Many of you know that Carleas and I have had some rather annoying long debates on a few issues, specifically:
- Stopped Clock Paradox
- Blued Eyed Problem
- 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”.