Of Reason

[shkrobius]

...What can be more sillily arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to think that he has a mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside there is no such thing? Or that those things, which with the utmost stretch of his reason he can scarce comprehend, should be moved and managed without any reason at all?Read more... )

Comments

[shkrobius]

The silly thing does not know how much fun it is missing.

[gineer]

Once "great rationalists" like to argue that ability to be self-conscious is also only humans ability.
So, in a way, what you said is mere cyclic definition. :)

[solomon2]

По-моему, тут путаница со словами и понятиями. Можно говорить, что человек рационален (или нет), и что мир рационален (или нет), но это совсем разные смыслы. Озадачиваться как рациональный человек может найти себе место в иррациональном мире довольно комично на самом деле. Красное дерево полагается занести в Красную книгу!

[shkrobius]

And what precisely is the difference?

[solomon2]

I wouldn't presume to answer this question precisely, but for starters the thought process of a human is localized more or less, while the Universe cannot "think" locally in the same sense. A human is an infinitesimally small part of the Universe and we should not assume that his notion of rationality scales to systems that are wastly more complex than the human brain, such as the biosphere of a given planet, for example, let alone the whole Universe.

[shkrobius]

Let's be more specific. What notion of rationality do you expect to change with scale? Do you, for examle, expect the rules of logic to be scale dependent? I'd say it is untenable to hold that laws are universal but rationality is not.

[gineer]

It just mean that that so called materialists
is just another branch of idealists in a nutshell. :)

[gineer]

http://ivanov-petrov.livejournal.com/1790534.html :))

[gineer]

Its all quite interesting.
But still,
all this conventional wisdom reminds me this quote:
"Вот простейшая наглядная картинка: путешествуя по шару, можно огибать его бесконечно, кружить по нему без границ, хотя шар конечен. Так и мысль, выпущенная в заданном направлении, не встречает границ и начинает кружить, отражаясь в себе самой. Именно это предчувствовал в прошлом столетии Витгенштейн, высказывая подозрения, что множество проблем философии - это запутанные клубки мысли, самосплетения, петли и гордиевы узлы языка - языка, а не мира."