1. The quality of consistency may be taken to be a symptom of boredom and repetition. Alternatively it may indicate, in some very exceptional cases, the sign of bright awareness and openness to the world. It would be a great injustice to confuse the latter for the former. Who would call the patterns of sun, the sea, the birds and the trees boring?
2. I once said this. But also: to think that thought which is unthinkable, unaccessible to others -- it is the secret strength of the one who marches on without forerunners!
21 July 2009
06 July 2009
Limits of logic
The world has the character of .... if a then b then if c then -a then d if b then -b ... with the future terms in the chain expressing the reality that takes shape and is created only at that moment (this reality being born out of an indeterminable array of factors). What comes to be, therefore, is the greatest testament to its itself, to reality. It sustains itself in absolute freedom, and is answerable only to itself.
Even the logician has no say in what comes to be, but on the contrary, he adjusts his theory of contradiction depending on what peculiar form reality dishes out. It would be ridiculous for him to say, "reality cannot be that way because my theory forbids it!" since his theory is parasitic on reality and not viceversa. (All the shocks of quantum physics and old age must bear this in mind for insulation). Hence, the best the logician or the phenomenologician can do is to faithfully describe, not predict, reality. But what else is this best description, besides that which repeats or mirrors the sequence of terms? : .... if a then b then if c then -a then d if b then -b ... Granted that this rote repetition can be therepeutic at times (for example, by clearing up one's own confusions about reality (Wittgenstein), or by acting as the seat for the confessions of one's sins), it is still always uninterestingly modest, self-preserving and meek.
If on the other hand, one confused the nature of logic and professed to predict reality, all one would have done is glibly short-circuited reality or generalized it. One's immodest theory then turns to be hopelessly abstract that seeks to grasp the skeleton of reality with pincers after it has sucked up its blood. A great way to counter this abstraction is to use logic against itself: to wit, show that the real terms contradict each other (say, by juxtaposing b and -b) when they are taken out of context (an operation that is needed for all generalizations), in order to, of course, not show the deficiency of reality, but rather that of logic. (It is by this method that Nietzsche effects a releasement of logic into life).
But releasing contradictions into the flow of life: by this are we not taking the basic steps of the creative life itself?
Even the logician has no say in what comes to be, but on the contrary, he adjusts his theory of contradiction depending on what peculiar form reality dishes out. It would be ridiculous for him to say, "reality cannot be that way because my theory forbids it!" since his theory is parasitic on reality and not viceversa. (All the shocks of quantum physics and old age must bear this in mind for insulation). Hence, the best the logician or the phenomenologician can do is to faithfully describe, not predict, reality. But what else is this best description, besides that which repeats or mirrors the sequence of terms? : .... if a then b then if c then -a then d if b then -b ... Granted that this rote repetition can be therepeutic at times (for example, by clearing up one's own confusions about reality (Wittgenstein), or by acting as the seat for the confessions of one's sins), it is still always uninterestingly modest, self-preserving and meek.
If on the other hand, one confused the nature of logic and professed to predict reality, all one would have done is glibly short-circuited reality or generalized it. One's immodest theory then turns to be hopelessly abstract that seeks to grasp the skeleton of reality with pincers after it has sucked up its blood. A great way to counter this abstraction is to use logic against itself: to wit, show that the real terms contradict each other (say, by juxtaposing b and -b) when they are taken out of context (an operation that is needed for all generalizations), in order to, of course, not show the deficiency of reality, but rather that of logic. (It is by this method that Nietzsche effects a releasement of logic into life).
But releasing contradictions into the flow of life: by this are we not taking the basic steps of the creative life itself?
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