JuliaL,
The word "eternal" here isn't being used in a timely manner (no pun intended). "Eternal" here isn't only with respect to time. By saying "eternal" he simply means that this necessity will be true in every condition whatsoever (which makes it an "eternal" fact; this necessity can never not be) in contrast to only being true under certain conditions (e.g. being constrained by the existence of other things or for only certain durations).
The set of finite beings doesn't have anything additional to its parts. If it did, that thing would either be finite or infinite. If the former, it would itself be a member of the set (and thus the set wouldn't have anything additional to its parts). If the latter, then it would be an infinite/absolute entity - which is precisely the kind of thing the "argument" seeks to demonstrate.
I want people to see why I would call such an entity a deity. Describing it the way I did helps.
What do you mean by getting "lost in all that infinity"?
It's really not that hard. 2 bricks have more existence than 1 brick (given that they're all identical). The rock that is conscious has consciousness in addition to just being a rock.
My logic works even if you don't accept that analogy; since the Entity is infinite/absolute and thus cannot lack anything, the Entity must also possess consciousness.
Redbeard The Pink,
(Bold mine)
What's that then?
Straw man fallacy. I didn't say anything about goodness, love, misogyny, rape, or monstrosity. I didn't say anything about creation either.
Yes it does, and yes there is; the mere existence of reality implies the existence of an absolute/infinite, immaterial, omnipresent, one-and-only, eternally necessary entity. The ability of the POTV to show precisely this is what sets this "argument" apart from all the others. This is the beauty and the strength of the POTV. As for you, all you're doing now is asserting statements, presumably in anger, without checking if what you're saying is actually true.
Irrational,
The POTV seeks to prove (or, more accurately, it seeks to simply bring our attention to the fact of) the existence of an infinite reality. This infinite reality or infinite entity has no limits whatsoever. It's infinite and boundless in every way (I'm not only talking about space and time).
Esquilax,
We start off with an objective truth ("There is a reality") and then proceed to analyze its logical implications in the argument. Since this proposition based on objective reality cannot be untrue in any condition (as shown in the argument), it will forever be true - and that's why we say that this will have "eternal necessity" (i.e. it will and never can be untrue).
Another straw man fallacy. I'm not arguing from exclusion of other categories to the validity of a category. It's actually the other way around; I'm just saying that because the entity/reality fits in this category, it cannot fit into these other categories (because those categories are, by definition, completely different from and opposed to this category).
A bit of more exposition on the categories won't hurt. So here's more from A Commentary on Theistic Arguments so you can understand what these categories mean (page 182):
"Eternal necessity is other than essential necessity (al-dharūra al-dhātiyya), attributive necessity (al-dharūra al-wasfiyya), conditional necessity (al-dharūra al-shartiyya), and other similar sorts of necessities. In attributive and conditional necessities, the affirmation of a predicate for its subject is necessary provided the pertinent attribute or condition is secured. Likewise, in essential necessity, affirmation of a predicate for its subject is restricted to the continuance of the existence of the subject; in other words, the predicate is affirmed for the subject as long as the subject is existent. Eternal necessity is instantiated when the affirmation of the predicate for its subject is not restricted by any condition or attribute, and not even by the continuance of subject’s existence. Therefore, in eternal necessity, the predicate is affirmed for the subject in every state."
I've already explained this before, but let me spoon feed this to everyone one last time. The Proof of the Veracious (officially called the Demonstration of the Veracious, as seen in the book) is technically not a philosophical argument. The author clearly says this. It's not an argument, it's not an argument, it's not an argument. It's simply a method of bringing one's attention to something. It's an analysis of an objective fact (the fact being "there is a reality"); it's a demonstration. You may as well call it a demonstration and logical analysis of objective evidence (the evidence being the fact that "there is a reality"). The entire demonstration is based on this one external objective fact and proposition: "there is a reality". I've already said this too, but let make say it again: I was only referring to it as an "argument" in my posts for convenience purposes. But to keep it clearer for everyone, from now on I'll refer it by its original name and title: The Demonstration of the Veracious (DOTV), because that's what it is - a demonstration. I also already quoted this in my original post, but let me quote the Ayatollah again (A Commentary on Theistic Arguments, page 186):
"The demonstration of the veracious, with this exposition, sidesteps the criticism of failure of differentiation between notion and extension. This argument is not based on the notion of reality and its necessity of predication to itself by predication as essence. The argument, in fact, proceeds from the first ontological proposition, which encompasses affirmation of the basic reality and rejection of sophistry. The affirmation of reality is not based on its notion, which is held in the mind; it is with respect to external factuality. If it were on the basis of its notion and by predication as essence (al-haml al-awwalī), then just as reality is reality, sophism is sophism. Therefore, the invalidation of sophism, and consequently, the truth of the basic reality, is with respect to the external world and predication as extension (al-haml al-shā’ye‛)."
And here are some more quotes from the same book:
Page 181: "In his commentary on Al-Asfār, and in the fifth volume of Usūl-i-Falsafa wa Rawish-i-Ri'alizm, ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, may Allah sanctify his tomb, constructs a demonstration for the affirmation of the Necessary. This demonstration does not depend on any philosophic principles and proceeds from the mere entertainment of eternal necessity of absolute existence to the Necessary’s existence as the first proposition of human knowledge. In view of having these unique features, the late‛Allāmah’s proof is well worthy to be adorned with the elegant title of the demonstration of the veracious."
Page 189: "Although the sole indication of the demonstration of the veracious is with respect to the Necessary’s Essence and it does not prove His attributes or actions, it still has a number of unique qualities. In addition to its lack of need of ontological premises, its accomplishments far exceed the other arguments. In fact, it arrives at the infinite reality of God in the first step, an objective the other arguments accomplish only after going through many steps."
Quote:What do you mean by "eternal?" having unlimited extent in time? Now you've got to be clearer on what you mean by time. "A" time or "B" time? Time is the value we insert in predictive equations to make the results match experiment. If you're using some sort of absolute, universal clock, you need to study time a little more. Sure, there could have been a cause of time outside of time. You just need one more dimension we don't know about. But if you're going to try to use your primitive, intuitive concept of time, you'd better make sure it has better predictive value than what the relativists use.
The word "eternal" here isn't being used in a timely manner (no pun intended). "Eternal" here isn't only with respect to time. By saying "eternal" he simply means that this necessity will be true in every condition whatsoever (which makes it an "eternal" fact; this necessity can never not be) in contrast to only being true under certain conditions (e.g. being constrained by the existence of other things or for only certain durations).
Quote:Yet theists generally claim that that humans are more than the sum of their parts. What you describe is an exact essential of an emergent property. Human society exhibits many characteristics which are not found in its individual members and can be usefully considered as a super-organism. I suspect societies' attributes are not infinite, but your claim that this is not the case is again, speculative.
The set of finite beings doesn't have anything additional to its parts. If it did, that thing would either be finite or infinite. If the former, it would itself be a member of the set (and thus the set wouldn't have anything additional to its parts). If the latter, then it would be an infinite/absolute entity - which is precisely the kind of thing the "argument" seeks to demonstrate.
Quote:You waste a paragraph describing your "ineffable" (definition of ineffable: "cannot be described in words,") dingus. You're starting to sound like William Lane Craig defining God into reality... "God, if he exists, is morally perfect, necessary, eternal, transcends space and time, Yada, Yada, Yada." Never a good thing.
I want people to see why I would call such an entity a deity. Describing it the way I did helps.
Quote:What you claim but fail to show is whether consciousness, which must be a member of an infinite set of all things including consciousness, might not get lost in all that infinity.
What do you mean by getting "lost in all that infinity"?
Quote:Your conscious rock has "more" existence??? What units do you put on existence so you can scale it more or less?
It's really not that hard. 2 bricks have more existence than 1 brick (given that they're all identical). The rock that is conscious has consciousness in addition to just being a rock.
My logic works even if you don't accept that analogy; since the Entity is infinite/absolute and thus cannot lack anything, the Entity must also possess consciousness.
Redbeard The Pink,
Quote:(Bold mine)
What's this then?
Quote:"The demonstration of the veracious, in fact, does not intend to prove a reality, which is unknown and must be proved in a discursive fashion. It proves the primariness (al‑awwaliyya) of human knowledge with respect to a proposition, which narrates the eternal necessity of the Entity. If the demonstration were designed to prove a reality that has eternal necessity, its conclusion would not be the first ontological proposition, because every demonstration proceeds from certain premises to a conclusion, and given that the premises are antecedent (muqaddam) to the conclusion, the premises—the truth of which substantiate the existence of the Deity—would be propositional premises for the conclusion."
(Bold mine)
What's that then?
Quote:There is no logical way to get from "There is a reality" to "That reality was created by an extra-dimensional, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, all-loving, misogynistic rape-monster," even with a text-wall like the one in the OP.
Straw man fallacy. I didn't say anything about goodness, love, misogyny, rape, or monstrosity. I didn't say anything about creation either.
Quote:The mere existence of reality does not imply the existence of your god, and there is no logical way to get there.
Yes it does, and yes there is; the mere existence of reality implies the existence of an absolute/infinite, immaterial, omnipresent, one-and-only, eternally necessary entity. The ability of the POTV to show precisely this is what sets this "argument" apart from all the others. This is the beauty and the strength of the POTV. As for you, all you're doing now is asserting statements, presumably in anger, without checking if what you're saying is actually true.
Irrational,
Quote:Here, it seems you are making the mistake of presuming only one broad type of "infinity". I think "infinity" is a vague word we use to try to capture multiple areas of "unlimitedness". You could apply the word to boundless space, boundless time, boundless love (infinite love), boundless afterlife (eternal heaven and hell), boundless evil, and so on. Nothing in your argument suggests that an infinite reality (in terms of space and time, I'm guessing) must have any of those other infinite qualities.
The POTV seeks to prove (or, more accurately, it seeks to simply bring our attention to the fact of) the existence of an infinite reality. This infinite reality or infinite entity has no limits whatsoever. It's infinite and boundless in every way (I'm not only talking about space and time).
Esquilax,
Quote:Can you demonstrate that "eternal necessity" has any applicability to objective reality?
We start off with an objective truth ("There is a reality") and then proceed to analyze its logical implications in the argument. Since this proposition based on objective reality cannot be untrue in any condition (as shown in the argument), it will forever be true - and that's why we say that this will have "eternal necessity" (i.e. it will and never can be untrue).
Quote:No, no, no, that's not even how good argumentation works, let alone demonstrable evidence. You don't just get to define four categories by fiat, assert that a given thing doesn't fit within three of the categories, therefore it belongs in the fourth, that's fallacious. You'd have to demonstrate that there are, in fact, only four categories first, and then you'd need positive demonstrations that the thing belongs in a given category, not just that it seems to you like it doesn't fit in the other three. I can't, for example, point to my dog and tell you "there are only four different kinds of animals: birds, cows, cats, and octopi. Since this animal has no wings, udders, or tentacles, it must be a cat." I trust the clear logical issue with thatattempt to define something via elimination alone is obvious to you?
Another straw man fallacy. I'm not arguing from exclusion of other categories to the validity of a category. It's actually the other way around; I'm just saying that because the entity/reality fits in this category, it cannot fit into these other categories (because those categories are, by definition, completely different from and opposed to this category).
A bit of more exposition on the categories won't hurt. So here's more from A Commentary on Theistic Arguments so you can understand what these categories mean (page 182):
"Eternal necessity is other than essential necessity (al-dharūra al-dhātiyya), attributive necessity (al-dharūra al-wasfiyya), conditional necessity (al-dharūra al-shartiyya), and other similar sorts of necessities. In attributive and conditional necessities, the affirmation of a predicate for its subject is necessary provided the pertinent attribute or condition is secured. Likewise, in essential necessity, affirmation of a predicate for its subject is restricted to the continuance of the existence of the subject; in other words, the predicate is affirmed for the subject as long as the subject is existent. Eternal necessity is instantiated when the affirmation of the predicate for its subject is not restricted by any condition or attribute, and not even by the continuance of subject’s existence. Therefore, in eternal necessity, the predicate is affirmed for the subject in every state."
Quote:Firstly though, there's an overarching problem with this entire endeavor, which is generally the death of these theistic arguments, and that is that you can't skip over the "evidence" part of demonstrating a thing. You cannot prove the existence of something in reality via argument, particularly not through a philosophical argument: you can't, essentially, talk something into existence. Philosophy has its uses, but nowhere among those is the ability to demonstrate objective reality. You're really doing nothing more than playing word games, and worse still, they're all negative word games anyway, as I'll soon show, but for now, there's this: logic is only as good as the data you feed into it. You have included no data here, and thus cannot come to a conclusion that shows anything about reality. Only about some hypothetical reality where everything works exactly as you've said; you've done nothing to demonstrate that our reality is that reality.
I've already explained this before, but let me spoon feed this to everyone one last time. The Proof of the Veracious (officially called the Demonstration of the Veracious, as seen in the book) is technically not a philosophical argument. The author clearly says this. It's not an argument, it's not an argument, it's not an argument. It's simply a method of bringing one's attention to something. It's an analysis of an objective fact (the fact being "there is a reality"); it's a demonstration. You may as well call it a demonstration and logical analysis of objective evidence (the evidence being the fact that "there is a reality"). The entire demonstration is based on this one external objective fact and proposition: "there is a reality". I've already said this too, but let make say it again: I was only referring to it as an "argument" in my posts for convenience purposes. But to keep it clearer for everyone, from now on I'll refer it by its original name and title: The Demonstration of the Veracious (DOTV), because that's what it is - a demonstration. I also already quoted this in my original post, but let me quote the Ayatollah again (A Commentary on Theistic Arguments, page 186):
"The demonstration of the veracious, with this exposition, sidesteps the criticism of failure of differentiation between notion and extension. This argument is not based on the notion of reality and its necessity of predication to itself by predication as essence. The argument, in fact, proceeds from the first ontological proposition, which encompasses affirmation of the basic reality and rejection of sophistry. The affirmation of reality is not based on its notion, which is held in the mind; it is with respect to external factuality. If it were on the basis of its notion and by predication as essence (al-haml al-awwalī), then just as reality is reality, sophism is sophism. Therefore, the invalidation of sophism, and consequently, the truth of the basic reality, is with respect to the external world and predication as extension (al-haml al-shā’ye‛)."
And here are some more quotes from the same book:
Page 181: "In his commentary on Al-Asfār, and in the fifth volume of Usūl-i-Falsafa wa Rawish-i-Ri'alizm, ‛Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, may Allah sanctify his tomb, constructs a demonstration for the affirmation of the Necessary. This demonstration does not depend on any philosophic principles and proceeds from the mere entertainment of eternal necessity of absolute existence to the Necessary’s existence as the first proposition of human knowledge. In view of having these unique features, the late‛Allāmah’s proof is well worthy to be adorned with the elegant title of the demonstration of the veracious."
Page 189: "Although the sole indication of the demonstration of the veracious is with respect to the Necessary’s Essence and it does not prove His attributes or actions, it still has a number of unique qualities. In addition to its lack of need of ontological premises, its accomplishments far exceed the other arguments. In fact, it arrives at the infinite reality of God in the first step, an objective the other arguments accomplish only after going through many steps."
