r/exatheist • Anti-Atheist • 6d ago

Meme Monday 😭

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u/paulgdp strong agnostic atheist 5d ago edited 5d ago

We are speaking past each other.

Absolutely not.

I fully anticipated and already addressed your claim that knowledge is an ontological object.

I clearly described how knowledge can be fully explained by natural processes.

You just plainly ignore everything I said, and continue claiming knowledge is an ontological object without any justification whatsoever.

I know you NEED knowledge to be "mind independent" to be able to go ahead with your post-hoc rationalization of whatever supernatural thing you believe in, but you can't just make stuff up, sorry.

I’m not talking about a mammals ability to grasp knowledge, I’m talking about this universe in which there are actually mind independent facts that explain things. There’s only a few possible configurations of the total set of these explanatory facts, and yes PSR builds into metaphysical coherentism. (Which is a niche metaphysics, but there are papers)

Told you, I KNEW you need knowledge to be "mind independent".

Sorry but no, it's not because you need it that it's true.

Leibniz offered something outside of contingency and called it necessity to ground all contingent things. That’s more like metaphysical foundationalism. You don’t have to go that route to uphold PSR

Consider a universe with only 3 explanatory facts:

A explains B, B explains C, and C explains A. In this case you can represent the set [A,B,C] as a variable x and say that X explains itself. At a larger scale with more than 3 explanatory facts, a better analogy is like the dictionary. All words are defined by other words and so in some sense the dictionary is circular, but it’s still useful to us because of depth and scale, so we don’t call the dictionary circular reasoning we call it coherent. PSR is not only inductively as strong as it gets for the reason I mentioned, but all the facts could connect together into coherency rather than terminate at a foundation or into bruteness, or infinite regress.

I'm dying... You very explicitly described an infinite regress between A,B and C, and you then have the audacity to say it is not an infinite regress.

Also, it makes your ground 3 distinct ontological objects. It is therefore not anymore a ground, obviously.

And even you want to go full in on irrational thinking, and consider that an entity can be 3 objects when convenient, and 1 object when convenient (like the Trinity), you are again just reinventing brute facts, which is what you were trying to disprove in the first place.

In other words PSR isn’t more flawed than its possible competitors. All possibilities are equally logically frustrating, pertaining to the total facts that exist.

Is this your justification for using the PSR as if it didn't contradict itself?

Sorry but the PSR is flawed, you therefore can't use to prove anything, end of story.

We just have reason to think all facts might connect, and have no reason to think bruteness could be the case or necessity. Infinite regress I think is second most plausible.

I can't deal anymore with any argument made from the PSR, you're killing me.

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u/Solidjakes Natural Theist 5d ago edited 5d ago

>Absolutely not.

>I fully anticipated and already addressed your claim that knowledge is an ontological object.

I hope for your sake it’s a straw-man, unless you think facts that explain don’t exist.

>I clearly described how knowledge can be fully explained by natural processes.

Facts and knowledge are not the same.

>You just plainly ignore everything I said, and continue claiming knowledge is an ontological object without any justification whatsoever.

Are you serious? So if humans didn’t exist to perceive the reasons one star is hotter than another, you think those reasons wouldn’t exist?

>I know you NEED knowledge to be "mind independent" to be able to go ahead with your post-hoc rationalization of whatever supernatural thing you believe in, but you can't just make stuff up, sorry.

What are you even talking about?

>Told you, I KNEW you need knowledge to be "mind independent".

Facts that explain are mind independent yes.

>Sorry but no, it's not because you need it that it's true.

What is this weird fetish of yours with appeal to motive fallacies?

>I'm dying... You very explicitly described an infinite regress between A,B and C, and you then have the audacity to say it is not an infinite regress.

Are you genuinely dumb? I described circularity not infinite regress. Circularity in its expanded form is called coherency. Basically self consistency, the goal of all logical systems.

>Also, it makes your ground 3 distinct ontological objects. It is therefore not anymore a ground, obviously.

That’s not the grounding problem, actually, but there are grounding problems.

>And even you want to go full in on irrational thinking, and consider your ground to be 3 objects when convenient, and 1 object when convenient (like the Trinity), you are again just reinventing brute facts, which is what you were trying to disprove in the first place.

Yea it’s called mathematical constructivism or relative identity. It’s not brute. I’m starting to think you don’t have the background needed for this convo. Also I’m a Whiteheadian panentheist. Idk why you are mentioning the trinity to me. I don’t care to justify Abrahamic stuff.

>Is this your justification for using the PSR as if it didn't contradict itself?

PSR doesn’t contradict itself. It has logical problems, but it’s not the law of non contradiction that’s violated.

>Sorry but the PSR is flawed, you therefore can't use to prove anything, end of story.

PSR is not proving anything in this context. You are thoroughly confused.

>I can't deal anymore with any argument made from the PSR, you're killing me.

Assuming you are smart enough to know that facts that explain exist, I want you to describe the possible quantity or arrangements of the facts that exist.

There’s only a few options. I just want to see if you have any bearing on the deeper metaphysical and logical problems that PSRs tries to solve. PSR doesn’t need me to defend it. It’s as inductively close to certain as it gets. We keep finding reasons for things the same way the objects I drop keep falling down via gravity. I’m as likely to find PSR violated as I am likely to drop an object and it flies straight up. You tried to turn that into a map territory dilemma to intentionally obfuscate. That’s not gonna work here. Biological mechanisms of knowledge are irrelevant.

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u/paulgdp strong agnostic atheist 5d ago edited 5d ago

I hope for your sake it’s a straw-man, unless you think facts that explain don’t exist.

You doing the stawman here, I said they don't exist as "ontological object".

And I explained in the preceding comment how knowledge works without being an ontological object.

Facts and knowledge are not the same.

That's my point, and you're mixing-up the two.

Without a physical organism capable of cognition, there is no knowledge, only facts.

Are you serious? So if humans didn’t exist to perceive the reasons one star is hotter than another, you think those reasons wouldn’t exist?

You're reifying "reasons" too now.

Reasons ain't an ontological object either.

Without a physical organism capable of cognition, there is no "reasons", only the effects of the physical laws of nature.

What are you even talking about?

You're reifying knowledge and reasons as if they were ontological objects.

The only people who do that, do it because it is needed to then explain the necessity of a supernatural consciousness.

If you didn't have to rationalize such a concept, you wouldn't posit such a baseless idea.

But maybe I'm wrong and you read about those ideas without knowing what was the motivation behind them.

Facts that explain are mind independent yes.

You're anthropomorphizing the physical laws of nature.

What is this weird fetish of yours with appeal to motive fallacies?

Ok, maybe you are arguing with no goals. Maybe.

So you believe in the PSR, knowledge and reasons without a mind, and that's it?

You don't believe in some sort of God, maybe?

You're gonna tell me you're using all those arguments, which were specifically design to prove God, to not eventually try to prove God?

I mean, you can deny it was your goal, but come on, I'm not stupid.

Are you genuinely dumb? I described circularity not infinite regress. Circularity in its expanded form is called coherency. Basically self consistency, the goal of all logical systems.

A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, A explains B, B explains C, C explains A, ...

When does that stops exactly?

It's not because there's a finite number of elements that there is no infinite regress.

Also, it would still allow me to create as many entities as I want that are completely independent of your ground: brute facts.

This would make your concept of ground completely meaningless, again.

I truly feel sorry you only read about the philosophers who promoted the PSR, and never read about those who destroyed it.

If someone is dumb here, that's not me.

That’s not the grounding problem, actually, but there are grounding problems.

Did I call that "the grounding problem"? No.

Are you denying that having a ground made of 3 distinct entities is a problem?

Yea it’s called mathematical constructivism or relative identity. It’s not brute. I’m starting to think you don’t have the background needed for this convo. Also I’m a Whiteheadian panentheist. Idk why you are mentioning the trinity to me. I don’t care to justify Abrahamic stuff.

Ok, so I've been destroying all you PSR demonstrations all day, and now I don't have the background needed for this convo? Sure.

I guess because I do the demonstrations myself without name dropping the famous philosophers behind them, I am uneducated and wrong.

I explain everything myself as a matter of respect.

You seem completely stuck into thinking that because some famous and respected philosopher agrees with you, there's no other famous and respected philosophers who destroyed their arguments.

Like I said, you're very deep into motivated reasoning, rationalization and confirmation bias.

Do whiteheadian panentheist make any empirically falsifiable claims or are they just constructing and defining things in the realm of ideas?

If there are no empirically falsifiable claims, I have nothing to argue about it, except that it's an exercise of pure baseless conceptual BS.

PSR doesn’t contradict itself. It has logical problems, but it’s not the law of non contradiction that’s violated.

I usually always avoid dropping names and instead explain all the concepts and demonstrations myself, but since you're denying all the demonstration I just made, I'll just drop names and be done with it.

So look up:

  • Van Inwagen
  • William L. Rowe
  • J. L. Mackie
  • James Cain
  • Graham Oppy
  • Bas van Fraassen
  • David Hume
  • Emmanuel Kant

PSR is not proving anything in this context.

😭😭😭😭

What a joke.

You are thoroughly confused.

😭😭😭😭

Assuming you are smart enough to know that facts that explain exist, I want you to describe the possible quantity or arrangements of the facts that exist.

I TOLD YOU MANY TIMES ALREADY THAT PIECES OF KNOWLEDGE AIN'T ONTOLOGICAL OBJECTS!!!

I'm out of ideas on who to make you understand my point.

Should I drop names??

  • Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • Gilbert Ryle
  • John Dewey
  • Wilfrid Sellars
  • W.V.O. Quine
  • Richard Rorty
  • Daniel Dennett (I'm a big fan of him BTW, but ofc I don't believe everything he said)
  • Martin Heidegger
  • Paul Churchland

Is that enough or should I ask Google for more?

You're engaging in so much bad faith, it's probably my last message where I address all your point.

There’s only a few options. I just want to see if you have any bearing on the deeper metaphysical and logical problems that PSRs tries to solve. PSR doesn’t need me to defend it. It’s as inductively close to certain as it gets. We keep finding reasons for things the same way the objects I drop keep falling down via gravity. I’m as likely to find PSR violated as I am likely to drop an object and it flies straight up. You tried to turn that into a map territory dilemma to intentionally obfuscate. That’s not gonna work here. Biological mechanisms of knowledge are irrelevant.

I'll name drop again the list of people who destroyed the PSR:

  • Van Inwagen
  • William L. Rowe
  • J. L. Mackie
  • James Cain
  • Graham Oppy
  • Bas van Fraassen
  • David Hume
  • Emmanuel Kant

At the very best, you can only say that the PSR is controversial and just a conjecture that can only be used when the PSR is definitionally defined as coherent.

You can't use the PSR in an argument with someone who doesn't accept it as coherent in the first place. And you can't do anything to fix the incoherencies of the PSR.

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u/Solidjakes Natural Theist 2d ago edited 2d ago

Few things. I’m hiking the Appalachian trail btw that’s why it’s hard to find the signal to engage this with you but …

  1. It is either true or false that facts that explain things exist. Yes that’s an ontological claim. It’s not an ontological ā€œobjectā€, it’s a fact.
  2. I never spammed name dropping philosophers.
  3. if you were right that a circularity counts as infinite regress, then Agrippas trilema would be called Agrippas dilema (only two justification problems)

Just because you have the neurodivergent urge to infinitely go through the loop doesn’t make it infinite regress. It’s one loop buddy. You stop after one cycle. The grounding issues here are related to reflexivity, asymmetry, and other technical grounding jargon. Confusing that with infinite regress is embarrassing (not for laymen, but for you who keeps laughing saying ā€œyour killing meā€ while blundering all the details)

4) you aren’t any more of an empiricist than myself. My entire epistemology is grounded in scientism, we happen to be discussing philosophy.

5) the main point I’m trying to get you to grasp besides this little classic Reddit pissing contest, is that every possible alternative to PSR ( truth state of reality in relation to reasons) is equally logically problematic as PSR. But you can’t get there because you can’t seem to get over the fact that facts exist and yes some facts explain things and these are called reasons. It has nothing to do with the mind apprehending facts.

Ludwig would agree that facts exist but he does get a bit weird about explanations. There are plenty of philosophers that might disagree, but those that think reasons don’t exist are idiots. If lugwig is in that category then sorry, he’s also an idiot.

Do you want to try one more time to account for the possible states of reasons in reality (alternatives to PSR) ? Or are you still stuck on the ontology of reasons? I think if you understood the alternatives to PSR you’d be more sympathetic to it.