Logical errors. Training course. Solving the problems in chapter 2-1

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

I remind the readers that the reference options for solving problems proposed here are exclusively my opinion, and it has the right not to coincide with yours. Informal logical errors do not obey strict mathematics, and therefore one can talk about them in a fairly wide range of opinions, and all of them may turn out to be worthy of attention. You can offer your options in the comments, as well as express disagreement with me.

Problem 1

One person says to another: "The conspiracy theory is nonsense, because you yourself imagine that a certain group of persons conspired and controls all world processes in politics … do you yourself believe that this is possible?"

Try to list all the logical errors here and explain in more detail the ones that we covered in this part of the second chapter.

Here, several logical errors are mixed in one heap at once, both in explicit and implicit form. The task of these logical errors is the same: to defend their point of view, for which a person has no justification.

Let's try to unearth what lies on the surface. First, hanging emotional labels ("delirium", "conspired") so that the question sounds like a reproach, in order to besiege and suppress the interlocutor indirectly, by humiliating the very idea of a world conspiracy, in which he believes. In addition to labeling, it is also an indirect transition to personality. That is, there are two logical errors at once, and the labeling here is a kind of the error of the dispute with the dummy, considered last time; we will talk about the transition to personality later.

Second, a false generalization. A person ascribes to the secret world government an obviously exaggerated set of functions ("controls all world processes"), in order then, on the basis of this generalization, to present the interlocutor as an idiot, because everyone understands that a very limited group of people by allcannot manage processes. Here again, a dispute with a dummy: a dispute with a far-fetched and incorrect definition of the functions of a secret world government, which the person himself invented.

Third, a mistake that we have not yet gone through: the appeal for lack of evidence (or faith). Question: "Do you yourself believe …?" is asked in order to get intelligible explanations from the interlocutor, and when he cannot give them (and he cannot), say: "you see, you cannot explain, then there is no government." Although in fact it is clear that if, say, I cannot prove to someone the harm of alcohol, it will not cease to be harmful from this. If it was objectively harmful before my attempt to justify the harm, then neither my success nor my failure will change the properties of ethanol.

Fourthly, a mistake was made here, which the overwhelming majority of those with whom I spoke cannot even think of. Attention!

Imagine yourself, hypothetically, in the place of representatives of the secret government. A person will come to you and say, "I heard about the conspiracy theory, blah blah blah." What should you answer? I think it would be beneficial to answer: "Yes, this is nonsense!" And now we think further: if a secret group of persons has a certain secret plan, then how can two uninitiated in the management of a person at an ordinary gathering with their ordinary minds, by indirect signs, can reliably determine the existence of a structure that itself supports the delusional rumors about its existence? How can they reason about the details of the secret plan if it secret?

Lyrical digression … Remember earlier there was a popular conversation about "Putin's secret plan"? Do you know how the existence of this plan was sometimes denied? Very simple. The supporters of the secret plan were asked the question: "What is this plan?" Of course, the supporters do not know this, because the plan is secret. And the opponents are rubbing their hands victoriously: well, no, it means that there is no plan, since you cannot explain it. For some reason, people with an ordinary consciousness are sure that a certain plan (if there was one), hidden even from the gaze of the intelligence services of other states, should be to them, the townsfolk, extremely clear and transparent. And everything that is incomprehensible and opaque does not exist. The logical error is that a person initially thinks that the top management is guided by the same logic of social behavior as this person himself. But in fact, if you think more deeply, such people upstairs (about whom you know nothing, not even their names) are unlikely to, for example, drink, smoke and engage in various primitive forms of entertainment. But these are my guesses.

Let me explain the meaning of the mistake again: a reasoning person generalizes his view of the world to all people, including those whose managerial abilities are so great that they cannot be compared with the abilities of people who are hardly able to cope with their own family and primitive everyday problems. A person initially assumes that all people as a whole should think like him, have the same motives, values, ideals and the same level of ideas about the world. From this follows no less terrible logical error when a person tries to substantiate someone else's behavior through OWN logic, as it would be under the same conditions.

As for the world government, here is a video that gives the best, in my opinion, performance, which you can think of just sitting on the couch and flipping through the Internet:

If you get off the couch, you can dig up more information, but this is no longer the topic of this training course.

Task 2

Before you is a common argument, with the help of which they are trying to prove intent in the actions of another: "a person with your character and could not have acted otherwise." Where is the mistake?

This is a variant of false generalization with the transition to personality. For a number of outwardly visible signs of behavior, this behavior is generalized to all other life circumstances. A preconceived attitude is formed, and it begins to seem that the motive of the person's action is already completely clear. “Yes, he was always a drunkard, he probably drank his car too” (but in fact gave it to his son) - also a classic version of the logic of grandmothers on the bench at the entrance.

The mistake, mainly, is not even in generalizing a person's character to those circumstances where this character may not manifest itself, but in the fact that a certain person generally decided that he understands the logic of the behavior of another, although in fact he only applies his life experience to explain situations. As I already said in one of the parts, I often found myself in such circumstances when people did not believe me, since they themselves would never have acted the same way as I did (they could not or would not want to). Usually it concerned some kind of good deeds, but sometimes they managed to ascribe to me frankly malicious motives, guided by the fact that "this is how people usually do." Have you seen a person who, instead of taking revenge on the offender, gives him something useful or invites him to talk to him for tea? Probably not seen, and therefore you think that the offended will certainly, if not bad, then at least be wary of the offender. Nothing of the kind, guys, don't fall for this stereotype, as there is a whole world of people acting in unexpectedly good ways.

Again lyrical digression … I'll try to give an absurd example, but it exactly reflects the logic of modern political analysts who try to explain the actions visible to them politicians on the basis of a primitive form of generalization of the simplest human motives inherent, first of all, to these analysts themselves. So, I walk along Pushkin Street. Vasya sees me. Vasya immediately thinks that he knows the meaning of my walk. It is obvious to him that my goal is to reach the end of Pushkin Street (why else can I walk along it ??). If at the same time he knows that at the end of this street is my house, then he is sure that I am going home. Then a logical error "inclined plane" arises: Vasya, in a cascade manner, makes one after another a number of logical, but unlikely consequences from his initial assumption and gets a certain conclusion. This can be absolutely any conclusion. But in fact, everything is a little more complicated: I walk along the mentioned street, in order to then turn off from it to the place of meeting with a person assigned to me, and before that I need to convey something to someone along the way, which makes a small “detour” "By the quarter. But Vasya, who had already drawn all the conclusions and to whom I had told him an hour earlier that I would not go home this evening, would be offended that I had deceived him, and would somehow associate this with my unwillingness to give him the book I had taken to read. It will be useless to explain anything to Vasya, because with his own eyes he saw me walking towards my house. And everything that I saw with my own eyes cannot be untrue.

So. The logic of another person's behavior may be completely incomprehensible to you. Moreover, if in most cases it is possible to guess some simple intentions, then it would be ridiculous to make generalizations for all such cases, especially when the intentions are far from simple. The second logical error here is that the fact is replaced by some interpretation of the fact, and conclusions are drawn on the basis of this interpretation.

There is a reason to remember the excellent tale of H. H. Andersen, The Wild Swans. And although the tale is a little on a different topic, there is such a moment in it:

… But remember that from the minute you start work and until you finish, even if it lasts for years, you should not say a word. The very first word that comes off your tongue will pierce the hearts of your brothers like a deadly dagger. Their life and death will be in your hands. Remember all this!

Of course, when the girl Eliza, to whom all this was said, behaved in a mysterious way - she tore up nettles in the cemetery at night and was silent, if she was addressed - the most terrible suspicions began to hang on her. And she couldn't explain anything. Familiar situation?

Problem 3

Here is an anecdote.

Three scientists - a biologist, a physicist and a mathematician - were traveling across Scotland in the same compartment of a train. Through the window they saw a black sheep grazing on one of the hills. The biologist said, “Wow, you! There are black sheep in Scotland. " The physicist replied: "No, we can only say that there is at least one black sheep in Scotland." The mathematician concluded: "There is at least one sheep in Scotland, black on at least one side!"

Consider the anecdote from the perspective of the material covered. What mistake is he dedicated to? What is the cultural value of its content?

Everything is quite simple here. The biologist and physicist make a false generalization when they see only one side of the black sheep. The mathematician is absurdly accurate, which causes laughter, although purely logically he was the only one right. However, it is not a fact that they all saw the sheep. But this is not so important here.

Another thing is important. The anecdote reflects the comic nature of a situation in which a person tries to be logically perfect in life. As I said earlier, it is impossible to live and think according to the strict laws of logic. This partly suffered from logical positivists - a group of scientists who decided to introduce a logically rigorous form of communication into science, throwing various expressions overboard that do not carry meaning, but express only emotions. For example, "beautiful sky" - there is no scientific value here, and the verification of this fact depends on the subject, and therefore the statement is unscientific. The positivists removed philosophy from the limits of science due to the presence in it of "chimeras and mystifications of everyday consciousness."

We will not discuss the philosophy of logical positivism, this is a very difficult topic, but by their example they showed not only that direct strict proofs of any facts are impossible, but also that such an approach is, in principle, absurd in relation to our life. You cannot, for example, prove by their methods that “all the sheep are black”, because you have to take all the sheep and make sure that they are black. And this is physically impossible. It is especially difficult here to understand that exactly all the sheep were taken in all corners of the universe. But to refute the thesis, it is enough to find at least one non-black sheep. If the example with sheep seems too simple to the reader (and it’s true, even now I’ll go out into the street and find a white sheep there, I see them almost every day), then I propose to prove that there is no talking pike. You may laugh, but from the point of view of positivism, this task is absolutely insoluble in practice.

The cultural value of this anecdote is that it shows the comic nature of a superficial rational approach to life, when unobvious or incomprehensible things are thrown overboard that do not fit into the usual logic of the observer. In an everyday sense, the biologist is right more than everyone else, because the presence of one black sheep surely means that they have a whole self-reproducing family here, and this is much more likely than one sheep, and, moreover, that someone painted it on one side and turned this side to the train.

On the other hand, some non-standard situations need to be kept in mind, but they must have grounds for their manifestation:

Holmes and Watson lie on the ground in the forest and look at the night sky.

- What do these stars tell you, Watson? Holmes asks.

- That tomorrow there will be wonderful sunny weather! The doctor replies dreamily.

- No, Watson, they say that our tent was stolen!

Problem 4

One historian once said that the ancient pyramids of Egypt could not have been built by those who lived at that time, because even today no modern method of stone processing can cut such huge blocks so flawlessly evenly. He also said about the impossibility of constructing some of Baalbek's buildings, since even modern technology allows you to lift stones of such a huge size.

Is there a false generalization error here? If so, what is it? What other errors are there that you know?

There is an error. It is expressed in the fact that A. Sklyarov, the bearer of such a logic, was just trying to generalize the skills of modern people for that distant historical period (2-4 thousand years ago). In his sensational film "Forbidden Themes of History", he often "proved" the existence of an ancient, but highly technologically advanced civilization earlier on the planet (more than 10 thousand years ago), which built famous architectural monuments, and followers like the people of Ancient Egypt or the Ancients The Incas, simply appropriated these monuments to themselves, having built next to them pitiful likenesses of them.

Screensaver of the mentioned movie

Despite the fact that such a hypothesis really does exist, the logic used by Andrei Yuryevich is a variant of a false generalization. From the fact that today no one can cut granite with a circular saw with a millimeter thickness, it does not follow that earlier someone did exactly this and in exactly the way we can imagine. It is wrong to generalize modern methods of solving some problems for the entire historical period. This is what historians are guilty of, saying, for example, "Ivan the Terrible wanted …". Dear historians, you cannot know what exactly Ivan Vasilyevich wanted. However, we are distracted …

There is a science, experimental archeology, within which the possibility of doing some previously unexplained things with an ordinary hand tool has been experimentally confirmed. Of course, experiments do not prove that the Ancient Egyptians did exactly as archaeological scientists show, but they do prove that it is not necessary to have a diamond cutter or a super-space laser cutter for any work. A copper pipe and sand are enough, as well as a piece of granite tied to a stick. Well, many, many hours (days, years) of work.

Here is an example (link to PDF-document) describing a possible process of drilling a stone in such a way, about which Sklyarov said that it was impossible to do it manually. Moreover, from the experiment it turns out that most likely the Egyptians did just that, because the traces of processing are very similar.

By the way, I recommend watching a video from the above-mentioned film "Forbidden Themes of History" (there are many from the series dedicated to different parts of the world). However, again, I very often faced objections and speculations in my address that I support "alternative" scientists and do pseudoscience. For some reason, everyone thinks that I agree with the conclusions of Andrei Yuryevich, since I recommend his films. No, I do not agree, and his films are good because they pose questions that I am interested in answering. So don't make logical mistakes. I can even recommend Mein Kampf, but you can hardly understand my motivation until I explain it.

Problem 5

One person once asked: "How to choose high-quality alcohol for the New Year, so that I don't get poisoned like last time?"

The answer was: “why drink at all for the New Year? Don't drink alcohol and there will be no problems."

This is not an easy task: in this answer you need not only to find a logical error, but to suggest situations in which you cannot get away from it.

This contains a mistake that we discussed in the last article: there is no direct connection between the question and the answer, that is, the respondent takes the conversation aside and answers some other question that looks similar to the original one. Here is an anecdote on this topic.

There was a biology student, and he only learned the flea question for the exam. On the exam he came across dogs. Approaching the professor, he said: "Dogs are four-legged animals, dogs have wool, and fleas can get in their wool … But fleas are …", and began to tell everything he knew about fleas. The professor is perplexed, says: "Come on, then tell us about the cats." The student happily agreed: "Cats are four-legged animals, cats have wool, and fleas can get in their wool … But fleas are …". The professor realized the situation and asked me to tell you about the fish. The student was not at a loss: "Fish swim in water, they have scales, but if they had wool …".

Here we have the same situation that I partly find myself in. Before, they often asked me: "What are you going to drink?", "Let's give him a bottle?", "Do you think this wine is good?" etc. I always had to answer what alcohol is harmful without answering the question asked. I looked like this student. None of my friends were interested in my opinion about the harm of alcohol, everyone had to decide on a drink.

On the one hand, moving away from the topic and replacing the subject of conversation is a logical mistake. On the other hand, it is not always possible to get out of it. Here's an exaggerated example. A man sits, sticks uninsulated knitting needles into an outlet, holding them with his bare hands, and he gets an electric shock. He pokes this way and that way. And at night, when no one sees, and hides under the covers, but still beats; he only pokes a little, quietly on holidays, but no, he still gets a discharge. And so he asks: "but how can I do so that it does not hit?" They tell him not to poke at all. But this is a mistake, he asks about howpoke, and so as not to beat. Then they offer to wrap it with electrical tape. And he refuses: "It is necessary that without isolation." They propose to turn off the current first, he refuses again, they say, it is necessary that the current be in the outlet, otherwise what kind of holiday is it without current ?!

The law of nature cannot be deceived, and any attempt to explain to a person the option of the correct solution to his problem will be a diversion from his original question. He needs to stick his bare knitting needles into an electrical outlet, holding them with his bare hands, but so as not to beat. Any advice to avoid getting hit is off-topic. This logical error cannot be avoided by staying in a predetermined context. Even if you say to him “this is impossible”, this will also be an escape from the answer, because he does not ask whether it is possible or not, he asks HOW to him to do it.

Do you think I am exaggerating or mocking the reader? No. These are all satirical sketches on real life situations.

I just see very well how people often do exactly this, figuratively speaking, they stick their knitting needles into the socket, they know about the result in advance, but they never stop, and when you try to show them what you can do differently (for example, drink grape juice instead of wine, do not drink alcohol at all, stop going to useless gatherings, etc.), they complain that this is a diversion of the conversation, they do not ask WHAT they should do or not do, but ask HOW they do what they want without consequences that they are well aware of. Here are some common folk questions on this topic:

• How to eat what you want and how much you want, but lose weight?
• How to buy expensive, beautiful and useless things and save money?
• How to take 10 loans, but not become a slave to banks and a hostage of three jobs?
• How to drink poison, but not poison?
• How to smoke, but not spoil the body?
• How to get strong without leaving the couch?
• How to learn to motivate yourself, but not to have to motivate yourself for this training?

In other words: how to get pleasure without side effects, or how to get what you want without taking the very complicated actions necessary for this? I wrote a little about this in the article about the magic button.

There is only one correct answer: to change the motivation and the value system so that pleasure does not have unwanted side effects, and complex actions cease to be difficult. But no, people do not want to change anything, because this answer is a diversion from their question.

It is possible to get out of this logical impasse if both interlocutors can rise above the given context of the discussion. Both must take the position that sometimes the correct solution to the problem looks like a rejection of its original formulation … And it is the acceptance of this opportunity that allows you to go beyond the boundaries of ordinary logic.

Just try not to be in the position of an ant, which, coming up to the rails, says: "The smart one will not go up the hill, the smart one will bypass the mountain." However, having risen above the problem (rails) even higher and seeing its scope, the ant could have made a better decision.

It seems strange to me this: people who have read this text, and those with whom I communicate on these topics personally, see errors in the logic of the actions of my imaginary characters and understand my examples, they will also be happy to note that they would never be so stupid made. But when it comes to defending your convictions in a dispute, all the mistakes from the proposed list are used. Straight mystic.