symbolic_logic
realistic optimist the reduction of everything into categories of: A and Not_A.

the basis for the stage of understanding called "classification."

a needed step in the evolution of thought, yet one which man clings too much too readily. mistaking logic for truth. mistaking classification for definition.

the more we understand something, the less it will fit into such dichotomous cages, and the more it will be understood within its context, relational as well as rational.

i'll spew more on this at a later date, but now i must shower and become presentable to collect signatures so that a medical marijuana measure can make the ballot, and people can vote "yay or not_yay."
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oldephebe i liked what you shared RO... 040331
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Bespeckled I hear symbolic logic is very different from philosophy, but they share underlying principles.

I hear this from my Philosophy professor, who also teaches symbolic logic.
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oldephebe that's a philosophy prof..so earnest with his phenomenological classifications that he just sucks the life out of any over-arching not soley rational aspects of it...enobling..and or evolutionary thought..got the ol' philatetic philosophical forceps... 040401
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marked . 040402
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zeke reductivism and the tools of scientific thought are a modality of understanding as creative as any of the more plastic modes. framing questions and using the tools of rigor and necessary connection are not a limitation, but can free the thinker of clutter and endless choice. in zen painting is this not the goal? 040402
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oE well..i mean yeah sure there are some real cognitive no bullshit modes of argumentation, skills, bs meters and all that sure the study of philosophy tends to bestow upon even the mediocre student and or devotee...but maybe it's just overtly quixotic me..but i feel like there is no music in most of what i read..nothing touches my heart..maybe it's not meant to..zen painting? i'm way too clueless to comment on that..a marraige of the two like RO was speaking about...as a beginning place to begin any sort of healthy dialogue, and or examination of the relative merits of a thing...'cause you know we can't escape our inextricable diachotomy..sometimes i hate using 50cent words..but the images won't come..so... 040402
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zeke zen painting was just a handy example. how about minimalism in any artform. keith jarret, mark rothko, chuck close, richard braudigan, dashel hammett, haiku. the history of aesthetic work is filled with people who attempted to free themselves from excess. science and philosophy (for me) are essentially an aesthetic experiance. creation and analysis. 040402
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zeke erik sate 040402
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zeke oops

erik satie
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oE minimalism..as an creative expression aesthetic..is even in the act of freedom, or the pursuit of that ideal still unable to seperate the practitioner from the whole chiarusco aspect of being...at least that's how i see it...i am hardly entitled or qualified to go shouting like moses from the mount...hurling down my stone tablets inscribed with the flaming tongue of glory..

so...
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oE man..right? we prusue the highest expression of the human mind..and why shouldn't we? right? why souldn't reason be equated on a par with love? we need the both of them...i do anyway. 040402
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zeke If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the
physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker
entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
-- Vannevar Bush
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realistic optimist logic is a useful tool. we need logic. it grounds us, and helps us to progress in a more or less linear fashion.

intuition is a useful tool. we need intuition. it helps us to see outside of our current paradigm, and make steps not bound by our past linear progression.

the philosophy professors to whom i have presented this idea to have all looked at me, incredulous, and told me i can't be serious; that there can be no mode of thought equal to or greater than logic.

and yet logic is proven to be not only fallible, but subjective! show me the one school of thought on any of philosophy's great questions or even on written works of any great philosopher. i feel this point is petty, but one which must sometime be made.

clearly, symbolic logic helps us to communicate, and ensure we are speaking of relatively the same thing. additionally, it can help ground one's thought. however, it can also polarize people on an issue.

is abortion right?
should we use the death penalty?
is cloning moral?
is there a separation of body and mind?

the more we try to fit these into one answer, the more polarized and frustrated we become. i submit that it is not our failure to fit them into one category, but rather symbolic logic just does not apply to such questions.
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realistic optimist yet of course, there is still that ubiquitous binary aspect to the universe. electrons have valences, and charges. these are discrete.

i do not intend to belittle symbolic logic in my previous post. i just feel that it is sometimes misapplied.
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zeke mysticism in a way is the antithisis of logic. it relies on protracted periods of indwelling and agressive subjectivity. oddly, mystic traditions tend to cluster around and support a common set of truths. they also tend to report common experiences. i am tempted to posit that they are glimpsing the medium and processies of their own cognition. 040402
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oE we're just repeating ourselves over and over in some kind of fetishistic mastabatory duel of the temporal lobes..hence the aptness of the philatetic philosophical forceps metaphore i earlier unsheathed, maybe, it's just that i'm exhausted..and have heard and or made these arguments many mnay times..long before i got to blather...ech..it is interesting gentlemen..just ah ignore the curmudgeon...
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still though there is an intriguing subtlety..er..cross pollination..er anthropologically adaptable utility to some of RO's "premise"..workable theory?
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see? i just can't escape the pesky labels...
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oE yes and i believe it has been the conduit of some of mankinds highest forms of social, pscychological advancement..wait wrong verbiage..i believe a superior internal-emotional and "spiritual" intelligence can be responsible and efficacious; that is when rational catchesis, or rational
effort fails, be responsible for renovating, rehabilitating, ressurecting a damaged life from the bonds of psychopathology as it is expressed as a variety of criminal and detestable acts. Uusually as a chronic pattern of behavior.
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oe I was referring to mysticism which has a negative stigma stapled to it.... 040402
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notme . 040402
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z why express this concourse in adversarial terms? i am not in conflict with anything written here. i am truly interested in this subject. for me this is a real exploration. i have thought about these ideas for years. it is my sincere objective to learn something new from dialog. in other blathes i recuse myself because of real contempt for the subject matter. i can neither add anthing constructive to or learn anything from them. i refrain from comment because my participation would expose my contempt.

i have spoken.
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oldephebe why yes you done diddly have..and quite eloquently, quite cogently..if you read most of my stuff z you'll see that 60% is just reflexively sardonic, ironic..and the remaining is just rectal exhaust directed and MOI!

wow. that came out kindaaaaa fugazi.

see? see?

really am interested in you and RO's exploration of this issue...i'm just providing the yaks! and..the yuks! well..yeah the shpliktus of laughter..or just the odd silence embroidered by...ech!
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oldephebe but then someone said a long time ago that the nature of argument is inextricably advesarial and that in and of itself without the gyrations of someone going to any length(s) to emblazon the "merits" of his/her "argument" read (imposition) upon someones back (psychic that is) and lowers themselves to not just argumentation but just merely trying to force someone to buff the floor with their brow...say i'm right! even if legally, logically, factually I cannot ever hope to meet any objective standard of such. Why then i'll just become bellicose and belligerant, that always works on the eggheaded but nonetheless poor in self-esteem..

see? more sarcasm
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oE ble-ah..so the very nature of having an advesarial and or opposite stance than your interlocutory is not in and of itself such a bad thing...it is a starting place for us to begin to tell ourselves..our stories to one another...
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mmm.....haahhh the sound of good spelling other than your interlocuTOR... 040407
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realistic optimist this is somewhat relevant to the subject of the_two_party_ruse which i just performed for the first time tonight at the "bush bash variety show." 040415
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three words unravel symbolic_logic i_don't_care 050401
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- - 080826
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