“Emotions neither prove nor disprove facts. There was a time when any rational adult understood this. But years of dumbed-down education and emphasis on how people ‘feel’ have left too many people unable to see through this media gimmick.”

~ Thomas Sowell

Do you think that limitations of logic prove logic to be wrong? Do these limitations prove that A is not A?

It’s easy to see the limitations of logic when studying the classical “proofs” for the existence of God, or when listening to atheists who are convinced that lack of proof implies non-existence. We are in a post-modern era now, having exhausted the limits of reason. This does not require us to abandon reason, but to realize its limitations, and respect its power within the proper scope. A lot of confusion is due to absolutists on either side, who either believe that reason is an absolute in all spheres, or on the other side, who believe that reason is useless. Then there are those who just take reason for granted, thinking that all “normal” people are reasonable.

There are countless ways to misunderstand reason and logic.

Where do you think logic comes from? How do you know that ‘A is A’ Or that ‘A is not -A’ ? Is logic only a property of human mind or animals also have logic?

What do you think?

No one is rational: Judges are more likely to be more lenient after lunch. Scientists almost never criticize or even question the position of the organization they work for. Comfort and survival, hormonal influences, peer pressure, fear of ridicule – these pull on our thoughts much more strongly than reason. That’s what it means to be human. Nothing wrong with that in the private sphere. It is possible to live a fulfilling, creative life guided primarily by intuition and feelings, because we are supported by an infrastructure based on the practical application of logic.

Suppose, however, that engineers building a bridge took a vote to decide how much steel to use, rather than doing the proper calculations. And suppose the contractor decided that his opinion was more important, so he could disregard the engineers?

That is why politics is so polarized today – without logic, our debates and discussion have no steel in them, so to win, you just have to have more contempt for the other side than they do for you. It is a winning strategy if you can persuade enough people to join you. You can ban the ideas you disapprove of, just by having the most influential people on your side. The winners end up building the bridge their way, but what is the point if it collapses after the winners have enjoyed their success?

If Socrates were alive today, he would be banned from Twitter – no need for a trial. The IT infrastructure we build with logic and ingenuity, is being used to circumvent logical discussion. It becomes very clear that there are two applications of logic – technological, and teleological. What is our purpose – what are we up to? What kind of world do we want for the next generation? We put our trust in the tech that logic built to get us through each day, but fail to learn to use logic to discuss what we are up to, in a manner inspired by Plato’s dialogues.

“Logic as a tool for the mind” … to interact with other minds.