/lit/ - Literature

>>20366781
Absolute truth is universal and self-substantial (tautological) by its very nature; any attempt to reduce it to anything other than what it is will result in a contradiction. We may not say reality is 'this' or 'that'; it is reality... unless the predicates in question are sufficiently general enough to be identical with it, in which case you may as well not even make the distinction (except for elucidative purposes), because there is none. As for Langan's preferential treatment of Christianity which would seem to be self-contradictory considering his past behavior, I have it on good authority that he is a utilitarian, and will therefore say what he believes will result in the greatest possible good. Luckily, the enlightened already know this.

>>18144231
The basis (root concept) of any correct theory of metaphysics must be tautological relative to all conceivable aspects of reality. Because the "metaphysical universe" is so all-encompassing that it exceeds the set of all self-inclusive sets, where "self-inclusion" is synonymous with the kind of self-description on which (prepositional) tautology is defined, it must reduce (or regress inductively) to the broadest and most powerful tautology the human mind can formulate.

There is only one such "universal tautology", and therefore only one correct basis for metaphysical theorization. To convince you of this, I offer the following informal and highly simplified "proof". For the purposes of this proof, think of "information" as that by which transducers distinguish among objects or ideas. The phrase "T excludes d" means that the theory T contains neither the info d nor a deductively heritable generalization of it. The point of exclusion is to excuse us from differentiating between two theories, one of which is either a notational variant or deductive evolution of the other. Such theories pass as virtually identical; "different" theories have different tautological bases.

SHORT FORM: Say that there are two true but different theories of metaphysics M and M', one or each of which contains information inferentially excluded by the other. Call all such info "d". Since M, M' are both true, and the distinction between two truths is itself a truth, d is true. Since metaphysics is comprehensive over reality by definition, it can exclude no real truth. But at least one of the pair M, M' excludes at least a part of d. So at least one of the pair is not a theory of metaphysics, and the assumption that two such theories exist is self-contradictory. This implies that there is at most one true theory of metaphysics.

Could there be no true theory of metaphysics? According to the above discussion, metaphysics reduces ultimately to the human cognitive syntax (or more accurately, its symmetric self-expansion). So "no true theory of metaphysics" would imply that human beings lack a cognitive syntax. If this were so, human cognition would he random and patternless. But it isn't. So there is one true theory of metaphysics, and this is by definition the CTMU.

It might be objected that the CTMU, being based by definition on the human cognitive syntax, already resides in each of our minds and thus represents no informational gain. But this syntax is not so easily formulated within itself, and equating metaphysical reality to it is neither obvious nor simple. As explained above, a net informational gain comes from freeing information once "locked up" (artificially isolated) within U*-pseudotautologies and the scientific and mathematical theories implicitly based on them.