Another Refutation of TAG

Video response to TheoreticalBullshit's "'Slick' Logic".

Many thanks to 1RationalMind, my first subscriber. Check out his highly rated comments in the video to which I am responding, he makes very clear and concise points, and I'm afraid I failed at doing them justice.

The song used at the end is Alleluia, o virga mediatrix, by Abbess Hildegard of Bigen (1098-1179).

As promised, here is the ridiculously long exchange between me and 4IDHero:


4IDHero: The burden for accountability is eroded if the "thing" in question is properly basic and necessary. Example, if you say that the laws of logic are themselves properly basic, no need for further accountability, then it just expanded your burden for accountability because logic is reduced to mere utilitarianism, where subjects believe in whatever they deem is logical. To account for logic, we can infer a mind and the "prescription" for logical thinking, to conclude that logic is grounded in a Mind, affirming the 1st principle of metaphysics that being does not come from non-being, therefore the laws of logic are accounted for.
To say that God is unaccounted for is like saying "I smell an apple pie, therefore the smell "just is" and there's no account of the apple pie." The pie is necessary for the smell, therefore both are accounted for. Occam's Razor states that there is a needless multiplying of complex entities beyond necessity. For if we grant logic "just is" then there is a NEED to multiply entities beyond necessity, which if descriptive, it can be rooted in any description of reality, thus leads to arbitrary groundings for logic. Simplicity is what we "ought" to hold to. Logical absolutes are simple, a mind is simple, simple is properly basic, therefore simplicity necessarily eviscerates any burden for accountability.
SpeakOut4Reason: This completely does not refute what TB says, in that the same goes for saying God "just is"--forgive me if this was not your intention. However, I will comment that saying that a mind is a more simple thing to root logic in as a reflection than reality is entirely silly, as a mind exists, and thus is a step above the simplicity of reality as it is observed--and even if it weren't, choosing a mind over reality seems pretty arbitrary, doesn't it? Besides, if you choose the mind you still "expand your burden of accountability" as you say, because you must explain why this reflection is universal and you must explain the mind. There really is no reason to suppose that a mind is simple or that it's supposition is more parsimonious. Why not suppose an atom for the same reason, or a bit of dark matter or space? God has no special place in the beginning as a preferred explanation.

...Sorry, I can't put much more for some reason. Please use this as the starting point and read the discussion in the comments section in the other video if you really want to know.

P.S: In my defense, I did not read the first couple points in his first few responses, as my youtube account only notified me of his last comment, and so I did not see all of them each time at first.

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[1RationalMind]

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

~Carl Sagan

Things like apple pie make existence worthwhile.

There's a deeper epistemological issue here, in the use of the term "Immaterial Mind". This is a "stolen concept" combined with a definition by negation. They "steal" the concept of mind by disregarding all its known dependencies- (biological brain, matter, etc). They do not define what it IS made of, they define what it in NOT- it is NOT material.

[SpeakOut4Reason]

@1RationalMind Hmmm, I realized that an "immaterial mind" was a ridiculous concept, especially because we have no reason to suppose that it is even possible (given your first point), but I had not thought of the inherent problem of defining by negation, as you show in your second point. Thanks for the insight.

Hopefully I've shown that even with granting all sorts of ridiculous claims like this, the logic of the argument still fails miserably.

And yes, apple pie is delicious :)