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[major edits] Even if our consciousness is an illusion (even in the sense Denett suggests), the mere fact we see some information flowing across the universe means there is at least something that creates the illusion. That something is real - even though it might be only as real as a hallucintion (it exists). And if we can make our thought constructs, we can work with this information that makes what we are.

The obvious problem here is that if we think about our minds being simulated, we cannot see into the logic of the "real" world (world outside the Matrix). That's because in our world, we know that we can simulate only logical things (nothing illogical exists=is real) but we cannot know this is right from the "real" world.

But clearly the mere fact that we can think about this concept of the "real" world means something in our logic system.

So let's assume the logic we know indeed governs this universe. From this fact we know that our thought constructs (what we think consciousness is) are real (/hallucination-real).

And if our thought constructs are real, than cogito ergo sum is real - our simple logic "if something exists, than it exists" (Hilbertian axiom a→a).

Doesn't it prove that if our logic system is true, than we exist?

I understand this might be an awfully broad question, so I'll be grateful for any references.

Geoffrey Thomas
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Probably
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    "existence of logic" ? Do you mean with "existence" the same thing that you mean with "Obama exists" ? If so, it is trivial: you assume that something exists in order to conclude that something exists. Or it is wrong: you assume that something (the logic) exists in roder to conclude that something other (the univers) exists. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Sep 06 '17 at 06:02
  • Seen from a different point of view, it seems a rephrasing of [Descartes' cogito](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/#4): "*Logico, ergo sum*". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Sep 06 '17 at 09:17
  • If logic exists than something exists. No need for a longer argument. Now you just need to show that logic exists. –  Sep 06 '17 at 10:59
  • @MauroALLLEGRANZA Good point with Descartes. Well, I meant something else than logic but I don't think the existence of anything proves the existence of itself - that's why we can discuss the "existence" of consciousness. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 11:02
  • @PeterJ Nothing in metaphysics is that easy. What I meant was "something physical", though. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:05
  • @Probably - Ah. You won't have any luck proving that anything physical exists. Solipsism is unfalsifiable. , –  Sep 06 '17 at 12:17
  • @PeterJ As a physicalist, I believe we'll be able to describe consciousness as a physical phenomenon as well. But I'm not sure if that'd be a step forward long enough for what I've suggested. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:22
  • @PeterJ Please see the changes I made in the post – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:52
  • I still find the question unclear. If you can say 'logic exists' then clearly something is real and Nihilism is not the case. But as a physicalist you're condemned to eternal uncertainty about existence since the unfalsifiablity of solipsism prevents you from establishing that physicalism is the case. I can never quite understand how physicalism is consistent with science since it is untestable. One problem here is that I'm not sure it's possible for system of logic to be 'true'. –  Sep 06 '17 at 13:44
  • @PeterJ Sure, that's why I said I "believe" in physicalism. Well if logic (the system of this Matrix world) exists, it doesn't mean it governs the _"real" world_. People in Sion (the "real world") might be able to fly. But that doesn't mean gravity isn't real in the sense that it isn't a program of Matrix. The question is, wheter Sion is a world even governed by physical laws so that we could talk about it like that. And if we cannot say that, we cannot say much about the program of gravity _a priori_ (from the info we have about it) too, as it is a part of this program. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 13:53
  • What is "logic of the "real" world"? Logic is supposed to hold in all possible worlds, did you mean "physics" or something like "metaphysics"? Same with "the logic we know indeed governs this universe". On the traditional account logic is part of our way of making meaningful statements, it does not govern anything other than our language practices, and can not be "true" or "false" (it has to be accepted to make those usable). But how would applying a→a prove anything? You'd have to assume what you want to conclude. – Conifold Sep 06 '17 at 18:47
  • what does logic have to do with existence? –  Sep 06 '17 at 21:19
  • @Conifold I'm still struggling to formulate it but see the comment above yours. a→a can prove the entire logic but that's irelevant now. The point is to show that the trueness of logic and of consciousness are fully dependant on each other. It's kinda answer to the age long rationalists/empiricists debate. – Probably Sep 07 '17 at 05:23
  • @mobileink Logic gives sense to "I think, therefore I am." – Probably Sep 07 '17 at 05:25
  • @Probably: no, logic never "gives sense". P->Q is (classically) either true or false, regardless of the "sense" of P and Q. –  Sep 18 '17 at 19:01
  • @mobileink ok then what I'm calling logic is the symbol system that includes -> – Probably Sep 18 '17 at 21:21
  • I think there is merit to this. That what we can know about the world involves logic, and physics has shown logic or information has physical reality (Maxwell's demon, Shannon entropy). You might find this discussion relevant https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/48769/are-we-living-in-a-simulation-the-evidence – CriglCragl Feb 28 '21 at 19:16
  • It still yet to define in what sense we "exist"? If we are mere computer simulation as brain in a VAT or math structures per Tegmark's MUH, then we (our consciousness) exist in such non-physical sense too. Since logic is nothing but a formal system supporting any philosophical or math foundation such as ZFC or PA or ACA or deontology, epistemology, it cannot determine our physical existence by itself... – Double Knot May 04 '21 at 21:01

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Logical systems cannot define themselves, as Tarski and Gödel demonstrated. 'X=X', the classical law of identity, is actually a 0 information law as it is a tautology.

Are you embracing some notion of permanent existence? No single 'thing' has ever been observed to not decay, even protons and black holes disappear. Direct observation pushes one to accept, or at least infer, impermanence at every level. Observer dependence for accurate, though frame-dependent information leads to QM and the relational anatta that solves EPR (if we skip the preamble and head strait for https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9609002.pdf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604064.pdf and https://ia800400.us.archive.org/4/items/NagarjunaTheFundamentalWisdomOfTheMiddleWay/Nagarjuna%20-%20The%20Fundamental%20Wisdom%20Of%20The%20Middle%20Way.pdf)

Logic (and mathematics) is a tool for inference, useful as direct observation is not possible for every thing. It can model experience accurately, subject to having been built as an accurate linguistic description of the system it seeks to model.

Ilya Grushevskiy
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  • Thank you for understanding my question but I think my model isn't inconsistent with Gödel. I'm not saying that we can prove logic, I'm saying that once we suppose logic is true (that's the axiom), we could say that what we see is "real" (in this definition even hallucinations are real). – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:26
  • But as I said, I couldnt express it with words - so thanks for helping me there - I'm gonna edit my question. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:30
  • "So let's assume the logic we know indeed governs this universe." - there is a causality here that is questionable. Logic, therefore universe? Then you must answer what root the rules of logic come from! The universe is logical because the illogical - acausality, turning emptiness into things - requires Essence, Form, God, or some other philosophical notion of absolute delineation. However, the universe is a dynamic process of interrelations, where properties as well as objects are dependent on an observer for their conditioned existence.. – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 06 '17 at 13:32
  • It's interesting because observer dependence leads to QM, whilst observer independence is arguably the antithesis of a scientific method built on the core ontology of observation/measurement. You say the universe is logical, but is it subject to one logical system or many? https://aeon.co/essays/the-logic-of-buddhist-philosophy-goes-beyond-simple-truth is an interesting take on Buddhist logic. I am not sure why an illogical existence would be any less real though - if 1+1=3 and I needed to feed my stomach, I'd still have to put up with the damn mess! – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 06 '17 at 13:36
  • In a way, Meinong's Jungle - existent non-existents - gives us space for the illogical in this universe! – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 06 '17 at 13:36
  • I think I don't quite catch you. _"So let's assume the logic we know indeed governs this universe."_ - there is no claim to dispute (it's in imperative). I've never understood eastern "beyond logic" philosophy - I'll surely take a look at the essay! – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 13:55
  • I think that the laws of logic apply to the universe because the laws of logic and mathematics are the only way any thing can be without breaking the law of anatta, emptiness of Form. A universe empty of Self is inherently regular, because all entities are the same at their cores - impermanent and lacking a permanent self. 'X=X' is 0 information, Peano arithmetic is tautological, we build more effective descriptions of the world when we down assume X=Y. In the end, the philosophical method is only a-priori to some degree, and hypothesis must still be tied to direct observation at some level. – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 06 '17 at 14:53
  • Matrix algebra - A*B≠B*A is not a completely different rule to basic integer a*b = b*a, but the former deals with more than 1 dimension. Rules of logic/arithmetic describe the world, they don't make it imo! – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 06 '17 at 14:56
  • I'm sorry but I can't really anyhow connect with those claims and the essay didn't help me. There _are_ [many](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox#Possible_resolutions) logical solutions to the liar paradox and saying it goes against boolean logic is just wrong. – Probably Sep 08 '17 at 14:55
  • It's not for or against, simply different modes of thought offering answers from different frames of reference. The problem with boolean logic (powerful as it is) is that it literally offers no middle ground. I'm 6'4", most my friends call me tall, but my 6'7" friend calls me short.Either neither one nor the other or both tall and short apply, because there is no objective definition of 'tall' or 'short'. Any such definition will be conventional. And implying an argument is just wrong because it goes against a defined language is exactly anti-Gödelian. – Ilya Grushevskiy Sep 08 '17 at 15:33
  • "It's interesting because observer dependence leads to QM, whilst observer independence is arguably the antithesis of a scientific method built on the core ontology of observation/measurement." This is really one of those things that has never made sense to me. The scientific method is a way for gaining knowledge - for it to work doesn't _require_ that things would not _exist_ without observation, but only that such is possible, and "things" are regular enough to make useful statements about causes and consequences. – The_Sympathizer Jan 03 '20 at 04:06
  • Moreover, where exactly do the observers come from? Where were they during the hot and very much lethal big bang? That is, the "chronology problem": it seems that if we are to go this route we end up with either that the statement "the Universe is 13.8 billion years old" is somehow not what we think it is, or that we have to perhaps go to some sort of Panpsychism/animism-type (and definitely at least _far_ from anthropocentrism) system. – The_Sympathizer Jan 03 '20 at 04:08
  • Also, from my own examination, QM doesn't make "existence" impossible without "observers", but what it _does_ do is make it not possible to _know_ (to the extent it holds as an unexcepted explanation) that outside existence. Such "existence" may very well be true, but its nature is and must be forever unknown to us, except perhaps in the most limited of ways (such as that we can say that, under the presence of relativistic causality, any such "existence" must be describable with only a finite number of bits in any given region - but we can't know the form that "objective" information takes.). – The_Sympathizer Jan 03 '20 at 04:12
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Does existence of logic imply something has to exist ?

We have to start from a reasonable view of what logic is: we may say that logic is the study of the properties of reasoning. Reasoning in turn is an activity of thought, in which conclusions are drawn inferentially from assumptions.

If so, logic is a human activity, and thus its "existence" presupposes the existence of the human mind and probably also the existence of human linguistic practices, like that of making arguments.

Mauro ALLEGRANZA
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  • Well you assume that logic is a real thing (is not just empirically observed) and that would be for a longer discussion but I don't think you quite caught what I'm suggesting, that is, once we suppose logic **is** a real thing, we can rely on our consciousness. In other words, if we have logic as an axiom, Descartes was right. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:29
  • But thanks for helping me formulate the question, I'm gonna edit it. – Probably Sep 06 '17 at 12:30
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This sounds a lot like Cogito Ergo Sum, which you already mentioned. The thing is Cogito Ergo Sum is already supposed to prove your existence. It stands to reason that for a question to be asked (Do I exist) then there would have to be someone asking it. You can use this as evidence of the existence of a universe as well, as it it stands to reason something must exist, or there would be nothing to think the thoughts you have, or make the perceptions.

Braydon
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    Well you can't really _prove_ anything, that's why I put the axiom of logic there. When you consider that, cogito ergo sum is no solution since my primary problem was to study exactly that - putting logic as an axiom, instead of cogito ergo sum (as most of philosophy does). – Probably Sep 08 '17 at 15:00
  • @Probably My point is if there was nothing there would be no thought or questions, or observation, or opinions. Anything even if it is illusion is proof something exists, because everything is a thing and you wouldn't have anything in nothing. – Braydon Sep 08 '17 at 20:13
  • Oh yes, this is what I meant to express. I am still not sure about it, though and I can't really find any evidence to think so, even though it seems very natural. – Probably Sep 09 '17 at 11:57
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Doesn't it prove that [...] th[e]n we exist?

The big issue here is that you have not defined "we". If "you" refers just to your thoughts, then 'you' exists, sure. The question of whether it is an illusion is orthogonal to whether it exists. Most people use "you" to refer to more than your thoughts; presumably you also have a physical body and free agency and so on, and all those are not guaranteed to exist by merely the 'you think thus you exist' argument.

In short, you think, thus your thinking exists. Sure. Nothing more than that can be concluded from that pithy argument. There is no need to bring in the issue of "logic", and even more so it has absolutely nothing to do with the propositional tautology A⇒A.

By the way, it is always amusingly ridiculous to see people talk about 'simulation' type of hypotheses, because ultimately we should simply think about the entire reality. What's the point of saying that the rules governing the world we are in may not be the so-called 'true' rules just because our world is simulated? As you probably realize, the reality as a whole is governed by some rules whether or not we can figure them out. If we are in a simulation, that simulation is still part of the (larger) full reality, and hence unless there is good evidence of phenomena that are most easily explained as artifacts arising from a simulation, the simpler explanation that there is no simulation is simpler and therefore preferable.

user21820
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"Doesn't it prove that if our logic system is true, then we exist?" Your question is quite broad, I will note some possible areas of exploration:

  1. First, your notion of proof: Generally, we understand a notion of proof with respect to a logical system. Thus, you are presumably formulating this question with respect to a logical system, perhaps the "correct" logical system (if there is indeed one).
  2. Given that there is a correct logical system, you claim that this logic system is "true". Two points. First, logical systems are not in general "true". "Truth" is not a property of formal systems. Logical systems can be "complete", "sound", "decidable", etc... but "True" is a bit harder. So what then is truth? This is a controversial question, so I delay answering it here.
  3. We can say at least one thing about your logical system: since you appear to be able to formulate it ( you are asking a question about it in itself), your logical system must have the ability to self-reference! So it is quite powerful- perhaps powerful enough to generate paradox. If this is so, you can get your answer for free, but this may come at quite a high cost.
emesupap
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