Reason cannot handle everything

The statement seems to be simple and obvious, but it took me nearly twenty years to discover.

I was very good at maths in primary school, and then very good at physics and chemistry in middle school. I admired the power of deductive reasoning, and was fascinated by the beauty and elegance how Newton's law explain motions, and how thermodynamic laws explain thermal phenomenon. The elegance of how these fundamental laws explain physics phenomena gave me the impression that we may explain everything if we found those several laws that govern the nature. However, it is not true.

In my third year of college, I was exchanged to National University of Singapore and had a little break from usual hard science training. I was free to choose the course so I took a course in philosophy. In that course, I was asked to compose an essay on the question: under what condition it is acceptable to play favor to those closest to us. The question originates from a story in the Dialogue, in which a man named Euthyphro rushed to the court to prosecute his father, and was stopped by Socrates who ask him the question of why. In the essay assignment, I tried, very hard, to find a principle that can apply to all possible cases including the case of Euthyphro, but I cannot. And it turns out that this very one principle that governs all ethical questions has never been found; I was astonished when I was told so.

On reflection, I realized that I fell into the habitual deductive reasoning unknowingly, because I was good at it and used to it, as the proverb said, "when you are a hammer, every problem seems like a nail". As a result, I was more prone to look for principles that I can apply deductive reasoning to in order to understand facts. This realization subtly but profoundly changes the way I looked at the relationship between natural laws and the world. Before, I am more inclined to think that principles are absolute and governs the world; now I am more inclined to think that the principles are necessary to the extent of helping us to understand the world, but they are not absolute. This realization also enriched my life; I do not seek only principles and natural laws, but rather learn to appreciate facts as they are.

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