Logic Plus

[Shevek]

When I was young, a lot of what I "knew" was deduced from other information given. I'd learn a rule, and then see several corollaries as well. When I learned the Golden Rule, and saw that it could keep me out of lots of trouble I hadn't been warned about, I made it a foundation. Subsequently, I was quite deaf to suggestions that I take advantage of family connections that others lacked. It was many years before I learned to stop expecting others to be logical and consistent. Does this resonate with you?

 

[MildredHubble]

It took me a long time to realise that a lot of people in my life didn't think like I do. Your eyes are your window to the world so I guess you believe others follow similar thinking processes to your own. Another thing is that I was told so often that everyone else was so much more rational and smarter than I was. I believed that if someone else dismissed my point of view, it was because my thinking was so flawed as it didn't resemble the majority of other people's.

I'm not immune to emotional thinking, however I find that with a good deal of people, if we are debating a contentious issue, I will try to use logical thinking and facts to examine their assertions (and mine) but they will often respond with anger, shouting and appeals to emotion, particularly if I can independently verify my argument.

I have a book by Wilfred Hodges on Logic. One of the things they talk about is the use of "Declarative Statements" and how you can examine any declarative statement by reframing it as "Is it true that...." I realised that I had done this for most of my life.

Lots of people try to establish something as fact, whether it's true or not by using declarative statements and I've noticed a lot of people don't even question them. Unfortunately I have a habit of questioning things.

One example that was particularly significant to me (and I know I keep ruminating on this) is when a doctor tried to assert that a diagnosis I had received over a decade before didn't exist. I tried, very patiently to ask basically "is that true?".

I began to ask a series of simple questions like "if I didn't get diagnosis 'A', then why am I prescribed medication 'P'?", "If you say that I have diagnosis 'Q' then explain how i demonstrate the requisite symptoms." This just caused this apparently mature professional to explode in a juvenile rage. I got the distinctive impression that he wasn't used to being questioned and that he was quite used to bullying people that do question him.

His "counter arguments" amounted to a series of appeals to emotion, ad hominems, and appeals to his authority. He then in a retaliatory response began to gleefully list off things as "symptoms" like an over the top bingo caller.

I think it comes down to this: A lot of people use emotion to present arguments and presume their opponent does that too. When you present a logical counter argument, they respond with heightened emotion. I suppose logical people argue with what they believe strongly to be fact based truth while others argue to protect their ego.

It took me a long time to realise, as I thought these situations occured due to my apparently obvious ineptitude, but in reality certain people responded with rage to my arguments because it was the last refuge they had. I can only imagine the injury it caused to the ego of certain teachers I had as a kid, to have their spurious arguments defeated, logically and calmly by a 12 year old. The only option they had was to use fire and brimstone to regain their (perceived) diminished authority.

 

[Shevek]

The query was specifically about seeing multiple corollaries that our elders were not aware of when they made a statement. Sometimes, more than one "given" would be involved in our conclusions.

I never got people shouting at me, perhaps because I didn't tie them in knots with questions. This may show a better way to do that:

My parents had made it very clear, very early, that appeals would never be entertained. Eventually, I realized that authority is necessary in society so that stupid workers can apply rules worked out by wiser heads, even though they have to be rigid about it, unable to see and apply the spirit of the law as clearly as temptation to be corrupt.
The archetype for an authoritarian system, in which we all get used to the pattern, is our childhood home. The mother is typically trying to manage housekeeping while also raising kids. We homo sapiens have a very long childhood and adolescence to program our bigger brains, and during that time, we are a danger to both ourselves and others. The mother has to be assumed to be wiser, even if she has just changed her mind three times, because the children's judgement is even worse. She may swat the kid that didn't start the fight, but that's trivial, as we still depend on her for food.
When you poke logical holes in someone's world view, even if there's no question of challenging authority, they become very uncomfortable. If a fact does not fit in with the mosaic of interlocking ideas they steer by, it can easily be dismissed as a faulty observation. If they try to entertain it, it just does not hook up with the rest of the pattern, and building a whole new one is more work than a messy divorce.
One of the classic studies was in geology. The biologists got out exploring first, and were puzzled about how related species could be on two sides of an ocean. The geologists got to work on that, and decided that "land bridges" (causeways, actually) had been common, but then vanished beneath the waves. Their field workers, though, kept coming up with related rocks also separated by oceans, and different types of rocks right next to each other. The evidence got overwhelming, but a whole generation of tenured professors wouldn't teach continental drift, because they couldn't imagine what would cause that.

 

[MildredHubble]

I never got people shouting at me, perhaps because I didn't tie them in knots with questions. This may show a better way to do that:

Often, particularly as a kid, I wasn't asking questions ad nauseam, I just politely kept to the truth. If someone accused me of stealing an apple I would ask why they believed that. Then I'd point out that there was no evidence I even had apple, that there was no evidence I took the apple, and point out that I was never in close proximity to the apple.

I had the erroneous belief that the truth was important to teachers etc. They kept saying they wanted the truth. Over time I came to realise they wanted to dictate the truth and so reality. That's highly illogical behaviour.

I didn't understand that if they decided that something was true about me, regardless of the facts, that I was supposed to capitulate. I thought their requests for "the truth" were genuine, when really it was about imposing their will.

But this is very dangerous behaviour to engage in. I don't care how angry and belligerent a person becomes. I will not pretend black is white, up is down, hot is cold or left is right.

I like Trevor Noah, I actually (in real life interactions) have a similar approach to his in these situations. I don't raise my voice, I explain patiently, and I'm respectful. Unfortunately you can't make people respond in kind. They may mistake these actions as indication that they just need to intimidate to "win" the argument.

Often in these analysis videos the advice given often requires events to unfold exactly like they do in the videos to be valid. If I disagree with a flat earther and follow the advice in the videos it doesn't mean much if the flat rather responds to my argument and demeanour with a baseball bat.

 

[Shevek]

Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to what had been presented???

 

[MildredHubble]

Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to what had been presented???

If you start with a false premise, whatever follows is likely to be untrue.

For example if someone says "Mildred, do you like apples?" and I reply "Why yes, yes I do." And then follow with "Well an apple was stolen at work yesterday, and since you freely admit you like apples, you must have stolen it." The false premise leads to fallacious conclusions, in this case "People who like apples, steal apples." It's a false dilemma.

If I challenge the false premise, with for example "I wasn't at work yesterday." Then that should invalidate the accusation. Instead since the desired outcome is to scapegoat me for stealing the apple, some people will subtly change their rationale to try and retrieve their argument.

We are also in "Affirming the Consequent" territory as just because some people that like apples steal apples, doesn't mean that only people who like apples steal apples.

Accuser: "Just because you weren't working yesterday doesn't mean you couldn't have sneaked in and stolen it, and no one would have suspected since you work here!"

To which I reply "Is there any reason to suspect I sneaked in?"

Accuser: "Yes because you like apples."

So we end up in circular logic territory.

Me: "Well I can prove I wasn't at work yesterday."

Accuser "How?"

Me "I was at a job interview."

Accuser "Job interview!? Well that settles it, only someone who wouldn't inform us of a job interview would be so dishonest as to steal an Apple!"

This is just a generic example based on previous experience. The "Apple" is a placeholder for other things. Incidentally in a similar real life example the "Apple" showed up, but not before I was interrogated, apparently found guilty and was summarily told to pay £600 for an "Apple" that was never missing in the first place.

The logical thing to do would have been to apologise, but that didn't happen.

 

[Shevek]

Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to a truth that had been presented? For instance, "Everyone should try to conserve energy" coming with some exceptions to "everyone."

 

[MildredHubble]

Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to a truth that had been presented? For instance, "Everyone should try to conserve energy" coming with some exceptions to "everyone."

I think I may be misunderstanding. In the "apples" example I gave, the "established truth" was that I "liked apples" therefore was guilty. If you are asking if the disagreement was based on something already proven and therefore the conclusions made were self evident, then, no they hadn't presented a truth that makes the conclusion valid.

So in the example of my doctor, he had not read my medical notes. It appears that at a point leading up to that, my previous doctors etc could not locate my diagnosis owing to issues getting my documents from another trust (NHS organisation). Regardless of this, it would only take a moment (as it did for me) to jump straight to the year (2008) in my notes and there it was, where it had always been. Ironically, the new trust DID have my notes and diagnosis matched one I claimed. They were also the trust that made the diagnosis in the first place.

So it appears (with some strong evidence to confirm it) they had simply read the most recent entry in my notes, wrongly concluded there was no diagnosis and had concluded (without informing me) that I must have lied which was then used as evidence to make a new diagnosis (again without informing me). All of which is illegal and against protocol.

They "thought" they had established a truth and would not listen to any evidence that contradicted it. It took a long time to clear that up and it was an uphill struggle against their attempts to try to gaslight me.

However, if we are talking corollaries as I (hopefully) understand them. It is simply not possible for a patient to obtain a prescription for the medication I'm on unless prescribed for a diagnosed condition coming from a qualified doctor. Therefore we can be confident, at the very least that we can infer that I must have received a diagnosis.

The "disagreements" were not based on some self evident truth or inference. They were based on false allegations that were shown to be exactly that.

 

[Levitator]

When I was young, a lot of what I "knew" was deduced from other information given. I'd learn a rule, and then see several corollaries as well. When I learned the Golden Rule, and saw that it could keep me out of lots of trouble I hadn't been warned about, I made it a foundation. Subsequently, I was quite deaf to suggestions that I take advantage of family connections that others lacked. It was many years before I learned to stop expecting others to be logical and consistent. Does this resonate with you?

Yes. I built up my sense of morality teaching myself logic and reason in order to meet objectives, such as competency with computers, all as an alternative to the social participation that was denied to me. It doesn't give you a full picture of values or morality, but it teaches you things like intellectual honesty, integrity, precision, and other good qualities. You're ultimately testing and challenging yourself with real things, so you know that your success is a measure of real qualities you're developing. It takes a very long time to understand that other people were not forced to come up that way, and they don't operate anything like that. They intuit and socially read what it is that they can get away with, and they do it, irrespective of right or wrong.

 

[MildredHubble]

I read a study quite a while ago where they created a language built on logic. The participants were taught the language and used it to communicate with eachother. The participants reported that their way of thinking changed quite drastically and they began to become mildly irritated when talking to other people outside of the study as they found their conversations muddled and erratic.

I think being obsessed with electronics and computers growing up, perhaps a similar thing occured with myself. If a program I wrote didn't work, it had to be due to a flaw in it's logic. It came down to "true" or "false". The electronics in a computer follow this binary, electronics in general follow this binary. Either a switch is flipped or it's not, there's no middle ground.

When I was a kid I remember thinking in these terms. Either something is "true" or it's "false" and if we can't establish that then we say we don't know and try to follow the evidence to try and have a better answer.

I can't fix my car by sending it positive vibes. I can't fix my computer by really gosh darned believing in it. The problem is that I keep encountering people who do think like this. There's a need to do, what I refer to as "negotiate with reality" or just outright dictate it. I just can't think that way myself. This tends to be the source of most "disagreements" I find myself in.

I was once handed an incredibly sophisticated circuit board by a work colleague and asked if I could make a copy of it. I told him "no, unless you can give me a team of people, a few hundred thousand £s worth of equipment and about 6 months." He got a bit snitty and said "Why not, you said you had experience with electronics?!". I went on to explain that the board was likely 4 layered, with several custom CPLD chips. I couldn't simply go to work with a multimeter and reverse engineer it. Furthermore, this board was supposed to control machinery and therefore a clone wouldn't have been tested for safety issues. But all I got in response was thinly veiled accusations that I had lied about my electronics skills.

The irony here is that I would never claim I could do something beyond my experience so in reality I was being very honest about the limitations of my knowledge and skills. Could I have knocked something together that performed the same function? Quite possibly. Would I be able to predict every eventuality necessary to make it safe as the original? Probably not. I wasn't going to take that risk and just hope for the best when it could have lead to serious injury. But apparently this philosophy means I'm dishonest to some people.

 

[Levitator]

I read a study quite a while ago where they created a language built on logic. The participants were taught the language and used it to communicate with eachother. The participants reported that their way of thinking changed quite drastically and they began to become mildly irritated when talking to other people outside of the study as they found their conversations muddled and erratic.

I think being obsessed with electronics and computers growing up, perhaps a similar thing occured with myself. If a program I wrote didn't work, it had to be due to a flaw in it's logic. It came down to "true" or "false". The electronics in a computer follow this binary, electronics in general follow this binary. Either a switch is flipped or it's not, there's no middle ground.

When I was a kid I remember thinking in these terms. Either something is "true" or it's "false" and if we can't establish that then we say we don't know and try to follow the evidence to try and have a better answer.

I can't fix my car by sending it positive vibes. I can't fix my computer by really gosh darned believing in it. The problem is that I keep encountering people who do think like this. There's a need to do, what I refer to as "negotiate with reality" or just outright dictate it. I just can't think that way myself. This tends to be the source of most "disagreements" I find myself in.

I was once handed an incredibly sophisticated circuit board by a work colleague and asked if I could make a copy of it. I told him "no, unless you can give me a team of people, a few hundred thousand £s worth of equipment and about 6 months." He got a bit snitty and said "Why not, you said you had experience with electronics?!". I went on to explain that the board was likely 4 layered, with several custom CPLD chips. I couldn't simply go to work with a multimeter and reverse engineer it. Furthermore, this board was supposed to control machinery and therefore a clone wouldn't have been tested for safety issues. But all I got in response was thinly veiled accusations that I had lied about my electronics skills.

The irony here is that I would never claim I could do something beyond my experience so in reality I was being very honest about the limitations of my knowledge and skills. Could I have knocked something together that performed the same function? Quite possibly. Would I be able to predict every eventuality necessary to make it safe as the original? Probably not. I wasn't going to take that risk and just hope for the best when it could have lead to serious injury. But apparently this philosophy means I'm dishonest to some people.

That part about being "discredited" at electronics is exactly what's impossible about getting a job via HR. A lot of employers love to be lied to, and it's the florid, convincing way that you do it that shows you have tact, subtlety and "peoiple skills". In a world where actually doing your job correctly has fallen by the wayside, that's the asset companies are investing in.

 

[jsilver256]

This is a very interesting discussion and reminded me of an old video. I don't link to it here because it features a politically charged figure, but if you Youtube for "theory of reflexivity" you will find it.

I believe NTs always have the upper hand over NDs because they can understand and predict NT behavior and that is a more powerful dimension than logic and math and objective reality.

For example, you can apply all the analysis you want to the stock market and write all kinds of high frequency trading algorithms. But I believe the stock market in the end is an aggregation of NT behavior and manipulating the NTs is more effective.

The purpose of arguments have to be considered as well. In @MildredHubble 's example with the apple, what is the goal of arguing about who stole the apple? Most likely, the accuser wants to get @MildredHubble in trouble with someone else. And that "someone else" is likely NT as well, and does not operate on logic either. Depending on how the accuser pulls it off, the accuser may be wrong by every objective measure, but be successful in achieving his/her actual goal whatever it may be - perhaps getting Mildred fired, perhaps elevating his/her own status.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here.

 

[Levitator]

Incidentally, learning good qualities through work is what I think of as "carpentry theory", since the founder of my faith was a carpenter, and I'm sure that was mentioned for a reason. We could also think of it as "wax-on wax-off theory".

Now, in hindsight, if I were to take a shortcut to finding spirituality, I think maybe one would want to go into service, maybe as an emergency responder, for example. It's apparent that there are different routes for different people. What a firefighter does is not fundamentally rooted in logic, it's rooted in courage and service, and those are maybe more direct than starting out fiddling with ones and zeroes.

 

[MildredHubble]

The purpose of arguments have to be considered as well. In @MildredHubble 's example with the apple, what is the goal of arguing about who stole the apple? Most likely, the accuser wants to get @MildredHubble in trouble with someone else. And that "someone else" is likely NT as well, and does not operate on logic either. Depending on how the accuser pulls it off, the accuser may be wrong by every objective measure, but be successful in achieving his/her actual goal whatever it may be - perhaps getting Mildred fired, perhaps elevating his/her own status.

Yes, this basically puts it better than I did. And I think my main frustration/disappointment is that I keep being told that they desire truth, but it really doesn't matter if what I say is true or untrue, there's usually a hidden agenda or ulterior motive at play that I lack the perception to see but can often infer exists.

I think that sometimes my naive habit of taking behaviours at face value, (eg. thinking that people want to get to the truth and responding in a cooperative way) may look to some people like a smart manipulative tactic, or at the very least they think they can represent it that way.

Also I think some people think "truth" is a nebulous concept, whereas I believe truth is what is verifiable to be (funnily enough) valid and true.

 

[jsilver256]

Also I think some people think "truth" is a nebulous concept, whereas I believe truth is what is verifiable to be (funnily enough) valid and true.

There might also be an element wherein some people are more likely to deny the existence of objective reality altogether. The concept that you can summon any kind of result you want by merely having the right people believe in the vision is a very powerful tool, and logic is a harsh mistress. So just get rid of logic and truth altogether.

 

[MildredHubble]

The concept that you can summon any kind of result you want by merely having the right people believe in the vision is a very powerful tool, and logic is a harsh mistress

I've seen lots of YouTube videos listed and ads encouraging this new trendy thing of "manifesting" things into being. I never really watch them, but occasionally one auto plays. I seriously don't understand how we've now gotten to the point at which we as a species, think we can manifest physical objects or money into existence with the power of thought.

 

[Levitator]

I've seen lots of YouTube videos listed and ads encouraging this new trendy thing of "manifesting" things into being. I never really watch them, but occasionally one auto plays. I seriously don't understand how we've now gotten to the point at which we as a species, think we can manifest physical objects or money into existence with the power of thought.

The devil is a liar, and he convinces people that they manifested the apple they actually stole.

 

[Shevek]

I think I may be misunderstanding. In the "apples" example I gave, the "established truth" was that I "liked apples" therefore was guilty. If you are asking if the disagreement was based on something already proven and therefore the conclusions made were self evident, then, no they hadn't presented a truth that makes the conclusion valid.

So in the example of my doctor, he had not read my medical notes. It appears that at a point leading up to that, my previous doctors etc could not locate my diagnosis owing to issues getting my documents from another trust (NHS organisation). Regardless of this, it would only take a moment (as it did for me) to jump straight to the year (2008) in my notes and there it was, where it had always been. Ironically, the new trust DID have my notes and diagnosis matched one I claimed. They were also the trust that made the diagnosis in the first place.

So it appears (with some strong evidence to confirm it) they had simply read the most recent entry in my notes, wrongly concluded there was no diagnosis and had concluded (without informing me) that I must have lied which was then used as evidence to make a new diagnosis (again without informing me). All of which is illegal and against protocol.

They "thought" they had established a truth and would not listen to any evidence that contradicted it. It took a long time to clear that up and it was an uphill struggle against their attempts to try to gaslight me.

However, if we are talking corollaries as I (hopefully) understand them. It is simply not possible for a patient to obtain a prescription for the medication I'm on unless prescribed for a diagnosed condition coming from a qualified doctor. Therefore we can be confident, at the very least that we can infer that I must have received a diagnosis.

The "disagreements" were not based on some self evident truth or inference. They were based on false allegations that were shown to be exactly that.

I should been still more specific about the initial query. ( Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to a truth that had been presented? For instance, "Everyone should try to conserve energy" coming with some exceptions to "everyone." ) I'm doing an informal survey about corollaries to statements that you agree with. In recalling my life until about age 20, I often deduced new "rules" for behaviour from existing ones. I continue to do that for engineering, but far less frequently. It was as if each rule arrived with another half-dozen related ones that were just implied. It is frustrating that I can't currently recall any specific examples, but a big example would be when Newton saw an apple fall, and deduced that the things above the clouds were mutually falling around each other.
I have been reading about some very feisty interactions with officialdom here lately. Probably one of my early expansions was that arguing about anything with authority never pays, wastes effort, and attracts penalties. I'm glad some of you managed to prevail. I'll read through the other replies the next time I'm awake.

 

[MildredHubble]

I should been still more specific about the initial query. ( Did any of those disagreements arise over corollaries to a truth that had been presented? For instance, "Everyone should try to conserve energy" coming with some exceptions to "everyone." ) I'm doing an informal survey about corollaries to statements that you agree with. In recalling my life until about age 20, I often deduced new "rules" for behaviour from existing ones. I continue to do that for engineering, but far less frequently. It was as if each rule arrived with another half-dozen related ones that were just implied. It is frustrating that I can't currently recall any specific examples, but a big example would be when Newton saw an apple fall, and deduced that the things above the clouds were mutually falling around each other.
I have been reading about some very feisty interactions with officialdom here lately. Probably one of my early expansions was that arguing about anything with authority never pays, wastes effort, and attracts penalties. I'm glad some of you managed to prevail. I'll read through the other replies the next time I'm awake.

Perhaps I have a blind spot. I don't think the disagreement stemmed from corollaries to statements I agree with, usually quite the opposite.

To make sure that we are on the same page a corollary is basically this "All humans can lie, all doctors are human, therefore all doctors can lie".

In the more generic examples concerning the "Apples" it was like this... "£600 is missing, Mildred has £300, therefore Mildred stole £600." That is just flawed logic.

The thinking should have been "Our POS (point of sale) system regularly reports money missing when it isn't, Our POS system reports £600 short, therefore it's likely that £600 is not really missing." I'd agree with that statement. This doesn't mean that you can't bring the possibility of missing money to people's attention.

So as I understand it you can say "Our company has unsustainable energy bills, everybody uses energy, therefore we should all try to conserve energy." Or "The national grid can't sustain energy demands, everyone uses energy, therefore everyone should conserve energy." The issue here is that there could be people that use the bare minimum of energy so they can't conserve energy, I wouldn't agree with it. So instead we could say "We are using too much energy as a society. Some people use too much energy. Therefore some people should conserve energy."

 

[jsilver256]

I've seen lots of YouTube videos listed and ads encouraging this new trendy thing of "manifesting" things into being. I never really watch them, but occasionally one auto plays. I seriously don't understand how we've now gotten to the point at which we as a species, think we can manifest physical objects or money into existence with the power of thought.

Reminds me of Gnosticism. I think one of the ideas behind Gnosticism is that with the "right" knowledge, you discover that God and a lot of the world was never real and you were God all along.