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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/12/2003 2:55 AM (GMT -6) |   | Everyone talks about LOGIC;
but nobody does anything about it...
No, not really. But there is a lot of talk. And rightly so. Right?
Logic seems to be that undergirding order that we discover when we have worked with something for a while. It becomes good advice: "pull out slowly on both sides of the drawer (or stuck window) at the same time." Logic is discovered from the outside; but seems to reveal something present on the "inside" also. That's what seems to be.
And doesn't that make sense. We say as a matter of faith that everything has as its origin its being created ex nihilo -- out of nothing. And in faith we say that there is only one Creator of everything, who sustains all. So it is not a contrary thing that pair our experience with our faith, and notice this matching up of outside experience with inside order. Its not a contrary thing. The capital-L Logos/Word speaks the little-l logoi/words of the created-sustained things. And we discover enough of the character and limitations of things around us to get by in life.
Neat.
But what about those things that possitively SNOW us, put us in a fog, leave us clue-less? What about them? A quote that I used to lie said this: "Sometimes reality is too complex. Fiction gives it form." (Jean Luc-Godard) That says even more than another quote by Nikos Kazantzakis: "Only the intellect can seek to solve some problems, though it will never solve them; only the instinct can solve them, though it will never seek them." The Kazantzakis quote says that there is logic that we may overlook. The Luc-Godard quote is different. It says that there are times that logic, while true, would not serve as the best vehicle for us in some contexts. "Fiction gives it form." The art of short-cuts, turns of phrases, similes. Something that we can handle, and that still gets the job done. Jesus parables come to mind. Mustard seed. Field. Samaritan. Such "fiction" helps us further where we need to go, giving "form" to what would overwelm us. Yet there are some things that we just can't go all the way on during this life (or at that moment: "Daddy, where do babies come from...")
And one other situation comes to mind too. Luc-Godard's quote provides a bridge for this one too. "Sometimes reality is too complex." Sometimes the challenge does not lie in our own incapacities. Sometimes the mountain isn't a single mountain, but is instead a range of mountains and valleys, requiring not only climbing but bridge-building, fording, and jungle hacking. Complexity. Algorithms rather than equations. A whole bag of tricks. And sometimes we don't have time for all that.
And part of our real-life experience is the realization that what we confront as "reality" is only a portion of what is really "out there" (or "in"). At the beginning of every picnic is the potential for clouds to be hiding 'just' over the horizon. And ants beneath the soft, green grass.
So we hold our definition of 'picnic' loosly. And we make lemonade out of lemons. And brush the ants off of the apples. We go play frizbee instead of braving the bees that smell the pie (keeping that for later--at home in the evening). We are creative. We acknowledge the order, but we hold it loosly. We keep our eyes down the road when we drive. In that way we go straighter; but we do not stear rigidly straight. Nor do we remember all the holes we avoided (or hit).
God CREATED the world. And the "good" indicates an inner logic, and a beauty and potentiality in how everything CAN work together.
But, "fall" or no, mankind still has an "office" (refered to as the Cultural Mandate, and found in the Genesis command to 'subdue' the earth). Till and tend. No free ride. Not all just following directions; a little creativity involved!
...
So, lets not just talk about LOGIC. Lets DO some thing thing about it!
"Time is the freedom to love."
(from Ware's "The Inner Kingdom")
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 8/12/2003 3:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmm. Makes me think of those times when we know something "ought" to be a certain way, or that it "ought not" to be a certain way. Perhaps we can't quite define and describe it, or even explain why, but we know it to be true. Even then logic is being used; one is at least aware (and logically thinking) that X ought to be, but just doesn't know how or why at that stage of the game (I appreciate Greg Koukl's Stand To Reason site for making both "X" and it's "ought" clearer.)
First, if we can't state our logic definitively and authoritatively, then we are told it isn't valid. But some human intuition is valid. That we can't formally demonstrate it deductively or inductively is neither here nor there. Second, it takes logic in the midst of intuition to digest the undefinable "ought." So logic is used (formally and informally) all the time. It's concommitant with our built-in epistemological understandings.
Thus, we "do" logic all day long, even when we discern a metaphysic that cannot, or isn't supposed to be, logically explained; rationally differentiating between what can and cannot be logically assessed is the work of ... logic.
Nice Post, Fred!
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/14/2003 7:08 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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