Let's psychoanalyze our mothers

[QuickTwist]

motivated

Why is this a problem?

 

[The Grey Man]

Oh, come on now, you know why! Because reason is the means whereby connections between concepts, hitherto implicitly understood, are elucidated! Thus, insofar as these connections are actually manifest in our heads or elsewhere in nature, a rational argument is an appeal to objective facts! How are any of us supposed to take your words seriously if you don't show a modicum of appreciation for the laws which govern the world outside your subjective bubble?! What is the point of pronouncing metaphysical truisms if the sole means of actually demonstrating them to us is to you nothing more than a mouthpiece for God knows what personal motivations?! This is why the scientists on this forum don't take the non-empirically oriented members seriously! This is why!

 

[QuickTwist]

Oh, come on now, you know why! Because reason is the means whereby connections between concepts, hitherto implicitly understood, are elucidated! Thus, insofar as these connections are actually manifest in our heads or elsewhere in nature, a rational argument is an appeal to objective facts! How are any of us supposed to take your words seriously if you don't show a modicum of appreciation for the laws which govern the world outside your subjective bubble?! What is the point of pronouncing metaphysical truisms if the sole means of actually demonstrating them to us is to you nothing more than a mouthpiece for God knows what personal motivations?! This is why the scientists on this forum don't take the non-empirically oriented members seriously! This is why!

"Reason" is the bane of my existence.

 

[The Grey Man]

"Reason"

 

[Hadoblado]

motivated

Why is this a problem?

Nope. I'm not turning another thread into QT vs. Reason. Nice try.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

The creator of meaning itself must have some meaning to be.

Why? A gardener does not need to be a plant and an engineer does not need to be a machine, so why must the creator of meaning mean something, or the creator of purpose have a purpose?

There is no reason for the creator of meaning to have meaning. But for any meaning to not end up in meaninglessness must itself be supported by some further meaning.

Necessary being is impossible, because absolute absence is logically possible

Surely this is a non sequitur. What is logically possible and what is actually possible have nothing to do with each other. It is logically possible that black is white, up is down, and day is night, but this does not prove that this might actually be the case.

By necessary (in necessary being), I meant logically necessary.
By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.
Something is logically necessary if its negation entails a contradiction.
And if something entails a logical contradiction it is logically impossible.
Therefore, if absolute absence is logically possible, being is contingent (logically) - there is no (logically) necessary being. That's what I meant.

I agree with you in that I think that suffering is without end, but far from being meaningless, I think that this suffering furnishes a purpose in and through itself: quietus, repose, salvation, or cessation. All of our desires and motivations, everything that keeps us alive seems to conceal a secret desire to be released from those very desires, a Todestrieb which it is of the essence of philosophy to confront. All men desire satisfaction of their desires for satisfaction of their...

Yes, there are certain kind of meanings. But I don't think - the idea of meaning (beyond phenomenology) that is needed (logically necessary) to be supplied by some external entity with a mind - ends up anywhere meaningful. Otherwise phenomenologically meaningfulness can be found.

 

[The Grey Man]

By necessary (in necessary being), I meant logically necessary.
By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.
Something is logically necessary if its negation entails a contradiction.
And if something entails a logical contradiction it is logically impossible.
Therefore, if absolute absence is logically possible, being is contingent (logically) - there is no (logically) necessary being.

My original objection, that you've failed to distinguish between logical possibility and actual possibility, stands. As wrong as the medieval schoolmen were to say that God must exist merely because to the concept of God is predicated the attribute of existence, surely it is no more right to say that he doesn't necessarily exist merely because every predicate can be either affirmed and denied of every concept. The flaw in your argument seems to be the same as that in the ontological argument: saying that something is so doesn't make it so.

Also, following Kant, I don't even think that existence even is a predicate (or, at least, one with any meaning), but I fear I may be beating a dead horse if I continue.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

By necessary (in necessary being), I meant logically necessary.
By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.
Something is logically necessary if its negation entails a contradiction.
And if something entails a logical contradiction it is logically impossible.
Therefore, if absolute absence is logically possible, being is contingent (logically) - there is no (logically) necessary being.

My original objection, that you've failed to distinguish between logical possibility and actual possibility, stands. As wrong as the medieval schoolmen were to say that God must exist merely because to the concept of God is predicated the attribute of existence, surely it is no more right to say that he doesn't necessarily exist merely because every predicate can be either affirmed and denied of every concept. The flaw in your argument seems to be the same as that in the ontological argument: saying that something is so doesn't make it so.

Also, following Kant, I don't even think that existence even is a predicate (or, at least, one with any meaning), but I fear I may be beating a dead horse if I continue.

Where am I equating logical possibility with actual possibility? I only spoke of logical possibility, logical necessity and logical impossibility, all of which are connected. I never mentioned anything about actual possibility.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

I am not adding existence to any particular subject to enlarge it. Therefore I am not using existence as a real predicate.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

It is logically possible that black is white when looking at it only syntactically. Following common conventions about what is black and white - we can say something purely black is not white and vice versa. Given that as a premise if we say if something being purely black and purely white at the same time is a logical contradiction and logically impossible. Or we can take the conventional meanings seriously and directly check the logical consistency of the meaning itself instead of playing around with syntax.

 

[Black Rose]

 

[The Grey Man]

Where am I equating logical possibility with actual possibility? I only spoke of logical possibility, logical necessity and logical impossibility, all of which are connected. I never mentioned anything about actual possibility.

Now you're speaking only of logical possibility, but in your original post, you demonstrated the logical impossibility of the existence of God as a necessary being as a consequence of the logical possibility of there being no being at all in response to a post of Cognisant that had nothing to do with what is logical possible and everything to do with what is actually the case.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

Where am I equating logical possibility with actual possibility? I only spoke of logical possibility, logical necessity and logical impossibility, all of which are connected. I never mentioned anything about actual possibility.

Now you're speaking only of logical possibility, but in your original post, you demonstrated the logical impossibility of the existence of God as a necessary being as a consequence of the logical possibility of there being no being at all in response to a post of Cognisant that had nothing to do with what is logical possible and everything to do with what is actually the case.

I am still talking about logical impossibility of logical necessity of being. And I haven't made any assumptions about actual possibility to do that as far as I am aware. So where in my original post or in my second post did I assume logical possibility has anything to do with actual possibility? I also clarified how logical possibility of not-X deductively implies logical imossibility of logical necessity of X. If something is logically necessary its negation is logically impossible. If its negation is logically possible then it is not logically necessary. I have purely stuck with conventions and definitions regarding relations of logical necessity, logical possibility, and logical impossibility.

 

[The Grey Man]

I thought that with all this talk of possibility you might be trying to reach a conclusion as to what is actually the case. My mistake.

 

[QuickTwist]

Nice try.

Excuse me?

 

[QuickTwist]

By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.

There is zero way to demonstrate this.

 

[Hadoblado]

Last word.

 

[QuickTwist]

Last word.

Hado, IDK what you think you are doing, but it's not good.

 

[Hadoblado]

Last word.

 

[QuickTwist]

lol

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.

There is zero way to demonstrate this.

It is a definition.
Like bachelor = unmarried male.

 

[QuickTwist]

By definition, if not-X is logically possible, X is not logically necessary.

There is zero way to demonstrate this.

It is a definition.
Like bachelor = unmarried male.

Uh, no. It's not like that at all.

When considering 'things' you can only associate them as they 'are'. If you associate a negative quality to what 'is' you wouldn't know it because it's impossible to know what 'is-not' only what 'is'.

So in your example where you say "a man is single, which means he 'is-not' married," this is still an 'is' statement because you are only associating him with some 'thing' that 'exists' because there is 'evidence' for that thing. Literally, we cannot conceive of what 'is-not'. Any 'thing' we think of is definitely a 'thing' because if it were not, we wouldn't know about it.

 

[The Grey Man]

It definitely is like that.

A bachelor is an unmarried man because an unmarried man is a bachelor because a bachelor is...ad infinitum. It's a tautology, which is a (non-deductive) class of analytic judgment, otherwise known as "reason."

The only problem I have with it is that, whereas actual examples abound of married and unmarried men so that I can be sure that the term "bachelor" actually means something, I have no idea what the difference between a logically necessary and a logically contingent being is in concreto, so I don't understand why you brought it up in the first place, @DoIMustHaveAnUsername?. It's similar to my disagreement with utilitarians: they speak of utility as if it were an objective quantity that is to be found in nature, but all I find are phenomena conditioned by my own modes of perception.

 

[DoIMustHaveAnUsername?]

It definitely is like that.

A bachelor is an unmarried man because an unmarried man is a bachelor because a bachelor is...ad infinitum. It's a tautology, which is a (non-deductive) class of analytic judgment, otherwise known as "reason."

The only problem I have with it is that, whereas actual examples abound of married and unmarried men so that I can be sure that the term "bachelor" actually means something, I have no idea what the difference between a logically necessary and a logically contingent being is in concreto, so I don't understand why you brought it up in the first place, @DoIMustHaveAnUsername?. It's similar to my disagreement with utilitarians: they speak of utility as if it were an objective quantity that is to be found in nature, but all I find are phenomena conditioned by my own modes of perception.

I was just going on a tangent.

It was a jab against those who assign some form of quasi-logical or metaphysical necessity to God using things like PSR.

I have no idea what the difference between a logically necessary and a logically contingent being is in concreto

From what I have seen logical necessities seems to only belong to relational ideas and if-then claims and mathematical claims "given axiom x,y,z, we have a b c" - mostly abstract relations and stuffs. Trying to associate logical necessity or any form of strong necessity to some supposedly concrete existence by pure a priori reasoning always get me suspicious.

 

[The Grey Man]

I agree. I think I may have started an argument over nothing