Petitio Principii, If P -> Q

Many of you know that Carleas and I have had some rather annoying long debates on a few issues, specifically:

  1. Stopped Clock Paradox
  2. Blued Eyed Problem
  3. Logicians Meeting puzzle

It has dawned on me that in each case a historically common mistake is being displayed, the same mistake as Newton and a great many science philosophers ever since make, especially in pop-science (pseudoscience) that is being sold as real science throughout the Western world.

Newton heard about the idea of a “gravity force” (from Hooke I think it was). If the force called gravity was real, a certain reasoning would follow, a syllogism of logic, that would predict the behavior of the Moon and planets. He then made measurements to verify the reasoning. Because his measurements turned out to match the predictions from the reasoning that stemmed from the idea of a gravity force, it became scientific LAW that the effect of gravity was due to the “force of gravity”. Most people today still believe in that “force of gravity” because “it is proven” and obvious.

But then later Einstein comes along and proposes the idea of Relativity. Einstein explains that the “force of gravity” supposedly reaching out to affect things at a distance doesn’t really make much sense and what makes better sense is the idea that time and distance are merely relative to an observer. From that, the effect of gravity can be logically explained as a “warping of spacetime” rather than a “force of gravity”. Again working out the logic, the syllogism, based upon the assumption of warping rather than forcing, a proposed “theory” (rather than “law”) is formed. Measurements are made that verify that the warping is even more accurate than the forcing. Einstein takes the forefront being the genius and “Father of Modern Physics”, putting Newton down.

In both cases, an assumption was made, logic was constructed, and measurements were made to confirm that the priori assumption was true. And in both cases, their assumptions turned out to actually be false. There is no gravity force, nether is spacetime warped, despite that obvious fact that there is a gravimetric effect.

That exact same kind of method is being used with those puzzles in our debates. Carleas begins with “if we assume that … then make this syllogism … then we get a result that solves the puzzle. The syllogism is unquestionably true. Therefore the assumption must have been true.”

In the first minute of this video, that mistake is pointed out (the rest of the video isn’t worth much as far as I can see):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuUTABLz1Vk[/youtube]

That video spoke of the same issue -“just because your theory (assumptions and following logic) matches the puzzle constrictions doesn’t mean that your theory is correct”. At this time science has encountered enough of this such to be very aware. Thus they demand “falsifiability”, requiring that nothing counter could possibly be true. And that is what I am requiring of Carleas in those puzzles, because I can already see possibly true counter theories to the ones Carleas and pop-science/pop-logic supports.

If P -> Q
Q
therefore P
[i]Petitio Principii[/i]

Also known as “begging the question”, a type of logic fallacy.

All I have been really doing is demanding that people be modern-day scientific in their thinking rather than older presumptuous scientific thinking. Pop science, including such notions as worm-holes, spacetime warping, time travel, the Big Bang, and so on are not true modern day falsifiable science. They are all merely fanciful conjectures, used to fascinate the general, naive public, and make distractive entertainment films for their presumed useless little minds.

Rational Metaphysics and its first born “Affectance Ontology” also demands that there be no assumptions that are not later logically proven to be unquestionable regardless of any following appearance of truth, and thus validated. The physical field called “affectance” cannot not exist, it is “falsifiable” through logical consequence (basically if affectance didn’t exist, nothing at all could exist). Through empirical observations, the results of logical syllogisms can be, and have been, demonstrated to be accurate; the existence of subatomic particles, of atoms, of migration/gravitation effects, fixed speed of light in an absolute vacuum, particle attraction and repulsion effects, and so on.

Thus RM:AO is different in a very significant way than Newton or Einstein theories. RM:AO makes NO priori assumptions. And it then goes on to explain what was really happening that misled Newton, Einstein, and Western Science into their petitio principii (still largely happening).

And there is no actual distinction between good science and good logic other than one ends by saying “see!” in the physical sense rather than merely the mental sense. In logic puzzles, this same fallacy gets used and promoted throughout society as being “logical proof”. I guess that makes it “Pop-Logic”. It isn’t bad enough that the word “logic” gets abused into merely meaning, “makes sense to me”, but even the process of logic gets undermined such as to imply that truth and logic are separate things. When logic is properly formulated or presented, it is always 100% truth … although the particular truth at hand might be irrelevant;
IF horse had wings, …”

…might be true, but irrelevant.

“IF there existed a magic force,…”
“IF spacetime was warped,…”
“IF logicians use only the colors they see,…”
“IF the logicians first think of whether they have blues eyes,…”

… all might be true, but irrelevant, because what IF something else was more accurate?

Petitio Principii = Pop-Logic, Pseudologic, amusing distractions for the “useless little minds of the general public”.

This is a very good opening post.

Now the discussion can start.

JUST TO START:

Source: web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/W … enment.pdf .

That actually deserves a thread of its own.

The sad thing to me is that I see all of that (largely agreeing) as being centuries ago. And yet “modern Man” seem to have never really swallowed it enough to get passed it. I don’t really feel like it should be called “enlightenment” because it was only a spark. The truer light was never perceived. And now Man falls back into darkness with thing that go “bump” in the dark far, far greater than every before.

Maturity and immaturity comes in levels and types, each only slightly more enlightened than the one before.

That’s called affirming the consequent.

If you are going to defame Robert Distinti’s videos, then you could at least state what it is that he said that you either don’t understand or don’t agree with.

Just writing endless drivel won’t get you anywhere.

So you do want to diacuss this? You sort of ditched me in that other thread. I’ll dig the posts up later.

Although you are right, interestingly it can actually be both when the premise is in question.

“If the Sun is up (P), the sky is bright (Q)
The sky is bright (Q)
Therefore the Sun is up (Q → P)”

That is “affirming the consequent” (a type of Non-sequitur fallacy).

And:
“If I assume a true premise, I achieve a solution.
I achieved a solution,
Therefore I assumed a true premise.”
- “affirming the consequent”

Is the solution right? Well, IF the assumption is right, certainly. I got a solution, so the assumption must be right. - “affirming the consequent”

But then:
I know that my premise is true because it led to a solution that would be true if my assumption was true”. Of course it fails to examine if the assumption was ever true, thus “begging the question (of the assumption being true)”, petitio principii fallacy (presuming the initial premise).

As I alraedy said in the “Riddle”-thread:

=>#

Two examples:

  1. There is one type (usually but also mistakably called material implication / conditional) that connects “p” and “q” to a new statement that is false if and only if the first part of the statement is true and the second part of the statement is false:

[size=120]p | q | p -› q[/size]
[size=135] t | t | … t …[/size]
[size=135] t | f | … f …[/size]
[size=135] f | t | … t …[/size]
[size=135] f | f | … t …[/size]

The notation is " [size=150]¬ [/size]p v q ".

So the statement “if the Earth is a planet, then 2+2=3” is false according to this type of implication, whereas the statement “if 2+2=3, then the Earth is a planet” is true according to this type of implication.

  1. There is another type (usually but also mistakably called logical implication / entailment) that is like this:

Major premise: All M are P.
Minor premise: All S are M.
Conclusion: All S are P.

In this case “q” (conclusion) follows logically from “p” (major and minor premise) if each semantic interpretation of a language that makes “p” true makes automatically (just due to the logical form of “p” and “q”) “q” true too.

The notation is " p ||— q ".

Logic truth tables require that conditional statements be valid to begin with. You have to have a valid connection between p and q regardless of their truth status. You can’t validly say:
“The statement, ‘If a trees are blue, then rocks are yellow’ is true.”

The proposed statement is not logically valid (a non-sequitur. p has nothing to do with q), thus the truth status cannot be assessed at all.

I don’t understand your symbols in “p ||— q” and can’t find any reference.
There is logical implication, “|—”
And there is semantic entailment, “|=”
Either could apply depending on the exact nature of M, P, and S. If semantically S is implicit in M (eg M= all men. And S= small men), then the syllogism could be called a “semantic entailment”.

Is it also “not logically valid” when Wikipedia says that it is valid?

=>#

So again:

[size=120]p | q | p -› q[/size]
[size=135] t | t | … t …[/size]
[size=135] t | f | … f …[/size]
[size=135] f | t | … t …[/size]
[size=135] f | f | … t …[/size]

The notation is " [size=150]¬ [/size]p v q ".

Yes. And the symbol " ||— " is also mentioned in the ASCII code, and could be interpreted as a mix of " |— " and " |= ". The symbol " ||— " is more used in linguistics than in logic itself but it is a logical symbol as well (of course - duh!).

One of my points was - by the way - that it could be probable that the types of implications you and Carleas were refering to in the said discussion were different.

Certainly.
Wiki making a claim merely means that there is someone else who believes the claim. Wiki has many incorrect articles (and changes them quite frequently).

For centuries people accepted that logic was inherently flawed because a person could say, “This statement is false” and create what appeared to be a logic paradox. They were setup for that trick by first being told how ALL statements are either true or false. The real truth was, is, and always will be that not all statements are rational or logically valid statements and such statements have nothing to do with being true or false, and thus nothing to do with truth tables.

The “material conditional” is allowed to be irrational and thus the truth table is meaningless (and yes, I don’t care what Wiki might say about it). It is declared that the following statement is “true”:

“If apples are blue, then bicycles are boats.”

Is that a true statement in your mind? Does the conditional truly qualify the consequent? No it doesn’t. It is a non-sequitur. And in fact, the statement:

“If apples are red, then bicycles have two wheels”

…also is not a true statement, even though both the conditional and the consequent are in themselves true. The fact is that the statement asserted a qualifying connection between the color of apples and the condition of bicycles and that is simply not a true connection. The statement is false in this case due to the falsity of that asserted connection.

Publishing a truth table or math equation doesn’t impress me. What they are calling a “material conditional” is simply not a logically valid form for a truth table to have meaning. They use it in math wherein nothing actually has meaning and you can have imaginary numbers, irrational numbers, and various other nonsense.

I have not quoted Wikipedia, because I absolutely believe in it. I wanted to show that both examples I gave are well-known. When I wrote about them in this thread the first time (here) I did not refer to Wikipedia or whatever or whomever.

Again: The truth table associated with the material conditional p→q is well-known.

Do you now know what I mean?

Those are the only relevant statements. It directly connects and implies dependence of q to p and clues you into the fact that the truth table does NOT always apply.

I stated, “If apples are blue,…” as my “p”
and then “… then bicycles are boats” as my " → q"

In reality, there is no connection or dependence between the color of apples and the condition of bicycles. The statement is in the form of “p → p”. But the statement is a non-sequitur. The fact that apples are not really blue plus the fact that bicycles are not boats does NOT dictate that the statement requiring their dependence be true. It is certainly not true, because it is asserting a dependence that is not there.

The truth tables for “p → q” only apply if the overall assertion is true.

Else, you are agreeing that if apples become blue, then bicycles WILL become boats. If Wiki tells you that they will, are you going to believe them?

When the overall statement is true, the truth table applies in order to state that if the p condition is no longer present and the consequence q is no longer present, then the statement p → q is still a true statement (assuming that it was true to begin with). And the Venn diagram is irrelevant.

Not really. I know what he is trying to say and I know what he is avoiding (because prior discussions have very seriously revealed his effort to avoid it).

Interesting post. I have run up against this kind of thing often with science groupies. Confusions about models vs. observations/result data amongst other confusions.

You explain the idea contrasting Newton and Einstein in reference to gravity being a force, and yes, people still believe this, though scientists know better, now, at least, most of the physicists. Do you have something that shows that gravity is also not the warping of space? IOW as Einstein’s gravity model is to Newton’s gravity model, we have X’s model (or something other than a model) to Einstein’s model of gravity.

That is what I have been babbling about for the past 5 years. Affectance Ontology, a necessarily true ontology construct, explains that gravity is an aberrant particle migration effect due to ambient affectance field absorption. Affectance is the stuff of which the “gravity field” is made. Mass particles are constantly absorbing and disseminating the affectance of which they are made into and out of that field. The field and the particles are made of the same substance. When the affectance is a little more dense on one side of the particles than the other, the particles inadvertently migrate toward that higher density.

A mass particle is merely a concentrated traffic jam of affectance (ultra-minuscule EMR pulses). And just like any traffic jam, the material of its composition comes and goes while the jam remains more steadfast. And if there is more coming from one direction than the opposite, the jam itself floats or migrates toward that direction. And that is the logically undeniable (in the long run) cause of the gravitational effect.

Magical forces and bending of space are not required at all to understand exactly why masses “attract”/“aggregate”.

Thanks for the reply. I will do my best to understand this. With Einstein’s model, as you also said, measurements fit better. Has this happened with this model? I do understand that if it is not being taken seriously by those with money taking the measurements is out of reach, but are their measurements or something else that already supports this. And I also understand that if the answer is in the negative this does not mean the model is wrong.

The types of measurements that have been done so far are not the type to which people are accustomed. I started off being more concerned for accuracy than anyone I have met since. To most people, almost all, it is good enough if it sounds probably right based upon other beliefs. That is not good enough for me. I had to know that there was no possibility at all of the theory being wrong. That took a while, but I got it there.

So the first measure of accuracy was one of ontological consistency. Was there anything inherently contradictory in the fundamental principles? I made certain that there wasn’t, but then I still had to get that verified (as a part of RM procedure). You have seen a part of that on this forum as people attempt to find something wrong with the theory; “What about this… What about that….” And of course, they did so as enemies, not hopeful friends trying to make me feel good (makes an important difference).

But before the concepts were revealed on this site, I had already built and programmed a computer to operate using those principles to see where it would lead. That took quite a lot to accomplish but in the long run, the computer, not being told anything more than the principles, automatically produced what later was confirmed to be sub-atomic particles which behaved exactly as concurrent physics observes electrons, positrons, and neutrinos behaving. There was “mass attraction”, “polarity”, “charge attraction” and so on even though none of those were programmed to occur. Merely the emulation of the fundamental principles (the manner in which affectance treats itself) was enough to cause the formation of the essential particles and fields (gravitation and charge) necessary for our entire universe to spring forth.

So the consistency of the logic was first verified by a computer that could do nothing but be consistent, even better than I could. And then the next concern is one of comprehensiveness. Does the ontology found the entire diverse range of behavior throughout the universe while remaining consistent and coherent? The automatic production of the fundamental sub-atomic particles took care of that concern very quickly. The only issue was one of being certain that literally all known particles and materials were made from those principles. That took more specialized examination and detailed logic/math. But in the long run, that too worked out. There has been nothing observed in Science that RM:AO can’t explain while remaining pretty simple and totally coherent, including the things that Science can’t yet explain (as Eugene Morrow discovered).

So the measure that has been made most significantly at this point isn’t about meters and seconds (AO doesn’t even use those units), but rather it has been a measure of coherent comprehensiveness with mathematical and logical support. And beyond that, verification measures by a range of people trying to find something lacking in it (especially in the face of super strong support, religious support, for Relativity and QM). RM:AO doesn’t need anything magical, warping of space, dilating of time, forces reaching out over long distances, multiuniverses, parallel universes, higher mystery dimensions, backward time functions, something from nothing, or any such ridiculous extremes proposed as “modern science”

At this point, RM:AO has actually been verified to a greater degree than any other theory, although it takes a serious philosopher to realize that. What would be required to convince most people in science would be if I could find something predictable by RM:AO that wasn’t as accurately predictable using other means. I have little doubt that I could do that, but that would require the participation of public science figures (not available to me).

And beyond even all of that, even if RM:AO was 100% proven to every scientist, it would be years, if not decades, before any of you heard anything about it. You live in a world of military secrecy that extends well into all education, especially science and religion.

So … bottom line, you have to look at every detail of the logic yourself, compare it with science observation data, (not pop-science theories). Most of it is well within the range of the average person to be able to verify the logic if they bother to have any confidence in themselves (not so easy to find) and merely discuss it with other logic oriented people. In the long run, there are no questions left, no room for deception, no corner for the Devil to hide in. The “theory” really isn’t a “theory” any more. It is fact, although using different concepts in a few places than are common today.

If “gravity force” and “spacetime warping” are unproven and even unprovable, then they are arguments for unproven premises, thus examples of the petitio principii, possibly also of a proton pseudos or even of a proton kinun (lat.: primum movens), and this means that they are proof errors, thus: they are logically false.

The problem I have with AO is that it prescribes a ‘field-ness’ as an a-priori coherence; it operates on a presumed analytical guarantee.

This is what “Affectance” means: the assumption that physical causality is uniformly consistent, i.e. that “existence” in its totality is a coherent field.

Now this may be the case, but that is not known for a fact. Nor could it ever be established as such.

So the OPs criticism of Newton and Einstein applies doubly to the OPs proposal. The logic is born of assumed terms, the terms arent born from pure logic.