What's the matter with reason?

[shetline]

In another thread, someone recommended the book, "Life of Pi", by Yann Martel.

So, I went to amazon.com, looked up the book, and started reading the first few pages which were made available online. Right away, I ran into this passage, spoken in first person by the main character of the story:
A number of my fellow religious studies students -- muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright...
The "thrall of reason"? "Fool's gold for the bright"? I find myself wondering if this character (or this author, whose thinking we are perhaps hearing) allows for the existence of "unmuddled" agnostics, or if all agnostics are muddled in his opinion.

Although expressed above by a fictional character, these are certainly views I've heard expressed by flesh-and-blood human beings more than once. Such views lead me to ask:

On what basis is reason rejected? To what degree is it rejected? According to such viewpoints, what should augment, or even replace, reason? Are there reasons -- can there be reasons -- to reject reason, or is it a "you cahnt get theh-uh from hee-uh" situation?

I'll be the first to admit that reason, and the logic intrinsic to reason, only make sense as tools for understanding. They are not in-and-of-themselves understanding. Logic requires premises. Follow any chain of logic backwards and you must reach something which itself has no solid foundation in logic.

This is not to say, however, that the foundations of self-consistent logical thoughts are themselves illogical. They are merely nonlogical -- value-neutral with respect to logic. Given a foundation of such self-consistent premises, however, I can see no other way to proceed reliably except by logic*. Is seeing no way other way a personal fault, a limitation? Perhaps. But without being able to rely on such fundamentals as Boolean algebra and syllogistic reasoning, I can see no way to know even know if my own thoughts are proceeding in a sensible way from one moment to the next, and might as well give up on thinking all together.

Now, if someone's rejection of reason is merely a rejection of extremist rationalism, of some sort of Platonic contemplation of idealized navels, circles-within-circles of ideas and arguments and imagined "perfect forms", without reference to, even in rejection of, the world of our senses... I'm fine with rejecting that.

I'm pragmatic about my philosophy. For me, the whole reason to apply reason is to try to understand, and to the extent possible, predict, the world I appear to live in. If it's all an "illusion" by some sense of that word, then the illusion is nevertheless all I've got, and I'll try to make the best I can of it.

I could go on and on from here. I probably will eventually, much to the torment of my fellow AI-ers. :) There's a lot I've left unsaid about where I'm coming from, which perhaps I'd have hoped to have established up front... but despite that wish, I'll repress the urge to start a thread with a 20-page essay before anyone else gets to chime in. Filling in and qualifying can wait until later.

*I'm not ruling out the value of intuitive thought, but qualifying what I mean by this would be yet another long tangent.

[THT]

Reason makes people unhappy.

[segovius]

I've got 2¢ on this (bit more than that actually !).

I don't know what the character in the book intended as I have not read it yet but imo, reason and unreason can (and should) co-exist.

In many cases, it is the so-called possessors of reason who kill progress so to that degree I agree with the sentiment of the literary character.

An example: I have personally had a lifelong interest in the occult, magic and various Fortean phenomena. These are considered to be somehow 'in opposition' to reason and are scoffed at and denied in the main by orthodox science.

Fair enough - to this degree I am in opposition to reason, but I do not believe that these phenomena are supernatural - merely that they are currently not recognized by science and hence labelled 'unreasonable' but that they do in fact utilise unknown natural laws.

So who is not using reason ? Those scientists who have closed minds (and of course the loons that these fringe topics seem to attract).

Similarly with religion - it is in essence a therapy and so no-one should be surprised that it's major constituency is that of the unstable personality. And of course when an unstable personality feels it's lifeline is under attack or threat of nullification.......

So again, who is being unreasonable ? The patients in the asylum or the outsiders who are allegedly 'sane' yet spend all their time sniping at the expressed views of the patients (who after all are only trying to get better and who are known by everyone to be unwell,or, if you prefer, 'sinners') ?

Einstein was a mystic of sorts and the discovery of the structure of DNA was far from achieved by reason alone.

The people who try to rob us of the numinous are the lunatics and the unreasonable. Sometimes they dress in the Inquisition's cloak, sometimes in the scientists white coat - don't be fooled....they can take any form, just as true reason can seem to be insanity.....

[shetline]

Originally posted by segovius
In many cases, it is the so-called possessors of reason who kill progress so to that degree I agree with the sentiment of the literary character.
I don't think such problems have anything to do with reason. That's more like a caricature of reason. Reason is not the same thing as what might be practiced by someone who is merely pigheaded, inflexible, and closed-minded.
An example: I have personally had a lifelong interest in the occult, magic and various Fortean phenomena. These are considered to be somehow 'in opposition' to reason and are scoffed at and denied in the main by orthodox science.
Much of it should be scoffed at, frankly. How open-minded can one be before one's brains fall out and hit the floor? I'm not sure what specific things you'd like to see accepted or treated with more credence. Giant seas floating above the earth, routinely restocked with frogs by friendly teleporting aliens? Crystal healing? Tarot cards?

What progress is being held back by being tough on those sorts of things, and by demanding firm evidence? Are we missing out on, say, the great health benefits we could all be receiving by telepathically consulting with alien doctors on how best to get our chakras aligned?

I don't see that the fact that the occasional nutty idea might turn out to have some merit, in much the same way as a broken watch is right twice a day, is any reason to lower scientific standards of evidence.
I do not believe that these phenomena are supernatural - merely that they are currently not recognized by science and hence labelled 'unreasonable' but that they do in fact utilise unknown natural laws.
Isn't the burden of proof on you or others who purport such things to do the work needed to validate and demonstrate any such natural laws? Shouldn't something like, say, crystal healing, actually be soundly validated as effective (beyond mere placebo effect) before you go off looking for natural laws to explain something that's probably not even real, and therefore not even in need of explanation?
Einstein was a mystic of sorts and the discovery of the structure of DNA was far from achieved by reason alone.
Einstein and Watson and Crick, regardless of how their ideas came about, were able to validate their ideas in many ways experimentally. Do you need imagination and daring leaps of logic to make progress? Sure. But that's the beginning of science, not the end of science. I certainly don't consider the overall process one of "unreason" in these instances.
The people who try to rob us of the numinous are the lunatics and the unreasonable.
You can't be robbed of something you don't really have. It's certainly not the job of science to provide soothing validation for wacky ideas in order to avoid conflict with someone's fantasy life.

Can scientific culture be stubborn, turf-protecting, and slow? At times. It might take a generation for a truly challenging idea to catch on. But a thousand crazy ideas which are just that -- crazy and nothing more -- go by for every crazy idea with real merit. You can't blame scientists for having to crank up the bullshit filter to block out the noise.

[tonton]

I've read the book. It's very agnostic. Yann Martel reminds me a lot of Segovius.

Basically, the moral of the story, which can easily be gathered by reading only the last chapter, is that philosophy can be more effectively taught to the masses through use of the supernatural parable than it can through factual study. It explains the reason behind religion's success. And this ties directly in to the quote mentioned above.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by shetline
So, I went to amazon.com, looked up the book, and started reading the first few pages which were made available online. Right away, I ran into this passage, spoken in first person by the main character of the story:

"A number of my fellow religious studies students -- muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright..."

The "thrall of reason"? "Fool's gold for the bright"? I find myself wondering if this character (or this author, whose thinking we are perhaps hearing) allows for the existence of "unmuddled" agnostics, or if all agnostics are muddled in his opinion.

Well, that comment by Pi doesn't make much sense unless you read the rest of the book, which is in many ways a monastic adventure. Notice that Pi singles out agnostics there. He despises them. Atheists he has no trouble with, for he sees them as "brothers of another faith." But agnostics get under his skin. And these are agnostics who are in a religious studies class.

Additionally, that comment is made long after the story the novel tells takes place, and long after Pi has worked his way through what is in many ways a contradictory and beautiful sense of his own religion. Pi is raised Hindu. Then he becomes a Christian. And then a Muslim. And he is able to effortless engage in real ecumenical thinking about them. For instance, he will thank Vishnu for bringing Jesus Christ into his life and see no problem with it at all, because all he wants to do is "love God."

I'm trying to put this into context for you without giving anything important away.

Finally, one of the issues the novel takes up is what the "nature" of "reason" (or rather, reasonableness) is. Pi feels religion. He feels God. It's not quite mystical in the sense of St. Teresa's raptures, but it is in some ways similar. Pi perceives everything as God, of God or a glorification of God, and so these religious studies students about whom he complains bug him because they want to understand God according to reason and logic, not in the visceral way (and for him the only real way) that he does.

So to sum it all up, Pi says his fellow students are "muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright" because they require a reasonable explanation for God, a justification, even, before they will truly accept God. And in doing so, they reduce God to human size and they reduce God's wondrousness to clever tricks.

For him, that's insulting.

There's a beautiful passage in chapter 21 or 22 where Pi imagines what it must be like for an agnostic to die and see the white light. He imagines something along the lines of "P-p-perhaps a f-f-failing of o-o-oxygen to the b-b-brain." That sums it up perfectly, this reduction of what should be a wondrous and mystical experience into a crass, rudimentary half-understanding.

Perhaps this is better: consider Martel's choice of "Pi" as a name for his main character (that's not his name, but instead a nickname he chooses in school). Pi is a number without which we could not organize large chunks of our understanding of the universe. Without Pi, we couldn't do much of what we do. And yet our understanding of Pi is incomplete. We have it calculated to, what, 4 billion digits? And we still don't know what it is, completely, or what it may mean. All we have is a rough approximation, but that's enough. We accept that. Pi, in other words, is that unknowable thing without which we could not function, and which we do not, and may not ever know completely. And yet we trust that, in the end, it works. We have faith that this number, this cornerstone of reason itself, means what we think it does.

Sorry for the sketchy details. I don't have my copy on me.

Anyway. Hope this helps. Man. I've been debating teaching Pi again, and I think I've just convinced myself.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by tonton
I've read the book. It's very agnostic. Yann Martel reminds me a lot of Segovius.

Basically, the moral of the story, which can easily be gathered by reading only the last chapter, is that philosophy can be more effectively taught to the masses through use of the supernatural parable than it can through factual study. It explains the reason behind religion's success. And this ties directly in to the quote mentioned above.

I disagree. I think that one of the book's points is that one experiences God through the irrational, through the wondrous, through the unbelievable, rather than the rational. As he puts it with his typical false dichotomy, you can either believe in "a dry yeastless factuality" or you can believe in "the better story." Hence the last chapter, which focuses on what happened to the Tsimstum. Tsimtsum is a Kabbalist term describing God's creation of the universe. My understanding is that it works like this: if God is everywhere, then in order for god to create the universe, he had to make room for it. Tsimtsum describes how he did that by withdrawing into himself.

Anyway.

/English nerd mode *off*

[shetline]

Originally posted by midwinter
Well, that comment by Pi doesn't make much sense unless you read the rest of the book, which is in many ways a monastic adventure...
I had only wanted to take the quote as a starting point, since it sounds like things I've heard from people in real life before, but I'll try to respond in context to your comments about the book.
Pi is raised Hindu. Then he becomes a Christian. And then a Muslim. And he is able to effortless engage in real ecumenical thinking about them. For instance, he will thank Vishnu for bringing Jesus Christ into his life and see no problem with it at all, because all he wants to do is "love God."
And he considers agnostics muddled? (Oops. I think I was supposed to find the previous character description touching, heart-warming, and inspirational. Missed the boat on that one!)

No sense getting worked up about a fictional character's viewpoint, but this character is reflective of real-life attitudes I've encountered. So, bringing this back to the thread topic, what does Pi's approach to religion indicate is wrong with reason? Reason would stand in the way of juggling conflicting theologies so masterfully? Is one supposed to abandon reason for the "advantage" of being able not only to consider, but to sincerely and simultaneously believe contradictory things? Or is one supposed to paper over these differences, writing them off as with some new-agey gooiness about "different paths" to the same warm, fuzzy, equal-opportunity God waiting inside?
Perhaps this is better: consider Martel's choice of "Pi" as a name for his main character (that's not his name, but instead a nickname he chooses in school). Pi is a number without which we could not organize large chunks of our understanding of the universe. Without Pi, we couldn't do much of what we do. And yet our understanding of Pi is incomplete. We have it calculated to, what, 4 billion digits? And we still don't know what it is, completely, or what it may mean. All we have is a rough approximation, but that's enough. We accept that. Pi, in other words, is that unknowable thing without which we could not function, and which we do not, and may not ever know completely. And yet we trust that, in the end, it works. We have faith that this number, this cornerstone of reason itself, means what we think it does.
What I think the above illustrates is how the value of reason is generally denigrated by creating inaccurate caricatures of reason, and then attacking them.

We know exactly what the value of π is: it is exactly the ratio between the diameter of a circle and it circumference. That operational definition of π allows us to accomplish a great deal of further mathematical deduction and extrapolation without the slightest need to make a "leap of faith" over some imagined chasm of doubt waiting out beyond the trillionth digit of an unneeded and irrelevant decimal representation of the number.

That's not to say there isn't plenty of mystery, and even a sense of awe, to be found looking into π and elsewhere in mathematics. But those mysteries are illuminated, and yet more mysteries found, by the probing power of reason, not by its abandonment.

At this point, I'm not sure if I'm arguing with the book or arguing with midwinter, however. :)

[Placebo]

Originally posted by segovius
An example: I have personally had a lifelong interest in the occult, magic and various Fortean phenomena. These are considered to be somehow 'in opposition' to reason and are scoffed at and denied in the main by orthodox science.
Post a few pics and get back to me, k?

[pfflam]

I don't have time these days to pontificate like I used to. I'll respond in shorthand:

In the history of Philosophical thought, Reason has played a number of different roles, but usually a central role.

In Cartesian Rationalism (Descartes) the only certainty that can be known is that the thinking being that thinks 'I am' is thereby certain of his existence therein: ie: he is certain that he does in fact think since he thought 'I am' and therefor certainty exists and is self-evident: hence the notion that is the boogie-man for some, sufficient Reason for certainty, for truth. All other certainties could be built from that one.

The problem with Cartesian Reason is this: and though I dislike DMZs use of anti-Cartesianism, I do agree with this critique of Reason (and there are others . . which I may get to) What comes to be the ground for certainty, knowledge, truth, God etc, is a center wholly unto itself, without relationship to the world, Time, context, and the body.

Most Rationalist philosophers after Descartes would take as their point off departure this notion of a sovereign truth that is self-sufficiently evident: Reason . . . what is known as the Cogito, "I think Therefor I am", and the implicit Center of Pure Reason at the heart of that phrase becomes the lynch-pin of Certainty and Truth.

So, Reason then relates to a Center, and the center is, by virtue of its self-evident truthfulness whenever uttered, at the core of our being . . . and yet, is, due to its absolute soveriegnty (meaning; truthful without recourse to the world etc, basically purely truthful like an empty variable), cut off from all of the other realms of human experience: time, the body, the world, context etc.

This Pure Reason (the Subject) is the Self, and implicit in the uderstanding of The Self, in this perspective (that of the West up to Kant and particularly Nietszche/Kierkegaard) is that it stands over and above the world, seeing the world at a remove from the realm of the Truth: seeing the world as Standing Reserve mere stuff to be used.

Some critiques of Western Rationalism (Nietszche, Adorno, Heidegger) see the movement of Reason from Platos cave and pure Ideas, increasingly inward into a distant and isolated notion of the Subject (that sovereign Self/center) and then into the next step of disappearance . . . a disappearance that leaves the world bereft of any meaning since cultural/historically we had come to rely on the notion of the Self (Subject) as bearer of significance, meaning and sense: in other words, the ground for Truth and therefor, God.

So what results when that Rational Center, through many post-Cartesian philosophical strains of thought, comes to be seen as illusory (the Self is NOT a pure Subject) the whole of the world suffers: Nihilism is when the world, the worldly world, is not the source of meaning, certainty truth AND the once soveriegn Center of truth has dissapeared as an illusion. When that CEnter disappears, the world has no intrinsic meanings left to give us: it is left meaningless.

Now, I don't know if any of that was clear, but one thing to make note of is that what is being talked about here is NOT simple rhetorical reasoning and argumentation . . . like syllogistic logic . . . what is meant is a kind of creation of a purely rational center to our-Being that is so purely Rational that it amounts to being Empty of qualities, . . . and yet is at the same time the center of our certainty and knowledge . . .


Now, another Critique of Pure Reason, one that takes Purely Rational argument out of the realm of Philosophical viability . . . . effectively removing the Pureness of the Cartesian Subject, is Kant's Critique of Pure Reason:
He sort of synthesizes the two dominant schools of Philosophy at the time: Rationalism and Empiricism, and critiques tham both in doing so . . . utterly!
For Kant the Subject is a process of Synthesis: Time and Space are functions of the center of experience, but the stuff of experience is the world, it is shaped by the catagories of our experience, synthesized.

He argues that pure reason is empty of content: purely rational arguments are all tautological: they basically are fancy words that are elaborations on the equation A=A. Those are purely Analytic propositions - without content.
All experience is Synthetic however, meaning that it is made up of an experiencing being that is experiencing Time and Space and all the other catagories of experience.

After Kant, the Purely Rational realms kind of fall away as dissembodied (with the exception of Hegel who takes it into the stratosphere!) Prior to Kant Philosophers built huge scaffolds of Rational superstructure and Metaphysics that held up the world, after Kant those scaffolds didn't touch the world at all.

Another critique of 'Reason', as made possible by Kant is best voiced by
Schopenhauer: "you want to see Reason, look at the Teeth"
Meaning that the notion of Reason was like the teeth, that it was merely a tool for the Will in its blind and ultimately meaningless suffering striving to dominate and survive.

Nietszche's critique is a variant of that: Reason is a tool . . . . the strongest arguement will muscle its way into validity, it will interpret the world with more force and reveal more potential perspectives than an other arguement.
Foucault's critique is similar: for him Pure Reason is also merely a tool of Power . . . Power being the manner in which a perspective creates a coherent and workable system of operation and interpretation of the chaos of the world, but a tool that is the result not of some self-willing being, but of a whole network of historical/social conditions, undestandings and meanings, in other words of culturally specific conditions and practices.

I personally find these critiques to be powerful and worth consideration. I do believe in reasonable discourse, however, and believe that certain perspectives can be said to be closer to truthfulness than others as a result of their being closer to a truer state of affairs.
(note that I never said that they can be the Truth, they are closer to non-falsifiability but never attain a state transcendant of Interpretation: all being is contextual, or as George Harrison said: "all things must pass")

[midwinter]

I'm going to respond generally for now. I'll try to do something more thoughtful later.

...

Well, one of the things that Pi makes a point of, both throughout the book and at the end, is that he has not abandoned reason. Indeed, as he explains, reason is what kept him alive during his journey.

In many ways, what he doesn't like about agnostics is that they sit on the fence, that they doubt whether they believe something. That's why atheists don't bother him in the least. At least they believe in something.

A large part of the novel is concerned with the ways that an excessive adherence to reason leads people to reduce, misinterpret, or otherwise "abuse" (for lack of a better word) what should otherwise be an experience of the divine or simply the wonderful—and this is a book that is very much about wonder.

As for ?...notice your language: "it is exactly the ratio between the diameter of a circle and it circumference." But what is it? Exactly? I want to understand it totally. I want to see it before I'll believe the concept.

See what I mean?

What bothers Pi, I think, is not reason. It's when our dogged adherence to reason makes us incapable of experiencing wonder, and even more, when our dogged adherence to reason ignores its own limitations—either in terms of understanding how the world works or imagining what is possible in the world.

. . .

And you're arguing with my interpretation of the novel, not with my personal beliefs. I'm an atheist. ;)

[Carson O'Genic]

Originally posted by shetline
[B How open-minded can one be before one's brains fall out and hit the floor? [/B]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I haven't read the book, but as an atheist scientist I guess I would fall in the excessive reason camp. Nonetheless, I would argue against the premise that viewing the world through reason diminshes the wonder and beauty of it all. Knowledge lets you see deeper and unmasks beauty that a casual ignorant glance would miss. I don't need mysteries to see wonder in the Universe.

[segovius]

Originally posted by shetline
I don't think such problems have anything to do with reason. That's more like a caricature of reason. Reason is not the same thing as what might be practiced by someone who is merely pigheaded, inflexible, and closed-minded.

Maybe so, but this is the definition of many in the scientific community - with the exception of people whose work teaches them the limitations of this attitude: quantum physicists, astronomers etc.

Much of it should be scoffed at, frankly. How open-minded can one be before one's brains fall out and hit the floor? I'm not sure what specific things you'd like to see accepted or treated with more credence. Giant seas floating above the earth, routinely restocked with frogs by friendly teleporting aliens? Crystal healing? Tarot cards?

I agree.

If I see a fall of objects from the sky for example, or a ghost, or an anomalous craft in the sky then, being interested in the world around me, I would like an explanation.

I do not postulate 'aliens' or 'spirits' or whatever because these answers strike me as ludicrous and unsatisfactory. But nor do I feel an overwhelming need to down[lay the experience - to say 'it was only weather balloon' - 'it was a whirlwind...really, really, really.....'.

To me the scientific 'explanations' are as ridiculous as the fringe nutters and far more dishonest because they should know better.

So, yes there are phenomena I would like to see treated with more objective research (I won't use your term 'credence' as that is your take) and tellingly, the examples you cite (Tarot, crystals) are not phenomena at all.

But I would say that anyone confronted with solid reports of a fall of fish (say), an apparently unknown craft flying over downtown, the apparent wraith of Auntie Hildegaard, ancient anomalies etc and engages in the usual scientific behaviour (ie: debunking, denying, explaining away and finally ignoring) is not scientific or 'reasonable' at all. That is my point.

What progress is being held back by being tough on those sorts of things, and by demanding firm evidence? Are we missing out on, say, the great health benefits we could all be receiving by telepathically consulting with alien doctors on how best to get our chakras aligned?

Well, if one knew the mechanism of (say) how mass hallucinations of specific motifs occurred it would add to our stock of knowledge and explain many things.

Of course if one is intent on denying that any such things exist, hallucination or not, then we don't ever approach that point and are limited, unscientific and - say it with me - unreasonable.

I don't see that the fact that the occasional nutty idea might turn out to have some merit, in much the same way as a broken watch is right twice a day, is any reason to lower scientific standards of evidence.

This brings me to point 2: some things are not measurable by science. Science and scientists are arrogant enough to think and claim that they are but it ain't necessarily so.

Magic and the like (and I do think that many of these phenomena are 'magical') cannot be measured in the laboratory for the reason that they are subjective. That is to say the theory of magic (and mysticism) revolves around the idea that by performing certain exercises/rituals then one can effect change in one's consciousness.

After this change has happened one 'sees things very differently'. Perhaps one sees things that aren't there -- or maybe they are. From our present discussion it is irrelevant as the point to be understood is that there are two worlds: the ordinary world and the 'other' world.

Science denies this. I think this is what the original quote from Pi may have referred to.

This 'other' world cannot be measured or categorised as it is essentially the world of the subconscious. To deny it's existence (or alleged existence) is not only unreasonable but it is also to deny the majority of religious and mystical teachings (I know you do - I'm just recapping ;D ), drug experience and altered states of all kinds.

So what I'm saying is that although Chakras, crystals and Tarot (with which you seem to have a certain degree of fixation - actually a typical 'scientific' debunkjng technique: associate subject under discussion with elements of proven lunacy) are nothing to do with this at all and imo utter garbage spewed by unstable lunatics but nevertheless, the 'everyday' reasonable world is not all there is.

To be fair, science is being dragged screaming to this view by physicists and people like Jung in the past devoted lifetimes of research into this area.

Isn't the burden of proof on you or others who purport such things to do the work needed to validate and demonstrate any such natural laws? Shouldn't something like, say, crystal healing, actually be soundly validated as effective (beyond mere placebo effect) before you go off looking for natural laws to explain something that's probably not even real, and therefore not even in need of explanation?

As I said - there is no such proof available. These phenomena do not occur at will.

Furthermore, the are tied up with altered states of consciousness and these are not only not susceptible to proof but once one has had one then who cares ?

Imagine if someone was tripping off their nut on acid and someone came up to them and said 'prove you are experiencing reality differently' - they'd just laugh their heads off.

I'd say it's more like the onus is on 'reasonable' people to get off 'unreasonable' people's case.

Einstein and Watson and Crick, regardless of how their ideas came about, were able to validate their ideas in many ways experimentally. Do you need imagination and daring leaps of logic to make progress? Sure. But that's the beginning of science, not the end of science. I certainly don't consider the overall process one of "unreason" in these instances.

I agree.

You can't be robbed of something you don't really have. It's certainly not the job of science to provide soothing validation for wacky ideas in order to avoid conflict with someone's fantasy life.

What do you ever really have ?

You only possess what will not be lost in a shipwreck.

But no-one is looking to science to validate 'whacky ideas' - that's your hobby-horse. The chakra nutters don't want to be scientific.

I once saw an anomalous cat in Hampstead North London. It was sitting in a skip full of rubbish and there were about 6 other people standing around watching it, one of whom was my wife.

After a while it clambered out and started doing the sort of things cats do, stretching, rubbing against legs etc. Someone stroked it. It was twice as big (almost) as a normal cat, had long tapering pointed ears, was the colour of a lion with similar fur and a thick tail with a black tuft on the end.

Later during research I found it looked most like an African Lynx. Whenever I tell this story people don't believe me or explain it away. i would prefer to know the mechanism whereby it appeared there (which may be prosaic - perhaps it had escaped from somewhere) rather than have it denied or lumped in with aliens.

On another occasion in Paris a year or so ago my wife and I were looking out of the window near dusk as was our habit and we observed two lights dancing in formation and conducting balletic manouevers for over an hour.

They would stay still for 10 minutes then shoot upwards very fast before executing a right-angle turn and moving fast to stop for another while. I took a photo of these lights as it happens - definitely something difficult to explain but I see no need to either invoke 'aliens' or have them foisted on me as an explanation or method of sweeping it under the carpet.

Can scientific culture be stubborn, turf-protecting, and slow? At times. It might take a generation for a truly challenging idea to catch on. But a thousand crazy ideas which are just that -- crazy and nothing more -- go by for every crazy idea with real merit. You can't blame scientists for having to crank up the bullshit filter to block out the noise.

But who defines crazy ? You do. Science does.

It's a kind of rational fundamentalism.

No ideas are crazy imo. Some people are crazy and of course their ideas are by definition nonsensical but this is no benchmark - many such people are regarded as 'rational'. Some are even in positions of great power.

A few are even scientists.

[midwinter]

segovius, have you read the novel? Because...

You only possess what will not be lost in a shipwreck.

It's about a shipwreck and what Pi is left with afterwards.

I once saw an anomalous cat in Hampstead North London. . . . Later during research I found it looked most like an African Lynx. Whenever I tell this story people don't believe me or explain it away. i would prefer to know the mechanism whereby it appeared there (which may be prosaic - perhaps it had escaped from somewhere) rather than have it denied or lumped in with aliens.

One of the key examples Pi uses in the book is of a black panther that escaped a zoo in, I believe, Sweden. Somewhere snowy, at any rate. And lived for years in the wild. And then other examples of bizarre animals people keep in cities.

But who defines crazy ? You do. Science does.

It's a kind of rational fundamentalism.

Near the end of the book, Pi asks someone if he only believes what he sees, what does he believe when he's in the dark. Pi claims he doesn't believe in bonsai trees, since they're patently absurd: 200 year old trees you can carry around. Ludicrous!

OK. Off to bed. You people in that other hemisphere keep me up too late. ;)

[bergz]

Segovius has obviously read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which book might lend another perspective on "reason" or "science" for you, shetline.

--B

[Fellowship]

pfflam,

We need to meet up one day.

I rather enjoyed your last post.

Shet,

I do not believe there is anything wrong in any sense with "reason" and logic. I just would submit that not all is logical.

I think one would be mistaken to assume all is logical.

Fellows

[shetline]

Originally posted by pfflam
Now, I don't know if any of that was clear, but one thing to make note of is that what is being talked about here is NOT simple rhetorical reasoning and argumentation . . . like syllogistic logic . . . what is meant is a kind of creation of a purely rational center to our-Being that is so purely Rational that it amounts to being Empty of qualities, . . . and yet is at the same time the center of our certainty and knowledge . . .
From my intro to this thread you'll have probably seen that I've already accepted, by referring to reason a tool, and by speaking of the need for reference to the perceived world, that reason is not sufficient of and by itself for much more than elaborate mental masturbation.

Backing up a bit to the idea of a Center…
Nihilism is when the world, the worldly world, is not the source of meaning, certainty truth AND the once soveriegn Center of truth has dissapeared as an illusion. When that CEnter disappears, the world has no intrinsic meanings left to give us: it is left meaningless.
I know you were using the above as a lead-up to various critiques of pure reason, but for me, this speaks to some of the problems I see when people try to escape the limits of pure reason. Does one assume that there has to be a Center, clearly defined and secure in our minds? I'm happy to accept that the universe doesn't owe me any ultimately solid epistemological ground, to simply do the best I can with the evidence of my senses, a logical search for consistency, and what I see as some basic precepts implied by the process of communication.

Not to claim this is a complete enumeration, but here the main ways in which I see reason being rejected:

(1) As being sufficient unto itself for attaining truth or meaning -- that's a rejection I'm willing to go along with, to the degree necessary to escape a sterile realm of self-referential ideas and to engage the living world.

(2) As something which actually interferes with attainment of truth and meaning -- I'd break this down into:
(2a) Insisting on the need for a "leap of faith" -- I'd say this differs from (1) to the extent that whatever one leaps after isn't very accessible via a minimal application of (1).
(2b) Distrusting the capacity of human reason.
(2c) Distrusting reason itself as a methodology. (Your reference to Schopenhauer seems to be along those lines).

Once you reject reason, where do you go? How do you distinguish truth from wishful thinking? Does truth come from some form of "revelation" which is personal and cannot be communicated or externally validate?

[hardeeharhar]

a quick comment before i head back to the conference filled with scientists that is happening outside my window as we speak...

Reason, rationality in particular, is something that humans do not do well unless they are well trained... children grow up believing in things as sorts of archetypes until that view is challenged, then create a new belief architecture, when is then challenged etc etc etc... This is the process by which humans reason as well, suppose, interpret, refute, resuppose...

In other words, rationality is hard, and that is why we have so many goddamn idiots in the world...

[e1618978]

Originally posted by THT
Reason makes people unhappy.

It true - just go look at the students in any philosophy department, they are all miserable. I advise my kids "don't become whores, strippers, or philosophers"

[midwinter]

Originally posted by e1618978
It true - just go look at the students in any philosophy department, they are all miserable.

Meh. They're just pissed because Richard Rorty called them names a while back.

[shetline]

Originally posted by midwinter
As for π...notice your language: "it is exactly the ratio between the diameter of a circle and it circumference." But what is it? Exactly? I want to understand it totally. I want to see it before I'll believe the concept.

See what I mean?
I see what you're getting at, but it's still kind of silly, like saying you won't really know a person well until you have a list of the times, measured to the nanosecond, that they've eaten breakfast every day.

What bothers Pi, I think, is not [i]reason. It's when our dogged adherence to reason makes us incapable of experiencing wonder, and even more, when our dogged adherence to reason ignores its own limitations—either in terms of understanding how the world works or imagining what is possible in the world.[/B]
It seems to me, however, that an agnostic is simply someone who is well aware of the limits of reason, and is comfortable with saying "I don't know", rather than thinking that he must create a fanciful storyline to fill in the gaps.

I manage to find the world we live a quite amazing and wonderous place.

[shetline]

Originally posted by segovius
If I see a fall of objects from the sky for example, or a ghost, or an anomalous craft in the sky then, being interested in the world around me, I would like an explanation.
Wanting an explanation, and being able to get one, are, unfortunately, not always the same thing. When answers are not readily available, how much time, effort, and money should be spent seeking them, and how do you allocate limited resources among all of the possible unknowns that could be explored?
I do not postulate 'aliens' or 'spirits' or whatever because these answers strike me as ludicrous and unsatisfactory. But nor do I feel an overwhelming need to down[lay the experience - to say 'it was only weather balloon' - 'it was a whirlwind...really, really, really.....'.

To me the scientific 'explanations' are as ridiculous as the fringe nutters and far more dishonest because they should know better.
People seeing things that typically don't amount to much more than strange lights in the sky isn't so startling as to produce a strong "My God! We need an explanation!" type of reaction, simply because there are plenty of mundane reasons for people to see odd things.

What more do you want or can you reasonably expect in the face of sketchy, anecdotal evidence?
(ie: debunking, denying, explaining away and finally ignoring) is not scientific or 'reasonable' at all. That is my point.
But looking for mundane explanations before resorting to sensational explanations which would imply whole new classes of phenomena and/or rules of nature is the properly scientific thing to do. Even when mundane explanations can't be found to fit odd occurrences, one still then has to stop at merely saying "I don't know" rather than generating fanciful explanations with fanciful particular details which don't clearly derive from whatever observations one is attempting to explain.
This brings me to point 2: some things are not measurable by science. Science and scientists are arrogant enough to think and claim that they are but it ain't necessarily so.
I'm afraid this a particularly annoying combination of gross oversimplification and misunderstanding of the scientific method, with a desire to put, as icing on the cake, all of one's cherished fantasies in a place conveniently located outside of the light of any sort of investigation.

A great place to find this kind of talk is in the world of high-end audio. There are hundreds of high-end tweaks and overpriced versions of simple things like wire, the efficacy of which is completely indistinguishable from placebo effect. But the True Believers will defend their favorite tweaks and $1000/meter rhodium-plated, oxygen-free, yak-fur insulated "interconnects" to the bitter end. "I heard a difference!" is all that matters, and "science can't measure everything" is the oft-heard defense.

But when placebo effects in audio are demonstrably easy to produce, when there's no clear technical reason to suspect a particular product can make a difference in an audio signal anywhere near the thresholds of human hearing, why should a product, never demonstrated in any sort of controlled test to offer any verifiable advantages, be taken as a starting point for looking for new acoustic or electrical or human physiological phenomena, just on the say-so of anecdotal reports from people who've made no effort to eliminate placebo effects as an explanation?
Magic and the like (and I do think that many of these phenomena are 'magical') cannot be measured in the laboratory for the reason that they are subjective. That is to say the theory of magic (and mysticism) revolves around the idea that by performing certain exercises/rituals then one can effect change in one's consciousness.
But subjective phenomena can be measured. Measuring X doesn't mean that you have to have a handy-dandy X-meter on hand. Any real phenomena should have detectable consequences of some sort, and the measurement of such phenomena can be nothing more than statistics applied to reports of subjective observations.

For example, for a long time no one knew how aspirin worked. There certainly weren't any "pain meters" you could hook up to people when aspirin was first invented. So, how to you measure the efficacy of a pain reliever if you can't measure pain?

You simply ask people how much aspirin helps their pain. You use large samples of people, you use placebos the rule out the power of suggestion, and you run repeated trials. If there's a real effect, it'll show up in the data you record.

From our present discussion it is irrelevant as the point to be understood is that there are two worlds: the ordinary world and the 'other' world.
You mean that special world where things are not only very difficult to verify, but where the "shyness effect" operates such that your wished-for phenomena actively avoids and evades detection?

Why don't Tarot cards give the same reading twice in a row? Because you simply "aren't supposed to" annoy the Powers That Be by asking the same thing twice, I guess.

Why can't the $1,000 audio cable be proven to sound clearly better than the $10 cable from Radio Shack? Because, of course, what was at first described as "an enormous difference, like peeling away a foot-thick layer of caked mud from the sound!" suddenly becomes so fragile an effect that the "stress of testing" ruins the ability to hear the $990 benefit.
Science denies this.
If you're talking about claims which come out to nothing more than variations on the above kinds of themes, it is quite proper that science denies such things.
This 'other' world cannot be measured or categorised as it is essentially the world of the subconscious. To deny it's existence (or alleged existence) is not only unreasonable but it is also to deny the majority of religious and mystical teachings (I know you do - I'm just recapping ;D ), drug experience and altered states of all kinds.
What exactly are you claiming is being denied? Few scientists would be so absurd as to deny that people have what can be called "mystical experiences", or deny that people believe all sorts of mystical things. What aspect of such things are you craving that these big, nasty, closed-mined party poopers acknowledge, to what degree and to what end?

If I dreamt last night that I flapped my arms and flew, is it enough for science to happily admit that such dreams are quite possible and quite real, or do you want science to admit that I "really" flapped my arms and flew? If you trip out an acid and see Volkswagens turning into tap-dancing armadillos, what are you trying to say that the proper scientific view of agile animistic automobiles should be?
But who defines crazy ? You do. Science does.
Apparently you do as well, as evidenced by your own use of phrases like "ridiculous as the fringe nutters". At this point, however, I have no idea how ridiculous a thing must become to tickle your insanity detector.

[shetline]

Originally posted by Fellowship
I do not believe there is anything wrong in any sense with "reason" and logic. I just would submit that not all is logical.
One need only read these forums for ample verification of that. :D
I think one would be mistaken to assume all is logical.
I never would assume that. There's plenty of illogic out there on parade every day.

But what of it? Does anything non-logical really provide any special insights? Is it something which is not merely non-logical, but illogical, contrary to logic in an X ≠ X sort of way? If one embraces illogic, how does one chose among all of the possible illogical and often mutually-contradictory things one can choose from?

[dmz]

Originally posted by pfflam
Another critique of 'Reason', as made possible by Kant is best voiced by
Schopenhauer: "you want to see Reason, look at the Teeth"

..now you're cooking, the mind molding the 'reality' as it comes to it -- with no ‘reality’ whatsoever possible in any event.

You accused me of being hung up on Descartes -- why would you assume cogito, ergo sum was the problem? Hegel/Kant aborted 'reality' into unrelated particulars. What am I missing here? (seriously) Nietzsche, Sartre and the boys essentially just played with the corpse Kant left them. And then lo and behold, Leary, Kesey and merry pranksters just happen to crash the party and finish it off between rutting, good tab, and bhang hits. 10-20 years later apparently the new dialecticism was a condom/no-condom conundrum. Today the big question is either apathy or personal space and affluence.

Pretty hollow stuff with absolutely no future.

[segovius]

Getting back on topic I wold like to (again) focus attention on the 'split' between science and the mystical - a split that is of relatively recent development and which has its arising in two factors:

1) the arrogance of western science in thinking it 'has it all worked out' and
2) science's rejection of God and consequent rejection of anything 'spiritual' (ie anything that cannot be measured, labeled, cut-up or dissected and 'proved' within the framework science limits itself with).

This split was unknown to the great minds of science - Newton himself was a practising occultist as was Bruno. Galileo had distinct occult leanings and da Vinci was perhaps the classic example of the type. There are too many others to mention.

The point is that none of them saw a contradiction between 'science' and 'magic' ('unreason' in the terminology of this thread). In fact, one informed the other.

Getting back to the point I made earlier, it is all very simple:

There are two modes of existence or perhaps, more accurately, perception - the apparent everyday world and the hidden (for want of better terminology). All religions (except for Xianity which, in contradistinction to Christ, postulates only one) make this distinction whether it is framed as the 'unreality' or 'maya' of this world or the 'kingdom of heaven'.

In effect there really is only one because the 'unseen world' which encompasses the phenomena 'rationality' so despises is merely the conglomeration of unexplained and undiscovered processes.

If they were to be explained the y would be relabeled as belonging to our 'scientific heritage', 'rationality, and the 'real world'. This will never happen at the current rate though because science denies event their possibility.

So what I'm saying is that there is no conflict with reason and spirituality - it's just that todays self-professed 'possessors of reason' have a hang-up about God and spirituality that is something on the nature of a fixation.

Getting back to this 'other states' stuff. It is well known that drugs can give a glimpse of this state. I do not advocate drug use to achieve it (for one thing it is unnecessary) but it is an example of the existence of other states of consciousness.

That these states exist is beyond doubt. That they are 'unreasonable' is also true. The only question is as to whether they are useful - I would say that in terms of art they are.

Many of the great poets were subject to such states (drug induced or otherwise) and many of our most treasured examples of art are results of it. We need only mention Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, de Quincey although there are again, hundreds more.

To conclude: there are other states of consciousness. Modern science denies this (for reasons it would be interesting to explore). These states are labelled 'unreason' but in reality they are the source of great art works, literature and even scientific discovery in the past.

Previous cultures to the present western one had no problem with fusing science and art or, more properly, the apparent world and the spiritual world.

One need only look at the classic of world architecture from the pyramids to the Cathedral at Notre Dame to the Great Mosque of Cordoba to see the fusion of science or reason and the imaginal realm.

No-one could build anything like that now.

[shetline]

Originally posted by segovius
Getting back on topic I wold like to (again) focus attention on the 'split' between science and the mystical - a split that is of relatively recent development and which has its arising in two factors:
Before diving into what you've just written, I asked a few question a couple of posts back in this thread, and I'd find it useful to have your responses before proceeding.

[BRussell]

Science doesn't deny other states of consciousness. Why do you say that segovius? I'm in cognitive psychology, and the entire premise of the field is that "states of mind" can be studied. I have a friend, a neuroscientist, who teaches a course called "Consciousness." All intro psyc books have a chapter on "variations in consciousness" looking at sleep, hypnosis, drug-induced states, etc. It's definitely something that's of interest to and studied by lots of people.

My view is that one can do research on absolutely anything and everything. Anyone who says you can't is probably trying to hide something. ;)

[segovius]

Originally posted by BRussell
Science doesn't deny other states of consciousness. Why do you say that segovius? I'm in cognitive psychology, and the entire premise of the field is that "states of mind" can be studied. I have a friend, a neuroscientist, who teaches a course called "Consciousness." All intro psyc books have a chapter on "variations in consciousness" looking at sleep, hypnosis, drug-induced states, etc. It's definitely something that's of interest to and studied by lots of people.

My view is that one can do research on absolutely anything and everything. Anyone who says you can't is probably trying to hide something. ;)

I meant that in the sense of (say) a UFO or a ghost may well be solely the product of an altered state of consciousness.

What makes me think that science denies this is that they never (afaik) address the issue in these terms - science, or shall we say 'reason' or 'rationality' tends to take the view that such a sighting could not occur because aliens and ghosts are nonsense.

Well, they are nonsense. But we're not talking about them, we're talking about states that might lead to someone apparently perceiving them.

[segovius]

Originally posted by shetline
Before diving into what you've just written, I asked a few question a couple of posts back in this thread, and I'd find it useful to have your responses before proceeding.

Ok, give me a while, have to pick my daughter up from school.

</dmz mode> :D

[BRussell]

Originally posted by segovius
I meant that in the sense of (say) a UFO or a ghost may well be solely the product of an altered state of consciousness.

What makes me think that science denies this is that they never (afaik) address the issue in these terms - science, or shall we say 'reason' or 'rationality' tends to take the view that such a sighting could not occur because aliens and ghosts are nonsense.

Well, they are nonsense. But we're not talking about them, we're talking about states that might lead to someone apparently perceiving them. But that's the kind of thing that scientists love - arguing that some supernatural experience is really just a trick of the mind!

UFO abduction is an example that I use. UFO abductions invariably happen at night, and victims often describe themselves as being stuck in a tractor beam and floated to the space ship. The best explanation is that they're experiencing a sleep paralysis accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations, which are often somatosensory - a bodily sensation, like floating. It's very frightening because people think they're fully awake when it's happening.

People from other times and other cultures described this kind of waking sleep paralysis as a witch sitting on their chest, or a succubus. Recently, it's been interpreted as UFO abduction. There's a lot of scientific research on the sleep states and brain processes that might produce this kind of experience.

[segovius]

Originally posted by BRussell
But that's the kind of thing that scientists love - arguing that some supernatural experience is really just a trick of the mind!

UFO abduction is an example that I use. UFO abductions invariably happen at night, and victims often describe themselves as being stuck in a tractor beam and floated to the space ship. The best explanation is that they're experiencing a sleep paralysis accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations, which are often somatosensory - a bodily sensation, like floating. It's very frightening because people think they're fully awake when it's happening.

People from other times and other cultures described this kind of waking sleep paralysis as a witch sitting on their chest, or a succubus. Recently, it's been interpreted as UFO abduction. There's a lot of scientific research on the sleep states and brain processes that might produce this kind of experience.

Yes, the folkloric approach is a valid one - and possibly will lead to a solution of the mystery.

Certainly the early medieval accounts of fairies kidnapping humans and leaving a changeling are really exactly the same structurally as the abduction mythos.

This is an area where science could usefully address the issue but imo, it is already biased beforehand. For example, if someone reports a NDE then there is a possibility that it was perhaps the medical drugs, a possibility that it was the brain deprived of oxygen and a possibility that it was real.

'Rational' thinkers will never admit the last possibility and give it equal weight.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by segovius
Certainly the early medieval accounts of fairies kidnapping humans and leaving a changeling are really exactly the same structurally as the abduction mythos.

I hope you're not suggesting we hold UFO abduction victims over a fire.... ;)

[segovius]

Originally posted by midwinter
I hope you're not suggesting we hold UFO abduction victims over a fire.... ;)

Hey, that's not a bad idea - they'd probably enjoy it though. There does seem a sort of SM vibe about the whole thing looked at from a certain angle - all those alien probes up your....err...ahem.....bygones...

[MACchine]

There are BIG PROBLEMS with reason and logic in modern society !


Reason and logic are in crisis in this AGE OF MADNESS !!

The reason that reason and logic are failing us is because we don't know what it is !!!



Logic can reach ANY conclusion, logic is VERY dependent upon the data set that is being used.

In order for logic to reach an accurate and consistent conclusion it must use the largest available data set and that data set must be verified, doing both of these is very difficult or expensive to attain.

American society does NOT recognize this paradox even though all logic classes teach it. Physics classes also teach this paradox to engineering students but sadly most of those students NEVER GET IT, they instead perceive physics as a simple rule set that they can use to beat people up with and that there are certain violators that they have to go after to beat up and cover up !!!

It is SOO SAD, these people are SOO STUPID !



Most programmers are like this.

The other logic error that these same people make is that they believe reason and logic ONLY involve Boolean logic and they totally dismiss cartesian logic the result of which can lead to TOTAL DELUSIONALISM.

My brother does this and he actually becomes delusional doing this quite often, when he thinks things through he will start to consider the data set that he is working with and when the primary data gets past 3 or 4 he actually says, ( HE HAS DONE THIS OUT LOUD IN FRONT OF ME !!! ), this is getting too complicated I can't reach a conclusion if I consider more than 2 or 3 parameters. AND while he is doing this he also throws out any data that is cartesian.

And then he is always miffed and fascinated when the results of his efforts fall soo short and that it becomes obvious he is clueless !

These types go through life believing they are smart and people tell them they are smart, but all their predictions FAIL and most of their programs are too simple to last the test of reality, although if you put many of these types of programs together you get a good program that actually executes well and is easy to maintain because the code is very simplistic.

Well, that's IF you can get it all to work together and THAT is a VERY BIG IF !!!

The thing these programmers refuse to acknowledge is that they are always working WITHIN A CONTEXT that is a knowledge set, or as referred to in software development a USE CASE that they are working from.



SCIENCE HAS ALL OF THIS COVERED but people want to be independent so they say that science is impractical and then they spend their entire lives proving that SCIENCE IS PRACTICAL !!!

[BRussell]

:lol: