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[Pattern-chaser]

Subjectivity can be paraphrased as “It is not a lie if you believe it is true”

This is an aside, not part of the mainstream of this discussion, but this does not sit well with me. "Subjectivity" is used, in philosophy, and by philosophers, to mean "not-Objective". This is a long way away from so-called 'alt-truth' — i.e. lies — which I think is what you are describing here?

[Pattern-chaser]

Are there 'standards' (laws, rules, guidelines, proverbs, old-wives-tales, etc) fundamental to reason?

Are there axioms underlying those standards, if the standards exist?

If any of these exist, where should we look for them? Where are they?

*What* are they???

Well, I have given you several, but there are of course various perspectives.

Well yes, you have. But I am looking for something that I begin to suspect does not exist. Something like the much-vaunted 'Laws of Thought', but applicable to all aspects and uses of serious and considered thought. So far, no-one has offered any such thing. And, since no-one here has offered them, I am tending toward the conclusion that there is no such thing. So I reverse my question:

Is it true that there are no 'laws' or axioms that serve as a foundation for reason?

[Gertie]

...

Our observations are flawed and incomplete, part of the useful model of the world we create in our minds in order to successfully navigate the world, and the 'rules of thought' arise from this useful way of experientially modelling the actual world into something coherent and thus useful for us.

...

So human Logic, Reason and Causation which are rooted in making sense of our observations, seem to be part of our constructed human experiential representation of reality, which work well enough for us to successfully navigate the world.

I agree that it seems reasonable () for our conception of reason to begin by osmosis, so to speak, 'derived' from the world in which we exist. But in many other areas of knowledge, we have begun this way, and subsequently 'firmed up' our ideas, formalising them. Is there such a formalisation for reason itself, or does it remain as it began, the vaguely-defined result of unconscious pattern-recognition?

A creative type of osmosis would be a good way of putting it - I might steal that . The creative aspect is highlighted if we remember our experiential model represents, and is itself, the nature of how we humans interact with the real world. It's a representation of that particular type of human interaction, and the model IS the interaction. (Unless you're a naive realist, but that seems a long shot).

If you're looking for an 'in between' the what's going on of that, and the sort of 'rules of thought' like the rules of logic, then maybe you could say reason is about structurally formatting ''If....then'' thinking out of our observations? The basic format for that we've come up with ARE the laws of logic, and I'd add causation.

[Gertie]

I'm saying that our human notions of reason, logic and causality are ultimately rooted in the way we humans consciously experience being in the world and interacting with it.

We open our eyes to observe a world of stuff and change - matter in motion. We check with each other that we observe the world similarly, and we broadly do, each from our own embodied specific perspective located in space and time.

We note the physical stuff of the world like trees, toasters and brains with certain characteristics like colour, weight, definable edges and size. Then science tells us this is an experiential model we create in our minds when we interact experientially with the world of fundamental wave-particles. They say at that more fundamental level of reality the basic rules of logic don't apply. Fundamental particles can simultaneously have the incompatible properties of both waves and particles. Even A = A doesn't hold, that's something we create in our minds, like colour and defined edges.

We note change often happens in patterned ways, which can be predicted. And explained by science with theories and forces acting on particles which are ultimately probabilistic and relationally inter-woven through everything. But the way we experience it is as causation, for us it seems This A causes That B (Iike snooker balls colliding), which reliably works for us.

I appreciate this and agree with what you are saying, the problem is how to get beyond a description of the world to a plan of how to integrate this knowledge into a way ahead.

That's certainly a tangential problem, which can be answered a number of ways. Reason has a role to play, for all practical purposes reason and physicalism do the job day-to-day of helping us navigate the world.

For all of our new awareness, we seem to neglect the fact that, in a simplified way, many of the paradoxical experiences we have in the world were identified long, long ago. The fact that we can now describe them in more detail doesn’t help us existentially, because we are not cooperatively looking for solutions to existential problems, instead more often than not, we are short-sightedly looking for new markets.

Different framings of the untractable mysteries come along which work better for us than others. It would be silly to ignore thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and say it makes zero difference, just because some things seem destined to remain unknowable. For example the progress of physicalism based science means that I, like billions of others, will live longer, suffer less and have a much better quality of life. That's more than can be said for any other ontological ism out there, and its importance shouldn't be dismissed. Of course we also do stupid stuff with this knowledge, but ontological isms aren't in the biz of imbuing wisdom, that's up to us.

Our observations are flawed and incomplete, part of the useful model of the world we create in our minds in order to successfully navigate the world, and the 'rules of thought' arise from this useful way of experientially modelling the actual world into something coherent and thus useful for us. (And our language, including the thinky voice in our heads we reason with, naturally reflects our observations of what the world is made of and how it works. Words label the stuff, and the syntax of grammar reflects how we experience that stuff interacts - Subject --> Verb --> Object.).

So human Logic, Reason and Causation which are rooted in making sense of our observations, seem to be part of our constructed human experiential representation of reality, which work well enough for us to successfully navigate the world. (Hoffman call this Darwinian Fictions, and Seth talks of conscious experience as being in the biz of making useful predictions. I think there's something to that, and Logic, Reason and Causation can be contextualised that way too, rather thanindependently existing outside of that for us to discover).

I find it interesting that notable scientists have suggested the use of meditation and contemplation as a means to cope with the abundance of scientific knowledge:

I don't find that interesting. But then I don't find meditation to be much of a stress reliever. It works for some, not others. We each have our own ways of dealing with our own existential issues like stress, and if it works for you that's great. (Btw I also dislike the habit of cherry picking a few scientists' comments to back up a non-scientific pov, it's a cheap way to make a case - and often smacks of disingenuousness to me when people quote scientists on something which isn't their area of expertise to support an anti-science position. It's a bit of a bug bear of mine).

[Gertie]

I'm saying that our human notions of reason, logic and causality are ultimately rooted in the way we humans consciously experience being in the world and interacting with it.

...

Our observations are flawed and incomplete, part of the useful model of the world we create in our minds in order to successfully navigate the world, and the 'rules of thought' arise from this useful way of experientially modelling the actual world into something coherent and thus useful for us. (And our language, including the thinky voice in our heads we reason with, naturally reflects our observations of what the world is made of and how it works. Words label the stuff, and the syntax of grammar reflects how we experience that stuff interacts - Subject --> Verb --> Object.).

So human Logic, Reason and Causation which are rooted in making sense of our observations, seem to be part of our constructed human experiential representation of reality, which work well enough for us to successfully navigate the world. (Hoffman call this Darwinian Fictions, and Seth talks of conscious experience as being in the biz of making useful predictions. I think there's something to that, and Logic, Reason and Causation can be contextualised that way too, rather thanindependently existing outside of that for us to discover).

The crisis of thought (or lack of it) presents itself as doctrines. The reason for this is a crisis of the understanding or worse. How do we relate “an effect without a cause” with the decision of conscious discrimination. As for the “principle” of enantiodromia we must have a positive POV when dealing with the inconsistencies of human nature and congruent with the apocatastasis. Logically, negative or positive transformations have different outcomes.

Beast, if you want a response from me I'm afraid you'll have to re-phrase this more simply, I'm struggling to parse what you're saying.

[Stoppelmann]

Btw I also dislike the habit of cherry picking a few scientists' comments to back up a non-scientific pov, it's a cheap way to make a case - and often smacks of disingenuousness to me when people quote scientists on something which isn't their area of expertise to support an anti-science position. It's a bit of a bug bear of mine.

Well, we all have bugs to bear. It is strange that you assume that I am presenting an “anti-science” position, which makes me ask what on earth do you think science is? Iain McGilchrist once quoted philosopher Bryan Magee, saying, “To many working scientists’, science seems very obviously to suggest an ultimate explanation, namely a materialist one; but a materialist view of total reality is a metaphysics, not a scientific theory. There is no possibility whatever of scientifically proving, or disproving, it. The fact that it is held by many scientists no more makes it a scientific theory than it can be said to be an economic theory because it is held (no doubt) by many economists.” I tend to find that this is true.

We are here talking about the fundamental axioms of reason and thought, and the word ‘axiom’ comes from the Greek word axia, meaning value. In other words, reason is founded on what are in essence value judgments, which means essentially, that our reasoning and decision-making are not purely objective or value-neutral but are shaped by our personal values, beliefs, biases, and preferences. Meditation can potentially influence value judgments in several ways, e.g., increased self-awareness, reduced reactivity and emotional regulation, an expanded perspective and empathy, and clarity of values and priorities, to name a few.

Values refer to the principles, standards, or qualities that individuals or societies consider important or desirable. Values can encompass moral, ethical, cultural, or personal preferences. Since values vary among individuals and cultures, they introduce subjectivity into the reasoning process. Different people may hold different values and prioritize them differently, leading to varied interpretations and judgments. In turn, our values influence how we perceive and evaluate information, how we interpret evidence, and how we construct arguments. Our subjective values shape the criteria we use to assess the validity or significance of evidence and the weight we assign to different arguments. This subjectivity can influence the logical conclusions we draw from available information.

But reasoning is not solely concerned with factual or logical analysis but often involves ethical or normative considerations. Ethical judgments involve value-based assessments of what is morally right, just, or desirable. These judgments inform our reasoning and guide us in making decisions that align with our values and ethical principles. And it often relies on underlying assumptions, and these assumptions are not value neutral. They can be influenced by our values, cultural norms, and personal biases. These value-laden assumptions can impact the premises we accept, the arguments we find persuasive, and the conclusions we reach.

So, it seems that reason and rationality are not detached from our subjective values but are intertwined with them. Our values play a significant role in shaping the reasoning process, influencing the way we perceive information, make judgments, and arrive at conclusions. Recognizing the presence of value judgments in reasoning helps us understand the inherent subjectivity in our decision-making processes and encourages critical reflection on the influence of our values on our rationality.

Of course, the effects of meditation on value judgments are complex and can vary from person to person. The transformative potential of meditation lies in the cultivation of mindfulness, self-awareness, and compassionate understanding, which can contribute to more conscious and values-aligned decision-making.

[The Beast]

Subjectivity can be paraphrased as “It is not a lie if you believe it is true”

This is an aside, not part of the mainstream of this discussion, but this does not sit well with me. "Subjectivity" is used, in philosophy, and by philosophers, to mean "not-Objective". This is a long way away from so-called 'alt-truth' — i.e. lies — which I think is what you are describing here?

PC: are you searching for logical or proper principles? Logic presents Honesty. In my opinion it is a principle of conscious minds. Is it? And if not, what honestly is it then? A doctrine? A principle with no meaning or a laughable principle? The logical heel of human nature or a restrictive imperative?... and does it weigh in any conscious decision? Does it weigh more, or does it weigh less? Is there such a thing as too honest? Or does mean “too honest for the task”? These are the typical imprecisions of language. A binary yes or no applied to a function causing unexpected results in the collective consciousness. PC. Do you have any collective restrictions on honesty? Do you have personal power over Honesty? A proof of free will?

[Pattern-chaser]

...

Our observations are flawed and incomplete, part of the useful model of the world we create in our minds in order to successfully navigate the world, and the 'rules of thought' arise from this useful way of experientially modelling the actual world into something coherent and thus useful for us.

...

So human Logic, Reason and Causation which are rooted in making sense of our observations, seem to be part of our constructed human experiential representation of reality, which work well enough for us to successfully navigate the world.

I agree that it seems reasonable () for our conception of reason to begin by osmosis, so to speak, 'derived' from the world in which we exist. But in many other areas of knowledge, we have begun this way, and subsequently 'firmed up' our ideas, formalising them. Is there such a formalisation for reason itself, or does it remain as it began, the vaguely-defined result of unconscious pattern-recognition?

A creative type of osmosis would be a good way of putting it - I might steal that .

You're welcome!

The creative aspect is highlighted if we remember our experiential model represents, and is itself, the nature of how we humans interact with the real world. It's a representation of that particular type of human interaction, and the model IS the interaction. (Unless you're a naive realist, but that seems a long shot).

First, I think the relationship between reason and creativity is not a simple one. They can and do exist alongside one another, co-operating-with and complementing each other. But they cannot both be applied to the same thing at the same time, I don't think. In that sense, they are (or can be) incompatible.

Yes, our internal mental models are the buffer that isolates us from the real world, keeping us safe from it! Those models are 'where' we live, not the real world. It is only from within our models that we seem to have any understanding or control at all. We integrate what we sense into our models, and only then, after this integration, can we perceive whatever our senses detected. Is this the same as saying "the model IS the interaction"? I think it might be.

If you're looking for an 'in between' the what's going on of that, and the sort of 'rules of thought' like the rules of logic, then maybe you could say reason is about structurally formatting ''If....then'' thinking out of our observations? The basic format for that we've come up with ARE the laws of logic, and I'd add causation.

I'm not confident in parsing this last, and possibly most interesting, paragraph. Are you saying that reason adds or removes "if ... then" thinking?

Oh, and if we add causation, wouldn't that make it impossible for us to consider (using reason, of course) the possibility of uncaused events? But maybe that's taking flexibility of thought too far? I'm not sure. After all, reason would surely steer us away from chaotic, unstructured or incoherent thought, but is that a shortcoming, or is it exactly what reason should do? So maybe causation does belong here. <not yet convinced, but not unconvinced>

[Pattern-chaser]

Logic presents Honesty. In my opinion it is a principle of conscious minds.

In my opinion, logic alone is not up to the task you have set for it — honesty. Mostly, logic concerns the structure of an argument, not the argument itself. It is reason that governs the content of a specific argument. But that's just wondering about where we draw the line, between logic and reason, and that is why, in my OP, I bundled the two together, to ensure I captured both, and left nothing out.

But logic alone falls far short of an understanding of reason, thinking and thought.

[Pattern-chaser]

But reasoning is not solely concerned with factual or logical analysis but often involves ethical or normative considerations.

Yes, and these subjects can be studied using serious and considered thought. That is why I shied away, from the start of this topic, from reasoning as an analytic or scientific thing. It is that, and more. [It's obvious from the rest of your post that you are well aware of this.]

[The Beast]

I'm saying that our human notions of reason, logic and causality are ultimately rooted in the way we humans consciously experience being in the world and interacting with it.

...

Our observations are flawed and incomplete, part of the useful model of the world we create in our minds in order to successfully navigate the world, and the 'rules of thought' arise from this useful way of experientially modelling the actual world into something coherent and thus useful for us. (And our language, including the thinky voice in our heads we reason with, naturally reflects our observations of what the world is made of and how it works. Words label the stuff, and the syntax of grammar reflects how we experience that stuff interacts - Subject --> Verb --> Object.).

So human Logic, Reason and Causation which are rooted in making sense of our observations, seem to be part of our constructed human experiential representation of reality, which work well enough for us to successfully navigate the world. (Hoffman call this Darwinian Fictions, and Seth talks of conscious experience as being in the biz of making useful predictions. I think there's something to that, and Logic, Reason and Causation can be contextualised that way too, rather thanindependently existing outside of that for us to discover).

The crisis of thought (or lack of it) presents itself as doctrines. The reason for this is a crisis of the understanding or worse. How do we relate “an effect without a cause” with the decision of conscious discrimination. As for the “principle” of enantiodromia we must have a positive POV when dealing with the inconsistencies of human nature and congruent with the apocatastasis. Logically, negative or positive transformations have different outcomes.

Beast, if you want a response from me I'm afraid you'll have to re-phrase this more simply, I'm struggling to parse what you're saying.

I find it useful to the understanding to use a function and not a proposition. Your musings of “flawed and incomplete observations” might give track to the idea of the function of existence. However, there is no agreement to when existence is positive or negative whether is 60% or 40% since there is bias towards the senses and logical systems work for logical minds. Children are removed from the equation, then critical states of consciousness are removed, then dishonest members and lastly operators with restricted operational methods leave humanity in the conundrum of meaning. As with restricted operational methods I am making clear that this refers to Kant and others with the critique of reason and the restriction of metaphysical as QM wasn’t an identity. Do you consider consciousness (force) as existing and if so, is it local or Universal or both. In some language theories this identity is one of rhetorical predicates that are not binary at all. Any binary or not?

[Gertie]

PC

We integrate what we sense into our models, and only then, after this integration, can we perceive whatever our senses detected. Is this the same as saying "the model IS the interaction"? I think it might be.

Yeah I think so, in the sense that the nature of conscious experience is that it IS its content.  And each experiencing subject has their own unique experiential model from their own unique pov, therefore each model  is how each subject interacts with say a tree or learning the theory of gravity.   The shared  'meta-model' of eg physicalism is what we inter-subjectively agree about when we humans compare our own experience-models about what's jointly (publically) observable/measurable

The automatic integration of new experience to make sense within the existing model is one of the ways we keep the model coherent and therefore useful.  The same with the way attention, focus, sensitivity to change, and that thinky voice in our heads giving a running commentary keeps everything intelligible and coherent, and we don't get overwhelmed by a cacophany of sights, sounds, memories, sensations from every inch of our body, etc.

Gertie wrote: ↑June 24th, 2023, 3:34 pm If you're looking for an 'in between' the what's going on of that, and the sort of 'rules of thought' like the rules of logic, then maybe you could say reason is about structurally formatting ''If....then'' thinking out of our observations? The basic format for that we've come up with ARE the laws of logic, and I'd add causation.
I'm not confident in parsing this last, and possibly most interesting, paragraph. Are you saying that reason adds or removes "if ... then" thinking?

I'm suggesting causation as the way we do ''If...then'' thinking? If the basic rules of logic are essentially about making sense of the underlying nature of how things are/must be (A=A), then causation is about how things behave. (Both based on the way we experience the world).  Eg every action has a reaction, something can't come from nothing, input and output, etc are causal ways we understand change.

Oh, and if we add causation, wouldn't that make it impossible for us to consider (using reason, of course) the possibility of uncaused events?

We can use language to create abstract concepts, and manipulate those concepts, to consider  things like uncaused events, regardless of whether it's logical or can be reasoned. Eg the cosmological argument for god relies on reasoning that you can't get something from nothing, reason dictates there has to be a  creator Prime Mover, because that's how we experience the world to work.

But maybe that's taking flexibility of thought too far? I'm not sure. After all, reason would surely steer us away from chaotic, unstructured or incoherent thought, but is that a shortcoming, or is it exactly what reason should do? So maybe causation does belong here.

In terms of the experiential model's utility, reason's  job is to help make the world usefully coherent and navigable.  If we take Hoffman's description of our experiential model as a  Darwinian Fiction as analogous, it doesn't have to be true or accurate, it just has to work for our purposes.  The way we think,  along with moods, sensory perception, sensations like pain and hunger, memory - all useful in themselves, and all integrated into an overall  coherent model which maps out the world and ourselves within it.

In terms of ontological reality, if reason is rooted in utility, it's unreliable as a way of understanding how the world really is and how it works. What I think we can say, is that causal reasoning latches onto underlying real patterns, because it's successfully  predictive. 

[Belindi]

I don't believe in any"fundamental" axioms of thought . Thought is biological, for predicting the future, and depends upon what works in any given set of historical circumstances.
Great and amiable Spinoza believed in fundamental axioms of thought from which all his reasoning depended, and this is why he is said to be "God-obsessed".

[Pattern-chaser]

A surprising result — to me — of this topic is that many of the really thoughtful replies seem to think that Reason is embodied, at least in part? I didn't expect that.

[Pattern-chaser]

I don't believe in any"fundamental" axioms of thought. Thought is biological, for predicting the future, and depends upon what works in any given set of historical circumstances.
Great and amiable Spinoza believed in fundamental axioms of thought from which all his reasoning depended, and this is why he is said to be "God-obsessed".

The introduction to my OP:

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.

It seems unlikely to me that there is nothing underlying Reason. Surely there must be some guidelines, somewhere? Surely Reason has a foundation of some sort, upon which the rest of it is based? Hence my quest for axioms, or the like. Foundation. Justification. ...