Can philosophy integrate the irrational as mathematics can?

It is a fact that about many things it cannot be said exactly whether they are rational or irrational despite the fact that these things belong to something that can be assigned to either the rational or the irrational. Many things can only be evaluated as either rational or irrational in retrospect. You have brought an example yourself: “The set of all hunger feelings”. The term “hunger feelings” means two things: hunger and feelings. What are feelings? Something rational or irrational? And: Which feelings? 100%?

Who decides what is rational and what is irrational? This “who” are humans, and humans are only rational to a certain extent, irrational to another (far greater) extent. How this is distributed is not known exactly.

Homo sapiens is rational according to those people who have decided that homo sapiens is rational (=> sapiens). The statements of those who have decided that homo sapiens is rational already show that not everything about this species is rational. And not all individuals of this species are rational in equal shares.

Is your stomach rational?
Yes? To what percentage?
No? To what percentage?

And hunger?

[tab]Do you decide on this alone?[/tab]

@ Obsvr524

Unfortunately, all set diagrams, as well as the Venn diagram, are static, i.e. they always assume an actual state. In reality, however, everything is in motion, everything is history.

My diagram is a dynamic diagram that takes history into account.

Venn is not a god for me.

Ok that explains a lot. Apparently you do not believe in objective reality. You seem to believe that reality is man-made.

And that makes you one of those “irrationals” that you would like to see “integrated”.

We can still explain the irrational in terms of objectivity.

What are your brief thoughts on this obsrvr524?

What kind of nonsense is that?

That is your nonsensical prejudice - largely consisting of irrationality.

I see what becomes, what is and what will become. That has to do with reality. Reality and history (development) belong together. There is nothing irrational about such a statement.

I never said that reality is made by humans, I said that humans decide (in case of doubt) what is known and what is unknown, what is rational and what is irrational; but that humans decide does not mean that humans make all the reality. One is a matter of determination of knowledge, the other is reality. This human behavior is part of the reality, of the history. History and reality belong together - that’s what I said. This does not make me someone who denies reality. On the contrary! You don’t want to know anything about history and therefore about reality.

I see what has become through humans. This, my insight, has nothing to do with irrationality, except in the sense that I take irrationality into account in everything rational, because I do not ignore irrationality, because it is so strong. I have said that several times. But you probably don’t want to or can’t understand that. The irrational is more in you than you think. You should allow it. That would be healthier for you.

You are not the first who constantly sanctifies the rational and thereby demonizes the irrational and therefore does not notice how irrational that is.

You are like a little boy who has lost his toy, “rationality”, and is now crying. Crying has a rational and an irrational component. But how exactly that is distributed, no one knows. One can only assume estimates and probabilities. The crying belongs to the reality, however, it is not simply rational or simply irrational, but it is both.

…and perhaps a lack of information makes it more difficult to explain things rationally. I understand the idea behind what you are saying here…

We can explain smaller things in a more rational sense because it is easier to apply logic to small things.

When things get immense as they are related to human beings and separately the universe, however…,
…when can not easily apply the full array of logic necessary to arrive at logical conclusions when trying to view the full picture.

Estimates and probabilities are not necessarily irrational, however.

Objectivity refers to the idea that everything is what it is - NOT necessarily what anyone thinks it is. Both Magnus and I have been trying to explain that to Great Again by saying that a process (at any one time) is either rational or not. Nothing can be both rational and also irrational. His response has been that perhaps we mislabeled it, misunderstood it, or just don’t know. He offered a Venn diagram showing a region that is both rational and also irrational.

The objective point of view is that how we label it is irrelevant to what it actually is. But he hasn’t accepted that answer. So when he said that a Venn diagram is static while reality is always changing he revealed that he believes that the diagram that he stated to be the real case concerning rational vs irrational is itself static and so not the changing objective reality of the subject. He is saying that the diagram is both true and not true at the same time and dependent on our accuracy and knowledge.

All of that implies that he is not accepting objective reality - else how we label things would be irrelevant. When someone doesn’t accept objective reality they are claiming man-made reality.

It has nothing to do with prejudice at all. You are claiming that some things are what they are and also what they are not at the same time because we might not know what they are. The point is that what we know is irrelevant to what they are - that is objective reality and what your diagram was supposed to be representing - although obviously in error.

And now your response sounds exactly like this -

I understand. The problem comes when people don’t acknowledge that we can never truly comprehend things as they are(re: the idea that everything is what it is). We have to exercise some faith when mixing realities(internal vs external). Things are always rational and irrational in the brain - you don’t get to choose a brain state and if the brain produces the mind then the focus might be the only thing that feels rational. The Venn diagram is a very simplified version of this. I don’t think it is mandatory that Great Again accepts any answer. I think the diagram can not be in a state of true and false - this is something else. Lastly - how we label things are relevant just as external and internal realities are always changing. Nothing changes fast enough for an accepted objective reality not to be useful for a long period of time. Perhaps this explains why good metaphysics is always able to keep up.

Yes we try to describe actual reality as well as we can (by defining our words - which GA doesn’t seem to want to do). And then we apply the rule of logic - remain always consistent in our language - while observing actual reality more in order to discover if our description of reality is accurate. If we don’t do that we can never know anything at all. We can’t even estimate reality with any confidence.

AG is starting to sound like the Schrodinger’s cat quantum physicist who says that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time because we do not know and once we discover if it is alive - reality becomes whatever we discover. That is subjectivism (“reality is whatever we believe”), not objectivism (“reality is independent of what we believe”).

Let’s do what those who found problems with what the quantum magi did and add super-determinism on top(keep playing the game of matryoshka). To know anything at all, it helps to apply justified-true-belief(hence the need for faith). I just don’t want to see you boys get lost in another rabbit hole if not by choice.

I added to my last post: Perhaps this explains why good metaphysics is always able to keep up. A good metaphysics is still able to account for the irrational.

I am about to decide that AG simply has his bubble of belief and challenging that makes him uncomfortable so I should leave it alone.

- a true James fan.

Nobody said that estimates and probabilities were irrational.

“Irrational” simply means “not rational”. Whatever the word “rational” means, the word “irrational” means the opposite of it. So it’s not possible for something – whatever that something is – to be both rational and irrational because that would mean that thing is both rational and not rational. That’s a logical contradiction: P and not-P. So whoever says “Things can be both rational and irrational” is either 1) contradicting themselves, or 2) they are defining words in a different way. And if they are defining words in a different way, the problem can be easily resolved by them defining their words so that other people can know what they are talking about.

It doesn’t help that the word “rational” has different menaings when applied to different types of things e.g. numbers are rational in one way, decisions are rational in another way, people are rational in yet another way and so on. (Though, it goes without saying that, in each case, a thing is either rational or not. It cannot be both.) So it would be really helpful to know what kind of rationality we’re talking about here. And it would also be useful to know what’s the connection between the rationality of numbers (“mathematicians integrating irrational numbers”) and the rationality of people (“societies integrating irrational people”).

That’s a somewhat dangerous thing to say. It really looks like (and I really only hope it only looks like) you’re saying that it’s a bad thing to always make good decisions and that it’s a good thing to mix the two e.g. by making good decisions 80% of the time and bad decisions 20% of the time. It’s one thing to say people are imperfect, it’s another to say people should be imperfect.

Clearly, you have understood nothing at all.

It has exclusively to do with prejudice.

Your statement only confirms my previous assumption. Now the little boy is offended.

It is the bubble of pseudo-rationality that you are in. You really believe that all you have to do is keep the irrational far enough away from the rational and then you have your “solution”. Yes, the solution you are seeing right now: The irrational dominates you. That is your “solution”.

Again: You are not the first to constantly sanctify the rational and thus demonize the irrational and therefore not realize how irrational that is.

And again: You have understood absolutely nothing. You show that more and more clearly.

You falsely believe, by saying to “adhere to rationality”, that understanding is not a problem for you. In reality, this is exactly your biggest problem, as you show here more and more clearly. You are stuck in a trap, in the bubble of pseudo-rationality.

You run away from reality, always back into your bubble.

At the same time, you once said a really important sentence in a thread, but you yourself satirically dismissed it in this thread, as if you wanted to draw a caricature of yourself. I have taken this sentence to one of the occasions to open this thread. I did not know at that time how inflexible you are in thinking.

I wonder why you are even posting in this thread, because you obviously don’t like the topic of this thread.

I have stated what this thread is about. You want to make it your thread. Then go ahead and make a thread of your own. Good luck with that.

Mathematics is not free of irrationality. But it seems to be the last discipline which is still able to integrate, to include, to control parts of the irrational. Physics has already given up.

Nevertheless, mathematics has problems. And these problems started at the same time as the problems of physics - with the difference I mentioned above.

With mathematics one can do almost everything - thus also nonsense.

With the problems I do not only mean the fundamental crisis, concerning the solution of which formalism, conventionalism and intuitionism opposed each other. Not only this problem has not been solved properly. But it has given another, an important insight: that there are undecidable questions within mathematics (cf. proof of Gödel). On the other hand, definitive proofs of non-contradiction have been given for wide areas of mathematics (cf. Hilbert, Genzen).

Logical considerations play an important role, among other things, in the construction of an antinomy-free set theory and in the general theory of proof. Pioneering work in the field of mathematical logic, which is closely related to the philosophy of mathematics, was done in the 19th century by Frege, in the 20th century by Russel and Whitehead.

I have drawn the undecidability I just spoke about into a diagram in the topic “rational/irrational” and called this diagram a “dynamic, i.e. historical diagram”. That must be allowed. I don’t have to follow guidelines when I want to illustrate something. This is what I meant when I said that “Venn is not a god for me”.The antinomies of set theory speak a clear language (best known example: “set of all sets” - it must, but must not contain itself), even if one has simply taken them out of set theory. Antinomies appear again and again, and it is the task of history (in this case: the history of science or epistemology) to solve them, to which also the history of philosophy can contribute. No theory can remain static; theories change with the time: that is history (time => change <=>history). There are also still undiscovered antinomies in set theory as in mathematics as a whole.

The bivalence principle (cf. “principium exclusi tertii” resp. “tertium non datur”) as the principle of bivalence of classical logic, according to which a statement must always be true or false, has been criticized for various reasons and logics have been designed in which it is not valid and in which there are more than two truth values.

There are logic systems which use three and more, even infinite truth values. One speaks of a multivalued logic. Antinomies appear again and again, and it is the task of history (in this case: the history of science or epistemology) to solve them, to which also the history of philosophy can contribute. No theory can remain static, they change with the time: that is history (time => change <=> history). There are also still undiscovered antinomies in set theory as in mathematics as a whole.

According to Gödel’s result, one must presuppose an infinite number of truth values, e.g. in a semantics of truth values, which exactly marks out the principles as valid, which are derivable in an intuitionistic calculus. A descriptive interpretation succeeds in the framework of the possible-worlds semantics. The intuitionistic logic is a system of formal logic, which is supposed to satisfy the criticism (!) of the mathematical intuitionists against the modes of reasoning of classical mathematics.

One knows that there are statements which are undecidable. I have pointed to this - and to the fact that the undecidability is changed by the time, i.e. by the change and thus by the history, e.g. its extent is reduced or increased.

I did not say that anybody did. I was saying in the sense that estimates and probabilities are not automatically irrational, in other words, they can be rational too.

I would be tempted to frame the question in terms of philosophical branches, as in, axiology, epistemology, and metaphysics.

What kinds of things are valuable, what is knowledge, and what are first principles - how these things add up when compared/connected/or possibly even combined.

Zookers - you have gone completely nutters hostile. And if you actually believe what you just wrote - completely delusional. If you think that I was being at all hostile - that had to be your own projected hostile imaginings - and a bit arrogant.

I have been genuinely and patiently trying to get to a resolution for the question you posed (assuming your best intentions) - having to ask and guess at what you really mean by the words you use such as to forgive differences and clear up the confusions. I think Magnus is seeing the same thing. But you appear to ignore such efforts and want to keep your word usage a mystery and seemingly illogical/irrational (why not clear it up?). I think there can be only a few reasons for that -

• You didn’t want a rational and civil discussion
• You just wanted to argue for the sake of arguing
• You want the question to be unanswerable
• You have your own pet theory, or just maybe -
• You really are nutters

But maybe you have some other reason. And it is clear that you have no intention of finding resolution and have now fallen into ad homs so - you certainly aren’t going to get anywhere with Magnus.

Play your game - lecture away. It’s not my problem anymore. MIJOT dictates that I bid you adieu.

Gödel’s theorems show in practice (in mathematical method) what Heidegger’s Nietzsche shows philosophically; that reason is a method deriving from a drive, rather than anything to do with comprehensive objective reality.

Its reality is objective in the sense that its employment will have its effect. Its descriptions of reality outside of itself are only descriptions of itself.

Rational methods value the world in terms of themselves, as everything that exists does in order to exist.

This itself is the final truth we can know; it is not a model of the universe, but it destroys all false models.

Without logic - there can be no maths.
Without logic - there can be no rationality.
And without maths and rationality - there can be no Gödel’s theorems.