The Reasoning Paradox

What constitutes reasonable vs unreasonable? I suspect that (emotionally speaking) what is reasonable is what aligns with my opinion and what is not is anything contrary. How else might you define it? You may claim that there is such a thing as objective reason and factual analysis, but to agree on that we may need to get into the weeds of why and come out with an inter-subjective agreement (or not). What then will be the reasoning you use to justify your reasoning? If you use the same mode of reasoning to justify your reasoning, you are not reasoning at all (If you define reasoning as working from a proposition to a unique conclusion). You are saying this is true because it is so and it is so because so (a tautology). And if you use another form of reasoning to justify your own, you are admitting to the validity and interdependence of other forms of reason, thereby opening the door for your intellectual adversary.

One is tempted to say that there are irrefutable and non-subjective facets of reality and that it would be sheer madness to deny these. For instance, that something exists is self-evident and that any refutation is a proof. Agreed, however, it hardly constitutes what we might imagine as an argument. Although I can exemplify the point by using an example that is as little removed from the fact of existence as possible. Let's say I declare that a chair is not a shoe, red is not blue, and one is not zero. Irrefutable right? Well, let's see. Firstly we must agree a chair is what we both define as a chair. So what delineates a chair? The shape? But a chair can be many shapes? Its function? But a chair can be used for many things besides the intended purpose. Okay so the semantic definition may be shaky, but the material reality of a chair and the directly observable fact that it is not a material shoe is surely not? Good, as philosophers like to say, but we can examine this too. Even if we do not stray from the phenomenal experience of the two objects, is perception actually dividing them? There is a blob of texture and colour that seems different in one place than the other; is that a categorical fact? If so where is the line drawn? After all, skin is composed of many differentiations of colour and texture, but we only call it skin. Another problem is spacetime. Both "objects" were once part of a star, before that they existed in union as pure energy. So which spacetime-stamp is most valid? Isn’t the dividing line where our minds put it? The colour argument can run the same way. Zero and one is a little more abstract, but I could argue that zero exists as a number and is therefore, one. There is one zero. A ridiculous argument some might say, you can’t think about numbers that way! Oh really, why so? And off we go…

Remarkably, it’s quite easy to ensnarl and bend formal logic inwards upon itself until it implodes; it certainly doesn’t require a PhD. Although those who do often state “scientific facts” and conveniently ignore the matter, despite Kurt Gödel defeating logicians at their own game with his incompleteness theorems. Here’s a simple chart that I made in half an hour. If you can disprove it please do, because it will also prove it.



So it's all completely relative then, that's the answer right? The world is what you make it and nothing else. Well, if I could prove my deconstruction of logic then I couldn’t, which would make logic valid again… which would mean I could disprove it again... So it seems like reality is the freest possible configuration it could be. So relative that it also isn’t, like the ephemeral shooting star; nobody can capture it or call it their own, but they can take a photo and posses the “for all intents and purposes” real illusion of having it too.

We could say that reality is as complex as the “mind” appears because all there is to reality is the immediacy of the mind (or consciousness if you prefer). How complex is reality when you are asleep? When intellectuals refer to and argue about “reality” as distanced from them, all they are actually doing is exploring the landscapes of their own minds. Abstracting out “Truth” and hiding it by burying it within their own complexity. They overlook the primacy of their own being, although because there is no distance between themselves and what they imagine, they can create a reality in which there is such a distance between their minds and reality. Even more profoundly, that there are intellectuals with “minds” debating reality “out there” is a creation in my own mind and therefore yours.

However, when we try to find this mind that imagines, we find nothing at all. A ghost in the machine. How then is one to navigate life, if the ship has no captain? Maybe just maybe, life doesn’t need one.