Abdullah al Andalusi – Is There Good Evidence for God? Debate with Matt Dillahunty
AI: Summary ©
The speakers explore the "monster" concept within the local presentation of the universe and try to understand the dynamics of the universe, including the "right sound scientifics" which cannot be solved. They stress the importance of evidence and measure to support a theory. They explore the "upward extension" problem in physics, identifying it as the universe being made up of smaller and empty pieces and stressing the importance of evidence to support a theory. They also explore the concept of "any" in relation to evidence and its potential for further research.
AI: Summary ©
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spread it by liking, commenting and sharing. Thank you. Hey, everybody, today we're debating whether or not there is good evidence for God. And we're starting right now with Abdullah his opening statement. Thanks so much Abdullah for being with us. The floor is all yours. Bismillah AR Rahman Rahim hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam bakeri Muhammad Allah TV was happy smiley him. I'd like to thank both on the debates, the host and Matt Dillahunty for facilitating this discussion. I hope it proves an enlightening one to all concerned. So let's get right into it. So is there good evidence for God? Well, before we proceed, this requires us to define evidence, good
evidence. And of course, God. Evidence is simply that effect, which indicates a cause behind itself. We see a tree with a cardigan message. And we view that as evidence for something producing the carving. But what makes a good evidence? Well, this can only be understood when we consider that many effects have multiple causes for them. A good evidence for something I should think is evidence which points to one particular cause as the most likely or only possibility in that case, then it will reach the level of absolute proof.
Okay, but then what do we mean by God? Well, let's go with a very minimal definition. By God, it means something that is a necessary or first existence behind reality, which basically means that it has always existed, something that is independent in existence, it doesn't depend on anything else, more external, or more fundamental than itself to exist. It can create an exert power to bring new existence to reality and sustain it. And lastly, it chooses to do so. And because it chooses, it has intention, and will. So that will be the definition of God, I'm going to be going off today.
So good evidence for God would need to look like such observations of reality that indicate the existence of something that possesses those attributes, namely, requiring a cause and positing God as the most likely cause, or as the only possible cause. So let's get started with the observation of two of the most fundamental observations of existence, extension and change or space and time. So let's start with space and time.
I want to make a mention that, in order to go through the various options, we have to use the Drive to negate contradictions and use the law of the excluded middle in logic. So P and not P can't be can't be true. But p or not P obviously can be valid.
So let's start with space or spatial extension. We believe there is existence or ascertained by observation, observing something so that's clearly existence exists. existence can be obviously two kinds dependent or independent. Reality cannot consist of only dependent existences, things that depend on something else in reality, to provide them with existence. This is because it imagines if you were to imagine this, if you have a poor person who needs one pound to buy a sandwich but has no money and then they asked not a poor person who also has no money and so on and so forth. Even if they were to ask an infinite number of poor people who were all dependent, who all have no money, no
money would be produced or passed between
In the problem with infinite regress, is it never completes and so is never sufficient. Therefore, a reality based upon infinite regress, will always be insufficient. Therefore, there must exist an independent existence somewhere.
Any part anything that is composed of parts depends on those parts to exist. So this is like how if you look at a sandcastle it's simply a form that depends on the existence of sand to emerge as a form from basically, form is an arrangement of things forms are incidental and dependent so, forms don't really exist by themselves without their parts or substances and so we can say forms are dependent by definition.
Anything that is extended in space likewise depends on a composite of spatial divisions to exist. As Zeno's paradoxes noted, anything of size, shape, length, or basically extension also depends on divisions to exist. Of course, the problem with this is, anything extended in space is always divisible and therefore dependent and so must be dependent and cannot be independent.
Therefore, independent existence cannot be divisible and doesn't depend on extension in space to exist. Extended existence can't be produced by a composite of adding together independent existences of no extension for example, so if something is indivisible kind of extension, so zero length plus zero length plus zero length, forever, never gets to any length at all, zero plus zero plus zero always equals zero even if you have infinite zeros. So, the independent existence is therefore separate from extended existence.
Extended existence being dependent must therefore rely on independent existence to extend it into existence from nothing, aka created
if independent existence is indivisible, it cannot be separated or divided into multiples and therefore there can only be one independent existence, or extended things in reality depend on one independent existence to exist. Therefore, if independent existence is indivisible, then there is nothing more fundamental than it. But if there's nothing more fundamental than it, then it produces extended existence without compulsion from not a more fundamental or external source like an automatic gears inside itself or what have you, which it doesn't have. And so, the only possibility left is that it chooses to create
intention is defined as unnecessary choice non compelled by prior or more fundamental causes, or causes concerning a choice or decision. So that's intention is as we previously defined is something which is unnecessary choice. If it is uncaused independent existence and creates with intention, this meets the definition of God previously iterated, let's go into time if I have the time. Now, there is existence of course, we start the same thing, from from nothing, nothing comes and so, there must always have been existence, you can either call it necessary existence or first existence. However, there is change we can ascertain that by existence, change is defined as an
arrangement or form or extension of things that depends on a prior extension or arrangement or things or it could be a new arrangement, or form or extension of things created by something prior that has no arrangement or extension, ie arrangement extension pops out of nothing.
Arrangement arrangement, for arrangement depends on its unfortunately, likely in space arrangement depends on its constituent members to move and therefore arrangement is static by itself and still dependent on its constituent members. Because if you look at that there has to be a first existence, you can't have an existence, that kind of infinite regress of dependent things. So there must be a first existence into this first existence is an arrangement or extension itself, or it's something that doesn't depend on arrangement extension itself, but if it has arrangement, as we mentioned before, or extensional. Size is divisible and it's still dependent on smaller members. The first
existence cannot depend on arrangement for more extension, because if it is the first existence, it must precede arrangement and extension, because the first as we've mentioned, first existence can't have arrangement or extensions. So because it doesn't depend on it, it must precede it the first change that was created. Therefore, the first definition The first change was that it was the creating of new extension from nothing from from when there was no extension, there is now extension.
The first existence being the first cause therefore precludes any prior external or internal causes to it. But if they
That's the case if there was nothing prior to the first cause, causing creation, it can only create without compulsion without necessity. And this is only can be explained by choice. Again, intention is defined as unnecessary choice non compelled prior to any, not that it's not doesn't have any compulsion of anything prior to it. And if it is uncaused, and it creative intention, this meets the definition of God.
So in conclusion, I've demonstrated that the evidence of space and time itself in a locked tably and unavoidably necessary necessarily indicates the existence of God as the only possible cause for them without falling into contradictions. This is because observable reality is insufficient to be all that exists and still explain itself. It fundamentally depends on God with the attributes I described, as we just saw, necessitated by the effect God causes, God creates time and change and actively sustains space and time. The argument I presented the, the form of it is my own I took from the Quran arguments, urging mankind to reflect upon the cause of and behind all things. God says in
the Quran, surely, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, base and time, also space and extension. And the alternation of night and day change in time. These are signs for people who reason. And also in the Quran, God says, with power, we did construct the heaven, and barely were able to extend the vastness of space there off. Once again, I thank you to the hosts for giving me the space and time on your platform of which I depended upon to present this argument. So thanks, again. Thank you very much for that opening statement, Abdullah. And with that, we're going to kick it over to Matt for his opening statement as well. In the meantime, want to say thanks so much for
being with us, folks. If it's your first time here at modern day debate, we are a neutral channel hosting debates on science, religion, and politics. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from. And also want to let you know, don't forget to hit that subscribe button, as we have many more juicy debates coming up. You don't want to miss it. And so with that, thanks so much for being with us, Matt, the floor is all yours for your opening as well. Awesome, thanks so much. Happy to be here. Appreciate to James and Abdullah for doing this. Is there good evidence for God? This is a topic that we've debated many, many times. And, you know, in my notes right off the bat, I
was I had done well, which God? Are we talking about? What are the correct characteristics? And most importantly, how do you know that those are, in fact, the characteristics of God? Because what we'll often see is, here's a question, and we'll infer a bunch of things about it. And then we'll just say, oh, that's consistent with the nature of God, or how we've defined God. But you haven't demonstrated, usually, that the thing you're pointing to is something that does exist can't exist is possible to exist, et cetera. It's just an inference at best. And the question that we're trying to address is, Is there good evidence, and for me, when we talk about whether or not there's good
evidence, it's whether or not the evidence is sufficient to warrant reaching a particular conclusion?
Obviously, you know, I'm not going to be compelled by testimony or stories. And even philosophical arguments that don't strongly tied to physical evidence, aren't necessarily going to be compelling about things that we don't have the ability to investigate. Certainly not good enough evidence to dedicate one's life to something or say that you have, in fact, reached a conclusion about what must necessarily be, or probably be the cause of everything. Now, testimony is, of course, fine for mundane, unremarkable things, but not for supernatural claims. And physical arguments about the nature of the universe are great for talking about the nature of the universe, but they don't tell
us very much at all. If anything at all about things that are outside the universe, or weather outside the universe is even a cogent concept. Now, I'm tempted most of the time that I engage on these subjects to say, oh, there's no evidence for the existence of God. But when I do that, of course, somebody comes along and says, Well, there's testimonial evidence. It's, it's anecdotal. And there's these other things that are consistent with a particular God proposition. And so you know, it's wrong of you to say there's no evidence and that's correct. But the evidence isn't worth that much. And so when we argue about good evidence, there are other similar questions where we would
just say there isn't evidence for this. Like I would say there isn't evidence for Bigfoot. All right, fine. There isn't good evidence for Bigfoot because there's, you know, there's a film clip, and a footprint and some testimonials and the film clip, you know, while it was faked, was still stronger than what we actually have for God, a UFO footage, just even the Cottingley fairy pictures is still at least something we're pointing to where it's like, Ah, here is evidence that's consistent with this, not just evidence that's consistent with the proposition, but that strongly points to one specific conclusion over another. That is where we're talking about good evidence.
Basically, when the evidence is this evidence was caused by the fact
The proposition is true. Not just that it's consistent with it, but that we can draw a strong connection to it.
What people believe or that people believe neither of them are good evidence. What would the world be like if there was good evidence for God? While we wouldn't have multiple religions with such huge followings, I would suspect journals would be affirming the one true God that's demonstrated with evidence and there would still be disagreement. Of course, just like there's disagreement about the shape or age of the Earth, despite the fact that the best evidence which is great evidence, trivially confirms that the Earth is round and billions of years old. The fact that there can be a debate doesn't mean that there's actually a reasonable debate. If there were good evidence for God,
it would be a part of science, it would be a part of the findings about reality. We could debate a flat earth we could debate the germ theory of disease evolution, we can bet who won the election, the fact that there's a debate doesn't mean that we don't know what the truth is not individually, perhaps, but collectively, and what qualifies when when we're gonna go and teach something. And let's say public school science class or public school history class, we don't teach the Bible or the Koran as science or history because they don't qualify their historic ish with a side of magic, there's no Nobel Prize for religion, it just the subject itself has not risen to the level where
there's sufficient good evidence to put it into those categories, it becomes a matter of personal convincement. And it's not just that we can argue for the best evidence currently available, citing our limitations of exploration, because once upon a time, the best evidence currently available, suggested that the sun orbited the earth that was a perfectly reasonable conclusion given direct observations. And yet we know that the exact opposite is true. And that wasn't something that we could reasonably infer given that smaller limited set a pool of information.
That evidence which was once good is now known to be insufficient. In short, we just can't go by how it looks.
So you gather available facts for the thing that you're trying to explain. And you look for the explanation that best fits all of the available facts and doesn't permit multiple explanations of similar but competing explanations, put together a jigsaw puzzle, and sometimes there's two pieces that might look like they fit but don't fit on one edge versus four, if it's just a little bit off with a little gap. And you made a reasonable inference based on the limited information you had. But when the whole puzzle is put together, with the exception of that one piece, things are more clear. What do we mean by evidence? Now, obviously, we're talking about the collection of facts associated
with the situation or a proposition or question, which must then be evaluated or accounted for in determining whether or not an explanation is true. You make a list then of all the things that Abdullah and I believe there are things that hopefully, I think we both believe, and maybe we have good evidence for those things. But let's the things that we don't both accept. And that's where we can really begin to compare how we're going to go about evaluating the available evidence to support our proposed explanations for the universe or whatever it is we disagree on. And good evidence is not merely an opinion, you can think flipping a coin is good evidence. But I'd argue you'd be wrong.
And I'd hope that we agree on that. Yet people think there's good evidence, I think that they think there's good evidence for astrology, they think there's good evidence for psychics, they think there's good evidence for demons and lucky socks and coin tosses, how people feel about it is a vote for the best way is that a vote for the best way to figure out the truth, because we aren't all gonna sit down and vote on whether the earth is flat. That's not how we go about getting to the truth. Good evidence is able to be replicated, it's distinct leads to one explanation and not multiples with similar support. And then better evidence is when you talk when you have investigated
this more thoroughly, and you have physical evidence that's independently verified, etc. But the evidence that we have for God, a good chunk of it is anecdotal and testimonial sense, or unverifiable or speculative, or in conflict with other beliefs that better attest to the facts of the universe. It's not good evidence, if it were good, the world would look very, very different. If we're going to make inferences. We can't just say, Ah, well, we all know that something can't come from nothing. Do we? What does that even mean? And what what is there a proposition in fact that something has in fact come from nothing? Oh, well, there can't be an infinite regress Canterbury,
what does that even mean? It's only a regress at all because of our position trying to look back at it. That doesn't tell us anything at all about what actually happened. And so when you have philosophical aspect
collusion even as much as I'm a fan of philosophy as I am. That
is an attempt to explain the things that we don't yet have enough information for what happened prior to the Big Bang?
Well, I don't know, I don't know, have any way of knowing. And I'm not even convinced that we can know beyond, you know, to a strong degree of confidence that the Big Bang cosmology is correct. It's the current best explanation of the available facts, it fits the data. And we're continuing to explore. This is a realm for science to investigate, and we may be forever blocked. And this is the curious thing for me, is that once upon a time, when you ask people for good evidence for the existence of God, you would get testimony. And then you'd get various arguments, some of which are fallacious, some of which aren't, or at least, the form is valid. So there's not a structural
problem with it. But when you get down to the point where you say, Ah, let me make this pronouncement about one of the biggest questions ever, let's make a pronouncement about what is the explanation for why there's something rather than nothing. And you start rattling off the characteristics of the thing that you think is responsible for something rather than nothing. You've got a whole lot of work to do to explain, they're not just go around and say, See, here's something about reality. And that's explained by this. And here's something about reality. And that's explained by this. Because we don't explain things in terms of unknowns. We don't explain things in
terms of unproven things. We tend to explain things in terms of what we know, because those things have explanatory power. So to say, there is a magical being who exists outside of space time who isn't bound
to the laws of physics and has always existed without any sort of philosophical problem. And that is the explanation for the universe. I need evidence that that thing could possibly exist or that it does exist.
There's a sound. Thank you very much for that opening that we're gonna kick it over to Abdullah for his four minute rebuttal. Thanks, Abdullah, the floor is all yours.
Okay, so unfortunately,
my apologies.
That's my phone making noise. I thought that was James, telling me my time was up. I'm very sorry about that. It's off now. No worries.
So I
think you might have muted yourself a doula. Okay, sorry.
So I want to thank Matt for his response. Unfortunately, I think he hasn't addressed anything seriously what I said and maybe appears flustered by my slides, bombarding of slides. But in essence, the issue I've argued, and I think he misrepresented what I was even saying, or the very point of my argumentation.
I came up with definition of God, because one of the contentions would be that if you don't know what if you don't know, you're not define God, then you can put them anywhere, right? So I came with very specific definition, which basically includes intentionality, which is something that a physicalist or materialists would clearly not accept as part of
existence, or they'd say, we don't have any evidence for that. However, here's the issue was that what I argued was that the universe or extended reality itself, so anything that has spatial extension, or depends on spatial extension, is insufficient to explain itself. You can't have a universe of only forms, and no substance because they could be infinite. Anything with spatial extension could be infinitely divided forever. And then there'll be the worst made out of them. If it could be infinite, the virus an infinite regress of further and further divisions, and there are no substance. I'm ultimately speaking something that Zeno, the Greek philosopher the the anatomy of
the eleatic School picked up and made that that point that he thought that actually reality observable reality didn't make sense. And therefore he believed it was an illusion. The infinite regress problem is it's not something that is just as a problem to us because we're in the chain, and we don't understand it. It's a contradiction in terms. If I was to say that, this debate won't be able to finish until an infinite amount of time has passed, or Matt won't be able to speak until I've given an infinitely long speech, Matt will never be able to speak and this event will never be able to end. So clearly, infinite regress with things that begin and end. So it's basically a
contradiction, because what infinite regress is saying is it's saying that there is an uncompleted bullet amount of things that are that complete. It's a contradiction in terms which is why it's a problem, which he has to address which is ultimately speaking what is the beginning of of everything and what caused that beginning. Now I discussed the possibilities using the law of the excluded middle which is out
Is it independent or not independent? Is it extended or not extended. By using that very precise argumentation, I could negate all possibilities that could be there, other than the ones that don't possess possess contradiction, whereby the only thing that doesn't possess conviction is something that is independent is necessary. It has always existed. And it initiated change. It's not a it's not part of an infinite regress. But it initiates change by choice, because there's nothing if there's something behind God, that is pushing God to make change. And that was then God be part of an infinite regress and be seen behind him, something behind him something behind it. So there has
to be this initiation of changes initiation of creation. And if something initiates, when it doesn't have to, that's the definition of choice. And of course, choice denotes intentionality, and, and so on so forth. There's no way around as much as we'd like to, as much as some materials would like to there's no way around that. And also, again, you you might argue that we that, you know, why does the universe or which isn't something inside which we're inside the universe? Why do we need to posit anything? Why do we need to posit God? Or how do you know what's outside the universe? Well, the thing is that, firstly, you're putting a boundary on what you mean by the universe, you're
saying there's an outside, because technically, the universe is everything that exists. So by pure definition, I suppose God would be part of existence and therefore be part of quote unquote, universe. But I'm simply putting that you can divide the universe into two parts, one, so to speak, the extended part, a non extended Park, everything that's extended, depends on its its constituent components to exist. And you can't have a universe of only forms, there has to be substance, but you, but anyway, you pick anywhere, anytime you pick a substance and this substance is extended and
extended, it can be divided further. So the only way out of that that bind is to posit that everything that has substance is being sustained by something that doesn't depend on extension to exist. You see, so there's things that depend on extension.
All the things you ever show, those are the things that you actually have to address, in my argument, these deficiencies with observable reality, if you cause it to be closed off from anything outside. We're gonna kick it over to Matt for his rebuttal as well. Same amount of time, four minutes. Thanks so much, Matt. The floor is all yours.
So I find it interesting that Abdullah used his rebuttal to reiterate what he said and make accusations against me saying that I haven't addressed what he said. And I've misrepresented what he said. Well, I'm sorry, sir. But that was my opening remarks. It was written before I knew what you were going to say. It wasn't my rebuttal. It is bad. It is ridiculous. To criticize my opening remarks for not being a rebuttal. This is the rebuttal time. And this is the point where I actually address what we said. Now, while science is in fact about inferences, and we make inferences regularly. Science has a limitation in that we don't get to infer supernatural causation, we don't
get to infer about things that are beyond our ability to investigate, and inferences to the most likely or most probable explanation would actually be closer to abductive reasoning. And while that's fine, it's fine within the context of things that we know within the universe, you don't get to infer to things that you have no way of investigating or exploring. When Abdullah defined God, he didn't specifically claim it was a personal agent, although you may be able to infer that from the notion that it has will and chooses to act those may in fact be characteristics that are limited to agents. But he defined God as a necessary non contingent or independent
thing that can exert power. Well, cool, but I don't see any demonstration that a that thing exists or that it possibly exist. And that we're talking about temporal connections, temporal actions outside of time, because the current Big Bang cosmology, which is the best explanation we currently have, and I'm open to others, if somebody wants to demonstrate that, in physics, time began with our universe, you can't, our local presentation of time, if you want to talk about meta time or a time in a multiverse context or time, in a god context, whatever, you have to actually demonstrate how those things work or what the understanding of it is. But a follows B follows C follow or a leads to
B leads to C leads to D, that sort of temporal causation is required for any action, it's impossible for something to exist for zero time because existence is temporal. And it's impossible for something to act to cause something in the absence of time. And Abdullah seem to object to me in my opening, putting a boundary on the universe, but that's exactly what he did when he talked about the observable universe. He put that boundary in place in his opening remarks in order to make claims about something that isn't observable or bound to the universe.
So if you're gonna object to this distinction of let's talk about the universe, the observable universe, I'm happy to talk about the observable universe, I just not going to posit a cause, and claim that my cause is something that isn't observed or bound by the universe. And yet I still have sufficient reason to warrant it. So the fact that you're convinced or somebody is convinced that there can't be an infinite regress, in and of itself doesn't mean that that's the case. But when we're talking about this, we are confusing the time, the space time and causality within the local presentation of the universe, and inflating that to say, we can make inferences about something that
is outside of the local spacetime of the universe. I find that to be flawed, I don't know what justification you can use to say that, because of facts within the universe, you can infer what it's like outside the universe, because I'm not even convinced that outside the universe, is a cogent concept. And so if there's a God that someone is arguing, exists outside of space and time, and is the cause and sustainer, or however they're going to do it for space and time, you can't just do that by saying, hey, there's got to be some explanation. We can't just have contingent things, there must be something that isn't contingent. And it must be something that chose to act because how did
you rule out a multiverse? How did you rule out the notion that the physical laws governing our universe which may have existed for forever,
aren't such that the local presentation of our universe is in fact a direct unchosen
result of those facts that you don't have the ability to investigate? I'm not at all saying, You're wrong.
About what you've concluded, is the best causal explanation, I'm just saying, I don't see how you can get there from this, it seems to be a lot of, hey, we got to have an explanation. And it must be like this, therefore, that's kind of like the go.
Alright, thank you very much. We're gonna kick it into open discussion, folks. And thanks so much for your questions. We're putting them in the list for the q&a. You've got 60 minutes, the floor is all yours, Matt and Abdullah?
Okay, so just to make a response, so, because you said that I was I rambled off some characteristics about God, and then try to insert him into an explanation of the universe. In your opening statement, I was led to believe that that was your actual.
You were responding to me. And hence I I had evidence to believe that you actually, were responding to me, so that's fine. But so firstly, just a few corrections I never said contingent until when I used to that kind of wording used the word dependent. And I never divided the universe into an it by saying the universe there's an observable part to it doesn't mean that I've divided it like I see an iceberg. I don't say that I've cut the iceberg in to by talking about the observable part of the iceberg and the unobservable part of the iceberg, I'm simply saying that we have to start with what we can observe first, to make inferences about what we can't observe, which is the whole point of of
any kind of abduction or inference about anything that we want to know. I agree with that. Are you saying that dependent dependent, as you're using it and contingent aren't synonymous? Because it seems to me that you're presented versions of arguments that are typically referred to as contingent, and that you just use the language of dependent?
Isn't that what contingent means?
Well, because there are, let's say, maybe maybe more than a few ways to understand the word contingent, I use a word that was much more precise, which is simply dependence for something existence depends on something else, where or something's exist and doesn't depend on something else. So there's only two possibilities is the law of excluded middle would necessitate that there's only those possibilities. Okay? Now, I would argue that that's exactly the same as contingent, and it's all true for contingent, something's either contingent, or it's not contingent. And what we mean when we talk about arguments from contingency is this thing is, is dependent upon something
else being true. But you can use whatever language I just if you thought there was some significant difference between dependent and contingent, I'm happy to address it, I just don't see it. Just clarity. I tried to be clear and precise in the wording to prevent ambiguities,
then I agree, then that we should start with the observable. So feel free to continue, I just want to make sure we didn't You didn't get 12 points in before I object, no problem. So the thing is this. Now everything that we observe, we can't actually know for certain
the app the specific origin or specific things. So for example, how do we know when to bring the VAT in the matrix? Being being we're in a coma, we imagined things were dreaming things, or the aliens are controlling us and so on and so forth. So I took two aspects of reality which are undeniable because the, the experience that we're receiving is
in two basic aspects, one is extension or space, as you might call it, and change time. So these two aspects of observable reality are undeniable. And then I asked, okay, then what? What is producing a space and time? If anything is producing space and time does space and time need to be produced in the first place? These are the questions that I asked in my presentation. And I used binaries, you know, you could say or by Vaillant proposals, so, either something is independent or dependent. So, clearly, we can't, that we can't say that the all existence suddenly appeared out of nothing. So, there was always some existence around that created any other things that came about whether you
want to cause it to be a multiverse or not, is irrelevant. But obviously, existence, there must be some existence somewhere. So we call it necessary existence, we have to there has to be a necessary existence somewhere. Now, the question is, what is the nature of this necessary existence? And we just simply ask certain further questions about what necessary existence might entail. So clearly, we see that change hasn't always been around. Because if you if the universe was constantly changing forever in the past, we to get to this point in the present, we'd have to wait for the completion of infinite regress, which by definition means infinity means uncomplete. So we're waiting for the
completion of an incomplete set,
to be to be exhausted, to reach this part of the prison. So we can conclude without having to take a time machine, that there has to be some beginning somewhere, I don't know how long it is in the past, but there has to be a beginning. So change is not necessary, a part of reality. So all I've done is just ask these by availing proposals, and negated the one that produces contradiction, and then left the one that doesn't produce contradiction. And when you talked about the multiverse, how'd you know the multiverse didn't create the universe? Well, I already covered that, which is, if you let's say, for the sake of argument, the multiverse is the first cause behind all things.
But it has no intentionality, which is what I suppose you're probably going to be leaning towards, or you might you might be something you'd consider to be a valid possibility. So I simply put that if something is not compelled to do things, so the multiverse will be the first cause there's nothing prior to it, then what causes the multiverse? If it there is no cause but prior to it, almost making it do things to make universes in the first place? So there's a contradiction in terms of saying that, well, it just makes things for no reason, because then that means that it is
it is it does things for no reason at all. So there is no course.
I don't want to be too short. And because I know that these are complex ideas. So I want to give you guys enough time. But just to keep the conversation conversation going. I want to switch it back over to Matt pretty quicker. Sure. So first of all, I am not arguing on behalf of a multiverse. I'm pointing out that I haven't seen anybody rule out a multiverse. And when we talk about the multiverse, you're you're correct that I don't think the multiverse proposals, I won't raise them to the level of models. They're not scientific models that demonstrate the truth of something. The multiverse is a speculation. And it probably will always be a speculation because we don't have the
ability to investigate beyond the beginnings of spacetime. And so when you ask questions like, well, let's look at the multiverse and say, Why isn't this a sufficient explanation for the universe? You you would ask the question, essentially, why does it do what what it does? Well, how does it you know, the multiverse can't have intentionality? If it's not a mind if it's not a thinking agent, if it's just a some sort of physical process. So how and why does the multiverse do what it does? Well, if we just define multiverse right now is a speculative proposition that there's a meta level, some some space, like thing, it's not our local presentation of space that is producing universes. Then
to ask the question, why does it do what it does? is a great question that you cannot answer. Because you have no ability to investigate that. The How do you get the physics doesn't necessarily have to work remotely the same there. This thing could have been a multiverse of multiverse. Yes, I understand that. When you look at things
from our perspective, and start going backwards, you could use, you know, as paradox to say, Oh, well, if we don't have a t a clear t zero, then we can't get anywhere, because we can always insert intermediate steps. Although I would argue that that's true and a problem even for any proposed God, because God could potentially do the same thing.
until at least there's a logical contradiction, although now I'm talking about a God in a context that doesn't actually fit what Abdullah has defined as God so I'll back off that
And
if we're going to take a look at what are potential causes for the universe, and we'll set aside anything about sustaining, but potential causes for the universe? How do we begin to make list of what is actually a likely cause? And then from that list, determine which are possible and which are probable, because on that list, I would have to include a speculative multiverse. And on that list, I would have to include some sort of being creating. And I have no way of telling which of those is in fact, more probable. And even if I were to come up with a, a justification to say, Oh, I think this one is slightly more probable. That doesn't mean that we suddenly have good evidence that
warrants accepting that this conclusion is true or likely true. It just talking of the propositions that we've made, this one may or may not seem more likely, but I don't, where's the data that shows? Here's here are the list of candidate explanations? And here's why this one is probably correct, because I don't see that. So this perhaps agree may be some some basics about we say glue is good evidence. Would you agree that something is really good evidence if we can exclude all the possibilities except one? Sure.
Excellent. So then let's look at them the possibilities and see if they if they there are those which are self contradictory? And does if see there's any left after we negate all the ones which are have contradiction? So let's actually go back to the multiverse and just ask, forget about it being a speculation, I'm always I'm open to looking at any other any possibilities out there and seeing what we can deduce about them from from that, from their claimed natures, so.
So the something that is making making the universal making universal. So there's, there's only three possibilities that you has. One is that it's undergoing change. So it's moving, let's just say. So it's it's making universes of paths in other con continual internal mechanism that it has. But the problem of that is that if it was being propelled to make universes, then there's something prior to it, that is compelling it whether it's an internal mechanism, or external, and therefore it would be an infinite regress, which is a contradiction, and therefore that can't be the answer. The second possibility, is it static is just absolutely just completely static. But if it is static,
then it won't do anything, it can't do anything, if it's completely static. So then the only the only onset that's left is that this multiverse can initiate a change can initiate from, from doing nothing to doing doing something. And if it is necessary existence, so it's this multiverse, let's call it the moment is a necessary thing. So as it's meant to exist, and this, there's no way it can't exist. But it doesn't have to create then creation is because nothing is compelling it to then creation is a choice. And then you might say, Well, how do you know this? Or how do you know why it does? What it does? Well, again, let's break down the possibilities because I really want to go down
with the possibilities with you. So one is that it has no intention by what it does. Okay. And other thing it does, it does have intention behind what it does. There's only those two possibilities. Either there is intention or no intention, there's no there's no third possibility. It's not half intention, or whatever you. So if that's the case, if it has no intention, or no choice, so between between its default, which is to do nothing, and then it doing something, which is something that it doesn't have to do, the only if it doesn't have intention or IE choice, then it wouldn't, then it would be a contradiction, because no intention means doing things by nothing for No, by no cause.
Whereas intention is doing things. Because you're caused by, by by something that is not prior cause, the only thing that's left is by choice bind by the choice of the thing itself. So then the small universe couldn't be a multiverse if you had intention. And we'd then be falling to the definition of what we'd call God by the presence of intention. Because if it didn't have intention, there's there's no explanation behind the existence of preference. So it prefers to create, when it doesn't have to create where does the preference come from? No intention says that this preference comes from nothing, which again, is a contradiction from nothing, nothing comes whereas intention
explains that preference comes from intention. So it comes from something which is intention. That's why the multiverse I don't need to observe it. I don't need to experience it.
To know that it is the cause of all things or the first cause. It has to have intention. And therefore it's not the multiverse. It's actually Licious clusters you're using
The old fangled word, God if you'd like, or you can call him Allah, if you'd like that makes if you want to use a Semitic word instead of pretty sure if I did that I really irritate some people. But so, first of all, I, I pretty sure I understand what you're saying. And yet, I still have a bunch of problems with it. And that is
this notion that
well, first of all, you set up there's three possibilities. Either it's undergoing change, or it's static, or it's necessary,
initiates or initiates. So it can initiate actions. So either it's saying something, so when are you saying that something undergoing change can't initiate action?
No, I mean, the the reason for its initiating of action is because it's undergoing change itself.
So it's part of a causal process is what I'm saying. So yeah, initiates change, of course, because of its internal mechanisms, which are constantly moving. So I'm wondering if you're familiar with Conway's Game of Life.
Go ahead. It's a it's a computer program that has very simple rules that generates things that seem to be living, even though we know they're not this is a computer thing, but one of the things that, that it can eventually spontaneously generate is a generator. And so with nothing but incredibly simplistic rules about
whether bits are turned on or off, it can the simple algorithm, with no choice, no decision, you can create things that create other things, and some that create other things for ever, and so with, with an understanding of that sort of thing, and without going into whether or not this leads to
other issues about a mind.
There's clearly no intention in the game of life. And yet, here's something that from the standpoint of any of the individuals that it creates, if we were to make those things sentient, they could look back and say, Look, I came from a generator, which generated me and where did the generator come from? Well, it could be generated by this generator. Well, where did that come from? Clearly, there can't be an infinite regress. But I don't see that that's actually true. And, well, even if there couldn't be an infinite regress, it could be that here's the multiverse which serves as a generator for universes and then the process by which a multiverse comes into being if we need to make that
assumption, could be something else entirely, that we won't know and can't know until we investigate it. It seems to me that all of these inferences are based on here are the facts of the reality that we investigate, let's expand those facts out to a realm
which we can't even demonstrate the realm which may not follow those same rules.
Okay, I actually liked that example, you put your brain keys. So you're very good example. I'm actually confused why you'd bring it up? Because you actually would support my argument, and my whole entire position. So you have a program? What's the program running on?
The programs running on a computer, but that's not relevant to the analogy. But it's extremely relevant. No, it's not. No, it's not. And I can demonstrate this really easily. We've gotten confused. The question here is, do we have? Do we have good reason?
I don't know if I make? I don't know, what is the program? What is a program? It doesn't matter?
It does, because you
wish I could stop this waste of time from happening?
Well, the question here is not whether or not there is a God, it's whether or not we have good reason to conclude that there's a God and from the, from the viewpoint of the things that are generated in the game of life, they do not and could not have good reason to conclude that there is a Creator. Their perspective is that they were generated and they don't have an explanation for how that generator because the generator that generated them could also be the result of an algorithm that they cannot investigate. So yes, this analogy is going to break down like everything else does, because yes, it runs on a computer and it's a program and the program was originally written by a
person but that's not anything that the individuals that are created in the game of life can reasonably conclude that Okay, so if I'm if I may be able to speak and respond, right so so if you look at the this, let's say in the program itself, okay, even if the issue was that let's forget about the process and forget about it was a written program. What you could conclude if you weren't let's say somehow in that program was that the, the, the program had a start point because each point in
Each moment in time or in that program was preceded by a previous moment in time, and there can't be an infinite regress. So there was a beginning to the program. And then the question is what initiates the program itself? What initiates the algorithms where the algorithms come from? It would always be there would be one, let's say atheist sprite inside the program that would say, the program's always been around and there will be, let's say, not so a few Sprite. So you know what, maybe this program, I actually think the only possible explanation is this program was initiated by by something, and let's call it the programmer. And everything that we see arising in this program,
as amazing as it might be, how to start point by something that initiated wrote a program and put it on some run it on a processor, but it didn't have to, and hence, choice, and hence, we wouldn't be a blind robot that just makes programs I've been infinitum going back in the past, but it would be the origin of a programmer could be inferred by a sprite of irrational fears sprite within within the program to take the analogy forward. So that's why I was really confused with the analogy because the analogy is a perfect example of the point I'm saying is that two sprites stuck in a program could still make very right sound conclusions about ultimate origin, they couldn't tell where the
programmer had red hair, or blonde hair or something, they couldn't even tell the program was a human. But what they could tell is that the program had intention, or something had intention that started that started everything started the process of moving. So when I talked about multiverses, just just to go back to multiverses. Yeah, I said that multiverses. Either they are continually moving, and then they are themselves stuck in an infinite regress of causes, or which which can't be the case if we because it has to have to start somewhere. Otherwise, an infinite regress is a self contradiction. A beginning have no beginning and end with no end.
Oh, either it's static. But if it's static, it won't do anything. Because static doesn't move, or doesn't do. So the only thing the only conclusion left, the only possibility left after we've eliminated the contradictions is that this first cause initiates without prior prior cause to itself or prior cause that compels it to create the first extension space to first whatever you want to call it. And if it initiates it, and it doesn't have to, then this is the definition of choice, it is making an uncompelled preference to something that it doesn't have to do is not compelled to do. So what what are the way possibly around that? I'd like to hear from you. Please tell me? What are
the possibility is there if we avoidable contradictions, I'm really open open is to really want to I want to know from you that what is the what are the possibilities could there be? So first of all, the same objection that you launch every single time is this leads to an infinite regress and infinite regress is impossible, which isn't something that I accept. And by the way is contentious. It's not like it's not a hot button issue to discuss whether or not an infinite regress it's possible, or to what extent but the reason I use Conway's Game of Life, is because it follows incredibly simple, rigid rules, that it had no decision in making. There's no decision making
process, there's no choice. And yet it creates things that from their perspective, would have to look back and say, Hey, what's the explanation for why I'm here while there's a generator? Well, your your position here is that oh, they can infer that there must have been a generator before that. But from their perspective, from their their standpoint, from what they can and can't investigate, they cannot do that. It is only you from the privilege standpoint of viewing the entire system from the outside. And understanding that its program can even infer that there was a program there, because what the purpose of this program is supposed to do is show that simplistic rules,
things like physical rules about which chemicals can combine and in what ways can lead to complex
machines without an intent to create that, that that we are all as far as we can tell. Following the physical laws of the universe. We are chemicals, we are patterns of chemicals, we are patterns of physical objects that are following the rules that are in place that can lead to us to suggest that,
hey, I've taken a look at what could possibly be an explanation for the universe. And I'm just going to say that well, you can call it God. You can call it multiverse. You can call it whatever you want. But it must be this, this, this, this and this.
I get that we can make some speculative assessments of what may or may not qualify. But this isn't something that we can actually investigate and produce evidence for. It is nothing more than we're going to sit around and think about this. You
given the limited information we have, and in the past, we would have come up with different and did come up with different explanations. And maybe in the future with better understanding of things, we might come up with other explanations. But to say that this is why in my opening I talked about we can't just go with Well, this is the conclusion I've reached given the current best evidence, because the current best evidence once upon a time, direct, directly supported, and almost undeniably so that the sun was going around the earth when that's absolutely not the case. And so the time for me to be convinced that there's sufficient evidence that there's good evidence to
conclude that there's a God is after that's the case. And not just because well, I can't imagine that there could be in an infinite regress, and I don't know how a multiverse could work. And if you're willing to say that the multiverse is God, except that it lacks intention, the purpose of Conway's Game of Life is to show that there is no intention there despite what it for lack of a better word creates. Okay, I think maybe perhaps you're misunderstanding what I'm saying or not not seeing it. I didn't mention anything about simple rules becoming complex. I didn't talk about that at all whatsoever. I actually personally beat that simple rules do become complex. This has got
nothing to do with my point at all. I'm talking about where do the simple rules themselves come from the simple rules, where do they come from? Because if you have a first cause, a first determiner should we say, and the first chord is nothing prior to it. So if it if it builds an object makes an object, let's say a certain size, let's say 10 meters of space time, it creates,
it could have made it 15 meters of space time, it could have made it 20 meters of space time. So if it makes if it's if it select out the infinite possibilities it selects one particular possibility has a preference for one particular possibility, even though it could have made infinite possibilities. And it's not compelled to make any particular one or make any of them at all whatsoever, then, this is the only can only be explained by choice, because choice is the explanation of why there exists preference, when something unintentional can't generate preference can't generate.
If I if I might finish. You said that. What how I'm arguing is that based on the current best evidence, no, I'm not. I'm arguing on the fundamental observational reality itself. I'm not talking about any particular type of quark. I'm not arguing about particular type of Hilbert space. I'm not talking about any particular thing, except the very existence of extension itself. And change. These are the most fundamental observations of reality. And I'll get from that, that those two observations as you want to avoid infinite regress, is that you have to conclude with a beginner and a sustainer. Now, you said I can't imagine infinite regress. That's not my contention against
infinite regress. My contention against infinite regress is many to posit. The infinite regress is a self contradiction. Infinity is not exhaustible, yet to get from the past, an infinite past to now you'd have to exhaust an infinite amount of time moments to get to this point. So it the inexhaustible becomes exhausted, that's a contradiction. That's why infinite regress is impossible because of contradiction, unless we throw the laws of logic out of the out of the window. And so unless you're willing to do that, are you willing to do that? So actually, the rules of logic have nothing at all to say about infinite regress, you have to construct an actual argument to get there.
But the thing I'm pointing out with Conway's Game of Life, because you're concerned about where did those rules come from? Well, the purpose of this analogy, the rules were simple, any live cell with fewer than two living neighbors dies. And that's to represent overpopulation. It's not a rule that needed to be created that over pot or sorry, under population that under population leads to death. This is what the physical facts of the universe dictate. Okay, so to suggest that the physical facts of the universe had to be a certain way, or could have been created in a certain way or need an explanation, rather than that they just are true, is something that you would actually have to
demonstrate. And when you say that choice is the only explanation, there's no choice involved in this. It just like there's no reason to think there's any choice involved in the notion that without enough oxygen, I die. That way, if you remove my head, I die, that if everybody around me dies, my chances of dying increased dramatically because of the physical rules of the universe to say, Well, where did those rules come from? Is something you have to demonstrate that there was in fact, some other alternative? That was possible? And if you just get to these choices, the only explanation when you say, by the way, in your in your side, that you're not arguing about quarks. I would say
that in my first rebuttal remarks I mentioned or are hadn't
notes about quarks. Because when you say that everything that extends into space
cannot be divided. Well, how do you know that? Because isn't there going to be some smallest particle that can't be divided?
Oh, what you mean divided by what? Right? So divided by Austin? Probably no. But if if it can be conceivably divided because it has extension, it's a form, it's a form of something, right? Like, if I make it's a form of something, but you can't say it's a form of nothing, right? It's a form of something. But then if that's a form of something, and I can then cut it in half to two parts, then the question is, does that part depend on the other part? Right? If they both depend on each other, that's circular, that means that nothing would exist. It's like saying that a poor person depends on money for another poor person, the poor person depends on the money on that on his mate, and they
don't they don't have money. Whereas ultimately speaking, there has to be something behind substance, you could say, that isn't extended in space, that sustained substance because if not, then what is everything made out of you can't have a universe of just forms that can be divided infinitely into more and more forms. And there's no substance there. I say your worldview lacks substance. Unfortunately, my worldview is predicated entirely on substances yours is predicated entirely on a, a suspected extra substance, super substance foundation substance, when I talk about you say that everything that extends into space, you don't believe in foundation substance, if you
when I say that, when you say everything that that extends into space can't be divided or can be divided. And I asked whether or not a court can I don't know whether or not a court can, but whether or not a there's a smallest product particle, for you to suggest that if you can conceivably divide it like you could talk about, hey, here's a quarter of a cork, an eighth of a cork a 16th of a court that if you can conceivably divided, then that qualifies. Well, I could think of there's half a god a quarter of a god as long as we're just engaging in this speculative thing. But if in fact, but if, in fact,
there are things in the universe that can't be divided, then your assertion at the beginning, that there aren't anything in the universe that can't be divided is wrong. That was the only point I made.
Okay, so you said you can conceive a quarter of a god. But if God doesn't depend on spatial extension, how can you divide something into a half that doesn't have extend or size doesn't depend on size, or extension in the first place? Well, you can't even work
on space, and it has a limit to how much it can and can't be divided physically in space. And all you're going to do is say that you could conceivably divide it, you could say that for anything
that they argue that you couldn't actually do it with God is not to say that you couldn't conceive of doing it, it's to say that you couldn't actually doing it. And I'm saying you don't know that you can actually do it with a cork.
Well, let's rewind it, what makes something divisible in the first place?
What makes something mathematically speaking, I'm not concerned about mathematically speaking, because that's conceptual. I'm talking about the physical world. Yeah.
But the point is this that if it can be divided up into into a left part, and the right part is the left part of the core different cork different from the right part of the cork, if it has the extension, and if they are, if they're different from each other, then the court can be divided. But if they're the same, then the court doesn't have a left and a right side, that then it's it's not really in extension, but if it's not an extension doesn't, it doesn't have extension, how's the existing space because space is extension. So something that doesn't have extension doesn't occupy any space in space to even be part of the space itself in the first place outside of space. And
that's my point is that God doesn't occupy space doesn't depend on space and doesn't occupy space in this universe. And therefore, by definition, is not the, I suppose you could call it like the pole exclusion principle that illustrates this to some extent, but it is outside of space time. And is the only conclusion to the fact that when it's not, it's indivisible. So if something is conceptually divisible,
and occupies space, then the problem is it can always be infinitely divisible. And the question is, at what point in its infinite divisions, is there something actually there's not not just a form of something else? Forms don't exist by themselves. Forms are made of material or substance to two forms actually don't even exist in a way if you want to be a Mary like, right? Yeah, right. All right. So then what's at the bottom of,
of like, the problem, and here's my argument, just to restate it.
If the universe is made up of non extended pieces, pieces that have no extension, if you add them all together, you don't produce extension, because zero plus zero plus zero size doesn't equal any type of size. But the the problem is that the universe has extension. And so where does that come from? So the only conclusion because anything
Has extension can be further divided up. So the only, the only possibility left is that the universe of extension of extended space is being sustained by the part of the universe quote unquote, as in the part of existence that doesn't have extension and extends it by sustaining meaning it extends reality into existence. That was the only possibility left because it are you say that the universe is just made of infinite, infinitely divisible, smaller, smaller forms, and no substance? Because that's what that's what you'd be saying. If you say there are no, it is infinitely divisible, or both theoretically, or what have you. Always made up of points, point particles, or even a
coordinate like things that have no extension. But if you add them all together, space, if space is made up of just infinite infinitesimal points, you can't produce extension in the first place. And that's the problem. That's the fundamental problem that Zeno of the eleatic School noticed. And his his solution was to say that in a way, the
observable reality is an illusion, and deny his senses because they couldn't explain it. Whereas I can simply say, there is an explanation that is that is the only possible one that's left, which is that extension is only possible because the part of existence that is not extended in space and indivisible, sustains a part of the law of existence that is extendable, and so on, so forth, and so called of God doesn't make any wouldn't make any any sense. And by the way, I had a question I didn't want to ask you, which is, how do you define supernatural? use that word? How do you define it?
Supernatural is the label that I tend to use and other other people tend to use for the proposed things that are not contained and constrained by the natural world.
What's the most natural world? Please define natural world? The observable physical universe governed by?
Well, physics? And
so is what you is the non observable part of the universe, the unnatural world, or supernatural? What unobservable part of the universe?
Why are you saying that? We're all we observe the Universe is all there is?
No, I'm saying well, we we can say like, there's a planet somewhere that we haven't observed. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Is that what you're getting to?
Um, yeah, we'll just, you know, there could be multiple bubble universes, which will be part of the the whole universe, that's not part. So when we talk that says, The problem is that we, we miss appropriately named universe as one verse. And this is why like Sagan, and others refer to cosmos as everything there ever is, and was, and then universe is our name for our local presentation of the universe, which is how, because it doesn't really make sense to say there's a multiverse if you have a universe because universe suggests that there's one. But for me, when going back to what you were saying, about Zeno's paradox,
the strength of Zeno's paradox is to show that
the fact that we can conceive of something doesn't mean that it's actually possible in reality, that in order for the arrow to get from here to the target, it must cross half that distance. And before it can cross half that distance, it must cross half of that with a half, it's half of that, and half of that and half of that, and to show that you can infinitely divide the distance to suggest that the, the arrow can never get started, when we already know conclusively that the arrow can get started and the arrow can reach its target is to kind of show that just because you can conceive of something or inversely, because you can't conceive of something doesn't tell you whether or not it's
actually real. And so do you know what Xena was trying to think about? When you when you talk about God being outside of space? God, then you're saying doesn't extend into space time? Correct.
So I want to talk about to repeat the philosophy again, sir. So God then doesn't extend into space time?
Well, we'd say that God, God must exude something that basically can extend extend space time itself create something by swinging we can call it exertion of power. And that's that's not the question I asked. I didn't say Do you believe that God is a foundation that creates and sustains and extend space time? I asked whether or not God exists within space time.
whereby God doesn't occupy space and time in our universe. And so so? Yeah, because because he's because God would have to be doesn't depend on extension, nor does depend on change. So if we made a set of all the things that are not
existing within our local presentation of space time, God would be on that list.
That is outside the observable, observable universe than Yes. Which that links back to supernatural
because, you know, the quantum world was known, but by scientists prior to the 19th century, so would the quantum world be supernatural? Until humans discovered it? Let's say, because it was at one point outside of the observable universe. So is quantum is the quantum world supernatural before humans?
Experimentally detected it?
No, but it would the notion of the thing that things that that we found within the quantum world Wow, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to rephrase this because knowing that dr. strange in the multiverse of madness is coming and, and there's a different Marvel Cinematic Universe quantum world, I don't want to confuse anybody. So when we talk about, this has come up many times, let me see if I can address this real quick. Let's say there's something that is proposed to exist. And it doesn't seem to be part of the natural world. And so we write it off as supernatural or we consider it supernatural. If we later find out what it is, and that it is, in fact, part of the natural
world, then it was always part of the natural world, it's just that we didn't know that it was part of the natural world. So for me, when when you talk about something supernatural, when you talk about something that by definition, would be supernatural, something that exists, and is not bound by space time in laws of physics, and
that doesn't just apply to like a multiverse or a different universe like the you know, here's, here's our universe and a separate universe, the separate universe isn't necessarily supernatural. Supernatural includes this notion of void of existing in some way, within our universe, in some detectable way. Like, we use that for like ghosts, because people will claim they've seen ghosts.
And it goes beyond what we understand of the natural laws of the universe. I have no reason to think anybody's ever actually seen a ghost, I'm happy to believe that they think they've seen something. But them seeing something isn't enough. That's sorry, fun. You use the word universe. So. So the FBI did that a little bit ago, where the cosmos is everything that exists and the universe is our local presentation to the universe.
But then, as I said, if, if God exists, or there will be outside of space and time, it would by that definition would be in the universe will be part of the universe. What if it? No, it's outside of our local space and time it's by definition, not a part of our universe. Our universe is our local presentation of the universe. Alright, universe is is local presentation universe, spacetime. If you say that something is outside of that, then it's not a part of the universe.
The universe is our local presentation of the universe that doesn't that contradictory? You're saying that the universe is oh my god, I can explain this like four times if we're just gonna nitpick cosmos is the word that I'm using about unloop. Mumbai, via Carl Sagan, for everything that's ever existed with center universe is the word that we tend to use for our local presentation of a universe, the one that we are in.
Okay, so then if that's the case, then supernatural is defined as what then going back to that? So how would you, then you'd say that anything that's outside of our local universe of supernatural? No, no. So supernatural applies to
something that violates the laws of our universe, something that is detectable in our universe, but is not contained within it? I would say. So like, somebody wants to say that there's a God that can manifest in a detectable way in the universe, but isn't bound by our universe. And they want to say that ghosts aren't bound by our, the physical laws here. But Is that making sense to you now? But if you can detect something in the universe, then by definition, wouldn't it be in some way existing in the universe? No, no, no.
Ghosts would have to interact with space and time.
The fact that something can interact with space and time doesn't mean it's it exists within space and time and is constrained by space and time. That's the whole thing behind most of the god concepts is that God isn't in any way bound to our space and time, but God can do things within space and time that people then detect. That's the claim.
Space and Time itself is just it's just as if I created a Sims simulation. I don't exist within the simulation. I am not in any way bound by the simulation. But as the author of it and the creator of it, I can change things within it and I can do so in a way that the individuals in there to whatever extent there would be individuals could potentially detect me. As a matter of fact, I would say that most of the god believers are running around claiming to be God detectors.
Okay, now that's good, because I think it's very important we get our definitions solid before mentioning certain terms, but
Just to go back to what you said about Zeno. So you said that Zeno demonstrated that just because we conceive of something doesn't mean that these things exist. That's true. But I don't think you, you don't mean maybe realize the lesson that Xena was conveying to us, which is Lena Zeno assumed the universe was continuous. So that universe was infinitely divisible, it could be effective divided.
Rather, what it shows is that the the other possibility is now because we have movement we have change we have extension, is that the universe is actually discrete, it has pixels, could you say, and you have things moving from one pixel, to stop ceasing to exist in one pixel and appearing another pixel, which is, in essence, movement, that's the only way to explain the paradox. But that's a further great example to show the universe is insufficient. The let's say the material universe or the observable universe is insufficient, because what can cause something to cease to exist at one pixel and reappear it at another pixel unless it is something that is sustaining the
universe, like a processor is the one that does it with with actual computer programs, it it removes a dot from one pixel and it puts in a different pixel. So, without God movement itself is not possible, because to do because either things exist continuously. And then therefore, Zeno's Paradox would apply that you have to cross an infinite amount of points to get to any point, which is not possible, or the universe is discrete. But how do you explain some something ceasing to exist at one point and reappearing to exist at another point, without some, some external agent moving things around? I might have missed it. What's the example of something that cease to exist at one point and
begins to exist at another new point,
the pixels on your very computer so that the in order in order to access on my computer don't cease to exist?
Or shall we say, the the color of the light that that is switched on the particular pixels pixel itself, the pixel itself is changing state from lit or not lit, it's not
ceasing to exist, there's nothing that cease to exist, it just changes change state. What's an example of something that ceased to exist at one point and began to exist another?
Well, I'm actually using an example of actually using that as an example to look at reality itself. So obviously, we know that things don't, at least in in a quote on the computer screen, they don't think don't cease to exist, those are stopped existing and then begin to exist. But rather, what we do have is that a state is changed on the computer screen by the processor or graphics card, and then it changes it elsewhere on a separate, disconnected part of the of the computer screen. And that's what we call movement. And so what Zeno in essence, inadvertently demonstrated is that the universe, actually, in order to have movement, it must be divided into discrete parts. And to have
anything moving within these discrete parts from one part of it to another part of it must involve at some point, something ceasing to exist, or at one part or and reappearing another part or the state change of one particular part of the universe, and then a different state change a different part of it. Something is connecting these parts together to enable the movement of things in this universe. And that itself is not an argument, not an evidence, you could say that the universe requires something outside itself a processor a probe, to, to move things in this universe otherwise, what is actually how do you explain movement in the first place? That's that's not our
didn't really come up with that particular argument today. That's a that's an additional argument. But it's just something that I felt was,
I found was quite interesting.
Well, hang on, you asked me, How can I explain something ceasing to exist and beginning to exist again? And then we when we run through it all, it turns out, you're not talking about anything that cease to exist and began to exist? You haven't given an example of something that seems to have because, and began to exist? So all you're suggesting is that there must be a sustainer. Otherwise, how can you explain movement at all, and to whatever extent that there must be some explanation for permissible movement, I don't see how it gets to the thing that you're trying to define, as God. But when we explain something, a movement, when you add, you asked me to explain something ceases to
exist and begins to exist again, and I have no example that you can provide one.
Okay. Actually, what I'm really asking you is how do you explain movement itself? I don't, I don't know enough to explain movement. But the fact that I don't have an explanation for movement, other than it seems to happen all the time.
Fit, it changes the one constant. It doesn't tell us anything at all about whether or not there's a God. I'm not a physicist. Oh, well, I'm not an expert in temporal mechanics. I'm not an expert in causation.
Under movement, but I can tell you that
you know, your notion that the only explanation is that there must be a sustainer and that this Sustainer carries these particular characteristics.
I just don't see that you've made the case that the thing that the thing that is the best explanation for why there can be movement is a necessary, external, independent, powerful agent who can who through their will chooses to allow movement or make movement possible.
The notion the Zeno's Paradox with the arrow is defeated because the arrow has length.
The notion that you'd have to walk half the distance half the distance half the distance, half the distance, ignores the fact that my first step covers way more than half of the distance is especially on on an infinite regress that way. And so, when we see this
I think that when you're sitting here saying, what is the explanation for why is there movement?
I have, I don't even know that we've defined the term well enough to say that we could have an explanation, but I don't know how you conclude that the only or best explanation is that there's a being for whom we don't have any direct evidence for who exists outside of space time. Our local presentation is FaceTime. Would you like to hear the house? How it is necessary, necessitated necessitated, sorry? Would you like to hear us and how instances are stated, because we got about five minutes to let you guys know, that's fine. So movement is basically displacement from one position to another position. So there are two ways except that we're not necessarily talking about
discrete positions.
Oh, I didn't say that. I was actually about to go into the two possibilities, either between any two points, there is an infinite number of continuous points between any two points, or there's a finite number of extended blocks, or let's say lengths, which are discrete. So let's go with the first option, see where that takes us. The first option is that between any two points, there's an infinite amount of points. And then Zeno's Paradox would apply, which is to get from A to B, you'd have to cross an infinite number of points, which infinity doesn't exhaust as an end. And so therefore, you have to cross an unending amount of points, you have to end in an unending amount of
points to get to your destination, which is the problem which Xenos paradox highlighted. That then leaves the only other possibility, which is that between any two points, there's a finite amount of extended extensions in space, which are basically of discrete or let's say, you know, pixels if you'd like to use that term. And then the question is, of course, okay, but then how does something get from one pixel to the another to the other pixel, because it can't just walk over to the next pixel, because there's an infinite amount of points between any two pixels. And so it would have to be well have to cease cease existing on this pixel and start appearing in the other pixel is the
only explanation. But then where does it go? Right? So if it may be maybe you could say, maybe it goes, there's a special, let's say, loop or tube that connects each pixel together between these two pixels and say, that's great. But then how does it move in the tube as a tube have an infinite number of points to get it from one from one part of the tube to the other part of the tube? And then and the problem just goes on and on forever? Whereas there is there is an explanation that's left after you discover all these contradictions? Don't explanation is that, well, something that exists at one point a universe and then suddenly existed in the next instant of time, in Planck
time, maybe, let's say in the next instant, is because it was, it was removed from one position and replaced in a different position by the very thing that sustains the entire universe, which would be external to the universe, because the universe itself is not is not sufficient. By this demonstration, it's just sheer simply shows universe is not sufficient to to produce movement is my argument. Because if you say does, it produces contradictions, unavoidable contradiction, it doesn't actually, because I'm not aware of anything that is a space point. What size is a space pixel?
Maybe Planck length? Who knows? Oh, it was all smaller. Well, I mean, you've come up with Planck time as a potential thing. But how small is small? How do you know that there is a point at all? Because it seems to me that when talking about something moving from one point to another, yes, at t zero, we can say that it is here, although our assessment of its location is at best an approximation. And at t one, it is in some other position. But to whatever degree, we're able to narrow that down for our investigation. It exists that every single one of those points and every single one of those times there's gonna be a one to one match. So this notion that you can come up
with an analogy
There's space pixels, and that therefore that means something disappeared from this pixel and move to this one. It just means you've come up with a bad analogy. Well, no, because your argument would only be valid if all these pixels were independent of each other and disconnected and, and in their own separate universes, but there is actually movement between these, this connection between them. And if there is so then the issue is, how are they connected? If they could be if there are, by extension, infinite number of points between any two points in extension? So first, when you say my argument would only be valid, I think you mean sound.
But if if pixels were independent and disconnected, but that's what, that's what you're
that's what
are two different things, one goes to structure one goes to content.
You know, if you're saying valid and sound, you just all you need to do is, say valid. So, you know, I'll leave it to somebody else, to come up to show how the structure of the response that I made was invalid and fallacious rather than merely unsound. But when you'd say that the pixels aren't connected together,
or aren't just, that is the analogy. That is the analogy that you made, that there are discrete points that it's moving to. And I don't accept that that is an actual accurate description of spacetime.
We've got to move shortly here. Yeah, you're free to you're free to accept that. But even though that's currently best free theory, or physics, physicists, I'm not really going to argue just on the basis of physicists.
The best current model physicist is that there are space wait.
Well, yeah, Planck length, Planck length and Planck time, because the the, that's the current smallest that we can assess. That doesn't mean that the pixels reduced produced by, by the the equations of quantum mechanics, on the constants. But that's not even my argument. I don't I'm not my argument is not that the physicists believe it, my simple point is that it's the only possibility that can resolve or prevent contradictions. But the real argument I've been making all along actually is again, the past can't be infinite and kind of infinite in the infinity in the past. And if even if you were to say, even if you were to say that the universe is divisible up to a certain
point, and no longer divisible any further, because we can't divide it, the issue is this. Anything that is divisible anything, sorry, that has length, or let's say size of any kind, is always a form of something, it's a size of something like the square doesn't exist, it's really just produced by the thing inside the square ending those sides and making it into a square, but the square the boundaries of the square don't actually exist. So if you're saying that the smallest thing in the universe has a shape, great, no problem. But here's the problem shape of what form of what a universe that only has forms, has no substance. And as long as we, you argued that the all that
exists could only be things that only have size, or shape or extension, then you have then you you have an inability to explain substance, where the substance come into it, where the substance come from, there has to be a first subsystem that sustains the first unit have fundamental substance and then upon which extension depends otherwise, you can't you there is no other possibility explain that other than produce contradictions. I can give you about about a minute or so Matt, if you would like to have the last word before we go into the q&a, we've got a little bit left. But then we have to go into the q&a pretty quick. It seems that criticism is that I'm unable to offer an explanation
for substance and he thinks he can. So cool. Let's go on. We'll jump right into the q&a. One remind you folks, our guests are linked in the description. So if you'd like to hear more from our guests, you certainly can by clicking on their links below. And that includes at the podcast, as we upload every debate to the podcast within 24 hours of the debate happening with the guests links in the description there as well. So thanks so much for your questions. This first one coming in from do appreciate it. apostate Prophet says Abdullah, if God punishes me for not believing in Him, doesn't that mean he punishes me for being flawed, ie stupid, which ultimately must be his doing, given that
he created me also, will you debate me on Islam? Thank you.
Okay, so, Tom to the first part of the question.
Humans are not fully rational creatures. We have many reasons why we do and choose things. Ideally, we wish we weren't that we all only made decisions, which were based on evidence and had appropriate cause to do so. So you have people who are flat earthers and as we know, they'll deny the most clearest evidence is that the Earth isn't flat. For reasons best known to them. My it's not my job to make people sincere and it's not it's not to God's job to me.
pupils sincere if they are insincere to the truth because it doesn't accord to their personal tastes and preferences. It's not a matter of being intelligent or not. It's simply about being sincere. And we don't believe, from the Islamic perspective anyway, if someone is truly
is sincere, but they remain, they don't have the full access to the truth. And they're not going to be judged for things that they were unaware of, or they were ignorant of sincerely, despite their best efforts to attain that truth. So that really doesn't apply to our particular worldview. And, yeah, that's it really, like if you don't read the rest, basically, the only substantial point he's made. So that's my response to it.
But also, just to kind of put in there one other point, which is something, I suppose there's implications directly to the question I Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So doesn't there's also an implication, which is that there's that those are people punished who don't worship or believe in the specific god of Islam and not other gods. And this was obviously something that mentioned by Matt earlier on, which basically, anyone who believes in an independent and necessary being that is one and is upon which all the of the entire quote unquote universe depends upon
and has will, believes the same God we do that there's only one God, there's only despite the fact that people might have different ideas about what God might say. But just as the same point that people used to believe that the sun used to be a disk, or this bleeding was a sphere, some bleeding was an upturned bowl of fire, or does bleed it was a hole in space. And behind that, there was a bigger sphere around around the solar system that was just made of fire. So the sun was just a hole in space. Different theories about the sun didn't negate the existence of the sun. Right? It just means that we didn't dispute as to what is nature wasn't what have you. But there can only be from
our perspective, one God and anyone that believed in one God worship the same God that we do. There were also different theories. There were also different theories about phonology and phonology is *.
There's one coming in from why so religious says, I heard doulas argument, which has been around for centuries. Can you explain how this is evidence in particular?
So I'm not sure I fully understand it. So you're saying that what the argument been around for centuries houses evidence in particular? Well, the issue is this. You can compel a human being to to accept immediate evidence right in their face, as in, if a train is coming to hit them that for the most human beings would and they are on the track, and they see the train coming. And they have their faculties, and they have their sanity with them. And then of course, they're not going to view or dispute the train coming to hit them. But that the train came from a different destination. Maybe it came from New York, or it came from London? Well, we know it comes from somewhere, but that's of
their subject to dispute, because there are multiple possibilities of causes within the universe. But we're not talking about stuff that's within the universe, we're talking about what ultimately is the universe depend on? And on that there isn't multiple possibilities that are devoid of contradiction. There's only one possibility that is not devoid of contradiction, all other possibilities that the universe is eternal in the past, and it's just an infinite regress the universe made itself and so on, so forth. These things are the universe was made by nothing, from nothing by nothing. These things have contradictions. And so the only thing that's left is that
there is a Creator that made everything that's that's the point, I can't force you compel you to believe that. But all I can do is I can say, I challenge you to give me an alternative explanation.
Even to show me how an alternative exhibition is even possible after I've negated it by the the logic of the excluded middle principles move forward. This one from stupid horror Energy says in phase transitions, physical quantities can become infinite at the critical point, given that infinity can be predicted, and it describes real things, doesn't it mean that infinity is real?
Think that's okay. So I would assume so. So I think physicists would give you the best answers, which is whenever infinity is predicted in their equations, this means that the equations are not precise enough to map reality they call a singularity. And they have to deal with it by renormalization, which is basically fudging it to fit a more finite predictable results. Did you know that it prediction of infinity is how we discovered quantum, the quantum model in the first place, when it showed us that energy isn't continuous, but discrete and if you use continuous energy as an assumption, it produces, in a particular experiment, an infinite amount of ultraviolet
radiation, which clearly doesn't didn't occur in that experiment, but finite amount of radiation came out. And they realized that their equations were wrong. So see me when when we'll see you'll speak to a physicist about equations that predict infinity I'm sure they'd explain it.
They're better than you than I could. This one coming in from get rule 79. For you, Matt said, Matt mentioned testimony as bad evidence isn't standpoint epistemology, just testimony evidence is standpoint epistemology a good base for an ideology?
That's for me, I think so the other comment that I made about testimony really doesn't come into it, because that was made in my opening remark. And Abdullah didn't argue from testimony.
And I don't know enough about standpoint, epistemology to address the rest of it. So I have to punt and maybe hit me up in an email and I can look into it some more. You got it and letters. Thanks for your questions that Abdullah, how does your hypothesis hold up against the Gnostic idea of Yahweh? As a? I don't know if I'm saying this word, right. Demiurge? Could the Creator God not also have been created by an even higher beam? How can we tell which is the case?
Okay, so when I said that there's a first cause I didn't say how far back this first cause created universe, I didn't say how old the universe was all those universe was, I don't need to explain the distance, I can only can simply put a sippy show that we've arrived at this point in time. And so there was a beginning point, I don't know how long ago that beginning point was. But for it to be a beginning, or and a first to have a first cause in the first place to prevent infinite regress. It must be that the first cause there is nothing prior to the first cause. And so I'm not saying what that was. So if you want to say that maybe the first cause made something, which itself was a
demigod, and the demigod made the universe as some Greeks, philosophers did believe, then that then he wouldn't be God, it would be the first cause would be God, that Damia would just be an angel of some kind, or an intermediary if that will be the case. Of course, we'd say that first cause can create things from nothing. So it doesn't need an intermediary. But so I don't really think it applies, because the first cause by definition is first, otherwise, we get an infinite regress, which is contradictory. And as I said before, the first cause all the necessary being that sustains all things, all matter, is the only possibility that is devoid of contradiction, and therefore, is
the only possibility if you want to hold on to the rules of logic. There's the non objection. This one coming from Brandon Hanson, says James, you should hold donation streams or fundraisers to get John Lennox to debate on the channel. He's, in my opinion, one of the best debaters of the existence of the Christian God, I gladly donate this and more to see this happen. Thanks for letting us know that Brandon, and it would be awesome to have Dr. Linux on letters or letters says also Hello, James. Awesome. You're awesome for starting this channel. Thanks for your thank you for your support. They said I've learned so much about so many sides. Cheers, mate. Thanks for that. Lawler,
isn't it some lot, Ali says for Abdullah first. And then Matt, please respond, said do you believe slavery under Islamic ruling to be moral? And would you be my slave under Islamic rules Abdullah? And if no, why not?
I don't think it's relevant to this to the topic of conversation. So I'm happy to have a debate on that topic itself at different juncture. But I'm gonna restrict only to the topics that are relevant. Gotcha. Ozzie and says, Matt, is a theory of everything possible to investigate doesn't have to just work and explain all observations. I don't think any Theory of Everything is possible to prove whether it be natural or not.
I don't I don't have an answer. I don't even know how the questioner has an answer.
The notion of a theory of everything is an interesting proposition that
may be possible. I don't know that there's been a demonstration of possibility. So
I can't decide either way. And it's more interesting to me that the question or did you got it and sesor? Roxy, thanks for your questions. We can't have an infinite regress both because we can't create an infinite through successive addition. And we can't traverse an actual infinite. I think that Matt, if you want to respond, I think they're trying to think the thing that the thing to remember is that infinity isn't a quantity at quantity. It's a concept there is no infinity. You couldn't talk to infinite people. That's a bit of hyperbole and misunderstanding about infinity that human beings, it's an incredibly difficult concept to even begin to grasp and most of us are bad at
it. But when we talk about oh, I did this infinite. You know, you could do this infinite times. No, you couldn't. By definition, you could not do something infinite times, because that was that implies there's a quantity there. What it really means is without end without beginning, it is a concept, not an actuality.
For my champion to that question, I totally agree with questions. That's fine. Just I really agree with what Matt said, which is why I want to ask him maybe another point why infinite regress can be a valid possibility other than a first cause? If he does believe that that to be the case, surely, then you'd agree with me that you can't have infinite regress in the past or an infinite regress of smaller, smaller things. There has to be a foundation to both the past and the extension itself and space rooted in something that is outside both time and space surely would then you would agree with me if that's your your position on infinity and infinite regress? So the problem is, is that every
time we're talking about time, we're talking about time, within our local presentation of the universe, and I don't have a way to explore Mehta time.
Isn't one coming in from do appreciate your question gumballs? How many United States do arguments count as evidence?
I would say they they have to if and only if all possibilities are can be exhausted presented by by pain points like something infinite or finite is something dependent on infinite Oh, the independent. And if you can negate all the put all the possibilities by the principle of contradiction. So you remove the ones which are which produce self contradiction, and you're left with only one answer, then that's when argument becomes definitive evidence. In fact, I would say that the argument that demonstrates God is the only possible explanation behind the Universe and Everything exists, is actually one of the few arguments we can make with absolute certainty, while
all the arguments inside the universe are always going to be subject to uncertainty.
Yeah, I'm simply saying that. Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna say that I think Matt makes the assumption that just because inside of extended space and time, there are multiple processes that actors immediate causes. He feels that that means that outside space universe must be the same. Whereas I'm saying no, outside the universal, ultimately speaking, there has to be only one. The only have to be one quarter on conviction, just because we have so many questions. So on the question itself, no, arguments aren't evidence. They're assessments of evidence. They're constructions that take evidence and get to a conclusion. So they're not evidence but they're the only way evidence lines up having
value.
This one coming in from Ghost thanks for your question says, Can we just stop and appreciate the wondrous nature of a toad? Thanks for that, appreciate it tremendous animals. So Roxy says does Abdullah accept that the kalam is a successful argument because Matt said the kalam is dead.
I'd say that the the kalam looks at a particular one particular aspect of of reality and so, by itself is insufficient to demonstrate the existence of God needs other parts added other observations of the universe and other further investigations using by Vedic principles are looking at whether some because this or this and then so needs further stuff added to it in order to be a complete argument.
You got it and this one coming in from do appreciate your question as well as the intox says, Abdullah, if we live in a simulation, then our beliefs are based upon that simulator, and we don't have access to knowledge beyond what the simulator allows, or in your case, Allah, so you can't prove Allah exists.
I don't really understand the logic behind that argument. So by by definition, even if we were inside a simulator, the question wouldn't be whether what we're seeing inside of simulation is true or not, because all things must come from somewhere so even the simulation comes from somewhere, but would be sufficient to actually know that there is a created like the example the program that Matt brought up. If you were inside that program, somehow you could conclude the existence of a programmer and a process of both providing the beginning of the program and running it and continuing to run it and sustain it. So inside of simulation or not, you'd still be able to prove
there was an ultimate simulate tour if you'd like behind all things
just without trying to score cheap point would you like to correct the statement where you said All things must come from somewhere
Okay, so
all finite and limited things come from same way Yes. This one coming in from Amy Newman says I'll be running an open mic after show fantastic stream thanks so much. Everybody said Matt. I appreciate what you and the entire ACA does and then said question for Abdullah. What would change your mind that there is good evidence for God?
Maybe like theater or something? Oh yes yes there's a falsification possum so we're all mad to anyone else would have to do is simply show that there is another possibility other than God to explain
The Universe space and time that doesn't suffer from contradictions. If you can do that, then that will be sufficient to destroy my arguments, because then they'd be more than one possibility. Yeah, the problem is, is that we don't have enough information. And we don't have the ability to investigate to come up with a properly falsifiable proposition. And so what we're left doing is what I've done, which is to say, I don't accept that you've ruled out the other possibilities, or that we've even in making made an instantiated list of all the potential possibilities, the the facts about what could explain why there's something rather than nothing,
which could also just be nothing is impossible.
Aren't the sort of thing that we can investigate. And so to say that the one thing the one thing will change your mind is something that can't be produced, it reminds me of a time I was debating the resurrection. And somebody said that they'd be convinced that Jesus wasn't wrecked as resurrected just as soon as we produced a body,
which presumes all kinds of things right down to this person existed, and that you could identify the body of somebody I Sorry, I shouldn't be even remotely saddling Abdullah with that, but it's, it's similar to say the thing that will change your mind is something that currently is impossible. This one coming in from Brandon Hanson says match the program may not have an intent to create anything within the program. But the person who created the program set up the rules and set into motion the program itself. Does that make sense?
Sure, in the sense that, yes, there was someone who created that program as an analogy for life. But the rules that they came up with, were just about the physical rules of the universe, they were an analogy as to what makes something likely to procreate and continue its existence and pass on its genes. Although this doesn't pass on genes, and what makes something likely to die. It's an incredibly simplistic thing that mirrors what can and apparently does happen within the universe, without any authority or decision. You know, nobody had to pick what the gravitational constant was, or, you know, we are the species that evolved to fit the area that permits our existence. It would
be remarkable, it would be evidence for a God, if we were sitting here floating out in space, living our life in the absence in an area that's hostile and antithetical to our lives.
On secondary, if I might, if I might chime in, sorry. So the Yeah, the issue of being in a program and seeing has particular rules, and that might have come from previous simpler rules and simple rules is, the rules were determined by something else. And that was determined by somebody else, and something else or something else. And so, the reason why I felt that program manager was a great argument for my position was simply that you can't have an infinite chain of determinism. So certain rules are determined by all the rules but other rules by the rules by the rules going back forever. Till now that wouldn't then we never get to now, there has to be an ultimate determiner and ultimate
program out to stop the simple rules that end up in the more complex rules down the line. So that's why I thought that examples a great point as an analogy to use from my own side, my own position, except that that applies to prescriptive rules, not descriptive rules. The speed of light isn't something that you're going to get a ticket for. It describes how life works, and to propose that how life how light works, has an author is a claim that is extraordinary and needs actual evidence in support
of the old descriptive rule must come
forward on that one, just because it was a question for sure. All too wise. And Shaw says why given that the universe needs a cause, why doesn't God need a cause? Abdullah?
Okay, well, there's two simple points for that. One is if the if the God was a, a being that dependent on extension, or would depended on a prior infinite number of moments of time, what have you in the past, then the issue would be that the Creator would be insufficient to explain itself would require prior calls to himself but because the Creator doesn't doesn't is not finite or limited doesn't depend on on the substance for his extension because it's not extended doesn't depend on extension in the first place. It simply doesn't have the deficiencies that the two fundamental forces are so fundamental observation the universe does so. And of course, the second
reason why the Creator doesn't have a creator of itself is because I'm calling the creator the first cause there has to be a first cause to prevent an infinite regress. And I'm gonna say that wherever that first cause is, and of after I've demonstrated it has intentionality because it can't just initiate things for no reason at all. It is the first cause Nothing's making it do things that it does by choice. This I will call God is simply the answer to the the to an alternative to the infinite regress that So hence, by necessity it has to be the first cause. So I got let me jump in.
With us real quick, because this will serve as like a closing remark anyway, because we'll have a few minutes.
It's really interesting. I don't think we spent enough. I don't think we spent any real time discussing this at all. But we talked about do we have good reasons to believe a particular proposition? You could easily convince me that there must be some sort of first cause or that ever infinite regress, actually, is so problematic that there must be something I just I'm not necessarily convinced of the details of it. And I certainly don't think that there's a justification to call it God, as a matter of fact, and no, no offense to Abdullah because I don't think he's doing that I think he's being reasonable and thoughtful. But I find that many believers are very happy to
believe very specific things about a God and that God's character and devote their life to it and follow the proposed rules of this God. And then when arguing for it, argue, well, there must have been a first cause I'm just going to call it God. It's kind of like, here's a proposed explanation that isn't bound by space time, yet can effect it has existed eternally with no contradiction about infinite regress, can act without time and chooses without any antecedent positions, its will by the way, in choice is just so and not contingent or dependent upon anything, which means that this thing, if it is, in fact, an agent, is a non rational agent, there can be no choice that it makes
that is the result of rational consideration of effects. Because those things proceed. Choice, it must be purely mechanical. And it seems that this proposed good reason is that without reaching this kind of conclusion, we might be stuck acknowledging that we currently don't have an explanation. But I don't find that a good reason I'd rather keep looking for a better explanation. You got it, this one coming in from do appreciate your question beriberi says seems possible to me that reality exists. And movement is simply an in that innate property of reality, I see no reason to accept a quote, default state to reality in which there was no movement, this eliminates the necessity of a
first cause or prime mover.
Okay, so I'll kind of make this my also semi final comment. Because I know there's there's not much time left. So in essence, if what create this universe was mechanical, by mechanical means automatic, then it has something moving its internal components to make to make to do things and then what was making its internal components move, you make even smaller components and even smaller or prior components and prior component by component, it will be an infinite regress. And there's a problem. Likewise, if you say that, why, why does something static? We don't want my data saying static and creates movement. So how about there was always movement in the past as this question I
was trying to integrate, again, infinite regress any, where anytime we try to pick any other possibility, or then something that is necessary or independent, and initiates by choice? And will we end up inevitably with more contradictions. And it's not about I say this, because we lack information or with God of the gaps, I'm simply saying that if we just use the laws of logic, we can eliminate every feasible possibility and even demonstrate that we've exhausted all the possibilities almost as a mathematical proof by exhaustion, leaving only one and that was the whole point of my argument was that I come to the, the attributes of God being as necessary, independent, and
possessing will, as the only solutions left to avoid contradiction, to to explain movement, change, spatial extension, and so on, so forth. You got it. With that there are only questions left for you, Abdullah. And so one thing I just want to pitch by you guys, as Matt, I know that you've got to go and we started a little bit later than expected. So I do want to let you go so you can get to your dinner plans. Also, Abdullah, if you're willing to feel these last questions, these are more directed at you so that way. They're not like addressing what Matt said. And that way, you know, it's you're just not going to speak to questioners. But
is his mic going now is that that's correct, as we're willing to stay in field the final questions, though, that were for you. Sure. Then before he goes, on to say to Matt, thank you very much for attending. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Yeah, you too. Hopefully, we can maybe after getting some some definitions down, we might be able to do this again in a slightly different way or whatever else a huge thank you to James and everybody who showed up to participate in this and and make it enjoyable, unfortunately, because we deleted a week and then push it another week and a half. I actually have dinner plans. And so I had a hard set time, which we've just passed. So
thanks, everybody, to for all of the questions that Abdul is going to address while I'm gone. I'd say
if they're about religion, we almost certainly disagree and if they're not about religion, who the * knows whether we disagree or not, but you got it. Thanks, everybody, for being with us. I hope you have a good night.
And then Abdullah, we don't have too many more questions. So I'm going to fix the screen folks. Give me a second as I tweaked the pictures within OBS. And thanks Abdullah for staying with us extra there. The questions are they have many questions for you. And so I just want to entertain them in stupid horror energy. Regarding your point that you had just brought up in the last question. You talked about an infinite regress, she said you won't be able to get from a starting point t zero to now. But there is no to Z t zero or t equals zero in infinity. There is no starting point. Thus, traversing a timeline from say 1960 to now is possible, even in an infinity.
Okay, well, actually, I think that further demonstrates the contradiction of infinite regress. So if you're saying that not only will we not in an infinite regress, there has to be, let's say movement from one point to another, let's just say, are in a chain any chain. So if she's saying that, well forget about whether we'd arrive now after an infinite regress of movement, but that there should be no beginning to it. And I say well, exactly. infinite regress is boat is a contradiction in that there are beginnings as in the present begins, but there's no beginning to the entire chain. And at the same time, also saying that we there's an ending we reached this end is the present after
transversing infinity, but infinity can't be ended. So both ways you look at it, no beginning no end. And yet we have beginnings and endings in in time is a further further illustrates the fact that infinite regress is contradictory, and therefore is not a description of reality. You got it before jumping to the next question. I do want to say it has been we've been thankful to have both Matt and Abdullah on they are linked in the description, folks in case you forgot. That includes at the podcasts, we put our guests links there if you want to hear more or read more from either of our guests you can by clicking on those links. And this next question coming in from Corey Gorski says a
doula if at some point, science further explains the origin of the universe, and it's still a naturalistic explanation, would that lower your confidence in God existing?
Okay, so, really, I mean, I use an analogy before like science is basically investigating something within our bubble of reality, but it can't penetrate beyond the bubble of reality that is, is defined by things of extension and things of change. So no matter whatever we investigate, to try to find we can only rewind the clock back on our models of how things work the regularities between change or regularity of change, where we call for the physical laws only as far back as the first moment right and and science will just simply say it was arbitrary. The rules are arbitrary. It doesn't go beyond that because science can only tell you how things transverse from one moment to
the next on the what kinds of irregularities we need to go beyond looking at physics to see well actually where did the physics itself come from? Where did the actual substance and whether even time itself come from science or physics will never be able to tell us that it can't go outside the goldfish bowl of reality that we are in the goldfish bowl of movement and change in the goldfish bowl of of things extended in space? We can't go beyond into non extension and into no change? You got this one coming in from more of a theological question.
This one is Mr. Monster saying double return debut for Matt and James and also first time appearance for Abdullah really fun one so glad to have you here and said very insightful debate. And then they also they raised this theological objection, they said, God cannot be all loving if God punishes skepticism with eternal hellfire though Abdullah.
Okay, so that's a few, a few assumptions. And then one who says that God is all loving, all loving implies that he can only love. Whereas that's not we describe God as the loving in the Quran, God is described as the loving who describes himself as the loving. So he can also be the punishing for those people who are insincere, who act with criminal intent, who put their own desires above the creator of the universe, and are ultimately interested. And it's not skepticism, because skepticism can be for multiple reasons. It could be legitimate, and it also be illegitimate and humans are irrational. So there's going to be a lot of illegitimate reasons why people engage in skepticism.
And those are the people that should should reappraise their attitude to life and the truth itself or otherwise, there can always be there will be consequences of being insincere and ungrateful to the sustainer of your very existence. You got it. Thank you very much Ozzie and Toxis. How did God talk to humans or angels? without there being time? How could men go on journeys to heaven without time existing and is happen outside of time or is it eternal? Is and is like, so we'll let you have a chance to those three questions before I go to the fourth one.
Okay, so um,
Well, heaven would undergo change that would be, that would be changed moving forward. But people think that just because something might persist, it somehow is infinite in in, in forward time, when, even at any one moment, if you would stop the proverbial clock in heaven, only a finite amount of time has ever passed at any moment, you want to think about it in Heaven itself, or let's say, in Paradise is would be more specific term we'd use in the Koran. So that doesn't, but that there's no conviction there. Because at any point in time, it's an ever increasing finite amount of time, in the Hereafter. And so there's no problem. There's no inherent problem with that. You got it. And
thank you very much. They also said, is the time within, or I should say, is heaven outside of time, or is it eternal?
I think I've already answered that, which is, it's not outside of time, but it can still be eternal going forward. Because going forward, it's just ever increasing amounts of finite time. It's not infinite in in one moment. Yeah. They said, is an infinite future possible.
Okay, I've already answered that. So
I think the best way to put it is a persisting future and eternally persisting future. But it's not that you have completed infinity to get to the future at all, so that you just have an eternally increasing finite amount of the future of moments. That's all that that's what will be time in the in the hereafter. You read? Mainstream. Yeah. Mainstream Islamic perspective anyway. You bet. And Sarah says the solution does he knows paradox is series, one half plus one quarter plus one eight plus 116, that converge into one.
Well converge but never reach the issue, the issue will make infinite regress. The problem is not that you can imagine an infinite number of things in a set, right? That we can imagine in for a number of things that are set, it's that there is a there's transversing between one point in the set, there's a connection between all the members of the set, where you where you exhaust infinity to get from one member set to the other member of the set to ad infinitum. That's the problem of infinite regress. It's not that I can imagine an infinite number of let's say, this connected bubble universes, they all exist simultaneously. No problem with that, conceptually speaking, but to say
that I, if someone was to be able to travel from one jump from one university to the next, and they would, and they would tell you that I've just completed an infinite amount of jumps, that would be a problem, because you can't exhaust infinity. You can't complete infinity. So I think I'm hearing some, sorry about that. I'm actually traveling. So I'm actually at the public library. I will mute it next time they come on, they caught me off guard, Mr. T Public Library.
Mr. T said, Matt says was it. Okay, that's more given that maths not here. I don't want to ask it because he's not able to answer this one from Ozzie and Toxis. Pixels don't move on the screen, they turn off a pixel and turn on a pixel one at a time within the hardware and how the hardware is arranged by software, you see it as moving. It's only an illusion, though.
My point exactly, that was what I was. That was the point is that the pixels require something else in order to generate movement, which is a graphics card and or the processor, basically, that will switch off one pixel and turn on not a pixel and make you think there's movement. So in a way, you could say that every new time segment that begins to exist, and here's the point it begins to exist, must have a cause. And so you could say that not only is there a first cause, but there's an ongoing cause to every new time segment, each new arrangement of the universe is being created from a prior prior point. In fourth dimensional space, if you'd like to put it like there's there's new like in
film, each film has to be has to be different from the film behind it. And so as So, the question is, who's turning the wheel to produce new slices of time, and give us the perception of movement and change? It has to be something beyond time to do that, which is my point will be the creator of the universe. You are an apostate Prophet said there is no concrete example of,
of as it's just as sth that begins to exist. All results from rearrangements can Abdullah clearly demonstrate? S T. H. That quote began to exist from nothing unquote, like God's mythical creation.
Sorry, is it sth mean something? Yeah, I don't know. What does it mean? So it's not capitalized? either. I might come back to that apostate prophet. This one from Jesse White says, Abdullah, do you have a defeater for Hitchens razor? If you're familiar with Hitchens razor, if not, I can show
or what it was? Sure. Industry for all of us. If I remember right, I think it was that if God is the foundation for ethics, then is there something that only, for example, a Muslim, if Allah is the foundation for ethics, what ethical behavior?
Is it that only like that only a Muslim could do and that others could not do, which I think Hitchens assumed that in order for God to be the foundation for ethics, that would have to be the case that there would be something that only Muslims could do that.
Atheist, for example, could not do it in terms of as a moral behavior.
Oh, I think I remember it was more, was it more like if something is posted without evidence, it can be dismissed by evidence? Is that not the case? Maybe that's what
it's been some time since I encountered. Hitchens work. So let's go with that. That sounds like it's at least close to Ockham is closer to Auckland's razor. Let's go with that. Sure. Okay. Well, I would agree is that if something is positive, or evidence can be dismissed by evidence, but if space and time in this particular case, I'm advancing that they are definitive evidence, using the rules of logic, that point to only one possible explanation, that is necessitated by by their existence, which is space and space requires a sustainer. And time requires a initiator. But you'd also you could also mean it, you could also say it needs an advancer as well, one that advances each moment
in time. So I've pointed out I haven't said anywhere, testimony, I haven't. I only mentioned the Quranic verses at the very end just as to highlight that the argument I kind of get from the Quran, but the crowd is using an argument telling us to observe and come to our conclusions itself, not just take the cross word for it. So we're using evidence now. And now the question is, how is evidence going to be engaged by those who might might wish to maintain a naturalistic worldview in spite of the insufficiency of,
of their worldview to explain the observable? Gotcha, and I'll give you a chance to try to humor this person, they all too wise themselves said, I'm still lost on how infinite space time or cosmos is so absurd, while an infinite God is not that they asked that same question earlier. So I'm not sure how you want to address it.
Okay, so I think maybe the guy has not responded to me, per se. Or maybe he misheard, so I didn't mentioned that space time is infinite. Because we can't, we haven't seen infinite space time, even if there was an infinite amount of space time. In each segment of space, time is divisible, you could take a piece out and just and it could be infinite, divided up into smaller and smaller pieces,
not reaching any bottom, so to speak, or any substance to it. Whereas the Creator, we don't want to say we don't say liquid is infinite in extension, we simply say that the Creator is indivisible, and is the first cause that's why they don't if you want to say infinite in power, well, now I can justify that, right? Because if the Creator can make something from nothing,
without prior cause, or what have you, then the Creator can add to existence add to reality, at will. And I use an analogy, imagine as somebody that can make gold coins appear in their hand, any any amount they want, just by will. It doesn't cost them anything doesn't cost them any resources, they can just make any amount of gold coins appear in their hand. How rich are they? Well, you'd say potentially, they're infinitely rich, because they can do it as much as they want. Well, then, God is Enix has inexhaustible power he can if you can make one thing from nothing, he can make a billions of things from nothing. And so he is inexhaustible in power, and I'm not a way of saying
that is infinite in power. But he's not infinite extent he doesn't depend on infinite extension, because he doesn't depend on extension to exist.
Next up, thank you very much for your question. This one apostate Prophet said their question was meant to mean sth is something so there is no concrete example of something that begins to exist.
And then said, All results from rearrangements can Abdullah clearly demonstrate that something that quote began to exist from nothing? Like God's mythical creation?
Okay, so that's exactly what I actually addressed in my opening presentation. I said that the first thing that exists can't be arrangement because arrangement. So let's say what was the first cause is the first cause arrangement, you can't have an infinite infinite regress of causes going back. So there has to be a first cause is the first cause arrangement or is the first cause something indivisible, that initiates extension in the first place? So I say well, let's, let's humor it
To this, the first cause is itself arrangement, arrangement of what
it would be, whatever it was made out of is causing the first movement or the first but but if whatever is made out of is made out of more more arrangements, then those things, again will be made out of more arrangements and more arrangements and more arrangements are our extensions, so to speak, and therefore, they can't be the first cause of anything. In a way you could say, a form doesn't move, but the things inside the form is the one that's doing the moving. So, then the first mover or the first cause has to be something that precedes arrangement or extension. Because anything that has extension doesn't move by itself moves. So the only thing that can begin the
movement, you could say or begin change is something that doesn't have extension. But then, if it were, would it move? If it can't, if it's not an extension, right, where would it move. So, the first thing that has to be done to make change is that change that extension must be created by an indivisible thing that itself is not an arrangement or arrangement must be created by non arrangement is the first thing that happens. And therefore that means the first cause itself is not an arrangement, but is itself the cause of arrangements. It is it is the arranger and not an arrangement itself. So that was my argument I presented in my presentation, and I think that
addresses the question, you got it. And last one, thanks for your patience. You've been a good sport saying for us for these extra questions. Why is a religious says Surah 2106 of the Quran says, if it was not from your Lord, you would find it.
Much contradiction, then says if I bring one you say that's not many. I bring 100 You say not many, they say this is moving the goalposts fallacy, we'll give you a chance to respond to that if you'd like.
So, one of the many beautiful things about the Quran is that it gives us a falsification test, which it says that if the Quran itself does not come from the Creator, it would have contradictions in it, because anything other than the truth is going to have contradictions, which is also the basis of my entire argument today, which is anything other than God as an explanation has contradictions behind regarding explaining the space and time. So regardless of of 100, what have you if you simply bring one contradiction in legitimate comprehend again has to be legitimate contradiction in the Quran, then that would invalidate it, that would be a falsification test, it would meet the falsification
test of the Quran. So I don't need 100. You just bring me one legitimate contradiction. And that would be sufficient to meet the falsification test. You got it. Thank you very much, Abdullah, and want to say, seriously, thanks so much for staying with us for extra time to answer those questions. We really do appreciate you spending your time with us, folks, you can find both Abdullah and Matt's links in the description, as mentioned. And one last thank you to you, Abdullah. I'll be back in just a moment, folks, where I will give updates on upcoming debates. But one last Thank you, Abdullah, for real, it's been a true pleasure to have you on. Thank you very much for inviting me,
James. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. So I'm going to just break the chat here. And I'll be back in just a moment, folks. And so thanks so much, everybody. My dear friends. thrilled to have you here. And I want to say again, a huge thank you to both Matt and Abdullah. That was a fantastic debate. I told Abdullah I was like that was superb. Seriously, I am so excited about how well that went. And thank you guys for your support. Thanks, everybody, and we'll see you next time. And don't forget. If you'd like to see more content like this, please support the channel by subscribing and picking notification. If you find this video insightful and beneficial. Please support the YouTube
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