Philosophers CALMLY DISCUSS whether God exists

0:00 Hey everyone, welcome back to Majesty of Reason. I'm Joe Schmidt and today I'm joined in person by Dr. Alexander Puce and Dr. Josh Rasmmanson. Um, thank you guys for joining me. Uh, let's start. You guys are writing a book right now on perfect existence. So, what is this book? Josh, how about you start us off? We will be writing it as soon as I hear back from a publisher. Okay. So, we're I'm just waiting. I'm just paused. Once I hear back from the publisher, I'll get this inspiration. But the goal of the book is to investigate the fundamental nature of reality and to develop motivation for what I call the perfect theory which is the theory that fundamental reality is perfect in a certain sense to be explored. What is that sense to be explored? Yeah. What is that sense to be explored? Alex, your

0:45 turn. My my preferred take is that uh there is an X such that for all P if P is a perfection X has P. How do you define perfection? Oh, I don't that's a that's an undefined primitive. Oh, you could say it's like a greatmaking property. Something that necessarily makes its possessor greater. What about this? Um it entails value but doesn't entail this value. That's kind that's probably a necessary condition. Yeah, it may not be sufficient but then it could have all those properties all the properties that entail value that any properties that entails this value. Yeah. But I mean then which still comes down to what the value is. Mhm. Right. Which can be liked for its own sake.

1:30 Okay. So we've got this perfect theory according to which there's this perfect being with all the perfections. That's a rough gloss at least. Um why should we accept this view? because Alexander Pruce it's see so we want a simple theory of the world of the most fundamental bits of the world here it is uh one quantifier um one conditional right how how informative that is though because like you know we want to maybe want to flush out what exactly the perfections are right well I'm thinking of of one of these videos that you came up with now correct me if I'm wrong you have it's sort parody idea. So it's like there is nothing. It's a very simple hypothesis. It has high predictive success because it like predicts

2:16 everything. Um so what you want to know is like how is the perfect theory better than the theory that there's nothing right? Because it can't just be that simple and has high predictive success. We need to say more more than that. So what I would say more is that um it has to be logically coherent. Um, it also needs to not predict things that we have good reason to think are false. And I think that's actually the sort of riskiest part of the perfect theory is that it does predict a lot of great things, including that the world should be structured in a way that's consistent with a perfect foundation. And this is where you might say it's not right because evil and suffering and these sorts of things. Um, so it does have that liability.

3:01 But the way to motivate it, I think, is to look at the predictive success and then see if um you know if if there's any evident reason to think that it predicts too much. So let's turn to Alison like what what are some of the predictive successes of this series? I don't think I think about it that way. I think I think I think of it as more explanatory successes than predictive successes. [Music] Um because I mean so so I I mean does it count as a prediction right if if on this theory something has um a non-tiny

3:47 probability and on the best alternatives has got a tiny probability well it's not exactly a prediction right but it's just you know so you could think are there going they're being intelligent beings you know if if the foundation is Perfect. Okay. There's an there there is some kind of decent chance of those beings on alternate theories. I I think that the chance is very very small. But it's not like I don't actually think that on the perfection theory, it's going to be very it's going to be likely that they're intelligent beings. At least intelligent beings other than the fundamental one or the fundamental one is a is an intelligent being. Um because maybe there's like some goods beyond intelligence that are really highly valuable or or or may and then there's

4:34 all these incommensurable goods like the good of there being just the perfect being which has like this great purity and cleanliness and and elegance and simplicity but alas it doesn't have us. So, so, so I wouldn't say it gives you like an overwhelmingly high probability or even one maybe bigger than a half, but it gives you one that's not astronomically small. Okay? And similarly probably for things like there being elegant laws of nature and stuff like that again gives you sort of decent chance to think these things might be true where on alternative pictures probably it's astronomically unlikely that things would behave the

5:20 same way everywhere. Yeah. Do you think there's something to the thought that um that kind of regularity is just so this is something like that Paul Draper argues that uh that kind of like regularity is just like intrinsically much more likely than uh random deviations at random points in time or whatever like maybe we can explain or the naturalists can just say like hey it's just uh intrinsically very likely that we'd see that and it's not uh a particularly good mark in favor of the perfect being theist theory that that you would predict it because it would just it's just very likely on either of you. Yeah, I don't think it is. Okay. Do I have a quick argument? I don't have a quick argument. We can get into the long arguments. Yeah. Do I have a long one? I think in my view, it's going to

6:07 depend on the kind of uniformity that you're talking about. If you're talking about some sort of just general regularity, maybe there's a way of specifying that so that it has certain kind of simplicity to it. Um, of course, the theory that there is a kind of general regularity or general order doesn't compete with theism, right? So, it's not a competing hypothesis, but I would grant the point that I wouldn't see it as giving, you know, a lot of evidence um, if it itself is sort of intrinsically not so unlikely. But then if you look at more specific regularities, maybe the kinds of regularities that allow there to be interacting conscious beings that can have conversations like this, um then then I don't see that there's a kind of intrinsic likelihood of that. In fact,

6:54 that seems strikingly specific and unlikely apart from a deeper explanation. Yeah, I mean I guess I do have the just intuition, right? Uh and this is one where actually maybe I should take back the small probability. Maybe sometimes it's just there's no probab meaning meaningful probability at all. Um so you you you have a thousand coins pop into existence x nilo for no cause at all. It seems to me very clear that it's not very likely that they're all facing the same

7:39 way. Now, there's two two ways that could be right. One reason it could be not very likely is because it's unlikely. The other way is it could be that it has no probability at all. But the claim that it has a high probability seems uh extremely implausible if they just pop into existence for no reason at all. Yeah. So maybe um maybe maybe you're pointing to the thought that like the we need some sort of underlying explanation that actually renders it intelligible or renders it much more likely that they would be uh uniform in that respect rather than just being disparate events that are independent of one another. Um and there's no deeper unifying account of why they would be uh all the same,

8:25 right? Okay. So, let's try. So, you do you guys talk about stage two of cosmological arguments in the book? Um just like bridging the gap as it were from like necessary foundation to God. Is that is that part of part of the book? You can kind of think of the whole book at a kind of stage two cosmological argument because we have a chapter uh I mean we have chapter outlines at this point um where we motivate the sort of foundation theory that there's a foundational reality um but in some ways in that chapter my vision for the chapter is that we are kind of saying for sake of argument we will motivate the foundation theory but we're kind of saying for sake of argument let's say there is a foundation what can we say about its fundamental nature and then the goal is to sort of explore the the theoretical advantage of the perfect

9:11 theory of the nature of the foundation and then you could think of all the chapters that are exploring this as a kind of unpacking of a stage two and what will row calls stage two cosmological argument. Do you want to go through the chapters as it were? So like the first chapter is a this is non pressure on my mind. Okay. Why why think what's yours? I think that there is a foundation to reality. Maybe I think there's a necessary foundation to reality. There's lots of reasons. What's your favorite reason? My favorite has always been the cosmological argument. I mean, everything contingent needs an explanation. The explanation has got to be something

9:57 necessary or pain of circularity. So there's something necessary. Okay, let's unpack this a little bit. So um that first premise that you know everything needs an explanation. Um why do why do you think we should accept or has an explanation or has an explanation? Right. Well, why why do you think we should accept that? for a variety of reasons but I think that the one I find most compelling is that without it we don't have um we cannot make any predictions if things can happen for no reason at all I I said earlier you could have two views on the coins right you could have the view that it's unlikely that they'll all point the same way or

10:44 you can have the view that there is no probability I think the no probability view is actually the correct one I think when things happen for no reason at all. There are no probabilities. Probabilities require something like chance. And chance is a chancey causation. And there is no causation. Nothing. It just pops into if it's contingent just pops into existence. You cannot make any predictions. As a result, you get a theory that undercuts any kind of empirical reasoning because it it doesn't generate probabilities for anything. Okay. Okay. So then in particular there'd be uh no probability assigned to let's say floods of photons just popping into existence right in my visual field and making it appear as if I'm talking

11:30 to you guys right now when in fact I'm not right or are bullsman brains popping into existence and me being one of them and all sorts of other things. Okay. So why Josh? Are you sympathetic to this argument? Do you have a I'm sympathetic to it. The only thing I would want to add here is that um sort of my my thought about even an argument for foundation won't even require yet that we say that the foundation has necessary existence. So I think it's actually a really important point that um you could run a structurally similar argument where the scope of explanation is purely dependent things. So for any for any purely dependent things plural there there's some deeper explanation of the of their existence. And then to avoid

12:16 circularity that's going to give you something non-dependent and foundational. Um now you can ask well why I think for any purely dependent things or some deeper explanation and there I think there are a variety of reasons that that um appeal to me. Um one of them would be the kind of skeptical scenario that would result if you don't have some kind of principle of explanation. At least what I would want and you've heard me say this is like other things being equal explain things as far as you can. So I would want some reason to think that some collection of dependent things is special and that has no explanation. Um without that I want to just treat the dependent things uniformly. That's my my my view. Yeah. So I'm wondering what what both of you guys might think about um a kind of

13:03 non-entitative explanation of there being contingent things. So like earlier on you like uh aduced some premise to the effect of if there is uh an explanation for there being uh contingent things then uh that explanation's got to be something which is necessary because otherwise we'd get some kind of circularity. We'd be appealing to the very contingent things in question. Um but it seems to me that uh that by itself doesn't like the mere denial of there being circularity in XY by itself doesn't license us to infer that uh um there's a necessary being specifically which does the explaining. All it licenses us to infer is that none of those contingent things do the explaining. Um but perhaps no necessary thing does the explaining either. Perhaps the explanation is as it were a non-entitative explanation. It doesn't cite the activity of some kind of being or some kind of reality. Um uh Eddie

13:51 Chen has um a paper where there's just like fundamental nomology. So it's like it is a law that such and such and that can potentially offer an explanation um uh explanations that are purely ideological uh rather than onlogical uh explanations in terms of structural constraints or by by appeal to metaphysical principles. There are lots of different ways to explain things we might think. Um, and I guess instead of me profering a positive explanation here, it's more so just a request for some kind of positive reason for thinking that the explanation must be entitated and let's say nomological or ideological or by appeal to structural constraints or principles or what have you. So I'm wondering what you think about that sort of objection. It it may not be rather than. So this this shoe has an explanation. I

14:39 think it has many different types of explanations. I mean you can maybe give a kind of nomological explanation um compositive explan compositive myological explanation parts and holes. Um but I think there's good evidence to think that there's also a causal explanation that goes beyond laws and parts of the shoe. Um the these explanations may not be competing. So the the way that I I would think about this is that um you can give evidence that things of a certain class have and I'm just going to build in the condition an external causal explanation something beyond those things that is some kind of entity or entity to causally produce or um the things in question and that's

15:26 consistent with there also being these other kind of explanations and so um I don't think the mere existence of other kind of explanations undercuts the mo all possible motivations for the external causal explanation. Um although I do like to kind of leave it open whether it's a causal or grounding or some something just kind of leave open the relation there. Um, that's one thought I I have about this is, and I think it's an important kind of dialectical thought, which is that when we're thinking about different kinds of explanations, I think it's important to ask whether these explanations are really competing with each other, um, or whether they might all be just explaining different answering different explanatory questions. Um, yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. I mean the way that I

16:12 was sort of thinking about it the the objection was more so as a kind of you're right that they it's definitely compatible that there would be this like let's say purely well not purely but aomological explanation for why there are contigited things uh and also there being like an entitated explanation those are definitely compatible with one another. I guess the way to push the worry was to almost like it's yeah why why why should we in addition or you know in addition to say the noological explanations or the purely ideological explanations the structural explanations or explanations by people metaphysical principles why should we also go in for an entitative explanation I mean you might be just generally suspicious of there being uh truths that are not in in grounded in the presence and absent or absence of entities or the

16:58 presence of entities their properties or their absences or something like that just there being these principles that have no depend no connection or being at all I mean it's it's hard to even talk about right you say there being these principles right but but okay yeah we we can say okay there's some proposition maybe or that expresses the principle but where the principle itself is not an entity or a proposition but it but it sounds very strange I do I do agree that it's strange. I mean I think there's something to Parminades's insight that in the end we have to go back to being but that doesn't you know it doesn't mean that that we cannot talk of non-being and things like that but at least I think

17:44 there needs to be some kind of connection and absences aren't going to do the job. I think like it seems very odd to think you could explain the universe in terms of absences. The shoe exists because of the absence of my love for better shoes. Yeah. So you can do like partial explanation in terms of absences, right? Absences combined with things, right? So So the so the absence uh the absence of something combined with a presence of something can explain, right? because my mere lack of love for a better shoe was not enough. Or the absence or you know the the absence of something in a in a room, the past absence of something in a room can explain why there's now a piece of furniture there, right? Because

18:31 there's space to put it, right? And somebody in the household said, "This is looking really empty, but you have to pause it." Something something that finds it empty. For example, Yeah. What about an like an absence of any explanation for why the thing might fail to exist? Uh like maybe you combine it with some sort of demand for an explanation of their a general PSR or something like that and then we appeal to hey well there would be no explanation for this thing failing to exist. I mean that might get you the necessarily existent thing at the onset but that might or might get you uh extreme modal realism. Yeah.

19:16 Yeah, I mean I'm not saying I actually believe this just for the audience but this is a proing possibilities probing philosophically like ways that people might try to push back on and giving people those options. Yeah. Yeah. I mean so you could have a view Yeah. You could say okay there there's no no reason not to have it and then presumably I I do think that pushes you to towards something like extreme modal realism because you're going to end up with tons of worlds, right? each one. There's no reason why it wouldn't exist. The actual world prevents maybe there being one world prevents the other one. But then what selects them? That is that's a good that's a good question. Um yeah, that's a good question. I think that's an outstanding issue for this kind of proposal. If I I was I'm kind of

20:03 curious like a non- entity explanation. But this goes kind of to what Alice was asking. I mean what do we mean by entity here? I mean um do we mean it's a concrete entity with causal power? If we leave it open that it's just something that can explain um well it's not a non- entity what does the word entity mean here? I was just thinking uh it's like within the range of the existential quantifier or something like that like because the fundamental existential quantifier or something like that no the single un existential quantifier ranges that were absolutely everything. Yeah. So if if there's something that's not in that range, then there's something that's not a something. I just lose my track of what we're what we're talking about. Yeah. So I mean, you can say, right, that there

20:49 there are holes, but but it but but there's two things you can do here, right? You can say you can either say there are you can say that let's see there's only two. You could say you could say the correct the correct existential quantifier ranges over things that include holes. And if that's a sense of saying there's this explanation, then yes, that explanation is entitive. Now, or if you say the other thing you could say, well, okay, so when we say they're holes, this means reality other stuff that really exists is arranged wholewise and then it's still entitive, right? You still have entities. So I don't know what you do if you have no entities at all. Yeah. I mean I guess the proposal would one

21:36 proposal would just be like um why is it the case that there are uh dependent things? Um well it is a law that there are dependent things and it's a lot more the law itself. I mean is there no this is it's a sentential operator. No it's a sentential it is a law that it's possible that that doesn't require a deposit of some kind of possibility existing. Um, instead it's just a sentential operator and it doesn't no infallible commitments required. Yeah, I I have papers on this. I I I think that it is a law that can't be true unless there is a law. Am I in Am I the it is a way of referring to something but I I am aware that you can have a sentential operator where it's not explicitly quantifying over

22:21 something. um I just have my own theory and a philosophy of language where that's only intelligible if I can translate. Okay. So, well, I could be wrong about that, you know, but just let's let's move let's close that discussion and move on to maybe um stage two. So, like let's suppose we actually have gotten on to or we have concluded that there really is a let's say a necessarily existing concrete foundation to reality. Um why think that this thing would be perfect other than explaining you know various uh features of reality that are otherwise quite striking. Let me just kind of say on a general level um when I think about this question I think about maybe two different strategies for investigating the nature of fundamental reality and and these are strategy strategies I think like anybody who's thinking about this can employ these strategies. So one

23:08 strategy is to look at the things that exist make observations and then ask what's a theory of fundamental reality that best predicts and explains those observations. This would be kind of an argument from the effects. Um and then the second way is to I mean and you know my thoughts on this I've shared them before. Um is to see if you can sort of apply reason to the nature of the foundation in order to see what kind of a nature would be relevantly different from u non-foundational natures or natures of non-foundational things. And I don't think it's enough merely to say that it's has necessary existence versus contingent existence. um that may be a relevant um difference, right? But I don't think that's the only relevant difference. And just to go back to my shoe, I mean, nobody nobody who's

23:56 watching this here has ever seen the origin of the shoe. Like, so for all that you've seen with your eyes, um it's possible, okay, that this shoe is the foundation of all reality. In fact, here's a story. This shoe produced the big bang, everything else, and then the shoe fell into the earth once it was formed. and then I found the shoe and put it on. And so that we haven't empirically rolled that out. But I think by reason we can see that that's probably not the best explanation. And I don't think it helps to say ah now I've got Graham Oppy in my ear right now. Graham Oppoy tells me Josh the shoe has necessary existence. It's the initial necessary item. That's great. That helps us. That's beautiful. I think the foundational reality probably does have necessary existence. But that doesn't that doesn't m make me think that this u

24:42 I don't think that theory of the shoe of fundamental reality is the right theory because I think even if fundamental reality has less existence we can ask is it the shape of a shoe and I think the shoe shape is not relevantly different from other shapes um to be fundamental. So I think all shapes alike are explained they're in the same boat. So we can go further and we can ask well what nature would be relevant different relevantly different from the dependent natures and the perfect theory does give you a nature that at least when I think about that nature of a perfect I don't just see that oh this nature just strikes me as irrelevantly different from the others in fact if anything it it seems to have some relevantly different qualities it kind

25:27 entails I would have a ne existence and it's not just shaped and arbitrarily um bounded in certain respects. Um, so I think it's a nice candidate for something that's relevantly different. Um, but you know, maybe there's another way of filling this out. Like I said, I think this is a strategy anybody can employ. Um, look at the fundamental nature. Ask yourself what would be a relevant difference between this nature and dependent natures and then I think you can make some progress there. Yeah. Well, so like Alex, suppose someone asked you like why I think that the necessary foundation is God. Like what where would you go in trying to convince them? We've heard Josh talk about like the examining the nature, maybe perfection provides a relevant difference, maybe limitlessness provides a relevant difference or something like that. Um would you prefer to go like

26:13 analyzing the nature or would you look at the effects or Yeah, I'm just wondering how you would approach this. I do find the the effects are more persuasive for me. [Music] Um but also I I feel the pull of uh the idea that we don't want the fundamental nature to be to have any arbitrary determinance about it and shoes do have those. So as do turtles as do turtles as do all sorts of things as does anything limited in space and time. [Music] Um, so I think I there there's just something incredible about the fundamental nature having arbitrary

27:02 determinance and perfection seems non-arbit. Got the old line of thought, right? If you've got limited knowledge, right? Then then there's sort of an arbitrary amount that you have. No more, no less than that. But if you got infinite that seems somehow non-arbituary you either zero is also non-arbituary right so having like none none of the perfections to any degree would also be would also be highly non-arbituary but also would make one completely impotent to produce anything. Yeah I mean there is there's definitely something here where it's like has all perfections and all of them are just maxed out to their unlimited degree. Um

27:47 it is very odd and and it would be so odd to a positive view where it's like omnicient being omnipotent or no it's omnipotent and it knows everything except for just this one fact about the number of grasses on the lawn number of blades of grass on the lawn at the White House at 4:45 p.m. on like December 12th or something. Um like that would be a terrible view because it looks so hopelessly arbitrary and um whereas if E can sort of shave off those arbitrary limits. Right. Right. Or if you think like there's this big big guy with a white beard who made the universe and you wonder why with a beard. Why is it white? And why is it white? Yeah. The flying spaghetti monster, you know, why spaghetti, you know? Why not cheese? Yeah. And why is it not like made out of, you know, they had the bonsa like pasta which it's made out of like chickpeas? Why is it why isn't it made out of chickpeas instead of something else? Yeah. And why the color that it

28:33 is, you know, why not green? So, I'm wondering like one way one way that people might try to push back on this and Josh, you know, you of course you've heard this and Alex, you've thought of it as well, but like suppose we've got our Christian commitments, right? We're good trinitarians or something like that. I mean, that just seems to be like a hopelessly arbitrary limit on the foundation of reality where it's like three persons specifically instead of two or four. We're unlimitedly many. Um, we might think that that's a kind of arbitrariness unbefitting of fundamental reality and and that's actually uh perhaps intention with this argument. What do you guys think? I'm very curious what what you're going to say about that, Alex. My my thought is just that yeah, it would be arbitrary without a deeper explanation. Um, so you need a deeper explanation and um and and if that explanation is possible then great. But if not, then that is a a good reason

29:19 to advance our theology. I don't have anything original. I mean this is I think the we we have in Augustine and uh this idea that there is a nonarbitrary story about um the persons of the trinity that the you you've got the father sort of the foundational person and then the the father has self-nowledge and this knowledge is another person and then there's the love between the father and the son and that is the third person and then there's some kind of and that's all part which which I I don't know how to how to how

30:06 to work but but if you have this idea that the sort of the fundamental perfections are knowledge and uh and love then maybe you get uh some kind of a line of thought that three is not arbitrary here Perfect knowledge is you know the the perfect knowledge is just like the thing known. So it's a p so the perfect knowledge of a of a person a perfect self-nowledge would be another person and then perfect love would be so perfect that it would be a person too. I mean there's a lot of that in a lot of the theologians in the Christian tradition. Uh,

30:53 and and it sounds it's it's it has a certain plausibility to it. Yeah. I'm wondering so like the way and Josh knows this is one way that I sometimes try to push back on this thought. One one is to say like I don't know it seems to maybe make like the second and third persons of the trinity like non-funddamental. But then like how are they aren't they God? Like isn't that an essential feature of being God that God is fundamental or something like that? I mean maybe you know it's uh I know trinitarian reasoning is very difficult and you just very quickly get into like qua objects and these are the sorts of things that are beyond my pay grade. Uh so that's like one worry and then another worry potentially would be like or we might think that uh this opens the door to the naturalist to be able to posit a bunch of just arbitrary features of the

31:38 foundation but then just to say that oh oh listen uh they're non-fundamental features of the foundation and somehow maybe we don't see how uh just like in the trinity maybe we don't exactly see how those seemingly arbitrary features would flow but somehow they flow from like the fundamental nature of this uh naturalistic reality. Maybe it is spatially limited or temporally limited or limited in how its charge or you know particular size it has. Maybe it even has spatial properties but they're all just non-fundamental like the trinity. Uh and they as it were flow from or are explained by uh this more fundamental um not limited nature or something like that. Um I mean in in this story we have at least the start of an explanation of how that flows right it flows from perfection right and perfection includes perfect knowledge and perfect love.

32:25 So, so I don't know if the story works, but we have at least a picture of what the story might look like. I think um if I think about us sort of on the same team looking at fundamental reality trying to identify its nature, it's not really necessarily a competition between theists and naturalists. I mean anybody can have some reason to posit some additional properties that the fundamental reality has if they have sufficient motivation for doing that. I mean you might think of it like like other things being equal minimize your arbitrary posits. You know start with a theory that's the closest to perfect theory to move yourself out you know if you need to. Yeah. But about

33:12 going back to your thing about how now the father sounds fundamental, right? And I mean there is there is that talk. I mean it's it's it's a it's a it is a important part of trinitarian talk that the son proceeds from the or the son comes from the father. The son is generated by the father and that the holy spirit is uh according to the east uh proceeds from the father and according to west proceeds from the father and the son. So so there are procession relations and and there are church fathers who in fact use the language of causation for them. That makes me uncomfortable. I I I don't like the language of causation here but there's some kind of explanatory relation it seems. Alex, what what do you think about the

33:57 idea that there could be a kind of a grounding relation between the sort of fundamental persona of the fundamental substance and then the other personas? And that actually this grounding relation can open up to allowing um not just like a a trinity of personas, but also um additional causal work. Maybe it's not grounding now, it's causal work. um where all the all the personas are in some sense constituted out of fundamental reality. So that it's in him and whom we live and have our being a kind of um theory in which the the fundamental substance sort of comprises each of each of us. Um be kind of just curious like I've

34:43 never asked you this question like is it is this is this a sort of a possible theological position for you? Okay. So that all the personas are in some sense made out of the the original fundamental substance that's including you and me. I I think that's uh is that heretical? I don't I pro maybe that that sounds to me like um heretical relative to certain people's authoritarian I don't know that sounds to me authoritative that sound Yeah. cutting that off. That that sounds to me like the goddess ends up being prior to persons. And I the the eastern orthodox I think sometimes accuse

35:30 uh the westerns of thinking in this way of thinking like that they take the unity of god as prior to the trinity. And I thought and and and I don't think that's fair criticism of the western thought. But I think if this was the the the thought then it would be a fair criticism. There's something about God being intrinsically a person. In fact three but uh where there isn't like anything prior to the father. I wonder if even if there's an intrinsic persona that intrinsic persona is not fundamental like that is the the substance grounds the personas. So um or or at least the personas other than the most

36:17 fundamental persona. Um the idea being that um you can have intrinsic features that are organized in a hierarchy of grounding. Um and you know maybe we don't have to stop at three. I mean just no this is the the heretical Yeah. We're we're just out of time. So um I don't if you guys want to say any last words we're out of time just when we were exploring the uh minutia unfortunately. Um yeah. Do you guys have any parting comments for the audience? Any words of wisdom? Let's let's start with Josh and then we'll end with Alice. I really love Joe Schmidt. This is the first time seeing him in person. I've only seen Pixels before, so now I have more evidence of his reality

37:03 which just I love that. And um I love Alex as well. This has been a fun conversation. And uh I would just say, you know, my my parting words are always about just the the sort of principles for getting wisdom. And I think one of them is to have fun. And I think sometimes uh philosophers can get very serious about our work. Sometimes you got to just have fun. And I think that helps spring up a lot of interesting ideas to explore. Man, the So here's the one bit of wisdom I've maybe I've gained over whatever many years of doing philosophy. Reality is strange and it just comes up everywhere. Yes. Yes. This is correct. So phil reality is strange. That's what you learned doing philosophy. That is uh the ultimate

37:49 words of wisdom. Uh anyway, thank you guys so much for joining me and what better way to end us is there than I'm Joe Schmid. This is the majesty reason and peace