Grim Reaper Paradoxes and Patchwork Principles | Ft. @Friction

The Grim Reaper Paradox does not support the Kalam cosmological argument. In this video, Troy and I explain why.

OUTLINE

0:00 Intro & Outline
1:44 Benardete Paradoxes
6:43 Connection to the Kalam
8:31 Finitist B-Arguments
10:20 Grim Reaper Argument
21:40 Our first objection
22:41 A finite Benardete-like paradox
24:24 Our first premise
27:45 Our second premise
34:49 Our second objection
43:14 Diagnosis
45:48 Conclusion

LINKS

(6) Other papers of mine mentioned in the video:

THE USUAL...

[jmike]

It's absolutely insane how much work you both put in. You are doing such a good service for all of us, especially those of us who might struggle to navigate through new concepts.

[rioluxxx]

wake up babe, Joe posted another objection to the Kalam

[ayushsinha]

I really love your content. These types of conversations make the internet better.

[uknown.]

Your content is amazing. Your videos helped me a lot to learn about philosophy of religion

[EarnestApostate]

40:10 Holy crapp! I had been going for so long thinking this was the "Patrick Principle" assuming a guy by the name Patrick put it forth. Patchwork makes so much more sense!

[HumblyQuestioning]

detroyer is an absolute legend. Friction is such a great interview channel.

[brendanmckenna]

My glorious king joe producing another magnificent video. Good work man !

[plasmaballin]

The patchwork principle, together with the assumptions about intrinsicality of powers and dispositions also leads to the immovable object - irresistible force paradox. An immovable object and an irresistible force are both individually possible, but they can't exist together (or at least, can't come into contact with each other) because that would lead to a contradiction. But the patchwork principle implies you could put both in the same spacetime and line them up such that the irresistible force is about to come into contact with the immovable object. Furthermore, the power of the irresistible force to move anything it comes into contact with and that of the immovable object to resist any force that contacts it are, under this view, intrinsic to them and therefore, they would still have these properties in the patched-together scenario. So proponents of the grim reaper argument for causal finitism must also believe that it's possible for an irresistible force to come into contact with an immovable object, or reject one of their premises.

[yippeeyo]

Whatever begins to exist has a cause
Joe began to exist
Joe has a cause

And that's to rip the Kalam to shreds at any given oppurtunity

[philosophicaljay]

I still have to think about it more, but my first instinct upon watching, which gives me pause about the argument, in regards to your finite Bulbs example is that each member is its own defeater (as each Bulb is "to the left of itself" in the sequence). If a Bulb was lit/turned on, then it, itself, serves to prove that it cannot be lit/turned on, independent of the status of any other Bulb in the sequence.

[truthteller]

Really good stuff. Back when I saw it on Friction's channel, I thought the Bulb-paradox objection was very convincing and I still think so. Though, with the caveat that at the time of writing this I've yet to fully read the paper; I struggle with the second objection at 34:50 which may well be a problem with my understanding rather than the objection itself.

So, there's two regions, R1 and R2 each of which contain reapers that have the intrinsic disposition to create and place a particle at a location iff no particle was already placed there. In each individual region the reaper creates and places a particle, realizing it's disposition. Then with the assumption that there's a possible spacetime region big enough to house R1 & R2 we infer via the patchwork principle that there is a possible patched together spacetime region R* which jointly contains exact duplicates of R1 & R2 (R1* & R2*). So far so good.

Now, the inconsistency is supposedly derived from the fact that, since R1* & R2* are exact duplicates, the reapers must be realizing their dispositions to create and place a particle at that region, yet the second reaper in the sequence can't realize their disposition in the patched together region because the particle is already created by the first reaper.

My problem is this, it seems like there are 2 ways of understanding the contents of the regions R1 & R2, but on either understanding, I don't see how you can successfully derive a contradiction. The first understanding is where R1 & R2 each can be divided into a sub-region containing just the reaper and their intrinsic properties and dispositions (S1, S3), and a sub-region containing the particle each reaper creates (S2, S4). The duplicate regions will indeed have the exact same sub-regions and contents, leading us to the inference that in R* you have two reapers creating particles. But this doesn't contradict them having the disposition to create a particle iff no earlier reaper does. They are both able to create a particle in their subsequent sub-regions, S2 and S4, because no earlier reaper placed a particle there. All you can infer is that the reaper later in the sequence can't place a particle in the same subregion, say S2, as the reaper earlier in the sequence, because that reaper would have already created and placed the particle in S2. But that doesn't stop the later reaper from creating and placing a particle in their own sub-region, S4. So, there's no contradiction here, both reapers can realize their dispositions.

That brings us to the second understanding, the regions R1 & R2 only contain the reapers not any sub-regions containing the particles, and they are both in a sequence to place a particle at precisely the same location L and will only place it iff no earlier reaper did. In this case, the reaper which is earlier in the sequence will place the particle at L but the later reaper won't due to their intrinsic disposition to place a particle iff none was yet placed. But we can see there's no contradiction here either. R1* & R2* are still duplicates since they contain the same reapers with the same dispositions and properties. There's no issue with one having a particle and the other not because, ex hypothesi, neither contained a particle in the first place.

If I'm right, there's basically a dilemma here. Either we think of R1 & R2 as having a sub-region containing the particle created by each reaper, in which case the inference from them being duplicates to them both creating particles goes through, but we cannot infer that they can't create a particle from their intrinsic dispositions; they can both create a particle in their own sub-region. Or we don't think of R1 & R2 as having sub-regions containing the created particles, in which case we can infer from their intrinsic dispositions that if a reaper creates and places a particle at some location, the later reaper can't. But now we can't infer, from them being duplicates, that each region, R1 & R2 has the reaper creating a particle, in fact neither of them do.

This is a long one but I would be curious to hear you guys' thoughts on this dilemma.

[mjdillaha]

Since your companion argument doesn’t contain an infinite, linearly ordered set, it doesn’t seem to be sufficiently Benardete-like, and so I don’t think it is analogous to the GRA.

[FredHarvey]

I'm still alive out here guys, ain't no Grim Reaper reaped me yet!

[drmayne]

First video I ever watched and not gonna lie first 10 seconds I was thinking "man here's gonna be some pseudoscience" good thing I didn't click away right away lol

[truthovertea]

The question is when are going to write another paper objecting to this one?😊

[gffhvfhjvf]

The circular lightbulbs is a killer, I love it 😂

[EarnestApostate]

34:48 supporting you on Patreon certainly seems a better deal than buying a shirt from you for aleph-null dollars!

[seanpierce]

When considering Turing-Completeness, the Grim Reaper setup becomes obvious. You’re setting up a universe in which the only logical possibility is that no particle is placed. The problem arises not from the logical impossibility of a particle being placed, but because the system is not Turing-Complete. It’s possible to set up a configuration of reapers that simulate a cellular automata, which is Turing-Complete. That such a universe may extend infinitely in space and time is not a paradox, as we can always logically determine the state that must occur before and after any given configuration.

[davidandersson]

Hey Joe, I'm a 17 year old trying to deepen my understanding of philosophy and I have been thinking about which philosophy books to get. I would very much appreciate a response explaining if the books I'm thinking of are a good start or if I'm totally off.

Some backround knowledge: I have been watching Alex O'Connor for a couple of years, but my interest in philosophy wasn't nearly as great a couple of years ago as it has been for the last year or so. I have also recently started watching Unsolicited Advice as well as your channel. I think that I'm somewhat drawn to analytic philosophy but I want to learn from different traditions. I recently finished Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I have some philosophy books at home that I haven't read yet like The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenancey by Robert M. Pirsig, Alternativa Fakta by Åsa Wikfors, I don't know how much information there is about that book in English but in short it's about epistemology and critical thinking, I did read it like seven years ago and I don't remember much of it but as far as I know it is considered to be quite good.

The books I have been thinking if either buying or asking family members to buy as a Christmas Present:


Tao De Jing, by Laozi

On the Shortness of Life, by Cicero

Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas

Thus spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche

Language, Truth and Logic by A.J Ayer.

Do you think these books are okay to start with? Or should I change one or more of them? If I should which book should I get instead? What do you think about the books I already have?

I would very much appreciate a response! Thanks in advance.

[AndreAy]

The Reaper who kills Fred is the first one he meets after his birth. Unless you assume, that Fred has always existed, in which case he is God and not killable but the Master of all Reapers.