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[Pattern-chaser]

Pattern-chaser wrote
But I'm not seeking, or asking for, the axioms of logic. I'm looking for something more general: the axioms of thought and thinking, which surely impact on reason? Yes, logic rears its ugly head, but in this topic, it only does so as a sort of sidekick to reason.

...

Even more specific: this topic is only interested in logic and/or reason as a part of the search for the fundamental axioms of thought and thinking. Any other application/use of reason and logic is not considered or relevant.

Not sure about what you are after. I think it is right to ask for something more fundamental than logic, even though one can be accused of absurdity (it takes logic to ask the question at all)...

Logic, then, is to be seen as a "forward-looking" event. Inherently anticipatory. Logic, in the Aristotelian sense, on the other hand, as a set of categories, is just an abstraction of this seamless streaming actuality.

But as I see it, it does go deeper: logic is a concept about the way judgment is structured in time, but judgment belongs to a primordial source, a generative "unseen". One may want the reduction to brain activity to be foundational, but this simply falls apart on analysis almost instantly. The question turns to the spontaneous effusion of actuality which is shown, but never gotten behind.

As I've said, I'm specifically NOT looking to dissect logic. In this topic, logic is merely the tool we use to confirm or deny that the structure of an argument is correct, nothing more than that. This topic is not about logic. I even tried to find ways to phrase my OP so as not to include the word "logic", to avoid having to post the words I'm writing now, over and over.

I am looking for foundations, not that which is built upon them.

[Pattern-chaser]

I will end this first post by repeating the question that defines my search: what are the fundamental axioms of thought?

Yes. It is an old puzzle. I solved it long ago. But there are some questions. Why are there twelve gold coins? Why one is false? Why is there something instead of abstract numbers? Why is there a balance scale? Are these not your questions?

No, they aren't. You are applying reason/reasoning to your exemplary problem; I'm looking first for the rules, laws, or guidelines that steer that reasoning, and then I hope to go one stage further, and discover the axioms (i.e. assumptions) that lie behind these rules/laws/etc. I'm looking for the foundations of reason and reasoning. I don't suppose you've seen them hanging around, have you?

[Pattern-chaser]

OK, this topic is about serious and considered thought. It's not really about the boundaries of possible thought, or the aims we might pursue, using our (serious and considered) thought as a tool. I simply wonder what are the axioms, the assumptions, upon which our thinking rests? What are the most fundamental guidelines that our (serious and considered) thoughts and thinking follow?

Guidelines suggests principles, but I think you are looking for the true bottom line for making an affirmative judgment at all about the world.

I don't want to be dogmatic about this, but I think I'm looking for what I said I am looking for — the axioms (i.e. assumptions) that found (and empower?) the principles, guidelines, rules, or laws that govern serious and considered thought.

So you would have to ask what the world is to make sense of this. Is there something foundational and beyond doubt upon which, as you say, "our thinking rests" that assures us that our thinking is really about something?

Again, my subject is what founds our thinking, not its content/subject.

[Pattern-chaser]

Does this help in any way?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I think you have mapped the direction which this topic must take, for practical reasons. But no, in the sense that I'm not seeking the rules, laws or guidelines, but the axioms (assumptions) upon which these guidelines are constructed.

However, my computer is sited in a conservatory, and the temperature is rising fast. My local time is 13:48, and it's getting very hot — 34° C. Survivable, of course, but not really conducive to serious and considered thought. So I'll try to pick this up tomorrow, before it gets too hot. There is definitely more to say about what you've written here; thanks for taking the trouble.

P-C, why is your computer is a conservatory? I can't see the heat and humidity doing you or your computer any favours.

Our house has only two living rooms, and space for my computer was, er, allocated in the conservatory, not the lounge, where the TV, hi-fi, and comfy chairs live. <wry grin>

The fundamental basis for at least some of those axioms is probably empathy. You know what life seems like to you and, during formative years, you watch how others operate, compare notes and notice patterns. Then you extrapolate from your own experiences. Hence all the arguments. While we humans are all much more like each other than we are like representatives of other species, there are obviously differences in how we view the world because our species relies on pluralism. Getting all members of the "hive" to acknowledge the worth of those with different roles bizarrely seems to be beyond human capabilities.

You seem to be focussing on the subject (object?) of our thoughts and thinking — the real world that we live in. I'm looking for the foundations of that thought ... if such foundations even exist? I'm starting to wonder...?

Sufficient reason: This stems from being human, and having an enhanced capability to discern cause and effect. Making rational inferences is an extension of this. For babies, life is much more chaotic, unable to understand why things happen. As children, more in understood and, often, that which is not understood is treated like magic. The failure to apply sufficient reason manifests in a failure to move on from black boxing the unknown as magical.

I have been thinking that there might be an axiom of "sufficient reason", but I'm not sure it's what you are describing here. I think the axiom of sufficient reason says that, when following a chain of reasoning, we never take a step without sufficient reason. So we do not accept a conclusion without conclusive proof (i.e. sufficient reason); we don't discard a theory without sufficient reason (i.e. justification); we don't move from one position in a chain of reasoning to the next without sufficient reason (i.e. justification); and so on.

Is that an axiom, or is it a 'law' of thought/thinking?

As for non-contradiction, this entirely depends on language and how individuals interpret semantics. Most paradoxes strike me as just being word games.

Agreed.

The excluded middle also has issues, often misapplied by painting graded situations as black & white.

Yes, as I mentioned, sometimes subjects are forced into the mould of binary thinking when it is inappropriate and therefore unhelpful.

Occam's razor is a practical tool to avoid over-attachment to speculative ideas, but it's not to be taken too much to heart. Reality is often insanely complex and the simplest solution is not necessarily the correct one.

Yes, the Razor is a rule of thumb, useful (only) when we need to choose between two or more alternatives, but we don't have sufficient reason to do so. Then we need to guess, and the Razor helps us in this (we hope).

[Pattern-chaser]

This does explain why, as a problem solver, I wasn’t able to explain what basic thoughts I was assuming when I was solving problems...

I suppose that's why I'm now seeking out the foundations of serious and considered thought. I was a problem-solver too, but not in your field. I was a software designer, employed to solve problems that had never been solved before (otherwise we would use the existing solution). It is a serious discipline, that embraces and requires serious and considered thought, and also creative imagination, to solve these problems.

Surely there are foundations to such thinking? They didn't just emerge spontaneously from the quantum foam ... or did they?

[Pattern-chaser]

An axiom is an unprovable rule or first principle that is accepted as true because it is self-evident or useful. It is a universally recognized truth or a valid truth that does not need proof. The fundamental axioms of reason and thought can vary depending on the philosophical or logical framework one adopts. However, there are a number of commonly recognized principles that form the basis of rational thinking and reasoning.

Axiom — a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference; an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth; a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit.

I think "axiom" is a euphemism we use to disguise our guesses as something more formal and authoritative. In that, it is nothing more or less than misleading. But, having expressed my disgust at such immature thinking, I think we can agree that an axiom is another name for an assumption, or guess. IMO, there are no such things as "self-evident" truths. This is another euphemism, employed for the same immature reasons.

The honest truth seems to be that we have no basis for our serious and considered thought, so we make assumptions, and we deduce all else from them.

Principle of Identity: This principle states that a thing is itself and not something else. It asserts that every entity or concept has a distinct identity, and it remains the same throughout its existence. For example, a cat is a cat, and it cannot be simultaneously something else.

Principle of Non-Contradiction: According to this principle, contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. It states that it is impossible for something to be both true and false simultaneously. For instance, a cat cannot be both black and not black at the same time.

Principle of Excluded Middle: This principle states that for any proposition, it must either be true or false, without any middle ground or third option. In other words, there is no middle state between true and false. For example, a cat is either asleep or not asleep.

It is my view that these 'laws' are indivisibly linked to binary thinking (only), rather than the wider search that we are indulging in here. It appears as though these laws might have come after the thinking they seek to justify, but maybe that is an illusion?

Principle of Sufficient Reason: This principle asserts that everything must have a reason or cause. It suggests that nothing happens without a cause or explanation. It forms the basis for understanding and explaining events in terms of causes and effects.

I think it offers that, and more too. I suspect that this might be a (or "the") most basic rule of serious and considered thought? Don't do anything without a good and sufficient reason for doing so.

[Sy Borg]

Does this help in any way?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I think you have mapped the direction which this topic must take, for practical reasons. But no, in the sense that I'm not seeking the rules, laws or guidelines, but the axioms (assumptions) upon which these guidelines are constructed.

However, my computer is sited in a conservatory, and the temperature is rising fast. My local time is 13:48, and it's getting very hot — 34° C. Survivable, of course, but not really conducive to serious and considered thought. So I'll try to pick this up tomorrow, before it gets too hot. There is definitely more to say about what you've written here; thanks for taking the trouble.

P-C, why is your computer is a conservatory? I can't see the heat and humidity doing you or your computer any favours.

Our house has only two living rooms, and space for my computer was, er, allocated in the conservatory, not the lounge, where the TV, hi-fi, and comfy chairs live. <wry grin>

Brutal!

The fundamental basis for at least some of those axioms is probably empathy. You know what life seems like to you and, during formative years, you watch how others operate, compare notes and notice patterns. Then you extrapolate from your own experiences. Hence all the arguments. While we humans are all much more like each other than we are like representatives of other species, there are obviously differences in how we view the world because our species relies on pluralism. Getting all members of the "hive" to acknowledge the worth of those with different roles bizarrely seems to be beyond human capabilities.

You seem to be focussing on the subject (object?) of our thoughts and thinking — the real world that we live in. I'm looking for the foundations of that thought ... if such foundations even exist? I'm starting to wonder...?

Sure, I don't know much about formal philosophy so my angle is always based on nature - something that I think is too often disregarded in philosophy, as though human developed from a blank slate rather than three billion years of development.

So my answer to your question is evolution. Always evolution. The seeds for everything human lie in the species that preceded us. Some aspects, such as technology and morality, have changed exponentially in humanity as compared with other species, giving the impression that our qualities are completely unprecedented and unique. In truth, our qualities are somewhat unprecedented and unique - the 'seeds" lying in a pre-human past.

Animals do think. So do babies. It's not an exclusively human domain, rather that higher human thought it is another example of exponential development.

Sufficient reason: This stems from being human, and having an enhanced capability to discern cause and effect. Making rational inferences is an extension of this. For babies, life is much more chaotic, unable to understand why things happen. As children, more in understood and, often, that which is not understood is treated like magic. The failure to apply sufficient reason manifests in a failure to move on from black boxing the unknown as magical.

I have been thinking that there might be an axiom of "sufficient reason", but I'm not sure it's what you are describing here. I think the axiom of sufficient reason says that, when following a chain of reasoning, we never take a step without sufficient reason. So we do not accept a conclusion without conclusive proof (i.e. sufficient reason); we don't discard a theory without sufficient reason (i.e. justification); we don't move from one position in a chain of reasoning to the next without sufficient reason (i.e. justification); and so on.

Is that an axiom, or is it a 'law' of thought/thinking?

It seems my comments are tangential to what you describe and I'm okay to stand corrected here. I have not much explored formal philosophy, which is why I'm here and not doing something vaguely academic

The excluded middle also has issues, often misapplied by painting graded situations as black & white.

Yes, as I mentioned, sometimes subjects are forced into the mould of binary thinking when it is inappropriate and therefore unhelpful.

Although Stoppelman's emergency example showed a practical application of the principle, which perhaps could be summarised as 'Make up your bloody mind'?

Whatever, I always look for the middle - the "shoreline" that lies between entities. IMO, blurred boundary areas are often interesting and can be highly informative as to the nature of phenomena.

[The Beast]

In this shared search for the true, timeless, absolute, unchangeable principles of existence, the question of whether we are searching for the good coins or the false one comes to mind. In this search the concept of beauty is explored. Is it a categorical imperative? In the quaternity of thinking, sensing, feeling and intuition the joining of the opposites takes place. The paradox is in the mode of perception. As day becomes night a constructivist might become a skeptic and why not as night becomes day the skeptic might critique the reason with the incorporeal (time and space). The middle is anything between the beautiful and the indefinite. In the middle of the paradox of thinking and feeling is our cognized beauty but the idea of beauty excludes the middle.

[Stoppelmann]

This does explain why, as a problem solver, I wasn’t able to explain what basic thoughts I was assuming when I was solving problems...

I suppose that's why I'm now seeking out the foundations of serious and considered thought. I was a problem-solver too, but not in your field. I was a software designer, employed to solve problems that had never been solved before (otherwise we would use the existing solution). It is a serious discipline, that embraces and requires serious and considered thought, and also creative imagination, to solve these problems.

Surely there are foundations to such thinking? They didn't just emerge spontaneously from the quantum foam ... or did they?

My son is a software designer, and he has said that the one thing that spurred him on to learning all the languages he now uses or knows was the fact that many of his problems could be reduced to a mathematical equation. He said that once he’d found that mathematical solution, building the software became a relatively simple task. But that is him speaking, not me, so I’m not sure how that applies to the principles of sound thought.

Axiom — a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or inference; an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth; a maxim widely accepted on its intrinsic merit.

I think "axiom" is a euphemism we use to disguise our guesses as something more formal and authoritative. In that, it is nothing more or less than misleading. But, having expressed my disgust at such immature thinking, I think we can agree that an axiom is another name for an assumption, or guess. IMO, there are no such things as "self-evident" truths. This is another euphemism, employed for the same immature reasons.

The honest truth seems to be that we have no basis for our serious and considered thought, so we make assumptions, and we deduce all else from them.

I believe that this is definitely the way we start off, building through experience on a trial-and-error basis, but I think we begin to realise that there are patterns that repeat themselves and, even if we don’t give them names or think out how they work, we employ them to find a sound solution. The patterns may also become methods that we are taught in, say, management schooling and over time appear self-evident. I was evidently using such methods, even though they were not named the way I recently found them to be – but that may be because I am living in a German-speaking environment.

It is my view that these 'laws' are indivisibly linked to binary thinking (only), rather than the wider search that we are indulging in here. It appears as though these laws might have come after the thinking they seek to justify, but maybe that is an illusion?

I think that we always have to check up whether we are applying these principles, because the quality of our thinking and solutions depends upon it, and because over time it has become self-evident, we no longer realise we are doing it.

Principle of Sufficient Reason: This principle asserts that everything must have a reason or cause. It suggests that nothing happens without a cause or explanation. It forms the basis for understanding and explaining events in terms of causes and effects.

I think it offers that, and more too. I suspect that this might be a (or "the") most basic rule of serious and considered thought? Don't do anything without a good and sufficient reason for doing so.

I would say so in a professional environment, but there are experiences and phenomenon for which we have no explanation, and we do some things without reason other than to enjoy them.

What you have to do, you do with play. Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

[Gertie]

This topic concerns thought — serious and considered thought, wherever it occurs, and whatever it is applied to.
No other style or type of thinking is considered here.

Also, in this topic, "thought", "thinking", "reason" and "logic" are all effectively synonymous for our purposes here, and should be read as such.



Ever since I learned what axioms are, and what they're for, I sort of assumed that there are, somewhere, a number of axioms that lie behind reason (and logic), thinking and thought. So eventually, I went looking for them, and was surprised to discover that there are no such axioms. There are some laws and rules, but no axioms, no fundamental scaffolding upon which serious and considered thought might be based.

Many of you will already be aware of the so-called 'rules of thought', that I soon discovered in my search. No axioms, just some rules. And these rules do not seem to me to be sufficiently flexible to support all instances of serious and considered thought.

According to the 1999 Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, laws of thought are laws by which or in accordance with which valid thought proceeds, or that justify valid inference, or to which all valid deduction is reducible.

Laws of thought are rules that apply without exception to any subject matter of thought, etc.; sometimes they are said to be the object of logic. The term, rarely used in exactly the same sense by different authors, has long been associated with three equally ambiguous expressions:

• the law of identity (ID),
• the law of contradiction (or non-contradiction; NC), and
• the law of excluded middle (EM).

Sometimes, these three expressions are taken as propositions of formal ontology having the widest possible subject matter, propositions that apply to entities as such:

• (ID), everything is (i.e., is identical to) itself;
• (NC) no thing having a given quality also has the negative of that quality (e.g., no even number is non-even);
• (EM) every thing either has a given quality or has the negative of that quality (e.g., every number is either even or non-even).

Equally common in older works is the use of these expressions for principles of metalogic about propositions:

• (ID) every proposition implies itself;
• (NC) no proposition is both true and false;
• (EM) every proposition is either true or false.

To begin with, an empirical example. There are many real world situations where the law of the excluded middle is misleading, for it denies the part where most of the action takes place — in the middle, on a spectrum, away from the extremes (which might be TRUE and FALSE, but could as easily refer to YES and NO, or a different pair of 'opposites'). Serious and considered thought can often be — and often is — applied to such situations.

I observe that we humans use at least two 'types' of thought, binary thinking and what I have come to call network thinking (because I couldn't find a term for it that is already extant).

Binary thinking is instinctive in origin, the obvious example being 'fight or flight', when there is insufficient time for a complete analysis! But that isn't the only application of binary thought. Much scientific thinking is binary thinking, some of it even governed by Boolean Logic. There are many examples of the correct and useful application of binary thinking, to the extent that some feel it is the only acceptable mode of thought.

N.B. There are instances where the subject is not suited to binary thinking, and yet it is forced into that mould, to allow scientific-style thinking to be applied. Tactics such as "Well, X is either TRUE or FALSE, so which is it?", and others, might be used to avoid the (much) greater complexity and difficulty of network thinking? Whatever the reasons, if a subject is not suited to binary thinking — or to network thinking, in other circumstances — but we persist anyway, we can reasonably expect that our conclusions might not be all we hoped for.

There are occasions when a subject of study is not addressable via binary thinking, and yet serious and considered thought may be applied to it. What we use then is a more flexible style of thinking, network thinking. In network thinking, the progress of a chain of reasoning is not constrained by binary patterns and thinking. At each node in the chain, there might be any number of different possible outcomes, not just two.

The laws of thought are particularly unhelpful to network thinking. In fact, I suspect they were developed to support and promote binary, scientific, thinking? They seem so clearly matched, to me. In later posts, I have no doubt that these 'laws' of thought will be individually considered, so I will not try to anticipate every possible opinion that might be expressed.

I will end this first post by repeating the question that defines my search: what are the fundamental axioms of thought?

I think the notion of axioms is dodgy, or at least needs caveating - which kinda undermines the point of them. My view of epistemology is that scepticism is justifiable and inevitably leads to solipsism, in the sense that all anyone can be certain of is the existence of their own conscious experience. That's the only sound axiom if you like, that my conscious experience exists.

Once you assume your own experience represents you interacting with a real world, then it seems safe to say the content of your experience is how you experientially model interacting with that world.

That should presumably be true for all experiencing subjects - that's as close to a shared axiom as I can get. Because the nature of that world is only accessible to us experiencing subjects as the content of our experience, in other words via our experiential models which result from how we interact with it. And because experience is private, we can't even reliably check that my blue isn't your green, my backwards isn't your forwards, my left isn't your right, my right isn't your wrong, etc. Even that my blue isn't your loud, or my yesterday isn't your tomorrow, my causal isn't your random, etc.

But lets assume my blue is like your blue, and so on. My reason, logic and causation is like yours. We're still only agreeing that we similar types of experiencing subjects create similar types of experiential models when we interact with the real world. Then what is axiomatic to us, is based on the fact that we have a similar experiential toolkits, not that we're getting to axioms about the ontologological reality we're experiencing. The way I experience interacting with the world might lead to me having similar notions of reason and logic to you and other other humans, just like my blue being like your blue, but that doesn't mean our logic or blue exists that way 'out there' in the world independently of our experience.

In this sense I think the difference between physical and metaphysical ways of knowing melts away too. Metaphysical epitemological methodologies, like empirical ones, are similarly based in how our interaction with the world is experientially modelled. The way we experience the world to work is where our foundational rules of logic come from, where our syntactical grammar and 'rules of thought' come from. So when the boffins tell us about QM - spooky action at a distance, or wave-particle duality, or reality being fundamentally probabilistic - it confounds us, it seems weird, and our axioms of logic go out the window. And QM too is just another interpretation which tries to make sense of how we human-shaped subjects experience the world, the latest in a long list.

[Stoppelmann]

I think the notion of axioms is dodgy, or at least needs caveating - which kinda undermines the point of them. My view of epistemology is that scepticism is justifiable and inevitably leads to solipsism, in the sense that all anyone can be certain of is the existence of their own conscious experience. That's the only sound axiom if you like, that my conscious experience exists.

Once you assume your own experience represents you interacting with a real world, then it seems safe to say the content of your experience is how you experientially model interacting with that world.

Although axioms are valuable tools for reasoning and thought, I too think it is important to recognize their contextuality, potential revisability, underlying assumptions, and epistemological implications. On the other hand, critical examination and scrutiny are essential in order to refine and improve our understanding of the world altogether, which is a part of what I think I am doing by following the principles I quoted. We have to check that we are talking about the same thing; that we are not making contradictory statements; that the propositions we are working from are either be true or false, and not somewhere between true and false; that we understand sufficiently the reason for or cause of what we are facing; that we are using logical reasoning to draw evidence based conclusions; and when there are multiple explanations or hypotheses for a phenomenon, we choose the simplest one to start with.

Interaction is something we principally need for all inquiry, the need for peer review in whatever way we can get it is extremely important, and in my case, we also needed the best qualified person, usually the doctor, to review a case. But that is my area of work, and perhaps it is different elsewhere, but having also done quality management, the principles seem to stick there as well.

That should presumably be true for all experiencing subjects - that's as close to a shared axiom as I can get. Because the nature of that world is only accessible to us experiencing subjects as the content of our experience, in other words via our experiential models which result from how we interact with it. And because experience is private, we can't even reliably check that my blue isn't your green, my backwards isn't your forwards, my left isn't your right, my right isn't your wrong, etc. Even that my blue isn't your loud, or my yesterday isn't your tomorrow, my causal isn't your random, etc.

But lets assume my blue is like your blue, and so on. My reason, logic and causation is like yours. We're still only agreeing that we similar types of experiencing subjects create similar types of experiential models when we interact with the real world. Then what is axiomatic to us, is based on the fact that we have a similar experiential toolkits, not that we're getting to axioms about the ontologological reality we're experiencing. The way I experience interacting with the world might lead to me having similar notions of reason and logic to you and other other humans, just like my blue being like your blue, but that doesn't mean our logic or blue exists that way 'out there' in the world independently of our experience.

I disagree here, because in my experience, the goal of inquiry is usually set. In health care it is health, which may have a spectrum, but together with the patient, we are looking at outcomes as far up the spectrum as we can achieve. My management plan had specified goals that were usually made by CEO’s and the like, and quality management is about identifying and complying with a definition of quality that a customer makes. We don’t enquire into the blue, but in cooperation to achieve a certain goal. Whether the specifics of my preferences match yours is neither here nor there, because our goal is to achieve an agreed specification.

In this sense I think the difference between physical and metaphysical ways of knowing melts away too. Metaphysical epitemological methodologies, like empirical ones, are similarly based in how our interaction with the world is experientially modelled. The way we experience the world to work is where our foundational rules of logic come from, where our syntactical grammar and 'rules of thought' come from. So when the boffins tell us about QM - spooky action at a distance, or wave-particle duality, or reality being fundamentally probabilistic - it confounds us, it seems weird, and our axioms of logic go out the window. And QM too is just another interpretation which tries to make sense of how we human-shaped subjects experience the world, the latest in a long list.

I think that metaphysical enquiry is an area where we are limited by what we do not know, and still the principles apply – perhaps more so, because we could end up not talking about the same thing or making contradictory statements; we could experience ambiguity or not understand sufficiently the reason for or cause of what we are facing; we could lack enough evidence for logical reasoning to draw conclusions; or we could be faced with multiple explanations or hypotheses for a phenomenon.

QM is just one of those fields in which our principles will be tested, and we might have to find new ones, based on the evidence and patterns we have, which we would hopefully work out collectively.

[Gertie]

I think the notion of axioms is dodgy, or at least needs caveating - which kinda undermines the point of them. My view of epistemology is that scepticism is justifiable and inevitably leads to solipsism, in the sense that all anyone can be certain of is the existence of their own conscious experience. That's the only sound axiom if you like, that my conscious experience exists.

Once you assume your own experience represents you interacting with a real world, then it seems safe to say the content of your experience is how you experientially model interacting with that world.

Although axioms are valuable tools for reasoning and thought, I too think it is important to recognize their contextuality, potential revisability, underlying assumptions, and epistemological implications. On the other hand, critical examination and scrutiny are essential in order to refine and improve our understanding of the world altogether, which is a part of what I think I am doing by following the principles I quoted. We have to check that we are talking about the same thing; that we are not making contradictory statements; that the propositions we are working from are either be true or false, and not somewhere between true and false; that we understand sufficiently the reason for or cause of what we are facing; that we are using logical reasoning to draw evidence based conclusions; and when there are multiple explanations or hypotheses for a phenomenon, we choose the simplest one to start with.

Interaction is something we principally need for all inquiry, the need for peer review in whatever way we can get it is extremely important, and in my case, we also needed the best qualified person, usually the doctor, to review a case. But that is my area of work, and perhaps it is different elsewhere, but having also done quality management, the principles seem to stick there as well.

That should presumably be true for all experiencing subjects - that's as close to a shared axiom as I can get. Because the nature of that world is only accessible to us experiencing subjects as the content of our experience, in other words via our experiential models which result from how we interact with it. And because experience is private, we can't even reliably check that my blue isn't your green, my backwards isn't your forwards, my left isn't your right, my right isn't your wrong, etc. Even that my blue isn't your loud, or my yesterday isn't your tomorrow, my causal isn't your random, etc.

But lets assume my blue is like your blue, and so on. My reason, logic and causation is like yours. We're still only agreeing that we similar types of experiencing subjects create similar types of experiential models when we interact with the real world. Then what is axiomatic to us, is based on the fact that we have a similar experiential toolkits, not that we're getting to axioms about the ontologological reality we're experiencing. The way I experience interacting with the world might lead to me having similar notions of reason and logic to you and other other humans, just like my blue being like your blue, but that doesn't mean our logic or blue exists that way 'out there' in the world independently of our experience.

I disagree here, because in my experience, the goal of inquiry is usually set. In health care it is health, which may have a spectrum, but together with the patient, we are looking at outcomes as far up the spectrum as we can achieve. My management plan had specified goals that were usually made by CEO’s and the like, and quality management is about identifying and complying with a definition of quality that a customer makes. We don’t enquire into the blue, but in cooperation to achieve a certain goal. Whether the specifics of my preferences match yours is neither here nor there, because our goal is to achieve an agreed specification.

In this sense I think the difference between physical and metaphysical ways of knowing melts away too. Metaphysical epitemological methodologies, like empirical ones, are similarly based in how our interaction with the world is experientially modelled. The way we experience the world to work is where our foundational rules of logic come from, where our syntactical grammar and 'rules of thought' come from. So when the boffins tell us about QM - spooky action at a distance, or wave-particle duality, or reality being fundamentally probabilistic - it confounds us, it seems weird, and our axioms of logic go out the window. And QM too is just another interpretation which tries to make sense of how we human-shaped subjects experience the world, the latest in a long list.

I think that metaphysical enquiry is an area where we are limited by what we do not know, and still the principles apply – perhaps more so, because we could end up not talking about the same thing or making contradictory statements; we could experience ambiguity or not understand sufficiently the reason for or cause of what we are facing; we could lack enough evidence for logical reasoning to draw conclusions; or we could be faced with multiple explanations or hypotheses for a phenomenon.

QM is just one of those fields in which our principles will be tested, and we might have to find new ones, based on the evidence and patterns we have, which we would hopefully work out collectively.

I'm answering PC's question at a more fundamental level than our everyday one.

You can build up a set of assumptions which humans with our particular knowing/experiential toolkit share, which we can usefully agree on in everyday life and will work for us. But these are necessarily assumptions about the underlying ontological reality imo (including what reason and logic is), for the reasons I outlined.

I think that's what PC is asking us to get down into.

[Stoppelmann]

I'm answering PC's question at a more fundamental level than our everyday one.

You can build up a set of assumptions which humans with our particular knowing/experiential toolkit share, which we can usefully agree on in everyday life and will work for us. But these are necessarily assumptions about the underlying ontological reality imo (including what reason and logic is), for the reasons I outlined.

I think that's what PC is asking us to get down into.

I appreciate what you are saying, but the question of underlying ontological reality and the nature of reason and logic have been debated by scholars throughout history, with different philosophical schools of thought propose various perspectives on these matters. It is questionable whether we will find a single perspective that satisfies everybody. This debate is spread out amongst various topics even on this forum.

For example, what is widely advocated is realism, which understandably posits that there is an objective reality that exists independently of human perception or cognition, and reason and logic are tools that humans use to understand and navigate this underlying reality. Reason and logic are certainly reliable means of accessing truth and knowledge about the world, the weak point is our means of perception, which we know is an interpretation of the stimuli that our senses present us, which is fortunately unified by nature, but apt to being deceived. Our perception is always directed towards something, and we assign meaning to the objects of our perception based on our intentional acts. This intentional stance shapes our interpretation of reality.

The principles I quoted seem to help us with critical thinking, empirical investigation, and logical analysis, so that we can attempt to verify, corroborate, or challenge our perceptual experiences. Using such methods, reason and logic can be employed to go beyond mere sensory input and engage in abstract thinking, inference, and the evaluation of evidence. I don’t see this as any different to methodical thinking in other fields, in which we equally must cope with the way our everyday interactions, cultural context, and linguistic frameworks that influence our understanding of reality, play a significant role in shaping our perception and interpretation of the world by providing us with a shared set of meanings and conceptual categories.

However, we could also be suffering under a false perspective. Idealism, as you may have seen me say on other topics, asserts that the underlying reality is fundamentally consciousness, and reason and logic are products of the human mind which are constructed within the framework of our consciousness. In this view, reason and logic are tools for interpreting and organizing our subjective experiences rather than direct access to an external reality. In alignment with phenomenology, idealism sees our experience of the world is not a direct encounter with an objective reality but rather a subjective interpretation shaped by our consciousness and the meanings we assign to phenomena, shaped by the language we use.

Of course, in our times pragmatism is employed in many areas to emphasize the practical consequences and usefulness of ideas and concepts, which have a direct impact on our economic framework. From a pragmatist perspective, reason and logic are instrumental tools that enable us to make predictions, solve problems, and achieve practical outcomes and drives the global markets. Its focus is on the practical efficacy of reasoning rather than on its alignment with a specific ontological reality but tends to ignore the holistic consequences. This seems to be a result of left-hemisphere thinking (McGilchrist) which hates ambiguity so much that it ignores it and pushes policies despite the uncertainty of outcome. We also see it in the globalisation of markets, the interventions in foreign countries without exit strategies, and the rush to bring products onto the market, without testing their effects on health.

Of course, you also have those who suggest that reality is actively constructed by individuals or communities through their cognitive processes and social interactions. Reason and logic are seen as socially constructed frameworks that shape our understanding of reality. In this view, reason and logic are contingent upon cultural, historical, and individual factors, and we have a widespread move to deconstruct the views that have been fundamental to building society.

So, we are in a difficult position when we want to find fundamental axioms of reason and thought, and those I quoted seem to be efficient if we take the complications mentioned above into consideration. Of course, nothing is fixed, and we may expand on these axioms, but that will be the task of wiser people than me.

[Pattern-chaser]

The excluded middle also has issues, often misapplied by painting graded situations as black & white.

Yes, as I mentioned, sometimes subjects are forced into the mould of binary thinking when it is inappropriate and therefore unhelpful.

Although Stoppelman's emergency example showed a practical application of the principle, which perhaps could be summarised as 'Make up your bloody mind'?

I took trouble, in earlier posts, to emphasise the utility of binary thinking, wherever it is the appropriate mode of thought/thinking. It's only when it is misapplied that the problems begin, as we have both commented.

Whatever, I always look for the middle - the "shoreline" that lies between entities. IMO, blurred boundary areas are often interesting and can be highly informative as to the nature of phenomena.

The middle, excluded or not, is (as you say) the area where most of the action takes place, so it's probably where we should start looking. ... In many circumstances, but not all, of course. On occasion, binary thinking — where only the extremes exist, and the middle is excluded — is what we want and need.

[The Beast]

Another way is to consider thought as the fifth fundamental force with logical and formal propositions. As such the perceptual beauty is a formal proposition of thought. Networking would be another.