Again:
If all one is interested in is noting a "flaw" in the language used to explain something, then the exchange can go on and on and on up in the didactic clouds that revolve around definitions and deductions.
But how is that connected to the physics, the chemistry and [with us] the biology of existence itself?
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm In fact, contemplating this is so utterly mind-boggling, it's still the closest I can now come to God. Him/Her/It being one possible explanation for existence, right? Until, again, you start to wonder if God too popped into existence out of nothing at all or has always existed.
I don't doubt that "in your head" the logic of this is impeccable. But, again, I'll wait for the folks in the scientific community to get around to documenting it one way or the other on Nova or on the Science Channel.
Here for example: https://www.sciencechannel.com/show/how ... ks-science
Or here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genres ... nology/all
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm No, what I question here are the limitations of logic in regard to such things as morality and religion and those really big metaphysical questions.
Indeed, in regard to physics and chemistry and geology and biology and and many other scientific disciplines, the precise relationship between words and worlds is astounding. Try getting astronauts on the moon or performing heart transplants or creating smart phones without it.
Instead, I focus more on the relationship between words and world in regard to things like morality and religion and the really, really big questions.
There we find any number of conflicting assumptions. And conflicting conclusions.
Right?
Only, sure, the objectivists among us refuse to accept that. They insist that how they think about these things is how all rational men and women are obligated to think about them in turn. Why? Because they provide us with arguments -- worlds of words -- up in the stratosphere of didactic intellectual exchanges in order to...to prove it.
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm Logic revolves around the rules of language. But human beings themselves...where do they fit into the complete understanding of existence itself? How on Earth can we determine if the human brain is even capable of grasping that?
No, in my view, just because brain matter has acquired the ability to think -- given free will of course -- doesn't necessarily establish that thinking brains have the capacity to grasp how existence itself came into existence. Well, other than by way of arguing a conclusion into existence by arguing -- in a world of words -- that only your own premises count in establishing that.
That is what you are doing here, right?
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm Webster's dictionary: "a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration: the science of the formal principles of reasoning"
A priori and a posteriori, how would we go about validating what we think is logically true here? Again, empirically, materially, phenomenologically.
Mathematics, science, and philosophy all intertwined in the definitive explanation?
Well, that settles that then.
Because my main interest in philosophy revolves around how others close the gap between what they think is true "in their head" about things like morality and religion and the Big Questions and what they can demonstrate using the tools of philosophy -- the philosophical equivalent of the scientific method -- all others are obligated to believe in turn if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.
And I'm all for anyone attempting to do that. Instead, the "flaw" in your conclusion is, in my view, the point I raise above about the limitations of logic that far out on the metaphysical limb.
Thus...
iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Jun 22, 2022 4:13 pm But how is [your logic] connected to the physics, the chemistry and [with us] the biology of existence itself?
Though I'm the first to admit that my own speculations here seem able to be nothing more than my own "wild-ass guess".
More rather than less educated guesses always work for me.
I just doubt that the puzzle that is existence itself will be solved in our lifetimes.
Then the part where you have managed to think yourself into believing that the existence of "I" transcends death itself or, instead, that's it's oblivion...then all the way back to "star stuff".