Transcription
positing the abstract realm as fundamental is causally inadequate. And what one would gain from what I'm proposing would be a solution to these three mysteries. It would give explanatory depth to your worldview.
The clip that we're about to watch features a conversation between William Lane Craig and Sir Roger Penrose. If you're not familiar with Sir Roger Penrose, he is an absolute legend in the scientific realm, specifically in cosmology. He worked alongside with Steven Hawking to develop what is called the Penrose-Hawking Singularity theorems. Let's dive in, and then I'll give you guys some of my thoughts on the back end.
There's the physical world, you know, things like tables and so on, and what we think of as as the physical world, although that's not quite clear when we go deeply into what's going on, what that really means. But never mind about that. The physical world. And then there's the mental world. That's our experiences, consciousness, um, feelings about things, so on. And then there's what you call the abstract world. I would be more specific about that. It's a mathematical abstraction. So we're thinking about, um, how it is that, well, let me secondly explain the mysteries you see ahead.
Mystery number one is the fact that this world of physics seems to depend so extraordinarily precisely. And the more we explore it, the more precise we see this is. Is this what Eugene Wigner famously spoke of as the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics? It just seems to be an extraordinarily remarkable fact that mathematics, it's the, the universe seems to be written in that language, and that we can discover it. That's exactly it, yes. It just shows that the mathematical theories, when we really understand them, and when, when we get them right, they're still not quite right, that's clear. Uh, but nevertheless, the precision is extraordinary. So that's mystery number one.
Mystery number two is how is it that conscious experience can arise when the circumstances seem to be right? Now, it doesn't seem to be, probably, I can't, I'm just guessing, but I don't think it's present in that glass or in the water in the glass. But nevertheless, it seems to come about with certainly with human beings, and I think with other animals. I don't think it's unique to human beings. Certain brain structures somehow seem to give rise to to this conscious. And there is a genuine mystery, I think. And it's not just a matter of, you know, complicated computations. There's something much more subtle going on. So that's mystery number two.
And mystery number three is our ability to use our conscious understanding to comprehend mathematics and these very, uh, extraordinary, uh, self-consistent but deep ideas which are very far from our experiences. So that's the, how we, how we comprehend mathematics, if you like. And in that sense, you, you believe that mathematics, for instance, is discovered rather than invented by us? Uh, that sense, it exists independently of us, right? Yes. And, and, and one of those great mysteries, as you say, is the fact that we can access it. Seems itself a remarkable feat of, of reality. That's right. 'Cause it's so indirectly connected with our, our existence and what, you know, how we get along in the world and how natural selection has helped us to to survive and so on. It's, it's really hard to see how these things come about from from that.
Well, there's, there's three big mysteries there to kick us off with. Bill, what's your response to some of these? Huge. Well, I want to say first and foremost that one of the most exciting things about, uh, Roger's thinking is this deep metaphysical vision of reality that he has. It's in such contrast to the sort of positivistic and verificationist, "all empirical questions are meaningless." Roger is engaged in questions that are not simply physical or scientific. These are metaphysical questions. And I think that the fundamental issue that is raised by this tripartite metaphysics is the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the many. That is to say, what is the underlying unity of these three seemingly disparate realms of reality: the mental, the abstract, and the physical? Um, these realms of reality are so different, so causally unconnected, it seems that one wonders what is the underlying unity for all of these.
So how are these three realms related? For example, the mathematical abstract realm cannot be the source of the physical or conscious mental realm, because abstract objects, by definition, are causally effete. That's part of what it means to be an abstract object. The number seven, for example, has no effect upon anything. So the abstract realm cannot provide the source of unity. Could it be the physical realm that provides the source? Well, Roger's already mentioned the second mystery: how does the physical give rise to consciousness? Particularly intentionality. Intentionality is the "aboutness" of our mental states. I can think about my summer vacation. No physical object has intentionality. So the mental is difficult to derive from the physical. And the abstract, it seems to me, is impossible because the mathematical realm is characterized by necessity. These are logically necessary truths, and by its plenitude, they're infinite realms of mathematical objects. And the physical realm, by contrast, is contingent, uh, and therefore cannot ground these logical and mathematical truths. And it's plausibly finite as well. So the physical can't be the support.
Now, what about the mental? Could the mental be the source of these other two realms? Well, in mental causation, we do have the experience of the mental causing physical changes in the brain. I can will to get up or to speak. Um, similarly, many philosophers have thought that the abstract realm is not really a separate realm that exists by itself, but it, they are ideas in the mind of, of consciousness that they, uh, are the the result of intellection by a mind. Now, the problem is that no human mind could be the source of, of the abstract realm because of its plenitude and necessity, whereas we are contingent and finite. So what I want to invite Roger to comment on is why couldn't the mental realm include an infinite consciousness? That is to say, an omniscient mind which has created the physical realm and which is the source of the abstract mathematical realm. This would solve the problem of the one and the many and give you an underlying unity for this, um, tripartite metaphysic that you affirm. And, and what you've just described sounds suspiciously like God. Yes, it did sound suspiciously like that, yes.
Roger, what do you say to that? Well, you see, you're putting it as an interesting, uh, you're putting it in, in the mental world, if you like, whereas I tend to put it in, in the, in the, in the Platonic mathematical world, you see. That, I don't quite see why. I mean, how do you drive the precision, you see? Just a mental thing doesn't seem to me. But I, I don't quite see what it helps, if you like. I mean, you can postulate a, a supermental being or something. I mean, what does it have a mental existence without a physical one? Is that the idea? Yes. So that this mental, this, this mind, this omniscient mind has created a contingent physical realm and is the source of the conceptual realm as well. I can't quite see. Well, you could say that it contains all because it's so infinite that it contains the entire mathematical world in a sense. Um, but does it, where does it come from? What's it? Uh, well, it would have to be metaphysically necessary in order to be the source of, yes, broadly logically necessary mathematical truths. And I would say other sorts of truths, ethical truths that are plausibly necessary. Yes. It's very curious, you see, you have the mental world sort of being a necessary, right? And I have the mathematical world somehow being being a necessity because it's somehow truth. Yes. I appreciate the necessity, but the problem is that the abstract realm has no causal powers. These are causally effete objects that never come into contact with things physically. They can't move them or shove them or pull them. They exert no forces. They are not minds, and so they can't make decisions to cause things. They're not causal agents. So it seems to me that positing the abstract realm is fundamental is causally inadequate. And what one would gain from what I'm proposing would be a solution to these three mysteries. It would give explanatory depth to your worldview. I don't quite see how it explains anything. Um, I mean, does it? I mean, you're talking from a perspective of a religious person, and therefore one's thinking of this as somehow, I mean, specific religions are much more specific, right? And that's why I grimaced a bit when you said from a religious perspective. It's a philosophical perspective, but okay, I'm happier with that because then I, you see, this is what I have more trouble. If one's trying to make it specific in in certain directions as regards one religion or another. But if it's just such an abstract notion, it's not that I'm necessarily unhappy with it, except that I don't know what to do with it because it's, it's so vague.
Mary Lang, who is a philosopher of mathematics at the University of Liverpool, has said on Platonism: "The applicability of mathematics to the physical world is a happy coincidence, which just seems incredible." By contrast, we know that minds can design things. And the view that there is an omniscient, uh, mind who has designed the physical world on the mathematical blueprint that it had in mind is a very ancient perspective that goes back to Middle Platonism and people like Philo of Alexandria, who said that the intelligible world, the intelligible cosmos, exists first in the mind of the Logos, the, the divine intellect, and then is instantiated in the physical world, uh, by the Logos, who creates the world on this blueprint. And that seems to me to be, uh, a good solution to the one and the many problem. Mind is the most logical causal factor of the three to bring about the consciousness, to bring about the, the mathematical and logical truths, and to bring about the physical realm itself. But because that leads into the, the arena of religion or the arena of God, you can sort of feel that reservation, feel that hesitation, which I really think is a shame. And I think it points to the fact that in people's minds, there's such a clear divide between the philosophical realm or the sort of intellectual realm, and then the religious realm. We can't just stay here in this totally abstract realm as we're talking about about a mind that is the, you know, the source for everything else in the universe. At some point, the very logical next question to ask is, okay, so what do we do with this? And that really was what Penrose was saying as well. I don't know what to do with that. What's, how does that advance anything? How is that helpful or fruitful in any way to posit a mind as the unifying causal factor for these other two dimensions of reality, and really for the rest of reality itself? How is that helpful? And I would actually agree with him that if that was where everything stopped, it really wouldn't be that helpful. But where it becomes helpful is that it opens up a huge window into a second, and a third, and a fourth question: Has this mind revealed himself in any particular way to humanity? And is there a purpose for humanity? Did, does this mind have some intended purpose for humanity? And downstream from the concept of a basic meaning, meaning essential, fundamental mind, are all of these other questions that then tie into the big questions of philosophy: What are we for? Why are we here? Where are we going? These dots begin to connect in ways that are extremely relevant. And obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg or just the very first thing that could be said about this. But I do think establishing mind as the essential original component of reality is important because once that is established, the answers to so many of the other critical and huge questions about life and the human experience begin to make sense.
And if you're interested in those questions and the answers to those questions, that's what I'm attempting to tackle on this channel. Not everything could be covered in one video, but I'll give you guys one video here to sort of take the ball and move it forward to the next step. With that being said, thank you guys for watching, and I'll, I'll see you guys hopefully in this video or the next one. Thanks a lot. Bye.
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