Is There One Sound/valid Syllogistic Argument For The Existence Of God?

[Treeshepherd]

Rawlings: Treesshepherd appears to be suggesting that your way of doing this is wrong or least that's the impression I got from his eloquent post.

But to the trogs living down in the cave, nothing that the philosopher says makes any sense. His speech is gibberish to them, and nothing he says is relevant to what they understand to be reality. Because the course of logic is set by an original premise (often, and in this case, erroneous), the philosopher is deemed to be illogical and irrational. He is deemed to be a believer in Santa Claus, so to speak.

Can you please explain this to us in the sense that he's talking about if I'm saying that right.

No, I do not believe that logic is going to take anyone to nirvana, satori, enlightenment, or the kingdom of heaven.

The allegory of the cave is a form of poetry. Accordingly, I am going to react to it differently than others, and we're all going to end up with different conclusions. It's like a parable, meant to light a spark in your mind.

To your question, though...

#1 In a general sense, to those people who are very strong in logic, yet crippled in their ability to grasp esoteric wisdom, I think the vast majority of the meaning of the allegory is going to be unreachable.

#2 Specific to your question, the prisoners in the cave begin with an erroneous premise, and therefore all the branches of logic that grow from that erroneous trunk are going to be bogus. They are blinded by logic.

I'll give a real world example of how logic can be blinding;
Evolutionary biologists once insisted that change unfolded steadily over time within a gene pool. That was Darwin's assumption, and that's where they began in their understanding. Years later, despite the evidence (the fossil record) which failed to support gradual evolution, the biologists held unshakably to their beliefs. When the Piltdown Man was discovered, errr, faked, nobody questioned the veracity of the find, because the 'discovery' was supported by their logic as evidence of gradual evolution. It took decades for biologists to admit that the Piltdown Man was a hoax, and not even a very good one.
Piltdown Man - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Now, after many decades of kicking and screaming, most biologists hold to a theory of staggered evolution. You might say, even, that the Theory of Evolution has passed through a sort of staggered evolution, or periods of stasis (orthodoxy) broken up by short bursts of radical change.

Yet, a very few 'heretic' evolutionary biologists have recently suggested that a gene pool may become unstable and undergo radical change without causation (climate change, resource availability, natural selection of beneficial genes, competition, etc.). Evolution often occurs for no reason whatsoever, and they apply the principles of chaos theory to explain this. If they are correct, they are really beginning anew with a fresh premise, because the former premise would declare that only causation can drive evolution.

As for myself, I substitute the concept of 'destiny' for the concept of 'chaos theory'. The former is imbued with meaning, and the latter is merely a description of a mechanical process, both describing the same phenomena.

 

[Boss]

No...your.post failed right from the beginning. I didnt use.human intelligence to explain human intelligence...I used evolution.

You waste to much time trying to make.invisible gotchas.

Then you should be able to clearly show where our spirituality and humanity attributes are found in other life forms which were the product of the very same evolution process. Good luck with that.

All species evolve exactly the same and have the same mental acuity?

We are not reading the same theory of evolution.

Did you see that dogs are getting A LOT smarter? It is no surprise. Not only do the smarter dogs do better as far as breeding goes, it only makes sense that their intelligence would be accelerated because they live so close with us intelligent humans. They watch us, listen to us give them commands and they understand them. How long before dogs can talk?

Dogs can talk now. I have a friend who's dog says "Roll Tide!" when Alabama scores. Clear as day, I've seen it dozens of times. Crows can describe to another crow (through crow language) what an individual posing a danger looks like and the other crow consistently avoids these individuals they have never even seen before.

Again, my point remains intact. All kinds of living organisms are supposedly evolving in this natural cycle of evolution, intelligence, sentience, ability... they all have their share. Cognizance, reasoning, rationalization... many of them have that as well. Big brains, big cerebral cortex? Some have that as well. All the ingredients are there in the same primordial soup, but of all the billions of life forms ever to exist, humans are unique and different. There is no evidence it "evolved" into us, it has always been present in humankind.

Yes, dogs are going to become "smarter" and so is every other life form, if you believe in anything Darwin theorized at all. And I think most everyone can agree this is so, but until I see dogs attending Sunday School or leading mass, I don't think they have achieved the same level of spiritual awareness (inspiration for humanity) as humans... (sorry Breeze, I know you disagree with this.) Humans continue to have something that other living things don't have, and that is our spiritual foundation.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Rawlings: Treesshepherd appears to be suggesting that your way of doing this is wrong or least that's the impression I got from his eloquent post.

But to the trogs living down in the cave, nothing that the philosopher says makes any sense. His speech is gibberish to them, and nothing he says is relevant to what they understand to be reality. Because the course of logic is set by an original premise (often, and in this case, erroneous), the philosopher is deemed to be illogical and irrational. He is deemed to be a believer in Santa Claus, so to speak.

Can you please explain this to us in the sense that he's talking about if I'm saying that right.

I too noted Treeshepherd's thoughtful post and it seemed that he's under the impression that my premise is not well-founded. I gave his post a thumbs up as the bulk it is right on the money; albeit, I'm merely asserting the existentially commonsensical premise of first principles and nothing more. I don't have to prove in any absolute sense that we exist or that the universe exists as we have all conceded the practical necessity of these apriorities. That's just the way it is, and everything else I've presented merely follows from this pragmatic foundation.

The real problem is not with my logic, but the logic of those who keep forgetting this and wander off into a Kafkaesque world of dreams, that cave Treeshepherd is talking about, and, without warning or qualification, imagine the objections premised on the landscape of that world to be pragmatically substantial. There is nothing erroneous about my foundation or about the line of logic that follows. The foundation has been dully established, defined and accepted by all on this thread. Some just need to stop meandering off into la-la land in the face of the subsequent, objectively obvious apprehensions recommended by the delineations of the principle of identity that overturn things they've always held to be true by the very same standard of logic they think to employ countervaillingly, albeit, as premised on incomplete or misapprehended data.

We have to start somewhere, and the suggestion that the universal principle of identity is not the foundation of human knowledge, as I have dully established, is false; therefore, the objectively extrapolated apprehensions thereof cannot be rationally dismissed out of hand. That would be an erroneously arbitrary standard of belief, especially since one would necessarily have to presuppose the veracity of the very same foundational principle of human knowledge in order to argue against its veracity: the positive proof of double negation. Oops.

 

[G.T.]

That's just speculation, though. Doesn't pass in an absolute sense. (boss)

 

[sealybobo]

No...your.post failed right from the beginning. I didnt use.human intelligence to explain human intelligence...I used evolution.

You waste to much time trying to make.invisible gotchas.

Then you should be able to clearly show where our spirituality and humanity attributes are found in other life forms which were the product of the very same evolution process. Good luck with that.

All species evolve exactly the same and have the same mental acuity?

We are not reading the same theory of evolution.

Did you see that dogs are getting A LOT smarter? It is no surprise. Not only do the smarter dogs do better as far as breeding goes, it only makes sense that their intelligence would be accelerated because they live so close with us intelligent humans. They watch us, listen to us give them commands and they understand them. How long before dogs can talk?

Dogs can talk now. I have a friend who's dog says "Roll Tide!" when Alabama scores. Clear as day, I've seen it dozens of times. Crows can describe to another crow (through crow language) what an individual posing a danger looks like and the other crow consistently avoids these individuals they have never even seen before.

Again, my point remains intact. All kinds of living organisms are supposedly evolving in this natural cycle of evolution, intelligence, sentience, ability... they all have their share. Cognizance, reasoning, rationalization... many of them have that as well. Big brains, big cerebral cortex? Some have that as well. All the ingredients are there in the same primordial soup, but of all the billions of life forms ever to exist, humans are unique and different. There is no evidence it "evolved" into us, it has always been present in humankind.

Yes, dogs are going to become "smarter" and so is every other life form, if you believe in anything Darwin theorized at all. And I think most everyone can agree this is so, but until I see dogs attending Sunday School or leading mass, I don't think they have achieved the same level of spiritual awareness (inspiration for humanity) as humans... (sorry Breeze, I know you disagree with this.) Humans continue to have something that other living things don't have, and that is our spiritual foundation.

So what humans are different/smarter? So what? Just because we are the smartest animal doesn't mean a god exists.

Science has explained what a freak accident it was that we got as smart as we did and they said if all humans disappeared from earth tomorrow it is highly unlikely another animal would some day become as smart as we are. I can't remember all the details but they did say what a fluke it was that at some point we became more intelligent than any other animal ever.

So I do understand that no other animal will probably ever get as smart as we are. So what? What does that prove?

Just because you are the fastest person in a race or the smartest person on a test doesn't mean you go to heaven and other animals don't.

Spiritual foundation? I think humans are the worse animal on this planet. We are worse than cockroaches and rats. We are overpopulating and destroying this planet. If anything we are god big mistake. Get rid of humans and this planet turns back into the garden of Eden.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

No, I do not believe that logic is going to take anyone to nirvana, satori, enlightenment, or the kingdom of heaven.

No it can't.

But the misapprehension of that truth has no bearing on the place to which the objectively extrapolated recommendations of organic logic lead. (See post 2063.)

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

dblack, GT, Hollie and perhaps others have once again wandered off the beaten path of the existential first principles they insist that we all abide by . . . except when we run into certain, objectively self-evident facts of human cognition premised on that beaten path that countervail their preconceived notions. When that happens, they retreat into that alternate, kafkaesque world of dreams and assert the "derp-derp logic" (G.T.) of special pleading.

The academic objection regarding the informal logical fallacy of circular reasoning (or begging the question) is of no practical significance whatsoever.

dblack, you haven't raised anything new here. It's old news. Redundant. I've already shown on this thread why this objection fails. The Internet is riddled with this sort of nonsense, the assertions of the post-modern know-nothings of popular culture who imagine they have refuted something that cannot be refuted: as if those who have asserted the logical proof in question since time immemorial were all fools (the prophets and apostles of Judeo-Christianity, for example), as if Kant, who is credited with the first formal iteration of it in the philosophical cannon, were a fool. This objection is an illusion. Some simply refuse to concede the obvious or do not rightly understand the matter.

This academic objection is the objection of last resort before one is compelled to retreat to the default position of scientific falsification, which is of no significance either, really, as the gist of that is to say that the substances of spiritual existents cannot currently be verified to exist scientifically.

So?

We know that. That's nothing earthshatteringly new or profound either.

The fact remains that in any given form of logic, due to the inescapable imperative of the universal principle of identity (the comprehensive principle of the laws of thought), the logical proof or proposition (the major premise of the transcendental argument), in and of itself, is assigned a truth value, as it is premised on the direct evidence of an incontrovertible axiom of human thought. In the terms of constructive/intuitionistic logic, for example, it's also inhabited by its own incontrovertible proof.

Even Michael Martin knows his reformulation of the transcendental argument intended to illustrate this informal logical objection is merely academic, as it's a distinction that makes no concrete difference to the incontrovertible facts of human cognition. We do not say under the formal (practical, real-world standards of justifiable logic) that a proposition that is necessarily (axiomatically or tautologically) true begs the question. Such a proposition is incontrovertibly true intuitively. That's just the way it is, as the apprehension of such propositions is biologically hardwired. For example, 2 + 2 = 4.

Hence, this academic objection is silly, but not only that, its illustrative expression, the negative reformulation of the transcendental argument, is inherently contradictory, self-negating, and, of course, is yet another counterargument that is in actuality a premise for an argument that proves the real McCoy logically holds.

LOL!

If the major premise of the transcendental argument can sensibly be said to beg the question, then all the other rational and mathematical axioms, postulates and theorems of human cognition beg the question too!

Make up your minds, people, beginning with you Quantum Windbag!

If you people are going to keep raising these same kinds of objections—the stuff of that windbag's, i.e., Quantum Windbag's, "philosophical bullshit!"—then at least have the integrity to tells us that all you're really saying in the end is that all we hold to be true in our minds as a matter of necessity (the existentially inescapable facts of human cognition, the imperatives of the principle of identity), may not ultimately be true beyond our minds . . . including your academic objections asserted as absolute truths from on high, which necessarily suggest something is true in terms of ultimacy from on high!

LOL!

Have the integrity to admit that this is the basis on which you think to justify your allegations that the rest of us are "fucking idiots" (dblack) or fanatically closed-minded dogmatists.

(Are you paying attention, Foxfrye?)

Some finite beings keep forgetting that they're finite beings, but something very much like, rather, something exactly like, the idea of God, the potentially ultimate substance of which, they keep insisting doesn't exist, except, apparently, when they engage in special pleading from on high as if they were the substance behind the idea of an all-knowing, divine origin!

If you were to ask me, I'd say that we have a number of atheists and agnostics on this forum who are closet theists begging to be outed.

LOL!

But I digress. . . .

Fine. Nothing we think we know about the contents of our minds or about the apparent realities beyond our minds, as premised on the beaten path, is really true. It's all an illusion. Everything we must necessarily presuppose to be true in order to do things like mathematics or science, design and build things, devise new technologies . . . feed the dog, wipe our asses, blow our noses or coherently consult with our $200-dollar-an-hour therapists about all these troubling hallucinations, is the stuff of dreams.

Allow me to make a suggestion: all of you enlightened posters who keep going around and around this same mulberry tree, as if this banality were something profound, as you think to circumvent the exploration of the objective contents of human cognition as delineated by the imperatives of the universal principle of identity: pack up your gear, go back to the dark recesses of the cave and twiddle your thumbs.

As for the rest of us—those who don't, for example, call the inverse expressions of illogical propositions boogie men—let us move on. . . .

 

[dblack]

dblack, you haven't raised anything new here. It's old news. Redundant. I've already shown on this thread why this objection fails. The Internet is riddled with this sort of nonsense, the assertions of the post-modern know-nothings of popular culture who imagine they have refuted something ...

Of course I haven't. I can't refute your "argument" because I don't have a clue what you're talking about. And my allergy to blowhards prevents me from wading into your posts to sort it out.

 

[Hollie]

dblack, GT, Hollie and perhaps others have once again wandered off the beaten path of the existential first principles they insist that we all abide by . . . except when we run into certain, objectively self-evident facts of human cognition premised on that beaten path that countervail their preconceived notions. When that happens, they retreat into that alternate, kafkaesque world of dreams and assert the "derp-derp logic" (G.T.) of special pleading.

The academic objection regarding the informal logical fallacy of circular reasoning (or begging the question) is of no practical significance whatsoever.

dblack, you haven't raised anything new here. It's old news. Redundant. I've already shown on this thread why this objection fails. The Internet is riddled with this sort of nonsense, the assertions of the post-modern know-nothings of popular culture who imagine they have refuted something that cannot be refuted: as if those who have asserted the logical proof in question since time immemorial were all fools (the prophets and apostles of Judeo-Christianity, for example), as if Kant, who is credited with the first formal iteration of it in the philosophical cannon, were a fool. This objection is an illusion. Some simply refuse to concede the obvious or do not rightly understand the matter.

This academic objection is the objection of last resort before one is compelled to retreat to the default position of scientific falsification, which is of no significance either, really, as the gist of that is to say that the substances of spiritual existents cannot currently be verified to exist scientifically.

So?

We know that. That's nothing earthshatteringly new or profound either.

The fact remains that in any given form of logic, due to the inescapable imperative of the universal principle of identity (the comprehensive principle of the laws of thought), the logical proof or proposition (the major premise of the transcendental argument), in and of itself, is assigned a truth value, as it is premised on the direct evidence of an incontrovertible axiom of human thought. In the terms of constructive/intuitionistic logic, for example, it's also inhabited by its own incontrovertible proof.

Even Michael Martin knows his reformulation of the transcendental argument intended to illustrate this informal logical objection is merely academic, as it's a distinction that makes no concrete difference to the incontrovertible facts of human cognition. We do not say under the formal (practical, real-world standards of justifiable logic) that a proposition that is necessarily (axiomatically or tautologically) true begs the question. Such a proposition is incontrovertibly true intuitively. That's just the way it is, as the apprehension of such propositions is biologically hardwired. For example, 2 + 2 = 4.

Hence, this academic objection is silly, but not only that, its illustrative expression, the negative reformulation of the transcendental argument, is inherently contradictory, self-negating, and, of course, is yet another counterargument that is in actuality a premise for an argument that proves the real McCoy logically holds.

LOL!

If the major premise of the transcendental argument can sensibly be said to beg the question, then all the other rational and mathematical axioms, postulates and theorems of human cognition beg the question too!

Make up your minds, people, beginning with you Quantum Windbag!

If you people are going to keep raising these same kinds of objections—the stuff of that windbag's, i.e., Quantum Windbag's, "philosophical bullshit!"—then at least have the integrity to tells us that all you're really saying in the end is that all we hold to be true in our minds as a matter of necessity (the existentially inescapable facts of human cognition, the imperatives of the principle of identity), may not ultimately be true beyond our minds . . . including your academic objections asserted as absolute truths from on high, which necessarily suggest something is true in terms of ultimacy from on high!

LOL!

Have the integrity to admit that this is the basis on which you think to justify your allegations that the rest of us are "fucking idiots" (dblack) or fanatically closed-minded dogmatists.

(Are you paying attention, Foxfrye?)

Some finite beings keep forgetting that they're finite beings, but something very much like, rather, something exactly like, the idea of God, the potentially ultimate substance of which, they keep insisting doesn't exist, except, apparently, when they engage in special pleading from on high as if they were the substance behind the idea of an all-knowing, divine origin!

If you were to ask me, I'd say that we have a number of atheists and agnostics on this forum who are closet theists begging to be outed.

LOL!

But I digress. . . .

Fine. Nothing we think we know about the contents of our minds or about the apparent realities beyond our minds, as premised on the beaten path, is really true. It's all an illusion. Everything we must necessarily presuppose to be true in order to do things like mathematics or science, design and build things, devise new technologies . . . feed the dog, wipe our asses, blow our noses or coherently consult with our $200-dollar-an-hour therapists about all these troubling hallucinations, is the stuff of dreams.

Allow me to make a suggestion: all of you enlightened posters who keep going around and around this same mulberry tree, as if this banality were something profound, as you think to circumvent the exploration of the objective contents of human cognition as delineated by the imperatives of the universal principle of identity: pack up your gear, go back to the dark recesses of the cave and twiddle your thumbs.

As for the rest of us—those who don't, for example, call the inverse expressions of illogical propositions boogie men—let us move on. . . .

I've noticed the pompous bloviating is nothing more than a re-ordering of the pompous bloviating that preceded it.

I suspect the boy has a four page Microsoft Word document with a host of slogans he found at Harun Yahya, Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute and spends his time shuffling paragraphs around.

 

[Justin Davis]

1.

Youre missing a step.

Proving god existing in the first place.

Dear GT and MD:
1. RE: "Proving God existing in the first place"
Where I agree with MD is that God by definition of representing infinite knowledge
can NEVER be proven or disproven.
So this is impossible.
The point is to ACKNOWLEDGE this, but BOTH ways:
neither can something infinitely greater than man be proven
NOR
neither can something infinitely greater than man be disproven
to exist, it is BY DEFINITION beyond our scope.

Like trying to get the numbers from 1 to 1000 to represent infinity.
We cannot prove or disprove how big infinity it or if it exists or not
if humanity is limited to 1000, or 100,000 or 100,000,000.

The greater set cannot be contained in the subset of man's knowledge, perception and understanding
much less any proof using these finite human means.

If we are IMPERFECT we cannot prove PERFECTION exists or not.
If we are FINITE we cannot prove that INFINITY exists or not.
If we are temporal we cannot prove that ETERNITY exists or not.

That which is BEYOND our scope/limits can neither be proven nor disproven.
is this clear? can we agree on this please?

Without judgment on anyone's views for or against.
Just agree on the neutral starting ground. Please.

2.

Kind of a small misstep on your part. Or not. Either way, you haven't done it.

Also - I still don't understand how my saying that an all knowing knower would know.its all knowing........IS A CONCESSION AN ALL KNOWER EVEN EXISTS.

that's where you're taking DISHONEST liberties.

2. ?????

Sorry GT
It seemed clear to me that MD was saying it COULD NOT BE PROVEN to exist.

I think we got crossed when
A. messages overlapped and these quotes got mixed up over who said or quoted what or whom.
B. emotionally thinking someone has other motives and attacking those motives
instead of sticking to the content.
C. arguing about the imperfect logic, arguments or statements people make
instead of sticking to the content.

I though the point was that
God represents something that can NEITHER be proven NOR disproven.

And most other conflicts stem from people
"insulting or rejecting" someone for saying something else.

Some of this is "crossed communication," because I see
a lot of messages saying
"but that's not what I said" or "that's not what X is saying."

Again, can we agree that God can Neither be Proven Nor Disproven.
Can we start with that and agree on that much?

A word to the wise: it's not a good bet to think that you have overturned anything Rawlings has asserted.

Cool. Rawling has a groupie.

I equally back you up Hollie, Justin, dblack and MD.
Establishing a consensus means we all have to agree.
We are not going to get there without including all our points and resolving all our objections.

Go, Team!
I'm rooting for all of you to score, to make your touchdowns,
and homeruns. Each player needs to make those free throws and goals.
We are supposed to help each other to score, not cut each other down.

We are on the same team, just playing different positions and roles.

Trying to help each other to throw straight, and to go for the openings,
will stop players from stumbling and fumbling on the field. We still have
to stop each other from making preventable mistakes, but the purpose is
to help each other score not to knock players out of the game over penalties.

Actually I will take your advice and be nice. I was just really frustrated by the posts of those who dogmatically refuse to let themselves see what Rawlings is actually saying. Their posts are reactionary straw men. We are on page 103 of this thread and some are still saying the same false things over and over again. It's ridiculous. But I agree my insults don't help things.

dblack, you haven't raised anything new here. It's old news. Redundant. I've already shown on this thread why this objection fails. The Internet is riddled with this sort of nonsense, the assertions of the post-modern know-nothings of popular culture who imagine they have refuted something ...

Of course I haven't. I can't refute your "argument" because I don't have a clue what you're talking about. And my allergy to blowhards prevents me from wading into your posts to sort it out.

That's very open-minded of you. The reason this guy in the video is wrong is obvious from this post of Rawlings. You don't need to go find the others. If you would just stop and do something called thinking you could see it. So what you're saying is that your ignorance or inability to comprehend something obvious is Rawlings' fault. Sorry, but according to your admission of ignorance or refusal to think about something you imply is true with you video, when its not, makes you the blowhard. I'm just saying. It's okay with you if I use the word blowhard when you imply things that aren't true about things you don't know or understand right? You seem to be one of those people who gets mad at people who are smarter than you.

But if you still don't get it that's okay. But why don't you just ask him to explain it. He did before in a very easy way to understand, even G.t. finally got it before he changed his mind.

 

[dblack]

That's very open-minded of you. ...

Not at all. It's decidedly closed minded. It's an unfortunate weakness of mine, but I just have no patience for shell games.

 

[Justin Davis]

dblack, GT, Hollie and perhaps others have once again wandered off the beaten path of the existential first principles they insist that we all abide by . . . except when we run into certain, objectively self-evident facts of human cognition premised on that beaten path that countervail their preconceived notions. When that happens, they retreat into that alternate, kafkaesque world of dreams and assert the "derp-derp logic" (G.T.) of special pleading.

The academic objection regarding the informal logical fallacy of circular reasoning (or begging the question) is of no practical significance whatsoever.

dblack, you haven't raised anything new here. It's old news. Redundant. I've already shown on this thread why this objection fails. The Internet is riddled with this sort of nonsense, the assertions of the post-modern know-nothings of popular culture who imagine they have refuted something that cannot be refuted: as if those who have asserted the logical proof in question since time immemorial were all fools (the prophets and apostles of Judeo-Christianity, for example), as if Kant, who is credited with the first formal iteration of it in the philosophical cannon, were a fool. This objection is an illusion. Some simply refuse to concede the obvious or do not rightly understand the matter.

This academic objection is the objection of last resort before one is compelled to retreat to the default position of scientific falsification, which is of no significance either, really, as the gist of that is to say that the substances of spiritual existents cannot currently be verified to exist scientifically.

So?

We know that. That's nothing earthshatteringly new or profound either.

The fact remains that in any given form of logic, due to the inescapable imperative of the universal principle of identity (the comprehensive principle of the laws of thought), the logical proof or proposition (the major premise of the transcendental argument), in and of itself, is assigned a truth value, as it is premised on the direct evidence of an incontrovertible axiom of human thought. In the terms of constructive/intuitionistic logic, for example, it's also inhabited by its own incontrovertible proof.

Even Michael Martin knows his reformulation of the transcendental argument intended to illustrate this informal logical objection is merely academic, as it's a distinction that makes no concrete difference to the incontrovertible facts of human cognition. We do not say under the formal (practical, real-world standards of justifiable logic) that a proposition that is necessarily (axiomatically or tautologically) true begs the question. Such a proposition is incontrovertibly true intuitively. That's just the way it is, as the apprehension of such propositions is biologically hardwired. For example, 2 + 2 = 4.

Hence, this academic objection is silly, but not only that, its illustrative expression, the negative reformulation of the transcendental argument, is inherently contradictory, self-negating, and, of course, is yet another counterargument that is in actuality a premise for an argument that proves the real McCoy logically holds.

LOL!

If the major premise of the transcendental argument can sensibly be said to beg the question, then all the other rational and mathematical axioms, postulates and theorems of human cognition beg the question too!

Make up your minds, people, beginning with you Quantum Windbag!

If you people are going to keep raising these same kinds of objections—the stuff of that windbag's, i.e., Quantum Windbag's, "philosophical bullshit!"—then at least have the integrity to tells us that all you're really saying in the end is that all we hold to be true in our minds as a matter of necessity (the existentially inescapable facts of human cognition, the imperatives of the principle of identity), may not ultimately be true beyond our minds . . . including your academic objections asserted as absolute truths from on high, which necessarily suggest something is true in terms of ultimacy from on high!

LOL!

Have the integrity to admit that this is the basis on which you think to justify your allegations that the rest of us are "fucking idiots" (dblack) or fanatically closed-minded dogmatists.

(Are you paying attention, Foxfrye?)

Some finite beings keep forgetting that they're finite beings, but something very much like, rather, something exactly like, the idea of God, the potentially ultimate substance of which, they keep insisting doesn't exist, except, apparently, when they engage in special pleading from on high as if they were the substance behind the idea of an all-knowing, divine origin!

If you were to ask me, I'd say that we have a number of atheists and agnostics on this forum who are closet theists begging to be outed.

LOL!

But I digress. . . .

Fine. Nothing we think we know about the contents of our minds or about the apparent realities beyond our minds, as premised on the beaten path, is really true. It's all an illusion. Everything we must necessarily presuppose to be true in order to do things like mathematics or science, design and build things, devise new technologies . . . feed the dog, wipe our asses, blow our noses or coherently consult with our $200-dollar-an-hour therapists about all these troubling hallucinations, is the stuff of dreams.

Allow me to make a suggestion: all of you enlightened posters who keep going around and around this same mulberry tree, as if this banality were something profound, as you think to circumvent the exploration of the objective contents of human cognition as delineated by the imperatives of the universal principle of identity: pack up your gear, go back to the dark recesses of the cave and twiddle your thumbs.

As for the rest of us—those who don't, for example, call the inverse expressions of illogical propositions boogie men—let us move on. . . .

The molehills are falling.

That's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. "feed the dog" "therapists and hallucinations" "the logical proof in question" "windbags" "the "derp-derp logic" (G.T.) of special pleading".

I almost bust a gut on that last one. You're killing me, smalls.

 

[Justin Davis]

That's very open-minded of you. ...

Not at all. It's decidedly closed minded. It's an unfortunate weakness of mine, but I just have no patience for shell games.

You're playing the shell game on yourself. It's not hard to understand. All he's telling you even if you still don't see why its true about the argument's premise is that the transcendental argument is logically true in the same way that any other axiom like 2+2=4 is true. It just is logically true and we don't normally call logical truths like that begging the question because they are true in our minds every time we think about them. These kinds of truths don't need outside evidence for proof. they are their own evidence for proof. A dog is dog, not a cat. I'm a thinking being. See. If we're going to start saying that things like this or something like mathematic axioms are not true because they might be illusions thennothing's true. That doesn't make any practical sense.

He also told you basically why its true about the TAG arugment too though in a way that's just funny. It's easy to break down in a direct way but I'll leave that to him because he told Emily he would show it to her again. Just check that out and you'll see.

 

[Justin Davis]

I've noticed the pompous bloviating is nothing more than a re-ordering of the pompous bloviating that preceded it.

I suspect the boy has a four page Microsoft Word document with a host of slogans he found at Harun Yahya, Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute and spends his time shuffling paragraphs around.

Why are you still being like this Hollie? he's just using humor. If we can't laugh at ourselves about how we get tangled in things that don't make sense what's point in living. I didn't get it all at first either but Rawlings made it really easy to see earlier. I got it before from a book and saw it but not in the crystal clear way I see it now as the book was really technical. Rawlings just used a few words and equals signs to make it jump at you. Simple. It really is like 2+2=4. It can't be denied logically.

 

[Justin Davis]

Rawlings: Treesshepherd appears to be suggesting that your way of doing this is wrong or least that's the impression I got from his eloquent post.

But to the trogs living down in the cave, nothing that the philosopher says makes any sense. His speech is gibberish to them, and nothing he says is relevant to what they understand to be reality. Because the course of logic is set by an original premise (often, and in this case, erroneous), the philosopher is deemed to be illogical and irrational. He is deemed to be a believer in Santa Claus, so to speak.

Can you please explain this to us in the sense that he's talking about if I'm saying that right.

No, I do not believe that logic is going to take anyone to nirvana, satori, enlightenment, or the kingdom of heaven.

The allegory of the cave is a form of poetry. Accordingly, I am going to react to it differently than others, and we're all going to end up with different conclusions. It's like a parable, meant to light a spark in your mind.

To your question, though...

#1 In a general sense, to those people who are very strong in logic, yet crippled in their ability to grasp esoteric wisdom, I think the vast majority of the meaning of the allegory is going to be unreachable.

#2 Specific to your question, the prisoners in the cave begin with an erroneous premise, and therefore all the branches of logic that grow from that erroneous trunk are going to be bogus. They are blinded by logic.

I'll give a real world example of how logic can be blinding;
Evolutionary biologists once insisted that change unfolded steadily over time within a gene pool. That was Darwin's assumption, and that's where they began in their understanding. Years later, despite the evidence (the fossil record) which failed to support gradual evolution, the biologists held unshakably to their beliefs. When the Piltdown Man was discovered, errr, faked, nobody questioned the veracity of the find, because the 'discovery' was supported by their logic as evidence of gradual evolution. It took decades for biologists to admit that the Piltdown Man was a hoax, and not even a very good one.
Piltdown Man - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Now, after many decades of kicking and screaming, most biologists hold to a theory of staggered evolution. You might say, even, that the Theory of Evolution has passed through a sort of staggered evolution, or periods of stasis (orthodoxy) broken up by short bursts of radical change.

Yet, a very few 'heretic' evolutionary biologists have recently suggested that a gene pool may become unstable and undergo radical change without causation (climate change, resource availability, natural selection of beneficial genes, competition, etc.). Evolution often occurs for no reason whatsoever, and they apply the principles of chaos theory to explain this. If they are correct, they are really beginning anew with a fresh premise, because the former premise would declare that only causation can drive evolution.

As for myself, I substitute the concept of 'destiny' for the concept of 'chaos theory'. The former is imbued with meaning, and the latter is merely a description of a mechanical process, both describing the same phenomena.

Well I'm actually able to follow this, and if you're thinking that somebody like Rawlings, who is strong in logic, would be crippled, I'd think again. I've already seen how he took apart a very poor understanding about the actual nature of Aristotle’s error of geocentricism. Had Aristotle only paid attention to what the principle of identity was alerting him to he wouldn't have made the error. I say that because all Rawlings is employing is the universal principle of identity which is something I understand well though not as well as he does because he has a lot more experience with it when looking at all sorts of things. I came to this discussion with the same foundation though. It holds universally and is the very thing that causes us to see that the old idea of a gradual and steady speciation doesn't add up. It's also the same principle that allows me to see that chaos theory might not be telling us what some think it is either, perhaps, including you, as well as letting me see the problem with the idea of "destiny" in terms of what it's actually describing. That fact that different people draw different conclusions is not problem but a benefit, and that doesn't stop us see the distinction between different conclusions. Again the principle of identity at work.

 

[dblack]

How does the philosopher prove to the prisoners in the cave (in Plato's allegory), that another realm exists?

That would be like attempting to describe to a lifelong deaf man the beauty of Mozart's Requiem.

He doesn't. What he does is begin with the fundamental facts of existence and the immediately pertinent imperatives of the problem of origin. It follows that the potentiality of God's existence cannot be logically ruled out, but not only that, it is readily demonstrable that any argument asserted against God's existence is in actuality a premise for an argument that invariably proves God's existence, albeit, under the terms of the fundamental laws of organic/classical thought. From that point on, the principle of identity allows for only one objection: the weak assertion of a scientifically unfalsifiable apriority that remains rationally irreconcilable with the same laws of thought.

But then it is possible to go on from there and objectively demonstrate why the rational and empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that God must be. The rest is up to the eye the beholder, not with regard to the veracity of the evidence, of course, as human consciousness does not have primacy over the realities of existence, but with regard to the quality of the beholder's moral and intellectual integrity.

"it is readily demonstrable that any argument asserted against God's existence is in actuality a premise for an argument that invariably proves God's existence, albeit, under the terms of the fundamental laws of organic/classical thought"

How cool is that? According to M. Pompous Rawling, any arguments against Rawling's gods is actually an argument in support of Rawling's gods.

How do we know this?

Simple. According to M. Pompous Rawling, "because I say so" is the only requirement, or possibly his manufactured version of "organic logic", as opposed to inorganic logic.

Hollie, you're still being unnecessarily antagonistic and for no good reason. Rawlings told me to cool it down and Emily's advice makes sense. Rawlings is not a pompous man. That's just not true. It only appears that way to some people who hear what they want to rather than what he's really saying.

Not exactly. The problem is, what he's saying is nonsense. It changes every time he's questioned on it, and none of it adds up to anything coherent. The TAG argument is silly, but I can't even credit Rawling's rambling with that much.

 

[Hollie]

I've noticed the pompous bloviating is nothing more than a re-ordering of the pompous bloviating that preceded it.

I suspect the boy has a four page Microsoft Word document with a host of slogans he found at Harun Yahya, Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute and spends his time shuffling paragraphs around.

Why are you still being like this Hollie? he's just using humor. If we can't laugh at ourselves about how we get tangled in things that don't make sense what's point in living. I didn't get it all at first either but Rawlings made it really easy to see earlier. I got it before from a book and saw it but not in the crystal clear way I see it now as the book was really technical. Rawlings just used a few words and equals signs to make it jump at you. Simple. It really is like 2+2=4. It can't be denied logically.

What's humorous (in a mordant sort of way), is to watch the pompous blowhard rattle on through multiple paragraphs which are not logically connected and never manage to make a logical progression of ideas.

It's pitiable. The bloviating Is just a thinly veiled attempt at proselytizing but the confused, rambling, stuttering and mumbling is somehow supposed to be persuasive?

 

[dblack]

Well I'm actually able to follow this, and if you're thinking that somebody like Rawlings, who is strong in logic, would be crippled, I'd think again. I've already seen how he took apart a very poor understanding about the actual nature of Aristotle’s error of geocentricism. Had Aristotle only paid attention to what the principle of identity was alerting him to he wouldn't have made the error. I say that because all Rawlings is employing is the universal principle of identity which is something I understand well though not as well as he does because he has a lot more experience with it when looking at all sorts of things. I came to this discussion with the same foundation though. It holds universally and is the very thing that causes us to see that the old idea of a gradual and steady speciation doesn't add up. It's also the same principle that allows me to see that chaos theory might not be telling us what some think it is either, perhaps, including you, as well as letting me see the problem with the idea of "destiny" in terms of what it's actually describing. That fact that different people draw different conclusions is not problem but a benefit, and that doesn't stop us see the distinction between different conclusions. Again the principle of identity at work.

Have you shaved your head yet?

 

[BreezeWood]

No...your.post failed right from the beginning. I didnt use.human intelligence to explain human intelligence...I used evolution.

You waste to much time trying to make.invisible gotchas.

Then you should be able to clearly show where our spirituality and humanity attributes are found in other life forms which were the product of the very same evolution process. Good luck with that.

All species evolve exactly the same and have the same mental acuity?

We are not reading the same theory of evolution.

Did you see that dogs are getting A LOT smarter? It is no surprise. Not only do the smarter dogs do better as far as breeding goes, it only makes sense that their intelligence would be accelerated because they live so close with us intelligent humans. They watch us, listen to us give them commands and they understand them. How long before dogs can talk?

Dogs can talk now. I have a friend who's dog says "Roll Tide!" when Alabama scores. Clear as day, I've seen it dozens of times. Crows can describe to another crow (through crow language) what an individual posing a danger looks like and the other crow consistently avoids these individuals they have never even seen before.

Again, my point remains intact. All kinds of living organisms are supposedly evolving in this natural cycle of evolution, intelligence, sentience, ability... they all have their share. Cognizance, reasoning, rationalization... many of them have that as well. Big brains, big cerebral cortex? Some have that as well. All the ingredients are there in the same primordial soup, but of all the billions of life forms ever to exist, humans are unique and different. There is no evidence it "evolved" into us, it has always been present in humankind.

Yes, dogs are going to become "smarter" and so is every other life form, if you believe in anything Darwin theorized at all. And I think most everyone can agree this is so, but until I see dogs attending Sunday School or leading mass, I don't think they have achieved the same level of spiritual awareness (inspiration for humanity) as humans... (sorry Breeze, I know you disagree with this.) Humans continue to have something that other living things don't have, and that is our spiritual foundation.

what you fail to recognize boss is the Lions Spirit has evolved accordingly with its founding whereas your Spirit has evolved to a disposition of self interest - as per religious order the Lion has the ( natural ) affinity for Admission to the Everlasting that humanity has lost.

Spiritually speaking boss, you are bankrupt.

.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I've noticed the pompous bloviating is nothing more than a re-ordering of the pompous bloviating that preceded it.

I suspect the boy has a four page Microsoft Word document with a host of slogans he found at Harun Yahya, Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute and spends his time shuffling paragraphs around.

Why are you still being like this Hollie? he's just using humor. If we can't laugh at ourselves about how we get tangled in things that don't make sense what's point in living. I didn't get it all at first either but Rawlings made it really easy to see earlier. I got it before from a book and saw it but not in the crystal clear way I see it now as the book was really technical. Rawlings just used a few words and equals signs to make it jump at you. Simple. It really is like 2+2=4. It can't be denied logically.

The easiest way to help someone who's struggling with it is to ask them to give you an argument, any argument they can think of which in their minds refutes it. Then show them why their argument actually serves as a premise for an argument that proves it. Typically, the first objection you get is the academic objection of the illusory informal fallacy of begging the question. That objection proves that the premise is an axiom just like 2 + 2 = 4 once they see how that objection is inherently self-negating and also proves the premise is true. If they see that but are still struggling, ask them to give you another one, something more substantial, direct; then show them how that kind of argument doesn't work either. Once they get that, they should see why the premise would necessarily hold up universally against all comers.

Essentially, the transcendental argument is the in-depth, formal proof of the understanding that the potential substance of the God idea cannot be logically ruled out; it's the deeper understanding of the fundamental imperative of the problem of origin.