How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? The answer, if we are just a bunch of chemicals, is that we can’t. — Franz Liszt
If you say ‘science and logic are illusions’ then you’ve come to that conclusion using logic (and likely science as well) which is absurd!
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe.
This goes against my instincts, but from a philosophical standpoint, science and logic are kind of dependent on this to be true — Franz Liszt
If we are just loads of chemicals grouped together through a random procces, — Franz Liszt
How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? — Franz Liszt
I can relate. I too was indoctrinated into a theistic worldview by my back-to-the-bible fundamentalist religion. But, upon reaching the age of reason, I began to ask embarrassing questions. Since no satisfactory answers were forthcoming, I eventually rejected scriptural Theism. But I also asked embarrassing questions about the Materialistic model offered by modern science. So, for a while, I became an undecided, yet still searching Agnostic. Apparently Atheists simply abandoned the search for any "higher truth" (than Science) long ago. The "delusion" of Atheism is that it has found a plausible answer to the "hard" questions of "God, the Universe, and Everything".This goes against my instincts, but from a philosophical standpoint, science and logic are kind of dependent on this to be true.
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt
We believe that we are just biological animals or just chemicals grouped together through evolution. However, I think that this might be a scientific and logical fallacy. — Franz Liszt
One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... Unless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.
Support: Reasoning requires insight into logical relations. A process of reasoning (P therefore Q) is rational only if the reasoner sees that Q follows from, or is supported by, P, and accepts Q on that basis. Thus, reasoning is trustworthy (or "valid", as Lewis sometimes says) only if it involves a special kind of causality, namely, rational insight into logical implication or evidential support. If a bit of reasoning can be fully explained by nonrational causes, such as fibers firing in the brain or a bump on the head, then the reasoning is not reliable, and cannot yield knowledge.
How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? — Franz Liszt
Placing God as that scaffolding is just another way of saying that don't know what accounts for our confidence. — frank
f we are just loads of chemicals grouped together through a random procces, then everything we experience may well be wrong. How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? The answer, if we are just a bunch of chemicals, is that we can’t. Using this logic, science is just an illusion, so is logic. However, we have used science and logic to come to these conclusions, which becomes a paradox. — Franz Liszt
This is quite literally my entire point. The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox.You can’t conclude anything from a paradox
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt
The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox. — Franz Liszt
You can’t conclude anything from a paradox
This is quite literally my entire point. The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox. — Franz Liszt
You want to say that science and logic depend on the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I would object that you implicitly assume said reliability whenever you embark on any cognitive task, such as putting together this argument. You can't withhold this assumption without undermining your argument.
But let's grant your requirement for the sake of an argument. Why is supernatural design the only answer to this requirement? If you are a product of design, it is still an open question whether you were designed with reliable cognitive abilities or not. So you have to assume that you are a product of design, and that you were designed for reliable cognitive abilities. But as long as you are helping yourself to assumptions, wouldn't it be more parsimonious to assume just that our cognitive abilities are reliable? — SophistiCat
In any case, what I presented above does not point to Christianity in the slightest, let alone ‘God’. — Franz Liszt
am beginning to think that I took too far a assumption based off of some other responses I have received. If we need our logic to be true, is there another explanation you can think of? — Franz Liszt
The argument, which is very badly put by the OP, is that if you seek to *explain* reason in terms of naturalism or evolutionary development, then this devalues the sovereignty of reason. Reason is sovereign because it is capable of revealing truths, not on account of it being the outcome of physical causation or evolutionary adaptation, which is a near-universal assumption. — Wayfarer
I was just trying to answer the first thing you were saying, is that bad? — Franz Liszt
Delusion denotes persistent belief that a demonstable falsehood is true.
Atheism (however defined) is not a demonstrable falsehood.
And science, Franz, is defeasible, fallible, approximative, and incomplete; the only "illusion" is scientism which denies science's inescapable gaps & limits. Thus, your thesis (OP) makes no sense.
As for logic being an "illusion" ... :roll:
(Btw, I self-identify as a freethinker, but when pressed I'll often cop to 'anti-theist atheist'.) — 180 Proof
We cannot have infinite regression, so it’s more logical to say that we were designed by a all truthful [thing?]. — Franz Liszt
The reasons it cannot be aliens is because we would have to know they are all truthful too, but then they would need something all truthful. — Franz Liszt
My point is that we need to be designed by something that has all truth for our logic to be correct. — Franz Liszt
To me this is a strange thought. Why should our logic be perfectly correct? — norm
It's not strange, it is a venerable academic argument. He may not know it but he is referring to the Logical Absolutes (I think Aristotle first articulated these) which it is argued are true, above and beyond human minds.
These are the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle which allow us to have reason, maths, science. They are necessary presuppositions to have any kind of communication or thought. — Tom Storm
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