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Sunday, November 9, 2008

Don't Put Garbage In

Beware of the "Black Swan" fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you - with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the "Gigo Law." i.e., "Garbage in, garbage out." Inductive logic is much more difficult - but can produce new truths. - Robert Heinlein 


For everyday living this is like picking the nits off a gnats nuts but for life you aught to know what he is talking about. (By the way - he's got it wrong.)


(Other posts on Logic) 

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