Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

"nonsense literature" has been so popular recently that netizens have even held a "nonsense literature contest" on social media.

The most important feature of "nonsense literature", as its name implies, is that "I don't seem to have said it."

CCTV News once explained "nonsense literature" to everyone in detail, pointing out that "nonsense literature" mastered the psychological rhythm of humor-- out of tune, and formed a kind of disharmony with the listener's expectation through "repetition" and creating "differences", so as to produce humor and achieve the effect of making listening relaxed and happy.

A few more excerpts of "model articles" for you, friends to feel for themselves:

1. As the saying goes: as the saying goes.

two。 The smarter a man is, the smarter his brain is.

3. To listen to your words is like to listen to your words.

4. Zhang San is Zhang San, no one else.

5. It is impossible for Zhang San to be both Zhang San and Zhang San.

6. This person is either Zhang San or not Zhang San.

Friends can not underestimate the above nonsense literature, of which 4-6, but bet on the ancient Greek philosopher, one of the "three Greek sages" Aristotle put forward the three basic laws of logic.

I didn't expect that nonsense literature is so logical? Let's have a chat today.

Formal logic and classical science there are two elements of modern science, one is "logic", the other is "demonstration".

Ancient Greece and ancient China, have produced logic, ancient Greek speculation, of course, logic; a hundred schools of thought contend during the Spring and Autumn and warring States period, various schools often need logic to win. The "formal logic system" in Euclidean geometry is one of the foundations of the development of western science. So what is "formal logic"?

Generally speaking, formal logic is the "logic" that we generally understand in our minds.

When people argue, they will say "logical" or "illogical". For example, A criticizes B, "you say the crow is black, but you also say that you have caught a gray crow. Isn't that illogical and contradictory?" .

As another example, we debate whether Zhang San is a good guy or a bad guy. Some people say that Zhang Sanli is corrupt with power, of course, he is a bad person, but others think that Zhang San is filial to his parents, attaches importance to his family, and is essentially a good person.

In other words, our rough understanding of logic is probably: one is one, two is two, black and white is clear, there is no ambiguity. This is also called "formal logic".

Aristotle first expressed logic in several simple rules (identity, contradiction, exclusion, and three basic laws), making logic formally become a discipline.

The three basic principles of Aristotle and their simple explanations are as follows.

The same rule: "An equals A". Explanation: Zhang San is Zhang San, no one else.

Law of contradiction: "An is not equal to non-A". Explanation: Zhang San cannot be both "Zhang San" and "not Zhang San", and he cannot contradict himself.

The law of the middle of the row: "An or non-A, nothing else". Explanation: this person is either Zhang San or not, there is no intermediate state.

The basic rules are a bit of a mouthful, but they are easy to understand after explanation, but you may feel "full of nonsense".

It is these seemingly "nonsense" principles that make up logic. After 2000, the German philosopher Leibniz (who invented calculus at the same time as Newton) added a basic law of logic: the law of sufficient reason. It means that any logical statement requires a "good reason".

The geometric primitive published by Gottfried William Leibniz the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid set a precedent for logical proof and made mathematics enter the era of logical proof of axiomatic system.

George Boolean, a British mathematician after 2000, established a series of algorithms and used algebraic methods to study logical problems, which became Boolean algebra.

The logical proof system of Euclidean geometry is not only the basis of mathematics for more than 2300 years, but also the basis of the development of modern science. Boolean algebra is the basis of digital computing and artificial intelligence technology that shine brilliantly in today's modern civilized society. From this we can see the importance of logic to the development of science.

Perhaps because Euclid science developed on the basis of logical thought and has a long history of more than two thousand years, it is generally believed that logic (that is, formal logic) is consistent with the objective laws of nature. is the model of the external objective world itself. Further inference: if a theory is not logical and violates the above-mentioned basic logical law, people will decide that it is not a good scientific theory.

The significance of Euclidean geometry lies not in geometry itself, but in its axiomatic method. Just like building a house, the cornerstone is only a small number of bricks that support a tall building.

Euclidean geometry starts from five simple axioms and uses careful and strict logical deduction and proof, but hundreds of theorems can be obtained. If you slightly change the axiom as the "cornerstone", as Robachevsky and Riemann did, it will unexpectedly produce an alternative geometry and build a beautiful building completely different from Euclidean geometry!

Although at that time, it seemed that non-Euclidean geometry was just a kind of thought game, because the results described by them ran counter to the common sense of the geometry of the world. But then, to people's surprise, Riemannian geometry found an opportunity to show its talents in general relativity.

As a result, people are surprised to find that logic, and the method of rational derivation developed on it, is so powerful! Using this way of thinking, we can set up a huge theoretical system based on several facts.

Today, almost all of the existing physical theories, from Newtonian mechanics, Maxwell's electromagnetism to relativity, follow similar principles and are established and developed through a large number of experiments or observations. Einstein knew it well, so he emphasized that logic is one of the foundations of the development of western science.

Dialectical logic and quantum physics can be said that physicists use the method of rational logic reasoning, coupled with large and systematic experimental data, to build the whole classical physics building, including general relativity. Even the scientific theories in other fields, or the controversial quantum mechanics in physics, regard experimental confirmation, causality and logical self-consistency as the basic scientific norms.

Image source: pexls, however, when you take a closer look at formal logic, you find that it is not perfect, but there are many contradictions. Formal logic follows the logic law of "either or", but this is often not the case. The world is not as simple as "black or white". If self-contradiction is absolutely not allowed, this kind of logic will not correctly reflect the objective laws of the world.

To take a simple example, in real life, we all find it easy to distinguish between "child" and "adult", but when we think about it, this is not always the case. if an age limit is not given, who is a child and who is an adult?

Even if an age limit is set, it can not accurately reflect a person's objective physical differences in the process of growing up, because physical changes vary from race to race, environmental conditions and other factors.

For another example, when it comes to "the birth of science", from the point of view of formal logic, you first need to set a "criterion" for the birth of science, define what science is, or you must specify a certain time, that is, a certain year, a certain month, a certain day and a certain time. Science was born. Before this moment, there is no science, and only after it is born can we talk about science.

However, these are difficult to achieve, because science comes into being gradually. Therefore, when discussing such issues, they are often questioned as "illogical".

Although logicians can argue that logic is only an "abstract and sublimated" way of thinking, that's all, don't take it too seriously. However, according to people's daily experience, we always feel that there must be something missing in this kind of thinking process, so another kind of dialectical logic thought which is different from formal logic arises at the historic moment.

The basic feature of dialectical logic is to regard things as a whole and examine things from the perspective of movement, change and interconnection. Different from the formal logic of "either or", but that "you have me, I have you", things can be divided into two, opposites are not absolute, they can be transformed into each other under certain conditions.

Picture Source: in the history of pexls, many civilizations have more complex reasoning systems than the formal logic founded by Aristotle, which contains primitive dialectical ideas.

There are examples of classical dialectical logic in India in the 6th century BC, China in the 5th century BC and Greece in the 4th century BC. For example, ancient Indian philosophers used dialectical thinking to explore the relationship between opposite concepts such as birth and death, being and nothing, one and difference.

The way of thinking of ancient Chinese philosophers, except Mozi, was almost "one-sided" in the dialectical direction. "Laozi" said: "there is no mutual birth, difficult and easy to form, long and short phase, high and low phase tilt"; "Zhuangzi" said, "that comes out of that, is also because of that."

Such ambiguous quotes can be found everywhere in Chinese history, which fully reflects the special dialectical style advocated by ancient Chinese philosophers. Although there is no lack of dialectical thought in ancient civilization, the relatively complete dialectical logic system was not formally put forward and summarized by the German philosopher Hegel until the 18th century with the concepts of "positive, negative, conjunctive, negation of negation".

In fact, now it seems that dialectical logic is only the result of formal logic breaking through its own limitations and self-negation and expanding the concept of "logic". In order to understand dialectical logic correctly, we must first learn formal logic. Just as Engels compared the two to the relationship between elementary mathematics and higher mathematics, why talk about "higher mathematics" if they don't even understand elementary mathematics?

Dialectical logic holds that "this is also the other". For example, in the original formal logic, Zhang San is either a good person or a bad person, either one or the other. But dialectical logic holds that Zhang San can be both a good person and a bad person. This sounds a bit like the point of view in quantum physics: light and other elementary particles are both particles and waves, with wave-particle duality, and rather like the cat of the "dead and alive" Schrodinger!

No wonder Einstein never accepted the duality of quantum mechanics, let alone the interpretation of Copenhagen, even though he himself was one of the founders of quantum theory. Einstein's ideas are completely classical and formal logic, and it is precisely because of this that there is a famous century debate. A deep understanding of quantum theory may inspire another breakthrough in the process of human thinking.

Or it can be guessed that the further development and improvement of dialectical logic in the future may raise man's understanding of the process of thinking and objective laws to a new level, thus making it possible to solve "paradoxes" such as "Schrodinger's cat" in quantum mechanics.

The thinking characteristics of Chinese people are different between Eastern and Western cultures. There are great differences between Chinese and Westerners in outlook on life, values, family values, educational methods, literature and art, psychological quality, morality and ethics, philosophy of life and so on.

The Chinese way of thinking basically belongs to intuitive thinking in images, while Westerners pay more attention to logical thinking. From the perspective of logic, the Chinese prefer dialectical logic, while Westerners pay more attention to formal logic.

Dialectical logic and formal logic have their own advantages, but the author believes that formal logic is the foundation, moving towards dialectics can be regarded as the icing on the cake. Arguments that lack formal logic will flow into "sophistry".

For example, children learning to walk must start with "walking" before they can learn to "run". For another example, there are many advantages in learning higher mathematics, but first of all, we still have to lay a good foundation for elementary mathematics, otherwise it is impossible to really master higher mathematics. Chinese people's way of thinking seems to be more than dialectical, but only lack of formal logic.

Why does the Chinese way of thinking have such a phenomenon? This should have its historical roots. Going back to ancient China, the emergence of formal logic is basically at the same time as in Europe, that is, China's Spring and Autumn and warring States period.

Logic has been systematically discussed in Mojing. It is generally believed that the Mohist logic of ancient China, the Aristotelian logic of ancient Greece and the logic of ancient India are called the three sources of the ancient (formal) logic of the world.

The Mohist school of Mohism was active decades earlier than Aristotle, but they already knew the basic laws of logic. For example:

The same is the same, "you can do it with each other, the other ends at that, and this ends here."

According to the law of contradiction, "you can't do it with each other, and this and that."

The law of exclusion in the middle says, "you can do it with each other, and you can stop with each other. If you are with each other, then that one is also this, and this is that."

The law of sufficient reason, "to tell the reason", "therefore, gain and then become".

The "Mohist debate" in Mozi is a formal logic system based on the spirit of science. However, like the unsprouted seeds of science in ancient China, Mohism gradually disappeared with the proposal of "deposing a hundred schools and respecting Confucianism". The development of formal logic in China has also come to a standstill. The method of logical thinking and reasoning is a necessary condition for the construction of scientific theoretical framework. This is why in thousands of years of feudal society, there was no shortage of craftsmen 'technical inventions, but there were few self-created scientific theories.

Comprehensive from "what is Science", Baidu Encyclopedia and other book authors: Zhang Tianrong part of the image source network copyright belongs to the original author all editors: Zhang Runxin this article comes from Wechat official account: Origin Reading (ID:tupydread)

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.