Logic and Reason

Originally posted by SharpeMother
Are logic and reason laws? Or are they a consensus among humans based on repeated observations? Are the laws/consensuses of logic and reason material or immaterial in nature? If logic and reason are laws that are universally true then how can they be evolved by evolution? If evolution is material in nature, it then needs to work with a material brain an ...[text shortened]... illogical based on our consensus of what is logical. I think I just proved the existence of God.

Methinks that logic is an organon existing solely in the Human mind. Logic is used in order to let us bring up accurate theories of reality (under constant evaluation according to our accumulated knowledge) at every level of our consciousness. However it seems to me that the “classic transcendental argument for the existence of God” is bonkers because it is merely pure theology and Aristotle twisted big time. This “argument” occurred because Aristotles’ texts were read within the spectrum of the post-Christian analytical categories and they were interpreted according to the given JudeoChristian and Islamic theology -and this is the reason why rationality in general was (and still is) sacrificed in the name of Belief and Dogma.

According to Aristotles’ Prior Analytics (I2, 24b18-20), “…a deduction is logos in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from those supposed results of necessity because of their being so”, one understands that each of the “things supposed” is a premise of the argument whilst the conclusion is the “results of necessity”, and solely out of this basic approach we can start debating about the nature of logic/ tool of interpretation of given facts/ organon. It ‘s obvious that Aristotle talks about Cause/ Effect as it is monitored, checked and evaluated by the rational (and clear of religious impurities) Human mind alone, however I have the feeling that you attempt to overload this Aristotelian concept with a specific mythological religious dogmatism; in such a case I assume that you are not aware of the fact that Aristotle kept anyway, anywhere, anyhow the “god/s” on the margins and never gave them a mere chance to rule the philosophic thought. BTW this is the reason why he stated clearly at his Metaphysics that “Man begets Man” (so, as a result, Man is the product of his products too).
On the other hand the Abrahamic concept of “God” meant nothing to Aristotle, and the Aristotlean Ultimate Cause -the Good and the ultimate reason of all human activities- was never mixed with the divine because the Greek philosopher knew that nothing productive could come out of the fixation on the divine or the primary cause of being.
For example, why you believe that “…there are no absolutes and that such a thing is illogical based on our consensus of what is logical”? Methinks you should keep in mind that, if in some critical conditions there are not any laws that apply, one has to assume that there are some other laws that they do apply -but he has to use science and philosophy instead of mambo-jumbo in order to reveal them
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Methinks that logic is an organon existing solely in the Human mind.

I generally dislike any claim that some process of thought or method is somehow dependent on the human mind. Such a line of thinking is what lead to the posters errors in the first post of this thread. Of course his further assertion that anything the human mind does must have arisen from evolution and thus be purely physical is a much worse travesty of logic.
I would even go further and say that logic and reason are not dependent on any 'mind' or even on being implemented or considered in any way. The number 2 does not exist solely when there are things to count. I remember Freaky making such ridiculous assertions and claiming that counting was in some way man made.
You cannot hold up a bag of 3 marbles and claim that the number 4 does not exist within the confines of the bag, nor can you claim it does not exist in the head of the unimaginative human observing the bag, nor can you claim that the number of marbles (3) only exists in the mind of the human observer (and possibly those of us discussing said observer).
As for both logic and reason, I have no doubt that non-human animals are capable of both and that in future machines will be far superior to us mere humans but neither are dependent on the thinker for their existence, only instances of them are so dependent (just as the bag of marbles is an instance of the number 3 and one more marble may destroy that instance.)

Originally posted by twhitehead
I generally dislike any claim that some process of thought or method is somehow dependent on the human mind. Such a line of thinking is what lead to the posters errors in the first post of this thread. Of course his further assertion that anything the human mind does must have arisen from evolution and thus be purely physical is a much worse travesty of l bag of marbles is an instance of the number 3 and one more marble may destroy that instance.)

You're looking at the box from within. The number 2 is a convention. Counting (and what is "an element" that we can count) is a convention. Mathematics is just a language and, as such, it is a convention. The same applies for logic operators. That we are able to make sense of the world within the confines of one particular convention doesn't mean it is unique or exhaustive.

Even if we take the step to claim that it is unique among humans, then nothing guarantees than it is not our brain structure that creates a convergence of paradigms into one that seems to "work" for us. But you need to remember that to evaluate if something "works", then you need to use the paradigm for which you are testing it against. From the inside of the box.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Sorry, but if what you write is unclear, you really should rephrase your sentences rather than just repeat them. I suspect that you are using several words in unconventional ways, so it might help if you define your terms. It might also help if you plainly state what you mean instead of asking questions.

test

Originally posted by Palynka
You're looking at the box from within.

Ah, like the guys in the cave.

Originally posted by lausey
TerrierJack was just giving an example of a plurium interrogationum which is a well known logical fallacy. In other words, it makes assumptions for the question to have any weight. Regardless of if you answer "yes" or "no", it still implies that you have a wife, and you have been beating her.

Likewise, your original post is a plurium interrogationum, as it makes assumptions and tries to draw a conclusion on premises that has not been proved.

Lol, ok, missed that. Thanks for clarifying.

Can you specify which assumptions haven't been proved? What exactly are you referring to?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I generally dislike any claim that some process of thought or method is somehow dependent on the human mind.

Three marbles and an observer can yield the thought 'three marbles'. Three marbles and no observer can yield no thought at all, so 'three' doesn't come into it at all, the marbles are not conceptually differentiated from the background.

Incidentally, three marbles are at least three different numbers: 3, +3, and 3/1. These numbers are not the same.

Originally posted by Conrau K
I think Vistesd proposed the best explanation for logic. The rules of logic (for example, modus ponens) are not things; they are standards of coherency. If I say 'I have a cat' and 'I do not have a cat', then I simply being incoherent. My listener must either, like Plato inferring the tripartite nature of the soul, say that there are two different ty ...[text shortened]... s not something socially constructed; it is a standard for how propositions can be coherent.

Yes, I agree. So how did this kind of logic come about to happen? Is it material in nature... like is it just a physical thing that happens in our brain that evolved over the course of billions of years, or is it something that has always existed? And if it's something that happens in our brains then how can absolutes exist? No one has identical brains, so what's to say that one brain might produce an altogether different kind of "logic"?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I do not remember that being part of the logic in your first post. Can you explain where you used it?
It seems rather odd that you required assumptions about Atheists methodologies in order to prove the existence of God.

[b]You said, [b]"Logic existed long before life." - God also existed long before life. If you can make that statement about logi ...[text shortened]... ning process lacks any "principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration".[/b]

I did not refer to it specifically in my original post. I based my whole post on the assumption that atheists want Christians to prove the existence of God based on logic and reason, not on the Bible, feelings, etc, so I was trying to do that in my original post. I was trying to get to the point that logic and reason had to have come from somewhere, and that they could not have been evolved nor a consensus, so then it would put the atheist in a corner because he would have to say that logic and reason "just are", which would mean that it is not a stretch to say that God "just is"... see where I'm going with this?

"It seems rather odd that you required assumptions about Atheists methodologies in order to prove the existence of God." - Can you tell me the method by which atheists require me to prove the existence of God? I have always thought that atheists need logic and reason to prove anything, including the existence of God.

How is it illogical to make a statement exactly like the one you made? If logic existed long before life, then why couldn't God have also existed long before life? How is that train of thought illogical?

Originally posted by Palynka
Let me try again.

You start well, but your conclusion doesn't follow.

What I agree with:
- Logic is a standard for coherency. Definitely. We can examine any set of prepositions and, under the yardstick of logic, measure their coherence.

What I don't agree with:
You seem to believe that coherence precedes logic. This is incorrect. In your example, ...[text shortened]... which set of statements should be chosen is determined by consensus (it requires agreement).

"So what we now call "logic" is, indeed, a set of statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules. But the choice of which set of statements should be chosen is determined by consensus (it requires agreement)." - So how do the leading scientists and philosophers come to the same agreement (or consensus) of what logic is? How do they all arrive on the same page? Do they use logic/reason? How do they even make a rational consensus? Where does their rationality come from? What are you using to arrive at an agreement of what is logical? You use logic to agree on what is logic. So where did that logic come from?

Originally posted by SharpeMother
So this is my claim:

Logic and reason cannot be accounted for by the atheistic world view.

In other words:

Logic and reason just are, which doesn't explain how they came about.

Only the existence of God can explain the existence of logic and reason. Without God logic and reason cannot be accounted for.

Much clearer.

Try this as a thought experiment. Imagine a universe that has no God. What would preclude logic and reason from existing in this universe?

Originally posted by Palynka
Let me try again.

You start well, but your conclusion doesn't follow.

What I agree with:
- Logic is a standard for coherency. Definitely. We can examine any set of prepositions and, under the yardstick of logic, measure their coherence.

What I don't agree with:
You seem to believe that coherence precedes logic. This is incorrect. In your example, which set of statements should be chosen is determined by consensus (it requires agreement).

You seem to believe that coherence precedes logic. This is incorrect. In your example, your listener concludes that you are being incoherent precisely because he is using logic as a yardstick. But what determines the choice of yardstick? Obviously, we require an ex-ante standard to choose between possible yardsticks. So what we now call "logic" is, indeed, a set of statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules. But the choice of which set of statements should be chosen is determined by consensus (it requires agreement).

This is obviously not how logicians could work. Let's say a logician gets a set of formulae, A, and using a set of deductive principles now deduces another set B. Now imagine that there is something wrong about B, something counterintuitive anout this deduction. What does the logician do? Does he insist that it is logical? Or does he say there is something wrong about his logic rules? If he does the latter, is he then imposing some kind of 'internal' logic that is more accommodating than his formal logic?

I don't think that would be how a logician thinks. Logic is not like a grammar. A grammarian looks at the range of grammatical constructions and tries to find a set of rules that describe the language data. It is a matter of formalising people's grammatical intuitions. But logicians aren't interested in formalising people's intuitions of logic. In fact, they criticise it very often. What a logician does is not impose some kind of internal logic onto formal rules, like the man above. He doesn't choose from a set of yardsticks. I think one important way that a logician can work is to check the coherency of the statement. This does not mean using another yardstick. It means finding a real-world interpretation for propositions. If there could be some instantiation for A and ~A then it must be coherent.

Originally posted by SharpeMother
Yes, I agree. So how did this kind of logic come about to happen? Is it material in nature... like is it just a physical thing that happens in our brain that evolved over the course of billions of years, or is it something that has always existed? And if it's something that happens in our brains then how can absolutes exist? No one has identical brains, so what's to say that one brain might produce an altogether different kind of "logic"?

I don't see how the rules of logic could be things.

Originally posted by SharpeMother
Lol, ok, missed that. Thanks for clarifying.

Can you specify which assumptions haven't been proved? What exactly are you referring to?

Logic and reason aren't laws but are methodologies that we apply to what we observe to come to conclusions and work out the physical laws.

For example, in Newtonian physics, if you add two velocities (u and v) at slow speeds, the resulting total velocity (s) at the stationary frame of reference will be this:

s = v + u

This can be observed over and over again and always appear to be true at low velocities.

Later on, through observations by Michelson, Morley, Lorentz and Einstein, concluded this to be imprecise and at relativistic velocities (i.e. velocities which are significant fractions of the speed of light) you actually observe and derive this:

s = (v+u) / (1 + (vu / c^2))

In this case c^2 is "c squared" and I had to put extra brackets in as I couldn't graphically represent the equation, but hopefully it is clear enough. At slow speeds the denominator of the fraction will be very close to 1, so effectively be close to s = v + u as we see in every day life.

Basically what I am saying is that there are laws which we cannot prove are absolute or not. We use logic and reason, along with observation to discover them, and use words or mathematical language to describe them. The laws do not change as far as we can see, but our understanding can change where by we adjust the description of these laws to fit our new set of observations, and this is an on going process. What we know about these laws can be a long way off, and each observation and application of logic and reason gets us closer to the truth (even though we can be very far from it).

One major assumption is that you concluded that our currently imprecise knowledge of physical universe, of which gets more precise over time as we make more observations, some how concludes that there definitely aren't absolutes, and then all of a sudden said, "Therefore, there must be a god!".

Originally posted by SharpeMother
[b]"So what we now call "logic" is, indeed, a set of statements about the consequences of certain string manipulation rules. But the choice of which set of statements should be chosen is determined by consensus (it requires agreement)." - So how do the leading scientists and philosophers come to the same agreement (or consensus) of what logic is? H ...[text shortened]... what is logical? You use logic to agree on what is logic. So where did that logic come from?[/b]

I explained it after that quote. What wasn't clear?