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Phluck
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What's illogical?
#4907474 - 11/07/05 11:43 PM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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There are a lot of people who claim that there are things out there that simply don't follow the rules of logic.
My question: What?
I've heard people say that emotions aren't logical, which seems to be missing the point entirely. Sometimes out emotions don't seem to make sense, but they aren't perfect. Humans behave in bizarre ways a lot of the time, but if you look at the root cause of what we do, it often makes sense.
For example, some guy is out with his girlfriend and has a few drinks. A male friend of his girlfriend stops by and says hello, and they chat for a minute. The boyfriend flips out and beats the shit out of the guy, which causes his girlfriend to dump him. He's not so stupid that he wouldn't have realized his girlfriend would dump him in that situation, but he still acted like an idiot, knowingly doing things that harm him in the long run.
Well, our actions aren't controlled entirely by the most calm and pensive parts of our brains. We have many instinctive emotional reactions to things. Animals often attack other males that try to mate with their females, this is an evolutionary trait that ensures they pass on their genes, and humans are controlled by these rudimentary emotional reactions just like anything else.
So sure, it's stupid, but it's quite logical when you lay it out.
Some people also claim that things we don't understand aren't logical. There are lots of things that seemed magical and mysterious to us in the past that we've now figured out. It seems pretty likely that some of the things that now seem mysterious and beyond our understanding will one day make sense.
So if anti-logic or whatever is just as important a way of looking at the universe as anything else, what's it good for? What does it explain?
I've heard some people say that it's the key to creativity. That art is tapping into the illogical universe. I don't buy that. The quirkier and imaginative things that come out of your mind aren't necessarily illogical, it's just that your brain isn't organized in a clear, coherant fashion. It doesn't resemble ANYTHING that's ever been designed, it's far too random and weird, a lot more like it's been slowly pieced together, building off itself through strange chances. So a lot of the information in there is all over the place, and interconnected in completely bizarre ways. For instance, in a designed system, you would likely file chickens under "Poultry", somewhere deep within the "Animals" file. In someone's brain, they might file chickens in a way that's interconnected with Johnny Carson, 'cause you have a memory of some guy in a chicken suit on the tonight show when you were 3.
Not only is your brain extremely complex, it's really weird and disorganized. A LOT of what comes out of it is really unpredictable, but not illogical.
-------------------- "I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson http://phluck.is-after.us
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TameMe
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Phluck]
#4907567 - 11/08/05 12:04 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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What are the rules of logic?
What you think if logical I may think is not.
Is it logical to think that all things work logically? Maybe, I don't know.
From you post I gather that being logical just means that everything has a reason for things being the way they are....
well yes...it's called cause and effect....but can you trace anything to an initial cause? it would seem illogical for either an innitial cause or no initial cause....niether really explain anything.
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GulGen
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Phluck]
#4907585 - 11/08/05 12:09 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Wait, with that boyfriend example, you say he's not stupid. Is he horribly drunk or something then? I'd personally argue that beating the crap out of someone for talking to a friend of theirs is rather illogical. Being able to make up a reason doesn't make something logical. It might kind of resemble logic, but it isn't. Logic is a precise and definite thing; more along the lines of "I think therefor I am" than "He's talking to my girl therefor I should kick his ass."
It's logical that we'd ignore logic at times and act on instinct and emotion instead. We don't always have the time to properly think things through, nor do we always consider it important enough to do so. We do things that make sense to us at the moment, but I don't think that's enough to truly consider something properly logical.
If you want to get technical about it and have a mechanistic enough view of human thought and actions, you could always argue that nonsensical emotional actions like that are just the result of logic of a high enough level that it seems random to us, but that's a whole other debate in itself.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: TameMe]
#4907596 - 11/08/05 12:12 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Illogical? Well, round squares would be a good example.
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Phluck
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: TameMe]
#4907618 - 11/08/05 12:18 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
What are the rules of logic?
Basically that an explanation must make sense, and in order for it to be absolute fact there can be no other possible explanation.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure what people mean when they say that not everything can be explained with logic, because I can't think of a single example of this. Everything can either be explained reasonably, or it hasn't been. We don't have any evidence that there are things which cannot be explained at all.
Quote:
well yes...it's called cause and effect....but can you trace anything to an initial cause? it would seem illogical for either an innitial cause or no initial cause....niether really explain anything.
Well, I'm not sure about the details of time and space... I don't know if it's linear, or that there's an "initial cause".
I don't see why it's illogical for either possibility. "Seems illogical" doesn't really mean much of anything, it's just a hunch or a guess.
-------------------- "I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson http://phluck.is-after.us
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TameMe
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or...
a woman with a penis.
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TameMe
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Phluck]
#4907635 - 11/08/05 12:23 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Phluck said:Well, I'm not sure about the details of time and space... I don't know if it's linear, or that there's an "initial cause".
I don't see why it's illogical for either possibility. "Seems illogical" doesn't really mean much of anything, it's just a hunch or a guess.
If there are never ending causes....how did any of the causes come about? There was no beginning...that seems illogical.... If there was an initial cause actually be an initial cause...i just can't conceive of it...
what is logical about us being here and having this conversation.
I'm sorry...but i want the illogical to be here...and i dont' know if we can have logical without illogical.
illogical makes things exciting and new.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: TameMe]
#4907638 - 11/08/05 12:24 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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No no. You are mistaken. We call that: Greatness. Or, at least, thats what we call it around here.
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TameMe
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illogical can't be Greatness?
I like to dress in classy women's clothing sometimes and I think i'm a bit of both.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger
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Illogical: A=B B=C A!=C
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Phluck
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: TameMe]
#4907690 - 11/08/05 12:35 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
what is logical about us being here and having this conversation.
I'm sorry...but i want the illogical to be here...and i dont' know if we can have logical without illogical.
illogical makes things exciting and new.
Maybe reread the part where I was talking about art.
I don't think there's anything illogical about this conversation. That's assuming that what's happening makes no sense, not that we can't understand it. Just because you haven't figured it out doesn't mean it's illogical.
You don't need to understand everything, you can appreciate experiences without understanding them, but saying that they're illogical is like saying "I know what's going on, and it doesn't make sense.", as opposed to "I can only assume what's going on makes sense, I just don't understand it right now, and perhaps I never will".
-------------------- "I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson http://phluck.is-after.us
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TameMe
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or how about...
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
....probably not though
Edited by TameMe (11/08/05 12:36 AM)
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: TameMe]
#4907728 - 11/08/05 12:43 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Literally, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts does not seem logical. 1+1+1+1=5 doesn't make much sense. Not to me, at least.
But, if you don't take it as literal, it makes more sense. Ex: An organ performs a greater function than the cells which compose it.
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raytrace
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Phluck]
#4907751 - 11/08/05 12:49 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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cause and effect is a way to view the universe. why do you think it's the only way?
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SkorpivoMusterion
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: raytrace]
#4908061 - 11/08/05 06:01 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Law of Causality, my friend.
Until it [concretely] proves to be broken, is there really any reason to believe against such a Universal Law?
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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Silversoul
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Phluck]
#4908175 - 11/08/05 07:36 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Logic is a language. It would be impossible for me to communicate the things which that language can't describe using that language.
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SkorpivoMusterion
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Silversoul]
#4908185 - 11/08/05 07:41 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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Which is why we have analogies. To understand something which lies beyond our language, we can use analogous cases lying within our languages.
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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Silversoul
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I guess the best analogies to things lying outside the realm of logic can be found in Zen koans.
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raytrace
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Re: What's illogical? [Re: Silversoul]
#4908218 - 11/08/05 08:04 AM (18 years, 4 months ago) |
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BlueCoyote
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oh yes ! I love analogies
edit: Just before some years, they had been added together with associations in some weird context of medical crazyness. Since some years, they did take it out of the main diagnostic manual for psychological disorders (here in germany)... I kicked them in the arse for having been such ignorants...
Edited by BlueCoyote (11/08/05 11:10 AM)
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