Logic as an evolved strategy...

[elfs]

So, I'm reading John Wilkins, one of those annoying know-it-alls whom I admire, and he has a thoughtful essay, The Logic of Evolution, in which he reveals a fascinating conundrum: if evolution is a correct explanation for our origins, then logic must be a function of our evolutionary heritage: "Logic", the formal tools for deciding truth from falsity, is a branch of biology.

Evolution, or rather the generalised aspects of the dynamics of evolution, are indeed the substrate of logic. To think otherwise is to think that logic exists in a Platonic heaven or is some kind of happenstance. Neither will really work - the one because of the baroque ontology it imposes, based, so far as we can tell, on our acceptance of Plato's post hoc justification for thinking his ideas are somehow in direct connection with the real world; the other based on the assumption that we "just have these concepts".

Way cool.

Comments

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

Evolution encourages the development of reason, therefore logic is a branch of biology? I don't think I buy that. We evolved to be cultural animals as well as logical ones, so I suppose you could call all of the humanities and sciences branches of biology. For that matter, religion, art, and magic seem to derive from aspects of our evolution, so we could call them biology too. But that all seems just a little silly. Or at least unuseful from the point of view of maintaining some meaning in the term "biology".

A comment at the bottom says:
George Lakoff's Where Mathematics Comes From (Amazon) is an instructive read, in these matters.

Knowing some of George Lakoff's other work as I do (Women, Fire, & Dangerous Things, More Than Cool Reason, Metaphors We Live By, I don't doubt it!
*adds to must-read list*