Unscrewed (01)

DarkSyde extended a wonderfully cordial invitation to me to cross post with him on issues of mutual interest. Who could resist such a winsome offer from a self-professed athiest whose interests range throughout the hemisphere of "evolutionary biology, science in general, classical apologetics, thoughts on Sep of Church and State, etc." Although dealing with someone called "DarkSyde" leaves me feeling somewhat like a Wookie standing before Darth Vader - here goes.

The field is apologetics and the focus is presuppositions.

A place to start. There exists only two internally consistent , logically coherent frameworks within which any person may form a worldview that furnishes him or her with a rational, intelligible means of interpreting the world about them, their relation to the world about them and their own life within that world. Other frameworks exist but do not meet the criteria mentioned above.

There are only two, because all such frameworks reduce down, through the varying levels of complexity with which they have been filled, to the answer to one basic question, the starting point for all rational discourse on this topic. That question is: Is the world of the senses all that there is or does there exist a dimension to the sphere of universe and time ( I am explicitly avoiding the use of the word "creation") that is beyond the senses?

The answer to this question is to me, self-evidently basic. It cannot be further reduced without entering into an absurd consideration of whether anything exists at all. (Thoughts on Descartes some other time). One cannot test the question empirically without first assuming that the basis of epistemology is the world of the senses. Hence, I see it as the starting point. One must choose an answer to the question with the clear and certain understanding that it is not subject to proof or disproof by human investigation. There are no logical or illogical presuppositions. As long as the law of non-contradiction is maintained, there are only presuppositions which lead to conclusions that provide more or less warrant for adopting those presuppositions.

If one grants this basic premise then there are two fields in which logically consistent thought can grow with varying degrees of prosperity. These two fields of thought can, with some rigor be compared and contrasted at varying points and thereby furnish warrant for their individual merit or lack thereof.

If one adopts the view that the world of the senses alone comprises the sum of all existence, then it seems to me that one necessarily observes that the end of all things is death. Epistemology is rooted in the senses alone. Thermodynamics tells us that energy in a closed system necessarily declines and therefore the world of the senses is governed by an inevitable decay. Death is the ultimate, unavoidable, omnipresent and final reality. This is not the only conclusion that may be drawn from this framework nor does it imply any merit to or demerit against it. It simply seems so, on first blush.

If one adopts the opposite view: that the world of the senses does not alone comprise the sum of all existence, then one has to face the question of how anything at all can be known about that aspect of cosmology. It leaves open the possibility of some other ultimate than death. Thus this arena of investigation requires a more complex epistemology and does not, prima facie, guarantee a different conclusion other than that which the contrasting assumption produces. One is left with wondering whether a comprehensive epistemology is possible, for example.

There are many steps in between the choice of presuppositions and the conclusion that there are only two, internally consistent, logically coherent frameworks for understanding the world, ourselves in relation to the world, etc. The progress of my own thought on the subject has convinced me that these two frameworks are those generally proposed within the broad outlines of Existentialism and Christianity.

If there is any interest in a conversation on this topic, paraphrasing Barcus in David Copperfield, "Gadfly is willin'. "