Part 2 (episode 3): The Reason ‘Why?’
To ask the question ‘Why’ is as natural to us as breathing. Just as in breathing we do not have to ask why we breathe (although we could), we do not usually ask why we ask the question ‘Why’ (although we also could).
At a certain stage of growing up and without prompting a child will naturally ask ‘Why’ about everything. As adults we field these questions and try to give sensible answers to apparently simple questions. Until that is they go beyond the horizon of our understanding of why the child is asking or our available patience.
Is the child looking for answers? Did you, as a child, look for answers? Or, at least, did the answers received ever satisfy that need to ask ‘Why’, and thereby to ask it again and again? Or does the asking represent an instinctive search for an unknown centre; the child’s own nucleus of reason? [See Part 2 episode 1; ‘Finding Oneself in an Intelligent Universe’]
Perhaps then, rather than answers, children are looking to us to hold them by the hand and show them around the unfamiliar place in which they are trying to find themselves before they get caught up in the tangled undergrowth of contradictory grown up answers.
Reason naturally begins with wondering ‘why’ but reason itself has two directives that behave like oil and water. Water is polar and oil is non-polar and they do not easily mix. Shake them up but eventually they settle into two zones, heavy below and light above. Yet there is a special combination of mixture whereby if the two are fine enough and gravity no longer an influence, they adopt a new state referred to as a colloid. Milk (fat and water) for example is such a colloidal state.
The structural principles that shape these two directives of reason are signified by (2) the principle of polarity and (3) the principle of non-polarity. Polar and non-polar are the basis of two logics.
As spirit potentials however they have a deeper function. If this doesn’t stretch the analogy too far it could be said that the spiritual directive (3:2) which combines polar and non-polar has the potential of a finer mixture of the two logics that is akin to a colloidal state; a state of reason that is held in suspension.
In the commentary ‘Intimacy as a Self-Persuasion Argument’ the triadic or non-polar principle, also called Presence, was explored through the three valued logic of the nuclear triad: Sameness, Difference and Greater.
Here, in Part 2, the commentary is going to look at the polar or two-valued logic also from a spiritual perspective; beyond its being a method of axiomatic deduction.
From a classical viewpoint 2-valued logic represents an ideal that reason should aspire to in the sense that it calls upon reason to show evidence of its’ self-consistency and completeness. For the Greek philosopher Aristotle, self-consistency is summed up by the 2nd law of logic; the law of non-contradiction whereas completeness is driven by the 3rd law of logic; the law of the excluded middle.
Self-consistency, or the exclusion of internal contradiction within a reasoned argument, and completeness, or the certainty of conclusion by excluding of any vague or middle way, is obviously reasons’ struggle with the nature of (2) as a polarising structure.
Reason tailored by 2-valued logic tries to banish the uncertain 3rd value for the sake of completeness. And yet, in truth, it can only put the non-polar triadic potential on hold or into a state of forgetfulness. For, if the triadic principle rings true for a person, it is not the final answer to a question so much as a step into an awakening state. And the child asks ‘why’ because they are seeking to wake up.
The argument of binary logic would seem to be that, if reason can demonstrate its completeness and non-contradiction under its super-vision, then subjecting reasoning to this more forensic form of a true/false diagnostic should provide a more certain knowledge about the World. At least this was the hope.
In a historical setting philosophy takes a back seat and to the extent that human history has been driven by those simply with the power to act, reason has not been well supervised. In the end logic seems not to have played much of a part in why those in power do what they do except by way of self-justification, for which there are plenty of examples in every age.
There is, however, an abductive component in 2-valued logic that over time shows itself as a self-conscious awareness in the process of history. The spiritual aspiration of 2-valued logic becomes evident in various shifts that have taken place in the perception of how we, as a collective species, have come to expose previously hidden self-contradictions between what we suppose we are (human) and what we actually are (persons) by what history in reality demonstrates.
We can look back upon what evidence we have about historical outcomes and make the analysis of good or bad. But will it not be the case that future generations will look back at our present situation and wonder at our own stupidity. If, that is, the human race has a future.
Tailored by 2-valued logic reason can become reductive upon how we see the World. But the spiritual aspiration within reason is to become reductive upon our own assumptions. In co-relation with 3-valued logic the reason why we do what we do can be placed on hold, standing back from the momentum of history in order to reason our reason.
Ever since the employment of some form of logical instrument the binary approach to reason has been sorely in need of spiritual grounding.
In the east there is the tetralemma, a logical instrument often used in Indian philosophy and Buddhist logic providing four possibilities and not just two (dilemma). In the west there is the Socratic Method or dialectic which holds back the tendency of an argument to its pre-emptive closure. More up to date there is Charles Sanders Pierce’s abduction which opens reason to the fields of open pre-spective intuition. This commentary would claim that all these instruments of reason are attempts at giving spiritual grounding to the binary potential without losing the power of critical thinking.
Spiritual grounding is a sensibility which seems to be specifically human, i.e. not biologically sourced (including the brain) and is driven by the need to be, and not just seen to be or heard to be, free of self-contradiction as a personal attribute. At points where self-contradiction seems to be retrospectively evident, these realizations are either points of admission to oneself or points where the logic of the whole situation becomes hidden from consciousness.
And that which was hidden was certainly a target for one of the earliest examples of the triadic persuasion within reasoned discourse. Using the awareness of contradiction as leverage to reveal hidden assumptions Socrates challenged inadequate answers to the questions he posed. From all accounts Socrates’ position in relation to his fellow Athenians was to point out the self-contradictions that reside in the politics of assumed authority.
For obvious reasons those who claimed to speak with such authority weren’t keen to have a mirror held up to them and, in the course of time, Socrates was condemned to death for the charge of ‘impiety’ and ‘corrupting the young’; charges something akin to questioning prevailing beliefs and encouraging others (the young) to do the same.
Get Ronnie Lingard’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The famous story of the life and death of Socrates along with that of many other spiritually committed historical figures known and unknown is a powerful historical argument that consistency of reasoning in self about one’s self-action in the World has a spiritual motive. And that the internal logic of that self-diagnostic has to stand absolutely to the person alone. It is something for which Socrates was prepared to die rather than renounce.
The following statement in italics about this self-diagnostic challenge of spirit potential (2), something that we may personally understand as the inner freedom to decide yes or no about one’s own actions, even in the face of the most challenging and threatening environments such as ridicule, excommunication or even torture and death is an attempt to put this deeper need that goes beyond life into a language that is hand-in-hand with that of the persuasion argument of intimacy outlined in Part 1 episode 4.
Spirit potential (3) has within its configuration an implicit admission to the awareness of not-being-alone and thus respect, a spiritual persuasion of ‘other’ as Presence, and this was presented in Part 1 through the nuclear triad Sameness, Difference and Greater. But the binary potential as a self-deciding life is a ‘stand-alone’ logic self-to-self.
Both (3) and (2) call upon the same spiritual ground albeit from different perspectives. As a mutually implicated combination, the nucleus of reason (3) along with the diagnostic intelligence self-exclusion (2), together represent configurations that offer increasing refinement of the spiritual directive (3:2). Such a spiritual directive, like a life-line weaving its way through the tribulations of history, is an evolving story of trial and error that has now reached a critical threshold.
Since the birth of philosophy as a method of rational inquiry logic has been an instrument in which human reason has put its faith. Much as we would put our faith in a guide who knows a particular terrain to take us safely to the destination of a journey, reason has put its faith in logic to guide it through the gates of true and false.
But if you ask an ordinary person if they are willing to put their faith in logic they will probably have a reservation in them. Not only in terms of not fully trusting those who claim to be acting with the certainty of an absolutely worked-out rational argument but, deeper, there is an instinctive feeling that logic, in the sense of something being completely certain, ultimately reduces human possibility and somehow turns what we do into something mechanical; something that without due care and attention can override a deeper human capability to respond to a greater need that may, to ordinary eyes, seem unreasonable and illogical.
The caution that we ‘ordinary-folk’ perhaps feel is that too much certainty is a barrier against going beyond the accepted view of who we are and consequently takes away the freedom to choose by other means or sensibilities and thus ultimately negates the spirit as a deeper motivation that drives human will at times of almost impossible adversity. Too much certainty is even perhaps anti-human.
And further, that sometimes to act in the opposite way of the rational, such as to put oneself in personal danger to save a complete stranger or animal in distress, or to battle against impossible odds for a greater good, that such heroic acts summon from within us the very core of what it means to be human.
So what if binary logic is not just a set of rules for filtering out contradiction but a deep seated pre-potent, spiritual quality that drives human activity abductively (by Absence) and thus reaches beyond its self-limitations and, ultimately, something that is more powerful as a human directive than rationality alone…a directive not only to guide reason through the gates of true and false but also to act as a more primary directive to the whole of us?
Perhaps then, Logic, in this primary form of a powerful directive to the more of us (beyond our ordinary reasonability), rather than negating human will, as that power which finds a way in spite of overwhelming odds, may even be or become the very substance of will, if ‘substance’ is the correct word here. But will not as a personalized property, Will as a throughout or even collective property felt, perceived, understood as persuasive to the inner courts of what it means to be human.
The keyway that runs from spiritual logic…to a greater Will, would take a different path from the one it takes that leads to resultant knowledge. In the case of resultant knowledge logic may well be a determinant of reason as the one and only path that an argument can take (premise A to conclusion B via the logical instrument C) but, in the case of Will, logic can be the determinant of a pure act — the one and only path an action can take.
Think of the example above of the heroic act, how could any person go beyond reasonability unless that act was felt at the time to be the only possible course of action. Perhaps then Logic in this greater sense of spiritual persuasion is not a separation from the World but a source of being in the World. A source acting as a higher human directive occurring as a determinant in the understanding, or the feeling, or the intuition, or the conscience, that motivates or liberates or even becomes Will as a necessary strength drawn from the Logic of the whole situation.
But understood or felt by what? Logic in the sense of having access to a deeper resource is certainly something very difficult to put into language and, yet, when witnessed in such acts of selfless bravery and direct action has the power to move us all deeply.
Is logic therefore not just an instrument of analytical reason but, deeper, something that sheds light on the inner life task of understanding the whole situation as a human historical as well as cosmological imperative?
The spirit in which this statement is written is not authoritative but stands to each person alone in the uniqueness of a person’s own living/spiritual diagnostic.
Using the example of the heroic act is a way of describing the extreme situation where, when the need is plain to see, all contradiction magically disappears without the need for analysis. In its place is the summoning of a greater inner resource to override the uncertainty of an understandable hesitation when committing to any heroic and possibly life-threatening act.
If the potency of such a resource is to be sustained, to grow and develop over time as an individual or even collective property, then perhaps it may persist through time in much the same way that evolution has been found to grow and develop through time, by the branching genealogies of a nucleated template.
Perhaps it may be possible then to speak of a ‘spiritual genetic’ as a template of coded values that holds to more than one centre; a collective multi-nucleated template of reason.
The brain, the mind and other mental structures may well be the functioning part of the diagnostic intelligence of such a nucleating power. But perhaps it is access to this spiritual resource that brings together person intelligence and design intelligence as a combined double helix of this proposed spiritual genetic.
If reason is blind when it finds itself in the unknown and its’ how-should-I-be language therefore not certain then perhaps it’s the presence of this spiritual resource which provides us with the eyes to see or a voice to speak.
The roots of the word logic can be found in the term logos which originally meant words spoken and the spoken word has certainly been a powerful tool in the hands of those who claim to lead the way. But if words are to be a measure then perhaps it is ‘what truly speaks’ or ‘what needs to be said’ rather than the logic of the argument that gives it spiritual power.
Thank you for taking the time to read this episode, please comment if you are inclined to…
