Hi Russell! It's interesting to see it in action this way, isn't it. But there's one step further with this and it has to do with one very particular aspect of reasoning which acted as the Edifice and the Objection in this case. That aspect of reason sits in the Latin stem: ratio which leads to reckoning, accounting, measurement and so on. It's a system of internal limitation that gives rise to reason. Not the process of thinking itself or remembering stuff, even associating and reproducing. Or like the term "henid" and "opinion" (Spinoza's first type of knowledge) which is more unbound in some way but a long way from the "eternal sacred" forms of cut and divide.Russell wrote:Well look what we have here.. he admits that 'reasoning' is part of the Edifice, the object of his opposition. The word fits quite well, doesn't it?
.... 4)Cry victim and at times run away when the issue gets too real, and he is confronted to the point of admitting!
Now one thing to understand about Alex and the type which washes ashore once in a while is that he definitely possesses a very good mind. Actually I don't think I encountered on message forums a more expansive and active mind. Occasionally some posts have been quite stunning in prose and power, even showing a very good understanding of a complex topic. Now how can we go from this to what you have correctly described as opposition to reason as something to be deadening and limiting.
This ventures perhaps a bit too much into psychoanalyzing but a little bit of this might be justified. Imagine a mind which has been exploring and expanding, soaking up like a sponge without any inner self-enforced limitation or direction. While reason in the highest possible sense is about challenging, overturning especially its own processing in terms of cherished assumptions and habits, refuges and blocks, a surgical knife with "the infinite capacity for giving pain" - all in the sense of our struggling thought processing. This way the hard questions come along which humble us, sometimes depresses and murders us but always with the potential to move beyond it and taste liberation; experiencing something the sages spoke of.
Now it seems possible for a mind to not acknowledge limitation as self-imposed tool, reject the sharpest tool: no self-immolation but only expansions, incorporation, exploration and consumption. Such mind won't stop with the books but wants to soak up other minds, live in everything and everyone, mistakingly thinking it can somehow spread that way in neutrality. It's akin to a spiritual process minus the hard parts. Therefore every sharp object becomes a laughing mirror, an ugliness to oppose, to ridicule, to challenge as spoiler. It's like the little kid whose parents never threw up any boundaries or rules. Or too many and a rebellion or reversal happens (this is why one shouldn't speculate too much -- too many variables).
So we have a very expanded and crafty mind without any capacity for the hard thoughts, the focus or directness needed to get to reason in the philosophical sense. For others it will constantly appear as fog, swamp or overly fluent types of expressions. It's some kind of pancake geniality perhaps. Personally I'm still amazed by this phenomenon but it doesn't hold any mystery anymore. There's also no "solution" to this, like throwing rocks into water will not change things but create some waves now and again. It also explains the feminine vibes some people pick up on. But it's actually single-minded but only in terms of expansion, of never-ending consumption: the insane, short-circuited sweet popcorn maker of the soul!