I’m off to bed. Goodnight! 
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WalterThat’s not really possible. It’s similar to saying a circle is round, but the people you are talking to don’t believe in circles and criticize you when you provide a definition for the concept of roundness.
Syntactically, modal logic can be checked “outside itself” provisionally. However, modal validity itself cannot be fully captured inside weaker modal systems. The only way modal logic could be checked “outside itself” essentially would be if a being could calculate all possible states of being: but then we find ourselves with a God (an omnipresent omniscient observer).
If God exists necessarily:
There is at least one world accessible from every world.
That world contains a perfect knower.
Then God can function like a “global vantage point,” such that: □P is true iff P holds in all worlds accessible to God:
Validity aligns with God’s omniscient knowledge
Truth becomes unified across frames
This gives modal logic an absolute semantic foundation: a theory of everything.
Then you have a problem, bsengstock20.
Assuming that your purpose here is to persuade people about what you speak of? Speaking as an Ex-Christian, a sceptic and an atheist I’m thoroughly familiar with the mindset of the Moderators and many of the members of this forum. The one thing that they will find persuasive is corroborating evidence from a source other than that which the claim is based upon.
But if modal logic cannot be validly corroborated by anything other than itself, then, in their minds, it is a closed system, just as the Bible is closed system that authenticates itself, proves itself and is it’s own corroboration. Yes, these two things are radically different but the essential point which is of the utmost importance to you as the claim-maker is this. They are not functionally different in the eyes of the people you are trying to persuade. To them, they amount to the same thing.
That is why you have a mountain to climb here and why, in the light of what you’ve just written, you’ve metaphorically thrown away your useful mountaineering equipment and loaded down your backpack with 100 pounds of dead weight.
I sympathise with your difficulties and can do nothing to help except, perhaps, in one area. It might be possible for me to act as a kind of guide for you when it comes to understanding more about the minds of the people you seek to persuade. After all, where is the wisdom in continuing to smash your head against an unyielding brick wall, when there might be a way around it?
Please note that I promise nothing here and nothing is guaranteed. I can just see a possibility that we might like to explore, nothing more. Please let me know what you think.
Thank you,
Walter.
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The point being is that empirical observation relies on modal logic for its justification. If you attack modal logic, you essentially cut the rope and undermine the foundation upon which empiricism is built upon.
Yet, in order to 100% verify the system, you would essentially need to know every contingent state. This could only be done by an omnipresent and omniscient observer. In short, the only being or state of being that could provide a theory of everything would be the being itself. In this, there is an element of faith needed: not one that is blind, but one which steps from epistemological boundness by extension of modal principle to the beginning of enlightenment.
But without justification of the field of epistemology itself: the theory of everything, it is impossible to know true knowledge: for a person that comes to true knowledge must believe that true knowledge exists (modal logic), and that provisional knowledge is a reward to those that diligently seek after true knowledge.
Sure, and I thank you for your good faith. I appreciate your prospective.
Dealing with second things first bsengstock20…
I’m glad to help out as a kind of guide here.
My reason for doing so comes from learning from my partner. She is a natural born teacher, made a career out of teaching Law, was a part-time teacher of First Aid and now, in her retirement has taken on a voluntary teaching position for the county council. Teaching is, to use a phrase from Star Trek, her first and best destiny.
Anyway, to my point. A lesson doesn’t teach itself. There are good ways of teaching and there are bad ways of doing it. If you would like a group of people to learn something from you then you cannot just ‘give them the facts’ and expect them to respond well to the dry bones of what you are saying. You first have to know your audience and then craft your message accordingly. You have to deliver it to them in a way they can comprehend and also in a way they will be open to.
An example from my partners recent experience, working for the council, is when she watched a police officer teaching some adults about how to be a safer driver. He failed abysmally because he used (or should I say abused) his authority to virtually threaten his pupils with fines, citations and punishments for traffic infractions and other minor misdeeds. His class slunk out of the room in a resentful and defiant mood, have taken little of real importance on board. In a nutshell, despite him giving them the facts, he failed to teach them much and they didn’t learn much from him.
So what has this got to with your desire to have us learn about modal logic?
Everything really. So far you’ve given us the facts, blinded us with esoteric terms, repeated yourself ad nauseum and made a point of stressing the superiority of modal logic over anything empirical. You can continue doing this if you want, but it won’t just be my opinion if I tell you that you will get nowhere doing this. You can see this for yourself if you step back and take a good, hard look at the lack of progress you’ve made in persuading any of us about modal logic.
So, you are now at a crossroads, bsengstock20.
You can double down on this and place all the blame on us or you can do the smart thing and learn from your experience and go down a different road. If you do the latter, then as offered, I will do what I can to help you.
This deals with the first item of business between us. I now need to take a short break to do other things but will return later this evening to cover the second item. Which has to do with your reply to the question of corroboration of modal logic. So please be patient bsengstock20.
Thank you,
Walter.
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bsengstock20The point being is that empirical observation relies on modal logic for its justification. If you attack modal logic, you essentially cut the rope and undermine the foundation upon which empiricism is built upon.
I accept your point here, bsengstock20.
I was already aware that there are philosophical underpinnings to the empirical sciences. The same goes for recognizing that one (empiricism) depends on the other (modal logic).
I further accept your second point. Namely that 100% verification of modal logic requires something that is not humanly possible.
As to your last point - that is up for discussion between us.
But now let me put an idea to you. This being my current understanding of the relationship between modal logic and empiricism.
As far as I can see each requires the other. Modal logic makes empiricism work, but without empiricism modal logic can tell us nothing EFFECTUAL about the empirical world we actually inhabit. So it is a category error to favour one over the other. Disparaging modal logic and venerating the empirical or vice versa is missing the point.
We do not inhabit the modal logical realm of abstract true knowledge and never will. Yes, we can envisage it in our minds, but these are abstract concepts which have no concrete, real world applications UNLESS that happens through the empirical.
The math and the modal logic underpinning the empirical science of bridge building remain abstract absolutes UNTIL someone does the work in the real world, gets their hands dirty and actually translates the abstract into the concrete. By building a bridge. Thus, translating the abstract into the concrete. If the abstract is real and the concrete is also real, then they are two different sides of the same coin.
Do you see what I am saying here bsengstock20? Specifically, how this applies to the rival positions taken in this forum? The empiricists see little value in modal logic and you see empiricism as being of less value than modal logic.
I submit that both contrary positions are missing the point that I have just made. That it is the dynamic partnership of modal logic and the empirical that is the true picture of reality here. They work hand in glove to give knowledge about reality and working together they allow us to increase our knowledge of reality.
If it is true that modal logic deals in absolutes, then it cannot increase our knowledge of a given thing. Only the empirical can do that. And yes, we must acknowledge that whatever we learn this way is provisional and contingent.
BUT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF ANYTHING!
Incompleteness is the strength and glory of the empirical. In the empirical, the journey itself matters as much as the destination - even if the destination itself can never be reached using the empirical. The journey is where humanity lives, so to exalt the destination (true knowledge) over the journey is to lose sight of something important.
If you can appreciate what I am saying here then I reckon you will be one step closer to understanding the mindset of the empiricists in this forum. As I explained in my earlier message, for people to learn something they should be taught by someone who understands how they think. Know your pupils!
My role here, in this private dialogue is to try and give you an insight into the minds of the other members of this forum. But this is a two-way street bsengstock20.
If you really want your ideas to be first understood and then accepted then you must be flexible and adapt. For instance, you could try adopting the same line that I’ve taken in this message. That modal logic and empiricism work together to give us a better and better understanding of reality. Such an approach will be better received than continuing as you have done.
I hope you consider what I have said here, even if certain details are not correct or if I have misunderstood something. Even if you accept nothing about my idea of modal logic and empiricism working together, then at least consider looking at how you convey your ideas and think about how you might adopt a more flexible approach.
Thank you,
Walter.
1
It is good to value empirical data, I agree, but not over the systems which serve as a foundation for empirical inquiry. The foundation must be secure before the house is built.
It is that we do not yet dwell in full communion with everything, but we shall know even as the Absolute knows by drawing close to the Absolute through discipline.
For now, we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
You cannot know until you acknowledge the Absolute and dwell in the awe of its presence, with humility acknowledging epistemological boundness while believing in faith.
The awe of the theory of everything is the instruction of wisdom, and epistemological humility comes before knowing.
The glory rests in acknowledgment of the destination, the humility to acknowledge our inability to reach the destination in ourselves (through mere observation), and to acknowledge the Absolute as the way to true knowledge.
Wisdom proceeds from the Absolute, and from its ontological provision emerge knowledge (provisional truth) and understanding (the necessary contingent truths).
I appreciate your thoughts and acknowledge that both knowledge and understanding are coupled with each other. However, without the source of wisdom, neither can stand alone.
There is no understanding, no insight, no knowledge that is greater than the awe of the Absolute.
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Goodbye bsengstock20.
You speak the unreasoning and unreasonable words of an unwavering zealot.
I have tried to show you the possibility of a way to reach out to others, but you have just confirmed that all others MUST come to YOU on YOUR terms. Fourteen days ago, in the open forum, I wrote this about you, in reply to mordant.
Yes.
The evangelical zeal is there, without the usual foundation of biblical religiosity.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll tell to us what his motivation is for this ‘crusade’ in the name of metaphysics and modal logic? 
Personally I hope he doesn’t resemble Tolkien’s description of the character of Smaug the Fire Golden. Possessing the keenest intellect, quick of wit, supremely intelligent, learned and thirsty for more knowledge. But flawed by base motives, so that he could only turn his superior mind to selfish ends. That would be very disappointing.
Thank you,
Walter.
Sadly your last message tells me that I wasn’t far off the mark. You seem to be a person of great intelligence but your character seems to be flawed by an inability to compromise and negotiate - the very hallmarks of reasonable behaviour. So I leave you to your unreasonable, evangelical crusade.
Please do not contact me again unless you are willing to act in a more reasonable manner. Any attempts by you to argue your case will be ignored. Any more explanations or comments about metaphysics and/or modal logic will also be ignored.
Finally, I have respected the privacy of our dialogue here, but from this moment on that is now conditional on how you conduct yourself in the open forum, among the other members. If I judge it right and relevant I will reveal the contents of this dialogue to show one and all how much of an unbending, unreasonable zealot you really are.
!
Very well… I am disappointed to hear that we could not reach a resolution between us, but I respect your right to self-determination.
Nonetheless, in the face of Absolute Truth, its antithesis cannot be given any ground. To negate the foundation is to negate the either construct of truth itself.
Given that our dialogue here appears to be over bsengstock20, before we finally cease private communication would you please tell me if you’ll be answering the questions that were put to you in the main forum? That way I’ll know whether to wait in anticipation or not.
Thank you.
I hope to, but given the amount of questions that I have been loaded with by other members of this forum coupled with my obligations on the other side, I seem to not recall what question exactly you would have me to address. Would you be able to provide me with a refresher?
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, bsengstock20.
I wasn’t referring only to my questions to you. You’ll note that I wrote, ‘would you please tell me if you’ll be answering the questions that were put to you in the main forum?’ So that’s THE questions, not MY questions.
It wouldn’t be fair of me to side-line other members who are waiting on you and ask to you to put me first. Therefore, I had hoped you would fulfil your obligations chronologically, dealing with the first outstanding question first, from whichever member, in whichever thread. Then the second and so on, until you reach the limit imposed upon you by the Moderators.
This not being a difficult thing to do, I’m confident that you don’t need me to help you pick up the reins again.
Thank you,
Walter.
Oh oh oh, me me me, I know this one…it’s because he’s fucking wrong. 
Good one that, given I have met apologists who I’d be wary of letting go outdoors on their own.
This from the man who insisted atheism was a belief, I have said it before and I will say it again, apologists are irony impaired.
Just as with Gödel, I am going to need more than a bare claim, it seems he either got this or felt no one had the right to challenge the claim.
Except it does not, it cannot violate logic, but we can a do test empirical observation, it also works in countless ways in objective reality.
No one is attacking it, only his ridiculous hubris about it, and more importantly his false claim that Gödel’s argument uses it to prove a deity exists, which it does not, as it reeks of bias from the initial premises and their question begging. Even if one were to accept his hyperbolic nonsense about modal logic, that argument still fails, he failed to produce anything else, the dots don’t need much joining from there.
This isn’t any kind of logic at work, it’s blind circular faith, best offered from a pulpit., he’s preaching simple as that.
You nailed it, he was never interested in reason or debate, only using them to peddle his unevidenced religious beliefs. All else was smoke and mirrors.
I do wonder about bsengstock20 the person.
Even though I’m totally unqualified to make this judgment, it occurs to me that he could be suffering from some kind of intellectual monomania.
AI Overview
Monomania is a historical psychiatric term for someone with an intense, obsessive focus on a single idea, delusion, or impulse, while the rest of their mind remains seemingly sound, characterized by an overwhelming preoccupation with one subject, often leading to erratic behaviour within that limited scope, though the term is now largely obsolete in modern medicine, replaced by more specific diagnoses.
Key Characteristics (Historical Context):
** Single Obsession: The core feature was a preoccupation with one specific topic, emotion, or delusion (e.g., a fixation on a particular object, a specific crime, or a single feeling).*
** Partial Insanity: It described a “partial insanity” where the person’s intellect seemed clear and rational about everything except their singular obsession.*
** Origin: Coined by French psychiatrist Jean-Etienne Esquirol in the 19th century, it arose from Greek roots meaning “one” (mono) and “madness” (mania).*
** Types: Some classifications included emotional monomania (obsessed with one emotion) and intellectual monomania (obsessed with one delirious idea).*
Modern Medical View:
** The term is considered vague and unreliable, falling into disuse as psychiatric understanding evolved.*
** Modern psychiatry uses more precise terms like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), delusional disorders, or specific impulse control disorders to describe behaviors once labeled as monomania, rather than viewing them as a singular “faculty” derangement.*
In essence: A monomaniac was seen as someone whose entire world revolved around one thing, making them seem normal otherwise but dangerously fixated on their obsession.
But that’s just my opinion.
Walter.
I don’t agree with this. You can make up all sorts of rules and call it logic or mathematics. But in the end, the axioms and the way you make up the rules have to correspond with reality. In other words, the axioms and the rules are at the very least inspired by empirical observations, and you have to check that the deduction rules give results that correspond to reality. Thus, logical axioms and deduction rules depend upon a certain minimum of empirical observations for it to make any sense at all. If the rules were totally disconnected from observed reality/empirical observations, it would just be a clever game of words, and there is nothing of any value one can use it for.
I suspect that bsengstock20 is the only one to not see this, or refuse to acknowledge it. And I further suspect that he do this because it would otherwise completely destroy his favourite hypothesis.
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I agree, Goml.
And if you read through my dialogue with bsengstock20 you’ll see that I tried to persuade him that the modal and the empirical enjoyed some kind of dynamic relationship, with each complementing the other. I also tried to make him see that focus only the modal and to virtually exclude the empirical from his worldview was to deny what he was and how he lived.
But he was having none of that. His focus was squarely and only on the Absolute and he could only ever see things as a top-down hierarchy, with the modal giving meaning and life and purpose to all that was below it.
His reality was the Absolute and ours is the here and now.
Yes, I noticed after I made the posting 
One more point: bsengstock20 is adamant that you can arrive at absolute truth using logic and the power of thought alone. But this does not compute. All thought processes depend upon having learned something about the real world (empirical observation). Let us perform a thought experiment. Take a newborn baby and isolate it from its surroundings. Feed it and keep it alive, but do not expose it to any form of knowledge about its surroundings and (restrict it from receiving empirical data). Will this human eventually be able to devise rules of logic and make deductions about the world? Of course not, as its brain is not wired to make those rules, and is not trained to understand the real world. First of all, it would need language. And to have an understanding of language, it would need to learn it by actually sensing its surroundings. And only then it can start making deductions. Thus, to make deductions, one depend on an understanding of physical reality. Data comes first, then deductions.
As usual, bsengstock’s word salads are quite the slog, but on first reading, I’m struck by how, despite his novel obsession with modal logic and his insistence that it should not be grounded in or beholden to the real world, he has wholesale lifted a lot of Christian aphorisms which he retcons to his own personal beliefs. For example, he borrows “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” and changes it to “the awe of God is the beginning of wisdom” and ties it to his metaphorical “box” which you must open for yourself (albeit with his particular concept of modal logic). Elsewhere he uses the term “the Absolute” which I suppose is akin to how some theological folks use “the Divine” – a sort of impersonal god-concept which is nevertheless the ultimate fount of all true understanding. What this reeks of, IMO, is the standard-issue theist conceit that they have the monopoly on “true understanding” which can only be had by, as Walter puts it, “dancing to their tune”.
What it ends up amounting to is the same intellectual authoritarianism as any other religious ideation, dressed up in flowery / obtuse language designed to, by turns, impress and intimidate. Very much like discussions that rely on theological terms of art so that you basically are forced to immerse yourself in theology to understand what claims are even being made.
To which I say, no thank you.
I have long held to the principle stated by Feynman, that if you can’t explain something in terms a fifth grader can understand, you probably don’t understand it well yourself. Strip off all the bullshit and word salad and state it simply or just shut up.
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