Is Informal reasoning any more reliable than Inductve or Deductive reasoning?

First off there are already two main fallacies with Informal Reasoning. and Post hoc ergo propter hoc and Ad hominem.

The first one literally translated from Latin to English means: after this, therefore on account of this. An example to make this sound clearer is: just because the murder rate in a country goes up after the abolition of capital punishment, it does not necessarily mean that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to murder crimes. It could mean that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to murder crimes but it could also be explained by other reasons such as a rise in poverty levels or an increase in the availability of guns on the market. Therefore we can see that Informal reasoning is already not a very reliable source of information.

Ad hominem translated from Latin to English quite literally means: against the man. It consists of attacking or supporting the person rather than the argument. For example: you make an argument for a world government, and are told by your teacher or parents that you are too young and idealaistic to know and understand what you are talking abou it shows that they aren't taking your argument seriously because you are too young when age doesn't matter. You could be spot on with your argument but they may still say you are too young to understand worldwide politics.

So as we can see Inofrmal Reasoning is just as unreliable as Inductive and Deductive Reasoning.

What is the Difference between Inductive and Deductive Reasoning?

Inductive Reasoning and Deductive Reasoning are two of the three main types of reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning is the reasoning from the general to the particular. An example is:

All metals expand when heated
A is a metal
Therefore A expands when heated

The value of this information is more certain,. However, this information is also a lot vaguer and less informative then Induction.

Inductive reasoning is the complete opposite of Deductive reasoning. It is the reasoning from the particular to the general. An example is:

Metal A expands when heated, as does metal B and C
Therefore, all metals expand when heated.

The value of this information is a lot more informative. However, it is less certain that it is the truth.

Some people may argue, however, that in practice deduction is no more certain than induction. This is because the premises on which deductive reasoning about the world is based must be derived from induction. So maybe inductive reasoning is more reliable than deductive reasoning since it is more informative and equally certain. Unfortunately this is not true as inductive reasoning is no more reliable than deductive reasoning as we make too many generalisations and therefore jump to conclusions with insufficient evidence to back this up. So is there any form of reasoning that is reliable?

Which of our faculties do you think is more reliable - Reason or Perception?

Perception and reason are two forms of knowledge.

Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. We as humans do this using all five of our senses - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Using these five senses our brain sends and receives messages. For instance: if a plate is very hot and you touch it using your hand your brain gets the message that it is hot and causes a reaction to immediately stop touching the plate. Though on the Sense Perception journal entry we see that perception can be deceiving to us.

As you can see from this picture to the left. you may immediately see one picture. But if you look closely you will see another. Our brain immediately tricks us by interpreting the data it gets from our eyes.



Reason on the other hand has many definitions since there are many different types of reasoning to do as shown in journal entry #9 and #10. Therefore you can see that there are many fallacies with Reason as well.

As you can see from the diagram from the left there are many assumptions made from very little amounts of knowledge. We all no that 2 does not equal to 1 no matter how you put it. However, with the little information given various outcomes can be given that can be wrong or right.

So from the knowledge that you have been shown you can see that neither Reason nor Perception are reliable in any way. But you can make up your mind on deciding which one you think is more reliable.

That is not Politically Correct!

How many times have you heard that a statement of yours is not politically correct? What exactly does being politically correct mean? and why was is it invented?

Well political correctness is a term applied to language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged, you name it identity groups. This can be traced all the way back to the end of the eighteenth century in the US in the supreme US court. The whole point of it was to set up a neutral perspective on everything really. In my opinion the use of Political Correctness is in itself more incorrect then just normal language. I believe that calling somebody "vertically challenged" is worse then calling somebody "short" as it creates a feeling of disability as in you are challenged. It is not a disability at all. Calling somebody "short" is just stating a fact. While calling somebody "vertically challenged" is just mocking them.
Many critics of political correctness agree with me about it. They also argue that it endagers freedom of speech with which everyone is allowed to speak their mind without consequences.

Language - How did it start?

Language has evolved so much over the years that no we have so many languages around the world, almost 7,000 in fact. But what is language? How was it invented? Did cavemen just suddenly go and say " I think that we should create a language so we can all understand each other"? No they didn't. They probably used sign language together with drawings and the basic grunt.

So who invented letters, words and whole languages? Well to be honest I have no idea.

But the according to the definition - Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols - something must have been started somehow. Of course there are many definitions of language, language after all is a way of knowing in its self. It is a way of knowing as you can put labels on things so that you know what they are, otherwise try to define an object such as a table. It is just a whole lot easier to just say the word "Table". Of course if words and letters weren't invented how would I be explaining Language now over the internet. I couldn't really do a video using sign language as that would not be very helpful to those who don't know it. Apparently my teacher had a mother who was deaf. He didn't learn the sign language however as his mother was an excellent lip reader. It just goes to show how language has evolved. Look at the Ethnologue post if you want some more information on language.

Visual Perception - What are we really seeing?

Visual perception takes place all around us we just do not notice it or pay attention to think about it. Let me give you a for instance, is grass really green? We do not truly know. We can also see through one of the visible spectrums which is visible light. There are others that we know of and probably some that we don't. Infrared, Ultraviolet and X-ray are all examples of different spectrums of light. So what is the colour of grass in these various spectrums? I do not know personally but I can tell you that it isn't the colour we see with our very own eyes. The same thing goes for people and animals who are colour blind, they can not see past the various shades of grey, certain animals have themselves some unique outlooks on the world. Kestrels for instance see urination spots of voles in bright fluorescent yellow so that they can track where the vole has been to stalk its prey, everything the else the Kestrel sees is in black and white. Bats themselves as well as moles and various other animals cannot see at all, they are naturally blind and so use sonar or other tracking devices such as smell and small receptors in their whiskers or antlars. There is a certain disease which can affect humans which influences the brains and eyes of the humans which does allow them to see in full colour and see everything a normal human being sees but they cannot tell objects. They can only see a bunch of colours and shapes and lines they cannot tell that they are an object of any sort. For instance a man with this disease said that every morning that we woke up and looked in the mirror he knew he was looking at himself but just could not tell with out having somebody tell him. Which leads me onto my next point about the brain


This all has to do with things we can or can't see with our eyes but a main perception comes from the brain. The brain tricks the eyes in what it sees. Various pictures and diagrams may show some things to be different to what they truly seem like. So it is not only our eyes that create this perception. For instance take a look at this picture.

Your eyes see it as it is but your brain doesn't. At first glance you may think that some of the lines are not straight but sloping a bit making the squares a bit off. But in fact if you look very closely you will find that all the lines are perfectly horizontal and parallel, it is just the position of the squares which is tricking your mind.

Natural Sciences

As human beings we are always trying to find a formula or solution to everything that takes place. This is all thanks to our human inquisitiveness and our human need for everything to connect together. We do this using the Natural Sciences.
From the discovery of new things in the 21st century to the "Big Bang" everything has to be able to be explained eliminating any religion, mysticism or magic. There are three sections to the natural sciences section: Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences and Social Sciences. Yes a lot of people even explore fro reasons why people act as they do to try and fit you in a formula that describes people. But Basically the sciences can all be narrowed down to a simple rule. Biology goes to Chemistry and Chemistry goes to Physics. So basically whoever didn't take Physics for their IB could have saved a lot of work.
Lets take evolution as an example for a moment. Many people would not want to believe Darwin's crazy theory of evolution because the church had the power in those times denying any theory that doubted Christianity and the creation of earth and the human beings. They first said that the earth was flat and that the earth was at the centre of the universe and humans started from Adam and Eve.
So Evolution got struck down even though he had much evidence to support. But nowadays everybody has pretty much taken evolution to be the right answer atleast all the scientists have. Some schools in the USA actually don't teach Evolution as they actually truely believe that humans were born from Adam and Eve.

Memory - How much do you really remember?

A memory may not be a memory after all. Memory does hold up a particular space inside the brain but can be influenced by many other things that may have something to do with memory but not your own personal memory. Photos are one thing. Yes once you look at a photo you may remember what it was about and what you did. Though that may be the case it is the photo that revokes the memory which you probably would have forgotten if the photo was not there. This can also be done in many ways through, for instance, memories from somebody else, videos and diaries. If you think about it many memories especially from your childhood are told to you by your parents and therefore you are basing your memory on their memory so you do not actually remember the memory itself, if you understand what I mean.

There are two main types of memory and these are short-term memory and long-term memory.

Short-term memory is only the memory from up to a minute before. There it stays in your mind and so you can easily remember it. Things just over that time you will not be able to remember very well, for instance when you wake up suddenly you normally forget about the dream you were having no matter how good or bad it was you just cannot remember it. There are people who have a very good short-term memory however who can remember the random order of a whole deck of cards only a minute or so after it is shown to them

Long-Term memory can store a lot more and bigger amounts of memory, even for a whole life-time of memories. This normally stays in your head through constant repetition of the memory. For instance, short-term memory can remember a phone number for only a few seconds, but through constant repetition of the number you can remember it for a lot longer and it can stick in your head for a very long time. This is a very useful ability to have as it can help you remember for a test or just in general. There have been great examples of long-term memory amongst human beings, for instance, a 40 or so year old man who since getting hit in the head really hard by a baseball at the age off 11 he now remembers the weather on everyday of the year since the accident. It is because he can now access places of his brain that most of us can't contact at all. So if you want to be able to remember a lot - just get a friend to take a swing at your head. (But really don't do that, as I can not afford to be sewed right now).

String Theory - Do we really have the answer to everything?

String Theory, the latest discovery in the world of Physics. The theory which leads us towards the ultimate truth and the answer to everything. Supposedly at least. Many people have supposedly come up with this idea throughout the 20th Century. In fact I do not really know who did come up with it. Einstein used some of it in some of his theories, Theodor Kaluza is said to have suggested it in finding a fifth dimension, Oskar Klein gave a demonstration on the unobservable dimension using circles. Many people are involved in the discovery of this fantastic theory. I could take all day to name just a few of the mathematicians, physicists and philosophers that took part.

The overall factor about this amazing discovery is that it can explain everything. The thing is though that with our current technology and probably with the technology we will have for the next 100 years we will never be able to prove this theory as the so called "strings" are so small that they no where near be seen with the strongest microscope we have at our disposal. So we cannot state it to be a discovery just yet as we cannot prove it so it is only a theory at this stage. This is where most physicists have the problem with this theory as it is not physics, but philosophy. In fact this has been such an argument that a new group has been established to study this theory called the "Theoretical Physicists" which combines quantum Mechanics with General Relativity. In one of his books in which he called string theory a failure Jim Holt said:

"For more than a generation, physicists have been chasing a will-o’-the-wisp called string theory. The beginning of this chase marked the end of what had been three-quarters of a century of progress. Dozens of string-theory conferences have been held, hundreds of new Ph.D.s have been minted, and thousands of papers have been written. Yet, for all this activity, not a single new testable prediction has been made, not a single theoretical puzzle has been solved. In fact, there is no theory so far—just a set of hunches and calculations suggesting that a theory might exist. And, even if it does, this theory will come in such a bewildering number of versions that it will be of no practical use: a Theory of Nothing."

Now these strings are said to be within the electrons, neutrons and protons of all atoms and are the source of the energy within the sub-atomic particles. There are meant to be millions of vibrating strings of all shapes and sizes through out the inner space of the sub-atomic particles. They continually vibrate moving around inside. Not too long ago many scientists thought that the atom was the smallest thing on this planet and then just over a hundred years ago in 1897 J. J. Thompson discovered the electron, which was at that time what was then though to be the smallest thing in the universe. Then came the discovery of the photons, then the nucleus which was split up into protons and neutrons and now this. Many years from now, whether String Theory is proved or disproved they will find something even smaller.

In conclusion, I will take the side of the proper scientists and not the theorists, if it is eventually proved then yes i will trust that truth, even though knowledge is still all a lie.

Knowledge - What is it really?

When I looked up what knowledge meant in the dictionary I found at least nine definitions but the two that really stood out were the following:

-Knowledge is the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time

-Knowledge is the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension.

Now I thought that this was interesting as both of these statements said that knowledge is truth or fact. Now as i see it all facts are meant to be true at least so we are taught. Many, so called, facts were disproved over the years and in the end found as fiction. This has taken place over the many years since humans sought an interest in the world around them and how it worked. Such examples include the fact that almost all humans believed that the Earth was flat and that if you came to the end of it you would fall off into outer space. We now know that the earth is not round but sphere-shaped. But the thing is do we really. We came up with a hypothesis that so far hasn't been proven wrong. How do we really know that the world wasn't round maybe 2,000 years ago? How do we truthfully know the same today?

I typed in "knowledge" into the Google search bar and then clicked on images. One of the first ones i saw was this one:

Now this seems very complicated I'm sure, and it is. People have tried to categorize knowledge. This actually works quite well, but again you can find the circle "Facts" which links in with "Data" and "Information". The great Albert Einstein once said: "Information is not knowledge" and I believe him to be correct. Now yes you do collect data and you can get information but not knowledge. A fact is just a theory and theories can never be proven right but can be proven wrong. Now yes even Albert Einstein has recently been found to have had one of his theories proven wrong, the thing is we do not know about it because it was never published even though the man has been found correct. People do not want knowledge to change because that means that they studied something that was completely useless information.

Let me throw some facts at you. Nowadays information is being mass produced. It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times newspaper contains more information than a person is likely to come across in a lifetime.It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (thats 1500000000000000000) of unique new information will be generated world wide this year. That amounts to more unique new information found in the last 5000 years. The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years, which put into studying terms means that a student starting his or her first term at college will find out by his or her third term that half of the information she learned in her first term will be outdated. The amount of technical information in 2010 is estimated to double every 3 days. (Facts taken from Shift Happens movement). If all of this is true, which it isn't as it is estimated, then all of this is happening for no reason as information is not knowledge.

(To view some more facts press on Shift Happens Video)

This all links in with Theory of Knowledge. The fact that we have theories that so far match what might be happening in and around us but this could all change and soon many "facts" will be disproved and we will be forced to find new solutions. Even if we find all the solutions we can possibly find we will never be able to know everything there is to know about everything.

Many of you who read this may disagree with me and thats okay. If you have a point to make please feel free to post a comment.

Thank You