Logic

OkhamsRazor · #1 (**permalink**) 06-15-2006, 01:23 PM

"For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so."
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet, II.ii

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Sherlock Holmes

"We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are."
- Harry S Truman (1884-1972)

"317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way."
- Godfrey Hardy (1877-1947)

"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Discours de la Methode

"If two things don’t fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that’s credulity."
- Umberto Eco (1929-), Foucalt's Pendulum

"A problem well stated is a problem half solved."
- Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958)

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)

"Plurality is not to be posited without necessity."
- William of Ockham (?-1349)

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
- Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956), Chessmaster

Flyhigher · #2 (**permalink**) 06-08-2008, 06:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OkhamsRazor

"For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so."
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet, II.ii

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
- Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Sherlock Holmes

"We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are."
- Harry S Truman (1884-1972)

"317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way."
- Godfrey Hardy (1877-1947)

"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems."
- Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Discours de la Methode

"If two things don’t fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that’s credulity."
- Umberto Eco (1929-), Foucalt's Pendulum

"A problem well stated is a problem half solved."
- Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958)

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)

"Plurality is not to be posited without necessity."
- William of Ockham (?-1349)

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake."
- Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956), Chessmaster

Very interesting...

W.J. Wilczek · #3 (**permalink**) 06-08-2008, 08:41 AM

“A mother tells her infant that two and two make four, the child remembers the proposition, and is able to count four to all the purposes of life, till the course of his education brings him among philosophers, who fright him from his former knowledge by telling him that four is a certain aggregate of unites; that all numbers being only the repetition of an unite, which, though not a number itself, is the parent, root, or original of all number, four is the denomination assigned to a certain number of such repetitions. The only danger is, lest, when he first hears theses dreadful sounds, the pupil should run away; if he has but the courage to stay till the conclusion, he will find that, when speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.”

- Samuel Johnson, The Idler, No. 36. Saturday, 23 December 1758.

Back Atcha · #4 (**permalink**) 06-08-2008, 09:05 AM

Nice find... this thread has been untouched for nearly two years...

Strange how no one had anything to add until now...

I'll throw a in a few of my favorites...

“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel”
Ivan Turgenev

The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.
A. N. Wilson

The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.
Louis Brandeis

Logics will get you from A to B, Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein

Suburbanite · #5 (**permalink**) 06-08-2008, 01:55 PM

existence precedes and rules essence.

Qurmudjin · #6 (**permalink**) 06-09-2008, 11:35 PM

"...logic, the refuge of fools. The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians—and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse." H. L. Mencken

Back Atcha · #7 (**permalink**) 06-09-2008, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qurmudjin

"...logic, the refuge of fools. The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians—and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse." H. L. Mencken

Logic is indeed a double edged sword. The biggest danger an intelligent person faces is the ability to rationalize any thoughts or actions. Logic based on perceptions is indeed the refuge of fools.

Logic based on realities and facts, brought to irreducable, naked truth, regardless of were it leads, is the pillar of the just.

Qurmudjin · #8 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Back Atcha

Logic is indeed a double edged sword. The biggest danger an intelligent person faces is the ability to rationalize any thoughts or actions. Logic based on perceptions is indeed the refuge of fools.

Logic based on realities and facts, brought to irreducable, naked truth, regardless of were it leads, is the pillar of the just.

Double-edged sword is right. And don't forget its pointy point.

All so-called facts come to us by our perceptions as analyzed by other perceptions and so on. Logic may only say that This MUST be true IF the premises are true—but it cannot tell you whether those premises are true without more untested premises.
Logic can yield no new information that didn't already exist in the premises. The same for mathematics.
All premises depend on previous premises.
There are no true facts. Only working theories.

* * *

"Insofar as mathematics is exact, it does not apply to reality; and insofar as mathematics applies to reality, it is not exact."
Albert Einstein