BF2S Forums The happy death of reason

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Reason can only lead to one solution, but there are other means of coming to conclusions that could lead to different solutions.

For example, the classic having to choose between the death of a loved one and the death of a thousand strangers. Assuming the question is how to minimize human loss of life and suffering the reasonable decision is clear, but obviously there is more to the question than that.

Your reason for saving the thousand strangers might be that a thousand lives are more valuable than one.

My reason for saving a loved one might be because they have the cure for cancer.

Both examples of reasoning is correct, yet both lead to different solutions.

You might not know that your loved one had the cure for cancer. It doesn't make you wrong in reasoning that a thousand lives are more valuable than one however.

Your thesis also implies it could be wrong, you know that FM ? ... and if it is wrong that proves it to be correct ...

*My head hurts*

CameronPoe wrote:

Logic God is constant and perfect. Reasoning Christianity is the pursuit of logic salvation by imperfect human beings. Go way back to Plato Jesus and you see him seeking reason the salvation of mankind, conscious of man's deficiencies innate sin. Reason The church is not a phase because it is the only means by which we can chase the ideal of logic salvation in God's glory.

c wut i did there?

I want people to take a step back when reading this, or else you will get nothing out of it. Just as Plato argued that shadows might as well have been real to people who have never seen the true objects, it's difficult for us to understand how there could be alternatives to the values we have been indoctrinated with our entire lives. I am confident there is more here than merely shadows, but as you pointed out the million dollar question is just what will tomorrow's attitude be.

CameronPoe wrote:

Logic is constant and perfect. Reasoning is the pursuit of logic by imperfect human beings ... Sometimes there is not one distinct universally correct answer to a question, one can use reason to approach a variety of solutions on the basis of what you, the individual, deems to be reasonable.

Which works fine for one person. When spread across an entire population, the differences in opinion lead to a muddling of even the imperfect logic an individual can attain. It leads to unacceptable levels of fear, violence, poverty, and hunger.

Look at the world reason has built. It's not all that bad, and in most ways it's better than all the worlds that have come before it. However, I can't believe that this is the best we can do, but I can't also believe that reason will take us any further.

Also, the thread title is "the happy death of reason". The first paragraphs were wholly intentioned to set up the latter paragraphs. I'm not really sure why you thought I should have gone in a different direction, unless you only like reading things that follow your thought process.

TheAussieReaper wrote:

Your reason for saving the thousand strangers might be that a thousand lives are more valuable than one.

My reason for saving a loved one might be because they have the cure for cancer.

Both examples of reasoning is correct, yet both lead to different solutions.

You might not know that your loved one had the cure for cancer. It doesn't make you wrong in reasoning that a thousand lives are more valuable than one however.

Well just to play with you on a logical level, saving the person with the cure for cancer would save literally countless people. Certainly millions a year.

If there is a well-defined question, there is a correct answer. Deriving different answers to the same problem proves we are all a sort of lens through which the problem is filtered before it ever reaches logical processes, and I point to this as the reason for our general situation as a race. For better or for worse.

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

Actually, yes they can, well sort of.

Example: the question "is the statement 'This statement is not true' true of false?"

If one applies pure logic to that question, the only conclusion that one can come to is that answer is both "yes" and "no".

A paradox of human communication. The important questions that reason can not give us the answer to transcend the boundaries of language, and that itself is perhaps part of what makes them such mind-bending ideas to think about.

Besides, it's not like I'm saying reason gets thrown out the window. How else are you supposed to teach a science class? Only that reason has its place, and at the moment it is grossly overstepping its bounds.

Varegg wrote:

Your thesis also implies it could be wrong, you know that FM ? ... and if it is wrong that proves it to be correct ...

*My head hurts*

As I noted in the spoiler at the bottom, there is quite the irony that this blasphemy of reason has been reasoned out.

Turquoise wrote:

I see what you're saying, but there is one flaw in your argument.  Differences in viewpoint can be equally logical due to differences in perception and available knowledge.

That flaw is the very basis of the idea. Our humanity perverts reason to the point it is irrelevant. Using that bastardized reason to run a society is absurd.

Turquoise wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

That flaw is the very basis of the idea. Our humanity perverts reason to the point it is irrelevant. Using that bastardized reason to run a society is absurd.

Well... do you suggest an alternative?

I don't know, that's the problem. Bet no god-fearing peasants in the 1400s knew what blasphemy was around the corner either.

It will be very interesting to see what country it comes from, (if in my lifetime) perhaps it will be from a developing country.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Logic God is constant and perfect. Reasoning Christianity is the pursuit of logic salvation by imperfect human beings. Go way back to Plato Jesus and you see him seeking reason the salvation of mankind, conscious of man's deficiencies innate sin. Reason The church is not a phase because it is the only means by which we can chase the ideal of logic salvation in God's glory.

c wut i did there?

I want people to take a step back when reading this, or else you will get nothing out of it. Just as Plato argued that shadows might as well have been real to people who have never seen the true objects, it's difficult for us to understand how there could be alternatives to the values we have been indoctrinated with our entire lives. I am confident there is more here than merely shadows, but as you pointed out the million dollar question is just what will tomorrow's attitude be.

You are confusing language. You seem to interchangeably perceive logic, values, reason and religion as different expressions of the one thing. You have unnecessarily complicated and confused matters. Your alteration of my paragraph is ludicrous to anyone of right mind. God is a wholly human-fabricated notion for which no evidence exists. Reason and the ability to think is innate. Choosing reason over blind and mindless religion, either indoctrinated or adopted for lack of appreciable intellect or a desire to dispense with it, represents freedom of the mind. Reason itself is letting the human come to its conclusion based on the evidence to hand and his own environmentally driven set of values. Reason is not a form of indoctrination in itself. It's a description of a mind being free to come as close to a logical conclusion about something given the predisposition of said mind to the world in which it lives. There is no programming of the mind involved. Nobody tells someone what conclusion they MUST reasonably arrive at. Hence the fact reason is perfect for this complex pluralist world in which a diversity of opinions can be accommodated and nobody can definitively say that they are 'right'.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Logic is constant and perfect. Reasoning is the pursuit of logic by imperfect human beings ... Sometimes there is not one distinct universally correct answer to a question, one can use reason to approach a variety of solutions on the basis of what you, the individual, deems to be reasonable.

Which works fine for one person. When spread across an entire population, the differences in opinion lead to a muddling of even the imperfect logic an individual can attain. It leads to unacceptable levels of fear, violence, poverty, and hunger.

Look at the world reason has built. It's not all that bad, and in most ways it's better than all the worlds that have come before it. However, I can't believe that this is the best we can do, but I can't also believe that reason will take us any further.

Also, the thread title is "the happy death of reason". The first paragraphs were wholly intentioned to set up the latter paragraphs. I'm not really sure why you thought I should have gone in a different direction, unless you only like reading things that follow your thought process.

Now you're talking about a whole other ballpark of philosophy/sociology. You seem to be addressing shared values and morality here rather than reason. You also seem to trying to advocate for a 'common psyche' which quite frankly I find scary and feel to be completely unnatural and oppressive. Reason, as I stated, represents a freedom of the mind. Sure one man can come to a logical conclusion that it would be a good thing to blow himself up in a marketplace but that is just a symptom of the imperfection of man. By and large the system works fine because living in a society we automatically share certain values and temper our own greed and crepulence in order to coexist peacefully in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Harmonising human thought is the kind of thing Hitler engaged in. Frankly I'll pass. I believe freedom of thought is paramount and is in fact the pinnacle of our development. It wipes away all barriers.

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

The thing about the "this statement is not true" paradox is that it is not just a "paradox of human communication" - the paradox can be expressed in purely symbolic mathematical terms, where the mathematical symbols used all have strict logical and provably unambiguous meanings (unfortunately to show so would require me to get hold of one of several books that I don't possess, so you'll have to take my word for that).

The point being that logic itself states that we can split all statements into 3 sets - those statements that are provably true, those that are provably false and those that are provably both true and false (or is it neither true nor false (or is that a 4th set?)).

Essentially it is proof of the validity of your OP.

Even mathematical symbols however are a form of communication, a fact that my math teacher for the last two years has been drilling into me. They are just as much words as anything else, an arbitrary symbol ascribed to an abstract concept.

Generally I agree though, sometimes the "correct" answer is in the shades of gray, but it is still correct.

CameronPoe wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Logic God is constant and perfect. Reasoning Christianity is the pursuit of logic salvation by imperfect human beings. Go way back to Plato Jesus and you see him seeking reason the salvation of mankind, conscious of man's deficiencies innate sin. Reason The church is not a phase because it is the only means by which we can chase the ideal of logic salvation in God's glory.

c wut i did there?

I want people to take a step back when reading this, or else you will get nothing out of it. Just as Plato argued that shadows might as well have been real to people who have never seen the true objects, it's difficult for us to understand how there could be alternatives to the values we have been indoctrinated with our entire lives. I am confident there is more here than merely shadows, but as you pointed out the million dollar question is just what will tomorrow's attitude be.

You are confusing language. You seem to interchangeably perceive logic, values, reason and religion as different expressions of the one thing. You have unnecessarily complicated and confused matters. Your alteration of my paragraph is ludicrous to anyone of right mind. God is a wholly human-fabricated notion for which no evidence exists. Reason and the ability to think is innate. Choosing reason over blind and mindless religion, either indoctrinated or adopted for lack of appreciable intellect or a desire to dispense with it, represents freedom of the mind. Reason itself is letting the human come to its conclusion based on the evidence to hand and his own environmentally driven set of values. Reason is not a form of indoctrination in itself. It's a description of a mind being free to come as close to a logical conclusion about something given the predisposition of said mind to the world in which it lives. There is no programming of the mind involved. Nobody tells someone what conclusion they MUST reasonably arrive at. Hence the fact reason is perfect for this complex pluralist world in which a diversity of opinions can be accommodated and nobody can definitively say that they are 'right'.

Okay I don't think you saw what I did there.

I changed your paragraph to a statement one might very well have heard from the every day man 600 years ago. The statement as you said it will be every bit as obscene to someone 600 years from now as you saw my altered version. The point is there are very, very, basic concepts that humans turn to and have turned to throughout history, and this foundation is always changing.

Reason itself is not something that changes, nor is faith. Only their importance to every individual changes, and movements in history of lots of individuals prioritizing certain ideals. Currently it is reason. 600 years ago it was God. 1200 years ago it was the pagan gods. Right now if I asked you (as a representative of the typical early 21st century Westerner) to tell me your views on creation, you would most likely turn to reason to give me an answer. If I asked someone 600 years ago, someone would most likely turn to the creation stories in the Bible. 1200 years ago, someone most likely would have turned to stories of the pagan Gods. The question hasn't changed, but our go-to ideals have.

CameronPoe wrote:

Hence the fact reason is perfect for this complex pluralist world in which a diversity of opinions can be accommodated and nobody can definitively say that they are 'right'.

and since it's going so well...

CameronPoe wrote:

Now you're talking about a whole other ballpark of philosophy/sociology. You seem to be addressing shared values and morality here rather than reason. You also seem to trying to advocate for a 'common psyche' which quite frankly I find scary and feel to be completely unnatural and oppressive. Reason, as I stated, represents a freedom of the mind. Sure one man can come to a logical conclusion that it would be a good thing to blow himself up in a marketplace but that is just a symptom of the imperfection of man. By and large the system works fine because living in a society we automatically share certain values and temper our own greed and crepulence in order to coexist peacefully in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Harmonising human thought is the kind of thing Hitler engaged in. Frankly I'll pass. I believe freedom of thought is paramount and is in fact the pinnacle of our development. It wipes away all barriers.

I am talking about the underlying engines of social progress, am now and always have been. You seem to be trying to read other meanings into it.

A common psyche is extremely natural. Even countercultures eventually become the very institution they were formed in spite of. As for the Nazi reference...lol. Is there some unwritten rule somewhere to just start calling people with different ideas than your own Nazis? This is the second time recently someone has tried to associate me with a Nazi with a weaker bridge than something you'd find in an Indiana Jones movie.

I would love a pair of those rose-tinted glasses you have. Then I can see terrorist attacks as the inevitable outcome of imperfect humans and call it a day. I mean people never misuse that pinnacle of human development to, say, commit genocide. We just have to accept our losses and move on in this golden age right?

I dunno, this is just kind of funny in that you are arguing for me in a roundabout way. You base everything you say off of reason, almost going so far as if to put it on a pedestal. Take a look through all the types of arguments going on in DST and you can see that reason is what we hold to be the most important compass on the path to truth. Really, it seems as if we are being indoctrinated by people telling us we are not indoctrinated. Of course we are indoctrinated, we can't help being heavily influenced by the opinions and attitudes of everyone around us. If you really think reason is the pinnacle of human social and individual achievement, that everything before and after is of lesser quality...well I ask what makes you right and everyone else wrong? How are you better than everyone else?

CameronPoe wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I don't know, that's the problem. Bet no god-fearing peasants in the 1400s knew what blasphemy was around the corner either.

It will be very interesting to see what country it comes from, (if in my lifetime) perhaps it will be from a developing country.

Heresy and alternative thinking has been around since time immemorial. Your assertion vis a vis the renaissance is totally flawed.

Current social attitudes are no "alternative thinking". It is a fundamental shift in our understanding of the world around us, and would have been utterly unpredictable.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I changed your paragraph to a statement one might very well have heard from the every day man 600 years ago. The statement as you said it will be every bit as obscene to someone 600 years from now as you saw my altered version. The point is there are very, very, basic concepts that humans turn to and have turned to throughout history, and this foundation is always changing.

Reason itself is not something that changes, nor is faith. Only their importance to every individual changes, and movements in history of lots of individuals prioritizing certain ideals. Currently it is reason. 600 years ago it was God. 1200 years ago it was the pagan gods. Right now if I asked you (as a representative of the typical early 21st century Westerner) to tell me your views on creation, you would most likely turn to reason to give me an answer. If I asked someone 600 years ago, someone would most likely turn to the creation stories in the Bible. 1200 years ago, someone most likely would have turned to stories of the pagan Gods. The question hasn't changed, but our go-to ideals have.

Your error is that you perceive reason to be something that has a precise definition. It does not. It is a watery concept. Western concepts of religion are not. It (Christianity/Judaism/Islam) is written down in ancient textbooks and while you can argue over nuances in the scripture there is usually little scope for too much deviation. I understand where you are coming from on this (i.e., a massive culture shift may occur at some point) but I have difficulty with your theory because reason, as I see it, is not 'a concept'. In the solitary example nobody dictates it, nobody defines it, nobody restricts it. It is pure thought. Obviously we don't live in solitude so as I mentioned earlier environment and sociology influences the reasoning of people in a particular time and place, although it does not bind their thought down hard and fast. You can lambast me for being so dismissive - something you evidently think your OP allows you to laugh at - but I cannot envisage for one moment why the free exercise of the mind would be bad thing (the alternative necessarily being some restriction on that freedom - unless you can enlighten me otherwise).

Your example of paganism to Christianity highlights the problem in your argument. That was a jump from one form of religion to another. Exercising freedom of thought is not such a jump. It is simply freedom to go anywhere with our minds and collectively - with no firm purpose or fixed/predetermined direction - come up with an improving or disimproving society and system of living as we progress.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

I am talking about the underlying engines of social progress, am now and always have been. You seem to be trying to read other meanings into it.

A common psyche is extremely natural. Even countercultures eventually become the very institution they were formed in spite of. As for the Nazi reference...lol. Is there some unwritten rule somewhere to just start calling people with different ideas than your own Nazis? This is the second time recently someone has tried to associate me with a Nazi with a weaker bridge than something you'd find in an Indiana Jones movie.

I would love a pair of those rose-tinted glasses you have. Then I can see terrorist attacks as the inevitable outcome of imperfect humans and call it a day. I mean people never misuse that pinnacle of human development to, say, commit genocide. We just have to accept our losses and move on in this golden age right?

I dunno, this is just kind of funny in that you are arguing for me in a roundabout way. You base everything you say off of reason, almost going so far as if to put it on a pedestal. Take a look through all the types of arguments going on in DST and you can see that reason is what we hold to be the most important compass on the path to truth. Really, it seems as if we are being indoctrinated by people telling us we are not indoctrinated. Of course we are indoctrinated, we can't help being heavily influenced by the opinions and attitudes of everyone around us. If you really think reason is the pinnacle of human social and individual achievement, that everything before and after is of lesser quality...well I ask what makes you right and everyone else wrong? How are you better than everyone else?

I'm not exactly sure how you read a Nazi accusation into my comment but whatever. Again I reiterate. You are mixing definitions again. Common psyches are natural yes. I didn't say they weren't. I regard enforced common psyches as unnatural and abhorrent however. Your 'next step' must necessarily entail a restriction on freedom of thought, because reason is exactly that. I can never endorse such a thing, despite the ills such freedom sometimes brings. As I said earlier, the great thing about freedom of thought is that everyone can be 'right' by their own particular brand of reasoning. So until you can irrefutably prove me wrong, or come up with a reasonable argument I can concur with we will have to agree to disagree.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Current social attitudes are no "alternative thinking". It is a fundamental shift in our understanding of the world around us, and would have been utterly unpredictable.

There you go again. Reason != 'Social Attitudes'. You make far too many confusing associations. The leap was from fixed indoctrinated thought to complete freedom of thought. In other parts of the world they have non-deity related systems of thought such as Taoism and Confucianism. All they amount to, like all religions and like modern humanism, is a guide to restraining ones animal impulses to enable peaceful coexistence. Perhaps reason might lead to our destruction but frankly you can't stop reason. You can't stop the freedom of the individual to come to their own particular logical conclusion on some issue. That's why there will always be terrorists. That's why there will always be anti-establishment types. That's why implementing some sort of 'what's best for humanity leap forward/culture shift' will be almost impossible to achieve. The people have tasted freedom and it is here to stay.

Bottom line is this: prevailing culture is the embodiment of reason, whatever that culture might be. Taoism is based on reason for instance - even Christianity is: 'love thy neighbour as thyself', etc. - in the interests of the common good. Every breakthrough man has had has been through reason and every prevailing culture since the beginning has its basis in some form of reason. Reason has persisted, it is culture that has changed - with reason as the driver.

Last edited by CameronPoe (2008-10-26 18:49:51)

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Scorpion0x17 wrote:

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Even mathematical symbols however are a form of communication, a fact that my math teacher for the last two years has been drilling into me. They are just as much words as anything else, an arbitrary symbol ascribed to an abstract concept.

Generally I agree though, sometimes the "correct" answer is in the shades of gray, but it is still correct.

Yes, math is a language, and mathematics a form of communication, but unlike our verbal 'everyday' language symbols, mathematical symbols are unambiguous - so the statement "this statement is not true" can be declared unambiguously - and so it's super-position of true and false can also be unambiguously proved.

It's not so much that these statements are "shades of grey", more that they are part of a whole class (maybe even multiple classes) of statement(s) that pure logic alone is unable to deal with.

But what is true? What is false? They are not 0 and 1, they are dependent on the context and therefore on interpretation.

Logic only works if the question is appropriately defined, and I contest that because of our concept of these abstract words we cannot accurately interpret the question, let alone the answer. Then even if we could find the question, the answer would be somewhere in those shades of gray, between true and false.

edit: Poe I'll have to leave my response for tomorrow, need to get to bed soon.

Grrr... you're gonna force me to find a copy of the book I read about it in. But, in a nutshell, no, that's the beauty of math - it defines truth absolutely.

This thread sounds like the title of a dissertation/lecture delivered by Prof. Richard Dawkins.

(Read: Oh dear).

Websters online dictionary wrote:

LOGIC
1 a (1): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning

REASON (verb)
3: to discover, formulate, or conclude by the use of reason

REASON (noun)
1 a: a statement offered in explanation or justification <gave reasons that were quite satisfactory> b: a rational ground or motive <a good reason to act soon> c: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense ; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact <the reasons behind her client's action> d: the thing that makes some fact intelligible

FM, are you arguing for the abandonment of science, mathematical justification, etc?  If we do not use reason as the basis for decision making, we are left with emotion, religion (which includes elements of reason...), whatever someone in power says, or something we have not defined yet. Of those choices, reason seems to be the most beneficial/practical in our world.

Reason and reasoning are what we humans use to come to conclusions and agreements.  Without reason and logic, science halts.  Without reasoning, differing groups must either agree to disagree (which usually accomplishes nothing) or initiate conflict (wherein the stronger side wins, whether or not their view is the most efficient/beneficial).  I'll stick with reasoning, given that there are no better alternatives being presented.

Last edited by RAIMIUS (2008-10-26 20:31:58)

HollisHurlbut wrote:

ATG wrote:

Reason and logic are still trumped by emotion, unless you are a Vulcan.

Or an INTJ.

We INTJ's shit all over emotional arguments.  "What?  That hurt your feelings?  WTF are 'feelings' and why would they make your argument rational?"

That's one of my weaknesses in debate.  I always go for the logical/practial solution, even when others base a large portion of their argument on emotion.  I tend to bombard people with facts a little too often.

When I told someone I bought a rifle to get better at competitions and to better master a potentially useful job skill, they responded that they had pitty for my feeling that I needed an "assault weapon."  Frankly, I had a really hard time understanding that mentality.  [thinking]I just told you a valid reason why I bought it and enjoy competing with it.  Why the hell would you feel pitty for me trying to improve my skills?[/thinking]
INTJ vs...definitely NOT INTJ!

RAIMIUS wrote:

Websters online dictionary wrote:

LOGIC
1 a (1): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoning

REASON (verb)
3: to discover, formulate, or conclude by the use of reason

What a stupid dictionary. You don't explain a verb by using that verb in the describing sentence.