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[20:55]<hatsoff> Hello Scholar.
[20:59]<Scholar> Hello hatsoff.
       <Scholar> Slow tonight.
[21:00]<hatsoff> A bit.
       <hatsoff> So, Scholar, are you Christian ?
       <hatsoff> (if you don't mind me asking)
[21:01]<Scholar> Lol.
       <Scholar> No I don't.
       <Scholar> And yes I am.
       <hatsoff> Ah, okay.  May I also ask if you are Calvinist ?
       <Scholar> Yes you may.
       <Scholar> And yes I am.
       <hatsoff> Ah, neato.
       <hatsoff> <-- agnostic
       <Scholar> That's probably why I hang out in #pros.
       <Scholar> Ah, really?
       <Scholar> I see.
       <hatsoff> Yup.
[21:02]<Scholar> Why?
       <Scholar> (if I may ask)
       <hatsoff> So I thought maybe there might be some potential for
		 conversation there. ; )
       <Scholar> I mean, why are you an agnostic/
       <Scholar> ?
[21:03]<hatsoff> Well, I used to be Christian in the LCMS, but then I lost my
		 faith and became an agnostic.  In my mid-twenties I thought
		 I'd found a reason to deny the existence of God, and so I was
		 a strong atheist for a few years.  But then I discovered a
		 flaw in my reasoning, and switched back to agnosticism.
[21:04]<hatsoff> How about you?  Were you raised Christian, or did you convert
		 as an adult?  (or both) ?
       <Scholar> Well, sort of.
       <Scholar> I was raised Christian, half-converted when I was 13, and
		 then truly converted when I was 16.
[21:05]<hatsoff> Ah, okay.
       <hatsoff> I was pretty on fire for God at that age.
       <Scholar> What changed?
[21:07]<hatsoff> There were basically two things which worked together to
		 cause great doubt:  First, the Bible had the outward
		 appearance of fantasy and legend.  Especially the Old
		 Testament.  When I read about talking animals, magic-wielding
		 priests, and other outlandish (to me) tales, doubt welled up.
		 And I read the Bible a lot.  Meanwhile, the hiddenness of
		 God, as I later learned it was called, caused...
       <hatsoff> ...me no end of skepticism.
[21:08]<hatsoff> In the end I just came to accept the fact that I couldn't
		 find any good reason to believe in God.
       <hatsoff> Though I did try.
[21:10]<Scholar> I see.
       <Scholar> So, what do you think of presuppositional apologetics?
       <Scholar> I assume you've gotten more than your share if you hang out
		 here.
       <Scholar> =)
       <hatsoff> It's fun to engage with presuppers.  Dealing with you guys
		 forces me to think carefully about certain issues in
		 philosophy which I find interesting.
[21:11]<hatsoff> But I don't find it convincing, I must say.
       <hatsoff> Not even a little bit.
       <Scholar> What do you see as the problem with it?
[21:12]<hatsoff> Well that depends.  It's very difficult for me to pin down
		 just what the presuppositional argument *is*, sometimes.
       <hatsoff> And that is certainly a problem.
       <Scholar> Can you give me an example?
       <hatsoff> Sure..
[21:13]<hatsoff> I was talking to Brian the other day (BKing)...
[21:15]<hatsoff> And he was trying to explain how TAG works.  He said
		 something to the effect of, ``we show that ~CT
		 (i.e. not-Christian-theism) is impossible.  By impossibility
		 of the contrary, CT follows.''  I asked him, so is ``~CT'' a
		 single proposition?''  He replied, ``no, it is a set of
		 propositions.''  I asked him what set it is, and he could not
		 say.  I asked him what he *could* tell me about it,...
       <hatsoff> ...and we didn't get very far that way, either.
[21:16]<hatsoff> So, if you know much about logic, you know that statements
		 are true or false, but not sets.  So it seemed like he was
		 conflating sets of propositions with individual propositions.
		 And this will cause trouble if we wish to make deductions.
[21:17]<hatsoff> But that's just an example.  Other people have different
		 methods, of course.
[21:18]<Scholar> Yeah.
       <Scholar> So what about atheism?
       <Scholar> Are you open to the possibility?
       <hatsoff> Oh, and please keep in mind that I used quotations only for
		 narrative purposes.  I do not remember Brian's exact words
		 (though I tried to use his phraseology, e.g. ``CT'' and
		 ``~CT,'' and ``impossibility of the contrary,'' etc.
       <Scholar> Or are you pretty much convinced it's illogical?
[21:19]<Scholar> Granted, of course.
       <hatsoff> Atheism isn't inconsistent, no; it's just not warranted.
       <Scholar> Can you elaborate on that a bit? =)
       <hatsoff> Or, rather, atheism is inconsistent only insofar as all
		 unwarranted positions are inconsistent, i.e. precisely in
		 that they are unwarranted.
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       <hatsoff> Well, what I mean is that I don't see any manifest
		 contradictions following from denying the existence of God.
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       <Scholar> What do you mean that it's unwarranted?
       <hatsoff> I mean that there is insufficient reason to deny that God
		 exists.
       <hatsoff> Just as there is insufficient reason to affirm that God
		 exists.
       <hatsoff> (in my judgment, of course)
[21:23]<Scholar> How well do you think atheism holds up to the critique of the
		 argument from logic?
[21:24]<hatsoff> I can't think of any argument from logic which threatens
		 atheism.
[21:25]<hatsoff> Are you referring to Matt Slick's argument from logical
		 absolutes?
       <Scholar> The argument that is used in conjunction with the
		 transcendental argument. God is the only explanation for the
		 transcendental laws of logic.
       <hatsoff> Hmm.
       <Scholar> I'm not sure if Matt Slick used it or not. Van Til certainly
		 did.
[21:27]<hatsoff> Well, my explanation for the laws of logic is that we have
		 constructed them by studying those parts of language relevant
		 to inference.  I do not appeal to God in this explanation.
[21:28]<Scholar> So you would say that the laws of logic (the law of
		 non-contradiction, for example) didn't exist before we did?
       <hatsoff> Also, I don't see anything particularly ``transcendental''
		 about them.  They appear to me to be ordinary statements in
		 human language.
       <hatsoff> No, I don't think that any statements existed before human
		 beings did.
[21:29]<Scholar> Would it have been possible, then, for the sun to be both
		 shining and not shining at the same time?
       <hatsoff> Including the laws of logic.
       <hatsoff> No, not at all...
       <Scholar> That's what I'm talking about by the laws of logic.
       <Scholar> The law of non-contradiction, that A cannot be not-A. The sun
		 cannot be shining and not shining.
[21:30]<Scholar> It seems intuitive that it applies whether humans exist or
		 not.
       <Scholar> Correct?
       <hatsoff> Well, the laws of logic apply to language.  You're not
		 actually saying anything about the sun when you say that it
		 can't both shine and not shine simultaneously.
       <Scholar> But the laws of logic also apply to reality, because the sun
		 cannot both shine and not shine.
[21:31]<Scholar> If they did not apply to reality, there would be no reason
		 the sun couldn't be both shining and not shining.
       <hatsoff> But I don't know what it means to *say* that the sun is both
		 shining and not shining.  Such a sentence holds no coherent
		 meaning for me.
[21:32]<Scholar> Which is why we call it "illogical".
       <hatsoff> I can go say that the sun is shining, or I can say that it is
		 not shining.  But if I try to combine those two sentences
		 with ``and,'' the result is incoherent.
       <Scholar> But why?
[21:33]<hatsoff> That's how our language developed.
       <Scholar> So it's only incoherent for us, then?
       <hatsoff> It's the same reason that it doesn't make any sense to say
		 that ``God can toad the wet sprocket.''
[21:34]<hatsoff> I don't know anyone for whom it would be coherent, but I
		 suppose it is conceivable that a language might exist in
		 which the sentence ``the sun is shinining and the sun is not
		 shining'' has coherent meaning.
       <hatsoff> But it wouldn't be *our* language.
       <Scholar> Would it reflect reality though?
[21:35]<hatsoff> If a sentence has coherent meaning, then you might say it
		 reflects reality in some way, sure.
[21:37]<Scholar> Not all coherent sentences reflect reality, though.
       <hatsoff> How not?
       <hatsoff> I mean, can you give an example?
       <Scholar> "The sky is green" is a coherent sentence, yet it doesn't
		 reflect reality.
       <hatsoff> Oh, I see what you mean...
[21:38]<Scholar> So there isn't a direct correlation between reality and what
		 can be expressed coherently.
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[21:39]<hatsoff> Well, I would actually take such a sentence to reflect the
		 quite real idea of a green sky.  However, if you mean to ask
		 if some statement reflects some kind of physical system, then
		 no, that's not always the case....
       <hatsoff> (that is to say, the idea of a green sky is real, even though
		 the green sky itself is not; but I digress...)
       <Scholar> But, I guess, my next question is can an incoherent statement
		 reflect reality?
       <hatsoff> In a very limited sense perhaps.
[21:40]<Scholar> Like what?
[21:41]<hatsoff> For example, the sentence, ``the sun is shining and the sun
		 is not shining'' conjures up two incompatible images.  But
		 one of those images will reflect the actual state of affairs.
		 On the other hand, it does not paint a coherent picture, and
		 so it does not reflect reality in that sense.
       <Scholar> So reality can only be correctly reflected by a coherent
		 statement, then?
[21:42]<hatsoff> Only a coherent statement can reflect reality in the fullest
		 sense, yes.
[21:43]<Scholar> Then does it not follow that reality is coherent, i.e., that
		 it follows the laws of logic?
       <hatsoff> No, I don't see that it does....
[21:44]<Scholar> Why not?
       <hatsoff> (1)  Reality can be reflected by a coherent statement.
       <hatsoff> (3)  Reality is coherent.
       <Scholar> Reality can only be reflected by a coherent statement.
       <hatsoff> (3) is not implied by (1), unless you throw in an additional
		 premiss, such as...
[21:45]<hatsoff> Oh, oops, yes.
       <hatsoff> *only
       <hatsoff> Anyway, we would need something like...
       <hatsoff> (2)  If reality can only be reflected by a coherent
		 statement, then reality is coherent.
       <hatsoff> Then (3) would follow from (1) and (2).
       <hatsoff> But I don't think that (2) is true.
[21:46]<hatsoff> In fact, I don't really know what it means to say that
		 ``reality is coherent.''
       <Scholar> So let's look at that premise. Is it true, and if not, why
		 not?
       <Scholar> I would say it simply means that it conforms to the laws of
		 logic.
       <Scholar> In the same sense that we speak of it conforming to the laws
		 of nature.
[21:47]<hatsoff> But the laws of logic, as I understand them, deal with
		 language.  What does it mean to say that, for instance, the
		 *sun* conforms to the laws of logic?
[21:48]<hatsoff> Maybe we could say that any word corresponding to the sun,
		 e.g. ``sun,'' is part of a language which conforms to the
		 laws of logic.  That is true enough.
       <hatsoff> But this was not true of the sun prior to the birth of
		 language.
[21:50]<Scholar> Then why do we apply the laws of logic to nature when, for
		 example, we are examining a patient?
[21:51]<hatsoff> As I said, I don't know what you mean by such suggestions.
		 In what way do we ``apply the laws of logic to nature'' when
		 we are examining a patient?
       <Scholar> We see that the patient is alive, and therefore base our
		 operations upon the assumption that the patient is not not
		 alive.
[21:52]<Scholar> If the laws of logic did not apply to reality, it would be
		 possible (if not describable) for the patient to be alive and
		 yet be not alive.
       <Scholar> Yet we do not act as if this were the case in performing a
		 medical examination.
[21:53]<hatsoff> I don't think such statements are coherent.  So they are
		 neither possible nor impossible.  They are just meaningless.
       <hatsoff> (images notwithstanding)
[21:54]<Scholar> The question is not whether they have meaning, the question
		 is whether reality can possibly exist in such a way that the
		 only possible description is incoherent.
       <Scholar> If not, then reality always exists in such a way that it is
		 describable coherently.
[21:55]<Scholar> If that is the case, it can be said that reality is
		 "coherent" because it adheres to the laws of logic.
       <hatsoff> I mean, these self-contradictory statements might have an
		 appropriate grammatical structure.  There are subjects and
		 predicates, nouns and verbs, etc., all put together in
		 according with the rules of English.  But those words do not
		 paint a coherent picture whose would-be realization we can
		 take and declare to be possible or impossible.
[21:56]<hatsoff> An incoherent description is no description at all...
       * Scholar yawns.
       <hatsoff> So, either reality is describable or it is not.
[21:57]<Scholar> Sorry. It's running up on my bedtime. =)
       <hatsoff> Sorry. : (
       <hatsoff> Well thanks for the chat.
       <hatsoff> I hope I wasn't too boring.
       <Scholar> Maybe we can pick this up at some other time. =)
       <hatsoff> I would like that!
       <hatsoff> Good night.
       <Scholar> Night. =)