Is being logical for our Universe, is the only possible option?

Question

There is a lot of questions around such as why mathematics/scientific laws rules the universe (or as an alternative view, they are just our tool to quantify it, and universe exist as exists), but my question is not about that, I think if our universe wouldn't be logical, we could not apply such methods to describe it at first place.

From phaysical point of view, it "seems" to us that logic is the only "way" to think about our universe, because any other way will lead eventeually to a wrong result, that is not consistent with universe structure.

I'm not a Philosopher or mathematician, but I'm aware of different types of logics, like modal, fuzzy, first/second.. anyway all of them still "logical" in the above physical sense..

But I wander if there was any attempts to construct different rules for "logic" to test what that will give us? or to prove that there is no other option for our universe except to be logical in this particular way? otherwise we maybe can't have structure or patterns in the universe as in the one we observe? that is it will maybe lead to total chaos and unpredictability, and thus no math or physics?

Answer 1

Yes, there have been attempts to construct different rules for logic. You list some of them in your question, i.e. modal, fuzzy, etc. A more radical revision is paraconsistent logic, which does not accept the law of noncontradiction. Logics that deviate from classical logic are called (not surprisingly) non-classical logics. A great survey of them, both of a mathematical and philosophical nature, is given by Graham Priest here. But, it seems like you might be interested in even more radical departures from logic than this. The most relevant logic that I can think of to address your question is Quantum Logic. A famous, provocatively titled, paper here is Putnam's "Is logic empirical?". While most philosophers tend to think of the truths of classical logic to be a priori, necessary truths, some prominent philosophers have disagreed. Most prominently, Quine took a more holistic approach in his "Web of Belief" theory which has the implication that even logical truths, in principle, are subject to empirical revision.

Answer 2

You can conceive a universe where usual logic would not work, for instance, a universe where everything you believe or want or fear is true, or a universe where there is no logic, only some constant permanent sensation, but it will not be universe in the usual sense (it would not be possible to describe it in formal language).

But if you take the level of the most abstract qualia, you can conceive a qualia flow that would break usual laws of logic.

In a sense it would be somewhat similar to a sleeping dream or being under drugs.

So, if you consider such deep modification of reality as modifying the basic qualia (and not just changing the physical laws), as a different “universe”, yes, it is possible.

In sort, if we consider the universe as some kind of qualia flow, we can construe another flow with different logic. Yet we cannot construe a universe with different logic by just modifying the laws of physics.

You should also note that this will require changing not only sensory qualia such as vision, but more subtle ones, involving thinking and memory.