irrational or the anti-reasoning?

Tolthar Lockbar · Post by **Tolthar Lockbar** » Tue May 29, 2007 9:25 pm

I was talking with Airiek and a question popped up. To start out, I would like to talk about the difference in the absence of something and the opposite of something. In math terms:

The absence of 1 is 0
The opposite is -1

Another example observed was with matter:

The absence of matter is void
The opposite of matter is anti-matter

So what about reasoning.

When someone lacks the understanding to solve a problem and comes up with a irrational conclusion.. was there a certain amount of absence of reason, or the opposite? What is the difference between irrational and anti-reason?

Petter Sandstad · Post by **Petter Sandstad** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:05 pm

I don't think there is such a thing as anti-reason. There is reason, which is proper thinking -- and there is evasion, which is wrongful "thinking" (it does atleast involve effort). These are opposites. The absence of reason is to not to be thinking at all. It is to be out of focuse, but not evading. One can be out of focus and evading, but one can also just be out of focus. That's my tiny comment.

musashi · Post by **musashi** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:21 pm

Interesting question. I know I spout out about Eli Goldratt’s books too often, but I think he might have something to add here from his book Its Not Luck.

When you write the opposite of reason, I take that to mean that a person has a conflicting viewpoint that appears unreasonable. Eli’s thesis is very simplistic, but basically he says whenever there is a conflict, one of the parties is operating to one or more incorrect assumptions. If you can identify and correct the erroneous assumptions the conflict should cease to exist. There may still be an underlying problem, but at least everyone is united in their reason. Up until this resolution, I think its fair to say one of the people is unreasonable, but who?

I was trying to visualize the anti-reason. Anti-matter cancels out matter, with the release of a bunch of energy. Do you suppose that anti-reason would cancel out the ability to reason? It sounds very surreal.

Airiek · Post by **Airiek** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:34 am

I thought the same thing as Petter, there is no anti-reason, only the absence of it. And as for Anti-reason, if it exists, canceling out reason, perhaps it is beyond comprehension to us. But perhaps not, as reason changes, conflicting reasoning, where one used to be correct until the other form of reasoning came along and canceled it out, but not itself, so perhaps the only reasoning and anti-reasoning canceling each other out would be in the form of a paradox, they are two truths that cant both exist, but do. but what would be a paradox of reason?

Tolthar Lockbar · Post by **Tolthar Lockbar** » Wed May 30, 2007 5:37 pm

Without proof, there is really little point of discussing anti-reasoning. When anti-reasoning becomes evident in some way, then it will be worth discussing. If something did not need to be evident to discuss it, then we should discuss the spirit of my poop flowing down the path to poo-haven

. (i.e. any combination of grammatically correct sentences would be fair play to talk about)

Nature can be conceptualized with reasoning. If a paradox or a contradiction exists, then there is something wrong with one of our premises. Some assumption leading up to the contradiction is what needs to be questioned then.

Another interesting thing that Olek explained to me is that "anti-matter" is really just the sifi term. All anti-matter is, is matter that has its polarity reverse. In other words: It has a negatively charged nucleus and a positively charged cloud around the nucleus, for each atom. So one can imagine what happens if it comes in contact with normal matter. BOOM!

Anyways, what anti-matter now illustrates for us is that to really have an "opposite" one needs a context first. Anti-matter is the opposite in the context of charge. -1 is the opposite of 1 in the context of value. So to really have an opposite of reason, or "anti-reason" one would need a context. So really, if one makes the context something like: the use of logic vs the use of faith, then one could say that religious garble could be anti-reasoning. But it is context based.

So really I implemented a fallacy, of dropping the context, when I asked this question.

Just my 2 ISK.

musashi · Post by **musashi** » Wed May 30, 2007 7:20 pm

Tolthar Lockbar wrote:Another interesting thing that Olek explained to me is that "anti-matter" is really just the sifi term. All anti-matter is, is matter that has its polarity reverse. In other words: It has a negatively charged nucleus and a positively charged cloud around the nucleus, for each atom. So one can imagine what happens if it comes in contact with normal matter. BOOM!.

Anti-mater is real, they make it in a cyclotron. Researchers have only made a very small amount of it, but they’ve made enough to understand some properties of anti-matter. The particular particles I’ve read about are positrons (the anti-matter companion to an electron). Yes their charge is equal and opposite, but positrons cannot exist in our world except under highly unusual circumstances. Given the high magnetic field strengths, some folks speculate these particles are actually crossing over from an alternate universe. That’s some highly conceptual stuff. Maybe Tseran could weigh-in on this.

Airiek · Post by **Airiek** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:29 pm

so technically, in the context of presence, the opposite of 1 is 0, and the opposite of matter is void...

Tolthar Lockbar · Post by **Tolthar Lockbar** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:55 pm

Airiek wrote:so technically, in the context of presence, the opposite of 1 is 0, and the opposite of matter is void...

I believe so.

Tolthar Lockbar · Post by **Tolthar Lockbar** » Wed May 30, 2007 11:07 pm

musashi wrote:...Given the high magnetic field strengths, some folks speculate these particles are actually crossing over from an alternate universe...

Speculation in science is no more than a hypothesis to be tested. I also have a hypothesis that monkeys throw dung in respect for the Monkey Dung Throwing God.

I would wait until the cold hard facts come in before talking about these two possibilities. Otherwise you will have people claiming that nothing exist and nothing is certain because of bad measurement strategies in quantum mechanics.

PS: Olek has taken the hypothesis of the dung throwing God further and has talked with the monkeys. The other day he threw poo at me -- that is all.

Airiek · Post by **Airiek** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:51 am

what was the consistancy of the fecal matter? was it green? at what point did it achieve its maximum velocity? was it soft? details, no scientific hypothesis can be debated extensively without details, or perhaps details reduce debate, i suppose it depends if they raise questions or explain them. but this converstion has turned to sh**

musashi · Post by **musashi** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:09 am

Tolthar Lockbar wrote:
Airiek wrote:so technically, in the context of presence, the opposite of 1 is 0, and the opposite of matter is void...
I believe so.

I don't see it that way, void is the absence of matter. These are binary states, just like 1 & 0. I think you were right when you stated that opposites cancel each other out like 1 –1 = 0.

Tolthar Lockbar · Post by **Tolthar Lockbar** » Thu May 31, 2007 1:21 am

musashi wrote:I don't see it that way, void is the absence of matter. These are binary states, just like 1 & 0. I think you were right when you stated that opposites cancel each other out like 1 –1 = 0.

This is changing the context from what Airiek and I were agreeing on. Our context was presence, yours is something different.