Why unification of science and religion?

[FlashDangerpants]

I'm sure we're all here to be persuaded.
Don't get pissy, make your argument.

[Nick_A]

FDp wrote:

I'm sure we're all here to be persuaded.
Don't get pissy, make your argument.

But you are not. that is the sad fact. You are here to condemn. The Law of the Excluded Middle has been around for years and I believe originated with Aristotle. You will defend it as complete to your death. You cannot allow yourself to be open to the Included Middle as well. Why not? What creates this block?

[FlashDangerpants]

The first proposition states a true/false claim, the second states that it is false. In such circumstances exactly one proposition is true and exactly one proposition is false. It doesn't need defending.

It's not our problem if you didn't think this through before igniting your ego. Relative openness and closedness of minds isn't the issue either. The problem you put yourself into is your sheer vanity in supposing you transcend basic reason.

You are also too stubborn to walk back an error. You had the option to just admit that now you've given it a think, you realise that the excluded middle does make sense. But you left it too late and now you are stuck in an absurd situation that you could have easily avoided.

[Nick_A]

No FDp, the idea is that they are both true. If you were open to why it could be so it would open many doors

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

You see a contradiction that cannot be reconciled. But maybe what appears to be a contradiction is really a door. You would rather superficially condemn than allow your mind to open. It is your choice but what do you really think you gain by this choice?

[FlashDangerpants]

If the second proposition only states that the first is false, they are not both true. This isn't a contradiction that needs resolving, nor is it a space awaiting a door.

It's pretty straight forward. I don't care if you want to look at basic reason and say it is not good enough for you. But under the law of the excluded middle, you don't get to say that you are supported in this by reason. But by all means declare yourself a door and see what good it does you.

[Nick_A]

FDp:

It's pretty straight forward. I don't care if you want to look at basic reason and say it is not good enough for you. But under the law of the excluded middle, you don't get to say that you are supported in this by reason. But by all means declare yourself a door and see what good it does you.

Yes, duality based associative reason isn't good enough for someone with an open mind to universal structure, meaning and purpose. It isn't good enough because it cannot experience levels of reality. I wouldn't expect those like you, ubot, and Hobbes for example to be open to how Dr. Basarab Nicolescu describes the Law of the Included Middle. You appear too lost in denial. Yet I believe that the eventual common acceptance of this principle will be essential for the obvious unification of science and the essence of religion for those not afflicted with blind denial.

http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/bulletin/b15c4.php

The view I am expressing here is totally conform to the one of Heisenberg, Pauli and Bohr.

In fact, Werner Heisenberg came very near, in his philosophical writings, to the concept of "level of Reality". In his famous Manuscript of the year 1942 (published only in 1984) Heisenberg, who knew well Husserl, introduces the idea of three regions of reality, able to give access to the concept of "reality" itself : the first region is that of classical physics, the second — of quantum physics, biology and psychic phenomena and the third — that of the religious, philosophical and artistic experiences [4]. This classification has a subtle ground : the closer and closer connectiveness between the Subject and the Object.

.........................As we shall see in the following, the notion of levels of Reality will lead us to a general philosophical understanding of the nature of indeterminacy. If there was only one region or level of reality, it was impossible to conceive what means a true, irreducible indeterminacy, like the quantum one.


2. The logic of the included middle

Knowledge of the coexistence of the quantum world and the macrophysical world and the development of quantum physics has led, on the level of theory and scientific experiment, to the upheaval of what were formerly considered to be pairs of mutually exclusive contradictories (A and non-A) : wave and corpuscle, continuity and discontinuity, separability and nonseparability, local causality and global causality, symmetry and breaking of symmetry, reversibility and irreversibility of time, etc.

The intellectual scandal provoked by quantum mechanics consists in the fact that the pairs of contradictories that it generates are actually mutually contradictory when they are analyzed through the interpretative filter of classical logic. This logic is founded on three axioms :
1. The axiom of identity : A is A.2. The axiom of non-contradiction : A is not non-A.3. The axiom of the excluded middle : There exists no third term T which is at the same time A and non-A.
Under the assumption of the existence of a single level of Reality, the second and third axioms are obviously equivalent.

If one accepts the classical logic one immediately arrives at the conclusion that the pairs of contradictories advanced by quantum physics are mutually exclusive, because one cannot affirm the validity of a thing and its opposite at the same time : A and non-A.

Since the definitive formulation of quantum mechanics around 1930 the founders of the new science have been acutely aware of the problem of formulating a new, "quantum logic." Subsequent to the work of Birkhoff and van Neumann a veritable flourishing of quantum logics was not long in coming [5]. The aim of these new logics was to resolve the paradoxes which quantum mechanics had created and to attempt, to the extent possible, to arrive at a predictive power stronger than that afforded by classical logic.

Most quantum logics have modified the second axiom of classical logic — the axiom of non-contradiction — by introducing non-contradiction with several truth values in place of the binary pair (A, non-A). These multivalent logics, whose status with respect to their predictive power remains controversial, have not taken into account one other possibility : the modification of the third axiom — the axiom of the excluded middle.

History will credit Stéphane Lupasco with having shown that the logic of the included middle is a true logic, formalizable and formalized, multivalent (with three values : A, non-A, and T) and non-contradictory [6]. His philosophy, which takes quantum physics as its point of departure, has been marginalized by physicists and philosophers. Curiously, on the other hand, it has had a powerful albeit underground influence among psychologists, sociologists, artists, and historians of religions. Perhaps the absence of the notion of "levels of Reality" in his philosophy obscured its substance : many persons wrongly believed that Lupasco's logic violated the principle of non-contradiction.

Our understanding of the axiom of the included middle — there exists a third term T which is at the same time A and non-A — is completely clarified once the notion of "levels of Reality" is introduced.

In order to obtain a clear image of the meaning of the included middle, we can represent the three terms of the new logic — A, non-A, and T — and the dynamics associated with them by a triangle in which one of the vertices is situated at one level of Reality and the two other vertices at another level of Reality. If one remains at a single level of Reality, all manifestation appears as a struggle between two contradictory elements (example : wave A and corpuscle non-A). The third dynamic, that of the T-state, is exercised at another level of Reality, where that which appears to be disunited (wave or corpuscle) is in fact united (quanton), and that which appears contradictory is perceived as non-contradictory.

It is the projection of T on one and the same level of Reality which produces the appearance of mutually exclusive, antagonistic pairs (A and non-A). A single level of Reality can only create antagonistic oppositions. It is inherently self-destructive if it is completely separated from all the other levels of Reality. A third term, let us call it T0, which is situated on the same level of Reality as that of the opposites A and non-A, can not accomplish their reconciliation.

The T-term is the key in understanding indeterminacy : being situated on a different level of Reality than A and non-A, it necessarily induces an influence of its own level of Reality upon its neighbouring and different level of Reality : the laws of a given level are not self-sufficient to describe the phenomena occuring at the respective level.

The entire difference between a triad of the included middle and an Hegelian triad is clarified by consideration of the role of time. In a triad of the included middle the three terms coexist at the same moment in time. On the contrary, each of the three terms of the Hegelian triad succeeds the former in time. This is why the Hegelian triad is incapable of accomplishing the reconciliation of opposites, whereas the triad of the included middle is capable of it. In the logic of the included middle the opposites are rather contradictories : the tension between contradictories builds a unity which includes and goes beyond the sum of the two terms. The Hegelian triad would never explain the nature of indeterminacy.

One also sees the great dangers of misunderstanding engendered by the common enough confusion made between the axiom of the excluded middle and the axiom of non-contradiction . The logic of the included middle is non-contradictory in the sense that the axiom of non-contradiction is thoroughly respected, a condition which enlarges the notions of "true" and "false" in such a way that the rules of logical implication no longer concerning two terms (A and non-A) but three terms (A, non-A and T), co-existing at the same moment in time. This is a formal logic, just as any other formal logic : its rules are derived by means of a relatively simple mathematical formalism.

One can see why the logic of the included middle is not simply a metaphor, like some kind of arbitrary ornament for classical logic, which would permit adventurous incursions into the domain of complexity. The logic of the included middle is the privileged logic of complexity, privileged in the sense that it allows us to cross the different areas of knowledge in a coherent way, by enabling a new kind of simplicity.

The logic of the included middle does not abolish the logic of the excluded middle : it only constrains its sphere of validity. The logic of the excluded middle is certainly valid for relatively simple situations. On the contrary, the logic of the excluded middle is harmful in complex, transdisciplinary cases. For me, the problem of indeterminacy is precisely belonging to this class of cases........................

[FlashDangerpants]

I invite you to note I already knew you were going to go in that direction. So I refer you to my previous comment on it.

The only way out you have is to cheat and redefine propositional logic as something new to suit your personal needs. This doesn't look like the place where you can expect that to go unnoticed.

[Nick_A]

There is nothing to cheat about FDp. I said that both the Law of the Excluded Middle and the Included Middle are real. How can this be? Once you open your mind to levels of reality it opens the mind and feelings to new avenues of experience. That is why the idea of the Trinity seems so absurd to atheists. How can the Source be both one and three simultaneously? Ridiculous! Yet when seen in the context of levels of reality where one exists within the other, ONE remains the source and THREE begins creation within ONE as seen in the context of the Law of the Included Middle.. They really are beautiful ideas worth contemplation but unfortunately are obscured by anyone inflicted with and stubbornly defends blind denial.

[FlashDangerpants]

This all puts you into a new bind Nick.

By my reckoning, either you are wrong or you are right, and I am wrong or I am right, and the right and wrong are mutually exclusive. And that is as far as I am required to go.

But you have to stop being so obstinate. Because in your view I am right, even if you are right.
So I get to say you are wrong. But you don't get to say I am. So none of the rest of your stuff matters. I'm right either way.

You can now sit on your higher plane of multi-dimensional super-wonderful-ultra-existence and feel as smug as you like.
But you do need to stop criticising those of us who are either right when you are wrong, or at worst are just as right as you are.
Otherwise you aren't in agreement with yourself.

[Nick_A]

FDp, why limit yourself to right and wrong? Whatever happened to "I don't know" and invite the ancient art of impartial contemplation. What if living within Plato's cave is in accord with the Law of the Excluded Middle abd freedom from its restrictions lies beyond its restrictions? Our awareness of it can only come through the influence of the Law of the Included Middle or that which reconciles duality. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it. It is far more advantageous to admit we don't know and as Socrates said: "I know nothing."

[FlashDangerpants]

Are you claiming there that I am wrong?

[Nick_A]

FDp

Are you claiming there that I am wrong?

FDp, why limit yourself to right and wrong? Whatever happened to "I don't know" and invite the ancient art of impartial contemplation. What if living within Plato's cave is in accord with the Law of the Excluded Middle abd freedom from its restrictions lies beyond its restrictions? Our awareness of it can only come through the influence of the Law of the Included Middle or that which reconciles duality. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it. It is far more advantageous to admit we don't know and as Socrates said: "I know nothing."

[FlashDangerpants]

You brought up the excluded middle, which is about true/false statements. I warned you it was a mistake, I gave you a head's up that the smart thing to do was to let it go. Your ego was the problem here.

So, sorry, motion denied. You have a shitty choice, but it's what you gave yourself. Either I am right (and you are wrong), or I am right in some special other way that you are failing to describe. But our positions are strictly contradictory, I simply won't negotiate that with you because you are spouting total nonsense and it's all your own fault.

So it is time for you to sell out your wishy-washy principle by telling me I'm flat out wrong. I know you think I am, I'm fairly sure you would like to say it directly. Surrender to the boolean team and get this silliness over with.

[Arising_uk]

Gawd! I love Philosophy and the one thing that is its own, Logic.

Oh! Make that two, Logic and Critique.
p.s.
Although I don't understand this 'included middle' thingy as why can't they just use a 3-value or many-value logic with 'unknown' or take the intuitionistic position?

[sthitapragya]

FDp, why limit yourself to right and wrong? Whatever happened to "I don't know" and invite the ancient art of impartial contemplation. What if living within Plato's cave is in accord with the Law of the Excluded Middle abd freedom from its restrictions lies beyond its restrictions? Our awareness of it can only come through the influence of the Law of the Included Middle or that which reconciles duality. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it. It is far more advantageous to admit we don't know and as Socrates said: "I know nothing."

Because for you" I don't know" doesn't mean "I don't know". For you " I don't know" means "you don't know? Aha! Therefore, God!" for you, "I don't know" is simply an acknowledgement of God. Anything that cannot be explained is God. You are never saying " I don't know". You are only saying, "see? God!"