Elementary Logic

To say that something is elementary is not to say that it is simple. For instance, elementary quantum theory is presumably not simple. Having said that, the basics for thinking clearly are straight forward.

It boils down to this:

1. What do you believe or what are you being asked to believe?
2. Do you have an accurate conception of the reasons that are being offered for this or these beliefs?
3. Are these reasons logically relevant?

We will continue shortly but notice a distinction. If I point a loaded gun to your head and offer this as a reason for you to believe something you might have a very good motivation for adopting a belief, but it is not a logically motivated belief--that is, the reason that is being offered involves a direct appeal to force.

A logically motivated belief is arrived at given good reasons that any rational agent would accept independent of violence or coercion. More to come.

Paralogic

When political systems become increasingly detached from reality they loose the ability to rationally argue for their positions. Instead they appeal to force and engage in faulty reasoning in patterns that have been recognized and defined since Ancient Greece. The lack of coherent thinking also often results in certain kinds of psychological phenomena such as rather self-evident displays of self-deception, willful ignorance and cognitive dissonance. In the next few posts we will be weaving the sciences of political ponerology, logic and psychology to detect and analyze "paralogic" or a form of discourse that simulates rational argumentation to some degree or another but in fact represents a kind of degradation in the ability to think clearly.

Bounding the Debate: Elementary Mind Control

Here Chomsky lays out the concept of "bounding" debate and how this provides the illusion of controversy and dialogue.

Bounding the Debate: Elementary Mind Control II

Quotation:

"Even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? It doesn't have any significance. It's a little bit like the huge energy that's put out on trying to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy. Who knows? And who cares? Plenty of people get killed all the time, why does it matter that one of them happened to be John F. Kennedy? If there was some reason to believe that there was a high level conspiracy, it might be interesting. But the evidence against that is just overwhelming. And after that, if it happened to be a jealous husband, or the mafia, or someone else, what difference does it make? It's just taking energy away from serious issues onto ones that don't matter."