Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

What exactly is supposed to be "beyond" logic?

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Religion/Theology Donate to DU
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-11-07 11:44 PM
Original message
What exactly is supposed to be "beyond" logic?
A poster used this phrase on me here a couple of days ago, but it's hardly the first time that I've heard this idea invoked before.

When people say this do they mean they feel a need to embrace outright illogical things?

Are they rebelling against some ridiculous stereotype of "logic", where the idea of "logic" translates to "narrow-minded, uncreative, detached, emotionless, gear-grinding thought processes"?

I have no trouble admitting that logic has limits. Logic, in and of itself, is devoid of direction, values, and goals. Someone might say, for instance, that it's "not logical to smoke", but logic only leads to that conclusion in the context of the commonly assumed, unstated -- but not necessarily inescapable -- premise that a long and healthy life is a desirable goal. Someone might say that striving for a well-run system of government is "logical" -- but logic can't get you there without a starting premise that seeking common good is a desirable direction to go.

This is not a recommendation for illogic, however. It's a recognition of the need for nonlogical premises -- basic, logic-neutral starting points which have to be chosen before logic can get you anywhere.

I'll have bitten way more than I can chew if I attempt to fully develop what I'm trying to say here at a half hour past midnight, so I'll just have to hope I've set the stage sufficiently for where I'm coming from on the subject of logic, and get to my first reaction when I hear something like "going beyond logic"...

Logic can't get you all the answers you want -- that's true. But who says anything else can? What makes some people think (or speak and act as if they think) that the universe owes them the answers they want, that the universe must somehow provide some other path to those answers, and further, that they think they've found such paths?

Why do I have to constantly deal with people asking (quite often with an "Ah, hah! I betcha never thought of this, smartypants!" tone) questions like, "Well, why do you think we're here?", "What's the purpose of all of this for then?", etc., as if having some mystical (usually illogical) answer to offer is better than saying "I don't know"?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-11-07 11:51 PM
Response to Original message
1. I agree.
I do think this bit needs to emphasized:
It's a recognition of the need for nonlogical premises -- basic, logic-neutral starting points which have to be chosen before logic can get you anywhere.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Kiouni Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:39 AM
Response to Original message
2. I don's see the logic?
I have heard that dumb reply too. And when you finally get them to sound out their dumb points you realize that they are just trying to say that it isn't logical because they are too stupid to understand it. Any body that says that response is simply an idiot. Even if you believe in a god you should be able to logically explain why you do or as you put its just a "mystical answer."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Evoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 03:15 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Yeah, its a pretty nonsense reply.
And it really points to a misunderstanding of what logic is. But I don't think it is necessary to call people who have said that idiots.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
pnwmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:52 AM
Response to Original message
3. Sorry, can't tell you.
Because it's beyond words, too.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 12:01 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Something "special"...
...that, no doubt, you can only know if you "open your heart and mind to the experience".

And then pay no attention to the fact that people who claim to have done so come back with wildly different accounts of deep mysteries thus revealed. We can paper over that little problem with something like "each person sees different aspects of the truth".

Yeah, that's the ticket. ;)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
More Than A Feeling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 10:48 AM
Response to Original message
5. When someone uses "beyond logic"
it means one of two things, either:

A) whatever they just said is a pretty phrase that actually has no intelligible meaning.

or

B) they've committed a non sequitur and don't recognize it...or don't want to admit it.

In other words, they can't explain or justify whatever it is. They'd like to get out of the debate or argument without accepting or realizing that they can't just go around asserting wild generalities and expect to be taken seriously when they do.

It's basically an admission that they aren't making sense.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #5
16. Your point A is precisely why children "get" God, and thus Atheists cause such decay in America
:rofl:

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 12:43 PM
Response to Original message
7. I think they are talking about the limits of logic ....
the knowledge that things have meaning and importance when the logic of why is not necessarily there, there are things that extra-logical, if that is possible.

There is no way to verify something is true or not logically, but not being able to do so does not mean that it is untrue.

I know I am not being clear here ...
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. You aren't clear because clarity requires precision
And the whole notion of something being beyond logic precludes that.

Claiming some things are beyond logic is to lose the game before you start playing.

There is no way to verify something is true or not logically, but not being able to do so does not mean that it is untrue.


That's - duh da hum! Logic! Or more precisely it is an issue of computation.

he knowledge that things have meaning and importance when the logic of why is not necessarily there, there are things that extra-logical, if that is possible.


As I have already espoused many times before the feeling of knowledge IS NOT the same as knowledge.

You either have to think you are cognitively infallible or that for some reason this particular piece of knowledge is just right even though you could be wrong and can't show you're right - and you can't even begin to define the parameters of being right.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:23 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. but the feeling of knowledge can be knowledge
Take intuition, for instance.

(I find your posts visually hard to read because they are without quote marks or any other indication of which text is yours, and which is mine. How about some quotes?)

you said:
"You either have to think you are cognitively infallible or that for some reason this particular piece of knowledge is just right even though you could be wrong and can't show you're right - and you can't even begin to define the parameters of being right."

I don't think any sensible person thinks that they are infallible. Still, intuition represents that sense of knowing without being able to quantify it, and intution if often correct.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:28 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Ah Jeezus, not intution again
Edited on Thu Apr-12-07 02:31 PM by cyborg_jim
I've already hashed that over with you in the past.

Intuition, being fallible, does not solve the problem I posed does it?

Unless you are going to insist it is infallible. I hope you are not that stupid.

(I find your posts visually hard to read because they are without quote marks or any other indication of which text is yours, and which is mine. How about some quotes?)


Are you unable to see the indentation?

Still, intuition represents that sense of knowing without being able to quantify it, and intution if often correct.


Confirmation bias much?

Are you just going to ignore the fact it is often wrong or not?

It is a perfect illustration of what I mean - feeling you know something IS NOT KNOWING IT. You need the confirmation of the intuition before it is knowledge, and confirmation bias being what it is, people ignore the times it was wrong and remember the times it was right - leading to the sort of fallacious thinking you are engaging in right here.

(Not to forget the fact I also explained the computational rationale of intuition that explains why it is useful, why it produces useful results and WHY IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED).
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 03:51 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. Don't hold back tell me how you really feel
cyborg:
"feeling you know something IS NOT KNOWING IT."

Many would disagree, including me. My intuition is right much of the time, and that is good enough for me. The fact that it isn't right all of the time doesn't take away from it's value. We are often forced in life to make decisions with very incomplete information, and utilizing a combination of reason and intuition can help us make a better judgment.

And no, the indentation technique of yours does not work very well as a quote mechanism.

"There are quotes"

There are italics

There is bold type

All more visible, graphically, than an indentation.



Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. No shit, but other people don't seem to have a problem with it
Edited on Thu Apr-12-07 03:58 PM by cyborg_jim
Many would disagree, including me.


That's nice. It doesn't actually respond to my points but it's really nice that you disagree.

My intuition is right much of the time, and that is good enough for me.


Yeah, it's 'good enough' - but we're not talking about 'good enough' are we?

The fact that it isn't right all of the time doesn't take away from it's value.


Sigh, you really don't get the point do you?

We are often forced in life to make decisions with very incomplete information, and utilizing a combination of reason and intuition can help us make a better judgment.


No shit. I haven't argued otherwise.

So, perhaps you could get to the point now:

How is feeling you know something knowing something?

I have already demonstrated that the feeling of knowing something is fallible - you agree.

Therefore how can you possibly conclude otherwise? Feeling you know something IS NOT the same as knowing it. You agree, you just don't seem to want to say the words.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 08:08 AM
Response to Reply #18
28. How is feeling something I know knowing something?
It just is.

If the fallibility percentage is low, what's the problem?

You make a distinction without much of a difference, in my opinion. You are looking for a form of absolute knowledge, when such a thing is rarely available to us in life.

There are some things I know absolutely, there are many that I do not know absolutely, but am pretty sure of, and act on those things, and some that are a good guess, if nothing more.

What's the problem?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:22 AM
Response to Reply #28
31. The problem is a poorly developed epistemology...
...and (I'm generalizing here, not necessarily addressing the specifics of what you may specifically claim to "know") there's way too much confidence in things like belief in souls and spirits and gods and afterlives when there's nothing at all beyond a mere feeling as validation, and no testable consequences one way or the other about such beliefs.

You say "the fallibility percentage is low"... measured how? Measured against what? How do you measure the likelihood that your (this, again, is a generalized "you" I'm talking about) belief in an afterlife has a high probability of being correct? Is it something like "My intuition about when to carry an umbrella or when two people are going to get along well works well, so my intuition about an afterlife should be pretty dependable too"?

Now if your question is "what's the problem?" in the sense of "what the hell does it matter to you what I think I know?" then, well... I guess that's not really much of a problem for me at all. You can "know" deep down in your heart that you're the Queen of England, and unless you're going to start demanding that I address you "your highness" I guess it's no skin off my teeth. But I'll also still feel quite at liberty to express my doubts about what you think you "know".
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 12:14 PM
Response to Reply #31
34. and the value of such epistomolgy is?
kerry4kerry:
there's way too much confidence in things like belief in souls and spirits and gods and afterlives when there's nothing at all beyond a mere feeling as validation, and no testable consequences one way or the other about such beliefs.

First, I am talking about knowledge in the abstract, not particularly relating to the issue of religious belief. I am also not claiming knowledge of other people's spiritual or religious beliefs.

I have little interest in attempting to convince anyone else of my beliefs

I think the idea of calling it "mere feeling" is incorrect. A good deal of thought goes into religious belief, a good deal of free thought and rational thought. You might not agree, but that is how I see if from where I astand.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #34
37. *Sigh* The point is that without any confirmation IT IS a mere feeling
So again I ask:

If my intuition says there is no god and yours says there is where do we go from there? You may say it is of no great importance, in a way that is very much true - for us. Some people make it far more meaningful than that.

Then there are far less lofty and philosophical concerns. Once you accept the *fact* that feeling you know something *is not* the same as knowing it then you can start seeing where the problems with believing in supernatural phenomena can come - people will take advantage of this and will abuse the fact that you are disposed to believe in these things.

A good deal of thought goes into religious belief, a good deal of free thought and rational thought.


And yet all that thought is really quite irrelevant if it starts off with the premise that what one feels is true means a damn.

So we get the wrong-thinking that says if a lot of people feel something is true then it must be true - no matter how many times that is shown to be faulty people like yourself will latch onto it. I can't say if it's because you really don't get why that's faulty thinking, if it's because despite the fact that you say you understand that your thinking can be faulty the feeling that it is not overrides this or if it's because you understand all the implications laid out but you are simply uncomfortable with the inevitable conclusions and as such dismiss the previous with hand-waving and recede into a position of ignorance from whence you can comfortably assert any just-so story you like.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #37
46. We often never receive confirmation about the most mundane knowledge
and without that confirmation we can't have absolute knowledge, can we?

I park my car in the garage, and I believe it is still there. Do I know it is still there? No. Someone may have broken in and stolen my car. Therefore, according to you, I can't know my car is the garage. I must only feel that my car is there.

I must go through life with lots of unknowing. Somehow I manage, and thrive.

If my intuition says there is no god and yours says there is where do we go from there?

Different directions, of course.

A question for you, because I don't understand your argument;
Are beliefs either facts, or feelings, or is it a possiblity that they are both?
I get the sense from you that this is a binary choice, and no other possibilities exist. Beliefs are usually made up of both, in my view. You believe my thinking if faulty, if it doesn't agree with yours. I just think my thinking is different than yours.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #46
48. Missing the point again.
I park my car in the garage, and I believe it is still there. Do I know it is still there? No. Someone may have broken in and stolen my car. Therefore, according to you, I can't know my car is the garage. I must only feel that my car is there.


Absolutely. You have a belief about the state of the universe that may or may not be correct.

I must go through life with lots of unknowing. Somehow I manage, and thrive.


UGH. Why do you keep on insisting that somehow I am asserting the opposite? The point I am trying to get across to you is the about the limits of what we can actually tell merely by relying on our internally constructed beliefs alone.

They work because if they didn't work at all then we wouldn't be around. They also fail a lot.

Are beliefs either facts, or feelings, or is it a possiblity that they are both?


Beliefs are not facts. Beliefs may be congruent with facts.

You believe my thinking if faulty, if it doesn't agree with yours. I just think my thinking is different than yours.


You are missing the point.

If you go around saying, "I can formulate beliefs about my car and where it is even if the universe happens to make that belief wrong some of the time it's not a problem because it doesn't really affect the usefulness of how I formulate those beliefs," then yes, I agree. I never said anything else.

If you go around saying, "Because I know where my car is then my beliefs about gods are just as reliable," that's where I'm stepping in.

So yes, your thinking is faulty. You aren't thinking in any radically different way to me, we share the same belief engine (i.e. brain), the problem is that you don't seem to want to acknowledge that the belief engine can generate beliefs that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to justify themselves in actual reality.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:00 PM
Response to Reply #48
61. What problem?
the problem is that you don't seem to want to acknowledge that the belief engine can generate beliefs that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to justify themselves in actual reality.

No, I agree with you, actually. People believe all kinds of things, and some of those things can be quite imaginary.

Now, the nature of actual reality is quite debatable, of course.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #34
51. Think about the words "know" and "knowledge" and how they're used...
...how you yourself probably use the words, in fact, when you aren't trying to dance around thorny questions about the nature of knowledge.

An elementary school teacher asks his class, "Who was the first President of the United States?". A little girl quickly throws her hand in the air, eager to answer the question. The teacher calls on her and she excitedly replies, "Lincoln!". When the teacher says "Sorry... anyone else?", the girl is confused, and when she hears the answer "Washington", she doesn't believe it. She pouts for a while, and it isn't until she gets home, talks to her parents, and they assure her that she must have just gotten confused, that the real answer is indeed Washington, that she accepts that she was somehow in error -- despite her initially very confident feeling to the contrary.

It is certainly true that the girl experienced the feeling of knowledge. It's not going to be very useful or productive to assume, however, that the only explanation for the feeling she had is that she somehow temporarily inhabited a different branch of the universe where Lincoln actually was the first President. Most of us -- including you, I'd be willing to guess -- would describe the above situation by saying something like "The girl thought she knew the answer, but she really didn't."

We wouldn't say, however, "She thought she was excited about answering the question". Regardless of the fact that her excitement turned out to be unfounded, there's no good reason to dispute the reality of the excitement itself.

Do "profound spiritual truths" live in the same realm of knowledge where Washington is the first President, or in the realm of knowledge where you can feel like you know that Lincoln is the first President? While there's something good to be said about being in touch with your own feelings, I hardly think that maintaining an accurate internal ledger of how you felt about this thing and that as you go through life constitutes a very grand search for truth or knowledge.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:09 PM
Response to Reply #51
63. I disagree
Do "profound spiritual truths" live in the same realm of knowledge where Washington is the first President, or in the realm of knowledge where you can feel like you know that Lincoln is the first President? While there's something good to be said about being in touch with your own feelings, I hardly think that maintaining an accurate internal ledger of how you felt about this thing and that as you go through life constitutes a very grand search for truth or knowledge.

I disagree, of course. The problem I have with your analogy is that it is easily and objectively possible to find out who the first president of the United States is. It is impossible to do this with various concepts of the divine that have permeated human history for our history as far back as we can trace it. These varied concepts are both different and familiar to one another, but it is impossible to pin down exactly the nature of God because, as many different faiths say, God is much greater than our ability to know him. I am using the word God as a stand-in for a variety of concepts, as I personally don't see God as a being, which is a limited idea.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #63
77. Q: X or Y? / A: I disagree.
"I disagree" is not a very sensible or useful response to a question that poses two choices. But perhaps that's the kind of "beyond logic" thinking that I, in my spiritually deprived and stunted state, am simply incapable of properly appreciating. :)

The problem I have with your analogy is that it is easily and objectively possible to find out who the first president of the United States is. It is impossible to do this with various concepts of the divine that have permeated human history for our history as far back as we can trace it.


The problem I think you have with my analogy is that it puts all of these "various concepts of the divine" in a poor light when it comes to calling claims about such "knowledge".

What makes believing Washington was the first President of the US an example of possessing knowledge, and believing Lincoln was the first President an example of a lack of knowledge, is precisely the fact that what makes knowledge knowledge is the ability to objectively validate it. Of what value is it to have the separate word "knowledge", distinct from "feeling" and "belief", if you're going to so devalue and dismiss the objective validation component of knowledge? Without such a distinction, you might as well treat all three words as synonyms.

The only possible "knowledge" which is purely personal is knowledge of your own feelings, and that's because you're the only possible source of direct information on that topic. But that's a very limited and special case of "knowledge" if we intend to use the word "knowledge" as usefully distinct concept. If you want to blur the line between "Joe felt something he described as 'the presence of God'" -- and I'm quite willing to say Joe could indeed know that he felt such a thing -- and "Joe knows that God exists", there are only two ways you can do that:

1) Diminish the meaning of "God" to the point that God need be nothing more than a feeling you can have.
2) Diminish the meaning of "knowledge" so that the word carries no useful distinction from "belief" or "feeling".
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #77
87. Second order knowledge isn't necessary for first order knowledge.
In fact, it's not uncommon in epistemology to hold that second order knowledge (i.e., knowing that you know) is impossible to have.

Regardless, in order to talk about who has knowledge and who doesn't, you first need to define what "knowledge" means. If this were a trivial problem, epistemology wouldn't exist.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #87
88. I know epistemology can get pretty hairy...
...and I hope to avoid wandering too far off into the depths of that jungle in this thread.

The point I'm trying to make in the post you just responded to is simply this: if your epistemology is headed off in a direction which is going to blur any useful distinction between knowledge, belief, and feeling, you aren't headed in a direction that's very fruitful, that's going to be helpful in aiding communication or discussion of ideas.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:09 PM
Response to Reply #88
89. The problem seems to be that either way "knowledge" isn't useful.
If you avoid the blurring you're concerned about, you consign yourself to an epistemology in which you can't actually "know" anything except necessary truths, which are few and far between.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #89
91. I'm not sure what you mean by "necessary truths".
Is "George Washington was the first President of the US" a "necessary truth"? I certainly think it's possible to talk about knowing this piece of information while maintaining a distinct meaning for the word "knowing" apart from "believing" and "feeling", and in doing so allow for a very large universe of "knowable" things, from 1957 baseball statistics, to Bolivia's 2006 trade balance, to the composition of feldspar, to how much milk is left in the fridge, etc., with perhaps different error bars and degrees of certainty for each.

If you're fretting over issues of absolute knowability, exploring that might lead to interesting philosophical discussion, but it's also tangential to this thread.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:43 PM
Response to Reply #91
95. Knowledge must be true.
So I'm not quite sure what you're referring to with "error bars."

As for what a "necessary truth" is, it's a statement that must be true in any possible world (in the metaphysical sense); it's not possible for it to be false. For instance, "George Washington was the first President of the U.S." could be false. It could be an elaborate deception, a la zookeepers painting mules or barn facades (classic skeptical objections). A necessary truth would be something like "2 + 2 = 4" ... by the definition of those terms, that is an inevitable conclusion. The choice of mathematics is not by chance... as I understand it, mathematics is widely held to be a necessary truth, and some have concluded that it is the only necessary truth. Because necessary truths are... well... necessary, we can know that we aren't being deceived in some clever way when we determine them, and therefore we can know them.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:50 PM
Response to Reply #95
98. Mathematics is axiomatic
If I chose to define 2 + 2 = 3 I can do that.

There are an infinite number of possible mathematical systems that can be defined - only some of them have relevance to the reality we find ourselves in.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:01 PM
Response to Reply #98
100. You're merely changing symbols.
Regardless, here's perhaps a clearer example: "All squares have four sides."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #100
106. No, really not.
Squares are defined that way.

Counter-point: parallel lines can meet in non-Euclidian geometry.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:35 PM
Response to Reply #106
107. Which is again a definitional issue.
Parallel lines can meet in non-Euclidean geometry because parallel lines are defined in such a way as to allow that to happen.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:55 PM
Response to Reply #107
108. Exactly - mathematics doesn't have to have anything to do with reality
That 2 + 2 = 3 can easily lead to an inconsistent mathematical system doesn't mean I can't define it so.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:01 PM
Response to Reply #108
109. I could define "dinosaur" to mean "Nazi."
Therefore, dinosaurs still roam Earth to this day!

That's a completely irrelevant objection. The point is that what we mean when we say "2 + 2 = 4" is a necessary truth.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #109
111. It's not a necessary truth of mathematics - it's a necessary truth of *a* mathematics
Your redefinition only works as an objection if the word 'dinosaur' also retains its former meaning.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:23 PM
Response to Reply #111
112. And is thus a necessary truth.
As I said, "2 + 2 = 4" is a necessary truth, in the same sense that "A square has four sides" is a necessary truth. You could redefine the terms so that that expression of language would no longer be true, but it wouldn't alter the necessary truth of the original statement.

Semantic gamesmanship is all well and good, but it really doesn't get you anywhere here.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:34 PM
Response to Reply #112
114. *Sigh* this is not about semantic games
I am just pointing out that it is meaningless to say 2 + 2 = 4 is a necessary truth as if that was something profoundly significant and not just a consequence of the rules decided for the mathematics.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #114
122. Who said anything about "profound significance?"
IS "A square has four sides" any more significant? No. A square has four sides because it is defined to have four sides.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Jim__ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 09:23 AM
Response to Reply #98
139. Arithmetic is not axiomatic.
Edited on Mon Apr-16-07 09:46 AM by Jim__
Frege tried to prove that the rules of arithmetic can be derived directly from logic (discussion). Frege erred in that he based his definition of number on cardinality. Russell saw Frege's error and wrote (along with Whitehead) Principia Mathematica to derive the rules of arithmetic from logic - he based his definition of number on ordinality. Godel subsequently proved that Principia Mathematica was omega incomplete (i.e. there are some undecideable propositions within the system). I believe Russell's derivation of the rules of arithmetic from logic is still accepted as correct.

2 + 2 = 4 is an arithmetic statement. And, if Russell's derivation is correct, outside of terminological issues, 2 + 2 = 4 is a correct statement within any consistent arithmetic.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 11:43 PM
Response to Reply #139
155. 2 + 2 = 1...
...is a completely valid statement in modulo-3 integer arithmetic, where the only numbers you have are 0, 1, and 2. Modular arithmetic is just as consistent as standard arithmetic based on either an infinite set of integers or real numbers.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #155
159. See post #100.
Allow me to make a somewhat facetious example of this conversation... please don't take this personally, as I mean no offense.


A: "All squares have four sides" is a necessary truth.
B: But in Language_X, "square" means "any figure!" Your "necessary truth" isn't necessary at all!
A: *sigh*


Yes, 2 + 2 = 1 is a valid statement in modulo-3 integer arithmetic, and is also a necessary truth, in precisely the same sense as "Todos los cuadrados tienen cuatro lados."

"6 * 9 = 42" is also a necessary truth, if the base in question is 13. My statement "2 + 2 = 4 is a necessary truth" presupposed that we were talking about your garden variety base-10 arithmetic.

"1 + 1 = 10" is a necessary truth, if the base in question is 2.

Perhaps I should have said it clearer: you're changing the language, not the symbols. Regardless, it is a necessary truth that if I take 2(base-10) sticks and another 2(base-10) sticks I'll have four(base-10) sticks.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 01:23 AM
Response to Reply #159
161. While changing arithmetic bases or human languages is simply a trivial...
...exercise in shuffling symbols around, it seems to me that the difference between modular arithmetic and standard arithmetic is a bit more than that. Modular arithmetic can't be arrived at by a simple one-to-one swapping of its symbols with those used in standard arithmetic on an infinite set of integers or real numbers. Modular arithmetic changes the basic premises of the arithmetic system.

2 + 2 = 4 might not cease to be a "necessary truth", but perhaps it requires a little more qualification about how the operation + is defined.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 08:05 AM
Response to Reply #161
163. Fair enough. (n/t)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Jim__ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 07:46 AM
Response to Reply #155
162. That's a terminological issue.
Edited on Wed Apr-18-07 07:55 AM by Jim__
I noted in my post that 2 + 2 = 4 in any consistent arithmetic, outside of terminological issues. "Addition modulo 3" is not the same as "addition" - the terminology has changed.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:24 PM
Response to Reply #95
103. You never can know whether or not...
...your brain has short-circuited and deceived you. You could probably stare right at "2 + 2 = 5" under the right circumstances and "know" that it was "true". Mathematics might come closer to being "inescapably true" than anything else, but when even the pathways of thought are subject to uncertainty, everything is uncertain, nothing at all floating around within the confines of your mind is left which can be labeled "knowledge" by so strict a definition.

Hence the talk of "error bars". It seems eminently useful to me to use the word "knowledge" to refer to information which seems highly likely to be true. That, of course, makes the designation of "knowledge" a tentative and contingent thing, subject to change. But where's the problem in that? I'd call what you're talking about "absolute knowledge", and save such usage for esoteric delvings into the limits of epistemology.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #103
105. At that point, you're talking about false knowledge.
The reason "knowledge" as a concept is useful is because of the definitional limitation that there can be no false knowledge. Without that, knowledge is merely a stronger form of "belief."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:25 PM
Response to Reply #105
113. I'd say "provisional" knowledge, not "false" knowledge.
If you've got "knowledge" which is "merely" a stronger form of belief, and that comparative strength is established via a stringent public method of validation (rather than some notion of the "intensity" with which you believe something)... I'd say that's an awfully damned useful, practical meaning for the word "knowledge", a meaning that has real-world applications in day-to-day life, research, science, etc., while maintaining a useful distinction from "mere" belief and feelings alone.

There's a context where the more stringent meaning of knowledge you're promoting is quite applicable -- but it's a pretty esoteric and dry philosophical context. I can't imagine why you'd want to insist on your highly restrictive meaning as being the only proper usage of the world, and thus take the word away from nearly any practical use in real-life circumstances.

Is your purpose to turn everything outside of mathematics into conflicting matters of mere belief, so that mystics are thus on equal footing with rationalists and scientists?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #28
33. Wow, thanks that clears it up
It just is.


Great. It just is. Wow.

You make a distinction without much of a difference, in my opinion. You are looking for a form of absolute knowledge, when such a thing is rarely available to us in life.


I have an intuition X. Intuition X is shown to be wrong. Therefore I never 'knew' X.

If you don't think there's a distinction then, by my intuition, I know there is no god. Therefore all theists are wrong.

I'm going to guess you aren't too satisfied with that.

What's the problem?


See above. If you won't make the distinction then you simply create a war of intuition. Not helpful is it? Hmm, how about we abandon that then and try to find some real knowledge?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #33
35. You see a problem where I see none.
Such is life.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 12:23 PM
Response to Reply #35
36. You don't think it's a problem that intuition can lead to mututally incompatable 'knowledge'?
Seriously? Do you need examples of what happens when two sets of people with mutually incompatible ideas based on intuition alone get together? You know, like bloody conflicts?

Seriously? Are you that naive?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 03:08 PM
Response to Reply #36
47. Of course it can lead to mutually incompatible knowledge
People have mutually incompatible ideas all the time, and science won't end that, or a dependency on logic. Most of these have nothing to do with religion, but may be about other ideas. Nationalism, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation.

But you are not even dealing with the elephant in the living room:

What do we do about the unknowable????????

There is always knowledge beyond our ability to currently know it. We make seek that knowledge, but not be able to get it, even though it would be of great value to us right now. That knowledge may be attainable long after our lifetime, but what use is that to us in this lifetime?

What do you do when you need information that you need and can't possibly get using the scientific tools available to you in this lifetime?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #47
50. We can't do a thing about it
What do we do about the unknowable????????


Things that are truly unknowable, not just functionally unknowable, are beyond us entirely. How do you deal with an elephant you absolutely can't deal with? Well you don't...

What do you do when you need information that you need and can't possibly get using the scientific tools available to you in this lifetime?


As I pointed out you do the best you can. However, the idea that this is 'beyond logic', as I have argued, just isn't true. In the worst case scenario you just make a guess - and that would be the most logical course of action where doing nothing is unacceptable. Otherwise you try to formulate systems which can give you good results. I really fail to see how that makes it 'beyond logic'.

The problem for me is to pretend that because there are no absolute answers that any old answer will be acceptable.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #50
52. What's even worse...
...and this is where the "beyond logic" line really gets to me, is that it's not merely a matter of pretending that "any old answer" is acceptable when a logical, factual path to knowledge is unavailable, but that the stuff people make up (sorry, not "make up", but "discover on their spiritual journey", of course) to fill in the gaps is actually a superior, Deeper Knowledge than that terribly limited, mundane crap that mere facts and logic can get for you.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:19 PM
Response to Reply #50
64. I am not particularly talking about the "beyond logic" OP
The word "beyond" is a sticking point that implies it is better than logic, rather than just being a legitimate alternative to logic.

We have a wide variety of perceptive abilities. Logic is the after-the-fact analysis of the experience. Attempting to immediately derive meaning from many experiences is impossible, for those that are profound and shake us for some reason. Have you ever seen a movie that you really didn't like, but you couldn't get it out of your head? You continue to process the information because it reaches you in some way, and you might file that experience away without coming to a conclusion about it.

Attempting to come to a logical conclusion about this film could fail, and you could give up in frustration, and call the film bad. It might be bad, but still have something to say that is important to you in some way.

And yet somehow you know it is important. Where does that knowledge come from?

and as you said, you do the best you can, and for many, that means a spiritual practice.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #64
99. You're trying to fix a broken DVD player...
A screw slips away from your grip and gets stuck somewhere inside the player. You curse, and you start shaking the DVD player, turning it this way and that. You hear the screw rattling about, and eventually, after a few frustrating minutes, the errant screw falls out onto the floor (...at which point your cat bats it under the sofa. ;) )

You don't have any idea what tortuous path through the innards of your DVD player that screw took, just that it eventually (to your relief) fell out. Is it useful to speculate that The Hand of God was required to free the screw? That the screw at some point teleported from place to place within the DVD player? Why speculate about any of that (which, in terms of Occam's Razor "needlessly multiplies entities) when random motion over time is more than sufficient to explain the eventually extraction of the lost screw?

By analogy, the game played by mystics in a situation like this goes something like this: (1) Play the "you can't prove it wasn't the Hand of God" card, (2) imply that any lack of 100% absolute certainly suddenly puts all explanations on equal footing (with the mundane explanation being, in fact, for some strange reason, the least among equals), (3) saddle any rationalists with the burden of explaining and experimentally proving every single detail of the unseen path by which the screw traveled.

Why might you have a lingering feeling that some movie you watched was "important"? Why not? Our brains and the psychological processes going on inside them are pretty complex and only dimly understood. Why shouldn't the "loose screws" of the experience of watching a movie sometimes "shake around" inside those complicated pathways of processing inside your brain until one or two eventually "fall out" into a part of your brain which triggers the sensation "I know there's something important here!"? Maybe somewhere during the movie you saw a dry cleaning store in the background of a scene, and it triggered a not-yet-fully-conscious realization that you forgot to pick up your dry cleaning.

Where's the pressing need to "multiply entities" here, by dragging in new mystical entities, when the mundane components of such a situation appear more than sufficient for producing the observed effect?

and as you said, you do the best you can, and for many, that means a spiritual practice


Huh? You need a "spiritual practice" to deal with mysterious feelings about the importance of certain movies!?

A chicken is probably happier believing that the purpose of a chicken farmer is to house and feed the chicken. If the chicken had to go through life knowing the true facts of the situation -- that the purpose of the chicken farmer is to slaughter chickens for food -- her life would be a whole lot more stressful, filled every day with dread.

That a "spiritual practice" gives you peace, comfort, a sense of direction, helps you "do the best you can" to muddle through from day to day, etc., has little or no bearing on whether or not that practice helps provide "knowledge" in any meaningful sense. The accrued side-effect benefits of believing a thing are a an incredibly poor metric of the belief system's value as a path to "truth".
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Jokerman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 01:36 PM
Response to Original message
9. "Paralogical Studies"
That was my standard answer to the "What's you're major?" question in college. If pressed for more information I would usually explain that it was "the study of phenomena that exist outside the realm of logic". The best response I ever got was "That doesn't make any sense", to which I replied "Exactly!"

Little did I know at the time that much of my true major, Political Science, would fit that same definition.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 01:41 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. Ah but politics IS logical
It's just not following the logic it proclaims it does.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cosmik debris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. I'm going back to college
Just so I can use that line. I may expand into "real" science so I can be a Paralogic Meta-physicist.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Rabrrrrrr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:51 PM
Response to Original message
14. People actually PAYING to vote on American Idol?
That's beyond any logic I know.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. They get a sense of value from participation.
It doesn't really matter if the value is real or not does it?

Hell, a lot of the religious people here argue just as much.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 06:00 PM
Response to Original message
19. All manner of matters are beyond mere logic.
Anyone interested in scientific reasoning will recognize immediately that the most obvious matter beyond mere are the material facts disclosed by observation and experiment. If one were able to deduce such facts by logic, there would be no need for observation and experiment. It is, of course, true that an object of science is to try to organize observational and experimental results into quantitative theories with useful predictive value and a pleasing logical structure, but the effort required to do this is, in any important case, highly nontrivial -- and the results only infrequently yield tractable calculational theories that can be applied without approximation.

Traditional logic is nothing but a tool for effectively organizing and communicating ideas. Some primitive ideas of (say) boolean logic seem to be reflect properties of collections of objects that many of us learned in childhood, mirrored by certain grammatical rules in English; whether the ideas reflect something grander than that is not entirely clear.

The so-called classical propositional calculus, with its quantifiers and rules such as double negation, suffers from a number of unattractive features. One such feature is that fact that just about every nontrivial theory expressible in the language of propositional calculus is undecidable, meaning that there is no general algorithm to decide whether a given sentence is true or false -- and in fact there's no general way to determine whether a typical theory leads to a contradiction or not. Thus, an axiomatic assertion, such as the law of the excluded middle, has no computational or observable meaning in most cases and simply reduces to an ideological claim, which is nevertheless seldom discarded, because it has the convenient effect of simplifying certain complex grammatical forms.

Another reasonable objection is that the classical logical laws involve claims that no empirically-minded person would accept. An example is the assertion "If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X," which might be applied as follows: upon showing that the assumption "everything fails to have property X" leads to a contradiction, one realizes then that "it's not true that everything fails to have property X," and concludes that "something exists which has property X." But surely the pragmatic Mr. Doe, who disbelieves in the existence of unicorns, will not suddenly change his mind and begin to believe that there is actually a unicorn somewhere, if Mr. Doe happens to discover that his current ideas about unicorns lead to a contradiction.

There are a limited number of matters in daily life which anyone could resolve by reducing to an established logic, with clear axioms, and then carefully working out the consequences. For the simplest situations, it's really not worth the trouble; for the really complicated situations, the enterprise is completely intractable and beomes a fool's game. What, for example, is an optimal strategy for limiting environmental damage world-wide, taking political and economic realities into account? In many cases, nobody knows how to do the analysis. And sometimes, of course, the analysis is simply too complicated to do: a calculation, promising to give a needed answer but requiring a hundred years of computer time, is a mere fantasy if a decision is required in the next year or two.

Everyone, of course, believes that his/her own views are rational and supported by logic; and typically people accuse those, who disagree with them, of being irrational and illogical. Perhaps that means people regard logical thinking as an ideal -- or perhaps it means people hope to score points by appealing to other people's belief in the importance of logic.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 06:42 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. Reply (lack of imagination)
Anyone interested in scientific reasoning will recognize immediately that the most obvious matter beyond mere are the material facts disclosed by observation and experiment. If one were able to deduce such facts by logic, there would be no need for observation and experiment.


That is, as I pointed out, not 'beyond logic', in this case it would be the 'input' to a logical proposition.

One such feature is that fact that just about every nontrivial theory expressible in the language of propositional calculus is undecidable, meaning that there is no general algorithm to decide whether a given sentence is true or false -- and in fact there's no general way to determine whether a typical theory leads to a contradiction or not.


This is true of all logics that allow recursive definitions - not just propositional calculus.

It would be more correct to say there are statements that are non-computable - that is the truth of the statement can be known but requires an infinite recursive calculation. That is to say if you ran the computation for an infinite amount of time you'd have an answer, but you can't do this.

For example the halting problem can only really be solved by running the program in question and seeing if it finishes or not - and in the general case that requires an infinite amount of time.

Of course the question is then begged as to what can actually solve this problem. No good answers have been forthcoming - hypercomputers all run into the same problems.

Thus, an axiomatic assertion, such as the law of the excluded middle, has no computational or observable meaning in most cases and simply reduces to an ideological claim, which is nevertheless seldom discarded, because it has the convenient effect of simplifying certain complex grammatical forms.


It also allows sound and valid logical systems. If your logical system doesn't have these properties you cannot rely upon the truth of its statements.

An example is the assertion "If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X," which might be applied as follows: upon showing that the assumption "everything fails to have property X" leads to a contradiction, one realizes then that "it's not true that everything fails to have property X," and concludes that "something exists which has property X."


If you put silly axioms in your logical system you can get silly answers. No doubt. But that's not a problem of logic, that's an issue of constructing logical systems.

And sometimes, of course, the analysis is simply too complicated to do: a calculation, promising to give a needed answer but requiring a hundred years of computer time, is a mere fantasy if a decision is required in the next year or two.


Which is why constructing polynomial time heuristic algorithms is an important thing to do.

Again though, this isn't something beyond logic, this is an issue of computational complexity.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #20
23. Your comments really miss the point.
Edited on Thu Apr-12-07 08:35 PM by struggle4progress
I suppose you are free to take the view that the material world should simply be regarded as the 'input' to a logical proposition, if you so wish, but many of us regard the world as having more presence than a mere term in a proposition and notice it contradicts our ideations with some regularity.

You claim It would be more correct to say ... if you ran the computation for an infinite amount of time you'd have an answer, but you can't do this. Supposing, for a moment, that one could actually make sensible statements about running computations for an infinite amount of time, I should object to your statement on the grounds that the incompleteness of Peano arithmetic is not analogous to the halting problem: there are perfectly well-formed sentences in Peano arithmetic that cannot be shown from the axioms to be either true or false -- and this problem cannot be solved by any constructive enlargement of the axiom set, if Peano arithmetic is consistent. I suppose you will want now to say that this consistency could be determined by running computations for an infinite amount of time, but any practical person will recognize such a statement as pure ideology: it has no experimental content, and its meaning must therefore be purely a matter of verbal convention; in short, you want to assert the truth of some untestable claim.

Whether the law of the excluded middle is necessary for a coherent logic probably depends on the form chosen. It would be difficult to do much logic without a rule such as -(A&-A) = T, which in classical logic is equivalent to A + -A = T; but in fact, it is possible to develop interesting logics without requiring the equivalence, so that -(A&-A) = T is retained and A + -A = T discarded.

You want to call If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X a silly axiom; in fact, you'll find some consequence of that assertion in any standard treatment of quantifiers.

I'll agree that it's pleasant when one can find a polynomial-time algorithm for a problem but as a purely practical matter "polynomial-time" doesn't really mean the same thing as "tractable." A number of problems which can supposedly be handled in polynomial time are still infeasible.

Jabber however much like you like about logic or computational complexity: still, the natural interpretation of a claim Such-and-such a method would solve this problem but we can't actually do anything like that, because it would take hundreds of years is simply Such-and-such a method seems to be useless for this problem

<edit: typo>
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 11:24 PM
Response to Reply #23
27. Erm no shit
I suppose you are free to take the view that the material world should simply be regarded as the 'input' to a logical proposition, if you so wish, but many of us regard the world as having more presence than a mere term in a proposition and notice it contradicts our ideations with some regularity.


Yeah, the world isn't actually logic, thanks for clearing that up.

The question is whether or not logic is sufficient enough to model the world in a precise manner - i.e. if it can't then what is it that is beyond logic.

You claim It would be more correct to say ... if you ran the computation for an infinite amount of time you'd have an answer, but you can't do this. Supposing, for a moment, that one could actually make sensible statements about running computations for an infinite amount of time,


You can. Heard of limits?

I should object to your statement on the grounds that the incompleteness of Peano arithmetic is not analogous to the halting problem: there are perfectly well-formed sentences in Peano arithmetic that cannot be shown from the axioms to be either true or false -- and this problem cannot be solved by any constructive enlargement of the axiom set, if Peano arithmetic is consistent.


Yes, I am familiar with Goedel's incompleteness theorem. Thanks.

I suppose you will want now to say that this consistency could be determined by running computations for an infinite amount of time, but any practical person will recognize such a statement as pure ideology: it has no experimental content, and its meaning must therefore be purely a matter of verbal convention; in short, you want to assert the truth of some untestable claim.


No, I am merely pointing out that this is mathematically true; a hypercomputer that can execute an infinite amount of instructions in a finite amount of time could solve the halting problem. No, such a thing is not actually constructable but it certainly helps us separate out different classes of non-computable problems.

This is relevant because there's a whole class of arithmetic problems that reduce to the halting problem - the Goldbach conjecture for example.

The problem is not that the question is beyond logic, the problem is that the only algorithms that can exist that can answer the question require an infinite amount of time to run. There is a subtle difference.

You want to call If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X a silly axiom; in fact, you'll find some consequence of that assertion in any standard treatment of quantifiers.


I haven't seen that myself.

I'll agree that it's pleasant when one can find a polynomial-time algorithm for a problem but as a purely practical matter "polynomial-time" doesn't really mean the same thing as "tractable." A number of problems which can supposedly be handled in polynomial time are still infeasible.


Really? I assume you mean if the algorithm requires exponential-space right?

Jabber however much like you like about logic or computational complexity: still, the natural interpretation of a claim Such-and-such a method would solve this problem but we can't actually do anything like that, because it would take hundreds of years is simply Such-and-such a method seems to be useless for this problem


So?

The topic is NOT ABOUT utility, it is about things beyond logic.

Either way just what are you proposing is the 'beyond logic' solution for problems identified as impractical as such above? I would suggest there is none - these are just problems that are too damn hard to solve - not beyond logic though.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #27
45. You apparently don't realize that "polynomial time" really doesn't mean "feasible"
in any practical sense.

I therefore say once again the implicit constants hidden in the definition can cause problems.

Let (say) N be the integer part of Skewes number e^e^e^79. Consider the predicate P(a), applying to natural numbers a > 0, with the following meaning:

if Goldbach's conjecture is true for all even integers 4 < b < N*#(digits in the decimal expansion of a), then P(a) is true, otherwise, P(a) is false.

I will exhibit a completely infeasible polynomial-time algorithm for the predicate P(a). We need a polynomial time algorithm for primality testing: in fact, the Agrawal-Kayal-Saxena test determines whether c is prime in time at worst O(log(c)^M), for some integer M > 12. We assume it implemented correctly as a predicate AKS(c) returning the value T or F in polynomial time.

Here is the algorithm:

input a
const N = integer part of Skewes number
numberdigits := #(digits in the decimal expansion of a)
aux = N*numberdigits
parity := aux mod 2
upperlimit := aux - parity - 2
foundcounterexample := F
bigcounter := 4

while (bigcounter <= upperlimit)&¬(foundcounterexample)
bigcounter := bigcounter + 2
possiblecounterexample := T
smallcounter = 1

while (smallcounter + 2 < bigcounter) &&possiblecounterexample
smallcounter := smallcounter + 2
if AKS(smallcounter)&&AKS(bigcounter - smallcounter) possiblecounterexample := F endif
endwhile

foundcounterexample := possiblecounterexample
endwhile

output foundcounterexample


Clearly upperlimit = N*numberdigits - 2 or = N*numberdigits - 3, depending on which is even
Whenever the outerloop iterates, bigcounter <= upperlimit and bigcounter is immediately incremented (so inside the outerloop bigcounter = 6, 8, 10 ... effectively), and then bigcounter <= N*numberdigits with equality only possible if parity = 0. We then begin asking whether bigcounter is a possible counter-example to Goldbach, by testing AKS(bigcounter - smallcounter)&&AKS(smallcounter) for 3 < odd smallcounter < bigcounter. Whenever the innerloop iterates, smallcounter + 2 < bigcounter, and smallcounter is immediately incremented (so inside the outer loop smallcounter = 3, 5, 7 ... effectively) and then and then smallcounter < bigcounter. If we discover a proof of the Goldbach conjecture for bigcounter, in the form of an appropriate value of small counter, then bigcounter can't be a possible counter example to the conjecture, the inner loop terminates and the outer loop continues. If the Goldbach conjecture fails for bigcounter, the inner loop runs to completion and we have found a counter example to the conjecture, and the outer loop terminates with an output F. So the algorithm is certainly correct.

Let us carefully prove that this algorithm is polynomial-time. Clearly upperlimit < N*numberdigits. An execution of the inner loop requires time O(log(smallcounter)^M) + O(log(bigcounter - smallcounter)^M) which is certainly O(log(N*numberdigits)^M) = O(log(a)^M). The inner loop executes fewer than bigcounter times, hence the number of inner loop iterations is O(log(a)) at worst and the total cost of the inner loop no worse than O(log(a)^(M+1)). Similarly, the outer loop executes fewer than N*numberdigits times, hence the number of outer loop iterations is O(log(a)) at worst and the total cost of the outer loop no worse than O(log(a)^(M+2)). So in the standard sense, this algorithm is polynomial time in the length numberdigits of the input a.

Having carefully developed and checked this polynomial algorithm, let's go back and look at that pesky constant N we've been ignoring. If P(a) is true, the best we can hope is that the innerloop executes quickly; certainly we have to enter it once for each value of bigcounter. Since N is approximately 10^10^10^34, we're going to execute the outer loop more than 10^10^10^30 times. Whoa! That's ... um ... really impossible. Our nice algorithm for the predicate P(a) is polynomial time in the input length but it's completely useless.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 03:13 PM
Response to Reply #45
49. Okay, I'm going to capitulate on that point because it really doesn't affect the main thrust
Of my argument and come back to that at some point when I can analyse it correctly for my own interest.

So, do you get the point that the 'beyond logic' argument is about things absolutely beyond logical analysis and not about whether or not we can compute perfect answers or not? Because whilst this is all interesting it is missing the point somewhat.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 11:22 PM
Response to Reply #20
26. I'd just like to reply to one thing here.
An example is the assertion "If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X," which might be applied as follows: upon showing that the assumption "everything fails to have property X" leads to a contradiction, one realizes then that "it's not true that everything fails to have property X," and concludes that "something exists which has property X."

If you put silly axioms in your logical system you can get silly answers. No doubt. But that's not a problem of logic, that's an issue of constructing logical systems.


~(For_All X, ~P(X)) is logically equivalent to (There_Exists X, P(X)) in first order logic, by definition. If there does not exist an entity for which P(X) is satisfied, then for all entities, P(X) is unsatisfied.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 08:55 AM
Response to Reply #26
29. RIght, I'm familiar with that
I'm still not sure how s4p concludes that means unicorns are logically inferred as existent because of that. :shrug:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 09:54 AM
Response to Reply #29
30. Let me unpack this for you in more detail:
Another reasonable objection is that the classical logical laws involve claims that no empirically-minded person would accept. An example is the assertion "If it's not true that everything fails to have property X, then something exists which has property X," which might be applied as follows: upon showing that the assumption "everything fails to have property X" leads to a contradiction, one realizes then that "it's not true that everything fails to have property X," and concludes that "something exists which has property X." But surely the pragmatic Mr. Doe, who disbelieves in the existence of unicorns, will not suddenly change his mind and begin to believe that there is actually a unicorn somewhere, if Mr. Doe happens to discover that his current ideas about unicorns lead to a contradiction.


1. not (for all x) not P(x) = (there exists x) P(x)
2. In the standard theory of deduction, we have the following scheme for disproving a statement S in the context of the axioms A: if S leads to a contradiction, then not S.
3. Mr. Doe believes S = "(for all x) x is not a unicorn" and also has some other beliefs A about unicorns. Inspecting his total collection of beliefs (A + S), Mr. Doe is horrified to discover a contradiction. By standard logic, he immediately infers not S, that is, "not (for all x) x is not a unicorn." Following the standard logic, he would conclude "(there exists) x is a unicorn."
4. "But surely the pragmatic Mr. Doe, who disbelieves in the existence of unicorns, will not suddenly change his mind and begin to believe that there is actually a unicorn somewhere"
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:22 AM
Response to Reply #30
32. Right...
Except this all rests on A being contradictory and if A is contradictory then it is indeed true that you can prove anything - including that unicorns exist. How reasonable this actually is all rather depends on A rather than S doesn't it?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 01:02 PM
Response to Reply #32
39. Strike three: here it is (A + S) that is contradictory, not necessarily A; hence it DOES depend on S

Perhaps you should drop this particular objection: so far, you've shown (1) that you don't understand quantifiers, (2) that you can't parse a simple logic argument, and (3) that you don't understand how an existence proof by contradiction works.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #39
41. No
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 01:44 PM by cyborg_jim
1) I understand quantifiers
2) I can parse a simple logical argument
3) I understand natural deduction

There's no way you could have possibly framed the explanation poorly though is there?

Right, I made a mistake about A, yes, I read the explanation poorly also. The contradiction here does not rely on A alone.

(A + S) has a contradiction, therefore not (A + S). This is proof by contradiction in natural deduction, I agree. It is perfectly sound.

What I am having a problem with is that you seem to be implying that for all A, (A + S) has a contradiction, but all you stated is:

and also has some other beliefs A about unicorns


Are you saying all A lead to us concluding there are unicorns (or indeed, for that matter, anything else), no matter what A is? I am going to have to ask for proof of that, otherwise I don't get your objection at all.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #41
53. The point is that logic is a collection of linguistic conventions that mirror ...
... properties of simple collections and that to insist that logic will give correct answers under all circumstances is to insist upon an ideological point which may not have any reasonable factual basis.

In LEJ Brouwer's critique, much of the difficulty can be traced to the law of the excluded middle: either an assertion is true or it is false. This "law" is unproblematic for simple well-defined predicates applied in simple circumstances: for example, either the penny in my pocket bears a mint-date of 1970 or it does not; I know what truth here means and I can test it. It becomes more problematic in more complicated situations. For example, is it true that every even integer, greater than 2 and less than Skewes number, can be written as a sum of two primes? Or is this statement false? I doubt whether you can give me a feasible computation to answer this question. Therefore, I entertain some doubts whether the use of "true" and "false" in this context really has any meaning at present. Perhaps somebody in the future will resolve this and we will know. Or perhaps not. The same critique applies even more clearly if you want to discuss Goldbach's conjecture: perhaps you will want to tell me that the conjecture is either true or false. But presumably knowing that it is true means having a proof and knowing it false means having a counter-example, whereas knowing it is either true or false (without knowing which) is merely ideological noise.

The law of the excluded middle leads to double negation: surely, if we know that "A is either true or false" and we also know it is false that "A is false," then we should believe that A is true. But double-negation is a curious rule, which again has some utility in simple cases and which increasingly resembles an ideological assertion without practical content as one considers more complicated cases. Should one, for example, believe under all circumstances that "Either there exists something with property P or there does not exist something with property P"? If so anyone, who believes it is not true that there does not exist something with property P, must then also believe "there exists something with property P." This leads to curious existence proofs. The practical person, to believe "there exists something with property P," wants to see such a thing exhibited. The ideological adherent of logic, on the other hand, must believe that if one can derive a contradiction from the assertion "there does not exist something with property P" then in fact the existence of something with property P is guaranteed. I suspect most normal people will reject the logician's view. And so my hypothetical Mr. Doe, who carefully compiles a list A of his beliefs about unicorns, then appends one additional belief S "there does not exist something which is a unicorn" to the list A and discovers after careful study that the augmented list A + S leads to a contradiction; at this point, Mr. Doe is entitled by logic to conclude "there is a unicorn" -- but he is very unlikely to do so, because his practical notion of existence is not merely logical but requires him to see something more concrete exhibited as evidence.

I phased this originally using the standard law "not (for all x) not P(x) <=> (exists x) P(x)" which can be problematic. I find no objection to the implication "(exists x) P(x) => not (for all x) not P(x)." But the implication "not (for all x) not P(x) => (exists x) P(x)" seems nothing more than a linguistic convention, which may not provide any useful information about the world.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 07:58 PM
Response to Reply #53
56. Could you explain something for me?
Could you explain how it could be the case that "not (for all x) not P(x)" could be true and "(exists x) P(x)" could be false?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 09:50 PM
Response to Reply #56
57. In simple concrete cases, I expect the statements are equivalent.
As one discusses more abstract matters, I begin to have doubts.

What does one actually mean by saying "(there exists x) P(x)" or by saying "not(for all x) not P(x)"?

The natural meaning of "(there exists x) P(x)" ought to be that one can point to something with property P. A weaker meaning might be that at least one knows in principle how to find such a thing.

The natural meaning of "not(for all x) not P(x)" is less clear. Does it mean, for example, "the assumption, that (for every x) it is possible to derive a contradiction from P(x), leads to a contradiction?" If that is what it means, then one is entitled to deduce existence from contradictions. But contradictions are purely verbal, and it is completely unclear to me how purely verbal manipulations can guarantee material facts.

I don't disagree, that it seems entirely natural to use language in such a way that "(there exists x) P(x)" and "not(for all x) not P(x)" are equivalent. However, I do dispute the idea that our natural grammatical prejudices are guaranteed to produce meaningful sentences that are guaranteed to produce correct predictions about what exists in the material world.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 12:08 AM
Response to Reply #57
71. What "not ((for all x) not P(x))" means
If you were to examine all of the things in the set X is a member of, none of them has property X. Thus, one naturally has to conclude that for this statement to be false, there has to be an element in that set that has the property X.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:04 PM
Response to Reply #71
79. OK, you want to propose a simple operational meaning.
(Since your actual text suggests that, after examining everything in a collection and finding nothing with property X, one should conclude there was something with property X, I think there is some accidental miswording in your text. So I will suppose you actually want to say something like "If you were to examine everything in a collection, and found that it failed to be true that nothing had property X, you could conclude something must be there with property X." I expect this modified wording captures your real intent. I could say I do find it a wee bit strange to say "one concludes there is something with property X": if logic does not mislead us, the upshot of the examination is that one has actually seen something with property X and hence is not concluding the existence abstractly. But all of this is minor.)

Overall, I do not object to such a proposed operational meaning when it really applies. Such a proposed operational meaning, however, really only applies in rather simple circumstances.

People often seem to discuss collections which are so large that actually examining each member is impossible. In such cases, your proposed operational meaning seems something of a fake: there can be no experimental test of the equivalence you propose, and its validity somehow becomes untestable. One can still mouth the words you propose, but their meaning has become purely a matter of grammar.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #79
81. Not true.
If a set is defined by certain parameters, one need not look at every element of the set in order to prove things about the set. In the case you're talking about, if the nature of the set is such that I can prove that it's not true that every element of the set does not have property X, then that proof necessarily entails that at least one element of the set must have property X. One need not enumerate all of the elements of a set in order to prove things about that set.

Of course, all of this is a bit silly, because to wit I can't think of a single proof that works that way... this statement is simply the contrapositive of the far more useful deduction that, if there is no element of the set which has the property X, then it is true that for all members of the set, none of them have the property X.

I feel as though I'm getting a better sense of your objection, but forgive me if I'm mistaken. It seems as though you're reading these predicates as if they deal with possibilities versus impossibilities, when really what's in concern is inevitabilities versus impossibilities. If you were to say that it would be silly to conclude that an element must have property X if it is shown to be possible that such an element exists, I would agree with you; however, that's not what "~((for all X) ~P(X))" means. That statements means that the set must not contain only elements lacking property P.

This is a little hard to discuss, because you're arguing that things that are definitionally equivalent aren't, which poses a certain amount of linguistic chaos. I hope my language isn't too awful as a result.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 02:03 PM
Response to Reply #81
83. Actually, what I am arguing is that there are entirely different notions ..
.. which might be equivalent in simple cases.

As cases become more complicated, the notions appear to split: there is an increasingly intractable operational interpretation and a linguistic interpretation which more and more appears to resemble a mere grammatical form. Classical logic appears to adopt the view that the convenience of grammatical rules more than offsets the vacuity of such rules.

I am, incidently, not using any modal quantifiers
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #83
84. OK, then I'm completely failing to see what you're saying.
Could you please explain what it could mean for "~((for all X) ~P(X))" and "~((there exists X) P(X))" to be true in the same universe? Such an idea, to me, is completely nonsensical, as "~((for all X) ~P(X))" and "((there exists X) P(X)" mean the same exact thing.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #84
90. Here, I think, is the real difficulty: I am adopting a rather restrictive ...
... ontological perspective. It is something like strict finitism or constructivism in mathematics and akin to materialism from a philosophical standpoint. I am taking the view that the purpose of logic is to discuss actual things. Classical logic then appears rather like an elaborate word-game: one can play cleverly or even be dazzlingly brilliant without saying anything about reality. Infinite sets are rather suspect on this view: one might think of them as being described by predicates, but it is difficult or impossible to determine whether a pre-given predicate has constructive content. Hence discussing infinite sets or possible universes seems always to run a real risk of being merely meaningless jabber. Those schooled only in classical logic typically do not much like this view.

My motives for taking this view are somewhat complicated.

This thread was apparently intended as a place for people to support the idea that logic is the only game in town and to ridicule anyone who thinks otherwise. But I consider that classical logic is sometimes a purely verbal game: it is often convenient -- but to properly understand what it says may require more care that people are willing to bestow. Since, somewhat curiously, those who claim to believe in logic often also claim to believe in science, I would note that logic and science are different: in particular, logic is ideological in a way that science is not. And much scientific reasoning actually relies on so-called "logical fallacies."

I do not actually know the relation between my subjective experience (including my ideas) and the world, and I do not wish entirely to disregard other people's subjective experiences. People have taken various stances on this topic, ranging from platonic notions (that ideas are as real as material facts) to views that completely discount inner experience. It seems to me that supposedly logical thinking often involves assumptions that are as personal and private as the ravings of any mystic, as doctrinaire as the claims of any religious fundamentalist, and as unsupportable by experimental evidence as any preference for a color or a taste.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:50 PM
Response to Reply #90
97. This seems to be mere semantic wordplay.
The terms "for all" and "there exists" are defined to be opposites, in much the same sense as "and" and "or" are defined to be opposites. If a statement is not true "for all" elements of a set, "there exists," by definition, an element which satisfies that statement. Where it not true that such an element exists, if would similarly not be true that the statement is not true "for all" elements of the set.

I'm sympathetic to your view, but I'm not seeing how you're actually presenting a reasonable objection to this definition.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:17 PM
Response to Reply #97
102. My objection to the definition is exactly that the standard definition is mere wordplay:
for example, can one really establish existence with an argument by contradiction?

This was a genuine controversy in mathematics in the early twentieth century, associated with the name Brouwer and the "intuitionist" movement. Later variants appear as "constructive mathematics" (Bridges is a standard reference) and "computable mathematics" (often associated with Turing machine computations).

If one is interested in genuine calculation, such a criticism of classical logic as mere ideology, seems unavoidable.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:28 PM
Response to Reply #102
104. Yes, but only in extremely rare cases.
You can only prove that something exists by contradiction which that entity's existence is a necessity (that'd also be the only way to prove that "~((for all x) P(X))" that I can think of, for the record).
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:44 PM
Response to Reply #104
115. I don't know why you say "rare." There are plenty of existence arguments
in the mathematical literature that are useless for computational purposes, because they suffer from the defects I've mentioned
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 01:18 PM
Response to Reply #115
120. I thought you were talking about "real" things?
Wasn't that your whole objection?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 04:18 PM
Response to Reply #120
124. I want a logic which gives sensible and useful results and which is in some sense "realistic."
As an example of something I don't always consider realistic, I would point to the "all possible universes" explication of "necessity" -- which would be the standard way to interpret your claim "You can only prove that something exists by contradiction when that entity's existence is a necessity" as meaning something like "You can only prove that something exists by contradiction when that entity exists in every possible universe. But such an explication hardly ever makes sense, because usually one has no idea how to examine the purported possible universes.

If one is a Platonist and thinks that every idea reflects some real fact, then there is nothing essentially problematic with "correct" proofs in the math libraries. But even if one is not a Platonist, some of the proofs appear to be telling us something, because some certainly lead to computational rules that are scientifically useful. So some of the arguments seem to involve reasoning techniques that are applicable to real things. Some of the arguments, on the other hand, appear to be perfectly decent arguments, except for fact that there seems no chance of deriving any useful computation from them.

I should avoid attempting much beyond such remarks, since your question suggests that I should define what is "real" -- an exercise almost everyone eventually abandons in favor of individual pragmatic compromises involving experiences, prior beliefs and thought processes, and some (but not all) of what various other people say.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 04:28 PM
Response to Reply #124
125. Metaphysics for the win.
Getting past my snark regarding "reality" with regard to numbers, I'd like to correct you on the issue of "necessity." If you look above, you can see me dealing with this very same issue. One has no need to examine "all possible worlds" in order to determine if something is "necessary." We can prove that "All squares have four sides" without any sort of "all possible worlds" referent.

0) Prove: (for all X) Square(X) -> Four_Sides(X)
1) A square is defined as a figure with four sides: Square(X) -> Figure(X) /\ Four_Sides(X).
2) Assume the contrary: (there exists Y) s.t. Square(Y) /\ ~Four_Sides(Y)
3) By 2, Figure(Y) /\ Four_Sides(Y).
4) Contradiction (2 and 3): Four_Sides(Y) /\ ~Four_Sides(Y)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #125
128. Giving old things new names for the win?
In #104 you want to say that "You can only prove that something exists by contradiction which <sic> that entity's existence is a necessity" and in #125 you want to explicate "necessity" by giving a proof.

While there is, actually, an interesting interpretation of modal logic in terms of proofs, I don't think this proposal really clarifies matters much in this case.

My view is that existence proofs should some show you examples of the things claimed to exist; you say in #104 that it's only rarely that proofs don't do that, but your explication in #125 indicates what what you are saying in #104 is: "You can only prove that something exists by contradiction when you can prove that entity exists."

It's not at all clear to me why I should think such an explanation implies that existence proofs by contradiction will generally help me find the object whose existence is asserted.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 07:53 PM
Response to Reply #128
129. You don't need to show an example if you can show that something MUST exist
Your argument is that you can only prove that something exists by proving that it exists. Proving that something must exist in a given set (which is what proving that "~((for all X) ~P(X))" does) does just that.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 10:57 PM
Response to Reply #129
130. We'll just have to disagree about this. It seems clear enough to me
that saying "~((for all X) ~P(X))" often means nothing more than that one can derive a contradiction from "(for all X) ~P(X)" and whatever other background assumptions one's making.

Does it matter whether the possibility of contradiction is already there in the background assumptions or whether it only appears when the hypothesis "(for all X) ~P(X)" was added? Surely, if one knew for certain that the background assumptions were already inconsistent, one wouldn't really feel any confidence in the conclusion that something exists with property P. Unfortunately, in many cases of interest, there's simply no way to determine whether the background assumptions are consistent -- and I really don't see how my typical state of ignorance adds confidence in the conclusion that something existswith property P.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #130
131. The same problem exists in any sort of proof.
A proof is only as good as the axioms it is based on. This is true whether you're proving "~((for all X) ~P(X)" or "((there exists X) P(X))."

Further, if your set of axioms contains a contradiction, you can justify any conclusion from it. 0 implies everything as a vacuously true statement.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 11:21 PM
Response to Reply #131
133. "Proof" means different things to different people.
Wittgenstein hit the heart of it, I think, when he said that the only way to really know what exactly an alleged proof really established, was to inspect the proof carefully.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 11:24 PM
Response to Reply #133
134. True enough.
So, do you object to the construction of quantifiers as in a negative relationship with each other (the negation of "for all" being "there exists")?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 11:48 PM
Response to Reply #134
135. If such objections interest you, look up "intuitionistic logic" or "constructivist logic"
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 12:02 AM
Response to Reply #135
136. From the little I've just read, they seem profoundly silly.
And I still fail to see what it could mean for an entity to both "not exist" and "not not exist."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 12:14 AM
Response to Reply #136
137. Then I will probably be unlikely to persuade you otherwise
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 12:21 AM
Response to Reply #137
138. Well, you could explain what it would mean for something to be true and false.
That's the objection to the law of the excluded middle, is it not? Or, in the parlance of the case we've been discussing, how something can both "not exist" and "not not exist?"

It seems to me that such an ideological insistence on identifying a concrete entity once you know one must exist serves no purpose to justify narrowing what we know.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #138
140. Two different ideas are sometimes called "excluded middle." You fail to distinguish
these notions and therefore misunderstand and misrepresent the constructivist position.

One statement asserts "A or not(A)" is always true. The other asserts "not(A and not(A))" is always true. The first is properly called the law of the excluded middle, because it asserts that one must choose between two alternatives. The second expresses our natural disdain for contradictions.

According to the conventional grammatical view of logic, however, these two assertions have exactly the same content:

not(A and not(A)) <=> not(A) or not(not(A)) <=> not(A) or A <=> A or not(A)

It is, however, possible to explain the meanings of the connectives carefully but so that the conventional equivalence disappears.

Our interpretation of "and" will be conventional; that is, I assume you know what it means.

A reasonable interpretation of "not" can be given in terms of absurdity: a statement is called absurd if it has too many consequences, and one could explain "not(A)" by saying it means that A implies some absurd statement (which of course implies that A itself is absurd). That the standard claim ("not(A and not(A))" is true) is easy to see on this interpretation: we must show that assuming both A and not(A) leads to an absurdity; since not(A) means A leads to an absurdity, assuming "A and not(A)" means we are assuming A with the further knowledge that A leads to an absurdity; hence, we can derive an absurdity from "A and not(A)" and therefore by definition not(A and not(A)). Adherents of conventional logic will not object to this, as it conforms to their notions.

We will, however, insist that the word "or" be used in an informative way. I don't want to hear a meaningless recitation of possible alternatives, separated by uses of "or." When you tell me "A or B," I want to know which of the two possibilities actually holds. If you tell me, for example, "IBM stock will either rise at least ten points tomorrow or it will fall at least ten points tomorrow or it won't change by more than fifteen points," I am very eager to have you tell me how to decide which case holds; if you merely want to grin like an ape and explain proudly that the statement is "true" by definition, I retort that I do not consider such statements to be true but consider them merely meaningless garbage.

You should have no trouble seeing that with this explication "A or not(A) => not(A and not(A))" because we can prove "not(A and not(A))" without the hypothesis "A or not(A)," and adding the hypothesis can't prevent us from echoing the proof we had without it.

On the other hand, because you are committed to the conventional "not(A and not(A)) <=> A or not(A)," you will want to show "not(A and not(A)) => A or not(A)." If you could do so, then (because we can prove "not(A and not(A))") we would have a proof of "A or not(A)" and so would believe the law of the excluded middle. But on the interpretation of "or" given, "A or not(A)" means that we have a way of deciding whether A is true or whether it leads to an absurdity. If you find such a method, please let me know, because I'm sure I could use it to make lots of money.

The real underlying question here is -- how concrete must our logic be, to avoid the objection that it is meaningless noise? Apparently, different people have different views on that.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 10:29 PM
Response to Reply #140
142. Your true statement isn't meaningless garbage.
That statement simply includes all of the relevant possibilities. It is informative, because it acts as a constraint for our knowledge-base; it translates our practical knowledge into the knowledge of our database. Such statements, while seemingly trivial, are important for proving things, such as by resolution.

Regardless, it is the second form of the law of the excluded middle (the one you say is always true, "not(A and not(A))") that is implicated in your complaint about "~((for all X) ~P(X)) /\ ~((there exists X) P(X))." If it is not the case that there is no entity X with property P, and it is not the case that there is an entity X with property P (A and not(A)), then what is the case?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 02:16 PM
Response to Reply #142
144. If you are unwilling to insist that logic have a concrete operational meaning then
you are committed to the idea that there is some abstract "meaning" that cannot be explicated concretely. I do not want to tell you that you are "wrong" in this commitment because I do not know that you are "wrong." And in fact I do not know where exactly I stand on that question. This much, however, is reasonably clear to me: a person (who believes logic must have a concrete operational meaning) and another person (who believes that meaning can be attributed to statements which cannot be concretely and operationally defined) are unlikely to reach agreement on the issue, because they have different philosophical presuppositions.

Incidentally, my complaint was about the statement

~(for all X) ~P(X) => (there exists X) P(X)

I'm not sure why you think I'm discussing

~<(for all X) ~P(X)> & ~<(there exists X) P(X)>

but I suspect you have translated the sentence above according to conventional logic and then miscopied the translation
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 05:40 PM
Response to Reply #144
147. I was discussing the only way an implication can be falsified.
An implication (p -> q) is false only if p is true and q is false. Thus, the only way for ~(for all X) ~P(X) -> (there exists X) P(X) could be false is if for some set, ~((for all X) ~P(X)) /\ ~((there exists X) P(X)).

My point in the above posts is logic statements which appear "meaningless" in their obviousness to us are in fact quite meaningful, because they take our "obvious" knowledge and translate it into the knowledge-set in question. This is critical for applications such as AI.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #147
149. I'm not sure to what purpose you wish to discuss "the only way for (stmt) could be false"
Do you want to claim a statement which is not refutable must be true?

According to the concrete view I have been discussing, a statement is true if one can demonstrate it and is false if one can show it leads to an absurdity. Any reasonable discussion must, I think, allow that an apparent sentence might be neither known to be true nor be known to lead to an absurdity. And judging from many conversations I have with people, I think one must also allow apparent sentence might be meaningless.

I do not dispute that there are circumstances under which the conventional logic appears to be correct and can be given a clear and definite interpretation. If, for example, you restrict your "universe" of discourse to be small enough to be held in a computer memory, and if you consider predicates that are defined for that universe by their extensions, managed as lists of cases in which the predicate is true, then familiar boolean operations can be used to describe combinations of predicates. A certain number of closed sentences composed from those predicates can be examined by computer calculation within that same computer, to determine their truth or falsity, and in that fragment I expect to see assertions derivable by conventional logic. That's OK as far as it goes -- though frankly, it seems to me it doesn't go very far. Still, I will not sneer at matters of list management.

If you mean, instead, that one can do a certain amount of "automated theorem proving", using axioms and abstract predicate symbols, I won't dispute that claim either: one is essentially using the computer as a device to generate symbol strings which as grammatical according to certain rules. But whether I should consider such grammatical results as "true" and "meaningful" still depends on whether I have a concrete operational interpretation. If you want to say sometime like "these results are true for all predicates," however, I really must object: there's no general way to determine the extension of a predicate; somewhat worse, there's no real way to determine whether (say) an English phrase actually determines a predicate; so there's no way to verify your claim.

I admit I use conventional logic frequently. My view is not that it is never true but rather that it has definite limits, which are rather more stringent than commonly recognized. Perhaps we can give this subthread a rest?

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 10:59 PM
Response to Reply #149
152. (p -> q) where P is true and Q is false is necessarily false.
P -> Q is equivalent to ~P \/ Q; it is false when P is true and Q is false.

I still don't understand why you believe "constructive mathematics" to be superior to the conventional variety, because I don't understand why it's a bad thing to say "I don't know which element of this set has property X, but I know that one of the members does." Why is turning a blind eye to that knowledge superior to taking it into account?

If you don't want to continue this subthread, that's fine with me... I'm just interested in this discussion. :shrug:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 11:55 PM
Response to Reply #152
156. The conventional logic collapses a number of distinct ideas
Edited on Tue Apr-17-07 11:57 PM by struggle4progress
in order to simplify statements. In this sense, it represents an ideal state of affairs, where everything really is either true or false: it reflects, somehow, not what you actually know, but what you might hope to know under the best conditions. If one takes an argument, allegedly about concrete operations, which uses conventional logic, then with some regularity you will find that you are being asked to believe something that has no operational meaning: it is merely some idealization of the state of affairs; in mathematics, for example, you will find yourself asked to believe things that you cannot verify by computation.

By insisting that the logical connectives reflect concrete operations, this unsatisfactory state of affairs is eliminated: an argument, alleged about concrete operations, leads to a conclusion that can be understood in terms of concrete operations. The reason most people dislike it is simply that the cost of this realism is fairly substantial: many complicated arguments, cast in the standard logic, become much more complicated statements (typically involving plenty of negations and double negations) in concrete operational terms.

The explanation of "P => Q" as "~P or Q" is very ancient: typically this notion of implication is called "material implication" and it goes back to the ancient Greeks. Whether material implication is a satisfactory explanation of implication has been a subject of continuing controversy at times: IIRC, there was such a debate in the late Victorian era, for example. In fact,
"(P => Q) <=> (~P or Q)" seems equivalent to the law of the excluded middle for P (if you believe it for all Q):

if you believe material implication, then since you certainly believe "P => P" you will believe "~P or P"; if you believe "~P or Q" and assume P, then you certainly believe Q, so believe "(~P or Q) => (P => Q)"; and if you believe "~P or P" and believe "P => Q" you certainly believe "~P or Q"

That is, if one wants a concrete operational logic, "(~P or Q) => (P => Q)" is perfectly acceptable but the Chrysippian equivalence "(~P or Q) <=> (P => Q)" is a much stronger statement

I think anyone who wants to claim to have purged his/her own thinking of mystical metaphysical speculation ought to use this logic, to be consistent with the claim, but in fact it's a gigantic nuisance, so almost nobody will. On the other hand, to write effective computer code, one must in some sense think this way. Whether one really ought to purge all mystical metaphysics from one's thinking is, of course, an entirely different question.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kiahzero Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 12:14 AM
Response to Reply #156
157. Is there any sort of example of classical logic breaking?
In other words... is there any example of classical logic "proving" that a statement is true, when that statement is in fact false?

Yes, you can't verify some things by computation, but I don't understand why that's an argument not to hold them as true. You can verify that they must exist, because their nonexistence is impossible. Is there some third state other than existence and nonexistence that would explain how proving not(non-existent) isn't proving existent?

The reason that (P => Q) <=> (~P or Q) is because if the antecedent is false, the implication is not tested and is therefore still vacuously true. It is only falsified if the claimed relationship (that if the antecedent is true, the consequent is also true) is false - when the antecedent is true and the consequent is false.

You quite obviously know a great deal about formal logic (moreso than myself), but I still don't understand the point of constructivism... it doesn't seem to get you anything that makes it worth giving up the knowledge that classical logic gets you.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 11:18 AM
Response to Reply #157
165. I don't know how to say much more on such matters than I've already said.
Edited on Wed Apr-18-07 11:19 AM by struggle4progress
If one insists that statements can be "true" or "false" in some ideal sense, completely beyond our practical knowledge, one will take a certain view of logic. If one insists that "true" or "false" are words that we use to describe some state of affairs, that we can actually verify, one will take a different view of logic.

You want to say "The reason that (P => Q) <=> (~P or Q) is because if the antecedent is false, the implication is not tested and is therefore still vacuously true." If you like you can reread what I wrote on this above: I agreed that "(~P or Q) => (P => Q)". The constructivist dislikes the converse "(P => Q) => (~P or Q)" because it claims (according to the constructivists' interpretation of the connectives) that there is some way to turn a deduction of Q from P into a procedure that either shows P fails or shows Q holds. This is different from the conventional meaning of the connectives that you want to defend. Of course, you can make any definitions you want: conventional logic aims for grammatical simplicity whereas the constructivists aim for computational content.

You want to know if classical logic proves untrue statements. Of course, the conventional logician will tell you that it doesn't. The constructivist will say, yes, and mention something like "~P or P" or like "~~P => P" as an example of a standard rule that is simply wrong; if more adventurous, he might mention the Banach-Tarski paradox (which you can google). Then maybe the conventional logician will roll his eyes and perhaps both of them can argue indefinitely about who is correct and who is failing to understand who.


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #53
59. Has anyone ever mediated over a crystal...
...while aligning their chakras and solved Goldbach's conjecture? If one spiritual seeker declares the Goldbach conjecture true, and another spiritual seeker declares it false, exactly how many seconds will it take for a third spiritual seeker to come along and declare that each of the first two seekers "has discovered a different aspect of the truth", and then scold any mean ol' skeptic who expresses doubt about any of the three Enlightened Ones?

Lovely mental masturbation this last post of yours -- top rate stuff -- but all far and wide of the point of this thread.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:06 PM
Response to Reply #59
62. Your silly response has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I said:
I attempted to give a careful account of some reasons to be cautious in taking classical logic too seriously -- which I should think might actually be appropriate in a thread supposedly considering limitations of logic. But your response shows clearly that you have no real interest in such matters and are really interested in insulting people who do not share your particular ideology.

Still, since your snark begs for the sort of response guaranteed to make you froth with rage, I will offer you the curious case of Srinvasa Ramanujan, a very poorly educated Indian at the end of the Victorian era who, in isolation, entirely on his own, without real access to any significant advanced mathematical texts, developed a rather odd interest in a number of esoteric issues concerning partitions, infinite sums, and infinite series, which he contemplated more or less continuously, writing down his conclusions, as equations, without any real explanation, in several notebooks. He was quite sure that the equations he wrote down were true, but he never learned how to communicate his thinking on the subject in any way really acceptable to modern mathematicians, and in fact he sometimes said the goddess Namagiri directly communicated mathematical ideas to him. Finally, in 1913, he somehow wrote to G. H. Hardy, sending a letter containing several hundred of his results, some of which Hardy proved easily and some with more difficulty, Hardy believing the rest because "if they were not true, no one would have had the imagination to invent them." Ramanujan came to Cambridge to collaborate with Hardy in 1914 and died of malnutrition in 1920. At least one his notebooks was misplaced for many years, being found only in 1976, resulting in a number of publications. Almost everything Ramanujan wrote down turned out to be true, but finding proofs required substantial work by a number of excellent mathematicians.

It's easy to sneer at people's strange ideas, but I see no reason to believe that Ramanujan would still have been a creative genius, had he learned to suppress his unconventional methods of working, or had he concentrated more on explaining his ideas better, or had he ceased to believe that something beyond himself was the source of his ideas. Phenomena are not reducible to logic.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:23 PM
Response to Reply #62
65. My response had little to do with what you said...
...because my point was that you're beating a dead horse that doesn't need any beating any more.

And why on are earth to do you imagine your example of Ramanujan would leave me "froth(ing) with rage"? He's was a very talented man with an amazing natural talent for mathematics. I think somewhere along the line when in my early years of computer programming I translated one of his methods for computing pi into code. You suspect I just can't deal with his talent because... because of what, exactly? That he thinks a goddess gave him ideas... so what? The truth of his work was still completely externally open to validation -- his equations worked, or they didn't, all apart from any mystical explanation he might have thought they had.

You've got some really bizarre and twisted notion of where I'm coming, and a huge blind spot for the obvious caveats and disclaimers in my opening post.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:38 PM
Response to Reply #65
68. So if Ramanujan had attempted to meditate over a crystal
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 11:39 PM by struggle4progress
while aligning his chakras in order to do mathematics, this would have been worthy of ridicule in your eyes but his listening to Namagiri is fine with you? :shrug:

I'm not really likely to try either method myself, for that purpose, but it's not at all clear to me how you manage to distinguish the merits here.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:55 PM
Response to Reply #68
70. I'd certainly rather that Ramanujan had given himself...
...more credit for his natural talent than he ascribe his own genius to imaginary beings.

The key thing is...

Plenty of people have done work of great genius in mathematics while crediting their success to different gods, or to no gods at all.
Good mathematical work stands on its own and reveals verifiable truths without any need to accept anything that might be posited for the origins or inspiration for the work.

Ramanujan is not at all an example of knowledge that comes from "going beyond logic".
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Imperialism Inc. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 01:50 PM
Response to Reply #39
42. But obviously we need to decide if axiom A is reasonable.
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 01:51 PM by WakingLife
That is the part that you are leaving out. If A is reasonable and S+A has contradictions then, yes, he should abandon S! Sure, we can create arguments that are internally logical but aren't true in the real world. This may be a case of that. It... wait for it... depends on what A is and what our evaluation of A's reasonableness is. I think that was probably Jim's point.

Edit: he answered for himself while I was typing, so I guess you should disregard this...

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 01:55 PM
Response to Reply #42
43. I think he's trying to say that because you can prove anything with logic then that determination
Is beyond logic.

Well duh - we can construct anything we want with logic. The question is whether or not we can construct a logic that is relevant to the reality we find ourselves in. It certainly seems like we can and we determine whether or not we have by the logical outcomes of that system. We don't abandon all logic if we made the wrong axiomatic choices - we change our axioms so that the logic better fits reality.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Imperialism Inc. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #43
44. Yeah. That's what I thought he was saying too.
As I look back at the original post though, I think that was covered.

I have no trouble admitting that logic has limits. Logic, in and of itself, is devoid of direction, values, and goals. Someone might say, for instance, that it's "not logical to smoke", but logic only leads to that conclusion in the context of the commonly assumed, unstated -- but not necessarily inescapable -- premise that a long and healthy life is a desirable goal. Someone might say that striving for a well-run system of government is "logical" -- but logic can't get you there without a starting premise that seeking common good is a desirable direction to go.

I would say "what is beyond logic" would be observation for one thing. That is one way we can evaluate A. I don't think any of this is what the original poster was complaining about though (in fact he seems to have addressed it). I don't think that these issues are what an astrologer , for example, means when they say astrology is "beyond logic". An interesting discussion none-the-less.





Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #42
54. Well, those are very nice sounding words but ...
I very much doubt whether in practice you actually have some practical defensible way to determine a given list of axioms is "reasonable" or "unreasonable."

Of course, when you can defensibly make such a determination, I do not object. Absent a method for making the determination, however, I consider your advice to make such a determination not very useful.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:01 AM
Response to Reply #54
74. (response moved to connect to correct parent) n/t
Edited on Sat Apr-14-07 01:04 AM by Kerry4Kerry
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Imperialism Inc. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 10:36 AM
Response to Reply #54
76. It is put up or shut up time s4p.
Edited on Sat Apr-14-07 10:50 AM by WakingLife
You've degenerated from a discussion of basic logic to empty meaningless assertions. I see no reason to continue unless you can offer some concrete examples of axioms that cannot be examined.

I'll give you an example of one that can.
1. All cats are black
2. Nippy is a cat.

Therefore, Nippy is black.

That is a logically valid, but actually false, argument. We can examine the (false) axiom that all cats are black by examining the real world.

Your turn. (preferably regarding unicorns)





Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:39 PM
Response to Reply #76
82. We are in a subthread discussing the question of how to proceed
when assumptions lead to a contradiction. You have said one simply examines the assumptions to see which are reasonable. I have doubted whether there is in general a systematic method for doing that. To interpret this most recent post of yours in the context of that subthread is somewhat challenging, but I shall make the effort, nevertheless, by assuming that your post really asks me to provide a real world example of assumptions leading to a contradiction, where it is not terribly clear how to determine which of the assumptions are "reasonable."

So here is an little exercise for you. I have been told on a number of occasions (by people who might really know) that general relativity and quantum mechanics are mutually incompatible. You can go find out exactly what that supposed inconsistency involves. Then (should the claim appear to be true) you can list the assumptions needed to develop quantum mechanics and the assumptions needed to develop general relativity. Next, you can examine carefully the alleged inconsistency. After doing that, you will naturally apply your method (whatever it is) for determining the reasonableness of assumptions to the combined list of axioms you have produced for relativity and quantum mechanics. This, according to your view, should enable you to identity the source of the difficulty by pointing out the culprit assumption or assumptions.

I take the following view of the exercise: to claim that it can be done, without actually doing it, is mere rhetoric; of course, nobody will attempt it who does not think it can be done, but the mere fact that someone attempts it does not prove that it can in fact be done.


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #19
25. You could just as easily say...
...that all of the stuff we don't know, and maybe can't know, or is theoretically knowable but too damned difficult to compute, is what's "beyond" logic.

But that's hardly the point of this thread.

The point is about people talking about things which are "beyond" logic, which they often claim to have access to (you know, by "opening their hearts" and/or "tuning into the Cosmic Oneness", etc.) and which provide all of those wondrous answers that poor, blinkered, soulless logic can't possibly hope to reach (darling).

What separates any of that from wishful (or sometimes fearful) thinking? Why, if any of that worked, couldn't it simply be considered another source of input to logical thought processes? What makes it "beyond" logic rather than "before" or "along side of" logic?

Why, if any of this stuff provides truly valuable answers, does it always seem to be couched in terms that carefully shield such sources of Wisdom and Knowledge from rigorous examination, or any possible refutation of any kind, in exactly the same manner sheer bullshit manages to do the same?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 12:58 PM
Response to Reply #25
38. From a pragmatic and materialistic perspective, we can say that a technique applies to ...
... those matters to which it has been successfully applied. Claims beyond this are simply ideology.

What we don't know or can't know or have no idea how to compute in a reasonable length of time is certainly at present beyond our logic. One hopes, of course, that our ignorance can be reduced. So one naturally says what was beyond everyone's ability the day-before-yesterday, may not beyond someone's ability today or tomorrow. But this modal statement is not so much a fact about the world as a psychological ploy: it is purely motivational; it rationalizes the idea that perhaps one should at least try; it embodies a hope that something new might work.

There is no reason to believe that human knowledge and logic can be perfected so that we become all-knowing. There will always be a great deal we don't know or can't know or have no idea how to compute. And humans are often required to make decisions in contexts where a logical approach is impossible. One can try to cover that embarrassing reality by changing the subject and blathering about the glorious triumph of logic and science -- or one can face the fact squarely.

I prefer to face the fact squarely. Logic cannot solve all of our problems. Logic is not science. Logic is merely a collection of linguistic conventions. Linguistic conventions do not determine reality. Too literal a reliance on language leads to known paradoxes, and this limits the "knowledge" that can be obtained by mere linguistic gymnastics. Science cannot solve all of our problems: it is a rather limited form of reasoning-by-analogy, in which one tries to develop the correct analogies by examining relatively simple matters, with constant appeal to the world itself as a correction to mere logical fantasy; more complicated cases are handled by combining simpler ones, and the complexity of real problems soon leads to intractability.

This leaves the question of what one does in important cases when careful logic or extensive computation is a too-expensive luxury or is unknown to yield a correct answer. Such cases seem to comprise much of almost everybody's daily life.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #38
40. Metalogic
And humans are often required to make decisions in contexts where a logical approach is impossible.


Again I fail to see how such decisions suddenly fall into the category of 'beyond logic' - a better conclusion would be that we can find and express problems in logical terms such that if we were to attempt a computation of the problem then we find that we cannot get an absolute answer either because the problem requires computational resources that are either infinite or grow exponentially with an increase in the problem size. As such we change the strategy so that instead of attempting to find an absolute answer we try to maximise the confidence we have in an answer - and we do that with logic we can compute with reasonable resources.

If this is not what we do in such cases then it's new to me - because that's what it seems is exactly what we do, even if one wants to make magic hand-waving about decisions made by 'intuition' or such. Even making a random decision where a decision is required in a limited time frame is entirely logical - it is merely a case of properly parametrising the problem.

We've made a metalogical analysis of logic have we not?

Again, the question is not about utility it absolutely about things that are entirely beyond logic. I still posit that if it is really beyond logic then we can't even think about it so we're not going to be able to produce an answer to such a question.

Science cannot solve all of our problems:


Woah nelly, you've made a big non-sequiturial leap there. Whoever said science would solve all our problems? Science isn't about problem solving, science is about analysing reality by prodding reality and seeing what it does. Science helps us frame our approach to solving problems because it allows us to make predictions about whether or not any given decision will actually lead to an outcome we want.

If you just make a random choice and see how it pans out as far as a solution to a problem then it's still empirical in nature is it not? One has got to assume that, all things being equal, if you did that thing again you'd get the same response.

Too literal a reliance on language leads to known paradoxes, and this limits the "knowledge" that can be obtained by mere linguistic gymnastics.


I think you're missing the point somewhat - any language which allows recursion is going to allow paradoxes. This is inescapable.

I'd still like to hear if you have an alternative proposals other than, "meh, not going to solve our problems," it would make your argument far more persuasive.

(Note: since I will consider asking for divine intervention equivalent to asking an oracle I will not consider that 'beyond logic' - if oracles exist it is perfectly logical to ask them for answers to questions (of course it doesn't help that oracles will inevitably be unable to answer certain questions)).

This leaves the question of what one does in important cases when careful logic or extensive computation is a too-expensive luxury or is unknown to yield a correct answer. Such cases seem to comprise much of almost everybody's daily life.


I don't think I've argued anything else - which is why I mentioned heuristics as an important concept in computation; when you have to make a decision with a limited amount of time or domain knowledge the question becomes how do you make a good decision? If that question is beyond logic then I sure as hell don't see why.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #38
55. The old straw men of absolute knowledge and absolute certainty
We can get by just fine day to day with a logical application of a bit of rough, ad hoc probability calculus. If we work things out well enough not to get ourselves killed, we get to live another day and muddle through a bit more.

What "does in important cases when careful logic or extensive computation is a too-expensive luxury"? You can logically decide just how much time for analysis you have. If you've got a split-second decision to make, you're pretty much stuck going on instinct and hoping that the mysterious inner workings of your brain get it right. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose that way. Guessing, instinct, and intuition are not "beyond logic", however, and certainly not always right either.

What you're avoiding while bemoaning all the perfect certainty and absolute knowledge that logic and logical thinking oh-so-surprisingly don't provide is addressing any of the (typically mystical) "beyond logic" things which are supposed to provide so much of that missing certainty and knowledge.

Since most of us live in a pretty safe, comfortable world (compared with other animal life, compared with other humans over much of human history) we can simply afford to be wrong a lot too. Whether or not you seem to "get by in life" is hardly a very stringent metric for the validity of your approach to knowledge and understanding. It wouldn't be that hard to survive to a ripe old age while blissfully believing in Santa Claus to the bottom of your heart, from your first awareness of the jolly old elf right to your death bed -- and doing so would prove absolutely zilch about the reality of the existence of Santa Claus.

What "logic is not science" has to do with this thread, I haven't a clue. Logic, and mathematics, aren't science, but they are the language of science. Besides, the people I'm challenging with my question "what's beyond logic?" are typically those who eschew science as well as logic, in favor of mysticism and personal "revelation" and whatever else lives safely beyond falsifiability, meaningful public dialog, and testable consequences.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #55
58. If you want to ask whether there is anything "beyond logic,"
then I do not see how you can possibly object to the point I made early in the thread, that the entire philosophy of science is based on the idea that the world cannot be understood as a matter of pure thought but rather requires observation and experience.

It is not my view that logic is pointless or a fool's game, but rather that what can be accomplished by logic alone is limited. Phenomena cannot to be comprehended by reason alone.

However irritating you may find it, this idea (phenomena not comprehended by reason alone) might be a central psychological point of disagreement between you and the nameless unwashed hoards of ignorami who upset you with their disinterest in various matters logical. It seems to me that some willingness to accept such an idea is needed for many practical social purposes, though it might be more gracious to adopt the more expansive view I don't understand how they think, and I doubt whether they understand how I think
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 10:52 PM
Response to Reply #58
60. Why do you keep beating a dead horse that I deliberately shot down it my opening post?
Christ on a flaming crutch, I think I made it abundantly clear that I'm NOT talking about logic free from any grounding in observation or experience. My biggest objection to mysticism is, in fact, that so often it's advocates appeal to things that are entirely within their own heads, which can't be validated in an objective public context.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
kwassa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:23 PM
Response to Reply #60
66. How do YOU know those things are within their own heads???
They certainly don't believe so. I certainly don't believe so.

The idea that something can not be objectively proven to all does not indicate that it only exists within the heads of the mystic. It only means it can't be objectively proven.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - Carl Sagan.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 12:19 AM
Response to Reply #66
73. If you're happy with the meager world of...
"well, you can't prove me wrong, can you?" ideas -- which are a dime a dozen (and at that overpriced) -- I suppose the fact that there's no completely, 100% sure way to know that mystical ideas don't occasionally come from a better source than wishful thinking, fear, and repeating what another mystic has said, is more than enough to satisfy you.

For myself, I'll go with Occam's Razor, however.

If a mystical idea can't be objectively proven, if it shows no benefits at all for the believer which anyone else can verify, shows no benefits beyond placebo effect, shows only benefits which can also be had and explained other ways without any mystical trappings, consists of ideas and notions completely indistinguishable from wishful or fearful thinking... why needlessly multiply entities by supposing anything beyond mundane explanations?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:28 PM
Response to Reply #60
67. If you accept that logic has limits, then the question
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 11:29 PM by struggle4progress
where exactly are those limits? appears relevant to people's failure to embrace logic in various contexts.

But in fact, you appear fairly uninterested in the question where are the limits? and rather more interested in castigating the unwashed hoards.

You object that mysticism involves some appeal to things entirely within people's heads. But if this is your objection, then why would you not object to logic on the same grounds? Don't tell me, for example, that it's simply because mystic's conclusions can't be validated in an objective public context -- because, as I have already tried to make clear, exactly the same objection typically applies to (say) the law of the excluded middle or to a quantifier rule such as "not (for all x) not P(x) <=> (there exists x) P(x)"
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 11:39 PM
Response to Reply #67
69. The difference is...
...that a logical person faced with a logical conundrum knows when to say "I don't know" or "hey, this is an interesting paradox".

The mystic, on the other hand, either blathers out something that sounds really cool, but is essentially devoid of meaning, or uses proof by vigorous assertion that he's found the answer -- but unlike, say, a cool method for successively approximating pi, which can be validated -- these answers can't be validated in any way, and quite often, in "no True Scotsman" fashion, are carefully protected from any possible means of refutation.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 12:09 AM
Response to Reply #69
72. That won't do. I'll revert to an example I gave before: consider the assertion
either every even number between four and Skewes number is a sum of two primes or there exists an even number between four and Skewes number which cannot be expressed as a sum of two primes. Anyone who believes classical logic then believes that assertion, because it is an instance of the law of the excluded middle.

But at present it seems to be completely devoid of meaning. There's no way to check what it says by any actual computation. By a computation, of course, I mean a computation that can be performed: a computation that one cannot do, is not a computation but a fantasy. To adopt reasoning principles completely devoid of practical computational meaning is to engage in mere ideology.

Anyone is, of course, free to reject classical logic but then I won't know what such a person means by calling himself/herself "a logical person" unless I am explicitly told what logic the person claims to follow. But since, in my experience, people who call themselves logical generally can't specific their proposed reasoning rules, I suspect that the supposedly "logical" person typically isn't all that logical
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #72
75. I'm not sure why you find the premise of this thread so hard to grasp.
You seem intent, however, on using this thread to demonstrate your erudition in formal logic. So I'll take a moment to say bravo, congratulations, hip hip... by whatever horse you've decided to climb onto and ride with dazzling speed and grace in a bold but completely off-course direction from the purpose of this thread, you've thoroughly and admirable proved there are some things which are indeed "beyond logic".

Way to go! w00t!

Now... back to what the thread is really about. It's not about where logic fails. It's not about where self-referential games get logic's panties all in a twist. This thread is in response to the way other people have dropped the line "beyond logic" on me when, rather than admit that something is unknown or unknowable or a confusing paradox that they don't really have a clue about, that they have an alternative method the goes beyond logic, does what logic can't do (but in an unprovable way, of course), provides answers that logic can't provide (but in an unverifiable way, of course), etc.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:00 PM
Response to Reply #75
78. At this point, your rhetorical technique is clear, and it suggests your purposes.
You allegedly wish to discuss the fact that you are sometimes told that there are matters beyond the reach of logic.

You intend to carry on this discussion, without ever clearly identifying what you even mean by "logic." This vagueness allows you to claim that all manner of methods are "logical" -- and by not saying anything precisely, you hope to avoid the possibility of any cogent disagreement. The fact that you ridicule me for attempting to be precise in these matters only illustrates your commitment to the safety of irrefutable vagueness.

You further intend to carry on this conversation without allowing any discussion of the limits of logic. In your rhetoric, you first admit logic has limitations, and (having admitted this) you insist that the discussion of whether anything is really beyond logic must be conducted without taking into account those limitations. Apparently no analysis of the form "logic cannot take us beyond this point and hence to proceed further other tools are required" is allowable, according to your rules, since your response to such an effort is simply to complain that you have already agreed that logic has its limitations. A serious inquiry, of course, would allow cogent response, rather than fixing the rulebook in advance to preclude such a possibility.

It appears that the real point of your thread is to ridicule people who do not share your belief that logic is our sole appropriate tool for decision-making. As you are unwilling to specify which logic should be used, I further conclude that the only acceptable "logic" on your view is your logic, whatever that is.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 01:11 PM
Response to Reply #78
80. You miss the point:
Apparently no analysis of the form "logic cannot take us beyond this point and hence to proceed further other tools are required" is allowable,


It sure is, but, as I have argued, there is no such tool that can do this in a useful way that is actually beyond logic.

Either that or could you please do what I have asked before and provide an example of just such a tool.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 02:41 PM
Response to Reply #80
86. As far as I can tell, it is your view that logic and computation
are exactly the same thing.

However, it seems impossible to pin down exactly what you mean by logic or computation -- you take a vague and expansive view, which appears mainly to involve continually redefining everything as a computation and then merely re-asserting your view that everything is a computation. Frankly, I prefer not to use words in such ill-defined fashion.

I consider it likely that you are aware of matters for which no generally accepted logical scheme is available. For example, in another recent thread,
you repeatedly claimed all ethics was reducible to computation. I then invited you to provide a usable computational method for solving real nontrivial ethical dilemmas:

Let us suppose your criticisms actually reflect a factually-based view, that some sort of pure calculation deserves a primacy of place when ethical considerations are required. Well, then, show me! Let us see the ethical calculus you prefer. You should exhibit its language symbols and the rules for their proper syntactic combination. You should lay out something like (a) axioms and deduction rules or (b) a grammar for symbol manipulation or (c) a some other mechanistic description of how conclusions are derived in this calculus. It will be easiest to understand, of course, if you use something resembling an existing scheme (Markov algorithm, Turing machine, lambda calculus, &c) but I will not insist on this point. Next, explain how real situations are translated into this ethical calculus and how to interpret the results of the calculation as advice for ethical behavior. Finally, demonstrate the utility of the method, by applying it to some genuine historical example which poses a nontrivial ethical dilemma: application to some phony hypothetical case will not be convincing.


As far as I can tell, you never provided anything like the requested computational scheme. One natural interpretation would be that you realize there's no real prospect of doing that.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #86
92. Not quite
Edited on Sat Apr-14-07 03:28 PM by cyborg_jim
However, it seems impossible to pin down exactly what you mean by logic or computation -- you take a vague and expansive view, which appears mainly to involve continually redefining everything as a computation and then merely re-asserting your view that everything is a computation. Frankly, I prefer not to use words in such ill-defined fashion.


I don't know why you insist this is so, I have been completely consistent:

Logic: formalised reasoning systems.

Computation: applying symbolic manipulation rules to form a final resultant. (Lambda style computation).

They are closely related since you need a logic system to do computations.

As far as I can tell, you never provided anything like the requested computational scheme. One natural interpretation would be that you realize there's no real prospect of doing that.


*Sigh* You're still missing the point. Either you can reason about ethics or you can't. If you can reason about ethics you can make ethical computations. You need to explain to me how it is not computation to perform a reasoning something like:

"Killing is wrong, therefore do not kill."

Instead you seem to be continually beating the strawman that somehow it's only computation if I can provide a complete moral framework covering all possibilities all of which I would have to enumerate.

Either that or, you know, stop beating around the bush and provide me with a compelling example of a non-computational tool that deals with these situtations you are telling me are beyond logic rather than continually go down this dead end route of telling me things I already know.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:38 PM
Response to Reply #92
94. That's dishonest: I never asked for "a complete moral framework covering all possibilities"
but merely a genuine computational method capable of handling a nontrivial ethical dilemma, in response to which you offer merely "Killing is wrong, therefore do not kill" as an example of a calculation.

You insist that everything one does is a computation, refuse to exhibit the computational rules, and then insist that I must be able to point to something other than a computation. But of course, unless one actually has a coherent logic or calculational method, which one doesn't appear to have, the resolution of nontrivial ethical questions must be by something other than a computation.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #94
96. Which, again, I'm going to have to ask you what that is.
in response to which you offer merely "Killing is wrong, therefore do not kill" as an example of a calculation.


It is a calculation. It is not a particularly well justified or defined one but it is still a calculation.

You insist that everything one does is a computation, refuse to exhibit the computational rules, and then insist that I must be able to point to something other than a computation.


The rules of the computation are fairly self-evident; find a solution to an ethical dilemma by applying ethical axioms.

Should I kill someone? Killing is wrong. Therefore no.

I fail to see how that is not a computation.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #78
85. It's not simply that I am told "there are matters beyond the reach of logic"...
...it's that I'm told this in a way which either implicitly or explicitly states that there are ways which are better, superior, "beyond" logic in that sense, in the sense of doing for you what logic won't do, bringing you knowledge and understanding logic won't attain for you.

Maybe you have a problem with my attitude. Yes, I'm very skeptical about this "beyond logic" stuff, think it's bullshit, and I'm posing a challenge via this thread with my skeptical attitude on full display. I'm not trying to hide the fact that I think there's all sizzle and no steak behind these claims about things "beyond logic" which are thrown at me from time to time.

If it still isn't utterly clear, I'm NOT talking about "beyond" in the sense of "out of the reach" of logic. I'm talking about "beyond" as in "having better, fuller, deeper reach" than logic.

To humor you since you seem fixated on the matter, as if I'm concealing or avoiding something, here's what I mean by "logic": I'm using the word in a pretty broad sense (and this isn't just my own personal usage of the word) to encompass rational thought, empiricism, and the scientific method. Perhaps you find that too broad a usage, but for the purposes of this thread, it's a quite useful meaning, since all of those things -- rational thought, empiricism, and the scientific method -- are collectively what mystics often dismiss in favor of their own cherished ways of going "beyond" logic.

You further intend to carry on this conversation without allowing any discussion of the limits of logic.


You're "allowed" to discuss whatever you like. Such discussion, however, is barking up the wrong tree. I've already made it clear that I understand logic has limits -- delving more and more into those limits is entirely beside the point.

I have a car. I know it is limited in many ways as a means of transportation. There are plenty of places it can't and won't take me. Someone recommends astral projection as an alternation means of transportation. I want to know (and yep, I scoff derisively too) how astral projection is supposed to be a method of travel "beyond" the mere automobile, and why I should believe it does a damned thing at all better than a car. The alleged astral travelers never seem to be able to pick up a loaf of bread or a quart of milk that way, never bring back pictures or verifiable new information about exotic travel locations, etc.

Instead of dealing with astral projection, you'd rather harp on already-known and obvious automotive limitations, like not being able to drive my car to the moon, that I can't carry 300 passengers in my car, which cities I can't reach from home on a single tank of gas, and further, you're damned annoyed that I'm "avoiding" telling you the make, model and year of the car I drive and that I haven't told you what color it is yet.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
More Than A Feeling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 03:33 PM
Response to Reply #85
93. ....
Edited on Sat Apr-14-07 03:34 PM by Heaven and Earth
:applause: :applause: :applause: :yourock: :headbang: :applause:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #85
101. I can't see that the extended analogy clarifies much. Nowhere in the
prior posts is there any discussion of "astral projection." Nor have I ever met anyone who claims to do their grocery shopping by such methods, and my reaction to such a claim would be unlikely involve any extensive inquiry into whether the person would like to try convincing me that this was an effective way to shop. Nor have I discussed your auto anywhere in the thread nor wondered about the relative merits of driving to the grocery store and flitting there along some astral plane. This being the case, I suppose the point of the extended analogy is simply to ridicule me, by attributing beliefs I do not have, while maintaining plausible deniability and simultaneously remaining cryptic enough to prevent any meaningful response.

If you wish to use "logic" as a synonym for some unspecifiable amalgamation of "rational thought, empiricism, and the scientific method," I suppose you are free to do so -- but then you are combining under one heading a number of entirely subjects, described by words which mean radically different things to different people. Essentially everyone considers their own thought rational and considers disagreement as evidence of someone else's irrational thought; and all manner of people who I have considered somewhat demented have explained to me why their strange views are the only rational views they could possibly hold. One can try to law out clearly what one regards as correct argument and what one regards as fallacy, but an honest appraisal of the situation will show that people regularly apply apparently fallacious arguments with enough intelligence to reach conclusions which seem reasonable. There are all manner of "empiricists," ranging from those who diligently experiment to more accurately measure a parameter for an existing theory, those who fit data to curves without much interest in theories, and those who profess an utter disdain for all theoretical matters. And "the scientific method" is an idealization, which hardly ever reflects what scientists do.

So it appears to me that my prior post was accurate.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 06:05 PM
Response to Reply #101
110. There was no attempt to "attribut(e to you) beliefs (you) do not have"...
To the extent ridicule was intended, it was to ridicule (I'd call it parody) your still-going-strong utterly amazing ability to miss a point, to go boldly tilting at all the wrong windmills.

I have no idea what mystical beliefs, if any at all, you might hold. Hear me now and believe me later: I've encountered sufficient examples outside of anything you've written in this thread to use as sources for the "astral projection" part of my analogy, and those sources were indeed what I had in mind. The part of my analogy about going on and on about what my car can't do... yes, that part was aimed squarely at you.

I've had people tell me flat out that "logic" (and rationality, and scientific thinking) weren't "enough" to reach such and such a Great Truth, find "salvation", understand their oh-so-special Mystical Knowledge, etc. And these people did not, as you seem to believe everyone does, insist that they we're being "rational" about things either.

A lot of other people, even people who don't agree with where I'm going with this thread, "get" what I'm talking about, and don't need the ultra-precise word definitions and word usage you seem to believe is necessary for clarity. I'm guessing that by the standards you apparently require to get a handle on things, a hundred or so pages to establish that "1 + 1 = 2" would just be a warm-up exercise.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 07:19 PM
Response to Reply #110
116. Hmmm. You claim to believe in using logic as a tool but apparently
Edited on Sat Apr-14-07 07:20 PM by struggle4progress
take a dislike to it when it is employed against your views on logic. Your objection seems to include a distaste for "ultra-precise word definitions and word usage" which, of course, are supposedly characteristic of logic. You further seem displeased with any argumentation that proceeds too slowly.

I suspect that you would find (if you cared to inquire into the matter) that many people, whom you regard as unwashed illogical ignorami, object to logic on precisely the same grounds: first, they will not regard any disagreement as logical or cogent in response to their views; second, that they (like you) dislike "ultra-precise word definitions and word usage"; and finally, they (like you) become impatient with argumentation that proceeds too slowly for their tastes.

I am sorry you believe I am missing your point, because it seems to me that I have been responding directly and carefully to the real issues underlying your post.

But it seems clear at this point that I cannot expect much more from your responses than strange claims, such as your claim to have seen "sufficient examples outside of anything you've written in this thread to use as sources for the 'astral projection' ~snip~ ... yes, that part was aimed squarely at you" (despite the fact that I've never posted anything anywhere about astral projection), which you try to cover over by simultaneously disavowing any intent to attribute beliefs to me.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #116
117. If only you were using logic "against" me...
You're using logic on something, but it seems to be for your own private agenda, which is at best tangentially related to this thread.

I have patience for a productive, on-target discussion. But you're off target. Let me try yet another analogy, and apart from the fact that I'm going to take this painfully slowly in a way you might find offensive to your intellect, I'll try to leave out anything too snarky that you might take as personally offensive, or offensive to anyone else, since that seems to completely throw you off course, making it impossible for you to absorb any other significance...

Alice: I have a chemistry lab. It can do lots of things, but it can't do everything.
Bob: Yeah, for one thing, it can't turn lead into gold.
Alice: True, but there isn't anything that can turn lead into gold.*
Bob: Actually, I know a way.
Alice: Really?
Bob: Yes, indeed.
Alice: I'm skeptical. Can you prove to me this can be done?
Bob: Prove? It's a matter of believing it can be done, not a matter of proof.
Alice: (Starting to become impatient -- Alice is quick to get impatient with this kind of thing.) If you can do this, how come you aren't rich?
Bob: Well, if you're greedy it won't work.
Alice: Huh? I can be greedy, generous, sarcastic, compassionate, horny... whatever mood I'm in, or whatever motivation I have, my chemistry lab doesn't care. If I follow the same procedure, I get the same results. Why should this lead-to-gold technique of yours care about greed?
Bob: It just does. You have to break out of your limited chemistry mindset to understand. That's just how it works.
Alice: How it works? I've heard no reason yet to believe your technique works at all.

(Alice steps back from Bob, spreads her arms in a gesture of exasperation and pleading, addressing anyone within earshot.)

Alice: Can anyone explain this lead-to-gold technique Bob is raving on about? Sounds preposterous to me. Where's the evidence lead can be turned into gold at all? I know my chemistry lab can't do it, I doubt there's any known way to do it, and it seems to me if it can be done at all, asking for a little proof isn't asking too much.

(Enter Carol, Dave, and Edna.)

Carol: Sounds like either Bob's been had, or he's trying to pull one over on you himself.
Dave: I like pancakes. (Dave is wearing a T-shirt featuring a picture of a bunny with a pancake on top of its head.)
Edna: You know, there are lots of things that can't be done with chemistry labs.
Alice: What I want to know is how anyone can, in any way, turn lead into gold, and why I should believe they can go beyond what I can do with my chemistry lab, especially without reasonable proof.
Edna: There certainly is a lot which is beyond chemistry labs. Did you know that a chemistry lab can't produce an end product with a mass greater than the total mass of the reagents in the chemistry lab, plus any other outside substances used like water and air? Conservation of matter dictates...
Alice: Yes, yes, I know about conservation of matter. But this lead-to-gold thing Bob is going on about...
Edna: You know, you've been pretty vague about what's in your chemistry lab. There are lots of different kinds of lab set-ups, and you've said nothing about your set-up, what equipment you have, or your stock of reagents. It's preposterous to discuss the limits of chemistry labs in general when there are so many kinds.
Alice: Why ask about my lab? There isn't any kind of lab that can turn lead into gold. I'm asking about Bob's claim...
Edna: How can we have a reasonable discussion about the limitations of your chemistry lab if you aren't patient enough to get into the details of your lab? Geez, you go on about Bob being vague, but listen to you! I think you're just here to make fun of me and Bob, since you're clearly not interested in having a reasonable conversation about the limits of your ill-defined chemistry lab.
Alice: Wow. How did the conversation end up here? You're way off target. Listen... I've got this analogy about a car and astral projection that I hope will clear things up...

In case you haven't figured it out...

  • In the analogy, I'm Alice.
  • The chemistry set represents a fairly common logical, rationalist, scientific approach that may not be perfect or precisely defined, the details of which are fairly irrelevant to this discussion, but if you feel desperately in need of a point of reference, image Richard Dawkins approach to things.
  • Bob represents various people positing mystic claims whom I've encountered on various discussion boards, stating something to the effect that one must "go beyond logic" to understand and appreciate the value of their claims. (By the way, since you're so terribly upset about my broad use of the word "logic", you should realize that more than one person who has talked to me has used exactly the word "logic" to dismiss the entirety of the Dawkins-ish approach I'm talking about. It's a very common and perfectly reasonable rhetorical technique to repeat the use of the same terminology used on you by someone else in response to that someone else, especially if you emphasize that kind of usage with "scare quotes".)
  • Turning lead into gold represents, by analogy those things a mystic might claim can be done by "going beyond logic". If you're so hopeless at this point that you feel an urge to complain, "But no one said anything about turning lead into gold! Where'd you get that from?", or you take so much offense at the particular analogy that you can barely concentrate on anything else, I must conclude that meaningful communication with you is utterly impossible.
  • Alice stepping back from Bob and addressing anyone within earshot represents me starting this thread.
  • Carol represents people in the thread who had no trouble at all glomming onto what what I was talking about or where I was going with it.
  • Dave... I haven't a clue what Dave's talking about. He seems a bit dazed and confused to me.
  • Edna... that's you.

Better? Clearer? (Probably not. Sigh!)

*Theoretically, one could, in a hugely expensive and utterly impractical way generate small quantities of gold from lead using particle collision in a nuclear reaction... but, hey, no analogy is perfect. If Bob had something like a nuclear reaction in mind, he'd be able to come up with evidence satisfactory to Alice anyway.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #117
118. Okie dokie:

Al: Look! I have a chemistry set!
Ed: Cool!
Al: For anything you can do, there's just no better way to do it than with my chemistry set.
Ed: Really? Ya think yer chemistry set do it all?
Al: Of course not! I admit my chemistry set can't do everything you want. But since nothing can do everything you want, you just have to be realistic. And for anything you can do, there's just no better way to do it than with my chemistry set. No, you should always use my chemistry set! Accept no substitutes !
Ed: I'm sorta wonderin here if might could be a lotta stuff I wanna do what your chemistry lab don't really help me none with.
Al: Do you really think chanting and meditating on your chakras will produce better results than you could get with my chemistry set? Grow up! My chemistry set is just the only game in town!
Ed: Well, I ain't quite too certain of about that last sentence.
Al: Ha! Perhaps you would prefer to summon a Jinn from an old bottle? Why are you opposed to chemistry?
Ed: Uh, hold yer hosses a minute, boss. I thinks chemistry is awesome. But I just ain't by no means certain that there ain't never no better way to do whatever I wants than by using yer chemistry set.
Al: Don't be silly! What could you possibly want to do that you couldn't do best with my chemistry set?
Ed: O...kay ... Gimme a moment and I'll tell ya some stuff what yer chemistry set won't do ...
Al: Why do you insist on talking about what my chemistry set won't do? I've already admitted that my chemistry set won't do everything. But for anything you can do, the best way to do it is with my chemistry set.
Ed: But yer chemistry set cain't ...
Al: Yes, I know! I accept that my chemistry set can't do everything! I've said that already! But it's certainly a lot better than trying to grocery shop by astral projection!
Ed: But yer chemistry set cain't ...
Al: Enough already! Haven't I made it clear enough that when I say chemistry set I mean a super deluxe chemistry set that comes with income tax software, birdwatching binoculars, and a complete set of the Harvard classics? Whatever you want to do, there's just no better way to do it than with my chemistry set!
Ed (backs slowly towards the door, nodding and smiling)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 09:11 AM
Response to Reply #118
119. UGH.
I've asked I don't know how many times now on this thread but it seems you are merely content to say, "meh, logic, has some self-referential problems. Solutions? Don't bother me with solutions! Logic won't solve problems it can't solve, so use something else eh? No, don't bother me with asking what that is."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 03:34 PM
Response to Reply #118
123. Fascinating
Not only is it very clear that the "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes">scare quotes" used around the phrase "beyond logic" in the title of the OP flew completely over your head, and that for some bizarre reason further context wasn't enough to get you to the point that you were able (or willing) to understand the thread in terms of anything but the most narrow and parsing definition of "logic" you could use, but you apparently blame me for trying to play some kind of trick on you with some devious plan to keep sneaking up on you with an ever-expanding definition of "logic" whenever it suited my fancy.

Yeah, I'm a trick devil, I am. :eyes:

From another post in this thread:
If you accept that logic has limits, then the question where exactly are those limits? appears relevant to people's failure to embrace logic in various contexts.


You'll have to pardon me if I couldn't detect much useful or fruitful movement in the direction of the latter half of the above sentence. If you're planning on holding an annual conference for The Society for the Rejection of the Supremacy of Logic Based on the Troubling Issue of Performing Boolean Conjunctions on Unknown (and Perhaps Unknowable) Truth Values with Their Respective Inverses, I'd suggest you book the smallest hall you can find.

But go ahead, spring for the open bar. I think you'll easily be able to afford the tab. :)

Just to get a bit more of what I'd normally expect to be obvious to nearly anyone else (at least anyone else who has participate much in the R/T forum) out of the way, so you don't feel like I'm sneaking up on you with tricky, ever-expanding terms:

The logical/rational/scientific viewpoint I'm advocating is pretty expansive to begin with -- much more expansive the crude expedient analogy of a chemistry lab. Defined positively, as I said before, think Richard Dawkins (not that we view things exactly the same way, but close enough to save me writing several books here to explain myself). Defined negatively, I'm advocating a philosophy which rejects mystical approaches and supernatural explanations in favor of the naturalistic, especially any mysticism defined in such a way as to deliberately rule out any possible avenue for its falsification. I favor saying "I don't know" and "maybe, as much as we'd like to do that, it can't be done" over acting like the universe owes us answers to all of our questions and/or solutions to our desires and needs, over pretending that psychologically satisfying "answers", with no further "evidence" beyond the fact that imagining these answers to be true is satisfying for some people, are better than no answers at all.

I advocate for the position that even an incomplete and tenuous naturalistic explanation for a phenomenon (for example, that the first life arose from nothing more than inanimate matter after some complex but unknown series of increasingly complex chemical reactions) is far better than an explanation which (although perhaps more psychologically satisfying to many people -- satisfying an inborn tendency to seek explanations in terms of "agency"?) brings in supernatural agencies, about which even less is known or understood than the natural world, explanations which really accomplish no more than creating more mystery, and which "needlessly multiply entities" in the process.

(Once more, given your apparent sensitivity to certain types of examples, and rush to take those particular examples personally instead of generically as they are intended, the previous example has NOT ONE THING TO DO with me considering you, or anyone else participating in this thread, to be a creationist. I really, really hope that I don't actually need to walk on eggshells like this with you -- but so far, you've given me the distinct impression that I do.)

Since there's no clear dividing line that I can determine between what I've already written so far and a multi-volume explication of every aspect of my world view, where I'm finally safe from suspicion of treacherous, slippery vagueness and opportunistic re-definition of my stance, I'll just stop here and hope this is enough.

Your screen name is certainly "struggle4progress" is certainly apt for describing the process of attempting meaningful communication with you. :)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 05:45 PM
Response to Reply #123
126. I suspect your difficulty stems largely from your inability to tolerate disagreement.
As far as I can tell, by inspecting the thread, you feel that you are "communicating" when people agree with you and otherwise do not feel you are "communicating."

So for the purposes of "communication" let me say that I myself am strongly prejudiced in favor of naturalistic explanations consistent with observation, preferably organized into logical theories with computational content.

However, while I regard the program -- of attempting to obtain such logical theories with computational content from observation -- as entirely worthy and admirable, I do not expect that at present or any time in the future the real complexities of life can be reduced to a clear and defensible set of principles, from which one can compute unambiguously the proper course of action in difficult circumstances -- or even from which one can estimate (say, by some Bayesian legerdemain) a suite of probabilities for the outcomes of actions. Certainly, one will never be able to perform such computations in realtime, to obtain the answers when needed.

While I regard the program -- of attempting to obtain such logical theories with computational content from observation -- as entirely worthy and admirable, I regard your view of the complete preeminance of that program as pure ideology, supported by empty noise. Part of the problem is that logic is mere grammar and can only help us organize and communicate our thoughts, while accurate observation often requires setting aside prejudices to see the phenomena as they actually are (and not necessarily as we think they should be); such different tools inevitably lead to inconsistent expectations, resolution of which is often nontrivial. It is mere ideology to claim every important issue can be resolved by this technique: one chooses an issue that one hopes can be resolved by it and typically labors hard to obtain a little solid progress; nobody can keep the whole of it in mind, or can learn everything as needed to solve arbitrary problems; specialized knowledge becomes the domain of specialists, and -- because it is silly to imagine that one can easily find specialists who do not have their own agendas -- the supposed knowledge is not necessarily available, even once someone has obtained it.

Thus, as a purely practical matter, the program is out of reach. This is not a reason not to pursue it: but it is a good reason not to make grandiose claims.

While I regard the program -- of attempting to obtain such logical theories with computational content from observation -- as entirely worthy and admirable, I do not regard its methods or objectives as being the sole methods or objectives that are appropriate to central problems of living human lives. It seems, for example, entirely possible for a person to use with great facility the standard syllogisms of deductive logic -- and yet be clinically insane. I do not make this up as a hypothetical to irritate you: you may consult the psychiatric literature to see that such cases are known to the medical profession. Certain Nazi doctors, with the completely rational objective of trying to learn how to save Nazi sailors lost in the Atlantic, performed careful experiments, that involving freezing to death Russian prisoners-of-war. These experiments do not seem to have been conducted in a purely sadistic spirit, and the scientific method seems present in them: there is a willingness to rely on observation and naturalistic interpretation, to collect data carefully, and to reason about the results of the experiment. It seems likely that the experiments were conducted by people who considered their own actions ethical and defensible. Something important, however, is lacking.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 06:59 PM
Response to Reply #126
127. What "grandiose claims" have I made?
Edited on Sun Apr-15-07 07:00 PM by Kerry4Kerry
I do not expect that at present or any time in the future the real complexities of life can be reduced to a clear and defensible set of principles

This only sounds like a major problem if your expectations are set way too high.

Part of the problem is that logic is mere grammar and can only help us organize and communicate our thoughts, while accurate observation often requires setting aside prejudices to see the phenomena as they actually are (and not necessarily as we think they should be)


(Good) scientists try their best to do that -- setting aside prejudices to see phenomena as they actually are. Sometimes that's hard enough to do that some progress is only going to be made slowly, at generational speeds, as we wait for the old guard to die out and fresh blood to come in.

It's hardly a perfect process. But what have you ever seen that works better?

Thus, as a purely practical matter, the program is out of reach. This is not a reason not to pursue it: but it is a good reason not to make grandiose claims.

I hardly consider saying that the naturalistic/scientific/logical approach is the best approach we humans have found so far for understanding the world we live in, gaining further understanding, and for guiding our actions a "grandiose claim", because it's only so good compared to pretty lackluster competition.

What are the alternatives, if any? If the alternatives get to dismiss any need for logical consistency or verifiability from the get-go (as a part of what makes them "alternative"), by what conceivable metric can they show they have anything to offer at all?

It seems, for example, entirely possible for a person to use with great facility the standard syllogisms of deductive logic -- and yet be clinically insane.


Garbage in, garbage out. Nothing surprising there -- hence the necessary component of careful observation and verification.

Certain Nazi doctors, with the completely rational objective... Something important, however, is lacking.


Science and logic aren't going to provide answers to ethical and moral questions -- but I don't see how that implies (and some people act like it necessitates) there's some other approach that will.

As far as I'm concerned, how one approaches moral questions is a choice to be made, not an answer to be found. Logic and science are applicable here in some fashion... we can find answers in human biology and evolution for the types of choices we tend to make, and whatever those choices are, we can try to organize what we do about those choices logically to work out problems with potentially conflicting moral premises, and to maximize the (hopefully good and beneficial to humankind) goals we end up setting for ourselves.

If you think there's something "out there" which can provide answers in some authoritative, absolute sense to moral questions, what could that thing possibly be? (If ESP were real, I'd be hearing hundreds of voices in my head shouting "God!" at this moment.) How would you know when you've found it? (Many of those hypothetical ESP-delivered voices in my head would now be shouting something like "You'll know you've found The TRVTH when you feel it in your heart!" -- and if only I could get off this horrible logic addiction of mine, I might not care about the sometimes vast contradictions between many of these very same people, and/or settle for papering over those differences with some weasel-words like "each of them has a different piece of The TRVTH.)

The various forms of mysticism, religion, and "spirituality" humans have brought forth on this planet so far show no signs that I can discern of doing any better the science and logic -- which are simply mute (on a primary level) on the subject of morality, instead of being part of the crowd clamoring for moral authority. For the most part, most of the time, I don't think religion either helps or hinders morality -- people just adopt a religion which matches the way the want to be, bend and twist a religion they already have until they find a way to express the way they'd act anyway in compatible terms, or take the most convenient route to do what you want regardless of what you say you believe -- hypocrisy.

While I've just said that I think religion mostly ends up making little difference in moral outcomes, I fear that to the extent it does make a difference, the balance favors a negative effect. To loosely paraphrase a quote I've heard a few times before: "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. To get good people to do bad things, that takes religion."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #127
132. So we cannot even agree regarding the nature of our disagreement.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-16-07 08:22 PM
Response to Reply #132
141. Perhaps we can agree...
...that you'll take the conversation in any direction which avoids providing any direct answers to the opening question, "What exactly is supposed to be 'beyond' logic?", in the sense which I would hope you now understand the question was meant. :)
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #141
145. If your intent is intellectually honest, you should be able to clarify certain points.

First, if it is your view that nothing is "beyond logic" and you want an explanation of any contrary view, then you ought by rights to be clear about what will constitute reasonable argument from your perspective: for example, anyone who disagrees with you will labor under an unfair disadvantage, if you do not intend to allow illogical argument as counter-evidence, since you are ruling out a certain amount of opposition by definition.

Nevertheless, based on the original post and responses, I have assumed that you would play by such an unfair rule book and have made an effort to respond accordingly; this requires me to examine logic somewhat to determine what its limits are, so that those limits can be compared to practical human needs. To this, of course, you naturally object: to me, that is merely more evidence that a fair investigation of the question was not your objective.

Among the further evidences for such a "cooked book," I will cite again your ever-flexible redefinition of what constitutes logic. If this redefinition satisfactorily answered the question in your favor, then you will be bound to provide some explanation of what it means for logical people to disagree. Presumably, it either means that one is not really logical or it means that both are not using the same logic. But if logical people can adopt different logics, then your supposed definition is not so clear or definitive as you claim. Let us assume then that your definition is clear. Since you claim that that your definition of logic includes science, which relies on observational and operational techniques, I assume you want a logic completely purged of mystical and metaphysical assumptions, which can be explained in observational and operational terms. Then, if your definition is good, we must take the view that whenever supposedly logical people disagree, at least one must be wrong, and since the logic is operational, there will be a way to identify the one who is wrong. I therefore call upon you to exhibit this method.

Second, if it is your view that nothing can be done better than by logic, you must have a miraculous method for resolving the enormous computational burdens imposed by the logical method. In fact, in many circumstances, the needed computation cannot be done. This, I suppose, you solve by yet another redefinition, deciding that "logic" includes whatever one does, when a careful use of some amalgamation of axiomatic deduction and observation is an unaffordable luxury. This, however, I call begging the question.

Third, it appears to be your view that, whatever cannot be resolved by logic, we must essentially abandon as being beyond us. As I understand it, your attitude towards the problem of experimentally freezing prisoners-of-war to death is -- simply that nothing can help us resolve such a matter, and that my expectations are too high in this regard. On this particular point, however, we have a major philosophical difference. I am not surprised now to find that this is your view, but I will say again that something is lacking. What is lacking there is important. Purely as a matter of personal existential choice, I think I myself would be inclined to try any technique, no matter how irrational, to restore what is missing there.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
cyborg_jim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 03:08 PM
Response to Reply #145
146. UGH
I think I myself would be inclined to try any technique, no matter how irrational, to restore what is missing there.


Are you going to continually ignore my points about heuristics and metalogic?

Or are you just going to assert, "well, ethics eh? Can't be logic cause if you formulated every variable precisely it would all be too hard to calculate but humans can do it!" As if how we arrive at ethical conclusions weren't a factor of what is essentially a heuristic mechanism derived evolutionarily for social behaviour.

But please, continue beating that strawman. Keep on banging on about logical formalisms that only deal with absolute and optimal solutions even though we've moved way beyond that.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 11:09 PM
Response to Reply #146
153. But if he stops fretting and fussing...
Edited on Tue Apr-17-07 11:35 PM by Kerry4Kerry
...over logical formalisms, then he'd have to lay his cards on the table about what "I myself would be inclined to try any technique, no matter how irrational" actually leads him to try.

Far, far too dangerous, considering how dastardly I've apparently been in plotting ahead of time to be able to get away with sliding and shifting to mean anything I want to mean. :eyes:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 12:17 AM
Response to Reply #153
158. Okay, so what I am saying there is simply this:
I find the idea of experimentally freezing prisoners to death (for some alleged higher good) abhorrent enough, that whenever I find in myself the slightest tendency to be sympathetic to any project resembling that abhorrent one, I consider it appropriate to search for any means necessary to extirpate the tendency. I suspect that almost everyone can find such tendencies in the course of honest self-examination. Moreover, I find the idea abhorrent enough, that I consider I should not be constrained to mere rational persuasion as a way to counter anyone who intended to carry out such experiments.

You may, of course, consider this horrifyingly illogical. But while for many purposes I am very concerned to be regarded as a rational being, there are in fact certain contexts where my notions, of what it means to be human, completely transcend all of my rational prejudices. You may now want to make all the usual objections -- that there is no way I can know I am right, that this is arbitrary and indefensible on my part, that it would be dangerous if everyone adopted such a view, and so on -- but frankly I will not care: there are certain matters for which I know only how to utter noises that you must regard as mystical nonsense, and I do not intend to abandon those utterances when I need them.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #145
160. How can I be clear about the form answers take which don't make sense to me?
Just because I'm highly skeptical and don't try to hide it doesn't me someone can't come along to try to surprise and impress me with a way of looking at things I hadn't considered.

Unlike you, I'm not hung up on absolutes. I'm certainly not expecting or demanding absolute, irrefutable, mathematically precise proof of things which are "beyond logic" (in that broad sense which makes you so uncomfortable apparently, as if it were a trap) yet worthy of consideration as approaches to life.

Evidence for such things would be nice. Lacking that, a cogent argument for abandoning a demand for evidence. Lacking that, something I can't define, but that someone out there thinks might impress me enough to somehow, someway break out of the infinite regress of expecting a good reason (for not getting a good reason)^N for not getting evidence.

I do hope for something better than an exhortation, "Well, you just have to have faith!"

Plenty of people advocate a logical/scientific approach to life, and I don't think anyone I've ever encountered but you would expect that to mean either (1) they're telling you that they perform a computationally expensive algorithm every morning to decide what they'll eat for breakfast, or (2) that they're playing a slippery, "begging the question" game of conveniently redefining whatever it is that they do to be logical.

Third, it appears to be your view that, whatever cannot be resolved by logic, we must essentially abandon as being beyond us.

Half correct. Or maybe even just one third correct.

If you can't get somewhere by a direct application of logic, but guessing or intuition or whatever gives you an answer to try, and then there's an objective way to test that answer, and the answer turns out to be correct -- then the answer is no longer beyond us. (Of course, it doesn't necessarily follow that whatever back-story you might have for the approach that got you the answer is true just because the answer itself works out -- e.g. a gift from a goddess, a mystical interpretation of the nature of intuition, etc.)

When it comes to something like moral choices, I don't consider those to be beyond our reach at all, even though there's no purely logical way to resolves such choices. The only thing beyond our reach in morality is some absolute, indisputable touchstone of authority and certainty.

You are correct that I am saying that sometimes the best we might be able to do is say "I don't know". The universe doesn't owe us answers to everything. The universe doesn't owe us moral guidelines. The universe doesn't owe us a ready-made sense of purpose.

Purely as a matter of personal existential choice, I think I myself would be inclined to try any technique, no matter how irrational, to restore what is missing there.

"Restore" what is missing? That implies that whatever you think is missing was there to begin with (whatever "there" and "begin" might possibly mean in this context).

How does deciding on your own, for yourself, "murder is repugnant to me and I won't do it" differ from trying the "technique" of believing in a God who forbids murder? Both get you the same result, yet with the first you don't have to drag any superstitious baggage into the situation. If you're going to "try any technique", what's wrong with the first technique?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
rug Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 07:21 PM
Response to Original message
21. Bush's foreign policy.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
WhollyHeretic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 07:45 PM
Response to Original message
22. .
Edited on Thu Apr-12-07 07:46 PM by GreenJ


That's about all I can come up with for that phrase :shrug:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-12-07 10:03 PM
Response to Original message
24. It's how the Religionistas and New Agers protect thier nonsense from being falsifiable.
Edited on Thu Apr-12-07 10:05 PM by Odin2005
They just call their BS "beyond logic" so those "evil scientists" can't touch it.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
varkam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-15-07 01:49 PM
Response to Original message
121. A refrain here and elsewhere in theological discussions is
Edited on Sun Apr-15-07 01:51 PM by varkam
Loki's Wager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki's_Wager). It's a fallacy that, with respect to theology, asserts g/God cannot be defined and so we cannot accurately discuss g/God. It's usually pulled out as a trump card on the theist side of the debate when running out of smart-sounding retorts to secular challenges. It's an attempt to push any rational debate on the subject matter out of the realm of rationality.

on edit: embedded link would not work for some odd reason, so I pasted the URL in full.

on second edit: Pasting the URL doesn't work either - just take out the backslash if you want to read about it.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
MistressOverdone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 08:22 AM
Response to Original message
143. Logic is a gift
and not everyone has it.

To me, "beyond logic" actually means to defy logic and go with a hunch, intuition, etc.

Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

You know, I wonder if humans have instincts, like dogs, for example? I don't think dogs are very logical; they behave according to instinct. But for them, that is logic.

One of the reasons I enjoy Star Trek is its exploration of logic: Spock, Data, Tuvok, Seven of Nine...
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Zhade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 08:42 PM
Response to Reply #143
148. "Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't." Indeed. But here's the problem:
People - too many of them - often pretend like it ALWAYS works, or that when it works it's because of _____ that they attribute the success to, when in fact they cannot know that this is the case, as it can;t be verified.

Personally, my suspicion is that such people feel a great need to deny the uncomfortable feeling of not being certain in an uncertain world. Understandable, but sad. Life doesn't care how comfortable we are, and pretending that one *knows* their god will save them doesn't do jack when the load of lumber drops on them.

Then again, some people just want to feel special. Hey, don't we all? Wishful thinking doesn't make it true, however.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
More Than A Feeling Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 09:14 PM
Response to Reply #148
150. The epitaph of the supernatural: "Wishful thinking doesn't make it true."
Edited on Tue Apr-17-07 09:15 PM by Heaven and Earth
Well said! :thumbsup:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Zhade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 10:12 PM
Response to Reply #150
151. Is it wrong to say I love you more each day?
Edited on Tue Apr-17-07 10:12 PM by Zhade
:D

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
MistressOverdone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-18-07 08:20 AM
Response to Reply #148
164. I couldn't agree more, Zhade
so many of our constructs are to create comfort internally. But when you get THAT phone call in the middle of the night, you are on your own. At least for a while, until you build the construct up again.

I believe that there is a similarity between both fundamental Xtians and very ardent atheists. (not the garden variety like I've met here on DU) A need for the questions to be answered, a lack of ability to deal with ambiguity, pluralism, etc.


We're all so...damned human.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-17-07 11:31 PM
Response to Reply #143
154. I'm a Trek fan, but the ST idea of what it means to be "logical"...
...is pretty stupid sometimes.

For one thing, emotion is not inherently illogical. Strong emotions can, and often do, overwhelm the ability to think clearly and logically. But without emotion of any sort, or any desire to fulfill emotional or physical needs, logic is lifeless -- logic contains no inherent goals, logic cannot supply its own premises.

If you want to be happy, that's neither logical nor illogical -- that's nonlogical, or logic neutral. It's a goal you can choose, and then try to pursue logically. Once you've decided you want to be happy, there are certainly logical and illogical ways to go about that. Plus, you might have other, possibly conflicting goals, such as concern for the happiness and welfare of others, pursuit of understanding and truth. There is no inherently logical way to weight the relative importance of those goals -- it's ultimately a personal values decision -- but logic can be very useful, once you think you know how you want to balance things, in helping you figure out how to maintain the balance you desire.

To go with a hunch or intuition is NOT necessarily an act of defying logic. If one's intuition has proven itself to work well in certain situations (and not just according to the conveniently revisionist history of success intuition often enjoys), and there's little obvious hard data at hand to work with -- following one's intuition can be a completely logical way to go.

As for humans having animal instincts... certainly we do. They're often buried under or oddly warped by our learned behavior and our higher brain functions, but they're there. I wish I could cite some examples off the top of my head, but there's plenty of research out there if you'd like to Google it.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
WritingIsMyReligion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-19-07 09:08 PM
Response to Original message
166. "Beyond logic" is a loaded phrase used to insulate religion from criticism.
Of course, religion ought to be no less subjected to the laws of logic than anything else in the world; applying a rational test to religion tends to shred it, however, which irks most fundamentalist belivers and even some progressives.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Fri May 03rd 2024, 02:34 PM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Religion/Theology Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC