Let's Get Metaphysical Baby

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Originally Posted by dhussdawg

I need more "incentive".

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Incentives are meaningless if they aren't true. So the ability to gain truth seems more useful, as it lets you judge the validity of the incentives.

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Originally Posted by dhussdawg

Well, break those definitions down for the lay man and not some long-winded, pompous-sounding novel.

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To reduce it to an appreciable soundbyte would cut off a significant amount of meaning and "context" (which are kind of the same thing). Oh well:

Values = All that which sustains life as a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Knowledge = the grasp of an object through an active, reality-based process chosen by the subject. Has many other implications which are discussed throughout the three referenced threads.

The recognition of self-autonomy is not good enough for some. It is the same reason many choose to be drug addicts.

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Originally Posted by randerizer

Incentives are meaningless if they aren't true. So the ability to gain truth seems more useful, as it lets you judge the validity of the incentives.

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Nice internal link turn. Well executed.

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

Nice internal link turn. Well executed.

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I've still got it... :glasses2:

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Originally Posted by randerizer

Incentives are meaningless if they aren't true. So the ability to gain truth seems more useful, as it lets you judge the validity of the incentives.

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Incentives are also meaningless if they dont get me anything in the end, which reason and logic obviously don't.

By the way, does it drive you two crazy to just think that existence just exists and always has? That seems beyond the comprehension of our little minds, so it would make it hard for someone who needed reason and logic to explain everything to accept. That seems almost as lazy as believing in the prime mover.

^It doesn't have to do with laziness. It is the only reasonable explanation.

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

^It doesn't have to do with laziness. It is the only reasonable explanation.

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I dont find it very reasonable.

^Now we are getting somewhere. Why is a prime mover a more reasonable explanation than the fact that existence just exists?

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

^Now we are getting somewhere. Why is a prime mover a more reasonable explanation than the fact that existence just exists?

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Why the opposite?

By the way, I have already written that God is above my logic and reason. I find it more reasonable that there is a superior being that created everything than to believe that existence just was and is. I cannot actually comprehend either on a reason and logic level.

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

"Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists."

Existence and consciousness are facts implicit in every perception. They are the base of all knowledge (and the precondition of proof): knowledge presupposes something to know and someone to know it. They are absolutes which cannot be questioned or escaped: every human utterance, including the denial of these axioms, implies their use and acceptance.

The third axiom at the base of knowledge—an axiom true, in Aristotle's words, of "being qua being"—is the Law of Identity. This law defines the essence of existence: to be is to be something, a thing is what it is; and leads to the fundamental principle of all action, the law of causality. The law of causality states that a thing's actions are determined not by chance, but by its nature, i.e., by what it is.

It is important to observe the interrelation of these three axioms. Existence is the first axiom. The universe exists independent of consciousness. Man is able to adapt his background to his own requirements, but "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed" (Francis Bacon). There is no mental process that can change the laws of nature or erase facts. The function of consciousness is not to create reality, but to apprehend it. "Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification."

The philosophic source of this viewpoint and its major advocate in the history of philosophy is Aristotle. Its opponents are all the other major traditions, including Platonism, Christianity, and German idealism. Directly or indirectly, these traditions uphold the notion that consciousness is the creator of reality. The essence of this notion is the denial of the axiom that existence exists.

In the religious version, the deniers advocate a consciousness "above" nature, i.e., superior, and contradictory, to existence; in the social version, they melt nature into an indeterminate blur given transient semi-shape by human desire. The first school denies reality by upholding two of them. The second school dispenses with the concept of reality as such. The first rejects science, law, causality, identity, claiming that anything is possible to the omnipotent, miracle-working will of the Lord. The second states the religionists' rejection in secular terms, claiming that anything is possible to the will of "the people."

Neither school can claim a basis in objective evidence. There is no way to reason from nature to its negation, or from facts to their subversion, or from any premise to the obliteration of argument as such, i.e., of its foundation: the axioms of existence and identity.

Metaphysics and epistemology are closely interrelated; together they form a philosophy's foundation. In the history of philosophy, the rejection of reality and the rejection of reason have been corollaries. Similarly, as Aristotle's example indicates, a pro-reality metaphysics implies and requires a pro-reason epistemology.

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At the risk of sounding repetitive.

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

Can you imagine being only conscious of being conscious for nearly and infinite amount of years? Where would knowledge come from (in particular, the knowledge of knowing what to create) assuming you had no reference to any other object of existence?

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Also, this is why the other option is irrational.

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

At the risk of sounding repetitive.

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I am still looking for a reasonable explanation as to why existence is and always has been. It seems to me that you must accept that existence just is and always was, just like we accept that God created it. Neither one can be logically explained or have exact proof, they are both leaps of faith, IMO. I guess, in your eyes, we just accept that existence was and is, and that we just randomly received consciousness, reason, etc. because the universe is so big, it was bound to happen?

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Originally Posted by Guisslapp

Also, this is why the other option is irrational.

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I believe that God is bigger than what we deem rational or irrational. I dont put as much faith in human competence as you do.