Limits of human reason?

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This occurred to me in another thread and I would like to expand on it here.

The use of logic and reason as opposed to belief in illusions or making assumptions based on little or no proof is considered as necessary for all human intellectual endeavors (in science, philosophy etc). Indeed, I consider myself as being extremely logical (at least when it comes to intellectual decisions), but I wonder whether there is a limit to human logic.

We have evolved intelligence in order to make a success on our planet (and perhaps in the future further afield) and our ability to make rational decisions and use our experience of cause and effect to prove theories and advance knowledge has resulted in our ability to become the dominant species and improve our quality of life considerably.

However, we have not evolved in order to understand the universe at levels other than we directly observe it - at very small or large levels for example. This has not been necessary for our survival and hence there was never any pressure on it to evolve. Using our reason we have been able to make some progress in these directions, but perhaps in order to understand these things completely, human reason will not be useful.

I am not evoking some type of supernatural God here - the processes that initiated the universe and the behaviours of very small particles can be completely natural, yet still be outside of comprehension by a brain driven by human logic. Already, quantum theory is so counterintuitive that the majority of us have problems getting our heads around it. Perhaps in these domains human reason breaks down and we need a radically different mode of thinking (which may not even be possible for us) in order to solve these problems.

This is not necessarily something I believe, but I am interested in discussing what other people think (with their ultimately reasonable brains). Note that I do not mean in the slightest that superstition is right, but that there may be something on the other side of human reason - more reasonable than reason if you like that we are not capable of reaching. Perhaps this type of 'reasoning' would allow things that normally we consider illogical such as causeless events or circular causality?

It is almost certain that there are things in the external that can not be assessed through empirical
or rational observation and reasoning.
However, that is not a good reason to abandon either.

It is better to be ignorant for the right reason then to be right for the wrong reason.

I think the things in H.P Lovecraft's stories are a good example of things the human mind can never dream to comprehend, as people exposed to the deities in the mythos often go insane, minds flung into chaos and madness.

Quite obviously human sensory apparatuses are not of a kind that can access much of the available information around them, and our brains have evolved along with these organs. Our brains ability to handle information is correlated to our means of apprehending the same through our senses.

It seems highly unlikely that by coincidence a brain evolving in conjunction with organs very limited in their ability to extract information from the environment, would be unlimited in it's ability to comprehend the environment in all its totality and complexity.

Our brains have two kinds of limits; energy and logical function. If you overachieve and get more logical function than you were genetically designed for, you quite often just end up with regular morning migraines and feeling like a zombie half the time; because your brain isn't putting out enough ATP to make it happen. Then again this doesn't even just account for the 'big picture' issues, I think it accounts for most arguments, falling outs, people not seeing eye to eye, our limits seem to be set in places where - if we're not well-restrained - we really p*** each other off with our own shortcomings.

I think that's what binds all of us, some at lower levels, others at high levels but still low enough to where they really can't contemplate the whole picture at once - almost ever. Even having a computer analyze it still takes an amazing degree of contingency planning and understanding by the program or operator and the computer won't catch the syntax or nuance that a person would because to a computer there's no such thing as saliency unless its programmed in. Its part of why people love to do things like hallucinogens though; yeah it fuzzes up a person's thinking a bit but all of a sudden the energy issue isn't even just not there anymore, the trip itself is an overload of energy and its something a lot of people like to manipulate to see, in that state of mind, what their minds don't have the capacity to process and output in a sober state.

Groups do 'think' in so far as a group can create, explore, organize and invent far better than an individual can.

There are many systems and inventions that are far too complex to be understood by one individual. They only work because several individuals, books or more recently computers have all the necessary information collectively.

Your PC is a good example. No one person knows how to make it. Someone may understand all the wiring inside it perfectly, but give him a lump or aluminum ore and ask him to make the case and he is stuck. Likewise, the aluminum smelter may be able to make many of the parts, but he could never design the parts.
Some of the information about the PC isn't stored in peoples heads at all. It is stored in written text and diagrams that no one person could recall from memory.

The same applies in the sciences. There is more knowledge about biology about than one person could possibly remember. That which is not in the mind of an individual biologist is in the collective minds of the group, texts, etc.

The collective knowledge of the group is passed on through the generations long after those individuals who originated it have died.
As a group we can reason, collect data, invent, build, etc. far better than any one isolated individual can.

If there was only ever one man/woman on earth at anyone time he/she would not be able to come up with any kind of advanced thinking about the world.
It is only with group knowledge; the working of thousands of brains, the text of thousands of years of books, CDs, paintings etc. that we can achieve astronomy, advanced medicine, advanced philosophy, quantum theory or even this post.

There seems to be a general viewpoint here that people would be better off if they stopped thinking. Although that is agreed by most participants here I see no point in that attitude. If our brains were developed for one limited set of situations that is no reason to not employ them as best we can to as many situations as we can perceive in any way that might give valid results. No one can say what the limits of our methods are and there is no point in declaring defeat in understanding the universe as long as we are doing as well as we have been doing. And we have been doing pretty well.

Lets say there exists "phenomena x" ('X' for short); a phenomena that can not be understood by reason.
That means that we can either:
1) Never observe X
or
2) Never predict X

If we can't possibly observe X, it will never effect us and so it is trivial.
If we can't possibly predict X , we can accept whatever observations it produces as random. If this is the case then we have done the best we possibly can and no leaps of faith or other non-rational means can help us.

All other phenomena that can be potentially observed and potentially predicted are open to reason.