If you don't know who Trey is or what this post is about, start back at the Conversations with Trey Jadlow Index for an explanation.
This is a breakdown of my first video conversation with Trey Jadlow. Here is the embeded video.
Here is a link to watch the same video on YouTube.
Conversation with Trey Jadlow and Gavagai (part 1?)
Originally recorded Jan 2015. Because this is our first encounter, we spend the first 20 minutes or so getting to know each other. I provide a brief summary of that content directly below this paragraph. If you want to skip to the meat of the discussion, look beyond the bold header below "This is where the real exchange begins..." You will find parts of the exchange that I believe I got wrong or Trey made a valid point in pink text and parts where I believe I made a point, or when Trey left a point unanswered in red text.
The first few minutes are introduction. At about the 2 minute mark, Trey recalls how we first encountered each other on another one of my videos where I was either discussing or directly engaging with another YouTube apologist named John Laun. This is of interest to me because I had forgotten exactly how Trey and I first encountered one another.
At around the 15 minute mark, I remark that it is my belief that presuppositionalist apologists and young earth creationists do more harm than good toward their goal of convincing young Christians and protecting them from doubt when they enter the realm of secular education. Trey reveals that he is a young earth creationist. Trey's position is that he cannot be consistent in his beliefs and accept evolution. I provide the explanation that I embraced (as an adult Christian) as to navigating the Genesis account of creation with the scientific evidence and account of the rise of human kind and history of life. At around the 20 minute mark, Trey explains that he's "too rational" to accept that kind of explanation. Trey provides his account of why (from a theological perspective) Adam and Eve have to be literally specially created. According to Trey, as soon as you accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis as allegorical, Christianity doesn't make any sense. I'm fine with that and don't raise any objections. I have no dog in the fight of preserving the theological commitments Trey is worried will be offended or violated if facts and evidence show Genesis to be myth.
This is where the real exchange begins...
At 21 minutes, Trey explains why he believes Darwinian evolution is silly from a rational perspective. He claims you can't have "purpose without a purposer." Trey asserts that evolution "values existence as a goal". Trey goes on to assert that value cannot arise from things that do not possess value (no explanation as to why). He endeavors to support this assertion by stating that every law we pass is intended to preserve existence. He asserts that this is a violation of the law of identity.
This is my first exposure to this argument. Admittedly, I am not sure I fully grasped the nature of Trey's objection here. In my response, I seem to think that he is assuming overarching purpose imbued in the universe. That may be true, but it isn't necessary for his point. I guess it never occurred to me that someone would think it is impossible for purpose to arise from causes that have no purpose in and of themselves. Why would that be a problem? Trey thinks there is a logical contradiction inherent in this. We will delve into that assumption more deeply into this later and in future exchanges.
I point out here that we, as individuals possess value that has arisen through the process of evolution. Inclinations within an individual that help it to survive and pass on its genes to future generations get passed on. Those tendencies and inclinations that do not contribute to survival and breeding do not get passed on. The will to live is a powerful development in the evolution of life that lends itself to perpetuating the species. I point out that not all living organisms possess a will to live; plants. Plants do not possess the capacity to think, they do not have a will, but they have other biological mechanisms that help them to pass on their genes to their decedents.
At 23:30 Trey argues that "Darwin is so teleological with his language". This begins a lengthy Gish gallop. He goes on to argue that the language that is used by biologists betrays the "fact" that evolution has a goal in spite of their insistence that it does not have a goal. For further support of this argument, Trey points to the subtitle of Darwin's Origin of the Species; Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. "The title of Darwin's work is laden with teleological language. It's like, don't tell me something makes itself before it exists." Trey asserts that it was "sexy" in Darwin's time to believe that spontaneous generation was possible, but today we know that life cannot come from nonliving matter. That, Trey asserts, is the reason that Darwinian evolution got traction in our culture. "You can't have creation without a creator. It's just silly."
I have to say here that at this point, Trey has thrown out so much bizarre and unconnected nonsense, that it throws me for a loop. Where to begin to untangle the mess he has spewed?
I begin by pointing out that the fact that evolution perpetuates the genetic lines of the organisms that survive long enough to reproduce is comparable to the fact that gravity affects water causing it to flow from high elevation to low elevation. That's just what happens. Water doesn't value low elevation. Gravity doesn't value water being at a lower elevation. It's just the fact that gravity affects water in this way. I also point to the fact that there are now software products that are used in engineering that employ an evolutionary model in order to find solutions and efficiencies in design. The software allows us to select for certain properties specifically (like efficiency), but in nature, the only selection criteria is whatever survives long enough to reproduce.
Trey asks if the program is a product of purpose?
I answer yes. We utilize this model of change and selection toward a specific end. We breed dogs by selecting for certain traits. The selection in nature doesn't care about a dog with a snub nose. All that matters in natural selection is survival for enough time to pass on genes. That's what happens when you let the system play out.
Trey asks "So the system is programmed, right? We have replicating DNA for the purpose of survival? It's programmed to do that, right?"
Me: No. DNA replicates because that's what it does, just like water flowing from high elevation to low elevation. Is water programmed?
28 minute mark
Trey: No. But DNA is programmed and has information in it that is for the purpose of survival. And we as sentient creatures are purposive, and purpose cannot by definition come about accidentally.
Me: I don't see that purpose is a relevant term.
Trey: I has to be. Did you purpose to have a hangout?
Me: Yes. But I'm an agent acting on the world.
Trey: Ok, so you have purpose then.
Me: Right.
Trey: Did that purpose happen accidentally?
Me: No. [I would not answer the same way now given my understanding of Trey's argument.]
Trey: So you've got to have an objective purposer in order for there to be any purpose whatsoever, right?
Me: Yes, but you're smuggling the concept of purpose into a natural process.
Trey: [laughing] Are you part of a natural process.
Me: I'm subject to some natural processes.
Here Trey gets the giggles here and reflects on a previous hangout he had with Alex Botten. We then change subjects. Looking back at this now, I think I was somewhat shocked that anyone would find these arguments compelling in any way. As such I ask Trey what it was that first convinced him that Christianity was true.
Trey gives a testimonial. The short version of it was that he had a drinking problem as a teen, he got to a point where he was not enjoying drinking. He appealed to the god he already believe existed to help him not want to drink. He felt that the desire to drink had left him, so he decided to test it by having 2 beers with his friends. Drinking the beers made him feel bad. After that, he learned a bunch of theology ...the right kind of theology. Then Trey lived happily ever after.
I give Trey a confidence scale from 0-10 where 1 is complete doubt and 10 is no doubt and there is no way he could be wrong about his god belief.
Trey applies the scale in a slightly different way saying he was at a 0 meaning that he is open to the idea that he could be wrong about everything he thinks he knows (having spent the amount of time I have now spent interacting with Trey, I have serious doubts that this is an honest assessment of his own position, but that is beside the point). Trey suggests that it would be very difficult and, given that his argument is an "analytic argument" you would have to jettison rationality to reject it. [I would like to point out that there is no such thing as an analytic argument. There are deductive arguments and inductive arguments. Analytic argument sounds like it would be a term, but it isn't.]
38:51
I ask Trey to present his argument for the existence of a god.
Trey: It's a basic Thomistic cosmological argument. It's really simple. Things don't make themselves before they exist. I have 2 basic presuppositions; basic reliability of sense perception and the law of non-contradiction. It's even a scientific argument.
1. I realize that I exist.
2. I realize that I am not self-existent (I was born).
> Therefore something must exist with the attribute of self-existence.
"Not only have I never lost the argument, I've never had a serious challenge."
Me: Would you ever accept a cosmological argument for the existence of some other thing like a ghost?
Trey: No, because you don't have one. The difference is that you're making up a hypothetical and I am coming with the evidence of my argument. [This is a dodge.]
Me: An argument is not evidence. [I have since had my mind changed about this. I don't think an argument is the best evidence when talking about whether something exists. But arguments can serve as evidence to think that certain things are true.]
Trey: My existence is scientific evidence.
Me: You exist.
Trey: Am I self-existent?
Me: No.
Trey: Then if the law of non-contradiction is true, then there must be something that is personal because we are personal. And there must be something that has the capacity to exist without being dependent.
Me: That doesn't follow.
Trey: [Laughing] How does it not follow?! This gets to the point where I just crack up now because people are just grasping at straws.
Me: Is my dog self-existent?
Trey: No.
Me: Does it then follow that there is a self-existent dog somewhere out there?
Trey: It could be a dog I suppose. We would have to keep thinking it through.
Me: I don't see that your conclusion follows from your premises. I don't see any reason to think that there is a self-existent cat or dog or fish or a self-existent person.
42:55
Trey: What then is the justification for your existence?
Me: Why do I need a logical justification for my existence? [Trey laughing] I have an empirical justification.
Trey: Empiricism is based on the law of non-contradiction. One half of the scientific method is deduction. And you also have philosophical presupposition that underlies that. Extensive quote to follow.
"This is the problem with science today is that they have thrown metaphysics out of the window and the come up with these goofy statements like Stephen Hawking talking about everything coming from nothing because gravity exists or Lawrence Krause with his equivocation tricks that he plays with what nothing is. They play these silly games. I'm not a cosmologist. I'm just a tooth maker! But I listen to this stuff and I can analyze their arguments and I just say it's foolishness."
Me: Krause and company have said things in the past that aren't necessarily philosophically sound, but it doesn't much matter [in the context of this conversation].
Trey: I like R.C. Sproul. He has an overview of western philosophy called, The Consequences of Ideas. Sproul can make unity from diversity like nobody I've seen. Kant said made a list of things that he said you can't know, which he argued belong in the noumenal realm (as opposed to the phenomenal realm). Modern philosophy is divided into pre-kantian and post kantian, but I think [translation Sproul told Trey to think this] that Kant made some serious mistakes. I want to go back and address the problems of Kant's thinking. We need to reunite philosophy and science.
46:18
Me: I agree that science needs philosophy. I do not agree that you can use an "analytic argument" to prove that something exists. Scientists used mathematics and theory to suggest that a sub atomic "Higgs-Boson" particle must exist. That might give you reason to believe that there is some "thing" that exists, but it doesn't tell you that it is a person.
Trey: Are you a person?
Me: I am a person.
Trey: Can something transmit a property that it does not contain itself?
Me: Sure.
Trey: We're talking about mutually exclusive properties. Impersonal material can purpose, purpose into existence. That's what you have to rely on with your perspective. I say that violates the law of identity.
Me: You're asserting purpose with no foundation. We have purpose that we determine.
Trey: And we're contingent right?
Me: Yes.
Trey: Contingency cannot create something before it exists, right?
Me: [puzzled by why Trey keeps repeating this bizarre trope] Anything we create is post existence.
Trey: Right. So we could not have created purpose before we existed, right?
Me: No. But once we exist, we determine the purpose for our existence that we desire. It's an ongoing process. My purpose in life now is different than it was when I was a believer.
Trey: We're not talking about the type of purpose. It's an on and off switch. The off cannot give rise to the on.
Me: I don't think that's the way things work.
Trey: Because you don't like it. You can't rationally justify it.
Me: It has nothing to do with what I like. It has to do with what I observe. There are people who live aimless lives who don't seem to have any purpose or direction.
Trey: That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the actual existence of purpose. I'm addressing the fact that purpose exists.
Me: We are the ones who give purpose in the world. There is a dog hair on the floor next to me. What is the purpose of that dog hair on the floor?
Trey: Your whole world centers around existence. So if that dog hair was going to cause death by being in your house for more than 30 minutes, the reason for getting rid of it would be to survive.
Me: Existence is not my purpose.
Trey: Sure it is. Every decision you make is for the purpose of existence.
Me: No. [I laugh] If my existence comes to a point where it is unpleasant in the extreme and not likely to improve, or if I know for a fact that it's going to sustain that level of discomfort or get worse, I would willingly end my existence and not cling to it. Existence with extensive suffering is not interesting to me.
Trey: That's only because you gave up, right?
Me: No. It's because that's not what I want.
Trey: If you had hope that you could have existence without suffering, would you continue to exist?
Me: Maybe. I don't know that I would want to exist for eternity even if it was just existence itself that doesn't hold a particular interest for me.
Trey: Why don't you kill yourself right now?
Me: I'm happy and I find life interesting and fulfilling right now. If I was Job, lost my whole family, and health, and everything I had worked for, I don't think I would be interested in existing anymore.
Trey: Because you lost hope, right?
Me: Sure.
Trey: Every single law we pass in society is for the purpose of promoting existence. Would you agree?
Me: No.
Trey: Can you give me an example?
Me: Death with dignity laws.
Trey: Point taken. That is an example of a giving up on existence. What if Oregon passed a law that said that perfectly healthy people should kill themselves with no reason whatsoever?
Me: We don't generally pass laws that say "People should do X", do we?
Trey: Sure we do. People should not run red lights.
Me: The law says things are illegal, in other words, you may not; not that you should.
Trey: I don't see the difference in the context of our conversation. Consider this. Your best friend is discouraged because his girlfriend left him. He wants to take his life. What is your counsel to him?
Me: I would discourage him from taking his life, especially for something like a girlfriend. I will grant that existence is important to us, but it's not the pinnacle.
Trey: No, it's everything! The only reason you embrace suicide is because you gave up.
Me: If that's the case, then there is something beyond existence that is important to us, right?
Trey: That's why you give up. You're convinced that there's not.
Me: It's that thing beyond existence, our level of comfort and satisfaction with life... I don't advocate ending your life, certainly when there is any possibility that your situation might improve. We all go through dark phases.
Trey: You're agreeing with me. That's right.
Me: I think it's important. I certainly value existence, but again, there is something beyond mere existence. For example, if I was in an eternal existence where there was no change everything was always the same, that would not interest me.
Trey: I'm not just talking about existence. I'm talking about existence with fullness. Jesus said "I have come that you might have life abundantly." What we're all searching for is significance. When I say existence, I mean significant existence. Adam and Eve were ashamed. They lost their significance. [Trey is equivocating here. He is sliding around in term definitions.]
We exchange some banter about nakedness and jest about whether we don't go to work naked because of sin or because of cultural convention and then we end the hangout.
_________________________________________________
After thoughts: This was my first real exposure to Trey. Reviewing this conversation in detail a few years later shows me why Trey loves to do hangouts rather than putting his argument into written form. He loves to go on lengthy rants where he lays out a variety of assertions, some of which are connected and some which are not. He throws in jargon and uses words in non-standard ways. All of this is difficult to put a finger on, especially on a first encounter. I will admit that this wasn't my best interaction with Trey. Even so, I believe I pointed out some significant problems with his position.
One of the big missed opportunities that I wish I would have spotted in hindsight is in regard to Trey's assertion that DNA is programmed for survival. It would have been good to point out that even among the existing species we have today, a majority of individuals die before they reach the age of procreation. In humans, it is estimated that some 60% of fertilized eggs pass through without ever developing into fetuses. Many animals produce huge numbers of offspring, the vast majority of which die before they are able to reproduce. And additionally, there are millions of species that have gone extinct. If DNA is programmed to survive, why all the failure?
Also, Darwinian evolution is at its base just a tautology. The individuals that survive and reproduce and the ones that survive to reproduce. Those are the individuals that pass on their genetic information. How could it possibly be other than that? What is the alternative? I would love to put this to Trey someday.
One final thought. The biggest hangup in Trey's argument that I did point out in this discussion is that his conclusion does not follow from the premises. Here is the argument as he articulated it in this conversation once more.
1. I realize that I exist.
2. I realize that I am not self-existent (I was born).
> Therefore something must exist with the attribute of self-existence.
Trey asked "why doesn't that follow?" I didn't get around to answering that question in this hangout, but here are the reasons.
1. There are alternative possibilities that Trey has not managed to exclude. He is pointing to one possible solution of several; an infinite chain of contingent things, numerous things that are self-existent, or maybe "nothing" is inherently an unstable status in space/time and it always produces matter. Before Trey can conclusively say that his answer is the solution, he must exclude all those alternatives and there may be others.
2. Before his solution is viable, he needs to demonstrate that it is possible that a thing like that exists. Trey scoffs at Krause's definition of nothing. Trey wants to say that nothing is not possible. Krause has answered that criticism by saying that his definition of nothing is as close to a philosophical meaning of nothing that can possibly obtain in the universe. Trey doesn't worry at all about the possibility of his self-existent entity. Nor does he bother to provide any evidence or argumentation that such an entity actually exists. This is sloppy at best. The reason Trey does not bother with these issues is that his conclusion is the point at which he begins. The rest is just jumping through hoops to find a way that sounds good enough to comfort people who already believe.
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This is a breakdown of my first video conversation with Trey Jadlow. Here is the embeded video.
Here is a link to watch the same video on YouTube.
Conversation with Trey Jadlow and Gavagai (part 1?)
Originally recorded Jan 2015. Because this is our first encounter, we spend the first 20 minutes or so getting to know each other. I provide a brief summary of that content directly below this paragraph. If you want to skip to the meat of the discussion, look beyond the bold header below "This is where the real exchange begins..." You will find parts of the exchange that I believe I got wrong or Trey made a valid point in pink text and parts where I believe I made a point, or when Trey left a point unanswered in red text.
The first few minutes are introduction. At about the 2 minute mark, Trey recalls how we first encountered each other on another one of my videos where I was either discussing or directly engaging with another YouTube apologist named John Laun. This is of interest to me because I had forgotten exactly how Trey and I first encountered one another.
At around the 15 minute mark, I remark that it is my belief that presuppositionalist apologists and young earth creationists do more harm than good toward their goal of convincing young Christians and protecting them from doubt when they enter the realm of secular education. Trey reveals that he is a young earth creationist. Trey's position is that he cannot be consistent in his beliefs and accept evolution. I provide the explanation that I embraced (as an adult Christian) as to navigating the Genesis account of creation with the scientific evidence and account of the rise of human kind and history of life. At around the 20 minute mark, Trey explains that he's "too rational" to accept that kind of explanation. Trey provides his account of why (from a theological perspective) Adam and Eve have to be literally specially created. According to Trey, as soon as you accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis as allegorical, Christianity doesn't make any sense. I'm fine with that and don't raise any objections. I have no dog in the fight of preserving the theological commitments Trey is worried will be offended or violated if facts and evidence show Genesis to be myth.
This is where the real exchange begins...
At 21 minutes, Trey explains why he believes Darwinian evolution is silly from a rational perspective. He claims you can't have "purpose without a purposer." Trey asserts that evolution "values existence as a goal". Trey goes on to assert that value cannot arise from things that do not possess value (no explanation as to why). He endeavors to support this assertion by stating that every law we pass is intended to preserve existence. He asserts that this is a violation of the law of identity.
This is my first exposure to this argument. Admittedly, I am not sure I fully grasped the nature of Trey's objection here. In my response, I seem to think that he is assuming overarching purpose imbued in the universe. That may be true, but it isn't necessary for his point. I guess it never occurred to me that someone would think it is impossible for purpose to arise from causes that have no purpose in and of themselves. Why would that be a problem? Trey thinks there is a logical contradiction inherent in this. We will delve into that assumption more deeply into this later and in future exchanges.
I point out here that we, as individuals possess value that has arisen through the process of evolution. Inclinations within an individual that help it to survive and pass on its genes to future generations get passed on. Those tendencies and inclinations that do not contribute to survival and breeding do not get passed on. The will to live is a powerful development in the evolution of life that lends itself to perpetuating the species. I point out that not all living organisms possess a will to live; plants. Plants do not possess the capacity to think, they do not have a will, but they have other biological mechanisms that help them to pass on their genes to their decedents.
At 23:30 Trey argues that "Darwin is so teleological with his language". This begins a lengthy Gish gallop. He goes on to argue that the language that is used by biologists betrays the "fact" that evolution has a goal in spite of their insistence that it does not have a goal. For further support of this argument, Trey points to the subtitle of Darwin's Origin of the Species; Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. "The title of Darwin's work is laden with teleological language. It's like, don't tell me something makes itself before it exists." Trey asserts that it was "sexy" in Darwin's time to believe that spontaneous generation was possible, but today we know that life cannot come from nonliving matter. That, Trey asserts, is the reason that Darwinian evolution got traction in our culture. "You can't have creation without a creator. It's just silly."
I have to say here that at this point, Trey has thrown out so much bizarre and unconnected nonsense, that it throws me for a loop. Where to begin to untangle the mess he has spewed?
I begin by pointing out that the fact that evolution perpetuates the genetic lines of the organisms that survive long enough to reproduce is comparable to the fact that gravity affects water causing it to flow from high elevation to low elevation. That's just what happens. Water doesn't value low elevation. Gravity doesn't value water being at a lower elevation. It's just the fact that gravity affects water in this way. I also point to the fact that there are now software products that are used in engineering that employ an evolutionary model in order to find solutions and efficiencies in design. The software allows us to select for certain properties specifically (like efficiency), but in nature, the only selection criteria is whatever survives long enough to reproduce.
Trey asks if the program is a product of purpose?
I answer yes. We utilize this model of change and selection toward a specific end. We breed dogs by selecting for certain traits. The selection in nature doesn't care about a dog with a snub nose. All that matters in natural selection is survival for enough time to pass on genes. That's what happens when you let the system play out.
Trey asks "So the system is programmed, right? We have replicating DNA for the purpose of survival? It's programmed to do that, right?"
Me: No. DNA replicates because that's what it does, just like water flowing from high elevation to low elevation. Is water programmed?
28 minute mark
Trey: No. But DNA is programmed and has information in it that is for the purpose of survival. And we as sentient creatures are purposive, and purpose cannot by definition come about accidentally.
Me: I don't see that purpose is a relevant term.
Trey: I has to be. Did you purpose to have a hangout?
Me: Yes. But I'm an agent acting on the world.
Trey: Ok, so you have purpose then.
Me: Right.
Trey: Did that purpose happen accidentally?
Me: No. [I would not answer the same way now given my understanding of Trey's argument.]
Trey: So you've got to have an objective purposer in order for there to be any purpose whatsoever, right?
Me: Yes, but you're smuggling the concept of purpose into a natural process.
Trey: [laughing] Are you part of a natural process.
Me: I'm subject to some natural processes.
Here Trey gets the giggles here and reflects on a previous hangout he had with Alex Botten. We then change subjects. Looking back at this now, I think I was somewhat shocked that anyone would find these arguments compelling in any way. As such I ask Trey what it was that first convinced him that Christianity was true.
Trey gives a testimonial. The short version of it was that he had a drinking problem as a teen, he got to a point where he was not enjoying drinking. He appealed to the god he already believe existed to help him not want to drink. He felt that the desire to drink had left him, so he decided to test it by having 2 beers with his friends. Drinking the beers made him feel bad. After that, he learned a bunch of theology ...the right kind of theology. Then Trey lived happily ever after.
I give Trey a confidence scale from 0-10 where 1 is complete doubt and 10 is no doubt and there is no way he could be wrong about his god belief.
Trey applies the scale in a slightly different way saying he was at a 0 meaning that he is open to the idea that he could be wrong about everything he thinks he knows (having spent the amount of time I have now spent interacting with Trey, I have serious doubts that this is an honest assessment of his own position, but that is beside the point). Trey suggests that it would be very difficult and, given that his argument is an "analytic argument" you would have to jettison rationality to reject it. [I would like to point out that there is no such thing as an analytic argument. There are deductive arguments and inductive arguments. Analytic argument sounds like it would be a term, but it isn't.]
38:51
I ask Trey to present his argument for the existence of a god.
Trey: It's a basic Thomistic cosmological argument. It's really simple. Things don't make themselves before they exist. I have 2 basic presuppositions; basic reliability of sense perception and the law of non-contradiction. It's even a scientific argument.
1. I realize that I exist.
2. I realize that I am not self-existent (I was born).
> Therefore something must exist with the attribute of self-existence.
"Not only have I never lost the argument, I've never had a serious challenge."
Me: Would you ever accept a cosmological argument for the existence of some other thing like a ghost?
Trey: No, because you don't have one. The difference is that you're making up a hypothetical and I am coming with the evidence of my argument. [This is a dodge.]
Me: An argument is not evidence. [I have since had my mind changed about this. I don't think an argument is the best evidence when talking about whether something exists. But arguments can serve as evidence to think that certain things are true.]
Trey: My existence is scientific evidence.
Me: You exist.
Trey: Am I self-existent?
Me: No.
Trey: Then if the law of non-contradiction is true, then there must be something that is personal because we are personal. And there must be something that has the capacity to exist without being dependent.
Me: That doesn't follow.
Trey: [Laughing] How does it not follow?! This gets to the point where I just crack up now because people are just grasping at straws.
Me: Is my dog self-existent?
Trey: No.
Me: Does it then follow that there is a self-existent dog somewhere out there?
Trey: It could be a dog I suppose. We would have to keep thinking it through.
Me: I don't see that your conclusion follows from your premises. I don't see any reason to think that there is a self-existent cat or dog or fish or a self-existent person.
42:55
Trey: What then is the justification for your existence?
Me: Why do I need a logical justification for my existence? [Trey laughing] I have an empirical justification.
Trey: Empiricism is based on the law of non-contradiction. One half of the scientific method is deduction. And you also have philosophical presupposition that underlies that. Extensive quote to follow.
"This is the problem with science today is that they have thrown metaphysics out of the window and the come up with these goofy statements like Stephen Hawking talking about everything coming from nothing because gravity exists or Lawrence Krause with his equivocation tricks that he plays with what nothing is. They play these silly games. I'm not a cosmologist. I'm just a tooth maker! But I listen to this stuff and I can analyze their arguments and I just say it's foolishness."
Me: Krause and company have said things in the past that aren't necessarily philosophically sound, but it doesn't much matter [in the context of this conversation].
Trey: I like R.C. Sproul. He has an overview of western philosophy called, The Consequences of Ideas. Sproul can make unity from diversity like nobody I've seen. Kant said made a list of things that he said you can't know, which he argued belong in the noumenal realm (as opposed to the phenomenal realm). Modern philosophy is divided into pre-kantian and post kantian, but I think [translation Sproul told Trey to think this] that Kant made some serious mistakes. I want to go back and address the problems of Kant's thinking. We need to reunite philosophy and science.
46:18
Me: I agree that science needs philosophy. I do not agree that you can use an "analytic argument" to prove that something exists. Scientists used mathematics and theory to suggest that a sub atomic "Higgs-Boson" particle must exist. That might give you reason to believe that there is some "thing" that exists, but it doesn't tell you that it is a person.
Trey: Are you a person?
Me: I am a person.
Trey: Can something transmit a property that it does not contain itself?
Me: Sure.
Trey: We're talking about mutually exclusive properties. Impersonal material can purpose, purpose into existence. That's what you have to rely on with your perspective. I say that violates the law of identity.
Me: You're asserting purpose with no foundation. We have purpose that we determine.
Trey: And we're contingent right?
Me: Yes.
Trey: Contingency cannot create something before it exists, right?
Me: [puzzled by why Trey keeps repeating this bizarre trope] Anything we create is post existence.
Trey: Right. So we could not have created purpose before we existed, right?
Me: No. But once we exist, we determine the purpose for our existence that we desire. It's an ongoing process. My purpose in life now is different than it was when I was a believer.
Trey: We're not talking about the type of purpose. It's an on and off switch. The off cannot give rise to the on.
Me: I don't think that's the way things work.
Trey: Because you don't like it. You can't rationally justify it.
Me: It has nothing to do with what I like. It has to do with what I observe. There are people who live aimless lives who don't seem to have any purpose or direction.
Trey: That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the actual existence of purpose. I'm addressing the fact that purpose exists.
Me: We are the ones who give purpose in the world. There is a dog hair on the floor next to me. What is the purpose of that dog hair on the floor?
Trey: Your whole world centers around existence. So if that dog hair was going to cause death by being in your house for more than 30 minutes, the reason for getting rid of it would be to survive.
Me: Existence is not my purpose.
Trey: Sure it is. Every decision you make is for the purpose of existence.
Me: No. [I laugh] If my existence comes to a point where it is unpleasant in the extreme and not likely to improve, or if I know for a fact that it's going to sustain that level of discomfort or get worse, I would willingly end my existence and not cling to it. Existence with extensive suffering is not interesting to me.
Trey: That's only because you gave up, right?
Me: No. It's because that's not what I want.
Trey: If you had hope that you could have existence without suffering, would you continue to exist?
Me: Maybe. I don't know that I would want to exist for eternity even if it was just existence itself that doesn't hold a particular interest for me.
Trey: Why don't you kill yourself right now?
Me: I'm happy and I find life interesting and fulfilling right now. If I was Job, lost my whole family, and health, and everything I had worked for, I don't think I would be interested in existing anymore.
Trey: Because you lost hope, right?
Me: Sure.
Trey: Every single law we pass in society is for the purpose of promoting existence. Would you agree?
Me: No.
Trey: Can you give me an example?
Me: Death with dignity laws.
Trey: Point taken. That is an example of a giving up on existence. What if Oregon passed a law that said that perfectly healthy people should kill themselves with no reason whatsoever?
Me: We don't generally pass laws that say "People should do X", do we?
Trey: Sure we do. People should not run red lights.
Me: The law says things are illegal, in other words, you may not; not that you should.
Trey: I don't see the difference in the context of our conversation. Consider this. Your best friend is discouraged because his girlfriend left him. He wants to take his life. What is your counsel to him?
Me: I would discourage him from taking his life, especially for something like a girlfriend. I will grant that existence is important to us, but it's not the pinnacle.
Trey: No, it's everything! The only reason you embrace suicide is because you gave up.
Me: If that's the case, then there is something beyond existence that is important to us, right?
Trey: That's why you give up. You're convinced that there's not.
Me: It's that thing beyond existence, our level of comfort and satisfaction with life... I don't advocate ending your life, certainly when there is any possibility that your situation might improve. We all go through dark phases.
Trey: You're agreeing with me. That's right.
Me: I think it's important. I certainly value existence, but again, there is something beyond mere existence. For example, if I was in an eternal existence where there was no change everything was always the same, that would not interest me.
Trey: I'm not just talking about existence. I'm talking about existence with fullness. Jesus said "I have come that you might have life abundantly." What we're all searching for is significance. When I say existence, I mean significant existence. Adam and Eve were ashamed. They lost their significance. [Trey is equivocating here. He is sliding around in term definitions.]
We exchange some banter about nakedness and jest about whether we don't go to work naked because of sin or because of cultural convention and then we end the hangout.
_________________________________________________
After thoughts: This was my first real exposure to Trey. Reviewing this conversation in detail a few years later shows me why Trey loves to do hangouts rather than putting his argument into written form. He loves to go on lengthy rants where he lays out a variety of assertions, some of which are connected and some which are not. He throws in jargon and uses words in non-standard ways. All of this is difficult to put a finger on, especially on a first encounter. I will admit that this wasn't my best interaction with Trey. Even so, I believe I pointed out some significant problems with his position.
One of the big missed opportunities that I wish I would have spotted in hindsight is in regard to Trey's assertion that DNA is programmed for survival. It would have been good to point out that even among the existing species we have today, a majority of individuals die before they reach the age of procreation. In humans, it is estimated that some 60% of fertilized eggs pass through without ever developing into fetuses. Many animals produce huge numbers of offspring, the vast majority of which die before they are able to reproduce. And additionally, there are millions of species that have gone extinct. If DNA is programmed to survive, why all the failure?
Also, Darwinian evolution is at its base just a tautology. The individuals that survive and reproduce and the ones that survive to reproduce. Those are the individuals that pass on their genetic information. How could it possibly be other than that? What is the alternative? I would love to put this to Trey someday.
One final thought. The biggest hangup in Trey's argument that I did point out in this discussion is that his conclusion does not follow from the premises. Here is the argument as he articulated it in this conversation once more.
1. I realize that I exist.
2. I realize that I am not self-existent (I was born).
> Therefore something must exist with the attribute of self-existence.
Trey asked "why doesn't that follow?" I didn't get around to answering that question in this hangout, but here are the reasons.
1. There are alternative possibilities that Trey has not managed to exclude. He is pointing to one possible solution of several; an infinite chain of contingent things, numerous things that are self-existent, or maybe "nothing" is inherently an unstable status in space/time and it always produces matter. Before Trey can conclusively say that his answer is the solution, he must exclude all those alternatives and there may be others.
2. Before his solution is viable, he needs to demonstrate that it is possible that a thing like that exists. Trey scoffs at Krause's definition of nothing. Trey wants to say that nothing is not possible. Krause has answered that criticism by saying that his definition of nothing is as close to a philosophical meaning of nothing that can possibly obtain in the universe. Trey doesn't worry at all about the possibility of his self-existent entity. Nor does he bother to provide any evidence or argumentation that such an entity actually exists. This is sloppy at best. The reason Trey does not bother with these issues is that his conclusion is the point at which he begins. The rest is just jumping through hoops to find a way that sounds good enough to comfort people who already believe.
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