Skip to content

Like this? Share it!

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Email
Closer To Truth
  • Watch
    • Seasons & EpisodesWatch complete episodes as aired on public television
    • Curated PlaylistsExplore collections of videos curated by our team
    • ProjectsDiscover collaborations with leading institutions
    • ContributorsMeet the greatest thinkers exploring the deepest questions
    • CTT ChatsWatch candid conversations with the brightest minds on the boldest ideas
    • Roundtable ArchivesView roundtable discussions from our early years
  • Topics
    • Cosmos, Consciousness, Meaning: Explore the fundamental questions of existence.Topic Guide
    • All Topics
      • CosmosExplore cosmology, physics, and the fundamentals of existence
        • Back
        • All Cosmos
        • Deep Laws of Nature
          • Back
          • All Deep Laws of Nature
          • Cosmic Fundamentals
          • Time and Space-Time
          • Quantum Theory
          • Complexity and Emergence
          • Mathematics as Fundamental?
          • Information as Fundamental?
          • Universe as Simulation?
          • Deep Discovery in Science
        • Vast Cosmos
          • Back
          • All Vast Cosmos
          • Cosmic Immensity
          • Cosmic Beginnings
          • Cosmic Structure
          • Multiple Universes (Multiverse)
          • Black Holes, Dark Energy, Dark Matter
        • Our Special Universe
          • Back
          • All Our Special Universe
          • Fine-Tuning of the Universe?
          • Fine-Tuning the Universe for Life & Mind?
          • Breathtaking Universe
          • Where Are All the Aliens?
          • Far Future of the Universe
        • Breakthroughs
          • Back
          • All Breakthroughs
          • Breakthroughs in Science
          • Breakthroughs in Mathematics
        • Science and Religion
          • Back
          • All Science and Religion
          • Science vs. Religion?
          • Science and God
          • How Science and Religion Think
          • The New Atheism
          • Limits of Science
        • Mystery of Existence
          • Back
          • All Mystery of Existence
          • The Mystery of Existence
          • The Mystery of Laws & Cosmos
          • Metaphysics of Cosmos
          • Why Anything at All?
      • ConsciousnessSearch mysteries of mind and individual awareness
        • Back
        • All Consciousness
        • Mind-Body Problems
          • Back
          • All Mind-Body Problems
          • The Mind-Body Problem
          • Brain Structure and Function
          • Brain Explains Mind?
          • Elements of Mind
        • Consciousness
          • Back
          • All Consciousness
          • Mystery of Consciousness
          • Consciousness as Emergent
          • Consciousness as All Physical?
          • States of Consciousness
          • Sleep and Dreams
          • Purpose of Consciousness?
          • Metaphysics of Consciousness
        • Persons
          • Back
          • All Persons
          • Persons and Selves
          • Personal Identity
          • Life After Death?
          • Souls?
          • Human Uniqueness
          • Creativity
          • Music
          • Epistemology
          • Belief Systems
          • Mind and Society
          • People and Society
        • Free Will
          • Back
          • All Free Will
          • Mystery of Free Will
          • Philosophy of Free Will
          • Free Will and Consciousness
          • Science of Free Will
          • Free Will and Morality
          • Theology of Free Will
        • Philosophy of Biology
          • Back
          • All Philosophy of Biology
          • Why Philosophy of Biology?
          • What is Life?
          • Life in the Cosmos
          • Deception
        • Extrasensory Perception
          • Back
          • All Extrasensory Perception
          • ESP and New Realities?
          • ESP and the Nonphysical?
        • Art Seeking Understanding
          • Back
          • All Art Seeking Understanding
          • Aesthetic Cognitivism
          • Art and Philosophy
          • Neuroscience/Cognitive Science of Art
          • Neuroscience/Cognitive Science of Music
          • Art and God
          • Art and Religion
          • Art and Culture
      • MeaningSeek whether God exists through diverse perspectives
        • Back
        • All Meaning
        • Philosophy of Religion
          • Back
          • All Philosophy of Religion
          • Concepts of God
          • Alternative Concepts of God
          • Faith and Belief
          • Conflict Among Religions
          • Theology
          • How Philosophy Informs Religion
          • Religion Without God
        • Existence of God
          • Back
          • All Existence of God
          • Arguing God's Existence
          • Philosophical Arguments For God
          • Experiential Arguments For God
          • Arguments Against God
        • Attributes of God
          • Back
          • All Attributes of God
          • God's Nature?
          • God's Essence?
          • God's Powers?
          • God and Time?
        • God as Creator
          • Back
          • All God as Creator
          • God The Creator?
          • God's World?
          • God's Interactions?
        • Ultimate Destinies
          • Back
          • All Ultimate Destinies
          • God's Knowledge and Future Events?
          • Judgment (Heaven, Hell)?
          • Resurrection?
          • Eschatology (End Times)?
          • Eternal Life?
          • Search for Meaning
  • News
    • All NewsStay up-to-date with the latest from Closer To Truth
    • Book ExcerptsExplore recently authored books from our contributors
    • PerspectivesRead essays and articles from our community
  • About
    • About Closer To TruthWe are a digital-media nonprofit and TV series
    • The TV SeriesWhere to watch on PBS stations nationwide
    • Meet the TeamMeet the host and team behind Closer To Truth
    • PartnershipsLearn about our partners and collaborators
    • Support Closer To TruthWays to engage with and support our work
    • PodcastListen on your favorite podcast player
    • StoreBuy official Closer To Truth merchandise
    • YouTubeSubscribe to Closer To Truth on YouTube
Search
  • Login
  • Join
  • Watch
    • EpisodesWatch complete episodes as aired on public television
    • Curated PlaylistsExplore collections of videos curated by our team
    • ProjectsDiscover collaborations with leading institutions
    • ContributorsMeet the greatest thinkers exploring the deepest questions
    • CTT ChatsWatch chats with the brightest minds on the boldest ideas
    • RoundtablesView roundtable discussions from our early years
  • Topics
    • Topic GuideCosmos, Consciousness, Meaning: Join us as we explore the fundamental questions of existence.
    • CosmosExplore cosmology, physics, and the fundamentals of existence
    • ConsciousnessSearch mysteries of mind and individual awareness
    • MeaningSeek whether God exists through diverse perspectives
  • News
    • The Latest
  • About
    • About Closer to TruthWe are a digital-media nonprofit and TV series
    • TV SeriesWhere to watch on PBS stations nationwide
    • Meet the TeamMeet our host and our team
    • PartnershipsLearn about CTT’s partners and collaborators
    • Support Closer to TruthWays to engage with and support our work
    • PodcastListen on your favorite podcast player
    • StoreBuy official Closer To Truth merchandise
    • YouTubeSubscribe to Closer To Truth on YouTube
    • FAQLearn about Closer to Truth membership
  • Login
  • Join

video

Topic Series

John Leslie

  • Watch Next
Cover image for How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

Cover image for How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Cover image for How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

Cover image for Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Cover image for Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

Cover image for What is Philosophy of the Breakthrough Process?

What is Philosophy of the Breakthrough Process?

  • Details
  • Transcripts
    • Share
Featured In

  • Why Is There Anything At All? (Part 3)
  • The Mystery of Existence (Part 1)
Contributors

John Leslie

John Leslie focuses on existence, axiology/value, immortality, philosophy of cosmology
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
John, in trying to understand existence, I'm told by various people—philosophers, physicists—that to think about nonexistence is absurd. In other words, why worry? The thing that upsets me and I think about is just a non-issue and totally dismissed. I feel – I – I feel like I'm stupid.
John Leslie
Well, you'll find a lot of type people saying precisely that, that there's some sort of contradiction in blankness, that if we knew enough logic we could say that there had to be a universe. How do you actually refute them? Only by going and looking at some very complicated arguments. Suppose you take the argument, which I like, that things could vanish one by one until the last one went. You'd have some people saying, well they could vanish one by one, but with the last one going then all the laws of mathematics would have to go because they depend on countable things. Even if you have a single thing, you can always split it up into bits and say two and two make four by the bits, but if the last one goes, poof, mathematics goes. And it's ridiculous to say that mathematics, mathematical truths, wouldn't keep on being true. Therefore, the last thing couldn't go, and then some people think that there's a mind behind the universe.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
God, or something. How does – how does that work, that a blank is absurd?
John Leslie
Well some people would say that a blank is absurd because you can't imagine it. And others would try to give a bit more force to this by saying reality is essentially mental and there wouldn't be anything mental in a blank, and therefore blank can't exist. That was argued by the idealist philosophers who took after Hagel. Another way is to say that physics, in some way, makes a blank absurd.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Why is that?
John Leslie
Well, I would tend to react in the same way. How can they say that? But recent pronouncements by Stephen Hawking, he says that logic, or he seems to say that logic can explain the existence of the universe. And if we are to take that seriously, that would mean that there's some sort of contradiction in a blank.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
A blank meaning absolutely nothing at all?
John Leslie
Absolutely nothing, nothing existent. I want to say that even if there was nothing existent there could be all sorts of facts, truths, and so on. And Stephen Hawking would seem to be saying that some of those facts, truths, truths about quantum physics, and they make a blank unstable and make it necessary that a universe exists. Again, some people would say that there's no essential difference between the mere possibility of something and something being real somewhere.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Now how does that work? That sounds very strange. I mean I can think of a possibility of a unicorn, or a possibility of a universe where everyone looked like me. I mean, those are possible universes.
John Leslie
Well there is one extremely clever philosopher, recently died off, David Lewis, who thinks that there are universes with unicorns and there are, indeed, universes where everybody looks exactly like you.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
I wouldn't want to live there myself.
John Leslie
Lewis's view is that all possibles exists somewhere, it's just they don't exist in our world. They–
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
And that's why a blank, an utter nothing, is absurd?
John Leslie
It's absurd because you can't get rid of possibilities; I think that's correct. But he says he can't think of possibilities as real as genuine possibilities unless they genuinely exist somewhere. And Lewis is a very, very clever man. I think his system gets into problems, but he's clever and he thinks the problems go away.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
When Hawking talks about that, a blank or nothing would be absurd because of the laws of physics, that's not nothing. The laws of physics are not nothing, even though the laws of physics would have nothing – be an instability and, therefore, something would have to arise. So why is that an absurdity? Why does that mean that nothing would be an absurdity?
John Leslie
Well, first, as I said, there's nothing clear in this area at all. Somebody as clever as Einstein suggested that it might have been that God had no choice as to what to create. There could be just a single coherent cosmic possibility. And you might see Hawking as doing the sort of thing that Einstein wanted to do and adding a little more structure to it. Now this horrifies most philosophers. Most philosophers would say they can easily think of worlds which are completely different from our world, which obeyed laws of physics which are completely different from the ones we see, or which are so quite chaotic that they obey no laws at all. This would be the sounded philosophical view. And it's tempting to read Hawking as not meaning what he seems to say. He says in – he and Mlodinow say in the book they recently put out, The Grand Design, that abstract considerations of logic could explain why the universe exists. Now, this might mean simply that the laws of physics are such that if you tried to bend them slightly, they would break completely.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
And therefore that's the only way that it could work so–
John Leslie
The only way that laws, even vaguely like this could work, would be that the laws would be exactly like this. That could be what they're saying. But it could be that they are believing that ultimately the laws of physics are somehow, in the end, dictated by the laws of logic. And as a good philosopher, I say this is nonsense, but there are a lot of physicists who are taking it seriously. And Hawking is a very clever guy. So maybe there's something there, or maybe there's something in the view that the laws of physics could exist even if the universe weren't there. That I take more seriously than the view that there would be a contradiction in the universe not being there.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Sure. Sure.
John Leslie
I think that the idea that the laws don't have to depend on the universe being there that should be taken seriously, even though I, myself, don't believe it.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Alright. So looking at this at the whole, from the physical point of view, from the philosophical point of view, from this plentitude of worlds point of view, how do you analyze, what is your view of the answer to existence being that nonexistence is absurd?
John Leslie
Well, my view is that that doesn't work. That nonexistence would have no absurdity in that you could image things vanishing one by one and then the last thing goes, and there you have nonexistence. This is an argument which is being developed these days by some very good philosophers. Also, I, myself, think that there's a necessity behind the existence of the universe, which you wouldn't be absurd to deny this necessity. There'd be a conflict with the nature of necessity if the universe weren't here, but it's not a logical conflict. Talking about a blank isn't like talking about a round square, or what philosophers always talk about, a married bachelor. Married bachelors and round squares, they're absolutely impossible. We can see that there's a contradiction there. There's no contradiction, which will ever be seen in the same way in blankness. That's my own take on it.

Watch Next

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

What can we learn when people deceive? There are all kinds of deception: from lying, duplicity, and disguises, to propaganda, disinformation, and deep fakes. Self-deception,...

video

How to Decipher Deception in Evolution?

Episode 09

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Biologists work in different worlds than do physicists, separated by vast orders of magnitude, numbers of variables, and levels of complexity. Does the process of...

video

How Do Breakthroughs Happen in Biology?

Episode 07

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

The nature of scientific Breakthroughs is one approach; the process of scientific Breakthroughs is quite another. When physicists reflect on how they do physics, when...

video

How do Breakthroughs Happen in Physics?

Episode 06

Season 21

26:47

Watch

Cover image for Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky. In Part 2,...

video

Noam Chomsky on Theories of Linguistics (Part 2)

CTT Chat

42:32

Watch

Cover image for Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky. In Part 1,...

video

Noam Chomsky’s Reflections on Philosophy and Linguistics (Part 1)

CTT Chat

27:17

Watch

Members Only

Please login or join to view

Cover image for What is Philosophy of the Breakthrough Process?

Scientific Breakthroughs are discoveries or theories that are milestones and touchstones, signposts and short-cuts, surprises and revelations. How to get at the nature or...

video

What is Philosophy of the Breakthrough Process?

Episode 08

Season 21

26:47

Watch


Become a Member

Get free access to exclusive content and more.

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • Find us on PBS
  • Watch on YouTube
  • Contact Us

Policies Terms © Closer To Truth. All rights reserved Website by Visceral