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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Idolisation of Reason
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Qoheleth.:
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then posted by deano:
Aren’t logic and reason the only things we have that differentiate us from other, baser, animals?
AFAWK not speaking dolphin, aren't human beings the only animals with the gift of imagination? Imagination generates each subsequent Popperian hypothesis.
Squeeeel click click click, whistle click whistle squeeeel.
Roughly translated,* studies more and more indicate thought processes are not a linear progression based on perceived species intelligence. Given demonstrable causal reasoning in species other than humans, it is not completely unreasonable to postulate the ability to imagine. Indeed, studies with chimps and bonobos appear to validate this very thought.
*my Atlantic bottle-nose is a bit rusty.
Bother. ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
I'm going to move this tangent over to the Theology of work thread.
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The Benedictine Community at Alton Abbey offers a friendly, personal service for the exclusive supply of Rosa Mystica incense.
Posts: 2532 | From: the radiator of life | Registered: Apr 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Logic preserves truth from premise to conclusion.
In an axiomatic system set in an artificial language, sure. In real life, nobody can use that kind of logic. There are no such neat-and-tidy arguments about real things. Not in science, not in theology, not in politics, not in economics, not in nothing.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The same could be said of imagination. Apparently, both imagination and logic are left brain functions.
That's not how left and right brain functions are usually split up. What do you base this on?
quote:
Logic is, so to speak, systematic imagination.
No it's not. It's a system for drawing conclusions. It provides no input, so it is not imagination.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Logic preserves truth from premise to conclusion.
In an axiomatic system set in an artificial language, sure. In real life, nobody can use that kind of logic. There are no such neat-and-tidy arguments about real things. Not in science, not in theology, not in politics, not in economics, not in nothing.
Yes, real world situations don't always fit into neat and tidy categories. That doesn't mean that logic isn't helpful. Just as real-world situations don't always conform strictly to mathematical idealisations means that mathematical idealisations don't help.
But logic does work. For example, if carbon dioxide would form a layer on the ground too deep to breathe in if it fell out of the atmosphere, and we can still breathe, it follows that carbon dioxide doesn't fall out of the atmosphere. Disregard for logic tends to go along with various forms of charlatanry.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The same could be said of imagination. Apparently, both imagination and logic are left brain functions.
That's not how left and right brain functions are usually split up. What do you base this on?
An article I saw a while back. According to the article, people with left-brain damage have difficulty with metaphor. Meanwhile, people with right-brain damage have difficulty with irony and sarcasm. (The left brain can imagine all sorts of explanations, but doesn't have the ability to reality check them.)
The idea that imagination and feeling go together and are jointly opposed to reason is deeply engrained in our culture - probably since Plato. But that doesn't make it true.
quote:
quote:
Logic is, so to speak, systematic imagination.
No it's not. It's a system for drawing conclusions. It provides no input, so it is not imagination.
But how does logic draw conclusions? Simply put, it's a formalised way of imagining hypothetical situations and deciding which ones can happen. People worked out which syllogisms are valid by seeing whether they can imagine situations in which they aren't valid. If you imagine that Tibby is a cat and all cats are mammals, can you imagine that Tibby is not a mammal? How else did Aristotle come up with logic?
Does imagination provide input? It uses material from the senses as its building blocks. It's a way of processing the building blocks. But it's not as if imagination can happen unfettered by logic. One can no more imagine a square circle than draw one.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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