First order logic, set theory and God

[Rahn127]

No. It's called being scientifically literate.

I can assure you that you're anything but that. Your reasoning, in general, leaves much to be desired.

I did not use the word inefficient, although it is that as well. I used the inadequate. I have already explained several times. It reasons about reality as if it is made up of discrete objects when in fact these are arbitrary definitions. It does not take into account continuous and continual processes, chaos, complexity or thermodynamics which are fundamentally important to describing the nature of reality and why the world is as it currently is.

Take a snow flake for example. How would your logic be used to describe what causes a snow flake. Go on, try it. Now use your first order logic to explain why a snow flake has the shape that it does. First order logic is inadequate for doing so, but the same laws governing why and how a snowflake exist are behind why galaxies, solar systems, planets, chemistry, biology, abiogenesis, evolution and even intelligence and consequently society. And if you tried reasoning about them using first order logic you would not come up with much that was any use.

I'm not entirely sure why you're presupposing that logic is an all-encompassing science meant to explain everything and anything. That assumption you made is completely unwarranted and speaks volumes on your lack of knowledge. So much for the scientific literacy you've proudly proclaimed. Logic does not tell us how we ought to reason or infer in all particular cases, since it lacks the ability to deal with specifics. Its purpose, generally speaking, is to study reality's nature and the general relations it has to other things. The methodology is akin to abductive reasoning, wherein one makes observations, recognizes a pattern, presents a generalization, and infer the likeliest possible scenario. On that note, it is evident that your example is completely irrelevant and thus, not worth discussing.

Right. So the moment two H2O molecules formed a crystal inside a cup of water, was it a cup of ice or a cup of water?

That's a matter of semantics. Heck, call it a cup of blood if you wish so. The fact remains that causality is established as soon as the transition from cause to effect is complete, and that the properties of said cause and effect are qualitatively distinctive. That is, one could perceptually distinguish the different state of water that arose from the process of crystallization.

How does your first order logic describe a cup that is in the process of transitioning from a cup of water to a cup of ice?

It doesn't. That is why we teach chemistry. Again, what is your point?

I think perhaps you're missing the point.
Ice is a solid state of water. The structure changed.
Nothing was actually created or added to the environment.

Ice is the solid form of water.
The water exists. The ice didn't begin to exist.
The structure of the water that already existed changed.

With the tree branch and baseball bat.
The shape of the branch is altered. All the existing material is still there. The wood shaving on the ground we're part of the branch. They are now shavings.
The bat wasn't created. It was shaped.

It didn't begin to exist. We just changed the label as the shape of the branch was altered.

That is the distinction that needs to be made.

Ice forms naturally. It's not created. It didn't arrive out of nothing. Water was already there. Only the structure changed as the environmental factors changed.

We have the cosmos.
We have the forces of nature.
We have the energy of the universe.

This isn't nothing.

When those existing things change, like a snowflake, a universe is formed, not created. Formed.

What is laughable is that you've completely dismissed the substance on my argument by shifting the goalposts and putting words in my mouth. The appeal to creation ex nihilo is completely unwarranted, nowhere in my reasoning have I hinted that causality hinged upon the creation of energy through external interference. That interpretation is of your own doing, and I suspect your intellectual dishonesty is being at play here.

What you, and countless of other posters, have failed to grasp is that causality, in the case of water transitioning to ice, appeals to a concrete and distinct occurence of the interconnectedness of both events. In this light, causality can only be established if and only if, one can properly define and distinguish the qualitative properties that makes water what water is supposed to be, and ice what ice is supposed to be. Water ceases to be, qualitatively speaking, when the substance and qualities of ice appears to be discernible for it's previous liquid state at a point of time, and this, while concurring with the Law of Conservation of Energy. Furthermore, nitpicking over terms such as "created" "formed" or "existed" is a futile endeavor, since whatever choice of the term may be, the effect (ice) will always be distinctive from its cause (water), qualitatively speaking.


In a nutshell, it can be said that A is the cause of B, given that A can be qualitatively distinctive from B at a point of time. If A and B, can both be individuated  by their associated {substance, property, time} triple, the causal relatedness of A and B is said to have been established. Now, this is by no means a black and white represatation of how causality operates, there are alot more factors that needs to be taken into conisderation if one is to capture the complete dynamics and the intricate complexity of its nature.

I ask this with all sincerity....Are you high ?