Reply #91: Excellent! [View All]

[immoderate]

Logic can only operate in the domain of information that can be deemed true or false. Reason is a less rigorous standard. We may make hundreds of decisions a day. Many or most are decided for aesthetic reasons, even by those who are the most hardened realist, materialist, or skeptic. Romantic is a good description of this aspect of humanity.

The conflict is when romantic notions challenge principles that are well established by logic. Note that logic is a purely mathematical process, and to deny the result of logical process properly applied is like denying the sum of two and two. There's no shortage of people who will argue with any of that.

I am surely supportive of romantic approaches to life, for herein lies the playfulness and imagination that stimulates us. But care should be taken not to ascribe to reality the plastic properties of words and ideas. Illusions should not take precedence over reality, as required by human interdependence.

--IMM