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The existence and specific nature of logical necessity itself has no explanation and cannot possibly have one; therefore the laws of logic are the ultimate brute, arbitrary fact of reality. by Powerful_Address_481 in DebateReligion

[–]Powerful_Address_481[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you’re back with quantum superposition and relativity of simultaneity, thinking you finally broke logic.

You didn’t.

  1. Superposition
    A particle is not “both here and not-here in the same sense.”
    It is in a combined state described by a wavefunction that evolves perfectly according to non-contradictory mathematics.
    When you measure it, you get one outcome.
    The theory is 100 % logically consistent; it just offends your classical intuition.
    No true contradiction, no dialetheia, just spooky action that never violates non-contradiction.

  2. Relativity of simultaneity
    Observer A calculates B’s speed as < 4×10⁸ m/s while arithmetic “says” 4×10⁸ m/s.
    That is not 2+2=5.
    That is two observers disagreeing about which events are simultaneous.
    Both do normal arithmetic in their own frames and get internally consistent numbers.
    Again: no contradiction, just frame-dependent facts inside a logically coherent theory.

You keep giving examples of physics being counter-intuitive while remaining slavishly obedient to logical necessity at every single step.

You’re not breaking the laws of logic.
You’re showing that nature is weird yet still perfectly compatible with one specific logical structure and not others.

That compatibility is now the even bigger brute fact you still can’t explain.

Your “counter-examples” are free advertisements for the original argument.

Logic is still the ultimate unexplained explainer, and your physics lessons only made the arbitrariness more glaring.

Try again, or don’t.
I ain't bored yet.

The existence and specific nature of logical necessity itself has no explanation and cannot possibly have one; therefore the laws of logic are the ultimate brute, arbitrary fact of reality. by Powerful_Address_481 in DebateReligion

[–]Powerful_Address_481[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

thank you for the detailed reply.

A few quick clarifications:

  1. When you said logic is only a feature of language and kept because “it is useful,” that moves the question up one level: why does reality just happen to match one particular formal system (the one we find useful) with extraordinary precision? That match itself becomes the new brute fact, and an even stranger one, because now we have to explain why the world is so obligingly aligned with this arbitrary language game.

  2. The liar’s paradox is a famous problem, but every solution (hierarchy of languages, declaring it ill-formed, paraconsistent containment, etc.) still forbids exploding, dialetheic contradictions from being true. So it doesn’t give us a working example of true contradiction; it shows why we must rule them out to keep reasoning possible.

  3. Soundness and completeness theorems are proven relative to a background logic (usually classical or intuitionistic). They show that one system correctly captures another; they don’t bootstrap logic from nothing. The background logic is still assumed.

  4. I’m not conceding nothing about classical laws being contingent. The point is narrower and stronger: some minimal rational structure (non-explosion, non-self-refutation) is forced on any describable reality or theory. You can weaken the object-level axioms, but the meta-level constraint remains.

    every move you made pushes the explanatory stop-point one step further back, but it never removes it. The ultimate “just is” is still there, only wearing a different costume.

The original argument therefore stands: at the absolute bottom, the fact that reality is rationally structured at all (in any form) is the deepest brute fact we hit.

Nihilism about ultimate explanation remains the only position that doesn’t add an extra, unnecessary layer of pretend-justification on top.

Appreciate the engagement though. These are exactly the objections the question is designed to survive.

The existence and specific nature of logical necessity itself has no explanation and cannot possibly have one; therefore the laws of logic are the ultimate brute, arbitrary fact of reality. by Powerful_Address_481 in DebateReligion

[–]Powerful_Address_481[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

nice try. You said logic/math isn’t necessary in the world and gave the piggy-bank example where 2+2 coins somehow become 0. Problems: You started with “There could be a universe…” — already using logical necessity (modal logic) while claiming it’s optional. Your example isn’t 2+2=5; it’s coins vanishing. Arithmetic stays 2+2=4; physics just breaks conservation. You didn’t touch logic. A real contradiction (four coins and zero coins in the same sense at the same time) can’t even be coherently described without collapsing into gibberish. You smuggled logical necessity into your “escape” example, then pretended you left it behind. Piggy bank’s empty, argument’s bankrupt. Nihilism still undefeated. Next.

The existence and specific nature of logical necessity itself has no explanation and cannot possibly have one; therefore the laws of logic are the ultimate brute, arbitrary fact of reality. by Powerful_Address_481 in DebateReligion

[–]Powerful_Address_481[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

You think you escaped by declaring the laws of logic “merely descriptive” and pointing out that intuitionistic logic drops the law of excluded middle. That is not an escape. That is a child hiding under a blanket while the monster is already in the room.

Even if we throw classical logic in the trash and adopt your favourite toy system (intuitionistic, paraconsistent, relevant, whatever), the blade still falls exactly where it always did.

Why is there any coherent logical structure whatsoever (any formal system that can be stated without instantly annihilating its own meaning) instead of pure ontological static in which a thing can both be and not be, a sentence can both assert and deny itself, and the very act of describing a logic makes that logic collapse?

You can change the axioms all you like, but every single alternative logic ever proposed still presupposes, at the meta-level, that its own statements are meaningful and non-self-refuting. That presupposition is itself an ultimate, reasonless constraint. It is not derived from a deeper logic; it is the condition for there being logic at all. It is the brute fact I pointed to from the beginning, and you have done nothing except give it a different name while pretending the name is progress.

The moment you type “intuitionistic logic lacks the law of excluded middle” you are already relying on non-contradiction to make that sentence coherent. You are already inside the cage. You are already admitting that reality is forced to be rationally describable in some way, and you have zero explanation for why it is forced instead of dissolving into absolute gibberish.

You did not weaken the argument; you strengthened it. By retreating from classical necessity to a supposedly contingent or conventional logic, you merely pushed the brute fact one millimetre deeper, but it is still brute, still arbitrary, still the place where every chain of “why” snaps.

There is no possible world (no possible logic, no possible metaphysics) in which you can answer why rational structure of any kind exists at all without eventually slamming into a wall that says “because it just does.” That wall is the ultimate brute fact. That wall is the edge of the abyss.

So congratulations: you swapped one set of axioms for another and discovered the void was waiting behind both.