Philosophy prof at a college near California's Sierra Nevada. I try to make fun, high-quality philosophy videos for college students, homeschoolers, or anyone wanting to learn about philosophy.
Do you teach logic or philosophy? These videos are for you, too. Feel free to assign in your courses!
Teaching yourself logic? Pick up Paul Herrick's Introduction to Logic (Oxford University Press) and work through it together with the logic videos. Specific chapters are cited in each logic video description.
But the channel covers more than just logic! See the playlists:
Metaphysics-Epistemology-Ethics-Language-Philosophy of Religion-Two Tims Talking Philosophy
You don't understand probability, and probability has nothing to do with the analogies. They're about where the burden of proof lies when making a claim. You could have easily discovered that by simply reading the first paragraph on the Wikipedia article about Russell's Teapot. The whole article only mentions probability once, when it compares different gods. Every god is just as probable as any other god, which is not at all, until they've been proven to be probable.
A few honest questions: Do you _really_ think I've never read the Wikipedia article and am unaware of the issues discussed there? Is it really your best judgment that I am unaware of burden of proof? And finally, is it really your considered judgment that the prior probability of all gods is zero? These are remarkable conclusions to arrive at.
Thanks again for this great video! What if sometimes we want to do reasoning backward, such as from conclusion to premises or from effect to causes, does this type of reasoning still falls into inductive reasoning (as we just change the direction of the reasoning) or it's something called abductive reasoning? Thanks.
Thanks for the great video! For inductive reasoning, I am curious how to precisely measure whether an argument is strong or weak? Any quantitative methods, such as causal inference, could play a role here?
Great question. The precision you're asking about is exactly what the discipline of Statistics is for. But in the case of everyday inductive reasoning, it tends to be just common sense ball park estimates of probability, nothing precise.
6:11 you make a statement that god is non-physical and proceed to say there's no physical 'background knowledge' to disprove the claim of god. It isn't easy to see why god's 'probability' as you call it, is low because god itself is self described as non physical. The only reason flying spaghetti monster and the teapot fail to make a valid argument is because your testing them on physical bias, the spaghetti monster and teapot alike are intentionally physical beings else they'd be practically copying the same theist description of god. if Russel's teapot was outside the universe and not in space.. well science then follows that the object must have eternal existence.. it must have been before the universe.. it must be immortal and many other attributes that god also is described as. Your point is heard however i do believe you missed the actual argument behind Russel's teapot and the spaghetti monster. If they were both also described as non physical personal beings your current argument would collapse as they'd have the same "probability" as the described theist god. Furthermore though unrelated, please don't reply to this instantly going on the defence,(if you even see it), actually think about my point and your own.
@simply_oat755 You say, "If they were both also described as non physical personal beings your current argument would collapse..." This is a mistake because a non-physical teapot is clearly incoherent. A non-physical flying spaghetti monster is clearly incoherent. But a non-physical consciousness that is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing is not clearly incoherent. Of course, there are interesting arguments attempting to show that God's properties are inconsistent. (Maybe they even succeed.) But that requires argument. It's not obvious. A non-physical teapot, on the other hand, is obvious nonsense.
Thank you, for the easy breakdown, I wish the professor would have sent this to me in the beginning of the course. I also appreciate the pace you used throughout the video.
Thank you for the video! Actually, I can’t understand how we, people, who are by default subjective can claim that something perceived by us can be objective - I mean there’s no way to check that objectivity because every time we are checking we are putting this evidence through the subjective lense of our subjective consciousness “If we all were to become extinct at once, the mountains would still be there and so on…” But how is it possible to validate if that statement is true and get 100% evidence if no one with the conscious mind would be there to actually check how that experiment goes?
@@LetsGetLogical, thank you I was wondering what’s your take on that skeptical statement above? Not to put labels here, it’s just that my impression is that you lean towards metaphysical realism (based on your path of thoughts in the video), is that so? If yes, I’m curious to hear what place this default subjectivity of our consciousness takes in your objective reality formula? How doesn’t it impede the perception?
@@nataliak782 I take the more or less common view in contemporary analytic philosophy that we access the objective external world _fallibly_ through our subjective experience. On this view, there's not much at all about the contingent external world that we can know with certainty. But we sometimes have _enough_ justification such that our belief amounts to knowledge. Justification of this sort is a messy affair-experience, inductive reasoning, inference to the best explanation-but it gets the job done. However, an overall stance of epistemic humility is on order, especially when the problem of disagreement is considered. If interested, you can see my video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nxFJCaPJNn0.html.
@@LetsGetLogical, appreciate your detailed explanation 🙏🏻 And it seems I got the wrong impression about your leaning towards mataphysical realism 100% with you on the approach of balancing between the applied knowledge and epistemic humility! All theories that get enough justification to be useful in the determined range of cases are great to use as the frame of reference to get the job done. At the same time, it’s also important to remember of the fallibility to avoid fanatical clinging onto some viewpoint when it fails to explain a phenomenon out of the range of applicable ones. And, of course, epistemic humility is especially constructive and rewarding when it comes to the problem of disagreement Again, enjoyed our conversation and your videos! Looking forward to the new ones ✨
Interesting, and very well done. I've never thought of the similarities between moral command theory and relativism. I do have a few questions though. 3:15 On what basis are we assuming that locating dog-kicking's wrongness onto an outside observer of the dog is weird, or as you've seemed to imply, wrong? 4:00 What do we define as, "Good reason?" Because without it defined, I would argue that it's a moot point. 4:14 What I understand is that the latter option, with baseless condemnations, it creates an unsuitable foundation for morality. My question is, Why would a suitable foundation for morality indicate truth? Or in other words, could the latter option, about the baseless condemnations, be true even if they result in a lack of suitable foundations for morality? No, I'm not exactly a moral relativist, btw.
@RickyRollDoesAnimations Thanks for your thoughtful questions. They are subtle and I can't give subtle replies on YT but here are some quick thoughts: Re 1: You make a good point. But what I say here is not meant as a _proof_ that relativism is false. Locating the wrongness of puppy kicking outside the act itself is something a theory _can_ do. It's just that the move has its costs. For instance, it leaves the outside observer (e.g. God or society) without a _reason_ for judging puppy-kicking to be right or wrong. The judgment would be wholly arbitrary. Because if there were good reasons to think it right or wrong, then _those reasons_ are what make it right or wrong, not the observer's judgment. Re 2: Again, you're right. But in philosophy, _everything_ leads to everything else and you can't chase down every rabbit trail. So you have to just take some things for granted in any given conversation. If we had to settle the nature of _reasons_ before discussing relativism, we'd never get to the discussion of relativism. So for the sake of the argument, we assume that we have a (rough) grasp of what good and bad reasons might look like. I say we don't have to pin down the exact criteria as to what counts as a good reason before knowing that a wholly arbitrary judgment is _not_ a good reason for thinking something is right or wrong. Re 3: Not sure I fully understand you here, but it sounds like you're suggesting something like this: "Okay, maybe morality _really is_ built on an unsuitable foundation." And I agree that's a possibility. I just don't think it's the possibility that enjoys the most rational support. My own view is that moral realism has plenty of rational support in its favor. No, I can't _prove_ that moral realism is true and just like any other philosophical theory it has objections to it that make me pause. Certainty is just not on the table when it comes to philosophy! But as for moral realism, I think it enjoys about as much rational support as any other substantive philosophical thesis.
I really dont like comparing god with the coin or cards cause they are obviously fixed probabilistic events, feels like a really poor analogy its impossible to give a universal number to God. The argument against the spaghetti creature actually seemed quite weak, we could just apply the same points about God not abiding my the same laws we do as the spaghetti monster. I definitely agree that arguments against religion are the only way to go about the debate but in my opinion the arguments against god put the probability in my eyes very low, the burden of proof is still important there just isn't really any good evidence to suggest there is an all loving god over a super race who has created us as a digital game imo
@Wow-hr1gl It's not comparing God with coins or cards. It's just an illustration of how probability theory works and the difference between a probability on background knowledge alone vs probability on background knowledge + a piece of evidence. What is flawed about the teapot and FSM-or if not flawed, at least worthy of careful scrutiny-is the idea that teapot and FSM _on background knowledge alone_ are helpfully similar to God on background knowledge alone.
@kossnfx I understand why you would think so. But then you'd have a Euler diagram, not a Venn diagram. What you see here in this video is the standard Venn diagram for universal affirmative statements (i.e. categorical sentences of the form "All S are P.")
The way I see it as a Christian, you have to experience him. Sort of how I experienced the very scary base version of Covid back in 2019. It wasn’t showing up in any of my coworkers’ viral tests and wasn’t making practical sense to why this was lasting two weeks or had a 5 day incubation period, but we all knew it was something beyond our understanding.
The observer and the observed are one, there being something outside of yourself is a thought. Now how can you prove that any pattern in the mind represents reality outside of the mind?
I think you miss the point of russel's tea pot. I read a bit of other comments here and your responses to them. The thought experiment is not about assigning a probability but by withholding judgement from the claim alltogether BECAUSE of the lack of evidence. You shouldnt think the probability of god is low, you should admit that you have no way of assigning a probability to it, at least until evidence is presented. thats because it is unfalsifiable. And naturally withholding judgement leans towards non belief (which is not the same as disbelief) Now, the claim is unfalsifiable, and requires evidence from the person who presents the claim or in otherwords they have the burden of proof. Hence the recurrence of those two things in the comments. I have to say that the major religions do give some claims that would render the god claim logically impossible. Btw, i like the music and the non agressive intellectually honest tone of the video. Keep it up!
Isn't actually fallacious to take the most weak arguments made by some atheists and then deceptively claim that Russell's Teapot is a failed argument against God, when it's an analogy? I would completely understand if the video addressed it's use in strawman fallacies to depict any attempt to argue in favor of the existence of God as irrational. But it isn't the case, and instead generalizes this fallacious attempts to Atheism in general. 1:55 well that depends on how the analogy is used as unfalsifiability or burden of proof (already mentioned in the comment section). 5:54 That isn't even close to Russell's original argument. (referring to his 1952 article); it obviously could be mentioned his 1958 letter, but your video doesn't address the lack or presence of evidence of God's existence. 8:11 Correct... 8:15 - 8:23 Wrong *IF* it's not used in such way as you depict. I can use Russell's Teapot to point out that my interlocutor is fallaciously trying to put the burden of proof "on my shoulders". 8:41 - What does that even mean?. We go back to my point that this video generalizes that such use of those analogies is fallacious; to clarify, i'm not saying that there aren't people using it in such way, but not clarifying your point it's not being charitable, which is a fundamental point of this video. And it's even problematic when we recall your affirmation that people that put forward the argument you present here supposedly never explain why. 6:36 You accuse of a fallacious rethoric which _de facto_ tries to portray God as something really unlikely, which obviously violates the principle of charity. But to then say something as lazy (which you recomend not to be 8:41) as that all people presenting such argument don't explain why. How can we prove that God exist if it is by the definition you use in 6:13? If someone comes to me with such definition, i'm in the wrong using the Teapot analogy?
@-TheUnkownUser Thanks for this! I disagree, of course, that I'm committing fallacies or being uncharitable, but there's no doubt I could have been more clear and I can see why you see things your way. The extent to which the video struck you as not fair-minded is the extent to which I failed. When I find the time, I'll go through the time stamps and consider your points. I've been thinking of making a follow up video.
This video summed up an hour and a half lecture that I couldn't understand a single thing of, and thanks to you it's MUCH more clear to me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I appreciate it a lot 🌻
As someone who has studied Williamson’s work for years, I can second this (obviously somewhat simplified and missing a lot of other stuff he talks about) explanation for whoever does not know the author. Awesome job with so little time! Only detail I may disagree with: as far as I know, the first edition of KaIT is from 2000, and it is commonly cited as Williamson (2000) in journals. OUP online does list it as published in 2002, but my copy of the book says 2000 as well.
This is just so stupid ...the probability of the coin coming up head is evidenced by actually seeing (the head) it physically and dividing it by two...(the head+ the tail)...the same with the red king ...1/52....
Hi, Let’s Get Logical, Thank you for this video. Time 1:30 You state: It will help to start afresh and begin with some basics. All beliefs are either true or false. My comment: I would start with the statement, “Everything is energy, and that is all there is to it.” With that true understanding or belief, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? There is energy because everything is energy, but is there sound? As the ocean moves and no one is around, does it roar? When you look at a mountain, do you see the mountain? The observer effect the observed. Without an observer, there is only energy. Your eyes see nothing. The eyes’ function is to transmit information as wavelengths of energy. No trees are going down the optic nerve. No oceans going down the optic nerve. There are no mountains going down the optic nerve. There is only data in the form of electromagnetic and chemical signals that move down the optic nerve. That raw data is meaningless and chaotic till the mind interprets it. It is not the eyes that see. It is the mind that sees. It is the mind that interprets the chaotic data presented by the input data from the sensory organs. Without the observer and without the mind to interpret, all is energy and meaningless. There are no trees. There is no ocean. There are no mountains. There is only energy. There’s no time and no space, only energy. There are no beliefs, true or false. All is energy. Peace. Mike
I hope the suggestions at the end were helpful! Better to have your students evaluate whether claims are _true_ . And the only way to do that is to evaluate whether the claims are _justified_ or _well-supported_ or backed by _good reasons_ . Then you're in a position to know whether to _believe_ the claim or not. The terms 'fact' and 'opinion' need not come into it at all.
No! You had the right to create, so you also have the right to destroy. NOBODY has the right to interfere in either. When they try to guilt you with a moral argument remind them a rudely as possible you have the same right to choose and define your own. The biggest moral crime is telling others your morality must be theirs. this is by far more egregious. Religion and Yiddzness want need a steady supply of raw material to sustain their personal greed and domination.
Nothing can be objectively true. Things can't exist without something to percieve them. That experience can only be subjective to the being that experienced it. Even if observed that observation is subjective to the observer.
Very nice presentation - well done! However… I disagree with you that the distinction is merely a matter of intent - every argument, by definition, always argues for the truth of its conclusion - that, after all, is the whole purpose of an argument! So, the intent is always the same! The real distinction is in fact this… deductive arguments appeal to premises that are ACTUALLY TRUE, whereas inductive arguments appeal to premises that are only ever PROBABLY TRUE So, here’s my question… are you able to proffer a premise that is ACTUALLY TRUE? (Both your deductive examples fail the test for truth, rendering them in fact inductive) Since Truth (with a capital ‘T’) is beyond our reach (a ‘Blaue Blume’), I contend that the idea of a truly deductive argument, is nothing more than that - just an idea - nothing more…
I wanted to express my gratitude for the incredible video you created. Your explanation was clear, concise, and immensely helpful in preparing for my exam. Your dedication to providing quality content on RU-vid is truly commendable, and it’s people like you who make learning enjoyable and accessible for everyone. Keep up the fantastic work, and know that you’re making a significant impact on your audience’s lives. 👏🏽
The burden of proof is on the person who makes the assertion. Religious people make the claim that a god exists. It is therefore up to them to provide compelling proof. Since the claim, by its very nature, is unfalsifiable, it is laughable. A Flying Spaghetti Monster is as good as a reanimated god-man hybrid who came to save us from "sin."
@@LetsGetLogical This is a question that should have been answered the first time you stubbed your toe and shouted, "God bless/damn it!" I assume your level of intellectual honesty extends to the recognition of the fact that neither event occurred. At least with a Flying Spaghetti Monster, you can choose to believe that His Noodly Appendage intervened in favor of a continuing stalemate.
Another brother from another world, i had this type of master diagram for my students, except the cogent and not cogent. Thanks your graphics and explanations are flawless.
Humans have been to space. Humans have made teapots. Humans have left trash in space. Therefore, the existence of Russell's teapot is geometrically higher than any god.
