this thread no longer is about logic but became about semantics, linguistic’s, culture, different ways to reason, psychology, and a hint of grammer. way to derail it.
but I would state that semantics is rather important logically and logic is one of many different ways to reason.
Firstly, the OP has enough work now for a few months, so the goal of the thread has long ago been reached. [Am I right, OP?]
Secondly, yes, I agree. Isn’t it great?
semantics is not logic. logic is not reason.
of course they are important to each other, but they are not the same concepts. it’s also important to understand that.
i agree, maybe the OP does too
it creates confusion and it further perpetuates delusional people to go on about what words mean but not know what they mean. it only further complicates what is rather simple. we agree.
logic is the normative study of how to best reason.
No but to understand some logical languages it is important to understand their semantics plus to logically define some logical languages you need to argue from their semantics and syntax.
it’s not reason as you say. so we agree.
Not “No”, cause you agree. semantics is not logic. It is important to have world peace too. It is important to eat and drink. Lots of things are important and this thread is about logic not about “what’s important”. If we’re going to define what’s importantly connected to human action, ie specie logic, then we’ll be here all day and that would involve most threads here.
well I agree with you too, but I don’t see the lack of value in semantics discussions (as you pointed out with the word “important”). This is because to learn something one has to fit it into the context of their previous knowledge and so I think whatever helps someone to better understand logic, be it semantics or philosophy or just faith, is something to be encouraged.
Chloe, I found a really high-level set of brain-teasing paradoxes to get your mind used to noticing all the tricky things words and phrasing can do, as well as ambiguities in time structure and agency. If you’ve been keeping track, you may have noticed that at least 90% of arguments here revolve around semantics, time structure flubbing, or obscuring who is doing what. Another one is reasoning with different degrees of confidence, or when new information (or hypothetical new information that one may obtain) may alter the significance of previous assumptions. This great article covers it all:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/
Moore’s Paradox, for example, makes you seriously consider what statements mean, as does the Liar Paradox. Curry’s Paradox will illustrate that the meaning of “true” isn’t quite as easy to pin down as it appears. All these paradoxes will show you over and over in every way that the ambiguity of words is the biggest obstacle to clear thinking.
Post here if anything doesn’t make sense!
AJ - Thanks for the link. I will go through these paradoxes. I’ve seen this website before, but I’ve haven’t had a chance to really study it. It looks like an excellent resource.
Indeed, I will.
If you know the basics, I recommend Leary’s “Friendly Introduction to Mathematical Logic.” It’s a good deal harder than the title would lead one to think, but his exposition guides one through rocky territory quite nicely.