Logic or Feelings

[Total Crica]

What do you think should be the main motor for politics?

Logic and pragmatism?

Or

Feelings and Intuition?

Please elaborate if you dont understand the question.

Balance of both since humans respond to both

[Garnier Fructis]

Yeah, this really is not something you can boil down to a binary choice.

[Revik]

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Kirk was not fond of that idea. He's much more of an all for one and one for all kind of guy.

Actually Kirk's philosophy was not believing in the No-Win scenario and there is ALWAYS a way to win. It is just that winning meant everyone comes out alive and the future remains bright.

[Garnier Fructis]

It is not just independent, everything is based on top of logic. Prioritizing emotion is constraining civilization to one little evolutionary rung.

That's more a chart of dependencies, and only partially at that. Mathematics uses logic as a tool, but essentially everything we do in mathematics was motivated by something else. A lot of things in math started out as heuristic concepts because people felt that it should be so, despite not being able to give a good logical foundation for it. The complex numbers and the calculus were used long before their logical status was clarified. Heaviside's operational calculus worked extremely well. As far as I know, nobody has been able to create a rigorous version of operational calculus that was as dynamic as Heaviside's, but such attempts have given us wonderful tools like Laplace Transforms and Generalized Function theory.

And even in physics a lot of things happen that would make mathematicians cry, much less logicians. We differentiate and integrate functions without establishing that this can actually be done, because we're pretty darn sure that shit like Dirichlet's function isn't going to pop up in nature. Things like the existence and uniqueness theorems for ordinary differential equations are practically useless, because they only apply to things that physicists never really doubted in regards to having a solution. Classical EM predicts that the self energy of an electron is infinite. This problem still exists in quantum theories, but we get around it by doing some voodoo hand-wave magic.

Logic is a tool, and a vitally important one at that. But you don't get progress in math, physics, or any of the other sciences without people having good intuitions and hunches. Even philosophical considerations have affected the history and development of science, and those are ideas that ultimately are axiomatic and not fundamental consequences of logic.

[PC2]

That's more a chart of dependencies, and only partially at that. Mathematics uses logic as a tool, but essentially everything we do in mathematics was motivated by something else. A lot of things in math started out as heuristic concepts because people felt that it should be so, despite not being able to give a good logical foundation for it. The complex numbers and the calculus were used long before their logical status was clarified. Heaviside's operational calculus worked extremely well. As far as I know, nobody has been able to create a rigorous version of operational calculus that was as dynamic as Heaviside's, but such attempts have given us wonderful tools like Laplace Transforms and Generalized Function theory.

And even in physics a lot of things happen that would make mathematicians cry, much less logicians. We differentiate and integrate functions without establishing that this can actually be done, because we're pretty darn sure that shit like Dirichlet's function isn't going to pop up in nature. Things like the existence and uniqueness theorems for ordinary differential equations are practically useless, because they only apply to things that physicists never really doubted in regards to having a solution. Classical EM predicts that the self energy of an electron is infinite. This problem still exists in quantum theories, but we get around it by doing some voodoo hand-wave magic.

Logic is a tool, and a vitally important one at that. But you don't get progress in math, physics, or any of the other sciences without people having good intuitions and hunches. Even philosophical considerations have affected the history and development of science, and those are ideas that ultimately are axiomatic and not fundamental consequences of logic.

I like your points but I dont see how logic can be likened to a man made tool. It doesn't matter whether the logical status was clarified. For example emotions leading people to "good intuitions and hunches" was all based on top of logic operations. This was still true 20k years ago before humans understood much about it. There is nothing below logic unless you believe in some form of mysticism.

[Sevyvia]

We are inherently subjective beings and anything like objective logic cannot, in truth, be concocted by us. There will always be a degree of subjectivity involved in anything we do, simply because it is us doing it. That said, the organisation of logic is usually preferable to the raw emotion of feelings.

[Garnier Fructis]

I like your points but I dont see how logic can be likened to a man made tool. It doesn't matter whether the logical status was clarified. For example emotions leading people to "good intuitions and hunches" was all based on top of logic operations. There is nothing below logic unless you believe in some form of mysticism.

There is nothing below logic that we can formalize. What logical operations were involved in determining that we should study shapes? What logical operations can be used to define the fundamental concepts of plane geometry? None, because it is impossible.

How do you define a point, or a segment in plane geometry? How do we define time and motion?

The reality is that everything we know is built up from undefined notions that we simply rely on people to intuitively understand. Because any attempt to pin down these concepts with logic leads to circularity and infinite regress. Everything we have is built up from these using logic and oftentimes more intuition.

There is absolutely something more fundamental than logic, namely the reality that we experience, or the primitive notions in mathematics. Logic is a process, and a process needs something to proceed from. And that thing, whatever it is, is more fundamental.

[PC2]

There is nothing below logic that we can formalize. What logical operations were involved in determining that we should study shapes? What logical operations can be used to define the fundamental concepts of plane geometry? None, because it is impossible.

How do you define a point, or a segment in plane geometry? How do we define time and motion?

The reality is that everything we know is built up from undefined notions that we simply rely on people to intuitively understand. Because any attempt to pin down these concepts with logic leads to circularity and infinite regress. Everything we have is built up from these using logic and oftentimes more intuition.

There is absolutely something more fundamental than logic, namely the reality that we experience, or the primitive notions in mathematics. Logic is a process, and a process needs something to proceed from. And that thing, whatever it is, is more fundamental.

Primitive math notions are intertwined with it. Things being really complicated doesn't mean infinite regress is accurate. Not being able to predict quantum events doesn't prove it is probabilistic. It just means it's not currently understood.

[kail]

Feeling gives insight to the desirable result an individual wants. Babies and cute children appeal to many people's emotions and most want the best for them. There is also self interest at stake as well. "Who cares what happens to people across the ocean, I don't want my new iPhone to increase in price!"

Logic tends to come after and hopefully molds the thought process to reasonable and positive results.

[Garnier Fructis]

I dont think you have justified there being something more fundamental. Things being really complicated doesn't mean infinite regress is accurate.

Infinite regress doesn't occur because of complexity. It occurs with simplicity. The examples I listed above are a few of the most fundamental notions in math or physics. Almost everything in plane geometry is defined in terms of points. But how do you define a point? You can't define it in terms of the derived notions, as that would be circular. If you found something else that you can use to define a point, then how is that something else to be defined? It simply pushes the same problem back another step; the infinite regress.

As I said, logic is only a process. If you don't have a collection of propositions and basic relations among then, then what good does logic do you? What good is "P and Q implies R" if there isn't even a P, Q or R? The primitive notions of mathematics are more fundamental, because without them logic is a useless thing. There is nothing to apply logic on. With basic notions of time, position, etc, what can logic really do in science? Nothing.

Logic is like a flashlight. It needs batteries to work. Without the batteries, the flashlight is useless. Without the flashlight, you still have the batteries.

Not being able to predict quantum events doesn't prove it is probabilistic. It just means it's not currently understood.

It doesn't prove that it's probabilistic, and it also doesn't prove that it isn't. Physicists are generally fine with this because how we choose to interpret it is usually independent of how it is actually used; i.e. 'shut up and calculate.'

It may mean that we don't understand. But it may also mean that true probability exists. We really don't know and have no way of knowing right now. The underlined sentence is not a logical conclusion of science, but a logical conclusion based on science and some sort of intuition about how the universe should be. One could equally well argue that determinism is a trick, an emergent property of underlying probability.

[Powerogue]

Obviously logic, but we can't ever disregard feelings. Logic makes for sane, consistent rules, but it's feelings that decide whether most people support them or not.

[PC2]

Infinite regress doesn't occur because of complexity. It occurs with simplicity. The examples I listed above are a few of the most fundamental notions in math or physics. Almost everything in plane geometry is defined in terms of points. But how do you define a point? You can't define it in terms of the derived notions, as that would be circular. If you found something else that you can use to define a point, then how is that something else to be defined? It simply pushes the same problem back another step; the infinite regress.

As I said, logic is only a process. If you don't have a collection of propositions and basic relations among then, then what good does logic do you? What good is "P and Q implies R" if there isn't even a P, Q or R? The primitive notions of mathematics are more fundamental, because without them logic is a useless thing. There is nothing to apply logic on. With basic notions of time, position, etc, what can logic really do in science? Nothing.

Logic is like a flashlight. It needs batteries to work. Without the batteries, the flashlight is useless. Without the flashlight, you still have the batteries.

It doesn't prove that it's probabilistic, and it also doesn't prove that it isn't. Physicists are generally fine with this because how we choose to interpret it is usually independent of how it is actually used; i.e. 'shut up and calculate.'

It may mean that we don't understand. But it may also mean that true probability exists. We really don't know and have no way of knowing right now. The underlined sentence is not a logical conclusion of science, but a logical conclusion based on science and some sort of intuition about how the universe should be. One could equally well argue that determinism is a trick, an emergent property of underlying probability.

I guess I get your point with the flashlight/batteries. In a CS analogy, logic is the algorithm but math/numbers is the data? Isn't there a debate as to whether real numbers are actually real?

[Noah37]

I'd start off with Fact should be the number 1 motivator. If something can be scientifically, mathematically, and unequivocally proven it should take precedent, above all else. Honestly, that kind of falls into the logic category though.

[Elim Garak]

There shouldn't be politics.

I believe that falls under Logic and Pragmatism.

[Bosen]

d20 rolls to make all political decisions.

They're already doing that.

[LilSaihah]

Where's ethics & principles

[Garnier Fructis]

I guess I get your point with the flashlight/batteries. In a CS analogy, logic is the algorithm but math/numbers is the data? Isn't there a debate as to whether real numbers are actually real?

Yup.

The reality of real numbers is actually a really interesting thing to consider. At least with integers and terminating decimals (some fractions), we have models that we treat as integers, i.e. whatever it is that computers are actually using when they use integers. But arguably nobody has ever seen an irrational amount of something.