Leonard why isn't agnosticism the best philosophical position for everyone to take well um first of all what does agnosticism mean I'm fairly sure about some things less sure about other things I am fairly sure no Supernatural entity will intervene if I step off a cliff I will fall the laws of gravity will do that to me I am fairly sure that if my genetic makeup happens to be of a certain kind no matter how hard I pray I will get cancer right I am fairly sure that God doesn't intervene to be able to move electrons
around in a way that uh that does things that we or he or she likes uh there's no evidence for that all the evidence points in the opposite direction that the laws of nature go the way they go if you were to ask me about the very beginnings of the universe the origins of it why it is there does it have a purpose could an intelligence have been involved in creating it and so forth there I would have to say I'm completely agnostic I'm completely agnostic to the point where I just don't feel that we
are anywhere near understanding enough about the world to even address those questions not only not to answer them but to even ask them properly to make sense out of the questions so I would say I'm almost Beyond being an agnostic that to say I'm not sure if there's a God or not a God I have the feeling that it's the wrong question or or or that we're not at the point where we can formulate the this kind of question right I always think of it as a kind of curtain there's the things that are hidden
behind the curtain and there are the things which are exposed in front of the curtain it's always the tendency to believe that the things which are behind the curtain are controlled by uh Supernatural and the things which are in front of the curtain that we can see are not controlled by the supernatural well the history of science moves the curtain back and the history of science just keeps moving the curtain back but it never gets it quite all the ways back and we never really know how far uh it has to go and so that's
the situation we get pushed back to the universe earlier and earlier and earlier and always that curtain is still there what's behind the curtain if I knew what was behind the curtain I would publish it some would point to the very comprehensibility of the universe which didn't have to be as if not a evidence of a supernatural intelligence at least consistent with what such a supernatural being would have created yeah it does look like there are patterns in the universe that the Universe respects certain laws certain principles first of all could we live in a
universe that had no pattern what would it mean for it not to have pattern just complete Randomness so as you as you push further and further back um what is the end point do you see the laws of physics ever be self-explaining I can't tell and I think it's I think it is a very interesting and big question another another way of asking it is could the universe have been otherwise and I I don't think we know I I have no idea I think it's Way Way Beyond what we are presently capable of answering
