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proginoskes 16-Oct-06, 13:23	Logic and Reasoning Found this little jewel in the middle of a paper on natural law. I am curious as to what some of our deeper thinking friends here think about this. Kem, I know you've been busy, but I'd love to hear what you think (our discussions has garnered a gradging respect) --------------------------------------------------- The most interesting aspect of any argument is not what it explicitly states, but what it implicitly assumes. A rationalistic culture teaches us to think that truth is the product of a process of logical reasoning. When we are dealing with intermediate or detailed truths, which rest on more fundamental premises, this model is correct. The model breaks down, however, when we try to apply it to the fundamental premises themselves. This is because logic is a way of getting to conclusions from premises. By its very nature, a logical argument cannot justify the premises upon which it rests. When these premises are questioned, they have to be justified by a different logical argument, which rests upon different premises. We may follow this process forever, and we will never encounter anything but another logical argument, which will itself be based upon premises. But then what is the ultimate premise, the Archimedean fulcrum on which intellect can sit and judge all the rest? If we try to answer that question by employing logic we lapse into the absurdity of circular reasoning. Reasoning has to start somewhere. Any attempt to justify the ultimate starting point necessarily fails, because it only establishes a different starting point. Hence, the really important step in any argument is apt to be the unexplained, unjustified, and often unstated starting point.
zorroloco 16-Oct-06, 14:03	descartes wrestled with this. he came to the conclusion that the ultimate starting point, the only thing he was sure of, was that he existed. and his rationale was that, since he was able to conceptualize the question, he had to exist. cogito ergo sum.
pawntificator 16-Oct-06, 17:31	I also wrestled with this WHen I was going through my questioning of religion and God, years ago. I still run into it now and again. For instance, just the other day I stated "it's always wrong to kill sentient beings," and then I was asked to explain. I found that I couldn't do it, and the statement comes from some deep well of ineffable mysteriousness that confounds logic. Also, I might be drawing from the same well when I say existence isn't necessary, but I will think hard about that before I assert it.
leo_london 16-Oct-06, 17:37	jdh.. I rather like the mixture of Probability theory and Fuzzy logic. The main idea behind Fuzzy Logic is that things can belong to more than one category, and they can even belong to opposite categories, and that they can belong to a category only partially. For example, I belong both to the category of good chess players and to the category of bad chess players: I am a good player to some extent and a bad player to some other extent. In more precise words, I belong to the category of good players with a given degree of membership and to the category of bad players with another degree of membership. I am not fully into one or the other. I am both, to some extent. Fuzzy Logic allows for an infinite number of truth values: the degree of "membership" can assume any value between zero and one. Fuzzy Logic is also consistent with the principle of incompatibility stated at the beginning of the century by a father of modern Thermodynamics, Pierre Duhem: the certainty that a proposition is true decreases with any increase of its precision. The power of a vague assertion rests in its being vague: the moment we try to make it more precise, it loses some of its power. Technically, a fuzzy set is a set of elements that belong to a set only to some extent. Each element is characterized by a degree of membership. An object can belong (partially) to more than one set, even if they are mutually exclusive, in direct contrast with one of the pillars of classical logic: the "law of the excluded middle". Each set can be subset of another set with a degree of membership. A set can even belong (partially) to one of its parts. Degrees of membership also imply that Fuzzy Logic admits a continuum of truth values from zero to one, unlike classical Logic that admits only true or false (one or zero). Its probably a rather a long-winded way of making the same point that was in the paper you posted, jdh..there is no absolute truth, only degrees of truth, layer upon layer, ad infinitum.
proginoskes 16-Oct-06, 17:46	leo correct - there really is no way to make a final and complete conlusion on anything from logical/rational place. for instance - stealing - is it really wrong, why? "sez who?" The modern rational argument against stealing can never have the final ultimately authority in argument, because of the points raised in the first post. Therefore, I think there is a place in the discussion for people to appeal to an ultimate and objective authority that says stealing is wrong because it is.
pawntificator 16-Oct-06, 17:52	Logic of the Bible JD, as a believer yourself, I'm curious what you think of the ultimate premise of the Bible. I imagine you must cast skepticism to the wind and just use this as your premise: The Bible is the ultimate premise. From there you are good to go. As long as you don't try to describe the 'archimedean fulcrum.' I rested in that space uneasily for a year or two. I couldn't do it for very long. Sorry to mix threads a bit, but it seemed at least tangentially relevant.
proginoskes 16-Oct-06, 17:54	panwt if *is* tangentially relevent I would say that it is not the Bible that is the ulimate premise a much as God is the ultimate premise, the Bible happens to be the ultimate premise's word to mankind
pawntificator 16-Oct-06, 17:55	OK But in that one step you make a HUGE leap of faith. No logic involved.
pawntificator 16-Oct-06, 17:56	By the way I agree with you that God is the ultimate premise of all conscious and logical thought. It's just that jump to the bible what gets me.
proginoskes 16-Oct-06, 17:58	pawnt I can understand
proginoskes 16-Oct-06, 18:00	pawnt the step between God and the Bible is not such a huge leap when properly understood IMHO. It's not a huge leap for me - it all fits the context
pawntificator 16-Oct-06, 19:33	Context, yay! But when you start using the word context, again you are assigning layers to meaning and logic. I understand the mystery of God to be the base upon which my life rests, and grows. To me, that very mystery transcends context, logic, meaning, or even understanding. It is the ultimate paradox and certainty. Apart from the unspeakable, we can try to communicate with each other, and I believe religions are an attempt for man to share the experience of living with each other. But to say that the book called bible, or any other book, is the absolute and utter entirity of the truth about the mystery of God and Life and the Universe and Everything sounds to me a little bit shallow and false. We must work with Logic and Reason to try and understand the Base premise upon which all else rests. When I do employ my Logic, I trace the levels of my reason, knowledge, and intuition to the point where they fail me. I have done this many times, and every time I come to that point, it is when I get to "god." First cause, creation, big bang, eternity, necessary existance, whatever. It has never happened to me when I get to the Bible, because that is just another record of someone's idea. Just as this is a record of my idea now. If what I say makes the least bit of sense, and I have somehow successfully shared my experience, then good. But I would not expect people to start worshipping me as some kind of master of the unknown. And I would certainly never lie and claim to have special powers in order to convince people to listen to me. And if I did, I would certainly only do so within a reasonable context that served a greater good, namely, me getting money, and lots of it. I mean....a greater good, helping all mankind to becoming a utopian socialist one world government. Anyhow, the original post of this thread reminded me of that book, Godel Escher Bach, the eternal golden braid. Good book. Kind of boring and unecessarily complicated in parts, but certainly worth perusing.
echo3 17-Oct-06, 01:08	Does this mean.... ... that those of us who don't believe in God and therefore don't subscribe de facto in the belief systems proposed in the bible, are free to behave as we wish without sanction? Whoo ... hoo!!!!!! ...... eh?...... whaa?..... law of the land?....... oh.... dem dem dem.
pawntificator 17-Oct-06, 03:00	echo That's right, even if you don't agree you must still obey. But not the bible, luckily that is still optional.
jaymar 17-Oct-06, 06:24	I would .. ..hope the bible is optional. "To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird volume that religious zealots hold up to us as the inerrant source of our morals and rules for living. Those who wish to base their morality literally on the Bible have either not read it or not understood it, as Bishop John Shelby Spong, in The Sins of Scripture, rightly observed". A quote from "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. echo those of us who don't believe it have to find our moral values elsewhere.
kementari 17-Oct-06, 12:08	jdh << I know you've been busy, but I'd love to hear what you think (our discussions has garnered a gradging respect) >> Why thank you kindly. I'll come back to this, as well as other bubbling discussions... likely next week. Looks like fun.

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