"There is no "free will" so your argument is wrong in premises 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Maybe 6 is technically true but since it would be detrimental to reality, as I understand it, if God created beings with free will, I don't think that God even weighs the option of creating free will beings."

That is a reasonable objection to my argument, but it has another problematic implication: why would God bother to create people on earth who have a capacity to sin? Why not just create "slaves" in heaven, and avoid the pains he causes in this life - a life that is extremely brief, compared to spending eternity as a slave.

"Without the assumption that God must necessarily have all 3 of the characteristics that you list, you don’t have an argument that would be a helpful argument for Atheists arguing for Atheism."
Then you don't understand atheism. Atheism entails the belief that X doesn't exist, and for this to be meaningful - "X" must be well defined. X = an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being.

As I said, this doesn't preclude something else existing. But it is relevant what that is. Suppose there's an indifferent "God" who is omnipotent and omniscient. This doesn't imply there is an afterlife, or a "reward" for having faith in this being, nor does it means we ought to "worship" this thing. It becomes irrelevant.

I haven't previously mentioned what my position is, so I'll tell you. I am an "agnostic deist." By this, I mean that I think there's a possibilty that there is some sort of "deity" that is responsible for the physical world and the existence of consciousness. It's only a possibliity: I can't prove it true, and I can't prove it false. But I see no good reasons to think there is an afterlife (other than wishful thinking), so the hypothetical existence of this being isn't really very important - except for explaining certain aspects of the world (e.g. why there is consciousness; the nature of a metaphysically necessary first cause).

Why would God bother to create people on earth who have a capacity to sin? — Relativist

It's a good question. I have an understanding that I think is true and explains a lot. And is based on the Bible. But I don't want to give it here, really. Not that I want to tease something. I am just personally convinced not to eagerly share what I believe to be good part of the answer.

That said, if God wants you to have an understanding to that question, you will have that understanding.

At the same time, even without having clean understanding now, you could accept that God has a just plan and that His plan makes sense, but that God has timing when we will get full understanding of it, for which there is also a reason.

By the way, when you say that God causes pains for people in this life, that's not a true picture. It's a judgement against God based on incomplete information. Since we are sinners, we are quick to judge God, but we only understand part of reality. So any judgement a human makes against God is deficient. Not to mention that it's an evil act, defeating the purpose of judgement in the first place. You might argue that something is self-evident, but until rather recent period of human existence, it was not self-evident that a moving picture can be transmitted over thousands of miles of oceans and lands, through air, in a split second, from one hand-held device to the other.

Evil exists, but how and why it exists is not self-evident, in my understanding.

By the way, when you say that God causes pains for people in this life, that's not a true picture. It's a judgement against God based on incomplete information. Since we are sinners, we are quick to judge God, but we only understand part of reality. So any judgement a human makes against God is deficient. — Henri

I tend to agree. This question is not something that can be settled by popular vote. That’s my point.

I didn't read the whole thread. Now I see your response from previous page which is in the same line of reasoning as mine.

Part 1 of 2:

Sorry about the delay in replying. Not only do I not have time to reply promptly, but I don’t really have time for these replies, to your repetition of already-answered objections, at all. But I’m going to write this one last reply. A complete inline reply. …but for the last time.
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As I said, I don’t have time to keep replying to posts that fail to answer questions about justification of claims, or even about what you mean, but which instead keep repeating the statements for which you don’t know what you mean.
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No one is paying me to be your counselor, and so this will be my last post in this discussion.
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“Existence” is metaphysically-undefined. In any case, no one denies that this physical world is real in its own context, and that your life, and this physical world which is its setting, are real in the context of your life.
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Existence is a concept referring to the quality of "existing."

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You think?
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To exist is to be in the world (world in the generic sense, not necessarily limited the physical world). The world contains beings (=existents, the things that exist). The set of all beings = the totality of reality.

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If your meaning for “exist” is that broad, then the physical world “exists” even if it’s nothing more than the hypothetical logical system that I discuss. Is that, then, really all that you mean when you say that the physical world “exists”?
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Saying that the physical world “exists”, as you defined “exist” above doesn’t mean that it’s anything more than the hypothetical logical system that I’ve discussed.
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This is an example of your self-contradictoriness. When asked what you mean, you give ridiculously circular answers “existence is a concept referring to the quality of existing”, or mutually-contradictory meanings.

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We understand the concept in terms of our innate belief in ourselves and in the external world. We (all animals with any semblance of a mind) intuitively know that we exist (no one has to be convinced of the reality of their being)

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But regrettably, Relativist has failed to give us a consistent definition for “exist” or “real”. By his only clear and relatively-definite definition of “exist”, the physical world exists even if it’s nothing other than the hypothetical logical system that I describe.
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, and we also intuitively know there are things beyond ourselves - we see them and we interact with them.

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Or course there are “things beyond ourselves” (in the context of our lives), and of course we interact with them (Our surroundings are part of the experience-story that I’ve described, co-existent with our own bodies, and complementary to us in our experience and our experience-story).
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Those things are inevitably true of the uncontroversially-inevitable hypothetical abstract experience-story that I’ve spoken of. My question to Relativist was, in what particular way does he think the physical world is different from, more than, what I’ve described? We haven’t heard an answer from Relativist, regarding what he means, other than vague, undefined, circular, or mutally-contradictory sputterings about “exist” and “real”.
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By consistently and resolutely failing to share with us what he means, Relativist has admitted, and continues to admit, that he doesn’t know what he means.
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So this non-verbal intuitive foundation entails a world consisting of the self and that which we perceive.

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…completely consistent with the hypothetical abstract experience-story that I’ve described. (See above.)

From this foundation we conceive (verbally and non-verbally) of additional elements of the world beyond our perceptions.

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Yes, because there are no mutually-contradictory facts, then our experience-story doesn’t contain inconsistencies.
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Therefore yes, what we experience implies that our later (“beyond our [current] perceptions”) experiences will be consistent with it.
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(I’ve previously discussed how seeming inconsistencies have proved, by new physics, to be consistent with previous observations. …and how, arguably, it would be impossible to prove that a physical world is inconsistent, when the possibility of hallucination, dream, mistaken memory, etc., are considered.)
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You refer to being " real in its own context". That seems an attempt at a meta-analysis.

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Call it what you want, but it’s obviously true. Even you won’t try to deny that your life and our physical world are real in their own contexts, or in the contexts of your life.
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I’ve repeatedly asked you in what other context or manner you want or believe this physical world to be real or existent.
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You haven’t answered regarding what you mean, because you don’t know what you mean.
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It is in our nature to believe the world actually exists independent of ourselves

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See above. Our surroundings that we experience are consistent with an experience-story in which our bodies and our surroundings are co-existent, and in which we and our surroundings are mutually-complementary.
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Maybe it is in your nature to believe that the physical world “exists” (in some unspecified way) independent of you. But you need to understand that (aside from your not knowing what you mean by that), that belief is just that—an unsupported belief. …and unsupported, unverifiable, unfalifiable belief in a brute-fact.
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; no one is truly a solipsist.

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The ontology that I’d propose if I proposed an ontology is a “Solipsism” by some definitions, but not by other definitions. No, I’m not going to look up those definitions again, but you can.
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So we naturally believe the [this physical…]world is actually real

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I’ve asked you what you mean by “real” and “actual”.
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I supplied an accepted definition of “actual”:
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“Of, pertaining to, part of, consisting to, or referring to this physical universe.”
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By that definition, this physical world is indeed “actual”.
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, without the qualification you suggest. One would need to come up with reasons to think our intuitive beliefs are false or misguided

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No, not really …because you haven’t even been able to share with us what you mean by “real”, “existent” and ‘actual” in your vague description of your beliefs.
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In any case, of course I haven’t claimed that your beliefs are false. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’ve many, many, many times repeated this:
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I can’t prove that this physical world isn’t (…in whatever unspecified way you mean…) more than the hypothetical logical system that I’ve described, superfluously, unverifiabley and unfalsifiably, as a brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the uncontroversially-inevitable hypothetical logical system that I’ve described.

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I re-emphasize that the system that I’ve described in uncontroversially-inevitable. It doesn’t need an explanation or a justification, or assumptions or a brute-fact.
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…whereas your superfluous, unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact addition to it does call for (and doesn’t get) an explanation. In fact you evidently don’t know what you mean when you speak of it.
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, which you haven't done.

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See immediately above.
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The finality of that sleep at the end of lives, and the absence of any knowledge, memory or perception that there is, was, or could be, such things as identity, time or events, suggests the use of the word “timelessness”.

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"Sleep" seems a poor characterization. Death is the cessation of being, if there is no "afterlife."

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No. You’ll never experience a time when you aren’t.
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Only your survivors will experience that time. I explained that in the post that you’re “replying” to.
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It would be better if you don’t “reply” to posts that you haven’t read.
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If there is an afterlife, there is no "sleep"

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Again, wrong. You proposed “afterlife” could start during sleep.
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“To sleep, perchance to dream.”
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- there's just a transition of states of being. In neither case does the term "timelessness" seem applicable. "Timelessness" suggests to me something that does not experience time.

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…by which maybe you mean that timelessness is the absence of experience of time.
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What a coincidence! That’s how I’ve been using that word.
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"Sleep suggests subtle change in state of living consciousness, not a cessation of consciousness

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The sleep at the end of lives will consist of deeper and deeper unconsciousness, but without you ever experiencing a time when you aren’t.
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Yes eventually there will be no perception, sense or knowledge of identity, individuality, time, or events, or any knowledge or sense that there ever were or could be such things.
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But you’ll still never experience not being. For you there won’t ever be such a thing as not being.
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These aren’t controversial statements.
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nor a transition of states of being.

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See above.
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So all you’re doing is defining your “objective existence” as more than hypothetical existence....

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I'll clarify. Math and logic use the symbol, "∃" , which is read, "there exists". This is not an ontological claim

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I make no ontological claim (of “existence” or “reality”) for the abstract facts that I refer to, or to the hypothetical experience-stories consisting of systems of inter-referring abstract implications.
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, it is used to analyze mathematical and logical relations. I label this a "hypothetical existence."

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What a coincidence. That’s how I label what I describe.
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Yes, abstract logical facts are discussable, and, other than that, I make no claim regarding their existence or reality, or the “objective existence” or “objective reality” (…whatever you mean by that) of that of the physical world
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It may, or may not, refer to something that is in the world.

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…whatever you vaguely mean by that.
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Regarding "objective existence." This refers to that which exists (not just hypothetically)

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Okay, in answer to my question about you mean by the “objective existence” had by this physical world, but not by the hypothetical system that I’ve described,…
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…your answer is that you’re saying that your existent universe differs from the hypothetical system that I describe, by existing :D …and by not being just hypothetical.
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Do you realize that that isn’t an answer, but is only a circular re-statement of the question?
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Do you realize that you’re admitting to us that you don’t know what you mean?
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, with the properties it actually has

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Everything has the properties that it has.
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, as opposed to merely what we perceive. I perceive a red ball, you perceive a red balloon. The actual object is a white balloon that we both view through a red filter. The white balloon has objective existence.

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As I said above in this reply, there are no mutually-inconsistent facts, and therefore your experience-story doesn’t contain inconsistencies. Whatever you observe, your future observations will (at least eventually) be consistent with it. For more detail and completeness, I refer you to the part of my previous reply in which I answered about why and how your experience is consistent.
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You see a red ball. Later you could find out that it’s a red ball. But you could instead find out that it’s a white balloon viewed through a red filter (or viewed through mist, colloidal solution, or smoke that scatters blue light, or illuminated with red light).
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By the way, I acknowledge that Idealism, or even Eliminative Ontic Structural Idealism, needn’t be Subjectivist. For example, Max Tegmark’s MUH (Mathematical Universe Hypothesis) has been called Ontic Structural Realism. He once stated, as his first principle, an “External Reality Hypothesis).
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No doubt, his objective physical worlds, too, are there as logical possibility-stories. It’s just that they aren’t about your experience.
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That doesn’t prove or even imply that your surroundings don’t have existence independent of you (…or that they don’t—I describe an story from the subjective, experiential point-of-view simply because that’s obviously (tautologically) our point of view and our experience.)
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…further analysis can lead us in the direction of knowledge about the true nature of reality

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If you believe that, then that’s another matter on which for us to agree to disagree.
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Relativist:

" That there exists an external, physical world is a properly basic belief, an epistemological foundation for all else."

Michael: “
...for Materialists, of course.

Nothing I said is contingent upon materialism being true, and my statement makes no claims about the existence of anything immaterial.

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Yes, I retract the accusations of your being a Materialist. You merely believe that some unspecified, undefined “objective existence” or “objective reality” for the physical world isn’t an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact assumption (and wouldn’t be, even if you knew what you meant by it).
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(…but it is, of course.)
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Your experience is the epistemic foundation for all else.
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I strongly disagree. Our innate, nonverbal view of the world is our epistemic foundation.

Do you realize that you’re just substituting “view” for “experience”?
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You’ve admitted that you don’t have an answer regarding in what noncircular way you think that this physical world is more than that.
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You are imaging things. I did no such thing.
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Not only have you admitted it, but, by your continued repetition of the same statements, without answering questions about what you mean, you continue to admit that you don’t know what you mean.
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Relativist: "We are not taught that there is an external world "
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Michael There’s undeniably a physical world (including our bodies and our surroundings) in our experience. That’s what our experience story is about.
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No experience required.

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That Objectivism or Realism is your unsupported belief.
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And all I’m saying is that there’s an experience-story, consisting of a hypothetical logical system, that models our experience.
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…and that you haven’t given a reason to believe that our physical world is other than the hypothetical setting in that hypothetical story.
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In fact, you haven’t even been able to say how our physical world is different from that, because you don’t know what you mean by what you’re vaguely saying.
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All us animals that come into the world know intuitively that there is an external world, irrespective of whether this fact is formulated with words.

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Of course there are our surroundings, as sure as there’s us as animals. Those surroundings, the world we live in, is the necessary setting for our experience-story, a world of which our bodies are part, a world that is complementary with us, in our experience-story
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You’re saying it’s more than that. I ask in what way, and how do you know it. You didn’t answer because you don’t know what you mean.
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I’d said:
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As animals, we instinctively deal with our surrounding physical world as best we can (…and yes, it’s there in the context of our lives).
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Kids, and most people, and (for all we know) all other animals leave it at that, and don’t ask what there really is, what “real” or “existent” mean, or why they’re in a life, or why there’s something instead of nothing.

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I’ll add that the difference between you and them is that you want to make an (vague and unspecified) ontological or metaphysical theory out of the intuition that you refer to.
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The other animals couldn’t care less about your ontological or metaphysical theories.
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Relativist:
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"I apply the principle of parsimony."
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Michael:
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“It doesn’t support you. Materialism, with its big brute-fact*, fails the Principle of Parsimony. “
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You've made two errors: 1) you assume I'm a materialist

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Retracted.
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; 2) you don't understand the principle of parsimony.

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Don’t worry about its definition, or look it up if you want to. You don’t seem to realize that your theory that you (vaguely and un-definedly) express consists of unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact assumptions.
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…while the abstract hypothetical system that I described, and which you want to superimpose your unbverifiable brute-fact theory on, is uncontroversially-inevitable.
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But this is all secondary to the fact that you’ve shown that you don’t know what you mean.
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But no, there’s absolutely no evidence, no physics-experiment, to support a claim that this physical world is other than the hypothetical setting in your hypothetical experience-story, a complex abstract logical system.

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I agree that we can't confirm our properly basic beliefs. That does not preclude having rationally justified beliefs.
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Yes, even if you’ve shown that you don’t know what you mean when you speak of them.
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…and even if, whatever they are, your beliefs are unnecessary, superfluous, unverifiable, unfalsifible brute-fact assumptions (as described immediately above in this reply).
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My theory is that we have these properly basic beliefs because we are a product [of this physical world]…

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….and you don’t know what you think this physical world is, other than or different from the setting in the hypothetical experience-story that I described. ...whatever sort of an unverifiable brute-fact assumption you’re talking about.
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neither you nor anyone else has given me a reason to doubt it.

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…other than its nature as an unnecessary, superfluous, unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact assumption?
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…(quite aside from the fact that you haven’t even specified, and evidently don’t even know, what you mean by your theory.)
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None of that supports a claim that this physical world is other than what I said it is […I meant “what I described”].
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You repeated this multiple times. You seem to be saying, "nothing you've said has convinced me that my assessment is false."

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No, that isn’t what I’ve been saying. I’ve been saying that your theory is an unnecessary, unverifiable superfluous brute-fact assumption theory of a physical world which, by its “objective existence” or “objective reality” is different from the hypothetical logical system that I’ve described.
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…In fact you haven’t even answered regarding what you mean by “objectively existent” or “objectively real”, because you don’t know what you mean.
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You are casting my assertions in terms of subjectivism, that is certainly not my claim.

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Yes, because now you’re saying that we’re the product of a larger physical world whose “existence” is quite independent of us.
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To propose an ontology, I’d propose that the physical world is nothing other than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts, and that the describable world consists of nothing other than that.
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That is not "an ontology" it is an ontological claim.

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It’s a proposal (or would be, if I proposed or asserted it) regarding what describably is.
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Look up “ontology”.
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You’re the one with an ontology that you aren’t specifying or being clear with us about.
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To be continued.

Michael Ossipoff

Part 2 of 2:

As I said above, I don't believe in an ontology. I do believe certain things exist (e.g. the physical world)…
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…but without a consistent answer about what you mean by “exist”.
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Anyway, though you might be saying that you don’t believe in any complete ontology, you do nevertheless believe in an ontology in which the physical world “objectively exists” (whatever you mean by that)….but not in any particular such ontology.
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, and I'm just not sure about the nature of the mind (is it really something immaterial?)

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If, as you said, you believe that we’re the product (via evolution, chemistry and physics) of a physical world that exists quite independently of us, then, in your scenario, Consciousness is the property of being a purposefully-responsive device. ..period.
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So no, in the scenario or theory that you believe in there’s nothing immaterial about us at all.
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At least as discussion-topics, there uncontroversially are abstract facts/
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I prefer to use the term "fact" to refer to an element of reality

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…whatever it is that you mean by that. (You won’t say because you don’t know).
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At the beginning of the long post that I’m now replying to, you defined Reality as the whole of all that is. Then that would include abstract facts too, because there uncontroversially are abstract facts, in the sense that we can discuss them.
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So, by what you yourself said, abstract facts are indeed elements of Reality.
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Or you could , for the ad-hoc occasion, change your meaning for reality. …probably to some unspecified meaning.
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as distinct from propositional descriptions of a elements of reality

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Facts and propositions are distinctly different. I’ve been referring to abstract facts, but I’ve also mentioned the hypothetical propositions that abstract implications are about.
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. Abstractions [hypothetical things] can be the subject of propositions and discussed as such - if this is what you mean, I completely agree.

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Of course that’s part of what I’ve said and meant. There are hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things. And there are abstract implications about those hypothetical propositions.
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Those abstract implications are abstract facts.
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An implication is an implying of one proposition by another. That’s a state of affairs, and that’s also a relation between things (because propositions are things*)
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*Things are what can be referred to. By that definition, propositions and facts, too, are things.
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I think you may misunderstand the principle of parsimony. It seems to me that whatever is the foundation of reality, it entails a very complex brute fact.

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Of course, there’s necessarily something unexplainable.
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There, now that’s your best argument yet!
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But, if you know or say that it’s “complex”, then you’re saying more about Reality than I would.
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So that’s another thing on which we must agree to disagree.
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An omniscient, immutable God who created material reality is an extremely complex brute fact.

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There you go again with “complex”.
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Again I wouldn’t presume to say that much about an unknowable, non-describable matter.
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“Complexity” is an attribute of concepts or conceptual matters. It seems more than a little presumptuous to apply it as you are.
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But the principle of parsimony is actually an epistemological principle that we should refrain from making any more assumptions than necessary to explain the facts at hand. It does NOT mean that reality is simple.

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..or that Reality can be meaningfully, un-presumptuously and confidently spoken of as having a conceptual attribute like complexity (or its opposite).
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But yes, as you said:
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we should refrain from making any more assumptions than necessary to explain the facts at hand.

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…and that’s why you want to make unnecessary assumptions about “objective existence” and “objective reality” for this physical world?
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…even if you don’t know what you mean by “objective existence” and “objective reality”.
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I'm just telling you what I believe.

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Well, no, not exactly, because you evidently don’t know what you mean by terms that you’ve been using.
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But of course I don’t claim that you know what you believe.
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I emphasize that, in this discussion, I’m not advocating an ontology or metaphysics. I’m merely pointing out that there’s no reason to believe in an ontology that says that this physical world is other than what I’ve said

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[the physical world is nothing other than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts])"

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No, I haven’t said that. I didn’t say that the physical world is nothing other than a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts.
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I said that there’s no reason to believe that it’s other than that. That isn’t the same statement, is it.
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I many, many, many, many times said that I can’t prove that this physical world isn’t, in whatever (unspecified) way you believe, superfluously, unverifiably, unfalsifiably, and as a brute-fact, more than the uncontroversially-inevitable hypothetical system that I’ve described.
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In my previous reply to you, I quite explicitly specified what I assert, and what I don’t assert. …and what questions I ask.
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But you’re continuing to quote me as saying what I’ve specifically clarified that I’m not saying.
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That’s one reason why I give up on replying to you, except if you (unexpectedly) ask a genuinely new question or state a genuinely new argument.
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That's an interesting and bizarre perspective, since you've given no reason to believe "the physical world is nothing other than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts."

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…nor have I asserted it.
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When I ask in what way you think this physical world is other than the hypothetical system that I’ve described (and why you believe that), I emphasize that that hypothetical system that I’ve described is uncontroversially-inevitable.
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…and that’s the difference, and that’s what you’re missing. I describe something uncontroversially-inevitable, and ask you how you think the physical world is more than that. Then you say that I haven’t given reason to believe the physical world isn’t more than that.
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I haven’t claimed that it is. But, the difference is that what I’ve described is uncontroversially-inevitable, and your theory, about what the physical world additionally is, is a superfluous, unverifiable brute-fact assumption.
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(…about which you can’t even tell us what you mean)
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That’s all I’m saying. I’m not asserting more than that.
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And of course, I disagree - there are very good reasons to believe the physical world is something other than this. I expect we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.

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Indeed we will, if you think that you’ve given any good reasons. (…let alone any very good reasons.)
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Relativist:
" …, or do you think you can show that your view is more worthy of belief than mine? "
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Michael:

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“What belief of mine are you referring to? If I made a controversial claim, what was it?”
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This one: "the physical world is nothing other than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts"

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I’ve made it abundantly clear, many, many, many times that I’m not claiming that,
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I’ve said that I can’t prove that this physical world isn’t superfluously, as an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact, something different from the uncontroversially-inevitable hypothetical system that I’ve described.
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In my post just before this one, I explicitly specified what I assert and what I don’t assert.
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But you’re still quoting me with a claim that I’ve specifically, many times, disclaimed.
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As I said, that’s a good reason for giving up on replying to you.
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So you aren’t central to your experience?
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Of course I am, but I believe we are also able to contemplate objective reality, that we actually can escape subjectivism.

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…whatever that’s supposed to mean. (No, don’t explain it.)
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I believe you have things backwards when you claim the physical world is a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts - these abstract "facts" (actually: propositions)

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No, actually facts.
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I spoke of facts, and meant facts.
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Maybe you need to do some reading about the difference between a fact and a proposition. In general, it’s good to read a little about a topic before expounding about it in a posting.
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A fact is sometimes defined as a state of affairs, or as a relation among things.
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An implication is an implying of one proposition by another proposition.
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That’s a state of affairs, and it’s a relation among things (propositions).
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As I mentioned elsewhere here, “things” are what we can refer to.
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…are descriptive of what actually IS.

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I’ve amply, many times, repeated to you regarding what I assert/claim, and what I don’t assert. …even to the point of an explicit list. What I assert is entirely uncontroversial. No, I’m not going to repeat all of it for you again, but here’s a short-version (for more detail, I refer you to previous posts that you’ve “replied” to.
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But here’s what I assert “is”:
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Uncontroversially, there are abstract facts, including abstract implications, at least in the sense that we can discuss them.
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That implies that there are also infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things, each of which system has many mutually-consistent configurations of hypothetical truth-values for those hypothetical propositions.
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Inevitably, among that infinity of hypothetical logical systems, there’s such system that models the events and relations of your experience.
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I call it your “experience-story.”
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Without asserting anything more, I asked you in what sense you think that this physical world is other than or more than that system? If you say that this physical world is “real” or “existent” in some sense that that hypothetical system isn’t, then I ask what you mean by “real” and “existent”.
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But yes, you did give a definition of “exist”. …a definition sufficiently broad that, by your definition, this physical world would “exist” even if it’s nothing more than the hypothetical system that I describe.
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…something that you seemingly forget all about, when contradicting yourself in other things that you say.
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But no, I’ve many times clarified that I don’t assert that this physical world is nothing more than the hypothetical system that I describe.
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I merely ask in what way you think it’s different from or more than that.
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It’s a simple question that you haven’t answered, because you don’t know what you mean by “real” or “existent”.
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Logic is not an existent

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As I said, there are uncontroversially are abstract facts, including abstract implications, in the sense that we can discuss them.
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Other than that, I’ve many, many, many times repeated that I don’t make any claim for their existence or reality.
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, it is a rational process, so to claim the physical world is a "logical system" is a category error.

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…maybe to you, because you believe in a “category” that you can’t specify, because you don’t know what you mean.
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“I suggest that this life and the physical world in which it is set, are completely insubstantial”
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Relativist: Why do you believe such a thing?

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I suggested it because you (and whoever else says what you say) can’t specify what you think this physical world is, other than the hypothetical system that I’ve discussed.
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…because you don’t know what you mean.
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I've given you one [reason to believe that this physical world is more than the hypothetical system that I’ve described]: we believe it innately

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Oh, ok, the reason to believe it is that Relativist believes it. :D
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, and it is reasonable to think that this is because we are a product of that substantial world.

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Let me guess: You likewise can’t non-circularly say what you mean by “substantial”.
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Now you can't make that claim

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You like to quote a “claim” that I haven’t made.
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; you have to find a reason to reject what I've said.

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See immediately below:
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let’s be clear which of us is advocating an unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition.
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We both are. But at least mine is grounded in our innate view of the world. I don't have any idea how you came up with your bizarre view.

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I’m merely asking you what you think this physical-world is that’s more than part of the uncontroversiallyi-inevitable hypothetical system that I’ve described.
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In case you missed it, I do claim that the infinity of complex hypothetical logical systems that I describe are uncontroversially-inevitable. (…because there uncontroversially are abstract implications, at least in the sense that we can discuss them.
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So I’m asking what you think that this physical world is that’s more than a part of a hypothetical system that is uncontroversially-inevitable.
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Do you get it yet? The system that I describe is uncontroversially-inevitable.
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…and what you propose (or would if you knew what you meant) is an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact something that you claim “exists” in some unspecified stronger way than the hypothetical system that I described.
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You see the difference? What you’re proposing is a (not even specified) unverifiable, unfalsifiable assumption of a brute-fact.
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But whether or not you understand that, I’m not going to keep explaining it to you every time you repeat the same objections.
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No need to quibble about how or if the abstract facts exist. I haven’t claimed that they exist other than as subjects of discussion or mention.

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If the physical world exists, and it is nothing more than "part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts," then you must believe abstract facts exist.

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…but you’re the one who claims that this physical world exists in some way that’s different from and more than the hypothetical system that I’ve described.
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I merely ask what you mean by “exist”, when you say that.
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You haven’t specified a meaning for “exist” by which this physical world “exists” but a hypothetical logical system doesn’t “exist”.
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…because you don’t know what you mean.
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If abstract facts do not exist, then the physical world doesn't exist.

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Okay, suit yourself. I’ve made no claims about the “existence” of anything, other than my assertion that there are abstract facts, including abstract implications, at least in the sense that we can discuss them.
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Saying that the abstract facts depend on there being someone to discuss them is meaningless, because there are inevitably infinitely-many experience-stories with their complementary protagonists, some of whom discuss abstract facts.


100 years after the big bang, there was no one around to have an "experience story". At that point in time, did abstract facts exist?

Again you’re repeating, word-for-word, something that you already said, and which I already answered, in previous posts. No, I’m not going to repeat the answer. I refer you to the post in which I answered it when you said it before.
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what I’ve been saying doesn’t include any assumptions, brute-facts, beliefs or controversial statements.
This is an assumption: "the physical world is nothing other than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract facts."

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I don’t assert that assumption. I’ve been thoroughly explicitly specific about what I assert, what I don’t assert, and what I ask.
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I merely asked (notice the past-tense):
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“If you think this physical world is more than part of a logical system of inter-referring abstract implications, then, specifically, what else do you think it is?”
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You didn’t give an answer, or when you thought you were giving an answer, you were unable to define your terms, because you don’t know what you mean.
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Alright, I don’t have time to reply to any more of your repetition of already-answered objections.
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This discussion is concluded.
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When I don’t reply again to Relativist, that doesn’t mean that he’s said something irrefutable. It just means that I don’t have time to keep replying to his repetition of already-answered objections.
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Michael Ossipoff

Omitted word:

I meant to say that "things" are what are in the describable, explainable world, and can be referred to.

Maybe there's a better wording.

Michael Ossipoff

I left out a reply to this statement:

I think you may misunderstand the principle of parsimony. It seems to me that whatever is the foundation of reality, it entails a very complex brute fact.

Let's ignore the "very complex", because I already answered that.

But yes, as I said, other than that, that's your best objection.

Yes, there must be the unexplainable.

Reality isn't explainable.

But no, that doesn't change the fact that your theory involves a brute fact (even if you don't know what it is or you mean), while the hypothetical system that I describe doesn't need any assumption or brute-fact (...as an explanation in the describable realm).

So your theory consists on adding some brute-fact to a system that doesn't have or need any assumption or brute-fact.

The fact that Reality is unexplainable, and that there must be the unexplainable, doesn't mean that there must be unexplainability at the verbal, describable level (...where we call it a brute-fact).

In fact, I've presented an explanation and description of and within the describable world that doesn't need any assumption or brute-fact.

Though Reality is unexplainable and indescribable, and probably unknowable (certainly to anyone at this forum), that doesn't mean that brute-facts are necessary within physics or metaphysics,

In the physical world, things are explained by physics

...even though physics doesn't explain the whole of Reallity, or even why there's a physical world..

So, physics explains in the physical world, but only there, because that's all that physics is about.

Likewise, in verbal, describable metaphysics or ontology, everything describable can be explained within metaphysics/ontology.

....even though describable metaphysics doesn't explain the whole of Reality.

So describable metaphysics explains in the describable world, but only there, because that's what describable metaphysics is about.

And you haven't shown that your (unspecified) brute-fact for the describable world is necessary.

Michael Ossipoff


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Michael - I seem to recall your saying you would give me the last word. Maybe I dreamed it. Seriously, I don't have time to respond to everything you wrote, but if you will identify the most important thing you'd like me to respond to, I'll be happy to do so.

Michael - I seem to recall your saying you would give me the last word. Maybe I dreamed it. — Relativist

You must have dreamed it..

I said that I'd give you the last word in the other topic, distinct from the ontology-topic...when you posted 2 replies, one about your ontology issue, and one that wasn't about that.

if you will identify the most important thing you'd like me to respond to, I'll be happy to do so.

At the end of my Part-2 post, I said:

"This discussion is concluded."

Michael Ossipoff

Apparently it means it's time for monologues. Here's mine: I admire your passion.