Logic is not a god | Poal: Say what you want.

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Reason has its limits. You can't logic your way out of everything and you shouldn't be expected to do so.

I often see nutcases on the left say something like, "Not all opinions are valid. Some are evil and should not be allowed."

This is of course, completely insane. But that won't stop somebody from trying to "destroy them with logic". Waste of time. You can't reason with what somebody wants. They just want it. Islam wants to conquer the world and kill all the infidels. What logic could you possibly use to dissuade them? They don't care. Are you going to hand over your house and property because you couldn't articulate an argument against it?

The obsession with logic and reasoning is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most of human history had some form of religious system as the highest authority. Then in 1641, Descartes introduced Rationalism with his Meditations and taught us that we really can't KNOW anything except that we exist. This brought us into the Enlightenment and Evidentialism; empirical evidence and sound logical proofs. William Clifford famously declared in his Ethics of Belief that if a man has no evidence for his beliefs, then he ought not to have them.

However, this is overly simplistic and not truly representative of the human experience. It certainly has its place in the sciences and criminal justice, but nowhere else is it useful as a rule. William James would teach us in The Will to Believe that life is full of decisions that can't be fully justified with evidence. Reason is a tool to be used when appropriate, not as the supreme authority for every moment of our lives. Reason has obvious limits, such as emotions, desires, religion, etc.

It is at these limits where people are united and divided. And there is nothing that can reconcile them. An attempt to do so with logic would be using a tool that doesn't even exist in the realm where the problem is. The left wants to be able to kill babies and force every child to be a tranny stripper. The right doesn't want any of that to be allowed. There is no middle ground and neither side has perfectly rational reasons for their position (if we're strictly logical, wouldn't we have to admit that abortion is valid for preventing genetic disorders?). I typically see those on the right pride themselves on having superior logic in most of their arguments. Being the "conservatives" of a society that was founded during the Enlightenment, this only makes sense (even though they've conserved nothing but that's a different discussion). However, this pride in logic is often a trap. The right avoids irrational knee-jerk reactions, preferring to wait until the perfect logical counter-argument is constructed. Memes fly back and forth until the ultimate logic bomb emerges.

Don't get me wrong, I think this process is effective and hilarious. But it isn't essential and nobody is owed it. We should be allowed to say, "No, fuck you, pedophilia is wrong. We don't want it and we shouldn't have to explain ourselves." People might complain, "But then we're just like the left!" Well yeah, you are just like them. You're a human being, not a calculator. You have wants, desires, and a sense of right and wrong that you share with other people like you. These are your kinsmen and your nation. Everybody else is a foreigner and they don't "fit in". To say that foreigners deserve a voice or a vote in the fate of your people is, quite simply, retarded. Do I have a logical reason for believing this? No. But it's how we've done it for thousands of years and it works just fine.

Reason has its limits. You can't logic your way out of everything and you shouldn't be expected to do so. I often see nutcases on the left say something like, "Not all opinions are valid. Some are evil and should not be allowed." This is of course, completely insane. But that won't stop somebody from trying to "destroy them with logic". Waste of time. You can't reason with what somebody wants. They just want it. Islam wants to conquer the world and kill all the infidels. What logic could you possibly use to dissuade them? They don't care. Are you going to hand over your house and property because you couldn't articulate an argument against it? The obsession with logic and reasoning is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most of human history had some form of religious system as the highest authority. Then in 1641, Descartes introduced Rationalism with his *Meditations* and taught us that we really can't KNOW anything except that we exist. This brought us into the Enlightenment and Evidentialism; empirical evidence and sound logical proofs. William Clifford famously declared in his *Ethics of Belief* that if a man has no evidence for his beliefs, then he ought not to have them. However, this is overly simplistic and not truly representative of the human experience. It certainly has its place in the sciences and criminal justice, but nowhere else is it useful as a rule. William James would teach us in *The Will to Believe* that life is full of decisions that can't be fully justified with evidence. Reason is a tool to be used when appropriate, not as the supreme authority for every moment of our lives. Reason has obvious limits, such as emotions, desires, religion, etc. It is at these limits where people are united and divided. And there is nothing that can reconcile them. An attempt to do so with logic would be using a tool that doesn't even exist in the realm where the problem is. The left wants to be able to kill babies and force every child to be a tranny stripper. The right doesn't want any of that to be allowed. There is no middle ground and neither side has perfectly rational reasons for their position (if we're strictly logical, wouldn't we have to admit that abortion is valid for preventing genetic disorders?). I typically see those on the right pride themselves on having superior logic in most of their arguments. Being the "conservatives" of a society that was founded during the Enlightenment, this only makes sense (even though they've conserved nothing but that's a different discussion). However, this pride in logic is often a trap. The right avoids irrational knee-jerk reactions, preferring to wait until the perfect logical counter-argument is constructed. Memes fly back and forth until the ultimate logic bomb emerges. Don't get me wrong, I think this process is effective and hilarious. But it isn't essential and nobody is owed it. We should be allowed to say, "No, fuck you, pedophilia is wrong. We don't want it and we shouldn't have to explain ourselves." People might complain, "But then we're just like the left!" Well yeah, you are just like them. You're a human being, not a calculator. You have wants, desires, and a sense of right and wrong that you share with other people like you. These are your kinsmen and your nation. Everybody else is a foreigner and they don't "fit in". To say that foreigners deserve a voice or a vote in the fate of your people is, quite simply, retarded. Do I have a logical reason for believing this? No. But it's how we've done it for thousands of years and it works just fine.

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

Enlightenment, specifically, and wisdom in general, is a thing that stems from mankind's reach towards the transcendental. Logic is too mired in bookkeeping to ever transcend anything.

I used to conceptualize the family tree of knowledge as having logic as its root, with science and philosophy as its first-order children, though as of late I've been convinced of my own folly and instead hold that the tree must have split earlier - reason begat logic and intuition, with logic begetting science and philosophy being a child of intuition. Justification as follows:

To move beyond the level of simple beasts requires not only thought - for one presumes all creatures think in their way - but thought regarding one's thoughts. To be able to interrogate one's own mind; it is this which I call reason. Deriving from it is "hard knowing" (logic) and "soft knowing" (intuition).

[An aside - I could've just as easily said yang knowledge and yin knowledge, and certainly the two children of reason would appear to share such a relationship, as both are capable of subcreating the other with equal ease and exhibit similarly parallel push-pull dynamics]

My reasoning for philosophy being a child of intuition is quite simply that the only tool one may use for philosophy is one's self and one's own mind. You cannot build, through logic, science, and engineering, a scale that weighs goodness; and through no artifice can a yardstick be made to measure virtue.

Thus the tools for philosophical thought can only be cultivated internally, while the tools for logic must largely be created externally or, alternatively: Logic can be tabulated, while intuition can only be transcribed. Logic is a data problem - we do better logic with more and more accurate data, numbers, records, evidence; while we can only do better intuition with better minds and more wisdom.

A proper society would balance these forces naturally, as left to their own devices they largely steer clear of one another's problems almost entirely due to their own inabilities to provide useful answers outside of their domain. However, in a fit of what one can only assume to be mass collective retardation, humanity made a breakthrough in logic, called it enlightenment, and have been trying to measure the immeasurable ever since, with predictable results.

The enlightenment and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

The "enlightenment" is the single greatest act of false advertising ever perpetrated by anyone. There is no path from logic to wisdom, there never has been and there never will be, and attempts to build one will only be met with failure, frustration, and it will be very uncomfortable for everyone. Enlightenment, specifically, and wisdom in general, is a thing that stems from mankind's reach towards the transcendental. Logic is too mired in bookkeeping to ever transcend anything. I used to conceptualize the family tree of knowledge as having logic as its root, with science and philosophy as its first-order children, though as of late I've been convinced of my own folly and instead hold that the tree must have split earlier - reason begat logic and intuition, with logic begetting science and philosophy being a child of intuition. Justification as follows: To move beyond the level of simple beasts requires not only thought - for one presumes all creatures think in their way - but thought regarding one's thoughts. To be able to interrogate one's own mind; it is this which I call reason. Deriving from it is "hard knowing" (logic) and "soft knowing" (intuition). [An aside - I could've just as easily said yang knowledge and yin knowledge, and certainly the two children of reason would appear to share such a relationship, as both are capable of subcreating the other with equal ease and exhibit similarly parallel push-pull dynamics] My reasoning for philosophy being a child of intuition is quite simply that the only tool one may use for philosophy is one's self and one's own mind. You cannot build, through logic, science, and engineering, a scale that weighs goodness; and through no artifice can a yardstick be made to measure virtue. Thus the tools for philosophical thought can only be cultivated internally, while the tools for logic must largely be created externally or, alternatively: Logic can be tabulated, while intuition can only be transcribed. Logic is a data problem - we do better logic with more and more accurate data, numbers, records, evidence; while we can only do better intuition with better minds and more wisdom. A proper society would balance these forces naturally, as left to their own devices they largely steer clear of one another's problems almost entirely due to their own inabilities to provide useful answers outside of their domain. However, in a fit of what one can only assume to be mass collective retardation, humanity made a breakthrough in logic, called it enlightenment, and have been trying to measure the immeasurable ever since, with predictable results. The enlightenment and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

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[–] • 0 pt

Very well put. You're basically making the distinction between analytical (logic) vs intuitive (philosophy) thinking. I agree, logic is like bookkeeping as you said (so simple a computer can do it), and philosophy is more like an art that emerges as a product of a culture. You have to practice it, like painting or playing a sport.

A proper society would balance these forces naturally, as left to their own devices they largely steer clear of one another's problems almost entirely due to their own inabilities to provide useful answers outside of their domain.

Very true. Any two given cultures have to descend into logic to have anything to agree on. Outside of that, there's nothing they can say to each other. Obviously they might happen to agree on certain philosophical or moral points, like how most societies condemn murder. But that's not because everybody got together and agreed that murder is wrong. Indeed, there could be people out there that don't mind murder at all. And what could anybody say to them outside of "we don't like that"? Not a whole lot.

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