Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. "Watson," he says, "look up at the sky and tell me what you see."
"I see millions of stars," says Watson.
"And what do you conclude from that, Watson?"
Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?"
"Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!"
My favourite part of logic has to be Fallacies. They're simple and brilliant. The most famous logical fallacy is the Monte Carlo (The Gambler's Fallacy). It can be explained in the simple example that if I toss 5 coins (or for A1HL, 80) and they all land heads, that doesn't mean that its more likely for the next coin to land in tails.
The "Post Hoc Ergo Properter Hoc" fallacy (in English, 'after this, therefore because of this') is my personal favourite and with sufficient explanation it can logically prove the inexistence of God. It basically says that we have an unfortunate (and incorrect) tendency to believe that if something has happened, it is because of something that happened before it. For example, "The sun rises when the rooster crows, so the rooster's crow must make the sun rise."
'Post Hoc' is not only for outlandish statements. We might not even know when we fall victim to the fallacy. For example, it might seem logical to say, "Most people hooked on heroin started with marijuana." This is true, but even more started with milk.
Every morning, Mrs. Old-Person steps onto her front stoop and exclaims, "Let this house be safe from tigers!" Then she goes back inside. After years of this peculiar behaviour, her neighbour finally asked, "What's that all about? There isn't a tiger within a thousand kilometres of here." And she said, "See? It works!"
I hope I've made the connections to praying and God too obvious to point out.
Labels: Anadi, Logic
