Theology Club: The Big Picture

[Desert Reign]

There are only three....

EVERY single truth conforms to the laws of reason - PERIOD!
ANY claim that does not conform to these laws if false - PERIOD!

Clete, I wasn't asking what the laws are or for a justification of their particular subject matter. I was asking where they are written down. This is only a natural question to ask about a set of laws. The fact that you say that they are laws does not make them laws. You say that 'these laws govern the mind'. I asked you effectively to justify that statement. I know where the laws of my country are written down. I know why I have to obey them. I understand that they have jurisdiction over me. When you speak of laws and of governing, I am expecting to find an authoritative repository of those laws and a context as to why they should be obeyed. I have asked you this question for a specific reason. It is obviously not something you have thought about before, otherwise you would have understood the question. Clearly you don't mean that they are just commonly accepted principles in the way you might speak of say 'Boyle's Law' because if you did, then your argument for their universal applicability would immediately lose its force. Your language was very specific: law and govern. So again, where are these laws written down and by what authority does the mind have to obey them?

When you have answered this, perhaps we can revisit my other question. I have changed my tack with you because it is clear that we do not yet speak the same language and are talking past each other, and I feel that perhaps a question-answer style might make more progress.

I can post you links to the volumes of philosophical treatises that have been written on these issues or you can explain what the relevance would be to doing so.

Remember, it was you who said that these laws govern the mind. I want to unpick exactly what it is you mean by that. I know what the laws are to which you refer, I agree with them as statements of logic but your assertion that they are laws over the mind is more than a statement of your opinion about some logical matter.

 

[Clete]

Clete, I wasn't asking what the laws are or for a justification of their particular subject matter. I was asking where they are written down. This is only a natural question to ask about a set of laws. The fact that you say that they are laws does not make them laws. You say that 'these laws govern the mind'. I asked you effectively to justify that statement. I know where the laws of my country are written down. I know why I have to obey them. I understand that they have jurisdiction over me. When you speak of laws and of governing, I am expecting to find an authoritative repository of those laws and a context as to why they should be obeyed. I have asked you this question for a specific reason. It is obviously not something you have thought about before, otherwise you would have understood the question. Clearly you don't mean that they are just commonly accepted principles in the way you might speak of say 'Boyle's Law' because if you did, then your argument for their universal applicability would immediately lose its force. Your language was very specific: law and govern. So again, where are these laws written down and by what authority does the mind have to obey them?

Laws that only exist because they are written down (codified) are a completely different thing than the sort of law I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a set of guidelines or list of best practices, I'm talking about a law. The sort of law that you CANNOT avoid. Where is the law of gravity written down?

And I answered specifically why these laws must be obeyed. First of all, you cannot deny their veracity without employing the very laws you wish to undermine and they are therefore irrefragable. But secondly, and just as importantly, while you can avoid the act of thinking, you cannot avoid the consequences of that choice. Just as you can choose to walk off a cliff, refusing in your mind to acknowledge the abyss' existence, you CANNOT avoid the very sudden and quite lethal stop that comes when you reach the bottom. So, as I said, reason and the laws that describe its proper use, only conforms your mind to the limitations of reality. It is reality that is the policeman who enforces these laws. Ayn Rand put it more eloquently than I am capable...

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”​

When you have answered this, perhaps we can revisit my other question. I have changed my tack with you because it is clear that we do not yet speak the same language and are talking past each other, and I feel that perhaps a question-answer style might make more progress. Remember, it was you who said that these laws govern the mind. I want to unpick exactly what it is you mean by that. I know what the laws are to which you refer, I agree with them as statements of logic but your assertion that they are laws over the mind is more than a statement of your opinion about some logical matter.

Excellent plan! I look forward to it!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Arsenios]

Laws that only exist because they are written down (codified) are a completely different thing than the sort of law I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a set of guidelines or list of best practices, I'm talking about a law. The sort of law that you CANNOT avoid. Where is the law of gravity written down?

Good point - Natural Law is not legalistic, as he was insisting...

otoh - People run from reason to fantasy all the time, so that the reasonable laws of logic are not their motivating premise, and indeed, as Ayn Rand observes, they forsake reality for the sake of fantasy, and the expense of a materially relevant existence...

And I answered specifically why these laws must be obeyed.

Rand's whole point is that they are NOT being obeyed, but are being forsaken...

First of all, you cannot deny their veracity without employing the very laws you wish to undermine and they are therefore irrefragable.

Wesley Mouch sure did - "If I don't FEEL LIKE being reasonable, I DON'T HAVE TO..."

But secondly, and just as importantly, while you can avoid the act of thinking, you cannot avoid the consequences of that choice.

True enough, but for ol' Wes, he preferred fantasy, which placed him at odds with OBJECTive reality...

Just as you can choose to walk off a cliff, refusing in your mind to acknowledge the abyss' existence, you CANNOT avoid the very sudden and quite lethal stop that comes when you reach the bottom.

Mentally ill people struggle with this all the time...

So, as I said, reason and the laws that describe its proper use, only conforms your mind to the limitations of reality. It is reality that is the policeman who enforces these laws. Ayn Rand put it more eloquently than I am capable...

No question:

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”​

She is describing compartmentalization of the mind, where certain areas are "off limits" to outsiders, generally involving some depravity or other, which She refers to as a "FOG"... She did not have a cure for this fog, but only a condemnation of it... Which does not overcome it, but merely buries it further into its compartment, where it gains more power, and is consecrated to the destruction of the soul doing it...

Sociopaths who commit horrendous and hideous crimes have been taken over by the fog they once condemned in themselves, then embraced when it got too much for them to suppress... In terms of worldly life, focusing on the good and suppressing the evil in one's own soul is a good thing... In terms of a Christian Live, focusing on God and destroying the evil in one's own soul is a much higher calling, for it entails an assault on evil within one's self, and the reward is not a great train crossing the continental divide, but union with the Creator of the Kosmos in which that great train is but a worm, and less than a worm... For it has no life, but only its mechanical devices, however computerized and thermodynamically integrated...

She had a good grasp of what it took to live nobly and honorably in a physical universe, but she had no cure for the evil in men's souls, but only how to condemn it in personal integrity of soul and self-affirmation... The cure, you see, comes in denial of self, and only for one who comes to the end of the value of materiality...

At that point, the only direction is inward in stillness of words and of mind, calling on the Name of the Lord, and the knowledge there encountered is antecedent to the creation of concepts in the intellect, and the words which signify these concepts... It is a primordial knowing that is the knowing of God in union with Him which He alone can give to us... And for which His Son died on the Cross that we should inherit with Him Life Eternal...

Arsenios

 

[Nihilo]

Nihilo, I don't accept the reality of the flying elephant.

But you do accept its existence.

Wittgenstein was an ok chappy and did some good work. But he didn't go far enough and if your interpretation of him is that you can say that a flying elephant is real then it shows how actually unrealistic your views are. You are speaking a language that no one else understands.

But you do accept its existence.

I'm no fanboi of Wittgenstein, and I think the work he did was foundational. Whereas philosophy historically has been a case of putting the cart before the horse writ large, he put the horse and cart in their proper, logical, linguistic, order.

Wittgenstein did not believe the Catholic faith as far as I can ascertain. He was baptized Catholic as an infant I believe, but in none of his work that I've read do I see anything resembling overt or even suggestive faith in our Lord. But his work regarding language in my limited estimation is par excellence.

Also, I wouldn't say that it is due to my interpretation of his work that I hold to my views, just that his work informed my views. My views are first and foremost Catholic.

BTW, what did you mean in saying that W. "didn't go far enough?" As far as I can tell, he went literally as far as you can go, which is all the way down to the bottom; linguistic and logical bedrock. His Tractatus did this. His subsequent work dealt with the matter I raised earlier in this thread, which I call inadvertent equivocation, and he fashioned the expression "language games" in order to explain this rampant phenomenon.

 

[Arsenios]

Wittgenstein ... was foundational.
He put the horse and cart in their proper, logical, linguistic, order.
He went literally as far as you can go
All the way down to the bottom;
linguistic and logical bedrock.
He fashioned the expression "language games"
in order to explain this rampant phenomenon.

Could I be so bold as to ask which horse and which cart and which order?

The bottom of linguistics would seem to be epistemological...

The bottom of epistemology is metaphysics...

As a Catholic, what is your theory of causation?

Arsenios

 

[Nihilo]

Could I be so bold as to ask which horse and which cart and which order?

The bottom of linguistics would seem to be epistemological...

The bottom of epistemology is metaphysics...

Clete calls it the Law of Identity. I call it tautology. This is the bottom; the trivial bottom. Triviality doesn't mean false, nor necessarily insignificant. It's the bottom of math (there called "equation"), and the bottom of logic (tautology or W.'s "logical proposition," if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not be---I need to confirm) and the bottom of language. Maybe other things, but those three anyway, and my opinion is that there is really only language, and maths and logic are contained within and compose language---they just have special vocabularies and symbologies or systems of symbols or signs; and special, as regards what we colloquially know as language. A lexicon or dictionary is a type of straddling between these---in some sense, artificial---divisions.

As a Catholic

Theologically.

what is your theory of causation?

What do you mean? Do I believe in causation? How do things work? Are you asking about divine providence?

Arsenios

:e4e:

 

[Desert Reign]

Laws that only exist because they are written down (codified) are a completely different thing than the sort of law I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a set of guidelines or list of best practices, I'm talking about a law. The sort of law that you CANNOT avoid. Where is the law of gravity written down?

But this is the sort of question I was asking you. Here is the full list of meanings given by the Oxford online:

[mass noun] (often the law) The system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties: shooting the birds is against the law they were taken to court for breaking the law [as modifier]: law enforcement

1.1 [count noun] An individual rule as part of a system of law: a new law was passed to make divorce easier and simpler
1.2 Systems of law as a subject of study or as the basis of the legal profession: he was still practising law [as modifier]: a law firm law students
1.3 Statute law and the common law. Compare with equity.
1.4 Something regarded as having binding force or effect: he had supreme control—what he said was law
1.5 (the law) informal The police: he’d never been in trouble with the law in his life
2 A rule defining correct procedure or behaviour in a sport: the laws of the game
3 A statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present: the second law of thermodynamics
3.1 A generalization based on a fact or event perceived to be recurrent: the first law of American corporate life is that dead wood floats
4 [mass noun] The body of divine commandments as expressed in the Bible or other religious texts.
4.1 (the Law) The Pentateuch as distinct from the other parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Prophets and the Writings).
4.2 (also the Law of Moses) The precepts of the Pentateuch.

You can see readily that the 'law of gravity' comes under 3 in the above list. But the 'law of identity' or the 'law of the excluded middle' don't figure in any of the definitions above. You ask me a rhetorical question: 'where is the law of gravity written down?' as if you expect the answer 'The law of gravity is not written down anywhere.' And so your point is that some laws do not have to be written down in order to be valid and that the law of identity is one of them. What you seem to be saying commits the logical fallacy of misuse of analogy. The common feature of all the above definitions is that something is written down. Or spoken. Gravity is unavoidable but clearly the law of identity is not. Many do indeed flout it, as your own favoured philosopher Ayn Rand also says. On our own doorstep, Arsenios flouts it in almost every post.

And I answered specifically why these laws must be obeyed. First of all, you cannot deny their veracity without employing the very laws you wish to undermine and they are therefore irrefragable.

You are not mixing like with like here. Lots of things are true without them having to be laws. Denying something's veracity doesn't amount to undermining a law. Arsenios doesn't deny the truth of 'the law of identity' yet he flouts it. He doesn't use logic to flout it. He is simply the antithesis of the concept; all his writings are imbued with illogicality. The fact that this is so does not make identity a law, even though it makes talking to him sensibly difficult.

But secondly, and just as importantly, while you can avoid the act of thinking, you cannot avoid the consequences of that choice. Just as you can choose to walk off a cliff, refusing in your mind to acknowledge the abyss' existence, you CANNOT avoid the very sudden and quite lethal stop that comes when you reach the bottom. So, as I said, reason and the laws that describe its proper use, only conforms your mind to the limitations of reality. It is reality that is the policeman who enforces these laws.

As I said above, your use of the 'law of gravity' as an example isn't a valid comparison with 'laws of logic' because clearly many people can and do contravene these laws.

And the law of gravity is indeed written down. That's why it is called a law. See the definition above. "statement of fact". Of course the law of gravity before Newton was this: 'What goes up must come down.' and that law was written down often or transmitted verbally and stored in people's memories. People accepted it because it related to their shared experiences. But this law was wrong. And when Newton expressed gravity in a more mathematical way, everyone drooled and the law of gravity became a new law: F = (m1 x m2)/r^2. But even though this new law existed, as did the previous law, Newton was wrong and yet a different law has been formulated by Einstein. These laws all differed but they were all testable by observation and they were all written down and they are not absolute in the way you appear to be claiming of the law of identity.

 

[Clete]

But this is the sort of question I was asking you. Here is the full list of meanings given by the Oxford online:



You can see readily that the 'law of gravity' comes under 3A in the above list. But the 'law of identity' or the 'law of the excluded middle' don't figure in any of the definitions above. You ask me a rhetorical question: 'where is the law of gravity written down?' as if you expect the answer 'The law of gravity is not written down anywhere.' And so your point is that some laws do not have to be written down in order to be valid and that the law of identity is one of them. What you seem to be saying commits the logical fallacy of misuse of analogy. The common feature of all the above definitions is that something is written down. Or spoken. Gravity is unavoidable but clearly the law of identity is not. Many do indeed flout it, as your own favoured philosopher Ayn Rand also says. On our own doorstep, Arsenios flouts it in almost every post.

As I said, thinking is not automatic. You can choose to blur your mind and refuse to think but you CANNOT choose to avoid the consequences of doing so. The Law of Identity CANNOT be avoided - period! It can be ignored but that isn't the same thing. A thing is what it is whether we focus on it, ignore it, like it or lump it. It makes no difference what we do, think, say, want or wish. A thing is what it is - period. There can be no other law, whether natural or otherwise without the law of identity. No thought is even possible without the law of identity, even if the thinker has no understanding or awareness of the law.

You are not mixing like with like here. Lots of things are true without them having to be laws. Denying something's veracity doesn't amount to undermining a law. Arsenios doesn't deny the truth of 'the law of identity' yet he flouts it. He doesn't use logic to flout it. He is simply the antithesis of the concept; all his writings are imbued with illogicality. The fact that this is so does not make identity a law, even though it makes talking to him sensibly difficult.

While it is not a perfect analogy (no analogy ever is), I most certainly am not committing any logical fallacy by comparing the law of identity to the law gravity. You can ignore the law of gravity if you want but you cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. You can refuse to see the abyss but that will not make it go away or prevent you from falling in.

And in the case of the Laws of Reason, the issue is even more pronounced than ignoring a law of nature because in order to deny the veracity of a law of reason, you MUST use the laws of reason to communicate the denial! You CANNOT deny, flout, ignore nor even object to a law of reason without contradicting yourself. The very first word you utter in any attempt to undermine the laws of reason, uses the laws of reason in order to have meaning. The laws of reason are therefore utterly irrefragable.

As I said above, your use of the 'law of gravity' as an example isn't a valid comparison with 'laws of logic' because clearly many people can and do contravene these laws.

No they don't, DR. Not in any valid way they don't.

Once again, you are free to choose to blur your mind, you are not free to escape the consequences of that choice. Just as you are free to refuse food, you are not free to avoid starvation if you persist in that choice. You can attempt to wipe out reality but reality will only wipe out the wiper.

And the law of gravity is indeed written down. That's why it is called a law.

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!

Holy crap! Is that statement false!

The law of gravity was discovered, not codified! It existed long before written language. If the law of gravity didn't exist before it was written down, Newton most likely would have been floating near the ceiling of his office when he figured it out and then come crashing to the floor once he figured out how to keep his ink from flying out if the ink bottle long enough for him to use his pen to write it down.

What was written down was not the actual law but was simply the nature of reality put into words. Likewise, when Aristotle wrote down the laws of reason, he was not inventing them, nor did they come into existence with the writing. Aristotle simply put the nature of reality into words.

See the definition above. "statement of fact". Of course the law of gravity before Newton was this: 'What goes up must come down.' and that law was written down often or transmitted verbally and stored in people's memories. People accepted it because it related to their shared experiences. But this law was wrong. And when Newton expressed gravity in a more mathematical way, everyone drooled and the law of gravity became a new law: F = (m1 x m2)/r^2. But even though this new law existed, as did the previous law, Newton was wrong and yet a different law has been formulated by Einstein. These laws all differed but they were all testable by observation and they were all written down and they are not absolute in the way you appear to be claiming of the law of identity.

You are only discussing different descriptions of the same law! Gravity didn't change because Newton's description was incomplete (he WAS NOT wrong, by the way), nor did it change when Einstein described it as being a curvature of a non-existent "space-time" which he made up out of whole cloth without observation or experimentation in order to make the math of his thought experiments come out right. I'm not interested in debating the veracity of Relativity with you though. Suffice it to say that regardless of what causes it, IT IS WHAT IT IS. Gravity is gravity, regardless of who's description is most accurate. A is A.

Note: If the above dictionary list is incomplete because it is an online extract from a longer list, then it still seems unlikely to me that any more complete list would contain items which do not conform to the general principle I have outlined, namely that the law must be written down. In any case, your own chosen example, the law of gravity, certainly does not support your case at all.

You need to try again. A "law", in this context, is an aspect of reality. It's not any more complicated than that.

More importantly, no law, of any sort, nor even any claim, idea or concept of any kind whatsoever can have any meaning or application without the use of the laws of reason.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Arsenios]

Clete calls it the Law of Identity. I call it tautology. This is the bottom; the trivial bottom. Triviality doesn't mean false, nor necessarily insignificant. It's the bottom of math (there called "equation"), and the bottom of logic (tautology or W.'s "logical proposition," if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not be---I need to confirm) and the bottom of language. Maybe other things, but those three anyway, and my opinion is that there is really only language, and maths and logic are contained within and compose language---they just have special vocabularies and symbologies or systems of symbols or signs; and special, as regards what we colloquially know as language. A lexicon or dictionary is a type of straddling between these---in some sense, artificial---divisions.

Forgive my denseness - I kinda fixated on cart and horse - The tautology is the horse and the sciences in which it functions are the carts?

Theologically.
What do you mean? Do I believe in causation? How do things work? Are you asking about divine providence?
:e4e:

Christian etiology...

In Orthodoxy, it is ongoing creation by God, and hence is entirely mysterious, however mathematically predictable...
And it proceeds according to the Providence of God...
Every detail...
Of all Creation...
Nanosecond to nanosecond...

A RADICALLY Christian understanding of causation within creation...

And outside this, the Uncreated Creator of Creation, we cannot apprehend...

We KNOW God only as Creator of creation... [in His Creative Energies]

We do NOT know Him in Himself at all [eg according to His Essence]

This knowledge is identity - eg Union with God according to His Creative Energies...

And according to our purity of heart...

Arsenios

 

[Nihilo]

Forgive my denseness - I kinda fixated on cart and horse - The tautology is the horse and the sciences in which it functions are the carts?

Simpler. Language rests upon and in fact works at all, because of tautology, the Law of Identity, or equation. Words or units of meaning, mean something, and at their most basic, they mean at the very least themselves. In math any number n is equal to itself. n=n, whatever n may be.

In language (colloquially) words mean themselves, and we also define words, so we construct a linguistic equation, where a single word (or phrase) is equal to a set of words (the definition).

In the beginning, Adam gave names to the animals, thus one of the very first things that Adam did was to "define by pointing," or "ostensive" definition. He pointed to a tiger and said, "Tiger." A tiger is a tiger. Tautology.

Without recognizing tautology, we risk talking endlessly about words that may refer to nothing more than themselves, and this is what W. accused philosophy, as a methodology or practice, of doing for centuries, and that is what I meant by putting the cart before the horse. The horse is tautology, and everything else that we say is the cart. Philosophers and other thinkers have been talking and talking without acknowledging how language works, what supports it, what gives it its unique ability to be useful in not only communication but in thought itself.

Christian etiology...

In Orthodoxy, it is ongoing creation by God, and hence is entirely mysterious, however mathematically predictable...
And it proceeds according to the Providence of God...
Every detail...
Of all Creation...
Nanosecond to nanosecond...

A RADICALLY Christian understanding of causation within creation...

And outside this, the Uncreated Creator of Creation, we cannot apprehend...

We KNOW God only as Creator of creation... [in His Creative Energies]

We do NOT know Him in Himself at all [eg according to His Essence]

This knowledge is identity - eg Union with God according to His Creative Energies...

And according to our purity of heart...

Arsenios

My first thought is that when Moses asked our Maker Whom he should say sent him, our Maker replied Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. A tautology. We cannot say anything without invoking Him.

 

[Clete]

Clete calls it the Law of Identity. I call it tautology. This is the bottom; the trivial bottom. Triviality doesn't mean false, nor necessarily insignificant. It's the bottom of math (there called "equation"), and the bottom of logic (tautology or W.'s "logical proposition," if I'm remembering correctly, which I may not be---I need to confirm) and the bottom of language. Maybe other things, but those three anyway, and my opinion is that there is really only language, and maths and logic are contained within and compose language---they just have special vocabularies and symbologies or systems of symbols or signs; and special, as regards what we colloquially know as language. A lexicon or dictionary is a type of straddling between these---in some sense, artificial---divisions.
Theologically.
What do you mean? Do I believe in causation? How do things work? Are you asking about divine providence?
:e4e:

The Law of Identity is a logical tautology (of which there are many) but is in not a rhetorical tautology which is an altogether different thing, at least not in the pejorative sense in which it is typically meant.

Typically, unless you are discussing logic in a very formal setting, the use of the word 'tautology' would be confusing at best and flat out wrong at worst. The normal use of the term 'tautology' is still consistent with the original Greek use of the word which refers to a statement that is true based solely on the fact that it says the same thing twice using different words. "The boss is in charge." is a good example of what people usually mean when they use the term 'tautology'. A logical tautology, on the other hand, is a statement that is true regardless of the interpretation or variation of variables. All three of the laws of reason are, in that sense, tautological but saying that is only grounds for confusion unless someone takes the time to draw the distinction between logical vs rhetorical tautologies.

You could say that the expression, A is A, is both a logical and rhetorical tautology and I supposed that is where the use of the term in logic circles was derived. The point being that the use of the term is, in my view, only a high minded, ivory tower sort of way to say that all logical "tautologies" are derivations of the Law of Identity.

 

[Arsenios]

Simpler. Language rests upon and in fact works at all, because of tautology, the Law of Identity, or equation. Words or units of meaning, mean something, and at their most basic, they mean at the very least themselves. In math any number n is equal to itself. n=n, whatever n may be.

In language (colloquially) words mean themselves, and we also define words, so we construct a linguistic equation, where a single word (or phrase) is equal to a set of words (the definition).

In the beginning, Adam gave names to the animals, thus one of the very first things that Adam did was to "define by pointing," or "ostensive" definition. He pointed to a tiger and said, "Tiger." A tiger is a tiger. Tautology.

Without recognizing tautology, we risk talking endlessly about words that may refer to nothing more than themselves, and this is what W. accused philosophy, as a methodology or practice, of doing for centuries, and that is what I meant by putting the cart before the horse. The horse is tautology, and everything else that we say is the cart. Philosophers and other thinkers have been talking and talking without acknowledging how language works, what supports it, what gives it its unique ability to be useful in not only communication but in thought itself.

how does this get one out from the Cartesian Box? You still have the dualism of knower and known, and tautology is first about the thought itself, and secondly about the object of the thought itself and the relationship is still not bridgable...

In Christianity, the identity of perceiver with perceived is attained without words in union with God...

This identity is knowledge... One becomes one with that which one knows... God gives it...

eg You will KNOW what a person is experiencing by co-experiencing it with him by God's Grace...

Hence knowledge is neither verbal nor conceptual but experiential by Grace...

Arsenios

 

[Desert Reign]

As I said, thinking is not automatic. You can choose to blur your mind and refuse to think but you CANNOT choose to avoid the consequences of doing so. The Law of Identity CANNOT be avoided - period! It can be ignored but that isn't the same thing. A thing is what it is whether we focus on it, ignore it, like it or lump it. It makes no difference what we do, think, say, want or wish. A thing is what it is - period. There can be no other law, whether natural or otherwise without the law of identity. No thought is even possible without the law of identity, even if the thinker has no understanding or awareness of the law.

While it is not a perfect analogy (no analogy ever is), I most certainly am not committing any logical fallacy by comparing the law of identity to the law gravity. You can ignore the law of gravity if you want but you cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. You can refuse to see the abyss but that will not make it go away or prevent you from falling in.

Clete, thanks for your answer.
However, you still seem to be avoiding the issue which I have asked about plainly.
I may never have heard of the law of gravity. But gravity makes me stick to the earth. I can't avoid that. There are two things here:
1, Gravity
2. A law of gravity.
It is not the law of gravity that pulls me down to earth but gravity that pulls me down.

What you are doing is this: Because you know that gravity operates all over the earth, let us say 'universal', because it is unavoidable, you transfer that unavoidability to the law of gravity. You then say that the law itself is unavoidable. Laws are forms of words. The reason why you call it a law is because gravity itself is unavoidable. But the first law of gravity was 'What goes up must come down.' This law was proven wrong. The second law of gravity was formulated by Newton, which I stated before. That law, too, was wrong. It was supposed to be universally applicable, but it wasn't. The fact that these laws were wrong has no effect on the power of gravity. Gravity still operates whether the law of gravity is right or wrong. Please tell me that you understand this distinction, because everything you have said in your post indicates to me me that either you don't understand it or you don't accept it.

And in the case of the Laws of Reason, the issue is even more pronounced than ignoring a law of nature because in order to deny the veracity of a law of reason, you MUST use the laws of reason to communicate the denial! You CANNOT deny, flout, ignore nor even object to a law of reason without contradicting yourself. The very first word you utter in any attempt to undermine the laws of reason, uses the laws of reason in order to have meaning. The laws of reason are therefore utterly irrefragable.

1) reason itself is not the same thing as a law of reason. What you mean is that reason itself is irrefragable.

2) According to what you have just written, the law of reason is not absolute. You say it has the form 'This law cannot be denied without resulting in self-contradiction.' So it can indeed be denied. Nothing stops you from denying it. You may have to contradict yourself, but that isn't an obstacle to denying it. Earlier, you said that there were laws of reason which govern the mind. They simply don't. You have this problem because whilst reason itself proves that you have just contradicted yourself, the law of reason, as a law, can be broken. It is your equating law with what the law points to, which is your mistake. The same is true for gravity. You think it is absolute, but it can be broken easily. It was broken when the first space vehicle left earth orbit. Newton's laws were broken when gravitational lensing was discovered. Einstein's laws do not hold at galactic level as far as we can tell. Your insistence that if I jump into a chasm I will pay for it is irrelevant. All you are doing is creating one example that suits your point. All it does is illustrate that gravity is real. It does not prove that the law of gravity is correct.

 

[Nihilo]

The Law of Identity is a logical tautology

Is that so? Or is it that a logical tautology is an example of the Law of Identity?

(of which there are many) but is in not a rhetorical tautology which is an altogether different thing, at least not in the pejorative sense in which it is typically meant.

In the pejorative sense, right, which is more of a connotation, while I think that even the pejorative rhetorical sense denotes precisely what I've been referring to, so long as the repetition is a genuine repetition and not inadvertent equivocation.

Typically, unless you are discussing logic in a very formal setting, the use of the word 'tautology' would be confusing at best and flat out wrong at worst. The normal use of the term 'tautology' is still consistent with the original Greek use of the word which refers to a statement that is true based solely on the fact that it says the same thing twice using different words.

Yes, I have only been using tautology in the logical sense because while I had been aware of its rhetorical sense, I have never personally either used it that way nor heard or read anyone else do so, and I presumptuously supposed that this was the case for most everybody else. My bad.

"The boss is in charge." is a good example of what people usually mean when they use the term 'tautology'. A logical tautology, on the other hand, is a statement that is true regardless of the interpretation or variation of variables. All three of the laws of reason are, in that sense, tautological but saying that is only grounds for confusion unless someone takes the time to draw the distinction between logical vs rhetorical tautologies.

"The boss is in charge" is a definition. Do you take definitions to be instantiations of the Law of Identity, as I take them to be tautologous?

You could say that the expression, A is A, is both a logical and rhetorical tautology and I supposed that is where the use of the term in logic circles was derived.

I don't know. I know that Wittgenstein latched onto the word and popularized its use in that field.

The point being that the use of the term is, in my view, only a high minded, ivory tower sort of way to say that all logical "tautologies" are derivations of the Law of Identity.

I didn't know I was being offensive, my apologies. Can you suggest another word instead, that denotes exactly the same things? I'm not stuck on tautology, I considered platitude, but they platitudes are not all derivations of the Law of Identity. And do you equate derivations and instantiations of the Law of Identity, or are they different things?

Thanks.

 

[Nihilo]

how does this get one out from the Cartesian Box? You still have the dualism of knower and known, and tautology is first about the thought itself, and secondly about the object of the thought itself and the relationship is still not bridgable...

In Christianity, the identity of perceiver with perceived is attained without words in union with God...

This identity is knowledge... One becomes one with that which one knows... God gives it...

eg You will KNOW what a person is experiencing by co-experiencing it with him by God's Grace...

Hence knowledge is neither verbal nor conceptual but experiential by Grace...

Arsenios

My understanding is that the single highest mountain we can climb in regard to truly experientially knowing our Maker, is in the Eucharist. Is this in line with the Holy Orthodox view?

 

[Arsenios]

My understanding is that
the single highest mountain we can climb
in regard to truly experientially knowing our Maker,
is in the Eucharist.
Is this in line with the Holy Orthodox view?

Ask Paul:

2Co 12:2-6
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth
such an one caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man,
(whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth
How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Of such an one will I glory:
yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool;
for I will say the truth:
but now I forbear,
lest any man should think of me above
that which he seeth me to be,
or that he heareth of me.

Or ask Iakovos, Peter and John:

Mat 17:1-8 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother,
and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
And was transfigured before them:
and his face did shine as the sun,
and his raiment was white as the light.
And, behold, there appeared unto them
Moses and Elias talking with him.
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus,
Lord, it is good for us to be here:
if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles;
one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.

The Eucharist is Food and Drink...
Unto Union in the Marriage of the Lamb...

It is the Marriage that describes...
The Millieu of the Saints...

I have no idea what the experience of a Saint receiving Communion might be...

Arsenios

 

[Nihilo]

Ask Paul:

2Co 12:2-6
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago,
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth
such an one caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man,
(whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth
How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Of such an one will I glory:
yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool;
for I will say the truth:
but now I forbear,
lest any man should think of me above
that which he seeth me to be,
or that he heareth of me.

Or ask Iakovos, Peter and John:

Mat 17:1-8 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother,
and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
And was transfigured before them:
and his face did shine as the sun,
and his raiment was white as the light.
And, behold, there appeared unto them
Moses and Elias talking with him.
Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus,
Lord, it is good for us to be here:
if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles;
one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.

OK, but short of actually being an Apostle in Judea on the holy mount with our Lord physically, and being taken up into the third heaven, here is more what I'm referring to:

I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. 1st Corinthians 10:15-17​

The Eucharist is Food and Drink...
Unto Union in the Marriage of the Lamb...

It is the Marriage that describes...
The Millieu of the Saints...

I have no idea what the experience of a Saint receiving Communion might be...

Nor I.

Arsenios

Best regards.

 

[Nihilo]

Arsenios, I also was thinking about this:

1324 The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.​

 

[Arsenios]

Arsenios, I also was thinking about this:

1324 The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.​

All of which is true -
But the Holy Transfiguration of our Lord on Mt. Tabor was not Holy Communion...
Nor was Paul's ascent to the 3rd heaven...
Nor was the ascent of Moses...
Nor Elijah's ascent as he passed from this earth bodily...
Nor Elisha's reception of the Mantle and the parting of the Jordan...
And on and on and on...
We partake of the Divine Body and Blood UNTO the Marriage of the Lamb...

And AFTER that Marriage, we are both clueless as to what the experience of the partaking of the Holy Gifts might be...

Arsenios

 

[Clete]

Sorry for the delayed response! I've had family over for the last week and haven't had any opportunity to post.

Clete, thanks for your answer.
However, you still seem to be avoiding the issue which I have asked about plainly.
I may never have heard of the law of gravity. But gravity makes me stick to the earth. I can't avoid that. There are two things here:
1, Gravity
2. A law of gravity.
It is not the law of gravity that pulls me down to earth but gravity that pulls me down.

What you are doing is this: Because you know that gravity operates all over the earth, let us say 'universal', because it is unavoidable, you transfer that unavoidability to the law of gravity. You then say that the law itself is unavoidable. Laws are forms of words. The reason why you call it a law is because gravity itself is unavoidable. But the first law of gravity was 'What goes up must come down.' This law was proven wrong. The second law of gravity was formulated by Newton, which I stated before. That law, too, was wrong. It was supposed to be universally applicable, but it wasn't. The fact that these laws were wrong has no effect on the power of gravity. Gravity still operates whether the law of gravity is right or wrong. Please tell me that you understand this distinction, because everything you have said in your post indicates to me me that either you don't understand it or you don't accept it.

I use the law of gravity as an analogy and if you like you can drop the word 'law' if you wish. I am not talking about ink on paper or any description of reality but rather reality itself. No understanding of which is at all possible unless A is A. And in the same sense that you cannot walk off a cliff and expect not to fall to the bottom, you CANNOT reject, ignore or undermine the fact that A is A without a similar fate.

Now, you can write it down or not; you can call that a law or not, it is what it is because A is A regardless of what we call it or whether we call it anything or even bother to acknowledge it.

All of which, by the way, I am quite certain you agree with so I still can't figure out what your point is.

1) reason itself is not the same thing as a law of reason. What you mean is that reason itself is irrefragable.

No, I mean both. A is A. Attempt to refute that and you'll have to use it as though it were true in order to make your argument. It is utterly, totally, completely and in all ways and in all contexts irrefragable - period.

2) According to what you have just written, the law of reason is not absolute. You say it has the form 'This law cannot be denied without resulting in self-contradiction.' So it can indeed be denied. Nothing stops you from denying it. You may have to contradict yourself, but that isn't an obstacle to denying it. Earlier, you said that there were laws of reason which govern the mind. They simply don't. You have this problem because whilst reason itself proves that you have just contradicted yourself, the law of reason, as a law, can be broken.

That's what makes it a law, DR! There are people who insist that they are aliens from another planet, that doesn't it true! You know why it doesn't make it true? It's because no amount of irrational stupidity can counteract 'A is A'! No amount of blurring your mind and refusing to see reality for what it is, changes reality in the slightest! Reality is real and we don't get any say in the matter. Therefore A is A is a LAW. It doesn't have to be acknowledged, understood, used or even thought about to be true. It is true because reality is real. Just because someone thinks that they can out think reality and attempts to make some argument that refutes the laws of reason, only means that the arguer is either ignorant or stupid or both. Making an argument that attempts to refute the laws of reason is not the same thing as actually refuting the laws of reason. The laws of reason cannot be refuted. You can try but the point is you WILL fail - every time. This is the reason it can be rightly called a law.

It is your equating law with what the law points to, which is your mistake. The same is true for gravity. You think it is absolute, but it can be broken easily. It was broken when the first space vehicle left earth orbit. Newton's laws were broken when gravitational lensing was discovered. Einstein's laws do not hold at galactic level as far as we can tell. Your insistence that if I jump into a chasm I will pay for it is irrelevant. All you are doing is creating one example that suits your point. All it does is illustrate that gravity is real. It does not prove that the law of gravity is correct.

Nature is not self-contradictory. It does not break its own laws because it cannot break its own laws. The law of gravity is merely an analogy. If Newton was wrong, which he wasn't by the way, the only way you could ever discover his error is because A is A. The law of gravity, in all it's various incarnations have only examples of man's use of the laws of reason in an attempt to understand the available data. If our understanding of gravity is wrong, (I submit without argument that our current understanding of gravity is further from the truth than it was 100 years ago,) then either there was an error or omission in the data or there was an error in our logic or perhaps both. The point being that just as the law of gravity (i.e. the fact that gravity works) remained intact despite our misunderstanding of it, so too do the laws of reason survive our misuse of them. This is because they are aspects of the reality in which we exist and are as such, laws we must obey or die.

---------------

Now, having said all that, all of which you agree with, what's the point?

I get that Fg = G x ((m1 x m2)/ R2) is not gravity itself but merely an idea expressed to describe it. The laws of reason are a bit different though because they are ideas not objects or forces of nature. 'A is A' PERFECTLY communicates the law of identity and cannot be wrong in any context. I'm not sure that I understand what the actually difference is between the words 'A is A' and the meaning those words convey. Ideas cannot be communicated except through language so what's the point of even making the distinction? Whether I write it down or simply understand conceptually that A is A, what's the difference?


Resting in Him,
Clete