There are eternal truths, which are a priori and cannot be false at any time. For instance: a square is four-sided.
A truth expresses an “objective situation” (i.e. independent of the mind)
So an eternal truth expresses some eternal situation.
Where is such a “situation”? It is not in the mind, for the mind is not eternal, since it has a beginning
It is not in the material world, for what feature of this world could explain the presence of such a situation? It is not, for instance, the existence of squares in the world which makes true our truth. The world is just needed for our mind to understand the meaning of the subject and the predicate of the truth.
Therefore, it is beyond the world. But it is not reasonable to make the hypothesis of a world of Forms, because it would lead us to postulate too many entities. So it is reasonable to say that the situations that eternal truths express is located in an eternal being beyond the world, though I don’t claim to be able to prove that such a being is personal.
It seems to me that you are missing the point in quibbling on an instance, or are you claiming that all alleged instances of eternal truths are not what they seem to be?
“or are you claiming that all alleged instances of eternal truths are not what they seem to be?”
At least this instance is not what it seems to be. Are you establishing a proof, or are you thinking loosely about God? A theory of forms has long been postulated in philosophy, but I don’t see how it proves the necessity of God, but rather the necessity of explanation.
Samkhya, have you been reading about “exemplar forms”?
A square is defined as a plane figure. In a plane it has universal qualities, as Samkhya points out. If you create a squarish figure with curved lines on a three-dimensional sphere, I expect it will act with other universal qualities. Spheres will also have universal qualities until you wrap them into the fourth dinension, in which case they will have other universal qualities.
And outside math, we find natures to have universal qualities as well. Aren’t these universals very real both in math and in nature?
Can we now concentrate on the premise whether universals imply objective existence of rules in a universal mind of some sort?
“A square is defined as a plane figure. In a plane it has universal qualities”
It does not have to be so defined - it can be defined as a figure composed of four equal interior angles and four lines of equal length. Euclidian space is not our space. But in keeping with your defintion, you are saying 2+2 = 4, so there must be a God. Hmmm. Why?
Why wouldn’t one define differently things with different properties? I suggest this is like conic sections: elipses, hyperbolae, parabolae, etc. – all similarly constructed, but with different properties.
If flat space is not our space, then it seems math is all in the mind of man. I see that this might lead to man’s definition as abstract knower, but not the establishment of objectivity of the mapping of mathematical space into real space. But mathematicals do seem to exist both ideally and in the “real world”, as parabolas exist physically (viz. in shooting a cannon) as well as mathematically.
If I get Samkhya’s argument, man could not have created these truths of the world, but only discovered them. So, one asks, from where can they be, the rationality in nature? (But I wonder why, if God’s mind is mathematical, are we not squares and circles? And i also wonder if man is an abstract knower, has he not an abstract mind?)
“If I get Samkhya’s argument, man could not have created these truths of the world, but only discovered them.”
Man simply set up tautological systems of reference in order to measure consistencies within the observable world. This does not imply that God set up tautological systems in order to create these consistencies does it? All it means is that the observable world has regularities that can be described by prinicples of organization, which we approximate in (what we anthropomorphically call) “laws”. But in what way does this entail a God?
Perhaps this is foolish, but why doesn’t the world just evolve so that the consistencies change? (I don’t know how you evolve without a Prime Mover either, but is that another argument?) Then it would be believable that man only creates meaning. Now i have heard of Godel, but old systems still operate while the new ones are discovered, no? (Perhaps this is a weak spot.)
I think one might say that God sets up things so that tautological systems can be referenced by man – that is, if what we speak of are mere systems; if there were no order to reference, would these tautologies be referenceable?..unless by tautological references you are thinking of implications for artifacts – that might be a different story.
Perhaps this is foolish, but why doesn’t the world just evolve so that the consistencies change?
There are two possibilities. Things unfold contingently and therefore by discoverable principles, or things unfold in absolute randomness (an indefinable thing really), without any connection between events. If consisencies changed, they would either change by discoverable rule, or for no reason at all. Neither entails the existence of a God.
I think one might say that God sets up things so that tautological systems can be referenced by man
One might say it. One might say a lot of things, but it does not follow.
I tried to express this in the “Vibrations: Science and Being” thread.
The eternal truth is IMO the same as expressed in several ways for example taken from the link on that thread:
Vibration is the expression of being. The mind is reflections of vibrations. Everything is a reflection of vibrations They occur at various frequencies within all the matter of the universe at its varying densities during its constant change.
“Where is such a situation”? Everywhere. It is the limitations of our being that prevent us from awareness of it.
There is a difference between eternal being consciously responsible for creation and AN eternal being which implies something beyond it.
It is the concept of the Trinity; how eternal being can be both one and three simultaneously, that explains the levels of creation and everything within them as fractions of the whole.
That the square is four-sided is always true under specific conditions, for instance in a two-dimensional plane and in a non-curved space. It is not a universal necessity, but it is still a necessity.
As an instance of a universal necessity, let’s take the principle of non-contradiction.
the only “necessary connections” are created in language. period. human language. we invented it. period. same with mathematics. we invented it. it only exists in our minds. period. the bear will continue to shit in the woods no matter what I say or write about it… we think we have the answers to the universe because we can say “bear” “woods” “shit”… but we have nothing…
“we are not rid of god because we have faith in grammar” -Nietzsche