Begging the Question or an Appeal to Authority fallacy?

Frank, interesting response. I absolutely could be wrong.

Is there a possibility that humans are incapable of understanding existence? Certainly. But then my certainty would then need to be questioned. I think the whole exercise you're suggesting is self-defeating.

We operate on certain assumptions that are self-evidently true. We call these "laws of reason." They are such that if doubted, we cannot coherently argue any truth claim.

So while I believe it may be possible that we humans are incapable of understanding existence, I believe it is unlikely that this is so, given our ability to reason.

I hold that existence must have a rational explanation.

If we have an ability to reason, then we have an ability to understand existence, however limited that understanding might be.

So while I believe it may be possible that we humans are incapable of understanding existence, I believe it is unlikely that this is so, given our ability to reason.

Nothing self-defeating about that. Question everything...especially when you suppose you have a definitive answer or solution to things people have been working on for ages...and have come away stumped. .

It is self-defeating to assert that we can't trust our ability to reason. Questioning things involves reasoning. How can you be certain that questioning things is the more rational course than simply accepting all truth claims at face-value? You can be reasonably certain because you have a certain degree of trust in your ability to reason.

If you can't trust your own ability to reason, then you can't know anything.

Mostly, we (meaning humans) kid ourselves into thinking that what we want to be self-evident, laws-of-reason truths...are actually self-evident laws-of-reason truths. Mostly they are merely the things we want to be true...or that need to be true in order to bolster some guess we have about REALITY.

If there are no self-evident laws of reason, Frank; such as the law of non-contradiction, for example, all arguments are then absurd. Our ability to discuss reality rationally requires that at least one truth be self-evident, and that truth is that what is A cannot equal non-A at the same time and in the same sense. You can't prove that the law of non-contradiction is true. That's what makes it self-evident. If it is not self-evidently true, no truth claim can be true. This is reason 101.
That seems to be what you are doing here.

"Anyway, we have people here in A2K who think that some things are self-evident that are 180 degrees out of phase with what others consider self-evident."

That this may be the case does not negate the case for the self-evident nature of the laws of reason.

"Self-evident" is much overdone in Internet discussion.

What does the internet have to do with it? These are axiomatic understandings, which all philosophy and science depend on. In fact, they are what drive us towards the difference between what is true and what is false. We cannot be rational without them.

Quote:

So while I believe it may be possible that we humans are incapable of understanding existence, I believe it is unlikely that this is so, given our ability to reason.

C'mon, Brandon...thousands of years ago humans thought they could reason...and they were damn near primitive. "

If they truly could not reason, they would not have survived.