Ed Feser vs Arif Ahmed: Proofs of the Existence of God

Ed Feser is a Catholic philosopher whose latest book ‘Five Proofs of the Existence of God’ presents five classical arguments that he believes present compelling evidence for theism.

He debates two of the arguments on the show with atheist Cambridge philosopher Arif Ahmed. They talk about whether modern atheists take such arguments seriously, and then dive deep into debating the Aristotelian Proof and the Rationalist Proof…

Unbelievable? with Justin Brierley

Do we have free will? Debate between Stephen Kershnar and John Keller

A debate between philosophers Stephen Kershnar and John Keller on October 22, 2015, at the University of Buffalo.

Q&A portion of Do we have free will? Debate between Stephen Kershnar and John Keller

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Failure of Organized Religion with Philosopher Paul Weiss

As a philosopher, Weiss is mainly known for his metaphysical writings such as Being and Other Realities. His other philosophical works include books and articles on epistemology and cosmology. He even published eleven volumes under the title Philosophy in Process, detailing his continuing and sometimes daily reflections over the years 1955–1987. A seminal point of Weiss's philosophy is that Being consists of a plurality of individuals that are unified by universality, which gives a structure to all there is, but that is also irreducible in four distinct ways.[4] During his prime, Weiss maintained a style of philosophy that was considered by many to be out-of-date. In fact, Weiss opposed the philosophies of the analytics, the logical positivists and the Marxists. His was a philosophy on the grand scale-philosophical system-building in the style of Kant, Hegel, or Peirce.- Paul Weiss (philosopher)

Recorded on November 14, 1966

Bertrand Russell on Nietzsche

Question of the Day: What Do You Think of Emergence?

"Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference."-G. H. Lewes





Here is the Wikipedia entry on the subject: Emergence.



And a theistic view:

'Emergence' is a totemic word amongst materialists (whether they claim to be "theists" or claim to be 'atheists'); that is, (they believe that) the word has Magickal Powers to solve, by its mere utterance, the logical difficulties of, and contradictions inherent in, materialism.-Iliocentrism: Emergence, Again

Double Slit Experiment

Get your mind out of the gutter, sicko! Not that kind of double slit experiment...

You ask: “Doesn't the fact that the behaviour of electrons, when shot through a double slit, alters from wave-like patterns to particle patterns, through the act of observation challenge the primacy of existence?”

Yes, I am aware of the double slit experiment, and I have actually written on it, since some folks apparently think its results contradict the primacy of existence. But can you tell me who observes the behavior of particles at the quantum level, and by what means? The double slit experiment is often described as having a different outcome (e.g., a banded pattern as opposed to an interference pattern) when someone “observes” the electrons passing through the slits in the experiment. But who’s doing the “observing” here? No one that I know of can *perceive* an electron with the naked eye. (If you know of anyone, please identify him or her.) It is said that a “measuring device” is used to capture this information, but a measuring device is not the same thing as a human being (or any other biological organism) “observing” what the measuring device is measuring. A fundamental distinction seems to have been ignored in deriving the conclusion that “merely observing” the electrons in the experiment alters the experiment’s outcomes, which – if that’s what has happened – seems very sloppy to me. (from Does the Double Slit Experiment Refute the Primacy of Existence?