can everything be explained with logic?

[Amorphos]

can everything be explained with logic... indeed can everything be explained by any given means?

not everything can be solved with mere logic; we notice in many debates that when you get down to the deepest roots of meaning, everything becomes paradoxical, thence it is the same in terms of meaning as it is in terms of physicality, as when we try to find the essence of reality we also come across the fleeting quantum world and probability which evades accurate observation!

so is there an essence to reality which cannot be understood by any means, as it is simply to subtle or transient to be pinned down?

if we can find ways to understand the prime natures, at the very least is there a limit to where logic and reason can take us on this journey.

is logic like a caliper where there comes a point that the measure is to big for the given thing being measured - in other words if you have a smallest thing then the measure would always be greater than it, and thus cannot reduce to it. i don’t know if this makes sense; i am imagining it as like a space between ones finger and thumb, if you keep reducing the gap you eventually close, yet there would always remain a finite or infinitesimal gap.

[Last Roman]

I don't think everything, some things that happen in this world are just "freaks of nature." But I think most things can.

[David Deas]

"The only alternative to reason is spontaneity" - David Deas

[sephodwyrm]

Yes...given time and effort in looking at the fundamental causes of even "freaks" of nature, we can discover a great deal.

[bdh]

can everything be explained with logic

No, they're called axioms.

[Tecumseh]

everything becomes paradoxical

This is what I've come to think. When you get at the very root, the very base of certain important questions, you end up with a paradox. You need to take a leap of faith to believe in anything when you get to questions about things like the origins, purpose, and reason for the existence of the universe. Sure, the "leap" may be shorter for certain guesses, but in the end it's still a leap.

Logic and reason as I stated in the other thread concerning God, are things created in the human mind, which is itself something fallible and can be completely wrong.

Not to say I completely reject reason and logic, I just don't think it can answer certain questions.

[enoch]

no - logic is AN approach to argument
it is not THE only approach, contrary to what the enemies of the jedi will say

[Amorphos]

this thread is not a rejection of logic and reason

“The only alternative to reason is spontaneity”

Yes...given time and effort in looking at the fundamental causes of even “freaks” of nature, we can discover a great deal.

Logic and reason as I stated in the other thread concerning God, are things created in the human mind, which is itself something fallible and can be completely wrong.

sure we can discover a lot - nearly everything about existence, but not all. consider that [as tecumzeh said] the very way we encapsulate the knowledge of a given thing is limited. we reduce down to ‘items’ aspects, and eventually to a given ‘it’. now if any of you remember my thread ‘define ‘it’’, you will note it didn’t get an answer, that is because it is specifically unanswerable. when we define a given thing or an ‘it’ then we have to define all ‘it’s’ to know the true universal nature and the entirety of it. we then notice that ‘it’ [universal integer] is a spiralic infinitely tangental metaphor, in other words you keep having to explain connections then the next thing to it then the next etc.

so in short, the essence of reality is literally undefinable due to the nature of definition itself.

[TheKwas]

Because it is impossible to fully define anything while defining it's definition's contents doesn't mean reality is unknowable. If that is your logic, then the meaning of 'have a nice day' is as unknowable as anything else in the Universe, yet we all know generally what 'have a nice day' means.

[the Eternal Cocoon]

Because it is impossible to fully define anything while defining it's definition's contents doesn't mean reality is unknowable. If that is your logic, then the meaning of 'have a nice day' is as unknowable as anything else in the Universe, yet we all know generally what 'have a nice day' means.

logic is empirical. Each definition or reason is based on preceding definition or reason, like a pyramid where each step represents a the next part in a line of reasoning. The bottom step, however, cannot be empirically reasoned, because there is nothing preceding it. In our daily reasoning however, me make assumptions, leaps of faith in reasoning. These assumptions may have a certain amount of reasoning to them which leads you to pick these specific assumptions over other ones, but they are still unproven. This means that even though we can reason everything in the universe, we cannot empirically prove anything in the universe. We can prove something only by making an initial assumption ( or assumptions).
For example, when someone says 'have a nice day' you are assuming that the speaker is speaking English, that the phrase isnt to be taken literally and the word nice is to be taken to mean good, and that by good the speaker means pleasant( as to some good might be unpleasant or painful). Of course no normal person takes any of this into consideration when speaking, as every time 'have a nice day' is said it means the same thing.
Note however that have a nice day meaning the same thing every time doesn't prove that it will mean that same thing every time. That would be a logical fallacy. In other words, everyone does know what 'have a nice day' means, but only through an assumption.

[enoch]

woman are an especially hard aspect to apply the theorems of logic too......hehehe







too cliche?

[Rockstone]

Yes, everything is going to be explained with logic. If it can't be done now, just wait until somebody comes along who is smart enough.

woman are an especially hard aspect to apply the theorems of logic too......hehehe
too cliche?

While cliche indeed, it may well be the only exception my statement above.

[H_man]

Yes, everything is going to be explained with logic. If it can't be done now, just wait until somebody comes along who is smart enough.



While cliche indeed, it may well be the only exception my statement above.

You seem to have quite a great deal of faith in logic, even though in many cases it could be completely wrong. For instance, look at the animals of the earth. They probably have their own primitive views of logic and reason, and even if their personal explanations of the universe may be correct (a dog who is fed may associate his feeding with the approach of his owner to the food bowl, which may be true in some cases but are completely unrelated events), they are still wrong in some respects just as we may be completely incorrect in our assumptions of the world around us. We can never understand a force that's greater than ourselves, and while we may think we're smart, a even higher being may think our logic to be quite pathetic just as we think animals may have poor means of comprehending the universe.

We simply make models and laws to understand the nature of the world around us, but even that may have limits. We cannot prove anything in the world is real, as much as we can prove the existence of God. We simply are. We can have no understanding of the world except through what we can experience and perceive, and yet there are perhaps infinite universes occupying this space and we are only a minute part of a small section of it. To say logic will explain how things really are is wrong because just like animals we have little or no knowledge of the world around us except what our brains can perceive, which is only an insignificant part of a giant, unquantifiable whole. Logic can only go as far as our brain will take us, and even evolution of the mind can only take our brains so far, because even that is part of an unquantifiable universe. It's like a microbe with human intelligence thinking it can explain everything around it with only limited senses as part of a whole world completely beyond the limits of its imagination and intelligence. How do you know we are not just a fleeting afterthought of a greater being? Because logic can never prove this wrong, logic cannot explain the whole universe because it is so vastly greater than it.

Can you prove that a ball hitting another will cause it to move? Do you know the ball is causing it to move or is it some other unmeasurable, unseen force? We can only know what we can sense, thus logic is unable to define everything. Hope this makes sense. It really isn't all that's in my head, but then again everything always comes out worse when you attempt to write it down.

[turtle]

I don't think so.

The only things that can be explained by logic are those that can be observed... those that we know about. When speaking of subjective matters, many times, the arguments break down into illogical theological arguments. I'm not saying all subjective matters are illogical; but many times logic has no place in the realm of the unknown. For much of the unknown is illogical to our way of understanding. Perhaps, one day, when logic has changed necessarily to the context of the given time, we will say that currently illogical things are, logical.

I think logic is just a tool of the time... our current understanding/comprehension put into practice to try and understand another thing more in the best way we can. When the understanding/comprehension/way of thinking changes with the times, our logic will most likely change with it... actually, I'm almost certain our understanding and practice of logic will change as our world changes. Perhaps not instantly or in the near future, but eventually.

To answer the question:
No, I don't think logic can explain anything. In fact, logic has only helped to explain a minimal amount of things when you look at the big picture. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of our existence.

[enoch]

maybe because god created everything and then eve was an afterthought....?

as for logic - it is a common misperception as to what logic is -

logic is NOT reason/the theory of rationality

logic is an approach to test the validity of logic based arguments
but the majority of arguments are not based on logic, even if some logical aspects are included
I would even go as far to say that the majority of arguments aren't even based on reason, but that is for a different thread

[Exploder]

AFAIK Logic:a way of thought to gain a conclusion from the premise.
I think many people forget/doesn't understand this.

[Curtana]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet

[enoch]

what is the difference between the educated and the uneducated, the same as tween the living and the dead -

aristotle (pp)

[Tom Paine]

what is the difference between the educated and the uneducated, the same as tween the living and the dead -

aristotle (pp)

"The unexamined life is not worth living", Socrates. The only examination we can do with life is by logic which can explain everything... when combined with premises. Logic is a process, no more, into which we put premises and which outputs conclusions.

[Curtana]

Histories make men wise; poets, witty;
the mathematics, subtle; natural
philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic
and rhetoric, able to contend.
Francis Bacon