1. the science which investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference. 2. reasoning or argumentation, or an instance of it. 3. the system or principles of reasoning applicable to any branch of knowledge or study. 4. reasons or sound sense, as in utterances or action. 5. convincing force: the irresistible logic of facts. [ME logik, t. ML: m.s. logica, t. Gk: m. logiké, prop. fem. of logikós pertaining to reason]
What is the role of logic in the creative process?
If words form on the blank page, do they arrange themselves in some recognizable pattern?
...I pause, transfixed by a question mark, always the most troubling of punctuations. It makes so many assumptions, asserting the existence of "truth", "knowledge", perhaps even "causality". Yet, it offers no argument, scientific or otherwise. It has context, but not reason.
If logic investigates, the question mark ridicules. If logic is an instance of reasoning or argumentation, the question mark is timeless baiting. If logic is a system of reasoning, the question mark is random violence. If logic is principle, the question mark is amoral. If logic is sense, the question mark is sensual. If logic is a convincing force, the question mark is the immovable impasse. If logic is analysis, the question mark is impulse. If logic is a noun, the question mark is a verb.
There WOuld be no point in doing battle with logic. It was a necessary invention.
We crave continuity, definition. We project blindly into the future, having only memory, a sense of past experience, able to see only where we've been and what we've done. Logic faces this past -- it is analytical, intellectual, inferential. It is magic, smoke, mirrors, an enchanted string to tie events into artificial bundles for ease of handling.
Death haunts our lives because our sense of self is so tenuous. The question mark haunts our statements because we need to make sense of non-sense. Logic haunts our reason because we need to explain ourselves to ourselves.
THe REal E ffect of logic is to make distinctions where none exist, to change continuous tone into white, black, and 8steps of gray.
We do. We are doing. We (re)act within our context from birth to death, continuously. There is no more "beginning" or "end" to our act that there is an observable point at (1 divided by infinity) or (infinity minus 1). This does not, however, alter the fact that we find it convenient to segment our lives into magical artificial bundles, neatly tied for observation and analysis. We search for definition and explanation. We lasso the breaking wave with the enchanted string and analyze it's "cause" and "effect", it's "meaning" and "metaphor", it's "means" and "end". But this analysis requires a preexisting object. The enchanted string cannot create this object, it can only offer the illusion of capture.
Logic is a human invention, a tool oF analysIs. N ature does not analyze. Without the human there is no logic. We do not obey the rule of logic. Therefore, there is no logic.