Essay talk:On Logical Absolutes

OMG... I'm going to have to do this over a few days... the arguments are just so... so... vacuous of intelligence and proper logic... --Eira omtg! The Goat be praised. 02:23, 3 March 2009 (EST)
 * If anyone wants to help out and flush out this essay, I'm giving carte blanche to take care of it. -- 02:00, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Not answered...
I still don't think the discussion here answers the critical question for epiricists: Where does logic come from? How can logic be said to some from experience? It seems like we filter experience through a pre-existing logic.

From the perspective of Semantics (and recasting some arguments using mathematical language)
If you simply accept that English (and other languages) are imprecise (as they are wont to be), a lot of these "logical absolutes" become unnecessary. Once you get into the realm of self-reference, Godel Incompleteness usually applies and you get into the whole true/false paradox.

If you're working in symbolic language, at least your statements are (more or less) precise. Just consider the so-called paradox "This statement is false." What exactly does "This sentence" refer to? If you didn't already have meaning applied to "this" and "sentence", "This sentence" might as well refer to what we might otherwise describe as "1+1=3".

The whole concept of "things that don't exist" is a bit flimsy, IMO. In some sense, by describing them, you've already created some sort of abstraction for "things that don't exist". What is really meant is probably something along the lines of "Let existence be property A." Then the statement (which is supposed to be "an logical absolute") "Something cannot bring itself into existence" simply becomes "objects without property A cannot give themselves property A". Even if you accept such a statement as true, you'd still have to define the origin of the universe (Big Bang) as an event whereby something property A (the universe) arose from something without property A.

I don't think any scientist is going to try and convince you about exactly what did or did not exist before or at the precise moment of the Big Bang. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 72.130.180.193 / talk / contribs

Cosmological argument?
This looks to me more like Cosmological argument than TAG. 93.141.2.236 (talk) 14:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Law of Excluded Middle
In the discussion of the Law of Excluded Middle, the discussion on both sides is somewhat unclear. The Liar Paradox is not a "contradiction," but a statement that cannot be reduced to a well-formed formula in a complete logical system such as propositional or first-order logic. 10:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

IP post
I do not agree at all with the suggestion that true vs false should be used to demonstrate the Law of the Excluded Middle because false is not the exclusive and exhaustive "opposite" of true. The correct dichotomy to use in this case is true vs not-true. It is impossible for something to not be one of these two; something is either true or not-true. In contrast, it *is* possible for something to be both not-true and not-false, with "this statement is false" being the best example. And please note that "this statement is not true" is not ruled out of bounds by the Law of Non-contradiction; the closest thing to "this statement is not true" that actually does violate the Law of Non-contradiction is "this statement is not a statement."

I write all this because the false dichotomy of true vs false is one of the places where TAG fails (and dies).

Do the implications of Identity require explanations (warrant their own definitions)?
By being binary states, doesn't Identity: is or is not, exclude Non-contradiction? And for the same reason, Identity being binary states, doesn't it also exclude the Excluded Middle? If so, then aren't Non-contradiction and the Excluded Middle implied by Identity and, therefore, subordinate to Identity? If so, then isn't there only one logical absolute (Identity)? If so, as implied extensions of identity, then aren't Non-contradiction and the Excluded Middle redundant (or examples of Identity)? Thank you.

I have many opinions but
One I don't state enough is that neoplatonists can fuck off. Definitions of "things" are created as a convenience to categorize things and communicate. There's no fundamental nature of "tree" or "rock" or "cloud" that each actual instance is an explicit variation of. Sometimes a cloud is better, by formal definition, called a mist, but everyone can agree it's a cloud enough to discuss it. It shouldn't even be debatable that there is no such thing as a platonic ideal except for pure abstractions invented to be abstract. From premise 1, this whole deduction is garbage. Sorry, I know this is a decade old response essay, but the talk page popping up on recent changes made me mad about it. ikanreed 🐐Bleat at me 20:06, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Law of Non-Contradiction
Doesn't Shroderger's cat violate LONC? The cat in its uncollapsed quantum state is both alive and dead.