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How can a logical reality exist within a seemingly illogical construct?
ravkes
Veteran
Ultimately no one knows what life is. However, even though this is the case everything here follows certain natural laws enabling organisms to make seemingly 'intelligent' decisions to help it survive. Is life a paradox? An apparent known reality within the unknown?
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Thats because life is no single star or paramecium or law of gravity. Its like if you have a snowman. And you point to the carrot. No thats not a snowman thats a carrot. You point to the snowballs. No thats not a snowman its a snowball.
Natural Law is just an observation of phenomenon. To one person gravity means that an apple will fall on their head. To another person it means that F = constant times two masses over the radius squared or some crap. If all the sudden some scientist finds a new idea then the F = digga digga is old news. Like Einstein.
Natural Laws are models that are consistent with observations. When East and West Germany united then the map changed.
It just blows my mind, this can't be understood logically because these circumstances are fundamentally impossible according to our ideas of what can and cannot be. We're living in the impossible, lol.
How mysteriously insane. Form and emptiness at the same time, and the choice to experience either.
Is this life two things?
Is it one?
Where's the paradox?
I find comfort in that way of thinking when life seems too weird and incomprehensible.
You got me on "logical reality".
I refer to what the mind can fabricate such that it makes no reference to the real - totally self-contained and perfectly logical. I think math is a subset of logic, and it works the same way. It is perfect in a perfectly closed system. 2 + 2 = 4. Try two apples - where does the apple begin and the stem leave off? How much does it weigh? Has it rotted yet? How far past a bud is it? What exactly is ONE apple? Those are reality problems. 2 + 2 = 4 in a perfectly closed, logical space is, well, perfect.
I think the mind works with logic, but how is it going to duplicate reality, or any piece of it, perfectly? I think the mind has to work logically, and that's all it is capable of. To me, all imagination is ultimately logical, and always in accordance with its total, closed-system cannon of law, because it only works logically (and in no other way).
In computer science, where I think they get this the best, logic refers to something that exists logically but not physically. For example, the files in the folders on your hard drive appear in a logical arrangement. The surface of the hard disk, however, is nothing like that. The files are actually scattered all over the drive. The files and folders are displayed logically, and they are said to exist logically, but they do not exist as such physically. Logic is a way of arranging things.
All that exists logically in a computer memory seems much to me like in a human mind. Ego organizes logical elements. In mind, there are things which exist logically, but which are never the things in reality to which they may refer.
I imagine reality as "logical" in the sense of being in accordance with its own laws, but way beyond comprehension compared to things like computers and cognition. I write code, and there is no way I would ever want to code a pear. I was going to say apple... I mean a real pear. A cube has an x, a y and a z. A pear needs a mathematician. Every single time!
For reality, I've heard words like... Infinite, Eternal, Supreme...
Another view:
The language and definition would exist mentally.
Reality would precede the definition of it. It would be after-the-fact at that point.
Obviously reality is defined by forces we're all subject to otherwise we wouldn't know how to function. Reality defines what you do on a daily basis. You wouldn't shove food up your butt would you? You would put it in your mouth because in reality that's how the body functions.
@Frederica: If you were referring to ultimate reality or whatever the crap a lot of spirituality deals with it's irrelevant and I suppose isn't defined.
I like the sound of that. The ego is made of knowing. The "first-person", so to speak, is going to become someone who doesn't know anything. The knowing sought will come to be knowing nothing at all. Also, the need to know is not going to be there. That's got "screw it" written all over it.
I must say I think reality and actuality have been very useful words, for providing a constant reminder or reference to that which is not known, but which is real regardless of any knowing.
So essentially it's a waste of time, increasing one's own delusion in the process. Because as we all know, reality can appear differently (like when you're tripping on LSD) or you can think about reality differently (like the assumptions you make about it after you've just seen sidewalks disintegrate and turn into sand).. but it's still there and you still can't walk through walls even if they do look like portals.. ha
You wrote... " Ultimately no one knows what life is. However, even though this is the case everything here follows certain natural laws enabling organisms to make seemingly 'intelligent' decisions to help it survive. Is life a paradox? An apparent known reality within the unknown? "
Do we embody a knowing that we do not cognitively possess? Is there fantastic intelligence coming to bear with the human organism? 90% of brain development IIRC is in the first six years - for things like walking and talking. We can think of the intellectual capacity as a few percent of that. An ego inside of all of that. A microscopic amount of intelligence occurs to it. Or to look at it this way is to ask, "What is intelligence?" Because here we're talking about something that doesn't require cognition. Such as "sophistication". So sophistication doesn't require cognition.