What determines the nature of being--God, or.something else? — Terrapin Station

i think the question involves a category error. Being is in indeterminate, not determinate. As what essences limit and so determine, existence is not itself determinate. It is the indeterminate power to act.

Yes, I did miss it. It did not appear in my email notifications. Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

Let me say that, while I am Cristian, I don't think that we can have proof that God acts in a Christian way - that we have no proof of a "Christian God," or a Jewish or Moselim God for that matter. Belief in such a God is a matter of faith. It may be justified internally by some more or less intimate relation. Knowing that relation (an I-Thou) points to a Thou, making faith a genuine, but incommunicable, kind of knowledge. It may be justified externally, not by empirical knowledge, but by the worthiness of the commitment it calls for.

Still, I think the logic of arguments such as those of Aristotle, ibn Sina and Aquinas (and the one I posted here) is sound. Just because what logic tells us is limited, and perhaps even inadequate to a well=lived life, does not mean that it is false. So, I think we must agree to disagree. I think that we can prove that there exists a timeless Power maintaining the universe in being.

The amount of mathematics used by physics does not change its fundamental nature. It certainly does not turn physics into mathematics. It just makes sure that it is incredibly consistent. It is its consistency that explains its success. — alcontali

You are missing the point. Deductions are only sound if the premises are true and the logic valid. According to you, no mathematical proposition is true. So any argument a scientist makes using a mathematical premise is necessarily unsound.

The difference between physics and mathematics is not that one is about nature and the other not — Dfpolis

That is exactly the difference. — alcontali

If you are only going to repeat you faith claims, and not try to justify them there is no point in posting on a philosophy forum.

Math is about nature as quantifiable — Dfpolis

Mathematics is not number theory. Most mathematical theorems are not about numbers or quantities. — alcontali

I did not say it was number theory. This is not the first time you have twisted my claim, saying I was talking about number theory when I did not mention it. This is not honorable. I named other areas of math, and explained how set theory was based on nature as quantifiable.

You can represent a set by its membership functions and disregard what elements it contains. From there on, the paradox becomes a problem with these membership functions. — alcontali

Again, doing so leads to a contradiction precisely because proceeding in this way makes assumptions that are not based on abstraction.

Since you did not respond the main argument of my last post, there is no point in continuing. I am simply wasting my time.

I skipped a number of points as they did not address my argument in a substantive way, and so need no response.

Third, in my proof infinite being does not stand as unexplained, but as self-explaining and precisely because it is infinite being, so that what it is entails that it is. — Dfpolis

This is an equivocation. Either you can explain the existence of God, that is provide a discursive explanation or you cannot. You have not. — Fooloso4

This is false. I explained, discursively, why God's essence (what He is) entails that He is.

You claim that there is an:

Infinite being [who] can act in all possible ways in all pos­sible places at all possible times. — Dfpolis

and build your discursive explanation based on that assertion. — Fooloso4

This is false.

There is no point in spending more time responding to you when you do not understand and respond to what I actually write. Two false claims are enough.

So, the order of precedence here is God -> created being (including humans) -> logic (created by humans). — Dfpolis

So if logic is simply something created by humans to think about reality, then God would not in any way be constrained by logical possibility, right? — Terrapin Station

Logic is as it is because, to be salve veritate (truth preserving), it has to reflect the nature of being. Being is not a constraint, because being only excludes non-being -- which is to say being excludes nothing. What excludes nothing is not a constraint.

God, then, is limited to the possible, the which He cannot instantiate himself - like eating a sandwich - so he acts through agents - demi-urges? Demons? Lesser deities? is there a problem with the divine/common interface here? — tim wood

I eat sandwiches for God, and so do all the other sandwich eaters. We can only eat because we exist, and we only exist because we are divine activities.

What is "contradictory' cannot be the same as the possible and not-possible, beacuse the latter is mutable, changes over time. — tim wood

As I discussed in my thread on the analogy of necessity, there are different kinds necessity and possibility depending on the contextualizing basis. What is physically possible can change over time, as the initial conditions do. It could also be different in other universes with different laws. What is ontologically possible is not like that. Ontological possibility is only limited by the ontological principle of contradiction. If a fully specified A is, then it cannot not-be That never changes.

There are some very appealing and intuitively obvious answers, but those cannot be our criteria - if for no other reason than the question relates to the capabilities of "infinite" beings — tim wood

That is why we need to be very careful with out definitions.

In any case, we've devolved this notion of "God" from an omnipotent and infinite being to one who cannot do anything! — tim wood

False. God can do anything. The problem is that contractions cannot be things

I like ham, but can you do pastrami? — tim wood

I'm an omnivore..

It strikes me that the only possible act that God engages in directly is the act of creation ex nihilo. — Theorem

Creatio ex nihillo was in the past. One an ongoing basis God engages in creatio continuo -- mainting conteinfent beings in existence.

it would imply that God's existence and the existence of some logically possible universe are mutually dependent. In other words, if God exists only when he is exercising some capacity, and if the only capacity he has is for creation ex nihilo, then God exists iff some logically possible universe of his own creation exists. — Theorem

God primarily maintains His own being. Thus, Aristotle called Him, "Self-Thinking Thought." This is an immanent activity -- directed to self-perfection as opposed to a transient activity, which is directed to others. So, God's immanent activity is contingent on nothing else.

The necessity of God upon the universe is not ontological, but epistemological. Knowing the universe is sufficient to lead us to know that God exists by necessity.

No, we're not going to get stuck. I'm not saying that your concept of a brick is whole brick. It is a projection of the brick. (Think of a projection of power.) The fact that the brick is acting on and in you by modifying your neural state does not mean that the whole brick is in you. Only a subset of what it can do is in you. Still, it is acting in you.

We think of physical objects as having well-defined boundaries, but that way of thinking does not exhaust their reality, They are surrounded by a radiance of action: they have a gravitational field, scatter light, and so on. This radiance of action is as much a part of their being as their core. If we took it away, they would no longer be the same. They would be something different. It is this radiance of action that penetrates us in modifying our neural state.

I do not intend to provide detailed replies to each of your posts, which have become repetitive. Instead, I will simply read them to see if you've answered any of my points.

'll begin by summarizing my position. I agree that mathematics does not seek to justify its axioms. This point was made by Aristotle 2500 years ago. That does not mean that most of its axioms are not justified. They are just not justified by mathematics.

We may divide the axioms into three classes.
1. Most axioms are abstracted from our experience of nature as countable and measurable. You have agreed that this is so historically and have offered no reason why is not true today. To be concrete, children learn to count by counting particular kinds of things, but soon learn that the act of counting does not depend on the kind of thing we are counting, only that it be countable. Thus, they abstract concepts such as unit and successor from the experience of counting real-world objects. This is the empirical basis of arithmetic and its axioms.
Since we are dealing with axioms abstracted from, not hypothesized about, reality, there is no need for empirical testing for them to be known experientially. Further, since the axioms are instantiated in reality, which cannot instantiate contradictions, we know that such axioms are self-consistent without having to deduce their self-consistency.
As we can trace our concepts to experiences of nature, and since there is no evidence concepts exist outside the minds of rational animals, there is no reason to posit a Platonic world. Doing so is unparsimonious and irrational.
2. Some axioms are hypothetical.
a. Some hypothetical axioms can be tested, e.g. the parallel postulate. You have not objected to my claim that the parallel postulate can be tested by measuring the interior angles of triangles.
b. The remaining hypothetical axioms can't be tested, e.g. the axiom of choice. These are unfalsifiable and unscientific, We agreed that unfalsifiable hypotheses are unscientific. I have pointed out that as, unscientific, pursuing their consequences is merely a game, no different in principle than any other game with well-defined rules, such as Dungeons and Dragons.

Against this you claim that " Axioms can best be considered to be arbitrarily chosen." Best on what basis? What is optimizedt? If the axioms are formalizable in arithmetic, we have no way of knowing that they are even self-consistent. On my account we do. Surely it is better to know we are dealing with a self-consistent system than to waste a lifetime on what may turn out to be utter nonsense. So, how is your notion "best"?

As any knowledge abstracted from nature can be applied to nature, there is no problem with physicists using true mathematics to deduce conclusions about nature. Physics do this routinely. On you account this would be a grave error, for it would be mixing premises of indeterminate truth with premises that are true empirically. Yet, mathematical physics is one of the most successful sciences. Your theory can't explain this success. On it, what mathematical physicists do is completely unjustifiable.

The difference between physics and mathematics is not that one is about nature and the other not, but that they are about different aspects of nature. Math is about nature as quantifiable (countable and measurable), while physics is about nature as changeable, and mathematical physics is about the quantitative aspects of nature as changeable.

You object that we can prove nothing of the real world, but have provided no rational for this. You have not explained why I can't prove there are two pieces of fruit in a bowl, or that two objects and two more objects are four objects. Even if there were the mythic "Platonic World," that wouldn't mean abstract concepts can't be instantiated. In fact, the only way we learn concepts is by abstracting them from their instances. So, no more dogma. Let's have a proof if you have one.

You object that set theory is not about nature as countable, but it is. It's just not about it in the same way as number theory. This is because sets are collections of objects, and, in the context of set theory, "object," "unit," and "element" are convertible terms. That is why sets have cardinality.

The reason for Russell's paradox is not some formal problem that requires a theory of types (though a theory of types avoids the problem). The reason for it is that there is nothing in reality from which we can abstract the concept of the set of all sets that do not include themselves, just as there is nothing in reality from which we can abstract the parallel postulate or the axiom of choice. In other words, there is no (actual or potential) well-defined collection of objects (note the real-world reference) that is the set of all sets that do not include themselves.

I know that you will object that the "objects" in the definition of "set" need not be physical, but I did not claim that they were. They can be intentional beings, i.e. concepts in the minds of real persons.

Clearly, we may not believe (accept) what we know, which would be impossible if knowledge were a species of belief. — Dfpolis

If you know it, it means that you can justify it. So, why would you not believe it? — alcontali

Belief need not be rational. People know they can't afford something because they know their financial situation, but buy it anyway because they want it. They allow their desire to convince them that they can afford it. There are thousands of examples of desire-based beliefs overriding known facts. Knowledge cannot be a species of belief because we can know one thing and believe the contrary. Plato did not want to acknowledge this, but it's true.

If we only need begin with unjustified axioms, we can start with any assumptions and prove anything. — Dfpolis

No. A system becomes trivialist because it contains a contradiction, for example — alcontali

But, confining ourselves to the formal approach you champion, we can't know that any system formalizable in arithmetic is self-consistent. So, almost any system may be trivial on you account. You need to do better. All you're doing is ruling out obvious nonsense, leaving open the possibility that all mathematics may be obscure nonsense,

Math does not justify axioms by experimental testing. In fact, Math does not justify axioms at all. If you justify axioms by experimental testing, then it is simply not math. In that case, you are doing something else. — alcontali

We agree, You're doing something more fundamental than a science when you examine the foundations of a science -- metamathematics or metaphysics, for example.

I personally do not believe that a good physicist could ever be a good mathematician, nor the other way around. — alcontali

Poor Pierre-Simon Laplace! Poor Carl Friedrich Gauß! Poor Jules Henri Poincaré! Poor Emmy Noether. Poor John von Neumann! If they'd only had your insight, they might not have wasted their time doing both. As with your statement about how Euclid influenced Socrates, you seem to like beliefs that ignore history.

Concerning the coherence theory of truth, I agree with Bertrand Russell's objections: — alcontali

I said nothing about the coherence theory, which I reject.

Therefore, I cannot agree with "Newtonian physics is true with respect to" — alcontali

Non-sequitur -- as it is based on attacking a position that is not mine.

Entanglement allows for simultaneous being and not being in the real world. — alcontali

You have no idea of what "entanglement" means, do you?

I am tired of this. Do some reflecting on what I said.

Goes to show how barren theology has become, when modern arguments for God are nothing more than restated millennium-old syllogisms — Maw

If a proof is sound, there is no shame in restating it. Do you have a substantive criticism, or is your only objection that my argument is not in vogue?

That is why I provided a proof. — Dfpolis

Call it what you like but it is nothing more than a claim for the existence of a being whose existence you assert but cannot prove or demonstrate exists. — Fooloso4

When you have rebutted my argument, you may claim this. Without pointing out a false premise or a logical misstep, this remains your unsupported belief.

Do you have a citation for Aristotle? — Dfpolis

No. — Fooloso4

Then you should not claim the authority of Aristotle.

Claiming that a being is the cause of being leaves unexplained the existence of that being. — Fooloso4

This mischaracterizes the argument. First, Aquinas points out that "being" is not predicated univocally of God and empirical beings. Instead, God is called a being because God is the source of empirical being. This is an analogy of attribution. The example is that food is healthy, not because it is in good health, but because it is a cause of health those who consume it. So, the source of empirical being cane be called a being, not that use of "being" is not the same as the "being" in empirical being.

Second, it is not being in the abstract that explains being in the abstract, but a particular, infinite being that explains other finite beings.

Third, in my proof infinite being does not stand as unexplained, but as self-explaining and precisely because it is infinite being, so that what it is entails that it is.

Claiming that there is self-explaining being is not to provide a discursive explanation. — Fooloso4

I made it clear in the OP that I was not talking about discursive explanations, but about dynamical ones. Still the fact that God's essence is His existence is the discursive reason He is self-explaining in the dynamical sense.

You simply posit what you cannot explain or demonstrate. It is just kicking the can. — Fooloso4

Then you will have no trouble pointing to a false premise or an invalid logical step.

Aquinas wrote for a more philosophically literate audience -- one that knew the distinction between essential and accidental causality. — Dfpolis

You should not underestimate your own audience. There may be some here who do not know the difference but some who do. — Fooloso4

It is still better to avoid confusion by a judicious choice of terms.

Positing a necessary being or, facts as you would have it, explains nothing. It is a misuse of the term explanation. I think you might know this and that is why you called you assertion a fact. — Fooloso4

I did not posit, I offered a proof. A proper critique would point to specific errors in what I offered.

While there are some who still attempt to defend Aquinas' argument others, including theologians, have rightly moved on. Your argument fares no better than his. — Fooloso4

Then what, specifically, are my errors?

I have spent a lot of time responding, but very little of what I have responded to is critical of my actual argument. The fact that many are confused about Aquinas's arguments is not a criticism of what i said.

As for your post on Aristotle, I will not respond to it, as it would take too much time.

The issue is that your distinction between infinite and finite beings is made in terms of an ambiguous definition of "possible acts". — Theorem

Not quite. Infinite being can effect any possible act either directly, or by indirection. While God can't eat a ham sandwich Himself (as that would entail finiteness), God can create a being who can. So, God can effect any possible act, while a finite being cannot. In other words, there is no barrier to effecting the act, there is only a problem if one over-constrains the act so as to make it instantiate a contradiction.

Using this line of reasoning, we could say that a finite being acting as only an infinite being or as only any other finite being can is also not a possible act. Therefore, finite beings can engage in any possible act. — Theorem

I hope that I have resolved this to your satisfaction above. God can do anything that does not instantiate a contradiction, because it is not possible to instantiate a contradiction. Finite beings have intrinsic limits to their power to act, so that there are possible acts not within their power.

Agreed? — tim wood

Yes, but the idea of a particular brick requires that that brick modify your nervous system to create a representation you can be aware of. So, by acting in you, the extramental brick penetrates you (your neural representation is identically the brick modifying your neural state). It is this shared being that makes knowledge possible.

Your awareness of the brick's activity is your idea of the brick. Aristotle points out that the one act of awareness actualizes two distinct potentials: You capacity to know and the capacity of the brick to be known (its intelligibility). So, again knowledge is based on subject-object unity -- this time joint actualization.

What you may regard to be the relationship between thought and reality is simply your thoughts on that relationship. A clear example of why your simplistic bivalent logic fails: — Fooloso4

No, not just my thoughts, but those of a community of scholars who have been investigating the issue for 2500 years. But, even if they were mine alone, noting that does not rebut my analysis. To do that you have to deal with what I said in a substantive way,

... the opposite of red is not-red ... — Dfpolis

What is the opposite of red? Is blue the opposite of red? Is green or yellow? — Fooloso4

I said what the opposite is in the line you quoted: not red -- not this or that kind of not red, but anything not red, aka the privation of red.

If God exists (something like the typical ideas of God re the Judeo-Christian God), then either:

(a) God created logic, or it's at least part of His nature, and God could make logic however He'd want to make it--He has control over His own nature,

or

(b) Logic is more fundamental than God, and God can't buck it any more than we can. God must conform to it. It supersedes Him in its regard. — Terrapin Station

Logic is a science which provides rules for mediated thought about reality. God does not have mediated thought, but knows all reality immediately in his act of sustaining it being. Therefore God does not need or use logic.

So, I simply deny both horns of your supposed disjunction. God is unqualified being. The beings of experience depend on God. Humans develop logic to think about being in a rational way. So, the order of precedence here is God -> created being (including humans) -> logic (created by humans).

Continuing...

In science, the observations are the P (justifying statement) and the theory (knowledge statement) is the Q, in P => Q — alcontali

This shows a disqualifying lack of understanding of the scientific method. There is no case in physics, or in any other science, in which observations logically imply a theory. Observations are particulars, while theories make universal claims. The implication you suppose has an undistributed middle and is necessarily invalid,. This has been clearly understood since at least the 1230s, when Robert Grosseteste wrote canons for the scientific method as it exists today.

P does not affect the arrow, which is the real knowledge. — alcontali

While I agree that conditionals can express truths independently of the truth of their antecedents, they need not be the "real knowledge," whatever that may me, What most scientists seek to know is how their observation sets can be understood in terms of more fundamental universal principles, aka theories, the P in your proposition.

It may be true, for example, that if there were no observers there would be no observations, but few scientists would consider this to be getting to the meat of the matter, to be "the real knowledge,"

Mathematics is not justified by experimental testing, and is therefore, not scientific — alcontali

Yes, and no. The portion of mathematics following from propositions abstracted from nature, or testable by observation (e.g. the parallel postulate), is scientific. The portion deriving from unfalsifiable hypotheses (e.g. the axiom of choice) is clearly not scientific, for it violates the accepted canons.

In his lecture, Gödel and the End of Physics, Hawking spent quite a bit of effort justifying his views. For me, it works. — alcontali

As this is entirely irrelevant to the OP, I shall leave you to it.

While physics can be and has been axiomatized (e.g. quantum theory and quantum field theory) — Dfpolis

If it is physics, it is about the real, physical world, and in that case, you can test it. Therefore, it will not be accepted, as a matter of principle, that it does not get tested. — alcontali

You are missing the point. I am not saying that we shouldn't test the axiomatic foundations of physical theories, but that our capacity to investigate those foundations shows that being an axiom does not preclude justification. Your response shows that you agree, but want, for no stated reason, to exclude mathematics from the fields whose axioms can be investigated and potentially justified. That the parallel postulate was suspected from the beginning, and the uncertain status of the axiom of choice shows that your views are hardly universal.

So, a bowl that holds only one apple and one pear cannot be proven to hold two pieces of fruit? — Dfpolis

No. It will undoubtedly be true, but it will not be provable. — alcontali

This alone is sufficient to reject your views. We can prove it by (1) noting that apples and pears are both fruit, (2) that they are also both units, and (3) applying ordinary arithmetic via the dictum de omni. Feel free to rebut this.

So, 2 objects and 2 more objects might not yield a total count of 4 objects outside the visible universe? — Dfpolis

Doesn't matter, because you cannot observe it. Therefore, without observations in an experimental testing fashion, such claim about the non-visible universe is unscientific. — alcontali

This is irrational and inconsistent. You claim that mathematics need not be justified by observation. I hope you would agree that it is a mathematical truth that 2 + 2 = 4. By the dictum de omni, this is true if and only if it is true in all instances. Whether the instances are observable or not is irrelevant.

Further, I do not accept your restriction of science to fields that employ the hypothetico-deductive method. You cannot define you way to a conclusion about reality. If 2 + 2 = 4, it does so always and everywhere, not merely in some domain you arbitrarily choose to define.

Mathematics requires you to painstakingly construct the world in which you will derive your mathematical theorems. We did not construct the real, physical world. Therefore, we are not allowed to derive mathematical theorems in it. — alcontali

Mathematicians construct no worlds. They merely work out the implications of axioms that may or may not be justified by our experience of the real world. If the axioms are justified, those implications will be applicable to the world from which the axioms are derived. If the axioms are unfalsifiable hypotheses, those applying them are merely playing complex mental games. They are entitled to play their favorite games, but they can hardly expect society to support their play.

I only wanted to refer to the fact that scientific theories are enumerable. — alcontali

Sentences are enumerable, but I don't think theories are as they may contain unspecified constants that are indenumerable. Also, it is unclear that the judgements sentences express are enumerable, as concepts can be analogously predicated. So there is not a one-to-one mapping of concepts to words.

That is probably true for "a science" but not for "science", which is simply any proposition that can be justified by experimental testing. — alcontali

I see no need to restrict systematic knowledge to what can be justified by the hypothetico-deductive method. What is so justified is not known to be true, only known to be justified. Since we do not know it to be true in any absolute sense, it does not even meet the JtB definition of "knowledge."

Yes, agreed. I do not think that knowledge is necessarily a "true" belief, with the term "true" as in the correspondence theory of truth. Knowledge as a "justified belief" should be sufficient. — alcontali

I am willing to agree with this in the context of experimental/observational science; however, we can do better wrt to math, being and certain mental topics.

My preferred approach is to use an analogous definition of truth as adequacy to the needs of a particular discourse. Then, for example, Newtonian physics is true with respect to many engineering needs.

Experimental testing always occurs in the real, physical world, of which we do not have the axioms. — alcontali

While it is quite true that we do not have an exhaustive knowledge of reality, that is not the same as having no knowledge of absolute real world truths. We can and do have axioms applicable to the real world. Recall that the root meaning of "geometry" is "land measure" and many of its axioms are true of real-world geometric relations relations. Number theory derives from counting real world objects, and applies to such operations. We also know some of the principles of real-world existence. No real thing can be and not be in one and the same way at one and the same time, and so on.

Therefore, we cannot axiomatically derive that what can be experimentally tested. — alcontali

Of course we can. We can measure the interior angles of plane triangles and see if the results agree with the prediction that they will sum to two right angles. Then, the result is both axiomatically derived and experimentally confirmed.

Also, as I have mentioned earlier, physicists have axiomatized quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Special relativity rests on two axioms. So, in al of these fields, we have the ability to proceed axiomatically, but that in no way prevents us from testing our deductions experimentally.

Math justifies by axiomatic derivation, while science is does that by experimental testing. — alcontali

I agree that this is true with respect to justification, if are restricting yourself to sciences that use the hypothetico-deductive method.

If a proposition is derived axiomatically from a set of axioms that construct an abstract, Platonic world, you cannot experimentally test it, because that would require the objects to be part of the real world and not the Platonic world in which they have been constructed. — alcontali

I hate to break it to you, but there is no Platonic world. There is the real world and there are mental constructs that exist in the minds of people living in the real world.

Historically, most axioms have been abstracted from our experience of reality. For example, the Dedekind–Peano axioms are all derived from our experiences of counting and dealing with equal quantities. A very few (principally Euclid's parallel postulate) were not derived from experience. The fact that neither the parallel postulate, nor any equivalent to it (such as the sum of the interior angles of a triangle) could be abstracted from experience has been recognized as a problem from the very beginning of axiomatic geometry. So, from the beginning, we've had axioms that could be abstracted from reality and hypothetical axioms, such as the axiom of choice.

We use the same logic in deducing both predictions from physical hypotheses and mathematical theorems. In fact, many of the axioms used in mathematical physics are identical to axioms used in mathematics. So, the only methodological difference is that physics has a much greater percentage of hypothetical axioms and so makes greater use of experimental confirmation. (While it is not part of the canonical procedure, many geometry students have measured the interior angles of triangles.)

When we test conclusions, we do not test them in abstract, universal form, but as they are instantiated in real-world particulars. So, the fact that we have no experimental access to abstract forms is irrelevant.

The axiomatic method is defined and discussed in numerous places, such as here and here. — alcontali

I am not denying that. I meant that there is no clear distinction between the methods you mentioned. The axiomatic method is no different than the method used in rigorous papers in physics. One states one's premises/axioms and then deduces consequences. The main difference is that in mathematics, hypothetical axioms need not be falsifiable. Those of us trained in the natural sciences do not see unfalsifiable as an advantage, especially given that Godel work ruling out consistency proofs in systems representable in arithmetic.

So, the only way to insure consistency is to abstract one's axioms from reality, which cannot instantiate a contradiction.

After Euclid's Elements introduced the axiomatic method, Socrates got the idea that philosophy had to be approached in a similar manner. — alcontali

Socrates died in 399 BC, Euclid flourished about 100 years later, c. 300 BC. If you read the history of Greek science, you'll learn that Euclid modeled his method on the logical approach developed by Aristotle.

it was not a good idea for science, as would later become clear from Aristotle's now outdated scientific publications, but it works for mathematics and morality. — alcontali

While science moves on, it is hardly a failure to found a number of fields, including political science, logic, mathematical physics and marine biology. Aristotle was a tireless researcher, reading all the works of his predecessors. He was also a thorough observer and empiricist, insisting that his students dirty their hands with dissections and keeping informed on advances in mathematical astronomy. He knew more about viscous fluids than Newton and his work on Aegean fish is still a valuable reference.

Aristotle's approach to empirical science was empirical, not axiomatic. His approach to philosophy was fundamental and logically, but not axiomatic in the sense of positing unexamined assumptions. Instead, he saw the role of metaphysics to be the examination and justification (but not deduction) of first principles.

As a passing note, the axiomatic method does not work for morality, nor did Aristotle claim that it did.

Axioms can be abstracted from reality — Dfpolis

That is how axioms were originally understood: — alcontali

I am glad to find some agreement. Those not so abstracted are, then, hypothetical. If they cannot be tested, they are unfalsifiable hypotheses and highly suspect.

How does the so-called "axiomatic method" justify its axioms? — Dfpolis

It doesn't. In fact, that is even forbidden, because in that case, they are not axioms. — alcontali

This is utter nonsense. Axioms are axiomatic wrt a particular field -- meaning that they are assumed, but not justified within the context of that field. That does not preclude them being justified by a more fundamental field. As we have just agreed, the original justification of mathematical axioms was not via deduction from more fundamental assumptions, but via abstraction from reality.

That brings us at last to the justification of metaphysical premises, which, similarly, is not by deduction, but via abstraction.

In a knowledge statement P => Q, you can see that Q is justified by P. We do not care how P is justified, or if this is even the case. — alcontali

Again, this is nonsense. If we did not care how axioms were justified, there would have been no controversy over the parallel postulate (which there was from the beginning) or about the axiom of choice. It is because we do care about the truth of axioms that so much ink was expended on these issues.

Why do we care? Because mathematics is a science -- as one organized body of knowledge among many. So, we want its conclusions to be true. In fact, truth is a central issue in Goedel's work. The problem he exposed (which completely undercuts your position) is that there are true theorems that cannot be proven from fixed axiom sets. If mathematics did not deal with truth, this could not be the case. If "mathematical truth" were convertible with provability, this could not be the case. So, the axiomatic method does not, and cannot, provide us with an exhaustive inventory of mathematical truths. That means that it cannot be the foundation of mathematical truth as you seem to imply.

Further, if the truth of P is indeterminate, so is the truth of Q if its sole justification is P => Q. On your account, mathematics is no more that a game -- not any different from Dungeons and Dragons, which also has rules that are neither true nor false, but simply to be followed by those playing the game. Funding mathematical research would be a scam in which we are paying people to play arbitrary games, with no hope of advancing our knowledge of reality, however theoretical.

Finally, it mathematics were not true, it would not be applicable to reality. Physicists who included mathematical premises in their reasoning, would be relying on claims of questionable or indeterminate truth, making their own conclusions and hypothetical predictions worthless.

to be continued ...

1) What does contradiction inhere in? — tim wood

I am not claiming that the contradictions can inhere in things as accidents, i.e.,as what Aristotle calls secondary beings. I am claiming that they cannot exist, and so do not exist. As they do not exist, they do not inhere, and as they do not inhere, they have no need of something to inhere in.

If you're asking how we can form/justify this judgement given that what we are talking about does not exist, I respond that the judgement is not based on any experience of non-existence (which is impossible), but on our experience of being. Everything we encounter exists, and this allows us to abstract a notion of existence. (I say "notion" because it is not a concept like other concepts.)

When we do so, we see that existing utterly excludes not existing, and so we grasp the ontological principle of non-contradiction (A putative thing cannot both be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same sense.) It is this principle that is applied here.

Time for you to define existence and being, or to save you some trouble, to correct mine. Allow me to make a division into two classes: mental reality and extra-mental reality. Seven, for example, is a mental reality and not an extra-mental reality, as are all numbers, truth, justice, love, and the American way. — tim wood

I answered your definition question in the OP.

Wait, so an infinite being cannot engage in any possible act? — Theorem

Yes, it can. An infinite being acting as only a finite being can is not a possible act.

You seem to be saying that there are certain acts that only a finite being can accomplish. This seems problematic. — Theorem

Why is it problematic? Truly eating requires a number of operations that imply finiteness: changing in the course of chewing means that the eater has unrealized potencies. Using and requiring nutrients to maintain one's being implies contingency. and so on. So, you must see the acts, not in abstraction (which would be Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness), but in the context of being done by an unlimited being.

You might think it genius but as you said in the OP, thinking something does not make it exist. — Fooloso4

That is why I provided a proof.

Aristotle saw that the cause of being cannot be a being. Aquinas, in line with the belief in a Creator, avoids the problem by simply declaring that there is an uncaused being that is the cause of other beings. A being that is (existence) because to be is what it is (essence). — Fooloso4

Do you have a citation for Aristotle?

No, Aquinas did not make a faith claim. He provided a proof. Also, my use of "explanation" is not the same as Aquinas's use of "cause" in "uncaused cause." Aquinas's "causes" must be extrinsic, while my "explanation" can be intrinsic or extrinsic.

The same tired old argument. — Fooloso4

I agree that my argument uses insights due to Aristotle, ibn Sina and Aquinas. Still, being old is not a fallacy. Do you have an objection other than the ancient roots of my thought?

Aquinas did not write in ancient Greece — Fooloso4

Aquinas wrote for a more philosophically literate audience -- one that knew the distinction between essential and accidental causality.

The point is you are using the term in two fundamentally different ways - (1) fact(s) that are not dependent (God/infinite being) and (2) all other facts which are dependent on (1). — Fooloso4

Has that caused you any difficulty?

Let's clarify the "dependence" of facts. There is epistemological dependence. We need not know God before we know empirical facts. And, there is ontological/dynamical dependence. Contingent facts cannot explain themselves.

How does your argument for a self-explaining God differ from Aquinas' first cause, an efficient cause, an uncaused cause? — Fooloso4

I think you can work that out for yourself. The question is irrelevant to the soundness of my argument.

I apologize if you addressed this already, but could you clarify what you mean by any possible act? Could an infinite being eat a ham sandwich for lunch at my dining room table today? — Theorem

No, because that would entail the contraction of Its being limited, but It could create a finite being capable of doing so. Am I invited?

I do not see more than one brute fact as a problem; all that is required is a brute fact to act as the first cause for causality/time. — Devans99

But, there is no objective reason for such a limitation. It is all very subjective. Whenever you do not like where a line of explanation is leading, you can stop it by pulling the "brute fact" cord.

I think we have a very different conception of what God is. — Devans99

I agree.

Thank you for your reflections.

1) What does contradiction inhere in? — tim wood

I am not claiming that the contradictions can inhere in things as accidents, i.e.,as what Aristotle calls secondary beings. I am claiming that they cannot exist, and so do not exist. As they do not exist, they do not inhere, and as they do not inhere, they have no need of something to inhere in.

If you're asking how we can form/justify this judgement given that what we are talking about does not exist, I respond that the judgement is not based on any experience of non-existence (which is impossible), but on our experience of being. Everything we encounter exists, and this allows us to abstract a notion of existence. (I say "notion" because it is not a concept like other concepts.)

When we do so, we see that existing utterly excludes not existing, and so we grasp the ontological principle of non-contradiction (A putative thing cannot both be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same sense.) It is this principle that is applied here.

Time for you to define existence and being, or to save you some trouble, to correct mine. Allow me to make a division into two classes: mental reality and extra-mental reality. Seven, for example, is a mental reality and not an extra-mental reality, as are all numbers, truth, justice, love, and the American way. — tim wood

I answered your definition question in the OP, saying that "Dynamic ontology is built on the notion of [that] being can be explicated as the capacity to act." I see now that I made a typo, which I just corrected. As de-finition limits, and being is intrinsically unlimited, it cannot be de-fined, but it can be explicated and this is what I have done. Existence and the ability to act are convertible.

I am happy to accept your distinction between mental reality and extra-mental reality, but I don't think you've thought it through properly. Mental existents may be thought of in two ways: as they are in themselves, and as possible objects of thought. As they are in themselves, they are intentional beings, which is to say that their very nature is to be about something. The concept of red is about possible red objects, and the hope for happiness is about attaining a happy state. So, they are not monadic, but relational -- always beyond themselves to something that may or may not be real.

As possible objects of thought, mental realities are in the same class as any other possible object of thought. So, I don't see mental reality as disjoint from extramental reality, because I do not see knowing thought as any different than knowing beach balls. In order to be known, each must do something intelligible that existentially penetrates us -- that is presented to our awareness. To know is to be aware of present intelligibility -- and reality makes itself present by acting on us, by existentially penetrating us.

Why do I say "penetrating"? Because things are where they act. My seeing a ball is identically the ball being seen by me. This identity is only possible if we both act at the same time and place.

Now, let's discuss some of the abstactions you've mentioned. We are not born with the concept seven. We learn it in learning to count extramental objects. A collection of seven objects has a cardinality of seven -- i.e. it has a note of intelligiblity with a determinate relation to the concept seven. So, again, the concept is not monadic, but bears relational. It is applicable to any collection with a cardinality of seven, because any such collection is properly able to evoke it.

Truth also has a foundation in reality. We come to the concept when we realize that some thoughts and locutions are adequate to reality and some are not. So, again, we could not have the concept of truth independently of experiencing reality.

Because all of our concepts have a similar story, no concept is monadic. The ontogenesis of each is based on our experience of reality. So, while they may appear monadic when considered abstractly, their genesis is inexorably grounded in our experience of reality. The same applies to God. Sound proofs are based on experiences that implicate an infinite being.

Contradiction, then, being of thought, is not reified by being thought. But that only tells us about our own thought and our own limitations on our own thoughts. — tim wood

No, it does not. Contrary to Boole, logic is not about the laws of thought. It is about rules we must follow if we want our thought to reflect reality -- to be salve veritate, truth preserving. I have no trouble thinking "square circle," "five-sided triangle," or "infinite wealth." Nothing in my mental constitution, no "law of thought," precludes such thoughts. It is only when I wish my thought to reflect the nature of reality, of being, that I realize that such concepts should be excluded. Why? Because my understanding of being entails that no contradiction can be instantianted.

Our suppositions about contradictions, then, remain exactly - merely - and only that. — tim wood

No, as I just argued, they reflect the nature of being. Our experiential grasp of being is such that we know that it is utterly incompatible with non-being.

That is, references to extra-mental realities. It's easy to think in terms of cause, here, but "cause" is a very tricky word. — tim wood

That is why I have avoided it.

It seems to me that the extra-mental reality referenced by the explanation must be coterminous with the thing explained in both space and time. — tim wood

Yes, I would say "concurrent."

This says that if one thing exists (extra-mentally), then other things must exist (extra-mentally) as explanation. But this "argument" is a mental construct - not necessarily conclusive with respect to extra-mental reality. — tim wood

That is why I have outlined the relation between thought and reality. First, wrt traditional logic, that it reflects the nature of existence, and second wrt to concepts that ideogenesis is the result of our awarenss of present intellibility -- of the object existentially penetrating (acting within) us. For example, the neural modification that represents a sensed apple is identially the modification of my neural system by the apple acting on me. This identity is real, but partial. The modification of my neural system is not all of me, but it is still part of me. The modification of my neural system is not all the apple can do, but it is still the apple doing it. So, part of me is identically an act of the apple. That means the apple is really present (via its act) in me. We are not separate, but one and, as you say, coterminus.

Thus reason seems limited by itself and its own limitations. — tim wood

This is a very Kantian view, and, to my mind, wholly unjustified. I hope the little I've said will help you rethink it, but really, it deservfes a thread of its own.

In my understanding, logic is consequent on the nature of being, and all being is traceable to God. So, logic is posterior, not prior, to God. — Dfpolis

Right, so then God could presumably make anything He desired logically possible. — Terrapin Station

Give this a little thought. As I said, logic, as correct thought about existents, is based on the nature of existence. You are suggesting that existence is limiting, but it can't be. Existence is not a predicate like other predicates. If something is red, for example, it is limited, because the opposite of red is not-red and not-red things can exist. But, if, as you think, something were limited by being, what is excluded is not other kinds of things, but non-being. So, "everythng that is logically or ontologically possible" only excludes non-being, which is nothing. Clearly excluding nothing is not a limitation.

Good Aristotelian that you are, you apparently don't know about JS Bell and Bell's theorem/Bell's inequality. Do I need to explicate?

The short of it is that if reality as you describe it is ascribed to entangled particles, then they'll break your heart. — tim wood

Good physicist that I am, I've been studying entanglement for years and have found the flaw in Bell's proof. It is quite possible to have a local, realist and deterministic account of quantum theory -- where realist is to be understood in the Aristotelian, not the Platonic sense. I have discussed this possibility for a long time and my explanation has become better defined over time.

Continuing ...

At the simplest level, we understand being well enough to see that (1) Whatever is, is, (2) that a putative reality must either be or not be, and (3) that nothing can be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same way. — Dfpolis

Well, there seem to be physics theories that do not abide by this, such as Schrödinger's cat and the entire concept of entanglement. — alcontali

Yes, some irrational minds hold such views. That does not establish them as facts, or even good physics.

As I recall, Schrödinger proposed his thought experiment as a way of rebutting the Copenhagen Interpretation, not as a way of rebutting the foundations of logic. It should be clear to any physicist who approaches the collapse of the wave function at a fundamental level, that physics already accepts an understanding of bulk matter that entails the failure of superposition (e.g. the measurement problem, Schrödinger's cat, and the quantum-classical transition).

As I recently explained to David Hand on my YouTube channel, the wave function collapses because electron-electron interactions are nonlinear. Electrons interact via the electromagnetic field, represented by the 4-potential, A. The source of A is the 4-current j (charge density + current density), which is quadratic in the wave function, ψ. The interaction is represented by a jA term which is quartic (quadratic in two different ψs).

Superposition requires linearity. Before detection, we can treat a quantum as isolated, so its dynamics is linear to a good approximation. Once it starts to interact with a detector or any other form of bulk matter (which is bound by atomic electron-electron interactions) the system becomes nonlinear, and any superposition must collapse. So, Schrödinger's cat is physically impossible.

Turning to entanglement, Bell's theorem, spooky action-at-a-distance, etc., the issues raised attack neither the principles of being nor the foundations of logic, but a certain misunderstanding of physics. It is well-accepted that ERP/Aspect-type experiments imply no violation of the relativistic principle that no signal can travel faster than the speed of light. So, there is no violation of accepted physical principles, only a concern that a local, realistic, deterministic interpretation of quantum theory may not be possible. I assure you that is possible, as an assumption critical to Bell's proof (viz. detector independence) is false (it ignores accepted physics,i.e. the antisymmetry of multi-fermion wave functions under coordinate interchange aka the Pauli exclusion principle.)

The underlying error in most quantum mythology is Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness. It consists in treating abstractions as though they were actual, contextualized reality. The more formal and abstract, the more axiomatic, one's thinking, the more prone one is to this fallacy. One way of spotting such errors is that those making them are often forced to question fundamental metaphysical principles.

But then again, these theories are too physical-world to my taste. — alcontali

There's no point in being bound to reality.

I personally prefer the abstract, Platonic worlds of mathematics, for which you only need pen and paper. — alcontali

And the experience of being as quantifiable, from which to abstract the relevant concepts.

The mainstream view is that knowledge is a justified (true) belief: — alcontali

Ah! How powerful is the need for social acceptance! Still, I prefer to examine the foundations of "accepted" views, however common. Clearly, we may not believe (accept) what we know, which would be impossible if knowledge were a species of belief. As a historical example, Descartes knew he was in his chamber (an act of intellect = his awareness of present intelligibility), but chose to suspend belief that he was in his chamber (an act of will = the suspension of commitment to the truth of what was known).

Justified true belief is a definition of knowledge that gained approval during the Enlightenment, 'justified' standing in contrast to 'revealed'. There have been attempts to trace it back to Plato and his dialogues. — alcontali

Before the so-called Enlightenment. there was a clear distinction between experientially known reality (what is known by reason) and what was accepted by faith. So, this is a solution to a problem that did not exist. You can confirm the by reading the beginning of the Summa Theologiae, or by reading about the doctrine of the two books (the book of revelation and the book of nature) in James Hannam, The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution.

In point of historical fact, the Enlightenment was an intellectually retrograde movement, in which ancient origins were thought more important to judging truth than rational reflection on empirical evidence.

P does not need to be knowledge. For example, axioms are not knowledge, because they are not justified. — alcontali

If you do not assume that the axioms are true, then one cannot assume that anything derived from them is true. If we only need begin with unjustified axioms, we can start with any assumptions and prove anything. That may satisfy you, but it certainly does not satisfy the general desire of humans to know.

In my view, axioms can be justified by abstraction, and most mathematical axioms are. A few, like the parallel postulate, are hypothetical, and are justified (confirmed) empirically because the sum of the measured interior angles of triangles is invariably two right angles to within the error of the measurements. If such measurements did not confirm this prediction, we would reject the parallel postulate -- as we do for non-Euclidean metrics.

Since we know the axioms are true any valid deduction from the axioms must be true (logic is salve veritate.)

It will initially, and possibly even never, be possible to turn a philosophical idea into a rigorous system. — alcontali

Thank you for the unargued faith claim. You have made no case that we cannot come to a certain knowledge of fundamental principles (of being, mathematics, and even physics) by abstraction. Until[ you do, all you have is unjustified belief.

quote="alcontali;304563"]Yes, of course. However, with access to the ToE -- which will never happen -- the distinction between axiomatic and empirical would disappear.[/quote]

Your recurring appeal to what we both agree is an impossibility is an annoying and pointless distraction.

Number theory is not even Turing-Complete, and hence, considered to be a relatively weak and incomplete axiomatization. — alcontali

I did not confine my definition to number theory, which does not include geometry and its subdisciplines, topology, analysis, calculus, distribution theory, chaos theory, etc., etc.

Still, a sincere thank you for stating the role of set theory in the minds of contemporary mathematicians. I knew many in grad school and discussed these topics, so I should have included set-theoretic relations in my description of the subject matter of mathematics (defined as what mathematicians study).

If you take mathematics to mean what mathematicians study, then you can say metamathematics is part of mathematics. If you take the position that fields of study are defined by what is studied (their material object) and the aspect under which it is studied (their formal object), then metamathematics is not mathematics, even if we include set theory in mathematics.

It does not matter that one can represent meta-mathematical relations mathematically, for if it did, mathematical physics would be subalterned to mathematics, and it is not. The use of mathematical representations is a tool, and tools do not define the subject matter they are used on. The material object of mathematical physics is the dynamics of natural processes, and its formal object is being viewed from a mathematical perspective. Similarly, the material object of metamathematics is the fundamental structure of mathematics and its formal object is being viewed from a mathematical perspective. Who undertakes such studies, and whether they also study other things from other perspectives is completely immaterial.

Every Turing-complete axiomatization is capable of expressing all possible knowledge in its associated language. — alcontali

This is a sweeping, and over-reaching, claim. How would one express, without circularity that lavender is not orchid? Of course, one could say that L ≠ O, but will not adequately express this fact to one who does not already know what lavender and orchid are. Or did you mean that one can [inadequately] express all possible knowledge in a Turing-complete axiomatization's associated language?

This is not a fatuous observation, but points to critical issues. Natural languages are not purely formal systems. They are not merely sign-sets following syntactic rules. In order to function they need the power to instantiate meaning in other minds, and to do so they need reference, which relates signs to certain aspects of reality. Formal languages lack determinant reference, and in order to provide such reference, one must employ natural language. I have yet to see a mathematical proof not contextualized by natural language text.

So, your claim is either false, of vacuous. (It is vacuous if you mean that what is wholly indeterminate can receive any determination.)

No, mathematics has quantitative relations as its subject matter — Dfpolis

Mathematics, science, and history are not subject matters. — alcontali

Did I say they were????

They are epistemic domains, i.e. the sets of knowledge statements -- with knowledge a justified (true) belief (JtB) -- that you can legitimately justify using their associated epistemic justification methods. — alcontali

If you want to say "epistemic domains" instead of "fields of study," be my guest. They are not, however sets of knowledge statements. Why? Because:
(1) Sets are well-defined collections of distinct objects, while accepted science is indeterminate because it varies over time. Newtonian physics was unquestioned for centuries, but is now known to be inaccurate.
(2) The definition of a science cannot change with the discoveries it makes. When Aristotle, Archimedes, Jean Buridan and other early physicists applied mathematics to the study of natural processes they were as much physicists as those struggling today to find a theory of quantum gravity. Yet, in their day little of what we now accept was or could be justified. What defines a science is what is studied (its material object) and the approach to studying it (its formal object) -- not what is actually known at any time.
(3) Your definition suffers not only from indefiniteness, but from being closed. As sets have to be well-defined, they cannot adequately represent fields that are open to new data and theoretical revision.

Also, while I agree that scientific findings can be justified beliefs, in many cases we have no way to determine whether they are true in any absolute sense. So, your definition of knowledge cannot be applied to scientific findings in general.

There is no mathematical subject matter, nor a scientific subject matter, nor a historical subject matter. — alcontali

Unless you are willing to argue a case, this claim is to absurd to be worth rebutting.

Furthermore, these epistemic domains exclude each other. It is not possible that a proposition can be justified by one epistemic method and also by another. — alcontali

Why is that?

Physics uses mathematical formalisms to maintain consistency in its theories, but has actually nothing to do with mathematics. — alcontali

Physics is not subalterned to math, but that does not mean it has nothing to do with math. (1) Many mathematical concepts were discovered as part of physics before being formalized by mathematics. For example, medieval physicists developed the concept of instantaneous velocity, which is the basis of the concept of a derivative. The first examples of chaos theory were discovered by physicists. Dirac's delta function gave rise to distribution theory. (These examples also show that same finding can be discovered by diverse methods -- rebutting your claim above.) (2) Routinely, the observable implications of physical theories are mathematically deduced.

With the term "method", I meant "epistemic method", i.e. knowledge-justification method, as in axiomatic "method", scientific "method", and historical "method". — alcontali

I do not see that there is an axiomatic method. There is deduction, which can be applied as much to deducing the consequences of axioms as those of hypotheses.

Axioms can be abstracted from reality, in which case abstraction is the method, or they can be hypothesized (like the parallel postulate or the axiom of choice), in which case we are dealing with an instance of the hypothetico-deductive method -- and one that it epistemically problematic, as unfalsifiable hypotheses are suspect. (Of course, we can confirm many consequences.)

Metaphysics does not establish the epistemic method for any area or research, including physics. It is epistemology that does that job. — alcontali

I did not say that metaphysics established the epistemic method for any area. I said "it deals with issues fundamental to all other areas of research." This means that it deals with foundational issues of logic and epistemology as well as physics.

Mathematics is what you can justify using the axiomatic method — alcontali

This is an absurd claim. How does the so-called "axiomatic method" justify its axioms? Clearly, it does not, for it takes them as given. Similarly, the scientific method takes takes observations and the logic involved in working out the implications of hypotheses as given, and provides no justification for either.

According to Karl Popper's 1963 "Science as Falsification", which has in the meanwhile become the dominant view in the philosophy of science, science consists of the theories that you can justify by experimental testing. — alcontali

You are equivocating. I said "science in the traditional sense," and you're discussing only sciences that use the hypothetico-deductive method. I have no problem with the concept of falsification in the context of the hypothetico-deductive method, but I hope we can agree that it is not the only method that can be applied to come to a rigorous systematic understanding. If it were, mathematics would not be scientific.

Furthermore, mathematics and science exclude each other. It is not possible to justify a theorem with both methods. — alcontali

This is obviously wrong. Newton did not develop fluxions in a rigorous, axiomatic way, but in a hypothetical way that was justified by its successful application to, and confirmation by, empirical findings. His empirically justified discovery was later "cleaned up" (axiomatically formalized) by mathematicians. The same is true of Dirac's discovery of the delta function and its later justification with the development of distribution theory. There are many other counterexamples I could cite.

It is absurd to think that any competent physicist would accept a proposed ToE absent rigorous experimental testing. — Dfpolis

According to the late Stephen Hawking, the problem will never even occur. According to him, there simply won't be anything to test — alcontali

First, this doesn't rebut my point, but only makes the claim that it's counterfactual. Second, it is an argumentum ab auctoritate from an unreliable source. Hawking, despite many admirable traits, has been wrong on fundamental matters much more central to his area of expertise. (See Leonard Susskind , The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics.)

Well, the ToE is an axiomatic system, and physicists seem to dream of finding it. — alcontali

While physics can be and has been axiomatized (e.g. quantum theory and quantum field theory), the axioms remain hypothetical, and so do not change the nature of the science. The justification for the axioms is that, so far, they seem to work. A ToE would be the same. Its axioms would not be deduced (or otherwise justified) on a priori grounds, but hypotheses that seem to work with respect to the available data.

Well, metaphysics seems to have very little influence nowadays on the practice of physics. This is not true for metamathematics, which thoroughly dominates the discourse in mathematics. — alcontali

I agree. Still, what is rational and what is in vogue are rarely the same. E.g., the interpretation of quantum theory is plagued by irrational and manifestly false beliefs.

If it is provable, then it is not about the real world. If it is about the real world, then it will not be provable. It harks back to the definition of the term "proof" as the derivation path between a theorem and its underlying axioms. Without axioms, no "proof". — alcontali

So, a bowl that holds only one apple and one pear cannot be proven to hold two pieces of fruit? Or, if Jane is actual, we can't conclude that Jane must be possible? You really believe that? I see such claims as in the same category as Daniel Dennett consciously denying that he is conscious.

A mathematical proof is an inferential argument for a mathematical statement. In the argument, other previously established statements, such as theorems, can be used. In principle, a proof can be traced back to self-evident or assumed [Italics mine] statements, known as axioms, along with accepted rules of inference.

You can clearly see that this is not possible in science. — alcontali

Think logically, please! Scientists routinely assume statements to be true. Such assumed truths are called "hypotheses" (h) and they can yield conditional predictions (p) true about the real world, viz. h => p. Scientists also take observations to be true and deduce implicit facts from observed facts and "self-evident" "axioms."

Of course, no proposition is truly "self-evident." All truths derive from experience. It is just that some judgements can be seen to be universally true after a single experience.

Rather, I see it as a complex, intelligible whole from which we may abstract some universal truths. — Dfpolis


Well, these "truths" -- I would rather say experimentally-tested "theories" -- have only been tested at best against observations in the visible part of the universe. — alcontali

So, 2 objects and 2 more objects might not yield a total count of 4 objects outside the visible universe? Sehr interessiert!

To be continued...

What is self-explaining (meaning 1) but cannot be explained (meaning 2) is a conjuring act. — Fooloso4

I have no idea what you're talking about. I said precisely how God is self-explaining. Please read what I posted.

All that is actual is possible, and our concern is with what is actual, that is, the universe as it is, was, and will be. — Fooloso4

First, you are begging the question by assuming that all reality is part of the universe. Most cosmologists, even though they are naturalists, believe that there may be other universes, with other laws (the multiverse). Second, you are confusing logical possibility with physical possibility. The laws of nature restrict what is physically possible, but they do not restrict what is logically possible. Third, things that happened in the past are possible in virtue of having actually happened, but they are not actual because they no longer exist.

We cannot extrapolate from our limited acquaintance with limited things to a universe that is limited. — Fooloso4

Yes, we can. Because whatever changes has to be limited. If it were not, it would be all that it could be, and so there would be nothing for it to change into.

You avoid Aristotle's causal language but do not side-step the problem. What distinction do you make between the fact(s) and some state of affairs? — Fooloso4

I avoided "cause" because I'm not writing in ancient Greece. Modern philsophy ignores essential causality and takes "causality" to mean Kant's "time sequence by rule." as I am not speaking of temporally prior events, but of concurrent agency, I carefully avoided the term "cause." I am perfectley happy with either "fact" or "state" of affairs as long as no confussion arises.

Your argument is ... and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite. — Fooloso4

That is a complete misstatement of my position that everything that is, has some underlying dynamics/explanation. It you are going to criticize, criticize what I actually say.

An uncaused cause. — Fooloso4

Thank you for illustrating why I did not use "cause" -- by misstating of my position.

The Euthyphro problem in a nutshell here is that either God could do things that are "logically impossible" if He were to choose to do so, or logic is primary/prior to God, who must obey it. — Terrapin Station

In my understanding, logic is consequent on the nature of being, and all being is traceable to God. So, logic is posterior, not prior, to God.

Your conclusion is a non-sequiteur, and it does logically not follow. You said something completely incongruent to my statement. You made an absolutely false claim because it does not pertain to my claim. — god must be atheist

I responded as I did because I assumed that you were talking about a point I made about the actualization of potency. If your not talking about that, it's hard to see what you are driving at.

Let's go back to what you said.

This is actually not true. A lower-level movement can create a higher-level movement, and there need not be, there is no, actualization process. — god must be atheist

Lower level movements do not create higher level movements, they are the same movement thought of in two distinct ways. I can think of a whole as a whole, or I can think of a whole in terms of its parts, but my way of thinking about the whole is purely subjective and does not change the objective reality of the whole in any way. So, lower-level movements do not create higher-level movements.

You can also see this in terms of priority. Temporally, lower and higher level movements simultaneous, and so neither can be a temporally prior event leading to the other (an accidental cause). Logically, one think of wholes without thinking of decomposing them into parts, but one cannot think of parts without reference to the whole of which they are parts. So, wholes are logically prior to parts and high level changes to low level changes.

Even if we completely forget about the relation of wholes and parts, your argument proves nothing. Why? Because it admits that there are low-level changes, which are still changes -- still the actualization of a potential insofar as it is still in potency -- and the union of all the lower level potencies is the higher level potency.

If you say that there's no potential for the relevant change, that is equivalent to saying that there is no possibility of the relevant change, which denies experiential reality of observed change.

Now, what point are you trying to make?

Just because something is not explained, (the finite to his self) AND assuming an explanation is possible, it does not necessarily follow that there is someone or something that can and will explain it.
— god must be atheist
...

My criticism stands both ways. Both if you consider explanation verbal, and if you consider explanation effective. — god must be atheist

First, I did not assume that anything is unexplained effectively, so your premise ("Just because something is not explained") is not mine, and consequently your criticism does not apply to my argument.

Second, I did not assume "an [effective] explanation is possible," but showed that it is necessary. Again, you are criticizing an argument I did not make.

There must be at least one timeless thing without at explanation and it must be capable of acting as a causal agent - the pyramid of causality within time requires a first cause. — Devans99

I agree with your conclusion, but not your time-based reasoning.

So I think the difference of opinion is that I have God as a timeless brute fact which clashes with your premise 4 - you have God as a 'self explaining being'. — Devans99

The problem with this is that if you allow one brute face, one exception to the need for adequate dynamics, one thing with no intelligible explanation, then there is no reason not to allow others -- and once you do that, your entire line of reasoning breaks down. If one arbitrary finite being can have no explanation why can't any arbitrary finite being have none, be a brute fact? So I see your reasoning self-refuting.

The genius of Aquinas's insight that God's essence is His existence is that it gives us an intelligible reason why God requires no extrinsic explanation.

To be a being is to be composed of information - otherwise we have null and void. — Devans99

I see no reason to accept this definition. Information is the reduction of possibility, while every new existent makes more acts possible. I agree that finite beings have an intelligible/informative essence that specifies what they can do, but the essence of infinite being does not limit possibility, and so is utterly uninformative. (This is confirmed by trans-cultural reports of mystical experience -- see W. T. Stace's works.)

Common sense is based on the common experience of finite being and does not conform to reports of mystical experience.

How is it possible to do anything possible and not be changed by the doing? — Devans99

It is possible if the change terminates outside the agent. If an agent is fully actualized intrinsically, it has no unactualized intrinsic potency and so cannot change intrinsically. That does not preclude acts terminating extrinsically.

There are things in the universe that are just plain bad for all intelligent beings. Black holes for example are purely destructive. — Devans99

There seems to be a black hole at the center of each galaxy, hinting that they may be essential to the formation of galaxies and the possibility of life.

If a proof leads to a conclusion that clashes with reality, one has to question the proof. One or more of these has to give:

- Omnipotence
- Omnipresence
- Omnibenevolence — Devans99

I've rebutted many such arguments in my book. If you have a new one, please state it.

Peace, Dennis

The intro and section 1 of this article are quite readable and on point:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/ — Theologian

It has been my experience that most contemporary philosophers have a hearsay acquaintance with Aristotle.

I also know what you mean about time management. That is why I have been absent for some time. We will miss your reason.

My point was purely and simply that completely unlimited being, by which you seem to mean completely unlimited capacity to do, cannot be the fact that makes some state of affairs be as it is.

It is logically incapable of being that fact because it is incapable of rendering any specific state of affairs necessary. Or perhaps to make things more concrete, I could say that it is incapable of rendering any specific state of affairs inevitable. — Theologian

I almost agree. Which is to say that I agree with some of your formulations, but not with others. Clearly, being capable of any possible act does not necessitate any specific act, because it is equally capable of a contrary act or no relevant act at all. That is why we agreed that an infinite being must have free will.

It further follows that any state of affairs it effects must be intrinsically contingent, not necessary. Thus, I agree that "it is incapable of rendering any specific state of affairs [intrinsically] necessary." I agree further that the mere existence of an infinite being does not logically imply the inevitability of any further state of affairs. That is why theologians in the Christian tradition, at least, consider creation a free act, not one necessitated by the nature of God.

I further agree that many, and specifically pagan neoplatonists such as Plotinus, have seen this as highly problematic, as they believed that the One, being intrinsically complete had no need to act outside of its own being.

The problem with this line of argument is that we know more than "there exists an infinite being." So our fact base is not confined to this alone. We also know that there are contingent beings, a whole universe full of them. This logically entails that the infinite being does, in fact, act outside of itself.

So, it is not necessary that the existence of infinite being logically (a priori) necessitate finite beings. They are logically necessitated a posteriori by our experience.

Further, infinite being's lack of logical necessity to act outside if itself, in no way precludes it from freely acting outside of itself, nor does it preclude it from being the agent effecting (the dynamical explanation of) such effects.

The terminology is confusing in this regard, because metamathematics is defined as a subdivision of mathematics, while metaphysics is defined as non-physics. — alcontali

No, mathematics has quantitative relations as its subject matter, and metamathematics has mathematics as its subject matter. the fact that it may use mathematical methods does not make it mathematics anymore than the fact that physics uses mathematical methods makes physics a branch of mathematics. Metaphysics deals with the foundational assumptions of physics, among other matters.

metaphysics is defined as non-physics. — alcontali

This is simply false. There are many fields that are not physics, and most to not deal with metaphysical issues. What we now call "metaphysics" was called "first philosophy" by Aristotle because it deals with issues fundamental to all other areas of research, including physics.

Metaphysics does NOT use the same scientific method (of experimental testing) as physics. Hence, physics is a subdiscipline of science, but metaphysics is not. — alcontali

If you're restricting "science" to disciplines using the hypothetico-deductive method, metaphysics is not that sort of science. Neither are mathematics and metamathematics. Still, all three are sciences in the more traditional sense of rigorous systematic fields of study.

The ideal of the ToE is to discard the scientific method, i.e. experimental testing, and be able to do science using the axiomatic method, i.e. proving by axiomatic derivation. The reason why science is not axiomatic, is because the axiomatic base for physics is lacking. — alcontali

As a physicist, I that is not my understanding of a ToE. A ToE is just like any other hypothetical construct in physics, but its targeted range of application spans all physical phenomena. It is absurd to think that any competent physicist would accept a proposed ToE absent rigorous experimental testing.

There are axiomatic formulations of a number of fields in physics, e.g. quantum theory and quantum field theory.

Science does not use the scientific method because it wants to, but simply because the desired alternative, i.e. axiomatic provability, is not attainable. — alcontali

I am not sure an axiomatic approach is the "desired alternative" in natural science. You'd need to make a case for that. It seems to me that many physics like the method of discovery they signed up for.

The ToE is exactly about replacing the scientific method by the axiomatic one. Stephen Hawking explores this possibility at length in his lecture, Gödel and the End of Physics. — alcontali

I don't think that Hawking's view is widely shared. Sir Arthur Eddington tried a similar approach in the 30s and 40s, famously predicting that the fine structure constant was exactly 1/136, then exactly 1/137. (It is neither.)

Again, you are confusing methodologies. Natural science uses the hypothetico-deductive method, while metaphysical proofs often use strict deduction. — Dfpolis

Well, the ToE is exactly about replacing the one by the other, and the very reasons why this is not possible. In the discourse on the ToE, the confusion is simply deliberate. — alcontali

While it is not, let us assume that it is. It is still irrelevant as the subject matter of physics is the measurable behavior of nature (which has intrinsic uncertainties, even in the absence of quantum uncertainty), while metaphysics is concerned with being as being, which is not subject to the vagaries of measurement.

This impossibility does not prove anything about the real world, but about the relationship between us and the real world. — alcontali

While I'm happy to admit that knowledge is a subject-object relation, I do not see that the admission precludes proofs about reality.

It just means that we do not have access to a copy of the axioms from which the real world has been/is being constructed. — alcontali

I am sorry, but I do not see nature as an axiomatic construct. Rather, I see it as a complex, intelligible whole from which we may abstract some universal truths. At the simplest level, we understand being well enough to see that (1) Whatever is, is, (2) that a putative reality must either be or not be, and (3) that nothing can be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same way. These ontological insights, informing our thought about reality, give us the logical principles of identity, excluded middle and non-contradiction. Thus, we are able to abstract principles of absolute certitude which can advance our inquiries.

The nature of knowledge as a justified (true) belief, JtB, requires that it has the shape of an arrow. — alcontali

I reject the thesis that knowledge is any form of belief. To know is to be aware of present intelligibility, and is an act of intellect (awareness). To believe is to commit to the truth of some judgement, and commitment is an act of will, not intellect. If knowledge were a species of belief, we would necessarily be committed to the truth of anything we knew. Clearly, this is not the case. One can be certain that one cannot afford a purchase and buy it anyway, showing no commitment to the known truth. So, knowledge cannot be a form of belief.

So if there are mathematical results that can not be proved, there are physical problems that can not be predicted. — alcontali

This, is true, but a non sequitur. Mathematical relations are possibly instantiated in nature, not assuredly instantiated. So, it is possible that we could deduce all actually instantiated relationships. The reason your conclusion is true is that we already know from nonlinear math in general (e.g the 3-body problem and chaos theory in particular (e.g. turbulence and neural processing) that there are predictive calculations we will never be able to carry out.

Still, I fail to see the relevance of this, as mathematics is not the basis of metaphysical thought. We know the consistency of metaphysical premises from the fact that they are instantiated in reality and one cannot instantiate a contradiction.

If Q can be justified from P, then Q is knowledge. Having access to Q is insufficient. It is not knowledge, until the necessity of the arrow, i.e. the justification, has been demonstrated. — alcontali

This analysis precludes any knowledge, for it leads to an infinite regress (How do we know P?). It has been known to be errant since Aristotle examined the foundations of knowledge. We know when our neurophysical system presents intelligible contents to awareness (Aristotle's agent intellect). Then, the intelligibility of the encoded contents is converted to actual knowledge by an act of awareness. Thus, there is no need for an infinite regress of Ps and Qs. We know by being aware of presented contents. We judge by abstracting concepts from those contents and grasping relations between those concepts. We can then deduce further justified relations.

You consider Q to be knowledge in and of itself. That is contrary to the Platonic definition, JtB — alcontali

I am not a Platonist. I counted 17 errors in Plato's epistemology pointed out by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.

Also, doxa in Plato means opinion, not belief. So JtB is not Plato's definition, but a modern misreading of the text.

Well, this is exactly what Gödel tries to achieve in his incompleteness theorems. — alcontali

No. Godel was working in the context of Hilbert's program, which it effectively destroyed. Hilbert's model was one of a priori consistency, with no connection to empirical reality. Godel's work showed that this approach is doomed to failure. Aristotelian metaphysics, on the other hand, is built on a posteriori, empirical foundations. Its concepts are abstracted from sensory experience and its judgements result from analyzing such experience. Because the relationships it builds upon are abstracted from reality, which is necessarily self-consistent, they are guaranteed to be self-consistent.

We already know that such procedure cannot exist. — alcontali

Yes, we do, but that is entirely irrelevant to the present discussion. Metaphysics does not even aspire to a physical description of the cosmos or a complete enumeration of all possible theorems in any axiomatic system. It deals with being qua being, abstracting away from both quantifiability and the detailed laws of nature.

That is a very constructivist remark — alcontali

So?

In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find (or "construct") a mathematical object to prove that it exists. — alcontali

That is not what I am saying. I am speaking of the epistemological basis of noetic systems, not their rules of application. Also, I do not consider philosophy to be a closed axiomatic system, but an open one -- always open to new, experientially based knowledge.

I consider constructivism to be heretical — alcontali

Please don't burn me!

Gödel proves that there is no knowable procedure possible to discover new knowledge. — alcontali

He does no such thing. He only considers closed, formal systems, not empirically open systems. If your claim were true, we would never have made progress in any science.

In other words, it will indeed never be possible to explain (as in knowledge) why humanity has managed to discover its existing stock of knowledge. If the human brain were just some kind of biological computer, it would not have been possible at all. — alcontali

Your conclusion is Penrose's point. However, I think we can explain how we come to know if we do not confine ourselves to a priori, axiomatic ways of thinking, but work out the implications of such facts as those we are discussing -- which is a point i develop at length in my book.

At the same time, there is absolutely no input that you could ever feed to a computer, short of the undiscoverable ToE (Theory of Everything) that will allow it to decide this question. — alcontali

I never thought there was. It is easy to show that the mind cannot be purely neurophysical. The neural representation of seeing a ball and the retina being modified by the image of a ball are identical, but their conceptual representations are not.

The terminology is confusing in this regard, because metamathematics is defined as a subdivision of mathematics, while metaphysics is defined as non-physics. — alcontali

No, mathematics has quantitative relations as its subject matter, and metamathematics has mathematics as its subject matter. the fact that it may use mathematical methods does not make it mathematics anymore than the fact that physics uses mathematical methods makes physics a branch of mathematics. Metaphysics deals with the foundational assumptions of physics, among other matters.

metaphysics is defined as non-physics. — alcontali

This is simply false. There are many fields that are not physics, and most to not deal with metaphysical issues. What we now call "metaphysics" was called "first philosophy" by Aristotle because it deals with issues fundamental to all other areas of research, including physics.

Metaphysics does NOT use the same scientific method (of experimental testing) as physics. Hence, physics is a subdiscipline of science, but metaphysics is not. — alcontali

If you're restricting "science" to disciplines using the hypothetico-deductive method, metaphysics is not that sort of science. Neither are mathematics and metamathematics. Still, all three are sciences in the more traditional sense of rigorous systematic fields of study.

The ideal of the ToE is to discard the scientific method, i.e. experimental testing, and be able to do science using the axiomatic method, i.e. proving by axiomatic derivation. The reason why science is not axiomatic, is because the axiomatic base for physics is lacking. — alcontali

As a physicist, I that is not my understanding of a ToE. A ToE is just like any other hypothetical construct in physics, but its targeted range of application spans all physical phenomena. It is absurd to think that any competent physicist would accept a proposed ToE absent rigorous experimental testing.

There are axiomatic formulations of a number of fields in physics, e.g. quantum theory and quantum field theory.

Science does not use the scientific method because it wants to, but simply because the desired alternative, i.e. axiomatic provability, is not attainable. — alcontali

I am not sure an axiomatic approach is the "desired alternative" in natural science. You'd need to make a case for that. It seems to me that many physics like the method of discovery they signed up for.

The ToE is exactly about replacing the scientific method by the axiomatic one. Stephen Hawking explores this possibility at length in his lecture, Gödel and the End of Physics. — alcontali

I don't think that Hawking's view is widely shared. Sir Arthur Eddington tried a similar approach in the 30s and 40s, famously predicting that the fine structure constant was exactly 1/136, then exactly 1/137. (It is neither.)

Again, you are confusing methodologies. Natural science uses the hypothetico-deductive method, while metaphysical proofs often use strict deduction. — Dfpolis

Well, the ToE is exactly about replacing the one by the other, and the very reasons why this is not possible. In the discourse on the ToE, the confusion is simply deliberate. — alcontali

While it is not, let us assume that it is. It is still irrelevant as the subject matter of physics is the measurable behavior of nature (which has intrinsic uncertainties, even in the absence of quantum uncertainty), while metaphysics is concerned with being as being, which is not subject to the vagaries of measurement.

This impossibility does not prove anything about the real world, but about the relationship between us and the real world. — alcontali

While I'm happy to admit that knowledge is a subject-object relation, I do not see that the admission precludes proofs about reality.

It just means that we do not have access to a copy of the axioms from which the real world has been/is being constructed. — alcontali

I am sorry, but I do not see nature as an axiomatic construct. Rather, I see it as a complex, intelligible whole from which we may abstract some universal truths. At the simplest level, we understand being well enough to see that (1) Whatever is, is, (2) that a putative reality must either be or not be, and (3) that nothing can be and not be at one and the same time in one and the same way. These ontological insights, informing our thought about reality, give us the logical principles of identity, excluded middle and non-contradiction. Thus, we are able to abstract principles of absolute certitude which can advance our inquiries.

The nature of knowledge as a justified (true) belief, JtB, requires that it has the shape of an arrow. — alcontali

I reject the thesis that knowledge is any form of belief. To know is to be aware of present intelligibility, and is an act of intellect (awareness). To believe is to commit to the truth of some judgement, and commitment is an act of will, not intellect. If knowledge were a species of belief, we would necessarily be committed to the truth of anything we knew. Clearly, this is not the case. One can be certain that one cannot afford a purchase and buy it anyway, showing no commitment to the known truth. So, knowledge cannot be a form of belief.

So if there are mathematical results that can not be proved, there are physical problems that can not be predicted. — alcontali

This, is true, but a non sequitur. Mathematical relations are possibly instantiated in nature, not assuredly instantiated. So, it is possible that we could deduce all actually instantiated relationships. The reason your conclusion is true is that we already know from nonlinear math in general (e.g the 3-body problem and chaos theory in particular (e.g. turbulence and neural processing) that there are predictive calculations we will never be able to carry out.

Still, I fail to see the relevance of this, as mathematics is not the basis of metaphysical thought. We know the consistency of metaphysical premises from the fact that they are instantiated in reality and one cannot instantiate a contradiction.

If Q can be justified from P, then Q is knowledge. Having access to Q is insufficient. It is not knowledge, until the necessity of the arrow, i.e. the justification, has been demonstrated. — alcontali

This analysis precludes any knowledge, for it leads to an infinite regress (How do we know P?). It has been known to be errant since Aristotle examined the foundations of knowledge. We know when our neurophysical system presents intelligible contents to awareness (Aristotle's agent intellect). Then, the intelligibility of the encoded contents is converted to actual knowledge by an act of awareness. Thus, there is no need for an infinite regress of Ps and Qs. We know by being aware of presented contents. We judge by abstracting concepts from those contents and grasping relations between those concepts. We can then deduce further justified relations.

You consider Q to be knowledge in and of itself. That is contrary to the Platonic definition, JtB — alcontali

I am not a Platonist. I counted 17 errors in Plato's epistemology pointed out by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.

Also, doxa in Plato means opinion, not belief. So JtB is not Plato's definition, but a modern misreading of the text.

Well, this is exactly what Gödel tries to achieve in his incompleteness theorems. — alcontali

No. Godel was working in the context of Hilbert's program, which it effectively destroyed. Hilbert's model was one of a priori consistency, with no connection to empirical reality. Godel's work showed that this approach is doomed to failure. Aristotelian metaphysics, on the other hand, is built on a posteriori, empirical foundations. Its concepts are abstracted from sensory experience and its judgements result from analyzing such experience. Because the relationships it builds upon are abstracted from reality, which is necessarily self-consistent, they are guaranteed to be self-consistent.

We already know that such procedure cannot exist. — alcontali

Yes, we do, but that is entirely irrelevant to the present discussion. Metaphysics does not even aspire to a physical description of the cosmos or a complete enumeration of all possible theorems in any axiomatic system. It deals with being qua being, abstracting away from both quantifiability and the detailed laws of nature.

That is a very constructivist remark — alcontali

So?

In the philosophy of mathematics, constructivism asserts that it is necessary to find (or "construct") a mathematical object to prove that it exists. — alcontali

That is not what I am saying. I am speaking of the epistemological basis of noetic systems, not their rules of application. Also, I do not consider philosophy to be a closed axiomatic system, but an open one -- always open to new, experientially based knowledge.

I consider constructivism to be heretical — alcontali

Please don't burn me!

Gödel proves that there is no knowable procedure possible to discover new knowledge. — alcontali

He does no such thing. He only considers closed, formal systems, not empirically open systems. If your claim were true, we would never have made progress in any science.

In other words, it will indeed never be possible to explain (as in knowledge) why humanity has managed to discover its existing stock of knowledge. If the human brain were just some kind of biological computer, it would not have been possible at all. — alcontali

Your conclusion is Penrose's point. However, I think we can explain how we come to know if we do not confine ourselves to a priori, axiomatic ways of thinking, but work out the implications of such facts as those we are discussing -- which is a point i develop at length in my book.

At the same time, there is absolutely no input that you could ever feed to a computer, short of the undiscoverable ToE (Theory of Everything) that will allow it to decide this question. — alcontali

I never thought there was. It is easy to show that the mind cannot be purely neurophysical. The neural representation of seeing a ball and the retina being modified by the image of a ball are identical, but their conceptual representations are not.

I have not said that God is unexplained, but self-explaining. — Dfpolis

Then your "proof" would be superfluous — Fooloso4

This is silly, As most people are unaware that what God is entails that God is, it is quite worthwhile explaining this fact.

Your appeal to intuition is a dodge and circular - God is only self-explaining to those to whom this is intuitively evident. — Fooloso4

My actual claim is quite the opposite. It is that a proof is possible because most people know, via ordinary experiential means, all that they need to know to prove that God exists, but lack the extraordinary intuitive insight to see the connections. Fortunately some (e.g. Aristotle, ibn Sina, and Aquinas) have had the insight to point the way.

I would assume that your infinite God could explain itself to everyone without your help! — Fooloso4

It does not help you case to equivocate on the two meanings of "explanation" (verbal vs effective) that I carefully distinguished. A careful reading of my OP may refresh your memory.

With regard to your distinction between essence and existence, what is the essence of what is not? — Fooloso4

As I explain earlier, essences specify possible acts, while existence makes powers operational. Knowing what a thing is, is convertible with knowing what it can do. But, knowing what a thing could do if it existed is not the same as knowing that a thing actually exists. So, essence and existence are distinct concepts.

How do you explain the claim that if a being exists, its explanation must exist? There is nothing self-evident about this claim. — Fooloso4

I already answered this in a response to Echarmion on p.3, giving three reasons. I did not claim it was self-evident, but a requirement of scientific thought.

Science does not explain existence in toto. — Fooloso4

Agreed, That is why we need to study metaphysics.

Your claim that an explanation means the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is does not explain those fact(s). — Fooloso4

Definitions of terms are only intended to explain how the relevant terms are used.

To claim that the fact(s) are self-explaining because without the fact(s) we can't explain anything does not show that the fact(s) exist. It may be that at some point we reach the limit of explanation. — Fooloso4

If there are facts with no underlying dynamics/explanations ("brute facts" that "just are"), then the logic of science fails. Once you allow exceptions to avoid a consequence you do not like, a principle is no longer universal, and there is no reason to think it applies when you like its consequences. If the principle is not universal, any scientific observation may be a "brute fact" with no underlying dynamics -- and not evidence confirming or falsifying a hypothesis. Thus, denying the universality of the principle converts science from an objective search for truth into an enterprise ruled by subjective whim.

I know that this is a practical, not a theoretical argument, but it shows the grave implications of your line of thought. Since it is only practical, I gave two theoretical justifications in my response to Echarmion,

Still. Where does god enter the picture? Just because something is not explained, (the finite to his self) AND assuming an explanation is possible, it does not necessarily follow that there is someone or something that can and will explain it. — god must be atheist

I think you are confusing the two meanings (verbal and effective) of "explanation" I distinguished. the proof deals with what makes things so, not with our articulation fo what makes things so. Things work in a certain way whether or not anyone tells us they do.

Alcontali claimed (I wasn't there, but I believe you) that we can prove nothing about reality Alcontali SEEMED to have claimed (so he did not claim... you put words in his mouth, which he did not say, and you defeat his argument based on something he did not say... hence the strawman) to have proven (which he did not) that we can prove nothing about reality. — god must be atheist

It is not just that he claimed we can prove nothing, but that he did so in the context of proof theory, which is a highly logical structure. I acknowledged that he provided no actual proof, but the claim being made in that context, and with appeals to Godel's incompleteness theorems, strongly hinted at the existence of a proof. My post was designed to elicone if he had one. It was intended to be a challenge awaiting response, not the final word.

This is actually not true. A lower-level movement can create a higher-level movement, and there need not be, there is no, actualization process. — god must be atheist

Then no potential ever becomes actualized and there is no change,

Timeless things should be able to exist without an explanation (as a brute fact). — Devans99

"Should"? Why? What is the force of this "should"? And, what is the error of my analysis?

Asking for an explanation is like asking what engine size an elephant has; the first cause simply does not have a 'why' property. — Devans99

On what do you base this admitted belief?

The way I see it, I've presented a sound argument that shows the existence of an infinite, self explaining being. You object that you do not believe my conclusions. I give arguments you do not reply to. That is your privilege, but its not very persuasive.

So there must be a wider (timeless) container that contains God and the cosmos. — Devans99

It's a category error to think an infinite being can be confined to a location. If a being is contained, it can act in the container, but not outside of it, and so is limited.

It must be something, and if it is something, then it is finite (infinity has the property ∞+1=∞ which implies it can be changed without being changed which is a straight contradiction). — Devans99

This argument fails because we are not speaking of numerical but ontological infinity -- the capacity to do any possible act. An infinite being cannot change because an infinite being is a necessary being, and whatever is necessary cannot possibly be different.

God must clearly be benevolent, so how do you account for the problem of evil? — Devans99

I agree that it is a real problem, but having a problem does not mean that the proof is unsound. I think the problem is that what might be good for other things need not be good for humans. If dinosaurs could think they would have thought the asteroid that ended their era was evil, but it was good for us.

'Rationality' is merely a mental exercise with a particular 'coherence' claim, 'logic' being merely one such exercise. And you appear to be using 'truth' in an absolutist sense which for me begs the question of dubious status of any 'absolute' including 'God'. — fresco

I see "truth" not as an absolute, univocal term, but as analogously predicated. Following Isaac be Israel and Aquinas, I see truth as the approach to equality (adaequatio) between intellect and reality. This leads me to reflect on how near an approach need be. I key my response off the English cognate "adequate." What is adequate to the needs of one realm of discourse may be entirely inadequate in another. Still, respect for truth is due because it is a means of human self-realization.

I see logic as the art and science of correct thinking, where by "correct" I mean truth-preserving, not power preserving. So logic is not merely one exercise among many, but an indispensable means of dealing with reality -- and even more so in an era in which POTUS has told over 10,000 public lies since coming to office. Those who attack and belittle truth support, knowingly or ignorantly, the atrocities that such lies minimize.

So, while you are free to proceed irrationally, I choose to proceed with the greatest respect for truth, evidence and the kind of thinking that preserves them.