Posted: May 17, 2012 3:52 pm
That's totally irrelevant to how logic works. Logic isn't contingent on facts or reality. It's contingent on deductive logic. I could make this statement:
Premise 1: God is a sldhhkjlsd
STOP! What's that you say? A "sldhhkjlsd" doesn't exist?
As I said, facts are irrelevant to a logical deduction. That premise 1 is a valid premise. Just as Shrunks premise 1 is a valid premise.
I don't get the point you are trying to make about the carrot. Please put carrot into my argument everywhere you see consciousness. I doubt it will hold up.
Wasn't your argument:
God is consciousness
Consciousness exists
Therefore: God exists.
Why is asserting god is a carrot any more ridiculous than asserting that god is consciousness?
You are failing to consider the argument given by shrunk rev. He is simply defining square circle in his second premise. That definition is valid for any instance of "square circle" in the argument.
And? That's what logic is. By defining a part of the first premise in the second premise, leads to the deduced conclusion of the logical structure. You're getting confused about the basics of logic. What you've described here is exactly how deductive logic works.
He has defined square circle as that which cannot exist. So premise 1 becomes "if god exists he is that which cannot exist".
It only does that when the logic statement is assessed. And because the first premise is a conditional, and the second solves that premise for a particular case, they are structurally valid. And that's the point that was being made many posts ago. Just because something is structurally valid (just like my carrot example) doesn't mean it is true.