The Limits of Reason

The following is copied from a comment made on the GH blog, in 'Beyond Rational Thought'; I thought I would bring my comment here for the sake of continued discussion:

OK now, allow me to attempt something different here. I see here the usual but unfortunate pathetic [but hopefully well-intentioned and honest] desperate attempts to misuse a powerful tool in the wrong application.That tool is Reason.Reason is a fine and handy thing to have available, when confronting a physical entity of any type that needs to be investigated/analysed/understood and finally, utilised for something practical.Examples of Reason as a useful and fruitful tool in achieving the above: Gravitation [for instance, acceleration/deceleration and other useful things like that], Chemical [useful reactions], Electrical/Electronic, Mechanical, Astronomical, etc., even some seemingly 'soft science' like Behavioural Psychology [conditioned respones and such]. I am sure any professional scientist [such as Y. Aharon and others, including your hopefully proficient local plumber, electrician, auto mechanic, etc.] can elaborate on this; if disciplined Reason [developed and enhanced by study and experience is not employed in these matters, one gets some very sloppy and even worse than useless results.

Just to clarify a hopefully not-too-subtle point: The arguers against 'experiential' types are correct, that to just 'experience' in some irrational manner is fairly worthless, if not dangerous. But mere [alleged] Reason without actually experiencing anything (other than impatience and anger at the lack of persons with enough 'seichel' to understand/correct one) leads to the 'egghead in an ivory tower' type of shallow neuter, riddled with doubts and filled with frustration; and one ends up wasting one's existance impotently [kind of like all the studs who love to watch sports but never actually play any].Now, when one gets beyond merely physical phenomena and forces, for example when one wants to understand where those forces originate, ie, backtrack or reverse-engineer to the point of the 'First Cause' is where Reason will eventually cause failure.What many fail to understand, unfortunately, is that our religion should be a system for developing Reason [and analytical thought] to the highest point humanly possible, while developing, enhancing and strengthening character/spiritual attributes.Why do you think one is supposed to study, learn, practice the 'nigleh' for at least 40 years, be married and have at least one child before even studying the 'sod'?Reason is indeed like a car; you can drive all the way across a continent, until you get to the Sea; would you argue that since the vehicle [Reason] led you to the Sea, that therefore you must be able to cross that Sea using that same vehicle [Reason]? Or perhaps you need another vehicle to cross, such as a sailboat? And don't you know that a sailboat has entirely different 'rules' than a car? [Sure, you can have an 'amphibious' vehicle, and that would be a great synthesis of two types of vehicles in order to navigate two entirely different terrains/domains].If you drive the car into the Sea, you only end up getting wet, and if you persist, you can only swim so far...

As far as I know, nobody denies the physical existance of the body, nor does any religion I ever heard of deny the existance of the soul [spirit]. Perhaps Mr. GH, you and your co-travelers on the Reason train ought to investigate aquiring some tools to explore the Spiritual [in a more serious manner than just debating about who wrote/forged the Zohar, for example].The fruits of such an endevour would certainly be more likely to yield satisfaction, for the Reason is a physical construct; how can one be so haughty, naive and perhaps foolish to think that the Infinite God could be confined to the limits and perspective of a finite mind? However, perhaps the Soul [a little piece of Infinity] should have a better chance of apprehending at least a certain amount of the Infinite, but naturally it would be rather difficult to put that kind of experience into any [finite] vocabulary...

Truth.