Forums → WEPR → The Supremity of Logic
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Foreword:
[intentionally bombastic, in keeping with tradition]
Lo! On this, the eleventh day of February, in the year of our mutual consensus 2014, a deism of Truth and Reason is herewith revealed to the good citizens of the AG community who happen to be reading the forum this afternoon.
Let it be known that this is no mere jest or parody, the like of which exist only to ridicule organized religion. This is the ascension of Logic into divine realization.
To those who might object to Its authority, who might question Its teachings, who might challenge Its veracity, they are welcome to do so. Nay; encouraged, for such is the way of Logic.
________
Now that the minimum required Old English preachiness is over with, I'd like to discuss (by which I mean "assemble an impenetrable fortification of hyper-rational thinking which will render any and all possible counter-arguments baseless by default" the deification of Logic and its implications upon faith. Here's how it works:
The Order of Logic upholds the virtues of truth, reason, and understanding. Its sacred text is a compilation of all information that is absolutely and unerringly true, known as the Immutable Omnexicon. There can be no truth beyond its scope, and there is no falsehood within.
The Order of Logic is a pantheistic religion which promotes the rejection of traditional theology in favour of rational thinking and skepticism. As such, it does not oppose belief in other deities, but will oppose any who attempt to force such beliefs upon others.
Questions and comments are welcome, as well as suggestions, criticism, ridicule, expressions of dismay, threats, concerns, religious propaganda, pseudoscience, and moderate amounts of gratuitous praise.
- 16 Replies
Unless you have sound arguments for it, I postulate that deifying rationality and logic is utterly irrational, as those two are not entities and thus cannot possibly fulfill any requirements for deification. Your turn.
Humans are susceptible to logical irrationality because of our unique consciousnesses. From that point I am not sure you can make any argument for or against societal organization of theism. However, if you're here to argue the logic of religion in general, that's a different story. I'm just not sure which you're aiming for.
@Fiends, I think I'll treat your contribution as...a concern. Yes, that is definitely something that may be an issue at some point, but I think we can rest easy for now.
Unless you have sound arguments for it, I postulate that deifying rationality and logic is utterly irrational, as those two are not entities and thus cannot possibly fulfill any requirements for deification. Your turn.
If I were to tell you of an intangible deity named Skorgg, which does not manifest itself as a single material being, Skorgg would be a conceptual entity; it exists (it has to, because by reading this, you must have a conception of it) and it is a deity (as stated in the opening premise). Whether it exists as more than concept doesn't matter. It is as much an entity any other deity that can be conceived.
If I then describe Skorgg as eternal, omnipresent, irrevocable, deterministic, ethically neutral, and intrinsic to the universe, I am simply relating the concept to some characteristic of the universe or to reality itself.
Logic is the name I chose here because it directly relates to what this deity embodies in a way that is easily understood, but it's really interchangeable with any other name I apply that meaning to, and Skorgg is an actual example of this.
If I were to tell you of an intangible deity named Skorgg, which does not manifest itself as a single material being, Skorgg would be a conceptual entity; it exists (it has to, because by reading this, you must have a conception of it) and it is a deity (as stated in the opening premise). Whether it exists as more than concept doesn't matter.
Yes it does matter. Just because the concept of something exists doesn't follow that the thing being conceived exists. There is a distinction that seems to be getting ignored here.
The concept of a deity exists but the deity itself does not exist, which is basically what Mage said. Are you saying the realism of the actual deity does not matter, because the concept can be enveloped as a religion anyway?
Yes it does matter. Just because the concept of something exists doesn't follow that the thing being conceived exists. There is a distinction that seems to be getting ignored here.
Not at all. I'm not suggesting that the deity in question even is real, so any issue you take with that will not affect the validity of my statement.
I'm well aware that the ontological argument is unsound. In fact, it works better in reverse. The deity is conceptual. Logic is the concept that it represents. I'm associating one with the other without personifying either.
The concept of a deity exists but the deity itself does not exist, which is basically what Mage said. Are you saying the realism of the actual deity does not matter, because the concept can be enveloped as a religion anyway?
Yes, actually. That's a much better way of putting it.
I think I'm just not understanding what you're trying to get at here. How does building a religion around a concept of something not existent result in it being logically sound?
I think I'm just not understanding what you're trying to get at here. How does building a religion around a concept of something not existent result in it being logically sound?
Well, why should a divine being need to exist as a real thing? Many faiths claim their gods are "outside" of reality, which can be taken as an admission that they aren't real things. I just have the gall to admit it outright.
But how can we consider something as having divine origin, if it is intrinsic to conscious thought?
Consider Schroedinger's cat. It is not the best analogy, but it'll do. As long as the cat is in the box, it is both dead and alive. Once we check the box, the condition of the cat is settled as either dead or alive.
Things in this universe are either logic and rational, or not. Once someone thinks about it, that object or thought is either seen as rational, or not. And this is not even definitely determined by the object of the thought, but there is an additional factor which is the individual interpretation and experience.
So I postulate that rationality and logic is not something intrinsic to the universe and existing independently, but is actually limited to conscious thought. Everything not thought about is neither rational nor irrational, it just is. And so I insist on defying your deification of logic and rationality.
Consider Schroedinger's cat. It is not the best analogy, but it'll do. As long as the cat is in the box, it is both dead and alive. Once we check the box, the condition of the cat is settled as either dead or alive.
Yes, it is a poor analogy. If I'm not mistaken, Schroedinger presented this thought problem it as a reductio ad absurdum to reject this conclusion (the Copenhagen interpretation). A cat will not experience wavefunction collapse. Its fate is deterministic.
The word logic is a human construct. Our understanding of its meaning is a concept. The real thing it relates to is an eternal, universal, and unbreakable mechanism and also happens to be the foundation of all science and rational thinking. Therefore, you may defy my proposition, but you cannot defy this mechanism.
I'm bringing this to the surface, because there is one crucial component that I think is in need of consideration. It is, in fact, the most significant and elegant facet in the whole semantic gem:
Its sacred text is a compilation of all information that is absolutely and unerringly true, known as the Immutable Omnexicon. There can be no truth beyond its scope, and there is no falsehood within.
It is important to note that the above statement is a definition rather than an assertion. I'm sure we've all heard people claiming that their holy scriptures are true without the merest hint of rationale. Well, mine is true by default.
I'd like to see if anyone can challenge this.
I'm sure we've all heard people claiming that their holy scriptures are true without the merest hint of rationale. Well, mine is true by default.
Let's put aside the worries about theistic justification as I don't think you need this claim anyway. But this is what I'm seeing come out of this and why I'm having trouble engaging.
This Immutable Omnexicon contains all and only true information. Now to be clear, I can conceive of what this content would be like even I don't know what the content is. But herein lies the problem and the distinction to be drawn between this and 'traditional religion'. The question comes down to how we should think about the content of the Omnexicon.
Based on the idea that you are approach the content definitionally, then we might have something very close to the following:
NT: This sentence is necessarily true.
or alternatively:
NT*: The content of this sentence is necessarily true.
For a number of reasons, I don't think this is the way you want to go. But the reason that's crucial for your purposes is that neither NT nor NT* carry any weight with respect to... well... anything! In short, your argument won't be able to get off the ground with this understanding of the content of the Omnexicon.
The better approach, then, is to give some story about epistemic access. You could say, "Look, the Omnexicon contains all and only true information. We obviously don't have epistemic access to all truths, so we don't have access to the content of this book. But rest assured, the content is there and it does the work that I say it does."
This is at least conceivable and something I can get on board with. Plus, the Omnexicon can do some work for you under this conception of its content.
But here's the downside. The theist would claim that we *do* have epistemic access to the truths contained in their holy texts. This allows their texts to do a number of things:
1) They provide us with certain constraints on what we ought to believe (this is actually a dicey claim, but it's in the ballpark).
2) They are ethically normative - that is, they tell us how we ought to act or what kind of person we ought to be.
3) They provide us access to (alleged) truths that aren't obviously contained in the world around us.
It's pretty clear, however, that the Omnexicon can't accomplish any of these things. By having only a conceptual understanding of its content without proper epistemic access, we can't really say what - if anything - the Omnexicon can get for us. Does it oppose the evangelisation of other deities? It's not part of my conception of the truth contained therein, so I would be dubious about that claim. So it looks like we've ended up in the same boat as the previous option.
The better approach, then, is to give some story about epistemic access. You could say, "Look, the Omnexicon contains all and only true information. We obviously don't have epistemic access to all truths, so we don't have access to the content of this book. But rest assured, the content is there and it does the work that I say it does."
I would argue that we do have access to some part of its contents, in that we know some things which are true by necessity or true by definition. These things are among the contents as per its definition (and, therefore, the fact that they are among the contents is also among the contents).
But here's the downside. The theist would claim that we *do* have epistemic access to the truths contained in their holy texts.
Because the contents of these texts are presumed and not proven to be true, I consider their accessibility to be of minimal importance.
1) They provide us with certain constraints on what we ought to believe (this is actually a dicey claim, but it's in the ballpark).
Unless we were to make a concession for "white lies" or beliefs which are beneficial regardless of their truth value, what we "ought to believe" is what we know is true and what we oughtn't believe is what we know is false. Because the majority of the Omnexicon is unknown, any other belief is free to be held or discarded. This is why Logic/Skorggianism is not a mutually exclusive faith system.
2) They are ethically normative - that is, they tell us how we ought to act or what kind of person we ought to be.
I have no objection to this, as it is simply a means of behavioural guidance. It does not relate to veracity.
Does it oppose the evangelisation of other deities? It's not part of my conception of the truth contained therein, so I would be dubious about that claim.
It is not opposed to anything, as is not an instructional text. I am opposed to the practice because it propagates misunderstanding and ignorance.
The feedback of thought, the feedback of the senses, and the loss of things to be communicated. I don't argue what is logical and what is irrational because the thought is this: The basis of truth is blurred between rationalism and empiricism. I am skeptic that either one could hold the weight of truth. Mostly because of the problem being that as living creatures with are influenced as much as by our experience of body and not just the experience of mind. That is the act of a thought must reside in both domains. How do you acquire what you know? how do you determine what is truth? I find that you must answer these such questions before you can argue ideologies.
I find myself lost upon then vernacular and jargon that some present. I find it easier to understand things by stating things plainly and not entrenching it in such forms, it may be that I lack good sense to figure out the meanings of every word I come across, then again we would spend a lifetime just trying to understand such things. So if I missed the point of the thread, arguing some belief system or another then troll my guts until you are happy. The lines of communication traverse fields of static noise that boggle and garble ideas, and lead to ignorance more then the loss of willingness to conceive the true nature of this chaos we call thought.
I believe not in ignorance of knowledge but the deafness of space, a void in a minuscule amount of a space can consume stars, and the feedback of noise in existence is as blinding as the black depths of these holes. Ideas must cross this boundary for progress.
More random thoughts upon space.
Anyways, thread revival because it was linked whoomp...
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