The Theory of Nothing

How does logic work?

How does logic work?

Spock, the half human-half Vulcan, always tried to be logical. What does that mean? The answer varies as to which branch of logic is involved. The kind I'm referring to is called inference, a branch of Argumentation theory, which is the process of deriving logical conclusions form known premises. This is sort of the logic that's used in debates.

The Greeks came up with the rules of inference and based it on a series of three-part inference statements that were called syllogisms. The first rule of inference is that if two premises are true than the conclusion based on them is necessarily true: Let's show an example of a valid inference.

All meat comes from animals.
Beef is a type of meat.
Therefore, beef comes from an animal.

An invalid inference is noted in the following:

All A are B
C is a B
Therefore, C is an A.

This is invalid because we don't know that all C is A.

If you have two false premises any conclusion is going to be false.

All tall people are Russian.
John Travolta is tall.
Therefore, John Travolta is Russian.

Yeah, sure! Not!

Two false premises can lead to a true conclusion.

All tall people are good dancers.
John Travolta is tall.
Therefore, John Travolta is a good dancer.

This is true, but it's based on a false premise that all tall people are good dancers.

Basically, this type of logic is the way that we should be thinking about everything so that our daily decisions are correct. Unfortunately, we are bombarded daily with illogic. Ads are expressly bad about this. They make false statements to lead you to buying their product, not from logic but from false premises. Most of these ads involve false promises of a better you.
For example: Extenze claimed that their product was scientifically proven to increase the size of a certain part of the male body, but they never explained the science. The name sounded good though.

Wrigley claimed that its Eclipse gum had magnolia bark extract that had germ-killing properties. That was false and it led to a Federal lawsuit.

Many of the ads for beauty products make false claims that they can take off years and make a woman look much younger. Olay ran an add for Definity eye cream that promises to take away wrinkles and showed an ad with Twiggy appearing as if she were much younger. The picture was retouched. Shame!

Photoshopping has become a method of making many things in ads look much better. A notorious example of this practice is making real women look like models for ads. This is not only dishonest it is an affront to women. The reason I bring this up here is the fact that such ads are examples of a false premise.

Political ads are another way that illogic creeps into our lives. Some of these ads are actually hilarious in what they claim. Mostly, they make false statements about the opposition and then conclude that this is the reason we should vote for the ad's candidate. That's completely illogical. What they should be doing is stating the opinions of the candidate that the ad is for.

A computer programmer has to follow strict rules of logic because a computer is literal when it interprets statements. There can be no illogic because that will cause a bug, which is the term used for a computer programing error. I'm sure that you've experienced those before.

Thanks for reading.