From file: logic and natural law.doc

What is the difference between LOGIC and NATURAL LAW?

The laws of logic appear to be necessary while the laws of nature are contingent. In other words, the laws of logic could not be otherwise while those of nature could be other than what they are

What is it, however, that gives logic the appearance of necessity? Is logic inherent in the nature of being? Or, is it that we have defined a context that appears to be the universe and that the laws of logic as we state them are inherent to the context but not the universe?

In using the word 'defined' it is not implied that a verbal definition has been given. Instead, the context could be inherent to our being but not to all being or, as a second example, a context may have been set up in practice as a result of trial and error and selection pressure. The second example includes the case of verbal practice which, in turn, includes the case of verbal definition

How might it be possible to distinguish universal necessity from contextual necessity? Contextual necessity is constitutive of being within a context. Such necessity may be purely conventional in some cases but in others it may be inherent to a class of being; in the latter case the individuals within the context may experience the context as the world and its logical laws as necessary. Thus, it may appear that there is no escape from the world - not because it is difficult but because there appears to be nothing outside the world. It may appear, then, that there is no measure by which the laws of logic of the world can be seen to not be universal, to be limited to the world

In our world, there are a variety of logical systems some of which are clearly tailored to some particular practice, while others seem to apply to all contexts. Even the more 'universal' ones are, in general, subject to error in that they are the product of our thought. To simplify the discussion, it is assumed that our core logic does indeed obtain without exception in our world - or perhaps that our vision has limited the extent of the world by the applicability of the core logic

While it appears to be difficult to 'get outside the world,' even in thought, it may be noted that even the being of our world partakes of a conceptual character. This is not a claim that the world is conceptual in character, for this may be taken as meaning that the world is purely a product of perception and thought. Rather, the position is that the being of our world has a real character that is rendered for us in its characteristic way in our vision. Having said this it becomes clear that an approach to getting outside our world in thought, which would not be consistently possible if our world was the universe, is through imagination - conceptual and iconic - and analysis. Surely, it seems that the world is escapable in thought in this way. In other words, a valid concept may be formed of the universe and of this world as a part the universe

Further, if a valid concept of this world as part of the universe may be formed, then this world may also be 'physically' escapable

The concept of the universe as ALL OF BEING - all that exists where 'exists' does not have the connotation of being within a 'slice of time' - and of our world as a normal world is an approach to the question of the universality of our various forms of logic

As to whether the picture that has been built is but one further rung in an infinite ladder must not be answered in advance - unless there is some necessary reason to do so - but must be part of the analysis

How do the concepts of the universe and of a normal world permit a rational approach to the question of the distinction between necessary or logical and contingent or natural law and to the question of the universality of logic? In a specified context, the logic is that which defines or is constitutive of the context; the natural laws may be seen as facts - though not atomic facts - within the context. Similarly, for a normal world there are conditions of existence - of self-adaptation - or of becoming which determine the forms of the world which include the distinction between object and property that are pertinent to logic. In addition to these forms that are necessary to that world, there are the objects that are contingent in their manifestation but not in their form; these are the individual objects of the world. Then there are the laws or patterns of that world that, while they are necessary to that particular world, could be different in another world that had the same necessary forms. It is clear, here, that there is, thus far, a certain blurring of the distinction between natural and logical law; however the fact of the blurring need not obscure the distinction or the possibility of refining the understanding of the distinction