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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 12:38 pm
(This post was last modified: August 9, 2013 at 12:42 pm by The Reality Salesman01.)
(August 9, 2013 at 12:31 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: We agree on an attribute of God, so can move on to another truth.
We make sense of the universe through logic, in that sense, as it appears to us, it is logical. Therefore, we will say that whatever preceeded the universe, if we were ever able to know it, would be understood by using the same method, logic.
At what point did we say that God is implied by any of this?
Logic is contingent upon a mind. Something being true or not true is not. The true-ness of a statement is noncontingent upon anything. You seem to be equivocating a bit here Frodo.
The Universe either is, or isn't. In the abscence of a mind, The Universe can still be or not be. But it can't be both at the same time in the same way. None of this is at all contingent upon a mind. The ability to comprehend it, is. That's something much different and not at all a necessary thing for the universe to have began, or continue.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 12:52 pm
(August 9, 2013 at 12:23 pm)Texas Sailor Wrote: Logic is descriptive of the universe. As thinking beings, logic describes the universe in such a way that we can make sense of it.
We are able to reflect, and logic is the mechanism through which this is done.
We are able to experience different scents, and smell is the mechanism through which this is done.
Logic, is a method, and all signs point to a natural one at that.
I'm not so sure what logic is but I doubt if our sense of smell is a good analogue. Logic seems to be a method of deducing what else follows from the truth of certain propositions. As such it is as much or more about our language as it is reality. Of course we value it because it can pay off in questions of strategy. But long before we had either language or logic it would have been possible to make connections between coinciding events. Other mammals and birds do this all the time. Stating these relationships in propositions isn't necessary for recognizing or exploiting them. I feel like you may be over-valuing logic.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 12:52 pm
(This post was last modified: August 9, 2013 at 12:59 pm by fr0d0.)
* fr0d0 gets a telescope to see if he can see Tex on his diversion
Tex. We have a starting point. You're trying to change it into an end point. We can use logic to work stuff out... on this we are agreed. If the universe we observe we can surmise is logical, then any God that created it would have to be logical too. Brick #1 of 1000 is in place.
You asked for a point of logic and how it was deduced and you got it.
Fin
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:20 pm
(August 9, 2013 at 12:52 pm)whateverist Wrote: (August 9, 2013 at 12:23 pm)Texas Sailor Wrote: Logic is descriptive of the universe. As thinking beings, logic describes the universe in such a way that we can make sense of it.
We are able to reflect, and logic is the mechanism through which this is done.
We are able to experience different scents, and smell is the mechanism through which this is done.
Logic, is a method, and all signs point to a natural one at that.
I'm not so sure what logic is but I doubt if our sense of smell is a good analogue. Logic seems to be a method of deducing what else follows from the truth of certain propositions. As such it is as much or more about our language as it is reality. Of course we value it because it can pay off in questions of strategy. But long before we had either language or logic it would have been possible to make connections between coinciding events. Other mammals and birds do this all the time. Stating these relationships in propositions isn't necessary for recognizing or exploiting them. I feel like you may be over-valuing logic.
A method, yes. Contingent upon a mind. As you've pointed out, not necessarily human either. Whatever kind of mind we are talking about, natural ones are the only kinds we know of, and without them, logic ceases to be of any value at all. Logic requires a mind to apply it, but the characteristics of the objects to which it is being applied to are noncontingent upon a mind at all. Frodo seems to be equivocating Logic (the method of discerning truth), and The Laws of Logic (describe characteristics of truth which can be recognized through logic, but are noncontingent upon a being recognizing them as such). They are descriptive of nature. Frodo needs to show that they are prescriptive from God.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Logic can be used to deduce that there is a God, so we need to avoid saying things like "logic will inevitably lead to atheism" (I know you didn't say this, but I feel this is what you're getting at. Please correct me if I'm wrong). There is much more at work here than just a simple gathering of facts. There are fallacies that logic can fall into:
Cheese wheels are round and yellow.
The moon is round and yellow.
The moon is made of cheese.
There needs to be a modicum of reason behind the use of logic.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
(August 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Cheese wheels are round and yellow.
The moon is round and yellow.
The moon is made of cheese.
There needs to be a modicum of reason behind the use of logic.
Sparty, if I remember my logic course correctly, the answer to that one is that there is insufficient information to reach the third statement.
A correct one would be:
Everything that is round and yellow is cheese.
The moon is round and yellow.
The moon is made of cheese.
Any spelling mistakes are due to my godlessness!
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Tex: the universe would be logical if we could perceive it or not. It's logically is not dependant upon our understanding.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
(August 9, 2013 at 12:52 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: * fr0d0 gets a telescope to see if he can see Tex on his diversion
Tex. We have a starting point. You're trying to change it into an end point. We can use logic to work stuff out... on this we are agreed. If the universe we observe we can surmise is logical, then any God that created it would have to be logical too. Brick #1 of 1000 is in place.
You asked for a point of logic and how it was deduced and you got it.
Fin Lol...ok. Listen to me.
If God then...?
That is an unfounded presumption.
If Shiva, then...
If Zeus, then...
You have to prove A before assigning it B.
That's what I've been trying to tell you man.
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:27 pm
So if the universe we observe is violent, dangerous, and mostly lethal to living organisms, then any god that created it...
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
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RE: What is Your Approach?
August 9, 2013 at 1:28 pm
(This post was last modified: August 9, 2013 at 1:28 pm by Bad Writer.)
(August 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm)ITChick Wrote: (August 9, 2013 at 1:21 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Cheese wheels are round and yellow.
The moon is round and yellow.
The moon is made of cheese.
There needs to be a modicum of reason behind the use of logic.
Sparty, if I remember my logic course correctly, the answer to that one is that there is insufficient information to reach the third statement.
A correct one would be:
Everything that is round and yellow is cheese.
The moon is round and yellow.
The moon is made of cheese.
People reach these conclusions all the time with these ill-formed approaches. The starting point is important though, as you've illustrated. I think that's what fr0d0 is asking for.
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