Quotes About Reasoning

If real numbers are not real, why do mathematicians love them so much?

math always involves both invention and discovery: we invent the concepts but discover their consequences.

Faith can be a wonderful thing if it is balanced by critical thinking.

În definitiv, s? nu uit?m ce spunea Sherlock Holmes:"Când ai eliminat imposibilul, orice r?mâne, oricât de imposibil ar p?rea, trebuie s? fie adev?rul". De?i, judecând dup? ferocitatea cu care un alt eminent filozof modern a fost atacat de criticii s?i, n-ai b?nui asta.

Because, Lucius, without the discipline of philosophy to give rigour to their thinking, people can and will believe anything, no matter how absurd.

I really do believe that our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground. We are not great reasoners. Most people don't like to think at all, or like to think as little as possible. And by most, I mean roughly 70 percent of the population. Even the rest seem to devote a lot of their resources to justifying beliefs that they want to hold, as opposed to forming credible beliefs based only on fact.

As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding

We will see that humans specialize in reasoning about how the world works, about causality.

The distinction between mathematics and science is pretty well settled. It remains mysterious to us why mathematics that is invented for reasons having nothing to do with nature often turns out to be useful in physical theories. In a famous article,8 the physicist Eugene Wigner has written of "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.

There is an important feature of modern science that is almost completely missing in all the thinkers I have mentioned, from Thales to Plato: none of them attempted to verify or even (aside perhaps from Zeno) seriously to justify their speculations. In

In a famous article,8 the physicist Eugene Wigner has written of "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.

There is an important feature of modern science that is almost completely missing in all the thinkers I have mentioned, from Thales to Plato: none of them attempted to verify or even (aside perhaps from Zeno) seriously to justify their speculations. In reading their writings, one continually wants to ask, "How do you know?

The main functions of intelligence, that of inventing solutions and that of verifying them, do not necessarily involve one another. The first partakes of imagination; the second alone is properly logical.

If you come from mathematics, as I do, you realize that there are many problems, even classical problems, which cannot be solved by computation alone.

Just as I wouldn't expect a gynecologist to have a debate with somebody who believes in the Stork-theory of reproduction, I won't do debates with Young Earth creationists.

On one side of his brain, logic was standing on a chair, waving its arms to get his attention. On the other side, lust and yearning rubbed their hands together in unholy anticipation.

If i think about us logically, there is no chance for us. But logic doesn't produce magic.

There is no way to find a logical way to deal with this when logic isn't involved.

Treba ostati logi?an, jer bilo kako bilo, logika nikada nije nepouzdan vodi?. Istina je: bio sam prili?no sam, ali osamljenost još uvijek nije dokaz da ?ovjek nema pravo.

Platon, Devlet'inde ak?lca ve ruhça zay?f olanlara tart??may? yasak etmiÅŸtir. DoÄŸru dürüst ad?m at?p yürümesini bilmeyen bir insanla gerçeÄŸi aramaya ç?kman?n anlam? var m??

Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it.

The human mind is as naturally sensitive to arguments as the eye is to colors. (There may be some people who are argument-blind!) But the eye will not see if it is not kept open, and the mind will not follow an argument if it is not awake.

Good controversy should not be a quarrel about assumptions

conceiving the reader as conversing with the author, as talking back. After he has said, "I understand but I disagree," he can make the following remarks to the author: (1) "You are uninformed"; (2) "You are misinformed"; (3) "You are illogical—your reasoning is not cogent"; (4) "Your analysis is incomplete.