Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian, Rational Science podcaster and ex-Cuban-spy Bill Gaede, and Cypress College philosophy professor Jason Thibodeau for over an hour as they debate the scientific tenability of Gaede’s rope hypothesis. Many multifaceted issues come up in the discussion, such as the special circumstances under which the atoms that are usually connected by the electromagnetic threads (according to the hypothesis) pass through each other, the failure of standard mathematical physics to provide any mechanism through which a magnet or gravity acts, what the concepts of black holes, dark matter, and dark energy actually refer to in physical reality, what happens to anything that enters a black hole, what the hypothesis’ electromagnetic threads and ropes are composed of, how magnetic attraction actually works, and many other technical details of the hypothesis. Tune in for a far-ranging interview on a number of core, fundamental issues with contemporary physics!
Tune in to Freethinker Podcast with host Edouard Tahmizian for an about an hour-and-fifteen-minute interview with panpsychist philosopher of mind Philip Goff as Tahmizian, Keith Augustine, and Jason Thibodeau query Goff about his reasons for embracing panpsychism, the view that all matter has some degree of a conscious or experiential element to it. Goff expertly fields questions from all three interlocuters about how his panpsychist views differ from those of other philosophers of mind and his rationale for taking this position. He suggests that "physicalist" Galen Strawson holds substantially the same view that he does, their differences largely being semantic ones about the meaning of the term physicalism (or materialism). Goff also responds to criticisms (like those of Massimo Pigliucci) that his picture of the mind is unscientific. He canvasses the hard problem of consciousness, structuralism about physics, why he favors taking the Russellian monist theory of mind in a specifically panpsychist direction, and what it might even mean to say that something like an electron has experiences. Goff also discusses whether arguing from a "top down" cosmopsychism (i.e., that the universe as a whole has experiential aspects, and divides down into our individual consciousnesses) is less problematic than arguing from the "bottom up" that the most fundamental constituents of matter have simple experiential aspects that somehow combine into our more complex, but unified, individual consciousnesses. The discussion then turns to Goff's take on the (classic, Plato-inspired) divine command theory of ethics, fine-tuning arguments, whether there's a middle way between traditional omni-God theism and traditional atheism that may be more attractive than either of those binary choices, whether libertarian free will exists given the possibility of determinism, and how his broader philosophical views impact the question of life's meaning. Check out this wide-ranging interview with a renowned philosopher of mind who has become increasingly prominent in public debates about these issues over the last several years!
Join Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian in this hour-and-a-quarter interview with Rational Science podcaster and ex-Cuban-spy Bill Gaede and Cypress College philosophy professor Jason Thibodeau on the future of humankind. First they canvas the possibility that all mass extinctions on Earth have been the result of an ecological pyramid overturning (the population pyramid overturning for plants and the ecological pyramid overturning for animals), and the extrapolation from this pattern that human beings are unable to stop this overturning in their own case. Human beings were put on track in 1963 for zero population growth by mid-21st-century, Gaede argues, and rely on an artificial construct of money to secure the food that we need to survive, but that construct is divorced from the actual growth of resources necessary for the sort of economic system that human civilization has developed. A critical discussion ensues about the so-called "Alvarez hypothesis" that an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs, if unprecedented economic collapse leading to the arrest of food production entails full-blown human extinction rather than simply a precipitous drop in population, the upper bounds of when human extinction might take place, and much more. Tune in for a fascinating—if sobering—discussion about the future of our own species!
Join host Edouard Tahmizian in this nearly one hour interview with Jason Thibodeau, a philosophy professor at Cypress College who's on the board of directors of Internet Infidels, about Plato's famous Euthyphro dilemma to the classic divine command theory of ethics, in which morally right actions are identified with those actions that are commanded (or otherwise approved) by God. After briefly stating a simple version of the Euthyphro dilemma and explaining its history, Thibodeau discusses the difference between (deontic) moral rightness and (axiological) moral goodness, how Robert M. Adams defended a deontic, but not axiological, kind of divine command theory, how the arbitrariness objection to divine command theory arises, and the sophisticated (but unsuccessful) attempts by Edward Wierenga and William Lane Craig to forge a middle way between the two mutually exclusive options of the traditional Euthyphro dilemma (which boil down to whether or not God has reasons for his commands). The discussion then turns to the implausibility of libertarian free will, whether a person who has no knowledge of good and evil can, in that state of ignorance, commit sin, whether a being that is admittedly causally responsible for giving human beings an inclination to sin is in any way morally responsible for their sinful behavior, and whether a being (any being) simply telling someone not to do something can ever really make a forbidden action morally wrong. Check out this wide-ranging yet deep interview!
William Lane Craig has frequently claimed that the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma because there is a third option. In this video, I explain why Craig is wrong about this. I explain the dilemma, explain why it is a dilemma, and show that Craig's alleged third option is not an option at all.
In this video, Jason Thibodeau presents a prima facie case that the Euthyphro problem grounds serious objections to the divine command theory.
The Euthyphro dilemma says that either God has reasons for his commands, or He doesn’t. Take the second option. God has no reasons for His commands. Well, then God’s commands are arbitrary; but morality can’t be arbitrary. Now take the first option. God has reasons for His commands. Well, then these reasons themselves are sufficient to give us moral obligations. No need for God. The Euthyphro dilemma is meant to show that grounding morality in God is misguided. Jason Thibodeau argues that the Euthyphro dilemma is sound, whereas Matt Flannagan argues that it is not.
In this episode of Real Atheology, hosts Ben Watkins & John Lopilato interview Jason Thibodeau, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cypress College, about the famous Euthyphro dilemma to classic divine command theory and how to respond to apologists who try to split the dilemma.
In this presentation from the 2017 Cypress College World Philosophy Day event, Jason Thibodeau discusses four common myths about morality: that (1) morality depends on God; (2) morality is subjective; (3) morality is relative; and (4) morality does not fit into a material world.
