The Limitations of Logic - Trust Your Intuition!

A few months ago I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep.  Even though I'd only slept 3 hours and had been awake the previous 24 hours travelling back from Europe, my body popped awake and despite a dose of melatonin I had been unable to go back to sleep.  As frustrating as it can be, I kind of like that wakeful time in the middle of the night because I find it fascinating to observe where my mind will wander when it's unfettered by day-time constrains such as schedules and agendas.  That morning in the wee hours, for instance, I forged a new word.

English, which has borrowed cognates from nearly every tongue and which continues to invent new words at a staggering rate, is the mutt of languages.  The downside of that kind of linguistic virility is that it makes a language hard to learn, pronounce, and spell.  However those are small prices to pay for being able to communicate using a "living language" that is constantly being adapted to encompass concepts or points of view not previously labeled.  As words expand so expands our collective knowledge.  That adaptability, combined with English's role as the de-facto universal language of business and the internet, makes the language resilient, useful, and universal.  New words are created all the time--one estimate is that over 4,000 words are added to English dictionaries each year by erudite committees of linguists.  The evolution of language is of course a mirror of the evolution of our culture (e.g. some of the telling additions to the Merriam-Webster dictionary for 2012 were "man-cave", "F-bomb", "bucket-list", and "sexting").  Words are powerful because they create a shared space in our minds that didn't exist before.  We can essentially reach into each other's minds and build something new--ideally something good.

The process of making a new word is both creative and democratic.  It takes thought and observation to identify an un-labeled concept and then give it a compelling enough name for it to be understood and adopted broadly, but other than that word-forging (how about that for a new word?) is open to all comers.  Go ahead give it a try.  Because the process of creating new words is so democratic occasionally the same word and concept is born independently in the mind of more than one person.  That happened to me in my morning musings--I thought of a concept, I named it, and then after searching for it on Google found out that others had already given the same name to essentially the same concept.  Along with a bit of disappointment, the discovery that someone else had already had the same thoughts and arrived at the same word, was also strangely satisfying (I suppose we all like having our ideas validated).

Scientism - The Over-Reliance On Logic

As I lay in semi-wakefulness that morning my mind drifted to the way in which many in our culture (typically the more highly educated) have come to see logic and reason as the primary, if not the only, tool for gaining understanding and processing what they observe and experience.  Essentially, if they can't figure something out using only their intellect and/or the so-called "scientific method" then it doesn't exist.  This over-emphasis on a single cognitive tool to the exclusion of others is silly and self-limiting which is ironic for someone with an inquiring mind.  Science and logic becomes, for them, a kind of religion with the fundamental focus of their faith being their own intellect.  As I thought about the concept I groped about for a word that could describe it.  I decided that I would call it "scientism".  I hopped out of bed to write it down so I wouldn't forget it but quickly discovered that someone else beat me to it.  Interestingly a quick internet search of the term "scientism" produced the following definition from Wikipedia:

Scientism is a term used, usually pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints.  The term frequently implies a critique of the more extreme expressions of logical positivism and has been used by social scientists such as Friedrich Hayek, philosophers of science such as Karl Popper, and philosophers such as Hilary Putnam to describe the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable.

Other Cognitive Tools

There are, of course, many other valuable tools we can and should use for processing what we experience (e.g. faith, intuition, feelings).  In fact, the most important things in my life (e.g. my trust in God, the love I feel for my family, my delight in the beauty and order of nature etc.) have little to do with my logic or reason.  I process these most important things through altogether different cognitive tool-sets.  Ironically, those "soft touchy-feely" cognitive tools have produced in me the most solid sense of surety in the areas to which I've applied them.  

Faith -

Logic is limited as a tool for dealing with things which are not observably self-evident (e.g. the future outcome of a decision, the choice of a spouse, the nature of God etc.).  From a purely pragmatic point of view faith--which I like to define as sufficient belief in something that is unknown to cause action--is far more useful than certainty.  Faith spurs you to action (e.g. planting seeds, establishing a relationship, service to God and your fellow-man etc.), whereas certainty just lies there.  Knowledge is static understanding while faith provides a motive.  Gaining understanding is interesting but it's a purely academic exercise until you apply yourself to do something with the understanding--that application of yourself in the face of uncertainty is faith.

Intuition -

For instance, during the course of my life and career I had to make countless decisions that involved putting millions of dollars at risk with the hope of a positive return.  The accountant part of me wanted quantifiable data that would help me mitigate the risk of a bad decision, but after gathering all the data we could and trying to let the data make the decision for me, I still had to make an intuitive choice.  It turned out that my intuition was pretty good at helping me arrive at the "truth" (i.e. the best choice given the alternatives).  

Feelings - 

My logical mind is also a limited tool for helping me in my roles as husband and father.  My love for my wife and children is feeling-based and yet it is so certain and secure.  Building positive relationships is one of the most complex activities of human living, and logic alone fails in dealing with those complexities.  People are often afraid to trust their feelings because they are so changeable and subject to manipulation, but as you learn to clear the noise among your jumble of emotions, and focus on the feelings that are elucidated by the inner compass that comes as standard equipment for all of us at birth you will find you are able to thrive among the complexities of living as a human being.

All the positive outcomes in life that matter most to me, such as my happiness, peace, security, satisfaction, optimism, and hope, have come through the application of the soft-touchy-feely cognitive tools such as faith, intuition, and feelings.  Scientism is an arrogant limited world view.  If you're locked into an over-reliance on logic practice adding a few more tools to your kit and you'll find far more success in the things that matter most.