I think this is actually the case. His arguments are on paper, on a screen. They are words. Etymologically ‘comprehend’ comes from the physical idea of gripping something, seizing it. We took this physical idea and moved it into a cognitive realm. Of course this doesn’t prove what the problem is, but it seems very telling to me. He is denying that he is perceiving anything, interacting with anything. Rather, his calculations on paper in the mind demonstrate what can and cannot be real. The left brain works with ideas that are ALREADY known to it. It cannot create and the primary perception, the seizing with the mind takes place in the right brain, first. He is not actually interacting with the world, he is moving ideas about on paper (in his mind) and thus he can take these syllogisms and apply them to the world, without fail. In a sense this is also a claim to be transcendent himself.
That there could not be a God that is not absolutely perfect is something he must deny. And ironically will do this on the basis of what Abrahamic religious people tend to say. Any language philosophy insights or psychological insights into why many people might say this, or a perception within the history of religion or comparative religion, these are all absent. If there is a God, that God must be this abstract mathematical perfection, and then this is impossible. And he will never, ever admit that this assumption might be fallacious EVEN though it is based on his interpretation of theists and who the ‘real’ theists are - to him - and the literalizing of poetic language. Not given to emotions himself, he cannot discern that these texts that are influenced by relational feelings and other emotions that arise when describing something or someone on has intense feelings about. He would put something like the Song of Solomon into a mathematical equation. It’s a form of autistic confusion. He might remind someone who is in love that his girlfriend is not perfect or the most beautiful woman in the world. Even in Perfect Being Theology there are a variety of interpetions, including where there is simply nothing greater than God, which is not the same thing as absolute perfection. Also that nothing greater than God can be conceived. So even within the current theological debates in one single theism, Christianity, in one sector of its theology, there is some fuzziness about all this. Let alone theism in general or even the deity presented in the Bible.
He takes the fundmentalist position as the correct one, ironically. And thus allows himself, like they do themselves, the right to say who is the real theist and who is not. He assumes that the popular way people defend perfection WHEN that issue is on the table, means that if there was a God, it must be like that. Mingling subjective ideas in some theists with factual evidence. Of course there are all sorts of clues, EVEN in fundamentalists that they have a more complex idea of God and that God is not perfect. But since he confuses minds with only what people say when directly making assertions
he gives himself the authority to say only THIS assertion of theirs is the real one.
He is taking so many liberties because he is not seizing, comprehending,
but rather interacting with ideas on paper. Where he is comfortable. This is not someone, I would guess, comfortable with social interaction or learning directly from people. It is precisely not comprehension.
A great read is The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, a 2009 book written by Iain McGilchrist, since updated, where he shows the different hows of how the two brain halves learn and think, and also the problems created by left brain thinking coming into dominance. It fits these patterns to a t. And it was lovely to see him, himself, without realizing how telling it is, deny comprehending but asserting that he is logically arguing. Because this is precisely what the left brain does and if it is not in balance with the right brain, it does it not only to its own detriment but leads to a lot of the problems we see in society now.
As a bit of a jump: Prismatic has spoken with a looking forward attitude to when we can find the anxiety neurons in the brain and take them out.
It’s this kind of linear approach, less aware of context, seeing the world in parts and organisms as modular that the left brain is good at. And yes, this approach can help create all sorts of useful things.
But it is also a limited view and a dangerous one. And because the left brain needs the right brain’s more direct contact with the outside world and comprehending, if it denies the role of the right brain, you end up with something really quite damaged and damaging. Something cut off.
Now Prismatic is just a guy writing in a philosophy forum read by just a few people.
But his style of thinking is similar to a style of thinking that is worldwide problematic right now.