Tautologies for atheists

Mooeypoo and I talked in comments to her video "Belief in science" about tautologies and their application for atheists.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• atheism
• tautology
• truth
• logic
• existence
• contradiction
• bible

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

Saying things like "love is a subjective experience" or "love is an emotion", are truths about love, so they prove love exists as a concept. They do not define what love is, they say something about love that is true. If true, love must exist.

What love means to each person is subjective. So when I say to you I love my kids, what I mean is based on my own understanding of love. What you hear is based on your understanding. It is subjective, therefore it exists.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

Love is shown to exist via tautologous truth, not via empirical truth.

Love is an emotion, for example, is a tautologous truth that uses "love" as the subject. If true, love must exist. It is true by way of definition, the same way all tautologies are true. This is how we prove concepts exist.

We could prove the concept of god exists the same way. We can't prove anyone believes in god or not. We can't read minds. We can't prove we love anything either.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

" but whatever works for you, I guess."

Atheists can utilize formal logic to better explain reality than theists can, and too often they miss the point of formal logic being used to show what is real. So when a theist waxes poetic about love, which they do often... then even for the atheist to understand for themselves and not argue with theists at all... why and where the theist is wrong... then they are better off.

This video does opens the door for them to do that.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

"As for discussing with theists, I would say personally that I do prefer to leave any emotional language and analysis out of any religious discussion, as I think a dispassionate attitude is the best way to avoid any kind of self-delusion"

And I would need to assume you are being honest in saying so, as you would that I prefer to do it another way. Point: this type of statement is not a truth. When speaking of preferences we use the same form of (inductive) logic as axioms do.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

Love is a word, a concept we use to describe an emotion. That emotion which is described is experienced subjectively and hence why everyones understanding of love is a private matter to them.

That we love something cannot be proven true. That love exists can be proven true. It is an emotion we describe, even if differently from person to person.

Just as we can say values exist. Taste in art exists. I can't prove what my tastes are and you can't prove you prefer anything.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

" But in practice we don't care about that for the simple reason..."

In practice, unless we make many assumptions, we can't say anything. So we do.

All of the axioms of logic use inductive logic, assumption..... belief. None of them are proven true.

The verification principle cannot be verified and the falsification principle cannot be falsified. That is why they are principles and not theories. They are axioms, and all of logic and science depend on them.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

"Language isn't remotely axiomatized"

I didn't say it was. Logic is axiomatic.

Language is too, but that is another matter and irrelevent to that logic depends on it's axioms. Where is the proof anyones logic is valid? There is the self reference problem of showing logic is ever valid.

"and I rather suspect that anyone trying to actually do so would run into paradoxes caused by self-reference "

Ironic then that saying otherwise leads directly to what you suspected.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

"Responding to all your comments is frankly boring"

Then don't reply. I know this is a boring topic. It's hardly something I picked up at my local swingers convention.

For excitement I travel, just got back from being away for 3 days.... I play with my kids, video games and I find music entertaining even if my ears ring nowadays.

Tautologies? lol.

I watch videos of things blowing up for fun on youtube. Talking head videos like this one are shit to sit through.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

gklr: "We need axioms to say anything at all"

u: I'm a great fan of axioms, being a mathematician and all, but I think this is a key problem in our conversation, because I don't think this is ultimately true

g: if we don't assume our logic is valid, we can't state it is. We assume billions of things just to get going at all. Otherwise we'd be left trying to prove we didn't just pop into existence 1 millisecond ago with all our memories programmed in. Prove that didn't happen.

[gklr]

@uvauva2,

"Hence trying to pin me to that terminology is pointless"

I am all ears as to why you think empirical truths can apply to mathematics. No such possibility.

Do you think numbers are physical objects or that anything physical describes any number?

Please provide details of that.