is reality rational?

[B.H.]

What do all of you think?

[Celsus]

Does free will exist?

[Ray Moscow]

If a tree falls on the pope crapping in the woods, is he still Catholic?

Seriously: please clarify the OP question.

[Preno]

That doesn't even make sense. Agents can be rational or irrational, not things or "reality".

[David B]

Maybe the OP is asking the equivalent of 'Do we live in a pantheistic universe?':dunno:

David

[Eudaimonist]

Are you asking if reality is amenable to reason? Yes, I think we can do a good job understanding reality through the use of reason.


eudaimonia,

Mar

[Garrett]

sometimes its emotional

[Worldtraveller]

The whole universe is emo? Gives whole new meaning to that Occam's razor gif.... :p

[Berthold]

I'd suppose the question can be reformulated, "Can there be such a thing as an utterly unresolvable contradiction in reality?"

Probably this is impossible to answer or even estimate.

[B.H.]

That doesn't even make sense. Agents can be rational or irrational, not things or "reality".


So you are saying reality is neither rational or irrational. It just is, right?

[B.H.]

If a tree falls on the pope crapping in the woods, is he still Catholic?

Seriously: please clarify the OP question.


He's probably still Catholic but might need to take a bath if the tree knocked him into his own pile of feces.

[Ray Moscow]

BH, do you mean is the universe comprehensible by rational beings?

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?

[B.H.]

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?


Yes, this.

[Gaojie]

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?


Yes, this.

Do you mean to ask "Does the universe think of itself as rational?" or do you mean that the universe is rational somehow but doesn't know that it is rational, it just happens to be rational? Maybe you mean something else.

[Monad]

You folks don't know the famous Hegel quote?

all that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real.

I guess that is what the OP is referring to.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/index.htm

(Discussion by Engels)

Hegel is basically saying that the universe is amenable to rational thought because it is, itself, ordered and logical (and that rational thought is possible because of the nature of the world it inhabits - there is a synergy between the two)

[munnki]

That doesn't even make sense. Agents can be rational or irrational, not things or "reality".

I agree, the question 'is reality rational' doesn't make any sense. If you mean 'are things in the world [or 'the world'] wholly amenable to reason' then the question becomes impossible to answer or immersed in contradiction for the following reason.
The universe of knowable objects is a subset of the universe itself. There is a point of view that says the universe is mechanistic and that it merely requires us to 'lift the trunk and look at the engine in order 'to figure it out. This was the mechanistic worldview of the enlightenment thinkers based on their understanding of the universe. We often call this the Newtonian worldview (but, in fact it extends way beyond Newton). But there are some principal problems (that I can think of just now) with that worldview.
i) it perhaps permits us to say that some of the objects/categories within the world are predictable and behave in certain patterns but it certainly doesn't allow us to talk about those things which we are not aware of or distinctions which we have not yet made
ii) it doesn't explain what it means by rational and nor does it take into account the limits of human reason
iii) modern physics in its attempts to generalize predictable forms and categories has inevitably run into problems where locally solvable categories become generally contradictory - this is where physics sits now and it can historically be said that each new category of understanding of the physical world has thrown up a new set of contradictions which the next generation of scientists have had to wrestle with...

So, although your question doesn't quite make sense to me... those are some of the things I might mention if I attempted to answer it. I note that on iii) I don't dogmatically insert 'god' or a 'creator' but I do make assumptions about the knowability and predictability of the universe. I think different problems in the world cause the creation of different modes of understanding of the world - and this level of understanding can sometimes be called 'reality' - and in that limited case you could make an argument that 'reality was rational' - but what you'd really be saying was - "This type of real that I am discussing is amenable to predictability, description and analysis."

I think that's how I'd answer the question but I'm writing and thinking quite quickly...perhaps further analysis is necessary.

[munnki]

Let's consider the use of the quote in context (and I emphasise the use of the quote) as that's the text that has been provided.

Let us take an example. No philosophical proposition has earned more gratitude from narrow-minded governments and wrath from equally narrow-minded liberals than Hegel’s famous statement: “All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real.” That was tangibly a sanctification of things that be, a philosophical benediction bestowed upon despotism, police government, Star Chamber proceedings and censorship. That is how Frederick William III and how his subjects understood it. But according to Hegel certainly not everything that exists is also real, without further qualification. For Hegel the attribute of reality belongs only to that which at the same time is necessary: “In the course of its development reality proves to be necessity.” A particular governmental measure — Hegel himself cites the example of “a certain tax regulation” — is therefore for him by no means real without qualification. That which is necessary, however, proves itself in the last resort to be also rational; and, applied to the Prussian state of that time, the Hegelian proposition, therefore, merely means: this state is rational, corresponds to reason, insofar as it is necessary; and if it nevertheless appears to us to be evil, but still, in spite of its evil character, continues to exist, then the evil character of the government is justified and explained by the corresponding evil character of its subjects. The Prussians of that day had the government that they deserved.

Now, the statement 'all that is real is rational' taken as an axiom is neither provable nor unprovable... it is merely nonsense when taken out of a given context. I don't know the context that Hegel made the statement in but knowing something of the kind of philosopher Hegel was it's possible that there is some merit in Marx and Engels critique of how it was used.
What they are saying is that this statement can be used to justify the arbitrary decisions and uses of power of the state. Now, what Hegel could well have meant is that the actions of a state, government etc... can be explained by recourse to reason. In this context it is a reasonable proposition. It also chimes well with many statements made about Hegel - that he was a conservative and rightist philosopher. It also chimes well with the circumstances that led to Marx's break with Hegelian philosophy. Marx felt that mere analysis of state action and further the explanation of state action in terms of movements and ideas within the time was impotent and possibly damaging. We all know his famous quote - Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point however is to change it. Ultimately, Marx said that his task was to turn the philosophy of Hegel on its head and show how contrary to the idea propagated within Hegelian philosophy i.e. that material and economic conditions at base were the most important determining factors in a given society/state.
In closing, it is worth looking at the quote below from Hegel's Philosophy of the Right to understand the kind of context this statement could have arisen in:
The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea. It is ethical mind qua the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. The state exists immediately in custom, mediately in individual self-consciousness, knowledge, and activity, while self-consciousness in virtue of its sentiment towards the state, finds in the state, as its essence and the end-product of its activity, its substantive freedom.
(Hegel's Philosophy of Right - Third Part - The State:Ethical Life)

I'm wondering what Celsus thinks...

[munnki]

Ultimately, Marx said that his task was to turn the philosophy of Hegel on its head and show how contrary to the idea propagated within Hegelian philosophy i.e. that material and economic conditions at base were the most important determining factors in a given society/state.

This should read

Ultimately, Marx said that his task was to turn the philosophy of Hegel on its head and show how contrary his ideas were to those within Hegelian philosophy i.e. that material and economic conditions at base were the most important determining factors in a given society/state.

[Free in Freeport]

Does it matter?

[munnki]

:rolleyes:

[B.H.]

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?


Yes, this.

Do you mean to ask "Does the universe think of itself as rational?" or do you mean that the universe is rational somehow but doesn't know that it is rational, it just happens to be rational? Maybe you mean something else.



Does reality function in a rational manner? I'm sorry but linguistically I can't frame the question any better than this.

[JamesBannon]

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?


Yes, this.

Do you mean to ask "Does the universe think of itself as rational?" or do you mean that the universe is rational somehow but doesn't know that it is rational, it just happens to be rational? Maybe you mean something else.



Does reality function in a rational manner? I'm sorry but linguistically I can't frame the question any better than this.

I wouldn't have said so. Reality just "is".

[Celsus]

"Rationality" is governed by the rules of its reality ;)

Good thing Hegel didn't have to take quantum physics classes

[Eudaimonist]

Or do you ask whether it has some intrinsic rationality of its own?


Yes, this.

Then no. The universe does not contain rationality in some intrinsic fashion. We don't understand the universe because it contains reason or is physically ordered by reason, but because rational minds are capable of understanding a non-contradictory reality in conceptual terms.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[dug_down_deep]

No, because pi.

[Alethias]

"Rational" is a filter that some people attempt to apply to reality to make it make more sense. Sometimes it seems to be a useful way to look at reality and sometimes it doesn't seem to help all that much.

Chaos is the raw material of reality. In the expanse of chaos there are sometimes things that seem orderly from a specific mental vantage point. And then you change the frame you look thru and suddenly it doesn't look all that orderly at all and something else looks orderly.

What a mess.

[Michael]

I like the story of the solipsist who told Bertrand Russell of her surprise that she had met no other solipsists.

Russell later wrote: "Her surprise surprised me."

[epepke]

Reality is real. It is also complex. It isn't imaginary, though. Funny, that.

[BioNinja]

I think the problem with this question is that "rational" as an adjective implies agency, that is, it implies an agent who can observe and interpret facts, and draw conclusions from those interpretations. "Reality" as a concept doesn't have agency, unlike humans. It doesn't have a "mind," and doesn't make decisions or conclusions; it simply is.

[Garrett]

I think the problem with this question is that "rational" as an adjective implies agency, that is, it implies an agent who can observe and interpret facts, and draw conclusions from those interpretations. "Reality" as a concept doesn't have agency, unlike humans. It doesn't have a "mind," and doesn't make decisions or conclusions; it simply is.
Like people and other things with "minds"?

[Hevvin Machine]

I think it is inaccurate to describe people as being rational. Rational is an adjective refering to thought processes. A sentient agent could be rational about one thought process, but irrational about another. There are creationists who are capable of balancing their checkbooks, for instance.

A rational thought process is one that tends to lead a sentient agent towards a world-view that accurately reflects reality. Reality is not rational, nor are people. Thought processes are rational, or else they are irrational. A person whose thought processes are usually rational might be thought of as a rational person, but that is a semantic issue. Rather like a good person might occasionally do minor bad things, but still be considered a good person.

Hev

[Preno]

A rational thought process is one that tends to lead a sentient agent towards a world-view that accurately reflects reality.No, it's not. Rational = reasonable. If Newton had derived General Relativity based on his observations, that would have been very irrational, as there is no support whatsoever for it in those observations. On the contrary, coming up with his law of gravitation was rational, despite the fact that it doesn't "accurately reflect reality", or certainly not as accurately as GR.

Or to use a more obvious example, if an Ouija board tells me that the name of the Governor of Illinois is John, it's obviously not rational to conclude that it is John, even if it in fact is.

[Hevvin Machine]

Or to use a more obvious example, if an Ouija board tells me that the name of the Governor of Illinois is John, it's obviously not rational to conclude that it is John, even if it in fact is.
I phrased that very poorly. What I meant was "Rational is an adjective refering to thought processes. Thought processes that lead consistently lead to accurate worldviews are rational." Ouija boards might tell you almost anything. Just because they happen to produce a correct answer sometimes doesn't make them rational.

I still think that what BH's OP was really asking was "Is reality consistent and comprehensible?" But that isn't what he actually said. While I am sure that reality is not rational, that is a semantic issue. "Is reality consistent and comprehensible?" That I'm not so sure about.
An awful lot of modern scientific understanding is based on the premise that the universe is consistent and orderly and has always been so. If the speed of light, or the force of gravity, were found to be variable an awful lot of our "understanding" would have to be radically altered.

Hev

[dug_down_deep]

Gravity is variable. But I think you're right about the assumption of consistency.

Whether or not it's comprehensible in toto is a metaphysical question, and superfluous. Consistent is good enough.

[Garrett]

Gravity is variable.

That's a bit ambiguous, since the gravitational constant is presumed to be constant. If gravity were presumed to be variable then we wouldn't need to build a theory of dark matter! Probably I'm missing your point.

[Hevvin Machine]

Maybe you can get DDD to explain what he meant by "gravity is variable". I'm not a scientist, so I don't even know how to ask the questions.
Hev

[Garrett]

I thought that's what I just did. Should I object without saying why? Seriously. What did I do wrong?

[dug_down_deep]

Gravity is variable.

That's a bit ambiguous, since the gravitational constant is presumed to be constant. If gravity were presumed to be variable then we wouldn't need to build a theory of dark matter! Probably I'm missing your point.
I'm just a physics fan, not a player, but I was just correcting what I thought was a misstatement. In physics equations, gravity (g) is a variable, not a constant, like the speed of light (c).

[Garrett]

Gravity is variable.

That's a bit ambiguous, since the gravitational constant is presumed to be constant. If gravity were presumed to be variable then we wouldn't need to build a theory of dark matter! Probably I'm missing your point.
I'm just a physics fan, not a player, but I was just correcting what I thought was a misstatement. In physics equations, gravity (g) is a variable, not a constant, like the speed of light (c).
I'm not a player either. Even the speed of light varies! Of course such variance can be resolved to an understanding that light speed is constant (in a vacuum!). Similar with gravity.

Gravity is assumed to be a constant (we know it varies with mass and distance). I happen to think that assumption may be wrong (the assumption leads to the thought that 96% of our universe isn't observable!)

I'm not sure about the numbers. But we can either believe most of our observable universe is invisible to us, or suspect that gravity doesn't always behave as it does here deep in a gravity well.

[Yahzi]

Since we've brought up physics, doesn't the breakdown of physics inside black holes basically prove that the universe is not completely rational?

[Garrett]

Or does it show we don't have a complete understanding of physics yet?

What was happening before the big bang, anyway?

[Yahzi]

Or does it show we don't have a complete understanding of physics yet?
The general idea is not just that we don't know, but that we can't know. I'm with you, however: strict determinism!

What was happening before the big bang, anyway?
You're not allowed to ask that. Time is a function of space, and before the big bang, there was no space. Hence, no time. It's like asking, "What's outside our universe?" The question just doesn't make sense. If there is something besides our universe, it isn't "outside." It is in some place that is so removed from our ideas of place that it doesn't count as a place.

[Febble]

Or does it show we don't have a complete understanding of physics yet?
The general idea is not just that we don't know, but that we can't know. I'm with you, however: strict determinism!

What was happening before the big bang, anyway?
You're not allowed to ask that. Time is a function of space, and before the big bang, there was no space. Hence, no time. It's like asking, "What's outside our universe?" The question just doesn't make sense. If there is something besides our universe, it isn't "outside." It is in some place that is so removed from our ideas of place that it doesn't count as a place.

Unless you go with Steinhardt and Turok (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1070462).

[LukeS]

Is it rational to speculate?

[sce]

yes, because every one lives there life by sensed realities. eg how fast you drive a car is dependent on what you sense of reality when you drive your car. and people who lets say spend christmas day waiting for santa realise its not rational to do that because eventually they click on that the reality of santa doesnt exist and then they stop waiting.

[dug_down_deep]

Why are you angry at Santa?

[BWE]

Why are you angry at Santa?

I asked for a saxophone and got a kazoo. hmmmph.

[dug_down_deep]

Santa works in mysterious ways. Have you tried writing a letter to Santa about your troubles?

[BWE]

I did. And he wrote back. Seems his definition of naughty doesn't mesh with mine.

[LukeS]

Whether Santa comes into your room late on the 24th has an empirical, testable answer. How do you test whether reality is rational - conclusivley? Otherwise, isn't the denial in this thread just so much hot air? When conscoiusness and agency are not adequately explained, how do we know reality is not a thinking agent? 'Maybe' still lurks. Well, we might know, luckily, with bronze standard justification, but conclusiveness eudes.

[HinduWoman]

Yes?
No?
Maybe?

Reality just is reality? The question does not make sense once you think on it.

[Yahzi]

When conscoiusness and agency are not adequately explained, how do we know reality is not a thinking agent?
Asimov gave a great explanation of this in "The relativity of Wrong." Google it - it is well worth reading.

'Maybe' still lurks.
Not really. Descartes put this to rest when he kick-started functionalism.

[LukeS]

Yes?
No?
Maybe?

Reality just is reality? The question does not make sense once you think on it.

Is there any evidence you would accept which would, or might prove reality to be rational?

[HinduWoman]

But what do you mean by rationality?

Do you mean the universe is a conscious thinking entity?
Or do you mean universe is guided by laws --- because that is obvious.

[dug_down_deep]

Not really obvious at all. Guided?

[Eudaimonist]

Yes?
No?
Maybe?

Reality just is reality? The question does not make sense once you think on it.

Is there any evidence you would accept which would, or might prove reality to be rational?

How would a "rational" reality differ from a metaphysically naturalistic reality? Once this is answered, perhaps we could come up with some test.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[LukeS]

Is there any evidence you would accept which would, or might prove reality to be rational?

How would a "rational" reality differ from a metaphysically naturalistic reality? Once this is answered, perhaps we could come up with some test.
I don't think that it's necessary that it should differ.
The only necessary condition of rationality we seem to have so far is that reality would have to have agency, but there are plenty of people who believe that agency can exist in a naturalistic universe.