Quotes About Logic

If you simply announce that things are irrational, then that alone doesn't get you very far. You have to replace rational agents with some concrete notion of what it means to be irrational.

Reason is just a means to an end, and the end depends on the reasoner's passions.

Ideas come according to their own logic. That logic is not rational. It's not linear. We may get the middle before we get the end. We may get the end before we get the beginning. Be ready for this. Don't resist it.

All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically

scientific theories cannot be deduced by purely mathematical reasoning.

It concluded that nothing positive would have much effect, so the logical and best course was to minimize the impact of black voters in various ways. This was the Nixon strategy in 1972. It was the Trump strategy in 2016. It was so obvious that even the Russians adopted it, attempting to instigate tensions among black voters to help Trump win.

To establish that a rule is likely to be true, one must try to prove it false.

But when we work with numbers and abstract reasoning, the benefit to our society is infinite.

Taste has no system and no proofs. But there is something like a logic of taste: the consistent sensibility which underlies and gives rise to a certain taste.

I had to concede that there was some logic to McQuaid's concern. But it wasn't logic we were talking about, it was control. The emancipated China rose up in me, the China who hates to be told what to do by somebody who thinks he knows better. She was indignant, and she spoke for me.

Someone had said that if you thought about the unthinkable long enough it became quite reasonable.

Anyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical it is pathetic. All religion cannot be true because some of them are so diametrically opposed to each other.

There's something very satisfying about numbers. Numbers are what they are. They're very straightforward. Unlike people.

There's something very satisfying about numbers. Numbers are what they are. They are very straightforward. Unlike people.

Desde un punto de vista heurístico, las intuiciones son información no procesada de forma racional que pueden producir un resultado cognitivo que se ha saltado procesos lógicos de pensamiento.

un punto de vista heurístico, las intuiciones son información no procesada de forma racional que pueden producir un resultado cognitivo que se ha saltado procesos lógicos de pensamiento.

los científicos se sienten tentados muchas veces a aferrarse, como cualquier mortal, a propuestas que en puro rigor deductivo deberían rechazar por haberse topado con contraejemplos. Incluso

But Reason's voice could not always be heard above the clamour of self-doubt

Counterfactual reasoning, which deals with what-ifs, might strike some readers as unscientific. Indeed, empirical observation can never confirm or refute the answers to such questions.

The problem with monotonic logic lies not in the hardness of its truth values, but rather in its inability to process context-dependent information.

Another feature we lose in going from logic to uncertainty is incrementality.

paradox is more than that: it should entail a conflict between two deeply held convictions.

Too often we fall into the trap of thinking that if we give employees the facts and explain why change needs to take place from an economic point of view, they'll buy into the change. We overestimate the power of logic and underestimate the power of storytelling, an appeal to belonging and the positive emotions of belonging.

Nothing is as inimical to passion as the slow, sensible weighing of practicalities.