to introduce some meta time. No, since at any moment T you are only experiencing that moment T. It would for all moments feel exactly the same.

[@goclbert]

Change is a relative concept. When we say something changes, we are implicitly saying that change is occurring with respect to something. We can say the elevation of a ramp changes with respect to distance on that ramp. We can talk about how temperature changes with respect to distance from the sun. In English, when we don't state what that change occurred with respect to, we imply that it is time. As far as time is concerned, it is not that we are being propelled forward in time, it is that we are not free to observe change with respect to time arbitrarily, in the same way we can with space. Entropy and the arrow of time necessitates that there is more information in the next moment than there was in the previous moment. This entropy isn't some other change with respect to a new 5th dimension, rather it is a structural property of the 4-D block that we are bound to.

[@enzoaraya4796]

We really need more philosophically robust videos like this for the atheist side of the argument

[@TheologyUnleashed]

These titles are getting out of hand

[@garymanz3403]

An Infinite regress of turtles is not convincing because it’s a logical absurdity to the law of potency & act without something fully actual, both actualizing a 1st thing and actualizing everything as they are at any moment in time. It also violates the principle of sufficient reason, which science is predicated on. And in this case, can’t provide an answer for.

[@lolroflmaoization]

There is quite a problem with wave function monism that the philosopher of physics Tim Maudlin points to, the following is quote from the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews explaining Tim Maudlins objections to such views in the book "Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality " Proponents of alternative no-collapse interpretations to Everett such as Bohmian mechanics are not impressed. For Bohmians, the wave function alone is insufficient to account for the result of any measurement. To do so, says Tim Maudlin in the chapter "Can the World Be Only Wavefunction?", one must add particles, i.e., localized objects in low-dimensional spacetime, into the ontology. Maudlin's conclusion is that Everett's interpretation, and similarly collapse alternatives in which nothing but the wave function exists, are epistemically incoherent: they do not make the connection between theory and the results of experiments comprehensible, and yet these results are presumably what serve to confirm these theories to begin with. The worry here seems to be that if, according to the Everettians, the wave function is all there is, and if, further, it 'lives' in an abstract, multidimensional space, then it is unclear how such an object can account for our experience which is, roughly put, the behavior of localized objects in the low-dimensional spacetime we inhabit. Bohmians can easily address this problem, says Maudlin, because they simply postulate such localized objects by adding them into the ontology. GRWf theory (collapse with flash ontology) has a similar solution. But Everettians (and first generation collapse theoreticians with them) face the serious challenge of coming up with a comprehensible link between the state of wave function (which is all there is) and what warrants our belief in the theory, namely, the behavior of localized objects in a low-dimensional spacetime, which is our experience. Decoherence, argues Maudlin convincingly (p. 132), simply cannot meet this challenge. At this stage the attentive reader would have probably noticed that present day Everettians and their opponents are engaged in two different sets of problems, and simply talk past each other. While Wallace is busy defending the ontology of multiplicity of worlds by presenting it as no more awkward than any other ontology of emergent entities (call this tactic "emergence"), Maudlin saddles him with the problem of latching that ontology to our everyday experience (call this problem "incoherence").

[@muhammadshahedkhanshawon3785]

I was waiting for the legendary debate between Joe Schmid vs Trent horn

[@BatmanArkham8592]

The winner of that debate will get Alex O'connor as a reward .

[@williammcenaney1331]

Mr. Schmid is one most incisive philosophers on KZbin. So I could hardly believe my ears when he asked why there couldn't be two purely actual beings. The answer seems obvious to me. If there were to purely actual beings, you'd need a way to tell them apart. To do that, you'd need to a find a property that only one of them actually. Since the other one wouldn't have that property, that other being would have it potentially. But a purely actual being has no potential of any sort. So I contradict myself if I say that a purely actual being has one or more potentials. But if God exists, and if he is purely actual, he can have merely Cambridge properties just as Plato can. For example, if Aristotle grows taller than Plato, that doesn't mean that Plato shortened. Aristotle changed and Plato stayed the same.

[@MajestyofReason]

Thanks for the comment! I address that argument in my book. From p. 31: "For there to be two (or more) purely actual beings, there must be a feature that differentiates the two of them. “But,” writes Feser, “there could be such a differentiating feature only if a purely actual actualizer had some unactualized potential, which, being purely actual, it does not have” (2017, p. 36). By our lights, however, this argument fails. A differentiating feature could easily be some difference in _actual_ features between things. An elephant, an amoeba, and a planet (e.g.) are distinguished by many fea tures other than unrealized potentials. (Yes, they are also distinguished by different potentials, too. But this is perfectly compatible with our claim.) And while “having different actual features” entails that one being does not have a feature the other has, the mere _absence_ of a feature does not entail potentially having that feature. For example, we don’t have the feature _being made entirely of gold_ , but we’re not even _potentially_ made entirely of gold."

[@williammcenaney1331]

@@MajestyofReasonYou're welcome. I need to reread Feser's book. Thanks.

[@MajestyofReason]

@@williammcenaney1331 You're very welcome! Thanks for your lovely comments. Also, if my book is too expensive, just email me and I can help :)

[@williammcenaney1331]

@@MajestyofReason "Lovely" sounds like hyperbole, but you're welcome. :) I'd love to read your book. But I wonder whether I'm smart enough to comprehend it. I'm hardly a philosopher, my friend. Instead, I proofread for a Catholic publisher and tutor computer science students when I can. Please that you're getting a compliment when I admit that I felt intimidated when I first watched a "Majesty of Reason" video. In fact, though I love philosophy, I should have earned my second degree in a field I excel in, if there is one. Sadly, I don't know your email address, maybe because I got a new Gmail address about six months ago. Thanks for your kind offer. Since I'm sure I can afford your book, I'd love to buy a signed copy from, including the fee for the signature and the one for the exaggerated, obligatory praise you'll undoubtedly include with your John Hancock. :) Do that little favor for a narcissist, would you? ;) Seriously, my friend, you're very kind. That's I need you to know that I joke to dismiss your generous offer. Maybe you remember that months ago, I said I'd feel honored to get to know you.

[@MajestyofReason]

@@williammcenaney1331 Well, if you really want a signed copy, I could potentially do that. I can't ship anything out until winter break, so you can email me then if you're interested :) (If not, that's totally cool, too. Also, my email is on the 'about' section of my channel)

[@AristotlesRevolution]

Can we get link to your script

[@MajestyofReason]

Patrons have access🙂

[@corleyjohnson2028]

Alex needs to bring this full circle

[@danielfilan8056]

Full circle would be if Feser made a response, surely!

[@snowforest6487]

@@danielfilan8056 no ones gonna reply to 4 year video nor is fesser gonna reply to however big Joe makes his written responses no ones got time for that

[@iruleandyoudont9]

yeah I don't really understand Cosmic Skeptics argument. it sounds like he's just saying potentials are actual

[@MajestyofReason]

Well, his argument about actual infinites is that potentials really exist, for the Aristotelian-Thomist. He’s not saying they’re actual; to say that a collection is an actual infinite is simply to say that the collection really has infinitely many (aleph-null-many) members (rather than being a collection that always has finitely many members and is always growing, which is a potential infinite), regardless of whether those members are actualities or potentialities. It’s an actually infinite number of potentialities.

[@iruleandyoudont9]

@@MajestyofReason do you think it would follow under this sort of analysis that for each potentiality possessed by something, there's a corresponding actuality which is the having of that potential? that seems to be the idea and I would think a Thomist would want to reject that but I don't know how they would argue it

[@rembrandt972ify]

The argument from motion was disproven by a couple of Christians centuries ago. You might have heard of them, Newton and Galileo.

[@zeraphking1407]

The infinite regress isn't convincing for a number of reasons. Why is there a chain of events in the first place? What explanation is there for them? What compels them to act at all? Does this infinite chain of events exist in a reality where time is eternal? Why isn't there disorder and randomness? If even one action didn't occur, would we still be here?

[@YLLPal]

Around 39:00 couldn't an omniscient being know that humans exist between 13.2BYABB (billion years after the big bang) to 13.7BYABB? That knowledge then wouldn't change depending on when you are in time. Am I confusing models of time perhaps?

[@MajestyofReason]

Great question. So, an omniscient being would indeed know that humans exist in such-and-such interval, and this knowledge doesn’t change; but notice that this still doesn’t allow God to know whether or not humans exist, since that depends on whether or not the present moment falls in that interval - and to know *that*, one’s knowledge must change, since where the present moment is along the timeline continually changes (under tensed views of time)🙂

[@YLLPal]

@@MajestyofReason thanks! I think I may be too accustomed to tensless time. It makes sense that it changes under tensed time to match the present moment.

[@idnoble]

While I admit Alex made a mess of his claim that B-theory implies that change doesn't exist, you generally steelman positions and you probably should have here. While there can be different perspectives, one can reasonably hold a perdurantist position and say that an object having different properties at different points in time is no different than having different properties at different spatial locations and we wouldn't say that a person has "changed" just because when we look at one end of their spatial extension we see a foot, while at the other we see a head.

[@MajestyofReason]

My attempt to steel man was to take Alex’s point about eternalism as a point that we can’t analyze change as the actualization of potential, which I subsequently defended in the video against Trent’s criticisms🙂

[@idnoble]

@@MajestyofReason Which, I should have said you did very well and I admit this is a quibble on a relatively small point.

[@ixamraxi]

Not sure if maybe I am misunderstanding your point, perhaps you could clarify. It seems like if you're viewing change from the perspective of a given spacetime location, then comparing what is happening at other spacetime locations is confusing me. If you're comparing the spacetime location at a head and a foot of a person at the same point in time, its irrelevant to either spacetime location that the same four dimensional worm is intersecting both, each spacetime location would only sees some cell or biological tissue, with no information about how its own location relates to other locations. Its a different perspective entirely to then view it from the perspective of an object with a head and a foot, or at least that make it seems like you're no longer using a perdurantist view, and if you've change perspective away from that view, then the quibble seems only applicable to the view that its not actually intended for. Hopefully that makes sense.

[@idnoble]

@@ixamraxi Yup, I think you've misunderstood my point. I was only using the reference to a 3D object has an analogy. My point was fairly simple, regardless of dimension, what we don't do is point at two parts of a single object and claim the object has changed.

[@ixamraxi]

@@idnoble I see, but then even that object has changed though, hasn't it? I mean, even if its just the property of location, that property has changed from one moment to the next, and that change happens even for static objects of which no other properties change, given we are hurtling through space. So every object, regardless of some other property, regardless of dimension, changes in location through time, however difficult it is to perceive given how we view objects relative to our locations with respect to other objects, rather than the context of the universe we exist in. Everything changes both in location through time, always. The only argument against this is to say that spacetime locality is not a property of objects.

[@allisonsutherland1144]

Thanks for linking your resources in the video description! The content is much appreciated on my end.

[@victorherrera73]

The concept of unlimited is very different from infinite. Assigning infinite properties to a finite thing that could not exist (contingency) ends in contradiction. If you walk along the earth's equator you will never reach the horizon, you will always see that you can take one more step, but that does not mean that the earth is infinite. So, to assign properties to all contingent things that exist, because they could not exist or rather have a beginning and an end, the logical thing is to use unlimited not infinite.

[@Dendrite20]

Please debunk Red Pen Logic. He's an apologetic channel and as a religious person myself I cannot stand his arrogance. He hands-picks videos that are easily countered and seems to possess a massive superiority complex. You're miles above most if not all theist/atheist channels on KZbin in regard to argumentative ability and logical coherency, as such I have confidence in the fact that you'd certainly provide him with some humility.

[@goldenalt3166]

I don't find Red Pen to be interesting because like you said, he avoids making any strong claims or addressing difficult subjects. Much like Trent is doing here. Whenever a philosopher starts giving different views that wouldn't be challenged by an argument rather than defending his own views, that's a bad sign.

[@logans.butler285]

Duuuuude, Red Pen Logic is an absolute clown I'm glad I'm not the only one who has issues with his content

[@macattack1958]

Trent needs to publish a rebuttal to your rebuttal of his rebuttal to Alex’s rebuttal.

[@buddigabong]

he has a rule that he doesn't do rebuttals to rebuttals and will only do a debate/discussion as a rebuttal.

[@thephilosophicalagnostic2177]

Wherein the commentators demonstrate infinite regress: Rebutting z's rebuttal of y's rebuttal of x's rebuttal of w's rebuttal... :D

[@zeraphking1407]

The question is this: is time eternal?

[@JD-xz1mx]

I'm not sure who to root for. I dislike everyone involved.

[@fujiapple9675]

People need to read better Thomists than Feser. Feser is watered down Aquinas at best.

[@goldenalt3166]

Are there any that can reconcile Aquinas with modern physics? It seems that all his arguments are based on ignorance of fundamental physics.

[@fujiapple9675]

@@goldenalt3166 none of his arguments have anything to do with physics. They are metaphysical principles.

[@goldenalt3166]

@@fujiapple9675 Is that a no?

[@fujiapple9675]

@@goldenalt3166 check out the work of Nigel Cundy and Rob Koons for starters. They're contemporary Thomists who defend a Neo-Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy of science. Of course the ancients weren't right about everything, nor should they be expected to be given the lack of data at their disposal. Aquinas' theories of causality, fundamentality, essence, existence, etc are completely intact, even if everything we know about science changes overnight.

[@goldenalt3166]

@@fujiapple9675 Yes, I suspected Aquinas was useless. "Philosophy of science" doesn't tend to be scientific either. Do they actually address these theories of causation and modern physics?

[@OpenTanyao]

Oh man, remember KZbin's Reply Video era? That was some wild west reality we lived in.

[@freethought8517]

I think you aren't giving the view "b-theory of time implies a lack of change" enough credit. Your example of the tree sapling would appear to us as obvious change. But that change could be seen as an illusion because it is a result of a temporal sampling of the 4 dimensional object "tree plant". When you view the complete 4 dimensional object it in itself never changes, your perspective does.

[@gze7953]

Infinite regress of rebutting

[@ckmfunk]

Einstein's special relativity *demonstrates* (not just "indicates") that future events in your own light cone can be legit considered simultaneous to the present time, you can show it pen and paper. If you deny that you are denying special relativity which is ..well established.

[@notavailable4891]

Man it is really nice to see a video by a non believer where the arguments are actually good. I know KZbin isn't the place to go for the best of philosophy but unbelief seemed so stagnant after the new atheists it was....disappointing. this is what I have been looking for as a believer who likes a good debate.

[@ivanvnucko3056]

Under eternalism there is no change in reality, only our perception "moves" from slice to slice along the time dimension, like an LP record is not changing, the object itself is static, only the needle is reading different parts of the record. I think this is what is meant by "there is no change". Why is Joe responding as if it was something stupid Alex said?

[@Nickname006]

Hi Joe! You may find this an odd question but did you ever consider going to study physics instead of philosophy?

[@goclbert]

49:30 I would say the observer is a part, not the entire person-block (for lack of a better term). The stuff corresponding to the person extends throughout time but the observer is a local structure that relates across a range of time. There's an intrinsic time component to being an observer that is not true of the coffee cup which is a purely spatial construction merely embedded in time. A coffee cup frozen in time is still a coffee cup but an observer frozen in time is not an observer. EDIT ah I see you got to that later in the video

[@flipperwhale7276]

I actually agree with Alex that change doesn’t “exist.” Your shirt is red but it’s also yellow, you just can’t observe that yet and it doesn’t have the properties of a yellow shirt until you reach that moment. Imagine a software displaying an image of New York City. You can change where the camera is on the x, y, and z axes, but also the temporal axis. Of course NYC is the same from a top-down view as a side profile, and I’d argue it’s also the same 1000 years in the past. So a hot coffee that sits out is also a cold cup of coffee, but a hot coffee that is consumed immediately isn’t, and could never be. Humans observe change and it’s good to call a sapling becoming a tree a change. But in the realm of fundamental reality, I think the tree is the “same thing” as the sapling, just as the sapling would be the same thing from a top-down perspective as a side view.

[@goldenalt3166]

Definitions need a context. Whether something counts as "change" depends on what you are evaluating. A sapling certainly costs less than a grown tree or gives less shade, but could have the same genetic code or legal owner.

[@S.D.323]

It's too many levels someone will get stuck in limbo

[@juansuarez705]

"I reject." 😂😂😂 Well, I guess because you reject it, that must be it.

[@tuav]

Ok now we need a rebuttal from OG Mr. Willy Craig bro

[@nacasius]

Quantum fields are not static they are in constant fluctuation with highs and lows valleys and peaks. There seems to be no beginning to such energy and no end. And the field can self-actualize by having the peaks of two potentials meet and causes self-collapse of the wave function. Or maybe it's simply better to say that there is a valid concept of quantum physics that includes the idea of quantum waves being self-actualizing

[@legron121]

Trent's arguments for the divine attributes of the uncaused being are literally just series of assertions.

[@zeraphking1407]

Is your comment an assertion?

[@legron121]

@@zeraphking1407 No, it's an observation: Trent did not justify many of the disputable claims he made to show that the uncaused being is divine.

[@zeraphking1407]

@@legron121 Does an observation involve making a truth claim? What are your best examples of his 'assertions'?

[@legron121]

@@zeraphking1407 Yes. But Trent was making an argument in the context of a debate, and so needed to justify his premises. I'm not making an argument, just an observation. For example, Trent didn't justify his claims concerning the unity of the purely actual being at 1:21:39 and 1:22:48. He just asserted them, which is not a good way to argue.

[@zeraphking1407]

@legron121 Not really. In order to be a purely actual actualizer, it must not have any potential in and of itself. Meaning it can not lack anything for its own existence. For two such beings to exist, requires each one to lack something in order to differentiate them. God lacks nothing, which invalidates this claim. You might say, however, (as Joe does), that saying it's God is just an assertion. Yet so is saying it might be something other than God. If it's not, then what is it? What is it's nature? Explain it.

[@user-vw6xp5nl6t]

something absurd about a butt.

[@jonathanthompson4734]

I've never liked potentiality used in this way or others. It feels too shallow

[@danielkirienko1701]

Hahahahaha. I watched this and suddenly felt so ignorant. That was really refreshing. Good video.

[@danascully1248]

Because there can't be an infinite regress of rebuttals, there must have been a First Rebuttal

[@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke]

Hello :) I was wondering, if you take an otherwise invalid argument and tack on the extra premise "this argument is valid", does that make it valid?

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

It can make it seem that way, and perception "is" reality, at least in some sense (it literally drives physical, manifest reality), so yes. But not in an absolute sense (shared or "composite" reality).

[@goldenalt3166]

​@@JohnnyTwoFingersNo. A premise cannot make an argument more valid. Every premise necessarily makes the argument less likely unless it was already a consequence of the argument.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

@@goldenalt3166 Said with the confidence of a proper Naive Realist.

[@goldenalt3166]

@@JohnnyTwoFingers it's pure logic. No reality involved.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

@@goldenalt3166 You've gotta be putting me on.

[@ekkuseu3164]

I disagree with you about the B theory of time "not denying change". Think of it as looking at a piano from diferent perspectives and places, if I look at it from the front, I can see its keys, if I look at it from the back, I don't see the keys. The place from which I look at the piano and the parts that I can see and can not see does not mean that the piano is changing, just means I am looking at it from a different point. Just like that, If we look at a particular object in a specific point of time, we will see some properties of that object, other properties will be seen at other points of time. Thus, theory B of time clearly makes "change" just an illusion. Anyway, I'd be glad to see what you think about this... I am a fan of yours frol Venezuela, my english is not native so sorry if I have any mistakes or problems comunnicating my ideas...

[@Frostx-t7m]

Lol i thought the video title was going to be an infinite regress.

[@jmaniak1]

Ben tries so hard to sound smart. What if something actualized our universe, how do we leap to “god did it”? It would be cute if he weren’t so self righteous

[@trevoradams3702]

As an agnostic do you ever do rebuttals to online atheists? Seems like the consistency of your position would demand it. I don’t say this in any sort of snarky tone btw lol just genuinely curious.

[@MajestyofReason]

(1) My videos are mostly on my research interests; and my research interests are mostly in traditional arguments for God; and theist KZbinrs are really the only people defending those arguments. (2) Almost no internet non-theist can capably deal with traditional arguments like those in Thomism, so it’s a gap that I think needs filling and which I spend most of my time on with my response videos; by contrast, apologists already saturate the market with responses to internet atheists. And (3) most internet atheist content doesn’t even reach a level worth engaging.

[@trevoradams3702]

@@MajestyofReason ah, fair enough. Thanks for the response!

[@MajestyofReason]

@@trevoradams3702 I’ve also been on Trent’s show criticizing several atheist arguments - search for “the agnostic case against atheism” on KZbin🙂❤️

[@trevoradams3702]

@@MajestyofReason will do, thanks!

[@vulteiuscatellus4105]

@@MajestyofReason “most internet atheist content doesn’t even reach a level worth engaging” What about Ormond and Co.?

[@Twin---]

Title had me laughing instantly! 😂

[@shawnnevalainen1337]

Craig's concerns about the infinite were formally and comprehensively addressed by Cantor and others in the 1800s. Today, we actually define an infinite set as one whose elements can be put in 1-to-1 correspondence with those of a proper subset.

[@var_28]

You're just my favorite hero, Peter Parker.

[@AndrewofVirginia]

Isn't the idea that God's knowledge changing also depend on God as temporal rather than timeless? For example, God doesn't know that humans exist "now," but instead God would timelessly know that humans exist under certain conditions, even after other things happen and before later things. Saying God knows things at one time and then knows different things later seems to be smuggling temporal existence into God's existence.

[@MajestyofReason]

Thanks for the comment! If it really is a fact that humans exist now, then since God is omniscient, God must know that humans exist now. If he doesn’t, then there is some fact that God doesn’t know, contradicting his omniscience. So it isn’t snuggling divine temporality in; the fact that God knows this fact simply follows from God’s omniscience together with the fact that it really is a fact. The only way out of this is to deny that God is omniscient, or else deny that it’s a fact that humans exist now.

[@AndrewofVirginia]

@@MajestyofReason couldn't we just say that God knows of our existence at a certain point on the timeline without using the word "now"? "Now" is not a properly relevant term to the nature of God if God is truly timeless/eternal.

[@MajestyofReason]

@@AndrewofVirginia we could, but then we’d be leaving out a genuine fact about reality: that humans exist now. This fact isn’t the same fact as the tenseless fact that humans exist on the timeline at 2024, since that’s always true (even billions of years ago), whereas it’s not always true that humans exist now. Again, one option is to deny that there are any tensed facts at all; but that seems like a pretty implausible conclusion - at least to me!

[@AndrewofVirginia]

@@MajestyofReason I guess we could say that tensed facts are valid for time-bound creatures, but not relevant for a timeless being, since a timeless being would never actually be within the "now" of any given moment of time. What would "now" even mean? Admittedly, if this is a limitation of so-called omniscience it may be a departure from traditional/orthodox religious thinking.

[@314god-pispeaksjesusislord]

The arguments for and against are badly stated if you want to argue semantics. Zeno posed the infinite regress which was answered by the sum of infinity as 1 or 2 depending on how it's stated and the application was mapped out for our finite world by the calculus which can be graphed on the Cartesian coordinate system, you apply tensors and get general relativity which ends in a singularity but can't be quite right because special relativity works on a flat topology instead of a curve and we still don't have CQG which reconciles the standard model of quantum physics showing the incompleteness goedel proved we would find from any formal mathematical system which is why God is hidden and Goedels ontological argument is still valid despite that it leads to model collapse and forces us recognize the contingency of our consciousness of our intelligence and recognize a necessary being we are subconscious of and dependent upon. Thankyou very much and have a nice day. I learned from the Bible to ignore a lot of Aristotle.

[@jacobleith6369]

Hey, mate, hope you're well. Thank you for all your wonderful content, you're an absolute gem. Do you think these three propositions form an inconsistent set? 1) Contingent objects exist. 2) Contingent objects can not sufficiently explain other contingent objects. 3) Contingent objects are sufficiently explained. I'm thinking if one appeals to a necessary existence to affirm 3, they'll face modal collapse objections or Peter Van Inwagen style epistemic collapse objections whereby a necessary existence present in all possible worlds couldn't explain why one possible world obtains. Forcing the objector to introduce brute contingency which would result in them having to deny 3 (if they continue to affirm 2). Let me know what you think. Once again, you're awesome haha

[@MajestyofReason]

Much love❤️ I discuss responses to this sort of argument (the modal collapse arg against the PSR) in several videos - see, Eg, my video “The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument” or several of the other videos in my contingency argument playlist🙂

[@jacobleith6369]

@@MajestyofReason Thank you for the recommendation, I'll definitely check those out. And, I should add, Arsenal are looking good for their first title win in a while, my friend (not in any way hoping I jynxed it there haha, as a United fan). Just out of curiosity, if you can sum it up in a few sentences (I appreciate it may require a more complex answer, so I don't want to take up any more of your time). Do you think someone can consistently affirm the three propositions?

[@MrAndyStenz]

A time slice here, a time slice there, here a slice, there a slice… (started singing this around 1:01) Joe goes after anyone (well, their ideas) and I’m here for it.

[@Netomp51]

I think is way easier for Joe to debunk others while having all the time in the world, I haven’t actually seeing him in back and forth debates to see their actual skills in real time… I bet Trent would won.

[@Sundilio]

Who cares?

[@S.D.323]

this is too many levels! one more and you will end up in limbo forever! nothing is down there except whatever was left there by the people down there before

[@BatmanArkham8592]

I hope alex watch this video or read your upcoming new book . I really hope he read your book. Alex is good but he need to improve his game more. Internet atheist community need more intelligent philosophers.

[@joshuabrecka6012]

Ben Shabibo is omegacringe (GRE word).

[@MajestyofReason]

SELL THE HOUSES TO WHO, BEN???

[@joshuabrecka6012]

@@MajestyofReason Aquaman of course! (Suprisingly not a GRE word)

[@thehermeticgod8386]

I think the panel from exploring reality did a much better response to RR than Trent here

[@jacoblee5796]

You are a completely different person on your channel than you are on CC. Why?

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

Violation of Occam's Razor? Whats this bullsh*t? Ewww 😂😂🥰🥰 34:03

[@fanboy8026]

B theory of time is such misunderstanding by apologetics

[@machineelf9459]

Joe, you say there’s obviously change but that’s because you are still in the reference frame of a conscious being subject to time. Alex posed the idea that to a being outside of time there would be no change. This is true, you complete failed to shift your perspective to understand the claim. This is another kind of relativity. Much of this “action-potential” philosophy breaks down once you view the universe from the perspective out of time.

[@AOPrinciple]

Yikes, this was a beatdown.

[@skyeye61]

I am currently spending like 2 hours trying to break down ur essay "Stage One of the Aristotelian Proof: A Critical Appraisal" after watching the first 20 min of this video. I did some philosphy modules in Uni and I remember while I no longer enjoy it as much as every reading required alot of unpatched. Oh well, will resume this video later¬¬

[@johnhamilton2923]

Increasing the speed of your you tube? Gish galloping,Joe?

[@ezbody]

These theist philosophers really need to be introduced to the Unslapped Slapper. 🙄

[@BaldingClamydia]

I really appreciate the video, and think it's well done, but I think you may be psychotic. Who just leaves their cursor in the middle of the screen?! (lol)

[@ricco48219]

Rebutception

[@harssavarthansxs5978]

Can anyone explain how if a GOD exists, how can one claim this GOD is the exact same god of their religion? this is the most unconvincing part for me.

[@goldenalt3166]

Yeah, all these arguments from ultimate foundation seem pointless to me. Defining the "first cause" as "God" doesn't do anything towards the claims of religion. Just like saying a river must have a source would support the claim that I should drink it.

[@thesuitablecommand]

Could this be called... "Bed & Ed rebutted, rebutted, REBUTTED?"

[@maykonalves7647]

God being pure actuality is undistinguishable from anything. Therefore, God is nothing.