It’s rather astounding, really. Once you drop the desperate non-sequitur for religion, you’re left with a defense of Logical realism in the spirit of Aristotle. And this is important for humanity as a whole.

I state this as a fierce Atheist.

The Laws of Logic cannot themselves be merely another collection of rules within the system whose validity they are supposed to establish. They are the condition under which the very concepts of “rule,” “validity,” “correctness,” and “incorrectness” become possible.

Interesting new book coming out soon, applying David Deutsch's epistemology to animals.

Description:

Do animals matter? To truly answer this question, we must first examine what - if anything - separates human beings from the rest of the living world.

Drawing on the pioneering critical rationalism of physicist David Deutsch, Do Animals Matter? delivers a fascinating analysis of evolution, intelligence, and information. This book dismantles long-held myths about cognition and shatters the illusions of genetic determinism. Ultimately, it redefines the place of both humans and animals in the universe.

There is a glaring, almost tragic paradox in the way humanity navigates reality. On the surface, we proclaim ourselves to be rational beings in endless pursuit of truth. Yet, upon closer examination of our social and psychological dynamics, a starkly different pattern emerges: humanity, for the most part, is not seeking truth, but merely hunting for self-validation.

Truth, in its rawest and most authentic form, rarely comes wrapped in comforting packages. It is brutal, indifferent, unforgiving, and often strips away the cozy illusions we hold dear. Incapable of bearing the crushing weight of such reality, humanity collectively retreats behind constructed delusions. We construct a framework of social pretense—a silent, implicit pact that seems to whisper: "Let us forget the terrifying void, turn away from the cold reality, and pretend that this staged theater is the only truth that exists."

This inevitably begs a more fundamental question: why are we so deeply afraid of the truth?

If we look at existence and the transcendental dimension, reason and consciousness are the highest gifts bestowed upon humanity. They are instruments designed to pierce through the veil of ignorance. Yet, a massive intellectual paralysis occurs where humans dread utilizing this very gift to its fullest potential. There is a latent terror that if reason is used to dismantle the stage of pretense to its absolute roots, we will find nothing beneath it—except a vast, echoing emptiness that shakes the very foundation of our existence.

This fear extends beyond mundane worldly anxieties; it is a profound existential dread. Even in a spiritual realm, when finite human reason collides with the concept of the Infinite, a blurring line forms between awe and the terrifying fear of losing one's footing. We fear that the ultimate reality might crumble the carefully built architecture of our lives.

Ultimately, we are left with a haunting dilemma: is this collective pretense a necessary defense mechanism required to keep humanity sane, or is it merely a form of mass cowardice in the face of unfiltered reality?

How do you perceive this phenomenon? Is humanity inherently wired to prefer a comforting lie over a liberating, yet agonizing, truth?

Does he look at the foundation? Certainly not, he’s afraid to look here because he already knows what he’s going to find: a lie.

The mythologies that claimed to be the purveyors and keepers of absolute truth have been shown to be wanting. Their apologetic has broken down.

But here a nuance is necessary, because it’s not that their epistemology has broken down, but their religious apologetic has broken down. This distinction matters.

Where does this leave modern man? He doesn’t want to even look! He’s simply trying to amuse himself as much as he possibly can. And it’s not only a distraction from the underlying meaninglessness he feels is there, but it’s all he thinks he can do to deal with what is there. (Another side of it is that those who live in privileged conditions, compared to much of the world, take great delight in their apathetic hedonism).

We can simplify the psychological disposition of society as a man who wants to do nothing more than play video games, and seeks to refute or repudiate everything that gets in the way of him fulfilling this desire.

On one side there is the contentment of the Ego Man at indulging his selfish hedonism, and on the other side, there is the existentially traumatized thinker who feels a kind of dread and despair through his naturalistic awareness.

He believes that truth has been destroyed by philosophical critique and scientific discovery— which is a delusion. Nonetheless, he is inflicted by it as though it were reality. He has stopped searching and is simply going through the existential motions as a dogmatist against truth. He has no rational ability to stand up to this modern narrative, and nor can he imagine why he would even want to, because after all, as he so thoroughly believes, “there is no truth but my truth.”

This is what he substitutes for truth.

Now, one wants to say, “but man has never pursued truth.” False! He has always pursued it, but that which he called “true” was nothing more than the superstition of his imagination. (But its form was still that of the pursuit and assent to truth).

Modern man has negated this pursuit with his hedonist desires and cults of amusement.

Modern man entirely lacks the capacity to evaluate what is before him: social media has trained him to discern value through likes and dislikes— not by a skillful evaluation of substance, but by whether or not it is accepted or rejected by the crowd.

Modern man wants to be entertained because he feels empty inside. He replaces meaning with amusement.

What is the end result? What becomes of these kind of men? What do they morph into?

They become stupid and facilitate stupidity in the world. And the function of stupidity is tyranny through ignorance and the sabotage of human intelligence.

When all the dramatic dust from the critique of postmodern thought has settled, the conclusion is that Reason is at war with human denial.

On one side is the Ego Man who says, “I don’t care about contradictions, you cannot persuade me with Reason.” This archetype is a threat to civilization.

On the other side are those who hold to and defend truth with reason and evidence. This man can be persuaded against his own convictions through reason and evidence— this archetype barely exists in the world.

The situation facing us is an army of human automatons who are bent on the militant denial of truth. Of course, they do not have a military on their side, they have an architecture of technological mediation and overwhelming numbers.

What exactly is their power? It is really only the power of wide spread ignorance, combined with the distributory-capacity of this technological architecture. In terms of ignorance, it’s the fact that those who hear their rhetoric, those who are exposed to their sophist form, do not have the rational capacity to criticize it and refute it. In general, the masses remain passive vessels, emotionally vulnerable to the form of sophistry.

A man that tells you he has rejected truth and that you cannot persuade him through reason or evidence, is telling you that he’s ultimately a violent dogmatist, though he may pretend to wear a mask of civility. This archetype is a tyrant. Such a man negates intelligence unto a clash of power, be it physical or abstract manipulation. These are modern barbarians.

The Ego Man loves relativism because it grants absolute sovereignty to his subjective feelings without demanding any real accountability to truth. In the modern environment you can hold any belief you want, so long as you treat it as a private hobby that doesn't violate one’s desired subjectivity.

But true thought is inherently offensive to this subjectivity. It insists that some things are objectively real: suffering is bad, delusion is dangerous, and we are physically tethered to a shared biosphere whether our egos like it or not. It drags a person out of their solipsistic sandbox and forces them to look at the hard, cold constraints of reality.

I have seen the psychological and philosophical inversion of reality. I cannot articulate it. I went from seeing superstition shattered by modern philosophy, to seeing it legitimately resurrected through philosophical justification (which is due to the epistemological bankruptcy of modern philosophy).

The level of motivated reasoning/irrationality is so automated that… I don’t know what to say. I am dumbfounded by it. And the modern irrationalist will be the first to defend his rationality, though he rejects the objectivity of reason.

Men who have never read a single book on Critical Thinking feel entitled to step forward as experts on Critical Thinking, namely to tell us that it’s not something we need, or that it’s something we already possess, or can intuitively just pick up along the way.

The world is fractured into hedonism, as humans have retreated into their respective cults of amusement.

And where do you fall, Oh man of Reason and care? Why can you not simply retreat into your hedonism and cult of amusement? Why do you care about truth? Why do you care about the health of culture? Surely there is something wrong with you, for it is certain you have cheated yourself?

Now put it all on a platter and serve it cold: no matter what you do, it will ultimately not matter, it will simply turn to dust in time. So why do you care, Oh foolish man of Reason?!

From this darkness a fake light dawned. But because all was darkness, and all was fake, the light shined like it was a real light in the darkness. And it’s not that men couldn’t extinguish it, but they didn’t want to.

They will bend and distort these laws to rationalize authoritarianism, superstition, and control. To abandon the Laws of Logic is to surrender the foundation on which freedom itself depends.

The one who rejects these laws has thrown away his intellectual power to resist tyranny.

As a thinker what is my ambition toward you? Am I trying to get something from you, or am I trying to rationally persuade you to do something for yourself?

If I want something from you, what is it?

If I’m trying to persuade you toward something for yourself, what is that thing?

I do nothing but teach and defend Logic and advocate for Critical Thinking. So indeed, judge me in this day and age, pit my ambitions against the ambitions of other thinkers. All I care about is that rational consciousness expands in the world, and that people turn to Critical Thinking to increase their ability in Reason, which will also expand their freedom and intelligence.

My great grift toward you is that you should become a Reasoner! Not a philosopher, not a follower of men and their ideology, but a competent student of Reason through a consciousness of The Laws of Logic and a mastery of Critical Thinking.

I do not persuade you to follow my doctrine, but to discover Logic and apply it to every claim, including my claims. I would have you consciously enslaved to Logic that you might be free from the tyranny and superstition of men.

JF: I foolishly assumed humans would welcome the truth of Logic, I didn’t expect them to resist it and deny it.

Aristotle: The world is full of ignorant people, and to these people Logic is a grave threat, because they rely on its absence to manipulate and control other humans.

JF: How can we hope to make progress against such reckless ignorance?

Aristotle: We are the mere servants of Logic through consciousness, we cannot guarantee anything, but we are obligated by the truth of Logic to manifest it in the world. All we can do is bear witness to its truth. Despair not, my rational friend, there are those who hear it and understand it, and equally join us in the struggle to expand it in the world.

JF: Sophistry has greatly increased since your time. It even permeates what we call “formal logic.” Here men believe they have bypassed the laws of logic, or that these laws are insignificant, and yet they use only these laws to demarcate all their meaning.

Aristotle: The danger of sophistry is precisely its ability to go undetected. We walk the razor’s edge, and if our foot slips, we too can lapse into sophistry. The more complex the abstract structure, the more intricate the jargon, the easier it is for sophistry to smuggle itself through the mess. Any man that demarcates a logic and claims it is free from the laws of logic, has already contradicted his own claim. For these men care about their narratives more than they care about Logic. They stand unfazed by contradictions, except for when they are the victim of contradiction. Their hypocrisy and ignorance are nearly perfect.

JF: How should we deal with such arrogant indifference?

Aristotle: Simply keep on manifesting Logic by exposing and refuting error. Because it’s true, no man can actually refute it, he can only deceive himself that he has refuted it, or bypassed it. In this case, he has done us no harm, but he has harmed himself and those who believe him. We cannot force the awareness of the existence of Logic to take root in human consciousness, because the human mind is a delusion producing machine bent on denying reality. But do not underestimate the power of Logic, my eager friend, for it is Absolute, and has the power to cast down every imagination and high thing that attempts to exalt itself above it, because its working is the working of reality, of fact, not merely ideal.

JF: Yet even among those who claim to hear Logic, many still cling to their preferred delusions when the cost of consistency grows high. How then shall we distinguish the true allies of Logic from those who merely wear its name as a convenient mask?

Aristotle: By the soundness of their speech and the steadiness of their assent under pressure. The genuine servant of Logic does not retreat when contradiction strikes his own cherished opinions; he yields the opinion and keeps the Logic. The masked pretender does the reverse: he keeps the opinion and twists the Logic until it seems to serve him. Watch what a man sacrifices when the two conflict— his narrative or the principle. That single test, applied over time, reveals the difference more surely than any profession of loyalty.

JF: Then perhaps our task is not to defeat ignorance, but simply to refuse to participate in it.

Aristotle: Precisely. Logic does not require our victory. It requires only our fidelity. The truth remains true whether men acknowledge it or deny it. We are not its masters, nor its creators; we are simply answerable to it.

JF: And if the world should choose contradiction over truth?

Aristotle: Then let the world bear the consequences of its choice. Reality is not altered by our refusal to see it. The contradictory man may persuade a thousand others, but he cannot persuade reality. In the end, every imagination is brought before the tribunal of fact.

JF: So we continue?

Aristotle: Yes, we confidently continue. We speak what is true, expose what is false, and leave the rest to the power of Logic.

But to be careful you must make use of standards, what are these standards, and without them how could you be careful at all?

If you can’t articulate your standards of thinking then it’s possible you’re an emotional thinker.

What makes your standards true? How do you know that their result is a quality without a standard by which to evaluate what is qualitative?

For example, has AI been used in the deliberation process of data centers?

Of course, there are many ways in which humans could defer to AI in the process of expanding AI. But at what point does it become science fiction? I do not mean in the sense of terminator-consciousness— I mean in the sense of a dystopian future where man treats LLMs as infallible machines.

Deferring to an AI to make a decision (at some point in the game) treats AI with the same level of authority as consulting a highly educated and experienced human mind.

In this new age look for the unfolding of the concrete, not the framing, but what is actually being built.

With every one of these questions we murder sophistry.

Any sophistical claim that denies determinate meaning ultimately self-destructs, because the very words used to articulate the position or argument must possess stable definitions for the statement to convey any meaning at all.

And if this is what philosophy is, and how it proceeds, then it’s a form of ignorance. The consciousness that sees this blind spot, is superior to philosophy.

The validation of logic does not depend on human consensus, linguistic conventions, or biological survival mechanisms. It depends entirely on the fact that the universe is a universe of identity; to exist is to possess a specific, determinate identity. A thing cannot act, interact, or be studied, or even referenced as subject, unless it is something in particular. Therefore, the laws of logic are not arbitrary rules invented by conscious minds; they are the absolute, inescapable structural conditions of the universe itself. The universe is absolutely itself (A=A). Reality is absolutely itself (A=A).

Logic is grounded in the nature of reality because reality consists of determinate identities, and the fundamental laws of logic express the conditions imposed by those identities on what can be true and how truths can follow from one another.