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Does logic equal truth?

God lover

Member
I think that's the worst test of truth, but that's just me. For instance, what if everyone else in the world were killed by aliens. Would there be no more truth? Why should truth rely on other people? And what about the truth of the test--if there's no other people, does the test become a lie?
Okay. You got me:)

But it's a good test of... was that a hallucination or a trick of the senses. Although I suppose a bunch of people could be tricked at once. I've never heard of a mass hallucination. Anyone heard of this? Curious!

This would be a good test between people for people. But aliens could also use multiple verification between each other. And if a monkey walks up and grabs a banana I was looking at, it would help me assert my beleif in that banana.

But whatever.

Jesus!
 

LegionOnomaMoi

Veteran Member
Premium Member
If you don't mind me asking. What would you want the truth to be?
Depends on the day and time. But I have a rather serious problem. My agnosticism (my lack of belief in God or religious notions more generally) is neither apathetic nor restricted to religious/spiritual matters. I am neurotically obsessed with understanding things, determining what is true (and how it is or isn't possible to use which methods to do so in which cases), and in general constantly in pursuit of the unattainable (like Stephen Crane's pursuer of the horizon or Tantulus). I quite literally am too unsure of too many things to know what I would want to be true in most cases. I suppose, though, that I agree here with Hamlet and Camus. Hamlet's soliloquy is well known enough to make quoting it pointless, but Camus is not so familiar:
"Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux : c'est le suicide. Juger que la vie vaut ou ne vaut pas la peine d'être vécue, c'est répondre à la question fondamentale de la philosophie. Le reste, si le monde a trois dimensions, si l'esprit a neuf ou douze catégories, vient ensuite."
[There is only the one truly important philosophical problem: there is suicide. To decide that life is worthwhile, or is not worth the trouble of living, is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy. The rest (whether the earth has three dimensions, whether the "mind" has nine or twelve categories) follow after.]

I suppose the thing I want to be true is that the answer to the only problème philosophique vraiment sérieux is an affirmative one (that the answer is "yes").
 

God lover

Member
So you think that no Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. Was moved in the spirit by their religions?

To be honest NightDreamer, after hearing you go on about how there is nothing we can know outside of the fact that we have thoughts, but non of those thoughts perceives anything real. (Forgive the bias paraphrase ). I can't even talk to you. What's the point? Sincerely, with that world view, you and I can't move forward anywhere.

I am not at RF to argue with anyone.
 

God lover

Member
I know it to be true, but I cannot prove it to be true to you. I have to believe it is true for you based of it's high probability.
Well, I also know it's true that you have thoughts. You don't have to prove it to me by logic. I know you have thoughts. I know it I know it I know it ok now I know it.

Don't tell me I could be the only dream ever to exist and you could actually be a part of my dream. I can't know if that isn't true.

Seriously. Is that gonna be your reply! Or we are in the matrix.


Pleeeeaaaaassseee

I would know it if a crocodile bit me in the ***! I would KNOW it. (And then maybe die).

But I see your original point! We know nothing with absolute completeness.

Accept I disagree.

I know I have two eyes. Even if there is a 3rd one in between. it's not an eye in the context of my comment.

Oh my, get me out of the philosophy section.
 

God lover

Member
As noted above ... :)
You know Jayhawker, I may have had this in mind when I posted the OP, but I also asked the question for the very reason which was, I don't understand logic. A bunch of people helped my see logic as the search for truth which defuncts non truths along the way.

My attitude towards logic is now different. I was using it in the lay term way, but I see it is a bigger term.

So while I came at the point from my perspective, it was an honest question from the beggining. I actually wanted to clean up logic! I feel people abuse it all the time. I am glad to know logic is a better process than I previously understood.

I also mixed up logic with theoretical arguments, and for that I am sorry.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
You know Jayhawker, I may have had this in mind when I posted the OP, but I also asked the question for the very reason which was, I don't understand logic. A bunch of people helped my see logic as the search for truth which defuncts non truths along the way.

My attitude towards logic is now different. I was using it in the lay term way, but I see it is a bigger term.

So while I came at the point from my perspective, it was an honest question from the beggining. I actually wanted to clean up logic! I feel people abuse it all the time. I am glad to know logic is a better process than I previously understood.

I also mixed up logic with theoretical arguments, and for that I am sorry.
Thanks for the clarification.
 
image.jpg
 

raw_thought

Well-Known Member
Logic is about validity not truth.
Here is a valid yet untrue syllogism ,
1. All Martians eat snakes.
2. Bob is a Martian .
3. Therefore Bob eats snakes.
Here is an invalid argument that is true.
1. Nixon was president.
2. Carter was president.
3. Therefore ,Eisenhower was president .
 

Logikal

Member
There are a number of logical explanations for the same reality.

If I show up at your house, logically I could have taken the bus, walked or driven my car.

Should the door opener assume they know which is the most logical way?

You are using the WRONG word! Deductive logic describes a RELATIONSHIP between propositions --not random sentences or random events. The term you mean is PRACTICAL or even POSSIBLE and not logic. How many practical ways are there to my house or how many possible ways are there to my house.
I see many people also often confuse MATH with logic. This was NOT always so. It is popular now because people hold more respect for the topic of MATH than Philosophy. This has been the case since Socrates up until now. Note over 2,000 years have passed with the notion Philosophy is useless or BS. The thought is still living and perhaps growing.
 

Logikal

Member
Logic is about validity not truth.
Here is a valid yet untrue syllogism ,
1. All Martians eat snakes.
2. Bob is a Martian .
3. Therefore Bob eats snakes.
Here is an invalid argument that is true.
1. Nixon was president.
2. Carter was president.
3. Therefore ,Eisenhower was president .

"Mathematical-Logic" is all about VALIDITY. This is not the case with Deductive logic. People often commit the fallacy of composition when they conclude that because some things share a characteristic that the two different things are the same. I.E., those people who think math is logic and logic is math. Aristotle had an epistemological element in the LOGIC he presented and it surely was not all about validity.
 

raw_thought

Well-Known Member
Look at modus tollens
A therefore B
not B
Therefore not A
Note that A and B are variables and so cannot be truth statements about a particular proposition.
 

raw_thought

Well-Known Member
An example of modus tollens is
All dogs are mammals
That is not a mammal
therefore it cannot be a dog
 
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raw_thought

Well-Known Member
Actually ,math is a subset of logic as Bertrand Russel showed.
Math is based on a logical structure .
Note, that I am not saying that logic =math.
Similarly if I say that all dogs are mammals, I am not saying that all mammals are dogs.
 
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