Debate:Metalogical reasoning for the Divine

I believe it may be possible to derive a rigorous reason for the Divine from metalogics. Selfreasoning4all (talk) 23:55, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I will edit the first topic to included material that clarifies any confusion addressed by debaters. Selfreasoning4all (talk) 00:06, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

from "nothing IS not"
Hi, metalogic is really simple. Did you know that metalogic is merely the generalizing of logical connectives??? In other words, saying anything about a logical connective IS called metalogic!!! You will notice I say many things about these connectives. Well, all that logic is, is the generalizing of what can be said through the use of logical connectives.

Parmenides said "nothing IS not" which means "nothing doesn't IS" or "IS" doesn't apply to nothing.

It is a scientific fact that nothing does not exist somewhere. And even if one had a superconducting box (which could remove magnetic fields) that one could remove all of the gases, photons and charged particles from; you would still have the gravitational field in the box (which is a longitudinal radiation gradient)! m = ∇ x Φ (-∇A)/(n0 ς) therefore G ∝ ∇ς where ς is webers per cubic meter or the longitudinal radiation intensity.

This link discusses the history of the idea; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum#Historical_interpretation

Four senses of “IS” can be meant;

generalization; identity (equivalents), [mankind IS homosapien]

implication (implies) [a man IS an animal]

predication (has the property of) [an orange IS the color orange]

existence; instantiation (exists as) [there IS truth]

Generalization has two antecedents;

Liken

Contrast

Which means;

Nothing likens not

Nothing contrasts not

Nothing generalizes not

Nothing implicates not

Nothing describes not

Nothing instantiates not

The contraposition of "nothing IS not" is "everything IS" or "everything does IS" or "IS" applies to everything.

meaning;

everything likens

everything contrasts

everything generalizes

everything implicates

everything describes

everything instantiates

The contraposition of "everything IS" is "one thing self-IS"

Or by implication; IF everything IS (or likens, contrasts, generalizes, implicates, describes, and instantiates) then everything generalizes one thing. But this one thing, is also a thing, in other words it self-IS;

meaning;

one thing self-likens => it self-harmonizes => it is autoimmune

one thing self-contrasts => it self-informs => it is an autodidact

one thing self-generalizes => it self-identifies => it is self-aware => it is sapient

one thing self-implicates => it is self-causal => it is self-deterministic (conscious) => it is self-reasoning

one thing self-describes => it is self-interested

one thing self-instantiates => it is self-generating => it is self-sustaining => it is self-sufficient

The contraposition of "one thing self-IS" is "one thing all-IS"

meaning;

one thing all-likens => it all-unifies => it is omnibenevolent

one thing all-contrasts => it all-informs (and from self-aware it all-teaches)

one thing all-generalizes => it all-identifies => it is all-aware => omniscient

one thing all-implicates => it is all-causal => it is all-deterministic (and from conscious => all-intentional (and from self-reasoning => all-reasoning => all-wise)

one thing all-describes => it is all-essence => monopantheistic

one thing all-instantiates => omnipotent and eternal.

here is some of the reasoning more explicitly;

Relevant implication suggests causation and is correlation. When it is impossible for there to be missing variables correlation necessarily is causation. Since all things are implicated here it is impossible for there to be missing variables. Thus this one thing is self-causal or all-causal

Note; "causal" is not in the same declension as "caused"; the latter refers to an event in time, the former refers to a process through time. Self-causal means self-deterministic or teleological. Self-determinism is consciousness. Thus cause is reason and causal is reasoning. Therefore; one thing is self-reasoning or all-reasoning

If this one thing is all-describing, all things must be made of it and get their essence from it. Which means the one thing is a monistic pantheism.

We have established that the one thing is an autoimmune, autodidact, sapient, consciousness, that is self-interested, self-sufficient, and omnibenevolent, making it an all-teacher, that is omniscient, and all-wise, as well as monopantheistic, omnipotent and eternal.

This essay about the one thing is part of it's self-describing, self-reasoning, and as an act of it being an all-teacher.

Selfreasoning4all (talk) 23:55, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Response
While this is an interesting effort, it's a long ways from "deriving a rigorous reason for the Divine".

To start, the logic is faulty. The argument claims to rely on three chained contrapositions to derive a new conclusion, but contraposition does not work that way. Iterated contraposition merely alternates between the initial statement and its contraposition. To examine the argument:

The contraposition of "nothing IS not" is "everything IS" (or equivalent). This is valid. Written explicitly as a conditional statement, "nothing IS not" becomes "if IS does not apply to X, then X does not exist", and the contraposition is obvious.

The contraposition of "everything IS" is "one thing self-IS". This is invalid, since the contraposition of "everything IS" is "nothing IS not", which is a non-equivalent statement (if you want to claim this, you must first prove them to be equivalent). I'll respond to the inference you seem to be getting at farther down.

The contraposition of "one thing self-IS" is "one thing all-IS". It's not obvious how you intend these to function as conditional statements in order to perform a contraposition.

Contrapositions aside, your argument seems to be that since "everything IS", all "IS-type" relations exist within the set "everything" (henceforth E). Therefore, E possesses those all-self-properties you identified. The problem for your larger point is that this description is tautological and does not correspond to conventional notions of divinity. To examine your list of properties:

one thing all-likens => it all-unifies => it is omnibenevolent Actually, the properties of E mean that it contains all likening relationships, not that all components of E are unified in any way beyond having the property of existing. Nor does it imply that E itself has a moral stance.

one thing all-contrasts => it all-informs (and from self-aware it all-teaches) Similar to the above, E merely contains all information and self-awareness that happens to exist. There is no implication that E contains all the information that CAN exist or that it contains any self-awareness beyond the individual self-aware bits that happen to exist.

one thing all-generalizes => it all-identifies => it is all-aware => omniscient As above, E is not an entity with properties of its own beyond its definition as everything that exists. It does not possess any meta-knowledge about its contents. So if you want to call it omniscient, you're using a nonstandard definition of omniscience.

one thing all-implicates => it is all-causal => it is all-deterministic Since all causal relationships are between things that exist, that all causal relationships that happen to exist are within E is tautological.

(and from conscious => all-intentional (and from self-reasoning => all-reasoning => all-wise) "Self-determination" is an unusual definition for consciousness (an isolated photon propagating freely in space would thus be conscious), but whatever. Note that intent, reasoning, and wisdom do not follow from that definition of consciousness. Also note that while all consciousness, intent, reasoning, and wisdom do exist within E, the total of each is exactly equal to the sum of the parts, since that's what E is. E does not have any intent, reasoning ability, or wisdom of its own.

one thing all-describes => it is all-essence => monopantheistic Only in the metaphorical sense of attributing divinity to an otherwise secular universe a la Einstein. Not that a conventionally-secular universe is implied by this statement -- the argument here does not address the presence or absence of conventional divinity. For example, this statement works just as well if we assume the additional axiom that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.

one thing all-instantiates => omnipotent and eternal. I'll agree with eternal in the sense of "contains the totality of time", but "contains all events that occur" is a rather odd definition of omnipotence.

That mostly covers the content of the paragraph-descriptions section too, but I want to point out this part: If this one thing is all-describing, all things must be made of it and get their essence from it. This is backwards, and seems to be the error which led to your claims of demonstrating divinity. Since E is defined as everything that exists, E is made of all things (all things are necessarily related to E only in that they exist, and are not necessarily related to each other at all), and E has no essence beyond existence, a property which grants entry to E rather than which is granted by E to previously-nonexistent parts of itself (to clarify this, consider that one gains knowledge of the specific contents of E by empirical investigation rather than by constructive proofs from the premise "something exists").

Let's put all that aside for now and suppose you have a valid logical proof of divinity. There is a more fundamental problem with using it to claim that divinity actually exists. An argument relying exclusively on abstractions and definitions does not necessarily reflect the real world, which can lead to reification and its associated problems. The rigor of a mathematical proof is not possible for statements about the real world, and statements about the real world are only as good as the evidence they're based on. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 10:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC) This was a response to this version of the opening argument.

Too generous by half
This criticism is far too generous. At the very least there's the very serious structural problem that this isn't metalogic. It doesn't describe some formal or semi-formal system of logic in logical terms. At best it attempts to logically define the term "is" in logical term, a task I feel it fails critically at. I'd also level the criticism that everything following that takes an increasingly verbally manipulative structure.

To say the least, I think it's a lot more necessary to develop a system before you call your text "metalogic". On top of that, deriving everything from a pithy saying means your whole argument is constructed on the validity of the intuition of an ancient Greek.

If this were an essay for an intro to theology course, I could grant points for creativity, but as a philosophical construct, it's garbage. Ikanreed (talk) 20:37, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I decided to skip the metalogic issue because it's only in the title/intro rather than the argument actually presented, but yes. I'll be elaborating on the linguistic manipulation in the response I mentioned below, since what I said above doesn't seem to have come across clearly. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 21:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

What is metalogic? rebuttal
"At the very least there's the very serious structural problem that this isn't metalogic. It doesn't describe some formal or semi-formal system of logic in logical terms."


 * Hi, metalogic is really simple. Did you know that metalogic is merely the generalizing of logical connectives??? In other words, saying anything about a logical connective IS called metalogic!!! And did you notice I have said many things about these connectives? Well, all that logic is, is the generalizing of what can be said through the use of logical connectives.

"At best it attempts to logically define the term "is" in logical term, a task I feel it fails critically at."


 * Are you saying that "IS" doesn't have these four known senses??? [mankind IS homosapien] [a man IS an animal] [an orange IS the color orange] [there IS truth]

"deriving everything from a pithy saying means your whole argument is constructed on the validity of the intuition of an ancient Greek."


 * it is a scientific fact that "nothing IS not"

thanks for your consideration though Selfreasoning4all (talk) 23:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Conventionally, metalogic is something different. To quote from there: "Logic concerns the truths that may be derived using a logical system; metalogic concerns the truths that may be derived about the languages and systems that are used to express truths. ... Results in metalogic consist of such things as formal proofs demonstrating the consistency, completeness, and decidability of particular formal systems." 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:19, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Can you give me an example of a metalogical expression? If not, then you probably do not understand what metalogic is; wouldn't that be correct? i.e. Without the ability to apply, one would actually have no functional knowledge of the topic. Selfreasoning4all (talk) 02:53, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Let's not insult anyone's intelligence here. "Metalogical expression" is not a term that is used with any frequency in the philosophical community.  Technically speaking, any logical proposition(or more complex expression) that is "about" a logical system is a meta-logical expression.  You haven't been using the term honestly.   This is trivial to do: "bidirectional implication universally implies equivalence" could be one such proposition using a higher order system to justify the mechanics of a lower order system(not that anyone really does that).
 * A more common use of a metalogic would be to demonstrate that proof by contradiction is logically equivalent to proof by derivation.
 * And I'm afraid you also don't know what "Scientific fact means". That's wrong on a few accounts
 * 1. Scientific fact is no basis for philosophy.  All "Scientific fact" is determined by rigorous testing, and always allows for apparent inferences to be contradicted by later observation.  While science can establish, to the satisfaction of multiple parties trying to resolve a question, the apparent factual nature of a logical premise, it is never the same as philosophically true.  Ever.
 * 2. Science works by hypothesis presentation, experimental observation, and falsification.  Since "nothing is not" cannot be tested in such a falsifiable manner(and I'd argue lacks the rigor of well formulated hypothesis), and certainly you present no evidence that it has been tested in such a manner, we're forced to conclude that, for all intents and purposes, that you assertion of "scientific fact" is instead a bare assertion attempting to use the name of science to back an arbitrary idea.
 * 3. Most importantly, you yourself originally asserted that "Parmenides said" the statement.  You were making an argument from authority, and even if the assertion were actually scientific fact(which I think we've reasonably established cannot be true), you have a duty when presenting a logic argument to deliver your arguments on the strongest basis you have.  If a statement as presented doesn't stand up to scrutiny, then it fails as a logical argument.  It can be true in spite of not being logical.  There is not requirement that a true statement be supported by good logic.  But bad logic can, and should be digested as cuh.  Ikanreed (talk) 05:04, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, did you notice that your example of metalogic generalizes logical connectives??? 1. What if the premise is both scientific fact and metalogically true (or true by definition)? 2. see link Selfreasoning4all (talk) 15:40, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * First, metalogic discussion(and no more about that, please)
 * A. That was the point.  The generalization of a logical system through the application of a universal predicate is a kind of metalogic
 * B. I wasn't trying to prove any given system, just supply an example to suit your rather infantile demand that I do so.
 * C. We can leave the stupid metalogic question alone, it's just a misnomer, and not relevant to the argument's thesis.  You don't need to be defensive about the fact that your used the word wrong, but this isn't a winnable argument.  You're objectively wrong about it.  This "never yield a point, no matter how irrelevant" thing you're engaged in does a lot more to destroy your credibility than to reinforce it.
 * Second, the premise point:
 * This is a trivial argument to deconstruct by example, since you seem to think the non-emptyness of vaccuum is equivalent to the logical assertion that is your premise. Let's take a simple mathematical equation:  y=|x|+1, and find all solutions.  None.  Nothing.  Zip.  Zilch.  The set of solutions is nothing.  Empty set.  A counter-example, fundamentally invaliding the premise.  Ikanreed (talk) 14:40, 28 July 2014 (UTC)


 * the empty set is not nothing Selfreasoning4all (talk) 20:12, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * What is the content of the empty set, please? You had to know that this was the response to this level of pedantry.  Ikanreed (talk) 16:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * the empty set has no contents Selfreasoning4all (talk) 01:02, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

defense

 * Thanks for your thoughtful response; I will respond to your premises.

"The contraposition of "everything IS" is "one thing self-IS". This is invalid, since the contraposition of "everything IS" is "nothing IS not", which is a non-equivalent statement (if you want to claim this, you must first prove them to be equivalent)."


 * I will write my idea in another way; IF everything likens, contrasts, generalizes, implicates, describes, and instantiates, then everything generalizes one thing. But this one thing, is also a thing, in other words it self-likens, self-contrasts, self-generalizes, self-implicates, self-describes, and self-instantiates.

"the properties of E mean that it contains all likening relationships, not that all components of E are unified in any way beyond having the property of existing."


 * actually the one thing unifies more than just instantiation; it also necessarily has likening, contrasting, generalizing, implicating, and describing.

"E merely contains all information and self-awareness that happens to exist. There is no implication that E contains all the information that CAN exist or that it contains any self-awareness beyond the individual self-aware bits that happen to exist."


 * the one thing is self-aware, from self-indentifying, which is from self-generalizing.

"E is not an entity with properties of its own beyond its definition as everything that exists. It does not possess any meta-knowledge about its contents."


 * Are you denying that the one thing self-generalizes? It looks like you are merely redefining "one thing" with "E", notice I don't claim that everything is self-aware! So I obviously agree with you.

""Self-determination" is an unusual definition for consciousness (an isolated photon propagating freely in space would thus be conscious), "


 * it says self-determinISM, not self-determination. Does that photon have an external cause? say a light bulb or a star??? then it is not self-deterministic. Only a closed system can be self-deterministic.

"Note that intent, reasoning, and wisdom do not follow from that definition of consciousness."


 * I will re-state my deduction so you can rebuttal it (I ask you, which part does not follow?); Self-causal means self-deterministic or teleological. Self-determinism is consciousness. Thus cause is reason and causal is reasoning. Therefore; one thing is self-reasoning or all-reasoning (and therefore all-wise)

"the argument here does not address the presence or absence of conventional divinity. For example, this statement works just as well if we assume the additional axiom that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists."


 * I don't need to prove the existence of a theistic being for there to be a monistic pantheism, do I?

"An argument relying exclusively on abstractions and definitions does not necessarily reflect the real world, which can lead to reification and its associated problems."


 * It is a scientific fact that "nothing IS not"... from which I deduce all else. You are welcome to falsify that claim by proving that nothing exists somewhere! This other work verifies some of the deductions; http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Debate:Is_all_religion_incompatible_with_science%3F#energy_physics_and_the_Divine_attributes

"The rigor of a mathematical proof is not possible for statements about the real world,"


 * That is not true, though it is a common misconception; If one uses inductions as premises in a deduction then you can produce a rigorous reason for scientific facts!

Selfreasoning4all (talk) 18:15, 25 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Posting that work is not necessary (though now that you have it linked, I see that it has many of the same problems as this work). The empirical verification of deductions is not a counter to the point I was making there. I'll elaborate on it in a more detailed post that should be up in the next day or so. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 20:26, 25 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I look forward to it. Selfreasoning4all (talk) 03:54, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Second response
'''IF everything likens, contrasts, generalizes, implicates, describes, and instantiates, then everything generalizes one thing. But this one thing, is also a thing, in other words it self-likens, self-contrasts, self-generalizes, self-implicates, self-describes, and self-instantiates.''' Two and a half problems there. First is the AND in the first sentence. From the premise you're using for the whole argument, everything that exists (in one sense or another) must do at least one, but there is no requirement for everything to do them all (I can draw a Venn diagram to clarify if you want, but this is a necessary consequence of invoking multiple senses/definitions of IS). You can, of course, base an argument on this new premise, but that involves a more limited definition of existence (that which IS applies to in every sense). Second, even granting the AND there, it does not follow from that that each thing that exists generalizes a particular one thing. Rather, if you regard the set of everything that exists (E, to continue the use from above), each existing thing generalizes some part of E, but there is no requirement that everything in existence generalize every part of E or the idea of E itself. This is more problematic when using OR in place of AND, since some parts of E then no longer generalize anything at all, instead having their existence limited to some other sense of IS. Solving the first and last issues mentioned here would require proving that each subset of E corresponding to each sense of IS is identical. Solving the second issue would require proving that each and every existing thing generalizes (and IS in each of the other senses for the related points) a particular thing. As an exercise of this, how would you demonstrate that the glass I'm holding likens, contrasts, generalizes, implicates, describes, and instantiates your "one thing"?

actually the one thing unifies more than just instantiation; it also necessarily has likening, contrasting, generalizing, implicating, and describing. Yes, which is a tautological conclusion based on the definition of E (the "one thing", though your preferred terminology conflates non-abstract "things" with abstractions like E), in which existence is defined as having the attribute IS, which is defined in those particular ways. That does not mean what you seem to think it means. Also note that instantiation (which you described as existence when you first mentioned it) is a distinct and more specific concept than the existence you invoked when you said that "nothing does not exist somewhere." This linguistic ambiguity is a minor issue here, but it becomes critical elsewhere.

the one thing is self-aware, from self-indentifying, which is from self-generalizing. Because E is an abstraction that exists only in our minds, it has no self-awareness, but is merely an imaginary categorization that includes what self-awareness (such as our own) happens to exist. Let's consider a simplified example: the universe under consideration consists only of myself, my glass, and enough atmosphere to keep me alive for the time being. "Everything that IS applies to" in this universe is me, the glass, the air, and the interactions involved. The only self-awareness involved is mine, and existence as a whole has no self-awareness apart from mine. If you think otherwise, I would like to hear an explanation, including precisely what you mean by self-awareness and why you think it is meaningful to claim it for the set of all existing things.

'''Are you denying that the one thing self-generalizes? It looks like you are merely redefining "one thing" with "E", notice I don't claim that everything is self-aware! So I obviously agree with you.''' By describing a set E as everything that exists (itself defined as that which IS applies to), I am using more precise terminology (though as I understand it, not a different definition of what we're talking about) than you are, both for brevity and to avoid linguistic ambiguity associated with calling everything that exists "one thing". By using the term set, I am hopefully making it clear that what we're discussing is an abstraction that has no properties other than what it is defined to have, no existence beyond the minds that think about it, and which has a well-defined relationship to its contents. Much of our disagreement stems from your ascribing to E (or the "one thing" if you prefer that terminology) attributes that do not follow from its definition. To examine the issue you mention here, I agree that E self-generalizes, because you've defined it to contain all generalizing relationships and all things which are generalized. This means that PARTS of E generalize PARTS (and not necessarily the same parts) of E, not that any part generalizes ALL of E or that E generalizes itself in any way apart from its definition as the set of everything that exists. Similarly, since self-awareness exists, E contains self-awareness, but E itself is not self-aware. If we posit a universe where self-awareness happens not to exist, the corresponding set of everything that exists happens to not include self-awareness, and it should be extra-obvious that self-awareness does not follow from the definition of E.

'''it says self-determinISM, not self-determination. Does that photon have an external cause? say a light bulb or a star??? then it is not self-deterministic. Only a closed system can be self-deterministic.''' It actually says "it is self-deterministic (conscious)". I nouned it to determination because I thought you were getting at autonomy rather than that. To return to the photon example, the photon loops endlessly around a closed timelike curve without interacting with anything else. It has no discernible beginning, end, or cause. It is entirely self-deterministic in both your sense there and in the sense of its future propagation being entirely computable. According to your definition of consciousness, that photon is conscious, but you and I are not (since we are not closed systems that lack external causes). This is rather distinct from the conventional definition, so you should avoid drawing inferences that rely on the conventional definition unless you can also demonstrate that the relevant properties of the conventional definition also apply.

'''Self-causal means self-deterministic or teleological. Self-determinism is consciousness. Thus cause is reason and causal is reasoning. Therefore; one thing is self-reasoning or all-reasoning (and therefore all-wise)''' If any sentence in this section is to follow, unconventional definitions are required. Please define your terms. I mean, "thus cause is reason and causal is reasoning" either implies that you're replacing "reason" the cognitive faculty with a deterministic definition as you did with consciousness, or you're conflating two distinct definitions of "reason" (the causal explanation vs. the cognitive faculty). Teleology involves the idea that the subject at hand has a purpose or end goal, which does not follow from causality on its own, even self-contained causality (additional premises are required). And again we run into the linguistic ambiguity of "all" here. E is defined to contain all the reasoning and wisdom that exists, but that's not at all the same state of affairs as the "all-wisdom" commonly ascribed to deities in theological discussions, and you appear to be using this ambiguity to advance a conclusion that doesn't actually follow from the premises. I would ask you to read through this article and see if that might help here. Ideally, one would define all relevant terms before using them in a "rigorous" argument, and failing to define non-standard uses practically guarantees miscommunication.

I don't need to prove the existence of a theistic being for there to be a monistic pantheism, do I? For a suitably abstract definition of monistic pantheism, no, but your definition (as in what your argument actually implies) is so abstract that it says nothing whatsoever about the presence or absence of any gods and their associated metaphysics. As such, it has no bearing on divinity as conventionally understood and thereby apparently fails to achieve the goal you seem to have started with. Of course, a definition of the divinity you are seeking to derive would be helpful in evaluating this. As I mentioned before, a "the universe is pretty snazzy, so I'll use the language of religion to express the sense of awe I feel about it" definition in the manner of Einstein can work in this sense, but there is no major religion that considers that to be divinity. Consider that it makes no difference to your argument whether the Abrahamatic God created the universe 6000 years ago, the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe last Thursday, or the universe as we understand it is the temporary association of eternal souls which are also the fundamental particles of the universe.

'''It is a scientific fact that "nothing IS not"... from which I deduce all else. You are welcome to falsify that claim by proving that nothing exists somewhere!''' Falsifying that claim doesn't require proving that nothing exists; it rather requires demonstrating that "nothing IS not" is not a scientific fact. A scientific fact is generally understood to be an empirical observation. "Nothing IS not" is a tautology, an expression that is logically true due to the definitions of the terms used, and remains so regardless of what, if any, empirical observations have been made. Since empirical observations and logical tautologies are disjoint sets, "nothing IS not" is not a scientific fact. Q.E.D.

That is not true, though it is a common misconception; If one uses inductions as premises in a deduction then you can produce a rigorous reason for scientific facts! No, you really can't. If you use inductions as premises in a deduction, deductive certainty only applies to the inference made taking the inductions as given, not the scientific facts themselves or the reality of implications predicted by the deduction. This is a really basic part of the scientific method, and there is a famous example widely used to illustrate the weakness of induction as a foundation for absolute conclusions. A swan is defined as a bird of the genus Cygnus, evaluated as such by genetic and morphological features. If you live in the Northern hemisphere, every (wild) swan you have ever seen is likely to have been white. From this, you can induce (with some measure of statistical uncertainty) that all local swans are white. With the additional inductive premise that local swans are representative of all swans (which carries its own statistical uncertainty), one can validly deduce that all swans are white. This deduction is rigorous, and is absolutely certain... if the premises are true. The problem is that the premises are derived from induction and carry the baggage of uncertainty inherent to the method, so any deductions based on them can not attain a more certain correspondence to reality than what the actual evidence offers. As it happens, black swans do exist, and the long history of discarded theories demonstrates the fallibility of induction-based deductions. Note that such falsification is itself a use of deduction on inductively-generated data, and is in principle vulnerable to revision by future evidence.

I think that this issue bears further examination. The strength of deduction is that it can derive truths that follow necessarily and universally from premises. Its weakness is that it cannot demonstrate that those truths apply to reality. The strength of induction is that it can derive truths from reality. Its weakness is that it cannot achieve certainty of accuracy or universality. Mathematical truths are absolute because they are explicitly based on axioms that provide all the justification required. Given, say, the rules of standard arithmetic (which is just one of many different sets of mathematical rules used for various purposes), it is certain that 1+2=3. However, the real world does not necessarily follow the axioms of standard arithmetic, so physical instances of adding one thing to two things does not necessarily equal three things. Things like irrational numbers, the relativity of time, and quantum shenanigans have given theoreticians fits when they tried to accommodate the instances where reality happens to work in some unintuitive ways. If you need to check whether a proposition is philosophically rigorous, you can try running it through Descartes' first Meditation. If the proposition contains enough explicit axioms to survive, it means that it's rigorous, but it also means that it operates independently of the empirical facts of reality (science). 192․168․1․42 (talk) 04:47, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

defense two
"First is the AND in the first sentence. From the premise you're using for the whole argument, everything that exists (in one sense or another) must do at least one, but there is no requirement for everything to do them all (I can draw a Venn diagram to clarify if you want, but this is a necessary consequence of invoking multiple senses/definitions of IS). You can, of course, base an argument on this new premise, but that involves a more limited definition of existence (that which IS applies to in every sense)."


 * "nothing likens not" contrapositions to "everything likens"
 * "nothing contrasts not" contrapositions to "everything contrasts"
 * "nothing generalizes not" contrapositions to "everything generalizes"
 * "nothing implicates not" contrapositions to "everything implicates"
 * "nothing describes not" contrapositions to "everything describes"
 * "nothing instantiates not" contrapositions to "everything instantiates"
 * therefore "AND" is justified

"even granting the AND there, it does not follow from that that each thing that exists generalizes a particular one thing."


 * it looks like you are granting that everything does generalize one thing, but that the one thing is not a particular. "Logic. an individual or a specific group within a general class." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/particular the one thing certainly is an individual within it's own general class

"By using the term set, I am hopefully making it clear that what we're discussing is an abstraction that has no properties other than what it is defined to have, no existence beyond the minds that think about it, and which has a well-defined relationship to its contents."


 * Instead of "E" you should use the term "universal set" if you are going to project set theory on my metalogical reasoning. The universal set contains itself. just like the one thing generalizes it's self. i.e. its an individual (or element) within it's own general class (a small class is a set) or set. Does the universe have no existence beyond the minds that think about it?

"the photon loops endlessly around a closed timelike curve without interacting with anything else. It has no discernible beginning, end, or cause."


 * cite a scientic source that would dare to even claim "a photon has no beginning, end, or cause."

"I mean, "thus cause is reason and causal is reasoning" either implies that you're replacing "reason" the cognitive faculty with a deterministic definition as you did with consciousness, or you're conflating two distinct definitions of "reason" (the causal explanation vs. the cognitive faculty)."


 * if the universe is self-deterministic, the causal explanation is a poperty of the universes cognitive faculty.

"that's not at all the same state of affairs as the "all-wisdom" commonly ascribed to deities in theological discussions"


 * omniscience (which is the only thing you could be theologically refering too) doesn't necessarily mean all-wise, it means all-knowing

"it says nothing whatsoever about the presence or absence of any gods and their associated metaphysics."


 * well it merely establishes the fact that there is one omnibenevolent, all-teacher, that is omniscient, all-wise, and omnipotent and eternal. Now if there are other lesser beings that you wish to give reverence and adoration, I suppose you can do so. But why should I prove there existence IN THIS WORK? note I can prove their existence, but I am not going to do so in this essay.

"there is no major religion that considers that to be divinity."


 * Christian Apostle Paul quoted Epimenides on the doctrine of pantheism "For in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

"Consider that it makes no difference to your argument whether the Abrahamatic God created the universe 6000 years ago"


 * well according to the Bible, it's God (an eternal, omnipotent, ?omnibenevolent?(according to the OT?) being), has many of the same attributes as the one thing deduced here, which means it has to be the same being (by definition; as there can only be one of such beings (identity of indecernables))?

"Falsifying that claim doesn't require proving that nothing exists; it rather requires demonstrating that "nothing IS not" is not a scientific fact. A scientific fact is generally understood to be an empirical observation. "Nothing IS not" is a tautology, an expression that is logically true due to the definitions of the terms used, and remains so regardless of what, if any, empirical observations have been made."


 * It is an empirical observation that "everything IS" (because nowhere has nothing been shown to exist)... so what is the contraposition of "everything IS"?... and did you know the contraposition has the same truth value as the original sentence?

"empirical observations and logical tautologies are disjoint sets"


 * "everything IS" may be tautological and is definitely an empirical observation or scientific fact.

I responded to your premises, thanks for the discussion. Selfreasoning4all (talk) 20:10, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Most of that indicates that you don't understand what linguistic ambiguity is and/or why it matters to this discussion. Please read this article I linked earlier (and maybe this one too) and consider that its contents are of critical importance to the understanding of much of what I've said. It looks like I'll be tabooing quite a few terms and producing some visual aids for the next major exchange, so you should have some time to revise things as you see fit. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 08:47, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, "is" has at least four distinct meanings, and I use all of them, so if any statement I make is overly compressed with different meanings (where in fact I mean all of them at the same time) then I can split the meanings appart for you... Selfreasoning4all (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2014 (UTC)