I'd welcome some feedback on some Brisker methodology thoughts. Brisker dialectics sometimes seem like Newtonian physics(more Boolean in nature-there are 2 dinim or two explanations and it's 100% one or the other), which explains a lot, but not all, the data. I wonder if a more quantum mechanics, less Boolean approach might explain more (but be much more difficult to prove).
KT
Joel Rich
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Thank you.
I was going to suggest that "fuzzy logic" might be a more fruitful
direction to take this idea than "quantum mechanics". Then I tried googling
and came up with this:
https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-States-Talmudic-Reasoning-Hebrew/dp/1848901828
.
Unfortunately there is no preview.
I was going to suggest that "fuzzy logic" might be a more fruitful direction to take this idea than "quantum mechanics". Then I tried googling and came up with this: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-States-Talmudic-Reasoning-Hebrew/dp/1848901828.
Unfortunately there is no preview.
: I'd welcome some feedback on some Brisker methodology thoughts. Brisker
: dialectics sometimes seem like Newtonian physics(more Boolean in
: nature-there are 2 dinim or two explanations and it's 100% one or the
: other), which explains a lot, but not all, the data. I wonder if a more
: quantum mechanics, less Boolean approach might explain more (but be much
: more difficult to prove).
There are other non-boolean logics to advocate.
As I've said whenever this comes up in the realm of birur, I believe
that halakhah's main focus is refining its adherents, and therefore
it deals with unknowns not probabilistically or using fuzzy sets, but
using the psychology of how people natively deal with unknowns. Which
extends to explain chazaah and qavuah seamlessly.
Something similar can be done here too.
The famous line about the difference between Brisk and Telzh is that R'
Chaim's derekh asks "Vos?" (What?) and R' Shimon asks "Fahr vos?" (Why?)
But there is another difference. R' Chaim assumes that two causes have
two effects, if there are two causes we will speak of tzvei dinim. In
contrast, R Shimon often discusses how a single din may emerge from a
hitztarfus of two causes. In the realm of metzi'us too, it is usual for
something to only happen because two or more things caused it, neither of
which could have caused it alone. (A car doesn't run over a ball unless
the ball rolled into the street AND someone was driving down it.)
People are often conflicted. Whether we mean something like a dialectic
between conflicting values, common experiences of mixed emotions, or
conflicting beliefs we draw in in different situations. (Such as the way
Hashem is in heaven -- Avinu shebashamayim -- and also also Omnipresent.
Halevai we were aware of such conflicts so that we can relate to them
on a dialectic level.)
So it would make sense for a discipline designed to refine such creatures
would have laws based on combinations of causes EVEN IN CASES where
those causes imply contradiction!
A logic that defies both the law of contradiction and the law of excluded
middle would work better than anything boolean.
:-)BBii!
-Micha
Quantum physics explains more than Newtonian mechanics but still has gaps
in its explanatory powers, should we look at Brisker methodology in the
same way? (ie there’s a next level to be discovered).
Bsorot tovot
Joel Rich
In QM, one doesn't know what the math represents. The various different
interpretations of QM, what reality leads to that math, are considered
philosophy, not science. Since they all produce the same equations for
bheavior, they cannot be experimentally distinguished. So -- not science.
Brisker Derekh is founded on the idea that the topic ends with its
own theory. There is not innate concept of baalus, baalus is *defined*
by the set of laws of qinyan, achrayus, geneivah, hefqer, etc...
It is, in that sense much like QM.
Which means that Rav Shimon Shkop already gave us a successor theory
to Brisker Lomdus, one which does connect lomdus to reality.
It also dealls with hitztarfus (how things combine), not only chiluqim.
And it is less boolean all-or-nothing than the way Brisk handles halachic
categories as chalos sheim.
While the haqdamah to Shaarei Yosher may be the most important work of
hashkafah of the past 300 years (although I might be biased <grin>) the
rest of the book should be critical learning too.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha