Our boi looks so smart in that jacket

Alex is always a fabulous guest. I can listen to him for hours.

All shades of blue in one episode, unbelievable.

That was a conversation that definitely deserves to have a Part 2. Thank you

What a lovely bunch of chaps from Oxford. All they needed to make this conversation better was a hot cuppa tea and some scones.

This is the classic argument from incredulity. I can't believe three sticks ccould form a triangle Therefore an intelligent being did it, but how can we explain the intelligent being ? Well, at that point, I give up. I've come to the end of my reasoning process.

If you have two sticks, you can make a cross. If you have three sticks you can make a triangle If you have four sticks, you can make a quadrilateral, perhaps a square or a rectangle. But they are still just sticks. What's going on ? Apollo !

Wow, felt like an endless ramble by this Max guy...

Another moment to miss Hitch here. Max was just asking for a Hitch slap or three. Max’s whole argument is the fact we don’t yet understand consciousness means we can insert God as the rational answer. The real worry here is that Max is employed by a Western university and gets to espouse such medieval ‘logic’ on to young minds from a position of authority. In what world is that ok? Is this 2020 or just 20.

Just because one worldview does not have a faultless explanation for any given concept, gives *zero* credence to any opposing view *You* are not right, therefore *I* am.....is not a rational argument

"There is nothing true or false about two atoms bumping into each other." This may be correct, in a sense, but it does not take away our ability to determine whether those atoms bumping into each other produced a thought outcome that aligned successfully with external reality. Judgements of truth and falsehood are almost always contextual. Suppose I think I can fly. Suppose the etiology of this thought is observable. The processes leading to the thought are therefore 'true' in the literal sense that they physically exist. However, the outcome of the thought if put into practice will show that it does not align with objective reality. I think this is what most people mean by using rationality to determine what is true and false. In this example, I am defining truth as whether the thought will align with reality. That simple.

Love how this guy has a PhD in Philosophy and can't even spot his own argument from personal incredulity. All that pointing to a table not being "about" something is a demonstration that THOSE PARTICULAR atoms in their current configuration ARE NOT "about" something, it in no way demonstrates the premise that a particular arrangement of atoms CANNOT be "about" something. It's "the black swan" fallacy. INB4 listening to Alex's rebuttal.

It’s always refreshing when a moderator doesn’t pretend to be non biased and is transparent but also highly respectful

One molecule of water isn't wet. But if you have enough water molecules, they will be wet. Where does the wetness come from ? Apollo.

I met Max in real life, he’s a really nice guy :)

Alex looking fresh boi 😎

“Lots to respond to there“. Truer words were never spoken seriously, this is how all these discussions go. The theist throws out whatever number of claims they can in the shortest amount of time, and then pretends that they have made some kind of argument that a skeptic has to “respond” to.

Spoiler: There was no argument.

Great discussion. Three notes/thoughts; 1) I struggle with these 'probabilistic' arguments as, obviously, the hypothesis of 'an all powerful being that has the desire to create the thing we're trying to explain' is always going to have 100% probability of being the explanation if it existed but that doesn't tell us whether it actually existed or not. 2) I suspect they're talking past each other a little bit as the meaning of 'aboutness' is going to be different whether you view the world naturalistically or not. From Alex's point of view, the concept of 'aboutness' can simply be the correlation of a certain pattern of atoms in the world with a certain pattern of atoms in our brains. Whereas I suspect that Max takes it to mean more than that. 3) Where's the demonstration that what's going on in our brains is more than what's going on in the Chinese room scenario? Just feeling as though it is doesn't seem that strong.

For all the people claiming that Max is making a God of the gaps fallacy, or a false dichotomy fallacy, or an argument from ignorance fallacy... He's not. He's making another fallacy that is common in the discussion of miracles/supernatural occurrences, I don't know if it has a name, but it's basically a begging the question fallacy. It's true that it's more reasonable to believe in something that is more probable than to believe in the least probable hypothesis. It's true that the probability of consciousness (the first person view) being a result of natural processes is low... However, in order to assess the most probable hypothesis, you need to compare the naturalist probability to the probability of it being an outcome of non naturalistic processes. The problem is that we don't know the probability of the latter. If a God willing to create conscious beings exists, it goes to 100%. If all there is some deity who is passive on creation, it could be 0.001%. There's no way to assess that, so his assumptions are: 1. We can know the probability of consciousness being a product of non naturalistic processes. 2. It's higher than the probability of it being a product of natural processes. These assumptions are unjustified, and therefore the argument fails, as he can't claim either one is more probable than the other.

Another great talk- love Justin and the way he moderates

Alex is just brilliant in unpacking the fallacies by the theist apologist! You go Cosmic Skeptic!

An amazing episode, dealing with such difficult and fundamental questions. Thank you very much for bringing this out into the world. Lovely discussion truly.

Half of me loves this discussion because they were genuinely trying to discussing a difficult topic and come to some understanding of each other. The other half is pissed that the actual topic wasn't discussed in any capacity and Max's only tactic was to explain how Alex's analogies don't quite fit without giving any of his own justifications for a god to explain it. Correct me if I'm wrong but Max didn't provide a single positive argument, only declared that natural processes can't explain it without justifying that position.

We are what we eat. Sausages and carrots can help to supply nutrients to your brain. But sausages and Carrots do not think ! So how does that work ? Magic !

I somehow doubt the majority of the comment section followed the discussion.

GOD BLESS HIS ONE AND ONLY CATHOLIC CHURCH

I am a science person and do believe sincerely that God exist !! With respect to Alex I must say that it dont make a shred of difference what Alex thinks. If Alex wants to be a skeptic then that's his choice ! its very arrogant for someone to say that ""God doesn't exist"" !!

I really enjoy this sort of discussion style as opposed to more aggressive tactics by other sorts of guests. This IS a conversation!

Any arrangement of leaves in your garden is just as unlikely as any other. So an intelligent being must be arranging the leaves all the time. He must be very very busy.

Max's argument about there being no reason for our brain processes to be accompanied by first person conscious awareness is a bit poor. We humans are a social species. In order to thrive in a social environment, it is absolutely advantagous to understand those around you. BUT it is not possible to 'read' other people's thoughts. So how can a brain best evolve to understand the intentions of other social beings? By reflecting their actions within your own thinking. In order to understand those around you, we try to understand ourselves. For example: Bob is sharpening his spear. Why does he do that? What would i be planning if i sharpen my spear? I would probably be preparing for the hunt later today. And thats how consciousness came to be through evolution. Altough it probably started way simpeler than that.

Has anyone else noticed that Alex looks like Tom Riddle in the Chamber of secrets film?

I feel like the statement "Rationality can't be trusted if its components are entirely physical and thus deterministic" is put forth entirely without justification every time Lewis' argument is brought up. The conclusion does not at all follow from the premise.

Reason? _Everyone_ thinks that they use reason. I've never known a single person, no matter _what_ they believed, who didn't think he was using reason. That's why reason alone is worthless if you actually care about the _truth_ of your beliefs. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with reason. Reason is a good thing. You just need _more_ than reason. Reason alone is not enough! You also need *evidence.* Evidence is how we distinguish reality from delusion and wishful-thinking. Evidence is what grounds our thinking in reality. Do you have *one piece of good evidence* that your god actually exists? For Christians, do you have *one piece of good evidence* that _any_ of the magic stories in the Bible actually happened? Not even *one?* Well, that's why I'm an atheist. I don't claim that gods _can't_ exist. I don't claim that magic leprechauns _can't_ exist, either. But if you want me to believe in either one, I'm going to need evidence - _good_ evidence - that they really do exist outside of your imagination.

Max: Argues for what is "more plausible". Alex: Argues for if it's "at least possible". Seems a bit desperate on Alex's end.

It seems like the main points of these arguments are 1) suggesting that because atoms can’t reason that they can’t be part of a process that produces reasoning, and 2) that theism is just generally more probable. 1 seems fallacious, and if someone disagrees with 2, I’m not sure what you have left.

Sigh. All Max can bring is logical fallacies (the Argument from Ignorance and the Argument from Incredulity for the most part along with a sprinkling of God of the Gaps) dressed up to be prettier. And take longer to say. I am just so bored with theist arguments these days. I have literally never hard one that does not contain either a logical fallacy or a misrepresentation of science/philosophy. Why they can't hear it is beyond me. Well done Alex Also as an aside: "There is nothing true or false about two atoms bumping into each other." Technically it is true that the event occurred.

When it comes to consciousness at least, the problem isnt so much at the level of efficient cause (i.e., the process that brought it about), but material cause (i.e., that which grounds it ontologically). It seems to me that when matt suggests something like "physical brain states are different kinds of things than conscious mental states" he's claiming that naturalism is insufficient to ontologically ground something like consciousness (i.e., it has a problem of material causation); whereas when Alex suggests "consciousness could emerge from evolutionary processes" he's offering an answer at the level of efficient cause only. The two-at least on this point-are completely speaking past each other, and it seems to me Alex failed to really address the crucial question Matt was raising at the level of material cause/ontological ground instead mistaking it for a question about efficient cause. (The same error every commenter claiming this is an argument from incredulity is making).

For clarification, I think Max describes his preferred method of argumentation is that of Inductive Reasoning, where the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument is probable, based on evidence. I'm not seeing where he commits the argument from incredulity. Perhaps I missed it; can someone provide a timestamp?

Love how the Max Baker-Hytch has a whole binder of notes and writes a response to everything Cosmic states, off the cuff.

I have seen quite a few of these type of debates lately. Basically we are talking Philosophically about a nebulous concept of a God that created the universe. The Theist side doesn't define this God, they don't give him properties, abilities, or propose a way for this God to have come into existence. This way there is really nothing for the Atheist to say except "I don't see any reason to jump to the conclusion that a mind or being was behind any of this". Sure we can debate this all day long but we could also do the same thing with any other concept like fairies or possibly an ultra advanced civilization that brought this whole universe into existence inside a lab somewhere. I don't see the usefulness of this debate but I do like listening.

I love Alex and am a huge fan. But it seems like he was talking past the argument that was provided. I struggle to see how these two brilliant people can't see the flaws in their own argumentation. For one, Max was asking how does (matter) have consciousness. Where as Alex was essentially talking about the development of our complex consciousness from its more primitive form. The best analogy is one I often consider about computers. As an IT person, I realized (in a sort of Dunning-Krugeresque effect) that the more I learned about computers, the less I ACTUALLY KNEW. So the question that Max (in analogy) is essentially asking is how does little nodes of metal and wire with certain electrical charges "calculate" anything. HOW does a computer "follow instructions" at all. And what Alex is doing is essentially explaining programming. Where saying when I "input lines of code the computer then does this" where as the question was actually a layer deeper than that and was essentially How does conscious interface with the physical world on a fundamental level at all. The answer to that may be, "we don't know" but that doesn't then give us plausibility to say that "matter CANNOT produce consciousness". Probabilistic arguments are garbage too. Even his example Max gave is trash. A particular arrangement of leaves to spell out someone's name can "probabilistic" come down to the man's wife or the wind. While I would agree that the wife is a more likely explanation than the wind, it doesn't demonstrate anything about the truth. You see the man himself could have spelled his own name, aliens could have come and done it. It could have been the neighbors, perhaps a specially trained dog did it. To limit the possibilities to two outcomes and then try to assert that one is the case because its more likely than something that isn't the case is fallacious unless you demonstrate those are the ONLY two possibilities. Max is also making a black swan fallacy to state that matter cannot beget consciousness. Because we don't KNOW of any other matter than begets consciousness. That argument sort of defines itself out of rationality sort of like "I don't know of any fish that can breathe out of water, therefore fish do not exist". Fish are defined by the fact that they breathe(filter and extract oxygen from) water. We don't know of matter (other than brains) that produce consciousness therefore brains must not only be made of matter. A Brain is sort of defined by its ability to produce consciousness and the ability to produce consciousness is generally defined into a brain. By ignoring Brains in the mention that an "arrangement of matter cannot produce conscious" is just simply ignoring the thing that refutes your argument in that a brain is an arrangement of atoms that refutes your argument. What he means to say, that would be more accurate, is that we do not know how brains produce consciousness. To which I would agree, but that doesn't mean "God did it".

The whole debate can be boiled down to Alex fantastically imagining that just because a naturalistic understanding of the emergence of first-person qualitative consciousness is merely *possible* (conceivably, at least, if not metaphysically) on naturalism it is therefore more probable (or, to use the conveniently vague word he did, *plausible*) than the rival hypothesis of "supernaturalism"-which is ironically not even a hypothesis that Max explicitly argued, since he rightly minimally argued for the idea that consciousness is at the fundamental level of reality, avoiding the natural(ism)/supernatural(ism) dualism which is more unhelpful than helpful because the "supernaturalism" being opposed is a kind of demiurge god rather than the classical understanding of God as infinite consciousness.

Tbh though... since the Matt Dillahunty debate this is probably the only Christian channel I will ever sub to. Pretty civil and informative conversations (even though atheism and naturalism are STILL being conflated in 2020)

So basically, we have a problem and we don't know how to solve it. So we will have to invent a solution that is more difficult to solve than the original problem. Progress !

Great. arguments FOR god. Where you NECESSARILY start with the conclusion.

Is this the first time on the show both debaters have had a full head of hair? 😂

We knòw that computers can do amazing things. I can't believe they do this just by the movement of electrons in electrical circuits. There must be something else that is doing it, otherwise electrons don't exist. We call that Apollo.

I enjoyed this far more than the comments made me think I would. It was probably the way they were talking that made this possible for me to enjoy. I now get the feeling that Alex brings out of others the kind of conversations we should be having, like if it wasn't Alex, the conversation wouldn't have been as easy to digest and the opponent would have been more free to get away with errors.

'how does consciousness work?' 'Dont know' 'Ah ha! god!'

Alex is clearly smart, but he really doesn't understand intentionality at all. Baker-Hytch explained it three or four times during the debate but Alex either completely misunderstood the idea or he simply tried to ignore or argue around it.

Two people having an intelligent conversation on opposing views CALMLY!?!?! This is heresy!

Was anyone else waiting on an argument from reason? I heard a lot about how do you explain consciousness.

Surely if there was a god, it would have made itself more clear, without all this debating 14 billion years on.

Great Conversation. It's funny that as an Oxford philosophy tutor, these two could have this convo on campus.

So after all that, Max’s position is that natural processes cannot give us conscious thought, therefore there must be something else, which is almost certainly God, and oh by the way he’s pretty confident it’ll end up being the Christian God. How have we so lost the ability to reason that we laud these fraudulent positions?

"I prefer not to make deductive arguments." Because they can too easily be shown to be fallacious. But how exactly do we assign those probabilities on which you base your fuzzy, feel-good logic? Wait, this guy has a Doctorate?! I despair.

This sad philosopher doesn't realize that his "profession" is no longer relevant, so naturally he's religious.

God exists because reasons! That’s the best we got folks!

If anyone has to go through all this complicated arguments to believe in a god(s), then most of people in the world would be atheist.

Max Baker-Hytch is a clever fellow. About halfway through it now, but I think so far at least Cosmic Skeptic simply doesn't understood the argument. EDIT: Yeah, he seemed to pretty much not understand it until near the very end.

When "reason" gets you to a super-daddy which brings about non-demonstrable miracles and revelations you might be in a situation where you should take a closer look at "reason".

min25 To say that evolutionary natural process prepare us for intuition and reasoning for developing thinking, as I see, it is not an argument against God but a validation for intentional design

Debate with Dr. James Tour

"If human life is cobbled together by mindless, unguided processes, why should we trust our cognitive faculties and the validity of any belief that they produce, atheism and science included?" --- John Lennox “Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life." --- Richard Dawkins

Please bring together Alex with Micheal Jones (Inspiring Philosophy).

1. An Argument is not proof or evidence. 2. The fact that something is made of atoms does not imply that it's as valuable as other things made of atoms. Gold made of atoms, dirt is made of atoms. We don't value the gold the same way as dirt.

As someone with little more than the vaguest understanding of neurophysiology, I find it incredible that people could find the argument put forward by Max against naturalism (on the basis that it seems impossible that thoughts would be produced by atoms) at all strong.

This dude is the best moderator

I haven't heard a thiest use a probibalist argument where they don't smuggle god in as a presupposition and then say that god is therefore the more probable conclusion.

It’s cool seeing Justin and Alex becoming mates

Reading all the atheist comments shows quite clearly the argument has gone right over many of their heads, the fact that anyone would think it is an argument from incredulity shows they have totally misunderstood what's been said and do not realise how deep the argument really goes.

An hour of argument from incredulity and denial.

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." - Emerson M. Pugh

Alex never refuted Max's arguments, neither won the debate, I think Max did but watch for yourself. Alex's fans are just going to support him in the comments no matter what.

I think the best way to look at this problem is to go backwards. If we damage the physical parts of our brain, we can lose our memories and impact our ability to think “about” things. So why is it hard to imagine that the physical matter in our brain is able to do these things?

I pray that one day Alex comes to know Christ. And he changes his name to the "Cosmic Believer". In Jesus name.

Crux of the Debate Early in the debate Max hung his hat on probabilistic arguments based on Bayesian probability. He used the name in the leaves example. A fuller explanation of Bayesian probability is that reasonable interpretation of an event can be be based on previous knowledge of something that is true. As a statistical tool Bayesian probability can be very powerful. Bayesian statistics were used to find the wreckage of Air France Flight AF 447 2-years after the event. It was found within one week of employing the technique. Its success is based on accuracy of various information of what is known and unknown. Max’s analogy here is not accurate. Sure, it works with the leaves spelling the name, but applying the same logic to justify a higher probability of supernatural intervention to cause consciousness doesn’t work. We have zero information on the existence of a supernatural force capable of creating consciousness. But, we have multitude of evidence of complex things arising from natural process and physical laws. We also are aware of emergent properties that arise from complexity that arises from natural processes. Late in the debate Max revisits the leaf analogy and indicates that the arise of consciousness is analogous to the wind blowing the leaves to form a name. That is an absolutely bogus analogy. The natural selection process very well-articulated by Alex, is not a random process. From a Bayesian statistical perspective, the probability of a consciousness coming into existence by natural process is more probable. At ~1:00:00 Max states: “The physical stuff, which has no first-person perspective……no matter how you combine it, no matter how complex the arrangement, that physical stuff is never going to produce a first-person perspective.” That statement is fallacious since it is a truth claim. I think Alex was struggling to be careful not to embarrass a potential future professor in his academic career. It really does boil down to the God of the Gaps argument….again. Sigh!

My 2 cents after the insightful (and delightfully civil) conversation: 1) memory - or recall - does not equate to intentionality; computers can recall but do not have intentionality. 2) evolutionary psychology can account for selecting humans with intentionality but not intentionality itself. How did atoms first assign representational value to other atoms moving around? 3) deductive reasoning is not a tautology because it requires a re-conceptualisation of an idea. For example: a) all humans are mortal. b) socrates is a human. c) therefore socrates is mortal. But socrates is not "all humans". He falls "properly" (pardon a little cheekiness) under the set "human", but it still requires a logical step to identify him within the class of humans. In fact, I'd argue the ability to hold the abstract concept of "human" in one's head and identify an actual datum as part of it is intentionality beyond naturalistic explanation. 4) particularly enjoyed Max's argument that a computer's ability to represent is derived from our human impositions of representations! Will definitely be using the "chinese room" example. 5) that non-human animals seemingly possess awareness does not rebut the argument Max raised regarding naturalism's inability to explain awareness. 6) awareness being beneficial from an evolutionary perspective does not explain its origin. Not everything that is beneficial from an evolutionary perspective is even possible. 7) unsure why Alex brought up the plausibility of "conscious thought" GIVEN "naturalism is true". The conditional probability in question is whether "naturalism is true" GIVEN there is "conscious thought". Those are very very different things. 8) Alex's retreat to defending the plausibility rather than probability of naturalism is an intellectually inconsistent one - not only does he grant it as a valid basis of argument at the beginning, he earlier made clear that he was only arguing for possibility, not even plausibility.

At first glance I thought who is with naturalism will be ridiculed, but I changed my mind after seeing Alex.

This max guy is something

If an all-powerful god gave us consciousness wouldn't this kind of discussion be superfluous?

Why do theists always use these analogies that literally never happen. There is no pile of leaves spelling any names.

Alex: science hasn’t discovered how this can come about but it doesn’t mean science never will; aka naturalism of the gaps

Got here just to hear Alex

Max’s fidgeting and coughing reflects something in his “argument”-me thinks. Quite a lot of waffly spruiking.

I see what the title unbelievable means. Around 24:00 this hippy brings up Plato's theory of forms and proposes it as an accurate description of reality. I suppose he believes in black magic too. And he compares this with the Epicurean "swirl of atoms in the void." This he says can have no meaning and at the same time proposes it as a valid description of the neural networks of the brain that produce human thought. What utter nonsense. I have it paused. there, let's see if Cosmic Skeptic calls out his bullshit, but I rather doubt it.

It was all boiled down to the good old "argument from ignorance" "you don't know, I can't explain, must be a magical inmaterial Entity"

18:00 at least the dude’s honest about the shortcomings of deductive arguments for God. Respect ✊🏽

13 minutes in and I just cant shake the feeling that, the more discussions I hear about reasons for god, the more it sounds like reasons why your favourite pokemon can defeat Superman. This is not meant as an analogy, rather than the fact that I feel like these discussions are just so far removed from reality, it feels irritating to listen to.

1:00:00 How in the world can you make this conclusion after all the admissions that we do not yet understand how consciousness arises? Even if you don't accept that humans were the eventual products of a natural abiogenesis (and thus cannot use us as an example) how can you know that it is impossible? Listen to a religious philosopher long enough, even the more sophisticated ones like this fellow, and you'll run across basic errors like this. Alex had a good answer but it is worth pointing out how this proposition is completely unjustified in the first place.

For a pro-theistic channel - Unbelievable does have great debates and content - a thumbs up from this atheist!

53:31 Based on what's being talked about at this point, it just seems like a god of the gaps argument.

Alex exposes how ludicrous the theist's argument is every time he opens his mouth. But, he has to wait for him to blather on for a bit. Wait, which one has the degree already?

Alex - looking really smart. Matches your mind! Good job, as usual.

Thanks for hosting this! Can’t wait to see Alex in a number of years when he’s gained some more wisdom with time and experience. His intelligence and ability to reason is off the charts, but I think he can oversimplify very complicated things, which in turn doesn’t allow him to see certain arguments/points that others are making.

The undergraduate demolishes the tutor. How the tutor fails to understand that he is essentially arguing from incredulity is beyond me. Well done Alex. A convincing victory.

So Max went on and on (like every single philosopher does I'm afraid) to then boil down to "this is what I believe to be the case, but maybe not". Alex did well on this debate as he normally does, but as a whole this was the least fruitful conversation I've seen in a while.

1:00:10 "The phísical stuff has no first-person perspective. It does not matter how you combine it, how complex the arrangement that physical stuff is never going to produce a first-person perspective." - Proof? - o_o

I'm an atheist. The current trend against free will is far too dogmatic given the tentative nature of empirical science. Such an absolutist stance against free will is both unwarranted and unscientific. Furthermore there exists a hypocrisy between the position that there is no free will while going on with arguments under the presumption that we have sufficient freedom of mind to be persuaded by reason, and to adjust our beliefs and actions accordingly. This apparent contradiction must be addressed , even if the conflict is merely apparent. On some level, we are free; the fact that we can conceive of freedom in a universe apparently saturated with determinism is noteworthy. How does it come about that such processes can even evolve a brain-mind that can conceive of such freedom? This needs to be addressed seriously rather than dismissed with casual determinism, especially given the fact that we do not live in a mechanistic Newtonian universe, as quantum physics tells us. Flat determinism too much like the vacuous "will of God" arguments used by religionists; it amounts to little more than to a dogmatic tautology. We can and must do better than such dogma.