Quotes About Logic

Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.

We must surrender our skepticism only in the face of rock-solid evidence. Science demands a tolerance for ambiguity.

But the brain does much more than just recollect it inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes, it generates abstractions. The simplest thought like the concept of the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistency of the world.

What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and—especially important—to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follow from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true

Except by sealing the brain off into separate airtight compartments, how is it possible to fly in airplanes, listen to the radio or take antibiotics while holding that the Earth is around 10,000 years old or that all Sagittarians are gregarious and affable?

I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble. Really, it's okay to reserve judgement until the evidence is in.

the credibility is a consequence of the method.

Our psychological predispositions pros or cons must not misleads us. All that matters is the evidence, and the evident is not in.

This is one of the fallacies in the baloney detection kit, the enumeration of favorable circumstances. We

Absence Of Evidence Is Not Evidence Of Absence

I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me in trouble. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

El diccionario es el único libro ameno y reposante, cuya amable incoherencia, tan parecida a la de nuestra madre la naturaleza, nos hace descansar de la lógica, de las declamaciones y de la literatura.

What Wittgenstein calls a 'grammar' is a set of rules by which we are able to make sense of things; and such grammars are not correlated with reality. It is not as though some of them provide us with a more accurate representation

Wizard's Third Rule Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.

Wizard's Ninth Rule A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole.

Celebrating faith over reason is merely a way of denying what is, in favor of embracing any whim that strikes your fancy.

Wizard's Sixth Rule: the only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.

Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason's light.

It wasn't possible to reason with people who were irrational. That was what made irrational people so profoundly dangerous.

Wizard's Third Rule: Passion rules reason.

Yes! I'm me ! I am careful and logical and I look up things I don't understand! When I hear people use the wrong words, I get edgy! I am good with cheese. I read books fast! I think ! And I always have a piece of string! That's the kind of person I am!

He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe. Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one.

It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.