Some Notes On Logic

Human logic, particularly the western mind rooted in latin-based language structures and the canon of science and rationalism, has been primarily binary for the past 2000+ years. It is a logic of certitude bent on easy definition and decisive action. A thing is either A or not-A. Truth is found in numbers and logical proofs. The result is a cognitive interface armed with evidence yet stripped of meaning. There is no motive behind the crime of humanity.

The unfortunate side-effect of such a rational, empirical, ultimately dualistic operating system is a broken connection with nature and the divine. Life is reduced to biochemistry, while spirit is rendered as fantasy or folklore. Thus, the Age of Industrialisation was characterized by a a self-aggrandizing deification of growth and success and the ultimate power of Reason to overcome and subdue anything that stands in our way, giving rise to larger-than-life egos bent on inflicting their will upon the world. But as our desire for control and predictability descended into the subatomic realm, hoping to make better devices for defeating nature (red in tooth and claw), the faithfully predictable mechanistic world defined by Newton, Descartes, and Euclid gave way to the fuzzy world of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Science and especially physics ultimately informs the way we view the world and our relation to its majesty. It takes a while but the prevailing physical paradigms will inevitably seep into the common cognitive logic structures of our remarkably gifted and thoughtful species. We live in a fractal dimension, as above so below, so we'll always try to extrapolate the microcosmic and macrocosmic to the scale of self and society. Much of the planetary crisis that seems to be gripping our species is, I believe, a result of the steady erosion of rationalism and mechanism, so stripped of meaning and unrestrained by the intuitive morality of Spirit. The advent of the physics of light (which has now given rise to an Age of Information that itself is based on light) threatens to completely undermine classical mechanics and bootstrap the human drama into pure science fiction.

Special relativity has evolved a degree of social relativism that is no longer bound by the categorical distinctions that gave rise to the brutal dogmas of religion and racism. Cultures, philosophies, and traditions are simply alternative ways of perception from different frames of reference. Cable TV and the Internet allow one to surf through time and space absorbing all manner of cultural diversities, like different channels of being. General Relativity shows that even spacetime itself is not fixed but, rather, bends and warps, as if god herself is somehow mutable and fluid. Quantum Mechanics continues to climb out of the sub-atomic realm and has been demonstrated on human scales. Non-local communication confounds the Newtonian expectations of distance and time, while seemingly supporting the outcast technologies of magick and metaphysics. Such phenomena as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the Observer-Participant Paradox unseat the demiurge of materialism and place consciousness firmly on the throne of the Kingdom. It would seem that there is no longer any truth, that the once vaulted objective world of the senses doesn't exist. That there is indeed no firmament. The dying god has been crucified and hung upside down, left to perish on the dusty roadside of aeons past.

The new consciousness is attended and reinforced by nonlinear dynamics, fractal mathematics, hypermedia, and the emerging global mind of distributed information networks. Industrialism is fading as the planet begins to spasm under its weight. Misanthropic beaurocracies, greed and selfishness, and vestigial ape politics are doomed to fade against the rise of quantum consciousness. As our logic more accurately reflects the underlying laws of nature, our technology evolves to move into greater harmony with the time-tested solutions of life itself.

Humans seem to have an insatiable need to understand and to make manifest our boundless imagination. Whatever we dream, someone will figure out how to bring it to life.

Here's to sweet dreams.

Posted by LVX23 at October 20, 2004 12:57 AM | TrackBack