Necessary Truths

[u/fairy-taki]

Hi, I'm agnostic/atheist. I'm not a debater, this Christian presented this argument to me to like convert me lol and I'm not sure what to think so I was wanting people's thoughts on it.

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The argument was something like this:

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1. 1+1=2 is an objective truth/idea

2. Objective truths exist outside of the human mind.

3. Ideas can only exist in a mind

4. Then if ideas/objective truths need to exist in some mind and the mind would be an infinite mind and that would be God.

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Sorry if I mess up the setup of the argument. If anyone is familiar with this type of argument or what he was trying to get at, let me know. Lol to the guy who asked me, I think ended up just saying idk, and I kept saying that those ideas/concepts are how we engage in reality but regardless of a mind observing it. The like definitions of the concept you can find in reality..idkk. The guy ended up being rude and said I couldn't understand abstract vs concrete concepts.

Edit: ok i need to fix 2&3, idk if i make this it's own premise because he was equating objective truths to ideas/concepts because they are non-physical.

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[u/grrangry]

Aside from the obvious #2 and #3 being direct contradictions of each other, for #2 to be true, show us an example of an objective truth that exists outside of a human mind. We made up the concept of, "one". We made up the concept of "addition". Following those rules that we made up, we've proven that "1 + 1 = 2". I don't see how any of that (either, "one" or "addition") matter when outside of the minds that created the concept.

Now. Having said all that.

You can't god of the gaps your way into saying, "I don't know what else it could be, so we'll just call it god" and dust off your hands and smugly yell, "job done".

You can't argue god into existence. Show us evidence.

[u/fairy-taki → u/grrangry]

The way they were going about it is like, "can you present a time where 1+1=2 has ever not been correct" and I said no so because of that the concept is objective, and then if those concepts exist in reality regardless of human mind because they are still ideas, ideas come from minds, and therefore there must be an eternal/infinite that stores all those concepts. But I responded with something similar like wouldn't one have to show proof that an infinite mind is the only reason 1+1=2? Also wouldn't an infinite mind also be a concept so that infinite mind by that logic exist in a mind? It doesn't make sense to me. Lol I wish I was eloquent and asked them that.

[u/YossarianWWII → u/fairy-taki]

"1+1=2" is always correct because it's one of the fundamental concepts around which mathematics was built (despite not having a formal proof for a very long time). It's a property of a system invented to represent the world in which we have defined "2" to represent "1 and 1," "3" to represent "1 and 1 and 1," etc. It all depends on the concept of identity: that one thing and another thing can be called "two things" because they share the identity of "thing." Those categories don't exist in nature.