Datheron

Deadlogic,

...and so ends some glimpse of intelligent and insightful dialogue.

Obviously, you still do not understand; there is nothing that says that all the laws of logic are exclusive; furthermore, there is nothing here that you're asserting that does not use logic, and I have already defined such things are not permitted where logic doesn't exist.

But once again, you see how one can use definitions to circumvent all possible argument. Such is usually the tactic employed by theists with FC. I hope I've made myself clear by example.

My argument doesn't "boil down" to anything. They are as they stand in the OP, and I've been drawing from common excuses with FC in order to defend the points that you make. Like I said before, a big part of my refutation comes from the fact that they are already assumed to be accepted via acceptance of FC, hence I can legitimately rely on using them here.

Read above about your assumption of exclusion. And of course, it appears more and more that you just like taking my quotes/rhetorical questions out of context, and answer only to select points. As Koy has repeatedly asked his debate partners, please do a point-by-point refutation; if I have the courtesy to do so to your posts, the least you can do is answer to all my points, not those that you can find refutations for.

Really....so tell me something I *don't* know.

What I am requesting is simply why, if we replace my premise on logical grounds to that of epistemological terms, given the context of the discussion, it doesn't work.

....and so the discussion continues.

I would say that the poorest thinker would be the one that would not answer the question and get in a cheap ad hominem attack in the process.

But again, you illustrate my point. We define God to be the greatest logical being. Then you point out that "greatest" is largely contextual and subjective, making the definition ambigious. Furthermore, as you so readily show, we really have no good way to define God other than with abstract terms - precisely what I'm doing with non-logic.

Read above for my requests. Right now, I'm quickly losing hope that any of my inqueries will be explained away clearly.

But weren't you the one that was claiming that analogies are a form of argumentation regardless? And are you now implying that such techniques are useless?

When you are ready to stop building strawman versions of my arguments and actually read what I write, in addition to answering to what I ask and point out, get back to me.

DeadLogic

Datheron,


Of course I still don't understand. That's the problem here. You don't have an argument to support your view, and I'm only able to respond to that which I can understand. I'm not trying to "win a debate" here, I'm trying to understand your position (a position which, by its nature, appears very difficult to state clearly). You haven't been all that clear. What you call "strawmen" are in reality my attempts to understand you.


<strong> Oh for crying out loud, I was being sarcastic. A little humor, Dath. Lighten up. By the way, there was no ad hominem attack ("cheap" or otherwise) in anything I said. Oy vey.


<strong> I'm not sure which inquiries you'd like me to answer. Like I said, all you have to do is tell me which ones. Make a list.


I decided to shoot the question of the "universal applicability of logic" over to some of my philosopher friends, to get their take on it. I'm interested in what they have to say. I'll let you know what responses I get.


- DeadLogic

Datheron

DeadLogic,

Well, I would like to sincerely apologize for my previous post anyway. I was quite annoyed, as I recall, and was quite testy in shooting you down.

Yes, that I agree with. Hence, I will attempt to elaborate and clarify it at the end of this post.

Like I said above, I was in foul humor when I read your post. So, don't take it too seriously yourself.

Well, one such one would be why the distinction between logic and epistemology makes any difference. Yes, I realize that they're separate branches, but for my purposes here, they may as well be the same as they overlap in their context.

Alright, thanks.

-----------------
Now, for the elaboration.

First off, I make a few definitions and assumptions that are in parallel with the FC argument. One premise is that the universe requires a cause, and yet that cause is to be sentient; to me, there is no good argument that the "First Mover" requires sentiency, not without embedding other arguments (Fine-tuning, for example) within. Hence, I see this designation as arbitary. Another is that we have no idea how God created the universe; since he is beyond us in his infinity, we cannot hope to understand how the universe came to be, and how we're here.

The most important premise, however, is that anything lying "outside" our 3 space-1 time universe is incomprehensible to us. I draw this from our inability to comprehend 4D objects and entropy-reversed; as I have pointed out many times, we can give abstract descriptions via language, but we can never truly wrap our minds around these concepts. The only difference is that we really have no language to describe, abstractly, logic. Is language, and thus thought, then, dependent on logic? Well, that's a part of what is up for discussion.

Armed with these premises, I am able to make a few conclusions. First off, I can make a claim for the existence of non-logical entities. I am not using logic, per se, to establish this claim; this being may or may not exist, as no truth value, and is beyond comprehension. Also, it is made on an arbitary basis; we have no reason to believe such a thing exists (and by Occam's Razor, should cut it out), but we have made a provision from the FC argument that such can, may or may not exist. That is good enough to prostulate such an entity.

Another point I tried to make was how some being "caused logic". Here, although I disagree strongly with FC's argument for causality, I use it to my advantage. To my understanding, FC states that the universe requires a cause as it needs a beginning, yet causality doesn't apply to God as he has no beginning. How do we know this? Mostly by definition - since God exists and the first cause, it must be that God doesn't follow causality, which means that causality is somewhere between logic and physics. And since God needs no cause, his existence still makes sense - a somewhat circular argument. Here, I perform the same steps; I claim that causality is beyond logic, as logic had a beginning, and therefore God cannot be the first cause. He must, therefore, not be God, so "super-causality" does make sense.

Now, a good point made was how we can conceive of different systems of physics - or can we? I find that we cannot, and I have yet to see anyone try to disprove this; for example, can anyone visualize a 4D space and its physics? Or can anyone comprehend a space with two temporal dimensions? Of course, we can try to do calculations in higher dimensions, but what becomes of those numbers that we get? Can anyone interprete these numbers as anything more than abstractions of our 3D world? You suggested that we can shuffle constants around - but I can similarly create different truth tables for various operators. It soon becomes evident that we cannot make a complete overhaul of physics, and here, you are saying the same when you say that illogical entities are meaningless.

So here, I take this property of physics and apply it to logic. The only difference is that while we still have some ways to describe a lack of physics that is familiar to us, we really have no way to describe the lack of logic. Yet, as I tried to show above, beyond all the numbers and various analogies between our world and the universe beyond, we do not have a comprehensible grasp of a non-physical world. This is why I say that such entities may or may not exist (no truth value), and we cannot understand if they did. We are not qualified to state whether such things can or cannot exist.

-------------

I guess what is confusing about the above stance is the way I presented it. My position really is doubly-pronged - I'm hoping that someone can disprove the position beyond a shadow of a doubt, which then I can easily apply the argument to FC and disprove that as well; on the other hand, I'm hoping that the position is solid enough so that FC is discredited. As such, it may have seemed that I was sitting on both sides of the fence...and indeed, I am doing some of that. The only thing that can be, and is being attacked, is whether my position corresponds well with FC, and here, it is indeed quite hard to understand where I'm coming from.

Hope that helped.

DeadLogic

Datheron,

<strong> Don't worry about it.

The thing about message boards is that it's sometimes hard to know what the other person is *really* saying (we don't get to hear any vocal intonations or see body language or facial expressions, which comprises the bulk of communication). A person can say the exact same sentence in two very different ways.

And smiling while one types doesn't help convey the idea very well either.


<strong> There is overlap in all the branches of philosophy in fact. What I was getting at is that simply because we cannot understand or know something, that in itself does not imply that this mysterious something is "beyond the sphere of logic." There is much of the physical world we do not yet understand, yet that doesn't mean the physical world (or the parts we don't understand yet) are non-logical or "beyond" logic. There's a logical explanation for those mysteries, even if we haven't found it yet.


<strong> You're right. Sometimes a theist will sneak in (deliberately or accidentally) qualities of God that the FC argument is not designed to prove (like the sentiency of the first cause). Arguing that this first cause is intelligent requires another argument (whether these arguments achieve their goal is another matter).


<strong> I agree with that assessment. If God created the universe, it's doubtful that we could understand how he did it.


<strong> I think (intelligible) language is dependent on logic. As I said, "true" and "false" exist only where logic applies. To expand on this idea, when I make a claim (like "The sky is blue"), logic is necessarily assumed, and the antithesis of the claim is implicitly denied (i.e., the antithesis of "The sky is blue" is "The sky is not blue." Making the first claim is to deny the second claim necessarily, thus implicitly relying on the law of non-contradiction).

Even in the cases of these mysterious abstract descriptions (like "God is infinite"), while we can't understand the concept fully, we're still necessarily assuming the axioms of logic by making the claim (because, again, the antithesis, "God is finite," is necessarily denied, thus implicitly relying on the law of non-contradiction).

Here is another reason why I make the distinction between logic and epistemology: To deny our knowledge of something (like God's infinity) is not to deny the applicability of logic to that something.

I hope that's understandable.


<strong> Like I said I was going to do, I sent this question over to my philosopher friends. One in particular is a professor whom I respect greatly. Here are some of his thoughts on the matter, which I think address the issue of "non-logical entities."

He wrote (to me):
"No contradiction can be true because all contradictions are false. That's an easy one. But, I don't know what the qualifications "situation" and "in reality" add to your question. There are no "contradictory situations" any more than there are "tautological situations". Both are category mistakes. It is sentences or statements that are (self) contradictory (or tautological)."

His point is that logic applies to sentences or statements (language), not to reality itself. The conclusion I've come to is that since the laws of logic apply to language, they apply to any description of reality we attempt to give. There is neither a logical nor non-logical situation, and there is neither a logical nor non-logical entity. How we describe reality is that which is determined logical or not.

And, I might add, the fact that a being may be beyond comprehension does not imply "beyond logic." In fact, even making a claim like "God is beyond comprehension" relies on the laws of logic to be intelligible (like the examples given above).


<strong> What you write here is still a bit beyond me. Not all forms of the FC argument claim logic was "created." Generally, the FC argument states that a "self-existent" first cause is necessary to account for the contingent entities of the universe. It's not simply that "everything needs a cause, well, except God."

And I'm not sure what "causality is somewhere between logic and physics" means exactly.


<strong> Well, I'll have to admit my ignorance here, since I'm certainly no expert in physics. Maybe the workings of the physical world are the *only ways* any physical world could work - I simply don't know.


<strong> Right. We can't describe a "lack of logic." Any (intelligible) description we give is based on logic.


<strong> Here's where I find my friend's explanation very helpful. It is, as he said, a "category mistake" to attribute the quality of "logical" or "non-logical" to an entity. Such designations belong to language. Now, can there be an entity who is beyond our ability to understand fully? Yes, it is possible. But does that mean we cannot use logic to offer any description of him? No.

Again, there's the distinction between our knowledge (epistemology) and the applicability of logic.

Thanks for the chat, and for being a good sport.

Datheron

Deadlogic,

LOL! Perhaps with a little webcam pic...

Actually, I agree with you here; if I was to argue this, then it would indeed be ad ignoratium. To presume that what we don't understand must be nonlogical is to imply that we have full knowledge of logic - omniscience, if you will.

But that's where God fits in the picture - he is also stuck with logic as we are, and he is of course omniscient as well. Anything that he does not understand or cannot understand may or may not be logical (I'm trying to be very careful not to apply logic here).

I think I've addressed this point above; while it's true that us, of finite inteligence and knowledge, do not really have the authority to equate logical incoherence with comprehension, God fits this position perfectly.

Also, note that this is a problem that I perceive with the FC as well, which is perhaps why you're attacking the glaringly obvious flaw - FC assumes that causality makes sense outside of our temporal dimension. Like I described in previous posts, we really cannot understand the lack of time or even the multiciplicity of time, hence we really should not have any say in whether causality makes sense outside of our universe. Yet, FC assumes the benefit of the doubt and casts causality onto our universe from "outside", as to make a first cause possible. As such, as I mentioned before, these are obviously arbitary definitions which I have advanced solely on relying on the same non-sequiturs that FC gives us. Personally, I have a problem w/ this as well, but I'm playing Devil's Advocate.

Yea - for the most part, I agree with what your friend in saying; precisely why I said above that we lack the language to describe logic abstractly enough as to go beyond it. Once again, you're quite right in saying that "beyond comprehension" does not necessite illogicality, but as I explain above, I am given this impasse judgement solely because the FC does, in my eyes, the exact same thing.

Perhaps we're working with different versions of the argument, hm?

But anyway, even with the semantical flowery, I still do not see any major difference in changing the definition. It is not evident that the physical universe itself requires a contingent cause; only by assuming so could we make sense of FC. That is what I meant in my statement: contingency/causality is applied to the physical universe almost by definition, yet it does not apply to something like logic, assuming of course that logic can be made analogous to physics.

Interesting, that if your statement was true, that the fine-tuning argument would be very much weakened.

Once again, though, I am very tempted to say that we can understand only this configuration of physics; any other configuration, and we're at a loss for words. It's hard to tell whether a certain configuration is valid when you cannot know what it is.

And here, I think my main point is addressed, hence I did not fully copy your post. I hope this is clear.