In this debate, Alexey will present what he calls the “Pythagorean argument” for the universe’ design by a superior mind. It is an argument for God’s existence, based on a special character of physical laws, associated with their anthropness and discoverability. James Fodor will criticize this argumentation. Who of them is closer to truth? Does the Pythagorean argument prove the Grand Design? These questions we address to each of you, our dear listeners.
Alexey Burov was born and raised in Novosibirsk, USSR. He defended his PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics at Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk, and his main expertise relates to charged particle beams. Since 1997 he has been working at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). He worked at CERN during its Run I, when the Higgs boson was discovered. Alexey is a Fellow of American Physical Society and an author many journal publications on beam physics. He also authored numerous philosophical essays, in Russian and in English, many of them together with his son Lev. Their treatise “Genesis of a Pythagorean Universe” received an award from the Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi.org. In 2019, Alexey led a panel on Physics and Platonic Philosophy in a conference of the International Society of Neoplatonic Studies; his article “Metaphysical Status of Physical Laws” was published among the selected papers presented there. Since 2013, Alexey authors a philosophical blog (in Russian, at snob.ru), and chairs the philosophy society at Fermilab (in English), which he founded. Many of his philosophical compositions are published in major Russian literary magazines.
— https://pythagoreanuniverse.com/
— https://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/html/collections_from_the_isns.html#PLA
James Fodor has a graduate degree in physics at the University of Melbourne, and is a research assistant in structural biology at Monash University. With a keen interest in philosophy, he writes for the Rationalist magazine on various subjects in religion and epistemology. As president of the University of Melbourne Secular Society, he has engaged in numerous discussions and public debates concerning religion, with a focus on secular morality and the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. He also has a keen interest in effective altruism and computational neuroscience.
— https://thegodlesstheist.com/
