An axiom is itself a proposition that is presumed true, however. And you don’t have any of those without a mind.
Does a molecule fail to absorb a photon if no minds exist?
You are using an axiom, a proposition, are you not? “A molecule absorbs a photon.”
Truth is propositional, by definition.
…and it is based on reality. The reality has to exist first for there to be any truth.
(After I said that truth came from reality, I once had a YEC asking me for chapter and verse in the Bible where it said that. )
Molecules and photons are not axioms or propositions. They are physical parts of the universe.
Agreed. Your point?
They have to exist first before you, your mind, can say “a molecule absorbs a photon.” ← That proposition cannot exist without a mind.
I was going to go with the tree in the forest, but photons work too.
@DaleCutler Let’s disambiguate this, maybe that will help. I’m talking about the formal systems of logic used to develop mathematical proofs. That doesn’t really have anything to do with God existing or not. What I mean is; at the most fundamental level of logical thinking we can only assume God exists (or not).
Unrelated: I just had an odd thought about God being the “first observer” of the quantum state of the universe, thus causing the first particle to jump from superposition to a state of existing at a particular location. Ignore me - I’m being weird.
This would mean that the truth of the interactions between photons and molecules existed before my mind existed.
Nope, just the interactions themselves. Adding “the truth of” intrinsically adds your mind.
This seems to be only a semantic difficulty. Photon can exist and do what photons do before any mind exists. LATER, when the mind exists, it can assign names to these propositions. I don;t see any conflict here.
Yay, Dan!
Then we have very different ideas of what a truth is.
Truth comes from reality, reality does not come from propositions about it.
And what spins a bacterial flagellum is a motor.
One can hold to a Platonic view of propositions where they objectively exist “somewhere” even in the absence of any mind.
That’s mindless.
This is getting silly. Take a break?