A Matter of Mind
mind over matter, is it just that simple, just select a viewpoint and operate from it come hell or high water, disregarding truth or logic or rationality.
They are just constructs
– truth always subject to debate and dissension, always susceptible to perception, always malleable, liquid, relative…
– logic always based on its first presumption, a weak linkage flawed by the above reasoning…
– rationality a consensus-based notion, applying subjective truths to flimsy logic paths…
The first precept of a truth is the scientific application – the repeatability of experimentation, the establishment of mutual accountability, the forwards-backwards equation of mathematics, the acknowledgement that all truths are theories without refutation (yet).
The first precept of a logic chain is that it must originate from a widely accepted theory, a so-called truth, and that extrapolations thereafter must pass the same rigid criteria in order to be considered worthy links in the chain.
The first precept of rationality is that the physical world can be explained by applications of truth and logic to generally perceived and repeatable phenomena, and that an agreement is only reached by those events which have no deviation from the predictable result (even if the result is unpredictability, ie chaos theory).
The need to order the universe is probably paramount in the hierarchy of human needs – it is the first and foremost struggle of any infant to make sense of the world, and essential to survival and independence.
“And as the imagination bodies forth
the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
a local habitation and a name.”
Shakespeare – from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art, and all science.”
Albert Einstein |
