I can never have the ability to reason with someone who doubts pure logic or worse....... denying it... because if so, I'll literally lack every possible common ground to begin a philosphical conversation with him. — BARAA
any existing thing has to be either contingent or necessary — BARAA
I see no reason to think that the absence of a cause makes something exist of necessity, rather than contingently. — Bartricks
because it is self-evident to reason - that any existing thing has either to exist contingently or necessarily. — Bartricks
she is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being - that is, God. — Bartricks
1)contingent things exist.
2)a contingent existent needs an external cause to exist and if its cause is also contingent,it will also need a cause and so on. — BARAA
Exists contingently means 'exists but did not have to exist' and exists necessarily means 'exists and cannot not exist'. — Bartricks
Were you trying to say that laws of logic don't necessarily apply outside our minds? — BARAA
You're trying to explain an event while arguing against causality.you accept causality or not?make a decision — BARAA
I started this line of thought with an old Anscombe article, which superficially was a critique of Davidson's position that reasons for action are indeed causes. It broadened considerably when I added the Del Santo article, focusing the conversation more on physical causation. It seems to me that we have broad agreement, at least amongst those posters here who have some learning in physics, that classical systems need not be deterministic. The conversation now is about refining that notion or explaining it to Harry.
Those ubiquitous threads that link causation to the beginnings of spacetime and variously invoke God or panpsychism or Roger Penrose for the most part fall to this view.
We still have the discussion of reasons as causes to attend. But if causes are not as determined as was thought, perhaps it doesn't matter all that much whether we choose to treat our reasons as causing our actions. SimIlarly, the demise of determinism takes the pressure off our feeling justified in punishing those who choose stuff we don't like. — Banno
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