Improving reasoning and debating skills

[sprinkles]

Your examples were completely irelevant... If I would say I have 5 fingers plus 5 nails, and then I would drag the conclusion that it doesn't equate 10 fingers or 10 nail, that would describe your "examples".

Adding numbers that represent nothing is what's irrelevant.

2+2=4? 2 what? 4 what?
2 cats and 2 dogs? Fine, you have four animals. It's not magic, and they're actually there, aren't they.

What you don't seem to understand is that it's all derived from unary notation. This many dots ...... is that many. Adding dots is tedious though, so we invented what's called a radix which is a base number of unique digits. With base 10 we have 0 through 9, when you have more than 9 you shift a digit. It's not magic because it can still all convert back to unary and you can see that ..+..=....

Or 2+2=11 in trinary if you will, the radix of 3

 

[Neurosis]

Thats right. Aristotelian logic has nothing to do with science, because everything Aristotle theorized about the physical world is now outdated, and the rest of it is to do with the metaphysical - something that science has nothing to do with.

The only place you could argue Aristotelian logic has value is in the metaphysical, however as far as I'm concerned metaphysical concepts are really quite useless in determining how the world works.

I'm a naturalist. Meaning that I think all of the universe and that which happens within it can be explained by natural phenomena, without need to ascribe metaphysical properties to that which is perfectly explained by the physical.

 

[sprinkles]

Thats right. Aristotelian logic has nothing to do with science, because everything Aristotle theorized about the physical world is now outdated, and the rest of it is to do with the metaphysical - something that science has nothing to do with.

The only place you could argue Aristotelian logic has value is in the metaphysical, however as far as I'm concerned metaphysical concepts are really quite useless in determining how the world works.

I'm a naturalist. Meaning that I think all of the universe and that which happens within it can be explained by natural phenomena, without need to ascribe metaphysical properties to that which is perfectly explained by the physical.

Not only that, but Aristotle just about killed science and set forth misconceptions that probably took a long time to extricate from.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/GreeksWrong.HTM

However, what Aristotle brought up which was beneficial was the syllogism, which was quite useful and is still some times used today. He helped set up the core for deductive reasoning. It was still incomplete though, and unable to represent some things, such as Euclid's theorem.

 

[Gaze]

So, is logic a science or an art?

 

[the]

So, is logic a science or an art?

one thing about logic is that there are more than two possibilities and several of them could be true.

 

[sprinkles]

So, is logic a science or an art?

What's to say it's not both?

one thing about logic is that there are more than two possibilities and several of them could be true.

Yes. This is probably responsible for a lot of notions such as metaphysics - the search for fundamental and universal natures.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this in itself, but in a lot of cases it has led to reifying the abstract, thinking that the abstract fundamental law is what unifies things, when rather it is probably the fact that certain things are fundamentally unified which leads to the creation of the abstract law.

In other words people take the descriptive and explanatory and try to act like it's the fundamental ideal itself which is universal.

What happens if I say that "Flipofftacles' law says you are wrong!"? Isn't Flipofftacles supposedly metaphysical here? If I posit that Flipofftacles is transcendent and beyond the senses, where does that leave us? It leaves us puzzling out whether Flipofftacles actually exists somehow, which goes against my metaphysical proposition of Flipofftacles, and one's reaction may be to say that Flipofftacles doesn't exist.

It becomes an ontological problem which might end up as an attempt to de-metaphyisicalize Flippoftacles which would contradict his transcendent nature. So that we either have to accept that we're all wrong because Flipofftacles says so, which ends up being a problem with universals and fundamentals because it breaks all of them, or we have to accept that not all metaphysical things are fundamental and that a metaphysical thing can be wrong, which is another problem for universals, or we try to figure out that Flipofftacles isn't actually there which drags him out of the metaphysical.

This can all be avoided by just throwing away that troublesome ideal all together. If something is fundamental and universal and it works, it's sufficient to call it that. Who cares about it being 'more than physical'? Why even bother with that notion?

 

[Elaf]

[MENTION=9995]Dohavior[/MENTION] suggested an excellent article that was very helpful in developing my debating skill-here-
In a debate , the participants should concentrate only on the idea itself and its related facts , with a common goal , to construct a coherent idea .

 

[Dohavior]

There is debating then there is abating or obfuscation which is the anti intellectual form of debating.

There are different kinds of reasoning:
Inductive
deductive
abductive

Then there are fallacies, algorithms, heuristics, biases, axioms, demarcations, etc and one may wish to understand cognition and quantification.

 

[Gaze]

In other words people take the descriptive and explanatory and try to act like it's the fundamental ideal itself which is universal.

This reminds me of some concepts learned in social science which unfortunately have not made it into more widespread use: descriptive and prescriptive.

Descriptive explains how things are. Prescriptive describes how we think they should be. We are raised in a world with prescriptive values which often seem to contradict a culture whose focus and judgments are descriptive. This can be equated with idealism vs. realism. The person who is over-realistic only sees what is, and has difficulty imagining that things can change or be different from the status quo. They're likely to think that things can't change and that things are just the way they are, no use trying to change it.

This can turn into cynical or pessimistic thinking where defeatism is common. Leads to thinking "why try anyway, since it's just going to lead to failure." On the other extreme, is the over-idealist who imagines world peace without thinking about why there is war. They have a oversimplified view of the world, where they are prescriptive - arguing that if we simply implement this policy or change this action or behavior, things will not only be better or improved, but turned around completely; in other words, our problems will be solved.

I think the solution is to find a balance. Realist thinking can become too negative. Idealistic thinking can too often ignore reality, and fail to be reasonable about what is likely or possible. But I think we need to be aware of these two perspectives impact our lives in order to have a real understanding of good, fair, and balanced reasoning.

 

[Gaze]

In a debate , the participants should concentrate only on the idea itself and its related facts , with a common goal , to construct a coherent idea .

Agree to an extent. I don't think you can separate discussions ideas from how those ideas are valued. Reminds me of topics such as abortion. You can logically and objectively discuss the "facts" including the scientific and medical view of abortion. However, arguing biological without considering the ethics and social implications is going to lead to some heated debate. So, yes, it often seems be superior way to reason to think only of the facts. However, this unfortunately assumes that only the facts matter, and as humans, it's how we see or feel about the facts that often guides our reasoning and decision making.

 

[Dohavior]

This reminds me of some concepts learned in social science which unfortunately have not made it into more widespread use: descriptive and prescriptive. /QUOTE]

I never got that sort of formal education, but I have come across some things in my readings and experiences and have formulated some possibilities.

Descriptive and Prescriptive perspectives could these be assessed by usage of pronouns and state of being verbs to articulate hindsight and future seeking consequential patterns in linguistics? I think such might be implemented in the MBTI... Perhaps S and N?

I always thought there was a difference in the forming and storing of ideas in relation to the reasoning used like logical dyslexia, mirroring of sorts, FIFO?. Like a whitelist/blacklist approach to things. Something to do with the scope of efficiency or probability assessment. Might just be senseless rambling.

Cynical, pessimistic, defeatism sounds like a clusterfuck of words. Bad mojo got ya. How about we link each description to "Determinism, fatalism and predeterminism" then pin point the fallacy behind each and reroute it properly? Sounds exhausting and this might turn into a religious debate bleh.

Other thoughts (id)ealism vs (re)alism, is that id vs super imposed ego? I'm just speculating by the prefixes listed. Idealization and devaluation that has to do with narcissism right? Could some of this relate to hubris and hypocrisy?

Could we summarize this entire discussion as "I could have done better" and "I will do better next time" mindsets? Perhaps the solutions are goal oriented and process oriented? Lets call it the be's and did's of denial?

There is this quote by Carl Jung that has been stuck in my head for a long time now something about the restating of problems and the treating of symptoms are both wrong and that the greatest of minds should seek to overcome such.

On a side note I hate dichotomies they need more apathy, perhaps the concept of zero so they can be viewed as a spectrum. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. Can't one be both idealistic and realistic at the same time? And one could also be balanced? That's 4 directions.

 

[Dohavior]

I was reading some article and got to thinking again. How about we apply Objectivism for worst case scenario of Idealism. And Satanism for worst case scenario of Realism. Reason being Objectivism relies on metaphysics which is all about being and Satanism relies on rituals which are all about doing. One existing as either being or doing is too static to account for one's entirety and hence is denial.