Monday, December 29, 2014

What is the utility of logic? (#2159)

Logic allows us to differentiate truth from fallacy. First let me begin with how we use logic to tell if someone is truthful. For example, if I say that a rock is a rock, you can be absolutely certain that I am telling the truth. If however I say sandstone is a rock, you may need more information before accepting that sandstone is a rock, based upon what qualifies as a rock within the family of known rocks. It is still true that sandstone is a rock but not as an absolute on the face of it. This is how we are able to distinguish facts based upon observation, experimentation and classification. Why is it important to distinguish facts? It is because we base our reasoning, analyzing and concluding upon facts. If not, we could say that the sky is orange juice and accept that as fact if we were not concerned with facts. What I present here is basic and simple logic but from here we can see that logic has a function within our society that is highly important. It allows us to accept certain givens from which we all can begin from. There is no logical argument against established facts without evidence that logically shows the facts to be incorrect. It is a fools errand to continue to say that the sky is orange juice when we can readily prove that the sky is generally clear air with mixtures of atoms and molecules as it's makeup. I bring all this up as a way to say that we cannot accept statements of opinion without knowing the foundation for those opinions being factual. Just because I may want something to be so does not make it so no matter how much I need or want it to be. It must pass the test of logic and to even a lesser extent common and intuitive sense. Our early education systems must start out with how we derive our facts so that all our children and younger adults may learn many formulas of logical equations as tools for researching and understanding just what information they are being given is factual or fallacious.

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