The nature of logic and scientific reasoning
Robert Fludd , Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris […] historia , tomus II (1619), tractatus I, sectio I, liber X, De triplici animae in corpore visione .
Our experience of the daily world is central to logic and reasoning. Science on the other hand entails natural phenomena with scientific reasoning. But to question the origin of logic and reasoning in humans is as evident as we questioning science for what it entails as truth. To know the realness of what we see shall also be addressed together with our ignorance of an illogical natural world. This article will take you to the scientific and philosophical essence of such a reasoning.
What is logic?
As Theodore sider puts it, logic is central to logical consequences (Sider, 2009). To put like A being the consequence of B. Else, think in terms of a ball falling from a building. As you remain the observer who tracks the ball falling, immediately you conclude a cause for the fall. Whether it’ll be a person or wind par se, anyone could be absolutely conclusive about the ball that it wont fall without a reason. Isn’t it? That’s the exact nature of logic. It is conclusive.
Rational analysis indeed is an extremely optimistic technique to make the logic as the conclusive counterpart of scientific reasoning. What is the utmost form of rationality one cannot deduce using logic? Simply by adding a positive integer A+B results both A and B to be smaller than A+B. Logic is not conclusive when there exist a positive integer A or B and the sum of both is lesser than the individual digit. If the opposite is also true by observation, I suggest “the fundamental problem with scientific reasoning is its rational necessity”.
I would set out the scientific reasoning this way. Imagine a room filled with gaseous molecules. We can consider that the room is empty before. And and the latter condition is a gaseous filled state where we are supposed to find the temperature difference between both the conditions. Naturally, a room of little motion should enjoy lesser temperature than the one with more molecular (gaseous) motion. The scientific reasoning is hence based on a prori judgments on room and motion.
The reasoning is evident to say what spatial construction one could derive if a rational analysis is attempted based on molecule’s motion in room. Suppose if the room is isolated from the environment. It paves the way for an increase in entropy. More likely from a more ordered state into a disordered state. Motion of molecules, on the other hand, is not a prori. Because of the empirical necessity, based on observations. There has to be a measurement made on molecules to conclude that the molecule is really moving. Which happens when something or someone really measured it. Thus, motion to deduce as a scientific query need observation from the real world and hence posterori (Wikipedia contributors, n.d.).
Logical consequences are prior to scientific reasoning. To say entropy being a consequence of natural motion of molecules. The molecules on the other hand stay close to what remain the most effective way for them to acquire a motion with maximum degrees of freedom.
Questioning the wellness of logical consequences
As one is quite sure about on the wellness of logical consequences, there is always a concern of why nature is the way it is. Or why the logic is always conclusive. Does the logic need a supreme tuning to say why certain things exist the way it is? Is it because of a specific reason? How well could one think of a reason from the point of view of science and inquiry.
Our daily routine is full of familiar patterns or a cause that always precedes over an effect. Such patterns nourish the logical and reasoning abilities that we could fundamentally rely upon like an analogy to distinguish over time, space and so on. I could say, it’s more of an intellect that reads the world as it is. The same way it reads an analogy of space, time and geometry. Hence to add the observational importance of the real world, the way the world endures as it is now could principally because of that intellect. Else, think about a world expelled from logic, and more simply from its consequences. How could one dwell on the understanding of a ball going back to the building where it is supposed to fall? How could science study the senseless motion of molecules if entropy decreases in time. An absolute chaos or what?
The duality of the observed world
From the point of view of an observer, its genuine to feel like the scientific reasoning should be further clarified using an absolute necessity of something. More like an intellect to point out why there are inevitably two sides mostly for an entity to exist. Here are few examples, par se, a charge that is positive and negative. Or he/she is good and bad. Or the building is small and big, etc…
Suppose if there only exists one absolute nature to everything like a one-sided entity. Now, we could say that the charge is purely positive and no negative charge exists in nature. At the same time, I could also reason for the existence of negative entity whenever there is a decrease in the positive charge. So, for nature to fill with one sided entity, there requires an absence of the same entity that was previously there. But to reason that the charge is negative, given the condition of a purely positive charge, I also need to apprehend the logic in terms of reduction which is also conclusive.
Interestingly, as the reduction happens, we could also sense that nature behave to such changes entirely in a different fashion. New properties, new ways to assimilate knowledge etc. can all make out as a prori necessity to entail the new phenomena. So how well can science entails the same logic established with a positive charge is still the same with a negative charge. Afterall, it’s not the same thing as it is before. The logic is necessarily conclusive here to say, no such things exist with a purely one-sided entity even if we have experienced an entity dominated by the absence of something.
Put in this way, not only our logic is conclusive, but nature too.
Nothing is real in an unreal world
The world as we experience it is sensational. We always sense the flow of time in one particular direction. This is mainly because we only experience patterns compatible with our logic and so we say its rational. We could only assimilate knowledge but not to create anything new. The intellect seeks both that is real and un-real. The logic distinguishes the real from the unreal.
What is real if the logic itself is unreal to say that the pattern in certain way of reasoning itself is unreal. What do I mean by unreal could be clarified with an example? Take a pot of water and fill some salt to it. Promptly you could sense that the water is salty. Now try containing the salt back from the water such that you obtain the exact same water that you have taken before the mixing. I am absolutely certain that it’s possible to unmix the salt from water. But to achieve the exact same water you have taken in the past is quite an action that questions our logic.
Of course, such a mixing is reversible and one could find that the result is definite positive. But logically you could never conclude that the water is the same. Because of time, of entropy etc. It’s very real that the resultant water expels all the properties of what you have taken before. But your information should be increased over time. The pot has become old and water does go through a process. To say, the realness of a thing from your experience is equally valid as to say it’s unreal from your logic.
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