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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jhild who wrote (9925)	4/17/1998 3:03:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71178

I got into a scrape with Father Terrence over this a while back. It's a matter of differing beliefs. I think of reason as an operator as well. But it's the things operated on which are... mirages. The disconnect between "reason" and Truth" for me is that - you hold reason constant, you tweak the premises <crank, bing!> different outcome. Different natural truth, if I may. To me the idea "A is A", while incontrovertible, is useless. It's an abstraction, a mathematical axiom. Since our stimuli are so insularly individual, even as simple a statement as "The following is true" has a consensual element. Like fax machines synchronizing before one bit of info can be exchanged. It's a core belief of mine that we are not capable of conceiving or perceiving Absolute Truth. The intellectual process is (imho) to build a model of this suspected reality, and to try to be honest enough that this model is subjected to continual review. Reality testing. Your core belief re reason is probably different. At which point my wisest act is to acknowledge it without agreement or challenge. When that English philosopher kicked the stone and bitched at Berkeley "I refute you thus!", what was he proving? It depends on the premises you accept as axiomatic.