Posted on 10/01/2010 4:51:50 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
28 Sep, 2010, 10.15AM IST,PTI
Man leaves behind 1905-page suicide note
shot himself at Harvard Yard on September 18.
His family and about 400 friends received the 1,905-page suicide note in a posthumous e-mail.
In the note Heisman wrote that he took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called "an experiment in nihilism."
The lengthy document included 1,433 footnotes, a 20-page bibliography, over 1,700 references to God and 200 references to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Heisman wrote, "Every word, every thought and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless... The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us."
(Excerpt) Read more at economictimes.indiatimes.com ...
What do you mean, "not that they don't exist...? If they do not NOT exist then they DO exist. The problem for the autonomous, subjectivist world view (and equally for the autonomous objectivist) is how to account for them.
Yes, the "objective standard" that my counterpart embraces, not necessarily one to which I subscribe. It is you who are bound by those rules, not I. One cannot impose "logical" rules on a universe that creates the kinds of paradoxes of which you speak.
There you go again. You claim not to be bound by them but you can't help using them even in your denial of them. "One cannot impose" is itself a logical inference that contradicts the proposition itself. Your claim that you do not subscribe to the laws of logic is completely undermined by your utter inability to desist from using them.
Have you noticed that neither one of us acts like the of logic are just conventional, like the rules of grammar? But you say you do not subscribe to the laws of logic. Well if that's the case why don't we just agree that instead of A is not non A, we will stipulate that A is non A? Or maybe we could just write to each other in gibberish like monkeys pounding on keyboards. Or maybe we could just write meaningless 1905 page suicide notes about why there is no meaning, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I don't expect you to admit this, but the "paradoxes" to which you refer are themselves evidence of the futility of one's attempt to free oneself from the standard of God's thinking that God has put in every human heart - a Biblical truth that as has already alluded to by others on this thread. The infinite personal God of Christianity is the Author of logic. He is why these immaterial, universal, invariant laws exist. The laws of logic reflect His thinking and His character. You are made in the image of God, which in part means that he has given knowledge of Himself to you, and one of the inescapable evidences of that built-in knowledge is your use of logic, the reflection in your nature of God's thoughts.
So if God didn’t exist, logic wouldn’t exist?
Yes, of course.
Yes, it would exist or yes, it wouldn’t?
Would not.
If I insist God does not exist, then (by your own standard) I am not bound by logic. You, on the other hand, believing He DOES exist, ARE so bound. So if I am going to speak to you in a language you understand, it has to be Logic. That doesn’t mean I believe in it (or its Creator), simply that it serves as a convenient medium for the exchange of ideas.
In MY world, it would be just as meaningful to pound on the keyboard like a monkey. But in this exercise, if I wish to communicate with you, I have to speak your language.
Your insistence one way or the other has no effect on the objective fact of God's existence, but it's not just that you would not be bound by the laws of logic if God did not exist, there would be no such thing as the laws of logic. Knowledge, science, morality, and freedom would be impossible. And if that's the case then I don't think ice cream has bones either.
I am not bound by logic. You, on the other hand, believing He DOES exist, ARE so bound. So if I am going to speak to you in a language you understand, it has to be Logic. That doesnt mean I believe in it (or its Creator), simply that it serves as a convenient medium for the exchange of ideas.
Equally precluded in a materialist universe, though, are "ideas", and "communication" and "language" (which require a code, which requires intelligent agency). So it appears that you may still be suffering from the residual effects of a theistic presuppositional hangover.
No doubt we could carry on this discussion endlessly. But it would appear we’re the only two left on the thread and I’m not sure this is the right venue.
Thank you for the conversation.
And I thank you as well for taking the time to discuss it. Your way of approaching the issue is very interesting, and I have appreciated your cordiality.
GAWD! I love the way you think!
Power to the Humorists!
Also for you, see post #90.
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