Striking The Target: A Response To Helath Haerman's Rejoinder

Striking The Target: A Response To Helath Haerman's Rejoinder by Dume Droven

Helath Haerman, one of the leading Amaranthine Romanticists, has attempted a defense of his philosophy with the traditional tactics of Padomaic apologetics : declaring the arguments irrelevant, claiming erroneous reasoning, and attacking the character of the writer. But he fails to successfully defend Amaranthine Metaphysics in the process.

First, his attempt to separate Amaranthine metaphysics from its infinite regression origins hurts his position more than it helps. If there was an original Dreamer, there is no reason to posit more than one. The principle of Amiel's Axe tells us we should not multiply causes when one will suffice, and that is obviously what Helath and his colleagues do when they argue a multitude of Amaranths.

In fact, one could go so far as to argue that there is no need for an Amaranth at all. The first Dreamer, if he existed, could not have come into being. He must have been uncreated. If he could be uncreated, why not the et'Ada? The et'Ada, like numbers or other abstract objects, could simply be necessarily existing uncreated objects. The Aurbis as we know it could have been created by Auriel and Lorkhan alone. There is no need for a singular, higher creator.

Second, his counterargument against the Counterintuitive Functionality Argument forces the Amaranthine Romanticist into a dilemma. Either the Divine Dream is a metaphor that poorly reflects reality, or reality really is a dream. If the former, the metaphor should be dropped in favor of a metaphor that describes reality in more concrete terms. If the latter, the Amaranthine Romanticist must bite several bolts that a Neostatic Transcendentalist does not have to face.

If reality is "unreal" and a dream as Helath says, then several absurd conclusions follow. All dreams are ultimately the dreamer, so there would be no basis for our own personal identities. Helath and I would be the same person. Considering our differences, I strongly suspect that not to be the case.

The second absurd conclusion is that there are no necessary truths. Necessity requires metaphysical realism, and the Amaranthine Romanticist must deny this for his conception of a dream-like universe. But obviously, this position is untenable. Mathematics remain consistently true regardless of the situation. 1+1+1 will always equal 3. The axiom is true by logical necessity and there is not a possible world where the above equation is not true.

Even worse, there cannot be any truth value for the anti-realist position of Amaranthine Romanticism. "I exist" is not a true proposition because the information is not real. It is simply an undefined echo of a thought in the Dreamer's subconscious, and I doubt a sleeping entity can think deeply enough to maintain the truth value of specific propositions.

The most potent objection to Helath's description of unreal reality is that it is a logical contradiction. Something cannot be both real and unreal at the same time.

Then he responds to the Dubious Witness argument with a series of rhetorical questions. He asks who can deny the evidence of CHIM, and I say I can. Urban legends do not a sound philosophy make. Have there been some who, by meditating, mysteriously vanished into thin air? Of course. However, we have no way of knowing if they "zero summed" as Amaranthines often say. For all we know they were thinking deeply on what they had for lunch that afternoon. They may have ceased to exist, but it does not follow that the only explanation is failure to achieve CHIM.

Helath accuses me of bias, but I am not the one attempting to defend four eras of fables and unsound philosophies. I and the other Neostatic Trancendentalists have nothing to lose by challenging the status quo. Helath and his colleagues, on the other hand, have everything to lose. If anyone ought to check himself for bias, it should be Helath and his Padomaic friends.