Cosmological Arguments | The Contingency Argument, Stage 1 (3/6)

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[Sheepish-Shepherd]

The Contingency Argument has been one of my favorite arguments for God.

[mjdillaha]

I’m loving these videos. Keep them coming.

[DarylCotton-ix]

Thank Joshua. These are very good. Gonna share them with my children :)

[joncopeland]

thanks for doing these videos. really helpful.

[MrGustavier]

31:03 _"But here the conceivability is not helping us to see what's actually possible what's really possible it's only helping us to see what is what we might call epistemically possible or possible for all we know"_

Presupposes modal realism.
A separate argument needs to be given to justify thinking that any talk of "possibility" or "necessity" is anything else than concepts in our minds.
If all modal thinking is only that, a form of thinking, then conceivability (arguably consistency) is the only criterion.

31:22 _"How do we conceive of an empty world ?"_

For any X, is there a contradiction in imagining a world without X ?
No.
Therefore all things can be removed from the world. All things are contingent. Nothing is necessary.

32:14 _"If the Goldbach conjecture is true then it's not even possible for it to be disproven"_

Again, I don't know why you use mathematics to illustrate your points since nothing is necessary in mathematics. Everything in mathematics depends on axioms, that can be taken or not (that are contingent).
_"If the Goldbach conjecture is true", _ it will be so according to a given axiomatic, that can be rejected.

32:27 _"Let me just add here that conceivability is a two-edged sword if one can use conceivability to verify that something is possible well then one could use conceivability to verify that the premises in the argument from contingency are at least possibly true but if they're at least possibly true then one can deduce that it's at least possible that there is a necessary thing"_

Ok, but the contingency argument uses the set of _"all contingent things"..._ But if we simply _"conceive"_ of that set, what reason is there to think that that set is _"actual"_ ? If we _"conceive"_ of it it is conceptual, sure, but it doesn't need to be _"actual"._

If _"it's possible to conceive of something that's impossible"_ (32:11), then it is possible that the set of _"all contingent things"_ is impossible... Especially since it is a set that contains itself... And we all know the type of absurdities that come from that.

How can the conclusion of premises that are only conceptual be _"actual"_ ?

If the set of _"all contingent things"_ is conceptual, then how can the necessary object in the conclusion of the argument be anything else than conceptual ?

In the general case, how do we juge whether something is _"actual"_ ? By empirical experience ? When do we ever have an empirical experience of the set of _"all contingent things"_ ?
By reason ? Is reason based on mind dependent things ? If yes, then we don't have a realism about the _"actual"._ Is reason based on mind independent things ? If yes, then we need to give an account of what those things are, WITHOUT appealing to any object of reason, any argument, any syllogism... Otherwise we would find ourselves in the _"circularity"_ that you seem to despise... Without mentioning that those things could be contingent...

33:11 _"If we follow Hume's procedure of verifying possibilities using conceivability then we will have an independent route to verifying the possibility of a necessary reality"_

Why ? Why would _"conceivability"_ give _"reality"_ ? The contingency argument concludes in a necessary object, that doesn't mean that that object is anything else than a concept...
Hume specifically said that we only have _"impressions"_ and _"relations of ideas", _ like the other empiricists of his time, he was what Kant called an _"empirical idealist", _ like Locke, like Berkeley before him.
Do you think Hume would have thought that any syllogism, any _"relation of ideas"_ can give anything about _"reality"_ ?

[MrGustavier]

12:07 _"And if you say that well maybe certain things have an explanation but other things don't have an explanation then what explains the difference ?"_

What explains the difference is our telos.
Contrary to what Richard Taylor explains in the argument given just before that. We don't ask ourselves where everything comes from, or require an explanation for everything all the time.

For example, David J Hand, in his article, gives the _"improbability principle", _ to illustrate this, he gives the example of Frank Hughes, of Hilda Street, Darlington, in the United Kingdom, who died on Aug 1st at the age of 80, and gave the time and place of the funeral ceremony.
I might add an arbitrary number of details surrounding the event of his death, his burial, and his funeral, and doing so, I can make that specific event arbitrarily improbable.
However, no one will ask for an explanation for why Frank Hughes died at 12:08 pm, rather than at 12:07.
Why ? Because this furthers none of our interests. This doesn't bring us any closer to our goal... To our telos. And since we all have different teloi, one might look for an explanation for something while someone else won't.

If the restricted PSR, the causal principle (for any contingent things, there is a cause (or explanation) for their existence) is nothing but the retranscription of an epistemic prescription of human rationality : we say that everything contingent has a cause because WE want to explain contingent things. Then the restricted PSR is a teleological prescription. And as such, it only applies according to our telos.

Therefore what differentiates what has an explanation and what has none ? That's simple, some people want to explain certain things, and not others...

To come back to Richard Taylor's argument. I think anyone would ask oneself why a _"large purple shiny sphere"_ is in a wood... However one will not ask oneself why a specific tree is in a wood... Because woods have trees in them... To see this, imagine that it was common knowledge that woods had _"large purple shiny spheres"_ in them. Then Richard's Taylor's argument wouldn't have the same impact would it ?

Therefore there is an _"observer effect"_ in action in the PSR.

[MrGustavier]

27:00 _"But another kind of response is just to restrict the causal principle so we're focused on explaining the existence of contingent things not explaining the causal activity of contingent things maybe there's some activity that could have no explanation not even a probabilistic explanation it's just uncaused activity but the things that perform that activity those things couldn't just exist uncaused"_

Ok, but then you need to show that the infinite chain of chicken is something that exists, and not an _"activity", _ because if the chain itself is only an _"activity", _ then possibly, according to your causal principle, it requires no cause.

[MrGustavier]

The Esquimau case.

22:07 _"Now i actually think that that is correct in this case the reason why the explanation of the individuals explains the whole is because the total explanation goes outside of the whole in explaining the particular eskimos why they're there"_

Ok one thought about this (I don't know if it's good) :
There seems to be an unspoken premise in the contingency argument, that when I talk about _"all contingent things", _ I am referring to a list or a set that already exists, and that is exhaustive.

Let's imagine for a second that this is false, that the set isn't exhaustive for example. Then this means that I can always add a new element to the set, or that there are elements that are missing from the set (they are not listed), but should be in the set.

1) What is the cause of the infinite chain of contingent things ?
2) The cause is X. And X is outside of the set (therefore satisfying your request that the explanation _"goes outside of the whole")._
3) Is X a contingent thing ?
4) Yes.
5) Therefore X is not outside of the set.
6) Yes, but when I mentioned X in 1), at that moment X was NOT in the set. It is only after in 5) that X was added to the set.
7) But the membership of an element to the set isn't subject to your subjective, temporal verification.
8) That is only true if the set already exists before I talk about it... Before I make judgments about it...

Notice that this is similar to Cantor's diagonal method. Because the set of all contingent things, if it is, itself, a contingent thing, belong to itself. It is a set that contains itself. According to Cantor, such a set cannot be exhaustive.

Furthermore, in the Esquimau story, a law of composition is used. It is because all elements of the set are explained that the set itself is explained. The problem is that if the set contains itself, like the set of all contingent things, then that law of composition is unapplicable, because in order to explain the set itself, all elements of the set need to be explained (law of composition), but in order to exhaustively explain all elements of the set, the set itself needs to be explained (since the set itself is a member of itself).

I'm not sure what conclusion to derive from that.
One conclusion could be that talking about the set of all contingent things is nonsense.
Another conclusion could be that asking for an explanation of the set of all contingent things is nonsense.
Another conclusion could be that there are no contingent things at all (necessitarianism is true).
Another conclusion could be that the set of all contingent things is not in the set, which would mean that it would satisfy your request that the explanation _"goes outside of the whole"._
In other words, the infinite chain of chicken itself is indeed _"outside the whole"..._

[EitherSpark]

If there were to be an infinite chain of chickens and the chain as a whole required an explanation, would the explanation of the chain necessarily be a per se (continuous; sustaining) explanation/cause?
great video series :)

[MrGustavier]

28:31 _"The conclusion of the argument will be that a necessary reality is actual from here you can then deduce that well if it's actual then it would have to be also possible"_

I don't think you're answering Kant's challenge here. The problem that Kant poses with the ontological argument is that there can't be anything that is necessarily existent, because existence isn't a predicate. Existence isn't a property.

He explains that if X exists necessarily, then it means that removing X leads to a contradiction.
But there can never be a contradiction in removing an object, because if the object is removed, then all of its properties are removed too... Including the acclaimed "existing" property.

Therefore there is no _"actual"_ thing that can be necessary. Since for any X, X can be removed without contradiction.
To the question : "Could there have failed to be anything ?"
The answer is yes.
Therefore nothing is necessary.

The following is found in _"The critique of pure reason"_ in A 595 / B 623 :

_"If I cancel the predicate in an identical judgment and keep the subject, then a contradiction arises; hence I say that the former necessarily pertains to the latter. But if I cancel the subject together with the predicate, then no contradiction arises; for there _*_is no longer anything_*_ that could be contradicted. To posit a triangle and cancel its three angles is contradictory; but to cancel the triangle together with its three angles is not a contradiction. It is exactly the same with the concept of an absolutely necessary being. If you cancel its existence, then you cancel the thing itself with all its predicates; where then is the contradiction supposed to come from? Outside it there is nothing that would contradict it, for the thing is not supposed to be externally necessary; and nothing internally either, for by cancelling the thing itself, you have at the same time cancelled everything internal. God is omnipotent; that is a necessary judgment. Omnipotence cannot be cancelled if you posit a divinity, i.e., an infinite being, which is identical with that concept. But if you say, _*_God is not, _*_ then neither omnipotence nor any other of his predicates is given; for they are all cancelled together with the subject, and in this thought not the least contradiction shows itself."_

Immanuel Kant.

[MrGustavier]

22:58 _"To explain that causal chain in terms of its own members is a circular explanation it's not the kind of explanation that illuminates why there is that very chain in the first place"_

I cannot explain my cognitive faculties without making use of my cognitive faculties.
So it seems that this type of _"circularity"_ that you seem to be rejecting as able to give _"illuminating explanation"_ is at the core of all of our epistemology. This is the famous _"cartesian circle"._

This means that, according to you, one is NEVER able to give _"illuminating explanation"_ regarding one's own cognitive faculties...

Proper functionalism is circular, because nothing _"outside"_ can illuminate our faculties, because anything that lays _"outside"_ can only be accessed through the very faculties that need to be explained.

By the way this was already acknowledged by Democritus 25 centuries ago.

22:58 _"To explain that causal chain in terms of its own members is a circular explanation it's not the kind of explanation that illuminates why there is that very chain in the first place"_

Reductio :

_"To explain _*_[existing things]_*_ in terms of its own members is a circular explanation it's not the kind of explanation that illuminates why there is _*_[existing things]_*_ in the first place"_

This leads to require a non existent thing to explain the existing things, otherwise they would be _"explained in terms of its own members"..._

It seems to me therefore, that any attempt to subtract oneself from this type of circularity is vain. The only way to do it is with dogmatism... Which is arbitrary... Which is the basis of the critique of foundationalism (see _"the Munchhausen trilemma", _ see Daniel Howard-Snyder and E.J. Coffman 2006, see Richard Rorty).

[MrGustavier]

4:39 _"But just to illustrate the idea you might think that some necessary truths in mathematics have necessary existence for example you might think that the truth that one plus one equals two that that truth must be must exist it's kind of like a necessary law of reality that this necessary law cannot not exist"_

First, assumes mathematical realism.
Second, mathematical truths are usually said to be true from within a given axiomatic.
Since any mathematical axiom can be taken or rejected (hence they are contingent), no mathematical truths can be necessary.

[MrGustavier]

P1 - If a free choice is a choice that could have been different. Then a free choice is contingent.
P2 - Contingent things have a cause (or explanation),
C1 - Therefore a free choice has a cause (or explanation).
P3 - Free choice have no cause (otherwise they are not free)
C2 - Therefore either there are no free choices, or P1 is to be rejected (free choices are not contingent, necessitarianism is true), or P3 is to be rejected (free choices have causes, compatibilism is true), or P2 is to be rejected (there are brute facts)

Defense of P3 : A cause (or explanation) can be taken in a strong sense, which means that if one chooses A rather than B, and if that choice has a cause, then that cause has to be sufficient to explain/specify why A rather than B. But if there is a cause why someone chose A rather than B, then was one really "free" to choose ?

[MyContext]

It seems that matter/energy is non-contingent, since, it seems that there is no means by which such can be created or destroyed. This would also allow such to be considered necessary. Would you agree with this assessment? If not, why?

If it is the case that matter/energy has always existed (which is an implication of the idea that such is non-contingent), then it follows that such could have always interacted and thus IS an explanation for there being an infinite regress such that there is no need for further explanation given the details understood of what is being referenced.
---
The Hume objection dismisses any argument predicated on conceivability alone. How? When a set of possibilities can be shown to be in conflict with another set of possibilities, then the only set that can be considered viable is the set that has substantiation BEYOND mere conceivability. Which becomes *"Any claim of possibility which is not substantiated by at least one demonstrable instance (or conceptual result of what is observed) is as an epistemic standard for the review of a claim. Or put another way, "Any claim about reality which isn't substantiated in the context of reality is irrational to accept."

[MyContext]

I watched your exchange with TJump today and I was left with the impression that there was an ontological disconnect on your part with regard to understanding TJump and his overall rejection of your concept of simplicity. It seems that my argument against God concepts might assist in addressing your disconnect with TJump (assuming you still don't understand his objection and/or don't accept such as a reasonable objection).

Most of the exchange between you and TJump focused on your conceptual notions without it seems you understanding how the conceptual notions interlink to the empirical details that TJump was referencing. This struck me as odd, since, it seems that you weren't engaging the understanding of reality that resulted in various issues that TJump had with your presentations.

The following argument is intended to address the disconnect and at least emphasis the importance that the interlinkage has that you seemed to overlook.

P1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent intelligent agent.
P2: Intelligence is a process and thus inherently contingent.
C1: X is denoted as AT LEAST a non-contingent contingent agent.
C2: X is contradictory and thus impossible.
P3: If there is an intelligence which is non-contingent, then such is unknown to us and thus imaginary.
P4: There is no distinction between the imaginary and the non-existent.
C3: X is non-existent.

Based on everything that I know about the concept of intelligence, it is developmental and thus necessarily contingent. So, for me the argument is sound. However, *I understand that theists somehow think that intelligence is fundamental and the question is WHY?*

I can grant that intelligence is fundamental to our capacity to understand anything, but I take that to be separate from the nature of intelligence. I can grant that one could posit that there is a form of intelligence which is not contingent, but that would require substantiation otherwise such would be indistinguishable from being fictional/imaginary (not supported as being the case in the context of reality). It should be noted that something being fictional/imaginary doesn't preclude such of being true, but such is unsubstantiated and thus irrational to accept as being the case.

The idea of a theory having explanatory power is definitely needed, but the explanation itself would also need to be substantiated in some fashion otherwise such would lack a basis for acceptance. Consider that Last Thursdayism has lots of explanatory power, but has no basis by which to be considered an aspect of reality. Theism registers like Last Thursdayism in that theism has explanatory power, but lack any foundation for rational acceptance.

[MrGustavier]

23:23 _"We could still wonder why is there that eternally old sphere why is that sphere purple why not blue"_

Well not really, earlier at 13:56 you say :

_"In the case of an argument from contingency we can leave open the relationship between the effect and the prior condition we can allow that prior condition to be a cause or a non-deterministic explanation or just some kind of minimal or minuscule explanation one version of an argument from contingency for example will say that every contingent fact has some explanation the explanation doesn't have to be logically sufficient for the effect or for the thing to be explained"_

Therefore one could still _"wonder why is that sphere purple why not blue", _ but as you explain yourself a few minutes before (and, as it turns out, right after), there doesn't need to be an explanation for that, because the cause doesn't need to be deterministic to the point that every little detail about its effects need to be explained.

24:34 _"My thought here is just that the infinite regress does not by itself either remove the need for an explanation or constitute a complete explanation of contingent things"_

As you explained yourself, there doesn't necessarily need to be a _"complete"_ explanation of contingent things... (see "the weak principle of sufficient reason")