Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 7:20 am
Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Fri Jun 20, 2025 3:15 am
you are denying that ANY such laws proposed are true at all.
BINGO!
Laws have no truth-values. They are operational constructs. They either hold; or they don't; or somewhere in between.
You can operationalize that as true (when it holds); and false (when it doesn't); and maybe (when you don't know).
"x = x is true" isn't a discovery about the nature of reality, it's a design choice about how we define the equality operator in classical logic
When we say "the law of gravity holds," we're not making a truth claim about the universe, we're describing how our model behaves under certain conditions.
You are confused because you are doing metaphysics. There are just different operational choices with different consequences. Some might be more useful for certain purposes, but that's pragmatic, not metaphysical.
I use an argument from absolute nothingness in metaphysics in which I first show that reality can manifest from contradiction itself:
Totality = Absolutely Something and Absolute Nothing
... which then enables some to interpret this as not allowed and so the complement of this is 'true' to us, and why we normally interpret the complement of the above true, instead. But this AND its complement can exist as distinct complementary parts of this Absolute Whole that Totality represents. Note that 'Totality' is at least Absolutely Something so that the above becomes....
Absolutely Something = Absolutely Something and Absolutely Nothing
But since Totality includes both
by definition, each possibility exists but is separated in distinct complementary realms. We just happen to favor the bias we are stuck with.
My point is that you
can rationally interpret Totality as lacking any 'reason'. I hold to this by including Absolute Infinity being true given Absolutely Nothing as an origin. Then reality is just EVERY POSSIBILITY defined to be 'true' which includes what is IMPOSSIBLE. The 'impossible' act as limits to ORDERED universes and helps define them.
So I'm not against interpreting alternate logics. But those are just the 'formulation' of reality into laws that require consistency. Those inconsistent realities can exist as fragment worlds that 'do nothing' or 'mean nothing' But we are locked out of being able to witness this directly. So the systems of reasoning or computing that shows consistency and cover all possibilities within some domain has to be a logic that holds SOMETHING constant (an 'identity') or we are not talking about 'logic'.
The term 'logic' came from look-up charts or tables 'logged' on a scroll in which you simply look up two numbers you want to say ADD together. It is arbitrary to use the label, 'ADD' to the process of arithmetic. But you can make up any table and have no apparent rational or link of its components. A school schedule of which classes you go to is a 'logic' in that you look up the month and day as inputs to determine the particular class you should be going to next.
Those 'laws' are just about the fact that ANY "system that is at least partially consistent and cover the possible inputs with something that stays the same. (the spelled out meaning of the laws that assure if you input the exact same things, the conclusion of the device's output is constant. We'd toss out the calculator if it gave off different results for the same inputs. [The 'partial consistency' requires at least something functional of the system as a 'logic'. You might have a calculator with the division function button broken. But if you never used it for division, you can still have reason to believe it is functional for your purposes.]
When deriving new equations, it is often easiest to start with an "
X = Y formula in math to determine if it is true. If you can use the rules to show that
X = X you have shown Y was valid. Likewise, you can start with
X = X to show gradual more complex equations are true.
[I'll leave it at that, Skepdick. I'm guessing your disagreements here are about different perspectives like I mentioned about the calendar. A chart can be made arbitrarily with MEANING of their cells lacking consistency from one another but this still acts as a 'logic'. The 'identity' then would just be the chart if it remains unchanged. The universal logic laws are about the system's requirements itself to remain functioning as a 'calculator' or decision making machine.]
