What does it mean for something to be "logically possible"?

[ryan]

This is just saying that infinity doesn't exist with no reason why.

You have not shown how there is a difference between saying time is infinite and saying time is the Easter Bunny.

That doesn't make sense. For all practical purposes, time is a dimension; I shouldn't have to argue that it's not the Easter bunny.

Sure, infinity is a mathematical tool, but that doesn't make it real somehow.

I never said that it had to be real. You are the one saying it can't be real.

By what logic do you arrive at the conclusion that mathematical tools, mere imaginary concepts, can be realized?

I am not sure what you are asking. The mathematical tools are in the mind (well, some believe they are out there, but that's a whole other topic). The tools themselves don't get realized; the objects/systems they describe and predict are sometimes realized.

 

[Speakpigeon]

It's a basic introduction, aimed at the completely ignorant. Of course it's no good when viewed from the perspective of an expert; that's why all technical organisations which deal directly with the public need to keep an in-house ignoramus to test their instruction manuals against.

An attempt to be rigorous in an introductory text leads to boredom or confusion, when the goal should merely be sufficient understanding to be less likely to make gross errors.

Experts tend to be very bad at assessing the difference between a gross error and a trivial one, as they consider all errors to be unacceptable.

I guess my point was that there's actually no authoritative account of logic and by a long shot. You only need to know that something like 10% of logicians don't accept the mainstream view and can be very vocal about it. They see mainstream logic as no logic at all or irrelevant to the way human beings do it intuitively. So while there is a logorrhoea of books on logic, at all levels, most of them only reflect the mainstream view and they don't provide any compelling justification to support the mainstream view they accept without any critical sense.

My argument about logical possibility is that specialists routinely use the expression in a specific way, as reported by dictionaries, which are likely to be the real experts as to usage, and that this has to be the definition we use here, by default, i.e. unless otherwise specified. It's not a matter of understanding logic, or abiding to a particular view of logic. It's a matter of the linguistic usage of the expression 'logical possibility' in the community of logic specialists, even when they disagree about what logic is or the method or system they see as appropriate.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

... They see mainstream logic as no logic at all or irrelevant to the way human beings do it intuitively. ...

Seems to me a mathematically consistent logic is all we're jawing about. Why philosophers think they know something about how humans 'intuit' seems a bit far afield for consideration in logic development. I even have problems with mathematicians or cyberneticists dealing with something that is clearly much more far ranging than logic such as intuition.

I'm convinced logic is a branch, perhaps the main branch, of mathematics.

Further, I'm convinced that adding such as emotive indices to logical statements can do nothing but impede understanding of reasoning behavior.

If one wants to reason in ways humans reason about such as government and interpersonal relations, I say set that aside. A fool's errand. I've had adequate exposure to  Kurt Lewin's work in developing  Force field analysis to convince me such is just a waste of time, even though it has the beauty of treating the person in the moment. Kurt Lewin’s Dynamical Psychology Revisited and Revised http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/Rainio-Lewin's-psych-pdf-6-8-09.pdf

 

[Speakpigeon]

... They see mainstream logic as no logic at all or irrelevant to the way human beings do it intuitively. ...

Seems to me a mathematically consistent logic is all we're jawing about.

I have no idea what you could possibly mean by "mathematically consistent logic".

Consistency is a logical notion. It's the quality of not including any contradiction. Logic is more basic that maths so we expect that logical consistency will apply to all mathematical theories. I don't see how there would be any "mathematical consistency" applying to logic.

Formal logic and all mathematical theories are formal systems, which is maybe what confuses you. However, while logic is necessary to all mathematical theories (for proofs). I don't see how any mathematical theory would be necessary to formal logic, except by arbitrarily branding logic a mathematical theory. This is a confusion. Again, formal logic and all mathematical theories are similarly formal systems but that's also true of grammar, phonetics, geography, the rules of chess, all scientific theories etc. and we don't usually say these are part of mathematics. That's because there's a fundamental difference in what we want to do with them. Grammar, the rules of chess and scientific theories are all specific to a particular aspect of the material world. The formal system describing elementary particles might have been formally identical to that describing U.S. political institutions. We would still see particle physics as a different theory because what matters to us is its predictive power in relations to particle physics. Not so in mathematics. Although all mathematical theories are thought of as potentially applicable to some particular aspect of reality, they are considered for themselves, irrespective of their possible application to the material world. And when we do apply a mathematical theory, it's just as a tool. And so if formal logic was mathematical in nature, we would completely ignore that it is supposed to represent, possibly extend, how humans think logically. Aristotle's syllogistic logic was evidently trying to represent the way humans think logically, and as far as I know it got it completely right. Modern logic started out in that direction too. What mainstream logicians do today, however, is much less clear. For all I can see, they indeed treat logic as a mathematical theory, cut off from it's connection to human logic. It is seen as a formal system and most logicians do a job very similar to that of mathematicians with their own pet theory. However, this is a choice they make. They have decided to ignore human logic and gone all abstract and mathematical. Good for them. Personally, I see logic as an empirical discipline, based on observing what human beings do and describing that into a formal system, a theory, which should be able to predict what deductions humans do, something that mainstream logic couldn't possibly do. So they call what they do "formal logic" but it is essentially not representative of human logic. What is funny and ironic is that they still have to use human logic, their own, intuitive, non-formalised, sense of logic, to develop their system, like any mathematician, scientist and human being has to do. Some logicians produce useful work in some specific areas, thereby providing cover for all the others whose work's usefulness is anybody's guess. It's a massive waste of time and resources.

Why philosophers think they know something about how humans 'intuit' seems a bit far afield for consideration in logic development.

Syllogistic logic correctly describes the most fundamental aspect of the way humans reason. It is basic but correct. Its limitation is in not having extended human logic. Now, can you explain what mainstream logic represents and how it is useful?

I even have problems with mathematicians or cyberneticists dealing with something that is clearly much more far ranging than logic such as intuition.

Sorry you lost me there.

I'm convinced logic is a branch, perhaps the main branch, of mathematics.

That must be because you don't understand both what logic is and what mathematics is.

Further, I'm convinced that adding such as emotive indices to logical statements can do nothing but impede understanding of reasoning behavior.

Talking of 'intuition' is emotive?! Sir, we all have intuitions and the point is to acknowledge that the source of our logical abilities is our own sense of logic and the idea of observing what people do with it should stir something in the scientific you.

If one wants to reason in ways humans reason about such as government and interpersonal relations, I say set that aside. A fool's errand. I've had adequate exposure to  Kurt Lewin's work in developing  Force field analysis to convince me such is just a waste of time, even though it has the beauty of treating the person in the moment. Kurt Lewin’s Dynamical Psychology Revisited and Revised http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/Rainio-Lewin's-psych-pdf-6-8-09.pdf

There are psychological studies now conducted about our sense of logic, so I'm confident that the issue will be sorted out in due course. One conclusion already is that mainstream logic does seem compatible with human logic. We're getting there.

It has to be funny that you should see one particular effort as enough evidence to declare the whole direction of inquiry as closed. This is highly unscientific.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

If one wants to reason in ways humans reason about such as government and interpersonal relations, I say set that aside. A fool's errand. I've had adequate exposure to  Kurt Lewin's work in developing  Force field analysis to convince me such is just a waste of time, even though it has the beauty of treating the person in the moment. Kurt Lewin’s Dynamical Psychology Revisited and Revised http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/Rainio-Lewin's-psych-pdf-6-8-09.pdf

There are psychological studies now conducted about our sense of logic, so I'm confident that the issue will be sorted out in due course. One conclusion already is that mainstream logic does seem compatible with human logic. We're getting there.

It has to be funny that you should see one particular effort as enough evidence to declare the whole direction of inquiry as closed. This is highly unscientific.
EB

Thanks for the first bit. Nice refresher, but still leaves me a bit high and dry on the human aspect of logic and logic is not as is math.

I understand self reference as something with which philosophers feel comfortable. Obvious relation to how logic began. As for compatibility one needs to accept self reference as compatible with logical. I don't find that true. The main reason empirical method is the primary tool of science is that the self is biased and not ideal as an observer materially either. Anyone who has ever played with Theory of Signal Detection and who understands the principle of ideal operator can give you graphic data of that fact.

The point I was trying to make referring to Kurt Lewin is that he saw local transactions (in time and space) as paramount in human commerce and with human condition (again time and space). That is what goes on now is mostly related to what one is doing now when one gets involved in what one does now. Obviously history is important because it proves the frame for what can do now by determining capacities and facilities as evolved.

Still humans do on a come-serve basis so reasoning must subserve those markers. Since we are social, well, it's obvious that our emotional heritage determines our machinery directing processes. So a logic thus bound, human bound, emotional, not rational, not objective, ergo not logical, just won't do.

Yes, we are saddled with machinery that impacts how we behave and think. Even now we wrestle in the so called objective world with dimensional limitations both blinding us to observable material and blinding our conceiving to the dimensions with which we find ourselves equipped. Loaded on with the above are anscestral emotive modes alien to modern learning and best practices.

 

[Speakpigeon]

There are psychological studies now conducted about our sense of logic, so I'm confident that the issue will be sorted out in due course. One conclusion already is that mainstream logic does seem compatible with human logic. We're getting there.

It has to be funny that you should see one particular effort as enough evidence to declare the whole direction of inquiry as closed. This is highly unscientific.
EB

Thanks for the first bit. Nice refresher, but still leaves me a bit high and dry on the human aspect of logic and logic is not as is math.

Something you haven't understood yet, judging from one our past conversations: Everything humans have done that's a bit intelligent, from politics, agriculture, and medicine to science, philosophy and maths rest on our logical abilities, our sense of logic. It is accurate to say that any human civilisation, including our own today, developed on the back of this one horse. The logic humans can do intuitively, without using any formal method or machine, is both simple and sturdy. We discover interesting ideas by iterating, one obvious step after one obvious step. And it is universal. It applies to all areas susceptible to reasoning. Nothing terribly clever but we're many and we're all doing it and cumulatively it does work since we seem to have made progress. Basically, the human sense of logical has been described fully and accurately by Aristotle with his syllogistic theory. So far so good for our intuitive sense of logic. This disproves your contention that introspection is a poor means of observation. Please note that Aristotle's syllogistic theory was completed more than 2,200 years ago and that, notoriously, no one has been able to significantly improve on what he has done, and this despite our scientific acumen today. It is very impressive and only idiots are not impressed. I would say myself that it almost looks like a miracle. But no, it's just clever people doing clever things, things that most other people, including you obviously, don't even begin to understand. Things that most people won't ever understand.

Of course, since Aristotle only described what any idiot does anyway without even realising he is doing it, syllogistic logic is more of an intellectual curiosity than a useful method. That's where formal logic was supposed to come in handy. Formal logic should allow us to make more interesting deductions just because there's no theoretical limit to the complexity of those deductions. It would be useful because deduction is very much like headlight showing where there may be a path in the night of our ignorance. Our sense of logic is a very short range headlamp while formal logic potentially reaches to the horizon. How useful would that be do you think?

And of course, if our short range lamp works, there's no reason to assume a big lamp couldn't be made to work.

There's a limitation in practice because we have to use computers to do the calculations and the length of those computations is a double exponential function of the complexity of the logical formula computed. But there's no doubt we could shed a powerful light way beyond what our meagre sense of logic can do. We just need to do better than that to make it worthwhile. And that's what the current, mainstream, formal logic isn't doing right now. And by the way, mainstream logic is the love child of Positivism. It was founded at the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century when Positivism was at its peak. They manage to throw the baby out with the bath water, the idiots.

I understand self reference as something with which philosophers feel comfortable. Obvious relation to how logic began. As for compatibility one needs to accept self reference as compatible with logical. I don't find that true. The main reason empirical method is the primary tool of science is that the self is biased and not ideal as an observer materially either. Anyone who has ever played with Theory of Signal Detection and who understands the principle of ideal operator can give you graphic data of that fact.

Sure the self is biased but there's no other avenue to understand our sense of logic than to introspect. So biased has to be much, much better than nothing at all. And there's nothing to stop us doing a proper scientific investigation of our sense of logic and, again, some psychology labs have started doing just that.

The point I was trying to make referring to Kurt Lewin is that he saw local transactions (in time and space) as paramount in human commerce and with human condition (again time and space). That is what goes on now is mostly related to what one is doing now when one gets involved in what one does now. Obviously history is important because it proves the frame for what can do now by determining capacities and facilities as evolved.

Still humans do on a come-serve basis so reasoning must subserve those markers. Since we are social, well, it's obvious that our emotional heritage determines our machinery directing processes. So a logic thus bound, human bound, emotional, not rational, not objective, ergo not logical, just won't do.

Yes, we are saddled with machinery that impacts how we behave and think. Even now we wrestle in the so called objective world with dimensional limitations both blinding us to observable material and blinding our conceiving to the dimensions with which we find ourselves equipped. Loaded on with the above are anscestral emotive modes alien to modern learning and best practices.

I think your premises are flawed. There's absolutely no good reason to assume that our sense of logic is coloured in some way by our emotions, although I accept that it's a possibility for many people, certainly judging by what people say on this supposedly rationalist forum. Rather, logic is just one among various options available to us. We can choose between an emotional response or a logical one. Clearly, our brain makes the choice but when it goes for the logical then it's one hundred percent logical, and not coloured by any emotion at all (or it can be if you're not an idiot).

Again, Aristotle's work just demonstrated that it can be done by doing it. You just are too ignorant to have realised this.

Further, I don't see what would be the selective advantage of a sense of logic that would be irremediably coloured by our emotions while I can see how keeping our options open makes sense. Sometimes, emotions just work much, much better.



Now if you could explain how one could go about conceiving a method of formal logic that would perform at least as well as our intuitive sense of logic but without taking any inspiration from our ability to introspect, I would be very, very interested. The only logic we know works is that given by our sense of logic, a human, intuitive ability, and it's been accurately described by Aristotle. We could look at animals perhaps? Aliens? Computers? What is it you think humans could choose to observe out there to improve scientifically on our logic? Mainstream logicians seem to have stopped pretending they have the answer to that. Maybe you can do better? Here is your chance to impress me.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Thanks for the first bit. Nice refresher, but still leaves me a bit high and dry on the human aspect of logic and logic is not as is math.

Something you haven't understood yet, judging from one our past conversations: Everything humans have done that's a bit intelligent, from politics, agriculture, and medicine to science, philosophy and maths rest on our logical abilities, our sense of logic. It is accurate to say that any human civilisation, including our own today, developed on the back of this one horse. The logic humans can do intuitively, without using any formal method or machine, is both simple and sturdy. We discover interesting ideas by iterating, one obvious step after one obvious step. And it is universal. It applies to all areas susceptible to reasoning. Nothing terribly clever but we're many and we're all doing it and cumulatively it does work since we seem to have made progress. Basically, the human sense of logical has been described fully and accurately by Aristotle with his syllogistic theory. So far so good for our intuitive sense of logic. This disproves your contention that introspection is a poor means of observation. Please note that Aristotle's syllogistic theory was completed more than 2,200 years ago and that, notoriously, no one has been able to significantly improve on what he has done, and this despite our scientific acumen today. It is very impressive and only idiots are not impressed. I would say myself that it almost looks like a miracle. But no, it's just clever people doing clever things, things that most other people, including you obviously, don't even begin to understand. Things that most people won't ever understand.

Of course, since Aristotle only described what any idiot does anyway without even realising he is doing it, syllogistic logic is more of an intellectual curiosity than a useful method. That's where formal logic was supposed to come in handy. Formal logic should allow us to make more interesting deductions just because there's no theoretical limit to the complexity of those deductions. It would be useful because deduction is very much like headlight showing where there may be a path in the night of our ignorance. Our sense of logic is a very short range headlamp while formal logic potentially reaches to the horizon. How useful would that be do you think?

And of course, if our short range lamp works, there's no reason to assume a big lamp couldn't be made to work.

There's a limitation in practice because we have to use computers to do the calculations and the length of those computations is a double exponential function of the complexity of the logical formula computed. But there's no doubt we could shed a powerful light way beyond what our meagre sense of logic can do. We just need to do better than that to make it worthwhile. And that's what the current, mainstream, formal logic isn't doing right now. And by the way, mainstream logic is the love child of Positivism. It was founded at the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century when Positivism was at its peak. They manage to throw the baby out with the bath water, the idiots.

We do have a problem. My view is that our strength as an animal with a nervous system is we associate  Association (psychology) One can go to  Intuition where one will find both psychology and philosophy represented and we can see where association underlies both domain views.

I understand self reference as something with which philosophers feel comfortable. Obvious relation to how logic began. As for compatibility one needs to accept self reference as compatible with logical. I don't find that true. The main reason empirical method is the primary tool of science is that the self is biased and not ideal as an observer materially either. Anyone who has ever played with Theory of Signal Detection and who understands the principle of ideal operator can give you graphic data of that fact.

Sure the self is biased but there's no other avenue to understand our sense of logic than to introspect. So biased has to be much, much better than nothing at all. And there's nothing to stop us doing a proper scientific investigation of our sense of logic and, again, some psychology labs have started doing just that.

Again it's just complex associative processes that underlay what you say here. Logic has way too much philosopher in it to be credited with underlying such accomplishments.

The point I was trying to make referring to Kurt Lewin is that he saw local transactions (in time and space) as paramount in human commerce and with human condition (again time and space). That is what goes on now is mostly related to what one is doing now when one gets involved in what one does now. Obviously history is important because it proves the frame for what can do now by determining capacities and facilities as evolved.

Still humans do on a come-serve basis so reasoning must subserve those markers. Since we are social, well, it's obvious that our emotional heritage determines our machinery directing processes. So a logic thus bound, human bound, emotional, not rational, not objective, ergo not logical, just won't do.

Yes, we are saddled with machinery that impacts how we behave and think. Even now we wrestle in the so called objective world with dimensional limitations both blinding us to observable material and blinding our conceiving to the dimensions with which we find ourselves equipped. Loaded on with the above are anscestral emotive modes alien to modern learning and best practices.

I think your premises are flawed. There's absolutely no good reason to assume that our sense of logic is coloured in some way by our emotions, although I accept that it's a possibility for many people, certainly judging by what people say on this supposedly rationalist forum. Rather, logic is just one among various options available to us. We can choose between an emotional response or a logical one. Clearly, our brain makes the choice but when it goes for the logical then it's one hundred percent logical, and not coloured by any emotion at all (or it can be if you're not an idiot).

Again, Aristotle's work just demonstrated that it can be done by doing it. You just are too ignorant to have realised this.

Further, I don't see what would be the selective advantage of a sense of logic that would be irremediably coloured by our emotions while I can see how keeping our options open makes sense. Sometimes, emotions just work much, much better.



Now if you could explain how one could go about conceiving a method of formal logic that would perform at least as well as our intuitive sense of logic but without taking any inspiration from our ability to introspect, I would be very, very interested. The only logic we know works is that given by our sense of logic, a human, intuitive ability, and it's been accurately described by Aristotle. We could look at animals perhaps? Aliens? Computers? What is it you think humans could choose to observe out there to improve scientifically on our logic? Mainstream logicians seem to have stopped pretending they have the answer to that. Maybe you can do better? Here is your chance to impress me.
EB

Now you've gone on the defensive. Emotion is as central to human decision making as is association, organization, rehearsal, recovery (other psychology organizing principles).

Intuition is something man invented to explain how one goes from observation to solution without physical intervention. So I put that aside as an explanation for anything.

I really get mad when someone says introspection is an asset. It's a default perspective for those who take advantage of learning without understanding learning is based on manipulation so they willingly throw in introspection, some kind of looking for answers from within as a replacement for experiment and manipulation without having to do the work.

I need merely point you to the change in buildup usable knowledge since the advent of empirical methods as the basis for knowledge acquisition, even taking away the printing press.

Intuition, introspection, romantic terms, full of fondness and emotion with little concrete or data to back up what are claimed for them.

Sorry. No new philosophy for you just the scientific method.

Still, your tour of intuition and introspection and philosophy puts me in a frame more suited to where our difference lie.

I guess it's why I dismiss philosophy, home of the creation of logic, as having much validity in suggestions about the richness if logic as something different from and more than mathematics, or in one's capacity as a philosopher to divorce oneself from his emotional base when holding forth as a logician.

I thank you for the read.

 

[Speakpigeon]

We do have a problem. My view is that our strength as an animal with a nervous system is we associate  Association (psychology) One can go to  Intuition where one will find both psychology and philosophy represented and we can see where association underlies both domain views.

Sure but are you going to stop using words just because you can express the same idea with a whole treaty? I can tell you it wouldn't work.

The question may be what do we mean by 'intuition' and what explanatory use does it have in our perspective. So, let me fill you in.

I speak of intuition just as I would speak of vision, smell, touch, etc. It's nothing if not a perception of something within us, within, say, our brain or our mind. Intuition is very much like the perception of some result your brain has produced through an otherwise unconscious process. It does all the calculation and present you with the result and you are not to dismiss it. You invariably like it. So you take it.

That's how we get to know our logic. Our brain does the calculation and we get to know the result and we take it: All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. Tell me you don't accept the conclusion given the premises and I'll tell you you are an absolute idiot.

So I gather from you referencing Wiki that you can't think for yourself what intuition may be and how useful a concept it could be. All you see is all the things people you dislike have said about intuition and this alone prompts you to dismiss the concept of intuition itself. This is plain idiocy. This is being closed-minded. This is being partisan. You let your logic being clogged by your emotions, which has to be ironic.

Again it's just complex associative processes that underlay what you say here. Logic has way too much philosopher in it to be credited with underlying such accomplishments.

That again is telling. I am talking about logic as a human capability, much like I would talk of 'intelligence', 'memory', 'language'. Logic as such is entirely independent from whatever philosophers and logicians have said about it and more importantly from whatever method of logic that may have put forward, say syllogistic for Aristotle and Formal Logic for modern logicians. You are here talking about syllogistic and Formal Logic.

This shows you didn't get what I said. So, let me repeat: Everything humans have done that's a bit intelligent, from politics, agriculture, and medicine to science, philosophy and maths rest on our logical abilities, our sense of logic.

See, I was talking of "our logical abilities, our sense of logic", not of syllogistic for Aristotle and Formal Logic.

Look again at what I did say. I didn't say what humans have done rested on Aristotle's syllogistic or on modern logicians' Formal Logic. In fact, I actually said both didn't do anything very much. You missed that, so here it is again:

Of course, since Aristotle only described what any idiot does anyway without even realising he is doing it, syllogistic logic is more of an intellectual curiosity than a useful method.

That's where formal logic was supposed to come in handy. <snip> there's no doubt we could shed a powerful light way beyond what our meagre sense of logic can do. We just need to do better than that to make it worthwhile. And that's what the current, mainstream, formal logic isn't doing right now. And by the way, mainstream logic is the love child of Positivism. It was founded at the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century when Positivism was at its peak. They manage to throw the baby out with the bath water, the idiots.

See, it was all there for you to pick up without any effort and yet you just missed it. You should try to open your mind a bit, that would help a lot. Oysters don't rule the world.

Now you've gone on the defensive. Emotion is as central to human decision making as is association, organization, rehearsal, recovery (other psychology organizing principles).

Emotion definitely plays a crucial role. How crucial is precisely what you don't actually know and yet here you just feel good pretending you know that. 'Emotion is central'! My arse. Prove it.

My view is that emotion can take over but does not necessarily take over. All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. I would have to be very upset to find myself denying the truth of that one syllogism. So, emotion is not central. It's crucial, it can take over, but it does not necessarily do so.

And you claim more than you can chew.

Intuition is something man invented to explain how one goes from observation to solution without physical intervention. So I put that aside as an explanation for anything.

That's bullshit too. You could just as well say that vision is something man invented to explain how one goes from our surroundings to our knowledge of our surroundings without physical intervention. This is so pathetic I want to cry.

Intuition is a feature of the way our mind, or our brain, works. Men noticed this feature and agreed on a name for it. End of story.

So, what you are seen as doing is again you looked at all these bad people you don't like who discussed intuition and you choose to dismiss the concept of intuition because of what they said without realising it's a useful concept because it refers to something real that's going on inside our mind or brain and it just saves time to use this handy word. Again, you show yourself as closed-minded and excessively emotional.

I really get mad when someone says introspection is an asset.

Yes, I know, you are excessively emotional.

It's a default perspective for those who take advantage of learning without understanding learning is based on manipulation so they willingly throw in introspection, some kind of looking for answers from within as a replacement for experiment and manipulation without having to do the work.

I can see what you mean but one can use introspection to carry out a useful job. I did it, I know.

I need merely point you to the change in buildup usable knowledge since the advent of empirical methods as the basis for knowledge acquisition, even taking away the printing press.

Yes, and without our sense of logic, we would have gone nowhere fast.

Intuition, introspection, romantic terms, full of fondness and emotion with little concrete or data to back up what are claimed for them.

What I claim for intuition and introspection is that it is a human capability like vision and hearing. You couldn't even not use intuition if you wanted to. You remain free of not introspecting, though. You loss.

As such, intuition and introspection can help us understand what our brain or mind does.

Sorry. No new philosophy for you just the scientific method.

It seems to me the scientific method has long become just a word for you.

Still, your tour of intuition and introspection and philosophy puts me in a frame more suited to where our difference lie.

I guess it's why I dismiss philosophy, home of the creation of logic, as having much validity in suggestions about the richness if logic as something different from and more than mathematics, or in one's capacity as a philosopher to divorce oneself from his emotional base when holding forth as a logician.

I thank you for the read.

I won't accept your thanks since it's abundantly clear you've missed most of what I said.

Also, I didn't talk about philosophy at all. Sure, Aristotle is your archetypal philosopher but his work on logic doesn't properly belong to his philosophical work. It's on its own and syllogistic is usually part of the cursus on logic rather than on philosophy. So again, it's rather telling that you should be so obsessed with that. You're so obsessed and emotional there's no rational discussion possible.

Which explains years of trying and failing. You give the change by brandishing the 'scientific method' at every turn of the conversation but this is vacuous because meanwhile you keep failing at understanding what people say, as is abundantly clear in your post here.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Rather than, I'm just going to read your post and react to it in a single tract of my own.

One can't speak of intiution as if. It is made from whole cloth it has it's own life without ever being validated empirically. If it is perception it is a fabricated one without material substance. By material substance I mean the thing, intuition, is not of the attributes you claim, perception, unconscious process.

If one actually comes up with understanding without empirical sweat, one does so from memories associated with current circumstances perhaps with physical mechanics of such as mirror cells. Notice this is a perhaps statement, it can't be thus established beyond my logical exercise through just throwing that I know what I know of brain and function.

It is the processes required to achieve said understanding. They do so because one has experience, similar experience to which one can refer, try out, and use associative capabilities to produce what you call an intuited understanding. Leave out intuition and you have the same result.

I reject the construction. It becomes known that Socrates is mortal only if we associate Socrates with man and associate man with mortality. All these are no more than associations we have drawn from experience. So the only logic there is is the paradigm you describe. The processes are different.

The brain does the calculation because it has the experience and it is motivated to do so. Ah, emotion raises it's cute little head. Busted. At your logic's very base is emotion.

I would not insist that a tiger construct similar relations in it's venture with available food. Yet it intuits, using your word, calf is food, food satisfies hunger, therefore calf satisfies hunger. Yet the tiger gets the job done. Or, I could say the Tiger example falsifies your claim logic, not associations, are required in intuition.

I use wiki as a shorthand sparing you the agony of me saying the sames things clumsily.

I dislike intuition because it is clearly not consistent with what we know about how the human brain functions. The brain, let me say it again, uses the neural principles of association, memory, rehearsal or if you prefer testing, and grouping to do it's work. After all, every element in the brain is some sort of a switch, which I might say, is demonstratively evident.

No, sir, the closed mind is yours because you are invested in your view from which you cannot divest yourself for even this narrow rational discussion.

Of course you are talking about logic like it were intelligence, language, none of which are known beyond the naming of them for the most part. I'd say language comes closest to being defined physically unless you are all wrapped up in Chomsky where you'd be far afield.

You may trace roots of problems to philosophy but, since they advanced from just so to rational thinking. So instead of attributing everything to gods or spirits or auras philosophers parsed them out to domains of thought, their products of which were almost universally mythological. Turtles, edges, fluids, etc, etc, etc are the outcomes of all this radical thinking. That which came though were from such as Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, who were much more systematic and much more empirical in their traipsing.

According to a friend from the '60s he agrees positivism and modern logic are wasted water. I think that is why he went to translating post Mohammad (700-900 AD) Arabic bawdy poems for a degree rather than finishing his doctorate in philosophy. He was an important reason I came to latch onto your views as incentive.

Now let's come back to emotion. I've already demonstrated intuition depends on motivation (emotion) at it's core or it wouldn't be exercised at all. Remember, I'm not denying the three aspects, just the process AND the central part emotion plays in it. Without emotion one would not look inwardly to find something different because without emotion it wouldn't be necessary (emotion, again).

I'm reminded of Maxx Headroom's exploding man watching the TV here.

You're so hung up on your terms you don't recognize vision has a known and measured physical basis unlike intuition which has no such basis for being.

Look if you want to call something with no basis in the brain intuition when I make it clear that neural association serves the basis for such as you describe along with emotional attributes driving the process. What I'm just as clear about is that emotion isn't reliable so other means need be applied if one is going to find how things work reliably. Those other means are experiment and control, things outside an individual negating individual impulses for one's way as the one leading to reality.

Now down to the chips flying. You couldn't have carried out useful job without experience, memory, and learned capacity. I'm pretty sure I can vouch for what I say. Can you really assert otherwise?

Actually we were going nowhere fast with intuition until experimentation became the center piece for examining properties of the world.

Wow. Throwing the introspection grenade. I certainly didn't instrospect the notion that moving sound sources improved under normal use conditions (these are conditions expected in a generalized environment (not one inside with fans, ventilators, walls, etc.). Nope I just generalized the ideas of Doppler to all moving sources and listeners.

I've read a lot of cognitive stuff and I can safely say there has been, and still is, a lot of flapping faces about what the the brain and mind does. It all comes down to the notion that the closer one is to observation from reception the better the result (One synapse data and theory are better than seven intervening synapse data and theory.)

You just don't want to accept the dead pool, call it philosophy, is inert after the advent of empirical study with controls.

 

[untermensche]

You have not shown how there is a difference between saying time is infinite and saying time is the Easter Bunny.

That doesn't make sense. For all practical purposes, time is a dimension; I shouldn't have to argue that it's not the Easter bunny.

YES.

Time is a dimension.

And dimensions are as closely related to the Easter Bunny as they are related to another imaginary concept, infinity.

 

[Speakpigeon]

One can't speak of intiution as if. It is made from whole cloth it has it's own life without ever being validated empirically. If it is perception it is a fabricated one without material substance. By material substance I mean the thing, intuition, is not of the attributes you claim, perception, unconscious process.

If one actually comes up with understanding without empirical sweat

You did sweat without the understanding, though.

And you'd need to understand the ordinary sense of intuition to say anything valuable on the subject.

You're so pathetic I'm going to spell out what intuitions are, in the ordinary sense of the term.

I guess I'm interested to see if you can maintain your idiotic posture.

So here it goes.

Intuition is like perception in that you are aware of something which is clearly just an idea, i.e. something in your own mind. So, in this sense, you "perceive" this idea which is somehow in your own mind. In that, it wouldn't be different from just having an idea, any idea, as long as you are effectively aware of it. There has to be a difference, though, otherwise we wouldn't talk of these ideas as being intuitions. The difference is that all intuitions are obviously a result of a computation. However, this would make intuitions like the result of thinking (conscious thinking), which is not what we mean by intuition. So, an intuition is an idea which is the result of some mental computation where the computation process remains unconscious. So, you are aware of the result without being aware of the mental process that produced the result, i.e. without being of aware of having had to think to arrive at the intuition. That there must be a computation is just inferred from the fact that an intuition always somehow adds something valuable to the preceding thought without being explained as resulting from it through a thinking process.

Some examples of possible intuitions:

Preceding thought------------------------------------------------>Intuition

2 + 3-------------------------------------------------------------->5
Solid objects can float on water--------------------------------->Hydrostatic law
Successive events A and B-------------------------------------->A caused B
All men are mortal and Socrates is a man--------------------->Therefore Socrates is mortal

Now obviously, all ideas have to be the result of some computation by the brain so are in effect intuitions but it is clear that we are ordinarily only interested in a particular kind of intuitions, in particular those like the Archimedes Principle. It is Hume who realised that causality was intuitive. Additions, multiplications and deductions can sometimes remain intuitive but they can also require conscious thinking and sometimes a good memory can be enough but we can tell apart which we use to do the job, if we pay attention.

Over to you, you bright though long retired scientist.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Thank you Speakpigeon. I'll maintain my idiotic posture without having to dissemble as you did after you wrote "So here it goes". Goes indeed. I needn't repeat it since you wrote it.

 

[LordKiran]

Isn't the phrase "Logically possible" a tautology? Doesn't something being 'possible' require first that it be logical? Doesn't everything happen for a reason?

 

[ryan]

That doesn't make sense. For all practical purposes, time is a dimension; I shouldn't have to argue that it's not the Easter bunny.

YES.

Time is a dimension.

And dimensions are as closely related to the Easter Bunny as they are related to another imaginary concept, infinity.

So not only is infinity impossible, but widths, lengths and depths are impossible too?

 

[untermensche]

YES.

Time is a dimension.

And dimensions are as closely related to the Easter Bunny as they are related to another imaginary concept, infinity.

So not only is infinity impossible, but widths, lengths and depths are impossible too?

Nobody ever said time was impossible.

Only that trying to attach this imaginary concept, infinity, to time is no different from trying to attach the Easter Bunny to time.

There is no difference between saying: "Time is infinite", and saying: "Time is the Easter Bunny".

Both claims make just as much sense.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Isn't the phrase "Logically possible" a tautology?

No because there are different kinds of possibilities: logical, metaphysical, physical, epistemological.

Doesn't something being 'possible' require first that it be logical?

The notion of logical possibility is broader than the notion of physical possibility, so, inevitably, something physically possible will be logically possible. But 'possible' on it's own may mean logical, metaphysical, physical, or epistemological possibility.

Doesn't everything happen for a reason?

It is logically possible that my car is one of the planets orbiting the sun, at least as long as you haven't specified what a planet is in such a way that it would become a contradiction to say that my car is a planet.

The reason that my car would be a planet orbiting the sun might be that NASA sent my car around the sun to secretly test the first Saturn rocket in 1960 rather than just because it was a logically possibility.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Thank you Speakpigeon. I'll maintain my idiotic posture without having to dissemble as you did after you wrote "So here it goes". Goes indeed. I needn't repeat it since you wrote it.

I'm not surprised.
EB

 

[Kharakov]

Why is that EVERYONE's terrible example of a logical contradiction!? What definition of a circle are you people using? Argh... /mathrant

I love the "square with corners removed by smaller squares"- circle.

I use infinigon, like everyone else.

 

[ryan]

So not only is infinity impossible, but widths, lengths and depths are impossible too?

Nobody ever said time was impossible.

Only that trying to attach this imaginary concept, infinity, to time is no different from trying to attach the Easter Bunny to time.

There is no difference between saying: "Time is infinite", and saying: "Time is the Easter Bunny".

Both claims make just as much sense.

Does the Easter bunny or infinity (infinitely long lengths or quantity in any of the 4 dimensions) break the laws of physics?

 

[untermensche]

Nobody ever said time was impossible.

Only that trying to attach this imaginary concept, infinity, to time is no different from trying to attach the Easter Bunny to time.

There is no difference between saying: "Time is infinite", and saying: "Time is the Easter Bunny".

Both claims make just as much sense.

Does the Easter bunny or infinity (infinitely long lengths or quantity in any of the 4 dimensions) break the laws of physics?

Imaginary objects exist only in minds or as symbols.

The laws of the universe have no connection except they allowed a brain to evolve capable of having thoughts.