Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 05/ 7/04 2:25pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "of intuition" on 05/ 4/04 10:51am
>>
>>There's also the evidence in the universe at the
>>present moment. We are right now not outside time.
>>That seems obvious.
>
>But of course, there is nothing that says the past has
>to follow the example of now, or the future. That's
>the realm of induction, not logic.
Induction is a part of logic. Nonetheless, even if the past was unlike the present and it at some points was in temporal limbo (assuming that were even metaphysically possible), that is irrelevant as I explained before. Either the past is infinite or it is not.
>>It does imply that the universe would have to traverse
>>all the time of the past to get to the present.
>
>I don't think it implies the universe necessarily has
>to do anything
It does have to follow basic rules of logic. It cannot do the logically impossible.
>>Are you abandoning logic because of this belief of
>>yours?
>
>I abandon logic each and everyday, and so do you
>because logic at its core, contains intuition which is
>logically impossible to validate.
Belief in logic, true enough, could be pinned down to intuitive perceptions. But I think you're over-generalizing. Believing that hairless men cannot have hair is different from having a hunch it will rain today. This could be called the difference between intuitive perceptions and intuitive feelings. It is thus nonetheless perfectly logical to accept logic.
>>Depends on what you mean by "define it." Obviously
>>merely declaring the world to be flat won't make it
>>true, but some things are logically necessary truths.
>>No matter how long we look, we'll never find a round
>>square for instance, since such a thing cannot
>>possibly exist.
>
>But that's because we've defined a square to have four
>sides to begin with.
Yes, and some things are true by definition.
>Perhaps some alien culture has
>defined a square as that which is rounded. Which of us
>has the logical necessary truth?
You obviously cannot use the fallacy of equivocation, since that would be, well, illogical. The word "square" in our language was what was meant in the term "a round square is not logically possible" and is thus a necessary truth.
>>Except that's an incorrect application of logic. The
>>fault is not in mathematics itself. One apple falling
>>aside another, having a total of two apples, is a
>>correct application. If however one of the apples
>>were blasted into bits when it hit the ground, we
>>can't say that 1 + 1 = 2 is a mathematically correct
>>description here.
>
>In what way was my example an incorrect application of
>logic?
Because it was not an accurate description of 1 + 1 = 2. The apples did not remain separate entities like they were supposed to in the correct application of this mathematical logic.
>>How so? Whether or not trinitarian monotheism is
>>correct, it is at least logically consistent and does
>>not violate any mathematical or logical laws.
>
>One person being distinctly three personalities and
>even three separate states of being is not illogical?
Correct. It violates no laws of logic. Consider this: I am a human being with trillions of living cells working together. Yet am I not also one living being? So it is not at all logically impossible for an entity to exist in multiple components.
>>Get correct information.
>
>And how exactly do you propose to do that for this
>particular argument?
Well, considering that none of the premises appear to be false, it would not seem to be possible to show that the premises are false if they are true.
>>No mystical yardstick, just logical thinking.
>
>Logical thinking on its own isn't going to show us
>whether or not one of these premises is true or not.
Of course it is. Confer my mathematics that proved several premises.
>>If it is logically impossible it cannot be true in
>>reality. To be otherwise would be, well, illogical.
>
>Things that are logically impossible happen all the
>time in reality
Can you give me even one example?
>Why is it that people "feel"? Is there a logical
>reason for that?
Perhaps. But even if we can't find any, feeling is not logically impossible.
>God? Evolution? Is there a
>logical reason for those?
Neither God nor evolution is logically impossible. You seem to have misunderstood me when I said "logically possible," I wasn't referring to logical reasons why they should exist (though I think there are some) I was referring to the possibility of their existence only. Indeed, I'm not even sure how you could make this confusion.
>>Except that you're once again misapplying logic. The
>>law of excluded middle does not say or imply
>>that something has to be a particle or wave. Rather,
>>the law of excluded middle says that for any
>>proposition p, p and ~p exhaust
>>all possibilities. (As long as you use a valid
>>proposition and apply this rule correctly.)
>
>If you have lived in Newton's time up till the the
>early 20th century, you would have said the only
>possibilities for light are either particle or wave,
>and you'd have been right. Those were all the
>possibilities for light that also explained the data
>observed. Did all those physicists including Newton
>misapply the law of noncontradiction, or was it really
>the case that the law of noncontradiction simply
>failed in this example?
The physicists were not at all applying the law of noncontradiction when they said light had to be either a particle or a wave. Perhaps you should read the definition of the law of noncontradiction again: for any proposition p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be both true at the same time and in the same context. So as you can see, this was not an application of the law of noncontradiction.
>It DID fail
It did not fail, for it was not even used.
>Why is it not
>possible that the past can be both finite and
>infinite?
Because the two are logically incompatible.
>>If the past is infinite it must at least fit the
>>definition of infinite. That's all I was saying here.
>
>You are assuming again that reality has to follow
>definitions.
Of course. Why do you think there cannot be a round square? Because there can't be by definition.
>Definitions change in accordance with
>what reality reveals.
But if you change the definitions you'd make the fallacy of equivocation, thus making the would-be counterexample invalid.
>>I'm not putting forth any particular model of physics
>>here. I'm just saying what necessarily results from
>>the definition of "infintie age." If the universe had
>>an infinite past and yet was not infinitely old, then
>>the past wouldn't be infinite in the first place.
>
>And I'm saying that this argument rests on very
>rickety definitions subject to change when the state
>of knowledge about time changes.
If you alter the definition of time, then again you'd make the fallacy of equivocation, just as you would if you changed the meaning of the word "square" in "round square." It is not conceivable that any changing of the definition of time would alter the validity of my argument.
>>I did, for one. I pointed out that this is not a
>>valid proposition. It is neither true nor false.
>
>I'm sorry, but I'm not quite ready to admit Wade as
>the solver of the problem of self-referentiality.
Then do you find a problem with my solution? What is it?
>>So
>>what is your point here? What "problem" does the
>>self-referential statement have anyway?
>
>Well, for one it shows that there are places where
>logic breaks down and doesn't work as it should.
I don't see how logic breaks down here at all. Which logical precept does it violate?
> The English equivalent
>would be "Everything I just said is true, but I'm a
>pathological liar." How does one go about evaluating
>such a statement logically?
One would evaluate that saying that the sentence cannot possibly be true.
>>>It can fail the test of reality
>>
>>But then if the deductively valid argument does not
>>produce a true conclusion in reality, then a premise
>>must still be false.
>
>But we'll never know because this argument is
>untestable in reality.
Again, that isn't clear. You can test my mathematics by looking over them.
In any case you seem to be claiming that although the argument is valid, we'll never know if the premises are true or not because there's no way to tell if they are true or not. Is this appearance correct?
>Here's a parable:
>
>A man makes a symbolical argument painstakingly
>showing that the universe rests on the back of a
>turtle.
I don't think such an argument could be made via symbolic logic and be sound. Perhaps you can give me such an argument?
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