Part 1 and Part 2 in the Language and Reality series dealt with the relation of logic and grammar. This is the last article in this series, briefly describing more aspects of logic itself. Please go read the other parts to understand what I have already explained about grammar and its interconnected relation to logic and reality. Part 4 also explains the central importance of logic in the Trivium Method.
- Content:
- 5.1 Introduction (infographic)
- 5.2 Grammar-Logic Spiral
- 5.3 Thought and Consciousness
- 5.3.1 Contradiction and Unity Consciousness
- 5.3.2 Ratio
- 5.4 Images in the Mind
- 5.5 Meaning and Definition
- 5.6 Logic and Processing
Video
Audio
Download .mp3: Logic - Language and Reality Pt.5
5.1 Introduction
Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) or Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC)
The Law of Non-Contradiction or the Principle of Non-Contradiction (nothing can both be and not be), is a foundation for correct, accurate, proper, optimal, right, good and true thought about anything in existence. The Law of Identity (whatever is, is) and the Law of Excluded Middle (everything must either be or not be) are variations of the same principle found throughout all of reality. This understanding is the core of the Law of Logic. This is a first principle of reality.
Those who fail to understand and use the Law of Logic correctly are failing to perceive, conceive, understand and navigate reality. This ignorance of Logic is related to accepting unreality as reality, wrong as right, evil as good, falsity as truth, due to not removing the contradictions in the various conceptual frameworks that provide us with our understanding of reality. Ignorance of Grammar existing in reality will also sustain falsity and contradiction.
Induction and deduction are both forms of logical processing. The higher second order logical processing is the deduction to verify the conceptions formulated from the first order inductive logic, i.e. non-contradictory identification. We feedback between the two, refining, distilling and concentrating our conceptions in definition and comprehension.
Induction
Enumerative induction is simple counting of the extents in existence. Counting is at the root of reason, to count, to collect and gather (leg, logos) and this is at the root of dialog and dialect, which both mean to speak across. This includes dialectical induction, which leads to deduction (and continued feedback) to verify the possible proposition of compatible terms for greater consistency, strength and solidity. Intuitive induction is the recognition of self-evident truths about reality.
Sensory data relates to the specific person inducing that part of reality, such as the green of grass being seen. There is no proof of green, it is intuited from what we see. Another person who is blind, would not have the same sense experience and not be able to identify and recognize green in the grass before their body, for they would not see it nor be capable of inducing recognition of green from reality. A general proposition is intellectual, not sensory, and can be understood without specific senses. Most grass is green can be understood, even if the grass before you cannot be seen to be green if you are blind, it most likely is green, and you can feel it under your feet to know it is grass.
Deduction
Identification of reality leads to being able to create definitions for these aspects of being. The logical syllogism infers an aspect of reality from existing propositions or premises. The classic example is:
All men are mortal. (major premise)
Socrates is a man. (minor premise)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (conclusion)
If any of the initial premises are false, then we will never end up with an accurate conclusion with consistency and integrity.
Dialectic is a logical mode, having a conversation with ourselves, an inner dialog for the most part. We can externalize our thoughts and have a dialog with another, to seek truth and remove contradictions with the help of others. Once we have removed a contradiction, we can gather more data. We infer an error and then need more data to get closer to the truth. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification, i.e. definition. Using the general big picture to find something particular, or a species, in that general category, the genera, and describing its differences that make it what it is and not something else (identity).
5.2 Grammar-Logic Spiral
(continued from Part 1)
As previously mentioned:
The feedback between thought and emotion is akin to feedback between inductive and deductive reasoning/logic. Grammar of initial thinking is inductive and intuitive, while derivation inference logic is deductive and possibly of a higher order. We abstract commonalities as possible universal truth and verify if indeed they are true or not by looking closer at the differences and again at more commonalities and so on. Emotions feedback with thoughts just as logic feeds back with grammar, and eventually they generate enough care to will ourselves into the motivation to act.
Induction cannot be separated from deduction in real life, as they both help us understand reality and are a part of living and making decisions. Logic is the art of valid inference. Inference is a thought process itself, but we seek valid thought. The study of the syllogism, deduction, is where we start to order our mind to tend to not accept contradictions, to be able to recognize contradictions as fallacies. Ex: there is an event that is induced into your experience, you identify a problem with the event through deductive inference. To form the solution you use induction. Your solution can be deduced by someone else to determine its validity. Deductions refine approximations to get closer to a detailed clarity and precision.
- Part 1.2 - Grammar and Logic in Reality
Logic is the light that shines upon the darkness of uncertain but possible intuition. The "right-brain" general holistic big picture from intuitive induction, aided by the "left-brain" higher logic of deduction. People can get to know themselves this way, by applying general principles of the mind and psyche (psychology) to their own lives and deduce the reality of their own condition. This is part of Alchemy, the Trivium Method and Natural Law Expressions.Synthesis, intuitive induction, is so much easier than analysis, deduction to remove contradictions. Putting things together is easy, it's part of more basic thinking (Logic Level 1). Taking things apart and verifying them, reorganizing things, that is harder mental work (Logic Level 2). People have much ease in mashing things together into concepts and accepting them, but they don't do the harder work to verify if those concepts are even founded in truth, to see if they have a basis in truth at all.
The harmony inherent in the universe is not that "Everything gets along”. Harmony, in the universe specifically, is the result of non-contradiction between the ability to exist as a thing, within itself, and not being something else that would make it not it. It is not that there is no conflict existing anywhere in the universe. Clearly, conflict exists, both in the world and in ourselves. Contradictions are created in the imaginal mind of man through misinterpretations of our own doing. Logic, the art of non-contradiction, is used to minimize these errors in conceptual thought. It brings all of the valid and true relationships and correspondences about reality that we symbolize through language, into harmony so that they connect and form a pattern, a web, a big picture.
5.3 Thought and Consciousness
(Addendum, continued from Part 1 & 2)
The evolution of consciousness into greater thought is part of higher order consciousness capacities that leads to greater morality.
5.3.1 Contradiction and Unity Consciousness
Unity consciousness is not a whole scale thing, just like left-right brain balance is not a whole thing, it fluctuates. It works on an individual particular basis, case by case, event by event. It is up to the individual consciousness to consistently maintain integrated unity consciousness.
If you accept lies as truth and live them integrated as the unity of your thoughts, emotions and actions, then you will have a form of "unity consciousness", but not unity with reality, with what is right, good and true. You will be in contradiction with authentic reality, but you will not see it as such, as the "reality" you accept is actually an unreality, and this unreality you are not in contradiction with, so you think all is fine in your (un)"reality". Ignorance can create unity consciousness, where you thoughts, emotions and actions are in harmony in certainty with the wrong-actions you are doing, but they are not in harmony with reality in that case, and it is not a unity consciousness in the true sense. Unity consciousness must be coupled with unity or alignment with reality to produce a proper navigation of reality and true unity consciousness.
The basic level of consciousness is stimulus-response, a programmed response, programmed by nature or something else, with no memory or lesson of that stimulus-response relationship. Repeated stimulus-responses can modify future responses. This is a plant, operating according to programmed algorithms, no thought expressions like animals for interactivity and mobility in the world. Animals have more memory and lesson learning behavior, although apparently not as powerful as human animals.
This is required to understand Natural Moral Law, wrongs, righting those wrongs, developing a memory of evil, learning lessons, etc. Plants are not animals. Humans are animals, but we can evolve beyond lower consciousness modalities to more greatly embody principles of Truth, Love, Good, Right, Morality, etc. We can choose to learn lessons from knowledge and memory, rather than continue in existing programmed behavior to perpetuate falsity and limitation.
Most people are in a programmed behavioral modality of living in this primary mode of consciousness, of basic stimulus-response without the necessary thinking to process and understand what is happening. The environment, and the control system, provides man with signal inputs, and we output programmed responses because we have been conditioned to limit our thinking and conditioned to behave in certain ways, within the limits that are imposed upon us, right or wrong. We currently don't determine objective Truth and objective Morality for ourselves, we get told what it is and accept it. We get lazy in mind or consciousness expressions if we don't develop the ability to think for ourselves and figure things out on our own.
The next level of consciousness involves memory for the storing of knowledge so that we can share and build upon it. To take in information with the 5 senses, process it with the "6th sense" of consciousness, and use the information actively or pro-actively to move around and interact with the environment. The higher order consciousness of humans can express and demonstrate more memory, more teachability, more learning capacity, than nonhuman animals. Most of us as humans spend our time in the basic perceptual level of consciousness, being mostly awareness, of taking in the surroundings of the environment. This is the grammar input. Knowledge and memory leads to our greater conceptual mental life, the next level of consciousness. We first live in awareness and stimulus-response, then bring in our higher order thought and emotions to motivate us to act on an array of choices after we process our reality and understand it better. This increase in options and choices for actions in the world is not benign, but brings with it the possibility to create not only the greater good, but also the greater evil. This is a heavy responsibility that most of us are not living up to, because we willingly choose not to seek to know and understand Truth and Molarity to greater depths, levels and degrees.
The conceptual level of thinking is voluntarily, requiring volition, or will. Percepts are automatic. You open your eyes and you see. A noise is made and you hear it. They are automatic acquisitions, and some make an impression that is held in memory relative to the context of activity you were doing at that time. Then in mind, you can pro-actively model and juxtapose various percepts and concepts together, and then test it out in reality. Are your perceptions, thoughts and conceptions in harmony with reality around you? Concepts are abstractions about things in reality. The power of the mind-consciousness is in building abstractions from other abstractions, to form new concepts from previous concepts, and continue to learn, grow, improve, evolve, etc. Non-automatic, volitional conceptual thought puts ideas together (induction), or pulls them apart (deduction). We take a general observation, and in an attempt to explain it we need to take it apart into components. If broken apart and explained properly then the concept demonstrates a certain degree of veracity towards an aspect of Truth.
5.3.2 Ratio
(Addendum, continued from Words, Reality and Proportions)
The essence of man can be said to be our great ability to perceive and use ratios, as a rational reasonable thinking being. Perceiving ratios in nature allows us to design images and objects in our minds. If the designs are accurate and in harmony with Natural Laws, we can reproduce the image into reality. The prime ratio (the first subtext of substance) is is Cause and Effect, a 1:1 ratio, correlating man’s existence to reality. Existence and consciousness, along with cause and effect, are axiomatic foundations to our existence. Coming to know ratios allows us to manipulate our environment and construct things from nature. Man finds and uses ratios with rational thought.
Also, consciousness recognizes patterns and replicates them. Ratios, are detectable through patterns occurring over and over to elucidate the existence of the ratio or proportion within reality that manifests the repeating pattern of ratio. We can recreate patterns that are represented by ratio. For example, I make a smoothie and do it by eye. I recreate the same pattern, based on ratios and proportions of fruit and liquid, to create the desired smoothie. I do not need to measure the perfect ratios, and I get a glass that is full to the rim with the smoothie, only sometimes having just a little too much.
5.4 Images in the Mind
(Addendum to Pt.3 Occulting and Encrypting Reality through Word Magic)
The mind/consciousness is partly an image making factory. It is the machinery to create images and symbols from thoughts and emotions feeding back from stimulation and processing of reality.
We create self-images and worldview images. These become reflected into our ways of thinking, living and doing. These images come from reality, or what we perceive, conceive and understand as "reality" if others create false images for us to accept. Falsity and unreality becomes "reality". The worldview of reality and the self-image of our ego-personality-identity construct get formed/shaped from the social environment we live in and are imposed with the images of.
Most of the images, concepts and ideas in the minds of humanity are simply there for complacency. If you are satisfied with your way of living, then all will be well, your image of how life functions is sustained. If life is crappy, then your image has deteriorated and you no longer see that image as valid any longer compared to what reality is showing you. Perceptions and reality conflict, and this creates internal conflict.
The image can be true or a fantasy, the belief in it is what matters to those who inculcate and manipulate them into creation. Money isn't real, government isn't real, but we imbue them with power to manifest that spell into existence and curse ourselves. The more the magic spell or image is in favor with what people want, or think they "want", then they are more willing to accept the current or new conditions they live by that is representative of that image being accepted and lived by. The science of imagery can be used to show people the true state of their current condition and make them realize how wrong it is. Analogies, comparisons, allegories and metaphors can all be used to create images in our minds that can connect and correspond.
The dark science of imagery is the method of creating images in the minds of people for them to believe in, accept and envision as the way "reality" is. The majority of images in our minds, of the reality we see, is initially perpetuated or molded by the dark occultist "priests" to maintain the illusory image of the power structure they created and control with. We are conned and fooled like a magic trick, manipulated into mind control and limiting programs of behavior to continue participating in our own enslavement.
Watch the movie The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1. From the beginning of the movie, it is about a battle between two sides creating two competing images/symbols to influence the minds of the masses in order to move them in a specific direction (mind-virus). Rhetoric and emotional appeals are effective in image creation of worldviews and self-concepts, both to appeal to falsity or Truth, to slavery or justice. People can be inspired into falsity or Truth. This movie also displays the attachment and identification we have to personal relationships, and how it compromises our ability to serve and stand for Truth and Morality. We don't do what is right, good and true because we are too attached to others, and ourselves, in addition to the false self-images and worldviews we are attached to that prevent actualization and realization of Truth, or of making a moral world. That is seen in the previous movies as well.
The more perverse things get, the more easily the evil can be seen. We are currently progressing towards more perversity, but still retain a semblance of sanity through the numerous false images we are inducted with. It's harder to see (and hence harder to change) but easier to change things now if we want to, while later it will be easier to see the evil (and hence easier to change) but harder to change the perverted chaotic condition the world will be in because of how deep into evil it will be. The vision to see reality is difficult but the condition easier to change, while later the vision will be easy yet the condition difficult to change.
We need images in our mind to motivate us, to stir the emotions, to stir the "heart". Without images in mind, without imagination, there is very little motivation. Motivation is to do something. If that is something to do, then we are currently not doing it, otherwise we wouldn't be wanting to do it, we would already be doing it. So to do something else, other than what we are currently doing. This can be viewed as something new. Something new requires imagination to be thought up first, felt, and then motivated to act upon. Images can be inculcated into other minds without any critical thinking or logical processing of the image to determine its veracity, if it is an illusion or not. The creation and manipulation of images, along with the limitation of imagination, is a powerful methodology for mind control. Logic, and understanding how to use it correctly, both in analysis and synthesis, is required to progress in comprehending reality.
5.5 Meaning and Definition of Reality
(Addendum to Pt.3 Occulting and Encrypting Reality through Word Magic)
After the initial input of the symbols and words, logic is assigning grouping and ordering to letters to make them take on meaning and provide understanding about reality where only arbitrary symbols were used before. We remove contradictions in our definitions of reality. Remove the artificial unreal to find and see that which is real. Contradiction only exist in man’s mind, not nature. Definition is the identifier for how we reference and understand reality. If you fail to define a word properly, or understand what it means, then your reference to something real will be skewed and incorrect. The word used is describing a part of reality. If the word is not described properly, you are occulted from the true meaning of the word as it is intended to represent reality.
Definition is the “heart” of logic, as it gets to the core of our understanding of reality. Definitions point to the nature or essence of a word or concept. Definition brings meaning to symbols which reference reality in some way. A definition is to de-finite a meaning from reality, to set limits and boundaries to symbols as they reflect the limits and boundaries of existent particulars in reality. To have infinite meaning is to have no meaning with everything meaning the same thing.
There is a need to establish common conceptual ground within ourselves as well as others when we communicate. The solution to the problem of semantic misunderstandings, contradictions and confusion in our minds and in our reciprocal communication with others, is to properly define our terms that reference aspects of reality. If I define the term X as 'abc', but you define term X as 'bcd', then we are not on the same page nor the same path, so we cannot even be talking about the same thing, despite having some similarities in the conception. Words matter. If someone takes the time to define the terms in their argument, their proposition, they will be able to see if there are contradictions within the structure of their argument. If there are errors, the proposition needs to be revised and corrected. Errors, which are falsities, are a negative, and the negative holds the field in logic.
Parts to definition:
- Providing a positive statement with positive terms, describing what a concept is, not what it is not, where possible. Although, it's often easier to understand something in the apophatic, negative of what it is not.
- Describes genera, general commonalities, class, similarity, universal; and the differentia, essential distinctions, individual.
Define what something is, in the positive when possible, rather than what it is not, the negative. A negative, in terms of the absence of something, can’t be proven. In definition you want to state a positive affirmation, for the reason that they are verifiable, because it’s something that is. You can't prove something that is not, because it is not. You can't prove someone didn't do a crime (negation), you have to prove that someone did do a crime (affirmation).
Induction seeks out the general genus, the sameness in the particular individuals that have it in common. Deduction is the differentiated species, uniqueness, special place in the class being looked at. Analogies are comparisons, and are metaphors, personifications, allegories and similes. They are inducted abstractions which are universal and general in nature. A particular individual that is unique cannot itself be described except in reference to the universals that it has, either in common or difference with others.
An explanation (make clear, interpret, expound, flatten out) is an important step past the initial implications (entangle, interweave, connect, fold in) we make from direct awareness, inference or analogy in comparing what we observe in reality. Prior to written records of data storage to preserve knowledge, explanations were hard to come by because concepts could only be stored in consciousness and shared with others through speech. People created many beliefs from what they saw around them without much of a method for verifying it. Aristotle described such a method for veracity, known as deductive logic. Deductive logic starts with the cause and why, with a preexisting database or knowledge-base to support it. Concrete particular examples need to be known to substantiate the causal relations and explain the connections in reality that we use to derive universal concepts.
5.6 Logic and Processing
Logic asks “does it follow”. Logic is the art of valid inference, the process of correct thought. A valid inference is to take out the contradictions. Other people imply something to you, and you infer from them what they are saying about reality. The Trivium Method is a framework that reflects how our minds work. Take in knowledge (grammar), remove contradictions (logic), and speak it back out into the real world (rhetoric), refined in clarity and understanding.
The True Art of Logic eventually leads to Shadow Inner Work. This is the purpose of learning about the Trivium Method, Natural Law Expressions and Alchemy. The Art of Deduction of the self is about the reduction of untruth, falsity or non-contradiction. Something does not follow because it does not fit or belong there. We keep only what fits to build a particular puzzle. That is Alchemy and Natural Law alignment with reality.
Logic is the most important and requiring the most effort. Looking to assimilate info... that’s hard, is it? Just look, and in it goes. Assimilation of grammar is not difficult, although it does involve time. What is difficult, is the processing of the information, even in data collection partial processing through induction, which is a form of logic. If we can't make sense of the data or understand it, then it’s worthless to us right now. We might as well read Chinese characters and not understand them. If we don't understand what the symbol means, it’s worthless at that time for us to understand reality through that symbol. Grammar, without the understanding provided through logic, is only helpful to navigate the obstacles of survival and live in the environment, in a basic stimulus-response state of being. With time we could possibly deduce what a symbol means in another language. Logic is the central power of the Trivium Method. The logic of induction in grammar allows us to create ideas and concepts. The logic of deduction allows us to take them apart and verify if they actually make sense and are repeatable, or if it was a mistaken error of not enough data in grammar input.
Logic is in the middle of the Trivium for a reason. We can't get to know we have a valid output until we verify the input. Logic is not first in the Trivium process, but it is the most important. Without the input of grammar, you have nothing to process. It all starts with input and grammar, but you get nowhere if you don't process it correctly, you will just be a robot in stimulus-response of preconditioned behavioral programming.
The induction-deduction spiral again is: input percepts, induce logically the data to get to the general universals inside the particular aspects of reality, to get to the essence, the form. Verify the general universal by deducing it's universality in the specific particulars of reality.
Most people cannot reach step 2 of processing correctly, because they have not been doing the step 1 effectively, which is the input of the various information out there to make sense of reality. The amount of information is too enormous and they don't even want to start to do that work. Even when people get to the processing, they are not filtering out information that is false, contradictory, unnecessary, distracting, or has nothing to do with the solving of the problem we say we want to solve. There is so much garbage as part of the information field that people don't even want to intake any information. Most people can't get through step 1 input properly because the truth is such a needle in a stack of needles they think they will never find it even if they look.
Logical processing is required to filter bullshit and useless information, that which is a distraction, unnecessary or counter-productive, that which prevents us from getting where we need to get to -- towards True Freedom, Prosperity, Order and Peace. Processing can also be likened to an anti-virus to prevent specific corruptions we took in from mixing into our operating system in life, to prevent bullshit from getting in, to keep garbage out from the mental food we want to consume. A spam filter process can also be used, as it is not an anti-virus. We want to filter our crap coming in before we store it to memory for recall and output. Sometimes stuff gets through and taken in which then needs the anti-virus to scan and remove. The anti-virus scans what we have already taken in, finds the corrupt mind-virus and then quarantines it in the system. Input and output without processing is simply robotic programs running, no true thinking, only thought within the programmed limits. Grammar is first in order, as without input there is nothing to process. Logic is required the most, and is first in importance. Logic gets us to keep going back to grammar for more data once we see that we lack data to properly understand something. The logic anti-virus is the fallacy detection kit. It scans the data taken in for consistency and error (non-contradiction).
Failure to process data correctly will result in a failure to understand reality correctly, a failure to discern greater aspects of Truth. This is why we have people engaging in action prematurely, misguided, only partially in right-action yet also still in wrong-action, which never produces the right results in the end. This is why we have people going around on numerous issues and other “reforms” of controlled external gradualism, focusing on secondary manifestations and symptoms, without tackling the causal human consciousness that is the root of the problem.
Logic is concerned with Truth, therefore also untruth and the negation of truth which attempts to obfuscate truth, haze the light, and entrench us into darkness. Contradictions are untruth and unreal. Logic is the art of non-contradiction, of removing contradictions, which is also concerned with the removal of falsity and fallacies that represent the negation or obfuscation of truth. Falsity prevents truth from being grasped, the light from being seen, and clarity from being obtained. Contradiction leads to the darkness of untruth, through the negation of the ability to find truth in the cloudy muck of double-think unreality of that contradictory mind.
The task of thinking correctly, of removing contradictions and fallacies, is not desired by most people because they are set in stone in their beliefs, entrenched in the darkness of the calcified ego, and do not want to change their worldview, self-image or ego-personality-identity construct. It is also some of the hardest work there is to do, as it takes much time, attention, energy, effort, dedication, determination and persistence. Cognitive dissonance keeps people holding onto their contradictions for the most part as they do not listen to the emotional cues and signals telling them about unreality. The feelings of unease and anger can tell you about falsity in your life. It is not always anger at the truth we don't want to face for making us confront the lies in ourselves, the anger can be at the lies someone is speaking as well. Honest self-respect and responsibility to Truth must be used to be curious, doubt and question our perceptions of reality. We can ask ourselves questions, or others, argue with ourselves or others. Curiosity is not a chore but a motivation to know and understand even more.
The Trivium builds discerning judgment. Contradictions can be detected, then we can find the source that caused them, and correct these errors. This will help to produce an uncluttered and ordered mind. For most people this intuitive process is only briefly engaged in for the base functions of living, but making the process explicitly understood helps us refine our ability to use these intuitive tools we have. We are fallible beings, and we must know the wrongs to make the right choice. Wisdom is knowledge and understanding to be used in the objective world as right-action, otherwise it’s not wisdom, it's only internal understanding not being actualized and realized in reality. Making the right choice, doing the right thing, is wisdom, because you take the knowledge and understanding and apply it in your life. Contradictions and inconsistencies are the result of a failure to identify reality accurately and lead to wrong-actions from living in falsity, unreality. Logic brings the internal subjective realm into alignment with the objective rhythm of reality to produce harmonious external manifestations, right-action.
Written by: Kris Nelson (@krnel), for Evolve Consciousness / Trivium Method
Previous article: Dark, Negative and Limited Trivium – Language and Reality Pt.4
Related:
- Words, Reality and Proportions
- Time, Freedom and Thought (book excerpt)
- Senses for Input of Reality, not Technology
- Tracing Reality – The Visionary Quest to Wisdom
- Axioms, Existence, Consciousness and Identity
- Analogy, Balance and In Between
- Substance vs. Appearance
- Reality vs. Perception – Reality Processing
- Causality, Consciousness, Choice and Trivium
- Circle of Life
- Foundational Living and True Unity