The Argument from Logic

Thank you, popculturepooka, for presenting this interesting argument. What I find most fascinating about it is that it's more than just an argument for the existence of God, at least the way I see it; it's a guileful provocation for doubters to try to refute it. It taunts any challenger by implying that you cannot refute the argument without utilizing the laws of logic, thus futilely proving the conclusion true. That's why it's the most fun, for me, to try to refute.I must say the argument certainly seems, if nothing else, intuitive, but I find a couple of its premises to be quite strange in their implications and reasonings. The two I find the most troubled are these:1. Propositions (such as the LNC) are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts.and2. If there are necessarily existence thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existence mind, there must be a necessarily existent person.Propositions (such as the LNC) are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts.Firstly, to say that something is non-physical, and therefore must be a thought is contradicting. My opponent might as well have said "the laws of logic are real, but cannot be physical; they are essentially bricks". This is because a thought is a physical thing, a construct of cell activity in a developed and evolutionarily advanced brain [1]. Being one who is not a neuroscientist, I admittedly can't explain it in much detail, but thoughts are necessarily physical products of physical minds; they are certainly not some supernatural things that visit our brains from time to time from some otherworldly dimension. Because thoughts are physical products of a physical mind, the laws of logic would seem, therefore, to be products of some such mind. Since my opponent has explained that God's mind is non-physical, God cannot possibly be the source of such thoughts.However, my opponent does make a good case for saying that the laws of logic are non-physical. This is simply because they are, which brings me to my second point: the laws of logic are not non-physical thoughts (as if such a thing could exist), but non-physical concepts. There are a few differences between thoughts and concepts, a primary one being that concepts do not necessarily require a concept-maker (at least, not as far as anyone knows yet). Indeed, the evidence seems to point to the opposite conclusion: concepts are merely the necessary result of a materialistic universe. The laws of physics do not allow for something to be both itself and not itself simultaneously; therefore, there is a concept which interprets this intrinsic aspect of reality (the logical law of identity). For these reasons, I hold that pure materialism accounts for the laws of logic more sufficiently than the supernatural, despite (or, perhaps, especially) how intuitive claims of the supernatural appear.If there are necessarily existence thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existence mind, there must be a necessarily existent person.What amazes me most about this premise is that it seems to imply that thinking a thought makes that thought a reality. If something exists as a thought, then it does not necessarily exist anywhere else in reality but the thinker's own mind. Therefore, if the laws of logic were truly nothing but thoughts, then they would exist in God's mind and nowhere else; that is, until God decides to magically transform his thoughts into genuine, applicable concepts to govern reality.Furthermore, this premise is defended with the notion that not "any ole mind" can be thinking these necessarily existent thoughts. I hate to break it to you, but I'm thinking about the LNC right now. In fact, everyone reading this debate has inevitably thought about the LNC at one point or another. Are we all gods, or is it perhaps more likely that the laws of logic do not require a necessarily existent mind to be thought about? Indeed, the laws of logic as concepts do not require any minds to function; even if the universe was void of any conscious entities, it would still be impossible for something to be both itself and not itself simultaneously (a consequence of the laws of physics). These concepts only require minds to understand them and practically utilize them in fields such as philosophy.ConclusionI believe I have adequately refuted the soundness of the argument as it was presented. To review the most salient points of my rebuttal:1. Pro's description of the laws of logic is self-defeating. As thoughts, they must be physical and cannot be the products of anything other than a physical mind. Therefore, God is the only possibility we can definitively rule out!2. As thoughts, the laws of logic would have existence in the mind, not existence in reality. They have existence in reality; therefore, the laws of logic are at least more than mere thoughts.3. The laws of logic are conceptual products of the laws of physics. Whatever would be a logical contradiction or necessity would also be a physical contradiction or necessity. Therefore, pure materialism offers a more reasonable solution to the existence of logic than supernatural claims.Source[1] Andrew Koob; "The Root of Thought" (http://www.scientificamerican.com...)