The Fallacy of Reason

If this, then therefore that.

Such is the basis of all logic and reason.  Of course, it involves more than that, but in effect, every question or problem, no matter how complex, can be resolved by reason and logic.

Or can it?

Logic and reason are functions of the human brain.  Therefore, logical reasoning tells us, that if the brain is defective, then so also will be its capacity to reason.  Here is a powerful example of how the best and brightest brains can fail to use logic correctly.

(The following material was originally published in PARADE magazine in 1990 and 1991.)

Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?

And here is one response to the question:

If one door is shown to be a loser, that information changes the probability of either remaining choice, neither of which has any reason to be more likely, to 1/2. As a professional mathematician, I’m very concerned with the general public’s lack of mathematical skills.

End of quote.

So there you have it.  A professional mathematician, steeped in the rigorous skills of logic and precision reasoning, has given us the answer.

But it was the wrong answer.  You can see the entire fiasco of brilliant brains producing the wrong result at http://marilynvossavant.com/game-show-problem/

How could this happen?  It happened because reason and logic sometimes lead to counter-intuitive results.  It was not logic and reasoning that failed, it was their incorrect application, even by stalwarts in the field of mathematics.

But here again, we have a problem.  Reason and logic, even when properly applied according to the accepted rules, may not be all that they are cracked up to be.  JBS Haldane, the brilliant biologist (1892 – 1964) pointed out something very obvious, which is often overlooked.  He said,

If materialism is true, it seems to me that we cannot know that it is true. If my opinions are the result of the chemical processes going on in my brain, they are determined by the laws of chemistry, not those of logic.

Now this brief quote encapsulates a vital principle that undermines the whole of logic and reasoning.  A more understandable way of expressing it is to use the example of a chess computer.  In the early days of chess computers, they could easily be beaten by your average high school nerd (I was a below average nerd in high school, and perhaps remain so).  Why?  Because the chess computer had limited ability to reason its way through a chess game.  According to its circuitry, it could make perfect decisions on every move. But its circuitry was too limited.

Of course, the human brain is not a computer, but Haldane was a biologist who well understood it.  He was also IMO a materialist atheist.

What he said, therefore, deserves careful consideration.  He was a materialist who said that if HIS view of a material universe is correct, the human brain is incapable of knowing that, because the limited circuitry of that brain might be deeply flawed.

Indeed, it has been pointed out that, if evolution theory is true, then the human brain did not evolve by being able to produce mathematics, science, art and music, but rather, by mastering the limited skill set it needed to survive.

In recent years, there has been a movement on some college campuses to discredit what some call, logicism.  Logic, after all, was used by vicious white men to oppress their victims, and it must therefore be evil.  Instead of logic, we should govern our lives by emotion.

I do not agree with that.  I tend more to agree with Haldane on this quote of his:

“My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

I will close with this quote, which I think comes closest to the truth on this subject:

        As Bishop Fulton J Sheen (1895 – 1979) wrote so eloquently:

The great arcana of Divine Mysteries cannot be known by reason, but only by Revelation.  Reason can however, once in possession of these truths, offer persuasions to show that they are not only not contrary to reason, or destructive of nature, but eminently suited to a scientific temper of mind and the perfection of all that is best in human nature. [1]

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[1] The Life of all Living; Garden City Books reprint edition 1951; copyright 1929 by The Century Company, printed in the United States at The Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y.