🧵 Our logic is flawed and the concept of "definition" leads to paradox

Anonymous at Wed, 31 Jul 2024 08:41:11 UTC No. 16304415

Hear me out.
What does it really mean to "define" something? It basically means to reduce it down to other terms that are thought to be known, right?

Now I think it makes perfect sense that our minds evolved to see everything through "definition" because our minds exist at a high level. So reduction serves us very well when learning how to manipulate things in reality, to launch rockets into space, etc.

But that kind of logic logically falls apart when faced with ultimate truth. Because it literally creates (not discovers, but creates) paradoxes.
If we begin by ASSUMING that everything must be definable into other terms, then if you found ultimate truth you would be forced to say "how do you reduce this into something else"? You won't be able to and will say it's undefinable and discard it.
The very concept of "definition" excludes any true ground of meaning ever being found. Because if everything must get its meaning from something else then the chain of logical reasoning can only end in circular reasoning or paradoxes.
We always hear about infinite regressions when trying to understand reality, but that's because we are IMPOSING the infinite regression through our man-made requirement that everything be reducible.
That means our notion that everything needs a "definition" is itself paradoxical, and cannot be an accurate view of ultimate truth.

Ultimate truth will be non-reducible. Thus non-definable. Ultimate truths will be their own definition, and will only be knowable by knowing it. They cannot be known through any other means, nor can they be given their meaning by something else (or they wouldn't be ultimate truths).