Q&A: Question about the Foolish Circle
Question about the Foolish Circle
Question
Hello Rabbi, I’m currently reading your book "God Plays Dice," and at the moment I’m reading about the foolish circle. You argue that everything is a product of evolution—from religions, God, and morality, to scientific and empirical thinking.
In my opinion, there is a difference between the first examples and the last ones. In the first examples, one can imagine an alternative reality: God does not exist, morality is ultimately just an illusion with no validity, and so on. On the other hand, with the last examples I can’t manage to think of an alternative reality (even if theoretically those examples also developed through evolution). Can you think of an example in which an external world exists, but we view empiricism and logic in a completely mistaken way? I’d be glad to hear an example if so. The only thing I can maybe manage to imagine is that our entire consciousness is corrupted and we are living lives totally different from the external world…
Answer
I didn’t understand the question.
Discussion on Answer
Of course there is a difference. Logic is forced on us. Morality is forced only in a weak sense: if there is morality, then that is necessarily what it is. And even that requires some discussion, but this is not the place.
Unlike intuition such as morality, where one can theoretically imagine a world without it or where it is an illusion, in the case of logic and empiricism the situation is different, and I can’t even think of an alternative world the way I can with morality. That’s why I think there is a difference between the examples.
Are you able to think of an example of a world in which the way we conceive logic, truth and falsehood, and empiricism is different, while everything outside is different from our world?