Juliet asked:

In my enquiry into the concept of existence, meaning and God, I've come across many different
prevalent theories. But so far all of them (so it seems to me) seem to sprout from humans'
deep-rooted, inherent desire to be masters of the world and themselves.

I say this because present systems of reasoning — or to be a bit technical "logic" — are too
contextual and limited while we seem to talk about entities and their operative modes which are
universal. For what is reason but a mere software (however advanced) that is run inside our brains?
Reason and logic may not dictate reality (if reality is conceived as an outside independent objectivity)
any more than they dictate themselves. Reason has such a strong hold on us by virtue of its very
nature and the only device at hand to disprove reason is reason itself, which leads us into bizarre
contradictions.

If this is so don't you think we need first to question the universality of reason?

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In answer to your question, no I don't think that we should question the universality of logic. Mainly, im
going to disagree with your claim that 'logic does not dictate reality'. Reality must work within the laws
of logic. For example, reality could not contain any contradictions. It can't be the case that it's both
raining in Leeds and it's not raining in Leeds (¬(p&¬p)). Reality simple cannot bend this
law. Nor can it bend other rules. For example, "its either raining in Leeds or its not raining in Leeds" (p
v¬p); "if water=H2O then if x isn't water then x isn't H2O" (if x=y then if ¬(a=x) then
¬(a=y); "if it's raining in Leeds then it's raining in Leeds" (if p then p). Reality simply cannot
break these rules. Secondly, if logic is just a software in the brain then logic must govern our thinking.
Our thinking is part of reality, so logic must govern part of reality. Logical laws are of the upmost
generality and if we lost them then we would lose our grip on reality.

Rich Woodward

Quite a few years ago, there was a bug in an early version of the Pentium processor which caused
PC's to produce the wrong answers to certain mathematical calculations. Is it not conceivable that
there could be a similar malfunction in the human brain, caused perhaps by a genetic mutation that
took place millions of years ago?

If a malfuctioning logic machine in our brains governs our thinking about reality, then there will be
times — as with the malfunctioning Pentium processor — when we reason illogically.

Suppose that were true. As a matter of fact, human beings are rather less reliable than computers
when it comes to reasoning. All of us have reasoned illogically at times. However, we are also able to
discoverwhen we have done so. Illogical reasoning leads to inconsistency.

What if it didn't: suppose that becauseof this genetic feature of our brains we are unable to recognize
when our thinking is at odds with reality. So our defective 'logic' appears to us perfectly consistent,
because, in effect, we are measuring our logic against itself as the standard?

But wait a minute,we can't speak of 'consistency' because this already assumes the truth of the law of
non-contradiction! Maybe the law of non-contradiction is false, but we are incapable of seeing this
because our brains are locked into thinking 'consistently'....

Geoffrey Klempner