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

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I go the other way to pull down the house of cards: Logic is fine, but you need a starting point, a beginning observation, a set of assumptions. But how do you prove your starting point? You can't get out of your head to look objectively; you have to trust your perceptions. You can ask someone else, a hundred other folks, but how do you know that's not just some bits in the Matrix talking back to you?

Answer: you don't. Ergo, all science is based on a value judgement. Now, game theory tells us that it's to our advantage to trust our perceptions (I'll save the rant there), but ultimately there ain't no such thing as absolute truth that a human can perceive.

Mu.