Logic

Well, this started off in one of my random ponderings (and thus probably should go in a blog), and I'm interested in what SP (whose members have a variety of mental backgrounds) think about, if anyone has bothered wasting time on it.

It's about logic, or more about the lack thereof. What would our world be like, had there not been logic?
Now it's a far stretch in itself to be pondering about logic, let alone the lack of it, because I doubt I even grasp what logic is.
But anyway, if it's bothered you, fire away and let others have a glimpse of your mental universe.

 Preface

I started thinking of this when I thought about pseudo-code in programming. The way I perceived it (even though it's so simple it doesn't require much conceptualization), writing pseudo-code is like playing the Almighty God. When you write algorithms to instruct the computer to perform a certain task, you have to follow certain rules, procedures and limitations, such as:
- To create an object, you need to first create a constructor, which is the frame that gives shape to the pudding (for those with less technical-inclined mind).
- To make an object do something, you have to create the action that it's going to perform.

This is where pseudo-code gives you the power of creationism.
"Let there be light. Let there be seas, mountains, deserts, valleys... Let there be two girls, and a cup."

Essentially, you are ignoring the boundaries of complication and focus mainly on what you WANT to happen. You create things without the need for the tools to create those things with.
"Create object A and object B. Object A, go rape object B."
We could do anything, I thought, that we could conceive of within the realms of logic.
Wait, what was that? Within the realms of logic? Of course, you still can't divide by zero or somehow conclude, or expect that b > c just because a > b and a > c.

That's where I thought, so we are still bounded by logic. Pretty much everything human has created is built upon the stones of logic. So where would we be without it?

In my perception, logic is what makes sense to our brain, even the Schrödinger's cat. A cow is a cow, one cow, not two cows. (Which is essentially why dividing by zero yields a logical error.)
If you fall from a cliff, the gravity is going to exert enough of a force for which the "rebound" force is going to kill you. If you don't breathe, your lungs won't have air, your blood won't absorb oxygen, your cells will have nothing to burn the fuel with, there will be no energy and your body will die.

Is logic a fact, a truth? Something most natural that constructs the world as we know it, and probably the only world out there whose scope we aren't yet fully aware of? (a cow is a cow, not two cows; it seems like a factual statement)

Or is logic just the way we infer things? This happens, it means this, then it makes "sense" for that to be like that, bla bla bla. In this way, clearly we could have gone off in a different directions (we see in daily lives that one event doesn't necessarily have just one implication, we tend to just pick up one inference). But if such were the case, what would it be like without logic? What if a cow were not just a cow?

inb4 this is actually about perception.

inb4 this is actually about perception.

Logic is about perception.

Logic is about perception.

Actually, one should differentiate between "logic" which is simply a set of rules of inference, and "sense" (as in "to make sense") which is a matter of perception.

Most people use "that's illogical" when they should be saying "that is factually incorrect" or "that doesn't make sense".

 personal anecdote

Back when I went to university, majoring in Computer Science, we had to take some courses in the humanities or social sciences departments, "to keep our minds from becoming too narrow".
One favorite was the "Logic" course offered by the Philosophy department.
It was astounding to see how people who are not of a mathematical bent had a really hard time with what seemed trivial to us.
For example, the teacher would say:
"Given that (1) Everything green sprouts flowers and (2) alligators are green, what conclusion can we draw?"
The class would explode "But that's not true! Only plants have flowers! My marker is green and will never flower!" and so on.
Or the teacher would say, "I told my son that if he behaved himself I would take him to the beach. He misbehaved, and we went to the beach. Did I lie?" and everyone would say "yes!" and "you're spoiling the brat!"
They could not detach from real-world knowledge and "sense" enough to view a statement as just an example of "All A are B" or "If p then q" and deal with it at an abstract level.

Needless to say, the few Natural Sciences and Engineering majors in the room had absolutely no difficulty going GIGO mode...

I'm not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, to be honest.

In my opinion logic is not the set of basic facts/knowledge as you stated. Logic has nothing to do with the problem of dividing by zero or if a cow is a cow.
Logic is the way our minds work to come to conclusions from our perceptions. It's how we pass from concrete observation to abstract ideas.

Example: you see an object that reminds of something people have always been calling "cow". It resembles all the other objects you have been calling "cow" in your life. It smells like a cow, it sounds like a cow, it behaves like a cow.
Though you can't have any definite proof that it is, in fact, a cow (because even the definition of cow is not that solid), logic will still lead you to conclude it's a cow.

In my opinion logic is not the set of basic facts/knowledge as you stated. Logic has nothing to do with the problem of dividing by zero or if a cow is a cow.
Logic is the way our minds work to come to conclusions from our perceptions. It's how we pass from concrete observation to abstract ideas.

Example: you see an object that reminds of something people have always been calling "cow". It resembles all the other objects you have been calling "cow" in your life. It smells like a cow, it sounds like a cow, it behaves like a cow.
Though you can't have any definite proof that it is, in fact, a cow (because even the definition of cow is not that solid), logic will still lead you to conclude it's a cow.

I figured as much, I'm just on the fence between the two. I in fact did list both.

Is logic a fact, a truth? Something most natural that constructs the world as we know it, and probably the only world out there whose scope we aren't yet fully aware of? (a cow is a cow, not two cows; it seems like a factual statement)

Or is logic just the way we infer things? This happens, it means this, then it makes sense for that to be like that, bla bla bla. In this way, clearly we could have gone off in a different directions (we see in daily lives that one event doesn't necessarily have just one implication, we tend to just pick up one inference). But if such were the case, what would it be like without logic? What if a cow were not just a cow?

The earlier just might come off as a rather strange notion to SP, so I elaborated more than warranted to demonstrate where I'm coming from.

 personal anecdote

Back when I went to university, majoring in Computer Science, we had to take some courses in the humanities or social sciences departments, "to keep our minds from becoming too narrow".
One favorite was the "Logic" course offered by the Philosophy department.
It was astounding to see how people who are not of a mathematical bent had a really hard time with what seemed trivial to us.
For example, the teacher would say:
"Given that (1) Everything green sprouts flowers and (2) alligators are green, what conclusion can we draw?"
The class would explode "But that's not true! Only plants have flowers! My marker is green and will never flower!" and so on.
Or the teacher would say, "I told my son that if he behaved himself I would take him to the beach. He misbehaved, and we went to the beach. Did I lie?" and everyone would say "yes!" and "you're spoiling the brat!"
They could not detach from real-world knowledge and "sense" enough to view a statement as just an example of "All A are B" or "If p then q" and deal with it at an abstract level.

Needless to say, the few Natural Sciences and Engineering majors in the room had absolutely no difficulty going GIGO mode...

I'm not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, to be honest.

Which is why I'm looking forward to taking that class. It's, like, the only good Humanities class. ;_;
Lol'd @ the examples, what a delightful class.

I'm also of the mind that humankind today is a result of natural selection and thus not the result of "truth" itself. What we do (logic) needs not be the fact of life, but merely the most appropriate that allowed our survival in a given setting of environment.
To be specific, take the emotion fear. We aren't afraid of something because "it is natural to be so", we host the fear emotion because we just do. And it is an emotional response to a perceived danger, thus it helped keep us surviving until today.
To stretch it, one could say logic is the truth in our known universe. One just has to be fed sufficient conditions/premises to make the "true" conclusion.

As you can probably tell from that point of view, I'm biased towards the "inference" definition of logic as well, which is why I'm wondering what it is like to be without logic.

 personal anecdote

Back when I went to university, majoring in Computer Science, we had to take some courses in the humanities or social sciences departments, "to keep our minds from becoming too narrow".
One favorite was the "Logic" course offered by the Philosophy department.
It was astounding to see how people who are not of a mathematical bent had a really hard time with what seemed trivial to us.
For example, the teacher would say:
"Given that (1) Everything green sprouts flowers and (2) alligators are green, what conclusion can we draw?"
The class would explode "But that's not true! Only plants have flowers! My marker is green and will never flower!" and so on.
Or the teacher would say, "I told my son that if he behaved himself I would take him to the beach. He misbehaved, and we went to the beach. Did I lie?" and everyone would say "yes!" and "you're spoiling the brat!"
They could not detach from real-world knowledge and "sense" enough to view a statement as just an example of "All A are B" or "If p then q" and deal with it at an abstract level.

Needless to say, the few Natural Sciences and Engineering majors in the room had absolutely no difficulty going GIGO mode...

I'm not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, to be honest.

Guess my mind is completely engineer like then, when I see those examples the first thing that came to mind was "this premise is false" and "this goes only one way".
Good because I'm doing chem eng.

 personal anecdote

Back when I went to university, majoring in Computer Science, we had to take some courses in the humanities or social sciences departments, "to keep our minds from becoming too narrow".
One favorite was the "Logic" course offered by the Philosophy department.
It was astounding to see how people who are not of a mathematical bent had a really hard time with what seemed trivial to us.
For example, the teacher would say:
"Given that (1) Everything green sprouts flowers and (2) alligators are green, what conclusion can we draw?"
The class would explode "But that's not true! Only plants have flowers! My marker is green and will never flower!" and so on.
Or the teacher would say, "I told my son that if he behaved himself I would take him to the beach. He misbehaved, and we went to the beach. Did I lie?" and everyone would say "yes!" and "you're spoiling the brat!"
They could not detach from real-world knowledge and "sense" enough to view a statement as just an example of "All A are B" or "If p then q" and deal with it at an abstract level.

Needless to say, the few Natural Sciences and Engineering majors in the room had absolutely no difficulty going GIGO mode...

I'm not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, to be honest.

I wanna be in that class...Omg. I'm so jealous.

Of course, you still can't divide by zero or somehow conclude, or expect that b > c just because a > b and a > c.

That's a horrible example. In no way does it relate b and c, beside saying they're both less than a. Of course you couldn't expect b > c.

In my perception, logic is what makes sense to our brain

Logic is different for everyone though. I pose this scenario:

You turn into an alley on a street (for some reason lol), no one else is around. You see a man with a gun pointing his gun to another man on the floor who is unable to defend himself in the slightest. You have a knife in your hand for some reason, and could safely get behind the man with the gun and stab him.

Let's put three people, who are labeled A, B, and C into this scenario as the person with the knife, and the man with the gun/defenseless man remain constant.

Person A: "I'll stab the gunman in the heart, essentially killing him. It's the right this to do because I'm saving another man who is defenseless."

Person B: "I'll stab the gunman in the arm so he can't use the gun, but I won't kill him because it's immoral to kill."

Person C: "I'm not doing anything because I don't know the situation, so I'm just gunna walk out of this alley and get some dunkin donuts until it's safe to go home."

"Logically" they all believe they are doing the "right" thing. It "makes sense to their brains."

But...? Which one is right? "Logically" there must be one correct solution, no?

I wanna be in that class...Omg. I'm so jealous.



That's a horrible example. In no way does it relate b and c, beside saying they're both less than a. Of course you couldn't expect b > c.

Those are two examples, they aren't interchangeable even though variably related. I wasn't trying to make the connection anyway, the point was to demonstrate 2 kinds of definitions I hold for logic:
1/ Ultimate truth of life
2/ Sequential reasoning

Logic is different for everyone though. I pose this scenario:

You turn into an alley on a street (for some reason lol), no one else is around. You see a man with a gun pointing his gun to another man on the floor who is unable to defend himself in the slightest. You have a knife in your hand for some reason, and could safely get behind the man with the gun and stab him.

Let's put three people, who are labeled A, B, and C into this scenario as the person with the knife, and the man with the gun/defenseless man remain constant.

Person A: "I'll stab the gunman in the heart, essentially killing him. It's the right this to do because I'm saving another man who is defenseless."

Person B: "I'll stab the gunman in the arm so he can't use the gun, but I won't kill him because it's immoral to kill."

Person C: "I'm not doing anything because I don't know the situation, so I'm just gunna walk out of this alley and get some dunkin donuts until it's safe to go home."

"Logically" they all believe they are doing the "right" thing. It "makes sense to their brains."

But...? Which one is right? "Logically" there must be one correct solution, no?

Essentially, what is true and what one believes is true aren't... the same. To follow up on your example, even though I don't see how it relates to logic, each person's decision was derived based on their given conditions. If person A believes killing is the only way to stop killing, then logically, he will kill. Likewise, if person C believes a dunkin donut is more appealing than saving a man's life, he will naturally select the better choice between the two.
How each of they has arrived at their own beliefs is yet another process, most likely driven by logic as well (person A has had experience with people not giving up unless he deliberately overkills them, for example).

Logic is different for everyone though. I pose this scenario:

You turn into an alley on a street (for some reason lol), no one else is around. You see a man with a gun pointing his gun to another man on the floor who is unable to defend himself in the slightest. You have a knife in your hand for some reason, and could safely get behind the man with the gun and stab him.

Let's put three people, who are labeled A, B, and C into this scenario as the person with the knife, and the man with the gun/defenseless man remain constant.

Person A: "I'll stab the gunman in the heart, essentially killing him. It's the right this to do because I'm saving another man who is defenseless."

Person B: "I'll stab the gunman in the arm so he can't use the gun, but I won't kill him because it's immoral to kill."

Person C: "I'm not doing anything because I don't know the situation, so I'm just gunna walk out of this alley and get some dunkin donuts until it's safe to go home."

"Logically" they all believe they are doing the "right" thing. It "makes sense to their brains."

But...? Which one is right? "Logically" there must be one correct solution, no?

Your story is more about morals and principles than logic.
Person A, B and C are acting, logically, according to what they believe is best.
(using the definition that logic that I explained)

Exactly. They all did what was logical to them. But in logical, there is only one true answer. That's what makes it "logic." Which one is right?

I think instincts fits more than logic in some cases I read here...

Without logic we would just be animals running around on instincts. Hell, maybe even less than animals and more like cells or plants. Animals do have their sense of logic after all...

And it's more like we are limited by the physical laws. We are not so limited by the realm of logic, people do manage to defy their sense of logic sometimes.

But in logical, there is only one true answer. That's what makes it "logic."

Why is that statement true?
I don't agree with the definition that logic is the ultimate truth and even if it was, just because it's the ultimate truth doesn't mean it gives ONE answer to any given problems.

Moreover, you can finally say that for each of the people A, B and C encountering this situation is a different situation and, thus, logic has a different answer.

 personal anecdote

Back when I went to university, majoring in Computer Science, we had to take some courses in the humanities or social sciences departments, "to keep our minds from becoming too narrow".
One favorite was the "Logic" course offered by the Philosophy department.
It was astounding to see how people who are not of a mathematical bent had a really hard time with what seemed trivial to us.
For example, the teacher would say:
"Given that (1) Everything green sprouts flowers and (2) alligators are green, what conclusion can we draw?"
The class would explode "But that's not true! Only plants have flowers! My marker is green and will never flower!" and so on.
Or the teacher would say, "I told my son that if he behaved himself I would take him to the beach. He misbehaved, and we went to the beach. Did I lie?" and everyone would say "yes!" and "you're spoiling the brat!"
They could not detach from real-world knowledge and "sense" enough to view a statement as just an example of "All A are B" or "If p then q" and deal with it at an abstract level.

Needless to say, the few Natural Sciences and Engineering majors in the room had absolutely no difficulty going GIGO mode...

I'm not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, to be honest.

In bolded is what I believe to be the whole crux of this discussion. As a Microbiology and English double major, my life consists of utilizing both hemispheres of my mind in the metaphorical "right brain/left brain" sense. Considering I'm personally more passionate towards the Humanities, I initially read the logic statements from this anecdote deriving the same conclusions as the rest of the class. But it wasn't difficult to switch over and easily understand what they were actually saying, what you all call "trivial thought."

The thoughts are trivial to you because they're so unconsciously simple, devoid of any need for thought beyond what is literally in the sentence. In other words, it's quite easy to figure something out when all of the necessary information and the answer itself are contained in the same statement. I'm sorry if this is an pimento comment to make, but it's ironic that such courses are acceptable as fulfilling humanities requirements "to keep your mind from becoming too narrow," as the courses require nothing more than narrow-minded thought.

The reason the Humanities students “could not detach from real-world knowledge and sense” is because that’s not what they’re trained to do. SaptaZapta raises the point that he’s not totally sure which mode of thinking is better, and I think the answer to that question is that it depends on what problems you’re attempting to solve. Computer Scientists, Engineers, Mathematicians all deal in this realm of logic, and while their deductions can have real-world implications, it’s more important for them, at a foundational level, to be able to simply look at a situation within its own context and derive the most logical conclusion.

The issue arises when the aforementioned professions are required to apply their logic skills to real-world situations. The real world is not a collection of situations isolated in their own contexts, but rather a summation of all situations, interconnected and having an effect on one another. This is what the Humanities students understand, and approach a singular logical statement such as those proposed by the professor with the mindset of how they operate in the web of our world. For example, the statement of the alligator alone has a logical conclusion that the alligator will sprout flowers. However, this conclusion is illogical when weighed alongside the real-world logical statement that reptiles do not sprout flowers; hence, the initial reaction of the Humanities student is that the statement is illogical.

In the end, I suppose the best way of saying this is that logic-based professions like those I listed above tend to, understandably, pointedly view the world through a narrow lens of dissection, fully grasping the complete whole of the specific thing within a particular plane of view. The Humanities professions, on the other hand, are capable of viewing the entire world as a whole and how each part relates to one another, without actually needing to understand the specifics of each aspect. That doesn’t mean each method of thought can’t grasp concepts of the other, but simply that, instinctually speaking, one prevails over the other based on what type of thought is predominantly necessary for the individual.

Sorry for the long post; hope that answers the thread and the excellent, bolded comment SaptaZapta made. The question is not which mode of thinking is better overall, but which is more important for your specific profession. In my opinion everyone should be capable of each mode of thought, and most people are if they think about statements through a different perspective (ex.: SaptaZapta, I’m willing to bet you left out the part of the anecdote where the professor explained the mode of thinking behind each statement, to which the class responded “oh, I knew that!”).

I think we still need to emphasize on the difference between "factually incorrect" and "illogical". The students are being illogical to not derive that alligators would sprout flowers, given the premises they were presented with. Yes, it is incorrect to assume that alligator would somehow sprout flowers, but it was entirely logical to arrive at that assumption given the context they were in (just two premises). If the students wanted to counter the conclusion, they should have constructed another problem, such as:

- all green things sprout flowers
- alligators are green and thus sprout flowers
- alligators in fact do not sprout flowers
What conclusion can be drawn? Then you have a good argument that the all green things sprout flowers premise is wrong.

My contention is more defending the students from the kind of jabs people have made at them in this thread. "Loling" at students implies you think they're stupid and incapable of grasping a trivial concept, when really, as you said yourself, they're being merely illogical, not factually incorrect. There's a difference between logic and intelligence that needs to be emphasized just as much as the difference between factual correctness and logic. Like I said at the end of my wall of text, the students are reasonably reacting to the premises given them, based on their educational background. They're not factually correct in this context considering they're being illogical, but that doesn't mean they don't know the correct answer - they just haven't undertaken the correct process to arrive at the logical conclusion. This also doesn't mean they don't know of or aren't capable of the process itself, but merely their instinctual, initial reaction to the statement is, again, a result of their individual, educational backgrounds and what they've been trained to do. The anecdotal proof for this is what I said about myself earlier, in that I have training in both backgrounds, with more of an personal emphasis on the humanities, so my initial reading was the same as the students, but I was able to easily derive the correct conclusions when I realized just how simple of process was required to grasp the statements.

All of this could be reflected back at you guys with as much jovial jesting on the part of the humanities students. You've been trained to analyze statement by statement as individual, isolated events, so how would you fare in weighing in on broad, global topics comprised of interrelated moments such as those you're only used to viewing as singular entities? That's not to say you aren't capable of such thought, but that perhaps you're not as quick and profound with that mode of thinking as the humanities students. Watch how you respond to people's differences, please.

inb4 this is actually about perception.

oops, this was a typo i meant to right inb4 this is actually about inception

Just to be clear, I wasn't laughing at anyone, let alone their presumed "level of intelligence". It just seemed like a fun class to take, as I take delight in engagement and it seems there's much to be had there. As the class delves into more sophisticated problems, an "intuitive" sense could be more intriguing than a technical one. Had I not held that view, I wouldn't have bothered wondering what SP thinks of this, as I'm aware most of us are mathematically inclined.
That, or I was just baiting for an illogical response and laugh my ass off at it. Up to you to infer.

My apologies for the tense response; you're absolutely correct, considering you didn't even finish the first sentence of your OP without the clause "(whose members have a variety of mental backgrounds)." I just don't want people trashing other "modes of thinking" as if, by some convoluted mentality, they're inferior to anything technical.