I’d say that’s an exaggeration of my position, and the wording you’ve used is full of judgments I wouldn’t normally make. I wasn’t referring to “pettifogging trivial details.” Also, expressions like “roll of the dice” or “you’re a gambler” don’t fit — I’m not a risk-taker by inclination. I do sometimes wing things, yes, but that’s different. I’d also be unlikely to use terms like “folly” or “pretentious fools.” Are these word choices AI? — Tom Storm

No AI text posted by me.

If I had to sum up the paragraph of mine you sited I would describe it like this: I’m skeptical of grand narratives and the tendency to claim certainty or authority in areas where we lack real expertise. When I say I am a fan of uncertainty, I refer to being content to say, "I don't know". — Tom Storm

Expertise and its authority are hard won over years of dedicated work entailing sacrifices. Yes, the experts deserve my respectful silence and deference to their judgments and opinions.

Questions define our answers... I think it really it is our questions in the first place that are wrong. — ssu

I'll go along with saying, "Questions constrain our answers." Let's suppose each question specifies a field providing a limited context which the answer inhabits. Might we then proceed to speculate about a question being a function that takes given A as input and then outputs it as B, a permutation or transformation of A that yields new information?

Under this scheme, a wrong question is a function that proposes to transport given A into a field impertinent to A. Against my better judgment, I want to defend wrong questions as spurs to serendipity. The wrong question benefits not given A, however, it transforms given A' into a pot of gold. If there's any truth to this conjecture, then perhaps serendipity is not really random.

I also hold that my experience of the world does not have need for most metanarratives; I am a fan of uncertainty. I am also a fan of minimalism and think that people overcook things and want certainty and dominion where knowledge is absent and where they have no expertise. — Tom Storm

Regarding the above, please show me where I'm mis-reading you. — ucarr

You've taken my simple point and jazzed it up and perhaps provided motivations I don't hold. — Tom Storm

I'm not sure the points you make are simple. You say I've jazzed up what you've communicated. By that do you mean I've exaggerated the range and scope of your points? What motives have I falsely ascribed to you?

My takeaway from your statement goes as follows: a) your experience of the world, being down to earth, shuns pettifogging trivial details; b) being a fan of uncertainty, you like to roll the dice; you're a gambler; c) you like to keep things simple as much as possible (does c conflict with b?); d) you think over-analysis of things is a folly in abundance here; e) you give a wide berth to pretentious fools who would be wise men.

Let's review our conversation: you understand the universal system has a unique purpose. That's your statement about system, and my understanding of system, by this definition, is similar.

The Venn diagram is a separate thing. Let me suggest that you enter Venn diagram into your Google AI search engine. It'll give you a good definition.

You say the universal system has a unique purpose. My definition is similar: a group of parts that work together to achieve a purpose, like the parts of a car working together to provide transportation.

The value of religion is not rooted in the scientifically arrived at truth values of its claims. — Hanover

You seem to be saying that the value of religion is distinct from evidence, facts, logic, experimental verification and behavioral norms.

...if evolutionary theory leaves me in a state of despair by relegating me to the level of ordinary animal and its rejection offers me greater meaning in my life, I am rational to reject it. — Hanover

Let's suppose you practice some type of faith-based science that elevates spiritual healing over vaccines. Taking vaccines in your view lowers you to an unprivileged status within the animal kingdom. Shunning vaccines protects you against catastrophic loss of self-esteem, however, rejecting the pneumococcal vaccine during an outbreak in your habitat threatens you with death. This situation is a dilemma because either choice is bad. Why do you think prioritizing belief over science in this situation is rational?

...the rationality of theism, like any behavior, is judged by the objectives it achieves. If your highest objective is to live your life according to the implications of science, even if that should mean accepting a certain level of meaninglessness foreign to a theist, then do that. It's not irrational to do otherwise though. — Hanover

In the above, are you articulating a type of pragmatism?

The value of religion is not rooted in the scientifically arrived at truth values of its claims. — Hanover

If you are linking religious value with practical results, is it not necessary for you to embrace truth value propositions pertinent to achieving goals systematically by rational means?

As I read you, the rest of the system is a subset of the universal system. — ucarr

Please enlighten me; what is the common properties linking the Purpose of the Universal System with the rest of this system. — Pieter R van Wyk

When I read this, I got the impression that by "Universal System" you meant the super-system and that by "the rest of the system" you meant one or more sub-systems.

I am afraid you have read me wrong. — Pieter R van Wyk

There are no sets or subsets in this... — Pieter R van Wyk

Although, I haven't read How I Understand Things. The Logic of Existence, I will answer as follows. A familiar example of a system that possesses sub-systems is an automobile. The automobile is the super-system, and its function is to provide transportation. One of its sub-systems is its electrical system. The battery supplies current to the ignition-lock assembly that powers the electric motor that makes the ignition of the combustion engine possible. The super-system can't operate without the operation of an essential sub-system such as the electrical system.

If you're describing a system which has no sub-systems, then we have no argument as there are systems which have no sub-systems.

There are no sets or subsets in this - it is impossible to define a system in terms of sets or subsets - it is a fundamental thing by and in itself. — Pieter R van Wyk

I disagree with this generalization as per my statements above.

I also hold that my experience of the world does not have need for most metanarratives; I am a fan of uncertainty. I am also a fan of minimalism and think that people overcook things and want certainty and dominion where knowledge is absent and where they have no expertise. — Tom Storm

(Dialoguing with 180 Proof) I understand you to be implying that Tom Storm's quote, with respect to: a) self-referential higher orders entertains a belief that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions; b) constraints with outcomes not strictly predictable or inevitable are to be preferred to hard determinism; c) higher orders of things should be shunned in favor of minimalism whenever logically possible; d) given an apparent lack of sufficient knowledge and expertise, overthinking should be constrained. — ucarr

Regarding the above, please show me where I'm mis-reading you.

As I read you, the rest of the system is a subset of the universal system. If so, then given that the universal system has members a, b, and c, let’s say the subset has member c. Member c is what the two sets have in common. Member c is the Venn diagram where the two sets intersect. A real world example is the city of Dublin within the nation of Ireland. Within Dublin you’re also within in Ireland.

The best argument I can think of against theism is that God clearly cares about some people, but doesn't care about others. — baker

I take this to be your way of saying that God has unjustifiable biases in favor of certain preferred populations. I offer no defense of this apologist rationalizing.

My recourse to irrationality for the defense of theism arises from some of my thinking about ZFC and its comprehension restriction.

Inside of a Venn Diagram, by definition, lie the common properties linking two otherwise distinct things. An example would be two math inequalities that share a zone wherein their points intersect.

You believe your behavior, being personal, operates freely [in] spite of deterministic events that control your life? — ucarr

..."free will" (free action) is not un-conditional much as chaotic systems as such (e.g. weather, radioactive decay, disease vectors) are not in-deterministic. — 180 Proof

I understand you to be telling me that: a) our ecology, with its involuntary processes structured by invariant regularities and constants leads to: b) the compatibilist believing his choices are constrained to outcomes not strictly predictable or inevitable.

I also hold that my experience of the world does not have need for most metanarratives; I am a fan of uncertainty. I am also a fan of minimalism and think that people overcook things and want certainty and dominion where knowledge is absent and where they have no expertise. — Tom Storm

I understand you to be implying that Tom Storm's quote, with respect to: a) self-referential higher orders entertains a belief that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions; b) constraints with outcomes not strictly predictable or inevitable are to be preferred to hard determinism; c) higher orders of things should be shunned in favor of minimalism whenever logically possible; d) given an apparent lack of sufficient knowledge and expertise, overthinking should be constrained.

Since you argue for human determinism ... — ucarr

No I don't. I'm a compatibilist. — 180 Proof

You believe your behavior, being personal, operates freely is spite of deterministic events that control your life?

Do you see that your free will maintains its independence in spite of common ground wherein impersonal causation and personal choice intersect?

To illustrate the object of the question, let's imagine the common ground as being like the field where the x and y axes intersect. The x-axis represents the domain, which is the set of all possible input values (independent variable) for a function. The y-axis represents the range, which is the set of all possible output values (dependent variable) that the function can produce.

The input of an independent causal event (It's raining.) determines your response output of a chosen behavior (I walk outdoors under my umbrella.). The function is your reasoning mind which decides the umbrella response is best. There's a causal relationship between the rain and your choice of an umbrella, but you could've chosen to walk in the rain without an umbrella, so your choice of an umbrella was free. Your walk in the rain under your umbrella is the intersection (common ground) where input and output intersect.

Not at all. Unconscious-deterministic speculations e.g. Spinoza's substance, Epicurus' atomic void, Laozi's dao, etc — 180 Proof

Since you argue for human determinism, do you also argue for cosmic determinism? If so, why isn't cosmic determinism, i.e., a deterministic God, just a valid scaled up human determinism? Yes, this would allow for a God who prefers atheism by programming, thus suggesting a yin-yang relationship between the two isms.

How do you explain deterministic atheism being valid whereas deterministic theism is invalid? In all cases, no sentient choice is involved.

How do you explain the determinism of your conscious preference for atheism as against the determinism of your theism? If all of this is determined, you're merely an atheist by impersonal programming, and theists likewise. Sans debates by selective sentients, the dialectic is just programming. Differences are trivial.

I expect you to have a wealth of nuanced arguments with hair-splitting distinctions in the denotations of words. Doesn't this spin you back towards a paradoxical claim to possess the power to choose?

If we're allowed programmatically to pivot between the two isms, then we swim in an ocean of uncertainty, determinism notwithstanding. If this is the case, then philosophy, as I've thought, examples another flavor of entertainment.

I'm skeptical about your claim not to understand that the Christian God examples a scale of consciousness greater than your human scale of consciousness. I'm also skeptical about your claim not to understand that your thinking about God's thinking mirrors your thinking about your thinking.

My interpretation of your anti-theism says your reading of theistic narratives has lead you to conclude human type consciousness at cosmic scale has not been logically established. Nowhere in your counter-narratives have I seen compelling logic precluding the mirroring of humanoid consciousness to a grand scale.

Where's the atheistic narrative detailing the transition from randomness to order?

Where's the atheistic narrative detailing the possibility of human consciousness knowing empirically first hand true randomness. Perception and analysis assume a very highly ordered ecology wherein the question of the possibility of instantiating true randomness is unanswered.

Atheism, to preclude cosmic consciousness, must embrace cosmic randomness. Can it uncouple itself from order? How could it do so and maintain its purpose to learn the truth?

Can you express the measure of the number of sides of a circle as an integer? — ucarr

Infinity isn't defined as an integer. — ssu

Indeed, it's not. In the face-off between, say, an infinite series and a discrete interval like, say, all of the odd numbers between one and ten, we've got a high-contrast pairing of infinite and finite.

Rationalism is bounded by finitism. For this reason, infinite values, being incompletely containable, limit mathematicians. — ucarr

And anyway, there is uncomputable math. So mathematics isn't limited to computability/finitism and the like. — ssu

What does it mean for math to be able to ask questions it can't answer? Moreover, especially what does it mean for math to able to ask questions it can't answer regarding infinite values such as Turing's halting question about a computer program knowing when another program will either halt or run on an infinite loop?

Do you deny that God consciousness is a component of human psychology? — ucarr

Like magical / wishful / group thinking – no I don't "deny" it. Btw, what do you mean by "God consciousness"? — 180 Proof

God consciousness is meant to be a straightforward term. Like it says, there's a concept of an existing God held in the mind of a believer. In other words, a believer, in his mind, is conscious of a God presenting to his perceiving mind.

Regarding magical_wishful_group thinking, why do you think there's a logical skein extending from you to a scale of consciousness larger than you? I'm asking this question backwards in order to expose the logical content, which goes as follows: I say you assume there's a logical skein extending from you to a scale of consciousness larger than you in order enable you to then turn around and deny it. You must assume existence of something - at the very least in theoretical abstraction - before you can deny it.

Next point: if God consciousness can be characterized as a function of human psychology writ large - there's broad consensus about some of the bible passages being wisdom narratives giving instruction for intelligent navigation of moral, political and social precincts (The Book of Job) - then what essential logic forbids theoretical scalable consciousness beyond the human scale?

When the Universal system and the unique component interact, is there a Venn diagram of shared identity? — ucarr

To my knowledge, no. Simply an interaction - a transfer of mass, energy or information. — Pieter R van Wyk

Why don't you think an interaction contains a component of shared identity? A transfer of mass, energy, and information involves three components shared by both parties to the exchange.

The best argument the atheist can mount against theism is claiming it’s irrational, which is true. — ucarr

No. The most direct and effective counter-argument to theism concludes by claiming theism is not true. — 180 Proof

Do you deny that God consciousness is a component of human psychology? This question seeks to examine the connection - the identity linking narrative God and human psychology - in a correspondence relationship of truth. This would be an argument against your claim theism is not true.

A) To the degree the sine qua non claims of theism (i.e. a mystery (1) that created existence (2) and intervenes - causes changes - in the universe (3)) are falsified, Theism's Negation is true (re: anti-theism — 180 Proof

Do you have criteria establishing the falsifiability of (1) and (2)?

Antitheism: theism (Type) is not true (i.e. empty). — 180 Proof

If truth emerges from an identity correspondence - a=a - then how does emptiness, wherein there is no identity and therefore no correspondence, have relevance to truth?

I'd found, after the first twenty-odd years of unbelief, that it's more profitable to argue with (religious) theism which exists than to argue against gods which do not. Thus, atheism matured into antitheism, and my career in freethought became even freer, a vocation; these last decades, theism can be shown to be not true, and the rest follows. — 180 Proof

In your acknowledgement of theism, undeniably a component of human psychology - and thus your acknowledgement of theism a simultaneous acknowledgement of theistically textualized human psychology - do you make a corollary acknowledgement of theistic narratives as acknowledgably real human psychology?

When the Universal system and the unique component interact, is there a Venn diagram of shared identity?

Rationalism is bounded by finitism. For this reason, infinite values, being incompletely containable, limit mathematicians. — ucarr

I would disagree with that. I can imagine a perfect circle, not a regular polygon with trillions of sides (or something like that). — ssu

Can you express the measure of the number of sides of a circle as an integer?

And anyway, there is uncomputable math. So mathematics isn't limited to computability/finitism and the like. — ssu

Can pi be computed to an integer?

Regarding the Halting Problem, does ZFC apply restricted comprehension to it?

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that part of the Constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. — Colo Millz

Thanks for posting this Burke quote. It's a good model for useful political debate. American conservatives salute the 1776 Revolution, however, at the time, it was a radical change. No one was more aware of that than the minutemen who empowered it.

The US constitution has continued to be radical through the centuries as most people readily acknowledge that some of its ideals are yet to be fully realized.

The resulting debate, therefore, concerns the epistemology of moral improvement: whether justice is better secured by refining the wisdom of the past, or by subjecting that past to rational critique guided by universal moral principles. — Colo Millz

Why do you present the debate in such a rigidly binary structure?

According to the Gospels, the arrival of Jesus triggered a clash between a hidebound religious elite and a revolutionary advocate for the common people. Traditions stand good until they don't. Civilizations die, and new ones are born. I don't believe the staunchest conservative would be content to thoroughly regress back to the culture and society of even one hundred years ago.

On the flip side, I doubt even the most woke radical would dive headlong and carefree into a thoroughly unstructured future, anarchic and recalcitrant.

The point being that radicals and conservatives need each other, their rabid partisan rhetoric notwithstanding. History can neither afford to fly out of its orbit on a lark, nor plant itself in in the sand like an ostrich.

For Hazony, as for these earlier conservatives, the task of statesmanship is not to perfect society through rational schemes... — Colo Millz

Perfect society? Who's going to do that anytime soon?

...but to preserve and prudently amend the tested traditions that sustain moral and civic life. — Colo Millz

How is this any less a rational scheme than the one put forward by the progressives?

Preaching faith means either not having it or betraying it. — Astorre

This dilemma expresses the difficulty, or impossibility, of making a close approach to the divine.

According to Kierkegaard, the only true preacher is the one who lives faith in silence. — Astorre

Why does Kierkegaard write "...the only 'true preacher,' instead of 'the only truly faithful person' is the one who lives faith in silence."? With the insertion of "preacher," the sentence sets up as self-contradictory, given the dilemma quoted at top.

I conclude that talking about faith means abandoning it. As soon as you try to convey faith, you rationalize it, and therefore betray its nature. — Astorre

Human nature cannot abide total irrationality. No part of cognition, faithful or otherwise, can be of use if devoid of reason. Of course humans rationalize faith in transcendence. How else could they have any understanding of it?

As for internal monologues concerning the divine, the same absolute human demand for semblance of reason applies. How does it matter if Kierkegaard ruminates on God in total privacy? Is it not true that as soon you try thinking about faith, you rationalize it, and therefore betray its nature?

What about maintaining an open mind? Couple this with the concession God will not be understood, or even known beyond perplexing glimpses, and you have a procedure for accepting visitations from the divine with an open mind.

Listen to the fool in motley as soon as listen to the wise man, for the divine is a horrid beast of miracles as with Moses aglow in the dark for days after his descent from Mt. Sinai, and witness also Job and his poxy boils in payment for iron faith in the almighty.

Holism

• The math operators are the questions; the equal sign is the answer; the variables and constants are the subjects

• Within this environment, the truth is dynamic identity symmetrical and conserved. It is the emergent whole arising from the interplay of subjects, questions and answers, and the math logic that integrates their dynamic functions

• Subject_Question_Answer form a trio that animates creation.

• The unsearchable fundamental is identity.

• The math operators are identity operators that ground zero and one. This binary duo is sufficient to represent all of creation

• N + Additive Identity (0) = n; N – Subtractive Identity (0) = n; N * Multiplicative Identity (1) = n; N / Divisive Identity(1) = n

• Truth outside of temporal dynamism is neither created nor destroyed, but only revealed

• Identity outside of temporal dynamism is neither created nor destroyed, but only revealed

• The immortal soul of an existing thing outside of temporal dynamism is neither created nor destroyed, but only revealed

• The immortal soul has expression as the invariant point of a topological manifold

Your cognitive sword is skepticism, propelling you forward thrusting and parrying at the devious world of deception? — ucarr

And what is your proposed better alternative to that? — Copernicus

I have no better alternative to propose. I'm not judging your outlook. Skepticism is a worthy attitude given our world so fraught with deceptions. Like other useful things, it needs to be carefully controlled, lest good turn to bad. Life tricks us at both ends. Too trusting and we get duped; too skeptical and we get deprived.

No, in posting my previous communication, I was attempting to better understand you. When I have some idea how the other person tends to see the world, that helps me understand individual statements which I can then put into context.

My general impression of your narrative says, "You want to pair the metaphysics of knowledge relationships (p →q), as dynamically governed by an emergent and energetic inter-relation, viz., truth, with empirical experience. Dynamical, energetic identity transformations across space and time forming symmetries that conserve identity and support an enduring POV embody the living experience of truth.

We gaze into the looking glass and learn to live with our mirror-image devilish playmate.

We are homosexual at an early age" – why is that suddenly true? — Astorre

Homosexuality supporting later heterosexuality is one of my conjectures that is subject to refutation. — ucarr

I never got an answer to any of my questions. — Astorre

You've gotten a response to each and every post you've addressed to me. As I say above, my conjecture about sexual identity ideation is subject to refutation. Possible refutation confers legitimacy upon conjecture.

My post is about a=a, or identity. Sexual identity ideation spins out from this center as one of the core identities of the human individual: gender identity. The young child learns basic attributes of his identity. As he comes to awareness of sexual difference, he seeks esteem for his own group first. This seems natural to me because, as I've said, you must learn to love yourself before you are equipped with the self-esteem to begin to love the very different other. Whether or not the individual advances beyond the island of his own gender and, crossing over to the other side, discovers and consummates the nirvana embedded in love beyond selfhood is an open question.

Statistically, it's supposed to be the case that nine out of ten do, with one out of ten, or ten percent of the population, being homosexual.

All of this is possibly refutable. I expect you, now, to bring on the counter-narrative, if you have one. This instead of you continuing to attack such trivia as my diction, or the other inflated, reputation-building rhetorical device, attacking the opponent's methodology while abstaining from entering the trench war. The authentic battle is down in the trenches where the fighting rages over the logic of the premises and the viability of the propositions arising from them. My post is filled with possibly refutable propositions. Do you attack their logical details, as Banno does? No. You attack the diction of my sentences instead of their logic and conformity to reality, as evidenced below:

It's like an exercise in the aesthetics of symmetry and transformation that remains at the level of abstract contemplation. You wrap basic arithmetic in a poetic veneer, calling it the "dynamism of identity" and the "emergent property of truth," but what's next? — Astorre

What do you have to say about the logic of symmetry and transformation presented as the dynamism of identity? Have you read about this, or heard it being discussed? You imply it's cliché, but you cite no standard references. You ask, "Where is the breakthrough beyond what is already known?" Might the blossoming of human identity into symmetry and transformation from the extensional substitution of a=a nevertheless unitary be the breakthrough fusion of QM uncertainty you're looking at but not seeing?

My Identity Manifesto is filled with attack points. Have you read it? If you have, why are you attacking me instead of attacking my propositions?

Consider: ∧². This is the higher order of conjunction. So, the conjunction of conjunction might be written as a+ba+b. — ucarr

You quote me incorrectly. Here's the undistorted quote.

Consider: $∧^2$. This is the higher order of conjunction. So, the conjunction of conjunction
might be written as $a+b^{a+b}$. — ucarr

Higher order conjunction (across symmetry) suggests itself as a central component of mind emergent from brain. If there's truth in this conjecture, then it might be the type of symmetric extension that empowers your mind to understand the logical rules you cite as your refutations of my conjectures.

I respect your decision to walk away from our engagement here. Your input has motivated me towards a degree of logical clarity I couldn't've achieved without you. Thank-you for your time and energy.

I don't think your work here is done. For that to be the case, you need to write a logical proof establishing that the two quotes below confirm extension by substitution is disjoint from identity.

There are no laws prohibiting the multiplexing of a=a.
— ucarr
Yes, there is. Substitution is extensional. Indeed, that's the very definition of "=". — Banno

Definition 1.1 (Extensionality). If A and B are sets, then A= B iff every element of A is also an element of B, and vice versa. — Open Logic, p. 25

Your proof must counter-narrate:

Likely the most simple symmetry element is identity, represented by E (from the German word "einheit", meaning unity). Identity is the symmetry element of existence; all objects have this symmetry element, even if they have no other symmetry element. — Spectroscopy Online

Your cognitive sword is skepticism, propelling you forward thrusting and parrying at the devious world of deception?

"A scratch and my arm's off, but the other impels a sword."

Identity Manifesto

Truth is an emergent property of the dynamism of identity.

Identity is a core element of the interrelations of numbers.
7=7 is an identity.

The dynamism of identity is exemplified by the myriad faces of transformation without change.

3+4=7, 6+1=7, 5+2=7

Can you know the truth without knowing yourself?

Is there any knowing divorced from a sentient self? For example, does an insentient computer know what’s in its database and what’s in its memory circuits?

The conjunction of insentience and knowing sounds like an oxymoron.

Can you participate in the act of knowing without knowing that you’re knowing?

The knowing of an insentient computer is a simulation of knowing borrowed from the programmer.

The essence of my structure of truth consists in two seemingly disparate things converging to a common point. In this phenomenon, the two things are true to each other at the point of identity.

Knowing yourself is the foundation of all your knowing.

Am I saying that all that you know becomes yourself? Yes, I am. This is tantamount to saying all that you know is known with a point of view, your point of view. Eliminate your point of view and there is no view; you’re back to the insentient computer.

Sentience resides in the personal point of view.

Rationalism says, “Don’t take things personally.” This an impossible task for the sentient. Strip the sentient of his POV and his memory collapses. Too long a stint in a sensory deprivation tank will cause this collapse because the subject forgets who he is. We only maintain a sense of self through contact with the world of other things. This tells us that we are the world.

QM tells us the same thing. We are entangled with the world around us.

Regarding causation, if a implies b, then we understand each term always converges to a common link binding it to the other term. Initially, before discovery of the causal link, a and b might appear to be unrelated. Through observation we discover that one event, the cause, always leads to another particular type of event, the effect.

As a clarifying example, consider the springtime onset of high volume, high density airborne pollen. When this occurs, the immunization doctor gets an upsurge in patients suffering with effects of allergies. Pollen density and allergies are true to each other as cause and effect.

Math is particularly good at modeling convergence of seemingly different things to a common point.

Two equations look different yet they share an ordered pair of coordinates that defines their intersection at a common point. Together they comprise a system of equations. The systemization of the two equations pairs them to a common point. Apparent difference, through independent truth to one position, converts the disparate equations into a unifying system.

Can someone write a counter-narrative describing a relationship of truth that doesn’t reduce to an identity, or reduce different-seeming things that converge to one identity?

Essence and truth converge at the point of identity. What is the essence of something? Its identity. The essential truth of something is defined by its identity. How can it be otherwise? We do not know what a thing is until we know its identity. We therefore cannot know the truth about a thing until we know its identity.

Each operator has its identity, so operator identities are fundamental to logic. — ucarr

What am I to make of this? What is the "identity" of "^" or of "⊃"? Am i to write "^=^"? In what logic would such a string be well-formed? How do I assemble such an expression? — Banno

Go one day with your understanding stripped of $∧$ and then make something of that day's coherence.

Write any logical symbol as an identity. When you find one absurd, inform us.

Regarding $⊃$, attempt to place a small object so that it becomes uncontainable. Inform us when you succeed.

Am i to write "^=^"? In what logic would such a string be well-formed? How do I assemble such an expression? — Banno

Consider: $∧^2$. This is the higher order of conjunction. So, the conjunction of conjunction
might be written as $a+b^{a+b}$. What's an example application of $∧^2$? Suppose you're tracking the rate of acceleration of a giant comet moving on a collision course with earth. Knowing that the movement of the solar system's motion accelerates the acceleration of the comet, you must also know the acceleration of the comet's acceleration in the context of the moving solar system. So, the higher-order conjunctive acceleration of the comet is its momentum identity.

Conjunction, like every other thing, has an identity. Logic, therefore, unfolds and contracts as the valid continuity of identities. There are no laws prohibiting the multiplexing of a=a.

Don’t be so quick to walk off the battlefield. I know orthodoxy is your sword in this particular battle, but improv offers you another rewarding role to play.

You can’t assemble a logical expression without the operators. Each operator has its identity, so operator identities are fundamental to logic.

The orthodoxy dictating proper use of a=a was originally improvised and subsequently propounded into establishmentarian practice. Okay, so now you’re a mouse running around in someone else’s clever maze. Don’t kid yourself you’re not looking for your own playing field, if you can discover it.

Don’t scurry back to establishment correspondents who’ll semaphore more of the same rote patterns enshrined in textbooks. That’s not doing the real work before us now. If you’re content to rehash the history of your predecessors then you’ll probably blow me off. That’s okay, but the fun I seek, for which you denigrate me as a woo- woo chaser after undisciplined whimsy, is supported by the imperative to live now fully while you can.

I need you to stay on the battlefield and work the trenches in close combat with me. Your job is to tear the guts out of my theoretical sallies, if you can.

We will both have a chance to win because you might reaffirm the foundation of your orthodoxy, or I might see clear to a new foundation.

I need your reasoned response to my question, “If you can’t write a logical expression without use of operators, how can they not be sine qua non identities?

New morphological expansions in math and logic is our work in our generation.

In your personal lexicon "poetic" denotes what?

...formal logic has very fixed rules... it has to be shown to conform to the rules... And what you have here doesn't. — Banno

Logic is not based on identity — Banno

Logical operators (∧, ∨, ↔︎, ¬) are not logical identities?

How do you write a sequence of logic without logical operators?

Nor is it a symmetrical expansion of identity — Banno

The symmetries of quadratic functions don't example symmetrical expansion of quadratic equation graphs?

The symmetrical quadratic functions identities are not identities?

Falsehood is not broken symmetry, as you suggest in your third dot, so much as a logical constant, ⊥. — Banno

If you looked into a full length mirror and saw your mother looking back at you, would you affirm the truth of the symmetry?

T-sentence: "p" is true if and only if p.

As definitions of truth go, this is The One. — Banno

As I read T-sentence, it invokes the bi-conditional; the two terms support each other in identity.

A=A pictures the bi-conditional in all of its beautiful simplicity. — ucarr

I use invoke to say that, "T-sentence cites the bi-conditional operator as its authority for its definition of truth."

Are you saying (p <-> p) = (p=p)? — Hanover

I think they each say something very similar. You have your identity. Your possession of same is conditioned upon the individuality of that state. You're mentally unsound if you're fundamentally uncertain about who you are.

Is your use of the word "picture" an allusion to Wittgenstein and you're suggesting it's his position that the two bi-conditionals are identical? — Hanover

A=A is a graphic image you can see. As such, it pictures the symmetry and conservation and mirror-imaging of self clearly and succinctly.

I asked ChatGPT to pull out the argument in your post, and it offered:

Condensed Argument Form — Banno

• The law of identity (a=a) expresses a symmetry fundamental to logic and to being/selfhood.

• Logical reasoning (relations among terms) expands this symmetry outward into the relational world.

• Logic preserves genuine symmetries — falsehood is a broken symmetry.

• Personal identity mirrors physical conservation: the self is what persists through transformations.

• When false identifications occur, reason (logic) restores symmetry by distinguishing self from non-self.

• Art and imagination temporarily play with symmetry by allowing false identifications.

• Thus, our intellectual, ethical, and aesthetic lives are structured by a tension between the conservation of identity (a=a) and the imaginative violation of it (a=¬a)

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You can do me a favor by specifying how each of the seven bullet points above is an empty banality that can give no instruction to a child in primary school. No scattershot generalities such as saying, "They're clichés garnished with five-dollar words." No, I want you to use specific details in your arguments. For example, regarding:

• The law of identity (a=a) expresses a symmetry fundamental to logic and to being/selfhood.

In response to this, you could attack its central premise: Identity_POV_World are a triad of interwoven ecology that's animated with life indivisible. If you can show they are divisible, then you might've killed the triad.

...I haven't seen a single non-speculative statement here. — Astorre

The prudence of the pragmatist can sometimes make him appear far more astute than the theoretician. Reality pairs them together as a set never divided. Dreaming through immaterial possibilities seems the work of the addled fool. In our hardscrabble world of business savvy affirming courtship with expedience, speculation becomes a magnet for contempt.

Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein were theoreticians. We respect their successes. We respect the practitioner more easily because his work begins with the success already won by the theoretician.

While it's true that theorizing should be constrained by conjecture, we don't know where the next correct idea in abstraction might arise. Without it, we might still be doing calculus on an abacus.

We are homosexual at an early age" – why is that suddenly true?

"AI, becoming humanoid, will soon support the fluidity of all races and genders" – why is that? — Astorre

Homosexuality supporting later heterosexuality is one of my conjectures that is subject to refutation.

AI identity fluidity, another possibly refutable conjecture, seems to follow from ease of transformation. Human gender fluidity is fraught with violence because gender boundaries are regarded as being unbreakable. If AI can do it easily and endlessly, why not? Being smart in life means being adaptable. Why wouldn't they flow through the spectrum of identities as adaptations to existential and social realities more complex than their human counterparts?

...it [truth] depends on the existence of propositions and shared criteria of correctness. — Sam26

Adequation of intellect and reality, and don't forget the entanglement of the two.