Reply #123: Fascinating

[Silent3]

Not only is it very clear that the "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes">scare quotes" used around the phrase "beyond logic" in the title of the OP flew completely over your head, and that for some bizarre reason further context wasn't enough to get you to the point that you were able (or willing) to understand the thread in terms of anything but the most narrow and parsing definition of "logic" you could use, but you apparently blame me for trying to play some kind of trick on you with some devious plan to keep sneaking up on you with an ever-expanding definition of "logic" whenever it suited my fancy.

Yeah, I'm a trick devil, I am. :eyes:

From another post in this thread:

If you accept that logic has limits, then the question where exactly are those limits? appears relevant to people's failure to embrace logic in various contexts.

You'll have to pardon me if I couldn't detect much useful or fruitful movement in the direction of the latter half of the above sentence. If you're planning on holding an annual conference for The Society for the Rejection of the Supremacy of Logic Based on the Troubling Issue of Performing Boolean Conjunctions on Unknown (and Perhaps Unknowable) Truth Values with Their Respective Inverses, I'd suggest you book the smallest hall you can find.

But go ahead, spring for the open bar. I think you'll easily be able to afford the tab. :)

Just to get a bit more of what I'd normally expect to be obvious to nearly anyone else (at least anyone else who has participate much in the R/T forum) out of the way, so you don't feel like I'm sneaking up on you with tricky, ever-expanding terms:

The logical/rational/scientific viewpoint I'm advocating is pretty expansive to begin with -- much more expansive the crude expedient analogy of a chemistry lab. Defined positively, as I said before, think Richard Dawkins (not that we view things exactly the same way, but close enough to save me writing several books here to explain myself). Defined negatively, I'm advocating a philosophy which rejects mystical approaches and supernatural explanations in favor of the naturalistic, especially any mysticism defined in such a way as to deliberately rule out any possible avenue for its falsification. I favor saying "I don't know" and "maybe, as much as we'd like to do that, it can't be done" over acting like the universe owes us answers to all of our questions and/or solutions to our desires and needs, over pretending that psychologically satisfying "answers", with no further "evidence" beyond the fact that imagining these answers to be true is satisfying for some people, are better than no answers at all.

I advocate for the position that even an incomplete and tenuous naturalistic explanation for a phenomenon (for example, that the first life arose from nothing more than inanimate matter after some complex but unknown series of increasingly complex chemical reactions) is far better than an explanation which (although perhaps more psychologically satisfying to many people -- satisfying an inborn tendency to seek explanations in terms of "agency"?) brings in supernatural agencies, about which even less is known or understood than the natural world, explanations which really accomplish no more than creating more mystery, and which "needlessly multiply entities" in the process.

(Once more, given your apparent sensitivity to certain types of examples, and rush to take those particular examples personally instead of generically as they are intended, the previous example has NOT ONE THING TO DO with me considering you, or anyone else participating in this thread, to be a creationist. I really, really hope that I don't actually need to walk on eggshells like this with you -- but so far, you've given me the distinct impression that I do.)

Since there's no clear dividing line that I can determine between what I've already written so far and a multi-volume explication of every aspect of my world view, where I'm finally safe from suspicion of treacherous, slippery vagueness and opportunistic re-definition of my stance, I'll just stop here and hope this is enough.

Your screen name is certainly "struggle4progress" is certainly apt for describing the process of attempting meaningful communication with you. :)