I notice you did not answer my question.
I didn't answer the question because you don't even understand what was said. I said that I don't hold that the law of non-contradiction is absolute. That does not mean I'm claiming it is not absolute. There is a difference, and you indicate that you don't see the difference by asking me, "What is your evidence that the law of non contradiction is not absolute?"
I'm going to use Matt Dillahunty's gumball analogy. Suppose there is a gumball machine, and you make the claim that there is an even number of gumballs in it. And suppose I say that I don't accept your claim. Am I tacitly claiming that there is an odd number of gumballs? No. I merely reject your claim. So when I said I don't hold that the law of non-contradiction is absolute, I'm simply saying that no one has counted the gumballs and showed there is an even amount. There is no good reason to believe there is an odd or even number of gumballs, so rather than taking a wild guess it is best to simply say that we cannot determine the amount; similarly, it is best to say that we cannot determine the truth value of the law of non-contradiction.
The real reason we cannot know the truth value of the law of non-contradiction is because it is a tautological assertion. We simply assert it as true, so by definition it is true within any axiomatic system that we use. Does that mean that it is actually true in some cosmic sense? Does that mean that it is true in every possible universe? If we could define something and it would be so, would that not make us gods? I don't think you hold that we are gods, so I don't think you hold that we can just define something to be true and it will be so in all possible universes. So for us to know that something is true, we must prove it, but we can't prove the law of non-contradiction because it is the basic, primitive assumption that we use to prove all other things.
There is in fact good evidence that the law of non-contradiction does not even hold in our own universe. Electrons, for example, can simultaneously have an up-spin and a down-spin, analogous to saying that a person is both alive and dead at the same time. A physical manifestation of a contradiction, ergo the law of non-contradiction is not absolute... pending, of course, humanity's full and exhaustive theory of quantum mechanics.
Actually I have a Masters Degree in Biology.
Congratulations on your achievement earned by your hard work and dedication. You would do well to make theistic arguments in your area of expertise.
I see no inherent contradiction between my statements that you highlighted. If that is what you are claiming.
You don't have to contradict yourself to be wrong. You could also just make no sense whatsoever.
But if you want to be technical, the claim that 5=7 is not a contradiction. It's a violation of another logical law, the law of identity. To truly contradict yourself, you'd have to say that 5 does not equal 5.
Colloquially, though, your statements that I highlighted constitute either a contradiction or an unintelligible argument. Let's examine the statements again:
Me: Which is it? Is it true by definition or is it a logical conclusion from the starting assumption that the law of non-contradiction is true?
You: It is both.
Here, we were discussing your claim that the "law" of causality (and what exactly is this, by the way?) follows from the law of non-contradiction. And you even went on trying to prove this in following posts. Then you go on to say this:
I never claimed that I could prove that every effect requires a cause, I said that it was true by definition like every bachelor is an unmarried male. IOW I never denied it was a tautology.
I agree that you never denied it was a tautology. But you also said you could prove it (and by the way, proving a tautology is already nonsensical), and you even tried to do so. You seemed somewhat pleased with your presentation, although you said it was rough around the edges. Now you are saying that you never claimed you could prove that every effect requires a cause.
Now, if you're NOT claiming you could prove that every effect requires a cause, but you ARE claiming you can (and did) prove the "law" of causality follows from the law of non-contradiction, then I can only conclude that you're saying that the "law" of causality is NOT that "Every effect requires a cause." So may I ask what you think the "law" of causality is, or what it states? Because as far as I can tell, your claim that the "law" of causality is a logical law (as opposed to a physical law) is already nonsensical, and on top of this you do not even seem to be defining this "law" as stating that "Every effect requires a cause" which further makes your position unintelligible.
The alternative, of course, is that you have a semi-intelligible definition of the "law" of causality but that you are indeed contradicting yourself in the passages that I highlighted a couple posts ago.
To be somewhat charitable, I will note that when you claimed to be able to prove the "law" of causality from the law of non-contradiction, you either lost track of what you were even trying to prove or else you had no interest in proving the "law" of causality despite claiming to be able to do so. Instead, you ended up concluding in your attempted proof that the universe required a cause. This does not establish the "law" of causality or even remark on what it is, but rather provide one example of it occurring. So perhaps that is what you meant when you said that you "
never claimed that [you] could prove that every effect requires a cause." But then we are back to asking ourselves, "What on earth is the 'law' of causality that follows from the law of non-contradiction?" Something that occurred once but does not govern behavior in all instances is not a law. So the third way in which you could be wrong is that you simply do not even know what your own position is.
I think we have seen quite conclusively that you are wrong because either:
1.) You are contradicting yourself, or
2.) Your position is unintelligible, or
3.) You do not even know your own starting assumptions and conclusion
What misinformation have I spewed?
Oh brother...