Vicious Bind

Speaker: I must not dictate to you.

Collective: We rape you unless you dictate to us.

Speaker: You must not rape me.

Collective: You are now a dictator.

On Hunger 2

P: Ignorance is evil.

Q: Hunger is evil.

R: Ignorance is the hunger for Wisdom

S: God is Wisdom.

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The fear of Ignorance is the beginning of Wisdom. (My reinterpretation of an old proverb. Why would a loving parent want you to . . . )

In the Apology, Socrates pretty much says the same thing.

Satan loves prejudice

P: Prejudice is evil.

Q: Racism is a form of prejudice.

R: Homophobia is a form of prejudice.

S: (Racism and homophobia) are evil.

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And what about the other fruits of our genetic inheritance: speciesism, anthropocentrism, tribalism . . .

CJC: Atheism is a prejudice against metaphorical reasoning. Test.

The Logical Commandments

In the vein of the Hebrew God of the Old Testament, I offer the following Logical Commandments. Handed to me personally and written on ether, of course.

1. You shall have no other Logic.
2. Your statements shall either be True or False.
3. Know Modus ponens, and keep it holy.
4. Know Modus tollens, and keep it holy.
5. You shall not commit a Contradiction.
6. You shall not commit a Fallacy.
7. You shall group your statements into Sets.
8. You shall test your Sets for Validity.
9. False statements shall be removed from Sets and stoned to Death.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s Logic.

No doubt a peace loving logical reformer will, in time, revise the ninth commandment.

Basic Symbolic Logic

I’ve been reviewing symbolic logic (a.k.a. the sentential calculus), which was developed by Gottlob Frege. Because we live in tyranny, I think it might be helpful if people became familiar with basic logical reasoning. For some foolish reason, I think that clear and simple thought might be the best medicine for an ailing system.

Symbolic logic is very simple. All you need to do is assign each individual statement in a series of statements a symbolic name. Usually, the symbolic name is merely a letter: p, q, r, or s. After you assign the statements names, all you need to do is think about them.

For instance, the following set of statements is inconsistent:

p = War causes innocent death.
q = A Christian would not cause innocent death.
r = The President is a Christian.
s = The President wages war.

By inconsistent I mean that there is no universe where statements p, q, r, and s are all true.

Yet our tyrant, perhaps because he thinks that the people who voted for him are all stupid, repeatedly claims r.

But our tyrant is a liar. And it’s a wonder that so many Christians voted for him.

I guess Christians don’t understand symbolic logic. But that should hardly be surprising: religious people usually fail to think. That’s probably one reason why they love to kill each other.