Logical errors. Training course. Chapter 2. Types of logical errors - 2

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Repetition

In the last article, you learned that logical errors are formal and informal. Roughly speaking, formal errors can be described by formal logic, expressed in the form of mathematical formulas. For example, confusing cause and effect is a formal logical fallacy. If P-> Q, then not necessarily Q-> P (the arrow here -> means "should"). Informal errors are more associated with the peculiarities and perception of natural language, they are difficult to formalize mathematically, because it can be, for example, a play on words. Informal mistakes in form can be flawless, but the mistake will still be in the very content of the thought.

However, it has been shown that there is little point in distinguishing between formal and informal errors. This is not always possible to do, because one type of error can pass into another completely imperceptibly and sometimes it is very difficult to understand at all what kind of error we are facing. In practice, such a division does not make much sense to pay attention to. Much more important is the separation of errors into typical logical violations that underlie them.

So, using this classification, we have already become acquainted with errors of the form: false or hasty generalization (an incorrect or too hasty conclusion is made from the situation due to the lack of an opportunity or desire to understand this situation in more detail), an irrelevant judgment (the argument does not apply to the topic under discussion, but leads away from an uncomfortable discussion) and an argument with a dummy (a variant of non-relative judgment, when a certain position is attributed to the opponent, and then exposed her, and not the starting position of the opponent, making the latter an idiot).

The reader has already noticed that many errors can fall into different categories depending on how you look at them from what angle. And there is. In general, a significant part of all existing errors belong to one single category, which is called “Non sequitur”, or “Should not”. That is, the conclusion does NOT follow from the premise.

One of the variants of this error is the following.

Then it means because of this (post hoc ergo propter hoc)

Something is recognized as a consequence of an event that happened earlier.

Example 1: My car started to junk after you drove it to the store. So this one you ruined something.

Example 2: More and more people are getting higher education. More and more people are leading a degraded lifestyle. This means that education contributes to the degradation of society.

For more sophisticated examples, see Darell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics. Some of them are described on Wikipedia.

Research has shown that students who smoke are more poorly performing than non-smokers. This fact was used in the anti-smoking campaign. However, it cannot be concluded from this result that smoking adversely affects students' abilities. It is possible that students started smoking due to poor academic performance, or they study poorly and smoke due to some third reason (for example, difficult living conditions).

Research shows a positive correlation between educational attainment and income. It cannot be concluded from this fact that if you (your son, daughter, etc.) receive a higher education, then they will certainly and certainly have a higher income than if they had not received it. Moreover, this correlation does not allow us to deduce as a general rule that it is higher education that leads to higher income - perhaps the people who received it come from wealthy families and that is why they receive a higher income in adulthood.

As usual, everything seems simple and straightforward: one cannot be considered a consequence of another, unless a connection has been established between them. However, many modern people persist in doing just that. Consider examples that I know for certain from my own life and from communication with other people.

The simplest non-standard example: superstitions and various shamanistic practices such as "dancing with a tambourine." If a certain pattern has arisen in a person's life practice - for example, after sitting on the path before a long trip, he certainly gets to his destination safely, while forgetting to sit, he gets into trouble on the road - then one might get the impression that the initial action itself (sit) and generates a successful solution to the problem (to get there), while the reasons for the presence of such a pattern can be hidden deep in the psychology of the subject. Such superstitions can have useful properties, because performing a certain ritual often gives strength, confidence, calmness, and therefore a person begins to behave more judiciously, so he is able to cope with the situation. If he forgot to perform the ritual, then psychological discomfort can make the whole event extremely difficult. An example of such a situation can be found in Heywood Brown's little fantasy story "The Fifty-first Dragon."

Many people who do not succumb to superstitions are absolutely right: while pronouncing "spells" or doing "magical" actions, a person does not change the structure of reality so that further events are favorable for him. On the other hand, it would be a mistake to refuse to recognize the consequences of an action if the observer does not seedirect communication. This error also goes back to another, called “appeal for lack of evidence”: if something is not proven, then it is wrong (or it is not). There are very persistent and stubborn people who will never believe in something that cannot be explained to them with the utmost (for them) clarity or shown directly, and if something seems meaningless to them, then they rush to call it stupidity. An example is given by the famous physicist R. Feynman in his book "You, of course, are kidding, Mr. Feynman!" In one of the stories, he writes about people who do not listen to logical arguments until they see everything for themselves, and Feynman was forced to engage in such demonstrations:

For example, once there was an argument about whether urine flows out simply by gravity, and I had to demonstrate that this is not so by showing that you can urinate while standing on your head.

Likewise, I have come across the opinion that our ancient ancestors were overly superstitious and inclined to follow stupid traditions. As an example, a ritual was cited when an animal was drawn on a rock before the hunt and the hunters threw spears at it to make the hunt more successful. It was believed that if this ritual was not performed under the supervision of a shaman, the hunt would be unsuccessful. The same people, who laughed at the naivete of ancient hunters, could quite easily, while sitting in their room, rehearse answers to the exam questions, and sometimes they invited someone to listen, then put the textbook under the pillow, and before the exam they shouted from the window to the whole street "Freebie, come!" A strange ritual, isn't it?

With just a little thought, one can imagine the benefits of throwing a javelin into a drawing. First, by this action, hunters honed their accuracy. Secondly, the shaman observed the coherence and mutual coordination of people's actions, and also determined which of them was too traumatized to go hunting today: so he chose the group that would go, selected it according to the best compatibility and ability to hunt precisely in this day. Purely hypothetically, could this be? Why not? After all, a student during a rehearsal imagines how he is sitting on an exam, and he does not call this superstition.

Our ancestors were not as stupid as it can be imagined sitting in the Internet, and shamanic methods, and much more stupid, exist among modern people. For example, it is believed that there are a number of actions that need to be performed while meeting the opposite sex … “Did I take you to the movies? Gave flowers and sweets? So what else do you want then?.. ". It's strange that some young people really believe in the magic of cinema and colors. There is a much stronger magic, for example, "repair", and there is a completely lethal one, but you will hardly recognize it from me.

The post hoc ergo propter hoc error sometimes manifests itself indirectly in the opposite direction. Having made a certain action, a person can expect a certain reaction of the surrounding world (for example, other people), and is very surprised not having received this reaction. Or, on the contrary, he suspects the other person of having committed some act after being treated the same way.

This situation with the expectation of a habitual reaction often takes an extreme absurd turn. If, say, a person Aplayed a trick on a person B, and after the person Asomeone ruined the door in the apartment (painted it with paint, poured epoxy into the lock, squeezed an egg into the keyhole, etc.), then Afirst of all will blame everything on Band I've seen cases like this where Agoes and does Bsimilar muck. And then it turns out that Bnot to blame. The door was ruined by other people for another reason, about which Acould not have suspected. They could have just been hooligans.

Another example of idiotic expectation of a reaction is the use of proven methods of manipulation. A boss at work can sometimes exercise his authority. So he hinted to his subordinate not to “rock the boat”, expecting that after that he would really be more obedient. However, the subordinate suddenly begins to behave in the opposite way. Ultimately, a game of "who will beat whom" arises, in which the subordinate often loses. The boss would hardly want to fire him, especially if he is a valuable employee, but after all the stupid things that have been done on both sides, the rule "there should be only one of us left." There are also more amusing cases. So, one official demanded a rollback in order to issue a permit for the construction of a residential building. He expected that he would receive a kickback, because the developer is a penny, and butting through the court for years is not profitable for him, but the developer took, and handed over the official to the prosecutor's office, brought the money, recorded everything on camera - bang - there was a capture group at the door, everything like in the movies. Well, what did you want?..

By the way, if we have gone so far in describing the marasmic processes of our society, then let me share one more observation among motorists. You need to purchase OSAGO. Once the insurance companies conspired and began to impose additional services (life insurance, real estate, etc.) under the pretext that otherwise they would not sell OSAGO. Of course, this is a violation of the law, but the insurers know in advance that no one will sue them, the policy is needed now, and the courts will go on for months. Obedient drivers agreed to pay twice as much just to get a policy. Familiar situation?

What really needed to be done? To rebuff such impudence, and then still sue money for the fact that he was forced to sit without a car for several months and pay for the services of lawyers with whom he was hiding behind. At the same time, you can ride the most expensive taxis throughout the city and sue this money, too, to make it more fun. Then gather all your friends and ask them to do the same with the insurance company. But no, the logic of a modern person often does not allow him to use such techniques. And each necessarily there will be a thousand unique to him unique reasons why it is he can't help it.

All this is an indirect manifestation of the reverse logic from the error post hoc ergo propter hoc. Did you think that logical errors occur only in children?

You know, this situation seems strange to me: a person opened a book, read that there is such a mistake as post hoc ergo propter hoc, read a couple of superficial examples, laughed at a joke about pirates and global warming (since the number of pirates has decreased, ocean temperature, which means the pirates were holding back global warming) - and then he went to make this mistake with an already clear conscience, discovering non-existent cause-and-effect relationships where they do not exist and never existed. Having knocked on a tree and surpassed it over the left shoulder, ritually washed down the New Year with vodka, a modern man will go laughing at a neighbor turning off the route that a black cat crossed. And then he will go to the polls, thinking that if he votes, then something will change after that.

You may learn about some other Non sequitur errors in the next parts. But it is most likely that the project will be closed for the next few years. The reason is explained in the "Voice" social network (see the "Important announcement" section) for which the project was created. It turned out that almost no one needed such training courses, the last part was read by only 7 people. Hopefully here on this blog the articles already written will be of more use to people, which is why I copied them here.