Logic

Last night my roommate was working on some problems in logic, for one of her math classes. (Math, shudder.) She called me over to have a look at them, and I had an answer for her, beyond my standard 'I hate math so whatever you want to be true is'.  p-->(q-->r), if p is you work, q is you get paid and r is you go to the movies, is a different form of those same facts true? No: going to the movies doesn't necessarily mean you got paid. There are a multiple possibilities; being treated on a date, being a kid and your parents paying for it, being independently wealthy, or even it being a movie being played in the park as a fundraiser, if you just bring a canned food item. 

I don't think my answer quite satisfied it mathematically, and my roommate and I got to teasing each other over whose logic was 'superior'. (Superior of course meaning the most fun to argue.) The problem with logic is right in one of the fallacies, and it can plague every argument, even without us knowing. We as humans do not know everything, and sometimes what we learn gets tossed out in a few years. Another professor, for child development, was actually telling us on Thursday that they've tossed out the female gamete,the ovum (forgive me if my terms are incorrect)having only half of a paired set. Turns out the ovum actually has a full compliment of chromosomes until fertilization, at which point half of them are randomly ejected. That would be news to my high school biology class! 

Every argument we make, even those that we are almost positive on, which we have accepted as truth for centuries, could potentially be an "Argument from Ignorance". Everything could be second-guessed until pigs fly and the sky turns into an ocean of lava. Not likely to happen anytime soon. The fact remains: each of us can only use what logic others have shown us, and we agree to be true, and what logic we ourselves determine to rule our actions. To some extent we will always be ignorant.

I certainly was ignorant with that math problem. That's okay with me; I never expected to be able to answer it, and nor do I want to take half a dozen math classes so that I can learn that twisted form of logic. There are other things I can turn my mind to---things that aren't going to make my brain turn into soup in a skull. Don't tell Rachel this, but I think she can have the title of possessing the most superior logic when it comes to mathematical problems.