The Futility of Reason

[Walker]

No ultimate truth anywhere.

Is this sentence phrased as an ultimate truth to purposely make it false, thus making it an ironic statement of futility?

One could even say the falsity of the statement is inherent to the statement, like a snake swallowing itself.

You can go in circles with it if you want. Whatever entertains you.

I didn’t make the false statement. You did.

(You also answered the question about whether or not you knew it.)

[Lacewing]

You can go in circles with it if you want. Whatever entertains you.

I didn’t make the false statement. You did.

You're chasing your own tail. Your definitions... your stuff.

[Walker]

You should study it awhile. It's truth, as you'll know when you see it.

[sthitapragya]

Good timing, Nick. I'm interested in the TRUTH (apparently unchanging) that you and Reflex have that the rest of us don't - see below.

There is no TRUTH that reason can capture; no TRUTH that exists somewhere, having a definite form and specific content; no TRUTH that everyone will recognize if only found; no TRUTH reason can embrace and thereby solve all our problems.

And there's certainly no more truth in the superstitious writings of primitives and goat herders of the Iron Age than in the studies conducted today.

No ultimate truth anywhere. No ultimate truth for all. Truth is a human construct of infinite variability.

Yup LW, that's the situation.

Besides, which TRUTH are we talking about? Is it the TRUTH that Reflex and Nick are going to bask in Jesus's radiance in Heaven for eternity like a pair of sunbaking iguanas while the rest of us are all cast into oblivion? Apparently oblivion is the punishment for not placing your faith in claims made in the Middle East 2,000 years ago. Seemingly one is not supposed to embrace ways of thinking that pertain to other times and locales.


So Nick, if you and R are going to claim knowledge of the TRUTH then it helps to actually prove it. If you aren't prepared to explain the TRUTH as best you can then we can assume you are just playing a game of oneupmanship.

No doubt most here appreciate that the esoteric is exceptionally hard to explain but that's no excuse not to try, especially when claiming special knowledge of the TRUTH. The usual cop-out is a refusal to lay "pearls amongst the swine". Let's see if you can do a little better (or not) than that.

Greta, as I have pointed out to LW, there are three people trying to reason the futility of reason. Do you see the breathtaking scale of the stupidity here? And you are trying to reason with them.

This one you cannot win because this is a thread glorifying unreasonableness. Any reasoned argument you make automatically becomes unreasonable. You should just let these three have their threesome and get it out of their system. You are out of place here.

[Nick_A]

Reflex wrote: By that, I mean exactly what I said. I'm not going to be sullen and depressed just because I can't have sex as the result of cancer. And how can I be expected to take seriously someone who pretentiously implies that I'm a Christian and dogmatically argues that reason is not futile, and then goes on to say that the most important fact about reason is that it is clueless about reality?

I do hope your situation is under control now. I agree that being sullen and depressed won’t do anything other than weaken your immune system. That wasn’t what I meant by seriousness. Einstein expresses what I mean far better than I can.

"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." - Albert Einstein

The pursuit of truth requires freedom from the dominance of our attitudes, conditioned likes and dislikes, habits. and fears. Taken together they constitute the majority of what we call the self. Becoming even just a little more free requires a strong serious effort. Habits don’t want to be kicked off of their throne.

What difference does it make if Lacewing understands? The important thing for you is that you understand. A real philosopher looks for the contradictions which allow us to move from dualistic thought into contemplation which reveals higher understanding. IMO you are fortunate if you are of the mind that prefers contemplation rather than denying the value of contradictions. You can go through the door by impartial contemplation.

"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." - Simone Weil

[Nick_A]

Sthit wrote:

Greta, as I have pointed out to LW, there are three people trying to reason the futility of reason. Do you see the breathtaking scale of the stupidity here? And you are trying to reason with them.

Simone Weil wrote: “We know by means of our intelligence that what the intelligence does not comprehend is more real than what it does comprehend.”

It does seem that sthit doesn't understand the role of reason in human intelligence.

[Reflex]

The pursuit of truth requires freedom from the dominance of our attitudes, conditioned likes and dislikes, habits. and fears. Taken together they constitute the majority of what we call the self. Becoming even just a little more free requires a strong serious effort. Habits don’t want to be kicked off of their throne.

I don't believe in effort. Effort focuses our attention on the very thing we want to free of and thereby reinforces it. Neither do I believe in the pursuit of truth. Pursuing truth is like looking for the lens through which you see.

BTW, did you watch the video I linked to? Here it is again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLoJYY_YmPo

[Greta]

Greta, as I have pointed out to LW, there are three people trying to reason the futility of reason. Do you see the breathtaking scale of the stupidity here? And you are trying to reason with them.

This one you cannot win because this is a thread glorifying unreasonableness. Any reasoned argument you make automatically becomes unreasonable. You should just let these three have their threesome and get it out of their system. You are out of place here.

But when you think about it ... my pointless defence of reason is unreasonable enough for me to qualify

Seriously, you are right. I broke my own rule of not debating theists. Life's too short.

[uwot]

we may be wrong but is it possible to improve our efforts to impartially experience reality so we can profit by admitting we are wrong?

It is not really a question of right and wrong. I don't know exactly what you believe, or why you believe it, but it is difficult to see how you can impartially experience reality if you insist on looking at it in the context of your belief.

I had just linked to C I R E T which is dedicated to a more meaningful and complete quality of reason. For those open to think out of the box, it opens new doors.

Have you watched Reflex's talking cat video? I don't know what he was trying to achieve, but I suspect the implication is that people like me, that have not made a commitment to any particular worldview, are the ones who are seeking a corner in a round room, rather than those who either do believe in a particular characterization of god, or wish to. Mind you he does say:

Pursuing truth is like looking for the lens through which you see.

which is more or less the point I made above.

Of course being open is a great threat to our ego and habits that have already decided right and wrong so only a few are willing to think out of the box.

Well, given that what you mean by being 'open' is agreeing with your interpretation of a couple of intellectual also rans, it is not my ego that should be questioned. Furthermore, it is my habit not to commit to any metaphysical belief, because practically anything could be the truth about reality, but the truth is we have no way of knowing.

[uwot]

All science really has to say about 'reality' is that it is that which is responsible for the phenomena. What reality is, is anyone's guess, but the only people who claim to know are fools or nutters.

Reason has only the shadows dancing on the walls of Plato's cave.

The allegory of the cave, the veil of appearance, the distinction between phenomena and noumena, British empiricism, American pragmatism, Continental phenomenalism, scientific instrumentalism and so on, are all just admissions that our access to 'reality' is limited to what we can perceive. So yes, it is a widely held maxim amongst philosophers of science and scientists that we are in effect looking at the shadows on the cave wall.

All science really has to say about 'reality' is that it is that which is responsible for the phenomena. What reality is, is anyone's guess, but the only people who claim to know are fools or nutters.

That's pretty much the point. At some point, reason encounters a doorway through which it cannot pass.

Are we talking about reason, or science? Science is all about knocking at the door, but if an hypothesis doesn't make testable predictions, it isn't science. It may be by guesswork, luck or conceivably divine inspiration that hypotheses are created, but if they don't describe what happens tolerably well, they have no scientific value. Reason is closer to philosophy, or at least logic, in that it is the attempt to assemble a coherent narrative, based on the perceptions and ideas we have. As it applies to science, reason is what you use to make sense of the phenomena.

Using reason in the effort to go beyond that point is futile, but that does not mean the threshold cannot be passed by other means.

Ok. So what are those means?

[sthitapragya]

Ok. So what are those means?

Magic.

[Scott Mayers]

Sorry for coming in late on this thread. This is to the original OP and so may interrupt the flow.

IN a recent work, Henri Nouwen emphasizes the essence of spirituality in a most succinct fashion: “To whom do we belong? This is the core question of the spiritual life. Do we belong to the world, its worries, its people and its endless chain of urgencies and emergencies, or do we belong to God and God’s people.”

1 Corinthians 2: 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

If this is true it reveals the futility of human reason for answering the question of God other than theoretically. Only the Spirit of wholeness can reveal the truth to the essence of human being. But how to open to the spirit that can reveal the truth beyond what dualistic reason is capable of?

My concern is for the young who are God’s people but are having the spirit killed in them by spirit killers and blind deniers dominant in institutions of child abuse called schools. Must they become part of the spiritually dead who will bury their dead or can they receive some kind of help that will allow them to open to grace so as to become themselves? How can they be made aware of the knowledge they are born with that they are in Plato’s cave and surrounded by influences of the World but capable of consciously inwardly turning in the direction of the light entering the cave? Naturally it won’t come from the World but from people who have become God’s people. But where do they find them and how can they avoid the many charlatans and blind believers who imitate them for worldly goals? One thing for sure; kids have it rough.

Let me translate this to what "Spirit" meant to the ancients originally. As you may be aware, 'spirit' derives from a meaning referencing a 'spire' as a term describing a rising staircase going up in a tower back then. It was a metaphorical derivative referencing the heights as in the sky itself. The words, "respiration" and "aspire" derive similarly. So the term translated to English via that bible quote derived originally from terms describing the literal AIR we breathe and the SKY as where this air resides.

So to translate literally,

1 Corinthians 2: 14 The person without the [magical interpretation of the air] does not accept the things that come from the [air as 'magical' or mystical] but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are [derived] only through [that magical essence of the air].

When retranslating this to how non-mystical thinkers think, they treat the air as perhaps 'mystical' but NOT something essentially beyond understanding eventually. We know that air has the invisible nature of granting us life and can witness this by simply covering our mouths and noses to prevent ourselves from breathing that essence. It is probably best to experiment on something else though as this might permanently prevent you from realizing the truth of this 'magic'. But some interpret this 'magic' as a closed issue of skeptical inquiry as some, like the authors of that script, use to force others into interpreting that essence as their particular God's force or power. The assumption by the arrogance of the authors are to dismiss the skepticism of one who questions their own PARTICULAR theory on the very question of what 'air' is.

This still occurs today even in science at times. We treat a 'theory' justified when it has been relatively 'confirmed' and avoid 'new' interpretations upon them unless they can (a) assert some new theory and (b) provide a novel experiment to dislodge the old theory (and 'confirm' the alternative as uniquely improved).

This happens to be a contention I have with much of science on the fringes (Cosmology and Atomic physics) where the institutional nature commands we have to first conform to treat the theory as defaulted to being 'true' until we've invested enough (through those institutes) and then and only then can we begin to question it as (a) and (b) above. But I question (a) in that just because we HAVE some theory with loads of confirmation via authority, this alone does not even logically qualify as sufficient proof in the present theory. To demand that we HAVE a new theory even if the present one appears to lack personal credibility up front, why should anyone default no absence of a theory first UNTIL one could possibly understand the logical connections of the authorities claims? For (b), this presents a problem if you have an alternative POSITIVE theory but notice that you don't posit a disproof of the other theory. That is, you can posit a belief in some other thing that derives EXACTLY the same results of past experiences. All that may differ is one's particular interpretation of what is or is not being observed or to the conclusions of some experiments.

For instance, in the past, the model using epicycles was valid and 'confirmed' as true in the past. That theory 'rationally' justified allowing the Earth to be at the center of the universe with the sun and all other objects orbiting us. But others had proposed the sun as the center with an alternate and even more closed arguments. Yet they were dismissed for the same irrational ('foolishness'?) argument as this above statement and our present scientific paradigm: Unless you can BOTH suggest a new theory AND dispel the old, we are considered 'foolish' to question the present authorities.

So, by default, we are begged to provide a higher burden of proof imposed upon us by those religious authors who demand we do the impossible: to disprove their particular theory of such a "God" at their standards via providing both a new theory AND one that sufficiently dislodges their own, not merely demonstrate a more apparently rational explanation of Earthly phenomena.

[uwot]

We treat a 'theory' justified when it has been relatively 'confirmed' and avoid 'new' interpretations upon them unless they can (a) assert some new theory and (b) provide a novel experiment to dislodge the old theory (and 'confirm' the alternative as uniquely improved).

No 'we' don't. Theories are not 'confirmed'; the predictions either are either verified, or they are not and any complementary mathematical treatment either works or it doesn't. A favourite example is Einstein's theory of general relativity. The field equations generated describe the observable behaviour of the interactions of material objects very well; it does not follow that the theoretical 'spacetime' therefore is confirmed.

This happens to be a contention I have with much of science on the fringes (Cosmology and Atomic physics) where the institutional nature commands we have to first conform to treat the theory as defaulted to being 'true' until we've invested enough (through those institutes) and then and only then can we begin to question it as (a) and (b) above.

This is at best half true. If you want to engage with applied physics and actually advance our manipulation of the physical world, you have to familiarise yourself with the best tools that are currently available. So, for example, if you want to put a satellite into a stable orbit, you need to be familiar with Einstein's field equations. This does not commit you to believing, as Einstein did, that there is a substance called spacetime that is warped by the presence of another substance called matter.

...you can posit a belief in some other thing that derives EXACTLY the same results of past experiences.

Indeed. You can believe that gravity is caused by angels pushing things together, if it so pleases you. It is the problem of underdetermination, any metaphysical hypothesis could be true. What you cannot do is deny that the field equations describe what actually happens very accurately.

For instance, in the past, the model using epicycles was valid and 'confirmed' as true in the past.

It is still the case that you can use Ptolemy's model to plot the position of the heavenly bodies to a remarkable degree of accuracy. It is the phenomena, in this instance the lights in the sky, which are the subject of science.

That theory 'rationally' justified allowing the Earth to be at the center of the universe with the sun and all other objects orbiting us.

And the point about relativity is that you can take any point as your reference; for all we know, the Earth really is the centre of the universe, and everything is moving relative to it, but given the vastness of space, the odds are vanishingly small.

But others had proposed the sun as the center with an alternate and even more closed arguments. Yet they were dismissed for the same irrational ('foolishness'?) argument as this above statement and our present scientific paradigm: Unless you can BOTH suggest a new theory AND dispel the old, we are considered 'foolish' to question the present authorities.

As it happens, the first person on record to assert that the sun was the centre of the universe was Aristarchus of Samos. The original book in which he made the claim has been lost, but it is referred to by Archimedes in The Sand Reckoner. In essence, Aristarchus calculated that the sun is twenty times larger than the Earth (it's actually 400 times bigger) and he reasoned that a larger object would not orbit a smaller. While this view was taken seriously by both Archimedes and Hipparchus, considered by many to be the most talented astronomer of ancient Greece, they preffered to use the models that went back to the Babylonians, because they predicted the phenomena better. That and the fact that Aristotle's physics demanded that of the Greek elements, earth was the 'heaviest' and therefore everything else floated on it.

[Nick_A]

Reflex wrote:I don't believe in effort. Effort focuses our attention on the very thing we want to free of and thereby reinforces it. Neither do I believe in the pursuit of truth. Pursuing truth is like looking for the lens through which you see.

Do you believe in the value of the Socratic axiom: "Know Thyself" in the cause of acquiring a human perspective? If you do, it requires an intentional effort to avoid our acquired tendency to "imagine thyself."

BTW, did you watch the video I linked to? Here it is again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLoJYY_YmPo

Yes, I may be wrong but it seemed to speak of the value of imagining oneself since there is no safe corner for us in a round room. Why suffer when we can escape into imagination? This raises the question of Hamlet. To be or not to be:

HAMLET
To be, or not to be? That is the question—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

I know that drug addicts and alcoholics seek escapism but it doesn’t seem to work. We know that efforts to be cause suffering and yet escapism often results in suffering. Then there is the question of karma if it exists and escapism on our karma. To be or not to be seems to be the question and we all have to decide it for ourselves

[Nick_A]

Hi Scott. You wrote: Let me translate this to what "Spirit" meant to the ancients originally. As you may be aware, 'spirit' derives from a meaning referencing a 'spire' as a term describing a rising staircase going up in a tower back then. It was a metaphorical derivative referencing the heights as in the sky itself. The words, "respiration" and "aspire" derive similarly. So the term translated to English via that bible quote derived originally from terms describing the literal AIR we breathe and the SKY as where this air resides.

So to translate literally,

1 Corinthians 2: 14 The person without the [magical interpretation of the air] does not accept the things that come from the [air as 'magical' or mystical] but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are [derived] only through [that magical essence of the air].

The Spirit of Wholeness isn’t an interpretation. It is experienced as a quality of energy that temporarily allows a person to consciously awaken to a higher human perspective connecting above and below rather than remaining lost in the duality restricted to the lower. Naturally it cannot be understood by the lower but the attempt to do so leads to all sorts of troubles and arguments. It is the human condition. Often intense emotional energy initiating with life on the earth is thought to be spiritual energy entering from above and leads to all sorts of self deception and all the harm normal for self deception.