What Logic Isn't: A Response to InspiringPh(a)ilosophy

No, logic is not some magical force that rules the Universe.

My Twitter: @MartymerM81

[KingCrocoduck]

I like to think that the relationship that grammar has to reality is the same as the relationship that logic has to reality. Our enthymematic descriptions of reality rely on proper grammatical structure, just as our syllogistic descriptions of reality rely on valid logical structure; but in both cases, these structures are oriented with respect to our *descriptions* of reality rather than reality itself. Ironically, the apologist who makes use of transcendental arguments in which logic plays the role of some entity that maintains reality's structure, is employing the fallacy of reification.

great work as always Marty

[localhamster]

IP's definition of logic reminds me of the way apologists often treat definitions - As if they are reality-altering magic spells. Or to put it more charitably, as if they are prescriptive and not descriptive. They also do this with many other things, such as the laws of physics.

[Fraterchaoraterchaos]

I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on
awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a
virgin in the morning.
– Aleister Crowley

[yottaforce]

That's only half the solutions to the equation. -i is the second. And yes, complex numbers are bloody well understood. For instance they are part of the basis for all digital communication.

[nerfspartanEBF]

16:20 The funnier part of this is that "I" is an imaginary number, as it's the square root of a negative number.

[LetsTalkOnePiece]

I remember seeing that video. I had many (some which were surprisingly fruitful) conversations about logic on that video. But somehow magically all my comments and conversations have disappeared. When normally when I visit an old video I once commented on, they are on the top of the page. What could have happened to them? I wonder.

[fireballfoxtrot]

10:20 you're right, there is no r in Gödel, but there is an o with an umlaut, which is pronounced very similarly to the letter r. Pronouncing it like "Goddle" is just incorrect.

[hsfhtdksdnlspzsk]

IP: laws of logic are not true because... it was logically prooven.

[najtofnin]

This is how biologists must feel like when the creationists talk about evolution. I mean I get how they're wrong with evolution as well but as a mathematician I get really frustrated at how much they butcher logic and math in such a stupid way.

[LogosTheos]

IP is arguing against absolute skepticism/or academic skepticism:


Not skeptics as in atheists or naturalists. So there is a huge misrepresentation at the very beginning of the video that sets a discouraging tone for the rest.

[Tupster]

The big problem with just saying something can be declared not a proposition is that I don't think that there is an "effective procedure" for determining if a statement is a proposition.

[darrellee]

I don't know, I kind of like the idea of describing logic as the rules of reality. The rule of inference are valid because they comporate reality. Reality is the ultimate formal system. Logic is the the formal statement of the rules that reality expresses which is why valid arguments must follow them.

[johnmurphy]

Doubt is the main weapon of the apologist. They just keep distorting reality in the hope that it will confuse the listener into accepting the religion Must be the default position.
Keep up the good work.

[joshuayoudontneedtoknow]

While I understand the confusion of IT'S point and I understand that it wasn't articulated well, at least not in the clip you provided, I think IP meant that anything which is illogical is impossible. This would entail that all things which are logical are *possible* from a metaphysical sense, which I would agree with. There are some arguments made about whether logical possibility and metaphysical possibility are identical, but the strongest case against it has to do with semantic arguments that change definitions. For example, it is logically possible that water could be defined as something other than H2O, but it is metaphysically possible for water to be anything else other than H2O, since it has been defined as such. I think this is a really weak argument because if we allow for different semantics, we dont run into the problem.

All that being said, I think IP could have explained that better.

[kregorovillupo]

13:10 another simple solution is: if the truth status of the sentence has no influence on my decisional process, the sentence is labeled false. "This sentence is false"? False, because i have no practical way to use the truth status of that sentence. "Brain in a vat"? False, for the same reasoning. There was a cool video by anticitizenx explaining this topic throughly.

[darrellee]

5:15 There are multiple logics. Some include bivalence and some don't. All logics either include bivalence or they don't. No. We could have a logic where some variables are bivalent and some are not. Hmm. Sounds like reality.

[liesdamnlies]

16:47 Um, yeah, those "optional" classes covering complex numbers? They weren't optional at my school.

[micheal]

Excuse me while I go pound my head against the desk for a few minutes. Lord but that boy (IP) is one ignorant son. He know nothing, Jon Snow.

[timefororbit]

Marty, you only got it half right. Logic is the study of reason. But when discussing "Possible Worlds" in modal logic, the only possible worlds are worlds that are non-contradictory (i.e. it's not possible for God to both exist and not exist). So it *is* about what is really possible. Why would logical consistency matter, unless it had real-world consequences? The Laws of Logic also govern Possible Worlds (what is possible).

[redjirachi]

The one truth is the universe doesn't care what you think about it