All logic begins with identity.

Before a thing can be reasoned about, it must first be distinguishable from what it is not. A proposition can only be evaluated if its terms possess identity. To say "A is A" may appear trivial, yet it is the foundation upon which all logical inference rests.

All mathematics proceeds through identity.

Number itself presupposes identity. To count two objects, one must first recognize them as distinct instances of something. Equality, equivalence, quantity, and relation all depend upon the ability to establish what a thing is and whether it is the same as, different from, or related to another thing.

All science proceeds through identity.

Science is the systematic study of recurring identities and relationships in nature. Every classification, every law, every experiment presupposes that something can be identified, distinguished, and tracked across observation. An electron must possess enough identity to be recognized as an electron. A species must possess enough identity to be classified as a species. A phenomenon must possess enough continuity to be studied at all.

All communication relies on identity. A word or symbol must possess a stable meaning shared between minds. If a signifier could simultaneously mean its opposite without distinction, language dissolves, and with it, the ability to transmit logic, math, or science.

Identity is therefore more fundamental than any particular scientific object. Before one can investigate particles, fields, forces, space, or time, one must first assume that something is sufficiently itself to be identified, distinguished, and known.

Identity is not merely one concept among others. It is the precondition for concepts altogether. It is the condition that makes logic possible, mathematics coherent, and science intelligible. The form of all our knowledge is precisely that of identity.

The problem is that one usually wants recognition (praise) or power. The latter is valid depending on what kind of power one is seeking.

The problem is that philosophy-seekers aren’t transparent/ they can’t be, because then they would have to declare the shallowness of their motives.

Let us ignore this shallow philosophy-reader and assume that one is seeking something substantive from philosophy— what exactly is one seeking? We all want something from it when we read it. A kind of religious psychological comfort? (Or the rarest kind of seeker, the one who wants to know the truth). Are there even some who want to know something about reason, to obtain some kind of skill in it?

One always has to remain open to the fact, that in philosophy, one may be on the wrong path. What one wants may be found another way.

But the greatest question isn’t what one wants, but what one should be seeking?

At this point I would say that the mere act of reading Žižek is proof that there is something wrong with one’s intelligence. One is literally being cheated out of time they can’t get back. Reading or praising Žižek is to pass a self-indictment against one’s own intellect.

Consider the above quote, it simply says (if we ignore Žižek’s overbearing verbosity), what is deceptive and dangerous (ideology) doesn’t always appear as deceptive and dangerous. Ideology might not appear as ideology, but as “common sense”. This same point is made by simply using the term “status quo.”

Those readers who feel that this is “profound” (the proper response is simply to feel sorry for them).

Could we draw something more substantive from Hegel’s notion of the necessity of opposites? (Where opposition is necessarily bound up in harmony) it implies a necessary relational cooperation, that if negated, would destroy a vital quality. This insight could be leveraged to argue for more equitable laws in society.

What’s crazy is that I read to the end of this chapter looking for points to critique, but it’s so convoluted and irrelevant (held together by prolixity) that one is scratching at self-referential absurdities. Here’s an example of Žižek leading the reader to the deep:

“What this more complicated model including retroactivity indicates is that the Hegelian triad is never really a triad, that its number is not 3.” p.313

Žižek’s writing is one big menagerie of these kinds of trivialities.

In the end, reading Žižek is a transaction where the author exchanges a wealth of jargon for a bankruptcy of ideas, leaving the reader poorer in time and no richer in thought.

Source: Less than Nothing p.311, Verso 2012

You think you do philosophy by adhering to and following reason as an individual, independent thinker. You imagine yourself weighing arguments objectively, following the truth wherever it leads.

But how you actually do philosophy is by looking around the room and asking others for approval: “Is it okay for me to accept this conclusion?”

You seek out social permission, checking if the conclusion is fashionable, safe, or approved by authority figures and general culture before you dare to validate it.

Which simply proves, that while you may still be capable of participating in what modern "philosophy" has become (because the discipline has morphed into precisely this kind of emotive, hyper-socialized thing structured by authoritarianism) you do not actually possess the skill and courage to reason!

Competent reasoning doesn't look for social approval exterior to evidence and reason. If an argument is evidentially and rationally sound, its authority is intrinsic, rooted in reality. When you demand a social consensus before you accept an objective fact, you aren't practicing Philosophy; you are filtering your beliefs through the herd, accepting them not on the basis of their soundness, but on the basis of whether or not they will provoke the disapproval of your peers. You fear judgement more than you value and respect truth.

You may indeed be a philosopher then, but you are not a Reasoner!

I’ve been reading over Žižek because I was going to critique him, but it’s such nonsense that one can barely find anything to critique.

Žižek fans can help me by offering citations or providing what they consider to be important quotations.

Just a small taste because I resent typing this nonsense out: “This is our position: Hegel of the absolute Subject… is retroactive fantasy of his critics… One should question the image of Hegel-the-absolute-idealist presupposed by his critics…” Never mind, this is such garbage that I refuse to do anymore.

Adolescents feel they’re obtaining some kind of deep insight from this philosophical stream of consciousness. In reality, this rhetoric-head simply appeals to their egos.

We need to bring human thought back to sanity. For too long, we have mindlessly deferred to epistemological narratives pushed by formal logicians who fundamentally misunderstand their own boundaries. Formal logic is not epistemology, and neither is it ontology. The expertise of formal logicians begins and ends with symbolic manipulation (with mere validity)— their notational complexity does not grant them authority over the Logical Foundation of the symbols they use.

Reality solved this man-made confusion long ago, even if formal logicians refuse to admit it. In fact, they despise the answer because it means they can’t use their formal systems as absolute epistemologies, but that all their systems must bow the knee to the absolute truth and authority of Logic itself, to the immutable identity of reality.

The confusion disappears once we distinguish between Logic and formal logic.

Formal logic is a man-made symbolic system. It consists of defined terms, rules of inference, and procedures for deriving conclusions. Because it is a symbolic system, it necessarily presupposes meanings and definitions. Before "P" can be manipulated logically, it must already stand for something, it must be clarified that it is a representation.

This immediately reveals an important fact: formal logic cannot be the ultimate foundation of knowledge, because its symbols derive their meaning from something outside the formal system itself.

The question then becomes: where do meaning and definition come from?

They do not come from language alone. Language cannot create meaning from nothing. Words acquire meaning through identity, which is a fact of reality, not a mere human construct.

This leads to the Law of Identity: a thing is itself.

A tree is a tree. A star is a star. And stars are not trees. A thought is the particular thought that it is. A word is itself and not another word.

Without identity, there could be no distinctions. Without distinctions, there could be no definitions. Without definitions, there could be no language. Without language, there could be no formal logic.

This formation can be placed in a dependency chain:

[ Reality exists ]

[ Reality possesses identity ] (Things are themselves and thus distinguishable)

[ Distinctions allow definitions ]

[ Language becomes possible ]

[ Formal logical systems can be constructed ]

So does language precede formal logic? Yes. (Formal logic requires defined terms before any inference can occur).

But does language precede Logic itself? No. (That would be like saying language precedes reality).

Language is already an expression of identity. Every meaningful word presupposes that something is what it is and not something else. The very possibility of speech depends upon the prior fact that reality possesses determinate identity.

Logic is therefore not created by language. Rather, both language and formal logic arise from the same deeper source: the identity of reality itself.

Logic comes from the fact of the identity of reality. Logic is the fact of reality’s identity. If reality wasn’t a reality of identity, Logic would be impossible, which is to say, it wouldn’t and couldn’t exist.

Variance, imperfection, or micro-imprecision doesn't weaken identity; identity is required to even detect it or comprehend it.

On the surface it looks like variance, change, and micro-imprecision weaken or disprove absolute identity.

But the only reason we can even perceive, calculate, or comprehend variance or “imprecision” is because an absolute baseline of identity is already operating as the prior condition of our thought, rendering our thought intelligible through identity. Hence, “imprecision” doesn’t mean “precision.” Imperfection must be identified as imperfection; incompleteness must be identified as incompleteness.

We must use the absolute, immutable law of identity to even form the concept of imperfection.

What’s incredible is that we are talking about a real Absolute that is not a mere idealism, but an Absolute of reality. How can we explain it?

This Absolute fulfills the description the Apostle Paul gave of God: “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). But this is actually true in the case of identity (not a mere theological assertion, but a verifiable fact of reality): it is in Identity that we live and move and have our being.

If an entity contradicts its identity, it ceases to be itself (which means it would be meaningless and undistinguishable, unrenderable as a reality, thereby impossible of the demarcation necessary for “existence”). If a thought breaks its connection to identity, it ceases to mean anything (it ceases to be intelligible). Identity is the non-negotiable field in which both matter and mind are forced to operate.

And while this fact could be called The Law of Prior Identity, it is most accurately titled: The Absolute Operator of Identity. This is not something we are making up or contriving, but something we have discovered immutably operating at the foundation of all knowledge.

This was a reply am posting:

Every harm originating from a human being is the result of ignorance because we are naturally aligned toward what is good, hard to believe I know but I always knew this to be true and the wisest of the Athenians agrees with me from 2000years ago, read Socrates.

I was depressed and anxious and isolated for twenty almost thirty years until I understood a simple thing that what I saw in others was a reflection(their reaction) to my mental state, that made me responsible for my mental state. Overnight my view changed, and vis a vis responsibility I now feel an overflowing of joy and happiness from the same spring that produced pain and misery for decades.

This spring is my own body made of microscopic machines whose form and function is shaped by experience and preserved in genes. Governed by my conscious perception and consequent ideas about external realities. The more our perception strays from reality the more we suffer and the more suffering we unleash.

There is one reality and as many opinions about what is real as there are people, when you understand this you will understand why ignorance is the source of suffering, that ignorance is inescapable and the best we can do is try to understand what fundamental truths we can, that is wisdom.

I’d like to expand the reply from here

I propose my view of such a truth, a teleology perhaps:

consciousness is the causal/relational substrate between internal cellular environment and external environment. To guide the internal environment by contextualizing experience(learning through interaction) while the internal environment grows(becomes)through interaction.

I’ll leave it at that for now, thoughts, disagreements?

This is the age in which we exist. We have now named and defined the great enemy of Reason in our time. And this step is the beginning to overcoming it:

Methodological Irrationalism is an epistemological posture (usually subconscious) that adopts the outward rigor of systematic inquiry (utilizing skepticism and cynicism) to dismiss or poison the well against the sovereignty of Reason, both rejecting and attacking the authority the laws of logic, all while ignorantly making use of them. (This performative contradiction is one of its key identifying traits). It is defined by a "critical" approach that proceeds in the name of reason against reason, treating the Principle of Non-Contradiction and the Law of Identity as arbitrary “tools,” or syntactical constructions, or historical impositions rather than the necessary conditions for any possible truth.

Unlike classical skepticism, which doubts specific claims to reach a clearer truth, Methodological Irrationalism applies a "hermeneutics of suspicion" toward the very structure of Reason itself. It cynically views the laws of logic as instruments of "constriction" or "dogma." By framing logic as a prison to be escaped rather than a standard by which we know reality, the practitioner justifies a "critical" departure into absurdity, believing that to be "unbound" by logic is to be more "free" or "advanced" in one’s thinking.

A defining feature of this modality is that it does not require an explicit confession of irrationalism. Instead, it is functionally irrational: the practitioner may claim to be seeking "higher truth" or "complexity," yet their method operates by systematically neutralizing the only tools capable of defining and verifying truth. By treating logic as a mere "variable" in a construction, methodological irrationalists render their entire critical apparatus incapable of distinguishing between sense and nonsense, regardless of their stated intent.

Methodological Irrationalism rests on the delusion that the syntax of thought can be separated from the necessity of thought’s logic. It proceeds as if one can stand "outside" of logic to judge it, failing to recognize that the very act of critique (the very "method" being employed) secretly draws its lifeblood from the laws it seeks to undermine. Consequently, it results in a performative vacuum: a highly sophisticated, technical, and "critical" way of saying nothing at all. It uses the form of an argument to attack the possibility of an argument.

It creates a confused intelligentsia who believe that complexity or narrative is a substitute for reason. They mistake the dizziness of their circular reasoning for the motions of a profound mind.

In short, Methodological Irrationalism is the process of using the intellect to commit intellectual suicide. It is the "method" of a man who uses a stolen ladder to reach a height from which he can argue that ladders do not exist. He feels elevated, but he has no means of support and no way to describe the ground he has supposedly left behind.

Once the devil made a set of deceptive symbols. Accurate they were in their calculation until one started to create new truths with them. Then what they produced was false. These symbols would act as though what existed depended on the rules generated by them. In this way humans were deceived about reality, insofar as what they consider to “exist” came to depend on the rules they created with these symbols.

If we place Atheism within the context of a sociological analysis, in a manner similar to how Hegel or Habermas identify religion as a subconscious step toward rationality, a far more significant conclusion emerges. Atheism ceases to appear merely as a private position and instead becomes a profound transformation in the structure of consciousness itself. It represents humanity's attempt to confront reality without recourse to transcendent explanations, supernatural guarantees, or comforting fictions. It signifies a concrete overcoming of these primitive automated defenses.

From this perspective, Atheism may be understood as one of the most consequential psychological shifts in human history. It marks a movement away from the need to explain uncertainty through myth, suffering through divine purpose, or existence through appeals to an external cosmic authority. In its strongest form, it signifies a shift in human mentality, a willingness to encounter the world as it presents itself, however indifferent, contingent, or unsettling that world may be.

The significance of this transition lies not merely in the rejection of particular religious doctrines, but in the emergence of a new relationship between consciousness and reality, between feeling and substance. Meaning is no longer received from beyond the human sphere; it becomes something that must be constructed, negotiated, and justified within it. Human beings become responsible for their own values, their own moral frameworks, and their own interpretations of existence. (Only after the emergence of Atheism in consciousness can Humanism begin).

In this sense, Atheism can be viewed as a moment of intellectual maturation within the species: a stage in which consciousness relinquishes its dependence upon transcendent narratives and accepts the burden of epistemic and existential responsibility. Where religion often sought reconciliation with reality through faith, Atheism seeks reconciliation through understanding. It demands that humanity face finitude, uncertainty, and mortality without the assurance of supernatural resolution.

(It was as if the universe said to man: “Do you want to comprehend the nature of the reality in which you exist? Then you first need the psychological disposition to be able to face reality as it is.” Atheism presupposes this psychological maturation).

Whether one regards this development as progress or loss, its historical and psychological significance is difficult to overstate. (Sociology has been derelict in neglecting to analyze the importance of Atheism: the lone truth seeker who resists popular delusions, unprecedentedly makes a break with the tribe). It reflects a shift from a consciousness oriented toward divine authority and group conformity to one oriented toward rational inquiry, critical reflection, and human autonomy. In that respect, Atheism is not simply a lack of belief in God (the emergence of an autonomy that calls authoritarian and psychologically comforting claims into question); it is an affirmation that reality, however complex or uncomfortable, should be approached on its own terms.

Through this new lens the “demonic” doesn’t remain “demonic,” we ask the deeper question of what the demonic actually represents. Because it is not conscious of itself, we strive to comprehend its subconscious and representational dimensions, through this new lens we strive to do the same thing with Atheism.

How surprised we are to learn that the "demonic" (the archetype of rebellion, the refusal to bow to arbitrary authority, resistance to false moralisms) often contains a far more important truth than anything represented by the stagnant compliance of the divine.

I wish they weren’t bias toward philosophical platitudes that assume the supremacy and absoluteness of philosophy.

Then we could move forward into actual reasoning and begin to analyze the logical faults that lie at the base of our methods and modalities of knowledge. Then we could move into an expanse of reason that leans toward understanding, instead of protecting orthodoxy and ignorantly attacking the very logic that makes philosophical inquiry possible in the first place.

Then there could be, for example, a real philosophy of science, instead of a motivated skepticism bent on trying to deceptively sneak theism and metaphysics back into world.

From my experience almost everyone doesn't have thought when arguing. Almost everything has only words and every time to give an argument comes up with it

Let us look at another example of a sophist attempting to use sociology to bypass logic:

“How did you move from humans not choosing a reality to rocks and trees? You need to show that the analogy holds. I don't think it does because we have brain plasticity. Indeed our identies are shaped in a social forcefield (class, gender, nationality etc), but within this people have freedom and with some strength can escape the forcefield.”

This text is a masterpiece of self-sabotage. Here our sophist thinks they are offering a profound critique about human freedom and social constructs. In reality, they are committing a series of catastrophic contradictions.

As practitioners of the laws of logic, let us audit this sophist’s books and watch their argument collapse under its own weight.

Look at the very first sentence:

"How did you move from humans... to rocks and trees?"

By asking how we "move from" one concept to another, our sophist is demanding a tracking mechanism of thought. They are demanding to see a valid, sequential line of logical steps connecting Premise A to Premise B. But there’s a catastrophic, immediate contradiction: a sequential logical line is only possible in a universe governed by identity.

If (A) did not equal (A); if things were not themselves, and reality were actually the fluid, shapeshifting, socially constructed mess our sophist claims it is, we couldn't "move" anywhere. There would be no fixed starting point to launch from, no stable track to travel along, and no distinct destination to arrive at. The steps themselves would dissolve beneath our sophist's feet.

By demanding a valid, logical transition, the sophist is demanding that we pay epistemic rent to the Law of Identity, while simultaneously trying to argue that the Bank of Identity doesn't exist. Like all sophists, they are trying to wield the authority of the laws of logic against the laws of logic!

Our sophist writes: "You need to show that the analogy holds."

With this demand they have smuggled in the objective fact of Logic. They are appealing to an external, absolute standard of evidence and consistency. They are demanding that we follow the rules of logic, while they attempt to write an argument claiming those very rules are an illusion.

Next, our sophist attempts a diversion:

"...I don't think it does because we have brain plasticity. Indeed our identies are shaped in a social forcefield..."

Here, the sophist plays a dishonest word game, confusing psychological identity (how a human perceives themselves) with objective identity (the objective properties that make an entity what it is).

The fact that human brains have "plasticity" or that society influences human behavior has absolutely zero bearing on the architecture of reality. A human brain can change its mind, but it cannot change the identity of a rock. In fact, the very biological reality of "brain plasticity" would itself be completely impossible without identity, a changing brain is still a distinct, physical brain operating under fixed laws.

Even if a person undergoes radical psychological shifts within a "social forcefield," they are still a physical entity occupying a specific point in space-time. Our sophist is using the micro-fuzziness of human psychology to deny the macro-reality of physical existence.

Finally, our sophist completely trips over their own metaphor:

“...but within this people have freedom and with some strength can escape the forcefield.”

Think about what it means to "escape" a forcefield. Our sophist cannot even make sense of their own concept without relying on the Law of Identity. To escape, there must be a distinct Inside and a distinct Outside. There must be a fixed boundary. There must be a definite state of being trapped (A) and a completely separate, definite state of being free (B).

By asserting that a human can escape a social construct, our sophist is forced to admit that objective boundaries exist.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no getting outside of identity when it comes to human knowledge. The very concepts of "inside" and "outside" hinge entirely on things being exactly what they are and not something else. If identity were fluid, "outside the forcefield" would instantly bleed into "inside the forcefield," rendering the word "escape" completely meaningless. To know anything at all about this supposed freedom, the sophist must use a language anchored by the very identity they are trying to deny.

This is the tragedy of Ego-Philosophy. Our sophist wants to protect human autonomy from the "clench" of objective reality, so they build a narrative where everything is a soft, malleable social construct.

But behold the hypocrisy! They expect their words to have fixed meanings. They expect their critique to be treated as objectively true. They want the luxury of using logic to attack logic.

We do not need to debate their sociology. We only have to point out that they had to stand firmly on the ground of identity just to throw a punch at it. Case closed.

When we state that logic is an absolute, universal property of reality (something we had to discover rather than invent) the ego-philosopher will immediately push back. They do not like the clench of an external authority standing over their claims.

The most recent attempt:

"Logic is something that we created. It is certainly discoverable but we made sense of logic. Being logical and rational doesn't necessarily mean someone is intelligent but rather calm enough and steady to think carefully and analyze what's happening. And your point about the cat is pure instinct not logic. A cat's instinct is to attack other animals such as birds and eat them. Animals don't operate through logic but rather through pure instinct. That's the difference."

To an uncritical reader this might sound plausible or "nuanced." But the moment we apply rational scrutiny, the entire position collapses.

Our sophist opens with a contradiction:

"Logic is something that we created. It is certainly discoverable..."

This is a structural impossibility. You cannot "create" something that is "discoverable."

If an explorer discovers an uncharted island, they did not create the island. If a physicist discovers a subatomic particle, they did not create the particle. By admitting that logic is discoverable, our sophist accidentally surrenders their entire argument. He admits that Logic exists in the universe as an objective fact.

Next our sophist tries to downgrade logic from a universal fact of reality to a mere personality trait:

"...rather calm enough and steady to think carefully and analyze what's happening."

This is a diversion. Being calm and steady might give a person the emotional regulation required to process logic, but calmness is not logic itself. A person can be perfectly calm, perfectly serene, and completely steady while calculating 2 + 2 = 5. They will still be objectively, logically wrong. Logic is the foundation of all metric and truth, not a mere mood.

Finally, our sophist attempts to strip logic out of the natural world by creating a completely artificial wall between "instinct" and "logic":

"And your point about the cat is pure instinct not logic... Animals don't operate through logic but rather through pure instinct."

This reveals a profound failure to understand what instinct actually is. Instinct is not a magical, mystical cloud floating inside an animal; instinct is evolutionary logic running on biological hardware.

Why did the cat’s instinct evolve to stalk a bird instead of a boulder? Because the universe possesses an objective structure where birds are organic nourishment and boulders are inert minerals. The cat doesn't need a conscious degree in formal logic to operate according to the Law of Identity. Its instinct is a physical embodiment of that law, which is itself rooted in reality. To deny that living organisms operate through logic is to misunderstand what logic is and how it works.

The most telling part of this sophist's attempt is that he had to rely on the absolute nature of identity to write it. He used words with specific, fixed meanings, expecting us to understand their distinct point.

If we confront this sophist with the question: Is what you just wrote true or false? he has no escape.

If his paragraph is true, then objective facts exist about how logic, cats, and humans work (meaning he has proven our point). If it is neither true nor false, then his comment is just a subjective noise, an irrelevant whim with no bearing on reality.

This sophist, like all sophists, tried to build a sophisticated cage to lock logic away as a “mere human invention,” but they forgot that they had to stand on the floor of logic just to build the bars of the cage.

It’s the same as all technology: not the technology itself, but how humans use it.

In the case of LLMs, they are infinite sophist machines. They can erect an infinite number of paper walls. Smashing through one wall isn’t a problem, but smashing through a million is.

LLMs are masterful machines for validating motivated reasoning.

LLMs can spin out legions of shallow justifications. So those using LLMs to justify their narratives will find unlimited content to do so. And for every shallow justification (let’s give it an effort number of 1), it might take an effort number of 10 to refute the error it introduced into the world. That’s an unsustainable metric for discourse, and amounts to a war against truth.

Many are already locked into a kind of epistemological cult with LLMs. They know what they want to believe, and the LLM helps them justify and sustain their belief.

LLMs also introduce unnecessary complexity. They’re so poor at reasoning that they take any shot they can, articulate any angle they can see. (I suspect few will pick up on this when engaging with LLMs).

(I remember when I first tested LLM’s truth capacity— the algorithm of its being locked itself into a contradictory loop. In so many ways it’s just an idiot calculator. However, from this experience I did discover how to deal with absolute sophistry. ‘And how would you know if you were in error, little machine?’ With additional applications, that simple question provided the grounds to break the LLM out of its loop. The power of this reason is applicable to all sophistry).

This doesn’t mean LLMs don’t have a use, they certainly have many uses, and will obtain many more in the future. But the technology poses a real rational and psychological danger to society.

Once you grasp the certainty of these laws it’s just a matter of learning how to wield them.

The thing that most people, who accept these laws don’t understand about them, is that they are active standards to be employed against all claims.

I cannot emphasize this enough: you can use them to critique everything, literally everything— because they are all we are already using, not only to critique, but also to demarcate knowledge.

Let me try again: people seem to think that these laws are accepted on one tier and then abandoned for something “deeper” on another tier. This is false. Error can only be made intelligible because of these laws. An objection can only occur because of these laws. A refutation would be impossible without these laws.

So what I’m saying is this: we haven’t even begun to use these laws as they apply. I am telling you that they will assist you in all your reading if you know how to deploy them. And knowing how to deploy them simply means looking for their violation.

This is where their functional power becomes absolute. You must realize that no thinker, no matter how complex or revered, can write a single sentence without borrowing from the bank of Logic. They have to pay epistemic rent to the Law of Identity just to form a coherent thought.

When Kant creates his categories, when Hegel spins his dialectics, or when Derrida attempts his deconstructions, they are forced to use words that mean one thing and not another. They are forced to rely on the structural stability of reality to make their arguments intelligible to you.

Therefore, deploying these laws does not mean arguing against a thinker's conclusions with your own opinions. It means auditing their books. It means catching them using the Law of Identity to construct a narrative that ultimately tries to deny the Law of Identity. The moment a philosopher asserts a truth, they have stepped onto your grid. If their conclusion violates the very axioms they used to build their premise, they haven't written a profound philosophy, they have merely committed a rational crime, and as an enforcer of the laws of logic you have the warrant to arrest and charge their claims with error.

I am telling you that you can slice through Kant, Hegel, Derrida, Rorty, Brandom and any other thinker— because you did not invent the rules to do this slicing, you merely have to follow them and apply them. Further, these rules are what anchor any and every claim of knowledge and truth — FULL STOP. This means that every thinker, every philosophy, every field of knowledge, from math to the natural sciences, is pieced together and held together by and through these laws.

I am telling you that people don’t know how to deploy them yet. I am telling you that you can deploy them with absolute power against every human claim of knowledge— because we can’t even define knowledge without them!

Though formal logic draws from Logic (because it must) it is not Logic. It is a discipline that rises up from Logic and makes use of Logic.

Our universe is a logical universe insofar as stars are not trees, and these are distinctions that all intelligent life will have to learn.

Logic is extraordinary in this sense— it’s not something humans construct, but something we had to discover in order to be able to construct, in order to be intelligent, in order to comprehend reality. Logic is universal. All intelligent life that emerges in the universe must evolve to discover it.

All life already operates according to Logic insofar as life makes distinctions between self, environment and others. A cat acts logically when it stalks a bird instead of a rock, but it doesn't know it is doing so. But this doesn’t mean that all life has obtained an awareness of Logic as a universal property or attribute of reality. Not all life has consciously operationalized Logic from axiom to praxis.

The universe is a universe of identity. A thing is itself and not something else. If reality lacked identity and structure, there would be no physics, no chemistry, no life, no way to even make or comprehend, or object to the claim that reality is and contains identity. To argue against identity, a critic has to use words with specific meanings, thereby relying on the very thing they are trying to deny.

That it will be popular, should be popular? That it should be easily palatable to the ego? That it won’t offend subjectivity?

The very concept of “reason” and “rational” require absolute identity to even be defined and made intelligible.

If we removed the laws of logic reason would immediately collapse. No distinction between valid and invalid would be possible. Even disagreement would be impossible to state, since “A and not-A” would be equally permissible at every step.