I'm going to group together two questions. One is from Emmet Francis who says, do you have a typical response to the claim often made by Christian apologists that materialism slash physicalism is self-defeating? To me, this sounds like a similar argument of why there's something rather than nothing curious to hear your thoughts on it. Both are different aspects of what I think is a pretty common impulse or intuition. They want there to be a certain kind of explanation or even, I would go so far as to say, acertain kind of governance in how nature works.
Welcome to the May 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number — based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good — and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy!
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.