Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The limit of logic and reason

I think that people can be too logical at times. People can take things too far. There are limits to logic and reason. Logic and reason do not prove anything about reality. It is like with the sunrise problem. No one can prove that the sun will rise tomorrow. You can explain the mechanical workings of things and why we see this phenomenon all the time but you cannot prove the sun will rise tomorrow. Logic is limited here. logical proofs are not the same as proving something in the physical world. We all jump the gap and accept things without proof that it really is so. We act as if we knew already. Logic cannot prove that there is a god. However, it cannot prove there is no god. Whatever position you take on this subject you are doing so with no evidence or proof. I am using logic and reason in this little essay. We use logic and reason to help us to judge things and to organize things in our experiential world. It is all about arranging things in your mind. The sun will rise tomorrow because the earth is rotating on its axis and from were we are in relation to the sun it appears to be rising in the sky until it reaches it zenith and then it appears to set but in fact it is neither raising or setting but only it appears to do so. I use logic and reason to organize my thoughts to communicate something about what I witness. However, logic and reason do not prove that what I am experiencing is real. It may all be a dream or I may be a brain in a vat or I may only be a character in a computer program. Logic and reason cannot prove nor disprove the reality of any of this.

1 comment:

  1. Like Protagoras thought: I see things how they show them to me. You see things how they show them to you. This has nothing to do with relativity, but with individuality. Relativity is an invention of people, who believe in objectivity. Each one of us is his own world. And what one knew comes out of his world. So it is correct, when you say: "We act as if we knew already." All what we do, is our decesion - always.

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