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
2Yes, but since contradictions cannot be instantiated, (by the ontological principle of contradiction) they are not possible. So, the formulations mean the same thing. — Dfpolis
3What is contradictory is outside the scope of being and so not a limit on being. — Dfpolis
4The laws of nature, for example, act throughout the cosmos, but have no parts outside of parts. — Dfpolis
5and an Infinite Being can do any possible act. — Dfpolis
6Infinite being can act in all possible ways in all possible places at all possible times. — Dfpolis
7Nor is the universe God because it is constrained by the laws of nature, which are more restrictive than what is logically possible. — Dfpolis
8Thinking something does not make it exist. — Dfpolis
9So, we can only prove God's existence if knowledge of it is implicit in experience. People with good intuition can see it directly, but may not be able to articulate it for others. — Dfpolis
10If a being exists, its explanation must exist. — Dfpolis
If something exists, its existence is explained either by itself or by another. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
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.) — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
You use the term explanation to mean:
the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. (We may or may not know these.) This is the sense I am using.
— Dfpolis
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? You said:
Proofs show us how to assemble facts we already know to see something we may not have noticed.
— Dfpolis
Your argument is that there are these facts because of some other fact(s). There are finite beings because there is an infinite being, that the infinite being is the "explanation" of finite beings, and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite. In Scholastic terms you make the distinction between contingent beings and a necessary being. A first cause. An uncaused cause.
The same tired old argument. — Fooloso4
You have some particular (unprovable) ontology in mind, and dismissing other possibilities because they are inconsistent with the (unprovable) assumptions of your ontology. For example, the notion that something with causal efficacy can exist "outside of time" is pure assumption - there's no basis for thinking such a thing can exist. If such a thing can exist, then your scenario is fine. But if it can't exist, then we're stuck with the sort of scenario I've described - along with the assumptions it entails. We've been down this road before, so there's no point in going down it again. Thanks for the discussion.The zero energy universe hypothesis (which I don't necessarily buy) has some sort of 'seed' causing a chain reaction that then generates the rest of the matter/energy in the universe in exchange for negative gravitational energy. So I agree something permanent must exist (at least a seed, maybe all matter/energy if the hypothesis does not hold). But permanent existence is only possible outside of time so whatever existed permanently has its origin outside of time. — Devans99
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
Your argument is ... and that the infinite being needs no explanation because it is infinite. — Fooloso4
An uncaused cause. — Fooloso4
I avoided "cause" because I'm not writing in ancient Greece. — Dfpolis
I am perfectley happy with either "fact" or "state" of affairs as long as no confussion arises. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
An uncaused cause.
— Fooloso4
Thank you for illustrating why I did not use "cause" -- by misstating of my position. — Dfpolis
What is self-explaining (meaning 1) but cannot be explained (meaning 2) is a conjuring act. — Fooloso4
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
We cannot extrapolate from our limited acquaintance with limited things to a universe that is limited. — Fooloso4
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. — Dfpolis
the fact(s) that make some state of affairs be as it is. — Dfpolis
the explanation is the thing in question — Dfpolis
So for an infinite being, what-it-is would be identical with that-it-is. — Dfpolis
First, you are begging the question by assuming that all reality is part of the universe. — Dfpolis
Most cosmologists, even though they are naturalists, believe that there may be other universes, with other laws (the multiverse). — Dfpolis
The laws of nature restrict what is physically possible, but they do not restrict what is logically possible. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
Number theory is not even Turing-Complete, and hence, considered to be a relatively weak and incomplete axiomatization. — alcontali
Every Turing-complete axiomatization is capable of expressing all possible knowledge in its associated language. — alcontali
No, mathematics has quantitative relations as its subject matter — Dfpolis
Mathematics, science, and history are not subject matters. — alcontali
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
There is no mathematical subject matter, nor a scientific subject matter, nor a historical subject matter. — alcontali
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
Physics uses mathematical formalisms to maintain consistency in its theories, but has actually nothing to do with mathematics. — alcontali
With the term "method", I meant "epistemic method", i.e. knowledge-justification method, as in axiomatic "method", scientific "method", and historical "method". — alcontali
Metaphysics does not establish the epistemic method for any area or research, including physics. It is epistemology that does that job. — alcontali
Mathematics is what you can justify using the axiomatic method — alcontali
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
Furthermore, mathematics and science exclude each other. It is not possible to justify a theorem with both methods. — alcontali
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
Well, the ToE is an axiomatic system, and physicists seem to dream of finding it. — alcontali
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
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
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
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
Sets are well-defined collections of distinct objects, while accepted science is indeterminate because it varies over time. — Dfpolis
What defines a science is what is studied (its material object) and the approach to studying it (its formal object) — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
Why is that? — Dfpolis
I do not see that there is an axiomatic method. — Dfpolis
Axioms can be abstracted from reality — Dfpolis
How does the so-called "axiomatic method" justify its axioms? — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
If it were, mathematics would not be scientific. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
While physics can be and has been axiomatized (e.g. quantum theory and quantum field theory) — Dfpolis
The justification for the axioms is that, so far, they seem to work. — Dfpolis
So, a bowl that holds only one apple and one pear cannot be proven to hold two pieces of fruit? — Dfpolis
All truths derive from experience. — Dfpolis
So, 2 objects and 2 more objects might not yield a total count of 4 objects outside the visible universe? — Dfpolis
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 — Dfpolis
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
But then again, these theories are too physical-world to my taste. — alcontali
I personally prefer the abstract, Platonic worlds of mathematics, for which you only need pen and paper. — alcontali
The mainstream view is that knowledge is a justified (true) belief: — alcontali
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
P does not need to be knowledge. For example, axioms are not knowledge, because they are not justified. — alcontali
It will initially, and possibly even never, be possible to turn a philosophical idea into a rigorous system. — alcontali
(2) that a putative reality must either be or not be — Dfpolis
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
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. — Dfpolis
There's no point in being bound to reality. — Dfpolis
And the experience of being as quantifiable, from which to abstract the relevant concepts. — Dfpolis
Clearly, we may not believe (accept) what we know, which would be impossible if knowledge were a species of belief. — Dfpolis
If you do not assume that the axioms are true, then one cannot assume that anything derived from them is true. — Dfpolis
If we only need begin with unjustified axioms, we can start with any assumptions and prove anything. — Dfpolis
In my view, axioms can be justified by abstraction, and most mathematical axioms are. — Dfpolis
If such measurements did not confirm this prediction, we would reject the parallel postulate -- as we do for non-Euclidean metrics. — Dfpolis
Since we know the axioms are true any valid deduction from the axioms must be true (logic is salve veritate.) — Dfpolis
There's no point in being bound to reality. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
(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
1) What does contradiction inhere in? — tim wood
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
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
Our suppositions about contradictions, then, remain exactly - merely - and only that. — tim wood
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
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
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
Thus reason seems limited by itself and its own limitations. — tim wood
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
I think we have a very different conception of what God is. — Devans99
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
That is why I have outlined the relation between thought and reality. — Dfpolis
... the opposite of red is not-red ... — Dfpolis
Am I invited? — Dfpolis
No, because that would entail the contraction of Its being limited, but It could create a finite being capable of doing so. — Dfpolis
You might think it genius but as you said in the OP, thinking something does not make it exist. — Fooloso4
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
The same tired old argument. — Fooloso4
Aquinas did not write in ancient Greece — Fooloso4
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
How does your argument for a self-explaining God differ from Aquinas' first cause, an efficient cause, an uncaused cause? — Fooloso4
Wait, so an infinite being cannot engage in any possible act? — Theorem
You seem to be saying that there are certain acts that only a finite being can accomplish. This seems problematic. — Theorem
Yes, it can. An infinite being acting as only a finite being can is not a possible act. — Dfpolis
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. — Dfpolis
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