"I think" may not imply "I am"

If a premise is true, that premise must not be false. This syllogism (or truism) is the foundation of all logic, of mathematics, and arguably of all thought. Logic is the inherent binary reality implied by this statement, a reality in which statements are either true or false. Does the universe obey this rule? Does it reside in the reality of logic? Maybe.

What is maybe? It is an expression of uncertainty. It means that a statement might be true, or might be false, but we don’t know which it is. However, we assume that given sufficient data, one could evaluate the statement “The universe resides within the reality of logic” and it would be true or false, even if the resources needed to record and evaluate the data are beyond the resources of the universe itself.

What if the above statement is false? If the universe is not bound by the rules of logic, what can we say about it? Well, assuming it is not, it may be. Therefore in such a universe, knowing it is does not imply that it is, and knowing it is not does not imply that it is not. Knowledge has no meaning! This is getting silly now.

Deductive logic relies on assumptions, and all conclusions are true only if the assumptions upon which they are based are also true. The most basic assumption we make as humans is that there is a duality to the universe. The universe, we believe at the most basic level, is a binary machine, albeit a complex one. True and False are the most basic opposites in our reality. Here and there, self and other, we can see that there is a difference. “I think, therefore I am” is foundational in philosophy.

What about “I think therefore something is”? That which "is" may not be "me". There is clearly at least one thing in the universe—the universe itself—or else nothing would be, and I would not have written about it. But even here there is a duality, nothingness and somethingness. Something is the absence of nothing; nothing is the absence of something. (The English gets messy here because we as humans have little need for such mind-bending, silly ideas.) Does something rely upon nothing for its existence, then, or nothing upon something, or both, or neither?