Monday 14 March 2016

Gen 1:4 Logic saw that it was good: logic's personality

Humans are just piles of atoms, expressions of mathematical probability. Yet we have personalities. Why? Why do we personify humans? Why not just accept the "real" truth that we are mathematical constructs, and largely if not entirely random?

We personify humans for the same reason we personify God. It helps us to think and feel about each other. Let us look at how we should think and feel about logic.

Logic creates
Logic takes one condition and makes another: "if A and B, then C". Just study theoretical physics (and then biochemistry) to see how simple initial conditions logically create an entire universe.

Logic has arms and legs
Logic created the universe. The universe is an expression, or embodiment of logic: everything in the universe is a physical manifestation of logic. So every person, every part, every head and arm and leg is logic made flesh. (Of course, each of us is only a small part of the big picture. So we can appear to be wrong about things, just as one side of an equation is unbalanced.)

Logic has desire
When a person or other complex system tends to move in a certain direction we say it has a desire to do so. For example, logic leads to its conclusions, and we say a graph "tends toward" a particular direction. Even the simplest particle of matter has inertia: a desire to continue at its present velocity. So everything has desire.

Logic has morality
Logic creates the universe, including living things. Living things must logically want to survive (otherwise they would be quickly replaced by those who do). Logically, we survive best through cooperation. Methods of cooperation are known as morality: we see the other person's point of view, help the tribe, do not kill or cheat, etc.

Logic cares for us
For us to exist, the universe (a creation of logic) has provided for all our needs. Giving someone al they need is called caring for them.

Logic is love
The first letter of John contains this extra definition of God:
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.  (1 John 4:8)
'Love' is the Greek "agape" meaning brotherly love: that is, treating others like ourselves. That fairness makes a society stronger, because it enables the most efficient use of resources. In other words, "agape" is logic: it is the logic of survival. It is also the logic of a happy society.

Logic will answer our questions
If you have a question use logic and you will get the best possible answer.

Logic loves you personally
For the best chance of survival, every member of the tribe (or family) matters. So logically you matter, personally.

Logic has a sense of humour
Humour is that which provokes laughter: usually through combining the unexpected or absurd. The universe is full of such humour. Hunter gatherers, who live close to nature, laugh frequently. Scientists who truly love their field often laugh at the pleasure of some unexpected thing. Devout skeptics like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett made a career out of laughing at the universe. Even mathematicians take a childish delight in particularly pleasing discoveries: Logic is always throwing up the unexpected: it loves to play tricks. So logic has a sense of humour.

Logic gives moral certainty
Logic is always constant and unchanging. In contrast, any current evidence, such as scientific findings or interpretation of a holy text, is subject to the possibility of change. If we base our ideas on anything except logic then our ideas are relative to something that might change. But logic itself does not change: it is the standard by which everything else is judged. Logic is the only sure foundation.

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