Are those who don't honor logic deceitful egomaniacs?

[Asolsutsesvyl]

(Splitting this up, here's part 1 more on logic, part 2 more on alternative vs. skeptics later.)

On the question of what logic is (in part @Aion), I had in mind mainly the rules of deduction and what fits them, as opposed to things that don't follow them but which people subjective find to "seem logical". I think the correct word for things which only subjectively seem logical (and tastes can differ) but can't be fit into formal logic is actually intuition, intuition being something which sometimes can seem logical and sometimes not.

But there's also philosophical principles to do with what makes good argumentation, e.g. that it's not valid to simply pile on more and more little claims in order to work around all objections (which otherwise can be done forever by a BS artist -- and for example some channeled sources throw in such ad hoc justifications and complications whenever the old narrative is questioned).

Honestly, I left it all kind of fuzzy, going for capturing the gist of something I've been feeling strongly about but not clearly expressed before.

Speaking of logic in a strict sense, it is by its nature limited in scope of application. Part of the foundation of theoretical computer science is Godel's logical proof that logic can't prove everything, and Turing's basic finding using the rules of computation that not everything can be computed. There's known unknowns and unknown unknowns, it has been proven, regarding what can be proven and calculated by a computer. For something to be strictly logical (decidable or not is a different question) means that it can in principle be ran on a computer (workably or never finishing is a different question), and vice versa.

The title question has a caricature of my critical attitude, so I wouldn't go on to simply answer it with a yes myself.

In my personal experience, a sincere desire for truth is more powerful than a desire to share truth. As such, people who only seek truth to share it are much more likely to be distorted channels and ego driven, or even just driven by the distortions of their audience.

I'm very disillusioned with the "sharing" in/of various "truth movements" in general. Outside of formal logic, when the names of things contain "truth", there's usually little to be found in it. Online mobs tend to use the word "truth" similarly to how some silly people use too many exclamation marks with a sense that such a subjective "might" to the message automatically makes right, eroding all real meaning.

I do not believe that logic is necessarily the greater authority though. Our unconscious mind contains wisdom that predates by far our ability for logic, which is still quite immature in its current knowledge. In all that we know, we discovered even more things that we became aware that we do not know of. Intuition and instinct can still remain the greater authority at times, especially when we understand that our ability for logic is heavily impacted by our collective confusion.

I don't mean to suggest that logic is to be the only, or even the main, tool or method of thought. As even the most hardcore materialist skeptics acknowledge (and often do pioneering work concerning), the rational part of the mind is way too slow and low in bandwidth to deal with the full reality in real time, and can only be used with selective narrow focus, something which it is a difficult art to do wisely.

Interesting topic. Logic depends on how powerful someone's mental processor is. Some who ignore logic cannot comprehend a certain level of logic and is just a genuine inability and not ego.

Actually, I was thinking of writing about the extra concern of ability vs. choice. Why people do what they do, or rather mainly argue they way they argue (because the brain normally makes people behave irrationally even if they theorize and speak rationally too). Unusual irrationality can also be a main feature in very smart people, and smarts in itself mainly increases speed and reach of ideas, not necessarily accuracy, so there's more variations of ability to consider.

For whatever reasons, some who create and promote various alternative theories tend to automatically replace the way the data points really line up with a neater arrangement in their mind, ignoring differences or unable to see that reality doesn't fit the more meaningful or preferred order they imagine. (Sometimes lots of extra effort goes into keeping the artificial order from crumbling. This reminds me of a rather literal example of a theory ignoring how dots, in the form of the Egyptian pyramids, line up in reality and imagining that it's different and points at Orion, described by skeptics here.)

It all amounts to increasing the gray area, and the difficulty in being sure whether a way of judging others is justified.

For me logic was the argument made me agree with the principle of an Unique Creator. I determined God exists by logically determining what "he is not": Finite. If the finite principle has forever a beyond principle then the infinite principle must be true which means the finite principle is just an illusion. I cannot prove the infinite but I can prove that finite is not enough.

That sounds like the basic thinking I use against a creator who is also some kind of personal god. If god has a personality, or a distinct being of any kind, within the whole, then god exists within a larger structure and is defined by laws greater than god, and then god is not god (not omnipotent). This kind of thinking says god must be formless, for example timeless and spaceless, and beyond all other possible dimensions and strcuture within them.

I used to value truth beyond everything but then I realized that truth and kindness are not overlapping. Then I've started appreciating more the subjectivity driven by kindness than the objectivity driven by truth.

I went through a similar change, more or less, some years ago. The principled idealistic "system" I believed in was inadequate, I found, and it became clear the gap surrounding what "should" on a personal level was ultimately impossible to fill through more knowledge and reason. Along with breaking down and rebuilding my old way of thought, I began to explore in heart the more ambiguous areas.

People differ in how they approach life, and I respect some here who have not (yet) commented in this discussion who seem to keep it all very simple in a personal path with a heart. It's in proportion with how much people engage in matters of knowledge, or things that impact that for others, that it becomes more important to care about the truth-centric things.

I love to use logic and rational thinking even for spiritual topics. It's very challenging because many spiritual claims are hard to verify. So what I do is to cherry pick spiritual information that fits with my overall view. The advantage is that by keeping a consistent view it all fits together. The danger with that is that it produces a self-bias where I usually only accept information that fits my preconceived idea of spirituality. And therefore I try to update my own beliefs when I learn new things that contradict my understanding.

Most simply cannot be verified, that's the basic problem with metaphysics and why it hasn't progressed much along with science. Picking things and simply caring about logical consistency in what you piece together is, in my understanding, about the best a person can do. Along with, every so many years, and when experience points to the need for a new approach, starting over inwardly and building anew on a fresher foundation.

Many of 'spiritual experience' are subjective and personal by nature.
Thus no 'shared context' or 'shared experience' that can be used as 'common ground'.
As it truly depend on the perspective of those who experienced it or those who observed it.

I think it's absolutely essential to be honest about what's subjective and mystical and then one can engage with it as such without problems.

This also ties into things like synchonicity, and connecting dots for a personal story in data of all kinds. There's enough data points in the world that any person who cared to do so could use it to construct a story placing that person at the center of the universe in a unique way. Some do and think their egocentric story is true and all others false. Skeptics think it's all just a matter of the human brain playing its usual tricks. Personally, I think people can engage the personal story as a personal story, keeping in mind that there's enough "synchronicity bandwidth" for everyone and that each thing used as a symbol has an infinite number of possible other uses, no such use more legit than any other.

While my personal experience on discussing with both Theist or Atheist is.
They're debating about 'something' which they don't have same definition about (ie; the word "God"), let alone the same shared context.  Yet it's still logical to say both theist and atheist are true or both theist and atheist are false.

A large portion of debates seem to be about popular dogmatic beliefs and for and against them. I usually find for and against Christianity debates boring to listen to, because Christianity isn't very intellectually interesting unless you're really into the Bible. (In such debates, there are more often however clear winners and losers.)

Sometimes there's debates about how things can or should be defined. And for example, Jordan Peterson (in)famously redefines many basic words so as to always be in the right, saying for example that anyone with a real value system believes in God ("God is your highest value"). That kind of speech vaguely sounds deep and superficially promotes something spiritual-sounding while ironically cheapening any real deeper spiritual meaning.

Yet, I see a missing piece in the OP. Where does ambiguity fit into this picture? Not all thought-play needs to be constrained to proven assumptions. Anything can be entertained with the right frame of mind. I would imagine that something can be entertained quite thoroughly for a very long time, almost making it real for the person, yet never being absolutely so. That's how I see my mystical journey, always beginning and ending in mystery. So spirituality can be seen as a form of play, yet the significant changes to one's person and the growing inner resources developed as a result of spiritual practice are proof enough for me that it is a very serious form of play, even if done for the sheer joy of it.

I wrote about only the tip of the iceberg, deliberately. The rest is where suitable criteria or ways of using them are missing. I think the ambiguous is not really so problematic when people are honest about it being ambiguous. It gets problematic when people confuse the ambiguous and the non-ambiguous (dogma and personal hang-ups alike can lead to that).

I also love that logic has shown that materialism is fallacious.

Not exactly. Logic has shown that arguments for materialism aren't conclusive. Logic is also often used to show that arguments for alternatives to materialism aren't conclusive. It seems logic alone can never pin it down.