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Every day axioms

bricklayer

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Any explicit attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it.

Here are three of, what I find to be, the most important to keep in mind on an every day basis:

Truth exists.

There is always more than one way to look at anything.

We are all left to believe something.

What axioms do you find most useful?
 

dysert

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Any explicit attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it.

Here are three of, what I find to be, the most important to keep in mind on an every day basis:

Truth exists.

There is always more than one way to look at anything.

We are all left to believe something.

What axioms do you find most useful?
Actually, I think you listed four, the first being "any explicit attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it." Why do you think that's the case? For example, taking "truth exists": although I believe it, why do you think it's axiomatic? Why would someone be affirming it if they denied it? (Maybe my philosophy is rustier than I thought!)
 
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bricklayer

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Actually, I think you listed four, the first being "any explicit attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it." Why do you think that's the case? For example, taking "truth exists": although I believe it, why do you think it's axiomatic? Why would someone be affirming it if they denied it? (Maybe my philosophy is rustier than I thought!)

If one were to make the statement that truth does not exist, they are making a statement that they intend to be accepted as true.

If one were to say that there is no other way to look at a thing, they are saying that they look at it another way.

If one were to say that they do not believe that everyone is left to believe something, they are making a statement of belief.

Any explicit attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it.
 
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bricklayer

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I suppose we should take as axiomatic those things which seem most obvious to us. In that regard, why not vouch for what our sense-perceptions tell us? It is, after all, what viscerally appeals to our sense of truth most.

An axiom is not that which is self-evident; that would be to reduce an axiom to an inference.
 
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Eudaimonist

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What axioms do you find most useful?

Axiom of Existence: Something exists.

If you deny this axiom, you implicitly assert it, since clearly something must exist in order for the claim to be asserted.

Axiom of Consciousness: Conscious awareness exists and is conscious of something.

If you deny this axiom, you implicitly assert it, since any claim implies that an aware entity has made an assertion. If an entity were unaware, it would not be aware of reality, and could make no assertions regarding reality. (Note: this does not imply that consciousness is equivalent to reality, only that consciousness exists.)

Axiom of Identity: To exist is to exist as something. As the link below explains, this is perceptually self-evident. Everything we experience has certain properties, and not others, at any one time.

Axioms - Objectivism Wiki

The axioms don't have much practical, day-to-day use, so there isn't much need to make a spiritual exercise out of reminding oneself of them. They are useful only in metaphysics and epistemology, and are simply assumed effortlessly in daily life.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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GrowingSmaller

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Evolution which promotes life, is the proximate source of morlaity. Therefore, morality, which answers the call of evolution, or the call of lived reality's structural demands, promotes life!

A city on a hilltop should not be hid. You do not light a candle to place it under a bushel, but mount it on a candlestick or lampstand, to give light to those around.

"The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him."

he is the vine and we are the branches, do not be cut off.

Thus the schamatic of lived reality is either vital (of jerusalem, zion, eden, Christ, ascendent ) or sinful (shoeol, pit, hell, lake of fire, decadent). Sometimes we must be our owen Good Samaritan, and descend in order to be elevated. yet it is in the parousha of being born ahgain that we are elevated most.
 
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Eudaimonist

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Evolution which promotes life, is the proximate source of morlaity.

I'm not so sure about that.

A proximate cause is the most immediate cause of something. I don't see how evolution is the proximate cause of morality. It seems somewhat more distant than a proximate cause.

Therefore, morality, which answers the call of evolution, or the call of lived reality's structural demands, promotes life!

I agree that morality promotes life, but I'm not sure how to draw that conclusion from evolution. Even if evolution makes morality possible, that doesn't mean that evolution determines morality's content.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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bricklayer

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The First-Principles of logic are to reason what the elements of the periodic table are to physics.
The First-Principles are axiomatic and are generally expressed in the following ontological order:

Existence - being exists (being is actualized existence)
Identity - being is being
Non-contradiction - being is not non-being
Exclusion - either being or non-being
Causality - non-being cannot produce being
etc.

sociologists, for example, do not affirm even the first-principle of existence. Although they do affirm the existence of ideas, they do not believe that anything actually exists. That is to say that, they do not believe that what exists has being.

That just goes to show that, although truth exists, there is always more than one way to look at anything, and we are all left to believe something.
 
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Eudaimonist

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Axiom: Gods are real and the analytical method of parsing and proving their non-existence is necessarily wrong.

That doesn't qualify as an axiom. As my link explained: "Axioms are perceptually self-evident, primary, fundamental, and irrefutable."

Gods do not satisfy all of the conditions. They might not even satisfy any of them. There certainly is no self-contradiction in denying the existence of gods.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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WonderBeat

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That doesn't qualify as an axiom. As my link explained: "Axioms are perceptually self-evident, primary, fundamental, and irrefutable."

An axiom is a premise or starting point of reason. There is no need for it to be "self-evident" in the way you claim. Christian presuppositionalists claim to reason on the basis of axioms such as that the Bible is the source of truth, Christianity is the only coherent worldview, etc. In the works of men such as Gordon H. Clark and Cornelius Van Til, they claimed to be building their philosophies on the basis of axioms.

I claim the same for my worldview as well.

There certainly is no self-contradiction in denying the existence of gods.

eudaimonia,

Mark

According to your world-view which lacks this axiom, no. According to mine, which contains this axiom, yes.
 
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Eudaimonist

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An axiom is a premise or starting point of reason.

It is that, but not only that in order to be a well-formed axiom. This is an example of treating something as an axiom that has no business being an axiom. Bricklayer is at least correct in saying that axioms cannot be denied without being implicitly asserted.

There is no need for it to be "self-evident" in the way you claim.

Of course there is a need for that.

Christian presuppositionalists claim to reason on the basis of axioms such as that the Bible is the source of truth, Christianity is the only coherent worldview, etc.

And Christian presuppositionalists are wrong to do so.

I claim the same for my worldview as well.

Then you are wrong to do so as well.

Note that you disagree with each other. How can that happen with well-formed axioms? At least one of you is mistaken.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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WonderBeat

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It is that, but not only that in order to be a well-formed axiom. This is an example of treating something as an axiom that has no business being an axiom. Bricklayer is at least correct in saying that axioms cannot be denied without being implicitly asserted.

I would claim that mine is indeed a well-formed axiom, but you simply do not see it as such. I think it has a perfect business of being an axiom. I also think that your denial of this axiom implicitly asserts it, because we would not be having this conversation were it not for different departmental heads in the universe carrying out regular goings on.



Of course there is a need for that.

Yes, but not in the way you may perceive. I think this axiom is evident, but only as it exists within my given worldview.


And Christian presuppositionalists are wrong to do so.

Well, that is, like, your opinion, man. ;)

Then you are wrong to do so as well.

I don't think so. You haven't definitively shown me that I am wrong.

Note that you disagree with each other. How can that happen with well-formed axioms? At least one of you is mistaken.


eudaimonia,

Mark

It all depends how one looks at things. From within or without a given worldview. From my own worldview it is absurd to deny the existence of the Gods. Thus, I cannot judge outside my worldview. However, someone else, a skeptic (which pressuposes a worldview in itself) can, supposedly. I just don't regard that as rational.
 
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Eudaimonist

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I would claim that mine is indeed a well-formed axiom

That's nice.

Well, that is, like, your opinion, man. ;)

No, it is the classical understanding of axioms.

As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy. The word comes from the Greek ἀξίωμα 'that which is thought worthy or fit,' or 'that which commends itself as evident.'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom#cite_note-2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

I don't think so. You haven't definitively shown me that I am wrong.

I can only do that if you actually go to the trouble of making a case.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
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