Now, my take on all of this is that Western rhetorical theory, which
says that an articulated enthemyme is 'proof' but a koan is "a waste of
time" is missing the bulk of how people actually process, use and
communicate about the environment. Not only is "intuition" NOT
irrational, but implicit processes seem to be able to achieve
understanding in a way that does not sacrifice knowledge for the
"certainty" of having articulated ideas into the categories that are
required for language use. That is, the mind can apprehend, and use,
all sorts of information that is called contradictory, ambiguous or
paradoxical when it is "translated" into a linguistic form. That doesn't
mean that the information is 'irrational' though, it just means that
symbolic languages are incapable of rendering that information in its
full complexity.
I particularly like Godel because he proved the inherent paradox in the
strictest language available, and did so by Western logic's own strict
rules, but I'll bet there is a better cognitive basis for all of this
out there somewhere?
Regards, Dale Cyphert
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dxc20 who-is-at psuvm.psu.edu/Department of Speech Communication/Penn State Univ