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1:03

To another episode of Conversations With Coleman.

1:06

Before. Today's episode. I'm excited to announce that

1:08

fans of the show now have an opportunity

1:10

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1:12

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1:14

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1:25

Okay, now onto the episode. Welcome.

1:30

To another episode of Conversations with

1:33

Coleman. My guess today is Philip

1:35

Goff. Philip is a Philosophy professor

1:37

at Durham University. He's the author

1:39

of Galileo's Error and Why the

1:41

Purpose of the Universe. Philip

1:43

believes that science gives us objective reasons

1:46

to believe that there's value in the

1:48

universe, and he comes out this from

1:50

a very different angle than say, Sam

1:52

Harris who reaches the same conclusion for

1:54

different reasons in his book, The Moral

1:56

Landscape Philip relies heavily on the so

1:58

called fine tuning or. Not

4:00

at large. It is interesting at

4:02

least to think about how that

4:04

might impact the meaning and purpose

4:06

of our own lives. so in

4:09

the first and last chapters I

4:11

kind of focus on that. Okay

4:13

so at the beginning of the

4:15

book you talk about nihilism and

4:17

and subject of his own with

4:19

respect to value and you target

4:21

how this is very popular specially

4:23

with teenagers and and younger people

4:26

and in fact is you told

4:28

her hilarious story about your flirtations.

4:30

With with nihilism and you're more literal

4:32

flirtations with your your friend's girlfriend Sarah

4:34

any tell that story limits or know

4:37

that noone pick on the and well

4:39

I I was denialist that there's no

4:41

such thing as valid as no such

4:43

thing as morality and I guess I

4:46

i I live out my salon casinos,

4:48

not just sort of abstract intellectual questions,

4:50

it's thinking how does this impact your

4:52

life So when I was about sixteen

4:55

I hadn't sick to my best friend,

4:57

John's girlfriend and on us as a.

4:59

Lot there's no morality. You can't be

5:01

angry. At Me I'm done and is

5:03

it wrong And and while he added

5:05

a novel response actually him a couple

5:07

of friends are tied me up. Through.

5:10

Me in the back of a van

5:12

and took me to his parents' house

5:14

and police force bleach my her bright

5:16

white so and so. Yeah so I

5:19

guess. They're. Are whether or not

5:21

this objective morality. This is ways of

5:23

making people not do city things and

5:25

did you say to them. Why

5:27

I was going to complain about this

5:30

but this is really no way. I

5:32

relay exactly what can I do to

5:34

start to a grin and wait for

5:37

to grow. Whenever I meet someone that

5:39

believes there's no such thing as objective

5:41

truth which would be of Utah that

5:43

nihilism with respect to truth claims or

5:46

I'm not sure exactly what wanna call

5:48

that objectivism With respect to truth claims

5:50

I always just to test out whether

5:52

they are just abstractly having a point

5:55

of view or whether they really mean

5:57

it. I. i like to say

5:59

well that's good because I actually saw your

6:01

girlfriend going on a date with this other

6:03

guy. And I was going

6:05

to tell you, I actually took a picture of

6:07

it, but because there's no such thing as objective

6:09

truth, I guess you don't care anyway, right? There's

6:11

no fact in the matter about whether she's cheating

6:14

on you. So, and usually it's

6:17

like, wait, hold on a second. Oh,

6:19

no, no, there are some facts. Right.

6:21

Yeah. So I don't think I was

6:23

ever sort of not believing in any

6:26

kind of objective truth. I think maybe

6:28

that position starts to get maybe

6:30

self-defeating, because do you think it's

6:32

an objective truth that there's no

6:34

objective truth that it starts to

6:37

get paradoxical, but rather the kind

6:39

of more limited position that there's

6:41

no moral truth or no truths

6:43

about value, no truths about good,

6:45

bad, right or wrong. And that's

6:48

more of a coherent position. But

6:50

I think a lot of people,

6:52

and what I slowly came to

6:54

realize is how pervasive value

6:56

claims are. You know, if you're just

6:59

thinking about murder's wrong, maybe we can

7:01

just think that's projection of our emotions

7:03

or something, we feel bad about it.

7:05

But what about, for example, you should

7:08

believe the evidence, you should follow the

7:10

evidence where it leads, you shouldn't believe

7:12

contradictions, that's an alt claim. Or

7:15

if you're in pain, you should take

7:17

a painkiller or something. So actually, what

7:19

I realized is just value claims are

7:22

so pervasive. And, well, another anecdote I

7:24

describe in the book is, you

7:26

should do a lot of philosophy in

7:28

the pub, still do. But one of

7:30

the professors, so I was captured by

7:32

David Hume. David Hume's kind of moral

7:34

subjectivism that all value is rooted in

7:36

our individual desires. Hume said reason is

7:38

and ought only to be the slave

7:40

of the passions. You have your basic

7:42

desires, and then reason tells you how

7:44

to best fit your desires. So that

7:47

was my view, I thought, yeah, by

7:49

this time I had maybe slightly more

7:51

civilized desires. But

7:53

my philosophy press explained to me,

7:55

actually, Hume's view seems to

7:57

be incoherent, self-contradictory. Because

8:00

Hume also says, and this is why

8:02

he gives up on objective value, he

8:04

says famously, I don't know if you

8:07

might have heard this, you can't derive

8:09

an ought from an is, right? You

8:11

can't go from cold-blooded empirical facts about

8:13

the world to facts about

8:16

good, bad, what you ought to do,

8:18

what you ought not to do. That's

8:20

the core of his skepticism about value.

8:22

But then notice what I said a

8:25

moment ago, Hume also says reason is

8:27

an ought only to be the savor,

8:29

the passions. He thinks reason ought

8:31

to track what you desire as

8:33

an individual. So that's another ought

8:36

claim. And it just, it was

8:38

one of the most mind-blowing philosophical

8:40

experiences. I mean, I realized actually

8:42

to properly embrace nihilism, that there

8:44

are no truths about value, you

8:46

really have to think there is

8:49

no reason to think or

8:51

do anything at all. Everything is

8:53

as pointless as counting blades of

8:55

grass. And I think that

8:58

really, I tried to live that out for a

9:00

while, but I don't think that is a

9:02

sustainable position. No, I don't think it is. I

9:05

totally agree. I mean, I just, I can't imagine

9:07

actually living my life thinking

9:10

that every activity is as

9:12

pointless as anything else. Yeah.

9:14

Well, my friend, Bart Stremer,

9:16

who's a Dutch philosopher, who's

9:18

a value nihilist, and he's

9:20

one of the most thought

9:22

out, coherent adopters of this

9:24

position. So he realizes actually

9:26

what Bart says is to

9:28

be consistent, he doesn't think he can

9:31

believe his own view. Because

9:33

he thinks to believe something, at least when you've

9:35

reflected on it, you have to take yourself to

9:37

have a reason to believe it. But

9:40

if you're a value nihilist, you don't believe

9:42

in reasons. Reasons are about what you ought

9:44

to do, what counts in favor of action

9:46

or belief. So what he ultimately says is

9:48

the arguments point in that direction. So he

9:51

takes himself out of it. Like, not I

9:53

ought to believe this, but arguments. Yeah, he

9:55

says I ought to believe that he's contradicting

9:59

Himself. So am I remember.

10:01

Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett have

10:03

both a many people have critiqued

10:05

David Tombs is odd distinction but

10:07

they have in their critiques come

10:09

to my mind at one of

10:11

Sam Harris's critiques of this was

10:13

that is not that you can't

10:15

get to and offerman is you

10:17

can even get to and is

10:19

without presupposing many odds. In other

10:21

words. To. Get to a

10:23

fact that all you have to

10:25

presuppose that I should care about

10:28

things like logical consistency. like a

10:30

equals A and is able to

10:32

be. and just the all these

10:34

basic laws of logic here. And

10:36

how do you? How do you

10:38

persuade someone who doesn't agree with

10:40

basic laws of logic to agree

10:43

with him? Release a piece Be

10:45

we ought to. Yuda ought to

10:47

phrase So there are there like

10:49

brute aughts that underlie his claims.

10:51

and I thought. They it does

10:53

that seem at all or a

10:55

sound objection to this idea that

10:57

you can't get back from his

10:59

to on. There is certainly a

11:01

good challenge. Here I said something's.

11:03

one of my colleagues it at

11:05

Durham University Chris Kyle he works

11:07

on, so he is actually something

11:10

of a value nihilist at least

11:12

about moral values. And but then

11:14

he worries about value claims pertaining

11:16

to evidence like you know, you

11:18

should believe such and such logic

11:20

pups as well. And he tries

11:22

to. Analyze them in terms of probability

11:24

like this is the most likely way to

11:26

get the truth. but it's not easy because

11:28

it's It's not at all clear. The probabilities

11:31

doesn't also involve reference to value. I mean

11:33

I mean this is what have come up

11:35

with him. It come face to face with

11:37

him. a book. thinking about the nature probability

11:40

in reference to thinking about fine tuning which

11:42

we might get on. To me some people

11:44

are very crude ideas of probability like what

11:46

is sometimes go frequent isn't that? Were just

11:49

thinking of how many instances of this have

11:51

there been. But I think

11:53

it's broadly agreed that those very crude.

11:56

Simplistic. Out is a probability not adequate

11:58

to how we used for the. The

12:00

To in science and mathematics and many

12:02

people think that's about it is caught

12:04

applause Opposition: that much a probability amounts

12:07

to more. You ought to believe how

12:09

much credence you ought to suffered a

12:11

certain position. So yeah so it's It's

12:13

not at all clear we can get

12:16

value expunged from these claims. I guess

12:18

out of what were a may be

12:20

disagrees some Harris is this idea what

12:22

silly and it in a sense go

12:25

along with the is or distinction. I

12:27

think if you wanna believe in valley

12:29

facts you'll. Have to have them.

12:31

They're from the start writing down

12:33

there must be facts about what

12:35

is good, what is bad, what

12:37

is worth doing in something like

12:39

the way you have sucks. But

12:42

mathematics, the results of timeless truth

12:44

is there are facts about morality

12:46

than the must be something in

12:48

reality the under Gods. Those facts.

12:50

And something that explains them. something in

12:52

which they routed something, Them browns. The

12:55

objectivity. ah worth I think some and

12:57

is bulky. We're what he says is

12:59

that the is so he. He grounded

13:01

in the in the idea that the

13:04

worst possible misery for every one for

13:06

as long as possible is bad Santa.

13:08

He will try to get you to

13:11

just agree with that as a brute

13:13

intuition and then once you have that

13:15

as a as a fact you have

13:17

a conversation on a fact based conversation

13:20

about. How to move away from

13:22

that? As conscious creatures? Yes, it's

13:24

a fine as far as it

13:26

goes in getting people to agree

13:28

that there is this. Undeniable.

13:31

Fact. about valley but they're not set

13:33

an epistemological argument really an argument about

13:35

what we know but that leaves open

13:38

the question what makes that true i

13:40

mean i think it took about this

13:42

in my in my last book galileo's

13:44

era a summer's like newton saying of

13:46

course is gravity looked as apple's falling

13:49

from the trees cost of gravity but

13:51

that's that's not enough going to say

13:53

what explains gravity what is going on

13:55

in reality that makes the gravitational equations

13:57

through similarly yeah we can accept There

14:00

is terrible suffering is bad. Pleasure is

14:02

good. Understanding is good. But what in

14:04

reality makes that true? And I think

14:06

ultimately we have to just think there

14:08

are, as Plato thought, sort of truths

14:11

about morality. And that gets very mysterious.

14:13

Like, how do we know about those

14:15

truths? How does these timeless truths of

14:17

value kind of impact our brains? And

14:19

I don't have a good answer to

14:22

that, but what I can say is

14:24

you've got a very similar puzzle with

14:26

mathematics, right? How did timeless truths about

14:28

mathematics get into our physical temporal brain?

14:31

Why is logic sound? So

14:33

this is above my pay grade, but I

14:35

just... Doesn't all arguments

14:37

have to stop somewhere, right? You

14:39

have to start with a brute

14:42

intuition, a brute fact that needs

14:44

no further justification, or else

14:46

every argument is vulnerable to infinite regress,

14:48

right? And so you need to backstop

14:51

it somewhere. And I think backstopping

14:54

a lot of truth claims

14:56

with logic is a fairly good backstop because

14:58

no one's gonna argue that A isn't equal

15:00

to A. Almost not no

15:02

one, but the vast majority of

15:04

people for practical purposes won't. And

15:07

Sam Harris backstuffs moral inquiry

15:09

with this, worst possible misery

15:11

for everyone for as

15:13

long as possible is bad. And to me,

15:15

that works as a starting

15:17

point to get you away from

15:20

nihilism or complete value subjectivism. He's

15:22

kind of a pluralist within that,

15:24

but as a backstop to keep

15:27

you from thinking that actually, what

15:30

Ted Bundy, his lifestyle was probably just as good

15:32

as Jesus is, or

15:34

the Buddhas, right? But to me, I think

15:37

that is enough to get the conversation rolling.

15:39

Let me try and push back a little

15:41

bit one more time. So I agree with

15:43

you, you have to stop somewhere. You know,

15:46

I often give Wittgenstein's line, explanations have to

15:48

stop somewhere. But I think you have to

15:50

stop with ontology, with some claim about how

15:52

reality is. I think truth is

15:55

a matter of our thoughts

15:58

or our language corresponding. reality.

16:00

So if you're gonna say there are moral

16:02

truths, you've got to tell me what in

16:04

reality makes them true, what is going on

16:07

in reality that makes them true and how

16:09

do we get to know about that. So

16:11

they're the questions I would want to ask

16:13

Sam Harris and I don't think he's ever

16:15

sort of answered those particular questions although there

16:18

are other interesting questions. It would have to

16:20

be something about like we are in reality

16:22

and our, the way we are constituted is

16:24

such that there's a huge difference between flourishing

16:26

and suffering and we all know this because

16:29

we've all experienced it. Hopefully, like

16:32

none of us have been tortured. I mean not

16:34

none of us, most of us have not suffered

16:36

torture but we've been in pain, we've been sick

16:39

and we've also had the opposite. You

16:41

know you have kids so I'm sure you

16:43

know what it is to the nameless

16:46

beautiful feelings of bringing life into the

16:48

world and all of this. So we

16:50

all experience this spectrum from

16:52

high to low and that's a fact

16:55

about the world, we're a part of

16:57

the world and so you know that

16:59

range of possibilities you can make

17:01

claims about that as a

17:03

part of the world. Is that not, do you

17:05

think that's the route that solves this problem for

17:07

you or no? I mean I certainly agree, I

17:10

certainly think we do encounter value

17:12

and I mean part of what

17:14

made me reject

17:17

again David Hume is on

17:19

Hume's view you know all

17:21

motivation bottoms out in desires,

17:23

he just got these brute

17:26

desires and all of them are

17:28

on a par. So any possible

17:30

fundamental life goal is equal

17:32

to any other and to

17:35

my mind you know what I was

17:37

thinking about, what about someone who for

17:39

example their fundamental life goal is counting

17:41

blades of grass and they don't enjoy

17:44

it right they get no pleasure from

17:46

it that's just their basic motivation you

17:48

know people can be motivated to do

17:50

things they don't enjoy, great artists for

17:52

example but this person just wants to

17:54

count as many blades of grass as

17:57

possible before they die, they sweat cheat,

17:59

toil, don't enjoy it. That is just

18:01

a waste of time. And you compare

18:03

that to someone pursuing

18:08

scientific advancement or cure for cancer

18:10

or just pleasure for themselves, their

18:12

family, you know, these things are

18:15

worth doing. Or maybe it's maybe

18:17

psychologically unrealistic, the counting blades of

18:19

grass, but recent former Prime Minister

18:21

of ours, I think, mentioning no

18:23

names, had desired power for its

18:25

own sake, right, not for what

18:27

you can do with it, but

18:30

just to have power. Again, I think that's,

18:32

that's a pointless goal. It's pointless having power

18:34

just for the sake of having power, you

18:36

know, so I guess fundamentally, it seems evident

18:38

to me that there is a distinction

18:40

between things that are worth

18:42

doing things that are worth

18:45

pursuing pleasure, understanding, creativity, and

18:47

things that are just pointless.

18:50

But but yeah, but then I do think there

18:52

are philosophical questions about modern reality undergirds, those things,

18:54

how we know about it. And I

18:57

mean, I don't have good answers to those myself.

18:59

But so is it right to say that in

19:01

a way, you're jumping off point in this book

19:03

is that you don't believe that

19:05

doing one life path is

19:08

as good as any other, but you don't quite

19:11

know necessarily how to justify that

19:13

from a rigorous

19:15

scientific perspective. And you're looking at at

19:17

a way to to do that. Is

19:19

that right? Or would you put it

19:21

differently? I mean, in a way, this

19:23

is perhaps a maybe a

19:25

slightly peripheral concern in the book. So

19:28

the main thrust of the book, I

19:30

guess, is arguing that we have

19:32

reason to take seriously, that

19:34

there is some kind of purpose

19:36

or goal directedness at the fundamental

19:38

level of reality. And my reasons

19:41

for thinking that are partly empirical,

19:43

actually partly scientific to do with

19:45

this issue of cosmological fine tuning

19:47

that we find in contemporary physics,

19:50

partly to do is philosophical issues

19:52

about consciousness, how we make sense

19:54

of the fact that consciousness evolves.

19:56

So and so I suppose

19:58

that the commitment of comes

20:00

as part of that package. If I sort

20:03

of directed this towards the good or towards

20:05

value with the fundamental level of reality, then

20:07

value must in some sense exist. But it's

20:09

not so much I'm starting from, oh, I

20:11

think some things are worth doing. So the

20:13

universe must have a purpose. I

20:17

would believe in, I mean, I believed in

20:20

value for a long time, just because I

20:22

think the nihilist picture is so unsustainable,

20:24

ultimately. And yeah, I think that's

20:27

slightly peripheral to the main thrust

20:29

of the book. Yeah. So let's talk

20:31

about fine tuning. What does it mean

20:33

to say that the universe is the

20:35

cosmos is finely tuned for life?

20:37

And what do you think the

20:39

implications of that fact are? For

20:42

assume someone had never heard of this before.

20:44

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I find so many people

20:46

that haven't actually, which is, yeah, most people

20:48

I talk to are not kind of who

20:50

are not interested in philosophy or something. I've

20:53

never heard of this, which is kind of

20:55

surprising, because it's such a startling fact of

20:57

modern physics, whatever you think about it. It's

20:59

surprising it's not talked about more on,

21:02

you know, popular science shows. I agree. So

21:04

this is, I guess, the discovery

21:06

of recent decades that for life

21:08

to be possible, certain numbers

21:11

in physics had to fall in

21:13

a quite narrow range. So I

21:15

think the perhaps the example of

21:17

most startled physicists revolves around dark

21:19

energy, which is the force that

21:21

powers the expansion of the universe,

21:23

once you do the calculations, it's

21:25

clear that if that force had

21:27

been a little bit stronger, everything

21:29

would have shut apart so quick that

21:31

no two particles would have ever met,

21:34

we'd have no stars, planets, any kind

21:36

of structural complexity. Whereas if

21:38

that force had been a little bit

21:40

weaker, it wouldn't have counteractive gravity, never

21:42

think would have collapsed back on itself

21:45

in the first bit second after the

21:47

Big Bang. Again, no stars, planets, life.

21:49

So for life to be even possible,

21:52

the strength of this force had to

21:54

be like Goldilocks porridge, just right, not

21:56

too strong, not too weak. So that's

21:58

that's the fact. that the basic

22:00

fact, which is fairly uncontroversial, I think, of

22:03

course, what we make of that is another

22:05

question and gets much more controversial. But that's

22:07

what I would call fine tuning. And there

22:09

are many such examples, right? That's just one.

22:11

Right. I think you talk about the strong

22:14

nuclear force or the weak nuclear force. Strong

22:16

nuclear forces that binds together the elements in

22:18

the atom. So that can be represented with

22:20

the number 0.007 if it had been 0.008

22:23

or 0.006.

22:28

Now I can't remember the details of and again,

22:30

we would have had no, it's not

22:32

just like we wouldn't have the chemistry

22:34

worm for the particular life were made

22:36

of. We wouldn't have had any kind

22:39

of structural complexity. So I think the

22:41

whole universe would be like hydrogen atoms

22:43

only or something. It's a lot of

22:45

the possibilities with different, you know, we

22:47

can do, we can play with the

22:49

numbers, run computer simulations. And a lot

22:52

of the universities, you just have hydrogen,

22:54

which is the simplest element, one kind

22:56

of chemical reaction, nothing really of interest.

22:58

So you really needed the numbers to

23:00

be just so, I mean, it's not

23:02

like there's only one combination, but if

23:05

you map out a sort of possibility

23:07

space of different values of

23:09

the constants, the range in which

23:11

you get anything interesting is incredibly

23:13

narrow. Right. Yeah. So I think,

23:15

I think in the book you,

23:17

you gave an analogy for how

23:19

unlikely it is that a

23:22

universe would have the

23:24

perfect Goldilocks, Goldilocks numbers

23:26

in this range. And you said it

23:28

was something like, like rolling a dice

23:30

and getting the same number, like 60 Times

23:33

in a row or something like that. And That

23:35

was kind of the conservative estimate. Yeah. Yeah. Much

23:37

More improbable. That's just, because I think often you

23:40

often get people who are saying, Oh, well, it's

23:42

just, it's just a fluke. And I Think you

23:44

feel you can say that because these numbers are

23:46

quite abstract, you know, in not many people have

23:48

done the physics. I haven't done the physics, to

23:50

be honest. I'm just taking the word of physicists

23:53

on this. So Do you need something to make

23:55

it more vivid? And Of course, you know, we're

23:57

happy all the time. We Accept that things are.

24:00

Until I give the example in the book

24:02

is T as in toast? You know since

24:04

ask Google a it out you know these

24:07

burn marks and toast that looking commonly like

24:09

sees as or Jesus As I guess. Depicted.

24:12

In Must and Art or and as we

24:14

enjoy that because it's a bit improbable, you

24:16

know that you get exactly that kind of

24:18

Mma fan mark in that I put it.

24:20

Not that improbable. selling. Say it's just a

24:22

fluke spots Ceci given the how many pieces

24:24

of toast or are on created every day.

24:26

eventually wind is gonna look like Jesus yarns

24:29

the only Like Mama My connects here the

24:31

multiverse option and ready when and where. there's

24:33

a whole his yes you guessed example. But

24:35

there are things you know what? clearly you

24:37

couldn't just say oh, it's just a fluke

24:39

see good example of rolling the dice. That

24:41

and six. Seventy times arrival of yeah

24:43

bank robbers break into a bank in

24:45

this a ten digit combination on the

24:47

the say scan big the word safe

24:49

and they get it right. I mean

24:51

nobody would say our maybe they just

24:53

slipped it right maybe they just tried

24:56

months here. He'd never say that because

24:58

it's to wildly improbable the up on

25:00

I think so and but the kind

25:02

of probabilities one intend to the hundred

25:04

and thirty six I think as a

25:06

conservative estimate just. More Than us.

25:08

Astronomically improbable. So the idea that

25:10

it's just I just sounds. I.

25:12

Don't think is it is irrationally sustainable

25:15

Up sometimes you get people eat city

25:17

on twitter of the feel like oh

25:19

no I'm brave I'm going to

25:21

say so I don't mind that improbability.

25:24

but it it's not brave to believe

25:26

Improbable. Think re Russian right? So

25:28

the alternative is add the in a

25:30

Universe was created with the intention of

25:33

chemical complexity in mind in the

25:35

mind of a creator or are somewhat

25:37

whatever. However, the universe was created, it

25:39

was created such that chemical complexity

25:41

was intentionally allowed. for some some and

25:44

to the ear in some way

25:46

the dials were being sat in a

25:48

goldilocks rain so as to allow for

25:50

complexity as opposed to only hydrogen

25:52

is that the alternative that your you

25:55

endorse well not exactly and is by

25:57

that you mean something like the traditional

26:00

God of a supernatural creator. I think,

26:02

you know, so many people were so

26:04

stuck in this dichotomy of either you

26:06

believe in the God of traditional Western

26:08

religion, or you're a secular atheist. It's

26:10

like, who's side are you on? Richard

26:12

Dawkins or the Pope? You know, you've

26:14

got to decide. And part

26:16

of them, actually, I wouldn't have imagined

26:19

that I'd be writing this book five

26:21

years ago. It's been quite a journey.

26:23

But I've just slowly realized that I

26:25

think there's inadequacies with both of those

26:27

worldviews. Both of them have things they

26:30

can't explain about reality. Well,

26:32

I guess with the traditional God, we

26:34

have the familiar problem of reconciling traditional

26:36

God with the terrible gratuitous suffering we

26:39

find in the world. But in terms

26:41

of the secular atheist position, I think,

26:43

as it's standardly understood that we're in

26:46

a sort of meaningless, purposeless universe, I

26:48

think it struggles with a number of

26:50

things, such as the fine tuning. So

26:52

what's the alternative? Yeah, I think the

26:55

I think, look, fundamentally, we face a

26:57

dilemma. Either the numbers in our physics

26:59

just happen against wildly improbable odds to

27:02

be right for life. And I think

27:04

that's just too improbable to take seriously,

27:06

or the numbers in our physics, these

27:08

relevant numbers are as they are, because,

27:10

in some sense, they are

27:12

the right numbers for life. And most

27:14

people say, Oh, you mean the traditional

27:17

God, but I think there are ways

27:19

of, and I basically survey a variety

27:21

of possibilities, there are ways in which

27:23

we can make sense of that kind

27:26

of goal directedness towards life, some kind

27:28

of, as it were, preference of the

27:30

universe for life without appearing to the traditional

27:32

God. So in some ways, I guess I'm

27:35

advocating a kind of middle way between

27:37

meaningless, purposeless universe on the one

27:39

hand and the traditional God on

27:41

the other. And I think there

27:43

are much neglected options in between.

27:45

Yeah, so I'm not a physicist.

27:48

So I can't I follow your

27:50

logic there. I think it's sound,

27:52

but I don't know if it's,

27:55

Or rather, I think it's valid, but I don't know if

27:57

it's sound because I can't, I can't really weigh in on

27:59

whether. The universe really is finely

28:01

tuned suffered nimble. I know the

28:04

the physicists Sean Carroll, who is

28:06

who I think it's quite respected

28:08

and who I've had a my

28:10

podcast. He questions the assumption that

28:13

the universe is in fact finely

28:15

tuned, and she argues that we

28:17

actually don't have a good definition

28:19

or theory of life, and it's

28:22

possible that you're in the absence

28:24

of really those good definitions. It's

28:26

not correct to say that we

28:28

know in the. Ninety minute with

28:30

all of these different know to innings

28:33

of of the U S of the

28:35

constants of physics that those universes would

28:37

not have lice. Yeah, so I mean

28:39

I think that silly the physics is

28:41

is not really that controversial. you might

28:44

people might wanna look at it. Sean

28:46

Sorrell debates it's the Christian philosopher William

28:48

Lane Craig or and part of that

28:50

was on whether the universe has to

28:52

have a beginning Which I think it

28:54

was a bit foolish. the Craig to

28:57

debate of physicist on the cusp of

28:59

explicit book. In supposed to discuss fine

29:01

tuning I mean I think Craig's objections a

29:03

pretty new on stride is not saying all

29:06

this is all oled announced as he say

29:08

raised in these well maybe maybe the science

29:10

would change may be some of these cases

29:12

on on a solid as others stuff. for

29:15

example the what I refer to the dark

29:17

energy Ida I've never actually heard of physics

29:19

dictating Sean Carroll question that just that the

29:21

basic physical story. I just know that as

29:24

you know been a bit strung but we

29:26

ask but I'm in terms of that particular

29:28

criticism I won't risk I would. Respond

29:30

to that because that's more time wouldn't

29:32

look. I would never debate a physicist on

29:35

physics for answers. Sean Carroll couple of

29:37

weeks got okay quickly, abided on you

29:39

tube or yeah on Sundays. and did

29:41

he raises point know we went debating

29:43

file, getting booed, guiding pumps like isn't got

29:45

it? Yes. So on this particular issue,

29:47

the I think he's he's made him.

29:49

It's not exactly the physic you know,

29:51

it's I wouldn't defend like a fringe

29:53

physics few. But on this issue of

29:55

oh well, we don't have. a

29:58

worked out definition of what life is,

30:00

and Carlo Revelli says similar things.

30:03

But I mean, that's true. I

30:05

mean, we don't have a worked up

30:07

definition of anything. But I don't I

30:09

mean, take the cosmological constant, sorry, what

30:11

I referred to as dark energy, right?

30:13

If this had been bit stronger, no

30:16

two particles would have ever met. If

30:18

it had been a bit weaker, everything would

30:20

have collapsed in it, the universe would have

30:22

collapsed as a bit second. I think I

30:24

don't know what you think. It's pretty clear

30:26

there's no life in either case, in either

30:28

possibility. I don't think you need a definition

30:30

of life to make that assessment, or if

30:33

there was just hydrogen, no kind

30:35

of chemical complexity. So I mean,

30:37

I think this is perhaps

30:39

the most common responses this gave, for example,

30:42

I've heard from Roger Penrose, who's a wonderful

30:44

physicist and thinker, he just says, well, I

30:46

think the science will change. I

30:49

think this dark energy thing will, of

30:51

course, it could be. And by that,

30:54

he means we'll we'll have some theory

30:56

that explains why dark energy had to

30:58

be what it is. Yeah, so, you

31:00

know, and of course, we don't yet

31:02

have our best theory of the big

31:05

general big things, general relativity, married with

31:07

our best theory of little things, quantum

31:09

mechanics, maybe when they come together, we'll

31:11

find out that there's no finding that

31:13

it couldn't have been any other way

31:15

for some reason, right? Yeah, or that

31:18

there's more fundamental laws that don't involve

31:20

fine tuning. But it could

31:22

equally be when we get to our final theory,

31:24

there's more fine tuning, all we

31:26

can ever do is go with the

31:28

evidence we currently have. And it's almost

31:30

a definition of a bias. Well,

31:33

I'm gonna, and I think this is very

31:35

common with fine tuning, people ramp up the

31:37

standards of evidence in a way

31:39

you would never do in other cases, like say,

31:42

oh, we've got to wait till physics is finished

31:44

before we evaluate the evidential implications of fine tuning,

31:46

or we've got to have a necessary and sufficient

31:48

conditions for life when we don't have that for

31:51

any phenomenon, you know, what's what's the definition of

31:53

anything, I think the basic physics is, is not

31:55

too controversial, but I think the controversy comes in,

31:57

you know, this is a very common thing. some,

32:00

oh, is this case? Is that case?

32:02

I think the controversy comes in drawing

32:04

off the evidential implications of it. And

32:06

there I think, you know, there is

32:08

just this phenomenon of ramping up the

32:10

standards a little bit. Right. So this,

32:12

I had David Deutsch on this podcast

32:15

many months ago, and he did a

32:17

great job explaining

32:19

quantum mechanics and the

32:21

various interpretations of quantum mechanics, the

32:24

two most popular of which are

32:26

the Copenhagen interpretation and the many

32:28

worlds interpretation and listeners can go back and

32:32

brush up on that. But in

32:34

general, the many worlds interpretation and

32:36

other theories of the multiverse theories

32:39

which predict that we live in a

32:41

multiverse, which are quite well subscribed

32:43

among top physicists, wouldn't the multiverse help explain

32:45

why why we might live in a fine

32:47

tune universe? In other words, it could be

32:49

that 99.9% of universes

32:52

in the multiverse are not finely tuned and

32:54

therefore don't allow for life. And we of

32:57

course happen to live in one of the

32:59

few that do, which is not

33:01

surprising, because if you're observing it, then

33:03

the universe was able to create something

33:05

that capable of observing. Yeah. Tackle

33:08

that argument. Yeah, this well, this is what

33:10

I believe for a long time. I've always

33:12

thought fine tuning needed explaining. Yeah. But I

33:14

for a long time, I thought was the

33:16

multiverse looks to be the more plausible option.

33:19

But I this is why I say this

33:21

book has been quite a journey. I've just

33:23

been persuaded, I kind

33:25

of dragged kicking and screaming.

33:27

I've been persuaded by philosophers

33:29

of probability that there's just

33:32

some dodgy reasoning going on

33:34

in this inference from fine

33:36

tuning to a multiverse that

33:38

it involves what's called in the literature the

33:40

inverse gamblers fallacy. Yeah, so maybe you can

33:42

describe the gamblers fallacy and the inverse. So

33:45

the gamblers fallacy is maybe a little bit

33:47

more familiar to people. Some people when you

33:49

I don't know, you've been playing roulette all

33:51

night, and you've had a terrible run of

33:53

luck, you've won nothing. Can you think, well,

33:56

it's your last chance to see last going

33:58

to I'm bound to win this. time.

34:00

I'm due. I'm due some luck.

34:02

Yeah. After all that

34:04

run of bad luck. Now everyone agrees that's

34:06

a fallacy because any individual

34:08

go roulette the odds are the

34:10

same. It doesn't matter how long

34:12

you've been playing. So that's a

34:14

fallacy. The inverse gambler's fallacy. Well,

34:17

the example I like to give, so suppose you

34:19

and I go to a casino in London tonight

34:22

and we walk in and the first

34:25

thing we say is a roulette table with some

34:27

guy who's just having an extraordinary run of

34:29

luck. He's just winning again and again and

34:31

again and then I say, wow, there must

34:33

be lots of people playing in the casino

34:35

tonight. You say what? What are you talking

34:37

about? We've just seen this one guy. What's

34:39

that got to do with anyone else in

34:41

the casino? And I say, well, if there's

34:44

thousands of thousands of people playing in the casino,

34:46

then it's not so surprising that someone's going to

34:48

have an incredible run of luck. And that's what

34:51

we've just observed. Someone's just had an incredible run

34:53

of luck. Now everyone agrees that's a fallacy too

34:55

because our observational evidence is this particular

34:58

person's had an incredible run of luck.

35:00

No matter how many people are or

35:02

aren't playing in other rooms in the

35:04

casino, that has no bearing on how

35:06

likely it is that this person, the

35:09

only person who observed is going to

35:11

play well. So that's a fallacy. And

35:13

I think the, I've been

35:15

persuaded over a long period of time

35:17

that the inference to a multiverse from

35:19

fine tuning, we could go on to

35:21

that might not be the only reason you believe in a multiverse. We

35:24

can go on to that. But if you're just inferring to

35:26

it from fine tuning, then that it

35:28

looks like an indiscernible form of reasoning.

35:30

You think, oh my God, it's really

35:32

improbable on our universe has the right

35:34

numbers for life. There must be loads

35:36

of other universes that have terrible numbers.

35:38

That's exactly the same reason. Our

35:41

observational evidence is that this universe is fine tuned.

35:43

That's what we want to explain. No matter how

35:45

many other universes there are or aren't out there,

35:47

it doesn't make have any bearing on how likely

35:50

it is that this universe, the only one we've

35:52

observed will be fine tuned. So I think, yeah,

35:55

I agree that that's a fact that's a fallacy,

35:57

but I guess Tell me

35:59

if there's. The think there's any

36:01

validity to this way of thinking?

36:03

Very The forget fine tuning. There's

36:06

a background debate where the two

36:08

leading theories are multiverse and Copenhagen

36:10

interpretation was does not involve a

36:13

multiverse and now when you consider

36:15

fine tuning, one of those theories

36:17

happens to really make sense of

36:19

fine tuning and one leaves it

36:22

as a further mystery to be

36:24

explained. So in that in the

36:26

context of the debate between the

36:29

two leading schools, Of Quantum mechanics.

36:31

Does the fine tuning problem militate in

36:33

favor of met the many worlds interpretation?

36:35

Or is that like a subtler version

36:38

of scamp Inverse? I'm was how's the

36:40

up a since thing I posed in

36:42

it? So actually, or one of the

36:44

things I'm excited about this book. This

36:47

before I answer your question. Since this

36:49

discussion of the inverse gambler's fallacy charge

36:51

against the multiverse, their Ist has been

36:54

in the philosophy literature for decades and

36:56

eight nobody knows about it. Has asked

36:58

if I could be blogging. I hadn't

37:00

ever having some full of philosopher

37:03

so it's themselves in these tacky

37:05

journal articles. But secondly as far

37:07

as I've seen in the whole

37:09

letters and no one's connected to

37:11

the science so ago and got

37:13

though ill what I'm doing in

37:15

this book is is hopefully let

37:17

more people know about and thing

37:19

not in debates it but also

37:21

I'm also connecting it's besides I'm

37:23

some know sure the many worlds

37:25

interpretation of quantum mechanics will sell

37:27

it lists as it's normally understood

37:29

because. so what's that sells those

37:31

is that any sink that's has

37:33

a quantum mechanical possibility prop of

37:35

of happening will happen as we

37:38

have these kind of brunson universes

37:40

but all of those branches of

37:42

the same laws of physics the

37:44

least as the standard li understood

37:46

me right it's it's anything but

37:48

as a quantum mechanical chance of

37:50

happening in our physics and by

37:52

so basically all a bunches going

37:54

to be fine tuning what's more

37:56

often appealed to his inflation me

37:58

cosmology so is hypothesis In

40:00

debate about God's existence and has

40:02

been seized upon by the by

40:05

the Cs yeah A who want

40:07

to say that God tuned turn

40:09

the dials just so And one

40:11

arguments against that has been just

40:13

pointing out in a everything we'd

40:16

expect to be different if an

40:18

omniscient omnipotent in all loving God

40:20

had turned the dials right. So

40:22

for example, you wouldn't expect life

40:25

to be so rare necessarily you

40:27

and expected to does happen on

40:29

Earth. And then everywhere we look around

40:31

us to be desolate, inhospitable. Yeah, you

40:33

and even expect Earth to be as

40:36

inhospitable as I mean Lucy Care has

40:38

is great job. I think it's as

40:40

big as Louis. Joker is like if

40:42

we're if we're meant to be on

40:44

earth. Why my so damn uncomfortable all

40:46

the time. Like as far as always

40:48

either too hot or too cold we

40:50

have to build whole structure is to

40:52

protect us from earth. essentially we call

40:54

it inside but there's like everything is

40:57

hostile to tower are living in. All

40:59

the comfort has been. hard one and

41:01

then he knows just like billions of

41:03

years of nothing and then a little

41:05

bit allies and then we're gonna get

41:07

swallowed up by the sun and were

41:09

on a collision course with the and

41:11

drama and like none of it seems

41:13

like well planned out it seems a

41:15

very much does seem like life is

41:17

an exception to the rule and like

41:19

of of a bit of a fluke

41:22

in an otherwise some meaningless universe so

41:24

so i guess you're you're not making

41:26

the argument for a traditional god's existence

41:28

here but people may have some of

41:30

the same kinds of reactions to what

41:32

at whatever it is you you are

41:34

arguing so me i should maybe clarify

41:36

that and then and then the kind

41:38

of talk about how you think i

41:40

think about this problem yeah lol i

41:42

think these are these powerful argument since

41:44

we've just been stuck in this dichotomy

41:46

for so long and have enough i

41:48

think just for and sucrose l a

41:51

so i think i think people are

41:53

sort of in denial about fine tuning

41:55

because it because they're worried about that's

41:57

the only alternative to traditional god and

41:59

because it's fit with the picture of

42:01

science we've got used to. It's maybe like

42:03

in the 16th century, we first started getting

42:05

evidence that we're not in the center of

42:08

the universe. And people struggled with that because

42:10

it didn't fit with the picture reality they

42:12

got used to. And nowadays, people scoff at

42:14

our ancestors, they're all those stupid religious people,

42:16

they couldn't follow the evidence. But I think

42:18

every generation absorbs a worldview it can't see

42:20

beyond. And you feel silly if you I

42:23

feel silly talking about this stuff, I wish

42:25

I didn't have to. But

42:27

I think we need to just struggle to

42:30

sort of dispassionately see

42:32

where the evidence is pointing. But yeah,

42:34

I don't think God is a good

42:36

alternative either. So there are all the

42:39

reasons you've said I mean, why would

42:41

a loving God choose to create us

42:43

through such a horrific torturous process like

42:45

natural selection? Why would a loving God

42:48

create the long tailed North American shrew

42:50

which paralyzes its prey and then slowly

42:52

eats it alive over I don't know

42:55

why I'm laughing sorry, it's horrific over

42:57

days until it dies from its injuries.

43:00

I mean, that makes no sense to me. So

43:02

yeah, to my mind, if you just so

43:05

you just look at the reality as

43:07

it is, from our best science

43:09

or best philosophy, it's the to my

43:11

mind, it seems like a mix of

43:13

accident and design, I mean, not design

43:15

in a literal sense, but some kind

43:18

of posiveness, if that's a word, something

43:21

seem arbitrary and gratuitous.

43:24

Some things like the fine tuning seem

43:26

not to be so arbitrary. So we

43:28

need hypotheses that can account for both.

43:31

Yeah, should I you know, I would I would know

43:34

just occurs to me, you know, I have one

43:36

way I thought of this is is

43:38

when I think about the traditional God

43:40

and traditional religion, and people

43:43

there's this theodicy, right? The problem

43:45

of evil, I can I can

43:47

see why God would test humanity

43:50

with a fitler, a

43:52

figure like Hitler, and An

43:55

evil and even something like the Holocaust,

43:57

right as an obstacle to overcome. And

43:59

it's. Domain and wish to

44:01

test our virtue. Something like that.

44:04

test our bravery when I can't

44:06

see is why a god. Would.

44:09

Have people survive the camps of

44:11

the holocaust Ah, as survive Auschwitz

44:13

and then die from over eating

44:15

once they received that I cannot

44:17

see. And the sack that the

44:19

world is filled with such as

44:21

farcical evil and suffering suggests to

44:23

me that either there is no

44:25

god or god is is a

44:28

sick fuck. God is sick, Her

44:30

has cause like see leisure from

44:32

yeah and I was in a

44:34

way I would somewhat respect more.

44:36

the consistency of A of a

44:38

C. Is that said He I believe in

44:40

God but I think he's a sick bastard

44:43

like I think he. I think she's a

44:45

he's a twisted mother fucker. Yeah because that

44:47

actually explains much more of and he's very

44:49

kind sometimes but he's moody and when he's

44:51

in a bad mood he like likes to.

44:53

He's like a sociopath. Yeah yeah that would

44:56

make sense as we see it right? Yeah

44:58

I'm in the cost of last rain gauge

45:00

of most in the book is though. Which

45:02

Swinburn this is so to be review in

45:04

it that the times that he supplements and

45:07

we're going to be debate and as. Well

45:09

so but yeah he tries to argue

45:11

that there are certain things of value

45:13

in our universe as it is that

45:15

would be lacking in a universe of

45:18

less suffering. kind of like similar to

45:20

the things you saying like if we

45:22

were just in some sort of Disneyland

45:24

you know where no one got hurt

45:26

and stuff know wouldn't be opportunities to

45:29

so great compassion to make moral choices

45:31

about whether you're gonna help people in

45:33

trouble and so great courage. ah these

45:35

things would be lacking and so my

45:37

responses is not. even a states

45:40

rights even if that's right that there

45:42

are certain goods here i don't think

45:44

dot or a creative would have the

45:46

rights to hurt people to kill people

45:48

to bring about those goods such as

45:51

the classic i'm sure you familiar with

45:53

it or arguments challenge to utilitarianism have

45:55

a very simple form you know you

45:57

imagine a doctor who could kill

46:00

a healthy patient, harvest their organs and save

46:02

five ill patients, you know, one the heart,

46:04

one the lungs, whatever. Right. And no one

46:07

would ever know. And no one would ever

46:09

know. You have to tidy up all the

46:11

loose ends. You know, it increased happiness, increased

46:13

well being, but most of us think the

46:16

doctor would not have the right to

46:18

take that person's life. Similarly, I

46:21

think Swinburne's designer wouldn't

46:23

have the right to infringe

46:25

the right to health and

46:27

security of people living. But

46:30

yeah, so what so what hypotheses

46:32

can explain both suffering and fine

46:34

tuning? That's my task of the

46:36

book, really. And broadly speaking, I

46:38

consider three options. So one, the

46:40

most straight, the most simple way

46:42

is just to tweak the definition

46:44

of God a bit. So yeah,

46:46

maybe God's a sick fuck. Maybe,

46:49

maybe God's amoral.

46:52

Maybe God is, has

46:55

limited abilities, maybe God made

46:57

the best universe he can, you know,

46:59

and God's like, I know it's gonna

47:01

be messy. Yeah, this is the best

47:03

I can do. Or maybe the simulation

47:05

hypothesis. Maybe we're in a computer simulation,

47:07

and our designer is some random software

47:09

engineer in the next universe up, he's

47:11

trying to test out what happens if

47:13

Trump becomes president or whatever. So

47:16

that's one possibility. But it's actually

47:19

not obvious to me, you need

47:21

a conscious mind to

47:23

make sense of cosmic purpose or

47:25

cosmic goal directedness. The philosopher Thomas

47:27

Nagel has given a very detailed

47:29

articulation of the idea of teleological

47:32

laws of nature, laws of nature

47:34

with purposes built into them. So

47:37

maybe there's just a sort of

47:39

impersonal tendency towards certain

47:41

goals such as life that that interacts in

47:43

ways we'd only fully understand with the laws

47:46

of physics. And it might sound a bit

47:48

weird. But I mean, after all, the concept

47:50

of a law of nature was originally tied

47:52

up with God, that it was God's divinely

47:54

ordained laws, but we've managed to separate the

47:57

concept of a law of nature from the

47:59

idea of of God. So maybe

48:01

we can separate cosmic purpose

48:04

involving laws of nature from the idea

48:06

of God too. So that's the second

48:08

possibility. The third option I consider, which

48:11

I guess connects with my work previously

48:13

that we discussed last time, Cosmopsychism, the

48:16

idea that the universe itself is

48:19

a conscious mind with its own goals.

48:21

And I try to say that's not

48:23

as extravagant a hypothesis as you

48:25

might at first think. So yeah, so

48:27

basically I survey these range of hypotheses.

48:29

I think Cosmopsychism is probably on balance,

48:31

the better option, but I

48:34

think all of these should be taken seriously. We

48:36

need to accommodate both data points. Yeah. So let's

48:38

go down that rabbit hole a little bit. This

48:40

is what we talked

48:43

about last time. I think I really

48:45

strongly agree with your framing of the

48:47

problem of consciousness. And I

48:49

remember last time you've

48:51

put it very well in multiple books

48:54

and on my podcast last time, I'll

48:56

just paraphrase you, it really

48:58

stuck with me that science by its

49:00

very nature is designed, it

49:02

may posit unobservable entities like

49:05

other universes even, but it

49:07

only does so to explain

49:09

observable facts, observable

49:11

phenomena. That's at

49:13

some level deeply what science is. So when

49:16

you have a problem like consciousness where

49:19

we're trying to explain something that

49:21

is unobservable, I

49:23

have no evidence that you are conscious. For

49:25

all I know, you could be a robot

49:28

where no one's home and

49:30

I'd have no problem explaining

49:33

what you're doing in terms of physics, the

49:36

best chemistry, the best biology,

49:39

and there'd be nothing left over except

49:41

I just assume that you're conscious because

49:44

I know that I'm feeling stuff right

49:46

now and you seem to be creature

49:49

kind of similar to me. So I extend

49:51

the charity to you that there's someone home,

49:54

there's something it's like, which is why if

49:56

I wanted to just like, I don't know,

49:58

sting you with a cattle prod right now,

50:01

for whatever reason, something would hold me back because

50:04

I'm like, that's going to hurt him. Where

50:06

it would not hurt a life like robot or

50:08

whatever. But

50:11

this is a very deep problem and

50:13

you write correctly in the book that

50:15

we are basically at square one in

50:17

solving this problem. Science, as much as

50:19

it's done great things in other places,

50:21

has not given us almost anything with

50:24

respect to solving the problem

50:27

of why there's something it's

50:29

like to be this arrangement

50:31

of atoms. Yeah, that's a really good way of

50:33

putting it, I think. I mean,

50:35

someone who's talking about Daniel Dennett before

50:37

we went on a, who I've interacted

50:39

with a bit on this, on

50:42

our new books, he's got a new book out as

50:44

well. I mean, I think what I like about Dennett

50:46

is he's wonderfully consistent. He

50:48

thinks the only things we're

50:51

allowed to believe in are what

50:53

you can demonstrate with experiments,

50:55

third person scientific observation.

50:58

That's it. Well, it seems obvious to me,

51:00

I guess you as

51:02

well, that there's something else we know

51:04

to be real, namely our own feelings

51:07

and experiences. And that's not something you

51:09

know from experiments. It's not a scientific

51:11

datum. And I can't look inside your

51:13

head and see your feelings and experiences,

51:16

but it's real. The self experience of

51:18

pain is real. And so

51:20

we need to account for it. But

51:22

as soon as you say that, you're

51:24

rethinking what science is. So Dennett

51:27

is consistent on, you know, science is

51:29

just, all we need to believe in

51:31

is what science deals with and science

51:33

deals with observation, third person observation experiments.

51:35

That's all that's real. And obviously, you

51:37

know, the problem goes away then, because

51:39

that's all you have to explain, you

51:41

know, how the brain works, how the

51:43

bits inside the brain move and so

51:45

on. That's it. If there is something

51:47

else we need to explain, that's not

51:49

known about in that way, then we've

51:51

got to rethink our understanding science.

51:53

The subtitle of my last book was foundations

51:56

for a new science of consciousness. We need to

51:58

rethink how we're thinking about it. about

52:00

these things as I described in that

52:02

book are a father of modern science,

52:04

Galileo designed physical science to sort of

52:06

ignore consciousness so we could just capture

52:09

everything else in mathematics. So, so I

52:11

think I'm consistent, then it's consistent.

52:13

I think a lot of people are still

52:15

sort of in this confused middle ground where

52:18

they think, Oh yeah, of course consciousness exists,

52:20

you know, but I feel pain and stuff,

52:22

but they don't appreciate that just saying that

52:24

commits you to rethink our understanding of science

52:27

to rethink that it's not just about explaining

52:29

what we can know through experiments. There's something

52:31

more going on here. I go back and

52:33

forth. Maybe it's maybe it's we need to

52:36

rethink science or maybe we just need to

52:38

appreciate the value of philosophy as well as

52:40

science and these two need to work together.

52:43

But either way, it's not going to be

52:45

business as usual. And you know, that's

52:47

why I think we're not not really at first base

52:50

even. So you

52:52

formulate a theory in this

52:54

book called pan agentia agentialism.

52:57

How do you pronounce it? I don't know. Cause

53:00

I've made it up, but I would say

53:02

a gentilism. I guess, I guess I can

53:04

do gentilism. Yeah, we can decide. Gentilism, a

53:06

gentilism, you will. And so it was

53:08

agreed. So it should be

53:11

like God now. Yeah. It'll don't be as much

53:13

of a psycho as he is. Please.

53:15

No, no. More constrained. So,

53:18

I mean, the operative word here is agent and agency. We

53:21

want to say that there

53:23

is, there is in some small

53:25

way agency built into the very

53:27

fabric of the universe. The

53:29

tiniest particles have,

53:32

let's say proto agency,

53:34

proto desires, proto attractions,

53:36

proto values. Value

53:39

is baked in at the very beginning

53:41

or at the very smallest levels. This

53:43

sounds crazy. So make it sound

53:46

less crazy. Yeah. I

53:48

guess the panagentialist view I'm

53:50

exploring is, as you say,

53:52

that not only consciousness, but

53:54

rational agency go down to

53:56

the fundamental level that particles

53:58

exhibit some. crude form

54:01

of rational agency. Sounds crazy

54:03

I guess because we're

54:05

thinking of human rationality. Obviously a

54:07

particle doesn't have the kind of

54:10

rational agency a human has, it

54:12

can't deliberate, it can't do probabilistic

54:14

reasoning, it can't do maths or

54:16

maths as you guys say. Pretty

54:20

fluent in American. I always translate for

54:22

Americans and Americans never translate for me.

54:25

Anyway, so the proposal is that

54:27

rather that the product has

54:29

some incredibly basic form of rational

54:32

agency in what sense? In the

54:34

sense of having very

54:36

crude forms of desire

54:39

or conscious inclination and the

54:41

capacity to or the disposition

54:44

to rationally respond to those

54:46

desires in the sense of pursuing the

54:48

object of desire. So if you're a

54:50

human being and you desire something you

54:52

can deliberate think is it a good

54:54

idea? Do I want to eat the

54:56

chocolate? Do I want to lash out

54:59

at this person? But the thought is

55:01

particles have absolutely no conceptual understanding of

55:03

what's going on, they can't

55:05

deliberate and so the only rational response

55:07

that is available to them is just do

55:09

what you feel like doing. So I think that

55:12

is a rational response, it is rational to do

55:14

all things being equal, it's rational to do what

55:16

you feel like doing, to do what feels good.

55:18

But on this hypothesis, we'll have to get to

55:21

why I'm taking this seriously. But on this hypothesis,

55:24

that is the only all physical entities

55:26

are sort of rationally responding to their

55:28

experience. But when it comes to them,

55:30

the simplest kind of entities that don't

55:32

have deliberation, that don't understand anything, the

55:35

only rational responses that are available

55:37

to them is just do what you feel like. And

55:39

kind of like a child, you know, a child writing

55:42

this raising young children and know if a child

55:44

if a young infant wants the cookie, I'm translating

55:46

for Americans again, they're not going to deliberate and

55:48

think, is this a good idea? They're just going

55:51

to go and get it. Right. Kind of ideas

55:53

like particles are like kids. So shall I say

55:55

why take this seriously? Yeah, that'd be great. It'd

55:57

be a great time to do that. Yeah, I

55:59

guess I'm embarrassed about all of this stuff. You

56:01

know, I've just taken a vow to follow

56:04

the evidence where it leads. So look, I think there's

56:06

a big really under explored challenge. We've

56:08

talked about fine tuning. The other big

56:10

issue I deal with making sense of

56:12

the evolution of consciousness. And actually the

56:15

discussion we've just had is perhaps

56:17

useful for setting this up. So I think

56:19

it's a big challenge. How to make

56:21

sense of the consciousness evolves.

56:23

Why is that? Because natural selection

56:25

is just interested in behavior, right?

56:28

Because it's only behavior that matters

56:30

for survival. And I think with

56:32

the rapid progress in AI and

56:34

robotics, it's become apparent that you

56:36

can have incredibly complex information processing

56:39

and behavior without any kind of

56:41

inner life whatsoever. We assume at

56:43

least. Or yeah, it's at least

56:45

conceivable that, you know, these things

56:47

have a big discussion, I guess. Yeah.

56:50

So it's conceivable that natural selection instead

56:52

of making us conscious organisms could have

56:54

made survival mechanisms, right? Really complicated mechanisms,

56:57

biological robots, as it were. That can

56:59

sort of mechanically track features of their

57:01

environment, initiate behavior that's really conducive to

57:04

survival without having anything going on

57:06

in the, on the inside, any kind

57:08

of conscious inner life. It seems like

57:10

this raises the question, why did natural

57:13

selection give us consciousness? Seems like for

57:15

any kind of survival conducive behavior,

57:18

you could just have a non-conscious mechanism that does

57:20

the same thing. So I think this

57:23

is a really deep challenge. And

57:25

the aim of pan-agentialism is to

57:27

address this challenge. It sounds like a

57:29

radical view, but I think this is

57:31

a radical challenge. The problem is radical.

57:33

I think the problem is radical. And

57:35

again, this is why... I agree with

57:37

you about this. So people are happy.

57:39

This is fundamental methodological point here. People

57:41

are happy to accept wild views if

57:43

there's hard data supporting it, like quantum

57:45

mechanics, special relativity, really weird, but there's

57:47

hard data. Yeah. But they're not some

57:49

abstract philosophical argument. You're going to be

57:52

suspicious. But I want to say there

57:54

is hard data here. It's just

57:56

the reality of consciousness is

57:58

hard data. It's just

58:00

not the kind of data you get from experiments.

58:02

You just know from being conscious, but it's still

58:04

as hard as any empirical data point, I would

58:06

want to say. So that, you know,

58:08

we need to get to a point where as a

58:10

society we're taking consciousness seriously, as seriously

58:13

as hard experimental data. But

58:15

why does this address the problem? Because

58:17

so it's a big mystery. Why did

58:19

consciousness evolve? If you

58:21

accept this paneigenshula position, just entertain it

58:24

for the sake of discussion, the problem

58:26

goes away because now natural selection has

58:28

a motivation, as it were, sort of

58:31

personifying natural selection, forgiving those conscious understanding

58:33

of the world around us. Because once

58:35

you've got creatures of conscious understanding, they

58:37

get, and they're going to respond to

58:40

it rationally. That's going to make them

58:42

survive. Well, they're going to prosper and

58:44

the usual business of evolution. So

58:46

I do think consciousness evolves. I'm

58:49

not like saying God fiddled with

58:51

things, but we need something like

58:53

this story to make sense of

58:55

that. In this picture, does consciousness

58:57

have a causal

58:59

relation to behavior? Yeah. I mean, I'm a

59:01

panpsychist, so I think, you know, all there

59:03

is is consciousness, really, and as I sometimes

59:06

put it, matter is what consciousness does. So,

59:08

you know, what physics is tracking. Physics just

59:10

tells us what stuff does for the panpsychists.

59:12

In fact, physics is like playing chess when

59:14

you don't know what the pieces are made of. Physics

59:17

just cares about what an electron does. Doesn't care about

59:19

what it is. You know, like physics tells us, an

59:21

electron has mass and charge. They're just

59:24

defined in terms of behavior, attraction, repulsion,

59:26

resistance to acceleration. It's all about what

59:28

stuff does. Panpsychism is an

59:31

interpretation of physics in a sense. It's

59:33

telling us what stuff is, what it

59:35

is that physics is telling us. Oh,

59:37

there's this stuff that does certain things.

59:39

Panpsychism is telling us what it is.

59:41

It's consciousness involving stuff. But even if

59:43

you're a panpsychist, you still need to

59:45

explain not maybe that you

59:47

might think of why everything's conscious. So

59:49

why do we have to explain why

59:51

consciousness evolved? But it's not just consciousness

59:53

evolving. It's like the particular kind of

59:55

consciousness we have. We have consciousness that

59:58

so well mirrors the world. spiritual

1:04:00

practice and spiritual communities

1:04:02

and political activity, political

1:04:05

struggle. So

1:04:07

overall I take a kind of middle, I always go for

1:04:09

the middle ways, I always hate the dichotomies.

1:04:12

And so one extreme, you've got the

1:04:14

Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, who thinks,

1:04:17

you know, if there's no point to the universe,

1:04:19

it's all meaningless, all pointless. He even says, you

1:04:21

know, we might as well just kill each other

1:04:23

or, you know, hurt each other. Not

1:04:26

just religious philosophers, the anti-natalist

1:04:29

philosopher David Benatar also

1:04:31

thinks life is not totally pointless, but is

1:04:33

so pointless. The moral thing to do is

1:04:36

to let humanity pass out of existence. You

1:04:38

know, we shouldn't, it's immoral to reproduce. I

1:04:40

want to get him on my podcast. He

1:04:44

just wrote a very good op-ed

1:04:46

about the Israel Hamas that

1:04:48

I thought was a very good take on

1:04:50

it. Not exactly sure why it matters if none of

1:04:52

us should be alive, but I'm sure he

1:04:54

has an objectivist about morality.

1:04:56

So he doesn't care about

1:04:58

morality. He thinks the

1:05:00

moral thing to do is to let humanity

1:05:03

pass out of existence. That's

1:05:05

kind of become a religion in its own

1:05:07

right, actually. This Indian guy who tried to

1:05:09

sue his parents for bringing him into existence.

1:05:11

But anyway, so that's all for what I

1:05:13

agree, right? It's just all so pointless. The

1:05:16

other extreme, maybe my colleague who I told

1:05:18

you about before, you know, there's more, a

1:05:20

familiar humanist position, cosmic purpose would just be

1:05:22

irrelevant, you know, we make our own meaning.

1:05:25

So I think I take a kind of middleweight position. I

1:05:27

think you can have a perfectly meaningful life

1:05:30

without cosmic purpose. I, you know, I

1:05:32

did for most of my life, didn't

1:05:34

go take this stuff seriously. If you

1:05:37

go for things that are worth doing,

1:05:40

you know, kindness, creativity, the pursuit of

1:05:42

knowledge, if you engage in worthwhile activities,

1:05:44

you can have a meaningful life. But

1:05:46

perhaps Life is more meaningful

1:05:48

if there is cosmic purpose. If

1:05:51

You can, in some small way,

1:05:53

contribute to the purposes of the

1:05:55

whole of reality. that's pretty huge,

1:05:58

you know.. The

1:06:00

difference right? You wanna change stuff? You want

1:06:02

to have an impact if you can contribute

1:06:04

to the purpose of the whole of reality

1:06:07

soul of existence that's about as as big

1:06:09

an impact as you can imagine making so

1:06:11

have comes to sink. To. Find this

1:06:13

is a a meaningful, a deeply meaningful way

1:06:16

of living A supposed to live in hope

1:06:18

the what you're doing connects to some greater

1:06:20

purpose even if we don't fully understand what

1:06:22

it is. you know and I'm I'm not

1:06:25

tennis here to saint of this is the

1:06:27

only way to live life but I suppose

1:06:29

I'd like to invite people to consider that

1:06:31

there's another way of thinking about the meaning

1:06:34

of life that isn't traditional religion or secular

1:06:36

humanism that might see you saw think there's

1:06:38

since mid a deeply meaningful way of engaging

1:06:40

with Nick purpose Part him unless you go.

1:06:43

But hour before I do tell my

1:06:45

sister's what your book is called again

1:06:47

where they can get it and where

1:06:49

they can find more as a view

1:06:51

online as you have Twitter website it

1:06:53

is cold. Why the purpose of the

1:06:55

universe on sale minds to November with

1:06:57

Oxford University Press I am on Twitter

1:06:59

I argued see much on Twitter sell

1:07:01

up underscore docile up with one L

1:07:03

I have a podcast mine on you

1:07:05

tube as well. Argue with someone with

1:07:07

the dispute to me to debate and

1:07:09

with scientists have lost of consciousness as

1:07:11

you as a sub stack that. I

1:07:13

always mean to contribute to more. Maybe

1:07:15

I'll get that going spot on my

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website: Phillipson of Philip Guston The city.com

1:07:19

Lots of sort of articles, videos, academic

1:07:22

papers, and so on. X

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Realistic conversations with comments.

1:07:36

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