Must logic exist?

[Edwardo Piet]

Is it possible for logic to not exist? Must it exist?

If logic doesn't exist then, logically, that means it doesn't exist.... but since that logically means it mustn't then isn't that logical so therefore it must?

[Rhizomorph13]

Yes logic must exist, you would need a logical framework within which to prove logic does not exist, so therefore logic would be a necessity.

[Edwardo Piet]

If nothing exists though, does logic exist? If it must, according to my argument, then it's not possible for nothing to exist because logic must exist.

[Rhizomorph13]

"Nothing" is a concept and exists only as a concept. Nothing, by definition, doesn't exist because it is no thing. It is not equal to itself because a thing has to exist to be equal to itself. Nothing is illogical.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Good point. That seems to resolve the paradox of logical nothing.

[Edwardo Piet]

In my other thread I already argue that everything is logical and nothing is illogical.

Here I'm arguing that maybe logic MUST exist?

If logic necessarily exists, then existence is necessary, if only as logic. So it answers the old question "Why is there something rather than nothing?", "Why does anything exist at all"? Answer: Because something must exist.... because logic must exist... and logic must be something otherwise it isn't anything, and so doesn't exist. That is my point.

[The Omnissiunt One]

But isn't logic merely a conceptual scheme which describes what must necessarily be when things exist? As no things exist if there is nothing, logic can't describe them.

[Edwardo Piet]

Is not logic absolute? If a rock remains, logically, a rock and not not a rock even if there are no minds to conceive of the CONCEPT of logic, doesn't logic still exist?

Is it really that logic doesn't exist outside of the concept of logic? Or is it actually the case that logic is the ONLY thing that exists? Everything is logic because logic is the sum of all logical things and all things are logical because of the Law of Identity?

[The Omnissiunt One]

Perhaps, but logic may just be a constraint on our thinking which arose because we exist in a universe where the law of identity holds. Could there be a universe with entirely different logical laws? I'm not sure. Also, I wouldn't say that logic is the sum of all logical things; rather, it is what is necessarily common to all logical things by virtue of their being logical (and perhps by virtue of their existing as things at all).

[Edwardo Piet]

Whatever those logical laws are, those logical laws must, then, be those logical laws, whatever they are. So our 'normal' kind of logic must also apply even if there are somehow also "other" kinds.

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Also, I wouldn't say that logic is the sum of all logical things; rather, it is what is necessarily common to all logical things by virtue of their being logical (and perhps by virtue of their existing as things at all).

This comes down to Universal Idealism or Universal Realism. I generally accept Universal Idealism but I would accept one form of Universal Realism: I am quite happy to say that "Redness" exists for example, if I am to say that "Redness" is merely the totality of all things that are Red. And I can use this the same way with logic.