Various Responses to Carrier

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Richard Carrier · Carrier carries on the obtusity on a key point ... · somewhere else : Two Observations, Carrier! What if logically necessary means God? · Various Responses to Carrier · A Fault in Carrier's Logic Perception

1) An excuse.

In my correspondence with you, I missed that you had given a response to me in a comment.

When mirroring this correspondence, on my correspondence blog, I saw it. I caught up.

2) On presuppositionalism.

"But the bulk of this Christian’s argument is presuppositionalism"

Wrong, the bulk of my previous post here is a theistic interpretation of the 8 propositions. However, I did mention presuppositionalism, since I thought it worthwhile to get a red herring out of the way.

Me: “whenever we deal with logical reasoning, we presuppose (hence the name) that there is such a thing as objective logic and that it is accessible to us.”

Carrier: "I didn’t just assert Premise 1, I gave arguments for Premise 1, and linked to even further arguments directly discussing the ontology of logic and why logically impossible things can never exist."

Premise 1 = Proposition 1.

And you actually did it by ... reasoning. Why is this significant? By dancing, you presuppose that dancing is meaningful, by reasoning you presuppose reasoning is so (on whatever level you are reasoning, and you were not limiting yourself to a detective story about agencies similar to yourself, as Sherlock Holmes usually is). You can reason that dancing is meaningful without presupposing it, since you can reason without dancing. But you cannot reason to reasoning being meaningful without presupposing it, since you cannot reason without reasoning. So, you were reasoning ... about ultimate reality.

Thereby showing you already presupposed reasoning a valid approach about the reality not just before your eyes but any number of lightyears away, any number of millions of years ago, and as for sth I actually think will exist, any number of billions of years hence. This is a fairly staggering claim if your reasoning is just a byproduct of chemical processess in your brain.

I most definitely agree that logically impossible things can't exist. One of them being a reasoner which is a by-product of matter doing purely material processes. These following laws which are not the laws of logic.

But you don't agree this is logically impossible, so, I am asking how you can possibly make such vast claims for reason. Not meaning you shouldn't - but meaning how you account for them.

My point is not that Proposition 1 is in any way shape or form wrong, indeed, the bulk of my reply means the very opposite.

My point is, its being true and accessible as certain truth to us presupposes certain things. You could of course say you had been careful to talk only of logical contradictions not occurring, not of our knowing anything about them, but the rest means you are trying to validly deduce sth from it, which involves a claim of knowing sth about them, which involves a claim of being a mind (only minds can know anything, and no, AI machines do not know, speaking of computers "knowing" is a pathetic fallacy, a description of how their behaviour seems - to a mind that knows) - and involves a claim of knowing about both mind and matter that logical necessity cannot fail and logical contradiction cannot prevail.

This was however not my main point, I'll actually get back to this at last.

3) On Boltzmann Gods

What you pretend to respond to is:

Supposing there had been a nothing and any universe could pop out of it, how do you exclude a universe popping out of it by first a god doing so and than that god creating?

What you actually respond involves an affirmative response to universes like ours is on the atheistic view producing sth like gods.

"But inevitably. And in fact, it would happen again and again, forever. So when all is said and done, there will be infinitely many more Boltzmann brains created in this universe than evolved brains like ours. The downside, of course, is that by far nearly all these brains will immediately die in the icy vacuum of space (don’t worry, by far most of these won’t survive long enough to experience even one moment of consciousness). And they would almost never have any company.

Which is how we know we aren’t Boltzmann brains"

[and]

"What is a Boltzmann god? Think of a mind that is as near to perfection and power as could ever be physically made, a supermind, with a superbody, maybe even a body spanning and permeating a whole vast region of spacetime. The improbability of this is staggering. But remember, everything with a nonzero probability is going to happen, eventually. In fact, it’s going to happen infinitely many times."

From The God Impossible
by Richard Carrier on March 8, 2012
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/510

That was not the proposition. The proposition was rather, what if the singularity producing OUR universe was - a god. In other words, how do you exclude propositions like Enuma Elish or even better Theogony?

Also, if you are logical about "infinite time" you will need to accept the Boltzmann God already was produced in some universe - so, how can you exclude such a Bolzmann God from having produced ours?

Note, that would very much NOT be the Christian proposal. You very rightly distinguish this from a monotheism which posits one single God as the source not just of our universe, but of any possible one.

4) On the main issue.

It is a contradiction for that which cannot not exist to not exist. This is true whatever this logically necessary entity is. And it is also true whether we have identified it rightly, or wrongly, or not at all.

If the necessary being is space-time and particles, then it is a contradiction for space-time and particles not to exist, whether it be thought the necessary existence is space-time and particles, or the monotheistic God or the matter not be decided.

If the necessary being is the monotheistic God, then it is a contradiction for the monotheistic God not to exist, whether it be thought the necessary existence is the monotheistic God, or space-time and matter or the matter not be decided.

You have given an excellent argument on why there is such a thing as a necessary being. Suppose all beings were non-necessary.

"But remember, everything with a nonzero probability is going to happen, eventually."

Then sooner or later all beings would not exist. And with an infinity of time past, it would already have happened.

But if at a point nothing existed - nothing could come from it.

This is of course what you contest with your 8 propositions, but then you are not really granting "nothing existed" as part of the scenario. You are only granting "nothing except what is logically necessary existed". And that would imply the existence of a logically necessary existence.

Now, I was, and I am, giving "the monotheistic God" as at least one of the alternatives for "necessary existence". I am then inserting that into the 8 propositions and showing how very Theistic they become with that insertion.

Now, I was not setting out to prove that the monotheistic God is that necessary existence. I was merely showing that if He was, the consequences of all your 8 propositions are perfectly orthodox. And also challenging you to - if you could - deny that identification.

Now, if you were only Agnostic, the burden of proof would be on me, but as you are a strong Atheist, we have about an equal one.

And I thought, as you actually seemed unconscious of how Theistic your 8 propositions are with such an identification of necessary existence, maybe you should tell us you were conscious of it and show why they could not possibly tolerate such a Theistic interpretation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Moses
4.IX.2018