Your pragmatic alternative still presupposes the very stable distinctions (A=A) between “you” and “another” and the ordered structure the argument identifies in lines 1–3. Wanting to “make sense to one another” already deploys those distinctions.
This is another form of epistemic confinement reducing everything to human minds, social desire, and language games. It offers no explanation for the mind-independent patterns we observe in reality (bacterial chemotaxis, planetary orbits, rocks, binary processing in computers, etc.).
Do these mind-independent patterns exist and behave consistently—or not? If they do, how does your pragmatic account explain their existence and reliability without the non-contingent Origin the argument derives (lines 4–7)?
Precisely so. And since we can get by without such an explanation we have another option other than requiring there to be a Divine Origin.
Maybe it just happened to be that way. Perhaps it’s a fluke. Or, perhaps reality isn’t all that stable after all, but we are still forced to speak with the tools we have at hand.
And yet it does not deploy or even lead one to believe in a Divine Origin. That’s kind of my point: We can utilize these distinctions without believing that they must have come from a Divine Origin.
Notice how there’s nothing about a Divine Origin in your first three bullets.
We get something like a Divine Origin in your next bullets by invoking things like “Eternal”.
But they aren’t connected to your first three bullets by logical or rhetorical connectives.
These kind of say the same thing. They’re a repeat of what you’re wanting to force an interlocutor to admit: That even in denying Divine Origin, the interlocutor must rely upon Eternal Truth, which in turn you think could only come from a Divine Creator.
In some way you’re trying to say that everyone must believe something like the above, and if we believe that then there must be an explanation for it, and the only explanation is a Divine Origin.
At least, that’s how I read you in the most charitable light.
Else others have already pointed out that strictly speaking this isn’t an argument (even rhetorically) just yet, but a set of assertions that you think one couldn’t possibly not believe.
Logic cannot instantiate or verify anything without stable distinctions and ordered patterns to align and apply. Without the ordered structure we observe in reality (lines 1–2), there would be nothing for Logic to verify. Logic therefore necessarily presupposes Truth, which creates and coheres those stable distinctions (A=A) and the universe’s ordered structure (line 3).
This is not question-begging but a deduction from observable reality: everything in the universe is contingent and in flux. Yet stable distinctions and invariants hold reliably everywhere (Fibonacci sequences approximate the golden ratio φ ≈ 1.618, observed in phyllotaxis (sunflowers, pine cones, etc). They cannot originate from within the contingent universe itself.
Paraconsistent logics are parasitic counterfeits built on top of the fundamental true/false distinction created by Truth. These systems are hard-coded in binary logic—a statement is either true (1) or not true (0). They never actually allow a genuine situation where something is both true and not true at the same time. See:
The argument does not conflate logic and ontology. It shows that Logic’s role (aligning and applying distinctions) requires Truth’s prior ontological role (creating and cohering them).
The conclusion in lines 6–7 follows directly. Any denial still uses Logic and stable distinctions that only exist because of the non-contingent precondition. The Eternal Origin is the singular non-contingent precondition that grounds stable distinctions and makes all intelligibility possible.
These 7 lines are an excerpt from my full 29-page paper The Relational Precondition of Intelligibility and the Resolution of the One-Many Problem. There’s a link in my bio if you want the full unpacking.
How do you account for the existence and reliability of stable distinctions and invariants in a fully contingent universe without a non-contingent precondition grounding them?
Do video cameras (any camera) exist and function in a reality that is independent of any particular human mind?
I am not asking “can” they exist or function independently. I am asking: once humans have made them, do they actually exist and continue to function (recording light and sound waves into stable binary distinctions) whether any particular human mind is perceiving them, controlling them, or even aware of them?
This position only makes sense if you believe nothing exists or functions unless you personally perceive it. That is pure solipsism—and it directly contradicts the stable, mind-independent patterns we observe everywhere (lines 1–3).
You need explain what is a reality that is independent of human mind. Where is it, and what is it?
Here again, which human are you talking about? Is it YOU? who made the cameras? Or is it your friends? You are not making anything clear in your questions, and just clouding the point.
No, it has nothing to do with solipsism. You are confused again.
The point is that you perceive reality with your perception, not with logic. Because of the confusion, the rest of your statements are misleading and incorrect.
Ok. You claim logic only works because its structures correspond with structures in reality, which precede it. But you haven’t really clarified the distinction or relationship between our observations and reality. Consider the simplest logical statement, A=A. In reality, this would say that a thing is what it is (principle of non-contradiction, principle of the excluded middle). But is that objectively true? Moment by moment, every single thing changes its material form, except that for much of our inhabited-observable world these changes are below the threshold of convenient observation. A rock is a rock. But if it is sitting in a flowing stream it will ‘quickly’ become a very different sort of a rock than it used to be. So what is the basis of identity? Simplistically, identity appears to be far more of a logical category or construct that we apply to reality than that we derive from it.
You’ve conceded the key point: coherent claims (even contradictory ones) require stable distinctions (true/false) that are invariant across all possible worlds. That necessity is exactly what line 3 states: Logic presupposes Truth.
Logic’s very ontological nature can only be fulfilled if there are stable distinctions and patterns for Logic to align and apply. Logic therefore necessarily presupposes Truth, which creates and coheres those stable distinctions (A=A) and the universe’s ordered structure (line 3).
Are you making a “brute facts” claim or are you saying that distinctions like “You” and “I” are uncreated?
Yes, Logic requires stable distinctions (A=A as “this ≠ that”, so “You” ≠ “Me”, that rock ≠ this rock, etc.) as I explained above. The claim in line 3 is “Logic presupposes Truth” because Truth’s very ontological nature is to create distinctions. It is the only thing in existence that fulfils its nature by creating a distinction between itself (Truth) and not itself (not-Truth).
This is a direct concession that we receive signals that are external to ourselves. You may have an issue with the term “observe” but line 1 is secure once you’ve conceded that ordered patterns (sound waves, etc.) exist in the universe and reach us via sense organs.
The rest of the argument follows necessarily from that concession.
Yes, our perception of these ordered patterns is distorted by our limited sense organs—that point is not disputed.
Non-human systems still bind to those same stable distinctions regardless: bacterial chemotaxis follows chemical gradients, animal migration aligns with recurrent patterns, planetary orbits obey invariant ratios. So the structure is not purely mind-dependent.
The 7 lines form one continuous deductive chain: Line 1 (we observe reality) → Lines 2–3 (Logic presupposes Truth to explain the stable patterns we observe in reality) → Lines 4–5 (Truth must therefore be non-contingent/Eternal or there would be no ordered patterns to observe in reality) → Lines 6–7 (reductio and necessary conclusion that fully explains the patterns we observe in reality).
Each line necessarily follows from the previous one. No gaps.
Neither. For a start these are not the only options.
Banno’s Law states that it is easier to criticise something if you begin by misunderstanding it. A corollary is that it is easier to answer a question if you begin by not grasping the issue.
There are logics that do not make use of truth - paraconsistent, many-valued and ituitionistic logics, for a start. Formal logics that make use of truth mostly do so using Tarksi’s model-theoretical approach, in which truth is a function of extensionality and not a fundamental notion as it is in your account.
While there is a superficial resemblance between what you have set out and the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, what you have posited simply does not hang together in a coherent fashion.
It’s admirable that you have begun to think philosophically. But there is a lot to understand here. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have provided a final answer. Keep working.
Thanks, JuanZu. This is the most technically sophisticated objection I’ve had so far.
The argument uses the ontological meaning of Truth (capital T).
Truth is the Eternal, non-contingent precondition that creates and coheres all individual distinctions (A=A, “this ≠ that”) and the universe’s ordered structure (line 3). It is the only thing in existence whose very nature is fulfilled simply by creating the distinction between itself and not-itself. By existing, Truth makes the Law of Identity (A=A) possible at the most fundamental level. From this foundation, the other two classical laws of logic follow necessarily as direct consequences: because Truth creates stable distinctions, it is ontologically impossible for Truth to be both A and not-A (Law of Non-Contradiction), and Truth must always be True and never not true—no viable middle ground (Law of Excluded Middle).
At the epistemic level that you are talking, I fully concede that “contradictions” are possible. but even remaining at this level this only exposes the underlying claim: even to recognize two claims as inconsistent, you already need stable distinctions (this claim ≠ that claim). That underlying binary (A=A) is still fully in place. It is created and cohered by Truth at the ontological level.
No my claim has never been epistemic. The acknowledgment of the possibility of contradictions at the epistemic level is in line 6: “Simply: no Truth → no Logic → no coherent reality → no intelligibility that could refute the following claim (without contradiction):”
The performative contradiction is in the fact that intelligibility itself is contingent on stable distinctions at the ontological level.
There are three-valued logics in which the third value is both true and false at the same time. And that clearly contradicts the law of the excluded middle and the principle that ‘this ≠ that’, as you put it. But the important point is that propositions in a three-valued logic do not consist merely of epistemology, but also of their ontological nature. A sentence or a proposition has ontological existence. For example, a proposition such as: ‘this statement is false’ has existence as meaning and sense. That is to say, they belong to the world, and a binary logic is not capable of subsuming them within its laws. It must therefore be said that such binary logic is not sufficient to comprehend the world in its entirety.
The fact that we continue to use binary distinctions such as true and false merely highlights their ineffectiveness when we attempt to apply them to certain propositions (and AI systems, see fuzzy hardware). In this case, it is no longer a matter of ‘this≠that’ but, in your words, [(this≠that), (neither this nor that)]. Here we ask ourselves why we would continue to call that ‘ontological truth’ rather than simply Logos – assuming the world is structured in that way.
This still mixes up the symbols and language (which line 2 fully concedes are naming conventions that exist between humans) with the underlying ontological bedrock that makes any naming convention possible in the first place.
We can call a wall “wall”, “muro”, or “wand”—that part is conventional. But the objective fact that running into it will hurt because it is solid is not created by human agreement. That reality exists independently of our naming or epistemology.
No. In this argument “Eternal” simply means non-contingent—existing as the precondition for the universe and coherent reality itself, not dependent on anything temporally prior (including human agreement).
The wall example applies here too: the wall is objectively solid irrespective of whether humans agree on logic or not. For there to even be a “between” in which humans can agree on logic, stable distinctions (A=A) must already be possible. The agreement does not create those distinctions—it presupposes them.
You have just described a fundamental “quantum reality where time does not exist (nor space)” from which matter and time are produced. That is precisely what the argument means by Eternal—a non-contingent precondition that must exist in order for the universe to exist and cohere (A=A as “this ≠ that”) at all (line 4). Yet even in that timeless layer, the stable distinctions and true/false duality still require non-contingent Truth to create and cohere them; otherwise the emergence of our ordered universe would be impossible (line 5). So the move does not refute the Eternal Origin—it illustrates why it is necessary (line 7).
I do see the distinction you’re drawing between the physical support (brain/microprocessor) and the “betweenal causal space.” However, that “betweenal causal space” still requires an account of how stable distinctions and binding rules can exist independently of brains while still depending on human agreement.
If we count 2 sheep here and 2 sheep there, the total is objectively 4 sheep regardless of the naming convention we use (“II oves + II oves = IV oves” or whatever). The naming is irrelevant. The objective multiplicity and the truth of the addition exist independently of our minds or agreement.
The deeper point is that any such “betweenal space” is itself parasitic on the very non-contingent Truth identified in lines 4–7. Without that precondition, there is no stable ground for the “between” to function in the first place.
The argument fully acknowledges that we can “get by” pragmatically—but not without contradiction (line 6). Any worldview that deploys stable distinctions (A=A) and ordered structure while being unable to account for them is incoherent.
You yourself acknowledge the reality of mind-independent patterns when you accept lines 1–2 as the starting point. The reason those patterns require non-contingent/Eternal Truth is simple: everything in the observable universe is contingent—impermanent and in flux. Brains decay, matter and energy transform or dissipate, stars burn out, particles collide and change, galaxies evolve. Nothing physical or biological is eternal; everything depends on prior conditions and is subject to alteration.
Yet stable distinctions and invariants are observed everywhere (π in circles, Fibonacci sequences in phyllotaxis, 2+2=4, A=A as “this ≠ that”, etc.). They cannot originate from within the contingent universe itself. They require an Eternal, non-contingent ground—otherwise they could not hold stable across all time and all worlds (line 4). That is the direct, inescapable connection.
The argument never uses the term “Divine Origin.” It speaks only of an Eternal Origin (non-contingent precondition of intelligibility). By substituting “Divine Origin,” your reply reframes a purely transcendental philosophical argument into an apparent theological leap.
There is no way of escaping the conclusion without contradiction: line 7 is fully necessitated by the admission of stable distinctions that exist independently of any contingent human mind. Denial still deploys the very Truth, distinctions, and Logic it rejects.
The 7 lines form one continuous deductive chain with no gaps:
Line 1 (we observe reality) → Lines 2–3 (Logic presupposes Truth to explain the stable patterns we observe in reality) → Lines 4–5 (Truth must therefore be non-contingent/Eternal or there would be no ordered patterns to observe in reality) → Lines 6–7 (reductio and necessary conclusion that fully explains the patterns we observe in reality).
Each line necessarily follows from the previous one. The first three bullets establish the observable facts; the next bullets show why those facts necessitate non-contingent Truth. The connection is the explicit reductio: no Truth → no Logic → no coherent reality → no intelligibility that could even entertain a pragmatic alternative (line 6). That is what makes the argument more than assertion—it is a performative contradiction (line 7).
Anything that is not dependent on any particular human mind for its existence or continued operation.
You are avoiding the actual question. Let me make it crystal clear: once humans have built a video camera, does it continue to record light and sound waves into stable binary distinctions (1s and 0s) even when no human mind is perceiving it, controlling it, or even aware of it?
Let me ask you directly: do you have sense organs (eyes, ears, etc.)? If yes, what do they sense? And the things they are sensing—light waves, sound waves, pressure, etc.—are those stable patterns independent of you (not merely thoughts in your mind)?
Any perception you have necessarily presupposes those stable patterns and the Logic (ontological Logic, capital L) that aligns and applies them. Logic is therefore presupposed by perception, not the other way around (lines 1–3). Denying this still deploys the very stable distinctions the argument identifies.
You better ask this question to the camera manufacturing folks. I have never made cameras myself. You are asking wrong question to wrong person here.
Again, you need to explain clearly why the question is relevant to the point.
You are still misunderstanding what Logic is. Perception is not logic. Logic is a separate subject for finding out if your statements are true or false. Perception is what makes you see, hear and feel the reality. A baby can see his parents, milk and feel the reality. They don’t have Logic in their perception. They just have perception in instinctual level.
Thank you for the thoughtful engagement—this is one of the clearest objections so far.
The rock-in-stream example is a good one, but it actually illustrates the opposite of what you suggest. Yes, the rock is constantly changing its material form (erosion, weathering, etc.). That is uncontroversial. But when we say “the rock is eroding” or “the rock in the stream is becoming a different sort of rock”, we are still treating that same rock as the persisting subject of change. That persisting identity (“this rock”) is exactly what Truth (A=A) upholds. Without stable numerical identity for the subject, you could not even describe the change—there would be no “it” that is changing.
In other words, material flux does not erase ontological identity; it presupposes it. The very statement “the rock is changing” requires A=A to remain true for the rock as the enduring referent.
Even if the rock turns to sand and is later made into glass, etc., we can still identify that “there was a rock” and that “the rock no longer exists as a rock”. This identity is not limited to human minds. If all humans ceased to exist there would still be a rock that is now glass. The identity (A=A as “this ≠ that”) remains eternally true and the pattern of the rock changing form is the result of that stable identity.
Ok. So you are essentially asserting a non-material process ontology, in which becoming is foundational, not being? That certainly fits my emergent-constructive perspective, but I don’t think it substantiates your claim. Material flux doesn’t erase ontological identity, but neither does it presuppose it…it replaces it.
Man, if you are using the word eternal—which is blatantly a time-bound concept—as a substitute for non-contingent, we are just wasting bandwidth arguing here!
And you did use it in its literal “for-all-time” sense initially, which caused your entire argument to drift here. Yet, when you bring up the quantum level, you suddenly switch to a non-temporal definition ! You are constantly equivocating on the word “eternal,” using it whichever way locally suits your narrative! How can anyone have a serious debate with that?
Furthermore, 2+2=4 is not a mere naming convention!!! It is a purely non-contingent, mathematical (i.e., betweenal) truth. This second massive confusion completely invalidates your argument.
However, I suspect this is merely a semantic failure here, and that we actually deeply agree on the “underlying bedrock ontology.” I would call this the “mental simulation of the world.” Language is merely a communicative tool to exchange that simulation; it holds absolutely no intrinsic meaning by itself, I think we at least agree on this.
Line 6 already concedes that epistemic contradictions are possible, but the argument is ontological. Even those epistemic contradictions fully presuppose Truth. Without the ability to distinguish “this claim” vs “that claim” we would not even be able to identify epistemic contradictions at all.
Yes, there is a superficial resemblance—but it remains superficial. The 7 lines are not an attempt at a Tractatus-style system. The conclusion of Wittgenstein’s work and mine are worlds apart.
The deeper problem for Banno is this: in the self-referential naming of “Banno’s Law” he has fully conceded that there exists an objective distinction between “Banno” and “not-Banno”. He presents this distinction as stable, public, and binding on others in the discussion.
That act is only possible if genuine, stable distinctions (A=A as “this ≠ that”) exist independently of any particular epistemic framework or personal opinion. Yet this is precisely what his position denies—a non-contingent Eternal Truth that creates and coheres such distinctions (lines 3–4).
It is quite ironic that “Banno’s Law” itself is a prime example of the performative contradiction the argument identifies in line 7.
The 7 lines are not a personal opinion or an “absolute truth claim” in the sense you suggest. They are a transcendental reductio: no non-contingent Truth → no stable distinctions → no Logic → no coherent reality at all (lines 4–7). Your own “Banno’s Law” performs the contradiction perfectly.
This is getting closer to what I’d call a deductive argument, but not quite there.
Let’s look at this and see if we can start making some logical connections. To make this clearer I want to formalize. I’ll utilize “P” “Q” “R” and so forth to represent a proposition.
What does “→” mean in your above? “Leads to”? “Therefore”? “Implies”?
Ignoring that symbol I’d formalize what you said as:
P
Q (supported by justification j1)
∴ R (supported by justification j2, there would be no ordered patterns to observe in reality)
~T, by contradiction.
There’s no connection from 1 to 2 to 3. We’d have to instead say something like
P implies Q
Q implies R
P
C: ∴ R
If we observe reality then logic presupposes Truth to explain the patterns of reality.
If we see stable patterns then we observe reality.
We see stable patterns.
∴ We (in logic) presuppose Truth to explain the patterns of reality.