[Loki Ire]

This is a debate I have with my girlfriend all the time. She gets rather annoyed that I see everything in terms of logic and think everything can be explained through it and through mathematics. She's of the personality type that places a heavy value on feelings. I'm of the personality type that can barely find feelings in a dictionary. Then there's spirituality, metaphysics, etc.

So here's the question: Is it possible to explain the entire world in which we interact with logic and mathematics, assuming one possesses sufficient intelligence and knowledge?

[Jormungand]

Quote

So here's the question: Is it possible to explain the entire world in which we interact with logic and mathematics, assuming one possesses sufficient intelligence and knowledge?

I would say we can describe the world accurately if you include science. Emotions obviously have a place, but no in terms of describing the factual world.

[Loki Ire]

Jormungand, on Jan 15 2008, 11:13 AM, said:

I would say we can describe the world accurately if you include science. Emotions obviously have a place, but no in terms of describing the factual world.

Sure, but can you also explain the emotions themselves logically? I know I struggle at times to find the logic in my gf.

[Kornaki]

Loki Ire, on Jan 15 2008, 04:19 PM, said:

Sure, but can you also explain the emotions themselves logically? I know I struggle at times to find the logic in my gf.

Emotions are just a complex set of chemical reactions

[Vaal Satori]

It would take infinite intelligence to do so, and humans are mere mortals. In addition logic, mathematics, and science are ways of interpreting and qualifying this world, but they do not penetrate the unending mysteries inherent in it. In particular mathematics and logic operate on fundamental assumptions which differ depending on the discipline and lead to contradictions between them. That is why there are five different conflicting versions of String Theory in existence, each one equally valid.

And I'd learn some feelings if I were you, because women these days will eventually get tired of that stone cold demeanor and seek out someone who can understand and share in their emotions. I've seen it happen a hundred times.

[Kenadian_2006]

The day math and logic can explain EVERYTHING in this world or my life, is the day my life becomes very, very dry and dull indeed.

[Kornaki]

Quote

In particular mathematics and logic operate on fundamental assumptions which differ depending on the discipline and lead to contradictions between them.

The point being you use science to discover the fundamental laws of the universe, then use math to find everything else. The reason there can be five versions of string theory is because nobody's bothered doing experiments to figure out whether any of it is useful or not

[Loki Ire]

Kornaki, on Jan 15 2008, 11:48 AM, said:

The point being you use science to discover the fundamental laws of the universe, then use math to find everything else. The reason there can be five versions of string theory is because nobody's bothered doing experiments to figure out whether any of it is useful or not

It's incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive to do even the most basic experiments to verify aspects of string theory. Thus far, no one has even been able to come up with a design for a serious set of experiments to disprove or help verify string theory's claims, let alone constructed that design. All indications are that we're out of our league for the time being when it comes to experimentation on cutting-edge hypothetical physics.

I think we'd be better off concentrating more on the harder physical science and less on the hypothetical. It's nice to ponder what might be, but if you can't possibly verify your theories within your great grandchildrens' lifetimes, what real purpose does it serve?

[ali akbar mind]

Logic & Math & Science can be used to explain just about everything, but not to understand it.


You can explain love or hate, war, violence, torture, hunger, pestilence, racism, but studying the objective facts without the accompanying emotions that is required to fully understand any of the words above can only be done by one cold-hearted mofo.

Unless your a vulcan or something, if someone uses the word $%&@, you're not thinking about it scientifically, ie what is happening physically or chemically, you're focused on the emotion of the rapist or the victim.

There is no way to detach the feelings or emotion from the word in this case, without losing understanding.

[Loki Ire]

ali akbar mind, on Jan 15 2008, 12:00 PM, said:

Logic & Math & Science can be used to explain just about everything, but not to understand it.


You can explain love or hate, war, violence, torture, hunger, pestilence, racism, but studying the objective facts without the accompanying emotions that is required to fully understand any of the words above can only be done by one cold-hearted mofo.

Unless your a vulcan or something, if someone uses the word $%&@, you're not thinking about it scientifically, ie what is happening physically or chemically, you're focused on the emotion of the rapist or the victim.

There is no way to detach the feelings or emotion from the word in this case, without losing understanding.

I can definitely identify with the loss of understanding when you don't "get" the emotional aspect of something. One thing I've learned is that sometimes my gf just needs to cry about something er other. I can explain to her all day long about how it's not a bad thing, or how we're going to do x, y, and z about it, or how it's a temporary situation, or whatever, but what she really needs is 5 or 10 minutes of solid crying and then it's like it never happened. I'll never understand that, but I comprehend "cry = fixed" for her.

My desire in that situation is to start nailing down PET scans, MRIs, etc to see what it is in her brain that lets crying make everything ok. Obviously there's got to be some structural or chemical difference to cause that, yes? Are emotions more than the sum of their parts? Or merely chemicals interacting with brain cells?

[Eagare the Alenthin]

The two go hand in hand, logic and emotion.

[Jormungand]

Eagare the Alenthin, on Jan 16 2008, 01:47 AM, said:

The two go hand in hand, logic and emotion.

In what sense hand in hand?

[Bakunin's Dream]

Physical laws and mathematics determine everything that goes on in the universe, so in principle it is possible to describe and explain the entire world given full knowledge of the laws of physics and a lot of mathematical computation. In practice, this proves horrendously complicated, however, so we have evolved a great deal of intuitive shortcuts that allow us to "zoom out" to a less fundamental level of abstraction and still gain a practical understanding of concepts. For instance, it might be advantageous to take an "intentional stance" when confronting a tiger and conclude that it is best to run away because the tiger "wants" to eat you. The tiger's behavior, of course, is not in fact based on its desires as a rational agent, but rather on instinctual behavior, and ultimately chemical reactions occurring in its brain. But by treating it as such, we can still do a good job of predicting its behavior in most cases, and therefore the intentional stance has great practical benefit even if it is not exactly correct in principle. In this example, the understanding gained of the tiger's action is incomplete, but it quickly yields an accurate prediction and allows the person making it to survive.

Emotions are the same deal; fundamentally they, like all other mental processes, are a set of chemical reactions that manifest in a mental state and a behavior. But the brain is far too complicated in practice for us to track the behavior of all the fundamental particles present and explain why their state evolves to one in which the person feels sad and cries (try solving the Schrödinger equation for every atom in the brain at every Planck time unit while the emotion manifests), so in order to understand emotions at the present time, it is necessary to take some shortcuts and zoom out to a level where you can understand the behavior in terms of desires, intentions, and other "macro-scale" emergent phenomena. It is still more accurate in principle to describe the system physically, but it also more cumbersome, and therefore often of less practical use.

This post has been edited by Bakunin's Dream: 15 January 2008 - 08:10 PM

[Red Dragon]

it is, but we lack the resorces both technologicaly and mentaly to gather all the data.

[HordeOfDoom]

For the moment I'll just say if you place too great an emphasis on Science, Logic and Reason, ignoring everything else, you get things like Marxism. That turned out well. I'll elaborate later when I get a chance (Strapped for time at the moment).

Anyone here who's read Oakeshott? I more or less agree with his theories about Practical and Technical knowledge. Anyone else participating in this debate who hasn't read his Rationalism in Politics needs to. Trust me, it's a great read.

[YHN]

It is possible to explain it using mathematics and science, however you are not guaranteed to be inherently correct in your explanation. While materialism has its arguments that the universe is essentially objective matter, there is no actual way to prove said theory. Idealism also has its arguable points; for instance it argues that 'to be is to be perceived'. This means that everything which to each of us 'exists', exists only because our mind perceives the sensations it gives us. Using such arguments puts you in a situation where you can't prove or disprove the objective existence of anything, because we can't actually climb outside of our heads and take a look around.

There are many patterns of thought to explain the world, the universe and even this dimension, but as it stands it is too big a task to be able to provide a universal understanding of it all. You can try, and you can explain it in many different ways, but each way has both its positive points, and its negatives which will make people doubt your explanation.

So, in a nutshell: Not really.

This post has been edited by YHN: 16 January 2008 - 01:09 AM

[Gustave5436]

HordeOfDoom, on Jan 15 2008, 10:08 PM, said:

For the moment I'll just say if you place too great an emphasis on Science, Logic and Reason, ignoring everything else, you get things like Marxism. That turned out well. I'll elaborate later when I get a chance (Strapped for time at the moment).

Or things like social Darwinism. Clearly, because the pseudo-scientific Social Darwinism showed up (and the USSR), Darwin's Theory of Evolution was bad (also Marxism)

Logic and reason do not create totalitarianism. Totalitarianism results in stagnation and dystopia, and it is of course irrational to try to create dystopia.

YHN, on Jan 15 2008, 11:13 PM, said:

It is possible to explain it using mathematics and science, however you are not guaranteed to be inherently correct in your explanation. While materialism has its arguments that the universe is essentially objective matter, there is no actual way to prove said theory. Idealism also has its arguable points; for instance it argues that 'to be is to be perceived'. This means that everything which to each of us 'exists', exists only because our mind perceives the sensations it gives us. Using such arguments puts you in a situation where you can't prove or disprove the objective existence of anything, because we can't actually climb outside of our heads and take a look around.

There are many patterns of thought to explain the world, the universe and even this dimension, but as it stands it is too big a task to be able to provide a universal understanding of it all. You can try, and you can explain it in many different ways, but each way has both its positive points, and its negatives which will make people doubt your explanation.

So, in a nutshell: Not really.

"Not really," assuming the universe is an illusion and therefore objective study of it is impossible.

This post has been edited by Gustave5436: 16 January 2008 - 01:20 AM

[Zharanda]

I subscribe to the Matrix theory, in that everything has its opposite that is important and necessary to the balance of the universe.

You see, I am Stephen Hawking's opposite, I use inebriation and hammers, rather than logic and mathematics, to explain everything. Hence, I am the balance that the world badly needs and without me, the world would be plunged into darkness and chaos. Which would be awesome, but I'm not willing to make that sacrifice.\

And btw, Social Darwinism has nothing to do with the USSR orMarxism and everything to do with Nazi Germany and the USA under Calvin Coolidge.

This post has been edited by Zharanda: 16 January 2008 - 02:01 AM

[itsAP]

Loki Ire, on Jan 15 2008, 07:19 AM, said:

This is a debate I have with my girlfriend all the time. She gets rather annoyed that I see everything in terms of logic and think everything can be explained through it and through mathematics. She's of the personality type that places a heavy value on feelings. I'm of the personality type that can barely find feelings in a dictionary. Then there's spirituality, metaphysics, etc.

So here's the question: Is it possible to explain the entire world in which we interact with logic and mathematics, assuming one possesses sufficient intelligence and knowledge?

Same way with my boyfriend, he's a Christian, and he doesn't let me even think that there isn't a "god"

I think no matter what the facts are, people are going to believe. Mainly, because they feel they need to believe. Can you imagine how bad this world would be if there was no chance of being any "heaven" or "hell". Thoughts wouldn't matter anymore, only actions.

[Magnus Nordir]

Zharanda, on Jan 16 2008, 12:04 AM, said:

everything has its opposite that is important and necessary to the balance of the universe.

Heh, based on what I've seen, this strikes me as incredibly typical of you.

Zharanda, on Jan 16 2008, 12:04 AM, said:

And btw, Social Darwinism has nothing to do with the USSR orMarxism and everything to do with Nazi Germany and the USA under Calvin Coolidge.

He was using social darwinism as some kind of strawman juxtaposition to hordeofdoom's post about Marxism, although you are correct that it has nothing to do with social darwinism, it is it's antithesis in many ways. But yes, although the "KKCoolidge" rumor isn't accepted by most historians, and I haven't seen much evidence for it, although I really would not be the least bit surprised. Do you have any links by any chance?

itsAP, on Jan 16 2008, 12:04 AM, said:

I think no matter what the facts are, people are going to believe. Mainly, because they feel they need to believe. Can you imagine how bad this world would be if there was no chance of being any "heaven" or "hell". Thoughts wouldn't matter anymore, only actions.

Imagine all the peeeeeople...

This post has been edited by Ikarus: 16 January 2008 - 04:59 AM