"Nothing Precedes Itself"

I think Aristotle said that. It certainly makes sense, so much sense that I wonder why he even had to say it. It's like, duh. Maybe it loses something in the translation like a lot of those old sayings do.

Aren't math and logic merely languages after all? The universe was certainly here before any human language, and it's existence does not depend on our perception of it. Humans probably formulated language to describe their environment to each other: "Look Dick look", said Jane. "See Spot run fast." It likely was some time later that they started asking each other questions like, "Why do you suppose Spot is running so fast?" Logic must have spun off from there: "Spot might be running from something, or he might be running after something. He can't be running from or after himself, because nothing precedes itself."

Well, maybe not, but that's not the point. The point is that we don't understand the universe by logic because the universe itself is logical. Logic is just something that we invented so we could make sense out of the universe for our own convenience. The universe probably doesn't care whether we  understand it or not, unless you want to bring God into the equation.

Your man Obama said something about God on the news this evening, but I don't think he meant God with a capital "G". He was speaking about Islamic terrorism, ISIS in particular, when he said "No god ordered this." If he meant the real God with a capital "G", he should have said "God did not order this." The way he phrased it sounds like he meant "None of the gods ordered this." Where do you suppose he got this information? I don't know how many gods are currently being worshipped by somebody in the world, but I find it hard to believe that Obama is familiar enough with all of them to confidently make a statement like that. Maybe it loses something in the translation. It does seem that politicians speak a different language, or at least a different dialect, than the rest of us. For instance, our word "reform" means "increase" to them, as in "tax reform" or "immigration reform". Then there's ISIS itself. I have heard it called both "ISIS" and "ISIL". How can they put together an international coalition to fight it when they can't even agree about what to call it?