Did God create logic? Or is logic further evidence of God�s existence?

[Sparko]

False, this is the fallacy of universal generalization, as cited before. This fallacy need not apply to whether fallible deduce ALL absolute truths other than the mundane knowledge cited. You need to address the claims of logician bones.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization

A faulty generalization is a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon that has been reached on the basis of just one or just a few instances of that phenomenon. It is an example of jumping to conclusions. For example, we may generalize about all people, or all members of a group, based on what we know about just one or just a few people. If we meet an angry person from a given country X, we may suspect that most people in country X are often angry. If we meet a lazy recipient of social welfare benefits, we may suspect that all welfare recipients are lazy. Faulty generalizations may lead to further incorrect conclusions. We may for example conclude that citizens of country X are genetically inferior, or that poverty is generally the fault of the poor.

Expressed in more precise philosophical language, a fallacy of defective induction is a conclusion that has been made on the basis of weak premises. Unlike fallacies of relevance, in fallacies of defective induction, the premises are related to the conclusions yet only weakly buttress the conclusions. A faulty generalization is thus produced. This inductive fallacy is any of several errors of inductive inference.

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You have failed to address logician bones claims. Can we deduce absolute truths, or absolute causality in the subjective world beyond that which may be observed, tested and falsified.?

The question is not whether fallible humans may falsify ALL absolute truths. Again . . . Can humans deduce absolute truths and absolute causality beyond the observation, testing and falsification in our physical existence?

what are you talking about? You are not making sense, Frank.

Nobody claimed we can deduce all absolute truths, or falsify things we can't even know. But yes, all statements claiming to be true can be tested and are falsifiable. That doesn't mean they are false, it just means that IF a statement is false, we can know it by testing it. If it is true, then of course it can't be shown to be false, by the very definition of "truth" vs "false"

[seer]

The question is not whether fallible humans may falsify ALL absolute truths. Again . . . Can humans deduce absolute truths and absolute causality beyond the observation, testing and falsification in our physical existence?

Shuny is this an absolute or not? "Contradictions do not exist in any form in the ultimate absolute nature of our existence." How is this observed or tested?

[Jim B.]

If something doesn't have substance within time/space we say that it doesn't exist.
You're jumping back and forth between eternity and the temporal and with little or no distinction.

But go ahead and tell me about existence with no space, no time, and no physicality....

I'll bet you $150.00 Jorge dollars you cannot express existence without those things.

Numbers?

[Jim B.]

If God is the ground of intelligibility, then logic would be part of his nature and he did not create his own nature. This question is analogous to asking "Did/does God decide what is morally good?" What's morally good is eternally part of his nature, so he doesn't decide what's morally good by divine fiat. That would be divine command theory.

[logician bones]

Jim:

No one is denying logic, what I am saying is that before you make an argument about logic, the logical nature of existence, as being evidence for the existence god, you need to explain exactly what "you mean" by the term logic

Right, which is why I did at the start. And you agreed to it... So...

for what reason do you tie logic to a God/mind?

Went over that too. That's what we're discussing now, right? I've explained the reasoning... so far it looks like you've ignored most of it, since you kept saying things like "it's because of utility" without addressing the point that utility evidences this very conclusion. You need to engage with this step, not just repeat the need to do the step.

Your argument seems to be that if there were no god then the world would need be illogical.

No. An illogical world is not possible, Jim. You're forgetting that. That's an obvious (or it SHOULD be obvious if you use your brain...) contradiction of terms. The concept of "world" requires a logical reality. That's the point -- at the end of the analysis, it becomes clear that a fully logical reality (in which a world can exist) also must include God. The reasons for this are not immediately obvious (conciously anyways), but become clear through the analysis, just like many other certain things that you DO accept (often with much more complicated support!), so it would be hypocritical to deny this simply because it's a bit complex. it's a proof -- every chain of it is necessary. You appear to be trying to avoid the soundness of the argument by ignoring necessary steps and invalidly summarizing it. Summaries are sometimes possible, but they are going to be incomplete when you're dealing with proofs. Please keep that in mind.

So, what exactly do you mean by illogical here? Give me an example of what you mean by an illogical world as compared to the one we call logical?

But this is exactly what the whole argument does. I've already been through it. A reality where the causation just stops at one point (all existing states are no longer explained by different possible existing states beyond it) and something just pops into being with no logical cause at all IS illogical. You have already agreed to this, so why are you acting as if you hadn't?



Shun:

The disagreement is can fallible humans comprehend and deduce absolute truths and causality as logician bones claimed.

I don't recall talking about "absolute truths" -- I used the word "absolute" to avoid "universal" in saying that all reality is logical and causal, since that is testable and proven. ("Universal" could be taken as "only about this universe".)

But now that you bring it up, the causality proof DOES show an "absolutely certain" conclusion, and absolute truth is indeed a good description of that.

If you want to know if we can find absolute truth, well, instead of just asking the question over and over, test it. What would we need to do to do this? Simple -- it would need to be entirely grounded in always-observed things, like the simple fact that there is existence, that there is life (since those doing the observation are always experiencing life), etc. -- all of which the causality proof does at every stage.

Not much beyond that can be absolutely known, however.

So, you are actually right to generally not accept absolute truth as known by humans.

However, if you take that general policy of doubt as an absolute itself, aside from contradicting yourself, you are committing a Hasty Generalization of the same sort that Dawkins famously committed when he argued from the lack of plausible explanation of most claimed deities to the assumption that no dieties could possibly be explainable, so he didn't want to bother trying for the biblical one.

And that's what you're doing here. You're rightly observing that usually there's some room for some level of doubt (although on many things it's way past reasonable doubt, which you don't seem to have come to grips with either), and blindly assuming there are no black swans of things that can be known for sure. And since this is one of the certain conclusions, you reject it simply by virtue of it being so certain! (Think about how insane that is!)

But this is never going to work as a counter to the proof of God, because the generalization clearly WAS too hasty since when we actually bother to fairly consider it we DO see that proof... and even if it was not absolute proof, that wouldn't automatically make it drop down to the reasonable doubt level.

The whole approach is nothing but a distraction from actually analyzing the logic itself.

Which is probably because you realize by now that if you let yourself honestly work through the actual argument itself, the conclusion is undeniable.

Simplistic examples of non-contradictory things in the physical world do not demonstrate your case.

He brought that up in response to your claim that we cannot know any truth. Those are examples of truths we can indeed know, Shunya. You cited the very fallacy that meant it was good for him to bring that up.

Though, again, the "scale of certainty" does come into play here to some extent. But that's going to be true of many things we call "proven". And the causality proof, like mathematical proofs, is right at the top of the scale, since every stage is fully testable and in fact the verifications of it are always observed by everybody -- the need for causation and that life can exist and so forth. Which is probably a big part of why Romans 1 says we're without excuse (so far as general revelation goes... the design argument is also often appealed to to explain this; both may work). While people like Shunya and Jim can apparently fail (intentionally??) to get it consciously, the subconscious is not likely able to fail to make such simple calculations, so deep down I think we all know this one.




seer:

Hello logician bones, OK, I'm having trouble following your argument.

I thought so. :) Another reason to continue, heh.

we have an ordered cosmos because a rational Mind ordered it, but

That's the design argument, but the causality proof is distinct from that. The design argument looks at patterns of what produces "specified complexity" or information, and thinks logically about what is necessary to do that, and concludes that an intelligence explains it. This arrives at the conclusion of God from specific patterns in observation. (And it's only one of a vast array of good arguments that do that.)

The causality proof, though, doesn't look at anything specific. It looks only at the general.

The design argument is a good one, but it is much more disputable how close it is to the proof level versus merely evidence. In combination with the whole universe of evidence we have besides that, it matters little, but still, by itself it is more questionable. Some parts of the evolutionary argument do work. They break down at key points, though, which those like Jim are still ignorant of.

But the causality proof is a pure proof like a mathematical proof, and it comes at the question from a different route.

even if there wasn't a God I don't see how the law of non-contradiction, for instance, could be violated. Thanks.

That was Jim's argument, not mine. The law of non-contradiction, as I said in my previous post, takes into account all possible ways to have an apparent contradiction, so it simply cannot be violated. That is never an option, whether God exists or not.

My guess is Jim brought it up because he wanted to distract from the causality argument's focus on the necessity of things having causes, or just to try to expand on what Shunya was doing. It looks like after Jim already agreed to "absolute logic" in the sense of nothing "just happening" (AKA nonsense happening), which he apparently agreed to at the time because (as it appears... but maybe he's just accidentally made it seem this way), it sounded "safe" for a biased agnostic (atheistic biased). It sounds like he didn't see then why that leads to the necessity of God, but after I explained the whole process, it looks like he recognized that the conclusion is undeniable given that premise, and he is biased... so he had to walk back that premise.

But that doesn't work, because the reasoning I started out with in the previous topic already shows that nonsense really can't happen, and this is testable in every moment of every day. If it did, it could not be bound by orderly rules to avoid interfering with life. Chaos instead of ordered physics would happen everywhere, and you could not have a world, or life. All of those things depend on logical, orderly physics.

If you think about it, it's obvious.

From there, you need to go through the parts I posted recently about states of existence and that there must be infinite different states; AKA "infinite possible existence", that what Jim calls utility means that things that are consistent last longer, and that life is clearly one of the possible things. This shows that one set within infinite variety must exist that is FULLY consistent, thus is able to be infinite. (The neccessity of infinitely multilinear time beyond our linear-time universe is important there, too; a finite being cannot at any point in finite time reach infinity, but we're dealing with the realm where that is not a problem since causality doesn't only go in one direction.)

If you'd like me to walk you through those stages more clearly, ask away, though what I posted two posts ago (before Shunya's many-pages transformation about contradictions lol) should suffice.








How to Shun Your Dragon:

You have failed to address logician bones claims. Can we deduce absolute truths, or absolute causality in the subjective world beyond that which may be observed, tested and falsified.?

The question is not whether fallible humans may falsify ALL absolute truths. Again . . . Can humans deduce absolute truths and absolute causality beyond the observation, testing and falsification in our physical existence?

That's not my claim, because you're qualifying it in exactly the opposite way I do. I only accept what is beyond our universe when that concept can be tested and falsified. That's the whole point.

The fact that we cannot know things that can't be tested does not at all imply that we cannot know things that can. And this is fully testable, which is, again, why it is a proof.

[JimL]

Jim:


Right, which is why I did at the start. And you agreed to it... So...


Went over that too. That's what we're discussing now, right? I've explained the reasoning... so far it looks like you've ignored most of it, since you kept saying things like "it's because of utility" without addressing the point that utility evidences this very conclusion. You need to engage with this step, not just repeat the need to do the step.


No. An illogical world is not possible, Jim. You're forgetting that. That's an obvious (or it SHOULD be obvious if you use your brain...) contradiction of terms. The concept of "world" requires a logical reality. That's the point -- at the end of the analysis, it becomes clear that a fully logical reality (in which a world can exist) also must include God. The reasons for this are not immediately obvious (conciously anyways), but become clear through the analysis, just like many other certain things that you DO accept (often with much more complicated support!), so it would be hypocritical to deny this simply because it's a bit complex. it's a proof -- every chain of it is necessary. You appear to be trying to avoid the soundness of the argument by ignoring necessary steps and invalidly summarizing it. Summaries are sometimes possible, but they are going to be incomplete when you're dealing with proofs. Please keep that in mind.


But this is exactly what the whole argument does. I've already been through it. A reality where the causation just stops at one point (all existing states are no longer explained by different possible existing states beyond it) and something just pops into being with no logical cause at all IS illogical. You have already agreed to this, so why are you acting as if you hadn't?

Sorry L Bones, but I'm just not seeing the logic in your resoning. Basically you are arguing that because the world is causally connected in a logical way, that nothing just happens, that nonsense can't happen, are proofs of the existence of god. Sorry but I just don't think that argument holds water. Tell me why logical causation necessitates god, why the same logical causation could not be true of a uncreated reality? And it would be nice if you could be brief,its not a difficult question.

[shunyadragon]

what are you talking about? You are not making sense, Frank.

Nobody claimed we can deduce all absolute truths, or falsify things we can't even know. But yes, all statements claiming to be true can be tested and are falsifiable. That doesn't mean they are false, it just means that IF a statement is false, we can know it by testing it. If it is true, then of course it can't be shown to be false, by the very definition of "truth" vs "false"

I never claimed that anyone claimed that ALL absolute truths can be deduced. Reread my posts and reply as to what I actually said. Please note. logician bones responded and confirmed what I claimed he said.

[logician bones]

Jim:

Basically you are arguing that because the world is causally connected in a logical way, that nothing just happens, that nonsense can't happen, are proofs of the existence of god.

No. They are PART of the causality proof of God. My warning about invalid summaries applies here. This is like trying to dismiss a mathematics proof by ignoring parts of it, picking other parts and saying that "basically" just those parts prove the conclusion! That isn't how proofs work.

Tell me why logical causation necessitates god

I went over that in the post just before Shunya's many pages of arguing about contradictions. And I replied to your response to it... Now I'm waiting on you to continue. Why have you just ignored that?

Let me ask you again, because it's still unclear if you really accept these things:

1) Do you still accept that all of reality is logical in the sense of nothing "just happening"? (If not, why not?)

2) Do you recognize that every group of states of existence is itself a state of existence requiring external causation?

3) Do you see that each cause needs to be distinct in some way from its effect? (Meaning causal factors and effects, but trying to keep it simple.)

These are the main parts that lead to infinite variety and the deduction from it of God. I explained this in the main post several pages back, but it is still unclear whether you got it. I pointed out one place where what you said made it look like you didn't, and asked you to clarify. Can you please answer?

I wouldn't pester you about it, but you keep asking why my view is true... so... it's bizarre that you're dropping the discussion about that view from before. Why would you do this? (And I'm just curious, too. I like to try to understand the mental steps people go through as they hear about complicated issues like this. If you have time. :))

why the same logical causation could not be true of a uncreated reality?

I don't like that wording; I try to reserve "reality" to label ALL existence, and as I pointed out before, reality as a whole cannot be created, since something outside it would then exist to do the creating, so you would have failed to include all existence in it. But within it, portions of it can. I believe our world was for a lot of reasons, part of it including the causality proof, and its verifying the Bible, the Bible being proven from the science of language to teach that, and also partly from other things like scientific evidence for specific claims of the Bible such as the mitochondrial and Y-chromosome evidence for the Flood, and historical verification of Jesus (see Tekton on this), etc.

Prior to the biblical verification step and taking the causality proof alone, however, without considering logical issues with unguided evolution, the causality proof does not in and of itself require that this world be created. What it requires is that God exists. Those who do not have the Bible yet probably cannot work just from this proof to the conclusion of creation (though the design argument IS available to them and many conclude theism from that and other things).

It also helps understand why beings in a world that hypothetically "accidentally" evolved alongside God (or as a result of some very basic starting action on his part) are dependant on God for infinite life, since this world if left as an isolated system would reach heat death; something infinite beyond us needs to supply the energy and structured work to keep us going forever. And this something would have to be not just intelligent but perfectly knowledgeable to be able to keep us going the right way, which of course fits naturally with the traits of the necessary God.

This point does fit into the design argument too, of course. But the causality proof as far as I know does not prove where the line is drawn in how far possible but finite coherent things can go in terms of longevity and complexity. We know we are cut off from infinite life on our own at some point. We have strong evidence, and maybe some scientific proof, that the beginnings of life within this material system cannot last to form an original cell. And likewise we have strong evidence that if that cell was made by God but the rest left to "chance", it could not evolve into multicellular intelligent life. But the causality proof alone doesn't seem to weigh in on it as far as I've been able to tell so far.




Shun:

I never claimed that anyone claimed that ALL absolute truths can be deduced. Reread my posts and reply as to what I actually said.

I was a bit confused on why you were being accused of that... but in one of your most recent posts, I can see why it can look like you meant that. Glad to hear it wasn't intentional. :)

Please note. logician bones responded and confirmed what I claimed he said.

What specifically? I pointed out where you were apparently saying the opposite of what I said.

[JimL]

Jim:


No. They are PART of the causality proof of God. My warning about invalid summaries applies here. This is like trying to dismiss a mathematics proof by ignoring parts of it, picking other parts and saying that "basically" just those parts prove the conclusion! That isn't how proofs work.


I went over that in the post just before Shunya's many pages of arguing about contradictions. And I replied to your response to it... Now I'm waiting on you to continue. Why have you just ignored that?

Let me ask you again, because it's still unclear if you really accept these things:

1) Do you still accept that all of reality is logical in the sense of nothing "just happening"? (If not, why not?)

If it were true that nothing just happens, then what caused God to create? Do gods thoughts "just happen," did the idea of creating the universe just randomly pop into gods mind after an eternity? No, things don't just happen, they are caused, but the substance within which things happen, and of which those things are a part, needs no cause, its eternal. There is no first cause. I think the notion that the world was created out of nothing is ludicrous. In the same sense that nothing comes from nothing, matter doesn't come from thoughts.

2) Do you recognize that every group of states of existence is itself a state of existence requiring external causation?

It might be more effective if you try speaking in laymans terms. By "states of existence" do you mean like a universe, and if so, are you asking me if a universe needs an external cause? If so, no I do not agree, the universe itself, not our universe, but the greater cosmos out of which our universe was born, does not need an external cause.

3) Do you see that each cause needs to be distinct in some way from its effect? (Meaning causal factors and effects, but trying to keep it simple.)

Depends upon what you mean by distinct. Distinct in substance? No. The effect is in its cause, and the cause is in the effect.

These are the main parts that lead to infinite variety and the deduction from it of God. I explained this in the main post several pages back, but it is still unclear whether you got it. I pointed out one place where what you said made it look like you didn't, and asked you to clarify. Can you please answer?

Well, if I don't get it, which i don't, then it is to the teacher to make it clear. Perhaps you mean by infinite variety an infinite causal connection? What I deduce from that is an infinite subtance within the which the infinite causes and effects take place, not an external cause within the which they exist as thoughts.

I wouldn't pester you about it, but you keep asking why my view is true... so... it's bizarre that you're dropping the discussion about that view from before. Why would you do this? (And I'm just curious, too. I like to try to understand the mental steps people go through as they hear about complicated issues like this. If you have time. :))

No, what I ask is why your view is necessary. I'm not seeing it. Do you believe that a god puffed the material world into existence out of nothing by simply thinking it?

I don't like that wording;

Well I am not particularly enthusiastic about your wording either bones, but i do my best at interpretation and answer it as best i can.

I try to reserve "reality" to label ALL existence, and as I pointed out before, reality as a whole cannot be created, since something outside it would then exist to do the creating,

Okay, we basically agree on that. Although we differ as to what defines the "whole of reality."

so you would have failed to include all existence in it.

Only according to your view.

But within it, portions of it can.

So you believe that our reality, the universe, is a portion of the whole of reality? Again we are in agreement in opinion, but we differ on what defines the whole of reality.

I believe our world was for a lot of reasons, part of it including the causality proof, and its verifying the Bible, the Bible being proven from the science of language to teach that, and also partly from other things like scientific evidence for specific claims of the Bible such as the mitochondrial and Y-chromosome evidence for the Flood, and historical verification of Jesus (see Tekton on this), etc.

Oh my goodness, you believe in the great flood and Noahs Ark. That damages your credibility big time bones, at least with me.

Prior to the biblical verification step and taking the causality proof alone, however, without considering logical issues with unguided evolution, the causality proof does not in and of itself require that this world be created. What it requires is that God exists. Those who do not have the Bible yet probably cannot work just from this proof to the conclusion of creation (though the design argument IS available to them and many conclude theism from that and other things).

Again, why does causality require god?

It also helps understand why beings in a world that hypothetically "accidentally" evolved alongside God (or as a result of some very basic starting action on his part) are dependant on God for infinite life, since this world if left as an isolated system would reach heat death; something infinite beyond us needs to supply the energy and structured work to keep us going forever. And this something would have to be not just intelligent but perfectly knowledgeable to be able to keep us going the right way, which of course fits naturally with the traits of the necessary God.

So, why should we believe that the world, i.e. our particular universe, as well as ourselves, will go on forever?

This point does fit into the design argument too, of course. But the causality proof as far as I know does not prove where the line is drawn in how far possible but finite coherent things can go in terms of longevity and complexity. We know we are cut off from infinite life on our own at some point. We have strong evidence, and maybe some scientific proof, that the beginnings of life within this material system cannot last to form an original cell. And likewise we have strong evidence that if that cell was made by God but the rest left to "chance", it could not evolve into multicellular intelligent life. But the causality proof alone doesn't seem to weigh in on it as far as I've been able to tell so far.

No idea what you are going on about here

[seer]

I never claimed that anyone claimed that ALL absolute truths can be deduced. Reread my posts and reply as to what I actually said. Please note. logician bones responded and confirmed what I claimed he said.

Yes you did when you accused me of back peddling when I said "some" absolute truths can be known. But I never claimed otherwise. But it has been demonstrated that we can know absolute truths (the law of non-contradiction can not be violated), and you agreed when you said this: "Contradictions do not exist in any form in the ultimate absolute nature of our existence."

[seer]

Let me ask you again, because it's still unclear if you really accept these things:

1) Do you still accept that all of reality is logical in the sense of nothing "just happening"? (If not, why not?)

2) Do you recognize that every group of states of existence is itself a state of existence requiring external causation?

3) Do you see that each cause needs to be distinct in some way from its effect? (Meaning causal factors and effects, but trying to keep it simple.)

Yes, but the atheist would just claim that there was an infinite regression of past physical causes that lead to this universe.

[seer]

It might be more effective if you try speaking in laymans terms. By "states of existence" do you mean like a universe, and if so, are you asking me if a universe needs an external cause? If so, no I do not agree, the universe itself, not our universe, but the greater cosmos out of which our universe was born, does not need an external cause.

Yet, if your greater cosmos was past eternal you would still need an infinite regression of causes and effects within that cosmos to reach this, or any universe.

[JimL]

Yet, if your greater cosmos was past eternal you would still need an infinite regression of causes and effects within that cosmos to reach this, or any universe.

The nature of the eternal substance would need be that of motion, eternal motion, rather than eternal stasis. Thats all. Besides, what is more believable, that, or the idea that the world was thought into existence out of nothing.

[seer]

The nature of the eternal substance would need be that of motion, eternal motion, rather than eternal stasis. Thats all. Besides, what is more believable, that, or the idea that the world was thought into existence out of nothing.

I think an infinite regression of past causes and effects is deeply irrational. And that is what you are left with.

[Sparko]

I never claimed that anyone claimed that ALL absolute truths can be deduced. Reread my posts and reply as to what I actually said. Please note. logician bones responded and confirmed what I claimed he said.

he said you claimed he said the exact opposite of what he said. you are being very dishonest shunya.

I responded to your post completely and comprehensively and you, as expected, dismissed my answer just like you did the last 4 times I answered you.