Not only that, these assumptions or this nervous tension mould the logic or reasoning in that frame of mind; it is as though they create an envelope of consciousness which disciplines all thought in that frame of mind, in rather the same way that Einstein’s Space by its curvature controls Gravity within that space. In other words, these assumptions shape the reasoning within that frame or attitude of mind. If you adopt a scientific frame of mind, you think and reason as a scientist. If you have spent your life as a lawyer, you think and reason as a lawyer, and justifiably regard the advice of a scientist, or even an academic lawyer, on how to present such and such a prosecution as so much rubbish. It is not just that the scientist without legal experience will not know how prosecutions go, he will think differently! There may be rare instances when the academic mind, without specialist experience, may be able to provide fresh insight into a non-academic problem. But generally when academics stray into the professional world, their contribution is not helpful. So in my opinion, there is no such thing as abstract logic; logic or reasoning is always within an attitude of mind, and the logic itself will be slightly different from the logic in a slightly different frame of mind. And unless there is an interpenetration of two minds, in which each can read each other’s thoughts because each person’s thoughts take place in the other’s mind, there is always the possibility of misunderstanding. Naturally if two people have the same training, and are talking about the same subject matter, there should be no misunderstanding; but there is always plenty of scope for it.
So to take the extreme example, my opinion is that the world of which we can have information is limited. It is the envelope of space, at the edge of which galaxies are moving away from us with the velocity of light; because modern physics says that nothing moves faster than that. If things, eg: galaxies, exist beyond this envelope, and presumably they do, we cannot know about them, because no information can possibly come to us about them. So all thoughts about infinity exist only in the minds of people thinking about infinity; none the worse for that, but there is nothing in this world of flesh and blood and spirit which could give confirmation of these speculations, neither in the material world nor in the world of the spirit or psyche. The only exception is the Creator, who has always been regarded as Infinite. John’s Gospel says, “Eternal life is knowing Thee, the only God”, which if true is our one access to infinity. All other speculations about infinity are delightful daydreams and fantasies. When some impertinent cardinal asked Michelangelo if he could draw, Michelangelo bent down and drew a perfect circle on the ground. By that is meant, he drew as perfect a circle as you could draw with a pair of compasses. But even that is not perfect; the point will dig deeper as the pencil transcribes the circle, and the width of the pencil line will vary as it goes round. It is a close approximation to a perfect circle, which exists only in the mind and imagination. And the symbol Pi, which as every schoolboy knows reflects the ratio of the circumference to the diameter, and which is represented by a decimal fraction that goes on and on for ever, can never be verified.