>>> By the way, I had the logic class at UCONN (Go Huskies!!!); it was titled >>> Symbolic Logic, and it was a 200-level course. It was the same class taken >>> by graduate students, but they were given addition problems on their final >>> exam. And while it may not have turned me into a Master Logician, I did >>> very well in the class and it certainly made its impression on me. Because >>> I was working at the time, and it was a class never given in the evening, I >>> arranged (begged) to take half-day vacation time to attend the class. I >>> also gave up a vacation to Spain that year for that particular class. >> >> [djh] >> What sort of impression did it leave on you? > > I had the course in 1987, so it's not fresh in my mind. I think the > strongest impression was that formal logic is not without problems. > Inductive logic adds no new information. It's definitional and the soundness > of the conclusion is totally dependent on the soundness of the premises. The > problem in an argument can be agreeing on the soundness of the premises, and > an argument with many levels of syllogisms may be very complicated to > untangle. Deduction is a problem because one never has access to all > occurrences, past and future, so it offers no definite conclusion.
Had you read ZMM by 1987? When I placed Quality at the centre of the universe and not truth after reading ZMM - 'newness' was no longer important and what was good became the focus. 'Definitions' were no longer simply about truths which existed in some kind of void - but qualities which existed based purely on their own quality! The same applied to how 'sound' a = was. With Quality at the centre of the universe - if a premise does not appear 'sound' it isn't ultimately because of some failure of logic; but first and foremost because of its low quality. *However* the language we can use to describe that low quality is the language of logic. This is where logic is valuable as it provides a way for us to discuss the quality of ideas - independent of our own personal quality evaluation of them which as you point out probably differs due to our different life histories and circumstances. >> Do you think logic is any good? > > The biggest problem is when individuals don't understand what it is and what > it isn't and confuse formal logic with rationalizing their own prejudices. > That's most often the case. Typical of the confusion, as I mentioned the > other day, is working backwards: justifying a conclusion with whatever seems > to work. Sure logic can be useful, if knowing all the pitfalls, you use it > to check your own thinking, but people seldom do. And with your normal > everyday informal logic used in arguments, there are all those nasty > fallacies. So long as 'whatever seems to work' is translated to 'the best possible logic' then I actually think that justifying a conclusion with whatever seems to work is an important part of the thinking process. I'm reminded of how suddenly the solution to a mathematical problem would pop into Henri Poincare's head and then he would write down the working to get to that solution. The reason why the working is important is because it allows, Poincare himself, or others to look at the working and disagree if it is incorrect or could be better. The same can be said for a philosophical discussion board such as this one. You might simply disagree about the quality of someone's ideas. But there is no real discussion unless you can explain to everyone the working and logic behind why you think the way that you do. Who knows, maybe in thinking through the logic you realise that something could be better and so you need to think about it until 'pouf' a new idea pops into your head - which is then checked and on and on... >> If so, when's it good and when isn't it any good? > > I used an inductive syllogism just a few weeks ago to prove a point. Did it > prove a point? I don't think so. I think it just made someone feel > inadequate and defensive, and that was not my intention. East and West, > people and institutions brag of their supreme use of logic. I am not going > to say its bad, only that it has potential problems. There are also books > written of the problems. Two I've read that come to mind are 'Labyrinths of > Reason: Paradox, Puzzles, and the Frailty of Knowledge' by William > Poundstone, and 'Black Swan' by Nassim N. Taleb. Well most likely the reason why the induction didn't work as you'd planned was because they were operating from a different intellectual perspective and thus deduced a different induction than you had. The things which are driving these discussions are different values. The way we can intellectually discuss these values is with the aid of logic and of course our awareness of what's good and what isn't. > I like holding all knowledge, especially my own, as hypothetical, supposed > but not necessarily real or true. That I hope keeps me open to new > possibilities but somewhat humble. Ironically with this outlook I think you are actually holding onto 'knowledge' here. That 'knowledge' which you are unnecessarily holding onto is that truth and reality are absolutes and that we must remain in a state of 'hypothetical' otherwise we will fall into the trap of absolute truths. However the 'absolute' bogeyman which you are trying to avoid is actually an unnecessary SOM belief which RMP addresses... As I've said previously.. Imagine for a moment Marsha - that real or true aren't absolute. That we accept that the fundamental nature of static quality is Dynamic Quality. And from this acceptance the static quality words - real and true - are also from the non-absolute undefinable Dynamic Quality. Because if you do imagine this - this understanding of real and true is actually correct and real and true as absolutes is just imaginary and a result of bad SOM thinking. Therefore when we say that something is 'true' we are merely saying that it is a high quality idea. And that when we say that something is real - we are saying much the same. There is actually no 'real' or 'true' which are outside of quality. And hypotheticals are thus good ideas(truths) which we are yet to test. Saying that real or true are concepts which come from DQ in this way - opens them up to new possibilities and allows us to remain humble in the face of new information while still being able to say some ideas are good or true. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
