[PatrickHenry]

What "validates" logic that we humans should trust it so?

If logic isn't valid, then it is valid.

Sounds absurd? That's because logic rules out contradictions; but if you rule out logic itself, then contradictions are allowed.

Well, you may ask, what's the big deal about ruling out contradictions? Ah ... that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates. Logic is nothing other than a rigorous method of thinking that is consistent with reality. And for many of us, reality is the ultimate test of all our thinking.

I know that opinions vary; but reality is what it is, and it doesn't care about our opinions.

[RightWhale]

that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates.

Still just a touch of psychologism there. Be ruthless. Eliminate all ties between thought and logic.

[betty boop]

…if you rule out logic itself, then contradictions are allowed. Well, you may ask, what's the big deal about ruling out contradictions? Ah ... that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates.

Dear PH, you can’t be serious.

If what you say in the immediately foregoing is true, then both thee and me are perfectly superfluous to the Universe, in terms of its order and functioning. (Including the function of self-government.)

It therefore necessarily follows that any of our attempts to understand the Universe is a perfectly futile undertaking. It is absurd for us to think at all, for there is not profit to be gained from thinking: We are foredoomed to existential impecunity -- and therefore intellectual and ontological irrelevance.

But to say that thee and me are “superfluous to the universe” is to contradict the obvious fact that both thee and me are “here” in the universe. And not only as merely “present,” merely taking up space; but as thinkers thinking about things we have experienced, in the light of studies to which we personally resonate.

You cannot seriously believe such things are "futilites": for you invest so much personal thought and time into precisely these kinds of questions.

I merely mean to suggest that, perhaps, you think in a certain way, but you do not live in that way.

It seems that history tells us the course of planetary evolution is clearly responsive to human activities.

I know that opinions vary; but reality is what it is, and it doesn't care about our opinions…. If logic isn't valid, then it is valid.

This is the best prescription I have ever seen for the “how-to manual” on becoming a complete “flotsom and jetsom” item in the great scale of Life.

You write: “Well, you may ask, what's the big deal about ruling out contradictions? Ah ... that's something that reality itself does, as all our experience demonstrates. Logic is nothing other than a rigorous method of thinking that is consistent with reality.”

Well, I certainly think that logic pertains to natural reality. In fact, to my mind that is logic’s greatest virtue. Having said that, in my observation, natural reality is not usually given to “self-contradiction.”

That seems to be the particular specialty of human beings.

[Doctor Stochastic]

To paraphrase Bertrand Russell when asked (after Bertie claimed that anything could be proved starting from a falsehood), if he could derive from 1=0 the he was the Pope: 1=0 thus 1+1=0+1 or 2=1; the Pope and I are two, thus we are one.