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.

Ethnologue

Here is a map of the world from the site http://www.ethnologue.com/ which locates the different types of living languages in the world throughout the world. There are almost 7,000 living languages in total.




Using this map i will be answering the following questions:

-1. What, in your opinion, would explain the areas and countries on each map with the greatest concentration of living languages?

-2. Identify those areas and countries which you think are at the greatest risk of the "death or disappearance of languages".

-3. Link your answer for question 2 to the reasons listed above for the decline in human languages: which of these factors would best explain the endangering of languages in different regions of the world and why?




-1. In my opinion there are many reasons for which different areas and different on the world map have different concentrations of living languages or modern languages. If it would show all the languages and say for instance everywhere where french is spoken as a language there would be a lot more concentrated areas around the world. One of my opinions for which there are different concentrations of languages around the world is because of tribes which have kept with their culture and so keep their language going for more then 1000 years. For instance, Africa, as you can see from the world map, has lots of different languages from all the different tribes it contains. Another opinion I have is that every country wants its own authenticity and therefore creates a language of its own for its country, of course in many countries there are more then just one language spoken. My final opinion is that of colonization. Many countries on this map where colonized by Europeans and they tried to make it so that the locals spoke their language to form a means of communication between themselves.

-2. I think that the countries in greatest risk of losing languages are those MEDCs which may have some small languages around them spoken in small concentrations because as a MEDC in order to find business you need to understand the main language spoken if not you may find it hard to find a job and pay which is needed to survive in MEDCs. I also think that LEDCs that are transforming in to MEDCs are at risk of losing a lot of languages and just sticking to the main spoken languages in MEDC world, therefore they will lose all those tribal and aboriginese languages thay have held onto for such a long time.

-3. I believe that the greatest factor for the decrease in languages around the world is the increase in technology and the ages and the LEDCs trying to force their way into the big technological world as languages such as English are very much needed around the world for communication and therefore you may lose your language by trying to lear say English.

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.