Hamza Tzortzis – Seminar & Interview – Why Atheism is Irrational #01 – The Argument from Prior Cognitive Information
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The hosts of a Q2 seminar discuss the argument from Dr. S on June 30th and the importance of philosophical naturalism in the field of reason. They stress the need for proper understanding of the object of one's thought and acknowledge the potential outcomes of " chances" and "istic" in scientific reasoning. They also discuss the importance of accepting " chances" as a potential outcome and the potential for mistakes in scientific reasoning. The speakers emphasize the need for clear and detailed understanding of the object of one's thought to avoid confusion and misunderstand, and discuss the theory that Allah is creating exegents by using the word "has" to describe his "has" concept. They provide examples of how "has" can be used to create meaningful connections with the world and connect with the naturalist, and update their website with a new video and update for their website.
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Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu brothers and sisters and friends, and welcome to today's seminar stroke interview Alhamdulillah with us we have our beloved Dr. Suffer Choudry and today we're going to be covering adversaries of reason why atheism is irrational part one, and we're specifically going to be covering a forthcoming academic paper academic journal article called the argument from prior cognitive cognitive information by of course, Dr. Suffered Chowdhry. So before I introduce our beloved brother and Doctor, what I'm going to do is talk about the series talk about we're going to be speaking about today, introduce the doctor. And then what I want to do is kind of
like have this kind of open
discussion based upon a kind of student teacher relationship. So of course, I see Dr. As one of my students of stuff, stuff with love one of my teachers, rather, I've known him for I think, over a decade now and Hamdulillah. So as his student, why I did what I did today was I went through his forthcoming publication. And I did, I did some slides. So we're going to go through these slides. And we're going to basically unpack some of his perspectives, and he's going to comment and talk about it as well. And then we're going to have a q&a session. And we're going to bring you on board to ask some questions, not to myself, but to doctor if I can add something I will, but we're gonna
ask questions to the doctor. So he could basically unpack his argument, which really is also an Islamic argument, and it has an Islamic a Quranic exegetical precedent, which we're going to discuss as well. So what is this series about? Actually, before we talk about the series, the contents of today, of this presentation is that we're going to talk about the series of the seminars. We're going to summarize the argument from prior cognitive information. We're going to talk about some of the preliminary points that Dr. Choudry has basically articulated his journal which are important in order for us to understand the rest of the argument, then we're going to go into the argument,
unpack the premises, unpack the conclusions, then we're going to briefly go through the Quranic exegetical precedent for this argument, which is based on Surah Al Baqarah, verse 30, verses 30 to 33, then we'll have questions and answers. So brothers and sisters, what is the series of seminars about? Well, to be very honest, I was supposed to do a seminar on one of the papers that I did for my post grad, and I was supposed to deliver it. In June, this year, June, I was delayed. And then I called COVID. And there was a whole host of issues going on. And as I was preparing for the series, because I realized we shouldn't just do one seminar, we should have a few. I had a conversation with
Dr. Suffolk Choudry. And I try to adopt this principle in apologetics in dour in sharing Islam, where I do a lot of Shura, a lot of consultation. It is sometimes a neglected practice, in our kind of intellectual community. But there's lots of good groups now that are growing. And we have teachers such as Dr. Choudry, and others who help us so I was I asked him a bunch of questions basically concerning the argument from reason from an Islamic perspective and the things connected to that. And then he said, I have a paper coming up. And I was like, wow, because my first set of presentation slides was going to be an argument from logic from the laws of logic, and we're going
to talk about you know, what best explains that, and we're going to talk about things like intentionality, and so on and so forth. But there was some metaphysical issues that could be problematic from a Quranic perspective. And I want to try to unpack some of those and Dr. Safford. Choudry actually raised them to me. And then I realized, you know what, let's have him on board because his argument looks quite Islamic. It's grounded in the tradition, and it's also philosophically robust. So that's why we're here today. And yes, in this series, this why atheism is irrational series, we're going to have an argument from the laws of logic and Rational Insight.
We're going to talk about truth as an intrinsic moral value. Does that make sense? Under philosophical naturalism? We're going to talk about evolutionary reliable ism theism and the epistemic justification for truth, reliable cognitive faculties. And we're going to talk about related moral and existential arguments related to the whole topic of reason what it means to be a functioning human with, with reliable cognitive faculties. Now, it's very important to know Yes, sometimes our titles are a bit you know, based on marketing, why atheism is irrational. And you know, we don't want to offend many people. While I do believe that atheism is irrational actually
anything other than tell heed is foolish as Allah says in the Quran, you know, only someone foolish will only a fool will reject the way
Abraham which is basically Islamic monotheism, not withstanding. And I want to bring to your attention that when we talk about atheism, generally in the in this series is that we're going to be talking about philosophical naturalism. And just to remind you, philosophical naturalism is the kind of first principles the metaphysic is the lens that someone puts on their, on their kind of cognitive eyes, in order to understand the world in reality and philosophical naturalism basically says, the reasonable divine, there is no supernatural, there is no non physical which entails physicalism into some degree, and that everything can be explained via physical processes. So that
is the kind of philosophical naturalism also known as metaphysical naturalism, also known as ontological naturalism. So when we talk about atheism was about philosophical naturalism. And it also means those who claim that non theistic Darwinism is an explanation, or a more adequate explanation for our ability to reason and think as well as provide a foundation for the laws of logic and for truth having an intrinsic moral value. And also, it's for those who use the Darwinian paradigm and nontheistic that Darwinian paradigm to provide a kind of epistemic justification for, you know, the fact that we have truth, reliable cognitive faculties, and so on and so forth. So
basically, you get the idea that when we speak about atheism, or atheists from this perspective, it's the philosophical naturalist and those who adopt a non theistic Darwinian paradigm to explain some of the things that we spoke about. Okay.
So Dr. Suffered Chowdhry.
Now, this is a big introduction, but I think it's worthy of people who don't know Dr. Suffered childhood to actually understand who he is, where, where he's come from, and basically from an intellectual academic perspective, and an Islamic scholastic perspective and also his publications. He's got a brilliant book that is out which is on the problem the entitled Islamic theology and the problem of evil so please go to Amazon or whatever platform and actually purchase it in sha Allah. So Dr. Dr. Suffered Choudhry he studied philosophy at King's College London, competing it with the accompanying associate of King's College Award. He then traveled to Cairo, Egypt, studying the
traditional Islamic Studies curricula as well as how to university. He returned to the UK to complete his MA at the School of Oriental and African Studies with distinction and Hamdulillah. I believe. His thesis supervisor said this was worth half a PhD, if not more, mashallah Tabata cola. And his doctoral dissertation was on the eminent Sufi, I don't know how to pronounce this properly. Hague geographer and theoretician abou Abdul Rahman Al Salome, published as a Sufi apologist of Nisha poured the life and thought of Abu Abdullah Abdullah man and salami published by Equinox publishing. Dr. Chow do His research interests in addition to Sufism, at the moment are in the Para
consistent logic, argument theory, metaphysics, ethics and epistemology with keen interest in how these subjects are explicated within Islamic theology, especially within the kalam tradition Kalam theology. His current book is entitled Islamic theology and the problem of evil, which is the first work in Islamic studies to treat the topic with the analytical serologic theology approach. He also teaches Hanafi fiqh in Arabic. Currently, he is lead researcher in the beyond foundationalism New Horizons in Muslim analytic theology project that Cambridge Muslim College which is funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Dr. Choudhry is the creator and administrator of the Islamic analytical
theology website, the only site specifically devoted to the presentation and promotion of research and study of Islamic theology and philosophy within the analytic tradition. I know Dr. Stuff is probably cringing continuously at every line but I had to say this you know, because it's very important for us to explain who's speaking and what kind of background they have and for you to engage with the work because you would definitely benefit with the work and I've known Dr. Suffolk charity for I think over 10 years now way over 10 years Alhamdulillah when he was basically translating bits of the Quranic to Greek because he also knows ancient Greek Alhamdulillah as well
as other languages.
So So when it comes to how you can send him Hamza good to be heavy
handed hamdulillah Hamdulillah you know what, I have to say that if I can say this, yeah, you know, many people will know,
not just read sapiens and hamdulillah but you know, over the years, you know, you've you know, you've mashallah
enabled the OMA to have
intellectual spiritual resources are very hard to come by. And I know that from you know, from family, from various
very close friends, acquaintances.
And even you know, some non Muslims and, you know Sapiens has has fast become
a resource, a much go to kind of much needy and a go to resource. So handled as a great team, you've got the sample, and Allah give you tofield and enable you to go from strength to strength and bring bring to the fore. You know, this great work that's been done by not myself from the many, many people who you have in the institute and who are you know, partnering and beyond. So, you know, a lot give utopia and Baraka in the work because it's much needed is much needed. Not many people know this as well. But you know,
this reciprocal in I think Hamza for millions of people is it is a teacher, and I think that's no
handler, so it's a blessing, it's a blessing, we need to swiftly move on in sha Allah. So exactly for those kind words, may Allah bless you. And yes, you know, Alhamdulillah, as you said, I think, and it helped me develop some one of our presentations, when we're articulating what sapiens is about, we're trying to become the kind of bridge between the high level academia and the rest of the Duat in the population, because there needs to be that kind of intellectual translation. And I think that's a nice place where we're fitting ourselves at the moment because there are amazing academics and intellectuals such as yourself and others on the website that I mentioned previously concerning
Islamic, unethical theology and many, many others. But it's about translating it in a way that you don't lose the intellectual robustness by staying away that can capture the intention and the kind of
the minds and the hearts of the people who want to share Islam intellectually and academically. So yeah, may Allah bless you. So let's let me now become the student again. Right. So I went through your paper, I think it was this morning, it was off the budget, some of the one of the best time to go best times to develop presentations. And what we what I basically found was, I found this was a brilliant argument. This was a very powerful argument. And the reason I like it is because it's very Quranic as well. And we're gonna explain that towards the end.
Now, just for people to know, every time you see like a heading is it's self explanatory to certain degree. So this is going to be a summary and his cutting has come from page one of the paper that I was given. And so this argument always has been developed by Dr. Suffolk Chowdhry, and it has been articulated in the forthcoming paper entitled prior cognitive information and an Islamic argument from reason. And do you know where it's going to be published? Or you know, you know, you don't know yet. I don't the the chemistry no matter handleable salatu salam ala Rasulillah moreleta He also being mobile? Yeah. So the paper was presented at the rational anti theism atheism conference in
Tehran. I wasn't there in person, but online early in the year, because me. And so I think they're in an editing process at the moment when it will come out in their publication. I'm not sure could be early 2000, next year, or late next year. But yeah, it most likely will be the Institute of philosophy and in Tehran, Iranian Institute of philosophy, most likely. Okay, good Zopa Mela, make it a success. I mean,
this paper this study, if you like this research, this argument was inspired by there's a jurist and intellectual chef, duck, a dean and a honey, I think he passed away in 1977. And it was expanded in his small book called key, which is thinking, and I think I had a copy of that book. And the translation was almost impossible to understand. At that time, it was it was a very difficult read. So you know, when I read your paper, though, it was, you know, a lot of philosophers the writing very difficult language, but I think you've got a really good balance where you basically, you have the target audience in mind, you know, someone who may not know, someone who's academic, I may not
know the perspective that you're coming from, or may not know, the kind of Islamic context or the language that is used. So anyone who's not basic, especially in a particular area, but you're still academic, and really, you know, your work is quite accessible, which is, which is sometimes rare in the philosophical tradition, because when I was doing my MA, and my MRIs and whatever, it's like, some of the papers were like, almost unreadable. Yeah. You know, the difficult to read. Yeah. So. So yes. Let's quickly summarize the argument. So in so this can be a summary, then we're going to unpack it. So we'll be very quick with this one. So human thinking is the capacity to make judgments
about things. And for human thinking to occur, the following necessary conditions must exist, so you have to understand these necessary conditions. Number one, the existence of external reality, properly functioning senses, a functioning brain, and antecedent cognitive information or input in other words, prior cognitive information, and Dr. Cerf argues that without prior knowledge,
information, we cannot make judgments on things unless we are able to meaningfully link what we sense with what we already know, if there is a gap in our linkage between new sense data, and our prior stored cognitive information about the world, we cannot make proper and accurate judgments on things in the world in order to progress and advance both materially and cognitively. So just to end the summary that we get thoughts from Dr. Suffolk Choudry, the necessary conditions for thinking out what a philosophical naturalist would accept. So the thing the good thing about this argument is that some of most of the premises are a lot of the premises. They're based on the kind of naturalist
intuition or naturalist understanding of the world that they don't go against the kind of your physicalist or empirical reality. So this is very powerful. So it's, it's within that paradigm. So it's easy to bring them to the conclusion because their premises are not what you call controversial. Now, the conclusion of the argument, however, argues that for prior cognitive input to take place in must have come from and be taught from a non natural source. So there's two things you have to understand here. It has to come from a non natural source, and it has to be taught by a non natural source. Those two things are very important because sometimes we will think about
causation. We think about source when it comes to theism. But this argument, and when you go, when we go through the whole presentation, you'd understand a little bit better. It's not only that it came from the source, but it's also taught from this source. And it's going to make sense when we talk about the attributes of God towards the end and other concepts. Now, in summary, we're not going to discuss the unpacking of it now, but we're going to talk about it later. But in summary, the attributes of this source must be living, transcendent, willing, in other words, has a rather has a will, must be omniscient, must be all knowing. Aleem al Hakim, and above make sense of the god
of traditional theism. And the argument has an Islamic basis in Surah, Al Baqarah, verse 3233, when Allah subhanho wa Taala basically said that He taught Adam, the names of things, we're going to unpack that a little bit later. So before we continue to the preliminary points, anything you want to add, yeah, they've been have been
summarized.
It was an article. No, no, no. I mean, the way I the way I try and the kind of a kind of a simple way I try and explain it is, okay, you know, we have this first cause for the existence of the world, the universe. So we go back, finite, you know, finite Lee into into the finite past. And we posit a transcending cause for the universe. Well, I'm trying to make a parallel barring a parallel, of course, from Shiva Vania Rahim Allah that the there must be a first cause to our cognitive information that we are not that we have necessarily but the first human being and incentive Oh, well, and that has to have been inputted by someone beyond the causal chain, and knows what the
inputting in the first human being. So it's like a first cause for our cognitive data. You could say, Yeah, so what was the soundbite? Soundbite? Yeah. That's a very beautiful summary. This is for her. Good. So your primary points, the first point that you made basically was, and I've already mentioned this earlier, like key premises of this argument aligns itself with what naturals would consider uncontroversial. Yeah. And then you make a very interesting point. And this is very critical, actually, because you preempt some of the kind of Darwinian responses as well. Because what you say for the second point is that my argument is not claiming that necessarily at every
historical stage of human development, a supernatural pedagogic agent is required to input the cognitive data required to form judgments about things. Rather, it is only the original human individual who required such data. In other words, I'm seeking to explain the ultimate origins and not the subsequent origins, because the former intriguing Intriguingly, and legitimately calls out for an explanation. So unpack that a little bit for us. So what I was trying to say is that somebody might say, for example, that you and I, so So thinking here means to make judgments about things. So we always make judgments on things we sense things. And because of previous information in our
heads, we make judgments, oh, this is an apple, this is a car, this is a beautiful house, or, you know, this is a bit of fruit, whatever it might be, we make judgments about things. So I'm not the argument is not saying that me now, you now to make judgments require a direct divine input right now. That's not the argument. I mean, an argument could be made that for every, for every judgment, we make every thought that we conjure up
Somewhere there is a divine,
you know, agency involved. We that's not the metaphysical argument. That's it. That's for another day, I'm trying to get a common denominator, denomination that naturalist would accept. So it's not that I am making judgments. Now, I need to divine input directly and you or anyone else, collectively, we've got different, you know, we've got cognitive information, a pool of cognitive information. But we're talking about in the causal chain of human beings. Where did that original human being get that cognitive input? That's where I want to get to because it can't be infinitely in the past, there has to be a terminus. Good. And where do we get that when we get to Terminus and
how brilliant xocolatl Her net radical would be. So the argument is, can come from page four, the argument from prior cognitive information PCI is following premise number one, prior cognitive information is necessary for humans to produce a thought. Premise number two, the ultimate source of prior cognitive information is either natural or non natural. Premise number three, the ultimate source of prior cognitive information cannot be from something natural. Conclusion, for therefore, it must be from something not natural, and the continuing with more conclusions. Number five, the most, the most plausible non natural source for prior cognitive formation must be a transcendent
agent, cause that has the property of omniscience, life and intelligence. And the final conclusion, the non natural agent cause in five is basically the approximation approximates the good of theism. Basically, it's in line with the theistic understanding of the Divine and specifically, the Quranic understanding of the Divine because things like a missions life, intelligence, and so on and so forth, your order will be part and parcel of the Quranic and Islamic discourse. So let's now start to unpack some of the premises Dr. So
premise number one taken from pages four, and five. So the prior couldn't've information is necessary for humans to produce a thought. So the production of thought and when you talk about thought, here, you saying the capacity for formulating judgments about something yeah, there must be at least four necessary conditions. So there's a little typo there. Number one, a reality external to the agent. Number two sense faculties that sense the reality number three, a properly functioning brain that differentiates the sense of reality and number four prior Quadrantid cognitive information. And you argue in this has taken a quote, If any one of these conditions is absent, no
proper foot can take place. It is however, the condition of prior cognitive information that is crucial to the thought production process as it helps unify our transferred sensation into something coherent and comprehensible. Without it will not be able to generate any thought, let alone a sound thought this thought would generate this thought we generate is made possible once we have sufficient information about the reality, nature, or distinguishing properties of the object of our sense experience. And you make sense of it with a really good example. I like this example. This was an example of if you give a child a book in a foreign language that was unknown to her, it will not
make no difference how many times she senses or looks at the words and I'm not going to read the whole thing up to you. But there's unpack unpack premise one for us in Sharla. So yeah, so So naturally, when we when we look at ourselves, and the way we behave, we make judgments about things everyday, whether we know it or not, whether we consciously do it, or unconsciously, you know, we are making judgments, let's say of the form A is F or x is f. Yeah. So in order to do that, yes, we need an external world in which we're operating and that impinges on our senses.
There's a transfer or that sensation to a site in our brain. I'm assuming that people might say, Oh, well, what about this anthropology? What about that anthropology? Yeah, I mean, but remember, the context, we're talking with a naturalist here, if you're gonna assume a kind of different metaphysical anthropology that says, that doesn't admit of a brain, you know, or, or intellectual activity happens somewhere else. We can come to that later. But here that the common denominator is, you know, we're trying to work with what perhaps a naturalist is most likely going to accept. So a brain
that physical organ up here in the North, yeah. So, so, so. So the transferred there and then in that locus in that site, this is where that sensation has to be connected with something otherwise it's going to be garbled or not clear. And Uncategorized. And in order for that, for us to make sense of what we said
We need that cognitive information that then categorizes and makes sense or synthesizes what it is the information that comes to us. So without that our judgments aren't going to be accurate, they may not even be sound. So all depends on how clear, detailed, accurate and rich that stock of information we have is. So the more the more the quality of that cognitive input is, or stored prior cognitive data is, the more accurate our judgment will be. So, without that, there's no linkage now, otherwise, you're going to get like, let's call it raw energy coming up. But what, what what's going to happen? There's nothing, there's nothing for it to connect to or to filter into. So
the prior cognitive cognitive information, does that work? It becomes like your your, your your minds, filing cabinets, it starts with whatever you sent the start to go into a filing cabinet say, right, this sensation looks like it's a fruit. Okay, do I have any more other detailed information? What kind of fruit is it? Do I have prior categories? Tell me. And so the more richer, more detail you have, the more better your judgment
will be? Not necessarily sound. But there'll be better, better judgment. So that's what I mean by thought production. A thought production is our ability to be able to make judgments about things based on their properties. Now, we can't make judgments about things, the natures and properties, unless we've got information about the natures and properties. Hmm. Yeah. So that's, that's in a nutshell, what it is.
So, yeah, I think your example with the child in a book is quite good. So you know, you say if we give a child a book in a foreign language previously unknown to her, it will make no difference how many times she uses her senses to look at the words or listen to them, because no amount of mess sensation will make will make her understand and make sense of the words. It is only when she is taught what the sounds of the letters are, or what the words mean. Yeah, me perhaps resemble aspects of her own language, that she can begin to comprehend and understand in some way, the language of the book, providing her with the relevant information allows her to gain a stock of prior
information to connect what she senses to this prior information. Yeah, so similarly, like, you know, when I when I when when students first learned, let's just say like, you know,
logic, mathematical logic are similar that right, they got a whole lot of symbols, okay. Yes, a page. They're like, look, they they have some previous information, perhaps of mathematics, or the Greek alphabet. Yeah. And they're like, trying to connect, okay, what does X here mean? And what does alpha here mean? And what's his hammer here? And lambda? What's going on? Yeah, so they're trying to make connections I did in maths that x plus y equals so they know the symbols, but they know that their language until someone tells them and says, right, look, this box here means necessary, this diamond here means possible, this is the negation, and then they start to So once
they've got that knowledge, they can start to put the symbols or the language of logic, and make it meaningfully make connected meaningfully to what they already know. So yeah, so sound judgment, therefore ought to produce a thought, which is the beat to make sound judgments on things, judgments about things. That is in some way connected to meaning as well, right? Yes, yes. Look, you can come across an object, right? Let's just say,
an object that looks like some kind of machinery. And you ask someone asked me, Do you know what that is? You look at and think, right? That thing is a machine. So you made a judgment? That's a machine. But it's not. But it's a vague judgment, right? It's a machine. But because you lack the prior information, you don't know what kind of machine it is. Is it a sewing machine? What is it you know? So the more information you start to get, the more you understand about its properties, and its qualities characteristics, you can start to better categorize it our is it sewing machine RKC, it's got a new year that it got strings attached to it, and it's got rotating features, then you
start to get closer and closer to making a better judgement. So you need prior cognitive information to make a judgement, but it doesn't necessarily follow your judgment is accurate or even or sound, you know, a good, that's a good point to make. But and your argument is not is not about necessarily making sound judgments is about necessarily No, no, no, but it's just a goat. Yeah, it's just you need that information to make the connection. Good. So that is a very clear distinction. So we're not saying that this is about their ability to make sound judgments, but rather it's the ability to make judgments themselves. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Does that go ahead? Good. So let's move on.
Premise number two taken from pages five to eight. The ultimate source of prior cognitive information is either natural or non natural, and you've given some kind of plausible possibilities. You said, human, non human animal. That one was quite funny. In animal object. Darwin was quite funny too.
Natural Selection, or God, basically theism. So let's go and unpack some of these. So, premise number three basically says the ultimate source of prior cognitive information cannot be from something natural. So you really, we're dealing with now, the options, we're unpacking why it can't be from a human being by Kombi, from a non human animal, why it can't be from an abstract, inanimate object or inanimate object rather confusing, abstract objects in metaphysics with this value I'm getting,
which is another field of expertise at handling really need, especially from an Islamic perspective and a lot make it successful. So where are we? Yeah, Evan? So we're making we're explaining the possibilities if the adequate explanation yes, if the natural objects or natural processes are some might say, Okay, be you know, you've gone through natural objects? Well, what about natural processes? Surely, that can be a cause. So I try to obviously, it's not exhaustive, but just to give, given the word limit that we had. So we know we went through a few of those natural objects, objects in the natural world and processes of the natural world. Okay, good. So let's unpack it. So
let's first talk about the human being. So could the human being be the source and the educator of the prior information, and you've labeled you've given the symbol D. So and so just for people to know when there's a capital D means prior cognitive information? So basically, the summary of what you said was, is the prior cognitive, cognitive information D that is necessary for thinking could have come from another human being, however, we can ask, Where did this human get D from? In other words, where did this human get the prior cognitive information from? to see another human would imply an infinite regress, right? Because if you continue, that will be an infinite regress.
Therefore, to solve that problem, it will be necessary for the first human to have had the necessary prior cognitive permission. But again, we just repeat the question, where did the first human get D from where did the first human get the prior cognitive information from? And the argument here is it must have come externally to the first human to claim that it was in the first humans cognitive makeup would not be to give an explanation, but to make an assertion with an organ because what you might say, you might say, it's just a brute fact it's there that can call out for an explanation I still ask Well, surely just you asserting it as a brute fact, isn't necessarily you know, an answer.
Surely we can ask for an explanation. So where did it come from? Merely just saying is glued to the cognitive makeup it was there in the original human being? Well, in, in actual In fairness, even the naturalist or the Darwinian, or anyone who adopts a kind of naturalistic perspective on this issue, they would not even say it's a brute fact, because they'll know that door swings both ways. Because it was a brute fact then logically, you can say, Well, the truth of Islam is a brute fact. And the truth of the Quran is a brute fact and
facts you see, so become Yeah, exactly. So you can't just bring in your own brute fact, whenever you want, and say, hey, you know what, we can't explain this. We're gonna call it a brute fact. So no one needs to explain it at all. Which is, to be fair, I don't think many people would argue this anyway, you're right. The important thing about what you're seeing here is it can't be a human being because if it was, if it came from another human being, then where did this human being get D from what is human being the prior cognitive information from? Then one would argue with another human being, if it's another human being, that would be an infinite regress. And then you may argue it was
the first human being, but if it's the first human being, then we could still ask the question, where did that first human being get deform? Where did that first human being get the prior cognitive information from? And we're saying back to the question, because you're not you're not, you're not a ticket in explanation you're saying is a brute fact. So we're saying the most rational thing to say is it came from something or someone or an entity made of that human being? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Brilliant. I'm a good student, lying to Allah. So
Allah, you know, I tried to do this. So hopefully, this is a new style. Because I think the pedagogical approach, I think people will appreciate this a little bit further. Because I'm summarizing what you've done. And you're, you're never dead for me. No, no, you're looking at I'm thinking, how am I you know,
that clarity, you know, it's not the way you're presenting. You're here. This was taken from me what you're talking about, basically.
Yeah, so moving that to the side. So premise, continue with purpose number three, taking just five to seven we have number two now we've dealt with the human
possibility. What about number two non human animals and I'm taking this straight from your from your paper, we would be hard pressed to give examples.
For an intelligible account of how non human animals species could have meaningfully interact with the human beings based on some pedagogical set up or approach, I feel you've been very polite there you could have made it into you should have said that's a joke. How can any animal come and start sitting down on a table or whatever, discussing things and giving you information about things, but you will play here. But somebody we know the anthropomorphic anthropomorphize ation of animals, you know, some people might believe, you know, go from symbol or something or some somewhere? I'm not sure. But I have to put that in as an option. Right, you know, but the point to note is that at do
our animals, do they have pedagogical attributes? And what I what I try to mean by that in the paper, is that do animal are they knowledge and doubt agents? Or can they rationally explicate and teach and instruct and guide in the way that, you know, handler? Insane human beings are able to do that? And, you know, can they impart knowledge in that kind of way? And clearly, from what we know about animal psychology, animal minds, I think a naturalist will admit that they lacked the pedagogical attributes that we possess as human beings. So I think
D being being input in the first human being by an an animal.
I just, I think it's quite incredulous, I think as as an option. Yes, I would agree. I would agree.
So so it can't be then non human animals. It can't be human. Can't be non human animal.
But you make an interesting point. Because you also say, and I mentioned this here, even if it were true, yeah. Even if say Simba came along and start teaching us about the intricacies of I don't know jungle life, right? Yeah. It would it would use to have the problem that we had with the the human
possibly, because you'll have the infinite regress What did symbol get? D from which when you simply get the pre coded information from you say oh, it was the first type of symbol the first line Well, what did that first line get the communist right information from? So you see here to avoid an infinite regress here as well would have to answer that something external to them was the ultimate course I used you really aren't Kipling's Jungle Book as a under the initial original version. I took it out because I just thought you know what, I didn't want to be patronizing. You know, that you know, Mowgli was taught by animals right. You know, pamper a hate a bear and a snake and
everyone else everything else. So I took that example out I just thought is probably going to be just to
might some people might find it offensive that was stupid that low. So you can you could call it the Rudolph Kipling Jungle Book analogy, you know, even those animals that must have got it from somewhere. Yeah, we can still ask the question. Where did those animals get their cognitive input from who taught Mowgli? Yes, no. Are those Yeah, so it goes again, back to an infinite regress. We have a right to ask which animals from Yeah, I heard you should have kept it in though it'd be nice.
So number three, so can't be from a human coming from a non human animal. Number three, buy an inanimate object. And it's very easy. We could just, I think, continue and move on from this one very easily. inanimate objects do not have cognitive abilities or functions or the ability to teach instruct or pass on cognitive information. Yeah. So volcanoes, cliffs, mountains.
You know, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's,
it's possible. It's a possible one in the natural in the naturalist sphere, right.
You know, but so we're just trying to go through it one by one. If it's not likely, from what we know about geology.
And what we know about the world from, from a naturalist perspective, from a scientific perspective, not just naturalist. I think at the moment, inanimate objects don't have pedagogical attributes. Yes, yes. It's not likely. Even if they did for argument's sake. Again, we can ask, where did the mountain get it from? The mountain, get it from the cliff to the cliff, get it from the rocks to the rocks, get it from, you'd have a bigger problem, because you'd have to explain that they have a form of consciousness paradigm.
Yeah, that's right. And this is what I mentioned in the article that it becomes quite incredulous, you're stretching now. I want to be less metaphysical. You see, in this argument, I want to try and be as you know, as pinned to empiricism as much as I can for the sake of the argument. So I don't want to go into the metaphysical speculation. But you're right, you'd have to bring in
you have to Inchon nature, right? A bit. Yes. Yes. That's actually the word that you use is a very, very powerful, interesting story of looking at things. So it can't be undone.
object let's now move on to chance. And I think it was so well articulated it was worth just to put the quote here, but I'll, I'll read it and you could, you can unpack it for us. The major problem with this possibility is that it is not remotely clear how Charles can do anything, challenge is not metaphysically a thing an entity, it has no being and is not a cognizing potency or power, it is a term that is inadvertently endowed with the creative power and efficacy. In fact, for chance to be a candidate for inputting D, just to remind you, which is the prior cognitive input would be to grind it with an all pervasive power reserved only for something that we would we would describe as
living. To do this, however, is to commit the fallacy of reification, which consists of attribute in concrete characteristics to something non concrete or abstract. By arguing that chance did X created y and selected said obscures something deeper taking place. And that is making chance a cause when it is a it is mere mathematical possibilities in abstract or, in effect, to attribute chance as a cause for organizing for originating D is tantamount to saying nothing originated D, I think this is a beautifully port. If you want to summarize again, for us and unpack it again, please do so. I mean, just the basic point was if if, if we're taking chance, according to mathematical scientific
understanding, I know there's nuances, but I don't think any of them even if they do start to give concrete concept or an idea or model or whatever it however we want to describe it or process properties, pedagogical properties,
I just I just find that difficult to accept
in a how chance then we can become a conscious agent that inputs specific information into other agents, and you know how it becomes selective. And so I just thought that's hard as a process to try and say came from chance when chance quanta, scientists don't really do anything.
It's rather more, you know, possibilities and statistical sort of models and things like that, rather than actually how things behave in the world in the natural world. So that was it really just do it in that way. And I don't think that's if that is the case with chance, I can't see that being a possibility now genuine possibility, where chance puts things into the human mind.
I just find that difficult. Well, even even under naturalist or scientific perspective, they wouldn't even cite chance as an explanation for similar things. So when you when people usually and this is this is the art of basically discussing with people, when they postulate a possibility, when they say it could have been chance? Yes, yeah, accept it for a moment in abstract or to use your words except for a moment understand what is the implications of accepting the chance hypothesis here? Well, let's apply to all the other similar things that they try and explain, which is similar to what we're talking about today. Would they say it was just chance? No. So when you what you see
here is what I would call, I don't know, some kind of
contradiction. Yeah, an inconsistency in the way of reasoning. And usually, when there's an inconsistency in one's way of reasoning, it could be because they don't reason very well. It could be they have prior metaphysical commitments or prior intellectual commitments that they don't expose. Yeah, something more behind it. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why when it comes to things like chance,
accept it for a moment in abstraction, and then apply it to similar things that they provide explanations for. And then you say, Hold on a second, why didn't they say chance for this? It usually shows that they have other prior commitments, which you may need to unpack. Yeah. Like, they're like an, you know, strong atheist or whatever the case may be. Yeah. So yeah, okay, good. That's so important, does offer her the right, this was the final one, which premise number three page This was taken from page seven.
And you say natural selection. So you do talk about a few things concerning natural selection, because there was so much in there to unpack and there's so much in the academic literature, yeah, I wanted to take this this point, because I think this was the strongest point in my view, although, you could you could discuss the other points, but I felt this was conceptually philosophically maybe the more kind of surgical point that you know, natural selection. So, what you basically say here was, in other words, if it is argued that human ancestors attained D, just to remind people D is probably cognitive input via organic evolution, then there would be no demarcation of D that
specifies or distinguishes it from, say some other set of cognitive information.
And the Asterix. Okay. So just to be clear for me if I've understood you properly, you're saying, if if it was organic evolution, then we couldn't make a distinction or demarcation between a specific a specific prior cognitive information. And another specific prior cognitive input or information Yeah, you can make a distinction between the two or or find out which one has more merit or which one is better in order for you to formulate judgments. And you continue and say, on what basis feature merit or consideration would d be preferred or selected over the Asterix? It seems that D is arbitrarily designated as the cognitive input. But any arbitrary configuration of prior cognitive
data would not be conducive to cognitive achievements, because the right kind of cognitive data is required to realize specific ends. Yeah, the more plausible reason explained further below would be to argue that the selection of D is consciously guided by a mind with pedagogical attributes.
So yeah, so So yeah, so what I was trying to say there was if you've got one set of information, another set of information,
one of one set of information can be important for us to cognitively flourish to know to go out in the world make judgments, accurate judgments about things and then you know, technological maturity advance, but which one on a kind of organic evolution with how, how do we demarcate one from the other that is more merit or more consideration? Can we say, D had been chosen or evolved into our cognitive makeup?
over d prime or D Asterix?
What, you know, on what basis what consideration there can't be. And that's the demarcation generally, just thinking aloud here wouldn't save someone's an evolution reliable list. And they would say, well, it's far more likely that natural selection selected traits that were the basis for, you know, a functioning cognitive apparatus,
it was far more likely that natural selection selected those traits over traits that did not, for example, select D, se selected D Asterix and what we want is D but not the aspects. But natural selection, because D had more, it was more conducive to survive a reproduction.
Yeah, that's a common argument that's meant that's made, you know,
but you see, we might have to step back a bit, you see. So if we're, you know,
the problem is anyway, with a Darwinian Darwinian evolutionary account
is that
there can be no
even before you know, if you admit selective pressures, yeah, Can Can, can choose or favor certain types of information over another. The bigger problem here, though, is even if we grant that for a second that you know, evolution is for his truth is for truth orientation, and not for survival orientation, right? The bigger problem here, though, is because you assume a naturalist worldview, you cannot they cannot be any way the mental effects the behavior on the physical. So how, you know, if that is the case in evolution, then one set of cognitive data, mental, what impact behavior, the physical, but that that linkage can't hold you see, on a Darwinian Darwinian evolutionary account,
but that's the precise link that you need. So you adapt based on behavior changes, according to the cognitive information that you have, right? But that interaction that that that link between the mental and the physical that can't hold you see on a evolutionary account anyway, so you're stuck there. So
Oh, I get it.
Yeah, so it's not merely choosing d over d Asterix is not merely choosing prior Congress information or input one over prior combs information input to or prior cognitive input to base rather selecting one over the other and being able to link it to the external sense reality. Yeah, there is that as well. But definitely you need to because part of the, you're gonna need the right cognitive data, to navigate, allow you to navigate in the world, to do the things that you need to do as a human community or society or an individual if it's the first human being, to progress materially in life and be not not just cognitively flourish, but then you know, to materially flourish, but you see on
a natural evolutionary point, the bigger problem is, how then do do
Does the mental adaptations of the mental affect the behavior when there's no link? There's no on a physicalist assumption on a Darwinian assumption, your mental states beliefs and desires are irrelevant for behavior. Can you see?
It's irrelevant for behavior? So so how can that interaction take place? So that's the problem. And the other problem then is, how does the selection guide you to have the kind of information that you need to can cognitively flourish? How is it guiding it? In what way? In what way does the guiding or what they see is that there is a kind of connection between truth or being able to make rational judgments or being able to make judgments about things and survivability? Your behavior will now be affected by your mental your mental content? Yes. But that's, that connection can't take place in Darwinian evolution and evolutionary epistemology, epistemology account within Darwinian ism, there
currently is no, yeah,
you're right. Yeah, I get that list. Could you argue that's very good, though. So conclusion, pay from page seven. So it can't be from a human come from a non human animal can be from inanimate object, it can't be from
chance, chance and it can't be from it's not based on natural selection. Therefore, this was one of the first conclusions therefore, it must be something non natural. And basically, since the possible naturalistic candidates to explain the fail, or they don't adequately explain what we want explain, then the reasonable conclusion is that to explain D, we must look for non naturalistic explanations. And this continues with the rest of your conclusions, which was, which was point five and six, the most plausible non natural source for pre recorded information must be a transcendent agent, cause that has the property of initiates life and intelligence. And number six, the non natural agent
cause in five, approximates, approximates the God of theism. And you argue that it must be living, because the inanimate object does not contain D does not have cognitive prior information, or the ability to teach you to instruct it. And the kanji an abstract object, you see, that was a new one. Oh, interesting.
Because an abstract object, you know, in the way it's generally described, is that, you know, they're inert entities. And so, you know, let alone having cognitive properties that are not causally. So that's doing anything.
So how can these abstract objects then be agents of cognitive input? Or how can they endow cognitive proper information to us as human beings? Yes, because you make the beautiful point, that irrational precondition for possessing any pedagogue attributes, is a must be living. Yeah. So a rock is not a living thing, and it doesn't have the necessary prior cognitive input, and it doesn't have the ability to teach us the necessary prior Congress input. Therefore, this, the being of the cause for this information is a living being, and then you argue, must be transcendent. It must transcend the regress, otherwise would also need D would also need prior cognitive information, as you said, so
when we talked about about the regress of humans or non human animals, it has to transcend that regress and have that's the point that you're making here. Yeah, definitely. Otherwise, if it's part of the genealogy as it were going back, if it's part of the temporal, cognitive information, genealogy, we can always ask, who put the cognitive information in that agent, then? Yes, see?
Yeah, so as parallels with the first cause, you know, sort of Absolutely. And you must be willing must have a will. Yeah. And you argue this means it must be a kind of being that chooses what he wants to do. So it can willingly select the prime COVID information relevant to and necessary for human cognitive success, or any other functional objective? Yeah. So it's got to choose the right type of information that we're going to need as human beings, because what if I got scrambled prior quality information? Yeah. Because in some process, the cognitive information wasn't fully formed, well formed, how am I going to use scrambled prior cognitive data or deficient cognitive data or
ambiguous
irrelevant cognitive data to to now one cognitively flourish and fulfill any material temporal functions? What are you doing to be able to make judgments you just need to make those adequate cognitive input? Absolutely. And then you argue this, this entity must be a mystery in this living willing, transcendent agent cause must possess immense knowledge to endow it with other intellect bearing agents must also consciously select all the rest
have an initial cognitive input and justify that selection. So, unpack that a little bit for us. Yeah. So, here are what I was trying to say was definitely a must have immense amount of knowledge because it must know which ones are not important, relevant,
you know, which ones are in order for the human being now to, to a human being, and then for them to progress, it can't be accidental, right? accidentally give a particular cognitive information, a set of cognitive data and input that in the first human being, it must know which ones are going to be relevant to kick start, you know, the human individual to now explore go out in the world and make judgments and materially progress a cognitive flourishing, materially progress. So it has to have that information. Yeah, yeah. So this makes sense. So therefore, we argue there must be a living, transcendent, willing, omniscient entity and this makes sense the traditional view of you know of
God and you would even argue of Allah subhanho wa Taala we believe his, you know, the living we believe he has transcended LASIK chemistry. He shaped her belief as a irata. He has a he has a he has a will. We believe He is omniscient He is all knowing, all wise. He's Aleem al Hakim. So these things just make perfect sense from a theistic perspective. And what's beautiful about this argument and this is the final slide before we get to some questions, cuz I know you have to go in about 19 minutes.
That there's exegetical precedent here. So Allah subhanho wa Taala says in the Quran, chapter two verses 30 to 33. Remember when your Lord sent to the he said to the angels, I am going to place a successive human authority on earth, they asked Allah, would you place it in, it's someone who was spread corruption there and shed blood while we glorify Your prayers and proclaim Your Holiness. Allah responded, I know that which you do not know. He taught Adam the names of old things. Then he presented them to the angels and said, tell me the names of these if what you say is true, they replied, Glory be to You, we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are truly the All
Knowing, all wise. Allah said, Oh, Adam, inform them of their names. Then Adam did, Allah said, did not tell you that I know the secrets of the heavens and the earth. And I know what you reveal and what you conceal. So talk to us about the exegetical, Quranic precedent for this argument. Yeah. So you know, the broader context of this of these noble verses is Allah azza wa jal creating Adam allihies Salaam and then putting him on sending him to Earth to be a Khalifa
and then the angels protesting in a why Allah azza wa jal is creating such an agent who is endowed with freewill and it's going to create a certain mischief or the progeny will create for certain images on earth. And the whole tone is that that kind of primordial epistemology, you know, it's Allah talking about knowledge and knowledge bearers, Allah has created Adam blue into these raw jello Allah and
has created this representative of himself on Earth to instill His commands, you know, make, make them realize he still had his beautiful attributes. And so that as is why I limit Adam, Adam a smarter cooler her. So Allah taught Adam Ali Salam, all the ESMA now I know there's a there's a massive exegetical spectrum of what a smart here and what taught here means. But what we do gather from the area is it's come from Allah azza wa jal so he's the Allah is the, you know, divine pedagogical agent here in putting in Adam Ali Salaam. And what one interpretation I think is plausible is a smart here being the things that are named. So rather than the name, I rather than it
being a nominal claim to what just names, right, it's rather a claim to the objects that were named. So Adam Ali Salam was to all the realities of objects and their properties. And then he that knowledge of objects and properties became his storehouse Alehissalaam of prior cognitive input that He now uses to navigate himself to fulfill all those commandments Without which, if he just learned a catalogue of names, just just the words of of things, not the actual realities behind these these words, then you would have no prior cognitive information to link his sensation to to make judgments and then cognitively flourish or materially progress. So as Matt here are the objects behind the
name, not just the name itself, and just just give an example. So suppose you're learning a new language. Again, going back to our language example just to keep him with the theme. And I said and US
Starting out on a new new language, and I just gave you a catalog of words to just memorize are transliterated into English and Greek and it was, you know, an Arabic. So I translated it transliterated into the language that you know, for ease. And I say, can you memorize these 500 words, and you memorized it, but you don't know what I mean, and what they refer to. Now, that catalog of, of words in your mind, you can't do anything with it.
But if I told you now, these words represent a reality of something and their properties, ie the nature of things and the qualities that they possess, you can now use that information and say, Oh, so this property is sharpness. Okay, sharpness and object. Okay, so this is this, you know, you start to make connections when you're exploring the world. Well, then, then, then you have meaning. And this is very interesting. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yes. Echoes, in some way. Professor, John Searles Chinese Room thought, Hey, I was gonna say that I didn't put it in the paper. But he's very much like that. Yeah, it's brilliant. Because, you know, the Chinese Room thought experiment was
really, it allowed you to make a distinction between soft AI and hard AI. Is, can compute programs and machines, can they have consciousness like we have? Now we're not talking about being able to have, you know, rational insights from the point of view of doing great mathematics computers can do that. They have? Do they have the ability to make rational insights, like the way you talk about making judgments in a meaningful way? In the Chinese room for experiment, I think John saw developed this, I think, in the 70s 80s on a plane, I think it was on a plane. And he and he just said, Well, if you're in a room, right, you're in this room. And there's people there's Chinese speakers around
you. And in this room, you have an English book that tells you, when you get some Chinese symbols with another Chinese symbols, then you need to produce these combinations of Chinese symbols or characters. And so people are putting in like Chinese symbols in the room, and you're putting them in, you're looking at the English rulebook, and you're trying to put them together, and then you're passing them out. And you're getting all the answers correct. For example, exactly. People outside of the room think that you know, Chinese, but you don't know Chinese at all? Yes. Right. All you doing is symbolic.
Arrangements. It's
in semantics and syntax.
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. This is where he was against functionalism and computation.
So yeah, so he was against you hit the nail on the head with the Chinese room, it is computation ism. And functionalism. You know, the mind? Is it? Is it just merely functional. And it's more than that, it's more than yes. Because the I mean, we don't have to get into the whole change of thought experiment. But the idea is the reason you don't know the Chinese language because you have no way of attaching meaning to the symbols, all you've done is you know, how to just put together the syntax, not the semantics, so you don't have a way of adding meaning to those Chinese symbols or characters. Right. So this these very is very similar to that would have been on packet there's more
to it than that. Yeah, you have the systems reply then you have this than the other but notwithstanding that it's I just wanted to add that was sounds very important. It was it was important you add that because that's that links it to a contemporary example because now Allah azza wa jal teaching Adam Alayhis Salam and Adam Ali salaam you know, exhibiting you know that knowledge because someone out of the home island Mila Katie for her and B only vs mighty hola in quantum Santa Fe. And then he goes on so Adam Allison mastered the realities of these the the realities of objects and their properties. So now he's got the prior cognitive information input about Allah remember not
that he picked it up through trial and error Alehissalaam Allah taught it got the the cognitive storehouse you know, light it up and now, did my Elisa Lam canal function
for those cognitive ends and material and no material ends, so, that was a kind of
take on that. And then there is some precedents in the exegetical literature as well.
You know, you know what, because we could go on for hours on this. Do you suggest you do I think you should in my No, this is suggestion you should take up this as a book book project, expand it further because it links to philosophy of language to meaning to intentionality to consciousness. There's so much there. And you know, if there's anything iron Sapiens can do to support that then we're setting I think it's gonna be it's such an amazing, an amazing argument, and hopefully you've done it justice.
And we only got about 10
minutes for questions or Asian link brothers and sisters, for you to join us anyone wants to come and ask a question.
So if you could see it right here, it's streaming er.com forward slash all those letters and number a, so let's have some people join us if they want to ask any questions.
If you don't ask the questions like live face to face, and you could ask the questions on the comment box.
Okay, this format has really helped me as well. Um, do you see no, laying out like that? Often you don't get a chance to see your own work this in a disembodied way. Yeah, I know. I know. I have to admit, you were very patient and brave. Because you know, if someone did that to me, I'm thinking like, you know, you always think chess, isn't it? Like sometimes if you're strategically minded, you think okay, well, Did I really say that we'll have to solve another implication. Now, I didn't think about that, originally. And this is actually a beautiful way of reviewing your own work. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And but I do apologize that it wasn't intended that way. But it was intended that it
was like that, can you see it? It was intended to have a pedagogical
impact. So you know, I've read your paper. I'm summarizing it and you're trying to correct me and shape it up and people are watching that process. So hopefully, they've learned something from that as well. But if you well, then that's amazing.
Okay, so we have this system, put this together like this. Now, let's remove the thing. Let's put a comment up.
does not go ahead. Okay. So we have it's D nine. So I want to crack on a lot. Oh, they've disappeared.
Okay, they disappeared. Let's see anyone else who wants to come on board.
Okay, we have
Okay, by the way, brothers and sisters make the questions because we only got about six or seven minutes. Make the questions specific to today's topic, inshallah. Okay. Let me just give you the link to join us again.
Or are we have to put it back on second?
Just bear with me. There you go. So anyone who wants to join us, just let us know. Or just ask questions from the the comment box.
Looks like no many of you want to join us today.
Okay, we have a question.
Okay, question. Do you think a natural could give a justification for memories not randomly being linked to wrong incidents? If you know what I mean? Who would voc in chance here? Who would invoke chance here?
Doctor, please try. And I don't I did not sure if I really understand the question. But I'll leave that to you.
I'm not sure you know, how,
how they give a justification for memories not randomly moving to incident? What are we talking about some memory not corresponding to how things were or something like that? If that's the case, definitely. General naturally, or naturalism, we have the problem of correspondence between subjective experience and objective world anyway, that, you know, on naturalism that is going to be very, very hard to explain. So, I'm not sure if I got the question, right. But I wouldn't know what to say.
You know, try to see is that not just to say that, you that
memories are not randomly linked to wrong incidents? So you have the memory which can which can be a prior causal input of conceptual or informational, important cognitive input in some sense, and linked to an experience, and then when they experience that thing, again, that they have their own link? Sure, sure. Yeah, I'd have to I'd have to think about how memory
I had to go online. Yeah, no. Well, in order for them to have that memory, though, that memory would have to be a judgment. Right. Yeah. About some data do some Yeah. original input. Yeah, for sure have the same problem you still have the same problem where they
lead from an experience of something at some point, unless we want to go down Plato's route and have this recollection thesis you know, sort of idea. But but a but a,
I think a naturalist, we want to we want to maybe go down that route, you know that we've got
These
these innate ideas, you know that forgotten?
Yeah, good. That's true. So I mean, from that perspective, I would just argue that it's your thinking the memories are part of that prior cognitive input. In order for them to even have that memory of an experience. They form a judgment of that experience that will still require prior cognitive input, and you go to same question, where did they get wrong? Yeah. Right. This, this will only have time for one more question, because the doctor stuff has to go in five minutes. So let's add on Morwen Salam, ala Kumar, Juan, Monaco, Santa Monica law. And so my question is just sorry, like I came like, just at the end of the presentation. Like why can't we say that?
It couldn't just come from evolution busy. I don't really believe in evolution. But why can't we say just overloaded like with time?
Yeah, I think we went over that just election stuff or maybe a selection stuff. I think the slide hammer, we spend a bit of time on why it can't be why it's very unlikely that could be natural selection. And one of the arguments we focused on, there are other arguments that, you know, you know, definitely I need to look at and we had a chat, had a chat with Hamza about that as well. There are other arguments I want to put in. But really, it's about the argument that we looked at is how on an evolutionary account,
do we have non arbitrarily demarcated data non arbitrarily demarcated, remember, so it can't be arbitrary, because as human beings, the type of cognitive data we need, the set of prior cognitive information we need is relevant and necessary for our cognitive success. I our our thinking our successes, thinking agents,
how we can get that on an evolutionary process. That is not is not arbitrarily, it can't be an arbitrary random set of information.
That is quite problematic, I think, anyway, on a, on a sort of evolutionary account,
because the kind of cognitive data we need is going to be necessary. And if it's, if it's necessary, then some kind of selection,
some kind of conscious selection was made for that data to be input in the first human being. But on an evolutionary account, you can't you don't get that
it would be non arbitrarily input in there. So you know, so that's, that was one of the reasons we went through the trouble of come back. Come back on the point.
Yeah. So this pretty much comes back to to the point that refutes evolution, like, from the beginning, like without even getting into cognitive, cognitive things or like the consciousness topic, so.
Right, yeah, because once we start talking about selection, we're thinking about as if it's, it was done, like, intentionally to select sure to have this kind of a result. Right. That's right. That's right. I think hands on the first slide at the beginning mentioned about, you know, he said it was a provocative title, you know, addresses a reason. But one of the facts about physicalist naturalist account is it's mechanistic, isn't it? That's its bedrock principle. And what I mean by mechanistic is non teleological. So there's no intentionality intentionality, with an S behind anything. It's just so even, even when you reason, so when you when you use your powers of logic, let's say to to
take propositions and come to a conclusion, you infer or you use a rule of inference, really on a mechanistic view, a physicalist view, there's just physical causes to that there's no intentionality, there's no reason.
factor behind your, your cognitive activity. So, yeah, so we'll pick the I'm sure you know, your whole handles got that corner. So you know, you know, and
we, you know, we mentioned, for example, if we go through your premises as an example, say we were to go through your premises, right, and your premises have conclusions. So you said, number one, prior Cogn information is necessary for humans to produce thought. Number two, the ultimate source of prior cognitive information is either natural or natural. Number three, the ultimate source of prior cognitive information cannot be from something natural. Number four conclusion therefore must be for something not natural. Number five, the plausible non natural source for prior cognitive formation must be a transcendent agent cause that has the property of omniscience, life and
intelligence and final conclusion. The non natural agent cause in the previous conclusion approximates the God of theism. What we've done, we've taken premises
sees. And we've basically put them together to form a conclusion in some way. You could call it a Rational Insight. It's a rational reason process. physicalism has a problem as the doctor said, because it has the problem of intentionality. I don't think they've solved this problem anyway, intentionality with the s. Intention is about is aboutness. For example, my thought processes now i something external to my mind is about our engagement, it's about I'm looking at the computer screen in the camera, and so on and so forth. It's something about something else. And intentionality is also connected to meaning. And it's linked to what Dr. Cerf spoke about concerning link the linkage,
right, right. Because that linkage between the prior cognitive import and the sense of reality, that link itself also is connected to intention to in some sense. Now under a physicalist point of view, or you have a blind code, physical processes, what I mean by blind blind means I don't have any intentional force going anywhere, no intentionality, and no intention in terms of intent. Right, yeah. And their code, or from the point of view that they're not aware of themselves or something outside of themselves. So how can you have these rational insights and this reason process where you take the premises that we discussed of doctors argument, and we formed a conclusion in our minds,
we've taken them and we've, we've, it's about something right, and we've taken that journey, it's like having
a taxi driver, and if two passengers call them premise number one, and premise Tama do when Insight has taken me to work, take me to North London, and the guy puts a blindfold on, he ain't going nowhere, because he's a physicalist taxi driver, right? He doesn't know where he's going. He's just going to Chinese just the mechanics of the car. But under theistic point of view, the taxi driver is not doesn't have a blindfold on, he can see, right? So he knows his journey is about taking them to a journey, and he knows where to go. It's not just the mechanics. Right? And just going into any direction.
I don't know if I've explained that. Well. Yeah, it actually reminds me of an example that you gave in a small one. Because it's 17 minutes. Okay. Doctor had to leave a quarter pass. I do apologize. Let him finish the shot alone. There was another question the chicken have a question. Yeah. Okay. Really? Yeah, it was just about the the example of a car and the driver, right. Like, if you take for example, like a self driving car, like, it's like about input output, right? You just like it can go from point A to point B. But it's not like there is a driver inside. And he knows about the experience and like, he knows why. And you know, everything about like the meaning of that, like,
the drive itself, right. So maybe I'm not sure if this because by sort of saying what you've been saying like,
because this has been discussed with in the other seminar about consciousness, not sure it was like three weeks ago? Yes. Yes, I think it does relate to it. Because intentionality is, is is, is involved in the whole domain of knowledge concerning consciousness. But this is probably saying we need to unpack another time. And another day. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you really appreciate that. Monica. Yeah. So
question for you.
In Yeah, so just in summary intentionality is that our reasoning is about in this context is a reasoning is about all of something. And physicalism can't really explain it, because it's just mechanics, isn't it from that perspective? Okay, good. So, let's take another question for Dr. Suffolk. Choudry. We have someone here.
Muhammad, hate someone Alaikum. Mohammed. Hey.
Oh, sorry. I removed him from back on there. Yeah. So
Alex, tell them are you guys doing? How
are you? I'm good. I'm actually have a question. So first, like, I just want to say, so hums, I read your book. It's an amazing book, and actually helped me a lot. So by I do have a few questions. So this part on rationality I've understood really well and like,
I want to say it. So I really have problems with the arguments that you put to me, but with the part of morality, it also makes sense to me, but there's just one thing I'm getting mixed up with, because I understand that so for the atheist point of view, there's
so they don't have any foundations for more laws. So, they will say that objective morality is true. But if you ask Mohammed is if this question is not directly related to the topic. We have a live stream UK time at 930 today, to the whole sequence teams
Tim's going to be there. And we're going to have a general q&a there. I just want to because SFX has given us Dr. Cerf has given us His precious time. He's only got a few minutes left. So you have to be specific question for us. Because I wrote something in the chat. I thought you picked me because I wrote that question. Oh, no, I didn't see it and apologize. Okay. No worries me. So what did you please join us later on at 930. UK time inshallah? Yeah, through the UK. Okay. Perfect.
Thank you, Sara.
Doctor, before you go, just give a quick summary. And tell them about what you're doing and how they can follow you and see your work. And anything else you want to say. First of all, in a hamlet, it's been brilliant doing it like this man, honestly, Hamdulillah. You know, it's, it really is, I enjoyed it like this, I'll be honest with you. And it's, it's, I think the viewers would know, if they just read the paper, it would have been a dry paper, but doing it like this, in the hands of, you know, you're going to you could probably going to come to the video rather than read read the dry paper. So handler he bought wonderful examples is really colored the paper in a given given it,
you know, sharpen the contours, and give examples where you know, that the mind so it really, really has helped me. You know, follow up on the video, if you have time again, for those perhaps who came in late. He has set it up really well, and the context of it. So I really appreciate it. Yeah, so we went through the argument. Some stuff that I'm working on now is in the area of epistemology. So looking at different aspects of epistemology within the Quran, Hadith. Does the Quran point to a kind of ideal reasoner? What are intellectual virtues? What are intellectual vices, that's what I'm looking at? Did the Prophet alayhi salatu salam Talk about bad qualities of reasoning and good
qualities of reasoning? So I'm trying to unpack all of that philosophically.
And so that's my current project. And so in sha Allah, you know, hopefully, slowly by slowly over the next couple of years, you know, bits of that will come out. And obviously, I'll be engaged.
The academic sort of stuff on that, but obviously, we've we've seen some of that will be coming out as well. So we Hamza was talking about the beginning, getting the academic and the non academic bridge. So you know, Charlotte, let's see what happens with that content as well as epistemological stuff.
But yeah, so really, it's been it's been brilliant. How can they follow you, bro? Where are you on social? I'm not really on any any social media, but my main website that's sort of half up and running is Islamic analytic theology.org. And hopefully, if you want to get involved, just email me, there's an email website address there.
And you know, it's just furthering
the field of Islamic studies, but using the methods of analytic philosophy. So that's, that's mostly what I'm trying to do on that website. Otherwise, I'm a Neanderthal man. Yeah.
You're very humble relevancy, so not anymore. We're gonna we're gonna have you back on here again, for sure in sha Allah, maybe unpacking more stuff concerning this paper, maybe unpacking other things, maybe even summarizing your, your book concerning the problem of evil, because that needs to be popularized much more and lots of people buying it from Amazon and reading it and giving feedback as well to, to Doctor suffering charity, because very important that we give constructive feedback to
top down and bottom up. Constructive feedback is very important, especially in this field, because sometimes it could be a watertight argument. But it's very hard to apply, then you can you mean, how can I apply it? So it goes both ways. And that's what Sapiens wants to do. We want to create that kind of emergence between the two so we could be productive in in really defending the honor of Salem defending Islam sharing assignment, educating people on what Islam is really about, and getting them close to the merciful loving Lord Allah subhanho wa Taala and you know, facilitating people's guidance by the will of Allah subhana wa Tada. So that's what we're about. And you want to
be intellectually in as academic and Scholastic as possible. So, Dr. Walla is always a pleasure. May Allah bless you, I want to know well, your life feeds you because you seem not to age at all. Send me the recipe. Allah bless. He
is amazing Bengali genes, and relevancy.
So you have to go. Thank you for your time and we'll be in touch very soon. Sorry.
By the brothers and sisters, we have a live stream 930. UK today is the six month update of Sapiens, most of the team are going to be there and we'll have an update and some question answers. Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Hello Mark from Santa Monica on