The Corean Chronicles
Reason, Logic, and Null-A
In one of the latest editions of New Scientist, there are something like seven articles which purport to give rationales as to why people don't like "reason." While I firmly believe that both "reason" and "logic," particularly as applied in our society today, are severely flawed, what I found interesting about the New Scientist commentaries was how shallow most of them were.
Over sixty years ago, A.E. VanVogt wrote The World of Null-A, in which he postulated an alternative means of thinking, called "Null-A," which rejected Aristotelian logic. Van Vogt's premise was essentially that straight-line Aristotelian logic was inadequate for a complex technological society. Insofar as the book goes, describing his system is largely avoided, except in describing it as something like, as I recall, "multi-valued logic," which is employed by the protagonist with the equivalent of two brains.
Weak as his written support for his concept may have been, Van Vogt was on to something.
The overriding problem with the use of logic and reason in a modern technological society is that, simply put, they often don't work. Oh, lawyers, business theoreticians, and all of the practitioners of "applied" logic and reason can prove quite logically why their theories and approaches work. But while that may justify the theories to their developers and implementers, that doesn't make the "business model" and all the other theories any more accurate.
The problem lies in human beings. We're complex creatures who take in a vast range of sensory, physical, and intellectual inputs. But not all of those inputs can be quantified in mathematical or logical terms or outputs. That's why so-called intuition -- perhaps better described as conscious/subconscious integration of multiple inputs -- often beats the models cold... IF that intuition is from someone who actually has enough data and experience. I suspect this was what Van Vogt was trying to explain or show through his novelizations.
But... even when someone who doesn't have such a background comes across "cold logic" models, they often reject the conclusions because they don't feel right.
To my mind, this is the "problem with reason" -- that the verbal and mathematical terms used restrict the discussion or argument to those facts or processes which can in fact be reduced to quantification in a meaningful way... and all too often they can't be.
Yet, surprisingly, not a single one of the distinguished authors seemed to want to touch this aspect of "reason" ... although a science fiction author raised the issue sixty-three years ago.
Many people and professions purport to use logic, they wax lyrical about their use of "scientific" methods. When in reality, they use specious and fallacious arguments and are in fact resorting to sophistry.
Sometimes must think of the emperor and his news clothes. Duplicity and disengenuous discussion is rife
You appear to be describing scenarios that are not simplistic, hence, require empathy to see the "whole" picture. It appears complex enough just to program "simple" business logic, so not a great surprise that we've not reached this stage yet.
Mathematical models that learn from empirical studies, have more of an affinity with what is called intuition; obviously when it's not just a lucky guess! The story about the 100 people tossing a coin and removing those with tales each time, is the last person or persons an expert tosser? lol Sorry couldn't stop myself there.
Learning from events and weighting certain actions as a consequence, is I believe, leads to what we call intuition. When fixing a program, why sometimes you start at a certain point rather than another, is down to what you have come across before.
That said, I'm reminded of Newton-Raphson and the methodology for finding a result, sometimes my golf game is similar, but all too often it appears to diverge away from the intended goal!
Can't comment on the New Scientist and the shallow explanations, obviously available authors were the wrong ones.
Anyway, I await to be pilloried by either yourself or your attending sycophants!lol By the way, love Recluse books, but do not believe the fall of civilisation will be down to men not wearing ties.
TTFN
Ian
I was taught logic is where you have two premises you can infer the answer. The answer is logical but not necessarily true
i.e.
Premise 1 All cats are black.
Premise 2 Jack is a cat.
Therefore jack is a black cat
Premise 1 All coins are worth £1
Premise 2 I have ten coins in my pocket
Therefore I have ten pound in my pocket
Logic is a closed system and therefore not particularly useful in learning anything new.
The problem is people seem to think logic is something practiced by Spock. It’s not.
Reason on the other hand has to do with coming to a conclusion using thought, experience and knowledge. In other words what most people call logic.
Please models, just die which advocates the demise of model-dominated thinking in economics.
Models are good when they are used to augment reason - example:
"If this trend continues, we'll see housing investments outperform any other investment by 2015."
They are bad when they supplant reason "this piece of data does not fit the model; it is therefore untrue and must be false." Remember the assumptions on which models are made... and don't forget the unquantifiable "common sense."
At least, do not disregard common sense where your personal interests are at risk.
Second comment: I read Null-A a long time ago, and remember looking in my college courses for "Aristotelian logic." I came to the conclusion that it was an untrue stereotype set up to prove vv's case. Mathematical logic was fully aware of its limits, recognized the existence of the unknowable (cf. Godel's Proof), and actually aided clearer and out-of-the-box thinking. However, very few people in college (at least then) actually took a course in mathematical logic. Moreover, the statistical path analysis (?) that I was taught in my political science classes is clearly little used today to establish causality rather than just coincidence. In other words, the problem isn't just reason vs. intuition and focus on quantification; it's also the failure to recognize the limits of reason and adjust to them.
Second comment: I read Null-A a long time ago, and remember looking in my college courses for "Aristotelian logic." I came to the conclusion that it was an untrue stereotype set up to prove vv's case. Mathematical logic was fully aware of its limits, recognized the existence of the unknowable (cf. Godel's Proof), and actually aided clearer and out-of-the-box thinking. However, very few people in college (at least then) actually took a course in mathematical logic. Moreover, the statistical path analysis (?) that I was taught in my political science classes is clearly little used today to establish causality rather than just coincidence. In other words, the problem isn't just reason vs. intuition and focus on quantification; it's also the failure to recognize the limits of reason and adjust to them.
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