In another thread, there was the suggestion that the following statement of CAS's

Quote:

All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe.

may be self-refuting.

I was actually glad to see this suggestion arise, as it dovetails with a somewhat recent interest of mine in post-Classical logic.

Believe it or not, logic has not sat still since the time of Aristotle. Even if we were to accept the notion that logic should be the final arbiter of the wisdom of CAS's statement (I do not), there are actually any number of post-Classical developments in logic that potentially dispose of the alleged self-refutation problem quite nicely: Russell and Whitehead's Theory of Logical Typing (meta-statements), axiomatic probability theory, fuzzy set theory and possibility theory, dialetheism, fallabilism, paraconsistent logic, and neutrosophy, to name only a few. Fuzzy logic, dialetheism, and neutrosophy are of particular interest, as they convincingly assail the law of the excluded middle and reduce, even eliminate, the need for meta-statements.

So, those who are serious about this subject have ample matter to explore. I leave that to them, though, even at the risk of being accused once again (and ignorantly) of empty citation of authority and mere regurgitation. There's a significant difference between that and between providing material for others to make discoveries on their own, and all the playground-level prodding in the world isn't going to induce me to do others' work for them, especially since no one did mine for me.

Of course, when one explores this area, one should also keep in mind that

Quote:

All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe.

;-)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 27 Nov 11 | 10:30AM by Absquatch.

I do not see why this statement, although no doubt taken out of context, should be controversial. To me, all it says is that science and religion are both approaches to understanding the universe.

To this observation might be added that the religious approach is that everything about the universe is already fully understood and set out in doctrine, whereas science is a method of investigation.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I do not see why this statement, although no doubt
> taken out of context, should be controversial. To
> me, all it says is that science and religion are
> both approaches to understanding the universe.
>
> To this observation might be added that the
> religious approach is that everything about the
> universe is already fully understood and set out
> in doctrine, whereas science is a method of
> investigation.


Despite my "scientism", I think I would add that mysticism (as opposed to religion qua religion), when avoiding dogma, is also valuable in investigating the universe within as well as certain aspects of that without; and certainly the mystical (or emotional, if one is too queasy about the other term) response to the universe is one of the treasures of life.

An appreciation for the numinous, the mysterious, the unexplained, and perhaps the unexplainable, is one of the greatest aspects, to me, of being human.

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An appreciation for the numinous, the mysterious,
> the unexplained, and perhaps the unexplainable, is
> one of the greatest aspects, to me, of being
> human.

Here, on the other hand, we seem to have an actual self-refuting claim---it is simply not possible to have an appreciation (i.e., understanding) of what one does not understand.

I think you mean emotions such as the wonder and awe one feels when contemplating the vastness of the universe. Well, technically such feelings were not possible until science had revealed the vastness of the universe. Prior to that, humans thought themselves to be living in a considerably smaller place.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:

> I think you mean emotions such as the wonder and
> awe one feels when contemplating the vastness of
> the universe. Well, technically such feelings were
> not possible until science had revealed the
> vastness of the universe. Prior to that, humans
> thought themselves to be living in a considerably
> smaller place.

I would argue that point. Yes, they thought themselves living in a smaller space, but with a much, much larger amount of the unexplained and mysterious (and often terrifying, awe-inspiring, and simply mystifying) than the above statement implies. These feelings predate the scientific method by a good, long while, as perusing the writings of earlier ages will show. They are, in fact, still taken to be the origins of religious thought itself.

However, in my latter statement (the one you quoted) I was referring to modern humans, in response to the frequent claims of "scientism" and a too-literal approach to life and the universe. And yes, it is indeed possible to have an appreciation, an emotional frisson, without actually understanding (in the sense of a full explanation, hence my use of "unexplained" and "unexplainable") a thing. This is demonstrated by the very fact that so many of us do react to the brief glimpses of those things beyond our understanding. Hell, Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, and the rest of that crew have such reactions, yet each and every one has said quite frankly that there are things we don't understand, and most likely never will. The universe is such a complex thing, with so many counter-intuitive forces and reactions operating in it that, with our evolutionary background, we may never be equipped to decipher it (and therefore understand) it all... yet those very mysteries excite, arouse a feeling of wonder and awe, and what amounts to, in many cases, a genuinely mystical response to that "vast Outside" (such as Einstein himself professed when contemplating such matters).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 27 Nov 11 | 02:46PM by jdworth.

Ah... I should correct myself to some slight degree. While earlier humans lived in what to us would be a considerably smaller place, it was not so to them. Such a viewpoint is relative to one's frame of reference, and "lands beyond" were often as strange and bizarre to their minds as the surface of alien planets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy, and the like, are to us. And this is only to deal with that which is related to the physical realm, let alone the mysterious realm(s) of the dead, with its inhabitants both human and otherwise....

I recently wrote to Graham Priest, an eminent contemporary logician and proponent of dialetheism, and asked him to comment on CAS's "all human thought..." quotation (as well as on Nietzschean perspectivism, generally), and here's what he had to say, in case it is of interest:

"I don’t think there is anything paradoxical about these two views unless you think that they entail their own falsity – as opposed to merely their relativity."

Again, for what it is worth....

Also, with respect to the exchange between jdworth and Jojo Lapin X, the 18th-Century theorists of the Sublime might be relevant.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28 Nov 11 | 07:43PM by Absquatch.

I have read some of these, though it has been some time back. This looks like a very good resource on the subject. Thank you!

It's a much briefer piece than I was expecting, but a good overview in small compass. I must admit that Burke's essay, I think, is the one which appeals the most to me outside of those written explorations which were fiction or poetry. (I really need to revisit both Burke and The Spectator, though... it has been far too long....)

I tend to quote this as one of my favorite examples of (at least certain aspects of) this and, if I have cited it here, please forgive the repetition, but I think it quietly yet powerfully addresses the idea of the natural world's supernatural aspects and the approach to the sublime:

The breeze—the breath of God—is still —
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token—
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries! —

Certainly it applies to those elements of obscurity and uncertainty (the unknown), which are such an important part of both the terror and the awe which are linked to sublimity. (And yes, I know that several draw a distinction between the two, but I am not at all certain that this is valid. Lovecraft's "ecstatic fear" is, I think, an extremely acute recognition of an emotional dichotomy inherent in the experience.)

I also think another example, which had an immediate emotional impact on me upon first reading, one which has only grown with further contemplation of the significance of the phrase, is that lovely line from CAS's "Medusa" "Time caught in meshes of Eternity".

In each of these instances, one does not have to have the conception of the cosmos that we have now in order to have formulated them. The ideas of eternity; the puzzling nature of time; the fear yet curiosity as to what lay within the mist, an awareness of how it altered familiar scenes and objects, often making them quite alien, even giving them the appearance of mobility... all of these are things which date back to antiquity, just as the fear of yet fascination with such landscapes as are mentioned in the essay do. Religious writings, for all their attempts to explain all this, and magnify our own role, are nonetheless full of such concepts; the very idea of divinities -- bearing so many traits similar to ourselves, yet also so often inexplicable, arbitrary, mysterious, and frightening -- carry many of these associations.

Of course, none of the above -- save, perhaps, for the specific examples I use -- is original with me, really. It has been noted time and again by a multitude of writers dealing with the subject. HPL dealt with it at some length in "Supernatural Horror in Literature", as well as his letters and various essays. Even Tolkien dealt with it, albeit from a somewhat different perspective, in "On Fairy-Stories". The only thing I can claim is that I am putting out my own perspective, gained from my reading and thinking about the matter over a number of years (as well as certain experiences having grown up in a religious milieu)....

You're welcome, regarding the referral to the online materials about the Sublime. You're right; it's just a primer, but a good one, and one that I figured would suffice as a simple reference.

The sense of the Sublime has been with us for a long time (I alluded to Longinus once in this forum, but had no replies), but the re-emergence of the concept in English aesthetic theory during the 17th and 18th Centuries makes it a little more palatable to modern thought--or at least more comprehensible.

Absquatch Wrote:

> In another thread, there was the suggestion that
> the following statement of CAS's
>
> All human thought, all science, all religion, is
> the holding of a candle to the night of the
> universe.
>
> may be self-refuting.
>
> I was actually glad to see this suggestion arise,
> as it dovetails with a somewhat recent interest of
> mine in post-Classical logic.
>
> Believe it or not, logic has not sat still since
> the time of Aristotle. Even if we were to accept
> the notion that logic should be the final arbiter
> of the wisdom of CAS's statement (I do not), there
> are actually any number of post-Classical
> developments in logic that potentially dispose of
> the alleged self-refutation problem quite nicely:
> Russell and Whitehead's Theory of Logical Typing
> (meta-statements), axiomatic probability theory,
> fuzzy set theory and possibility theory,
> dialetheism, fallabilism, paraconsistent logic,
> and neutrosophy, to name only a few. Fuzzy logic,
> dialetheism, and neutrosophy are of particular
> interest, as they convincingly assail the law of
> the excluded middle and reduce, even eliminate,
> the need for meta-statements.

"I don't understand science" woulda been quicker... Onan the Vulgarian fully agrees that logic isn't "the final arbiter of the wisdom of CAS's statement." Why do you think Onan raised Comte's "statement"? But thanx 4 demonstrating that you haven't fully absorbed that ad-hom fallacy article you linked to (an exercise in laboring the obvious, IMFFHO):

Quote:

...the fallacious belief that introducing impressive-sounding Greco-Latin terms somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument... (adapted)

Argumentum ad hominem fallacy

Frankly, Abby, I think you're a bit of a freud: not so much Ãœbermensch as Obamensch. You could also've pointed to the vast body of theology on the Infallibility of the Pope, Bible, and/or Magisterium, wherein various fallible humans seek to prove that fallible humans can partake of divine infallibility. The theology is all bollox, a-course, just like yr polysyllabicity above.

> So, those who are serious about this subject have
> ample matter to explore. I leave that to them,
> though, even at the risk of being accused once
> again (and ignorantly) of empty citation of
> authority and mere regurgitation. There's a
> significant difference between that and between
> providing material for others to make discoveries
> on their own, and all the playground-level
> prodding in the world isn't going to induce me to
> do others' work for them, especially since no one
> did mine for me.

Squirt ink and flee -- p'r'aps you're a member of the cuttlefish community. Anyway, I suspect Abby'll claim not to be readin' my posts, but I'll explain anyway. Examine these statements:

1) "I despise people who despise people."
2) "I always lie."
3) "You always lie."
4) "All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe."

1 is autologic and legitimate, but self-refuting, or self-defeating. (But it may be true, if meant seriously: one CAN despise oneself.)

2 is autologic and pathological. (Cf. the onanist who onanizes all who do not onanize themselves. Does he onanize himself? If he doesn't, then he does; if he does, then he doesn't.)

3 is heterologic and legitimate, but not necessarily true.

4 is amphilogic: a human is talking about humans AND the universe. The autologicity of 4 doesn't eg-ZACT-ly parallel the autologicity of 1, but 4 is still potentially (weakly) self-defeating. However, 4 isn't necessarily false and it differs from 1 in being a scientific/empirical claim. Whether or not humans can understand the universe is not decidable a priori: it's a scientific question. CAS didn't like or understand science, and tho' I sympathize with that rejection, I do NOT think this expression of it was humble. Agnosticism would've been humble and would've avoided the trap Comte created for himself:

5. On the subject of stars, all investigations which are not ultimately reducible to simple visual observations are ... necessarily denied to us. While we can conceive of the possibility of determining their shapes, their sizes, and their motions, we shall never be able by any means to study their chemical composition or their mineralogical structure ... Our knowledge concerning their gaseous envelopes is necessarily limited to their existence, size ... and refractive power, we shall not at all be able to determine their chemical composition or even their density... I regard any notion concerning the true mean temperature of the various stars as forever denied to us.

5 parallels 4. Comte made a prediction about human knowledge of (an aspect of) the universe and has been proved comprehensively wrong. So may CAS be: like Comte, his only authority for the claim was himself.

Quote:

Even if we were to accept the notion that logic should be the final arbiter of the wisdom of CAS's statement (I do not)...

Indeed. Nor was "logic" the "final arbiter of the wisdom" of Comte's statement. Astronomy was. AISB, you don't understand science. (Or psychology. If you did, you wouldn't have cooperated so well with the experiment I recently performed on you (Kant would not've been pleased, but I doubt you're muchuvva Kantian).)

---

“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.” — The Black Book of Gore Vidal.