The theological significance of God’s laws
Would it be correct in your opinion to say this:
- The philosophical meaning of Goel’s theorems is this: logic points to its limitations and, therefore, its dependence on extra-logical reality.
- Logical reality is fundamentally examined through opposites (the law of identity and the law of contradiction).
- If there is an extra-logical reality (on which logic itself depends), then there are no contradictions in this reality at all. After all, if we could attribute such contradictions to it, that reality would not be beyond the grasp of our thought (logic).
- The complete absence of contradictions in that “external” reality makes that reality a very likely candidate for the role traditionally attributed to God (unity/lack of parts/lack of change, etc.).
- Theorems 1-4 are the central principle underlying the ontological proof.
Do you understand my statements?
Do you agree with them or some of them?
Disagree with 1. I don’t understand what “extra-logical reality” is. As far as I understand, there is no such animal. Anyway, I don’t know what to say about the rest.
Extra-logical reality:
According to your view, as I understand it, the analytic position tries to place the whole of reality on logic, that is, on language. According to this approach, there is no place for dualism, that is, there is no content for our claims about reality.
The synthetic position, in contrast, holds that there is an ontology separate from the literal (logical) description itself. There is an extra-logical reality.
Isn't this your position?
You didn't understand my point. An analytic is someone who thinks that the logical is the essence of everything. That is, he only accepts the conclusions of valid logical arguments (and not analogies or inductions, etc.). He believes that everything beyond logic (like values, for example, or metaphysics) is worthless and subjective. The synthetic also accepts softer arguments, and not just logical deductions. But he also, of course, doesn't accept what is beyond logic in the sense of accepting contradictions, because there is no such animal. It's just nonsense.
So it seems to me that I understood..
I did not claim and do not think that the synthetic perception, insofar as it itself expresses itself in language and words (and after all, it itself conducts a philosophical discussion), has the privilege of accepting contradictions. It has no such privilege.
And yet you can, subject to logical regularity, describe a world in which the entities themselves do not respond to logic (to the law of contradiction).
Examples of such entities: space, time, God, soul, values, etc. The description of these entities can (and should) be coherent, that is, free from contradictions. Nevertheless, such a description carries content and is not tautological.
A rational (synthetic) perception is committed to as sharp a dualism as possible and, according to it, logic alone cannot provide us with it (see early Wittgenstein and your criticism of it). A “leap of faith” is required, otherwise you have not effectively distinguished yourself from those who advocate the analytical view.
I didn't understand a word. A description free of contradictions, so in what sense is it outside of logic? And what does “nonetheless such a description carries content and is not tautological” mean. What is the connection between free of contradictions and emptiness of content? What is this “leap of faith”?
Sorry to interrupt, but are “space, time, God, mind, values, etc.’. entities that do not obey the law of non-contradiction?! Are you sure?
Citizen, I assume your question is directed to Doron. I don't understand the phrase "entities that do not obey the law of contradiction."
My dear and kind citizen.
Do you think that someone who holds a synthetic position can claim that logic (the law of contradiction) applies to objects that are separate from man, that is, separate from the logic that he uses to talk about those objects?
In my opinion, such a claim is meaningless. I think that the law of contradiction only applies to concepts, not to the objects that those concepts represent. These objects, at least in the eyes of someone who holds a synthetic position, are separate from their concepts.
Of course, those who hold an analytical position will jump on this and that argument of mine as if it were a great spoil and say that my very argument above is made in human language and therefore it is also “logical” (meaning that according to their view there is no real object, but only “object” and therefore the law of contradiction does apply to it).
For those who hold such a position, logic is truly the face of everything (example: Parmenides - “What exists exists and what does not exist does not exist”).
Although such a position is certainly tempting, in the final analysis it is not rational. In my opinion, only a position that accepts that there is something fundamentally “strange” in the world itself (i.e. in reality separate from us, not in our language and logic) can be truly synthetic (and rational).
That is why I called it a “leap of faith”.
Note that I am not claiming that it is possible to deviate from logic within (!) “ordinary”human language or thought. All I am claiming is that logic is not the face of everything (we have, for example, intellectual observations).
As for Goel's theorems… well, we will probably never get to that… I'm just saying that many, many better than me (including probably Godel himself) thought they were an excellent view of the Platonism that Godel held. I think they were right.
Regarding this, I had some vague intuition, according to which the proof of Platonism by Godel's theorems should take us one step further (in the name of consistency) and lead to theology.
This was the question I asked at the beginning of my speech, peace be upon him.
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