mercredi 24 février 2016

Good Uses of Logical reasoning in the real world

I want to make amends for a couple of reasons. One is personal, the other is intellectual.

I've tended to think of complicated logical reasoning as a sort of useless exercise, which has discovered very little about the world. (Yes, already, these are two different things.)

I myself have only average logical ability as measured by standardized tests, and it's not my style to think in long chains. I immerse myself in something in many ways for a long time, then, if anything's going on at all upstairs, I make mental connections pretty instantly without necessarily knowing why. I hop quickly from one thing to another.

The philosopher I like best -- patron saint of musicians and sad loners, Fred Nietzsche -- does the same thing. He never met an oracular, peremptory aphorism he didn't like. In fact, he probably wanted to be La Rochefoucauld or Voltaire. (good stuff, that, by the way.)

One experience here has changed my mind a little, and I want to continue that.

A long time ago, I posted the logic puzzles of Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson, really) one at a time.

A few posters astounded me by being able to answer all of them nearly instantly. My son did that with the last one, too, but he just got lucky. Like me, his mind works quickly, or it doesn't work at all. He sees the picture, or he doesn't.

Dr. Kitten (who I miss) aced it. Really fast. There was someone else, too, who no longer posts, I think.

Logical training of various kinds is good for untangling logic puzzles.

Study of informal logic must help in cutting through misleading rhetoric -- and misleading rhetoric is most of politics.

What are some discoveries, or cases of logical reasoning that have led to scientific progress or other progress?

What are the benefits -- for the young, not a toothless old cur like me -- of studying formal logic?

Does studying formal logic help you with things like Bayesian statistical reasoning? Everone's talking about this Bayesian this, Bayesian that -- you probably can't even get laid in Boston without understanding Bayesian reasoning.

Was Mendel's work, for example, more about logic or about getting his hands dirty?

Is learning logic helpful, or is it only helpful if you're already good at it?

Those are some of the things we might, in this thread, discuss.


via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1Lcqp8A

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