MarcEsadrian
Posts: 852
Joined: 8/24/2008 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Amaros True, but magical thinking is often logical, logic is merely a set of tools for parsing information - if one is only parsing internal set of symbolic meaning, it's going to end up circular and subjective - typically, by including all of the relevant external empirical data, an objective syllogism is produced that can form the basis of a testable hypothesis - logic is merely a means of forming testable hypothesis, that can then be further analyzed. At the risk of launching into another full blown thesis, rational thought likely evolved in order to make predictions based on cause and effect that aided our progenitors in their quest to survive in a harsh world - where to find certain plants at certain times of the season, etc., to anticipate certain phenomena, and communicate that information to others - this means it's pretty useless in isolation, we evolved this capacity in order to analyze external data, and predict phenomena based on that analysis. If the data being analyzed is itself internal, subjective and abstract, the result can only be subjective and abstract, i.e., no general rules or algorithms can be deduced from it - deductive reasoning is essentially abstract and linguistic (some women are sexually insatiable = all women are sexually insatiable), whereas inductive reasoning is based on observation and pattern recognition. Anyway, this is a common misconception, there is logic, and then there is subjective, sterile logic that has nothing to do with the empirical evidence, based on logical fallacy - bad logic, in other words. Ah, I see the dichotomy you're referring to now. I liken "good logic" and reasoning to the scientific approach; a systematic study through reality-based observation; that is really the only logic I recognize. Basing one's reasoning—and life—on spiritually esoteric ideas and religious edicts is adventurous, in the very least.
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