Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Logical Generalizations

Its interesting sometimes to look at logical statements in how they refer to themselves. There is a popular belief that if you look deep enough, nothing is there. However its my view that this is a mistake based on the notion that to look at something exclusively in terms of logic is to avoid content. This is not to say either that logic is empty or that any content that might appear is empty because of logic. Instead, logic is a context for finding meaning in statements which have substance, even while logic itself may seem colorless and tasteless.

For example of this (what led up to this posting) I'll present a simple series showing what statements imply about themselves, and some things that may be deduced, according to a series of degrees of qualification, the first (degree 1) being solid by assumptions, the second (degree 2) by clear analysis, the third (3) by extensible or contingent logic (still logical, but perhaps by multiple premises), and the fourth (4) completely baseless. As you will see in these cases I may discard degrees 2 through 4 within my conclusions.

Premise 1 (P1): This statement makes sense
Premise 2 (P2): It would make sense if we knew it
Premise 3 (P3): Knowing knows it knows
(Q1): This statement (P1) is a basis for knowledge if it is true (if we premise it)
Degree 1, vis. to not know it makes sense is not sensical.

(Q2): Thus, the statement only makes sense by a higher degree if we know and the knowing makes sense.
Degree 1, vis. those who consider are more sensible; knowledge reflects consideration.

(Q3): Vis. just because the sensical leads to or promotes knowledge does not mean that all knowledge is sensical, speaking logically.
Degree 1, vis. knowledge is knowledge; it would make sense even if the sense was that it didn't make sense ('{p} knowledge' that doesn't make sense is often assumed to be qualified by the senseless, when in fact it may have a senseless logic apart from the individual, for example inequality or differing pragmatic imperatives); hypothetically there are objects as truths that do not make sense even to extreme discernment; in a certain sense finding them may be equated with discernment, but not to the undiscerning.

This sort of thinking could be summarized within a Venn diagram within which the sensical (equated with conscious analysis) is a small part of the knowable/knowledge (equated with experience). In a more discerning fashion, the same situation is expressed in a cross-like diagram in which an axis unreason-paradox passes through a scaleable "datum of the sensible", with an axis ignorance-antiparadox passing diagonally, demonstrating how a trend towards confronting paradox is reasonable, however unreasonable a paradox may seem in itself.

Although by comparison to unreason philosophy is then not strictly reasonable, in the context of the datum of the sensible it becomes quite definitive in relation to ignorance, (esp. if ignorance is equated with unreason or death-by-paradox, the latter being only half a joke since speaking dramatically fatal flaws and ironic unexpected turns are themselves somewhat paradoxical, and not always yet archetypes).

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