Yujin Nagasawa - Is God All Knowing?

[@functionalfitnessworkouts]

Refreshingly INTELLIGENT person with an interesting approach to questioning the deeper issues of the philosophy of life

[@giannidematteo2596]

I love how completely without ego Yujin Nagasawa appears. He presents an argument that he himself has refuted in one of his books--Patrick Grim's argument from knowledge de se--and allows host Robert Kuhn to refute it. Kuhns refutation is similar to that which Nagasawa advanced in his book God and Phenomenal Consciousness. Yet rather than say, "Yes, I agree with you, Robert, and that is how I refuted the argument from knowledge de se in my book God and Phenomenal Consciousness, he defends Patrick Grim's argument by suggesting it does present a counterintuitive finding. While I deem this lack of ego remarkable, I only learned of it by researching Nagasawa online. For that reason, I think when interviewing Yujin, Robert would do well to contextualize Yujin's statements, so it is clear what Yujin believes and what he is prepared to discuss openly and without prejudice (by playing the devil's advocate, for example).

[@RedBird77]

Yujin Nagasawa's books are a must read for me now. Fantastic interview.

[@matthewwinter7660]

@Luca Stuca What would qualify as evidence for God's existence? Could you give me an example?

[@matthewwinter7660]

@Luca Stuca I'm just trying to understand what you mean by evidence. If you assert there is no evidence, then you must have some idea of what would qualify as evidence for God's existence to know there is none. So what would you take to be evidence for God's existence?

[@matthewwinter7660]

@Luca Stuca I have answered that question for myself, in fact I've devoted years of study to it. I'm just interested in how you conceive of evidence, but it seems you wish to dodge my question unfortunately. Anyways, take care and I hope you and your family stay healthy!

[@Emilnananaxo]

@@matthewwinter7660 great question. i'm going to ask this to every atheist to shut them up. "if you assert there is no evidence then you must have some idea of what would qualify as evidence for God's existence to know there is none" LOL! i love this statement because personally in the Quran, my faith, God said that even if the disbelievers were brought to heaven they would see it and say "is this magic?" Google 15:15 Quran "still they would say, “Our eyes have truly been dazzled! In fact, we must have been bewitched.” idiots that want no proof will see no proof because they want to see none. it's as simple as that.

[@HebaruSan]

Wow, I've heard some pretty silly semantic word games in my time, but that first argument really takes the cake. God's knowledge that you did something is different from your knowledge of it because your "I" isn't the same as his? The referents of your "I" and God's "he" are the same object, so the statements have exactly equivalent meanings. Might as well argue that your concept of "chair" isn't the same as mine so therefore chairs can't exist.

[@notaras1985]

the despair of atheists to support their beliefs. and their confusion.

[@HebaruSan]

I am an atheist, by the way. That has nothing to do with how dumb this argument is.

[@notaras1985]

at least you are not of the fanatic ones. you understand silly arguments. by the way you worded that it sounded like you are a theist. but why you say atheist and not agnostic? such a smart man that gets that all atheists arguments all these decades were bogus, why would he call himself atheist?

[@HebaruSan]

If it's all the same to you, I'd rather allow you space to resolve your own cognitive dissonance than try to spoon feed you an answer, and there are already plenty of places you can go to re-read the same tired "debate" this is threatening to devolve into. Good luck and my best wishes to you and yours.

[@jovanpando5407]

All of these arguments are just stupid. A credible atheist would reject them otherwise discredit atheism as a logical stand point. However, after digging in to all their arguments, you realize that they all share the same inability to discredit the existence of a God.

[@PortgasDRoy]

The All-Knowing. He Exist. He is also The All-Seeing and The All-Hearing. He knows everything. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. [6:59] Quran

[@KevinChantal]

Wrong. Allah doesn't exist

[@PortgasDRoy]

@@KevinChantal you chose to perceive it that way, it's your choice, think carefully.

[@KevinChantal]

@@PortgasDRoy I already disproved Allah. So I am 100% sure Allah doesn't exist.

[@dan74695]

I have no reason to believe that what the Quran says is true.

[@jayrob5270]

For his first point I still don't understand how God couldn't know what I know - if he exists why not, surely he can read my mind?

[@Spideysenses67]

The key difference is that in the example you don't know something. And while God can know that you don't know something, he does not know what it is like having a gap in knowledge like you do because his knowledge has no gaps. But if he doesn't know what it's like to have a particular knowledge gap then it follows there is something he doesn't know.

[@NothingMaster]

You are asking a human being if 'God' is all knowing?!? That's like asking an ant, if ET's have interstellar travel technology!!! But let's say for the sake of argument that we're adrift in a sea of hyperbole and philosophical speculations, and further assuming that such an entity as 'God' exists and is not merely a conceptual construct of our needy and overactive imagination. Then there are essentially 2 ways that a human being could approach that question: logically (and that includes scientific and philosophical approaches) or faith-based. Logically, the very notion of God itself (and worst yet its attributes) is at best an undecidable proposition; which means any logical construct would be effectively inadequate and perhaps ultimately meaningless. And if it's the faith-based answer that you're looking for then they are a dime a dozen, depending on who you ask and their interpretations of their religious beliefs. Furthermore, the very notion of 'all-knowing' requires an a priori definition - and good luck with that, too.

[@MercenaryPhase]

You have a point about how our minds and the logical systems it produces may be inadequate to encapsulate God's true nature. And I have no problems with your argument. I just hate how God doesn't make his existence clearer to us but then punishes us when we fail to "see" or believe in him. Besides that, I really have no problem with God

[@Emilnananaxo]

@@MercenaryPhase this comment is 3 years ago but quick comment here. God's existence is not only clear but obvious. it's so obvious that for centuries humans worshipped SOMETHING. now whether they were united in the same idea of god (monotheism, polytheism) is different. but they believed in a higher power. now that is something INNATE. God's existence is innate within us. we cannot weigh out a scale and say i'm going to measure the existence of God, like we do to accurately measure the amount of sugar before we bake something. if there's a scientifically accurate way to measure God, then his existence would have been proven, but in a way that forces his creatures to do what he says and not out of free will. Free will is the idea that we have agency over something. If we can map out a God in the sky and see him, where does that agency go?

[@a.rizapahlevi9659]

Guys.... God knows everything... God creates everything...

[@millerk20]

Prima facie, linking Nagel's argument about the subjective nature of consciousness to an argument about omniscience seems quite a logical leap.

[@TheLlywelyn]

These are human-centric arguments that don't actually grapple with the proposition, beginning with an assumption that is less than omniscience. 'Can't know what I know' Why not? Thousands of years ago writers of the old testament recorded a viewing that God hears our thoughts, and more, knows our thoughts and motivations better than we do. Neuroscience isn't that far from identifying thoughts.

[@RubelliteFae]

I mean the counter to Grimm's argument (as presented here) seems to be pretty obvious, right? If the divine is immanent throughout the Universe (or more properly, the Multiverse), then the divine's omniscience is at least the sum knowledge carried by all existing things. In the panentheistic view divine omniscience could be that plus more. Edit: Never mind, her addresses this. Though I do find fault with him equating Western views to "classical views." Does he not know of India's classical era? Edit 2: It's also strange to me that they talk about the divine as either immanent *or* transcendent. I thought it was fairly common for believers to consider the divine both. Tangentially, _creatio ex nihilo_ is also an odd position to hold, in my opinion, because it doesn't follow from the first couple lines of Genesis/Bərē’šīṯ. In Gen 1:1, "In the beginning Elohim *created* the heavens and the earth," the word translated as "created" is _bārā._ This means "to fashion by cutting" as paring a reed into a writing implement or shaving a stick into an arrow. This differs to Gen 2:7 "And YHVH Elohim *formed* the man out of dust from the ground," where "formed" is translated from _yîṣer._ This means to fashion as a potter makes a pot from clay. The former is a subtractive process, while the latter is additive. This means there must have been something from which the Universe was subtracted in order for it to come into being. The only indication of anything existing up to that point is YHVH Elohim, so it follows that the Universe wasn't made from nothing but from a portion of YHVH Elohim. Also of interest in this regard is that the two names YHVH & Elohim relate to "being" or "existence" and "power" or "ability," respectively. Self-existence without which no other existing things could exist and almightiness without which nothing which exists could do anything. This is reminiscent Hinduism's Puruṣa & Prakr̥ti or Śiva & Śakti. Even further evidence comes in the next line, "...darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim _was moving_ on the face of the waters." The word translated to "was moving," _ra-ḥe-p̄eṯ_ means (in root form) "to flutter, to shake; to brood, to fertilize." This is likely due to the ancient Canaanite (pre-Hebrew) view that the power of fertilization was due to male virility and not due to the union of male virility & female fertility. It's not dissimilar to the Sumerian tale of Enki ejaculating the Tigris & Euphrates into fecund river valleys. This was sustained by the Abyss, called _abzu_ in Sumerian. In the above quote we have the similar term "the deep" or _ṯəhōwm_ in ancient Hebrew. Regardless this means that not only is creation described as YHVH Elohim paring off a part of himself and fashioning it into the formless empty deep (what we modernly call spacetime), but also filling it with his virility (what we now call energy, the ability to do work). Translated with this in mind we could say Gen 1:1-3 says, "The combined unity of Being & Power fashioned from itself the conditions for the Universe (or Multiverse). This came into being dark, empty, and without form and the breath/wind (trans. as Spirit above) of Power was pouring into it. And Power uttered "light, exist" and light came to exist." (Note that an utterance is simply vibrations given meaning.) How far off is this really from the Big Bang? I got a bit deep into the tangent for a YT comment, but clearly this is anything but _createo ex nihilo._

[@cvsree]

God knows all since God is the Self of all. Our real self is God but our mind influences us to believe that we are the body which is transient like a movie. God is like the screen. Screen is aware of all the movies running on it.

[@RickDelmonico]

We need to consider the nature of information. Things like meaning and relationships, along with any value or application within a context. Also the material world might be all there is or it might be an expression of something more fundamental. Immortality would require precise relationships, any variation would need to be constrained by a perfect law that retains the form or relationships so that randomness is never allowed to reign. I think the energy comes from the difference between randomness and precise relationships in some way so we would need a different engine.

[@PatrickLHolley]

Could someone explain the first argument he shared from Patrick Grimm against omniscience? I listened twice, and did not understand what he was saying. I could not follow the logic. Thanks for any help!

[@RubelliteFae]

He's saying that knowledge of oneself from the position of the self is different to the knowledge an outside observer could have of that same individual. This is due to our inability to know precisely what's in someone else's mind regardless of how well it is communicated as well as the nature of observing reality through subjective lenses (my lenses are different to yours, so even if you understood the contents of my mind, you couldn't understand the qualities my subjective experience assigns them).

[@PatrickLHolley]

@@RubelliteFae Thank you. I agree with that for sure.

[@GeoCoppens]

First thing: Does he exist! It makes the question: "Is God all-knowing" totally pointless, so why ask it!

[@tonycosta8137]

Of course he does. You got to have more faith to be an atheist then a christian.

[@GeoCoppens]

@@tonycosta8137 An atheist wants evidence for the existence of a god-like being, but never anyone produced this! Faith is utter stupidity!

[@tonycosta8137]

Ask yourself a question do you believe that NOTHING made Something?

[@tonycosta8137]

God would never reveal himself plainly because that would remove the the need for faith.

[@tonycosta8137]

Just stop with your faith whatever religion your in and look at the Rainbow God has set to remind us of hos promises

[@mohammedshabir7119]

How do you explain that which you do not know....?

[@mohammedhanif6780]

mohammed Shabir can you explain your point?

[@mohammedshabir7119]

We know about the body people have been studying it throughout history similarly we know about the mind etc. Because these are within the scope of science but what do we know about the human soul ...? the answer is very little. ...and maybe some people would even deny its existence. . So what do we know about God then...so if don't or can't even believe then what is it we are explaining. ..?

[@mohammedhanif6780]

mohammed Shabir​​ actually, we know very little about the mind. And do you make a distinction between it and the soul? Does your soul have a mind? are they the same? Is the mind different than the brain? We can never know God's essence or His reality. But we can make assertions about God given what He has revealed of Himself and what He must be to be God. This is what theology does. Unless you view the whole exercise as illegitimate. So, God must be perfect to be God. Part of this perfection entails perfection in knowledge. God knows all possibly knowable things. This would seem uncontrovertial. The question then arises, can He know my experiences as I know them? Because my experience of being me is knowable only to myself because only I have first person knowledge of how it 'feels' to be me. No one else can logically have access to it because, otherwise, they would have to be me. So, it is a legitimate question to ask if God cannot know what it is like for me to be me because that is logically impossible. And most thoughtful people understand that illogical things are properly not things to which God can relate. Or you could say that such knowledge is encompassed by God but then you would have to suggest how that might be possible other than saying impossible things are possible for God.

[@mohammedshabir7119]

Assalamolaikom...

[@mohammedhanif6780]

mohammed Shabir wa alaykum assalam

[@kevinwells7080]

God may not know what it is like to be a bat. But this is because one particular being cannot have 1st person experiential knowledge as another particular being, therefore the requirement is logically incoherent. It’s a nonsense statement like “God can’t make a stone so large he can’t lift it.” However, God can know, and does know with infinite accuracy and precision, what it would be like if He were you at this moment, and at every moment of your existence. Indeed, since so much of our experience is lost to our recollection moment by moment, God knows infinitely better what it is (and “what it is like”) to be each of us, than we ourselves do. What would we see if for just one second we could see through the murky haze of our own self-protective rationalizations, justifications, and largely delusional self regard? We clutch our manufactured self-concept like Gollum, stroking it and defending it at all costs, and almost none of us has even the least idea who we really are.

[@z-e-r-o-]

スピノザの汎神論ってこういう全知全能性も含んだ議論だったのかな。気になる。それにしてもナガサワさんのお話はおもしろい。日本のミッション系の高校を卒業されたようだが、ご本人はtheistなのだろうか。そもそも神の実在についての論理学的な研究は、宗教哲学と神学のどちらに属すのだろう。仮に信仰を持っていた場合、研究とどのように両立するのだろう。いろいろ気になる。

[@ingenuity168]

If God knows everything he should have known about racism and not create humans of different colours.

[@ThePetachu]

I wish this channel wouldn't waist time with this god bullshit. Whats next? A serious discussion on leprechauns and whats really at the end of all those rainbows? Is there a pot of gold and if so exactly how many gold pieces we should expect to find per pot?

[@kasparov937]

ThePetachu Your ego obviously cant handle the notion of God. So go check out other channels, most of the world believe but now this channel should change its topics because of you? A nobody athiest?

[@ΕμμανουηλΑποστολακης-ρ2γ]

Go look if im going better fucker

[@ΕμμανουηλΑποστολακης-ρ2γ]

The petachu

[@snowwhitebeautyful]

As long as you have no proof God DOESN'T exist try to refrain yourself from posting such stupid comments. Kuhn is openminded, deal with it.

[@ThePetachu]

@@snowwhitebeautyful You are exposing your ignorance. Nobody can prove a negative. With that, if more people would just accept the fact that we only have each other and not waste their lives examining fantasies, we could together maybe get to work on making this world the heaven we dream of.